Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah
by Alfred Edersheim
1883
											
Volume 1

 INTRODUCTORY.
    THE PREPARATION FOR THE GOSPEL: THE JEWISH WORLD IN THE DAYS
    OF CHRIST

    THE JEWISH WORLD IN THE DAYS OF CHRIST, THE JEWISH
    DISPERSION IN THE EAST.

    CHAPTER I

     Among the outward means by which the religion of Israel was
    preserved, one of the most important was the centralisation
    and localisation of its worship in Jerusalem. If to some the
    ordinances of the Old Testament may in this respect seem
    narrow and exclusive, it is at least doubtful, whether
    without such a provision Monothsiem itself could have
    continued as a creed or a worship. In view of the state of
    the ancient world, and of the tendencies of Israel during the
    earlier stages of their history, the strictest isolation was
    necessary in order to preserve the religion of the Old
    Testament from that mixture with foreign elements which would
    speedily have proved fatal to its existence. And if one
    source of that danger had ceased after the seventy years'
    exile in babylonia, the dispersion of the greater part of the
    nation among those manners and civilisation would necessarily
    influence them, rendered the continuance of this separation
    of as great importance as before. In this respect, even
    traditionalism had its mission and use, as a hedge around the
    Law to render its infringement or modification impossible.

     Wherever a Roman, a Greek, or an Asiatic might wander, he
    could take his gods with him, or find rites kindred to his
    own. It was far otherwise with the Jew. He had only one
    Temple, that in Jerusalem; only one God, Him Who had once
    throned there between the Cherubim, and Who was still King
    over Zion. That Temple was the only place where a
    God-appointed, pure priesthood could offer acceptable
    sacrifices, whether for forgiveness of sin, or for fellowship
    with God. Here, in the impenetrable gloom of the innermost
    sanctuary, which the High-Priest alone might enter once a
    year for most solemn expiation, had stood the Ark, the leader
    of the people into the Land of Promise, and the footstool on
    which the Schechinah had rested. From that golden altar rose
    the cloud in incense, symbol of Israel's accepted prayers;
    that seven-branched candlestick shed its perpetual light,
    indicative of the brightness of God's Covenant Presence; on
    that table, as it were before the face of Jehovah, was laid,
    week by week, 'the Bread of the Face,' [1 Such is the literal
    meaning of what is translated by 'shewbread.'] a constant
    sacrificial meal which Israel offered unto God, and wherewith
    God in turn fed His chosen priesthood. On the great
    blood-sprinkled altar of sacrifice smoked the daily and
    festive burnt-offerings, brought by all Israel, and for all
    Israel, wherever scattered; while the vast courts of the
    Temple were thronged not only by native Palestinians, but
    literally by 'Jews out of every nation under heaven.' Around
    this Temple gathered the sacred memories of the past; to it
    clung the yet brighter hopes of the future. The history of
    Israel and all their prospects were intertwined with their
    religion; so that it may be said that without their religion
    they had no history, and without their history no religion.
    Thus, history, patriotism, religion, and hope alike pointed
    to Jerusalem and the Temple as the centre of Israel's unity.

     Nor could the depressed state of the nation alter their
    views or shake their confidence. What mattered it, that the
    Idumaean, Herod, had unsurped the throne of David, expect so
    far as his own guilt and their present subjection were
    concerned? Israel had passed through deeper waters, and stood
    triumphant on the other shore. For centuries seemingly
    hopeless bondsmen in Egypt, they had not only been delivered,
    but had raised the God-inspired morning-song of jubilee, as
    they looked back upon the sea cleft for them, and which had
    buried their oppressors in their might and pride. Again, for
    weary years had their captives hung Zion's harps by the
    rivers of that city and empire whose colossal grandeur,
    wherever they turned, must have carried to the scattered
    strangers the desolate feeling of utter hopelessness. And yet
    that empire had crumbled into dust, while Israel had again
    taken root and sprung up. And now little more than a century
    and a half had passed, since a danger greater even than any
    of these had threatened the faith and the very existence of
    Israel. In his daring madness, the Syrian king, Antiochus IV.
    (Epiphanes) had forbidden their religion, sought to destroy
    their sacred books, with unsparing ferocity forced on them
    conformity to heathen rites, desecrated the Temple by
    dedicating it to Zeus Olympios, what is translated by
    'shewbread.' a constant sacrificial and even reared a heathen
    altar upon that of burnt-offering. [2 Macc. i. 54, 59; Jos.
    Ant. xii. 5. 4.] Worst of all, his wicked schemes had been
    aided by two apostate High-Priests, who had outvied each
    other in buying and then prostituting the sacred office of
    God's anointed. [1 After the deposition of Onias III. through
    the bribery of his own brother Jason, the latter and Menelaus
    outvied each other in bribery for, and prostitution of, the
    holy office.] Yet far away in the mountains of Ephraim [2
    Modin, the birthplace of the Maccabees, has been identified
    with the modern El-Medyeh, about sixteen miles northwest of
    Jerusalem, in the ancient territory of Ephraim. Comp.
    Conder's Handbook of the Bible, p. 291; and for a full
    reference to the whole literature of the subject, see Schurer
    (Neutest. Zeitgesch. p. 78, note 1).] God had raised for them
    most unlooked-for and unlikely help. Only three years later,
    and, after a series of brilliant victories by undisciplined
    men over the flower of the Syrian army, Judas the Maccabee,
    truly God's Hammer [3 On the meaning of the name Maccabee,
    comp. Grimm's Kurzgef. Exeget. Handb. z. d. Apokr. Lief.
    iii., pp. ix. x. We adopt the derivation from Maqqabha, a
    hammer, like Charles Martel.] had purified the Temple, and
    restored its altar on the very same day [4 1 Macc. 1. 54.] on
    which the 'abomination of desolation' [5 1 Macc. iv. 52-54:]
    Megill. Taan. 23. had been set up in its place. In all their
    history the darkest hour of their night had ever preceded the
    dawn of a morning brighter than any that had yet broken. It
    was thus that with one voice all their prophets had bidden
    them wait and hope. Their sayings had been more than
    fulfilled as regarded the past. Would they not equally become
    true in reference to that far more glorious future for Zion
    and for Israel, which was to be ushered in by the coming of
    the Messiah?

     Nor were such the feelings of the Palestinian Jews only.
    These indeed were now a minority. The majority of the nation
    constituted what was known as the dispersion; a term which,
    however, no longer expressed its original meaning of
    banishment by the judgment of God, [6 Alike the verb in
    Hebrew, and in Greek, with their derivatives, are used in the
    Old Testament, and in the rendering of the LXX., with
    reference to punitive banishment. See, for example, Judg.
    xviii. 30; 1 Sam. iv. 21; and in the LXX. Deut. xxx. 4; Ps.
    cxlvii. 2; Is. xlix. 6, and other passages.] since absence
    from Palestine was now entirely voluntary. But all the more
    that it referred not to outward suffering, [7 There is some
    truth, although greatly exaggerated, in the bitter remarks of
    Hausrath (Neutest. Zeitgesch. ii. p. 93), as to the
    sensitiveness of the Jews in the, and the loud outcry of all
    its members at any interference with them, however trivial.
    But events unfortunately too often proved how real and near
    was their danger, and how necessary the caution 'Obsta
    principiis.'] did its continued use indicate a deep feeling
    of religious sorrow, of social isolation, and of political
    strangership [8 St. Peter seems to have used it in that
    sense, 1 Pet. i. 1.] in the midst of a heathen world. For
    although, as Josephus reminded his countrymen, [Jew. W ii.
    16. 4.] there was 'no nation inthe world which had not among
    them part of the Jewish people,' since it was 'widely
    dispersed over all the world among its inhabitants,' [b vii.
    3.3.] yet they had nowhere found a real home. A century and a
    half before our era comes to us from Egypt [1 Comp. the
    remarks of Schneckenburger (Vorles u. Neutest. Zeitg. p.
    95).] ,where the Jews possessed exceptional privileges,
    professedly from the heathen, but really fdrom the Jewish [2
    Comp. Friedlieb, D. Sibyll. Weissag. xxii. 39.] Sibyl, this
    lament of Israel:, Crowding with thy numbers every ocean and
    country, Yet an offense to all around thy presence and
    customs! [3 Orac Sibyll. iii. 271,272, apud Friedlieb, p.
    62.] Sixty years later the Greek geographer and historian
    Strabo bears the like witness to their presence in every
    land, but in language that shows how true had been the
    complaint of the Sibyl. [4 Strabo apud Jos. Ant. xiv. 7.2:
    'It is not easy to find a place in the world that has not
    admitted this race, and is not mastered by it.'] The reasons
    for this state of feeling will by-and-by appear. Suffice it
    for the present that, all unconsciously, Philo tells its
    deepest ground, and that of Israel's loneliness in the
    heathen world, when speaking, like the others, of his
    countrymen as in 'all the cities of Europe, in the provinces
    of Asia and in the islands,' he describes them as, wherever
    sojourning, having but one metropolis, not Alexandria,
    Antioch, or Rome, but 'the Holy City with its Temple,
    dedicateda to the Most High God.' [5 Philo in Flaccum (ed.
    Francf.), p. 971.] A nation, the vast majority of which was
    dispersed over the whole inhabited earth, had ceased to be a
    special, and become a world-nation. [6 Comp. Jos. Ant. xii.
    3; xiii. 10. 4; 13. 1; xiv. 6. 2; 8. 1; 10. 8; Sueton. Caes.
    85.] Yet its heart beat in Jerasulem, and thence the
    life-blood passed to its most distant members. And this,
    indeed, if we rightly understand it, was the grand object of
    the 'Jewish dispersion' throughout the world.

     What has been said applies, perhaps, in a special manner, to
    the Western, rather than to the Eastern 'dispersion.' The
    connection of the latter with Palestine was so close as
    almost to seem one of continuity. In the account of the truly
    representative gathering in Jerusalem on that ever-memorable
    Feast of Weeks, [a Acts ii. 9-11] the division of the
    'dispersion' into two grand sections, the Eastern or
    Trans-Euphratic, and the Western or Hellenist, seems clearly
    marked. [7 Grimm (Clavis N.T. p. 113) quotes two passages
    from Philo, in one of which he contradistinguishes 'us,' the
    Hellenist Jews, from 'the Hebrews,' and speaks of the Greek
    as 'our language.'] In this arrangement the former would
    include 'the Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and dwellers in
    Mesopotamia,' Judaea standing, so to speak, in the middle,
    while 'the Bretes and Arabians' would typically represent the
    farthest outrunners respectively of the Western and the
    Eastern Diaspora. The former, as we know from the New
    Testament, commonly bore in Palestine the name of the
    'dispersion of the Greeks," [a St. John vii. 35.] and of
    'Hellenists' or 'Grecians." [b Acts vi. 1;ix. 29; xi. 20.] On
    the other hand, the Trans-Euphratic Jews, who 'inhabited
    Babylon and many of the other satrapies,'[c Philo ad Cajum,
    p. 1023; Jos. Ant. xv. 3.1.] were included with the
    Palestinians and the Syrians under the term 'Hebrews,' from
    the common language which they spoke.

     But the difference between the 'Grecians' and the 'Hebrews'
    was far deeper than merely of language, and extended to the
    whole direction of thought. There were mental influences at
    work in the Greek world from which, in the nature of things,
    it was impossible even for Jews to withdraw themselves, and
    which, indeed, were as necessary for the fulfillment of their
    mission as their isolation from heathenism, and their
    connection with Jerusalem. At the same time it was only
    natural that the Hellenists, placed as they were in the midst
    of such hostile elements, should intensely wish to be Jews,
    equal to their Eastern brethren. On the other hand,
    Pharisaism, in its pride of legal purity and of the
    possession of traditional lore, with all that it involved,
    made no secret of its contempt for the Hellenists, and openly
    declared the Grecian far inferior to the Babylonian
    'dispersion.' [1 Similarly we have (in Men. 110a) this
    curious explanation of Is. xliii. 6: 'My sons from afar',
    these are the exiles in Babylon, whose minds were settled,
    like men, 'and my daughters from the ends of the earth',
    these are the exiles in other lands, whose minds were not
    settled, like women.] That such feelings, and the suspicions
    which they engendered, had struck deep into the popular mind,
    appears from the fact, that even in the Apostolic Church, and
    that in her earliest days, disputes could break out between
    the Hellenists and the Hebrews, arising from suspicion of
    unkind and unfair dealings grounded on these sectional
    prejudices. [d Acts vi. 1.]

     Far other was the estimate in which the Babylonians were
    held by the leaders of Judaism. Indeed, according to one view
    of it, Babylonia, as well as 'Syria' as far north as Antioch,
    was regarded as forming part of the land of Israel. [Ber. R.
    17.] Every other country was considered outside 'the land,'
    as Palestine was called, witht the exception of Babylonia,
    which was reckoned as part of it. [e Erub. 21 a Gritt. 6 a.]
    For Syria and Mesopotamia, eastwards to the banks of the
    Tigris, were supposed to have been in the territory which
    King David had conquered, and this made them ideally for ever
    like the land of Israel. But it was just between the
    Euphrates and the Tigris that the largest and wealthiest
    settlements of the Jews were, to such extent that a later
    writer actually designated them 'the land of Israel.' Here
    Nehardaa, on the Nahar Malka, or royal canal, which passed
    from the Euphrates to the Tigris, was the oldest Jewish
    settlement. It boasted of a Synagogue, said to have been
    built by King Jechoniah with stones that had been brought
    from the Temple. [1 Comp. Furst, Kult. u. Literaturgesch d.
    Jud. in Asien, vol. i. p. 8.] In this fortified city the vast
    contributions intended for the Temple were deposited by the
    Eastern Jews, and thence conveyed to their destination under
    escort of thousands of armed men. Another of these Jewish
    treasure-cities was Nisibis, in northern Mesopotamia. Even
    the fact that wealth, which must have sorely tempted the
    cupidity of the heathen, could be safely stored in these
    cities and transported to Palestine, shows how large the
    Jewish population must have been, and how great their general
    influence.

     In general, it is of the greatest importance to remember in
    regard to this Eastern dispersion, that only a minority of
    the Jews, consisting in all of about 50,000, originally
    returned from Babylon, first under Zerubbabel and afterwards
    under Ezra. [a 537 B.C., and 459-'8 B.C.] Nor was their
    inferiority confined to numbers. The wealthiest and most
    influential of the Jews remained behind. According to
    Josephus, [b Ant. xi. 5. 2; xv. 2. 2; xviii. 9.] with whom
    Philo substantially agrees, vast numbers, estimated at
    millions, inhabited the Trans-Euphratic provinces. To judge
    even by the number of those slain in popular risings (50,000
    in Seleucia alone [2 Jos. Ant. xviii. 9. 9.] ),these figures
    do not seem greatly exaggerated. A later tradition had it,
    that so dense was the Jewish population in the Persian
    Empire, that Cyrus forbade the further return of the exiles,
    lest the country should be depopulated. [3 Midrash on Cant.
    v. 5, ed. Warsh. p. 26 a.] So large and compact a body soon
    became a political power. Kindly treated under the Persian
    monarchy, they were, after the fall of that empire, [c 330 B.
    C.] favoured by the successors of Alexander. When in turn the
    Macedono-Syrian rule gave place to the Parthian Empire, [d 63
    B.C.] the Jews formed, from their national opposition to
    Rome, an important element in the East. Such was their
    influence that, as late as the year 40 A.D., the Roman legate
    shrank from provoking their hostility. [4 Philo ad Caj.] At
    thesame time it must not be thought that, even in these
    favoured regions, they were wholly without persecution. Here
    also history records more than one tale of bloody strife on
    the part of those among whom they dwelt. [5 The following are
    the chief passages in Josephus relating to that part of
    Jewish history: Ant. xi. 5. 2; xiv. 13. 5; xv. 2. 7; 3. 1;
    xvii. 2. 1-3; xviii. 9. 1, &c.; xx. 4. Jew. W. i. 13. 3.]

     To the Palestinians, their brethren of the East and of
    Syria, to which they had wandered under the fostering rule of
    the Macedono-Syrian monarchs (the Seleucidae), were indeed
    pre-eminently the Golah, or 'dispersion.' To them the
    Sanhedrin in Jerusalem intimated by fire-signals from
    mountain-top to mountain-top the commencement of each month
    for the regulation of the festive calendar, [1 Rosh. haSh.
    ii. 4; comp. the Jer. Gemara on it, and in the Bab. Talmud 23
    b.] even as they afterwards despatched messengers into Syria
    for the same purpose. [2 Rosh. haSh. i. 4.] In some respects
    the Eastern dispersion was placed on the same footing; in
    others, on even a higher level than the mothercountry. Tithes
    and Terumoth, or first-fruits in a prepared condition, [3
    Shev. vi. passim; Gitt. 8 a.] were due from them, while the
    Bikkurim, or first-fruits in a fresh state, were to be
    brought from Syria to Jerusalem. Unlike the heathen
    countries, whose very dust defiled, the soil of Syria was
    declared clean, like that of Palestine itself. [a Ohol.
    xxiii. 7.] So far as purity of descent was concerned, the
    Babylonians, indeed, considered themselves superior to their
    Palestinian brethren. They had it, that when Ezra took with
    him those who went to Palestine, he had left the land behind
    him as pure as fine flour. [b Kidd. 69.] To express it in
    their own fashion: In regard to the genealogical purity of
    their Jewish inhabitants, all other countries were, compared
    to Palestine, like dough mixed with leaven; but Palestine
    itself was such by the side of Babylonia. [4 Cheth. 111 a.]
    It was evemaintained, that the exact boundaries could be
    traced in a district, within which the Jewish population had
    preserved itself unmixed. Great merit was in this respect
    also ascribed to Ezra. In the usual mode of exaggeration, it
    was asserted, that, if all the genealogical studies and
    researches [5 As comments upon the genealogies from 'Azel' in
    1 Chr. viii. 37 to 'Azel' in ix. 44. Pes. 62 b.] had been put
    together, they would have amounted to many hundred
    camel-loads. There was for it, however, at least this
    foundation in truth, that great care and labour were bestowed
    on preserving full and accurate records so as to establish
    purity of descent. What importance attached to it, we know
    from the action on Ezra [c Chs. ix. x.] in that respect, and
    from the stress which Josephus layson this point. [d Life i.;
    Ag Apion i. 7.] Official records of descent as regarded the
    priesthood were kept in the Temple. Besides, the Jewish
    authorities seem to have possessed a general official
    register, which Herod afterwards ordered to be burnt, from
    reasons which it is not difficult to infer. But from that
    day, laments a Rabbi, the glory of the Jews decreased! [6
    Pes. 62 b; Sachs,Beitr. vol. ii. p. 157.]

     Nor was it merely purity of descent of which the Eastern
    dispersion could boast. In truth, Palestine owed everything
    to Ezra, the Babylonian, [1 According to tradition he
    returned to Babylon, and died there. Josephus says that he
    died in Jerusalem (Anti. xi. 5. 5).] a man so distinguished
    that, according to tradition, the Law would have been given
    by him, if Moses had not previously obtained that honor.
    Putting aside the various traditional ordinances which the
    Talmud ascribes to him, [2 Herzfeld has given a very clear
    historical arrangement of the order in which, and the persons
    by whom, the various legal determinations were supposed to
    have been given. See Gesch. d. V. Isr. vol. iii. pp. 240 &c.]
    we know from the Scriptures what his activity for good had
    been. Altered circumstances had brought many changes to the
    new Jewish State. Even the language, spoken and written, was
    other than formerly. Instead of the characters anciently
    employed, the exiles brought with them, on their return,
    those now common, the so-called square Hebrew letters, which
    gradually came into general use. [a Sanh. 21 b.] [3 Although
    thus introduced under Ezra, the ancient Hebrew characters,
    which resemble the Samaritan, only very gradually gave way.
    They are found on monuments and coins.] The language spoken
    by the Jews was no longer Hebrew, but Aramaean, both in
    Palestine and in Babylonia; [4 Herzfeld (u. s. vol. iii. p.
    46) happily designates the Palestinian as the
    Hebraeo-Aramaic, from its Hebraistic tinge. The Hebrew, as
    well as the Aramaean, belongs to the Semitic group of
    languages, which has thus been arranged: 1. North Semitic:
    Punico-Phoenician, Hebrew, and Aramaic (Western and Eastern
    dialects). 2. South Semitic: Arabic, Himyaritic, and
    Ethipian. 3. East Semitic: The Assyro-Baylonian cuneiform.
    When we speak of the dialect used in Palestine, we do not, of
    course, forget the great influence of Syria, exerted long
    before and after the Exile. Of these three branches the
    Aramaic is the most closely connected with the Hebrew. Hebrew
    occupies an intermediate position between the Aramaic and the
    Arabic, and may be said to be the oldest, certainly from a
    literary point of view. Together with the introduction of the
    new dialect into Palestine, we mark that of the new, or
    square, characters of writing. The Mishnah and all the
    kindred literature up to the fourth century are in Hebrew, or
    rather in a modern development and adaptation of that
    language; the Talmud is in Aramaean. Comp. on this subject:
    DeWette-Schrader, Lehrb. d. hist. kr. Eink. (8 ed.) pp.
    71-88; Herzog's Real-Encykl. vol. i. 466, 468; v. 614 &c.,
    710; Zunz, Gottesd. Vortr. d. Jud. pp. 7-9; Herzfeld, u.s.
    pp. 44 &c., 58&c.] in the former the Western, in the latter
    the Eastern dialect. In fact, the common people were ignorant
    of pure Hebrew, which henceforth became the language of
    students and of the Synagogue. Even there a Methurgeman, or
    interpreter, had to be employed to translate into the
    vernacular the portions of Scripture read in the public
    services, [5 Could St. Paul have had this in mind when, in
    referring to the miraculous gift of speaking in other
    languages, he directs that one shall always interpret (1 Cor.
    xiv. 27)? At any rate, the word targum in Ezra iv. 7 is
    rendered in the LXX. by The following from the Talmud (Ber. 8
    a and b) affords a curious illustration of 1 Cor. xiv. 27:
    'Let a man always finish his Parashah (the daily lesson from
    the Law) with the congregation (at the same time), twice the
    text, and once targum.']. and the address delivered by the
    Rabbis. This was the origin of the so-called Targumim, or
    paraphrases of Scripture. In earliest times, indeed, it was
    forbidden to the Methurgeman to read his translation or to
    write down a Targum, lest the paraphrase should be regarded
    as of equal authority with the original. It was said that,
    when Jonathan brought out his Targum on the Prophets, a voice
    from heaven was heard to utter: 'Who is this that has
    revealed My secrets to men?' [a Megill. 3.] Still, such
    Targumim seem to have existed from a very early period, and,
    amid the varying and often incorrect renderings, their
    necessity must have made itself increasingly felt.
    Accordingly, their use was authoritatively sanctioned before
    the end of the second century after Christ. This is the
    origin of our two oldest extant Targumim: that of Onkelos (as
    it is called), on the Pentateuch; and that on the Prophets,
    attributed to Jonathan the son of Uzziel. These names do not,
    indeed, accurately represent the authorship of the oldest
    Targumim, which may more correctly be regarded as later and
    authoritative recensions of what, in some form, had existed
    before. But although these works had their origin in
    Palestine, it is noteworthy that, in the form in which at
    present we possess them, they are the outcome of the schools
    of Babylon.

     But Palestine owed, if possible, a still greater debt to
    Babylonia. The new circumstances in which the Jews were
    placed on their return seemed to render necessary an
    adaptation of the Mosaic Law, if not new legislation.
    Besides, piety and zeal now attached themselves to the
    outward observance and study of the letter of the Law. This
    is the origin of the Mishnah, or Second Law, which was
    intended to explain and supplement the first. This
    constituted the only Jewish dogmatics, in the real sense, in
    the study of which the sage, Rabbi , scholar, scribe, and
    Carshan, [1 From darash, to search out, literally, to tread
    out. The preacher was afterwards called the Darshan.] were
    engaged. The result of it was the Midrash, or investigation,
    a term which afterwards was popularly applied to commentaries
    ont he Scriptures and preaching. From the outset, Jewish
    theology divided into two branches: the Halakhah and the
    Haggadah. The former (from halakh, to go) was, so to speak,
    the Rule of the Spiritual Road, and, when fixed, had even
    greater authority than the Scriptures of the Old Testament,
    since it explained and applied them. On the other hand, the
    since it explained and applied them. On the other hand, the
    Haggadah [2 The Halakhah might be described as the apocryphal
    Pentateuch, the personal saying of the teacher, more or less
    valuable according to his learning and popularity, or the
    authorities which he could quote in his support. Unlike the
    Halakhah, the Haggadah had no absolute authority, either as
    to doctrine practice, or exegesis. But all the greater would
    be its popular influence, [1 We may here remind ourselves of
    1 Tim. v. 17. St. Paul, as always, writes with the familiar
    Jewish phrases ever recurring to his mind. The expression
    seems to be equivalent to Halakhic teaching. Comp. Grimm,
    Clavis N. T. pp. 98, 99.] and all the more dangerous the
    doctrinal license which it allowed. In fact, strange as it
    may sound, almost all the doctrinal teaching of the Synagogue
    is to be derived from the Haggadah and this also is
    characteristic of Jewish traditionalism. But, alike in
    Halakhah and Haggadah, Palestine was under the deepest
    obligation to Babylonia. For the father of Halakhic study was
    Hillel, the Babylonian, and among the popular Haggadists
    there is not a name better known than that of Eleazar the
    Mede, who flourished in the first century of our era.

     After this, it seems almost idle to inquire whether, during
    the first period after the return of the exiles from Babylon,
    there were regular theological academies in Babylon. Although
    it is, of course, impossible to furnish historical proof, we
    can scarely doubt that a community so large and so intensely
    Hebrew would not have been indifferent to that study, which
    constituted the main thought and engagement of their brethren
    in Palestine. We can understand that, since the great
    Sanhedrin in Palestine exercised supreme spiritual authority,
    and in that capacity ultimately settled all religious
    questions, at least for a time, the study and discussion of
    these subjects should also have been chiefly carried on in
    the schools of Palestine; and that even the great Hillel
    himself, when still a poor and unknown student, should have
    wandered thither to acquire the learning and authority, which
    at that period he could not have found in his own country.
    But even this circumstance implies, that such studies were at
    least carried on and encouraged in Babylonia. How rapidly
    soon afterwards the authority of the Babylonian schools
    increased, till they not only overshadowed those of
    Palestine, but finally inherited their prerogatives, is well
    known. However, therefore, the Palestinians in their pride or
    jealousy might sneer, [2 In Moed Q. 25 a. sojourn in Babylon
    is mentioned as a reason why the Shekhinah could not rest
    upon a certain Rabbi.] that the Babylonians were stupid,
    proud, and poor ('they ate bread upon bread'), [3 Pes. 34 b;
    Men. 52 a; Sanh. 24 a; Bets. 16 a, apud Neubauer, Geog. du
    Talmud, p. 323. In Keth. 75 a, they are styled the 'silly
    Babylonians.' See also Jer. Pes. 32 a.] even they had to
    acknowledge that, 'when the Law had fallen into oblivion, it
    was restored by Ezra of Babylon; when it was a second time
    forgotten, Hillel the Babylonian came and recovered it; and
    when yet a third time it fell into oblivion, Rabbi Chija came
    from Babylon and gave it back once more.' [4 Sukk. 20 a. R.
    Chija, one of the teachers of the second century, is among
    the most.celebrated Rabbinical authorities, around whose
    memory legend has thrown a special halo.] Such then was that
    Hebrew dispersion which, from the first, constituted Such
    then was that Hebrew dispersion which, from the first,
    constituted really the chief part and the strength of the
    Jewish nation, and with which its religious future was also
    to lie. For it is one of those strangely significant, almost
    symbolical, facts in history, that after the destruction of
    Jerusalem the spiritual supremacy of Palestine passed to
    Babylonia, and that Rabbinical Judaism, under the stress of
    political adversity, voluntarily transferred itself to the
    seats of Israel's ancient dispersion, as if to ratify by its
    own act what the judgment of God had formerly executed. But
    long before that time the Babylonian 'dispersion' had already
    stretched out its hands in every direction. Northwards, it
    had spread through Armenia, the Caucasus, and to the shores
    of the Black Sea, and through Media to those of the Caspian.
    Southwards, it had extended to the Persian Gulf and through
    the vast extent of Arabia, although Arabia Felix and the land
    of the Homerites may have received their first Jewish
    colonies from the opposite shores of Ethiopia. Eastwards it
    had passed as far as India. [1 In this, as in so many
    respects, Dr. Neubauer has collated very interesting
    information, to which we refer. See his Geogr. du Talm. pp.
    369-399.] Everywhere we have distinct notices of these
    wanderers, and everywhere they appear as in closest
    connection with the Rabbinical hierarchy of Palestine. Thus
    the Mishnah, in an extremely curious section, [2 The whole
    section gives a most curious glimpse of the dress and
    ornaments worn by the jews at that time. The reader
    interested in the subject will find special information int
    he three little volumes of Hartmann (Die Hebraerin am
    Putztische), in N. G. Schroder's some-what heavy work: De
    Vestitu Mulier. Hebr., and especially in that interesting
    tractate, Trachten d. Juden, by Dr. A. Brull, of which,
    unfortunately, only one part has appeared.] tells us how on
    Sabbaths the Jewesses of Arabia might wear their long veils,
    and those of India the kerchief round the head, customary in
    those countries, without incurring the guilt of desecrating
    the holy day by needlessly carrying what, in the eyes of the
    law, would be a burden; [a Shabb. vi. 6.] while in the rubric
    for the Day of Atonement we haveit noted that the dress which
    the High-Priest wore 'between the evenings' of the great
    fast, that is, as afternoon darkened into evening, was of
    most costly 'Indian' stuff. [b Yoma iii. 7.]

     That among such a vast community there should have been
    poverty, and that at one time, as the Palestinians sneered,
    learning may have been left to pine in want, we can readily
    believe. For, as one of the Rabbis had it in explanation of
    Deut. xxx. 13: 'Wisdom is not "beyond the sea", that is, it
    will not be found among traders or merchants,' [c Er. 55 a.]
    whose mind must be engrossed by gain. And it was trade and
    commerce which procured to the Babylonians their wealth and
    influence, although agriculture was not neglected. Their
    caravans, of whose camel drivers, by the way, no very
    flattering account is given [a Kidd. iv.], carried the rich
    carpets and woven stuffs of the East, as well as its precious
    spices, to the West: generally through Palestine to the
    Phoenician harbours, where a fleet of merchantmen belonging
    to Jewish bankers and shippers lay ready to convey them to
    every quarter of the world. These merchant princes were
    keenly alive to all that passed, not only in the financial,
    but in the political world. We know that they were in
    possession of State secrets, and entrusted with the
    intricacies of diplomacy. Yet, whatever its condition, this
    Eastern Jewish community was intensely Hebrew. Only eight
    days' journey, though, according to Philo's western ideas of
    it, by a difficult road [1 Philo ad Cajum, ed. Frcf. p.
    1023.], separated them from Palestine; and every pulsation
    there vibrated in Babylonia. It was in the most outlying part
    of that colony, in the wide plains of Arabia, that Saul of
    Tarsus spent those three years of silent thought and unknown
    labour, which preceded his re-appearance in Jerusalem, when
    from the burning longing to labour among his brethren,
    kindled by long residence among these Hebrews of the Hebrews,
    he was directed to that strange work which was his life's
    mission. [b Gal. i. 17;] And it was among the same community
    that Peter wrote and laboured, [c 1 Pet. v. 13.] amidst
    discouragements of which we can form some conception from the
    sad boast of Nehardaa, that up to the end of the third
    century it had not numbered among its members any convert to
    Christianity. [2 Pes. 56 a, apud Neubauer, u. s., p. 351.] In
    what has been said, no notice has been taken of those
    wanderers of the ten tribes, whose trackless footsteps seem
    as mysterious as their after-fate. The Talmudists name four
    countries as their seats. But, even if we were to attach
    historic credence to their vague statements, at least two of
    these localities cannot with any certainty be identified. [3
    Comp. Neubauer, pp. 315, 372; Hamburger, Real-Encykl. p.
    135.] Only thus far all agree as to point us northwards,
    through India, Armenia, the Kurdish mountains, and the
    Caucasus. And with this tallies a curious reference in what
    is known as IV. Esdras, which locates them in a land called
    Arzareth, a term which has, with some probability, been
    identified with the land of Ararat. [4 Comp. Volkmar, Handb.
    d. Einl. in d. Apokr. iite Abth., pp. 193, 194, notes. For
    the reasons there stated, I prefer this to the ingenious
    interpretation proposed by Dr. Schiller-Szinessy (Journ. of
    Philol. for 1870, pp. 113, 114), who regards it as a
    contraction of Erez achereth, 'another land,' referred to in
    Deut. xxix. 27 (28).] Josephus [a Ant. xi. 5.2.] describes
    them as an innumerable multitude, and vaguely locates them
    beyond the Euphrates. The Mishnah is silent as to their
    seats, but discusses their future restoration; Rabbi Akiba
    denying and Rabbi Eliezer anticipating it. [b Sanh. x. 3.] [1
    R. Eliezer seems to connect their return with the dawn of the
    new Messianic day.] Another Jewish tradition [c Ber. R. 73.]
    locates them by the fabled river Sabbatyon, which was
    supposed to cease its flow on the weekly Sabbath. This, of
    course, is an implied admission of ignorance of their seats.
    Similarly, the Talmud [d Jer. Sanb 29 c.]speaks of three
    localities whither they had been banished : the district
    around the river Sabbatyon; Daphne, near Antioch; while the
    third was overshadowed and hidden by a cloud.

     Later Jewish notices connect the final discovery and the
    return of the 'lost tribes' with their conversion under that
    second Messiah who, in contradistinction to 'the Son of
    David' is styled 'the Son of Joseph,' to whom Jewish
    tradition ascribes what it cannot reconcile with the royal
    dignity of 'the Son of David,' and which, if applied to Him,
    would almost inevitably lead up to the most wide concessions
    in the Christian argument. [2 This is not the place to
    discuss the later Jewish fiction of a second or 'suffering'
    Messiah, 'the son of Joseph,' whose special mission it would
    be to bring back the ten tribes, and to subject them to
    Messiah, 'the son of David,' but who would perish in the war
    against Gog and Magog.] As regards the ten tribes there is
    this truth underlying the strange hypothesis, that, as their
    persistent apostacy from the God of Israel and His worship
    had cut them off from his people, so the fulfilment of the
    Divine promises to them in the latter days would imply, as it
    were, a second birth to make them once more Israel. Beyond
    this we are travelling chiefly into the region of conjecture.
    Modern investigations have pointed to the Nestorians, [3
    Comp. the work of Dr. Asahel Grant on the Nestorians. His
    arguments have been well summarised and expanded in an
    interesting note in Mr. Nutths Sketch of Samaritan History,
    pp. 2-4.] and latterly with almost convincing evidence (so
    far as such is possible) to the Afghans, as descended from
    the lost tribes. [4 I would here call special attention to a
    most interesting paper on the subject ('A New Afghan
    Question'), by Mr. H. W. Bellew, in the 'Journal of the
    United Service Institution of India,' for 1881, pp. 49-97.]
    Such mixture with, and lapse into, Gentile nationalities
    seems to have been before the minds of those Rabbis who
    ordered that, if at present a non-Jew weds a Jewess, such a
    union was to be respected, since the stranger might be a
    descendant of the ten tribes. [e Yebam 16 b.] Besides, there
    is reason to believe that part of them, at least, had
    coalesced with their brethren of the later exile; [5 Kidd. 69
    b.] while we know that individuals who had settled in
    Palestine and, presumably, elsewhere, were able to trace
    descent from them.[1 So Anna from the tribe of Aser, St. Luke
    ii. 36. Lutterbeck (Neutest. Lehrbegr. pp. 102, 103) argues
    that the ten tribes had become wholly undistinguishable from
    the other two. But his arguments are not convincing, and his
    opinion was certainly not that of those who lived in the time
    of Christ, or who reflected their ideas.] Still the great
    mass of the ten tribes was in the days of Christ, as in our
    own, lost to the Hebrew nation.

 INTRODUCTORY.
    THE PREPARATION FOR THE GOSPEL: THE JEWISH WORLD IN THE DAYS
    OF CHRIST

    THE JEWISH DISPERSION IN THE WEST, THE HELLENISTS, ORIGIN OF
    HELLENIST LITERATURE IN THE GREEK TRANSLATION OF THE BIBLE,
    CHARACTER OF THE SEPTUAGINT.

    CHAPTER II.

     When we turn from the Jewish 'dispersion' in the East to
    that in the West, we seem to breathe quite a different
    atmosphere. Despite their intense nationalism, all
    unconsciously to themselves, their mental characteristics and
    tendencies were in the opposite direction from those of their
    brethren. With those of the East rested the future of
    Judaism; with them of the West, in a sense, that of the
    world. The one represented old Israel, stretching forth its
    hands to where the dawn of a new day was about to break.
    These Jews of the West are known by the term Hellenists, from
    , to conform to the language and manners of the Greeks.[1
    Indeed, the word Alnisti (or Alunistin), 'Greek', actually
    occurs, as in Jer. Sot. 21 b, line 14 from bottom. Bohl
    (Forsch. n. ein. Volksb. p. 7) quotes Philo (Leg. ad Caj. p.
    1023) in proof that he regarded the Eastern dispersion as a
    branch separate from the Palestinians. But the passage does
    not convey to me the inference which he draws from it. Dr.
    Guillemard (Hebraisms in the Greek Test.) on Acts vi. 1,
    agreeing with Dr. Roberts, argues that the term 'Hellenist'
    indicated only principles, and not birthplace, and that there
    were Hebrews and Hellenists in and out of Palestine. But this
    view is untenable.]

     Whatever their religious and social isolation, it was, in
    the nature of thing, impossible that the Jewish communities
    in the West should remains unaffected by Grecian culture and
    modes of though; just as, on the other hand, the Greek world,
    despite popular hatred and the contempt of the higher
    classes, could not wholly withdraw itself from Jewish
    influences. Witness here the many converts to Judaism among
    the Gentiles; [2 An account of this propaganda of Judaism and
    of its results will be given in another connection.] witness
    also the evident preparedness of the lands of this
    'dispersion' for the new doctrine which was to come from
    Judea. Many causes contributed to render the Jews of the West
    accessible to Greek influences. They had not a long local
    history to look back upon, nor did they form a compact body,
    like their brethren in the East. They were craftsmen,
    traders, merchants, settled for a time here or there, units
    might combine into communities, but could not form one
    people. Then their position was not favourable to the sway of
    traditionalism. Their occupations, the very reasons for their
    being in a 'strange land,' were purely secular. That lofty
    absorption of thought and life in the study of the Law,
    writtem and oral, which characterised the East, was to the,
    something in the dim distance, sacred, like the soil and the
    institutions of Palestine, but unattainable. In Palestine or
    Babylonia numberless influences from his earliest years, all
    that he saw and heard, the very force of circumstances, would
    tend to make an earnest Jew a disciple of the Rabbis; in the
    West it would lead him to 'hellenise.' It was, so to speak,
    'in the air'; and he could no more shut his mind against
    Greek thought than he could withdraw his body from
    atmospheric influences. That restless, searching, subtle
    Greek intellect would penetrate everywhere, and flash its
    light into the innermost recesses of his home and Synagogue.

     To be sure, they were intensely Jewish, these communities of
    strangers. Like our scattered colonists in distant lands,
    they would cling with double affection to the customs of
    their home, and invest with the halo of tende memories the
    sacred traditions of thir faith. The Grecian Jew might well
    look with contempt, not unmingled with pity, on the
    idolatrous rites practised around, from which long ago the
    pitiless irony of Isaiah had torn the veil of beauty, to show
    the hideousness and unreality beneath. The dissoluteness of
    public and private life, the frivolity and aimlessness of
    their pursuits, political aspirations, popular assemblies,
    amusements, in short, the utter decay of society, in all its
    phases, would lie open to his gaze. It is in terms of lofty
    scorn, not unmingled with idignation, which only occasionally
    gives way to the softer mood of warning, or even invitation,
    that Jewish Hellenistic literature, whether in the Apocrypha
    or in its Apocalyptic utterances, address heathenism.

     From that spectacle the Grecian Jew would turn with infinite
    satisfaction, not to say, pride, to his own community, to
    think of its spiritual enlightenment, and to pass in review
    its exclusive privileges. [1 St, Paul fully describes these
    feelings in the Epistle to the Romans.] It was with no
    uncertain steps that he would go past those splendid temples
    to his own humbler Synagogue, pleased to find himself there
    surrounded by those who shared his descent, his faith, his
    hopes; and gratified to see their number swelled by many who,
    heathens by birth, had learned the error of their ways, and
    now, so to speak, humbly stood as suppliant 'strangers of the
    gate,' to seek admission into his sanctuary. [1 The 'Gerey
    haShaar,' proselytes of the gate, a designation which some
    have derived from the circumstance that Gentiles were not
    allowed to advance beyond the Temple Court, but more likely
    to be traced to such passages as Ex. xx. 10; Deut. xiv. 21;
    xxiv. 14.] How different were the rites which he practised,
    hallowed in their Divine origin, rational in themselves, and
    at the same time deeply significant, from the absurd
    superstitions around. Who could have compared with the
    voiceless, meaningless, blasphemous heathen worship, if it
    deserved the name, that of the Synagogue, with its pathetic
    hymns, its sublime liturgy, its Divine Scriptures, and those
    'stated sermons' which 'instructed in virtue and piety,' of
    which not only Philo, [a De Vita Mosis, p. 685; Leg ad Caj.
    p. 1014.]Agrippa, [b Leg. ad Caj. p. 1035.] and Josephus, [c
    Ag. Apion ii. 17.] speak as a regular institution, but whose
    antiquity and general prevalence is attested in Jewish
    writings, [2 Comp. here Targ. Jon. on Judg. v. 2, 9. I feel
    more hesitation in appealing to such passages as Ber. 19 a,
    where we read of a Rabbi in Rome, Thodos (Theudos?), who
    flourished several generations before Hillel, for reasons
    which the passage itself will suggest to the student. At the
    time of Philo, however, such instructions in the Synagogues
    at Rome were a long, established institution (Ad Caj. p.
    1014).] and nowhere more strongly than in the book of the
    Acts of the Apostles?

     And in these Synagogues, how would 'brotherly love' be
    called out, since, if one member suffered, all might soon be
    affected, and the danger which threatened one community
    would, unless averted, ere long overwhelm the rest. There was
    little need for the admonition not to 'forget the love of
    strangers.' [3 Hebr. xiii. 2.] To entertain them was not
    merely a virtue; in the Hellenist dispersion it was a
    religious necessity. And by such means not a few whom they
    would regard as 'heavenly messengers' might be welcomed. From
    the Acts of the Apostles we knew with what eagerness they
    would receive, and with what readiness they would invite, the
    passing Rabbi or teacher, who came from the home of their
    faith, to speak, if there were in them a word of comforting
    exhortation for the people. [d Acts xiii. 15.] We can
    scarcely doubt, considering the state of things, that this
    often bore on 'the consolation of Israel.' But, indeed, all
    that came from Jerusalem, all that helped them to realise
    their living connection with it, or bound it more closely,
    was precious. 'Letters out of Judaea,' the tidings which some
    one might bring on his return from festive pilgrimage or
    business journey, especially about anything connected with
    that grand expectation, the star which was to rise on the
    Eastern sky, would soon spread, till the Jewish pedlar in his
    wanderings had carried the news to the most distant and
    isolated Jewish home, where he might find a Sabbath, welcome
    and Sabbath-rest.

     Such undoubtedly was the case. And yet, when the Jew stepped
    out of the narrow circle which he had drawn around him, he
    was confronted on every side by Grecianism. It was in the
    forum, in the market, in the counting, house, in the street;
    in all that he saw, and in all to whom he spoke. It was
    refined; it was elegant; it was profound; it was supremely
    attractive. He might resist, but he could not push it aside.
    Even in resisting, he had already yielded to it. For, once
    open the door to the questions which it brought, if it were
    only to expel, or repel them, he must give up that principle
    of simple authority on which traditionalism as a system
    rested. Hellenic criticism could not so be silenced, nor its
    searching light be extinguished by the breath of a Rabbi. If
    he attempted this, the truth would not only be worsted before
    its enemies, but suffer detriment in his own eyes. He must
    meet argument with argument, and that not only for those who
    were without, but in order to be himself quite sure of what
    he believed. He must be able to hold it, not only in
    controversy with others, where pride might bid him stand
    fast, but in that much more serious contest within, where a
    man meets the old adversary alone in the secret arena of his
    own mind, and has to sustain that terrible hand-to-hand
    fight, in which he is uncheered by outward help. But why
    should he shrink from the contest, when he was sure that his
    was Divine truth, and that therefore victory must be on his
    side? As in our modern conflicts against the onesided
    inferences from physical investigations we are wont to say
    that the truths of nature cannot contradict those of
    revelation, both being of God, and as we are apt to regard as
    truths of nature what sometimes are only deductions from
    partially ascertained facts, and as truths of revelation
    what, after all, may be only our own inferences, sometimes
    from imperfectly apprehended premises, so the Hellenist would
    seek to conciliate the truths of Divine revelation with those
    others which, he thought, he recognized in Hellenism. But
    what were the truths of Divine revelation? Was it only the
    substance of Scripture, or also its form, the truth itself
    which was conveyed, or the manner in which it was presented
    to the Jews; or, if both, then did the two stand on exactly
    the same footing? On the answer to these questions would
    depend how little or how much he would 'hellenise.

     One thing at any rate was quite certain. The Old Testament,
    leastwise, the Law of Moses, was directly and wholly from
    God; and if so, then its form also, its letter, must be
    authentic and authoritative. Thus much on the surface, and
    for all. But the student must search deeper into it, his
    senses, as it were, quickened by Greek criticism; he must
    'meditate' and penetrate into the Divine mysteries. The
    Palestinian also searched into them, and the result was the
    Midrash. But, whichever of his methods he had applied, the
    Peshat, or simple criticism of the words, the Derush, or
    search into the possible applications of the text, what might
    be 'trodden out' of it; or the Sod, the hidden, mystical,
    supranatural bearing of the words, it was still only the
    letter of the text that had been studied. There was, indeed,
    yet another understanding of the Scriptures, to which St.
    Paul directed his disciples: the spiritual bearing of its
    spiritual truths. But that needed another qualification, and
    tended in another direction from those of which the Jewish
    student knew. On the other hand, there was the intellectual
    view of the Scriptures, their philosophical understanding,
    the application to them of the results of Grecian thought and
    criticism. It was this which was peculiarly Hellenistic.
    Apply that method, and the deeper the explorer proceeded in
    his search, the more would he feel himself alone, far from
    the outside crowd; but the brighter also would that light of
    criticism, which he carried, shine in the growing darkness,
    or, as he held it up, would the precious ore, which he laid
    bare, glitter and sparkle with a thousand varying hues of
    brilliancy. What was Jewish, Palestinian, individual,
    concrete in the Scriptures, was only the outside, true in
    itself, but not the truth. There were depths beneath. Strip
    these stories of their nationalism; idealise the individual
    of the persons introduced, and you came upon abstract ideas
    and realities, true to all time and to all nations. But this
    deep symbolism was Pythagorean; this pre-existence of ideas
    which were the types of all outward actuality, was Platonism!
    Broken rays in them, but the focus of truth in the
    Scriptures. Yet these were rays, and could only have come
    from the Sun. All truth was of God; hence theirs must have
    been of that origin. Then were the sages of the heathen also
    in a sense God, taught, and God, teaching, or inspiration,
    was rather a question of degree than of kind!

     One step only remained; and that, as we imagine, if not the
    easiest, yet, as we reflect upon it, that which in practice
    would be most readily taken. It was simply to advance towards
    Grecianism; frankly to recognise truth in the results of
    Greek thought. There is that within us, name it mental
    consciousness, or as you will, which, all unbidden, rises to
    answer to the voice of intellectual truth, come whence it
    may, just as conscience answers to the cause of moral truth
    or duty. But in this case there was more. There was the
    mighty spell which Greek philosophy exercised on all kindred
    minds, and the special adaptation of the Jewish intellect to
    such subtle, if not deep, thinking. And, in general, and more
    powerful than the rest, because penetrating everywhere, was
    the charm of Greek literature, with its brilliancy; of Greek
    civilisation and culture, with their polish and
    attractiveness; and of what, in one word, we may call the
    'time-spirit,' that tyrannos, who rules all in their
    thinking, speaking, doing, whether they list or not.

     Why, his sway extended even to Palestine itself, and was
    felt in the innermost circle of the most exclusive Rabbinism.
    We are not here referring to the fact that the very language
    spoken in Palestine came to be very largely charged with
    Greek, and even Latin, words Hebraised, since this is easily
    accounted for by the new circumstances, and the necessities
    of intercourse with the dominant or resident foreigners. Nor
    is it requisite to point out how impossible it would have
    been, in presence of so many from the Greek and Roman world,
    and after the long and persistent struggle of their rulers to
    Grecianise Palestine, nay, even in view of so many
    magnificent heathen temples on the very soil of Palestine, to
    exclude all knowledge of, or contact with Grecianism. But not
    to be able to exclude was to have in sight the dazzle of that
    unknown, which as such, and in itself, must have had peculiar
    attractions to the Jewish mind. It needed stern principle to
    repress the curiosity thus awakened. When a young Rabbi, Ben
    Dama, asked his uncle whether he might not study Greek
    philosophy, since he had mastered the 'Law' in every aspect
    of it, the older Rabbi replied by a reference to Josh. i. 8:
    'Go and search what is the hour which is neither of the day
    nor of the night, and in it thou mayest study Greek
    philosophy.' [a Men. 99 b, towards the end.] Yet eventhe
    Jewish patriarch, Gamaliel II., who may have sat with Saul of
    Tarsus at the feet of his grandfather, was said to have
    busied himself with Greek, as he certainly held liberal views
    on many points connected with Grecianism. To be sure,
    tradition justified him on the ground that his position
    brought him into contact with the ruling powers, and,
    perhaps, to further vindicate him, ascribed similar pursuits
    to the elder Gamaliel, although groundlessly, to judge from
    the circumstance that he was so impressed even with the wrong
    of possessing a Targum on Job in Aramaean, that he had it
    buried deep in the ground.

     But all these are indications of a tendency existing. How
    wide it must have spread, appears from the fact that the ban
    had to be pronounced on all who studied 'Greek wisdom.' One
    of the greatest Rabbis, Elisha ben Abujah, seems to have been
    actually led to apostacy by such studies. True, he appears as
    the 'Acher', the 'other', in Talmudic writings, whom it was
    not proper even to name. But he was not yet an apostate from
    the Synagogue when those 'Greek songs' ever flowed from his
    lips; and it was in the very Beth-ha-Midrash, or theological
    academy, that a multitude of Siphrey Minim (heretical books)
    flew from his breast, where they had lain concealed. [a Jer.
    Chag. ii. 1; comp. Chag. 15.] It may be so, that the
    expression 'Siphrey Homeros' (Homeric writings), which occur
    not only in the Talmud [b Jer. Sanh. x. 28 a.] but even in
    the Mishnah [c Yad. iv. 6.] referred pre-eminently, if not
    exclusively, to the religious or semi-religious Jewish
    Hellenistic literature, outside even the Apocrypha. [1
    Through this literature, which as being Jewish might have
    passed unsuspected, a dangerous acquaintance might have been
    introduced with Greek writings, the more readily, that for
    example Aristobulus described Homer and Hesiod as having
    'drawn from our books' (ap. Euseb. Praepar. Evang. xiii. 12).
    According to Hamburger (Real-Encykl. fur Bibel u. Talmud,
    vol. ii. pp. 68, 69), the expression Siphrey Homeros applies
    exclusively to the Judaeo-Alexandrian heretical writings;
    according to First (Kanon d. A. Test. p. 98), simply to
    Homeric literature. But see the discussion in Levy, Neuhebr.
    u. Chald. Worterb., vol. i. p. 476 a and b.] But its
    occurrence proves, at any rate, that the Hellenists were
    credited with the study of Greek literature, and that through
    them, if not more directly, the Palestinians had become
    acquainted with it.

     This sketch will prepare us for a rapid survey of that
    Hellenistic literature which Judaea so much dreaded. Its
    importance, not only to the Hellenists but to the world at
    large, can scarcely be over-estimated. First and foremost, we
    have here the Greek translation of the Old Testament,
    venerable not only as the oldest, but as that which at the
    time of Jesus held the place of our 'Authorized Version,' and
    as such is so often, although freely, quoted, in the New
    Testament. Nor need we wonder that it should have been the
    people's Bible, not merely among the Hellenists, but in
    Galilee, and even in Judaea. It was not only, as already
    explained, that Hebrew was no longer the 'vulgar tongue' in
    Palestine, and that written Targumim were prohibited. but
    most, if not all, at least in towns, would understand the
    Greek version; it might be quoted in intercourse with
    Hellenist breathren or with the Gentiles; and, what was
    perhaps equally, if not more important, it was the most
    readily procurable. From the extreme labour and care bestowed
    on them, Hebrew manuscripts of the Bible were enormously
    dear, as we infer from a curious Talmudical notice, [d Gitt.
    35 last line and b.] where a common wollen wrap, which of
    course was very cheap, a copy of the Psalms, of Job, and torn
    pieces from Proverbs, are together valued at five maneh, say,
    about 19l. Although this notice dates from the third or
    fourth century, it is not likely that the cost of Hebrew
    Biblical MSS. was much lower at the time of Jesus. This
    would, of course, put their possession well nigh out of
    common reach. On the other hand, we are able to form an idea
    of the cheapness of Greek manuscripts from what we know of
    the price of books in Rome at the beginning of our era.
    Hundreds of slaves were there engaged copying what one
    dictated. The result was not only the publication of as large
    editions as in our days, but their production at only about
    double the cost of what are now known as 'cheap' or 'people's
    editions.' Probably it would be safe to compute, that as much
    matter as would cover sixteen pages of small print might, in
    such cases, be sold at the rate of about sixpence, and in
    that ratio. [1 Comp. Friedlander, Sitteng. Roms, vol. iii. p.
    315.] Accordingly, manuscripts in Greek or Latin, although
    often incorrect, must have been easily attainable, and this
    would have considerable influence on making the Greek version
    of the Old Testament the 'people's Bible.' [2 To these causes
    there should perhaps be added the attempt to introduce
    Grecianism by force into Palestine, the consequences which it
    may have left, and the existence of a Grecian party in the
    land.]

     The Greek version, like the Targum of the Palestinians,
    originated, no doubt, in the first place, in a felt national
    want on the part of the Hellenists, who as a body were
    ignorant of Hebrew. Hence we find notices of very early Greek
    versions of at least parts of the Pentateuch. [3 Aristobulus
    in Euseb. Praepar. Evang. ix. 6; xiii. 12. The doubts raised
    by Hody against this testimony have been generally repudiated
    by critics since the treatise by Valkenaer (Diatr. de
    Aristob. Jud. appended to Gaisford's ed. of the Praepar.
    Evang.).] But this, of course, could not suffice. On the
    other hand, there existed, as we may suppose, a natural
    curiosity on the part of students, especially in Alexandria,
    which had so large a Jewish population, to know the sacred
    books on which the religion and history of Israel were
    founded. Even more than this, we must take into account the
    literary tastes of the first three Ptolemies (successors in
    Egypt of Alexander the Great), and the exceptional favour
    which the Jews for a time enjoyed. Ptolemy I. (Lagi) was a
    great patron of learning. He projected the Museum in
    Alexandria, which was a home for literature and study, and
    founded the great library. In these undertakings Demetrius
    Phalereus was his chief adviser. The tastes of the first
    Ptolemy were inherited by his son, Ptolemy II.
    (Philadelphus), who had for two years been co-regent. [a
    286-284 B.C.] In fact, ultimately that monarch became
    literally book-mad, and the sums spent on rare MSS., which
    too often proved spurious, almost pass belief. The same may
    be said of the third of these monarchs, Ptolemy III.
    (Euergetes). It would have been strange, indeed, if these
    monarchs had not sought to enrich their library with an
    authentic rendering of the Jewish sacred books, or not
    encouraged such a translation.

     These circumstances will account for the different elements
    which we can trace in the Greek version of the Old Testament,
    and explain the historical, or rather legendary, notices
    which we have of its composition. To begin with the latter.
    Josephus has preserved what, no doubt in its present form, is
    a spurious letter from one Aristeas to his brother
    Philocrates, [1 Comp. Josephi Opera, ed. Havercamp, vol. ii.
    App. pp. 103-132. The best and most critical edition of this
    letter by Prof. M. Schmidt, in Merx' Archiv. i. pp. 252-310.
    The story is found in Jos. Ant. xii. 2. 2; Ag. Ap. ii. 4;
    Philo, de Vita Mosis, lib. ii. section 5-7. The extracts are
    most fully given in Euseb. Praepar. Evang. Some of the
    Fathers give the story, with additional embellishments. It
    was first critically called in question by Hody (Contra
    Historiam Aristeae de L. X. interpret. dissert. Oxon. 1685),
    and has since been generally regarded as legendary. But its
    foundation in fact has of late been recognized by well nigh
    all critics, though the letter itself is pseudonymic, and
    full of fabulous details.] in which we are told how, by the
    advice of his librarian (?), Demetrius Phalereus, Ptolemy II.
    had sent by him (Aristeas) and another officer, a letter,
    with rich presents, to Eleazar, the High-Priest at Jerusalem;
    who in turn had selected seventy-two translators (six out of
    each tribe), and furnished them with a most valuable
    manuscript of the Old Testament. The letter then gives
    further details of their splendid reception at the Egyptian
    court, and of their sojourn in the island of Pharos, where
    they accomplished their work in seventy-two days, when they
    returned to Jerusalem laden with rich presents, their
    translation having received the formal approval of the Jewish
    Sanhedrin at Alexandria. From this account we may at least
    derive as historical these facts: that the Pentateuch, for to
    it only the testimony refers, was translated into Greek, at
    the suggestion of Demetrius Phalareus, in the reign and under
    the patronage, if not by direction, of Ptolemy II.
    (Philadelphus). [2 This is also otherwise attested. See Keil,
    Lehrb. d. hist. kr. Einl. d. A. T., p. 551, note 5.] With
    this the Jewish accounts agree, which describe the
    translation of the Pentateuch under Ptolemy, the Jerusalem
    Talmud [a Meg. i.] in a simpler narrative, the Babylonian [b
    Meg. 9 a.] with additions apparently derived from the
    Alexandrian legends; the former expressly noting thirteen,
    the latter marking fifteen, variations from the original
    text. [3 It is scarcely worth while to refute the view of
    Tychsen, Jost (Gesch. d. Judenth.), and others, that the
    Jewish writers only wrote down for Ptolemy the Hebrew words
    in Greek letters. But the word cannot possibly bear that
    meaning in this connection. Comp. also Frankel, Vorstudien,
    p. 31.]

     The Pentateuch once translated, whether by one, or more
    likely by several persons,. [4 According to Sopher. i. 8, by
    five persons, but that seems a round number to correspond to
    the five books of Moses. Frankel (Ueber d. Einfl. d. palast.
    Exeg.) labours, however, to show in detail the differences
    between the different translators. But his criticism is often
    strained, and the solution of the question is apparently
    impossible.] the other books of the Old Testament would
    naturally soon receive the same treatment. They were
    evidently rendered by a number of persons, who possessed very
    different qualifications for their work, the translation of
    the Book of Daniel having been so defective, that in its
    place another by Theodotion was afterwards substituted. The
    version, as a whole, bears the name of the LXX., as some have
    supposed from the number of its translators according to
    Aristeas' account, only that in that case it should have been
    seventy-two; or from the approval of the Alexandrian
    Sannedrin [1 Bohl would have it, 'the Jerusalem Sanhedrin!']
    although in that case it should have been seventy-one; or
    perhaps because, in the popular idea, the number of the
    Gentile nations, of which the Greek (Japheth) was regarded as
    typical, was seventy. We have, however, one fixed date by
    which to compute the completion of this translation. From the
    prologue to the Apocryphal 'Wisdom of Jesus the son of
    Sirach,' we learn that in his days the Canon of Scripture was
    closed; and that on his arrival, in his thirty-eighth year,
    [2 But the expression has also been referred to the
    thirty-eighth year of the reign of Euergetes.] In Egypt,
    which was then under the rule of Euergetes, he found the
    so-called LXX. version completed, when he set himself to a
    similar translation of the Hebrew work of his grandfather.
    But in the 50th chapter of that work we have a description of
    the High-Priest Simon, which is evidently written by an
    eye-witness. We have therefore as one term the pontificate of
    Simon, during which the earlier Jesus lived; and as the
    other, the reign of Euergetes, in which the grandson was at
    Alexandria. Now, although there were two High-Priests who
    bore the name Simon, and two Egyptian kings with the surname
    Euergetes, yet on purely historical grounds, and apart from
    critical prejudices, we conclude that the Simon of Ecclus. L.
    was Simon I., the Just, one of the greatest names in Jewish
    traditional history; and similarly, that the Euergetes of the
    younger Jesus was the first of that name, Ptolemy III., who
    reigned from 247 to 221 B.C. [3 To my mind, at least, the
    historical evidence, apart from critical considerations,
    seems very strong. Modern writers on the other side have
    confessedly been influenced by the consideration that the
    earlier date of the Book of Sirach would also involve a much
    earlier date for the close of the O. T. Canon than they are
    disposed to admit. More especially would it bear on the
    question of the so-called 'Maccabean Psalms,' and the
    authorship and date of the Book of Daniel. But historical
    questions should be treated independently of critical
    prejudices. Winex (Bibl. Realworterb. i. p. 555), and others
    after him admit that the Simon of Ecclus. ch. L. was indeed
    Simon the Just (i.), but maintain that the Euergetes of the
    Prologue was the second of that name, Ptolemy VII., popularly
    nicknamed Kakergetes. Comp. the remarks of Fritzsche on this
    view in the Kurzgef. Exeg. Handb. z. d. Apokr. 5te Lief. p.
    xvii.] In his reign, therefore, we must regard the LXX.
    version as, at least substantially, completed.

     From this it would, of course, follow that the Canon of the
    Old Testament was then practically fixed in Palestine. [1
    Comp. here, besides the passages quoted in the previous note,
    Baba B. 13 b and 14 b; for the cessation of revelation in the
    Maccabean period, 1 Macc. iv. 46; ix. 27; xiv. 41; and, in
    general, for the Jewish view on the subject at the time of
    Christ, Jos. Ag. Ap. i. 8.] That Canon was accepted by the
    Alexandrian translators, although the more loose views of the
    Hellenists on 'inspiration,' and the absence of that close
    watchfulness exercised over the text in Palestine, led to
    additions and alterations, and ultimately even to the
    admission of the Apocrypha into the Greek Bible. Unlike the
    Hebrew arrangement of the tex into the Law, the Prophets, [2
    Anterior: Josh., Judg., 1 and 2 Sam. 1 and 2 Kings.
    Posterior: Major: Is., Jer., and Ezek.; and the Minor
    Prophets.] and the (sacred) Writings, or Hagiographa, the
    LXX. arrange them into historical, prophetical, and poetic
    books, and count twenty-two, after the Hebrew alphabet,
    instead of twenty-four, as the Hebrews. But perhaps both
    these may have been later arrangements, since Philo evidently
    knew the Jewish order of the books. [a De Vita Contempl.
    section 3.] What text the translators may have used we can
    only conjecture. It differs in almost innumerable instances
    from our own, though the more important deviations are
    comparatively few. [3 They occur chiefly in 1 Kings, the
    books of Esther, Job, Proverbs, Jeremiah, and Daniel. In the
    Pentateuch we find them only in four passages in the Book of
    Exodus.] In the great majority of the lesser variations our
    Hebrew must be regarded as the correct text. [4 There is also
    a curious correspondence between the Samaritan version of the
    Pentateuch and that of the LXX., which in no less than about
    2,000 passages agree as against our Hebrew, although in other
    instances the Greek text either agrees with the Hebrew
    against the Samaritan, or else is independent of both. On the
    connection between Samaritan literature and Hellenism there
    are some very interesting notices in Freudenthal, Hell. Stud.
    pp. 82-103, 130-136, 186, &c.]
     Putting aside clerical mistakes and misreadings, and making
    allowance for errors of translation, ignorance, and haste, we
    note certain outstanding facts as characteristic of the Greek
    version. It bears evident marks of its origin in Egypt in its
    use of Egyptian words and references, and equally evident
    traces of its Jewish composition. By the side of slavish and
    false literalism there is great liberty, if not licence, in
    handling the original; gross mistakes occur along with happy
    renderings of very difficult passages, suggesting the aid of
    some able scholars. Distinct Jewish elements are undeniably
    there, which can only be explained by reference to Jewish
    tradition, although they are much fewer than some critics
    have supposed. [5 The extravagant computations in this
    respect of Frankel (both in his work, Ueber d. Einfl. d.
    Palast. Exeg., and also in the Vorstud. z. Sept. pp. 189-191)
    have been rectified by Herzfeld (Gesch. d. Vol. Isr. vol.
    iii.), who, perhaps, goes to the other extreme. Herzfeld (pp.
    548-550) admits, and even this with hesitation, of only six
    distinct references to Halakhoth in the following passages in
    the LXX.: Gen. ix. 4; xxxii. 32; Lev. xix. 19; xxiv. 7; Deut.
    xxv. 5; xxvi. 12. As instances of Haggadah we may mention the
    renderings in Gen. v. 24 and Ex. x. 23.] This we can easily
    understand, since only those traditions would find a place
    which at that early time were not only received, but in
    general circulation. The distinctively Grecian elements,
    however, are at present of chief interest to us. They consist
    of allusions to Greek mythological terms, and adaptations of
    Greek philosophical ideas. However few, [1 Dahne and Gfrorer
    have in this respect gone to the same extreme as Frankel on
    the Jewish side. But even Siegfried (Philo v. Alex. p. 8) is
    obliged to admit that the LXX. rendering, Gen. i. 2), bears
    undeniable mark of Grecian philosophic views. And certainly
    this is not the sole instance of the kind.] even one
    well-authenticated instance would lead us to suspect others,
    and in general give to the version the character of Jewish
    Hellenising. In the same class we reckon what constitutes the
    prominent characteristic of the LXX. version, which, for want
    of better terms, we would designate as rationalistic and
    apologetic. Difficulties, or what seemed such, are removed by
    the most bold methods, and by free handling of the text; it
    need scarcely be said, often very unsatisfactorily. More
    especially a strenuous effort is made to banish all
    anthropomorphisms, as inconsistent with their ideas of the
    Deity. The superficial observer might be tempted to regard
    this as not strictly Hellenistic, since the same may be
    noted, and indeed is much more consistently carried out, in
    the Targum of Onkelos. Perhaps such alterations had even been
    introduced into the Hebrew text itself. [2 As in the
    so-called 'Tiqquney Sopherim,' or 'emendations of the
    scribes.' Comp. here generally the investigations of Geiger
    (Urschrift u. Ueberse z. d. Bibel). But these, however
    learned and ingenious, require, like so many of the dicta of
    modern Jewish criticism, to be taken with the utmost caution,
    and in each case subjected to fresh examination, since so
    large a proportion of their writings are what is best
    designated by the German Tendenz-Schriften, and their
    inferences Tendenz-Schlusse. But the critic and the historian
    should have no Tendenz, except towards simple fact and
    historical truth.] But there is this vital difference between
    Palestinainism and Alexandrianism, that, broadly speaking,
    the Hebrew avoidance of anthropomorphisms depends on
    objective, theological and dogmatic, the Hellenistic on
    subjective, philosophical and apologetic, grounds. The Hebrew
    avoids them as he does what seems to him inconsistent with
    the dignity of Biblical heroes and of Israel. 'Great is the
    power of the prophets,' he writes, 'who liken the Creator to
    the creature;' or else [a Mechilta on Ex. xix.] 'a thing is
    written only to break it to the ear', to adapt it to our
    human modes of speaking and understanding; and again, [b Ber.
    31 b.] the 'words of the Torah are like the speech of the
    children of men.' But for this very purpose the words of
    Scripture may be presented in another form, if need be even
    modified, so as to obviate possible misunderstanding, or
    dogmatic error. The Alexandrians arrived at the same
    conclusion, but from an opposite direction. They had not
    theological but philosophical axioms in their minds, truths
    which the highest truth could not, and, as they held, did not
    contravene. Only dig deeper; get beyond the letter to that to
    which it pointed; divest abstract truth of its concrete,
    national, Judaistic envelope, penetrate through the dim porch
    into the temple, and you were surrounded by a blaze of light,
    of which, as its portals had been thrown open, single rays
    had fallen into the night of heathendom. And so the truth
    would appear glorious, more than vindicated in their own
    sight, triumphant in that of others!

     In such manner the LXX. version became really the people's
    Bible to that large Jewish world through which Christianity
    was afterwards to address itself to mankind. It was part of
    the case, that this translation should be regarded by the
    Hellenists as inspired like the original. Otherwise it would
    have been impossible to make final appeal to the very words
    of the Greek; still less, to find in them a mystical and
    allegorical meaning. Only that we must not regard their views
    of inspiration, except as applying to Moses, and even there
    only partially, as identical with ours. To their minds
    inspiration differed quantitatively, not qualitatively, from
    what the rapt soul might at any time experience, so that even
    heathen philosophers might ultimately be regarded as at times
    inspired. So far as the version of the Bible wa concerned
    (and probably on like grounds), similar views obtained at a
    later period even in Hebrew circles, where it was laid down
    that the Chaldee Targum on the Pentateuch had been originally
    spoken to Moses on Sinai, [a Ned. 37 b; Kidd. 49 a.] though
    afterwards forgotten, till restored and re-introduced. [b
    Meg. 3 a.]

     Whether or not the LXX. was read in the Hellenist
    Synagogues, and the worship conducted, wholly or partly, in
    Greek, must be matter of conjecture. We find, however, a
    significant notice [c Jer. Meg. iv. 3,ed. Krot. p. 75a.] to
    the effect that among those who spoke a barbarous language
    (not Hebrew, the term referring specially to Greek), it was
    the custom for one person to read the whole Parashah (or
    lesson for the day), while among the Hebrew-speaking Jews
    this was done by seven persons, successively called up. This
    seems to imply that either the Greek text alone was read, or
    that it followed a Hebrew reading, like the Targum of the
    Easterns. More probably, however, the former would be the
    case, since both Hebrew manuscripts, and persons qualified to
    read them, would be difficult to procure. At any rate, we
    know that the Greek Scriptures were authoritatively
    acknowledged in Palestine, [1 Meg. i. It is, however, fair to
    confess strong doubt, on my part, whether this passage may
    not refer to the Greek translation of Akylas. At the same
    time it simply speaks of a translation into Greek. And before
    the version of Aquila the LXX. alone held that place. It is
    one of the most daring modern Jewish perversions of history
    to identify this Akylas, who flourished about 130 after
    Christ, with the Aquila of the Book of Acts. It wants even
    the excuse of a colourable perversion of the confused story
    about Akylas, which Epiphanius who is so generally
    inaccurate, gives in De Pond. et Mensur. c. xiv. and that the
    ordinary daily prayers might be said in Greek. [2 The 'Shema'
    (Jewish creed), with its collects, the eighteen
    'benedictions,' and 'the grace at meat.' A later Rabbi
    vindicated the use of the 'Shema' in Greek by the argument
    that the word Shema meant not only 'Hear,' but also
    'understand' (Jer. Sotah vii. 1.) Comp. sotah vii. 1, 2. In
    Ber. 40 b, it is said that the Parashah connected with the
    woman suspected of adultery, the prayer and confession at the
    bringing of the tithes, and the various benedictions over
    food, may be said not only in Hebrew, but in any other
    languages.] The LXX. deserved this distinction from its
    general faithfulness, at least, in regard to the Pentateuch,
    and from its preservation of ancient doctrine. Thus, without
    further referring to its full acknowledgment of the doctrine
    of Angels (comp. Deut. xxxii. 8, xxxiii. 2), we specially
    mark that is preserved the Messianic interpretation of Gen.
    xlix. 10, and Numb. xxiv. 7, 17, 23, bringing us evidence of
    what had been the generally received view two and a half
    centuries before the birth of Jesus. It must have been on the
    ground of the use made of the LXX. in argument, that later
    voices in the Synagogue declared this version to have been as
    great calamity to Israel as the making of the golden calf, [a
    Mass. Sopher i. Hal. 7, at the close of vol. ix. of the
    Bab.Talmud.] and that is completion had been followed by the
    terrible omen of an eclipse, that lasted three days. [b
    Hilch. Ged. Taan.] For the Rabbis declared that upon
    investigation it had been found that the Torah could be
    adequately translated only into Greek, and they are most
    extravagant in their praise of the Greek version of Akylas,
    or Aquila, the proselyte, which was made to counteract the
    influence of the LXX. [c Jer. Meg. i. 11, ed. Krot. p. 71 b
    and c.] But in Egypt the anniversary of the completion of the
    LXX. was celebrated by a feast in the island of Pharos, in
    which ultimately even heathens seem to have taken part. [d
    Philo, Vita Mos. ii. ed. Francf. p. 660.]

 INTRODUCTORY.
    THE PREPARATION FOR THE GOSPEL: THE JEWISH WORLD IN THE DAYS
    OF CHRIST

    THE OLD FAITH PREPARING FOR THE NEW, DEVELOPMENT OF
    HELLENIST THEOLOGY: THE APOCRYPHA, ARISTEAS, ARISTOBULUS, AND
    THE PSEUD-EPIGRAPHIC WRITINGS.

    CHAPTER III.

     The translation of the Old Testament into Greek may be
    regarded as the starting-point of Hellenism. It rendered
    possible the hope that what in its original form had been
    confined to the few, might become accessible to the world at
    large. [a Philo, de Vita Mos. ed. Mangey, ii. p. 140.] But
    much yet remained to be done. If the religion of the Old
    Testament had been brought near to the Grecian world of
    thought, the latter had still to be brought near to Judaism.
    Some intermediate stage must be found; some common ground on
    which the two might meet; some original kindredness of spirit
    to which their later divergences might be carried back, and
    where they might finally be reconciled. As the first attempt
    in this direction, first in order, if not always in time, we
    mark the so-called Apocryphal literature, most of which was
    either written in Greek, or is the product of Hellenising
    Jews. [1 All the Apocrypha were originally written in Greek,
    except 1 Macc., Judith, part of Baruch, probably Tobit, and,
    of course, the 'Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach.'] Its
    general object was twofold. First, of course, it was
    apologetic, intended to fill gaps in Jewish history or
    thought, but especially to strengthen the Jewish mind against
    attacks from without, and generally to extol the dignity of
    Israel. Thus, more withering sarcasm could scarcely be poured
    on heathenism than in the apocryphal story of 'Bel and the
    Dragon,' or in the so-called 'Epistle of Jeremy,' with which
    the Book of 'Baruch' closes. The same strain, only in more
    lofty tones, resounds through the Book of the 'Wisdom of
    Solomon,' [b Comp. x. xx.] along with the constantly implied
    contrast between the righteous, or Israel, and sinners, or
    the heathen. But the next object was to show that the deeper
    and purer thinking of heathenism in its highest philosophy
    supported, nay, in some respects, was identical with, the
    fundamental teaching of the Old Testament. This, of course,
    was apologetic of the Old Testament, but it also prepared the
    way for a reconciliation with Greek philosophy. We notice
    this especially in the so-called Fourth Book of Maccabees, so
    long erroneously attributed to Josephus, [1 It is printed in
    Havercamp's edition of Josephus, vol. ii. pp. 497-520. The
    best edition is in Fritzsche, Libri Apocryphi Vet. Test.
    (Lips. 1871).] and in the 'Wisdom of Solomon.' The first
    postulate here would be the acknowledgment of truth among the
    Gentiles, which was the outcome of Wisdom, and Wisdom was the
    revelation of God. This seems already implied in so
    thoroughly Jewish a book as that of Jesus the Son of Sirach.
    [a Comp. for ex. Ecclus. xxiv. 6.] Of coursethere could be no
    alliance with Epicureanism, which was at the opposite pole of
    the Old Testament. But the brilliancy of Plato's speculations
    would charm, while the stern self-abnegation of Stoicism
    would prove almost equally attractive. The one would show why
    they believed, the other why they lived, as they did. Thus
    the theology of the Old Testament would find a rational basis
    in the ontology of Plato, and its ethics in the moral
    philosophy of the Stoics. Indeed, this is the very line of
    argument which Josephus follows in the conclusion of his
    treatise against Apion. [b ii. 39, 40.] This, then, was an
    unassailable position to take:contempt poured on heathenism
    as such, [c Comp. also Jos. Ag. Ap. ii. 34.] and arational
    philosophical basis for Judaism. They were not deep, only
    acute thinkers, these Alexandrians, and the result of their
    speculations was a curious Eclecticism, in which Platonism
    and Stoicism are found, often heterogeneously, side by side.
    Thus, without further details, it may be said that the Fourth
    Book of Maccabees is a Jewish Stoical treatise on the Stoical
    theme of 'the supremacy of reason', the proposition, stated
    at the outset, that 'pious reason bears absolute sway over
    the passions,' being illustrated by the story of the
    martyrdom of Eleazar, and of the mother and her seven sons.
    [d Comp. 2 Macc. vi. 18-vii. 41.] On the other hand, that
    sublime work, the 'Wisdom of Solomon,' contains Platonic and
    Stoic elements [2 Ewald (Gesch. d. Volkes Isr., vol. iv. pp.
    626-632) has given a glowing sketch of it. Ewald rightly says
    that its Grecian elements have been exaggerated; but Bucher
    (Lehre vom Logos, pp. 59-62) utterly fails in denying their
    presence altogether.], chiefly perhaps the latter, the two
    occurring side by side. Thus [e Ch. vii. 22-27.] 'Wisdom,'
    which is so concretely presented as to be almost
    hypostatised, [3 Compare especially ix. 1; xviii. 14-16,
    where the idea of passes into that of the. Of course the
    above remarks are not intended to depreciate the great value
    of this book, alike in itself, and in its practical teaching,
    in its clear enunciation of a retribution as awaiting man,
    and in its important bearing on the New Testament revelation
    of the.] is first described in the language of Stoicism, [f
    Vv. 22-24.] and afterwards set forth, in that of Platonism,
    [g Vv. 25-29.] as 'the breath of thepower of God;' as 'a pure
    influence flowing from the glory of the Almighty;' 'the
    brightness of the everlasting light, the unspotted mirror of
    the power of God, and the image of His goodness.' Similarly,
    we have [a In ch. viii. 7.] a Stoical enumeration of the four
    cardinal virtues, temperance, prudence, justice, and
    fortitude, and close by it the Platonic idea of the soul's
    pre-existence, [b In vv. 19, 20.] and of earth and matter
    pressing it down. [c ix. 15.] How such views would point in
    the direction of the need of a perfect revelation from on
    high, as in the Bible, and of its rational possibility, need
    scarcely be shown.

     But how did Eastern Judaism bear itself towards this
    Apocryphal literature? We find it described by a term which
    seems to correspond to our 'Apocrypha,' as Sepharim Genuzim,'
    'hidden books,' i.e., either such whose origin was hidden,
    or, more likely, books withdrawn from common or
    congregational use. Although they were, of course, carefully
    distinguished from the canonical Scriptures, as not being
    sacred, their use was not only allowed, but many of them are
    quoted in Talmudical writings. [1 Some Apocryphal books which
    have not been preserved to us are mentioned in Talmudical
    writings, among them one, 'The roll of the building of the
    Temple,' alas, lost to us! Comp. Hamburger, vol. ii. pp.
    66-70.] In this respect they are placed on a very different
    footing from the so-called Sepharim Chitsonim, or 'outside
    books,' which probably included both the products of a
    certain class of Jewish Hellenistic literature, and the
    Siphrey Minim, or writings of the heretics. Against these
    Rabbinism can scarcely find terms of sufficient violence,
    even debarring from share in the world to come those who read
    them. [d Sanh 100.] This, not only because they were used
    incontroversy, but because their secret influence on orthodox
    Judaism was dreaded. For similar reasons, later Judaism
    forbade the use of the Apocrypha in the same manner as that
    of the Sepharim Chitsonim. But their influence had already
    made itself felt. The Apocrypha, the more greedily perused,
    not only for their glorification of Judaism, but that they
    were, so to speak, doubtful reading, which yet afforded a
    glimpse into that forbidden Greek world, opened the way for
    other Hellenistic literature, of which unacknowledged but
    frequent traces occur in Talmudical writings. [2 Comp.
    Siegfried, Philo von Alex. pp. 275-299, who, however, perhaps
    overstates the matter.]

     To those who thus sought to weld Grecian thought with Hebrew
    revelation, two objects would naturally present themselves.
    They must try to connect their Greek philosophers with the
    Bible, and they must find beneath the letter of Scripture a
    deeper meaning, which would accord with philosophic truth. So
    far as the text of Scripture was concerned, they had a method
    ready to hand. The Stoic philosophers had busied themselves
    in finding a deeper allegorical meaning, especially in the
    writings of Homer. By applying it to mythical stories, or to
    the popular beliefs, and by tracing the supposed symbolical
    meaning of names, numbers, &c., it became easy to prove
    almost anything, or to extract from these philosophical
    truths ethical principles, and even the later results of
    natural science. [1 Comp. Siegfried, pp. 9-16; Hartmann, Enge
    Verb. d. A. Test. mit d. N., pp. 568-572.] Such a process was
    peculiarly pleasing to the imagination, and the results alike
    astounding and satisfactory, since as they could not be
    proved, so neither could they be disproved. This allegorical
    method [2 This is to be carefully distinguished from the
    typical interpretation and from the mystical, the type being
    prophetic, the mystery spiritually understood.] was the
    welcome key by which the Hellenists might unlock the hidden
    treasury of Scripture. In point of fact, we find it applied
    so early as in the 'Wisdom of Solomon.' [3 Not to speak of
    such sounder interpretations as that of the brazen serpent
    (Wisd. xvi. 6, 7), and of the Fall (ii. 24), or of the view
    presented of the early history of the chosen race in ch. x.,
    we may mention as instances of allegorical interpretation
    that of the manna (xvi. 26-28), and of the high-priestly
    dress (xviii. 24), to which, no doubt, others might be added.
    But I cannot find sufficient evidence of this allegorical
    method in the Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach. The
    reasoning of Hartmann (u. s., pp. 542-547) seems to me
    greatly strained. Of the existence of allegorical
    interpretations in the Synoptic Gospels, or of any connection
    with Hellenism, such as Hartmann, Siegfried, and Loesner
    (Obs. ad. N.T. e Phil. Alex) put into them, I cannot, on
    examination, discover any evidence. Similarity of
    expressions, or even of thought, afford no evidence of inward
    connection. Of the Gospel by St. John we shall speak in the
    sequel. In the Paul ne Epistles we find, as might be
    expected, some allegorical interpretations, chiefly in those
    to the Corinthians, perhaps owing to the connection of that
    church with Apollos. Comp here 1 Cor. ix. 9; x. 4 (Philo,
    Quod deter. potiori insid. 31); 2 Cor. iii. 16; Gal. iv. 21.
    Of the Epistle to the Hebrews and the Apocalypse we cannot
    here speak.]

     But as yet Hellenism had scarcely left the domain of sober
    interpretation. it is otherwise in the letter of the
    Pseudo-Aristeas, to which reference has already been made. [4
    See p. 25.] Here the wildest symbolismis put into the mouth
    of the High-Priest Eleazar, to convince Aristeas and his
    fellow-ambassador that the Mosaic ordinances concerning food
    had not only a political reason, to keep Israel separate from
    impious nations, and a sanitary one, but chiefly a mystical
    meaning. The birds allowed for food were all tame and pure,
    and they fed on corn or vegetable products, the opposite
    being the case with those forbidden. The first lesson which
    this was intended to teach was, that Israel must be just, and
    not seek to obtain aught from others by violence; but, so to
    speak, imitate the habits of those birds which were allowed
    them. The next lesson would be, that each must learn to
    govern his passions and inclinations. Similarly, the
    direction about cloven hoofs pointed to the need of making
    separation, that is, between good and evil; and that about
    chewing the cud to the need of remembering, viz. God and His
    will. [1 A similar principle applied to the prohibition of
    such species as the mouse or the weasel, not only because
    they destroyed everthing, but because they latter, from its
    mode of conceiving and bearing, symbolized listening to evil
    tales, and exaggerated, lying, or malicious speech.] In such
    manner, according to Aristeas, did the High Priest go through
    the catalogue of things forbidden, and of animals to be
    sacrificed, showing from their 'hidden meaning' the majesty
    and sanctity of the Law. [2 Of course this method is
    constantly adopted by Josephus. Comp. for example, Ant. iii.
    1. 6; 7. 7.]

     This was an important line to take, and it differed in
    principle from the allegorical method adopted by the Eastern
    Jews. Not only the Dorshey Reshumoth, [3 Or Dorshey
    Chamuroth, searchers of difficult passages. Zunz. Gottesd.
    Vortr. p. 323. note b.] or searches out of the subleties of
    Scripture, of their indications, but even the ordinry
    Haggadist employed, indeeds, allegoric interpretations.
    Thereby Akiba vindicated for the 'Song of Songs' its place in
    the Canon. Did not Scripture say: 'One thing spake God,
    twofold is what I heard,' [a Ps. lxii. 11; Sanh. 34 a.] and
    did not this imply a twofold meaning; nay, could not the
    Torah be explained by many different methods? [4 The seventy
    languages in which the Law was supposed to have been written
    below Mount Ebal (Sotah vii. 5). I cannot help feeling this
    may in part also refer to the various modes of interpreting
    Holy Scripture, and that there is an allusion to this Shabb.
    88 b, where Ps. lxviii. 12. and Jer. xxiii. 29, are quoted,
    the latter to show that the word of God is like a hammer that
    breaks the rock in a thousand pieces. Comp. Rashi on Gen.
    xxxiii. 20.] What, for example, was the water which Israel
    sought in the wilderness, or the bread and raiment which
    Jacob asked in Bethel, but the Torah and the dignity which it
    conferred? But in all these, and innumerable similar
    instances, the allegorical interpretation was only an
    application of Scripture for homiletical purposes, not a
    searching into a rationale beneath, such as that of the
    Hellenists. The latter the Rabbis would have utterly
    repudiated, on their express principle that 'Scripture goes
    not beyond its plain meaning.' [5 Perhaps we ought here to
    point out one of the most important principles of Rabbinism,
    which has been almost entirely overlooked in modern criticism
    of the Talmud. It is this: that any ordinance, not only of
    the Divine law, but of the Rabbis, even though only given for
    a particular time or occasion, or for a special reason,
    remains in full force for all time unless it be expressly
    recalled (Betsah 5 b). Thus Maimonides (Sepher ha Mitsv.)
    declares the law to extirpate the Canaanites as continuing in
    its obligations. The inferences as to the perpetual
    obligation, not only of the ceremonial law, but of
    sacrifices, will be obvious, and their bearing on the Jewish
    controversy need not be explained. Comp. Chief Rabbi
    Holdheim. d. Ceremonial Gesetz in Messasreich, 1845.] They
    sternly insisted, that we ought not to search into the
    ulterior object and rationale of a law, but simply obey it.
    But it was this very rationale of the Law which the
    Alexandrians sought to find under its letter. It was in this
    sense that Aristobulus, a Hellenist Jew of Alexandria, [b
    About 160 B.C.] sought to explain Scripture. Only a fragment
    of hwork, which seems to have been a Commentary on the
    Pentateuch, dedicated to King Ptolemy (Philometor), has been
    preserved to us (by Clement of Alexandria, and by Eusebius [a
    Praepar. Evang. vii. 14. 1 ; vii. 10. 1-17; xiii. 12.]).
    According to Clement of Alexandria, his aim was, 'to bring
    the Peripatetic philosophy out of the law of Moses, and out
    of the other prophets.' Thus, when we read that God stood, it
    meant the stable order of the world; that He created the
    world in six days, the orderly succession of time; the rest
    of the Sabbath, the preservation of what was created. And in
    such manner could the whole system of Aristole be found in
    the Bible. But how was this to be accounted for? Of course,
    the Bible had not learned from Aristole, but he and all the
    other philosphers had learned from the Bible. Thus, according
    to Aristobulus, Pythagoras, Plato, and all the other sages
    had really learned from Moses, and the broken rays found in
    their writings were united in all their glory in the Torah.

     It was a tempting path on which to enter, and one on which
    there was no standing still. It only remained to give
    fixedness to the allegorical method by reducing it to certain
    principles, or canons of criticism, and to form the
    heterogeneous mass of Grecian philosophemes and Jewish
    theologumena into a compact, if not homogeneous system. This
    was the work of Philo of Alexandria, born about 20 B.C. It
    concerns us not here to inquire what were the intermediate
    links between Aristobulus and Philo. Another and more
    important point claims our attention. If ancient Greek
    philosophy knew the teaching of Moses, where was the historic
    evidence for it? If such did not exist, it must somehow be
    invented. Orpheus was a name which had always lent itself to
    literary frand, [b As Val. Kenaer puts it, Daitr. de Aristob.
    Jud. p. 73.] and so Aristobulus boldl;y produces (whether of
    his own or of others' making) a number of spurious citations
    from Hesiod, Homer, Linus, but especially from Orpheus, all
    Biblical and Jewish in their cast. Aristobulus was neither
    the first nor the last to commit such fraud. The Jewish Sibyl
    boldly, and, as we shall see, successfully personated the
    heathen oracles. And this opens, generally, quite a vista of
    Jewish-Grecia literature. In the second, and even in the
    third century before Christ, there were Hellenist historians,
    such as Eupolemus, Artapanus, Demetrius, and Aristeas; tragic
    and epic poets, such as Ezekiel, Pseudo-Philo, and Theodotus,
    who, after the manner of the ancient classical writers, but
    for their own purposes, described certain periods of Jewish
    history, or sang of such themes as the Exodus, Jerusalem, or
    the rape of Dinah.

     The mention of these spurious quotations naturally leads us
    to another class of spurious literature, which, although not
    Hellenistic, has many elements in common with it, and, even
    when originating with Palestinian Jews is not Palestinian,
    nor yet has been preserved in its language. We allude to what
    are known as the Pseudepigraphic, or Pseudonymic Writings, so
    called because, with one exception, they bear false names of
    authorship. It is difficult to arrange them otherwise than
    chronological, and even here the greatest difference of
    opinions prevails. Their general character (with one
    exception) may be described as anti-heathen, perhaps
    missionary, but chiefly as Apocalyptic. They are attempts at
    taking up the key-note struck in the prophecies of Daniel;
    rather, we should say, to lift the veil only partially raised
    by him, and to point, alike as concerned Israel, and the
    kingdoms of the world, to the past, the present, and the
    future, in the light of the Kingship of the Messiah. Here, if
    anywhere, we might expect to find traces of New Testament
    teaching; and yet, side by side with frequent similarity of
    form, the greatest difference, we had almost said contrast,
    in spirit, prevails.

     Many of these works must have perished. In one of the latest
    of them [a 4 Esdras xiv. 44, 46.] they are put down at
    seventy, probably a roundnumber, having reference to the
    supposed number of the nations of the earth, or to every
    possible mode of interpreting Scripture. They are described
    as intended for 'the wise among the people,' probably those
    whom St. Paul, in the Christian sense, designates as 'knowing
    the time' [b Rom. xiii. 11.] [1 The of St. Paul seems here
    used in exactly the same sense as in later Hebrew. The LXX.
    render it so in five passages (Ezr. v. 3; Dan. iv. 33; vi.
    10; vii. 22, 25).] of the Advent of the Messiah. Viewed in
    this light, they embody the ardent aspirataions and the
    inmost hopes [2 Of course, it suits Jewish, writers, like Dr.
    Jost, to deprecate the value of the Pseudepigrapha. Their
    ardour of expectancy ill agrees with the modern theories,
    which would eliminate, if possible, the Messianic hope from
    ancient Judaism.] of those who longed for the 'consolation of
    Israel,' as they understood it. Nor should we judge their
    personations of authorship according to our Western ideas. [3
    Comp. Dillmann in Herzog's Real-Encykl. vol. xii. p. 301.]
    Pseudonymic writings were common in that age, and a Jew might
    perhaps plead that, even in the Old Testament, books had been
    headed by names which confessedly were not those of their
    authors (such as Samuel, Ruth, Esther). If those inspired
    poets who sang in the spirit, and echoed the strains, of
    Asaph, adopted that designation, and the sons of Korah
    preferred to be known by that title, might not they, who
    could no longer claim the authority of inspiration seek
    attention for their utterances by adopting the names of those
    in whose spirit they professed to write?

     The most interesting as well as the oldest of these books
    are those known as the Book of Enoch, the Sibylline Oracles,
    the Paler of Solomon, and the Book of Jubilees, or Little
    Genesis. Only the briefest notice of them can here find a
    place. [1 For a brief review of the 'Pseudepigraphic
    Writings,' see Appendix I.]

     The Book of Enoch, the oldest parts of which date a century
    and a half before Christ, comes to us from Palestine. It
    professes to be a vision vouchsafed to that Patriacrch, and
    atells of the fall of the Angels and its consequences, and of
    what he saw and heard in his rapt journeys through heaven and
    earth. Of deepest, though often sad, interest, is what it
    says of the Kingdom of Heaven, of the advent of Messiah and
    His Kingdom, and of the last things.

     On the other hand, the Sibylline Oracles, of which the
    oldest portions date from about 160 B.C., come to us from
    Egypt. It is to the latter only that we here refer. Their
    most interesting parts are also the most characteristics. In
    them the ancient heathen myths of the first ages of man are
    welded together with Old Testament notices, while the heathen
    Theogony is recast in a Jewish mould. Thus Noah becomes
    Uranos, Shem Saturn, Ham Titan, and Japheth Japetus.
    Similarly, we have fragments of ancient heathen oracles, so
    to speak, recast in a Jewish edition. The strangest
    circumstance is, that the utterances of this Judaising and
    Jewish Sibyl seem to have passed as the oracles of the
    ancient Erythraean, which had predicted the fall of Troy, and
    as those of the Sibyl of Cumae, which, in the infancy of
    Rome, Tarquinius Superbus had deposited in the Capitol.

     The collection of eighteen hymns known as the Psalter of
    Solomon dates from more than half a century before our ear.
    No doubt the e original was Hebrew, though they breathe a
    somewhat Hellenistic spirit. They express ardent Messianic
    aspirations, and a firm faith in the Resurrection, and in
    eternal rewards and punishments.

     Different in character from the preceding works is The Book
    of Jubilees, so called from its chronological arrangement
    into 'Jubilee-periods', or 'Little Genesis.' It is chiefly a
    kind of legendary supplement to the Book of Genesis, intended
    to explain some of its historic difficulties, and to fill up
    its historic lacunae. It was probably written about the time
    of Christ, and this gives it a special interest, by a
    Palestinian, and in Hebrew, or rather Aramaean. But, like the
    rest of the Apocryphal and Pseudepigraphic literature which
    comes from Palestine, or was originally written in Hebrew, we
    posses it no longer in that language, but only in
    translation.

     If from this brief review of Hellenist and Pseudepigraphic
    literature we turn to take a retrospect, we can scarcely fail
    to perceive, on the one hand, the development of the old, and
    on the other the preparation for the new, in other words, the
    grand expectancy awakened, and the grand preparation made.
    One step only remained to complete what Hellenism had already
    begun. That completion came through one who, although himself
    untouched by the Gospel, perhaps more than any other prepared
    alike his co-religionists the Jews, and his countrymen the
    Greeks, for the new teaching, which, indeed, was presented by
    many of its early advocates in the forms which they had
    learned from him. That man was Philo the Jew, of Alexandria.

 INTRODUCTORY.
    THE PREPARATION FOR THE GOSPEL: THE JEWISH WORLD IN THE DAYS
    OF CHRIST

    PHILO OF ALEXANDRIA, THE RABBIS, AND THE GOSPELS, THE FINAL
    DEVELOPMENT OF HELLENISM IN ITS RELATION TO RABBINISM AND THE
    GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. JOHN.

    CHAPTER IV.

     It is strange how little we know of the personal history of
    the greatest of uninspired Jewish writers of old, though he
    occupied so prominent a position in his time. [1 Hausrath
    (N.T. Zeitg. vol. ii. p. 222 &c.) has given a highly
    imaginative picture of Philo, as, indeed, of many other
    persons and things.] Philo was born in Alexandria, about the
    year 20 before Christ. He was a descendant of Aaron, and
    belonged to one of the wealthiest and most influential
    families among the Jewish merchant-princes of Egypt. His
    brother was the political head of that community in
    Alexandria, and he himself on one occasion represented his
    co-religionists, though unsuccessfully, at Rome, [a 39 or 40
    A.D.] as the head of an embassy to entreat the Emperior
    Caligula for protection from the persecutions consequent on
    the Jewish resistance to placing statues of the Emperor in
    their Synagogues. But it is not with Philo, the wealthy
    aristocratic Jew of Alexandria, but with the great writer and
    thinker who, so to speak, completed Jewish Hellenism, that we
    have here to do. Let us see what was his relation alike to
    heathen philosophy and to the Jewish faith, of both of which
    he was the ardent advocate, and how in his system he combined
    the teaching of the two.

     To begin with, Philo united in rare measure Greek learning
    with Jewish enthusiasm. In his writings he very frequently
    uses classical modes of expression; [2 Siegfried has, with
    immense labor, collected a vast number of parallel
    expressions, chiefly from Plato and Plutarch (pp. 39-47).] he
    names not fewer than sixty-four Greek writers; [3 Comp.
    Grossmann, Quaest. Phil. i. p. 5 &c.] and he either alludes
    to, or quotes frequently from, such sources as Homer, Hesiod,
    Pindar, Solon, the great Greek tragedians, Plato, and others.
    But to him these men were scarcely 'heathen.' He had sat at
    their feet, and learned to weave a system from Pythagoras,
    Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics. The gatherings of these
    philosophers were 'holy,' and Plato was 'the great.' But
    holier than all was the gathering of the true Israel; and
    incomparably greater than any, Moses. From him had all sages
    learned, and with him alone was all truth to be found, not,
    indeed, in the letter, but under the letter, of Holy
    Scripture. If in Numb. xxiii. 19 we read 'God is not a man,'
    and in Deut. i. 31 that the Lord was 'as a man,' did it not
    imply, on the one hand, the revelation of absolute truth by
    God, and, on the other, accommodation to those who were weak?
    Here, then, was the principle of a twofold interpretation of
    the Word of God, the literal and the allegorical. The letter
    of the text must be held fast; and Biblical personages and
    histories were real. But only narrow-minded slaves of the
    letter would stop here; the more so, as sometimes the literal
    meaning alone would be tame, even absurd; while the
    allegorical interpretation gave the true sense, even though
    it might occassionally run counter to the letter. Thus, the
    patriarchs represented states of the soul; and, whatever the
    letter might bear, Joseph represented one given to the
    fleshly, whom his brothers rightly hated; Simeon the soul
    aiming after the higher; the killing of the Egyptian by
    Moses, the subjugation of passion, and so on. But this
    allegorical interpretation, by the side of the literal (the
    Peshat of the Palestinians), though only for the few, was not
    arbitrary. It had its 'laws,' and 'canons', some of which
    excluded the literal interpretation, while others admitted it
    by the side of the higher meaning. [1 In this sketch of the
    system of Philo I have largely availed myself of the careful
    analysis of Siegfried.]

     To begin with the former: the literal sense must be wholly
    set aside, when it implied anything unworthy of the Deity,
    anything unmeaning, impossible, or contrary to reason.
    Manifestly, this canon, if strictly applied, would do away
    not only with all anthropomorphisms, but cut the knot
    wherever difficulties seemed insuperable. Again, Philo would
    find an allegorical, along with the literal, interpretation
    indicated in the reduplication of a word, and in seemingly
    superfluous words, particles, or expressions. [2 It should be
    noted that these are also Talmudical canons, not indeed for
    allegorical interpretation, but as pointing to some special
    meaning, since there was not a word or particle in Scripture
    without a definite meaning and object.] These could, of
    course, only bear such a meaning on Philo's assumption of the
    actual inspiration of the LXX. version. Similarly, in exact
    accordance with a Talmudical canon, [a Baba K 64 a.] any
    repetition of what had been already stated would point to
    something new. These were comparatively sober rules of
    exegesis. Not so the licence which he claimed of freely
    altering the punctuation [3 To illustrate what use might be
    made of such alterations, the Midrash (Ber. R. 65) would have
    us punctuate Gen. xxvii. 19, as follows: 'And Jacob said unto
    his father, I (viz. am he who will receive the ten
    commandments), (but) Esau (is) thy firstborn.' In Yalkut
    there is the still more curious explanation that in heaven
    the soul of Jacob was the firstborn!] of sentences, and his
    notion that, if one from among several synonymous words was
    chosen in a passage, this pointed to some special meaning
    attaching to it. Even more extravagant was the idea, that a
    word which occurred in the LXX. might be interpreted
    according to every shade of meaning which it bore in the
    Greek, and that even another meaning might be given it by
    slightly altering the letters. However, like other of Philo's
    allegorical canons, these were also adopted by the Rabbis,
    and Haggadic interpretations were frequently prefaced by:
    'Read not thus, but thus.' If such violence might be done to
    the text, we need not wonder at interpretations based on a
    play upon words, or even upon parts of a word. Of course, all
    seemingly strange or peculiar modes of expression, or of
    designation, occurring in Scripture, must have their special
    meaning, and so also every particle, adverb, or preposition.
    Again, the position of a verse, its succession by another,
    the apparently unaccountable presence or absence of a word,
    might furnish hints for some deeper meaning, and so would an
    unexpected singular for a plural, or vice versa, the use of a
    tense, even the gender of a word. Most serious of all, an
    allegorical interpretation might be again employed as the
    basis of another. [1 Each of these positions is capable of
    ample proof from Philo's writings, as shown by Siegfried. But
    only a bare statement of these canons was here possible.]

     We repeat, that these allegorical canons of Philo are
    essentially the same as those of Jewish traditionalism in the
    Haggadah, [2 Comp. our above outline with the 'XXV. theses de
    modis et formulis quibus pr. Hebr. doctores SS. interpretari
    etc. soliti fuerunt,' in Surenhusius, Biblos, pp. 57-88.]
    only the latter were not rationalising, and far more
    brilliant in their application. [3 For a comparison between
    Philo and Rabbinic theology, see Appendix II.: 'Philo and
    Rabbinic Theology.' Freudenthal (Hellen. Studien, pp. 67 &c.)
    aptly designates this mixture of the two as 'Hellenistic
    Midrash,' it being difficult sometimes to distinguish whether
    it originated in Palestine or in Egypt, or else in both
    independently. Freudenthal gives a number of curious
    instances in which Hellenism and Rabbinism agree in their
    interpretations. For other interesting comparisons between
    Haggadic interpretations and those of Philo, see Joel, Blick
    in d. Religionsgesch. i. p. 38 &c.] In another respect also
    the Palestinian had the advantage of the Alexandrian
    exegesis. Reverently and cautiously it indicated what might
    be omitted in public reading, and why; what expressions of
    the original might be modified by the Meturgeman, and how; so
    as to avoid alike one danger by giving a passage in its
    literality, and another by adding to the sacred text, or
    conveying a wrong impression of the Divine Being, or else
    giving occasion to the unlearned and unwary of becoming
    entangled in dangerous speculations. Jewish tradition here
    lays down some principles which would be of great practical
    use. Thus we are told, [a Ber. 31 b.] that Scripture uses the
    modes ofexpression common among men. This would, of course,
    include all anthropomorphisms. Again, sometimes with
    considerable ingenuity, a suggestion is taken from a word,
    such as that Moses knew the Serpent was to be made of brass
    from the similarity of the two words (nachash, a serpent, and
    nechosheth, brass. [b Ber. R. 31.] Similarly, it is noted
    that Scripture uses euphemistic language, so as to preserve
    the greatest delicacy. [c Ber. R. 70.] These instances might
    be multiplied, but the above will suffice.

     In his symbolical interpretations Philo only partially took
    the same road as the Rabbis. The symbolism of numbers and, so
    far as the Sanctuary was concerned, that of colours, and even
    materials, may, indeed, be said to have its foundation in the
    Old Testament itself. The same remark applies partially to
    that of names. The Rabbis certainly so interpreted them. [1
    Thus, to give only a few out of many examples, Ruth is
    derived from ravah, to satiate to give to drink, because
    David, her descendant, satiated God with his Psalms of praise
    (Ber. 7 b). Here the principle of the significance of
    Biblenames is deduced from Ps. xlvi. 8 (9 in the Hebrew):
    'Come, behold the works of the Lord, who hath made names on
    earth,' the word 'desolations,' SHAMOTH, being altered to
    SHEMOTH, 'names.' In general, that section, from Ber. 3 b, to
    the end of 8 a, is full of Haggadic Scripture
    interpretations. On fol. 4 a there is the curious symbolical
    derivation of Mephibosheth, who is supposed to have set David
    right on halakhic questions, as Mippi bosheth: 'from my mouth
    shaming,' 'because he put to shame the face of David in the
    Halakhah.' Similarly in Siphre (Par. Behaalothekha, ed.
    Friedmann, p. 20 a) we have very beautiful and ingenious
    interpretations of the names Reuel, Hobab and Jethro.] But
    the application which Philo made of this symbolism was very
    different. Everything became symbolical in his hands, if it
    suited his purpose: numbers (in a very arbitrary manner),
    beasts, birds, fowls, creeping things, plants, stones,
    elements, substances, conditions, even sex, and so a term or
    an expression might even have several and contradictory
    meanings, from which the interpreter was at liberty to
    choose.

     From the consideration of the method by which Philo derived
    from Scriptures his theological views, we turn to a brief
    analysis of these views. [2 It would be impossible here to
    give the references, which would occupy too much space.]

     1. Theology. In reference to God, we find, side by side, the
    apparently contradictory views of the Platonic and the Stoic
    schools. Following the former, the sharpest distinction was
    drawn between God and the world. God existed neither in
    space, nor in time; He had neither human qualities nor
    afections; in fact, He was without any qualities ( ), and
    even without any name ( ) ; hence, wholly uncognisable by man
    ( ). Thus, changing the punctuation and the accents, the LXX.
    of Gen. iii. 9 was made to read: 'Adam, thou art somewhere;'
    but God had no somewhere, as Adam seemed to think when he hid
    himself from Him. In the above sense, also, Ex. iii. 14, and
    vi. 3, were explained, and the two names Elohim and Jehovah
    belonged really to the two supreme Divine 'Potencies,' while
    the fact of God's being uncognisable appeared from Ex. xx.
    21.

     But side by side with this we have, to save the Jewish, or
    rather Old Testament, idea of creation and providence, the
    Stoic notion of God as immanent in the world, in fact, as
    that alone which is real in it, as always working: in short,
    to use his own Pantheistic expression, as 'Himself one and
    the all' ( ). Chief in His Being is His goodness, the
    forthgoing of which was the ground of creation. Only the good
    comes from Him. With matter He can have nothing to do, hence
    the plural number in the account of creation. God only
    created the soul, and that only of the good. In the sense of
    being 'immanent,' God is everywhere, nay, all things are
    really only in Him, or rather He is the real in all. But
    chiefly is God the wellspring and the light of the soul, its
    'Saviour' from the 'Egypt' of passion. Two things follow.
    With Philo's ideas of the sepration between God and matter,
    it was impossible always to account for miracles or
    interpositions. Accordingly, these are sometimes allegorised,
    sometimes rationalistically explained. Further, the God of
    Philo, whatever he might say to the contrary, was not the God
    of that Israel which was His chosen people.
    2. Intermediary Beings. Potencies ( ). If, in what has
    preceded, we have once and again noticed a remarkable
    similarity between Philo and the Rabbis, there is a still
    more curious analogy between his teaching and that of Jewish
    Mysticism, as ultimately fully developed in the 'Kabbalah.'
    The very term Kabbalah (from qibbel, to hand down) seems to
    point out not only its descent by oral tradition, but also
    its ascent to ancient sources. [1 For want of handier
    material I must take leave to refer to my brief sketch of the
    Kabbalah in the 'History of the Jewish Nation,' pp. 434-446.]
    Its existence is presupposed, and its leading ideas are
    sketched in the Mishnah. [a Chag. ii. 1.]The Targums also
    bear at least one remarkable trace of it. May it not be, that
    as Philo frequently refers to ancient tradition, so both
    Eastern and Western Judaism may here have drawn from one and
    the same source, we will not venture to suggest, how high up,
    while each made such use of it as suited their distinctive
    tendencies? At any rate the Kabbalah also, likening Scripture
    to a person, compares those who study merely the letter, to
    them who attend only to the dress; those who consider the
    mnoral of a fact, to them who attend to the body; while the
    initiated alone, who regard the hidden meaning, are those who
    attend to the soul. Again, as Philo, so the oldest part of
    the Mishnah [a Ab. v. 4.] designates God as Maqom, 'the
    place', the, the all-comprehending, what the Kabbalists
    called the EnSoph, 'the boundless,' that God, without any
    quality, Who becomes cognisable only by His manifestations.
    [1 In short, the of the Stoics.]

     The manifestations of God! But neither Eastern mystical
    Judaism, nor the philosophy of Philo, could admit of any
    direct contact between God and creation. The Kabbalah solved
    the difficulty by their Sephiroth, [2 Supposed to mean either
    numerationes, or splendour. But why not derive the word from
    ? The ten are: Crown, Wisdom, Intelligence, Mercy, Judgment,
    Beauty, Triumph, Praise, Foundation, Kingdom.] or emanations
    from God, through which this contact was ultimately brought
    about, and of which the EnSoph, or crown, was the spring:
    'the source from which the infinite light issued.' If Philo
    found greater difficulties, he had also more ready help from
    the philosophical systems to hand. His Sephiroth were
    'Potencies' ( ), 'Words' ( ), intermediate powers.
    'Potencies,' as we imagine, when viewed Godwards; 'Words,' as
    viewed creationwards. They were not emanations, but,
    according to Plato, 'archetypal ideas,' on the model of which
    all that exists was formed; and also, according to the Stoic
    idea, the cause of all, pervading all, forming all, and
    sustaining all. Thus these 'Potencies' were wholly in God,
    and yet wholly out of God. If we divest all this of its
    philosophical colouring, did not Eastern Judaism also teach
    that there was a distinction between the Unapproachable God,
    and God manifest? [3 For the teaching of Eastern Judaism in
    this respect, see Appendix II.: 'Philo and Rabbinic
    Theology.']

     Another remark will show the parallelism between Philo and
    Rabbinism. [4 A very interesting question arises: how far
    Philo was acquainted with, and influenced by, the Jewish
    traditional law or the Halakhah. This has been treated by Dr.
    B. Ritter in an able tractate (Philo u. die Halach.),
    although he attributes more to Philo than the evidence seems
    to admit.] As the latter speaks of the two qualities
    (Middoth) of Mercy and Judgment in the Divine Being, [b Jer.
    Ber. ix. 7.] and distinguishes between Elohim as the God of
    Justice, and Jehovah as the God of Mercy and Grace, so Philo
    places next to the Divine Word ( ), Goodness ( ), as the
    Creative Potency ( ), and Power ( ), as the Ruling Potency (
    ), proving this by a curious etymological derivation of the
    words for 'God' and 'Lord' ( ), apparently unconscious that
    the LXX., in direct contradiction, translated Jehovah by Lord
    ( ), and Elohim by God ( )! These two potencies of goodness
    and power, Philo sees in the two Cherubim, and in the two
    'Angels' which accompanied God (the Divine Word), when on his
    way to destroy the cities of the plain. But there were more
    than these two Potencies. In one place Philo enumerates six,
    according to the number of the cities of refuge. The
    Potencies issued from God as the beams from the light, as the
    waters from the spring, as the breath from a person; they
    were immanent in God, and yet independent beings. They were
    the ideal world, which in its impulse outwards, meeting
    matter, produced this material world of ours. They were also
    the angels of God, His messengers to man, the media through
    whom He reveled Himself. [1 At the same time there is a
    remarkable difference here between Philo and Rabbinism. Philo
    holds that the creation of the world was brought about by the
    Potencies, but the Law was given directly through Moses, and
    not by the mediation of angels. But this latter was certainly
    the view generally entertained in Palestine as expressed in
    the LXX. rendering of Deut. xxxii. 2, in the Targumim on that
    passage, and more fully still in Jos. Ant. xv. 5. 3, in the
    Midrashim and in the Talmud, where we are told (Macc. 24 a)
    that only the opening words, 'I am the Lord thy God, thou
    shalt have no other gods but Me,' were spoken by God Himself.
    Comp. also Acts vii. 38, 53; Gal. iii. 19; Heb. ii. 2.]
     3. The Logos. Viewed in its bearing on New Testament
    teaching, this part of Philo's system raises the most
    interesting questions. But it is just here that our
    difficulties are greatest. We can understand the Platonic
    conception of the Logos as the 'archetypal idea,' and that of
    the Stoics as the 'world-reason' pervading matter. Similarly,
    we can perceive, how the Apocrypha, especially the Book of
    Wisdom, following up the Old Testament typical truth
    concerning "Wisdom' (as specially set forth in the Book of
    Proverbs) almost arrived so far as to present 'Wisdom' as a
    special 'Subsistence' (hypostatising it). More than this, in
    Talmudical writings, we find mention not only of the Shem, or
    'Name,' [2 Hammejuchad, 'appropriatum;' hammephorash,
    'expositum,' 'separatum,' the 'tetragrammaton,' or
    four-lettered name, There was also a Shem with 'twelve,' and
    one with 'forty-two' letters (Kidd. 71 a).] but also of the
    Shekhinah,' God as manifest and present, which is sometimes
    also presented as the Ruach ha Qodesh, or Holy Spirit. [a Or
    Ruach ham Maqom, Ab. iii. 10, and frequently in the Talmud.]
    But in the Targumim we eet yet another expression, which,
    strange to say, never occurs in the Talmud. [1 Levy (Neuhebr.
    Worterb. i. p. 374 a.) seems to imply that in the Midrash the
    term dibbur occupies the same place and meaning. But with all
    deference I cannot agree with this opinion, nor do the
    passages quoted bear it out.] It is that of the Memra, Logos,
    or 'Word.' Not that the term is exclusively applied to the
    Divine Logos. [2 The 'word,' as spoken, is distinguished from
    the 'Word' as speaking, or revealing Himself. The former is
    generally designated by the term 'pithgama.' Thus in Gen. XV.
    1, 'After these words (things) came the "pithgama" of Jehovah
    to Abram in prophecy, saying, Fear not, Abram, My "Memra"
    shall be thy strength, and thy very great reward.' Still, the
    term Memra, as applied not only to man, but also in reference
    to God, is not always the equivalent of 'the Logos.'] But it
    stands out as perhaps the most remarkable fact in this
    literature, that God, not as in His permanent manifestation,
    or manifest Presence, but as revealing Himself, is designated
    Memra. Altogether that term, as applied to God, occurs in the
    Targum Onkelos 179 times, in the so-called Jerusalem Targum
    99 times, and in the Targum Pseudo-Jonathan 321 times. A
    critical analysis shows that in 82 instances in Onkelos, in
    71 instances in the Jerusalem Targum, and in 213 instances in
    the Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, the designation Memra is not only
    distinguished from God, but evidently refers to God as
    revealing Himself. [3 The various passages in the Targum of
    Onkelos, the Jerusalem, and the Pseudo-Jonathan Targum on the
    Pentateuch will be found enumerated and classified, as those
    in which it is a doubtful, a fair, or an unquestionable
    inference, that the word Memra is intended for God revealing
    Himself, in Appendix II.: 'Philo and Rabbinic Theology.'] But
    what does this imply? The distinction between God and the
    Memra of Jehovah is marked in many passages. [4 As, for
    example, Gen. xxviii. 21, 'the Memra of Jehovah shall be my
    God.'] Similarly, the Memra of Jehovah is distinguished from
    the Shekhinah. [5 As, for example, Num. xxiii. 21, 'the Memra
    of Jehovah their God is their helper, and the Shekhinah of
    their King is in the midst of them.'] Nor is the term used
    instead of the sacred word Jehovah; [6 That term is often
    used by Onkelos. Besides, the expression itself is 'the Memra
    of Jehovah.'] nor for the well-known Old Testament expression
    'the Angel of the Lord; [7 Onkelos only once (in Ex. iv. 24)
    paraphrases Jehovah by 'Malakha.'] nor yet for the Metatron
    of the Targum Pseudo-Jonathan and of the Talmud. [8 Metatron,
    either = , or In the Talmud it is applied to the Angel of
    Jehovah (Ex. xxiii. 20), 'the Prince of the World,' 'the
    Prince of the Face' or 'of the Presence,' as they call him;
    he who sits in the innermost chamber before God, while the
    other angels only hear His commands from behind the veil
    (Chag. 15 a; 16 a; Toseft. ad Chull. 60 a; Jeb. 16 b). This
    Metatron of the Talmud and the Kabbalah is also the Adam
    Qadmon, or archetypal man.] Does it then represent an older
    tradition underlying all these? [9 Of deep interest is
    Onkelos' rendering of Deut. xxxiii. 27, where, instead of
    'underneath are the everlasting arms,' Onkelos has, 'and by
    His Memra was the world created,' exactly as in St John i.
    10. Now this divergence of Onkelos from the Hebrew text seems
    unaccountable. Winer, whose inaugural dissertation, 'De
    Onkeloso ejusque paraph. Chald.' Lips. 1820, most modern
    writers have followed (with amplifications, chiefly from
    Luzzato's Philoxenus), makes no reference to this passage,
    nor do his successors, so far as I know.
     It is curious that, as our present Hebrew text of this verse
    consists of three words, so does the rendering of Onkelos,
    and that both end with the same word. Is the rendering of
    Onkelos then a paraphrase, or does it represent another
    reading? Another interesting passage is Deut. viii. 3. Its
    quotation by Christ in St. Matt. iv. 4 is deeply interesting,
    as read in the light of the rendering of Onkelos, 'Not by
    bread alone is man sustained, but by every forthcoming Memra
    from before Jehovah shall man live.' Yet another rendering of
    Onkelos is significantly illustrative of 1 Cor. x. 1-4. He
    renders Deut. xxxiii. 3 'with power He brought them out of
    Egypt; they were led under thy cloud; they journeyed
    according to (by) thy Memra.' Does this represent a
    difference in Hebrew from the admittedly difficult text in
    our present Bible? Winer refers to it as an instance in which
    Onkelos 'suopte ingenio et copiose admodum eloquitur vatum
    divinorum mentem,' adding, 'ita ut de his, quas singulis
    vocibus inesse crediderit, significationibus non possit recte
    judicari;' and Winer's successors say much the same. But this
    is to state, not to explain, the difficulty. In general, we
    may here be allowed to say that the question of the Targumim
    has scarcely received as yet sufficient treatment. Mr.
    Deutsch's Article in Smith's 'Dictionary of the Bible' (since
    reprinted in his 'Remains') is, though brilliantly written,
    unsatisfactory. Dr. Davidson (in Kitto's Cyclop., vol. iii.
    pp. 948-966) is, as always, careful, laborious, and learned.
    Dr. Volck's article (in Herzog's Real-Encykl., vol. xv. pp.
    672-683) is without much intrinsic value, though painstaking.
    We mention these articles, besides the treatment of the
    subject in the Introduction to the Old Testament (Keil, De
    Wette-Schrader, Bleek-kamphausen, Reuss), and the works of
    Zunz, Geiger, Noldeke, and others, to whom partial reference
    has already been made. Frankel's interesting and learned book
    (Zu dem Targum der Propheten) deals almost exclusively with
    the Targum Jonathan, on which it was impossible to enter
    within our limits. As modern brochures of interest the
    following three may be mentioned: Maybaum, Anthropomorphien
    bei Onkelos; Gronemann, Die Jonath. Pentat. Uebers. im
    Verhaltn. z. Halacha; and Singer, Onkelos im Verhaltn. z.
    Halacha.] Beyond this Rabbinic theology has not preserved to
    us the doctrine of Personal distinctions in the Godhead. And
    yet, if words have any meaning, the Memra is a hypostasis,
    though the distinction of permanent, personal Subsistence is
    not marked. Nor yet, to complete this subject, is the Memra
    identified with the Messiah. In the Targum Onkelos distinct
    mention is twice made of Him, [a Gen. xlix. 10, 11; Num.
    xxiv. 17.] while in the other Targumim no fewer than
    seventy-one Biblical passages are rendered with explicit
    reference to Him.

     If we now turn to the views expressed by Philo about the
    Logos we find that they are hesitating, and even
    contradictory. One thing, however, is plain: the Logos of
    Philo is not the Memra of the Targumim. For, the expression
    Memra ultimately rests on theological, that of Logos on
    philosophical grounds. Again, the Logos of Philo approximates
    more closely to the Metatron of the Talmud and Kabbalah. As
    they speak of him as the 'Prince of the Face,' who bore the
    name of his Lord, so Philo represents the Logos as 'the
    eldest Angel,' 'the many-named Archangel,' in accordance with
    the Jewish view that the name JeHoVaH unfolded its meaning in
    seventy names for the Godhead. [1 See the enumeration of
    these 70 Names in the Baal-ha-Turim on Numb. xi. 16.] As they
    speak of the 'Adam Qadmon,' so Philo of the Logos as the
    human reflection of the eternal God. And in both these
    respects, it is worthy of notice that he appeals to ancient
    teaching. [2 Comp. Siegfried, u. s., pp. 221-223.]

     What, then, is the Logos of Philo? Not a concrete
    personality, and yet, from another point of view, not
    strictly impersonal, nor merely a property of the Deity, but
    the shadow, as it were, which the light of God casts--and if
    Himself light, only the manifested reflection of God, His
    spiritual, even as the world is His material, habitation.
    Moreover, the Logos is 'the image of God' ( ) upon which man
    was made, [a Gen. i. 27.] or, to use the platonic term, 'the
    archetypal idea.' As regards the relation between the Logos
    and the two fundamental Potencies (from which all others
    issue), the latter are variously represented, on the one
    hand, as proceeding from the Logos; and on the other, as
    themselves constituting the Logos. As regards the world, the
    Logos is its real being. He is also its archetype; moreover
    the instrument ( ) through Whom God created all things. If
    the Logos separates between God and the world, it is rather
    as intermediary; He separates, but He also unites. But
    chiefly does this hold true as regards the relation between
    God and man. The Logos announces and interprets to man the
    will and mind of God ( ) He acts as mediator; He is the real
    High-Priest, and as such by His purity takes away the sins of
    man, and by His intercession procures for us the mercy of
    God, Hence Philo designates Him not only as the High-Priest,
    but as the 'Paraclete.' He is also the sun whose rays
    enlighten man, the medium of Divine revelation to the soul;
    the Manna, or support of spiritual life; He Who dwells in the
    soul. And so the Logos is, in the fullest sense, Melchisedek,
    the priest of the most high God, the king of righteousness ,
    and the king of Salem Who brings righteousness and peace to
    the soul. [b De Leg. Alleg. iii 25,26.] But the Logos 'does
    not come into any soul that is dead in sin.' That there is
    close similarity of form between these Alexandrian views and
    much in the argumentation of the Epistle to the Hebrews, must
    be evident to all, no less than that there is the widest
    possible divergence in substance and spirit. [1 For a full
    discussion of this similarity of form and divergence of
    spirit, between Philo, or, rather, between Alexandrianism,
    and the Epistle to the Hebrews, the reader is referred to the
    masterly treatise by Riehm (Der Lehrbegriff d. Hebraerbr. ed.
    1867, especially pp. 247-268, 411-424, 658-670, and 855-860).
    The author's general view on the subject is well and
    convincingly formulated on p. 249. We must, however, add, in
    opposition to Riehm, that, by his own showing the writer of
    the Epistle to the Hebrews displays few traces of a
    Palestinian training.] The Logos of Philo is shadowy, unreal,
    not a Person; [2 On the subject of Philo's Logos generally
    the brochure of Harnoch (Konigsberg, 1879) deserves perusal,
    although it does not furnish much that is new. In general,
    the student of Philo ought especially to study the sketch by
    Zeller in his Philosophie der Gr. vol. iii. pt. ii. 3rd ed.
    pp. 338-418.] there is no need of an atonement; the
    High-Priest intercedes, but has no sacrifice to offer as the
    basis of His intercession, least of all that of Himself; the
    old Testament types are only typical ideas, not typical
    facts; they point to a Prototypal Idea in the eternal past,
    not to an Antitypal Person and Fact in history; there is no
    cleansing of the soul by blood, no sprinkling of the Mercy
    Seat, no access for all through the rent veil into the
    immediate Presence of God; nor yet a quickening of the soul
    from dead works to serve the living God. If the argumentation
    of the Epistle to the Hebrews is Alexandrian, it is an
    Alexandrianism which is overcome and past, which only
    furnishes the form, not the substance, the vessel, not its
    contents. The closer therefore the outward similarity, the
    greater is the contrast in substance.

     The vast difference between Alexandrianism and the New
    Testament will appear still more clearly in the views of
    Philo on Cosmology and Anthropology. In regard to the former,
    his results in some respects run parallel to those of the
    students of mysticism in the Talmud, and of the Kabbalists.
    Together with the Stoic view, which represented God as 'the
    active cause' of this world, and matter as 'the passive,'
    Philo holds the Platonic idea, that matter was something
    existent, and that is resisted God. [1 With singular and
    characteristic inconsistency, Philo, however, ascribes also
    to God the creation of matter (de Somn. i. 13).] Such
    speculations must have been current among the Jews long
    before, to judge by certain warning given by the Son of
    Sirach. [a As for example Ecclus. iii. 21-24.] [2 So the
    Talmudists certainly understood it, Jer. Chag. ii. 1.] And
    Stoic views of the origin of the world seem implied even in
    the Book of the Wisdom of Solomon (i. 7; vii. 24; viii. 1;
    xii. 1). [3 Comp. Grimm, Exeg. Handb. zu d. Apokr., Lief. vi.
    pp. 55, 56.] The mystics in the Talmud arrived at similar
    conclusions, not through Greek, but through Persian teaching.
    Their speculations [4 They were arranged into those
    concerning the Maasey Bereshith (Creation), and the Maasey
    Merkabbah, 'the chariot' of Ezekiel's vision (Providence in
    the widest sense, or God's manifestation in the created
    world).] boldly entered on the dangerous ground, [5 Of the
    four celebrities who entered the 'Pardes,' or enclosed
    Paradise of theosophic speculation, one became an apostate,
    another died, a third went wrong (Ben Soma), and only Akiba
    escaped unscathed, according to the Scripture saying, 'Draw
    me, and we will run' (Chag. 14 b).] forbidden to the many,
    scarcely allowed to the few, [6 'It is not lawful to enter
    upon the Maasey Bereshith in presence of two, nor upon the
    Merkabhah in presence of one, unless he be a "sage," and
    understands of his own knowledge. Any one who ratiocinates on
    these four things, it were better for him that he had not
    been born: What is above and what is below; what was afore,
    and what shall be hereafter.' (Chag. ii. 1).] where such deep
    questions as the origin of our world and its connection with
    God were discussed. It was, perhaps, only a beautiful poetic
    figure that God had taken of the dust under the throne of His
    glory, and cast it upon the waters, which thus became earth.
    [b Shem. R. 13.] But so far did isolated teachers become
    intoxicated [1 'Ben Soma went astray (mentally): he shook the
    (Jewish) world.'] by the new wine of these strange
    speculations, that they whispered it to one another that
    water was the original element of the world, [2 That
    criticsm, which one would designate as impertinent, which
    would find this view in 2 Peter iii. 5, is, alas! not
    confined to Jewish writers, but hazarded even by De Wette.]
    which had successively been hardened into snow and then into
    earth. [a Jer. Chag. 77a] [3 Judah bar Pazi, in the second
    century. Ben Soma lived in the first century of our era.]
    Other and later teachers fixed upon the air or the fire as
    the original element, arguing the pre-existence of matter
    from the use of the word 'made' in Gen. i. 7. instead of
    'created.' Some modified this view, and suggested that God
    had originally created the three elements of water, air or
    spirit, and fire, from which all else was developed. [4
    According to the Jerusalem Talmud (Ber. i. I) the firmament
    was at first soft, and only gradually became hard. According
    to Ber. R. 10, God created the world from a mixture of fire
    and snow, other Rabbis suggesting four original elements,
    according to the quarters of the globe, or else six, adding
    to them that which is above and that which is below. A very
    curious idea is that of R. Joshua ben Levi, according to
    which all the works of creation were really finished on the
    first day, and only, as it were, extended on the other days.
    This also represents really a doubt of the Biblical account
    of creation. Strange though it may sound, the doctrine of
    development was derived from the words (Gen. ii. 4). 'These
    are the generations of heaven and earth when they were
    created, in the day when Jahveh Elohim made earth and
    heavens.' It was argued, that the expression implied, they
    were developed from the day in which they had been created.
    Others seem to have held, that the three principal things
    that were created, earth, heaven, and water, remained, each
    for three days, at the end of which they respectively
    developed what is connected with them (Ber. R. 12).] Traces
    also occur of the doctrine of the pre-existence of things, in
    a sense similar to that of Plato. [b Ber. R. i.]

     Like Plato and the Stoics, Philo regarded matter as devoid
    of all quality, and even form. Matter in itself was dead,
    more than that, it was evil. This matter, which was already
    existing, God formed (not made), like an architect who uses
    his materials according to a pre-existing plan, which in this
    case was the archetypal world.

     This was creation, or rather formation, brought about not by
    God Himself, but by the Potencies, especially by the Logos,
    Who was the connecting bond of all. As for God, His only
    direct work was the soul, and that only of the good, not of
    the evil. Man's immaterial part had a twofold aspect:
    carthwards, as Sensuousness; and heavenwards, as Reason. The
    sensuous part of the soul was connected with the body. It had
    no heavenly past, and would have no future. But 'Reason' was
    that breath of true life which God had breathed into man
    whereby the earthy became the higher, living spirit, with its
    various faculties. Before time began the soul was without
    body, an archetype, the 'heavenly man,' pure spirit in
    Paradise (virtue), yet even so longing after its ultimate
    archetype, God. Some of these pure spirits descended into
    bodies and so lost their purity. Or else, the union was
    brought about by God and by powers lower than God (daemons).
    To the latter is due our earthly part. God breathed on the
    formation, and the 'earthly Reason' became 'intelligent'
    'spiritual' soul Our earthly part alone is the seat of sin.
    [1 For further notices on the Cosmology and Anthropology of
    Philo, see Appendix II.: 'Philo and Rabbinic Theology.']
    This leads us to the great question of Original Sin. Here the
    views of Philo are those of the Eastern Rabbis. But both are
    entirely different from those on which the argument in the
    Epistle to the Romans turns. It was neither at the feet of
    Gamaliel, nor yet from Jewish Hellenism, that Saul of Tarsus
    learned the doctrine of original sin. The statement that as
    in Adam all spiritually died, so in Messiah all should be
    made alive, [2 We cannot help quoting the beautiful Haggadic
    explanation of the name Adam, according to its three letters,
    A, D, M, as including these three names, Adam, David,
    Messiah.] finds absolutely no parallel in Jewish writings. [3
    Raymundus Martini, in his 'Pugio Fidei' (orig. ed. p. 675;
    ed. Voisin et Carpzov, pp. 866, 867), quotes from the book
    Siphre: 'Go and learn the merit of Messiah the King, and the
    reward of the righteous from the first Adam, on whom was laid
    only one commandment of a prohibitive character, and he
    transgressed it. See how many deaths were appointed on him,
    and on his generations, and on the generations of his
    generations to the end of all generations. (Wunsche, Leiden
    d. Mess. p. 65, makes here an unwarrantable addition, in his
    translation.) But which attribute (measuring?) is the
    greater, the attribute of goodness or the attribute of
    punishment (retribution)? He answered, the attribute of
    goodness is the greater, and the attribute of punishment the
    less. And Messiah the King, who was chastened and suffered
    for the transgressors, as it is said, "He was wounded for our
    transgressions," and so on, how much more shall He justify
    (make righteous, by His merit) all generations; and this is
    what is meant when it is written, "And Jehovah made to meet
    upon Him the sin of us all."' We have rendered this passage
    as literally as possible, but we are bound to add that it is
    not found in any now existing copy of Siphre.] What may be
    called the starting point of Christian theology, the doctrine
    of hereditary guilt and sin, through the fall of Adam, and of
    the consequent entire and helplesss corruption of our nature,
    is entirely unknown to Rabbinical Judaism. The reign of
    physical death was indeed traced to the sin of our first
    parents. [4 Death is not considered an absolute evil. In
    short, all the various consequences which Rabbinical writings
    ascribe to the sin of Adam may be designated either as
    physical, or, if mental, as amounting only to detriment,
    loss, or imperfectness. These results had been partially
    counteracted by Abraham, and would be fully removed by the
    Messiah. Neither Enoch nor Elijah had sinned, and accordingly
    they did not die. Comp. generally, Hamburger, Geist d. Agada,
    pp. 81-84, and in regard to death as connected with Adam, p.
    85.] But the Talmud expressly teaches, [a Ber. 61 a] that God
    originally created man withtwo propensities, [5 These are
    also hypostatised as Angels. Comp. Levy, Chald. Worterb. p.
    342 a; Neuhebr. Worterb. p. 259, a, b.] one to good and one
    to evil (Yetser tobh, and Yetser hara [6 Or with 'two reins,'
    the one, advising to good, being at his right, the other,
    counselling evil, at his left, according to Eccles. x. 2
    (Ber. 61 a, towards the end of the page).] The evil impulse
    began immediately after birth. [b Sanh. 91 b] [7 In a sense
    its existence was necessary for the continuance of this
    world. The conflict between these two impulses constituted
    the moral life of man.] But it was within the power of man to
    vanquish sin, and to attain perfect righteousness; in fact,
    this stage had actually been attained. [1 The solitary
    exception here is 4 Esdras, where the Christian doctrine of
    original sin is most strongly expressed, being evidently
    derived from New Testament teaching. Comp. especially 4
    Esdras (our Apocryphal 2 Esdras) vii. 46-53, and other
    passages. Wherein the hope of safety lay, appears in ch. ix.]

     Similarly, Philo regarded the soul of the child as 'naked'
    (Adam and Eve), a sort of tabula rasa, as wax which God would
    fain form and mould. But this state ceased when 'affection'
    presented itself to reason, and thus sensuous lust arose,
    which was the spring of all sin. The grand task, then, was to
    get rid of the sensuous, and to rise to the spiritual. In
    this, the ethical part of his system, Philo was most under
    the influence of Stoic philosophy. We might almost say, it is
    no longer the Hebrew who Hellenises, but the Hellene who
    Hebraises. And yet it is here also that the most ingenious
    and widereaching allegorisms of Scripture are introduced. It
    is scarcely possible to convey an idea of how brilliant this
    method becomes in the hands of Philo, how universal its
    application, or how captivating it must have proved. Philo
    describes man's state as, first one of sensuousness, but also
    of unrest, misery and unsatisfied longing. If persisted in,
    it would end in complete spiritual insensibility. [2
    Symbolised by Lot's wife.] But from this state the soul must
    pass to one of devotion to reason. [3 Symbolised by Ebher,
    Hebrew.] This change might be accomplished in one of three
    ways: first, by study, of which physical was the lowest;
    next, that which embraced the ordinary circle of knowledge;
    and lastly, the highest, that of Divine philosophy. The
    second method was Askesis: discipline, or practice, when the
    soul turned from the lower to the higher. But the best of all
    was the third way: the free unfolding of that spiritual life
    which cometh neither from study nor discipline, but from a
    natural good disposition. And in that state the soul had true
    rest [4 The Sabbath, Jerusalem.] and joy. [5 For further
    details on these points see Appendix II.: 'Philo and Rabbinic
    Theology.']

     Here we must for the present pause. [6 The views of Philo on
    the Messiah will be presented in another connection.] Brief
    as this sketch of Hellenism has been, it must have brought
    the question vividly before the mind, whether and how far
    certain parts of the New Testament, especially the fourth
    Gospel, [7 This is not the place to enter on the question of
    the composition, date, and authorship of the four Gospels.
    But as regards the point on which negative criticism has of
    late spoken strongest, and on which, indeed (as Weiss rightly
    remarks) the very existence of 'the Tubingen School' depends,
    that of the Johannine authorship of the fourth Gospel, I
    would refer to Weiss, Leben Jesu (1882: vol. i. pp. 84-139),
    and to Dr. Salmon's Introd. to the New Test. pp. 266-365.]
    are connected with the direction of thought described in the
    preceding pages. Without yielding to that school of critics,
    whose perverse ingenuity discerns everywhere a sinister
    motive or tendency in the Evangelic writers, [1 No one not
    acquainted with this literature can imagine the character of
    the arguments sometimes used by a certain class of critics.
    To say that they proceed on the most forced perversion of the
    natural and obvious meaning of passages, is but little. But
    one cannot restrain moral indignation on finding that to
    Evangelists and Apostles is imputed, on such grounds, not
    only systematic falsehood, but falsehood with the most
    sinister motives.] it is evident that each of them had a
    special object in view in constructing his narrative of the
    One Life; and primarily addressed himself to a special
    audience. If, without entering into elaborate discussion, we
    might, according to St. Luke i. 2, regard the narrative of
    St. Mark as the grand representative of that authentic
    'narration', though not by Apostles, [2 I do not, of course,
    mean that the narration of St. Mark was not itself derived
    chiefly from Apostolic preaching, especially that of St.
    Peter. In general, the question of the authorship and source
    of the various Gospels must be reserved for separate
    treatment in another place.] which was in circulation, and
    the Gospel by St. Matthew as representing the 'tradition'
    handed down, by the Apostolic eye-witnesses and ministers of
    the Word, [3 Comp. Mangold's ed.of Bleek, Einl. in d. N.T.
    (3te Aufl. 1875), p. 346.] we should reach the following
    results. Our oldest Gospel-narrative is that by St. Mark,
    which, addressing itself to no class in particular, sketches
    in rapid outlines the picture of Jesus as the Messiah, alike
    for all men. Next in order of time comes our present Gospel
    by St. Matthew. It goes a step further back than that by St.
    Mark, and gives not only the genealogy, but the history of
    the miraculous birth of Jesus. Even if we had not the
    consensus of tradition, every one must feel that this Gospel
    is Hebrew in its cast, in its citations from the Old
    Testament, and in its whole bearing. Taking its key-note from
    the Book of Daniel, that grand Messianic text-book of Eastern
    Judaism at the time, and as re-echoed in the Book of Enoch,
    which expresses the popular apprehension of Daniel's
    Messianic idea, it presents the Messiah chiefly as 'the Son
    of Man,' 'the Son of David,' 'the Son of God.' We have here
    the fulfilment of Old Testament law and prophecy; the
    realisation of Old Testament life, faith, and hope. Third in
    point of time is the Gospel by St. Luke, which, passing back
    another step, gives us not only the history of the birth of
    Jesus, but also that of John, 'the preparer of the way.' It
    is Pauline, and addresses itself, or rather, we should say,
    presents the Person of the Messiah, it may be 'to the Jew
    first,' but certainly 'also to the Greek.' The term which St.
    Luke, alone of all Gospel writers, [4 With the sole exception
    of St. Matt. xii. 18, where the expression is a quotation
    from the LXX. of Is. xlii. 1.] applies to Jesus, is that of
    the or 'servant' of God, in the sense in which Isaiah has
    spoken of the Messiah as the 'Ebhed Jehovah,' 'servant of the
    Lord.' St. Luke's is, so to speak, the Isaiah-Gospel,
    presenting the Christ in His bearing on the history of God's
    Kingdom and of the world, as God's Elect Servant in Whom He
    delighted. In the Old Testament, to adopt a beautiful figure,
    [1 First expressed by Delitzsch (Bibl. Comm. u. d. Proph.
    Jes. p. 414), and then adopted by Oehler (Theol.
     d. A. Test. vol. ii. pp. 270-272).] the idea of the Servant
    of the Lord is set before us like a pyramid: at its base it
    is all Israel, at its central section Israel after the Spirit
    (the circumcised in heart), represented by David, the man
    after God's own heart; while at its apex it is the 'Elect'
    Servant, the Messiah. [2 The two fundamental principles in
    the history of the Kingdom of God are selection and
    development. It is surely remarkable, not strange, that these
    are also the two fundamental truths in the history of that
    other Kingdom of God, Nature, if modern science has read them
    correctly. These two substantives would mark the facts as
    ascertained; the adjectives, which are added to them by a
    certain class of students, mark only their inferences from
    these facts. These facts may be true, even if as yet
    incomplete, although the inferences may be false. Theology
    should not here rashly interfere. But whatever the ultimate
    result, these two are certainly the fundamental facts in the
    history of the Kingdom of God, and, marking them as such, the
    devout philosopher may rest contented.] And these three
    ideas, with their sequences, are presented in the third
    Gospel as centring in Jesus the Messiah. By the side of this
    pyramid is the other: the Son of Man, the Son of David, the
    Son of God. The Servant of the Lord of Isaiah and of Luke is
    the Enlightener, the Consoler, the victorious Deliverer; the
    Messiah or Anointed: the Prophet, the Priest, the King.

     Yet another tendency, shall we say, want?, remained, so to
    speak, unmet and unsatisfied. That large world of latest and
    most promising Jewish thought, whose task it seemed to bridge
    over the chasm between heathenism and Judaism, the Western
    Jewish world, must have the Christ presented to them. For in
    every direction is He the Christ. And not only they, but that
    larger Greek world, so far as Jewish Hellenism could bring it
    to the threshold of the Church. This Hellenistic and Hellenic
    world now stood in waiting to enter it, though as it were by
    its northern porch, and to be baptized at its font. All this
    must have forced itself on the mind of St. John, residing in
    the midst of them at Ephesus, even as St. Paul's Epistles
    contain almost as many allusions to Hellenism as to
    Rabbinism. [3 The Gnostics, to whom, in the opinion of many,
    so frequent references are made in the writings of St. John
    and St. Paul, were only an offspring (rather, as the Germans
    would term it, an Abart) of Alexandrianism on the one hand,
    and on the other of Eastern notions, which are so largely
    embodied in the later Kabbalah.] And so the fourth Gospel
    became, not the supplement, but the complement, of the other
    three. [1 A complement, not a supplement, as many critics put
    it (Ewald, Weizsacker, and even Hengstenberg), least of all a
    rectification (Godet, Evang. Joh. p. 633).] There is no other
    Gospel more Palestinian than this in its modes of expression,
    allusions, and references. Yet we must all feel how
    thoroughly Hellenistic it also is in its cast, [2 Keim (Leben
    Jesu von Nazara, i. a, pp. 112-114) fully recognises this;
    but I entirely differ from the conclusions of his analytical
    comparison of Philo with the fourth Gospel.] in what it
    reports and what it omits, in short, in its whole aim; how
    adapted to Hellenist wants its presentation of deep central
    truths; how suitably, in the report of His Discourses, even
    so far as their form is concerned, the promise was here
    fulfilled, of bringing all things to remembrance whatsoever
    He had said. [a St. John xiv. 26] It is the true Light which
    shineth, of which the full meridian-blaze lies on the
    Hellenist and Hellenic world. There is Alexandrian form of
    thought not only in the whole conception, but in the Logos,
    [3 The student who has carefully considered the views
    expressed by Philo about the Logos, and analysed, as in the
    Appendix, the passages in the Targumim in which the word
    Memra occurs, cannot fail to perceive the immense difference
    in the presentation of the Logos by St. John. Yet M. Renan,
    in an article in the 'Contemporary Review' for September
    1877, with utter disregard of the historical evidence on the
    question, maintains not only the identity of these three sets
    of ideas, but actually grounds on it his argument against the
    authenticity of the fourth Gospel. Considering the importance
    of the subject, it is not easy to speak with moderation of
    assertions so bold based on statements so entirely
    inaccurate.] and in His presentation as the Light, the Life,
    the Wellspring of the world. [4 Dr. Bucher, whose book, Des
    Apostels Johannes Lehre vom Logos, deserves careful perusal,
    tries to trace the reason of these peculiarities as indicated
    in the Prologue of the fourth Gospel. Bucher differentiates
    at great length between the Logos of Philo and of the fourth
    Gospel. He sums up his views by stating that in the Prologue
    of St. John the Logos is presented as the fulness of Divine
    Light and Life. This is, so to speak, the theme, while the
    Gospel history is intended to present the Logos as the giver
    of this Divine Light and Life. While the other Evangelists
    ascend from the manifestation to the idea of the Son of God,
    St. John descends from the idea of the Logos, as expressed in
    the Prologue, to its concrete realisation in His history. The
    latest tractate (at the present writing, 1882) on the Gospel
    of St. John, by Dr. Muller, Die Johann. Frage, gives a good
    summary of the argument on both sides, and deserves the
    careful attention of students of the question.] But these
    forms are filled in the fourth Gospel with quite other
    substance. God is not afar off, uncognisable by man, without
    properties, without name. He is the Father. Instead of a
    nebulous reflection of the Deity we have the Person of the
    Logos; not a Logos with the two potencies of goodness and
    power, but full of grace and truth. The Gospel of St. John
    also begins with a 'Bereshith', but it is the theological,
    not the cosmic Bereshith, when the Logos was with God and was
    God. Matter is not pre-existent; far less is it evil. St.
    John strikes the pen through Alexandrianism when he lays it
    down as the fundamental fact of New Testament history that
    'the Logos was made flesh,' just as St. Paul does when he
    proclaims the great mystery of 'God manifest in the flesh.'
    Best of all, it is not by a long course of study, nor by
    wearing discipline, least of all by an inborn good
    disposition, that the soul attains the new life, but by a
    birth from above, by the Holy Ghost, and by simple faith
    which is brought within reach of the fallen and the lost. [1
    I cannot agree with Weiss (u. s., p. 122) that the great
    object of the fourth Gospel was to oppose the rising Gnostic
    movement, This may have been present to the Apostle's mind,
    as evidenced in his Epistle, but the object in view could not
    have been mainly, nor even primarily, negative and
    controversial.]

     Philo had no successor. In him Hellenism had completed its
    cycle. Its message and its mission were ended. Henceforth it
    needed, like Apollos, its great representative in the
    Christian Church, two things: the baptism of John to the
    knowledge of sin and need, and to have the way of God more
    perfectly expounded. [a Acts xviii 24-28] On the other hand,
    Eastern Judaism had entered with Hillel on a new stage. This
    direction led farther and farther away from that which the
    New Testament had taken in following up and unfolding the
    spiritual elements of the Old. That development was incapable
    of transformation or renovation. It must go on to its final
    completion, and be either true, or else be swept away and
    destroyed.

 INTRODUCTORY.
    THE PREPARATION FOR THE GOSPEL: THE JEWISH WORLD IN THE DAYS
    OF CHRIST

    ALEXANDRIA AND ROME, THE JEWISH COMMUNITIES IN THE CAPITALS
    OF WESTERN CIVILISATION.

    CHAPTER V

     We have spoken of Alexandria as the capital of the Jewish
    world in the West. Antioch was, indeed, nearer to Palestine,
    and its Jewish population, including the floating part of it,
    as numerous as that of Alexandria. But the wealth, the
    thought, and the influence of Western Judaism centred in the
    modern capital of the land of the Pharaohs. In those days
    Greece was the land of the past, to which the student might
    resort as the home of beauty and of art, the timehallowed
    temple of thought and of poetry. But it was also the land of
    desolateness and of ruins, where fields of corn waved over
    the remains of classic antiquity. The ancient Greeks had in
    great measure sunk to a nation of traders, in keen
    competition with the Jews. Indeed, Roman sway had levelled
    the ancient world, and buried its national characteristics.
    It was otherwise in the far East; it was otherwise also in
    Egypt. Egypt was not a land to be largely inhabited, or to be
    'civilised' in the then sense of the term: soil, climate,
    history, nature forbade it. Still, as now, and even more than
    now, was it the dream-land of untold attractions to the
    traveller. The ancient, mysterious Nile still rolled its
    healing waters out into the blue sea, where (so it was
    supposed) they changed its taste within a radius farther than
    the eye could reach. To be gently borne in bark or ship on
    its waters, to watch the strange vegetation and fauna of its
    banks; to gaze beyond, where they merged into the trackless
    desert; to wander under the shade of its gigantic monuments,
    or within the wierd avenues of its colossal temples, to see
    the scroll of mysterious hieroglyphics; to note the sameness
    of manner and of people as of old, and to watch the unique
    rites of its ancient religion, this was indeed to be again in
    the old far-away world, and that amidst a dreaminess
    bewitching the senses, and a gorgeousness dazzling the
    imagination. [1 What charm Egypt had for the Romans may be
    gathered from so many of their mosaics and frescoes. Comp.
    Friedlander, u. s. vol. ii. pp. 134-136.

     We are still far out at sea, making for the port of
    Alexandria, the only safe shelter all along the coast of Asia
    and Africa. Quite thirty miles out the silver sheen of the
    lighthouse on the island of Pharos [1 This immense lighthous
    was square up to the middle, then covered by an octagon, the
    top being round. The last recorded repairs to this
    magnificent structure of blocks of marble were made in the
    year 1303 of our era.], connected by a mole with Alexandria,
    is burning like a star on the edge of the horizon. Now we
    catch sight of the palmgroves of Pharos; presently the anchor
    rattles and grates on the sand, and we are ashore. What crowd
    of vessels of all sizes, shapes and nationalities; what a
    multitude of busy people; what a very Babel of languages;
    what a commingling of old and new world civilisation; and
    what a variety of wares piled up, loading or unloading!

     Alexandria itself was not an old Egyptian, but a
    comparatively modern, city; in Egypt and yet not of Egypt.
    Everything was in character, the city, its inhabitants,
    public life, art, literature, study, amusements, the very
    aspect of the place. Nothing original anywhere, but
    combination of all that had been in the ancient world, or
    that was at the time, most fitting place therefore to be the
    capital of Jewish Hellenism.

     As its name indicates, the city was founded by Alexander the
    Great. It was built in the form of an open fan, or rather, of
    the outspread cloak of a Macedonian horseman. Altogether, it
    measured (16,360 paces) 3,160 paces more than Rome; but its
    houses were neither so crowded nor so many-storied. It had
    been a large city when Rome was still inconsiderable, and to
    the last held the second place in the Empire. One of the five
    quarters into which the city was divided, and which were
    named according to the first letters of the alphabet, was
    wholly covered by the royal palaces, with their gardens, and
    similar buildings, including the royal mausoleum, where the
    body of Alexander the Great, preserved in honey, was kept in
    a glass coffin. But these, and its three miles of colonnades
    along the principal highway, were only some of the
    magnificent architectural adornments of a city full of
    palaces. The population amounted, probably, to nearly a
    million, drawn from the East and West by trade, the
    attractions of wealth, the facilities for study, or the
    amusements of a singularly frivolous city. A strange mixture
    of elements among the people, combining the quickness and
    versatility of the Greek with the gravity, the conservatism,
    the dream-grandeur, and the luxury of the Eastern.

     Three worlds met in Alexandria: Europe, Asia, and Africa;
    and brought to it, or fetched from it, their treasures. Above
    all, it was a commercial city, furnished with an excellent
    harbour, or rather with five harbours. A special fleet
    carried, as tribute, from Alexandria to Italy, two-tenths of
    the corn produce of Egypt, which sufficed to feed the capital
    for four months of the year. A magnificent fleet it was, from
    the light quick sailer to those immense corn-ships which
    hoisted a special flag, and whose early arrival was awaited
    at Puteoli [1 The average passage from Alexandria to Puteoli
    was twelve days, the ships touching at Malta and in Sicily.
    It was in such a ship, the 'Castor and Pollux' carrying
    wheat, that St. Paul sailed from Malta to Puteoli, where it
    would be among the first arrivals of the season.] with more
    eagerness than that of any modern ocean-steamer. [2 They
    bore, painted on the two sides of the prow, the emblems of
    the gods to whom they were dedicated, and were navigated by
    Egyptian pilots, the most reowned in the world. One of these
    vessels is described as 180 by 45 feet and of about 1,575
    tons, and is computed to have returned to its owner nearly
    3,000l. annually. (Comp. Friedlander, u.s. vol. ii. p. 131,
    &c.) And yet these were small ships compared with those built
    for the conveyance of marble blocks and columns, and
    especially of obelisks. One of these is said to have carried,
    besides an obelisk, 1,200 passenger, a freight of paper,
    nitre, pepper, linen, and a large cargo of wheat.] The
    commerce of India was in the hands of the Alexandrian
    shippers. [3 The journey took aboutthree months, either up
    the Nile, thence by caravan, and again by sea; or else
    perhaps by the Ptolemy Canal and the Red Sea.] Since the days
    of the Ptolemies the Indian trade alone had increased
    sixfold. [4 It included gold-dust, ivory, and mother-of-pearl
    from the interior of Africa, spices from Arabia, pearls from
    the Gulf of Persia, precious stones and byssus from India,
    and silk from China.] Nor was the native industry
    inconsiderable. Linen goods, to suit the tastes or costumes
    of all countries; woolen stuffs of every hue, some curiously
    wrought with figures, and even scenes; glass of every shade
    and in every shape; paper from the thinnest sheet to the
    coarsest packing paper; essences, perfumeries, such were the
    native products. However idly or luxuriously inclined, still
    every one seemed busy, in a city where (as the Emperor
    Hadrian expressed it) 'money was the people's god;' and every
    one seemed well-to-do in his own way, from the waif in the
    streets, who with little trouble to himself could pick up
    sufficient to go to the restaurant and enjoy a comfortable
    dinner of fresh or smoked fish with garlic, and his pudding,
    washed down with the favourite Egyptian barley beer, up to
    the millionaire banker, who owned a palace in the city and a
    villa by the canal that connected Alexandria with Canobus.
    What a jostling crowd of all nations in the streets, in the
    market (where, according to the joke of a contemporary,
    anything might be got except snow), or by the harbours; what
    cool shades, delicious retreats, vast halls, magnificent
    libraries, where the savants of Alexandria assembled and
    taught every conceivable branch of learning, and its
    far-famed physicians prescribed for the poor consumptive
    patients sent thither from all parts of Italy! What bustle
    and noise among that ever excitable, chatty conceited, vain,
    pleasure-loving multitude, whose highest enjoyment was the
    theatre and singers; what scenes on that long canal to
    Canobus, lined with luxurious inns, where barks full of
    pleasure-seekers revelled in the cool shade of the banks, or
    sped to Canobus, that scene of all dissipation and luxury,
    proverbial even in those days! And yet, close by, on the
    shores of Lake Mareotis, as if in grim contrast, were the
    chosen retreats of that sternly ascetic Jewish party, the
    Therapeutae, [a On theexistence of the Therapeutes comp. Art.
    Philo in Smith & Wace's Dict. of Chr. Biogr. vol. iv.] whose
    views and practices in so many points were kindred to those
    of the Essenes in Palestine!

     This sketch of Alexandria will help us to understand the
    surroundings of the large mass of Jews settled in the
    Egyptian capital. Altogether more than an eighth of the
    population of the country (one million in 7,800,000) was
    Jewish. Whether or not a Jewish colony had gone into Egypt at
    the time of Nebuchadnezzar, or even earlier, the great mass
    of its residents had been attracted by Alexander the Great,
    [b Mommsen (Rom. Gesch. v. p. 489) ascribes this rather to
    Ptolemy I.] who had granted the Jews equally exceptional
    privileges with the Macedonians. The later troubles of
    Palestine under the Syrian kings greatly swelled their
    number, the more so that the Ptolemies, with one exception,
    favoured them. Originally a special quarter had been assigned
    to the Jews in the city, the 'Delta' by the eastern harbour
    and the Canobus canal, probably alike to keep the community
    separate, and from its convenience for commercial purposes.
    The priveleges which the Ptolemies had accorded to the Jews
    were confirmed, and even enlarged, by Julius Caesar. The
    export trade in grain was now in their hands, and the harbour
    and river police committed to their charge. Two quarters in
    the city are named as specially Jewish, not, however, in the
    sense of their being confined to them. Their Synagogues,
    surrounded by shady trees, stood in all parts of the city.
    But the chief glory of the Jewish community in Egypt, of
    which even the Palestinians boasted, was the great central
    Synagogue, built in the shape of a basilica, with double
    colonnade, and so large that it needed a signal for those
    most distant to know the proper moment for the responses. The
    different trade guilds sat there together, so that a stranger
    would at once know where to find Jewish employers or
    fellow-workmen. [c Sukk. 51 b.] In the choir of this Jewish
    cathedral stood seventy chairs of state, encrusted with
    precious stones, for the seventy elders who constituted the
    eldership of Alexandria, on the model of the great Sanhedrin
    in Jerusalem.

     It is a strange, almost inexplicable fact, that the Egyptian
    Jews had actually built a schismatic Temple. During the
    terrible Syrian persecutions in Palestine Onias, the son of
    the murdered High-Priest Onias III., had sought safety in
    Egypt. Ptolemy Philometor not only received him kindly, but
    gave a disused heathen temple in the town of Leontopolis for
    a Jewish sanctuary. Here a new Aaronic priesthood ministered,
    their support being derived from the revenues of the district
    around. The new Temple, however, resembled not that of
    Jerusalem either in outward appearance nor in all its
    internal fittings. [1 Instead of the seven-branched golden
    candlestick there was a golden lamp, suspended from a chain
    of the same metal.] At first the Egyptian Jews were very
    proud of their new sanctuary, and professed to see in it the
    fulfilment of the prediction, [a is xix. 18.] that five
    cities in the land of Egypt should speak the language of
    Canaan, of which one was to be called Ir-ha-Heres, which the
    LXX. (in their original form, or by some later emendation)
    altered into 'the city of righteousness.' This temple
    continued from about 160 B.C. to shortly after the
    destruction of Jerusalem. It could scarcely be called a rival
    to that on Mount Moriah, since the Egyptian Jews also owned
    that of Jerusalem as their central sanctuary, to which they
    made pilgrimages and brought their contributions, [b Philo,
    ii, 646, ed. Mangey.] while the priests at Leontopolis,
    before marrying, always consulted the official archives in
    Jerusalem to ascertain the purity of descent of their
    intended wives. [c Jos. Ag. Ap. i. 7.] The Palestinians
    designated it contemptuously as 'the house of Chonyi'
    (Onias), and declared the priesthood of Leontopolis incapable
    of serving in Jerusalem, although on a par with those who
    were disqualified only by some bodily defect. Offerings
    brought in Leontopolis were considered null, unless in the
    case of vows to which the name of this Temple had been
    expressly attached. [d Men. xiii. 10, and the Gemara, 109 a
    and b.] This qualified condemnation seems, however, strangely
    mild, except on the supposition that the statements we have
    quoted only date from a time when both Temples had long
    passed away.

     Nor were such feelings unreasonable. The Egyptian Jews had
    spread on all sides, southward to Abyssinia and Ethiopia, and
    westward to, and beyond, the province of Cyrene. In the city
    of that name they formed one of the four classes into which
    its inhabitants were divided. [e Strabo in Jos. Ant. xiv. 7,
    2.] A Jewish inscription at Berenice, apparently dating from
    the year 13 B.C., shows that the Cyrenian Jews formed a
    distinct community under nine 'rulers' of their own, who no
    doubt attended to the communal affairs, not always an easy
    matter, since the Cyrenian Jews were noted, if not for
    turbulence, yet for strong anti-Roman Roman feeling, which
    more than once was cruelly quenched in blood. [1 Could there
    have been any such meaning in laying the Roman cross which
    Jesus had to bear upon a Cyrenian (St. Luke xxiii. 26)? A
    symbolical meaning it certainly has, as we remember that the
    last Jewish rebellion (132-135 A.D.), which had Bar Cochba
    for its Messiah, first broke out in Cyrene. What terrible
    vengeance was taken on those who followed the false Christ,
    cannot here be told.] Other inscriptions prove, [2 Jewish
    inscriptions have also been found in Mauritania and Algiers.]
    that in other places of their dispersion also the Jews had
    their own Archontes or 'rulers,' while the special direction
    of public worship was always entrusted to the Archisynagogos,
    or 'chief ruler of the Synagogue,' both titles occurring side
    by side. [3 On a tombstone at Capua (Mommsen, Inscr. R. Neap.
    3,657, apud Schurer, p 629). The subject is of great
    importance as illustrating the rule of the Synagogue in the
    days of Christ. Another designation on the gravestones seems
    to refer solely to age, one being described as 110 years
    old.] It is, to say the least, very doubtful, whether the
    High-Priest at Leontopolis was ever regarded as, in any real
    sense, the head of the Jewish community in Egypt. [4 Jost,
    Gesch. d. Judenth. i. p. 345.] In Alexandria, the Jews were
    under the rule of a Jewish Ethnarch, [5 Marquardt (Rom.
    Staatsverwalt. vol. i. p. 297). Note 5 suggests that may here
    mean classes, ordo.] whose authority was similar to that of
    'the Archon' of independent cities. [a Strabo in Jos. Ant.
    xiv. 7. 2] But his authority [6 The office itself would seem
    to have been continued. (Jos. Ant. xix. 5. 2.)] was
    transferred, by Augustus, to the whole 'eldership.' [b Philo,
    in Flacc. ed. Mangey, ii 527] Another, probably Roman,
    office, though for obvious reasons often filled by Jews, was
    that of the Alabarch, or rather Arabarch, who was set over
    the Arab population. [7 Comp. Wesseling, de Jud. Archont. pp.
    63, &c., apud Schurer, pp. 627, 628.] Among others,
    Alexander, the brother of Philo, held this post. If we may
    judge of the position of the wealthy Jewish families in
    Alexandria by that of this Alabarch, their influence must
    have been very great. The firm of Alexander was probably as
    rich as the great Jewish banking and shipping house of
    Saramalla in Antioch. [c Jos. Antxiv. 13. 5; War. i. 13, 5]
    Its chief was entrusted with the management of the affairs of
    Antonia, the much respected sister-in-law of the Emperor
    Tiberius. [d Ant. xix 5. 1] It was a small thing for such a
    man to lend King Agrippa, when his fortunes were very low, a
    sum of about 7,000l. with which to resort to Italy, [c Ant.
    xviii. 6.3] since he advanced it on the guarantee of
    Agrippa's wife, whom he highly esteemed, and at the same time
    made provision that the money should not be all spent before
    the Prince met the Emperor. Besides, he had his own plans in
    the matter. Two of his sons married daughters of King
    Agrippa; while a third, at the price of apostasy, rose
    successively to the posts of Procurator of Palestine, and
    finally of Governor of Egypt. [f Ant. xix. 5. 1; xx. 5. 3]
    The Temple at Jerusalem bore evidence of the wealth and
    munificence of this Jewish millionaire. The gold and silver
    with which the nine massive gates were covered, which led
    into the Temple, were the gift of the great Alexandrian
    banker.

     The possession of such wealth, coupled no doubt with pride
    and self-assertion, and openly spoken contempt of the
    superstitions around, [1 Comp.for example, such a trenchant
    chapter as Baruch vi., or the 2nd Fragm. of the Erythr.
    Sibyl, vv. 21-33.] would naturally excite the hatred of the
    Alexandria populace against the Jews. The greater number of
    those silly stories about the origin, early history, and
    religion of the Jews, which even the philosophers and
    historians of Rome record as genuine, originated in Egypt. A
    whole series of writers, beginning with Manetho, [a Probably
    about 200 B.C] made it their business to give a kind of
    historical travesty of the events recorded in the books of
    Moses. The boldest of these scribblers was Apion, to whom
    Josephus replied, a world-famed charlatan and liar, who wrote
    or lectured, with equal presumption and falseness, on every
    conceivable object. He was just the man to suit the
    Alexandrians, on whom his unblushing assurance imposed. In
    Rome he soon found his level, and the Emperor Tiberius well
    characterised the irrepressible boastful talker as the
    'tinkling cymbal of the world.' He had studied, seen, and
    heard everything, even, on three occasions, the mysterious
    sound on the Colossus of Memnon, as the sun rose upon it! At
    least, so he graved upon the Colossus itself, for the
    information of all generations. [2 Comp. Friedlander, u. s.
    ii. p. 155.] Such was the man on whom the Alexandrians
    conferred the freedom of their city, to whom they entrusted
    their most important affairs, and whom they extolled as the
    victorious, the laborious, the new Homer. [3 A very good
    sketch of Apion is given by Hausrath, Neutest. Zeitg. vol.
    ii. pp. 187-195. There can be little doubt, that the popular
    favour was partly due to Apion's virulent attacks upon the
    Jews. His grotesque accounts of their history and religion
    held them up to contempt. But his real object was to rouse
    the fanaticism of the populace against the Jews. Every year,
    so he told them, it was the practice of the Jews to get hold
    of some unfortunate Hellene, whom ill-chance might bring into
    their hands, to fatten him for the year, and then to
    sacrifice him, partaking of his entrials, and burying the
    body, while during these horrible rites they took a fearful
    oath of perpetual enmity to the Greeks. These were the people
    who battened on the wealth of Alexandria, who had usurped
    quarters of the city to which they had no right, and claimed
    exceptional privileges; a people who had proved traitors to,
    and the ruin of every one who had trusted them. 'If the
    Jews,' he exclaimed, 'are citizens of Alexandria, why do they
    not worship the same gods as the Alexandrians?' And, if they
    wished to enjoy the protection of the Caesars, why did they
    not erect statues, and pay Divine honor to them? [1 Jos. Ag.
    Ap. ii. 4, 5, 6.] There is nothing strange in these appeals
    to the fanaticism of mankind. In one form or another, they
    have only too often been repeated in all lands and ages, and,
    alas! by the representatives of all creeds. Well might the
    Jews, as Philo mourns, [a Leg. ad Caj. ed. Frcf.] wish no
    better for themselves than to be treated like other men!

     We have already seen, that the ideas entertained in Rome
    about the Jews were chiefly derived from Alexandrian sources.
    But it is not easy to understand, how a Tacitus, Cicero, or
    Pliny could have credited such absurdities as that the Jews
    had come from Crete (Mount Ida, Idaei = Judaei), been
    expelled on account of leprosy from Egypt, and emigrated
    under an apostate priest, Moses; or that the Sabbath-rest
    originated in sores, which had obliged the wanderers to stop
    short on the seventh day; or that the Jews worshipped the
    head of an ass, or else Bacchus; that their abstinence from
    swine's flesh was due to remembrance and fear of leprosy, or
    else to the worship of that animal, and other puerilities of
    the like kind. [b Comp. Tacitus, Hist. v. 2-4; Plut. Sympos.
    iv. 5] The educated Roman regarded the Jew with a mixture of
    contempt and anger, all the more keen that, according to his
    notions, the Jew had, since his subjection to Rome, no longer
    a right to his religion; and all the more bitter that, do
    what he might, that despised race confronted him everywhere,
    with a religion so uncompromising as to form a wall of
    separation, and with rites so exclusive as to make them not
    only strangers, but enemies. Such a phenomenon was nowhere
    else to be encountered. The Romans were intensely practical.
    In their view, political life and religion were not only
    intertwined, but the one formed part of the other. A religion
    apart from a political organisation, or which offered not, as
    a quid pro quo, some direct return from the Deity to his
    votaries, seemed utterly inconceivable. Every country has its
    own religion, argued Cicero, in his appeal for Flaccus. So
    long as Jerusalem was unvaquished, Judaism might claim
    toleration; but had not the immortal gods shown what they
    thought of it, when the Jewish race was conquered? This was a
    kind of logic that appealed to the humblest in the crowd,
    which thronged to hear the great orator defending his client,
    among others, against the charge of preventing the transport
    from Asia to Jerusalem of the annual Temple-tribute. This was
    not a popular accusation to bring against a man in such an
    assembly. And as the Jews, who, to create a distrubance, had
    (we are told) distributed themselves among the audience in
    such numbers, that Cicero somewhat rhetorically declared, he
    would fain have spoken with bated breath, so as to be only
    audible to the judges, listened to the great orator, they
    must have felt a keen pang shoot to their hearts while he
    held them up to the scorn of the heathen, and touched, with
    rough finger, their open sore, as he urged the ruin of their
    nation as the one unanswerable argument, which Materialism
    could bring against the religion of the Unseen.

     And that religion, was it not, in the words of Cicero, a
    'barbarous superstition,' and were not its adherents, as
    Pliny had it, [a Hist. Nat. xiii. 4] 'a race distinguished
    for its contempt of the gods'? To begin with their theology.
    The Roman philosopher would sympathise with disbelief of all
    spiritual realities, as, on the other hand, he could
    understand the popular modes of worship and superstition. But
    what was to be said for a worship of something quite unseen,
    an adoration, as it seemed to him, of the clouds and of the
    sky, without any visible symbol, conjoined with an utter
    rejection of every other form of religion, Asiatic, Egyptian,
    Greek, Roman, and the refusal even to pay the customary
    Divine honor to the Caesars, as the incarnation of Roman
    power? Next, as to their rites. Foremost among them was the
    initiatory rite of circumcision, a constant subject for
    coarse jests. What could be the meaning of it; or of what
    seemed like some ancestral veneration for the pig, or dread
    of it, since they made it a religious duty not to partake of
    its flesh? Their Sabbath-observance, however it had
    originated, was merely an indulgence in idleness. The fast
    young Roman literati would find their amusement in wandering
    on the Sabbath-eve through the tangled, narrow streets of the
    Ghetto, watching how the dim lamp within shed its unsavory
    light, while the inmates mumbled prayers 'with blanched
    lips;' [b Persius v. 184] or they would, like Ovid, seek in
    the Synagogue occasion for their dissolute amusements. The
    Thursday fast was another target for their wit. In short, at
    the best, the Jew was a constant theme of popular merriment,
    and the theatre would resound with laughter as his religion
    was lampooned, no matter how absurd the stories, or how poor
    the punning. [1 Comp. the quotation of such scenes in the
    Introd. to the Midrash on Lamentations.]

     And then, as the proud Roman passed on the Sabbath through
    the streets, Judaism would obtrude itself upon his notice, by
    the shops that were shut, and by the strange figures that
    idly moved about in holiday attire. They were strangers in a
    strange land, not only without sympathy with what passed
    around, but with marked contempt and abhorrence of it, while
    there was that about their whole bearing, which expressed the
    unspoken feeling, that the time of Rome's fall, and of their
    own supremacy, was at hand. To put the general feeling in the
    words of Tacitus, the Jews kept close together, and were ever
    most liberal to one another; but they were filled with bitter
    hatred of all others. They would neither eat nor sleep with
    strangers; and the first thing which they taught their
    proselytes was to despise the gods, to renounce their own
    country, and to rend the bonds which had bound them to
    parents, children or kindred. To be sure, there was some
    ground of distorted truth in these charges. For, the Jew, as
    such, was only intended for Palestine. By a necessity, not of
    his own making, he was now, so to speak, the negative element
    in the heathen world; yet one which, do what he might, would
    always obtrude itself upon public notice. But the Roman
    satirists went further. They accused the Jews of such hatred
    of all other religionists, that they would not even show the
    way to any who worshipped otherwise, nor point out the
    cooling spring to the thirsty.[a Juv. Sat. xiv. 103, 104]
    According to Tacitus, there was a political and religious
    reason for this. In order to keep the Jews separate from all
    other nations, Moses had given them rites, contrary to those
    of any other race, that they might regard as unholy what was
    sacred to others, and as lawful what they held in
    abomination. [b Hist. v. 13] Such a people deserved neither
    consideration nor pity; and when the historian tells how
    thousands of their number had been banished by Tiberius to
    Sardinia, he dismisses the probability of their perishing in
    that severe climate with the cynical remark, that it entailed
    a 'poor loss' [c Ann. ii.85, Comp. Suet. Tib. 36] (vile
    damnum).

     Still, the Jew was there in the midst of them. It is
    impossible to fix the date when the first Jewish wanderers
    found their way to the capital of the world. We know, that in
    the wars under Pompey, Cassius, and Antonius, many were
    brought captive to Rome, and sold as slaves. In general, the
    Republican party was hostile, the Caesars were friendly, to
    the Jews. The Jewish slaves in Rome proved an unprofitable
    and troublesome acquisition. They clung so tenaciously to
    their ancestral customs, that it was impossible to make them
    conform to the ways of heathen households. [d Philo, Leg. ad
    Caj. ed. Frcf. p. 101] How far they would carry their passive
    resistance, appears from a story told by Josephus, [e Life 3]
    about some Jewish priests of his acquaintance, who, during
    their captivity in Rome, refused to eat anything but figs and
    nuts, so as to avoid the defilement of Gentile food. [1
    Lutterbeck (Neutest. Lehrbegr. p. 119), following up the
    suggestions of Wieseler (Chron. d. Apost. Zeitalt. pp. 384,
    402, etc.), regards these priests as the accusers of St.
    Paul, who brought about his martyrdom.] Their Roman masters
    deemed it prudent to give their Jewish slaves their freedom,
    either at a small ransom, or even without it. These freedmen
    (liberti) formed the nucleus of the Jewish community in Rome,
    and in great measure determined its social character. Of
    course they were, as always, industrious, sober, pushing. In
    course of time many of them acquired wealth. By-and-by Jewish
    immigrants of greater distinction swelled their number. Still
    their social position was inferior to that of their
    co-religionists in other lands. A Jewish population so large
    as 40,000 in the time of Augustus, and 60,000 in that of
    Tiberius, would naturally included all ranks, merchants,
    bankers, literati, even actors. [1 Comp., for example, Mart.
    xi. 94; Jos. Life 3.] In a city which offered such
    temptations, they would number among them those of every
    degree of religious profession; nay, some who would not only
    imitate the habits of those around, but try to outdo their
    gross licentiousness. [2 Martialis, u. s. The 'Anchialus' by
    whom the poet would have the Jew swear, is a corruption of
    Anochi Elohim ('I am God') in Ex. xx. 2. Comp. Ewald, Gesch.
    Isr. vol. vii. p. 27.] Yet, even so, they would vainly
    endeavor to efface the hateful mark of being Jews.

     Augustus had assigned to the Jews as their special quarter
    the 'fourteenth region' across the Tiber, which stretched
    from the slope of the Vatican onwards and across the
    Tiber-island, where the boats from Ostia were wont to unload.
    This seems to have been their poor quarter, chiefly inhabited
    by hawkers, sellers of matches, [a Mart. i.41; xii. 57]
    glass, old clothes and second-hand wares. The Jewish
    burying-ground in that quarter [3 Described by Bosio, but
    since unknown. Comp. Friedlander, u. s. vol. iii. pp. 510,
    511.] gives evidence of their condition. The whole
    appointments and the graves are mean. There is neither marble
    nor any trace of painting, unless it be a rough
    representation of the seven-branched candlestick in red
    coloring. Another Jewish quarter was by the Porta Capena,
    where the Appian Way entered the city. Close by, the ancient
    sanctuary of Egeria was utilized at the time of Juvenal [4
    Sat. iii.13; vi. 542.] as a Jewish hawking place. But there
    must have been richer Jews also in that neighborhood, since
    the burying-place there discovered has paintings, some even
    of mythological figures, of which the meaning has not yet
    been ascertained. A third Jewish burying-ground was near the
    ancient Christian catacombs.

     But indeed, the Jewish residents in Rome must have spread
    over every quarter of the city, even the best, to judge by
    the location of their Synagogues. From inscriptions, we have
    been made acquainted not only with the existence, but with
    the names, of not fewer than seven of these Synagogues. Three
    of them respectively bear the names of Augustus, Agrippa, and
    Volumnius, either as their patrons, or because the
    worshippers were chiefly their attendants and clients; while
    two of them derived their names from the Campus Martius, and
    the quarter Subura in which they stood. [1 Comp. Friedlander,
    u. s. vol. iii. p.510.] The 'Synagoge Elaias' may have been
    so called from bearing on its front the device of an
    olive-tree, a favourite, and in Rome specially significant,
    emblem of Israel, whose fruit, crushed beneath heavy weight,
    would yield the precious oil by which the Divine light would
    shed its brightness through the night of heathendom. [2 Midr.
    R. on Ex. 36.] Of course, there must have been other
    Synagogues besides those whose names have been discovered.

     One other mode of tracking the footsteps of Israel's
    wanderings seems strangely significant. It is by tracing
    their records among the dead, reading them on broken
    tombstones, and in ruined monuments. They are rude, and the
    inscriptions, most of them in bad Greek, or still worse
    Latin, none in Hebrew, are like the stammering of strangers.
    Yet what a contrast between the simple faith and earnest hope
    which they express, and the grim proclamation of utter
    disbelief in any future to the soul, not unmixed with
    language of coarsest materialism, on the graves of so many of
    the polished Romans ! Truly the pen of God in history has, as
    so often, ratified the sentence which a nation had pronounced
    upon itself. That civilisation was doomed which could
    inscribe over its dead such words as: 'To eternal sleep;' 'To
    perpetual rest;' or more coarsely express it thus, 'I was
    not, and I became; I was, and am no more. Thus much is true;
    who says other, lies; for I shall not be,' adding, as it were
    by way of moral, 'And thou who livest, drink, play, come.'
    Not so did God teach His people; and, as we pick our way
    among these broken stones, we can understand how a religion,
    which proclaimed a hope so different, must have spoken to the
    hearts of many even at Rome, and much more, how that blessed
    assurance of life and immortality, which Christianity
    afterwards brought, could win its thousands, though it were
    at the cost of poverty, shame, torture, and the arena.

     Wandering from graveyard to graveyard, and deciphering the
    records of the dead, we can almost read the history of Israel
    in the days of the Caesars, or when Paul the prisoner set
    foot on the soil of Italy. When St. Paul, on the journey of
    the 'Castor and Pollux,' touched at Syracuse, he would,
    during his stay of three days, find himself in the midst of a
    Jewish community, as we learn from an inscription. When he
    disembarked at Puteoli, he was in the oldest Jewish
    settlement next to that of Rome, [a Jos. Ant. xvii. 12. 1;
    War ii. 7. 1] where the loving hospitality of Christian
    Israelites constrained him to tarry over a Sabbath. As he
    'went towards Rome,' and reached Capua, he would meet Jews
    there, as we infer from the tombstone of one 'Alfius Juda,'
    who had been 'Archon' of the Jews, and 'Archisynagogus' in
    Capua. As he neared the city, he found in Anxur (Terracina) a
    Synagogue. [1 Comp. Cassel, in Ersch u. Gruber's Encyclop. 2d
    sect. vol. xxvii. p. 147.] In Rome itself the Jewish
    community was organized as in other places. [b Acts xxviii.
    17] It sounds strange, as after these many centuries we again
    read the names of the Archons of their various Synagogues,
    all Roman, such as Claudius, Asteris, Julian (who was Archon
    alike of the Campesian and the Agrippesian Synagogue priest,
    the son of Julian the Archisynagogus, or chief of the
    eldership of the Augustesian Synagogue). And so in other
    places. On these tombstones we find names of Jewish
    Synagogue-dignitaries, in every centre of population, in
    Pompeii, in Venusia, the birthplace of Horace; in Jewish
    catacombs; and similarly Jewish inscriptions in Africa, in
    Asia, in the islands of the Mediterranean, in AEgina, in
    Patrae, in Athens. Even where as yet records of their early
    settlements have not been discovered, we still infer their
    presence, as we remember the almost incredible extent of
    Roman commerce, which led to such large settlements in
    Britain, or as we discover among the tombstones those of
    'Syrian' merchants, as in Spain (where St. Paul hoped to
    preach, no doubt, also to his own countrymen), throughout
    Gaul, and even in the remotest parts of Germany. [2 Comp.
    Friedlander, u. s. vol. ii. pp. 17-204 passim.] Thus the
    statements of Josephus and of Philo, as to the dispersion of
    Israel throughout all lands of the known world, are fully
    borne out.

     But the special importance of the Jewish community in Rome
    lay in its contiguity to the seat of the government of the
    world, where every movement could be watched and influenced,
    and where it could lend support to the wants and wishes of
    that compact body which, however widely scattered, was one in
    heart and feeling, in thought and purpose, in faith and
    practice, in suffering and in prosperity. [3 It was probably
    this unity of Israelitish interests which Cicero had in view
    (Pro Flacco, 28) when he took such credit for his boldness in
    daring to stand up against the Jews, unless, indeed, the
    orator only meant to make a point in favour of his client.]
    Thus, when upon the death of Herod a deputation from
    Palestine appeared in the capital to seek the restoration of
    their Theocracy under a Roman protectorate, [a Jos. Ant.
    xvii. 11. 1; War. ii. 6. 1] no less than 8,000 of the Roman
    Jews joined it. And in case of need they could find powerful
    friends, not only among the Herodian princes, but among court
    favourites who were Jews, like the actor of whom Josephus
    speaks; [b Life 3] among those who were inclined towards
    Judaism, like Poppaea, the dissolute wife of Nero, whose
    coffin as that of a Jewess was laid among the urns of the
    emperors; [1 Schiller (Gesch. d. Rom. Kaiserreichs, p. 583)
    denies that Poppaea was a proselyte. It is, indeed, true, as
    he argues, that the fact of her entombment affords no
    absolute evidence of this, if taken by itself; but comp. Jos.
    Ant. xx. 8. 11; Life 3.] or among real proselytes, like those
    of all ranks who, from superstition or conviction, had
    identified themselves with the Synagogue. [2 The question of
    Jewish proselytes will be treated in another place.]

     In truth, there was no law to prevent the spread of Judaism.
    Excepting the brief period when Tiberius [c 19 A.D.] banished
    the Jews from Rome and sent 4,000 of their number to fight
    the banditti in Sardinia, the Jews enjoyed not only perfect
    liberty, but exceptional privileges. In the reign of Caesar
    and of Augustus we have quite a series of edicts, which
    secured the full exercise of their religion and their
    communal rights. [3 Comp. Jos. Ant. xiv. 10, passim, and xvi.
    6. These edicts are collated in Krebs. Decreta Romanor. pro
    Jud. facta, with long comments by the author, and by
    Levyssohn.] In virtue of these they were not to be disturbed
    in their religious ceremonies, nor in the observance of their
    sabbaths and feasts. The annual Temple-tribute was allowed to
    be transported to Jerusalem, and the alienation of these
    funds by the civil magistrates treated as sacrilege. As the
    Jews objected to bear arms, or march, on the Sabbath, they
    were freed from military service. On similar grounds, they
    were not obliged to appear in courts of law on their holy
    days. Augustus even ordered that, when the public
    distribution of corn or of money among the citizens fell on a
    Sabbath, the Jews were to receive their share on the
    following day. In a similar spirit the Roman authorities
    confirmed a decree by which the founder of Antioch, Seleucus
    I. (Nicator), [d Ob.280 B.C.] had granted the Jews the right
    of citizenship in all the cities of Asia Minor and Syria
    which he had built, and the privilege of receiving, instead
    of the oil that was distributed, which their religion forbade
    them to use, [e Ab. Sar ii. 6] an equivalent in money. [f
    Jos. Ant. xii. 3. 1] These rights were maintained by
    Vespasian and Titus even after the last Jewish war,
    notwithstanding the earnest remonstrances of these cities. No
    wonder, that at the death of Caesar [g 44 B.C.] the Jews of
    Rome gathered for many nights, waking strange feelings of awe
    in the city, as they chanted in mournful melodies their
    Psalms around the pyre on which the body of their benefactor
    had been burnt, and raised their pathetic dirges. [a Suet.
    Caes. 84] The measures of Sejanus, and ceased with his sway.
    Besides, they were the outcome of public feeling at the time
    against all foreign rites, which had been roused by the vile
    conduct of the priests of Isis towards a Roman matron, and
    was again provoked by a gross imposture upon Fulvia, a noble
    Roman proselyte, on the part of some vagabond Rabbis. But
    even so, there is no reason to believe that literally all
    Jews had left Rome. Many would find means to remain secretly
    behind. At any rate, twenty years afterwards Philo found a
    large community there, ready to support him in his mission on
    behalf of his Egyptian countrymen. Any temporary measures
    against the Jews can, therefore, scarcely be regarded as a
    serious interference with their privileges, or a cessation of
    the Imperial favour shown to them.

 INTRODUCTORY.
    THE PREPARATION FOR THE GOSPEL: THE JEWISH WORLD IN THE DAYS
    OF CHRIST

    POLITICAL AND RELIGIOUS LIFE OF THE JEWISH DISPERSION IN THE
    WEST THEIR UNION IN THE GREAT HOPE OF THE COMING DELIVERER.

    CHAPTER VI

     It was not only in the capital of the Empire that the Jews
    enjoyed the rights of Roman citizenship. Many in Asia Minor
    could boast of the same privilege. [a Jos. Ant. xiv. 10,
    passim; Acts xxii. 25-29] The Seleucidic rulers of Syria had
    previously bestowed kindred privileges on the Jews in many
    places. Thus, they possessed in some cities twofold rights:
    the status of Roman and the privileges of Asiatic,
    citizenship. Those who enjoyed the former were entitled to a
    civil government of their own, under archons of their
    choosing, quite independent of the rule and tribunals of the
    cities in which they lived. As instances, we may mention the
    Jews of Sardis, Ephesus, Delos, and apparently also of
    Antioch. But, whether legally entitled to it or not, they
    probably everywhere claimed the right of self-government, and
    exercised it, except in times of persecution. But, as already
    stated, they also possessed, besides this, at least in many
    places, the privileges of Asiatic citizenship, to the same
    extent as their heathen fellow-citizens. This twofold status
    and jurisdiction might have led to serious complications, if
    the archons had not confined their authority to strictly
    communal interests, [b Co. np. Acts xix. 14 ix. 2] without
    interfering with the ordinary administration of justice, and
    the Jews willingly submitted to the sentences pronounced by
    their own tribunals.

     But, in truth, they enjoyed even more than religious liberty
    and communal privileges. It was quite in the spirit of the
    times, that potentates friendly to Israel bestowed largesses
    alike on the Temple in Jerusalem, and on the Synagogues in
    the provinces. The magnificent porch of the Temple was
    'adorned' with many such 'dedicated gifts.' Thus, we read of
    repeated costly offerings by the Ptolemies, of a golden
    wreath which Sosius offered after he had taken Jerusalem in
    conjunction with Herod, and of rich flagons which Augustus
    and his wife had given to the Sanctuary. [c Jos. Ant. xii. 2.
    5; xiii. 3. 4; Ag. Ap.ii. 5; Ant. xiv. 16. 4; War v. 13] And,
    although this same Emperor praised his grandson for leaving
    Jerusalem unvisited on his journey from Egypt to Syria, yet
    he himself made provision for a daily sacrifice on his
    behalf, which only ceased when the last war against Rome was
    proclaimed. [a Jos. War ii. 10. 4; ii. 17.] Even the
    circumstance that there was a 'Court of the Gentiles,' with
    marble screen beautifully ornamented, bearing tablets which,
    in Latin and Greek, warned Gentiles not to proceed further,
    [1 One of these tablets has lately been excavated. Comp. 'The
    Temple: its Ministry and Services in the Time of Christ,' p.
    24.] proves that the Sanctuary was largely attended by others
    than Jews, or, in the words of Josephus, that 'it was held in
    reverence by nations from the ends of the earth.' [b War iv.
    4. 3; comp. War ii. 17. 2-4]

     In Syria also, where, according to Josephus, the largest
    number of Jews lived, [2 War, vii. 3. 3.] they experienced
    special favour. In Antioch their rights and immunities were
    recorded on tables of brass. [3 War, vii. 5. 2.]

     But, indeed, the capital of Syria was one of their favourite
    resorts. It will be remembered what importance attached to it
    in the early history of the Christian Church. Antioch was the
    third city of the Empire, and lay just outside what the
    Rabbinists designated as 'Syria' and still regarded as holy
    ground. Thus it formed, so to speak, an advanced post between
    the Palestinian and the Gentile world. Its chief Synagogue
    was a magnificent building, to which the successors of
    Antiochus Epiphanes had given the spoils which that monarch
    had brought from the Temple. The connection between Jerusalem
    and Antioch was very close. All that occurred in that city
    was eagerly watched in the Jewish capital. The spread of
    Christianity there must have excited deep concern. Careful as
    the Talmud is not to afford unwelcome information, which
    might have led to further mischief, we know that three of the
    principal Rabbis went thither on a mission, we can scarcely
    doubt for the purpose of arresting the progress of
    Christianity. Again, we find at a later period a record of
    religious controversy in Antioch between Rabbis and
    Christians. [4 Comp. generally Neubauer, Geogr. du Talmud,
    pp. 312, 313.] Yet the Jews of Antioch were strictly
    Hellenistic, and on one occasion a great Rabbi was unable to
    find among them a copy of even the Book of Esther in Hebrew,
    which, accordingly, he had to write out from memory for his
    use in their Synagogue. A fit place this great border-city,
    crowded by Hellenists, in close connection with Jerusalem, to
    be the birthplace of the name 'Christian,' to send forth a
    Paul on his mission to the Gentile world, and to obtain for
    it a charter of citizenship far nobler than that of which the
    record was graven on tablets of brass.

     But, whatever privileges Israel might enjoy, history records
    an almost continuous series of attempts, on the part of the
    communities among whom they lived, to deprive them not only
    of their immunities, but even of their common rights.
    Foremost among the reasons of this antagonism we place the
    absolute contrariety between heathenism and the Synagogue,
    and the social isolation which Judaism rendered necessary. It
    was avowedly unlawful for the Jew even 'to keep company, or
    come unto one of another nation.' [a Acts x. To quarrel with
    this, was to find fault with the law and the religion which
    made him a Jew. But besides, there was that pride of descent,
    creed, enlightenment, and national privileges, which St. Paul
    so graphically sums up as 'making boast of God and of the
    law.' [b Comp. Rom. ii. 17-24 However differently they might
    have expressed it, Philo and Hillel would have been at one as
    to the absolute superiority of the Jew as such. Pretensions
    of this kind must have been the more provocative, that the
    populace at any rate envied tne prosperity which Jewish
    industry, talent, and capital everywhere secured. Why should
    that close, foreign corporation possess every civic right,
    and yet be free from many of its burdens? Why should their
    meetings be excepted from the 'collegia illicita'? why should
    they alone be allowed to export part of the national wealth,
    to dedicate it to their superstition in Jerusalem? The Jew
    could not well feign any real interest in what gave its
    greatness to Ephesus, it attractiveness to Corinth, its
    influence to Athens. He was ready to profit by it; but his
    inmost thought must have been contempt, and all he wanted was
    quietness and protection in his own pursuits. What concern
    had he with those petty squabbles, ambitions, or designs,
    which agitated the turbulent populace in those Grecian
    cities? what cared he for their popular meetings and noisy
    discussions? The recognition of the fact that, as Jews, they
    were strangers in a strange land, made them so loyal to the
    ruling powers, and procured them the protection of kings and
    Caesars. But it also roused the hatred of the populace.

     That such should have been the case, and these widely
    scattered members have been united in one body, is a unique
    fact in history. Its only true explanation must be sought in
    a higher Divine impulse. The links which bound them together
    were: a common creed, a common life, a common centre, and a
    common hope.

     Wherever the Jew sojourned, or however he might differ from
    his brethern, Monotheism, the Divine mission of Moses, and
    the authority of the Old Testament, were equally to all
    unquestioned articles of belief. It may well have been that
    the Hellenistic Jew, living in the midst of a hostile,
    curious, and scurrilous population, did not care to exhibit
    over his house and doorposts, at the right of the entrance,
    the Mezuzah, [1 Ber. iii. 3; Meg. i. 8; Moed K. iii. 4; Men.
    iii. 7. Comp. Jos. Ant. iv.8.13; and the tractate Mezuzah in
    Kirchheim, Septem libri Talmud. parvi Hierosol. pp. 12-17.]
    which enclosed the folded parchment that, on twenty-two
    lines, bore the words from Deut. iv. 4-9 and xi. 13-21, or to
    call attention by their breadth to the Tephillin, [St. Matt.
    xxiii. 5; Ber. i. 3; Shabb. vi. 2; vii. 3; xvi. 1; Er. x. 1,
    2; Sheq. iii. 2; Meg. i. 8; iv. 8; Moed. Q. iii. 4; Sanh. xi.
    3; Men. iii. 7; iv. 1; Kel. xviii. 8; Miqv. x. 3; yad. iii.
    3. Comp. Kirchheim, Tract. Tephillin, u. s. pp. 18-21.] or
    phylacteries on his left arm and forehead, or even to make
    observable the Tsitsith, [Moed K. iii. 4; Eduy. iv. 10; Men.
    iii. 7; iv. 1. Comp. Kirchheim, Tract. Tsitsith, u. s. pp.
    22-24.] or fringes on the borders of his garments. [The
    Tephillin enclosed a transcript of Exod. xiii. 1-10, 11-16;
    Deut. vi. 4-9; xi. 13-21. The Tsitsith were worn in obedience
    to the injunction in Num. xv. 37 etc.; Deut. xxii. 12 (comp.
    St. Matt. ix. 20; xiv. 36; St. Mark v. 27; St. Luke viii.
    44).] Perhaps, indeed, all these observances may at that time
    not have been deemed incumbent on every Jew. [It is
    remarkable that Aristeas seems to speak only of the
    phylacteries on the arm, and Philo of those for the head,
    while the LXX. takes the command entirely in a metaphorical
    sense. This has already been pointed out in that book of
    gigantic learning, Spencer, De Leg. Heb. p. 1213. Frankel
    (Uber d. Einfl. d. Pal. Exeg., pp. 89, 90) tries in vain to
    controvert the statement. The insufficency of his arguments
    has been fully shown by Herzfeld (Gesch. d. Volk. Isr. vol.
    iii. p. 224).] At any rate, we do not find mention of them in
    heathen writers. Similarly, they could easily keep out of
    view, or they may not have had conveniences for, their
    prescribed purifications. But in every place, as we have
    abundant evidence, where there were at least ten Batlanim -
    male householders who had leisure to give themselves to
    regular attendance - they had, from ancient times, [Acts xv.
    21.] one, and, if possible, more Synagogues. [Jos. Ant. xix.
    6. 3; War, ii. 14. 4, 5; vii. 3. 3; Philo, Quod omnis probus
    liber, ed. Mangey, ii. p. 458; Philo, Ad Caj. ii. p. 591;
    Jos. Ant. xvi. 6. 2; Philo, Vita Mosis, lib. iii., ii. p.
    168.] Where there was no Synagogue there was at least a
    Proseuche, [Acts xvi.13] [Jos. Ant. xvi. 10 23, life 54;
    Philo, In Flacc. ii. p. 523; Ad Caj. ii. pp. 565, 596;
    Epiphan. Haer. 1xxx. 1. Comp. Juven. Sat. iii. 296: 'Ede ubi
    consistas? in qua te quaero proseucha?'] open sky, after the
    form of a theatre, generally outside the town, near a river
    or the sea, for the sake of lustrations. These, as we know
    from classical writers, were well known to the heathen, and
    even frequented by them. Their Sabbath observance, their
    fasting on Thursdays, their Day of Atonement, their laws
    relating to food, and their pilgrimages to Jerusalem - all
    found sympathiers among Judaising Gentiles. [8 Comp., among
    others, Ovid, Ars Amat. i. 76; Juv. Sat. xvi. 96, 97; Hor.
    Sat. i. 5. 100; 9. 70; Suet. Aug. 93.] They even watched to
    see, how the Sabbath lamp was kindled, and the solemn prayers
    spoken which marked the beginning of the Sabbath. [9 Persius
    v. 180. But to the Jew the Synagogue was the bond of union
    throughout the world. There, on Sabbath and feast days they
    met to read, from the same Lectionary, the same
    Scripture-lessons which their brethren read throughout the
    world, and to say, in the words of the same liturgy, their
    common prayers, catching echoes of the gorgeous
    Temple-services in Jerusalem. The heathen must have been
    struck with awe as they listened, and watched in the gloom of
    the Synagogue the mysterious light at the far curtained end,
    where the sacred oracles were reverently kept, wrapped in
    costly coverings. Here the stranger Jew also would find
    himself at home: the same arrangements as in his own land,
    and the well-known services and prayers. A hospitable welcome
    at the Sabbath-meal, and in many a home, would be pressed on
    him, and ready aid be proffered in work or trial.

     For, deepest of all convictions was that of their common
    centre; strongest of all feelings was the love which bound
    them to Palestine and to Jerusalem, the city of God, the joy
    of all the earth, the glory of His people Isael. 'If I forget
    thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning; let
    my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouuth,' Hellenist and
    Eastern equally realised this. As the soil of his native
    land, the deeds of his people, or the graves of his fathers
    draw the far-off wanderer to the home of his childhood, or
    fill the mountaineer in his exile with irrepressible longing,
    so the sounds which the Jew heard in his Synagogue, and the
    observances which he kept. Nor was it with him merely matter
    of patriotism, of history, or of association. It was a
    religious principle, a spiritual hope. No truth more firmly
    rooted in the consciousness of all, than that in Jerusalem
    alone men could truly worship. [a St. John iv. 20] As Daniel
    of old had in his hour ofworship turned towards the Holy
    City, so in the Synagogue and in his prayers every Jew turned
    towards Jerusalem; and anything that might imply want of
    reverence, when looking in that direction, was considered a
    grievous sin. From every Synagogue in the Diaspora the annual
    Temple-tribute went up to Jerusalem, [1 Comp. Jos. Ant. xiv.
    7. 2; xvi. 6, passium; Philo, De Monarchia, ed. Mangey, ii.
    p. 224; Ad Caj. ii. p. 568; Contra Flacc. ii. p. 524.] no
    doubt often accompanied by rich votive offerings. Few, who
    could undertake or afford the journey, but had at some time
    or other gone up to the Holy City to attend one of the great
    feasts. [2 philo, De Monarchia, ii. p. 223.] Philo, who was
    held by the same spell as the most bigoted Rabbinist, had
    himself been one of those deputed by his fellow-citizens to
    offer prayers and sacrifices in the great Sanctuary. [3
    Philo, in a fragment preserved in Euseb., Praepar. Ev. viii.
    13. What the Temple was in the estimation of Israel,] Views
    and feelings of this kind help us to understand, how, on some
    great feast, as Josephus states on sufficient authority, the
    population of Jerusalem - within its ecclesiastical
    boundaries - could have swelled to the enormous number of
    nearly three millions. [a War vi. 9. 3; comp. ii. 14. 3]

     And still, there was an even stronger bond in their common
    hope. That hope pointed them all, wherever scattered, back to
    Palestine. To them the coming of the Messiah undoubtedly
    implied the restoration of Israel's kingdom, and, as a first
    part in it, the return of 'the dispersed.' [1 Even
    Maimonides, in spite of his desire to minimise the Messianic
    expectancy, admits this. Indeed, every devout Jew prayed, day
    by day: 'Proclaim by Thy loud trumpet our deliverance, and
    raise up a banner to gather our dispersed, and gather us
    together from the four ends of the earth. Blessed be Thou, O
    Lord! Who gatherest the outcasts of Thy people Israel.' [2
    This is the tenth of the eighteen (or rather nineteen)
    benedictions in the daily prayers. Of these the first and the
    last three are certainly the oldest. But this tenth also
    dates from before the destruction of Jerusalem. Comp. Zunz,
    Gottesd. Vortr. d. Juden, p. 368.] That prayer included in
    its generality also the lost ten tribes. So, for example, the
    prophecy [b Hos. xi. 11.] was rendered: 'They hasten hither,
    like a bird out of Egypt,' - referring to Israel of old; 'and
    like a dove out of the land of Assyria' - referring to the
    ten tribes. [c Midr. on Cant. i. 15, ed. warshau, p. 11b] [3
    Comp. Jer. Sanh. x. 6; Sanh. 110 b: Yalk. Shim.] And thus
    even these wanderers, so long lost, were to be reckoned in
    the field of the Good Shepherd. [4 The suggestion is made by
    Castelli, Il Messia, p. 253.]

     It is worth while to trace, how universally and warmly both
    Eastern and Western Judaism cherished this hope of all
    Israel's return to their own land. The Targumim bear repeated
    reference to it; [5 Notably in connection with Ex. xii. 42
    (both in the Pseudo-Jon. and Jer. Targum); Numb. xxiv. 7
    (Jer. Targ.); Deut. xxx. 4 (Targ. Ps.-Jon.); Is. xiv. 29;
    Jer. xxxiii. 13; Hos. xiv. 7; Zech. x. 6. Dr. Drummond, in
    his 'Jewish Messiah,' p. 335, quotes from the Targum on
    Lamentations. But this dates from long after the Talmudic
    period.] and although there may be question as to the exact
    date of these paraphrases, it cannot be doubted, that in this
    respect they represented the views of the Synagogue at the
    time of Jesus. For the same reason we may gather from the
    Talmud and earliest commentaries, what Israel's hope was in
    regard to the return of the 'dispersed.' [6 As each sentence
    which follows would necessitate one or more references to
    different works, the reader, who may be desirous to verify
    the statements in the text, is generally referred to
    Castelli, u. s. pp. 251-255.] It was a beautiful idea to
    liken Israel to the olive-tree, which is never stripped of
    its leves. [d Men. 53 b] The storm of trial that had swept
    over it was, indeed, sent in judgment, but not to destroy,
    only to purify. Even so, Israel's persecutions had served to
    keep them from becoming mixed with the Gentiles. Heaven and
    earth might be destroyed, but not Israel; and their final
    deliverance would far outstrip in marvellousness that from
    Egypt. The winds would blow to bring together the dispersed;
    nay, if there were a single Israelite in a land, however
    distant, he would be restored. With every honour would the
    nations bring them back. The patriarchs and all the just
    would rise to share in the joys of the new possession of
    their land; new hymns as well as the old ones would rise to
    the praise of God. Nay, the bounds of the land would be
    extended far beyond what they had ever been, and made as wide
    as originally promised to Abraham. Nor would that possession
    be ever taken from them, nor those joys be ever succeeded by
    sorrows. [1 The fiction of two Messiahs, one the Son of
    David, the other the Son of Joseph, the latter being
    connected with the restoration of the ten tribes, has been
    conclusively shown to be the post-Christian date (comp.
    Schottgen, Horae Hebr. i. p. 359; and Wunsche, Leiden d.
    Mess. p. 109). Possibly it was invented to find an
    explanation for Zech. xii. 10 (comp. Succ. 52 a), just as the
    Socinian doctrine of the assumption of Christ into heaven at
    the beginning of His ministry was invented to account for St.
    John iii. 13.] In view of such general expectations we cannot
    fail to mark with what wonderful sobriety the Apostles put
    the question to Jesus: 'Wilt Thou at this time restore the
    kingdom to Israel?' [a Acts i.6]

     Hopes and expectations such as these are expressed not only
    in Talmudical writings. We find them throughout that very
    interesting Apocalyptic class of literature, the
    Pseudepigrapha, to which reference has already been made. The
    two earliest of them, the Book of Enoch and the Sibylline
    Oracles, are equally emphatic on this subject. The seer in
    the Book of Enoch beholds Israel in the Messianic time as
    coming in carriages, and as borne on the wings of the wind
    from East, and West, and South. [b Book of En. ch. lvii.;
    comp.xc.33] Fuller details of that happy event are furnished
    by the Jewish Sibyl. In her utterances these three events are
    connected together: the coming of the Messiah, the rebuilding
    of the Temple, [c B. iii. 286-294; comp. B. v. 414-433] and
    the restoration of the dispersed, [d iii. 732-735] when all
    nations would bring their wealth to the House of God. [e iii.
    766-783] [2 M. Maurice Vernes (Hist. des Idees Messian. pp.
    43-119) maintains that the writers of Enoch and Or. Sib. iii.
    expected this period under the rule of the Maccabees, and
    regarded one of them as the Messiah. It implies a peculiar
    reading of history, and a lively imagination, to arrive at
    such a conclusion.] The latter trait specially reminds us of
    their Hellenistic origin. A century later the same joyous
    confidence, only perhaps more clearly worded, appears in the
    so-called 'Psalter of Solomon.' Thus the seventeenth Psalm
    bursts into this strain: 'Blessed are they who shall live in
    those days, in the reunion of the tribes, which God brings
    about.' [f Ps. of Sol. vxii. 50; comp. also Ps. xi.] And no
    wonder, since they are the days when 'the King, the Son of
    David,' [a Ps. Sal. xviii. 23] having purged Jerusalem [b v.
    25] and destroyed the heathen by the word of His mouth, [c v.
    27] would gather together a holy people which He would rule
    with justice, and judge the tribes of His people, [d v. 28]
    'dividing them over the land according to tribes;' when 'no
    stranger would any longer dwell among them.' [e vv. 30,31]

     Another pause, and we reach the time when Jesus the Messiah
    appeared. Knowing the characteristics of that time, we
    scarcely wonder that the Book of Jubilees, which dates from
    that period, should have been Rabbinic in its cast rather
    than Apocalyptic. Yet even there the reference to the future
    glory is distinct. Thus we are told, that, though for its
    wickedness Israel had been scattered, God would 'gather them
    all from the midst of the heathen,' 'build among them His
    Sanctuary, and dwell with them.' That Sanctuary was to 'be
    for ever and ever, and God would appear to the eye of every
    one, and every one acknowledge that He was the God of Israel,
    and the Father of all the Children of Jacob, and King upon
    Mount Zion, from everlasting to everlasting. And Zion and
    Jerusalem shall be holy.' [f Book of Jub. ch. i.; comp. also
    ch. xxiii.] When listening to this language of, perhaps, a
    contemporary of Jesus, we can in some measure understand the
    popular indignation which such a charge would call forth, as
    that the Man of Nazareth had proposed to destroy the Temple,
    [g St. John ii. 19] or that he thought merely of the children
    of Jacob.

     There is an ominous pause of a century before we come to the
    next work of this class, which bears the title of the Fourth
    Book of Esdras. That century had been decisive in the history
    of Israel. Jesus had lived and died; His Apostles had gone
    forth to bear the tidings of the new Kingdom of God; the
    Church had been founded and separated from the Synagogue; and
    the Temple had been destroyed, the Holy City laid waste, and
    Israel undergone sufferings, compared with which the former
    troubles might almost be forgotten. But already the new
    doctrine had struck it roots deep alike in Eastern and in
    Hellenistic soil. It were strange indeed if, in such
    circumstances, this book should not have been different from
    any that had preceded it; stranger still, if earnest Jewish
    minds and ardent Jewish hearts had remained wholly unaffected
    by the new teaching, even though the doctrine of the Cross
    still continued a stumbling-block, and the Gospel
    announcement a rock of offence. But perhaps we could scarcely
    have been prepared to find, as in the Fourth Book of Esdras,
    doctrinal views which were wholly foreign to Judaism, and
    evidently derived from the New Testament, and which, in
    logical consistency, would seem to lead up to it. [1 The
    doctrinal part of IV. Esdras may be said to be saturated with
    the dogma of original sin, which is wholly foreign to the
    theology alike of Rabbinic and Hellenistic Judaism. Comp.
    Vis. i. ch. iii. 21, 22; iv. 30, 38; Vis. iii. ch. vi, 18, 19
    (ed. Fritzsche, p. 607); 33-41; vii. 46-48; viii. 34-35.] The
    greater part of the book may be described as restless
    tossing, the seer being agitated by the problem and the
    consequences of sin, which here for the first and only time
    is presented as in the New Testament; by the question, why
    there are so few who are saved; and especially by what to a
    Jew must have seemed the inscrutable, terrible mystery of
    Israel's sufferings and banishment. [1 It almost seems as if
    there were a parallelism between this book and the Epistle to
    the Romans, which in its dogmatic part, seems successively to
    take up these three subjects, although from quite another
    point of view. How different the treatment is, need not be
    told.] Yet, so far as we can see, no other way of salvation
    is indicated than that by works and personal righteousness.
    Throughout there is a tone of deep sadness and intense
    earnestness. It almost seems sometimes, as if one heard the
    wind of the new dispensation sweeping before it the withered
    leaves of Israel's autumn. Thus far for the principal portion
    of the book. The second, or Apocalyptic, part, endeavors to
    solve the mystery of Israel's state by foretelling their
    future. Here also there are echoes of New Testament
    utterances. What the end is to be, we are told in
    unmistakable language. His 'Son,' Whom the Highest has for a
    long time preserved, to deliver 'the creature' by Him, is
    suddenly to appear in the form of a Man. From His mouth shall
    proceed alike woe, fire, and storm, which are the
    tribulations of the last days. And as they shall gather for
    war against Him, He shall stand on Mount Zion, and the Holy
    City shall come down from heaven, prepared and ready, and He
    shall destroy all His enemies. But a peaceable multitude
    shall now be gathered to Him. These are the ten tribes, who,
    to separate themselves from the ways of the heathen, had
    wandered far away, miraculously helped, a journey of one and
    a half years, and who were now similarly restored by God to
    their own land. But as for the 'Son,' or those who
    accompanied him, no one on earth would be able to see or know
    them, till the day of His appearing. [a Vis. vi. ch. xiii.
    27-52] [2 The better reading is 'in tempore diei ejus. (v.
    52).']

     It seems scarcely necessary to complete the series of
    testimony by referring in detail to a book, called 'The
    Prophecy and Assumption of Moses,' and to what is known as
    the Apocalypse of Branch, the servant of Jeremiah. Both date
    from probably a somewhat later period than the Fourth Book of
    Esdras, and both are fragmentary. The one distinctly
    anticipates the return of the ten tribes;[b Prophet. et Ass.
    Mos. iv. 7-14; vii. 20] the other, in the letter to the nine
    and a half tribes, far beyond the Euphrates, [c Ap. Bar.
    xxvii. 22] with which the book closes, preserves an ominous
    silence on that point, or rather alludes to it in language
    which so strongly reminds us of the adverse opinion expressed
    in the Talmud, that we cannot help suspecting some internal
    connection between the two. [1 In Sanh. 110 b we read, 'Our
    Rabbisteach, that the Ten Tribes have no part in the era to
    come, because it is written "The Lord drave them out of their
    land in anger, and in wrath, and in great indignation, and
    cast them into another land." "The Lord drave them from their
    land", in the present era, "and cast them into another land",
    in the era to come.' In curious agreement with this,
    Pseudo-Baruch writes to the nine and a half tribes to
    'prepare their hearts to that which they had formerly
    believed,' least they should suffer 'in both eras (ab utroque
    saeculo),' being led captive in the one, and tormented in the
    other (Apoc. Bar. lxxxiii. 8).]

     The writings to which we have referred have all a decidedly
    Hellenistic tinge of thought. [2 Thus, for example, the
    assertion that there had been individuals who fulfilled the
    commandments of God, Vis. i. ch. iii. 36; the domain of
    reason, iv. 22; v. 9; general Messianic blessings to the
    world at large, Vis. i. ch. iv. 27, 28; the idea of a law
    within their minds, like that of which St. Paul speaks in the
    case of the heathen, Vis. iii. ch. vi. 45-47 (ed. Fritzsche,
    p. 609). These are only instances, and we refer besides to
    the general cast of the reasoning.] Still they are not the
    outcome of pure Hellenism. It is therefore with peculiar
    interest that we turn to Philo, the great representative of
    that direction, to see whether he would admit an idea so
    purely national and, as it might seem, exclusive. Nor are we
    here left in doubt. So universal was this belief, so
    deep-seated the conviction, not only in the mind, but in the
    heart of Israel, that we could scarcely find it more
    distinctly expressed than by the great Alexandrian. However
    low the condition of Israel might be, he tells us, [a De
    Execrat. ed. Frcf. pp. 936, 937] or however scattered the
    people to the ends of the earth, the banished would, on a
    given sign, be set free in one day. In consistency with his
    system, he traces this wondrous event to their sudden
    conversion to virtue, which would make their masters ashamed
    to hold any longer in bondage those who were so much better
    than themselves. Then, gathering as by one impulse, the
    dispersed would return from Hellas, from the lands of the
    barbarians, from the isles, and from the continents, led by a
    Divine, superhuman apparition invisible to others, and
    visible only to themselves. On their arrival in Palestine the
    waste places and the wilderness would be inhabited, and the
    barren land transformed into fruitfulness.

     Whatever shades of difference, then, we may note in the
    expression of these views, all anticipate the deliverance of
    Israel, their restoration, and future pre-eminent glory, and
    they all connect these events with the coming of the Messiah.
    This was 'the promise' unto which, in their 'instant service
    night and day, the twelve tribes,' however grievously
    oppressed, hoped to come. [b Acts xxvi. 7] To this 'sure
    wordof prophecy' 'the strangers scattered' throughout all
    lands would 'take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a
    dark place,' until the day dawned, and the day-star rose in
    their hearts. [a 2 Pet. i. 19] It was this which gave meaning
    to their worship, filled them with patience in suffering,
    kept them separate from the nations around, and ever fixed
    their hearts and thoughts upon Jerusalem. For the 'Jerusalem'
    which was above was 'the mother' of them all. Yet a little
    while, and He that would come should come, and not tarry, and
    then all the blessing and glory would be theirs. At any
    moment the gladsome tidings might burst upon them, that He
    had come, when their glory would shine out from one end of
    the heavens to the other. All the signs of His Advent had
    come to pass. Perhaps, indeed, the Messiah might even now be
    there, ready to manifest Himself, so soon as the voice of
    Israel's repentance called Him from His hiding. Any hour
    might that banner be planted on the top of the mountains;
    that glittering sword be unsheathed; that trumpet sound.
    Closer then, and still closer, must be their connection with
    Jerusalem, as their salvation drew nigh; more earnest their
    longing, and more eager their gaze, till the dawn of that
    long expected day tinged the Eastern sky with its brightness.

 INTRODUCTORY.
    THE PREPARATION FOR THE GOSPEL: THE JEWISH WORLD IN THE DAYS
    OF CHRIST

    IN PALESTINE, JEWS AND GENTILES IN 'THE LAND', THEIR MUTUAL
    RELATIONS AND FEELINGS, 'THE WALL OF SEPARATION.'

    CHAPTER VII

     THE pilgrim who, leaving other countries, entered Palestine,
    must have felt as if he had crossed the threshold of another
    world. Manners, customs, institutions, law, life, nay, the
    very intercourse between man and man, were quite different.
    All was dominated by the one all-absorbing idea of religion.
    It penetrated every relation of life. Moreover, it was
    inseparably connected with the soil, as well as the people of
    Palestine, at least so long as the Temple stood. Nowhere else
    could the Shekhinah dwell or manifest itself; nor could,
    unless under exceptional circumstances, and for 'the merit of
    the fathers,' the spirit of prophecy be granted outside its
    bounds. To the orthodox Jew the mental and spiritual horizon
    was bounded by Palestine. It was 'the land'; all the rest of
    the world, except Babylonia, was 'outside the land.' No need
    to designate it specially as 'holy'; for all here bore the
    impress of sanctity, as he understood it. Not that the soil
    itself, irrespective of the people, was holy; it was Israel
    that made it such. For, had not God given so many
    commandments and ordinances, some of them apparently
    needless, simply to call forth the righteousness of Israel;
    [a Mac. 23 b] did not Israel possess the merits of 'the
    fathers,' [b Rosh HaSh. 11 a] and specially that of Abraham,
    itself so valuable that, even if his descendants had, morally
    speaking, been as a dead body, his merit would have been
    imputed to them? [c Ber. R. 44] More than that, God had
    created the world on account of Israel, [d Yalkut 2] and for
    their merit, making preparation for them long before their
    appearance on the scene, just as a king who foresees the
    birth of his son; nay, Israel had been in God's thoughts not
    only before anything had actually been created, but even
    before every other creative thought. [e Ber. R. 1] If these
    distinctions seem excessive, they were, at least, not out of
    proportion to the estimate formed of Israel's merits. In
    theory, the latter might be supposed to flow from 'good
    works,' of course, including the strict practice of legal
    piety, and from 'study of the law.' But in reality it was
    'study' alone to which such supreme merit attached. Practice
    required knowledge for its direction; such as the Am-ha-arets
    ('country people,' plebeians, in the Jewish sense of being
    unlearned) could not possess, [a Comp. Ab ii. 5] who had
    bartered away the highest crown for a spade with which to
    dig. And 'the school of Arum', the sages, the 'great ones of
    the world' had long settled it, that study was before works.
    [b Jer. Chag. i. hal. 7, towards the end; Jer. Pes. iii.7]
    And how could it well be otherwise, since the studies, which
    engaged His chosen children on earth, equally occupied their
    Almighty Father in heaven? [c Ab. Z. 3 b] Could anything,
    then, be higher than the peculiar calling of Israel, or
    better qualify them for being the sons of God?

     It is necessary to transport oneself into this atmosphere to
    understand the views entertained at the time of Jesus, or to
    form any conception of their infinite contrast in spirit to
    the new doctrine. The abhorrence, not unmingled with
    contempt, of all Gentile ways, thoughts and associations; the
    worship of the letter of the Law; the self-righteousness, and
    pride of descent, and still more of knowledge, become thus
    intelligible to us, and, equally so, the absolute antagonism
    to the claims of a Messiah, so unlike themselves and their
    own ideal. His first announcement might, indeed, excite hope,
    soon felt to have been vain; and His miracles might startle
    for a time. But the boundary lines of the Kingdom which He
    traced were essentially different from those which they had
    fixed, and within which they had arranged everything, alike
    for the present and the future. Had He been content to step
    within them, to complete and realise what they had indicated,
    it might have been different. Nay, once admit their
    fundamental ideas, and there was much that was beautiful,
    true, and even grand in the details. But it was exactly in
    the former that the divergence lay. Nor was there any
    possibility of reform or progress here. The past, the
    present, and the future, alike as regarded the Gentile world
    and Israel, were irrevocably fixed; or rather, it might
    almost be said, there were not such, all continuing as they
    had been from the creation of the world, nay, long before it.
    The Torah had really existed 2,000 years before Creation; [d
    Shir haShir. R. on Cant. v. 11, ed War shau, p. 26b] the
    patriarchs had had their Academies of study, and they had
    known and observed all the ordinances; and traditionalism had
    the same origin, both as to time and authority, as the Law
    itself. As for the heathen nations, the Law had been offered
    by God to them, but refused, and even their after repentance
    would prove hypocritical, as all their excuses would be shown
    to be futile. But as for Israel, even though their good deeds
    should be few, yet, by cumulating them from among all the
    people, they would appear great in the end, and God would
    exact payment for their sins as a man does from his friends,
    taking little sums at a time. It was in this sense, that the
    Rabbis employed that sublime figure, representing the Church
    as one body, of which all the members suffered and joyed
    together, which St. Paul adopted and applied in a vastly
    different and spiritual sense. [a Eph. iv. 16]

     If, on the one hand, the pre-eminence of Israel depended on
    the Land, and, on the other, that of the Land on the presence
    of Israel in it, the Rabbinical complaint was, indeed, well
    grounded, that its 'boundaries were becoming narrow.' We can
    scarcely expect any accurate demarcation of them, since the
    question, what belonged to it, was determined by ritual and
    theological, not by geographical considerations. Not only the
    immediate neighborhood (as in the case of Ascalon), but the
    very wall of a city (as of Acco and of Caesarea) might be
    Palestinian, and yet the city itself be regarded as 'outside'
    the sacred limits. All depended on who had originally
    possessed, and now held a place, and hence what ritual
    obligations lay upon it. Ideally, as we may say, 'the land of
    promise' included all which God had covenanted to give to
    Israel, although never yet actually possessed by them. Then,
    in a more restricted sense, the 'land' comprised what 'they
    who came up from Egypt took possession of, from Chezib [about
    three hours north of Acre] and unto the river [Euphrates],
    and unto Amanah.' This included, of course, the conquests
    made by David in the most prosperous times of the Jewish
    commonwealth, supposed to have extended over Mesopotamia,
    Syria, Zobah, Achlah, &c. To all these districts the general
    name of Soria, or Syria, was afterwards given. This formed,
    at the time of which we write, a sort of inner band around
    'the land,' in its narrowest and only real sense; just as the
    countries in which Israel was specially interested, such as
    Egypt, Babylon, Ammon, and Moab, formed an outer band. These
    lands were heathen, and yet not quite heathen, since the
    dedication of the so-called Terumoth, or first-fruits in a
    prepared state, was expected from them, while Soria shared
    almost all the obligations of Palestine, except those of the
    'second tithes,' and the fourth year's product of plants. [b
    Lev. xix. 24.] But the wavesheaf at the Paschal Feast, and
    the two loaves at Pentecost, could only be brought from what
    had grown on the holy soil itself. This latter was roughly
    defined, as 'all which they who came up from Babylon took
    possession of, in the land of Israel, and unto Chezib.'
    Viewed in this light, there was a special significance in the
    fact that Antioch, where the name 'Christian' first marked
    the new 'Sect' which had sprung up in Palestine, [c Acts xi.
    26.] and where the first Gentile Church was formed, [a Acts
    xi. 20, 21] lay just outside the northern boundary of 'the
    land.' Similarly, we understand, why those Jewish zealots who
    would fain have imposed on the new Church the yoke of the
    Law, [b Acts xv.1]concentrated their first efforts on that
    Soria which was regarded as a kind of outer Palestine.

     But, even so, there was a gradation of sanctity in the Holy
    Land itself, in accordance with ritual distinctions. Ten
    degrees are here enumerated, beginning with the bare soil of
    Palestine, and culminating in the Most Holy Place in the
    Temple, each implying some ritual distinction, which did not
    attach to a lower degree. And yet, although the very dust of
    heathen soil was supposed to carry defilement, like
    corruption or the grave, the spots most sacred were
    everywhere surrounded by heathenism; nay, its traces were
    visible in Jerusalem itself. The reasons of this are to be
    sought in the political circumstances of Palestine, and in
    the persistent endeavour of its rulers, with the exception of
    a very brief period under the Maccabees, to Grecianise the
    country, so as to eradicate that Jewish particularism which
    must always be antagonistic to every foreign element. In
    general, Palestine might be divided into the strictly Jewish
    territory, and the so-called Hellenic cities. The latter had
    been built at different periods, and were politically
    constituted after the model of the Greek cities, having their
    own senates (generally consisting of several hundred persons)
    and magistrates, each city with its adjoining territory
    forming a sort of commonwealth of its own. But it must not be
    imagined, that these districts were inhabited exclusively, or
    even chiefly, by Greeks. One of these groups, that towards
    Peraea, was really Syrian, and formed part of Syria
    Decapolis; [1 The following cities probably formed the
    Decapolis, though it is difficult to feel quite sure in
    reference to one or the other of them: Damascus,
    Philadelphia, Raphana, Scythopolis, Gadara, Hippos Dion,
    Pella, Gerasa, and Canatha. On these cities, comp. Caspari,
    Chronol. Geogr. Einl. in d. Leben J. Christ, pp. 83-90.]
    while the other, along the coast of the Mediterranean, was
    Phoenician. Thus 'the land' was hemmed in, east and west,
    within its own borders, while south and north stretched
    heathen or semi-heathen districts. The strictly Jewish
    territory consisted of Judaea proper, to which Galilee,
    Samaria and Peraea were joined as Toparchies. These
    Toparchies consisted of a group of townships, under a
    Metropolis. The villages and townships themselves had neither
    magistrates of their own, nor civic constitution, nor lawful
    popular assemblies. Such civil adminstration as they required
    devolved on 'Scribes' (the so-called). Thus Jerusalem was
    really, as well as nominally, the capital of the whole land.
    Judaea itself was arranged into eleven, or rather, more
    exactly, into nine Toparchies, of which Jerusalem was the
    chief. While, therefore, the Hellenic cities were each
    independent of the other, the whole Jewish territory formed
    only one 'Civitas.' Rule, government, tribute, in short,
    political life, centred in Jerusalem.

     But this is not all. From motives similar to those which led
    to the founding of other Hellenic cities, Herod the Great and
    his immediate successors built a number of towns, which were
    inhabited chiefly by Gentiles, and had independent
    constitutions, like those of the Hellenic cities. Thus, Herod
    himself built Sebaste (Samaria), in the centre of the
    country; Caesarea in the west, commanding the sea-coast; Gaba
    in Galilee, close to the great plain of Esdraelon; and
    Esbonitis in Peraea. [1 Herod rebuilt or built other cities,
    such as Antipatris, Cypros, Phasaelis, Anthedon, &c. Schurer
    describes the two first as built, but they were only rebuilt
    or fortified (comp. Ant. xiii. 15. 1; War i. 21. 8.) by
    Herod.] Similarly, Philip the Tetrarch built Caesarea
    Philippi and Julias (Bethsaida-Julias, on the western shore
    of the lake); and Herod Antipas another Julias, and Tiberias.
    [2 He also rebuilt Sepphoris.] The object of these cities was
    twofold. As Herod, well knowing his unpopularity, surrounded
    himself by foreign mercenaries, and reared fortresses around
    his palace and the Temple which he built, so he erected these
    fortified posts, which he populated with strangers, as so
    many outworks, to surround and command Jerusalem and the Jews
    on all sides. Again, as, despite his profession of Judaism,
    he reared magnificent heathen temples in honour of Augustus
    at Sebaste and Caesarca, so those cities were really intended
    to form centres of Grecian influence within the sacred
    territory itself. At the same time, the Herodian cities
    enjoyed not the same amount of liberty as the 'Hellenic,'
    which, with the exception of certain imposts, were entirely
    self-governed, while in the former there were representatives
    of the Herodian rulers. [3 Comp. on the subject of the civic
    institutions of the Roman Empire, Kuhn, Die Stadt. u.
    burgerl. Verf. d. Rom. Reichs, 2 vols.; and for this part.
    vol. ii. pp. 336-354, and pp. 370-372.]

     Although each of these towns and districts had its special
    deities and rites, some being determined by local traditions,
    their prevailing character may be described as a mixture of
    Greek and Syrian worship, the former preponderating, as might
    be expected. [4 A good sketch of the variousrites prevailing
    in different places is given by Schurer, Neutest. Zeitg. pp.
    378-385.] On the other hand, Herod and his successors
    encouraged the worship of the Emperor and of Rome, which,
    characteristically, was chiefly practised in the East. [5
    Comp. Weiseler, Beitr. z richt. Wur dig. d. Evang. pp. 90
    91.] Thus, in the temple which Herod built to Augustus in
    Caesarea, there were statues of the Emperor as Olympian Zeus,
    and of Rome as Hera. [a Jos. Ant. xv. 9. 6; War i. 21. 5-8.]
    He was wont to excuse this conformity to heathenism before
    his own people on the ground of political necessity. Yet,
    even if his religious inclinations had not been in that
    direction, he would have earnestly striven to Grecianise the
    people. Not only in Caesarea, but even in Jerusalem, he built
    a theatre and amphitheatre, where at great expense games were
    held every four years in honour of Augustus. [1 The Actian
    games took place every fifth year, three years always
    intervening. The games in Jerusalem were held in the year 28
    B.C. (Jos. Ant. xv. 8. 1); the first games in Caesarea in the
    year 12 B.C. (Ant. xvi. 5. 1; comp. War. i. 21. 8).] Nay, he
    placed over the great gate of Temple at Jerusalem a massive
    golden eagle, the symbol of Roman dominion, as a sort of
    counterpart to that gigantic golden vine, the symbol of
    Israel, which hung above the entrance to the Holy Place.
    These measures, indeed, led to popular indignation, and even
    to conspiracies and tumults, [b Ant. xv. 8. 1-4; xvii. 6. 2]
    though not of the same general and intense character, as
    when, at a later period, Pilate sought to introduce into
    Jerusalem images of the Emperor, or when the statue of
    Caligula was to be placed in the Temple. In connection with
    this, it is curious to notice that the Talmud, while on the
    whole disapproving of attendance at theatres and
    amphitheatres, chiefly on the ground that it implies 'sitting
    in the seat of scorners,' and might involve contributions to
    the maintenance of idol-worship, does not expressly prohibit
    it, nor indeed speak very decidedly on the subject. [c So at
    least in a Boraitha. Comp. the the discussion and the very
    curious arguments in favour of attendance in Ab. Zar. 18 b,
    and following
     The views of the Rabbis in regard to pictorial
    representations are still more interesting, as illustrating
    their abhorrence of all contact with idolatry. We mark here
    differences at two, if not at three periods, according to the
    outward circumstances of the people. The earliest and
    strictest opinions [d Mechilta on Ex. xx. 4 ed. Weiss, p. 75
    a.] absolutely forbade any representation of things in
    heaven, on earth, or in the waters. But the Mishnah [e Ab.
    Zar. iii.] seems to relax these prohibitions by subtle
    distinctions, which are still further carried out in the
    Talmud. [2 For a full statement of the Talmudical views as to
    images, representations on coins, and the most ancient Jewish
    coins, see Appendix III.]

     To those who held such stringent views, it must have been
    peculiarly galling to see their most sacred feelings openly
    outraged by their own rulers. Thus, the Asmonean princess,
    Alexandra, the mother-in-law of Herod, could so far forget
    the traditions of her house, as to send portraits of her son
    and daughter to Mark Antony for infamous purposes, in hope of
    thereby winning him for her ambitious plans. [f Jos. Ant. xv.
    2. 5 and 6] One would be curious to know who painted these
    pictures, for, when the statue of Caligula was to be made for
    the Temple at Jerusalem, no native artist could be found, and
    the work was entrusted to Phoenicians. It must have been
    these foreigners also who made the 'figures,' with which
    Herod adorned his palace at Jerusalem, and 'the brazen
    statues' in the gardens 'through which the water ran out,' [a
    Jos. Warv. 4. 4] as well as the colossal statues at Caesarea,
    and those of the three daughters of Agrippa, which after his
    death [b Acts xii. 23] were so shamefully abused by
    thesoldiery at Sebaste and Caesarea. [cAnt. xix. 9. l]

     This abhorrence of all connected with idolatry, and the
    contempt entertained for all that was non-Jewish, will in
    great measure explain the code of legislation intended to
    keep the Jew and Gentile apart. If Judaea had to submit to
    the power of Rome, it could at least avenge itself in the
    Academies of its sages. Almost innumerable stories are told
    in which Jewish sages, always easily, confute Roman and Greek
    philosophers; and others, in which even a certain Emperor
    (Antoninus) is represented as constantly in the most menial
    relation of self-abasement before a Rabbi. [1 Comp. here the
    interesting tractate of Dr. Bodek, 'Marc. Aur. Anton. als
    Freund u. Zeitgenosse des R. Jehuda ha Nasi.'] Rome, which
    was the fourth beast of Daniel, [d Dan. vii. 23.] would in
    the age to come, [2 The Athidlabho, 'saeculum futurum,' to be
    distinguished from the Olam habba, 'the world to come.'] when
    Jerusalem would be the metropolis of all lands, [e Midr. R.
    on Ex. Par. 23.] be the first to excuse herself on false
    though vain pleas for her wrongs to Israel. [f Ab. Z. 2 b]
    But on wordly grounds also, Rome was contemptible, having
    derived her language and writing from the Greeks, and not
    possessing even a hereditary succession in her empire. [g Ab.
    Z. 10 a; Gitt. 80 a.] If such was the estimate of dreaded
    Rome, it may be imagined in what contempt other nations were
    held. Well might 'the earth tremble,' [Ps. ixxvi. 9.] for, if
    Israel had not accepted the Law at Sinai, the whole world
    would have been destroyed, while it once more 'was still'
    when that [i Shabb. 88 a.] happy event took place, although
    God in a manner forced Israel to it. And so Israel was
    purified at Mount Sinai from the impurity which clung to our
    race in consequence of the unclean union between Eve and the
    serpent, and which still adhered to all other nations! [3 Ab.
    Z. 22 b. But as in what follows the quotations would be too
    numerous, they will be omitted. Each statement, however,
    advanced in the text or notes is derived from part of the
    Talmudic tractate Abodah Zarah.]

     To begin with, every Gentile child, so soon as born, was to
    be regarded as unclean. Those who actually worshipped
    mountains, hills, bushes, &c., in short, gross idolaters,
    should be cut down with the sword. But as it was impossible
    to exterminate heathenism, Rabbinic legislation kept certain
    definite objects in view, which may be thus summarised: To
    prevent Jews from being inadvertenly led into idolatry; to
    avoid all participation in idolatry; not to do anything which
    might aid the heathen in their worship; and, beyond all this,
    not to give pleasure, nor even help, to heathens. The latter
    involved a most dangerous principle, capable of almost
    indefinite application by fanaticism. Even the Mishnah goes
    for far [a Ab. Z. ii. 1] as to forbid aid to amother in the
    hour of her need, or nourishment to her babe, in order not to
    bring up a child for idolatry! [1 The Talmud declares it only
    lawful if done to avoid exciting hatred against the Jews.]
    But this is not all. Heathens were, indeed, not to be
    precipitated into danger, but yet not to be delivered from
    it. Indeed, an isolated teacher ventures even upon this
    statement: 'The best among the Gentiles, kill; the best among
    serpents, crush its head.' [b Mechilta, ed. Weiss, p. 33 b,
    line 8 from top] Still more terrible was the fanaticism which
    directed, that heretics, traitors, and those who had left the
    Jewish faith should be thrown into actual danger, and, if
    they were in it, all means for their escape removed. No
    intercourse of any kind was to be had with such, not even to
    invoke their medical aid in case of danger to life, [2 There
    is a well-known story told of a Rabbi who was bitten by a
    serpent, and about to be cured by the invocation of the name
    of Jesus by a Jewish Christian, which was, however,
    interdicted.] since it was deemed, that he who had to do with
    heretics was imminent peril of becoming one himself, [3 Yet,
    such is the moral obliquity, that even idolatry is allowed to
    save life, provided it be done in secret!] and that, if a
    heretic returned to the true faith, he should die at once,
    partly, probably, to expiate his guilt, and partly from fear
    of relapse. Terrible as all this sounds, it was probably not
    worse than the fanaticism displayed in what are called more
    enlightened times. Impartial history must chronicle it,
    however painful, to show the circumstances in which teaching
    so far different was propounded by Christ. [4 Against this,
    although somewhat doubtfully, such concessions may be put as
    that, outside Palestine, Gentiles were not to be considered
    as idolators, but as observing the customs of their fathers
    (Chull. 13 b), and that the poor of the Gentiles were to be
    equally supported with those of Israel, their sick visited,
    and their dead buried; it being, however, significantly
    added, 'on account of the arrangements of the world' (Gitt.
    61 a). The quotation so often made (Ab. Z. 3 a), that a
    Gentile who occupied himself with the Torah was to be
    regarded as equal to the High-Priest, proves nothing, since
    in the case supposed the Gentile acts like a Rabbinic Jew.
    But, and this is a more serious point, it is difficult to
    believe that those who make this quotation are not aware, how
    the Talmud (Ab. Z. 3 a) immediately labours to prove that
    their reward is not equal to that of Israelites. A somewhat
    similar charge of one-sideness, if not of unfairness, must be
    brought against Deutsch (Lecture on the Talmud, Remains, pp.
    146, 147), whose sketch of Judaism should be compared, for
    example, with the first Perek of the Talmudic tractate Abodah
    Zarah.]

     In truth, the bitter hatred which the Jew bore to the
    Gentile can only be explained from the estimate entertained
    of his character. The most vile, and even unnatural, crimes
    were imputed to them. It was not safe to leave cattle in
    their charge, to allow their women to nurse infants, or their
    physicians to attend the sick, nor to walk in their company,
    without taking precautions against sudden and unprovoked
    attacks. They should, so far as possible, be altogether
    avoided, except in cases of necessity or for the sake of
    business. They and theirs were defiled; their houses unclean,
    as containing idols or things dedicated to them; their
    feasts, their joyous occasions, their very contact, was
    polluted by idolatry; and there was no security, if a heathen
    were left alone in a room, that he might not, in wantonness
    or by carelessness, defile the wine or meat on the table, or
    the oil and wheat in the store. Under such circumstances,
    therefore, everything must be regarded as having been
    rendered unclean. Three days before a heathen festival
    (according to some, also three days after) every business
    transaction with them was prohibited, for fear of giving
    either help or pleasure. Jews were to avoid passing through a
    city where there was an idolatrous feast, nay, they were not
    even to sit down within the shadow of a tree dedicated to
    idol-worship. Its wood was polluted; if used in baking, the
    bread was unclean; if a shuttle had been made of it, not only
    was all cloth woven on it forbidden, but if such had been
    inadvertently mixed with other pieces of cloth, or a garment
    made from it placed with other garments, the whole became
    unclean. Jewish workmen were not to assist in building
    basilicas, nor stadia, nor places where judicial sentences
    were pronounced by the heathen. Of course, it was not lawful
    to let houses or fields, nor to sell cattle to them. Milk
    drawn by a heathen, if a Jew had not been present to watch
    it, [a Ab. Zar. 35 b.] bread and oil prepared by them, were
    unlawful. Their wine was wholly interdicted [1 According to
    R. Asi, there was a threefold distinction. If wine had been
    dedicated to an idol, to carry, even on a stick, so much as
    the weight of an olive of it, defiled a man. Other wine, if
    prepared by a heathen, was prohibited, whether for personal
    use or for trading. Lastly, wine prepared by a Jew, but
    deposited in custody of a Gentile, was prohibited for
    personal use, but allowed for traffic.] , the mere touch of a
    heathen polluted a whole cask; nay, even to put one's nose to
    heathen wine was strictly prohibited!

     Painful as these details are, they might be multiplied. And
    yet the bigotry of these Rabbis was, perhaps, not worse than
    that of other sectaries. It was a painful logical necessity
    of their system, against which their heart, no doubt, often
    rebelled; and, it must be truthfully added, it was in measure
    accounted for by the terrible history of Israel.

 INTRODUCTORY.
    THE PREPARATION FOR THE GOSPEL: THE JEWISH WORLD IN THE DAYS
    OF CHRIST

    TRADITIONALISM, ITS ORIGIN, CHARACTER, AND LITERATURE, THE
    MISHNAH AND TALMUD, THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST, THE DAWN OF A NEW
    DAY.

    CHAPTER VIII

     In trying to picture to ourselves New Testament scenes, the
    figure most prominent, next to those of the chief actors, is
    that of the Scribe (literatus). He seems ubiquitous; we meet
    him in Jerusalem, in Judaea, and even in Galilee. [a St. Luke
    v. 17.] Indeed, he is indispensable, not only in Babylon,
    which may have been the birthplace of his order, but among
    the 'dispersion' also. [b Jos. Ant. xviii. 3. 5 xx. 11. 2]
    Everywhere he appears as the mouthpiece and representative of
    the people; he pushes to the front, the crowd respectfully
    giving way, and eagerly hanging on his utterances, as those
    of a recognised authority. He has been solemnly ordained by
    the laying on of hands; and is the Rabbi, [1 The title Rabbon
    (our Master) occurs first in connection with Gamaliel i.
    (Acts v. 34). The N.T. expression Rabboni or Rabbouni (St.
    Mark x. 51; St. John xx. 16) takes the word Rabbon or Rabban
    (here in the absolute sense)= Rabh, and adds to it the
    personal suffix 'my,' pronouncing the Kamez in the Syriac
    manner.] 'my great one,' Master, amplitudo. He puts
    questions; he urges objections; he expects full explanations
    and respectful demeanour. Indeed, his hyper-ingenuity in
    questioning has become a proverb. There is not measure of his
    dignity, nor yet limit to his importance. He is the 'lawyer,'
    [c the legis Divinae peritus, St. Matt. xxii. 35; St. Luke
    vii. 30; x.25; xi. 45; xiv. 3.] the well-plastered pit,'
    filled with the water of knowledge'out of which not a drop
    can escape,' [d Ab. ii. 8.] in opposition to the weeds of
    untilled soil' of ignorance. [e Ber. 45 b 2; Ab. ii. 5;
    Bemid. R. 3.] He is the Divine aristocrat, among the vulgar
    herd of rude and profane 'country-people,' who 'know not the
    Law' and are 'cursed.' More than that, his order constitutes
    the ultimate authority on all questions of faith and
    practice; he is 'the Exegete of the Laws,' [f Jos. Ant. xvii.
    6 2.] the 'teacher of the Law,' [g St. Luke v. 17; Acts v.
    34; comp. also 1 Tim. i. 7.] and along with 'the chief
    priests' and 'elders' a judge in the ecclesiastical
    tribunals, whether of the capital or in the provinces. [h St.
    Matt. ii. 4; xx. 18; xxi. 15; xxvi. 57; xxvii. 41; St. Mark
    xiv.1.43;xv. 1; St. Luke xxii. 2, 66; xxiii. 10; Acts iv. 5.]
    Although generally appearing incompany with 'the Pharisees,'
    he is not necessarily one of them, for they represent a
    religious party, while he has a status, and holds an office.
    [1 The distinction between 'Pharisees' and 'Scribes,' is
    marked in may passages in the N.T., for example, St. Matt.
    xxiii. passim; St. Luke vii. 30; xiv. 3; and especially in
    St. Luke xi. 43, comp. with v. 46. The words 'Scribes and
    Pharisees, hypocrites,' in ver. 44, are, according to all
    evidence, spurious.] In short, he is the Talmid or learned
    student, the Chakham or sage, whose honour is to be great in
    the future world. Each Scribe outweighed all the common
    people, who must accordingly pay him every honour. Nay, they
    were honoured of God Himself, and their praises proclaimed by
    the angels; and in heaven also, each of them would hold the
    same rank and distinction as on earth. [a Siphre or Numb. p
    25 b.] Such was to be therespect paid to their sayings, that
    they were to be absolutely believed, even if they were to
    declare that to be at the right hand which was at the left,
    or vice versa. [b Siphre on Deut. p. 105 a.]

     An institution which had attained such proportions, and
    wielded such power, could not have been of recent growth. In
    point of fact, its rise was very gradual, and stretched back
    to the time of Nehemiah, if not beyond it. Although from the
    utter confusion of historical notices in Rabbinic writings
    and their constant practice of antedating events, it is
    impossible to furnish satisfactory details, the general
    development of the institution can be traced with sufficient
    precision. If Ezra is described in Holy Writ [c Ezra vii.6,
    10, 11, 12.] as 'a ready (expertus) Scribe,' who had 'set his
    heart to seek (seek out the full meaning of) the law of the
    Lord, and to do it, and to teach in Israel,' this might
    indicate to his successors, the Sopherim (Scribes), the
    threefold direction which their studies afterwards took: the
    Midrash, the Halakhah, and the Haggadah, [e Nedar. iv. 8.] [2
    In Ned. iv. 3 this is the actual division. Of course, in
    another sense the Midrash might be considered as the source
    of both the Halakhah and the Haggadah.] of which the one
    pointed to Scriptural investigation, the other to what was to
    be observed, and the third to oral teaching in the widest
    sense. But Ezra left his work uncompleted. On Nehemiah's
    second arrival in Palestine, he found matters again in a
    state of utmost confusion. [f Neh. xiii.] He must have felt
    the need of establishing some permanent authority to watch
    over religious affairs. This we take to have been 'the Great
    Assembly,' or, as it is commonly called, the 'Great
    Synagogue.' It is impossible with certainty to determine, [3
    Very strange and ungrounded conjectures on this subject have
    been hazarded, which need not here find a place. Comp. for
    ex. the two articles of Gratz in Frankel's Montsschrift for
    1857, pp. 31 etc. 61 etc., the main positions of which have,
    however, been adopted by some learned English writers.]
    either who composed this assembly, or of how many members it
    consisted. [4 The Talmudic notices are often inconsistent.
    The number as given in them amounts to about 120. But the
    modern doubts (of Kuenen and others) against the institution
    itself cannot be sustained.] Probably it comprised the
    leading men in Church and State, the chief priests, elders,
    and 'judges', the latter two classes including 'the Scribes,'
    if, indeed, that order was already separately organised. [a
    Ezra x. 14; Neh. v. 7.] Probably also the term 'Great
    Assembly' refers rather to a succession of men than to one
    Synod; the ingenuity of later times filling such parts of the
    historical canvas as had been left blank with fictitious
    notices. In the nature of things such an assembly could not
    exercise permanent sway in a sparsely populated country,
    without a strong central authority. Nor could they have
    wielded real power during the political difficulties and
    troubles of foreign domination. The oldest tradition [b Ab.
    i. 1.] sums up the result of their activity in this sentence
    ascribed to them: 'Be careful in judgment, set up many
    Talmidim, and make a hedge about the Torah (Law).'

     In the course of time this rope of sand dissolved. The
    High-Priest, Simon the Just, [c In the beginning of the third
    century B.C.] is already designated as 'of the remnants of
    the Great Assembly.' But even this expression does not
    necessarily imply that he actually belonged to it. In the
    troublous times which followed his Pontificate, the sacred
    study seems to have been left to solitary individuals. The
    Mishnic tractate Aboth, which records 'the sayings of the
    Fathers,' here gives us only the name of Antigonus of Socho.
    It is significant, that for the first time we now meet a
    Greek name among Rabbinic authorities, together with an
    indistinct allusion to his disciples. [d Ab. i. 3, 4] [1 Zunz
    has well pointed out that, if in Ab. i. 4 the first 'couple'
    is said to have 'received from them', while only Antigonus is
    mentioned in the preceding Mishnah, it must imply Antigonus
    and his unnamed disciples and followers. In general, I may
    take this opportunity of stating that, except for special
    reasons, I shall not refer to previous writers on this
    subject, partly because it would necessitate too many
    quotations, but chiefly because the line of argument I have
    taken differs from that of my predecessors.] The long
    interval between Simon theJust and Antigonus and his
    disciples, brings us to the terrible time of Antiochus
    Epiphanes and the great Syrian persecution. The very sayings
    attributed to these two sound like an echo of the political
    state of the country. On three things, Simon was wont to say,
    the permanency of the (Jewish?) world depends: on the Torah
    (faithfulness to the Law and its pursuit), on worship (the
    non-participation in Grecianism), and on works of
    righteousness. [e Ab. i. 2.] They were dark times, when God's
    persecuted people were tempted to think, that it might be
    vain to serve Him, in which Antigonus had it: 'Be not like
    servants who serve their master for the sake of reward, but
    be like servants who serve their lord without a view to the
    getting of reward, and let the fear of heaven be upon you.'
    [f Ab. i. 3.] After these two names come those of the
    so-called five Zugoth, or 'couples,' of whom Hillel and
    Shammai are the last. Later tradition has represented these
    successive couples as, respectively, the Nasi (president),
    and Ab-beth-din (vice-president, of the Sanhedrin). Of the
    first three of these 'couples' it may be said that, except
    significant allusions to the circumstances and dangers of
    their times, their recorded utterances clearly point to the
    development of purely Sopheric teaching, that is, to the
    Rabbinistic part of their functions. From the fourth
    'couple,' which consists of Simon ben Shetach, who figured so
    largely in the political history of the later Maccabees [1
    See Appendix IV.: 'Political History of the Jews from the
    Reign of Alexander to the Accession of Herod.'] (as
    Ab-beth-din), and his superior in learning and judgment,
    Jehudah ben Tabbai (as Nasi), we have again utterances which
    show, in harmony with the political history of the time, that
    judicial functions had been once more restored to the Rabbis.
    The last of five couples brings us to the time of Herod and
    of Christ.

     We have seen that, during the period of severe domestic
    troubles, beginning with the persecutions under the
    Seleucidae, which marked the mortal struggle between Judaism
    and Grecianism, the 'Great Assembly' had disappeared from the
    scene. The Sopherim had ceased to be a party in power. They
    had become the Zeqenim, 'Elders,' whose task was purely
    ecclesiastical, the perservation of their religion, such as
    the dogmatic labours of their predecessors had made it. Yet
    another period opened with the advent of the Maccabees. These
    had been raised into power by the enthusiasm of the Chasidim,
    or 'pious ones,' who formed the nationalist party in the
    land, and who had gathered around the liberators of their
    faith and country. But the later bearing of the Maccabees had
    alienated the nationalists. Henceforth they sink out of view,
    or, rather, the extreme section of them merged in the extreme
    section of the Pharisees, till fresh national calamities
    awakened a new nationalist party Instead of the Chasidim, we
    see now two religious parties within the Synagogue, the
    pharisees and the Sadducees. The latter originally
    represented a reaction from the Pharisees, the modern men,
    who sympathised with the later tendencies of the Maccabees.
    Josephus places the origin of these two schools in the time
    of Jonathan, the successor of Judas Maccabee, [a 160-143
    B.C.] and with this other Jewish notices agree. Jonathan
    accepted from the foreigner (the Syrian) the High-Priestly
    dignity, and combined with it that of secular ruler. But this
    is not all. The earlier Maccabees surrounded themselves with
    a governing eldership. [b The Pepovajia, 1 Maco. xii. 6;
    xiii. 36; xiv. 28; Jos. Ant. xiii. 4. 9; 5. 8] [2 At the same
    time some kind of ruling existed earlier than at this period,
    if we may judge from Jos. Ant. xii 3.3.] On the coins of
    their reigns this is designated as the Chebher, or eldership
    (association) of the Jews. Thus, theirs was what Josephus
    designates as an aristocratic government, [a Ant. xi. 4. 8]
    and of which he somewhat vaguely says, that it lasted 'from
    the Captivity until the descendants of the Asmoneans set up
    kingly government.' In this aristocratic government the
    High-Priest would rather be the chief of a representative
    ecclesiastical body of rulers. This state of things continued
    until the great breach between Hycanus, the fourth from Judas
    Maccabee, and the Pharisaical party, [1 Even Ber. 48 a
    furnishes evidence of this 'enmity.' On the hostile relations
    between the Pharisaical party and the Maccabees see
    Hamburger, Real-Enc. ii. p. 367. Comp. Jer. Taan. iv. 5.]
    which is equally recorded by Josephus [b Ant. xiii. 10. 5. 6]
    and the Talmud, with only variations of names and details.
    The dispute apparently arose from the desire of the
    Pharisees, that Hycanus should be content with the secular
    power, and resign the Pontificate. But it ended in the
    persecution, and removal from power, of the Pharisees. Very
    significantly, Jewish tradition introduces again at this time
    those purely ecclesiastical authorities which are designated
    as 'the couples.' [d Jer. Maas Sheni v. end, p. 56 d Jer.
    Sot. ix. p. 24 a] In accordance with this, altered state of
    things, the name 'Chebher' now disappears from the coins of
    the Maccabees, and Rabbinical celebrities ('the couples' or
    Zugoth) are only teachers of traditionalism, and
    ecclesiastical authorities. The 'eldership,' which under the
    earlier Maccabees was called 'the tribunal of the Asmoneans.'
    [f Sanh 82 a; Ab. Z. 36 b.] [2 Derenbourg takes a different
    view, and identifies the tribunal of the Asmoneans with the
    Sanhedrin. This seems to me, historically, impossible. But
    his opinion to that effect (u. s. p. 87) is apparently
    contradicted at p. 93.] now passed into the Sanhedrin. [3
    Schurer, following Wieseler, supposes the Sanhedrin to have
    been of Roman institution. But the arguments of Wieseler on
    this point [Beitr. zur richt. Wurd. d. Evang. p. 224] are
    inconclusive.] [g in the N.T also once Acts v. 21 and twice
    St. Luke xxii. 66; Acts xxii 5.] Thus we place the origin of
    this institution about the time of Hyrcanus. With this Jewish
    tradition fully agrees. [4 Comp. Derenbourg, u. s. p. 95.]
    The power of the Sanhedrin would, of course, vary with
    political circumstances, being at times almost absolute, as
    in the reign of the Pharisaic devotee-Queen, Alexandra, while
    at others it was shorn of all but ecclesiasticla authority.
    But as the Sanhedrin was in full force at the time of Jesus,
    its organization will claim our attention in the sequel.

     After this brief outline of the origin and development of an
    institution which exerted such decisive influence on the
    future of Israel, it seems necessary similarly to trace the
    growth of the 'traditions of the Elders, 'so as to understand
    what, alas! so effectually, opposed the new doctrine of the
    Kingdom. The first place must here be assigned to those legal
    determinations, which traditionalism declared absolutely
    binding on all, not only of equal, but even greater
    obligation than Scripture itself. [5 Thus we read: 'The
    sayings of the elders have more weight than those of the
    prophets' (Jer. Ber. i. 7); 'an offence against the sayings
    of the Scribes is worse than one against those of Scripture'
    (Sanh. xi. 3). Compare also Er. 21 b The comparison between
    such claims and those sometimes set up on behalf of 'creeds'
    and 'articles' (Kitto's Cyclop., 2nd ed., p. 786, col a) does
    not seem to me applicable. In the introduction to the Midr.
    on Lament. it is inferred from Jer. ix. 12, 13, that to
    forsake the law, in the Rabbinic sense, was worse than
    adolatry, uncleanness, or the shedding of blood. See
    generally that Introduction.] And this not illogically, since
    tradition was equally of Divine origin with Holy Scripture,
    and authoritatively explained its meaning; supplemented it;
    gave it application to cases not expressly provided for,
    perhaps not even forseen in Biblical times; and generally
    guarded its sanctity by extending and adding to its
    provisions, drawing 'a hedge,' around its 'garden enclosed.'
    Thus, in new and dangerous circumstances, would the full
    meaning of God's Law, to its every title and iota, be
    elicited and obeyed. Thus also would their feet be arrested,
    who might stray from within, or break in from without.
    Accordingly, so important was tradition, that the greatest
    merit a Rabbi could claim was the strictest adherence to the
    traditions, which he had received from his teacher. Nor might
    one Sanhedrin annul, or set aside, the decrees of its
    predecessors. To such length did they go in this worship of
    the letter, that the great Hillel was actually wont to
    mispronounce a word, because his teacher before him had done
    so. [a Eduy. i. 3. See the comment of Maimonides.]

     These traditional ordinances, as already stated, bear the
    general name of the Halakhah, as indicating alike the way in
    which the fathers had walked, and that which their children
    were bound to follow. [1 It is so explained in the Aruch (ed
    Zandau, vol. ii. p. 529, col b).] These Halakhoth were either
    simply the laws laid down in Scripture; or else derived from,
    or traced to it by some ingenious and artificial method of
    exegesis; or added to it, by way of amplification and for
    safety's sake; or, finally, legalized customs. They provided
    for every possible and impossible case, entered into every
    detail of private, family, and public life; and with iron
    logic, unbending rigour, and most minute analysis pursued and
    dominated man, turn whither he might, laying on him a yoke
    which was truly unbearable. The return which it offered was
    the pleasure and distinction of knowledge, the acquisition of
    righteousness, and the final attainment of rewards; one of
    its chief advantages over our modern traditionalism, that it
    was expressly forbidden to draw inferences from these
    traditions, which should have the force of fresh legal
    determinations. [2 Comp. Hamburger, u.s. p 343.]

     In describing the historical growth of the Halakhah, [3
    Comp. here especially the detailed description by Herzfeld
    (u. s. vol. iii. pp. 226, 263); also the Introduction of
    Maimonides, and the very able and learned works (not
    sufficiently appreciated) by Dr. H. S. Hirschfeld,
    Halachische Exegese (Berlin, 1840), and Hagadische Exegese
    (Berlin, 1847). Perhaps I may also take leave to refer to the
    corresponding chapters in my 'History of the Jewish Nation.'
    Similarly, the expressions in Ex. xxiv. 12 were thus
    explained: 'the tables of stone,' the ten commandments; the
    'law,' the written Law; the 'commandments,' the Mishnah;
    'which I have written,' the Prophets and Hagiographa; 'that
    thou mayest teach them,' the Talmud, which shows that they
    were all given to Moses on Sinai' (Ber. 5 a, lines 11-16). A
    like application was made of the various clauses in Cant.
    vii. 12 (Erub. 21 b). Nay, by an alternation of the words in
    Hos. vii. 10, it was shown that the banished had been brought
    back for the merit of their study (of the sacrificial
    sections) of the Mishnah (Vayyik R. 7).] we may dismiss in a
    few sentences the legends of Jewish tradition about
    patriarchal times. They assure us, that there was an Academy
    and a Rabbinic tribunal of Shem, and they speak of traditions
    delivered by that Patriarch to Jacob; of diligent attendance
    by the latter on the Rabbinic College; of a tractate (in 400
    sections) on idolatry by Abraham, and of his observance of
    the whole traditional law; of the introduction of the three
    daily times of prayer, successively by Abraham, Isaac, and
    Jacob; of the three benedictions in the customary 'grace at
    meat,' as propounded by Moses, Joshua, and David and Solomon;
    of the Mosaic introduction of the practice of reading lessons
    from the law on Sabbaths, New Moons, and Feast Days, and even
    on the Mondays and Thursdays; and of that, by the same
    authority, of preaching on the three great festivals about
    those feasts. Further, they ascribe to Moses the arrangement
    of the priesthood into eight courses (that into sixteen to
    Samuel, and that into twenty-four to David), as also, the
    duration of the time for marriage festivities, and for
    mourning. But evidently these are vague statements, with the
    object of tracing traditionalism and its observances to
    primaeval times, even as legend had it, that Adam was born
    circumcised, [a Midr. Shochar Tobh on Ps. ix. 6. ed. Warshau,
    p. 14 b; Abde R. Nath. 2.] and later writers that he had kept
    all the ordinances.

     But other principles apply to the traditions, from Moses
    downwards. According to the Jewish view, God had given Moses
    on Mount Sinai alike the oral and the written Law, that is,
    the Law with all its interpretations and applications. From
    Ex. xx. 1, it was inferred, that God had communicated to
    Moses the Bible, the Mishnah, and Talmud, and the Haggadah,
    even to that which scholars would in latest times propound.
    In answer to the somewhat natural objection, why the Bible
    alone had been written, it was said that Moses had proposed
    to write down all the teaching entrusted to him, but the
    Almighty had refused, on account of the future subjection of
    Israel to the nations, who would take from them the written
    Law. Then the unwritten traditions would remain to separate
    between Israel and the Gentiles. Popular exegesis found this
    indicated even in the language of prophecy. [b Hos. viii
    12;comp. Shem. R. 47.]

     But traditionalism went further, and placed the oral
    actually above the written Law. The expression, [a Ex. xxxiv.
    27.] 'After the tenor of these words I have made a covenant
    with thee and with Israel,' was explained as meaning, that
    God's covenant was founded on the spoken, in opposition to
    the written words. [b Jer. Chag. p. 76 d.] If the written was
    thus placed below the oral Law, we can scarcely wonder that
    the reading of the Hagiographa was actually prohibited to the
    people on the Sabbath, from fear that it might divert
    attention from the learned discourses of the Rabbis. The
    study of them on that day was only allowed for the purpose of
    learned investigation and discussions. [c Tos. Shabb. xiv.]
    [1. Another reason also is, however, mentioned for his
    prohibition.]

     But if traditionalism was not to be committed to writing by
    Moses, measures had been taken to prevent oblivion or
    inaccuracy. Moses had always repeated a traditional law
    successively to Aaron, to his sons, and to the elders of the
    people, and they again in turn to each other, in such wise,
    that Aaron heard the Mishnah four times, his sons three
    times, the Elders twice, and the people once. But even this
    was not all, for by successive repetitions of Aaron, his
    sons, and the Elders) the people also heard it four times. [d
    Erub. 54b.] And, before his death, Moses had summoned any one
    to come forward, if he had forgotten aught of what he had
    heard and learned. [e Deut. i. 5.] But these 'Halakhoth of
    Moses from Sinai' do not make up the whole of traditionalism.
    According to Maimonides, it consists of five, but more
    critically of three classes. [2 Hirschfeld, u. s. pp. 92-99.]
    The first of these comprises both such ordinances as are
    found in the Bible itself, and the so-called Halakhoth of
    Moses from Sinai, that is, such laws and usages as prevailed
    from time immemorial, and which, according to the Jewish
    view, had been orally delivered to, but not written down by
    Moses. For these, therefore, no proof was to be sought in
    Scripture, at most support, or confirmatory allusion
    (Asmakhtu). [3 From to lean against. At the same time the
    ordinances, for which an appeal could be made to Asmakhta,
    were better liked than those which rested on tradition alone
    (Jer. Chag. p. 76, col d).] Nor were these open to
    discussion. The second class formed the 'oral law,' [f.] or
    the 'traditional teaching' [g.] in the stricter sense. To
    this class belonged all that was supposed to be implied in,
    or that could be deduced from, the Law of Moses. [4 In
    connection with this it is very significant that R. Jochanan
    ben Zaccai, who taught not many years after the Crucifixion
    of Christ, was wont to say, that, in the future, Halakhahs in
    regard to purity, which had not the support of Scripture,
    would be repeated (Sot. 27 b, line 16 from top). In general,
    the teaching of R. Jochanan should be studied to understand
    the unacknowledged influence which Christianity exercised
    upon the Synagogue.] The latter contained, indeed, in
    substance or germ, everything; but it had not been brought
    out, till circumstances successfully evolved what from the
    first had been provided in principle. For this class of
    ordinances reference to, and proof from, Scripture was
    required. Not so for the third class of ordinances, which
    were 'the hedge' drawn by the Rabbis around the Law, to
    prevent any breach of the Law or customs, to ensure their
    exact observance, or to meet peculiar circumstances and
    dangers. These ordinances constituted 'the sayings of the
    Scribes' or 'of the Rabbis' [1 But this is not always.] , and
    were either positive in their character (Teqqanoth), or else
    negative (Gezeroth from gazar to cut off'). Perhaps the
    distinction of these two cannot always be strictly carried
    out. But it was probably to this third class especially,
    confessedly unsupported by Scripture, that these words of
    Christ referred: [c St. Matt. xxiii. 3, 4.] 'All therefore
    whatsoever they tell you, that do and observe; but do not ye
    after their works: for they say, and do not. For they bind
    heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men's
    shoulders; but with their finger they will not move them away
    (set in motion).' [2 To elucidate the meaning of Christ, it
    seemed necessary to submit an avowedly difficult text to
    fresh criticism. I have taken the word moveo in the sense of
    ire facio (Grimm, Clavis N.T. ed. 2(da), p. 241 a), but I
    have not adopted the inference of Meyer (Krit. Exeget. Handb.
    p. 455). In classical Greek also is used for 'to remove, to
    alter.' My reasons against what may be called the traditional
    interpretation of St. Matt. xxiii. 3, 4, are: 1. It seems
    scarcely possible to suppose that, before such an audience,
    Christ would have contemplated the possiblity of not
    observing either of the two first classes of Halakhoth, which
    were regarded as beyond controversy. 2. It could scarcely be
    truthfully charged against the Scribes and Pharisees, that
    they did not attempt to keep themselves the ordinances which
    they imposed upon others. The expression in the parallel
    passage (St. Luke xi. 46) must be explained in accordance
    with the commentation on St. Matt. xxiii. 4. Nor is there any
    serious difficulty about it.] This view has two-fold
    confirmation. For, this third class of Halakhic ordinances
    was the only one open to the discussion of the learned, the
    ultimate decision being according to the majority. Yet it
    possessed practically (though not theoretically) the same
    authority as the other two classes. In further confirmation
    of our view the following may be quoted: 'A Gezerah (i.e.
    this third class of ordinances) is not to be laid on the
    congregation, unless the majority of the congregation is able
    to bear it' [d B. Kam. 79.] , words which read like a
    commentary on those of Jesus, and show that these burdens
    could be laid on, or moved away, according to the varying
    judgment or severity of a Rabbinic College. [3 For the
    classification, arrangement, origin, and enumeration of these
    Halakhoth, see Appendix V.: 'Rabbinic Theology and
    literature.']

     This body of traditional ordinances forms the subject of the
    Mishnah, or second, repeated law. We have here to place on
    one side the Law of Moses as recorded in the Pentateuch, as
    standing by itself. All else, even the teaching of the
    Prophets and of the Hagiographa, as well as the oral
    traditions, bore the general name of Qabbalah, 'that which
    has been received.' The sacred study, or Midrash, in the
    original application of the term, concerned either the
    Halakhah, traditional ordinance, which was always 'that which
    was said' upon the authority of individuals, not as legal
    ordinance. It was illustration, commentary, anecdote, clever
    or learned saying, &c. At first the Halakhah remained
    unwritten, probably owing to the disputes between Pharisees
    and Sadducees. But the necessity of fixedness and order led
    in course of time to more or less complete collections of the
    Halakhoth. [1 See the learned remarks of Levy about the
    reasons for the earlier prohibition of writing down the oral
    law, and the final collection of the Mishnah (Neuhebr. u.
    Chald. Worterb. vol. ii. p. 435).] The oldest of these is
    ascribed to R. Akiba, in the time of the Emperor Hadrian. [a
    132-135 A.D.] [2 These collections are enumerated in the
    Midrash on eccles. xii. 3. They are also distinguished as
    'the former' and 'the later' Mishnah (Nedar. 91 a).] But the
    authoritative collection in the so-called Mishhan is the work
    of Jehudah the Holy, who died about the end of the second
    century of our era.

     Altogether, the Mishnah comprises six 'Orders' (Sedarim),
    each devoted to a special class of subjects. [3 The first
    'Order' (Zeraim, 'seeds') begins with the ordinances
    concerning 'benedictions,' or the time, mode, manner, and
    character of the prayers prescribed. It then goes on to
    detail what may be called the religio-agrarian laws (such as
    tithing, Sabbatical years, first fruits, &c.). The second
    'Order' (Moed, 'festive time') discusses all connected with
    the Sabbath observance and the other festivals. The third
    'Order' (Nashim, 'women') treats of all that concerns
    betrothal, marriage and divorce, but also includes a tractate
    on the Nasirate. The fourth 'Order' (Neziqin, 'damages')
    contains the civil and criminal law. Characteristically, it
    includes all the ordinances concerning idol-worship (in the
    tractate Abhodah Zarah) and 'the sayings of the Fathers'
    (Abhoth). The fifth 'Order' (Qodashim, 'holy things') treats
    of the various classes of sacrifices, offerings, and things
    belonging (as the first-born), or dedicated, to God, and of
    all questions which can be grouped under 'sacred things'
    (such as the redemption, exchange, or alienation of what had
    been dedicated to God). It also includes the laws concerning
    the daily morning and evening service (Tamid), and a
    description of the structure and arrangements of the Temple
    (Middoth, 'the measurements'). Finally, the sixth 'Order'
    (Toharoth, 'cleannesses') gives every ordinance connected
    with the questions of 'clean and unclean,' alike as regards
    human beings, animals, and inanimate things.] These 'Orders'
    are divided into tractates (Massikhtoth, Massekhtiyoth,
    'textures, webs'), of which there are sixty-three (or else
    sixty-two) in all. These tractates are again subdivided into
    chapters (Peraqim), in all 525, which severally consist of a
    certain number of verses, or Mishnahs (Mishnayoth, in all
    4,187). Considering the variety and complexity of the
    subjects treated, the Mishnah is arranged with remarkable
    logical perspicuity. The language is Hebrew, though of course
    not that of the Old Testament. The words rendered necessary
    by the new circumstances are chiefly derived from the Greek,
    the Syriac, and the Latin, with Hebrew terminations. [1 Comp.
    the very interesting tractate by Dr. Brill (Fremdspr
    Redensart in d. Talmud), as well as Dr. Eisler's Beitrage z.
    Rabb. u. Alterthumsk., 3 fascic; Sachs, Beitr. z. Rabb u.
    Alterthumsk.] But all connected with social intercourse, or
    ordinary life (such as contracts), is written, not in Hebrew,
    but in Aramaean, as the language of the people.

     But the traditional law embodied other materials than the
    Halakhoth collected in the Mishnah. Some that had not been
    recorded there, found a place in the works of certain Rabbis,
    or were derived from their schools. These are called
    Boraithas, that is, traditions external to the Mishnah.
    Finally, there were 'additions' (or Tosephtoth), dating after
    the completion of the Mishnah, but probably not later than
    the third century of our era. Such there are to not fewer
    than fifty-two out of the sixty-three Mishnic tractates. When
    speaking of the Halakhah as distinguished from the Haggadah,
    we must not, however, suppose that the latter could be
    entirely separated from it. In point of fact, one whole
    tractate in the Mishnah (Aboth: The Sayings of the 'Fathers')
    is entirely Haggadah; a second (Middoth: the 'Measurements of
    the Temple') has Halakhah in only fourteen places; while in
    the rest of the tractates Haggadah occurs in not fewer than
    207 places. [2 Comp. the enumeration in Pinner, u. s.] Only
    thirteen out of the sixty-three tractates of the Mishnah are
    entirely free from Haggadah.

     Hitherto we have only spoken of the Mishnah. But this
    comprises only a very small part of traditionalism. In course
    of time the discussions, illustrations, explanations, and
    additions to which the Mishnah gave rise, whether in its
    application, or in the Academies of the Rabbis, were
    authoritatively collected and edited in what are known as the
    two Talmuds or Gemaras. [3 Talmud: that which is learned,
    doctrine.Gemara: either the same, or else 'perfection,'
    'completion.'] If we imagine something combining law reports,
    a Rabbinical 'Hansard,' and notes of a theological debating
    club, all thoroughly Oriental, full of digressions,
    anecdotes, quaint sayings, fancies, legends, and too often of
    what, from its profanity, superstition, and even obscenity,
    could scarcely be quoted, we may form some general idea of
    what the Talmud is. The oldest of these two Talmuds dates
    from about the close of the fourth century of our era. It is
    the product of the Palestinian Academies, and hence called
    the Jerusalem Talmud. The second is about a century younger,
    and the outcome of the Babylonian schools, hence called the
    Babylon (afterwards also 'our') Talmud. We do not possess
    either of these works complete. [1 The following will explain
    our meaning: On the first 'order' we have the Jerusalem
    Talmud complete, that is, on every tractate (comprising in
    all 65 folio leaves), while the Babylon Talmud extends only
    over its first tractate (Berakhoth). On the second order, the
    four last chapters of one tractate (Shabbath) are wanting in
    the Jerusalem, and one whole tractate (Sheqalim) in the
    Babylon Talmud. The third order is complete in both Gemaras.
    On the fourth order a chapter is wanting in one tractate
    (Makkoth) in the Jerusalem, and two whole tractates (Eduyoth
    and Abhoth) in both Gemaras. The fifth order is wholly
    wanting in the Jerusalem, and two and a half tractates of it
    Babylon Talmud. Of the sixth order only one tractate (Niddah)
    exists in both Gemaras. The principal Halakhoth were
    collected in a work (dating from about 800 A.D.) entitled
    Halakhoth Gedoloth. They are arranged to correspond with the
    weekly lectionary of the Pentateuch in a work entitled
    Sheeltoth ('Questions:' bested. Dghernfurth, 1786). The
    Jerusalem Talmud extends over 39, the Babylonian over 36 1/2
    tractates, 15 1/2 tractates have no Gemara at all.] The most
    defective is the Jerusalem Talmud, which is also much
    briefer, and contains far fewer discussions than that of
    Babylon. The Babylon Talmud, which in its present form
    extends over thirty-six out of the sixty-three tractates of
    the Mishnah, is about ten or eleven times the size of the
    latter, and more than four times that of the Jerusalem
    Talmud. It occupies (in our editions), with marginal
    commentations, 2,947 folio leaves (pages a and b). Both
    Talmuds are written in Aramaean; the one in its western, the
    other in its eastern dialect, and in both the Mishnah is
    discussed seriatim, and clause by clause. Of the character of
    these discussions it would be impossible to convey an
    adequate idea. When we bear in mind the many sparkling,
    beautiful, and occasionally almost sublime passages in the
    Talmud, but especially that its forms of thought and
    expression so often recall those of the New Testament, only
    prejudice and hatred could indulge in indiscriminate
    vituperation. On the other hand, it seems unaccountable how
    any one who has read a Talmudic tractate, or even part of
    one, could compare the Talmud with the New Testament, or find
    in the one the origin of the other.

     To complete our brief survey, it should be added that our
    editions of the Babylon Talmud contain (at the close of vol.
    ix. and after the fourth 'Order') certain Boraithas. Of these
    there were originally nine, but two of the smaller tractates
    (on 'the memorial fringes,' and on 'non-Israelites') have not
    been preserved. The first of these Boraithas is entitled
    Abhoth de Rabbi Nathan, and partially corresponds with a
    tractate of a similar name in the Mishnah. [2 The last ten
    chapters curiously group together events or things under
    numerals from 10 downwards. The most generally interesting of
    these is that of the 10 Nequdoth, or passages of Scripture in
    which letters are marked by dots, together with the
    explanation of their reasons (ch. xxxiv.). The whole Boraitha
    seems composed of parts of three different works, and
    consists of forty (or forty-one) chapters, and occupies ten
    folio leaves.] Next follow six minor tractates. These are
    respectively entitled Sopherim (Scribes), [1 In twenty-one
    chapters, each containing a number of Halakhahs, and
    occupying in all four folio leaves.] detailing the ordinances
    about copying the Scriptures, the ritual of the Lectionary,
    and festive prayers; Ebhel Rabbathi or Semakhoth, [2 In
    fourteen chapters, occupying rather more than three folio
    leaves.] containing Halakhah and Haggadah about funeral and
    mourning observances; Kallah, [3 It fills little more than a
    folio page.] on the married relationship; Derekh Erets, [4 In
    eleven chapters, covering about 1 3/4 folio leaves.]
    embodying moral directions and the rules and customs of
    social intercourse; Derekh Erets Zuta, [5 In nine chapters,
    filling one folio leaf.] treating of similar subjects, but as
    regards learned students; and, lastly, the Pereq ha Shalom,
    [6 Little more than a folio column.] which is a eulogy on
    peace. All these tractates date, at least in their present
    form, later than the Talmudic period. [7 Besides these,
    Raphael Kirchheim has published (Frankfort, 1851) the
    so-called seven smaller tractates, covering altogether, with
    abundant notes, only forty-four small pages, which treat of
    the copying of the Bible (Sepher Torah, in five chapters), of
    the Mezuzah, or memorial on the doorposts (in two chapters),
    of the Tsitsith, (Tephillin, in one chapter), of the
    Tsitsith, or memorial-fringes (in one chapter), of Slaves
    (Abhadim, in three chapters) of the Cutheans, or Samaritans
    (in two chapters), and, finally, a curious tractate on
    Proselytes (Gerim, in four chapters).]

     But when the Halakhah, however varied in its application,
    was something fixed and stable, the utmost latitude was
    claimed and given in the Haggadah. It is sadly
    characteristic, that, practically, the main body of Jewish
    dogmatic and moral theology is really only Haggadah, and
    hence of no absolute authority. The Halakhah indicated with
    the most minute and painful punctiliousness every legal
    ordinance as to outward observances, and it explained every
    bearing of the Law of Moses. But beyond this it left the
    inner man, the spring of actions, untouched. What he was to
    believe and what to feel, was chiefly matter of the Haggadah.
    Of course the laws of morality, and religion, as laid down in
    the Pentateuch, were fixed principles, but there was the
    greatest divergence and latitude in the explanation and
    application of many of them. A man might hold or propound
    almost any views, so long as he contravened not the Law of
    Moses, as it was understood, and adhered in teaching and
    practice to the traditional ordinances. In principle it was
    the same liberty which the Romish Church accords to its
    professing members, only with much wider application, since
    the debatable ground embraced so many matters of faith, and
    the liberty given was not only that of private opinion but of
    public utterance. We emphasise this, because the absence of
    authoritative direction and the latitude in matters of faith
    and inner feeling stand side by side, and in such sharp
    contrast, with the most minute punctiliousness in all matters
    of outward observance. And here we may mark the fundamental
    distinction between the teaching of Jesus and Rabbinism. He
    left the Halakhah untouched, putting it, as it were, on one
    side, as something quite secondary, while He insisted as
    primary on that which to them was chiefly matter of Haggadah.
    And this rightly so, for, in His own words, 'Not that which
    goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh
    out of the mouth,' since 'those things which proceed out of
    the mouth come forth from the heart, and they defile the
    man.' [a St. Matt. xv. 11, 18.] The difference was one of
    fundamental principle, and not merely of development, form,
    or detail. The one developed the Law in its outward direction
    as ordinances and commandments; the other in its inward
    direction as life and liberty. Thus Rabbinism occupied one
    pole, and the outcome of its tendency to pure externalism was
    the Halakhah, all that was internal and higher being merely
    Haggadic. The teaching of Jesus occupied the opposite pole.
    Its starting-point was the inner sanctuary in which God was
    known and worshipped, and it might well leave the Rabbinic
    Halakhoth aside, as not worth controversy, to be in the
    meantime 'done and observed,' in the firm assurance that, in
    the course of its development, the spirit would create its
    own appropriate forms, or, to use a New Testament figure, the
    new wine burst the old bottles. And, lastly, as closely
    connected with all this, and marking the climax of
    contrariety: Rabbinism started with demand of outward
    obedience and righteousness, and pointed to sonship as its
    goal; the Gospel started with the free gift of forgiveness
    through faith and of sonship, and pointed to obedience and
    righteousness as its goal.

     In truth, Rabbinism, as such, had no system of theology;
    only what ideas, conjectures, or fancies the Haggadah yielded
    concerning God, Angels, demons, man, his future destiny and
    present position, and Israel, with its past history and
    coming glory. Accordingly, by the side of what is noble and
    pure, what a terrible mass of utter incongruities, of
    conflicting statements and too often debasing superstitions,
    the outcome of ignorance and narrow nationalism; of legendary
    colouring of Biblical narratives and scenes, profane, coarse,
    and degrading to them; the Almighty Himself and His Angels
    taking part in the conversations of Rabbis, and the
    discussions of Academies; nay, forming a kind of heavenly
    Sanhedrin, which occasionally requires the aid of an earthly
    Rabbi. [1 Thus, in B. Mez. 86 a, we read of a discussion in
    the heavenly Academy on the subject of purity, when Rabbah
    was summoned to heaven by death, although this required a
    miracle, since he was constantly engaged in sacred study.
    Shocking to write, it needed the authority of Rabbah to
    attest the correctness of the Almighty's statement on the
    Halakhic question discussed.] The miraculous merges into the
    ridiculous, and even the revolting. Miraculous cures,
    miraculous supplies, miraculous help, all for the glory of
    great Rabbis, who by a look or word can kill, and restore to
    life. At their bidding the eyes of a rival fall out, and are
    again inserted. Nay, such was the veneration due to Rabbis,
    that R. Joshua used to kiss the stone on which R. Eliezer had
    sat and lectured, saying: 'This stone is like Mount Sinai,
    and he who sat on it like the Ark.' Modern ingenuity has,
    indeed, striven to suggest deeper symbolical meaning for such
    stories. It should own the terrible contrast existing side by
    side: Hebrewism and Judaism, the Old Testament and
    traditionalism; and it should recognise its deeper cause in
    the absence of that element of spiritual and inner life which
    Christ has brought. Thus as between the two - the old and the
    new - it may be fearlessly asserted that, as regards their
    substance and spirit, there is not a difference, but a total
    divergence, of fundamental principle between Rabbinism and
    the New Testament, so that comparison between them is not
    possible. Here there is absolute contrariety.

     The painful fact just referred to is only too clearly
    illustrated by the relation in which traditionalism places
    itself to the Scriptures of the Old Testament, even though it
    acknowledges their inspiration and authority. The Talmud has
    it, [a Baba Mets. 33 a] that he who busies himselfwith
    Scripture only (i.e. without either the Mishnah or Gemara)
    has merit, and yet no merit. Even the comparative paucity of
    references to the Bible in the Mishnah is significant Israel
    had made void the Law by its traditions. Under a load of
    outward ordinances and observances its spirit had been
    crushed. The religion as well as the grand hope of the Old
    Testament had become externalized. And so alike Heathenism
    and Judaism - for it was no longer the pure religion of the
    Old Testament - each following its own direction, had reached
    its goal. All was prepared and waiting. The very porch had
    been built, through which the new, and yet old, religion was
    to pass into the ancient world, and the ancient world into
    the new religion. Only one thing was needed: the Coming of
    the Christ. As yet darkness covered the earth, and gross
    darkness lay upon the people. But far away the golden light
    of the new day was already tingeing the edge of the horizon.
    Presently would the Lord arise upon Zion, and His glory be
    seen upon her. Presently would the Voice from out the
    wilderness prepare the way of the Lord; presently would it
    herald the Coming of His Christ to Jew and Gentile, and that
    Kingdom of heaven, which, established upon earth, is
    righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. [1 For
    details on the Jewish views on the Canon, and historical and
    mystical theology, see Appendix V.: 'Rabbinic Theology and
    Literature.']

 FROM THE MANGER IN BETHLEHEM TO THE BAPTISM IN JORDAN

    IN JERUSALEM WHEN HEROD REIGNED

    CHAPTER I

     IF the dust of ten centuries could have been wiped from the
    eyelids of those sleepers, and one of them who thronged
    Jerusalem in the highday of its glory, during the reign of
    King Solomon, had returned to its streets, he would scarcely
    have recognised the once familiar city. Then, as now, a
    Jewish king reigned, who bore undivided rule over the whole
    land; then, as now, the city was filled with riches and
    adorned with palaces and architectural monuments; then, as
    now, Jerusalem was crowded with strangers from all lands.
    Solomon and Herod were each the last Jewish king over the
    Land of Promise; [1 I do not here reckon the brief reign of
    King Agrippa.] Solomon and Herod, each, built the Temple. But
    with the son of David began, and with the Idumaean ended,
    'the kingdom'; or rather, having fulfilled its mission, it
    gave place to the spiritual world-kingdom of 'David's greater
    Son.' The sceptre departed from Judah to where the nations
    were to gather under its sway. And the Temple which Solomon
    built was the first. In it the Shekhinah dwelt visibly. The
    Temple which Herod reared was the last. The ruins of its
    burning, which the torch of the Romans had kindled, were
    never to be restored. Herod was not the antitype, he was the
    Barabbas, of David's Royal Son.

     In other respects, also, the difference was almost equally
    great. The four 'companion-like' hills on which the city was
    built, [a Ps. cxxii] the deep clefts by which it was
    surrounded, the Mount of Olives rising in the the east, were
    the same as a thousand years ago. There, as of old were the
    Pool of Siloam and the royal gardens, nay, the very wall that
    had then surrounded the city. And yet all was so altered as
    to be scarcely recognisable. The ancient Jebusite fort, the
    City of David, Mount Zion, [2 It will be seen that, with the
    most recent explorers, I locate Mount Zion not on the
    traditional site, on the western hill of Jerusalem, but onthe
    eastern, south of the Temple area.] was now the priests'
    quarter, Ophel, andthe old royal palace and stables had been
    thrown into the Temple area, now completely levelled, where
    they formed the magnificent treble colonnade, known as the
    Royal Porch. Passing through it, and out by the Western Gate
    of the Temple, we stand on the immense bridge which spans the
    'Valley of the Cheesemongers,' or the Tyropoeon, and connects
    the Eastern with the Western hills of the city. It is perhaps
    here that we can best mark the outstanding features, and note
    the changes. On the right, as we look northward, are (on the
    Eastern hill) Ophel, the Priest-quarter, and the Temple, oh,
    how wondrously beautiful and enlarged, and rising terrace
    upon terrace, surrounded by massive walls: a palace, a
    fortress, a Sanctuary of shining marble and glittering gold.
    And beyond it frowns the old fortress of Baris, rebuilt by
    Herod, and named after his patron, Antonia. This is the Hill
    of Zion. Right below us is the cleft of the Tyropoeon, and
    here creeps up northwards the 'Lower City' or Acra, in the
    form of a crescent, widening into an almost square 'suburb.'
    Across the Tyropoeon, westward, rises the 'Upper City.' If
    the Lower City and suburb form the business-quarter with its
    markets, bazaars, and streets of trades and guilds, the
    'Upper City' is that of palaces. Here, at the other end of
    the great bridge which connects the Temple with the 'Upper
    City,' is the palace of the Maccabees; beyond it, the Xystos,
    or vast colonnaded enclosure, where popular assemblies are
    held; then the Palace of Ananias the High-Priest, and nearest
    to the Temple, 'the Council Chamber' and public Archives.
    Behind it, westwards, rise, terrace upon terrace, the stately
    mansions of the Upper City, till, quite in the north-west
    corner of the old city, we reach the Palace which Herod had
    built for himself, almost a city and fortress, flanked by
    three high towers, and enclosing spacious gardens. Beyond it
    again, and outside the city walls, both of the first and the
    second, stretches all north of the city the new suburb of
    Bezetha. Here on every side are gardens and villas; here
    passes the great northern road; out there must they have laid
    hold on Simon the Cyrenian, and here must have led the way to
    the place of the Crucifixion.

     Changes that marked the chequered course of Israel's history
    had come even over the city walls. The first and oldest, that
    of David and Solomon, ran round the west side of the Upper
    City, then crossed south to the Pool of Siloam, and ran up
    east, round Ophel, till it reached the eastern enclosure of
    the Temple, whence it passed in a straight line to the point
    from which it had started, forming the northern boundary of
    the ancient city. But although this wall still existed, there
    was now a marked addition to it. When the Maccabee Jonathan
    finally cleared Jerusalem of the Syrian garrison that lay in
    Fort Acra, [a 1 Macc. i. 33, and often; but the precise
    situation of this 'fort' is in dispute] he built a wall right
    'through the middle of the city,' so as to shut out the foe.
    [b 1 Macc. xii. 36; Jos. Ant. xiii. 5. 11; comp. with it xiv.
    16. 2; War vi. 7. 2; 8. 1] This wall probably ran from the
    western angle of the Temple southwards, to near the pool of
    Siloam, following the winding course of the Tyropoeon, but on
    the other side of it, where the declivity of the Upper City
    merged in the valley. Another monument of the Syrian Wars, of
    the Maccabees, and of Herod, was the fortress Antonia. Part
    of it had, probably, been formerly occupied by what was known
    as Fort Acra, of such unhappy prominence in the wars that
    preceded and marked the early Maccabean period. it had passed
    from the Ptolemies to the Syrians, and always formed the
    central spot round which the fight for the city turned. Judas
    Maccabee had not been able to take it. Jonathan had laid
    siege to it, and built the wall, to which reference has just
    been made, so as to isolatc its garrison. It was at last
    taken by Simon, the brother and successor of Jonathan, and
    levelled with the ground. [c 141 B.C.] Fort Baris, which was
    constructed by his successor Hyrcanus I., [d 135-106 B.C.]
    covered a much wider space. It lay on the northwestern angle
    of the Temple, slightly jutting beyond it in the west, but
    not covering the whole northern area of the Temple. The rock
    on which it stood was higher than the Temple, [1 It is, to
    say the least, doubtful, whether the numeral 50 cubits (75
    feet), which Josephus assigns to this rock (War v. 5. 8),
    applies to its height (comp. Speiss, Das Jerus. d. Jos.p.
    66).] although lower than the hill up which the new suburb
    Bezetha crept, which, accordingly, was cut off by a deep
    ditch, for the safety of the fortress. Herod greatly enlarged
    and strengthened it. Within encircling walls the fort rose to
    a height of sixty feet, and was flanked by four towers, of
    which three had a height of seventy, the fourth (S.E.), which
    jutted into the Temple area, of 105 feet, so as to command
    the sacred enclosure. A subterranean passage led into the
    Temple itself, [e Ant. xv. 11. 7]which was also connected
    with it by colonnades and stairs. Herod had adorned as well
    as strengthened and enlarged, this fort (now Antonia), and
    made it a palace, an armed camp, and almost a city. [f Jos.
    War v. 5. 8]

     Hitherto we have only spoken of the first, or old wall,
    which was fortified by sixty towers. The second wall, which
    had only fourteen towers, began at some point in the northern
    wall at the Gate Gennath, whence it ran north, and then east,
    so as to enclose Acra and the Suburb. It terminated at Fort
    Antonia. Beyond, and all around this second wall stretched,
    as already noticed, the new, as yet unenclosed suburb
    Bezetha, rising towards the north-east. But these changes
    were as nothing compared with those within the city itself.
    First and foremost was the great transformation in the Temple
    itself, [1 I must take leave to refer to the description of
    Jerusalem, and especially of the Temple, in the 'Temple and
    its Services at the Time of Jesus Christ.'] which, from a
    small building, little larger than an ordinary church, in the
    time of Solomon, [2 Dr. Muhlau, in Riehm's Handworterb. Part
    viii. p. 682 b, speaks of the dimensions of the old Sanctuary
    as little more than those of a village church.] had become
    that great and glorious House which excited the admiration of
    the foreigner, and kindled the enthusiasm of every son of
    Israel. At the time of Christ it had been already forty-six
    years in building, and workmen were still, and for a long
    time, engaged on it. [3 It was only finished in 64 A.D., that
    is, six years before its destruction.] But what a
    heterogeneous crowd thronged its porches and courts!
    Hellenists; scattered wanderers from the most distant parts
    of the earth, east, west, north, and south; Galileans, quick
    of temper and uncouth of Jewish speech; Judaeans and
    Jerusalemites; white-robed Priests and Levites; Temple
    officials; broad-phylacteried, wide-fringed Pharisees, and
    courtly, ironical Sadducees; and, in the outer court, curious
    Gentiles! Some had come to worship; others to pay vows, or
    bring offerings, or to seek purification; some to meet
    friends, and discourse on religious subjects in those
    colonnaded porches, which ran round the Sanctuary; or else to
    have their questions answered, or their causes heard and
    decided, by the smaller Sanhedrin of twenty-three, that sat
    in the entering of the gate or by the Great Sanhedrin. The
    latter no longer occupied the Hall of Hewn Stones, Gazith,
    but met in some chamber attached to those 'shops,' or booths,
    on the Temple Mount, which belonged to the High-Priestly
    family of Ananias, and where such profitable trade was driven
    by those who, in their cupidity and covetousness, were worthy
    successors of the sons of Eli. In the Court of the Gentiles
    (or in its porches) sat the official money-changers, who for
    a fixed discount changed all foreign coins into those of the
    Sanctuary. Here also was that great mart for sacrificial
    animals, and all that was requisite for offerings. How the
    simple, earnest country people, who came to pay vows, or
    bring offerings for purifying, must have wondered, and felt
    oppressed in that atmosphere of strangely blended religious
    rigorism and utter worldliness; and how they must have been
    taxed, imposed upon, and treated with utmost curtness, nay,
    rudeness, by those who laughed at their boorishness, and
    despised them as cursed, ignorant country people, little
    better than heathens, or, for that matter, than brute beasts.
    Here also there lay about a crows of noisy beggars, unsightly
    from disease, and clamorous for help. And close by passed the
    luxurious scion of the High-Priestly families; the proud,
    intensely self-conscious Teacher of the Law, respectfully
    followed by his disciples; and the quick-witted, subtle
    Scribe. These were men who, on Sabbaths and feast-days, would
    come out on the Temple-terrace to teach the people, or
    condescend to answer their questions; who in the Synagogues
    would hold their puzzled hearers spell-bound by their
    traditional lore and subtle argumentation, or tickle the
    fancy of the entranced multitude, that thronged every
    available space, by their ingenious frivolities, their
    marvellous legends, or their clever sayings; but who would,
    if occasion required, quell an opponent by well-poised
    questions, or crush him beneath the sheer weight of
    authority. Yet others were there who, despite the utterly
    lowering influence which the frivolities of the prevalent
    religion, and the elaborate trifling of its endless
    observances, must have exercised on the moral and religious
    feelings of all, perhaps, because of them, turned aside, and
    looked back with loving gaze to the spiritual promises of the
    past, and forward with longing expectancy to the near
    'consolation of Israel,' waiting for it in prayerful
    fellowship, and with bright, heaven-granted gleams of its
    dawning light amidst the encircling gloom.

     Descending from the Temple into the city, there was more
    than enlargement, due to the increased population.
    Altogether, Jerusalem covered, at its greatest, about 300
    acres. [1 See Conder, Heth and Moab, p. 94.]As of old there
    were still the same narrow streets in the business quarters;
    but in close contiguity to bazaars and shops rose stately
    mansions of wealthy merchants, and palaces of princes. [2
    Such as the Palace of Grapte, and that of Queen Helena of
    Adiabene.] And what a change in the aspect of these streets,
    in the character of those shops, and, above all, in the
    appearance of the restless Eastern crowd that surged to and
    fro! Outside their shops in the streets, or at least in sight
    of the passers, and within reach of their talk, was the
    shoemaker hammering his sandals, the tailor plying his
    needle, the carpenter, or the worker in iron and brass. Those
    who were less busy, or more enterprising, passed along,
    wearing some emblem of their trade: the dyer, variously
    coloured threads; the carpenter, a rule: the writer, a reed
    behind his ear; the tailor, with a needle prominently stuck
    in his dress. In the side streets the less attractive
    occupations of the butcher, the wool-comber, or the
    flaxspinner were pursued: the elegant workmanship of the
    goldsmith and jeweller; the various articles de luxe, that
    adorned the houses of the rich; the work of the designer, the
    moulder, or the artificer in iron or brass. In these streets
    and lanes everything might be purchased: the production of
    Palestine, or imported from foreign lands, nay, the rarest
    articles from the remotest parts. Exquisitely shaped,
    curiously designed and jewelled cups, rings and other
    workmanship of precious metals; glass, silks, fine linen,
    woollen stuffs, purple, and costly hangings; essences,
    ointments, and perfumes, as precious as gold; articles of
    food and drink from foreign lands, in short, what India,
    Persia, Arabia, Media Egypt, Italy, Greece, and even the
    far-off lands of the Gentiles yielded, might be had in these
    bazaars.

     Ancient Jewish writings enable us to identify no fewer than
    118 different articles of import from foreign lands, covering
    more than even modern luxury has devised. Articles of luxury,
    especially from abroad, fetched indeed enormous prices; and a
    lady might spend 36l. on a cloak; [a Baba B. ix. 7.] silk
    would be paid by its weight in gold; purple wool at 3l. 5s.
    the pound, or, if double-dyed, at almost ten times that
    amount; while the price of the best balsam and nard was most
    exorbitant. On the other hand, the cost of common living was
    very low. In the bazaars you might get a complete suit for
    your slave for eighteen or nineteen shillings, [b Arakh. vi.
    5.] and a tolerable outfit for yourself from 3l. to 6l.For
    the same sum you might purchase an ass, [c Baba K. x. 4.] an
    ox, [d Men. xiii. 8; or a cow, [e Tos. Sheq. ii.; Tos. Ar.
    iv.] and , for little more, a horse. A calf might be had for
    less than fifteen shillings, a goat for five or six. [f Men.
    xiii. 8.] Sheep were dearer, and fethed from four to fifteen
    or sixteen shillings, while a lamb might sometimes be had as
    low as two pence. No wonder living and labour were so cheap.
    Corn of all kinds, fruit, wine, and oil, cost very little.
    Meat was about a penny a pound; a man might get himself a
    small, of course unfurnished, lodging for about sixpence a
    week. [g Tos. Baba Mets. iv.] A day labourer was paid about 7
    1/2d. a day, though skilled labour would fetch a good deal
    more. Indeed, the great Hillel was popularly supposed to have
    supported his family on less than twopence a day, [h Yoma 35
    b.] while property to the amount of about 6l., or trade with
    2l. or 3l. of goods, was supposed to exclude a person from
    charity, or a claim on what was left in the corners of fields
    and the gleaners. [i Peah viii. 8, 9.]

     To these many like details might be added. [1 Comp.
    Herzfeld's Handelsgesch.] Sufficient has been said to show
    the two ends of society: the exceeding dearness of luxuries,
    and the corresponding cheapness of necessaries. Such extremes
    would meet especially at Jerusalem. Its population, computed
    at from 200,000 to 250,000, [2 Ancient Jerusalem is supposed
    to have covered about double the area of the modern city.
    Comp. Dr. Schick in A.M. Luncz, 'Jerusalem,' for 1882.] was
    enormously swelled by travellers, and by pilgrims during the
    great festivals. [1 Although Jerusalem covered only about 300
    acres, yet, from the narrowness of Oriental streets, it would
    hold a very much larger population than any Western city of
    the same extent. Besides, we must remember that its
    ecclesiastical boundaries extended beyond the city.] The
    great Palace was the residence of King and Court, with all
    their following and luxury; in Antonia lay afterwards the
    Roman garrison. The Temple called thousands of priests, many
    of them with their families, to Jerusalem; while the learned
    Academies were filled with hundreds, though it may have been
    mostly poor, scholars and students. In Jerusalem must have
    been many of the large warehouses for the near commercial
    harbour of Joppa; and thence, as from the industrial centres
    of busy Galilee, would the pedlar go forth to carry his wares
    over the land. More especially would the markets of
    Jerusalem, held, however, in bazaars and streets rather than
    in squares, be thronged with noisy sellers and bargaining
    buyers. Thither would Galilee send not only its manufactures,
    but its provisions: fish (fresh or salted), fruit [a Maaser.
    ii. 3.] known for its lusciousness, oil, grape-syrup, and
    wine. There were special inspectors for these markets, the
    Agardemis or Agronimos, who tested weights and measures, and
    officially stamped them, [b Baba B. 89 a.] tried the
    soundness of food or drink, [c Jer. Ab. Z 44 b; Ab. Z. 58 a.]
    and occasionally fixed or lowered the market-prices,
    enforcing their decision, [d Jer. Dem 22 c.] if need were,
    even with the stick. [e Yoma 9 a.] [2On the question of
    officially fixing the market-price, diverging opinions are
    expressed, Baba B. 89 b. It was thought that the market-price
    should leave to the producer a profit of one-sixth on the
    cost (Baba B. 90 a). In general, the laws on these subjects
    form a most interesting study. Bloch (Mos. Talm. Polizeir.)
    holds, that there were two classes of market-officials. But
    this is not supported by sufficient evidence, nor, indeed,
    would such an arrangement seem likely. 3 That of Botnah was
    the largest, Jer. Ab. Z. 39 d.] Not only was there an upper
    and a lower market in Jerusalem, [f Sanh. 89 a.] but we read
    of at least seven special markets: those for cattle, [g Erub.
    x. 9.] wool, iron-ware, [h Jos. War v. 8. 1.] clothes, wood,
    [i Ibid. ii. 19. 4.] bread, and fruit and vegetables. The
    original market-days were Monday and Tuesday, afterwards
    Friday. [k Tos. Baba Mets. iii.] The large fairs (Yeridin)
    were naturally confined to the centres of import and export,
    the borders of Egypt (Gaza), the ancient Phoenician maritime
    towns (Tyro and Acco), and the Emporium across the Jordan
    (Botnah). Besides, every caravansary, or khan (qatlis,
    atlis,), was a sort of mart, where goods were unloaded, and
    especially cattle set out [l Kerith. iii. 7;] for sale, and
    purchases made. But in Jerusalem one may suppose the sellers
    to have been every day in the market; and the magazines, in
    which greengrocery and all kinds of meat were sold (the Beth
    haShevaqim), [m Makhsh. vi. 2] must have been always open.
    Besides, there were the many shops (Chanuyoth) either
    fronting the streets, or in courtyards, or else movable
    wooden booths in the streets. Stangely enough, occasionally
    Jewish women were employed in selling. [a Kethub. ix. 4]
    Business was also done in the resturants and wineshops, of
    which there were many; where you might be served with some
    dish: fresh or salted fish, fried locusts, a mess of
    vegetables, a dish of soup, pastry, sweetmeats, or a piece of
    a fruit-cake, to be washed down with Judaean or Galilean
    wine, Idumaean vinegar, or foreign beer.

     If from these busy scenes we turn to the more aristocratic
    quarters of the Upper City, [1 Compare here generally Unruh,
    D. alte Jerusalem.] we stillsee the same narrow streets, but
    tenanted by another class. First, we pass the High-Priest's
    palace on the slope of the hill, with a lower story under the
    principal apartments, and a porch in front. Here, on the
    night of the Betrayal, Peter was 'beneath in the Palace.' [a
    St. Mark xiv. 66.] Next, we come to Xystos, and thenpause for
    a moment at the Palace of the Maccabees. It lies higher up
    the hill, and westward from the Xytos. From its halls you can
    look into the city, and even into the Temple. We know not
    which of the Maccabees had built this palace. But it was
    occupied, not by the actually reigning prince, who always
    resided in the fortress (Baris, afterwards Antonia), but by
    some other member of the family. From them it passed into the
    possession of Herod. There Herod Antipas was when, on that
    terrible Passover, Pilate sent Jesus from the old palace of
    Herod to be examined by the Ruler of Galilee. [b St. Luke
    xxiii. 6,7] If these buildings pointed to the difference
    between the past and present, two structures of Herod's were,
    perhaps, more eloquent than any words in their accusations of
    the Idumaean. One of these, at least, would come in sight in
    passing along the slopes of the Upper City. The Maccabean
    rule had been preceded by that of corrupt High-Priests, who
    had prostituted their office to the vilest purposes. One of
    them, who had changed his Jewish name of Joshua into Jason,
    had gone so far, in his attempts to Grecianise the people, as
    to build a Hippodrome and Gymnasium for heathen games. We
    infer, it stood where the Western hill sloped into the
    Tyropoeon, to the south-west of the Temple. [c Jos. War ii.3.
    1] It was probably this which Herod afterwards enlarged and
    beautified, and turned into a threatre. No expense was spared
    on the great games held there. The threatre itself was
    magnificently adorned with gold, silver, precious stones, and
    trophies of arms and records of the victories of Augustus.
    But to the Jews this essentially heathen place, over against
    their Temple, was cause of deep indignation and plots. [d
    Ant. xv. 8. 1] Besidesthis theatre, Herod also built an
    immense amphitheatre, which we must locate somewhere in the
    north-west, and outside the second city wall. [e Ant. xvii.
    10. 2; War ii. 3. 1, 2]

     All this was Jerusalem above ground. But there was an under
    ground Jerusalem also, which burrowed everywhere under the
    city, under the Upper City, under the Temple, beyond the city
    walls. Its extent may be gathered from the circumstance that,
    after the capture of the city, besides the living who had
    sought shelter there, no fewer than 2,000 dead bodies were
    found in those subterranean streets.

     Close by the tracks of heathenism in Jerusalem, and in sharp
    contrast, was what gave to Jerusalem its intensely Jewish
    character. It was not only the Temple, nor the festive
    pilgrims to its feasts and services. But there were hundreds
    of Synagogues, [1 Tradition exaggerates their number as 460
    (Jer. Kethub. 35 c.) or even 480 (Jer. Meg. 73 d). But even
    the large number (proportionally to the size of the city)
    mentioned in the text need not surprise us when we remember
    that ten men were sufficient to form a Synagogue, and how
    many, what may be called 'private', Synagogues exist at
    present in every town where there is a large and orthodox
    Jewish population.] some for different nationalities, such as
    the Alexandrians, or the Cyrenians; some for, or perhaps
    founded by, certain trade-guilds. If possible, the Jewish
    schools were even more numerous than the Synagogues. Then
    there were the many Rabbinic Academies; and, besides, you
    might also see in Jerusalem that mysterious sect, the
    Essenes, of which the members were easily recognized by their
    white dress. Essenes, Pharisees, stranger Jews of all hues,
    and of many dresses and languages! One could have imagined
    himself almost in another world, a sort of enchanted land, in
    this Jewish metropolis, and metropolis of Judaism. When the
    silver trumpets of the Priests woke the city to prayer, or
    the strain of Levite music swept over it, or the smoke of the
    sacrifices hung like another Shekhinah over the Temple,
    against the green background of Olivet; or when in every
    street, court, and housetop rose the booths at the Feast of
    Tabernacles, and at night the sheen of the Temple
    illumination threw long fantastic shadows over the city; or
    when, at the Passover, tens of thousands crowded up the Mount
    with their Paschal lambs, and hundreds of thousands sat down
    to the Paschal supper, it would be almost difficult to
    believe, that heathenism was so near, that the Roman was
    virtually, and would soon be really, master of the land, or
    that a Herod occupied the Jewish throne.

     Yet there he was; in the pride of his power, and the
    reckless cruelty of his ever-watchful tyranny. Everywhere was
    his mark. Temples to the gods and to Caesar, magnificent, and
    magnificently adorned, outside Palestine and in its
    non-Jewish cities; towns rebuilt or built: Sebaste for the
    acient Samaria, the splendid city and harbour of Coesarea in
    the west, Antipatris (after his father) in the north, Kypros
    and Phasaelis (after his mother and brother), and Agrippeion;
    unconquerable fortresses, such as Essebonitis and Machoerus
    in Peraea, Alexandreion, Herodeion, Hyrcania, and Masada in
    Judaea, proclaimed his name and sway. But in Jerusalem it
    seemed as if he had gathered up all his strength. The theatre
    and amphitheatre spoke of his Grecianism; Antonia was the
    representative fortress; for his religion he had built that
    glorious Temple, and for his residence the noblest of
    palaces, at the north-western angle of the Upper City, close
    by where Milo had been in the days of David. It seems almost
    incredible, that a Herod should have reared the Temple, and
    yet we can understand his motives. Jewish tradition had it,
    that a Rabbi (Baba ben Buta) had advised him in this manner
    to conciliate the people, [a Baba B. 3 b] or else thereby to
    expiate the slaughter of so many Rabbis. [b Bemid. R. 14.] [1
    The occasion is said to have been, that the Rabbis, in answer
    to Herod's question, quoted Deut. xvii. 15. Baba ben Buta
    himself is said to have escaped the slaughter, indeed, but to
    have been deprived of his eyes.] Probably a desire to gain
    popularity, and supersition, may alike have contributed, as
    also the wish to gratify his love for splendour and building.
    At the same time, he may have wished to show himself a better
    Jew than that rabble of Pharisees and Rabbis, who perpetually
    would cast it in his teeth, that he was an Idumaean. Whatever
    his origin, he was a true king of the Jews, as great, nay
    greater, than Solomon himself. Certainly, neither labour nor
    money had been spared on the Temple. A thousand vehicles
    carried up the stone; 10,000 workmen, under the guidance of
    1,000 priests, wrought all the costly material gathered into
    that house, of which Jewish tradition could say, 'He that has
    not seen the temple of Herod, has never known what beauty
    is.' [c Baba B. 4a.] And yet Israel despised and abhorred the
    builder! Nor could his apparent work for the God of Israel
    have deceived the most credulous. In youth he had browbeaten
    the venerable Sanhedrin, and threatened the city with
    slaughter and destruction; again and again had he murdered
    her venerable sages; he had shed like water the blood of her
    Asmonean princes, and of every one who dared to be free; had
    stifled every national aspiration in the groans of the
    torture, and quenched it in the gore of his victims. Not
    once, nor twice, but six times did he change the
    High-Priesthood, to bestow it at last on one who bears no
    good name in Jewish theology, a foreigner in Judaea, an
    Alexandrian. And yet the power of that Idumaean was but of
    yesterday, and of mushroom growth!

 FROM THE MANGER IN BETHLEHEM TO THE BAPTISM IN JORDAN

    THE PERSONAL HISTORY OF HEROD, THE TWO WORLDS IN JERUSALEM.

    CHAPTER II

     It is an intensely painful history, [1 For a fuller sketch
    of this history see Appendix IV.] in the course of which
    Herod made his way to the throne. We look back nearly two and
    a half centuries to where, with the empire of Alexander,
    Palestine fell to his successors. For nearly a century and a
    half it continued the battle-field of the Egyptian and Syrian
    kings (the Ptolemies and the Seleucidae). At last it was a
    corrupt High-Priesthood, with which virtually the government
    of the land had all along lain, that betrayed Israel's
    precious trust. The great-grandson of so noble a figure in
    Jewish history as Simon the Just (compare Ecclus. 1.) bought
    from the Syrians the High-Priestly office of his brother,
    adopted the heathen name Jason, and sought to Grecianise the
    people. The sacred office fell, if possible, even lower when,
    through bribery, it was transferred to his brother Menelaus.
    Then followed the brief period of the terrible persecutions
    of Antiochus Epiphanes, when Judaism was all but exterminated
    in Palestine. The glorious uprising of the Maccabees called
    forth all the national elements left in Israel, and kindled
    afresh the smouldering religious feeling. It seemed like a
    revival of Old Testament times. And when Judas the Maccabee,
    with a band so inferior in numbers and discipline, defeated
    the best of the Syrian soldiery, led by its ablest generals,
    and, on the anniversary of its desecration by heathen rites,
    set up again the great altar of burnt-offering, it appeared
    as if a new Theocracy were to be inaugurated. The ceremonial
    of that feast of the new 'dedication of the Temple,' when
    each night the number of lights grew larger in the winter's
    darkness, seemed symbolic of what was before Israel. But the
    Maccabees were not the Messiah; nor yet the kingdom, which
    their sword would have restored , that of Heaven, with its
    blessings and peace. If ever, Israel might then have learned
    what Saviour to look for.

     The period even of promise was more brief than might have
    been expected. The fervour and purity of the movement ceased
    almost with its success. It was certainly never the golden
    age of Israel, not even among those who remained faithful to
    its God, which those seem to imagine who, forgetful of its
    history and contests, would trace to it so much that is most
    precious and spiritual in the Old Testament. It may have been
    the pressure of circumstances, but it was anything but a
    pious, or even a 'happy' thought [1 So Schurer in his
    Neutestam. Zeitgesch.] of Judas the Maccabee, to seek the
    alliance of the Romans. From their entrance on the scene
    dates the decline of Israel's national cause. For a time,
    indeed, though after varying fortunes of war, all seemed
    prosperous. The Maccabees became both High-Priests and Kings.
    But partystrife and worldliness, ambition and corruption, and
    Grecianism on the throne, soon brought their sequel in the
    decline of morale and vigour, and led to the decay and
    decadence of the Maccabean house. It is a story as old as the
    Old Testament, and as wide as the history of the world.
    Contention for the throne among the Maccabees led to the
    interference of the foreigner. When, after capturing
    Jerusalem, and violating the sanctity of the Temple, although
    not plundering its treasures, Pompey placed Hyrcanus II. in
    the possession of the High-Priesthood, the last of the
    Maccabean rulers [2 A table of the Maccabean and Herodian
    families is given in Appendix VI.] was virtually shorn of
    power. The country was now tributary to Rome, and subject to
    the Governor of Syria. Even the shadow of political power
    passed from the feeble hands of Hyrcanus when, shortly
    afterwards, Gabinius (one of the Roman governors) divided the
    land into five districts, independent of each other.

     But already a person had appeared on the stage of Jewish
    affairs, who was to give them their last decisive turn. About
    fifty years before this, the district of Idumaea had been
    conquered by the Maccabean King Hyrcanus I., and its
    inhabitants forced to adopt Judaism. By this Idumaea we are
    not, however, to understand the ancient or Eastern Edom,
    which was now in the hands of the Nabataeans, but parts of
    Southern Palestine which the Edomites had occupied since the
    Babylonian Exile, and especially a small district on the
    northern and eastern boundary of Judaea, and below Samaria.
    [a Comp. 1 Macc. vi. 31] After it became Judaean, its
    administration was entrusted to a governor. In the reign of
    the last of the Maccabees this office devolved on one
    Antipater, a man of equal cunning and determination. He
    successfully interfered in the unhappy dispute for the crown,
    which was at last decided by the sword of Pompey. Antipater
    took the part of the utterly weak Hyrcanus in that contest
    with his energetic brother Aristobulus. He soon became the
    virtual ruler, and Hyrcanus II. only a puppet in his hands.
    From the accession of Judas Maccabaeus, in 166 B.C., to the
    year 63 B.C., when Jerusalem was taken by Pompey, only about
    a century had elapsed. Other twenty-four years, and the last
    of the Maccabees had given place to the son of Antipater:
    Herod, surnamed the Great.

     The settlement of Pompey did not prove lasting. Aristobulus,
    the brother and defeated rival of Hyrcanus, was still alive,
    and his sons were even more energetic than he. The risings
    attempted by them, the interference of the Parthians on
    behalf of those who were hostile to Rome, and, lastly, the
    contentions for supremacy in Rome itself, made this period
    one of confusion, turmoil, and constant warfare in Palestine.
    When Pompey was finally defeated by Caesar, the prospects of
    Antipater and Hycanus seemed dark. But they quickly changed
    sides; and timely help given to Caesar in Egypt brought to
    Antipater the title of Procurator of Judaea, while Hycanus
    was left in the High-Priesthood, and, at least, nominal head
    of the people. The two sons of Antipater were now made
    governors: the elder, Phasaelus, of Jerusalem; the younger,
    Herod, only twenty-five years old, of Galilee. Here he
    displayed the energy and determination which were his
    characteristics, in crushing a guerilla warfare, of which the
    deeper springs were probably nationalist. The execution of
    its leader brought Herod a summons to appear before the Great
    Sanhedrin of Jerusalem, for having arrogated to himself the
    power of life and death. He came, but arrayed in purple,
    surrounded by a body-guard, and supported by the express
    direction of the Roman Governor to Hyrcanus, that he was to
    be acquitted. Even so he would have fallen a victim to the
    apprehensions of the Sanhedrin, only too well grounded, had
    he not been persuaded to withdrawn from the city. He returned
    at the head of an army, and was with difficulty persuaded by
    his father to spare Jerusalem. Meantime Caesar had named him
    Governor of Coelesyria.

     On the murder of Caesar, and the possession of Syria by
    Cassius, Antipater and Herod again changed sides. But they
    rendered such substantial service as to secure favour, and
    Herod was continued in the position conferred on him by
    Caesar. Antipater was, indeed, poisoned by a rival, but his
    sons Herod and Phasaelus repressed and extinguished all
    opposition. When the battle of Philippi placed the Roman
    world in the hands of Antony and Octavius, the former
    obtained Asia. Once more the Idumaeans knew how to gain the
    new ruler, and Phasaelus and Herod were named Tetrarchs of
    Judaea. Afterwards, when Antony was held in the toils of
    Cleopatra, matters seemed, indeed, to assume a different
    aspect. The Parthians entered the land, in support of the
    rival Maccabean prince Antigonus, the son of Aristobulus. By
    treachery, Phasaelus and Hyrcanus were induced to go to the
    Parthian camp, and made captives. Phasaelus shortly
    afterwards destroyed himself in his prison, [1 By dashing out
    his brains againstthe prison walls.] while Hyrcanus was
    deprived of his ears, to unfit him for the High-Priestly
    office. And so Antigonus for a short time succeeded both to
    the High-Priesthood and royalty in Jerusalem. Meantime Herod,
    who had in vain warned his brother and Hyrcanus against the
    Parthian, had been able to make his escape from Jerusalem.
    His family he left to the defence of his brother Joseph, in
    the inaccessible fortress of Masada; himself fled into
    Arabia, and finally made his way to Rome. There he succeeded,
    not only with Antony, but obtained the consent of Octavius,
    and was proclaimed by the Senate King of Judaea. A sacrifice
    on the Capitol, and a banquet by Antony, celebrated the
    accession of the new successor of David.

     But he had yet to conquer his kingdom. At first he made way
    by the help of the Romans. Such success, however, as he had
    gained, was more than lost during his brief absence on a
    visit to Antony. Joseph, the brother of Herod, was defeated
    and slain, and Galilee, which had been subdued, revolted
    again. But the aid which the Romans rendered, after Herod's
    return from Antony, was much more hearty, and his losses were
    more than retrieved. Soon all Palestine, with the exception
    of Jerusalem, was in his hands. While laying siege to it, he
    went to Samaria, there to wed the beautiful Maccabean
    princess Mariamme, who had been betrothed to him five years
    before. [2 He had previously been married to one Doris, the
    issue of the marriage being a son, Antipater.] That ill-fated
    Queen, and her elder brother Aristobulus, united in
    themselves the two rival branches of the Maccabean family.
    Their father was Alexander, the eldest son of Aristobulus,
    and brother of that Antigonus whom Herod now besieged in
    Jerusalem; and their mother, Alexandra, the daughter of
    Hyrcanus II. The uncle of Mariamme was not long able to hold
    out against the combined forces of Rome and Herod. The
    carnage was terrible. When Herod, by rich presents, at length
    induced the Romans to leave Jerusalem, they took Antigonus
    with them. By desire of Herod he was executed.

     This was the first of the Maccabees who fell victim to his
    jealousy and cruelty. The history which now follows is one of
    sickening carnage. The next to experience his vengeance were
    the principal adherents in Jerusalem of his rival Antigonus.
    Forty-five of the noblest and richest were executed. His next
    step was to appoint an abscure Babylonian to the
    High-Priesthood. This awakened the active hostility of
    Alexandra, the mother of Marimme, Herod's wife. The Maccabean
    princess claimed the High-Priesthood for her son Aristobulus.
    Her intrigues with Cleopatra, and through her with Antony,
    and the entreaties of Mariamme, the only being whom Herod
    loved, though in his own mad way, prevailed. At the age of
    seventeen Aristobulus was made High-Priest. But Herod, who
    well knew the hatred and contempt of the Maccabean members of
    his family, had his mother-in-law watched, a precaution
    increased after the vain attempt of Alexandra to have herself
    and her son removed in coffins from Jerusalem, to flee to
    Cleopatra. Soon the jealousy and suspicions of Herod were
    raised to murderous madness, by the acclamations which
    greeted the young Aristobulus at the Feast of Tabernacles. So
    dangerous a Maccabean rival must be got rid of; and, by
    secret order of Herod, Aristobulus was drowned while bathing.
    His mother denounced the murderer, and her influence with
    Cleopatra, who also hated Herod, led to his being summoned
    before Antony. Once more bribery, indeed, prevailed; but
    other troubles awaited Herod.

     When obeying the summons of Antony, Herod had committed the
    government to his uncle Joseph, who was also his
    brother-in-law, having wedded Salome, the sister of Herod.
    His mad jealousy had prompted him to direct that, in case of
    his condemnation, Mariamme was to be killed, that she might
    not become the wife of another. Unfortunately, Joseph told
    this to Mariamme, to show how much she was loved. But on the
    return of Herod, the infamous Salome accused her old husband
    of impropriety with Mariamme. When it appeared that Joseph
    had told the Queen of his commission, Herod, regarding it as
    confirming his sister's charge, ordered him to be executed,
    without even a hearing. External complications of the gravest
    kind now supervened. Herod had to cede to Cleopatra the
    districts of Phoenice and Philistia, and that of Jericho with
    its rich balsam plantations. Then the dissensions between
    Antony and Octavius involved him, in the cause of the former,
    in a war with Arabia, whose king had failed to pay tribute to
    Cleopatra. Herod was victorious; but he had now to reckon
    with another master. The battle of Actium [a 31 B.C.] decided
    the fate on Antony, and Herod had to make his peace with
    Octavius. Happily, he was able to do good service to the new
    cause, ere presenting himself before Augustus. But, in order
    to be secure from all possible rivals, he had the aged
    Hyrcanus II. executed, on pretence of intrigues with the
    Arabs. Herod was successful with Augustus; and when, in the
    following summer, he furnished him supplies on his march to
    Egypt, he was rewarded by a substantial addition of
    territory.

     When about to appear before Augustus, Herod had entrusted to
    one Soemus the charge of Mariamme, with the same fatal
    directions as formerly to Joseph. Again Mariamme learnt the
    secret; again the old calumnies were raised, this time not
    only by Salome, but also by Kypros, Herod's mother; and again
    Herod imagined he had found corroborative evidence. Soemus
    was slain without a hearing, and the beautiful Mariamme
    executed after a mock trail. The most fearful paroxysm of
    remorse, passion, and longing for his murdered wife now
    seized the tyrant, and brought him to the brink of the grave.
    Alexandra, the mother of Mariamme, deemed the moment
    favorable for her plots, but she was discovered, and
    executed. Of the Maccabean race there now remained only
    distant members, the sons of Babas, who had found an asylum
    with Costobarus, the Governor of Idumaea, who had wedded
    Salome after the death of her first husband. Tired of him, as
    she had been of Joseph, Salome denounced her second husband;
    and Costobarus, as well as the sons of Babas, fell victims to
    Herod. Thus perished the family of the Maccabees.

     The hand of the maddened tyrant was next turned against his
    own family. Of his ten wives, we mention only those whose
    children occupy a place in this history. The son of Doris was
    Antipater; those of the Maccabean Mariamme, Alexander and
    Aristobulus; another Mariamme, whose father Herod had made
    High-Priest, bore him a son named Herod (a name which other
    of the sons shared); Malthake, a Samaritan, was the mother of
    Archelaus and Herod Antipas; and, lastly, Cleopatra of
    Jerusalem bore Philip. The sons of the Maccabean princess, as
    heirs presumptive, were sent to Rome for their education. On
    this occasion Herod received, as reward for many services,
    the country east of the Jordan, and was allowed to appoint
    his still remaining brother, Pheroras, Tetrarch of Peraea. On
    their return from Rome the young princes were married:
    Alexander to a daughter of the King of Cappadocia, and
    Aristobulus to his cousin Berenice, the daughter of Salome.
    But neither kinship, nor the yet nearer relation in which
    Aristobulus now stood to her, could extinguish the hatred of
    Salome towards the dead Maccabean princess or her children.
    Nor did the young princes, in their pride of descent,
    disguise their feelings towards the house of their father. At
    first, Herod gave not heed to the denunciations of his
    sister. Presently he yielded to vague apprehensions. As a
    first step, Antipater, the son of Doris, was recalled from
    exile, and sent to Rome for education. So the breach became
    open; and Herod took his sons to Italy, to lay formal
    accusation against them before Augustus. The wise counsels of
    the Emperor restored peace for a time. But Antipater now
    returned to Plaestine, and joined his calumnies to those of
    Salome. Once more the King of Cappadocia succeeded in
    reconciling Herod and his sons. But in the end the intrigues
    of Salome, Antipater, and of an infamous foreigner who had
    made his way at Court, prevailed. Alexander and Aristobulus
    were imprisoned, and an accusation of high treason laid
    against them before the Emperor. Augustus gave Herod full
    powers, but advised the convocation of a mixed tribunal of
    Jews and Romans to try the case. As might have been expected,
    the two princes were condemned to death, and when some old
    soldiers ventured to intercede for them, 300 of the supposed
    adherents of the cause were cut down, and the two princes
    strangled in prison. This happened in Samaria, where, thirty
    years before, Herod had wedded their ill-fated mother.

     Antipater was now the heir presumptive. But, impatient of
    the throne, he plotted with Herod's brother, Pheroras,
    against his father. Again Salome denounced her nephew and her
    brother. Antipater withdrew to Rome; but when, after the
    death of Pheraras, Herod obtained indubitable evidence that
    his son had plotted against his life, he lured Antipater to
    Palestine, where on his arrival he was cast into prison. All
    that was needed was the permission of Augustus for his
    execution. It arrived, and was carried out only five days
    before the death of Herod himself. So ended a reign almost
    unparalleled for reckless cruelty and bloodshed, in which the
    murder of the Innocents in Bethlehem formed but so trifling
    an episode among the many deeds of blood, as to have seemed
    not deserving of record on the page of the Jewish historian.

     But we can understand the feelings of the people towards
    such a King. They hated the Idumaean; they detested his
    semi-heathen reign; they abhorred his deeds of cruelty. the
    King had surrounded himself with foreign councillors, and was
    protected by foreign mercenaries from Thracia, Germany, and
    Gaul. [a Jos. Ant. vxii. 8. 3] So long as he lived, no
    woman's honour was safe, no man's life secure. An army of
    allpowerful spies pervaded Jerusalem, nay, the King himself
    was said to stoop to that office. [b Ant. xv. 10. 4] If pique
    or private enmity led to denunciation, the torture would
    extract any confession from the most innocent. What his
    relation to Judaism had been, may easily be inferred. He
    would be a Jew, even build the Temple, advocate the cause of
    the Jews in other lands, and, in a certain sense, conform to
    the Law of Judaism. In building the Temple, he was so anxious
    to conciliate national prejudice, that the Sanctuary itself
    was entrusted to the workmanship of priests only. Nor did he
    ever intrude into the Holy Place, nor interfere with any
    functions of the priesthood. None of his coins bear devices
    which could have shocked popular feeling, nor did any of the
    buildings he erected in Jerusalem exhibit any forbidden
    emblems. The Sanhedrin did exist during his reign, [1 Comp.
    the discussion of this question in Wieseler, Beitr. pp. 215
    &c.] though it must have been shorn of all real power, and
    its activity confined to ecclesiastical, or
    semi-ecclesiastical, causes. Strangest of all, he seems to
    have had at least the passive support of two of the greatest
    Rabbis, the Pollio and Sameas of Josephus [a Ant. xiv. 9. 4;
    xv. 1 1 10. 4.], supposed to represent those great figures in
    Jewish tradition, Abtalion and Shemajah. [b Ab. i. 10, 11] [2
    Even their recorded fundamental principles bear this out.
    That of Shemajah was: 'Love labour, hate lordship, and do not
    push forward to the authorities.' That of Abtalion was: 'Ye
    sages, be careful in your words, lest perchance ye incur
    banishment, and are exiled to a place of bad waters, and the
    disciples who follow you drink of them and die, and so in the
    end the name of God be profaned.' We can but conjecture, that
    they preferres even his rule to what had preceded; and hoped
    it might lead to a Roman Protectorate, which would leave
    Judaea practically independent, or rather under Rabbinc rule.

     It was also under the government of Herod, that Hillel and
    Shammai lived and taught in Jerusalem: [3 On Hillel and
    Shammai see the article in Herzog's Real-Encyklop.; that in
    Hamburger's; Delitzscg, Jesus u. Hillel. and books on Jewish
    history generally.] the two, whom tradition designates as
    'the fathers of old.' [c Eduj. 1. 4] Both gave their names to
    'schools,' whose direction was generally different, not
    unfrequently, it seems, chiefly for the sake of opposition.
    But it is not correct to describe the former as consistently
    the more liberal and mild. [4 A number of points on which the
    ordinances of Hillel were more severe than those of Shammai
    are enumerated in Eduj. iv. 1-12; v. 1-4; Ber. 36 a, end.
    Comp. also Ber. R. 1.] The teaching of both was supposed to
    have been declared by the 'Voice from Heaven' (the Bath-Qol)
    as 'the words of the living God;' yet the Law was to be
    henceforth according to the teaching of Hillel. [d Jer. Ber.
    3 b, lines 3 and 2 from botton But to us Hillel is so
    intensely interesting, not merely as the mild and gentle, nor
    only as the earnest student who came from Babylon to learn in
    the Academies of Jerusalem; who would support his family on a
    third of his scanty wages as a day labourer, that he might
    pay for entrance into the schools; and whose zeal and merits
    were only discovered when, after a severe night, in which,
    from poverty, he had been unable to gain admittance into the
    Academy, his benumbed form was taken down from the
    window-sill, to which he had crept up not to lose aught of
    the precious instruction. And for his sake did they gladly
    break on that Sabbath the sacred rest. Nor do we think of
    him, as tradition fables him, the descendant of David, [a
    Ber. R. 98] possessed of every great quality of body, mind,
    and heart; nor yet as the second Ezra, whose learning placed
    him at the head of the Sanhedrin, who laid down the
    principles afterwards applied and developed by Rabbinism, and
    who was the real founder of traditionalism. Still less do we
    think of him, as he is falsely represented by some: as he
    whose principles closely resemble the teaching of Jesus, or,
    according to certain writers, were its source. By the side of
    Jesus we think of him otherwise than this. We remember that,
    in his extreme old age and near his end, he may have presided
    over that meeting of Sanhedrin which, in answer to Herod's
    inquiry, pointed to Bethlehem as the birthplace of the
    Messiah. [b St.Matt. ii. 4.] [1 On the chronology of the life
    of Hillel &c., see also Schmilg, Ueb. d. Entsteh. &c. der
    Megillath Taanith, especially p. 34. Hillel is said to have
    become Chief of the Sanhedrin in 30 B.C., and to have held
    the office for forty years. These numbers, however, are no
    doubt somewhat exaggerated.] We think of him also as the
    grandfather of that Gamaliel, at whose feet Saul of Tarsus
    sat. And to us he is the representative Jewish reformer, in
    the spirit of those times, and in the sense of restoring
    rather than removing; while we think of Jesus as the Messiah
    of Israel, in the sense of bringing the Kingdom of God to all
    men, and opening it to all believers.

     And so there were two worlds in Jerusalem, side by side. On
    the one hand, was Grecianism with its theatre and
    amphitheatre; foreigners filling the Court, and crowding the
    city; foreign tendencies and ways, from the foreign King
    downwards. On the other hand, was the old Jewish world,
    becoming now set and ossified in the Schools of Hillel and
    Shammai, and overshadowed by Temple and Synagogue. And each
    was pursuing its course, by the side of the other. If Herod
    had everywhere his spies, the Jewish law provided its two
    police magistrates in Jerusalem, the only judges who received
    renumeration. [c Jer, Kethub. 35 c; Kethub. 104 b] [2 The
    police laws of the Rabbis might well serve us as a model for
    all similar legislation.] If Herod judged cruelly and
    despotically, the Sanhedrin weighed most deliberately, the
    balance always inclining to mercy. If Greek was the language
    of the court and camp, and indeed must have been understood
    and spoken by most in the land, the language of the people,
    spoken also by Christ and His Apostles, was a dialect of the
    ancient Hebrew, the Western or Palestinian Aramaic. [3 At the
    same time I can scarcely agree with Delitzsch and others,
    that this was the dialect called Sursi. The latter was rather
    Syriac. Comp. Levy, ad voc.] It seems strange, that this
    could ever have been doubted. [4 Professor Roberts has
    advocated, with great ingenuity, the view that Christ and His
    Apostles used the Greek language. See especially his
    'Discussions on the Gospels.' The Roman Catholic Church
    sometimes maintained, that Jesus and His disciples spoke
    Latin, and in 1822 a work appeared by Black to prove that the
    N.T. Greek showed a Latin origin.] A Jewish Messiah Who would
    urge His claim upon Israel in Greek, seems almost a
    contradiction in terms. We know, that the language of the
    Temple and the Synagogue was Hebrew, and that the addresses
    of the Rabbis had to be 'targumed' into the vernacular
    Aramaean, and can we believe that, in a Hebrew service, the
    Messiah could have risen to address the people in Greek, or
    that He would have argued with the Pharisees and Scribes in
    that tongue, especially remembering that its study was
    actually forbidden by the Rabbis? [1 For a full statement of
    the arguments on this subject we refer the student to Bohl,
    Forsch. n. e. Volksbibel z. Zeit Jesu, pp. 4-28; to the
    latter work by the same writer (Aittestam. Citate im N.
    Test.); to a very interesting article by Professor Delitzsch
    in the 'Daheim' for 1874 (No. 27); to Buxtorf, sub Gelil; to
    J. D. Goldberg, 'The Language of Christ'; but especially
    prop. di Cristo (Parma 1772).]

     Indeed, it was a peculiar mixture of two worlds in
    Jerusalem: not only of the Grecian and the Jewish, but of
    piety and frivolity also. The devotion of the people and the
    liberality of the rich were unbounded. Fortunes were lavished
    on the support of Jewish learning, the promotion of piety, or
    the advance of the national cause. Thousands of votive
    offerings, and the costly gifts in the Temple, bore evidence
    of this. priestly avarice had artificially raised the price
    of sacrificial animals, a rich man would bring into the
    Temple at his own cost the number requisite for the poor.
    Charity was not only open-handed, but most delicate, and one
    who had been in good circumstances would actually be enabled
    to live according to his former station. [2 Thus Hillel was
    said to have hired a horse, and even an outrunner, for a
    decayed rich man.] Then these Jerusalemites, townspeople, as
    they called themselves, were so polished, so witty, so
    pleasant. There was a tact in their social intercourse, and a
    considerateness and delicacy in their public arrangements and
    provisions, nowhere else to be found. Their very language was
    different. There was a Jerusalem dialect, [a Bemid. R. 14;
    ed. Warsh. p. 59a.] quicker, shorter, 'lighter' (Lishna
    Qalila). [b Baba K.] And their hospitality, especially at
    festive seasons, was unlimited. No one considered his house
    his own, and no stranger or pilgrim but found reception. And
    how much there was to be seen and heard in those luxuriously
    furnished houses, and at those sumptuous entertainments! In
    the women's apartments, friends from the country would see
    every novelty in dress, adornment, and jewellery, and have
    the benefit of examining themselves in looking-glasses. To be
    sure, as being womanish vanity, their use was interdicted to
    men, except it were to the members of the family of the
    President of the Sanhedrin, on account of their intercourse
    with those in authority, just as for the same reason they
    were allowed to learn Greek. [a Jer.Shabb. 7 d] Nor might
    even women look in theglass on the Sabbath. [b Shabb. 149 a]
    But that could only apply to those carried in the hand, since
    one might be tempted, on the holy day, to do such servile
    work as to pull out a grey hair with the pincers attached to
    the end of the glass; but not to a glass fixed in the lid of
    a basket; [c Kel. xiv. 6] nor to such as hung on the wall. [d
    Tos. Shabb.xiii. ed. Zuckerm. p. 130] And then the
    lady-visitor might get anything in Jerusalem; from a false
    tooth to an Arabian veil, a Persian shawl, or an Indian
    dress!

     While the women so learned Jerusalem manners in the inner
    apartments, the men would converse on the news of the day, or
    on politics. For the Jerusalemites had friends and
    correspondents in the most distant parts of the world, and
    letters were carried by special messengers, [e Shabb. x.4] in
    a kind of post-bag. Nay, there seem to have been some sort of
    receiving-offices in towns, [f Shabb. 19a] and even something
    resembling our parcel-post. [g Rosh haSh. 9 b] And, strange
    as it may sound, even a species of newspapers, or
    broadsheets, appears to have been circulating (Mikhtabhin),
    not allowed, however, on the Sabbath, unless they treated of
    public affairs. [h Tos. Shabb. xviii.]

     Of course, it is difficult accurately to determine which of
    these things were in use in the earliest times, or else
    introduced at a later period. Perhaps, however, it was safer
    to bring them into a picture of Jewish society. Undoubted,
    and, alas, too painful evidence comes to us of the
    luxuriousness of Jerusalem at that time, and of the moral
    corruption to which it led. It seems only too clear, that
    such commentations as the Talmud [i Shabb. 62 b] gives of Is.
    iii. 16-24, in regard to the manners and modes of attraction
    practised by a certain class of the female population in
    Jerusalem, applied to a far later period than that of the
    prophet. With this agrees only too well the recorded covert
    lascivious expressions used by the men, which gives a
    lamentable picture of the state of morals of many in the
    city, [k Comp. Shabb. 62 b, last line and first of 63 a] and
    the notices of the indecent dress worn not only by women, [l
    Kel. xxiv. 16; xxviii. 9] but evenby corrupt High-Priestly
    youths. Nor do the exaggerated descriptions of what the
    Midrash on Lamentations [m On ch. iv 2] describes as the
    dignity of the Jerusalemites; of the wealth which they
    lavished on their marriages; of the ceremony which insisted
    on repeated invitations to the guests to a banquet, and that
    men inferior in rank should not be bidden to it; of the dress
    in which they appeared; the manner in which the dishes were
    served, the wine in white crystal vases; and the punishment
    of the cook who had failed in his duty, and which was to be
    commensurate to the dignity of the party, give a better
    impression of the great world in Jerusalem.

     And yet it was the City of God, over whose destruction not
    only the Patriarch and Moses, but the Angelic hosts, nay, the
    Almighty Himself and His Shekhinah, had made bitterest
    lamentation. [1 See the Introduction to the Midrash on
    Lamentations. But some of the descriptions are so painful,
    even blasphemous , that we do not venture on quotation.] The
    City of the Prophets, also, since each of them whose
    birthplace had not been mentioned, must be regarded as having
    sprung from it. [aMeg. 15 a] Equally, even more, marked, but
    now for joy and triumph, would be the hour of Jerusalem's
    uprising, when it would welcome its Messiah. Oh, when would
    He come? In the feverish excitement of expectancy they were
    only too ready to listen to the voice of any pretender,
    however coarse and clumsy the imposture. Yet He was at hand,
    even now coming: only quite other than the Messiah of their
    dreams. 'He came unto His own, and His own received Him not.
    But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become
    children of God, even to them that believe on His Name.'

 FROM THE MANGER IN BETHLEHEM TO THE BAPTISM IN JORDAN

    THE ANNUNCIATION OF ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST (St. Luke i. 5-25.)

    CHAPTER III

     It was the time of the Morning Sacrifice. [1 We presume,
    that the ministration of Zacharias (St. Luke i. 9) took place
    in the morning, as the principal service. But Meyer (Komm. i.
    2, p. 242) is mistaken in supposing, that this follows from
    the reference to the lot. It is, indeed, true that, of the
    four lots for the priestly functions, three took place only
    in the morning. But that for incensing was repeated in the
    evening (Yoma 26 a). Even Bishop Haneberg (Die Relig.
    Alterth. p. 609) is not accurate in this respect. As the
    massive Temple gates slowly swung on their hinges, a
    three-fold blast from the silver trumpets of the Priests
    seemed to waken the City, as with the Voice of God, to the
    life of another day. As its echoes came in the still air
    across the cleft of the Tyropoeon, up the slopes of the Upper
    City, down the busy quarters below, or away to the new suburb
    beyond, they must, if but for a moment, have brought holier
    thoughts to all. For, did it not seem to link the present to
    the past and the future, as with the golden chain of promises
    that bound the Holy City to the Jerusalem that was above,
    which in type had already, and in reality would soon descend
    from heaven? Patriot, saint, or stranger, he could not have
    heard it unmoved, as thrice the summons from within the
    Temple-gates rose and fell.

     It had not come too soon. The Levites on ministry, and those
    of the laity, whose 'course' it was to act as the
    representatives of Israel, whether in Palestine or far away,
    in a sacrifice provided by, and offered for, all Israel,
    hastened to their duties. [2 For a description of the details
    of that service, see 'The Temple and its Services,' &c.] For
    already the blush of dawn, for which the Priest on the
    highest pinnacle of the Temple had watched, to give the
    signal for beginning the services of the day, had shot its
    brightness far away to Hebron and beyond. Within the Courts
    below all had long been busy. At some time previously,
    unknown to those who waited for the morning, whether at
    cockcrowing, or a little earlier or later, [a Tamid i. 2] the
    superintending Priest had summoned to their sacred functions
    those who had 'washed,' according to the ordinance. There
    must have been each day about fifty priests on duty. [1 If we
    reckon the total number in the twenty-four courses of,
    presumably, the officiating priesthood, at 20,000, according
    to Josephus (Ag. Ap. ii. 8), which is very much below the
    exaggerated Talmudic computation of 85,000 for the smallest
    course (Jer. Taan. 69 a), and suppose, that little more than
    one-third of each course had come up for duty, this would
    give fifty priests for each week-day, while on the Sabbath
    the whole course would be on duty. This is, of course,
    considerably more than the number requisite, since, except
    for the incensing priest, the lot for the morning also held
    good for the evening sacrifice.] Such of them as were ready
    now divided into two parties, to make inspection of the
    Temple courts by torchlight. Presently they met, and trooped
    to the well-known Hall of Hewn Polished Stones, [a Yoma 25 a]
    where formerly the Sanhedrin had been wont to sit. The
    ministry for the day was there apportioned. To prevent the
    disputes of carnal zeal, the 'lot' was to assign to each his
    function. Four times was it resorted to: twice before, and
    twice after the Temple-gates were opened. The first act of
    their ministry had to be done in the grey dawn, by the fitful
    red light that glowed on the altar of burnt offering, ere the
    priests had stirred it into fresh flame. It was scarcely
    daybreak, when a second time they met for the 'lot,' which
    designated those who were to take part in the sacrifice
    itself, and who were to trim the golden candlestick, and make
    ready the altar of incense within the Holy Place. And now
    morn had broken, and nothing remained before the admission of
    worshippers but to bring out the lamb, once again to make
    sure of its fitness for sacrifice, to water it from a golden
    bowl, and then to lay it in mystic fashion, as tradition
    described the binding of Isaac, on the north side of the
    altar, with its face to the west.

     All, priests and laity, were present as the Priest, standing
    on the east side of the altar, from a golden bowl sprinkled
    with sacrificial blood two sides of the altar, below the red
    line which marked the difference between ordinary sacrifices
    and those that were to be wholly consumed. While the
    sacrifice was prepared for the altar, the priests, whose lot
    it was, had made ready all within the Holy Place, where the
    most solemn part of the day's service was to take place, that
    of offering the incense, which symbolised Israel's accepted
    prayers. Again was the lot (the third) cast to indicate him,
    who was to be honoured with this highest mediatorial act.
    Only once in a lifetime might any one enjoy that privilege.
    [b Tamid v. 2] Henceforth he was called 'rich,' [2 Yoma 26 a.
    The designation 'rich' is derived from the promise which, in
    Deut. xxxiii. 11, follows on the service referred to in verse
    10. But probably a spiritual application was also intended.]
    and must leave to his brethren the hope of the distinction
    which had been granted him. It was fitting that, as the
    custom was, such lot should be preceded by prayer and
    confession of their faith [1 The so-called Shema, consisting
    of Deut. vi. 4-9; xi. 13-21; Num. xv. 37-41.] on the part of
    the assembled priests.

     It was the first week in October 748 A.U.C., [2 The question
    of this date is, of course, intimately connected with that of
    the Nativity of Christ, and could therefore not be treated in
    the text. It is discussed in Appendix VII.: 'On the Date of
    the Nativity of our Lord.'] that is, in the sixth year before
    our present era, when 'the course of Abia' [3 This was the
    eighth course in the ,iginal arrangement (1 Chr. xxiv. 10).]
    , the eighth in the original arrangement of the weekly
    service, was on duty in the Temple. True this, as indeed most
    of the twenty-four 'courses' into which the Priesthood had
    been arranged, could not claim identity, only continuity,
    with those whose names they bore. For only three, or at most
    four, of the ancient 'courses' had returned from Babylon. But
    the original arrangement had been preserved, the names of the
    missing courses being retained, and their number filled up by
    lot from among those who had come back to Palestine. In our
    ignorance of the number of 'houses of their father,' or
    families,' which constituted the 'course of Abia,' it is
    impossible to determine, how the services of that week had
    been apportioned among them. But this is of comparatively
    small importance, since there is no doubt about the central
    figure in the scene.

     In the group ranged that autumn morning around the
    superintending Priest was one, on whom the snows of at least
    sixty winters had fallen. [4 According to St. Luke i. 7, they
    were both 'well stricken in years.' But from Aboth v. 21 we
    learn, that sixty years was considered 'the commencement of
    agedness.'] But never during these many years had he been
    honoured with the office of incensing, and it was perhaps
    well he should have learned, that this distinction came
    direct from God. Yet the venerable figure of Zacharias must
    have been well known in the Temple. For, each course was
    twice a year on ministry, and, unlike the Levites, the
    priests were not disqualified by age, but only by infirmity.
    In many respects he seemed different from those around. His
    home was not in either of the great priest-centres, the
    Ophel-quarter in Jerusalem, nor in Jericho [5 According to
    tradition, about one-fourth of the priesthood was resident in
    Jericho. But, even limiting this to those who were in the
    habit of officiating, the statement seems greatly
    exaggerated.], but in some small town in those uplands, south
    of Jerusalem: the historic 'hill-country of Judea.' And yet
    he might have claimed distinction. To be a priest, and
    married to the daughter of a priest, was supposed to convey
    twofold honour. [6 Comp. Ber. 44 a; Pes. 49 a; Vayyikra R.
    4.] That he was surrounded by relatives and friends, and that
    he was well known and respected throughout his district,
    appears incidentally from the narrative.(1) It would, indeed,
    have been strange had it been otherwise. There was much in
    the popular habits of thought, as well as in the office and
    privileges of the Priesthood, if worthily represented, to
    invest it with a veneration which the aggressive claims of
    Rabbinism could not wholly monopolise. And in this instance
    Zacharias and Elisabeth, his wife, were truly 'righteous,' [1
    , of course not in the strict sense in which the word is
    sometimes used, especially by St. Paul, but as pius et bonus.
    See Vorstius (De Hebraism. N.T. pp. 55 &c.). As the account
    of the Evangelist seems derived from an original Hebrew
    source, the word must have corresponded to that of Tsaddiq in
    the then popular signification.] in the sense of walking, so
    far as man could judge, 'blamelessly,' alike in those
    commandments which were specially binding on Israel, and in
    those statues that were of universal bearing on mankind. [2
    evidently mark an essential division of the Law at the time.
    But it is almost impossible to determine their exact Hebrew
    equivalents. The LXX. render by these two terms not always
    the same Hebrew words. Comp. Gen. xxvi. 5 with Deut. iv. 40.
    They cannot refer to the division of the law into affirmative
    (248) and prohibitive (365) commandments.] No doubt their
    piety assumed in some measure the form of the time, being, if
    we must use the expression, Pharisaic, though in the good,
    not the evil sense of it.

     There is much about those earlier Rabbis, Hillel, Gamaliel,
    and others, to attract us, and their spirit ofttimes sharply
    contrasts with the narrow bigotry, the self-glory, and the
    unspiritual externalism of their successors. We may not
    unreasonably infer, that the Tsaddiq in the quiet home of the
    hill-country was quite other than the self-asserting Rabbi,
    whose dress and gait, voice and manner, words and even
    prayers, were those of the religious parvenu, pushing his
    claims to distinction before angels and men. Such a household
    as that of Zacharias and Elisabeth would have all that was
    beautiful in the religion of the time: devotion towards God;
    a home of affection and purity; reverence towards all that
    was sacred in things Divine and human; ungrudging,
    self-denying, loving charity to the poor; the tenderest
    regard for the feelings of others, so as not to raise a
    blush, nor to wound their hearts; [3 There is, perhaps, no
    point on which the Rabbinic Law is more explicit or stringent
    than on that of tenderest regard for the feelings of others,
    especially of the poor.] above all, intense faith and hope in
    the higher and better future of Israel. Of such, indeed,
    there must have been not a few in the land, the quiet, the
    prayerful, the pious, who, though certainly not Sadducees nor
    Essenes, but reckoned with the Pharisaic party, waited for
    the consolation of Israel, and received it with joy when
    manifested. Nor could aught more certainly have marked the
    difference between the one and the other section than on a
    matter, which must almost daily, and most painfully have
    forced itself on Zacharias and Elisabeth. There were among
    the Rabbis those who, remembering the words of the prophet,
    [a Mal. ii. 13 16] spoke in most pathetic language of the
    wrong of parting from the wife of youth, [b Gitt. 90 b] and
    there were those to whom the bare fact of childlessness
    rendered separation a religious duty. [c Yeb. 64 a] Elisabeth
    was childless. Formany a year this must have been the burden
    of Zacharias' prayer; the burden also of reproach, which
    Elisabeth seemed always to carry with her. They had waited
    together these many years, till in the evening of life the
    flower of hope had closed its fragrant cup; and still the two
    sat together in the twilight, content to wait in loneliness,
    till night would close around them.

     But on that bright autumn morning in the Temple no such
    thoughts would come to Zacharias. For the first, and for the
    last time in life the lot had marked him for incensing, and
    every thought must have centred on what was before him. Even
    outwardly, all attention would be requisite for the proper
    performance of his office. First, he had to choose two of his
    special friends or relatives, to assist in his sacred
    service. Their duties were comparatively simple. One
    reverently removed what had been left on the altar from the
    previous evening's service; then, worshipping, retired
    backwards. The second assistant now advanced, and, having
    spread to the utmost verge of the golden altar the live coals
    taken from that of burnt-offering, worshipped and retired.
    Meanwhile the sound of the 'organ' (the Magrephah), heard to
    the most distant parts of the Temple, and, according to
    tradition, far beyond its precincts, had summoned priests,
    Levites, and people to prepare for whatever service or duty
    was before them. For, this was the innermost part of the
    worship of the day. But the celebrant Priest, bearing the
    golden censer, stood alone within the Holy Place, lit by the
    sheen of the seven-branched candlestick. Before him, somewhat
    farther away, towards the heavy Veil that hung before the
    Holy of Holies, was the golden altar of incense, on which the
    red coals glowed. To his right (the left of the altar, that
    is, on the north side) was the table of shewbread; to his
    left, on the right or south side of the altar, was the golden
    candlestick. And still he waited, as instructed to do, till a
    special signal indicated, that the moment had come to spread
    the incense on the altar, as near as possible to the Holy of
    Holies. Priests and people had reverently withdrawn from the
    neighbourhood of the altar, and were prostrate before the
    Lord, offering unspoken worship, in which record of past
    deliverance, longing for mercies promised in the future, and
    entreaty for present blessing and peace, [1 For the prayers
    offered by the people during the incensing, see 'The Temple,'
    pp. 139, 140.] seemed the ingredients of the incense, that
    rose in a fragrant cloud of praise and prayer. Deep silence
    had fallen on the worshippers, as if they watched to heaven
    the prayers of Israel, ascending in the cloud of 'odours'
    that rose from the golden altar in the Holy Place. [a Rev. v.
    8; viii. 1, 3, 4] Zacharias waited, until he saw the incense
    kindling. Then he also would have 'bowed down in worship,'
    and reverently withdrawn, [b Tamid vi. 3] had not a wondrous
    sight arrested his steps.

     On the right (or south) side of the altar, between it and
    the golden candlestick, stood what he could not but recognise
    as an Angelic form. [2 The following extract from Yalkut
    (vol. i. p. 113 d, close) affords a curious illustration of
    this Divine communication from beside the altar of incense:
    'From what place did the Shekhinah speak to Moses? R. Nathan
    said: From the altar of incense, according to Ex. xxx. 6.
    Simeon ben Asai said: From the side of the altar of
    incense.'] Never, indeed, had even tradition reported such a
    vision to an ordinary Priest in the act of incensing. The two
    super-natural apparitions recorded, one of an Angel each year
    of the Pontificate of Simon the Just; the other in that
    blasphemous account of the vision of the Almighty by Ishmael,
    the son of Elisha, and of the conversation which then ensued
    [c Ber. 7 a] [3 According to the Talmud, Ishmael once went
    into the innermost Sanctuary, when he had a vision of God,
    Who called upon the priest to pronounce a benediction. The
    token of God's acceptance had better not be quoted.] , had
    bothbeen vouchsafed to High-Priests, and on the Day of
    Atonement. Still, there was always uneasiness among the
    people as any mortal approached the immediate Presence of
    God, and every delay in his return seemed ominous. [d Jer.
    Yoma 42 c] No wonder, then, that Zacharias 'was troubled, and
    fear fell on him,' as of a sudden, probably just after he had
    spread the incense on the altar, and was about to offer his
    parting prayer, he beheld what afterwards he knew to be the
    Angel Gabriel ('the might of God'). Apart from higher
    considerations, there could perhaps be no better evidence of
    the truth of this narrative than its accord with
    psychological facts. An Apocryphal narrative would probably
    have painted the scene in agreement with what, in the view of
    such a writer, should have been the feelings of Zacharias,
    and the language of the Angel. [4 Instances of an analogous
    kind frequently occur in the Apocryphal Gospels.] The Angel
    would have commenced by referring to Zacharias' prayers for
    the coming of a Messiah, and Zacharias would have been
    represented in a highly enthusiastic state. Instead of the
    strangely prosaic objection which he offered to the Angelic
    announcement, there would have been a burst of spiritual
    sentiment, or what passed for such. But all this would have
    been psychologically untrue. There are moments of moral
    faintness, so to spseak, when the vital powers of the
    spiritual heart are depressed, and, as in the case of the
    Disciples on the Mount of Transfiguration and in the Garden
    of Gethsemane, the physical part of our being and all that is
    weakest in us assert their power.

     It was true to this state of semi-consciousness, that the
    Angel first awakened within Zacharias the remembrance of
    life-long prayers and hopes, which had now passed into the
    background of his being, and then suddenly startled him by
    the promise of their realisation. But that Child of so many
    prayers, who was to bear the significant name of John
    (Jehochanan, or Jochanan), 'the Lord is gracious,' was to be
    the source of joy and gladness to a far wider circle than
    that of the family. This might be called the first rung of
    the ladder by which the Angel would take the priest upwards.
    Nor was even this followed by an immediate disclosure of
    what, in such a place, and from such a messenger, must have
    carried to a believing heart the thrill of almost unspeakable
    emotion. Rather was Zacharias led upwards, step by step. The
    Child was to be great before the Lord; not only an ordinary,
    but a life-Nazarite, [1 On the different classes of
    Nazarites, see 'The Temple, &c.,' pp. 322-331.] as Samson and
    Samuel of old had been. Like them, he was not to consecrate
    himself, but from the inception of life wholly to belong to
    God, for His work. And, greater than either of these
    representatives of the symbolical import of Nazarism, he
    would combine the twofold meaning of their mission , outward
    and inward might in God, only in a higher and more spiritual
    sense. For this life-work he would be filled with the Holy
    Ghost, from the moment life woke within him. Then, as another
    Samson, would he, in the strength of God, lift the axe to
    each tree to be felled, and, like another Samuel, turn many
    of the children of Israel to the Lord their God. Nay,
    combining these two missions, as did Elijah on Mount Carmel,
    he should, in accordance with prophecy, [a Mal. iii. 1]
    precede the Messianic manifestation, and, not indeed in the
    person or form, but in the spirit and power of Elijah,
    accomplish the typical meaning of his mission, as on that day
    of decision it had risen as the burden of his prayer [b 1
    Kings xviii. 37] , that is, in the words of prophecy, [c Mal.
    iv. 5, 6] 'turn the heart of the fathers to the children,'
    which, in view of the coming dispensation, would be 'the
    disobedient (to walk) in the wisdom of the just.' [d St. Luke
    i. 17; comp. St. Matt. xi. 19] Thus would this new Elijah
    'make ready for the Lord a people prepared.'

     If the apparition of the Angel, in that place, and at that
    time, had overwhelmed the aged priest, the words which he
    heard must have filled him with such bewilderment, that for
    the moment he scarcely realised their meaning. One idea
    alone, which had struck its roots so long in his
    consciousness, stood out: A son, while, as it were in the dim
    distance beyond, stretched, as covered with a mist of glory,
    all those marvellous things that were to be connected with
    him. So, when age or strong feeling renders us almost
    insensible to the present, it is ever that which connects
    itself with the past, rather than with the present, which
    emerges first and strongest in our consciousness. And so it
    was the obvious doubt, that would suggest itself, which fell
    from his lips, almost unconscious of what he said. Yet there
    was in his words an element of faith also, or at least of
    hope, as he asked for some pledge or confirmation of what he
    had heard.

     It is this demand of some visible sign, by which to 'know'
    all that the Angel had promised, which distinguishes the
    doubt of Zacharias from that of Abraham, [a Gen. xvii. 17,
    18] or of Manoah and his wife,[b Judg. xiii 2-21] under
    somewhat similar circumstances, although, otherwise also,
    even a cursory reading must convey the impression of most
    marked differences. Nor ought we perhaps to forget, that we
    are on the threshold of a dispensation, to which faith is the
    only entrance. This door Zacharias was now to hold ajar, a
    dumb messenger. He that would not speak the praises of God,
    but asked a sign, received it. His dumbness was a sign,
    though the sign, as it were the dumb child of the prayer of
    unbelief, was its punishment also. And yet, when rightly
    applied, a sign in another sense also, a sign to the waiting
    multitude in the Temple; a sign to Elisabeth; to all who knew
    Zacharias in the hill-country; and to the priest himself,
    during those nine months of retirement and inward solitude; a
    sign also that would kindle into flame in the day when God
    would loosen his tongue.

     A period of unusual length had passed, since the signal for
    incensing had been given. The prayers of the people had been
    offered, and their anxious gaze was directed towards the Holy
    Place. At last Zacharias emerged to take his stand on the top
    of the steps which led from the Porch to the Court of the
    Priests, waiting to lead in the priestly benediction, [c
    Numb. vi. 24-26] that preceded the daily meat-offering and
    the chant of the Psalms of praise, accompanied with joyous
    sound of music, as the drink-offering was poured out. But
    already the sign of Zacharias was to be a sign to all the
    people. The pieces of the sacrifices had been ranged in due
    order on the altar of burnt-offering; the priests stood on
    the steps to the porch, and the people were in waiting.
    Zacharias essayed to speak the words of benediction,
    unconscious that the stoke had fallen. But the people knew it
    by his silence, that he had seen a vision in the Temple. Yet
    as he stood helpless, trying by signs to indicate it to the
    awestruck assembly, he remained dumb.

     Wondering, they had dispersed, people and priests. The day's
    service over, another family of ministrants took the place of
    those among whom Zacharias had been; and again, at the close
    of the week's service, another 'course' that of Abia. They
    returned to their homes, some to Ophel, some to Jericho, some
    to their quiet dwellings in the country. But God fulfilled
    the word which He had spoken by His Angel.

     Before leaving this subject, it may be well to inquire into
    the relation between the events just described, and the
    customs and expectations of the time. The scene in the
    Temple, and all the surroundings, are in strictest accordance
    with what we know of the services of the Sanctuary. In a
    narrative that lays hold on some details of a very complex
    service, such entire accuracy conveys the impression of
    general truthfulness. Similarly, the sketch of Zacharias and
    Elisabeth is true to the history of the time, though
    Zacharias could not have been one of the 'learned,' nor to
    the Rabbinists, a model priest. They would have described him
    as an 'idiot,' [1 The word or 'idiot,' when conjoined with
    'priest' ordinarily means a common priest, in distinction to
    the High priest. But the word unquestionably also signifies
    vulgar, ignorant, and illiterate. See Jer. Sot. 21 b, line 3
    from bottom; Sanh. 21 b. Comp. also Meg. 12 b; Ber. R. 96.]
    or common, and as an Amha-arets, a 'rustic' priest, and
    treated himm with benevolent contempt. [2 According to Sanh.
    90 b, such an one was not even allowed to get the Terumah.]
    The Angelic apparition, which he saw, was wholly
    unprecedented, and could therefore not have lain within range
    of common expectation; though the possibility, or rather the
    fear, of some contact with the Divine was always present to
    the popular mind. But it is difficult to conceive how, if not
    true, the invention of such a vision in such circumstances
    could have suggested itself. This difficulty is enhanced by
    the obvious difference between the Evangelic narrative, and
    the popular ideas of the time. Far too much importance has
    here been attached by a certain class of writers to a
    Rabbinic saying, [a Jer. haSh. 56 d, line 10 from bottom]
    that the names of the Angels were brought from Babylon. For,
    not only was this saying (of Ben Lakish) only a clever
    Scriptural deduction (as the context shows), and not even an
    actual tradition, but no competent critic would venture to
    lay down the principle, that isolated Rabbinic sayings in the
    Talmud are to be regarded as sufficient foundation for
    historical facts. On the other hand, Rabbinic tradition does
    lay it down, that the names of the Angels were derived from
    their mission, and might be changed with it. Thus the reply
    of the Angel to the inquiry of Manoah [a Judg. xiii. 18] is
    explained as implying, that he knew not what other name might
    be given him in the future. In the Book of Daniel, to which
    the son of Lakish refers, the only two Angelic names
    mentioned are Gabriel [b Dan. ix. 21] and Michael, [c x. 21]
    while the appeal to the Book of Daniel, as evidence of the
    Babylonish origin of Jewish Angelology, comes with strange
    inconsistency from writers who date it in Maccabean times. [1
    Two other Angels are mentioned, but not named, in Dan. x. 13,
    20.] But the question of Angelic nomenclature is quite
    secondary. The real point at issue is, whether or not the
    Angelology and Demonology of the New Testament was derived
    from contemporary Judaism. The opinion, that such was the
    case, has been so dogmatically asserted, as to have almost
    passed among a certain class as a settled fact. That
    nevertheless such was not the case, is capable of the most
    ample proof. Here also, with similarity of form, slighter
    than usually, there os absolutely contrast of substance. [2
    The Jewish ideas and teaching about angels are fully given in
    Appendix XIII.: 'Jewish Angelology and Demonology.']

     Admitting that the names of Gabriel and Michael must have
    been familiar to the mind of ZXacharias, some not unimportant
    differences must be kept in view. Thus, Gabriel was regarded
    in tradition as inferior to Michael; and, though both were
    connected with Israel, Gabriel was represented as chiefly the
    minister of justice, and Michael of mercy; while, thirdly,
    Gabriel was supposed to stand on the left, and not (as in the
    Evangelic narrative) on the right, side of the throne of
    glory. Small as these divergences may seem, they are
    allimportant, when derivation of one set of opinions from
    another is in question. Finally, as regarded the coming of
    Elijah as forerunner of the Messiah, it is to be observed
    that, according to Jewish notions, he was to appear
    personally, and not merely 'in spirit and power.' In fact,
    tradition represents his ministry and appearances as almost
    continuous , not only immediately before the coming of
    Messiah, but at all times. Rabbinic writings introduce him on
    the scene, not only frequently, but on the most incongruous
    occasions, and for the most diverse purposes. In this sense
    it is said of him, that he always liveth. [d Moed k. 26a]
    Sometimes, indeed, he is blamed, as for the closing words in
    his prayer about the turning of the heart of the people, [e 1
    Kings xviii. 37 (in Hebr. without 'that' and 'again'); see
    Ber. 31 b, last two lines] and even his sacrifice on Carmel
    was only excused on the ground of express command. [f
    Bemidbar R. 14. Another view in Par. 13] But his great
    activity as precursor of the Messiah is to resolve doubts of
    all kinds; to reintroduce those who had been violently and
    improperly extruded from the congregation of Israel, and
    vice-versa; to make peace; while, finally, he was connected
    with the raising of the dead. [a This in Shir haSh R. i. ed.
    Warshau, p. 3 a.] [1 All the Rabbinic traditions about
    'Elijah as the Forerunner of the Messiah' are collated in
    Appendix VIII.] But nowhere is he prominently designated as
    intended 'to make ready for the Lord a people prepared.' [2 I
    should, however, remark, that that very curious chapter on
    Repentance, in the Pirke de R. Elieser (c. 43), closes with
    these words: 'And Israel will not make great repentance till
    Elijah, his memory for blessing!, come, as it is said, Mal.
    iv. 6,' &c. From this isolated and enigmatic sentence,
    Professor Delitzsch's implied inference (Zeitschr. fur
    Luther. Theol. 1875, p. 593) seems too sweeping.]

     Thus, from whatever source the narrative may be supposed to
    have been derived, its details certainly differ, in almost
    all particulars, from the theological notions current at the
    time. And the more Zacharias meditated on this in the long
    solitude of his enforced silence, the more fully must new
    spiritual thoughts have come to him. As for Elisabeth, those
    tender feelings of woman, which ever shrink from the
    disclosure of the dearest secret of motherhood, were
    intensely deepened and sanctified in the knowledge of all
    that had passed. Little as she might understand the full
    meaning of the future, it must have been to her, as if she
    also now stood in the Holy Place, gazing towards the Veil
    which concealed the innermost Presence. Meantime she was
    content with, nay, felt the need of, absolute retirement from
    other fellowship than that of God and her own heart. Like her
    husband, she too would be silent and alone, till another
    voice called her forth. Whatever the future might bring,
    sufficient for the present, that thus the Lord had done to
    her, in days in which He looked down to remove her reproach
    among men. The removal of that burden, its manner, its
    meaning, its end, were all from God, and with God; and it was
    fitting to be quite alone and silent, till God's voice would
    again wake the echoes within. And so five months passed in
    absolute retirement.

 FROM THE MANGER IN BETHLEHEM TO THE BAPTISM IN JORDAN

    THE ANNUNCIATION OF JESUS THE MESSIAH, AND THE BIRTH OF HIS
    FORERUNNER.

    CHAPTER IV

     (St. Matt. i.; St. Luke i. 26-80.)

     FROM the Temple to Nazareth! It seems indeed most fitting
    that the Evangelic story should have taken its beginning
    within the Sanctuary, and at the time of sacrifice. Despite
    its outward veneration for them, the Temple, its services,
    and specially its sacrifices, were, by an inward logical
    necessity, fast becoming a superfluity for Rabbinism. But the
    new development, passing over the intruded elements, which
    were, after all, of rationalistic origin, connected its
    beginning directly with the Old Testament dispensation, its
    sacrifices, priesthood, and promises. In the Sanctuary, in
    connection with sacrifice, and through the priesthood, such
    was significantly the beginning of the era of fulfillment.
    And so the great religious reformation of Israel under Samuel
    had also begun in the Tabernacle, which had so long been in
    the background. But if, even in this Temple-beginning, and in
    the communication to, and selection of an idiot 'priest,'
    there was marked divergence from the Rabbinic ideal, that
    difference widens into the sharpest contrast, as we pass from
    the Forerunner to the Messiah, from the Temple to Galilee,
    from the 'idiot' priest to the humble, unlettered family of
    Nazareth. It is necessary here to recall our general
    impression of Rabbinism: its conception of God, [1 Terrible
    as it may sound, it is certainly the teaching of Rabbinism,
    that God occupied so many hours every day in the study of the
    Law. Comp. Targ. Ps.-Jonathan on Deut. xxxii. 4, and Abhod.
    Z. 3 b. Nay, Rabbinism goes farther in its daring, and speaks
    of the Almighty as arrayed in a white dress, or as occupying
    himself by day with the study of the Bible, and by night with
    that of the six tractates of the Mishnah. Comp. also the
    Targum on Cant. v. 10.] and of the highest good and ultimate
    object of all things, as concentrated in learned study,
    pursued in Academies; and then to think of the unmitigated
    contempt with which they were wont to speak of Galilee, and
    of the Galileans, whose very patois was an offence; of the
    utter abhorrence with which they regarded the unlettered
    country-people, in order to realise, how such an household as
    that of Joseph and Mary would be regarded by the leaders of
    Israel. A Messianic announcement, not the result of learned
    investigation, nor connected with the Academies, but in the
    Sanctuary, to a 'rustic' priest; an Elijah unable to untie
    the intellectual or ecclesiastical knots, of whose mission,
    indeed, this formed no part at all; and a Messiah, the
    offspring of a Virgin in Galilee betrothed to a humble
    workman , assuredly, such a picture of the fulfillment of
    Israel's hope could never have been conceived by contemporary
    Judaism. There was in such a Messiah absolutely nothing,
    past, present, or possible; intellectually, religiously, or
    even nationally, to attract, but all to repel. And so we can,
    at the very outset of this history, understand the infinite
    contrast which it embodied, with all the difficulties to its
    reception, even to those who became disciples, as at almost
    every step of its progress they were, with ever fresh
    surprise, recalled from all that they had formerly thought,
    to that which was so entirely new and strange.

     And yet, just as Zacharias may be described as the
    representative of the good and the true in the Priesthood at
    that time, so the family of Nazareth as a typical Israelitish
    household. We feel, that the scantiness of particulars here
    supplied by the Gospels, was intended to prevent the human
    interest from overshadowing the grand central Fact, to which
    alone attention was to be directed. For, the design of the
    Gospels was manifestly not to furnish a biography of Jesus
    the Messiah, [1 The object which the Evangelists had in view
    was certainly not that of biography, even as the Old
    Testament contains no biography. The twofold object of their
    narratives is indicated by St. Luke i. 4, and by St. John xx.
    31.] but, in organic connection with the Old Testament, to
    tell the history of the long-promised establishment of the
    Kingdom of God upon earth. Yet what scanty details we possess
    of the 'Holy Family' and its surroundings may here find a
    place.

     The highlands which form the central portion of Palestine
    are broken by the wide, rich plain of Jezreel, which severs
    Gailee from the rest of the land. This was always the great
    battle-field of Israel. Appropriately, it is shut in as
    between mountain-walls. That along the north of the plain is
    formed by the mountains of Lower Galilee, cleft about the
    middle by a valley that widens, till, after an hour's
    journey, we stand within an enclosure which seems almost one
    of Nature's own sanctuaries. As in an amphitheatre, fifteen
    hill-tops rise around. That to the west is the highest, about
    500 feet. On its lower slopes nestles a little town, its
    narrow streets ranged like terraces. This is Nazareth,
    probably the ancient Sarid (or En-Sarid), which, in the time
    of Joshua, marked the northern boundary of Zebulun. [a Josh.
    xix. 10,11] [1 The name Nazareth may best be regarded as the
    equivalent of 'watch' or 'watcheress.' The name does not
    occur in the Talmud, nor in those Midrashim which have been
    preserved. But the elegy of Eleazar ha Kallir, written before
    the close of the Talmud, in which Nazareth is mentioned as a
    Priestcentre, is based upon an ancient Midrash, now lost
    (comp. Neubauer, Geogr. du Talmud, p. 117, note 5). It is,
    however, possible, as Dr. Neubauer suggests (u.s. p. 190,
    note 5), that the name in Midr. on Eccl. ii. 8 should read
    and refers to Nazareth.]

     Climbing this steep hill, fragrant with aromatic plants, and
    bright with rich-coloured flowers, a view almost unsurpassed
    opens before us. For, the Galilee of the time of Jesus was
    not only of the richest fertility, cultivated to the utmost,
    and thickly covered with populous towns and villages, but the
    centre of every known industry, and the busy road of the
    world's commerce. Northward the eye would sweep over a rich
    plain; rest here and there on white towns, glittering in the
    sunlight; then quickly travel over the romantic hills and
    glens which form the scenes of Solomon's Song, till, passing
    beyond Safed (the Tsephath of the Rabbis, the 'city set on a
    hill'), the view is bounded by that giant of the far-off
    mountain-chain, snow-tipped Hermon. Westward stretched a like
    scene of beauty and wealth, a land not lonely, but wedded;
    not desolate, but teeming with life; while, on the edge of
    the horizon, lay purple Carmel; beyond it a fringe of silver
    sand, and then the dazzling sheen of the Great Sea. In the
    farthest distance, white sails, like wings outspread towards
    the ends of the world; nearer, busy ports; then, centres of
    industry; and close by, travelled roads, all bright in the
    pure Eastern air and rich glow of the sun. But if you turned
    eastwards, the eye would soon be arrested by the wooded
    height of Tabor, yet not before attention had been riveted by
    the long, narrow string of fantastic caravans, and curiosity
    roused by the motley figures, of all nationalities and in all
    costumes, busy binding the East to the West by that line of
    commerce that passed along the route winding around Tabor.
    And when, weary with the gaze, you looked once more down on
    little Nazareth nestling on the breast of the mountain, the
    eye would rest on a scene of tranquil, homely beauty. Just
    outside the town, in the north-west, bubbled the spring or
    well, the trysting-spot of townspeople, and welcome
    resting-place of travellers. Beyond it stretched lines of
    houses, each with its flat roof standing out distinctly
    against the clear sky; watered, terraced gardens, gnarled
    wide-spreading figtrees, graceful feathery palms, scented
    oranges, silvery olive-trees, thick hedges, rich
    pasture-land, then the bounding hills to the south; and
    beyond, the seemingly unbounded expanse of the wide plain of
    Esdraelon!

     And yet, withdrawn from the world as, in its enclosure of
    mountains, Nazareth might seem, we must not think of it as a
    lonely village which only faint echoes reached of what roused
    the land beyond. With reverence be it said: such a place
    might have suited the training of the contemplative hermit,
    not the upbringing of Him Whose sympathies were to be with
    every clime and race. Nor would such an abode have furnished
    what (with all due acknowledgment of the supernatural) we
    mark as a constant, because a rationally necessary, element
    in Scripture history: that of inward preparedness in which
    the higher and the Divine afterwards find their ready points
    of contact.

     Nor was it otherwise in Nazareth. The two great interests
    which stirred the land, the two great factors in the
    religious future of Israel, constantly met in the retirement
    of Nazareth. The great caravan-route which led from Acco on
    the sea to Damascus divided at its commencement into three
    roads: the most northern passing through Caesarea Philippi;
    the Upper Galilean; and the Lower Galilean. The latter, the
    ancient Via Maris led through Nazareth, and thence either by
    Cana, or else along the northern shoulder of Mount Tabor, to
    the Lake of Gennesaret, each of these roads soon uniting with
    the Upper Galilean. [1 Comp. the detailed description of
    these roads, and the references in Herzog's Real-Encykl. vol.
    xv. pp. 160, 161.] Hence, although the stream of commerce
    between Acco and the East was divided into three channels,
    yet, as one of these passed through Nazareth, the quiet
    little town was not a stagnant pool of rustic seclusion. Men
    of all nations, busy with another life than that of Israel,
    would appear in the streets of Nazareth; and through them
    thoughts, associations, and hopes connected with the great
    outside world be stirred. But, on the other hand, Nazareth
    was also one of the great centers of Jewish Temple-life. It
    has already been indicated that the Priesthood was divided
    into twenty-four 'course' which, in turn, ministered in the
    Temple. The Priests of the 'course' which was to be on duty
    always gathered in certain towns, whence they went up in
    company to Jerusalem, while those of their number who were
    unable to go spent the week in fasting and prayer. Now
    Nazareth was one of these Priest-centres, [2 Comp. Neubauer,
    u. s. p. 190. See a detailed account in 'sketches of Jewish
    Social Life,' &c. p. 36.] and although it may well have been,
    that comparatively few in distant Galilee conformed to the
    Priestly regulations, some must have assembled there in
    preparation for the sacred functions, or appeared in its
    Synagogue. Even the fact, so well known to all, of this
    living connection between Nazareth and the Temple, must have
    wakened peculiar feelings. Thus, to take the wider view, a
    double symbolic significance attached to Nazareth, since
    through it passed alike those who carried on the traffic of
    the world, and those who ministered in the Temple. [1 It is
    strange, that these two circumstances have not been noticed.
    Keim (Jesu von Nazari i. 2, pp. 322, 323) only cursorily
    refers to the great road which passed through Nazareth.]

     We may take it, that the people of Nazareth were like those
    of other little towns similarly circumstanced: [2 The
    inference, that the expression of Nathanael (St. John i. 46)
    implies a lower state of the people of Nazareth, is
    unfounded. Even Keim points out, that it only marks disbelief
    that the Messiah would come from such a place.] with all the
    peculiarities of the impulsive, straight-spoken, hot-blooded,
    brave, intensely national Galileans; [3 Our description of
    them is derived from notices by Josephus (such as War iii. 3,
    2), and many passages in the Talmud,] with the deeper
    feelings and almost instinctive habits of thought and life,
    which were the outcome of long centuries of Old Testament
    training; but also with the petty interest and jealousies of
    such places, and with all the ceremonialism and punctilious
    self-assertion of Orientals. The cast of Judaism prevalent in
    Nazareth would, of course, be the same as in Galilee
    generally. We know, that there were marked divergences from
    the observances in that stronghold of Rabbinism, [4 These
    differences are marked in Pes. iv. 5; Keth. iv. 12; Ned. ii.
    4; Chull. 62 a; Baba K. 80 a; Keth. 12 a.] Judaea, indicating
    greater simplicity and freedom from the constant intrusion of
    traditional ordinances. The home-life would be all the purer,
    that the veil of wedded life was not so coarsely lifted as in
    Judaea, nor its sacred secrecy interfered with by an
    Argus-eyed legislation. [5 The reader who wishes to
    understand what we have only ventured to hint, is referred to
    the Mishnic tractate Niddah.] The purity of betrothal in
    Galilee wasless likely to be sullied, [a Keth. 12 a] and
    weddings were more simple than in Judaea, without the dubious
    institution of groomsmen, [b Keth. 12 a, and often] [6 Comp.
    'Sketches of Jewish Social Life,' &c., pp. 152 &c.] or
    'friends of the bridegroom,' [c St. John iii. 29.] whose
    office must not unfrequently have degenerated into utter
    coarseness. The bride was chosen, not as in Judaea, where
    money was too often the motive, but as in Jerusalem, with
    chief regard to 'a fair degree;' and widows were (as in
    Jerusalem) more tenderly cared for, as we gather even from
    the fact, that they had a life-right of residence in their
    husband's house.

     Such a home was that to which Joseph was about to bring the
    maiden, to whom he had been betrothed. Whatever view may be
    taken of the genealogies in the Gospels according to St.
    Matthew and St. Luke, whether they be regarded as those of
    Joseph and of Mary, [1 The best defence of this view is that
    by Wieseler, Beitr. zur Wurdig. d. Evang. pp. 133 &c. It is
    also virtually adopted by Weiss (Leben Jesu, vol. i. 1882).]
    or, which seems the more likely, [2 This view is adopted
    almost unanimously by modern writers.] as those of Joseph
    only, marking his natural and his legal descent [3 This view
    is defended with much skill by Mr. McClellan in his New
    Testament, vol. i. pp. 409-422.] from David, or vice versa [4
    So Grotius, Bishop Lord Arthur Hervey, and after him most
    modern English writers.], there can be no question, that both
    Joseph and Mary were of the royal lineage of David. [5 The
    Davidic descent of the Virgin-Mother, which is questioned by
    some even among orthodox interpreters, seems implied in the
    Gospel (St. Luke i. 27, 32, 69; ii. 4), and an almost
    necessary inference from such passages as Rom. i. 3; 2 Tim.
    ii. 8; Hebr. vii. 14. The Davidic descent of Jesus is not
    only admitted, but elaborately proved, on purely
    rationalistic grounds, by Keim (u. s. pp. 327-329).] Most
    probably the two were nearly related, [6 This is the general
    view of antiquity.] while Mary could also claim kinship with
    the Priesthood, being, no doubt on her mother's side, a
    'blood-relative' of Elisabeth, the Priest-wife of Zacharias.
    [a St. Luke i. 36.] [7 Reference to this union of Levi and
    Judah in the Messiah is made in the Test. xii. Patriarch.,
    Test. Simeonis vii. (apud Fabr. Cod. Pseudepigr. vol. ii. p.
    542). Curiously, the great Hillel was also said by some to
    have descended, through his father and mother, from the
    tribes of Judah and Levi, all, however, asserting his Davidic
    origin (comp. Jer. Taan. iv. 2; Ber. R. 98 and 33).] Even
    this seems to imply, that Mary's family must shortly before
    have held higher rank, for only with such did custom sanction
    any alliance on the part of Priests. [8 Comp, Maimonides, Yad
    haChaz Hil. Sanh. ii. The inference would, of course, be the
    same, whether we suppose Mary's mother to have been the
    sister-in-law, or the sister, of Elisabeth's father.] But at
    the time of their betrothal, alike Joseph and Mary were
    extremely poor, as appears, not indeed from his being a
    carpenter, since a trade was regarded as almost a religious
    duty, but from the offering at the presentation of Jesus in
    the Temple. [b St. Luke ii. 24.] Accordingly, their betrothal
    must have been of the simplest, and the dowry settled the
    smallest possible. [9 Comp. 'Sketches of Jewish Social Life
    in the Days of Christ,' pp. 143-149. Also the article on
    'Marriage' in Cassell's Bible-Educator, vol. iv. pp.
    267-270.] Whichever of the two modes of betrothal [10 There
    was a third mode, by cohabitation; but this was highly
    disapproved of even by the Rabbis.] may have been adopted: in
    the presence of witnesses, either by solemn word of mouth, in
    due prescribed formality, with the added pledge of a piece of
    money, however small, or of money's worth for use; or else by
    writing (the so-called Shitre Erusin), there would be no
    sumptuous feast to follow; and the ceremony would conclude
    with some such benediction as that afterwards in use:
    'Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, King of the World, Who
    hath sanctified us by His Commandments, and enjoined us about
    incest, and forbidden the betrothed, but allowed us those
    wedded by Chuppah (the marriage-baldachino) and betrothal.
    Blessed art Thou, Who sanctifiest Israel by Chuppah and
    betrothal', the whole being perhaps concluded by a
    benediction over the statutory cup of wine, which was tasted
    in turn by the betrothed. From that moment Mary was the
    betrothed wife of Joseph; their relationship as sacred, as if
    they had already been wedded. Any breach of it would be
    treated as adultery; nor could the band be dissolved except,
    as after marriage, by regular divorce. Yet months might
    intervene between the betrothal and marriage. [1 The
    assertion of Professor Wunsche (Neue Beitr. zur Erlauter. d.
    Evang. p. 7) that the practice of betrothal was confined
    exclusively, or almost so, to Judaea, is quite ungrounded.
    The passages to which he refers (Kethub. i. 5, not 3, and
    especially Keth. 12 a) are irrelevant. Keth. 12 a marks the
    simpler and purer customs of Galilee, but does not refer to
    betrothals.]

     Five months of Elisabeth's sacred retirement had passed,
    when a strange messenger brought its first tidings to her
    kinswoman in far-off Galilee. It was not in the solemn
    grandeur of the Temple, between the golden altar of incense
    and the seven-branched candlesticks that the Angel Gabriel
    now appeared, but in the privacy of a humble home at
    Nazareth. The greatest honor bestowed on man was to come
    amidst circumstances of deepest human lowliness, as if the
    more clearly to mark the exclusively Divine character of what
    was to happen. And, although the awe of the Supernatural must
    unconsciously have fallen upon her, it was not so much the
    sudden appearance of the mysterious stranger in her
    retirement that startled the maiden, as the words of his
    greeting, implying unthought blessing. The 'Peace to thee' [2
    I have rendered the Greek by the Hebrew and for the
    correctness of it refer the reader to Grimm's remarks on 1
    Macc. x. 18 (Exeget. Handb. zu d. Apokryph. 3(tte) Lief. p.
    149).] was, indeed, the well-known salutation, while the
    words, 'The Lord is with thee' might waken the remembrance of
    the Angelic call, to great deliverance in the past. [a Judg.
    vi. 12.] But this designation of 'highly favored' [3 Bengel
    aptly remarks, 'Non ut mater gratiae, sed ut filia gratiae.'
    Even Jeremy Taylor's remarks (Life of Christ, ed. Pickering,
    vol. i. p. 56) would here require modification. Following the
    best critical authorities, I have omitted the words, 'Blessed
    art thou among women.'] came upon her with bewildering
    surprise, perhaps not so much from its contrast to the
    humbleness of her estate, as from the self-conscious humility
    of her heart. And it was intended so, for of all feelings
    this would now most become her. Accordingly, it is this story
    of special 'favour' or grace, which the Angel traces in rapid
    outline, from the conception of the Virgin-Mother to the
    distinctive, Divinely-given Name, symbolic of the meaning of
    His coming; His absolute greatness; His acknowledgment as the
    Son of God; and the fulfillment in Him of the great Davidic
    hope, with its never-ceasing royalty, [1 We here refer, as an
    interesting corroboration, to the Targum on Ps. xlv. 7 (6 in
    our A. V.). But this interest is intensely increased when we
    read it, not as in our editions of the Targum, but as found
    in a MS. copy of the year 1208 (given by Levy in his Targum.
    Worterb. vol. i. p. 390 a). Translating it from that reading,
    the Targum thus renders Ps. xlv. 7, 'Thy throne, O God, in
    the heaven' (Levy renders, 'Thy throne from God in heaven,'
    but in either case it refers to the throne of the Messiah)
    'is for ever and ever' (for 'world without end,' 'a rule of
    righteousness is the rule of Thy kingdom, O Thou King
    Messiah!'] and its never-ending, boundless Kingdom. [2 In
    Pirque' de R. El. c. 11, the same boundless dominion is
    ascribed to Messiah the King. In that curious passage
    dominion is ascribed to 'ten kings,' the first being God, the
    ninth the Messiah, and the tenth again God, to Whom the
    kingdom would be delivered in the end, according to Is. xliv.
    6; Zechar. xiv. 9; Ezek. xxxiv. 24, with the result described
    in Is. lii. 9.]

     In all this, however marvellous, there could be nothing
    strange to those who cherished in their hearts Israel's great
    hope, not merely as an article of abstract belief, but as
    matter of certain fact, least of all to the maiden of the
    lineage of David, betrothed to him of the house and lineage
    of David. So long as the hand of prophetic blessing rested on
    the house of David, and before its finger had pointed to the
    individual who 'found favor' in the highest sense, the
    consciousness of possibilities, which scarce dared shape
    themselves into definite thoughts, must at times have stirred
    nameless feelings, perhaps the more often in circumstances of
    outward depression and humility, such as those of the 'Holy
    Family.' Nor was there anything strange even in the naming of
    the yet unconceived Child. It sounds like a saying current
    among the people of old, this of the Rabbis, [a Pirque' de R.
    El. 32, at the beginning] concerning the six whose names were
    given before their birth: Isaac, Ishmael, Moses, Solomon,
    Josiah, and 'the Name of the Messiah, Whom may the Holy One,
    blessed be His Name, bring quickly in our days!' [3 Professor
    Wunsche's quotation is here not exact (u. s. p. 414)] But as
    for the deeper meaning of the name Jesus, [b St. Matt. i. 21]
    which, like an unopened bud, enclosed the flower of His
    Passion, that was mercifully yet the unthought-of secret of
    that sword, which should pierce the soul of the
    Virgin-Mother, and which only His future history would lay
    open to her and to others.

     Thus, on the supposition of the readiness of her believing
    heart, and her entire self-unconsciousness, it would have
    been only the glorious announcement of the impending event,
    which would absorb her thinking, with nothing strange about
    it, or that needed further light, than the how of her own
    connection with it. [4 Weiss (Leben Jesu, 1882, vol. i. p.
    213) rightly calls attention to the humility of her
    self-surrender, when she willingly submitted to what her
    heart would feel hardest to bear, that of incurring suspicion
    of her purity in the sight of all.] And the words, which she
    spake, were not of trembling doubt, that required to lean on
    the staff of a 'sign,' but rather those of enquiry, for the
    further guidance of a willing self-surrender. The Angel had
    pointed her opened eyes to the shining path: that was not
    strange; only, that She should walk in it, seemed so. And now
    the Angel still further unfolded it in words which, however
    little she may have understood their full meaning, had again
    nothing strange about them, save once more that she should be
    thus 'favoured'; words which, even to her understanding, must
    have carried yet further thoughts of Divine favour, and so
    deepened her humility. For, the idea of the activity of the
    Holy Ghost in all great events was quite familiar to Israel
    at the time, [1 So in almost innumerable Rabbinic passages.]
    even though the Individuation of the Holy Ghost may not have
    been fully apprehended. Only, that they expected such
    influences to rest exclusively upon those who were either
    mighty, or rich, or wise. [a Nedar. 38 a] And of this twofold
    manifestation of miraculous 'favour,' that she, and as a
    Virgin, should be its subject, Gabriel, 'the might of God,'
    gave this unasked sign, in what had happened to her kinswoman
    Elisabeth.

     The sign was at the same time a direction. The first, but
    also the ever-deepening desire in the heart of Mary, when the
    Angel left her, must have been to be away from Nazareth, and
    for the relief of opening her heart to a woman, in all things
    like-minded, who perhaps might speak blessed words to her.
    And to such an one the Angel himself seemed to have directed
    her. It is only what we would have expected, that 'with
    haste' she should have resorted to her kinswoman, without
    loss of time, and before she would speak to her betrothed of
    what even in wedded life is the first secret whispered. [2
    This is answer to the objection, so pertinaciously urged, of
    inconsistency with the narrative in St. Matt. i. 19 &c. It is
    clear, that Mary went 'with haste' to her kinswoman, and that
    any communication to Joseph could only have taken place after
    that, and after the Angelic prediction was in all its parts
    confirmed by her visit to Elisabeth. Jeremy Taylor (u. s. p.
    64) has already arranged the narrative as in the text.]

     It could have been no ordinary welcome that would greet the
    Virgin-Mother, on entering the house of her kinswoman.
    Elisabeth must have learnt from her husband the destiny of
    their son, and hence the near Advent of the Messiah. But she
    could not have known either when, or of whom He would be
    born. When, by a sign not quite strange to Jewish expectancy,
    [3 According to Jewish tradition, the yet unborn infants in
    their mother's] she recognised in her near kinswoman the
    Mother of her Lord, her salutation was that of a mother to a
    mother, the mother of the 'preparer' to the mother of Him for
    Whom he would prepare. To be more precise: the words which,
    filled with the Holy Ghost, she spake, were the mother's
    utterance, to the mother, of the homage which her unborn babe
    offered to his Lord; while the answering hymn of Mary was the
    offering of that homage unto God. It was the antiphonal
    morning-psalmody of the Messianic day as it broke, of which
    the words were still all of the old dispensation, [1 The
    poetic grandeur and the Old Testament cast of the Virgin's
    hymn (comp. the Song of Hannah, 1 Sam. ii. 1-10), need
    scarcely be pointed out. Perhaps it would read fullest and
    best by trying to recall what must have been its Hebrew
    original.] but their music of the new; the keynote being that
    of 'favour,' 'grace,' struck by the Angel in his first
    salutation: 'favour' to the Virgin; [a 1st stanza vv. 46-49]
    'favour,' eternal 'favour' to all His humble and poor ones;
    [b 2nd stanza, vv. 50-53] and 'favour' to Israel, stretching
    in golden line from the calling of Abraham to the glorious
    future that now opened. [c 3rd stanza, vv. 54-55] Not one of
    these fundamental ideas but lay strictly within the range of
    the Old Testament; and yet all of them now lay beyond it,
    bathed in the golden light of the new day. Miraculous it all
    is, and professes to be; not indeed in the connection of
    these events, which succeed each other with psycological
    truthfulness; nor yet in their language, which is of the
    times and the circumstances; but in the underlying facts. [2
    Weiss, while denying the historical accuracy of much in the
    Gospel-narrative of it, unhesitatingly accepts the fact of
    the supernatural birth of Jesus.] And for these there can be
    no other evidence than the Life, the Death, and the
    Resurrection of Jesus the Messiah. If He was such, and if He
    really rose from the dead, then, with all soberness and
    solemnity, such inception of His appearance seems almost a
    logical necessity. But of this whole narrative it may be
    said, that such inception of the Messianic appearance, such
    announcement of it, and such manner of His Coming, could
    never have been invented by contemporary Judaism; indeed, ran
    directly counter to all its preconceptions. [3 Keim
    elaborately discusses the origin of what he calls the legend
    of Christ's supernatural conception. He arrives at the
    conclusion that it was a Jewish-Christian legend, as if a
    Jewish invention of such a 'legend' were not the most
    unlikely of all possible hypotheses! But negative criticism
    is at least bound to furnish some historical basis for the
    origination of such an unlikely legend. Whence was the idea
    of it first derived? How did it find such ready acceptance in
    the Church? Weiss has, at considerable length, and very
    fully, shown the impossibility of its origin either in Jewish
    or heathen legend.]

     Three months had passed since the Virgin-Mother entered the
    home of her kinswoman. And now she must return to Nazareth.
    Soon Elisabeth's neighbours and kinsfolk would gather with
    sympathetic joy around a home which, as they thought, had
    experienced unexpected mercy, little thinking, how
    wide-reaching its consequences would be. But the
    Virgin-Mother must not be exposed to the publicity of such
    meetings. However conscious of what had led to her condition,
    it must have been as the first sharp pang of the sword which
    was to pierce her soul, when she told it all to her
    betrothed. For, however deep his trust in her whom he had
    chosen for wife, only a direct Divine communication could
    have chased all questioning from his heart, and given him
    that assurance, which was needful in the future history of
    the Messiah. Brief as, with exquisite delicacy, the narrative
    is, we can read in the 'thoughts' of Joseph the anxious
    contending of feelings, the scarcely established, and yet
    delayed, resolve to 'put her away,' which could only be done
    by regular divorce; this one determination only standing out
    clearly, that, if it must be, her letter of divorce shall be
    handed to her privately, only in the presence of two
    witnesses. The humble Tsaddiq of Nazareth would not willingly
    have brought the blush to any face, least of all would he
    make of her 'a public exhibition of shame.' [1 I have
    thusparaphrased the verb rendered in Heb. vi. 6 'put to an
    open shame.' Comp. also LXX. Num. xxv. 4; Jer. xiii. 22;
    Ezek. xxviii. 17 (see Grimm, Clavis N.T. p. 333 b) Archdeacon
    Farrar adopts the reading.] It was a relief that he could
    legally divorce her either publicly or privately, whether
    from change of feeling, or because he had found just cause
    for it, but hesitated to make it known, either from regard
    for his own character, or because he had not sufficient legal
    evidence [2 For example, if he had not sufficient witnesses,
    or if their testimony could be invalidated by any of those
    provisions in favour of the accused, of which traditionalism
    had not a few. Thus, as indicated in the text, Joseph might
    have privately divorced Mary leaving it open to doubt on what
    ground he had so acted.] of the charge. He would follow, all
    unconscious of it, the truer manly feeling of R. Eliezar, [a
    Keth. 74 b 75 a.] R. Jochanan, and R. Zera, [b Keth. 97 b.]
    according to which a man would not like to put his wife to
    shame before a Court of Justice, rather than the opposite
    sentence of R. Meir.

     The assurance, which Joseph could scarcely dare to hope for,
    was miraculously conveyed to him in a dream-vision. All would
    now be clear; even the terms in which he was addressed ('thou
    son of David'), so utterly unusual in ordinary circumstances,
    would prepare him for the Angel's message. The naming of the
    unborn Messiah would accord with popular notions; [3 See a
    former note.] the symbolism of such a name was deeply rooted
    in Jewish belief; [1 Thus we read in (Shocher Tobh) the
    Midrash on Prov. xix. 21 (closing part; ed. Lemberg. p. 16 b)
    of eight names given to the Messiah, viz. Yinnon (Ps. xxii.
    17, 'His name shall sprout [bear sprouts] before the Sun;'
    comp. also Pirqe de R. El. c. 2); Jehovah; Our Righteousness;
    Tsemach (the Branch, Zech. iii. 8); Menachem (the Comforter,
    Is. li. 3); David (Ps. xviii. 50); Shiloh (Gen. xlix. 10);
    Elijah (Mal. iv. 5). The Messiah is also called Anani (He
    that cometh in the clouds, Dan. vii. 13; see Tanch. Par.
    Toledoth 14); Chaninah, with reference to Jer. xvi. 13; the
    Leprous, with reference to Is. liii. 4 (Sanh. 96 b). It is a
    curious instance of the Jewish mode of explaining a meaning
    by gimatreya, or numerical calculation, that they prove
    Tsemach (Branch) and Menachem (Comforter) to be the same,
    because the numerical equivalents of the one word are equal
    to those of the other:] while the explanation of Jehoshua or
    Jeshua (Jesus), as He who would save His people (primarily,
    as he would understand it, Israel) from their sins, described
    at least one generally expected aspect of His Mission, [2
    Professor Wunsche (Erlauter. d. Evang. p. 10) proposes to
    strike out the words 'from their sins' as an un-Jewish
    interpolation. In answer, it would suffice to point him to
    the passages on this very subject which he has collated in a
    previous work: Die Leiden des Messias, pp. 63-108. To these I
    will only add a comment in the Midrash on Cant. i. 14 (ed.
    Warshau, p. 11 a and b), where the reference is undoubtedly
    to the Messiah (in the words of R. Berakhyah, line 8 from
    bottom; and again in the words of R. Levi, 11 b, line 5 from
    top, &c.). The expression is there explained as meaning 'He
    Who makes expiation for the sins of Israel,' and it is
    distinctly added that this expiation bears reference to the
    transgressions and evil deeds of the children of Abraham, for
    which God provides this Man as the Atonement.] although
    Joseph may not have known that it was the basis of all the
    rest. And perhaps it was not without deeper meaning and
    insight into His character, that the Angel laid stress on
    this very element in His communication to Joseph, and not to
    Mary.

     The fact that such an announcement came to Him in a dream,
    would dispose Joseph all the more readily to receive it. 'A
    good dream' was one of the three things [3 'A good king, a
    fruitful year, and a good dream.'] popularly regarded as
    marks of God's favour; and so general was the belief in their
    significance, as to have passed into this popular saying: 'If
    any one sleeps seven days without dreaming (or rather,
    remembering his dream for interpretation), call him wicked'
    (as being unremembered of God [a Ber. 55 b] [4 Rabbi Zera
    proves this by a reference to Prov. xix. 23, the reading
    Sabhea (satisfied) being altered into Shebha, both written,
    while is understood as of spending the night. Ber. 55 a to 57
    b contains a long, and sometimes very coarse, discussion of
    dreams, giving their various interpretations, rules for
    avoiding the consequences of evil dreams, &c. The fundamental
    principle is, that 'a dream is according to its
    interpretation' (Ber. 55 b). Such views about dreams would,
    no doubt, have long been matter of popular belief, before
    being formally expressed in the Talmud.]). Thus Divinely set
    at rest, Joseph could no longer hesitate. The highest duty
    towards the Virgin-Mother and the unborn Jesus demanded an
    immediate marriage, which would afford not only outward, but
    moral protection to both. [5 The objection, that the account
    of Joseph and Mary's immediate marriage is inconsistent with
    the designation of Mary in St. Luke ii. 5, is sufficiently
    refuted by the consideration that, in any other case, Jewish
    custom would not have allowed Mary to travel to Bethlehem in
    company with Joseph. The expression used in St. Luke ii. 5,
    must be read in connection with St. Matt. i. 25.]

     Viewing events, not as isolated, but as links welded in the
    golden chain of the history of the Kingdom of God, 'all
    this', not only the birth of Jesus from a Virgin, nor even
    His symbolic Name with its import, but also the unrestful
    questioning of Joseph, 'happened' [1 Haupt (Alttestam. Citate
    in d. vier Evang. pp. 207-215) rightly lays stress on the
    words, 'all this was done.' He even extends its reference to
    the threefold arrangement of the genealogy by St. Matthew, as
    implying the ascending splendour of the line of David, its
    midday glory, and its decline.] in fulfilment [2 The correct
    Hebrew equivalent of the expression 'that it might be
    fulfilled' is not, as Surenhusius (Biblos Katallages, p. 151)
    and other writers have it, still loss (Wunsche) but, as
    Professor Delitzsch renders it, in his new translation of St.
    Matthew, The difference is important, and Delitzsch's
    translation completely established by the similar rendering
    of the LXX. of 1 Kings ii. 27 and 2 Chron. xxxvi. 22.] of
    what had been prefigured. [a Is. vii. 14.] The promise of a
    Virginborn son as a sign of the firmness of God's covenant of
    old with David and his house; the now unfolded meaning of the
    former symbolic name Immanuel; even the unbief of Ahaz, with
    its counterpart in the questioning of Joseph, 'all this'
    could now be clearly read in the light of the breaking day.
    Never had the house of David sunk morally lower than when, in
    the words of Ahaz, it seemed to renounce the very foundation
    of its claim to continuance; never had the fortunes of the
    house of David fallen lower, than when a Herod sat on its
    throne, and its lineal representative was a humble village
    carpenter, from whose heart doubts of the Virgin-Mother had
    to be Divinely chased. And never, not even when God gave to
    the doubts of Moses this as the sign of Israel's future
    deliverance, that in that mountain they should worship [b Ex.
    iii. 12.] had unbelief been answered by more strange
    evidence. But as, nevertheless, the stability of the Davidic
    house was ensured by the future advent of Immanuel, and with
    such certainty, that before even such a child could discern
    between choice of good and evil, the land would be freed of
    its dangers; so now all that was then prefigured was to
    become literally true, and Israel to be saved from its real
    danger by the Advent of Jesus, Immanuel. [3 A critical
    discussion of Is. vii. 14 would here be out of place; though
    I have attempted to express my views in the text. (The
    nearest approach to them is that by Engelhardt in the
    Zeitschr. fur Luth. Theol. fur 1872, Heft iv.). The quotation
    of St. Matthew follows, with scarcely any variation, the
    rendering of the LXX. That they should have translated the
    Hebrew by, 'a Virgin,' is surely sufficient evidence of the
    admissibility of such a rendering. The idea that the promised
    Son was to be either that of Ahaz, or else of the prophet,
    cannot stand the test of critical investigation (see Haupt,
    u.s., and Bohl, Alttest. Citate im N.T. pp. 3-6). Our
    difficulties of interpretation are, in great part, due to the
    abruptness of Isaiah's prophetic language, and to our
    ignorance of surrounding circumstances. Steinmeyer
    ingeniously argues against the mythical theory that, since
    Is. vii. 14 was not interpreted by the ancient Synagogue in a
    Messianic sense, that passage could not have led to the
    origination of 'the legend' about the 'Virgin's Son' (Gesch.
    d. Geb. d. Herrn, p. 95). We add this further question,
    Whence did it originate?] And so it had all been intended.
    Thegolden cup of prophecy which Isaiah had placed empty on
    the Holy Table, waiting for the time of the end, was now full
    filled, up to its brim, with the new wine of the Kingdom.

     Meanwhile the long-looked-for event had taken place in the
    home of Zacharias. No domestic solemnity so important or so
    joyous as that in which, by circumcision, the child had, as
    it were, laid upon it the yoke of the Law, with all of duty
    and privilege which this implied. Even the circumstance, that
    it took place at early morning [a Pes. 4 a.] might indicate
    this. It was, so tradition has it, as if the father had acted
    sacrificially as High-Priest, [b Yalkut Sh. i. par. 81.]
    offering his child to God in gratitude and love; [c Tanch. P
    Tetsavveh, at the beginning, ed. Warshau, p. 111 a.] and it
    symbolised this deeper moral truth, that man must by his own
    act complete what God had first instituted. [d Tanch. u. s.]
    To Zacharias and Elisabeth the rite would have even more than
    this significance, as administered to the child of their old
    age, so miraculously given, and who was connected with such a
    future. Besides, the legend which associates circumcision
    with Elijah, as the restorer of this rite in the apostate
    period of the Kings of Israel, [e Pirq de R. Elies. c. 29.]
    was probably in circulation at the time. [1 Probably the
    designation of 'chair' or 'throne of Elijah,' for the chair
    on which the godparent holding the child sits, and certainly
    the invocation of Elijah, are of later date. Indeed, the
    institution of godparents is itself of later origin.
    Curiously enough, the Council of Terracina, in 1330 had to
    interdict Christians acting as godparents at circumcision!
    Even the great Buxtorf acted as godparent in 1619 to a Jewish
    child, and was condemned to a fine of 100 florins for his
    offence. See Low, Lebensalter, p. 86.] We can scarcely be
    mistaken in supposing, that then, as now, a benediction was
    spoken before circumcision, and that the ceremony closed with
    the usual grace over the cup of wine, [2 According to
    Josephus (Ag. Ap. ii. 26) circumcision was not followed by a
    feast. But, if this be true, the practice was soon altered,
    and the feast took place on the eve of circumcision (Jer.
    Keth. i. 5; B. Kama 80 a; B. Bath. 60 b, &c.). Later
    Midrashim traced it up to the history of Abraham and the
    feast at the weaning of Isaac, which they represented as one
    at circumcision (Pirqe d. R. Eliez. 29).] when the child
    received his name in a prayer that probably did not much
    differ from this at present in use: 'Our God, and the God of
    our fathers, raise up this child to his father and mother,
    and let his name be called in Israel Zacharias, the son of
    Zacharias. [3 Wunsche reiterates the groundless objection of
    Rabbi Low (u. s. p.96), that a family-name was only given in
    remembrance of the grandfather, deceased father, or other
    member of the family! Strange, that such a statement should
    ever have been hazarded; stranger still, that it should be
    repeated after having been fully refuted by Delitzsch. It
    certainly is contrary to Josephus (War iv. 3, 9), and to the
    circumstance that both the father and brother of Josephus
    bore the name of Mattias. See also Zunz (Z. Gesch. u. Liter.
    p. 318).] Let his father rejoice in the issue of his loins,
    and his mother in the fruit of her womb, as it is written in
    Prov. xxiii. 25, and as it is said in Ezek. xvi. 6, and again
    in Ps. cv. 8, and Gen. xxi. 4;' the passages being, of
    course, quoted in full. The prayer closed with the hope that
    the child might grow up, and successfully, 'attain to the
    Torah, the marriagebaldachino, and good works.' [1 The reader
    will find B. H. Auerbach's Berith Abraham (with a Hebrew
    introduction) an interesting tractate on the subject. For
    another and younger version of these prayers, see Low, u. s.
    p. 102.]

     Of all this Zacharias was, though a deeply interested, yet a
    deaf and dumb [2 From St. Luke i. 62 we gather, that
    Zacharias was what the Rabbis understood by, one deaf as well
    as dumb. Accordingly they communicated with him by 'signs',
    as Delitzsch correctly renders it:] witness. This only had he
    noticed, that, in the benediction in which the child's name
    was inserted, the mother had interrupted the prayer. Without
    explaining her reason, she insisted that his name should not
    be that of his aged father, as in the peculiar circumstances
    might have been expected, but John (Jochanan). A reference to
    the father only deepened the general astonishment, when he
    also gave the same name. But this was not the sole cause for
    marvel. For, forthwith the tongue of the dumb was loosed, and
    he, who could not utter the name of the child, now burst into
    praise of the name of the Lord. His last words had been those
    of unbelief, his first were those of praise; his last words
    had been a question of doubt, his first were a hymn of
    assurance. Strictly Hebrew in its cast, and closely following
    Old Testament prophecy, it is remarkable and yet almost
    natural, that this hymn of the Priest closely follows, and,
    if the expression be allowable, spiritualises a great part of
    the most ancient Jewish prayer: the so-called Eighteen
    Benedictions; rather perhaps, that it transforms the
    expectancy of that prayer into praise of its realisation. And
    if we bear in mind, that a great portion of these prayers was
    said by the Priests before the lot was cast for incensing, or
    by the people in the time of incesing, it almost seems as if,
    during the long period of his enforced solitude, the aged
    Priest had meditated on, and learned to understand, what so
    often he had repeated. Opening with the common form of
    benediction, his hymn struck, one by one, the deepest chords
    of that prayer, specially this the most significant of all
    (the fifteenth Eulogy), 'Speedily make to shoot forth the
    Branch [3 Although almost all modern authorities are against
    me, I cannot persuade myself that the expression (St. Luke i.
    78) rendered 'dayspring' in our A. V. is here not the
    equivalent of the Hebrew 'Branch.' The LXX at any rate
    rendered in Jer. xxiii. 5; Ezek. xvi. 7; xvii. 10; Zech. iii.
    8; vi. 12, by.] of David, Thy servant, and exalt Thou his
    horn by Thy salvation, for in Thy salvation we trust all the
    day long. Blessed art Thou, Jehovah! Who causeth to spring
    forth the Horn of Salvation' (literally, to branch forth).
    This analogy between the hymn of Zacharias and the prayers of
    Israel will best appear from the benedictions with which
    these eulogies closed. For, when thus examined, their leading
    thoughts will be found to be as follows: God as the Shield of
    Abraham; He that raises the dead, and causes salvation to
    shoot forth; the Holy One; Who graciously giveth knowledge;
    Who taketh pleasure in repentance; Who multiplieth
    forgiveness; Who redeemeth Israel; Who healeth their
    (spiritual) diseases; Who blesseth the years; Who gathereth
    the outcasts of His people; Who loveth righteousness and
    judgment; Who is the abode and stay of the righteous; Who
    buildeth Jerusalem; Who causeth the Horn of Salvation to
    shoot forth; Who heareth prayer; Who bringeth back His
    Shekhinah to Zion; God the Gracious One, to Whom praise is
    due; Who blesseth His people Israel with peace.

     It was all most fitting. The question of unbelief had struck
    the Priest dumb, for most truly unbelief cannot speak; and
    the answer of faith restored to him speech, for most truly
    does faith loosen the tongue. The first evidence of his
    dumbness had been, that his tongue refused to speak the
    benediction to the people; and the first evidence of his
    restored power was, that he spoke the benediction of God in a
    rapturous burst of praise and thanksgiving. The sign of the
    unbeliving Priest standing before the awe-struck people,
    vainly essaying to make himself understood by signs, was most
    fitting; most fitting also that, when 'they made signs' to
    him, the believing father should burst in their hearing into
    a prophetic hymn.

     But far and wide, as these marvellous tidings spread
    throughout the hill-country of Judaea, fear fell on all, the
    fear also of a nameless hope. The silence of a long-clouded
    day had been broken, and the light which had suddenly riven
    its gloom, laid itself on their hearts in expectancy: 'What
    then shall this Child be? For the Hand of the Lord also was
    with Him!' [2 The insertion of seems critically established,
    and gives the fuller meaning.]

 FROM THE MANGER IN BETHLEHEM TO THE BAPTISM IN JORDAN

    WHAT MESSIAH DID THE JEWS EXPECT?

    CHAPTER V

     It were an extremely narrow, and, indeed, false view, to
    regard the difference between Judaism and Christianity as
    confined to the question of the fulfillment of certain
    prophecies in Jesus of Nazareth. These predictions could only
    outline individual features in the Person and history of the
    Messiah. It is not thus that a likeness is recognised, but
    rather by the combination of the various features into a
    unity, and by the expression which gives it meaning. So far
    as we can gather from the Gospel narratives, no objection was
    ever taken to the fulfillment of individual prophecies in
    Jesus. But the general conception which the Rabbis had formed
    of the Messiah, differed totally from what was presented by
    the Prophet of Nazareth. Thus, what is the fundamental
    divergence between the two may be said to have existed long
    before the events which finally divided them. It is the
    combination of letters which constitute words, and the same
    letters may be combined into different words. Similarly, both
    Rabbinism and, what, by anticipation, we designate,
    Christianity might regard the same predictions as Messianic,
    and look for their fulfillment; while at the same time the
    Messianic ideal of the Synagogue might be quite other than
    that, to which the faith and hope of the Church have clung.

     1. The most important point here is to keep in mind the
    organic unity of the Old Testament. Its predictions are not
    isolated, but features of one grand prophetic picture; its
    ritual and institutions parts of one great system; its
    history, not loosely connected events, but an organic
    development tending towards a definite end. Viewed in its
    innermost substance, the history of the Old Testament is not
    different from its typical institutions, nor yet these two
    from its predictions.The idea, underlying all, is God's
    gracious manifestation in the world, the Kingdom of God; the
    meaning of all, the establishment of this Kingdom upon earth.
    That gracious purpose was, so to speak, individualized, and
    the Kingdom actually established in the Messiah. Both the
    fundamental and the final relationship in view was that of
    God towards man, and of man towards God: the former as
    expressed by the word Father; the latter by that of Servant,
    or rather the combination of the two ideas: 'Son-Servant.'
    This was already implied in the so-called Protevangel; [a
    Gen. iii. 13 ] and in this sense also the words of Jesus hold
    true: 'Before Abraham came into being, I am.'

     But, narrowing our survey to where the history of the
    Kingdom of God begins with that of Abraham, it was indeed as
    Jesus said: 'Your father Abraham rejoiced that he should see
    My day, and he saw it, and was glad.' [b St. John viii. 56]
    For, all that followed from Abraham to the Messiah was one,
    and bore this twofold impress: heavenwards, that of Son;
    earthwards, that of Servant. Israel was God's Son, His
    'first-born'; their history that of the children of God;
    their institutions those of the family of God; their
    predictions those of the household of God. And Israel was
    also the Servant of God, 'Jacob My Servant'; and its history,
    institutions, and predictions those of the Servant of the
    Lord. Yet not merely Servant, but Son-Servant, 'anointed' to
    such service. This idea was, so to speak, crystallised in the
    three great representative institutions of Israel. The
    'Servant of the Lord' in relation to Israel's history was
    Kingship in Israel; the 'Servant of the Lord' in relation to
    Israel's ritual ordinances was the Priesthood in Israel; the
    'Servant of the Lord' in relation to prediction was the
    Prophetic order. But all sprang from the same fundamental
    idea: that of the 'Servant of Jehovah.'

     One step still remains. The Messiah and His history are not
    presented in the Old Testament as something separate from, or
    superadded to, Israel. The history, the institutions, and the
    predictions of Israel run up into Him. [1 In this respect
    there is deep significance in the Jewish legend (frequently
    introduced; see, for example, Tanch. ii. 99 a; Deb. R. 1),
    that all the miracles which God had shown to Israel in the
    wilderness would be done again to redeemed Zion in the
    'latter days.'] He is the typical Israelite, nay, typical
    Israel itself, alike the crown, the completion, and the
    representative of Israel. He is the Son of God and the
    Servant of the Lord; but in that highest and only true sense,
    which had given its meaning to all the preparatory
    development. As He was 'anointed' to be the 'Servant of the
    Lord,' not with the typical oil, but by 'the Spirit of
    Jehovah' 'upon' Him, so was He also the 'Son' in a unique
    sense. His organic connection with Israel is marked by the
    designations 'Seed of Abraham' and 'Son of David,' while at
    the same time He was essentially, what Israel was
    subordinately and typically: 'Thou art My Son, this day have
    I begotten Thee.' Hence also, in strictest truthfulness, the
    Evangelist could apply to the Messiah what referred to
    Israel, and see it fulfilled in His history: 'Out of Egypt
    have I called my Son.' [a St. Matt. ii. 15] And this other
    correlate idea, of Israel as 'the Servant of the Lord,' is
    also fully concentrated in the Messiah as the Representative
    Israelite, so that the Book of Isaiah, as the series of
    predictions in which His picture is most fully outlined,
    might be summarised as that concerning 'the Servant of
    Jehovah.' Moreover, the Messiah, as Representative Israelite,
    combined in Himself as 'the Servant of the Lord' the
    threefold office of Prophet, Priest, and King, and joined
    together the two ideas of 'Son' and 'Servant'. [b Phil. ii.
    6-11] And the final combination and full exhibition of these
    two ideas was the fulfillment of the typical mission of
    Israel, and the establishment of the Kingdom of God among
    men.

     Thus, in its final, as in its initial, [c Gen. iii. 15]
    stage it was the establishment of the Kingdom of God upon
    earth, brought about by the 'Servant' of the Lord, Who was to
    stricken humanity the God-sent 'Anointed Comforter' (Mashiach
    ha-Menachem): in this twofold sense of 'Comforter' of
    individuals ('the friend of sinners'), and 'Comforter' of
    Israel and of the world, reconciling the two, and bringing to
    both eternal salvation. And here the mission of Israel ended.
    It had passed through three stages. The first, or historical,
    was the preparation of the Kingdom of God; the second, or
    ritual, the typical presentation of that Kingdom; while the
    third, or prophetic, brought that Kingdom into actual contact
    with the kingdoms of the world. Accordingly, it is during the
    latter that the designation 'Son of David' (typical Israel)
    enlarged in the visions of Daniel into that of 'Son of Man'
    (the Head of redeemed humanity). It were a onesided view to
    regard the Babylonish exile as only a punishment for Israel's
    sin. There is, in truth, nothing in all God's dealings in
    history exclusively punitive. That were a merely negative
    element. But there is always a positive element also of
    actual progress; a step forward, even though in the taking of
    it something should have to be crushed. And this step forward
    was the development of the idea of the Kingdom of God in its
    relation to the world.

     2. This organic unity of Israel and the Messiah explains how
    events, institutions, and predictions, which initially were
    purely Israelitish, could with truth be regarded as finding
    their full accomplishment in the Messiah. From this point of
    view the whole Old Testament becomes the perspective in which
    the figure of the Messiah stands out. And perhaps the most
    valuable element in Rabbinic excommentation on Messianic
    times is that in which, as so frequently, it is explained,
    that all the miracles and deliverances of Israel's past would
    be re-enacted, only in a much wider manner, in the days of
    the Messiah. Thus the whole past was symbolic, and typical of
    the future, the Old Testament the glass, through which the
    universal blessings of the latter days were seen. It is in
    this sense that we would understand the two sayings of the
    Talmud: 'All the prophets prophesied only of the days of the
    Messiah,' [a Sanh. 99 a] and 'The world was created only for
    the Messiah.' [b Sanh. 98 b]

     In accordance with all this, the ancient Synagogue found
    references to the Messiah in many more passages of the Old
    Testament than those verbal predictions, to which we
    generally appeal; and the latter formed (as in the New
    Testament) a proportionately small, and secondary, element in
    the conception of the Messianic era. This is fully borne out
    by a detailed analysis of those passages in the Old Testament
    to which the ancient Synagogue referred as Messianic. [1 See
    Appendix IX., where a detailed list is given of all the Old
    Testament passages which the ancient Synagogue applied
    Messianically, together with the references to the Rabbinic
    works where they are quoted.] Their number amounts to upwards
    of 456 (75 from the Pentateuch, 243 from the Prophets, and
    138 from the Hagiographa), and their Messianic application is
    supported by more than 558 references to the most ancient
    Rabbinic writings. [2 Large as this number is, I do not
    present the list as complete. Thus, out of the thirty-seven
    Parashahs constituting the Midrash on Leviticus, no fewer
    than twenty-five close with an outlook on Messianic times.
    The same may be said of the close of many of the Parashahs in
    the Midrashim known as Pesiqta and Tanchuma (Zunz, u.s. pp.
    181, 234). Besides, the oldest portions of the Jewish liturgy
    are full of Messianic aspirations] But comparatively few of
    these are what would be termed verbal predictions. Rather
    would it seem as if every event were regarded as prophetic,
    and every prophecy, whether by fact, or by word (prediction),
    as a light to cast its sheen on the future, until the picture
    of the Messianic age in the far back-ground stood out in the
    hundredfold variegated brightness of prophetic events, and
    prophetic utterances; or, as regarded the then state of
    Israel, till the darkness of their present night was lit up
    by a hundred constellations kindling in the sky overhead, and
    its lonely silence broken by echoes of heavenly voices, and
    strains of prophetic hymns borne on the breeze.

     Of course, there was the danger that, amidst these dazzling
    lights, or in the crowd of figures, each so attractive, or
    else in the absorbing interest of the general picture, the
    grand central Personality should not engage the attention it
    claimed, and so the meaning of the whole be lost in the
    contemplation of its details. This danger was the greater
    from the absence of any deeper spiritual elements. All that
    Israel needed: 'study of the Law and good works,' lay within
    the reach of every one; and all that Israel hoped for, was
    national restoration and glory. Everything else was but means
    to these ends; the Messiah Himself only the grand instrument
    in attaining them. Thus viewed, the picture presented would
    be of Israel's exaltation, rather than of the salvation of
    the world. To this, and to the idea of Israel's exclusive
    spiritual position in the world, must be traced much, that
    otherwise would seem utterly irrational in the Rabbinic
    pictures of the latter days. But in such a picture there
    would be neither room nor occasion for a Messiah-Saviour, in
    the only sense in which such a heavenly mission could be
    rational, or the heart of humanity respond to it. The
    Rabbinic ideal of the Messiah was not that of 'a light to
    lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of His people Israel',
    the satisfaction of the wants of humanity, and the completion
    of Israel's mission but quite different, even to contrariety.
    Accordingly, there was a fundamental antagonism between the
    Rabbis and Christ, quite irrespective of the manner in which
    He carried out His Messianic work. On the other hand, it is
    equally noteworthy, that the purely national elements, which
    well nigh formed the sum total of Rabbinic expectation,
    scarcely entered into the teaching of Jesus about the Kingdom
    of God. And the more we realise, that Jesus so fundamentally
    separated Himself from all the ideas of His time, the more
    evidential is it of the fact, that He was not the Messiah of
    Jewish conception, but derived His mission from a source
    unknown to, or at least ignored by, the leaders of His
    people.

     3. But still, as the Rabbinic ideas were at least based on
    the Old Testament, we need not wonder that they also embodied
    the chief features of the Messianic history. Accordingly, a
    careful perusal of their Scripture quotations [1 For these,
    see Appendix IX.] shows, that the main postulates of the New
    Testament concerning the Messiah are fully supported by
    Rabbinic statements. Thus, such doctrines as the pre-mundane
    existence of the Messiah; His elevation above Moses, and even
    above the Angels; His representative character; His cruel
    sufferings and derision; His violent death, and that for His
    people; His work on behalf of the living and of the dead; His
    redemption, and restoration of Israel; the opposition of the
    Gentiles; their partial judgment and conversion; the
    prevalence of His Law; the universal blessings of the latter
    days; and His Kingdom, can be clearly deduced from
    unquestioned passages in ancient Rabbinic writings. Only, as
    we might expect, all is there indistinct, incoherent,
    unexplained, and from a much lower standpoint. At best, it is
    the lower stage of yet unfulfilled prophecy, the haze when
    the sun is about to rise, not the blaze when it has risen.
    Most painfully is this felt in connection with the one
    element on which the New Testament most insists. There is,
    indeed, in Rabbinic writings frequent reference to the
    sufferings, and even the death of the Messiah, and these are
    brought into connection with our sins, as how could it be
    otherwise in view of Isaiah liii. and other passages, and in
    one most remarkable comment [a Yalkut on Is. ix. 1] the
    Messiah is represented as willingly taking upon Himself all
    these sufferings, on condition that all Israel, the living,
    the dead, and those yet unborn, should be saved, and that, in
    consequence of His work, God and Israel should be reconciled,
    and Satan cast into hell. But there is only the most
    indistinct reference to the removal of sin by the Messiah, in
    the sense of vicarious sufferings.

     In connection with what has been stated, one most important
    point must be kept in view. So far as their opinions can be
    gathered from their writings, the great doctrines of Original
    Sin, and of the sinfulness of our whole nature, were not held
    by the ancient Rabbis. [1 This is the view expressed by all
    Jewish dogmatic writers. See also Weber, Altsynag. Theol. p.
    217.] Of course, it is not meant that they denied the
    consequences of sin, either as concerned Adam himself, or his
    descendants; but the final result is far from that
    seriousness which attaches to the Fall in the New Testament,
    where it is presented as the basis of the need of a Redeemer,
    Who, as the Second Adam, restored what the first had lost.
    The difference is so fundamental as to render further
    explanation necessary. [2 Comp. on the subject. Ber. R.
    12-16.]
     The fall of Adam is ascribed to the envy of the Angels [3 In
    Ber. R., however, it has seemed to me, as if sometimes a
    mystical and symbolical view of the history of the Fall were
    insinuated, evil concupiscence being the occasion of it.] ,
    not the fallen ones, for none were fallen, till God cast them
    down in consequence of their seduction of man. The Angels,
    having in vain tried to prevent the creation of man, at last
    conspired to lead him into sin as the only means of his ruin,
    the task being undertaken by Sammael (and his Angels), who in
    many respects was superior to the other Angelic princes. [b
    Pirqe de R. El. c. 13; Yalkut i. p. 8 c] The instrument
    employed was the serpent, of whose original condition the
    strangest legends are told, probably to make the Biblical
    narrative appear more rational. [c Comp. Pirqe de R. El. and
    Yalkut, u.s.; also Ber. R. 19] The details of the story of
    the Fall, as told by the Rabbis, need not be here repeated,
    save to indicate its consequences. The first of these was the
    withdrawal of the Shekhinah from earth to the first heaven,
    while subsequent sins successively led to its further removal
    to the seventh heaven. This, however, can scarcely be
    considered a permanent sequel of sin, since the good deeds of
    seven righteous men, beginning with Abraham, brought it
    again, in the time of Moses, to earth. [a Ber. R. 19, ed.
    Warshau, p. 37a] Six things Adam is said to have lost by his
    sin; but even these are to be restored to man by the Messiah.
    [b Bemidb. R. 13] [1 They are: the shiningsplendour of his
    person, even his heels being like suns; his gigantic size,
    from east to west, from earth to heaven; the spontaneous
    splendid products of the ground, and of all fruit-trees; an
    infinitely greater measure of light on the part of the
    heavenly bodies; and, finally, endless duration of life (Ber.
    R. 12, ed. Warsh. p. 24 b; Ber. R. 21; Sanh. 38 b; Chag. 12
    a; and for their restoration by the Messiah, Bem. R. 13).]
    That the physical death of Adam was the consequence of his
    sin, is certainly taught. Otherwise he would have lived
    forever, like Enoch and Elijah. [c Vayyikra R. 27] But
    although the fate which overtook Adam was to rest on all the
    world, [d Ber. R. 16 21, and often] and death came not only
    on our first father but on his descendants, and all creation
    lost its perfectness, [e Ber. R. 5, 12, 10; comp. also Midr.
    on Eccl. vii. 13; and viii. 1, and Baba B. 17 a] yet even
    these temporal sequences are not universally admitted. It
    rather seems taught, that death was intended to be the fate
    of all, or sent to show the folly of men claiming Divine
    worship, or to test whether piety was real, [f Ber. R. 9] the
    more so that with death the weary struggle with our evil
    inclination ceased. It was needful to die when our work was
    done, that others might enter upon it. In each case death was
    the consequence of our own, not of Adam's sin. [g Bemidb. R.
    19] In fact, over these six, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses,
    Aaron, and Miriam, the Angel of Death had had no absolute
    power. Nay, there was a time when all Israel were not only
    free from death, but like the Angels, and even higher than
    they. For, originally God had offered the Law to all Gentile
    nations, [h According to Deut.xxxiii. 2; Hab. iii. 3] but
    they had refused to submit to it. [i Ab. Zar. 2 b] But when
    Israel took on themselvesthe Law at Mount Sinai, the
    description in Psalm 1xxxii. 6 applied literally to them.
    They would not have died, and were 'the sons of God.' [k Ab.
    Z. 5 a] But all this was lost by the sin of making the golden
    calf,although the Talmud marks that, if Israel had continued
    in that Angelic state, the nation would have ceased with that
    generation. [2 By a most ingenious theological artifice the
    sin of the golden calf, and that of David are made matter for
    thanksgiving; the one as showing that, even if the whole
    people sinned, God was willing to forgive; the other as
    proving, that God graciously condescended to each individual
    sinner, and that to each the door of repentance was open.]
    Thus there were two divergent opinions, the one ascribing
    death to personal, the other tracing it to Adam's guilt.] [3
    In the Talmud (Shabb. 55 a and b) each view is supported in
    discussion, the one by a reference to Ezek. xviii. 20, the
    other to Eccles. ix. 2 (comp. also Siphre on Deut. xxxii.
    49). The final conclusion, however, greatly inclines towards
    the connection between death and the fall (see especially the
    clear statement in Debar. R. 9, ed. Warsh., p. 20 a). This
    view is also supported by such passages in the Apocrypha as
    Wisdom ii. 23, 24; iii. 1, &c.; while, on the other hand,
    Ecclus. xv. 11-17 seems rather to point in a different
    direction.]

     When, however, we pass from the physical to the moral
    sequences of the fall, our Jewish authorities wholly fail us.
    They teach, that man is created with two inclinations, that
    to evil (the Yetser ha-ra), and that to good; [a Targum
    Ps.-Jon. on Gen. ii. 7] the first working in him from the
    beginning, the latter coming gradually in the course of time.
    [b Nedar. 32 b; Midr. on Eccl. iv. 13, 14, ed. W. p. 89 a;
    ix. 15; ib. p. 101 a] Yet, so far from guilt attaching to the
    Yetser ha-ra, its existence is absolutely necessary, if the
    world is to continue. [c Ber. R. 9] In fact, as the Talmud
    expressly teaches, [d Ber. 61 a] the evil desire or impulse
    was created by God Himself; while it is also asserted [e
    Sukk. 52 a, and Yalkut ii. p. 149 b] that, on seeing the
    consequences, God actually repented having done so. This
    gives quite another character to sin, as due to causes for
    which no blame attaches to man. [f Comp. also Jer. Targum on
    Ex. xxxii. 22] On the other hand, as it is in the power of
    each wholly to overcome sin, and to gain life by study and
    works; [g Ab. Z. 5 b; Kidd. 30 b] as Israel at Mount Sinai
    had actually got rid of the Yetser ha-ra; and as there had
    been those, who were entirely righteous, [h For example, Yoma
    28 b; Chag. 4 b] there scarcely remains any moral sequence of
    Adam's fall to be considered. Similarly, the Apocrypha are
    silent on the subject, the only exception being the very
    strong language used in II. Esdras, which dates after the
    Christian era. [i Comp. IV. Esd. iii. 21, 22, 26; iv. 30; and
    especially vii. 46-53] [1 There can be no question that,
    despite its strong polemical tendency against Christianity,
    the Fourth Book of Esdras (II. Esdras in our Apocrypha),
    written at the close of the first century of our era, is
    deeply tinged with Christian doctrine. Of course, the first
    two and the last two chapters in our Apocryphal II. Esdras
    are later spurious additions of Christian authorship. But in
    proof of the influence of the Christian teaching on the
    writer of the Fourth Book of Esdras we may call attention,
    besides the adoption of the doctrine of original sin, to the
    remarkable application to Israel of such N.T. expressions as
    the 'firstborn,' the 'only-begotten,' and the 'Well-beloved'
    (IV. Esdras vi. 58, in our Apocr. II. Esdras iv. 58).

     4. In the absence of felt need of deliverance from sin, we
    can understand, how Rabbinic tradition found no place for the
    Priestly office of the Messiah, and how even His claims to be
    the Prophet of His people are almost entirely overshadowed by
    His appearance as their King and Deliverer. This, indeed, was
    the ever-present want, pressing the more heavily as Israel's
    national sufferings seemed almost inexplicable, while they
    contrasted so sharply with the glory expected by the Rabbis.
    Whence these sufferings? From sin [k Men. 53 b], national
    sin; the idolatry of former times; [l Gitt. 7 a] the
    prevalence of crimes and vices; the dereliction of God's
    ordinances; [m Gitt. 88 a] the neglect of instruction, of
    study, and of proper practice of His Law; and, in later days,
    the love of money and party strife. [n Jer. Yoma i. 1; Yoma 9
    a, and many other passages] But the seventy years' captivity
    had ceased, why not the present dispersion? Because hypocrisy
    had been added to all other sins; [o Yoma 9 b] because there
    had not been proper repentance; [pJer. Yoma i. 1] because of
    the half-heartedness of the Jewish proselytes; because of
    improper marriages, and other evil customs; [a Nidd. 13 b]
    and because of the gross dissoluteness of certain cities. [b
    Yoma 19 b] The consequences appeared not only in the
    political condition of Israel, but in the land itself, in the
    absence of rain and dew, of fruitfulness and of plenty; in
    the general disorder of society; the cessation of piety and
    of religious study; and the silence of prophecy. [c For all
    these points comp. Ber. 58 b; 59 a; Sot. 48 a; Shabb. 138 b;
    Baba B. 12 a, b] As significantly summed up, Israel was
    without Priesthood, without law, without God. [d Vayyikra R
    19] Nay, the world itself suffered in consequence of the
    destruction of the Temple. In a very remarkable passage, [e
    Sukk. 55 b] where it is explained, that the seventy bullocks
    offered during the Feast of Tabernacles were for the nations
    of the world, R. Jochanan deplores their fate, since while
    the Temple had stood the altar had atoned for the Gentiles,
    but who was now to do so? The light, which had shone from out
    the Temple windows into the world, had been extinguished. [f
    Pesiqta, 1 ed. Buber, p. 145 a, last lines] Indeed, but for
    the intercession of the Angels the world would now be
    destroyed. [g Midr, on Ps.cxxxvii.] In the poetic language of
    the time, the heavens, sun, moon and stars, trees and
    mountains, even the Angels, mourned over the desolation of
    the Temple, [h Pesiqta 148 b] and the very Angelic hosts had
    since been diminished. [i Chag. 13 b] But, though the Divine
    Presence had been withdrawn, it still lingered near His own;
    it had followed them in all their banishments; it had
    suffered with them in all their sorrows. [2 This in very many
    Rabbinical passages. Comp. Castelli, II Messia, p. 176, note
    4.] It is a touching legend, which represents the Shekhinah
    as still lingering over the western wall of the Temple [k
    Shemoth R. 2. ed. Warsh. p. 7 b, lines 12 &c.] , the only one
    supposed to be still standing. [3 In proof they appeal to
    such passages as 2 Chr. vii. 16; Ps. iii. 4; Cant. ii. 9,
    proving it even from the decree of Cyrus (Ezra i. 3, 4), in
    which God is spoken of as still in desolate Jerusalem.] Nay,
    in language still bolder, and which cannot be fully
    reproduced, God Himself is represented as mourning over
    Jerusalem and the Temple. He has not entered His Palace since
    then, and His hair is wet with the dew. [4 The passage from
    Yalkut on Is. lx. 1 is quoted in full in Appendix IX.] He
    weeps over His children and their desolateness, [m Ber. 3 a;
    59 a] and displays in the heavens tokens of
    mourning,corresponding to those which an earthly monarch
    would show. [n Pesiqta 119 b; 120 a]

     All this is to be gloriously set right, when the Lord
    turneth the captivity of Zion, and the Messiah cometh. But
    when may He be expected, and what are the signs of His
    coming? Or perhaps the question should thus be put: Why are
    the redemption of Israel and the coming of the Messiah so
    unaccountably delayed? It is here that the Synagogue finds
    itself in presence of an insoluble mystery. The explanations
    attempted are, confessedly, guesses, or rather attempts to
    evade the issue. The only course left is, authoritatively to
    impose silence on all such inquiries, the silence, as they
    would put it, of implicit, mournful submission to the
    inexplicable, in faith that somehow, when least expected,
    deliverance would come; or, as we would put it, the silence
    of ever-recurring disappointment and despair. Thus the grand
    hope of the Synagogue is, as it were, written in an epitaph
    on a broken tombstone, to be repeated by the thousands who,
    for these long centuries, have washed the ruins of the
    Sanctuary with unavailing tears.

     5. Why delayeth the Messiah His coming? Since the brief and
    broken sunshine of the days of Ezra and Nehemiah, the sky
    overhead has ever grown darker, nor have even the terrible
    storms, which have burst over Israel, reft the canopy of
    cloud. The first capitivity passed, why not the second? This
    is the painful question ever and again discussed by the
    Rabbis. [a Jer. Yoma i. 1, ed. Krot. p 38 c, last part, Sanh.
    97 b, 98 a] Can they mean it seriously, that the sins of the
    second, are more grievous than those which caused the first
    dispersion; or that they of the first captivity repented, but
    not they of the second? What constitutes this repentance
    which yet remains to be made? But the reasoning becomes
    absolutely self-contradictory when, together with the
    assertion that, if Israel repented but one day, the Messiah
    would come, [b Midr. on Cant. v. 2, ed. Warsh. p. 25 a;Sanh.
    98 a] we are told, that Israel will not repent till Elijah
    comes. [c Pirqe de R. Eliez. 43 end] Besides, bold as
    thelanguage is, there is truth in the expostulation, which
    the Midrash [d On Lam. v. 21, ed. Warsh. vo. iii. p. 77 a]
    puts into the mouth of the congregation of Israel: 'Lord of
    the world, it depends on Thee that we repent.' Such truth,
    that, although at first the Divine reply is a repetition of
    Zechar. i. 3, yet, when Israel reiterates the words, 'Turn
    Thou us unto Thee, O Lord, and we shall be turned,'
    supporting them by Ps lxxxv. 4, the argument proves
    unanswerable.

     Other conditions of Israel's deliverance are, indeed,
    mentioned. But we can scarcely regard the Synagogue as
    seriously making the coming of Messiah dependent on their
    realisation. Among the most touching of these is a beautiful
    passage (almost reminding us of Heb. xi.), in which Israel's
    future deliverance is described as the reward of faith. [e
    Tanch. on Ex. xv. 1, ed. Warsh. p. 86 b] Similarly beautiful
    is the thought, [f On Jer.' xxxi. 9] that, when God redeems
    Israel, it will be amidst their weeping. [g Tanch. on Gen.
    xiv. 2, ed. Warsh.] But neither can this be regarded as the
    condition of Messiah's coming; nor yet such generalities as
    the observance of the Law, or of some special commandments.
    The very variety of suggestions [h Sanh. 97 b 98 a] [1 The
    reader will find these discussions summarised at the close of
    Apendix IX.] shows, how utterly unable the Synagogue felt to
    indicate any condition to be fulfilled by Israel. Such vague
    statements, as that the salvation of Israel depended on the
    merits of the patriarchs, or on that of one of them, cannot
    help us to a solution; and the long discussion in the Talmud
    [a Sanh. 98 a and b] leaves no doubt, that the final and most
    sober opinion was, that the time of Messiah's coming depended
    not on repentance, nor any other condition, but on the mercy
    of God, when the time fixed had arrived. But even so, we are
    again thrown into doubt by the statement, that it might be
    either hastened or retarded by Israel's bearing! [1 See, on
    the whole subject, also Debar. R. 2.]

     In these circumstances, any attempt at determining the date
    of Messiah's coming would be even more hypothetical than such
    calculations generally are. [2 We put aside, as universally
    repudiated, the opinion expressed by one Rabbi, that Israel's
    Messianic era was past, the promises having been fulfilled in
    King Hezekiah (Sanh. 98 b; 99 a).] Guesses on the subject
    could only be grounded on imaginary symbolisms. Of such we
    have examples in the Talmud. [3 See, in Appendix IX. the
    extracts from Sanh.] Thus, some fixed the date at 4000 years
    after the Creation, curiously enough, about the era of
    Christ, though Israel's sin had blotted out the whole past
    from the reckoning; others at 4291 from the Creation; [b
    Sanh. 97b] others again expected it at the beginning, or end,
    of the eighty-fifth Jubilee, with this proviso, that it it
    would not take place earlier; and so on, through equally
    groundless conjectures. A comparatively late work speaks of
    five monarchies, Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, Rome and
    Ishmael. During the last of these God would hear the cry of
    Israel, [c Pirqe de R. Ehes. 32] and the Messiah come, after
    a terrible war between Rome and Ishmael (the West and the
    East). [d u. s. 30] But as the rule of these monarchies was
    to last altogether one day (= 1000 years), less two-thirds of
    an hour (1 hour = 83 1/2 years); [e Comp. Pirqe de R. El. 48]
    it would follow, that their domination would last 9444/9
    years. [4 Pirqe de R. El. 28. The reasoning by which this
    duration of the monarchies is derived from Lament. i. 13 and
    Zech. xiv. 7, is a very curious specimen of Rabbinic
    argumentation.] Again, according to Jewish tradition, the
    rule of Babylon had lasted 70, that of Medo-Persia 34, and
    that of Greece 180 years, leaving 6604/9 years for Rome and
    Ishmael. Thus the date for the expected Advent of the Messiah
    would have been about 661 after the destruction of Jerusalem,
    or about the year 729 of the Christian era. [5 Comp. Zunz,
    Gottesd. Vortr. p. 277.]

     In the category of guesses we must also place such vague
    statements, as that the Messiah would come, when all were
    righteous, or all wicked; or else nine months after the
    empire of Rome had extended over the whole world; [a Sanh. 98
    b 1] or when all the souls, predestined to inhabit bodies,
    had been on earth. [b Ab. Z. 5 a, Ber. R. 24] But as, after
    years of unrelieved sufferings, the Synagogue had to
    acknowledge that, one by one, all the terms had passed, and
    as despair settled on the heart of Israel, it came to be
    generally thought, that the time of Messiah's Advent could
    not be known beforehand, [c Targum Pseudo-Jon on Gen. xlix.
    1] and that speculation on the subject was dangerous, sinful,
    even damnable. The time of the end had, indeed, been revealed
    to two sons of Adam, Jacob and David; but neither of them had
    been allowed to make it known. [d Midrash on Ps. xxxi. ed.
    Warsh. p. 41 a, lines 18 to 15 from bottom] In view of this,
    it can scarcely be regarded as more than a symbolical, though
    significant guess, when the future redemption of Israel is
    expected on the Paschal Day, the 15th of Nisan. [e Pesikta,
    ed. Buber, 47 b. 48 a, Sopher. xxi. Hal. 2. Shir. haShir. R.
    ii. 8. ed. Warsh. vol. iii. p. 15 a] [2 Solitary opinions,
    however, place the future redemption in the month Tishri
    (Tanch. on Ex. xii. 37, ed. Warsh. p. 81 b, line 2 from
    bottom).

     6. We now approach this most difficult and delicate
    question: What was the expectation of the ancient Synagogue,
    as regarded the Nature, Person, and qualifications of the
    Messiah? In answering it, not at present from the Old
    Testament, but from the views expressed in Rabinic
    literature, and, so far as we can gather from the
    Gospel-narratives, from those cherished by the contemporaries
    of Christ, two inferences seem evident. First, the idea of a
    Divine Personality, and of the union of the two Natures in
    the Messiah, seems to have been foreign to the Jewish
    auditory of Jesus of Nazareth, and even at first to His
    disciples. Secondly, they appear to have regarded the Messiah
    as far above the ordinary human, royal, prophetic, and even
    Angelic type, to such extent, that the boundary-line
    separating it from Divine Personality is of the narrowest, so
    that, when the conviction of the reality of the Messianic
    manifestation in Jesus burst on their minds, this
    boundary-line was easily, almost naturally, overstepped, and
    those who would have shrunk from framing their belief in such
    dogmatic form, readily owned and worshipped Him as the Son of
    God. Nor need we wonder at this, even taking the highest view
    of Old Testament prophecy. For here also the principle
    applies, which underlies one of St. Paul's most wide-reaching
    utterance: 'We prophesy in part' [3 See the telling remarks
    of Oehler in Herzog's Real-Encykul., vol. ix. p. 417. We
    would add, that there is always a 'hereafter' of further
    development in the history of the individual believer, as in
    that of the Church, growing brighter and brighter, with
    increased spiritual communication and knowledge, till at last
    the perfect light is reached.] In the nature of it, all
    prophecy presents but disjecta, membra, and it almost seems,
    as if we had to take our stand in the prophet's valley of
    vision (Ezek. xxxvii.), waiting till, at the bidding of the
    Lord, the scattered bones should be joined into a body, to
    which the breath of the Spirit would give life.

     These two inferences, derived from the Gospel-narratives,
    are in exact accordance with the whole line of ancient Jewish
    teaching. Beginning with the LXX. rendering of Genesis xlix.
    10, and especially of Numbers xxiv. 7, 17, we gather, that
    the Kingdom of the Messiah [1 No reasonable doubt can be left
    on the mind, that the LXX. translators have here the Messiah
    in view.] was higher than any that is earthly, and destined
    to subdue them all. But the rendering of Psalm lxxii. 5, 7;
    Psalm cx. 3; and especially of Isaiah ix., carries us much
    farther. They convey the idea, that the existence of this
    Messiah was regarded as premundane (before the moon, [a Ps.
    lxxii.] before the morning-star [b Ps. cx.]), and eternal, [c
    Ps. lxxii.] and His Person and dignity as superior to that of
    men and Angels: 'the Angel of the Great Council,' [d Is. ix.
    6(2).] probably 'the Angel of the Face',a view fully
    confirmed by the rendering of the Targum. [3 Three, if not
    four, different renderings of the Targum on Is. ix. 6 are
    possible. But the minimum conveyed to my mind implies the
    premundane existence, the eternal continuance, and the
    superhuman dignity of the Messiah. (See also the Targum on
    Micah v. 2.)] The silence of the Apocrypha about the Person
    of the Messiah is so strange, as to be scarcely explained
    bythe consideration, that those books were composed when the
    need of a Messiah for the deliverance of Israel was not
    painfully felt. [4 This is the view of Grimm, and more fully
    carried out by Oehler. The argument of Hengstenberg, that the
    mention of such a Messiah was restrained from fear of the
    heathen, does not deserve serious refutation.] All the more
    striking are the allusions in the Pseudepigraphic Writings,
    although these also do not carry us beyond our two
    inferences. Thus, the third book of the Sibylline Oracles
    which, with few exceptions, [5 These exceptions are,
    according to Friedlieb (Die Sibyllin. Weissag.) vv. 1-45, vv.
    47-96 (dating from 40-31 before Christ), and vv. 818-828. On
    the subject generally, see our previous remarks in Book 1.]
    dates from more than a century and a half before Christ,
    presents a picture of Messianic times, [e vv. 652-807.]
    generally admitted to have formed the basis of Virgil's
    description of the Golden Age, and of similar heathen
    expectations. In these Oracles, 170 years before Christ, the
    Messiah is 'the King sent from heaven' who would 'judge every
    man in blood and splendour of fire.' [f vv. 285, 286.]
    Similarly, the vision of Messianic times opens with a
    reference to 'the King Whom God will send from the sun. [g v.
    652.] [6 Mr. Drummond defends (at pp. d 274, 275) Holtxmann's
    view, taht the expression applies to Simon the Maccabee,
    although on p. 291 he argues on the opposite supposition that
    the text refers to the Messiah. It is difficult to
    understand, how on reading the whole passage the hypothesis
    of Holtzmann could be entertained. While referring to the 3rd
    Book of the Sib. Or., another point of considerable interest
    deserves notice. According to the theory which places the
    authorship of Daniel in the time of Antiochus Epiphanes, or
    say about 165 B.C., the 'fourth kingdom' of Daniel must be
    the Grecian. But, on the other hand, such certainly was not
    the view entertained by Apocalypts of the year 165, since the
    3d Book of the Sib. Or., which dates from precisely that
    period, not only takes notice of the rising power of Rome,
    but anticipates the destruction of the Grecian Empire by
    Rome, which in turn is to be vanquished by Israel (vv.
    175-195; 520-544; 638-807). This most important fact would
    require to be accounted for by the opponents of the
    authenticity of Daniel.] That a superhuman Kingdom of eternal
    duration, such as this vision paints, [a vv. 652-807.] should
    have a superhuman King, seems almost a necessary corollary.
    [1 I have purposely omittedall referances to controverted
    passages. But see Langen, D. Judenth. in Palest. pp. 401 &c.]

     Even more distinct are the statements in the so-called 'Book
    of Enoch.' Critics are substantially agreed, that the oldest
    part of it [b ch. i.- xxxvi. and lxxii.-cv. dates from
    between 150 and 130 B.C. [2 The next oldest portion,
    consisting of the so-called Similitudes (ch xxxvii.- xxi.),
    excepting what are termed 'the Noachic parts, dates from
    about the time of Herod the Great.] The part next in date is
    full of Messianic allusions; but, as a certain class of
    modern writers has ascribed to it a post-Christian date, and,
    however ungrounded, [3 Schiirer (Lehrb. d. Neutest. Zitg. pp.
    534, 535) has, I think, consclusively shown that this portion
    of the Book of Enoch is of Jewish authorship, and
    pre-Christian date. If so, it were deeply interesting to
    follow its account of the Messiah. He appears by the side of
    the Ancient of Days, His face like appearance of a man, and
    yet so lovely, like that of one of the holy Angels. This 'Son
    of Man' has, and with Him dwells, all righteousness; He
    reveals the treasures of all that is hidden, being chosen by
    the Lord, is superior to all, and destined to subdue and
    destroy all the powers and kingdoms of wickedness (ch.
    xivi.). Although only revealed at the last, His Name had been
    named before God, before sun or stars were created. He is the
    staff on which the righteous lean, the light of nations, and
    the hope of all who mourn in spirit. All are to bow down
    before Him, and adore Him, and for this He was chosen and
    hidden with God before the world was created, and will
    continue before Him for ever (ch. xlviii.). This 'Elect One'
    is to sit on the throne of glory, and dwell among His saints.
    Heaven and earth would abide on the and only the saints would
    abide on the renewed earth (ch. xiv.). He is mighty in all
    the secrets of righteousness, and unrighteousness would flee
    as a shadow, because His glory lasted from eternity to
    eternity, and 'is power from generation to generation (ch.
    xlix.). Then would the earth, Hades, and hell give up their
    dead, and Messiah, sitting on His throne, would select and
    own the just, and open up all secrets of wisdom, amidst the
    universal joy of ransomed earth (ch. li., lxi., lxii.).] to
    Christian authorship, it may be better not to refer to it in
    the present argument, the more so as we have other testimony
    from the time of Herod. Not to speak, therefore, of such
    peculiar designations of the Messiah as 'the Woman's Son,' [c
    lxii. 5.] 'the Son of Man, [d For ex. xlviii. 2: lxii. 7;
    lxix 29.] 'the Elect,' and 'the Just One,' we mark that the
    Messiah is expressly designed in the oldest portion as 'the
    Son of God' ('I and My Son'). [e cv. 2.] That this implies,
    not, indeed, essential Sonship, but infinite superiority over
    all other servants of God, and rule over them, appears from
    the mystic description of the Messiah as 'the first of the
    [now changed] white bulls,' 'the great Animal among them,
    having great and black horns on His head' [a xc. 38.], Whom
    'all the beasts of the field and all the fowls of heaven
    dread, and to Whom they cry at all times.'

     Still more explicit is that beautiful collection of eighteen
    Psalms, dating from about half a century before Christ, which
    bears the name of 'the Psalter of Solomon.' Achaste
    anticipation of the Messianic Kingdom [b in Ps. xi.]. is
    followed by a full description of its need and it blessings,
    [c in Ps. xvii.] to which the concluding Psalm [d xviii.]
    forms an apt epilogue. The King Who reigns is of ther house
    of David. [e xvii. 5.] He is the Son of David, Who comes at
    the time known to God only, to reign over Israel. [f v. 23.]
    He is a righteous King, taught of God. [g v. 35.] He is
    Christ the Lord [h v. 36.] exactlyu as inthe LXX.
    translations of Lamentations iv. 20). 'He is pure from sin,'
    which qualifies Him for ruling His people, and banishing
    sinners by His word. [i v. 41.] Never in His days will He be
    infirm towards His God, since God renders Him strong in the
    Holy Ghost,' wise in counsel, with might and righteousness
    ('mighty in deed and word'). The blessingof the Lord being
    upon Him, He does not fail. [k vv. 42, 43.] 'This is the
    beauty of the King of Israel, Whom God hath chosen, to set
    Him over the house of Israel to rule it.' [m v. 47.] Thus
    invincible, not by outward might, but in His God, He will
    bring His people the blessings of restoration to their tribal
    possessions, and of righteousness, but break in pieces His
    enemies, not by outward weapons, but by the word of His
    mouth; purify Jerusalem, and judge the nations, who will be
    subject to His rule, and behold and own His glory. [n vv.
    25-35.] Manifestly, this is not an earthly Kingdom, nor yet
    an earthly King.

     If we now turn to works dating after the Christian era, we
    would naturally expect them, either simply to reproduce
    earlier opinions, or, from opposition to Christ, to present
    the Messiah in a less exalted manner. [1 In illustration of
    this tendency we may quote the following evidently polemical
    saying, of R. Abbahu. 'If any man saith to thee, "I am God"
    he is a liar; "I am the Son of Man," he will at last repent
    of it; "I go up to heaven," hath he said, and shall he not do
    it? [or, he hath said, and shall not make it good] (Jer.
    Taan. p. 65 b. line 7 from bottom). This R. Abbahu (279-320
    of our era) seems to have largely engaged in controversy with
    Jewish Christians. Thus he sought to argue against the
    Sonship of Christ, by commenting, as follows, on Is. xliv. 6:
    '"I am the first" because He has no father; "I am the last",
    because He has no Son; "and beside me there is no God",
    because He has no brother (equal)' (Shem. R. 29, ed. Warsh.
    vol. ii. p. 41 a, line 8 from bottom).] But since, strange to
    say, they even more strongly assert the high dignity of the
    Messiah, we are warranted in regarding this as the rooted
    belief of the Synagogue. [2 It is, to say the least, a pity
    that Mr. Drummond should have imagined that the question
    could be so easily settled on the premises which he
    presents.] This estimate of the Messiah may be gathered from
    IV Esdras, [o xii. 32; xiii. 26, 52; xiv. 9.] [3 The 4th Book
    of Esdras (in our Apocr. II. Esdras) dates from the end of
    the first century of our era, and so does the Apocalypse of
    Baruch.] with which the kindred picture of the Messiah and
    His reign in the Apocalypse of Baruch [a lxx.9- lxxiv.] may
    be compared. But even in strictly Rabbinic documents, the
    premundane, if not the eternal existence of the Messiah
    appears as matter of common belief. Such is the view
    expressed in the Targum on Is. ix. 6, and in that on Micah v.
    2. But the Midrash on Prov. viii. 9 [b Ed. Lemb. p. 7 a]
    expressly mentions the Messiah among the seven things created
    before the world. [1 These are: the Throne of Glory, Messiah
    the King, the Torah, (ideal) Israel, the Temple, repentance,
    and Gehenna.] The passage is the more important, as it throws
    light on quite a series of others, in which the Name of the
    Messiah is said to have been created before the world. [c
    Pirqe de R. E. 3; Midr.on Ps. xciii.1; Ps. 54a; Nedar. 39 b;
    Ber. R. 1; 3 Tanch. on Numb. vii. 14, ed. Warsh. vol. ii
    Midr. on Ps. 54 a; Nedar. 39 b; Ber. R. 1; Tanch. on Numb.
    vii. 14, ed. Warsh. vol. ii. p. 56 b, at the bottom.] [2 In
    Pirqu de R. El. and the other authorities these seven things
    are: the Torah, Gehenna, Paradise, the Throne of Glory, the
    Temple, repentance, and the Name of the Messiah.] Even if
    this were an ideal conception, it would prove the Messiah to
    be elevated above the ordinary conditions of humanity. But it
    means much more than this, since not only the existence of
    the Messiah long before His actual appearance, but His
    premundane state are clearly taught in other places. In the
    Talmud [d Jer. Ber. ii. 4, p. 5 a.] it is not only implied,
    that the Messiah may already be among the living, but a
    strange story is related, according to which He had actually
    been born in the royal palace at Bethlehem, bore the name
    Menachem (Comforter), was discovered by one R. Judan through
    a peculiar device, but had been carried away by a storm.
    Similarly, the Babylon Talmud represents Him as sitting at
    the gate of Imperial Rome. [e Sanh. 98 a; comp. also Jerus.
    Targ. on Ex. xii. 42, Pirqe de R. El. 30, and other
    passages.] In general, the idea of the Messiah's appearance
    and concealment is familiar to Jewish tradition. [f See for
    example Pesiqta, ed Buber, p. 49 b 5.] But the Rabbis go much
    farther back, and declare that from the time of Judah's
    marriage, [g Gen.. xxxviii. 1, 2.] 'God busied Himself with
    creating the light of the Messiah,' it being significantly
    added that, 'before the first oppressor [Pharaoh] was born,
    the final deliverer [Messiah, the son of David] was already
    born.' [h Ber. R. 85, ed. Warsh. p. 151 b.] In another
    passage the Messiah is expresily identified with Anani, [1
    These ar: the Throne of Glory, Messiah the King, the Torah,
    (ideal) Israel, the Temple, repentance, and Gehenna.] and
    therefore represented as pre-existent long before his actual
    manifestation. [k Tanch. Par. To edoth, 14. ed. Warsh. p. 37
    b.] The same inference may be drawn from His emphatic
    designation as the First. [m Ber. R. 65 ed. Warsh. p. 114 b;
    Vayyikra R. 30, ed. W. vol. iii. p. 47 a; Pes 5 a.] Lastly,
    in Yalkut on Is. lx., the words 'In Thy light shall we see
    light' (Ps. xxxvi. 9) are explained as meaning, that this is
    the light of the Messiah, the same which God had at the first
    pronounced to be very good, and which, before the world was
    created, He had hid beneath the throne of His glory for the
    Messiah and His age. When Satan asked for whom it was
    reserved, he was told that it was destined for Him Who would
    put him to shame, and destroy him. And when, at his request,
    he was shown the Messiah, he fell on his face and owned, that
    the Messiah would in the future cast him and the Gentiles
    into Gehenna [a Yalkut ii.p. 56 c] Whatever else may be
    inferred from it, this passage clearly implies not only the
    pre-existence, but the premundane existence of the Messiah.
    [1 The whole of this very remarkable passage is given in
    Appendix IX., in the notes on Is. xxv. 8; lx l; lxiv. 4; Jer.
    xxxi. 8.]

     But, indeed, it carries us much farther. For, a Messiah,
    preexistent, in the Presence of God, and destined to subdue
    Satan and cast him into hell, could not have been regarded as
    an ordinary man. It is indeed true that, as the history of
    Elijah, so that of the Messiah is throughout compared with
    that of Moses, the 'first' with 'the last Redeemer.' As Moses
    was educated at the court of Pharaoh, so the Messiah dwells
    in Rome (or Edom) among His enemies. [b Shem. R. 1, ed. W.
    vol. ii. p. 5 b; Tanch. Par. Tazrya, 8, ed. W. vol. ii. p. 20
    a] Like Moses He comes, withdraws, and comes again. [c
    Pesiqta, ed. Buber, p. 49 b; Midr. Ruth. Par. 5, ed. W. p. 43
    b] Like Moses He works deliverance. But here the analogy
    ceases, for, whereas the redemption by Moses was temporary
    and comparatively small, that of the Messiah would be eternal
    and absolute. All the marvels connected with Moses were to be
    intensified in the Messiah. The ass on which the Messiah
    would ride, and this humble estate was only caused by
    Israel's sin [d Sanh. 98 a], would be not only that on which
    Moses had come backto Egypt, but also that which Abraham had
    used when he went to offer up Isaac, and which had been
    specially created on the eve of the world's first Sabbath. [e
    Pirque de R. El. 31, ed. Lemb. p. 38 a] Similarly, thehorns
    of the ram caught in the thicket, which was offered instead
    of Isaac, were destined for blowing --the left one by the
    Almighty on Mount Sinai, the right and larger one by the
    Messiah, when He would gather the outcasts of Israel (Is.
    xxvii. 13).[f Pirque de R. El. u. s., p. 39 a, close] Again,
    the 'rod' of the Messiah was that of Aaron, which had budded,
    blossomed, and burst into fruit; as also that on which Jacob
    had leaned, and which, through Judah, had passed to all the
    kings of Israel, till the destruction of the Temple. [g
    Bemid. R. 18, close of the Phar. h Ps. lxxii. 16] And so the
    principle that 'the later Deliverer would be like the first'
    was carried into every detail. As the first Deliverer brought
    down the Manna, so the Messiah; [h According to the last
    clause of (English verson) Joel iii. 18 (Midr. on Eccles. i.
    9 ed. Warsh, vol. iv. p. 80 b)] as the first Deliverer had
    made a spring of water to rise, so would the second.(i)

     But even this is not all. That the Messiah had, without any
    instruction, attained to knowledge of God; [a Bemid. R. 14,
    ed. Warsh. p. 55 a] and that He had received, directly from
    Him, all wisdom, knowledge, counsel, and grace, [b Bemid. R.
    13] is comparatively little, since the same was claimed for
    Abraham, Job, and Hezekiah. But we are told that, when God
    showed Moses all his successors, the spirit of wisdom and
    knowledge in the Messiah equalled that of all the others
    together. [c Yalkut on Numb. xxvii. 16,] vol. i. p. 247 d]
    The Messiah would be 'greater than the Patriarchs,' higher
    than Moses, [1 This is the more noteworthyas, according Sotah
    9 b, none in Israel was so great as Moses, who was only
    inferior to the Almighty.] and even loftier than the
    ministering Angels. [d Tanch., Par. Toledoth 14] In view of
    this we canunderstand, how the Midrash on Psalm xxi. 3 should
    apply to the Messiah, in all its literality, that 'God would
    set His own crown on His head,' and clothe Him with His
    'honour and majesty.' It is only consistent that the same
    Midrash should assign to the Messiah the Divine designations:
    'Jehovah is a Man of War,' and 'Jehovah our Righteousness.'
    [e Midr. Tehill. ed.Warsh. p. 30 b] One other quotation, from
    perhaps the most spiritual Jewish commentary, must be added,
    reminding us of that outburst of adoring wonder which once
    greeted Jesus of Nazareth. The passage first refers to the
    seven garments with which God successively robed Himself, the
    first of 'honour and glory,' at creation; [f Ps. civ. 1] the
    second of 'majesty,' at the Red Sea; [g Ps. xciii. 1] the
    third of 'strength,' at the giving of the Law; [h Ps. xciii.
    1] the fourth 'white,' when He blotteth outthe sins of
    Israel; [i Dan. vii. 9] the fifth of 'zeal,' when He avengeth
    them of their enemies; [k Is. lix. 17] the sixth of
    'righteousness,' at the time when the Messiah should be
    revealed; [m Is. lix. 17] and the seventh 'red,' when He
    wouldtake vengeance on Edom (Rome). [n Is. lxiii.] 'But,'
    continues the commentary, 'the garment with which in the
    future He will clothe the Messiah, its splendour will extend
    from one end of the world to the other, as it is written: [o
    Is. lxi. 10] ''As a bridegroom priestly in headgear." And
    Israel are astounded at His light, and say: Blessed the hour
    in which the Messiah was created; blessed the womb whence He
    issued; blessed the generation that sees Him; blessed the eye
    that is worthy to behold Him; because the opening of His lips
    is blessing and peace, and His speech quieting of the spirit.
    Glory and majesty are in His appearance (vesture), and
    confidence and tranquillity in His words; and on His tongue
    compassion and forgiveness; His prayer is a sweet-smelling
    odour, and His supplication holiness and purity. Happy
    Israel, what is reserved for you! Thus it is written: [p Ps.
    xxxi. 19] "How manifold is Thy goodness, which Thou hast
    reserved to them that fear Thee." '[q Pesiqta. ed. Buber. pp.
    149, a, b] Such a King Messiah might well be represented as
    sitting at the Right Hand of God, while Abraham was only at
    His left; [a Midr. on Ps. xviii. 36, ed. Warsh. p. 27 a] nay,
    as throwing forth His Right Hand, while God stood up to war
    for Him [b Midr. on Ps. cx. 1, ed. Warsh. p. 80 b]

     It is not without hesitation, that we make reference to
    Jewish allusions to the miraculous birth of the Saviour. Yet
    there are two expressions, which convey the idea, if not of
    superhuman origin, yet of some great mystery attaching to His
    birth. The first occurs in connection with the birth of Seth.
    'Rabbi Tanchuma said, in the name of Rabbi Samuel: Eve had
    respect [had regard, looked forward] to that Seed which is to
    come from another place. And who is this? This is Messiah the
    King.' [c Ber. R. 23, ed Warsh p. 45 b] The second appears in
    the narrative of the crime of Lot's daughters: [d Gen. xix.
    32] 'It is not written "that we may preserve a son from our
    father," but "seed from our father." This is that seed which
    is coming from another place. And who is this? This is the
    King Messiah.' [e Ber. R. 51 ed. Warsh. p. 95 a] [1 I am, of
    course, aware that certain Rabbinists explain the expression
    'Seed from another place,' as referring to the descent of the
    Messiah from Ruth--a non-Israelite. But if this explanation
    could be offered in reference to the daughters of Lot, it is
    difficult to see its meaning in reference to Eve and the
    birth of Seth. The connection there with the words (Gen. iv.
    25), 'God hath appointed me another Seed,' would be the very
    loosest.]

     That a superhuman character attached, if not to the
    Personality, yet to the Mission of the Messiah, appears from
    three passages, in which the expression, 'The Spirit of the
    Lord moved upon the face of the deep,' is thus paraphrased:
    'This is the Spirit of the King Messiah.' [f Ber. R. 2; and
    8; Vayyikra R. 14, ed. Warsh. vol. iii. p. 21 b] [2 I am
    surprised, that Castelli (u. s. p. 207) should have
    contended, that the reading in Ber. R. 8 and Vay. R. 14
    should be 'the Spirit of Adam.' For (1) the attempted
    correction gives neither sense, nor proper meaning. (2) The
    passage Ber. R. 1 is not impugned; yet that passage is the
    basis of the other two. (3) Ber. R. 8 must read, 'The Spirit
    of God moved on the deep--that is, the Spirit of Messiah the
    King,' because the proof-passage is immediately added, 'and
    the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him,' which is a
    Messianic passage; and because, only two lines before the
    impugned passage, we are told, that Gen. i. 26, 1st clause,
    refers to the 'spirit of the first man.' The latter remark
    applies also to Vayyikra R. 14, where the context equally
    forbids the proposed correction.] Whether this implies some
    activity of the Messiah in connection with creation, [3 It
    would be very interesting to compare with this the statements
    of Philo as to the agency of the Logos in Creation. The
    subject is very well treated by Riehm (Lehrbegr. d. Hebr. Br.
    pp. 414-420), although I cannot agree with all his
    conclusions.] or only that, from the first,His Mission was to
    have a bearing on all creation, it elevates His character and
    work above every other agency, human or Angelic. And, without
    pressing the argument, it is at least very remarkable that
    even the Ineffable Name Jehovah is expressly attributed to
    the Messiah. [g Midr. on Lament. i 16, ed Warsh. p. 64 a,
    last line comp. Pesiqta, p. 148 a ; 4 Midr. on Ps. xxi. and
    the very curious concessions in a controvesy with a Christian
    recorded in Sanh. 38 b] The whole of this passage, beginning
    at p. 147 b, is very curious and deeply interesting. It would
    lead too far to quote fact becomes the more significant, when
    we recall that one of the most familiar names of the Messiah
    was Anani, He Whi cometh in the clouds of heaven. [a Dan.
    vii. 13]

     In what has been stated, no reference has been made to the
    final conquests of Messiah, to His reign with all its
    wonders, or to the subdual of all nation, in short, to what
    are commonly called 'the last things.' This will be treated
    in another connection. Nor is it contented that, whatever
    individuals may have expected, the Synagogue taught the
    doctrine of the Divine Personality of the Messiah, as held by
    the Christian Church. On the other hand, the cumulative
    evidence just presented must leave on the mind at least this
    conviction, that the Messiah expected was far above the
    conditions of the most exalted of God's servants, even His
    Angels; in short, so closely bordering on the Divine, that it
    was almost impossible to distinguish Him therefrom. In such
    circumstances, it only needed the personal conviction, that
    He, Who taught and wrought as none other, was really the
    Messiah, to kindle at His word into the adoring confession,
    that He was indeed 'the Son of the Living God.' And once that
    point reached, the mind, looking back through the teaching of
    the Synagogue, would, with increasing clearness, perceive
    that, however ill-understood in the past, this had been all
    along the sum of the whole Old Testament. Thus, we can
    understand alike the preparedness for, and yet the
    gradualness of conviction on this point; then, the increasing
    clearness with which it emerged in the consciousness of the
    disciples; and, finally, the unhesitating distinctness with
    which it was put forward in Apostolic teaching as the
    fundamental article of belief to the Church Catholic. [1 It
    will be noticed, that the cummulative argument presented in
    the foregoing pages follows closely that in the first chapter
    of the Epistle to the Hebrews; only, that the latter carries
    it up to its final conclusion, that the Messiah was truly the
    Son of God, while it has been our purpose simply to state,
    what was the expectation of the ancient Synagogue, not what
    it should have been according to the Old Testament.]

 FROM THE MANGER IN BETHLEHEM TO THE BAPTISM IN JORDAN

    THE NATIVITY OF JESUS THE MESSIAH.

    CHAPTER VI

     (St. Matthew i. 25; St. Luke ii. 1-20.)

     SUCH then was 'the hope of the promise made of God unto the
    fathers,' for which the twelve tribes, 'instantly serving
    (God) night and day,' longed, with such vividness, that they
    read it in almost every event and promise; with such
    earnestness, that it ever was the burden of their prayers;
    with such intensity, that many and long centuries if
    disappointment have not quenched it. Its light, comparatively
    dim in days of sunshine and calm, seemed to burn brightest
    inthe dark and lonely nights of suffering, as if each gust
    that swept over Israel only kindled it into fresh flame.

     To the question, whether this hope has ever been realised,
    or rather, whether One has appeared Whose claims to the
    Messiahship have stood the test of investigation and of time,
    impartial history can make only one answer. It points to
    Bethlehem and to Nazareth. If the claims of Jesus have been
    rejected by the Jewish Nation, He has at least, undoubtedly,
    fulfilled one part of the Mission prophetically assigned to
    the Messiah. Whether or not He be the Lion of the tribe of
    Judah, to Him, assuredly, has been the gathering of the
    nations, and the isles have waited for His law. Passing the
    narrow bounds of obscure Judaea, and breaking down the walls
    of national prejudice and isolation, He has made the sublimer
    teaching of the Old Testament the common possession of the
    world, and founded a great Brotherhood, of which the God of
    Israel is the Father. He alone also has exhibited a life, in
    which absolutely no fault could be found; and promulgated a
    teaching, to which absolutely no exception can be taken.
    Admittedly, He was the One perfect Man, the ideal of
    humanity, His doctrine the one absolute teaching. The world
    has known none other, none equal. And the world has owned it,
    if not by the testimony of words, yet by the evidence of
    facts. Springing from such a people; born, living, and dying
    in circumstances, and using means, the most unlikely of such
    results, the Man of Nazareth has, by universal consent, been
    the mightiest Factor in our world's history: alike
    politically, socially, intellectually, and morally. If He be
    not the Messiah, He has at least thus far done the Messiah's
    work. If He be not the Messiah, there has has at least been
    none other, before or after Him. If He be not the Messiah,
    the world has not, and never can have, a Messiah.

     To Bethlehem as the birthplace of Messiah, not only Old
    Testament prediction, [a Micah v. 2] but the testimony of
    Rabbinic teaching, unhesitatingly pointed. Yet nothing could
    be imagined more directly contrary to Jewish thoughts and
    feelings, and hence nothing less likely to suggest itself to
    Jewish invention [1 The advocates of the mythical theory have
    not answered, not even faced or understood, what to us seems,
    on their hypothesis, an insuperable difficulty. Granting,
    that Jewish expectancy would suggest the birth of Jesus at
    Bethlehem, why invent such circumstances to being Mary to
    Bethlehem? Keim may be right in saying: 'The belief in the
    birth at Bethlehem originated very simply (Leben Jesu i. 2,
    p. 393); but all the more complicated and inexplicable is the
    origination of the legend, which accounts for the journey
    thither of Mary and Joseph.] , than the circumstances which,
    according to the Gospel-narrative, brought about the birth of
    the Messiah in Bethlehem. Acounting of the people, of Census;
    and that Census taken at the bidding of a heathen Emperor,and
    executed by one so universally hated as Herod, would
    represent the ne plus ultra of all that was most repugnant to
    Jewish feeling. [2 In evidence of of these feelings, we have
    the account of Josephus of the consequences of the taxation
    of Cyrenius (Ant. xviii. 1. 1. Comp. Acts v. 37).] If the
    account to the Gospel-narrative, brought about the birth of
    the Bethlehem, has no basis in fact, but is a legend invented
    to locate the birth of the Nazarene in the royal City of
    David, it must be pronounced most clumsily devised. There is
    absolutely nothing to account for its origination, either
    from parallel events in the past, or from contemporary
    expectancy. Why then connect the birth of their Messiah with
    what was most repugnant to Israel, especially if, as the
    advocates of the legendary hypothesis contend, it did not
    occur at a time when any Jewish Census was taken, but ten
    years previously?

     But if it be impossible rationally to account for any
    legendary origin of the narrative of Joseph and Mary's
    journey to Bethlehem, the historical grounds, on which its
    accuracy has been impugned, are equally insufficient. They
    resolve themselves into this: that (beyond the
    Gospel-narrative) we have no solid evidence that Cyrenius was
    at that time occupying the needful official position in the
    East, to order such a registration for Herod to carry out.
    But even this feeble contention is by no means historically
    unassailable. [3 The arguments on what may be calledthe
    orthodox side have, from different points of view, been so
    often and well stated, latterly by Wieseler, Huschke, Zumpt,
    and Steinmeyer, and on the otherside almost ad nauseam by
    negative critics of every school, that it seems unnecessary
    to go again over them. The reader will find the whole subject
    stated by Canon Cook, whose views we substantially adopt, in
    the 'Speaker's Commentary' (N.T. i. pp. 326-329). The
    reasoning of Mommsen (Res gestae D. Aug. pp. 175, 176) does
    not seem to me to affect the view taken in the text.] At any
    rate, there are two facts, which render any historical
    mistake by St. Luke on this point extremely difficult to
    believe. First, he was evidently aware of a Census under
    Cyrenius, ten years later; [a Comp. Acts v. 37] secondly,
    whatever rendered of St. Luke ii. 2 may be adopted, it will
    at least be admitted, that the intercalated sentence about
    Cyrenius was not necessary for the narrative, and that the
    writer must have intended thereby emphatically to mark a
    certain event. But an author would not be likely to call
    special attention to a fact, of which he had only indistinct
    knowledge; rather, if it must be mentioned, would he do so in
    the most indefinite terms. This presumption in favour of St.
    Luke's statement is strengthened by the consideration, that
    such an event as the taxing of Judaea must have been so
    easily ascertainable by him.

     We are, however, not left to the presumptive reasoning just
    set forth. That the Emperor Augustus made registers of the
    Roaman Empire, and of subject and tributary states, is now
    generally admitted. This registration, for the purpose of
    future taxation, would also embrace Palestine. Even if no
    actual order to that effect had been issued during the
    lifetime of Herod, we can understand that he would deem it
    most expedient, both on account of his relations to the
    Emperor, and in view of the probable excitement which a
    heathen Census would cause in Palestine, to take steps for
    making a registration, and that rather according to the
    Jewish than the Roman manner. This Census, then, arranged by
    Augustus, and taken by Herod in his own manner, was,
    according to St. Luke, 'first [really] carried out when
    Cyrenius was Governor of Syria,' some years after Herod's
    death and when Judaea had become a Roman province. [1 For the
    textual explanation we again refer to Canon Cook, only we
    would mark, with Steinmeyer, that the meaning of the
    expression, in St. Luke ii. 2, is determined by the similar
    use of it in Acts xi. 28, where what was predicted is said to
    have actually taken place at the time of Claudius Caesar.]

     We are now prepared to follow the course of the
    Gospel-narrative. In consequence of 'the decree of Caesar
    Augustus,' Herod directed a general registration to be made
    after the Jewish, rather than the Roman, manner. Practically
    the two would, indeed, in this instance, be very similar.
    According to the Roman law, all country-people were to be
    registered in their 'own city', meaning thereby the town to
    which the village or place, where they were born, was
    attached. In so doing, the 'house and lineage' (the nomen and
    cognomen) of each were marked. [1 Comp. Huschke. Ueber d. z.
    Zeit d. Geb. J. C. gehalt. Census pp. 119, 120. Most critics
    have written very confusedly on this point.] According to the
    Jewish mode of registration, the people would have been
    enrolled according to tribes, families or clans, and the
    house of their fathers. But as the ten tribes had not
    returned to Palestine, this could only take place to a very
    limited extent, [2 The reader will now be able to appreciate
    the value of Keim's objections against such a Census, as
    involving a 'wahre Volkswanderung' (!), and being 'eine Sache
    der Unmoglichkeit.'] while it would be easy for each to be
    registered in 'his own city.' In the case of Joseph and Mary,
    whose descent from David was not only known, but where, for
    the sake of the unborn Messiah, it was most important that
    this should be distinctly noted, it was natural that, in
    accordance with Jewish law, they should have gone to
    Bethlehem. Perhaps also, for many reasons which will readily
    suggest themselves, Joseph and Mary might be glad to leave
    Nazareth, and seek, if possible, a home in Bethlehem. Indeed,
    so strong was this feeling, that it afterwards required
    special Divine direction to induce Joseph to relinquish this
    chosen place of residence, and to return into Galilee. [a St.
    Matt ii. 22.] In these circumstances, Mary, now the 'wife' of
    Joseph, though standing to him only in the actual
    relationship of 'betrothed,' [b St. Luke ii. 5.] would, of
    course, accompany her husband to Bethlehem. Irrespective of
    this, every feeling and hope in her must have prompted such a
    course, and there is no need to discuss whether Roman or
    Jewish Census-usage required her presence, a question which,
    if put, would have to be answered in the negative.

     The short winter's day was probably closing in, [3 This, of
    course, is only a conjecture; but I call it 'probable,'
    partly because one would naturally so arrange a journey of
    several days, to make its stages as slow and easy as
    possible, and partly from the circumstance, that, on their
    arrival, they found the khan full, which would scarcely have
    been the case had they reached Bethlehem early in the day.]
    as the two travellers from Nazareth, bringing with them the
    few necessaries of a poor Eastern household, neared their
    journey's end. If we think of Jesus as the Messiah from
    heaven, the surroundings of outward poverty, so far from
    detracting, seem most congruous to His Divine character.
    Earthly splendor would here seem like tawdry tinsel, and the
    utmost simplicity like that clothing of the lilies, which far
    surpassed all the glory of Solomon's court. But only in the
    East would the most absolute simplicity be possible, and yet
    neither it, nor the poverty from which it sprang, necessarily
    imply even the slightest taint of social inferiority. The way
    had been long and weary, at the very least, three days'
    journey, whatever route had been taken from Galilee. Most
    probably it would be that so commonly followed, from a desire
    to avoid Samaria, along the eastern banks of the Jordan, and
    by the fords of Jericho. [1 Comp. the account of the roads,
    inns, &c. in the 'History of the Jewish Nation,' p. 275; and
    the chapter on Travelling in Palestine,' in 'Sketches of
    Jewish Social Life in the Days of Christ.'] Although passing
    through one of the warmest parts of the country, the season
    of the year must, even in most favorable circumstances, have
    greatly increased the difficulties of such a journey. A sense
    of rest and peace must, almost unconsciously, have crept over
    the travellers when at last they reached the rich fields that
    surrounded the ancient 'House of Bread,' and, passing through
    the valley which, like an amphitheatre, sweeps up to the
    twain heights along which Bethlehem stretches (2,704 feet
    above the sea), ascended through the terraced vineyards and
    gardens. Winter though it was, the green and silvery foliage
    of the olive might, even at that season, mingle with the pale
    pink of the almond, nature's 'early waker' [2 The almond is
    called, in Hebrew, 'the waker,' from the word 'to be awake.'
    It is quite possible, that many of the earliest spring
    flowers already made the landscape bright.], and with the
    darker coloring of the opening peach-buds. The chaste beauty
    and sweet quiet of the place would recall memories of Boaz,
    of Jesse, and of David. All the more would such thoughts
    suggest themselves, from the contrast between the past and
    the present. For, as the travellers reached the heights of
    Bethlehem, and, indeed, long before, the most prominent
    object in view must have been the great castle which Herod
    had built, and called after his own name. Perched on the
    highest hill south-east of Bethlehem, it was, at the same
    time magnificent palace, strongest fortress, and almost
    courtier-city. [a Jos. Ant. xiv. 13. 9; xv. 9. 4; War. i. 13.
    8:21, 10.] With a sense of relief the travellers would turn
    from this, to mark the undulating outlines of the highland
    wilderness of Judaea, till the horizon was bounded by the
    mountain-ridges of Tekoa. Through the break of the hills
    eastward the heavy molten surface of the Sea of Judgement
    would appear in view; westward wound the road to Hebron;
    behind them lay the valleys and hills which separated
    Bethlehem from Jerusalem, and concealed the Holy City.

     But for the present such thoughts would give way to the
    pressing necessity of finding shelter and rest. The little
    town of Bethlehem was crowded with those who had come from
    all the outlying district to register their names. Even if
    the strangers from far-off Galilee had been personally
    acquainted with any one in Bethlehem, who could have shown
    them hospitality, they would have found every house fully
    occupied. The very inn was filled, and the only available
    space was, where ordinarily the cattle were stabled. [1 Dr.
    Geikie indeed 'feelssure' that the was not an inn, but a
    guest-chamber, because the word is used in that sense in St.
    Mark xiv. 14, Luke xxii. 11. But this inference is critically
    untenable. The Greek word is of very wide application, and
    means (as Schleusner puts it) 'omnis locus quieti aptus.' In
    the LXX. is the equivalent of not less than five Hebrew
    words, which have widely different meanings. In the LXX.
    rendering of Ex. iv. 24 it is used for the Hebrew which
    certainly cannot mean a guest-chamber, but an inn. No one
    could imagine that. If private hospitality had been extended
    to the Virgin-Mother, she would have been left in such
    circumstances in a stable. The same term occurs in Aramaic
    form, in Rabbinic writings, as an inn. Delitzsch, in his
    Hebrew N.T., uses the more common Bazaars and markets were
    also held in those hostelries; animals killed, and meat sold
    there; also wine and cider; so that they were a much more
    public place of resort than might at first be imagined. Comp.
    Herzfeld. Handelsgesch. p. 325.] Bearing in mind the simple
    habits of the East, this scarcely implies, what it would in
    the West; and perhaps the seclusion and privacy from the
    noisy, chattering crowd, which thronged the khan, would be
    all the more welcome. Scanty as these particulars are, even
    thus much is gathered rather by inference than from the
    narrative itself. Thus early in this history does the absence
    of details, which painfully increases as we proceed, remind
    us, that the Gospels were not intended to furnish a biography
    of Jesus, nor even the materials for it; but had only this
    twofold object: that those who read them 'might believe that
    Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God,' and that believing they
    'might have life through His Name.' [a St. John xx. 31; comp.
    St. Luke i. 4.] The Christian heart and imagination, indeed,
    long to be able to localise the scene of such surpassing
    importance, and linger with fond reverence over that Cave,
    which is now covered by 'the Church of the Nativity.' It may
    be, nay, it seems likely, that this, to which the most
    venerable tradition points, was the sacred spot of the
    world's greatest event. [2 Perhaps the best authenticated of
    all local traditions is that which fixes on this cave as the
    place of the Nativity. The evidence in its favour is well
    given by Dr. Farrar in his 'Life of Christ.' Dean Stanley,
    however, and others, have questioned it.] But certainly we
    have not. It is better, that it should be so. As to all that
    passed in the seclusion of that 'stable,' the circumstances
    of the 'Nativity,' even its exact time after the arrival of
    Mary (brief as it must have been), the Gospel-narrative is
    silent. This only is told, that then and there the
    Virgin-Mother 'brought forth her first-born Son, and wrapped
    Him in swaddling clothes, and laid Him in a manger.' Beyond
    this announcement of the bare fact, Holy Scripture, with
    indescribable appropriateness and delicacy, draws a veil over
    that most sacred mystery. Two impressions only are left on
    the mind: that of utmost earthly humility, in the surrounding
    circumstances; and that of inward fitness, in the contrast
    suggested by them. Instinctively, reverently, we feel that it
    is well it should have been so. It best befits the birth of
    the Christ, if He be what the New Testament declares Him.

     On the other hand, the circumstances just noted afford the
    strongest indirect evidence of the truth of this narrative.
    For, if it were the outcome of Jewish imagination, where is
    the basis for it in contemporary expectation? Would Jewish
    legend have ever presented its Messiah as born in a stable,
    to which chance circumstances had consigned His Mother? The
    whole current of Jewish opinion would run in the contrary
    direction. The opponents of the authenticity of this
    narrative are bound to face this. Further, it may safely be
    asserted, that no Apocryphal or legendary narrative of such a
    (legendary) event would have been characterised by such
    scantiness, or rather absence, of details. For, the two
    essential features, alike of legend and of tradition, are,
    that they ever seek to surround their heroes with a halo of
    glory, and that they attempt to supply details, which are
    otherwise wanting. And in both these respects a more
    sharply-marked contrast could scarcely be presented, than in
    the Gospel-narrative.

     But as we pass from the sacred gloom of the cave out into
    the night, its sky all aglow with starry brightness, its
    loneliness is peopled, and its silence made vocal from
    heaven. There is nothing now to conceal, but much to reveal,
    though the manner of it would seem strangely incongruous to
    Jewish thinking. And yet Jewish tradition may here prove both
    illustrative and helpful. That the Messiah was to be born in
    Bethlehem, [1 In the curious story of His birth, related in
    the Jer. Talmud (Ber. ii. 3), He is said to have been born in
    'the royal castle of Bethlehem;' while in the parallel
    narrative in the Midr. on Lament. i. 16, ed. W. p. 64 b) the
    somewhat mysterious expression is used But we must keep in
    view the Rabbinic statement that, even if a castle falls
    down, it is still called a castle (Yalkut, vol. ii. p. 60
    b).] was a settled conviction. Equally so was the belief,
    that He was to be revealed from Migdal Eder, 'the tower of
    the flock.' [a Targum Pseudo-Jon. on Gen. xxxv 21.] This
    Migdal Eder was not the watchtower for the ordinary flocks
    which pastured on the barren sheepground beyond Bethlehem,
    but lay close to the town, on the road to Jerusalem. A
    passage in the Mishnah [b Shek. vii. 4.] leads to the
    conclusion, that the flocks, which pastured there, were
    destined for Temple-sacrifices, [2 In fact the Mishnah (Baba
    K. vii. 7) expressly forbids the keeping of flocks throughout
    the land of Israel, except in the wilderness, and the only
    flocks otherwise kept, would be those for the Temple-services
    (Baba K. 80 a).] and, accordingly, that the shepherds, who
    watched over them, were not ordinary shepherds. The latter
    were under the ban of Rabbinism, [1 This disposes of an inapt
    quotation (from Delitzsch) by Dr. Geikie. No one could
    imagine, that the Talmudic passages in question could apply
    to such shepherds as these.] on account of their necessary
    isolation from religious ordinances, and their manner of
    life, which rendered strict legal observance unlikely, if not
    absolutely impossible. The same Mishnic passage also leads us
    to infer, that these flocks lay out all the year round, since
    they are spoken of as in the fields thirty days before the
    Passover, that is, in the month of February, when in
    Palestine the average rainfall is nearly greatest. [2 The
    mean of 22 seasons in Jerusalem amounted to 4.718 inches in
    December, 5.479 in January, and 5.207 in February (see a very
    interesting paper by Dr. Chaplin in Quart. Stat. of Pal.
    Explor. Fund, January, 1883). For 1876-77 we have these
    startling figures: mean for December, .490; for January,
    1.595; for February, 8.750, and, similarly, in other years.
    And so we read: 'Good the year in which Tebheth (December) is
    without rain' (Taan. 6 b). Those who have copied Lightfoot's
    quotations about the flocks not lying out during the winter
    months ought, at least, to have known that the reference in
    the Talmudic passages is expressly to the flocks which
    pastured in 'the wilderness'. But even so, the statement, as
    so many others of the kind, is not accurate. For, in the
    Talmud two opinions are expressed. According to one, the
    'Midbariyoth,' or 'animals of the wilderness,' are those
    which go to the open at the Passovertime, and return at the
    first rains (about November); while, on the other hand, Rabbi
    maintains, and, as it seems, more authoritatively, that the
    wilderness-flocks remain in the open alike in the hottest
    days and in the rainy season, i.e. all the year round (Bezah
    40 a). Comp. also Tosephta Bezah iv. 6. A somewhat different
    explanation is given in Jer. Bezah 63 b.] Thus, Jewish
    tradition in some dim manner apprehended the first revelation
    of the Messiah from that Migdal Eder, where shepherds watched
    the Temple-flocks all the year round. Of the deep symbolic
    significance of such a coincidence, it is needless to speak.

     It was, then, on that 'wintry night' of the 25th of
    December, [3 There is no adequate reason for questioning the
    historical accuracy of this date. The objections generally
    made rest on grounds, which seem to me historically
    untenable. The subject has been fully discussed in an article
    by Cassel in Herzog's Real. Ency. xvii. pp. 588-594. But a
    curious piece of evidence comes to us from a Jewish source.
    In the addition to the Megillath Taanith (ed. Warsh. p. 20
    a), the 9th Tebheth is marked as a fast day, and it is added,
    that the reason for this is not stated. Now, Jewish
    chronologists have fixed on that day as that of Christ's
    birth, and it is remarkable that, between the years 500 and
    816 A.D. the 25th of December fell no less than twelve times
    on the 9th Tebheth. If the 9th Tebheth, or 25th December, was
    regarded as the birthday of Christ, we can understand the
    concealment about it. Comp. Zunz, Ritus d. Synag. Gottesd. p.
    126.] that shepherds watched the flocks destined for
    sacrificial services, in the very place consecrated by
    tradition as that where the Messiah was to be first revealed.
    Of a sudden came the long-delayed, unthoughtof of
    announcement. Heaven and earth seemed to mingle, as suddenly
    announcement. Heaven and earth seemed to mingle, as suddenly
    an Angel stood before their dazzled eyes, while the
    outstreaming glory of the Lord seemed to enwrap them, as in a
    mantle of light. [4 In illustration we may here quote Shem.
    R. 2 (ed. W. vol. ii. p. 8 a), where it is said that,
    wherever Michael appears, there also is the glory of the
    Shekhinah. In the same section we read, in reference to the
    appearance in the bush, that, 'at first only one Angel came,'
    who stood in the burning bush, and after that the Shekhinah
    came, and spoke to Moses from out the bush. (It is a curious
    illustration of Acts ix. 7, that Moses alone is said in
    Jewish tradition to have seen the vision. but not the men who
    were with him.) Wetstein gives an erroneous reference to a
    Talmudic statement, to the effect that, at the birth of
    Moses, the room was filled with heavenly light. The statement
    really occurs in Sotah 12 a; Shem. R. 1; Yalkut i. 51 c. This
    must be the foundation of the Christian legend, that the
    cave, in which Christ was born, was filled with heavenly
    light. Similarly, the Romish legend about the Virgin Mother
    not feeling the pangs of maternity is derived from the Jewish
    legend, which asserts the same of the mother of Moses. The
    same authority maintains, that the birth of Moses remained
    unknown for three months, because he was a child of seven
    months. There are other legends about the sinlessness of
    Moses' father, and the maidenhood of his mother (at 103
    years), which remind us of Christian traditions.] Surprise,
    awe, fear would be hushed into calm and expectancy, as from
    the Angel they heard, that what they saw boded not judgment,
    but ushered in to waiting Israel the great joy of those good
    tidings which he brought: that the long-promised Saviour,
    Messiah, Lord, was born in the City of David, and that they
    themselves might go and see, and recognize Him by the
    humbleness of the circumstances surrounding His Nativity.

     It was, as if attendant angels had only waited the signal.
    As, when the sacrifice was laid on the altar, the
    Temple-music burst forth in three sections, each marked by
    the blast of the priests' silver trumpets, as if each Psalm
    were to be a Tris-Hagion; [1 According to tradition, the
    three blasts symbolically proclaimed the Kingdom of God, the
    providence of God, and the final judgment.] so, when the
    Herald-Angel had spoken, a multitude of heaven's host [2
    Curiously enough, the word is Hebraised in the same
    connection See Yalkut on Ps. xlv. (vol. ii. p. 105 a, about
    the middle).] stood forth to hymn the good tidings he had
    brought. What they sang was but the reflex of what had been
    announced. It told in the language of praise the character,
    the meaning, the result, of what had taken place. Heaven took
    up the strain of 'glory'; earth echoed it as 'peace'; it fell
    on the ears and hearts of men as 'good pleasure':

     Glory to God in the highest, And upon earth peace, Among men
    good pleasure! [3 I have unhesitatingly retained the reading
    of the textus receptus. The arguments in its favor are
    sufficiently set forth by Canon Cook in his 'Revised Version
    of the First Three Gospels,' pp. 27,32.]

     Only once before had the words of the Angels' hymn fallen
    upon mortal's ears, when, to Isaiah's rapt vision, Heaven's
    high Temple had opened, and the glory of Jehovah swept its
    courts, almost breaking down the trembling posts that bore
    its boundary gates. Now the same glory enwrapt the shepherds
    on Bethlehem's plams. Then the Angels' hymn had heralded the
    announcement of the Kingdom coming; now that of the King
    come. Then it had been the Tris-Hagion of prophetic
    anticipation; now that of Evangelic fulfilment.

     The hymn had ceased; the light faded out of the sky; and the
    shepherds were alone. But the Angelic message remained with
    them; and the sign, which was to guide them to the Infant
    Christ, lighted their rapid way up the terraced height to
    where, at the entering of Bethlehem, the lamp swinging over
    the hostelry directed them to the strangers of the house of
    David, who had come from Nazareth. Though it seems as if, in
    the hour of her utmost need, the Virgin, Mother had not been
    ministered to by loving hands, [1 This appears to me implied
    in theemphatic statement, that Mary, as I gather, herself,
    'wrapped Him in swaddling clothes' (St. Luke ii. 7, 12).
    Otherwise the remark would seem needless and meaningless.]
    yet what had happened in the stable must soon have become
    known in the Khan. Perhaps friendly women were still passing
    to and fro on errands of mercy, when the shepherds reached
    the 'stable.' [2 It seems difficult to understand how, on Dr.
    Geikie's theory, the shepherds could have found the
    Infant-Saviour, since, manifestly, they could not during that
    night have roused every household in Bethlehem, to inquire
    whether any child had been born among their guests.] There
    they found, perhaps not what they had expected, but as they
    had been told. The holy group only consisted of the humble
    Virgin-Mother, the lowly carpenter of Nazareth, and the Babe
    laid in the manger. What further passed we know not, save
    that, having seen it for themselves, the shepherds told what
    had been spoken to them about this Child, to all around [3
    The term more than to ' make known abroad.' Wahl renders it
    'ultro citroquenarroh'; Schleusner: 'divulgo aliquid ut aliis
    innotescat, spargo rumorem.'] , in the 'stable' in the
    fields, probably also in the Temple, to which they would
    bring their flocks, thereby preparing the minds of a Simeon,
    of an Anna, and of all them that looked for salvation in
    Israel. [4 This may have prepared not only those who welcomed
    Jesus on His presentation in the Temple, but filled many
    others with expectancy.]

     And now the hush of wondering expectancy fell once more on
    all, who heard what was told by the shepherds, this time not
    only in the hill-country of Judaea, but within the wider
    circle that embraced Behtlehem and the Holy City. And yet it
    seemed all so sudden, so strange. That such slender thread,
    as the feeble throb of an Infant-life, the salvation of the
    world should hang, and no special care watch over its safety,
    no better shelter be provided it than a 'stable,' no other
    cradle than a manger! And still it is ever so. On what
    slender thread has the continued life of the Church often
    seemed to hang; on what feeble throbbing that of every child
    of God, with no visible outward means to ward off danger, no
    home of comfort, no rest of ease. But, 'Lo, children are
    Jehovah's heritage!', and: 'So giveth He to His beloved in
    his sleep!' [1 The following remarkable extract from the
    Jerusalem Targum on Ex. xii. 42 may interest the reader:

     It is a night to be observed and exalted.... Four nights are
    there written in the Book of Memorial. Night first: when the
    Memra of Jehovah was revealed upon the world for its
    creation; when the world was without form and void, and
    darkness was spread upon the face of the deep, and hte Memra
    of Jehovah illuminated and made it light; and He called it
    the first night. Night second: when the Memra of Jehovah was
    revealed unto Abraham between the divided pieces; when
    Abraham was a hundred years, and Sarah was ninety years, and
    to confirm thereby that which the Scripture saith, Abraham a
    hundred years, can he beget? and Sarah, ninety years old, can
    she bear? Was not our father Isaac thirty-seven years old at
    the time he was offered upon the altar? Then the heavens were
    bowed down and brought low, and Isaac saw their foundations,
    and his eyes were blinded owing to that sight; and He called
    it the second night. The thrid night: when the Memra of
    Jehovah was revealed upon the Egyptians, at the dividing of
    the night; His right hand slew the first-born of the
    Egyptians, and His right hand spared the first-born of
    Israel; to fulfil what the Scripture hath said, Israel is My
    first-born well-beloved son. And He called it the thrid
    night. Night the forth: when the end of the world will be
    accomplished, that it might be dissolved, the bands of
    wickedness destroyed, and the iron yoke broken. Moses came
    forth from the midst of the desert, and the King Messiah from
    the midst of Rome. This one shall lead at the head of a
    Cloud, and that one shall lead at the head of a Cloud; and
    the Memra of Jehovah will lead between both, and they two
    shall come as one (Cachada).' (For explan. see vol. ii. p.
    100, note.)]

 FROM THE MANGER IN BETHLEHEM TO THE BAPTISM IN JORDAN

    THE PURIFICATION OF THE VIRGIN AND THE PRESENTATION IN THE
    TEMPLE

    CHAPTER VII

     (St. Luke ii. 21-38.)

     FOREMOST amongst those who, wondering, had heard what the
    shepherds told, was she whom most it concerned, who laid it
    up deepest in her heart, and brought to it treasured stores
    of memory. It was the Mother of Jesus. These many months, all
    connected with this Child could never have been far away form
    her thoughts. And now that He was hers, yet not hers,
    belonged, yet did not seem to belong, to her, He would be the
    more dear to her Mother-heart for what made Him so near, and
    yet parted Him so far from her. And upon all His history
    seemed to lie such wondrous light, that she could only see
    the path behindm, so far as she had trodden it,; while upon
    that on which she was to move, was such dazzling brightness,
    that she could scare look upon the present, and dared not
    gaze towards the future.

     At the very outset of this history, and increasingly in its
    course, the question meets us, how, if the Angelic message to
    the Virgin was a reality, and her motherhood so supernatural,
    she could have been apparently so ignorant of what was to
    come, nay, so often have even misunderstood it? Strange, that
    she should have 'pondered in her heart' the shepherd's
    account; stranger, that afterwards she should have wondered
    at His lingering in the Temple among Israel's teachers;
    strangest, that, at the very first of His miracles, a
    mother's fond pride should have so harshly broken in upon the
    Divine melody of His work, by striking a keynote so different
    from that, to which His life had been set; or that
    afterwards, in the height of his activity, loving fears, if
    not doubts, should have prompted her to interrupt, what
    evidently she had not as yet comprehended in the fulness of
    its meaning. Might we not rather have expected, that the
    Virgin-Mother from the inception of this Child's life would
    have understood, that He was truly the Son of God? The
    question, like so many others, requires only to be clearly
    stated, to find its emphatic answer. For. had it been so His
    history, His human life, of which every step is of such
    importance to mankind, would not have been possible. Apart
    from all thoughts of the deeper necessity, both as regarded
    His Mission and all the salvation of the world, of a true
    human development of gradual consciousness and personal life,
    Christ could not, in any true sense, have been subject to His
    Parents, if they had fully understood that He was Divine; nor
    could He, in that case, have been watched, as He 'grew in
    wisdon and in favour with God and men.' Such knowledge would
    have broken the bond of His Humanity to ours, by severing
    that which bound Him as a child to His mother. We could not
    have become His brethren, had He not been truly the Virgin's
    Son. The mystery of the Incarnation would have been needless
    and fruitless, had His humanity not been subject to all its
    right and ordinary conditions. And, applying the same
    principle more widely, we can thus, in some measure,
    understand why the mystery of His Divinity had to be kept
    while He was on earth. Had it been otherwise, the thought of
    His Divinity would have proved so all-absorbing, as to render
    impossible tthat of His Humanity, with all its lessons. The
    Son of God Most High, Whom they worshipped, could never have
    been the loving Man, with Whom they could hold such close
    converse. The bond which bound the Master to His disciples,
    the Son of Man to humanity, would have been dissolved; His
    teaching as a Man, the Inearnation, and the Tabernacling
    among men, in place of the former Old Testament Revelation
    from heaven, would have become wholly impossible. In short,
    one, and that the distinctive New Testament, element in our
    salvation would have been taken away. At the beginning of His
    life He would have anticipated the lessons of its end, nay,
    not those of His Death only, but of His Resurrection and
    Ascension, and of the coming of the Holy Ghost.

     In all this we have only been taking the subjective, not the
    objective, view of the question; considered the eartward, not
    the heavenward, aspect of His life. The latter, though very
    real, lies beyond our present horizon. Not so the question as
    to the development of the Virgin-Mother's spiritual
    knowledge. Assuming her to have occupied, in the fullest
    sense, the standpoint of Jewish Messianic expectancy, and
    remembering, also, that she was so 'highly favoured' of God,
    still, there was not as yet anything, nor could there be for
    many years, to lead her beyond what might be called the
    utmost height of Jewish belief. On the contrary, there was
    much connected with His true Humanity to keep her back. For
    narrow as, to our retrospective thinking, the boundary-line
    seems between Jewish belief and that in the hypostatic union
    of the two Natures, the passage from the one to the other
    represented such tremendous mental revolution, as to imply
    direct Divine teaching. [a 1 Cor. xii. 3] An illustrative
    instance willprove this better than argument. We read, in a
    commentary on the opening words of Gen. xv. 18, [b Ber. R.
    44, ed. Warsh. p. 81 b] that when God made the covenant with
    Abram, He 'revealed to him both this Olam (dispensation) and
    the Olam to come,' which latter expression is correctly
    explained as referring to the days of the Messiah. Jewish
    tradition, therefore, here asserts exactly what Jesus stated
    in these words: 'Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day;
    and he saw it, and was glad.' [e St. John viii. 56] Yet we
    know what storm of indignation the enunciation of it called
    forth among the Jews!

     Thus it was, that every event connected with the Messianic
    manifestation of Jesus would come to the Virgin-Mother as a
    fresh discovery and a new surprise. Each event, as it took
    place, stood isolated in her mind; not as part of a whole
    which she would anticipate, nor as only one link in a chain;
    but as something quite by itself. She knew the beginning, and
    she knew the end; but she knew not the path which led from
    the one to the other; and each step in it was a new
    revelation. Henceit was, tht she so carefully treasured in
    her heart every new fact, [d St. Luke ii. 19, 51] piecing
    each to the other, till she could read from it the great
    mystery that He, Whom Incarnate she had borne, was, indeed,
    the Son of the living God. And as it was natural, so it was
    well that it should be so. For, thus only could she truly,
    because self-unconsciously, as a Jewish woman and mother,
    fulfil all the requirements of the Law, alike as regarded
    herself and her Child
    The first of these was Circumcision, representing voluntary
    subjection to the conditions of the Law, and acceptance of
    the obligations, but also of the privileges, of the Covenant
    between God and Abraham and his seed. Any attempt to show the
    deep siginificance of such a rite in the case of Jesus, could
    only weaken the impression which the fact itself conveys. The
    ceremony took place, as in all ordinary circumstances, on the
    eight day, when the Child received the Angel-given name
    Jeshua (Jesus). Two other legal ordinances still remained to
    be observed. The firstbnorn son of every household was,
    according to the Law, to be 'redeemed' of the priest at the
    price of five shekels of the Sanctuary. [e Numb. xviii. 16]
    Rabbinic casuistry here added many needless, and even
    repulsive, details. The following, however, are of practical
    interest. The earliest period of presentation was thirty-one
    days after birth so as to make the legal month quite
    complete. The child must have been the firstborn of his
    mother (according to some writers, of his father also); [1 So
    Lundius, Jud. Alterth. p.621, and Buxtorf, Lex. Talmud. p.
    1699. But I am bound to say, that this seems contrary to the
    sayings of the Rabbis.] neither father nor mother [2 This
    disposes of the idea, that the Virgin-Mother was of direct
    Aaronic or Levitic descent.] must be of Levitic descent; and
    the child must be free from all such bodily blemishes as
    would have disqualified him for the priesthood, or, as it was
    expressed: 'the firstborn for the priesthood.' It was a thing
    much dreaded, that the child should die before his
    redemption; but if his father died in the interval, the child
    had to redeem himself when of age. As the Rabbinic law
    expressly states, that the shekels were to be of 'Tyrian
    weight,' [a Bechor viii. 7] the value of the 'redemption
    money' would amount to about ten or twelve shillings. The
    redemption could be made from any priest, and attendance in
    the Temple was not requisite. It was otherwise with the
    'purification' of the mother. [b Lev. xii.] The Rabbinicd law
    fixed this at forty-one days after the birth of a son, and
    eighty-one after that of a daughter, [3 Archdeacon Farrar is
    mistaken in supposing, that the 'thirty-three days' were
    counted 'after the circumcision.' The idea must have arisen
    from a misunderstanding of the English version of Lev. xii.
    4. There was no connection between the time of the
    circumcision of the child, and that of the purification of
    his mother. In certain circumstances circumcision might have
    to be delayed for days, in case of sickness, till recovery.
    It is equally a mistake to suppose, that a Jewish mother
    could not leave the house till after the forty days of her
    purification.] so as to make the Biblical terms quite
    complete. [c Comp. Sifra, ed. Weiss, p. 59 a and b;
    Maimonides, Yad haChaz. Hal.Mechusre Capp., ed. Amst., vol.
    iii. p. 255 a and b.] But it might take place any time later,
    notably, when attendance on any of the great feasts brought a
    family to Jerusalem. Thus, we read of cases when a mother
    would offer several sacrifices of purification at the same
    time. [4 Comp. Kerith. i. 7.] But, indeed, the woman was not
    required to be personally present at all, when her offering
    was presented, or, rather (as we shall see), provided for,
    say, by the representatives of the laity, who daily took part
    in the services for the various districts from which they
    came. This also is specially provided for in the Tulmud. [5
    Jer. Sheq. 50 b.] But mothers who were within convenient
    distanceof the Temple, and especially the more earnest among
    them, would naturally attend personally in the Temple; [6
    There is no ground whatever for the objection which Rabbi Low
    (Lebensalter, p. 112) raises against the account of St. Luke.
    Jewish documents only prove, that a mother need not
    personally attend in the Temple; not tht they did not do so,
    when attendance was possible. The contrary impression is
    conveyed to us by Jewish notices.] and in such cases, when
    practicable, the redemption of the firstborn, and the
    purification of his mother, would be combined. Such was
    undoubtedly the case with the Virgin-Mother and her Son.

     For this twofold purpose the Holy Family went up to the
    Temple, when the prescribed days were completed. [1 The
    expression cannot refer to the Purification of the Virgin and
    her Babe (Farrar), nor to that of the Virgin and Joseph
    (Meyer), because neither the Babe nor Joseph needed, nor were
    they included in, the purification. It can only refer to
    'their' (i.e. the Jews') purification. But this does not
    imply any Romish inferences (Sepp, Leben Jesu, ii. 1, p. 131)
    as to the superhuman condition or origin of the Blessed
    Virgin; on the contrary, the offering of the sin-offering
    points in the other direction.] The ceremony at the
    redemption of a firstborn son was, no doubt, more simple than
    that at present in use. It consisted of the formal
    presentation of the child to the priest, accompanied by two
    short 'benedictions', the one for the law of redemption money
    was paid. [2 Comp. the rubric and the prayers in Maimonides,
    Yad haChaz. Hilch. Biccur. xi. 5.] Most solemn, as in such a
    place, and remembering its symbolic significance as the
    expression of God's claim over each family in Israel, must
    this rite have been.

     As regards the rite at the purification of the mother, the
    scantiness of information has led to serious misstatements.
    Any comparison with our modern 'churching' of women [3 So Dr.
    Geikie.] is inapplicable, since the latter consists of
    thanksgiving, and the former primarily of a sin-offering for
    the Levitical defilement symbolically attaching to the
    beginning of life, and a burnt-offering, that marked the
    restoration of communion with God. Besides, as already
    stated, the sacrifice for purification might be brought in
    the absence of the mother. Similar mistakes prevail as to the
    rubric. It is not case, as generally stated, that the woman
    was sprinkled with blood, and then pronounced clean by the
    priest, or that prayers were offered on the occasion. [4 So
    Dr. Geikie, taking his account from Herzog's Real-Encykl. The
    mistake about the mother being sprinkled with sacrificial
    blood orginated with Lightfoot (Horae Hebr. on St. Luke ii.
    22). Later writers have followed the lead. Tamid v. 6, quoted
    by Lightfoot, refers only to the cleansing of the leper. The
    'prayers' supposed to be spoken, and the pronouncing clean by
    the priests, are the embellishments of later writers, for
    which Lightfoot is not responsible. The service simply
    consisted of the statutory sacrifice. This was what, in
    ecclesiastical language, was termed an offering oleh veyored,
    that is, 'ascending and descending,' according to the means
    of the offerer. The sin-offering was, in all cases, a
    turtle-dove or a young pigeon. But, while the more wealthy
    brought a lamb for a burnt-offering the poor might substitute
    for it a turtle-dove, or a young pigeon. [5 According to
    Sifra (Par. Tazria, Per. iv. 3): 'Whenever the sin-offering
    is changed, it precedes [as on ordinary occasions] the
    burnt-offering; but when the burnt-offering is changed [as on
    this occasion], it precedes the sin-offering.'] The ribric
    directed that the neck of the sin-offering was to be broken,
    but the head not wholly severed; that some of the blood
    should be sprinkled at the south-western angle of the altar,
    [1 But this precisespot was not matter of absolute necessity
    (Seb. vi. 2). Directions are given as to the manner in which
    the priest was to perform the sacrificial act.] below the red
    line, [2 Kinnim i. 1. If the sin-offering was a four-footed
    animal, the blood was sprinkled above the red line.] which
    ran round the middle of the altar, and that the rest should
    be poured out at the base of the altar. The whole of the
    flesh belonged to the priests, and had to be eaten within the
    enclosure of the Sanctuary. The rubric for the burnt-offering
    of a turtle-dove or a young pigeon was somewhat more
    intricate. [a Sebach. vi 5] The substitution of the latter
    for a young lamb was expressly designated 'the poor's
    offering.' And rightly so, since, while a lamb would probably
    cost about three shillings, the average value of a pair of
    turtle-doves, for both the sin-and burnt-offering, would be
    about eightpence, [b Comp. Kerith. i. 7] and on one occasion
    fell so low as twopence. The Temple-price of the meat-and
    drink-offerings was fixed once a month; and special officials
    instructed the intending offerers, and provided them with
    what was needed. [c Sheq. iv. 9] There was also a special
    'superintendent of turtle-doves and pigeons,' required for
    certain purifications, and the holder of that office is
    mentioned with praise in the Mishnah. [d Sheq. v. 1] Much,
    indeed, depended upon his uprightness. For, at any rate as
    regarded those who brought the poor's offering, the
    purchasers of pigeons or turtle-doves would, as a rule, have
    to deal with him. In the Court of the Women there were
    thirteen trumpet-shaped chests for pecuniary contributions,
    called 'trumpets.' [3 Comp. St. Matt. vi. 2. See 'The Temple
    and its Services,' & c. pp. 26, 27.] Into the third of these
    they who brought the poor's offering, like the Virgin-Mother,
    were to drop the price of the sacrifices which were needed
    for their purification. [4 Comp. Shekal. vi. 5, the
    Commentaries, and Jer. Shek. 50 b.] As we infer, [e Tosepht.
    Sheq. iii. 2] the superintending priest must have been
    stationed here, alike to inform the offerer of the price of
    the turtle-doves, and to see that all was in order. For, the
    offerer of the poor's offering would not require to deal
    directly with the sacrificing priest. At a certain time in
    the day this third chest was opened, and half of its contents
    applied to burnt, the other half to sin-offerings. Thus
    sacrifices were provided for a corresponding number of those
    who were to be purified, without either shaming the poor,
    needlessly disclosing the character of impurity, or causing
    unnecessary bustle and work. Though this mode of procedure
    could, of course, not be obligatory, it would, no doubt, be
    that generally followed.

     We can now, in imagination, follow the Virgin-Mother in the
    Temple. [1 According to Dr. Geikie, 'the Golden Gate at the
    head of the long flight of steps that led to the valley of
    the Kedron opened into the Court of the Women.' But there was
    no Golden Gate, neither was there any flight of steps into
    the valley of the Kedron, while between the Court of the
    Women and any outer gate (such as could have led into
    Kedron), the Court of the Gentiles and a colonnade must have
    intervened.] Her child had been given up to the Lord, and
    received back from Him. She had entered the Court of the
    Women, probably by the 'Gate of the Women, ' [2 Or else, 'the
    gate of the firstlings.' Comp. generally, 'The Temple, its
    Ministry and Services.'] on the north side, and deposited the
    price of her sacrifices in Trumpet No. 3, which was close to
    the raised dais or gallery where the women worshipped, apart
    from the men. And now the sound of the organ, which announced
    throughout the vast Temple-buildings that the incense was
    about to be kindled on the Golden Altar, summoned those who
    were to be purified. The chief of the ministrant
    lay-representatives of Israel on duty (the so-called
    'station-men') ranged those, who presented themselves before
    the Lord as offerers of special sacrifices, within the
    wickets on either side the great Nicanor Gate, at the top of
    the fifteen steps which led up from the Court of the Women to
    that of Israel. It was, as if they were to be brought nearest
    to the Sanctuary; as if theirs were to be specially the
    'prayers' that rose in the cloud of incense from the Golden
    Altar; as if for them specially the sacrifices were laid on
    the Altar of Burnt-offering; as if theirs was a larger share
    of the benediction which, spoken by the lips of the priests,
    seemed like Jehovah's answer to the prayers of the people;
    theirs especially the expression of joy symbolised in the
    drink-offering, and the hymn of praise whose Tris-Hagion
    filled the Temple. From where they stood they could see it
    all, [3 This they could not have done from the elevated
    platform on which they commonly worshipped.] share in it,
    rejoice in it. And now the general service was over, and only
    those remained who brought special sacrifices, or who
    lingered near them that had such, or whose loved abode was
    ever in the Temple. The purification-service, with such
    unspoken prayer and praise as would be the outcome of a
    grateful heart, [4 This is stated by the Rabbis to have been
    the object of the burnt-offering. That suggested for the
    sin-offering is too ridiculous to mention. The language used
    about the burnt-offering reminds us of that in the
    exhortation in the office for the 'Churching of Women': 'that
    she might be stirred up to give thanks to Almighty God, Who
    has delivered her from the pains and perils of childbirth
    which is matter of miracle.' (Comp. Hottingerus, Juris Hebr.
    Leges, ed. Tiguri, p. 233.)] was soon ended, and they who had
    shared in it were Levitically clean. Now all stain was
    removed, and, as the Law put it, they might again partake of
    sacred offerings.

     And in such sacred offering, better than any of which
    priest's family had ever partaken, was the Virgin-Mother
    immediately to share. It has been observed, that by the side
    of every humiliation connected with the Humanity of the
    Messiah, the glory of His Divinity was also made to shine
    forth. The coincidences are manifestly undesigned on the part
    of the Evangelic writers, and hence all the more striking.
    Thus, if he was born of the humble Maiden of Nazareth, an
    Angel announced His birth; if the Infant-Saviour was cradled
    in a manger, the shining host of heaven hymned His Advent.
    And so afterwards, if He hungered and was tempted in the
    wilderness, Angels ministered to Him, even as an Angel
    strengthened Him in the agony of the garden. If He submitted
    to baptism, the Voice and vision from heaven attested His
    Sonship; if enemies threatened. He could miraculously pass
    through them; if the Jews assailed, there was the Voice of
    God to glorify Him; if He was nailed to the cross, the sun
    craped his brightness, and earth quaked; if He was laid in
    the tomb, Angels kept its watches, and heralded His rising.
    And so, when now the Mother of Jesus, in her humbleness,
    could only bring the 'poor's offering,' the witness to the
    greatness of Him Whom she had borne was not wanting. A
    'eucharistic offering', so to speak, was brought, the record
    of which is the more precious that Rabbinic writings make no
    allusion to the existence of the party, whose representatives
    we here meet. Yet they were the true outcome of the spirit of
    the Old Testament, and, as such, at this time, the special
    recipients of the 'Spirit' of the Old Testament.

     The 'parents' of Jesus had brought Him into the Temple for
    presentation and redemption, when they were met by one, whose
    venerable figure must have been well known in the city and
    the Sanctuary. Simeon combined the three characteristics of
    Old Testament piety: 'Justice,' as regarded his relation and
    bearing to God and man; [1 Comp. Josephus, Ant. xii. 2. 5.]
    'fear of God,' [2 The expression, unquestionably refers to
    'fear of God.' Comp. Delitzsch, Hebr. Br. pp. 191, 192; and
    Grimm, Clavis N. T. p. 180 b.] in opposition to the boastful
    self-righteousness of Pharisaism; and, above all, longing
    expectancy of the near fulfilment of the great promises, and
    that in their spiritual import as 'the Consolation of
    Israel.' [3 The expression 'consolation,' for the great
    Messianic hope, whence the Messianic title of Menachem, is of
    very frequent occurence (so in the Targum on Isaiah and
    Jeremiah, and in many Rabbinical passages). Curiously enough,
    it is several times put into the mouth of a Simeon (Chag. 16
    b; Macc. 5 b; Shev. 34 a), although, of course, not the one
    mentioned by St. Luke. The suggestion, that the latter was
    the son of the great Hillel and the father of Gamaliel, St.
    Paul's teacher, though not impossible as regards time, is
    unsupported, though it does seem strange that the Mishnah has
    nothing to say about him: 'lo niscar bamishnah.'] The Holy
    Spirit was upon him; and by that same Spirit [1 The mention
    of the 'Holy Spirit,' as speaking to individuals, is frequent
    in Rabbinic writings. This, of course, does not imply their
    belief in the Personality of the Holy Spirit (comp. Bemidb.
    R. 15; 20; Midr. on Ruth ii. 9; Yalkut, vol. i. pp. 221 b and
    265 d).] the gracious Divine answer to his heart's longing
    had been communicated him. And now it was as had been
    promised him. Coming 'in the Spirit' into the Temple, just as
    His parents were bringing the Infant Jesus, he took Him into
    his arms, and burst into rapt thanksgiving. Now, indeed, had
    God fulfilled His word. He was not to see death, till he had
    seen the Lord's Christ. Now did his Lord 'dismiss' him 'in
    peace' [2 The Talmud (Ber.last page) has a curious conceit,
    to the effect that, in taking leave of a person, one ought to
    say: 'Go to peace,' not 'in peace' not), the former having
    been said by Jethro to Moses (Ex. iv. 18), on which he
    prospered; the latter by David to Absalom (2 Sam. xv. 9), on
    which he perished. On the other hand, on taking leave of a
    dead friend, we are to say 'Go in peace,' according to Gen.
    xv.15, and not 'Go to peace.'], release him [3 The
    expression, absolvere, liberare, demittere, is most graphic.
    It corresponds to the Hebrew, which is also used of death; as
    in regard to Simeon the Just, Menach. 109 b; comp. Ber. 17 a;
    Targum on Cant. i. 7.] in blessed comfort from work and
    watch, since he had actually seen that salvation, [4 Godet
    seems to strain the meaning of, when he renders it by the
    neuter of the adjective. It is frequently used in the LXX.
    for.] so long preparing for a waiting weary world: a glorious
    light, Whose rising would light up heathen darkness, and be
    the outshining glory around Israel's mission. With this
    Infant in his arms, it was as if he stood on the
    mountain-height of prophetic vision, and watched the golden
    beams of sunrise far away over the isles of the Gentiles, and
    then gathering their full glow over his own beloved land and
    people. There was nothing Judiac, quite the contrary: only
    what was of the Old Testament, in what he first said. [a St.
    Luke ii. 29-32.]

     But his unexpected appearance, the more unexpected deed and
    words, and that most unexpected form in which what was said
    of the Infant Christ was presented to their minds, filled the
    hearts of His parents with wonderment. And it was, as if
    their silent wonderment had been an unspoken question, to
    which the answer now came in words of blessing from the aged
    watche. Mystic they seemed, yet prophetic. But now it was the
    personal, or rather the Judaic, aspect which, in broken
    utterances, was set before the Virgin-Mother, as if the whole
    history of the Christ upon earth were passing in rapid vision
    before Simeon. That Infant, now again in the Virgin-Mother's
    arms: It was to be a stone of decision; a foundation and
    corner-stone, [b Is. viii. 14.] for fall or for uprising; a
    sign spoken against; the sword of deep personal sorrow would
    pierce the Mother's heart; and so to the terrible end, when
    the veil of externalism which had so long covered the hearts
    of Israel's leaders would be rent, and the deep evil of their
    thoughts [1 generally used in an evil sense.] laid bare.
    Such, as regarded Israel, was the history of Jesus, from His
    Baptism to the Cross; and such is still the history of Jesus,
    as ever present to the heart of the believing, loving Church.

     Nor was Simeon's the only hymn of praise on that day. A
    special interest attaches to her who, coming that very
    moment, responded in praise to God [2 The verb may mean
    responsive praise, or simply praise which in this case,
    however, would equally be 'in response' to that of Simeon,
    whether responsive in form or not.] for the pledge she saw of
    the near redemption. A kind of mystery seems to invest this
    Anna (Channah). A widow, whose early desolateness had been
    followed by a long life of solitary mourning; one of those in
    whose home the tribal genealogy had been preserved. [3 The
    whole subject of 'genealogies' is briefly, but well treated
    by Hamburger, Real Encykl., section ii. pp. 291 &c. It is a
    pity, that Hamburger so often treats his subject from a
    Judaeo-apologetic standpoint.] We infer from this, and from
    the fact that it was that of a tribe which had not returned
    to Palestine, that hers was a family of some distinction.
    Curiously enough, the tribe of Asher alone is celebrated in
    tradition for the beauty of its women, and their fitness to
    be wedded to High-Priest or King. [a Bar. R. 71, ed. Warsh.p.
    131 b end; 99. p. 179 a, lines 13 and 12 from bottom.]

     But Anna had better claim to distinction than
    family-descent, or long, faithful memory of brief home-joys.
    These many years she had spent in the Sanctuary, [4 It is
    scarcely necessary to discuss the curious suggestion, that
    Anna actually lived in the Temple. No one, least of all a
    woman, permanently resided in the Temple, though the High
    Priest had chambers there.] and spent in fasting and prayer,
    yet not of that self-righteous, self-satisfied kind which was
    of the essence of popular religion. Nor, as to the Pharisees
    around, was it the Synagogue which was her constant and loved
    resort; but the Temple, with its symbolic and unspoken
    worship, which Rabbinic self-assertion and rationalism were
    rapidly superseding, and for whose services, indeed,
    Rabbinism could find no real basis. Nor yet were 'fasting and
    prayer' to her the all-in-all of religion, sufficient in
    themselves; sufficient also before God. Deepest in her soul
    was longing waiting for the 'redemption' promised, and now
    surely nigh. To her widowed heart the great hope of Israel
    appeared not so much, as to Simeon, in the light of
    'consolation,' as rather in that of 'redemption.' The
    seemingly hopeless exile of her own tribe, the political
    state of Judaea, the condition, social, moral, and religious,
    of her own Jerusalem: all kindled in her, as in those who
    were like-minded, deep, earnest longing for the time of
    promised 'redemption.' No place so suited to such an one as
    the Temple, with its services, the only thing free, pure,
    undefiled, and pointing forward and upward; no occupation so
    befitting as 'fasting and prayer.' And, blessed be God, there
    were others, perhaps many such, in Jerusalem. Though Rabbinic
    tradition ignored them, they were the salt which preserved
    the mass from festering corruption. To her as the
    representative, the example, friend, and adviser of such, was
    it granted as prophetess to recognise Him, Whose Advent had
    been the burden of Simeon's praise. And, day by day, to those
    who looked for redemption in Jerusalem, would she speak of
    Him Whom her eyes had seen, though it must be in whispers and
    with bated breath. For they were in the city of Herod, and
    the stronghold of Pharisaism.

 FROM THE MANGER IN BETHLEHEM TO THE BAPTISM IN JORDAN

    THE VISIT AND HOMAGE OF THE MAGI, AND THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT

    CHAPTER VIII

     (St. Matt. ii. 1-8.) With the Presentation of the Infant
    Saviour in the Temple, and His acknowledgement, not indeed by
    the leaders of Israel, but, characteristically, by the
    representatives of those earnest men and women who looked for
    His Advent, the Prologue, if such it may be called, to the
    third Gospel closes. From whatever source its information was
    derived, perhaps, as has been suggested, its earlier portion
    from the Virgin-Mother, the later from Anna; or else both
    alike from her, who with loving reverence and wonderment
    treasured it all in her heart its marvellous details could
    not have been told with greater simplicity, nor yet with more
    exquisitely delicate grace. [1 It is scarcely necessary to
    point out, how evidential this is of the truthfulness of the
    Gospel-narrative. In this respect also the so-called
    Apocryphal Gospels, with their gross and often repulsive
    legendary adornments, form a striking contrast. I have
    purposely abstained from reproducing any of these narratives,
    partly because previous writers have done so, and partly
    because the only object served by repeating, what must so
    deeply shock the Christian mind, would be to point the
    contrast between the canonical and the Apocryphal Gospels.
    But this can, I think, be as well done by a single sentence,
    as by pages of quotations.] On the other hand, the Prologue
    to the first Gospel, while omitting these, records other
    incidents of the infancy of the Saviour. The plan of these
    narratives, or the sources whence they may originally have
    been derived, may account for the omissions in either case.
    At first sight it may seem strange, that the cosmopolitan
    Gospel by St. Luke should have described what took place in
    the Temple, and the homage of the Jews, while the Gospel by
    St. Matthew, which was primarily intended for Hebrews,
    records only the homage of the Gentiles, and the
    circumstances which led to the flight into Egypt. But of such
    seeming contrasts there are not a few in the Gospel-history,
    discords, which soon resolve themselves into glorious
    harmony.

     The story of the homage to the Infant Saviour by the Magi is
    told by St. Matthew, in language of which the brevity
    constitutes the chief difficulty. Even their designation is
    not free from ambiguity. The term Magi is used in the LXX.,
    by Philo, Josephus, and by profane writers, alike in an evil
    and, so to speak, in a good sense [1 The evidence on this
    point is furnished by J. G. Miller in Herzog's Real-Enc.,
    vol. viii. p. 682. The whole subject of the visit of the Magi
    is treated with the greatest ability and learning (as agaisnt
    Strauss) by Dr. Mill ('On the Mythical Interpretation of the
    Gospels,' part ii. pp. 275 &c.).], in the former case as
    implying the practice of magical arts; [a So also in Acts
    viii. 9; xiii. 6, 8.] in the latter, as referring to the
    those Eastern (especially Chaldee) priest-sages, whose
    researches, in great measure as yet mysterious and unknown to
    us, seem to have embraced much deep knowledge, though not
    untinged with superstition. It is dsto these latter, that the
    Magi spoken of by St. Matthew must have belonged. Their
    number, to which, however, no importance attaches, cannot be
    ascertained. [2 They are variously stated as twelve (Aug.
    Chrysost.) and three, the latter on account of the number of
    the gifts. Other legends on the subject need not be
    repeated.] Various suggestions have been made as to the
    country of 'the East,' whence they came. At the period in
    question the sacerdotal caste of the Medes and Persians was
    dispersed over various parts of the East, [3 Mill, u. s., p.
    303.] and the presence in those lands of a large
    Jewishdiaspora, through which they might, and probably would,
    gain knowleded of the great hope of Israel, [4 There is no
    historical evidence that at the time of Christ there was
    among the nations any widespread expectancy of the Advent of
    a Messiah in Palestine. Where the knowledge of such a hope
    existed, it must have been entirely derived from Jewish
    sources. The allusions to it by Tacitus (Hist. v. 13) and
    Suetonius (Vesp. 4) are evidently derived from Josephus, and
    admittedly refer to the Flavian dynasty, and to a period
    seventy years or more after the Advent of Christ. 'The
    splendid vaticination in the Fourth Eclogue of Virgil,' which
    Archdeacon Farrar regards as among the 'unconscious
    prophecies of heathendom,' is confessedly derived from the
    Cumaean Sibyl, and based on the Sibylline Oracles, book iii.
    lines 784-794 (ed. Friedlieb, p. 86; see Einl. p. xxxix.).
    Almost the whole of book iii., inclusive of these verses, is
    of Jewish authorship, and dates probably from about 160 B.C.
    Archdeacon Farrar holds that, besides the above references,
    'there is ample proof, both in Jewish and Pagan writings,
    that a guilty and weary world was dimly expecting the advent
    of its Deliverer.' But he offers no evidence of it, either
    from Jewish or Pagan writings.] is sufficiently attested by
    Jewish history. The oldest opinion traces the Magi, though
    partially on insufficient grounds [5 Comp. Mill, u.s., p.
    308, note 66. The grounds adduced by some are such references
    as to Is. viii. 4; Ps. lxxii. 10, &c.; and the character of
    the gifts.] to Arabia. And there is this in favor of it, that
    not only the closest intercourse existed between century fo
    our ear, the but that from about 120 B.C. to the sixth
    century of our ear, the kings of Yemen professed the Jewish
    faith. [6 Comp. the account of this Jewish monarchy in the
    'History of the Jewish Nation,' pp. 67-71; also Remond's
    Vers. e. Gesch. d. Ausbreit. d. Judenth. pp. 81 &c.; and
    Jost, Gesch. d. Isr. vol. v. pp. 236 &c.] For if, on the one
    hand, it seems unlikely, that Eastern Magi would
    spontaneously connect a celestial phenomenon with the birth
    of a Jewish king, evidence will, on the other hand, be
    presented to connect the meaning attached to the appearance
    of 'the star' at that particular time with Jewish expectancy
    of the Messiah. But we are anticipating.
     Shortly after the Presentation of the Infant Saviour in the
    Temple, certain Magi from the East arrived in Jerusalem with
    strange tidings. They had seen at its 'rising' [1 This is the
    correct rendering,and not, as in A.V., 'in the East,' the
    latter being expressed by the plural of, in v. 1, while in
    vv. 2 and 9 the word is used in the singular.] a sidereal
    appearance, [2 Schleusner has abundantly proved that the
    word, though primarily meaning a star, is also used of
    constellations, meteors, and comets, in short, has the widest
    application: 'omne designare, quod aliquem splendorem habet
    et emitit' (Lex. in N.T., t. i. pp. 390, 391).] which they
    regarded as betokening the birthof the Missiah King of the
    Jews, in the sense which at the time attached to that
    designation. Accordingly, they had come to Jerusalem to pay
    homage [3 Not, as in the A.V., 'to worship,' which at this
    stage of the history would seem most incongruous, but as an
    equivalent of the Hebrew, as in Gen. xix. 1. So often in the
    LXX. and by profane writers (comp. Scheleusner, u. s., t. ii.
    pp. 749, 750, and Vorstius, De Hebraismis N.T. pp. 637-641).]
    to Him, probably not because they imagined He must be born in
    the Jewish capital [4 This is the view generally, but as I
    think erroneously, entertained. Any Jew would have told them,
    that the Messiah was not to be born in Jerusalem. Besides,
    the question of the Magi implies their ignorance of the
    'where' of the Messiah.] but because they would naturally
    expect there to obtain authentic information, 'where' He
    might be found. In their simplicity of heart, the Magi
    addressed themselves in the first place to the official head
    of the nation. The rumor of such an inquiry, and by such
    persons, would rapidly spread throughout the city. But it
    produced on King Herod, and in the capital, a far different
    impression from the feeling of the Magi. Unscrupulously cruel
    as Herod had always proved, even the slightest suspicion of
    danger to his rule, the bare possibility of the Advent of
    One, Who had such claims upon the allegiance of Israel, and
    Who, if acknowledged, would evoke the most intense movement
    on their part, must have struck terror to his heart. Not that
    he could believe the tidings, though a dread of their
    possibility might creep over a nature such as Herod's; but
    the bare thought of a Pretender, with such claims, would fill
    him with suspicion, apprehension, and impotent rage. Nor is
    it difficult to understand, that the whole city should,
    although on different grounds, have shared the 'trouble' of
    the king. It was certainly not, as some have suggested, from
    apprehension of 'the woes' which, according to popular
    notions, were to accompany the Advent of Messiah. Throughout
    the history of Christ the absence of such 'woes' was never
    made a ground of objection to His Messianic claims; and this,
    because these 'woes' were not associated with the first
    Advent of the Messiah, but with His final manifestation in
    power. And between these two periods a more or less long
    interval was supposed to intervene, during which the Messiah
    would be 'hidden,' either in the literal sense, or perhaps as
    to His power, or else in both respects. [1 Christian writers
    on these subjects have generally conjoined the so-called
    'woes of the Messiah' with His first appearance. It seems not
    to have occured to them, that, if such had been the Jewish
    expectation, a preliminary objection would have lain against
    the claims of Jesus from their absence.] This enables us to
    understand the question of the disciples, as to the sign of
    His coming and the end of the world, and the answer of the
    Master. [a As reported in St. Matt. xxiv. 3-29]But the people
    of Jerusalem had far other reason to fear. They knew only too
    well the character of Herod, and what the consequences would
    be to them, or to any one who might be suspected, however
    unjustly, of sympathy with any claimant to the royal throne
    of David. [2 Their feelings on this matterwould be
    represented, mutatis mutandis, by the expressions in the
    Sanhedrin, recorded in St.
     John xi. 47-50.]

     Herod took immediate measures, characterised by his usual
    cunning. He called together all the High-Priest, past and
    present, and all the learned Rabbis, [3 Both Meyer and Weiss
    have shown, that this was not a meeting of the Sanhedrin, if,
    indeed, that body had anything more than a shadowy existence
    during the reign of Herod.] and, without committing himself
    as to whether the Messiah was already born, or only expected,
    [4 The question propounded by Herod (v. 4), 'where Christ
    should be born,' is put neither in the past nor in the
    future, but in the present tense. In other words, he laid
    before them a case, a theological problem, but not a fact,
    either past or future. simply propounded to them the question
    of His birthplace. This would show him where Jewish
    expectancy looked for the appearance of his rival, and thus
    enable him to watch alike that place and the people
    generally, while it might possibly bring to light the
    feelings of the leaders of Israel. At the same time he took
    care diligently to inquire the precise time, when the
    sidereal appearance had first attracted the attention of the
    Magi. [b St. Matt. ii. 7.] This would enable him to judge,
    how far back he would have to make his own inquiries, since
    the birth of the Pretender might be made to synchronise with
    the earliest appearance of the sidereal phenomenon. So long
    as any one lived, who was born in Bethlehem between the
    earliest appearance of this 'star' and the time of the
    arrival of the Magi, he was not safe. The subsequent conduct
    of Herod [c v. 16.] shows, that the Magi must have told him,
    that their earliest observation of the sidereal phenomenon
    had taken place two years before their arrival in Jerusalem.

     The assembled authorities of Israel could only return one
    answer to the question submitted by Herod. As shown by the
    rendering of the Targum Jonathan, the prediction in Micah v.
    2 was at the time universally understood as pointing to
    Bethlehem, as the birthplace of the Messiah. That such was
    the general expectation, appears from the Talmud, [a Jer.
    Ber. ii. 4, p. 5 a.] where, in an imaginary conversation
    between an Arab and a Jew, Bethlehem is authoritatively named
    as Messiah's birthplace. St. Matthew reproduces the prophetic
    utterance of Micah, exactly as such quotations were popularly
    made at that time. It will be remembered that, Hebrew being a
    dead language so far as the people were concerned, the Holy
    Scriptures were always translated into the popular dialect,
    the person so doing being designated Methurgeman (dragoman)
    or interpreter. These renderings, which at the time of St.
    Matthew were not yet allowed to be written down, formed the
    precedent for, if not the basis of, our later Targum. In
    short, at that time each one Targumed for himself, and these
    Targumind (as our existing one on the Prophets shows) were
    neither literal versions, [1 In point of fact, the Talmud
    expressly lays it down, that 'whosoever targums a verse in
    its closely literal form [without due regard to its meaning],
    is a liar.' (Kidd. 49 a; comp. on the subject Deutsch's
    'Literary Remains,'p. 327).] nor yet paraphrases, but
    something between them, a sort of interpreting translation.
    That, when Targuming, the New Testament writers should in
    preference make use of such a well-known and widely-spread
    version as the Translation of the LXX. needs no explanation.
    That they did not confine themselves to it, but, when it
    seemed necessary, literally or Targumically rendered a verse,
    appears from the actual quotations in the New Testament. Such
    Targuming of the Old Testament was entirely in accordance
    with the then universal method of setting Holy Scripture
    before a popular audience. It is needless to remark, that the
    New Testament writers would Targum as Christians. These
    remarks apply not only to the case under immediate
    consideration, [b St. Matt. ii. 6.] but generally tothe
    quotations from the Old Testament in the New. [2 The general
    pinciple, that St. Matthew rendered Mic. v. 2 targumically,
    would, it seems, cover all the differences between his
    quotation and the Hebrew text. But it may be worth while, in
    this instance at least, to examine the differences in detail.
    Two of them are trivial, viz., 'Bethlehem, land of Juda,'
    instead of 'Ephratah;' 'princes' instead of 'thousands,'
    though St. Matthew may, possibly, have pointed ('princes'),
    instead of as in our Hebrew text. Perhaps he rendered the
    word more correctly than we do, since means not only a
    'thousand' but also a part of a tribe (Is. lx. 22), a clan,
    or Beth Abh (Judg. vi. 15); comp. also Numb. i. 16; x. 4, 36;
    Deut. xxxiii. 17; Josh. xxii. 21, 30; i Sam. x. 19; xxiii.
    23; in which case the personification of these 'thousands'
    (=our 'hundreds') by their chieftains or 'princes' would be a
    very apt Targumic rendering. Two other of the divergences are
    more important, viz., (1) 'Art not the least,' instead of
    'though thou be little.' But the Hebrew words have also been
    otherwise rendered: in the Syriac interrogatively ('art thou
    little?'), which suggests the rendering of St. Matthew; and
    in the Arabic just as by St. Matthew (vide Pocock, Porta
    Mosis, Notae, c. ii.; but Pocock does not give the Targum
    accurately). Credner ingeniously suggested, that the
    rendering of St. Matthew may have been caused by a Targumic
    rendering of the Hebrew but he does not seem to have noticed,
    that this is the actual rendering in the Targum Jon. on the
    passage. As for the second and more serious divergence in the
    latter part of the verse, it may be best here simply to give
    for comparison the rendering of the passage in the Targum
    Jonathan: 'Out of thee shall come forth before Me Messiah to
    exercise rule over Israel.']

     The further conduct of Herod was in keeping with his plans.
    He sent for the Magi, for various reasons, secretly. After
    ascertaining the precise time, when they had first observed
    the 'star,' he directed them to Bethlehem, with the request
    to inform him when they had found the Child; on pretence,
    that he was equally desirous with them to pay Him homage. As
    they left Jerusalem [1 Not necessarily by night,as most
    writers suppose.] for the goal of their pilgrimage, to their
    surprise and joy, the 'star,' which had attracted their
    attention at its 'rising,' [2 So correctly, and not 'in the
    East,' as in A.V.] and which, as seems implied in the
    narrative, they had not seen of late, once more appeared on
    the horizon, and seemed to move before them, till 'it stood
    over where the young child was', that is, of course, over
    Bethlehem, not over any special house in it. Whether at a
    turn of the road, close to Bethlehem, they lost sight of it,
    or they no longer heeded its position, since it had seemed to
    go before them to the goal that had been pointed out, for,
    surely, they needed not the star to guide them to Bethlehem,
    or whether the celestial phenomenon now disappeared, is
    neither stated in the Gospel-narrative, nor is indeed of any
    importance. Sufficient for them, and for us: they had been
    auhoritatively directed to Bethlehem; as they had set out for
    it, the sidereal phenomenon had once more appeared; and it
    had seemed to go before them, till it actually stood over
    Bethlehem. And, since in ancient times such extraordinary
    'guidance' by a 'star' was matter of belief and expectancy,
    [3 Proof of this is abundantly furnished by Wetstein, Nov.
    Test. t. i. pp. 247 and 248] the Magi would, from their
    standpoint, regard it as the fullest confirmation that they
    had been rightly directed to Bethlehem, and 'they rejoiced
    with exceeding great joy.' It could not be difficult to learn
    in Bethlehem, where the Infant, around Whose Birth marvels
    had gathered, might be found. It appears that the temporary
    shelter of the 'stable' had been exchanged by the Holy Family
    for the more permanent abode of a 'house;' [a v. 11] and
    there the Magi found the Infant-Saviour with His Mother. With
    exquisite tact and reverence the narrative attempts not the
    faintest description of the scene. It is as if the sacred
    writer had fully entered into the spirit of St. Paul, 'Yea,
    though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now
    henceforth know we Him no more.' [a 2 Cor. v 16] And thus it
    should ever be. It is the great fact of the manifestation of
    Christ, not its outward surroundings, however precious or
    touching they might be in connection with any ordinary
    earthly being, to which our gaze must be directed. The
    externals may, indeed, attract our sensuous nature; but they
    detract from the unmatched glory of the great supersensuous
    Reality. [1 In this seems to lie the strongest condemnation
    of Romish and Romanising tendencies, that they ever seek to
    present, or, perhaps, rather obtrude, the external
    circumstances. It is not thus that the Gospel most fully
    presents to us the spiritual, nor yet thus that the deepest
    and holiest impressions are made. True religion is ever
    objectivistic, sensuous subjectivistic.] Around the Person of
    the God-Man, in the hour when the homage of the heathen world
    was first offered Him, we need not, and want not, the drapery
    of outward circumstances. That scene is best realized, not by
    description, but by silently joining in the silent homage and
    the silent offerings of 'the wise men from the East.'

     Before proceeding further, we must ask ourselves two
    questions: What relationship does this narrative bear to
    Jewish expectancy? and, Is there any astronomical
    confirmation of this account? Besides their intrinsic
    interest, the answer to the first question will determine,
    whether any legendary basis could be assigned to the
    narrative; while on the second will depend, whether the
    account can be truthfully charged with an accommodation on
    the part of God to the superstitions and errors of astrology.
    For, if the whole was extranatural, and the sidereal
    appearance specially produced in order to meet the
    astrological views of the Magi, it would not be a sufficient
    answer to the difficulty, 'that great catastrophes and
    unusual phenomena in nature have synchronised in a remarkable
    manner with sidereal appearance was not of supernatural
    origin, and would equally have taken place whether or not
    there had been Magi to direct to Bethlehem, the difficulty is
    not only entirely removed, but the narrative affords another
    instance, alike of the condescension of God to the lower
    standpoint of the Magi, and of His wisdom and goodness in the
    combination of circumstances.

     As regards the question of Jewish expectancy, sufficient has
    been said in the preceding pages, to show that Rabbinism
    looked for a very different kind and manner of the world's
    homage to the Messiah than that of a few Magi, guided by a
    star to His Infant-Home. Indeed, so far from serving as
    historical basis for the orgin of such a 'legend' a more
    gross caricature of Jewish Messianic anticipation could
    scarcely be imagined. Similarly futile would it be to seek a
    background for this narrative in Balaam's prediction, [a
    Numb. xxiv. 17] since it is incredible that any one could
    have understood it as referring to a brief sidereal
    apparition to a few Magi, in order to bring them to look for
    the Messiah. [1 Strauss (Leben Jesu, i. pp. 224-249) finds a
    legendary basis for the Evangelic account in Numb. xxiv. 17,
    and also appeals to the legendary stories of profane writers
    about stars appearing at the birth of great men.] Nor can it
    be represented as intended to fulfil the prophecy of Isaiah,
    [b lx. 6 last clauses] [2 Keim (Jesu von Nazara, i. 2, p.
    377) drops the appeal to legends of profane writers, ascribes
    only a secondary influence to Numb. xxiv. 17, and lays the
    main stress of 'the legend' on Is. lx., with what success the
    reader may judge.] that 'they shall bring gold and incense,
    and they shall show forth the praises of the Lord.' For,
    supposing this figurative language to have been grossly
    literalised, [3 Can it be imagined thatany person would
    invent such a 'legend' on the strength of Is. lx. 6? On the
    other hand, if the event really took place, it is easy to
    understand how Christian symbolism would, though
    uncritically, have seen an adumbration of it in that
    prophecy.] what would become of the other part of that
    prophecy, [4 The 'multitude of camels and dromedaries,' the
    'flocks of Kedar and the rams of Nebaioth' (v. 7), and 'the
    isles,' and 'the ships of Tarshish' (v. 9).] which must, of
    course, have been treated in the same manner; not to speak of
    the fact, that the whole evidently refers not to the Messiah
    (least of all in His Infancy), but to Jerusalem in her
    latter-day glory. Thus, we fail to perceive any historical
    basis for a legendary origin of St. Matthew's narrative,
    either in the Old Testament or, still less, in Jewish
    tradition. And we are warranted in asking: If the account be
    not true, what rational explanation can be given of its
    origin, since its invention would never have occurred to any
    contemporary Jew?

     But this is not all. There seems, indeed, no logical
    connection between this astrological interpretation of the
    Magi, and any supposed practice of astrology among the Jews.
    Yet, strange to say, writers have largely insisted on this.
    [5 The subject of Jewish astrology is well treated by Dr.
    Hamburger, both in the first and second volumes of his
    Real-Encykl. The ablest summary, though brief, is that in Dr.
    Gideon Brecher's book, 'Das Transcendentale im Talmud.'
    Gfrorer is, as usually, one-sided, and not always trustworthy
    in his translations. A curious brochure by Rabbi Thein (Der
    Talmud, od. das Prinzip d. planet. Elinfl.) is one of the
    boldest attempts at special pleading, to the ignoration of
    palpable facts on the other side. Hausrath's dicta on this
    subject are, as on many others, assertions unsupported by
    historical evidence.] The charge is, to say the least,grossly
    exaggerated. That Jewish, as other Eastern, impostors
    pretended to astrological knowledge, and that such
    investigations may have been secretly carried on by certain
    Jewish students, is readily admitted. But the language of
    disapproval in which these pursuits are referred to, such as
    that knowledge of the Law is not found with astrologers [a
    Deb. R. 8,] and the emphatic statement, that he who learned
    even one thing from a Mage deserved death, show what views
    were authoritatively held. [b Comp. Shabb. 75 a] [1 I cannot,
    however, see that Buxtorf charges so many Rabbis with giving
    themselves to astrology as Dr. Geikie imputes to him, nor how
    Humboldt can be quoted as corroborating the Chinese record of
    the appearance of a new star in 750 (see the passage in the
    Cosmos, Engl. transl. vol. i. pp. 92, 93).] Of course, the
    Jews (or many of them), like most ancients, believed in the
    influence of the planets upon the destiny of man. [c See for
    ex. Jos. Warvi. 5. 3] But it was a principle strongly
    expressed, and frequently illustrated in the Talmud, that
    such planetary influence did not extend to Israel. [d Shabb.
    156 a] It mustbe admitted, that this was not always
    consistently carried out; and there were Rabbis who computed
    a man's future from the constellation (the Mazzal), either of
    the day, or the hour, under which he was born. [e Shabb,It
    was supposed, that some persons had a star of their own, [f
    Moed K. 16 a] andthe (representative) stars of all proselytes
    were said to have been present at Mount Sinai. Accordingly,
    they also, like Israel, had lost the defilement of the
    serpent (sin). [g Shabb. 145 b; 146 a comp. Yeb. 103 b] One
    Rabbi even had it, that success, wisdom, the duration of
    life, and a posterity, depended upon the constellation. [h
    Moed K. 28 a] Such views were carried out till they merged in
    a kind of fatalism, [i Comp. Baba K. 2 b; Shabb. 121 b] or
    else in the idea of a 'natalaffinity,' by which persons born
    under the same constellation were thought to stand in
    sympathetic rapport. [k Ned. 39 b] The further statement,
    that conjunctions of the planets [2 Jewish astronomy
    distinguishes the seven planets (called 'wandering stars');
    the twelve signs of the Zodiac, Mazzaloth (Aries, Taurus,
    Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius,
    Capricornus, Aquarius, Pisces), arranged by astrologers into
    four trigons: that of fire (1, 5, 9); of earth (2, 6, 10); of
    air (3, 7, 11); and of water (4, 8, 12); and the stars. The
    Kabbalistic book Raziel (dating from the eleventh century)
    arranges them into three quadrons. The comets, which are
    called arrows or star-rods, proved a great difficulty to
    students. The planets (in their order) were: Shabbathai (the
    Sabbatic, Saturn); Tsedeq (righteousness, Jupiter); Maadim
    (the red, blood-coloured, Mars); Chammah (the Sun); Nogah
    (splendour, Venus); Cokhabh (the star, Mercury); Lebhanah
    (the Moon). Kabbalistic works depict our system as a circle,
    the lower arc consisting of Oceanos, and the upper filled by
    the sphere of the earth; next comes that of the surrounding
    atmosphere; then successively the seven semicircles of the
    planets, each fitting on the other, to use the Kabbalistic
    illustration, like the successive layers in an onion (see
    Sepher Raziel, ed. Lemb. 1873, pp. 9 b, 10 a). Day and night
    were divided each into twelve hours (from 6 A.M. to 6 P.M.,
    and from 6 P.M. to 6 A.M.). Each hour was under the influence
    of successive planets: thus, Sunday, 7 A.M., the Sun; 8 A.M.,
    Venus; 9 A.M., Mercury; 10 A.M., Moon; 11 A.M., Saturn; 12
    A.M., Jupiter, and so on. Similary, we have for Monday, 7
    A.M., the Moon, &c.; for Tuesday, 7 A.M., Mars; for
    Wednesday, 7 A.M., Mercury; for Thursday, 7 A.M., Jupiter;
    for Friday, 7 A.M., Venus; and for Saturday, 7 A.M., Saturn.
    Most important were the Tequphoth, in which the Sun entered
    respectively Aries (Tek. Nisan, spring-equinox, 'harvest'),
    Cancer (Tek. Tammuz, summer solstice, 'warmth'), Libra (Tek.
    Tishri, autumn-equinox, seed-time), Capricornus (Tek.
    Tebheth, winter-solstice, 'cold'). Comp. Targ. Pseudo-Jon. on
    Gen. viii. 22. From one Tequphah to the other were 91 days
    71/2 hours. By a beautiful figure the sundust is called
    'filings of the day' (as the word, that which falls off from
    the sunwheel as it turns (Yoma 20 b). affected the products
    of the earth [a Erub. 56 a: Ber. R. 10.] is scarcely
    astrological; nor perhaps this, that an eclipse of the sun
    betokened evil to the nations, an eclipse of the moon to
    Israel, because the former calculated time by the sun, the
    latter by the moon.

     But there is one illustrative Jewish statement which, though
    not astrological, is of the greatest importance, although it
    seems to have been hitherto overlooked. Since the appearance
    of Munter's well known tractate on the Star of the Magi, [1
    'Der Stern der Weisen, 'Copenhagen, 1827. The tractate,
    though so frequently quoted, seems scarcely to have been
    sufficiently studied, most writers having apparently rather
    read the references to it in Ideler's Handb. d. Math. u
    techn. Chronol. Munter's work contains much that is
    interesting and important. writers have endeavoured to show,
    that Jewish expectancy of a Messiah was connected with a
    peculiar sidereal conjunction, such as that which occurred
    two years before the birth of our Lord, [b In 747 A.U.C., or
    7 B.C.] and this on the ground of a quotation from the
    well-known Jewish commentator Abarbanel (or rather
    Abrabanel). [c Born 143 died 1508.] In his Commentary on
    Daniel that Rabbi laid it down, that the conjunction of
    Jupiter and Saturn in the constellation Pisces betokened not
    only the most important events, but referred especially to
    Israel (for which he gives five mystic reasons). He further
    argues that, as that conjunction had taken place three years
    before the birth of Moses, which heralded the first
    deliverance of Israel, so it would also precede the birth of
    the Messiah, and the final deliverance of Israel. But the
    argument fails, not only because Abarbanel's calculations are
    inconclusive and even erroneous, [2 To form an adequate
    conception of the untrustworthiness of such a testimony, it
    is necessary to study the history of the astronomical and
    astrological pursuits of the Jews during that period, of
    which a masterly summary is given in Steinschneider's History
    of Jewish Literature (Ersch u. Gruber, Encykl. vol. xxvii.).
    Comp. also Sachs, Relig. Poes. d. Juden in Spanien, pp. 230
    &c.] but because it is manifestly unfair to infer the state
    of Jewish belief at the time of Christ from a haphazard
    astrological conceit of a Rabbi of the fifteenth century.
    There is, however, testimony which seems to us not only
    reliable, but embodies most ancient Jewish tradition. It is
    contained in one of the smaller Midrashim, of which a
    collection has lately been published. [3 ByDr. Jellinek, in a
    work in six parts, entitled 'Beth ha-Midrash,' Leipz, and
    Vienna, 1853-1878.] On account of its importance, one
    quotation at least from it should be made in full. The
    so-called Messiah-Haggadah (Aggadoth Mashiach) opens as
    follows: 'A star shall come out of Jacob. There is a Boraita
    in the name of the Rabbis: The heptad in which the Son of
    David cometh, in the first year, there will not be sufficient
    nourishment; in the second year the arrows of famine are
    launched; in the third, a great famine; in the fourth,
    neither famine nor plenty; in the fifth, great abundance, and
    the Star shall shine forth from the East, and this is the
    Star of the Messiah. And it will shine from the East for
    fifteen days, and if it be prolonged, it will be for the good
    of Israel; in the sixth, sayings (voices), and announcements
    (hearings); in the seventh, wars, and at the close of the
    seventh the Messiah is to be expected.' A similar statement
    occurs at the close of a collection of three Midrashim,
    respectively entitled, 'The Book of Elijah,' 'Chapters about
    the Messiah,' and 'The Mysteries of R. Simon, the son of
    Jochai' [a Jellinek, Beth ha-Midrash, fasc. iii. p. 8.],
    where we read that a Star in the East was to appear two years
    before the birth of the Messiah. The statement is almost
    equally remarkable, whether it represents a tradition
    previous to the birth of Jesus, or originated after that
    event. But two years before the birth of Christ, which, as we
    have calculated, took place in December 749 A.U.C., or 5
    before the Christian era, brings us to the year 747 A.U.C.,
    or 7 before Christ, in which such a Star should appear in the
    East. [1 It would, of course, be possible to argue, that the
    Evangelic account arose from this Jewish tradition about the
    appearance of a star two years before the birth of the
    Messiah. But ut has been already shown, that the hypothesis
    of a Jewish legendary origin is utterly untenable. Besides,
    if St. Matthew ii. had been derived from this tradition, the
    narrative would have been quite differently shaped, and more
    especially the two years' interval between the rising of the
    star and the Advent of the Messiah would have been
    emphasized, instead of being, as now, rather matter of
    inference.]

     Did such a Star, then, really appear in the East seven years
    before the Christian era? Astronomically speaking, and
    without any reference to controversy, there can be no doubt
    that the most remarkable conjunction of planets, that of
    Jupiter and Saturn in the constellation of Pices, which
    occurs only once in 800 years, did take place no less than
    three times in the year 747 A.U.C., or two year, befored the
    birth of Christ (in May, October and December). This
    conjunction is admitted by all astronomers. It was not only
    extraordinary, but presented the most brilliant spectacle in
    the night-sky, such as could not but attract the attention of
    all who watched the sidereal heavens, but especially of those
    who busied themselves with astrology. In the year following,
    that is, in 748 A.U.C., another planet, Mars, joined this
    conjunction. The merit of first discovering these facts, of
    which it is unnecessary here to present the literary history
    [2 The chief writers on the subject have been: Miinter(u.s.),
    Ideler (u.s.). and Wieseler (Chronol. Synopse d. 4 Evang.
    (1843), and again in Herzog's Real-Enc. vol. xxi p. 544, and
    finally in his Beitr. z. Wiird. d Ev. 1869). In our own
    country, writers have, since the appearance of Professor
    Pritchard's art. ('Star of the Wise Men') in Dr. Smith's
    Bible Dict. vol. iii., generally given up the astronomical
    argument, without, however, clearly indicating whether they
    regard the star as a miraculous guidance. I do not, of
    course, presume to enter on an astronomical discussion with
    Professor Pritchard; but as his reasoning proceeds on the
    idea that the planetary conjunction of 747 A.U.C., is
    regarded as 'the Star of the Magi,' his arguments do not
    apply either to the view presented in the text nor even to
    that of Wieseler. Besides, I must guard myself against
    accepting his interpretation of the narrative in St.
    Matthew.], belongs to the great Kepler, [a De Stella Nova
    &c., Pragae, 160.] who, accordingly, placed the Nativity of
    Christ in the year 748 A.U.C. This date, however, is not only
    well nigh impossible; but it has also been shown that such a
    conjunction would, for various reasons, not answer the
    requirements of the Evangelical narrative, so far as the
    guidance to Bethlehem is concerned. But it does fully account
    for the attention of the Magi being aroused, and, even if
    they had not possessed knowledge of the Jewish expectancy
    above described for their making inquiry of all around, and
    certainly, among others, of the Jews. Here we leave the
    domain of the certain, and enter upon that of the probable.
    Kepler, who was led to the discovery by observing a similar
    conjunction in 1603-4, also noticed, that when the three
    planets came into conjunction, a new, extraordinary,
    brilliant, and peculiarly colored evanescent star was visible
    between Jupiter and Saturn, and he suggested that a similar
    star had appeared under the same circumstances in the
    conjunction preceding the Nativity. Of this, of course, there
    is not, and cannot be, absolute certainty. But, if so, this
    would be 'the star' of the Magi, 'in its rising.' There is
    yet another remarkable statement, which, however, must also
    be assigned only to the domain of the probable. In the
    astronomical tables of the Chinese, to whose general
    trustworthiness so high an authority as Humboldt bears
    testimony [b Cosmos. vol. i. p. 92.], the appearance of an
    evanescent star was noted. Pingre and others have designated
    it as a comet, and calculated its first appearance in
    February 750 A.U.C., which is just the time when the Magi
    would, in all probability, leave Jerusalem for Bethlehem,
    since this must have preceded the death of Herod, which took
    place in March 750. Moreover, it has been astronomically
    ascertained, that such a sidereal apparition would be visible
    to those who left Jerusalem, and that it would point, almost
    seem to go before, in the direction of, and stand over,
    Bethlehem. [1 By the astronomer, Dr. Goldschmidt. (See
    Wieseler, Chron. Syn. p. 72.).] Such, impartially stated, are
    the facts of the case, and here the subject must, in the
    present state of our information, be left. [2 A somewhat
    different view is presented in the laborious and learned
    edition of the New Testament by Mr. Brown McClellan (vol. i.
    pp, 400-402).]

     Only two things are recorded of this visit of the Magi to
    Bethlehem: their humblest Eastern homage, and their
    offerings. [3 Our A.V. curiously translates in v. 11,
    'treasures,' instead of 'treasury-cases.' The expression is
    exactly the same as in Deut. xxviii. 12, for which the LXX.
    use the same words as the Evangelist. The expression is also
    used in this sense in the Apocr. and by profane writers.
    Comp. Wetstein and Meyer ad locum. Jewish tradition also
    expresses the expectancy that the nations of the world would
    offer gifts unto the Messiah. (Comp. Pes. 118 b; Ber. R.
    78.).] Viewed as gifts, the incense and the myrrh would,
    indeed, have been strangely inappropriate. But their
    offerings were evidently intended as specimens of the
    products of their country, and their presentation was, even
    as in our own days, expressive of the homage of their country
    to the new-found King. In this sense, then, the Magi may
    truly be regarded as the representatives of the Gentile
    world; their homage as the first and typical acknowledgment
    of Christ by those who hitherto had been 'far off;' and their
    offerings as symbolic of the world's tribute. This deeper
    significance the ancient Church has rightly apprehended,
    though, perhaps, mistaking its grounds. Its symbolism,
    twining, like the convolvulus, around athe Divine Plant, has
    traced in the gold the emblem of His Royalty; inthe myrrh, of
    His Humanity, and that in the fullest evidence of it, in His
    burying; and in the incense, that of His Divinity. [1 So not
    only in ancient hymns (by Sedulius, Juvencus, and Claudian),
    but by the Fathers and later writers. (Comp. Sepp, Leben
    Jesu, ii. 1, pp. 102, 103.).]

     As always in the history of Christ, so here also, glory and
    suffering appear in juxtaposition. It could not be, that
    these Magi should become the innocent instruments of Herod's
    murderous designs; nor yet that the Infant-Saviour should
    fall a victim to the tyrant. Warned of God in a dream, the
    'wise men' returned 'into their own country another way;'
    and, warned by the angel of the Lord in a dream, the Holy
    Family sought temporary shelter in Egypt. Baffled in the hope
    of attaining his object through the Magi, the reckless tyrant
    sought to secure it by an indiscriminate slaughter of all the
    children in Bethlehem and its immediate neighborhood, from
    two years and under. True, considering the population of
    Bethlehem, their number could only have been small, probably
    twenty at most. [2 So Archdeacon Farrar rightly computes it.]
    But the deed was none the less atrocious; and these infants
    may justly be regarded as the 'protomartyrs,' the first
    witnesses, of Christ, 'the blossom of martydom' ('flores
    martyrum,' as Prudentius calls them). The slaughter was
    entirely in accordance with the character and former measures
    of Herod. [3 An illustrative instance of the ruthless
    destruction of whole families on suspicion that his crown was
    in danger, occurs in Ant. xv. 8. 4. But the suggestion that
    Bagoas had suffered at the hands of Herod for Messianic
    predictions is entirely an invention of Keim. (Schenkel,
    Bibel Lex., vol. iii. p. 37. Comp. Ant. xvii. 2. 4.).] Nor do
    we wonder, that it remained unrecorded by Josephus, since on
    other occasions also he has omitted events which to us seem
    important. [1 There are, in Josephus' history of Herod,
    besides omissions, inconsistencies of narrative, such as
    about the execution of Mariamme (Ant. xv. 3, 5-9 &c.; comp.
    War i. 22. 3, 4), and of chronology (as War i. 18. 2, comp.
    v. 9. 4; Ant. xiv. 16. 2, comp. xv. 1. 2, and others.)] The
    murder of a few infants in an insignificant village might
    appear scarcely worth notice in a reign stained by so much
    bloodshed. Besides, he had, perhaps, a special motive for
    this silence. Josephus always carefully suppresses, so far as
    possible, all that refers to the Christ [2 Comp. on article
    on Josephus in Smith and Wace's Dict. of Christian Biogr.],
    probably not only in accordance with his own religious views,
    but because mention of a Christ might have been dangerous,
    certainly would have been inconvenient, in a work written by
    an intense self-seeker, mainly for readers in Rome.

     Of two passages in his own Old Testament Scriptures the
    Evangelist sees a fulfilment in these events. The flight into
    Egypt is to him the fulfilment of this expression by Hosea,
    'Out of Egypt have I called My Son.' [a Hos. xi. 1.] In the
    murder of 'the Innocents,' he sees the fulfilment of Rachel's
    lament [b Jer. xxxi. 15.] (who died and was buried in Ramah)
    [3 See the evidence for it summarized in 'Sketches of Jewish
    Social Life in the Days of Christ,' p. 60.] over her
    children, the men of Benjamin, when the exiles to Babylon met
    in Ramah, [c Jer. xi. 1.] and there was bitter wailing at the
    prospect of parting for hopeless captivity, and yet bitterer
    lament, as they who might have encumbered the onward march
    were pitilessly slaughtered. Those who have attentively
    followed the course of Jewish thinking, and marked how the
    ancient Synagogue, and that rightly, read the Old Testament
    in its unity, as ever pointing to the Messiah as the
    fulfilment of Israel's history, will not wonder at, but fully
    accord with, St. Matthew's retrospective view. The words of
    Hosea were in the highest sense 'fulfilled' in the flight to,
    and return of, the Saviour from Egypt. [4 In point of fact
    the ancient Synagogue did actually apply to the Messiah Ex.
    iv. 22, on which the words of Hosea are based. See the
    Midrash on Ps. ii. 7. The quotation is given in full in our
    remarks on Ps. ii. 7 in Appendix IX.] To an inspired writer,
    nay, to a true Jewish reader of the Old Testament, the
    question in regard to any prophecy could not be: What did the
    prophet, but, What did the prophecy mean? And this could only
    be unfolded in the course of Israel's history. Similarly,
    those who ever saw in the past the prototype of the future,
    and recognized in events, not only the principle, but the
    very features, of that which was to come, could not fail to
    perceive, in the bitter wail of the mothers of Bethlehem over
    their slaughtered children, the full realisation of the
    prophetic description of the scene enacted in Jeremiah's
    days. Had not the prophet himself heard, in the lament of the
    captives to Babylon, the echoes of Rachel's voice in the
    past? In neither one nor the other case had the utterances of
    the prophets (Hosea and Jeremiah) been predictions: they were
    prophetic. In neither one nor the other case was the
    'fulfilment' literal: it was Scriptural, and that in the
    truest Old Testament sense.

 FROM THE MANGER IN BETHLEHEM TO THE BAPTISM IN JORDAN

    THE CHILD-LIFE IN NAZARETH

    CHAPTER IX

     (St. Matt. ii. 19-23; St. Luke ii. 39, 40.)

     THE stay of the Holy Family in Egypt must have been of brief
    duration. The cup of Herod's misdeeds, but also of his
    misery, was full. During the whole latter part of his life,
    the dread of a rival to the throne had haunted him, and he
    had sacrificed thousands, among them those nearest and
    dearest to him, to lay that ghost. [1 And yet Keim speaks of
    his Hochherzigkeit and naturlicher Edelsinn! (Leben Jesu, i.
    1. p. 184.) A much truer estimate is that of Schurer,
    Neutest. Zeitgesch. pp. 197, 198.] And still the tyrant was
    not at rest. A more terrible scene is not presented in
    history than that of the closing days of Herod. Tormenteo by
    nameless fears; ever and again a prey to vain remorse, when
    he would frantically call for his passionately-loved,
    murdered wife Mariamme, and her sons; even making attempts on
    his own life; the delirium of tyranny, the passion for blood,
    drove him to the verge of madness. The most loathsome
    disease, such as can scarcely be described, had fastened on
    his body, [2 See the horrible description of his living death
    in Jos. Ant. xvii. 6. 5.] and his sufferings were at times
    agonizing. By the advice of his physicians, he had himself
    carried to the baths of Callirhoe (east of the Jordan),
    trying all remedies with the determination of one who will do
    hard battle for life. It was in vain. The namelessly horrible
    distemper, which had seized the old man of seventy, held him
    fast in its grasp, and, so to speak, played death on the
    living. He knew it, that his hour was come, and had himself
    conveyed back to his palace under the palm-trees of Jericho.
    They had known it also in Jerusalem, and, even before the
    last stage of his disease, two of the most honored and loved
    Rabbis, Judas and Matthias, had headed the wild band, which
    would sweep away all traces of Herod's idolatrous rule. They
    began by pulling down the immense golden eagle, which hung
    over the great gate of the Temple. The two ringleaders, and
    forty of their followers, allowed themselves to be taken by
    Herod's guards. A mock public trial in the theatre at Jericho
    followed. Herod, carried out on a couch, was both accuser and
    judge. The zealots, who had made noble answer to the tyrant,
    were burnt alive; and the High-Priest, who was suspected of
    connivance, deposed.

     After that the end came rapidly. On his return from
    Callirhoe, feeling his death approaching, the King had
    summoned the noblest of Israel throughout the land of
    Jericho, and shut them up in the Hippodrome, with orders to
    his sister to have them slain immediately upon his death, in
    the grim hope that the joy of the people at his decease would
    thus be changed into mourning. Five days before his death one
    ray of passing joy lighted his couch. Terrible to say, it was
    caused by a letter from Augustus allowing Herod to execute
    his son Antipater, the false accuser and real murderer of his
    half-brothers Alexander and Aristobulus. The death of the
    wretched prince was hastened by his attempt to bribe the
    jailer, as the noise in the palace, caused by an attempted
    suicide of Herod, led him to suppose his father was actually
    dead. And now the terrible drama was hastening to a close.
    The fresh access of rage shortened the life which was already
    running out. Five days more, and the terror of Judaea lay
    dead. He had reigned thirty-seven years, thirty-four since
    his conquest of Jerusalem. Soon the rule for which he had so
    long plotted, striven, and stained himself with untold
    crimes, passed from his descendants. A century more, and the
    whole race of Herod had been swept away.

     We pass by the empty pageant and barbaric splendor of his
    burying in the Castle of Herodium, close to Bethlehem. The
    events of the last few weeks formed a lurid back-ground to
    the murder of 'the Innocents.' As we have reckoned it, the
    visit of the Magi took place in February 750 A.U.C. On the
    12th of March the Rabbis and their adherents suffered. On the
    following night (or rather early morning) there was a lunar
    eclipse; the execution of Antipater preceded the death of his
    father by five days, and the latter occurred from seven to
    fourteen days before the Passover, which in 750 took place on
    the 12th of April. [1 See the calculation in Wiesler's
    Synopse, pp. 56 and 444. The 'Dissertatio de Herode Magno, by
    J.A. van der Chijs (Leyden, 1855), is very clear and
    accurate. Dr. Geikie adopts the manifest mistake of Caspari,
    that Herod died in January, 753, and holds that the Holy
    Family spent three years in Egypt. The repeated statement of
    Josephus that Herod died close upon the Passover should have
    sufficed to show the impossibility of that hypothesis.
    Indeed, there is scarcely any historical date on which
    competent writers are more agreed than that of Herod's death.
    See Schurer, Neutest. Zeitg., pp. 222, 223.] It need scarcely
    be said, that Salome (Herod's sister) and her husband were
    too wise to execute Herod's direction in regard to the noble
    Jews shut up in the Hippodrome. Their liberation, and the
    death of Herod, were marked by the leaders of the people as
    joyous events in the so-called Megillath Taanith, or Roll of
    Fasts, although the date is not exactly marked. [a Meg. Taan
    xi, 1, ed Warsh, p. 16 a.] Henceforth this was to be a Yom
    Tobh (feast-day), on which mourning was interdicted. [1 The
    Megillath Taanith itself, or 'Roll of Fasts,' does not
    mention the death of Herod. But the commentator adds to the
    dates 7th Kislev (Nov.) and 2nd Shebhat (Jan.), both
    manifestly incorrect, the notice that Herod had died, on the
    2nd Shebhat, Jannai also, at the same time telling a story
    about the incarceration and liberation of 'seventy of the
    Elders of Israel,' evidently a modification of Josephus'
    account of what passed in the Hiprodrome of Jericho.
    Accordingly, Gratz (Gesch. vol. iii. p. 427) and Derenbourg
    (pp. 101, 164) have regarded the 1st of Shebhat as really
    that of Herod's death. But this is impossible; and we know
    enough of the historical inaccuracy of the Rabbis not to
    attach any serious importance to their precise dates.]

     Herod had three times before changed his testament. By the
    first will Antipater, the successful calumniator of Alexander
    and Aristobulus, had been appointed his successor, while the
    latter two were named kings, though we know not of what
    districts. [b Jos. War i. 23.5] After the execution of the
    two sons of Mariamme, Antipater was named king, and, in case
    of his death, Herod, the son of Mariamme II. When the
    treachery of Antipater was proved, Herod made a third will,
    in which Antipas (the Herod Antipas of the New Testament) was
    named his successor. [c Jos. Ant. xvii. 6. 1; War i. 32. 7]
    But a few days before his death he made yet another
    disposition, by which Archelaus, the elder brother of Antipas
    (both sons of Malthake, a Samaritan), was appointed king;
    Antipas tetrarch of Galilee and Peraea; and Philip (the son
    of Cleopatra, of Jerusalem [2 Herod had married no less than
    ten times. See his genealogical table.]), tetrarch of the
    territory east of the Jordan. [3 Batanaea, Trachonitis,
    Auranitis, and Panias.] These testaments reflected the
    varying phases of suspicion and family-hatred through which
    Herod had passed. Although the Emperor seems to have
    authorised him to appoint his successor, [d Jos. War i. 23.5]
    Herod wisely made his disposition dependent on the approval
    of Augustus. [e Ant. xvii 8.2] But the latter was not by any
    means to be taken for granted. Archelaus had, indeed, been
    immediately proclaimed King by the army; but he prudently
    declined the title, till it had been confirmed by the
    Emperor. The night of his father's death, and those that
    followed, were characteristically spent by Archelaus in
    rioting with his friends. [f Ant. xvii 8.4; 9.5] But the
    people of Jerusalem were not easily satisfied. At first
    liberal promises of amnesty and reforms had assuaged the
    populace. [g Ant. xvii 8.4] But the indignation excited by
    the late murder of the Rabbis soon burst into a storm of
    lamentation, and then of rebellion, which Archelaus silenced
    by the slaughter of not less than three thousand, and that
    within the sacred precincts of the Temple itself. [a Ant.
    xvii. 1-3]

     Other and more serious difficulties awaited him in Rome,
    whither he went in company with his mother, his aunt Salome,
    and other relatives. These, however, presently deserted him
    to espouse the claims of Antipas, who likewise appeared
    before Augustus to plead for the royal succession, assigned
    to him in a former testament. The Herodian family, while
    intriguing and clamouring each on his own account, were, for
    reasons easily understood, agreed that they would rather not
    have a king at all, but be under the suzerainty of Rome;
    though, if king there must be, they preferred Antipas to
    Archelaus. Meanwhile, fresh troubles broke out in Palestine,
    which were suppressed by fire, sword, and crucifixions. And
    now two other deputations arrived in the Imperial City.
    Philip, the step-brother of Archelaus, to whom the latter had
    left the administration of his kingdom, came to look after
    his own interests, as well as to support Archelaus. [b Ant.
    xvii. 11.1; War 11. 6.1] [1 1 cannot conceive on what ground
    Keim (both in Schenkel's Bible Lex, and in his 'Jesu von
    Nazara') speaks of him as a pretender to the throne.] At the
    same time, a Jewish deputation of fifty, from Palestine,
    accompanied by eight thousand Roman Jews, clamoured for the
    deposition of the entire Herodian race, on account of their
    crimes, [2 This may have been the historical basis of the
    parable of our Lord in St. Luke xix. 12-27.] and the
    incorporation of Palestine with Syria, no doubt in hope of
    the same semi-independence under their own authorities,
    enjoyed by their fellow-religionists in the Grecian cities.
    Augustus decided to confirm the last testament of Herod, with
    certain slight modifications, of which the most important was
    that Archelaus should bear the title of Ethnarch, which, if
    he deserved it, would by-and-by be exchanged for that of
    King. His dominions were to be Judaea, Idumaea, and Samaria,
    with a revenue of 600 talents [3 The revenues of Antipas were
    200 talents, and those of Philip 100 talents.] (about
    230,000l. to 240,000l). It is needless to follow the fortunes
    of the new Ethnarch. He began his rule by crushing all
    resistance by the wholesale slaughter of his opponents. Of
    the High-Priestly office he disposed after the manner of his
    father. But he far surpassed him in cruelty, oppression,
    luxury, the grossest egotism, and the lowest sensuality, and
    that, without possessing the talent or the energy of Herod. [
    This is admitted even byBraun (Sohne d. Herodes, p. 8).
    Despite its pretentiousness this tractate is untrustworthy,
    being written in a party spirit (Jewish).] His brief reign
    ceased in the year 6 of our era, when the Emperor banished
    him, on account of his crimes to Gaul.

     It must have been soon after the accession of Archelaus, [
    We gather this from the expression, 'When he heard that
    Archelaus did reign.' Evidently Joseph had not heard who was
    Herod's successor, when he left Egypt. Archdeacon Farrar
    suggests, that the expression 'reigned' ('as a king, ,St.
    Matt. ii. 22) refers to the period before Augustus had
    changed his title from 'King' to Ethnarch. But this can
    scarcely be pressed, the word being used of other rule than
    that of a king, not only in the New Testament and in the
    Apocrypha, but by Josephus, and even by classical writers.]
    but before tidings of it had actually reached Joseph in
    Egypt, that the Holy Family returned to Palestine. The first
    intention of Joseph seems to have been to settle in
    Bethlehem, where he had lived since the birth of Jesus.
    Obvious reasons would incline him to choose this, and, if
    possible, to avoid Nazareth as the place of his residence.
    His trade, even had he been unknown in Bethlehem, would have
    easily supplied the modest wants of his household. But when,
    on reaching Palestine, he learned who the successor of Herod
    was, and also, no doubt, in what manner he had inaugurated
    his reign, common prudence would have dictated the withdrawal
    of the Infant-Saviour from the dominions of Archelaus. But it
    needed Divine direction to determine his return to Nazareth.
    [2 The language of St. Matthew (ii. 22, 23) seems to imply
    express Divine direction not to enter the territory of
    Judaea. In that case he would travel along the coast-line
    till he passed into Galilee. The impression left is, that the
    settlement at Nazareth was not of his own choice.]

     Of the many years spent in Nazareth, during which Jesus
    passed from infancy to childhood, from childhood to youth,
    and from youth to manhood, the Evangelic narrative has left
    us but briefest notice. Of His childhood: that 'He grew and
    waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom, and the grace of
    God was upon Him;' [a St. Luke ii. 40] of His youth: besides
    the account of His questioning the Rabbis in the Temple, the
    year before he attained Jewish majority, that 'He was subject
    to His parents,' and that 'He increased in wisdom and in
    stature, and in favour with God and man.' Considering what
    loving care watched over Jewish child-life, tenderly marking
    by not fewer than eight designations the various stages of
    its development, [3 Yeled, the newborn babe, as in Is. ix. 6;
    Yoneq, the suckling, Is. xi. 8; Olel, the suckling beginning
    to ask for food, Lam. iv. 4; Gamul, the weaned child, Is.
    xxviii. 9; Taph, the child clinging to its mother, Jer. xl.
    7; Elem, a child becoming firm; Naar, the lad, literally,
    'one who shakes himself free; and Bachur, the ripened one.
    (See 'Sketches of Jewish Social Life,' pp. 103. 104.)] and
    the deep interest naturally attaching to the early life of
    the Messiah, that silence, in contrast to the almost
    blasphemous absurdities of the Apocryphal Gospels, teaches us
    once more, and most impressively, that the Gospels furnish a
    history of the Saviour, not a biography of Jesus of Nazareth.

     St. Matthew, indeed, summarises the whole outward history of
    the life in Nazareth in one sentence. Henceforth Jesus would
    stand out before the Jews of His time, and, as we know, of
    all times [1 This is still the common, almost universal,
    designation of Christ among the Jews.], by the distinctive
    designation: 'of Nazareth,' (Notsri), 'the Nazarene.' In the
    mind of a Palestinian a peculiar significance would attach to
    the by-Name of the Messiah, especially in its connection with
    the general teaching of prophetic Scripture, And here we must
    remember, that St. Matthew primarily addressed his Gospel to
    Palestinian readers, and that it is the Jewish presentation
    of the Messiah as meeting Jewish expectancy. In this there is
    nothing derogatory to the character of the Gospel, no
    accommodation in the sense of adaptation, since Jesus was not
    only the Saviour of the world, but especially also the King
    of the Jews, and we are now considering how He would stand
    out before the Jewish mind. On one point all were agreed: His
    Name was Notsri (of Nazareth). St. Matthew proceeds to point
    out, how entirely this accorded with prophetic Scripture,
    not, indeed, with any single prediction, but with the whole
    language of the prophets. From this [Comp. ch. iv. of this
    book.] the Jews derived not fewer than eight designations or
    Names by which the Messiah was to be called. The most
    prominent among them was that of Tsemach, or 'Branch.' [a In
    accordance with Jer. xxiii. 5; xxxiii. 15; and especially
    Zech. iii 18] We call it the most prominent, not only because
    it is based upon the clearest Scripture-testimony, but
    because it evidently occupied the foremost rank in Jewish
    thinking, being embodied in this earliest portion of their
    daily liturgy: 'The Branch of David, Thy Servant, speedily
    make to shoot forth, and His Horn exalt Thou by Thy
    Salvation....Blessed art Thou Jehovah, Who causeth to spring
    forth (literally: to branch forth) the Horn of Salvation'
    (15th Eulogy). Now, what is expressed by the word Tsemach is
    also conveyed by the term Netser, 'Branch,' in such passages
    as Isaiah xi,1, which was likewise applied to the Messiah. [3
    See Appendix IX.] Thus, starting from Isaiahxi. 1, Netser
    being equivalent to Tsemach, Jesus would, as Notsri or Ben
    Netser, [b So in Be R. 76] [4 Comp. Buxtorf, Lexicon Talm. p.
    1383.] bear in popular parlance, and that on the ground of
    prophetic Scriptures, the exact equivalent of the best-known
    designation of the Messiah. [5 All this becomes more evident
    by Delitzsch's ingenious suggestion (Zeitschr. fur luther.
    Theol. 1876, part iii. p. 402), that the real meaning, though
    not the literal rendering, of the words of St. Matthew, would
    be, 'for Nezer ['branch'] is His Name.] The more significant
    this, that it was not a self-chosen nor man-given name, but
    arose, in the providence of God, from what otherwise might
    have been called the accident of His residence. We admit that
    this is a Jewish view; but then this Gospel is the Jewish
    view of the Jewish Messiah.

     But, taking this Jewish title in its Jewish significance, it
    has also a deeper meaning, and that not only to Jews, but to
    all men. The idea of Christ as the Divinely placed 'Branch'
    (symbolised by His Divinely-appointed early residence), small
    and despised in its forthshooting, or then visible appearance
    (like Nazareth and the Nazarenes), but destined to grow as
    the Branch sprung out of Jesse's roots, is most marvellously
    true to the whole history of the Christ, alike as sketched
    'by the prophets,' and as exhibited in reality. And thus to
    us all, Jews or Gentiles, the Divine guidance to Nazareth and
    the name Nazarene present the truest fulfilment of the
    prophecies of His history.

     Greater contrast could scarcely be imagined than between the
    intricate scholastic studies of the Judaeans, and the active
    pursuits that engaged men in Galilee. It was a common saying:
    'If a person wishes to be rich, let him go north; if he wants
    to be wise, let him come south', and to Judaea, accordingly,
    flocked, from ploughshare and workshop, whoever wished to
    become 'learned in the Law.' The very neighbourhood of the
    Gentile world, the contact with the great commercial centres
    close by, and the constant intercourse with foreigners, who
    passed through Galilee along one of the world's great
    highways, would render the narrow exclusiveness of the
    Southerners impossible. Galilee was to Judaism 'the Court of
    the Gentiles', the Rabbinic Schools of Judaea its innermost
    Sanctuary. The natural disposition of the people, even the
    soil and climate of Galilee, were not favourable to the
    all-engrossing passion for Rabbinic study. In Judaea all
    seemed to invite to retrospection and introspection; to
    favour habits of solitary thought and study, till it kindled
    into fanaticism. Mile by mile as you travelled southwards,
    memories of the past would crowd around, and thoughts of the
    future would rise within. Avoiding the great towns as the
    centres of hated heathenism, the traveller would meet few
    foreigners, but everywhere encounter those gaunt
    representatives of what was regarded as the superlative
    excellency of his religion. These were the embodiment of
    Jewish piety and asceticism, the possessors and expounders of
    the mysteries of his faith, the fountain-head of wisdom, who
    were not only sure of heaven themselves, but knew its
    secrets, and were its very aristocracy; men who could tell
    him all about his own religion, practised its most minute
    injunctions, and could interpret every stroke and letter of
    the Law, nay, whose it actually was to 'loose and to bind,'
    to pronounce an action lawful or unlawful, and to 'remit or
    retain sins,' by declaring a man liable to, or free from,
    expiatory sacrifices, or else punishment in this or the next
    world. No Hindoo fanatic would more humbly bend before
    Brahmin saints, nor devout Romanist more venerate the members
    of a holy fraternity, than the Jew his great Rabbis. [1 One
    of the most absurdly curious illustrations of this is the
    following: 'He who blows his nose in the presence of his
    Rabbi is worthy of death' (Erub, 99 a, line 11 from bottom).
    The dictum is supported by an alteration in the reading of
    Prov. viii. 36.] Reason, duty, and precept, alike bound him
    to reverence them, as he reverenced the God Whose
    interpreters, representatives, deputies, intimate companions,
    almost colleagues in the heavenly Sanhedrin, they were. And
    all around, even nature itself, might seem to foster such
    tendencies. Even at that time Judaea was comparatively
    desolate, barren, grey. The decaying cities of ancient
    renown; the lone highland scenery; the bare, rugged hills;
    the rocky terraces from which only artificial culture could
    woo a return; the wide solitary plains, deep glens, limestone
    heights, with distant glorious Jerusalem ever in the far
    background, would all favour solitary thought and religious
    abstraction.

     It was quite otherwise in Galilee. The smiling landscape of
    Lower Galilee invited the easy labour of the agriculturist.
    Even the highlands of Upper Galilee [2 Galilee covered the
    ancient possessions of Issachar, Zebulun, Naphtali, and
    Asher. 'In the time of Christ it stretched northwards to the
    possessions of Tyre on the one side, and to Syria on the
    other. On the south it was bounded by Samaria, Mount Carmel
    on the Western, and the district of Scythopolis on the
    eastern side, being here landmarks; while the Jordan and the
    Lake of Gennesaret formed the general eastern boundary line.'
    (Sketches of Jewish Soc. Life. p. 33.) It was divided into
    Upper and Lower Galilee, the former beginning 'where
    sycomores (not our sycamores) cease to grow.' Fishing in the
    Lake of Galilee was free to all (Baba K. 81 b).] were not,
    like those of Judaea, sombre, lonely, enthusiasm-killing, but
    gloriously grand, free, fresh, and bracing. A more beautiful
    country, hill, dale, and lake, could scarcely be imagined
    than Galilee Proper. It was here that Asher had 'dipped his
    foot in oil.' According to the Rabbis, it was easier to rear
    a forest of olive-trees in Galilee than one child in Judaea.
    Corn grew in abundance; the wine, though not so plentiful as
    the oil, was rich and generous. Proverbially, all fruit grew
    in perfection, and altogether the cost of living was about
    one-fifth that in Judaea. And then, what a teeming, busy
    population! Making every allowance for exaggeration, we
    cannot wholly ignore the account of Josephus about the 240
    towns and villages of Galilee, each with not less than 15,000
    inhabitants. In the centres of industry all then known trades
    were busily carried on; the husbandman pursued his happy toil
    on genial soil, while by the Lake of Gennesaret, with its
    unrivalled beauty, its rich villages, and lovely retreats,
    the fisherman plied his healthy avocation. By those waters,
    overarched by a deep blue sky, spangled with the brilliancy
    of innumerable stars, a man might feel constrained by nature
    itself to meditate and pray; he would not be likely to
    indulge in a morbid fanaticism.

     Assuredly, in its then condition, Galilee was not the home
    of Rabbinism, though that of generous spirits, of warm,
    impulsive hearts, of intense nationalism, of simple manners,
    and of earnest piety. Of course, there would be a reverse
    side to the picture. Such a race would be excitable,
    passionate, violent. The Talmud accuses them of being
    quarrelsome, [a 'cantankerous' (?), Ned. 48 a] but admits
    that they cared more for honour than for money. The great
    ideal teacher of Palestinian schools was Akiba, and one of
    his most outspoken opponents a Galilean, Rabbi Jose. [b
    Siphre on Numb. x. 19, ed. Friedmann, 4 a; Chag. 14 a] In
    religious observances their practice was simpler; as regarded
    canon-law they often took independent views, and generally
    followed the interpretations of those who, in opposition to
    Akiba, inclined to the more mild and rational, we had almost
    said, the more human, application of traditionalism. [1 Of
    which Jochanan, the son of Nuri, may here be regarded as the
    exponent.] The Talmud mentions several points in which the
    practice of the Galileans differed from that of Judaea, all
    either in the direction of more practical earnestness, [2 As
    in the relation between bridegroom and bride, the cessation
    of work the day before the Passover, &c.] or of alleviation
    of Rabbinic rigorism. [3 As in regard to animals lawful to be
    eaten, vows, &c.] On the other hand, they were looked down
    upon as neglecting traditionalism, unable to rise to its
    speculative heights, and preferring the attractions of the
    Haggadah to the logical subtleties of the Halakhah. [4 The
    doctrinal, or rather Halakhic, differences between Galilee
    and Judaea are partially noted by Lightfoot (Chronoger.
    Matth. praem. lxxxvi.), and by Hamburger (Real-Enc. i. p.
    395).] There was a general contempt in Rabbinic circles for
    all that was Galilean. Although the Judaean or Jerusalem
    dialect was far from pure, [5 See Deutsch's Remains, p. 358.]
    the people of Galilee were especially blamed for neglecting
    the study of their language, charged with errors in grammar,
    and especially with absurd malpronunciation, sometimes
    leading to ridiculous mistakes. [6 The differences of
    pronunciation and language are indicated by Lightfoot (u.s.
    lxxxvii.), and by Deutsch (u. s. pp. 357, 358). Several
    instances of ridiculous mistakes arising from it are
    recorded. Thus, a woman cooked for her husband two lentils
    instead of two feet (of an animal, as desired (Nedar. 66 b).
    On another occasion a woman malpronounced 'Come, I will give
    thee milk,' into 'Companion, butter devour thee!' (Erub. 53
    b). In the same connection other similar stories are told.
    Comp. also Neubauer, Geogr. du Talmud, p. 184, G. de Rossi,
    della lingua prop. di Cristo, Dissert. I. passim.] 'Galilean,
    Fool!' was so common an expression, that a learned lady
    turned with it upon so great a man as R. Jose, the Galilean,
    because he had used two needless words in asking her the road
    to Lydda. [a Erub. 53 b] [1 The Rabbi asked: What road leads
    to Lydda?, using four words. The woman pointed out that,
    since it was not lawful to multiply speech with a woman, he
    should have asked: Whither to Lydda?, in two words.] Indeed,
    this R. Jose had considerable prejudices to overcome, before
    his remarkable talents and learning were fully acknowledged.
    [2 In fact, only four great Galilean Rabbis are mentioned.
    The Galileans are said to have inclined towards mystical
    (Kabbalistic?) pursuits.]

     Among such a people, and in that country, Jesus spent by far
    the longest part of His life upon earth. Generally, this
    period may be described as that of His true and full Human
    Development, physical, intellectual, spiritual, of outward
    submission to man, and inward submission to God, with the
    attendant results of 'wisdom,' 'favour,' and 'grace.'
    Necessary, therefore, as this period was, if the Christ was
    to be TRUE MAN, it cannot be said that it was lost, even so
    far as His Work as Saviour was concerned. It was more than
    the preparation for that work; it was the commencement of it:
    subjectively (and passively), the self-abnegation of
    humiliation in His willing submission; and objectively (and
    actively), the fulfilment of all righteousness through it.
    But into this 'mystery of piety' we may only look afar off,
    simply remarking, that it almost needed for us also these
    thirty years of Human Life, that the overpowering thought of
    His Divinity might not overshadow that of His Humanity. But
    if He was subject to such conditions, they must, in the
    nature of things, have affected His development. It is
    therefore not presumption when, without breaking the silence
    of Holy Scripture, we follow the various stages of the
    Nazareth life, as each is, so to speak, initialled by the
    brief but emphatic summaries of the third Gospel.

     In regard to the Child-Life, [3 Gelpke, Jugendgesch, des
    Herrn, has, at least in our days, little value beyond its
    title.] we read: 'And the Child grew, and waxed strong in
    spirit, [4 The words 'in spirit' are of doubtful authority.
    But their omission can be of no consequence, since the
    'waxing strong' evidently refers to the mental development,
    as the subsequent clause shows.] being filled with wisdom,
    and the grace of God was upon Him. [b St. Luke ii. 40] This
    marks, so to speak, the lowest rung in the ladder. Having
    entered upon life as the Divine Infant, He began it as the
    Human Child, subject to all its conditions, yet perfect in
    them.

     These conditions were, indeed, for that time, the happiest
    conceivable, and such as only centuries of Old Testament
    life-training could have made them. The Gentile world here
    presented terrible contrast, in them. alike in regard to the
    relation of parents and children, and the character and moral
    object of their upbringing. Education begins in the home, and
    there were not homes like those in Israel; it is imparted by
    influence and example, before it comes by teaching; it is
    acquired by what is seen and heard, before it is laboriously
    learned from books; its real object becomes instinctively
    felt, before its goal is consciously sought. What Jewish
    fathers and mothers were; what they felt towards their
    children; and with what reverence, affection, and care the
    latter returned what they had received, is known to every
    reader of the Old Testament. The relationship of father has
    its highest sanction and embodiment in that of God towards
    Israel; the tenderness and care of a mother in that of the
    watchfulness and pity of the Lord over His people. The
    semi-Divine relationship between children and parents appears
    in the location, the far more than outward duties which it
    implies in the wording, of the Fifth Commandment. No
    punishment more prompt than that of its breach; [a Deut. xxi.
    18-21.] no description more terribly realistic than that of
    the vengeance which overtakes such sin. [b Prov. xxx. 17.]

     From the first days of its existence, a religious atmosphere
    surrounded the child of Jewish parents. Admitted in the
    number of God's chosen people by the deeply significant rite
    of circumcision, when its name was first spoken in the
    accents of prayer, [1 See the notice of these rites at the
    circumcision of John the Baptist, in ch. iv. of his Book.] it
    was henceforth separated unto God. Whether or not it accepted
    the privileges and obligations implied in this dedication,
    they came to him directly from God, as much as the
    circumstances of his birth. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and
    Jacob, the God of Israel, the God of the promises, claimed
    him, with all of blessing which this conveyed, and of
    responsibility which resulted from it. And the first wish
    expressed for him was that, 'as he had been joined to the
    covenant,' so it might also be to him in regard to the
    'Torah' (Law), to 'the Chuppah' (the marriage-baldachino),
    and 'to good works;' in other words, that he might live
    'godly, soberly, and righteously in this present world', a
    holy, happy, and God-devoted life. And what this was, could
    not for a moment be in doubt. Putting aside the overlying
    Rabbinic interpretations, the ideal of life was presented to
    the mind of the Jew in a hundred different forms, in none
    perhaps more popularly than in the words, 'These are the
    things of which a man enjoys the fruit in this world, but
    their possession continueth for the next: to honour father
    and mother, pious works, peacemaking between man and man, and
    the study of the Law, which is equivalent to them all.' [a
    Peah i. 1.] This devotion to the Law was, indeed, to the Jew
    the all in all, the sum of intellectual pursuits, the aim of
    life. What better thing could a father seek for his child
    than this inestimable boon?

     The first education was necessarily the mother's. [1 Comp.
    'Sketches of Jewish Social Life,' pp. 86-160, the literature
    there quoted: Duschak, Schulgesetzgebung d. alten Isr.; and
    Dr. Marcus, Paedagog. d. Isr. Volkes.] Even the Talmud owns
    this, when, among the memorable sayings of the sages, it
    records one of the School of Rabbi Jannai, to the effect that
    knowledge of the Law may be looked for in those, who have
    sucked it in at their mother's breast. [b Ber. 63 b.] And
    what the true mothers in Israel were, is known not only from
    instances in the Old Testament, from the praise of woman in
    the Book of Proverbs, and from the sayings of the son of
    Sirach (Ecclus. iii. [2 The counterpart is in Ecclus. xxx.]),
    but from the Jewish women of the New Testament. [3 Besides
    the holy women who are named in the Gospels, we would refer
    to the mothers of Zebedee's children and of Mark, to Dorcas,
    Lydia, Lois, Eunice, Priscilla, St. John's 'elect lady,' and
    others.] If, according to a somewhat curious traditional
    principle, women were dispensed from all such positive
    obligations as were incumbent at fixed periods of time (such
    as putting on phylacteries), other religious duties devolved
    exclusively upon them. The Sabbath meal, the kindling of the
    Sabbath lamp, and the setting apart a portion of the dough
    from the bread for the household, these are but instances,
    with which every 'Taph,' as he clung to his mother's skirts,
    must have been familiar. Even before he could follow her in
    such religious household duties, his eyes must have been
    attracted by the Mezuzah attached to the door-post, as the
    name of the Most High on the outside of the little folded
    parchment [c On which Deut.vi. 4-9 and xi. 13-21 were
    inscribed.] was reverently touched by each who came or went,
    and then the fingers kissed that had come in contact with the
    Holy Name. [d Jos. Ant. iv. 8. 13; Ber.iii. 3; Megill. i. 8;
    Moed K. iii.] Indeed, the duty of the Mezuzah was incumbent
    on women also, and one can imagine it to have been in the
    heathen-home of Lois and Eunice in the far-off 'dispersion,'
    where Timothy would first learn to wonder at, then to
    understand, its meaning. And what lessons for the past and
    for the present might not be connected with it! In popular
    opinion it was the symbol of the Divine guard over Israel's
    homes, the visible emblem of this joyous hymn: 'The Lord
    shall preserve thy going out and coming in, from this time
    forth, and even for evermore.' [e Ps. cxxi. 8.]

     There could not be national history, nor even romance, to
    compare with that by which a Jewish mother might hold her
    child entranced. And it was his own history, that of his
    tribe, clan, perhaps family; of the past, indeed, but yet of
    the present, and still more of the glorious future. Long
    before he could go to school, or even Synagogue, the private
    and united prayers and the domestic rites, whether of the
    weekly Sabbath or of festive seasons, would indelibly impress
    themselves upon his mind. In mid-winter there was the festive
    illumination in each home. In most houses, the first night
    only one candle was lit, the next two, and so on to the
    eighth day; and the child would learn that this was symbolic,
    and commemorative of the Dedication of the Temple, its
    purgation, and the restoration of its services by the
    lion-hearted Judas the Maccabee. Next came, in earliest
    spring, the merry time of Purim, the Feast of Esther and of
    Israel's deliverance through her, with its good cheer and
    boisterous enjoyments. [1 Some of its customs almost remind
    us of our 5th of November.] Although the Passover might call
    the rest of the family to Jerusalem, the rigid exclusion of
    all leaven during the whole week could not pass without its
    impressions. Then, after the Feast of Weeks, came bright
    summer. But its golden harvest and its rich fruits would
    remind of the early dedication of the first and best to the
    Lord, and of those solemn processions in which it was carried
    up to Jerusalem. As autumn seared the leaves, the Feast of
    the New Year spoke of the casting up of man's accounts in the
    great Book of Judgment, and the fixing of destiny for good or
    for evil. Then followed the Fast of the Day of Atonement,
    with its tremendous solemnities, the memory of which could
    never fade from mind or imagination; and, last of all, in the
    week of the Feast of Tabernacles, there were the strange
    leafy booths in which they lived and joyed, keeping their
    harvest-thanksgiving; and praying and longing for the better
    harvest of a renewed world.

     But it was not only through sight and hearing that, from its
    very inception, life in Israel became religious. There was
    also from the first positive teaching, of which the
    commencement would necessarily devolve on the mother. It
    needed not the extravagant laudations, nor the promises held
    out by the Rabbis, to incite Jewish women to this duty. If
    they were true to their descent, it would come almost
    naturally to them. Scripture set before them a continuous
    succession of noble Hebrew mothers. How well they followed
    their example, we learn from the instance of her, whose son,
    the child of a Gentile father, and reared far away, where
    there was not even a Synagogue to sustain religious life, had
    'from an infant [2 The word has no other meaning than that of
    'infant' or 'babe.'] known the Holy Scriptures,' and that in
    their life-moulding influence. [a 2 Tim. iii. 15; 1. 5.] It
    was, indeed,no idle boast that the Jews 'were from their
    swaddling-clothes...trained to recognise God as their Father,
    and as the Maker of the world;' that, 'having been taught the
    knowledge (of the laws) from earliest youth, they bore in
    their souls the image of the commandments;' [b Philo, Legat.
    ad Cajum, sec. 16. 31.] that 'from their earliest
    consciousness they learned the laws, so as to have them, as
    it were, engraven upon the soul;' [c Jos. Ag. Apion ii. 19]
    and that they were 'brought up in learning,' 'exercised in
    the laws,' 'and made acquainted with the acts of their
    predecessors in order to their imitation of them.' [d Jos.
    Ag.Apion ii. 26; comp. 1.8. 12; ii. 27.]

     But while the earliest religious teaching would, of
    necessity, come from the lips of the mother, it was the
    father who was 'bound to teach his son.' [e Kidd, 29 a.] To
    impart to the child knowledge of the Torah conferred as great
    spiritual distinction, as if a man had received the Law
    itself on Mount Horeb. [f Sanh. 99 b.] Every other
    engagement, even the necessary meal, should give place to
    this paramount duty; [g Kidd, 30 a.] nor should it be
    forgotten that, while here real labour was necessary, it
    would never prove fruitless. [h Meg. 6 b.] That man was of
    the profane vulgar (an Am ha-arets), who had sons, but failed
    to bring them up in knowledge of the Law. [i Sot. 22 a.]
    Directly the child learned to speak, his religious
    instruction was to begin, no doubt, with such verses of Holy
    Scripture as composed that part of the Jewish liturgy, which
    answers to our Creed. [1 The Shema.] Then would follow other
    passages from the Bible, short prayers, and select sayings of
    the sages. Special attention was given to the culture of the
    memory, since forgetfulness might prove as fatal in its
    consequences as ignorance or neglect of the Law. Very early
    the child must have been taught what might be called his
    birthday-text, some verse of Scripture beginning, or ending
    with, or at least containing, the same letters as his Hebrew
    name. This guardian-promise the child would insert in its
    daily prayers. [2 Comp. 'Sketches of Jewish Social Life,' pp.
    159 &c. The enigmatic mode of wording and writing was very
    common. Thus, the year is marked by a verse, generally from
    Scripture, which contains the letters that give the numerical
    value of the year. These letters are indicated by marks above
    them.] The earliest hymns taught would be the Psalms for the
    days of the week, or festive Psalms, such as the Hallel, [n
    Ps. cxiii. cxviii.] or those connected with the festive
    pilgrimages to Zion.

     The regular instruction commenced with the fifth or sixth
    year (according to strength), when every child was sent to
    school. [o Baba B. 21 a; Keth. 50 a.] There can be no
    reasonable doubt that at that time such schools existed
    throughout the land. We find references to them at almost
    every period; indeed, the existence of higher schools and
    Academies would not have been possible without such primary
    instruction. Two Rabbis of Jerusalem, specially distinguished
    and beloved on account of their educational labours, were
    among the last victims of Herod's cruelty. [a Jos. Ant. xvii.
    6. 2.] Later on, tradition ascribes to Joshua the son of
    Gamla the introduction of schools in every town, and the
    compulsory education in them of all children above the age of
    six. [b Baba B. 21 a.] Such was the transcendent merit
    attaching to this act, that it seemed to blot out the guilt
    of the purchase for him of the High-Priestly office by his
    wife Martha, shortly before the commencement of the great
    Jewish war. [c Yebam. 61 a; Yoma 18 a.] [1 He was succeeded
    by Matthias, the son of Theophilos, under whose Pontificate
    the war against Rome began.] To pass over the fabulous number
    of schools supposed to have existed in Jerusalem, tradition
    had it that, despite of this, the City only fell because of
    the neglect of the education of children. [d Shabb. 119 b.]
    It was even deemed unlawful to live in a place where there
    was no school. [e Sanh. 17 b.] Such a city deserved to be
    either destroyed or excommunicated. [f Shabb. u.s.]

     It would lead too far to give details about the appointment
    of, and provision for, teachers, the arrangements of the
    schools, the method of teaching, or the subjects of study,
    the more so as many of these regulations date from a period
    later than that under review. Suffice it that, from the
    teaching of the alphabet or of writing, onwards to the
    farthest limit of instruction in the most advanced Academies
    of the Rabbis, all is marked by extreme care, wisdom,
    accuracy, and a moral and religious purpose as the ultimate
    object. For a long time it was not uncommon to teach in the
    open air; [g Shabb. 127 a; Moed K. 16. a.] but this must have
    been chiefly in connection with theological discussions, and
    the instruction of youths. But the children were gathered in
    the Synagogues, or in School-houses, [2 Among the names by
    which the schools are designated there is also that of
    Ischoli, with its various derivations, evidently from the
    Greek schola.] where at first they either stood, teacher and
    pupils alike, or else sat on the ground in a semicircle,
    facing the teacher, as it were, literally to carry into
    practice the prophetic saying: 'Thine eyes shall see thy
    teachers.' [h Is. xxx. 20.] The introduction of benches or
    chairs was of later date; but the principle was always the
    same, that in respect of accommodation there was no
    distinction between teacher and taught. [3 The proof-passages
    from the Talmud are collated by Dr. Marcus (Paedagog. d. Isr.
    Volkes, ii. pp. 16, 17).] Thus, encircled by his pupils, as
    by a crown of glory (to use the language of Maimonides), the
    teacher, generally the Chazzan, or Officer of the Synagogue
    [i For example, Shabb. 11 a.] should impart to them the
    precious knowledge of the Law, with constant adaptation to
    their capacity, with unwearied patience, intense earnestness,
    strictness tempered by kindness, but, above all, with the
    highest object of their training ever in view. To keep
    children from all contact with vice; to train them to
    gentleness, even when bitterest wrong had been received; to
    show sin in its repulsiveness, rather than to terrify by its
    consequences; to train to strict truthfulness; to avoid all
    that might lead to disagreeable or indelicate thoughts; and
    to do all this without showing partiality, without either
    undue severity, or laxity of discipline, with judicious
    increase of study and work, with careful attention to
    thoroughness in acquiring knowledge, all this and more
    constituted the ideal set before the teacher, and made his
    office of such high esteem in Israel.

     Roughly classifying the subjects of study, it was held,
    that, up to ten years of age, the Bible exclusively should be
    the text-book; from ten to fifteen, the Mishnah, or
    traditional law; after that age, the student should enter on
    those theological discussions which occupied time and
    attention in the higher Academies of the Rabbis. [a Ab. v.
    21.] Not that this progression would always be made. For, if
    after three, or, at most, five years of tuition, that is,
    after having fairly entered on Mishnic studies, the child had
    not shown decided aptitude, little hope was to be entertained
    of his future. The study of the Bible commenced with that of
    the Book of Leviticus. [1 Altingius (Academic. Dissert. p.
    335) curiously suggests, that this was done to teach a child
    its guilt and the need of justification. The Rabbinical
    interpretation (Vayyikra R. 7) is at least equally
    far-fetched: that, as children are pure and sacrifices pure,
    it is fitting that the pure should busy themselves with the
    pure. The obvious reason seems, that Leviticus treated of the
    ordinances with which every Jew ought to have been
    acquainted.] Thence it passed to the other parts of the
    Pentateuch; then to the Prophets; and, finally, to the
    Hagiographa. What now constitutes the Gemara or Talmud was
    taught in the Academies, to which access could not be gained
    till after the age of fifteen. Care was taken not to send a
    child too early to school, nor to overwork him when there.
    For this purpose the school-hours were fixed, and attendance
    shortened during the summer-months.

     The teaching in school would, of course, be greatly aided by
    the services of the Synagogue, and the deeper influences of
    home-life. We know that, even in the troublous times which
    preceded the rising of the Maccabees, the possession of parts
    or the whole of the Old Testament (whether in the original or
    the LXX. rendering) was so common, that during the great
    persecutions a regular search was made throughout the land
    for every copy of the Holy Scriptures, and those punished who
    possessed them. [b 1 Macc. i. 57; comp. Jos. Ant. xii. 5,
    4.]After the triumph of the Maccabees, these copies of the
    Bible would, of course, be greatly multiplied. And, although
    perhaps only the wealthy could have purchased a MS. of the
    whole Old Testament in Hebrew, yet some portion or portions
    of the Word of God, in the original, would form the most
    cherished treasure of every pious household. Besides, a
    school for Bible-study was attached to every academy, [a Jer.
    Meg. iii. 1, p. 73 d.] in which copies of the Holy Scripture
    would be kept. From anxious care to preserve the integrity of
    the text, it was deemed unlawful to make copies of small
    portions of a book of Scripture. [1 Herzfeld (Gesch. d. V.
    Isr. iii. p. 267, note) strangely misquotes and misinterprets
    this matter. Comp. Dr. Muller, Massech. Sofer. p. 75.] But
    exception was made of certain sections which were copied for
    the instruction of children. Among them, the history of the
    Creation to that of the Flood; Lev. i.-ix.; and Numb. i.-x.
    35, are specially mentioned. [b Sopher. v. 9, p. 25 b; Gitt.
    60 a; Jer. Meg. 74 a; Tos. Yad. 2.]

     It was in such circumstances, and under such influences,
    that the early years of Jesus passed. To go beyond this, and
    to attempt lifting the veil which lies over His
    Child-History, would not only be presumptuous, [2 The most
    painful instances of these are the legendary accounts of the
    early history of Christ in the Apocryphal Gospels (well
    collated by Keim, i. 2, pp. 413-468, passim). But later
    writers are unfortunately not wholly free from the charge.]
    but involve us in anachronisms. Fain would we know it,
    whether the Child Jesus frequented the Synagogue School; who
    was His teacher, and who those who sat beside Him on the
    ground, earnestly gazing on the face of Him Who repeated the
    sacrificial ordinances in the Book of Leviticus, that were
    all to be fulfilled in Him. But it is all 'a mystery of
    Godliness.' We do not even know quite certainly whether the
    school-system had, at that time, extended to far-off
    Nazareth; nor whether the order and method which have been
    described were universally observed at that time. In all
    probability, however, there was such a school in Nazareth,
    and, if so, the Child-Saviour would conform to the general
    practice of attendance. We may thus, still with deepest
    reverence, think of Him as learning His earliest earthly
    lesson from the Book of Leviticus. Learned Rabbis there were
    not in Nazareth, either then or afterwards. [3 I must here
    protest against the introduction of imaginary 'Evening Scenes
    in Nazareth,' when, according to Dr. Geikie, 'friends or
    neighbours of Joseph's circle would meet for an hour's quiet
    gossip.' Dr. Geikie here introduces as specimens of this
    'quiet gossip' a number of Rabbinic quotations from the
    German translation in Dukes' 'Rabbinische Blumenlese.' To
    this it is sufficient answer: 1. There were no such learned
    Rabbis in Nazareth. 2. If there had been, they would not have
    been visitors in the house of Joseph. 3. If they had been
    visitors there, they would not have spoken what Dr. Geikie
    quotes from Dukes, since some of the extracts are from
    mediaeval books, and only one a proverbial expression. 4.
    Even if they had so spoken, it would at least have been in
    the words which Dukes has translated, without the changes and
    additions which Dr. Geikie has introduced in some instances.]
    He would attend the services of the Synagogue, where Moses
    and the prophets were read, and, as afterwards by Himself, [a
    St. Luke iv. 16.] occasional addresses delivered. [1 See Book
    III., the chapter on 'The Synagogue of Nazareth.'] That His
    was pre-eminently a pious home in the highest sense, it seems
    almost irreverent to say. From His intimate familiarity with
    Holy Scripture, in its every detail, we may be allowed to
    infer that the home of Nazareth, however humble, possessed a
    precious copy of the Sacred Volume in its entirety. At any
    rate, we know that from earliest childhood it must have
    formed the meat and drink of the God-Man. The words of the
    Lord, as recorded by St. Matthew [b St. Matt. v. 18.] and St.
    Luke, [c St. Luke xvi. 17.] also imply that the Holy
    Scriptures which Heread were in the original Hebrew, and that
    they were written in the square, or Assyrian, characters. [2
    This may be gathered even from such an expression as 'One
    iota, or one little hook,' not 'tittle' as in the A.V.]
    Indeed, as the Pharisees and Saducees always appealed to the
    Scriptures in the original, Jesus could not have met them on
    any other ground, and it was this which gave such point to
    His frequent expostulations with them: 'Have ye not read?'

     But far other thoughts than theirs gathered around His study
    of the Old Testament Scriptures. When comparing their long
    discussions on the letter and law of Scripture with His
    references to the Word of God, it seems as if it were quite
    another book which was handled. As we gaze into the vast
    glory of meaning which He opens to us; follow the shining
    track of heavenward living to which He points; behold the
    lines of symbol, type, and prediction converging in the grand
    unity of that Kingdom which became reality in Him; or listen
    as, alternately, some question of His seems to rive the
    darkness, as with flash of sudden light, or some sweet
    promise of old to lull the storm, some earnest lesson to
    quiet the tossing waves, we catch faint, it may be far-off,
    glimpses of how, in that early Child-life, when the Holy
    Scriptures were His special study, He must have read them,
    and what thoughts must have been kindled by their light. And
    thus better than before can we understand it: 'And the Child
    grew, and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom, and the
    grace of God was upon Him.'

 FROM THE MANGER IN BETHLEHEM TO THE BAPTISM IN JORDAN

    IN THE HOUSE OF HIS HEAVENLY, AND IN THE HOME OF HIS EARTHLY
    FATHER, THE TEMPLE OF JERUSALEM, THE RETIREMENT AT NAZARETH.

    CHAPTER X

     (St. Luke ii. 41-52.)

     Once only is the great silence, which lies on the history of
    Christ's early life, broken. It is to record what took place
    on His first visit to the Temple. What this meant, even to an
    ordinary devout Jew, may easily be imagined. Where life and
    religion were so intertwined, and both in such organic
    connection with the Temple and the people of Israel, every
    thoughtful Israelite must have felt as if his real life were
    not in what was around, but ran up into the grand unity of
    the people of God, and were compassed by the halo of its
    sanctity. To him it would be true in the deepest sense, that,
    so to speak, each Israelite was born in Zion, as, assuredly,
    all the well-springs of his life were there. [a Ps. ixxxvii.
    5-7] It was, therefore, not merely the natural eagerness to
    see the City of their God and of their fathers, glorious
    Jerusalem; nor yet the lawful enthusiasm, national or
    religious, which would kindle at the thought of 'our feet'
    standing within those gates, through which priests, prophets,
    and kings had passed; but far deeper feelings which would
    make glad, when it was said: 'Let us go into the house of
    Jehovah.' They were not ruins to which precious memories
    clung, nor did the great hope seem to lie afar off, behind
    the evening-mist. But 'glorious things were spoken of Zion,
    the City of God', in the past, and in the near future 'the
    thrones of David' were to be set within her walls, and amidst
    her palaces. [b Ps. cxxii. 1-5]

     In strict law, personal observance of the ordinances, and
    hence attendance on the feasts at Jerusalem, devolved on a
    youth only when he was of age, that is, at thirteen years.
    Then he became what was called 'a son of the Commandment,' or
    'of the Torah.' [c Ab. v. 21] But, as a matter of fact, the
    legal age was in this respect anticipated by two years, or at
    least by one. [d Yoma 82 a] It was in accordance with this
    custom, that, [1 Comp. also Maimonides, Hilkh. Chag. ii. The
    common statement, that Jesus went to the Temple because He
    was 'a Son of the Commandment,' is obviously erroneous. All
    the more remarkable, on the other hand, is St. Luke's
    accurate knowledge of Jewish customs, and all the more
    antithetic to the mythical theory the circumstance, that he
    places this remarkable event in the twelfth year of Jesus'
    life, and not when He became 'a Son of the Law.'] on the
    first Pascha after Jesus had passed His twelfth year, His
    Parents took Him with them in the 'company' of the Nazarenes
    to Jerusalem. The text seems to indicate, that it was their
    wont [1 We take as the more correct reading that which puts
    the participle in the present tense , and not in the aorist.]
    to go up to the Temple; and we mark that, although women were
    not bound to make such personal appearance, [a Jer Kidd. 61
    c] Mary gladly availed herselfof what seems to have been the
    direction of Hillel (followed also by other religious women,
    mentioned in Rabbinic writings), to go up to the solemn
    services of the Sanctuary. Politically, times had changed.
    The weak and wicked rule of Archelaus had lasted only nine
    years, [b From 4 B.C.to 6 A.D.] when, in consequence of the
    charges against him, he was banished to Gaul. Judaea, Samaria
    and Idumaea were now incorporated into the Roman province of
    Syria, under its Governor, or Legate. The special
    administration of that part of Palestine was, however,
    entrusted to a Procurator, whose ordinary residence was at
    Caesarea. It will be remembered, that the Jews themselves had
    desired some such arrangement, in the vain hope that, freed
    from the tyranny of the Herodians, they might enjoy the
    semi-independence of their brethren in the Grecian cities.
    But they found it otherwise. Their privileges were not
    secured to them; their religious feelings and prejudices were
    constantly, though perhaps not intentionally, outraged; [2
    The Romans were tolerant of the religion of all subject
    nations, excepting only Gaul and Carthage. This for reasons
    which cannot here be discussed. But what rendered Rome so
    obnoxious to Palestine was the cultus of the Emperor, as the
    symbol and impersonation of Imperial Rome. On this cultus
    Rome insisted in all countries, not perhaps so much on
    religious grounds as on political, as being the expression of
    loyalty to the empire. But in Judaea this cultus necessarily
    met resistance to the death. (Comp. Schneckenburger, Neutest.
    Zeitgesch. pp. 40-61.)] and their Sanhedrin shorn of its real
    power, though the Romans would probably not interfere in what
    might be regarded as purely religious questions. Indeed, the
    very presence of the Roman power in Jerusalem was a constant
    offence, and must necessarily have issued in a life and death
    struggle. One of the first measures of the new Legate of
    Syria, P. Sulpicius Quirinius, [c 6-11 (?) A.D.] after
    confiscating the ill-gotten wealth of Archelaus, was to order
    a census in Palestine, with the view of fixing the taxation
    of the country. [d Acts v. 37; Jos. Ant. xviii. 1. 1] The
    popular excitement which this called forth was due, probably,
    not so much to opposition on principle, [3 This view, for
    which there is no historic foundation, is urged by those
    whose interest it is to deny the possibility of a census
    during the reign of Herod.] as to this, that the census was
    regarded as the badge of servitude, and incompatible with the
    Theocratic character of Israel. [1 That these were the sole
    grounds of resistance to the census, appears from Jos. Ant.
    xviii. 1. 1, 6.] Had a census been considered absolutely
    contrary to the Law, the leading Rabbis would never have
    submitted to it; [2 As unquestionably they did.] nor would
    the popular resistance to the measure of Quirinius have been
    quelled by the representations of the High-Priest Joazar.
    But, although through his influence the census was allowed to
    be taken, the popular agitation was not suppressed. Indeed,
    that movement formed part of the history of the time, and not
    only affected political and religious parties in the land,
    but must have been presented to the mind of Jesus Himself,
    since, as will be shown, it had a representative within His
    own family circle.

     This accession of Herod, misnamed the Great, marked a period
    in Jewish history, which closed with the war of despair
    against Rome and the flames of Jerusalem and the Temple. It
    gave rise to the appearance of what Josephus, despite his
    misrepresentation of them, rightly calls a fourth party,
    besides the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes, that of the
    Nationalists. [a Ant. xviii. 1. 6] A deeper and more
    independent view of the history of the times would, perhaps,
    lead us to regard the whole country as ranged either with or
    against that party. As afterwards expressed in its purest and
    simplest form, their watchword was, negatively, to call no
    human being their absolute lord; [b Ant. xviii. 1. 6]
    positively, that God alone was to lead as absolute Lord. [c
    u.s. and Jew. War vii. 10. 1] Itwas, in fact, a revival of
    the Maccabean movement, perhaps more fully in its national
    than in its religious aspect, although the two could scarcely
    be separated in Israel, and their motto almost reads like
    that which according to some, furnished the letters whence
    the name Maccabee [d] was composed: Mi Camochah Baelim
    Jehovah, 'Who like Thee among the gods, Jehovah? [e Ex. xv.
    11] It is characteristic of the times and religious
    tendencies, that their followers were no more called, as
    before, Assideans or Chasidim, 'the pious,' but Zealots or by
    the Hebrew equivalent Qannaim (Cananoeans, not 'Canaanites,'
    as in A.V.) The real home of that party was not Judaea nor
    Jerusalem, but Galilee.

     Quite other, and indeed antagonistic, tendencies prevailed
    in the stronghold of the Herodians, Sadducees, and Pharisees.
    Of the latter only a small portion had any real sympathy with
    the national movement. Each party followed its own direction.
    The Essenes, absorbed in theosophic speculations, not
    untinged with Eastern mysticism, withdrew from all contact
    with the world, and practiced an ascetic life. With them,
    whatever individuals may have felt, no such movement could
    have originated; nor yet with the Herodians or Boethusians,
    who combined strictly Pharisaic views with Herodian political
    partisanship; nor yet with the Sadducees; nor, finally, with
    what constituted the great bulk of the Rabbinist party, the
    School of Hillel. But the brave, free Highlanders of Galilee,
    and of the region across their glorious lake, seemed to have
    inherited the spirit of Jephthah, [a Judg. xi. 3-6] and to
    have treasured as their ideal, alas! often wrongly
    apprehended, their own Elijah, as, descending in wild, shaggy
    garb from the mountains of Gilead, he did battle against all
    the might of Ahab and Jezebel. Their enthusiasm could not be
    kindled by the logical subtleties of the Schools, but their
    hearts burned within them for their God, their land, their
    people, their religion, and their freedom.
     It was in Galilee, accordingly, that such wild, irregular
    resistance to Herod at the outset of his career, as could be
    offered, was organised by guerilla bands, which traversed the
    country, and owned one Ezekias as their leader. Although
    Josephus calls them 'robbers,' a far different estimate of
    them obtained in Jerusalem, where, as we remember, the
    Sanhedrin summoned Herod to answer for the execution of
    Esekias. What followed is told in substantially the same
    manner, though with difference of form [1 The talmud is never
    to be trusted as to historical details. Often it seems
    purposely to alter, when it intends the experienced student
    to read between the lines, while at other times it presents a
    story in what may be called an alle gorical form.] and,
    sometimes, nomenclature, by Josephus, [b Ant. xiv. 9. 2-5]
    and in the Talmud. [c Sanh. 19 a] The story has already been
    related in another connection. Suffice it that, after the
    accession of Herod, the Sanhedrin became a shadow of itself.
    It was packed with Sadducees and Priests of the King's
    nomination, and with Doctors of the canon-law, whose only aim
    was to pursue in peace their subtleties; who had not, and,
    from their contempt of the people, could not have, any real
    sympathy with national aspirations; and whose ideal heavenly
    Kingdom was a miraculous, heaven-instituted, absolute rule of
    Rabbis. Accordingly, the national movement, as it afterwards
    developed, received neither the sympathy nor the support of
    leading Rabbis. Perhaps the most gross manifestation of this
    was exhibited, shortly before the taking of Jerusalem, by R.
    Jochanan ben Saccai, the most renowned among its teachers.
    Almost unmoved he had witnessed the portent of the opening of
    the Temple-doors by an unseen Hand, which, by an
    interpretation of Zech. xi. 1, was popularly regarded as
    betokening its speedy destruction. [d Yoma 39 b] [2 The
    designation 'Lebanon' isoften applied in Talmudic writings to
    the Temple.] There is cynicism, as well as want of sympathy,
    in the story recorded by tradition, that when, in the straits
    of famine during the siege, Jochanan saw people eagerly
    feasting on soup made from straw, he scouted the idea of such
    a garrison resisting Vespasian and immediately resolved to
    leave the city. [a Midr. R. on Lament. i. 5; ed. Warsh. vol.
    iii.p. 60 a] In fact, we havedistinct evidence that R.
    Jochanan had, as leader of the School of Hillel, used all his
    influence, although in vain, to persuade the people to
    submission to Rome. [b Ab. de R. Nathan 4]

     We can understand it, how this school had taken so little
    interest in anything purely national. Generally only one side
    of the character of Hillel has been presented by writers, and
    even this in greatly exaggerated language. His much lauded
    gentleness, peacefulness, and charity were rather negative
    than positive qualities. He was a philosophic Rabbi, whose
    real interest lay in a far other direction than that of
    sympathy with the people, and whose motto seemed, indeed, to
    imply, 'We, the sages, are the people of God; but this
    people, who know not the Law, are curse.' [c Comp. Ab ii. 5]
    A far deeper feeling, and intense, though misguided
    earnestness pervaded the School of Shammai. It was in the
    minority, but it sympathised with the aspirations of the
    people. It was not philosophic nor eclectic, but intensely
    national. It opposed all approach to, and by, strangers; it
    dealt harshly with proselytes, [d Shabb. 31] even the most
    distinguished (such as Akylas or Onkelos); [e Ber. R. 70] it
    passed, by first murdering a number of Hillelites who had
    come to the deliberative assembly, eighteen decrees, of which
    the object was to prevent all intercourse with Gentiles; [1
    This celebrated meeting, of which, however, but scant and
    incoherent notices are left us (Shabb. i. 7 and specially in
    the Jer. Talmud on the passage p. 3 c, d; and Shabb. 17 a;
    Tos. Shabb. i. 2), took place in the house of Chananyah, ben
    Chizqiyah, ben Garon, a noted Shammaite. On arriving, many of
    the Hillelites were killed in the lower room, and then a
    majority of Shammaites carried the so-called eighteen
    decrees. The first twelve forbade the purchase of the most
    necessary articles of diet from Gentiles; the next five
    forbade the learning of their language, declared their
    testimony invalid, and their offerings unlawful, and
    interdicted all intercourse with them; while the last
    referred to first fruits. It was on the ground of these
    decrees that the hitherto customary burnt-offering for the
    Emperor was intermitted, which was really a declaration of
    war against Rome. The date of these decrees was probably
    about four years before the destruction of the Temple (See
    Gratz, Gesch. d. Juden, vol. iii. pp. 494-502). These decrees
    were carried by the influence of R. Eleazar, son of Chananyah
    the High-Priest, a very wealthy man, whose father and brother
    belonged to the opposite or peace party. It was on the
    proposal of this strict Shammaite that the offering for the
    Emperor was intermitted (Jos. Jew. War ii. 17. 2, 3). Indeed,
    it is impossible to over-estimate the influence of these
    Shammaite decrees on the great war with Rome. Eleazar, though
    opposed to the extreme party, one of whose chiefs he took and
    killed, was one of the leaders of the national party in the
    war (War ii. 17. 9, 10). There is, however, some confusion
    about various persons who bore the same name. It is
    impossible in this place to mention the various Shammaites
    who took part in the last Jewish war. Suffice it to indicate
    the tendency of that School.] and it furnished leaders or
    supporters of the national movement.

     We have marked the rise of the Nationalist party in Galilee
    at the time of Herod's first appearance on the scene, and
    learned how mercilessly he tried to suppress it: first, by
    the execution of Ezekias and his adherents, and afterwards,
    when he became King of Judaea, by the slaughter of the
    Sanhedrists. The consequence of this unsparing severity was
    to give Rabbinism a different direction. The School of Hillel
    which henceforth commanded the majority, were men of no
    political colour, theological theorists, self-seeking
    Jurists, vain rather than ambitious. The minority,
    represented by the School of Shammai, were Nationalists.
    Defective and even false as both tendencies were, there was
    certainly more hope, as regarded the Kingdom of God, of the
    Nationalists than of the Sophists and Jurists. It was, of
    course, the policy of Herod to suppress all national
    aspirations. No one understood the meaning of Jewish
    Nationalism so well as he; no one ever opposed it so
    sytematically. There was internal fitness, so to speak, in
    his attempt to kill the King of the Jews among the infants of
    Bethlehem. The murder of the Sanhedrists, with the consequent
    new anti-Messianic tendency of Rabbinism, was one measure in
    that direction; the various appointments which Herod made to
    the High-Priesthood another. And yet it was not easy, even in
    those times, to deprive the Pontificate of its power and
    influence. The High-Priest was still the representative of
    the religious life of the people, and he acted on all
    occasions, when the question under discussion was not one
    exclusively of subtle canon-law, as the President of the
    Sanhedrin, in which, indeed, the members of his family had
    evidently seat and vote. [a Acts iv. 6] The four families [1
    See the list of High-Priests in Appendix VI.] from which,
    with few exceptions, the High-Priest, however often changed,
    were chosen, absorbed the wealth, and commanded the
    influence, of a state-endowed establishment, in its worst
    times. It was, therefore, of the utmost importance to make
    wise choice of the High-Priest. With the exception of the
    brief tenure by Aristobulus, the last of the Maccabees, whose
    appointment, too soon followed by his murder, was at the time
    a necessity, all the Herodian High-Priests were
    non-Palestinians. A keener blow than this could not have been
    dealt at Nationalism.

     The same contempt for the High-Priesthood characterised the
    brief reign of Archelaus. On his death-bed, Herod had
    appointed to the Pontificate Joazar, a son of Boethos, the
    wealthy Alexandrian priest, whose daughter, Mariamme II., he
    had married. The Boethusian family, allied to Herod, formed a
    party, the Herodians, who combined strict Pharisaic views
    with devotion to the reigning family. [2 The Boethusians
    furnished no fewer than four High-Priest during the period
    between the reign of Herod and that of Agrippa I. (41 A.
    D.).] Joazar took the popular part against Archelaus, on his
    accession. For this he was deprived of his dignity in favour
    of another son of Boethos, Eleazar by name. But the mood of
    Archelaus was fickle , perhaps he was distrustful of the
    family of Boethos. At any rate, Eleazar had to give place to
    Jesus, the son of Sie, an otherwise unknown individual. At
    the time of the taxing of Quirinius we find Joazar again in
    office, [a Ant. xviii. 1. 1] apparently restored to it by the
    multitude, which, having taken matters into its own hands at
    the change of government, recalled one who had formerly
    favoured national aspirations. [b Ant. xviii. 2. 1] It is
    thus that we explain his influence with the people, in
    persuading them to submit to the Roman taxation.

     But if Joazar had succeeded with the unthinking populace, he
    failed to conciliate the more advanced of his own party, and,
    as the event proved, the Roman authorities also, whose favour
    he had hoped to gain. It will be remembered, that the
    Nationalist party , or 'Zealots,' as they were afterwards
    called, first appeared in those guerilla-bands which
    traversed Galilee under the leadership of Ezekias, whom Herod
    executed. But the National party was not destroyed, only held
    in check, during his iron reign. It was once more the family
    of Ezekias that headed the movement. During the civil war
    which followed the accession of Archelaus, or rather was
    carried on while he was pleading his cause in Rome, the
    standard of the Nationalists was again raised in Galilee.
    Judas, the son of Ezekias, took possession of the city of
    Sepphoris, and armed his followers from the royal arsenal
    there. At that time, as we know, the High-Priest Joazar
    sympathised, at least indirectly, with the Nationalists. The
    rising, which indeed was general throughout Palestine, was
    suppressed by fire and sword, and the sons of Herod were
    enabled to enter on their possessions. But when, after the
    deposition of Archelaus, Joazar persuaded the people to
    submit to the taxing of Quirinius, Judas was not disposed to
    follow what he regarded as the treacherous lead of the
    Pontiff. In conjunction with a Shammaite Rabbi, Sadduk, he
    raised again the standard of revolt, although once more
    unsuccessfully. [c Ant. xviii i. 1] How the Hillelites looked
    upon this movement, we gather even from the slighting
    allusion of Gamaliel. [d Acts v. 37] The family of Ezekias
    furnished other martyrs to the National cause. The two sons
    of Judas died for it on the cross in 46 A. D. [e Ant. xx. 5.
    2] Yet a third son, Manahem, who, from the commencement of
    the war against Rome, was one of the leaders of the most
    fanatical Nationalists, the Sicarii, the Jacobins of the
    party, as they have been aptly designated, died under
    unspeakable sufferings, [f Jewish War ii. 17 8 and 9] while a
    fourth member of the family, Eleazar, was the leader of
    Israel's forlorn hope, and nobly died at Masada, in the
    closing drama of the Jewish war of independence. [a Jewish
    War, vii. 7-9] Of such stuff were the Galilean Zealots made.
    But we have to take this intense Nationalist tendency also
    into account in the history of Jesus, the more so that at
    least one of His disciples, and he a member of His family,
    had at one time belonged to the party. Only the Kingdom of
    which Jesus was the King was, as He Himself said, not of this
    world, and of far different conception from that for which
    the Nationalists longed.

     At the time when Jesus went up to the feast, Quirinius was,
    as already stated, Governor of Syria. The taxing and the
    rising of Judas were alike past; and the Roman Governor,
    dissatisfied with the trimming of Joazar, and distrustful of
    him, had appointed in his stead Ananos, the son of Seth, the
    Annas of infamous memory in the New Testament. With brief
    interruption, he or his son held the Pontifical office till,
    under the Procuratorship of Pilate, Caiaphas, the son-in-law
    of Annas, succeeded to that dignity. It has already been
    stated that, subject to the Roman Governors of Syria, the
    rule of Palestine devolved on Procurators, of whom Coponius
    was the first. Of him and his immediate successors, Marcus
    Ambivius, [b 9-12 A.D.] Annius Rufus, [c 12-15 A.D.] and
    Valerius Gratus, [d 15-26 A.D.] we know little. They were,
    indeed, guilty of the most grievous fiscal oppressions, but
    they seem to have respected, so far as was in them, the
    religious feelings of the Jews. We know, that they even
    removed the image of the Emperor from the standards of the
    Roman soldiers before marching them into Jerusalem, so as to
    avoid the appearance of a cultus of the Caesars. It was
    reserved for Pontius Pilate to force this hated emblem on the
    Jews, and otherwise to set their most sacred feelings at
    defiance. But we may notice, even at this stage, with what
    critical periods in Jewish history the public appearance of
    Christ synchronised. His first visit to the Temple followed
    upon the Roman possession of Judaea, the taxing, and the
    national rising, as also the institution of Annas to the
    High-Priesthood. And the commencement of His public Ministry
    was contemporaneous with the accession of Pilate, and the
    institution of Caiaphas. Whether viewed subjectively or
    objectively, these things also have a deep bearing upon the
    history of the Christ.

     It was, as we reckon it, in spring A. D. 9, that Jesus for
    the first time went up to the Paschal Feast in Jerusalem.
    Coponius would be there as the Procurator; and Annas ruled in
    the Temple as High-Priest, when He appeared among its
    doctors. But far other than political thoughts must have
    occupied the mind of Christ. Indeed, for a time a brief calm
    had fallen upon the land. There was nothing to provoke active
    resistance, and the party of the Zealots, although existing,
    and striking deeper root in the hearts of the people, was,
    for the time, rather what Josephus called it, 'the
    philosphical party', their minds busy with an ideal, which
    their hands were not yet preparing to make a reality. And so,
    when, according to ancient wont, [a Ps. xlii. Is. xxx. 29.]
    the festive company from Nazareth, soon swelled by other
    festive bands, went up to Jerusalem, chanting by the way
    those 'Psalms of Ascent' [b A.V. 'Degrees'; Ps. cxx.-cxxxiv.]
    to the accompaniment of the flute, they might implicitly
    yeild themselves to the spiritual thoughts kindled by such
    words.

     When the pilgrims' feet stood within the gates of Jerusalem,
    there could have been no difficulty in finding hospitality,
    however crowded the City may have been on such occasions [1
    It seems, however, that the Feast ofPentecost would see even
    more pilgrims at least from a distance, in Jerusalem, than
    that of the Passover (comp. Acts ii. 9-11).] the more so when
    we remember the extreme simplicity of Eastern manners and
    wants, and the abundance of provisions which the many
    sacrifices of the season would supply. But on this subject,
    also, the Evangelic narrative keeps silence. Glorious as a
    view of Jerusalem must have seemed to a child coming to it
    for the first time from the retirement of a Galilean village,
    we must bear in mind, that He Who now looked upon it was not
    an ordinary Child. Nor are we, perhaps, mistaken in the idea
    that the sight of its grandeur would, as on another occasion,
    [c St. Luke xix. 41.] awaken in Him not so much feelings of
    admiration, which might have been akin to those of pride, as
    of sadness, though He may as yet have been scarcely conscious
    of its deeper reason. But the one all-engrossing thought
    would be of the Temple. This, his first visit to its halls,
    seems also to have called out the first outspoken, and may we
    not infer, the first conscious, thought of that Temple as the
    House of His Father, and with it the first conscious impulse
    of his Mission and Being. Here also it would be the higher
    meaning, rather than the structure and appearance, of the
    Temple, that would absorb the mind. And yet there was
    sufficient, even in the latter, to kindle enthusiasm. As the
    pilgrim ascended the Mount, crested by that symmetrically
    proportioned building, which could hold within its gigantic
    girdle not fewer than 210,000 persons, his wonder might well
    increase at every step. The Mount itself seemed like an
    island, abruptly rising from out deep valleys, surrounded by
    a sea of walls, palaces, streets, and houses, and crowned by
    a mass of snowy marble and glittering gold, rising terrace
    upon terrace. Altogether it measured a square of about 1,000
    feet, or, to give a more exact equivalent of the measurements
    furnished by the Rabbis, 927 feet. At its north-western
    angle, and connected with it, frowned the Castle of Antonia,
    held by the Roman garrison. The lofty walls were pierced by
    massive gates, the unused gate (Tedi) on the north; the Susa
    Gate on the east, which opened on the arched roadway to the
    Mount of Olives; [1 So according to the Rabbis; Josephus does
    not mention it. In general, the account here given is
    according to the Rabbis.] the two so-called 'Huldah'
    (probably, 'weasel') gates, which led by tunnels [2 These
    tunnels were divided by colonnades respectively into three
    and into two, the double colonnade being probably used by the
    priests, since its place of exit was close to the entrance
    into the Court of the Priests.] from the priest-suburb Ophel
    into the outer Court; and, finally, four gates on the west.

     Within the gates ran all around covered double colonnades,
    with here are there benches for those who resorted thither
    for prayer or for conference. The most magnificent of those
    was the southern, or twofold double colonnade, with a wide
    space between; the most venerable, the ancient 'Solomon's
    Porch,' or eastern colonnade. Entering from the Xystus
    bridge, and under the tower of John, [a Jos. War vi. 3. 2.]
    one would pass along the southern colonnade (over the tunnel
    of the Huldah-gates) to its eastern extremity, over which
    another tower rose, probably 'the pinnacle' of the history of
    the Temptation. From this height yawned the Kedron valley 450
    feet beneath. From that lofty pinnacle the priest each
    morning watched and announced the earliest streak of day.
    Passing along the eastern colonnade, or Solomon's Porch, we
    would, if the description of the Rabbis is trustworthy, have
    reached the Susa Gate, the carved representation of that city
    over the gateway reminding us of the Eastern Dispersion. Here
    the standard measures of the Temple are said to have been
    kept; and here, also, we have to locate the first or lowest
    of the three Sanhedrins, which, according to the Mishnah, [b
    Sanh. xi. 2.] held their meetings in the Temple; the second,
    or intermediate Court of Appeal, being in the 'Court of the
    Priests' (probably close to the Nicanor Gate); and the
    highest, that of the Great Sanhedrin, at one time in the
    'Hall of Hewn Square Stones' (Lishkath ha-Gazith.)

     Passing out of these 'colonnades,' or 'porches,' you entered
    the 'Court of the Gentiles,' or what the Rabbis called 'the
    Mount of the House,' which was widest on the west side, and
    more and more narrow respectively on the east, the south, and
    the north. This was called the Chol, or 'profane' place to
    which Gentiles had access. Here must have been the market for
    the sale of sacrificial animals, the tables of the
    money-changers, and places for the sale of other needful
    articles. [c St. John ii. 14; St. Matt. xxi. 12; Jerus. Chag.
    p. 78 a; comp. Neh. xiii. 4 &c.] [3The question what was sold
    in this 'market') and its relation to 'the bazaar' of the
    family of Annas (the Chanuyoth beney Chanan) will be
    discussed in a later part.] Advancing within this Court, you
    reached a low breast-wall (the Soreg), which marked the space
    beyond which no Gentile, nor Levitically unclean person,
    might proceed, tablets, bearing inscriptions to that effect,
    warning them off. Thirteen openings admitted into the inner
    part of the Court. Thence fourteen steps led up to the Chel
    or Terrace, which was bounded by the wall of the
    Temple-buildings in the stricter sense. A flight of steps led
    up to the massive, splendid gates. The two on the west side
    seem to have been of no importance, so far as the worshippers
    were concerned, and probably intended for the use of workmen.
    North and south were four gates. [1 The question as to their
    names and arrangement is not without difficulty. The subject
    is fully treated in 'The Temple and its Services.' Although I
    have followed in the text the arrangements of the Rabbis, I
    must express my grave doubts as to their historical
    trustworthiness. It seems to me that the Rabbis always give
    rather the ideal than the real, what, according to their
    theory, should have been, rather than what actually was.] But
    the most splendid gate was that to the east, termed 'the
    Beautiful.' [a Acts iii. 2.]

     Entering by the latter, you came into the Court of the
    Women, so called because the women occupied in it two
    elevated and separated galleries, which, however, filled only
    part of the Court. Fifteen steps led up to the Upper Court,
    which was bounded by a wall, and where was the celebrated
    Nicanor Gate, covered with Corinthian brass. Here the
    Levites, who conducted the musical part of the service, were
    placed. In the Court of the Women were the Treasury and the
    thirteen 'Trumpets,' while at each corner were chambers or
    halls, destined for various purposes. Similarly, beyond the
    fifteen steps, there were repositories for the musical
    instruments. The Upper Court was divided into two parts by a
    boundary, the narrow part forming the Court of Israel, and
    the wider that of the Priests, in which were the great Altar
    and the Laver.

     The Sanctuary itself was on a higher terrace than that Court
    of the Priests. Twelve steps led up to its Porch, which
    extended beyond it on either side (north and south). Here, in
    separate chambers, all that was necessary for the sacrificial
    service was kept. On two marble tables near the entrance the
    old shewbread which was taken out, and the new that was
    brought in, were respectively placed. The Porch was adorned
    by votive presents, conspicuous among them a massive golden
    vine. A two-leaved gate opened into the Sanctuary itself,
    which was divided into two parts. The Holy Place had the
    Golden Candlestick (south), the Table of Shewbread (north),
    and the Golden Altar of Incense between them. A heavy double
    veil concealed the entrance to the Most Holy Place, which in
    the second Temple was empty, nothing being there but the
    piece of rock, called the Ebhen Shethiyah, or Foundation
    Stone, which, according to tradition, covered the mouth of
    the pit, and on which, it was thought, the world was founded.
    Nor does all this convey an adequate idea of the vastness of
    the Temple-buildings. For all around the Sanctuary and each
    of the Courts were various chambers and out-buildings, which
    served different purposes connected with the Services of the
    Temple. [1 For a full description, I must refer to 'The
    Temple, its Ministry and Services at the time of Jesus
    Christ.' Some repetition of what had been alluded to in
    previous chapters has been unavoidable in the present
    description of the Temple.]

     In some part of this Temple, 'sitting in the midst of the
    Doctors, [2 Although comparatively few really great
    authorities in Jewish Canon Law lived at that time, more than
    a dozen names could be given of Rabbis celebrated in Jewish
    literature, who must have been His contemporaries at one or
    another period of His life.] both hearing them and asking
    them questions,' we must look for the Child Jesus on the
    third and the two following days of the Feast on which He
    first visited the Sanctuary. Only onthe two first days of the
    Feast of Passover was personal attendance in the Temple
    necessary. With the third day commenced the so-called
    half-holydays, when it was lawful to return to one's home [a
    So according to the Rabbis generally. Comp. Hoffmann, Abh.
    ii. d. pent. Ges. pp. 65, 66.], a provision of which, no
    doubt, many availed themselves. Indeed, there was really
    nothing of special interest to detain the pilgrims. For, the
    Passover had been eaten, the festive sacrifice (or Chagigah)
    offered, and the first ripe barely reaped and brought to the
    Temple, and waved as the Omer of first flour before the Lord.
    Hence, in view of the well-known Rabbinic provision, the
    expression in the Gospel-narrative concerning the 'Parents'
    of Jesus, 'when they had fulfilled the days,' [b St. Luke ii.
    43.] cannot necessarily imply that Joseph and the Mother of
    Jesus had remained in Jerusalem during the whole Paschal
    week. [3 In fact, an attentive consideration of what in the
    tractate Moed K. (comp. also Chag. 17 b), is declared to be
    lawful occupation during the half-holydays, leads us to infer
    that a very large proportion must have returned to their
    homes.] On the other hand, the circumstances connected with
    the presence of Jesus could not have been found among the
    Doctors after the close of the Feast. The first question here
    is as to the locality in the Temple, where the scene has to
    be laid. It has, indeed, been commonly supposed that there
    was a Synagogue in the Temple; but of this there is, to say
    the least, no historical evidence. [4 For afull discussion of
    this important question, see Appendix X.: 'The Supposed
    Temple-Synagogue.'] But even if such had existed, the worship
    and addresses of the Synagogue would not have offered any
    opportunity for the questioning on the part of Jesus which
    the narrative implies. Still more groundless is the idea that
    there was in the Temple something like a Beth ha-Midrash, or
    theological Academy, not to speak of the circumstance that a
    child of twelve would not, at any time, have been allowed to
    take part in its discussions. But there were occasions on
    which the Temple became virtually, though not formally, a
    Beth ha-Midrash. For we read in the Talmud, [a Sanh. 88 b.]
    that the members of the Temple-Sanhedrin, who on ordinary
    days sat as a Court of Appeal, from the close of the
    Morning-to the time of the Evening-Sacrifice, were wont on
    Sabbaths and feast-days to come out upon 'the Terrace' of the
    Temple, and there to teach. In such popular instruction the
    utmost latitude of questioning would be given. It is in this
    audience, which sat on the ground, surrounding and mingling
    with the Doctors, and hence during, not after the Feast, that
    we must seek the Child Jesus.

     But we have yet to show that the presence and questioning of
    a Child of that age did not necessarily imply anything so
    extraordinary, as to convey the idea of supernaturalness to
    those Doctors or others in the audience. Jewish tradition
    gives other instances of precocious and strangely advanced
    students. Besides, scientific theological learning would not
    be necessary to take part in such popular discussions. If we
    may judge from later arrangements, not only in Babylon, but
    in Palestine, there were two kinds of public lectures, and
    two kinds of students. The first, or more scientific class,
    was designated Kallah (literally, bride), and its attendants
    Beney-Kallah (children of the bride). These lectures were
    delivered in the last month of summer (Elul), before the
    Feast of the New Year, and in the last winter month (Adar),
    immediately before the Feast of Passover. They implied
    considerable preparation on the part of the lecturing Rabbis,
    and at least some Talmudic knowledge on the part of the
    attendants. On the other hand, there were Students of the
    Court (Chatsatsta, and in Babylon Tarbitsa), who during
    ordinary lectures sat separated from the regular students by
    a kind of hedge, outside, as it were in the Court, some of
    whom seem to have been ignorant even of the Bible. The
    lectures addressed to such a general audience would, of
    course, be of a very different character. [b Comp. Jer. Ber.
    iv. p. 7 d, and other passages.]

     But if there was nothing so unprecedented as to render His
    Presence and questioning marvellous, yet all who heard Him
    'were amazed' at His 'combinative insight' [1 The expression
    means originally concursus, and (as Schleusner rightly puts
    it) intelligentia in the sense of perspicacia qua res probe
    cognitae subtiliter ac diligenter a se invicem discernuntur.
    The LXX. render by it no less than eight different Hebrew
    terms.] and 'discerning answers.' [2 The primary meaning of
    the verb, from which the word is derived, is secerno,
    discerno.] We scarcely venture to inquire towards what His
    questioning had been directed. Judging by what we know of
    such discussion, we infer that they may have been connected
    with the Paschal solemnities. Grave Paschal questions did
    arise. Indeed, the great Hillel obtained his rank as chief
    when he proved to the assembled Doctors that the Passover
    might be offered even on the Sabbath. [a Jer. Pes. vi. 1;
    Pes.66 a.] Many other questions might arise on the subject of
    the Passover. Or did the Child Jesus, as afterwards, in
    connection with the Messianic teaching [b St.Matt. xxii.
    42-45.], lead up by His questions to the deeper meaning of
    the Paschal solemnities, as it was to be unfolded, when
    Himself was offered up, 'the Lamb of God, Which taketh away
    the sin of the world'?

     Other questions also almost force themselves on the mind,
    most notably this: whether on the occasion of this His first
    visit to the Temple, the Virgin-Mother had told her Son the
    history of His Infancy, and of what had happened when, for
    the first time, He had been brought to the Temple. It would
    almost seem so, if we might judge from the contrast between
    the Virgin-Mother's complaint about the search of His father
    and of her, and His own emphatic appeal to the business of
    His Father. But most surprising, truly wonderful it must have
    seemed to Joseph, and even to the Mother of Jesus, that the
    meek, quiet Child should have been found in such company, and
    so engaged. It must have been quite other than what, from His
    past, they would have expected; or they would not have taken
    it for granted, when they left Jerusalem, that He was among
    their kinsfolk and acquaintance, perhaps mingling with the
    children. Nor yet would they, in such case, after they missed
    Him at the first night's halt, at Sichem, [c Jos. Ant. xv. 8.
    5.] if the direct road north, through Samaria, [1 According
    to Jer. Ab. Z. 44 d, the soil, the fountains, the houses, and
    the roads of Samaria were 'clean.'] was taken (or, according
    to the Mishnah, at Akrabah [d Maas. Sh. v. 2.]), have so
    anxiously sought Him by the way, [2 This is implied in the
    use of the present participle.] and in Jerusalem; nor yet
    would they have been 'amazed' when they found Him in the
    assembly of the Doctors. The reply of Jesus to the
    half-reproachful, half-relieved expostulation of them who had
    sought Him 'sorrowing' these three days, [3 The first day
    would be that of missing Him, the second that of the return,
    and the third that of the search in Jerusalem.] sets clearly
    these three things before us. He had been so entirely
    absorbed by the awakening thought of His Being and Mission,
    however kindled, as to be not only neglectful, but forgetful
    of all around. Nay, it even seemed to Him impossible to
    understand how they could have sought Him, and not known
    where He had lingered. Secondly: we may venture to say, that
    He now realised that this was emphatically His Father's
    House. And, thirdly: so far as we can judge, it was then and
    there that, for the first time, He felt the strong and
    irresistible impulse, that Divine necessity of His Being, to
    be 'about His Father's business.' [1 The expression may be
    equally rendered, or rather supplemented, by 'in My Father's
    house,' and 'about My Father's business.' The former is
    adopted by most modern commentators. But (1) it does not
    accord with the word that must be supplemented in the two
    analogous passages in the LXX. Neither in Esth. vii. 9, nor
    in Ecclus. xlii. 10, is it strictly 'the house.' (2) It seems
    unaccountable how the word 'house' could have been left out
    in the Greek rendering of the Aramaean words of Christ, but
    quite natural, if the word to be supplemented was 'things' or
    'business.' (3) A reference to the Temple as His Father's
    house could not have seemed so strange on the lips of Jesus,
    nor, indeed, of any Jewish child, as to fill Joseph and Mary
    with astonishment.] We all, when first awakening to spiritual
    consciousness, or, perhaps, when for the first time taking
    part in the feast of the Lord's House may, and, learning from
    His example, should, make this the hour of decision, in which
    heart and life shall be wholly consecrated to the 'business'
    of our Father. But there was far more than this in the
    bearing of Christ on this occasion. That forgetfulness of His
    Child-life was a sacrifice, a sacrifice of self; that entire
    absorption in His Father's business, without a thought of
    self, either in the gratification of curiosity, the
    acquisition of knowledge, or personal ambition, a
    consecration of Himself unto God. It was the first
    manifestation of His passive and active obedience to the Will
    of God. Even at this stage, it was the forth-bursting of the
    inmost meaning of His Life: 'My meat is to do the Will of Him
    that sent Me, and to finish His work.' And yet this awakening
    of the Christ-consciousness on His first visit to the Temple,
    partial, and perhaps even temporary, as it may have been,
    seems itself like the morning-dawn, which from the pinnacle
    of the Temple the Priest watched, ere he summoned his waiting
    brethren beneath to offer the early sacrifice.

     From what we have already learned of this History, we do not
    wonder that the answer of Jesus came to His parents as a
    fresh surprise. For, we can only understand what we perceive
    in its totality. But here each fresh manifestation came as
    something separate and new, not as part of a whole; and
    therefore as a surprise, of which the purport and meaning
    could not be understood, except in its organic connection and
    as a whole. And for the true human development of the
    God-Man, what was the natural was also the needful process,
    even as it was best for the learning of Mary herself, and for
    the future reception of His teaching. These three subsidiary
    reasons may once more be indicated here in explanation of the
    Virgin-Mother's seeming ignorance of her Son's true
    character: the necessary gradualness of such a revelation;
    the necessary development of His own consciousness; and the
    fact, that Jesus could not have been subject to His Parents,
    nor had true and proper human training, if they had clearly
    known that He was the essential Son of God.

     A further, though to us it seems a downward step, was His
    quiet, immediate, unquestioning return to Nazareth with His
    Parents, and His willing submission [1 The voluntariness of
    His submission is implied by the present part. mid. of the
    verb.] to them while there. It was self-denial,
    self-sacrifice, self-consecration to His Mission, with all
    that it implied. It was not self-exinanition but
    self-submission, all the more glorious in proportion to the
    greatness of that Self. This constant contrast before her
    eyes only deepened in the heart of Mary the everpresent
    impression of 'all those matters,' [2 The Authorised Version
    renders 'sayings.' But I think the expression is clearly
    equivalent to the Hebrew all these things. St. Luke uses the
    word in that sense in i. 65; ii. 15,.] of which she was the
    most cognisant. She was learning to spell out the word
    Messiah, as each of 'those matters' taught her one fresh
    letter in it, and she looked at them all in the light of the
    Nazareth-Sun.

     With His return to Nazareth began Jesus' Life of youth and
    early manhood, with all of inward and outward development, of
    heavenly and earthly approbation which it carried. [a St.
    Luke ii. 52.] Whether or not He went to Jerusalem on
    recurring Feasts, we know not, and need not inquire. For only
    once during that period, on His first visit to the Temple,
    and in the awakening of His Youth-Life, could there have been
    such outward forth-bursting of His real Being and Mission.
    Other influences were at their silent work to weld His inward
    and outward development, and to determine the manner of His
    later Manifesting of Himself. We assume that the
    School-education of Jesus must have ceased soon after His
    return to Nazareth. Henceforth the Nazareth-influences on the
    Life and Thinking of Jesus may be grouped, and progressively
    as He advanced from youth to manhood, under these
    particulars: Home, Nature, and Prevailing Ideas.

     1. Home. Jewish Home-Life, especially in the country, was of
    the simplest. Even in luxurious Alexandria it seems often to
    have been such, alike as regarded the furnishing of the
    house, and the provisions of the table. [3 Comp. Philo in
    Flacc.ed. Fcf. p. 977 &c.] The morning and midday meal must
    have been of the plainest, and even the larger evening meal
    of the simplest, in the home at Nazareth. Only the Sabbath
    and festivals, whether domestic or public, brought what of
    the best lay within reach. But Nazareth was not the city of
    the wealthy or influential, and such festive
    evening-entertainments, with elaborate ceremoniousness of
    reception, arranging of guests according to rank, and rich
    spread of board, would but rarely, if ever, be witnessed in
    those quiet homes. The same simplicity would prevail in dress
    and manners. [1 For details as to dress, food, and manners in
    Palestine, I must refer to other parts of this book.] But
    close and loving were the bonds which drew together the
    members of a family, and deep the influence which they
    exercised on each other. We cannot here discuss the vexed
    question whether 'the brothers and sisters' of Jesus were
    such in the real sense, or step-brothers and sisters, or else
    cousins, though it seems to us as if the primary meaning of
    the terms would scarcely have been called in question, but
    for a theory of false asceticism, and an undervaluing of the
    sanctity of the married estate. [a Comp. St. Matt. i. 24; St.
    Luke ii. 7; St. Matt. xii. 46; xiii. 55, 56; St. Mark iii.
    31; vi. 3; Acts i. 14; 1 Cor. ix. 5; Gal.i 19.] But, whatever
    the precise relationship between Jesus and these 'brothers
    and sisters,' it must, on any theory, have been of the
    closest, and exercised its influence upon Him. [2 The
    question of the real relationship of Christ to His 'brothers'
    has been so often discussed in the various Cyclopaedias that
    it seems unnecessary here to enter upon the matter in detail.
    See also Dr. Lightfoot's Dissertation in his Comment. on
    Galat. pp. 282-291.]

     Passing over Joses or Joseph, of whose history we know next
    to nothing, we have sufficient materials to enable us to form
    some judgment of what must have been the tendencies and
    thoughts of two of His brothers James and Jude, before they
    were heart and soul followers of the Messiah, and of His
    cousin Simon. [3 I regard this Simon (Zelotes) as theson of
    Clopas (brother of Joseph, the Virgin's husband) and of Mary.
    For the reasons of this view, see Book III. ch. xvii. and
    Book V. ch. xv.] If we might venture on a general
    characterisation, we would infer from the Epistle of St.
    James, that his religious views had originally been cast in
    the mould of Shammai. Certainly, there is nothing of the
    Hillelite direction about it, but all to remind us of the
    earnestness, directness, vigour, and rigour of Shammai. Of
    Simon we know that he had belonged to the Nationalist party,
    since he is expressly so designated (Zelotes, [b St. Luke vi.
    15; Acts i.13] Cananoean). [c St. Mark iii. 18] Lastly, there
    are in the Epistle of St. Jude, one undoubted, and another
    probable reference to two of those (Pseudepigraphic)
    Apocalyptic books, which at that time marked one deeply
    interesting phase of the Messianic outlook of Israel. [d St.
    Jude xv. 14, 15 to the book of Enoch,and v. 9 probably to the
    Assum. of Moses] We have thus within the narrow circle of
    Christ's Family-Life, not to speak of any intercourse with
    the sons of Zebedee, who probably were also His cousins [4 On
    the maternal side. We read St. John xix. 25 as indicating
    four women, His Mother's sister being Salome, according to
    St. Mark xv. 40.] the three most hopeful and pure Jewish
    tendencies, brought into constant contact with Jesus: in
    Pharisaism, the teaching of Shammai; then, the Nationalist
    ideal; and, finally, the hope of a glorious Messianic future.
    To these there should probably be added, at least knowledge
    of the lonely preparation of His kinsman John, who, though
    certainly not an Essene, had, from the necessity of his
    calling, much in his outward bearing that was akin to them.

     But we are anticipating. From what are, necessarily, only
    suggestions, we turn again to what is certain in connection
    with His Family-Life and its influences. From St. Mark vi. 3,
    we may infer with great probability, though not with absolute
    certainty, [a Comp. St. Matt. xiii. 55; St. John vi. 42.]
    that He had adopted the trade of Joseph. Among the Jews the
    contempt for manual labour, which was one of the painfu [1
    See the chapter on 'Trades and Tradesmen,' in the 'Sketches
    of Jewish Social Life.'] characteristics of heathenism, did
    not exist. On the contrary, it was deemed a religious duty,
    frequently and most earnestly insisted upon, to learn some
    trade, provided it did not minister to luxury, nor tend to
    lead away from personal observance of the Law. [b Comp. Ab.
    i. 10; Kidd. 29 b1.] There was not such separation between
    rich and poor as with us, and while wealth might confer
    social distinction, the absence of it in no way implied
    social inferiority. Nor could it be otherwise where wants
    were so few, life was so simple, and its highest aim so ever
    present to the mind.

     We have already spoken of the religious influences in the
    family, so blessedly different from that neglect, exposure,
    and even murder of children among the heathen, or their
    education by slaves, who corrupted the mind from its earliest
    opening. [2 Comp. this subject in Dollinger, 'Heidenthum u.
    Judenthum,' in regard to the Greeks, p. 692; in regard to the
    Romans, pp. 716-722: in regard to education and its
    abominations, pp. 723-726. Nothing can cast a more lurid
    light on the need for Christianity, if the world was not to
    perish of utter rottenness, than a study of ancient Hellas
    and Rome, as presented by Dollinger in his admirable work.]
    The love of parents to children, appearing even in the curse
    which was felt to attach to childlessness; the reverence
    towards parents, as a duty higher than any of outward
    observance; and the love of brethren, which Jesus had learned
    in His home, form, so to speak, the natural basis of many of
    the teachings of Jesus. They give us also an insight into the
    family-life of Nazareth. And yet there is nothing sombre nor
    morose about it; and even the joyous games of children, as
    well as festive gatherings of families, find their record in
    the words and the life of Christ. This also is characteristic
    of His past. And so are His deep sympathy with all sorrow and
    suffering, and His love for the family circle, as evidenced
    in the home of Lazarus. That He spoke Hebrew, and used and
    quoted the Scriptures in the original, has already been
    shown, although, no doubt, He understood Greek, possibly also
    Latin.

     Secondly: Nature and Every-day Life. The most superficial
    perusal of the teaching of Christ must convince how deeply
    sympathetic He was with nature, and how keenly observant of
    man. Here there is no contrast between love of the country
    and the habits of city life; the two are found side by side.
    On His lonely walks He must have had an eye for the beauty of
    the lilies of the field, and thought of it, how the birds of
    the air received their food from an Unseen Hand, and with
    what maternal affection the hen gathered her chickens under
    her wing. He had watched the sower or the vinedresser as he
    went forth to his labour, and read the teaching of the tares
    which sprang up among the wheat. To Him the vocation of the
    shepherd must have been full of meaning, as he led, and fed,
    and watched his flock, spoke to his sheep with well-known
    voice, brought them to the fold, or followed, and tenderly
    carried back, those that had strayed, ever ready to defend
    them, even at the cost of his own life. Nay, He even seems to
    have watched the habits of the fox in its secret lair. But he
    also equally knew the joys, the sorrows, the wants and
    sufferings of the busy multitude. The play in the market, the
    marriage processions, the funeral rites, the wrongs of
    injustice and oppression, the urgent harshness of the
    creditor, the bonds and prison of the debtor, the palaces and
    luxury of princes and courtiers, the self-indulgence of the
    rich, the avarice of the covetous, the exactions of the
    tax-gatherer, and the oppression of the widow by unjust
    judges, had all made an indelible impression on His mind. And
    yet this evil world was not one which He hated, and from
    which He would withdraw Himself with His disciples, though
    ever and again He felt the need of periods of meditation and
    prayer. On the contrary, while He confronted all the evil in
    it, He would fain pervade the mass with the new leaven; not
    cast it away, but renew it. He recognised the good and the
    hopeful, even in those who seemed most lost. He quenched not
    the dimly burning flax, nor brake the bruised reed. It was
    not contempt of the world, but sadness over it; not
    condemnation of man, but drawing him to His Heavenly Father;
    not despising of the little and the poor, whether ontwardly
    or inwardly such, but encouragement and adoption of them,
    together with keen insight into the real under the mask of
    the apparent, and withering denunciation and unsparing
    exposure of all that was evil, mean, and unreal, wherever it
    might appear. Such were some of the results gathered from His
    past life, as presented in His teaching.

     Thirdly: Of the prevailing ideas around, with which He was
    brought in contact, some have already been mentioned. Surely,
    the earnestness of His Shammaite brother, if such we may
    venture to designate him; the idea of the Kingdom suggested
    by the Nationalists, only in its purest and most spiritual
    form, as not of this world, and as truly realising the
    sovereignty of God in the individual, whoever he might be;
    even the dreamy thoughts of the prophetic literature of those
    times, which sought to read the mysteries of the coming
    Kingdom; as well as the prophet-like asceticism of His
    forerunner and kinsman, formed at least so many points of
    contact for His teaching. Thus, Christ was in sympathy with
    all the highest tendencies of His people and time. Above all,
    there was His intimate converse with the Scriptures of the
    Old Testament. If, in the Synagogue, He saw much to show the
    hollowness, self-seeking, pride, and literalism which a mere
    external observance of the Law fostered, He would ever turn
    from what man or devils said to what He read, to what was
    'written.' Not one dot or hook of it could fall to the
    ground, all must be established and fulfilled. The Law of
    Moses in all its bearings, the utterances of the prophets,
    Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Micah, Zechariah,
    Malachi, and the hopes and consolations of the Psalms, were
    all to Him literally true, and cast their light upon the
    building which Moses had reared. It was all one, a grand
    unity; not an aggregation of different parts, but the
    unfolding of a living organism. Chiefest of all, it was the
    thought of the Messianic bearing of all Scripture to its
    unity, the idea of the Kingdom of God and the King of Zion,
    which was the life and light of all. Beyond this, into the
    mystery of His inner converse with God, the unfolding of His
    spiritual receptiveness, and the increasing communication
    from above, we dare not enter. Even what His bodily
    appearance may have been, we scarcely venture to imagine. [1
    Even the poetic conception of the painter can only furnish
    his own ideal, and that of one special mood. Speaking as one
    who has no claim to knowledge of art, only one picture of
    Christ ever really impressed me. It was that of an 'Ecce
    Homo,' by Carlo Dolci, in the Pitti Gallery at Florence. For
    an account of the early pictorial representations, comp.
    Gieseler. Kirchengesch. i. pp. 85, 86.] It could not but be
    that His outer man in some measure bodied forth His 'Inner
    Being.' Yet we dread gathering around our thoughts of Him the
    artificial flowers of legend. [2 Of these there are, alas!
    only too many. The reader interested in the matter will find
    a good summary in Keim, i. 2, pp. 460-463. One of the few
    noteworthy remarks recorded is this description of Christ, in
    the spurious Epistle of Lentulus, 'Who was never seen to
    laugh, but often to weep.'] What His manner and mode of
    receiving and dealing with men were, we can portray to
    ourselves from His life. And so it is best to remain content
    with the simple account of the Evangelic narrative: 'Jesus
    increased in favour with God and Man.'

 FROM THE MANGER IN BETHLEHEM TO THE BAPTISM IN JORDAN

    IN THE FIFTEENTH YEAR OF TIBERIUS CAESAR AND UNDER THE
    PONTIFICATE OF ANNAS AND CAIAPHAS, A VOICE IN THE WILDERNESS

    CHAPTER XI

     (St. Matthew iii. 1-12; St. Mark i. 2-8; St. Luke iii.
    1-18.)

     THERE is something grand, even awful, in the almost absolute
    silence which lies upon the thirty years between the Birth
    and the first Messianic Manifestation of Jesus. In a
    narrative like that of the Gospels, this must have been
    designed; and, if so, affords presumptive evidence of the
    authenticity of what follows, and is intended to teach, that
    what had preceded concerned only the inner History of Jesus,
    and the preparation of the Christ. At last that solemn
    silence was broken by an appearance, a proclamation, a rite,
    and a ministry as startling as that of Elijah had been. In
    many respects, indeed, the two messengers and their times
    bore singular likeness. It was to a society secure,
    prosperous, and luxurious, yet in imminent danger of
    perishing from hidden, festering disease; and to a religious
    community which presented the appearance of hopeless
    perversion, and yet contained the germs of a possible
    regeneration, that both Elijah and John the Baptist came.
    Both suddenly appeared to threaten terrible judgment, but
    also to open unthought-of possibilities of good. And, as if
    to deepen still more the impression of this contrast, both
    appeared in a manner unexpected, and even antithetic to the
    habits of their contemporaries. John came suddenly out of the
    wilderness of Judaea, as Elijah from the wilds of Gilead;
    John bore the same strange ascetic appearance as his
    predecessor; the message of John was the counterpart of that
    of Elijah; his baptism that of Elijah's novel rite on Mount
    Carmel. And, as if to make complete the parallelism, with all
    of memory and hope which it awakened, even the more minute
    details surrounding the life of Elijah found their
    counterpart in that of John. Yet history never repeats
    itself. It fulfils in its development that of which it gave
    indication at its commencement. Thus, the history of John the
    Baptist was the fulfilment of that of Elijah in 'the fulness
    of time.'

     For, alike in the Roman world and in Palestine, the time had
    fully come; not, indeed, in the sense of any special
    expectancy, but of absolute need. The reign of Augustus
    marked, not only the climax, but the crisis, of Roman
    history. Whatever of good or of evil the ancient world
    contained, had become fully ripe. As regarded politics,
    philosophy, religion, and society, the utmost limits had been
    reached. [1 Instead of detailed quotations I would here
    generally refer to works on Roman history, especially to
    Friedlander's Sittengeschichte Roms, and to Dollinger's
    exhaustive work, Heidenthum and Judenthum.] Beyond them lay,
    as only alternatives, ruin or regeneration. It was felt that
    the boundaries of the Empire could be no further extended,
    and that henceforth the highest aim must be to preserve what
    had been conquered. The destines of Rome were in the hands of
    one man, who was at the same time general-in-chief of a
    standing army of about three hundred and forty thousand men,
    head of a Senate (now sunk into a mere court for registering
    the commands of Caesar), and High-Priest of a religion, of
    which the highest expression was the apotheosis of the State
    in the person of the Emperor. Thus, all power within,
    without, and above lay in his hands. Within the city, which
    in one short reign was transformed from brick into marble,
    were, side by side, the most abject misery and almost
    boundless luxury. Of a population of about two millions,
    well-nigh one half were slaves; and, of the rest, the greater
    part either freedmen and their descendants, or foreigners.
    Each class contributed its share to the common decay. Slavery
    was not even what we know it, but a seething mass of cruelty
    and oppression on the one side, and of cunning and corruption
    on the other. More than any other cause, it contributed to
    the ruin of Roman society. The freedmen, who had very often
    acquired their liberty by the most disreputable courses, and
    had prospered in them, combined in shameless manner the vices
    of the free with the vileness of the slave. The foreigners,
    especially Greeks and Syrians, who crowded the city, poisoned
    the springs of its life by the corruption which they brought.
    The free citizens were idle, dissipated, sunken; their chief
    thoughts of the theatre and the arena; and they were mostly
    supported at the public cost. While, even in the time of
    Augustus, more than two hundred thousand persons were thus
    maintained by the State, what of the old Roman stock remained
    was rapidly decaying, partly from corruption, but chiefly
    from the increasing cessation of marriage, and the nameless
    abominations of what remained of family-life.

     The state of the provinces was in every respect more
    favourable. But it was the settled policy of the Empire,
    which only too surely succeeded, to destroy all separate
    nationalities, or rather to absorb and to Grecianise all. The
    only real resistance came from the Jews. Their tenacity was
    religious, and, even in its extreme of intolerant
    exclusiveness, served a most important Providential purpose.
    And so Rome became to all the centre of attraction, but also
    of fast-spreading destructive corruption. Yet this unity
    also, and the common bond of the Greek language, served
    another important Providential purpose. So did, in another
    direction, the conscious despair of any possible internal
    reformation. This, indeed, seemed the last word of all the
    institutions in the Roman world: It is not in me! Religion,
    philosophy, and society had passed through every stage, to
    that of despair. Without tracing the various phases of
    ancient thought, it may be generally said that, in Rome at
    least, the issue lay between Stoicism and Epicureanism. The
    one flattered its pride, the other gratified its sensuality;
    the one was in accordance with the original national
    character, the other with its later decay and corruption.
    Both ultimately led to atheism and despair, the one, by
    turning all higher aspirations self-ward, the other, by
    quenching them in the enjoyment of the moment; the one, by
    making the extinction of all feeling and self-deification,
    the other, the indulgence of every passion and the worship of
    matter, its ideal.

     That, under such conditions, all real belief in a personal
    continuance after death must have ceased among the educated
    classes, needs not demonstration. If the older Stoics held
    that, after death, the soul would continue for some time a
    separate existence, in the case of sages till the general
    destruction of the world by fire, it was the doctrine of most
    of their successors that, immediately after death, the soul
    returned into 'the world-soul' of which it was part. But even
    this hope was beset by so many doubts and misgivings, as to
    make it practically without influence or comfort. Cicero was
    the only one who, following Plato, defended the immortality
    of the soul, while the Peripatetics denied the existence of a
    soul, and leading Stoics at least its continuance after
    death. But even Cicero writes as one overwhelmed by doubts.
    With his contemporaries this doubt deepened into absolute
    despair, the only comfort lying in present indulgence of the
    passions. Even among the Greeks, who were most tenacious of
    belief in the non-extinction of the individual, the practical
    upshot was the same. The only healthier tendency, however
    mixed with error, came from the Neo-Platonic School, which
    accordingly offered a point of contact between ancient
    philosophy and the new faith.

     In such circumstances, anything like real religion was
    manifestly impossible. Rome tolerated, and, indeed,
    incorporated, all national rites. But among the populace
    religion had degenerated into abject superstition. In the
    East, much of it consisted of the vilest rites; while, among
    the philosophers, all religions were considered equally false
    or equally true, the outcome of ignorance, or else the
    unconscious modifications of some one fundamental thought.
    The only religion on which the State insisted was the
    defication and worship of the Emperor. [1 The only thorough
    resistance to this worship came from hated Judaea, and, we
    may add, from Britain (Dollinger, p. 611).] These apotheoses
    attained almost incredible development. Soon not only the
    Emperors, but their wives, paramours, children, and the
    creatures of their vilest lusts, were deified; nay, any
    private person might attain that distinction, if the
    survivors possessed sufficient means. [2 From the time of
    Caesar to that of Diocletian, fifty-three such apotheoses
    took place, including those of fifteen women belonging to the
    Imperial families.] Mingled with all this was an increasing
    amount of superstition, by which term some understood the
    worship of foreign gods, the most part the existence of fear
    in religion. The ancient Roman religion had long given place
    to foreign rites, the more mysterious and untelligible the
    more enticing. It was thus that Judaism made its converts in
    Rome; its chief recommendation with many being its contrast
    to the old, and the unknown possibilities which its seemingly
    incredible doctrines opened. Among the most repulsive
    symptoms of the general religious decay may be reckoned
    prayers for the death of a rich relative, or even for the
    satisfaction of unnatural lusts, along with horrible
    blasphemies when such prayers remained unanswered. We may
    here contrast the spirit of the Old and New Testaments with
    such sentiments as this, on the tomb of a child: 'To the
    unjust gods who robbed me of life;' or on that of a girl of
    twenty: 'I lift my hands against the god who took me away,
    innocent as I am.'

     It would be unsavoury to describe how far the worship of in
    decency was carried; how public morals were corrupted by the
    mimic representations of everything that was vile, and even
    by the pandering of a corrupt art. The personation of gods,
    oracles, divination, dreams, astrology, magic, necromancy,
    and theurgy, [3 One of the most painful, and to the Christian
    almost incredible, manifestations of religious decay was the
    unblushing manner in which the priests practised imposture
    upon the people. Numerous and terrible instances of this
    could be given. The evidence of this is not only derived from
    the Fathers, but a work has been preserved in which formal
    instructions are given, how temples and altars are to be
    constructed in order to produce false miracles, and by what
    means impostures of this kind may be successfully practised.
    (Comp. 'The Pneumatics of Hero,' translated by B. Woodcroft.)
    The worst was, that this kind of imposture on the ignorant
    populace was openly approved by the educated. (Dollinger, p.
    647.).] Mingled with all this was an increasing amount of
    superstition, by which term some understood the worship of
    foreign gods, the most part the existence of fear in
    religion. The ancient Roman religion had long given place to
    foreign rites, the more mysterious and unintelligible the
    more enticing. It was thus that Judaism made its converts in
    Rome; its chief recommendation with many being its contrast
    to the old, and the unknown possibilities which its seemingly
    incredible doctrines opened. Among the most repulsive
    symptoms of the general religious decay may be reckoned
    prayers for the death of a rich relative, or even for the
    satisfaction of unnatural lusts, along with horrible
    blasphemies when such prayers remained unanswered. We may
    here contrast the spirit of the Old and New Testaments with
    such sentiments as this, on the tomb of a child: 'To the
    unjust gods who robbed me of life;' or on that of a girl of
    twenty: 'I lift my hands against the god who took me away,
    innocent as I am.'

     It would be unsavoury to describe how far the worship of in
    decency was carried; how public morals were corrupted by the
    mimic representations of everything that was vile, and even
    by the pandering of a corrupt art. The personation of gods,
    oracles, divination, dreams, astrology, magic, necromancy,
    and theurgy, [3 One of the most painful, and to the Christian
    almost incredible, manifestations of religious decay was the
    unblushing manner in which the priests practised imposture
    upon the people. Numerous and terrible instances of this
    could be given. The evidence of this is not only derived from
    the Fathers, but a work has been preserved in which formal
    instructions are given, how temples and altars are to be
    constructed in order to produce false miracles, and by what
    means impostures of this kind may be successfully practised.
    (Comp. 'The Pneumatics of Hero, 'translated by B. Woodcroft.)
    The worst was, that this kind of imposture on the ignorant
    populace was openly approved by the educated. (Dollinger, p.
    647.).] all contributed to the general decay. It has been
    rightly said, that the idea of conscience, as we understand
    it, was unknown to heathenism. Absolute right did not exist.
    Might was right. The social relations exhibited, if possible,
    even deeper corruption. The sanctity of marriage had ceased.
    Female dissipation and the general dissoluteness led at last
    to an almost entire cessation of marriage. Abortion, and the
    exposure and murder of newly-born children, were common and
    tolerated; unnatural vices, which even the greatest
    philosophers practised, if not advocated, attained
    proportions which defy description.

     But among these sad signs of the times three must be
    specially mentioned: the treatment of slaves; the bearing
    towards the poor; and public amusements. The slave was
    entirely unprotected; males and females were exposed to
    nameless cruelties, compared to which death by being thrown
    to the wild beasts, or fighting in the arena, might seem
    absolute relief. Sick or old slaves were cast out to perish
    from want. But what the influence of the slaves must have
    been on the free population, and especially upon the young,
    whose tutors they generally were, may readily be imagined.
    The heartlessness towards the poor who crowded the city is
    another well-known feature of ancient Roman society. Of
    course, there was neither hospitals, nor provision for the
    poor; charity and brotherly love in their every manifestation
    are purely Old and New Testament ideas. But even bestowal of
    the smallest alms on the needy was regarded as very
    questionable; best, not to afford them the means of
    protracting a useless existence. Lastly, the account which
    Seneca has to give of what occupied and amused the idle
    multitude, for all manual labour, except agriculture, was
    looked upon with utmost contempt horrified even himself. And
    so the only escape which remained for the philosopher, the
    satiated, or the miserable, seemed the power of
    self-destruction! What is worse, the noblest spirits of the
    time of self-destruction! What is worse, the noblest spirits
    of the time felt, that the state of things was utterly
    hopeless. Society could not reform itself; philosophy and
    religion had nothing to offer: they had been tried and found
    wanting. Seneca longed for some hand from without to lift up
    from the mire of despair; Cicero pictured the enthusiasm
    which would greet the embodiment of true virtue, should it
    ever appear on earth; Tacitus declared human life one great
    farce, and expressed his conviction that the Roman world lay
    under some terrible curse. All around, despair, conscious
    need, and unconscious longing. Can greater contrast be
    imagined, than the proclamation of a coming Kingdom of God
    amid such a world; or clearer evidence be afforded of the
    reality of this Divine message, than that it came to seek and
    to save that which was thus lost? One synchronism, as
    remarkable as that of the Star in the East and the Birth of
    the Messiah, here claims the reverent attention of the
    student of history. On the 19th of December A.D. 69, the
    Roman Capitol, with its ancient sanctuaries, was set on fire.
    Eight months later, on the 9th of Ab A. D. 70, the Temple of
    Jerusalem was given to the flames. It is not a coincidence
    but a conjunction, for upon the ruins of heathenism and of
    apostate Judaism was the Church of Christ to be reared.

     A silence, even more complete than that concerning the early
    life of Jesus, rests on the thirty years and more, which
    intervened between the birth and the open forthshowing [1
    This seems the full meaning of the word, St. Luke i. 80.
    Comp. Acts i. 24 Forerunner of the Messiah. Only his outward
    and inward development, and his being 'in the deserts,' [2
    The plural indicates that St. John was not always in the same
    'wilderness.' The plural form in regard to the 'wilderness
    which are in the land of Israel,' is common in Rabbinic
    writings (comp. Baba K. vii. 7 and the Gemaras on the
    passage). On the fulfilment by the Baptist of Is. xl. 3, see
    the discussion of that passage in Appendix XI.] [a St. Luke
    i. 80.] The latter, assuredly, not in order to learn from the
    Essenes, [3 Godet has, in a few forcible sentences, traced
    what may be called not merely the difference, but the
    contrast between the teaching and aims of the Essenes and
    those of John.] but to attain really, in lonely fellowship
    with God, what they sought externally. It is characteristic
    that, while Jesus could go straight from the home and
    workshop of Nazareth to the Baptism of Jordan, His Forerunner
    required so long and peculiar preparation: characteristic of
    the difference of their Persons and Mission, characteristic
    also of the greatness of the work to be inaugurated. St. Luke
    furnishes precise notices of the time of the Baptist's public
    appearance, not merely to fix the exact chronology, which
    would not have required so many details, but for a higher
    purpose. For, they indicate, more so many details, but for a
    higher purpose. For, they indicate, more so many details, but
    for a higher purpose. For, they indicate, more clearly than
    the most elaborate discussion, the fitness of the moment for
    the Advent of 'the Kingdom of Heaven.' For the first time
    since the Babylonish Captivity, the foreigner, the Chief of
    the hated Roman Empire, according to the Rabbis, the fourth
    beast of Daniel's vision [b Ab.Zar.2b.] was absolute and
    undisputed master of Judaea; and the chief religious office
    divided between two, equally unworthy of its functions. And
    it deserves, at least, notice, that of the Rulers mentioned
    by St. Luke, Pilate entered on his office [a Probably about
    Easter, 26A.D.] only shortly before the public appearance of
    John, and that they all continued till after the Crucifixion
    of Christ. There was thus, so to speak, a continuity of these
    powers during the whole Messianic period

     As regards Palestine, the ancient kingdom of Herod was now
    divided into four parts, Judaea being under the direct
    administration of Rome, two other tetrarchies under the rule
    of Herod's sons (Herod of Rome, two other tetrarchies under
    the rule of Herod's sons (Herod Antipas and Philip), while
    the small principality of Abilene was governed by Lysanias.
    [1 Till quite lately, those who impugn the veracity of the
    Gospels, Strauss, and even Keim, have pointed to this notice
    of Lysanias as an instance of the unhistorical character of
    St. Luke's Gospel. But it is now admitted on all hands that
    the notice of St. Luke is strictly correct; and that, besides
    the other Lysanias, one of the same name had reigned over
    Abilene at the time of Christ. Comp. Wieseler, Beitr. pp.
    196-204, and Schurer in Riehm's Handworterb, p. 931.] Of the
    latter no details can be furnished, nor are they necessary in
    this history. It is otherwise as regards the sons of Herod,
    and especially the character of the Roman government at that
    time.

     Herod Antipas, whose rule extended over forty-three years,
    reigned over Galilee and Peraea, the districts which were
    respectively the principal sphere of the Ministry of Jesus
    and of John the Baptist. Like his brother Archelaus, Herod
    Antipas possessed in an even aggravated form most of the
    vices, without any of the greater qualities, of his father.
    Of deeper religious feelings or convictions he was entirely
    destitute, though his conscience occasionally misgrave, if it
    did not restrain, him. The inherent weakness of his character
    left him in the absolute control of his wife, to the final
    ruin of his fortunes.He was covetous, avaricious, luxurious,
    and utterly dissipated suspicious, and with a good deal of
    that fox-cunning which, especially in the East, often forms
    the sum total of state-craft. Like his father, he indulged a
    taste for building, always taking care to propitiate Rome by
    dedicating all to the Emperor. The most extensive of his
    undertakings was the building, in 22 A.D., of the city of
    Tiberias, at the upper end of the Lake of Galilee. The site
    was under the disadvantage of having formerly been a
    burying-place, which, as implying Levitical uncleanness, for
    some time deterred pious Jews from settling there.
    Nevertheless, it rose in great magnificence from among the
    reeds which had but lately covered the neighbourhood (the
    ensigns armorial of the city were 'reeds'). Herod Antipas
    made it his residence, and built there a strong castle and a
    palace of unrivalled splendour. The city, which was peopled
    chiefly by adventurers, was mainly Grecian, and adorned with
    an amphitheatre, of which the ruins can still be traced.

     A happier account can be given of Philip, the son of Herod
    the Great and Cleopatra of Jerusalem. He was undoubtedly the
    best of Herod's sons. He showed, indeed, the same abject
    submission as the rest of his family to the Roman Emperor,
    after whom he named the city of Caesarea Philippi, which he
    built at the sources of the Jordan; just as he changed the
    name of Bethsaida, a village of which he made an opulent
    city, into Julias, after the daughter of Augustus. But he was
    a moderate and just ruler, and his reign of thirty-seven
    years contrasted favourably with that of his kinsmen. The
    land was quiet and prosperous, and the people contented and
    happy.

     As regards the Roman rule, matters had greatly changed for
    the worse since the mild sway of Augustus, under which, in
    the language of Philo, no one throughout the Empire dared to
    molest the Jews. [a Philo, ed. Frcf., Leg. 1015.] The only
    innovations to which Israel had then to submit were, the
    daily sacrifices for the Emperor and the Roman people,
    offerings on festive days, prayers for them in the
    Synagogues, and such participation in national joy or sorrow
    as their religion allowed. [b u. s. 1031, 1041.]

     It was far other when Tiberius succeeded to the Empire, and
    Judaea was a province. Merciless harshness characterised the
    administration of Palestine; while the Emperor himself was
    bitterly hostile to Judaism and the Jews, and that although,
    personally, openly careless of all religion. [c Suet. Tiber.
    69.] Under his reign the persecution of the Roman Jews
    occurred, and Palestine suffered almost to the verge of
    endurance. The first Procurator whom Tiberius appointed over
    Judaea, changed the occupancy of the High-Priesthood four
    times, till he found in Caiaphas a sufficiently submissive
    instrument of Roman tyranny. The exactions, and the reckless
    disregard of all Jewish feelings and interests, might have
    been characterised as reaching the extreme limit, if worse
    had not followed when Pontius Pilate succeeded to the
    procuratorship. Venality, violence, robbery, persecutions,
    wanton malicious insults, judicial murders without even the
    formality of a legal process, and cruelty, such are the
    charges brought against his administration. [d Philo, u.s.
    1034.] If former governors had, to some extent, respected the
    religious scruples of the Jews, Pilate set them purposely at
    defiance; and this not only once, but again and again, in
    Jerusalem, [e Jos. Ant. xviii. 3. 1, 2.] in Galilee, [f St.
    Luke xiii. 1.] and even in Samaria, [g Ant. xviii. 4. 1, 2.]
    until the Emperor himself interposed. [h Philo, Leg. 1033.]

     Such, then, was the political condition of the land, when
    John appeared to preach the near Advent of a Kingdom with
    which Israel associated all that was happy and glorious, even
    beyond the dreams of the religious enthusiast. And equally
    loud was the call for help in reference to those who held
    chief spiritual rule over the people. St. Luke significantly
    joins together, as the highest religious authority in the
    land, the names of Annas and Caiaphas. [1 The Procurators
    were Imperial financial officers, with absolute power of
    government in smaller territories. The office was generally
    in the hands of the Roman knights, which chiefly consisted of
    financial men, bankers, chief publicans, &c. The order of
    knighthood had sunk to a low state, and the exactions of such
    a rule, especially in Judea, can better be imagined than
    described. Comp. on the whole subject, Friedlander,
    Sittengesch. Rom, vol. i. p. 268 &c.] The former had been
    appointed by Quirinius. After holding the Pontificate for
    nine years, he was deposed, and succeeded by others, of whom
    the fourth was his son-in-law Caiaphas. The character of the
    High-Priests during the whole of that period is described in
    the Talmud [a Pes. 57 a.] in terrible language. And although
    there is no evidence that 'the house of Annas' [2 Annas,
    either Chanan ( ), or else Chana or Channa, a common name.
    Professor Delitzsch has rightly shown that the Hebrew
    equivalent for Caiaphas is not Keypha ( ) = Peter, but
    Kayapha ( ), or perhaps rather, according to the reading,
    Kaipha, , or Kaiphah. The name occurs in the Mishnah as
    Kayaph [so, and not Kuph, correctly] (Parah iii. 5).
    Professor Delitzsch does not venture to explain its meaning.
    Would it be too bold to suggest a derivation from , and the
    meaning to be: He who is 'at the top'?] was guilty of the
    same gross self-indulgence, violence, [b Jos. Ant. xx. 8. 8.]
    luxury, and even public indecency, [c Yoma 35 b.] as some of
    their successors, they are included in the woes pronounced on
    the corrupt leaders of the priesthood, whom the Sanctuary is
    represented as bidding depart from the sacred precincts,
    which their presence defiled. [d Pes. U.S.] It deserves
    notice, that the special sin with which the house of Annas is
    charged is that of 'whispering', or hissing like vipers,
    which seems to refer [3 If we may take a statement in the
    Talmud, where the same word occurs, as a commentary.] to
    private influence on the judges in their administration of
    justice, whereby 'morals were corrupted, judgment perverted
    and the Shekhinah withdrawn from Israel.'[e Tos. Set. xiv.]
    In illustration of this, we recall the terrorism which
    prevented Sanhedrists from taking the part of Jesus, [f St.
    John vii. 50-52.] and especially the violence which seems to
    have determined the final action of the Sanhedrin, [g St.
    John xi. 47-50.] against which not only such men as Nicodemus
    and Joseph of Arimathea, but even a Gamaliel, would feel
    themselves powerless. But although the expression
    'High-Priest' appears sometimes to have been used in a
    general sense, as designating the sons of the High-Priests,
    and even the principal members of their families, [h Jos.
    Jewish War vi. 2.2.] there could, of course, be only one
    actual High-Priest. The conjunction of the two names of Annas
    and Caiaphas [1 This only in St. Luke.] probably indicates
    that, although Annas was deprived of the Pontificate, he
    still continued to preside over the Sanhedrin, a conclusion
    not only borne out by Acts iv. 6, where Annas appears as the
    actual President, and by the terms in which Caiaphas is
    spoken of, as merely 'one of them,' [a St. John xi. 49.] but
    by the part which Annas took in the final condemnation of
    Jesus. [b St. John xviii. 13.]

     Such a combination of political and religious distress,
    surely, constituted the time of Israel's utmost need. As yet,
    no attempt had been made by the people to right themselves by
    armed force. In these circumstances, the cry that the Kingdom
    of Heaven was near at hand, and the call to preparation for
    it, must have awakened echoes throughout the land, and
    startled the most careless and unbelieving. It was, according
    to St. Luke's exact statement, in the fifteenth year of the
    reign of Tiberius Caesar, reckoning, as provincials would do,
    [2 Wieseler has, I think, satisfactorily established this.
    Comp. Beitr. pp. 191-194.] from his co-regency with Augustus
    (which commenced two years before his sole reign), in the
    year 26 A.D. [c 779 A.U.C.] According to our former
    computation, Jesus would then be in His thirtieth year. [3
    St. Luke speaks of Christ being 'about thirty years old' at
    the time of His baptism. If John began His public ministry in
    the autumn, and some months elapsed before Jesus was
    baptized, our Lord would have just passed His thirtieth year
    when He appeared at Bethabara. We have positive evidence that
    the expression 'about' before a numeral meant either a little
    more or a little less than that exact number. See Midr. on
    Ruth i. 4 ed. Warsh. p. 39 b.] The scene of John's first
    public appearance was in 'the wilderness of Judaea,' that is,
    the wild, desolate district around the mouth of the Jordan.
    We know not whether John baptized in this place, [4 Here
    tradition, though evidently falsely, locates the Baptism of
    Jesus.] nor yet how long he continued there; but we are
    expressly told, that his stay was not confined to that
    locality. [d St. Luke iii. 3.] Soon afterwards we find him at
    Bethabara, [e St. John i. 28.] which is farther up the
    stream. The outward appearance and the his Mission. Neither
    his dress nor his food was that of the Essenes; [5 In
    reference not only to this point, but in general, I would
    refer to Bishop Lightfoot's masterly essay on the Essenes in
    his Appendix to his Commentary on Colossians (especially
    here, pp. 388, 400). It is a remarkable confirmation of the
    fact that, if John had been an Essene, his food could not
    have been 'locusts' that the Gospel of the Ebionites, who,
    like the Essenes, abstained from animal food, omits the
    mention of the 'locusts,' of St. Matt. iii. 4. (see Mr.
    Nicholson's 'The Gospel of the Hebrews,' pp. 34, 35). But
    proof positive is derived from jer. Nedar. 40 b, where, in
    case of a vow of abstinence from flesh, fish and locusts are
    interdicted.] and the former, at least, like that of Elijah,
    [f 2 Kings i.] whose mission he was now to 'fulfil.' This was
    evinced alike by what he preached, and by the new symbolic
    rite, from which he derived the name of 'Baptist.' The grand
    burden of his message was: the announcement of the approach
    of 'the Kingdom of Heaven,' and the needed preparation of his
    hearers for that Kingdom. The latter he sought, positively,
    by admonition, and negatively, by warnings, while he directed
    all to the Coming One, in Whom that Kingdom would become, so
    to speak, individualised. Thus, from the first, it was 'the
    good news of the Kingdom,' to which all else in John's
    preaching was but subsidiary.

     Concerning this 'Kingdom of Heaven,' which was the great
    message of John, and the great work of Christ Himself, [1
    Keim beautifully designates it: Das Lieblingswort Jesu.] we
    may here say, that it is the whole Old Testament sublimated,
    and the whole New Testament realised. The idea of it did not
    lie hidden in the Old, to be opened up in the New Testament,
    as did the mystery of its realisation. [a Rom. xvi 25, 26;
    Eph. i. 9; Col. i. 26, 27.] But this rule of heaven and
    Kingship of Jehovah was the very substance of the Old
    Testament; the object of the calling and mission of Israel;
    the meaning of all its ordinances, whether civil or
    religious; [2 If, indeed, in the preliminary dispensation
    these two can be well separated.] the underlying idea of all
    its institutions. [3 I confess myself utterly unable to
    understand, how anyone writing a History of the Jewish Church
    can apparently eliminate from it what even Keim designates as
    the 'treibenden Gedanken des Alten Testaments', those of the
    Kingdom and the King. A Kingdom of God without a King; a
    Theocracy without the rule of God; a perpetual Davidic
    Kingdom without a 'Son of David', these are antinomies (to
    borrow the term of Kant) of which neither the Old Testament,
    the Apocrypha, the Pseudepigraphic writings, nor Rabbinism
    were guility.] It explained alike the history of the people,
    the dealings of God with them, and the prospects opened up by
    the prophets. Without it the Old Testament could not be
    understood; it gave perpetuity to its teaching, and dignity
    to its representations. This constituted alike the real
    contrast between Israel and the nations of antiquity, and
    Israel's real title to distinction. Thus the whole Old
    Testament was the preparatory presentation of the rule of
    heaven and of the Kingship of its Lord.

     But preparatory not only in the sense of typical, but also
    in that of inchoative. Even the twofold hindrance, internal
    and external, which 'the Kingdom' encountered, indicated
    this. The former arose from the resistance of Israel to their
    King; the latter from the opposition of the surrounding
    kingdoms of this world. All the more intense became the
    longing through thousands of years, that these hindrances
    might be swept away by the Advent of the promised Messiah,
    Who would permanently establish (by His spirit) the right
    relationship between the King and His Kingdom, by bringing in
    an everlasting righteousness, and also cast down existing
    barriers, by calling the kingdoms of this world to be the
    Kingdom of our God. This would, indeed, be the Advent of the
    Kingdom of God, such as had been the glowing hope held out by
    Zechariah, [a xiv. 9.] the glorious vision beheld by Daniel.
    [b vii. 13, 14.] Three ideas especially did this Kingdoof God
    imply: universality, heavenliness, and permanency. Wide as
    God's domain would be His Dominion; holy, as heaven in
    contrast to earth, and God to man, would be his character;
    and triumphantly lasting its continuance. Such was the
    teaching of the Old Testament, and the great hope of Israel.
    It scarcely needs mental compass, only moral and spiritual
    capacity, to see its matchless grandeur, in contrast with
    even the highest aspirations of heathenism, and the blanched
    ideas of modern culture.

     How imperfectly Israel understood this Kingdom, our previous
    investigations have shown. In truth, the men of that period
    possessed only the term, as it were, the form. What explained
    its meaning, filled, and fulfilled it, came once more from
    heaven. Rabbinism and Alexandrianism kept alive the thought
    of it; and in their own way filled the soul with its longing,
    just as the distress in church and State carried the need of
    it to every heart with the keenness of anguish. As throughout
    this history, the form was of that time; the substance and
    the spirit were of Him Whose coming was the Advent of that
    Kingdom. Perhaps the nearest approach to it lay in the higher
    aspirations of the Nationalist party, only that it sought
    their realisation, not spiritually, but outwardly. Taking the
    sword, it perished by the sword. It was probably to this that
    both Pilate and Jesus referred in that memorable question:
    'Art Thou then a King?' to which our Lord, unfolding the
    deepest meaning of His mission, replied: 'My Kingdom is not
    of this world: if My Kingdom were of this world, then would
    My servants fight.' [c St. John xvii. 33-37.]

     According to the Rabbinic views of the time, the terms
    'Kingdom,' 'Kingdom of heaven,' [3 Occasionally we find,
    instead of Malkhuth Shamayim ('Kingdom of Heaven'), Malkhutha
    direqiya ('Kingdom of the firmament'), as in Ber. 58 a,
    Shebhu. 35 b. But in the former passage, at least, it seems
    to apply rather to God's Providential government than to His
    moral reign.] and 'Kingdom of God' (in the Targum on Micah
    iv. 7 'Kingdom of Jehovah'), were equivalent. In fact, the
    word 'heaven' was very often used instead of 'God,' so as to
    avoid unduly familiarising the ear with the Sacred Name. [1
    The Talmud (Shebhu. 35 b) analyses the various passages of
    Scripture in which it is used in a sacred and in the common
    sense.] This, probably, accounts for the exclusive use of the
    expression 'Kingdom of Heaven' in the Gospel by St. Matthew.
    [2 In St. Matthew the expression occursthirty-two times; six
    times that of 'the Kingdom;' five times that of 'Kingdom of
    God.'] And the term did imply a contrast to earth, as the
    expression 'the Kingdom of God' did to this world. The
    consciousness of its contrast to earth or the world was
    distinctly expressed in Rabbinic writings. [a As in Shebhu 35
    b; Ber. R. 9, ed Warsh, pp. 19 b, 20 a.]

     This 'Kingdom of Heaven,' or 'of God,' must, however, be
    distinguished from such terms as 'the Kingdom of the Messiah'
    (Malkhutha dimeshicha [b As in the Targum on Ps. xiv. 7, and
    on Is. liii. 10.]), 'the future age (world) of the Messiah'
    (Alma deathey dimeshicha [c As in Targum on 1 Kings iv. 33
    (v. 13).]), 'the days of the Messiah,' 'the age to come'
    (soeculum futurum, the Athid labho [3 The distinction between
    the Vlam habba (the world to come), and the Athid labho (the
    age to come), is important. It will be more fully referred to
    by-and-by. In the meantime, suffice it, that the Athid labho
    is the more specific designation of Messianic times. The two
    terms are expressly distinguished, for example, in Mechilta
    (ed. Weiss), p. 74 a, lines 2, 3.], both this and the
    previous expression [d For example, in Ber. R. 88, ed. Warsh.
    p. 157 a.]), 'the end of days,' [e Targ. PseudoJon. on Ex.
    xl. 9, 11.] and 'the end of the extremity of days' Soph Eqebh
    Yomaya [f Jer. Targ. on Gen. iii. 15; Jer. and PseudoJon.
    Targ on Numb. xxiv. 14.]). This is the more important, since
    the 'Kingdom of Heaven' has so often been confounded with the
    period of its triumphant manifestation in 'the days,' or in
    'the Kingdom, of the Messiah.' Between the Advent and the
    final manifestation of 'the Kingdom,' Jewish expectancy
    placed a temporary obscuration of the Messiah. [4 This will
    be more fully explained and shown in the sequel. For the
    present we refer only to Yalkut, vol. ii. p. 75 d, and the
    Midr. on Ruth ii. 14.] Not His first appearance, but His
    triumphant manifestation, was to be preceded by the so-called
    'sorrows of the Messiah' (the Chebhley shel Mashiach), 'the
    tribulations of the latter days.' [5 The whole subject is
    fully treated in Book V. ch. vi.]

     A review of many passages on the subject shows that, in the
    Jewish mind the expression 'Kingdom of Heaven' referred, not
    so much to any particular period, as in general to the Rule
    of God, as acknowledged, manifested, and eventually
    perfected. Very often it is the equivalent for personal
    acknowledgment of God: the taking upon oneself of the 'yoke'
    of 'the Kingdom,' or of the commandments, the former
    preceding and conditioning the latter. [g So expressly in
    Mechilta, p. 75 a; Yalkut, vol. ii. p. 14 a, last line.]
    Accordingly, the Mishnah [a Ber. ii. 2.] gives this as the
    reason why, in the collection of Scripture passages which
    forms the prayer called 'Shema,' [1 The Shema, whichwas
    repeated twice every day, was regarded as distinctive of
    Jewish profession (Ber. iii. 3).] the confession, Deut. vi. 4
    &c., precedes the admonition, Deut. xi. 13 &c., because a man
    takes upon himself first the yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven,
    and afterwards that of the commandments. And in this sense,
    the repetition of this Shema, as the personal acknowledgment
    of the Rule of Jehovah, is itself often designated as 'taking
    upon oneself the Kingdom of Heaven.' [b For example, Ber. 13
    b, 14 b; Ber. ii. 5; and the touching story of Rabbi Akiba
    thus taking upon himself the yoke of the Law in the hour of
    his martyrdom, Ber. 61 b.] Similarly, the putting on of
    phylacteries, and the washing of hands, are also described as
    taking upon oneself the yoke of the Kingdom of God. [2 In
    Ber. 14 b, last line, and 15 a, first line, there is a
    shocking definition of what constitutes the Kingdom of Heaven
    in its completeness. For the sake of those who would derive
    Christianity from Rabbinism. I would have quoted it, but am
    restrained by its profanity.] To give other instances: Israel
    is said to have taken up the yoke of the Kingdom of God at
    Mount Sinai; [c So often Comp. Siphre p. 142 b, 143 b.] the
    children of Jacob at their last interview with their father;
    [d Ber. R. 98.] and Isaiah on his call to the prophetic
    office, [e Yalkut, vol. ii. p. 43 a.] where it is also noted
    that this must be done willingly and gladly. On the other
    hand, the sons of Eli and the sons of Ahab are said to have
    cast off the Kingdom of Heaven. [f Midr. on 1 Sam. viii 12;
    Midr. on Eccl. i. 18.] While thus the acknowledgment of the
    Rule of God, both in profession and practice, was considered
    to constitute the Kingdom of God, its full manifestation was
    expected only in the time of the Advent of Messiah. Thus in
    the Targum on Isaiah xl. 9, the words 'Behold your God!' are
    paraphrased: 'The Kingdom of your God is revealed.'
    Similarly, [g In Yalkut ii. p. 178 a.] we read: 'When the
    time approaches that the Kingdom of Heaven shall be
    manifested, then shall be fulfilled that "the Lord shall be
    King over all the earth."' [h Zech. xiv. 9.] [3 The same
    passage is similarly referred to in the Midr. on Song. ii.
    12, where the words 'the time of the singing has come,' are
    paraphrased; 'the time of the Kingdom of Heaven that it shall
    be manifested, hath come' (in R. Martini Pugio Fidei, p.
    782).] On the other hand, the unbelief of Israel would appear
    in that they would reject these three things: the Kingdom of
    Heaven, the Kingdom of the House of David, and the building
    of the Temple, according to the prediction in Hos. iii. 5. [i
    Midr. on 1 Sam. viii. 7. Comp. also generally Midr. on Ps.
    cxlvii. 1.] It follows that, after the period of unbelief,
    the Messianic deliverances and blessings of the 'Athid
    Labho,' or future age, were expected. But the final
    completion of all still remained for the 'Olam Habba,' or
    world to come. And that there is a distinction between the
    time of the Messiah and this 'world to come' is frequently
    indicated in Rabbinic writings. [4 As in Shabb. 63 a, where
    at least three differences between them are mentioned. For,
    while all prophecy pointed to the days of the Messiah,
    concerning the world to come we are told (Is. lxiv. 4) that
    'eye hath not seen, &c.'; in the days of the Messiah weapons
    would be borne, but not in the world to come; and while Is.
    xxiv. 21 applied to the days of the Messiah, the seemingly
    contradictory passage, Is. xxx. 26, referred to the world to
    come. In Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exod. xvii. 16, we read of
    three generations: that of this world, that of the Messiah,
    and that of the world to come (Aram: Alma deathey=olam
    habba). Comp. Ar. 13 b, and Midr. on Ps. lxxxi. 2 (3 in
    A.V.), ed. Warsh. p. 63 a, where the harp of the Sanctuary is
    described as of seven strings (according to Ps. cxix. 164);
    in the days of the Messiah as of eight strings (according to
    the inscription of ps. xii.); and in the world to come (here
    Athid labho) as of ten strings (according to Ps. xcii. 3).
    The references of Gfrorer (Jahrh. d. Heils, vol. ii. p. 213)
    contain, as not unfrequently, mistakes. I may here say that
    Rhenferdius carries the argument about the Olam habba, as
    distinguished from the days of the Messiah, beyond what I
    believe to be established. See his Dissertation in Meuschen,
    Nov. Test. pp. 1116 &c.]
     As we pass from the Jewish ideas of the time to the teaching
    of the New Testament, we feel that while there is complete
    change of spirit, the form in which the idea of the Kingdom
    of Heaven is presented is substantially similar. Accordingly,
    we must dismiss the notion that the expression refers to the
    Church, whether visible (according to the Roman Catholic
    view) or invisible (according to certain Protestant writers).
    [1 It is difficult to conceive, how the idea of the identity
    of the Kingdom of God with the Church could have originated.
    Such parables as those about the Sower, and about the Net
    (St. Matt. xiii. 3-9; 47, 48), and such admonitions as those
    of Christ to His disciples in St. Matt. xix. 12; vi. 33; and
    vi. 10, are utterly inconsistent with it.] 'The Kingdom of
    God,' or Kingly Rule of God, is an objective fact. The
    visible Church can only be the subjective attempt at its
    outward realisation, of which the invisible Church is the
    true counterpart. When Christ says, [a St. John iii. 3.] that
    'except a man be born from above, he cannot see the Kingdom
    of God,' He teaches, in opposition to the Rabbinic
    representation of how 'the Kingdom' was taken up, that a man
    cannot even comprehend that glorious idea of the Reign of
    God, and of becoming, by conscious self-surrender, one of His
    subjects, except he be first born from above. Similarly, the
    meaning of Christ's further teaching on this subject [b in
    ver. 5.] seems to be that, except a man be born of water
    (profession, with baptism [2 The passage which seems to me
    most fully to explain the import of baptism, in its
    subjective bearing, is 1 Peter, iii. 21, which I would thus
    render: 'which (water) also, as the antitype, now saves you,
    even baptism; not the putting away of the filth of the flesh,
    but the inquiry (the searching, perhaps the entreaty), for a
    good conscience towards God, through the resurrection of
    Christ.' It is in this sense that baptism is designated in
    Tit. iii. 5, as the 'washing,' or 'bath of regeneration,' the
    baptized person stepping out of the waters of baptism with
    this openly spoken new search after a good conscience towards
    God; and in this sense also that baptism, not the act of
    baptizing, nor yet that of being baptized, saves us, but this
    through the Resurrection of Christ. And this leads us up to
    the objective aspect of baptism. This consists in the promise
    and the gift on the part of the Risen Saviour, Who, by and
    with His Holy Spirit, is ever present with his Church. These
    remarks leave, of course, aside the question of
    Infant-Baptism, which rests on another and, in my view most
    solid basis.] as its symbol) and the Spirit, he cannot really
    enter into the fellowship of that Kingdom.

     In fact, an analysis of 119 passages in the New Testament
    where the expression 'Kingdom' occurs, shows that it means
    the rule of God; [1 In this view the expression occurs
    thirty-four times, viz: St. Matt. vi. 33; xii. 28; xiii. 38;
    xix. 24; xxi. 31; St. Mark i. 14; x. 15, 23, 24, 25; xii. 34;
    St. Luke i. 33; iv. 43; ix. 11; x. 9, 11; xi. 20; xii. 31;
    xvii. 20, 21; xviii. 17, 24, 25, 29; St. John iii. 3; Acts i.
    3; viii. 12; xx. 25; xxviii. 31; Rom. xiv. 17; 1 Cor. iv. 20;
    Col. iv. 11; 1 Thess. ii. 12; Rev. i. 9.] which was
    manifested in and through Christ; [2 As in the following
    seventeen passages, viz.: St. Matt. iii. 2; iv. 17, 23; v. 3,
    10; ix. 35; x. 7; St. Mark i. 15; xi. 10; St. Luke viii. 1;
    ix. 2; xvi. 16; xix. 12, 15; Acts i. 3; xxviii. 23; Rev. i.
    9.] is apparent in 'the Church; [3 As in the following eleven
    passages: St. Matt. xi. 11; xiii. 41; xvi. 19; xviii. 1; xxi.
    43; xxiii. 13; St. Luke vii. 28; St. John iii. 5; Acts i. 3;
    Col. i. 13; Rev. i. 9.] gradually develops amidst hindrances;
    [4 As in the following twenty-four passages: St. Matt. xi.
    12; xiii. 11, 19, 24, 31, 33, 44, 45, 47, 52; xviii. 23; xx.
    1; xxii. 2; xxv. 1, 14; St. Mark iv. 11, 26, 30; St. Luke
    viii. 10; ix. 62; xiii. 18, 20; Acts i. 3; Rev. i. 9.] is
    triumphant at the second coming of Christ [5 As in the
    following twelve passages: St. Mark xvi. 28; St. Mark ix. 1;
    xv. 43; St. Luke ix. 27; xix. 11; xxi. 31; xxii. 16, 18; Acts
    i. 3; 2 Tim. iv. 1; Heb. xii. 28; Rev. i. 9.] ('the end');
    and, finally, perfected in the world to come. [6 As in the
    following thirty-one passages: St. Matt. v. 19, 20; vii. 21;
    viii. 11; xiii. 43; xviii. 3; xxv. 34; xxvi. 29; St. Mark ix.
    47; x. 14; xiv. 25; St. Luke vi. 20; xii. 32; xiii. 28, 29;
    xiv. 15; xviii. 16; xxii. 29; Acts i. 3; xiv. 22; 1 Cor. vi.
    9, 10; xv. 24, 50; Gal. v. 21; Eph. v. 5; 2 Thess. i. 5; St.
    James ii. 5; 2 Peter i. 11; Rev. i. 9; xii. 10.] Thus viewed,
    the announcement of John of the near Advent of this Kingdom
    had deepest meaning, although, as so often in the case of
    prophetism, the stages intervening between the Advent of the
    Christ and the triumph of that Kingdom seem to have been
    hidden from the preacher. He came to call Israel to submit to
    the Reign of God, about to be manifested in Christ. Hence, on
    the one hand, he called them to repentance, a 'change of
    mind', with all that this implied; and, on the other, pointed
    them to the Christ, in the exaltation of His Person and
    Office. Or rather, the two combined might be summed up in the
    call: 'Change your mind', repent, which implies, not only a
    turning from the past, but a turning to the Christ in newness
    of mind. [7 The term 'repentance' includes faith in Christ,
    as in St. Luke xxiv. 47; Acts v. 31.] And thus the symbolic
    action by which this preaching was accompanied might be
    designated 'the baptism of repentance.'

     The account given by St. Luke bears, on the face of it, that
    it was a summary, not only of the first, but of all John's
    preaching. [a iii. 18.] The very presence of his hearers at
    this call to, and baptism of, repentance, gave point to his
    words. Did they who, notwithstanding their sins, [1 I cannot,
    with Schottgen and others, regard the expression 'generation
    of vipers' as an allusion to the filthy legend about the
    children of Eve and the serpent, but believe that it refers
    to such passages as Ps. lviii. 4.] lived in such security of
    carelessness and self-righteousness, really understand and
    fear the final consequences of resistance to the coming
    'Kingdom'? If so, theirs must be a repentance not only in
    profession, but of heart and mind, such as would yield fruit,
    both good and visible. Or else did they imagine that,
    according to the common notion of the time, the vials of
    wrath were to be poured out only on the Gentiles, [2 In proof
    that such was the common view, I shall here refer to only a
    few passages, and these exclusively from the Targumum: Jer.
    Targ. on Gen. xlix. 11; Targ. on Is. xi. 4; Targ. on Amos ix.
    11; Targ. on Nah. i. 6; on Zech. x. 3, 4. See also Ab. Z. 2
    b, Yalkut i. p. 64 a; also 56 b (where it is shown how
    plagues exactly corresponding to those of Egypt were to come
    upon Rome).] while they, as Abraham's children, were sure of
    escape, in the words of the Talmud, that 'the night' (Is.
    xxi. 12) was 'only to the nations of the world, but the
    morning to Israel'? [a Jer. Taan. 64 a.]

     For, no principle was more fully established in the popular
    conviction, than that all Israel had part in the world to
    come (Sanh. x. 1), and this, specifically, because of their
    connection with Abraham. This appears not only from the New
    Testament, [b St. John viii. 33, 39, 53.] from Philo, and
    Josephus, but from many Rabbinic passages. 'The merits of the
    Fathers,' is one of the commonest phrases in the mouth of the
    Rabbis. [3 'Everything comes to Israel on account of the
    merits of the fathers' (Siphre on Deut. p. 108 b). In the
    same category we place the extraordinary attempts to show
    that the sins of Biblical personages were not sins at all, as
    in Shabb. 55 b, and the idea of Israel's merits as works of
    supererogation (as in Baba B. 10 a).] Abraham was represented
    as sitting at the gate of Gehenna, to deliver any Israelite
    [4 I will not mention the profane device by which apostate
    and wicked Jews are at that time to be converted into
    non-Jews.] who otherwise might have been consigned to its
    terrors. [c Ber. R. 48; comp. Midr. on Ps. vi. 1; Pirke d. R.
    Elies. c. 29; Shem. R. 19 Yalkut i. p. 23 b.] In fact, by
    their descent from Abraham, all the children of Israel were
    nobles, [d Baba Mez. vii. 1; Baba K. 91 a.] infinitely higher
    than any proselytes. 'What,' exclaims the Talmud, 'shall the
    born Israelite stand upon the earth, and the proselyte be in
    heaven?' [e Jer. Chag. 76 a.] In fact, the ships on the sea
    werepreserved through the merit of Abraham; the rain
    descended on account of it. [f Ber. R. 39.] For his sake
    alone had Moses been allowed to ascend into heaven, and to
    receive the Law; for his sake the sin of the golden calf had
    been forgiven; [g Shem R. 44.] his righteousness had on many
    occasions been the support of Israel's cause; [h Vayyikra R.
    36.] Daniel had been heard for the sake of Abraham; [i Ber. 7
    b.] nay, his merit availed even for the wicked. [k Shabb. 55
    a; comp Beer, Leben Abr. p. 88.] [5 Professor Wunsche quotes
    an inapt passage from Shabb. 89 b, but ignores, or is
    ignorant of the evidence above given.] In its extravagance
    the Midrash thus apostrophises Abraham: 'If thy children were
    even (morally) dead bodies, without bloodvessels or bones,
    thy merit would avail for them!' [a Ber. R. ed. Warsh. p. 80
    b, par. 44.]

     But if such had been the inner thoughts of his bearers, John
    warned them, that God was able of those stones that strewed
    the river-bank to raise up children unto Abraham; [b Perhaps
    with reference to Is. ii. 1, 2.] [1 Lightfoot aptly points
    out a play on the words 'children', banim, and 'stones',
    abhanim. Both words are derived from bana, to build, which is
    also used by the Rabbis in a moral sense like our own
    'upbuilding,' and in that of the gift of adoption of
    children. It is not necessary, indeed almost detracts from
    the general impression, to see in the stones an allusion to
    the Gentiles.] or, reverting to his former illustration of
    'fruits meet for repentance,' that the proclamation of the
    Kingdom was, at the same time, the laying of the axe to the
    root of every tree that bore not fruit. Then making
    application of it, in answer to the specific inquiry of
    various classes, the preacher gave them such practical advice
    as applied to the well-known sins of their past; [2 Thus the
    view that charity delivered from Gehenna was very commonly
    entertained (see, for example, Baba B. 10 a). Similarly, it
    was the main charge against the publicans that they exacted
    more than their due (see, for example, Baba K. 113 a). The
    Greek, or wage of the soldiers, has its Rabbinic equivalent
    of Afsanya (a similar word also in the Syriac).] yet in this
    also not going beyond the merely negative, or preparatory
    element of 'repentance.' The positive, and all-important
    aspect of it, was to be presented by the Christ. It was only
    natural that the hearers wondered whether John himself was
    the Christ, since he thus urged repentance. For this was so
    closely connected in their thoughts with the Advent of the
    Messiah, that it was said, 'If Israel repented but one day,
    the Son of David would immediately come.' [c For ex. Jer.
    Taan. 64 a.] But here John pointed them to the
    differencebetween himself and his work, and the Person and
    Mission of the Christ. In deepest reverence he declared
    himself not worthy to do Him the service of a slave or of a
    disciple. [3 Volkmar is mistaken in regarding this as the
    duty of the house-porter towards arriving guests. It is
    expressly mentioned as one of the characteristic duties of
    slaves in Pes. 4 a; Jer Kidd. i. 3; Kidd. 22 b. In Kethub. 96
    a it is described as also the duty of a disciple towards his
    teacher. In Mechilta on Ex. xxi. 2 (ed. Weiss, p. 82 a) it is
    qualified as only lawful for a teacher so to employ his
    disciple, while, lastly, in Pesiqta x. it is described as the
    common practice.] His Baptism would not be of preparatory
    repentance and with water, but the Divine Baptism in [4 Godet
    aptly calls attention to the use of the preposition in here,
    while as regards the baptism of water no preposition is used,
    as denoting merely an instrumentality.] the Holy Spirit and
    fire [5 The same writer points out that the want of the
    preposition before 'fire' shows that it cannot refer to the
    fire of judgment, but must be a further enlargement of the
    word 'Spirit.' Probably it denotes the negative or purgative
    effect of this baptism, as the word 'holy' indicates its
    positive and sanctifying effect.], in the Spirit Who
    sanctified, and the Divine Light which purified, [6 The
    expression 'baptism of fire' was certainly not unknown to the
    Jews. In Sanh. 39 a (last lines) we read of an immersion of
    God in fire, based on Is. lxvi. 15. An immersion or baptism
    of fire is proved from Numb. xxxi. 23. More apt, perhaps, as
    illustration is the statement, Jer. Sot. 22 d, that the Torah
    (the Law) its parchment was white fire, the writing black
    fire, itself fire mixed with fire, hewn out of fire, and
    given by fire, according to Deut. xxxiii. 2.] and so
    effectively qualified for the 'Kingdom.' And there was still
    another contrast. John's was but preparing work, the Christ's
    that of final decision; after it came the harvest. His was
    the harvest, and His the garner; His also the fan, with which
    He would sift the wheat from the straw and chaff, the one to
    be garnered, the other burned with fire unextinguished and
    inextinguishable. [1 This is the meaning of . The word occurs
    only in St. Matt. iii. 12; St. Luke iii. 17; St. Mark ix. 43,
    45 (?), but frequently in the classics. The question of
    'eternal punishment' will be discussed in another place. The
    simile of the fan and the garner is derived from the Eastern
    practice of threshing out the corn in the open by means of
    oxen, after which, what of the straw had been trampled under
    foot (not merely the chaff, as in the A.V.) was burned. This
    use of the straw for fire is referred to in the Mishnah, as
    in Shabb. iii. 1; Par. iv. 3. But in that case the Hebrew
    equivalent for it is (Qash), as in the above passages, and
    not Tebhen (Meyer), nor even as Professor Delitzsch renders
    it in his Hebrew N.T.: Mots. The three terms are, however,
    combined in a curiously illustrative parable (Ber. R. 83),
    referring to the destruction of Rome and the preservation of
    Israel, when the grain refers the straw, stubble, and chaff,
    in their dispute for whose sake the field existed, to the
    time when the owner would gather the corn into his barn, but
    burn the straw, stubble, and chaff.] Thus early in the
    history of the Kingdom of God was it indicated, that alike
    that which would prove useless straw and the good corn were
    inseparably connected in God's harvest-field till the reaping
    time; that both belonged to Him; and that the final
    separation would only come at the last, and by His own Hand.

     What John preached, that he also symbolised by a rite which,
    though not in itself, yet in its application, was wholly new.
    Hitherto the Law had it, that those who had contracted
    Levitical defilement were to immerse before offering
    sacrifice. Again, it was prescribed that such Gentiles as
    became 'proselytes of righteousness,' or 'proselytes of the
    Covenant' (Gerey hatstsedeq or Gerey habberith), were to be
    admitted to full participation in the privileges of Israel by
    the threefold rites of circumcision, baptism, [2 For a full
    discussion of the question of the baptism of proselytes, see
    Appendix XII.] and sacrifice, the immersion being, as it
    were, the acknowledgment and symbolic removal of moral
    defilement, corresponding to that of Levitical uncleanness.
    But never before had it been proposed that Israel should
    undergo a 'baptism of repentance,' although there are
    indications of a deeper insight into the meaning of Levitical
    baptisms. [3 The following very significant passage may here
    be quoted: 'A man who is guilty of sin, and makes confession,
    and does not turn from it, to whom is he like? To a man who
    has in his hand a defiling reptile, who, even if he immerses
    in all the waters of the world, his baptism avails him
    nothing; but let him cast it from his hand, and if he
    immerses in only forty seah of water, immediately his baptism
    avails him.' On the same page of the Talmud there are some
    very apt and beautiful remarks on the subject of repentance
    (Taan. 16 a, towards the end).] Was it intended, that the
    hearers of John should give this as evidence of their
    repentance, that, like persons defiled, they sought
    purification, and, like strangers, they sought admission
    among the people who took on themselves the Rule of God?
    These two ideas would, indeed, have made it truly a 'baptism
    of repentance.' But it seems difficult to suppose, that the
    people would have been prepared for such admissions; or, at
    least, that there should have been no record of the mode in
    which a change so deeply spiritual was brought about. May it
    not rather have been that as, when the first Covenant was
    made, Moses was directed to prepare Israel by symbolic
    baptism of their persons [a Comp. Gen. xxxv.] and their
    garments, [b Ex. xix. 10, 14.] so the initiation of the new
    Covenant, by which the people were to enter into the Kingdom
    of God, was preceded by another general symbolic baptism of
    those who would be the true Israel, and receive, or take on
    themselves, the Law from God? [1 It is remarkable, that
    Maimonides traces even the practice of baptizing proselytes
    to Ex. xix. 10, 14 (Hilc Issurey Biah xiii. 3; Yad haCh. vol.
    ii. p. 142 b). He also gives reasons for the 'baptism' of
    Israel before entering into covenant with God. In Kerith, 9 a
    'the baptism' of Israel is proved from Ex. xxiv. 5, since
    every sprinkling of blood was supposed to be preceded by
    immersion. In Siphre on Numb. (ed. Weiss, p. 30 b) we are
    also distinctly told of 'baptism' as one of the three things
    by which Israel was admitted into the Covenant.] In that case
    the rite would have acquired not only a new significance, but
    be deeply and truly the answer to John's call. In such case
    also, no special explanation would have been needed on the
    part of the Baptist, nor yet such spiritual insight on that
    of the people as we can scarcely suppose them to have
    possessed at that stage. Lastly, in that case nothing could
    have been more suitable, nor more solemn, than Israel in
    waiting for the Messiah and the Rule of God, preparing as
    their fathers had done at the foot of Mount Sinai. [2 This
    may help us, even at this stage, to understand why our Lord,
    in the fulfilment of all righteousness, submitted to baptism.
    It seems also to explain why, after the coming of Christ, the
    baptism of John was alike unavailing and even meaningless
    (Acts xix. 3-5). Lastly, it also shows how he that is least
    in the Kingdom of God is really greater than John himself
    (St. Luke vii. 28).]

 FROM THE MANGER IN BETHLEHEM TO THE BAPTISM IN JORDAN

    THE BAPTISM OF JESUS: ITS HIGHER MEANING.

    CHAPTER XII.

     (St. Matt. iii. 13-17; St. Mark i. 7-11; St. Luke iii.
    21-23; St. John i. 32-34.)

     The more we think of it, the better do we seem to understand
    how that 'Voice crying in the wilderness: Repent! for the
    Kingdom of Heaven is at hand,' awakened echoes throughout the
    land, and brought from city, village, and hamlet strangest
    hearers. For once, every distinction was levelled. Pharisee
    and Sadducee, outcast publican and semi-heathen soldier, met
    here as on common ground. Their bond of union was the common
    'hope of Israel', the only hope that remained: that of 'the
    Kingdom.' The long winter of disappointment had not
    destroyed, nor the storms of suffering swept away, nor yet
    could any plant of spurious growth overshadow, what had
    struck its roots so deep in the soil of Israel's heart.

     That Kingdom had been the last word of the Old Testament. As
    the thoughtful Israelite, whether Eastern or Western, [1 It
    may be said that the fundamental tendency of Rabbinism was
    anti-sacrificial, as regarded the value of sacrifices in
    commending the offerer to God. After the destruction of the
    Temple it was, of course, the task of Rabbinism to show that
    sacrifices had no intrinsic importance, and that their place
    was taken by prayer, penitence, and good works. So against
    objectors on the ground of Jer. xxxiii. 18, but see the
    answer in Yalkut on the passage (vol. ii. p. 67 a, towards
    the end) dogmatically (Bab. B. 10 b; Vayyikra R. 7, ed.
    Warsh. vol. iii. p. 12 a): 'he that doeth repentance, it is
    imputed to him as if he went up to Jerusalem, built the
    Temple and altar, and wrought all the sacrifices in the Law';
    and in view of the cessation of sacrifices in the
    'Athid.labho' (Vay, u.s.; Tanch. on Par. Shemini). Soon,
    prayer or study were put even above sacrifices (Ber. 32 b;
    Men. 110 a), and an isolated teacher went so far as to regard
    the introduction of sacrificial worship as merely intended to
    preserve Israel from conforming to heathen worship (Vayyikra
    R. 22, u. s. p. 34 b, close). On the other hand, individuals
    seemed to have offered sacrifices even after the destruction
    of the Temple (Eduy. viii. 6; Mechilta on Ex. xviii. 27, ed.
    Weiss, p. 68 b).] viewed even the central part of his worship
    in sacrifices, and remembered that his own Scriptures had
    spoken of them in terms which pointed to something beyond
    their offering, [2 Comp. 1 Sam. xv. 22; Ps. xl. 6-8; li. 7,
    17; Is. i. 11-13; Jer. vii. 22, 23; Amos v. 21, 22; Ecclus.
    vii. 9; xxxiv. 18, 19; xxxv. 1, 7.] he must have felt that
    'the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer
    sprinkling the unclean,' could only 'sanctify to the
    purifying of the flesh;' that, indeed, the whole body of
    ceremonial and ritual ordinances 'could not make him that did
    the service perfect as pertaining to the conscience.' They
    were only 'the shadow of good things to come;' of 'a new' and
    'better covenant, established upon better promises.' [1 Hebr.
    ix. 13, 9; x. 1; viii. 6, 13. On this subject we refer to the
    classical work of Riehm (Lehrbegriff des Hebraerbriefes,
    1867).] It was otherwise with the thought of the Kingdom.
    Each successive link in the chain of prophecy bound Israel
    anew to this hope, and each seemed only more firmly welded
    than the other. And when the voice of prophecy had ceased,
    the sweetness of its melody still held the people
    spell-bound, even when broken in the wild fantasies of
    Apocalyptic literature. Yet that 'root of Jesse,' whence this
    Kingdom was to spring, was buried deep under ground, as the
    remains of ancient Jerusalem are now under the desolations of
    many generations. Egyptian, Syrian, Greek, and Roman had
    trodden it under foot; the Maccabees had come and gone, and
    it was not in them; the Herodian kingdom had risen and
    fallen; Pharisaism, with its learning, had overshadowed
    thoughts of the priesthood and of prophetism; but the hope of
    that Davidic Kingdom, of which there was not a single trace
    or representative left, was even stronger than before. So
    closely has it been intertwined with the very life of the
    nation, that, to all believing Israelites, this hope has
    through the long night of ages, been like that eternal lamp
    which burns in the darkness of the Synagogue, in front of the
    heavy veil that shrines the Sanctuary, which holds and
    conceals the precious rolls of the Law and the Prophets.

     This great expectancy would be strung to utmost tension
    during the pressure of outward circumstances more hopeless
    than any hitherto experienced. Witness here the ready
    credence which impostors found, whose promises and schemes
    were of the wildest character; witness the repeated attempts
    at risings, which only despair could have prompted; witness,
    also, the last terrible war against Rome, and, despite the
    horrors of its end, the rebellion of Bar-Kokhabh, the false
    Messiah. And now the cry had been suddenly raised: 'The
    Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!' It was heard in the wilderness
    of Judaea, within a few hours' distance from Jerusalem. No
    wonder Pharisee and Sadducee flocked to the spot. How many of
    them came to inquire, how many remained to be baptized, or
    how many went away disappointed in their hopes of 'the
    Kingdom,' we know not. [2 Ancient commentators supposed that
    they came from hostile motives; later writers that curiosity
    prompted them. Neither of these views is admissible, nor does
    St. Luke vii. 30 imply, that all the Pharisees who come to
    him rejected his baptism.] But they would not see anything in
    the messenger that could have given their expectations a rude
    shock. His was not a call to armed resistance, but to
    repentance, such as all knew and felt must precede the
    Kingdom. The hope which he held out was not of earthly
    possessions, but of purity. There was nothing negative or
    controversial in what he spoke; nothing to excite prejudice
    or passion. His appearance would command respect, and his
    character was in accordance with his appearance. Not rich nor
    yet Pharisaic garb with wide Tsitsith, [1 Comp. St. Matt.
    xxiii. 5. The Tsitsith (plural, Tsitsiyoth), or borders
    (corners, 'wings') of the garments, or rather the fringes
    fastened to them. The observance was based on Numb. xv.
    38-41, and the Jewish practice of it is indicated not only in
    the N.T. (u. s., comp. also St. Matt. ix. 20; xiv. 36) but in
    the Targumim on Numb. xv. 38, 39 (comp. also Targ.
    Pseudo-Jon. on Numb. xvi. 1, 2, where the peculiar colour of
    the Tsitsith is represented as the cause of the controversy
    between Moses and Korah. But see the version of this story in
    Jer. Sanh. x. p. 27 d, end). The Tsitsith were originally
    directed to be of white threads, with one thread of deep blue
    in each fringe. According to tradition, each of these white
    fringes is to consist of eight threads, one of them wound
    round the others: first, seven times with a double knot; then
    eight times with a double knot (7 + 8 numerically = ); then
    eleven times with a double knot (11 numerically = ;) and
    lastly, thirteen times (13 numerically = ; or, altogether ,
    Jehovah One). Again, it is pointed out that as Tsitsith is
    numerically equal to 600 ( ), this, with the eight threads
    and five knots, gives the number 613, which is that of the
    Commandments. At present the Tsitsith are worn as a special
    undergarment (the ) or on the Tallith or prayer-mantle, but
    anciently they seem to have been worn on the outer garment
    itself. In Bemidbar R. 17, end (ed. Warsh, vol. iv. p. 69 a),
    the blue is represented as emblematic of the sky, and the
    latter as of the throne of God (Ex. xxiv. 10). Hence to look
    upon the Tsitsith was like looking at the throne of glory
    (Schurer is mistaken in supposing that the tractate Tsitsith
    in the Septem Libri Talmud. par. pp. 22, 23, contains much
    information on the subject).] bound with many-coloured or
    even priestly girdle, but the old prophet's poor raiment held
    in by a leathern girdle. Not luxurious life, but one of
    meanest fare. [2 Such certainly was John the Baptist's. Some
    locusts were lawful to be eaten, Lev. xi. 22. Comp. Terum. 59
    a; and, on the various species, Chull. 65.] And then, all in
    the man was true and real. 'Not a reed shaken by the wind,'
    but unbendingly firm in deep and settled conviction; not
    ambitious nor self-seeking, but most humble in his
    self-estimate, discarding all claim but that of lowliest
    service, and pointing away from himself to Him Who was to
    come, and Whom as yet he did not even know. Above all, there
    was the deepest earnestness, the most utter disregard of man,
    the most firm belief in what he announced. For himself he
    sought nothing; for them he had only one absorbing thought:
    The Kingdom was at hand, the King was coming, let them
    prepare!

     Such entire absorption in his mission, which leaves us in
    ignorance of even the details of his later activity, must
    have given force to his message. [3 Deeply as we appreciate
    the beauty of Keim's remarks about the character and views of
    John, we feel only the more that such a man could not have
    taken the public position nor made such public proclamation
    of the Kingdom as at hand, without a direct and objective
    call to it from God. The treatment of John's earlier history
    by Keim is, of course, without historical basis.] And still
    the voice, everywhere proclaiming the same message, travelled
    upward, along the winding Jordon which cleft the land of
    promise. It was probably the autumn of the year 779 (A. U.
    C.), which, it may be noted, was a Sabbatic year. [1 The year
    from Tishri (autumn) 779 to Tishri 780 was a Sabbatic year.
    Comp. the evidence in Wieseler, Synopse d. Evang. pp. 204,
    205.] Released from business and agriculture, the multitudes
    flocked around him as he passed on his Mission. Rapidly the
    tidings spread from town and village to distant homestead,
    still swelling the numbers that hastened to the banks of the
    sacred river. He had now reached what seems to have been the
    most northern point of his Mission-journey, [2 We read of
    three places where John baptized: 'the wilderness of Judaea',
    probably the traditional site near Jericho; Aenon, near
    Salim, on the boundary between Samaria and Judaea (Conder's
    Handbook of the Bible, p. 320); and Beth-Abara, the modern
    Abarah, 'one of the main Jordan fords, a little north of
    Beisan' (u. s.).] Beth-Abara ('the house of passage,' or 'of
    shipping'), according to the ancient reading, Bethany ('the
    house of shipping'), one of the best known fords across the
    Jordon into Peraea. [3 It is one of the merits of Lieut.
    Conder to have identified the site of Beth-Abara. The word
    probably means 'the house of passage' (fords), but may also
    mean 'the house of shipping,' the word Abarah in Hebrew
    meaning 'ferryboat,' 2 Sam. xix. 18. The reading Bethania
    instead of Bethabara seems undoubtedly the original one, only
    the word must not be derived (as by Mr. Conder, whose
    explanations and comments are often untenable), from the
    province Batanea, but explained as Beth-Oniyah, the 'house of
    shipping.' (See Lucke, Comment. u. d. Evang. Joh. i. pp. 392.
    393.).] Here he baptized. [a St. John i. 28.] The ford was
    little more than twenty miles from Nazareth. But long before
    John had reached that spot, tidings of his word and work must
    have come even into the retirement of Jesus' Home-Life.

     It was now, as we take it, the early winter of the year 780.
    [4 Considerable probability attaches to the tradition of the
    Basilideans, that our Lord's Baptism took place on the 6th or
    10th of January. (See Bp. Ellicott's Histor. Lect. on the
    Life of our Lord Jesus Christ, p. 105, note 2.] Jesus had
    waited those months. Although there seems not to have been
    any personal acquaintance between Jesus and John, and how
    could there be, when their spheres lay so widely apart?, each
    must have heard and known of the other. Thirty years of
    silence weaken most human impressions, or, if they deepen,
    the enthusiasm that had accompanied them passes away. Yet,
    when the two met, and perhaps had brief conversation, each
    bore himself in accordance with his previous history. With
    John it was deepest, reverent humility, even to the verge of
    misunderstanding his special Mission, and work of initiation
    and preparation for the Kingdom. He had heard of Him before
    by the hearing of the ear, and when now he saw Him, that look
    of quiet dignity, of the majesty of unsullied purity in the
    only Unfallen, Unsinning Man, made him forget even the
    express command of God, which had sent him from his solitude
    to preach and baptize, and that very sign which had been him
    by which to recognise the Messiah. [a St. John i 33] [1 The
    superficial objection on the supposed discrepancy between St.
    Matthew iii. 14 and St. John i. 33 has been well put aside by
    Bp. Ellicott (u. s. p. 107, note).] In that Presence it only
    became to him a question of the more 'worthy' to the
    misunderstanding of the nature of his special calling.

     But Jesus, as He had not made haste, so was He not capable
    of misunderstanding. To Him it was 'the fulfilling of all
    righteousness.' From earliest ages it has been a question why
    Jesus went to be baptized. The heretical Gospels put into the
    mouth of the Virgin-Mother an invitation to go to that
    baptism, to which Jesus is supposed to have replied by
    pointing to His own sinlessness, except it might be on the
    score of ignorance, in regard to a limitation of knowledge.
    [2 Comp. Nicholson, Gospel according to the Hebrews, pp. 38,
    92, 93.] Objections lie to most of the explanations offered
    by modern writers. They include a bold denial of the fact of
    Jesus' Baptism; the profane suggestion of collusion between
    John and Jesus; or such suppositions, as that of His personal
    sinfulness, of His coming as the Representative of a guilty
    race, or as the bearer of the sins of others, or of acting in
    solidarity with His people, or else to separate Himself from
    the sins of Israel; of His surrendering Himself thereby unto
    death for man; of His purpose to do honour to the baptism of
    John; or thus to elicit a token of His Messiahship; or to
    bind Himself to the observance of the Law; or in this manner
    to commence His Messianic Work; or to consecrate Himself
    solemnly to it; or, lastly, to receive the spiritual
    qualification for it. [3 It would occupy too much space to
    give the names of the authors of these theories. The views of
    Godet come nearest to what we regard as the true
    explanation.] To these and similar views must be added the
    latest conceit of Renan, [4 I must here, once for all,
    express my astonishment that a book so frivolous and
    fantastic in its treatment of the Life of Jesus, and so
    superficial and often inaccurate, should have excited so much
    public attention.] who arranges a scene between Jesus, who
    comes with some disciples, and John, when Jesus is content
    for a time to grow in the shadow of John, and to submit to a
    rite which was evidently so generally acknowledged. But the
    most reverent of these explanations involve a twofold
    mistake. They represent the Baptism of John as one of
    repentance, and they imply an ulterior motive in the coming
    of Christ to the banks of Jordan. But, as already shown, the
    Baptism of John was in itself only a consecration to, and
    preparatory initiation for, the new Covenant of the Kingdom.
    As applied to sinful men it was indeed necessarily a 'baptism
    of repentance;' but not as applied to the sinless Jesus. Had
    it primarily and always been a 'baptism of repentance,' He
    could not have submitted to it.

     Again, and most important of all, we must not seek for any
    ulterior motive in the coming of Jesus to this Baptism. He
    had no ulterior motive of any kind: it was an act of simple
    submissive obedience on the part of the Perfect One, and
    submissive obedience has no motive beyond itself. It asks no
    reasons; it cherishes no ulterior purpose. And thus it was
    'the fulfilment of all righteousness.' And it was in perfect
    harmony with all His previous life. Our difficulty here lies,
    if we are unbelievers, in thinking simply of the Humanity of
    the Man of Nazareth; if we are believers, in making
    abstraction of his Divinity. But thus much, at least, all
    must concede, that the Gospels always present Him as the
    God-Man, in an inseparable mystical union of the two natures,
    and that they present to us the even more mysterious idea of
    His Self-exinanition, of the voluntary obscuration of His
    Divinity, as part of His Humiliation. Placing ourselves on
    this standpoint, which is, at any rate, that of the Evangelic
    narrative, we may arrive at a more correct view of this great
    event. It seems as if, in the Divine Self-exinanition,
    apparently necessarily connected with the perfect human
    development of Jesus, some corresponding outward event were
    ever the occasion of a fresh advance in the Messianic
    consciousness and work. The first event of that kind had been
    his appearance in the Temple. These two things then stood out
    vividly before Him, not in the ordinary human, but in the
    Messianic sense: that the Temple was the House of His Father,
    and that to be busy about it was His Life-work. With this He
    returned to Nazareth, and in willing subjection to His
    Parents fulfilled all righteousness. And still, as He grew in
    years, in wisdom, and in favour with God and Man, this
    thought, rather this burning consciousness, was the inmost
    spring of His Life. What this business specially was, He knew
    not yet, and waited to learn; the how and the when of His
    life-consecration, He left unasked and unanswered in the
    still waiting for Him. And in this also we see the Sinless,
    the Perfect One.

     When tidings of John's Baptism reached His home, there could
    be no haste on His part. Even with knowledge of all that
    concerned John's relation to Him, there was in the
    'fulfilment of all righteousness' quiet waiting. The one
    question with Him was, as He afterwards put it: 'The Baptism
    of John, whence was it? from heaven, or of men?' (St. Matt.
    xxi. 25). That question once answered, there could be no
    longer doubt nor hesitation. He went, not for any ulterior
    purpose, nor from any other motive than that it was of God.
    He went voluntarily, because it was such, and because 'it
    became Him' in so doing 'to fulfill all righteousness.' There
    is this great difference between His going to that Baptism,
    and afterwards into the wilderness: in the former case, His
    act was of preconceived purpose; in the latter it was not so,
    but 'He was driven', without previous purpose to that effect,
    under the constraining power 'of the Spirit,' without
    premeditation and resolve of it; without even knowledge of
    its object. In the one case He was active, in the other
    passive; in the one case He fulfilled righteousness, in the
    other His righteousness was tried. But as, on His first visit
    to the Temple, this consciousness about His Life-business
    came to Him in His Father's House, ripening slowly and fully
    those long years of quiet submission and growing wisdom and
    grace at Nazareth, so at His Baptism, with the accompanying
    descent of the Holy Ghost, His abiding in Him, and the heard
    testimony from His Father, the knowledge came to Him, and, in
    and with [1 But the latter must be firmly upheld.] that
    knowledge, the qualification for the business of His Father's
    House. In that hour He learned the when, and in part the how,
    of His Life-business; the latter to be still farther, and
    from another aspect, seen in the wilderness, then in His
    life, in His suffering, and, finally, in His death. In man
    the subjective and the objective, alike intellectually and
    morally, are ever separate; in God they are one. What He is,
    that He wills. And in the God-Man also we must not separate
    the subjective and the objective. The consciousness of the
    when and the how of His Life-business was necessarily
    accompanied, while He prayed, by the descent, and the abiding
    in Him, of the Holy Ghost, and by the testifying Voice from
    heaven. His inner knowledge was real qualification, the
    forth-bursting of His Power; and it was inseparably
    accompanied by outward qualification, in what took place at
    His Baptism. But the first step to all was His voluntary
    descent to Jordan, and in it the fulfilling of all
    righteousness. His previous life had been that of the Perfect
    Ideal Israelite, believing, unquestioning, submissive, in
    preparation for that which, in His thirteenth year, He had
    learned as its business. The Baptism of Christ was the last
    act of His private life; and, emerging from its waters in
    prayer, He learned: when His business was to commence, and
    how it would be done.

     That one outstanding thought, then, 'I must be about My
    Father's business,' which had been the principle of His
    Nazareth life, had come to full ripeness when He knew that
    the cry, 'The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand,' was from God.
    The first great question was now answered. His Father's
    business was the Kingdom of Heaven. It only remained for Him
    'to be about it,' and in this determination He went to submit
    to its initiatory rite of Baptism. We have, as we understand
    it, distinct evidence, even if it were not otherwise
    necessary to suppose this, that 'all the people had been
    baptized,' [a St. Luke 21.] when Jesus came to John. Alone
    the two met,probably for the first time in their lives. Over
    that which passed between them Holy Scripture has laid the
    veil of reverent silence, save as regards the beginning and
    the outcome of their meeting, which it was necessary for us
    to know. When Jesus came, John knew Him not. And even when He
    knew Him, that was not enough. Not remembrance of what he had
    heard and of past transactions, nor the overwhelming power of
    that spotless Purity and Majesty of willing submission, were
    sufficient. For so great a witness as that which John was to
    bear, a present and visible demonstration from heaven was to
    be given. Not that God sent the Spirit-Dove, or heaven
    uttered its voice, for the purpose of giving this as a sign
    to John. These manifestations were necessary in themselves,
    and, we might say, would have taken place quite irrespective
    of the Baptist. But, while necessary in themselves, they were
    also to be a sign to John. And this may perhaps explain why
    one Gospel (that of St. John) seems to describe the scene as
    enacted before the Baptist, whilst others (St. Matthew and
    St. Mark) tell it as if only visible to Jesus. [1 The account
    by St. Luke seems to me to include both. The common objection
    on the score of the supposed divergence between St. John and
    the Synoptists is thus met.] The one bears reference to 'the
    record,' the other to the deeper and absolutely necessary
    fact which underlay 'the record.' And, beyond this, it may
    help us to perceive at least one aspect of what to man is the
    miraculous: as in itself the higher Necessary, with casual
    and secondary manifestation to man.

     We can understand how what he knew of Jesus, and what he now
    saw and heard, must have overwhelmed John with the sense of
    Christ's transcendentally higher dignity, and led him to
    hesitate about, if not to refuse, administering to Him the
    rite of Baptism. [2 The expression (St. Matt iii. 14: 'John
    forbade Him') implies earnest resistance (comp. Meyer ad
    locum).] Not because it was 'the baptism of repentance,' but
    because he stood in the presence of Him 'the latchet of Whose
    shoes' he was 'not worthy to loose'. Had he not so felt, the
    narrative would not have been psychologically true; and, had
    it not been recorded, there would have been serious
    difficulty to our reception of it. And yet, withal, in so
    'forbidding' Him, and even suggesting his own baptism by
    Jesus, John forgot and misunderstood his mission. John
    himself was never to be baptized; he only held open the door
    of the new Kingdom; himself entered it not, and he that was
    least in that Kingdom was greater than he. Such lowliest
    place on earth seems ever conjoined with greatest work for
    God. Yet this misunderstanding and suggestion on the part of
    John might almost be regarded as a temptation to Christ. Not
    perhaps, His first, nor yet this His first victory, since the
    'sorrow' of His Parents about His absence from them when in
    the Temple must to the absolute submissiveness of Jesus have
    been a temptation to turn aside from His path, all the more
    felt in the tenderness of His years, and the inexperience of
    a first public appearance. He then overcame by the clear
    consciousness of His Life-business, which could not be
    contravened by any apparent call of duty, however specious.
    And He now overcame by falling back upon the simple and clear
    principle which had brought him to Jordan: 'It becometh us to
    fulfil all righteousness.' Thus, simply putting aside,
    without argument, the objection of the Baptist, He followed
    the Hand that pointed Him to the open door of 'the Kingdom.'

     Jesus stepped out of the baptismal waters 'praying.' [a 1
    St. Luke iii. 21.] One prayer, the only one which He taught
    His disciples, recurs to our minds. [1 It seems to me that
    the prayer which the Lord taught His disciples must have had
    its root in, and taken its start from, His own inner Life. At
    the same time it is adapted to our wants. Much in that prayer
    has, of course, no application to Him, but is His application
    of the doctrine of the Kingdom to our state and wants.] We
    must here individualise and emphasise in their special
    application its opening sentences: 'Our Father Which art in
    heaven, hallowed be Thy Name! Thy Kingdom come! They will be
    done in earth, as it is in heaven!' The first thought and the
    first petition had been the conscious outcome of the
    Temple-visit, ripened during the long years at Nazareth. The
    others were now the full expression of His submission to
    Baptism. He knew His Mission; He had consecrated Himself to
    it in His Baptism; 'Father Which art in heaven, hallowed be
    Thy Name.' The unlimited petition for the doing of God's Will
    on earth with the same absoluteness as in heaven, was His
    self-consecration: the prayer of His Baptism, as the other
    was its confession. And the 'hallowed be Thy Name' was the
    eulogy, because the ripened and experimental principle of His
    Life. How this Will, connected with 'the Kingdom,' was to be
    done by Him, and when, He was to learn after His Baptism. But
    strange, that the petition which followed those which must
    have been on the lips of Jesus in that hour should have been
    the subject of the first temptation or assault by the Enemy;
    strange also, that the other two temptations should have
    rolled back the force of the assault upon the two great
    experiences He had gained, and which formed the burden of the
    petitions, 'Thy Kingdom come; Hallowed be Thy Name.' Was it
    then so, that all the assaults which Jesus bore only
    concerned and tested the reality of a past and already
    attained experience, save those last in the Garden and on the
    Cross, which were 'sufferings' by which He 'was made
    perfect'?

     But, as we have already seen, such inward forth-bursting of
    Messianic consciousness could not be separated from objective
    qualification for, and testimony to it. As the prayer of
    Jesus winged heavenwards, His solemn response to the call of
    the Kingdom, 'Here am I;' 'Lo, I come to do Thy Will', the
    answer came, which at the same time was also the predicted
    sign to the Baptist. Heaven seemed cleft, and in bodily shape
    like a dove, the Holy Ghost descended on [1 Whether or not we
    adopt the reading in St. Mark i. 10, the remaining of the
    Holy Spirit upon Jesus is clearly expressed in St. John i.
    32.] Jesus, remaining on him. It was as if, symbolically, in
    the words of St. Peter, [a 1 St. Pet. iii. 21.] that Baptism
    had been a new flood, and He Who now emerged from it, the
    Noah, or rest, and comfort-bringer, Who took into His Ark the
    dove bearing the olive-branch, indicative of a new life.
    Here, at these waters, was the Kingdom, into which Jesus had
    entered in the fulfilment of all righteousness; and from them
    he emerged as its Heaven-designated, Heaven-qualified, and
    Heaven-proclaimed King. As such he had received the fulness
    of the Spirit for His Messianic Work, a fulness abiding in
    Him, that out of it we might receive, and grace for grace. As
    such also the voice from Heaven proclaimed it, to Him and to
    John: 'Thou art ('this is') My Beloved Son, in Whom I am well
    pleased.' The ratification of the great Davidic promise, the
    announcement of the fulfilment of its predictive import in
    Psalm ii. [2 Here the Targum on Ps. ii. 7, which is evidently
    intended to weaken the Messianic interpretation, gives us
    welcome help. It paraphrases: 'Beloved as a son to his father
    art Thou to Me.' Keim regards the words, 'Thou art my beloved
    Son,' &c., as a mixture of Is. xlii. 1 and Ps. ii. 7. I
    cannot agree with this view, though this history is the
    fulfilment of the prediction in Isaiah.] was God's solemn
    declaration of Jesus as the Messiah, His public proclamation
    of it, and the beginning of Jesus' Messianic work. And so the
    Baptist understood it, when he 'bare record' that He was 'the
    Son of God.' [a St. John i. 34.]

     Quite intelligible as all this is, it is certainly
    miraculous; not, indeed, in the sense of contravention of the
    Laws of Nature (illogical as that phrase is), but in that of
    having nothing analogous in our present knowledge and
    experience. But would we not have expected the
    supra-empirical, the directly heavenly, to attend such an
    event, that is, if the narrative itself be true, and Jesus
    what the Gospels represent Him? To reject, therefore, the
    narrative because of its supra-empirical accompaniment seems,
    after all, a sad inversion of reasoning, and begging the
    question. But, to go a step further: if there be no reality
    in the narrative, whence the invention of the legend? It
    certainly had no basis in contemporary Jewish teaching; and,
    equally certainly, it would not have spontaneously occurred
    to Jewish minds. Nowhere in Rabbinic writings do we find any
    hint of a Baptism of the Messiah, nor of a descent upon Him
    of the Spirit in the form of a dove. Rather would such views
    seem, a priori, repugnant to Jewish thinking. An attempt has,
    however, been made in the direction of identifying two traits
    in this narrative with Rabbinic notices. The 'Voice from
    heaven' has been represented as the 'Bath-Qol,' or
    'Daughter-Voice,' of which we read in Rabbinic writings, as
    bringing heaven's testimony or decision to perplexed or
    hardly bestead Rabbis. And it has been further asserted, that
    among the Jews 'the dove' was regarded as the emblem of the
    Spirit. In taking notice of these assertions some warmth of
    language may be forgiven.

     We make bold to maintain that no one, who has impartially
    examined the matter, [1 Dr. Winsche's Rabbinic notes on the
    Bath-Qol (Neue Beitr. pp. 22, 23) are taken from Hamburger's
    Real-Encykl. (Abth. ii. pp. 92 &c.).] could find any real
    analogy between the so-called Bath-Qol, and the 'Voice from
    heaven' of which record is made in the New Testament. However
    opinions might differ, on one thing all were agreed: the
    Bath-Qol had come after the voice of prophecy and the Holy
    Ghost had ceased in Israel, [b Jer. Sot. ix. 14; Yoma 9 b;
    Sotah 33 a; 48 b; Sanh 11a.] and, so to speak, had taken,
    their place. [2 Hamburger, indeed maintains, on the ground of
    Macc. 23 b, that occasionally it was identified with the Holy
    Spirit. But carefully read, neither this passage, nor the
    other, in which the same mistranslation, and profane
    misinterpretation of the words 'She has been more righteous'
    (Gen. xxxviii. 26) occur (Jer. Sot. ix. 7), at all bears out
    this suggestion. It is quite untenable in view of the
    distinct statements (Jer. Sot. ix. 14; Sot. 48 b; and Sanh.
    11a), that after the cessation of the Holy Spirit the
    Bath-Qol took His place.] But at the Baptism of Jesus the
    descent of the Holy Ghost was accompanied by the Voice from
    Heaven. Even on this ground, therefore, it could not have
    been the Rabbinic Bath-Qol. But, further, this
    'Daughter-Voice' was regarded rather as the echo of, than as
    the Voice of God itself [1 Comp. on the subject Pinner in his
    Introduction to the tractate Berakhoth.] (Toseph. Sanh. xi.
    1). The occasions on which this 'Daughter-Voice' was supposed
    to have been heard are so various and sometimes so shocking,
    both to common and to moral sense, that a comparison with the
    Gospels is wholly out of the question. And here it also
    deserves notice, that references to this Bath-Qol increase
    the farther we remove from the age of Christ. [2 In the
    Targum Onkelos it is not at all mentioned. In the Targum
    PseudoJon. it occurs four times (Gen. xxxviii. 26; Numb. xxi.
    6; Deut. xxviii. 15; xxxiv. 5), and four times in the Targum
    on the Hagiographa (twice in Ecclesiastes, once in
    Lamentations, and once in Esther). In Mechilta and Siphra it
    does not occur at all, and in Siphre only once, in the absurd
    lenged that the Bath-Qol was heard a distance of twelve times
    twelve miles proclaiming the death of Moses (ed. Friedmann,
    p. 149 b). In the Mishnah it is only twice mentioned (Yeb.
    xvi. 6, where the sound of a Bath-Qol is supposed to be
    sufficient attestation of a man's death to enable his wife to
    marry again; and in Abhoth vi. 2, where it is impossible to
    understand the language otherwise than figuratively). In the
    Jerusalem Talmud the Bath-Qol is referred to twenty times,
    and in the Babylon Talmud sixty-nine times. Sometimes the
    Bath-Qol gives sentence in favour of a popular Rabbi,
    sometimes it attempts to decide controversies, or bears
    witness; or else it is said every day to proclaim: Such an
    one's daughter is destined for such an one (Moed Kat. 18 b;
    Sot. 2a; Sanh. 22 a). Occasionally it utters curious or
    profane interpretations of Scripture (as in Yoma 22 b; Sot.
    10 b), or silly legends, as in regard to the insect Yattush
    which was to torture Titus (Gitt. 56 b), or as warning
    against a place where a hatchet had fallen into the water,
    descending for seven years without reaching the bottom.
    Indeed, so strong became the feeling against this
    supersitition, that the more rational Rabbis protested
    against any appeal to the Bath-Qol (Baba Metsia 59 b).]

     We have reserved to the last the consideration of the
    statement, that among the Jews the Holy Spirit was presented
    under the symbol of a dove. It is admitted, that there is no
    support for this idea either in the Old Testament or in the
    writings of Philo (Lucke, Evang. Joh. i. pp. 425, 426); that,
    indeed, such animal symbolism of the Divine is foreign to the
    Old Testament. But all the more confident appeal is made to
    Rabbinic writings. The suggestion was, apparently, first made
    by Wetstein. [a Nov. Test. i. p. 268.] It is dwelt upon with
    much confidence by Gfrorer [3 The force of Gfrorer's attacks
    upon the Gospels lies in his cumulative attempts to prove
    that the individual miraculous facts recorded in the Gospels
    are based upon Jewish notions. It is, therefore, necessary to
    examine each of them separately, and such examination, it
    careful and conscientious, shows that his quotations are
    often untrustworthy, and his conclusions fallacies. None the
    less taking are they to those who are imperfectly acquainted
    with Rabbinic literature. Wunsche's Talmudic and Midrashic
    Notes on the N.T. (Gottingen, 1878) are also too often
    misleading.] and others, as evidence of the mythical origin
    of the Gospels; [b Jahrh. des Heils, vol. ii. p. 433.] it is
    repeated by Wunsche, and even reproduced by writers who, had
    they known the real state of matters, would not have lent
    their authority to it. Of the two passages by which this
    strange hypothesis is supported, that in the Targum on Cant.
    ii. 12 may at once be dismissed, as dating considerably after
    the close of the Talmud. There remains, therefore, only the
    one passage in the Talmud, [a Chag. 15 a.] which is generally
    thus quoted: 'The Spirit of God moved on the face of the
    waters, like a dove.' [b Farrar, Life of Christ, i. p. 117.]
    That this quotation is incomplete, omitting the most
    important part, is only a light charge against it. For, if
    fully made, it would only the more clearly be seen to be
    inapplicable. The passage (Chag. 15 a) treats of the supposed
    distance between 'the upper and the lower waters,' which is
    stated to amount to only three fingerbreadths. This is proved
    by a reference to Gen. i. 2, where the Spirit of God is said
    to brood over the face of the waters, 'just as a dove
    broodeth over her young without touching them.' It will be
    noticed, that the comparison is not between the Spirit and
    the dove, but between the closeness with which a dove broods
    over her young without touching them, and the supposed
    proximity of the Spirit to the lower waters without touching
    them. [1 The saying in Chag. 15 a is of Ben Soma, who is
    described in Rabbinic literature as tainted with Christian
    views, and whose belief in the possibility of the
    supernatural birth of the Messiah is so coarsely satirised in
    the Talmud. Rabbi Low (Lebensalter. p. 58) suggests that in
    Ben Soma's figure of the dove there may have been a Christian
    reminiscence.] But, if any doubt could still exist, itwould
    be removed by the fact that in a parallel passage, [c Ber. R.
    2.] the expression used is not 'dove' but 'that bird.' Thus
    much for this oft-misquoted passage. But we go farther, and
    assert, that the dove was not the symbol of the Holy Spirit,
    but that of Israel. As such it is so universally adopted as
    to have become almost historical. [d Comp. the long
    illustrations in the Midr. on Song i. 15; Sanh. 95 a; Ber. R.
    39; Yalkut on Ps. 1v. 7. and other passages.] If, therefore,
    Rabbinic illustration of the descent of the Holy Spirit with
    the visible appearance of a dove must be sought for, it would
    lie in the acknowledgment of Jesus as the ideal typical
    Israelite, the Representative of His People.

     The lengthened details, which have been necessary for the
    exposure of the mythical theory, will not have been without
    use, if they carry to the mind the conviction that this
    history had no basis in existing Jewish belief. Its origin
    cannot, therefore, be rationally accounted for, except by the
    answer which Jesus, when He came to Jordan, gave to that
    grand fundamental question: 'The Baptism of John, whence was
    it? From Heaven, or of men?' [e St. Matt. xxi. 25.]

 THE ASCENT: FROM THE RIVER JORDAN TO THE MOUNT OF
    TRANSFIGURATION

    THE TEMPTATION OF JESUS

    CHAPTER I.

     (St. Matt. iv. 1-11; St. Mark i. 12, 13; St. Luke iv. 1-13.)

     The proclamation and inauguration of the 'Kingdom of Heaven'
    at such a time, and under such circumstances, was one of the
    great antitheses of history. With reverence be it said, it is
    only God Who would thus begin His Kingdom. A similar, even
    greater antithesis, was the commencement of the Ministry of
    Christ. From the Jordan to the wilderness with its wild
    beasts; from the devout acknowledgement of the Baptist, the
    consecration and filial prayer of Jesus, the descent of the
    Holy Spirit, and the heard testimony of Heaven, to the utter
    foresakeness, the felt want and weakness of Jesus, and the
    assaults of the Devil, no contrast more startling could be
    conceived. And yet, as we think of it, what followed upon the
    Baptism, and that it so followed, was necessary, as regarded
    the Person of Jesus, His Work, and that which was to result
    from it.

     Psychologically, and as regarded the Work of Jesus, even
    reverent negative Critics [1 No other terms would correctly
    describe the book of Keim to which I specially refer. How
    widely it differs, not only from the superficial trivialities
    of a Renan, but from the stale arguments of Strauss, or the
    picturesque inaccuracies of a Hausrath, no serious student
    need be told. Perhaps on that ground it is only the more
    dangerous.] have perceived its higher need. That at His
    consecration to the Kingship of the Kingdom, Jesus should
    have become clearly conscious of all that it implied in a
    world of sin; that the Divine method by which that Kingdom
    should be established, should have been clearly brought out,
    and its reality tested; and that the King, as Representative
    and Founder of the Kingdom, should have encountered and
    defeated the representative, founder, and holder of the
    opposite power, 'the prince of this world', these are
    thoughts which must arise in everyone who believes in any
    Mission of the Christ. Yet this only as, after the events, we
    have learned to know the character of that Mission, not as we
    might have preconceived it. We can understand, how a Life and
    Work such as that of Jesus, would commence with 'the
    Temptation,' but none other than His. Judaism never conceived
    such an idea; because it never conceived a Messiah like
    Jesus. It is quite true that long previous Biblical teaching,
    and even the psychological necessity of the case, must have
    pointed to temptation and victory as the condition of
    spiritual greatness. It could not have been otherwise in a
    world hostile to God, nor yet in man, whose conscious choice
    determines his position. No crown of victory without previous
    contest, and that proportionately to its brightness; no moral
    ideal without personal attainment and probation. The
    patriarchs had been tried and proved; so had Moses, and all
    the heroes of faith in Israel. And Rabbinic legend, enlarging
    upon the Biblical narratives, has much to tell of the
    original envy of the Angels; of the assaults of Satan upon
    Abraham, when about to offer up Isaac; of attempted
    resistance by the Angels to Israel's reception of the Law;
    and of the final vain endeavour of Satan to take away the
    soul of Moses. [1 On the temptations of Abraham see Book of
    Jubilees, ch. xvii.; Sanh. 89 b (and differently but not less
    blasphemously in Pirke de R. Elies. 31); Pirke de R. Elies.
    26, 31, 32 (where also about Satan's temptation of Sarah, who
    dies in consequence of his tidings); Ab. de R. N. 33; Ber. R.
    32, 56; Yalkut, i. c. 98, p. 28 b; and Tanchuma, where the
    story is related with most repulsive details. As to Moses,
    see for example Shabb. 89 a; and especially the truly
    horrible story of the death of Moses in Debar R. 11 (ed.
    Warsh. iii. p. 22 a and b). But I am not aware of any
    temptation of Moses by Satan.] Foolish, repulsive, and even
    blasphemous as some of these legends are, thus much at least
    clearly stood out, that spiritual trials must precede
    spiritual elevation. In their own language: 'The Holy One,
    blessed be His Name, does not elevate a man to dignity till
    He has first tried and searched him; and if he stands in
    temptation, then He raises him to dignity.' [a Bemidb. R. 15,
    ed. Warsh. vol. iv. p. 63 a, lines 5 and 4 from bottom.]

     Thus far as regards man. But in reference to the Messiah
    there is not a hint of any temptation or assault by Satan. It
    is of such importance to mark this clearly at the outset of
    this wonderful history, that proof must be offered even at
    this stage. In whatever manner negative critics may seek to
    account for the introduction of Christ's Temptation at the
    commencement of His Ministry, it cannot have been derived
    from Jewish legend. The 'mythical' interpretation of the
    Gospel-narratives breaks down in this almost more manifestly
    than in any other instance. [2 Thus Gfrorer can only hope
    that some Jewish parallelism may yet be discovered (!); while
    Keim suggests, of course without a title of evidence,
    additions by the early Jewish Christians. But whence and why
    these imaginary additions?] So far from any idea obtaining
    that Satan was to assault the Messiah, in a well-known
    passage, which has been previously quoted, [b Yalkut on Is.
    ix. 1, vol. ii. p. 56.] the Arch-enemy is represented as
    overwhelmed and falling on his face at sight of Him, and
    owning his complete defeat. [1 Keim (Jesu von Naz. i. b, p.
    564) seems not to have perused the whole passage, and,
    quoting it at second-hand, has misapplied it. The passage
    (Yalkut on Is. lx. 1) has been given before.] On another
    point in this history we find the same inversion of thought
    current in Jewish legend. In the Commentary just referred to,
    [a u. s. col. d.] the placing of Messiah on the pinnacle of
    the Temple, so far from being of Satanic temptation, is said
    to mark the hour of deliverance, of Messianic proclamation,
    and of Gentile voluntary submission. 'Our Rabbis give this
    tradition: In the hour when King Messiah cometh, He standeth
    upon the roof of the Sanctuary, and proclaims to Israel,
    saying, Ye poor (suffering), the time of your redemption
    draweth nigh. And if ye believe, rejoice in My Light, which
    is risen upon you..... Is. lx. 1..... upon you only ....Is.
    lx. 2..... In that hour will the Holy One, blessed be His
    Name, make the Light of the Messiah and of Israel to shine
    forth; and all shall come to the Light of the King Messiah
    and of Israel, as it is written ..... Is. lx. 3..... And they
    shall come and lick the dust from under the feet of the King
    Messiah, as it is written, Is. xlix. 23...... And all shall
    come and fall on their faces before Messiah and before
    Israel, and say, We will be servants to Him and to Israel.
    And every one in Israel shall have 2,800 servants, [2 The
    number is thus reached: as there are seventy nations, and ten
    of each are to take hold on each of the four corners of a
    Jew's garment, we have 70 x 10 x 4 =2,800.] as it is written,
    Zech. viii. 23.' One more quotation from the same Commentary:
    [b u. s. 11 lines fur ther down.] 'In that hour, the Holy
    One, blessed be His Name, exalts the Messiah to the heaven of
    heavens, and spreads over Him of the splendour of His glory
    because of the nations of the world, because of the wicked
    Persians. They say to Him, Ephraim, Messiah, our
    Righteousness, execute judgment upon them, and do to them
    what Thy soul desireth.'

     In another respect these quotations are important. They show
    that such ideas were, indeed, present to the Jewish mind, but
    in a sense opposite to the Gospel-narratives. In other words,
    they were regarded as the rightful manifestation of Messiah's
    dignity; whereas in the Evangelic record they are presented
    as the suggestions of Satan, and the Temptation of Christ.
    Thus the Messiah of Judaism is the Anti-Christ of the
    Gospels. But if the narrative cannot be traced to Rabbinic
    legend, may it not be an adaptation of an Old Testament
    narrative, such as the account of the forty days' fast of
    Moses on the mount, or of Elijah in the wilderness? Viewing
    the Old Testament in its unity, and the Messiah as the apex
    in the column of its history, we admit, or rather, we must
    expect, throughout points of correspondence between Moses,
    Elijah, and the Messiah. In fact, these may be described as
    marking the three stages in the history of the Covenant.
    Moses was its giver, Elijah its restorer, the Messiah its
    renewer and perfecter. And as such they all had, in a sense,
    a similar outward consecration for their work. But that
    neither Moses nor Elijah was assailed by the Devil,
    constitutes not the only, though a vital, difference between
    the fast of Moses and Elijah, and that of Jesus. Moses fasted
    in the middle, Elijah at the Presence of God; [1 The Rabbis
    have it, that a man must accommodate himself to the ways of
    the place where he is. When Moses was on the Mount he lived
    of 'the bread of the Torah' (Shem. R. 47).] Elijah alone;
    Jesus assaulted by the Devil. Moses had been called up by
    God; Elijah had gone forth in the bitterness of his own
    spirit; Jesus was driven by the Spirit. Moses failed after
    his forty days' fast, when in indignation he cast the Tables
    of the Law from him; Elijah failed before his forty days'
    fast; Jesus was assailed for forty days and endured the
    trial. Moses was angry against Israel; Elijah despaired of
    Israel; Jesus overcame for Israel.

     Nor must we forget that to each the trial came not only in
    his human, but in his representative capacity, as giver,
    restorer, or perfecter of the Covenant. When Moses and Elijah
    failed, it was not only as individuals, but as giving or
    restoring the Covenant. And when Jesus conquered, it was not
    only as the Unfallen and Perfect Man, but as the Messiah. His
    Temptation and Victory have therefore a twofold aspect: the
    general human and the Messianic, and these two are closely
    connected. Hence we draw also this happy inference: in
    whatever Jesus overcame, we can overcome. Each victory which
    He has gained secures its fruits for us who are His disciples
    (and this alike objectively and subjectively). We walk in His
    foot-prints; we can ascend by the rock-hewn steps which His
    Agony has cut. He is the perfect man; and as each temptation
    marks a human assault (assault on humanity), so it also marks
    a human victory (of humanity). But He is also the Messiah;
    and alike the assault and the victory were of the Messiah.
    Thus, each victory of humanity becomes a victory for
    humanity; and so is fulfilled, in this respect also, that
    ancient hymn of royal victory, 'Thou hast ascended on high;
    Thou hast led captivity captive; Thou hast received gifts for
    men; yea, for the rebellious also, that Jehovah God, might
    dwell among them.' [a Ps. lxviii. 18.] [2 The quotation in
    Eph. iv. 8 resembles the rendering of the Targum (see
    Delitzsch Comm. u. d. Psalter, vol. i. p. 503).]

     But even so, there are other considerations necessarily
    preliminary to the study of one of the most important parts
    in the life of Christ. They concern these two questions, so
    closely connected that they can scarcely be kept quite apart:
    Is the Evangelic narrative to be regarded as the account of a
    real and outward event? And if so, how was it possible, or,
    in what sense can it be asserted, that Jesus Christ, set
    before us as the Son of God, was 'tempted of the Devil'? All
    subsidiary questions run up into these two.

     As regards the reality and outwardness of the temptation of
    Jesus, several suggestions may be set aside as unnatural, and
    ex post facto attempts to remove a felt difficulty. Renan's
    frivolous conceit scarcely deserves serious notice, that
    Jesus went into the wilderness in order to imitate the
    Baptist and others, since such solitude was at the time
    regarded as a necessary preparation for great things. We
    equally dismiss as more reverent, but not better grounded,
    such suggestions as that an interview there with the deputies
    of the Sanhedrin, or with a Priest, or with a Pharisee,
    formed the historical basis of the Satanic Temptation; or
    that it was a vision, a dream, the reflection of the ideas of
    the time; or that it was a parabolic form in which Jesus
    afterwards presented to His disciples His conception of the
    Kingdom, and how they were to preach it. [1 We refrain from
    naming the individual writers who have broached these and
    other equally untenable hypotheses.] Of all such explanations
    it may be said, that the narrative does not warrant them, and
    that they would probably never have been suggested, if their
    authors had been able simply to accept the Evangelic history.
    But if so it would have been both better and wiser wholly to
    reject (as some have done) the authenticity of this, as of
    the whole early history of the Life of Christ, rather than
    transform what, if true, is so unspeakably grand into a
    series of modern platitudes. And yet (as Keim has felt) it
    seems impossible to deny, that such a transaction at the
    beginning of Christ's Messianic Ministry is not only
    credible, but almost a necessity; and that such a transaction
    must have assumed the form of a contest with Satan. Besides,
    throughout the Gospels there is not only allusion to this
    first great conflict (so that it does not belong only to the
    early history of Christ's Life), but constant reference to
    the power of Satan in the world, as a kingdom opposed to that
    of God, and of which the Devil is the King. [2 The former
    notably in St. Matt. xii. 25-28; St. Luke xi. 17 &c. The
    import of this, as looking back upon the history of the
    Temptation, has not always been sufficiently recognised. In
    regard to Satan and his power many passages will occur to the
    reader, such as St. Matt. vi. 13; xii. 22; xiii. 19, 25, 39;
    xxvi. 41; St. Luke x. 18; xxii. 3, 28, 31; St. John viii. 44;
    xii. 31; xiii. 27; xiv. 30; xvi. 11.] And the reality of such
    a kingdom of evil no earnest mind would call in question, nor
    would it pronounce a priori against the personality of its
    king. Reasoning a priori, its credibility rests on the same
    kind of, only, perhaps, on more generally patent, evidence as
    that of the beneficent Author of all Good, so that with
    reverence be it said, we have, apart from Holy Scripture,
    and, as regards one branch of the argument, as much evidence
    for believing in a personal Satan, as in a Personal God.
    Holding, therefore, by the reality of this transaction, and
    finding it equally impossible to trace it to Jewish legend,
    or to explain it by the coarse hypothesis of
    misunderstanding,exaggeration, and the like, this one
    question arises: Might it not have been a purely inward
    transaction, or does the narrative present an account of what
    was objectively real?

     At the outset, it is only truthful to state, that the
    distinction does not seem of quite so vital importance as it
    has appeared to some, who have used in regard to it the
    strongest language. [1 So Bishop Ellicott, Histor. Lectures,
    p. 111.] On the other hand it must be admitted that the
    narrative, if naturally interpreted, suggests an outward and
    real event, not an inward transaction; [2 Professor Godet's
    views on this subject are very far from satisfactory, whether
    exegetically or dogmatically. Happily, they fall far short of
    the notion of any internal solicitation to sin in the case of
    Jesus, which Bishop Ellicott so justly denounces in strongest
    language.] that there is no other instance of ecstatic state
    or of vision recorded in the life of Jesus, and that (as
    Bishop Ellicott has shown), [3 U. s.p. 110, note 2.] the
    special expressions used are all in accordance with the
    natural view. To this we add, that some of the objections
    raised, notably that of the impossiblity of showing from one
    spot all the kingdoms of the world, cannot bear close
    investigation. For no rational interpretation would insist on
    the absolute literality of this statement, any more than on
    that of the survey of the whole extent of the land of Israel
    by Moses from Pisgah. [a Deut. xxxiv. 1-3.] [4 According to
    Siphre (ed. Friedmann p. 149 a and b), God showed to Moses
    Israel in its happiness, wars, and misfortunes; the whole
    world from the Day of Creation to that of the Resurrection;
    Paradise, and Gehenna.] All the requirements of the narrative
    would be met by supposing Jesus to have been placed on a very
    high mountain, whence south, the land of Judaea and far-off
    Edom; east, the swelling plains towards Euphrates; north,
    snow-capped Lebanon; and west, the cities of Herod, the coast
    of the Gentiles, and beyond, the wide sea dotted with sails,
    gave far-off prospect of the kingdoms of this world. To His
    piercing gaze all their grandeur would seem to unroll, and
    pass before Him like a moving scene, in which the sparkle of
    beauty and wealth dazzled the eye, the sheen of arms
    glittered in the far distance, the tramp of armed men, the
    hum of busy cities, and the sound of many voices fell on the
    ear like the far-off rush of the sea, while the restful
    harmony of thought, or the music of art, held and bewitched
    the senses, and all seemed to pour forth its fullness in
    tribute of homage at His feet in Whom all is perfect, and to
    Whom all belongs.

     But in saying this we have already indicated that, in such
    circumstances, the boundary-line between the outward and the
    inward must have been both narrow and faint. Indeed, with
    Christ it can scarcely be conceived to have existed at such a
    moment. The past, the present, and the future must have been
    open before Him like a map unrolling. Shall we venture to say
    that such a vision was only inward, and not outwardly and
    objectively real? In truth we are using terms which have no
    application to Christ. If we may venture once more to speak
    in this wise of the Divine Being: With Him what we view as
    the opposite poles of subjective and objective are absolutely
    one. To go a step further: many even of our temptations are
    only (contrastedly) inward, for these two reasons, that they
    have their basis or else their point of contact within us,
    and that from the limitations of our bodily condition we do
    uot see the enemy, nor can take active part in the scene
    around. But in both respects it was not so with the Christ.
    If this be so, the whole question seems almost irrelevant,
    and the distinction of outward and inward inapplicable to the
    present case. Or rather, we must keep by these two landmarks:
    First, it was not inward in the sense of being merely
    subjective; but it was all real, a real assualt by a real
    Satan, really under these three forms, and it constituted a
    real Temptation to Christ. Secondly, it was not merely
    outward in the sense of being only a present assault by
    Satan; but it must have reached beyond the outward into the
    inward, and have had for its further object that of
    influencing the future Work of Christ, as it stood out before
    His Mind.

     A still more difficult and solemn question is this: In what
    respect could Jesus Christ, the Perfect Sinless Man, the Son
    of God, have been tempted of the Devil? That He was so
    tempted is of the very essence of this narrative, confirmed
    throughout His after-life, and laid down as a fundamental
    principle in the teaching and faith of the Church. [a Heb.
    iv. 15.] On the other hand, temptation without the inward
    correspondence of existent sin is not only unthinkable, so
    far as man is concerned, [b St. James i. 14.] but temptation
    without the possibility of sin seems unreal a kind of
    Docetism. [1 The heresy which represents the Body of Christ
    as only apparent, not real.] Yet the very passage of Holy
    Scripture in which Christ's equality with us as regards all
    temptation is expressed, also emphatically excepts from it
    this one particular sin, [a Hebr. iv. 15.] notonly in the
    sense that Christ actually did not sin, nor merely in this,
    that 'our concupiscence' [b St. James i. 14.] had no part in
    His temptations, but emphatically in this also, that the
    notion of sin has to be wholly excluded from our thoughts of
    Christ's temptations.'

     To obtain, if we can, a clearer understanding of this
    subject, two points must be kept in view. Christ's was real,
    though unfallen Human Nature; and Christ's Human was in
    inseparable union with His Divine Nature. We are not
    attempting to explain these mysteries, nor at present to
    vindicate them; we are only arguing from the standpoint of
    the Gospels and of Apostolic teaching, which proceeds on
    these premisses, and proceeding on them, we are trying to
    understand the Temptation of Christ. Now it is clear, that
    human nature, that of Adam before his fall, was created both
    sinless and peccable. If Christ's Human Nature was not like
    ours, but, morally, like that of Adam before his fall, then
    must it likewise have been both sinless and in itself
    peccable. We say, in itself, for there is a great difference
    between the statement that human nature, as Adam and Christ
    had it, was capable of sinning, and this other, that Christ
    was peccable. From the latter the Christian mind
    instinctively recoils, even as it is metaphysically
    impossible to imagine the Son of God peccable. Jesus
    voluntarily took upon Himself human nature with all its
    infirmities and weaknesses, but without the moral taint of
    the Fall: without sin. It was human nature, in itself capable
    of sinning, but not having sinned. If He was absolutely
    sinless, He must have been unfallen. The position of the
    first Adam was that of being capable of not sinning, not that
    of being incapable of sinning. The Second Adam also had a
    nature capable of not sinning, but not incapable of sinning.
    This explains the possibility of 'temptation' or assault upon
    Him, just as Adam could be tempted before there was in him
    any inward consensus to it. [2 The latter was already sin.
    Yet 'temptation' means more than mere 'assault.' There may be
    conditional mental assensus without moral consensus, and so
    temptation without sin. See p. 301, note.] The first Adam
    would have been 'perfected', or passed from the capability of
    not sinning to the incapability of sinning, by obedience.
    That 'obedience', or absolute submission to the Will of God,
    was the grand outstanding characteristic of Christ's work;
    but it was so, because He was not only the Unsinning,
    Unfallen Man, but also the Son of God. Because God was His
    Father, therefore He must be about His Business, which was to
    do the Will of His Father. With a peccable Human Nature He
    was impeccable; not because He obeyed, but being impeccable
    He so obeyed, because His Human was inseparably connected
    with His Divine Nature. To keep this Union of the two Natures
    out of view would be Nestorianism. [1 The heresy which
    undulyseparated the two Natures.] To sum up: The Second Adam,
    morally unfallen, though voluntarily subject to all the
    conditions of our Nature, was, with a peccable Human Nature,
    absolutely impeccable as being also the Son of God, a
    peccable Nature, yet an impeccable Person: the God-Man,
    'tempted in regard to all (things) in like manner (as we),
    without (excepting) sin.'

     All this sounds, after all, like the stammering of Divine
    words by a babe, and yet it may in some measure help us to
    understand the character of Christ's first great Temptation.

     Before proceeding, a few sentences are required in
    explanation of seeming differences in the Evangelic narration
    of the event. The historical part of St. John's Gospel begins
    after the Temptation, that is, with the actual Ministry of
    Christ; since it was not within the purport of that work to
    detail the earlier history. That had been sufficiently done
    in the Synoptic Gospels. Impartial and serious critics will
    admit that these are in accord. For, if St. Mark only
    summarises, in his own brief manner, he supplies the two-fold
    notice that Jesus was 'driven' into the wilderness, 'and was
    with the wild beasts,' which is in fullest internal agreement
    with the detailed narratives of St. Matthew and St. Luke. The
    only noteworthy difference between these two is, that St.
    Matthew places the Temple-temptation before that of the
    world-kingdom, while St. Luke inverts this order, probably
    because his narrative was primarily intended for Gentile
    readers, to whose mind this might present itself as to them
    the true gradation of temptation. To St. Matthew we owe the
    notice, that after Temptation 'Angels came and ministered'
    unto Jesus; to St. Luke, that the Tempter only 'departed from
    Him for a season.'

     To restate in order our former conclusions, Jesus had
    deliberately, of His own accord and of set firm purpose, gone
    to be baptized. That one grand outstanding fact of His early
    life, that He must be about His Father's Business, had found
    its explanation when He knew that the Baptist's cry, 'the
    Kingdom of Heaven is at hand,' was from God. His Father's
    Business, then, was 'the Kingdom of Heaven,' and to it He
    consecrated Himself, so fulfilling all righteousness. But His
    'being about it' was quite other than that of any Israelite,
    however devout, who came to Jordan. It was His consecration,
    not only to the Kingdom, but to the Kingship, in the
    anointing and permanent possession of the Holy Ghost, and in
    His proclamation from heaven. That Kingdom was His Father's
    Business; its Kingship, the manner in which He was to be
    'about it.' The next step was not, like the first, voluntary,
    and of preconceived purpose. Jesus went to Jordan; He was
    driven of the Spirit into the wilderness. Not, indeed, in the
    sense of His being unwilling to go, [1 This is evident even
    from the terms used by St. Matthew ( ) and St. Luke ( ). I
    cannot agree with Godet, that Jesus would have been inclined
    to return to Galilee and begin teaching. Jesus had no
    inclination save this, to do the Will of His Father. And yet
    the expression 'driven' used by St. Mark seems to imply some
    human shrinking on His part, at least at the outset.] or
    having had other purpose, such as that of immediate return
    into Galilee, but in that of not being willing, of having no
    will or purpose in the matter, but being 'led up,'
    unconscious of its purpose, with irresistible force, by the
    Spirit. In that wilderness He had to test what He had
    learned, and to learn what He had tested. So would He have
    full proof for His Work of the What, His Call and Kingship;
    so would He see its How, the manner of it; so, also, would,
    from the outset, the final issue of His Work appear.

     Again, banishing from our minds all thought of sin in
    connection with Christ's Temptation, [a Heb. iv. 15.] He is
    presented to us as the Second Adam, both as regarded Himself,
    and His relation to man. In these two respects, which,
    indeed, are one, He is now to be tried. Like the first, the
    Second Adam, sinless, is to be tempted, but under the
    existing conditions of the Fall: in the wilderness, not in
    Eden; not in the enjoyment of all good, but in the pressing
    want of all that is necessary for the sustenance of life, and
    in the felt weakness consequent upon it. For (unlike the
    first) the Second Adam was, in His Temptation, to be placed
    on an absolute equality with us, except as regarded sin. Yet
    even so, there must have been some point of inward connection
    to make the outward assault a temptation. It is here that
    opponents (such as Strauss and Keim) have strangely missed
    the mark, when objecting, either that the forty days' fast
    was intrinsically unnecessary, or that the assaults of Satan
    were clumsy suggestions, incapable of being temptations to
    Jesus. He is 'driven' into the wilderness by the Spirit to be
    tempted. [2 The place of the Temptation could not, of course,
    have been the traditional 'Quarantania,' but must have been
    near Bethabara. See also Stanley's Sinai and Palestine, p.
    308.] The history of humanity is taken up anew at the point
    where first the kingdom of Satan was founded, only under new
    conditions. It is not now a choice, but a contest, for Satan
    is the prince of this world. During the whole forty days of
    Christ's stay in the wilderness His Temptation continued,
    though it only attained its high point at the last, when,
    after the long fast, He felt the weariness and weakness of
    hunger. As fasting occupies but a very subordinate, we might
    almost say a tolerated, place in the teaching of Jesus; and
    as, so far as we know, He exercised on no other occasion such
    ascetic practices, we are left to infer internal, as well as
    external, necessity for it in the present instance. The
    former is easily understood in His pre-occupation; the latter
    must have had for its object to reduce Him to utmost outward
    weakness, by the depression of all the vital powers. We
    regard it as a psychological fact that, under such
    circumstances, of all mental faculties the memory alone is
    active, indeed, almost preternaturally active. During the
    preceding thirty-nine days the plan, or rather the future, of
    the Work to which He had been consecrated, must have been
    always before Him. In this respect, then, He must have been
    tempted. It is wholly impossible that He hesitated for a
    moment as to the means by which He was to establish the
    Kingdom of God. He could not have felt tempted to adopt
    carnal means, opposed to the nature of that Kingdom, and to
    the Will of God. The unchangeable convictions which He had
    already attained must have stood out before Him: that His
    Father's business was the Kingdom of God; that He was
    furnished to it, not by outward weapons, but by the abiding
    Presence of the Spirit; above all, that absolute submission
    to the Will of God was the way to it, nay, itself the Kingdom
    of God. It will be observed, that it was on these very points
    that the final attack of the Enemy was directed in the utmost
    weakness of Jesus. But, on the other hand, the Tempter could
    not have failed to assault Him with considerations which He
    must have felt to be true. How could He hope, alone, and with
    such principles, to stand against Israel? He knew their views
    and feelings; and as, day by day, the sense of utter
    loneliness and forsakenness increasingly gathered around Him,
    in His increasing faintness and weakness, the seeming
    hopelessness of such a task as He had undertaken must have
    grown upon Him with almost overwhelming power. [1 It was this
    which would make the 'assault' a 'temptation' by vividly
    setting before the mind the reality and rationality of these
    considerations, a mental assensus, without implying any
    inward consensus to the manner in which the Enemy proposed to
    have them set aside.] Alternately, the temptation to despair,
    presumption, or the cutting short of the contest in some
    decisive manner, must have presented itself to His mind, or
    rather have been presented to it by the Tempter.

     And this was, indeed, the essence of His last three great
    temptations; which, as the whole contest, resolved themselves
    into the one question of absolute submission to the Will of
    God, [1 All the assaults of Satan were really directed
    against Christ's absolute submission to the Will of God,
    which was His Perfectness. Hence, by every one of these
    temptations, as Weiss says in regard to the first, 'ruttelt
    er an Seiner Volkommenheit.] which is the sum and substance
    of all obedience. If He submitted to it, it must be
    suffering, and only suffering, helpless, hopeless suffering
    to the bitter end; to the extinction of life, in the agonies
    of the Cross, as a male-factor; denounced, betrayed, rejected
    by His people; alone, in very God-forsakenness. And when thus
    beaten about by temptation, His powers reduced to the lowest
    ebb of faintness, all the more vividly would memory hold out
    the facts so well known, so keenly realised at that moment,
    in the almost utter cessation of every other mental faculty:
    [2 I regard the memory as affording the basis for the
    Temptation. What was so vividly in Christ's memory at that
    moment, that was flashed before Him as in a mirror under the
    dazzling light of temptation.] the scene lately enacted by
    the banks of Jordan, and the two great expectations of His
    own people, that the Messiah was to head Israel from the
    Sanctuary of the Temple, and that all kingdoms of the world
    were to become subject to Him. Here, then, is the inward
    basis of the Temptation of Christ, in which the fast was not
    unnecessary, nor yet the special assaults of the Enemy either
    'clumsy suggestions,' or unworthy of Jesus.

     He is weary with the contest, faint with hunger, alone in
    that wilderness. His voice falls on no sympathising ear; no
    voice reaches Him but that of the Tempter. There is nothing
    bracing, strengthening in this featureless, barren, stony
    wilderness, only the picture of desolateness, hopelessness,
    despair. He must, He will absolutely submit to the Will of
    God. But can this be the Will of God? One word of power, and
    the scene would be changed. Let Him despair of all men, of
    everything, He can do it. By His Will the Son of God, as the
    Tempter suggests, not, however, calling thereby in question
    His Sonship, but rather proceeding on its admitted reality [3
    Satan's 'if' was rather a taunt than a doubt. Nor could it
    have been intended to call in question His ability to do
    miracles. Doubt on that point would already have been a
    fall.], can change the stones into bread. He can do miracles,
    put an end to present want and question, and, as visibly the
    possessor of absolute miraculous power, the goal is reached!
    But this would really have been to change the idea of Old
    Testament miracle into the heathen conception of magic, which
    was absolute power inherent in an without moral purpose. The
    moral purpose, the grand moral purpose in all that was of
    God, was absolute submission to the Will of God. His Spirit
    had driven Him into that wilderness. His circumstances were
    God-appointed; and where He so appoints them, He will support
    us in them, even as, in the failure of bread, He supported
    Israel by the manna. [a Deut. viii 3.] [1 The supply of the
    manna was only an exemplification and application of the
    general principle, that man really lives by the Word of God.]
    And Jesus absolutely submitted to that Will of God by
    continuing in His present circumstances. To have set himself
    free from what they implied, would have been despair of God,
    and rebellion. He does more than not succmb: He conquers. The
    Scriptural reference to a better life upon the Word of God
    marks more than the end of the contest; it marks the conquest
    of Satan. He emerges on the other side triumphant, with this
    expression of His assured conviction of the sufficiency of
    God.

     It cannot be despair, and He cannot take up His Kingdom
    alone, in the exercise of mere power! Absolutely submitting
    to the Will of God, He must, and He can, absolutely trust
    Him. But if so, then let Him really trust Himself upon God,
    and make experiment, nay more, public demonstration, of it.
    If it be not despair of God, let it be presumption! He will
    not do the work alone! Then God-upborne, according to His
    promise, let the Son of God suddenly, from that height,
    descend and head His people, and that not in any profane
    manner, but in the midst of the Sanctuary, where God was
    specially near, in sight of incensing priests and worshipping
    people. So also will the goal at once be reached.

     The Spirit of God had driven Jesus into the wilderness; the
    spirit of the Devil now carried Him to Jerusalem. Jesus
    stands on the lofty pinnacle of the Tower, or of the
    Temple-porch, [2 It cannot be regarded as certain, that the
    was, as commentators generally suppose, the Tower at the
    southeastern angle of the Temple Cloisters, where the Royal
    (southern) and Solomon's (the eastern) Porch met, and whence
    the view into the Kedron Valley beneath was to the stupendous
    depth of 450 feet. Would this angle be called 'a wing' ( )?
    Nor can I agree with Delitzsch, that it was the 'roof' of the
    Sanctuary, where indeed there would scarcely have been
    standing-room. It certainly formed the watch-post of the
    Priest. Possibly it may have been the extreme corner of the
    'wing-like' porch, or ulam, which led into the Sanctuary.
    Thence a Priest could easily have communicated with his
    brethren in the court beneath. To this there is, however, the
    objection that in that case it should have been. At p. 244,
    the ordinary view of this locality has been taken.]
    presumably that on which every day a Priest was stationed to
    watch, as the pale morning light passed over the hills of
    Judaea far off to Hebron, to announce it as the signal for
    offering the morning sacrifice. [3 Comp. 'The Temple, its
    Ministry and Services,' p. 132.] If we might indulge our
    imagination, the moment chosen would be just as the Priest
    had quitted that station. The first desert-temptation had
    been in the grey of breaking light, when to the faint and
    weary looker the stones of the wilderness seemed to take
    fantastic shapes, like the bread for which the faint body
    hungered. In the next temptation Jesus stands on the
    watch-post which the white-robed priest had just quitted.
    Fast the rosy morning-light, deepening into crimson, and
    edged with gold, is spreading over the land. In the Priests'
    Court below Him the morning-sacrifice has been offered. The
    massive Temple-gates are slowly opening, and the blasts of
    the priests' silver trumpets is summoning Israel to begin a
    new day by appearing before their Lord. Now then let Him
    descend, Heaven-borne, into the midst of priests and people.
    What shouts of acclamation would greet His appearance! What
    homage of worship would be His! The goal can at once be
    reached, and that at the head of believing Israel. Jesus is
    surveying the scene. By His side is the Tempter, watching the
    features that mark the working of the spirit within. And now
    he has whispered it. Jesus had overcome in the first
    temptation by simple, absolute trust. This was the time, and
    this the place to act upon this trust, even as the very
    Scriptures to which Jesus had appealed warranted. But so to
    have done would have been not trust, far less the heroism of
    faith, but presumption. The goal might indeed have been
    reached; but not the Divine goal, nor in God's way, and, as
    so often, Scripture itself explained and guarded the Divine
    promise by a preceding Divine command. [1 Bengel: 'Scriptura
    per Scripturam interpretanda et concilianda.' This is also a
    Rabbinic canon. The Rabbis frequently insist on the duty of
    not exposing oneself to danger, in presumptuous expectation
    of miraculous deliverance. It is a curious saying: Do not
    stand over against an ox when he comes from the fodder; Satan
    jumps out from between his horns. (Pes. 112 b.) David had
    been presumptuous in Ps. xxvi. 2, and failed. (Sanh. 107 a.)
    But the most apt illustration is this: On one occasion the
    child of a Rabbi was asked by R. Jochanan to quote a verse.
    The child quoted Deut. xiv. 22, at the same time propounding
    the question, why the second clause virtually repeated the
    first. The Rabbi replied, 'To teach us that the giving of
    tithes maketh rich.' 'How do you know it?' asked the child.
    'By experience,' answered the Rabbi. 'But,' said the child,
    'such experiment is not lawful, since we are not to tempt the
    Lord our God.' (See the very curious book of Rabbi So
    oweyczgk, Die Bibel, d. Talm. u. d. Evang. p. 132.).] And
    thus once more Jesus not only is not overcome, but He
    overcomes by absolute submission to the Will of God.

     To submit to the Will of God! But is not this to acknowledge
    His authority, and the order and disposition which He has
    made of all things? Once more the scene changes. They have
    turned their back upon Jerusalem and the Temple. Behind are
    also all popular prejudices, narrow nationalism, and
    limitations. They no longer brethe the stifled air, thick
    with the perfume of incense. They have taken their flight
    into God's wide world. There they stand on the top of some
    very high mountain. It is in the full blaze of sunlight that
    He now gazes upon a wondrous scene. Before Him rise, from out
    the cloud-land at the edge of the horizon, forms, figures,
    scene, come words, sounds, harmonies. The world in all its
    glory, beauty, strength, majesty, is unveiled. Its work, its
    might, its greatness, its art, its thought, emerge into clear
    view. And still the horizon seems to widen as He gazes; and
    more and more, and beyond it still more and still brighter
    appears. It is a world quite other than that which the
    retiring Son of the retired Nazareth-home had ever seen,
    could ever have imagined, that opens its enlarging wonders.
    To us in the circumstances the temptation, which at first
    sight seems, so to speak, the clumsiest, would have been well
    nigh irresistible. In measure as our intellect was enlarged,
    our heart attuned to this world-melody, we would have gazed
    with bewitched wonderment on that sight, surrendered
    ourselves to the harmony of those sounds, and quenched the
    thirst of our soul with maddening draught. But passively
    sublime as it must have appeared to the Perfect Man, the
    God-Man, and to Him far more than to us from His infinitely
    deeper appreciation of, and wider sympathy with the good, and
    true, and the beautiful, He had already overcome. It was,
    indeed, not 'worship,' but homage which the Evil One claimed
    from Jesus, and that on the truly stated and apparently
    rational ground, that, in its present state, all this world
    'was delivered' unto him, and he exercised the power of
    giving it to whom he would. But in this very fact lay the
    answer to the suggestion. High above this moving scene of
    glory and beauty arched the deep blue of God's heaven, and
    brighter than the sun, which poured its light over the sheen
    and dazzle beneath, stood out the fact: 'I must be about My
    Father's business;' above the din of far-off sounds rose the
    voice: 'Thy Kingdom come!' Was not all this the Devil's to
    have and to give, because it was not the Father's Kingdom, to
    which Jesus had consecrated Himself? What Satan sought was,
    'My kingdom come' a Satanic Messianic time, a Satanic
    Messiah; the final realisation of an empire of which his
    present possession was only temporary, caused by the
    alienation of man from God. To destroy all this: to destroy
    the works of the Devil, to abolish his kingdom, to set man
    free from his dominion, was the very object of Christ's
    Mission. On the ruins of the past shall the new arise, in
    proportions of grandeur and beauty hitherto unseen, only
    gazed at afar by prophets' rapt sight. It is to become the
    Kingdom of God; and Christ's consecration to it is to be the
    corner-stone of its new Temple. Those scenes are to be
    transformed into one of higher worship; those sounds to
    mingle and melt into a melody of praise. An endless train,
    unnumbered multitudes from afar, are to bring their gifts, to
    pour their wealth, to consecrate their wisdom, to dedicate
    their beauty, to lay it all in lowly worship as humble
    offering at His feet: a world God-restored, God-dedicated, in
    which dwells God's peace, over which rests God's glory. It is
    to be the bringing of worship, not the crowning of rebellion,
    which is the Kingdom. And so Satan's greatest becomes to
    Christ his coarsest temptation, [1 Sin always intensifies in
    the coarseness of its assaults.] which He casts from Him; and
    the words: 'Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only
    shalt thou serve,' which now receive their highest
    fulfilment, mark not only Satan's defeat and Christ's
    triumph, but the principle of His Kingdom, of all victory and
    all triumph.

     Foiled, defeated, the Enemy has spread his dark pinions
    towards that far-off world of his, and covered it with their
    shadow. The sun no longer glows with melting heat; the mists
    have gathered or the edge of the horizon, and enwrapped the
    scene which has faded from view. And in the cool and shade
    that followed have the Angels [2 For the Jewish views on
    Angelology and Demonology, see Appendix XIII.: 'Jewish
    Angelology and Demonology.'] come and ministered to His
    wants, both bodily and mental. He has refused to assert
    power; He has not yielded to despair; He would not fight and
    conquer alone in His own strength; and He has received power
    and refreshment, and Heaven's company unnumbered in their
    ministry of worship. He would not yield to Jewish dream; He
    did not pass from despair to presumption; and lo, after the
    contest, with no reward as its object, all is His. He would
    not have Satan's vassals as His legions, and all Heaven's
    hosts are at His command. It had been victory; it is now
    shout of triumphant praise. He Whom God had anointed by His
    Spirit had conquered by the Spirit; He Whom Heaven's Voice
    had proclaimed God's beloved Son, in Whom He was well
    pleased, had proved such, and done His good pleasure.

     They had been all overcome, these three temptations against
    submission to the Will of God, present, personal, and
    specifically Messianic. Yet all His life long there were
    echoes of them: of the first, in the suggestion of His
    brethren to show Himself; [a St. John vii. 3-5.]of the
    second, in the popular attempt to make Him a king, and
    perhaps also in what constituted the final idea of Judas
    Iscariot; of the third, as being most plainly Santanic, in
    the question of Pilate: 'Art Thou then a King?'

     The enemy 'departed from Him', yet only 'for a season.' But
    this first contest and victory of Jesus decided all others to
    the last. These were, perhaps not as to the shaping of His
    Messianic plan, nor through memory of Jewish expectancy, yet
    still in substance the same contest about absolute obedience,
    absolute submission to the Will of God, which constitutes the
    Kingdom of God. And so also from first to last was this the
    victory: 'Not My will, but Thine, be done.' But as, in the
    first three petitions which He has taught us, Christ has
    enfolded us in the mantle of His royalty, so has He Who
    shared our nature and our temptations gone up with us,
    want-pressed, sin-laden, and temptation-stricken as we are,
    to the Mount of Temptation in the four human petitions which
    follow the first. And over us is spread, as the sheltering
    folds of His mantle, this as the outcome of His royal contest
    and glorious victory, 'For Thine is the Kingdom, and the
    power, and the glory, for ever and ever!' [1 This quotation
    of the Doxology leaves, of course, the critical question
    undetermined, whether the words were part of the 'Lord's
    Prayer' in its original form.

 THE ASCENT: FROM THE RIVER JORDAN TO THE MOUNT OF
    TRANSFIGURATION

    THE DEPUTATION FROM JERUSALEM, THE THREE SECTS OF THE
    PHARISEES, SADDUCEES, AND ESSENES, EXAMINATION OF THEIR
    DISTINCTIVE DOCTRINES. [1 This chapter contains, among other
    matter, a detailed and critical examination of the great
    Jewish Sects, such as was necessary in a work on 'The Times.'
    as well as 'The Life,' of Christ.

    CHAPTER II

     (St. John i. 19-24.)

     APART from the repulsively carnal form which it had taken,
    there is something absolutely sublime in the continuance and
    intensity of the Jewish expectation of the Messiah. It
    outlived not only the delay of long centuries, but the
    persecutions and scattering of the people; it continued under
    the disappointment of the Maccabees, the rule of a Herod, the
    administration of a corrupt and contemptible Priesthood, and,
    finally, the government of Rome as represented by a Pilate;
    nay, it grew in intensity almost in proportion as it seemed
    unlikely of realisation. These are facts which show that the
    doctrine of the Kingdom, as the sum and substance of Old
    Testament teaching, was the very heart of Jewish religious
    life; while, at the same time, they evidence a moral
    elevation which placed abstract religious conviction far
    beyond the reach of passing events, and clung to it with a
    tenacity which nothing could loosen.

     Tidings of what these many months had occurred by the banks
    of the Jordan must have early reached Jerusalem, and
    ultimately stirred to the depths its religious society,
    whatever its preoccupation with ritual questions or political
    matters. For it was not an ordinary movement, nor in
    connection with any of the existing parties, religious or
    political. An extraordinary preacher, or extraordinary
    appearance and habits, not aiming, like others, after renewed
    zeal in legal observances, or increased Levitical purity, but
    preaching repentance and moral renovation in preparation for
    the coming Kingdom, and sealing this novel doctrine with an
    equally novel rite, had drawn from town and country
    multitudes of all classes, inquirers, penitents and novices.
    The great and burning question seemed, what the real
    character and meaning of it was? or rather, whence did it
    issue, and whither did it tend? The religious leaders of the
    people proposed to answer this by instituting an inquiry
    through a trust-worthy deputation. In the account of this by
    St. John certain points seem clearly implied; [a i. 19-28.]
    on others only suggestions can be ventured.

     That the interview referred to occurred after the Baptism of
    Jesus, appears from the whole context.[1 This point is fully
    discussed by Lucke, Evang. Joh., vol. i. pp. 396-398.]
    Similarly, the statement that the deputation which came to
    John was 'sent from Jerusalem' by 'the Jews,' implies that it
    proceeded from authority, even if it did not bear more than a
    semi-official character. For, although the expression 'Jews'
    in the fourth Gospel generally conveys the idea of contrast
    to the disciples of Christ (for ex. St. John vii. 15), yet it
    refers to the people in their corporate capacity, that is, as
    represented by their constituted religious authorities. [b
    Comp. St. John v. 15, 16; ix. 18,22; xviii. 12,31.] On the
    other hand, although the term 'scribes and elders' does not
    occur in the Gospel of St. John, [2 So Professor Westcott, in
    his Commentary on the passage (Speaker's Comment., N.T., vol.
    ii. p. 18), where he notes that the expression in St. John
    viii. 3 is unauthentic.] it by no means follows that 'the
    Priests and Levites' sent from the capital either represented
    the two great divisions of the Sanhedrin, or, indeed, that
    the deputation issued from the Great Sanhedrin itself. The
    former suggestion is entirely ungrounded; the latter at least
    problematic. It seems a legitimate inference that,
    considering their own tendencies, and the political dangers
    connected with such a step, the Sanhedrin of Jerusalem would
    not have come to the formal resolution of sending a regular
    deputation on such an inquiry. Moreover, a measure like this
    would have been entirely outside their recognised mode of
    procedure. The Sanhedrin did not, and could not, originate
    charges. It only investigated those brought before it. It is
    quite true that judgment upon false prophets and religious
    seducers lay with it; [c Sanh. i. 5.] but the Baptist had not
    as yet said or done anything to lay him open to such an
    accusation. He had in no way infringed the Law by word or
    deed, nor had he even claimed to be a prophet. [3 Of this the
    Sanhedrin must have been perfectly aware. Comp. St. Matt.
    iii. 7; St. Luke iii. 15 &c.] If, nevertheless, it seems most
    probable that 'the Priests and Levits' came from the
    Sanhedrin, we are led to the conclusion that theirs was an
    informal mission, rather privately arranged than publicly
    determined upon.

     And with this the character of the deputies agrees. 'Priests
    and Levites', the colleagues of John the Priest, would be
    selected for such an errand, rather than leading Rabbinic
    authorities. The presence of the latter would, indeed, have
    given to the movement an importance, if not a sanction, which
    the Sanhedrin could not have wished. The only other authority
    in Jerusalem from which such a deputation could have issued
    was the so-called 'Council of the Temple,' 'Judicature of the
    Priests,' or 'Elders of the Priesthood,' [a For cx. Yoma 1.
    5.] which consisted of the fourteen chief officers of the But
    although they may afterwards have taken their full part in
    the condemnation of Jesus, ordinarily their duty was only
    connected with the services of the Sanctuary, and not with
    criminal questions or doctrinal investigations. [1 Comp. 'The
    Temple, its Ministry and Services,' p. 75. Dr. Geiger
    (Urschr. u. Uebersetz. d. Bibel, pp. 113, 114) ascribes to
    them, however, a much wider jurisdiction. Some of his
    inferences (such as at pp. 115, 116) seem to me historically
    unsupported.] It would be too much to suppose, that they
    would take the initiative in such a matter on the ground that
    they would take the initiative in such a matter on the ground
    that the Baptist was a member of the Priesthood. Finally, it
    seems quite natural that such an informal inquiry, set on
    foot most probably by the Sanhedrists, should have been
    entrusted exclusively to the Pharisaic party. It would in no
    way have interested the Sadducees; and what members of that
    party had seen of John [b St. Matt. iii. 7 &c.] must have
    convinced them that his views and aims lay entirely beyond
    their horizon.

     The origin of the two great parties of Pharisees and
    Sadducees has already been traced. [2 Comp. Book I. ch.
    viii.] They mark, not sects, but mental directions, such as
    in their principles are natural and universal, and, indeed,
    appear in connection with all metaphysical [3 I use the term
    metaphysical here in the sense of all that is above the
    natural, not merely the speculative, but the supersensuous
    generally.] questions. They are the different modes in which
    the human mind views supersensuous problems, and which
    afterwards, when one-sidedly followed out, harden into
    diverging schools of thought. If Pharisees and Sadducess were
    not 'sects' in the sense of separation from the unity of the
    Jewish ecclesiastical community, neither were theirs
    'heresies' in the conventional, but only in the original
    sense of tendency, direction, or, at most, views, differing
    from those commonly entertained. [4 The word has received its
    present meaning chiefly from the adjective attaching to it in
    2 Pet. ii. 1. In Acts xxiv. 5, 14, xxviii. 22, it is
    vituperatively applied to Christians; in 1 Cor. xi. 19, Gal.
    v. 20, it seems to apply to diverging practices of a sinful
    kind; in Titus iii. 10, the 'heretic' seems one who held or
    taught diverging opinions or practices. Besides, it occurs in
    the N.T. once to mark the Sadducees, and twice the Pharisees
    (Acts v. 17; xv. 5, and xxvi. 5).] Our sources of information
    here are: the New Testament, Josephus, and Rabbinic writings.
    The New Testament only marks, in broad outlines and
    popularly, the peculiarities of each party; but from the
    absence of bias it may safely be regarded [1 I mean on
    historical, not theological theological grounds.] as the most
    trustworthy authority on the matter. The inferences which we
    derive from the statements of Josephus, [2 I here refer to
    the following passages: Jewish War ii. 8. 14; Ant. xiii. 5.
    9; 10. 5, 6; xvii. 2. 4; xviii. 1, 2, 2, 4.] though always to
    be qualified by our general estimate of his animus, [3 For a
    full discussion of thecharacter and writings of Josephus, I
    would refer to the article in Dr. Smith's Dict. of Chr.
    Biogr. vol. iii.] accord with those from the New Testament.
    In regard to Rabbinic writings, we have to bear in mind the
    admittedly unhistorical character of most of their notices,
    the strong party-bias which coloured almost all their
    statements regarding opponents, and their constant tendency
    to trace later views and practices to earlier times.
     Without entering on the principles and supposed practices of
    'the fraternity' or 'association' (Chebher, Chabhurah,
    Chabhurta) of Pharisees, which was comparatively small,
    numbering only about 6,000 members, [a Jos. Ant. xvii. 2. 4.]
    the following particulars may be of interest. The object of
    the association was twofold: to observe in the strictest
    manner, and according to traditional law, all the ordinances
    concerning Levitical purity, and to be extremely punctilious
    in all connected with religious dues (tithes and all other
    dues). A person might undertake only the second, without the
    first of these obligations. In that case he was simply a
    Neeman, an 'accredited one' with whom one might enter freely
    into commerce, as he was supposed to have paid all dues. But
    a person could not undertake the vow of Levitical purity
    without also taking the obligation of all religious dues. If
    he undertook both vows he was a Chabher, or associate. Here
    there were four degrees, marking an ascending scale of
    Levitical purity, or separation from all that was profane. [b
    Chag. ii. 5, 7; comp. Tohor. vii. 5.] In opposition to these
    was the Am ha-arets, or 'country people' (the people which
    knew not, or cared not for the Law, and were regarded as
    'cursed'). But it must not be thought that every Chabher was
    either a learned Scribe, or that every Scribe was a Chabher.
    On the contrary, as a man might be a Chabher without being
    either a Scribe or an elder, [c For ex. Kidd. 33 b.] so there
    must have been sages, and even teachers, who did not belong
    to the association, since special rules are laid down for the
    reception of such. [d Bekh. 30.] Candidates had to be
    formally admitted into the 'fraternity' in the presence of
    three members. But every accredited public 'teacher' was,
    unless anything was known to the contrary, supposed to have
    taken upon him the obligations referred to. [1 Abba Saul
    would also have freed all students from that formality.] The
    family of a Chabher belonged, ss a matter of course, to the
    community; [a Bekhor. 30.] but this ordinance was afterwards
    altered. [2 Comp. the suggestion as to the significant time
    when this alteration was introduced, in 'Sketches of Jewish
    Social Life,' pp. 228, 229.] The Neeman undertook these four
    obligations: to tithe what he ate, what he sold, and what he
    bought, and not to be a guest with an Am ha-arets. [b Dem.
    ii. 2.] The full Chabher undertook not to sell to an 'Am
    ha-arets' any fluid or dry substance (nutriment or fruit),
    not to buy from him any such fluid, not to be a guest with
    him, not to entertain him as a guest in his own clothes (on
    account of their possible impurity), to which one authority
    adds other particulars, which, however, were not recognised
    by the Rabbis generally as of primary importance. [c Demai
    ii.3.]

     These two great obligations of the 'official' Pharisee, or
    'Associate' are pointedly referred to by Christ, both that in
    regard to tithing (the vow of the Neeman); [d In St. Luke
    xi.42; xviii. 12; St. Matt. xxiii. 23.] and that in regard to
    Levitical purity (the special vow of the Chabher). [e In St.
    Luke xi. 39, 41; St. Matt. xxiii. 25, 26.] In both cases they
    are associated with a want of corresponding inward reality,
    and with hypocrisy. These charges cannot have come upon the
    people by surprise, and they may account for the circumstance
    that so many of the learned kept aloof from the 'Association'
    as such. Indeed, the sayings of some of the Rabbis in regard
    to Pharisaism and the professional Pharisee are more
    withering than any in the New Testament. It is not necessary
    here to repeat the well-known description, both in the
    Jerusalem and the Babylon Talmud, of the seven kinds of
    'Pharisees,' of whom six (the 'Shechemite,' the 'stumbling,'
    the 'bleeding,' the 'mortar,' the 'I want to know what is
    incumbent on me,' and 'the Pharisee from fear') mark various
    kinds of unreality, and only one is 'the Pharisee from love.'
    [f Sot. 22 b; Jer. Ber. ix. 7.] Such an expression as 'the
    plague ofPharisaism' is not uncommon; and a silly pietist, a
    clever sinner, and a female Pharisee, are ranked among 'the
    troubles of life.' [g Sot. iii. 4.] 'Shall we then explaina
    verse according to the opinions of the Pharisees?' asks a
    Rabbi, in supreme contempt for the arrogance of the
    fraternity. [h Pes. 70 b.] 'It is as atradition among the
    pharisees [i Abhoth de R. Nathan 5.] to torment themselves in
    this world, and yet they will gain nothing by it in the
    next.' The Sadducees had some reason for the taunt, that 'the
    Pharisees would by-and-by subject the globe of the sun itself
    to their purifications,' [k Jer. Chag. 79 d; Tos. Chag. iii.]
    the more so that their assertions of purity were sometimes
    conjoined with Epicurean maxims, betokening a very different
    state of mind, such as, 'Make haste to eat and drink, for the
    world which we quit resembles a wedding feast;' or this: 'My
    son, if thou possess anything, enjoy thyself, for there is no
    pleasure in Hades, [1 Erub. 54 a. I give the latter clause,
    not as in our edition of the Talmud, but according to a more
    correct reading (Levy, Neuhebr. Worterb. vol. ii. p. 102).]
    and death grants no respite. But if thou sayest, What then
    would I leave to my sons and daughters? Who will thank thee
    for this appointment in Hades?' Maxims these to which, alas!
    too many of their recorded stories and deeds form a painful
    commentary. [2 It could serve no good purpose to give
    instances. They are readily accessible to those who have
    taste or curiosity in that direction.]

     But it would be grossly unjust to identify Pharisaism, as a
    religious direction, with such embodiments of it or even with
    the official 'fraternity.' While it may be granted that the
    tendency and logical sequence of their views and practices
    were such, their system, as opposed to Sadduceeism, had very
    serious bearings: dogmatic, ritual, and legal. It is,
    however, erroneous to suppose, either that their system
    represented traditionalism itself, or that Scribes and
    Pharisees are convertible terms, [3 So, erroneously,
    Wellhausen, in his treatise 'Pharisaer u. Sadduc.'; and
    partially, as it seems to me, even Schurer (Neutest.
    Zeitgesch.). In other respects also these two learned men
    seem too much under the influence of Geiger and Kuenen.]
    while the Sadducees represented the civil and political
    element. The Pharisees represented only the prevailing system
    of, no traditionalism itself; while the Sadducees also
    numbered among them many learned men. They were able to enter
    into controversy, often protracted and fierce, with their
    opponents, and they acted as members of the Sanhedrin,
    although they had diverging traditions of their own, and
    even, as it would appear, at one time a complete code of
    canon-law. [a Megill. Taan. Per. iv. ed. Warsh. p. 8 a.] [4
    Wellhausen has carried his criticisms and doubts of the
    Hebrew Scholion on the Megill. Taan. (or 'Roll of Fasts') too
    far.] Moreover, the admitted fact, that when in office the
    Sadducees conformed to the principles and practices of the
    Pharisees, proves at least that they must have been
    acquainted with the ordinances of traditionalism. [5 Even
    such a book as the Meg. Taan. does not accuse them of
    absolute ignorance, but only of being unable to prove their
    dicta from Scripture (comp. Pereq x. p. 15 b, which may well
    mark the extreme of Anti-Sadduceeism).] Lastly, there were
    certain traditional ordinances on which both parties were at
    one. [b Sanh. 33 t Horay 4 a.] Thus it seems Sadduceeism was
    in a sense than a practical system, starting from simple and
    well-defined principles, but wide-reaching in its possible
    consequences. Perhaps it may best be described as a general
    reaction against the extremes of Pharisaism, springing from
    moderate and rationalistic tendencies; intended to secure a
    footing within the recognised bounds of Judaism; and seeking
    to defend its principles by a strict literalism of
    interpretation and application. If so, these interpretations
    would be intended rather for defensive than offensive
    purposes, and the great aim of the party would be after
    rational freedom, or, it might be, free rationality.
    Practically, the party would, of course, tend in broad, and
    often grossly unorthodox, directions.

     The fundamental dogmatic differences between the Pharisees
    and Sadducees concerned: the rule of faith and practice; the
    'after death;' the existence of angels and spirits; and free
    will and pre-destination. In regard to the first of these
    points, it has already been stated that the Sadducees did not
    lay down the principle of absolute rejection of all
    traditions as such, but that they were opposed to
    traditionalism as represented and carried out by the
    Pharisees. When put down by sheer weight of authority, they
    would probably carry the controversy further, and retort on
    their opponents by an appeal to Scripture as against their
    traditions, perhaps ultimately even by an attack on
    traditionalism; but always as represented by the Pharisees.
    [1 Some traditional explanation of the Law of Moses was
    absolutely necessary, if it was to be applied to existing
    circumstances. It would be a great historical inaccuracy to
    imagine that the Sadducees rejected the whole (St.Matt. xv.
    2) from Ezra downwards.] A careful examination of the
    statements of Josephus on this subject will show that they
    convey no more than this. [2 This is the meaning of Ant.
    xiii. 10. 6, and clearly implied in xviii. 1,3,4, and War ii.
    8. 14.] The Pharisaic view of this aspect of the controversy
    appears, perhaps, most satisfactorily because indirectly, in
    certain sayings of the Mishnah, which attribute all national
    calamities to those persons, whom they adjudge to eternal
    perdition, who interpret Scripture 'not as does the
    Halakhah,' or established Pharisaic rule. [a Ab.iii. 11; v
    8.] In this respect, then, the commonly received idea
    concerning the Pharisees and Sadducees will require to be
    seriously modified. As regards the practice of the Pharisees,
    as distinguished from that of the Sadducees, we may safely
    treat the statements of Josephus as the exaggerated
    representations of a partisan, who wishes to place his party
    in the best light. It is, indeed, true that the Pharisees,
    'interpreting the legal ordinances with rigour,' [b Jos. War
    i. 5.2.] [3 M. Derenbourg (Hist. de la Palest., p. 122, note)
    rightly remarks, that the Rabbinic equivalent for Josephus'
    is heaviness, and that the Pharisees were the or 'makers
    heavy.' What a commentary this on the charge of Jesus about
    'the heavy burdens' of the Pharisees! St. Paul uses the same
    term as Josephus to describe the Pharisaic system, where our
    A.V. renders 'the perfect manner' (Acts xxii. 3). Comp. also
    Acts xxvi. 5: .] imposed on themselves the necessity of much
    self-denial, especially in regard to food, [c Ant. xviii. 1.
    3.] but that their practice was under the guidance of reason,
    as Josephus asserts, is one of those bold mis-statements with
    which he has too often to be credited. His vindication of
    their special reverence for age and authority [a Ant. xviii.
    1.3.] must refer to the honours paid by the party to 'the
    Elders,' not to the old. And that there was sufficient ground
    for Sadducean opposition to Pharisaic traditionalism, alike
    in principle and in practice, will appear from the following
    quotation, to which we add, by way of explanation, that the
    wearing of phylacteries was deemed by that party of
    Scriptural obligation, and that the phylactery for the head
    was to consist (according to tradition) of four compartments.
    'Against the words of the Scribes is more punishable than
    against the words of Scripture. He who says, No phylacteries,
    so as to transgress the words of Scripture, is not guilty
    (free); five compartments, to add to the words of the
    Scribes, he is guilty.' [b Sanh. xi. 3.] [1 The subject is
    discussed at length in Jer. Ber. i. 7 (p. 3 b), where the
    superiority of the Scribe over the Prophet is shown (1) from
    Mic. ii. 6 (without the words in italics), the one class
    being the Prophets ('prophesy not'), the other the Scribes
    ('prophesy'); (2) from the fact that the Prophets needed the
    attestation of miracles. (Duet. xiii. 2), but not the Scribes
    (Deut. xvii. 11).]

     The second doctrinal difference between Pharisees and
    Sadducees concerned the 'after death.' According to the New
    Testament, [c St. Matt xxii. 23, and parallel passages; Acts
    iv. 1, 2; xxiii. 8.] the Sadducees denied the resurrection of
    the dead, while Josephus, going further, imputes to them
    denial of reward or punishment after death, [d War ii. 8.
    14.] and even the doctrine that the soul perishes with the
    body. [e Ant. xviii 1. 4.] The latter statement may be
    dismissed as among those inferences which theological
    controversialists are too fond of imputing to their
    opponents. This is fully borne out by the account of a later
    work, to the effect, that by successive misunderstandings of
    the saying of Antigonus of Socho, that men were to serve God
    without regard to reward, his later pupils had arrived at the
    inference that there was no other world, which, however,
    might only refer to the Pharisaic ideal of 'the world to
    come,' not to the denial of the immortality of the soul, and
    no resurrection of the dead. We may therefore credit Josephus
    with merely reporting the common inference of his party. But
    it is otherwise in regard to their denial of the resurrection
    of the dead. Not only Josephus, but the New Testament and
    Rabbinic writings attest this. The Mishnah expressly states
    [g Ber ix. 5.] that the formula 'from age to age,' or rather
    'from world to world,' had been introduced as a protest
    against the opposite theory; while the Talmud, which records
    disputations between Gamaliel and the Sadducees [2 This is
    admitted even by Geiger (Urschr. u. Uebers. p. 130, note),
    though in the passage above referred to he would emendate:
    'Scribes of the Samaritans.' The passage, however, implies
    that these were Sadducean Scribes, and that they were both
    willing and able to enter into theological controversy with
    their opponents.] on the subject of the resurrection,
    expressly imputes thedenial of this doctrine to the 'Scribes
    of the Sadducees.' In fairness it is perhaps only right to
    add that, in the discussion, the Sadducees seem only to have
    actually denied that there was proof for this doctrine in the
    Pentateuch, and that they ultimately professed themselves
    convinced by the reasoning of Gamaliel. [1 Rabbi Gamaliel's
    proof was taken from Deut. i. 8: 'Which Jehovah sware unto
    your fathers to give unto them.' It is not said 'unto you,'
    but unto 'them,' which implies the resurrection of the dead.
    The argument is kindred in character, but far inferior in
    solemnity and weight, to that employed by our Lord, St. Matt.
    xxii. 32, from which it is evidently taken. (See book v. ch.
    iv., the remarks on that passage.)] Still the concurrent
    testimony of the New Testament and of Josephus leaves no
    doubt, that in this instance their views had not been
    misrepresented. Whether or not their opposition to the
    doctrine of the Resurrection arose in the first instance
    from, or was prompted by, Rationalistic views, which they
    endeavoured to support by an appeal to the letter of the
    Pentateuch, as the source of traditionalism, it deserves
    notice that in His controversy with the Sadducees Christ
    appealed to the Pentateuch in proof of His teaching. [2 It is
    a curious circumstance in connection with the question of the
    Sadducees, that it raised another point in controversy
    between the Pharisees and the 'Samaritans,' or, as I would
    read it, the Sadducees, since 'the Samaritans' (Sadducees?)
    only allowed marriage with the betrothed, not the actually
    wedded wife of a deceased childless brother (Jer Yebam. i. 6,
    p. 3 a). The Sadducees in the Gospel argue on the Pharisaic
    theory, apparently for the twofold object of casting ridicule
    on the doctrine of the Resurrection, and on the Pharisaic
    practice of marriage with the espoused wife of a deceased
    brother.]

     Connected with this was the equally Rationalistic opposition
    to belief in Angels and Spirits. It is only mentioned in the
    New Testament, [a Acts xxiii.] but seems almost to follow as
    a corollary. Remembering what the Jewish Angelology was, one
    can scarcely wonder that in controversy the Sadducees should
    have been led to the opposite extreme.

     The last dogmatic difference between the two 'sects'
    concerned that problem which has at all times engaged
    religious thinkers: man's free will and God's pre-ordination,
    or rather their compatibility. Josephus, or the reviser whom
    he employed, indeed, uses the purely heathen expression
    'fate' ( ) [3 The expression is used in the heathen
    (philosophical) sense of fate by Philo, De Incorrupt. Mundi.
    section 10. ed. Mangey, vol. ii. p. 496 (ed. Fref. p. 947).]
    to designate the Jewish idea of the pre-ordination of God.
    But, properly understood, the real difference between the
    Pharisees and Sadducees seems to have amounted to this: that
    the former accentuated God's preordination, the latter man's
    free will; and that, while the Pharisees admitted only a
    partial influence of the human element on what happened, or
    the co-operation of the human with the Divine, the Sadducees
    denied all absolute pre-ordination, and made man's choice of
    evil or good, with its consequences of misery or happiness,
    to depend entirely on the exercise of free will and
    self-determination. And in this, like many opponents of
    'Predestinarianism,' they seem to have started from the
    principle, that it was impossible for God 'either to commit
    or to foresee [in the sense of fore-ordaining] anything
    evil.' The mutual misunderstanding here was that common in
    all such controversies. Although [a In Jewish War ii. 8. 14.]
    Josephus writesas if, according to the Pharisees, the chief
    part in every good action depended upon fate [pre-ordination]
    rather than on man's doing, yet in another place [b Ant.
    xviii. 1. 3.] he disclaims for them the notion that the will
    of man was destitute of spontaneous activity, and speaks
    somewhat confusedly, for he is by no means a good reasoner,
    of 'a mixture' of the Divine and human elements, in which the
    human will, with its sequence of virtue or wickedness, is
    subject to the will of fate. A yet further modification of
    this statement occurs in another place, [c Ant. xiii. 5. 9.]
    where we are told that, according to the Pharisees, some
    things depended upon fate, and more on man himself.
    Manifestly, there is not a very wide difference between this
    and the fundamental principle of the Sadducees in what we may
    suppose its primitive form.

     But something more will have to be said as illustrative of
    Pharisaic teaching on this subject. No one who has entered
    into the spirit of the Old Testament can doubt that its
    outcome was faith, in its twofold aspect of acknowledgment of
    the absolute Rule, and simple submission to the Will, of God.
    What distinguished this so widely from fatalism was what may
    be termed Jehovahism, that is, the moral element in its
    thoughts of God, and that He was ever presented as in
    paternal relationship to men. But the Pharisees carried their
    accentuation of the Divine to the verge of fatalism. Even the
    idea that God had created man with two impulses, the one to
    good, the other to evil; and that the latter was absolutely
    necessary for the continuance of this world, would in some
    measure trace the causation of moral evil to the Divine
    Being. The absolute and unalterable pre-ordination of every
    event, to its minutest details, is frequently insisted upon.
    Adam had been shown all the generations that were to spring
    from him. Every incident in the history of Israel had been
    foreordained, and the actors in it, for good or for evil,
    were only instruments for carrying out the Divine Will. What
    were ever Moses and Aaron? God would have delivered Israel
    out of Egypt, and given them the Law, had there been no such
    persons. Similarly was it in regard to Solomon. to Esther, to
    Nebuchadnezzar, and others. Nay, it was because man was
    predestined to die that the serpent came to seduce our first
    parents. And as regarded the history of each individual: all
    that concerned his mental and physical capacity, or that
    would betide him, was prearranged. His name, place, position,
    circumstances, thevery name of her whom he was to wed, were
    proclaimed in heaven, just as the hour of his death was
    foreordered. There might be seven years of pestilence in the
    land, and yet no one died before his time. [a Sanh. 29 a.]
    Even if a man inflicted a cut on his finger, he might be sure
    that this also had been preordered. [b Chull. 7 b.] Nay,
    'wheresoever a man was destined to die, thither would his
    feet carry him.' [1 The following curious instance of this is
    given. On one occasion King Solomon, when attended by his two
    Scribes, Elihoreph and Ahiah (both supposed to have been
    Ethiopians), suddenly perceived the Angel of Death. As he
    looked so sad, Solomon ascertained as its reason, that the
    two Scribes had been demanded at his hands. On this Solomon
    transported them by magic into the land of Luz, where,
    according to legend, no man ever died. Next morning Solomon
    again perceived the Angel of Death, but this time laughing,
    because, as he said. Solomon had sent these men to the very
    place whence he had been ordered to fetch them (Sukk, 53 a).]
    We can well understand how the Sadducees would oppose notions
    like these, and all such coarse expressions of fatalism. And
    it is significant of the exaggeration of Josephus, [2 Those
    who understand the character of Josephus' writings will be at
    no loss for his reasons in this. It would suit his purpose to
    speak often of the fatalism of the Pharisees, and to
    represent them as a philosophical sect like the Stoics. The
    latter, indeed, he does in so many words.] that neither the
    New Testament, nor Rabbinic writings, bring the charge of the
    denial of God's prevision against the Sadducees.

     But there is another aspect of this question also. While the
    Pharisees thus held the doctrine of absolute preordination,
    side by side with it they were anxious to insist on man's
    freedom of choice, his personal responsibility, and moral
    obligation. [3 For details comp. Hamburger, Real-Encykl. ii.
    pp. 103-106, though there is some tendency to 'colouring' in
    this as in other articles of the work.] Although every event
    depended upon God, whether a man served God or not was
    entirely in his own choice. As a logical sequence of this,
    fate had no influence as regarded Israel, since all depended
    on prayer, repentance, and good works. Indeed, otherwise that
    repentance, on which Rabbinism so largely insists, would have
    had no meaning. Moreover, it seems as if it had been intended
    to convey that, while our evil actions were entirely our own
    choice, if a man sought to amend his ways, he would be helped
    of God. [c Yoma 38 b.] It was, indeed, true that God had
    createdthe evil impulse in us; but He had also given the
    remedy in the Law. [a Baba B. 16 a.] This is parabolically
    represented under the figure of a man seated at the parting
    of two ways, who warned all passers that if they chose one
    road it would lead them among the thorns, while on the other
    brief difficulties would end in a plain path (joy). [b Siphre
    on Deut. xi. 26, 53, ed. Friedmann, p. 86 a.] Or, to put it
    in the language of the great Akiba [c Ab. iii. 15.]:
    'Everything is foreseen; free determination is accorded to
    man; and the world is judged in goodness.' With this simple
    juxtaphysition of two propositions equally true, but
    incapable of metaphysical combination, as are most things in
    which the empirically cognisable and uncognisable are joined
    together, we are content to leave the matter.

     The other differences between the Pharisees and Sadducees
    can be easily and briefly summed up. They concern ceremonial,
    ritual, and juridical questions. In regard to the first, the
    opposition of the Sadducees to the excessive scruples of the
    Pharisees on the subject of Levitical defilements led to
    frequent controversy. Four points in dispute are mentioned,
    of which, however, three read more like ironical comments
    than serious divergences. Thus, the Sadducees taunted their
    opponents with their many lustrations, including that of the
    Golden Candlestick in the Temple. [d Jer. Chag iii. 8; Tos.
    Chag. iii., where the reader will find sufficient proof that
    the Sadducees were not in the wrong.] Two other similar
    instances are mentioned. [e In Yad, iv. 6, 7.] By way of
    guarding against the possibility of profanation, the
    Pharisees enacted, that the touch of any thing sacred
    'defiled' the hands. The Sadducees, on the other hand,
    ridiculed the idea that the Holy Scriptures 'defiled' the
    hands, but not such a book as Homer. [1 The Pharisees replied
    by asking on what ground the bones of a High-Priest
    'defiled,' but not those of a donkey. And when the Sadducees
    ascribed it to the great value of the former, lest a man
    should profane the bones of his parents by making spoons of
    them, the Pharisees pointed out that the same argument
    applied to defilement by the Holy Scriptures. In general, it
    seems that the Pharisees were afraid of the satirical
    comments of the Sadducees on their doings (comp. Parah iii.
    3).] In the same spirit, the Sadducees would ask the
    Pharisees how it came, that water pouring from a clean into
    an unclean vessel did not lose its purity and purifying
    power. [2 Wellhausen rightly denounces the strained
    interpretation of Geiger, who would find here, as in other
    points, hidden political allusions.] If these represent no
    serious controversies, on another ceremonial question there
    was real difference, though its existence shows how far
    party-spirit could lead the Pharisees. No ceremony was
    surrounded with greater care to prevent defilement than that
    of preparing the ashes of the Red Heifer. [3 Comp. 'The
    Temple, its Ministry and Services,' pp. 309, 312. The rubrics
    are in the Mishnic tractate Parab, and in Tos. Par.] What
    seem the original ordinances, [a Parah iii,; Tos. Par. 3.]
    directed that, for seven days previous to the burning of the
    Red Heifer, the priest was to be kept in separation in the
    Temple, sprinkled with the ashes of all sin-offerings, and
    kept from the touch of his brother-priests, with even greater
    rigour than the High-Priest in his preparation for the Day of
    Atonement. The Sadducees insisted that, as 'till sundown' was
    the rule in all purification, the priest must be in
    cleanliness till then, before burning the Red Heifer. But,
    apparently for the sake of opposition, and in contravention
    to their own principles, the Pharisees would actually
    'defile' the priest on his way to the place of burning, and
    then immediately make him take a bath of purification which
    had been prepared, so as to show that the Sadducees were in
    error. [b Parah iii. 7.] [1 The Mishnic passage is difficult,
    but I believe I have given the sense correctly.] In the same
    spirit, the Sadducees seem to have prohibited the use of
    anything made from animals which were either interdicted as
    food, or by reason of their not having been properly
    slaughtered; while the Pharisees allowed it, and, in the case
    of Levitically clean animals which had died or been torn,
    even made their skin into parchment, which might be used for
    sacred purposes. [c Shabb. 108 a.]

     These may seem trifling distinctions, but they sufficed to
    kindle the passions. Even greater importance attached to
    differences on ritual questions, although the controversy
    here was purely theoretical. For, the Sadducees, when in
    office, always conformed to the prevailing Pharisaic
    practices. Thus the Sadducees would have interpreted Lev.
    xxiii. 11, 15, 16, as meaning that the wave-sheaf (or,
    rather, the Omer) was to be offered on 'the morrow after the
    weekly Sabbath', that is, on the Sunday in Easter week, which
    would have brought the Feast of Pentacost always on a Sunday;
    [d Vv. 15, 16.] while the Pharisees understood the term
    'Sabbath' of the festive Paschal day. [e Men. x. 3; 65 a;
    Chag. ii. 4.][2 This difference, which is more intricate than
    appears at first sight, requires a longer discussion than can
    be given in this place.] Connected with this were disputes
    about the examination of the witnesses who testified to the
    appearance of the new moon, and whom the Pharisees accused of
    having been suborned by their opponents. [f Rosh haSh. i. 7;
    ii. 1; Tos. Rosh haSh. ed. Z. i. 15.]

     The Sadducean objection to pouring the water of libation
    upon the altar on the Feast of Tabernacles, led to riot and
    bloody reprisals on the only occasion on which it seems to
    have been carried into practice. [g Sukk. 48 b; comp. Jos.
    Ant. xiii 13. 5.] [3 For details about the observances on
    this festival I must refer to 'The Temple, its Ministry and
    Services.'] Similarly, the Sadducees objected to the beating
    off the willow-branches after the procession round the altar
    on the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles, if it were a
    Sabbath. [a Sukk. 43 b; and in the Jerus. Talm. and Tos.
    Sukk. iii. 1.] Again, the Sadducees would have had the
    High-Priest, on the Day of Atonement, kindle the incense
    before entering the Most Holy Place; the Pharisees after he
    had entered the Sanctuary. [b Jer. Yoma i. 5; Yoma 19 b; 53
    a.] Lastly, the Pharisees contended that the cost of the
    daily Sacrifices should be discharged from the general Temple
    treasury, while the Sadducees would have paid it from
    free-will offerings. Other differences, which seem not so
    well established, need not here be discussed.

     Among the divergences on juridical questions, reference has
    already been made to that in regard to marriage with the
    'betrothed,' or else actually espoused widow of a deceased,
    childless brother. Josephus, indeed, charges the Sadducees
    with extreme severity in criminal matters; [c Specially Ant.
    xx. 9.] but this must refer to the fact that the ingenuity or
    punctiliousness of the Pharisees would afford to most
    offenders a loophole of escape. On the other hand, such of
    the diverging juridical principles of the Sadducees, as are
    attested on trustworthy authority, [1 Other differences,
    which rest merely on the authority of the Hebrew Commentary
    on 'The Roll of Fasts,' I have discarded as unsupported by
    historical evidence. I am sorry to have in this respect, and
    on some other aspect of the question, to differ from the
    learned Article on 'The Sadducees,' in Kitto's Bibl. Encycl.]
    seem more in accordance with justice than those of the
    Pharisees. They concerned (besides the Levirate marriage)
    chiefly three points. According to the Sadducees, the
    punishment [d Decreed in Deut. xix. 21.] againstfalse
    witnesses was only to be executed if the innocent person,
    condemned on their testimony, had actually suffered
    punishment, while the Pharisees held that this was to be done
    if the sentence had been actually pronounced, although not
    carried out. [e Makk. i. 6.] Again, according to Jewish law,
    only ason, but not a daughter, inherited the father's
    property. From this the Pharisees argued, that if, at the
    time of his father's decease, that son were dead, leaving
    only a daughter, this granddaughter would (as representative
    of the son) be the heir, while the daughter would be
    excluded. On the other hand, the Sadducees held that, in such
    a case, daughter and granddaughter should share alike. [f
    Baba B. 115 b; Tos. Yad.ii. 20.] Lastly, the Sadducees argued
    that if, according to Exodus xxi. 28,29, a man was
    responsible for damage done by his cattle, he was equally, if
    not more, responsible for damage done by his slave, while the
    Pharisees refused to recognise any responsibility on the
    latter score. [g Yad. iv. 7 and Tos. Yad.] [2 Geiger, and
    even Derenbourg, see in these things deep political
    allusions, these things deep political allusions, which, as
    it seems to me, have no other existence than in the ingenuity
    of these writers.

     For the sake of completeness it has been necessary to enter
    into details, which may not posses a general interest. This,
    however, will be marked, that, with the exception of dogmatic
    differences, the controversy turned on questions of
    'canon-law.' Josephus tells us that the Pharisees commanded
    the masses, [a Ant. xiii. 10. 6.] and especially the female
    world, [b Ant. xvii. 2. 4.] while the Sadducees attached to
    their ranks only a minority, and that belonging to the
    highest class. The leading priests in Jerusalem formed, of
    course, part of that highest class of society; and from the
    New Testament and Josephus we learn that the High-Priestly
    families belonged to the Sadducean party. [c Acts v. 17; Ant.
    xx. 9.)] But to conclude from this, [1 So Wellhausen, u. s.]
    either that the Sadducees represented the civil and political
    aspect of society, and the Pharisees the religious; or, that
    the Sadducees were the priest-party, [2 So Geiger, u. s.] in
    opposition to the popular and democratic Pharisees, are
    inferences not only unsupported, but opposed to historical
    facts. For, not a few of the Pharisaic leaders were actually
    priests, [d Sheqal. iv. 4; vi. 1; Eduy. viii. 2; Ab. ii. B
    &c.] while the Pharisaic ordinances make more than ample
    recognition of the privileges and rights of the Priesthood.
    This would certainly not have been the case if, as some have
    maintained, Sadducean and priest-party had been convertible
    terms. Even as regards the deputation to the Baptist of
    'Priests and Levites' from Jerusalem, we are expressely told
    that they 'were of the Pharisees.' [e St. John i. 24.]

     This bold hypothesis seems, indeed, to have been invented
    chiefly for the sake of another, still more unhistorical. The
    derivation of the name 'Sadducee' has always been in dispite.
    According to a Jewish legend of about the seventh century of
    our era, [f In the Ab. de R. Nath. c. 5.] the name was
    derived from one Tsadoq (Zadok), [3 Tseduqim and Tsadduqim
    mark different transliterations of the name Sadducees.] a
    disciple of Antigonus of Socho, whoseprinciple of not serving
    God for reward had been gradually misinterpreted into
    Sadduceeism. But, apart from the objection that in such case
    the party should rather have taken the name of Antigonites,
    the story itself receives no support either from Josephus or
    from early Jewish writings. Accordingly modern critics have
    adopted another hypothesis, which seems at least equally
    untenable. On the supposition that the Sadducees were the
    'priest-party,' the name of the sect is derived from Zadok
    (Tsadoq), the High-Priest in the time of Solomon. [4 This
    theory, defended with ingenuity by Geiger, had been of late
    adopted by most writers, and even by Schurer. But not a few
    of the statements hazarded by Dr. Geiger seem to me to have
    no historical foundation, and the passages quoted in support
    either do not convey such meaning, or else are of no
    authority.] But the objections to this are insuperable. Not
    to speak of the linguistic difficulty of deriving Tsadduqim
    (Zaddukim, Sadducees) from Tsadoq (Zadok), [5 So Dr. Low, as
    quoted in Dr. Ginsburg's article.] neither Josephus nor the
    Rabbis know anything of such a connection between Tsadoq and
    the Sadducees, of which, indeed, the rationale would be
    difficult to perceive. Besides, is it likely that a party
    would have gone back so many centuries for a name, which had
    no connection with their distinctive principles? The name of
    a party is, if self-chosen (which is rarely the case),
    derived from its founder or place of origin, or else from
    what it claims as distinctive principles or practices.
    Opponents might either pervert such a name, or else give a
    designation, generally opprobrious, which would express their
    own relation to the party, or to some of its supposed
    peculiarities. But on none of these principles can the origin
    of the name of Sadducees from Tsadoq be accounted for.
    Lastly, on the supposition mentioned, the Sadducees must have
    given the name to their party, since it cannot be imagined
    that the Pharisees would have connected their opponents with
    the honoured name of the High-Priest Tsadoq.

     If it is highly improbable that the Sadducees, who, of
    course, professed to be the right interpreters of Scripture,
    would choose any party-name, thereby stamping themselves as
    sectaries, this derivation of their name is also contrary to
    historical analogy. For even the name Pharisees, 'Perushim,'
    'separated ones,' was not taken by the party itself, but
    given to it by their opponents. [a Yad. iv. 6 &c.] [1The
    argument as against the derivation of the term Sadducee
    would, of course, hold equally good, even if each party had
    assumed, not received from the other, its characteristic
    name.] From 1 Macc. ii. 42; vii. 13; 2 Macc. xiv. 6, it
    appears that originally they had taken the sacred name of
    Chasidim, or 'the pious.' [b Ps. xxx. 4; xxxi. 23; xxxvii.
    28.] This, no doubt, on the ground that they were truly those
    who, according to the directions of Ezra, [c vi. 21; ix. 1;
    x. 11; Neh. ix. 2.] had separated themselves (become
    nibhdalim) 'from the filthiness of the heathen' (all heathen
    defilement) by carrying out the traditional ordinances. [2
    Comp. generally, 'Sketches of Jewish Social Life,' pp. 230,
    231.] In fact, Ezra marked the beginning of the 'later,' in
    contradistinction to the 'earlier,' or Scripture-Chasidim. [d
    Ber. v. 1; comp. with Vayyikra R. 2, ed. Warsh. t. iii. p. 5
    a.] If we are correct in supposing that their opponents had
    called them Perushim, instead of the Scriptural designation
    of Nibhdalim, the inference is at hand, that, while the
    'Pharisees' would arrogate to themselves the Scriptural name
    of Chasidim, or 'the pious,' their opponents would retort
    that they were satisfied to be Tsaddiqim, [3 Here it deserves
    special notice that the Old Testament term Chasid, which the
    Pharisees arrogated to themselves, is rendered in the Peshito
    by Zaddiq. Thus, as it were, the opponents of Pharisaism
    would play off the equivalent Tsaddiq against the Pharisaic
    arrogation of Chasid.] or 'righteous.' Thus the name of
    Tsaddiqim would become that of the party opposing the
    Pharisees, that is, of the Sadducees. There is, indeed, an
    admitted linguistic difficulty in the change of the sound i
    into u (Tsaddiqim into Tsadduqim), but may it not have been
    that this was accomplished, not grammatically, but by popular
    witticism? Such mode of giving a 'by-name' to a party or
    government is, at least, not irrational, nor is it uncommon.
    [1 Such by-names, by a play ona word, are not unfrequent.
    Thus, in Shem. R. 5 (ed. Warsh. p. 14 a, lines 7 and 8 from
    top), Pharaoh's charge that the Israelites were 'idle,' is,
    by a transposition of letters made to mean that they were.]
    Some wit might have suggested: Read not Tsaddiqim, the
    'righteous,' but Tsadduqim (from Tsadu,), 'desolation,'
    'destruction.' Whether or not this suggestion approve itself
    to critics, the derivation of Sadducees from Tsaddiqim is
    certainly that which offers most probability. [2 It seems
    strange, that so accurate a scholar as Schurer should have
    regarded the 'national party' as merely an offshoot from the
    Pharisees (Neutest. Zeitgesch. p. 431), and appealed in proof
    to a passage in Josephus (Ant. xviii. 1.6), which expressly
    calls the Nationalists a fourth party, by the side of the
    Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes. That in practice they
    would carry out the strict Judaism of the Pharisees, does not
    make them Pharisees.]

     This uncertainty as to the origin of the name of a party
    leads almost naturally to the mention of another, which,
    indeed, could not be omitted in any description of those
    times. But while the Pharisees and Sadducees were parties
    within the Synagogue, the Essenes ( or , the latter always in
    Philo) were, although strict Jews, yet separatists, and,
    alike in doctrine, worship, and practice, outside the Jewish
    body ecclesiastic. Their numbers amounted to only about
    4,000. [a Philo, Quod omnis probus liber, 12, ed, Mang. ii.
    p. 457; Jos. Ant. xviii. 1.5.] They are not mentioned in the
    New Testament, and only very indirectly referred to in
    Rabbinic writings, perhaps without clear knowledge on the
    part of the Rabbis. If the conclusion concerning them, which
    we shall by-and-by indicate, be correct, we can scarcely
    wonder at this. Indeed, their entire separation from all who
    did not belong to their sect, the terrible oaths by which
    they bound themselves to secrecy about their doctrines, and
    which would prevent any free religious discussion, as well as
    the character of what is know of their views, would account
    for the scanty notices about them. Josephus and Philo, [3
    They are also mentioned by Pliny (Hist. Natur. v. 16).] who
    speak of them in the most sympathetic manner, had, no doubt,
    taken special pains to ascertain all that could be learned.
    For this Josephus seems to have enjoyed special
    opportunities. [4 This may be inferred from Josephus Life, c.
    2.] Still, the secrecy of their doctrines renders us
    dependent on writers, of whom at least one (Josephus) lies
    open to the suspicion of colouring and exaggeration. But of
    one thing we may feel certain: neither John the Baptist, and
    his Baptism, nor the teaching of Christianity, had any
    connection with Essenism. It were utterly unhistorical to
    infer such from a few points of contact, and these only of
    similarity, not identity, when the differences between them
    are so fundamental. That an Essene would have preached
    repentance and the Kingdom of God to multitudes, baptized the
    uninitiated, and given supreme testimony to One like Jesus,
    are assertions only less extravagant than this, that One Who
    mingled with society as Jesus did, and Whose teaching, alike
    in that respect, and in all its tendencies, was so utterly
    Non-, and even Anti-Essenic, had derived any part of His
    doctrine from Essenism. Besides, when we remember the views
    of the Essenes on purification, and on Sabbath observance,
    and their denial of the Resurrection, we feel that, whatever
    points of resemblance critical ingenuity may emphasise, the
    teaching of Christianity was in a direction opposite from
    that of Essenism. [1 This point is conclusively disposed of
    by Bishop Lightfoot in the third Dissertation appended to his
    Commentary on the Colossians (pp. 397-419). In general, the
    masterly discussion of the whole subject by Bishop Lightfoot,
    alike in the body of the Commentary and in the three
    Dissertations appended, may be said to form a new era in the
    treatment of the whole question, the points on which we would
    venture to express dissent being few and unimportant. The
    reader who wishes to see a statement of the supposed analogy
    between Essenism and the teaching of Christ will find it in
    Dr. Ginsburg's Article 'Essenes,' in Smith and Wace's
    Dictionary of Christian Biography. The same line of argument
    has been followed by Frankel and Gartz. The reasons for the
    opposite view are set forth in the text.]

     We posses no data for the history of the origin and
    development (if such there was) of Essenism. We may admit a
    certain connection between Pharisaism and Essenism, though it
    has been greatly exaggerated by modern Jewish writers. Both
    directions originated from a desire after 'purity,' though
    there seems a fundamental difference between them, alike in
    the idea of what constituted purity, and in the means for
    attaining it. To the Pharisee it was Levitical and legal
    purity, secured by the 'hedge' of ordinances which they drew
    around themselves. To the Essene it was absolute purity in
    separation from the 'material,' which in itself was defiling.
    The Pharisee attained in this manner the distinctive merit of
    a saint; the Essene obtained a higher fellowship with the
    Divine, 'inward' purity, and not only freedom from the
    detracting, degrading influence of matter, but command over
    matter and nature. As the result of this higher fellowship
    with the Divine, the adept possessed the power of prediction;
    as the result of his freedom from, and command over matter,
    the power of miraculous cures. That their purifications,
    strictest Sabbath observance, and other practices, would form
    points of contact with Pharisaism, follows as a matter of
    course; and a little reflection will show, that such
    observances would naturally be adopted by the Essenes, since
    they were within the lines of Judaism, although separatists
    from its body ecclesiastic. On the other hand, their
    fundamental tendency was quite other than that of Pharisaism,
    and strongly tinged with Eastern (Parsee) elements. After
    this the inquiry as to the precise date of its origin, and
    whether Essenism was an offshoot from the original (ancient)
    assideans or Chasidim, seems needless. Certain it is that we
    find its first mention about 150 B.C., [a Jos. Ant. xiii. 5.
    9.] and that we meet the first Essence in the reign of
    Aristobulus I. [b 105-104 B.C.; Ant. xiii. 11. 2; War i. 3.
    5.]

     Before stating our conclusions as to its relation to Judaism
    and the meaning of the name, we shall put together what
    information may be derived of the sect from the writings of
    Josephus, Philo, and Pliny. [1 Compare Josephus, Ant. xiii.
    5, 9; xv. 10. 4, 5; xviii. 1. 5; Jewish War, ii. 8, 2-13;
    Philo, Quod omnis probus liber, 12, 13 (ed. Mangey, ii.
    457-459; ed. Par. and Frcf. pp. 876-879; ed. Richter, vol. v.
    pp. 285-288); Pliny, N.H. v. 16, 17. For references in the
    Fathers see Bp. Lightfoot on Colossians, pp. 83, 84 (note).
    Comp. the literature there and in Schurer (Neutest.
    Zeitgesch. p. 599), to which I would add Dr. Ginburg's Art.
    'Essenes' in Smith's and Wace's Dict. of Chr. Biogr., vol.
    ii.] Even its outward organisation and the mode of life must
    have made as deep, and, considering the habits and
    circumstances of the time, even deeper impression than does
    the strictest asceticism on the part of any modern monastic
    order, without the unnatural and repulsive characteristics of
    the latter. There were no vows of absolute silence, broken
    only by weird chaunt of prayer or 'memento mori;' no
    penances, nor self-chastisement. But the person who had
    entered the 'order' was as effectually separated from all
    outside as if he had lived in another world. Avoiding the
    large cities as the centres of immorality, [c Philo, ii.p.
    457.] they chose for their settlements chiefly villages, one
    of their largest colonies being by the shore of the Dead Sea.
    [d Pliny, Hist. Nat. v. 16, 17.] At the same time they had
    also 'houses' inmost, if not all the cities of Palestine, [e
    Philo, u.s. p. 632; Jos. Jewish War ii. 8. 4.] notably in
    Jerusalem, [f Ant. xiii. 11.2; xv. 10. 5; xvii. 13.3.] where,
    indeed, one of gates gates was named after them. [g War v.
    4.2.] In these 'houses' they lived in common, [h Philo, u.s.
    p. 632.] under officials of their own. The affairs of 'the
    order'were administered by a tribunal of at least a hundred
    members. [i War ii. 8.9.] wore a common dress, engaged in
    common labor, united in common prayers, partook of common
    meals, and devoted themselves to works of charity, for which
    each had liberty to draw from the common treasury at his own
    discretion, except in the case of relatives. [a War ii. 8.
    6.] Everything was of the It scarcely needs mention that they
    extended fullest hospitality to strangers belonging to the
    order; in fact, a special official was appointed for this
    purpose in every city. [b u. s. sections 4.] Everything was
    of the simplest character, and intended to purify the soul by
    the greatest possible avoidance, not only of what was sinful,
    but of what was material. Rising at dawn, no profane word was
    spoken till they had offered their prayers. These were
    addressed towards, if not to, the rising son, probably, as
    they would have explained it, as the emblem of the Divine
    Light, but implying invocation, if not adoration, of the sun.
    [1 The distinction is Schurer's, although he is disposed to
    minimise this point. More on this in the sequel.] After that
    they were dismissed by their officers to common work. The
    morning meal was preceded by a lustration, or bath. Then they
    put on their 'festive' linen garments, and entered, purified,
    the common hall as their Sanctuary. For each meal was
    sacrificial, in fact, the only sacrifices which they
    acknowledged. The 'baker,' who was really their priest, and
    naturally so, since he prepared the sacrifice, set before
    each bread, and the cook a mess of vegetables. The meal began
    with prayer by the presiding priest, for those who presided
    at these 'sacrifices' were also 'priests,' although in
    neither case probably of Aaronic descent, but consecrated by
    themselves. [c Jos. War ii 8.5; Ant. xviii. 1. 5.] The
    sacraficial meal was again concluded by prayer, when they put
    off their sacred dress, and returned to their labour. The
    evening meal was of exactly the same description, and
    partaken of with the same rites as that of the morning.

     Although the Essenes, who, with the exception of a small
    party among them, repudiated marriage, adopted children to
    train them in the principles of their sect, [2 Schurer
    regards these children as forming the first of the four
    'classes' or 'grades' into which the Essenes were arranged.
    But this is contrary to the express statement of Philo, that
    only adults were admitted into the order, and hence only such
    could have formed a 'grade' or 'class' of the community.
    (Comp. ed. Mangey, ii. p. 632, from Eusebius' Praepar. Evang.
    lib. viii. cap. 8.) I have adopted the view of Bishop
    Lightfoot on the subject. Even the marrying order of the
    Essenes, however, only admitted of wedlock under great
    restrictions, and as a necessary evil (War,u. s. sections
    13). Bishop Lightfoot suggests, that these were not Essenes
    in the strict sense, but only 'like the third order of a
    Benedictine or Franciscan brotherhood.] yet admission to the
    order was only granted to adults, and after a novitiate which
    lasted three years. On entering, the novice received the
    three symbols of purity: an axe, or rather a spade, with
    which to dig a pit, a foot deep, to cover up the excrements;
    an apron, to bind round the loins in bathing; and a white
    dress, which was always worn, the festive garment at meals
    being of linen. At the end of the first year the novice was
    admitted to the lustrations. He had now entered on the second
    grade, in which he remained for another year. After its
    lapse, he was advanced to the third grade, but still
    continued a novice, until, at the close of the third year of
    his probation, he was admitted to the fourth grade, that of
    full member, when, for the first time, he was admitted to the
    sacrifice of the common meals. The mere touch of one of a
    lower grade in the order defiled the Essene, and necessitated
    the lustration of a bath. Before admission to full
    membership, a terrible oath was taken. As, among other
    things, it bound to the most absolute secrecy, we can
    scarcely suppose that its form, as given by Josephus, [a War
    ii. 8.7.] contains much beyond what was generally allowed to
    transpire. Thus the long list given by the Jewish historian
    of moral obligations which the Essenes undertook, is probably
    only a rhetorical enlargement of some simple formula. More
    credit attaches to the alleged undertaking of avoidance of
    all vanity, falsehood, dishonesty, and unlawful gains. The
    last parts of the oath alone indicate the peculiar vows of
    the sect, that is, so far as they could be learned by the
    outside world, probably chiefly through the practice of the
    Essenes. They bound each member not to conceal anything from
    his own sect, nor, even on peril of death, to disclose their
    doctrines to others; to hand down their doctrines exactly as
    they had received them; to abstain from robbery; [1 Can this
    possibly have any connection in the mind of Josephus with the
    later Nationalist movement? This would agree with his
    insistance on their respect for those in authority. Otherwise
    the emphasis laid on abstinence from robbery seems strange in
    such a sect.] and to guard the books belonging to their sect,
    and the names of the Angels.

     It is evident that, while all else was intended as
    safeguards of a rigorous sect of purists, and with the view
    of strictly keeping it a secret order, the last-mentioned
    particulars furnish significant indications of their peculiar
    doctrines. Some of these may be regarded as only
    exaggerations of Judaism, though not of the Pharisaic kind.
    [2 I ventureto think that even Bishop Lightfoot lays too much
    stress on the affinity to Pharisaism. I can discover few, if
    any, traces of Pharisaism in the distinctive sense of the
    term. Even their frequent washings had a different object
    from those of the Pharisees.] Among them we reckon the
    extravagant reverence for the name of their legislator
    (presumably Moses), whom to blaspheme was a capital offence;
    their rigid abstinence from all prohibited food; and their
    exaggerated Sabbath-observance, when, not only no food was
    prepared, but not a vessel moved, nay, not even nature eased.
    [3 For a similar reason, and in order 'not to affront the
    Divine rays of light', the light as symbol, if not outcome,
    of the Deity, they covered themselves, in such circumstances,
    with the mantle which was their ordinary dress in winter.]
    But this latter was connected with their fundamental idea of
    inherent impurity in the body, and, indeed, in all that is
    material. Hence, also, their asceticism, their repudiation of
    marriage, and their frequent lustrations in clean water, not
    only before their sacrificial meals, but upon contact even
    with an Essene of a lower grade, and after attending to the
    calls of nature. Their undoubted denial of the resurrection
    of the body seems only the logical sequence from it. If the
    soul was a substance of the subtlest ether, drawn by certain
    natural enticement into the body, which was its prison, a
    state of perfectness could not have consisted in the
    restoration of that which, being material, was in itself
    impure. And, indeed, what we have called the exaggerated
    Judaism of the sect, its rigid abstinence from all forbidden
    food, and peculiar Sabbath-observance, may all have had the
    same object, that of tending towards an external purism,
    which the Divine legislator would have introduced, but the
    'carnally-minded' could not receive. Hence, also, the strict
    separation of the order, its grades, its rigorous discipline,
    as well as its abstinence from wine, meat, and all ointments,
    from every luxury, even from trades which would encourage
    this, or any vice. This aim after external purity explains
    many of their outward arrangements, such as that their labour
    was of the simplest kind, and the commonality of all property
    in the order; perhaps, also, what may seem more ethical
    ordinances, such as the repudiation of slavery, their refusal
    to take an oath, and even their scrupulous care of truth. The
    white garments, which they always wore, seem to have been but
    a symbol of that purity which they sought. For this purpose
    they submitted, not only to strict asceticism, but to a
    discipline which gave the officials authority to expel all
    offenders, even though in so doing they virtually condemned
    them to death by starvation, since the most terrible oaths
    had bound all entrants into the order not to partake of any
    food other than that prepared by their 'priests.'

     In such a system there would, of course, be no place for
    either an Aaronic priesthood, or bloody sacrifices. In fact,
    they repudiated both. Without formally rejecting the Temple
    and its services, there was no room in their system for such
    ordinances. They sent, indeed, thank offerings to the Temple,
    but what part had they in bloody sacrifices and an Aaronic
    ministry, which constituted the main business of the Temple?
    Their 'priests' were their bakers and presidents; their
    sacrifices those of fellowship, their sacred meals of purity.
    It is quite in accordance with this tendency when we learn
    from Philo that, in their diligent study of the Scriptures,
    they chiefly adopted the allegorical mode of interpretation.
    [a Ed. Mang ii. p. 458.]

     We can scarcely wonder that such Jews as Josephus and Philo,
    and such heathens as Pliny, were attracted by such an
    unworldly and lofty sect. Here were about 4,000 men, who
    deliberately separated themselves, not only from all that
    made life pleasant, but from all around; who, after passing a
    long and strict novitiate, were content to live under the
    most rigid rule, obedient to their superiors; who gave up all
    their possessions, as well as the earnings of their daily
    toil in the fields, or of their simple trades; who held all
    things for the common benefit, entertained strangers, nursed
    their sick, and tended their aged as if their own parents,
    and were charitable to all men; who renounced all animal
    passions, eschewed anger, ate and drank in strictest
    moderation, accumulated neither wealth nor possessions, wore
    the simplest white dress till it was no longer fit for use;
    repudiated slavery, oaths, marriage; abstained from meat and
    wine, even from the common Eastern anointing with oil; used
    mystic lustrations, had mystic rites and mystic prayers, an
    esoteric literature and doctrines; whose every meal was a
    sacrifice, and every act one of self-denial; who, besides,
    were strictly truthful, honest, upright, virtuous, chaste,
    and charitable, in short, whose life meant, positively and
    negatively, a continual purification of the soul by
    mortification of the body. To the astonished onlookers this
    mode of life was rendered even more sacred by doctrines, a
    literature, and magic power known only to the initiated.
    Their mysterious conditions made them cognisant of the names
    of Angels, by which we are, no doubt, to understand a
    theosophic knowledge, fellowship with the Angelic world, and
    the power of employing its ministry. Their constant
    purifications, and the study of their prophetic writings,
    gave them the power of prediction; [a Jos. War ii. 8, 12;
    comp. Ant. xiii. 11. 2; xv. 10. 5; xvii. 13.3.] the same
    mystic writings revealed the secret remedies of plants and
    stones for the healing of the body, [1 There can be no
    question that these Essene cures were magical, and their
    knowledge of remedies esoteric.] as well as what was needed
    for the cure of souls.

     It deserves special notice that this intercourse with
    Angels, this secret traditional literature, and its teaching
    concerning mysterious remedies in plants and stones, are not
    unfrequently referred to in that Apocalyptic literature known
    as the 'Pseudepigraphic Writings.' Confining ourselves to
    undoubtedly Jewish and pre-Christian documents, [2 Bishop
    Lightfoot refers to a part of the Sibylline books which seems
    of Christian authorship.] we know what development the
    doctrine of Angels received both in the Book of Enoch (alike
    in its earlier and in its later portion [b ch. xxxi.-ixxi.])
    and in the Book of Jubilees, [3 Comp. Lucius, Essenismus, p.
    109. This brochure, the latest on the subject, (though
    interesting, adds little to our knowledge.]) and how the
    'seers' received Angelic instruction and revelations. The
    distinctively Rabbinic teaching on these subjects is fully
    set forth in another part of this work. [1 See Appendix XIII.
    on the Angelology, Satanology, and Demonology of the Jews.]
    Here we would only specially notice that in the Book of
    Jubilees [a Ch. x.] Angels are represented as teaching Noah
    all 'herbal remedies' for diseases, [b Comp. also the Sepher
    Noach in Jellinek's Beth. haMidr. part iii. pp. 155, 156.]
    while in the later Pirqe de R. Eliezer [c c. 48.] this
    instruction is said to have been given to moses. These two
    points (relaion to the Angels, and knowledge of the remedial
    power of plants, not to speak of visions and prophecies) seem
    to connect the secret writings of the Essenes with that
    'outside' literature which in Rabbinic writings is known as
    Sepharim haChitsonim, 'outside writings.' [2 Only after
    writing the above I have noticed, that Jellinek arrives at
    the same conclusion as to the Essene character of the Book of
    Jubilees (Beth ha-Midr. iii. p. xxxiv., xxxv.), and of the
    Book of Enoch (u.s. ii. p. xxx.).] The point is of greatest
    importance, as will presently appear.

     It needs no demonstration, that a system which proceeded
    from a contempt of the body and of all that is material; in
    some manner identified the Divine manifestation with the Sun;
    denied the Resurrection, the Temple-priesthood, and
    sacrifices; preached abstinence from meats and from marriage;
    decreed such entire separation from all around that their
    very contact defiled, and that its adherents would have
    perished of hunger rather than join in the meals of the
    outside world; which, moreover, contained not a trace of
    Messianic elements indeed, had no room for them, could have
    had no internal connection with the origin of Christianity.
    Equally certain is it that, in respect of doctrine, life, and
    worship, it really stood outside Judaism, as represented by
    either Pharisees or Sadducees. The question whence the
    foreign elements were derived, which were its distinctive
    characteristics, has of late been so learnedly discussed,
    that only the conclusions arrived at require to be stated. Of
    the two theories, of which the one traces Essenism to
    Neo-Pythagorean, [3 So Zeller, Philosophie d. Griechen, ed.
    1881, iii. pp. 277-337.] the other to Persian sources, [4 So
    Bishop Lightfoot, in his masterly treatment of the whole
    subject in his Commentary on the Ep. to the Colossians.] the
    latter seems fully established, without, however, wholly
    denying at least the possibility of Neo-Pythagorean
    influences. To the grounds which have been so conclusively
    urged in support of the Eastern origin of Essenism, [5 By
    Bishop Lightfoot, u.s. pp. 382-396 In general, I prefer on
    many points such as the connection between Essenism and
    Gnosticism &c., simply to refer readers to the classic work
    of Bishop Lightfoot.] in its distinctive features, may be
    added this, that Jewish Angelology, which played so great a
    part in the system, was derived from Chaldee and Persian
    sources, and perhaps also the curious notion, that the
    knowledge of medicaments, originally derived by Noah from the
    angels, came to the Egyptians chiefly through the magic books
    of the Chaldees. [a Sepher Noach ap. Jellinek iii. p. 156.]
    [1 As regards any connection between the Essenes and the
    Therapeutai, Lucius has denied the existence of such a sect
    and the Philonic authorship of de V. cont. The latter we have
    sought to defend in the Art. Philo (Smith and Wace's Dict. of
    Chr. Biogr. iv.), and to show that the Therapeutes were not a
    'sect' but an esoteric circle of Alexandrian Jews.]

     It is only at the conclusion of these investigations that we
    are prepared to enter on the question of the origin and
    meaning of the name Essenes, important as this inquiry is,
    not only in itself, but in regard to the relation of the sect
    to orthodox Judaism. The eighteen or nineteen proposed
    explanations of a term, which must undoubtedly be of Hebrew
    etymology, all proceed on the idea of its derivation from
    something which implied praise of the sect, the two least
    objectionable explaining the name as equivalent either to
    'the pious,' or else to 'the silent ones.' But against all
    such derivations there is the obvious objection, that the
    Pharisees, who had the moulding of the theological language,
    and who were in the habit of giving the hardest names to
    those who differed from them, would certainly not have
    bestowed a title implying encomium on a sect which, in
    principle and practices, stood so entirely outside, not only
    of their own views, but even of the Synagogue itself. Again,
    if they had given a name of encomium to the sect, it is only
    reasonable to suppose that they would not have kept, in
    regard to their doctrines and practices, a silence which is
    only broken by dim and indirect allusions. Yet, as we examine
    it, the origin and meaning of the name seem implied in their
    very position towards the Synagogue. They were the only real
    sect, strictly outsiders, and their name Essenes ('E , 'E )
    seems the Greek equivalent for Chitsonim ( ), 'the
    outsiders.' Even the circumstance that the axe, or rather
    spade ( ), which every novice received, has for its Rabbinic
    equivalent the word Chatsina, is here not without
    significance. Linguistically, the words Essenoi and Chitsonim
    are equivalents, as admittedly are the similar designations
    Chasidim ( ) and Asidaioi ('A ). For, in rendering Hebrew
    into Greek, the ch ( ) is 'often entirely omitted, or
    represented by a spiritus lenis in the beginning,' while 'in
    regard to the vowels no distinct rule is to be laid down.' [b
    Deutsch, Remains, pp. 359, 360.] Instances of a change of the
    Hebrew i into the Greek e are frequent, and of the Hebrew o
    into the Greek e not rare. As one instance will suffice, we
    select a case in which exactly the same transmutation of the
    two vowel-sounds occurs, that of the Rabbinic Abhginos ( )
    for the Greek ( ) Eugenes ('well-born'). [2 As other
    instances may be quoted such as Istagioth ( ) ( ) ( ), roof;
    Istuli ( ) ( ) ( ), a pillar; Dikhsumini ( ) ( ) ( ),
    cistern.

     This derivation of the name Essenes, which strictly
    expresses the character and standing of the sect relatively
    to orthodox Judaism, and, indeed, is the Greek form of the
    Hebrew term for 'outsiders,' is also otherwise confirmed. It
    has already been said, that no direct statement concerning
    the Essenes occurs in Rabbinic writings. Nor need this
    surprise us, when we remember the general reluctance of the
    Rabbis to refer to their opponents, except in actual
    controversy; and, that, when traditionalism was reduced to
    writing, Essenism, as a Jewish sect, had ceased to exist.
    Some of its elements had passed into the Synagogue,
    influencing its general teaching (as in regard to Angelology,
    magic, &c.), and greatly contributing to that mystic
    direction which afterwards found expression in what is now
    known as the Kabbalah. But the general movement had passed
    beyond the bounds of Judaism, and appeared in some forms of
    the Gnostic heresy. But still there are Rabbinic references
    to the 'Chitsonim,' which seem to identify them with the sect
    of the Essenes. Thus, in one passage [a Megill. 24 b, lines 4
    and 5 from bottom.] certain practices of the Sadducees and of
    the Chitsonim are mentioned together, and it is difficult to
    see who could be meant by the latter if not the Essenes.
    Besides, the practices there referred to seem to contain
    covert allusions to those of the Essenes. Thus, the Mishnah
    begins by prohibiting the public reading of the Law by those
    who would not appear in a coloured, but only in a white
    dress. Again, the curious statement is made that the manner
    of the Chitsonim was to cover the phylacteries with gold, a
    statement unexplained in the Gemara, and inexplicable, unless
    we see in it an allusion to the Essene practice of facing the
    rising Sun in their morning prayers. [1 The practice of
    beginning prayers before, and ending them as the sun had just
    risen, seems to have passed from the Essenes to a party in
    the Synagogue itself, and is pointedly alluded to as a
    characteristic of the so-called Vethikin, Ber. 9 b; 25 b; 26
    a. But another peculiarity about them, noticed in Rosh haSh.
    32 b (the repetition of all the verses in the Pentateuch
    containing the record of God in the so-called Malkhiyoth,
    Zikhronoth, and Shophroth), shows that they were not Essenes,
    since such Rabbinic practices must have been alien to their
    system.] Again, we know with what bitterness Rabbinism
    denounced the use of the externe writings (the Sepharim
    haChitsonim) to the extent of excluding from eternal life
    those who studied them. [b Sanh. x 1.] But one of the best
    ascertained facts concerning the Essenes is that they
    possessed secret, 'outside,' holy writings of their own,
    which they guarded with special care. And, although it is not
    maintained that the Sepharim haChitsonim were exclusively
    Essene writings, [2 In Sanh. 100 b they are explained as 'the
    writings of the Sadducees,' and by another Rabbi as 'the Book
    of Sirach' (Ecclus. in the Apocrypha). Hamburger, as
    sometimes, makes assertions on this point which cannot be
    supported (Real-Worterb. ii. p. 70). Jer. Sanh. 28 a
    explains, 'Such as the books of Ben Sirach and of Ben
    La'nah', the latter apparently also an Apocryphal book, for
    which the Midr. Kohel. (ed. warsh. iii. p. 106 b) has 'the
    book of Ben Tagla' 'La'nah' and 'Tagla' could scarcely be
    symbolic names. On the other hand, I cannot agree with Furst
    (Kanon d. A.T. p. 99), who identifies them with Apollonius of
    Tyana and Empedocles. Dr. Neubauer suggests that Ben La'nah
    may be a corruption of Sibylline Oracles.] the latter must
    have been included among them. We have already seen reason
    for believing, that even the so-called Pseudepigraphic
    literature, notably such works as the Book of Jubilees, was
    strongly tainted with Essene views; if, indeed, in perhaps
    another than its present form, part of it was not actually
    Essene. Lastly, we find what seems to us yet another covert
    allusion [a In Sanh. x. 1.] to Essene practices, similar to
    that which has already been noticed. [b Meg. 24 b.] For,
    immediatley after consigning to destruction all who denied
    that there was proof in the Pentateuch for the Resurrection
    (evidently the Sadducees), those who denied that the Law was
    from heaven (the Minim, or heretics, probably the Jewish
    Christians), and all 'Epicureans' [1 The 'Epicureans,' or
    'freethinkers,' are explained to be such as speak
    contemptuously of the Scriptures, or of the Rabbis (Jer.
    Sanh. 27 d). In Sanh. 38 b a distinction is made between
    'stranger' (heathen) Epicureans, and Israelitish Epicureans.
    With the latter it is unwise to enter into argument.]
    (materialists), the same punishment is assigned to those 'who
    read externe writings' (Sepharim haChitsonim) and 'who
    whispered' (a magical formula) 'over a wound.' [2 Both in the
    Jer. and Bab.Talm. it is conjoined with 'spitting,' which was
    a mode of healing, usual at the time. The Talmud forbids the
    magical formula, only in connection with this 'spitting', and
    then for the curious reason that the Divine Name is not to be
    recorded while 'spitting.' But, while in the Bab. Talm. the
    prohibition bears against such 'spitting' before pronouncing
    the formula, in the Jer. Talm. it is after uttering it.] Both
    the Babylonian and the Jerusalem Talmud [c Sanh. 101 a; Jer.
    Sanh. p. 28 b.] offer astrange explanation of this practice;
    perhaps, because they either did not, or else would not,
    understand the allusion. But to us it seems at least
    significant that as, in the first quoted instance, the
    mention of the Chitsonim is conjoined with a condemnation of
    the exclusive use of white garments in worship, which we know
    to have been an Essene peculiarity, so the condemnation of
    the use of Chitsonim writings with that of magical cures. [3
    Bishop Lightfoot has shown that the Essene cures were magical
    (u. s. pp. 91 &c. and p. 377).] At the same time, we are less
    bound to insist on these allusions as essential to our
    argument, since those, who have given another derivation than
    ours to the name Essenes, express themselves unable to find
    in ancient Jewish writings any trustworthy reference to the
    sect.

     On one point, at least, our inquiry into the three 'parties'
    can leave no doubt. The Essenes could never have been drawn
    either to the person, or the preaching of John the Baptist.
    Similarly, the Sadducees would, after they knew its real
    character and goal, turn contemptuously from a movement which
    would awaken no sympathy in them, and could only become of
    interest when it threatened to endanger their class by
    awakening popular enthusiasm, and so rousing the suspicions
    of the Romans. To the Pharisees there were questions of
    dogmatic, ritual, and even national importance involved,
    which made the barest possibility of what John announced a
    question of supreme moment. And, although we judge that the
    report which the earliest Pharisaic hearers of John [a St.
    Matt. iii. 7.] brough to Jerusalem, no doubt, detailed and
    accurate, and which led to the despatch of the deputation,
    would entirely predispose them against the Baptist, yet it
    behooved them, as leaders of public opinion, to take such
    cognisance of it, as would not only finally determine their
    own relation to the movement, but enable them effectually to
    direct that of others also.

 THE ASCENT: FROM THE RIVER JORDAN TO THE MOUNT OF
    TRANSFIGURATION

    THE TWOFOLD TESTIMONY OF JOHN, THE FIRST SABBATH OF JESUS'S
    MINISTRY, THE FIRST SUNDAY, THE FIRST DISCIPLES.

    CHAPTER III.

     (St. John i. 15-51.) THE forty days, which had passed since
    Jesus had first come to him, must have been to the Baptist a
    time of soul-quickening, of unfolding understanding, and of
    ripened decision. We see it in his more emphasised testimony
    to the Christ; in his fuller comprehension of those
    prophecies which had formed the warrant and substance of his
    Mission; but specially in the yet more entire
    self-abnegation, which led him to take up a still lowlier
    position, and acquiescingly to realise that his task of
    heralding was ending, and that what remained was to point
    those nearest to him, and who had most deeply drunk of his
    spirit, to Him Who had come. And how could it be otherwise?
    On first meeting Jesus by the banks of Jordan, he had felt
    the seeming incongruity of baptizing One of Whom he had
    rather need to be baptized. Yet this, perhaps, because he had
    beheld himself by the Brightness of Christ, rather than
    looked at the Christ Himself. What he needed was not to be
    baptized, but to learn that it became the Christ to fulfil
    all righteousness. This was the first lesson. The next, and
    completing one, came when, after the Baptism, the heavens
    opened, the Spirit descended, and the Divine Voice of
    Testimony pointed to, and explained the promised sign. [1 St.
    John i. 33.] It told him, that the work, which he had begun
    in the obedience of faith, had reached the reality of
    fulfilment. The first was a lesson about the Kingdom; the
    second about the King. And then Jesus was parted from him,
    and led of the Spirit into the wilderness.

     Forty days since then, with these events, this vision, those
    words ever present to his mind! It had been the mightiest
    impulse; nay, it must have been a direct call from above,
    which first brought John from his life-preparation of lonely
    communing with God to the task of preparing Israel for that
    which he knew was preparing for them. He had entered upon it,
    not only without illusions, but with such entire
    self-forgetfulness, as only deepest conviction of the reality
    of what he announced could have wrought. He knew those to
    whom he was to speak, the preoccupation, the spiritual
    dulness, the sins of the great mass; the hypocrisy, the
    unreality, the inward impenitence of their spiritual leaders;
    the perverseness of their direction; the hollowness and
    delusiveness of their confidence as being descended from
    Abraham. He saw only too clearly their real character, and
    knew the near end of it all: how the axe was laid to the
    barren tree, and how terribly the fan would sift the chaff
    from the wheat. And yet he preached and baptized; for,
    deepest in his heart was the conviction, that there was a
    Kingdom at hand, and a King coming. As we gather the elements
    of that conviction, we find them chiefly in the Book of
    Isaiah. His speech and its imagery, and, especially, the
    burden of his message, were taken from those prophecies. [1
    This is insisted upon by Keim, in his beautiful sketch of the
    Baptist. Would that he had known the Master in the glory of
    His Divinity, as he understood the Forerunner in the beauty
    of his humanity! To show how the whole teaching of the
    Baptist was, so to speak, saturated with Isaiah-language and
    thoughts, comp. not only Is. xl. 3, as the burden of his
    mission, but as to his imagery (after Keim): Generation of
    vipers, Is. lix. 5; planting of the Lord, Is. v. 7; trees,
    vi. 13; x. 15, 18, 33; xl. 24; fire. i. 31; ix. 18; x. 17; v.
    24; xlvii. 14; floor and fan, xxi. 10; xxvii. 27 &c.; xxx.
    24; xl. 24; xli. 15 &c.; bread and coat to the poor, lviii.
    7; the garner, xxi. 10. Besides these, the Isaiah reference
    in his Baptism (Is. lii. 15; i. 16), and that to the Lamb of
    God, indeed many others of a more indirect character, will
    readily occur to the reader. Similarly, when our Lord would
    afterwards instruct him in his hour of darkness (St. Matt.
    xi. 2), He points for the solution of his doubts to the
    well-remembered prophecies of Isaiah (Is. xxxv. 5, 6; lxi. 1;
    viii. 14, 15).] Indeed, his mind seems saturated with them;
    they must have formed his own religious training; and they
    were the preparation for his work. This gathering up of the
    Old Testament rays of light and glory into the burning-glass
    of Evangelic prophecy had set his soul on fire. No wonder
    that, recoiling equally from the externalism of the
    Pharisees, and the merely material purism of the Essenes, he
    preached quite another doctrine, of inward repentance and
    renewal of life.

     One picture was most brightly reflected on those pages of
    Isaiah. It was that of the Anointed, Messiah, Christ, the
    Representative Israelite, the Priest, King, and Prophet, [a
    Is. ix. 6 &c.; xi.; xlii.; lii. 13 &c. [iii.]; lxi.] in Whom
    the institution and sacramental meaning of the Priesthood,
    and of Sacrifices, found their fulfilment. [b Is. liii.] In
    his announcement of the Kingdom, in his call to inward
    repentance, even in his symbolic Baptism, that Great
    Personality always stood out before the mind of John, as the
    One all-overtoppingand overshadowing Figure in the
    background. It was the Isaiah-picture of 'the King in His
    beauty,' the vision of 'the land of far distances'[a Is.
    xxxiii. 17.] [1 I cannot agree with Mr. Cheyne (Prophecies of
    Is. vol. i. p. 183), that there is no Messianic reference
    here. It may not be in the most literal sense 'personally
    Messianic;' but surely this ideal presentation of Israel in
    the perfectness of its kingdom, and the glory of its
    happiness, is one of the fullest Messianic picture (comp. vv.
    17 to end).] to him a reality, of which Sadducee and Essene
    had no conception, and the Pharisee only the grossest
    misconception. This also explains how the greatest of those
    born of women was also the most humble, the most retiring,
    and self-forgetful. In a picture such as that which filled
    his whole vision, there was no room for self. By the side of
    such a Figure all else appeared in its real littleness, and,
    indeed, seemed at best but as shadows cast by its light. All
    the more would the bare suggestion on the part of the
    Jerusalem deputation, that he might be the Christ, seem like
    a blasphemy, from which, in utter self-abasement, he would
    seek shelter in the scarce-ventured claim to the meanest
    office which a slave could discharge. He was not Elijah. Even
    the fact that Jesus afterwards, in significant language,
    pointed to the possibility of his becoming such to Israel
    (St. Matt. xi. 14), proves that he claimed it not; [2 This is
    well pointed out by Keim.] not 'that prophet'; not even a
    prophet. He professed not visions, revelations, special
    messages. All else was absorbed in the great fact: he was
    only the voice of one that cried, 'Prepare ye the way!'
    Viewed especially in the light of those self-glorious times,
    this reads not like a ficitious account of a fictious
    mission; nor was such the profession of an impostor, an
    associate in a plot, or an enthusiast. There was deep reality
    of all-engrossing conviction which underlay such self-denial
    of mission.

     And all this must have ripened during the forty days of
    probably comparative solitude, [3 We have in a previous
    chapter suggested that the baptism of Jesus had taken place
    at Bethabara, that is, the furthest northern point of his
    activity, and probably at the close of his baptismal
    ministry. It is not possible in this place to detail the
    reasons for this view. But the learned reader will find
    remarks on it in Keim, i. 2, p. 524.] only relieved by the
    presence of such 'disciples' as, learning the same hope,
    would gather around him. What he had seen and what he had
    heard threw him back upon what he had expected and believed.
    It not only fulfilled, it transfigured it. Not that,
    probably, he always maintained the same height which he then
    attained. It was not in the nature of things that it should
    be so. We often attain, at the outset of our climbing, a
    glimpse, afterwards hid from us in our laborious upward toil
    till the supreme height is reached. Mentally and sprirtually
    we may attain almost at a bound results, too often lost to us
    till again secured by long reflection, or in the course of
    painful development. This in some measure explains the
    fulness of John's testimony to the Christ as 'the Lamb of
    God, Which taketh away the sin of the world,' when at the
    beginning we find ourselves almost at the goal of New
    Testament teaching. It also explains that last strife of
    doubt and fear, when the weary wrestler laid himself down to
    find refreshment and strength in the shadow of those
    prophecies, which had first called him to the contest. But
    during those forty days, and in the first meetings with Jesus
    which followed, all lay bathed in the morning-light of that
    heavenly vision, and that Divine truth wakened in him the
    echoes of all those prophecies, which these thirty years had
    been the music of his soul.

     And now, on the last of those forty days, simultaneously
    with the final great Temptation of Jesus [1 This, of course,
    on the supposition that the Baptism of Jesus took place at
    Bethabara, and hence that the 'wilderness' into which He was
    driven, was close by. It is difficult to see why, on any
    other supposition, Jesus returned to Bethabara, since
    evidently it was not for the sake of any personal intercourse
    with John.] which must have summed up all that had preceded
    it in the previous days, came the hour of John's temptation
    by the deputation from Jerusalem. [2 This is most beautifully
    suggested by Canon Westcott in his Commentary on the
    passage.] Very gently it came to him, like the tempered wind
    that fans the fire into flame, not like that keen, desolating
    storm-blast which swept over the Master. To John, as now to
    us, it was only the fellowship of His sufferings, which he
    bore in the shelter of that great Rock over which its
    intenseness had spent itself. Yet a very real temptation it
    was, this provoking to the assumption of successively lower
    grades of self-assertion, where only entire self-abnegation
    was the rightful feeling. Each suggestion of lower office
    (like the temptations of Christ) marked an increased measure
    of temptation, as the human in his mission was more and more
    closely neared. And greatest temptation it was when, after
    the first victory, came the not unnatural challenge of his
    authority for what he said and did. This was, of all others,
    the question which must at all times, from the beginning of
    his mission to the hour of his death, have pressed most
    closely upon him, since it touched not only his conscience,
    but the very ground of his mission, nay, of his life. That it
    was such temptation is evidenced by the fact that, in the
    hour of his greatest loneliness and depression it formed his
    final contest, in which he temporarily paused, like Jacob in
    his Israel-struggle, though, like him, he failed not in it.
    For what was the meaning of that question which the disciples
    of John brought to Jesus: 'Art Thou He that should come, or
    do we look for another?' other than doubt of his own warrant
    and authority for what he had said and done? But in that
    first time of his trial at Bethabara he overcame, the first
    temptation by the humility of his intense sincerity, the
    second by the absolute simplicity of his own experimental
    conviction; the first by what he had seen, the second by what
    he had heard concerning the Christ at the banks of Jordan.
    And so, also, although perhaps 'afar off,' it must ever be to
    us in like temptation.

     Yet, as we view it, and without needlessly imputing malice
    prepense to the Pharisaic deputation, their questions seemed
    but natural. After his previous emphatic disclaimer at the
    beginning of his preaching (St. Luke iii. 15), of which they
    in Jerusalem could scarcely have been ignorant, the
    suggestion of his Messiahship, not indeed expressly made, but
    sufficiently implied to elicit what the language of St. John
    [1 'He confessed, and denied not' (St. John i. 20). Canon
    Westcott points out, that 'the combination of a positive and
    negative' is intended to 'express the fulness of truth,' and
    that 'the first term marks the readiness of his testimony,
    the second its completeness.'] shows to have been the most
    energetic denial, could scarcely have been more than
    tentative. It was otherwise with their question whether he
    was 'Elijah'? Yet, bearing in mind what we know of the Jewish
    expectations of Elijah, and how his appearance was always
    readily recognised, [2 See Appendix VIII: 'Rabbinic
    Traditions about Elijah, the Forerunner of the Messiah.']
    this also could scarcely have been meant in its full
    literality, but rather as ground for the further question
    after the goal and warrant of his mission. Hence also John's
    disavowing of such claims is not satisfactorily accounted for
    by the common explanation, that he denied being Elijah in the
    sense of not being what the Jews expected of the Forerunner
    of the Messiah: the real, identical Elijah of the days of
    Ahab; or else, that he denied being such in the sense of the
    peculiar Jewish hopes attaching to his reappearance in the
    'last days.' There is much deeper truth in the disclaimer of
    the Baptist. It was, indeed, true that, as foretold in the
    Angelic announcement, [a St. Luke i. 17.] he was sent 'in the
    spirit and power of Elias,' that is, with the same object and
    the same qualifications. Similarly, it is true what, in His
    mournful retrospect of the result of John's mission, and in
    the prospect of His own end, the Saviour said of him, 'Elias
    is indeed come,' but 'they knew him not, but have done unto
    him whatsoever they listed.' [b St. Mark ix. 13; St. Matt.
    xvii. 12.] But on this very recognition and reception of him
    by the Jews depended his being to them Elijah who should
    'turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the
    disobedient to the wisdom of the just,' and so 'restore all
    things.' Between the Elijah of Ahab's reign, and him of
    Messianic times, lay the wide cleft of quite another
    dispensation. The 'spirit and power of Elijah' could 'restore
    all things,' because it was the dispensation of the Old
    Testament, in which the result was outward, and by outward
    means. But 'the spirit and power' of the Elijah of the New
    Testament, which was to accomplish the inward restoration
    through penitent reception of the Kingdom of God in its
    reality, could only accomplish that object if 'they received
    it', if 'they knew him.' And as in his own view, and looking
    around and forward, so also in very fact the Baptist, though
    Divinely such, was not really Elijah to Israel, and this is
    the meaning of the words of Jesus: 'And if ye will receive
    it, this is Elias, which was for to come.' [a St. Matt. xi.
    14.]

     More natural still, indeed, almost quite truthful, seems the
    third question of the Pharisees, whether the Baptist was
    'that prophet.' The reference here is undoubtedly to Deut.
    xviii. 15, 18. Not that the reappearance of Moses as lawgiver
    was expected. But as the prediction of the eighteenth chapter
    of Deuteronomy, especially when taken in connection with the
    promise [b Jer. xxxi. 31 &c.] of a 'new covenant' with a 'new
    law' written in the hearts of the people, implied a change in
    this respect, it was but natural that it should have been
    expected in Messianic days by the instrumentality of 'that
    prophet.' [1 Can the reference in St. Stephen's speech (Acts
    vii. 37) apply to this expected alteration of the Law? At any
    rate St. Stephen is on his defence for teaching the abolition
    by Jesus of the Old Testament economy. It is remarkable that
    he does not deny the charge, and that his contention is, that
    the Jews wickedly resisted the authority of Jesus (vv.
    51-53).] Even the various opinions broached in the Mishnah,
    [c Eduy. viii. 7.] as to whatwere to be the reformatory and
    legislative functions of Elijah, prove that such expectations
    were connected with the Forerunner of the Messiah.

     But whatever views the Jewish embassy might have entertained
    concerning the abrogation, renewal, or renovation of the Law
    [2 For the Jewish views on the Law in Messianic times, see
    Appendix XIV.: 'The Law in Messianic Days.'] in Messianic
    times, the Baptist repelled the suggestion of his being 'that
    prophet' with the same energy as those of his being either
    the Christ or Elijah. And just as we notice, as the result of
    those forty days' communing, yet deeper humility and
    self-abnegation on the part of the Baptist, so we also mark
    increased intensity and directness in the testimony which he
    now bears to the Christ before the Jerusalem deputies. [d St.
    John 1. 22-28.] 'His eye is fixed on the Coming One.''He is
    as a voice not to be inquired about, but heard;' and its
    clear and unmistakable, but deeply reverent utterance is:
    'The Coming One has come.' [1 The words within quotations are
    those of Archdeacon Watkins, in his Commentary on St. John.]

     The reward of his overcoming temptation, yet with it also
    the fitting for still fiercer conflict (which two, indeed,
    are always conjoined), was at hand. After His victorious
    contest with the Devil, Angels had come to minister to Jesus
    in body and soul. But better than Angels' vision came to
    refresh and strengthen His faithful witness John. On the very
    day of the Baptist's temptation Jesus had left the
    wilderness. On the morrow after it, 'John seeth Jesus coming
    unto him, and saith, Behold, the Lamb of God, Which taketh
    away the sin of the world!' We cannot doubt, that the thought
    here present to the mind of John was the description of 'The
    Servant of Jehovah,' [a Is. lii. 13.] as set forth in Is.
    liii. If all along the Baptist had been filled with
    Isaiah-thoughts of the Kingdom, surely in the forty days
    after he had seen the King, a new 'morning' must have risen
    upon them, [b Is. viii. 20.] and the halo of His glory shone
    around the well-remembered prophecy. It must always have been
    Messianically understood; [c Is. lii. 13 liii.] it formed the
    groundwork of Messianic thought to the New Testament writers
    [d Comp. St. Matt. viii. 17; St. Luke xxii. 37; Acts viii.
    32; 1 Pet. ii. 22.] nor did the Synagogue read it otherwise,
    till the necessities of controversy diverted its application,
    not indeed from the times, but from the Person of the
    Messiah. [2 Manifestly, whatever interpretation is made of
    Is. iii. 13-liii., it applies to Messianic times, even if the
    sufferer were, as the Synagogue now contends, Israel. On the
    whole subject comp. the most learned and exhaustive
    discussions by Dr. Pusey in his introduction to the catena of
    Jewish Interpretations of Is. liii.] But we can understand
    how, during those forty days, this greatest height of
    Isaiah's conception of the Messiah was the one outstanding
    fact before his view. And what he believed, that he spake,
    when again, and unexpectedly, he saw Jesus.

     Yet, while regarding his words as an appeal to the prophecy
    of Isaiah, two other references must not be excluded from
    them: those to the Paschal Lamb, and to the Daily Sacrifice.
    These are, if not directly pointed to, yet implied. For the
    Paschal Lamb was, in a sense, the basis of all the sacrifices
    of the Old Testament, not only from its saving import to
    Israel, but as that which really made them 'the Church,' [3
    To those persons who deny to the people of God under the Old
    Testament the designation Church, we commend the use of that
    term by St. Stephen in Acts vii. 38.] and people of God.
    Hence the institution of the Paschal Lamb was, so to speak,
    only enlarged and applied in the daily sacrifice of a Lamb,
    in which this twofold idea of redemption and fellowship was
    exhibited. Lastly, the prophecy of Isaiah liii. was but the
    complete realisation of these two ideas in the Messiah.
    Neither could the Paschal Lamb, with its completion in the
    Daily Sacrifice, be properly viewed without this prophecy of
    Isaiah, nor yet that prophecy properly understood without its
    reference to its two great types. And here one Jewish comment
    in regard to the Daily Sacrifice (not previously pointed out)
    is the more significant, that it dates from the very time of
    Jesus. The passage reads almost like a Christian
    interpretation of sacrifice. It explains how the morning and
    evening sacrifices were intended to atone, the one for the
    sins of the night, the other for those of the day, so as ever
    to leave Israel guiltless before God; and it expressly
    ascribes to them the efficacy of a Paraclete, that being the
    word used. [a Pesiqta, ed. Buber, p. 61 b; comp. more fully
    in Yalkut p. 248 d.] Without further following this
    remarkable Rabbinic commentation, [b In i. p. 249 a.] which
    stretches back its view of sacrifices to the Paschal Lamb,
    and, beyond it, to that offering of Isaac by Abraham which,
    in the Rabbinic view, was the substratum of all sacrifices,
    we turn again to its teaching about the Lamb of the Daily
    Sacrifice. Here we have the express statement, that both the
    school of Shammai and that of Hillel, the latter more fully,
    insisted on the symbolic import of this sacrifice in regard
    to the forgiveness of sin. 'Kebhasim' (the Hebrew word for
    'lambs'), explained the school of Shammai, 'because,
    according to Micah vii. 19, they suppress [in the A.V.
    'subdue'] our iniquities (the Hebrew word Kabhash meaning he
    who suppresseth).' [1 This appears more clearly in the
    Hebrew, where both words ('lambs' and 'suppressors') are
    written exactly the same, . In Hillel's derivation it is
    identified with the root = .] Still more strong is the
    statement of the school of Hillel, to the effect that the
    sacrifical lambs were termed Kebhasim (from kabhas, 'to
    wash'), 'because they wash away the sins of Israel.' [c And
    this with special reference to Is. i. 18.] The quotationjust
    made gains additional interest from the circumstance, that it
    occurs in a 'meditation' (if such it may be called) for the
    new moon of the Passover-month (Nisan). In view of such clear
    testimony from the time of Christ, less positiveness of
    assertion might, not unreasonably, be expected from those who
    declare that the sacrifices bore no reference to the
    forgiveness of sins, just as, in the face of the application
    made by the Baptist and other New Testament writers, more
    exegetical modesty seems called for on the part of those who
    deny the Messianic references in Isaiah.

     If further proof were required that, when John pointed the
    bystanders to the Figure of Jesus walking towards them, with
    these words: 'Behold, the Lamb of God,' he meant more than
    His gentleness, meekness, and humility, it would be supplied
    by the qualifying explanation, 'Which taketh away the sin of
    the world.' We prefer rendering the expression 'taketh away'
    instead of 'beareth,' because it is in that sense that the
    LXX. uniformly use the Greek term. Of course, as we view it,
    the taking away presupposes the taking upon Himself of the
    sin of the world. But it is not necessary to suppose that the
    Baptist clearly understood that manner of His Saviourship,
    which only long afterwards, and reluctantly, came to the
    followers of the Lamb. [1 This meets the objection of Keim
    (i. 2, p.552), which proceeds on the assumption that the
    words of the Baptist imply that he knew not merely that, but
    how, Jesus would take away the sin of the world. But his
    words certainly do not oblige us to think, that he had the
    Cross in view. But, surely, it is a most strange idea of
    Godet, that at His Baptism Jesus, like all others, made
    confession of sins; that, as He had none of His own, He set
    before the Baptist the picture of the sin of Israel and of
    the world; and that this had led to the designation: 'The
    Lamb of God. Which taketh away the sin of the world.'] That
    he understood the application of His ministry to the whole
    world, is only what might have been expected of one taught by
    Isaiah; and what, indeed, in one or another form, the
    Synagogue has always believed of the Messiah. What was
    distinctive in the words of the Baptist, seems his view of
    sin as a totality, rather than sins: implying the removal of
    that great barrier between God and man, and the triump in
    that great contest indicated in Gen. iii. 15, which Israel
    after the flesh failed to perceive. Nor should we omit here
    to notice an undesigned evidence of the Hebraic origin of the
    fourth Gospel; for an Ephesian Gospel, dating from the close
    of the second century, would not have placed in its
    forefront, as the first public testimony of the Baptist (if,
    indeed, it would have introduced him at all), a quotation
    from Isaiah, still less a sacrificial reference.

     The motives which brought Jesus back to Bethabara must
    remain in the indefiniteness in which Scripture has left
    them. So far as we know, there was no personal interview
    between Jesus and the Baptist. Jesus had then and there
    nothing further to say to the Baptist; and yet on the day
    following that on which John had, in such manner, pointed Him
    out to the bystanders, He was still there, only returning to
    Galilee the next day. Here, at least, a definite object
    becomes apparent. This was not merely the calling of His
    first disciples, but the necessary Sabbath rest; for, in this
    instance, the narrative supplies the means of ascertaining
    the days of the week on which each event took place. We have
    only to assume, that the marriage in Cana of Galilee was that
    of a maiden, not a widow. The great festivities which
    accompanied it were unlikely, according to Jewish ideas, in
    the case of a widow; in fact, the whole mise en scene of the
    marriage renders this most improbable. Besides, if it had
    been the marriage of a widow, this (as will immediately
    appear) would imply that Jesus had returned from the
    wilderness on a Saturday, which, as being the Jewish Sabbath,
    could not have been the case. For uniform custom fixed the
    marriage of a maiden on Wednesdays, that of a widow on
    Thursday. [1 For the reasons of this, comp. 'Sketches of
    Jewish Social Life,' p. 151.] Counting backwards from the day
    of the marriage in Cana, we arrive at the following results.
    The interview between John and the Sanhedrin-deputation took
    place on a Thursday. 'The next day,' Friday, Jesus returned
    from the wilderness of the Temptation, and John bore his
    first testimony to 'the Lamb of God.' The following day, when
    Jesus appeared a second time in view, and when the first two
    disciples joined Him, was the Saturday, or Jewish Sabbath. It
    was, therefore, only the following day, or Sunday, [a St.
    John 1. 43.] that Jesus returned to Galilee, [2 This may be
    regarded as another of the undesigned evidences of the
    Hebraic origin of the fourth Gospel. Indeed, it might also be
    almost called an evidence of the truth of the whole
    narrative.] calling others by the way. 'And the third day'
    after it [b St. John ii. 1.] that is, on the Wednesday, was
    the marriage in Cana. [3 Yet Renan speaks of the first
    chapters of St. John's Gospel as scattered notices, without
    chronological order!]

     If we group around these days the recorded events of each,
    they almost seem to intensify in significance. The Friday of
    John's first pointing to Jesus as the Lamb of God, which
    taketh away the sin of the world, recalls that other Friday,
    when the full import of that testimony appeared. The Sabbath
    of John's last personal view and testimony to Christ is
    symbolic in its retrospect upon the old economy. It seems to
    close the ministry of John, and to open that of Jesus; it is
    the leave-taking of the nearest disciples of John from the
    old, their search after the new. And then on the first
    Sunday, the beginning of Christ's active ministry, the call
    of the first disciples, the first preaching of Jesus.

     As we picture it to ourselves: in the early morning of that
    Sabbath John stood, with the two of his disciples who most
    shared his thoughts and feelings. One of them we know to have
    been Andrew (v. 40); the other, unnamed one, could have been
    no other than John himself, the beloved disciple. [4 This
    reticence seems another undesigned evidence of Johannine
    authorship.] They had heard what their teacher had, on
    theprevious day, said of Jesus. But then He seemed to them
    but as a passing Figure. To hear more of Him, as well as in
    deepest sympathy, these two had gathered to their Teacher on
    that Sabbath morning, while the other disciples of John were
    probably engaged with that, and with those, which formed the
    surroundings of an ordinary Jewish Sabbath. [5 The Greek has
    it: 'John was standing, and from among his disciples two.']
    And now that Figure once more appeared in view. None with the
    Baptist but these two. He is not teaching now, but learning,
    as the intensity and penetration of his gaze [1 The word
    implies earnest, penetrating gaze.] calls from him the now
    worshipful repetition of what, on the previous day, he had
    explained and enforced. There was no leave-taking on the part
    of these two perhaps they meant not to leave John. Only an
    irresistible impulse, a heavenly instinct, bade them follow
    His steps. It needed no direction of John, no call from
    Jesus. But as they went in modest silence, in the dawn of
    their rising faith, scarce conscious of the what and the why,
    He turned Him. It was not because He discerned it not, but
    just because He knew the real goal of their yet unconscious
    search, and would bring them to know what they sought, that
    He put to them the question, 'What seek ye?' which elicited a
    reply so simple, so real, as to carry its own evidence. He is
    still to them the Rabbi, the most honoured title they can
    find, yet marking still the strictly Jewish view, as well as
    their own standpoint of 'What seek ye?' They wish, yet
    scarcely dare, to say what was their object, and only put it
    in a form most modest, suggestive rather than expressive.
    There is strict correspondence to their view in the words of
    Jesus. Their very Hebraism of 'Rabbi' is met by the equally
    Hebraic 'Come and see;' [2 The precise date of the origin of
    this designation is not quite clear. We find it in threefold
    development: Rab, Rabbi, and Rabban, 'amplitudo,' 'amplitudo
    mea,' 'amplitudo nostra,' which mark successive stages. As
    the last of these titles was borne by the grandson of Hillel
    (A.D. 30-50), it is only reasonable to suppose that the two
    preceding ones were current a generation and more before
    that. Again, we have to distinguish the original and earlier
    use of the title when it only applied to teachers, and the
    later usage when, like the word 'Doctor,' it was given
    indiscriminately to men of supposed learning. When Jesus is
    so addressed it is in the sense of 'my Teacher.' Nor can
    there be any reasonable doubt, that thus it was generally
    current in and before the time noted in the Gospels. A still
    higher title than any of these three seems to have been
    Beribbi, or Berabbi, by which Rabban Gamaliel is designated
    in Shabb. 115 a. It literally means 'belonging to the house
    of a Rabbi,' as we would say, a Rabbi of Rabbis. On the other
    hand, the expression 'Come and see' is among the most common
    Rabbinic formulas, although generally connected with the
    acquisition of special and important information.] their
    unspoken, but half-conscious longing by what the invitation
    implied (according to the most probable reading, 'Come and ye
    shall see' [3 Comp. Canon Westcott's note.]).

     It was but early morning, ten o'clock. [4 The common
    supposition is, that the time must be computed according to
    the Jewish method, in which case the tenth hour would
    represent 4 P.M. But remembering that the Jewish day ended
    with sunset, it could, in that case, have been scarcely
    marked, that 'they abode with Him that day.' The correct
    interpretation would therefore point in this, as in the other
    passages of St. John, to the Asiatic numeration of hours,
    corresponding to our own. Comp. J. B. McLellan's New
    Testament, pp. 740-742.] What passed on that long Sabbath-day
    we know not save from what happened in its course. From it
    issued the two, not learners now but teachers, bearing what
    they had found to those nearest and dearest. The form of the
    narrative and its very words convey, that the two had gone,
    each to search for his brother, Andrew for Simon Peter, and
    John for James, though here already, at the outset of this
    history, the haste of energy characteristic of the sons of
    Jona outdistanced the more quiet intenseness of John: [a v.
    41.] 'He (Andrew) first findeth his own brother.' [1 This
    appears from the word 'first,' used as an adjective here, v.
    41 (although the reading is doubtful), and from the implied
    reference to some one else later on.] But Andrew and John
    equally brought the same announcement, still markedly Hebraic
    in its form, yet filled with the new wine, not only of
    conviction, but of joyous apprehension: 'We have found the
    Messias.' [2 On the reading of the Aramaic Meshicha by
    Messias, see Delitzsch in the Luther. Zeitschr. for 1876, p.
    603 Of course, both Messias and Christ mean 'the Anointed.']
    This, then, was the outcome of them of that day, He was the
    Messiah; and this the goal which their longing had reached,
    'We have found Him.' Quite beyond what they had heard from
    the Baptist; nay, what only personal contact with Jesus can
    carry to any heart.

     And still this day of first marvellous discovery had not
    closed. It almost seems, as if this 'Come and see' call of
    Jesus were emblematic, not merely of all that followed in His
    own ministry, but of the manner in which to all time the
    'What seek ye?' of the soul is answered. It could scarcely
    have been but that Andrew had told Jesus of his brother, and
    even asked leave to bring him. The searching, penetrating
    glance [3 The same word as that used in regard to the Baptist
    looking upon Jesus.] of the Saviour now read in Peter's
    inmost character his future call and work: 'Thou art Simon,
    the son of John [4 So according to the best text, and not
    Jona.], thou shalt be called [5 'Hereafter thou shalt win the
    name.' Westcott.] Cephas, which is interpreted (Grecianised)
    Peter.' [6 So in the Greek, of which the English
    interpretation is 'a stone', Keyph, or Keypha, 'a rock.']

     It must not, of course, be supposed that this represents all
    that had passed between Jesus and Peter, any more than that
    the recorded expression was all that Andrew and John had said
    of Jesus to their brothers. Of the interview between John and
    James his brother, the writer, with his usual self-reticence,
    forbears to speak. But we know its result; and, knowing it,
    can form some conception of what passed on that holy evening
    between the new-found Messiah and His first four disciples:
    of teaching manifestation on His part, and of satisfied
    heart-peace on theirs. As yet they were only followers,
    learners, not yet called to be Apostles, with all of entire
    renunciation of home, family, and other calling which this
    implied. This, in the course of proper development, remained
    for quite another period. Alike their knowledge and their
    faith for the present needed, and could only bear, the call
    to personal attachment. [1 The evidence for the great
    historic difference between this call to personal attachment,
    and that to the Apostolate, is shown, I should think beyond
    the power of cavil, by Godet, and especially by Canon
    Westcott. To these and other commentators the reader must be
    referred on this and many points, which it would be out of
    place to discuss at length in this book.]

     It was Sunday morning, the first of Christ's Mission-work,
    the first of His Preaching. He was purposing to return to
    Galilee. It was fitting He should do so: for the sake of His
    new disciples; for what He was to do in Galilee; for His own
    sake. The first Jerusalem-visit must be prepared for by them
    all; and He would not go there till the right time, for the
    Paschal Feast. It was probably a distance of about twenty
    miles from Bethabara to Cana. By the way, two other disciples
    were to be gained, this time not brought, but called, where,
    and in what precise circumstances, we know not. But the
    notice that Philip was a fellow-townsman of Andrew and Peter,
    seems to imply some instrumentality on their part. Similarly,
    we gather that, afterwards, Philip was somewhat in advance of
    the rest, when he found his acquaintance Nathanael, and
    engaged in conversation with him just as Jesus and the others
    came up. But here also we mark, as another characteristic
    trait of John, that he, and his brother with him, seem to
    have clung close to the Person of Christ, just as did Mary
    afterwards in the house of her brother. It was this intense
    exclusiveness of fellowship with Jesus which traced on his
    mind that fullest picture of the God-Man, which his narrative
    reflects.

     The call to Philip from the lips of the Saviour met, we know
    not under what circumstances, immediate responsive obedience.
    Yet, though no special obstacles had to be overcome, and
    hence no special narrative was called for, it must have
    implied much of learning, to judge from what he did, and from
    what he said to Nathanael. There is something special about
    Nathanael's conquest by Christ, rather implied, perhaps, than
    expressed, and of which the Lord's words gives significant
    hints. They seem to point to what had passed in his mind just
    before Philip found him. Alike the expression 'an Israelite
    in truth, in whom is no guile' [a v. 47.], looking back on
    what changed the name of Jacob into Israel, and the evident
    reference to the full realisation of Jacob's vision in
    Bethel, [a v. 51.] may be an indication that this very vision
    had engaged his thoughts. As the Synagogue understood the
    narrative, its application to the then state of Israel and
    the Messianic hope would most readily suggest itself. Putting
    aside all extravagances, the Synagogue thought, in connection
    with it, of the rising power of the Gentiles, but concluded
    with the precious comfort of the assurance, in Jer. xxx. 11,
    of Israel's final restoration. [b Tanchuma on the passage,
    ed. Warsh. p. 38 a, b.] Nathanael (Theodore, 'the gift of
    God,') had, as we often read of Rabbis, [1 Corroborative and
    illustrative passages are here too numerous, perhaps also not
    sufficiently important, to be quoted in detail.] rested for
    prayer, meditation, or study, in the shadow of that
    wide-spreading tree so common in Palestine, the fig-tree. [2
    Ewald imagines that this 'fig-tree' had been in the garden of
    Nathanael's house at Cana, and Archdeacon Watkins seems to
    adopt this view, but, as it seems to me, without historical
    ground.] The approaching Passover-season, perhaps mingling
    with thoughts of John's announcement by the banks of Jordan,
    would naturally suggest the great deliverance of Israel in
    'the age to come;' [c So in Tan chuma.] all the more,
    perhaps, from the painful contrast in the present. Such a
    verse as that with which, in a well-known Rabbinic work, [d
    Pesiqta.] the meditation for the New Moon of Nisan, the
    Passover month, closes: 'Happy is he that hath the God of
    Jacob for his help,' [e Ps. cxlvi 5; Pesiqta, ed. Buber, p.
    62 a.] would recur, and so lead back the mind to the
    suggestive symbol of Jacob's vision, and its realisation in
    'the age to come.' [f Tanchuma,u. s.]

     There are, of course, only suppositions; but it might well
    be that Philip had found him while still busy with such
    thoughts. Possibly their outcome, and that quite in
    accordance with Jewish belief at the time, may have been,
    that all that was needed to bring that happy 'age to come'
    was, that Jacob should become Israel in truth. In such case
    he would himself have been ripening for 'the Kingdom' that
    was at hand. It must have seemed a startling answer to his
    thoughts, this announcement, made wth the freshness of new
    and joyous conviction: 'We have found Him of Whom Moses in
    the Law, and the Prophets, did write.' But this addition
    about the Man of Nazareth, the Son of Joseph, [3 This, as it
    would seem, needless addition (if the narrative were
    fictitious) is of the highest evidential value. In an
    Ephesian Gospel of the end of the second century it would
    have been well-nigh impossible.] would appear a terrible
    anti-climax. It was so different from anything that he had
    associated either with the great hope of Israel, or with the
    Nazareth of his own neighbourhood, that his exclamation,
    without implying any special imputation on the little town
    which he knew so well, seems not only natural, but,
    psychologically, deeply true. There was but one answer to
    this, that which Philip made, which Jesus had made to Andrew
    and John, and which has ever since been the best answer to
    all Christian inquiry: 'Come and see.' And, despite the
    disappointment, there must have been such moving power in the
    answer which Philip's sudden announcement had given to his
    unspoken thoughts, that he went with him. And now, as ever,
    when in such spirit we come, evidences irrefragable
    multiplied at every step. As he neared Jesus, he heard Him
    speak to the disciples words concerning him, which recalled,
    truly and actually, what had passed in his soul. But could it
    really be so, that Jesus knew it all? The question, intended
    to elicit it, brought such proof that he could not but burst
    into the immediate and full acknowledgment: 'Thou art the Son
    of God,' Who hast read my inmost being; 'Thou art the King of
    Israel,' Who dost meet its longing and hope. And is it not
    ever so, that the faith of the heart springs to the lips, as
    did the water from the riven rock at the touch of the
    God-gifted rod? It needs not long course of argumentation,
    nor intricate chain of evidences, welded link to link, when
    the secret thoughts of the heart are laid bare, and its
    inmost longings met. Then, as in a moment, it is day, and
    joyous voice of song greets its birth.

     And yet that painful path of slower learning to enduring
    conviction must still be trodden, whether in the sufferings
    of the heart, or the struggle of the mind. This it is which
    seems implied in the half-sad question of the Master, [a v.
    50 comp. the words to Peter in St. John xiii. 36-38; and to
    the disciples, St. John xvi. 31, 32.] yet with full view of
    the final triumph ('thou shalt see greater things than
    these'), and of the true realisation in it of that glorious
    symbol of Jacob's vision. [b v. 51.]

     And so Nathanael, 'the God-given', or, as we know him in
    after-history, Bartholomew, 'the son of Telamyon' [1 So, at
    least, most probably. Comp. St. John xxi. 2, and the various
    commentaries.] was added to the disciples. Such was on that
    first Sunday the small beginning of the great Church
    Catholic; these the tiny springs that swelled into the mighty
    river which, in its course, has enriched and fertilised the
    barrenness of the far-off lands of the Gentiles.

 THE ASCENT: FROM THE RIVER JORDAN TO THE MOUNT OF
    TRANSFIGURATION

    THE MARRIAGE FEAST IN CANA OF GALILEE, THE MIRACLE THAT IS
    'A SIGN.'

    CHAPTER IV

     (St. John ii. 1-12.)

     At the close of His Discourse to Nathanael, His first
    sermon, Jesus had made use of an expression which received
    its symbolic fulfilment in His first deed. His first
    testimony about Himself had been to call Himself the 'Son of
    Man.' [a St. John i 51.] [1 For a full discussion of that
    most important and significant appellation 'Son of Man,'
    comp. Lucke, u. s. pp. 459-466; Godet (German transl.) pp.
    104-108; and especially Westcott, pp. 33-35. The main point
    is here first to ascertain the Old Testament import of the
    title, and then to view it as present to later Jewish
    thinking in the Pseudepigraphic writings (Book of Enoch).
    Finally, its full realisation must be studied in the
    Gospel-history.] We cannot but feel that this bore reference
    to the confession of Nathanael: 'Thou art the Son of God;
    Thou art the King of Israel.' It is, as if He would have
    turned the disciples from thoughts of His being the Son of
    God and King of Israel to the voluntary humiliation of His
    Humanity, as being the necessary basis of His work, without
    knowledge of which that of His Divinity would have been a
    barren, speculative abstraction, and that of His Kingship a
    Jewish fleshly dream. But it was not only knowledge of His
    humiliation in His Humanity. For, as in the history of the
    Christ humiliation and glory are always connected, the one
    enwrapped in the other as the flower in the bud, so here also
    His humiliation as the Son of Man is the exaltation of
    humanity, the realisation of its ideal destiny as created in
    the likeness of God. It should never be forgotton, that such
    teaching of His exaltation and Kingship through humiliation
    and representation of humanity was needful. It was the
    teaching which was the outcome of the Temptation and of its
    victory, the very teaching of the whole Evangelic history.
    Any other real learning of Christ would, as we see it, have
    been impossible to the disciples, alike mentally, as regards
    foundation and progression, and spiritually. A Christ: God,
    King, and not primarily 'the Son of Man,' would not have been
    the Christ of Prophecy, nor the Christ of Humanity, nor the
    Christ of salvation, nor yet the Christ of sympathy, help,
    and example. A Christ, God and King, Who had suddenly risen
    like the fierce Eastern sun in midday brightness, would have
    blinded by his dazzling rays (as it did Saul on the way to
    Damascus), not risen 'with kindly light' to chase away
    darkness and mists, and with genial growing warmth to woo
    life and beauty into our barren world. And so, as 'it became
    Him,' for the carrying out of the work, 'to make the Captain
    of Salvation perfect through sufferings,' [a Hebr. ii. 10.]
    so it was needful for them that He should veil, even from
    their view who followed Him, the glory of His Divinity and
    the power of His Kingship, till they had learned all that the
    designation 'Son of Man' implied, as placed below 'Son of
    God' and 'King of Israel.

     This idea of the 'Son of Man,' although in its full and
    prophetic meaning, seems to furnish the explanation of the
    miracle at the marriage of Cana. We are now entering on the
    Ministry of 'The Son of Man,' first and chiefly in its
    contrast to the preparatory call of the Baptist, with the
    asceticism symbolic of it. We behold Him now as freely
    mingling with humanity, sharing its joys and engagements,
    entering into its family life, sanctioning and hallowing all
    by His Presents and blessing; then as transforming the 'water
    of legal purification' into the wine of the new dispensation,
    and, more than this, the water of our felt want into the wine
    of His giving; and, lastly, as having absolute power as the
    'Son of Man,' being also 'the Son of God' and 'the King of
    Israel.' Not that it is intended to convey, that it was the
    primary purpose of the miracle of Cana to exhibit the
    contrast between His own Ministry and the asceticism of the
    Baptist, although greater could scarcely be imagined than
    between the wilderness and the supply of wine at the
    marriage-feast. Rather, since this essential difference
    really existed, it naturally appeared at the very
    commencement of Christ's Ministry. [1 We may, however, here
    again notice that, if this narrative had been fictitious, it
    would seem most clumsily put together. To introduce the
    Forerunner with fasting, and as an ascetic, and Him to Whom
    he pointed with a marriage-feast, is an incongruity which no
    writer of a legend would have perpetrated. But the writer of
    the fourth Gospel does not seem conscious of any incongruity,
    and this because he has no ideal story nor characters to
    introduce. In this sense it may be said, that the
    introduction of the story of the marriage-feast of Cana is in
    itself the best proof of its truthfulness, and of the miracle
    which it records.] And so in regard to the other meaning,
    also, which this history carries to our minds.

     At the same time it must be borne in mind, that marriage
    conveyed to the Jews much higher thoughts than merely those
    of festivity and merriment. The pious fasted before it,
    confessing their sins. It was regarded almost as a Sacrament.
    Entrance into the married state was thought to carry the
    forgiveness of sins. [a Yalkut on 1 Sam. xiii. 1 vol ii. p.
    16 d.] [1 The Biblical proofs adduced for attaching this
    benefit to a sage, a bridegroom, and a prince on entering on
    their new state, are certainly peculiar. In the case of a
    bridegroom it is based on the name of Esau's bride, Machalath
    (Gen. xxviii. 9), a name which is derived from the Rabbinic
    'Machal,' to forgive. In Jer. Biccur. iii. p. 65 d, where
    this is also related, it is pointed out that the original
    name of Esau's wife had been Basemath (Gen. xxxvi. 3), the
    name Machalath, therefore, having been given when Esau
    married.] It almost seems as if the relationship of Husband
    and Bride between Jehovah and His people, so frequently
    insisted upon, not only in the Bible, but in Rabbinic
    writings, had always been standing out in the background.
    Thus the bridal pair on the marriage-day symbolised the union
    of God with Israel. [2 In Yalcut on Is. lxi. 10 (vol. ii. p.
    57 d Israel is said to have been ten times called in
    Scripture 'bride' (six times in Canticles, three times in
    Isaiah, and once in Jeremiah). Attention is also called to
    the 'ten garments' with which successively the Holy One
    arrayed Himself; to the symbolic priestly dignity of the
    bridegroom, &c.] Hence, though it may in part have been
    national pride, which considered the birth of every Israelite
    as almost outweighing the rest of the world, it scarcely
    wholly accounts for the ardent insistance on marriage, from
    the first prayer at the circumcision of a child, onwards
    through the many and varied admonitions to the same effect.
    Similarly, it may have been the deep feeling of brotherhood
    in Israel, leading to sympathy with all that most touched the
    heart, which invested with such sacredness participation in
    the gladness of marriage, [3 Everything, even a funeral, had
    to give way to a marriage-procession. or the sadness of
    burial. To use the bold allegory of the times, God Himself
    had spoken the words of blessing over the cup at the union of
    our first parents, when Michael and Gabriel acted as
    groomsmen, [b Ber. R. 8.] and the Angelic choir sang the
    wedding hymn. [c Ab. deR. Nath. iv.] So also He had shown the
    example of visiting the sick (in the case of Abraham),
    comforting the mourners (in that of Isaac), and burying the
    dead (in that of Moses). [d Sot. 14 a.] Every man who met it,
    was bound to rise and join the marriage procession, or the
    funeral march. It was specially related of King Agrippa that
    he had done this, and a curious Haggadah sets forth that,
    when Jezebel was eaten of dogs, her hands and feet were
    spared, [e 2 Kings. ix. 35.] because, amidst all her
    wickedness, she had been wont to greet every
    marriage-procession by clapping of hands, and to accompany
    the mourners a certain distance on their way to the burying.
    [f Yalkut on 2 Kings ix 35, vol. ii. p. 36 a and b.] And so
    we also read it, that, in the burying of the widow's son of
    Nain, 'much people of the city was with her.' [g St. Luke
    vii. 12.]

     In such circumstances, we would naturally expect that all
    connected with marriage was planned with care, so as to bear
    the impress of sanctity, and also to wear the aspect of
    gladness. [4 For details I must refer to the Encyclopaedias,
    to the article in Cassell's 'Bible Educator,' and to the
    corresponding chapters in 'Sketches of Jewish Social Life.']
    A special formality, that of 'betrothal' (Erusin Qiddushin),
    preceded the actual marriage by a period varying in length,
    but not exceeding a twelvemonth in the case of a maiden. [1
    Pesiq. R. 15 applies the first clause of Prov. xiii. 12 to a
    long engagement, the second to a short one.] At the
    betrothal, the bridegroom, personally or by deputy, handed to
    the bride a piece of money or a letter, it being expressly
    stated in each case that the man thereby espoused the woman.
    From the moment of betrothal both parties were regarded, and
    treated in law (as to inheritance, adultery, need of formal
    divorce), as if they had been actually married, except as
    regarded their living together. A legal document (the Shitre
    Erusin) fixed the dowry which each brought, the mutual
    obligations, and all other legal points. [2 The reader who is
    curious to see these and other legal documents in extenso, is
    referred to Dr. Sammter's ed. of the tractate Baba Metsia
    (notes at the end, fol. pp. 144-148).] Generally a festive
    meal closed the ceremony of betrothal, but not in Galilee,
    where, habits being more simple and pure, that which
    sometimes ended in sin was avoided.

     On the evening of the actual marriage (Nissuin, Chathnuth),
    the bride was led from her paternal home to that of her
    husband. First came the merry sounds of music; then they who
    distributed among the people wine and oil, and nuts among the
    children; next the bride, covered with the bridal veil, her
    long hair flowing, surrounded by her companions, and led by
    'the friends of the bridegroom,' and 'the children of the
    bride-chamber.' All around were in festive array; some
    carried torches, or lamps on poles; those nearest had
    myrtle-branches and chaplets of flowers. Every one rose to
    salute the procession, or join it; and it was deemed almost a
    religious duty to break into praise of the beauty, the
    modesty, or the virtues of the bride. Arrived at her new
    home, she was led to her husband. Some such formula as 'Take
    her according to the Law of Moses and of Israel,' [a Jer.
    Yeb. Md.] would be spoken, and the bride and bridegroom
    crownedwith garlands. [3 Some of these joyous demonstrations,
    such as the wearing of crowns, and even the bridal music,
    were for a time prohibited after the destruction of
    Jerusalem, in token of national mourning (Sot. ix. 14). On
    these crowns comp. Wagenseil, Sota, pp. 965-967.] Then a
    formal legal instrument, called the Kethubah, was signed, [b
    Comp. Tob. vii. 14.] which set forth that the bridegroom
    undertook to work for her, to honour, keep, and care for her,
    [4 I quote the very words of the formula, which, it will be
    noticed, closely agree with those in our own Marriage
    Service.] as is the manner of the men of Israel; that he
    promised to give his maiden-wife at least two hundred Zuz [5
    If the Zuz be reckoned at 7d., about 5l. 16s. 8d.] (or more
    it might be), [6 This, of course, represents only the
    minimum. In the case of a priest's daughter the ordinary
    legal minimum was doubled.] and to increase her own dowry
    (which, in the case of a poor orphan, the authorities
    supplied) by at least one half, and that he also undertook to
    lay it out for her to the best advantage, all his own
    possessions being guarantee for it. [1 The Talmud (Tos.
    Kethub.) here puts the not inapt question, 'How if the
    bridegroom has no goods and chattels?' but ultimately
    comforts itself with the thought that every man has some
    property, if it were only the six feet of ground in which he
    is to be buried.] Then, after the prescribed washing of hands
    and benediction, the marriage-supper began, the cup being
    filled, and the solemn prayer of bridal benediction spoken
    over it. And so the feast lasted, it might be more than one
    day, while each sought to contribute, sometimes coarsely, [2
    Not a few such instances of riotous merriment, and even
    dubious jokes, on the part of the greatest Rabbis are
    mentioned, to check which some were wont to adopt the curious
    device of breaking valuable vases, &c.] sometimes wisely, to
    the general enjoyment, [a Comp. Ber. 6 b.] till at last 'the
    friends of the bridegroom' led the bridal pair to the Cheder
    and the Chuppah, or the bridal chamber and bed. Here it ought
    to be specially noticed, as a striking evidence that the
    writer of the fourth Gospel was not only a Hebrew, but
    intimately acquainted with the varying customs prevailing in
    Galilee and in Judaea, that at the marriage of Cana no
    'friend of the bridegroom,' or 'groomsman' (Shoshebheyna), is
    mentioned, while he is referred to in St. John iii. 29, where
    the words are spoken outside the boundaries of Galilee. For
    among the simpler and purer Galileans the practice of having
    'friends of the bridegroom,' which must so often have led to
    gross impropriety, [b Comp. Kethub. 12 a; Jer. Kethub, i. p.
    25 a.] did not obtain, [3 This, and the other great
    differences in favour of morality and decency which
    distinguished the customs of Galilee from those of the rest
    of Palestine, are enumerated in Jer. Kethub. i. 1, p. 25 a,
    about the middle.] though all the invited guests bore the
    general name of 'children of the bridechamber' (bene
    Chuppah). [c Comp. St. Matt. ix. 15.]

     It was the marriage in Cana of Galilee. All connected with
    the account of it is strictly Jewish, the feast, the guests,
    the invitation of the stranger Rabbi, and its acceptance by
    Jesus. Any Jewish Rabbi would have gone, but how differently
    from Him would he have spoken and acted! Let us first think
    of the scenic details of the narrative. Strangely, we are not
    able to fix with certainty the site of the little town of
    Cana. [4 Two such sites have been proposed, that by Dr.
    Robinson being very unlikely to represent the ancient 'Cana
    of Galilee.'.] But if we adopt the most probable
    indentification of it with the modern pleasant village of
    Kefr Kenna, [5 Comp. the memoir on the subject by Zeller in
    the Quarterly Report of the Palestine Explor. Fund (for 1869,
    No. iii., and for April 1878, by Mr. Hepworth Dixon); and
    Lieut. Conder, Tent-Work in Palestine, vol. i. pp. 150-155.
    Zeller makes it five miles from Nazareth, Conder only three
    and three-quarters.] a few miles north-east of Nazareth, on
    the road to the Lake of Galilee, we picture it to ourselves
    as on the slope of a hill, its houses rising terrace upon
    terrace, looking north and west over a large plain (that of
    Battauf), and south upon a valley, beyond which the hills
    rise that separate it from Mount Tabor and the plain of
    Jezreel. As we approach the little town through that smiling
    valley, we come upon a fountain of excellent water, around
    which the village gardens and orchards clustered, that
    produced in great abundance the best pomegranates in
    Palestine. Here was the home of Nathanael-Bartholomew, and it
    seems not unlikely, that with him Jesus had passed the time
    intervening between His arrival and 'the marriage,' to which
    His Mother had come, the omission of all mention of Joseph
    leading to the supposition, that he had died before that
    time. The inquiry, what had brought Jesus to Cana, seems
    almost worse than idle, remembering what had passed between
    Him and Nathanael, and what was to happen in the first
    'sign,' which was to manifest His glory. It is needless to
    speculate, whether He had known beforehand of 'the marriage.'
    But we can understand the longing of the 'Israelite indeed'
    to have Him under his roof, though we can only imagine what
    the Heavenly Guest, would now teach him, and those others who
    accompanied Him. Nor is there any difficulty in
    understanding, that on His arrival He would hear of this
    'marriage,' of the presence of His Mother in what seems to
    have been the house of a friend if not a relative; that Jesus
    and His disciples would be bidden to the feast; and that He
    resolved not only to comply with the request) but to use it
    as a leave-taking from home and friends, similar, though also
    far other, than that of Elisha, when he entered on his
    mission. Yet it seems deeply significant, that the 'true
    Israelite' should have been honoured to be the first host of
    'Israel's King.'

     And truly a leave-taking it was for Christ from former
    friends and home, a leave-taking also from His past life. If
    one part of the narrative, that of His dealing with His
    Mother, has any special meaning, it is that of leave-taking,
    or rather of leaving home and family, just as with this first
    'sign' He took leave of all the past. When he had returned
    from His first Temple-visit, it had been in the
    self-exinanition of voluntary humility: to 'be subject to His
    Parents' That period was now ended, and a new one had begun,
    that of active consecration of the whole life to His
    'Father's business.' And what passed at the marriage-feast
    marks the beginning of this period. We stand on the
    threshold, over which we pass from the old to the new, to use
    a New Testament figure: to the marriage-supper of the Lamb.

     Viewed in this light, what passed at the marriage in Cana
    seems like taking up the thread, where it had been dropped at
    the first manifestation of His Messianic consciousness. In
    the Temple at Jerusalem He had said in answer to the
    misapprehensive question of His Mother: 'Wist ye not that I
    must be about My Father's business?' and now when about to
    take in hand that 'business,' He tells her so again, and
    decisively, in reply to her misapprehensive suggestion. It is
    a truth which we must ever learn, and yet are ever slow to
    learn in our questionings and suggestings, alike as concerns
    His dealings with ourselves and His rule of His Church, that
    the highest and only true point of view is 'the Father's
    business,' not our personal relationship to Christ. This
    thread, then, is taken up again at Cana in the circle of
    friends, as immediately afterwards in His public
    manifestation, in the purifying of the Temple. What He had
    first uttered as a Child, on His first visit to the Temple,
    that He manifested forth when a Man, entering on His active
    work, negatively, in His reply to His Mother; positively, in
    the 'sign' He wrought. It all meant: 'Wist ye not that I must
    be about My Father's business?' And, positively and
    negatively, His first appearance in Jerusalem [a St. John ii.
    13-17, and vv. 18-23.] meant just the same. For, there is
    ever deepest unity and harmony in that truest Life, the Life
    of Life.

     As we pass through the court of that house in Cana, and
    reach the covered gallery which opens on the various rooms,
    in this instance, particularly, on the great reception room,
    all is festively adorned. In the gallery the servants move
    about, and there the 'water-pots' are ranged, 'after the
    manner of the Jews,' for purification, for the washing not
    only of hands before and after eating, but also of the
    vessels used. [b Comp. St. Mark vii. 1-4.] How detailed
    Rabbinic ordinances were in these respects, will be shown in
    another connection. 'Purification' was one of the main points
    in Rabbinic sanctity. By far the largest and most elaborate
    [1 The whole Mishnah is divided into six Sedarim (Orders), of
    which the last is the Seder Tohoroth, treating of
    'purifications.' It consists of twelve tractates
    (Massikhtoth), 126 chapters (Peraqim), and contains no fewer
    than 1001 separate Mishnayoth (the next largest Seder,
    Neziqin, contains 689 Mishnayoth). The first tractate in this
    'Order of Purifications' treats of the purification of
    vessels (Kelim), and contains no fewer than thirty chapters;
    'Yadayim' ('hands') is the eleventh tractate, and contains
    four chapters.] of the six books into which the Mishnah is
    divided, is exclusively devoted to this subject (the 'Seder
    Tohoroth,' purifications). Not to speak of references in
    other parts of the Talmud, we have two special tractates to
    instruct us about the purification of 'Hands' (Yadayim) and
    of 'Vessels' (Kelim). The latter is the most elaborate in all
    the Mishnah, and consists of not less than thirty chapters.
    Their perusal proves, alike the strict accuracy of the
    Evangelic narratives, and the justice of Christ's
    denunciations of the unreality and gross hypocrisy of this
    elaborateness of ordinances. [1 Comp. St. Mark vii. 2-5; St.
    Matt. xxiii. 25, 26; St. Luke xi. 38, 39.] This the more so,
    when we recall that it was actually vaunted as a special
    qualification for a seat in the Sanhedrin, to be so acute and
    learned as to know how to prove clean creeping things (which
    were declared unclean by the Law). [a Sanh. 17 a.] And the
    mass of the people would have regarded neglect of the
    ordinances of purification as betokening either gross
    ignorance, or daring impiety.

     At any rate, such would not be exhibited on an occasion like
    the present; and outside the reception-room, as St. John with
    graphic minuteness of details relates, six of those stone
    pots, which we know from Rabbinic writings, [2 These
    'stone-vessels' (Keley Abhanim) are often spoken of (for
    example, Chel. x. 1). In Yaday. i. 2 they are expressly
    mentioned for the purification of the hands.] were ranged.
    Here it may be well to add, as against objectors, that it is
    impossible to state with certainty the exact measure
    represented by the 'two or three firkins apiece.' For,
    although we know that the term metretes (A.V. 'firkin') was
    intended as an equivalent for the Hebrew 'bath,' [b Jos. Ant.
    viii. 2. 9.] yet three different kinds of 'bath were at the
    time used in Palestine: the common Palestinian or
    'wilderness' bath, that of Jerusalem, and that of Sepphoris.
    [3 For further details we refer to the excursus on
    Palestinian money, weights, and measures, in Herzfeld's
    Handelsgesch. d. Juden, pp. 171-185.] The common Palestinian
    'bath' was equal to the Roman amphora, containing about 5 1/4
    gallons, while the Sepphoris 'bath' corresponded to the Attic
    metretes, and would contain about 8 1/2 gallons. In the
    former case, therefore, each of these pots might have held
    from 10 1/2 to 15 3/4 gallons; in the latter, from 17 to 25
    1/2. Reasoning on the general ground that the so-called
    Sepphoris measurement was common in Galilee, the larger
    quantity seems the more likely, though by no means certain.
    It is almost like trifling on the threshold of such a
    history, and yet so many cavils have been raised, that we
    must here remind ourselves, that neither the size, nor the
    number of these vessels has anything extraordinary about it.
    For such an occasion the family would produce or borrow the
    largest and handsomest stone-vessels that could be procured;
    nor is it necessary to suppose that they were filled to the
    brim; nor should we forget that, from a Talmudic notice, [c
    Shabb. 77 b. So Lightfoot in loc.] it seems to have been the
    practiceto set apart some of these vessels exclusively for
    the use of the bride and of the more distinguished guests,
    while the rest were used by the general company.

     Entering the spacious, lofty dining-room, [4 The Teraqlin,
    from which the otherside-rooms opened (Jer. Rosh haSh. 59 b;
    Yoma 15 b). From Baba B. vi. 4 we learn, that such an
    apartment was at least 15 feet square and 15 feet high.
    Height of ceiling was characteristic of Palestinian houses.
    It was always half the breadth and length put together. Thus,
    in a small house consisting of one room: length, 12 feet,
    breadth, 9 feet, the height would be 10 1/2 feet. In a large
    house: length, 15 feet, breadth, 12 feet, the height would be
    13 1/2 feet. From Jer. Kethub. p. 28 d we learn, that the
    bride was considered as actually married the moment she had
    entered the Teraqlin, before she had actually gone to the
    Chuppah.] which would be brilliantly lighted with lamps and
    candlesticks, the guests are disposed round tables on
    couches, soft with cushions or covered with tapestry, or
    seated on chairs. The bridal blessing has been spoken, and
    the bridal cup emptied. The feast is proceeding, not the
    common meal, which was generally taken about even, according
    to the Rabbinic saying, [a Pas. 18 b.] that he who postponed
    it beyond that hour was as if he swallowed a stone, but a
    festive evening meal. If there had been disposition to those
    exhibitions of, or incitement to, indecorous and light
    merriment, [1 Thus it was customary, and deemed meritorious,
    to sing and perform a kind of play with myrtle branches (Jer.
    Peah 15 d); although one Rabbi was visited with sudden death
    for excess in this respect.] such as even the more earnest
    Rabbis deprecated, surely the presence of Jesus would have
    restrained it. And now there must have been a painful pause,
    or something like it, when the Mother of Jesus whispered to
    Him that 'the wine failed.' [2 St. John ii. 3, A.V.: 'when
    they wanted wine.'] There could, perhaps, be the less cause
    for reticence on this point towards her Son, not merely
    because this failure may have arisen from the accession of
    guests in the persons of Jesus and his disciples, for whom no
    provision had been originally made, but because the gift of
    wine or oil on such occasions was regarded a meritorious work
    of charity. [b Baba B ix.]

     But all this still leaves the main incidents in the
    narrative untouched. How are we to understand the implied
    request of the Mother of Jesus? how His reply? and what was
    the meaning of the miracle? It seems scarcely possible to
    imagine that, remembering the miraculous circumstances
    connected with His Birth, and informed of what had passed at
    Jordan, she now anticipated, and by her suggestion wished to
    prompt, this as His Royal Messianic manifestation. [3 This is
    the viewof many commentators, ancient and modern.] With
    reverence be it said, such a beginning of Royalty and triumph
    would have been paltry: rather that of the Jewish
    miracle-monger than that of the Christ of the Gospels. Not
    so, if it was only 'a sign,' pointing to something beyond
    itself. Again, such anticipations on the part of Mary seem
    psychologically untrue, that is, untrue to her history. She
    could not, indeed, have ever forgotten the circumstances
    which had surrounded His Birth; but the deeper she 'kept all
    these things in her heart,' the more mysterious would they
    seem, as time passed in the dull round of the most simple and
    uneventful country-life, and in the discharge of every-day
    duties, without even the faintest appearance of anything
    beyond it. Only twelve years had passed since His Birth, and
    yet they had not understood His saying in the Temple! How
    much more difficult would it be after thirty years, when the
    Child had grown into Youth and Manhood, with still the same
    silence of Divine Voices around? It is difficult to believe
    in fierce sunshine on the afternoon of a long, grey day.
    Although we have no absolute certainty of it, we have the
    strongest internal reasons for believing, that Jesus had done
    no miracles these thirty years in the home at Nazareth, [1
    Tholuck and Lucke, however, hold the opposite view.] but
    lived the life of quiet submission and obedient waiting. That
    was the then part of His Work. It may, indeed, have been that
    Mary knew of what had passed at Jordan; and that, when she
    saw Him returning with His first disciples, who, assuredly,
    would make no secret of their convictions, whatever these may
    have conveyed to outsiders, she felt that a new period in His
    Life had opened. But what was there in all this to suggest
    such a miracle? and if it had been suggested, why not ask for
    it in express terms, if it was to be the commencement,
    certainly in strangely incongruous circumstances, of a Royal
    manifestation?

     On the other hand, there was one thing which she had
    learned, and one thing which she was to unlearn, after those
    thirty years of the Nazareth-Life. What she had learned, what
    she must have learned, was absolute confidence in Jesus. What
    she had to unlearn, was the natural, yet entirely mistaken,
    impression which His meekness, stillness, and long
    home-submission had wrought on her as to His relationship to
    the family. It was, as we find from her after-history, a very
    hard, very slow, and very painful thing to learn it; [2
    Luthardt rightly calls it the commencement of a very painful
    education, of which the next stage is marked in St. Luke
    viii. 19, and the last in St. John xix. 26.] yet very
    needful, not only for her own sake, but because it was a
    lesson of absolute truth. And so when she told Him of the
    want that had arisen, it was simply in absolute confidence in
    her Son, probably without any conscious expectancy of a
    miracle on His part. [3 This meets the objection of Strauss
    and others, that Mary could not have expected a miracle. It
    is scarcely conceivable, how Calvin could have imagined that
    Mary had intended Jesus to deliver an address with the view
    of turning away thought from the want of wine; or Bengel,
    that she intended to give a hint that the company should
    break up.] Yet not without a touch of maternal
    self-consciousness, almost pride, that He, Whom she could
    trust to do anything that was needed, was her Son, Whom she
    could solicit in the friendly family whose guests they were,
    and if not for her sake, yet at her request. It was a true
    earth-view to take of their relationship; only, an earth-view
    which must now for ever cease: the outcome of His
    misunderstood meekness and weakness, and which yet, strangely
    enough, the Romish Church puts in the forefront as the most
    powerful plea for Jesus' acting. But the fundamental mistake
    in what she attempted is just this, that she spake as His
    Mother, and placed that maternal relationship in connection
    with His Work. And therefore it was that as, on the first
    misunderstanding in the Temple, He had said: 'Wist ye not
    that I must be about my Father's business?' so now: 'Woman,
    what have I to do with thee?' With that 'business' earthly
    relationship, however tender, had no connection. With
    everything else it had, down to the utter self-forgetfulness
    of that tenderest commendation of her to John, in the
    bitterest agonies of the Cross; but not with this. No, not
    now, nor ever henceforth, with this. As in His first
    manifestation in the Temple, so in this the first
    manifestation of His glory, the finger that pointed to 'His
    hour' was not, and could not be, that of an earthly parent,
    but of His Father in Heaven. [1 Godet aptly says. 'His motto
    henceforth is: My Father and I.'] There was, in truth, a
    twofold relationship in that Life, of which none other but
    the Christ could have preserved the harmony.

     This is one main point, we had almost called it the negative
    one; the other, and positive one, was the miracle itself. All
    else is but accidental and circumstantial. No one who either
    knows the use of the language, [2 Comp. the passages from the
    classics quoted by Wetstein in his Commentary.] or remembers
    that, when commending her to John on the Cross, He used the
    same mode of expression, [a St. John xix. 26.] will imagine,
    that there was anything derogatory to her, or harsh on His
    part, in addressing her as 'woman' rather than 'mother.' But
    the language is to us significant of the teaching intended to
    be conveyed, and as the beginning of this further teaching:
    'Who is My mother? and My brethren? And He stretched forth
    His hand toward His disciples, and said, Behold My mother and
    My brethren!' [b St. Matt xii. 46-50.]

     And Mary did not, and yet she did, understand Him, when she
    turned to the servants with the direction, implicitly to
    follow His behests. What happened is well known: how, in the
    excess of their zeal, they filled the water-pots to the brim,
    an accidental circumstance, yet useful, as much that seems
    accidental, to show that there could be neither delusion nor
    collusion; how, probably in the drawing of it, the water
    became best wine, 'the conscious water saw its God, and
    blushed;' then the coarse proverbial joke of what was
    probably the master of ceremonies and purveyor of the feast,
    [a Ecclus. xxxii. 1 2.] intended, of course, not literally to
    apply to the present company, and yet in its accidentalness
    an evidence of the reality of the miracle; after which the
    narrative abruptly closes with a retrospective remark on the
    part of him who relates it. What the bridegroom said; whether
    what had been done became known to the guests, and, if so,
    what impression it wrought; how long Jesus remained; what His
    Mother felt, of this and much more that might be asked,
    Scripture, with that reverent reticence which we so often
    mark, in contrast to our shallow talkativeness, takes no
    further notice. And best that it should be so. St. John meant
    to tell us, what the Synoptists, who begin their account with
    the later Galilean ministry, have not recorded, [1 On the
    omission of certain parts of St. John's narrative by the
    Synoptists, and vice versa, and on the supposed differences,
    I can do no better than refer the reader to the admirable
    remarks of Canon Westcott, Introduction to the Study of the
    Gospels, pp. 280 &c.] of the first of His miracles as a
    'sign,' [2 According to the best reading, and literally,
    'This did, beginning of signs, Jesus in Cana.' Upon a careful
    review the Rabbinic expression Simana (taken from the Greek
    word here used) would seem to me more fully to render the
    idea than the Hebrew Oth. But the significant use of the word
    sign should be well marked. See Canon Westcott on the
    passage.] pointing to the deeper and higher that was to be
    revealed, and of the first forth-manifesting of 'His glory.'
    [3 In this, the first of his miracles, it was all the more
    necessary that He should manifest his glory.] That is all;
    and that object was attained. Witness the calm, grateful
    retrospect upon that first day of miracles, summed up in
    these simple but intensely conscious words: 'And His
    disciples believed on Him.'

     A sign it was, from whatever point we view its meaning, as
    previously indicated. For, like the diamond that shines with
    many colours, it has many meanings; none of them designed, in
    the coarse sense of the term, but all real, because the
    outcome of a real Divine Life and history. And a real miracle
    also, not only historically, but as viewed in its many
    meanings; the beginning of all others, which in a sense are
    but the unfolding of this first. A miracle it is, which
    cannot be explained, but is only enhanced by the almost
    incredible platitudes to which negative criticism has sunk in
    its commentation, [4 Thus Schenkel regards Christ's answer to
    Mary as a proof that He was not on good terms with His
    family; Paulus suggests, that Jesus had brought the wine, and
    that it was afterwards mixed with the water in the
    stone-vessels; Gfrorer, that Mary had brought it as a
    present, and at the feast given Jesus the appropriate hint
    when to have it set on. The gloss of Renan seems to me even
    more untenable and repulsive.] for which there assuredly
    exists no legendary basis, either in Old Testament history,
    or in contemporary Jewish expectation; [1 Against this view
    of Strauss, see Lucke, u. s. p. 477.] which cannot be
    sublimated into nineteenth-century idealism; [2 So Lange, in
    his 'Lifeof Christ,' imagining that converse with Jesus had
    put all in that higher ecstasy in which He gave them to drink
    from the fulness of Himself. Similar spiritualisation, though
    by each in his own manner, has been attempted by Baur, Keim,
    Ewald, Hilgenfeld, and others. But it seems more rational,
    with Schweizer and Weisse, to deny the historical accuracy of
    the whole, than to resort to such expedients.] least of all
    can be conceived as an after-thought of His disciples,
    invented by an Ephesian writer of the second century. [3
    Hilgenfeld, however, sees in this miracle an evidence that
    the Christ of the fourth Gospel proclaimed another and a
    higher than the God of the Old Testament, in short, evidence
    of the Gnostic taint of the fourth Gospel.] But even the
    allegorical illustration of St. Augustine, who reminds us
    that in the grape the water of rain is ever changed into
    wine, is scarcely true, save as a bare illustrattion, and
    only lowers our view of the miracle. For miracle it is, [4
    Meyer well reminds us that 'physical incomprehensibility is
    not identical with absolute impossibility.'] and will ever
    remain; not, indeed, magic, [5 Godet has scarcely rightly
    marked the difference.] nor arbitrary power, but power with a
    moral purpose, and that the highest. [6 If I rightly
    understandthe meaning of Dr. Abbott's remarks on the miracles
    in the fourth Gospel (Encycl. Britan. vol. x. p. 825 b), they
    imply that the change of the water into wine was an
    emblematic reference to the Eucharistic wine, this view being
    supported by a reference to 1 John v. 8. But could this be
    considered sufficient ground for the inference, that no
    historic reality attaches to the whole history? In that case
    it would have to be seriously maintained, that an Ephesian
    writer at the end of the second century had invented the
    fiction of the miraculous change of water into wine, for the
    purpose of certain Eucharistic teaching!] And we believe it,
    because this 'sign' is the first of all those miracles in
    which the Miracle of Miracles gave 'a sign,' and manifested
    forth His glory, the glory of His Person, the glory of His
    Purpose, and the glory of His Work.

 THE ASCENT: FROM THE RIVER JORDAN TO THE MOUNT OF
    TRANSFIGURATION

    THE CLEANSING OF THE TEMPLE, 'THE SIGN,' WHICH IS NOT A
    SIGN.

    CHAPTER V.

     (St. John ii. 13-25.)

     It has been said that Mary understood, and yet did not
    understand Jesus. And of this there seems fresh evidence in
    the circumstance that, immediately after the marriage of
    Cana, she and the 'brethren of Jesus' went with Him, or
    followed Him, to Capernaum, which henceforth became 'His own
    city,' [a St. Matt. iv. 13; ix. 1; St. Mark ii. 1.] during
    His stay by the Lake of Galilee. The question, whether He had
    first returned to Nazareth, seems almost trifling. It may
    have been so, and it may be that His brothers had joined Him
    there, while His 'sisters,' being married, remained at
    Nazareth. [b St. Mark vi. 3.] For the departure of the family
    from Nazareth manyreasons will, in the peculiar
    circumstances, suggest themselves. And yet one feels, that
    their following Jesus and His disciples to their new home had
    something to do with their understanding, and yet not
    understanding, of Him, which had been characteristic of
    Mary's silent withdrawal after the reply she had received at
    the feast of Cana, and her significant direction to the
    servants, implicitly to do what He bade them. Equally in
    character is the willingness of Jesus to allow His family to
    join Him, not ashamed of their humbleness, as a Jewish
    Messiah might have been, nor impatient of their ignorance:
    tenderly near to them, in all that concerned the humanness of
    His feelings; sublimely far from them, in all connected with
    His Work and Mission.

     It is almost a relief to turn from the long discussion (to
    which reference has already been made): whether those who
    bore that designation were His 'brothers' and 'sisters' in
    the real sense, or the children of Joseph by an earlier
    marriage, or else His cousins, and to leave it in the
    indefiniteness which rests upon it. [1 In support of the
    natural interpretation of these terms (which I frankly own to
    be my view) not only St. Matt. i. 25 and St. Luke ii. 7 may
    be urged, but these two questions may be put, suggested by
    Archdeacon Norris (who himself holds them to have been the
    children of Joseph by a former marriage): How could our Lord
    have been, through Joseph, the heir of David's throne
    (according to the genealogies), if Joseph had elder sons? And
    again, What became of the six young motherless children when
    Joseph and the Virgin went first to Bethlehem, and then into
    Egypt, and why are the elder sons not mentioned on the
    occasion of the vist to the Temple? (Commentary on the New
    Testament, vol. i. p. 117.)] But the observant reader will
    probably mark, in connection with this controversy, that it
    is, to say the least, strange that 'brothers' of Jesus
    should, without further explanation, have been introduced in
    the fourth Gospel, if it was an Ephesian production, if not a
    fiction of spiritualistic tendency; strange also, that the
    fourth Gospel alone should have recorded the removal to
    Capernaum of the 'mother and brothers' of Jesus, in company
    with Him. But this by the way, and in reference to recent
    controversies about the authorship of the fourth Gospel.

     If we could only feel quite sure, and not merely deem it
    most probable, that the Tell Hum of modern exploration marks
    the site of the ancient Capernaum, Kephar Nachum, or
    Tanchumin (the latter, perhaps, 'village of consolation'),
    with what solemn interest would we wander over its ruins. [1
    Robinson, Sepp, and, if I understand him aright, Lieut.
    Conder, regard Khan Minyeh (Tent-Work in Palest. vol. ii. pp.
    182 &c.) as the site of Capernaum; but most modern writers
    are agreed in fixing it at Tell Hum.] We know it from New
    Testament history, and from the writings of Josephus. [a
    Jewish War iii. 10. 8; Life 72.] A rancorous notice and
    certain vile insinuations [2 The stories are too foolish, and
    the insinuations too vile, to be here repeated. The second of
    the two notices evidently refers to the first. The 'heretic'
    Jacob spoken of, is the bete noire of the Rabbis. The implied
    charges against the Christians remind one of the description,
    Rev. ii. 20-24.] of the Rabbis, [b Midr. on Eccl. i. 8. and
    vii 26. ed. Warsh. vol. iii. p. 80 a and 97 a.] connecting it
    with 'heresy,' presumably that of Christianity, seem also to
    point to Kephar Nachum as the home of Jesus, where so many of
    His miracles were done. At the time it could have been of
    only recent origin, since its Synagogue had but lately been
    reared, through the friendly liberality of that true and
    faithful Centurion. [c St. Matt. viii. 5, &c.] But already
    its importance was such, that it had become the station of a
    garrison, and of one of the principal custom-houses. Its
    soft, sweet air, by the glorious Lake of Galilee, with
    snow-capped Hermon full in view in the North, from a
    distance, like Mount Blanc over the Lake of Geneva; [3 The
    comparison is Canon Tristram's (Land of Israel, p. 427.).]
    the fertility of the country, notably of the plain of
    Gennesaret close by; and the merry babble, and fertilising
    proximity of a spring which, from its teeming with fish like
    that of the Nile, was popularly regarded as springing from
    the river of Egypt, this and more must have made Capernaum
    one of the most delightful places in these 'Gardens of
    Princes,' as the Rabbis interpreted the word 'Gennesaret,' by
    the 'cither-shaped lake' of that name. [4 This is another
    Rabbinic interpretation of the term Gennesaret.] The town lay
    quite up on its north-western shore, only two miles from
    where the Jordan falls into the lake. As we wander over that
    field of ruins, about half a mile in length by a quarter in
    breadth, which in all probability mark the site of ancient
    Capernaum, we can scarcely realise it, that the desolateness
    all around has taken the place of the life and beauty of
    eighteen centuries ago. Yet the scene is the same, though the
    breath of judgement has long swept the freshness from its
    face. Here lies in unruffled stillness, or wildly surges,
    lashed by sudden storms, the deep blue lake, 600 or 700 feet
    below the level of the Mediterranean. We can look up and down
    its extent, about twelve miles, or across it, about six
    miles. Right over on the other side from where we stand
    somewhere there, is the place where Jesus miraculously fed
    the five thousand. Over here came the little ship, its
    timbers still trembling, and its sides and deck wet with the
    spray of that awful night of storm, when He came to the weary
    rowers, and brought with Him calm. Up that beach they drew
    the boat. Here, close by the shore, stood the Synagogue,
    built of white limestone on dark basalt foundation. North of
    it, up the gentle slopes, stretched the town. East and south
    is the lake, in almost continuous succession of lovely small
    bays, of which more than seventeen may be counted within six
    miles, and in one of which nestled Capernaum. All its houses
    are gone, and in one of which nestled Capernaum. All its
    house, are gone, scarce one stone left on the other: the good
    Centurion's house, that of Matthew the publican, [a St. Mark
    ii. 15; comp. iii. 20, 31.] that of Simon Peter, [b St. Matt.
    viii. 14.] the temporary home which first sheltered the
    Master and His loved ones. All are unrecognisable, a confused
    mass of ruins, save only that white Synagogue in which He
    taught. From its ruins we can still measure its dimensions,
    and trace its fallen pillars; nay, we discover over the
    lintel of its entrance the device of a pot of manna, which
    may have lent its form to His teaching there [c St. John vi.
    49, 59.], a device differentfrom that of the seven-branched
    candlestick, or that other most significant one of the
    Paschal Lamb, which seem to have been so frequent over the
    Synagogues in Galilee. [1 Comp. especially Warren's Recovery
    of Jerusalem, pp. 337-351.]

     And this then, is Capernaum, the first and the chief home of
    Jesus, when He had entered on His active work. But, on this
    occasion, He 'continued there not many days.' For, already,
    'the Jews' Passover was at hand,' and He must needs keep that
    feast in Jerusalem. If our former computations are right,
    and, in the nature of things, it is impossible to be
    absolutely certain about exact dates, and John began his
    preaching in the autumn of the year 779 from the building of
    Rome, or in 26 of our present reckoning, while Jesus was
    baptized in the early winter following, [d A.D. 27.] [2
    Wieselerand most modern writers place the Baptism of Jesus in
    the summer of 27 A.D., and, accordingly, the first Passover
    in spring, 28 A.D. But it seems to me highly improbable, that
    so long an interval as nine or ten months should have elapsed
    between John's first preaching and the Baptism of Jesus.
    Besides, in that case, how are we to account for the eight or
    nine months between the Baptism and the Passover? So far as I
    know, the only reason for this strange hypothesis is St. John
    ii. 20, which will be explained in its proper place.] then
    this Passover must have taken place in the spring (about
    April) of the same year. [a 780 A.U.C. or 27 A.D.] The
    preparations for it had, indeed, commenced a month before.
    Not to speak of the needful domestic arrangements for the
    journey of pilgrims to Jerusalem, the whole land seemed in a
    state of preparation. A month before the feast (on the 15th
    Adar) bridges and roads were put in repair, and sepulchres
    whitened, to prevent accidental pollution to the pilgrims.
    Then, some would select this out of the three great annual
    feasts for the tithing of their flocks and herds, which, in
    such case, had to be done two weeks before the Passover;
    while others would fix on it as the time for going up to
    Jerusalem before the feast 'to purify themselves' [b St. John
    xi. 55.], that is, to undergo the prescribed purification in
    any case of Levitical defilement. But what must have appealed
    to every one in the land was the appearance of the
    'money-changers' (Shulchanim), who opened their stalls in
    every country-town on the 15th of Adar (just a month before
    the feast). They were, no doubt, regularly accredited and
    duly authorised. For, all Jews and proselytes, women, slaves,
    and minors excepted, had to pay the annual Temple-tribute of
    half a shekel, according to the 'sacred' standard, equal to a
    common Galilean shekel (two denars), or about 1s. 2d. of our
    money. From this tax many of the priests, to the chagrin of
    the Rabbis, claimed exemption, on the ingenious plea that in
    Lev. vi. 23 (A.V.) every offering of a priest was ordered to
    be burnt, and not eaten; while from the Temple-tribute such
    offerings were paid for as the two wave loaves and the
    shewbread, which were afterwards eaten by priests. tence, it
    was argued, their payment of Temple-tribute would have been
    incompatible with Lev. vi. 23!

     But to return. This Temple-tribute had to be paid in exact
    half-shekels of the Sanctuary, or ordinary Galilean shekels.
    When it is remembered that, besides strictly Palestinian
    silver and especially copper coin, [1 Simon Maccabee had
    copper money coined; the so-called copper shekel, a little
    more than a penny, and also half and quarter shekels (about a
    half-penny, and a farthing). His successors coined even
    smaller copper money. During the whole period from the death
    of Simon to the last Jewish war no Jewish silver coins issued
    from the Palestinian mint, but only copper coins. Herzfeld
    (Handelsgesch. pp. 178, 179) suggests that there was
    sufficient foreign silver coinage circulating in the country,
    while naturally only a very small amount of foreign copper
    coin would be brought to Palestine.] Persian, Tyrian, Syrian,
    Egyptian, Grecian, and Roman money circulated in the country,
    it will be understood what work these 'money-changers' must
    have had. From the 15th to the 25th Adar they had stalls in
    every country-town. On the latter date, which must therefore
    be considered as marking the first arrivals of festive
    pilgrims in the city, the stalls in the country were closed,
    and the money-changers henceforth sat within the precincts of
    the Temple. All who refused to pay the Temple-tribute (except
    priests) were liable to distraint of their goods. The
    'money-changers' made a statutory fixed charge of a Maah, or
    from 11/2d. 2d. [1 It is extremely difficult to fix the exact
    equivalent. Cassel computes it at one-fifth, Herzfeld at
    one-sixth, Zunz at one-third, and Winer at one-fourth of a
    denar.] (or, according to others, of half a maah) on every
    half-shekel. This was called qolbon. But if a person tendered
    a Sela (a four-denar piece, in value two half-shekels of the
    Sanctuary, or two Galilean shekels), he had to pay double
    qolbon; one for his half-shekel of tribute-money, the other
    for his change. Although not only priests, but all other
    non-obligatory officers, and those who paid for their poorer
    brethren, were exempted from the charge of qolbon, it must
    have brought in an immense revenue, since not only many
    native Palestinians might come without the statutory coin,
    but a vast number of foreign Jews presented themselves on
    such occasions in the Temple. Indeed, if we compute the
    annual Temple-tribute at about 75,000l., the bankers' profits
    may have amounted to from 8,000l. to 9,000l., an immense sum
    in the circumstances of the country. [2 Comp. Winer's
    Real-Worterb. I have taken a low estimate, so as to be well
    within bounds. All the regulations about the Tribute and
    Qolbon are enumerated in Sheqal. i. I have not given
    references for each of the statements advanced, not because
    they are not to hand in regard to almost every detail, but to
    avoid needless quotations.]

     But even this does not represent all the facts of the case.
    We have already seen, that the 'money-changers' in the Temple
    gave change, when larger amounts than were equivalent to the
    Temple-tribute were proffered. It is a reasonable, nay, an
    almost necessary inference, that many of the foreign Jews
    arriving in Jerusalem would take the opportunity of changing
    at these tables their foreign money, and for this, of course,
    fresh charges would be made. For, there was a great deal to
    be bought within the Temple-area, needful for the feast (in
    the way of sacrifices and their adjuncts), or for
    purification, and it would be better to get the right money
    from the authorised changers, than have disputes with the
    dealers. We can picture to ourselves the scene around the
    table of an Eastern money-changer, the weighing of the coins,
    deductions for loss of weight, arguing, disputing,
    bargaining, and we can realise the terrible truthfulness of
    our Lord's charge that they had made the Father's House a
    mart and place of traffic. But even so, the business of the
    Temple money-changers would not be exhausted. Through their
    hands would pass the immense votive offerings of foreign
    Jews, or of proselytes, to the Temple; indeed, they probably
    transacted all business matters connected with the Sanctuary.
    It is difficult to realise the vast accumulation of wealth in
    the Temple-treasury. But some idea of it may be formed from
    the circumstance that, despite many previous spoliations, the
    value of the gold and silver which Crassus [a 54-53 B.C.]
    carried from the Temple-treasury amounted to the enormous sum
    of about two and a half millions sterling. Whether or not
    these Temple money-changers may have transacted other banking
    business, given drafts, or cashed those from correspondents,
    received and lent money at interest, all which was common at
    the time, must remain undetermined.
     Readers of the New Testament know, that the noisy and
    incongruous business of an Eastern money-lender was not the
    only one carried on within the sacred Temple-enclosure. It
    was a great accommodation, that a person bringing a sacrifice
    might not only learn, but actually obtain, in the Temple from
    its officials what was required for the meat, and
    drink-offering. The prices were fixed by tariff every month,
    and on payment of the stated amount the offerer received one
    of four counterfoils, which respectively indicated, and, on
    handing it to the proper official, procured the prescribed
    complement of his sacrifice. [1 Comp. 'The Temple and its
    Services, &c.,' pp. 118, 119.] The Priests and Levites in
    charge of this made up their accounts every evening, and
    these (though necessary) transactions must have left a
    considerable margin of profit to the treasury. This would
    soon lead to another kind of traffic. Offerers might, of
    course, bring their sacrificial animals with them, and we
    know that on the Mount of Olives there were four shops,
    specially for the sale of pigeons and other things requisite
    for sacrificial purposes. [b Jer. Taan iv. 8.] [2 M.
    Derenbourg (Histoire de Palest., p. 467) holds that these
    shops were kept by priests, or at any rate that the profits
    went to them. But I cannot agree with him that these were the
    Chanuyoth, or shops, of the family of Annas, to which the
    Sanhedrin migrated forty years before the destruction of
    Jerusalem. See farther on.] But then, when an animal was
    brought, it had to be examined as to its Levitical fitness by
    persons regularly qualified and appointed. Disputes might
    here arise, due to the ignorance of the purchaser, or the
    greed of the examiner. A regularly qualified examiner was
    called mumcheh (one approved), and how much labour was given
    to the acquisition of the requisite knowledge appears from
    the circumstance, that a certain teacher is said to have
    spent eighteen months with a farmer, to learn what faults in
    an animal were temporary, and which permanent. [a Sanh. 5b.]
    Now, as we are informed that a certain mumcheh of firstlings
    had been authorised to charge for his inspection from four to
    six Isar (1 1/4d. to about 2d.), according to the animal
    inspected, [b Bekhor. iv. 5.] itis but reasonable to suppose
    that a similar fee may have been exacted for examining the
    ordinary sacrificial animals. But all trouble and difficulty
    would be avoided by a regular market within the
    Temple-enclosure, where sacrificial animals could be
    purchased, having presumably been duly inspected, and all
    fees paid before being offered for sale. [1 It is certain
    that this Temple-market could not have been 'on both sides of
    the Eastern Gate, the gate Shushan, as far as Solomon's
    Porch' (Dr. Farrar). If it had been on both sides of this
    gate, it must have been in Solomon's Porch. But this
    supposition is out of the question. There would have been no
    room there for a market, and it formed the principal access
    into the Sanctuary. The Temple-market was undoubtedly
    somewhere in the 'Court of the Gentiles.'] It needs no
    comment to show how utterly the Temple would be profaned by
    such traffic, and to what scenes it might lead. From Jewish
    writings we know, that most improper transactions were
    carried on, to the taking undue advantage of the poor people
    who came to offer their sacrifices. Thus we read, [c Ker. i.
    7.] that on one occasion the price of a couple of pigeons was
    run up to the enormous figure of a gold denar (a Roman gold
    denar, about 15s. 3d.), when, through the intervention of
    Simeon, the grandson of the great Hillel, it was brought down
    before night to a quarter of a silver denar, or about 2d.
    each. Since Simeon is represented as introducing his resolve
    to this effect with the adjuration, 'by the Temple,' it is
    not unfair to infer that these prices had ruled within the
    sacred enclosure. It was probably not merely controvesial
    zeal for the peculiar teaching of his master Shammai, but a
    motive similar to that of Simeon, which on another occasion
    induced Baba ben Buta (well known as giving Herod the advice
    of rebuilding the Temple), when he found the Temple-court
    empty of sacrificial animals, through the greed of those who
    had 'thus desolated the House of God,' to bring in no less
    than three thousand sheep, so that the people might offer
    sacrifices. [d Jerus. Chag. 78 a.] [2 It is, however, quite
    certain that Baba ben Buta had not 'been the first to
    introduce' (Dr. Farrar) this traffic. A perusal of Jer. Chag.
    78 a shows this sufficiently.]

     This leads up to another question, most important in this
    connection. The whole of this traffic, money-changing,
    selling of doves, and market for sheep and oxen, was in
    itself, and from its attendant circumstances, a terrible
    desecration; it was also liable to gross abuses. But was
    there about the time of Christ anything to make it specially
    obnoxious and unpopular? The priesthood must always have
    derived considerable profit from it, of course, not the
    ordinary priests, who came up in their 'orders' to minister
    in the Temple, but the permanent priestly officials, the
    resident leaders of the priesthood, and especially the
    High-Priestly family. This opens up a most interesting
    inquiry, closely connected, as we shall show, with Christ's
    visit to the Temple at this Passover. But the materials here
    at our command are so disjointed, that, in attempting to put
    them together, we can only suggest what seems most probable,
    not state what is absolutely certain. What became of the
    profits of the money-changers, and who were the real owners
    of the Temple-market?

     To the first of these questions the Jerusalem Talmud [a Jer.
    Sheq. i. 7, last 4 lines, p. 46 b.] gives no less than five
    different answers, showing that there was no fixed rule as to
    the employment of these profits, or, at least, that it was no
    longer known at that time. Although four of these answers
    point to their use for the public service, yet that which
    seems most likely assigns the whole profits to the
    money-changers themselves. But in that case it can scarcely
    be doubted, that they had to pay a considerable rental or
    percentage to the leading Temple-officials. The profits from
    the sale of meat- and drink-offerings went to the
    Temple-treasury. But it can hardly be believed, that such was
    the case in regard to the Temple-market. On the other hand,
    there can be little doubt, that this market was what in
    Rabbinic writings is styled 'the Bazaars of the sons of
    Annas' (Chanuyoth beney Chanan), the sons of that High-Priest
    Annas, who is so infamous in New Testament history. When we
    read that the Sanhedrin, forty years before the destruction
    of Jerusalem, transferred its meeting-place from 'the Hall of
    Hewn Stones' (on the south side of the Court of the Priest,
    and therefore partly within the Sanctuary itself) to 'the
    Bazaars,' and then afterwards to the City, [b Rosh haSh. 31
    a,b.] the inference is plain, that these Bazaars were those
    of the sons of Annas the High-Priest, and that they occupied
    part of the Temple-court; in short, that the Temple-market
    and the Bazaars of the sons of Annas are identical.

     If this inference, which is in accordance with received
    Jewish opinion, be admitted, we gain much light as regards
    the purification of the Temple by Jesus, and the words which
    He spake on that occasion. For, our next position is that,
    from the unrighteousness of the traffic carried on in these
    Bazaars, and the greed of their owners, the 'Temple-market'
    was at the time most unpopular. This appears, not only from
    the conduct and words of the patriarch Simeon and of Baba ben
    Buta (as above quoted), but from the fact that popular
    indignation, three years before the destruction of Jerusalem,
    swept away the Bazaars of the family of Annas, [a Siphre on
    Deut. section 105, end. ed. Friedmann, p. 95 b; Jer. Peah i.
    6.] and this, as expressly stated, on account of the sinful
    greed which characterised their dealings. And if any doubt
    should still linger in the mind, it would surely be removed
    by our Lord's open denunciation of the Temple-market as 'a
    den of robbers.' [b St. Matt. xxi. 12.] Of the avarice and
    corruption of this High-Priestly family, alike Josephus and
    the Rabbis give a most terrible picture. Josephus describes
    Annas (or Ananus), the son of the Annas of the New Testament,
    as 'a great hoarder up of money,' very rich, and as
    despoiling by open violence the common priests of their
    official revenues. [c Ant. xx. 9. 2-4.] The Talmud also
    records the curse which a distinguished Rabbi of Jerusalem
    (Abba Shaul) pronounced upon the High-Priestly families
    (including that of Annas), who were 'themselves High-Priests,
    their sons treasurers (Gizbarin), their sons-in-law
    assistant-treasurers (Ammarkalin), while their servants beat
    the people with sticks.' [d Pes. 57 a.] What a comment this
    passage offers on the bearing of Jesus, as He made a scourge
    to drive out the very servants who 'beat the people with
    sticks,' and upset their unholy traffic! It were easy to add
    from Rabbinic sources repulsive details of their
    luxuriousness, wastefulness, gluttony, and general
    dissoluteness. No wonder that, in the figurative language of
    the Talmud, the Temple is represented as crying out against
    them: 'Go hence, ye sons of Eli, ye defile the Temple of
    Jehovah!' [e Pes. u.s.] These painful notices of the state of
    matters at that time help us better to understand what Christ
    did, and who they were that opposed His doing.

     These Temple-Bazaars, the property, and one of the principal
    sources of income, of the family of Annas, were the scene of
    the purification of the Temple by Jesus; and in the private
    locale attached to these very Bazaars, where the Sanhedrin
    held its meetings at the time, the final condemnation of
    Jesus may have been planned, if not actually pronounced. All
    this has its deep significance. But we can now also
    understand why the Temple officials, to whom these Bazaars
    belonged, only challenged the authority of Christ in thus
    purging the Temple. The unpolarity of the whole traffic, if
    not their consciences, prevented their proceeding to actual
    violence. Lastly, we can also better perceive the
    significance, alike of Christ's action, and of His reply to
    their challenge, spoken as it was close to the spot where He
    was so soon to be condemned by them. Nor do we any longer
    wonder that no resistance was offered by the people to the
    action of Jesus. and that even the remonstrances of the
    priests were not direct, but in the form of a perplexing
    question.

     For it is in the direction just indicated, and in no other,
    that objections have been raised to the narrative of Christ's
    first public act in Jerusalem: the purgation of the Temple.
    Commentators have sufficiently pointed out the differences
    between this and the purgation of the Temple at the close of
    His Ministry. [a St. Matt. xxi. 12, &c.; St. Mark xi 11, &c.;
    St. Luke xix. 45 &c.] [1 It must, however, be admitted, that
    even Luther had grave doubts whether the narrative of the
    Synoptists and that of the fourth Gospel did not refer to one
    and the same event. Comp. Meyer, Komment. (on St. John), p.
    142, notes.] Indeed, on comparison, these are so obvious,
    that every reader can mark them. Nor does it seem difficult
    to understand, rather does it seem not only fitting, but
    almost logically necessary, that, if any such event had
    occurred, it should have taken place both at the beginning
    and at the close of His public ministry in the Temple. Nor
    yet is there anything either 'abrupt' or 'tactless' in such a
    commencement of his Ministry. It is not only profane, but
    unhistorical, to look for calculation and policy in the Life
    of Jesus. Had there been such, He would not have died on the
    Cross. And 'abrupt' it certainly was not. Jesus took up the
    thread where he had dropped it on His first recorded
    appearance in the Temple, when he had spoken His wonder, that
    those who knew Him should have been ignorant, that He must be
    about His Father's business. He was now about His Father's
    business, and, as we may so say, in the most elementary
    manner. To put an end to this desecration of His Father's
    House, which, by a nefarious traffic, had been made a place
    of mart, nay, 'a den of robbers,' was, what all who knew Mis
    Mission must have felt, a most suitable and almost necessary
    beginning of His Messianic Work.
     And many of those present must have known Jesus. The zeal of
    His early disciples, who, on their first recognition of Him,
    proclaimed the new-found Messiah, could not have given place
    to absolute silence. The many Galilean pilgrims in the Temple
    could not but have spread the tidings, and the report must
    soon have passed from one to the other in the Temple-courts,
    as He first entered their sacred enclosure. They would follow
    Him, and watch what He did. Nor were they disappointed. He
    inaugurated His Mission by fulfilling the prediction
    concerning Him Who was to be Israel's refiner and purifier
    (Mal. iii. 1-3). Scarce had He entered the Temple-porch, and
    trod the Court of the Gentiles, than He drove thence what
    profanely defiled it. [2 And so He ever does, beginning His
    Ministry by purifying, whether as regards the individual or
    the Church.] There was not a hand lifted, not a word spoken
    to arrest Him, as He made the scourage of small cords (even
    this not without significance) and with it drove out of the
    Temple both the sheep and the oxen; not a word said, nor a
    hand raised, as He poured into their receptacles the
    changers' money, and overthrew their tables. [1 CanonWestcott
    calls attention to the use of two different terms for
    money-changers in vv. 14, 15. In the latter only it is, of
    which the Aramaic form is qolbon. It is this qolbon-taking
    against which the Hand of Christ is specially directed.] His
    Presence awed them, His words awakened even their
    consciences; they knew, only too well, how true His
    denunciations were. And behind Him was gathered the wondering
    multitude, that could not but sympathise with such bold,
    right royal, and Messianic vindication of Temple sanctity
    from the nefarious traffic of a hated, corrupt, and
    avaricious Priesthood. It was a scene worth witnessing by any
    true Israelite, a protest and an act which, even among a less
    emotional people, would have gained Him respect, approbation,
    and admiration, and which, at any rate, secured his safety.
    [2 Yet Renan ventures to characterise this as a sudden,
    ill-advised outburst of ill-humour.]

     For when 'the Jews,' by which here, as in so many other
    places, we are to understand the rulers of the people, in
    this instance, the Temple officials, did gather courage to
    come forward, they ventured not to lay hands on Him. It was
    not yet the time for it. In presence of that multitude they
    would not then have dared it, even if policy had not dictated
    quietness within the Temple-enclosure, when the Roman
    garrison so close by, in Fort Antonia, kept jealous watch for
    the first appearance of a tumult. [a Acts xxi. 31,32.] Still
    more strangely,they did not even reprove Him for what He had
    done, as if it had been wrong or improper. With infinite
    cunning, as appealing to the multitude, they only asked for
    'a sign' which would warrant such assumption of authority.
    But this question of challenge marked two things: the
    essential opposition between the Jewish authorities and
    Jesus, and the manner in which they would carry on the
    contest, which was henceforth to be waged between Him and the
    rulers of the people. That first action of Jesus determined
    their mutual positions; and with and in that first conflict
    its end was already involved. The action of Jesus as against
    the rulers must develop into a life-opposition; their first
    step against Him must lead on to the last in His condemnation
    to the Cross.

     And Jesus then and there knew it all, foresaw, or rather saw
    it all. His answer told it. It was, as all His teaching to
    those who seeing do not see, and hearing do not hear, whose
    understanding is darkened and heart hardened, in parabolic
    language, which only the after-event would make clear. [a St.
    Matt. xiii. 11-15; St. Mark iv 11, 12.] As for 'the sign,'
    then and ever again sought by an 'evil and adulterous
    generation', evil in their thoughts and ways and adulterous
    to the God of Israel, He had then, as afterwards, [b St.
    Matt. xii. 38-40.] only one 'sign' to give: 'Destroy this
    Temple, and in three days I will raise it up.' Thus He met
    their challenge for a sign by the challenge of a sign:
    Crucify Him, and He would rise again; let them suppress the
    Christ, He would triumph. [1 I cannot see in the words of
    Jesus any direct reference to the abrogation of the material
    Temple and its services, and the substitution of the Church
    for it. Of course, such was the case, and implied in His
    Crucifixion and Resurrection, though not alluded to here.] A
    sign this which they understood not, but misunderstood, and
    by making it the ground of their false charge in His final
    trial, themselves unwittingly fulfilled.

     And yet to all time this is the sign, and the only sign,
    which the Christ has given, which He still gives to every
    'evil and adulterous generation,' to all sin-lovers and
    God-forsakers. They will destroy, so far as their power
    reaches, the Christ, crucify Him, give His words the lie,
    suppress, sweep away Christianity, and they shall not
    succeed: He shall triumph. As on that first Easter-day, so
    now and ever in history, He raises up the Temple, which they
    break down. This is the 'sign,' the evidence, the only
    'sign,' which the Christ gives to His enemies; a sign which,
    as an historical fact, has been patent to all men, and seen
    by them; which might have been evidence, but being of the
    nature of miracle, not explicable by natural agencies, they
    have misunderstood, viewing 'the Temple' merely as a
    building, of which they fully know the architecture, manner,
    and time of construction, [2 From the expression (St. John
    ii. 20) 'Forty and six years was this Temple in building,' it
    has been inferred by most writers that this Passover was of
    the year 791 A.U.C., or 28 A.D., and not, as we have argued,
    of the year 780 A.U.C., or 27 A.D. But their calculation
    rests on an oversight. Admittedly the rebuilding of the
    Temple began in the autumn of the eighteenth year of Herod's
    reign (Jos. Ant. xv. 11. 1-6). As Herod's reign dates from
    717 A.U.C., the Temple-building must have commenced in the
    autumn of the year 734-35. But it has already been explained
    that, in Jewish reckoning, the beginning of a new year was
    reckoned as a year. Thus if, according to universal opinion
    (comp. Wieseler, Chronolog. Synopse, pp. 165, 166), the
    Temple-building began in Kislev 734, forty-nine years after
    it would bring us to the autumn 779, and the Passover of 780,
    or 27 A.D., would be regarded and spoken of as 'forty and six
    years.' If a Jew had calculated the time at the Passover 781,
    he would not have said 'forty-six' but 'forty-seven years'
    'was this Temple in building.' The mistake of writers lies in
    forgetting that a fresh year had begun after the autumn, or
    at any rate at the Passover. It may here be added, that the
    Temple was not finally completed till 63 A.D.] but of whose
    spiritual character and upbuilding they have no knowledge nor
    thought. And thus, as to that generation, so to all which
    have followed, this is stil the 'sign,' if they understand
    it, the only sign, the Great Miracle, which, as they only
    calculate from the visible and to them ascertained, these
    'despiser behold, and wonder, and perish,' for He worketh 'a
    work in their days, a work which they shall in no wise
    believe. [a Acts xiii. 41.]

 THE ASCENT: FROM THE RIVER JORDAN TO THE MOUNT OF
    TRANSFIGURATION

    THE TEACHER COME FROM GOD AND THE TEACHER FROM JERUSALEM
    JESUS AND NICODEMUS

    CHAPTER VI

     (St. John iii. 1-21.)

     But there were those who beheld, and heard His words, and
    did in some measure understand them. Even before Jesus had
    spoken to the Temple-officials, His disciples, as silently
    they watched Him, saw an old Scripture-saying kindled into
    light by the halo of His glory. It was that of the suffering,
    self-forgetful, God-dedicated Servant of Jehovah, as His
    figure stood out against the Old Testament sky, realising in
    a hostile world only this, as the deepest element of His
    being and calling: entire inward and outward consecration to
    God, a burnt-offering, such as Isaac would have been. Within
    their minds sprang up unbidden, as when the light of the Urim
    and Thummim fell on the letter graven on the precious stones
    of the High-Priest's breastplate, those words of old: 'The
    zeal of Thine house eateth me up. [a Ps. lxix. 9.] Thus, even
    in those days of their early learning, Jesus purging the
    Temple in view of a hostile rulership was the full
    realisation of that picture, which must be prophetic, since
    no mere man ever bore those lineaments: that of the ideal
    Nazarite, whom the zeal of God's house was consuming. And
    then long afterwards, after His Passion and Death, after
    those dark days of loneliness and doubt, after the misty dawn
    of the first recognition, this word, which He had spoken to
    the rulers at the first, came to them, with all the
    convincing power of prediction fulfilled by fact, as an
    assured conviction, which in its strong grasp held not only
    the past, but the present, because the present is ever the
    fulfilment of the past: 'When therefore He was risen from the
    dead, His disciples remembered that He had said this unto
    them; and they believed the Scripture, and the word which
    Jesus had said.'

     Again, as we think of the meaning of His refusing 'a sign'
    to the rulers of Israel, or rather think of the only 'sign'
    which He did give them, we see nothing incompatible with it
    in the fact that, at the same feast, He did many 'signs' [1
    Although our A.V. translates in ver. 18 'sign' and in ver. 23
    'miracles,' the Greek word is the same in both cases, and
    means a 'sign.'] in sight of the people. For it was only the
    rulers who had entered on that conflict, of which, from the
    character and aims of the two parties engaged, the beginning
    involved the terrible end as its logical sequence. In
    presence of such a foe only one 'sign' could be given: that
    of reading their inmost hearts, and in them their real
    motives and final action, and again of setting forth His own
    final triumph, a predictive description, a 'no sign' that
    was, and is, a sign to all time. But neither challenge nor
    hostile demand for a sign had been addressed to Him by the
    people. Indeed even at the last, when incited by their
    rulers, and blindly following them, 'they knew not what they
    did.' And it was to them that Jesus now, on the morning of
    His Work, spoke by 'signs.'

     The Feast of the Passover commenced on the 15th Nisan,
    dating it, of course, from the preceding evening. But before
    that, before the slaying of the Paschal Lamb, on the
    afternoon of the 14th Nisan, the visitor to the Temple would
    mark something peculiar. [2 We reserve a detailed account of
    the Paschal celebration for our account of the last Passover
    of Jesus.] On the evening of the 13th Nisan, with which the
    14th, or 'preparation-day,' commenced, the head of each
    household would, with lighted candle and in solemn silence,
    search out all leaven in his house, prefacing his search with
    solemn thanksgiving and appeal to God, and closing it by an
    equally solemn declaration that he had accomplished it, so
    far as within his knowledge, and disavowing responsibility
    for what lay beyond it. And as the worshippers went to the
    Temple, they would see prominently exposed, on a bench in one
    of the porches, two desecrated cakes of some thankoffering,
    indicating that it was still lawful to eat of that which was
    leavened. At ten, or at latest eleven o'clock, one of those
    cakes was removed, and then they knew that it was no longer
    lawful to eat of it. At twelve o'clock the second cake was
    removed, and this was the signal for solemnly burning all the
    leaven that had been gathered. Was it on the eve of the 14th,
    when each head of a house sought for and put aside the
    leaven, or else as the people watched these two cakes, and
    then the removal of the last of them, which marked that all
    leaven was to be 'purged out,' that Jesus, in real fulfilment
    of its national meaning, 'cleansed' the Temple of its leaven?

     We can only suggest the question. But the 'cleansing of the
    Temple' undoubtedly preceded the actual festive Paschal week.
    [a St. John ii.] To those who were in Jerusalem it was a week
    such as had never been before, a week when 'they saw the
    signs which He did,' and when, stirred by a strange impulse,
    'they believed in His Name' as the Messiah. 'A milk-faith,'
    as Luther pithily calls it, which fed on, and required for
    its sustenance, 'signs.' And like a vision it passed with the
    thing seen. Not a faith to which the sign was only the
    fingerpost, but a faith of which the sign, not the thing
    signified, was the substance; a faith which dazzled the
    mental sight, but reached not down to the heart. And Jesus,
    Who with heart-searching glance saw what was in man, Who
    needed not any to tell Him, but with immediateness knew all,
    did not commit Himself to them. They were not like His first
    Galilean disciples, true of heart and in heart. The Messiah
    Whom these found, and He Whom those saw, met different
    conceptions. The faith of the Jerusalem sign-seers would not
    have compassed what the Galileans experienced; it would not
    have understood nor endured, had He committed Himself to
    them. And yet He did, in wondrous love, condescend and speak
    to them in the only language they could understand, in that
    of 'signs.' Nor was it all in vain.

     Unrecorded as these miracles are, because the words they
    spoke were not recorded on many hearts, it was not only here
    and there, by this or that miracle, that their power was
    felt. Their grand general effect was, to make the more
    spiritually minded and thoughtful feel that Jesus was indeed
    'a teacher come from God.' In thinking of the miracles of
    Jesus, and generally of the miraculous in the New Testament,
    we are too apt to overlook the principal consideration in the
    matter. We regard it from our present circumstances, not from
    those of the Jews and people of that time; we judge it from
    our standpoint, not from theirs. And yet the main gist of the
    matter lies here. We would not expect to be convinced of the
    truth of religion, nor converted to it, by outward miracles;
    we would not expect them at all. Not but that, if a notable
    miracle really did occur, its impression and effect would be
    overwhelming; although, unless a miracle submitted itself to
    the strictest scientific tests, when in the nature of things
    it would cease to be a miracle, it would scarcely find
    general credence. Hence, truth to say, the miraculous in the
    New Testament constitutes to modern thought not its strong,
    but its weak point; not its convincing evidence, but its
    point of attack and difficulty. Accordingly, treating of, or
    contemplating the miracles of the New Testament, it is always
    their moral, not their natural (or supranatural), aspect
    which has its chief influence upon us. But what is this but
    to say that ours is modern, not ancient thought, and that the
    evidential power of Christ's miracles has given place to the
    age and dispensation of the Holy Ghost? With us the process
    is the reverse of what it was with them of old. They
    approached the moral and spiritual through the miraculous; we
    the miraculous through the moral and spiritual. His Presence,
    that one grand Presence is, indeed, ever the same. But God
    always adapts His teaching to our learning; else it were not
    teaching at all, least of all Divine teaching. Only what
    carries it now to us is not the same as what carried it to
    them of old: it is no more the fingerpost of 'signs,' but the
    finger of the Spirit. To them the miraculous was the
    expected, that miraculous which to us also is so truly and
    Divinely miraculous, just because it applies to all time,
    since it carries to us the moral, as to them the physical,
    aspect of the miracle; in each case, Divine reality Divinely
    conveyed. It may therefore safely be asserted, that to the
    men of that time no teaching of the new faith would have been
    real without the evidence of miracles.

     In those days, when the idea of the miraculous was, so to
    speak, fluid, passing from the natural into the supernatural,
    and men regarded all that was above their view-point of
    nature as supernatural, the idea of the miraculous would, by
    its constant recurrence, always and prominently suggest
    itself. Other teachers also, among the Jews at least, claimed
    the power of doing miracles, and were popularly credited with
    them. But what an obvious contrast between theirs and the
    'signs' which Jesus did! In thinking of this, it is necessary
    to remember, that the Talmud and the New Testament alike
    embody teaching Jewish in its form, and addressed to Jews,
    and, at least so far as regards the subject of miracles, at
    periods not far apart, and brought still nearer by the
    singular theological conservatism of the people. If, with
    this in our minds, we recall some of the absurd Rabbinic
    pretensions to miracles, such as the creation of a calf by
    two Rabbis every Sabbath eve for their Sabbath meal, [a Sanh.
    65 b.] or the repulsive, and in part blasphemous, account of
    a series of prodigies in testimony of the subleties of some
    great Rabbi [b Baba Mez. 59 b.], we are almost overwhelmed by
    the evidential force of the contrast between them and the
    'signs' which Jesus did. We seem to be in an entirely new
    world, and we can understand the conclusion at which every
    earnest and thoughtful mind must have arrived in witnessing
    them, that He was, indeed, 'a Teacher from God.' Such an
    observer was Nicodemus (Naqdimon), [1 A Nicodemus is spoken
    of in the Talmud as one of the richest and most distinguished
    citisens of Jerusalem (Taan. 20 a: Kethub. 66 b: Gitt. 56 a;
    Ab. de R. Nath. 6 comp. Ber. R. 42. Midr. on Eccles. vii. 12,
    and on Lament. i. 5). But this name was only given him on
    account of a miracle which happened at his request, his real
    name being Bunai, the son of Gorion. A Bunai is mentioned in
    the Talmud among the disciples of Jesus, and a story is
    related how his daughter, after immense wealth, came to most
    abject poverty. But there can scarcely be a doubt that this
    somewhat legendary Naqdimon was not the Nicodemus of the
    Gospel.] one of the Pharisees and a member of the Jerusalem
    Sanhedrin. And, as we gather from his mode of expression, [2
    'We know that Thou art a Teacher come from God.'] not he
    only, but others with him. From the Gospel-history we know
    him to have been cautious by nature and education, and timid
    of character; yet, as in other cases, it was the greatest
    offence to his Jewish thinking, the Cross, which at last
    brought him to the light of decision, and the vigour of bold
    confession. [a St. John xix. 39.] And this in itself would
    show the real character of his inquiry, and the effect of
    what Jesus had first taught him. It is, at any rate,
    althogether rash to speak of the manner of his first approach
    to Christ as most commentators have done. We can scarcely
    realise the difficulties which he had to overcome. It must
    have been a mighty power of conviction, to break down
    prejudice so far as to lead this old Sanhedrist to
    acknowledge a Galilean, untrained in the Schools, as a
    Teacher come from God, and to repair to Him for direction on,
    perhaps, the most delicate and important point in Jewish
    theology. But, even so, we cannot wonder that he should have
    wished to shroud his first visit in the utmost possible
    secrecy. It was a most compromising step for a Sanhedrist to
    take. With that first bold purgation of the Temple a deadly
    feud between Jesus and the Jewish authorities had begun, of
    which the sequel could not be doubtful. It was involved in
    that first encounter in the Temple, and it needed not the
    experience and wisdom of an aged Sanhedrist to forecast the
    end.

     Nevertheless, Nicodemus came. If this is evidence of his
    intense earnestness, so is the bearing of Jesus of His Divine
    Character, and of the truth of the narrative. As he was not
    depressed by the resistance of the authorities, nor by the
    'milk-faith' of the multitude, so He was not elated by the
    possibility of making such a convert as a member of the great
    Sanhedrin. There is no excitement, no undue deference, nor
    eager politeness; no compromise, nor attempted
    persuasiveness; not even accommodation. Nor, on the other
    hand, is there assumed superiority, irony, or dogmatism.
    There is not even a reference to the miracles, the evidential
    power of which had wrought in His visitor the initial
    conviction, that He was a Teacher come from God. All is calm,
    earnest, dignified, if we may reverently say it, as became
    the God-Man in the humiliation of His personal teaching. To
    say that it is all un-Jewish were a mere truism: it is
    Divine. No fabricated narrative would have invented such a
    scene, nor so represented the actors in it. [1 This, of
    course, is not the view of the Tubingen School, which regards
    the whole of this narrative as representing a later
    development. Dr. Abbott (Encycl. Brit., Art. 'Gospels,' p.
    821) regards the expression, 'born of water and of the
    Spirit,' as a reference to Christian Baptism, and this again
    as evidence for the late authorship of the fourth Gospel. His
    reasoning is, that the earliest reference to regeneration is
    contained in St. Matt. xviii. 3. Then he supposes a reference
    in Justin's Apologia (i. 61) to be a further development of
    this doctrine, and he denies what is generally regarded as
    Justin's quotation from St. John iii. 5 to be such, because
    it omits the word 'water.' A third stage he supposes to be
    implied in 1 Pet. i. 3, 23; with which he connects 1 Pet.
    iii. 21. The fourth stage of development he regards as
    embodied in the words of St. John iii. 5. All these
    hypotheses, for they are no more than such, are built on
    Justin's omission of the word 'water,' which, as Dr. Abbott
    argues, proves that Justin must have been unacquainted with
    the fourth Gospel, since otherwise it were impossible that,
    when expressly treating of Baptism, he should have omitted
    it. To us, on the other hand, the opposite seems the
    legitimate inference. Treating confessedly of Baptism, it was
    only necessary for his argument, which identified
    regeneration with Baptism, to introduce the reference to the
    Spirit. Otherwise the quotation is so exactly that from the
    fourth Gospel, including even the objection of Nicodemus,
    that it is almost impossible to imagine that so literal a
    transcription could have originated otherwise than from the
    fourth Gospel itself, and that it is the result of a supposed
    series of developments in which Justin would represent the
    second, and the fourth Gospel the fourth stage. But besides,
    the attentive reader of the chapter in Justin's Apology
    cannot fail to remark that Justin represents a later, and not
    an earlier, stage than the fourth Gospel. For, with Justin,
    Baptism and regeneration are manifestly identified, not with
    renovation of our nature, but with the forgiveness of sins.]

     Dangerous as it may be to indulge the imagination, we can
    almost picture the scene. The report of what passed reads,
    more than almost any other in the Gospels, like notes taken
    at the time by one who was present. We can almost put it
    again into the form of brief notes, by heading what each said
    in this manner, Nicodemus:, or, Jesus:. They are only the
    outlines of the conversation, given, in each case, the really
    important gist, and leaving abrupt gaps between, as would be
    the manner in such notes. Yet quite sufficient to tell us all
    that is important for us to know. We can scarcely doubt that
    it was the narrator, John, who was the witness that took the
    notes. His own reflections upon it, or rather his afterlook
    upon it, in the light of later facts, and under the teaching
    of the Holy Ghost, is described in the verses with which the
    writer follows his account of what had passed between Jesus
    and Nicodemus (St. John iii. 16-21). In the same manner he
    winds up with similar reflections (ib. vv. 31-36) the
    reported conversation between the Baptist and his disciples.
    In neither case are the verses to which we refer, part of
    what either Jesus or John said at the time, but what, in view
    of it, John says in name of, and to the Church of the New
    Testament. [1 For detailed examination and proof I must here
    refer the reader to Canon Westcott's Commentary.]

     If from St. John xix. 27 we might infer that St. John had 'a
    home' in Jerusalem itself, which, considering the simplicity
    of living at the time, and the cost of houses, would not
    necessarily imply that he was rich, the scene about to be
    described would have taken place under the roof of him who
    has given us its record. In any case, the circumstances of
    life at the time are so well known, that we have no
    difficulty in realising the surroundings. It was night, one
    of the nights in that Easter week so full of marvels. Perhaps
    we may be allowed to suppose that, as so often in analogous
    circumstances, the spring-wind, sweeping up the narrow
    streets of the City, had suggested the comparison, [a St.
    John iii. 8.] [2 I cannot agree with Archdeacon Watkins, who
    would render it, 'The Spirit breathes', an opinion, so far as
    I know, unsupported, and which seems to me ill-accordant with
    the whole context.] which was so full of deepest teaching of
    Nicodemus. Up in the simply furnished Aliyah, the
    guest-chamber on the roof, the lamp was still burning, and
    the Heavenly Guest still busy with thought and words. There
    was no need for Nicodemus to pass through the house, for an
    outside stair led to the upper room. It was night, when
    Jewish superstition would keep men at home; a wild, gusty
    spring night, when loiterers would not be in the streets; and
    no one would see him as at that hour he ascended the outside
    steps that led up to the Aliyah. His errand was soon told:
    one sentence, that which admitted the Divine Teachership of
    Jesus, implied all the questions he could wish to ask. Nay,
    his very presence there spoke them. Or, if otherwise, the
    answer of Jesus spoke them. Throughout, Jesus never descended
    the standpoint of Nicodemus, but rather sought to lift him to
    His own. It was all about 'the Kingdom of God,' [3 The
    expression, 'Kingdom of God,' occurs only in iii. 3 and iii.
    5 of the fourth Gospel. Otherwise the expression 'My Kingdom'
    is used in xviii. 36. This exceptional use of the Synoptic
    term, 'Kingdom of God,' is noteworthy in this connection, and
    not without its important bearing on the question of the
    authorship of the fourth Gospel.] so connected with that
    Teacher come from God, that Nicodemus would inquire.

     And yet, through Christ never descended to the standpoint of
    Nicodemus, we must bear in mind what his views as a Jew would
    be, if we would understand the interview. Jesus took him
    straight to whence alone that 'Kingdom' could be seen.
    'Except a man be born from above, [4 Notwithstanding the high
    authority of Professor Westcott, I must still hold that this,
    and now 'anew,' is the right rendering. The word has always
    the meaning 'above' in the fourth Gospel (ch. iii. 3, 7, 31;
    xix. 11, 23); and otherwise also St. John always speaks of 'a
    birth' from God (St. John i. 13; 1 John ii. 29; iii. 9; iv.
    7; v. 1, 4, 18).] he cannot see the Kingdom of God.' It has
    been thought by commentators, that there is here an allusion
    to a Jewish mode of expression in regard to proselytes, who
    were viewed as 'new-born.' But in that case Nicodemus would
    have understood it, and answered differently, or, rather, not
    expressed his utter inability to understand it. It is indeed,
    true that a Gentile on becoming a proselyte, though not, as
    has been suggested, an ordinary penitent [1 This is atleast
    implied by Wunsche, and taken for granted by others. But
    ancient Jewish tradition and the Talmud do not speak of it.
    Comp. Yebam. 22 a, 62 a; 97 a and b; Bekhor 47 a. Proselytes
    are always spoken of as 'new creatures,' Ber. R. 39, ed.
    Warsh. p. 72 a; Bemidb. R. 11. In Vayyikra R. 30, Ps. cii.
    18, 'the people that shall be created' is explained: 'For the
    Holy One, blessed be His Name, will create them a new
    creature.' In Yalkut on Judg. vi. 1 (vol. ii. p. 10 c, about
    the middle) this new creation is connected with the
    forgiveness of sins, it being maintained that whoever has a
    miracle done, and praises God for it, his sins are forgiven,
    and he is made a new creature. This is illustrated by the
    history of Israel at the Red Sea, by that of Deborah and
    Barak, and by that of David. In Shem. R. 3 (ed. Warsh. ii. p.
    11 a) the words Ex. iv. 12, 'teach thee what thou shalt say,'
    are explained as equivalent to 'I will create thee a new
    creation.'], was likened to a child just born. [a Yebam. 62
    a.] It is also true, that personsin certain circumstances,
    the bridegroom on his marriage, the Chief of the Academy on
    his promotion, the king on his enthronement, were likened to
    those newly born. [b Yalkut on 1 Sam. xiii.] The expression,
    therefore, was not only common, but, so to speak, fluid;
    only, both it and what it implied must be rightly understood.
    In the first place, it was only a simile, and never meant to
    convey a real regeneration ('as a child'). So far as
    proselytes were concerned, it meant that, having entered into
    a new relation to God, they also entered into new
    relationship to man, just as if they had at that moment been
    newly born. All the old relations had ceased, a man's father,
    brother, mother, sister were no longer his nearest of kin: he
    was a new and another man. Then, secondly, [c As in Yalkut.]
    it implied a new state, when all a man's past was past, and
    his sins forgiven him as belonging to that past. It will now
    be perceived, how impossible it was for Nicodemus to
    understand the teaching of Jesus, and yet how all-important
    to him was that teaching. For, even if he could have imagined
    that Jesus pointed to repentance, as that which would give
    him the figurative standing of 'born from above,' or even
    'born anew,' it would not have helped him. For, first, this
    second birth was only a simile. Secondly, according to the
    Jewish view, this second birth was the consequence of having
    taken upon oneself 'the Kingdom;' not, as Jesus put it, the
    cause and condition of it. The proselyte had taken upon
    himself 'the Kingdom,' and therefore he was 'born' anew,
    while Jesus put it that he must be born again in order to see
    the Kingdom of God. Lastly, it was 'a birth from above' to
    which reference was made. Judaism could understand a new
    relationship towards God and man, and even the forgiveness of
    sins. But it had no conception of a moral renovation, a
    spiritual birth, as the initial condition for reformation,
    far less as that for seeing the Kingdom of God. And it was
    because it had no idea of such 'birth from above,' of its
    reality or even possibility, that Judaism could not be the
    Kingdom of God.

     Or, to take another view of it, for Divine truth is
    many-sided, perhaps some would say, to make 'Western'
    application of what was first spoken to the Jew, in one
    respect Nicodemus and Jesus had started from the same
    premiss: The Kingdom of God. But how different were their
    conceptions of what constituted that Kingdom, and of what was
    its door of entrance! What Nicodemus had seen of Jesus had
    not only shaken the confidence which his former views on
    these subjects had engendered in him, but opened dim
    possibilities, the very suggestion of which filled hin with
    uneasiness as to the past, and vague hopes as to the future.
    And so it ever is with us also, when, like Nicodemus, we
    first arrive at the conviction that Jesus is the Teacher come
    from God. What He teaches is so entirely different from what
    Nicodemus, or any of us could, from any other standpoint than
    that of Jesus, have learned or known concerning the Kingdom
    and entrance into it. The admission, however reached, of the
    Divine Mission of this Teacher, implies, unspoken, the grand
    question about the Kingdom. It is the opening of the door
    through which the Grand Presence will enter in. To such a
    man, as to us in like unspoken questioning, Jesus ever has
    but one thing to say: 'Except a man be born from above, he
    cannot see the Kingdom of God.' The Kingdom is other, the
    entrance to it is other, than you know or think. That which
    is of the flesh is flesh. Man may rise to high possibilities,
    mental, even moral: self-development, self-improvement,
    self-restraint, submission to a grand idea or a higher law,
    refined moral egotism, aesthetic even moral altruism. But to
    see the Kingdom of God: to understand what means the absolute
    rule of God, the one high calling of our humanity, by which a
    man becomes a child of God, to perceive this, not as an
    improvement upon our present state, but as the submission of
    heart, mind, and life to Him as our Divine King, an existence
    which is, and which means, proclaiming unto the world the
    Kingship of God: this can only be learned from Christ, and
    needs even for its perception a kinship of spirit, for that
    which is born of the Spirit is spirit. To see it, needs the
    birth from above; to enter it, the double baptismal birth of
    what John's Baptism had meant, and of what Christ's Baptism
    was.

     Accordingly, all this sounded quite strange and
    unintelligible to Nicodemus. He could understand how a man
    might become other, and so ultimately be other; but how a man
    could first be other in order to become other, more than
    that, needed to be 'born from above,' in order to 'see the
    Kingdom of God', passed alike his experience and his Jewish
    learning. Only one possibility of being occurred to him: that
    given him in his natural disposition, or as a Jew would have
    put it, in his original innocency when he first entered the
    world. And this, so to express ourselves, he thought aloud.
    [a ver. 4.] But there was another world of being than that of
    which Nicodemus thought. That world was the 'Kingdom of God'
    in its essential contrariety to the Kingdom of this world,
    whether in the general sense of that expression, or even in
    the special Judaistic sense attaching to the 'Kingdom' of the
    Messiah. There was only one gate by which a man could pass
    into that Kingdom of God, for that which was of the flesh
    could ever be only fleshly. Here a man might strive, as did
    the Jews, by outward conformity to become, but he would never
    attain to being. But that 'Kingdom' was spiritual, and here a
    man must be in order to become. How was he to attain that new
    being? The Baptist had pointed it out in its negative aspect
    of repentance and putting away the old by his Baptism of
    water; and as regarded its positive aspect he had pointed to
    Him Who was to baptize with the Holy Ghost and with fire.
    This was the gate of being through which a man must enter
    into the Kingdom, which was of the Messiah, because it was of
    God and the Messiah was of God, and in that sense 'the
    Teacher come from God', that is, being sent of God, He taught
    of God by bringing to God. This but a few who had gone to the
    Baptist had perceived, or indeed could perceive, because the
    Baptist could in his Baptism only convey the negative, not
    the positive, aspect of it. And it needed that positive
    aspect, the being born from above, in order to see the
    Kingdom of God. But as to the mystery of this being in order
    to become, hark! did he hear the sound of that wind as it
    swept past the Aliyah? He heard its voice; but he neither
    knew whence it came, nor whither it went. So was every one
    that was born of the Spirit. You heard the voice of the
    Spirit Who originated the new being, but the origination of
    that new being, or its further development into all that it
    might and would become, lay beyond man's observation.

     Nicodemus now understood in some measure what entrance into
    the Kingdom meant; but its how seemed only involved in
    greater mystery. That it was such a mystery, unthought and
    unimagined in Jewish theology, was a terribly sad
    manifestation of what the teaching in Israel was. Yet it had
    all been told them, as of personal knowledge, by the Baptist
    and by Jesus; nay, if they could only have received it, by
    the whole Old Testament. He wanted to know the how of these
    things before he believed them. He believed them not, though
    they passed on earth, because he knew not their how. How then
    could he believe that how, of which the agency was unseen and
    in heaven? To that spring of being no one could ascend but He
    that had come down from heaven, [1 The clause 'Who is in
    heaven' is regarded, on critical grounds, as a gloss. But,
    even so, it seems almost a necessary gloss, in view of the
    Jewish notions about the ascent of Moses into heaven. Strange
    to say, the passage referred to forced Socinus to the curious
    dogma that before the commencement of His ministry Jesus had
    been rapt in spirit to heaven. (Comp. 'The History and
    Development of Socinianism,' in the North. Brit. Rev. May
    1859.)] and Who, to bring to us that spring of being, had
    appeared as 'the Son of Man,' the Ideal Man, the embodiment
    of the Kingdom of Heaven, and thus the only true Teacher come
    from God. Or did Nicodemus think of another Teacher, hitherto
    their only Teacher, Moses, whom Jewish tradition generally
    believed to have ascended into the very heavens, in order to
    bring the teaching unto them? [2 This in many places. Comp.,
    for ex., Jer. Targ. on Deut. xxx. 12, and the shocking notice
    in Bemid. R. 19. Another view, however, Sukk. 5 a.] Let the
    history of Moses, then, teach them! They thought they
    understood his teaching, but there was one symbol in his
    history before which tradition literally stood dumb. They had
    heard what Moses had taught them; they had seen 'the earthly
    things' of God in the Manna which had rained from heaven,
    and, in view and hearing of it all, they had not believed,
    but murmured and rebelled. Then came the judgment of the
    fiery serpents, and, in answer to repentant prayer, the
    symbol of new being, a life restored from death, as they
    looked on their no longer living but dead death lifted up
    before them. A symbol this, showing forth two elements:
    negatively, the putting away of the past in their dead death
    (the serpent no longer living, but a brazen serpent); and
    positively, in their look of faith and hope. Before this
    symbol, as has been said, tradition has stood dumb. It could
    only suggest one meaning, and draw from it one lesson. Both
    these were true, and yet both insufficient. The meaning which
    tradition attached to it was, that Israel lifted up their
    eyes, not merely to the serpent, but rather to their Father
    in heaven, and had regard to His mercy. This, [3 So already
    in Wisdom of Solomon xvi. 7; still more clearly in the Targum
    Pseudo-Jonathan on Numb. xxi. 8, 9: 'He who lifted up his
    heart to the name of the Memra of Jehovah, lived;' and in the
    Jerusalem Targum on the passage: 'And Moses made a serpent of
    brass, and set it on a place aloft [of uplifting] (tale' the
    same term, curiously, which is applied by the Jews to Christ
    as the 'Uplifted' or 'Crucified' One). And it was that every
    one that was bitten with the serpent, and lifted his face in
    prayer (the word implies humbled prayer) unto His Father Who
    is in heaven, and looked unto the brazen serpent, he was
    healed.' Similarly Rosh haSh iii. 8. Buxtorf's learned
    tractate on the Brazen Serpent (Exercitationes, pp. 458-492)
    adds little to our knowledge.] as St. John afterwards shows
    (ver. 16), was a true interpretation; but it left wholly out
    of sight the Antitype, in gazing on Whom our hearts are
    uplifted to the love of God, Who gave His only-begotten Son,
    and we learn to know and love the Father in His Son. And the
    lesson which tradition drew from it was, that this symbol
    taught, the dead would live again; for, as it is argued, [a
    Yalkut, vol. i. p. 240.] 'behold, if God made it that,
    through the similitude of the serpent which brought death,
    the dying should be restored to life, how much more shall He,
    Who is Life, restore the dead to life.' And here lies the
    true interpretation of what Jesus taught. If the uplifted
    serpent, as symbol, brought life to the believing look which
    was fixed upon the giving, pardoning love of God, then, in
    the truest sense, shall the uplifted Son of Man give true
    life to everyone that believeth, looking up in Him to the
    giving and forgiving love of God, which His Son came to
    bring, to declare, and to manifest. 'For as Moses lifted up
    the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be
    lifted up, that whosoever believeth should in Him have
    eternal life.' [1 This seems the correct reading. Comp. Canon
    Westcott's note on the passage, and in general his most full
    and thorough criticism of the various readings in this
    chapter.]

     With this final and highest teaching, which contains all
    that Nicodemus, or, indeed, the whole Church, could require
    or be able to know, He explained to him and to us the how of
    the new birth, alike the source and the flow of its spring.
    Ours it is now only to 'believe,' where we cannot further
    know, and, looking up to the Son of Man in His perfected
    work, to perceive, and to receive the gift of God's love His
    perfected work, to perceive, and to receive the gift of God's
    love for our healing. In this teaching it is not the serpent
    and the Son of Man that are held side by side, though we
    cannot fail to see the symbolic reference of the one to the
    other, but the uplifting of the one and the other, the one by
    the sin, the other through the sin of the people: both on
    account of it, the forthgoing of God's pardoning mercy, the
    look of faith, and the higher recognition of God's love in it
    all.

     And so the record of this interview abruptly closes. It
    tells all, but no more than the Church requires to know. Of
    Nicodemus we shall hear again in the sequel, not needlessly,
    nor yet to complete a biography, were it even that of Jesus;
    but as is necessary for the understanding of this History.
    What follows [a St. John iii. 16-21.] are not thewords of
    Christ, but of St. John. In them, looking back many years
    afterwards in the light of completed events, the Apostle
    takes his stand, as becomes the circumstances, where Jesus
    had ended His teaching of Nicodemus, under the Cross. In the
    Gift, unutterable in its preciousness, he now sees the Giver
    and the Source of all. [b ver. 16.] Then, following that
    teaching of Jesus backward, he sees how true it has proved
    concerning the world, that 'that which is of the flesh is
    flesh;' how true, also concerning the Spirit-born, and what
    need there is to us of 'this birth from above.'

     But to all time, through the gusty night of our world's
    early spring, flashes, as the lamp in that Aliyah through the
    darkened streets of silent Jerusalem, that light; sounds
    through its stillness, like the Voice of the Teacher come
    from God, this eternal Gospel-message to us and to all men:
    'God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son,
    that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have
    everlasting life.'

 THE ASCENT: FROM THE RIVER JORDAN TO THE MOUNT OF
    TRANSFIGURATION

    IN JUDEA AND THROUGH SAMARIA, A SKETCH OF SAMARITAN HISTORY
    AND THEOLOGY, JEWS AND SAMARITANS.

    CHAPTER VII.

     (St. John iv. 1-4.)

     We have no means of determining how long Jesus may have
    tarried in Jerusalem after the events recorded in the
    previous two chapters. The Evangelic narrative [a St. John
    iii. 22.] only marks an indefiniteperiod of time, which, as
    we judge from internal probability, cannot have been
    protracted. From the city He retired with His disciples to
    'the country,' which formed the province of Judaea. There He
    taught and His disciples baptized. [b St. John vi. 2.] [1 The
    Baptism of preparation for the Kingdom could not have been
    administered by Him Who opened the Kingdom of Heaven.] From
    what had been so lately witnessed in Jerusalem, as well as
    from what must have been known as to the previous testimony
    of the Baptist concerning Him, the number of those who
    professed adhesion to the expected new Kingdom, and were
    consequently baptized, was as large, in that locality, as had
    submitted to the preaching and Baptism of John, perhaps even
    larger. An exaggerated report was carried to the Pharisaic
    authorities: [2 The Evangelist reports the message which was
    brought to the Pharisees in the very words in which it was
    delivered.] 'Jesus maketh and baptizeth more disciples than
    John.' [c St. John iv. 1.] From which, at least, we infer,
    that the opposition of the leaders of the party to the
    Baptist was now settled, and that it extended to Jesus; and
    also, what careful watch they kept over the new movement.

     But what seems at first sight strange is the twofold
    circumstance, that Jesus should for a time have established
    Himself in such apparently close proximity to the Baptist,
    and that on this occasion, and on this only, He should have
    allowed His disciples to administer the rite of Baptism. That
    the latter must be not be confounded with Christian Baptism,
    which was only introduced after the Death of Christ, [d Rom.
    iv. 3.] or, to speak more accurately, after the outpouring of
    the Holy Ghost, needs no special explanation. But our
    difficulties only increase, as we remember the essential
    difference between them, grounded on that between the Mission
    of John and the Teaching of Jesus. In the former, the Baptism
    of repentant preparation for the coming Kingdom had its
    deepest meaning; not so in presence of that Kingdom itself,
    and in the teaching of its King. But, even were it otherwise,
    the administration of the same rite by John and by the
    disciples of Jesus in apparently close proximity, seems not
    only unnecessary, but it might give rise to misconception on
    the part of enemies, and misunderstanding or jealousy on the
    part of weak disciples.
     Such was actually the case when, on one occassion, a
    discussion arose 'on the part of John's disciples with a
    Jew,' [1 This, and not 'the Jews,' is the better reading.] on
    the subject of purification. [a St. John iii. 25.] We know
    not the special point in dispute, nor does it seem of much
    importance, since such 'questions' would naturally suggest
    themselves to a caviller or opponent [2 Probably the
    discussion originated with John's disciples, the objector
    being a Jew or a professing disciple of Christ, who
    deprecated their views. In the one case they would in his
    opinion be too low; in the other too high. In either case the
    subject in dispute would not be baptisms, but the general
    subject of purifications, a subject of such wide range in
    Jewish theology, that one of the six sections into which the
    Mishnah or traditional Law is divided, is specially devoted
    to it.] who encountered those who were administering Baptism.
    What really interests us is, that somehow this Jewish
    objector must have connected what he said with a reference to
    the Baptism of Jesus' disciples. For, immediately afterwards,
    the disciples of John, in their sore zeal for the honour of
    their master, brought him tidings, in the language of doubt,
    if not of complaint, of what to them seemed interference with
    the work of the Baptist, and almost presumption on the part
    of Jesus. While fully alive to their grievous error, perhaps
    in proportion as we are so, we cannot but honour and
    sympathise with this loving care for their master. The
    toilsome mission of the great Ascetic was drawing to its
    close, and that without any tangible success so far as he was
    concerned. Yet, to souls susceptible of the higher, to see
    him would be to be arrested; to hear him, to be convinced; to
    know, would be to love and venerate him. Never before had
    such deep earnestness and reality been witnessed, such
    devotedness, such humility and self-abnegation, and all in
    that great cause which set every Jewish heart on fire. And
    then, in the high-day of his power, when all men had gathered
    around him and hung on his lips; when all wondered whether he
    would announce himself as the Christ, or, at least, as His
    Forerunner, or as one of the great Prophets; when a word from
    him would have kindled that multitude into a frenzy of
    enthusiasm, he had disclaimed everything for himself, and
    pointed to Another! But this 'Coming One,' to whom he had
    borne witness, had hitherto been quite other than their
    Master. And, as if this had not been enough, the multitudes,
    which had formerly come to John, now flocked around Jesus;
    nay, He had even unsurped the one distinctive function still
    left to their master, humble as it was. It was evident that,
    hated and watched by the Pharisees; watched, also, by the
    ruthless jealousy of a Herod; overlooked, if not supplanted,
    by Jesus, the mission of their master was nearing its close.
    It had been a life and work of suffering and self-denial; it
    was about to end in loneliness and sorrow. They said nothing
    expressly to complain of Him to Whom John had borne witness,
    but they told of what He did, and how all men came to Him.

     The answer which the Baptist made, may be said to mark the
    high point of his life and witness. Never before was he so
    tender, almost sad; never before more humble and
    self-denying, more earnest and faithful. The setting of his
    own life-sun was to be the rising of One infinitely more
    bright; the end of his Mission the begining of another far
    higher. In the silence, which was now gathering around him,
    he heard but one Voice, that of the Bridegroom, and he
    rejoiced in it, though he must listen to it in stillness and
    loneliness. For it he had waited and worked. Not his own, but
    this had he sought. And now that it had come, he was content;
    more than content: his 'joy was now fulfilled.' 'He must
    increase, but I must decrease.' It was the right and good
    order. With these as his last words publicly spoken, [1 The
    next event was John's imprisonment by Herod.] this Aaron of
    the New Testament unrobed himself ere he lay down to die.
    Surely among those born of women there was not one greater
    than John.

     That these were his last words, publicly spoken and
    recorded, may, however, explain to us why on this exceptional
    occasion Jesus sanctioned the administration by His disciples
    of the Baptism of John. It was not a retrogression from the
    position He had taken in Jerusalem, nor caused by the refusal
    of His Messianic claims in the Temple. [2 This strange
    suggestion is made by Godet.] There is no retrogression, only
    progression, in the Life of Jesus. And yet it was only on
    this occasion that the rite was administered under His
    sanction. But the circumstances were exceptional. It was
    John's last testimony to Jesus, and it was preceded by this
    testimony of Jesus to John. Far divergent, almost opposite,
    as from the first their paths had been, this practical
    sanction on the part of Jesus of John's Baptism, when the
    Baptist was about to be forsaken, betrayed, and murdered, was
    Christ's highest testimony to him. Jesus adopted his Baptism,
    ere its waters for ever ceased to flow, and thus He blessed
    and consecrated them. He took up the work of His Forerunner,
    and continued it. The baptismal rite of John administered
    with the sanction of Jesus, was the highest witness that
    could be borne to it.

     There is no necessity for supposing that John and the
    disciples of Jesus baptized at, or quite close to, the same
    place. On the contrary, such immediate juxtaposition seems,
    for obvious reasons, unlikely. Jesus was within the
    boundaries of the province of Judaea, while John baptized at
    Aenon (the springs), near to Salim. The latter site has not
    been identified. But the oldest tradition, which places it a
    few miles to the south of Bethshean (Scythopolis), on the
    border of Samaria and Galilee, has this in its favour, that
    it locates the scene of John's last public work close to the
    seat of Hearod Antipas, into whose power the Baptist was so
    soon to be delivered. [1 No fewer than four localities have
    been identified with Aenon and Salim. Ewald, Hengstenberg,
    Wieseler, and Godet, seek it on the southern border of Judaea
    (En-rimmon, Neh. xi. 29, comp. Josh. xv. 1, 32). This seems
    so improbable as scarcely to require discussion. Dr. Barclay
    (City of the Great King, pp. 558-571) finds it a few miles
    from Jerusalem in the Wady Far'ah, but admits (p. 565) that
    there are doubts about the Arab pronunciation of this Salim.
    Lieut. Conder (Tent-Work in Palest., vol. i. pp. 91-93) finds
    it in the Wady Far'ah, which leads from Samaria to the
    Jordan. Here he describes most pictorially 'the springs' 'in
    the open valley surrounded by desolate and shapeless hills,'
    with the village of Salim three miles south of the valley,
    and the village of 'Ainan four miles north of the stream.
    Against this there are, however, two objections. First, both
    Aenon and Salim would have been in Samaria. Secondly, so far
    from being close to each other, Aenon would have been seven
    miles from Salim.] But already there were causes at work to
    remove both Jesus and His Forerunner from their present
    spheres of activity. As regards Christ, we have the express
    statement, [a St. John iv. 1.] that the machinations of the
    Pharisaic party in Jerusalem led Him to withdraw into
    Galilee. And, as we gather from the notice of St. John, the
    Baptist was now involved in this hostility, as being so
    closely connected with Jesus. Indeed, we venture the
    suggestion that the imprisonment of the Baptist, although
    occasioned by his outspoken rebuke of Herod, was in great
    part due to the intrigues of the Pharisees. Of such a
    connection between them and Herod Antipas, we have direct
    evidence in a similar attempt to bring about the removal of
    Jesus from his territory. [b St. Luke xiii. 31, 32.] It would
    not have been difficult to rouse the suspicions of a nature
    so mean and jealous as that of Antipas, and this may explain
    the account of Josephus, [c Ant. xviii 5. 2.] who attributes
    the imprisonment and death of the Baptist simply to Herod's
    suspicious fear of John's unbounded influence with the
    people. [1 Ant. xviii. 5. 2: 'But to some of the Jews it
    appeared, that the destruction of Herod's army came from God,
    and, indeed, as a righteous punishment on account of what had
    been done to John, who was surnamed the Baptist. For Herod
    ordered him to be killed, a good man, and who commanded the
    Jews to exercise virtue, both as to righteousness towards one
    another, and piety towards God, and so to come to baptism.
    For that the baptizing would be acceptable to Him, if they
    made use of it, not for the putting away (remission) of some
    sins, but for the purification of the body, after that the
    soul had been previously cleansed by righteousness. And when
    others had come in crowds, for they were exceedingly moved by
    hearing these words, Herod, fearing lest such influence of
    his over the people might lead to some rebellion, for they
    seemed ready to do anything by his counsel, deemed it best,
    before anything new should happen through him, to put him to
    death, rather than that, when a change should arise in
    affairs, he might have to repent.', Comp. also Krebs.
    Observationes in Nov. Test. e Fl. Jos. pp. 35, 36.]

     Leaving for the present the Baptist, we follow the footsteps
    of the Master. They are only traced by the disciple who best
    understood their direction, and who alone has left us a
    record of the beginning of Christ's ministry. For St. Matthew
    and St. Mark expressly indicate the imprisonment of the
    Baptist as their starting-point, [a St. Mark j. 14; St. Mark
    iv. 12.] and, though St. Luke does not say this in so many
    words, he characteristically commences with Christ's public
    Evangelic teaching in the Synagogues of Galilee. Yet the
    narrative of St. Matthew [b See specially St. Matt. iv. 13 to
    end.] reads rather like a brief summary; [2 I am so strongly
    impressed with this, that I do not feel sure about Godet's
    theory, that the calling of the four Apostles recorded by the
    Synoptists (St. Matt. iv. 18-22; St. Mark i. 16-20; St. Luke
    v. 1-11), had really taken place during our Lord's first stay
    in Capernaum (St. John ii. 12). On the whole, however, the
    circumstances recorded by the Synoptists seem to indicate a
    period in the Lord's Ministry beyond that early stay in
    Capernaum.] that of St. Mark seems like a succession of rapid
    sketches; and even that of St. Luke, though with deeper
    historic purpose than the others, outlines, rather than
    tells, the history. St. John alone does not profess to give a
    narrative at all in the ordinary sense; but he selects
    incidents which are characteristic as unfolding the meaning
    of that Life, and records discourses which open its inmost
    teaching; [c St. Johnxx. 30, 31; xxi. 25.] and he alone tells
    of that early Judaean ministry and the journey through
    Samaria, which preceded the Galilean work.

     The shorter road from Judaea to Galilee led through Samaria;
    [d Jos. Life, 52.]and this, if we may credit Josephus, [e
    Ant. xx. 6. 1.] was generally taken by the Galileans on their
    way to the capital. On the other hand, the Judaeans seem
    chiefly to have made a detour through Peraea, in order to
    avoid hostile and impure Samaria. It lay not within the scope
    of our Lord to extend His personal Ministry, especially at
    its commencement, beyond the boundaries of Israel, [f St.
    Matt. x. 5.] and the expression, 'He must needs go through
    Samaria,' [g St. John iv. 4.] can only refer to the
    advisability in the circumstances of taking the most direct
    road, [1 I cannot agree with Archdeacon Watkins, that the
    'needs go' was in order 'to teach in Samaria, as in Judea,
    the principles of true religion and worship.'] or else to the
    wish of avoiding Peraea as the seat of Herod's government. [2
    So Bengel and Luthardt.] Such prejudices in regard to
    Samaria, as those which affected the ordinary Judaean
    devotee, would, of course, not influence the conduct of
    Jesus. But great as these undoubtedly were, they have been
    unduly exaggerated by modern writers. misled by one-sided
    quotations from Rabbinic works. [3 Much as has been written
    about Samaria, the subject has not been quite satisfactorily
    treated. Some of the passages referred to by Deutsch (Smith's
    Dict. of the Bible, vol. iii., Art. Samaritan Pentat. p.
    1118) cannot be verified, probably owing to printer's
    mistakes.]

     The Biblical history of that part of Palestine which bore
    the name of Samaria need not here be repeated. [a Comp. 1
    Kings xiii. 32; xvi. 24 &c.; Tiglath-Pileser, 2 Kings xv. 29;
    Shalmaneser, xvii. 3-5; xviii. 9-11; Sargon. xvii. 6, &c.]
    Before the final deportation of Israel by Shalmaneser, or
    rather Sargon, [4 Comp. Smith's Bible Dict., Art. Sargon; and
    Schrader, Keil-Inschr. u. d. Alte Test. p. 158 &c.] the
    'Samaria' to which his operations extended must have
    considerably shrunk in dimensions, not only owing to previous
    conquests, but from the circumstance that the authority of
    the kings of Judah seems to have extended over a considerable
    portion of what once constituted the kingdom of Israel. [b 2
    Chron.xxx. 1-26; xxxiv. 6.] Probably the Samaria of that time
    included little more than the city of that name, together
    with some adjoining towns and villages. It is of considerable
    interest to remember that the places, to which the
    inhabitants of Samaria were transported, [c 2 Kings xvii. 6.]
    have been identified with such clearness as to leave no
    reasonable doubt, that at least some of the descendants of
    the ten tribes, whether mixed or unmixed with Gentiles, must
    be sought among what are now known as the Nestorian
    Christians. [5 Of course, not all the ten tribes. Comp.
    previous remarks on their migrations.] On the other hand, it
    is of no practical importance for our present purpose to
    ascertain the exact localities, whence the new 'Samaritans'
    were brought to take the place of the Israelitish exiles. [d
    2 Kings xvii. 24-26; comp. Ezr. iv. 2, 10.] Suffice it, that
    one of them, perhaps that which contributed the principal
    settlers, Cuthah, furnished the name Cuthim, by which the
    Jews afterwards persistently designated the Samaritans. It
    was intended as a term of reproach, [e St. John viii. 48.] to
    mark that they were of foreign race, [f St. Luke xvii. 16.]
    [6 The expression cannot, however, be pressed as implying
    that the Samaritans were of entirely Gentile blood.] and to
    repudiate all connection between them and the Jews. Yet it is
    impossible to believe that, at least in later times, they did
    not contain a considerable admixture of Israelitish elements.
    It is difficult to suppose, that the original deportation was
    so complete as to leave behind no traces of the original
    Israelitish inhabitants. [g Comp. 2 Chron. xxxiv. 6, 9 Jer.
    xii. 5; Amos v. 3.] Their number would probably be swelled by
    fugitives from Assyria, and by Jewish settlers in the
    troublous times that followed. Afterwards, as we know, they
    were largely increased by apostates and rebels against the
    order of things established by Ezra and Nehemiah. [a Jos.
    Ant. xi. 8, 2, 6, 7.] Similarly, during the period of
    internal political and religious troubles, which marked the
    period to the accession of the Meccabees, the separation
    between Jews and Samaritans could scarcely have been
    generally observed, the more so that Alexander the Great
    placed them in close juxtaposition. [1 Comp. Herzfeld, Gesch.
    d. Volkes Isr. ii. p. 120.]

     The first foreign colonists of Samaria brought their
    peculiar forms of idolatry with them. [b 2 Kings xvii. 30,
    31.] But the Providential judgments,by which they were
    visited, led to the introduction of a spurious Judaism,
    consisting of a mixture of their former superstitions with
    Jewish doctrines and rites. [c vv. 28-41.] Although this
    state of matters resembled that which had obtained in the
    original kingdom of Israel, perhaps just because of this,
    Ezra and Nehemiah, when reconstructing the Jewish
    commonwealth, insisted on a strict separation between those
    who had returned from Babylon and the Samaritans, resisting
    equally their offers of co-operation and their attempts at
    hindrance. This embittered the national feeling of jealousy
    already existing, and led to that constant hostility between
    Jews and Samaritans which has continued to this day. The
    religious separation became final when (at a date which
    cannot be precisely fixed [2 Jost thinks it existed even
    before the time of Alexander. Comp. Nutt, Samar. Hist. p. 16,
    note 2.]) the Samaritans built a rival temple on Mount
    Gerizim, and Manasseh, [3 The difficult question, whether
    this is the Sanballat of the Book of Nehemiah, is fully
    discussed by Petermann (Herzog's Real-Enc. vol. xiii. p.
    366).] the brother of Jaddua, the Jewish High-Priest, having
    refused to annul his marriage with the daughter of Sanballat,
    was forced to flee, and became the High-Priest of the new
    Sanctuary. Henceforth, by impudent assertion and
    falsification of the text of the Pentateuch, [4 For a very
    full criticism of that Pentateuch, see Mr. Deutsch's Art. in
    Smith's Bible-Dict.] Gerizim was declared the rightful centre
    of worship, and the doctrines and rites of the Samaritans
    exhibited a curious imitation and adaptation of those
    prevalent in Judaea.

     We cannot here follow in detail the history of the
    Samaritans, nor explain the dogmas and practices peculiar to
    them. The latter would be the more difficult, because so many
    of their views were simply corruptions of those of the Jews,
    and because, from the want of an authenticated ancient
    literature, [5 Comp. the sketch of it in Nutt's Samar. Hist.,
    and Petermann's Art.] the origin and meaning of many of them
    have been forgotten. [1 As instances we may mention the names
    of the Angels and devils. One of the latter is called Yatsara
    ( ), which Petermann derives from Deut. xxxi. 21, and Nutt
    from Ex. xxiii. 28. I have little doubt, it is only a
    corruption of Yetser haRa. Indeed, the latter and Satan are
    expressly identified in Baba B. 16 a. Many of the Samaritan
    views seem only corruptions and adaptations of those current
    in Palestine, which, indeed, in the circumstances, might have
    been expected.] Sufficient, however, must be said to explain
    the mutual relations at the time when the Lord, sitting on
    Jacob's well, first spake to the Samaritans of the better
    worship 'in spirit and truth,' and opened that well of living
    water which has never since ceased to flow.

     The political history of the people can be told in a few
    sentences. Their Temple, [2 The Jews termed it (Ber. R. 31).
    Frankel ridicules the derivation of Reland (de Monte Garis
    iii., apud Ugolini, Thes. vol. vii. pp. 717, 718), who
    explains the name as stercoreum delubrum, corresponding to
    the Samaritan designation of the Temple at Jerusalem as oedes
    stercorea. Frankel himself (Palast. Ex. p. 248) derives the
    expression from with reference to Gen. xxxv. 4. But this
    seems quite untenable. May not the term be a compound of , to
    spit out, and ? .] to which reference has been made, was
    built, not in Samaria but at Shechem, probably on account of
    the position held by that city in the former history of
    Israel, and on Mount Gerizim, which in the Samaritan
    Pentateuch was substituted for Mount Ebal in Deut. xxvii. 4.
    It was Shechem also, with its sacred associations of Abraham,
    Jacob, and Joseph, which became the real capital of the
    Samaritans. The fate of the city of Samaria under the reign
    of Alexander is uncertain, one account speaking of the
    rebellion of the city, the murder of the Macedonian governor,
    the consequent destruction of Samaria, and the slaughter of
    part, and transportation of the rest, of its inhabitants to
    Shechem, [3 Comp. Herzfeld, u. s. ii. p. 120.] whileJosephus
    is silent on these events. When, after the death of
    Alexander, Palestine became the field of battle between the
    rulers of Egypt and Syria, Samaria suffered even more than
    other parts of the country. In 320 B. C. it passed from the
    rule of Syria to that of Egypt (Ptolemy Lagi). Six years
    later [a In 314.] it again became Syrian (Antigonus). Only
    three years afterwards, [b In 311.] Ptolemy reconquered and
    held it for a very short time. On his retreat, he destroyed
    the walls of Samaria and of other towns. In 301 it passed
    again by treaty into the hands of Ptolemy, out in 298 it was
    once more ravaged by the son of Antigonus. After that it
    enjoyed a season of quiet under Egyptian rule, till the reign
    of Antiochus (III.) the Great, when it again passed
    temporarily, and under his successor, Seleucus IV.
    (Philopator), [c 187-175.] permanently under Syrian dominion.
    In the troublous times of Antiochus IV. Epiphanes, [d
    175-164.]the Samaritans escaped the fate of the Jews by
    repudiating all connection with Israel, and dedicating their
    temple to Jupiter. [a According to Jos. Ant. xii. 5. 5,;
    according to 2 Macc. vi. 2 2, .] In the contest between Syria
    and the Maccabees which followed, the Samaritans, as might be
    expected, took the part of the former. In 130 B. C. John
    Hyrcanus destroyed the Temple on Mount Gerizim, [1 It is very
    probable that the date 25 Marcheshvan (Nov.) in the Megill.
    Taan. refers to the capture of Samaria. Both the Talmud (Jer.
    Sot. ix. 14; Sot. 33 a) and Josephus (Ant. xiii. 10. 7)
    refers to a Bath Qol announcing this victory to Hyrcanus
    while he ministered in the Sanctuary at Jerusalem.] which was
    never rebuilt. The city of Samaria was taken several years
    afterwards [b Between 113 and 105.] [2 Not a few of the
    events of Herod's life were connected with Samaria. There he
    married the beautiful and ill-fated Mariamme (Ant. xiv. 12.
    1); and there, thirty years later, her two sons were
    strangled by order of the jealous tyrant (Ant. xvi. 11.
    2-7).] by the sons of Hyrcanus (Antigonus and Aristobulus),
    after a year's siege, and the successive defeat of Syrian and
    Egyptian armies of relief. Although the city was now not only
    destroyed, but actually laid under water to complete its
    ruin, it was rebuilt by Gabinius shortly before our era, [c
    Ant xiv. 5. 3.] and greatly enlarged and beautified by Herod,
    who called it Sebaste in honour of Augustus, to whom he
    reared a magnificent temple. [d Ant. xx. 8. 5; Jewish War i.
    21. 2.] Under Roman rule the city enjoyed great privileges,
    had even a Senate of its own. [e Ant. xviii. 4. 2.] Byone of
    those striking coincidences which mark the Rule of God in
    history. it was the accusation brought against him by that
    Samaritan Senate which led to the deposition of Pilate. By
    the side of Samaria, or Sebaste, we have already marked as
    perhaps more important, and as the religious capital, the
    ancient Shechem, which, in honour of the Imperial family of
    Rome, ultimately obtained the name of Flavia Neapolis, which
    has survived in the modern Nablus. It is interesting to
    notice that the Samaritans also had colonies, although not to
    the same extent as the Jews. Among them we may name those of
    Alexandria, Damascus, in Babylonia, and even some by the
    shores of the Red Sea. [3 Comp. Nutt, Samar. Hist. p. 26,
    note, and the authorities there quoted.]

     Although not only in the New Testament, but in 1 Macc. x.
    30, and in the writings of Josephus, [f See specially War
    iii. 3. 4, 5.] Western Palestine is divided into the
    provinces of Judaea, Samaria, and Galilee, the Rabbis, whose
    ideas were shaped by the observances of Judaism, ignore this
    division. For them Palestine consisted only of Judaea,
    Peraea, and Galilee. [g For ex. Baba B. iii. 2.] Samaria
    appears merely as a strip intervening between Judaea and
    Galilee, being 'the land of the Cuthaeans.' [h For ex. Jer.
    Chag. iii. 4.] Nevertheless, it was not regarded like heathen
    lands, but pronounced clean. Both the Mishnah [i Gitt. vii.
    7.] and Josephus [k War iii. 3. 4, 5.] mark Anuath ( ) as the
    southern boundary of Samaria (towards Judae). Northward it
    extended to Ginaea (the ancient En-Gannim) on the south side
    of the plain of Jezreel; on the east it was bounded by the
    Jordan; and on the west by the plain of Sharon, which was
    rekoned as belonging to Judaea. Thus it occupied the ancient
    territories of Manasseh and Ephraim, and extended about
    forty-eight miles (noth and south) by forty (east and west).
    In aspect and climate it resembled Judaea, only that the
    scenery was more beautiful and the soil more fertile. The
    political enmity and religious separation between the Jews
    and Samaritans account for their mutual jealously. On all
    public occasions the Samaritans took the part hostile to the
    Jews, while they seized every opportunity of injuring and
    insulting them. Thus, in the time of Antiochus III. they sold
    many Jews into slavery. [a Ant. xii. 4.1.] Afterwards they
    sought to mislead the Jews at a distance, to whom the
    beginning of every month (so important in the Jewish festive
    arrangements) was intimated by beacon fires, by kindling
    spurious signals. [b Rosh haSh. ii. 2.] We also read that
    they tried to descrate the Temple on the eve of the Passover;
    [c Ant. xviii. 2. 2.] and that they waylaid and killed
    pilgrims on their road to Jerusalem. [d Ant. xx. 6. 1.] The
    Jews retaliated by treating the Samaritans with every mark of
    contempt; by accusing them of falsehood, folly, and
    irreligion; and, what they felt most keenly, by disowning
    them as of the same race or religion, and this in the most
    offensive terms of assumed superiority and self-righteous
    fanaticism.

     In view of these relations, we almost wonder at the candour
    and moderation occasionally displayed towards the Samaritans
    in Jewish writings. These statements are of practical
    importance in this history, since elaborate attempts have
    been made to show what articles of food the disciples of
    Jesus might have bought in Samaria, in ignorance that almost
    all would have been lawful. Our inquiry here is, however,
    somewhat complicated by the circumstance that in Rabbinic
    writings, as at present existing, the term Samaritans (Cuthim
    [1 The more exact translation would, of course, be Kuthim,
    but I have written Cuthim on account of the reference to 2
    Kings xxvii. 24. Indeed, for various reasons, it is
    impossible always to adopt a uniform or exact system of
    transliteration.] ) has, to avoid the censorship of the
    press, been often purposely substituted for 'Sadducees,' or
    'heretics,' i.e. Christians. Thus, when [e In Sanh. 90 b.]
    the Samaritans are charged with denying in their books that
    the Resurrection can be proved from the Pentateuch, the real
    reference is supposed to have been to Sadducean or Christian
    heretical writings. Indeed, the terms Samaritans, Sadducees,
    and heretics are used so interchangeably, that a careful
    inquiry is necessary, to show in each case which of them is
    really meant. Still more frequent is the use of the term
    'Samaritan' ( ) for 'stranger' ( ), the latter, and not
    strictly Samaritan descent being meant. [1 Frankel quotes as
    a notable instance of it, Ber. viii. 8, and refers in proof
    to the Jerus. Talmud on this Mishnah. But, for reasons soon
    to be explained, I am not prepared in this instance to adopt
    his view.] The popular interchange of these terms casts light
    on the designation of the Samaritan as 'a stranger' by our
    Lord in St. Luke xvii. 18.

     In general it may be said that, while on certain points
    Jewish opinion remained always the same, the judgment passed
    on the Samaritans, and especially as to intercourse with
    them, varied, according as they showed more or less active
    hostility towards the Jews. Thus the Son of Sirach would
    correctly express the feeling of contempt and dislike, when
    he characterised the Samaritans as 'the foolish people' which
    his 'heart abhorred.' [a Ecclus. 1. 25, 26.] The same
    sentiment appears in early Christian Pseudepigraphic and in
    Rabbinic writings. In the so-called 'Testament of the Twelve
    Patriarchs' (which probably dates from the beginning of the
    second century), 'Sichem' is the City of Fools, derided by
    all men. [b Test. Levi. vii.] It was only natural, that Jews
    should be forbidden to respond by an Amen to the benediction
    of Samaritans, at any rate till they were sure it had been
    correctly spoken, [c Ber. viii. 8.] since they were neither
    in practice nor in theory regarded as co-religionists. [d
    Sheq. i. 5.] [2 As in the case of heathens, neither
    Temple-tribute, nor any other than free-will and votive
    offerings were received from them.] Yet they were not treated
    as heathens, and their land, their springs, baths, houses,
    and roads were declared clean. [e Jer. Abhod. Z. v. 4, p. 44
    d.]

     The question was discussed, whether or not they were to be
    considered 'lion-proselytes' (from fear of the lions), or as
    genuine converts; [f Sanh. 85 b; Chull. 3 b; Kidd, 75 b.]
    and, again, whether or not they were to be regarded as
    heathens. [g Jer. Sheq. 46 b.] This, and the circumstance
    that different teachers at different times gave directly
    opposite replies to these questions, proves that there was no
    settled principle on the subject, but that opinions varied
    according to the national bearing of the Samaritans. Thus, we
    are expressly told, [h Jer. Demai iii. 4.] that at one time
    both their testimony and their religious orthodoxy were more
    credited than at others, and they are not treated as
    Gentiles, but placed on the same level as an ignorant Jew. A
    marked difference of opinion here prevails. The older
    tradition, as represented by Simon the son of Gamaliel,
    regards them as in every respect like Israelites; [i Comp.
    also Jer. Dem. vi. 11; Jer. Ber. vii. 1; and Jer. Keth. 27
    a.] whilst later authority (Rabbi Jehuda the Holy) would have
    them considered and treated as heathens. Again, it is
    expressly stated in the Babylon Talmud, [a Ber. 47 b.] that
    the Samaritans observed the letter of the Pentateuch, while
    one authority adds, that in that which they observed they
    were more strict than the Jews themselves. [b Comp. Chull. 4
    a.] Of this, indeed, there is evidence as regards several
    ordinances. On the other hand, later authorities again
    reproach them with falsification of the Pentateuch, charge
    them with worshipping them with falisification of the
    Pentateuch, charge them with worshipping a dove, [c Chull. 6
    a.] and even when, on further inquiry, they absolve them from
    this accusation, ascribe their excessive veneration for Mount
    Gerizim to the circumstance that they worshipped the idols
    which Jacob had buried under the oak at Shechem. To the same
    hatred, caused by national persecution, we must impute such
    expressions as [d Chull. 104 c.] that he, whose hospitality
    receives a foreigner, has himself to blame if his children
    have to go into captivity.

     The expression, 'the Jews have no dealings with the
    Samaritans,' [e St. John iv. 9.] finds its exact counterpart
    [f Megill. 2.] in this: 'May I never set eyes on a
    Samaritan;' or else, 'May I never be thrown into company with
    him!' A Rabbi in Caesarea explains, as the cause of these
    changes of opinion, that formerly the Samaritans had been
    observant of the Law, which they no longer were; a statement
    repeated in another form to the effect, that their observance
    of it lasted as long as they were in their own cities. [g
    Jer. Abhod. Zar. v. 4.] Matters proceeded so far, that they
    were entirely excluded from fellowship. [h Chull. 6 a.] The
    extreme limit of this direction, [i Shebhyith viii. 10.] if,
    indeed, the statement applies to the Samaritans, [1 The
    expression literally applies to idolaters.] is marked by the
    declaration, that to partake of their bread was like eating
    swine's flesh. This is futher improved upon in a later
    Rabbinic work, [k Yalkut ii. p. 36 d.] which gives a detailed
    story of how the Samaritans had conspired against Ezra and
    Nehemiah, and the ban been laid upon them, so that now not
    only was all intercourse with them forbidden, but their bread
    declared like swine's flesh; proselytes were not to be
    received from them; nor would they have part in the
    Resurrection of the dead. [2 In Jer. Kil. ix. 4, 9. 32 c
    (middle) the question of the Resurrection is discussed, when
    it is said that the Samaritan inhabitants of Palestine, far
    from enjoying the blessings of that period, would be made
    into sections (or, made like cloth [?]), and then burnt up.]
    But there is a great difference between all this extravagance
    and the opinions prevailing at the time of Jesus. Even in the
    Rabbinic tractate on the Samaritans [m Massecheth Kuthim, in
    Kirchheim, Septem Libri parvi Talmudici, pp. 31-36.] it is
    admitted, that in most of their usages they resembled
    Israelites, and many rights and privileges are conceded to
    them, from which a heathen would have been excluded. They are
    to be 'credited' on many points; their meat is declared
    clean, if an Isrealite had witnessed its killing, or a
    Samaritan ate of it; [a Chull. 3 b.] their bread [1 In Jer.
    Orlah ii. 7 the question is discussed, how long after the
    Passover it is not lawful to use bread baked by Samaritans,
    showing that ordinarily it was lawful.] and, under certain
    conditions, even their wine, are allowed; and the final
    prospect is held out of their reception into the Synagogue,
    when they shall have given up their faith in Mount Gerizim,
    and acknowledged Jerusalem and the Resurrection of the dead.
    But Jewish toleration went even further. At the time of
    Christ all their food was declared lawful. [b Jer. Abhod.
    Zar. v. 4.] There could, therefore, be no difficulty as
    regarded the purchase of victuals on the part of the
    disciples of Jesus.

     It has already been stated, that most of the peculiar
    doctrines of the Samaritans were derived from Jewish sources.
    As might be expected, their tendency was Sadducean rather
    than Pharisaic. [2 The doctrinal views, the festive
    observances, and the literature of the Samaritans of a later
    period, cannot be discussed in this place. For further
    information we refer to the following:, The Articles in
    Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, in Winer's Bibl.
    Real-Worterb., and especially in Herzog's Real-Encykl. (by
    Petermann); to Juynboll, Comment. in Hist. Gentis Samarit.;
    Jost, Gesch. des Judenth.; Herzfeld, Gesh. des judisch.
    Volkes, passim; Frankel, Einfluss der Palast. Exeg. pp.
    237-254; Nutt, Sketch of Samaritan History, &c.]
    Nevertheless, Samaritan 'sages' are referred to. [c Gitt. 10
    b; Nidd. 33 b.] Butit is difficult to form any decided
    opinion about the doctrinal views of the sect, partly from
    the comparative lateness of their literature, and partly
    because the Rabbinist charges against them cannot be
    absolutely trusted. It seems at least doubtful, whether they
    really denied the Resurrection, as asserted by the Rabbis, [d
    Siphre on Numb. xv. 31; Sanh. 90b.] from whom the Fathers
    have copied the charge. [Epiphanius, Haeres. iv., xiv.;
    Leontius, De Sectis viii.; Gregory the Great, Moral. i. xv.
    Grimm (Die Samariter &c., pp. 91 &c.), not only strongly
    defends the position of the Fathers, but holds that the
    Samaritans did not even believe in the immortality of the
    soul, and maintained that the world was eternal. The
    'Samaritan Chronicle' dates from the thirteenth century, but
    Grimm maintains that it embodies the earlier views of that
    people (u. s. p. 107).] Certainly, they hold that doctrine at
    present. They strongly believed in the Unity of God; they
    held the doctrine of Angels and devils; [4 this seems
    inconsistent with their disbelief of the Resurrection, and
    also casts doubt on the patristic testimony about them, since
    Leontius falsely accuses them of rejecting the doctrine of
    Angels. Epiphanius, on the other hand, attributes to them
    belief in Angels. Reland maintains, that they regarded the
    Angels as merely 'powers', a sort of impersonal abstractions;
    Grimm thinks there were two sects of Samaritans, one
    believing, the other disbelieving, in Angels.] they received
    the Pentateuch as of sole Divine authority; [5 For their
    horrible distortion of later Jewish Biblical history, see
    Grimm (u. s.), p. 107.] they regarded Mount Gerizim as the
    place chosen of God, maintaining that it alone had not been
    covered by the flood, as the Jews asserted of Mount Moriah;
    they were most strict and zealous in what of Biblical or
    traditional Law they received; and lastly, and most important
    of all, they looked for the coming of a Messiah, in Whom the
    promise would be fulfilled, that the Lord God would raise up
    a Prophet from the midst of them, like unto Moses, in Whom
    his words were to be, and unto Whom they should hearken. [a
    Deut. xviii. 15, 18.] [1 They expected that this Messiah
    would finally convert all nations to Samaritanism (Grimm, p.
    99). But there is no historic ground for the view of Mr. Nutt
    (Sketch of Samar. Hist. pp. 40, 69) that the idea of a
    Messiah the Son of Joseph, which holds so large a place in
    later Rabbinic theology, was of Samaritan origin.] Thus,
    while, in some respects, access to them would be more
    difficult than to His own countrymen, yet in others Jesus
    would find there a soil better prepared for the Divine Seed,
    or, at least, less encumbered by the thistles and tares of
    traditionalism and Pharisaic bigotry.

 THE ASCENT: FROM THE RIVER JORDAN TO THE MOUNT OF
    TRANSFIGURATION

    JESUS AT THE WELL OF SYCHAR

    CHAPTER VIII

     (St. John iv. 1-42.)

     THERE is not a district in 'the Land of Promise' which
    presents a scene more fair or rich than the plain of Samaria
    (the modern El Mukhna). As we stand on the summit of the
    ridge, on the way from Shiloh, the eye travels over the wide
    sweep, extending more than seven miles northward, till it
    rests on the twin heights of Gerizim and Ebal, which enclose
    the valley of Shechem. Following the straight olive-shaded
    road from the south, to where a spur of Gerizim, jutting
    south-east, forms the Vale of Shechem, we stand by that 'Well
    of Jacob' to which so many sacred memories attach. Here, in
    'the parcel of ground' afterwards given to Joseph, [1 The
    reference here is to Gen. xlviii. 22. Winsche, indeed,
    objects that this application of the passage is inaccurate,
    and contrary to universal Rabbinic tradition. But in this, as
    in other instances, it is not the Gospel, but rather Dr.
    Winsche, who is inaccurate. If the reader will refer to
    Geiger's Urschr. p. 80, he will find proof that the
    Evangelist's rendering of Gen. xlviii. 22 was in accordance
    with ancient Rabbinic tradition, which was only afterwards
    altered for anti-Samaritan purposes. On the other hand, this
    may be regarded as another undesigned proof of the Johannine
    authorship of the Fourth Gospel.] which Jacob had brought
    from the people of the land, the patriarch had, at great
    labour and cost, sunk a well through the limestone rock. At
    present it is partially filled with rubbish and stones, but
    originally it must have gone down about 150 feet. [2 The
    present depth of the well is aboutseventy-five feet. Most
    travellers have given more or less pictorial accounts of
    Jacob's Well. We refer here especially to Mr. King's Report
    (Quarterly Stat. of the Pal. Explor. Fund, Ap. 1879),
    although it contains the strange mistake that Jesus had that
    day come from Jerusalem, and reached Jacob's Well by midday.]
    as the whole district abounds in springs, the object of the
    patriarch must have been to avoid occasion of strife with the
    Amorite herdsmen around. That well marks the boundary of the
    Great Plain, or rather its extensions bear other names. To
    the left (westwards), between Gerizim (on the south) and Ebal
    (on the north), winds the valley of olive-clad Shechem, the
    modern Nablus, though that town is not in view from the Well
    of Sychar. Still higher up the same valley, the mud hovels of
    Sebastiyeh mark the site of ancient Samaria, the magnificent
    Sebaste of Herod. North of the entrance to the Vale of
    Shechem rises Mount Ebal, which also forms. so to speak, the
    western wall of the northern extension of the Plain of
    Samaria. Here it bears the name of El 'Askar, from Askar, the
    ancient Sychar, which nestles at the foot of Ebal, at a
    distance of about two miles from Shechem. Similarly, the
    eastern extension of the plain bears the name of the Valley
    of Shalem, from the hamlet of that name, which probably
    occupies the site of the ancient city before which Jacob
    pitched his tent on his return to Canaan. [a Gen. xxxiii. 18,
    19.]

     At 'the Well of Jacob' which, for our present purpose, may
    be regarded as the centre of the scene, several ancient Roman
    roads meet and part. That southward, to which reference has
    already been made, leads close by Shiloh to Jerusalem; that
    westward traverses the vale of Shechem; that northward brings
    us to the ancient Sychar, only about half a mile from 'the
    Well.' Eastward there are two ancient Roman roads: one winds
    south-east, till it merges in the main road; the other
    strikes first due east, and then descends in a south-easterly
    direction through Wady Farah, which debouches into the
    Jordan. We can trace it as it crosses the waters of that
    Wady, and we infer, that its immediate neighbourhood must
    have been the scene where Jesus had taught, and His disciples
    baptized. It is still in Judaea, and yet sufficiently removed
    from Jerusalem; and the Wady is so full of springs that one
    spot near it actually bears the name of 'Ainun, 'springs,'
    like the ancient AEnon. But, from the spot which we have
    indicated, it is about twenty miles, across a somewhat
    difficult country to Jacob's Well. It would be a long and
    toilsome day's journey thither on a summer day, and we can
    understand how, at its end, Jesus would rest weary on the low
    parapet which enclosed the Well, while His disciples went to
    buy the necessary provisions in the neighbouring Sychar.

     And it was, as we judge, the evening of a day in early
    summer, [1 For 'the location of Sychar,' and the vindication
    of the view that the event took place at the beginning of the
    wheat harvest, or about the middle of May, see Appendix XV.
    The question is of considerable importance.] when Jesus,
    accompanied by the small band which formed His disciples, [2
    From the silence of the Synoptists, and the general
    designation of the disciples without naming them, Caspari
    concludes that only John, and perhaps Nathanael, but none of
    the other apostles, had accompanied Jesus on this journey
    (Chronol. Geogr. Einl. p. 104).] emerged into the rich Plain
    of Samaria. Far as the eye could sweep, 'the fields' were
    'already white unto the harvest.' They had reached 'the Well
    of Jacob.' There Jesus waited, while the others went to
    Sychar on their work of ministry. Probably John remained with
    the Master. They would scarcely have left Him alone,
    especially in that place; and the whole narrative reads like
    that of one who had been present at what passed. [1 Caspari
    (u. s. p. 103) thinks that John only related that of which he
    himself was an eyewitness, except, perhaps, in ch. xviii. 33,
    &c.] More than any other, perhaps, in the Fourth Gospel, it
    bears the mark, not only of Judaean, but of contemporary
    authorship. It seems utterly incompatible with the modern
    theory of its Ephesian origin at the end of the second
    century. The location of the scene, not in Sebaste or
    Shechem, but at Sychar, [2 It is very characteristic when
    Schenkel, in ignorance of the fact that Sychar is mentioned
    by the Rabbis, argues that the use of the name Sychar for
    Shechem affords evidence that the Fourth Gospel is of
    Gentile-Christian origin.] which in the fourth century at
    least had so entirely ceased to be Samaritan, that it had
    become the home of some celebrated Rabbis; [3 See Appendix
    XV.] the intimate knowledge of Samaritan and Jewish
    relations, which at the time of Christ allowed the purchase
    of food, but would certainly not have conceded it two
    centuries later; even the introduction of such a statement as
    'Salvation is of the Jews,' wholly inconsistent with the
    supposed scope of an Ephesian Gospel, these are only some of
    the facts which will occur to the student of that period, as
    bearing unsolicited testimony to the date and nationality of
    the writer.

     Indeed, there is such minuteness of detail about the
    narrative, and with it such charm of simplicity,
    affectionateness, reverence, and depth of spiritual insight,
    as to carry not only the conviction of its truthfulness, but
    almost instinctively to suggest to us 'the beloved disciple'
    as its witness. Already he had taken the place nearest to
    Jesus and saw and spake as none other of the disciples. Jesus
    weary, and resting while the disciples go to but food, is not
    an Ephesian, but a truly Evangelic presentation of the Christ
    in His human weakness and want.

     All around would awaken in the Divinely-attuned soul of the
    Divine Redeemer the thoughts which so soon afterwards found
    appropriate words and deeds. He is sitting by Jacob's Well,
    the very well which the ancestor of Israel had digged, and
    left as a memorial of his first and symbolic possession of
    the land. Yet this was also the scene of Israel's first
    rebellion against God's order, against the Davidic line and
    the Temple. And now Christ is here, among those who are not
    of Israel, and who persecute it. Surely this, of all others,
    would be the place where the Son of David, cast out of
    Jerusalem and the Temple, would think of the breach, and of
    what alone could heal it. He is hungry, and those fields are
    white to the harvest; yet far more hungering for that
    spiritual harvest which is the food of His soul. Over against
    Him, sheer up 800 feet, rises Mount Gerizim, with the ruins
    of the Samaritan rival Temple on it; just as far behind Him,
    already overhung by the dark cloud of judgment, are that
    Temple and City which knew not the day of their visitation.
    The one inquiring woman, and she a Samaritan, and the few
    only partially comprehending and much misunderstanding
    disciples; their inward thinking that for the spiritual
    harvest it was but seed-time, and the reaping yet 'four
    months distant,' while in reality, as even their eyes might
    see if they but lifted them, the fields were white unto the
    harvest: all this, and much more, forms a unique background
    to the picture of this narrative.
     To take another view of the varying lights on that picture:
    Jesus weary and thirsty by Jacob's Well, and the water of
    life which was to spring from, and by that Well, with its
    unfailing supply and its unending refreshment! The spiritual
    in all this bears deepest symbolic analogy to the outward,
    yet with such contrasts also, as the woman giving to Christ
    the one, He to her the other; she unconsciously beginning to
    learn, He unintendingly (for He had not even entered Sychar)
    beginning to teach, and that, what He could not yet teach in
    Judaea, scarcely even to His own disciples; then the complete
    change in the woman, and the misapprehension [a St. John iv.
    33.] and non-reception [b ii. 13-iv. 54.] of the disciples,
    and over it all the weary form of the Man Jesus, opening as
    the Divine Christ the well of everlasting life, the God-Man
    satisfied with the meat of doing the Will, and finishing the
    Work, of Him that sent Him: such are some of the thoughts
    suggested by the scene.

     And still others rise, as we think of the connection in the
    narrative of St. John of this with what preceded and with
    what follows. It almost seems as if that Gospel were
    constructed in cycles, each beginning, or at least connected,
    with Jerusalem, and leading up to a grand climax. Thus, the
    first cycle [b ii. 13-iv. 54.] might be called that of
    purification: first, that of the Temple; then, inward
    purification by the Baptism from above; next, the symbolic
    Baptism of water; lastly, the real water of life given by
    Jesus; and the climax, Jesus the Restorer of life to them
    that believe. Similarly, the second cycle, [c v.-vi. 3.]
    beginning with the idea of water in its symbolic application
    to real worship and life from Jesus, would carry us a stage
    further; and so onward throughout the Gospel. Along with this
    we may note, as another peculiarity of the Fourth Gospel,
    that it seems arranged according to this definite plan of
    grouping together in each instance the work of Christ, as
    followed by the illustrative word of Christ. Thus the fourth
    would, both externally and internally, be the pre-eminently
    Judoean Gospel, characterised by cyclical order, illustrative
    conjunction of work and word, and progressively leading up to
    the grand climax of Christ's last discourses, and finally of
    His Death and Resurrection, with the teaching that flows from
    the one and the other.

     It was about six o'clock in the evening, [1 We have already
    expressed our belief, that in the Fourth Gospel time is
    reckoned not according to the Jewish mode, but according to
    the Roman civil day, from midnight to midnight. For a full
    discussion and proof of this, with notice of objections, see
    McLellan's New Test. vol. i. pp. 737-743. It must surely be a
    lapsus when at p. 288 (note o), the same author seems to
    assume the contrary. Meyer objects, that, if it had been 6
    P.M., there would not have been time for the after-events
    recorded. But they could easily find a place in the delicious
    cool of a summer's evening, and both the coming up of the
    Samaritans (most unlikely at noon-time), and their invitation
    to Jesus 'to tarry' with them (v. 40), are in favour of our
    view. Indeed, St. John xix. 14 renders it impossible to adopt
    the Jewish mode of reckoning.] when the travel-stained
    pilgrims reached that 'parcel of ground' which, according to
    ancient Jewish tradition, Jacob had given to his son Joseph.
    [2 See a previous note on p. 404.] Here (as already stated)
    by the 'Well of Jacob' where the three roads, south, to
    Shechem, and to Sychar (Askar), meet and part, Jesus sat
    down, while the disciples (probably with the exception of
    John) went on to the closely adjoining little town of Sychar
    to buy food. Even this latter circumstance marks that it was
    evening, since noon was not the time either for the sale of
    provisions, nor for their purchase by travellers. Once more
    it is when the true Humanity of Jesus is set before us, in
    the weakness of His hunger and weariness, [3 Godet rightly
    asks what, in view ofthis, becomes of the supposed Docetism
    which, according to the Tubingen school, is one of the
    characteristics of the Fourth Gospel?] that the glory of His
    Divine Personality suddenly shines through it. This time it
    was a poor, ignorant Samaritan woman, [4 By which we are to
    understand a woman from the country, not the town or Samaria,
    a Samaritaness. The suggestion, that she resorted to Jacob's
    Well on account of its sanctity, scarcely requires
    refutation.] who came, not for any religious purpose, indeed,
    to whom religious thought, except within her own very narrow
    circle, was almost unintelligible, who became the occasion of
    it. She had come, like so many of us, who find the pearl in
    the field which we occupy in the business of everyday-life,
    on humble, ordinary duty and work. Men call it common; but
    there is nothing common and unclean that God has sanctified
    by making use of it, or which His Presence and teaching may
    transform into a vision from heaven.

     There was another well (the 'Ain 'Askar), on the east side
    of the little town, and much nearer to Sychar than 'Jacob's
    Well;' and to it probably the women of Sychar generally
    resorted. It should also be borne in mind, that in those days
    such work no longer devolved, as in early times, on the
    matrons and maidens of fair degree, but on women in much
    humbler station. This Samaritaness may have chosen 'Jacob's
    Well,' perhaps, because she had been at work in the fields
    close by; or else, because her abode was nearer in that
    direction, for the ancient Sychar may have extended
    southward; perhaps, because, if her character was what seems
    implied in verse 18, the concourse of the more common women
    at the village-well of an evening might scarcely be a
    pleasant place of resort to one with her history. In any
    case, we may here mark those Providential leadings in our
    everyday life, to which we are so often almost as much
    spiritually indebted, as to grace itself; which, indeed, form
    part of the dispensation of grace. Perhaps we should note
    how, all unconsciously to her (as so often to us), poverty
    and sin sometimes bring to the well by which Jesus sits
    weary, when on His return from self-righteous Judaea.
     But these are only symbols; the barest facts of the
    narrative are themselves sufficiently full of spiritual
    interest. Both to Jesus and to the woman, the meeting was
    unsought, Providential in the truest sense, God-brought.
    Reverently, so far as the Christ is concerned, we add, that
    both acted truly, according to what was in them. The request:
    'Give Me to drink,' was natural on the part of the thirsty
    traveller, when the woman had come to draw water, and they
    who usually ministered to Him were away. [a ver. 8.] Even if
    He had not spoken, the Samaritaness would have recognised the
    Jew by His appearance [1 According tothe testimony of
    travellers the Samaritans, with the exception of the
    High-Priestly family, have not the common, well-known type of
    Jewish face and feature.] and dress, if, as seems likely, He
    wore the fringes on the border of His garment. [2 The
    'fringes' on the Tallith of the Samaritans are blue, while
    those worn by the Jews, whether on the Arba Kanphoth or the
    Tallith, are white. The Samaritans do not seem to have worn
    phylacteries (Menach. 42 b). But neither did many of the Jews
    of old, nor, I feel persuaded, our Lord (comp. Jost, Gesch.
    d. Judenth. vol. i. p. 60).] His speech would, by its
    pronunciation, place His nationality beyond doubt. [3 There
    were, undoubtedly, marked differences of pronunciation
    between the Jews and the Samaritans. Without entering into
    details, it may be said, that they chiefly concern the
    vowel-sounds; and among consonants the gutturals (which are
    generally not pronounced), the aspirates, and the letter ( )
    which is not, as in Hebrew, either ( ) (pronounced s), or ( )
    (pronounced sh), but is always pronounced as 'sh.' In
    connection with this we may notice one of those instances,
    how a strange mistake comes 'by tradition' to be commonly
    received. It has been asserted that, if Jesus had said to the
    woman: Teni li lishtoth ('Give me to drink'), a Samaritan
    would have pronounced it listoth, since the Samaritans
    pronounced the sh as s. But the reverse of this is the fact.
    The Samaritans pronounced the s ('sin') as sh ('shin'), and
    not the sh as s. The mistake arose from confounding the old
    Ephraimite (Judg. xii. 5, 6) with the Samaritan mode of
    pronouncing. The suggestion seems first to have been made,
    through very doubtfully, by Stier (Reden Jesu, iv. p. 134).
    Stier, however, at least rendered the words of Jesus: Teni li
    lishtoth. Godet (ad loc.) accepts Stier's suggestions, but
    renders the words: Teni li lishchoth. Later writers have
    repeated this, only altering lishchoth into lishkoth.] Any
    kindly address, conveying a request not absolutely necessary,
    would naturally surprise the woman; for, as the Evangelist
    explanatively adds: 'Jews have no dealings with Samaritans,'
    [1 The article is wanting in the original.] or rather, as the
    expression implies, no needless, friendly, nor familiar
    intercourse with them, a statement true at all times.
    Besides, we must remember that this was an ignorant
    Samaritaness of the lower order. In the mind of such an one,
    two points would mainly stand out: that the Jews in their
    wicked pride would have no intercourse with them; and that
    Gerizim, not Jerusalem, as the Jews falsely asserted, was the
    place of rightful worship. It was, therefore, genuine
    surprise which expressed itself in the question: 'How is it,
    Thou, being a Jew, of me askest to drink?' It was the first
    lesson she learned, even before He taught her. Here was a
    Jew, not like ordinary Jews, not like what she had hitherto
    thought them: what was the cause of this difference?

     Before we mark how the answer of Jesus met this very
    question, and so as to direct it to spiritual profit, another
    and more general reflection presses on our minds. Although
    Jesus may not have come to Sychar with the conscious purpose
    of that which ensued, yet, given the meeting with the
    Samaritan woman, what followed seems almost matter of
    necessity. For it is certain that the Christ, such as the
    Gospels describe Him, could not have been brought into
    contact with spiritual ignorance and want, any more than with
    physical distress, without offering it relief. It was, so to
    speak, a necessity, alike of His Mission and of His Nature
    (as the God-Man). In the language of another Gospel, 'power
    went out from Him;' and this, whether consciously sought, or
    unconsciously felt after in the stretching forth of the hands
    of the sightless or in the upward look of the speechless. The
    Incarnate Son of God could not but bring health and life
    amidst disease and death; the Saviour had come to seek and to
    save that which was lost.

     And so it was, that the 'How is it?' of the Samaritan women
    so soon, and so fully, found its answer. 'How is it?' In
    this, that He, Who had spoken to her, was not like what she
    thought and knew of the Jews. He was what Israel was intended
    to have become to mankind; what it was the final object of
    Israel to have been. In Him was God's gift to mankind. Had
    she but known it, the present relation between them would
    have been reversed; the Well of Jacob would have been a
    symbol, yet but a symbol, of the living water, which she
    would have asked and He given. As always, the seen is to
    Christ the emblem of the unseen and spiritual; Nature, that
    in and through which, in manifold and divers colouring, He
    ever sees the supernatural, even as the light lies in varying
    hues on the mountain, or glows in changeful colouring on the
    edge of the horizon. A view this of all things existent,
    which Hellenism, even in its sublimest poetic conception of
    creation as the impress of heavenly archetypes, has only
    materialised and reserved. But to Jesus it all pointed
    upward, because the God of Nature was the God of Grace, the
    One Living and True God in Whom all matter and spirit lives,
    Whose world is one in design, workmanship, and purpose. And
    so nature was but the echo of God's heard Voice, which ever,
    to all and in all, speaks the same, if there be but listening
    ears. And so He would have it speak to men in parables, that,
    to them who see, it might be the Jacob's ladder leading from
    earth to heaven, while they, whose sight and hearing are
    bound in the sleep of heart-hardening, would see but not
    perceive, and hear but not understand.
     It was with the ignorant woman of Sychar, as it had been
    with the learned 'Master in Israel.' As Nicodemus had seen,
    and yet not seen, so this Samaritaness. In the birth of which
    Jesus spoke, he had failed to apprehend the 'from above' and
    'of the Spirit;' she now the thought suggested by the
    contrast between the cistern in the limerock and the well of
    living water. The 'How can these things be?' of Nicodemus
    finds its parallel in the bewilderment of the woman. Jesus
    had nothing wherewith to draw from the deep well. Whence,
    then, the 'living water'? To outward appearance there was a
    physical impossibility. This was one aspect of it. And yet,
    as Nicodemus' question not only similarly pointed to a
    physical impossibility, but also indicated dim searching
    after higher meaning and spiritual reality, so that of the
    woman: 'No ! art Thou greater than our father Jacob?' who, at
    such labour, had dug this well, finding no other means than
    this of supplying his own wants and those of his descendants.
    Nor did the answer of Jesus now differ in spirit from that
    which He had given to the Rabbi of Jerusalem, though it
    lacked the rebuke, designed to show how thoroughly the
    religious system, of which Nicodemus was a teacher, failed in
    its highest object. But to this woman His answer must be much
    simpler and plainer than to the Rabbi. And yet, if it be
    Divine teaching, it cannot be quite plain, but must contain
    that which will point upward, and lead to further inquiry.
    And so the Divine Teacher explained, not only the difference
    between ordinary water and that of which He had spoken, but
    in a manner to bring her to the threshold of still higher
    truth. It was not water like that of Jacob's Well which He
    would give, but 'living water.' In the Old Testament a
    perennial spring had, in figurative language, been thus
    designated, [a Gen. xxvi. 19; Lev. xiv. 5.] in significant
    contrast to water accumulated in a cistern. [b Jer. ii. 13.]
    But there was more than this: it was water which for ever
    quenched the thirst, by meeting all the inward wants of the
    soul; water also, which, in him who had drunk of it, became a
    well, not merely quenching the thirst on this side time, but
    'springing up into everlasting life.' It was not only the
    meeting of wants felt, but a new life, and that not
    essentially different, but the same as that of the future,
    and merging in it.

     The question has sometimes been asked, to what Jesus
    referred by that well of living water springing up into
    everlasting life. Of the various strange answers given, that,
    surely, is almost the worst, which would apply it to the
    doctrine of Jesus, supporting such explanation by a reference
    to Rabbinic sayings in which doctrine is compared to 'water.'
    This is one of those not unfrequent instances in which
    Rabbinic references mislead rather than lead, being
    insufficiently known, imperfectly understood, or misapplied.
    It is quite true, that in many passages the teaching of the
    Rabbis is compared to water, [1 Those who wish to see the
    well-worn Rabbinic references will find them in Lightfoot and
    Schottgen ad loc.] but never to a 'well of water springing
    up.' The difference is very great. For it is the boast of
    Rabbinism, that is disciples drink of the waters of their
    teachers; chief merit lies in receptiveness, not spontaneity,
    and higher praise cannot be given than that of being 'a
    well-plastered cistern, which lets not out a drop of water,'
    [c Ab. ii. 9.] and in that sense to 'a spring whose waters
    ever grow stronger.' But this is quite the opposite of what
    our Lord teaches. For, it is only true of what man can give
    when we read this (in Ecclus. xxiv. 21): 'They that drink me
    shall yet be thirsty.' [2 There is much spurious religious
    sentiment which, in contravention to our Lord's saving,
    delights in such expressions as that of St. Bernard of
    Clairvaux (followed by so many modern hymnologists): 'Qui Te
    gustant esuriunt, Qui bibunt adhuc sitiunt.' (Ap. Daniel,
    Thes. i p. 223.) The theology of this is not only sickly, but
    untrue and misleading.] More closely related to the words of
    Christ is it, when we read [a in Bar. iii. 12.] of a
    'fountain of wisdom;' while, in the Targum on Cant. iv. 14,
    'the words of the Law' are likened 'unto a well of living
    waters.' The same idea was carried perhaps even further,
    when, at the Feast of Tabernacles, amidst universal
    rejoicing, water from Siloam was poured from a golden pitcher
    on the altar, as emblem of the outpouring of the Holy Ghost.
    [1 See 'The Temple and its Ministry,' pp. 241-243. But the
    saying of our Lord to the Samaritaness referred neither to
    His teaching, nor to the Holy Ghost, nor yet to faith, but to
    the gift of that new spiritual life in Him, of which faith is
    but the outcome.

     If the humble, ignorant Samaritaness had formerly not seen,
    though she had imperfectly guessed, that there was a higher
    meaning in the words of Him Who spake to her, a like mixture
    of ill-apprehension and rising faith seems to underlie her
    request for this water, that she might thirst no more,
    neither again come thither to draw. [2 I cannot bring myself
    to see, as some commentators, any extraordinary mark of
    rising reverence in the use by her of the word 'Sir' in vv.
    11 and 15. It seems only natural in the circumstances.] She
    now believes in the incredible; believes it, because of Him
    and in Him; believes, also, in a satisfaction through Him of
    outward wants, reaching up beyond this to the everlasting
    life. But all these elements are yet in strange confusion.
    Those who know how difficult it is to lodge any new idea in
    the mind of uneducated rustics in our own land, after all our
    advantages of civilising contact and education, will
    understand, how utterly at a loss this Samaritan countrywoman
    must have been to grasp the meaning of Jesus. But He taught,
    not as we teach. And thus He reached her heart in that dimly
    conscious longing which she expressed, though her intellect
    was incapable of distinguishing the new truth.

     Surely, it is a strange mistake to find in her words [b ver.
    15.] 'a touch of irony,' while, on the other hand, it seems
    an exaggeration to regard them simply as the cry of realised
    spiritual need. Though reluctantly, a somewhat similar
    conclusion is forced upon us with reference to the question
    of Jesus about the woman's husband, her reply, and the
    Saviour's rejoinder. It is difficult to suppose, that Christ
    asked the woman to call her husband with the primary object
    of awakening in her a sense of sin. This might follow, but
    the text gives no hint of it. Nor does anything in the
    bearing of the woman indicate any such effect; indeed, her
    reply [a ver. 19.] and her after-referenceto it [b ver. 29.]
    rather imply the contrary. We do not even know for certain,
    whether the five previous husbands had died or divorced her,
    and, if the latter, with whom the blame lay, although not
    only the peculiar mode in which our Lord refers to it, but
    the present condition of the woman, seem to point to a sinful
    life in the past. In Judaea a course like hers would have
    been almost impossible; but we know too little of the social
    and moral condition of Samaria to judge of what might there
    be tolerated. On the other hand, we have abundant evidence
    that, when the Saviour so unexpectedly laid open to her a
    past, which He could only supernaturally have known, the
    conviction at once arose in her that He was a Prophet, just
    as in similar circumstances it had been forced upon
    Nathanael. [c St. John i. 48, 49.] But to be a Prophet meant
    to a Samaritan that He was the Messiah, since they
    acknowledged none other after Moses. Whether or not the
    Messiah was known by the present Samaritan designation of Him
    as 'the Converter' and 'the Returner' (Restorer?), is of
    comparatively small importance, though, if we felt certain of
    this, the influence of the new conviction on the mind of the
    woman would appear even more clearly. In any case it was an
    immense, almost immeasurable, advance, when this Samaritan
    recognised in the stranger Jew, Who had first awakened within
    her higher thoughts, and pointed her to spiritual and eternal
    realities, the Messiah, and this on the strength of evidence
    the most powerfully convincing to a mind like hers: that of
    telling her, suddenly and startlingly, what He could not have
    known, except through higher than human means of information.

     It is another, and much more difficult question, why Jesus
    should have asked for the presence of her husband. The
    objection, that to do so, knowing the while that she had no
    husband, seems unworthy of our Lord, may, indeed, be answered
    by the consideration, that such 'proving' of those who were
    in His training was in accordance with His mode of teaching,
    leading upwards by a series of moral questions. [d Comp St.
    John vi. 6.] But perhaps a more simple explanation may offer
    even a better reply. It seems, as if the answer of verse 15
    marked the utmost limit of the woman's comprehension. We can
    scarcely form an adequate notion of the narrowness of such a
    mental horizon as hers. This also explains, at least from one
    aspect, the reason of His speaking to her about His own
    Messiahship, and the worship of the future, in words far more
    plain than He used to His own disciples. None but the
    plainest statements could she grasp; and it is not unnatural
    to suppose that, having reached the utmost limits of which
    she was capable, the Saviour now asked for her husband, in
    order that, through the introduction of another so near to
    her, the horizon might be enlarged. This is also
    substantially the view of some of the Fathers. [1 Comp.
    Lucke, Evang. Joh. vol. i. p. 588.] But, if Christ was in
    earnest in asking for the presence of her husband, it surely
    cannot be irreverent to add, that at that moment the peculiar
    relationship between the man and the woman did not stand out
    before His mind. Nor is there anything strange in this. The
    man was, and was not, her husband. Nor can we be sure that,
    although unmarried, the relationship involved anything
    absolutely contrary to the law; and to all intents the man
    might be known as her husband. The woman's answer at once
    drew the attention of the Christ to this aspect of her
    history, which immediately stood out fully before His Divine
    knowledge. At the same time her words seemed like a
    confession, perhaps we should say, a concession to the
    demands of her own conscience, rather than a confession.
    Here, then, was the required opportunity, both for carrying
    further truth to her mind, by proving to her that He Who
    spake to her was a Prophet, and at the same time for reaching
    her heart.

     But whether or not this view of the history be taken, it is
    difficult to understand, how any sober interpreter could see
    in the five husbands of the woman either a symbolical, or a
    mythical, reference to the five deities whom the ancestors of
    the Samaritans worshipped, [a 2 Kings xvii. 24 &c.] the
    spurious service of Jehovah representing the husband, yet no
    husband, of the woman. It is not worth while discussing this
    strange suggestion from any other than the mythical
    standpoint. Those who regard the incidents of the
    Gospel-narratives as myths, having their origin in Jewish
    ideas, are put to even greater straits by the whole of this
    narrative than they who regard this Gospel as of Ephesian
    authorship. We may put aside the general objections raised by
    Strauss, since none of his successors has ventured seriously
    to urge them. It is more important to notice, how signally
    the author of the mythical theory has failed in suggesting
    any historical basis for this 'myth.' To speak of meetings at
    the well, such as those with Rebekah or Zipporach, is as much
    beside the question as an appeal to Jewish expectancy of an
    omniscient Messiah. Out of these two elements almost any
    story might be constructed. Again, to say that this story of
    Jesus' success among the Samaritans was invented, in order to
    vindicate the later activity of the Apostles among that
    people, is simply to beg the whole question. In these straits
    so distinguished a writer as Keim [1 The references here are
    to Strauss, vol. i. pp. 510-519, and to Keim i. 1, p. 116.]
    has hazarded the statement: 'The meeting with the
    Samaritaness has, for every one who has eyes, only a
    symbolical meaning, by the side of which no historical fact
    exists.' An assertion this, which is perhaps best refuted by
    being simply quoted. [2 Meyer, Komment. vol. ii. p. 208,
    rightly remarks on the theory of Baur, Hilgenfeld, &c.
    According to them, the whole of this history is only a type
    of heathenism as receptive to faith, in contrast to
    Nicodemus, the type of Judaism shutting itself up against
    faith. But in that case why make the principal person a
    Samaritan, and not a heathen, and why attribute to her belief
    in a Messiah, which was entirely foreign to heathen ism?] On
    the other hand, of all the myths likely to enter into jewish
    imagination, the most unlikely would be one representing the
    Christ in familiar converse with a woman, and she a
    Samaritan, offering to her a well of water springing into
    everlasting life, and setting before her a spiritual worship
    of which Jerusalem was not the centre. Where both the
    Ephesian and the mythical theory so signally fail, shall we
    not fall back upon the natural explanation, borne out by the
    simplicity and naturalness of the narrative, that the story
    here related is real and true? And, if so, shall we not all
    the more thankfully gather its lessons?

     The conviction, sudden but firm, that He Who had laid open
    the past to her was really a Prophet, was already faith in
    Him; and so the goal had been attained, not, perhaps, faith
    in His Messiahship, about which she might have only very
    vague notions, but in Him. And faith in the Christ, not in
    anything about Him, but in Himself, has eternal life. Such
    faith also leads to further inquiry and knowledge. As it has
    been the traditional practice to detect irony in this or that
    saying of the woman, or else to impute to her spiritual
    feelings far in advance of her possible experience, so, on
    the other hand, has her inquiry about the place of proper
    worship, Jerusalem or Gerizim, been unduly depreciated. It is
    indeed too true that those, whose consciences are touched by
    a presentation of their sin, often seek to turn the
    conversation into another and quasi-religious channel. But of
    neither the one nor the other is there evidence in the
    present case. Similarly, it is also only too true, that their
    one point of difference is, to narrow-minded sectarians,
    their all-in-all of religion. But in this instance we feel
    that the woman has no after-thought, no covert purpose in
    what she asks. All her life long she had heard that Gerizim
    was the mount of worship, the holy hill which the waters of
    the Flood had never covered, [3 Curiously enough, several
    instances are related in Rabbinic writings in which
    Samaritans enter into dispute with Rabbis who pass by Mount
    Gerizim on their way to Jerusalem, to convince them that
    Gerizim was the proper place of worship. One instance may
    here be mentioned,. when a Samaritan maintained that Gerizim
    was the mount of blessing, because it was not covered by the
    Flood, quoting in proof Ezek. xxii. 24. The Rabbi replied,
    that if such had been the case, God would have told Noah to
    flee there, instead of making an ark. The Samaritan retorted,
    that this was done to try him. The Rabbi was silenced, but
    his muleteer appealed to Gen. vii. 19, according to whcih all
    the high hills under the heavens were covered, and so
    silenced the Samaritan. (Deb. R. 3; comp. Ber. R. 32.) On the
    other hand, it ought to be added, that in Ber. R. 33 the
    Mount of Olives is said not to have been covered by the
    Flood, and that Ezek. xxii. 24 is applied to this.] and that
    the Jews were in deadly error. But here was an undoubted
    Prophet, and He a Jew. Were they then in error about the
    right place of worship, and what was she to think, and to do?
    To apply with such a question to Jesus was already to find
    the right solution, even although the question itself might
    indicate a lower mental and religious standpoint. It reminds
    us of the inquiry which the healed Naaman put to Elisha about
    the Temple of Rimmon, and of his request for a mule's burden
    of earth from the land of the True God, and for true worship.

     Once more the Lord answers her question by leading her far
    beyond it, beyond all controversy: even on to the goal of all
    His teaching. So marvellously does He speak to the simple in
    heart. It is best here to sit at the feet of Jesus, and,
    realising the scene, to follow as His Finger points onwards
    and upwards. 'There cometh an hour, when neither in this
    mountain, nor yet in Jerusalem, ye shall worship the Father.'
    Words of sad warning, these; words of prophecy also, that
    already pointed to the higher solution in the worship of a
    common Father, which would be the worship neither of Jews nor
    of Samaritans, but of children. And yet there was truth in
    their present differences. 'Ye worship ye know not what: we
    worship what we know, since salvation is from out of the
    Jews.' [1 He had formerly taught her the 'where,' and now
    teaches her the 'what,' of true worship.] The Samaritan was
    aimless worship, because it wanted the goal of all the Old
    Testament institutions, that Messiah 'Who was to be of the
    seed of David' [a Rom. i. 3.] for, of the Jews, 'as
    concerning the flesh,' was Christ to come. [b Rom. ix. 5.]
    But only of present interest could such distinctions be; for
    an hour would come, nay, already was, when the true
    worshippers would 'worship the Father in spirit and in truth,
    for the Father also seeketh such for His worshippers. Spirit
    is God' [2 It is remarkable, that most of the alterations in
    the Samaritan Pentateuch are with the view of removing
    anthropomorphisms.], and only worship in spirit and in truth
    could be acceptable to such a God.

     Higher or more Christlike teaching than this could not be
    uttered. And she who heard, thus far understood it, that in
    the glorious picture, which was set before her, she saw the
    coming of the Kingdom of the Messiah. 'I know that Messiah
    cometh. [1 The words 'which is called Christ' should be
    within brackets, and are the explanation of the writer.] When
    He cometh, He will tell us all things.' It was then that,
    according to the need of that untutored woman, He told her
    plainly what in Judaea, and even by His disciples, would have
    been carnally misinterpreted and misapplied: that He was the
    Messiah. So true is it, that 'babes' can receive what often
    must remain long hidden 'from the wise and prudent.'

     It was the crowning lesson of that day. Nothing more could
    be said; nothing more need be said. The disciples had
    returned from Sychar. That Jesus should converse with a
    woman, was so contrary to all Judaean notions of a Rabbi, [2
    In the original, ver. 31 has it: 'Rabbi (not Master), eat.'
    Surely such an address to Christ is sufficiently
    anti-Ephesian. Readers know how thoroughly opposed to Jewish
    notions was any needless converse with a woman (comp. Ab. i.
    5; Ber. 43 b; Kidd. 70 a; also Erub. 53 b). To instruct a
    woman in the Law was forbidden; comp. the story in Bemid. R.
    9.] that they wondered. Yet, in their reverence for Him, they
    dared not ask any questions. Meanwhile the woman, forgetful
    of her errand, and only conscious of that new well-spring of
    life which had risen within her, had left the unfilled
    waterpot by the Well, and hurried into 'the City.' They were
    strange tidings which she brought; the very mode for her
    announcement affording evidence of their truth: 'Come, see a
    man who told me all that I have done. No, is this the
    Christ?' We are led to infer, that these strange tidings soon
    gathered many around her; that infer, that these strange
    tidings soon gathered many around her; that they questioned,
    and, as they ascertained from her the indisputable fact of
    His superhuman knowledge, believed on Him, so far as the
    woman could set Him before them as object of faith. [a vv.
    39, 40.] Under this impression 'they went out of the City,
    and came on their way towards Him. [b ver. 30.] [3 Following
    the suggestion of Professor Westcott, I would thus give the
    real meaning of the original. It may save needless notes if I
    add, that where the rendering differs from the A.V. the
    change has been intentional, to bring out the meaning of the
    Greek; and that where words in the A.V. are omitted, it is
    because they are either spurious, or doubtful.]

     Meantime the disciples had urged the Master to eat of the
    food which they had brought. But His Soul was otherwise
    engaged. Thoughts were present of the glorious future, of a
    universal worship of the Father by those whom He had taught,
    and of which He had just seen such unexpected earnest. These
    mingled with feelings of pain at the spiritual dulness of
    those by whom He was surrounded, who could see in that
    conversation with a Samaritan woman nothing but a strange
    innovation on Rabbinic custom and dignity, and now thought of
    nothing beyond the immediate errand on which they had gone to
    Sychar. Even His words of rebuke only made them wonder
    whether, unknown to them, some one had brought Him food. It
    was not the only, nor the last, instance of their dulness to
    spiritual realities. [a St. Matt. xvi. 6, 7.]

     Yet with Divine patience He bore with them: 'My meat is,
    that I may do the Will of Him that sent Me, and that I may
    accomplish (bring to a perfect end) His work.' To the
    disciples that work appeared still in the far future. To them
    it seemed as yet little more than seed-time; the green blade
    was only sprouting; the harvest of such a Messianic Kingdom
    as they expected was still months distant. To correct their
    mistake, the Divine Teacher, as so often, and as best adapted
    to His hearers, chose His illustration from what was visible
    around. To show their meaning more clearly, we venture to
    reverse the order of the sentences which Jesus spoke:
    'Behold, I say unto you, lift up your eyes and look
    [observantly] at the fields, that they are white to the
    harvest. [But] do ye not say (viz. in your hearts [1 This is
    a Hebraism.]) that there are yet four months, and the harvest
    cometh?' The words will appear the more striking, if (with
    Professor Westcott) we bear in mind that, perhaps at that
    very moment, the Samaritans, coming to Him from Sychar, were
    appearing in sight.

     But we also regard it as marking the time, when this
    conversation took place. Generally the words, 'yet four
    months, and then cometh the harvest,' are regarded either as
    a proverbial expression, or as indicating, that the Lord
    spake at the Well of Jacob four months before the
    harvest-time, that is, about the month of January, if the
    barley-harvest, or in February, if the wheat-harvest, was
    meant. The suggestion that it was a proverb may be dismissed,
    first, because there is not a trace of such a proverb, and
    then because, to give it even the scantiest meaning, it is
    necessary to supply: 'Between seed-time and harvest there are
    four months,' which is not true, since in Palestine about six
    months intervene between them. On the other hand, for reasons
    explained in another place, [2 See them in Appendix XV.] we
    conclude, that it could not have been January or February.
    when Jesus was in Sychar. But why not reverse the common
    theory, and see in the second clause, introduced by the
    words, 'Behold! lift up your eyes and observe,' a mark of the
    time and circumstances; while the expression, 'Do ye not say,
    There are yet four months, and they cometh harvest,' would be
    understood as parabolically spoken? Admittedly, one of the
    two clauses is a literal mark of time, and the other is
    spoken parabolically. But there is no reason why the second
    clause may not mark the time, while on independent grounds we
    must conclude, [1 Comp. Appendix XV.] that Christ returned
    from Judaea to Galilee in the early summer.

     Passing from this point, we notice how the Lord further
    unfolded His own lesson of present harvesting, and their
    inversion of what was sowing, and what reaping time.
    'Already' [2 We follow Canon Westcott, who, for reasons
    explained by him, joins the word 'already' to ver. 36,
    omitting the particle 'and.'] he that reaped received wages,
    and gathered fruit unto eternal life (which is the real
    reward of the Great Reaper, the seeing of the travail of His
    soul), so that in this instance the sower rejoiced equally [3
    It will be noticedthat, in ver. 36 has been translated 'so
    that,' the omitted, and rendered 'equally as.'
    Linguistically, no apology is required for these renderings.
    I, however, hesitate between this and the rendering: 'in
    order that the sower may rejoice along with the reaper.' But
    the translation in the text seems to agree better with what
    follows. The whole passage is perhaps one of the most
    difficult, from the curtness and rapid transition of the
    sentences. The only apology which I can offer for proposing a
    new rendering and a new interpretation is, that those with
    which I am acquainted have not conveyed any distinct or
    connected meaning to my own mind.] as the reaper. And, in
    this respect, the otherwise cynical proverb, that one was the
    sower, another the reaper of his sowing, found a true
    application. It was indeed so, that the servants of Christ
    were sent to reap what others had sown, and to enter into
    their labour. One had sowed, another would reap. And yet, as
    in this instance of the Samaritans, the sower would rejoice
    as well as the reaper; nay, both would rejoice together, in
    the gathered fruit unto eternal life. And so the sowing in
    tears is on the spiritual field often mingled with the
    harvest of gladness, and to the spiritual view both are
    really one. 'Four months' do not intervene between them; so
    that, although one may sow and another reap, yet the sower
    seth that harvest for which the harvester gets wages, and
    rejoices with him in the fruit which is gathered into the
    eternal storehouse.

     It was as Christ had said. The Samaritans, who believed
    'because of the word' (speech) 'of the woman [what she said]
    as she testified' of the Christ, 'when they came' to that
    well, 'asked Him to abide with them. And He abode there two
    days. And many more believed because of His own word (speech,
    discourse), and said unto the woman: No longer because of thy
    speaking [4 speech, talking.] do we believe.For we ourselves
    have heard, and know, that this is truly the Saviour of the
    world.' [1 We have omitted the words 'the Christ', in ver.
    42, as apparently spurious. In general, the text has been
    rendered as faithfully as possible, so as to bring out the
    real meaning.]

     We know not what passed these two days. Apparently no
    miracles were wrought, but those of His Word only. It was the
    deepest and purest truth they learned, these simple men of
    simple faith, who had not learned of man, but listened to His
    Word only. The sower as well as the reaper rejoiced, and
    rejoiced together. Seed-time and harvest mingled, when for
    themselves they knew and confessed, that this was truly the
    Saviour of the world.

 THE ASCENT: FROM THE RIVER JORDAN TO THE MOUNT OF
    TRANSFIGURATION

    THE SECOND VISIT TO CANA, CURE OF THE 'NOBLEMAN'S' SON AT
    CAPERNAUM.

    CHAPTER IX.

     (St. Matt. iv. 12; St. Mark i. 14; St. Luke iv. 14, 15; St.
    John iv. 43-54.)

     THE brief harvest in Samaria was, as Jesus had indicated to
    His disciples, in another sense also the beginning of
    sowing-time, or at least that when the green blade first
    appeared above ground. It formed the introduction to that
    Galilean ministry, when 'the Galileans received Him, having
    seen all the things that He did at Jerusalem at the Feast.'
    [a St. John iv. 45.] Nay, in some respects, it was the real
    beginning of His Work also, which, viewed as separate and
    distinct, commenced when the Baptist was cast into prison. [1
    The history of the Baptist's imprisonment will be given in
    the sequel.] Accordingly, this circumstance is specially
    marked by St. Matthew, [b St. Matt. iv. 12.] and by St. Mark,
    [c St. Mark i. 14.] while St. Luke, as if to give greater
    emphasis to it, abruptly connects this beginning of Christ's
    sole and separate Work with the history of the Temptation. [d
    St. Luke iv. 11.] All that intervened seems to him but
    introductory, that 'beginning' which might be summed up by
    the words, 'in the power of the Spirit,' with which he
    describes His return to Galilee. In accordance with this
    view, Christ is presented as taking up the message of His
    Forerunner, [e St. Matt. iv. 17.] only with wider sweep,
    since, instead of adding to His announcement of the Kingdom
    of Heaven and call to repentance that to a Baptism of
    preparation, He called those who heard Him to 'believe the
    Gospel' which He brought them. [f St. Mark i. 15.]

     But here also, as Eusebius had already noted [2 The origin,
    authorship, and occasion of the Synoptic Gospels and of that
    by St. John, as well as their interrelation, is discussed in
    Euseb. Hist. Eccles. iii. 24, the discussion being the more
    important that Eusebius throughout appeals for his statements
    to 'the testimony of the ancients.'], the Fourth Gospel, in
    its more comprehensive presentation of the Christ, as adding,
    not merely in the external succession of events, but in their
    internal connection, feature to feature in the portraiture of
    the Divine Redeemer, supplies the gap in the Synoptic
    narratives, which so often read only like brief historical
    summaries, with here and there special episodes or reports of
    teaching inserted. For St. John not only tells us of that
    early Ministry, which the Synoptists designedly pass over,
    but while, like them, referring to the captivity of John as
    the occasion of Christ's withdrawal from the machinations of
    the Pharisaic party in Judaea, he joins this departure from
    Judaea with the return to Galilee by supplying, as connecting
    link, the brief stay in Samaria with its eventful results.
    St. John, also, alone supplies the first-recorded event of
    this Galilean ministry. [a St. John iv. 43-54.] We therefore
    follow hisguidance, simply noting that the various stages of
    this Galilean residence should be grouped as follows: Cana,
    [b St. John iv. 45-54.] Nazareth, [c St. Luke iv. 16-30.] and
    Capernaum, with general itineration from that centre. [d St.
    Matt. iv. 13-17; St. Mark i. 14, 15; St. Luke iv. 31, 32.]
    The period occupied, by what is thus briefly indicated in the
    Gospels, was from early summer, say, the beginning of June,
    to the unnamed 'feast of the Jews.' [e St. John v. 1.] If it
    is objected, that the events seem too few for a period of
    about three months, the obvious answer is, that, during most
    of this time, Jesus was in great measure unattended, since
    the call of the Apostles [f St. Matt. iv.18-22 &c.] only took
    place after the 'unnamed feast;' that, indeed, they had
    probably returned to their homes and ordinary occupations
    when Jesus went to Nazareth, [g St. Luke iv. 16.] and that
    therefore, not having themselvesbeen eye-witnesses of what
    had passed, they confined themselves to a general summary. At
    the same time, St. Luke expressly marks that Jesus taught in
    the various Synagogues of Galilee, [h St. Luke iv. 15.] and
    alsothat He made a longer stay in Capernaum. [i St. Luke iv.
    31; comp. St. Matt. iv. 13-16.]

     When Jesus returned to Galilee, it was in circumstances
    entirely different from those under which He had left it. As
    He Himself said, [k St. Johniv. 44.] there had, perhaps
    naturally, been prejudices connected with the humbleness of
    His upbringing, and the familarity engendered by knowledge [1
    I cannot believe that the expression 'His own country,'
    refers to Judaea. Such an explanation is not only unnatural,
    but contrary to the usage of the expression ('his own').
    Comp. St. Matt. ix. 1; also St. John vii. 40-42. Strauss's
    arguments (Leben Jesu, i. p. 659) seem here conclusive.] of
    His home-surroundings. These were overcome, when the
    Galileans had witnessed at the feast in Jerusalem, what He
    had done. Accordingly, they were now prepared to receive Him
    with the reverent attention which His Word claimed. We may
    conjecture, that it was partially for reasons such as these
    that He first bent His steps to Cana. The miracle, which had
    there been wrought, [m St. John ii. 1-11.] would still
    further prepare the people for His preaching. Besides, this
    was the home of Nathanael, who had probably followed Him to
    Jerusalem, and in whose house a gladsome homage of welcome
    would now await Him. It was here that the second recorded
    miracle of His Galilean ministry was wrought, with what
    effect upon the whole district, may be judged from the
    expectancies which the fame of it excited even in Nazareth,
    the city of His early upbringing [a St. Luke iv. 23.]

     It appears that the son of one of Herod Antipas' officers,
    either civil or military, [1 used by Josephus in the general
    sense of officers in the service of Herod Antipas. Comp.
    Krebs, Obs. in N. Test. e Fl. Josepho, pp. 144, 145, who
    notes that the expression occurs 600 times in the writings of
    Josephus.] was sick, and at the point of death. When tidings
    reached the father that the Prophet, or more than Prophet,
    Whose fame had preceded Him to Galilee, had come to Cana, he
    resolved, in his despair of other means, to apply to Him for
    the cure of His child. Nothing can be gained for the
    spiritual interest of this or any other Biblical narrative,
    by exaggeration; but much is lost, when the historical
    demands of the case are overlooked. It is not from any
    disbelief in the supernatural agency at work, that we insist
    on the natural and rational sequence of events. And having
    done so, we can all the more clearly mark, by the side of the
    natural, the distinctively higher elements at work.
    Accordingly, we do not assume that this 'court-officer' was
    actuated by spiritual belief in the Son of God, when applying
    to Him for help. Rather would we go to almost the opposite
    extreme, and regard him as simply actuated by what, in the
    circumstances, might be the views of a devout Jew. Instances
    are recorded in the Talmud, which may here serve as our
    guide. Various cases are related in which those seriously
    ill, and even at the point of death, were restored by the
    prayers of celebrated Rabbis. One instance is specially
    illustrative. [b Ber. 34 b; Jer. Ber. 9 d.] We read that,
    when the son of Rabban Gamaliel was dangerously ill, he sent
    two of his disciples to one Chanina ben Dosa to entreat his
    prayers for the restoration of his son. On this, Chanina is
    said to have gone up to the Aliyah (upper chamber) to pray.
    On his return, he assured the messengers that the young man
    was restored, grounding his confidence, not on the possession
    of any prophetic gift, but on the circumstance that he knew
    his request was answered from the freedom he had in prayer.
    The messengers noted down the hour, and on their arrival at
    the house of Gamaliel found, that at that very hour 'the
    fever left him, and he asked for water.' Thus far the
    Rabbinic story. Even supposing that it was either invented or
    coloured in imitation of the New Testament, it shows, at
    least, what a devout Jew might deem lawful to expect from a
    celebrated Rabbi, who was regarded as having power in prayer.

     Having indicated the illustrated part of this story, we may
    now mark the contrast between it and the event in the
    Gospels. There restoration is not merely asked, but expected,
    and that, not in answer to prayer, but by Christ's Personal
    presence. But the great and vital contrast lies, alike in
    what was thought of Him Who was instrumental in the cure,
    performed it, and in the moral effects which it wrought. The
    history just quoted from the Talmud is immediately followed
    by another of similar import, when a celebrated Rabbi
    accounts on this wise for his inability to do that in which
    Chanina had succeeded, that Chanina was like 'a servant of
    the King,' who went in and out familiarly, and so might beg
    favours; while he (the failing Rabbi) was 'like a lord before
    the King,' who would not be accorded mere favours, but
    discussed matters on a footing of equality. This profane
    representation of the relation between God and His servants,
    the utterly unspiritual view of prayer which it displays, and
    the daring self-exaltation of the Rabbi, surely mark
    sufficiently an absolute contrast in spirit between the
    Jewish view and that which underlies the Evangelic narrative.

     Enough has been said to show, that the application to Jesus
    on the part of the 'royal officer' did not, in the peculiar
    circumstances, lie absolutely beyond the range of Jewish
    ideas. What the 'court-officer' exactly expected to be done,
    is a question secondary to that of his state of
    receptiveness, as it may be called, which was the moral
    condition alike of the outward help, and of the inward
    blessing which he received. One thing, however, it is of
    importance to notice. We must not suppose, that when, to the
    request that Jesus would come down to Capernaum to perform
    the cure, the Master replied, that unless they saw [1 The
    emphasis must lie on the word 'see,' yet not exclusively.
    Lucke's objections to this (Ev. Joh. i. p. 622) are not well
    founded.] signs and wonders they would not believe, He meant
    thereby to convey that his Jewish hearers, in opposition to
    the Samaritans, required 'signs and wonders' in order to
    believe. For the application of 'the officer' was itself an
    expression of faith, although imperfect. Besides, the cure,
    which was the object of the application, could not have been
    performed without a miracle. What the Saviour reproved was
    not the request for a miracle, which was necessary, but the
    urgent plea that He should come down to Capernaum for that
    purpose, which the father afterwards so earnestly repeated.
    [a ver. 49.] That request argued ignorance of the real
    character of the Christ, as if He were either merely a Rabbi
    endowed with special power, or else a miracle-monger. What He
    intended to teach this man was, that He, Who had life in
    Himself, could restore life at a distance as easily as by His
    Presence; by the word of his Power as readily as by personal
    application. A lesson this of the deepest importance, as
    regarded the Person of Christ; a lesson, also, of the widest
    application to us and for all circumstances, temporal and
    spiritual. When the 'court-officer' had learned this lesson,
    he became 'obedient unto the faith,' and 'went his way,' [a
    ver. 50.] presently to find his faith both crowned and
    perfected. [b ver. 53.] And when both 'he and his house' had
    learned that lesson, they would never afterwards think of the
    Christ either as the Jews did, who simply witnessed His
    miracles, or unspiritually. It was the completion of that
    teaching which had first come to Nathanael, the first
    believer of Cana. [c St. John i. vi. 50, 51.] So, also, is it
    when we have learned that lesson, that we come to know alike
    the meaning and the blessedness of believing in Jesus.

     Indeed, so far as its moral import is concerned, the whole
    history turns upon this point. It also marks the fundamental
    difference between this and the somewhat similar history of
    the healing of the Centurion's servant in Capernaum. [d St.
    Matt. viii. 5 &c.; St. Luke vii. 1 &c.]Critics have noticed
    marked divergences in almost every detail of the two
    narratives, [1 These will readily occur on comparison of the
    two narratives. Archdeacon Watkins (ad loc.) has grouped
    these under eight distinct particulars. Comp. Lucke (Ev.
    Joh.) i. p. 626.] which some, both orthodox and negative
    interpreters, have so strangely represented as only different
    presentations of one and the same event. [2 So partially and
    hesitatingly Origen, Chrysostom, and more decidedly
    Theophilus, Euthymius, Irenoeus, and Eusebius. All modern
    negative critics hold this view; but Gfrorer regards the
    narrative of St. John, Strauss and Weiss that of St. Matthew,
    as the original account. And yet Keim ventures to assert:
    'Ohne allen Zweifel (!) ist das die selbe Geschichte.'] But,
    besides these marked differences of detail, there is also
    fundamental difference in the substance of the narratives,
    and in the spirit of the two applicants, which made the
    Saviour in the one instance reprove as the requirement of
    sight, which by itself could only produce a transitory faith,
    for which He had in vain looked in Israel. at as greatness of
    faith, for which He had in vain looked in Israel. The great
    point in the history of the 'court-officer' is Israel's
    mistaken view of the Person and Work of the Christ. That in
    the narrative of the Centurion is the prepardness of a simple
    faith, unencumbered by Jewish realism, although the outcome
    of Jewish teaching. The carnal realism of the one, which
    looks for signs and wonders, is contrasted with the
    simplicity and straightforwardness of the other. Lastly, the
    point in the history of the Syro-Phoenician woman, which is
    sometimes confounded with it, [3 Alike Strauss and Keim
    discuss this at some length from the point of view of seeming
    contradiction between the reception of the heathen Centurion
    and the first refusal of the Syro-Phoenician woman. Keim's
    treatment of the whole subject seems to me inconsistent with
    itself.] is the intensity of the same faith which, despite
    discouragements, nay, seeming improbabilities, holds fast by
    the conviction which her spiritual instinct had grasped, that
    such an One as Jesus must be not only the Messiah of the
    Jews, but the Saviour of the world.

     We may as well here complete our critical notices, at least
    as concerns those views which have of late been propounded.
    The extreme school of negative critics seems here involved in
    hopeless self-contradiction. For, if this narrative of a
    Jewish courtier is really only another recension of that of
    the heathen centurion, how comes it that the 'Jewish' Gospel
    of St. Matthew makes a Gentile, while the so-called
    'anti-Jewish,' 'Ephesian' Gospel of St. John makes a Jew, the
    hero of the story? As signally does the 'mythical' theory
    break down. For, admittedly, there is no Rabbinic basis for
    the invention of such a story; and by far the ablest
    representative of the negative school [1 Keim, Jesu v.
    Nazara, II. i. pp. 179-185. I regret to say, that the
    language of Keim at p. 181 is among the most painful in his
    book.] has conclusively shown, that it could not have
    originated in an imitation of the Old Testament account of
    Naaman's cure by Elisha the prophet. [2 So Strauss, Leben
    Jesu, vol. ii. pp. 121, 122 (lst ed.).] But, if Christ had
    really spoken those words to the courtier, as this critic
    seems to admit, there remains only, as he puts it, this
    'trilemma:' either He could really work the miracle in
    question; or, He spoke as a mere fanatic; or else, He was
    simply a deceiver. It is a relief to find that the two last
    hypotheses are discarded. But, as negative criticism, may we
    not say, from the same spirit which Jesus reproved in the
    courtier, is unwilling to admit that Jesus really wrought
    this miracle, it is suggested in explanation of the cure,
    that the sick child, to whom the father had communicated his
    intended application to Jesus, had been in a state of
    expectancy which, when the courtier returned with the joyous
    assurance that the request was granted, issued in actual
    recovery. [3 At least I so understand Keim, unless he means
    that the faith of the child alone brought about the cure, in
    which case there was no need for the father's journey. Keim
    naively asks, what objections there can be to this view,
    unless for the 'wording of St. John'? But the whole narrative
    is derived from that 'wording.'] To this there is the obvious
    answer, that the explanation wants the first requirement,
    that of an historical basis. There is not a tittle of
    evidence that the child expected a cure; while, on the other
    hand, the narrative expressly states that he was cured before
    his father's return. And, if the narrative may be altered at
    will to suit the necessities of a groundless hypothesis, it
    is difficult to see which, or whether any, part of it should
    be retained. It is not so that the origin of a faith, which
    has transformed the world, can be explained. But we have here
    another evidence of the fact, that objections which, when
    regarded as part of a connected system, seem so formidable to
    some, utterly break down, when each narrative is carefully
    examined in detail.

     There are other circumstances in this history, which require
    at least passing consideration. Of these the principal are
    the time when the servants of the court-officer met him, on
    his return journey, with the joyful tidings that his son
    lived; and, connected with it, the time when 'he began to do
    nicely;' [a ver. 52.] [1 So literally; the A.V. has: 'began
    to amend.'] and, lastly, that when the 'court-official'
    applied to Jesus. The two latter events were evidently
    contemporaneous. [b ver. 53.] The exact time indicated by the
    servants as the commencement of the improvement is,
    'Yesterday, at the seventh hour.' Now, however the Jewish
    servants may originally have expressed themselves, it seems
    impossible to assume, that St. John intended any other than
    the Roman notation of the civil day, or that he meant any
    other hour than 7 P.M. The opposite view, that it marks
    Jewish notation of time, or 1 P.M., is beset by almost
    unsurmountable difficulties. [2 The Jewish servants may have
    expressed the time according to Jewish notation, though in
    such a house in Galilee such might not have been the usual
    practice. However this be, we contend that St. John's
    notation of time was according to the Roman civil day, or
    rather according to that of Asia Minor.] For it must be borne
    in mind, that, as the distance between Capernaum and Cana is
    about twenty-five miles, it would have been extremely
    difficult, if not impossible, for the courtier, leaving his
    home that morning, not only to have reached Cana, but to have
    had the interview with Jesus by 1 P.M. The difficulty is only
    increased, when we are asked to believe, that after such a
    journey the courtier had immediately set out on his return.
    But this is absolutely necessary for the theory, since a Jew
    would not have set out on such a journey after dusk. But
    farther, on the above supposition, the servants of the court
    official must have taken the road immediately, or very soon
    after, the improvement commenced. This is itself unlikely,
    and, indeed, counter-indicated by the terms of the
    conversation between the courtier and the servants, which
    imply that they had waited till they were sure that it was
    recovery, and not merely a temporary improvement. [c ver.
    52.] Again, on the theory combated, the servants, meeting the
    'courtier,' as we must suppose, midway, if not near to
    Capernaum, would have said, 'Yesterday at the seventh hour
    the fever left him,' meaning thereby, that, as they spoke in
    the evening, when another Jewish day had begun, the fever had
    left him on the afternoon of the same day, although,
    according to Jewish reckoning, 'yesterday,' since 1 P.M.
    would be reckoned as the previous day. But it may be safely
    affirmed, that no Jew would have so expressed himself. If, on
    the evening of a day, they had referred to what had taken
    place five or six hours previously, at 1 P.M., they would
    have said: 'At the seventh hour the fever left him;' and not
    'Yesterday at the seventh hour.'

     It is needless to follow the matter further. We can
    understand how, leaving Capernaum in the morning, the
    interview with Jesus and the simultaneous cure of the child
    would have taken place about seven o'clock of the evening.
    Its result was, not only the restoration of the child, but
    that, no longer requiring to see signs and wonders, 'the man
    believed the word which Jesus had spoken unto him.' In this
    joyous assurance, which needed no more ocular demonstration,
    he 'went his way,' either to the hospitable home of a friend,
    or to some near lodging-place on the way, to be next day met
    by the gladsome tidings, that it had been to him according to
    his faith. As already noted, the whole morale of the history
    lies in this very matter, and it marks the spiritual
    receptiveness of the courtier, which, in turn, was the moral
    condition of his desire being granted. Again, we learn how,
    by the very granting of his desire, the spiritual object of
    Christ in the teaching of the courtier was accomplished, how,
    under certain spiritual conditions in him and upon him, the
    temporal benefit accomplished its spiritual object. And in
    this also, as in other points which will occur to the devout
    reader, there are lessons of deepest teaching to us, and for
    all times and circumstances.

     Whether this 'royal officer' was Chuza, Herod's steward,
    whose wife, under the abiding impression of this miracle to
    her child, afterwards humbly, gratefully ministered to Jesus,
    [a St. Luke viii. 3.] must remain undermined on this side
    time. Suffice it, to mark the progress in the 'royal officer'
    from belief in the power of Jesus to faith in His word, [b
    ver. 50.] and thence to absolute faith in Him, [c ver. 53.]
    with its blessed expansive effect on that whole household.
    And so are we ever led faithfully and effectually, yet
    gently, by His benefits, upwards from the lower stage of
    belief by what we see Him do, to that higher faith which is
    absolute and unseeing trust, springing from experimental
    knowledge of what He is.

 THE ASCENT: FROM THE RIVER JORDAN TO THE MOUNT OF
    TRANSFIGURATION

    THE SYNAGOGUE AT NAZARETH, SYNAGOGUE,WORSHIP AND
    ARRANGEMENTS.

    CHAPTER X

     (St. Luke iv. 16.)

     The stay in Cana, though we have no means of determining its
    length, was probably of only short duration. Perhaps the
    Sabbath of the same week already found Jesus in the Synagogue
    of Nazareth. We will not seek irreverently to lift the veil
    of sacred silence, which here, as elsewhere, the
    Gospel-narratives have laid over the Sanctuary of His inner
    Life. That silence is itself theopneustic, of Divine
    breathing and inspiration; it is more eloquent than any
    eloquence, a guarantee of the truthfulness of what is said.
    And against this silence, as the dark background, stands out
    as the Figure of Light the Person of the Christ. Yet, as we
    follow Jesus to the city of His Childhood and home of His
    humility, we can scarcely repress thoughts of what must have
    stirred His soul, as He once more entered the well-known
    valley, and beheld the scenes to each of which some early
    memory must have attached.

     Only a few months since He had left Nazareth, but how much
    that was all-decisive to Him, to Israel, and to the world had
    passed! As the lengthening shadows of Friday's sun closed
    around the quiet valley, He would hear the well-remembered
    double blast of the trumpet from the roof of the
    Synagogue-minister's house, proclaiming the advent of the
    holy day. [a Shabb. 35 b.] Once more it sounded through the
    still summer-air, to tell all, that work must be laid aside.
    [b Jer. Shabb xvii.p. 16 a.] Yet a third time it was heard,
    ere the 'minister' put it aside close by where he stood, not
    to profane the Sabbath by carrying it; for now the Sabbath
    had really commenced, and the festive Sabbath-lamp was lit.

     Sabbath morn dawned, and early He repaired to that Synagogue
    where, as a Child, a Youth, a Man, He had so often worshipped
    in the humble retirement of His rank, sitting, not up there
    among the elders and the honoured, but far back. The old
    well-known faces were around Him, the old well-remembered
    words and services fell on His ear. How different they had
    always been to Him than to them, with whom He had thus
    mingled in common worship! And now He was again among them,
    truly a stranger among His own countrymen; this time, to be
    looked at, listened to, tested, tried, used or cast aside, as
    the case might be. It was the first time, [1 The remark in
    the 'Speaker's Commentary' (St. Luke iv. 16), that Jesus had
    been in the habit of expounding the Scriptures in Nazareth,
    is not only groundless, but inconsistent with the narrative.
    See ver. 22. Still more strange is the supposition, that
    'Jesus offered to read and to expound, and signified this
    intention by standing up. This might be done by any member of
    the congregation.' Most assuredly such would not be the
    case.] so far as we know, that He taught in a Synagogue, and
    this Synagogue that of His own Nazareth.

     It was, surely, a wondrously linked chain of circumstances,
    which bound the Synagogue to the Church. Such a result could
    never have been foreseen, as that, what really was the
    consequence of Israel's dispersion, and, therefore,
    indirectly the punishment of their sin, should become the
    means of fulfilling Israel's world-mission. Another instance
    this, of how Divine judgment always bears in its bosom larger
    mercy; another illustration how the dying of Israel is ever
    life to the world; another manifestation of that supernatural
    Rule of God, in which all is rule, that is, law and order,
    and all the supernatural, bringing to pass, in the orderly
    succession of events, what at the outset would have seemed,
    and really is, miraculous. For the Synagogue became the
    cradle of the Church. Without it, as indeed without Israel's
    dispersion, the Church Universal would, humanely speaking,
    have been impossible, and the conversation of the Gentiles
    have required a succession of millennial miracles.

     That Synagogues originated during, or in consequence of the
    Babylonish captivity, is admitted by all. The Old Testament
    contains no allusion to their existence, [2 This seems at
    first sight inconsistent with Ps. lxxiv.8. But the term
    rendered 'Synagogues' in the A. V. has never been used in
    that sense. The solution of the difficulty here comes to us
    through the LXX. Their rendering, (let us make to cease),
    shows that in their Hebrew MSS. they read. If so, then the
    probably belonged to the next word, and the text would read:
    'Let us suppress altogether, the Sabbath and all the festive
    seasons in the land.' Comp. Ehrt, Abfass. Zeit. u. Abschl. d.
    Psalt. pp. 17-19.] and the Rabbinic attempts to trace them
    even to patriarchal times [3 The introduction of morning,
    midday, and afternoon prayers is respectively ascribed to
    Abraham, Issac, and Jacob. The Targum of Onkelos and the
    Targum Ps., Jon. on Gen. xxv. 27 imply their existence in the
    time of Jacob. In B. Kama 82 a, and Jer. Megill. 75 a, its
    services are traced to the time of Moses. According to Sanh.
    94 b, Synagogues existed in the time of Hezekiah. It is
    needless to follow the subject further. We take the present
    opportunity of adding, that, as the Rabbinic quotations in
    this chapter would be so numerous, only those will be given
    which refer to points hitherto unnoticed, or of special
    importance.] deserve, of course, no serious consideration. We
    can readily understand how during the long years of exile in
    Babylon, places and opportunities for common worship on
    Sabbaths and feast-days must have been felt almost a
    necessity. This would furnish, at least, the basis for the
    institution of the Synagogue. After the return to Palestine,
    and still more by 'the dispersed abroad,' such
    'meeting-houses' (Battey Khenesiyoth, domus congregationum,
    Synagogues) would become absolutely requisite. Here those who
    were ignorant even of the language of the Old Testament would
    have the Scriptures read and 'targumed' to them. [1 The
    expressions 'Targum' and 'targuming' have been previously
    explained. The first indication of such paraphrasing in the
    vernacular is found in Neh. viii. 7, 8.] It was but natural
    that prayers, and, lastly, addresses, should in course of
    time be added. Thus the regular Synagogue, service would
    gradually arise; first on Sabbaths and on feast, or
    fast-days, then on ordinary days, at the same hours as, and
    with a sort of internal correspondence to, the worship of the
    Temple. The services on Mondays and Thursdays were special,
    these being the ordinary market-days, when the country-people
    came into the towns, and would avail themselves of the
    opportunity for bringing any case that might require legal
    decision before the local Sanhedrin, which met in the
    Synagogue, and consisted of its authorities. Naturally, these
    two days would be utilised to afford the country-people, who
    lived far from the Synagogues, opportunities for worship; [a
    Baba K. 82 a.] and the services on those days were of a
    somewhat more elaborate character. Accordingly, Monday and
    Thursday were called 'the days of congregation' or
    'Synagogue' (Yom ha-Kenisah).

     In another place [2 See Book I. pp. 19, 77.] it has been
    shown, how rapidly andgenerally the institution of Synagogues
    spread among the Jews of the Dispersion in all lands, and
    what important purposes they served. In Palestine they were
    scattered over the whole country, though it is only
    reasonable to suppose, that their number greatly increased
    after the destruction of the Temple, and this without
    crediting the Jewish legend as to their extraordinary number
    in certain cities, such as 480, or 460, in Jerusalem. [3
    These numbers, however, seem to have been symbolical. The
    number 480 is, by Gimatreya, deduced from the word 'She that
    was full of' (meleathi) in Is. i. 21. Comp. Yalkut, vol. ii.
    p. 40 d, towards the end, or else 480 = 4 x 10 x 12.] In the
    capital, and probably in some other large cities, there were
    not only several Synagogues, but these arranged according to
    nationalities, and even crafts. [4 Comp. Megill. 26.] At the
    same time it deserves notice, that even in so important a
    place as Capernaum there seems either not to have been a
    Synagogue, or that it was utterly insignificant, till the
    want was supplied by the pious gentile centurion. [a St. Luke
    vii. 5.] This would seem to dispose of the question whether,
    as is generally assumed, a Jewish community in a place, if
    numbering ten heads of families, was obliged to build a
    Synagogue, and could enforce local taxation for the purpose.
    Such was undoubtedly the later Rabbinic ordinance, [b
    Maimonides, Hilc. Tephill, xi 1.] but there is no evidence
    that it obtained in Palestine, or in early times.

     Generally, of course, a community would build its own
    Synagogue, or else depend on the charitable assistance of
    neighbours, or on private munificence. If this failed, they
    might meet for worship in a private dwelling, a sort of
    'Synagogue in the house.' [c Comp. Philem. 2.] For, in early
    times the institution would be much more simple than at a
    later period. In this, as in other respects, we must remember
    that later Jewish arrangements afford no evidence of those
    which prevailed while the Temple stood, nor yet the
    ordinances of the chiefs of Babylonian ACademies of the
    customs existing in Palestine, and, lastly, that the Rabbinic
    directions mark rather an ideal than the actual state of
    things. Thus, to mention an instance of some importance,
    because the error has been so often repeated as to be
    generally believed, and to have misled recent explorers in
    Palestine, there is no evidence that in Palestine Synagogues
    always required to be built in the highest situation in a
    town, or, at least, so as to overtop the other houses. To
    judge from a doubtful [1 See the notes in Maimonides, Hilc.
    Tephill. xi. 2; p. 75 b.] passage in the Talmud, [d Shabb. 11
    a.] this seems to have been the case in Persia, while a later
    notice [e Tos. Meg. ed. z iv. 23.] appeals in support of it
    to Prov. viii. 2. But even where the Jews were most powerful
    and influential, the rule could not have been universally
    enforced, although later Rabbis lay it down as a principle.
    [f Maimonides, Hilc. Tephill. xi. 2.] Hence, the inference,
    that the Galilean Synagogues lately excavated cannot date
    from an early period, because they are not in prominent
    positions, is erroneous. [2 Comp. Lieut. Kitchener's article
    on the Synagogues of Galilee (P.E.F. Report, July 1878, pp.
    126 &c.). The inference, that they date from the beginning of
    the third century, when the Jews were in high favour with the
    Emperor Alexander Severus, is all the more ungrounded, that
    at that time, if ever, the Jewish authorities would strictly
    adhere to Talmudic directions as to the structure of
    Synagogues.]

     But there were two rules observed, which seem to have been
    enforced from early times. One of these enjoined, that a
    Synagogue should not be erected in a place, unless it
    contained ten Batlanim, [3 From 'battel,' which here seems to
    have the same meaning as the Latin vacare rei, to have
    leisure for a thing.] or men of leisure, who could devote
    their time to the Synagogue worship and administration. [1
    This is expressly stated in Jer. Megill. i. 6, p. 70 b,
    towards the end.] This was proved by the consideration, that
    common worship implied a congregation, which, according to
    Jewish Law, must consist of at least ten men. [2 Comp.
    Megill. iv. 3; Sanh. i. 6. That ten constituted a
    congregation was derived from Numb. xiv. 27. Similarly, it
    was thought to be implied in the fact, that if ten righteous
    men had been in Sodom, the city would not have been
    destroyed. But in case of necessity the number ten might be
    made up by a male child under age (Ber. R. 91, pp. 160 a and
    b).] Another, and perhaps more important rule was as to the
    direction in which Synagogues were to be built, and which
    worshippers should occupy during prayer. Here two points must
    be kept in view: 1st. Prayer towards the east was condemned,
    on the ground of the false worship towards the east mentioned
    in Ezek. viii. 16. [a Comp. Jer. Ber. iv. 5; Baba B. 25 a.]
    2ndly. The prevailing direction in Palestine was towards the
    west, as in the Temple. Thus, we read [b Tos. Megill.iii. 3.]
    that the entrance into the Synagogue was by the east, as the
    entrance through the Beautiful Gate into the Sanctuary. This,
    however, may refer, not to the door, but to the passage
    (aisle) into the interior of the building. In other places,
    [c Baba B. 25 a and b; Jer. Ber. iv. 5.] the advice is simply
    given to turn towards Jerusalem, in whatever direction it be.
    In general, however, it was considered that since the
    Shekhinah was everywhere in Palestine, direction was not of
    paramount importance.

     If we combine these notices, and keep in view the general
    desire to conform to the Temple arrangements, the ruined
    Synagogues lately excavated in the north of Galilee seem, in
    a remarkable manner, to meet the Talmudic requirements. With
    the exception of one (at 'Irbid, which has its door to the
    east), they all have their entrances on the south. We
    conjecture that the worshippers, imitating in this the
    practice in the Temple, made a circuit, either completely to
    the north, or else entered at the middle of the eastern
    aisle, where, in the ground-plan of the Synagogue at
    Capernaum, which seems the most fully preserved ruin, two
    pillars in the colonnade are wanting. [3 On the next page we
    give a plan of the Synagogue excavated at Tell Hum
    (Capernaum). It is adapted from Capt. Wilson's plan in the
    P.E.F. Quarterly Statement, No. 2.] The so-called 'Ark' would
    be at the south end; the seats for the elders and honourable
    in front of it, facing the people, and with their back to the
    Ark. [d Tos. Meg. iii. 3.] Here two pillars are wanting in
    the Synagogue at Capernaum. The lectern of the reader would
    be in the centre, close to where the entrance was into the
    double colonnade which formed the Synagogue, where, at
    present, a single pillar is marked in the plan of the
    Capernaum Synagogue; while the women's gallery was at the
    north end, where two columns and pillars of peculiar shape,
    which may have supported the gallery, are traceable. For it
    is a mistake to suppose that the men and women sat in
    opposite aisles, separated by a low wall. Philo notices,
    indeed, this arrangement in connection with the Therapeutae;
    [a De Vit. Con tem pl. 3 and 9, ed. Mang. ii. pp. 476, 482.]
    but there is no indication that the practice prevailed in the
    Synagogues, or in Palestine.

     We can now, with the help given by recent excavations, from
    a conception of these ancient Synagogues. The Synagogue is
    built of the stone of the country. On the lintels over the
    doors there are various ornamentations, a seven-branched
    candlestick, an open flower between two Paschal lambs, or
    vine-leaves with bunches of grapes, or, as at Capernaum, a
    pot of manna between representations of Aaron's rod. Only
    glancing at the internal decorations of mouldings or cornice,
    we notice that the inside plan is generally that of two
    double colonnades, which seem to have formed the body of the
    Synagogue, the aisles east and west being probably used as
    passages. The intercolumnar distance is very small, never
    greater than 9 1/2 feet. [1 Comp. Palestine Exploration Fund
    Report, Quarterly Statement, ii. p. 42 &c.] The 'two corner
    columns at the northern end invariably have their two
    exterior faces square like pillars, and the two interior ones
    formed by half-engaged pillars.' Here we suppose the women's
    gallery to have risen. The flooring is formed of slabs of
    white limestone; [1 Comp. Warren's 'Recovery of Jerusalem,'
    p. 343 &c.] the walls are solid (from 2 even to 7 feet in
    thickness), and well built of stones, rough in the exterior,
    but plastered in the interior. The Synagogue is furnished
    with sufficient windows to admit light. The roof is flat, the
    columns being sometimes connected by blocks of stone, on
    which massive rafters rest.

     Entering by the door at the southern end, and making the
    circuit to the north, we take our position in front of the
    women's gallery. These colonnades form the body of the
    Synagogue. [2 There is a curious passage in Ber. 8 a, which
    states that although there were thirteen Synagogues in
    Tiberias, it was the practice of the Rabbis only to pray
    'between the columns where they studied.' This seems to imply
    that the Academy consisted also of colonnades. For it would
    be difficult to believe that all the supposed Synagogues
    excavated in Galilee were Academies.] At the south end,
    facing north, is a movable 'Ark,' containing the sacred rolls
    of the Law and the Prophets. It is called the Holy Chest or
    Ark, Aron haqqodesh (to call it simply 'aron' was sinful), [a
    Shabb. 32.] but chiefly the Tebhah, Ark. [3 It was also
    called Argas and Qomtar (Megill. 26 b), but more generally
    Chest.] It was made movable, so that it mightbe carried out,
    as on public fasts. [b Megill. 26 b; Taan. 15 a.] Steps
    generally led up to it (the Darga or Saphsel). In front hangs
    (this probably from an early period) the Vilon or curtain.
    But the Holy Lamp is never wanting, in imitation of the
    undying light in the Temple. [c Exod. xxvii. 20.] Right
    before the Ark, and facing the people, are the seats of
    honour, for the rulers of the Synagogue and the honourable.
    [d St. Matt. xxiii. 6; Tos. Megill. ed. Z. iv. 21.] The place
    for him who leads the devotion of the people is also in front
    of the Ark, either elevated, or else, to mark humility,
    lowered. [4 Hence the expression 'yored liphney hattebhah,'
    and 'obhed liphney hattebhah.'] In the middle of the
    Synagogue (so generally) is the Bima, [5 Seems also to have
    been called 'Kathedrah,' just as by our Lord (St. Matt.
    xxiii. 2). Comp. Buxtorf's Lexicon, p. 2164.] or elevation,
    on which there is the Luach, or desk, [e Megill. 32 a.] from
    which the Law is read. This is also called the Kurseya,
    chair, or throne, [f Megill. 26 b.] or Kisse, and Pergulah.
    Those who are to read the Law will stand, while he who is to
    preach or deliver an address will sit. Beside them will be
    the Methurgeman, either to interpret, or to repeat aloud,
    what is said.
     As yet the Synagogue is empty, and we may therefore call to
    mind what we ought to think, and how to bear ourselves. To
    neglect attendance on its services would not only involve
    personal guilt, but bring punishment upon the whole district.
    Indeed, to be effectual, prayer must be offered in the
    Synagogue. [a Comp. Ber. 6 a and b; 8 a.] At the same time,
    the more strict ordinances in regard to the Temple, such as,
    that we must not enter it carrying a staff, nor with shoes,
    nor even dust on the feet, nor with scrip or purse, do not
    apply to the Synagogue, as of comparatively inferior
    sanctity. [b Ber. 63 a.] However, the Synagogue must not be
    made a thoroughfare. We must not behave lightly in it. [c
    Tos. Megill. ed. Z. iii. 7.] We may not joke, laugh, eat,
    talk, dress, nor resort there for shelter from sun or rain.
    Only Rabbis and their disciples, to whom so many things are
    lawful, and who, indeed, must look upon the Synagogue as if
    it were their own dwelling, may eat, drink, perhaps even
    sleep there. Under certain circumstances, also, the poor and
    strangers may be fed there. [d Pes. 101 a.] But in general,
    the Synagogue must be regarded as consecrated to God. Even if
    a new one be built, care must be taken not to leave the old
    edifice till the other is finished. Money collected for the
    building may, in cases of necessity, be used for other
    purposes, but things dedicated for it are inalienable by
    sale. A Synagogue may be converted into an Academy, because
    the latter is regarded as more sacred, but not vice versa.
    Village Synagogues may be disposed of, under the direction of
    the local Sanhedrin, provided the locale be not afterwards
    used for incongruous purposes, such as public baths, a
    wash-house, a tannery, &c. But town Synagogues are
    inalienable, because strangers may have contributed to them;
    and, even if otherwise, they have a right to look for some
    place of worship. At the same time, we must bear in mind that
    this rule had its exceptions; notably that, at one time, the
    guild of coppersmiths in Jerusalem sold their Synagogue. [e
    Megill. 26a.]

     All this, irrespective of any Rabbinic legends, shows with
    what reverence these 'houses of congregation' were regarded.
    And now the weekly Sabbath, the pledge between Israel and
    God, had once more come. To meet it as a bride or queen, each
    house was adorned on the Friday evening. The Sabbath lamp was
    lighted; the festive garments put on; the table provided with
    the best which the family could afford; and the Qiddush, or
    benediction, spoken over the cup of wine, which, as always,
    was mixed with water. [1 This, not for symbolical reasons,
    but probably on account of the strength of the wine. It is
    needless here to give the rules how the cup is to be held, or
    even the liturgical formula of the Qiddush. Comp. Jer. Ber.
    p. 3 c, d; vii. 6, p. 11 c, d.] And as Sabbath morning broke,
    they hastened with quick steps to the Synagogue; for such was
    the Rabbinic rule in going, while it was prescribed to return
    with slow and lingering steps. Jewish punctiliousness defined
    every movement and attitude in prayer. If those rules were
    ever observed in their entirety, devotion must have been
    crushed under their weight. But we have evidence that, in the
    time of our Lord, and even later, there was much personal
    freedom left; [1 As to all this, and the great liberty in
    prayer, comp. Zunz, Gottesd. Vortr. d. Jud. pp. 368, 369, and
    notes a, b, and d; and Ritus des Synag. Gottesd. pp. 2 and
    3.] for, not only was much in the services determined by the
    usage of each place, but the leader of the devotions might
    preface the regular service by free prayer, or insert such
    between certain parts of the liturgy.

     We are now in the Nazareth Synagogue. The officials are all
    assembled. The lowest of these is the Chazzan, or minister,
    [a St. Luke iv. 20.]who often acts also as schoolmaster. For
    this reason, and because the conduct of the services may
    frequently devolve upon him, great care is taken in his
    selection. He must be not only irreproachable, but, if
    possible, his family also. Humility, modesty, knowledge of
    the Scriptures, distinctness and correctness in
    pronunciation, simplicity and neatness in dress, and an
    absence of self-assertion, are qualities sought for, and
    which, in some measure, remind us of the higher
    qualifications insisted on by St. Paul in the choice of
    ecclesiastical officers. Then there are the elders (Zeqenim),
    or rulers ( ), whose chief is the Archisynagogos, or Rosh
    ha-Keneseth. These are the rulers (Parnasim) or shepherds (
    ). There can be no question (from the inscriptions on the
    Jewish tombstones in Rome), that the Archisynagogos [b Comp.
    Schurer, Gemeind. Verfass. in Rom, pp. 27 &c.] was chief
    among the rulers, and that, whether or not there was, as in
    the community at Rome, and probably also among the dispersed
    in the West, besides him, a sort of political chief of the
    elders, or Gerousiarch. [c Schurer, U.S., pp. 18-20.] All the
    rulers of the Synagogue were duly examined as to their
    knowledge, and ordained to the office. They formed the local
    Sanhedrin or tribunal. But their election depended on the
    choice of the congregation; and absence of pride, as also
    gentleness and humility, are mentioned as special
    qualifications. [d Sanh. 92 a; Chag. 5 b.] Sometimes the
    office was held by regular teachers. [e Gitt. 60 a.]

     If, as in Rome, there was an apparently unordained eldership
    (Gerousia), it had probably only the charge of outward
    affairs, and acted rather as a committee of management.
    Indeed, in foreign Synagogues, the rulers seem to have been
    chosen, sometimes for a specified period, at others for life.
    But, although it may be admitted that the Archisynagogos, or
    chief ruler of the Synagogue, was only the first among his
    equals, there can be no doubt that the virtual rule of the
    Synagogue devolved upon him. He would have the
    superintendence of Divine service, and, as this was not
    conducted by regular officials, he would in each case
    determine who were to be called up to read from the Law and
    the Prophets, who was to conduct the prayers, and act as
    Sheliach Tsibbur, or messenger of the congregation, and who,
    if any, was to deliver an address. He would also see to it
    that nothing improper took place in the Synagogue, [a St.
    Luke xiii. 14.] and that the prayers were properly conducted.
    In short, the supreme care, both of the services and of the
    building, would devolve upon him. To these regular officials
    we have to add those who officiated during the service, the
    Sheliach Tsibbur, or delegate of the congregation, who, as
    its mouthpiece, conducted the devotions, the Interpreter or
    Methurgeman, and those who were called on to read in the Law
    and the Prophets, or else to preach.

     We are now in some measure prepared to follow the worship on
    that Sabbath in Nazareth. On His entrance into the Synagogue,
    or perhaps before that, the chief ruler would request Jesus
    to act for that Sabbath as the Sheliach Tsibbur. For
    according to the Mishnah, [b Megill. v. 5.] the person who
    read in the Synagogue the portion from the Prophets, was also
    expected to conduct the devotions, at least in greater part.
    [1 Part ofthe Shema, and the whole of the Eulogies.] If this
    rule was enforced at that time, then Jesus would ascend the
    Bima, and standing at the lectern, begin the service by two
    prayers, which in their most ancient form, as they probably
    obtained in the time of our Lord, were as follows:,

     I. 'Blessed be Thou, O Lord, King of the world, Who formest
    the light and createst the darkness, Who makest peace, and
    createst everything; Who, in mercy, givest light to the
    earth, and to those who dwell upon it, and in Thy goodness,
    day by day, and every day, renewest the works of creation.
    Blessed be the Lord our God for the glory of His handiworks,
    and for the light-giving lights which He has made for His
    praise. Selah. Blessed be the Lord our God, Who has formed
    the lights.'

     II. 'With great love hast Thou loved us, O Lord our God, and
    with much overflowing pity hast Thou pitied us, our Father
    and our King. For the sake of our fathers who trusted in
    Thee, and Thou taughtest them the statutes of life, have
    mercy upon us, and teach us. Enlighten our eyes in Thy Law;
    cause our hearts to cleave to Thy commandments; unite our
    hearts to love and fear Thy Name, and we shall not be put to
    shame, world without end. For Thou art a God Who preparest
    salvation, and us hast Thou chosen from among all nations and
    tongues, and hast in truth brought us near to Thy great Name,
    Selah, that we may lovingly praise Thee and Thy Unity.
    Blessed be the Lord, Who in love chose His people Israel.'

     After this followed what may be designated as the Jewish
    Creed, called the Shema, from the word 'shema,' or 'hear,'
    with which it begins. It consisted of three passages from the
    Pentateuch, [a Deut. vi. 4-9; xi. 13-21; Numb. xv. 37-41.] so
    arranged, as the Mishnah notes, [b Ber. ii. 2.] that the
    worshipper took upon himself first the yoke of the Kingdom of
    Heaven, and only after it the yoke of the commandments; and
    in the latter, again, first those that applied to night and
    day, and then those that applied to the day only. They were
    probably but later determinations, conceived in a spirit of
    hostility to what was regarded as the heresy of Christianity,
    which insisted that, as the first sentence in the Shema,
    asserting the Unity of God, was the most important, special
    emphasis should be laid on certain words in it. The
    recitation of the Shema was followed by this prayer:,

     'True it is that Thou art Jehovah, our God, and the God of
    our fathers, our King, and the King of our fathers, our
    Saviour, and the Saviour of our fathers, our Creator, the
    Rock of our Salvation, our Help and our Deliverer. Thy Name
    is from everlasting, and there is no God beside Thee. A new
    song did they that were delivered sing to Thy Name by the
    sea-shore; together did all praise and own Thee King, and
    say, Jehovah shall reign, world without end! Blessed be the
    God Who saveth Israel.'

     This prayer finished, he who officiated took his place
    before the Ark, and there repeated what formed the prayer in
    the strictest sense, or certain 'Eulogies' or Benedictions.
    These are eighteen, or rather nineteen, in number, and date
    from different periods. But as on Sabbaths only the three
    first and the three last of them, which are also those
    undoubtedly of greatest age, were repeated, and between them
    certain other prayers inserted, only these six, with which
    the series respectively began and ended, need here find a
    place. The first Benediction was said with bent body. It was
    as follows:,

     I. 'Blessed be the Lord our God, and the God of our fathers,
    the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of
    Jacob; the Great, the Mighty, and the Terrible God, the Most
    High God, Who showeth mercy and kindness. Who createth all
    things, Who remembereth the gracious promises to the fathers,
    and bringeth a Saviour to their children's children, for His
    own Name's sake, in love. O King, Helper, Saviour, and
    Shield! Blessed art Thou, O Jehovah, the Shield of Abraham.'

     II. 'Thou O Lord, art mighty for ever; Thou. Who quickenest
    the dead, art mighty to save. In Thy mercy Thou preservest
    the living, Thou quickenest the dead; in Thine abundant pity
    Thou bearest up those who fall, and healest those who are
    diseased, and loosest those who are bound, and fulfillest Thy
    faithful word to those who sleep in the dust. Who is like
    unto Thee, Lord of strength, and who can be compared to Thee,
    Who killest and makest alive, and causest salvation to spring
    forth? And faithful art Thou to give life to the dead.
    Blessed art Thou, Jehovah, Who quickenest the dead!'

     III. 'Thou art Holy, and Thy name is Holy. Selah. Blessed
    art Thou Jehovah God, the Holy One.'

     After this, such prayers were inserted as were suited to the
    day. And here it may be noticed that considerable latitude
    was allowed. For, although [a According to Ber. 34 a.] it was
    not lawful to insert any petition in the three first or the
    three last Eulogies, but only in the intermediate
    Benedictions, in practice this was certainly not observed.
    Thus, although, by the rubric, prayer for rain and dew was to
    be inserted up to the season of the Passover in the ninth
    Benediction, yet occasionally reference to this seems also to
    have been made in the second Benediction, as connected with
    the quickening of that which is dead. [b Ber. 33 a.] Nay,
    some Rabbis went so far as to recommend a brief summary of
    the eighteen Eulogies, while yet another (R. Eliezer)
    repudiated all fixed forms of prayer. [1 There is even doubt,
    whether the exact words of at least some of the Benedictions
    were fixed at an early period. See Zunz, u. s.] But
    gradually, and especially after the insertion of the
    well-known prayer against the heretics or rather Christian
    converts (Eulogy XI. [2 Originally the eulogies were eighteen
    in number. The addition of that against the heretics would
    have made them nineteen. Accordingly, Eulogy xv., which
    prayed for the coming of the Branch of David, was joined to
    the previous one in order to preserve the number eighteen.
    Comp. Jer. Ber. iv. 3. It is sadly characteristic that,
    together with a curse upon Christian converts, the Messianic
    hope of Israel should thus have been pushed into the
    background.]), the present order of the eighteen Eulogies
    (Amidah) seems to have been established. Both the Jerusalem
    [c Jer. Ber. iv. 3 to end.] and the Babylon Talmud [d Ber. 33
    a &c.] contain much on this subject which is of very great
    interest. [3 For the sake of brevity, I can only here refer
    the reader to the passages.]

     Following the order of the service, we now come to the
    concluding Eulogies, which were as follows:,

     XVII. (XVI.) 'Take gracious pleasure, O Jehovah our God, in
    Thy people Israel and in their prayers, and in love accept
    the burnt-offerings of Israel, and their prayers with Thy
    good pleasure, and may the services of Thy people be ever
    acceptable unto Thee. And O that our eyes may see it, as Thou
    turnest in mercy to Zion. Blessed be Thou, O Jehovah, Who
    restoreth His Shekhinah to Zion.'

     XVIII. (XVII.) In saying this Eulogy, which was simply one
    of thanks, it was ordered that all should bend down. It was
    as follows: 'We give priase to Thee, because Thou art He,
    Jehovah, our God, and the God of our fathers, for ever and
    ever. The Rock of our life, the Shield of our salvation, Thou
    art He, from generation to generation. We laud Thee, and
    declare Thy praise. For our lives which are bound up in Thine
    Hand, for our souls which are committed to Thee, and for Thy
    wonders which are with us every day and for Thy marvellous
    deeds and Thy goodnesses which are at all seasons, evening,
    and morning, and midday, Thou Gracious One, for Thy
    compassions never end, Thou Pitying One, for Thy mercies
    never cease, for ever do we put our trust in Thee. And for
    all this, blessed and exalted be Thy Name, our King, always,
    world without end. And all the living bless Thee, Selah, and
    praise Thy Name in truth, O God, our Salvation and our Help.
    Selah. Blessed art Thou, Jehovah. The Gracious One is Thy
    Name, and to Thee it is pleasant to give praise.'

     After this the priests, if any were in the Synagogue, spoke
    the blessing, elevating their hands up to the shoulders [a
    Sot. vii. 6.] (in the Temple above the head). This was called
    the lifting up of hands. [b Comp. 1 Tim. ii. 8.] In the
    Synagogue the priestly blessing was spoken in three sections,
    the people each time responding by an Amen. [c Sot. 37 b 38
    a.] Lastly, in the Synagogue, the word 'Adonai' was
    substituted for Jehovah. [d Siphre on Numb. par. 39, p. 12
    a.] [1 Minor differences need not here be detailed,
    especially as they are by no means certain.] If no
    descendants of Aaron were present, the leader of the
    devotions repeated the usual priestly benediction. [e Numb.
    vi. 23-26.] After the benediction followed the last Eulogy,
    which, in its abbreviated form (as presently used in the
    Evening Service), is as follows:,

     XIX. (XVIII.) 'O bestow on Thy people Israel great peace for
    ever. For Thou art King, and Lord of all peace. And it is
    good in Thine eyes to bless Thy people Israel at all times
    and at every hour with Thy peace. Blessed art Thou, Jehovah,
    Who blesseth His people Israel with peace!'

     It was the practice of leading Rabbis, probably dating from
    very early times, to add at the close of this Eulogy certain
    prayers of their own, either fixed or free, of which the
    Talmud gives specimens. From very early times also, the
    custom seems to have obtained that the descendants of Aaron,
    before pronouncing the blessing, put off their shoes. In the
    benediction the priests turned towards the people, while he
    who led the ordinary prayers stood with his back to the
    people, looking towards the Sanctuary. The superstition, that
    it was unlawful to look at the priests while they spoke the
    blessing, [a Chag. 1c a.] must be regarded as of later date.
    According to the Mishnah, they who pronounce the benediction
    must have no blemish on their hands, face, or feet, so as not
    to attract attention; but this presumably refers to those
    officiating in the Temple. [1 It seems also to have been the
    rule, that they must wash their hands before pronouncing the
    benediction (Sot. 39 a).] It is a curious statement, that
    priests from certain cities in Galilean were not allowed to
    speak the words of blessing, because their pronounciation of
    the gutturals was misleading. [b Megill. 24.] According to
    the Jerusalem Talmud, [c Jer. Gitt. v. 9. p 47 b;.] moral
    blemishes, or even sin, did not disqualify a priest from
    pronouncing the benediction, since it was really God, and not
    man, Who gave the blessing. [2 The question is discussed:
    first, who blessed the priests? and, secondly, what part God
    had in that benediction? The answer will readily be guessed
    (Chull. 49 a). In Siphre on Numbers, par. 43, the words are
    quoted (Numb. vi. 27) to show that the blessing came from
    God, and not from, although, through, the priests. In Bemidb.
    R. 11 ed. Warsh. iv. p. 40 a there is a beautiful prayer, in
    which Israel declares that it only needs the blessing of God,
    according to Deut. xxvi. 15, on which the answer comes, that
    although the priests bring the benediction, it is God Who
    stands and blesses His people. Accordingly, the benediction
    of the priests is only the symbol of God's blessing.] On the
    other hand, strict sobriety was insisted on on such
    occasions. Later Judaism used the priestly benediction as a
    means for counteracting the effects of evil dreams. The
    public prayers closed with an Amen, spoken by the
    congregation.

     The liturgical part being thus completed, one of the most
    important, indeed, what had been the primary object of the
    Synagogue service, began. The Chazzan, or minister,
    approached the Ark, and brought out a roll of the Law. It was
    taken from its case (teq, teqah), and unwound from those
    cloths (mitpachoth) which held it. The time had now come for
    the reading of portions from the Law and the Prophets. On the
    Sabbath, at least seven persons were called upon successively
    to read portions from the Law, none of them consisting of
    less than three verses. On the 'days of congregation' (Monday
    and Thursday), three persons were called up; on New Moon's
    Day, and on the intermediate days of a festive week, four; on
    feast days, five; and on the Day of Atonement, six. [3 For
    these different numbers very curious symbolical reasons are
    assigned (Megill. 23 a.).] No doubt, there was even in
    ancient times a lectionary, though certainly not that
    presently in use, which occupies exactly a year. [1 This
    division seems to have originated in Babylon. Comp. Zunz,
    Gottesd. Vortr. pp. 3, 4.] On the contrary, the Palestinian
    lectionary occupied three [a Meg. 29 b.] or, according to
    some, three and a halfyears, [b Jer. Shabb. xvi. 1; Sopher.
    xvi. 10.] half a Sabbatic period. Accordingly, we find that
    the Massorah divides the Pentateuch into 154 sections. In
    regard to the lectionary of three and a half years we read of
    175 sections. It requires, however, to be borne in mind, that
    preparatory to, and on certain festive days, the ordinary
    reading was interrupted, and portions substituted which bore
    on the subject of the feast. Possibly, at different periods
    different cycles may have obtained, those for three and a
    half years, three years, and even for one year. [c Comp.
    Megill. 31 b.] [2Comp. Duschak, Gesch. des jud. Cultus, pp.
    251-258.] According to the Talmud, [d Gitt. 59 b.] a
    descendant of Aaron was always called up first to the
    reading; [3 Some of the leading Rabbis resisted this
    practice, and declared that a Rabbi who yielded to it
    deserved death (Megill. 28 a; comp. Megill. 22 a. See
    generally Duschak, u. s. p. 255.).] then followed a Levite,
    and afterwards five ordinary Israelites. As this practice, as
    well as that of priestly benediction, [4 Every descendant of
    Aaron in the Synagogue is bound to join in the act of
    benediction, on pain of forfeiture of the blessing on
    himself, according to Gen. xii. 3. Otherwise he transgresses
    three commands, contained in Numb. vi. 27 (Sot. 38 b). The
    present mode of dividing the fingers when pronouncing the
    blessing is justified by an appeal to Cant. ii. 9 (Bemidb. R.
    11), although no doubt the origin of the practice is
    mystical.] has been continued in the Synagogue from father to
    son, it is possible still to know who are descendants of
    Aaron, and who Levites. The reading of the Law was both
    preceded and followed by brief Benedictions.

     Upon the Law followed a section from the Prophets, [5 The
    reasons commonly assigned for it are unhistorical. Comp.
    'Sketches of Jewish Life,' p. 278. The term Haphtarah, or
    rather Aphtarah and Aphtarta is derived from patar, to
    dismiss, either, like the Latin Missa, because it ended the
    general service, or else because the valedictory discourse,
    called Aphtarah, was connected with it.] the so-called
    Haphtarah. [6 In a few places in Babylon (Shabb. 116 b),
    lessons from the Hagiographa were read at afternoon services.
    Besides, on Purim the whole Book of Esther was read.] The
    origin of this practice is not known, although it is one that
    must evidently have met a requirement on the part of the
    worshippers. Certain it is, that the present lectionary from
    the Prophets did not exist in early times; nor does it seem
    unlikely that the choice of the passage was left to the
    reader himself. At any rate, as regarded the ordinary Sabbath
    days, [e Megill iv. 4.] we are told that a reader might omit
    one or more verses, provided there was no break. As the
    Hebrew was not generally understood, the Methurgeman, or
    Interpreter, stood by the side of the reader, [f Comp. 1 Cor.
    xiv. 27, 28.] and translated into theAramaean verse by verse,
    and in the section from the Prophets, or Haphtarah, after
    every three verses. [a Megill. 24 a.] But the Methurgeman was
    not allowed to read his translation, lest it might popularly
    be regarded as authoritative. This may help us in some
    measure to understand the popular mode of Old Testament
    quotations in the New Testament. So long as the substance of
    the text was given correctly, the Methurgeman might
    paraphrase for better popular understanding. Again, it is but
    natural to suppose, that the Methurgeman would prepare
    himself for his work by such materials as he would find to
    hand, among which, of course, the translation of the LXX.
    would hold a prominent place. This may in part account alike
    for the employment of the LXX., and for its Targumic
    modifications, in the New Testament quotations.

     The reading of the section from the Prophets (the Haphtarah)
    was in olden times immediately followed by an address,
    discourse, or sermon (Derashah), that is, where a Rabbi
    capable of giving such instruction, or a distinguished
    stranger, was present. Neither the leader of the devotions
    ('the delegate of the congregation' in this matter, or
    Sheliach Tsibbur), nor the Methurgeman, nor yet the preacher,
    required ordination. [1 At a later period, however,
    ordination seems to have been required for preaching. By a
    curious Rabbinic exegesis, the first clause of Prov. vii. 26
    was applied to those who preached without ordination, and the
    second clause to those who were ordained and did not preach
    (Sot. 22 a).] That was reserved for the rule of the
    congregation, whether in legislation or administration,
    doctrine or discipline.

     The only points required in the preacher were the necessary
    qualifications, both mental and moral. [2 Thus, we have a
    saying of the first century 'You preach beautifully, but you
    do not practice beautifully' (Chag. 14 b; Yebam. 63 b.).]
    When a great Rabbi employed a Methurgeman to explain to the
    people his sermon, he would, of course, select him for the
    purpose. Such an interpreter was also called Amora, or
    speaker. Perhaps the Rabbi would whisper to him his remarks,
    while he would repeat them aloud; or else he would only
    condescend to give hints, which the Amora would amplify; or
    he would speak in Hebrew, and the Amora translate it into
    Aramaean, Greek, Latin, or whatever the language of the
    people might be, for the sermon must reach the people in the
    vulgar tongue. The Amora would also, at the close of the
    sermon, answer questions or meet objections. If the preacher
    was a very great man, he would, perhaps, not condescend to
    communicate with the Amora directly, but employ one of his
    students as a middleman. This was also the practice when the
    preacher was in mourning for a very near relative, for so
    important was his office that it must not be interrupted,
    even by the sorrows or the religious obligations of
    'mourning.' [b Moed K 21 a.]

     Indeed, Jewish tradition uses the most extravagant terms to
    extol the institution of preaching. To say that it glorified
    God, and brought men back, or at least nearer to Him, or that
    it quenched the soul's thirst, was as nothing. The little
    city, weak and besieged, but delivered by the wise man in it,
    [a Eccl. ix. 15.] served as symbol of the benefit which the
    preacher conferred on his hearers. The Divine Spirit rested
    on him, and his office conferred as much merit on him as if
    he had offered both the blood and the fat upon the altar of
    burnt offering. [b Ab. de R. Nath. 4.] No wonder that
    tradition traced the institution back to Moses, who had
    directed that, previous to, and on the various festivals,
    addresses, explanatory of their rites, and enforcing them,
    should be delivered to the people. [c Meg. 4 a.] The Targum
    Jonathan assumes the practice in the time of the Judges; [d
    Targum on Judg. v. 2, 9.] the men of the Great Synagogue are,
    of course, credited with it, and Shemayah and Abhtalyon are
    expressly designated as 'preachers.' [e Darshanin, Pes. 70
    b.] How general the practice was in the time of Jesus and His
    Apostles, the reader of the New Testament need not be told,
    and its witness is fully borne out by Josephus [f Ag. Ap. ii.
    18.] and Philo. [g In Flacc., ed. Frcf., p. 972; de Vita Mos.
    p. 688; Leg. ad Caj. pp. 1014, 1035.] Both the Jerusalem and
    the Babylon Talmud assume it as so common, that in several
    passages 'Sabbath-observance' and the 'Sabbath-sermon' are
    identified. Long before Hillel we read of Rabbis preaching,
    in Greek or Latin, in the Jewish Synagogues of Rome, [h For
    ex. Pes. 53 b.] just as the Apostles preached in Greek in the
    Synagogues of the dispersed. That this practice, and the
    absolute liberty of teaching, subject to the authority of the
    'chief ruler of the Synagogue,' formed important links in the
    Christianisation of the world, is another evidence of that
    wonder-working Rule of God, which brings about marvellous
    results through the orderly and natural succession of events
    nay, orders these means with the view to their ultimate
    issue.

     But this is not all. We have materials for drawing an
    accurate picture of the preacher, the congregation, and the
    sermon, as in those days. We are, of course, only speaking of
    the public addresses in the Synagogues on Sabbaths, not of
    those delivered at other times or in other places. Some great
    Rabbi, or famed preacher, or else a distinguised stranger, is
    known to be in the town. He would, of course, be asked by the
    ruler of the Synagogue to deliver a discourse. But who is a
    great, preacher? We know that such a reputation was much
    coveted, and conferred on its possessor great distinction.
    The popular preacher was a power, and quite as much an object
    of popular homage and flattery as in our days. Many a learned
    Rabbi bitterly complained on finding his ponderous
    expositions neglected, while the multitude pushed and crowded
    into the neighbouring bouring Synagogue to hear the
    declamations of some shallow popular Haggadist. [1 In Sot. 40
    a we have an account of how a popular preacher comforted his
    deserted brother teologian by the following parable: 'Two men
    met in a city, the one to sell jewels and precious things,
    the other toys, tinsel, and trifles. Then all the people ran
    to the latter shop, because they did not understand the wares
    of the former. A curious instance of popular wit is the
    following: It was expected that a person lately ordained
    should deliver a discourse before the people. The time came,
    but the Methurgeman in vain bent his ear closer and closer.
    It was evident that the new preacher had nothing to say. On
    which the Methurgeman quoted Habak. ii. 19: 'Woe unto him
    that saith to the wood, Awake; to the dumb stone, Arise, it
    shall teach !' (Sanh. 7 b). It was probably on account of
    such scenes, that the Nasi was not allowed afterwards to
    ordain without the consent of the Sanhedrin.] And so it came,
    that many cultivated thisbranch of theology. When a popular
    preacher was expected, men crowded the area of the Synagogue,
    while women filled the gallery. [a Succ. 51 b.] On such
    occasions, there was the additional satisfaction of feeling
    that they had done something specially meritorious in running
    with quick steps, and crowding into the Synagogue. [b Ber. 6
    b.] For, was it not to carry out the spirit of Hos. vi. 3;
    xi. 10, at least, as Rabbinically understood? Even grave
    Rabbis joined in this 'pursuit to know the Lord,' and one of
    them comes to the somewhat caustic conclusion, that 'the
    reward of a discourse is the haste.' [c Ber. 6 b.] However,
    more unworthy motives sometimes influenced some of the
    audience, and a Talmudic passage [d Kidd. 81 a.] traces the
    cause of many fasts to the meetings of the two sexes on such
    occasions.

     The type of a popular preacher was not very different from
    what in our days would form his chief requisites. He ought to
    have a good figure, [e Taan. 16 a. See Duschak, u. s. p.
    285.] a pleasant expression,and melodious voice (his words
    ought to be 'like those of the bride to the bridegroom'),
    fluency, speech 'sweet as honey,' 'pleasant as milk and
    honey', 'finely sifted like fine flour,' a diction richly
    adorned, 'like a bride on her weddingday;' and sufficient
    confidence in his own knowledge and self-assurance never to
    be disconcerted. Above all he must be conciliatory, and avoid
    being too personal. Moses had addressed Israel as rebellious
    and hard-hearted, and he was not allowed to bring them into
    the land of promise. Elijah had upbraided them with having
    broken the covenant, and Elisha was immediately appointed his
    successor. Even Isaiah had his lips touched with burning
    coals, because he spoke of dwelling among a people of sinful
    lips. [f Yalkut ii. p. 43 a, beginning.] [2 Inconnection with
    this the proverb quoted in the New Testament is thus used by
    Rabbi Tarphon: 'I wonder whether anyone at present would
    accept reproof. If you said, Remove the mote from thine eye,
    he would immediately reply, First remove the beam out of
    thine own eye' (Arach. 16 b). May this not indicate how very
    widely the sayings of Christ had spread among the people?] As
    for the mental qualifications of the preacher, he must know
    his Bible well. As a bride knows properly to make use of her
    twenty-four ornaments, so must the preacher of the
    twenty-four books of the Bible. He must carefully prepare his
    subject, he is 'to hear himself' before the people hear him.
    But whatever else he may be or do, he must be attractive. [1
    Even the celebratedR. Eliezer had the misfortune that, at a
    festival, his hearers one by one stole out during the sermon
    (Bez. 15 b). On the other hand, it is said of R. Akiba,
    although his success as a preacher was very varied, that his
    application to Israel of the sufferings of Job and of his
    final deliverance moved his hearers to tears (Ber. R. 33).]
    In earlier times the sermon might have consisted of a simple
    exposition of some passages from Scripture, or the Book of
    Sirach, which latter was treated and quoted by some of the
    Rabbis almost as if it had been canonical. [a Comp. Zunz,
    Gottesd. Vortr. pp. 101-106, 351.] But this, or the full
    discussion of a single text [2 See Zunz, Gottesd. Vortr. p.
    352, Note b.] ( , to bore), would probably not be so
    attractive as the adaptation of a text to present
    circumstances, or even its modification and alteration for
    such purposes. There were scarcely bounds to the liberties
    taken by the preacher. He would divide a sentence, cut off
    one or two syllables from a word and join them to the next,
    so producing a different meaning, or giving a new
    interpretation to a text. Perhaps the strangest method was
    that of introducing Greek words and expressions into the
    Hebrew, and this not only to give a witty repartee, [b As in
    Ber. R. 14.] but in illustration of Scripture. [c Shem. R.
    15.] Nay, many instances occur, in which a Hebrew word is,
    from the similarity of its sound with the Greek, rendered as
    if it were actually Greek, and thus a new meaning is given to
    a passage. [3 Thus, in Tanch. on Ex. xxii. 24 (ed. Warsh. p.
    105 a and b, sect. 15, towards the end), the expression in
    Deut. xv. 7, 'Meachikha,' from thy brother, is rendered 'un
    achikha,' not thy brother. Similarly, in the Pesiqta, the
    statement in Gen. xxii. 7, 8, 'God will provide Himself a
    lamb for a burnt-offering,' is paraphrased. 'And if not a Seh
    (lamb) for a burnt-offering, my son, (thee) for a burnt
    offering. It is added, 'se leolah is Greek, meaning, thou art
    the burnt-offering.' But the Greek in the former passage is
    also explained by rendering the 'achikha' as an Aramaic form
    of , in which case it would targumically mean 'Withhold not
    thy hand from the poor, who is like to thee.' Comp. the
    interesting tractate of Brull (Fremdspr. Redens. p. 21). A
    play upon Greek words is also supposed to occur in the
    Midrash on Cant. ii. 9, where the word 'dodi,' by omitting
    the second d, and transposing the yod and the vav, is made
    into the Greek , divine. But I confess I do not feel quite
    sure about this, although it has the countenance of Levy. In
    the Midrash on Cant. ii. 15, a whole Greek sentence is
    inserted, only Aramaically written. See also Sachs, Beitr.
    pp. 19 &c.]

     If such licence was taken, it seems a comparatively small
    thing that a doctrine was derived from a word, a particle, or
    even a letter. But, as already stated, the great point was to
    attract the hearers. Parables, stories, allegories,
    witticisms, strange and foreign words, absurd legends, in
    short, anything that might startle an audience, was
    introduced. [4 Thus, when on one occasion the hearers of
    Akiba were going to sleep during his sermon, he called out:
    'Why was Esther Queen in Persia over 127 provinces? Answer:
    She was a descendant of Sarah, who lived 127 years' (Ber. R.
    58). On a similar occasion R. Jehudah startled the sleepers
    by the question: 'One woman in Egypt bore 600,000 men in one
    birth.' One of his hearers immediately replied to the
    question, who she was: 'It was Jochebed, who bore Moses, who
    is reckoned equal to all the 600,000 of Israel' (Midr. Shir
    haSh. R., ed. Warsh., p. 11 b, towards the end, on Cant. i.
    15).] Sometimes a discourse was entirely Haggadic; at others,
    the Haggadah served to introduce the Halakhah. Sometimes the
    object of the preacher was purely homiletical; at others, he
    dealt chiefly with the explanation of Scripture, or of the
    rites and meaning of festivals. A favourite method was that
    which derived its name from the stringing together of pearls
    (Charaz), when a preacher, having quoted a passage or section
    from the Pentateuch, strung on to it another and
    like-sounding, or really similar, from the Prophets and the
    Hagiographa. Or else he would divide a sentence, generally
    under three heads, and connect with each of the clauses a
    separate doctrine, and then try to support it by Scripture.
    It is easy to imagine to what lengths such preachers might go
    in their misinterpretation and misrepresentations of the
    plain text of Holy Scripture. And yet a collection of short
    expositions (the Pesiqta), which, though not dating from that
    period, may yet fairly be taken as giving a good idea of this
    method of exposition, contains not a little that is fresh,
    earnest, useful, and devotional. It is interesting to know
    that, at the close of his address, the preacher very
    generally referred to the great Messianic hope of Israel. The
    service closed with a short prayer, or what we would term an
    'ascription.'

     We can now picture to ourselves the Synagogue, its worship,
    and teaching. We can see the leader of the people's devotions
    as (according to Talmudic direction) he first refuses, with
    mock-modesty, the honour conferred on him by the chief ruler;
    then, when urged, prepares to go; and when pressed a third
    time, goes up with slow and measured steps to the lectern,
    and then before the Ark. We can imagine how one after
    another, standing and facing the people, unrolls and holds in
    his hand a copy of the Law or of the Prophets, and reads from
    the Sacred Word, the Methurgeman interpreting. Finally, we
    can picture it, how the preacher would sit down and begin his
    discourse, none interrupting him with questions till he had
    finished, when a succession of objections, answers, or
    inquiries might await the Amora, if the preacher had employed
    such help. And help it certainly was not in many cases, to
    judge by the depreciatory and caustic remarks, which not
    unfrequently occur, as to the manners, tone, vanity,
    self-conceit, and silliness of the Amora [a Midr. on Eccl.
    vii. 5; ix. 17 b.] who, as he stood beside the Rabbi, thought
    far more of attracting attention and applause to himself,
    then of benefiting his hearers. Hence some Rabbis would only
    employ special and trusted interpreters of their own, who
    were above fifty years of age. [a Chag. 14 a.] In short, so
    far as the sermon was concerned, the impression it produced
    must have been very similar to what we know the addresses of
    the monks in the Middle Ages to have wrought. All the better
    can we understand, even from the human aspect, how the
    teaching of Jesus, alike in its substance and form, in its
    manner and matter, differed from that of the scribes; how
    multitudes would hang entranced on His word; and how,
    everywhere and by all, its impression was felt to be
    overpowering.

     But it is certainly not the human aspect alone which here
    claims our attention. The perplexed inquiry: 'Whence hath
    this man this wisdom and this knowledge?' must find another
    answer than the men of Nazareth could suggest, although to
    those in our days also who deny His Divine character, this
    must ever seem an unanswered and unanswerable question.

 THE ASCENT: FROM THE RIVER JORDAN TO THE MOUNT OF
    TRANSFIGURATION

    THE FIRST GALILEAN MINISTRY.

    CHAPTER XI.

     (St. Matt. iv. 13-17; St. Mark i. 14, 15; St. Luke iv.
    15-32.)

     The visit to Nazareth was in many respects decisive. It
    presented by anticipation an epitome of the history of the
    Christ. He came to His own, and His own received Him not. The
    first time He taught in the Synagogue, as the first time He
    taught in the Temple, they cast Him out. On the one and the
    other occasion, they questioned His authority, and they asked
    for a 'sign.' In both instances, the power which they
    challenged was, indeed, claimed by Christ, but its display,
    in the manner which they expected, refused. The analogy seems
    to extend even farther, and if a misrepresentation of what
    Jesus had said when purifying the Temple formed the ground of
    the final false charge against Him, [a St. Matt. xxvi. 60,
    61.] the taunt of the Nazarenes: 'Physician, heal thyself!'
    found an echo in the mocking cry, as He hung on the Cross:
    'He saved others, Himself He cannot save.' [b St. Matt. xxvi.
    40-42.]

     It is difficult to understand how, either on historical
    grounds, or after study of the character of Christ, the idea
    could have arisen [1 And yet most commentators, following, I
    suppose, the lead of Meyer, hold that Christ had 'stood up'
    in the sense of offering or claiming to read.] that Jesus had
    offered, or that He had claimed, to teach on that Sabbath in
    the Synagogue of Nazareth. Had He attempted what, alike in
    spirit and form, was so contrary to all Jewish notions, the
    whole character of the act would have been changed. As it
    was, the contrast with those by whom He was surrounded is
    almost as striking, as the part which He bore in the scene.
    We take it for granted, that what had so lately taken place
    in Cana, at only four miles' distance, or, to speak more
    accurately, in Capernaum, had become known in Nazareth. It
    raised to the highest pitch of expectancy the interest and
    curiosity previously awakened by the reports, which the
    Galileans had brought from Jerusalem, and by the general fame
    which had spread about Jesus. They were not to test, whether
    their countryman would be equal to the occasion, and do in
    His own city what they had heard had been done for Capernaum.
    To any ordinary man the return to Nazareth in such
    circumstances must have been an ordeal. Not so to the Christ,
    Who, in utter self-forgetfulness, had only this one aim of
    life, to do the Will of Him that sent Him. And so His bearing
    that day in the Synagogue is itself evidence, that while in,
    He was not of, that time.

     Realising the scene on such occasions, we mark the contrast.
    As there could be no un-Jewish forwardness on the part of
    Jesus, so, assuredly, would there be none of that
    mock-humility of reluctance to officiate, in which Rabbinism
    delighted. If, as in the circumstances seems likely, Jesus
    commenced the first part of the service, and then pronounced
    before the 'Ark' those Eulogies which were regarded as, in
    the strictest sense, the prayer (Tephillah), we can imagine,
    though we can scarcely realise, the reverent solemnity, which
    would seem to give a new meaning to each well-remembered
    sentence. And in His mouth it all had a new meaning. We
    cannot know what, if any, petitions He inserted, though we
    can imagine what their spirit would have been. And now, one
    by one, Priest, Levite, and, in succession, five Israelites,
    had read from the Law. There is no reason to disturb the
    almost traditional idea, that Jesus Himself read the
    concluding portion from the Prophets, or the so-called
    Haphtarah. The whole narrative seems to imply this.
    Similarly, it is most likely that the Haphtarah for that day
    was taken from the prophecies of Isaiah, [1 Although we
    cannot feel quite sure of this.] and that it included the
    passage [a Is. lxi. 1, 2.] quoted by the Evangelist as readby
    the Lord Jesus. [b St. Luke iv. 18, 19.] We know that the
    'rolls' on which the Law was written were distinct from those
    of the Prophets; [c Baba B. 18 b.] and every probability
    points to it, that those of the Prophets, at least the
    Greater, were also written on separate scrolls. In this
    instance we are expressly told, that the minister 'delivered
    unto Him the book of the prophet Esaias,' we doubt not, for
    the Haphtarah, [2 I infer this from the fact, that the Book
    of the Prophet Isaiah was given to Him by the Minister of the
    Synagogue. Since the time of Bengel it has been a kind of
    traditional idea that, if this was the Haphtarah for the day,
    the sermon of Christ in Nazareth must have taken place on the
    Day of Atonement, for which in the modern Jewish lectionary
    Is. lviii. 6 forms part of the Haphtarah. There are, however,
    two objections to this view: 1. Our modern lectionary of
    Haphtarahs is certainly not the same as that in the time of
    Christ. 2. Even in our modern lectionary, Is. lxi. 1, 2 forms
    no part of the Haphtarah, either for the Day of Atonement,
    nor for any other Sabbath or festive day. In the modern
    lectionary Is. lvii. 14 to Is. lviii. 14 is the Haphtarah for
    the Day of Atonement.] and that, 'when He had unrolled the
    book,' He 'found' the place from which the Evangelist makes
    quotation.

     When unrolling, and holding the scroll, much more than the
    sixty-first chapter of Isaiah must have been within range of
    His eyes. On the other hand, it is quite certain that the
    verses quoted by the Evangelist could not have formed the
    whole Haphtarah. According to traditional rule, [a Massech.
    Soph. xii. 7.] the Haphtarah ordinarily consisted of not less
    than twenty-one verses, [1 This symbolically: 7 x 3, since
    each of the seven readers in the Law had to read at least
    three verses.] though, if the passage was to be 'targumed,'
    or a sermon to follow, that number might be shortened to
    seven, five, or even three verses. Now the passage quoted by
    St. Luke consists really of only one verse (Is. lxi. 1),
    together with a clause from Is. lviii. 6, [2 'To set at
    liberty those that are bruised.' The words are taken, with
    but a slight necessary alteration in the verb, from the LXX.
    rendering of Is. lviii. 6. The clause from Is. lxi. 2 is: 'To
    preach the acceptable year of the Lord.'] and the first
    clause of Is. lxi. 2. This could scarcely have formed the
    whole Haphtarah. There are other reasons also against this
    supposition. No doubt Jesus read alike the Haphtarah and the
    text of His discourse in Hebrew, and then 'targumed' or
    translated it: while St. Luke, as might be expected, quotes
    (with but two trifling alterations [3 Preaching instead of
    proclaiming, in Is. lxi. 2, and in the form of the verb in
    the clause from Is. lviii. 6. Besides, the insertion of the
    clause: 'to heal the broken-hearted,' is spurious.]) from the
    rendering of the LXX. But, on investigation, it appears that
    one clause is omitted from Is. lxi. 1, [4 All the best MSS.
    omit the words, 'To heal the broken-hearted.'] and that
    between the close of Is. lxi. 1 and the clause of verse 2,
    which is added, a clause is inserted from the LXX. of Is.
    lviii. 6. [5 See above, Note 2.] This could scarcely have
    been done in reading the Haphtarah. But, if as we suppose,
    the passages quoted formed the introductory text of Christ's
    discourse, such quotation and combination were not only in
    accordance with Jewish custom, but formed part of the
    favourite mode of teaching, the Charaz, or stringing, like
    pearls, passage to passage, illustrative of each other. [6
    See the remarks on this point in the previous chapter. If I
    rightly understand the somewhat obscure language of
    Surenhusius (Biblos Katallages, pp. 339-345), such is also
    the view of that learned writer. This peculiarly Jewish
    method of Scriptural quotation by 'stringing together' is
    employed by St. Paul in Rom. iii. 10-18.] In the present
    instance, the portion of the scroll which Jesus unrolled may
    have exhibited in close proximity the two passages which
    formed the introductory text (the so-called Pethichah). But
    this is of comparatively small interest, since both the
    omission of a clause from Is. lxi. 1, and the insertion of
    another adapted from Is. lviii. 6, were evidently
    intentional. It might be presumptuous to attempt stating the
    reasons which may have influenced the Saviour in this, and
    yet some of them will instinctively occur to every thoughtful
    reader.

     It was, indeed, Divine 'wisdom', 'the Spirit of the Lord'
    upon Him, which directed Jesus in the choice of such a text
    for His first Messianic Sermon. It struck the key-note to the
    whole of His Galilean ministry. The ancient Synagogue
    regarded Is. lxi. 1, 2, as one of the three passages, [a The
    other two being Is. xxxii. 14, 15, and Lament.iii. 50.] in
    which mention of the Holy Ghost was connected with the
    promised redemption. [1 See the Appendix on the Messianic
    passages.] In this view, the application which the passage
    received in the discourse of our Lord was peculiarly
    suitable. For the words in which St. Luke reports what
    followed the Pethichah, or introductory text, seem rather a
    summary, than either the introduction or part of the
    discourse of Christ. 'This day is this Scripture fulfilled in
    your ears.' A summary this, which may well serve to guide in
    all preaching. As regards its form, it would be: so to
    present the teaching of Holy Scripture, as that it can be
    drawn together in the focus of one sentence; as regards its
    substance, that this be the one focus: all Scripture
    fulfilled by a present Christ. And this, in the Gospel which
    He bears to the poor, the release which He announces to the
    captives, the healing which He offers to those whom sin had
    blinded, and the freedom He brings to them who were bruised;
    and all as the trumpet-blast of God's Jubilee into His world
    of misery, sin, and want! A year thus begun would be glorious
    indeed in the blessings it gave.

     There was not a word in all this of what common Jewish
    expectancy would have connected with, nay, chiefly
    accentuated in an announcement of the Messianic redemption;
    not a word to raise carnal hopes, or flatter Jewish pride.
    Truly, it was the most un-Jewish discourse for a Jewish
    Messiah of those days, with which to open His Ministry. And
    yet such was the power of these 'words of grace.' that the
    hearers hung spell-bound upon them. Every eye was fastened on
    Him with hungry eagerness. For the time they forgot all else,
    Who it was that addressed them, even the strangeness of the
    message, so unspeakably in contrast to any preaching of Rabbi
    or Teacher that had been heard in that Synagogue. Indeed, one
    can scarcely conceive the impression which the Words of
    Christ must have produced, when promise and fulfilment, hope
    and reality, mingled, and wants of the heart, hitherto
    unrealised, were wakened, only to be more than satisfied. It
    was another sphere, another life. Truly, the anointing of the
    Holy Ghost was on the Preacher, from Whose lips dropped these
    'words of grace.' And if such was the announcement of the
    Year of God's Jubilee, what blessings must it bear in its
    bosom!

     The discourse had been spoken, and the breathless silence
    with which, even according to Jewish custom, it had been
    listed to, [1 See the previous chapter. It was the universal
    rule to listen to the sermon in perfect silence (Pes. 110 a;
    Moed K. a). The questions and objections commenced
    afterwards.] gave place to the usual after-sermon hum of an
    Eastern Synagogue. On one point all were agreed: that they
    were marvellous words of grace, which had proceeded out of
    His mouth. And still the Preacher waited, with deep longing
    of soul, for some question, which would have marked the
    spiritual application of what He had spoken. Such deep
    longing of soul is kindred to, and passes into almost
    sternness, just because he who so longs is so intensely in
    earnest, in the conviction of the reality of his message. It
    was so with Jesus in Nazareth. They were indeed making
    application of the Sermon to the Preacher, but in quite
    different manner from that to which His discourse had
    pointed. It was not the fulfilment of the Scripture in Him,
    but the circumstance, that such an one as the Son of Joseph,
    their village carpenter, should have spoken such words, that
    attracted their attention. Not, as we take it, in a
    malevolent spirit, but altogether unspiritually, as regarded
    the effect of Christ's words, did one and another, here and
    there, express wonderment to his neighbour.

     They had heard, and now they would fain have seen. But
    already the holy indignation of Him, Whom they only knew as
    Joseph's son, was kindled. The turn of matters; their very
    admiration and expectation; their vulgar, unspiritual
    comments: it was all so entirely contrary to the Character,
    the Mission, and the Words of Jesus. No doubt they would next
    expect, that here in His own city, and all the more because
    it was such, He would do what they had heard had taken place
    in Capernaum. It was the world-old saying, as false, except
    to the ear, and as speciously popular as most such sayings:
    'Charity begins at home', or, according to the Jewish
    proverb, and in application to the special circumstances:
    'Physician, heal thyself.' [2 The proverb really is:
    'Physician, heal thine own lameness' (Ber. R. 23, ed. Warsh.
    p. 45 b).] Whereas, if there is any meaning in truth and
    principle; if there was any meaning and reality in Christ's
    Mission, and in the discourse He had just spoken, Charity
    does not begin at home; and 'Physician, heal thyself' is not
    of the Gospel for the poor, nor yet the preaching of God's
    Jubilee, but that of the Devil, whose works Jesus had come to
    destroy. How could He, in His holy abhorrence and
    indignation, say this better than by again repeating, though
    now with different application, that sad experience, 'No
    prophet is accepted in his own country,' which He could have
    hoped was for ever behind Him; [a St. John iv. 44.] and by
    pointing to those two Old Testament instances of it, whose
    names and authority were most frequently on Jewish lips? Not
    they who were 'their own,' but they who were most receptive
    in faith, not Israel, but Gentiles, were those most markedly
    favoured in the ministry of Elijah and of Elisha. [1 The
    statement that the famine in the time of Elijah lasted three
    and a half years is in accordance with universal Jewish
    tradition. Comp. Yalkut on 1 Kings xvi., vol. ii. p. 32 b.]

     As we read the report of Jesus' words, we perceive only
    dimly that aspect of them which stirred the wrath of His
    hearers to the utmost, and yet we do understand it. That He
    should have turned so fully the light upon the Gentiles, and
    flung its large shadows upon them; that 'Joseph's Son' should
    have taken up this position towards them; that He would make
    to them spiritual application unto death of His sermon, since
    they would not make it unto life: it stung them to the quick.
    Away He must out of His city; it could not bear His Presence
    any longer, not even on that holy Sabbath. Out they thrust
    Him from the Synagogue; forth they pressed Him out of the
    city; on they followed, and around they beset Him along the
    road by the brow of the hill on which the city is built,
    perhaps to that western angle, at present pointed out as the
    site. [2 See Stanley, Sinaiand Palestine, p. 363. But surely
    it could not have been the south-western corner (Conder,
    Tent-Work, i. p. 140, and all later writers).] This, with the
    unspoken intention of crowding Him over the cliff, [3 The
    provision, which awarded instant death without formal trial
    in case of open blasphemy or profanation (Sanh. 81 b), would
    not apply in this instance. Probably the purpose was, that
    the crowd around should, as it were accidentally, push Him
    over the cliff.] which there rises abruptly about forty feet
    out of the valley beneath. [4 The spot is just above the
    Maronite Church.] If we are correct in indicating the
    locality, the road here bifurcates, [5 See the plan of
    Nazareth in Badeker's (Socin's) Palaestina, p. 255. The road
    to the left goes westward, that through the northern part of
    the town, towards Capernaum. Our localisation gains in
    probability, if the ancient Synagogue stood where tradition
    places it. At present it is in the hands of the Maronites.]
    and we can conceive how Jesus, Who had hitherto, in the
    silence of sadness, allowed Himself almost mechanically to be
    pressed onwards by the surrounding crowd, now turned, and by
    that look of commanding majesty, the forthbreaking of His
    Divine Being, which ever and again wrought on those around
    miracles of subjection, constrained them to halt and give way
    before Him, while unharmed He passed through their midst. [6
    The circumstance that the Nazarenes did not avow the purpose
    of casting Him over the cliff, but intended accidentally to
    crowd Him over, explains how, when He turned sharply round to
    the right, and passed through the crowd, they did not follow
    Him.] So did Israel of old pass through the cleft waves of
    the sea, which the wonder-working rod of Moses had converted
    into a wall of safety. Yet, although He parted from it in
    judgment, not thus could the Christ have finally and for ever
    left His own Nazareth. [1 Many, even orthodox commentators,
    hold that this history is the same as that related in St.
    Matt. xiii. 54-58, and St. Mark vi. 1-6. But, for the reasons
    about to be stated, I have come, although somewhat
    hesitatingly, to the conclusion, that the narrative of St.
    Luke and those of St. Matthew and St. Mark refer to different
    events. 1. The narrative in St. Luke (which we shall call A)
    refers to the commencement of Christ's Ministry, while those
    of St. Matthew and St. Mark (which we shall call B) are
    placed at a later period. Nor does it seem likely, that our
    Lord would have entirely abandoned Nazareth after one
    rejection. 2. In narrative A, Christ is without disciples; in
    narrative B He is accompanied by them. 3. In narrative A no
    miracles are recorded, in fact, His words about Elijah and
    Elisha preclude any idea of them; while in narrative B there
    are a few, though not many. 4. In narrative A He is thrust
    out of the city immediately after His sermon, while narrative
    B implies, that He continued for some time in Nazareth, only
    wondering at their unbelief.

     If it be objected, that Jesus could scarcely have returned
    to Nazareth after the attempt on His life, we must bear in
    mind that this purpose had not been avowed, and that His
    growing frame during the intervening period may have rendered
    such a return not only possible, but even advisable.

     The coincidences as regards our Lord's statement about the
    Prophet, and their objection as to His being the carpenter's
    son, are only natural in the circumstances.]

     Cast out of His own city, Jesus pursued His solitary way
    towards Capernaum. [2 Probably resting in the immediate
    neighbourhood of Nazareth, and pursuing His journey next day,
    when the Sabbath was past.] There, at least, devoted friends
    and believing disciples would welcome Him. There, also, a
    large draught of souls would fill the Gospel-net. Capernaum
    would be His Galilean home. [a St. Matt. ix. 1.] Here He
    would, on the Sabbath-days, preach in that Synagogue, of
    which the good centurion was the builder, [b St. Luke vii.
    5.] and Jarius the chief ruler.[c St. Mark v. 22.] These
    names, and the memories connected with them, are a sufficient
    comment on the effect of His preaching: that 'His word was
    with power.' In Capernaum, also, was the now believing and
    devoted household of the court-officer, whose only son the
    Word of Christ, spoken at a distance, had restored to life.
    Here also, or in the immediate neighbourhood, was the home of
    His earliest and closest disciples, the brothers Simon and
    Andrew, and of James and John, the sons of Zebedee.

     From the character of the narrative, and still more from the
    later call of these four, [d St. Matt. iv. 18, 22, and
    parallels.] it would seem that, after the return of Jesus
    from Judaea into Galilee, His disciples had left Him,
    probably in Cana, and returned to their homes and ordinary
    avocations. They were not yet called to forsake all and
    follow Him, not merely to discipleship, but to fellowship and
    Apostolate. When He went from Cana to Nazareth, they returned
    to Capernaum. They knew He was near them. Presently He came;
    and now His Ministry was in their own Capernaum, or in its
    immediate neighbourhood.

     For Capernaum was not the only place where He taught. Rather
    was it the center for itinerancy through all that district,
    to preach in its Synagogues. [a St. Matt. iv. 13-17.] Amidst
    such ministry of quiet 'power,' chiefly alone and unattended
    by His disciples, the summer passed. Truly, it was summer in
    the ancient land of Zebulun and Naphtali, in the Galilee of
    the Gentiles, when the glorious Light that had risen chased
    away the long winter's darkness, and those who had been the
    first exiles in Assyrian bondage were the first brought back
    to Israel's true liberty, and by Israel's Messiah-King. To
    the writer of the first Gospel, as, long years afterwards, he
    looked back on this, the happy time when he had first seen
    the Light, till it had sprung up even to him 'in the region
    and shadow of death,' it must have been a time of peculiarly
    bright memories. How often, as he sat at the receipt of
    custom, must he have seen Jesus passing by; how often must he
    have heard His Words, some, perhaps, spoken to himself, but
    all falling like good seed into the field of his heart, and
    preparing him at once and joyously to obey the summons when
    it came: Follow Me! And not to him only, but to many more,
    would it be a glowing, growing time of heaven's own summer.

     There was a dim tradition in the Synagogue, that this
    prediction, [b Is. ix. 2.] 'The people that walk in the
    darkness see a great light,' referred to the new light, with
    which God would enlighten the eyes of those who had
    penetrated into the mysteries of Rabbinic lore, enabling them
    to perceive concerning 'loosing and binding, concerning what
    was clean and what was unclean.' [c Tanch. on Gen. vi. 9; ed.
    Warsh. p. 11 b.] Others [1 See Mikraoth Gedoloth on the
    passage.] regarded it as a promise to the early exiles,
    fulfilled when the great liberty came to them. To
    Levi-Matthew it seemed as if both interpretations had come
    true in those days of Christ's first Galilean ministry. Nay,
    he saw them combined in a higher unity when to their eyes,
    enlightened by the great Light, came the new knowledge of
    what was bound and what loosed, what unclean and clean,
    though quite differently from what Judaism had declared it to
    them; and when, in that orient Sun, the promise of liberty to
    long-banished Israel was at last seen fulfilled. It was,
    indeed, the highest and only true fulfilment of that
    prediction of Isaiah, [2 The words, 'That it might be
    fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias,' do not bear the
    meaning, that this was their primary and literal purpose.
    They represent a frequent mode of citation among Jewish
    writers, indicating a real fulfillment of the spirit, though
    not always of the letter, of a prophecy. On this subject see
    also Surenhusius, u. s., p. 218, and his admirable exposition
    of the Jewish formula ( ) ('that it might be fulfilled which
    was spoken'), u. s., pp. 2-4.] in a history where all was
    prophetic, every partial fulfilment only an unfolding and
    opening of the bud, and each symbolic of further unfolding
    till, in the fulness of time, the great Reality came, to
    which all that was prophetic in Israel's history and
    predictions pointed. And so as, in the evening of his days,
    Levi-Matthew looked back to distant Galilee, the glow of the
    setting sun seemed once more to rest on that lake, as it lay
    bathed in its sheen of gold. It lit up that city, those
    shores, that custom-house; it spread far off, over those
    hills, and across the Jordan. Truly, and in the only true
    sense, had then the promise been fulfilled: [a St. Matt. ix.
    16.] 'To them which sat inthe region and shadow of death,
    light is sprung up.'

 THE ASCENT: FROM THE RIVER JORDAN TO THE MOUNT OF
    TRANSFIGURATION

    AT THE 'UNKNOWN' FEAST IN JERUSALEM, AND BY THE POOL OF
    BETHESDA.

    CHAPTER XII.

     (St. John v.)

     The shorter days of early autumn had come, [1 Both Godet and
    Prof. Westcott (the latter more fully) have pointed out the
    distinction between (literally: 'after those things, as in
    St. John v. 1'), and The former does not indicate immediate
    succession of time.] and the country stood in all its
    luxurious wealth of beauty and fruitfulness, as Jesus passed
    from Galilee to what, in the absence of any certain evidence,
    we must still be content to call 'the Unknown Feast' in
    Jerusalem. Thus much, however, seems clear that it was either
    the 'Feast of Wood-offering' on the 15th of Abh (in August),
    when, amidst demonstrations of joy, willing givers brought
    from all parts of the country the wood required for the
    service of the Altar; or else the 'Feast of Trumpets' on the
    1st of Tishri (about the middle of September), which marked
    the beginning of the New (civil) Year. [2 For a full
    discussion of the question see vol. ii. App. XV. pp. 765,
    766; for the 'Feast of Wood-offering,' 'The Temple and its
    Services,& c., 'pp.295,296.] The journey of Christ to that
    Feast and its results are not mentioned in the Synoptic
    Gospels, because that Judaean ministry which, if the
    illustration be lawful, was the historical thread on which
    St. John strung his record of what the Word spake, lay, in
    great measure, beyond their historical standpoint. Besides,
    this and similar events belonged, indeed, to that grand
    Self-Manifestation of Christ, with the corresponding growth
    of opposition consequent upon it, which it was the object of
    the Fourth Gospel to set forth; but it led to no permanent
    results, and so was outside the scope of the more popular,
    pragmatic record, which the other Gospels has in view.

     There may in this instance, however, have been other reasons
    also for their silence. It has already been indicated that,
    during the summer of Christ's first Galilean ministry, when
    Capernaum was His centre of action, the disciples had
    returned to their homes and usual avocations, while Jesus
    moved about chiefly alone and unattended. This explains the
    circumstance of a second call, even to His most intimate and
    closest followers. It also accords best with that gradual
    development in Christ's activity, which commencing with the
    more private teaching of the new Preacher of Righteousness in
    the villages by the lake, or in the Synagogues, expanded into
    that publicity in which He at last appears, surrounded by His
    Apostles, attended by the loving ministry of those to whom He
    had brought healing of body or soul, and followed by a
    multitude which everywhere pressed around Him for teaching
    and help.
     This more public activity commenced with the return of Jesus
    from 'the Unknown Feast' in Jerusalem. There He had, in
    answer to the challenge of the Jewish authorities, for the
    first time set forth His Messianic claims in all their
    fulness. And there, also, He had for the first time
    encountered that active persecution unto death, of which
    Golgotha was the logical outcome. This Feast, then, was the
    time of critical decision. Accordingly, as involving the
    separation from the old state and the commencement of a new
    condition of things, it was immediately followed by the call
    of His disciples to a new Apostleship. In this view, we can
    also better understand the briefness of the notices of His
    first Galilean ministry, and how, after Christ's return from
    that Feast, His teaching became more full, and the display of
    His miraculous power more constant and public.

     It seems only congruous, accordant with all the great
    decisive steps of Him in Whose footprints the disciples trod,
    only after He had marked them, as it were, with His Blood,
    that He should have gone up to that Feast alone and
    unattended. That such had been the case, has been inferred by
    some from this, that the narrative of the healing of the
    impotent man reads so Jewish, that the account of it appears
    to have been derived by St. John from a Jew at Jerusalem. [a
    Wetstein.] [1 The reader will have no difficulty in finding
    not a few points in St. John v. utterly irreconcilable with
    the theory of a second century Ephesian Gospel. It would take
    too much space to particularise them.] Others [2 So Gess,
    Godet, and others.] have come to the same conclusion from the
    meagreness of details about the event. But it seems implied
    in the narrative itself, and the marked and exceptional
    absence of any reference to disciples leads to the obvious
    conclusion, that they had not been with their Master.

     But, if Jesus was alone and unattended at the Feast, the
    question arises, whence the report was derived of what He
    said in reply to the challenge of the Jews? Here the answer
    naturally suggests itself, that the Master Himself may, at
    some later period of His life, perhaps during His last stay
    in Jerusalem, have communicated to His disciples, or else to
    him who stood nearest to Him, the details of what had passed
    on the first occasion when the Jewish authorities had sought
    to extinguish His Messianic claims in His blood. If that
    communication was made when Jesus was about to be offered up,
    it would also account for what otherwise might seem a
    difficulty: the very developed form of expression in which
    His relation to the Father, and His own Office and Power, are
    presented. We can understand how, from the very first, all
    this should have been laid before the teachers of Israel. But
    in view of the organic development of Christ's teaching, we
    could scarcely expect it to have been expressed in such very
    full terms, till near the close of His Ministry. [1 Even
    Strauss admits, that the discourse contains nothing which
    might not have been spoken by Christ. His objection to its
    authenticity, on the ground of the analogies to it in certain
    portions of the Fourth Gospel and of the Epistles of St.
    John, is a curious instance of critical argumentation (Leben
    Jesu, i. p. 646).]

     But we are anticipating. The narrative transports us at once
    to what, at the time, seems to have been a well-known
    locality in Jerusalem, though all attempts to identify it, or
    even to explain the name Bethesda, have hitherto failed. All
    we know is, that it was a pool enclosed within five porches,
    by the sheep-market, presumably close to the 'Sheep-Gate.' [a
    Neh. iii. 1, 32; xii. 39.] This, as seems most likely, opened
    from the busy northern suburb of markets, bazaars, and
    workshops, eastwards upon the road which led over the Mount
    of Olives and Bethany to Jericho. [2 Comp. specially Riehm's
    Handworterb. ad voc.] In that case, most probability would
    attach to the identification of the Pool Bethesda with a pool
    somewhat north of the so-called Birket Israil. At present it
    is wholly filled with rubbish, but in the time of the
    Crusaders it seems to have borne the name of the Sheep-pond,
    and, it was thought, traces of the five porches could still
    be detected. Be this as it may, it certainly bore in the
    'Hebrew' or rather Aramaean, 'tongue,' the name Bethesda. No
    doubt this name was designative, though the common
    explanations, Beth Chisda (so most modern writers, and
    Watkins) 'House of Mercy' (?), Beth Istebha ( Delitzsch),
    'House of Porches,' and Beth Zeytha (Westcott) 'House of the
    Olive', seem all unsatisfactory. More probability attaches to
    the rendering Beth Asutha (Wunsche), or Beth Asyatha, 'House
    of Healing.' But as this derivation offers linguistic
    difficulties, we would suggest that the second part of the
    name (Beth-Esda) was really a Greek word Armaised. Here two
    different derivations suggest themselves. The root-word of
    Esda might either express to 'become well', Beth , or
    something akin to the Rabbinic Zit [3 Said when people
    sneezed, like 'Prosit!'] ( ). In that case, the designation
    would agree with an ancient reading of the name, Bethzatha.
    Or else, the name Bethesda might combine, according to a not
    uncommon Rabbinic practice, the Hebrew Beth with some
    Aramaised form derived from the Greek word , 'to boil' or
    'bubble up' (subst. ); in which case it would mean 'the House
    of Bubbling-up,' viz. water. Any of the three derivations
    just suggested would not only give an apt designation for the
    pool, but explain why St. John, contrary to his usual
    practice, does not give a Greek equivalent for a Hebrew term.

     All this is, however, of very subordinate importance,
    compared with the marvellous facts of the narrative itself.
    In the five porches surrounding this pool lay 'a great
    multitude of the impotent,' in anxious hope of a miraculous
    cure. We can picture to ourselves the scene. The popular
    superstitions, [1 Indeed, belief in 'holy wells' seems to
    have been very common in ancient times. From the cuneiform
    inscriptions it appears to have been even entertained by the
    ancient Babylonians.] which gave rise to what we would regard
    as a peculiarly painful exhibition of human misery of body
    and soul, is strictly true to the times and the people. Even
    now travellers describe a similar concourse of poor crippled
    sufferers, on their miserable pallets or on rugs, around the
    mineral springs near Tiberias, filling, in true Oriental
    fashion, the air with their lamentations. In the present
    instance there would be even more occasion for this than
    around any ordinary thermal spring. For the popular idea was,
    that an Angel descended into the water, causing it to bubble
    up, and that only he who first stepped into the pool would be
    cured. As thus only one person could obtain benefit, we may
    imagine the lamentations of the 'many' who would, perhaps,
    day by day, be disappointed in their hopes. This bubbling up
    of the water was, of course, due not to supernatural but to
    physical causes. Such intermittent springs are not uncommon,
    and to this day the so-called 'Fountain of the Virgin' in
    Jerusalem exhibits the phenomenon. It is scarcely necessary
    to say, that the Gospel-narrative does not ascribe this
    'troubling of the waters' to Angelic agency, nor endorses the
    belief, that only the first who afterwards entered them,
    could be healed. This was evidently the belief of the
    impotent man, as of all the waiting multitude. [a St. John
    v.] But the words in verse 4 of our Authorised Version, and
    perhaps, also, the last clause of verse 3, are admittedly an
    interpolation. [2 I must here refer to the critical
    discussion in Canon Westcott's Commentary on St. John. I only
    wish I could without unfairness transport to these pages the
    results of his masterly criticism of this chapter.]

     In another part of this book it is explained at length, [3
    See the Appendix on 'Angels.'] how Jewish belief at the time
    attached such agency to Angels, and how it localised (so to
    speak) special Angels in springs and rivers; and we shall
    have presently to show, what were the popular notions about
    miraculous cures. If, however, the belief about Bethesda
    arose merely from the mistaken ideas about the cause of this
    bubbling of the water, the question would naturally suggest
    itself, whether any such cases as those described had ever
    really occurred, and, if not, how such a superstition could
    have continued. But that such healing might actually occur in
    the circumstances, no one would be prepared to deny, who has
    read the accounts of pilgrimages to places of miraculous
    cure, or who considers the influence of a firm expectancy on
    the imagination, especially in diseases which have their
    origin in the nervous system. This view of the matter is
    confirmed, and Scripture still further vindicated from even
    the faintest appearance of endorsing the popular
    superstition, by the use of the article in the expression 'a
    multitude of the impotent' ( ), which marks this impotence as
    used in the generic sense, while the special diseases,
    afterwards enumerated without the article, are ranged under
    it as instances of those who were thus impotent. Such use of
    the Greek term, as not applying to any one specific malady,
    is vindicated by a reference to St. Matt. viii. 17 and St.
    Mark vi. 56, and by its employment by the physician Luke. It
    is, of course, not intended to imply, that the distempers to
    which this designation is given had all their origin in the
    nervous system; but we argue that, if the term 'impotent' was
    the general, of which the diseases mentioned in verse 3 were
    the specific, in other words, that, if it was an 'impotence,'
    of which these were the various manifestations, it may
    indicate, that they all, so far as relieved, had one common
    source, and this, as we would suggest, in the nervous system.
    [1 Another term for 'sick' in the N. T. is (St. Matt. xiv.
    14; St. Mark vi. 5, 13; xvi. 18; (comp. Ecclus. vii. 35).
    This corresponds to the Hebrew Mal. i. 8. In 1 Cor. xi. 30
    the two words are used together, and .]

     With all reverence, we can in some measure understand, what
    feelings must have stirred the heart of Jesus, in view of
    this suffering, waiting 'great multitude.' Why, indeed, did
    He go into those five porches, since He had neither disease
    to cure, nor cry for help and come to Him from those who
    looked for relief to far other means? Not, surely, from
    curiosity. But as one longs to escape from the stifling
    atmosphere of a scene of worldly pomp, with its glitter and
    unreality, into the clearness of the evening-air, so our Lord
    may have longed to pass from the glitter and unreality of
    those who held rule in the Temple, or who occupied the seat
    of Moses in their Academies, to what was the atmosphere of
    His Life on earth, His real Work, among that suffering,
    ignorant multitude, which, in its sorrow, raised a piteous,
    longing cry for help where it had been misdirected to seek
    it.

     And thus we can here also perceive the deep internal
    connection between Christ's miracle of healing 'the impotent
    man' and the address of mingled sadness and severity, [a St.
    John v. 17-47.] in which He afterwards set before the Masters
    in Israel the one truth fundamental in all things. We have
    only, so to speak, to reverse the formal order and succession
    of that discourse, to gain an insight into what prompted
    Jesus to go to Bethesda, and by His power to perform this
    healing. [1 Such a logical inversion seems necessary in
    passing from the objective to the subjective.] He had been in
    the Temple at the Feast; He had necessarily been in contact,
    it could not be otherwise, when in the Temple, with the great
    ones of Israel. What a stifling atmosphere there of glitter
    and unreality! What had He in common with those who 'received
    glory one of another, and the glory which cometh from the One
    only God' they sought not? [b ver. 44.] How could such men
    believe? The first meaning, and the object of His Life and
    Work, was as entirely different from their aims and
    perceptions, as were the respective springs of their inner
    being. They clung and appealed to Moses; to Moses, whose
    successors they claimed to be, let them go! [c vv. 45-47.]
    Their elaborate searching and sifting of the Law in hope
    that, by a subtle analysis of its every particle and letter,
    by inferences from, and a careful drawing of a prohibitive
    hedge around, its letter, they would possess themselves of
    eternal life, [d ver. 39.] what did it all come to? Utterly
    self-deceived, and far from the truth in their elaborate
    attempts to outdo each other in local ingenuity, they would,
    while rejecting the Messiah sent from God, at last become the
    victims of a coarse Messianic impostor. [e vv. 40-43.] And
    even in the present, what was it all? Only the letter, the
    outward! All the lessons of their past miraculous history had
    been utterly lost on them. What had there been of the merely
    outward in its miracles and revelations? [f ver. 37.] It had
    been the witness of the Father; but this was the very element
    which, amidst their handling of the external form, they
    perceived not. Nay, not only the unheard Voice of the Father,
    but also the heard voice of the Prophets, a voice which they
    might have heard even in John the Baptist. They heard, but
    did not perceive it, just as, in increasing measure, Christ's
    sayings and doings, and the Father and His testimony, were
    not perceived. And so all hastened on to the judgment of
    final unbelief, irretrievable loss, and self-caused
    condemnation. [a vv. 30-38.] It was all utterly mistaken;
    utter, and, alas! guilty perversion, their elaborate trifling
    with the most sacred things, while around them were
    suffering, perishing men, stretching 'lame hands' into
    emptiness, and wailing out their mistaken hopes into the
    eternal silence.

     While they were discussing the niceties of what constituted
    labour on a Sabbath, such as what infringed its sacred rest
    or what constituted a burden, multitudes of them who laboured
    and were heavy laden were left to perish in their ignorance.
    That was the Sabbath, and the God of the Sabbath of
    Pharisaism; this the rest, the enlightenment, the hope for
    them who laboured and were heavy laden, and who longed and
    knew not where to find the true Sabbatismos! Nay, if the
    Christ had not been the very opposite of all that Pharisaism
    sought, He would not have been the Orient Sun of the Eternal
    Sabbath. But the God Who ever worked in love, Whose rest was
    to give rest, Whose Sabbath to remove burdens, was His
    Father. He knew Him; He saw His working; He was in fellowship
    of love, of work, of power with Him. He had come to loose
    every yoke, to give life, to bring life, to be life, because
    He had life: life in its fullest sense. For, contact with
    Him, whatever it may be, gives life: to the diseased, health;
    to the spiritually dead, the life of the soul; to the dead in
    their graves, the life of resurrection. And all this was the
    meaning of Holy Scripture, when it pointed forward to the
    Lord's Anointed; and all this was not merely His own, but the
    Father's Will, the Mission which He had given Him, the Work
    which He had sent Him to do. [b vv. 19-32.]

     Translate this into deed, as all His teachings have been,
    are, and will be, and we have the miraculous cure of the
    impotent man, with its attendant circumstances. Or,
    conversely, translate that deed, with its attendant
    circumstances, into words, and we have the discourse of our
    Lord. Moreover, all this is fundamental to the highest
    understanding of our Lord's history. And, therefore, we
    understand how, many years afterwards, the beloved disciple
    gave a place to this miracle, when, in the full ripeness of
    spiritual discernment, he chose for record in his Gospel from
    among those 'many signs,' which Jesus truly did, [c St. John
    xx. 30.] only five as typical, like the five porches of the
    great Bethesda of His help to the impotent, or like the five
    divisions into which the Psalter of praise was arranged. As
    he looked back, from the height where he stood at his
    journey's end, to where the sun was setting in purple and
    golden glory far across the intervening landscape, amidst its
    varying scenes this must have stood out before his sight, as
    what might show to us that 'Jesus was the Christ, the Son of
    God, and that believing we might have life through His Name.
    [a St. John xx. 31.]

     And so, understanding from what He afterwards said to 'the
    Jews' what He thought and felt in going thither, we are
    better prepared to follow the Christ to Bethesda. Two
    pictures must have been here simultaneously present to His
    mind. On the one side, a multitude whose sufferings and false
    expectancies rose, like the wail of the starving for bread;
    and, on the other side, the neighbouring Temple, with its
    priesthood and teachers, who, in their self-seeking and the
    trifling of their religious externalism, neither understood,
    heard, nor would have cared for such a cry. If there was an
    Israel, Prince with God, and if there was a God of the
    Covenant, this must not, cannot be; and Christ goes to
    Bethesda as Israel's Messiah, the Truth, and the Life. There
    was twofold suffering there, and it were difficult to know
    which would have stirred Him most: that of the body, or the
    mistaken earnestness which so trustfully looked for Heaven's
    relief, yet within such narrow limits as the accident or good
    fortune of being first pushed into the Angel-troubled waters.
    But this was also a true picture of His people in their
    misery, and in their narrow notions of God and of the
    conditions of His blessing. And now Israel's Messiah had at
    last come. What would we expect Him to have done? Surely not
    to preach controversial or reformatory doctrines; but to do,
    if it were in Him, and in doing to speak. And so in this also
    the Gospel-narrative proves itself true, by telling that He
    did, what alone would be true in a Messiah, the Son of God.
    It is, indeed, impossible to think of Incarnate Deity, and
    this, be it remembered, is the fundamental postulate of the
    Gospels, as brought into contact with misery, disease, and
    death without their being removed. That power went forth from
    Him always, everywhere, and to all, is absolutely necessary,
    if He was the Son of God, the Saviour of the world. And so
    the miracles, as we mistakingly term the result of the
    contact of God with man, of the Immanuel (God with us), are
    not only the golden ladder which leads up to the Miracle, God
    manifest in the flesh, but the steps by which He descends
    from His height to our lowliness.

     The waters had not yet been 'troubled,' when He stood among
    that multitude of sufferers and their attendant friends. It
    was in those breathless moments of the intense suspense of
    expectancy, when every eye was fixed on the pool, that the
    eye of the Saviour searched for the most wretched object
    among them all. In him, as a typical case, could He best do
    and teach that for which He had come. This 'impotent' man,
    for thirty-eight years a hopeless sufferer, without attendant
    or friend [a ver. 7.] among those whom misery, in this also
    the true outcome of sin, made so intensely selfish; and whose
    sickness was really the consequence of his sin, [b ver. 14.]
    and not merely in the sense which the Jews attached to it, [c
    Comp. St. John ix. 3.] , this now seemed the fittest object
    for power and grace. For, most marked in this history is the
    entire spontaneity of our Lord's help. [1 This characteristic
    is specially marked by Canon Westcott.] It is idle to speak
    either of faith or of receptiveness on the man's part. The
    essence of the whole lies in the utter absence of both; in
    Christ's raising, as it were, the dead, and calling the
    things that are not as though they were. This, the
    fundamental thought concerning His Mission and power as the
    Christ shines forth as the historical background in Christ's
    subsequent, explanatory discourse. The 'Wilt thou be made
    whole?' with which Jesus drew the man's attention to Himself,
    was only to probe and lay bare his misery. And then came the
    word of power, or rather the power spoken forth, which made
    him whole every whit. Away from this pool, in which there was
    no healing; away, for the Son of God had come to him with the
    outflowing of His power and pitying help, and he was made
    whole. Away with his bed, not, although it was the holy
    Sabbath, but just because it was the Sabbath of holy rest and
    holy delight!

     In the general absorbedness of all around, no ear, but that
    to which it had been spoken, had heard what the Saviour had
    said. The waters had not been troubled, and the healing had
    been all unseen. Before the healed man, scarcely conscious of
    what had passed, had, with new-born vigour, gathered, himself
    up and rolled together his coverlet to hasten after Him,
    Jesus had already withdrawn. [d ver. 13.] [2 The meaning of
    the expression is 'retired' or 'withdrawn' Himself.] In that
    multitude, all thinking only of their own sorrows and wants,
    He had come and gone unobserved. But they all now knew and
    observed this miracle of healing, as they saw this
    unbefriended and most wretched of them all healed, without
    the troubling of waters or first immersion in them. Then
    there was really help in Israel, and help not limited to such
    external means! How could Christ have taught that multitude,
    nay, all Jerusalem and Jewry, all this, as well as all about
    Himself, but by what He did? And so we learn here also
    another aspect of miracles, as necessary for those who, weary
    of Rabbinic wrangling, could, in their felt impotence, only
    learn by what He did that which He would say.

     We know it not, but we cannot believe that on that day, nor,
    perhaps, thenceforth on any other day, any man stepped for
    healing into the bubbling waters of Bethesda. Rather would
    they ask the healed man, Whose was the word that had brought
    him healing? But he knew Him not. Forth he stepped into God's
    free air, a new man. It was truly the holy Sabbath within, as
    around him; but he thought not of the day, only of the rest
    and relief it had brought. It was the holy Sabbath, and he
    carried on it his bed. If he remembered that it was the
    Sabbath, on which it was unlawful to carry forth anything, a
    burden, he would not be conscious that it was a burden, or
    that he had any burden; but very conscious that He, Who had
    made him whole, had bidden him take up his bed and walk.
    These directions had been bound up with the very word
    ('Rise') in which his healing had come. That was enough for
    him. And in this lay the beginning and root of his inward
    healing. Here was simple trust, unquestioning obedience to
    the unseen, unknown, but real Saviour. For he believed Him,
    [1 In connection with this see ver. 24, where the expression
    is 'believeth Him,' not 'on Him' as in the A.V., which
    occasionally obliterates the difference between the two,
    which is so important, the one implying credit, the other its
    outcoming trust (comp. St. John vi. 29, 30; viii. 30, 31; 1
    John v. 10).] and therefore trusted in Him, that He must be
    right; and so, trusting without questioning, be obeyed.

     The Jews saw him, as from Bethesda he carried home his
    'burden.' Such as that he carried were their only burdens.
    Although the law of Sabbath-observance must have been made
    stricter in later Rabbinic development, when even the labour
    of moving the sick into the waters of Bethesda would have
    been unlawful, unless there had been present danger to life,
    [2 The whole subject of the Sabbath-Law will be specially
    discussed in a later chapter. See also Appendix XVII. on 'The
    Law of the Sabbath' according to the Mishnah and Talmud.]
    yet, admittedly, this carrying of the bed was an infringement
    of the Sabbatic law, as interpreted by traditionalism. Most
    characteristically, it was this external infringement which
    they saw, and nothing else; it was the Person Who had
    commanded it Whom they would know, not Him Who had made whole
    the impotent man. Yet this is quite natural, and perhaps not
    so different from what we may still witness among ourselves.

     It could not have been long after this, most likely, as soon
    as possible, that the healed man and his Healer met in the
    Temple. What He then said to him, completed the inward
    healing. On the ground of his having been healed, let him be
    whole. As he trusted and obeyed Jesus in the outward cure, so
    let him now inwardly and morally trust and obey. Here also
    this looking through the external to the internal, through
    the temporal to the spiritual and eternal, which is so
    characteristic of the after-discourse of Jesus, nay, of all
    His discourses and of His deeds, is most marked. The healed
    man now knew to Whom he owed faith, gratitude, and trust of
    obedience; and the consequences of this knowledge must have
    been incalculable. It would make him a disciple in the truest
    sense. And this was the only additional lesson which he, as
    each of us, must learn individually and personally: that the
    man healed by Christ stands in quite another position, as
    regards the morally right, from what he did before, not only
    before his healing, but even before his felt sickness, so
    that, if he were to go back to sin, or rather, as the
    original implies, 'continue to sin,' [1 See Westcott ad loc.]
    a thing infinitely worse would come to him.

     It seems an idle question, why the healed man told the Jews
    that it was Jesus. It was only natural that he should do so.
    Rather do we ask, How did he know that He Who had spoken to
    him was Jesus? Was it by the surrounding of keen-eyed,
    watchful Rabbis, or by the contradiction of sinners? Certain
    we are, that it was far better Jesus should have silently
    withdrawn from the porches of Bethesda to make it known in
    the Temple, Who it was that had done this miracle. Far more
    effectually could He so preach its lesson to those who had
    been in Bethesda, and to all Jewry.

     And yet something further was required. He must speak it out
    in clear, open words, what was the hidden inward meaning of
    this miracle. As so often, it was the bitter hatred of His
    persecutors which gave Him the opportunity. The first
    forthbursting of His Messianic Mission and Character had come
    in that Temple, when He realised it as His Father's House,
    and His Life as about His Father's business. Again had these
    thoughts about His Father kindled within Him in that Temple,
    when, on the first occasion of His Messianic appearance
    there, He had sought to purge it, that it might be a House of
    Prayer. And now, once more in that House, it was the same
    consciousness about God as His Father, and His Life as the
    business of His Father, which furnished the answer to the
    angry invectives about His breach of the Sabbath-Law. The
    Father's Sabbath was His; the Father worked hitherto and He
    worked; the Father's work and His were the same; He was the
    Son of the Father. [a ver. 17.] And in this He also taught,
    what the Jews had never understood, the true meaning of the
    Sabbath-Law, by emphasising that which was the fundamental
    thought of the Sabbath, 'Wherefore the Lord blessed the
    Sabbath day, and hallowed it:' not the rest of inactivity,
    but of blessing and hallowing.

     Once more it was not His whole meaning, but only this one
    point, that He claimed to be equal with God, of which they
    took hold. As we understand it, the discourse beginning with
    verse 19 is not a continuation of that which had been begun
    in verse 17, but was delivered on another, though probably
    proximate occasion. By what He had said about the Father
    working hitherto and His working, He had silenced the
    multitude, who must have felt that God's rest was truly that
    of beneficence, not of inactivity. But He had raised another
    question, that of His equality with God, and for this He was
    taken to task by the Masters in Israel. To them it was that
    He addressed that discourse which, so to speak, preached His
    miracle at the Pool of Bethesda. Into its details we cannot
    enter further than has already been done. Some of its
    reasonings can be clearly traced, as starting from certain
    fundamental positions, held in common alike by the
    Sanhedrists and by Christ. Others, such as probably in answer
    to unreported objections, we may guess at. This may also
    account for what may seem occasional abruptness of
    transitions.

     But what most impresses us, is the majestic grandeur of
    Christ's self-consciousness in presence of His enemies, and
    yet withal the tone of pitying sadness which pervades His
    discourse. The time of the judgment of silence had not yet
    come. And for the present the majesty of His bearing overawed
    them, even as it did His enemies to the end, and Christ could
    pass unharmed from among them. And so ended that day in
    Jerusalem. And this is all that is needful for us to know of
    His stay at the Unknown Feast. With this inward separation,
    and the gathering of hostile parties closes the first and
    begins the second, stage of Christ's Ministry.

 THE ASCENT: FROM THE RIVER JORDAN TO THE MOUNT OF
    TRANSFIGURATION

    BY THE SEA OF GALILEE, THE FINAL CALL OF THE FIRST
    DISCIPLES, AND THE MIRACULOUS DRAUGHT OF FISHES

    CHAPTER XIII

     (St. Matt. iv. 18-22; St. Mark i. 16-20; St. Luke v. 1-11.)

     We are once again out of the stifling spiritual atmosphere
    of the great City, and by the glorious Lake of Galilee. They
    were other men, these honest, simple, earnest, impulsive
    Galileans, than that self-seeking,sophistical, heartless
    assemblage of Rabbis, whose first active persecution Jesus
    had just encountered, and for the time overawed by the
    majesty of His bearing. His return to Capernaum could not
    have remained unknown. Close by, on either side of the city,
    the country was studded with villages and towns, a busy,
    thriving, happy multitude. During that bright summer He had
    walked along that Lake, and by its shore and in the various
    Synagogues preached His Gospel. And they had been 'astonished
    at His doctrine, for His word was with power.' For the first
    time they had heard what they felt to be 'the Word of God,'
    and they had learned to love its sound. What wonder that,
    immediately on His return, 'the people pressed upon Him to
    hear' it.

     If we surrender ourselves to the impression which the
    Evangelic narratives give us when pieced together, [1 The
    accounts in the three Synoptic Gospels must be carefully
    pieced together. It will be seen that only thus can they be
    understood. The narratives of St. Matthew and St. Mark are
    almost literally the same, only adding in St. Mark i. 20 a
    notice about 'the hired servants,' which is evidential of the
    Petrine origin of the information. St. Luke seems to have
    made special inquiry, and, while adopting the narrative of
    the others, supplements it with what without them would be
    almost unintelligible.] it would almost seem, as if what we
    are about to relate had occurred while Jesus was returning
    from Jerusalem. For, the better reading of St. Mark i. 16
    gives this as the mark of time: 'As He was passing on by the
    Sea of Galilee.' But perhaps, viewed in connection with what
    follows, the impression may be so far modified, that we may
    think of it as on the first morning after His return. It had
    probably been a night of storm on the Lake. For, the toil of
    the fishermen had brought them no draught of fishes, [a St.
    Luke v. 5.] and they stood by the shore, or in the boats
    drawn up on the beach, casting in their nets to 'wash' them
    [1 St. Matt. iv. 18 &c.; St. Mark i. 16 &c. as compared with
    St. Luke v. 2.] of the sand and pebbles, with which such a
    night's work would clog them, or to mend what had been torn
    by the violence of the waves. It was a busy scene; for, among
    the many industries by the Lake of Galilee, that of fishing
    was not only the most generally pursued, but perhaps the most
    lucrative.
     Tradition had it, that since the days of Joshua, and by one
    of his ten ordinances, fishing in the Lake, though under
    certain necessary restrictions, was free to all. [2 In order
    not to impede navigation, it was forbidden to fix nets. For
    these two ordinances, see Baba K. 80 b, last line &c. The
    reference to the fishing in the lake is in 81 b. But see Tos.
    Baba K. viii. 17, 18.] And as fish was among the
    favouritearticles of diet, in health and sickness, on
    week-days and especially at the Sabbath-meal, many must have
    been employed in connection with this trade. Frequent, and
    sometimes strange, are the Rabbinic advices, what kinds of
    fish to eat at different times, and in what state of
    preparation. They were eaten fresh, dried, or pickled; [b St.
    Matt. vii. 10; xiii. 47; xv. 36.] a kind of 'relish' or sauce
    was made of them, and the roe also prepared. [c Ab. Z. 39 a.]
    or twine, [d Bab. Mez ii. 1.] and the smaller fish in baskets
    or casks. In truth, these Rabbis are veritable connoisseurs
    in this delicacy; they discuss their size with exaggerations,
    advise when they are in season, discern a peculiar flavour in
    the same kinds if caught in different waters, and tell us how
    to prepare them most tastfully, cautioning us to wash them
    down, if it cannot be with water, with beer rather than wine.
    [e Moed K. 11 a, last line.] [3 Three lines before that we
    read this saying of a fisherman: 'Roast fish with his brother
    (salt), lay it beside his father (water), eat it with his son
    (fish-juice), and drink upon it his father' (water).] It is
    one of their usual exaggerations, when we read of 300
    different kinds of fish at a dinner given to a great Rabbi,
    [f Jer. Sheq. vi. 2, p. 50 a.]although the common proverb had
    it, to denote what was abundant, that it was like 'bringing
    fish to Acco.' [g Shem. R. 9.] Besides, fish was also largely
    importedfrom abroad. [4 Specially from Egypt and Spain,
    Machsh. vi. 3.] It indicates the importance of this traffic,
    that one of the gates of Jerusalem was called 'the
    fish-gate.' [h Neh. iii. 3.] Indeed, there is a legend [i
    Ber. 44 a.] to the effect, that not less than 600,000 casks
    of sardines were every week supplied for the fig-dressers of
    King Jannaeus. But, apart from such exaggerations, so
    considerable was this trade that, at a later period, one of
    the Patriarchs of the Sanhedrin engaged in it, and actually
    freighted ships for the transport of fish. [k Jer. Ab. Z. ii.
    10, p. 42 a.]

     These notices, which might be largely multiplied, are of
    more than antiquarian interest. They give a more vivid idea
    of life by the Lake of Galilee, and show that those engaged
    in that trade, like Zebedee and his sons ( , 'the God-given,'
    like Theodore and Dorothea), were not unfrequently men of
    means and standing. This irrespective of the fact, that the
    Rabbis enjoined some trade or industrial occupation on every
    man, whatever his station. We can picture to ourselves, on
    that bright autumn morning, after a stormy night of bootless
    toil, the busy scene by the Lake, with the fishermen cleaning
    and mending their nets. Amidst their work they would scarcely
    notice the gathering crowd. As we have suggested from the
    better reading of St. Mark i. 16, it was Christ's first walk
    by the Lake on the morning after His return from Judaea.
    Engaged in their fishing on the afternoon, evening, and night
    of His arrival in Capernaum, they would probably not have
    known of His presence till He spake to them. But He had come
    that morning specially to seek four of these fishers, that He
    might, now that the time for it had come, call them to
    permanent discipleship, and, what is more, fit them for the
    work to which he would call them.

     Jewish customs and modes of thinking at that time do not
    help us further to understand the Lord's call of them, except
    so far as they enable us more clearly to apprehend what the
    words of Jesus would convey to them. The expression 'Follow
    Me' would be readily understood, as implying a call to become
    the permanent disciple of a teacher. [a So in Erub. 30 a.]
    Similarly, it was not only the practice of the Rabbis, but
    regarded as one of the most sacred duties, for a Master to
    gather around him a circle of disciples. [b Ab. i. 1; Sanh.
    91 b.] Thus, neither Peter and Andrew, nor the sons of
    Zebedee, could have misunderstood the call of Christ, or even
    regarded it as strange. On that memorable return from His
    Temptation in the wilderness they had learned to know Him as
    the Messiah, [c St. John i. 37 &c.] and they followed Him.
    And, now that the time had come for gathering around Him a
    separate discipleship, when, with the visit to the Unknown
    Feast, the Messianic activity of Jesus had passed into
    another stage, that call would not come as a surprise to
    their minds or hearts.

     So far as the Master was concerned, we mark three points.
    First, the call came after the open breach with, and initial
    persecution of, the Jewish authorities. It was, therefore, a
    call to fellowship in His peculiar relationship to the
    Synagogue. Secondly, it necessitated the abandonment of all
    their former occupations, and, indeed, of all earthly ties.
    [d St. Matt. iv. 20, 22.] Thirdly, it was from the first, and
    clearly, marked as totally different from a call to such
    discipleship, as that of any other Master in Israel. It was
    not to learn more of doctrine, nor more fully to follow out a
    life-direction already taken, but to begin, and to become,
    something quite new, of which their former occupation offered
    an emblem. The disciples of the Rabbis, even those of John
    the Baptist, 'followed,' in order to learn; they, in order to
    do, and to enter into fellowship with His Work. 'Follow Me,
    and I will make you fishers of men.' It was then quite a new
    call this, which at the same time indicated its real aim and
    its untold difficulties. Such a call could not have been
    addressed to them, if they had not already been disciples of
    Jesus, understood His Mission, and the character of the
    Kingdom of God. But, the more we think of it, the more do we
    perceive the magnitude of the call and of the decision which
    it implied, for, without doubt, they understood what it
    implied, as clearly, in some respects perhaps more clearly,
    than we do. All the deeper, then, must have been their loving
    belief in Him, and their earnest attachment, when, with such
    unquestioning trust, and such absolute simplicity and
    entireness of self-surrender, that it needed not even a
    spoken Yea on their part, they forsook ship and home to
    follow Him. And so, successively, Simon [1 The name Peter
    occurs also among the Jews, but not that of Paul. Thus, in
    Pesiqta (ed. Buber, p. 158 a, line 8 from bottom, see also
    the Note there) we read of a R. Jose the son of Peytros, and
    similarly in the fragments from Tanchuma in Jellinek's Beth
    ha-Midr. vol. vi. p. 95, where, however, he is called Ben
    Petio. In Menor. Hamm. the name is changed into Phinehas.
    Comp. Jellinek, Beth ha-Midr. vol. vi. Pref. xi.] and Andrew,
    and John and James, those who had been the first to hear,
    were also the first to follow Jesus. And ever afterwards did
    they remain closest to Him, who had been the first fruits of
    His Ministry.

     It is not well to speak too much of the faith of men. With
    all the singleness of spiritual resolve, perhaps, as yet,
    rather impulse, which it implied, they probably had not
    themselves full or adequate conception of what it really
    meant. That would evolve in the course of Christ's further
    teaching, and of their learning in mind and heart. But, even
    thus, we perceive, that in their own call they had already,
    in measure, lived the miracle of the draught of fishes which
    they were about to witness. What had passed between Jesus
    and, first, the sons of Jona, and then those of Zebedee, can
    scarcely have occupied many minutes. But already the people
    were pressing around the Master in eager hunger for the Word;
    for, all the livelong night their own teachers had toiled,
    and taken nothing which they could give them as food. To such
    call the Fisher of Men could not be deaf. The boat of Peter
    shall be His pulpit; He had consecrated it by consecrating
    its owner. The boat has been thrust out a little from the
    land, and over the soft ripple of the waters comes the
    strange melody of that Word. We need scarcely ask what He
    spake. It would be of the Father, of the Kingdom, and of
    those who entered it like what He spake from the Mount, or to
    those who laboured and were heavy laden. But it would carry
    to the hearers the wondrous beauty and glory of that opening
    Kingdom, and, by contrast, the deep poverty and need of their
    souls. And Peter had heard it all in the boat, as he sat
    close by, in the shadow of His Majesty. Then, this was the
    teaching of which he had become a disciple; this, the net and
    the fishing to which he was just called. How utterly
    miserable, in one respect, must it have made him. Could such
    an one as he ever hope, with whatever toil, to be a
    successful fisher?

     Jesus had read his thoughts, and much more than read them.
    It was all needed for the qualifying of Peter especially, but
    also of the others who had been called to be fishers of men.
    Presently it shall be all brought to light; not only that it
    may be made clear, but that, alike, the lesson and the help
    may be seen. And this is another object in Christ's miracles
    to His disciples: to make clear their inmost thoughts and
    longings, and to point them to the right goal. 'Launch out
    into the deep, and let down your nets for a draught.' That
    they toil in vain all life's night, only teaches the need of
    another beginning. The 'neverthless, at Thy word,' marks the
    new trust, and the new work as springing from that trust.
    When Christ is in the boat and bids us let down the net,
    there must be 'a great multitude of fishes.' And all this in
    this symbolic miracle. Already 'the net was breaking,' when
    they beckoned to their partners in the other ship, that they
    should come and help them. And now both ships are burdened to
    the water's edge.

     But what did it all mean to Simon Peter? He had been called
    to full discipleship, and he had obeyed the call. He had been
    in his boat beside the Saviour, and heard what He had spoken,
    and it had gone to his heart. And now this miracle which he
    had witnessed! Such shoal of fish in one spot on the Lake of
    Galilee was not strange. The miraculous was, that the Lord
    had seen through those waters down where the multitude of
    fishes was, and bidden him let down for a draught. He could
    see through the intervening waters, right down to the bottom
    of that sea; He could see through him, to the very bottom of
    Peter's heart. He did see it, and all that Jesus had just
    spoken meant it, and showed him what was there. And could he
    then be a fisher of men, out of whose heart, after a life's
    night of toil, the net would come up empty, or rather only
    clogged with sand and torn with pebbles? This is what he
    meant when 'he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying: Depart from
    me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.' And this is why Jesus
    comforted him: 'Fear not; from henceforth thou shalt catch
    men.' And so also, and so only, do we, each of us, learn the
    lesson of our calling, and receive the true comfort in it.
    Nor yet can anyone become a true fisher of men in any other
    than such manner.

     The teaching and the comfort required not to be repeated in
    the life of Peter, nor in that of the others who witnessed
    and shared in what had passed. Many are the truths which
    shine out from the symbolism of this scene, when the first
    disciples were first called. That call itself; the boat; the
    command of Christ, despite the night of vain toil; the
    unlikely success; the net and its cast at the bidding of
    Christ, with the absolute certitude of result, where He is
    and when He bids; the miraculous direction to the spot; the
    multitude of fishes enclosed; the net about to break, yet not
    breaking; the surprise, as strange perhaps as the miracle
    itself; and then, last of all, the lesson of self-knowledge
    and humiliation: all these and much more has the Church most
    truly read in this history. And as we turn from it, this
    stands out to us as its final outcome and lesson: 'And when
    they had brought their ships to land, they forsook all and
    followed Him.' [1 We would call special attention to the
    arrangement of this narrative. The explanation given in the
    text will, it is hoped, be sufficient answer to the
    difficulties raised by some commentators. Strauss' attempt to
    indicate the mythic origin of this narrative forms one of the
    weakest parts of his book. Keim holds the genuineness of the
    account of the two first Evangelists, but rejects that of the
    third, on grounds which neither admit nor require detailed
    examination. The latest and most curious idea of the Tubingen
    school has been, to see in the account of St. Luke a
    reflection on Peter as Judaistically cramped, and to
    understand the beckoning to his partners as implying the
    calling in of Pauline teachers.]

 THE ASCENT: FROM THE RIVER JORDAN TO THE MOUNT OF
    TRANSFIGURATION

    A SABBATH IN CAPERNAUM

    CHAPTER XIV

     (St. Matt. viii 14-17; St. Mark i. 21-34; St. Luke iv.
    33-41.)

     It was the Holy Sabbath, the first after He had called
    around Him His first permanent disciples; the first, also,
    after His return from the Feast at Jerusalem. Of both we can
    trace indications in the account of that morning, noon, and
    evening which the Evangelists furnish. The greater detail
    with which St. Mark, who wrote under the influence of St.
    Peter, tells these events, shows the freshness and vividness
    of impression on the mind of Peter of those early days of his
    new life. As indicating that what is here recorded took place
    immediately after the return of Jesus from Jerusalem, we
    mark, that as yet there were no watchful enemies in waiting
    to entrap Him in such breach of the Law, as might furnish
    ground for judicial procedure. But, from their presence and
    activity so soon afterwards, [a St. Luke v. 21; vi.2; vi. 7.]
    we infer, that the authorities of Jerusalem had sent some of
    their familiars to track His steps in Galilee.

     But as yet all seemed calm and undisturbed. Those simple,
    warm-hearted Galileans yielded themselves to the power of His
    words and works, not discerning hidden blasphemy in what He
    said, nor yet Sabbath-desecration in His healing on God's
    holy day. It is morning, and Jesus goes to the Synagogue at
    Capernaum. [1 The accounts of this given by St. Mark and St.
    Luke chronologically precede what is related in St. Matt.
    viii. 14-17. The reader is requested in each case to peruse
    the Biblical narratives before, or along with their
    commentation in the chapters of the present work.] To teach
    there, was now His wont. But frequency could not lessen the
    impression. In describing the Influence of His Person or
    words the Evangelists use a term, which really means
    amazement. [2 The following are the passages in which the
    same term is used: St. Matt. vii. 28; xiii. 54; xix. 25;
    xxii. 33; St. Mark i. 22; vi. 2; vii. 37; x. 26; xi. 18; St.
    Luke ii. 48; iv. 32; ix. 43; Acts xiii. 12.] And when we find
    the same word to describe the impression of the 'Sermon on
    the Mount,' [b St. Matt. vii. 28.] the inference is naturally
    suggested, that it presents the type, if it does not sum up
    the contents, of some of His Synagogue-discourses. It is not
    necessary to suppose that, what held His hearers spell-bound,
    had necessarily also its effect on their hearts and lives.
    Men may be enraptured by the ideal without trying to make it
    the real. Too often it is even in inverse proportion; so that
    those who lead not the most moral lives even dare to denounce
    the New Testament standpoint, as below their own conceptions
    of right and duty. But there is that in man, evidence of his
    origin and destiny, which always and involuntarily responds
    to the presentation of the higher. And in this instance it
    was not only what He taught, but the contrast with that to
    which they had been accustomed on the part of 'the Scribes,'
    which filled them with amazement. There was no appeal to
    human authority, other than that of the conscience; no subtle
    logical distinctions, legal niceties, nor clever sayings.
    Clear, limpid, and crystalline, flowed His words from out the
    spring of the Divine Life that was in Him.

     Among the hearers in the Synagogue that Sabbath morning was
    one of a class, concerning whose condition, whatever
    difficulties may attach to our proper understanding of it,
    the reader of the New Testament must form some definite idea.
    The term 'demoniacal possession' occurs not in the New
    Testament. We owe it to Josephus, [a Comp. Delitzsch in
    Riehm's Hand-worter-buch.] from whom it has passed into
    ecclesiastical language. We dismiss it the more readily,
    that, in our view, it conveys a wrong impression. The New
    Testament speaks of those who had a spirit, or a demon, or
    demons, or an unclean spirit, or the spirit of an unclean
    demon, but chiefly of persons who were 'demonised.' [1 The
    word 'spirit'or 'spirits' occurs twice in St. Matthew, thrice
    in St. Mark and twice in St. Luke; with the addition 'evil,'
    twice in St. Luke; with that of 'unclean,' once in St.
    Matthew, eleven times in St. Mark, and four times in St.
    Luke. The word in singular or plural occurs once in each of
    the Synoptists; while in singular or plural, occurs nine
    times in St. Matthew, three times in St. Mark, fourteen times
    in St. Luke, and six times in St. John. The expression 'the
    spirit of an unclean demon' occurs once in the St. Luke,
    while the verb 'to be demonished' occurs, in one form or
    another, seven times in St. Matthew, four times in St. Mark,
    once in St. Luke, and once in St. John. Comp. also the
    careful brochure of Pastor Nanz, Die Besessenen im N.T.,
    although we differ from his conclusions.] Similarly, it seems
    a strange inaccuracy on the part of commentators to exclude
    from the Gospel, of St. John all notice of the 'demonised.'
    That the Fourth Gospel, although not reporting any healing of
    the demonised, shares the fundamental view of the Synoptists,
    appears not only from St. John vii. 20, viii. 48, 52, but
    especially from viii. 49 and x. 20, 21. [2 Comp. also Weiss,
    Leben Jesu i. p. 457.] We cannot believe that the writer of
    the Fourth Gospel would have put into the mouth of Jesus the
    answer 'I am not a demon,' or have allowed Him to be
    described by His friends as not one 'demonised,' without a
    single word to show dissent from the popular view, if he had
    not shared the ideas of the Synoptists. In discussing a
    question of such very serious import in the study and
    criticism of the Gospels, the precise facts of the case
    should in the first place be clearly ascertained.

     The first question here is, whether Christ Himself shared
    the views, not indeed of His contemporaries (for these, as we
    shall see, were very different), but of the Evangelists in
    regard to what they call the 'demonised'? This has been
    extensively denied, and Christ represented as only unwilling
    needlessly to disturb a popular prejudice, which He could not
    at the time effectually combat. But the theory requires more
    than this; and, since Christ not only tolerated, but in
    addressing the demonised actually adopted, or seemed to
    adopt, the prevailing view, it has been argued, that, for the
    sake of these poor afflicted persons, He acted like a
    physician who appears to enter into the fancy of his patient,
    in order the more effectually to heal him of it. This view
    seems, however, scarcely worth refuting, since it imputes to
    Jesus, on a point so important, a conduct not only unworthy
    of Him, or indeed of any truly great man, but implies a canon
    of 'accommodation' which might equally be applied to His
    Miracles, or to anything else that contravened the notions of
    an interpreter, and so might transform the whole
    Gospel-narratives into a series of historically untrustworthy
    legends. But we will not rest the case on what might be
    represented as an appeal to prejudice. For, we find that
    Jesus not only tolerated the popular 'prejudice,' or that He
    'adopted it for the sake of more readily healing those thus
    afflicted', but that He even made it part of His disciples'
    commission to 'cast out demons,' [a St. Matt. x. 8.] and
    that, when the disciples afterwards reported their success in
    this, Christ actually made it a matter of thanksgiving to
    God. [b St. Luke x. 17, 18.] The same view underlies His
    reproof to the disciples, when failing in this part of their
    work; [c St. Matt. xvii. 21; comp. also xii. 43 &c., also
    spoken to the disciples.] while in St. Luke xi. 19, 24, He
    adopts, and argues on this view as against the Pharisees.
    Regarded therefore in the light of history, impartial
    criticism can arrive at no other conclusion, than that Jesus
    of Nazareth shared the views of the Evangelists as regards
    the 'demonised.' [1 This is also the conclusion arrived at by
    Weiss, u. s.]

     Our next inquiry must be as to the character of the
    phenomenon thus designated. In view of the fact that in St.
    Mark ix. 21, the demonised had been such 'of a child,' it is
    scarcely possible to ascribe it simply to moral causes.
    Similarly, personal faith does not seem to have been a
    requisite condition of healing. Again, as other diseases are
    mentioned without being attributed to demoniacal influence,
    and as all who were dumb, deaf, or paralysed would not have
    been described as 'demonised,' it is evident that all
    physical, or even mental distempers of the same class were
    not ascribed to the same cause: some might be natural, while
    others were demoniacal. On the other hand, there were more or
    less violent symptoms of disease in every demonised person,
    and these were greatly aggravated in the last paroxysm, when
    the demon quitted his habitation. We have, therefore, to
    regard the phenomena described as caused by the influence of
    such 'spirits,' primarily, upon that which forms the nexus
    between body and mind, the nervous system, and as producing
    different physical effects, according to the part of the
    nervous system affected. To this must be added a certain
    impersonality of consciousness, so that for the time the
    consciousness was not that of the demonised, but the
    demoniser, just as in certain mesmeric states the
    consciousness of the mesmerised is really that of the
    mesmeriser. We might carry the analogy farther, and say, that
    the two states are exactly parallel, the demon or demons
    taking the place of the mesmeriser, only that the effects
    were more powerful and extensive, perhaps more enduring. But
    one point seems to have been assumed, for which there is, to
    say the least, no evidence, viz., that because, at least in
    many cases, the disease caused by the demon was permanent,
    therefore those who were so affected were permanently or
    constantly under the power of the demon. Neither the New
    Testament, nor even Rabbinic literature, conveys the idea of
    permanent demoniac indwelling, to which the later term
    'possession' owes its origin. [1 The nearest approach to it,
    so far as I am aware, occurs in Pirqe de R. El. c. 13 (ed.
    Lemberg, p. 16 b, 17 a), where the influence of Satan over
    the serpent (in the history of the Fall) is likened to that
    of an evil spirit over a man, all whose deeds and words are
    done under the influence of the demon, so that he only acts
    at his bidding.] On the contrary, such accounts, as that of
    the scene in the Synagogue of Capernaum, convey the
    impression of a sudden influence, which in most cases seems
    occasioned by the spiritual effect of the Person or of the
    Words of the Christ. To this historical sketch we have only
    to add, that the phenomenon is not referred to either in the
    Old Testament. [2 Surely Strauss (Leben Jesu, ii. 10) could
    not have remembered the expressions in 1 Sam. xvi. 14, 15,
    &c., when he sees a parallel to demoniacal possessions in the
    case of Saul.] or in the Apocrypha, [3 Tob. viii. 2, 3, is
    not a case in point.] nor, for that matter in the Mishnah, [4
    Gfrorer (Jahrh. d. Heils, i. p. 410, 412) qoutes Erub. iv. 1
    and Gitt. vii. 1; but neither of these passages implies
    anything like demoniac possession.] where, indeed, from the
    character of its contents, one would scarcely expect to find
    it. But we find it mentioned not only in the New Testament,
    but in the writings of Josephus. [1 See, for example, Ant vi.
    8. 2; 11. 3; viii. 2. 5; War vii. 6. 3.] The references in
    heathen or in Christian writings posterior to those of the
    New Testament lie beyond our present inquiry. [2 The reader
    will find full references in the Encyclopaedias, in Western
    (Nov. Test. i. pp. 279-284), and in Nanz's brochure.]

     In view of these facts, we may arrive at some more definite
    conclusions. Those who contend that the representations of
    the Evangelists are identical with the popular Jewish notions
    of the time, must be ill acquainted with the latter. What
    these were, is explained in another place. [3 See Appendix
    XVI.: 'Jewish Views about Demons and the demonised.'] Suffice
    it here to state that, whatever want of clearness there may
    be about the Jewish ideas of demoniac influences, there is
    none as to the means proposed for their removal. These may be
    broadly classified as: magical means for the prevention of
    such influences (such as the avoidance of certain places,
    times, numbers, or circumstances; amulets, &c.); magical
    means for the cure of diseases; and direct exorcism (either
    by certain outward means, or else by formulas of
    incantation). Again, while the New Testament furnishes no
    data by which to learn the views of Jesus or of the
    Evangelists regarding the exact character of the phenomenon,
    it furnishes the fullest details as to the manner in which
    the demonished were set free. This was always the same. It
    consisted neither in magical means formulas of exorcism, but
    always in the Word of Power which Jesus spake, or entrusted
    to His disciples, and which the demons always obeyed. There
    is here not only difference, but contrariety in comparison
    with the current Jewish notions, and it leads to the
    conclusion that there was the same contrast in His views, as
    in His treatment of the 'demonised.'

     Jewish superstition in regard to the demoniacal state can,
    therefore, no more affect the question of the credibility of
    the Gospel-accounts of it, than can quotations from heathen
    or from post-Apostolic Christian writers. In truth, it must
    be decided purely on New Testament grounds; and resolves
    itself into that of the general trustworthiness of the
    Evangelic narratives, and of our estimate of the Person of
    Christ. Thus viewed, he who regards Jesus as the Messiah and
    the Son of God can be in no doubt. If we are asked to explain
    the rationale of the phenomenon, or of its cessation, if,
    indeed, it has wholly and everywhere ceased, we might simply
    decline to attempt that for which we have not sufficient
    data, and this, without implying that such did not exist, or
    that, if known, they would not wholly vindicate the facts of
    the case. At any rate, it does not follow that there are no
    such data because we do not possess them; nor is there any
    ground for the contention that, if they existed, we ought to
    possess them. For, admittedly, the phenomenon was only a
    temporary one.

     And yet certain considerations will occur to the thoughtful
    reader, which, if they do not explain, will at least make him
    hesitate to designate as inexplicable, the facts in question.
    In our view, at least, he would be a bold interpreter who
    would ascribe all the phenomena even of heathen magic to
    jugglery, or else to purely physical causes. Admittedly they
    have ceased, or perhaps, as much else, assumed other forms,
    just as, so far as evidence goes, demoniac influence has, at
    least in the form presented in the New Testament. But, that
    it has so ceased, does not prove that it never existed. If we
    believe that the Son of God came to destroy the works of the
    Devil, we can understand the developed enmity of the kingdom
    of darkness; and if we regard Christs as Very God, taking, in
    manner to us mysterious, Humanity, we can also perceive how
    the Prince of Darkness might, in counterfeit, seek through
    the demonised a temporary dwelling in Humanity for purposes
    of injury and destruction, as Christ for healing and
    salvation. In any case, holding as we do that this demoniac
    influence was not permanent in the demonised, the analogy of
    certain mesmeric influences seems exactly to apply. No
    reference is here made to other supernatural
    spirit-influences of which many in our days speak, and which,
    despite the lying and imposture probably connected with them,
    have a background of truth and reality, which, at least in
    the present writer's experience, cannot be absolutely denied.
    In the mysterious connection between the sensuous and
    supersensuous, spirit and matter, there are many things which
    the vulgar 'bread-and-butter philosophy' fails rightly to
    apportion, or satisfactorily to explain. That, without the
    intervention of sensuous media, mind can, may, and does
    affect mind; that even animals, in proportion to their
    sensitiveness, or in special circumstances, are affected by
    that which is not, or else not yet, seen, and this quite
    independently of man; that, in short, there are not a few
    phenomena 'in heaven and earth' of which our philosophy
    dreams not, these are considerations which, however the
    superficial sciolist may smile at them, no earnest inquirer
    would care to dismiss with peremptory denial. And
    superstition only begins when we look for them, or else when
    we attempt to account for and explain them, not in the
    admission of their possibility.

     But, in our view, it is of the deepest importance always to
    keep in mind, that the 'demonised' was not a permanent state,
    or possession by the powers of darkness. For, it establishes
    a moral element, since, during the period of their temporary
    liberty, the demonised might have shaken themselves free from
    the overshadowing power, or sought release from it. Thus the
    demonised state involved personal responsibility, although
    that of a diseased and disturbed consciousness.

     In one respect those who were 'demonised' exhibited the same
    phenomenon. They all owned the Power of Jesus. It was not
    otherwise in the Synagogue at Capernaum on that
    Sabbath-morning. What Jesus had spoken produced an immediate
    effect on the demonised, though one which could scarcely have
    been anticipated. For, there is authority for inserting the
    word 'straightway' [a In St. Mark i. 23.] immediately after
    the account of Jesus' preaching. Yet, as we think of it, we
    cannot imagine that the demon would have continued silent nor
    yet that he could have spoken other than the truth in the
    Presence of the God-Man. There must be, and yet there cannot
    be, resistance. The very Presence of the Christ meant the
    destruction of this work of the Devil. Involuntarily, in his
    confessed inability of disguise or resistance, he owns
    defeat, even before the contest. 'What have we to do with
    Thee, Jesus of Nazareth? [1 I have omitted, on critical
    grounds, the clause, 'Let us alone.' The expression, 'What
    between us and Thee, Jesu Nazarene,' contains a well-known
    He-braism.] Thou art come to destroy us! [2 This seems the
    more correct rendering.] I know Thee Who Thou art, the Holy
    One of God.' And yet there seems in these words already an
    emergence of the consciousness of the demonised, at least in
    so far that there is no longer confusion between him and his
    tormenter, and the latter speaks in his own name. One
    stronger than the demon had affected the higher part in the
    demonised. It was the Holy One of God, in Whose Presence the
    powers of moral destruction cannot be silent, but must speak,
    and own their subjection and doom. The Christ needs not to
    contend: that He is the Christ, is itself victory.

     But this was not all. He had come not only to destroy the
    works of the Devil. His Incarnation meant this, and more: to
    set the prisoners free. By a word of command He gagged [3
    This is the real meaning of the expression rendered, 'Hold
    thy peace.' It stills the raging of the powers of evil just
    as, characteristically, it is again employed in the stilling
    of the storm, St. Mark iv. 39.] the confessions of the demon,
    unwilling made, and even so with hostile intent. It was not
    by such voices that He would have His Messiahship ever
    proclaimed. Such testimony was wholly unfitting and
    incongruous; it would have been a strange discord on the
    witness of the Baptist and the Voice Which had proclaimed Him
    from heaven. And, truly, had it been admitted, it would have
    strangely jarred in a Life which needed not, and asked not
    even the witness of men, but appealed straightway to God
    Himself. Nor can we fail to perceive how, had it been
    allowed, it would have given a true ground to what the
    Pharisees sought to assign as the interpretation of His
    Power, that by the Prince of Demons He cast out demons. And
    thus there is here also deep accord with the fundamental idea
    which was the outcome of His Temptation: that not the
    seemingly shortest, but the Divine way must lead Him to the
    goal, and that goal not Royal proclamation, but the
    Resurrection.

     The same power which gagged the confession also bade the
    demon relinguish his prey. One wild paroxysm, and the
    sufferer was for ever free. But on them all who saw and heard
    it fell the utter stupor and confusion of astonishment. [1
    The Greek term implies this. Besides its use in this
    narrative (St. Mark i. 27; St. Luke iv. 36, in the latter in
    the substantive form), it occurs in St. Mark x. 24, 32; Acts
    ix. 6; and as a substantive in Acts iii. 10.] Each turned to
    his neighbour with the inquiry: 'What is this? A new doctine
    with authority! And He commandeth the unclean spirits, and
    they obey Him.' [2 This seems the better rendering.] Well
    might they inquire. It had been a threefold miracle: 'a new
    doctrine;' 'with authority;' and obedience of the unclean
    spirits to His command. There is throughout, and especially
    in the account of the casting out of the demon, such
    un-Jewish simplicity, with entire absence of what would have
    been characteristic in a Jewish exorcist; such want of all
    that one would have expected, if the event had been invented,
    or coloured for a purpose, or tinged by contemporary notions;
    and, withal, such sublimity and majesty, that it is difficult
    to understand how any one can resist the impression of its
    reality, or that He Who so spake and did was in truth the Son
    of God.
     From the Synagogue we follow the Saviour, in company with
    His called disciples, to Peter's wedded home. But no festive
    meal, as was Jewish wont, awaited them there. A sudden access
    of violent 'burning fever,' [3 Such is the meaning of the
    Greek word. I cannot understand, why the corresponding term
    in St. Luke should have been interpreted in 'The Speaker's
    Commentary as 'typhoid fever.'] such as is even now common in
    that district, hadlaid Peter's mother-in-law prostrate. If we
    had still any lingering thought of Jewish magical cures as
    connected with those of Jesus, what is now related must
    dispel it. The Talmud gives this disease precisely the same
    name Eshatha Tsemirta), 'burning fever,' and prescribes for
    it a magical remedy, of which the principal part is to tie a
    knife wholly of iron by a braid of hair to a thornbush, and
    to repeat on successive days Exod. iii. 2,3, then ver. 4, and
    finally ver. 5, after which the bush is to be cut down, while
    a certain magical formula is pronounced. [a Shabb. 37 a.] How
    different from this, alike in its sublime simplicity and in
    the majestic bearing of Him Who healed, is the Evangelic
    narrative of the cure of Peter's mother-in-law. To ignore, in
    our estimate of the trustworthiness of the Gospels, this
    essential contrast, would be a grave historical mistake.
    Jesus is 'told' of the sickness; He is besought for her who
    is stricken down. In His Presence disease and misery cannot
    continue. Bending over the sufferer, He 'rebuked the fever,'
    just as He had rebuked [1 The word is the same in both
    cases.] 'the demon' in the Synagogue, and for the same
    reason, since all disease, in the view of the Divine Healer,
    is the outcome of sin. Then lifting her by the hand, she rose
    up, healed, to 'minister' unto them. It was the first
    Diaconate [2 The term is the same. See the remarks of Volkmar
    (Marcus, pp. 99, 100).] of woman in the Church, might we not
    almost say, in the world? a Diaconate to Christ, and to those
    that were His; the Diaconate of one healed by Christ; a
    Diaconate immediately following such healing. The first,
    this, of a long course of woman's Diaconate to Christ, in
    which, for the first time, woman attained her true position.
    And what a Sabbath-meal it must have been, after that scene
    in the Synagogue and after that healing in the house, when
    Jesus was the Guest, they who had witnessed it all sat at
    meat with Him, and she who had been healed was the Deaconess.
    Would that such were ever our Christian festive meals!

     It was evening. The sun was setting, and the Sabbath past.
    All that day it had been told from home to home what had been
    done in the Synagogue; it had been whispered what had taken
    place in the house of their neighbour Simon. This one
    conviction had been borne in upon them all, that 'with
    authority' He spake, with authority and power He commanded
    even the unclean spirits, and they obeyed. No scene more
    characteristic of the Christ than that on this autumn evening
    at Capernaum. One by one the stars had shone out over the
    tranquil Lake and the festive city, lighting up earth's
    darkness with heaven's soft brilliancy, as if they stood
    there witnesses, that God had fulfilled His good promise to
    Abraham. [a Gen. xxii. 17, 18.] On that evening no one in
    Capernaum thought of business, pleasure, or rest. There must
    have been many homes of sorrow, care, and sickness there, and
    in the populous neighbourhood around. To them, to all, had
    the door of hope now been opened. Truly, a new Sun had risen
    on them, with healing in His wings. No disease too desperate,
    when even the demons owned the authority of His mere rebuke.
    From all parts they bring them: mothers, widows, wives,
    fathers, children, husbands, their loved ones, the treasures
    they had almost lost; and the whole city throngs, a hushed,
    solemnised, overawed multitude, expectant, waiting at the
    door of Simon's dwelling. There they laid them, along the
    street up to the market-place, on their beds; or brought
    them, with beseeching look and word. What a symbol of this
    world's misery, need, and hope; what a symbol, also, of what
    the Christ really is as the Consoler in the world's manifold
    woe! Never, surely, was He more truly the Christ; nor is He
    in symbol more truly such to us and to all time, than when,
    in the stillness of that evening, under the starlit sky, He
    went through that suffering throng, laying His hands in the
    blessing of healing on every one of them, and casting out
    many devils. No picture of the Christ more dear to us, than
    this of the unlimited healing of whatever disease of body or
    soul. In its blessed indefiniteness it conveys the infinite
    potentiality of relief, whatever misery have fallen on us, or
    whatever care or sorrow oppress us. He must be blind, indeed,
    who sees not in this Physician the Divine Healer; in this
    Christ the Light of the World; the Restoror of what sin had
    blighted; the Joy in our world's deep sorrow. Never was
    prophecy more truly fulfilled than, on that evening, this of
    Isaiah: 'Himself took our infirmities, and bare our
    sicknesses.' [b Is. liii.] By His Incarnation and Coming, by
    His takingour infirmities, and bearing our sicknesses, for
    this in the truest and widest sense is the meaning of the
    Incarnation of the Christ, did He become the Healer, the
    Consoler of humanity, its Saviour in all ills of time, and
    from all ills of eternity. The most real fulfilment this,
    that can be conceived, of Isaiah's rapt vision of Who and
    what the Messiah was to be, and to do; not, indeed, what is
    sometimes called fulfilment, or expected as such, in a
    literal and verbal correspondence with the prediction. An
    utterly mechanical, external, and unspiritual view this of
    prophecy, in which, in quite Jewish literalism, the spirit is
    crushed by the letter. But, viewed in its real bearing on
    mankind with its wants, Christ, on that evening, was the
    real, though as yet only initial, fulfilment of the world's
    great hope, to which, centuries before, the God-directed hand
    of the prophet had pointed. [1 I can scarcely find words
    strong enough to express my dissent from those who would
    limit Is. liii. 4, either on the one hand to spiritual, or on
    the other to physical 'sicknesses.' The promise is one of
    future deliverance from both, of a Restorer from all the woe
    which sin had brought. In the same way the expression 'taking
    upon Himself,' and 'bearing' refers to the Christ as our
    Deliverer, because our Substitute. Because He took upon
    Himself our infirmities, therefore He bore our sicknesses.
    That the view here given is that of the N.T., appears from a
    comparison of the application of the passage in St. Matt.
    viii. 17 with that in St. John i. 29 and 1 Pet. ii. 24. The
    words, as given by St. Matthew, are most truly a N.T.
    'Targum' of the original. The LXX. renders, 'This man carries
    our sins and is pained for us;' Symmachus, 'Surely He took up
    our sins, and endured our labors;' the Targum Jon., 'Thus for
    our sins He will pray, and our iniquities will for His sake
    be forgiven.' (Comp. Driver and Neubauer, The Jewish
    Interpreters on Isaiah liii., vol. ii.) Lastly, it is with
    reference to this passage that the Messiah bears in the
    Talmud the designation, 'The Leprous One,' and 'the Sick One'
    (Sanh. 98 b).]

     So ended that Sabbath in Capernaum: a Sabbath of healing,
    joy, and true rest. But far and wide, into every place of the
    country around, throughout all the region of Galilee, spread
    the tidings, and with them the fame of Him Whom demons must
    obey, though they dare not pronounce Him the Son of God. And
    on men's ears fell His Name with sweet softness of infinite
    promise, 'like rain upon the mown grass, as showers that
    water the earth.'

 THE ASCENT: FROM THE RIVER JORDAN TO THE MOUNT OF
    TRANSFIGURATION

    SECOND JOURNEY THROUGH GALILEE, THE HEALING OF THE LEPER.

    CHAPTER XV.

     (St. Matt. iv. 23; viii. 2-4; St. Mark i. 35-45; St. Luke
    iv. 42-44; v. 12-16.)

     A DAY and an evening such as of that Sabbath of healing in
    Capernaum must, with reverence be it written, have been
    followed by what opens the next section. [1 So both in St.
    Mark (i. 35-39) and in St. Luke (iv. 42-44), and in
    substantial accord even in St. Matthew (iv. 23).] To the
    thoughtful observer there is such unbroken harmony in the
    Life of Jesus, such accord of the inward and outward, as to
    carry instinctive conviction of the truth of its record. It
    was, so to speak, an inward necessity that the God-Man, when
    brought into contact with disease and misery, whether from
    physical or supernatural causes, should remove it by His
    Presence, by His touch, by His Word. An outward necessity
    also, because no other mode of teaching equally convincing
    would have reached those accustomed to Rabbinic disputations,
    and who must have looked for such a manifestation from One
    Who claimed such authority. And yet, so far from being a mere
    worker of miracles, as we should have expected if the history
    of His miracles had been of legendary origin, there is
    nothing more marked than the pain, we had almost said the
    humiliation, which their necessity seems to have carried to
    His heart. 'Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not
    believe;' 'an evil and adulterous generation seeketh a sign;'
    'blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed',
    such are the utterances of Him Who sighed when He opened the
    ears of the deaf, [a St. Mark vii. 34.] and bade His Apostles
    look for higher and better things than power over all
    diseases or even over evil spirits. [b St. Luke x. 17-20.] [2
    So also St. Paul, 1 Cor. xii. 31:xiii. 1.] So would not the
    Messiah of Jewish legend have spoken or done; nor would they
    who invented such miracles have so referred to them.

     In truth, when, through the rift in His outward history, we
    catch a glimpse of Christ's inner Being, these miracles, so
    far as not the outcome of the mystic union of the Divine and
    the Human in His Person, but as part of His Mission, form
    part of His Humiliation. They also belong to that way which
    He had chosen in his initial conquest of the Tempter in the
    Wilderness, when He chose, not the sudden display of absolute
    power for the subdual of His people, but the painful, slow
    method of meeting the wants, and addressing Himself to the
    understanding and capacity of those over Whom He would reign.
    In this view, it seems as if we could gain a fresh
    understanding, not only of the expediency of His final
    departure, so far as concerned the future teaching of the
    disciples by the Holy Spirit, but of His own longing for the
    Advent of the Comforter. In truth, the two teachers and the
    two modes of teaching could not be together, and the
    Ascension of the Christ, as the end of His Humiliation,
    marked the Advent of the Holy Ghost, as bestowing another
    mode of teaching than that of the days of His Humiliation.

     And so, thinking of the scene on the evening before, we can
    understand how, 'very early, while it was still very dark,'
    [a St. Mark i. 35.] Jesus rose up, and went into a solitary
    place to pray. The use of the same expression [1 .]in St.
    Mark xiii. 35 enables us to fix the time as that of the
    fourth night-watch, or between three and six o'clock of the
    morning. It was not till some time afterwards, that even
    those, who had so lately been called to His closest
    fellowship, rose, and, missing Him, followed. Jesus had
    prayed in that solitude, and consecrated it. After such a
    day, and in prospect of entering on His second journey
    through Galilee [2 The circumstances will be referred to in
    the sequel.] this time in so far different circumstances

     He must prevent the dawn of the morning in prayer. And by
    this also would they learn, that He was not merely a worker
    of miracles, but that He, Whose Word demons obeyed, lived a
    Life, not of outward but of inward power, in fellowship with
    His Father, and baptized his work with prayer. But as yet,
    and, indeed, in measure all through His Life on earth, it
    seemed difficult for them in any measure to realise this.
    'All men seek for Thee,' and therefore they would have had
    Him return to Capernaum. But this was the very reason why He
    had withdrawn ere dawn of day. He had come forth, and that,
    [3 The expression in St. Luke iv. 43 shows, that the 'coming
    forth' (St. Mark i. 38) cannot be limited to His leaving
    Capernaum.] not to attract the crowds, and be proclaimed a
    King, but to preach the Kingdom of God. Once more we say it:
    so speaks not, nor acts the hero of Jewish legend!

     As the three Synoptists accordantly state, Jesus now entered
    on His second Galilean journey. There can be little doubt,
    that the chronological succession of events is here
    accurately indicated by the more circumstantial narrative in
    St. Mark's Gospel. [1 The following are, briefly, some of the
    considerations which determine the chronological order here
    adopted: (1.) This event could not have taken place after the
    Sermon on the Mount, since then the twelve Apostles were
    already called, nor yet after the call of St. Matthew. (2)
    From the similes employed (about the lilies of the field,
    &c.), the Sermon on the Mount seems to have taken place in
    spring; this event in early autumn. On the other hand, the
    order in St. Mark exactly fits in, and also in the main
    agrees, with that in St. Luke, while, lastly, it exhibits the
    growing persecutions from Jerusalem, of which we have here
    the first traces.] The arrangement of St. Luke appears that
    of historical grouping, while that of St. Matthew is
    determined by the Hebraic plan of his Gospel, which seems
    constructed on the model of the Pentateuch, [2 This is
    ingeniously indicated in Professor Delitzsch's Entsteh. d.
    Kanon. Evang., although, in my view, the theory cannot be
    carried out in the full details attempted by the Professor.
    But such a general conception of the Gospel by St. Matthew is
    not only reasonable in itself, but explains his peculiar
    arrangement of events.] as if the establishment of the
    Kingdom by the Messiah were presented as the fulfilment of
    its preparatory planting in Israel. But this second journey
    through Galilee, which the three Gospels connect with the
    stay at Capernaum, marks a turning-point in the working of
    the Christ. As already stated, the occurrences at the
    'Unknown Feast,' [3 On the date of this feast comp. Appendix
    XV.] in Jerusalem, formed a new point of departure. Christ
    had fully presented His claims to the Sanhedrists, and they
    had been fully rejected by the Scribes and the people.
    Henceforth He separated Himself from that 'untoward
    generation;' henceforth, also, began His systematic
    persecution by the authorities, when His movements were
    tracked and watched. Jesus went alone to Jerusalem. This,
    also, was fitting. Equally so, that on His return He called
    His disciples to be His followers; and that from Capernaum He
    entered, in their company, on a new phase in His Work.

     Significantly, His Work began where that of the Rabbis, we
    had almost said of the Old Testament saints, ended. Whatever
    remedies, medical, magical, or sympathetic, Rabbinic writings
    may indicate for various kinds of disease, leprosy is not
    included in the catalogue. They left aside what even the Old
    Testament marked as moral death, by enjoining those so
    stricken to avoid all contact with the living, and even to
    bear the appearance of mourners. As the leper passed by, his
    clothes rent, his hair dishevelled, [4 From this women were
    excepted, Sot. iii. 8.] and the lower part of his face and
    his upper lip covered, [a Lev. xiii. 45.] it was as one going
    to death who reads his own burial-service, while the mournful
    words, 'Unclean! Unclean!' which he uttered, proclaimed that
    his was both living and moral death. Again, the Old
    Testament, and even Rabbinism, took, in the measures
    prescribed in leprosy, primarily a moral, or rather a ritual,
    and only secondarily a sanitary, view of the case. The
    isolation already indicated, which banished lepers from all
    intercourse except with those similarly stricken, [1 They
    were not allowed to hold intercourse with persons under other
    defilement than leprosy, Pes. 67 a.] and forebade their
    entering not only the Temple or Jerusalem, but any walled
    city, [2 These were considered as walled since the time of
    Joshua, Kel. i. 7, and their sanctity equal to that of the
    camp of Israel, and greater than that of unwalled towns.]
    could not have been merely prompted by the wish to prevent
    infection. For all the laws in regard to leprosy are
    expressly stated not to have application in the case of
    heathens, proselytes before their conversion, and even of
    Israelites on their birth. [3 Neg. iii. 1; vii. 1; xi. 1; xii
    1.] The same inference must also be drawn from the
    circumstance, that the priestly examination and subsequent
    isolation of the leper were not to commence during the
    marriage-week, or on festive days, [a Neg. iii. 2.] since,
    evidently, infection would have beenmost likely to spread in
    such circumstances. [4 The following parts are declaredin the
    Mishnah as untainted by leprosy: within the eye, ear, nose,
    and mouth; the folds of the skin, especially those of the
    neck; under the female breast; the armpit; the sole of the
    foot, the nails, the head, and the beard (Neg. vi. 8).]

     It has already been stated, that Rabbinism confessed itself
    powerless in presence of this living death. Although, as
    Michaelis rightly suggests, [b Das Mos. Recht, vol. iv. p.
    195.] the sacrificial ritual for the cleansed leper implies,
    at least, the possibility of a cure, it is in every instance
    traced to the direct agency of God. [5 Michaelis views the
    whole question chiefly from the standpoint of sanitary
    police.] Hence the mythical theory, which, to be rational,
    must show some precedent to account for the origination of
    the narrative in the Gospel, here once more breaks down. [6
    It is, though I think hesitatingly, propounded by Strauss
    (vol. ii. pp. 56, 57). He has been satisfactorily answered by
    Volkmar (Marcus, p. 110).] Keim cannot deny the evident
    authenticity of the Evangelic narrative, and has no better
    explanation to offer than that of the old Rationalists, which
    Strauss had already so fully refuted [7 u. s. pp. 53, 54.] ,
    that the poor sufferer only asked of Jesus to declare, not to
    make, him clean. [8 Jesu von Naz. ii. p. 174. This is among
    the weakest portions of the book. Keim must have strongly
    felt 'the telling marks of the authenticity of this
    narrative,' when he was driven to an explanation which makes
    Jesus 'present Himself as a Scribe.'] In truth, the
    possibility of any cure through human agency was never
    contemplated by the Jews. Josephus speaks of it as possibly
    granted to prayer, [c Ant. iii. 11. 3.] but in a manner
    betokening a pious phraseology without serious meaning. We
    may go further, and say that not only did Rabbinism never
    suggest the cure of a leper, but that its treatment of those
    sufferers presents the most marked contrast to that of the
    Saviour. And yet, as if writing its own condemnation, one of
    the titles which it gives to the Messiah is 'the Leprous,'
    the King Messiah being represented as seated in the entrance
    to Rome, surrounded by, and relieving all misery and disease,
    in fulfilment of Is. liii. 4. [a Sanh. 98 b.] [1 See the
    passage in full in the Appendix on Messianic Prophecies.]

     We need not here enumerate the various symptoms, by which
    the Rabbinic law teaches us to recognise true leprosy. [2
    These are detailed in Neg. i. 1-4; ii. 1; iii. 3-6; vii. 1;
    ix. 2, 3.] Any one capable of it might make the medical
    inspection, although only a descendant of Aaron could
    formally pronounce clean or unclean. [b Neg. iii. 1.] Once
    declared leprous, the sufferer was soon made to feel the
    utter heartlessness of Rabbinism. To banish him outside
    walled towns [c Kel. i. 7.] may have been a necessity, which,
    perhaps, required to be enforced by the threatened penalty of
    forty stripes save one. [d Pes. 67.] Similarly, it might be a
    right, even merciful, provision, that in the Synagogues
    lepers were to be the first to enter and the last to leave,
    and that they should occupy a separate compartment
    (Mechitsah), ten palms high, and six feet wide. [e Neg. xiii
    12.] For, from the symbolism and connection between the
    physical and the psychical, [3 Undoubtedly the deepest and
    most philosophical treatment of this subject is that in the
    now somewhat rare, and unfortunately uncompleted, work of
    Molitor, Philosophie d. Gesch. (see vol. iii. pp. 126 &c.,
    and 253 &c). The author is, however, perhaps too much imbued
    with the views of the Kabbalah.] the Old Testament, in its
    rites and institutions, laid the greatest stress on 'clean
    and unclean.' To sum it up in briefest compass, and leaving
    out of view leprosy of clothes or houses, [4 According to
    Tos. Neg. vi. no case of leprosy of houses had ever occurred,
    but was only mentioned in Scripture, in order to give
    occasion to legal studies, so as to procure a Divine reward.]
    according to the Old Testament. defilement was conveyed only
    by the animal body, and attached to no other living body than
    that of man, nor could any other living body than that of man
    communicate defilement. The Old Testament mentioned eleven
    principal kinds of defilement. These, as being capable of
    communicating further defilement, were designated Abhoth
    hattumeoth, 'fathers of defilements', the defilement which
    they produced being either itself an Abh hattumeah, or else a
    'Child,' or a 'Child's Child of defilement' ( ). We find in
    Scripture thirty-two Abhoth hattumeoth, as they are called.
    To this Rabbinic tradition added other twenty-nine. Again,
    according to Scripture, these 'fathers of defilements'
    affected only in two degrees; the direct effect produced by
    them being designated 'the beginning,' or 'the first,' and
    that further propagated, 'the second' degree. But Rabbinic
    ordinances added a third, fourth, and even fifth degree of
    defilement. [5 I have here followed, or rather summarised,
    Maimonides. It was, of course, impossible to give even the
    briefest details.] From this, as well as the equallyintricate
    arrangements about purification, the Mishnic section about
    'clean and unclean' is at the same time the largest and most
    intricate in the Rabbinic code, while its provisious touched
    and interfered, more than any others, with every department
    of life.

     In the elaborate code of defilements leprosy was not only
    one of 'the fathers of uncleanness,' but, next to defilement
    from the dead, stood foremost amongst them. Not merely actual
    contact with the leper, but even his entrance defiled a
    habitation, [a Kel. i. 1-4.] and everything in it, to the
    beams of the roof. [b Neg. xiii. 11.] But beyond this,
    Rabbinic harshness or fear carried its provisions to the
    utmost sequences of an unbending logic. It is, indeed, true
    that, as in general so especially in this instance, Rabbinism
    loved to trace disease to moral causes. 'No death without
    sin, and no pain without transgression;' [c Shabb. 55 a.]
    'the sick is not healed, till all his sins are forgiven him.'
    [d Nedar. 41 a.] These are oftrepeated sayings; but, when
    closely examined, they are not quite so spiritual as they
    sound. For, first, they represent a reaction against the
    doctrine of original sin, in the sense that it is not the
    Fall of man, but one's actual trangression, to which disease
    and death are to be traced according to the saying: 'Not the
    serpent kills, but sin.' [e Ber. 33 a.] [1 The story, of
    which this saying is the moral, is that of the crushing of a
    serpent by the great miracle-monger Chanina ben Dosa, without
    his being hurt. But I cannot help feeling that a double
    entendre is here intended, on the one hand, that even a
    serpent could not hurt one like Chanina, and, on the other,
    the wider bearing on the real cause of death: not our
    original state, but our actual sin.] But their real
    unspirituality appears most clearly, when we remember how
    special diseases were traced to particular sins. Thus, [f
    Ber. 5 b.] childlessness and leprosy are described as
    chastisements, which indeed procure for the sufferer
    forgiveness of sins, but cannot, like other chastisements, be
    regarded as the outcome of love, nor be received in love. [2
    The Midrash enumerates four as in that category: the poor,
    the blind, the childless, and the leprous.] And even such
    sentiments in regard to sufferings [g Ber. 5 a.] are
    immediately followed by such cynical declarations on the part
    of Rabbis so afflicted, as that they loved neither the
    chastisement, nor its reward. [h Ber. 5 b.] And in regard to
    leprosy, tradition had it that, as leprosy attached to the
    house, the dress, or the person, these were to be regarded as
    always heavier strokes, following as each successive warning
    had been neglected, and a reference to this was seen in Prov.
    xix. 29. [i Bemidb. R. 13.] [3 From Zech. xiv. 12 it was
    inferred, that this leprosy would smite the Gentiles even in
    the Messianic age (Tanchuma, Tazria, end).] Eleven sins are
    mentioned [k Tanch. on Hammetsora 4; ed. Lemberg ii. p. 24
    a.] which bring leprosy, among them pre-eminently those of
    which the tongue is the organ. [m u. s., 2, p.23 a; Arach. 15
    b; and in many passages.]

     Still, if such had been the real views of Rabbinism one
    might have expected that Divine compassion would have been
    extended to those, who bore such heavy burden of their sins.
    Instead of this, their burdens were needlessly increased.
    True, as wrapped in mourner's garb the leper passed by, his
    cry 'Unclean!' was to incite others to pray for him, but also
    to avoid him. [a Moed K.]. No one was even to salute him; his
    bed was to be low, inclining towards the ground. [b u.s. 15
    a]. If he even put his head into a place, it became unclean.
    No less a distance than four cubits (six feet) must be kept
    from a leper; or, if the wind came from that direction, a
    hundred were scarcely sufficient. Rabbi Meir would not eat an
    egg purchased in a street where there was a leper. Another
    Rabbi boasted, that he always threw stones at them to keep
    them far off, while others hid themselves or ran away. [c
    Vayyik. R. 16. [Leprosy is there brought into connection with
    calumny] [1 And yet Jewish symbolism saw in the sufferings of
    Israel and the destruction of the Temple the real fulfilment
    of the punishment of leprosy with its attendant ordinances,
    while it also traced in the healing of that disease and the
    provisions for declaring the leper clean, a close analogy to
    what would happen in Israel's restoration (Vayyikra R. 15,
    17; Yalkut i. par. 551, 563).] To such extent did Rabbinism
    carry its inhuman logic in considering the leper as a
    mourner, that it even forbade him to wash his face. [d Moed.
    K 15 a.]

     We can now in some measure appreciate the contrast between
    Jesus and His contemporaries in His bearing towards the
    leper. Or, conversely, we can judge by the healing of this
    leper of the impression which the Saviour had made upon the
    people. He would have fled from a Rabbi; he came in lowiest
    attitude of entreaty to Jesus. Criticism need not so
    anxiously seek for an explanation of his approach. There was
    no Old Testament precedent for it: not in the case of Moses,
    nor even in that of Elisha, and there was no Jewish
    expectancy of it. But to have heard Him teach, to have seen
    or known Him as healing all manner of disease, must have
    carried to the heart the conviction of His absolute power.
    And so one can understand this lowly reverence of approach,
    this cry which has so often since been wrung from those who
    have despaired of all other help: 'If Thou wilt, Thou canst
    make me clean.' It is not a prayer, but the ground-tone of
    all prayer, faith in His Power, and absolute committal to Him
    of our helpless, hopeless need. And Jesus, touched with
    compassion, willed it. It almost seems, as if it were in the
    very exuberance of power that Jesus, acting in so direct
    contravention of Jewish usage, touched the leper. It was
    fitting that Elisha should disappoint Naaman's expectancy,
    that the prophet would heal his leprosy by the touch of his
    hand. It was even more fitting that Jesus should surprise the
    Jewish leper by touching, ere by His Word He cleansed him.
    And so, experience ever finds that in Christ the real is far
    beyond the ideal. We can understand, how. from his
    standpoint, Stauss should have found it impossible to
    understand the healing of leprosy by the touch and Word of
    Jesus. Its explanation lies in the fact, that He was the
    God-Man. And yet, as our inner tending after God and the
    voice of conscience indicate that man is capable of adoption
    into God's family, so the marked power which in disease mind
    has over body points to a higher capability in Man Perfect,
    the Ideal Man, the God-Man, of vanquishing disease by His
    Will.

     It is not quite so easy at first sight to understand, why
    Christ should with such intense earnestness, almost
    vehemence, [1 On this term see the first note in this
    chapter.] have sent the healed man away, as the term bears,
    'cast him out.' [2 This, however, as Godet has shown (Comm.
    on St. Luke, German transl., p. 137), does not imply that the
    event took place either in a house or in a town, as most
    commentators suppose. It is strange that the 'Speaker's
    Commentary,' following Weiss, should have located the
    incident in a Synagogue. It could not possibly have occurred
    there, unless all Jewish ordinances and customs had been
    reversed.] Certainly not (as Volkmar, fantastically in error
    on this, as on so many other points, imagines) because He
    disapproved of his worship. Rather do we once more gather,
    how the God-Man shrank from the fame connected with miracles,
    specially with such an one, which as we have seen, were
    rather of inward and outward necessity than of choice in His
    Mission. Not so, followed by a curious crowd, or thronged by
    eager multitudes of sight-seers, or aspirants for temporal
    benefits, was the Kingdom of Heaven to be preached and
    advanced. It would have been the way of a Jewish Messiah, and
    have led up to His royal proclamation by the populace. But as
    we study the character of the Christ, no contrast seems more
    glaring, let us add, more painful, than that of such a scene.
    And so we read that, when, notwithstanding the Saviour's
    charge to the healed leper to keep silence, it was
    nevertheless, nay, as might perhaps have been expected all
    the more made known by him, as, indeed, in some measure it
    could scacely have remained entirely unknown, He could no
    more, as before, enter the cities, but remained without in
    desert places, whither they came to Him from every quarter.
    And in that withdrawal He spoke, and healed, 'and prayed.'

     Yet another motive of Christ's conduct may be suggested. His
    injunction of silence was combined with that of presenting
    himself to the priest and conforming to the ritual
    requirements of the Mosaic Law in such cases. [1 The Rabbinic
    ordinances as to the ritual in such cases are in Neg. xiv.
    See 'The Temple and its Services' pp. 315-317. Special
    attention was to be given, that the water with which the
    purified leper was sprinkled was from a pure, flowing spring
    (six different collections of water, suited to different
    kinds of impurity, being described in Miqv. i. 1-8). From
    Parah viii. 10 we gather, that among other rivers even the
    Jordan was not deemed sufficiently pure, because in its
    course other streams, which were not lawful for such
    purfication, had mingled with it.] It is scarcely necessary
    to refute the notion, that in this Christ was prompted either
    by the desire to see the healed man restored to the society
    of his fellows, or by the wish to have some officially
    recognised miracle, to which He might afterwards appeal. Not
    to speak of the un-Christlikeness of such a wish or purpose,
    as a matter of fact, He did not appeal to it, and the healed
    leper wholly disappears from the Gospel-narrative. And yet
    his conforming to the Mosaic Ritual was to be 'a testimony
    unto them.' The Lord, certainly, did not wish to have the Law
    of Moses broken, and broken not superseded, it would have
    been, if its provisions had been infringed before His Death,
    Ascension, and the Coming of the Holy Ghost had brought their
    fulfilment.

     But there is something else here. The course of this history
    shows, that the open rupture between Jesus and the Jewish
    authorities, which had commenced at the Unknown Feast at
    Jerusalem, was to lead to practical sequences. On the part of
    the Jewish authorities, it led to measures of active
    hostility. The Synagogues of Galilee are no longer the quite
    scenes of His teaching and miracles; His Word and deeds no
    longer pass unchallenged. It had never occurred to these
    Galileans, as they implicitly surrendered themselves to the
    power of His words, to question their orthodoxy. But now,
    immediately after this occurrence, we find Him accused of
    blasphemy. [a St. Luke v. 21.] They had not thought it breach
    of God's Law when, on that Sabbath, He had healed in the
    Synagogue of Capernaum and in the home of Peter; but after
    this it became sinful to extend like mercy on the Sabbath to
    him whose hand was withered. [b St. Luke vi. 7.] They had
    never thought of questioning the condescension of his
    intercourse with the poor and needy; but now they sought to
    sap the commencing allegiance of His disciples by charging
    Him with undue intercourse with publicans and sinners, [c St.
    Luke v. 30.] and by inciting against Him even the
    prejudicesand doubts of the half-enlightened followers of His
    own Forerunner. [d St. Luke v. 30.] All these new incidents
    are due to one and the same cause; the presence and hostile
    watchfulness of the Scribes and Pharisees, who now for the
    first time appear on the scene of His ministry. It it too
    much then to infer, that, immediately after that Feast at
    Jerusalem, the Jewish authorities sent their familiars into
    Galilee after Jesus, and that it was to the presence and
    influence of this informal deputation that the opposition to
    Christ, which now increasingly appeared, was due? If so, then
    we see not only an additional motive for Christ's injunction
    of silence on those whom He had healed, and for His own
    withdrawal from the cities and their throng, but we can
    understand how, as He afterwards answered those, whom John
    had sent to lay before Christ his doubts, by pointing to His
    works, so He replied to the sending forth of the Scribes of
    Jerusalem to watch, oppose, and arrest Him, by sending to
    Jerusalem as His embassy the healed leper, to submit to all
    the requirements of the Law. It was His testimony unto them,
    His, Who was meek and lowly in heart; and it was in deepest
    accord with what He had done, and was doing. Assuredly, He
    Who brake not the bruised reed, did not cry nor lift up His
    Voice in the streets, but brought forth judgment unto truth.
    And in Him shall the nations trust!

 THE ASCENT: FROM THE RIVER JORDAN TO THE MOUNT OF
    TRANSFIGURATION

    THE RETURN TO CAPXBNAUM, CONCERNG THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS,
    THE HEALING OF THE PARALYSED

    CHAPTER XVI

     (St. Matt. ix. 1-8; St. Mark ii. 1-12; St. Luke v. 17-26.)

     It is a remarkable instance of the reserve of the
    Gospel-narratives, that of the second journey of Jesus in
    Galilee no other special event is recorded than the healing
    of the leper. And it seems also to indicate, that this one
    miracle had been so selected for a special purpose. But if,
    as we have suggested, after the 'Unknown Feast,' the activity
    of Jesus assumed a new and what, for want of a better name,
    may be called an anti-Judaic character, we can perceive the
    reason of it. The healing of leprosy was recorded as typical.
    With this agrees also what immediately follows. For, as
    Rabbinism stood confessedly powerless in face of the living
    death of leprosy, so it had no word of forgiveness to speak
    to the conscience burdened with sin, nor yet word of welcome
    to the sinner. But this was the inmost meaning of the two
    events which the Gospel-history places next to the healing of
    the leper: the forgiveness of sins in the case of the
    paralytic, and the welcome to the chief of sinners in the
    call of Levi-Matthew.

     We are still mainly following the lead of St. Mark, [1 The
    same order is followed by St. Luke. From the connection
    between St. Mark and St. Peter, we should naturally look for
    the fullest account of that early Capernaum-Ministry in the
    Second Gospel.] alike as regards the succession of events and
    their details. And here it is noteworthy, how the account in
    St. Mark confirms that by St. John [a St. John v.] of what
    had occurred at the Unknown Feast. Not that either Evangelist
    could have derived it from the other. But if we establish the
    trustworthiness of the narrative in St. John v., which is
    unconfirmed by any of the Synoptists, we strengthen not only
    the evidence in favour of the Fourth Gospel generally, but
    that in one of its points of chief difficulty, since such
    advanced teaching on the part of Jesus, and such developed
    hostility from the Jewish authorities, might scarcely have
    been looked for at so early a stage. But when we compare the
    language of St. Mark with the narrative in the fifth chapter
    of St. John's Gospel, at least four points of contact
    prominently appear. For, first, the unspoken charge of the
    Scribes, [a St. Mark ii. 6, 7.] that in forgiving sins Jesus
    blasphemed by making Himself equal with God, has its exact
    couterpart in the similar charge against Him in St. John v.
    18, which kindled in them the wish to kill Jesus. Secondly,
    as in that case the final reply of Jesus pointed to 'the
    authority' ( ) which the Father had given Him for Divine
    administration on earth, [b St. John v. 27.] so the healing
    of the paralytic was to show the Scribes that He had
    'authority' ( ) [1 The A. V. mars the meaning by rendering
    it: 'power.'] for the dispensation upon earrth of the
    forgiveness of sins, which the Jews rightly regarded as the
    Divine prerogative. Thirdly, the words which Jesus spake to
    the paralytic: 'Rise, take up thy bed, and walk,' [c St. Mark
    ii. 9.] are to the very letter the same [2 So according to
    the best readings.] which are recorded [d In St. John v. 8]
    as used by Him when He healed the impotent man at the Pool of
    Bethesda. Lastly, alike in the words which Jesus addressed to
    the Scribes at the healing of the paralytic, and in those at
    the Unknown Feast, He made final appeal to His works as
    evidential of His being sent by, and having received of, the
    Father 'the authority' to which He laid claim. [e St. John v.
    36; comp. St. Mark ii. 10.] It would be utterly irrational to
    regard these as coincidences, and not references. And their
    evidential force becomes the stronger, as we remember the
    entire absence of design on the part of St. Mark. [3 It is,
    of course, not pretended by negative critics that the Fourth
    Gospel borrowed from St. Mark. On the contrary, the supposed
    differences in form and spirit between the Synoptists and the
    Fourth Gospel form one of the main arguments against the
    authenticity of the latter. In regard to the 5th chap. of St.
    John, Dr. Abbott writes (Art. 'Gospels,' Encycl. Brit. p. 833
    b): 'That part of the discourse in which Christ describes
    Himself in the presence of the multitude as having received
    all power to judge and to quicken the dead, does not resemble
    anything in the Synoptic narrative' except St. Matt. xi. 27;
    St. Luke x. 22, and 'that was uttered privately to the
    disciples.' To complete the irony of criticism, Dr. Abbott
    contrasts the 'faith of the Synoptists,' such as 'that
    half-physical thrill of trust in the presence of Jesus. Which
    enables the limbs of a paralysed man to make the due physical
    response to the emotional shock consequent on the word
    "Arise," so that in the strength of that shock the paralytic
    is enabled to shake off the disease of many years,' with
    faith such as the Fourth Gospel presents it.] But this
    correspondence not only supports the trustworthiness of the
    two indenpendent narratives in St. Mark and in St. John, but
    also confirms alike that historical order in which we have
    arranged the events, and the suggestion that, after the
    encounter at the Unknown Feast, the authorities of Jerusalem
    had sent representatives to watch, oppose, and, if possible,
    entrap Jesus.

     In another manner, also, the succession of events, as we
    have traced it, seems confirmed by the account of the healing
    of the paralytic. The second journey of Jesus through Galilee
    had commenced in autumn ; the return to Capernaum was 'after
    days,' which, in common Jewish phraseology, [1 See Wetstein
    in loc.] meant a considerable interval. As we reckon, it was
    winter, which would equally account for Christ's return to
    Capernaum, and for His teaching in the house. For, no sooner
    'was it heard that He was in the house,' or, as some have
    rendered it, 'that He was at home,' than so many flocked to
    the dwelling of Peter, which at that period may have been
    'the house' or temporary 'home' of the Saviour, as to fill
    its limited space to over flowing, and even to crowd out to
    the door and beyond it. The general impression on our minds
    is, that this audience was rather in a state of indecision
    than of sympathy with Jesus. It included 'Pharisees and
    doctors of the Law,' who had come on purpose from the towns
    of Galilee, from Judaea, and from Jerusalem. These occupied
    the 'uppermost rooms,' sitting, no doubt, near to Jesus.
    Their influence must have been felt by the people. Although
    irresistibly attracted by Jesus, an element of curiosity, if
    not of doubt, would mingle with their feelings, as they
    looked at their leaders, to whom long habit attached the most
    superstitious veneration. If one might so say, it was like
    the gathering of Israel on Mount Carmel, to witness the issue
    as between Elijah and the priests of Baal.

     Although in no wise necessary to the understanding of the
    event, it is helpful to try and realise the scene. We can
    picture to ourselves the Saviour 'speaking the Word' to that
    eager, interested crowd, which would soon become forgetful
    even of the presence of the watchful 'Scribes.' Though we
    know a good deal of the structure of Jewish houses, [2
    'Sketches of Jewish life,' pp. 93-96.] we feel it difficultto
    be sure of the exact place which the Saviour occupied on this
    occasion. Meetings for religious study and discussion were
    certainly held in the Aliyah or upper chamber. [a Shabb. i.
    4; Jer. Sanh. 21 b; Jer. Pes. 30 b, and often.] But, on many
    grounds, such a locale seems utterly unsuited to the
    requirements of the narrative. [3 Such a crowd could scarcely
    have assembled there, and where were those about and beyond
    the door?] Similar objections attach to the idea, that it was
    the front room of one of those low houses occupied by the
    poor. [4 This is the suggestion of Dr. Thomson ('The Land and
    the Book,' pp. 358, 359). But even he sees difficulties in
    it. Besides, was Christ inside the small room of such a
    house, and if so, how did the multitude see and hear Him? Nor
    can I see any reason for representing Peter as so poor.
    Professor Delitzsch's cconception of the scene (in his 'Elin
    Tag in Capern,') seems to me, so far as I follow it, though
    exceedingly beautiful, too imaginative.] Nor is there any
    reason for supposing that the house occupied by Peter was one
    of those low buildings, which formed the dwellings of the
    very poor. It must, at any rate, have contained, besides a
    large family room, accommodation for Peter and his wife, for
    Peter's mother-in-law, and for Jesus as the honoured guest.
    The Mishnah callsl a small house one that is 9 feet long by
    12 broad, and a large house one that is 12 feet long by 15
    broad, and adds that a dining-hall is 15 feet square, the
    height being always computed at half the length and breadth.
    [a Baba B. vi. 4.] But these notices seem rather to apply to
    a single room. They are part of a legal discussion, in which
    reference is made to a building which might be erected by a
    man for his son on his marriage, or as a dwelling for his
    widowed daughter. Another source of information is derived
    from what we know of the price and rental of houses. We read
    [b In Jer. Keth. iv. 14, p. 29 b.] of a house as costing ten
    (of course, gold) dinars, which would make the price 250
    silver dinars, or between 71. and 81. of our money. This
    must, however, have been 'a small house,' since the rental of
    such is stated to have been from 7s. to 28s. a year, [c Tos.
    B. Mets. c. iv.] while that of a large house is computed at
    about 91. a year, [d u. s., c. viii. 31, ed, z.] and that of
    a courtyard at about 14s. a year. [e Baba Mets. v. 2.]

     All this is so far of present interest as it will help to
    show, that the house of Peter could not have been a 'small
    one.' We regard it as one of the better dwellings of the
    middle classes. In that case all the circumstances fully
    accord with the narrative in the Gospels. Jesus is speaking
    the Word, standing in the covered gallery that ran round the
    courtyard of such houses, and opened into the various
    apartments. Perhaps He was standing within the entrance of
    the guest-chamber, while the Scribes were sitting within that
    apartment, or beside Him in the gallery. The court before Him
    is thronged, out into the street. All are absorbedly
    listening to the Master, when of a sudden those appear who
    are bearing a paralytic on his pallet. It had of late become
    too common a scene to see the sick thus carried to Jesus to
    attract special attention. And yet one can scarcely conceive
    that, if the crowd had merely filled an apartment and
    gathered around its door, it would not have made way for the
    sick, or that somehow the bearers could not have come within
    sight, or been able to attract the attention of Christ. But
    with a courtyard crowded out into the street, all this would
    be, of course, out of the question. In such circumstances,
    what was to be done? Access to Jesus was simply impossible.
    Shall they wait till the multitude disperses, or for another
    and more convenient season? Only those would have acted thus
    who have never felt the preciousness of an opportunity,
    because they have never known what real need is. Inmost in
    the hearts of those who bore the paralysed was the belief,
    that Jesus could, and that he would, heal. They must have
    heard it from others; they must have witnessed it themselves
    in other instances. And inmost in the heart of the paralytic
    was, as we infer from the first words of Jesus to him, not
    only the same conviction, but with it weighed a terrible
    fear, born of Jewish belief, lest his sins might hinder his
    healing. And this would make him doubly anxious not to lose
    the present opportunity.

     And so their resolve was quickly taken. If they cannot
    approach Jesus with their burden, they can let it down from
    above at His feet. Outside the house, as well as inside, a
    stair led up to the roof. They may have ascended it in this
    wise, or else reached it by what the Rabbis called 'the road
    of the roofs,' [a Jos, Ant. xiii. 5. 3; Bab. Mez. 88
    a.]passing from roof to roof, if the house adjoined others in
    the same street. The roof itself, which had hard beaten earth
    or rubble underneath it, was paved with brick, stone, or any
    other hard substance, and surrounded by a balustrade which,
    according to Jewish Law, was at least three feet high. It is
    scarcely possible to imagine, that the bearers of the
    paralytic would have attempted to dig through this into a
    room below, not to speak of the interruption and
    inconvenience caused to those below by such an operation. But
    no such objection attaches if we regard it, not as the main
    roof of the house, but as that of the covered gallery under
    which we are supposing the Lord to have stood. This could, of
    course, have been readily reached from above. In such case it
    would have been comparatively easy to 'unroof' the covering
    of 'tiles,' and then, 'having dug out' an opening through the
    lighter framework which supported the tiles, to let down
    their burden 'into the midst before Jesus.' All this, as done
    by four strong men, would be but the work of a few minutes.
    But we can imagine the arresting of the discourse of Jesus,
    and the breathless surprise of the crowd as this opening
    through the tiles appeared, and slowly a pallet was let down
    before them. Busy hands would help to steady it, and bring it
    safe to the ground. And on that pallet lay one paralysed, his
    fevered face and glistening eyes upturned to Jesus.

     It must have been a marvellous sight, even at a time and in
    circumstances when the marvellous might be said to have
    become of every-day occurrence. This energy and determination
    of faith exceeded aught that had been witnessed before. Jesus
    saw it, and He spake. For, as yet, the blanched lips of the
    sufferer had not parted to utter his petition. He believed,
    indeed, in the power of Jesus to heal, with all the certitude
    that issued, not only in the determination to be laid at His
    feet, but at whatever trouble and in any circumstances,
    however novel or strange. It needed, indeed, faith to
    overcome all the hindrances in the present instance; and
    still more faith to be so absorbed and forgetful of all
    around, as to be let down from the roof through the broken
    tiling into the midst of such an assembly. And this open
    outburst of faith shone out the more brightly, from its
    contrast with the covered darkness and clouds of unbelief
    within the breast of those Scribes, who had come to watch and
    ensnare Jesus.

     As yet no one had spoken, for the silence of expectancy had
    fallen on them all. Could He, and, if He could, would He
    help, and what would He do? But He, Who perceived man's
    unspoken thoughts, knew that there was not only faith, but
    also fear, in the heart of that man. Hence the first words
    which the Saviour spake to him were: 'Be of good cheer.' [a
    St. Matt. ix. 2.] He had, indeed, got beyond the coarse
    Judaic standpoint, from which suffering seemed an expiation
    of sin. It was argued by the Rabbis, that, if the loss of an
    eye or a tooth liberated a slave from bondage, much more
    would the sufferings of the whole body free the soul from
    guilt; and, again, that Scripture itself indicated this by
    the use of the word 'covenant,' alike in connection with the
    salt which rendered the sacrifices meet for the altar, [b
    Lev. ii. 13.]and sufferings, [c Deut. xxviii. 69 b.] which
    did the like for the soul by cleansing away sin. [d Ber. 5
    a.] We can readily believe. as the recorded experience of the
    Rabbis shows, [e Ber. 5 b.] that such sayings brought neither
    relief to the body, nor comfort to the soul of real
    sufferers. But this other Jewish idea was even more deeply
    rooted, had more of underlying truth, and would, especially
    in presence of the felt holiness of Jesus, have a deep
    influence on the soul, that recovery would not be granted to
    the sick unless his sins had first been forgiven him. [f
    Nedar. 41 a.] It was this deepest, though, perhaps, as yet
    only partially conscious, want of the sufferer before Him,
    which Jesus met when, in words of tenderest kindness, He
    spoke forgiveness to his soul, and that not as something to
    come, but as an act already past: 'Child, thy sins have been
    forgiven. [2 So according to the greater number of MSS.,
    which have the verb in the perfect tense.] We should almost
    say, that He needed first to speak these words, before He
    gave healing: needed, in the psychological order of things;
    needed, also, if the inward sickness was to be healed, and
    because the inward stroke, or paralysis, in the consciousness
    of guilt, must be removed, before the outward could be taken
    away.

     In another sense, also, there was a higher 'need be' for the
    word which brought forgiveness, before that which gave
    healing. Although it is not for a moment to be supposed,
    that, in what Jesus did, He had primary intention in regard
    to the Scribes, yet here also, as in all Divine acts, the
    undesigned adaptation and the undesigned sequences are as
    fitting as what we call the designed. For, with God there is
    neither past nor future; neither immediate nor mediate; but
    all is one, the eternally and God-pervaded Present. Let us
    recall, that Jesus was in the presence of those in whom the
    Scribes would feign have wrought disbelief, not of His power
    to cure disease, which was patent to all, but in His Person
    and authority; that, perhaps, such doubts had already been
    excited. And here it deserves special notice, that, by first
    speaking forgiveness, Christ not only presented the deeper
    moral aspect of His miracles, as against their ascription to
    magic or Satanic agency, but also established that very
    claim, as regarded His Person and authority, which it was
    sought to invalidate. In this forgiveness of sins He
    presented His Person and authority as Divine, and He proved
    it such by the miracle of healing which immediately followed.
    Had the two been inverted, there would have been evidence,
    indeed, of His power, but not of His Divine Personality, nor
    of His having authority to forgive sins; and this, not the
    doing of miracles, was the object of His Teaching and
    Mission, of which the miracles were only secondary evidence.

     Thus the inward reasoning of the Scribes, [1 The expression,
    'reasoning in their hearts,' corresponds exactly to the
    Rabbinic,' Ber. 22 a. The word is frequently used in
    contradistinction to speaking.] which was open and known to
    Him Who readeth all thoughts, [2 In Sanh. 93 b this reading
    of the thoughts is regarded as the fulfilment of Is. xi. 3,
    and as one of the marks of the Messiah, which Bar Kokhabh not
    possessing was killed.] issued in quite the opposite of what
    they could have expected. Most unwarranted, indeed, was the
    feeling of contempt which we trace in their unspoken words,
    whether we read them: 'Why doth this one thus speak
    blasphemies?' or, according to a more correct transcript of
    them: 'Why doth this one speak thus? He blasphemeth!' Yet
    from their point of view they were right, for God alone can
    forgive sins; nor has that power ever been given or delegated
    to man. But was He a mere man, like even the most honoured of
    God's servants? Man, indeed; but 'the Son of Man' [3 That the
    expression 'Son of Man' ( ) was well understood as referring
    to the Messiah, appears from the following remarkable
    anti-Christian passage (Jer. Taan 65 b, at the bottom): 'If a
    man shall say to thee, I am God, he lies; if he says, I am
    the Son of Man, his end will be to repent it; if he says, I
    go up into heaven (to this applies Numb. xxiii. 19), hath he
    said and shall he not do it? [or, hath he spoken, and shall
    he make it good?] Indeed, the whole passage, as will be seen,
    is an attempt to adapt. Numb. xxiii. 19 to the Christian
    controversy.] in the emphatic and well-understood sense of
    being the Representative Man, who was to bring a new life to
    humanity; the Second Adam, the Lord from Heaven. It seemed
    easy to say: 'Thy sins have been forgiven.' But to Him, Who
    had 'authority' to do so on earth, it was neither more easy
    nor more difficult than to say: 'Rise, take up thy bed, and
    walk.' Yet this latter, assuredly, proved the former, and
    gave it in the sight of all men unquestioned reality. And so
    it was the thoughts of these Scribes, which, as applied to
    Christ, were 'evil', since they imputed to Him blasphemy that
    gave occasion for offering real evidence of what they would
    have impugned and denied. In no other manner could the object
    alike of miracles and of this special miracle have been so
    attained as by the 'evil thoughts' of these Scribes, when,
    miraculously brought to light, they spoke out the inmost
    possible doubt, and pointed to the highest of all questions
    concerning the Christ. And so it was once more the wrath of
    man which praised Him!

     'And the remainder of wrath did he restrain.' As the healed
    man slowly rose, and, still silent, rolled up his pallet, a
    way was made for him between this multitude which followed
    him with wondering eyes. Then, as first mingled wonderment
    and fear fell on Israel on Mount Carmel, when the fire had
    leaped from heaven, devoured the sacrifice, licked up the
    water in the trench, and even consumed the stones of the
    altar, and then all fell prostrate, and the shout rose to
    heaven: 'Jehovah, He is the Elohim!' so now, in view of this
    manifestation of the Divine Presence among them. The
    amazement of fear fell on them in this Presence, and they
    glorified God, and they said: 'We have never seen it on this
    wise!'

 THE ASCENT: FROM THE RIVER JORDAN TO THE MOUNT OF
    TRANSFIGURATION

    THE CALL OF MATTHEW, THE SAVIOUR'S WELCOME TO SINNERS,
    RABBINIC THEOLOGY AS REGARDS THE DOCTRINE OF FORGIVENESS IN
    CONTRAST TO THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST, THE CALL OF THE TWELVE
    APOSTLES.

    CHAPTER XVII

     (St. Matt. ix. 9-13; St. Mark ii. 13-17; St. Luke v. 27-32;
    St. Matt. x. 2-4;St. Mark iii. 13-19; St. Luke vi. 12-19.)

     In two things chiefly does the fundamental difference appear
    between Christianity and all other religious systems, notably
    Rabbinism. And in these two things, therefore, lies the main
    characteristic of Christ's work; or, taking a wider view, the
    fundamental idea of all religions. Subjectively, they concern
    sin and the sinner; or, to put it objectively, the
    forgiveness of sin and the welcome to the sinner. But
    Rabbinism, and every other system down to modern
    humanitarianism, if it rises so high in its idea of God as to
    reach that of sin, which is its shadow, can only generally
    point to God for the forgiveness of sin. What here is merely
    an abstraction, has become a concrete reality in Christ. He
    speaks forgiveness on earth, because He is its embodiment. As
    regards the second idea, that of the sinner, all other
    systems know of no welcome to him till, by some means (inward
    or outward), he have ceased to be a sinner and become a
    penitent. They would first make him a penitent, and then bid
    him welcome to God; Christ first welcomes him to God, and so
    makes him a penitent. The one demands, the other imparts
    life. And so Christ is the Physician Whom they that are in
    health need not, but they that are sick. And so Christ came
    not to call the righteous but sinners, not to repentance, as
    our common text erroneously puts it in St. Matthew ix. 13,
    and St. Mark ii. 17, [1 The words 'to repentance' are
    certainly spurious in St. Matt. and St. Mark. I regard theirs
    as the original and authentic report of the words of Christ.
    In St. Luke v. 32, the words 'unto repentance' do certainly
    occur. But, with Godet, I regard them as referring to 'the
    righteous,' and as used, in a sense ironically.] but to
    Himself, to the Kingdom; and this is the beginning of
    repentance.

     Thus it is that Jesus, when His teaching becomes distinctive
    from that of Judaism, puts these two points in the
    foreground: the one at the cure of the paralytic, the other
    in the call of Levi-Matthew. And this, also, further explains
    His miracles of healing as for the higher presentation of
    Himself as the Great Physician, while it gives some insight
    into the nexus of these two events, and explains their
    chronological succession. [1 So in all the three Gospels.] It
    was fitting that at the very outset, when Rabbinism followed
    and challenged Jesus with hostile intent, these two spiritual
    facts should be brought out, and that, not in a
    controversial, but in a positive and practical manner. For,
    as these two questions of sin and of the possible relation of
    the sinner to God are the great burden of the soul in its
    upward striving after God, so the answer to them forms the
    substance of all religions. Indeed, all the cumbrous
    observances of Rabbinism, its whole law, were only an
    attempted answer to the question: How can a man be just with
    God?

     But, as Rabbinism stood self-confessedly silent and
    powerless as regarded the forgiveness of sins, so it had
    emphatically no word of welcome or help for the sinner. The
    very term 'Pharisee,' or 'separated one,' implied the
    exclusion of sinners. With this the whole character of
    Pharisaism accorded; perhaps, we should have said, that of
    Rabbinism, since the Sadducean would here agree with the
    Pharisaic Rabbi. The contempt and avoidance of the unlearned,
    which was so characteristic of the system, arose not from
    mere pride of knowledge, but from the thought that, as 'the
    Law' was the glory and privilege of Israel, indeed, the
    object for which the world was created and preserved,
    ignorance of it was culpable. Thus, the unlearned blasphemed
    his Creator, and missed or perverted his own destiny. It was
    a principle, that 'the ignorant cannot be pious.' On the
    principles of Rabbinism, there was logic in all this, and
    reason also, though sadly perverted. The yoke of 'the Kingdom
    of God' was the high destiny of every true Israelite. Only,
    to them it lay in external, not internal conformity to the
    Law of God: 'in meat and drink,' not 'in righteousness,
    peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.' True, they also perceived,
    that 'sins of thought' and purpose, though uncommitted, were
    'more grievous than even sins of outward deed;' [a Yoma 29
    a.] but only in this sense,that each outward sin was
    traceable to inward dereliction or denial of the Law, 'no man
    sinneth, unless the spirit of error has first entered into
    him.' [b Sot. 3 a.] On this ground the punishment of
    infidelity or apostasy in the next world was endless, while
    that of actual transgressions was limited in duration. [c
    Rosh haSh. 17 a.] [2 Comp. Sepher Iqqarim iv. 28.]

     As 'righteousness came by the Law,' so also return to it on
    the part of the sinner. Hence, although Rabbinism had no
    welcome to the sinner, it was unceasing in its call to
    repentance and in extolling its merits. All the prophets had
    prophesied only of repentance. [a Ber. 34 h.] The last pages
    of the Tractate on the Day of Atonement are full of praises
    of repentance. It not only averted punishment and prolonged
    life, but brought good, even the final redemption to Israel
    and the world at large. It surpassed the observance of all
    the commandments, and was as meritorious as if one had
    restored the Temple and Altar, and offered all sacrifices. [b
    Vayyik. R. 7.] One hour of penitence and good works
    outweighed the whole world to come. These are only a few of
    the extravagant statements by which Rabbinism extolled
    repentance. But, when more closely examined, we find that
    this repentance, as preceding the free welcome of invitation
    to the sinner, was only another form of work-righteousness.
    This is, at any rate, one meaning [1 It would be quite
    one-sided to represent this as the only meaning, as, it seems
    to me, Weber has done in his 'System d. altsynagog, palaest.
    Theol.' This, and a certain defectiveness in the treatment,
    are among the blemishes in this otherwise interesting and
    very able posthumous work.] of the saying which conjoined the
    Law and repentance, and represented them as preceding the
    Creation. [c Pes. 54 a; Ber. R. 1.] Another would seem
    derived from a kind of Manichaean view of sin. According to
    it, God Himself was really the author of the Yetser haRa, or
    evil impulse [2 So in too many passagesfor enumeration.]
    ('the law in our members'), for which, indeed, there was an
    absolute necessity, if the world was to continue. [d Yoma 69
    b; Ber. R. 9, and in many places.] [3 Some of these points
    have already been stated. But it was necessary to repeat them
    so as to give a connected view.] Hence, 'the penitent' was
    really 'the great one,' since his strong nature had more in
    it of the 'evil impulse,' and the conquest of it by the
    penitent was really of greater merit than abstinence from
    sin. [e Sanh. 99 a; Maimon. Hil. Tesh. Per. 7.] Thus it came,
    that the true penitent really occupied a higher place, 'stood
    where the perfectly righteous could not stand.' [f Sanh. 99
    a; Ber. 34 b.] There is then both work and merit in
    penitence; and we can understand, how 'the gate of penitence
    is open, even when that of prayer is shut,' [g Yalkut on Ps.
    xxxii. p. 101 b.] and that these two sentences are not only
    consistent, but almost cover each other, that the Messianic
    deliverance would come, if all Israel did righteousness, [h
    Sanh. 98 a.] and, again, if all Israel repented for only one
    day; [i Sanh. 98 a; Jer. Taan. 64 a.] or, to put it
    otherwise, if Israel were all saints, or all sinners. [k
    Sanh. 98 a.]

     We have already touched the point where, as regards
    repentance, as formerly in regard to forgiveness, the
    teaching of Christ is in absolute and fundamental contrariety
    to that of the Rabbis. According to Jesus Christ, when we
    have done all, we are to feel that we are but unprofitable
    servants. [m St. Luke xvii. 10.] According to the Rabbis, as
    St. Paul puts it, 'righteousness cometh by the Law;' and,
    when it is lost, the Law alone can restore life; [1 So,
    according to Rabbinism, both in the Sepher Iqqar. and in
    Menor. Hammaor.] while, according to Christian teaching, it
    only bringeth death. Thus there was, at the very foundation
    of religious life, absolute contrariety between Jesus and His
    contemporaries. Whence, if not from heaven, came a doctrine
    so novel as that which Jesus made the basis of His Kingdom?

     In one respect, indeed, the Rabbinic view was in some
    measure derived from the Old Testament, though by an external
    and, therefore, false interpretation of its teaching. In the
    Old Testament, also, 'repentance' was Teshubhah ( ),
    'return;' while, in the New Testament, it is 'change of mind'
    ( ). It would not be fair here to argue, that the common
    expression for repenting was 'to do penitence' ( ), since by
    its side we frequently meet that other: 'to return in
    penitence' ( ). Indeed, other terms for repentance also
    occur. Thus Tohu ( ) means repentance in the sense of regret;
    Charatah, perhaps, more in that of a change of mind; while
    Teyubha or Teshubhah is the return of repentance. Yet,
    according to the very common Rabbinic expression, there is a
    'gate of repentance' ( ) through which a man must enter, and,
    even if Charatah be the sorrowing change of mind, it is at
    most only that gate. Thus, after all, there is more in the
    'doing of penitence' than appears at first sight. In point of
    fact, the full meaning of repentance as Teshubhah, or
    'return,' is only realised, when a man has returned from
    dereliction to observance of the Law. Then, sins of purpose
    are looked upon as if they had been unintentional, nay, they
    become even virtuous actions. [a Yoma 86.]

     We are not now speaking of the forgiveness of sins. In
    truth, Rabbinism knew nothing of a forgiveness of sin, free
    and unconditional, unless in the case of those who had not
    the power of doing anything for their atonement. Even in the
    passage which extols most the freeness and the benefits of
    repentance (the last pages of the Tractate on the Day of
    Atonement), there is the most painful discussion about sins
    great and small, about repentance from fear or from love,
    about sins against commands or against prohibitions; and, in
    what cases repentance averted, or else only deferred,
    judgment, leaving final expiation to be wrought by other
    means. These were: personal sufferings, [b Ber. 5 a, b; Kidd.
    81 b.] death, [c Yoma u. s.] or the Day of Atonement. [d Yoma
    u. s., and many passages.] Besides these, there were always
    the 'merits of the fathers;' [e In almost innumerable
    passages.] or, perhaps, some one good work done; [f Ab. Zar.
    5 a.] or, at any rate, the brief period of purgatorial pain,
    which might open the gate of mercy. These are the so-called
    'advocates' (Peraqlitin, ) of the penitent sinner. In a
    classical passage on the subject, [a Mechilta, 76 a.]
    repentance is viewed in its bearing on four different
    spiritual [1 In Menorath Hammaor (Ner v. 1. 1, 2) seven kinds
    of repentance in regard to seven different conditions are
    mentioned. They are repentance immediately after the
    commission of sin; after a course of sin, but while there is
    still the power of sinning; where there is no longer the
    occasion for sinning; where it is caused by admonition, or
    fear of danger; where it is caused by actual affliction;
    where a man is old, and unable to sin; and, lastly,
    repentance in prospect of death.] conditions, which are
    supposed to be respectively referred to in Jer. iii. 22; Lev.
    xvi. 30; Is. xxii. 14; and Ps. lxxxix. 32. The first of these
    refers to a breach of a command, with immediate and
    persistent cry for forgiveness, which is at once granted. The
    second is that of a breach of a prohibition, when, besides
    repentance, the Day of Atonement is required. The third is
    that of purposed sin, on which death or cutting off had been
    threatened, when, besides repentance and the Day of
    Atonement, sufferings are required; while in open profanation
    of the Name of God, only death can make final atonement. [b
    See also Yoma 86 and following.]

     But the nature of repentance has yet to be more fully
    explained. Its gate is sorrow and shame. [c Ber. 12 b; Chag.
    5 a.] In that sense repentance may be the work of a moment,
    'as in the twinkling of an eye,' [d Pesiqta ed. Bub. p. 163
    b.] and a life's sins may obtain mercy by the tears and
    prayers of a few minutes' repentance.' [2 This is
    illustrated, among other things, by the history of a Rabbi
    who, at the close of a dissolute life, became a convert by
    repentance. The story of the occasion of his repentance is
    not at all nice in its realistic details, and the tears with
    which a self-righteous colleague saw the beatification of the
    penitent are painfully illustrative of the elder brother in
    the Parable of the Prodigal Son (Ab. Z. 17 a).] To this also
    refers the beautiful saying, that all which rendered a
    sacrifice unfit for the altar, such as that it was broken,
    fitted the penitent for acceptance, since 'the sacrifices of
    God were a broken and contrite heart.' [f Vayyik. R. 7.] By
    the side of what may be called contrition, Jewish theology
    places confession (Viddui, ). This was deemed so integral a
    part of repentance, that those about to be executed, [g Sanh.
    vi. 2.]or to die, [h Shabb. 32 a.] were admonished to it.
    Achan of old had thus obtained pardon. [i Sanh. u. s.] But in
    the case of the living all this could only be regarded as
    repentance in the sense of being its preparation or
    beginning. Even if it were Charatah, or regret at the past,
    it would not yet be Teshubhah, or return to God; and even if
    it changed purposed into unintentional sin, arrested
    judgment, and stayed or banished its Angel, it would still
    leave a man without those works which are not only his real
    destiny and merit heaven, but constitute true repentance.
    For, as sin is ultimately dereliction of the Law, beginning
    within, so repentance is ultimately return to the Law. In
    this sense there is a higher and meritorious confession,
    which not only owns sin but God, and is therefore an inward
    return to Him. So Adam, when he saw the penitence of Cain,
    burst into this Psalm, [a Ps. xcii.] 'It is a good thing to
    confess [1 So it would need to be rendered in this context.]
    unto the Lord.' [b Ber. R. 22.] [2 Another beautiful allegory
    is that, in the fear of Adam, as the night closed in upon his
    guilt, God gave him two stones to rub against each other,
    which produced the spark of light, the rubbing of these two
    stones being emblematic of repentance (Pes. 54 a; Ber. R. 11,
    12).] Manasseh, when in trouble, called upon God and was
    heard, [c 2 Chron. xxxiii. 12, 13.] although it is added,
    that this was only done in order to prove that the door of
    repentance was open to all. Indeed, the Angels had closed the
    windows of Heaven against his prayers, but God opened a place
    for their entrance beneath His throne of glory. [d Debar. R.
    2; ed. Warsh. p. 7 a; comp. Sanh. 102 b, last lines, and 103
    a.] Similarly, even Pharaoh, who, according to Jewish
    tradition, made in the Red Sea confession of God, [e Ex. xv.
    11.] was preserved, became king of Nineveh, and so brought
    the Ninevites to true repentance, which verily consisted not
    merely in sackcloth and fasting, but in restitution, so that
    every one who had stolen a beam pulled down his whole palace
    to restore it. [f Taan. 16 a.]

     But, after all, inward repentance only arrested the decrees
    of justice. [g Rosh haSh. 17 b.] That which really put the
    penitent into right relationship with God was good deeds. The
    term must here be taken in its widest sense. Fasting is
    meritorious in a threefold sense: as the expression of
    humiliation, [h Baba. Mez. 85 a.] as an offering to God,
    similar to, but better than the fat of sacrifices on the
    altar, [i Ber. 17 a.] and as preventing further sins by
    chastening and keeping under the body. [k u. s.] A similar
    view must be taken of self-inflicted penances. [m Baba Mez.
    85 a.] [3 Baba Mez. 84 b (quoted by Weber) is scarcely an
    instance. The whole of that part of the Talmud is specially
    repugnant, from its unsavory character and grossly absurd
    stories. In one of the stories in Baba Mez. 85, a Rabbi tries
    by sitting over the fire in an oven, whether he has become
    impervious to the fire of Gehinnom. For thirty days he was
    successful, but after that it was noticed his thighs were
    singed, whence he was called 'the little one with the singed
    thighs.'] On the other hand, there was restitution to those
    who had been wronged, as a woman once put it to her husband,
    to the surrender of one's 'girdle.' [n Tanch. Noach 4.] [4
    But such restitution was sometimes not insisted on, for the
    sake of encouraging penitents.] Nay, it must be of even more
    than was due in strict law. [o See the discussion in B. Mez.
    37 a.] To this must be added public acknowledgment of public
    sins. If a person had sinned in one direction, he must not
    only avoid it for the future, [5 Rabbinism has an apt
    illustration of this in the saying, that all the baths of
    lustration would not cleanse a man, so long as he continued
    holding in his hand that which had polluted him (Taan. 16
    a).] but aim at doing all the more in the-opposite direction,
    or of overcoming sin in the same circumstances of temptation.
    [6 These statements are all so thoroughly Rabbinic that it is
    needless to make special references.] Beyond all this were
    the really good works, whether occupation with the Law [a
    Vayyik. R. 3, towards the end.] or outward deeds, which
    constituted perfect repentance. Thus we read, [b In B. Bab.
    10 a.] that every time Israel gave alms or did any kindness,
    they made in this world great peace, and procured great
    Paracletes between Israel and their Father in Heaven. Still
    farther, we are told [c Vayyik. R. 25, beg. ed. Warsh. p. 38
    a.] what a sinner must do who would be pardoned. If he had
    been accustomed daily to read one column in the Bible, let
    him read two; if to learn one chapter in the Mishnah, let him
    learn two. But if he be not learned enough to do either, let
    him become an administrator for the congregation, or a public
    distributor of alms. Nay, so far was the doctrine of external
    merit carried, that to be buried in the land of Israel was
    supposed to ensure forgiveness of sins. [d Tanch. on Gen.
    xlviii.] This may, finally, be illustrated by an instance,
    which also throws some light on the parable of Dives in
    Hades. Rabbi Simeon ben Lakish had in early life been the
    associate of two robbers. But he repented, 'returned to his
    God with all his heart, with fasting and prayer, was early
    and late before God, and busied himself with the Torah (Law)
    and the commandments.' Then both he and his former companions
    died, when they saw him in glory, while themselves were in
    the lowest hell. And when they reminded God, that with Him
    there was no regard of persons, He pointed to the Rabbi's
    penitence and their own impenitence. On this they asked for
    respite, that they might 'do great penitence,' when they were
    told that there was no space for repentance after death. This
    is farther enforced by a parable to the effect, that a man,
    who is going into the wilderness, must provide himself with
    bread and water while in the inhabited country, if he would
    not perish in the desert.

     Thus, in one and another respect, Rabbinic teaching about
    the need of repentance runs close to that of the Bible. But
    the vital difference between Rabbinism and the Gospel lies in
    this: that whereas Jesus Christ freely invited all sinners,
    whatever their past, assuring them of welcome and grace, the
    last word of Rabbinism is only despair, and a kind of
    Pessimism. For, it is expressly and repeatedly declared in
    the case of certain sins, and, characteristically, of heresy,
    that, even if a man genuinely and truly repented, he must
    expect immediately to die, indeed, his death would be the
    evidence that his repentance was genuine, since, though such
    a sinner might turn from his evil, it would be impossible for
    him, if he lived, to lay hold on the good, and to do it. [e
    Ab. Zar. 17 a.]

     It is in the light of what we have just learned concerning
    the Rabbinic views of forgiveness and repentance that the
    call of Levi-Matthew must be read, if we would perceive its
    full meaning. There is no need to suppose that it took place
    immediately on the cure of the paralytic. On the contrary,
    the more circumstantial account of St. Mark implies, that
    some time had intervened. [a St. Mark ii. 13.] If our
    suggestion be correct, that it was winter when the paralytic
    was healed at Capernaum, we may suppose it to have been the
    early spring-time of that favoured district, when Jesus 'went
    forth again by the seaside.' And with this, as we shall see,
    best agrees the succession of afterevents.

     Few, if any, could have enjoyed better opportunities for
    hearing, and quietly thinking over the teaching of the
    Prophet of Nazareth, than Levi-Matthew. There is no occasion
    for speculating which was his original, or whether the second
    name was added after his conversion, since in Galilee it was
    common to have two names, one the strictly Jewish, the other
    the Galilean. [b Gitt. 34 b.] Nor do we wonder, that in the
    sequel the first or purely Jewish name of Levi was dropped,
    and only that of Matthew (Matti, Mattai, Matteya,
    Mattithyah), retained. The latter which is the equivalent of
    Nathanael, or of the Greek Theodore (gift of God), seems to
    have been frequent. We read that it was that of a former
    Temple-official, [c Sheq. v. 1.] and of several Rabbis. [d
    Eduy. ii. 5; Yoma 84 a.] It is perhaps of more interest, that
    the Talmud [e Sanh. 43 a, in the older editions; comp,
    Chesron. haShas, p. 22 b.] names five as the disciples of
    Jesus, and among them these two whom we can clearly identify:
    Matthew [1 A ridiculous story is told that Matthew endeavored
    to avert sentence of death by a play on his name, quoting Ps.
    xlii. 2: 'Mathai (in our version, 'When') I shall come and
    appear before God;' to which the judges replied by similarly
    adapting Ps. xli. 5: 'Mathai (in our version, 'When') he
    shall die, and his name perish.'] and Thaddaeus. [2 The other
    three disciples are named: Neqai, Netser, and Boni, or Buni.
    In Taan. 20 a a miracle is related which gave to Boni the
    name of Nicodemus (Naqdimon). But I regard this as some
    confusion, of which there is much in connection with the name
    of Nicodemus in the Talmud. According to the Talmud, like
    Matthew, the other three tried to save their lives by punning
    appeals to Scripture, similar to that of St. Matthew. Thus,
    Neqai quotes Exod. xxiii. 7, 'Naqi ('the innocent' in our
    version) and the righteous shalt thou not slay,' to which the
    judges replied by Ps. x. 8, 'in the secret places he shall
    slay Naqi ('the innocent' in our version'). Again, Netser
    pleads Is. xi. 1: 'Netser (a branch) shall grow out of his
    roots,' to which the judges reply, Is. xiv. 19: 'Thou art
    cast out of thy grave like an abominable Netser' (branch),
    while Boni tries to save his life by a pun on Exod. iv. 22:
    'My first-born Beni (in our version, 'my son') is Israel,' to
    which the judges reply by quoting the next verse, 'I will
    slay Binkha (in our version, 'thy son'), thy first-born!' If
    the Hebrew Beni was sometimes pronounced Boni, this may
    account for the Grecianised form Boanerges ('sons of
    thunder') for Beney-Regosh, or Regasha. In Hebrew the root
    scarcely means even 'noise' (see Gesenius sub ), but it has
    that meaning in the Aramaean. Kautzsch (Gram. d. Bibl.-Aram.)
    suggests the word regaz 'anger,' 'angry impetuosity.' But the
    suggestion does not commend itself.]

     Sitting before [3 .] his custom-house, as on that day when
    Jesus called him, Matthew must have frequently heard Him as
    He taught by the sea-shore. For this would be the best, and
    therefore often chosen, place for the purpose. Thither not
    only the multitude from Capernaum could easily follow; but
    here was the landing-place for the many ships which traversed
    the Lake, or coasted from town to town. And this not only for
    them who had business in Capernaum or that neighbourhood, but
    also for those who would then strike the great road of
    Eastern commerce, which led from Damascus to the harbours of
    the West. Touching the Lake in that very neighbourhood, it
    turned thence, northwards and westwards, to join what was
    termed the Upper Galilean road.
     We know much, and yet, as regards details, perhaps too
    little about those 'tolls, dues, and customs,' which made the
    Roman administration such sore and vexatious exaction to all
    'Provincials,' and which in Judaea loaded the very name of
    publican with contempt and hatred. They who cherished the
    gravest religious doubts as to the lawfulness of paying any
    tribute to Caesar, as involving in principle recognition of a
    bondage to which they would fain have closed their eyes, and
    the substitution of heathen kingship for that of Jehovah,
    must have looked on the publican as the very embodiment of
    antinationalism. But perhaps men do not always act under the
    constant consciousness of such abstract principles. Yet the
    endless vexatious interferences, the unjust and cruel
    exactions, the petty tyranny, and the extortionate avarice,
    from which there was neither defence nor appeal, would make
    it always well-nigh unbearable. It is to this that the Rabbis
    so often refer. If 'publicans') were disqualified from being
    judges or witnesses, it was, at least so far as regarded
    witnessbearing, because 'they exacted more than was due.' [a
    Sanh. 25 b.] Hence also it was said, that repentance was
    specially difficult for tax-gatherers and custom-house
    officers. [b Baba K. 94 b.] [1 With them herdsmen were
    conjoined, on account of their frequent temptations to
    dishonesty, and their wild lives far from ordinances.]

     It is of importance to notice, that the Talmud distinguishes
    two classes of 'publicans': the tax-gatherer in general
    (Gabbai), and the Mokhes, or Mokhsa, who was specially the
    douanier or custom-house official. [2 Wunsche is mistaken in
    making the Gabbai the superior, and the Mokhes the
    subordinate, tax-collector. See Levy, Neuhebr. Worterb, iii.
    p. 116 a.] Although both classes fall under the Rabbinic ban,
    the douanier, such as Matthew was, is the object of chief
    execration. And this, because his exactions were more
    vexatious, and gave more scope to rapacity. The Gabbai, or
    tax-gatherer, collected the regular dues, which consisted of
    ground-, income-, and poll-tax. The groundtax amounted to
    one-tenth of all grain and one-fifth of the wine and fruit
    grown; partly paid in kind, and partly commuted into money.
    The income-tax amounted to 1 per cent.; while the head-money,
    or poll-tax, was levied on all persons, bond and free, in the
    case of men from the age of fourteen, in that of women from
    the age of twelve, up to that of sixty-five.

     If this offered many opportunities for vexatious exactions
    and rapacious injustice, the Mokhes might inflict much
    greater hardship upon the poor people. There was tax and duty
    upon all imports and exports; on all that was bought and
    sold; bridge-money, road-money, harbour-dues, town-dues, &c.
    The classical reader knows the ingenuity which could invent a
    tax, and find a name for every kind of exaction, such as on
    axles, wheels, pack-animals, pedestrians, roads, highways; on
    admission to markets; on carriers, bridges, ships, and quays;
    on crossing rivers, on dams, on licences, in short, on such a
    variety of objects, that even the research of modern scholars
    has not been able to identify all the names. On goods the ad
    valorem duty amounted to from 2 1/2 to 5, and on articles of
    luxury to even 12 1/2 per cent. But even this was as nothing,
    compared to the vexation of being constantly stopped on the
    journey, having to unload all one's pack-animals, when every
    bale and package was opened, and the contents tumbled about,
    private letters opened, and the Mokhes ruled supreme in his
    insolence and rapacity.

     The very word Mokhes seems, in its root-meaning, associated
    with the idea of oppression and injustice. He was literally,
    as really, an oppressor. The Talmud charges them with gross
    partiality, remitting in the case of those to whom they
    wished to show favour, and exacting from those who were not
    their favourites. They were a criminal race, to which Lev.
    xx. 5 applied. It was said, that there never was a family
    which numbered a Mokhes, in which all did not become such.
    Still, cases are recorded when a religious publican would
    extend favour to Rabbis, or give them timely notice to go
    into hiding. If one belonging to the sacred association (a
    Chabher) became either a Gabbai or a Mokhes, he was at once
    expelled, although he might be restored on repentance. [a
    Jer. Dem. 23 a; comp. Bekhor. 31 a.] That there was ground
    for such rigour, appears from such an occurrence, [b In B.
    Kamma x. 2.] as when a Mokhes took from a defenceless person
    his ass, giving him another, and very inferior, animal for
    it. Against such unscrupulous oppressors every kind of
    deception was allowed; goods might be declared to be votive
    offerings, [c Nedar. iii. 4.] or a person pass his slave as
    his son. [d Jer. Kidd. 66 b.]

     The Mokhes was called 'great' [e Shabb. 78 b] if he employed
    substitutes, and 'small' if he stood himself at the receipt
    of custom. Till the time of Caesar the taxes were farmed in
    Rome, at the highest bidding, mostly by a joint-stock company
    of the knightly order, which employed publicans under them.
    But by a decree of Caesar, the taxes of Judaea were no longer
    farmed, but levied by publicans in Judaea, and paid directly
    to the Government, the officials being appointed by the
    provincials themselves. [a Jos. Ant. xiv. 10. 5.] [Comp.
    Wieseler's Beitr. pp. 75-78. Hence the 'publicans' were not
    subordinates, but direct officials of the Government.] This
    was, indeed, a great alleviation, although it perhaps made
    the tax-gatherers only more unpopular, as being the direct
    officials of the heathen power. This also explains how, if
    the Mishnah forbids [b B. Kamma x. 1.] even the changing of
    money from the guilt-laden chest of a Mokhes, or douanier,
    the Gemara [c Baba K. 113 a.] adds, that such applied to
    custom-house officers who either did not keep to the tax
    appointed by the Government, or indeed to any fixed tax, and
    to those who appointed themselves to such office, that is, as
    we take it, who would volunteer for the service, in the hope
    of making profit on their own account. An instance is,
    however, related of a Gabbai, or tax-gatherer, becoming a
    celebrated Rabbi, though the taint of his former calling
    deterred the more rigid of his colleagues from intercourse
    with him. [d Bekhor. 31 a.] On heathen feast days toll was
    remitted to those who came to the festival. [e Ab. Zar. 13
    a.] Sometimes this was also done from kindness. [f Tos. B.
    Mets. viii. 25, ed. Zuck.] The following story may serve as a
    final illustration of the popular notions, alike about
    publicans and about the merit of good works. The son of a
    Mokhes and that of a very pious man had died. The former
    received from his townsmen all honour at his burial, while
    the latter was carried unmourned to the grave. This anomaly
    was Divinely explained by the circumstance, that the pious
    man had committed one transgression, and the publican had
    done one good deed. But a few days afterwards a further
    vision and dream was vouchsafed to the survivors, when the
    pious was seen walking in gardens beside water-brooks, while
    the publican was described stretching out his tongue towards
    the river to quench his thirst, but unable to reach the
    refreshing stream. [g Jer. Chag. 77 d; comp Jer. Sanh. 23 c,
    and Sanh. 44 b.]

     What has been described in such detail, will cast a peculiar
    light on the call of Matthew by the Saviour of sinners. For,
    we remember that Levi-Matthew was not only a 'publican,' but
    of the worst kind: a 'Mokhes' or douanier; a 'little Mokhes,'
    who himself stood at his custom-house; one of the class to
    whom, as we are told, repentance offered special
    difficulties. And, of all such officials, those who had to
    take toll from ships were perhaps the worst, if we are to
    judge by the proverb: 'Woe to the ship which sails without
    having paid the dues.' [a Ab. Zar. 10 b.] And yet, after all,
    Matthew may have been only one of that numerous class to whom
    religion is merely a matter quite outside of, and in another
    region from life, and who, having first gone astray through
    ignorance, feel themselves ever farther repelled, or rather
    shut out, by the narrow, harsh uncharitableness of those whom
    they look upon as the religious and pious.

     But now quite another day had dawned on him. The Prophet of
    Nazareth was not like those other great Rabbis, or their
    pietist, selfrighteous imitators. There was that about Him
    which not only aroused the conscience, but drew the heart,
    compelling, not repelling. What He said opened a new world.
    His very appearance bespoke Him not harsh, self-righteous,
    far away, but the Helper, if not even the Friend, of sinners.
    There was not between Him and one like Matthew, the great,
    almost impassable gap of repentance. He had seen and heard
    Him in the Synagogue, and who that had heard His Words, or
    witnessed His power, could ever forget, or lose the
    impression? The people, the rulers, even the evil spirits,
    had owned His authority. But in the Synagogue Jesus was still
    the Great One, far-away from him; and he, Levi-Matthew, the
    'little Mokhes' of Capernaum, to whom, as the Rabbis told
    him, repentance was next to impossible. But out there, in the
    open, by the seashore, it was otherwise. All unobserved by
    others, he observed all, and could yield himself, without
    reserve, to the impression. Now, it was an eager multitude
    that came from Capernaum; then, a long train bearing
    sufferers, to whom gracious, full, immediate relief was
    granted, whether they were Rabbinic saints, or sinners. And
    still more gracious than His deeds were His Words.

     And so Matthew sat before his custom-house, and hearkened
    and hoped. Those white-sailed ships would bring crowds of
    listeners; the busy caravan on that highway would stop, and
    its wayfarers turn aside to join the eager multitude, to hear
    the Word or see the Word. Surely, it was not 'a time for
    buying and selling,' and Levi would have little work, and
    less heart for it at his custom-house. Perhaps he may have
    witnessed the call of the first Apostles; he certainly must
    have known the fishermen and shipowners of Capernaum. And now
    it appeared, as if Jesus had been brought still nearer to
    Matthew. For, the great ones of Israel, 'the Scribes of the
    Pharisees,' [1 This is perhaps the better reading of St. Mark
    ii. 16.] and their pietest followers, had combined against
    Him, and would exclude Him, not on account of sin, but on
    account of the sinners. And so, we take it, long before that
    eventful day which for ever decided his life, Matthew had, in
    heart, become the disciple of Jesus. Only he dared not, could
    not, have hoped for personal recognition, far less for call
    to discipleship. But when it came, and Jesus fixed on him
    that look of love which searched the inmost deep of the soul,
    and made Him the true Fisher of men, it needed not a moment's
    thought or consideration. When he spake it, 'Follow Me,' the
    past seemed all swallowed up in the present heaven of bliss.
    He said not a word, for his soul was in the speechless
    surprise of unexpected love and grace; but he rose up, left
    the custom-house, and followed Him. That was a gain that day,
    not of Matthew alone, but of all the poor and needy in
    Israel, nay, of all sinners from among men, to whom the door
    of heaven was opened. And, verily, by the side of Peter, as
    the stone, we place Levi-Matthew, as typical of those rafters
    laid on the great foundation, and on which is placed the
    flooring of that habitation of the Lord, which is His Church.

     It could not have been long after this, probably almost
    immediately, that the memorable gathering took place in the
    house of Matthew, which gave occasion to that cavil of the
    Pharisaic Scribes, which served further to bring out the
    meaning of Levi's call. For, opposition ever brings into
    clearer light positive truth, just as judgment comes never
    alone, but always conjoined with display of higher mercy. It
    was natural that all the publicans around should, after the
    call of Matthew, have come to his house to meet Jesus. Even
    from the lowest point of view, the event would give them a
    new standing in the Jewish world, in relation to the Prophet
    of Nazareth. And it was characteristic that Jesus should
    improve such opportunity. When we read of 'sinners' as in
    company with these publicans, it is not necessary to think of
    gross or open offenders, though such may have been included.
    For, we know what such a term may have included in the
    Pharisaic vocabulary. Equally characteristic was it, that the
    Rabbinists should have addressed their objection as to
    fellowship with such, not to the Master, but to the
    disciples. Perhaps, it was not only, nor chiefly, from moral
    cowardice, though they must have known what the reply of
    Jesus would have been. On the other hand, there was wisdom,
    or rather cunning, in putting it to the disciples. They were
    but initial learners, and the question was one not so much of
    principle, as of acknowledged Jewish propriety. Had they been
    able to lodge this cavil in their minds, it would have
    fatally shaken the confidence of the disciples in the Master;
    and, if they could have been turned aside, the cause of the
    new Christ would have been grievously injured, if not
    destroyed. It was with the same object, that they shortly
    afterwards enlisted the aid of the well-meaning, but only
    partially-instructed disciples of John on the question of
    fasting, [a St. Matt. ix. 14-17.] which presented a still
    stronger consensus of Jewish opinion as against Christ, all
    the more telling, that here the practice of John seemed to
    clash with that of Jesus.

     But then John was at the time in prison, and passing through
    the temporary darkness of a thick cloud towards the fuller
    light. But Jesus could not leave His disciples to answer for
    themselves. What, indeed, could or would they have had to
    say? And He ever speaks for us, when we cannot answer for
    ourselves. From their own standpoint and contention, nay,
    also in their own form of speech, He answered the Pharisees.
    And He not only silenced their gain-saying, but further
    opened up the meaning of His acting, nay, His very purpose
    and Mission. 'No need have they who are strong and in health
    [b The latter in St. Luke v. 31.] of a physician, but they
    who are ill.' It was the very principle of Pharisaism which
    He thus set forth, alike as regarded their self-exclusion
    from Him and His consorting with the diseased. And, as the
    more Hebraic St. Matthew adds, applying the very Rabbinic
    formula, so often used when superficial speciousness of
    knowledge is directed to further thought and information: 'Go
    and learn!' [1 , a very common formula, where further thought
    and instruction are required. So common, indeed, is it, that
    it is applied in the sense of 'let,' such or such thing 'come
    and teach' ( ). Sometimes the formula is varied, as , 'come
    and see' (Baba Bath. 10 a), or , 'go and see' (u. s., b).]
    Learn what? What their own Scriptures meant; what was implied
    in the further prophetic teaching, as correction of a
    one-sided literalism and externalism that misinterpreted the
    doctrine of sacrifices, learn that fundamental principle of
    the spiritual meaning of the Law as explanatory of its mere
    letter, 'I will have mercy, and not sacrifice.' They knew no
    mercy that was not sacrifice [2 Even in that beautiful page
    in the Talmud (Succ. 49 b) righteousness and sacrifices are
    compared, the former being declared the greater; and then
    righteousness is compared with works of kindness with alms,
    &c.] with merit attaching; He no sacrifice, real and
    acceptable to God, that was not mercy. And this also is a
    fundamental principle of the Old Testament, as spiritually
    understood; and, being such a fundamental principle, He
    afterwards again applied this saying of the prophet [c Hos.
    vi. 6.] to His own mode of viewing and treating the
    Sabbath-question. [d St. Matt. xii. 7.]

     This was one aspect of it, as Jesus opened up anew the Old
    Testament, of which their key of knowledge had only locked
    the door. There was yet another and higher, quite explaining
    and applying alike this saying and the whole Old Testament,
    and thus His Own Mission. And this was the fullest unfolding
    and highest vindication of it: 'For, I am not come to call
    righteous men, but sinners.' [1 Mark the absence of the
    Article.] The introduction of the words 'torepentance' in
    some manuscripts of St. Matthew and St. Mark shows, how early
    the full meaning of Christ's words was misinterpreted by
    prosaic apologetic attempts, that failed to fathom their
    depth. For, Christ called sinners to better and higher than
    repentance, even to Himself and His Kingdom; and to
    'emendate' the original record by introducing these words
    from another Gospel [2 See the note on p. 507.] marks a
    purpose, indicative of retrogression. And this saying of
    Christ concerning the purpose of His Incarnation and Work:
    'to call not righteous men, but sinners,' also marks the
    standpoint of the Christ, and the relation which each of us,
    according to his view of self, of righteousness, and of sin,
    personally, voluntarily, and deliberately, occupies towards
    the Kingdom and the Christ.

     The history of the call of St. Matthew has also another, to
    some extent subordinate, historical interest, for it was no
    doubt speedily followed by the calling of the other Apostles.
    [a St. Matt. x. 2-4; St. Mark iii. 13-19; St. Luke vi.
    12-19.] This is the chronological succession in the Synoptic
    narratives. It also affords some insight into the history of
    those, whom the Lord chose as bearers of His Gospel. The
    difficulties connected with tracing the family descent or
    possible relationship between the Apostles are so great, that
    we must forego all hope of arriving at any certain
    conclusion. Without, therefore, entering on details about the
    genealogy of the Apostles, and the varied arrangement of
    their names in the Gospels, which, with whatever uncertainty
    remaining in the end, may be learned from any work on the
    subject, some points at least seem clear. First, it appears
    that only the calling of those to the Apostolate is related,
    which in some sense is typical, viz. that of Peter and
    Andrew, of James and John, of Philip and Bartholomew (or Bar
    Telamyon, or Temalyon, [b Vayyik. R. 6; Pesiq, R. 22, ed.
    Friedm. p. 113 a.] generally supposed the same as Nathanael),
    and of Matthew the publican. Yet, secondly, there is
    something which attaches to each of the others. Thomas, who
    is called Didymus (which means 'twin'), is closely connected
    with Matthew, both in St. Luke's Gospel and in that of St.
    Matthew himself. James is expressly named as the son of
    Alphaeus or Clopas. [c St. John xix. 25.][3 Thus he would be
    the same as 'James the Less,' or rather 'the Little,' a son
    of Mary, the sister-in-law of the Virgin-Mother.] This we
    know to have been also the name of Matthew-Levi's father.
    But, as the name was a common one, no inference can be drawn
    from it, and it does not seem likely that the father of
    Matthew was also that of James, Judas, and Simon, for these
    three seem to have been brothers. Judas is designated by St.
    Matthew as Lebbaeus, from the Hebrew lebh, a heart, and is
    also named, both by him and by St. Mark, Thaddaeus, a term
    which, however, we would not derive, as is commonly done,
    from thad, the 'female breast,' but following the analogy of
    the Jewish name Thodah, from 'praise.' [1 As is done in the
    Rabbinic story where Thaddaeus appeals to Ps. c. 1
    (superscription) to save his life, while the Rabbis reply by
    appealing to Ps. 1. 23: 'Whoso offereth praise (thodah)
    glorifieth Me' (Sanh. 43 a, Chesr. haSh.).] In that case both
    Lebbaeus and Thaddaeus would point to the heartiness and the
    Thanksgiving of the Apostle, and hence to his character. St.
    Luke simply designates him Judas of James, which means that
    he was the brother (less probably, the son) of James. [a St.
    Luke vi. 15; comp. St. John xiv. 22.] Thus his real name
    would have been Judas Lebbaeus, and his surname Thaddaeus.
    Closely connected with these two we have in all the Gospels,
    Simon, surnamed Zelotes or Cananaean (not Canaanite), both
    terms indicating his original connection with the Galilean
    Zealot party, the 'Zealots for the Law.' [b War. iv. 3, 9.]
    His position in the Apostolic Catalogue, and the testimony of
    Hegesippus, [c Euseb. H. E. iii. 11; iv. 22.] seem to point
    him out as the son of Clopas, and brother of James, and of
    Judas Lebbaeus. These three were, in a sense, cousins of
    Christ, since, according to Hegesippus, Clopas was the
    brother of Joseph, while the sons of Zebedee were real
    cousins, their mother Salome being a sister of the Virgin. [2
    As to the identity of the names Alphaeus and Clopas, comp.
    Wetzel in the Theol. Stud. u. Krit. for 1883, Heft iii. See
    also further remarks on the sons of Clopas, in the comment on
    St. John xix. 25 in Book V. ch. xv.] Lastly, we have Judas
    Iscariot, or Ish Kerioth, 'a man of Kerioth,' a man of
    Kerioth,' a town inJudah. [d Josh. xv. 25.] Thus the betrayer
    alone would be of Judaean origin, the others all of Galilean;
    and this may throw light on not a little in his
    after-history.

     No further reference than this briefest sketch seems
    necessary, although on comparison it is clear that the
    Apostolic Catalogues in the Gospels are ranged in three
    groups, each of them beginning with respectively the same
    name (Simon, Philip, and James the son of Alphaeus). This,
    however, we may remark, how narrow, after all, was the
    Apostolic circle, and how closely connected most of its
    members. And yet, as we remember the history of their
    calling, or those notices attached to their names which
    afford a glimpse into their history, it was a circle,
    thoroughly representative of those who would gather around
    the Christ. Most marked and most solemn of all, it was after
    a night of solitary prayer on the mountain-side, that Jesus
    at early dawn 'called His disciples, and of them He chose
    twelve, whom also He named Apostles,' 'that they should be
    with Him, and that He might send them forth to preach, and to
    have power to heal sickness and to cast out devils.' [1 As to
    the designation Boanerges (sons of thunder), see note 2, p.
    514.]

 THE ASCENT: FROM THE RIVER JORDAN TO THE MOUNT OF
    TRANSFIGURATION

    THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT, THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST AND RABBINIC
    TEACHING. [1 As it was impossible to quote separately the
    different verses in the Sermon on the Mount, the reader is
    requested to have the Bible before him, so as to compare the
    verses referred to with their commentation in this chapter.]

    CHAPTER XVIII

     (St. Matt. v.-vii.)

     It was probably on one of those mountain-ranges, which
    stretch to the north of Capernaum, that Jesus had spent the
    night of lonely prayer, which preceded the designation of the
    twelve to the Apostolate. As the soft spring morning broke,
    He called up those who had learned to follow Him, and from
    among them chose the twelve, who were to be His Ambassadors
    and Representatives. [a St. Luke vi. 13.] [2 It is so that we
    group together St. Luke vi. 12, 13, 17-19, compared with St.
    Mark iii. 13-15 and St. Matthew v. 1, 2.] But already the
    early light had guided the eager multitude which, from all
    parts, had come to the broad level plateau beneath to bring
    to Him their need of soul or body. To them He now descended
    with words of comfort and power of healing. But better yet
    had He to say, and to do for them, and for us all. As they
    pressed around Him for that touch which brought virtue of
    healing to all, He retired again to the mountain-height, and
    through the clear air of the bright spring day spake, what
    has ever since been known as the 'Sermon on the Mount,' from
    the place where He sat, or as that 'in the plain' (St. Luke
    vi. 17), from the place where He had first met the multitude,
    and which so many must have continued to occupy while He
    taught.

     The first and most obvious, perhaps, also, most superficial
    thought, is that which brings this teaching of Christ into
    comparison, we shall not say with that of His contemporaries,
    since scarcely any who lived in the time of Jesus said aught
    that can be compared with it, but with the best of the wisdom
    and piety of the Jewish sages, as preserved in Rabbinic
    writings. Its essential difference, or rather contrariety, in
    spirit and substance, not only when viewed as a whole, but in
    almost each of its individual parts, will be briefly shown in
    the sequel. For the present we only express this as deepest
    conviction, that it were difficult to say which brings
    greater astonishment (though of opposite kind): a first
    reading of the 'Sermon on the Mount,' or that of any section
    of the Talmud. The general reader is here at a double
    disadvantage. From his upbringing in an atmosphere which
    Christ's Words have filled with heaven's music, he knows not,
    and cannot know, the nameless feeling which steals over a
    receptive soul when, in the silence of our moral wilderness,
    those voices first break on the ear, that had never before
    been wakened to them. How they hold the soul entranced,
    calling up echoes of inmost yet unrealised aspiration, itself
    the outcome of the God-born and God-tending within us, and
    which renders us capable of new birth into the Kingdom; call
    up, also, visions and longings of that world of heavenly
    song, so far away and yet so near us; and fill the soul with
    subduedness, expectancy, and ecstasy! So the travel-stained
    wanderer flings him down on the nearest height, to feast his
    eyes with the first sight of home in the still valley
    beneath; so the far-of exile sees in his dreams visions of
    his child-life, all transfigured; so the weary prodigal leans
    his head in silent musing of mingled longing and rest on a
    mother's knee. So, and much more; for, it is the Voice of God
    Which speaks to us in the cool of the evening, amidst the
    trees of the lost Garden; to us who, in very shame and
    sorrow, hide, and yet even so hear, not words of judgment but
    of mercy, not concerning an irrevocable, and impossible past,
    but concerning a real and to us possible future, which is
    that past, only better, nearer, dearer, for, that it is not
    the human which has now to rise to the Divine, but the Divine
    which has come down to the human.

     Or else, turn from this to a first reading of the wisdom of
    the Jewish Fathers in their Talmud. It little matters, what
    part be chosen for the purpose. Here, also, the reader is at
    disadvantage, since his instructors present to him too
    frequently broken sentences, extracts torn from their
    connection, words often mistranslated as regards their real
    meaning, or misapplied as regards their bearing and spirit;
    at best, only isolated sentences. Take these in their
    connection and real meaning, and what a terrible awakening!
    Who, that has read half-a-dozen pages successively of any
    part of the Talmud, can feel otherwise than by turns shocked,
    pained, amused, or astounded? There is here wit and logic,
    quickness and readiness, earnestness and zeal, but by the
    side of it terrible profanity, uncleanness, superstition and
    folly. Taken as a whole, it is not only utterly unspiritual,
    but anti-spiritual. Not that the Talmud is worse than might
    be expected of such writings in such times and circumstances,
    perhaps in many respects much better, always bearing in mind
    the particular standpoint of narrow nationalism, without
    which Talmudism itself could not have existed, and which
    therefore is not an accretion, but an essential part of it.
    But, taken not in abrupt sentences and quotations, but as a
    whole, it is so utterly and immeasurably unlike the New
    Testament, that it is not easy to determine which, as the
    case may be, is greater, the ignorance or the presumption of
    those who put them side by side. Even where spiritual life
    pulsates, it seems propelled through valves that are
    diseased, and to send the life-blood gurgling back upon the
    heart, or along ossified arteries that quiver not with life
    at its touch. And to the reader of such disjointed Rabbinic
    quotations there is this further source of misunderstanding,
    that the form and sound of words is so often the same as that
    of the sayings of Jesus, however different their spirit. For,
    necessarily, the wine, be it new or old, made in Judaea,
    comes to us in Palistinian vessels. The new teaching, to be
    historically true, must have employed the old forms and
    spoken the old language. But the ideas underlying terms
    equally employed by Jesus and the teachers of Israel are, in
    everything that concerns the relation of souls to God, so
    absolutely different as not to bear comparison. Whence
    otherwise the enmity and opposition to Jesus from the first,
    and not only after His Divine claim had been pronounced?
    These two, starting from principles alien and hostile, follow
    opposite directions, and lead to other goals. He who has
    thirsted and quenched his thirst at the living fount of
    Christ's Teaching, can never again stoop to seek drink at the
    broken cisterns of Rabbinism.

     We take here our standpoint on St. Matthew's account of the
    'Sermon on the Mount,' to which we can scarcely doubt that by
    St. Luke [a St. Luke vi.] is parallel. Not that it is easy,
    or perhaps even possibleto determine, whether all that is now
    grouped in the 'Sermon on the Mount' was really spoken by
    Jesus on this one occasion. From the plan and structure of
    St. Matthew's Gospel, the presumption seems rather to the
    contrary. For, isolated parts of it are introduced by St.
    Luke in other connections, yet quite fitly. [1 The reader
    will find these parallelisms in Dean Plumptre's Notes on St.
    Matthew v. 1 (in Bishop Ellicott's Commentary for English
    Readers, vol. i. of the N.T. p. 20).] On the other hand, even
    in accordance with the traditional characterisation of St.
    Matthew's narrative, we expect in it the fullest account of
    our Lord's Discourses, [1 Comp. Euseb. H. Eccl. iii. 39.]
    while we also notice that His Galilean Ministry forms the
    main subject of the First Gospel. [2 Thus St. Matthew passes
    over those earlier events in the Gospel-history of which
    Judaea was the scene, and even over the visits of Jesus to
    Jerusalem previous to the last Passover, while he devotes not
    less than fourteen chapters and a half to the half-year's
    activity in Galilee. If St. John's is the Judaean, St.
    Matthew's is the Galilean Gospel.] And there is one
    characteristic of the 'Sermon on the Mount' which, indeed,
    throws light on the plan of St. Matthew's work in its
    apparent chronological inversion of events, such as in its
    placing the 'Sermon on the Mount' before the calling of the
    Apostles. We will not designate the 'Sermon on the Mount' as
    the promulgation of the New Law, since that would be a far
    too narrow, if not erroneous, view of it. But it certainly
    seems to correspond to the Divine Revelation in the 'Ten
    Words' from Mount Sinai. Accordingly, it seems appropriate
    that the Genesis-part of St. Matthew's Gospel should be
    immediately followed by the Exodus-part, in which the new
    Revelation is placed in the forefront, to the seeming breach
    of historical order, leaving it afterwards to be followed by
    an appropriate grouping of miracles and events, which we know
    to have really preceded the 'Sermon on the Mount.'

     Very many-sided is that 'Sermon on the Mount,' so that
    different writers, each viewing it from his standpoint, have
    differently sketched its general outline, and yet carried to
    our minds the feeling that thus far they had correctly
    understood it. We also might attempt humble contribution
    towards the same end. Viewing it in the light of the time, we
    might mark in it alike advancement on the Old Testament (or
    rather, unfolding of its inmost, yet hidden meaning), and
    contrast to contemporary Jewish teaching. And here we would
    regard it as presenting the full delineation of the ideal man
    of God, of prayer, and of righteousness, in short, of the
    inward and outward manifestation of discipleship. Or else,
    keeping before us the different standpoint of His hearers, we
    might in this 'Sermon' follow up this contrast to its
    underlying ideas as regards: First, the right relationship
    between man and God, or true righteousness, what inward
    graces characterise and what prospects attach to it, in
    opposition to Jewish views of merit and of reward. Secondly,
    we would mark the same contrast as regards sin (hamartology),
    temptation, &c. Thirdly, we would note it, as regards
    salvation (soteriology); and, lastly, as regards what may be
    termed moral theology: personal feelings, married and other
    relations, discipleship, and the like. And in this great
    contrast two points would prominently stand out: New
    Testament humility, as opposed to Jewish (the latter being
    really pride, as only the consciousness of failure, or
    rather, of inadequate perfectness, while New Testament
    humility is really despair of self); and again, Jewish as
    opposed to New Testament perfectness (the former being an
    attempt by means external or internal to strive up to God:
    the latter a new life, springing from God, and in God). Or,
    lastly, we might view it as upward teaching in regard to God:
    the King; inward teaching in regard to man: the subjects of
    the King; and outward teaching in regard to the Church and
    the world: the boundaries of the Kingdom.

     This brings us to what alone we can here attempt: a general
    outline of the 'Sermon on the Mount.' Its great subject is
    neither righteousness, nor yet the New Law (if such
    designation be proper in regard to what in no real sense is a
    Law), but that which was innermost and uppermost in the Mind
    of Christ, the Kingdom of God. Notably, the Sermon on the
    Mount contains not any detailed or systematic doctrinal, [1
    On this point there seems to me some confusion of language on
    the part of controversialists. Those who maintain that the
    Sermon on the Mount contains no doctrinal elements at all
    must mean systematic teaching, what are commonly called
    dogmas, since, besides St. Matt. vii. 22, 23, as Professor
    Wace has so well urged, love to God and to our neighbour mark
    both the starting-point and the final outcome of all
    theology.] nor any ritual teaching, nor yet does itprescribe
    the form of any outward observances. This marks, at least
    negatively, a difference in principle from all other
    teaching. Christ came to found a Kingdom, not a School; to
    institute a fellowship, not to propound a system. To the
    first disciples all doctrinal teaching sprang out of
    fellowship with Him. They saw Him, and therefore believed;
    they believed, and therefore learned the truths connected
    with Him, and springing out of Him. So to speak, the seed of
    truth which fell on their hearts was carried thither from the
    flower of His Person and Life.

     Again, as from this point of view the Sermon on the Mount
    differs from all contemporary Jewish teaching, so also is it
    impossible to compare it with any other system of morality.
    The difference here is one not of degree, nor even of kind,
    but of standpoint. It is indeed true, that the Words of
    Jesus, properly understood, marks the utmost limit of all
    possible moral conception. But this point does not come in
    question. Every moral system is a road by which, through
    self-denial, discipline, and effort, men seek to reach the
    goal. Christ begins with this goal, and places His disciples
    at once in the position to which all other teachers point as
    the end. They work up to the goal of becoming the 'children
    of the Kingdom;' He makes men such, freely, and of His grace:
    and this is the Kingdom. What the others labour for, He
    gives. They begin by demanding, He by bestowing: because he
    brings good tidings of forgiveness and mercy. Accordingly, in
    the real sense, there is neither new law nor moral system
    here, but entrance into a new life: 'Be ye therefore perfect,
    as your Father Which is in heaven is perfect.'

     But if the Sermon on the Mount contains not a new, nor,
    indeed, any system of morality, and addresses itself to a new
    condition of things, it follows that the promises attaching,
    for example, to the so-called 'Beatitudes' must not be
    regarded as the reward of the spiritual state with which they
    are respectively connected, nor yet as their result. It is
    not because a man is poor in spirit that his is the Kingdom
    of Heaven, in the sense that the one state will grow into the
    other, or be its result; still less is the one the reward of
    the other. [1 To adopt the language of St. Thomas Aquinas, it
    is neither meritum ex congruo, nor yet is it ex condigno. The
    Reformers fully showed not only the error of Romanism in this
    respect, but the untenableness of the theological
    distinction.] The connecting link, so to speak, the
    theological copula between the 'state' and the promise, is in
    each case Christ Himself: because He stands between our
    present and our future, and 'has opened the Kingdom of Heaven
    to all believers.' Thus the promise represents the gift of
    grace by Christ in the new Kingdom, as adapted to each case.

     It is Christ, then, as the King, Who is here flinging open
    the gates of His Kingdom. To study it more closely: in the
    three chapters, under which the Sermon on the Mount is
    grouped in the first Gospel, [a chs. v.-vii.] the Kingdom of
    God is presented successively, progressively, and
    extensively. Let us trace this with the help of the text
    itself.

     In the first part of the Sermon on the Mount [b St. Matt.
    v.] the Kingdom of God is delineated generally, first
    positively, and then negatively, marking especially how its
    righteousness goes deeper than the mere letter of even the
    Old Testament Law. It opens with ten Beatitudes, which are
    the New Testament counterpart to the Ten Commandments. These
    present to us, not the observance of the Law written on
    stone, but the realisation of that Law which, by the Spirit,
    is written on the fleshly tables of the heart. [c St. Matt.
    v. 3-12.]

     These Ten Commandments in the Old Covenant were preceded by
    a Prologue. [d Ex. xix. 3-6.] The ten Beatitudes have,
    characteristically, not a Prologue but an Epilogue, [e St.
    Matt. v. 13-16.] which corresponds to the Old Testament
    Prologue. This closes the first section, of which the object
    was to present the Kingdom of God in its characteristic
    features. But here it was necessary, in order to mark the
    real continuity of the New Testament with the Old, to show
    the relation of the one to the other. And this is the object
    of verses 17 to 20, the last-mentioned verse forming at the
    same time a grand climax and transition to the criticism of
    the Old Testament-Law in its merely literal application, such
    as the Scribes and Pharisees made. [a vv. 21 to end of ch.
    v.] For, taking even the letter of the Law, there is not only
    progression, but almost contrast, between the righteousness
    of the Kingdom and that set forth by the teachers of Israel.
    Accordingly, a detailed criticism of the Law now follows, and
    that not as interpreted and applied by 'tradition,' but in
    its barely literal meaning. In this part of the 'Sermon on
    the Mount' the careful reader will mark an analogy to Exod.
    xxi. and xxii.

     This closes the first part of the 'Sermon on the Mount.' The
    second part is contained in St. Matt. vi. In this the
    criticism of the Law is carried deeper. The question now is
    not as concerns the Law in its literality, but as to what
    constituted more than a mere observance of the outward
    commandments: piety, spirituality, sanctity. Three points
    here stood out specially, nay, stand out still, and in all
    ages. Hence this criticism was not only of special
    application to the Jews, but is universal, we might almost
    say, prophetic. These three high points are alms, prayer, and
    fasting, or, to put the latter more generally, the relation
    of the physical to the spiritual. These three are
    successively presented, negatively and positively. [b Alms,
    vi. 1-4; Prayer, vv. 5-15; Fasting, 16-18.] But even so, this
    would have been but the external aspect of them. The Kingdom
    of God carries all back to the grand underlying ideas. What
    were this or that mode of giving alms, unless the right idea
    be apprehended, of what constitutes riches, and where they
    should be sought? This is indicated in verses 19 to 21.
    Again, as to prayer: what matters it if we avoid the
    externalism of the Pharisees, or even catch the right form as
    set forth in the 'Lord's Prayer,' unless we realise what
    underlies prayer? It is to lay our inner man wholly open to
    the light of God in genuine, earnest simplicity, to be quite
    shone through by Him. [c vv. 22, 23.] It is, moreover,
    absolute and undivided self-dedication to God. [d vv. 22-24.]
    And in this lies its connection, alike with the spirit that
    prompts almsgiving, and with that which prompts real fasting.
    That which underlies all such fasting is a right view of the
    relation in which the body with its wants stands to God, the
    temporal to the spiritual. [e vv. 25 to end of ch. vi.]It is
    the spirit of prayer which must rule alike alms and fasting,
    and pervade them: the upward look and self-dedication to God,
    the seeking first after the Kingdom of God and His
    Righteousness, that man, and self, and life may be baptized
    in it. Such are the real alms, the real prayers, the real
    fasts of the Kingdom of God.

     If we have rightly apprehended the meaning of the two first
    parts of the 'Sermon on the Mount,' we cannot be at a loss to
    understand its third part, as set forth in the seventh
    chapter of St. Matthew's Gospel. Briefly, it is this, as
    addressed to His contemporaries, nay, with wider application
    to the men of all times: First, the Kingdom of God cannot be
    circumscribed, as you would do it. [a vii. 1-5.] Secondly, it
    cannot be extended, as you would do it, by external means, [b
    ver. 6.] but cometh to us from God, [c vv. 7-12.] and is
    entered by personal determination and separation. [d vv. 13,
    14.] Thirdly, it is not preached, as too often is attempted,
    when thoughts of it are merely of the external. [e vv. 15,
    16.] Lastly, it is not manifested in life in the manner too
    common among religionists, but is very real, and true, and
    good in its effects. [f vv. 17-20.] And this Kingdom, as
    received by each of us, is like a solid house on a solid
    foundation, which nothing from without can shake or destroy.
    [g vv. 24-27.]

     The infinite contrast, just set forth, between the Kingdom
    as presented by the Christ and Jewish contemporary teaching
    is the more striking, that it was expressed in a form, and
    clothed in words with which all His hearers were familiar;
    indeed, in modes of expression current at the time. It is
    this which has misled so many in their quotations of Rabbinic
    parallels to the 'Sermon on the Mount.' They perceive outward
    similarity, and they straightway set it down to identity of
    spirit, not understanding that often those things are most
    unlike in the spirit of them, which are most like in their
    form. No part of the New Testament has had a larger array of
    Rabbinic parallels adduced than the 'Sermon on the Mount;'
    and this, as we might expect, because, in teaching addressed
    to His contemporaries, Jesus would naturally use the forms
    with which they were familiar. Many of these Rabbinic
    quotations are, however, entirely inapt, the similarity lying
    in an expression or turn of words. [1 So in the quotations of
    many writers on the subject, notably those of Wunsche.]
    Occasionally, the misleading error goes even further, and
    that is quoted in illustration of Jesus' sayings which,
    either by itself or in the context, implies quite the
    opposite. A detailed analysis would lead too far, but a few
    specimens will sufficiently illustrate our meaning.

     To begin with the first Beatitude, to the poor in spirit,
    since theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven, this early Jewish
    saying [h Ab. iv. 4.] is its very counterpart, marking not
    the optimism, but the pessimism of life: 'Ever be more and
    more lowly in spirit, since the expectancy of man is to
    become the food of worms.' Another contrast to Christ's
    promise of grace to the 'poor in spirit' is presented in this
    utterance of self-righteousness [a Sanh. 43 b.] on the part
    of Rabbi Joshua, who compares the reward ( ) formerly given
    to him who brought one or another offering to the Temple with
    that of him who is of a lowly mind ( ), to whom it is
    reckoned as if he had brought all the sacrifices. To this the
    saying of the great Hillel [b Vayyik. R. 1, ed. Warsh. p. 2
    b.] seems exactly parallel: 'My humility is my greatness, and
    my greatness my humility,' which, be it observed, is elicited
    by a Rabbinic accommodation of Ps. cxiii., 5, 6: 'Who is
    exalted to sit, who humbleth himself to behold.' It is the
    omission on the part of modern writers of this explanatory
    addition, which has given the saying of Hillel even the
    faintest likeness to the first Beatitude.

     But even so, what of the promise of 'the Kingdom of Heaven?'
    What is the meaning which Rabbinism attaches to that phrase,
    and would it have entered the mind of a Rabbi to promise what
    he understood as the Kingdom to all men, Gentiles as well as
    Jews, who were poor in spirit? We recall here the fate of the
    Gentiles in Messianic days, and, to prevent misstatements,
    summarise the opening pages of the Talmudic tractate on
    Idolatry. [e Abhodah Zarah.] At the beginning of the coming
    era of the Kingdom, God is represented as opening the Torah,
    and inviting all who had busied themselves with it to come
    for their reward. On this, nation by nation appears, first,
    the Romans, insisting that all the great things they had done
    were only done for the sake of Israel, in order that they
    might the better busy themselves with the Torah. Being
    harshly repulsed, the Persians next come forward with similar
    claims, encouraged by the fact that, unlike the Romans, they
    had not destroyed the Temple. But they also are in turn
    repelled. Then all the Gentile nations urge that the Law had
    not been offered to them, which is proved to be a vain
    contention, since God had actually offered it to them, but
    only Israel had accepted it. On this the nations reply by a
    peculiar Rabbinic explanation of Exod. xix. 17, according to
    which God is actually represented as having lifted Mount
    Sinai like a cask, and threatened to put it over Israel
    unless they accepted the Law. Israel's obedience, therefore,
    was not willing, but enforced. On this the Almighty proposes
    to judge the Gentiles by the Noachic commandments, although
    it is added, that, even had they observed them, these would
    have carried no reward. And, although it is a principle that
    even a heathen, if he studied the Law, was to be esteemed
    like the High-Priest, yet it is argued, with the most
    perverse logic, that the reward of heathens who observed the
    Law must be less than that of those who did so because the
    Law was given them, since the former acted from impulse, and
    not from obedience!

     Even thus far the contrast to the teaching of Jesus is
    tremendous. A few further extracts will finally point the
    difference between the largeness of Christ's World-Kingdom,
    and the narrowness of Judaism. Most painful as the exhibition
    of profanity and national conceit is, it is needful in order
    to refute what we must call the daring assertion, that the
    teaching of Jesus, or the Sermon on the Mount, had been
    derived from Jewish sources. At the same time it must carry
    to the mind, with almost irresistible force, the question
    whence, if not from God, Jesus had derived His teaching, or
    how else it came so to differ, not in detail, but in
    principle and direction, from that of all His contemporaries.

     In the Talmudic passages from which quotation has already
    been made, we further read that the Gentiles would enter into
    controversy with the Almighty about Israel. They would urge,
    that Israel had not observed the Law. On this the Almighty
    would propose Himself to bear witness for them. But the
    Gentiles would object, that a father could not give testimony
    for his son. Similarly, they would object to the proposed
    testimony of heaven and earth, since self-interest might
    compel them to be partial. For, according to Ps. 1xxvi. 8,
    'the earth was afraid', because, if Israel had not accepted
    the Law, it would have been destroyed, but it 'became still'
    when at Sinai they consented to it. On this the heathen would
    be silenced out of the mouth of their own witnesses, such as
    Nimrod, Laban, Potiphar, Nebuchadnezzar, &c. They would then
    ask, that the Law might be given them, and promise to observe
    it. Although this was now impossible, yet God would, in His
    mercy, try them by giving them the Feast of Tabernacles, as
    perhaps the easiest of all observances. But as they were in
    their tabernacles, God would cause the sun to shine forth in
    his strength, when they would forsake their tabernacles in
    great indignation, according to Ps. ii. 3. And it is in this
    manner that Rabbinism looked for the fulfilment of those
    words in Ps. ii. 4: 'He that sitteth in the heavens shall
    laugh, the Lord shall have them in derision,' this being the
    only occasion on which God laughed! And if it were urged,
    that at the time of the Messiah all nations would become
    Jews, this was indeed true; but although they would adopt
    Jewish practices, they would apostatise in the war of Gog and
    Magog, when again Ps. ii. 4 would be realised: 'The Lord
    shall laugh at them.' And this is the teaching which some
    writers would compare with that of Christ! In view of such
    statements, we can only ask with astonishment: What
    fellowship of spirit can there be between Jewish teaching and
    the first Beatitude?

     It is the same sad self-righteousness and utter carnalness
    of view which underlies the other Rabbinic parallels to the
    Beatitudes, pointing to contrast rather than likeness. Thus
    the Rabbinic blessedness of mourning consists in this, that
    much misery here makes up for punishment hereafter. [a Erub.
    41 b.] We scarcely wonder that no Rabbinic parallel can be
    found to the third Beatitude, unless we recall the contrast
    which assigns in Messianic days the possession of earth to
    Israel as a nation. Nor could we expect any parallel to the
    fourth Beatitude, to those who hunger and thirst after
    righteousness. Rabbinism would have quite a different idea of
    'righteousness,' considered as 'good works,' and chiefly as
    almsgiving (designated as Tsedaqah, or righteousness). To
    such the most special reward is promised, and that ex opere
    operato. [b Baba B. 10 a.] Similarly, Rabbinism speaks of the
    perfectly righteous ( ) and the perfectly unrighteous, or
    else of the righteous and unrighteous (according as the good
    or the evil might weigh heaviest in the scale); and, besides
    these, of a kind of middle state. But such a conception as
    that of 'hunger' and 'thirst' after righteousness would have
    no place in the system. And, that no doubt may obtain, this
    sentence may be quoted: 'He that says, I give this "Sela" as
    alms, in order that ( ) my sons may live, and that I may
    merit the world to come, behold, this is the perfectly
    righteous.' [c Baba B. 10 b; comp. Pes. 8 a; Rosh haSh. 4 a.]
    Along with such assertions of work-righteousness we have this
    principle often repeated, that all such merit attaches only
    to Israel, while the good works and mercy of the Gentiles are
    actually reckoned to them as sin, [d B. Bath. u. s.] though
    it is only fair to add that one voice (that of Jochanan ben
    Zakkai) is raised in contradiction of such horrible teaching.

     It seems almost needless to prosecute this subject; yet it
    may be well to remark, that the same self-righteousness
    attaches to the quality of mercy, so highly prized among the
    Jews, and which is supposed not only to bring reward, [e B.
    Bath. 9 b.] but to atone for sins. [f Chag. 27 a.] [1 In Jer.
    B. Kamma 6 c, we have this saying in the name of R. Gamaliel,
    and therefore near Christian times: 'Whensoever thou hast
    mercy, God will have mercy upon thee; if thou hast not mercy,
    neither will God have mercy upon thee;' to which, however,
    this saying of Rab must be put as a pendent, that if a man
    has in vain sought forgiveness from his neighbour, he is to
    get a whole row of men to try to assuage his wrath, to which
    Job xxxiii. 28 applies; the exception, however, being,
    according to R. Jose, that if one had brought an evil name
    upon his neighbour, he would never obtain forgiveness. See
    also Shabb. 151 b.] With regard to purity of heart, there is,
    indeed, a discussion between the school of Shammai and that
    of Hillel, the former teaching that guilyy thoughts
    constitute sin, while the latter expressly confines it to
    guilty deeds. [a B. Mez. 43 b and 44 a; comp also Kidd. 42
    b.] The Beatitude attaching to peace-making has many
    analogies in Rabbinism; but the latter would never have
    connected the designation of 'children of God' with any but
    Israel. [b Ab. iii 14.] A similar remark applies to the use
    of the expression 'Kingdom of Heaven' in the next Beatitude.
     A more full comparison than has been made would almost
    require a separate treatise. One by one, as we place the
    sayings of the Rabbis by the side of those of Jesus in this
    Sermon on the Mount, we mark the same essential contrariety
    of spirit, whether as regards righteousness, sin, repentance,
    faith, the Kingdom, alms, prayer, or fasting. Only two points
    may be specially selected, because they are so frequently
    brought forward by writers as proof, that the sayings of
    Jesus did not rise above those of the chief Talmudic
    authorities. The first of these refers to the well-known
    words of our Lord: [c St. Matt. vii.12.] 'Therefore all
    things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye
    even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.' This
    is compared with the following Rabbinic parallel, [d Shabb.
    31 a.] in which the gentleness of Hillel is contrasted with
    the opposite disposition of Shammai. The latter is said to
    have harshly repelled an intending proselyte, who wished to
    be taught the whole Law while standing on one foot, while
    Hillel received him with this saying: 'What is hateful to
    thee, do not to another. This is the whole Law, all else is
    only its explanation. But it will be noticed that the words
    in which the Law is thus summed up are really only a
    quotation from Tob. iv. 15, although their presentation as
    the substance of the Law is, of course, original. But apart
    from this, the merest beginner in logic must perceive, that
    there is a vast difference between this negative injunction,
    or the prohibition to do to others what is hateful to
    ourselves, and the positive direction to do unto others as we
    would have them do unto us. [1 As already stated, it occurs
    in this negative and unspiritual form in Tob. iv. 15, and is
    also so quoted in the lately published (ed. Bryennios) ch. i.
    It occurs in the same form in Clem. Strom. ii. c. 23.] The
    one does not rise above the standpoint of the Law, being as
    yet far from that love which would lavish on others, the good
    we ourselves desire, while the Christian saying embodies the
    nearest approach to absolute love of which human nature is
    capable, making that the test of our conduct to others which
    we ourselves desire to possess. And, be it observed, the Lord
    does not put self-love as the principle of our conduct, but
    only as its ready test. Besides, the further explanation in
    St. Luke vi. 38 should here be kept in view, as also what may
    be regarded as the explanatory additions in St. Matt. v.
    42-48.

     The second instance, to which it seems desirable to advert,
    is the supposed similarity between petitions in the Lord's
    Prayer [a St. Matt. vi. 9-13.] and Rabbinic prayers. Here, we
    may remark, at the outset, that both the spirit and the
    manner of prayer are presented by the Rabbis so externally,
    and with such details, as to make it quite different from
    prayer as our Lord taught His disciples. This appears from
    the Talmudic tractate specially devoted to that subject, [b
    Berakhoth.] where the exact position, the degree of
    inclination, and other trivialities, never referred to by
    Christ, are dwelt upon at length as of primary importance. [c
    Ber. 34 a b; 32 a; 58 b.] Most painful, for example, is it [d
    Jer. Ber. 8 b.] to find this interpretation of Hezekiah's
    prayer, [e Is. xxxviii. 2. Beautiful prayers in Ber. 16 b, 17
    a; but most painful instances very frequently occur in the
    Midrashim, such as in Shem. R. 43.] when the King is
    represented as appealing to the merit of his fathers,
    detailing their greatness in contrast to Rahab or the
    Shunammite, who yet had received a reward, and closing with
    this: 'Lord of the world, I have searched the 248 members
    which Thou hast given me, and not found that I have provoked
    Thee to anger with any one of them, how much more then
    shouldest Thou on account of these prolong my life?' After
    this, it is scarcely necessary to point to the
    self-righteousness which, in this as in other respects, is
    the most painful characteristic of Rabbinism. That the
    warning against prayers at the corner of streets was taken
    from life, appears from the well-known anecdote [f Jer. Ber.
    8 c.] concerning one, Rabbi Jannai, who was observed saying
    his prayers in the public streets of Sepphoris, and then
    advancing four cubits to make the so-called supplementary
    prayer. Again, a perusal of some of the recorded prayers of
    the Rabbis [g Ber. 29 b.] will show, how vastly different
    many of them were from the petitions which our Lord taught.
    Without insisting on this, nor on the circumstance that all
    recorded Talmudic prayers are of much later date than the
    time of Jesus, it may, at the same time, be freely admitted
    that here also the form, and sometimes even the spirit,
    approached closely to the words of our Lord. On the other
    hand, it would be folly to deny that the Lord's Prayer, in
    its sublime spirit, tendency, combination, and succession of
    petitions, is unique; and that such expressions in it as 'Our
    Father,' 'the Kingdom,' 'forgiveness,' 'temptation,' and
    others, represent in Rabbinism something entirely different
    from that which our Lord had in view. But, even so, such
    petitions as 'forgive us our debts,' could, as has been shown
    in a previous chapter, have no true parallel in Jewish
    theology. [1 For some interesting Rabbinic parallels to the
    Lord's Prayer, see Dr. Taylor's learned edition of the
    'Sayings of the Jewish Fathers,' Excursus V. (pp. 138-145).
    The reader will also find much to interest him in Excursus
    IV.]

     Further details would lead beyond our present scope. It must
    suffice to indicate that such sayings as St. Matt. v. 6, 15,
    17, 25, 29, 31, 46, 47; vi. 8, 12, 18, 22, 24, 32; vii. 8, 9,
    10, 15, 17-19, 22, 23, have no parallel, in any real sense,
    in Jewish writings, whose teaching, indeed, often embodies
    opposite ideas. Here it may be interesting, by one instance,
    to show what kind of Messianic teaching would have interested
    a Rabbi. In a passage [a Abhod. Zar. 17 a and 27 b.]
    whichdescribes the great danger of intercourse with Jewish
    Christians, as leading to heresy, a Rabbi is introduced, who,
    at Sepphoris, had met one of Jesus' disciples, named Jacob, a
    'man of Kefr Sekanya,' reputed as working miraculous cures in
    the name of his Master. [1 Comp. the more full account of
    this Jacob's proposal to heal Eleazar ben Dama when bitten of
    a serpent in Jer. Shabb. xiv. end. Kefr Sekanya seems to have
    been the same as Kefr Simai, between Sepphoris and Acco
    (comp. Neubauer, Geogr. p. 234.)] It is said, that at a later
    period the Rabbi suffered grievous persecution, in punishment
    for the delight he had taken in a comment on a certain
    passage of Scripture, which Jacob attributed to his Master.
    It need scarcely be said, that the whole story is a
    fabrication; indeed, the supposed Christian interpretation is
    not even fit to be reproduced; and we only mention the
    circumstance as indicating the contrast between what
    Talmudism would have delighted in hearing from its Messiah,
    and what Jesus spoke.

     But there are points of view which may be gained from
    Rabbinic writings, helpful to the understanding of the
    'Sermon on the Mount,' although not of its spirit. Some of
    these may here be mentioned. Thus, when [b In St. Matt. v.
    18.] we read that not one jot or title shall pass from the
    Law, it is painfully interesting to find in the Talmud the
    following quotation and mistranslation of St. Matt. v. 17: 'I
    have come not to diminish from the Law of Moses, nor yet have
    I come to add to the Law of Moses.' [c Shabb. 116 b.] [2
    Delitzsch accepts a different reading, which furnishes this
    meaning, 'but I am come to add.' The passage occurs in a very
    curious connection, and for the purpose of showing the utter
    dishonesty of Christians, a Christian philosopher first
    arguing from interested motives, that since the dispersion of
    the Jews the Law of Moses was abrogated, and a new Law given;
    and the next day, having received a larger bribe, reversing
    his decision, and appealing to this rendering of St. Matt. v.
    17.] But the Talmud here significantly omits the addition
    made by Christ, on which all depends: 'till all be
    fulfilled.' Jewish tradition mentions this very letter Yod as
    irremovable, [d Jer. Sanh. p. 20 c.] adding, that if all men
    in the world were gathered together to abolish the least
    letter in the Law, they would not succeed. [e Shir. haSh. R.
    on ch. v. 11,ed. Warsh. p. 27 a.] Not a letter could be
    removed from the Law [f Shem. R. 6.], a saying illustrated by
    this curious conceit, that the Yod which was taken by God out
    of the name of Sarah (Sarai), was added to that of Hoshea,
    making him Joshua (Jehoshua). [a Sanh. 107a, and other
    passages.] Similarly, [b In Vayyik. R. 19.] the guilt of
    changing those little hooks ('titles') which make the
    distinction between such Hebrew letters as and and and, is
    declared so great, that, if such were done, the world would
    be destroyed. [1 The following are mentioned as instances:
    the change of into in Deut. vi. 4; of into in Exod. xxxiv.
    14; of into Lev. xxii. 32; of into first verse of Ps. cl.; of
    into in Jer. v. 12; into 1 Sam. ii. 2. It ought to be marked,
    that Wunsche's quotations of these passages (Bibl. Rabb. on
    Shir haSh. R. v. 11) are not always correct.] Again the
    thought about the dangerof those who broke the least
    commandment is so frequently expressed in Jewish writings, as
    scarcely to need special quotation. Only, there it is put on
    the ground, that we know not what reward may attach to one or
    another commandment. The expression 'they of old,' [c St.
    Matt. v. 21.] quite corresponds to the Rabbinic appeal to
    those that had preceded, the Zeqenim or Rishonim. In regard
    to St. Matt. v. 22, we remember that the term 'brother'
    applied only to Jews, while the Rabbis used to designate the
    ignorant [d B. Kamma 50 b.], or those who did not believe
    such exaggerations, as that in the future God would build up
    the gates of Jerusalem with gems thirty cubits high and
    broad, as Reyqa, [e Sanh. 100 a.] with this additional
    remark, that on one such occasion the look of a Rabbi had
    immediately turned the unbeliever into a heap of bones!

     Again, the opprobrious term 'fool' was by no means of
    uncommon occurrence among the sages; [f Sotah iii. 4; Shabb.
    13 b.] and yet they themselves state, that to give an
    opprobrious by-name, or to put another openly to shame, was
    one of the three things which deserved Gehenna. [g Bab. Mez.
    58 b, at bottom.] To verse 26 the following is an instructive
    parallel: 'To one who had defrauded the custom-house, it was
    said: "Pay the duty." He said to them: "Take all that I have
    with me." But the tax-gatherer answered him, "Thinkest thou,
    we ask only this one payment of duty? Nay, rather, that duty
    be paid for all the times in which according to thy wont,
    thou hast defrauded the custom-house."' [h Pesiqt. ed. Bub.
    164 a.] The mode of swearing mentioned in verse 35 was very
    frequently adopted, in order to avoid pronouncing the Divine
    Name. Accordingly, they swore by the Covenant, by the Service
    of the Temple, or by the Temple. But perhaps the usual mode
    of swearing, which is attributed even to the Almighty, is 'By
    thy life' ( ). Lastly, as regards our Lord's admonition, it
    is mentioned [i In the Midrash on Ruth iii. 18.] as
    characteristic of the pious, that their 'yea is yea,' and
    their 'nay nay.'

     Passing to St. Matt. vi., we remember, in regard to verse 2,
    that the boxes for charitable contributions in the Temple
    were trumpet-shaped, and we can understand the figurative
    allusion of Christ to demonstrative piety. [1 See 'The
    Temple. its Ministry and Services,' &c., pp. 26, 27.] The
    parallelisms in the language of the Lord's Prayer, at least
    so far as the wording, not the spirit, is concerned, have
    been frequently shown. If the closing doxology, 'Thine is the
    Kingdom, and the power, and the glory,' [a ver. 13.] were
    genuine, it would correspond to the common Jewish ascription,
    from which, in all probability, it has been derived. In
    regard to versed 14 and 15, although there are many Jewish
    parallels concerning the need of forgiving those that have
    offended us, or else asking forgiveness, we know what meaning
    Rabbinism attached to the forgiveness of sins. Similarly, it
    is scarcely necessary to discuss the Jewish views concerning
    fasting. In regard to verses 25 and 34, we may remark this
    exact parallel: [b In Sot. 48 b.] 'Every one who has a loaf
    in his basket, and says, What shall I eat to-morrow? is one
    of little faith.' But Christianity goes further than this.
    While the Rabbinic saying only forbids care when there is
    bread in the basket, our Lord would banish anxious care even
    if there were no bread in the basket. The expression in verse
    34 seems to be a Rabbinic proverb. Thus, [c Sanh. 100 b.] we
    read: 'Care not for the morrow, for ye know not what a day
    may bring forth. Perhaps he may not be on the morrow, and so
    have cared for a world that does not exist for him.' Only
    here, also, we mark that Christ significantly says not as the
    Rabbis, but, 'the morrow shall take thought for the things of
    itself.'

     In chapter vii., verse 2, the saying about having it
    measured to us with the same measure that we mete, occurs in
    precisely the same manner in the Talmud, [d Sot. i. 7.] and,
    indeed, seems to have been a proverbial expression. The
    illustration in verses 3 and 4, about the mote and the beam,
    appears thus in Rabbinic literature: [e Arach. 16 b.] 'I
    wonder if there is any one in this generation who would take
    reproof. If one said, Take the mote out of thine eye, he
    would answer, Take the beam from out thine own eye.' On which
    the additional question is raised, whether any one in that
    generation were capable of reproving. As it also occurs with
    only trifiling variations in other passages, [f B. Bath. 15
    b; Bekhor. 38 b; Yalk. on Ruth.] we conclude that this also
    was a proverbial expression. The same may be said of
    gathering 'grapes of thorns.' [g Pes. 49 a.] Similarly, the
    designation of 'pearls' (verse 6) for the valuable sayings of
    sages is common. To verse 11 there is a realistic parallel,
    [h In Ber. R 33.] when it is related, that at a certain fast,
    on account of drought, a Rabbi admonished the people to good
    deeds, on which a man gave money to the woman from whom he
    had been divorced, because she was in want. This deed was
    made a plea in prayer by the Rabbi, that if such a man cared
    for his wife who no more belonged to him, how much more
    should the Almighty care for the descendants of Abraham,
    Isaac, and Jacob. Upon this, it is added, the rain descended
    plentifully. If difference, and even contrast of spirit,
    together with similarity of form, were to be further pointed
    out, we should find it in connection with verse 14, which
    speaks of the fewness of those saved, and also verse 26,
    which refers to the absolute need of doing, as evidence of
    sonship. We compare with this what the Talmud [a Jer. Ber. 13
    d, towards the end.] says of Rabbi Simeon ben Jochai, whose
    worthiness was so great, that during his whole lifetime no
    rainbow was needed to ensure immunity from a flood, and whose
    power was such that he could say to a valley: Be filled with
    gold dinars. The same Rabbi was wont to say: 'I have seen the
    children of the world to come, and they are few. If there are
    three, I and my son are of their number; if they are two, I
    and my son are they.' After such expression of boastful
    self-righteousness, so opposed to the passage in the Sermon
    on the Mount, of which it is supposed to be the parallel, we
    scarcely wonder to read that, if Abraham had redeemed all
    generations to that of Rabbi Simon, the latter claimed to
    redeem by his own merits all that followed to the end of the
    world, nay, that if Abraham were reluctant, he (Simon) would
    take Ahijah the Shilonite with him, and reconcile the whole
    world! [b In Sukk. 45 b he proposes to conjoinwith himself
    his son, instead of Abraham.] Yet we are asked by some to see
    in such Rabbinic passages parallels to the sublime teaching
    of Christ!

     The 'Sermon on the Mount' closes with a parabolic
    illustration, which in similar form occurs in Rabbinic
    writings. Thus, [c In Ab. iii. 17.] the man whose wisdom
    exceeds his works is compared to a tree whose branches are
    many, but its roots few, and which is thus easily upturned by
    the wind; while he whose works exceed his wisdom is likened
    to a tree, whose branches are few, and its roots many,
    against which all the winds in the world would strive in
    vain. A sill more close parallel is that [d Ab. de R. Nath.
    24.] in which the man who has good works, and learns much in
    the Law, is likened to one, who in building his house lays
    stones first, and on them bricks, so that when the flood
    cometh the house is not destroyed; while he who has not good
    work, yet busies himself much with the Law, is like one who
    puts bricks below, and stones above which are swept away by
    the waters. Or else the former is like one who puts mortar
    between the bricks, fastening them one to the other; and the
    other to one who merely puts mortar outside, which the rain
    dissolves and washes away.

     The above comparisons of Rabbinic sayings with those of our
    Lord lay no claim to completeness. They will, however,
    suffice to explain and amply to vindicate the account of the
    impression left on the hearers of Jesus. But what, even more
    than all else, must have filled them with wonderment and awe
    was, that He Who so taught also claimed to be the
    God-appointed final Judge of all, whose fate would be decided
    not merely by professed discipleship, but by their real
    relation to Him (St. Matt. vii. 21-23). And so we can
    understand it, that, alike in regard to what He taught and
    what He claimed, 'The people were astonished at His doctrine:
    for He taught them as One having authority, and not as the
    Scribes.' [1 I had collected a large number of supposed or
    real Rabbinic parallels to the 'Sermon on the Mount.' But as
    they would have occupied by far too large a space, I have
    been obliged to omit all but such as would illustrate the
    fundamental position taken in this chapter, and, indeed, in
    this book: the contrariety of spirit, by the side of
    similarity of form and expressions, between the teaching of
    Jesus and that of Rabbinism.]

 THE ASCENT: FROM THE RIVER JORDAN TO THE MOUNT OF
    TRANSFIGURATION

    THE RETURN TO CAPERNAUM, HEALING OF THE CENTURION'S SERVANT.

    CHAPTER XIX

     (St. Matt. viii. 1, 5-15; St. Mark iii. 20, 21; St. Luke
    vii. 1-10.)

     We are once again in Capernaum. It is remarkable how much,
    connected not only with the Ministry of Jesus, but with His
    innermost Life, gathers around that little fishing town. In
    all probability its prosperity was chiefly due to the
    neighbouring Tiberias, which Herod Antipas [1 For a
    discussion of the precise date of the building of Tiberias,
    see Schurer, Neutest. Zeitgesch. p. 234, note 2. For details,
    comp. Jos. Ant. xviii. 2. 3; 6. 2; xix. 8. 1; War ii. 9. 1;
    21. 3, 6, 9; Life 9, 12, 17, 66, and many other places.] had
    built, about ten years previously. Noteworthy is it also, how
    many of the most attractive characters and incidents in the
    Gospel-history are connected with that Capernaum, which, as a
    city, rejected its own real glory, and, like Israel, and for
    the same reason, at last incurred a prophetic doom
    commensurate to its former privileges. [a St. Luke x 15.]

     But as yet Capernaum was still 'exalted up to heaven.' Here
    was the home of that believing Court-official, whose child
    Jesus had healed. [b St. John iv.] Here also was the
    household of Peter; and here the paralytic had found,
    together with forgiveness of his sins, health of body. Its
    streets, with their outlook on the deep blue Lake, had been
    thronged by eager multitudes in search of life to body and
    soul. Here Matthew-Levi had heard and followed the call of
    Jesus; and here the good Centurion had in stillness learned
    to love Israel, and serve Israel's King, and built with no
    niggard hand that Synagogue, most splendid of those yet
    exhumed in Galilee, which had been consecrated by the
    Presence and Teaching of Jesus, and by prayers, of which the
    conversion of Jairus, its chief ruler, seems the blessed
    answer. And now, from the Mount of Beatitudes, it was again
    to His temporary home at Capernaum that Jesus retired. [c St.
    Mark iii. 19-21.] Yet not either to solitude or to rest. For,
    of that multitude which had hung entranced on His Words many
    followed Him, and there was now such constant pressure around
    Him, that, in the zeal of their attendance upon the wants and
    demands of those who hungered after the Bread of Life, alike
    Master and disciples found not leisure so much as for the
    necessary sustenance of the body.

     The circumstances, the incessant work, and the all-consuming
    zeal which even 'His friends' could but ill understand, led
    to the apprehension,the like of which is so often entertained
    by well-meaning persons in all ages, in their practical
    ignorance of the all-engrossing but also sustaining character
    of engagements about the Kingdom, that the balance of
    judgment might be overweighted, and high reason brought into
    bondage to the poverty of our earthly frame. In its
    briefness, the account of what these 'friends,' or rather
    'those from Him', His home, said and did, is most pictorial.
    On tidings reaching them, [1 I take this as the general
    meaning, although the interpretation which paraphrases the
    ('they said,' ver. 21) as referring to the report which
    reached the seems to me strained. Those who are curious will
    find all kinds of proposed interpretations collected in
    Meyer, ad loc.] with reiterated, growing, and perhaps
    Orientally exaggerating details, they hastened out of their
    house in a neighbouring street [2 The idea that they were in
    Nazareth seems wholly unfounded.] to take possession of Him,
    as if He had needed their charge. It is not necessary to
    include the Mother of Jesus in the number of those who
    actually went. Indeed, the later express mention of His
    'Mother and brethren' [a St. Mark iii. 31.] seems rather
    opposed to the supposition. Still less does the objection
    deserve serious refutation, [3 Urged even by Meyer.] that any
    such procedure, assumedly, on the part of the Virgin-Mother,
    would be incompatible with the history of Jesus' Nativity.
    For, all must have felt, that 'the zeal' of God's House was,
    literally, 'consuming' Him, and the other view of it, that it
    was setting on fire, not the physical, but the psychical
    framework of His humiliation, seems in no way inconsistent
    with what loftiest, though as yet dim, thought had come to
    the Virgin about her Divine Son. On the other hand, this
    idea, that He was 'beside Himself,' afforded the only
    explanation of what otherwise would have been to them
    well-nigh inexplicable. To the Eastern mind especially this
    want of self-possession, the being 'beside' oneself, would
    point to possession by another, God or Devil. It was on the
    ground of such supposition that the charge was so constantly
    raised by the Scribes, and unthinkingly taken up by the
    people, that Jesus was mad, and had a devil: not a demoniacal
    possession, be it marked, but possession by the Devil, in the
    absence of self-possessedness. And hence our Lord
    characterised this charge as really blasphemy against the
    Holy Ghost. And this also explains how, while unable to deny
    the reality of His Works, they could still resist their
    evidential force.

     However that incident may for the present have ended, it
    could have caused but brief interruption to His Work.
    Presently there came the summons of the heathen Centurion and
    the healing of His servant, which both St. Matthew and St.
    Luke record, as specially bearing on the progressive
    unfolding of Christ's Mission. Notably, these two
    Evangelists; and notably, with variations due to the peculiar
    standpoint of their narratives. No really serious
    difficulties will be encountered in trying to harmonise the
    details of these two narratives; that is, if any one should
    attach importance to such precise harmony. At any rate, we
    cannot fail to perceive the reason of these variations. Meyer
    regards the account of St. Luke as the original, Keim that of
    St. Matthew, both on subjective rather than historical
    grounds. [1 The difficulties which Keim raises seem to me
    little deserving of serious treatment. Sometimes they rest on
    assumptions which, to say the least, are not grounded on
    evidence.] But we may as well note, that the circumstance,
    that the event is passed over by St. Mark, militates against
    the favourite modern theory of the Gospels being derived from
    an original tradition (what is called the 'original Mark,'
    Ur-Marcus'). [2 Godet has some excellent remarks on this
    point.]

     If we keep in view the historical object of St. Matthew, as
    primarily addressing himself to Jewish, while St. Luke wrote
    more especially for Gentile readers, we arrive, at least, at
    one remarkable outcome of the variations in their narratives.
    Strange to say, the Judaean Gospel gives the pro-Gentile, the
    Gentile narrative the pro-Jewish, presentation of the event.
    Thus, in St. Matthew the history is throughout sketched as
    personal and direct dealing with the heathen Centurion on the
    part of Christ, while in the Gentile narrative of St. Luke
    the dealing with the heathen is throughout indirect, by the
    intervention of Jews, and on the ground of the Centurion's
    spiritual sympathy with Israel. Again, St. Matthew quotes the
    saying of the Lord which holds out to the faith of Gentiles a
    blessed equality with Israel in the great hope of the future,
    while it puts aside the mere claim of Israel after the flesh,
    and dooms Israel to certain judgment. On the other hand, St.
    Luke omits all this. A strange inversion it might seem, that
    the Judaean Gospel should contain what the Gentile account
    omits, except for this, that St. Matthew argues with his
    countrymen the real standing of the Gentiles, while St. Luke
    pleads with the Gentiles for sympathy and love with Jewish
    modes of thinking. The one is not only an exposition, but a
    justification, of the event as against Israel; the other an
    Eirenicon, as well as a touching representation of the plea
    of the younger with his elder brother at the door of the
    Father's House.

     But the fundamental truth in both accounts is the same; nor
    is it just to say that in the narrative the Gentiles are
    preferred before Israel. So far from this, their faith is
    only put on an equality with that of believing Israel. It is
    not Israel, but Israel's fleshly claims and unbelief, that
    are rejected; and Gentile faith occupies, not a new position
    outside Israel, but shares with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob the
    fulfilment of the promise made to their faith. Thus we have
    here the widest Jewish universalism, the true interpretation
    of Israel's hope; and this, even by the admission of our
    opponents, [1 So notably Keim.] not as a later addition, but
    as forming part of Christ's original teaching. But if so, it
    revives, only in accentuated manner, the question: Whence
    this essential difference between the teaching of Christ on
    this subject, and that of contemporary Rabbinism.
     Yet another point may be gained from the admissions of
    negative criticism, at least on the part of its more
    thoughtful representatives. Keim is obliged to acknowledge
    the authenticity of the narrative. It is immaterial here
    which 'recension' of it may be regarded as the original. The
    Christ did say what the Gospels represent! But Strauss has
    shown, that in such case any natural or semi-natural
    explanation of the healing is impossible. Accordingly, the
    'Trilemma' left is: either Christ was really what the Gospels
    represent Him, or He was a daring enthusiast, or (saddest of
    all) He must be regarded as a conscious impostor. If either
    of the two last alternatives were adopted, it would, in the
    first instance, be necessary to point out some ground for the
    claim of such power on the part of Jesus. What could have
    prompted Him to do so? Old Testament precedent there was
    none; certainly not in the cure of Naaman by Elisha. [2 The
    differences have been well marked by Keim.] And Rabbinic
    parallelism there was none. For, although a sudden cure, and
    at a distance, is related in connection with a Rabbi, [a Ber.
    34 b.] all the circumstances are absolutely different. In the
    Jewish story recourse was, indeed, had to a Rabbi; but for
    prayer that the sick might be healed of God, not for actual
    healing by the Rabbi. Having prayed, the Rabbi informed the
    messengers who had come to implore his help, that the fever
    had left the sick. But when asked by them whether he claimed
    to be a prophet, he expressly repudiated any prophetic
    knowledge, far more any supernatural power of healing, and
    explained that liberty in prayer always indicated to him that
    his prayer had been answered. All analogy thus failing, the
    only explanation left to negative criticism, in view of the
    admitted authenticity of the narrative, is, that the cure was
    the result of the psychical influence of the Centurion's
    faith and of that of his servant. But what, in that case, of
    the words which Jesus admittedly spoke? Can we, as some would
    have it, rationally account for their use by the circumstance
    that Jesus had had experience of such psychical influences on
    disease? or that Christ's words were, so to speak, only an
    affirmation of the Centurion's faith, something between a
    'benedictory wish' and an act? Surely, suggestions like these
    carry their own refutation.

     Apart, then, from explanations which have been shown
    untenable, what is the impression left on our minds of an
    event, the record of which is admitted to be authentic? The
    heathen Centurion is a real historical personage. He was
    captain of the troop quartered in Capernaum, and in the
    service of Herod Antipas. We know that such troops were
    chiefly recruited from Samaritans and Gentiles of Caesarea.
    [a Jos. Ant. xix. 9. 1, 2.] Nor is there the slightest
    evidence that this Centurion was a 'proselyte of
    righteousness.' The accounts both in St. Matthew and in St.
    Luke are incompatible with this idea. A 'proselyte of
    righteousness' could have had no reason for not approaching
    Christ directly, nor would he have spoken of himself as
    'unfit' that Christ should come under his roof. But such
    language quite accorded with Jewish notions of a Gentile,
    since the houses of Gentiles were considered as defiled, and
    as defiling those who entered them. [b Ohal xxviii. 7.] On
    the other hand, the 'proselytes of righteousness' were in all
    respects equal to Jews, so that the words of Christ
    concerning Jews and Gentiles, as reported by St. Matthew,
    would not have been applicable to them. The Centurion was
    simply one who had learned to love Israel and to reverence
    Israel's God; one who, not only in his official position, but
    from love and reverence, had built that Synagogue, of which,
    strangely enough, now after eighteen centuries, the remains,
    [1 Comp. Warren, Recovery of Jerusalem, p. 385 &c.] in their
    rich and elaborate carvings of cornices and entablatures, of
    capitals and niches, show with what liberal hand he had dealt
    his votive offerings.

     We know too little of the history of the man, to judge what
    earlier impulses had led him to such reverence for Israel's
    God. There might have been something to incline him towards
    it in his early upbringing, perhaps in Caesarea; or in his
    family relationships; perhaps in that very servant (possibly
    a Jew) whose implicit obedience to his master seems in part
    to have led him up to faith in analogous submission of all
    things to the behests of Christ. [St. Luke vii. 8, last
    clause] The circumstances, the times, the place, the very
    position of the man, make such suppositions rational, event
    suggested them. In that case, his whole bearing would be
    consistent with itself, and with what we know of the views
    and feelings of the time. In the place where the son of his
    fellowofficial at the Court of Herod had been healed by the
    Word of Jesus, spoken at a distance, [St. john iv. 46-53] in
    the Capernaum which was the home of Jesus and the scene of so
    many miracles, it was only what we might expect, that in such
    case he should turn to Jesus and ask His help. Quiet
    consistent with his character is the straightforwardness of
    his expectancy, characteristically illustrated by his
    military experience, what Bengel designates as the wisdom of
    his faith beautifully shining out in the bluffness of the
    soldier. When he had learned to own Israel's God, and to
    believe in the absolute unlimited power of Jesus, no such
    difficulties would come to him, nor, assuredly, such cavils
    rise, as in the minds of the Scribes, or even of the Jewish
    laity. Nor is it even necessary to suppose that, in his
    unlimited faith in Jesus, the Centurion had distinct
    apprehension of His essential Divinity. In general, it holds
    true, that, throughout the Evangelic history, belief in the
    Divinity of our Lord was the outcome of experience of His
    Person and Work, not the condition and postulate of it, as is
    the case since the Pentecostal descent of the Holy Ghost and
    His indwelling in the Church.

     In view of these facts, the question with the Centurion
    would be: not, Could Jesus heal his servant, but, Would He do
    so? And again, this other specifically: Since, so far as he
    knew, no application from any in Israel, be it even publican
    or sinner, had been doomed to disappointment,would he, as a
    Gentile, be barred from share in this blessing? was he
    'unworthy,' or, rather, 'unfit' for it? Thus this history
    presents a crucial question, not only as regarded the
    character of Christ's work, but the relation to it of the
    Gentile world. Quiet consist with this, nay, its necessary
    outcome, were the scruples of the Centurion to make direct,
    personal application to Jesus. In measure as he reverenced
    Jesus, would these scruples, from his own standpoint,
    increase. As the houses of Gentiles were 'unclean,' [c Ohal
    xviii. 7] entrance. Into them, and still more familar
    fellowship, would 'defile.' The Centurion must have known
    this; and the higher he placed Jesus on the pinnacle of
    Judaism, the more natural was it for him to communicate with
    Christ through the elders of the Jews, and not to expect the
    Personal Persence of the Master, even if the application to
    him were attended with success. And here it is important (for
    the criticism of this history) to mark that, alike in the
    view of the Centurion, and even in that of the Jewish elders
    whop under-took his commission, Jesus as yet occupied the
    purely Jewish stand-point.

     Closely considered. whatever verbal differences, there is
    not any real discrepancy in this respect between the Judaean
    presentation of the event in St. Matthew and the fuller
    Gentile account of it by St. Luke. From both narratives are
    led to infer that the house of the Centurion was not in
    Capernaum itself, but in its immediate neighbourhood,
    probably on the road to Tiberias. And so in St. Matt. viii.
    7, we read the words of our Saviour when consenting: 'I,
    having come, will heal him;' just as in St. Luke's narrative
    a space of time intervenes, in which intimation is conveyed
    to the Centurion, when he sends 'friends' to arrest Christ's
    actual coming into his house. [a St. Luke vii. 6.] Nor does
    St. Matthew speaks of any actual request on the part of the
    Centurion, even though at first sight his narrative seems to
    imply a personal appearance. [b St. Matt. viii. 5.] The
    general statement 'beseeching Him', although it is not added
    in what manner, with what words, nor for what special thing,
    must be explained by more detailed narrative of the embassy
    of Jewish Elders. [1 Without the article;perhaps only some of
    them went on this errand of mercy.] There is another marked
    agreement in the seeming difference of the two accounts. In
    St. Luke's narrative, the second message of the Centurion
    embodies two different expressions, which our Authorised
    Version unfortunately renders by the same word. It should
    read: 'Trouble not Thyself, for I am not fit (Levitically
    speaking) that Thou shouldest enteer under my roof;'
    Levitically, or Judaistically speaking, my house is not a fit
    place for Thy entrance; 'Wherefore neither did I judge myself
    worthy (spiritually, morally, religiously) [ , Pondus habens,
    ejusdem ponderis cum aliqo, pretio aequans] to come unto
    Thee.' Now, markedly, in St. Matthew's presentation of the
    same event to the Jews, this latter 'worthiness' is ommitted,
    and we only have St. Luke's first term, 'fit' [ .]: 'I am not
    fit that thou shouldest come under my roof,' my house is
    unfitting Thine entrance. This seems to bear out the reasons
    previously indicated for the characteristic pecliarities of
    the two narratives.

     But in their grand leading features the two narratives
    entirely agree. There is earnest supplication for his sick,
    seemingly dying servant. [2 St. Matt. viii. 6, 'my servant
    has been thrown down (by disease in the house, paralytic.'
    The [ ] corresponds to the Hebrew . same word is used in ver.
    14, when Peter's mother-in-law is described as 'thrown down
    and fever-burning.'] Again, the Centurion in the fullest
    sense believes in the power of Jesus to heal, in the same
    manner as he knows his own commands as an officer would be
    implicitly obeyed; for, surely, no thoughtful reader would
    seriously entertain the suggestion, that the military
    language of the Centurion only meant, that he regarded
    disease as caused by evil demons or noxious power who obeyed
    Jesus, as soldiers or servants do their officer or master.
    Such might have been the underlying Jewish view of the times;
    but the fact, that in this very thing Jesus contrasted the
    faith of the Gentile with that of Israel, indicates that the
    language in question must be taken in its obvious sense. But
    in his self-acknowledged 'unfitness' lay the real 'fitness'
    of this good soldier for membership with the true Israel; and
    his deep-felt 'unworthiness' the real 'worthiness' (the
    ejusdem ponderis) for 'the Kingdom' and its blessings. It was
    this utter disclaimer of all claim, outward or inward, which
    prompted that absoluteness of trust which deemed all things
    possible with Jesus, and marked the real faith of the true
    Israel. Here was one, who was in the state described in the
    first clauses of the 'Beatitudes,' and to whom came the
    promise of the second clauses; because Christ is the
    connecting link between the two, and because He consiously
    was such to the Centurion, and, indeed, the only possible
    connecting link between them.

     And so we mark it, in what must be regarded as the
    high-point in this history, so far as its teaching to us all,
    and therefore the reason of its record in the New Testament,
    is concerned: that participation in the blessedness of the
    kingdom is not connected with any outward relationship
    towardds it, nor belongs to our inward consciousness in
    regard to it; but is grented by the King to that faith which
    in deepest simplicity reasises, and holds fast by Him. And
    yet, although discarding every Jewish claim to them, or, it
    may be, in our days, everything every Jewish claim to them,
    or, it may be, in our days, not outside, still less beyond,
    what was the hope of the Old Testament, nor in our days the
    expectancy of the Church, but are literally its fulfilment;
    the sitting down 'with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob in the
    Kingdom of Heaven.' Higher than, and beyond this not even
    Christ's provision can take us.

     But for the fuller understanding of the words of Christ, the
    Jewish modes of thought, which He used in illustration,
    required to be breifly explained. It was common belief, that
    in the day of the Messiah redeemed Israel would be gathered
    to a great feast, together with the patriachs and heroes of
    the Jewish faith. This notion, which was but a coarsely
    literal application of such prophetic figures as in Is. xxv.
    6, had perhaps yet another yet another and deeper meaning. As
    each weekly Sabbath was to be honoured by a feast, in which
    the best which the family could procure was to be placed on
    the board, so would the world's great Sabbath be marked by a
    feast in which the Great Householder, Israel's King, would
    entertain His household and Guests. Into the painfully, and,
    from the notions of the times, grossly realistic description
    of this feast, [1 One might say that all the species of
    animals are put in requisition of this great feast: Leviathan
    (B. Bath. 75a); Bhemoth (Pirke d. R. Eliez. 11); the gigantic
    bird Bar Jochani (B. Bath. 73 b; Bekhor. 57b, and other
    passages). Similar, fabulous fatted geese are mentioned

     Probably for that feast (B. Bath. 73 b). The wine there
    dispensed had been kept in the grapes from the creation of
    the world (Sanh. 99 a; Targum, on Cant. viii. It is needless
    here to enter. One thing, however, was clear: Gentiles could
    have no part in that feast. In fact, the shame and anger of
    'these' foes on seeing the 'table spread' for this Jewish
    feast was among the points specially noticed as fulfilling
    the predictions of Ps. xxiii. 5. [a Bemid. R. 21, ed. Warsh.
    iv. p. 85 a 57 a.] On this point, then, the words of Jesus in
    reference to the believing Centurion formed the most marked
    contrast to Jewish teaching.

     In another respect also we marak similar contrariety. When
    our Lord consigned the unbelieving to 'outer darkness, where
    there is weeping and gnashing of teeth,' he once more used
    Jewish language, only with opposite application of it.

     Gehinnom, of which the entrance, marked by ever ascending
    smoke, [Erub. 19 a.] was in the valley of Hinnom, between two
    palm trees, lay beyond 'the mountains of darkness.' [c
    Tamid32 b.] It wsas a place of darkness, [d Targ. on 1 Sam.
    ii. 9; Ps. lxxxvii. 12.] It was a place of darkness, [d Targ.
    on 1 Sam. ii. 9, Ps lxxxviii. 12.] to whichin the day of the
    Lord, [e Amos. v. 20.] the Gentiles would be consigned. [f.
    Yaklkut ii. p. 42 c.] On the other hand, the merit of
    ciarcumcision would in the day of the Messiah deliver Jewish
    sinners from Gehinnom. [g u. s. nine lines higher up.] It
    seems a moot question, whetherthe expression 'outer darkness
    outside the lighted house of the Father, and even beyond the
    darkness of gehinnom, a place of hopless, endless night.
    Associated with it is 'weeping [3 The use of the article
    makes it emphatic, as Bengel has it: In hac vita dolor nondum
    est dolor.] and the gnashing of teeth.' In Rabbinic thought
    the former was connected with sorrow, [4 In Succ. 52 a it is
    said that in the age to come (Athid labho) God would bring
    out the Yetser haRa (evil impulse), and slaughter it before
    the just before the wicked. To the one he would appear like a
    great mountain, to the other like a small thread. Both would
    weep, the righteous for joy, that they had been able to
    subdue so great so great a mountain; the wicked for sorrow,
    that they had not been able even to break so small a thread.]
    the latter almost always anger [This is also the meaning of
    the expression in Ps. cxii. 10. The verb is used with this
    idea in Acts vii. 54, and in the LXX, Job. xvi. 9; Ps. xxxv.
    16; xxxvii. 12; and in Rabbinical writings, for example, Jer.
    Keth. 35 b; Shem. R. 5, &c.], not, as generally supposed,
    with anguish.

     To complete our apprehension of the contrast between the
    views of the Jews and the teaching of Jesus, we must bear in
    mind that, as the Gentiles could not possibly share in the
    feast of the Messiah, so Israel had claim and title to it. To
    use Rabbinic terms, the former were 'children of Gehinnom,'
    but Israel 'children of the Kingdom,' [a St. Matt. viii. 12.]
    or, in strictly Rabbinic language, 'royal children,' [b
    Shabb. xiv. 4.] children of God,' 'of heaven,' [c Ab. iii. 14
    comp. Jer. Kidd. 61 c middle.] 'children of the upper
    chamber' (the Aliyah) [d Sanh. 97 b; Succ. 45 b.] and 'of the
    world to come.' [e Jer. Ber. 13 d, end.] In fact, in their
    view, Godhad first sat down on His throne as King, when the
    hymn of deliverance (Ex. xv. 1) was raised by Israel, the
    people which took upon itself that yoke of the Law which all
    other nations of the world had rejected. [f Pesiqta 16b;
    Shem. R. 23.]

     Never, surely, could the Judaism of His hearers have
    received more rude shock than by this inversion of all their
    cherished beliefs. of the King of all His faithful subjects,
    a joyous festive gathering with the fathers of the faith. But
    this fellowship was not of outward, but of spiritual kinship.
    There were 'children of the Kingdom, and there was an 'outer
    darkness' with its anguish and despair. But this childship
    was of the Kingdom, such as He had opened it to all
    believers; and that outer darkness theirs, who had only
    outward claims to present. And so this history of the
    believing Centurion is at the same time an application of the
    'Sermon on the Mount', in this also aptly following the order
    of its record, and a further carrying out of its teaching.
    Negatively, it differentiated the Kingdom from Israel; while,
    positively, it placed the hope of Israel, and fellowship with
    its promises, within reach of all faith, whether of Jew or
    Gentile. He Who taught such new and strange truth could never
    be called a mere reformer of Judaism. There cannot be
    'reform,' where all the fundamental principles are different.
    Surely He was the Son of God, the Messiah of men, Who, in
    such surrounding, could so speak to Jew and Gentile of God
    and His Kingdom. And surely also, He, Who could so bring
    spiritual life to the dead, could have no difficulty by the
    same word, 'in the self-same hour,' to restore life and
    health to the servant of him, whose faith had inherited the
    Kingdom. The first grafted tree of heathendom that had so
    blossomed could not shake off unripe fruit. If the teaching
    of Christ was new and was true, so must His work have been.
    And in this lies the highest vindication of this miracle,
    that He is the Miracle.

 THE ASCENT: FROM THE RIVER JORDAN TO THE MOUNT OF
    TRANSFIGURATION

    THE RAISING OF THE YOUNG MAN OF NAIN, THE MEETING OF LIFE
    AND DEATH.

    CHAPTER XX.

     (St. Luke vii. 11-17.)

     THAT early spring-tide in Galilee was surely the truest
    realisation of the picture in the Song of Solomon, when earth
    clad herself in garments of beauty, and the air was melodious
    with songs of new life. [a Cant. ii. 11-13.] It seemed as if
    each day marked a widening circle of deepest sympathy and
    largest power on the part of Jesus; as if each day also
    brought fresh surprise, new gladness; opened hitherto
    unthought-of possibilities, and pointed Israel far beyond the
    horizon of their narrow expectancy. Yesterday it was the
    sorrow of the heathen Centurion which woke an echo in the
    heart of the Supreme Commander of life and death; faith
    called out, owned, and placed on the high platform of
    Israel's worthies. To-day it is the same sorrow of a Jewish
    mother, which touches the heart of the Son of Mary, and
    appeals to where denial is unthinkable. In that Presence
    grief and death cannot continue. As the defilement of a
    heathen house could not attach to Him, Whose contact changed
    the Gentile stranger into a true Israelite, so could the
    touch of death not render unclean Him, Whose Presence
    vanquished and changed it into life. Jesus could not enter
    Nain, and its people pass Him to carry one dead to the
    burying.

     For our present purpose it matters little, whether it was
    the very 'day after the healing of the Centurion's servant,
    or 'shortly afterwards,' [1 This depends on whether we adopt
    the reading.] that Jesus left Capernaum for Nain. Probably it
    was the morrow of that miracle, and the fact that 'much
    people,' or rather 'a great multitude,' followed Him, seems
    confirmatory of it. The way was long, as we rekon, more than
    twenty-five miles; but, even if it was all taken on foot,
    there could be no difficulty in reaching Nain ere the
    evening, when so often funerals took place. Various roads
    lead to, and from Nain; [1 I cannot understand what Dean
    Stanley means, when he says (Sinai and Palest. p. 352): 'One
    entrance alone it could have had.' I have counted not fewer
    than six roads leading to Nain.] that which stretches to the
    Lake of Galilee and up to Capernaum is quite distinctly
    marked. It is difficult to understand, how most of those who
    have visited the spot could imagine the place, where Christ
    met the funeral procession, to have been the rock-hewn tombs
    to the west of Nain and towards Nazareth. [2 So Dean Stanley,
    and even Captain Conder. Canon Farrar regards this as one of
    'the certain sites.' But, even according to his own
    description of the route taken from Capernaum, it is
    difficult to understand how Jesus could have issued upon the
    rock-hewn tombs.] For, from Capernaum the Lord would not have
    come that way, but approach it from the north-east by Endor.
    Hence there can be little doubt, that Canon Tristram
    correctly identifies the now unfenced burying-ground, about
    ten minutes' walk to the east of Nain, as that whither, on
    that spring afternoon, they were carrying the widow's son. [3
    'Land of Israel,' pp. 129, 130.] On the path leading to it
    the Lord of Life for the first time burst open the gates of
    death.

     It is all desolate now. A few houses of mud and stone with
    low doorways, scattered among heaps of stones and traces of
    walls, is all that remains of what even these ruins show to
    have been once a city, with walls and gates. [4 Captain
    conder (Tent-Work in Pal. i. pp. 121, 122) has failed to
    discover traces of a wall. But see the description of Canon
    Tristram (Land of Isr. p. 129) which I have followed in my
    account.] The rich gardens are no more, the fruit trees cut
    down, 'and there is a painful sense of desolation' about the
    place, as if the breath of judgment had swept over it. And
    yet even so we can understand its ancient name of Nain, 'the
    pleasant,' [5 I cannot accept the rendering of Nain by
    'pascuum.'] which the Rabbis regarded as fulfilling that part
    of the promise to Issachar: 'he saw the land that it was
    pleasant.' [6 Ber. R. 98, ed. Warsh. p. 175 b:] From the
    elevation on which the city stood we look northwards, across
    the wide plain, to wooded Tabor, and in the far distance to
    snow-capped Hermon. On the left (in the west) rise the hills
    beyond which Nazareth lies embosomed; to the right is Endor;
    southwards Shunem, and beyond it the Plain of Jezreel. By
    this path, from Endor, comes Jesus with His disciples and the
    great following multitude. Here, near by the city gate, on
    the road that leads eastwards to the old burying-ground, has
    this procession of the 'great multitude,' which accompanied
    the Prince of Life, met that other 'great multitude' that
    followed the dead to his burying. Which of the two shall give
    way to the other? We know what ancient Jewish usage would
    have demanded. For, of all the duties enjoined, none more
    strictly enforced by every consideration of humanity and
    piety, even by the example of God Himself, than that of
    comforting the mourners and showing respect to the dead by
    accompanying him to the burying. [a Ber. 18 a.] [1 For the
    sake of brevity I must here refer to 'Sketches of Jewish
    Social Life,' ch. x., and to the article in 'The Bible
    Educator,' vol. iv. pp. 330-333.] The popular idea, that the
    spirit of the dead hovered about the unburied remains, must
    have given intensity to such feelings.

     Putting aside later superstitions, so little has changed in
    the Jewish rites and observances about the dead, [2 Haneberg
    (Relig. Alterth. pp. 502, 503) gives the apt reasons for
    this.] that from Talmudic and even earlier sources, [3 The
    Tractate Ebhel Rabbathi ('Great Mourning') euphemistically
    called Masse kheth Semachoth, 'Tractate of Joys,' It is
    already quoted in the Talmud: comp Zunz, Gottesd. Vortr. p.
    90, note d. It is inserted in vol. ix. of the Bab. Talmud,
    pp. 28 a to 31 b.] we can form a vivid conception of what had
    taken place in Nain. The watchful anxiety; the vain use of
    such means as were known, or within reach of the widow; the
    deepening care, the passionate longing of the mother to
    retain her one treasure, her sole earthly hope and stay; then
    the gradual fading out of the light, the farewell, the
    terrible burst of sorrow: all these would be common features
    in any such picture. But here we have, besides, the Jewish
    thoughts of death and after death; knowledge just sufficient
    to make afraid, but not to give firm consolation, which would
    make even the most pious Rabbi uncertain of his future; [b
    Ber. 28 b.] and then the desolate thoughts connected in the
    Jewish mind with childlessness. We can realise it all: how
    Jewish ingenuity and wisdom would resort to remedies real or
    magical; how the neighbours would come in with reverent step,
    feeling as if the very Shekhinah were unseen at the head of
    the pallet in that humble home; [c Nedar. 40 a, lines 6 and 7
    from bottom.] how they would whisper sayings about
    submission, which, when realisation of God's love is wanting,
    seem only to stir the heart to rebellion against absolute
    power; and how they would resort to the prayers of those who
    were deemed pious in Nain. [d Ber. v. 5.]

     But all was in vain. And now the well-known blast of the
    horn has carried tidings, that once more the Angel of Death
    has done his dire behest. [e Moed K. 27 b.] In passionate
    grief the mother has rent her uppergarment. [f Jer. Moed. K.
    83 d.] The last sad offices have been rendered to the dead.
    The body has been laid on the ground; hair and nails have
    been cut, [g Moed K. 8 b.]and the body washed, anointed, and
    wrapped in the best the widow could procure; for, the
    ordinance which directed that the dead should be buried in
    'wrappings' (Takhrikhin), or as they significantly called it,
    the 'provision for the journey' (Zevadatha), [h Rosh haSh 17
    a and other wise.] of the most inexpensive, linen, is of
    later date than our period. It is impossible to say, whether
    the later practice already prevailed, of covering the body
    with metal, glass, or salt, and laying it either upon earth
    or salt. [a Shabb. 151 b; Semach. I.]

     And now the mother was left Oneneth (moaning, lamenting), a
    term which distinguished the mourning before from that after
    burial. [1 The mourning up to the time of burial or during
    the first day was termed Aninah (widowed-mourning, moaning)
    Jer. Horay. 48 a. The following three, seven, or thirty days
    (as the case might be) were those of Ebhel, 'mourning.' Other
    forms of the same word need not be mentioned.] She would sit
    on the floor, neither eat meat, nor drink wine. What scanty
    meal she would take, must be without prayer, in the house of
    a neighbour, or in another room, or at least with her back to
    the dead. [b Jer. Ber. 5 d.] Pious friends would render
    neighbourly offices, or busy themselves about the near
    funeral. If it was deemed duty for the poorest Jew, on the
    death of his wife, to provide at least two flutes and one
    mourning woman, [c Kethub. iv. 4.] we may feel sure that the
    widowed mother had not neglected what, however incongruous or
    difficult to procure, might be regarded as the last tokens of
    affection. In all likelihood the custom obtained even then,
    though in modified form, to have funeral orations at the
    grave. For, even if charity provided for an unknown wayfarer
    the simplest funeral, mourning-women would be hired to chaunt
    in weird strains the lament: 'Alas, the lion! alas. the
    hero!' or similar words, [d Mass. Semach. i. 9.] while great
    Rabbis were wont to bespeak for themselves a warm funeral
    oration' (Hesped, or Hespeda). [2 Of these a number of
    instances are given in the Talmud, though probably only of
    the prologue, or epilogue, or of the most striking thoughts.]
    For, from the funeral oration a man's fate in the other world
    might be inferred; [e Shabb. 153 a.] and, indeed, 'the honour
    of a sage was in his funeral oration.' [f Moed K. 25 a.] and
    in this sense the Talmud answers the question, whether a
    funeral oration is intended to honour the survivors or the
    dead. [g Sanh. 46 b.]

     But in all this painful pageantry there was nothing for the
    heart of the widow, bereft of her only child. We can follow
    in spirit the mounful procession, as it started from the
    desolate home. As it issued, chairs and couches were
    reversed, and laid low. Outside, the funeral orator, if such
    was employed, preceded the bier, proclaiming the good deeds
    of the dead. [h Shabb. 153 a.] Immediately before the dead
    came the women, this being peculiar to Galilee, [i Shabb. 153
    a.] the Midrash giving thisreason of it, that woman had
    introduced death into the world. [k Ber. R. 17 end.] The body
    was not, as afterwards in preference, [m Ber. 19 a.] carried
    in an ordinary coffin of wood (Aron), if possible, cedarwood,
    on one occassion, at least, made with holes beneath; [n Jer.
    Kil 32 b; Ber. R. 100.] but laid on a bier, or in anopen
    coffin (Mittah). In former times a distinction had been made
    in these biers between rich and poor. The former were carried
    on the so-called Dargash, as it were, in state, while the
    poor were conveyed in a receptacle made of wickerwork
    (Kelibha or Kelikhah), having sometimes at the foot what was
    termed 'a horn,' to which the body was made fast. [a Par.
    xii. 9.]But this distinction between rich and poor was
    abolished by Rabbinic ordinance, and both alike, if carried
    on a bier, were laid in that made of wickerwork. [b Moed K.
    27 a and b.] Commonly, though not in later practice, the face
    of the dead body was uncovered. [c Semach. c. 8.] The body
    lay with its face turned up, and his hands folded on the
    breast. We may add, that when a person had died unmarried or
    childless, it was customary to put into the coffin something
    distinctive of them, such as pen and ink, or a key. Over the
    coffins of bride or bridegroom a baldachino was carried.
    Sometimes the coffin was garlanded with myrtle. [d Bez. 6 a
    Nidd. 37 a.] In exceptional cases we read of the use of
    incense, [e Moed K. 27 b; Ber. 53 a.] and even of a kind of
    libation. [f Jer. Sheq. ii. 7.]
     We cannot, then, be mistaken in supposing that the body of
    the widow's son was laid on the 'bed' (Mittah), or in the
    'willow basket,' already described (Kelibha, from Kelubh). [1
    It is evident the young man could not have been 'coffined,'
    or it would have been impossible for him to sit up at
    Christ's bidding. I must differ from the learned Delitzsch,
    who uses the word in translating. Very remarkable also it
    seems to me, that those who advocate wicker-basket interments
    are without knowing it, resorting to the old Jewish
    practice.] Nor can we doubt that the ends of handles were
    borne by friends and neighbours, different parties of
    bearers, all of them unshod, at frequent intervals relieving
    each other, so that as many as possible might share in the
    good work. [g Ber. iii. 1.] During these pauses there was
    loud lamentation; but this custom was not observed in the
    burial of women. Behind the bier walked the relatives,
    friends, and then the sympathising 'multitude.' For it was
    deemed like mocking one's Creator not to follow the dead to
    his last resting-place, and to all such want of reverence
    Prov. xvii. 5 was applied. [h Ber. 18 a.] If one were
    absolutely prevented from joining the procession, although
    for its sake all work, even study, should be interrupted,
    reverence should at least be shown by rising up before the
    dead. [i Jer. Sot. 17 b, end.] And so they would go on to
    what the Hebrews beautifully designated as the 'house of
    assembly' or 'meeting,' the 'hostelry,' the 'place of rest,'
    or 'of freedom,' the 'field of weepers,' the 'house of
    eternity,' or 'of life.'

     We can now transport ourselves into that scene. Up from the
    city close by came this 'great multitude' that followed the
    dead, with lamentations, wild chaunts of mourning women, [2
    Sometimes the lament was chaunted simply in chorus, at others
    one woman began and then the rest joined in chorus. The
    latter was distinctively termed the Qinah, see Moed K. iii.
    9.] accompanied by flutes and the melancholy tinkle of
    cymbals, perhaps by trumpets, [a Keth. 17a; Moed K. 27 b1.]
    amidst expressions of general sympathy. Along the road from
    Endor streamed the great multitude which followed the 'Prince
    of Life.' Here they met: Life and Death. The connecting link
    between them was the deep sorrow of the widowed mother. He
    recognised her as she went before the bier, leading him to
    the grave whom she had brought into life. He recognised her,
    but she recognised Him not, had not even seen Him. She was
    still weeping; even after He had hastened a step or two in
    advance of His followers, quite close to her, she did not
    heed Him, and was still weeping. But, 'beholding her,' the
    Lord [2 The term for 'the Lord' is peculiar to St. Luke and
    St. John, a significant conjunction. It occurs only once in
    St. Mark (xvi. 19).] 'had compassion on her.' Those bitter,
    silent tears which blinded her eyes were strongest language
    of despair and utmost need, which never in vain appeals to
    His heart, Who has borne our sorrows. We remember, by way of
    contrast, the common formula used at funerals in Palestine,
    'Weep with them, all ye who are bitter of heart!' [b Moed K.
    8 a, lines 7 and 8 from bottom.] It was not so that Jesus
    spoke to those around, nor to her, but characteristically:
    'Be not weeping.' [3 So literally. We here recall the
    unfeeling threats by R. Huna of further bereavements to a
    mother who wept very much, and their fulfilment (Moed. K. 27
    b).] And what He said, that He wrought. He touched the bier,
    perhaps the very wicker basket in which the dead youth lay.
    He dreaded not the greatest of all defilements, that of
    contact with the dead, [c Kei. i.] which Rabbinism, in its
    elaboration of the letter of the Law, had surrounded with
    endless terrors. His was other separation than of the
    Pharisees: not that of submission to ordinances, but of
    conquest of what made them necessary.

     And as He touched the bier, they who bore it stood still.
    They could not have anticipated what would follow. But the
    awe of the coming wonder, as it were, the shadow of the
    opening gates of life, had fallen on them. One word of
    sovereign command, 'and he that was dead sat up, and began to
    speak.' Not of that world of which he had had brief glimpse.
    For, as one who suddenly passes from dream-vision to waking,
    in the abruptness of the transition, loses what he had seen,
    so he, who from that dazzling brightness was hurried back to
    the dim light to which his vision had been accustomed. It
    must have seemed to him, as if he woke from long sleep. Where
    was he now? who those around him? what this strange
    assemblage? and Who He, Whose Light and Life seemed to fall
    upon him?

     And still was Jesus the link between the mother and the son,
    who had again found each other. And so, in the truest sense,
    'He gave him [1 So literally, and very significantly.] to his
    mother.' Can any one doubt that mother and son henceforth
    owned, loved, and trusted Him as the true Messiah? If there
    was no moral motive for this miracle, outside Christ's
    sympathy with intense suffering and the bereavement of death,
    was there no moral result as the outcome of it? If mother and
    son had not called upon Him before the miracle, would they
    not henceforth and for ever call upon Him? And if there was,
    so to speak, inward necessity, that Life Incarnate should
    conquer death, symbolic and typic necessity of it also, was
    not everything here congruous to the central fact in this
    history? The simplicity and absence of all extravagant
    details; the Divine calmness and majesty on the part of the
    Christ, so different from the manner in which legend would
    have coloured the scene, even from the intense agitation
    which characterised the conduct of an Elijah, an Elisha, or a
    Peter, in somewhat similar circumstances; and, lastly, the
    beauteous harmony where all is in accord, from the first
    touch of compassion till when, forgetful of the bystanders,
    heedless of 'effect,' He gives the son back to his mother,
    are not all these worthy of the event, and evidential of the
    truth of the narrative?

     But, after all, may we regard this history as real, and, if
    so, what are its lessons? [2 Minor difficulties may be
    readily dismissed. Such is the question, why this miracle has
    not been recorded by St. Matthew. Possibly St. Matthew may
    have remained a day behind in Capernaum. In any case, the
    omission cannot be of real importance as regards the question
    of the credibility of such a miracle, since similar miracles
    are related in all the four Gospels.] On one point, at least,
    all serious critics are now agreed. It is impossible to
    ascribe it to exaggeration, or to explain it on natural
    grounds. The only alternative is to regard it either as true,
    or as designedly false. Be it, moreover, remembered, that not
    only one Gospel, but all, relate some story of raising the
    dead, whether that of this youth, of Jairus' daughter, or of
    Lazarus. They also all relate the Resurrection of the Christ,
    which really underlies those other miracles. But if this
    history of the raising of the young man is false, what motive
    can be suggested for its invention, for motive there must
    have been for it? Assuredly, it was no part of Jewish
    expectancy concerning the Messiah, that He would perform such
    a miracle. And negative criticism has admitted, [3 So Keim,
    who finally arrives at the conclusion that the event is
    fictitious His account seems to me painfully unfair, as well
    as unsatisfactory in the extreme.] that the differences
    between this history and the raising of the dead by Elijajh
    or Elisha are so numerous and great, that these narratives
    cannot be regarded as suggesting that of the raising of the
    young man of Nain. We ask again: Whence, then, this history,
    if it was not true? It is an ingenious historical suggestion,
    rather an admission by negative criticism [1 This is the
    admission of Keim.], that so insignificant,and otherwise
    unknown, a place as Nain would not have been fixed upon as
    the site of this miracle, if some great event had not
    occurred there which made lasting impression on the mind of
    the Church. What was that event, and does not the reading of
    this record carry conviction of its truth? Legends have not
    been so written. Once more, the miracle is described as
    having taken place, not in the seclusion of a chamber, nor
    before a few interested witnesses, but in sight of the great
    multitude which had followed Jesus, and of that other great
    multitude which came from Cana. In this twofold great
    multitude was there none, from whom the enemies of
    Christianity could have wrung contradiction, if the narrative
    was false? Still further, the history is told with such
    circumstantiality of details, as to be inconsistent with the
    theory of a later invention. Lastly, no one will question,
    that belief in the reality of such 'raising from the dead'
    was a primal article in the faith of the primitive Church,
    for which, as a fact, not a possibility, all were ready to
    offer up their lives. Nor should we forget that, in one of
    the earliest apologies addressed to the Roman Emperor,
    Quadratus appealed to the fact, that, of those who had heen
    healed or raised from the dead by Christ, some were still
    alive, and all were well known. [a Euseb. Hist. Eccl. iv. 3.]
    On the otherhand, the only real ground for rejecting this
    narrative is disbelief in the Miraculous, including, of
    course, rejection of the Christ as the Miracle of Miracles.
    But is it not vicious reasoning in a circle, as well as
    begging the question, to reject the Miraculous because we
    discredit the Miraculous? and does not such rejection involve
    much more of the incredible than faith itself?

     And so, with all Christendom, we gladly take it, in
    simplicity of faith, as a true record by true men, all the
    more, that they who told it knew it to be so incredible, as
    not only to provoke scorn, [b Acts xvii. 32; xxvi. 8; 1 Cor.
    xv. 12-19.] but to expose them to the charge of cunningly
    devising fables. [c 2 Pet. i. 16.] But they who believe, see
    in this history, how the Divine Conqueror, in His accidental
    meeting with Death, with mighty arm rolled back the tide, and
    how through the portals of heaven which He opened stole in
    upon our world the first beam of the new day. Yet another, in
    some sense lower, in another, practically higher, lesson do
    we learn. For, this meeting of the two processions outside
    the gate of Nain was accidental, yet not in the conventional
    sense. Neither the arrival of Jesus at that place and time,
    nor that of the funeral procession from Nain, nor their
    meeting, was either designed or else miraculous. Both
    happened in the natural course of natural events, but their
    concurrence [ 1[ The term rendered in the A.V. 'chance' (St.
    Luke x. 31), means literally, the coming together, the
    meeting, A.V. 'chance' (St. Luke x. 31), means literally, the
    coming together, the meeting, or concurrence of events.] was
    designed, and directly God-caused. In this God-caused,
    designed concurrence of events, in themselves ordinary and
    natural, lies the mystery of special Providences, which, to
    whomsoever they happen, he may and should regard them as
    miracles and answer to prayer. And this principle extends
    much farther: to the prayer for, and provision of, daily
    bread, nay, to mostly all things, so that, to those who have
    ears to hear, all things around speak in parables of the
    kingdom of Heaven.

     But on those who saw this miracle at Nain fell the fear [2
    Lit. 'fear took all]of the felt Divine Presence, and over
    their souls swept the hymn of Divine praise, because God had
    visited [4 Significaltly, the same expression as in St. Luke
    i. 68.] His people. And further and wider spread the wave,
    over Judaea, and beyond it, until it washed, and broke in
    faint murmur against the prison-walls, within which the
    Baptist awaited his martyrdom. Was He then the 'Coming One?'
    and, if so, why did, or how could, those walls keep His
    messenger within grasp of the tyrant? [5 The embassy of the
    Baptist will be described in connection with the account of
    his martyrdom.]

 THE ASCENT: FROM THE RIVER JORDAN TO THE MOUNT OF
    TRANSFIGURATION

    THE WOMAN WHICH WAS A SINNER

    CHAPTER XXI

     (St. Luke vii. 36-50.)

     The precise date and place of the next recorded event in
    this Galilean journey of the Christ are left undetermined. It
    can scarcely have occurred in the quiet little town of Nain,
    indeed, is scarcely congrous with the scene which had been
    there enacted. And yet it must have followed almost
    immediately upon it. We infer this, not only from the silence
    of St. Matthew, which in this instance might have been due,
    not to the temporary detention of that Evangelist in
    Capernaum, while the others had followed Christ to Nain, but
    to whaat may be called the sparingness of detail in the
    Gospel-narratives, each Evangelist relating mostly only one
    in a group of kindred events. [1 This is specially
    characteristic of the Gospel by St. Luke.] But other
    indications determine our inference. The embassy of the
    Baptist's disciples (which will be described in another
    connection [2 See note in previous chapter.] undoubtedly
    followed on the raising of the young man of Nain. This
    embassy would scarcely have come to Jesus in Nain. It
    probably reached Him on His farther Missionary journey, to
    which there seems some reference in the passage in the First
    Gospel [a St. Matt. xi. 20-30] which succeeds the account of
    that embassy. The actual words there recorded can, indeed,
    scarcely have been spoken at that time. They belong to a
    later period on that Mission-journey, and mark more fully
    developed opposition and rejection of the Christ than in
    those early days. Chronologically, they are in their proper
    place in St. Luke's Gospel, [b St. Luke x. 13-22] where they
    follow in connection with that Mission of the Seventy, which,
    in part at least, was prompted by the growing enmity to the
    Person of Jesus. On the other hand, this Mission of the
    Seventy, is not recorded by St. Matthew. Accordingly, he
    inserts those prophetic denunciations which, according to the
    plan of his Gospel, could not have been omitted, at the
    beginning of this Missionary journey, because it marks the
    beginning of that systematic opposition, [a St. Matt. xi.
    16-19] the full development of which, as already stated,
    prompted the Mission of the Seventy.

     Yet, even so, the impression left upon us by St. Matt. xi.
    20-30 (which follows on the account of the Baptist's embassy)
    is, that Jesus was on a journey, and it may well be that
    those precious words of encouragement and invitation, spoken
    to the burdened and wearily labouring, [b St. Matt. xi.
    28-30] formed part, perhaps the substance, of His preaching
    on that journey. Truly these were 'good tidings,' and not
    only to those borne down by weight of conscious sinfulness or
    deep sorrow, who wearily toiled towards the light of far-off
    peace, or those dreamt-of heights where some comprehensive
    view might be gained of life with its labours and pangs.
    'Good news,' also, to them who would fain have 'learned'
    according to their capacity, but whose teachers had weighted
    'the yoke of the Kingdom' [1 Made 'the yoke of the Kingdom of
    Heaven' ( ) equal to 'the yoke of ihe Law' ( ) or to that 'of
    the commandments' ( ).] to a heavy burden, and made the Will
    of God to them labour, weary and unaccomplishable. But,
    whether or not spoken at that special time, we cannot fail to
    recognise their special suitableness to the 'forgiven sinner'
    in the Pharisee's house, [c St. Luke vii. 36] and their
    inward, even if not outward, connection with her history.

     Another point requires notice. It is how, in the unfolding
    of His Mission to Man, the Christ progressively placed
    Himself in antagonism to the Jewish religious thought of His
    time, from out of which He had historically sprung. In this
    part of His earthly course the antagonism appeared, indeed,
    so to speak, in a positive rather than negative form, that
    is, rather in what He affirmed than in what He combated,
    because the opposition to Him was not yet fully developed;
    whereas in the second part of His course it was, for a
    similar reason, rather negative than positive. From the first
    this antagonism was there in what He taught and did; and it
    appeared with increasing distinctness in proportion as He
    taught. We find it in the whole spirit and bearing of what he
    did and said, in the house at Capernaum, in the Synagogues,
    with the Gentile Centurion, at the gate of Nain, and
    especially here, in the history of the much forgiven woman
    who had much sinned. A Jewish Rabbi could not have so acted
    and spoken; he would not even have understood Jesus; nay, a
    Rabbi, however gentle and pitiful, would in word and deed
    have taken precisely the opposite direction from that of the
    Christ.

     As St. Gregory expresses it, this is perhaps a history more
    fit to be wept over than commented upon. For comments seem so
    often to interpose between the simple force of a narrative
    and our hearts, and few events in the Gospel-history have
    been so blunted and turned aside as this history, through
    verbal controversies and dogmatic wrangling.

     The first impression on our minds is, that the history
    itself is but a fragment. We must try to learn from its
    structure, where and how it was broken off. We understand the
    infinite delicacy that left her unnamed, the record of whose
    'much forgiveness' and great love had to be joined to that of
    her much sin. And we mark, in contrast, the coarse clumsiness
    which, without any reason for the assertion, to meet the
    cravings of morbid curiosity, or for saint-worship, has
    associated her history with the name of Mary Magdalene. [1
    The untenablenessof this strange hypothesis has been shown in
    almost all commentaries. There is not a tittle of evidence
    for it.] Another, and perhaps even more painful, mistake is
    the attempt of certain critics to identify this history with
    the much later anointing of Christ at Bethany, [a St. Matt.
    xxvi. 6&c. and parallels.] and to determine which of the two
    is the simpler, and which the more ornate, which the truer of
    the accounts, and whence, or why each case there was a
    'Simon', perhaps the commonest of Jewish names; a woman who
    anointed; and that Christ, and those who were present, spoke
    and acted in accordance with other passages in the
    Gospel-history: [2 The objections of Keim, though bulking
    largely when heaped together by him, seem not only unfair,
    but, when examined one by one, are seen to be groundless.]
    that is, true to their respective histories. But, such
    twofold anointing, the first, at the beginning of His works
    of mercy, of the Feet by a forgiven, loving sinner on whom
    the Sun had just risen; the second, of His Head, by a loving
    disciple, when the full-orbed Sun was setting in blood, at
    the close of His Ministry, is, as in the twofold purgation of
    the Temple at the beginning and close of His Work, only like
    the completing of the circle of His Life.

     The invitation of Simon the Pharisee to his table does not
    necessarily indicate, that he had been impressed by the
    teaching of Jesus, any more than the supposed application to
    his case of what is called the 'parable' of the much and the
    little forgiven debtor implies, that he had received from the
    Saviour spiritual benefit, great or small. If Jesus had
    taught in the 'city,' and, as always, irresistibly drawn to
    Him the multitude, it would be only in accordance with the
    manners of the time if the leading Pharisee invited the
    distinguished 'Teacher' to his table. As such he undoubtedly
    treated Him. [a St. Luke vii. 40] The question in Simon's
    mind was, whether He was more than 'Teacher', even 'Prophet;'
    and that such question rose within him indicates, not only
    that Christ openly claimed a position different from that of
    Rabbi, and that His followers regarded Him at least as a
    prophet, but also, within the breast of Simon, a struggle in
    which strong Jewish prejudice was bearing down the mighty
    impression of Christ's Presence.

     They were all sitting, or rather 'lying' [1 Ber. vi. 6 makes
    the following curious distinction: if they sit at the table,
    each says 'the grace' for himself; if they 'lie down' to
    table, one says it in the name of all. If wine is handed them
    during dinner, each says 'the grace' over it for himself; if
    after dinner, one says it for all.], the Mishnah sometimes
    also calls it 'sitting down and leaning', around the table,
    the body resting on the couch, the feet turned away from the
    table in the direction of the wall, while the left elbow
    rested on the table. And now, from the open courtyard, up the
    verandah-step, perhaps through an antechamber, [b Ab. iv.16]
    and by the open door, passed the figure of a woman into the
    festive reception-room and dining-hall, the Teraglin
    (triclinium) of the Rabbis. [2 The Teraqlin was sometimes
    entered by an antechamber (Prosedor), Ab. iv. 16, and opened
    into one (Jer. Rosh haSh. 59 b), or more (Yom. 15 b), side-or
    bed-rooms. The common measurement for such a hall was fifteen
    feet (ten cubits) breadth, length, and height (Baba B. vi.
    4).] How did she obtain access? Had she mingled with the
    servants, or was access free to all, or had she, perhaps,
    known the house and its owner? [3 The strangeness of the
    circumstance suggests this, which is, alas! by no means
    inconsistent with what we know of the morality of some of
    these Rabbis, although this page must not be stained by
    detailed references.] It little matters, as little as whether
    she 'had been,' or 'was' up to that day, 'a sinner,' [4 The
    other and harsher reading, 'a woman which was in the city a
    sinner,' need scarcely be discussed.] in the terrible
    acceptation of the term. But we must bear in mind the
    greatness of Jewish prejudice against any conversation with
    woman, however lofty her character, fully to realise the
    absolute incongruity on the part of such a woman in seeking
    access to the Rabbi, Whom so many regarded as the God-sent
    Prophet.

     But this, also, is evidential, that here we are far beyond
    the Jewish standpoint. To this woman it was not incongruous,
    because to her Jesus had, indeed, been the Prophet sent from
    God. We have said before that this story is a fragment; and
    here, also, as in the invitation of Simon to Jesus, we have
    evidence of it. She had, no doubt, heard His words that day.
    What He had said would be, in substance, if not in words:
    'Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I
    will give you rest.... Learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly
    in heart..... Ye shall find rest unto your souls. ....' This
    was to her the Prophet sent from God with the good news that
    opened even to her the Kingdom of Heaven, and laid its yoke
    upon her, not bearing her down to very hell, but easy of wear
    and light of burden. She knew that it was all as He said, in
    regard to the heavy load of her past; and, as she listened to
    those Words, and looked on that Presence, she learned to
    believe that it was all as He had promised to the heavy
    burdened. And she had watched, and followed Him afar off to
    the Pharisee's house. Or, perhaps, if it be thought that she
    had not that day heard for herself, still, the sound of that
    message must have reached her, and wakened the echoes of her
    heart. And still it was: Come to Me; learn of Me; I will give
    rest. What mattered all else to her in the hunger of her
    soul, which had just tasted of that Heavenly Bread?

     The shadow of her form must have fallen on all who sat at
    meat. But none spake; nor did she heed any but One. Like
    heaven's own music, as Angels' songs that guide the wanderer
    home, it still sounded in her ears. There are times when we
    forget all else in one absorbing thought; when men's
    opinions, nay, our own feelings of shame, are effaced by that
    one Presence; when the 'Come to Me; learn of Me; I will give
    you rest,' are the all in all to us. Then it is, that the
    fountains of the Great Deep within are broken open by the
    wonder-working rod, with which God's Messenger to us, the
    better Moses, has struck our hearts. She had come that day to
    'learn' and to 'find rest.' What mattered it to her who was
    there, or what they thought? There was only One Whose
    Presence she dared not encounter, not from fear of Him, but
    from knowledge of herself. It was He to Whom she had come.
    And so she 'stood behind at His Feet.' She had brought with
    her an alabastron (phial, or flask, commonly of alabaster) of
    perfume. [1 I have so translated the word, which the A.V.
    renders 'ointment.' The word is evidently the Hebrew and
    Rabbinic which, however, is not always the equivalent for
    myrrh, but seems also to mean musk and mastic. In short, I
    regard it as designating any fluid unguent or, generally
    speaking, 'perfume.' So common was the use of perfumes, that
    Ber. vi. 6 mentions a mugmar, or a kind of incense, which was
    commonly burnt after a feast. As regards the word
    'alabastron,' the name was given to perfume-phials in
    general, even if not made of alabaster, because the latter
    was so frequently used for such flasks.] It is a coarse
    suggestion, that this had originally been bought for a far
    different purpose. We know that perfumes were much sought
    after, and very largely in use. Some, such as true balsam,
    were worth double their weight in silver; others, like the
    spikenard (whether as juice or unguent, along with other
    ingredients), though not equally costly, were also
    'precious.' We have evidence that perfumed oils, notably oil
    of rose, [a Shebh. vii. 6.] and of the iris plant, but
    chiefly the mixture known in antiquity as foliatum, were
    largely manufactured and used in Palestine. [b Jer. Demai 22
    b.] A flask with this perfume was worn by women round the
    neck, and hung down below the breast (the Tselochith shel
    Palyeton). [c Ab. S. 35 b.] So common was its use as to be
    allowed even on the Sabbath. [d Shabb. vi. 3.] This 'flask'
    (possibly the Chumarta de Philon of Gitt. 69 b), not always
    of glass, but of silver or gold, probably often also of
    alabaster, containing 'palyeton' (evidently, the foliatum of
    Pliny) was used both to sweeten the breath and perfume the
    person. Hence it seems at least not unlikely, that the
    alabastron which she brought, who loved so much, was none
    other than the 'flask of foliatum,' so common among Jewish
    woman. [1 The derivation of the Rabbinic term in Buxtorf's
    Lexicon (p. 1724) is certainly incorrect. I have no doubt the
    was the foliatum of Pliny (Hist. Nat. xiii. 1, 2). In Jew.
    War iv. 9, 10, Josephus seems to imply that women
    occasionally poured over themselves unguents. According to
    Kethub. vi. 4, a woman might apparently spend a tenth of her
    dowry on such things as unguents and perfumes. For, in
    Kethub. 66 b we have an exaggerated account of a woman
    spending upwards of 300l. on perfumes! This will at any rate
    prove their common and abundant use.]

     As she stood behind Him at His Feet, reverently bending, a
    shower of tears, like sudden, quick summer-rain, that
    refreshes air and earth, 'bedewed' [2 This is the real
    meaning of the verb.] His Feet. As if surprised, or else
    afraid to awaken His attention, or defile Him by her tears,
    she quickly [3 This is implied in the tense.] wiped them away
    with the long tresses of her hair that had fallen down and
    touched Him, [4 It is certainly not implied, that she had her
    hair dishevelled as in mourning, or as by women before
    drinking the waters of jealousy.] as she bent over His Feet.
    Nay, not to wash them in such impure waters had she come, but
    to show such loving gratefulness and reverence as in her
    poverty she could, and in her humility she might offer. And,
    now that her faith had grown bold in His Presence, she is
    continuing [5 The tense implies this.] to kiss those Feet
    which had brought to her the 'good tidings of peace,' and to
    anoint them out of the alabastron round her neck. And still
    she spake not, nor yet He. For, as on her part silence seemed
    most fitting utterance, so on His, that He suffered it in
    silence was best and most fitting answer to her.

     Another there was whose thoughts, far other than hers or the
    Christ's, were also unuttered. A more painful contrast than
    that of 'the Pharisee' in this scene, can scarcely be
    imagined. We do not insist that the designation 'this Man,'
    [e ver. 39.] given to Christ in his spoken thoughts, or the
    manner in which afterwards he replied to the Saviour's
    question by a supercilious 'I suppose,' or 'presume,' [a ver.
    43.]necessarily imply contempt. But they certainly indicate
    the mood of his spirit. One thing, at least, seems now clear
    to this Pharisee: If 'this Man,' this strange, wandering,
    popular idol, with His strange, novel ways and words, Whom in
    politeness he must call 'Teacher,' [1 In the A. V.] Rabbi,
    were a Prophet, He would have known who the woman was, and,
    if He had known who she was, then would He never have allowed
    such approach. So do we, also, often argue as to what He
    would do, if He knew. But He does know; and it is just
    because He knoweth that He doeth what, from our lower
    standpoint, we cannot understand. Had He been a Rabbi, He
    would certainly, and had he been merely a Prophet, He would
    probably, have repelled such approach. The former, if not
    from self-righteousness, yet from ignorance of sin and
    forgiveness; the latter, because such homage was more than
    man's due. [2 The Talmud, with its usual exaggeration, has
    this story when commenting on the reverence due by children
    to their parents, that R. Ishmael's mother had complained her
    son would not allow her, when he came from the Academy, to
    wash his feet and then drink the water, on which the sages
    made the Rabbi yield! (Jer. Peah 15 c). Again, some one came
    to kiss R. Jonathan's feet, because he had induced filial
    reverence in his son (u. s., col. d).] But, He was more than
    a prophet, the Saviour of sinners; and so she might quietly
    weep over His Feet, and then quickly wipe away the 'dew' of
    the 'better morning,' and then continue to Kiss His Feet and
    to anoint them.

     And yet Prophet He also was, and in far fuller sense than
    Simon could have imagined. For, He had read Simon's unspoken
    thoughts. Presently He would show it to him; yet not, as we
    might, by open reproof, that would have put him to shame
    before his guests, but with infinite delicacy towards His
    host, and still in manner that he could not mistake. What
    follows is not, as generally supposed, a parable but an
    illustration. Accordingly, it must in no way be pressed. With
    this explanation vanish all the supposed difficulties about
    the Pharisees being 'little forgiven,' and hence 'loving
    little.' To convince Simon of the error of his conclusion,
    that, if the life of that woman had been known, the prophet
    must have forbidden her touch of love, Jesus entered into the
    Pharisee's own modes of reasoning. Of two debtors, one of
    whom owned ten times as much as the other, [3 The one
    sum=upwards of 15l.; the other=upwards of 1l. 10s.] who would
    best love the creditor [4 Money-lender, though perhaps not in
    the evil sense which we attach to the term. At the same time,
    the frequent allusion to such and to their harsh ways offers
    painful illustration of the social state at the time.] who
    had freely [5 So rather 'frankly' in the A. V.] forgiventhem?
    [1 The points of resemblance and of difference with St. Matt.
    xviii. 23 will readily appear on comparison.] Though to both
    the debt might have been equally imposible of discharge, and
    both might love equally, yet a Rabbi would, according to his
    Jewish notions, say, that he would love most to whom most had
    been forgiven. If this was the undoubted outcome of Jewish
    theology, the so much for so much, let it be applied to the
    present case. If there were much benefit, there would be much
    love; if little benefit, little love. And conversely: in such
    case much love would argue much benefit; little love, small
    benefit. Let him then apply the reasoning by marking this
    woman, and contrasting her conduct with his own. To wash the
    feet of a guest, to give him the kiss of welcome, and
    especially to anoint him, [2 Comp. for ex. St. John xiii. 4.]
    were not, indeed, necessary attentions at a feast. All the
    more did they indicate special care, affection, and respect.
    [3 Washing: Gen. xviii. 4; xix. 2; xxiv. 32; Judg. xix. 21; 1
    Sam. xxv. 41; kissing: Ex. xviii. 7; 2 Sam. xv. 5; xix. 39;
    anointing: Eccl. ix. 8; Amos vi. 6, as well as Ps. xxiii. 5.]
    None of these tokens of deep regard had marked the merely
    polite reception of Him by the Pharisee. But, in a twofold
    climax of which the intensity can only be indicated, [4 Thou
    gavest me no water, she washed not with water but tears; no
    kiss, she kissed my feet; no oil, she unguent; not to the
    head, but to the feet. And yet: emphatically, into thy house
    I came, &c.] the Saviour now proceeds to show, how different
    it had been with her, to whom, for the first time, He now
    turned! On Simon's own reasoning, then, he must have received
    but little, she much benefit. Or, to apply the former
    illustration, and now to reality: 'Forgiven have been her
    sins, the many' [5 So literally.], not in ignorance, but with
    knowledge of their being 'many.' This, by Simon's former
    admission, would explain and account for her much love, as
    the effect of much forgiveness. On the other hand, though in
    delicacy the Lord does not actually express it, this other
    inference would also hold true, that Simon's little love
    showed that 'little is being forgiven.' [6 Mark the tense.]

     What has been explained will dispose of another controversy
    which, with little judgment and less taste, has been
    connected with this marvellous history. It must not be made a
    question as between Romanist and Protestant, nor as between
    rival dogmatists, whether love had nay meritorious part in
    her forgiveness, or whether, as afterwards stated, her
    'faith' had 'saved' her. Undoubtedly, her faith had saved
    her. What she had heard from His lips, what she knew of Him,
    she had believed. She had believed in 'the good tidings of
    peace' which He had brought, in the love of God, and His
    Fatherhood of pity to the most sunken and needy; in Christ,
    as the Messenger of Reconciliation and Peace with God; in the
    Kingdom of Heaven which He had so suddenly and unexpectedly
    opened to her, from out of whose unfolded golden rates
    Heaven's light had fallen upon her, Heaven's voices had come
    to her. She had believed it all: the Father, the Son,
    Revealer, the Holy Ghost, Revealing. And it had saved her.
    When she came to that feast, and stood behind with humbled,
    loving gratefulness and reverence of heart-service, she was
    already saved. She needed not to be forgiven: she had been
    forgiven. And it was because she was forgiven that she
    bedewed His Feet with the summer-shower of her heart, and,
    quickly wiping away the flood with her tresses, continued
    kissing and anointing them. All this was the impulse of her
    heart, who, having come in heart, still came to Him, and
    learned of Him, and found rest to her soul. In that early
    springtide of her new-born life, it seemed that, as on
    Aaron's rod, leaf, bud, and flower were all together in
    tangled confusion of rich forthbursting. She had not yet
    reached order and clearness; perhaps, in the fulness of her
    feelings, knew not how great were her blessings, and felt not
    yet that conscious rest which grows out of faith in the
    forgiveness which it obtains.

     And this was now the final gift of Jesus to her. As formerly
    for the first time He had turned so now for the first time He
    spoke to her, and once more with tenderest delicacy. 'Thy
    sins have been forgiven' [1 So,properly rendered. Romanism,
    in this also arrogating to man more than Christ Himself ever
    spoke, has it: Absolvo te, not 'thy sins have been forgiven,'
    but I absolve thee!.] not, are forgiven, and not now, 'the
    many.' Nor does He now heed the murmuring thoughts of those
    around, who cannot understand Who this is that forgiveth sins
    also. But to her, and truly, though not literally, to them
    also, and to us, He said in explanation and application of it
    all: 'Thy faith has saved thee: go into peace.' [2 So
    literally.] Our logical dogmatics would have had it: 'go in
    peace;' more truly He, 'into peace'. [3 This distinction
    between the two modes of expression is marked in Moed. K. 29
    a: 'into peace,' as said to the living; 'in peace,' as
    referring to the dead.] And so she, the first who had come to
    Him for spiritual healing the, first of an unnumbered host,
    went out into the better light, into peace of heart, peace of
    faith, peace of rest, and into the eternal peace of the
    Kingdom of Heaven, and of the Heaven of the kingdom hereafter
    and for ever.

 THE ASCENT: FROM THE RIVER JORDAN TO THE MOUNT OF
    TRANSFIGURATION

    THE MINISTRY OF LOVE, THE BLASPHEMY OF HATRED, AND THE
    MISTAKES OF EARTHLY AFFECTION, THE RETURN TO CAPERNAUM,
    HEALING OF THE DEMONISED DUMB, PHARISAIC CHARGE AGAINST
    CHRIST, THE VISIT OF CHRIST'S MOTHER AND BRETHREN

    CHAPTER XXII

     (St. Luke viii. 1-3; St. Matt. ix. 32-35; St. Mark iii. 22,
    &c.; St. Matt. xii. 46-50 and parallels.)

     HOWEVER interesting and important to follow the steps of our
    Lord on His journey through Galilee, and to group in their
    order the notices of it in the Gospels, the task seems almost
    hopeless. In truth, since none of the Evangelists attempted,
    should we not say, ventured, to write a 'Life' of the Christ,
    any strictly historical arrangement lay outside their
    purpose. Their point of view was that of the internal, rather
    than the external development of this history. And so events,
    kindred in purpose, discourses bearing on the same subject,
    or parables pointing to the same stretch of truth, were
    grouped together; or, as in the present instance, the
    unfolding teaching of Christ and the growing opposition of
    His enemies exhibited by joining together notices which,
    perhaps, belong to different periods. And the lesson to us
    is, that, just the Old Testament gives neither the national
    history of Israel, nor the biography of its heroes, but a
    history of the Kingdom of God in its progressive development,
    so the Gospels present not a 'Life of Christ,' but the
    history of the Kingdom of God in its progressive
    manifestation.

     Yet, although there are difficulties connected with details,
    we can trace in outline the general succession of events. We
    conclude, that Christ was now returning to Capernaum from
    that Missionary journey [a St. Luke viii. 1-3; St. Matt. ix.
    35.] of which Nain had been the southermost point. On this
    journey He was attended, not only by the Twelve, but by
    loving grateful women, who ministered to Him of their
    substance. Among them three are specially named. 'Mary,
    called Magdalene,' had received from Him special benefit of
    healing to body and soul. [1 'Out of whom went seven devils.'
    Those who are curious to see one attempt at finding a
    'rational' basis for some of the Talmudical legends about
    Mary Magdalene and others connected with the history of
    Christ, may consult the essay of Rosch in the Studien and
    Kritiken for 1873, pp. 77-115 (Die Jesus-Mythen d.
    Judenth.).] Her designation as Magdalene was probably derived
    from her native city, Magdala, [2 The suggestion that the
    word meant 'curler of hair,' which is made by Lightfoot, and
    repeated by his modern followers, depends on entire
    misapprehension.] just as several Rabbis are spoken of in the
    Talmud as 'Magdalene' (Magdelaah, or Magdelaya [3 In Baba
    Mets. 25 a, middle, R. Isaac the Magdalene is introduced in a
    highly characteristic discussion about coins that are found.
    His remark about three coins laid on each other like a tower
    might, if it had not been connected with such a grave
    discussion, have almost seemed a pun on Magdala.]). Magdala,
    which was a Sabbath-day's journey from Tiberias, [a Jer.
    Erub. 22 d, end.] was celebrated for its dyeworks, [b Ber. R.
    79.] and its manufactories of fine woolen textures, of which
    eithty are mentioned. [c Jer. Taan. 69 a, line 15 from
    bottom.] Indeed, all thatdistrict seems to have been engaged
    in this industry. [4 Thus in regard to another village (not
    mentioned either by Relandus or Neubauer) in the Midr. on
    Lament. ii. 2, ed. Warsh. p. 67 b, line 13 from bottom.] It
    was also reputed for its traffic inturtle-doves and pigeons
    for purifications, tradition, with its usual exaggeration of
    numbers, mentioning three hundred such shops. [Midr. on
    Lament. ii. 2.] Accordingly, its wealth was very great, and
    it is named among the three cities whose contributions were
    so large as to be sent in a wagon to Jerusalem. [e Jer. Taan.
    69 a.] But its moral corruption was also great, and to this
    the Rabbis attributed its final destruction. [f Jer. Taan.
    u.s.; Midr. on Lament. ii. 2, ed. Warsh. p. 67 b middle.]
    Magdala had a Synagogue. [g Midr. on Eccl. x. 8, ed. Warsh p.
    102 b.] [5 This Synagogue is introduced in the almost
    blasphemous account of the miracles of Simon ben Jochai, when
    he declared Tiberias free from the defilement of dead bodies,
    buried there.] Its name was probably derived from a strong
    towerwhich defended its approaches, or served for outlook.
    This suggestion is supported by the circumstance, that what
    seems to have formed part, or a suburb of Magdala, [6 This
    has been well shown by Neubauer, Geogr. de la Palestine, pp.
    217, 218.] bore the names of 'Fish-tower' and 'Tower of the
    Dyers.' One at least, if not both these towers, would be near
    the landing-place, by the Lake of Galilee, and overlook its
    waters. The necessity for such places of outlook and defence,
    making the town a Magdala, would be increased by the
    proximity of the magnificent plain of Gennesaret, of which
    Josephus speaks in such rapturous terms. [h Jewish War iii.
    10.] Moreover, only twenty minutes to the north of Magdala
    descended the so-called 'Valley of Doves' (the Wady Hamam),
    through which passed the ancient caravan-road that led over
    Nazareth to Damascus. The name 'valley of doves' illustrates
    the substantial accuracy of the Rabbinic descriptions of
    ancient Magdala. Modern travelers (such as Dean Stanley,
    Professor Robinson, Farrar, and others) have noticed the
    strange designation 'Valley of Doves' without being able to
    suggest the explanation of it, which the knowledge of its
    traffic in doves for purposes of purification at once
    supplies. Of the many towns and villages that dotted the
    shores of the Lake of Galilee, all have passed away except
    Magdala, which is still represented by the collection of mud
    hovels that bears the name of Mejdel. The ancient watch-tower
    which gave the place its name is still there, probably
    standing on the same site as that which looked down on Jesus
    and the Magdalene. To this day Magdala is celebrated for its
    springs and rivulets, which render it specially suitable for
    dyeworks; while the shell-fish with which these waters and
    the Lake are said to abound, [a Baedeker's Palastina, pp.
    268, 269.] might supply some of the dye. [1 It is at any rate
    remarkable that the Talmud (Megill. 6 a) finds in the ancient
    territory of Zebulun the Chilzon ( ) so largely used in
    dyeing purple and scarlet, and so very precious. Spurious
    dyes of the same colour were also produced (comp. Lewysohn,
    Zool. d. Talm. pp. 281-283).]

     Such details may help us more clearly to realise the home,
    and with it, perhaps, also the upbringing and circumstances
    of her who not only ministered to Jesus in His Life, but,
    with eager avarice of love, watched 'afar off' His dying
    moments, [b St. Matt. xxvii. 56.] and then sat over against
    the new tomb of Joseph in which His Body was laid. [c ver.
    61.] And the terrible time which followed she spent with her
    like-minded friends, who in Galilee had ministered to Christ,
    [d St. Luke xxiii. 55.] in preparing those 'spices and
    ointments' [e ver. 56.] which the Risen Saviour would never
    require.For, on that Easter-morning the empty tomb of Jesus
    was only guarded by Angel-messengers, who announced to the
    Magdalene and Joanna, as well as the other women, [f St. Luke
    xxiv. 10.] the gladsome tidings that His foretold
    Resurrection had become a reality. But however difficult the
    circumstances may have been, in which the Magdalene came to
    profess her faith in Jesus, those of Joanna (the Hebrew
    Yochani [g Seb. 62 b.]) must have been even more trying. She
    was the wife of Chuza, Herod's Steward [2 Curiously enough,
    the Greek term (steward) has passed into the Rabbinic
    Aphiterophos.] possibly, though not likely, the
    Court-official whose son Jesus had healed by the word spoken
    in Cana. [h St. John iv. 46-54.] The absence of any reference
    to the event seems rather opposed to this supposition.
    Indeed, it seems doubtful, whether Chuza was a Jewish name.
    In Jewish writings [3 Delitzsch (Zeitsch. fur Luther Theol.
    for 1876, p. 598), seems to regard Kuzith ( ) as the Jewish
    equivalent of Chuza. The word is mentioned in the Aruch (ed.
    Landau, p. 801 b, where the references, however, are
    misquoted) as occurring in Ber. R. 23 and 51. No existing
    copy of the Midrash has these references, which seem to have
    been purposely omitted. It is curious that both occur in
    connection with Messianic passages. In any case, however,
    Kuzith was not a proper name, but some mystic designation.
    Lightfoot (Horae Hebr. on Luke viii. 3) reads in the
    genealogy of Haman (in Sopher. xiii. 6) Bar Kuza. But it is
    really Bar Biza, 'son of contempt', all the names being
    intended as defamatory of Haman. Similarly, Lightfoot asserts
    that the designation does not occur in the genealogy of Haman
    in the Targum Esther. But in the Second Targum Esther
    (Miqraoth Gedol. Part vi. p. 5 a) the name does occur in the
    genealogy as 'Bar Buzah.'] the designation ( ) [i Yebam. 70
    a.] seems rather used as a by-name ('little pitcher') for a
    small, insignificant person, than as a proper name. [1 Dr.
    Neubauer (Studia Bibl. p. 225) regards Chuza as an Idumaean
    name, connected with the Edomite god Kos.] Only one other of
    those who ministered to Jesus is mentioned by name. It is
    Susanna, the 'lily.' The names of the other loving women are
    not written on the page of earth's history, but only on that
    of the 'Lamb's Book of Life.' And they 'ministered to Him of
    their substance.' So early did eternal riches appear in the
    grab of poverty; so soon did love to Christ find its treasure
    in consecrating it to His Ministry. And ever since has this
    been the law of His Kingdom, to our great humiliation and yet
    greater exaltation in fellowship with Him.

     It was on this return-journey to Capernaum, probably not far
    from the latter place, that the two blind men had their sight
    restored. [a St. Matt. ix. 27-31.] It was then, also, that
    the healing of the demonised dumb took place, which is
    recorded in St. Matt. ix. 32-35, and alluded to in St. Mark
    iii. 22-30. This narrative must, of course, not be confounded
    with the somewhat similar event told in St. Matt. xii. 22-32,
    and in St. Luke xi. 14-26. The latter occurred at a much
    later period in our Lord's life, when, as the whole context
    shows, the opposition of the Pharisaic party had assumed much
    larger proportions, and the language of Jesus was more fully
    denunciatory of the character and guilt of His enemies. That
    charge of the Pharisees, therefore, that Jesus cast out the
    demons through the Prince of the demons, [b St. Matt. ix.
    34.] as well as His reply to it, will best be considered when
    it shall appear in its fullest development. This all the
    more, that we believe at least the greater part of our Lord's
    answer to their blasphemous accusation, as given in St.
    Mark's Gospel, [c St. Mark iii. 23-30.] to have beenspoken at
    that later period. [2 I regard St. Mark iii. 23-30 as
    combining the event in St. Matt. ix. (see St. Mark iii. 23)
    with what is recorded in St. Matt. xii. and St. Luke xi., and
    I account for this combination by the circumstance that the
    latter is not related by St. Mark.]

     It was on this return-journey to Capernaum from the
    uttermost borders of Galilee, when for the first time He was
    not only followed by His twelve Apostles, but attended by the
    loving service of those who owed their all to His Ministry,
    that the demonized dumb was restored by the casting our of
    the demon. Even these circumstances show that a new stage in
    the Messianic course had begun. It is characterised by fuller
    unfolding of Christ's teaching and working, and pari passu,
    by more fully developed opposition of the Pharisaic party.
    For the two went together, nor can they be distinguished as
    cause or effect. That new stage, as repeatedly noted, had
    opened on His return from the 'Unknown Feast' in Jerusalem,
    whence He seems to have been followed by the Pharisaic party.
    We have marked it so early as the call of the four disciples
    by the Lake of Galilee. But it first activety appeared at the
    healing of the paralytic in Capernaum, when, for the first
    time, we noticed the presence and murmuring of the Scribes,
    and, for the first time also, the distinct declaration about
    the forgiveness of sins on the part of Jesus. The same
    twofold element appeared in the call of the publican Matthew,
    and the cavil of the Pharisees at Christ's subsequent eating
    and drinking with 'sinners.' It was in further development of
    this separation from the old and now hostile element, that
    the twelve Apostles were next appointed, and that distinctive
    teaching of Jesus addressed to the people in the 'Sermon on
    the Mount,' which was alike a vindication and an appeal. On
    the journey through Galilee, which now followed, the hostile
    party does not seem to have actually attended Jesus; but
    their growing, and now outspoken opposition is heard in the
    discourse of Christ about John the Baptist after the
    dismissal of his disciples, [a St. Matt. xi. 16-19.] while
    its influence appears in the unspoken thoughts of Simon the
    Pharisee.

     But even before these two events, that had happened which
    would induce the Pharisaic party to increased measures
    against Jesus. It has already been suggested, that the party,
    as such, did not attend Jesus on His Galilean journey. But we
    are emphatically told, that tidings of the raising of the
    dead at Nain had gone forth into Judaea. [b St. Luke vii.
    17.] No doubt they reached the leaders at Jerusalem. There
    seems just sufficient time between this and the healing of
    the demonised dumb on the return-journey to Capernaum, to
    account for the presence there of those Pharisees, [c St.
    Matt. ix. 34.] who are expressly described by St. Mark [d St.
    Mark iii. 32.] as 'the Scribes which came down from
    Jerusalem.'

     Other circumstances, also, are thus explained. Whatever view
    the leaders at Jerusalem may have taken of the raising at
    Nain, it could no longer be denied that miracles were wrought
    by Jesus. At least, what to us seem miracles, yet not to
    them, since, as we have seen, 'miraculous' cures and the
    expelling of demons lay within the sphere of their
    'extraordinary ordinary', were not miracles in our sense,
    since they were, or professed to be, done by their 'own
    children.' The mere fact, therefore, of such cures, would
    present no difficulty to them. To us a single
    well-ascertained miracle would form irrefragable evidence of
    the claims of Christ; to them it would not. They could
    believe in the 'miracles,' and yet not in the Christ. To them
    the question would not be, as to us, whether they were
    miracles, but, By what power, or in what Name, He did these
    deeds? From our standpoint, their opposition to the Christ
    would, in view of His Miracles, seem not only wicked. but
    rationally inexplicable. But ours was not their point of
    view. And here, again, we perceive that it was enmity of the
    Person and Teaching of Jesus which led to the denial of His
    claims. The inquiry: By what Power Jesus did these works?
    they met by the assertion, that it was through that of Satan,
    or the Chief of the Demons. They regarded Jesus, as not only
    temporarily, but permanently, possessed by a demon, that is,
    as the constant vehicle of Satanic influence. And this demon
    was, according to them, none other than Beelzebub, the prince
    of the devils. [a St. Mark iii. 22]. Thus, in their view, it
    was really Satan who acted in and through Him; and Jesus,
    instead of being recognised as the Son of God, was regarded
    as an incarnation of Satan; instead of being owned as the
    Messiah, was denounced and treated as the representative of
    the Kingdom of Darkness. All this, because the Kingdom which
    He came to open, and which He preached, was precisely the
    opposite of what they regarded as the Kingdom of God. Thus it
    was the essential contrariety of Rabbinism to the Gospel of
    the Christ that lay at the foundation of their conduct
    towards the Person of Christ. We venture to assert, that this
    accounts for the whole after-history up to the Cross.

     Thus viewed, the history of Pharisaic opposition appears not
    only consistent, but is, so to speak, morally accounted for.
    Their guilt lay in treating that as Satanic agency which was
    of the Holy Ghost; and this, because they were of their
    father the Devil, and knew not, nor understood, nor yet loved
    the Light, their deeds being evil. They were not children of
    the light, but of that darkness which comprehended Him not
    Who was the Light. And now we can also understand the growth
    of active opposition to Christ. Once arrived at the
    conclusion, that the miracles which Christ did were due to
    the power of Satan, and that He was the representative of the
    Evil One, their eourse was rationally and morally chosen. To
    regard every fresh manifestation of Christ's Power as only a
    fuller development of the power of Satan, and to oppose it
    with increasing determination and hostility, even to the
    Cross: such was henceforth the natural progress of this
    history. On the other hand, such a course once fully settled
    upon, there would, and could, be no further reasoning with,
    or against it on the part of Jesus. Henceforth His Discourses
    and attitude to such Judaism must be chiefly denunciatory,
    while still seeking, as, from the inward necessity of His
    Nature and the outward necessity of His Mission, He must, to
    save the elect remnant from this 'untoward generation,' and
    to lay broad and wide the foundations of the future Church.
    But the old hostile Judaism must henceforth be left to the
    judgment of condemnation, except in those tears of Divine
    pity which the Jew-King and Jewish Messiah wept over the
    Jerusalem that knew not the day of its visitation.

     But all this, when the now beginning movement shall have
    reached its full proportions. [a St. Matt. xii. 22 &c.; St.
    Luke xi. 14 &c.] For the present, we mark only its first
    appearance. The charge of Satanic agency was, indeed, not
    quite new. It had been suggested, that John the Baptist had
    been under demoniacal influence, and this cunning pretext for
    resistance to his message had been eminently successful with
    the people. [b St. Matt. xi. 17, 18; St. Luke vii. 31-32.]
    The same charge, only in much fuller form, was not raised
    against Jesus. As 'the multitude marvelled, saying, it was
    never so seen in Israel,' the Pharisees, without denying the
    facts, had this explanation of them, to be presently
    developed to all its terrible consequences: that, both as
    regarded the casting out of the demon from the dumb man and
    all similar works, Jesus wrought it 'through the Ruler of the
    Demons.' [c St. Matt. ix. 33, 34.] [1 At the same time I
    have, with not a few authorities, strong doubts whether St.
    Matt. ix. 34 is not to be regarded as an interpolation (see
    Westcott and Hort, New Testament). Substantially, the charge
    was there; but it seems doubtful whether, in so many words,
    it was made till a later period.]

     And so the edge of this manifestation of the Christ was
    blunted and broken. But their besetment of the Christ did not
    cease. It is to this that we attribute the visit of 'the
    mother and brethren' of Jesus, which is recorded in the three
    Synoptic Gospels. [d St. Matt. xii. 46 &c.; St. Mark iii. 31
    &c. St. Luke viii. 19 &c.] Even this circumstances shows its
    decisive importance. It forms a parallel to the former
    attempts of the Pharisees to influence the disciples of
    Jesus, [e ST. Matt. ix. 11.] and then to stir up the
    hostility of the disciples of John. [f U.S. ver. 14.] both of
    which are recorded by the three Evangelists. It also brought
    to light another distincitive characteristic of the Mission
    of Jesus. We place this visit of the 'mother and brethren' of
    Jesus immediately after His return to Capernaum, and we
    attribute it to Pharisaic opposition, which either filled
    those relatives of Jesus with fear for His safety, or made
    them sincerely concerned about His proceedings. Only if it
    meant some kind of interference with His Mission, whether
    prompted by fear or affection, would Jesus have so disowned
    their relationship.

     But it meant more than this. As always, the positive went
    side by side with the negative. Without going so far, as with
    some of the Fathers, to see pride or ostentation in this,
    that the Virgin--Mother summoned Jesus to her outside the
    house, since the opposite might as well have been her motive,
    we cannot but regard the words of Christ as the sternest
    prophetic rebuke of all Mariolatry, prayer for the Virgin's
    intercession, and, still more, of the strange doctrines about
    her freedom from actual and original sin, up to their
    prurient sequence in the dogma of the 'Immaculate
    Conception.'

     On the other hand, we also remember the deep reverence among
    the Jews for parents, which found even exaggerated expression
    in the Talmud. [a Jer. Peah i. 1.] [1 An instance of this has
    been given in the previous chapter, p. 567, note. Other
    examples of filial reverence are mentioned, some painfully
    ludicrous, others touching, and accompanied by sayings which
    sometimes rise to the sublime.] And we feel that, of all in
    Israel, He, Who was their King, could not have spoken nor
    done what might even seem disrespectful to a mother. There
    must have been higher meaning in His words. That meaning
    would be better understood after His Resurrection. But even
    before that it was needful, in presence of interference or
    hindrance by earthly relationships, even the nearest and
    tenderest, and perhaps all the more in their case, to point
    to the higher and stronger spiritual relationship. And beyond
    this, to still higher truth. For, had He not entered into
    earthly kinship solely for the sake of the higher spiritual
    relationship which He was about to found; and was it not,
    then, in the most literal sense, that not those in nearest
    earthly relationship, but they who sat 'about Him, nay,
    whoever shall do the will of God,' were really in closest
    kinship with Him? Thus, it was not that Christ set lightly by
    His Mother, but that He confounded not the means with the
    end, nor yet surrendered the spirit for the letter of the Law
    of Love, when, refusing to be arrested or turned aside from
    His Mission, even for a moment, [2 Bengel remarks on St.
    Matt. xii. 46: 'Non plane hic congruebat sensus Mariae cum
    sensu Filii.'] He elected to do the Will of His Father rather
    than neglect it by attending to the wishes of the
    Virgin-Mother. As Bengel aptly puts it: He contemns not the
    Mother, but He places the Father first. [3 'Non spernit
    Matrem, sed anteponit Patrem.'] And this is ever the right
    relationship in the Kingdom of Heaven!

 THE ASCENT: FROM THE RIVER JORDAN TO THE MOUNT OF
    TRANSFIGURATION

    NEW TEACHING 'IN PARABLES', THE PARABLES TO THE PEOPLE BY
    THE LAKE OF GALILEE, AND THOSE TO THE DISCIPLES IN CAPERNAUM

    CHAPTER XXIII

     (St. Matt. xiii. 1-52; St. Mark iv. 1-34; St. Luke viii.
    4-18.)

     We are once more with Jesus and His disciples by the Lake of
    Galilee. We love to think that it was in the early morning,
    when the light laid its golden shadows on the still waters,
    and the fresh air, untainted by man, was fragrant of earth's
    morning sacrifice, when no voice of human discord marred the
    restfulness of holy silence, nor broke the Psalm of Nature's
    praise. It was a spring morning too, and of such spring-time
    as only the East, and chiefly the Galilean Lake, knows, nor
    of mingled sunshine and showers, of warmth and storm, clouds
    and brightness, when life seems to return slowly and feebly
    to the palsied limbs of our northern climes, but when at the
    warm touch it bounds and throbs with the vigour of youth. The
    imagery of the 'Sermon on the Mount' indicates that winter's
    rain and storms were just past. [a. St. Matt. vii. 25.] Under
    that sky Nature seems to meet the coming of spring by
    arraying herself in a garb more glorious than Solomon's royal
    pomp. Almost suddenly the blood-red anemones, the gay tulips,
    the spotless narcissus, and the golden ranunculus [1 It adds
    interest to these Solomon-like lilies that the Mishnah
    designates one class of them, growing in fields and
    vineyards, by the name 'royal lily' (Kil. v. 8, Bab. Talmud,
    p. 29 a). At the same time, the term used by our Lord need
    not be confined to 'lilies' in the strictest sense. It may
    represent the whole wild flora of spring, chiefly the
    anemones (comp. Tristram, Nat. Hist. of the Bible, pp.
    462-465). A word with the same letters as (though of
    different meaning) is the Rabbinic Narkes, the narcissus, of
    course that (of fields), not (of gardens).] deck with
    wondrous richness the grass of the fields, alas! so soon to
    wither [b u.s. vi. 28-30.], while all trees put forth their
    fragrant promise of fruit. [c vii. 16-20.] As the imagery
    employed in the Sermon on the Mount confirmed the inference,
    otherwise derived, that it was spoken during the brief period
    after the winter rains, when the 'lilies' decked the fresh
    grass, so the scene depicted in the Parables spoken by the
    Lake of Galilee indicates a more advanced season, when the
    fields gave first promise of a harvest to be gathered in due
    time. And as we know that the barley-harvest commenced with
    the Passover, we cannot be mistaken in supposing that the
    scene is laid a few weeks before that Feast.

     Other evidence of this is not wanting. From the opening
    verses [a St. Matt. xiii. 1, 2] we infer, that Jesus had gone
    forth from 'the house' with His disciples only, and that, as
    He sat by the seaside, the gathering multitude had obliged
    Him to enter a ship, whence He spake unto them many things in
    Parables. That this parabolic teaching did not follow, far
    less, was caused by, the fully developed enmity of the
    Pharisees, [b St. Matt. xii. 24 &c.] [1 This seems to be the
    view of Goebel in his 'Parabeln Jesu,' a book to which I
    would here, in general, acknowledge my obligations. The
    latest work on the subject (F. L. Steinmeyer, d. Par. d.
    Herrn, Berlin 1884) is very disappointing.] will appear more
    clearly in the sequel. Meantime it should be noticed, that
    the first series of Parables (those spoken by the Lake of
    Galilee) bear no distinct reference to it. In this respect we
    mark an ascending scale in the three series of Parables,
    spoken respectively at three different periods in the History
    of Christ, and with reference to three different stages of
    Pharisaic opposition and popular feeling. The first series is
    that, [c St. Matt. xiii.] when Pharisaic opposition had just
    devised the explanation that His works were of demoniac
    agency, and when misled affection would have converted the
    ties of earthly relationship into bonds to hold the Christ.
    To this there was only one reply, when the Christ stretched
    out His Hand over those who had learned, by following Him, to
    do the Will of His Heavenly Father, and so become His nearest
    of kin. This was the real answer to the attempt of His mother
    and brethren; that to the Pharisaic charge of Satanic agency.
    And it was in this connection that, first to the multitude,
    then to His disciples, the first series of Parables was
    spoken, which exhibits the elementary truths concerning the
    planting of the Kingdom of God, its development, reality,
    value, and final vindication.

     In the second series of Parables we mark a different stage.
    The fifteen Parables of which it consists [d St. Luke
    x.-xvi., xviii., passim] were spoken after the
    Transfiguration, on the descent into the Valley of
    Humiliation. They also concern the Kingdom of God, but,
    although the prevailing characteristic is still parenetic, [2
    Admonitory, hortatory, a term used in theology, of which it
    is not easy to give the exact equivalent.] or, rather,
    Evangelic, they have a controversial aspect also, as against
    some vital, active opposition to the Kingdom, chiefly on the
    part of the Pharisees. Accordingly, they appear among 'the
    Discourses' of Christ, [e St. Luke xi.-xiv.] and are
    connected with the climax of Pharisaic opposition as
    presented in the charge, in its most fully developed form,
    that Jesus was, so to speak, the Incarnation of Satan, the
    constant medium and vehicle of his activity. [a St. Luke xi.
    14-36; St. Matt. xii. 22-45; St. Mark iii. 22-30] This was
    the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost. All the Parables spoken
    at that period bear more or less direct reference to it,
    though, as already stated, as yet in positive rather than
    negative form, the Evangelic element, but the tone has become
    judicial, and the Evangelic element appears chiefly in the
    form of certain predictions connected with the coming end.
    The Kingddom of god is presented in its final stage of
    ingathering, separation, reward and loss, as, indeed, we
    might expect in the teaching of the Lord immediately before
    His final rejection by Israel and betrayal into the hands of
    the Gentiles.

     This internal connection between the Parables and the
    History of Christ best explains their meaning. Their
    artificial grouping (as by mostly all modern critics [1 Even
    Goebel, though rightly following the purely historical
    method, has, in the interest of so-called higher criticism,
    attempted such artificial grouping.]) is too ingenious to be
    true. One thing, however, is common to all the Parables, and
    forms a point of connection between them. They are all
    occasioned by some unreceptiveness on the part of the
    hearers, and that, even when the hearers are professing
    disciples. This seems indicated in the reason assigned by
    Christ to the disciples for His use of parabolic teaching:
    that unto them it was 'given to know the mystery of the
    Kingdom of God, but unto them it was that are without, all
    these things are done in parables.' [c St. Mark iv. 11] And
    this may lead up to such general remarks on the Parables as
    are necessary for their understanding.

     Little information is to be gained from discussing the
    etymology of the word Parable. [2 From projicio, admoveo rem
    rei comparationis causa (Grimm). Little can be learned from
    the classical definitions of the See Archbishop Trench on the
    Parables.] The verb from which it is derived means to
    project; and the term itself, the placing of one thing by the
    side of another. Perhaps no other mode of teaching was so
    common among the Jews [3 F. L. Steinmeyer has most strangely
    attempted to deny this. Yet every ancient Rabbinic work is
    literally full of parables. In sSanh. 39 b we read that R.
    Meir's discourses consisted in third of legal determinations,
    in third of Haggadah, and in third of parables.] as that by
    Parables. Only in their case, they were almost entirely
    illustrations of what had been said or taught; [4 I am
    herereferring only to the form, not the substance, of these
    Jewish parables.] while, in the case of Christ, they served
    as the foundation for His teaching. In the one case, the
    light of earth was cast heavenwards, in the other, that of
    heaven earthwards; in the one case, it was intended to make
    spiritual teaching appear Jewish and national, in the other
    to convey spiritual teaching in a form adapted to the
    standpoint of the hearers. This distinction will be found to
    hold true, even in instances where there seems the closest
    parallelism between a Rabbinic and an Evangelic Parable. On
    further examination, the difference between them will appear
    not merely one of degree, but of kind, or rather of
    standpoint. This may be illustrated by the Parable of the
    woman who made anxious search for her lost coin, [a St. Luke
    xv. 8-10] which there is an almost literal Jewish parallel.
    [b In the Midrash on Cant. i. i] But, whereas in the Jewish
    Parable the moral is, that a man ought to take much greater
    pains in the study of the Torah than in the searcch for coin,
    since the former procures an eternal reward, while the coin
    would, if found, at most only procure temporary enjoyment,
    the Parable of Christ is intended to set forth, not the merit
    of study or of works, but the compassion of the Saviour in
    seeking the lost, and the joy of Heaven in his recovery. It
    need scarcely be said, that comparison between such Parables,
    as regards their spirit, is scarcely possible, except by way
    of contrast. [1 It is, indeed, possible that the framework of
    some of Christ's Parables may have been adopted and adapted
    by later Rabbis. No one who knows the early intercourse
    between Jews and Jewish Christians would deny this a priori.]

     But, to return. In Jewish writings a Parable (Mimshal,
    Mashal, Mathla) is introduced by some such formula as this:
    'I will tell thee a parable' 'To what is the thing like? To
    one,' &c. Often it begins more briefly, thus: 'A Parable. To
    what is the thing like?' or else, simply: To what is the
    thing like?' Sometimes even this is omitted and the Parable
    is indicated by the preposition 'to' at the beginning of the
    illustravitive story. Jewish writers extol Parables, as
    placing the meaning of the Law within range of the
    comprehension of all men. The 'wise King' had introduced this
    method, the usefulness of which is illustrated by the Parable
    of a great palace which had many doors, so that people lost
    their way in it, till one came who fastened a ball of thread
    at the chief entrance, when all could readily find their way
    in and out. [c Midr. on Cant. i. 1] Even this will illustrate
    what has been said of the difference between Rabbinic
    Parables and those employed by our Lord.

     The general distinction between a Parable and a Proverb,
    Fable and Allegory, cannot here be discussed at length. [2 I
    must here refer to the various Biblical Dictionaries, to
    Professor Westcott's Introduction to the Study of the Gospels
    (pp. 28, 286), and to the works of Archbishop Trench and Dr.
    Goebel.] It will sufficiently appear from the character and
    the characteristics of the Parables of our Lord. That
    designation is, indeed, sometimes applied to what are not
    Parables, in the strictest sense; while it is wanting where
    we might have expected it. Thus, in the Synoptic Gospels
    illustrations, [a St. Matt. xxiv. 32; St. Mark iii. 23; St.
    Luke v. 36] and even proverbial sayings, such as 'Physician,
    heal thyself,' [b St. Luke iv. 23] or that about the blind
    leading the blind, [c St. Matt. xv. 15] are designated
    Parables. Again, the term 'Parable,' although used in our
    Authorised Version, does not occur in the original of St.
    John's Gospel; and this, although not a few illustrations
    used in that Gospel might, on superficial examination, appear
    to be Parables. The term must, therefore, be here restricted
    to special conditions. The first of these is, that all
    Parables bear reference to well-known scencs, such as those
    of daily life; or to events, either real, or such as every
    one would expect in given circumstances, or as would be in
    accordance with prevailing notions. [1 Every reader of the
    Gospels will be able to distinguish these various classes.]
     Such pictures, familiar to the popular mind, are in the
    Parable connected with corresponding spiritual realities.
    Yet, here also, there is that which distinguishes the Parable
    from the mere illustration. The latter conveys no more than,
    perhaps not so much as, that which was to be illustrated;
    while the Parable conveys this and a great deal beyond it to
    those, who can follow up its shadows to the light by which
    they have been cast. In truth, Parables are the outlined
    shadows, large, perhaps, and dim, as the light of heavenly
    things falls on well-known scenes, which correspond to, and
    have their higher counterpart in spiritual realities. For,
    earth and heaven are twin-parts of His works. And, as the
    same law, so the same order, prevails in them; and they form
    a grand unity in their relation to the Living God Who
    reigheth. And, just as there is ultimately but one Law, one
    Force, one Life, which, variously working, effects and
    affects all the Phenomenal in the material universe, however
    diverse it may seem, so is there but one Law and Life as
    regards the intellectual, moral, nay, and the spiritual. One
    Law, Force, and Life, binding the earthly and the heavenly
    into a Grand Unity, the outcome of the Divine Unity, of which
    it is the manifestation. Thus things in earth and heaven are
    kindred, and the one may become to us Parables of the other.
    And so, if the place of our resting be Bethel, they become
    Jacob's ladder, by which those from heaven come down to
    earth, and those from earth ascend to heaven.

     Another characteristic of the Parables, in the stricter
    sense, is that in them the whole picture or narrative is used
    in illustration of some heavenly teaching, and not merely one
    feature or phase of it, [1 Cremer (Lex. of N.T. Greek, p.
    124) lays stress on the idea of a comparison, which is
    manifestly incorrect; Goebel, with not much better reason, on
    that of a narrative form.] as in some of the parabolic
    illustrations and proverbs of the Synoptists, or the
    parabolic narratives of the Fourth Gospel. Thus, in the
    parabolic illustrations about the new piece of cloth on the
    old garment, [a St. Luke v. 36.] about the blind leading the
    blind, [b St. Luke vi. 39.] about the forth-putting of leaves
    on the fig-tree; [c St. Matt. xxiv. 32.] or in the parabolic
    proverb, 'Physician, heal thyself;' [d St. Luke iv. 23.] or
    in such parabolic narratives of St. John, as about the Good
    Shepherd, [e St. John x.] or the Vine [f St. John xv.], in
    each case, only one part is selected as parabolic. On the
    other hand, even in the shortest Parables, such as those of
    the seed growing secretly, [g St. Mark iv. 26-29.] the leaven
    in themeal, [h St. Matt. xiii. 33.] and the pearl of great
    price, [i vv. 45, 46.] the picture is complete, and has not
    only in one feature, but in its whole bearing, a counterpart
    in spiritual realities. But, as shown in the Parable of the
    seed growing secretly, [k St. Mark iv. 26-29.] it is not
    necessary that the Parable should always contain some
    narrative, provided that not only one feature, but the whole
    thing related, have its spiritual application.
     In view of what has been explained, the arrangement of the
    Parables into symbolical and typical [2 So by Goebel.] can
    only apply to their form, not their substance. In the first
    of these classes a scene from nature or from life serves as
    basis for exhibiting the corresponding spiritual reality. In
    the latter, what is related serves as type ( ), not in the
    ordinary sense of that term, but in that not unfrequent in
    Scripture: as example, whether for imitation, [m Phil. iii
    17; 1 Tim. iv. 12.] or in warning. [n 1 Cor. x. 6. 11.] In
    the typical Parables the illustration lies, so to speak, on
    the outside; in the symbolical, within the narrative or
    scene. The former are to be applied; the latter must be
    explained.

     It is here that the characteristic difference between the
    various classes of hearers lay. All the Parables, indeed,
    implied some background of opposition, or else of
    unreceptiveness. In the record of this first series of them,
    [o St. Matt. xiii.] the fact that Jesus spake to the people
    in Parables, [p St. Matt. xiii. 3, and parallels.] and only
    in Parables, [q St. Matt. xiii. 34; St. Mark iv. 33, 34.] is
    strongly marked. It appears, therefore, to have been the
    first time that this mode of popular teaching was adopted by
    him. [3 In the Old Testament there are parabolic descriptions
    and utterances, especially in Ezekiel (xv.; xvi.; xvii.;
    xix.), and a fable (Judg. ix. 7-15), but only two Parables:
    the one typical (2 Sam. xii. 1-6), the other symbolical (Is.
    v. 1-6).] Accordingly, the disciples not only expressed their
    astonishment, but inquired the reason of this novel method.
    [r St. Matt. xiii. 10, and parallels.] The answer of the Lord
    makes a distinction between those to whom it is given to know
    the mysteries of the Kingdom, and those to whom all things
    were done in Parables. But, evidently, this method of
    teaching could not have been adopted for the people, in
    contradistinction to the disciples, and as a judicial
    measure, since even in the first series of Parables three
    were addressed to the disciples, after the people had been
    dismissed. [a St. Matt. xiii. 36, 44-52.] On the otherhand,
    in answer to the disciples, the Lord specially marks this as
    the difference between the teaching vouchsafed to them and
    the Parables spoken to the people, that the designed effect
    of the latter was judicial: to complete that hardening which,
    in its commencement, had been caused by their voluntary
    rejection of what they had heard. [b St. Matt. xi. 13-17.]
    But, as not only the people, but the disciples also, were
    taught by Parables, the hardening effect must not be ascribed
    to the parabolic mode of teaching, now for the first time
    adopted by Christ. Nor is it a sufficient answer to the
    question, by what this darkening effect, and hence hardening
    influence, of the Parable on the people was caused, that the
    first series, addressed to the multitude, [c St. Matt. xiii.
    1-9, 24-33.] consisted of a cumulation of Parables, without
    any hint as to their meaning or interpretation. [1 So even
    Goebel (i. pp. 33-42, and especially p. 38.).] For,
    irrespective of other considerations, these Parables were at
    least as easily understood as those spoken immediately
    afterwards to the disciples, on which, similarly, no comment
    was given by Jesus. On the other hand, to us at least, it
    seems clear, that the ground of the different effect of the
    Parables on the unbelieving multitude and on the believing
    disciples was not objective, or caused by the substance or
    form of these Parables, but subjective, being caused by the
    different standpoint of the two classes of hearers toward the
    Kingdom of God.

     This explanation removes what otherwise would be a serious
    difficulty. For, it seems impossible to believe, that Jesus
    had adopted a special mode of teaching for the purpose of
    concealing the truth, which might have saved those who heard
    Him. His words, indeed, indicate that such was the effect of
    the Parables. But they also indicate, with at least equal
    clearness, that the cause of this hardening lay, not in the
    parabolic method of teaching, but in the state of spiritual
    insensibility at which, by their own guilt, they had
    previously arrived. Through this, what might, and, in other
    circumstances, would, have conveyed spiritual instruction,
    necessarily became that which still further and fatally
    darkened and dulled their minds and hearts. Thus, their own
    hardening merged into the judgment of hardening. [d St. Matt.
    xiii. 13-15.]

     We are now in some measure able to understand, why Christ
    now for the first time adopted parabolic teaching. Its reason
    lay in the altered circumstances of the case. All his former
    teaching had been plain, although initial. In it He had set
    forth by Word, and exhibited by fact (in miracles), that
    Kingdom of God which He had come to open to all believers.
    The hearers had now ranged themselves into two parties. Those
    who, whether temporarily or permanently (as the result would
    show), had admitted these premisses, so far as they
    understood them, were His professing disciples. On the other
    hand, the Pharisaic party had now devised a consistent
    theory, according to which the acts, and hence also the
    teaching, of Jesus, were of Satanic origin. Christ must still
    preach the Kingdom; for that purpose had he come into the
    world. Only, the presentation of that Kingdom must now be for
    decision. It must separate the two classes, leading the one
    to clearer understanding of the mysteries of the Kingdom, of
    what not only seems, but to our limited thinking really is,
    mysterious; while the other class of hearers would now regard
    these mysteries as wholly unintelligible, incredible, and to
    be rejected. And the ground of this lay in the respective
    positions of these two classes towards the Kingdom.
    'Whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have
    more abundance; but whosoever hath not, from him shall be
    taken away even that he hath.' And the mysterious manner in
    which they were presented in Parables was alike suited to,
    and corresponded with, the character of these 'mysteries of
    the Kingdom,' now set forth, not for initial instruction, but
    for final decision. As the light from heaven falls on earthly
    objects, the shadows are cast. But our perception of them,
    and its mode, depend on the position which we occupy
    relatively to that Light.

     And so it was not only best, but most merciful, that these
    mysteries of substance should now, also, be presented as
    mysteries of form in Parables. Here each would see according
    to his standpoint towards the Kingdom. And this was in turn
    determined by previous acceptance or rejection of that truth,
    which had formerly been set forth in a plain form in the
    teaching and acting of the Christ. Thus, while to the opened
    eyes and hearing ears of the one class would be disclosed
    that, which prophets and righteous men of old had desired but
    not attained, to them who had voluntarily cast aside what
    they had, would only come, in their seeing and hearing, the
    final judgment of hardening. So would it be to each according
    to his standpoint. To the one would come the grace of final
    revelation, to the other the final judgment which, in the
    first place, had been of their own choice, but which, as they
    voluntarily occupied their position relatively to Christ, had
    grown into the fulfilment of the terrible prediction of
    Esaias concerning the final hardening of Israel. [a Is. vi.
    9, 10.]

     Thus much in general explanation. The record of the first
    series of Parables [b St. Matt. xiii.] contains three
    separate accounts: that of the Parables spoken to the people;
    that of the reason for the use of parabolic teaching, and the
    explanation of the first Parables (both addressed to the
    disciples); and, finally, another series of Parables spoken
    to the disciples. To each of these we must briefly address
    ourselves.

     On that bright spring morning, when Jesus spoke from 'the
    ship' to the multitude that crowded the shore, He addressed
    to them these four Parables: concerning Him Who sowed, [1 The
    correct reading in St. Matt. xiii. 18 is, not as in the T.
    R.] concerning the Wheat and the Tares, concerning the
    Mustard-Seed, and concerning the Leaven. The first, or
    perhaps the two first of these, must be supplemented by what
    may be designated as a fifth Parable, that of the Seed
    growing unobservedly. This is the only Parable of which St.
    Mark alone has preserved the record. [c St. Mark iv. 26-29.]
    All these Parables refer, as is expressly stated, to the
    Kingdom of God; that is, not to any special phase or
    characteristic of it, but to the Kingdom itself, or, in other
    words, to its history. They are all such as befit an open-air
    address at that season of the year, in that locality, and to
    those hearers. And yet there is such gradation and
    development in them as might well point upwards and onwards.

     The first Parable is that of Him Who sowed. We can almost
    picture to ourselves the Saviour seated in the prow of the
    boat, as He points His hearers to the rich plain over against
    Him, where the young corn, still in the first green of its
    growing, is giving promise of harvest. Like this is the
    Kingdom of Heaven which He has come to proclaim. Like what?
    Not yet like that harvest, which is still in the future, but
    like that field over there. The Sower [2 With the definite
    article, not 'a Sower,' as in our A.V., but the Sower.] has
    gone forth to sow the Good Seed. If we bear in mind a mode of
    sowing peculiar (if we are not mistaken) to those times, the
    Parable gains in vividness. According to Jewish authorities
    there was twofold sowing, as the seed was either cast by the
    hand ( ) or by means of cattle ( [d Arach. 25 a, line 18 from
    bottom.]). In the latter case, a sack with holes was filled
    with corn and laid on the back of the animal, so that, as it
    moved onwards, the seed was thickly scattered. Thus it might
    well be, that it would fall indiscriminately on beaten
    roadway, [3 not. I cannot understand how this road could be
    within the ploughed and sowed field. Our view is further
    confirmed by St. Luke viii. 5, where the seed is described as
    'trodden down', evidently on the highway.] on stony places
    but thinly covered with soil, or where the thorns had not
    been cleared away, or undergrowth from the thorn-hedge crept
    into the field, [1 Comp. the slight variations in the three
    Gospels.] as well as on good ground. The result in each case
    need not here be repeated. But what meaning would all this
    convey to the Jewish hearers of Jesus? How could this sowing
    and growing be like the Kingdom of God? Certainly not in the
    sense in which they expected it. To them it was only a rich
    harvest, when all Israel would bear plenteous fruit. Again,
    what was the Seed, and who the Sower? or what could be meant
    by the various kinds of soil and their unproductiveness?

     To us, as explained by the Lord, all this seems plain. But
    to them there could be no possibility of understanding, but
    much occasion for misunderstanding it, unless, indeed, they
    stood in right relationship to the 'Kingdom of God.' The
    initial condition requisite was to believe that Jesus was the
    Divine Sower, and His Word the Seed of the Kingdom: no other
    Sower than He, no other Seed of the Kingdom than His Word. If
    this were admitted, they had at least the right premisses for
    understanding 'this mystery of the Kingdom.' According to
    Jewish view the Messiah was to appear in outward pomp, and by
    display of power to establish the Kingdom. But this was the
    very idea of the Kingdom, with which Satan had tempted Jesus
    at the outset of His Ministry. [2 Comp. the chapter on the
    Temptation.] Inopposition to it was this 'mystery of the
    Kingdom,' according to which it consisted in reception of the
    Seed of the Word. That reception would depend on the nature
    of the soil, that is, on the mind and heart of the hearers.
    The Kingdom of God was within: it came neither by a display
    of power, nor even by this, that Israel, or else the
    Gospel-hearers, were the field on which the Seed of the
    Kingdom was sown. He had brought the Kingdom: the Sower had
    gone forth to sow. This was of free grace, the Gospel. But
    the seed might fall on the roadside, and so perish without
    even springing up. Or it might fall on rocky soil, and so
    spring up rapidly, but wither before it showed promise of
    fruit. Or it might fall where thorns grew along with, and
    more rapidly than, it. And so it would, indeed, show promise
    of fruit; the corn might appear in the ear; but that fruit
    would not come to ripeness ('bring no fruit to perfection' [a
    St. Luke viii. 14.]), because the thorns growing more rapidly
    would choke the corn. Lastly, to this threefold faultiness of
    soil, through which the seed did not spring up at all, or
    merely sprung up, or just reached the promise, but not the
    perfection of fruit, corresponded a threefold degree of
    fruit-bearing in the soil, according to which it brought
    forth thirtyfold, sixtyfold, or an hundredfold, in the
    varying measure of its capacity.

     If even the disciples failed to comprehend the whole bearing
    of this 'Mystery of the Kingdom,' we can believe how utterly
    strange and un-Jewish such a Parable of the Messianic Kingdom
    must have sounded to them, who had been influenced by the
    Pharisaic representations of the Person and Teaching of
    Christ. And yet the while these very hearers were,
    unconsciously to themselves, fulfilling what Jesus was
    speaking to them in the Parable!

     Whether or not the Parable recorded by St. Mark alone, [a
    St. Mark iv. 26-29.] concerning the Seed growing
    unobservedly, was spoken afterwards in private to the
    disciples, or, as seems more likely, at the first, and to the
    people by the sea-shore, this appears the fittest place for
    inserting it. If the first Parable, concerning the Sower and
    the Field of Sowing, would prove to all who were outside the
    pale of discipleship a 'mystery,' while to those within it
    would unfold knowledge of the very mysteries of the Kingdom,
    this would even more fully be the case in regard to this
    second or supplementary Parable. In it we are only viewing
    that portion of the field, which the former Parable had
    described as good soil. 'So is the Kingdom of God, as if a
    man had cast the seed on the earth, and slept and rose, night
    and day, and the seed sprang up and grew: how, he knows not
    himself. Automatous [1 I would here remark in general, that I
    have always adopted what seemed to me the best attested
    readings, and endeavoured to translate literally, preserving,
    where it seemed desirable, even the succession of the words.]
    [self-acting] the earth beareth fruit: first blade, then ear,
    then full wheat in the ear! But when the fruit presents
    itself, immediately he sendeth forth [2 This is a Hebraism,
    explaining the Hebrew use of the verb in analogous
    circumstances.] the sickle, because the harvest is come.' The
    meaning of all this seems plain. As the Sower, after the seed
    has been cast into the ground, can do no more; he goes to
    sleep at night, and rises by day, the seed the meanwhile
    growing, the Sower knows not how, and as his activity ceases
    till the time that the fruit is ripe, when immediately he
    thrusts in the sickle, so is the Kingdom of God. The seed is
    sown; but its growth goes on, dependent on the law inherent
    in seed and soil, dependent also on Heaven's blessing of
    sunshine and showers, till the moment of ripeness, when the
    harvest-time is come. We can only go about our daily work, or
    lie down to rest, as day and night alternate; we see, but
    know not the how of the growth of the seed. Yet, assuredly it
    will ripen, and when that moment has arrived, immediately the
    sickle is thrust in, for the harvest is come. And so also
    with the Sower. His outward activity on earth was in the
    sowing, and it will be in the harvesting. What lies between
    them is of that other Dispensation of the Spirit, till He
    again send forth His reapers into His field. But all this
    must have been to those 'without' a great mystery, in no wise
    compatible with Jewish notions; while to them 'within' it
    proved a yet greater, and very needful unfolding of the
    mysteries of the Kingdom, with very wide application of them.

     The 'mystery' is made still further mysterious, or else it
    is still further unfolded, in the next Parable concerning the
    Tares sown among the Wheat. According to the common view,
    these Tares represent what is botanically known as the
    'bearded Darnel' (Lolium temulentum), a poisonous rye-grass,
    very common in the East, 'entirely like wheat until the ear
    appears,' or else (according to some), the 'creeping wheat'
    or 'couch-grass' (Triticum repens), of which the roots creep
    underground and become intertwined with those of the wheat.
    But the Parable gains in meaning if we bear in mind that,
    according to ancient Jewish (and, indeed, modern Eastern)
    ideas, the Tares were not of different seed, [a Kil. i. 1.]
    but only a degenerate kind of wheat. [b Jer. Kil. 26 d.]
    Whether in legend or symbol, Rabbinism has it thateven the
    ground had been guilty of fornication before the judgment of
    the Flood, so that when wheat was sown tares sprang up. [c
    Ber. R. 28 ed. Warsh. p. 53 a, about the middle.] The Jewish
    hearers of Jesus would, therefore, think of these tares as
    degenerate kind of wheat, originally sprung at the time of
    the Flood, through the corruptness of the earth, but now,
    alas! so common in their fields; wholly undistinguishable
    from the wheat, till the fruit appeared: noxious, poisonous,
    and requiring to be separated from the wheat, if the latter
    was not to become useless.

     With these thoughts in mind, let us now try to realise the
    scene pictured. Once more we see the field on which the corn
    is growing, we know not how. The sowing time is past. 'The
    Kingdom of Heaven is become [1 The tense should here be
    marked.] like to a man who sowed good seed in his field. But
    in the time that men sleep came his enemy and over-sowed
    tares [2 The Greek is represented by the Hebrew.] in (upon)
    the midst [3 The expression is of great importance. The right
    reading is (insuper sero, to sow above), not (sowed).] of the
    wheat, and went away.' Thus far the picture is true to
    nature, since such deeds of enmity were, and still are,
    common in the East. And so matters would go on unobserved,
    since, whatever kind of 'tares' may be meant, it would, from
    their likeness, be for some time impossible to distinguish
    them from the wheat. 'But when the herbage grew and made
    fruit, then appeared (became manifest) also the tares.' What
    follows is equally true to fact, since, according to the
    testimony of travellers, most strenuous efforts are always
    made in the East to weed out the tares. Similarly, in the
    parable, the servants of the householder are introduced as
    inquiring whence these tares had come; and on the reply: 'A
    hostile person has done this,' they further ask: 'Wilt thou
    then that we go (straightway) and gather them together?' The
    absence of any reference to the rooting up or burning the
    tares, is intended to indicate, that the only object which
    the servants had in view was to keep the wheat pure and
    unmixed for the harvest. But this their final object would
    have been frustrated by the procedure, which their
    inconsiderate zeal suggested. It would, indeed, have been
    quite possible to distinguish the tares from the wheat, and
    the Parable proceeds on this very assumption, for, by their
    fruit they would be known. But in the present instance
    separation would have been impossible, without, at the same
    time, uprooting some of the wheat. For, the tares had been
    sown right into the midst, and not merely by the side, of the
    wheat; and their roots and blades must have become
    intertwined. And so they must grow together to the harvest.
    Then such danger would no longer exist, for the period of
    growing was past, and the wheat had to be gathered into the
    barn. Then would be the right time to bid the reapers first
    gather the tares into bundles for burning, that afterwards
    the wheat, pure and unmixed, might be stored in the garner.

     True to life as the picture is, yet the Parable was, of all
    others, perhaps the most un-Jewish, and therefore mysterious
    and unintelligible. Hence the disciples specially asked
    explanation of this only, which from its main subject they
    rightly designated as the Parable 'of the Tares.' [a St.
    Matt. xiii. 36.] Yet this was also perhaps the most important
    for them to understand. For already 'the Kingdom of Heaven is
    become like' this, although the appearance of fruit has not
    yet made it manifest, that tares have been sown right into
    the midst of the wheat. But they would soon have to learn it
    in bitter experience and as a grievous temptation, [b St.
    John vi. 66-70.] and not only as regarded the impressionable,
    fickle multitude, nor even the narrower circle of professing
    followers of Jesus, but that, alas! in their very midst there
    was a traitor And they would have to learn it more and more
    in the time to come, as we have to learn it to all ages, till
    the 'Age-' or 'AEon-completion.' [1 AEon, or 'age,' without
    the article in ver. 40, and so it should also be in ver. 39.]
    Most needful, yet most mysterious also, is this other lesson,
    as the experience of the Church has shown, since almost every
    period of her history has witnessed, not only the recurrence
    of the proposal to make the wheat unmixed, while growing, by
    gathering out the tares, but actual attempts towards it. All
    such have proved failures, because the field is the wide
    'world,' not a narrow sect; because the tares have been sown
    into the midst of the wheat, and by the enemy; and because,
    if such gathering were to take place, the roots and blades of
    tares and wheat would be found so intertwined, that harm
    would come to the wheat. But why try to gather the tares
    together, unless from undiscerning zeal? Or what have we, who
    are only the owner's servants, to do with it, since we are
    not bidden of Him? The 'AEon-completion' will witness the
    harvest, when the separation of tares and wheat may not only
    be accomplished with safety, but shall become necessary. For
    the wheat must be garnered in the heavenly storehouse, and
    the tares bound in bundles to be burned. Then the harvesters
    shall be the Angels of Christ, the gathered tares 'all the
    stumbling-blocks and those who do the lawlessness,' and their
    burning the casting of them 'into the oven of the fire.' [2
    With the two articles: the well-known oven of the well-known
    fire-Gehenna.]

     More mysterious still, and, if possible, even more needful,
    was the instruction that the Enemy who sowed the tares was
    the Devil. To the Jews, nay, to us all, it may seem a
    mystery, that in 'the Messianic Kingdom of Heaven' there
    should be a mixture of tares with the wheat, the more
    mysterious, that the Baptist had predicted that the coming
    Messiah would thoroughly purge His floor. But to those who
    were capable of receiving it, it would be explained by the
    fact that the Devil was 'the Enemy' of Christ, and of His
    Kingdom, and that he had sowed those tares. This would, at
    the same time, be the most effective answer to the Pharisaic
    charge, that Jesus was the Incarnation of Satan, and the
    vehicle of his influence. And once instructed in this, they
    would have further to learn the lessons of faith and
    patience, connected with the fact that the good seed of the
    Kingdom grew in the field of the world, and hence that, by
    the very conditions of its existence, separation by the hand
    of man was impossible so long as the wheat was still growing.
    Yet that separation would surely be made in the great
    harvest, to certain, terrible loss of the children of the
    wicked one, [1 Without here anticipating what may have to be
    said as to Christ's teaching of the final fate of the wicked,
    it cannot be questioned that at that period the doctrine of
    endless punishment was the common belief of the Jews. I am
    aware, that dogmas should not be based upon parabolic
    teaching, but in the present instance the Parable would have
    been differently worded, if such dogmatic teaching had not
    been in the mind of Speaker and hearers.] and to the
    'sun-like forthshining' in glory of the righteous in the
    Kingdom prepared by their Father.

     The first Parables were intended to present the mysteries of
    the Kingdom as illustrated by the sowing, growing, and
    intermixture of the Seed. The concluding two Parables set
    forth another equally mysterious characteristic of the
    Kingdom: that of its development and power, as contrasted
    with its small and weak beginnings. In the Parable of the
    Mustard-seed this is shown as regards the relation of the
    Kingdom to the outer world; in that of the Leaven, in
    reference to the world within us. The one exhibits the
    extensiveness, the other the intensiveness, of its power; in
    both cases at first hidden, almost imperceptible, and
    seemingly wholly inadequate to the final result. Once more we
    say it, that such Parables must have been utterly
    unintelligible to all who did not see in the humble,
    despised, Nazarene, and in His teaching, the Kingdom. But to
    those whose eyes, ears and hearts had been opened, they would
    carry most needed instruction and most precious comfort and
    assurance. Accordingly, we do not find that the disciples
    either asked or received an interpretation of these Parables.

     A few remarks will set the special meaning of these Parables
    more clearly before us. Here also the illustrations used may
    have been at hand. Close by the fields, covered with the
    fresh green or growing corn, to which Jesus had pointed, may
    have been the garden with its growing herbs, bushes and
    plants, and the home of the householder, whose wife may at
    that moment have been in sight, busy preparing the weekly
    provision of bread. At any rate, it is necessary to keep in
    mind the homeliness of these illustrations. The very idea of
    Parables implies, not strict scientific accuracy, but popular
    pictorialness. It is characteristic of them to present vivid
    sketches that appeal to the popular mind, and exhibit such
    analogies of higher truths as can be readily perceived by
    all. Those addressed were not to weigh every detail, either
    logically or scientifically, but at once to recognise the
    aptness of the illustration as presented to the popular mind.
    Thus, as regards the first of these two Parables, the seed of
    the mustard-plant passed in popular parlance as the smallest
    of seeds. [2 Certainly the Sinapis nigra, and not the
    Salvadora persica.] In fact, the expression, 'small as a
    mustard-seed,' had become proverbial, and was used, not only
    by our Lord, [a St. Matt. xvii. 20.] but frequently by the
    Rabbis, to indicate the smallest amount, such as the least
    drop of blood, [b Ber. 31 a.] the least defilement, [c Nidd.
    v. 2.] or thesmallest remnant of sun-glow in the sky. [d
    Vayyik. R. 31, ed. Warsh., vol. iii. p. 48 a.] 'But whenit is
    grown, it is greater than the garden-herbs.' Indeed, it looks
    no longer like a large garden-herb or shrub, but 'becomes,'
    or rather, appears like, 'a tree', as St. Luke puts it, 'a
    great tree,' [e St. Luke xiii. 18, 19.] of course, not in
    comparisonwith other trees, but with garden-shrubs. Such
    growth of the mustard seed was also a fact well known at the
    time, and, indeed, still observed in the East. [1 Comp.
    Tristram, Nat. Hist. of the Bible, p. 472. The quotations in
    Buxtorf's Lex. Rabb. pp. 822, 823, on which the supposed
    Rabbinic illustrations of the growth of the plant are based
    (Light-foot, Schottgen, Wetstein, even Vorstius and Winer),
    are wholly inapt, being taken from legendary descriptions of
    the future glory of Palestine, the exaggerations being of the
    grossest character.]

     This is the first and main point in the Parable. The other,
    concerning the birds which are attracted to its branches and
    'lodge', literally, 'make tents' [2 Canon Tristram's
    rendering of the verb (u. s. p. 473) as merely perching or
    resting does not give the real meaning of it. He has very
    aptly noticed how fond birds are of the mustard-seed.],
    there, or else under the shadow of it, [f St. Mark iv. 32.]
    is subsidiary. Pictorial, of course, this trait would be, and
    we can the more readily understand that birds would be
    attracted to the branches or the shadow of the mustard-plant,
    when we know that mustard was in Palestine mixed with, or
    used as food for pigeons, [g Jer. Shabb. 16 c.] and
    presumably would be sought by other birds. And the general
    meaning would the more easily be apprehended, that a tree,
    whose wide-spreading branches afforded lodgment to the birds
    of heaven, was a familiar Old Testament figure for a mighty
    kingdom that gave shelter to the nations. [h Ezek. xxxi. 6,
    12; Dan. iv. 12, 14, 21, 22.] Indeed, it is specifically used
    as an illustration of the Messianic Kingdom. [i Ezek. xvii.
    23.] Thus the Parable would point to this, so full of mystery
    to the Jews, so explanatory of the mystery to the disciples:
    that the Kingdom of Heaven, planted in the field of the world
    as the smallest seed, in the most humble and unpromising
    manner, would grow till it far outstripped all other similar
    plants, and gave shelter to all nations under heaven.

     To this extensive power of the Kingdom corresponded its
    intensive character, whether in the world at large or in the
    individual. This formed the subject of the last of the
    Parables addressed at this time to the people, that of the
    Leaven. We need not here resort to ingenious methods of
    explaining 'the three measures,' or Seahs, of meal in which
    the leaven was hid. Three Seahs were an Ephah, [k Men. vii.]
    of which the exact capacity differed in various districts.
    According to the so-called 'wilderness,' or original
    Biblical, measurement, it was supposed to be a space holding
    432 eggs, [a Erub. viii. 2; 83 a.] while the Jerusalem ephah
    was one-fifth, and the Sepphoris (or Galilean) ephah
    two-fifths, or, according to another authority, one-half
    larger. [1 Comp. Herzfeld, Handelsgesch. d. Juden, pp.
    183-185.] To mix 'three measures' of meal was common in
    Biblical, as well as in later times. [b Comp. Gen. xviii. 6;
    Judg. vi. 19; 1 Sam. i. 24; Jos. Ant. ix. 4, 5; Babha B. 9 a,
    &c.] Nothing further was therefore conveyed than the common
    process of ordinary, everyday life. And in this, indeed, lies
    the very point of the Parable, that the Kingdom of God, when
    received within, would seem like leaven hid, but would
    gradually pervade, assimilate, and transform the whole of our
    common life.

     With this most un-Jewish, and, to the unbelieving multitude,
    most mysterious characterisation of the Kingdom of Heaven,
    the Saviour dismissed the people. Enough had been said to
    them and for them, if they had but ears to hear. And now He
    was again alone with the disciples 'in the house' at
    Capernaum, to which they had returned. [c St. Matt. xiii. 36;
    comp. ver. 10, and St. Mark iv. 10.] Many new and deeper
    thoughts of the Kingdom had come to them. But why had He so
    spoken to the multitude, in a manner so different, as
    regarded not only the form, but even the substance of His
    teaching? And did they quite understand its solemn meaning
    themselves? More especially, who was the enemy whose activity
    would threaten the safety of the harvest? Of that harvest
    they had already heard on the way through Samaria. [d St.
    John iv. 35.] And what were those 'tares,' which were to
    continue in their very midst till the judicial separation of
    the end? To these questions Jesus now made answer. His
    statement of the reason for adopting in the present instance
    the parabolic mode of teaching would, at the same time, give
    them farther insight into those very mysteries of the Kingdom
    which it had been the object of these Parables to set forth.
    [2 On Is. lxi. 10, we read the following beautiful
    illustration, alike of the words of our Lord in St. Matt.
    xiii. 16, and of the exclamation of the woman in St. Luke xi.
    27: 'Seven garments there are with which the Holy One,
    blessed be His Name, clothed Himself, from the time the world
    was created to the hour when He will execute punishment on
    Edom the wicked (Rome). When He created the world, He clothed
    himself with glory and splendour (Ps. civ. 1); when He
    manifested Himself by the Red Sea, He clothed Himself with
    majesty (Ps. xciii. 1); when He gave the Law, He clothed
    Himself with strength (ib.); when He forgives the iniquity of
    Israel, He clothes Himself in white (Dan. vii. 9); when He
    executeth punishment on the nations of the world, He clothes
    himself with vengeance (Is. lix. 17). The sixth garment He
    will put on in the hour when the Messiah shall be revealed.
    Then shall He clothe Himself with righteousness (ib.). The
    seventh garment is when He taketh vengeance on Edom, then
    shall He be clothed in red (Is. lxiii. 2). And the garment
    with which in the future He will clothe Messiah shall shine
    forth from one end of the world to the other, according to
    Is. lxi. 10. And Israel shall enjoy His light, and say,
    Blessed the hour in which Messiah was born; blessed the womb
    which bare Him; blessed the generation which seeth, blessed
    the eye which is deemed worthy to behold Him, because that
    the opening of His lips is blessing and peace, His speech
    rest to the soul, and security and rest are in His Word. And
    on His tongue pardon and forgiveness; His prayer the incense
    of accepted sacrifice; His entreaty holiness and purity.
    Blessed are ye Israel, what is reserved for you! Even as it
    is written (Ps. xxxi. 20; 19 in our A. V.). (Pesiqta, ed.
    Bub. p. 149 a and b.)] His unsolicited explanation of the
    details of the first Parable would call attention to points
    that might readily have escaped their notice, but which, for
    warning and instruction, it most behoved them to keep in
    view.

     The understanding of the first Parable seems to have shown
    them, how much hidden meaning this teaching conveyed, and to
    have stimulated their desire for comprehending what the
    presence and machinations of the hostile Pharisees might, in
    some measure, lead them to perceive in dim outline. Yet it
    was not to the Pharisees that the Lord referred. The Enemy
    was the Devil; the field, the world; the good seed, the
    children of the Kingdom; the tares, the children of the
    Wicked One. And most markedly did the Lord, in this instance,
    not explain the Parable, as the first one, in its details,
    but only indicate, so to speak, the stepping-stones for its
    understanding. This, not only to train the disciples, but
    because, unlike the first Parable, that of the Tares would
    only in the future and increasingly unfold its meaning.

     But even this was not all. The disciples had now knowledge
    concerning the mysteries of the Kingdom. But that Kingdom was
    not matter of the understanding only, but of personal
    apprehension. This implied discovery of its value, personal
    acquisition of it, and surrender of all to its possession.
    And this mystery of the Kingdom was next conveyed to the
    disciples in those Parables specially addressed to, and
    suited only for, them.

     Kindred, or rather closely connected, as are the two
    Parables of the Treasure hid in the Field and of the Pearl of
    Great Price, now spoken to the disciples, their differences
    are sufficiently marked. In the first, one who must probably
    be regarded as intending to buy a, if not this, field,
    discovers a treasure hidden there, and in his joy parts with
    all else to become owner [1 The , in opposition to the , or
    huckster, small trader, is the en gros merchant who travels
    from place to place and across waters (from ) to purchase.]
    of the field and of the hidden treasure which he had so
    unexpectedly found. Some difficulty has been expressed in
    regard to the morality of such a transaction. In reply it may
    be observed, that it was, at least, in entire accordance with
    Jewish law. [a B. Mets. 25 a, b.] [2 But the instance quoted
    by Wetstein (N. Test. i. p. 407) from Babha Mez. 28 b is
    inapt, and depends on entire misunderstanding of the passage.
    The Rabbi who found the treasure, so far from claiming, urged
    its owner to take it back.] If a man had found a treasure in
    loose coins among the corn, it would certainly be his, if he
    bought the corn. If he had found it on the ground, or in the
    soil, it would equally certainly belong to him, if he could
    claim ownership of the soil, and even if the field were not
    his own, unless others could prove their right to it. The law
    went so far as to adjudge to the purchaser of fruits anything
    found among these fruits. This will suffice to vindicate a
    question of detail, which, in any case, should not be too
    closely pressed in a parabolic history.

     But to resume our analysis. In the second Parable we have a
    wise merchantman who travels in search of pearls, and when he
    finds one which in value exceeds all else, he returns and
    sells all that he has, in order to buy this unique gem. The
    supreme value of the Kingdom, the consequent desire to
    appropriate it, and the necessity of parting with all else
    for this purpose, are the points common to this and the
    previous Parable. But in the one case, it is marked that this
    treasure is hid from common view in the field, and the finder
    makes unexpected discovery of it, which fills him with joy.
    In the other case, the merchantman is, indeed, in search of
    pearls, but he has the wisdom to discover the transcendent
    value of this one gem, and the yet greater wisdom to give up
    all further search and to acquire it at the surrender of
    everything else. Thus, two different aspects of the Kingdom,
    and two different conditions on the part of those who, for
    its sake, equally part with all, are here set before the
    disciples.

     Nor was the closing Parable of the Draw-net less needful
    Assuredly it became, and would more and more become, them to
    know, that mere discipleship, mere inclusion in the
    Gospel-net, was not sufficient. That net let down into the
    sea of this world would include much which, when the net was
    at last drawn to shore, would prove worthless or even
    hurtful. To be a disciple, then, was not enough. Even here
    there would be separation. Not only the tares, which the
    Enemy had designedly sown into the midst of the wheat, but
    even much that the Gospel-net, cast into the sea, had
    inclosed, would, when brought to land, prove fit only to be
    cast away, into 'the oven of the fire where there is the
    wailing and the gnashing of teeth.'

     So ended that spring-day of first teaching in Parables, to
    the people by the Lake, and in the house at Capernaum to the
    disciples. Dim, shadowy outlines, growing larger and more
    faint in their tracings to the people; shadowy outlines,
    growing brighter and clearer to all who were disciples. Most
    wondrous instruction to all, and in all aspects of it; which
    even negative critics admit to have really formed part of
    Christ's own orignal teaching. But if this be the case, we
    have two questions of decisive character to ask. Undoubtedly,
    these Parables were un-Jewish. This appears, not only from a
    comparison with the Jewish views of the Kingdom, but from the
    fact that their meaning was unintelligible to the hearers of
    Jesus, and from this, that, rich as Jewish teaching is in
    Parables, none in the least parallel to them can be adduced.
    [1 The so-called Rabbinic illustrations are inapt, except as
    per contra. Thus, on St. Matt. xiii. 17 it is to be remarked,
    that in Rabbinic opinion revelation of God's mysteries would
    only be granted to those who were righteous or learned. The
    Midr. on Eccl. i. 7 contains the following Parable in
    illustration (comp. Dan. ii. 21): A matron is asked, to which
    of two that would borrow she would lend money, to a rich or a
    poor man. And when she answers: To a rich man, since even if
    he lost it, he would be able to repay, she is told that
    similarly God gives not wisdom to fools, who would employ it
    for theatres and baths, &c., but to the sages, who make use
    of it in the Academies. A similar and even more strange
    explanation of Exod. xv. 26 occurs Ber. 40 a, where it is
    shown that God supports the full, and not, as man, an empty
    vessel. Hence, if we begin to learn, or repeat what we have
    learned, we shall learn more, and conversely also. Further,
    on ver. 12 we note, that 'to have taken away what one hath'
    is a Jewish proverbial expression: 'that which is in their
    hand shall be taken from them' (Ber. R. 20, ed. Warsh. p. 38
    b, last two lines). Expressions similar to ver. 16 are used
    by the Rabbis, for ex. Chag. 14 b. In regard to ver. 17, R.
    Eliezer inferred from Exod. xv. 2 that servantmaids saw at
    the Red Sea what neither Ezekiel nor the prophets had seen,
    which he corroborates from Ezek. i. 1 and Hos. xii. 10
    (Mechilta, ed. Weiss p. 44 a). Another and much more
    beautiful parallelism has been given before. On ver. 19 it
    ought to be remarked that the Wicked One was not so much
    represented by the Rabbis as the Enemy of the Kingdom of God,
    but as that of individuals, indeed, was often described as
    identical with the evil impulse (Yetser haRa, comp. Chag. 16
    a; B. Bathr. 16 a; Succ. 52 a). On ver. 22 we remark, that
    not riches, but poverty, was regarded by the Rabbis as that
    which choked the good seed. On ver. 39, we may remark a
    somewhat similar expression in B. Mez. 83 b: 'Let the Lord of
    the Vineyard come and remove the thorns.' On ver. 42, the
    expression 'oven of fire,' for Gehenna, is the popular Jewish
    one ( ). Similarly, the expression, 'gnashing of teeth,'
    chiefly characteristic of the anger and jealousy of those in
    Gehinnom, occurs in the Midrash on Eccl. i. 15. On ver. 44 we
    refer to the remarks and note on that Parable (p. 595). In
    connection with ver. 46, we remember that, in Shabb. 119 a, a
    story is told concerning a pearl for which a man had given
    his whole fortune, hoping thereby to prevent the latter being
    alienated from him (comp. Ber. R. 11). Lastly, in connection
    with ver. 47 we notice, that the comparison of men with
    fishes is a common Jewish one (Abod. Zar. 3 b; 4 a).] Our
    first question, therefore, is: Whence this un-Jewish and
    anti-Jewish teaching concerning the Kingdom on the part of
    Jesus of Nazareth?

     Our second question goes still farther. For, if Jesus was
    not a Prophet, and, if a Prophet, then also the Son of God,
    yet no more strangely unexpected prophecy, minutely true in
    all its details, could be conceived, than that concerning His
    Kingdom which His parabolic description of it conveyed. Has
    not History, in the strange, unexpected fulfilling of that
    which no human ingenuity at the time could have forecast, and
    no pen have described with more minute accuracy of detail,
    proved Him to be more than a mere man, One sent from God, the
    Divine King of the Divine Kingdom, in all the vicissitudes
    which such a Divine Kingdom must experience when set up upon
    earth?

 THE ASCENT: FROM THE RIVER JORDAN TO THE MOUNT OF
    TRANSFIGURATION

    CHRIST STILLS THE STORM ON THE LAKE OF GALILEE.

    CHAPTER XXIV.

     (St. Matt. viii. 18, 23-27; St. Mark iv. 35-41; St. Luke
    viii. 22-25.)

     IT was the evening of that day of new teaching, and once
    more great multitudes were gathering to Him. What more, or,
    indeed, what else, could He have said to those to whom He had
    all that morning spoken in Parables, which hearing they had
    not heard nor understood? It was this, rather than weariness
    after a long day's working, which led to the resolve to pass
    to the other side. To merely physical weariness Jesus never
    subordinated his work. If, therefore, such had been the
    motive, the proposal to withdraw for rest would have come
    from the disciples, while here the Lord Himself gave command
    to pass to the other side. In truth, after that day's
    teaching it was better, alike for these multitudes and for
    His disciples that He should withdraw. And so 'they took Him
    even as He was' that is, probably without refreshment of
    food, or even preparation of it for the journey. This
    indicates how readily, nay, eargerly, the disciples obeyed
    the behest.

     Whether in their haste they heeded not the signs of the
    coming storm; whether they had the secret feeling, that ship
    and sea which bore such burden were safe from tempest; or,
    whether it was one of those storms which so often rise
    suddenly, and sweep with such fury over the Lake of Galilee,
    must remain undetermined. He was in 'the ship' [1 The
    definite article (St. Mark iv. 36) marks it as 'the' ship, a
    well-known boat which always bore Him.], whether that of the
    sons of Jonas, or of Zebedee, the well-known boat, which was
    always ready for His service, whether as pulpit,
    resting-place, or means of journeying. But the departure had
    not been so rapid as to pass unobserved; and the ship was
    attended by other boats, which bore those that would fain
    follow Him. In the stern of the ship, on the low bench where
    the steersman sometimes takes rest, was pillowed the Head of
    Jesus. Weariness, faintness, hunger, exhaustion, asserted
    their mastery over His true humanity. He, Whom earliest
    Apostolic testimony [a Phil. ii. 6.] proclaimed to have been
    in 'the form of God,' slept. Even this evidences the truth of
    the whole narrative. If Apostolic tradition had devised this
    narrative to exhibit His Divine Power, why represent Him as
    faint and asleep in the ship; and, if it would portray Him as
    deeply sleeping for very weariness, how could it ascribe to
    Him the power of stilling the storm by His rebuke? Each of
    these by themselves, but not the two in their combination,
    would be as legends are written. Their coincidence is due to
    the incidence of truth. Indeed, it is characteristic of the
    History of the Christ, and all the more evidential that it is
    so evidently undesigned in the structure of the narrative,
    that every deepest manifestation of His Humanity is
    immediately attended by highest display of His Divinity, and
    each special display of His Divine Power followed by some
    marks of His true Humanity. Assuredly, no narrative could be
    more consistent with the fundamental assumption that He is
    the God-Man.

     Thus viewed, the picture is unspeakably sublime. Jesus is
    asleep, for very weariness and hunger, in the stern of the
    ship, His head on that low wooden bench, while the heavens
    darken, the wild wind swoops down those mountain-gorges,
    howling with hungry rage over the trembling sea; the waves
    rise and toss, and lash and break over the ship, and beat
    into it, and the white foam washes at His feet His Humanity
    here appears as true as when He lay cradled in the manger;
    His Divinity, as when the sages from the East laid their
    offerings at His Feet. But the danger is increasing, 'so that
    the ship was now filling.' [b St. Mark iv. 37.] They who
    watched it, might be tempted to regard the peaceful rest of
    Jesus, not as indicative of Divine Majesty as it were,
    sublime consciousness of absolute safety, because they did
    not fully realize Who He was. In that case it would,
    therefore, rather mean absolute weakness in not being able,
    even at such a time, to overcome the demands of our lower
    nature; real indifference, also, to their fate, not from want
    of sympathy, but of power. In short, it might lead up to the
    inference that the Christ was a no-Christ, and the Kingdom of
    which he had spoken in Parables, not His, in the sense of
    being identified with His Person.

     In all this we perceive already, in part, the internal
    connection between the teaching of that day and the miracle
    of that evening. Both were quite novel: the teaching by
    Parables, and then the help in a Parable. Both were founded
    on the Old Testament: the teaching on its predictions, [c is.
    vi. 9, 10.] the miracle on its proclamations of the special
    Divine Manifestations in the sea; [d Ps. cvi. 9; cvii. 25;
    Is. li. 10; Nah. i. 4-7; Hab. iii. 8.] and both show that
    everything depended on the view taken of the Person of the
    Christ. Further teaching comes to us from the details of the
    narrative which follows. It has been asked, with which of the
    words recorded by the Synoptists the disciples had wakened
    the Lord: with those of entreaty to save them, [a St. Matt.
    and St. Luke.] or with those of impatience, perhaps uttered
    by Peter himself? [b St. Mark.] But why may not both accounts
    represent what had passed? Similarly, it has been asked,
    which came first, the Lord's rebuke of the disciples, and
    after it that of the wind and sea, [c St. Matt.] orthe
    converse? [d St. Mark and St. Luke.] But, may it not be that
    each recorded that first which had most impressed itself on
    his mind?, St. Matthew, who had been in the ship that night,
    the needful rebuke to the disciples; St. Mark and St. Luke,
    who had heard it from others, [e St. Mark probably from St.
    Peter.] the help first, and then the rebuke?
     Yet it is not easy to understand what the disciples had
    really expected, when they wakened the Christ with their
    'Lord, save us, we perish!' Certainly, not that which
    actually happened, since not only wonder, but fear, came over
    them [1 From the size of these boats it seems unlikely, that
    any but His closest followers would have found room in the
    ship. Besides, the language of those who called for help and
    the answer of Christ imply the same thing.] as they witnessed
    it. Probably theirs would be a vague, undefined belief in the
    unlimited possibility of all in connection with the Christ. A
    belief this, which seems to us quite natural as we think of
    the gradually emerging, but still partially cloud-capped
    height of His Divinity, of which, as yet, only the dim
    outlines were visible to them. A belief this, which also
    accounts for the co-existing, not of disbelief, nor even of
    unbelief, but of inability of apprehension, which, as we have
    seen, characterised the bearing of the Virgin-Mother. And it
    equally characterised that of the disciples up to the
    Resurrection-morning, bringing them to the empty tomb, and
    filling them with unbelieving wonder that the tomb was empty.
    Thus, we have come to that stage in the History of the Christ
    when, in opposition to the now formulated charge of His
    enemies as to His Person, neither His Teaching nor His
    Working could be fully understood, except so far as his
    Personality was understood, that He was of God and Very God.
    And so we are gradually reaching on towards the expediency
    and the need of the coming of the Holy Ghost to reveal that
    mystery of His Person. Similarly, the two great stages in the
    history of the Church's learning were: the first, to come to
    knowledge of what He was, by experience of what He did; the
    second, to come to experience of what He did and does, by
    knowledge of what He is. The former, which corresponds, in
    the Old Testament, to the patriarchal age, is that of the
    period when Jesus was on earth; the second, which answers to
    the history of Israel, is that of the period after His
    Ascension into Heaven and the Descent of the Holy Ghost.

     When 'He was awakened' [a St. Mark iv. 38.] by the voice of
    His disciples, 'He rebuked the wind and the sea,' as Jehovah
    had of old [b Ps. cvi. 9; Nah. i. 4.] just as He had 'rebuked
    the fever, [c St. Luke iv. 39.] and the paroxysm of the
    demonised. [d St. Mark ix. 25.] For, all are His creatures,
    even when lashed to frenzy of the 'hostile power.' And the
    sea He commanded as if it were a sentient being: 'Be silent!
    Be silenced!' And immediately the wind was bound, the panting
    waves throbbed into stillness, and a great calm of rest fell
    upon the Lake. For, when Christ sleepeth, there is storm;
    when He waketh, great peace. But over these men who had erst
    wakened Him with their cry, now crept wonderment, awe, and
    fear. No longer, as at His first wonder-working in Capernaum,
    was it: 'What is this?' [e St. Marki. 27.] but 'Who, then, is
    this?' [1 So literally.] And so the grand question, which
    theenmity of the Pharisees had raised, and which, in part,
    had been answered in the Parables of teaching, was still more
    fully and practically met in what, not only to the disciples,
    but to all time, was a Parable of help. And Jesus also did
    wonder, but at that which alone could call forth His wonder,
    the unreachingness of their faith: where was it? and how was
    it, they had no faith?

     Thus far the history, related, often almost in the same
    words, by the three Evangelists. On all sides the narrative
    is admitted to form part of the primitive Evangelic
    tradition. But if so, then, even on the showing of our
    opponents, it must have had some foundation in an event
    surpassing the ordinary facts in the history of Jesus.
    Accordingly, of all negative critics, at most only two
    venture to dismiss it as unfounded on fact. But such a bold
    assumption would rather increase than diminish the
    difficulty. For, if legend it be, its invention and insertion
    into the primitive record must have had some historical
    reason. Such, however, it is absolutely impossible here to
    trace. The Old Testament contains no analogous history which
    it might have been wished to imitate; Jewish Messianic
    expectancy afforded no basis for it; and there is absolutely
    no Rabbinic parallel [2 The supposed Rabbinic parallels in
    Wetstein (Babha Mez. 59 b) and Winsche's (Chull. 7 a) works
    are quite inapplicable.] which could be placed by its side.
    Similar objections apply to the suggestion of exaggeration of
    some real event (Keim). For, the essence of the narrative
    lies in its details, of which the origin and the universal
    acceptance in the primitive belief of the Church have to be
    accounted for. Nor is the task of those negative critics more
    easy, who, admitting the foundation in fact for this
    narrative, have suggested various theories to account for its
    miraculous details. Most of these explanations are so
    unnatural, [1 The strangest commentation, perhaps, is that of
    Volkmar (Marcus, pp. 307-312). For I cannot here perceive any
    kind of parallelism with the history of Jonah, nor yet see
    any references to the history of St. Paul's shipwreck.] as
    only to point the contrast between the ingenuity of the
    nineteenth century and the simple, vivid language of the
    original narrative. For it seems equally impossible to regard
    it as based either on a misunderstanding of the words of
    Jesus during a storm (Paulus), or on the calm faith of Jesus
    when even the helmsman despaired of safety (Schenkel), or to
    represent it as only in some way a symbol of analogous mental
    phenomena (Ammon, Schleiermacher, Hase, Weiszacker, and
    others). The very variety of explanations proposed, of which
    not one agrees with the others, shows, that none of them has
    proved satisfactory to any but their own inventors. And of
    all it may be said, that they have no foundation whatever in
    the narrative itself. Thus the only alternative left is
    either wholly to reject, or wholly to accept, the narrative.

     If our judgment is to be determined by the ordinary rules of
    historical criticism, we cannot long be in doubt which of
    these propositions is true. Here is a narrative, which has
    the consensus of the three Evangelists; which admittedly
    formed part of the original Evangelic tradition; for the
    invention of which no specific motive can possibly be
    assigned; and which is told with a simplicity of language and
    a pictorial vividness of detail that carry their own
    evidence. Other corroborative points, such as the
    unlikeliness of the invention of such a situation for the
    Christ, or of such bearing of the disciples, have been
    previously indicated. Absolute historical demonstration of
    the event is, of course, in the nature of things impossible.
    But, besides the congruousness to the Parabolic teaching
    which had preceded this Parabolic miracle, and the accord of
    the Saviour's rebuke with His mode of silencing the hostile
    elements on other occasions, some further considerations in
    evidence may be offered to the thoughtful reader.

     For, first, in this 'dominion over the sea,' we recognise,
    not only the fullest refutation of the Pharisaic
    misrepresentation of the Person of Christ, but the
    realisation in the Ideal Man of the ideal of man as
    heaven-destined, [a Ps. viii. 4-8.] and the initial
    fulfilment of the promise which this destination implied.
    'Creation' has, indeed, been 'made subject to vanity;' [b
    Rom. viii 20.] but this 'evil,' which implies not merely
    decay but rebellion, was directly due to the Fall of man, and
    will be removed at the final 'manifestation of the sons of
    God.' And here St. Paul so far stands on the same ground as
    Jewish theology, which also teaches that 'although all things
    were created in their perfectness, yet when the first Adam
    sinned, they were corrupted.' [a Ber. R. 12.] Christ's
    dominion over the sea was, therefore, only the Second and
    Unfallen Adam's real dominion over creation, and the pledge
    of its restoration, and of our dominion in the future. And
    this seems also to throw fresh light on Christ's rebuke,
    whether of storm, disease, or demoniac possession. Thus there
    is a grand consistency in this narrative, as regards the
    Scriptural presentation of the Christ.

     Again, the narrative expresses very markedly, that the
    interposition of Christ, alike in itself, and in the manner
    of it, was wholly unexpected by, indeed, contrary to the
    expectation of, the disciples. This also holds true in regard
    to other of the great manifestations of Christ, up to His
    Resurrection from the dead. This, of course, proves that the
    narrative was not founded on existing Jewish ideas. But there
    is more than this. The gratuitous introduction of traits
    which, so far from glorifying, would rather detract from a
    legendary Christ, while at the same time they seriously
    reflect on the disciples, presumably the inventors of the
    legend, appears to us wholly inconsistent with the assumption
    that the narrative is spurious.

     Nor ought we to overlook another circumstance. While we
    regard the narrative as that of an historical occurrence,
    indeed, because we do so, we cannot fail to perceive its
    permanent symbolic and typical bearing. It were, indeed,
    impossible to describe either the history of the Church of
    Christ, or the experience of individual disciples, more
    accurately, or with wider and deeper capability of
    application, than in the Parable of this Miracle. And thus it
    is morally true to all ages; just because it was historically
    true at the first. [1 A fact may be the basis of a symbol;
    but a symbol can never be the basis of a fact. The former is
    the principle of Divine history, the latter of human legend.
    But, even so, legend could never have arisen but for a belief
    in Divine history: it is the counterfeit coin of Revelation.]
    And as we enter on this field of contemplation, many views
    open to us. The true Humanity of the Saviour, by the side of
    His Divine Power; the sleeping Jesus and the Almighty Word of
    rebuke and command to the elements, which lay them down
    obedient at His feet: this sharp-edged contrast resolved into
    a higher unity, how true is it to the fundamental thought of
    the Gospel-History! Then this other contrast of the failure
    of faith, and then the excitement of the disciples; and of
    the calm of the sleeping, and then the Majesty of the
    wakening Christ. And, lastly, yet this third contrast of the
    helplessness and despondency of the disciples and the Divine
    certitude of conscious Omnipotence.

     We perceive only difficulties and the seemingly impossible,
    as we compare what may be before us with that which we
    consciously possess. He also makes this outlook: but only to
    know and show, that with Him there can be no difficulty,
    since all is His, and all may be ours, since He has come for
    our help and is in the ship. One thing only He wonders at,
    the shortcomings of our faith; and one thing only makes it
    impossible for Him to help, our unbelief.

 THE ASCENT: FROM THE RIVER JORDAN TO THE MOUNT OF
    TRANSFIGURATION

    AT GERASA, THE HEALING OF THE DEMONISHED.

    CHAPTER XXV

     (St. Matt. viii. 28-34; St. Mark v. 1-20; St. Luke viii.
    26-39.)

     THAT day of wonders was not yet ended. Most writers have,
    indeed, suggested, that the healing of the demonised on the
    other side took place at early dawn of the day following the
    storm on the Lake. But the distance is so short that, even
    making allowance for the delay by the tempest, the passage
    could scarcely have occupied the whole night. [1 In the
    history related in St. Matt. xiv. 22, &c. the embarkation was
    much later (see next note), and it is expressly stated that
    'the wind was contrary.' But even there, when it ceased they
    were 'immediately' on shore (St. John vi. 21), although the
    distance formerly traversed had been rather less than
    three-fourths of the way (twenty-five or thirty furlongs, St.
    John vi. 19). At that place the whole distance across would
    be five or six miles. But the passage from Capernaum to
    Gerasa would not be so long as that.] This supposition would
    be further confirmed, if 'the evening' when Jesus embarked
    was what the Jews were wont to call 'the first evening,' that
    is, the time when the sun was declining in the heaven, but
    before it had actually set, the latter time being 'the second
    evening.' [2 The distinction between the two evenings seems
    marked in St. Matt. xiv. 15, as compared with verse 23. In
    both verses precisely the same expression is used. But
    between the first and the second evening a considerable
    interval of time must be placed.] For, it seems most unlikely
    that multitudes would have resorted to Jesus at Capernaum
    after 'the second evening, or that either the disciples or
    other boats would have put to sea after nightfall. On the
    other hand, the scene gains in grandeur, has, so to speak, a
    fitting background, if we suppose the Saviour and His
    disciples to have landed on the other side late in the
    evening, when perhaps the silvery moon was shedding her pale
    light on the weird scene, and laying her halo around the
    shadows cast upon the sea by the steep cliff down which the
    herd of swine hurried and fell. This would also give time
    afterwards for the dispersion, not only into 'the city,' but
    into 'the country' of them who had fed the swine. In that
    case, of course, it would be in the early morning that the
    Gerasenes afterwards resorted to Jesus and that He again
    returned to Capernaum. And, lastly this would allow
    sufficient time for those miracles which took place on that
    same day in Capernaum after His return thither. Thus, all the
    circumstances lead us to regard the healing of the demonised
    at Gerasa as a night-scene, immediately on Christ's arrival
    from Capernaum, and after the calming of the storm at sea.

     It gives not only life to the narrative, but greatly
    illustrates it, that we can with confidence describe the
    exact place where our Lord and His disciples touched the
    other shore. The ruins right over against the plain of
    Gennesaret, which still bear the name of Kersa or Gersa, must
    represent the ancient Gerasa. [1 Comp. Tristram's 'Land of
    Israel,' p. 465; Badeker's (Socin) Palestina, p. 267. The
    objection in Riehm's Handworterb. p. 454, that Gerasa did not
    form part of the Decapolis manifestly derives no real support
    from St. Mark v. 20. The two facts are in no way
    inconsistent. All other localisations are impossible, since
    the text requires close proximity to the lake. Professor
    Socin describes this cliff as steep 'as nowhere else by the
    lake.'] This is the correct reading in St. Mark's, and
    probably in St. Luke's, perhaps also in St. Matthew's Gospel.
    [2 In this, as in all other instances, I can only indicate
    the critical results at which I have arrived. For the
    grounds, on which these conclusions are based, I must refer
    to the works which bear on the respective subjects.] The
    locality entirely meets the requirements of the narrative.
    About a quarter of an hour to the south of Gersa is a steep
    bluff, which descends abruptly on a narrow ledge of shore. A
    terrified herd running down this cliff could not have
    recovered its foothold, and must inevitably have been hurled
    into the Lake beneath. Again, the whole country around is
    burrowed with limestone caverns and rock-chambers for the
    dead, such as those which were the dwelling of the demonised.
    Altogether the scene forms a fitting background to the
    narrative.

     From these tombs the demonised, who is specially singled out
    by St. Mark and St. Luke, as well as his less prominent
    companion, [a St. Matt. viii. 28.] came forth to meet Jesus.
    Much that is both erroneous and misleading has been written
    on Jewish Demonology. According to common Jewish
    superstition, the evil spirits dwelt especially in lonely
    desolate places, and also among tombs. [3 See Appendix XIII.,
    'Angelology and Demonology:' and Appendix XVI., 'Jewish Views
    about Demons and the Demonised.' Archdeacon Farrar has
    misunderstood the reference of Otho (Lex. Rabb. 146). The
    affections mentioned in Jer. Terum. 40 b are not treated as
    'all demoniacs;' on the contrary, most of them, indeed all,
    with one exception, are expressly stated to be indications of
    mental disease (comp. also Chag. 3 b). The quotations of
    Gfrorer are, as too often, for a purpose, and untrustworthy,
    except after examination of the context.] We must here
    remember what has previously been explained as to the
    confusion in the consciousness of the demonised between their
    own notions and the ideas imposed on them by the demons. It
    is quite in accordance with the Jewish notions of the
    demonised, that, according to the more circumstantial account
    of St. Luke, he should feel as it were driven into the
    deserts, and that he was in the tombs, while, according to
    St. Mark, he was 'night and day in the tombs and in the
    mountains,' the very order of the words indicating the notion
    (as in Jewish belief), that it was chiefly at night that evil
    spirits were wont to haunt burying-places.

     In calling attention to this and similar particulars, we
    repeat, that this must be kept in view as characteristic of
    the demonised, that they were incapable of separating their
    own consciousness and ideas from the influence of the demon,
    their own identity being merged, and to that extent lost, in
    that of their tormentors. In this respect the demonised state
    was also kindred to madness. Self-consciousness, or rather
    what may be termed Individuism, i.e. the consciousness of
    distinct and independent individuality, and with it the power
    of selforiginationin matters mental and moral (which some
    might term an aspect of free volition), distinguish the human
    soul from the mere animal spirit. But in maniacal disease
    this power is in abeyance, or temporarily lost through
    physical causes, such as disease of the brain as the medium
    of communication between the mind and the world of sense;
    disease of the nervous system, through which ordinarily
    impressions are conveyed to and from the sensorium; or
    disease of both brain and nervous system, when previously
    existing impressions on the brain (in memory, and hence
    possibly imagination) may be excited without corresponding
    outward causes. If in such cases the absolute power of
    self-origination and self-action is lost to the mind, habits
    of sin and vice (or moral disease) may have an analogous
    effect as regards moral freedom, the power of moral
    self-origination and action. In the demonised state the two
    appear combined, the cause being neither disease nor vice,
    but the presence of a superior power of evil. This loss of
    individuism, and the subjection of one's identity to that of
    the demon might, while it lasted, be called temporary
    'possession,' in so far as the mental and moral condition of
    the person was for the time not one of freedom and
    origination, but in the control of the possessing demon.

     One practical inference may even now be drawn from this
    somewhat abstruse discussion. The language and conduct of the
    demonised, whether seemingly his own, or that of the demons
    who influenced him, must always be regarded as a mixture of
    the Jewish-human and the demoniacal. The demonised speaks and
    acts as a Jew under the control of a demon. Thus, if he
    chooses solitary places by day, and tombs by night, it is not
    that demons really preferred such habitations, but that the
    Jews imagined it, and that the demons, acting on the existing
    consciousness, would lead him, in accordance with his
    preconceived notions, to select such places. Here also mental
    disease offers points of analogy. For, the demonised would
    speak and act in accordance with his previous (Jewish)
    demonological ideas. He would not become a new man, but be
    the old man, only under the influence of the demon, just as
    in mania a person truly and consistently speaks and acts,
    although under the false impressions which a diseased brain
    conveys to him. The fact that in the demonised state a man's
    identity was not superseded, but controlled, enables us to
    account for many phenomena without either confounding
    demonism with mania, or else imputing to our Lord such
    accommodation to the notions of the times, as is not only
    untenable in itself, but forbidden even by the language of
    the present narrative.

     The description of the demonised, coming out of the tombs to
    meet Jesus as He touched the shore at Gerasa, is vivid in the
    extreme. His violence, the impossibility of control by
    others, [1 St. Mark v. 3, 4.] the absence of self-control, [2
    'Ware no clothes' (St. Luke viii. 27) may, however, refer
    only to the upper, not the under-garments.] his homicidal, [3
    St. Matt. viii. 28.] and almost suicidal, [4 St. Mark v. 5.]
    frenzy, are all depicted. Evidently, it was the object to set
    forth the extreme degree of the demonised state. Christ, Who
    had been charged by the Pharisees with being the embodiment
    and messenger of Satan, is here face to face with the extreme
    manifestation of demoniac power and influence. It is once
    more, then, a Miracle in Parable which is about to take
    place. The question, which had been raised by the enemies, is
    about to be brought to the issue of a practical
    demonstration. We do not deny that the contest and the
    victory, this miracle, nay, the whole series of miracles of
    which it forms part, are extraordinary, even in the series of
    Christ's miracles. Our explanation proceeds on the very
    ground that such was, and must have been, the case. The
    teaching by Parables, and the parabolic miracles which
    follow, form, so to speak, an ascending climax, in contrast
    to the terrible charge which by-and-by would assume the
    proportions of blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, and issue in
    the betrayal and judicial murder of Jesus. There are critical
    epochs in the history of the Kingdom of God, when the power
    of evil, standing out in sharpest contrast, challenges that
    overwhelming manifestation of the Divine, as such, to bear
    down and crush that which opposes it. Periods of that kind
    are characterised by miraculous interposition of power,
    unique even in Bible-history. Such a period was, under the
    Old Testament, that of Elijah and Elisha, with its altogether
    exceptional series of miracles; and, under the New Testament,
    that after the first formulated charge of the Pharisees
    against the Christ.

     With irresistible power the demonised was drawn to Jesus, as
    He touched the shore at Gerasa. As always, the first effect
    of the contact was a fresh paroxysm, [1 In his endeavour to
    represent the demonised state as a species of mania, which
    was affected by the Presence of Christ, Archdeacon Farrar
    makes the following statement: 'The presence, the look, the
    voice of Christ, even before He addressed these sufferers,
    seems always to have calmed and overawed them.' But surely
    the very opposite of this is the fact, and the first effect
    of contact with Christ was not calm, but a paroxysm.] but in
    this peculiar case not physical, but moral. As always also,
    the demons knew Jesus, and His Presence seemed to constrain
    their confession of themselves, and therefore of Him. As in
    nature the introduction of a dominant element sometimes
    reveals the hidden presence of others, which are either
    attracted or repelled by it, so the Presence of Christ
    obliged the manifestation, and, in the case of these evil
    spirits, the self-confession, of the powers of evil. In some
    measure it is the same still. The introduction of grace
    brings to light and experience sin hitherto unknown, and the
    new life brings consciousness of, and provokes contest with,
    evil within, of which the very existence had previously been
    unsuspected. In the present instance the immediate effect was
    homage, [a St. Mark v. 6; St. Luke viii. 28.] which presently
    manifested itself in language such as might have been
    expected.

     Here also it must be remembered, that both the act of
    homage, or 'worship,' and the words spoken, were not the
    outcome either of the demonised only, nor yet of the demons
    only, but a combination of the two: the control of the demons
    being absolute over the man such as he was. Their language
    led to his worship; their feelings and fears appeared in his
    language. It was the self-confession of the demons, when
    obliged to come into His Presence and do homage, which made
    the man fall down and, in the well-known Jewish formula,
    recorded by the three Evangelists, say: 'What have I to do
    with Thee,' or rather, 'What between me and Thee', what have
    we in common (Mah li valakh)? Similarly, although it was
    consciousness of subjection and fear in His Presence, on the
    part of the demons, which underlay the adjuration not to
    inflict torment on them, yet the language itself, as the text
    shows, was that of the demonised, and the form in which their
    fear expressed itself was that of his thinking. The demons,
    in their hold on their victim, could not but own their
    inferiority, and apprehend their defeat and subjection,
    especially on such an occasion; and the Jew, who
    consciousness was under their control, not unified, but
    identified with it exclaimed: 'I adjure Thee by God, that
    Thou torment me not.'

     This strange mixture of the demoniac with the human, or
    rather, this expression of underlying demoniac thought in the
    forms and modes of thinking of the Jewish victim, explains
    the expressed fear of present actual torment, or, as St.
    Matthew, who, from the briefness of his account, does not
    seem to have been an eye-witness, expresses it: 'Thou art
    come to torment us before the time;' and possibly also for
    the 'adjuration by God.' [1 Both St. Mark and St. Luke have
    it: 'Jesus, Son of the Most High God.'] For, as immediately
    on the homage and protestation of the demonised: 'What
    between me and Thee, Jesus, Thou Son of the Most High God?'
    Christ had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the
    man, it may have been, that in so doing He had used the Name
    of the Most High God; or else the 'adjuration' itself may
    have been the form in which the Jewish speaker clothed the
    consciousness of the demons, with which his own was
    identified.
     It may be conjectured, that it was partly in order to break
    this identification, or rather to show the demonised that it
    was not real, and only the consequence of the control which
    the demons had over him, that the Lord asked his name. To
    this the man made answer, still in the dual consciousness,
    'My name is Legion: for we are many.' [2 So substantially in
    St. Luke, as in St. Mark.] Such might be the subjective
    motive for Christ's question. Its objective reason may have
    been to show the power of the demoniac possession in the
    present instance, thus marking it as an altogether extreme
    case. The remembrance, that the answer is once more in the
    forms of Jewish thinking, enables us to avoid the strange
    notion (whether it express the opinion of some, or the
    difficulties of others), that the word 'Legion' conveys the
    idea of six thousand armed and strong warriors of evil. [3
    This is one of the difficulties mentioned by Dean Plumptre.
    Archdeacon Farrar seems to think that the man imagined '6000
    devils were in possession of his soul.' His statement, that
    it 'was a thoroughly Jewish belief' that unclean spirits
    should pass into the swine, I must take leave to deny. One or
    another disease, such as rabies, were, indeed, attributed by
    some Rabbis to the agency of evil spirits, but there is no
    ground for either the general or the specific statement of
    Dr. Farrar as regards this 'Jewish belief.'] For, it was a
    common Jewish idea, that, under certain circumstances, 'a
    legion of hurtful spirits' [1 The common Rabbinic word for
    Legion is, indeed, Ligyon or Ligyona, but the expression
    (Ber. 51 a) (Istalginith) cannot mean anything else than a
    legion of hurtful spirits.] (of course not in the sense of a
    Roman legion) 'were on the watch for men, saying: When shall
    he fall into the hands of one of these things, and be taken?'
    [a Ber. 51 a.]

     This identification of the demons with the demonised, in
    consequence of which he thought with their consciousness, and
    they spoke not only through him but in his forms of thinking,
    may also account for the last and most difficult part of this
    narrative. Their main object and wish was not to be banished
    from the country and people, or, as St. Luke puts it, again
    to 'depart into the abyss.' Let us now try to realise the
    scene. On the very narrow strip of shore, between the steep
    cliff that rises in the background and the Lake, stand Jesus
    with His disciples and the demonised. The wish of the demons
    is not to be sent out of the country, not back into the
    abyss. The one is the cliff overhead, the other the Lake
    beneath: so, symbolically, and, to the demonised, really. Up
    on that cliff a great herd of swine is feeding; up that
    cliff, therefore, is 'into the swine;' and this also agrees
    with Jewish thoughts concerning uncleanness. The rendering of
    our Authorised Version, [b St. Mark v. 13.] that, in reply to
    the demoniac entreaty, 'forthwith Jesus gave them leave,' has
    led to misunderstanding. The distinction here to be made is,
    though narrow, yet real and important. The verb, which is the
    same in all the three Gospels, would be better rendered by
    'suffered' than by 'gave them leave.' With the latter we
    associate positive permission. None such was either asked or
    given. The Lord suffered it, that is, He did not actually
    hinder it. [2 The verb is used both in the active sense of
    permitting, and in that of not hindering. As to the latter
    use of the word, comp. specially St. Matt. xix. 8; St. Mark
    x. 4.] He only 'said unto them, Go!'

     What followed belongs to the phenomena of supersensuous
    influences upon animals, of which many instances are
    recorded, but the rationale of which it is impossible to
    explain. How the unclean spirits could enter into the swine,
    is a question which cannot be entertained till we shall know
    more of the animal soul than is at present within our range.
    This, however, we can understand, that under such
    circumstances a panic would seize the herd, that it would
    madly rush down the steep on which it could not arrest
    itself, and so perish in the sea. And this also we can
    perceive, how the real object of the demons was thus
    attained; how they did not leave the country, when Christ was
    entreated to leave it.

     The weird scene over which the moon had shed her ghostlike
    light, was past. The unearthly utterances of the demonised,
    the wild panic among the herd on the cliff, the mad rush down
    the steep, the splashing waters as the helpless animals were
    precipitated into the Lake, all this makes up a picture,
    unsurpassed for vivid, terrible realism. And now sudden
    silence has fallen on them. From above, the keepers of the
    herd had seen it all, alike what had passed with the
    demonised, and then the issue in the destruction of the herd.
    From the first, as they saw the demonised, for fear of whom
    'no man might pass that way,' running to Jesus, they must
    have watched with eager interest. In the clear Eastern air
    not a word that was spoken could have been lost. And now in
    wild terror they fled, into Gerasa, into the country round
    about, to tell what had happened.

     It is morning, and a new morning-sacrifice and morning-Psalm
    are about to be offered. He that had erst been the possession
    of foul and evil spirits, a very legion of them, and deprived
    of his human individuality, is now 'sitting at the feet of
    Jesus,' learning of Him, 'clothed and in his right mind.' He
    has been brought to God, restored to self, to reason, and to
    human society, and all this by Jesus, at Whose Feet he is
    gratefully, humbly sitting, 'a disciple.' Is He not then the
    Very Son of God? Viewing this miracle, as an historical fact,
    viewing it as a Parabolic Miracle, viewing it also as
    symbolic of what has happened in all ages, is He not the Son
    of the Most High God? And is there not now, on His part, in
    the morning-light the same calmness and majesty of conscious
    Almighty Power as on the evening before, when He rebuked the
    storm and calmed the sea?

     One other point as regards the healing of this domonism
    deserves special consideration. Contrary to what was commonly
    the case, when the evil spirits came out of the demonised,
    there was no paroxysm of physical distress. Was it then so,
    that the more complete and lasting the demoniac possession,
    the less of purely physical symptoms attended it?

     But now from town and country have they come, who had been
    startled by the tidings which those who fed the swine had
    brought. We may contrast the scene with that of the shepherds
    when on Bethlehem's plains the great revelation had come to
    them, and they had seen the Divine Babe laid in the manger,
    and had worshipped. Far other were the tidings which these
    herdsmen brought, and their effect. It is not necessary to
    suppose, that their request that Jesus would depart out of
    their coasts was prompted only by the loss of the herd of
    swine. [1 This is the view of Archdeacon Farrar. The Gadara
    of which the poets Meleager and Philodemus were natives was,
    of course, not the scene of this miracle.] There could be no
    doubt in their minds, that One possessing supreme and
    unlimited power was in their midst. Among men superstitious,
    and unwilling to submit absolutely to the Kingdom which
    Christ brought, there could only be one effect of what they
    had heard, and now witnessed in the person of the healed
    demonised awe and fear! The 'Depart from me, for I am a
    sinful man,' is the natural expression of a mind conscious of
    sin when brought into contact with the Divine, Whose supreme
    and absolute Power is realised as hostile. And this feeling
    would be greatly increased, in measure as the mind was under
    the influence of superstitious fears.

     In such place and circumstances Jesus could not have
    continued. And, as He entered the ship, the healed demonised
    humbly, earnestly entreated, that he might go with his
    Saviour. It would have seemed to him, as if he could not bear
    to lose his new found happiness; as if there were calm,
    safety, and happiness only in His Presence; not far from Him,
    not among those wild mountains and yet wilder men. Why should
    he be driven from His fellowship, who had so long been an
    outcast from that of his fellow-men, and why again left to
    himself? So, perhaps, should we have reasoned and spoken; so
    too often do we reason and speak, as regards ourselves or
    those we love. Not so He Who appoints alike our discipline
    and our work. To go back, now healed, to his own, and to
    publish there, in the city, nay, through the whole of the
    large district of the ten confederate cities, the Decapolis,
    how great things Jesus had done for him, such was henceforth
    to be his life-work. In this there would be both safety and
    happiness.

     'And all men did marvel.' And presently Jesus Himself came
    back into that Decapolis, where the healed demonised had
    prepared the way for Him. [2 As this healing of the demonised
    may be regarded as the 'test-case' on the general question, I
    have entered more fully on the discussion. The arguments in
    favour of the general view taken of the demonised are so
    clearly and forcibly stated by Archbishop Trench (on 'The
    Miracles') and in 'The Speaker's Commentary' (N. Test. vol.
    i. p. 44), that it seems needless to reiterate them. To me at
    least it seems difficult to understand, how any reader of the
    narrative, who comes to it without preconceived opinions, can
    arrive at any other conclusion than that either the whole
    must be rejected as mythical, or else be received as implying
    that there was a demonised state, different from madness;
    that Jesus treated the present as such; bade the unclean
    spirits go out, and by His word banished them. The objection
    as to the morality of the destruction of the herd seems
    scarcely more weighty than the sneer of Strauss, that the
    devils must have been stupid in immediately destroying their
    new habitations. The question of morality cannot even be
    raised, since Jesus did not command, only not hinder, the
    devils entering into the swine, and as for the destruction of
    their new dwellings, so far from being stupid, it certainly
    did secure their undisturbed continuance in the country and
    the withdrawal of Jesus. All attempts to adapt this miracle
    to our modern experience, and the ideas based upon it, by
    leaving out or rationalising one or another trait in the
    narrative, are emphatically failures. We repeat: the history
    must be received as it stands, or wholly rejected.]

 THE ASCENT: FROM THE RIVER JORDAN TO THE MOUNT OF
    TRANSFIGURATION

    THE HEALING OF THE WOMAN, CHRIST'S PERSONAL APPEARANCE, THE
    RAISING OF JAIRUS' DAUGHTER

    CHAPTER XXVI

     (St. Matt. ix. 18-26; St. Mark v. 21-43; St. Luke viii.
    40-56.)

     THERE seems remarkable correspondence between the two
    miracles which Jesus had wrought on leaving Capernaum and
    those which He did on His return. In one sense they are
    complementary to each other. The stilling of the storm and
    the healing of the demonised were manifestations of the
    absolute power inherent in Christ; the recovery of the woman
    and the raising of Jairus' daughter, evidence of the absolute
    efficacy of faith. The unlikeliness of dominion over the
    storm, and of command over a legion of demons, answers to
    that of recovery obtained in such a manner, and of
    restoration when disease had passed into actual death. Even
    the circumstances seem to correspond, though at opposite
    poles; in the one case, the Word spoken to the unconscious
    element, in the other the touch of the unconscious Christ; in
    the one case the absolute command of Christ over a world of
    resisting demons, in the other absolute certainty of faith as
    against the hostile element, of actual fact. Thus the Divine
    character of the Saviour appears in the absoluteness of His
    Omnipotence, and the Divine character of His Mission in the
    all-powerfulness of faith which it called forth.

     On the shore at Capernaum many were gathered on the morning
    after the storm. It may have been, that the boats which had
    accompanied His had returned to friendly shelter, ere the
    storm had risen to full fury, and had brought anxious tidings
    of the storm out on the Lake. There they were gathered now in
    the calm morning, friends eagerly looking out for the
    well-known boat that bore the Master and His disciples. And
    as it came in sight, making again for Capernaum, the
    multitude also would gather in waiting for the return of Him,
    Whose words and deeds were indeed mysteries, but mysteries of
    the Kingdom. And quickly, as He again stepped on the
    well-known shore, was He welcomed, surrounded, soon
    'thronged,' inconveniently pressed upon, [1 comp. St. Luke
    viii. 45; St. Mark v. 31.] by the crowd, eager, curious,
    expectant. It seemed as if they had been all 'waiting for
    Him,' and He had been away all too long for their impatience.
    The tidings rapidly spread, and reached two homes where His
    help was needed; where, indeed, it alone could now be of
    possible avail. The two most nearly concerned must have gone
    to seek that help about the same time, and prompted by the
    same feelings of expectancy. Both Jairus, the Ruler of the
    Synagogue, and the woman suffering these many years from
    disease, had faith. But the weakness of the one arose from
    excess, and threatened to merge into superstition, while the
    weakness of the other was due to defect, and threatened to
    end in despire. In both cases faith had to be called out,
    tried, purified, and so perfected; in both the thing sought
    for was, humanely speaking, unattainable, and the means
    employed seemingly powerless; yet, in both, the outward and
    inward results required were obtained through the power of
    Christ, and by the peculiar discipline to which, in His
    all-wise arranging, faith was subjected.

     It sounds almost like a confession of absolute defeat, when
    negative critics (such as Keim) have to ground their mythical
    explanation of this history on the supposed symbolical
    meaning of what they designate as the fictitious name of the
    Ruler of the Synagogue, Jair, 'he will give light' [a Jesu v.
    Nazar. ii. 2, p. 472.], and when they [b Strauss, Leben Jesu
    ii. p. 135.] further appeal to the correspondence between the
    age of the maiden and the years (twelve) during which the
    woman had suffered from the bloody flux. This coincidence is,
    indeed, so trivial as not to deserve serious notice; since
    there can be no conceivable connection between the age of the
    child and the duration of the woman's disease, nor, indeed,
    between the two cases, except in this, that both appealed to
    Jesus. As regards the name Jairus, the supposed symbolism is
    inapt; while internal reasons are opposed to the hypothesis
    of its fictitiousness. For, it seems most unlikely that St.
    Mark and St. Luke would have rendered the discovery of 'a
    myth' easy by needlessly breaking the silence of St. Matthew,
    and giving the name of so well-known a person as a
    Synagogue-ruler of Capernaum. And this the more readily, that
    the name, though occurring in the Old Testament, and in the
    ranks of the Nationalist party in the last Jewish War, [c
    Jos. Jewish War vi. 1. 8, close.] was apparently not a common
    one. [2 The name, a well-known O.T. one (Numb. xxxii. 41;
    Judg., x. 3), does not occur in Rabbinic literature till
    after the Middle Ages.] But these are comparatively small
    difficulties in the way of the mythical interpretation.

     Jairus, one of the Synagogue-rulers [1 Keim starts the
    theory that, according to St. Matthew, Jairus was an in the
    sense of a civil magistrate. This, in order to make St.
    Matthew contradict St. Mark and St. Luke, as if were not one
    of the most common designations of Synagogue-rulers.] of
    Capernaum, had an only daughter, [2 The particulars of her
    history must be gathered from a comparison of the three
    Gospels.] who at the time of this narrative had just passed
    childhood, and reached the period when Jewish Law declared a
    woman of age. [3 A woman came of age at twelve years and one
    day, and boys at thirteen years and one day.] Although St.
    Matthew, contracting the whole narrative into briefest
    summary, speaks of her as dead at the time of Jarius'
    application to Jesus, the other two Evangelists, giving
    fuller details, describe her as on the point of death,
    literally, 'at the last breath' (in extremis). [4 Godet
    points out a like summarisation in St. Matthew's account of
    the Centurion's servant.] Unless her disease had been both
    sudden and exceedingly rapid, which is barely possible, it is
    difficult to understand why her father had not on the
    previous day applied to Jesus, if his faith had been such as
    is generally supposed. But if, as the whole tenour of the
    history shows, his faith had been only general and scarcely
    formed, we can account the more easily for the delay. Only in
    the hour of supreme need, when his only child lay dying, did
    he resort to Jesus. There was need to perfect such faith, on
    the one side into perseverance of assurance, and on the other
    into energy of trustfulness. The one was accomplished through
    the delay caused by the application of the woman, the other
    by the supervention of death during this interval.

     There was nothing unnatural or un-Jewish in the application
    of this Ruler to Jesus. He must have known of the healing of
    the son of the Court-official, and of the servant of the
    Centurion, there or in the immediate neighbourhood, as it was
    said, by the mere word of Christ. For there had been no
    imposition of silence in regard to them, even had such been
    possible. Yet in both cases the recovery might be ascribed by
    some to coincidence, by others to answer of prayer. And
    perhaps this may help us to understand one of the reasons for
    the prohibition of telling what had been done by Jesus, while
    in other instances silence was not enjoined. Of course, there
    were occasions, such as the raising of the young man at Nain
    and of Lazarus, when the miracle was done so publicly, that a
    command of this kind would have been impossible. But in other
    cases may this not be the line of demarcation, that silence
    was not enjoined when a result was achieved which, according
    to the notions of the time, might have been attributed to
    other than direct Divine Power, while in the latter cases [1
    The following are the instances in which silence was
    enjoined:, St. Matt. viii. 4 (St. Mark i. 44; St. Luke v.
    14); St. Matt. ix. 30; xii. 16; St. Mark iii. 12; v. 43 (St.
    Luke viii. 56); St. Mark vii. 36; viii. 26.] publicity was
    (whenever possible) forbidden? And this for the twofold
    reason, that Christ's Miracles were intended to aid, not to
    supersede, faith; to direct to the Person and Teaching of
    Christ, as that which proved the benefit to be real and
    Divine; not to excite the carnal Jewish expectancies of the
    people, but to lead in humble discipleship to the Feet of
    Jesus. In short, if only those were made known which would
    not necessarily imply Divine Power (according to Jewish
    notions), then would not only the distraction and tumult of
    popular excitement be avoided, but in each case faith in the
    Person of Christ be still required, ere the miracles were
    received as evidence of His Divine claims. [2 In general, we
    would once more thus formulate our views: In the Days of
    Christ men learned first to believe in His Person, and then
    in His Word; in the Dispensation of the Holy Spirit we learr
    first to believe in His Word, and then in His Person.] And
    this need of faith was the main point.

     That, in view of his child's imminent death, and with the
    knowledge he had of the 'mighty deeds' commonly reported of
    Jesus, Jairus should have applied to Him, can the less
    surprise us, when we remember how often Jesus must, with
    consent and by invitation of this Ruler, have spoken in the
    Synagogue; and what irresistible impression His words had
    made. It is not necessary to suppose, that Jairus was among
    those elders of the Jews who interceded for the Centurion;
    the form of his present application seems rather opposed to
    it. But after all, there was nothing in what he said which a
    Jew in those days might not have spoken to a Rabbi, who was
    regarded as Jesus must have been by all in Capernaum who
    believed not the horrible charge, which the Judaean Pharisees
    had just raised. Though we cannot point to any instance where
    the laying on of a great Rabbi's hands was sought for
    healing, such, combined with prayer, would certainly be in
    entire accordance with Jewish views at the time. The
    confidence in the result, expressed by the father in the
    accounts of St. Mark and St. Matthew, is not mentioned by St.
    Luke. And perhaps, as being the language of an Eastern, it
    should not be taken in its strict literality as indicating
    actual conviction on the part of Jairus, that the laying on
    of Christ's Hands would certainly restore the maiden.

     Be this as it may, when Jesus followed the Ruler to his
    house, the multitude 'thronging Him' in eager curiosity,
    another approached Him from out that crowd, whose inner
    history was far different from that of Jairus. The disease
    from which this woman had suffered for twelve years would
    render her Levitically 'unclean.' It must have been not
    unfrequent in Palestine, and proved as intractable as modern
    science has found it, to judge by the number and variety of
    remedies prescribed, and by their character. On one leaf of
    the Talmud [a Shabb. 110 a and b.] not less than eleven
    different remedies are proposed, of which at most only six
    can possibly be regarded as astringents or tonics, while the
    rest are merely the outcome of superstition, to which resort
    is had in the absence of knowledge. [1 Such as the ashes of
    an Ostrich-Egg, carried in summer in a linen, in winter in a
    cotton rag; or a barley-corn found in the dung of a white
    she-ass, &c.] But what possesses real interest is, that, in
    all cases where astringents or tonics are prescribed,it is
    ordered, that, while the woman takes the remedy, she is to be
    addressed in the words: 'Arise (Qum) from thy flux.' It is
    not only that psychical means are apparently to accompany the
    therapeutical in this disease, but the coincidence in the
    command, Arise (Qum), with the words used by Christ in
    raising Jairus' daughter is striking. But here also we mark
    only contrast to the magical cures of the Rabbis. For Jesus
    neither used remedies, nor spoke the word Qum to her who had
    come 'in the press behind' to touch for her healing 'the
    fringe of His outer garment.'

     As this is almost the only occasion on which we can obtain a
    glimpse of Christ's outward appearance and garb, it may be
    well to form such accurate conception of it, as is afforded
    by a knowledge of the dress of the ancient Hebrews. The
    Rabbis laid it down as a rule, that the learned ought to be
    most careful in their dress. It was a disgrace if a scholar
    walked abroad with clouted shoes; [2 In Ber. 43 b, it is
    explained to refer to such shoes as had 'clouts on the top of
    clouts.'] to wear dirty clothes deserved death; [b Shabb. 114
    a] for 'the glory of God was man, and the glory of man was
    his dress.' [c. Derekh Erets s. x towards the end.] This held
    specially true of the Rabbi, whose appearance might otherwise
    reflect on the theological profession. It was the general
    rule to eat and drink beleow (or else according to) a man's
    means, but to dress and lodge above them. [d Babha Mez. 52a;
    Chull. 84 b.] [3 Accordingly, when a person applied for
    relief in food, inquiry was be made as to his means, but not
    if he applied for raiment (Babha B 9 a).] For, in these four
    things a man's character might be learned; at his cups, in
    many matters, when he was angry and by his ragged dress. [e.
    Erub. 65 b.] Nay, 'The clothing of the wife of a Chabher
    (learned associate) is of greater importance than the life of
    the ignorant (rustic), for the sake of the dignity of the
    learned' [f Jer. Horay. 48 a, 4 lines from bottom.]
    Accordingly, the Rabbis were wont to wear such dress by which
    they might be distinguished. At a latter period they seem at
    their ordination to have been occasionally arayed in a mantle
    of gold-stuff. [a Babha Mez. 85 a.] Perhaps a distinctive
    garment, most likely a head-gear, was worn, even by 'rulers'
    ('the elder,' ), at their ordination. [1. But I admit that
    the passage Vayyik. R.2) is not quite' clear. The Maaphoraeth
    there mentioned may not have been an official dress, but one
    which the man otherwise used, and which was only specially
    endeared to him by the recollectionthat he had worn it at his
    ordination.] The Palestinian Nasi, or President of the
    Sanhedrin, also had a distinctive dress, [b Ber. 28 a.] and
    the head of the Jewish community in Babylon a distinctive
    girdle. [c. Horay. 13 b.] [2 In general, I would here
    acknowledge my indeptedness on the very difficult subject of
    dress to Sachs, Beitrage z. Sprach- u. Alterth.-Forsch.; to
    the Articles in Levy's Dictionaries; and especially to Brull,
    Trachten d. Juden. The Article in Hamburger's Real-Encykl. is
    little more than a repetition of Brull's. From other writers
    I have not been able to derive any help.

     In refering to the dress which may on a Sabbath be saved
    from a burning house-not, indeed, by carrying it, but by
    successively putting it on, no fewer than eighteen articles
    are mentioned. [d Shabb. 120 a; Jer. Shabb. 15d.] If the
    meaning of all the terms could be accurately ascertained, we
    should Know precisely what the Jews in the second century,
    and presumably earlier, wore, from the shoes and stockings on
    their feet to the gloves [3 So Landau renders one of the
    words in Shabb. 120 a. I need scarcely say that the rendering
    is very doubtful.] on the hands. Unfortunately, many of these
    designations are in dispute. Nor must it be thought that,
    because there are eighteen names, the dress of an Israelite
    consisted of so many separate pieces. Several of them apply
    to different shapes or kinds of the same under or upper
    garments, while the list indicates their extreme number and
    variety rather than the ordinary dress worn. The latter
    consisted, to judge by the directions given for undressing
    and dressing in the bathroom, of six, or perhaps more
    generally, of five articles: the shoes, the head-covering,
    the Tallith or upper cloak, the girdle, the Chaluq or
    under-dress, and the Aphqarsin or innermost covering. [e
    Deiekh Erest R. x p. 33 d.] As regarded shoes, a man should
    sell his very roof-tree for them, [4 Brill regards this as
    controversial to the practices of the early Christians. But
    he confounds sects with the Church.] although he might have
    to part with them for food if he were in a weak condition
    through blood-letting. [f Shabb. 129 a; comp. Pes. 112a.] But
    it was not the practice to provide more than one pair of
    shoes, [g Jer. Shabb. vi. 2] and to this may have referred
    the injunction [h St. Matt. x. 10] of Christ to the Apostle
    not to provide shoesfor their journey, or else to the
    well-known distinction between shoes (Manalim) and sandals
    (Sandalim). The former, which were sometimes made of very
    coarse material, covered the whole foot, and were specially
    intended for winter or rainy weather; while the sandals,
    which only protected the soles and sides of the feet, were
    specially far summer use. [i B. Bathra 58 a, lines 2 and 3
    from top.]

     In regard to the covering of the head, it was deemed a mark
    of disrespect to walk abroad, or to pass a person, with bared
    head. [1. On the other hand, to walk about with shoes loosed
    was regarded as a mark of pride.] Slaves covered their heads
    in presence of their heads in presence of their masters, and
    the Targum Onkelos indicates Israel's freedom by paraphrasing
    the expression they 'went out with a high hand' [a Exod. xiv.
    8.] by 'with uncovered head' [2 The like expression occurs in
    the Targum on Judg. v. 9.] The ordinary covering of the head
    was the so-called Sudar(or Sudarimn), a kerchief twisted into
    a turban, and which might also be worn round the neck. A kind
    of hat was also in use, either of light material or of felt
    (Aphilyon shel rosh or Philyon). [b Kel. xxxix. 1.]The Sudar
    was twisted by Rabbis in a peculiar manner to distinguish
    them from others. [c Pes. 111 b. See also the somewhat
    profane etymology of in Shabb. 77 b,.] We read besides of a
    sort of cap or hood attached to garments.

     Three, or else four articles commonly constituted the dress
    of the body. First came the under-grment, commonly the Chalug
    of the Kittuna [3 Also, Kittanitha, and Kittunita.] (The
    Biblical Kethoneth), from which latter some have derived the
    word 'cotton.' The Chalug might be of linen or of wool. [d
    Jer. Shan. 20 c, bottom.] The sages wore it down to the feet.
    It was covered by the upper garment or Tallith to within
    about a handbreath. [e. Baha B. 57 b.] The Chalug lay close
    to the body, and had no other opening than that round the
    neck and for the arms. At the bottom it had a kind of hem. To
    posses only one such 'coat' or inner garment was a mark of
    proverty. [f Meod. K.14 a.] Hence, when the Apostles were
    sent on their temporary mission, they were direted not to
    take 'two coats.' [g St. Matt. x. 10, and parallels.] Closely
    similar to, if not identical with, the Chaluq, was the
    ancient garment mentioned in the Old Testament as Kethoneth,
    to which the Greek 'Chiton' ( ) corresponds. As the garment
    which our Lord wore, [h St. John xix. 23.] [As to the mode of
    weaving such garments, see the pictorial illustration in
    Braunius, Vest. Sacred. Hebraeor., which is reproduced, with
    full details for various other works, in Hartmanns Hebr. am
    Putzt. vol. i., explanatory notes being added at the
    beginning of vol. iii. Sammter's note in his edition of B.
    Mezia, p. 151 a, is only a reproduction of Hartmann's
    remarks.] and those of which He spoke to His Apostles are
    designated by that name, we conclude that it represents the
    well-know Kethoneth or Rabbinic Kittuna. This might be of
    almost any material, even leather, though it was generally of
    wool or flax. It was sleeved, close-fitting, reached to the
    ankles, and was fastened round the loins, or just under the
    breast, [Comp. Rev. i. 13.] by a girdle. One kind of the
    latter, the Pundah or Aphundah, [5 It was worn outside (Jer.
    Ber. 14 c, top). This is the girdle which was not to be worn
    in the Temple, probably as being that of a person engaged in
    business.] was provided with pockets or other receptacles, [6
    This is the explanation of the Aruch (ed. Landau, i. p. 157
    b).] and hence might not be worn outside by those who went
    into the Temple, [a Jer. Ber. 14 c, top.] probably to
    indicate that he who went to worship should not be engaged
    in, nor bear mark of, any other occupation.

     Of the two other garments mentioned as parts of a man's
    toilette, the Aphqarsin or Aphikarsus seems to have been an
    article of luxury rather than of necessity. Its precise
    purpose is difficult to determine. A comparison of the
    passages in which the term occurs conveys the impression,
    that it was a large kerchief used partly as a head-gear, and
    which hung down and was fastened under the right arm. [b Kel.
    xxix. 1; Ber. 23 b; 24 b, in the sense of kerchief worn in an
    accessible position; Pesiqt. 15 b, as lying close to the body
    and yet contracting dust; Jer. Ber. 4 c, line 14 from top, as
    used for wrapping the upper part of the body.] [1 This
    passage is both curious and difficult. It seems to imply that
    the Aphqarsin was a garment worn in summer, close to the
    body, and having sleeves.] Probably it was also used for the
    upper part of the body. But the circumstance that, unlike the
    other articles of dress, it need not be rent in mourning, [c
    Jer. Moed, K. 83 d.] and that, when worn by females,it was
    regarded as a mark of wealth, [d Nidd. 48 l.] shows that it
    was not a necessary article of dress, and hence that, in all
    liklihood, it was not worn by Christ. It was otherwise with
    the upper garment. Various shapes and kinds of such were in
    use, from the coarser Boresin and Bardesin, the modern
    Burnoose, upwards. The Gelima was a cloak of which 'the
    border,' or 'hem,' is specially mentioned ( ). [e Sanh. 102
    b, and often.] The Gunda was a peculiarly Pharisaic garb. [f
    Sot. 22 b.] But the upper garment which Jesus wore would be
    either the so-called Goltha, or, most likely, the Tallith.
    Both the Goltha [g Jer, Sanh. 28 c.] and the Tallith [h
    Menach. 37 b.] were provided, on the four borders, with the
    so-called Tsitsith, or 'fringes.' These were attached to the
    four corners of the outer dress, in supposed fulfilment of
    the command, Numb. xv. 38-41; Deut. xxii. 12. At first, this
    observance seems to have been comparatively simple. The
    question as to the number of filaments on these 'frings' was
    settled in accordance with the teaching of the School of
    Shammai. Four filaments (not three, as the Hillelites
    proposed), each of four finger-lengths (these, as later
    tradition put it, doubled), and attached to the four corners
    of what must be a strictly square garment, such were the
    earliest rules on the subject. [i Siphre, ed. Friedmann, p.
    117 a.] The Mishnah leaves it still a comparatively open
    question, whether these filaments were to be blue or white.
    [k Menach. iv. 1.] But the Targum makes a strong point of it
    as between Moses and Korah, that there was to be a filament
    of hyacinth colour among four of white. [m Targ. Ps., Jon. on
    Numb. xvi. 2.] It seems even to implythe peculiar symbolical
    mode of knotting them at present in use. [n u. s. on Numb.
    xv. 38.] Further symbolic details were, of course, added in
    the course of time. [2 The number of knots andthreads at
    present counted are, of course, later additions. The little
    tractate Tsitsith Kirchheim, Septem Libri Talm. P. pp. 22-24
    is merely a summary. The various authorities on the subject,
    and not a few have been consulted, are more or less wanting
    in clearness and defective. Comp. p. 277, note 2, of this
    volume.] As these fringes were attached to the corners of any
    square garment, the question, whether the upper garment which
    Jesus wore was the Goltha or the Tallith, is of secondary
    importance. But as all that concerns His Sacred Person is of
    deepest interest, we may be allowed to state our belief in
    favour of the Tallith. Both are mentioned as distinctive
    dresses of teachers, but the Goltha (so far as it differed
    from the Tallith) seems the more peculiarly Rabbinic.

     We can now form an approximate idea of the outward
    appearance of Jesus on that spring-morning amidst the throng
    at Capernaum. He would, we may safely assume, go about in the
    ordinary, although not in the more ostentatious, dress, worn
    by the Jewish teachers of Galilee. His head-gear would
    probably be the Sudar (Sudarium) would into a kind of turban,
    or perhaps the Maaphoreth, [1 The difference between it and
    the Aphqarsin seems to be, that the latter was worn and
    fastened inside the dress. The Maaphoreth would in some
    measure combine the uses of the Sudar and the Aphqarsin.]
    which seems to have served as a covering for the head, and to
    have descended over the back of the neck and shoulders,
    somewhat like the Indian pugaree. His feet were probably shod
    with sandals. The Chaluq, or more probably the Kittuna, which
    formed his inner garment, must have been close-fitting, and
    descended to His feet, since it was not only so worn by
    teachers, but was regarded as absolutely necessary for any
    one who would publicly read or 'Targum' the Scriptures, or
    exercise any function in the Synagogue. [a Tos. Megill. iv.
    p. 45 b, lines 17 and 16 from bottom.] As we know, it 'was
    without seam, woven from the top throughout;' [b St. John
    xix. 23.] and this closely accords with the texture of these
    garments. Round the middle it would be fastened with a
    girdle. [2 Canon Westcott (Speaker's Comment.on St. John xix.
    23) seems to imply that the girdle was worn outside the loose
    outer garment. This was not the case.] Over this inner, He
    would most probably wear the square outer garment, or
    Tallith, with the customary fringes of four long white
    threads with one of hyacinth knotted together on each of the
    four corners. There is reason to believe, that three square
    garments were made with these 'fringes,' although, by way of
    ostentation, the Pharisees made them particularly wide so as
    to attract attention, just as they made their phylacteries
    broad. [c St. Matt. xviii. 5.] Although Christ only denounced
    the latter practice, not the phylacteries themselves, it is
    impossible to believe that Himself ever wore them, either on
    the forehead or the arm. [3 On this subject I must take leave
    to refer to the Bibl. Cyclopaedias and to 'Sketches of Jewish
    Social Life,' pp. 220-224.] There was certainly no warrant
    for them in Holy Scripture, and only Pharisee externalism
    could represent their use as fulfilling the import of Exod.
    xiii. 9, 16; Deut. vi. 8; xi. 18. The admission that neither
    the officiating priests, nor the representatives of the
    people, wore them in the Temple, [a Zebhach. 19 a, b.] seems
    to imply that this practice was not quite universal. For our
    part, we refuse to believe that Jesus, like the Pharisees,
    appeared wearing phylacteries every day and all day long, or
    at least a great part of the day. For such was the ancient
    custom, and not merely; as the modern practice, to wear them
    only at prayer. [1 As the question is of considerable
    practical importance, the following, as bearing upon it, may
    be noticed. From Jer. Ber. 4 c, we gather: 1. That at one
    time it was the practice to wear the phylacteries all day
    long, in order to pass as pious. This is denounced as a mark
    of hypocrisy. 2. That it was settled, that phylacteries
    should be worn during a considerable part of the day, but not
    the whole day. [In Ber. 23 a to 24 a we have rules and
    discussions about depositing them under certain
    circumstances, and where to place them at night.] 3. That it
    was deemed objectionable to wear them only during prayer. 4.
    That celebrated Rabbis did not deem it necessary always to
    wear the phylacteries both on the head and on the arm. This
    seems to prove that their obligation could not have been
    regarded as absolutely binding. Thus, R. Jochanan wore those
    for the head only in winter, but not in summer, because then
    he did not wear a headgear. As another illustration, that the
    wearing of phylacteries was not deemed absolutely requisite,
    the following passage may be quoted (Sanh. xi. 3): 'It is
    more culpable to transgress the words of the Scribes than
    those of the Torah. He that says, There are no phylacteries,
    transgresses the word of the Torah, and is not to be regarded
    as a rebel (literally, is free); but he who says, There are
    five compartments (instead of four), to add to the words of
    the Scribes, he is guilty.]

     One further remark may be allowed before dismissing this
    subject. Our inquiries enable us in this matter also to
    confirm the accuracy of the Fourth Gospel. We read [b St.
    John xix. 23.] that the quaternion of soldiers who crucified
    Christ made division of the riches of His poverty, taking
    each one part of His dress, while for the fifth, which, if
    divided, would have had to be rent in pieces, they cast lots.
    This incidental remark carries evidence of the Judaean
    authorship of the Gospel in the accurate knowledge which it
    displays. The four pieces of dress to be divided would be the
    head-gear, the more expensive sandals or shoes, the long
    girdle, and the coarse Tallith, all about equal in value. [2
    I find that the lowest price mentioned for an upper garment
    was 7 1/2 dinars, or about 4s. 7d. (Jer. Kilay. ix. 1). The
    more common price, however, seems to have been 12 dinars, or
    about 7s. 6d. The cost of making seems to have been 8 dinars,
    or about 5s. (Jer. Babha Mets. vi. 1), leaving 4 dinars, or
    2s. 6d., for the material. Of course, the latter might be
    much more expensive, and the cost of the garment increased
    accordingly.] And the fifth undivided and, comparatively,
    most expensive garment. 'without seam, woven from the top
    throughout,' probably of wool, as befitted the season of the
    year, was the Kittuna, or inner garment. How strange, that,
    what would have been of such priceless value to Christendom,
    should have been divided as the poor booty of a rough,
    unappreciative soldiery! Yet how well for us, since not even
    the sternest warning could have kept within the bounds of
    mere reverence the veneration with which we should have
    viewed and handled that which He wore, Who died for us on the
    Cross.

     Can we, then, wonder that this Jewish woman, 'having heard
    the things concerning Jesus,' with her imperfect knowledge,
    in the weakness of her strong faith, thought that, if she
    might but touch His garment, she would be made whole? It is
    but what we ourselves might think, if He were still walking
    on earth among men: it is but what, in some form or other, we
    still feel when in the weakness, the rebound or diastole, of
    our faith it seems to us, as if the want of this touch in not
    outwardly-perceived help or Presence left us miserable and
    sick, while even one real touch, if it were only of His
    garment, one real act of contact, however mediate, would
    bring us perfect healing. And in some sense it really is so.
    For, assuredly, the Lord cannot be touched by disease and
    misery, without healing coming from Him, for He is the
    God-Man. And He is also the loving, pitying Saviour. Who
    disdains not, nor turns from our weakness in the
    manifestation of our faith, even as He turned not from hers
    who touched His garment for her healing.

     We can picture her to our minds as, mingling with those who
    thronged and pressed upon the Lord, she put forth her hand
    and 'touched the border of His garment,' most probably [1
    This, however, does not necessarily follow, although in New
    Testament language seems to bear that meaning. Comp. the
    excellent work of Braunius (Vest. Sac. Heb. pp. 72, 73, not
    p. 55, as Schleusner notes).] the long Tsitsith of one of the
    corners of the Tallith. We can understand how, with a disease
    which not only rendered her Levitically defiling, but where
    womanly shamefacedness would make public speech so difficult,
    she, thinking of Him Whose Word, spoken at a distance, had
    brought healing, might thus seek to have her heart's desire.
    What strong faith to expect help where all human help, so
    long and earnestly sought, had so signally failed! And what
    strong faith to expect, that even contact with Him, the bare
    touch of His garment, would carry such Divine Power as to
    make her 'whole.' Yet in this very strength lay also its
    weakness. She believed so much in Him, that she felt as if it
    needed not personal appeal to Him; she felt so deeply the
    hindrances to her making request of Himself, that, believing
    so strongly in Him, she deemed it sufficient to touch, not
    even Himself, but that which in itself had no power nor
    value, except as it was in contact with His Divine Person.
    But it is here that her faith was beset by two-fold danger.
    In its excess it might degenerate into superstition, as trees
    in their vigour put forth shoots, which, unless they be cut
    off, will prevent the fruit-bearing, and even exhaust the
    life of the tree. Not the garments in which He appeared among
    men, and which touched His Sacred Body, nor even that Body,
    but Himself brings healing. Again, there was the danger of
    losing sight of that which, as the moral element, is
    necessary in faith: personal application to, and personal
    contact with, Christ.

     And so it is to us also. As we realise the Mystery of the
    Incarnation, His love towards, and His Presence with, His
    own, and the Divine Power of the Christ, we cannot think too
    highly of all that is, or brings, in contact with Him. The
    Church, the Sacraments, the Apostolic Ministry of His
    Institution, in a word, the grand historic Church, which is
    alike His Dwelling-place, His Witness, and His Representative
    on earth, ever since He instituted it, endowed it with the
    gift of the Holy Spirit, and hallowed it by the fulfilled
    promise of His Eternal Presence, is to us what the garment He
    wore was to her who touched Him. We shall think highly of all
    this in measure as we consciously think highly of Him. His
    Bride the Church; the Sacraments which are the fellowship of
    His Body and Blood, of His Crucifixion and Resurrection; the
    Ministry and Embassy of Him, committed to the Apostles, and
    ever since continued with such direction and promise, cannot
    be of secondary importance, must be very real and full of
    power, since they are so connected, and bring us into such
    connection with Him: the spirituo-physical points of contact
    between Him, Who is the God-man, and those who, being men,
    are also the children of God. Yet in this strength of our
    faith may also lie its danger if not its weakness. Through
    excess it may pass into superstition, which is the attachment
    of power to anything other than the Living God; or else, in
    the consciousness of our great disease, want of courage might
    deprive faith of its moral element in personal dealing and
    personal contact with Christ.

     Very significantly to us who, in our foolish judging and
    merciless condemning of one another, ever re-enacted the
    Parable of the Two Debtors, the Lord did not, as
    Pseudo-orthodoxy would prescribe it, disappoint her faith for
    the weakness of its manifestation. To have disappointed her
    faith, which was born of such high thoughts of Him, would
    have been to deny Himself, and he cannot deny Himself. But
    very significantly, also, while He disappointed not her
    faith, He corrected the error of its direction and
    manifestation. And to this His subsequent bearing toward her
    was directed. No sooner had she so touched the border of His
    garment than 'she knew in the body that she was healed of the
    scourge.' [1 So literally in St. Mark's Gospel.] No sooner,
    also, had she so touched the border of His garment than He
    knew, 'perceived in Himself,' what had taken place: the
    forthgoing of the Power that is from out of Him. [2 This
    gives the full meaning, but it is difficult to give a literal
    translation which would give the entire meaning of the
    original.]

     Taking this narrative in its true literality, there is no
    reason to overweight and mar it by adding what is not
    conveyed in the text. There is nothing in the language of St.
    Mark [3 The Revised Version renders it: 'And straightway
    Jesus, perceiving in Himself that the power proceeding from
    Him had gone forth, turned Him about.' Mark the position of
    the first comma. In the Speaker's Commentary it is rendered:
    'And immediately Jesus, having perceived in Himself that the
    virtue had gone forth from Him.' Dean Plumptre translates:
    'Knowing fully in Himself the virtue that had gone out from
    Him.'] (as correctly rendered), nor of St. Luke, to oblige us
    to conclude that this forthgoing of Power, which He perceived
    in Himself, had been through an act, of the full meaning of
    which Christ was unconscious, in other words, that He was
    ignorant of the person who, and the reason why, she Had
    touched Him. In short, 'the forthgoing of the Power that is
    out of Him' was neither unconscious nor unwilled on His part.
    It was caused by her faith, not by her touch. 'Thy faith hath
    made thee whole.' And the question of Jesus could not have
    been misleading, when 'straightway' [4 The arrangement of the
    words in the A.V. is entirely misleading. The word
    'immediately' refers to His turning round, not to His
    perceiving in Himself.] He 'turned Him about in the crowd and
    said, Who touched My garments?' That He knew who had done it,
    and only wished, through self-confession, to bring her to
    clearness in the exercise of her faith, appears from what is
    immediately added: 'And He looked round about,' not to see
    who had done it, but 'to see her that had done this thing.'
    And as His look of unspoken appeal was at last fixed on her
    alone in all that crowd, which, as Peter rightly said, was
    thronging and pressing Him, 'the woman saw that she was not
    hid,' [a St. Luke viii. 47.] and came forward to make full
    confession. Thus, while in His mercy He had borne with her
    weakness, and in His faithfulness not disappointed her faith,
    its twofold errror was also corrected. She learned that it
    was not from the garment, but from the Saviour, that the
    Power proceeded; she learned also, that it was not the touch
    of it, but the faith in Him, that made whole, and such faith
    must ever be of personal dealing with Him. And so He spoke to
    her the Word of twofold help and assurance: 'Thy faith hath
    made thee whole, go forth into peace, [1 So literally.] and
    be healed of thy scourge.'

     Brief as is the record of this occurrence, it must have
    caused considerable delay in the progress of our Lord to the
    house of Jairus. For in the interval the maiden, who had been
    at the last gasp when her father went to entreat the help of
    Jesus, had not only died, but the house of mourning was
    already filled with relatives, hired mourners, wailing women,
    and musicians, in preparation for the funeral. The
    intentional delay of Jesus when summoned to Lazarus [a St.
    John xi. 6.] leads us to ask, whether similar purpose may not
    have influenced His conduct in the present instance. But even
    were it otherwise, no outcome of God's Providence is of
    chance, but each is designed. The circumstances, which in
    their concurrence make up an event, may all be of natural
    occurrence, but their conjunction is of Divine ordering and
    to a higher purpose, and this constitutes Divine Providence.
    It was in the interval of this delay that the messengers
    came, who informed Jairus of the actual death of his child.
    Jesus overheard [2 I adoptthe reading which seems to me
    better rendered by 'overhearing' than by 'not heeding,' as in
    the Revised Version.] it, as they whispered to the Ruler not
    to trouble the Rabbi any further, [3 The word unquestionably
    means, literally, Teacher, but in the sense of Rabbi, or
    Master.] but He heeded it not, save so far as it affected the
    father. The emphatic admonition, not to fear, only to
    believe, gives us an insight into the threatening failure of
    the Ruler's faith; perhaps, also, into the motive which
    prompted the delay of Christ. The utmost need, which would
    henceforth require the utmost faith on the part of Jairus had
    now come. But into that, which was to pass within the house,
    no stranger must intrude. Even of the Apostles only those,
    who now for the first time became, and henceforth continued,
    the innermost circle, [4 Those who believe in an
    'antiPetrine' tendency in the Gospel by St. Luke must find it
    difficult to account for the prominence given to him in the
    Third Gospel.] might witness, without present danger to
    themselves or others, what was about to take place. How Jesus
    dismissed the multitude, or else kept them at bay, or where
    He parted from all his disciples except Peter, James, and
    John, does not clearly appear, and, indeed, is of no
    importance. He may have left the nine Apostles with the
    people, or outside the house, or parted from them in the
    courtyard of Jairus' house before he entered the inner
    apartments. [5 I confess myself unable to see any real
    discrepancy between the accounts of St. Mark and St. Luke,
    such as Strauss, Keim, and others have tried to establish. In
    St. Mark it is: 'He suffered no man man to accompany Him'
    (whither?); in St. Luke: 'He suffered not any man to enter in
    with Him.]

     Within, 'the tumult' and weeping, the wail of the mourners,
    real or hired, and the melancholy sound of the mourning
    flutes [1 They are specially called 'flutes for the dead' (B.
    Mez. vi. 1):] sad preparation for, and pageantry of, an
    Eastern funeral, broke with dismal discord on the majestic
    calm of assured victory over death, with which Jesus had
    entered the house of mourning. But even so He would tell it
    them, as so often in like circumstances He tells it to us,
    that the damsel was not dead, but only sleeping. The Rabbis
    also frequently have the expression 'to sleep' (demarkh , or
    , when the sleep is overpowering and oppressive), instead of
    'to die.' It may well have been that Jesus made us of this
    word of double meaning in some such manner as this: Talyetha
    dimkhath, 'the maiden sleepeth.' And they understood Him well
    in their own way, yet understood Him not at all.

     As so many of those who now hear this word, they to whom it
    was then spoken, in their coarse realism, laughed Him to
    scorn. For did they not verily know that she had actually
    died, even before the messengers had been despatched to
    prevent the needless trouble of His coming? Yet even this
    their scorn served a higher purpose. For it showed these two
    things: that to the certain belief of those in the house the
    maiden was really dead, and that the Gospel-writers regarded
    the raising of the dead as not only beyond the ordinary range
    of Messianic activity, but as something miraculous even among
    the miracles of Christ. And this also is evidential, at least
    so far as to prove that the writers recorded the event not
    lightly, but with full knowledge of the demand which it makes
    on our faith.

     The first thing to be done by Christ was to 'put out' the
    mourners, whose proper place this house no longer was, and
    who by their conduct had proved themselves unfit to be
    witnesses of Christ's great manifestation. The impression
    which the narrative leaves on the mind is, that all this
    while the father of the maiden was stupefied, passive, rather
    than active in the matter. The great fear, which had come
    upon him when the messengers apprised him of his only child's
    death, seemed still to numb his faith. He followed Christ
    without taking any part in what happened; he witnessed the
    pagneantry of the approaching obsequies in his house without
    interfering; he heard the scorn which Christ's majestic
    declaration of the victory over death provoked, without
    checking it. The fire of his faith was that of 'dimly burning
    flax.' [a Is. xlii. 3.] But 'He will not quench' it.

     He now led the father and the mother into the chamber where
    the dead maiden lay, followed by the three Apostles,
    witnesses of His chiefest working and of His utmost earthly
    glory, but also of His inmost sufferings. Without doubt or
    hesitation He took her by the hand and spoke only these two
    words: Talyetha Qum [Kum] ( [1 The reading which accordingly
    seems best is that adopted by Westcott and Hort, . The
    Aramaic or Rabbinic for maiden is either Talyetha or Talyutha
    ( ). In the second Targum on Esther ii. 7, 8, the reading is
    (Talutha), where Levy conjectures the reading (Talitha) or
    else Talyetha. The latter seems also the proper equivalent of
    . While the reading 'Talitha' is very uncertain. As regards
    the second word, qum [pronounced kum], most writers have,
    without difficulty, shown that it should be qumi, not qum.
    Nevertheless, the same command is spelt in the Talmud (as it
    is pronounced in the Syriac) when a woman is addressed. In
    Shabb. 110 b, the command qum, as addressed to a woman
    suffering from a bloody flux, occurs not less than seven
    times in that one page ( ).]), Maiden, arise! 'And
    straightway the damsel arose.' But the great astonishment
    which came upon them, as well as the 'strait charge' that no
    man should know it, are further evidence, if such were
    required, how little their faith had been prepared for that
    which in its weakness was granted to it. And thus Jesus, as
    He had formerly corrected in the woman that weakness of faith
    which came through very excess, so now in the Ruler of the
    Synagogue the weakness which was by failure. And so 'He hath
    done all things well: He maketh even the deaf to hear, and
    the dumb to speak.' [a St. Mark vii. 37.]

     How Jesus conveyed Himself away, whether through another
    entrance into the house, or by 'the road of the roofs,' we
    are not told. But assuredly, He must have avoided the
    multitude. Presently we find Him far from Capernaum. Probably
    He had left it immediately on quitting the house of Jairus.
    But what of that multitude? The tidings must have speedily
    reached them, that the daughter of the Synagogue-Ruler was
    not dead. Yet it had been straitly charged that none of them
    should be informed, how it had come to pass that she lived.
    They were then with this intended mystery before them. She
    was not dead: thus much was certain. The Christ had, ere
    leaving that chamber, given command that meat should be
    brought her; and, as that direction must have been carried
    out by one of the attendants, this would become immediately
    known to all that household. Had she then not really died,
    but only been sleeping? Did Christ's words of double meaning
    refer to literal sleep? Here then was another Parable of
    twofold different bearing: to them that had hearts to
    understand, and to them who understood not. In any case,
    their former scorn had been misplaced; in any case, the
    Teacher of Nazareth was far other than all the Rabbis. In
    what Name, and by what Power, did He come and act? Who was He
    really? Had they but known of the 'Talyetha Qum,' and how
    these two words had burst open the two-leaved doors of death
    and Hades! Nay, but it would have only ended in utter
    excitement and complete misunderstanding, to the final
    impossibility of the carrying out of Christ's Mission. For,
    the full as well as the true knowledge, that He was the Son
    of God, could only come after His contest and suffering. And
    our faith also in Him is first of the suffering Saviour, and
    then of the Son of God. Thus was it also from the first. It
    was through what He did for them that they learned Who He
    was. Had it been otherwise, the full blaze of the Sun's glory
    would have so dazzled them, that they could not have seen the
    Cross.

     Yet to all time has this question engaged the minds of men:
    Was the maiden really dead, or did she only sleep? With it
    this other and kindred one is connected: Was the healing of
    the woman miraculous, or only caused by the influence of mind
    over body, such as is not unfrequently witnessed, and such as
    explains modern so-called miraculous cures, where only
    superstition perceives supernatural agency? But these very
    words 'Influence of mind over body,' with which we are so
    familiar, are they not, so to speak, symbolic and typical? Do
    they not point to the possibility, and, beyond it, to the
    fact of such influence of the God-Man, of the command which
    he wielded over the body? May not command of soul over body
    be part of unfallen Man's original inheritance; all most
    fully realised in the Perfect Man, the God-Man, to Whom has
    been given the absolute rule of all things, and Who has it in
    virtue of His Nature? These are only dim feelings after
    possible higher truths.

     No one who carefully reads this history can doubt, that the
    Evangelists, at least, viewed this healing as a real miracle,
    and intended to tell it as such. Even the statement of
    Christ, that by the forthgoing of Power He knew the moment
    when the woman touched the hem of His garment, would render
    impossible the view of certain critics (Keim and others),
    that the cure was the effect of natural causes: expectation
    acting through the imagination on the nervous system, and so
    producing the physical results. But even so, and while these
    writers reiterate certain old cavils [1 We cannot call the
    trivial objections urged other than 'cavils.'] propounded by
    Strauss, and by him often derived from the ancient armoury of
    our own Deists (such as Woolston), they admit being so
    impressed with the 'simple,' 'natural,' and 'life-like' cast
    of the narrative, that they contend for its historic truth.
    But the great leader of negativism, Strauss, has shown that
    any natural explanation of the event is opposed to the whole
    tenour of the narrative, indeed of the Gospel-history; so
    that the alternative is its simple acceptance or its
    rejection. Strauss boldly decides for the latter, but in so
    doing is met by the obvious objection, that his denial does
    not rest on any historical foundation. We can understand, how
    a legend could gather around historical facts and embellish
    them, but not how a narrative so entirely without precedent
    in the Old Testament, and so opposed, not only to the common
    Messianic expectation, but to Jewish thought, could have been
    invented to glorify a Jewish Messiah. [1 According to
    Eusebius (Hist. Eccl. vii. 18) there was a statue in Paneas
    in commemoration of this event, which was said to have been
    erected by this woman to Christ.]

     As regards the restoration to life of Jairus' daughter,
    there is a like difference in the negative school (between
    Keim and Strauss). One party insists that the maiden only
    seemed, but was not really dead, a view open also to this
    objection, that it is manifestly impossible by such devices
    to account for the raising of the young man at Nain, or that
    of Lazarus. On the other hand, Strauss treats the whole as a
    myth. It is well, that in this case, he should have
    condescended to argument in support of his view, appealing to
    the expectancy created by like miracles of Elijah and Elisha,
    and to the general belief at that time, that the Messiah
    would raise the dead. For, the admitted differences between
    the recorded circumstances of the miracles of Elijah and
    Elisha and those of Christ are so great, that another
    negative critic (Keim) finds proof of imitation in their
    contrasts! [a Jesu v. Nazar. ii. 2 p. 475.] But the appeal to
    Jewish belief at that time tells, if possible, even more
    strongly against the hypothesis in question (of Keim and
    Strauss). It is, to say the least, doubtful whether Jewish
    theology generally ascribed to the Messiah the raising of the
    dead. [2 The passage which Strauss quotes from Bertholdt
    (Christol. Jud. p. 179), is from a later Midrash, that on
    Proverbs. No one would think of deriving purely Jewish
    doctrine either from the Sohar or from IV. Esdras, which is
    of post-Christian date, and strongly tinged with Christian
    elements. Other passages, however, might be quoted in favour
    of this view (comp. Weber, Altsynagog. Theol. pp. 351, 352),
    and on the other side, Hamburger, Real-Encykl. (II. Abth.
    'Belebung der Todten'). The matter will be discussed in the
    sequel.] There are isolated statements to that effect, but
    the majority of opinions is, that God would Himself raise the
    dead. But even those passages in which this is attributed to
    the Messiah tell against the assertions of Strauss. For, the
    resurrection to which they refer is that of all the dead
    (whether at the end of the present age, or of the world), and
    not of single individuals. To the latter there is not the
    faintest allusion in Jewish writings, and it may be safely
    asserted that such a dogma would have been foreign, even
    incongruous, to Jewish theology.

     The unpleasant task of stating and refuting these objections
    seemed necessary, if only to show that, as of old so now,
    this history cannot be either explained or accounted for. It
    must be accepted or rejected, accordingly as we think of
    Christ. Admittedly, it formed part of the original tradition
    and belief of the Church. And it is recorded with such
    details of names, circumstances, time and place, as almost to
    court inquiry, and to render fraud well-nigh impossible. And
    it is so recorded by all the three Evangelists, with such
    variations, or rather, additions, of details as only to
    confirm the credibility of the narrators, by showing their
    independence of each other. Lastly, it fits into the whole
    history of the Christ, and into this special period of it;
    and it sets before us the Christ and His bearing in a manner,
    which we instinctively feel to be accordant with what we know
    and expect. Assuredly, it implies determined rejection of the
    claims of the Christ, and that on grounds, not of history,
    but of preconceived opinions hostile to the Gospel, not to
    see and adore in it the full manifestation of the Divine
    Saviour of the world, 'Who hath abolished death, and hath
    brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel.' [a
    2 Tim. i. 10] And with this belief our highest thoughts of
    the potential for humanity, and our dearest hopes for
    ourselves and those we love, are inseparably connected.

 THE ASCENT: FROM THE RIVER JORDAN TO THE MOUNT OF
    TRANSFIGURATION

    SECOND VISIT TO NAZARETH, THE MISSION OF THE TWELVE.

    CHAPTER XXVII.

     (St. Matt. xiii. 54-58; x. 1, 5-42; xi. 1; St. Mark vi.
    1-13; St. Luke ix. 1-6.)

     It almost seems, as if the departure of Jesus from Capernaum
    marked a crisis in the history of that town. From henceforth
    it ceases to be the center of His activity, and is only
    occasionally, and in passing, visited. Indeed, the
    concentration and growing power of Pharisaic opposition, and
    the proximity of Herod's residence at Tiberias [1 Although in
    Ber. R. 23 the origin of that name is rightly traced to the
    Emperor Tiberius, it is characteristic that the Talmud tries
    otherwise to derive the name of what afterwards was the
    sacred capital of Palestinian Rabbinism, some explaining that
    it lay in the navel (tibura) of the land, others paraphrasing
    the name 'because the view was good' (Meg. 6 a). Rabbinic
    ingenuity declared it one of the cities fortified since the
    time of Joshua, so as to give it the priviliges attaching to
    such.] would have rendered a permanent stay there impossible
    at this stage in our Lord's history. Henceforth, His Life is,
    indeed, not purely missionary, but He has no certain
    dwelling-place: in the sublime pathos of His own language,
    'He hath not where to lay His Head.'

     The notice in St. Mark's Gospel, [a St. Mark vi. 1.] that
    His disciples followed Him, seems to connect the arrival of
    Jesus in 'His own country' (at Nazareth) with the departure
    from the house of Jairus, into which He had allowed only
    three of His Apostles to accompany Him. The circumstances of
    the present visit, as well as the tone of His countrymen at
    this time, are entirely different from what is recorded of
    His former sojourn at Nazareth. [b St. Luke iv. 16-31.] [2
    Compare Chapters and XI.] The tenacious narrowness, and the
    prejudices, so characteristic of such a town, with its
    cliques and petty family-pride, all the more self-asserting
    that the gradation would be almost imperceptible to an
    outsider, are, of course, the same as on the former visit of
    Jesus. Nazareth would have ceased to be Nazareth, had its
    people felt or spoken otherwise than nine or ten months
    before. That His fame had so grown in the interval, would
    only stimulate the conceit of the village-town to try, as it
    were, to construct the great Prophet out of its own building
    materials, with this additional gratification that He was
    thoroughly their own, and that they possessed even better
    materials in their Nazareth. All this is so quite according
    to life, that the substantial repetition of the former scene
    in the Synagogue, so far from surprising us, seems only
    natural. What surprises us is, what He marvelled at: the
    unbelief of Nazareth, which lay at the foundation of its
    estimate and treatment of Jesus.
     Upon their own showing their unbelief was most
    unwarrantable. If ever men had the means of testing the
    claims of Jesus, the Nazarenes possessed them. True, they
    were ignorant of the miraculous event of His Incarnation; and
    we can now perceive at least one of the reasons for the
    mystery, which was allowed to enwrap it, as well as the
    higher purpose in Divine Providence of His being born, not in
    Nazareth, but in Bethlehem of Judaea, and of the interval of
    time between that Birth and the return of His parents from
    Egypt to Nazareth. Apart from prophecy, it was needful for
    Nazareth that Christ should have been born in Bethlehem,
    otherwise the 'mystery of His Incarnation' must have become
    known. And yet it could not have been made known, alike for
    the sake of those most nearly concerned, and for that of
    those who, at that period of His History, could not have
    understood it; to whom, indeed, it would have been an
    absolute hindrance to belief in Him. And He could not have
    returned to Bethlehem, where He was born, to be brought up
    there, without calling attention to the miracle of His Birth.
    If, therefore, for reasons easily comprehended, the mystery
    of His Incarnation was not to be divulged, it was needful
    that the Incarnate of Nazareth should be born at Bethlehem,
    and the Infant of Bethlehem be brought up at Nazareth.

     By thus withdrawing Him successively from one and the other
    place, there was really none on earth who knew of His
    miraculous Birth, except the Virgin-Mother, Joseph,
    Elizabeth, and probably Zacharias. The vision and guidance
    vouchsafed to the shepherds on that December night did not
    really disclose the mystery of His Incarnation. Remembering
    their religious nations, it would not leave on them quite the
    same impression as on us. It might mean much, or it might
    mean little, in the present: time would tell. In those lands
    the sand buries quickly and buries deep, preserving, indeed,
    but also hiding what it covers. And the sands of thirty years
    had buried the tale which the shepherds had brought; the wise
    men from the East had returned another way; the excitement
    which their arrival in Jerusalem and its object had caused,
    was long forgotten. Messianic expectations and movements were
    of constant recurrence: the religious atmosphere seemed
    charged with such elements; and the political changes and
    events of the day were too engrossing to allow of much
    attention to an isolated report, which, after all, might mean
    little, and which certainly was of the long past. To keep up
    attention, there must be communication; and that was
    precisely what was wanting in this instance. The reign of
    Herod was tarnished by many suspicious and murders such as
    those of Bethlehem. Then intervened the death of Herod, while
    the carrying of Jesus into Egypt and His non-return to
    Bethlehem formed a complete break in the continuity of His
    History. Between obscure Bethlehem in the far south, and
    obscure Nazareth in the far north, there was no communication
    such as between towns in our own land, and they who had
    sought the Child's life, as well as they who might have
    worshipped Him, must have been dead. The aged parents of the
    Baptist cannot have survived the thirty years which lay
    between the Birth of Christ and the commencement of His
    Ministry. We have already seen reason for supposing that
    Joseph had died before. None, therefore, knew all except the
    Virgin-Mother; and she would hide it the deeper in her heart,
    the more years passed, and she increasingly felt, as they
    passed, that, both in His early obscurity and in His later
    manifestation, she could not penetrate into the real meaning
    of that mystery, with which she was so closely connected. She
    could not understand it; how dared she speak of it? She could
    not understand; nay, we can almost perceive, how she might
    even misunderstand, not the fact, but the meaning and the
    purport of what had passed.

     But in Nazareth they knew nothing of all this; and of Him
    only as that Infant Whom His parents, Joseph the carpenter
    and Mary, had brought with them months after they had first
    left Nazareth. Jewish law and custom made it possible, that
    they might have been married long before. And now they only
    knew of this humble family, that they lived in retirement,
    and that sons and daughters had grown around their humble
    board. Of Jesus, indeed, they must have heard that He was not
    like others around, so quite different in all ways, as He
    grew in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man.
    Then came that strange tarrying behind on His first visit to
    Jerusalem, when His parents had to return to seek, and at
    last found Him in the temple. This, also was only strange,
    though perhaps not strange in a child such as Jesus; and of
    His own explanation of it, so full of deepest meaning, they
    might not have heard. If we may draw probable, though not
    certain, inferences, after that only these three outward
    circumstances in the history of the family might have been
    generally noticed: that Jesus followed the occupation of His
    adoptive father; [a St. Mark vi. 3.] that Joseph had died;
    and that the mother and 'brethren' of Jesus had left
    Nazareth, [1 They seem to have settled in Capernaum, having
    followed Jesus to that place on His first removal to it. We
    can readily understand, that their continuance in Nazareth
    would have been difficult. The death of Joseph is implied in
    his not being mentioned in the later history of Jesus.] while
    His 'sisters' apparently continued there, being probably
    married to Nazarenes. [a St. Mark vi. 3.]

     When Jesus had first left Nazareth to seek Baptism at the
    hands of John) it could scarcely have attracted much
    attention. Not only did 'the whole world' go after the
    Baptist, but, considering what was known of Jesus, His
    absence from, not His presence at the banks of Jordan, would
    have surprised the Nazarenes. Then came vague reports of His
    early doings, and, what probably His countrymen would much
    more appreciate, the accounts which the Galileans brought
    back from the Feast of what Jesus had done at Jerusalem. His
    fame had preceded Him on that memorable Sabbath, when all
    Nazareth had thronged the Synagogue, curious to hear what the
    Child of Nazareth would have to say, and still more eager to
    see what He could do. Of the charm of His words there could
    be no question. Both what He said and how He said it, was
    quite other that what they had ever listened to. The
    difference was not in degree, but in kind: He spoke to them
    of the Kingdom; yet not as for Israel's glory, but for
    unspeakable comfort in the soul's deepest need. It was truly
    wonderful, and that not abstractly, but as on the part of
    'Joseph's Son.' That was all they perceived. Of that which
    they had most come to see there was, and could be, no
    manifestation, so long as they measured the Prophet by His
    outward antecedents, forgetful that it was inward kinship of
    faith, which connected Him that brought the blessing with
    those who received it.

     But this seeming assumption of superiority on the part of
    Joseph's Son was quite too much for the better classes of
    Nazareth. It was intolerable, that He should not only claim
    equality with an Elijah or an Elisha, but place them, the
    burghers of Nazareth, as it were, outside the pale of Israel,
    below a heathen man or woman. And so, if He had not, without
    the show of it, proved the authority and power He possessed,
    they would have cast Him headlong over the ledge of the hill
    of their insulted town. And now He had come back to them,
    after nine or ten months, in totally different circumstances.
    No one could any longer question His claims, whether for good
    or for evil. As on the Sabbath He stood up once more in that
    Synagogue to teach, they were astonished. The rumour must
    have spread that, notwithstanding all, His own kin, probably
    His 'sisters,' whom He might have been supposed by many to
    have come to visit, did not own and honour Him as a Prophet.
    Or else, had they of His own house purposely spread it, so as
    not to be involved in His Fate? But the astonishment with
    which they heard Him on that Sabbath was that of unbelief.
    The cause was so apparently inadequate to the effect! They
    knew His supposed parentage and His brothers; His sisters
    were still with them; and for these many years had they known
    Him as the carpenter, the son of the carpenter. Whence, then,
    had 'this One,' 'these things,' 'and what the wisdom which'
    was 'given to this One', and these mighty works done by His
    Hands?' [a St. Mark vi. 2.]

     It was, indeed, more than a difficulty, an impossibility, to
    account for it on their principles. There could be no
    delusion, no collusion, no deception. In our modern
    cant-phraseology, theirs might have been designated
    Agnosticism and philosophic doubt. But philosophic it
    certainly was not, any more than much that now passes,
    because it bears that name; at least, if, according to modern
    negative criticism, the inexplicable is also the unthinkable.
    Nor was it really doubt or Agnosticism, any more than much
    that now covers itself with that garb. It was, what Christ
    designated it, unbelief, since the questions would have been
    easily answered, indeed, never have arisen, had they believed
    that He was the Christ. And the same alternative still holds
    true. If 'this One' is what negative criticism declares Him,
    which is all that it can know of Him by the outside: the Son
    of Mary, the Carpenter and Son of the carpenter of Nazareth,
    Whose family occupied the humblest position among Galileans,
    then whence this wisdom which, say of it what you will,
    underlies all modern thinking, and these mighty works, which
    have moulded all modern history? Whence, if He be only what
    you can see by the outside, and yet His be such wisdom, and
    such mighty deeds have been wrought by His Hands? Is He only
    what you say and see, seeing that such results are noways
    explicable on such principles; or is He not much more than
    this, even the Christ of God?

     'And He marvelled because of their unbelief.' In view of
    their own reasoning it was most unreasonable. And equally
    unreasonable is modern unbelief. For, the more strongly
    negative criticism asserts its position as to the Person of
    Jesus, the more unaccountable are His Teaching and the
    results of His Work.

     In such circumstances as at Nazareth, nothing could be done
    by a Christ, in contradistinction to a miracle-monger. It
    would have been impossible to have finally given up His own
    town of Nazareth without one further appeal and one further
    opportunity of repentance. As He had begun, so He closed this
    part of His Galilean Ministry, by preaching in His own
    Synagogue of Nazareth. Save in the case of a few who were
    receptive, on whom He laid His Hands for healing, His visit
    passed away without such 'mighty works' as the Nazarenes had
    heard of. He will not return again to Nazareth. Henceforth He
    will make commencement of sending forth His disciples, partly
    to disarm prejudices of a personal character, partly to
    spread the Gospel-tidingfarther and wider than he alone could
    have carried them. For His Heart compassionated the many who
    were ignorant and out of the way. And the harvest was near,
    and the harvesting was great, and it was His Harvest, into
    which He would send forth labourers.

     For, although, in all likelihood, the words, from which
    quotation has just been made, [a St. Matt. ix. 36-38.] were
    spoken at a later time, [b St.Luke x. 2.] they are so
    entirely in the spirit of the present Mission of the Twelve,
    that they, or words to a similar effect, may also have been
    uttered on the present occasion. Of such seeming repetitions,
    when the circumstances were analogous, although sometimes
    with different application of the same many-sided words,
    there are not a few instances, of which one will presently
    come under notice. [c Comp. St. Matt. x. 26 with St. Luke
    xii. 1, 2.] Truly those to whom the Twelve were sent forth
    were 'troubled' [1 So in St. Matt. ix. 36.] as well as
    'scattered,' like sheep that have not a Shepherd, and it was
    to deliver them from the 'distress' caused by 'grievous
    wolves,' and to gather into His fold those that had been
    scattered abroad, that Jesus sent forth the Twelve with the
    special commission to which attention will now be directed.
    Viewing it in its fullest form, [d St. Matt. x. 5 to the
    end.] it is to be noted:,

     First: That this Discourse of Christ consists of five parts:
    vv. 5 to 15; vv. 16 to 23; vv. 24 to 33; vv. 34 to 39; vv. 40
    to the end.

     Secondly: That many passages in it occur in different
    connections in the other two Synoptic Gospels, specially in
    St. Mark xiii. and in St. Luke xii. and xxi. From this it may
    be inferred, either that Jesus spake the same or similar
    words on more than one occasion (when the circumstances were
    analogous), or else that St. Matthew grouped together into
    one Discourse, as being internally connected, sayings that
    may have been spoken on different occasions. Or else, and
    this seems to us the most likely, both these inferences may
    in part be correct. For,

     Thirdly: It is evident, that the Discourse reported by St.
    Matthew goes far beyond that Mission of the Twelve, beyond
    even that of the Early Church, indeed, sketches the history
    of the Church's Mission in a hostile world, up 'to the end.'
    At the same time it is equally evident, that the predictions,
    warnings, and promises applicable to a later period in the
    Church's history, hold equally true in principle in reference
    to the first Mission of the Twelve; and, conversely, that
    what specially applied to it, also holds true in principle of
    the whole subsequent history of the Church in its relation to
    a hostile world. Thus, what was specially spoken at this time
    to the Twelve, has ever since, and rightly, been applied to
    the Church; while that in it, which specially refers to the
    Church of the future, would in principle apply also to the
    Twelve.

     Fourthly: This distinction of primary and secondary
    application in the different parts of the Discourse, and
    their union in the general principles underlying them, has to
    be kept in view, if we are to understand this Discourse of
    Christ. Hence, also, the present and the future seem in it so
    often to run into each other. The horizon is gradually
    enlarging throughout the Discourse, but there is no change in
    the standpoint originally occupied; and so the present merges
    into the future, and the future mingles with the present. And
    this, indeed, is also the characteristic of much of Old
    Testament prophecy, and which made the prophet ever a
    preacher of the present, even while he was a foreteller of
    the future.

     Lastly: It is evidential of its authenticity, and deserves
    special notice, that this Discourse, while so un-Jewish in
    spirit, is more than any other, even more than that on the
    Mount, Jewish in its forms of thought and modes of
    expression.

     With the help of these principles, it will be more easy to
    mark the general outline of this Discourse. Its first part [a
    St. Matt. x. 5-15.] applies entirely to this first Mission of
    the Twelve, although the closing words point forward to 'the
    judgment.' [b ver. 15.] Accordingly it has its parallels,
    although in briefer form, in the other two Gospels. [c St.
    Mark vi. 7-11; St. Luke ix. 1-5.]

     1. The Twelve were to go forth two and two, [d St. Mark vi.
    7.] furnished with authority [1 So also in St. Matthew and in
    St. Mark. But this 'authority' sprang from the power which he
    gave them.] or, as St. Luke more fully expresses it, with
    'power and authority', alike over all demons and to heal all
    manner of diseases. It is of secondary importance, whether
    this was conveyed to them by word only, or with some
    sacramental sign, such as breathing on them or the laying on
    of hands. The special commission, for which they received
    such power, was to proclaim the near advent of the Kingdom,
    and, in manifestation as well as in evidence of it, to heal
    the sick, cleanse the lepers, and cast out demons. [2 Dean
    Plumptre remarks: 'The words ("raise the dead") are omitted
    by the best MSS.'] They were to speak good and to do good in
    the highest sense, and that in a manner which all would feel
    good: freely, even as they had received it. Again, they were
    not to make any special provision [1 Weiss (Matth. Evang. p.
    262) has the curious idea that the prohibitions about money,
    &c., refer to their not making gain on their journey.] for
    their journey, beyond the absolute immediate present. [2
    Sandals, but not shoes. As regards the marked difference
    about 'the staff,' Ebrard (Evang. Gesch. p. 459) points out
    the agreement of thought in all the Gospels. Nothing was to
    be taken, they were to go as they stood, without preparation
    or provision. Sometimes there was a secret receptacle at the
    top of the staff to hold valuables, or, in the case of the
    poor, water (Kel. xvii. 16).] They were but labourers, yet as
    such they had claim to support. Their Employer would provide,
    and the field in which they worked might well be expected to
    supply it. [a Comp. for this latter aspect 1 Tim. v. 18.] [3
    According to Jewish Law, 'the labourers' (the, at least),
    would be secured their food. Not so always, however, slaves
    (Gitt. 12 a). In general, the Rabbinic Law of slavery is
    exceeding harsh, far more so than that of the Pentateuch
    (comp. an abstract of the Laws of Slavery in Fassel,
    Mos.-Rabb. Civil-Recht, vol. ii. pp. 393-406).]

     In accordance with this, singleness of purpose and an entire
    self-denial, which should lead them not to make provision
    'for the flesh,' but as labourers to be content with daily
    food, were the further injunctions laid on them. Before
    entering into a city, they were to make inquiry, literally to
    'search out,' who in it was 'worthy,' and of them to ask
    hospitality; not seeking during their stay a change for the
    gratification of vanity or for self-indulgence. If the report
    on which they had made choice of a host proved true, then the
    'Peace with thee!' with which they had entered their
    temporary home, would become a reality. Christ would make it
    such. As He had given them 'power and authority,' so He would
    'honour' the draft on Him, in acknowledgment of hospitable
    reception, which the Apostles' 'Peace with thee!' implied.

     But even if the house should prove unworthy, the Lord would
    none the less own the words of His messengers and make them
    real; only, in such case the peace would return to them who
    had spoken it. Yet another case was possible. The house to
    which their inquiries had led them, or the city into which
    they had entered, might refuse to receive them, because they
    came as Christ's ambassadors. Greater, indeed, would be their
    guilt than that of the cities of the plain, since these had
    not known the character of the heavenly guests to whom they
    refused reception; and more terrible would be their future
    punishment. So Christ would vindicate their authority as well
    as His own, and show the reality of their commission: on the
    one hand, by making their Word of Peace a reality to those
    who had proved 'worthy;' and, on the other, by punishment if
    their message was refused. Lastly, in their present Mission
    they were not to touch either Gentile or Samaritan territory.
    The direction, so different in spirit from what Jesus Himself
    had previously said and done, and from their own later
    commission, was, of course, only 'for the present necessity.'
    [1 The direction is recorded by St. Matthew only. But St.
    Matt. xxviii. 19 would, if it were necessary, sufficiently
    prove that this is not a Judaistic limitation.] For the
    present they were neither prepared nor fitted to go beyond
    the circuit indicated. It would have been a fatal
    anticipation of their inner and outer history to have
    attempted this, and it would have defeated the object of our
    Lord of disarming prejudices when making a final appeal to
    the Jews of Galilee.

     Even these considerations lead us to expect a strictly
    Jewish cast in this Discourse to the Disciples. The command
    to abstain from any religious fellowship with Gentiles and
    Samaritans was in temporary accommodation to the prejudices
    of His disciples and of the Jews. And the distinction between
    'the way of the Gentiles' and 'any city of the Samaritans' is
    the more significant, when we bear in mind that even the dust
    of a heathen road was regarded as defiling, [a Sanh. 15 b;
    Ned. 53 b.] while the houses, springs, roads, and certain
    food of the Samaritans were declared clean. [b Jer. Abhod. Z
    44 d.] At the same time, religiously and as regarded
    fellowship, the Samaritans were placed on the same footing
    with Gentiles. [c Jer. Sheq. i. 5, p. 46 b.] Nor would the
    injunction, to impart their message freely, sound strange in
    Jewish ears. It was, in fact, what the Rabbis themselves most
    earnestly enjoined in regard to the teaching of the Law and
    traditions, however different their practice may have been.
    [d Ab. i. 13.] Indeed, the very argument, that they were to
    impart freely, because they had received freely, is employed
    by the Rabbis, and derived from the language and example of
    Moses in Deut. iv. 5. [e Ab. iv. 5; Bekhor. 29 a.] [2 At the
    sametime the statement in Bekhor. 29 a, that 'if needful
    money was to be paid for the acquisition of learning,'
    according to Prov. xxiii. 23 ('by the truth'), implies that
    the rule cannot always have been strictly observed.] Again,
    the directions about not taking staff, shoes, nor
    money-purse, exactly correspond to the Rabbinic injunction
    not to enter the Temple-precincts with staff, shoes [3 The
    Manal ( ) or shoe, in contradistinction to the Sandal ( ), as
    in Jer. Shabb. 8 a.] (mark, not sandals), and a money-girdle.
    [f Ber. ix. 5 ] The symbolic [4 The Pundah ( ), or Aphundah (
    ). Comp. for ex. Jer. Shabb. 12 c.] The symbolic reasons
    underlying this command would, in both cases, be probably the
    same: to avoid even the appearance of being engaged on other
    business, when the whole being should be absorbed in the
    service of the Lord. At any rate, it would convey to the
    disciples the idea, that they were to consider themselves as
    if entering the Temple-precints, thus carrying out the
    principle of Christ's first thought in the Temple: 'Wist ye
    not that I must be about My Father's business?' [a St.
    Lukeii. 49.] Nor could they be in doubt what severity of
    final punishment a doom heavier than that of Sodom and
    Gomorrah would imply, since, according to early tradition,
    their inhabitants were to have no part in the world to come.
    [b Sanh. x. 3.] And most impressive to a Jewish mind would be
    thesymbolic injunction, to shake off the dust of their feet
    for a testimony against such a house or city. The expression,
    no doubt, indicated that the ban of the Lord was resting on
    it, and the symbolic act would, as it were, be the solemn
    pronouncing that 'nought of the cursed thing' clave to them.
    [c Deut. xiii. 17.] [1 The explanations of this expression
    generally offered need not here be repeated.] In this sense,
    anything that clave to a person was metaphorically called
    'the dust,' as for example, 'the dust of an evil tongue,' [d
    Jer. Peah 16 a.] 'the dust of usury,' as, on the other hand,
    to 'dust to idolatry' meant to cleave to it. [e Sanh. 64 a.]
    Even the injunction not to change the dwelling, where one had
    been received, was in accordance with Jewish views, the
    example of Abraham being quoted, who [f According to Gen.
    xiii. 3.] 'returned to the place where his tenthad been at
    the beginning.' [g Arach. 16 b, lines 12 and 11 from bottom.]
    [2 So common, indeed, was this view as to have become
    proverbial. Thus, it was said concerning learned descendants
    of a learned man, that 'the Torah returned into its Akhsanya
    (( ),' or hospice (Baba Mez. 85 a, bis, in the curious story
    about the successful attempts made to convert to study the
    dissolute son of a great Rabbi).]

     These remarks show how closely the Lord followed, in this
    first part of His charge to the disciples, [h St. Matt. x.
    1-15.] Jewish forms of thinking and modes of expression. It
    is not otherwise in the second, [i St. Matt. x. 16-23.]
    although the difference is here very marked. We have no
    longer merely the original commission, as it is given in
    almost the same terms by St. Mark and St. Luke. But the
    horizon is now enlarged, and St. Matthew reports that which
    the other Evangelists record at a later stage of the Lord's
    Ministry. Whether or not when the Lord charged His disciples
    on their first mission, He was led gradually to enlarge the
    scope of His teaching so as to adapt it to all times, need
    not be discussed. For St. Matthew himself could not have
    intended to confine the words of Christ to this first journey
    of the Apostles, since they contain references to division in
    families, persecutions, and conflict with the civil power, [k
    vv. 16-18.] such as belong to a much laterperiod in the
    history of the Church; and, besides, contain also that
    prediction which could not have applied to this first Mission
    of the Apostles, 'Ye shall not have gone over the cities of
    Israel, till the Son of Man be come.' [m ver. 23.]

     Without here anticipating the full inquiry into the promise
    of His immediate Coming, it is important to avoid, even at
    this stage, any possible misunderstanding on the point. The
    expectation of the Coming of 'the Son of Man' was grounded on
    a prophecy of Daniel, [a Dan. vii. 13.] in which that Advent,
    or rather manifestation, was associated with judgment. The
    same is the case in this Charge of our Lord. The disciples in
    their work are described 'as sheep in the midst of wolves,' a
    phrase which the Midrash [b On Esther viii. 2, ed. Warsh. p.
    120 b.] applies to the position of Israel amidst a hostile
    world, adding: How great is that Shepherd, Who delivers them,
    and vanquishes the wolves! Similarly, the admonition to 'be
    wise as serpents and harmless as doves' is reproduced in the
    Midrash, [c On Cant. ii. 14.] where Israel is described as
    harmless as the dove towards God, and wise as serpents
    towards the hostile Gentile nations. Such and even greater
    would be the enmity which the disciples, as the true Israel,
    would have to encounter from Israel after the flesh. They
    would be handed over to the various Sanhedrin, [1 The
    question of the constitution and jurisdiction of the various
    Sanhedrin will be discussed in another place.] and visited
    with such punishments as these tribunals had power to
    inflict. [d St. Matt. x. 17.] More than this, they would be
    brought before governors and kings, primarily, the Roman
    governors and the Herodian princes. [e ver. 18.] And so
    determined would be this persecution, as to break the ties of
    the closest kinship, and to bring on them the hatred of all
    men. [f vv. 21, 22.]The only, but the all-sufficient, support
    in those terrible circumstances was the assurance of such
    help from above, that, although unlearned and humble, they
    need have no care, nor make preparation in their defence,
    which would be given them from above. And with this they had
    the promise, that he who endured to the end would be saved,
    and the prudential direction, so far as possible, to avoid
    persecution by timely withdrawal, which could be the more
    readily achieved, since they would not have completed their
    circuit of the cities of Israel before the 'Son of Man be
    come.'

     It is of the greatest importance to keep in view that, at
    whatever period of Christ's Ministry this prediction and
    promise were spoken, and whether only once or oftener, they
    refer exclusively to a Jewish state of things. The
    persecutions are exclusively Jewish. This appears from verse
    18, where the answer of the disciples is promised to be 'for
    a testimony against them,' who had delivered them up, that
    is, here evidently the Jews, as also against 'the Gentiles.'
    And the Evangelistic circuit of the disciples in their
    preaching was to be primarily Jewish; and not only so, but in
    the time when there were still 'cities of Israel,' that is,
    previous to the final destruction of the Jewish commonwealth.
    The reference, then, is to that period of Jewish persecution
    and of Apostolic preaching in the cities of Israel, which is
    bounded by the destruction of Jerusalem. Accordingly, the
    'coming of the Son of Man,' and the 'end' here spoken of,
    must also have the same application. It was, as we have seen,
    according to Dan. vii. 13, a coming in judgment. To the
    Jewish persecuting authorities, who had rejected the Christ,
    in order, as they imagined, to save their City and Temple
    from the Romans, [a St. John xi. 48.] and to whom Christ had
    testified that He would come again, this judgment on their
    city and state, this destruction of their polity, was 'the
    Coming of the Son of Man' in judgment, and the only coming
    which the Jews, as a state, could expect, the only one meet
    for them, even as, to them who look for Him, He will appear a
    second time, without sin unto salvation.

     That this is the only natural meaning attaching to this
    prediction, especially when compared with the parallel
    utterances recorded in St. Mark xiii. 9-13, appears to us
    indubitable. It is another question how, or how far, those to
    whom these words were in the first place addressed would
    understand their full bearing, at least at that time. Even
    supposing, that the disciples who first heard did not
    distinguish between the Coming to Israel in judgment, and
    that to the world in mingled judgment and mercy, as it was
    afterwards conveyed to them in the Parable of the
    Forthshooting of the Fig-tree, [b St. Luke xxi. 29-31.] yet
    the early Christians must soon have become aware of it. For,
    the distinction is sharply marked. As regards its manner, the
    'second' Coming of Christ may be said to correspond to the
    state of those to whom He cometh. To the Jews His first
    Coming was visible, and as claiming to be their King. They
    had asked for a sign; and no sign was given them at the time.
    They rejected Him, and placed the Jewish polity and nation in
    rebellion against 'the King.' To the Jews, who so rejected
    the first visible appearance of Christ as their King, the
    second appearance would be invisible but real; the sign which
    they had asked would be given them, but as a sign of
    judgment, and His Coming would be in judgment. Thus would His
    authority be vindicated, and He appear, not, indeed, visibly
    but really, as what He had claimed to be. That this was to be
    the manner and object of His Coming to Israel, was clearly
    set forth to the disciples in the Parable of the Unthankful
    Husbandmen. [c St. Matt. xxi. 33-46, and the parallels.] The
    coming of the Lord of the vineyard would be the destruction
    of the wicked husbandmen. And to render misunderstanding
    impossible, the explanation is immediately added, that the
    Kingdom of God was to be taken from them, and given to those
    who would bring forth the fruits thereof. Assuredly, this
    could not, even in the view of the disciples, which may have
    been formed on the Jewish model, have applied to the Coming
    of Christ at the end of the present AEon dispensation.

     We bear in mind that this second, outwardly invisible but
    very real, Coming of the Son of Man to the Jews, as a state,
    could only be in judgment on their polity, in that 'Sign'
    which was once refused, but which, when it appeared, would
    only too clearly vindicate His claims and authority. Thus
    viewed, the passages, in which that second Coming is referred
    to, will yield their natural meaning. Neither the mission of
    the disciples, nor their journeying through the cities of
    Israel, was finished, before the Son of Man came. Nay, there
    were those standing there who would not taste death, till
    they had seen in the destruction of the city and state the
    vindication of the Kingship of Jesus, which Israel had
    disowned. [a St. Matt. xvi. 28, and parallels.] And evenin
    those last Discourses in which the horizon gradually
    enlarges, and this Coming in judgment to Israel merges in the
    greater judgment on an unbelieving world, [b St. Matt. xxiv.
    and parallels.] this earlier Coming to the Jewish nation is
    clearly marked. The three Evangelists equally record it, that
    'this generation' should not pass away, till all things were
    fulfilled. [c St. Matt. xxiv. 34; St. Mark xiii.30; St. Luke
    xxi. 32.] To take the lowest view, it is scarcely conceivable
    that these sayings would have been allowed to stand in all
    the three Gospels, if the disciples and the early Church had
    understood the Coming of the Son of Man in any other sense
    than as to the Jews in the destruction of their polity. And
    it is most significant, that the final utterances of the Lord
    as to His Coming were elicited by questions arising from the
    predicted destruction of the Temple. This the early disciples
    associated with the final Coming of Christ. To explain more
    fully the distinction between them would have been
    impossible, in consistency with the Lord's general purpose
    about the doctrine of His Coming. Yet the Parables which in
    the Gospels (especially in that by St. Matthew) follow on
    these predictions, [d St. Matt. xxv. 1-30.] and the teaching
    about the final Advent of 'the Son of Man,' point clearly to
    a difference and an interval between the one and the other.

     The disciples must have the more readily applied this
    prediction of His Coming to Palestine, since 'the woes'
    connected with it so closely corresponded to those expected
    by the Jews before the Advent of Messiah. [e Sot. ix. 15;
    comp. Sanh. 97 a to 99 a, passim.] Even the direction to flee
    from persecution is repeated by the Rabbis in similar
    circumstances and established by the example of Jacob, [f
    Hos. xii. 12.] of Moses, [g Ex. ii. 15.] and of David. [h
    1Sam. xix. 12; comp. Bemidb. R. 23, ed. Warsh. p. 86 b, and
    Tanch.]
     In the next section of this Discourse of our Lord, as
    reported by St. Matthew, [a St. Matt. g. 24-34.] the horizon
    is enlarged. The statements are still primarily applicable to
    the early disciples, and their preaching among the Jews and
    in Palestine. But their ultimate bearing is already wider,
    and includes predictions and principles true to all time. In
    view of the treatment which their Master received, the
    disciples must expect misrepresentation and evil-speaking.
    Nor could it seem strange to them, since even the common
    Rabbinic proverb had it: [1 So Ber. 58 b; Siphra on Lev. xxv.
    23; Ber. R. 49; Shem. R. 42; Midr. on Ps. xxvii. 4.] 'It is
    enough for a servant to be as his lord' ( ). As we hear it
    from the lips of Christ, we remember that this saying
    afterwards comforted those, who mourned the downfall of
    wealthy and liberal homes in Israel, by thoughts of the
    greater calamity which had overthrown Jerusalem and the
    Temple. And very significant is its application by Christ:
    'If they have called the Master of the house Beelzebul, [2
    This is undoubtedly the correct reading, and not Beelzebub.
    Any reference to the Baalzebub, or 'fly-god' of 2 Kings i. 2,
    seems, rationally, out of the question.] how much more them
    of His household.' This charge, brought of course by the
    Pharisaic party of Jerusalem, had a double significance. We
    believe, that the expression 'Master of the house' looked
    back to the claims which Jesus had made on His first
    purification of the Temple. We almost seem to hear the coarse
    Rabbinic witticism in its play on the word Beelzebul. For,
    Zebhul, ( ) means in Rabbinic language, not any ordinary
    dwelling, but specifically the Temple, [3 Zebhul ( ) is also
    the name of the fourth of the seven heavens in which Jewish
    mysticism located the heavenly Jerusalem with its Temple, at
    whose altar Michael ministered (Chag. 12 b).] [b Jer. Ber. 13
    b.] and Beel-Zebul wouldbe the Master of the Temple.' On the
    other hand, Zibbul ( ) means [4 The primary meaning is:
    manuring(land) with dung.] sacrificing to idols; [c Abod. Z.
    18 b, and often.] and hence Beel-zebul would, in that sense,
    be equivalent to 'lord' or 'chief of idolatrous sacrificing'
    [5 It could not possibly mean, as has been supposed, 'lord of
    dung,' because dung is and not.], the worst and chiefest of
    demons, who presided over, and incited to, idolatry. 'The
    Lord of the Temple' (which truly was His Church) was to them
    'the chief of idolatrous worship,' the Representative of God
    that of the worst of demons: Beelzebul was Beelzibbul! [6
    This alone explains the meaning of Beelzebul. Neither
    Beelzebub nor Baalzebul were names given by the Jews to any
    demon, but Beelzebul, the 'lord of sacrificing to idols,'
    would certainly be the designation of what they regarded as
    the chief of the demons.] What then might 'His Household'
    expect at their hands?

     But they were not to fear such misrepresentations. In due
    time the Lord would make manifest both His and their true
    character. [a St. Matt. x. 26.] [1 Mark the same meaning of
    the expression in St. Luke viii. 17; xii. 2.] Nor were they
    to be deterred from announcing in the clearest and most
    public manner, in broad daylight, and from the flat roofs of
    houses, that which had been first told them in the darkness,
    as Jewish teachers communicated the deepest and highest
    doctrines in secret to their disciples, or as the preacher
    would whisper his discourse into the ear of the interpreter.
    The deepest truths concerning His Person, and the
    announcement of His Kingdom and Work, were to be fully
    revealed, and loudly proclaimed. But, from a much higher
    point of view, how different was the teaching of Christ from
    that of the Rabbis! The latter laid it down as a principle,
    which they tried to prove from Scripture, [b Lev. xviii. 5.]
    that, in order to save one's life, it was not only lawful,
    but even duty, if necessary, to commit any kind of sin,
    except idolatry, incest, or murder. [c Sanh. 74 a comp. Yoma
    82 a.] Nay,even idolatry was allowed, if only it were done in
    secret, so as not to profane the Name of the Lord, than which
    death was infinitely preferable. [2 I confess myself unable
    to understand the bearing of the special pleading of Wunsche
    against this inference from Sanh. 74 a. His reasoning is
    certainly incorrect.] Christ, on the other hand, not only
    ignored this vicious Jewish distinction of public and private
    as regarded morality, but bade His followers set aside all
    regard for personal safety, even in reference to the duty of
    preaching the Gospel. There was a higher fear than of men:
    that of God, and it should drive out the fear of those who
    could only kill the body. Besides, why fear? God's Providence
    extended even over the meanest of His creatures. Two sparrows
    cost only an assarion ( ), about the third of a penny. [3 The
    Isar ( ), or assarion, is expressly and repeatedly stated in
    Rabbinic writings to be the twenty-forth part of a dinar, and
    hence not a halfpenny farthing, but about the third of a
    penny. Comp. Herzfeld, Handelsgeschichte, pp. 180-182.] Yet
    even one of them would not perish without the knowledge of
    God. No illustration was more familiar to the Jewish mind
    than that of His watchful care even over the sparrows. The
    beautiful allusion in Amos iii. 5 was somewhat realistically
    carried out in a legend which occurs in more than one
    Rabbinic passage. We are told that, after that great
    miracle-worker of Jewish legend, R. Simeon ben Jochai, had
    been for thirteen years in hiding from his persecutors in a
    cave, where he was miraculously fed, he observed that, when
    the bird-catcher laid his snare, the bird escaped, or was
    caught, according as a voice from heaven proclaimed, 'Mercy,'
    or else, 'Destruction.' Arguing, that if even a sparrow could
    not be caught without heaven's bidding, how much more safe
    was the life of a 'son of man' ( ), he came forth. [a Ber. R.
    79, ed. Warsh. p. 142 b; Jer. Shebh. ix. 1; Midr. on Eccl. x.
    8; on Esth. i. 9; on Ps. xvii. 14.]

     Nor could even the additional promise of Christ: 'But of you
    even the hairs of the head are all numbered,' [1 This is the
    literal rendering.]surprise His disciples. But it would
    convey to them the gladsome assurance that, in doing His
    Work, they were performing the Will of God, and were
    specially in His keeping. And it would carry home to them,
    with the comfort of a very different application, while
    engaged in doing the Work and Will of God, what Rabbinism
    expressed in a realistic manner by the common sayings, that
    whither a man was to go, thither his feet would carry him;
    and, that a man could not injure his finger on earth, unless
    it had been so decreed of him in heaven. [b Chull. 7 b; comp.
    also the even more realistic expression, Shabb. 107b.] And in
    later Rabbinic writings [c Pesiqta 18 a.] we read, in almost
    the words of Christ: 'Do I not number all the hairs of every
    creature?' And yet an even higher outlook was opened to the
    disciples. All preaching was confessing, and all confessing a
    preaching of Christ; and our confession or denial would,
    almost by a law of nature, meet with similar confession or
    denial on the part of Christ before His Father in heaven. [2
    This appears more clearly when we translate literally (ver.
    32): 'Who shall confess in Me', and again: 'in him will I
    also confess.'] This, also, was an application of that
    fundamental principle, that 'nothing is covered that shall
    not be revealed,' which, indeed, extendeth to the inmost
    secrets of heart and life.

     What follows in our Lord's Discourse [d St. Matt. x. 34.]
    still further widens the horizon. It describes the condition
    and laws of His Kingdom, until the final revelation of that
    which is now covered and hidden. So long as His claims were
    set before a hostile world they could only provoke war. [3
    The original is very peculiar: 'Think not that I came to cast
    peace on the earth,' as a sower casts the seed into the
    ground.] On the other hand, so long as such decision was
    necessary, in the choice of either those nearest and dearest,
    of ease, nay, of life itself, or else of Christ, there could
    be no compromise. Not that, as is sometimes erroneously
    supposed, a very great degree of love to the dearest on earth
    amounts to loving them more than Christ. No degree of proper
    affection can ever make affection wrongful, even as no
    diminution of it could make wrongful affection right. The
    love which Christ condemneth differs not in degree, but in
    kind, from rightful affection. It is one which takes the
    place of love to Christ, not which is placed by the side of
    that of Christ. For, rightly viewed, the two occupy different
    provinces. Wherever and whenever the two affections come into
    comparison, they also come into collision. And so the
    questions of not being worthy of Him (and who can be
    positively worthy?), and of the true finding or losing of our
    life, have their bearing on our daily life and profession. [1
    The meaning of the expression, losing and finding one's life,
    appears more markedly by attending to the tenses in the text:
    'He that found his life shall lose it, and he that lost his
    life for My sake shall find it.']

     But even in this respect the disciples must, to some extent,
    have been prepared to receive the teaching of Christ. It was
    generally expected, that a time of great tribulation would
    precede the Advent of the Messiah. Again, it was a Rabbinic
    axiom, that the cause of the Teacher, to whom a man owed
    eternal life, was to be taken in hand before that of his
    father, to whom he owed only the life of this world. [a B.
    Mets 33 a.] [2 Expecially if he taught him the highest of all
    lore, the Talmud, or explained the reason for the meaning of
    what it contained.] Even the statement about taking up the
    cross in following Christ, although prophetic, could not
    sound quite strange. Crucifixion was, indeed, not a Jewish
    punishment, but the Jews must have become sadly familiar with
    it. The Targum [b On Ruth i. 17.] speaks of it as one of the
    four modes of execution of which Naomi described to Ruth as
    those in custom in Palestine, the other three being. stoning,
    burning, and beheading. Indeed, the expression 'bearing the
    cross,' as indicative of sorrow and suffering, is so common,
    that we read, Abraham carried the wood for the sacrifice of
    Issac, 'like who bears his cross on his shoulder.' [c Ber. R.
    56, on Gen. xxii. 6.]

     Nor could the disciples be in doubt as to the meaning of the
    last part of Christ's address. [d St. Matt. x. 40-42.] They
    were old Jewish forms of thought, only filled with the new
    wine of the Gospel. The Rabbis taught, only in extravagant
    terms, the merit attaching to the reception and entertainment
    of sages. [e Comp. for example the long discussion in Ber. 63
    b.] The very expression 'in the name of' a prophet, or a
    righteous man, is strictly Jewish ( ), and means for the sake
    of, or with intention, in regard to. It appears to us, that
    Christ introduced His own distinctive teaching by the
    admitted Jewish principle, that hospitable reception for the
    sake of, or with the intention of doing it to, a prophet or a
    righteous man, would procure a share in the prophet's
    righteous man's reward. Thus, tradition had it, that a
    Obadiah of King Ahab's court [f 1 Kings xviii. 4.] had become
    the prophet of that name, because he had provided for the
    hundred prophets. [g Sanh. 39 b.] And we are repeatedly
    assured, that to receive a sage,or even an elder, was like
    receiving the Shekhinah itself. But the concluding promise of
    Christ, concerning the reward of even 'a cup of cold water'
    to 'one of these little ones' 'in the name of a disciple,'
    goes far beyond the farthest conceptions of His
    contemporaries. Yet even so, the expression would, so far as
    its form is concerned, perhaps bear a fuller meaning to them
    than to us. These 'little ones' ( ) were 'the children,' who
    were still learning the elements of knowledge, and who would
    by-and-by grow into 'disciples.' For, as the Midrash has it:
    'Where there are no little ones, there are no disciples; and
    where no disciples, no sages: where no sages, there no
    elders; where no elders, there no prophets; and where no
    prophets, there [a According to Is. viii. 16.] does God not
    cause His Shekhinah to rest.' [b Ber. R. 42, on Gen. xiv. 1.
    ]

     We have been so particular in marking the Jewish
    parallelisms in this Discourse, first, becaust it seemed
    important to show, that the words of the Lord were not beyond
    the comperhension of the disciples. Starting from forms of
    thought and expressions with which they were familiar, He
    carried them far beyond Jewish ideas and hopes. But,
    secondly, it is just in this similarity of form, which proves
    that it was of the time, and to the time, as well as to us
    and to all times, that we best see, how far the teaching of
    Christ transcended all contemporary conception.

     But the reality, the genuineness, the depth and fervour of
    selfsurrender, which Christ expects, is met by equal fulness
    of acknowledgement on His part, alike in heaven and on earth.
    In fact, there is absolute identification with His
    ambassadors on the part of Christ. As He is the Ambassador of
    the Father, so are they His, and as such also the ambassadors
    of the Father. To receive them was. therefore, not only to
    receive Christ, but the Father, Who would own the humblest,
    even the meanest service of love to one of the learners, 'the
    little ones.' All the more painful is the contrast of Jewish
    pride and self-righteousness, which attributes supreme merit
    to ministering, not as to God, but as to man; not for God's
    sake, but for that of the m an; a pride which could give
    utterance to such a saying, ' All the prophets have announced
    salvation only to the like of those who give their daughters
    in marriage to sages, or cause them to make gain, or give of
    their goods to them. But what the bliss of the sages
    themselves is, no mortal eye has seen.' [c Sanh. 99 a.]

     It was not with such sayings that Christ sent forth His
    disciples; nor in such spirit, that the world has been
    subdued to Him. The relinquishing of all that is nearest and
    dearest, cross-bearing, loss of life itself, such were the
    terms of His discipleship. Yet acknowledgment there would
    surely, be first, in the felt and assured sense of His
    Presence; then, in the reward of a prophet, a righteous man,
    or, it might be, a disciple. But all was to be in Him, and
    for Him, even the gift of 'a cup of cold water' to 'a little
    one.' Nay, neither the 'little ones,' the learners, nor the
    cup of cold water given them, would be overlooked or
    forgotten. But over all did the 'Meek and Lowly One' cast the
    loftiness of His Humility.

 THE ASCENT: FROM THE RIVER JORDAN TO THE MOUNT OF
    TRANSFIGURATION

    THE STORY OF THE BAPTIST, FROM HIS LAST TESTIMONY TO JESUS
    TO HIS BEHEADING IN PRISON

    CHAPTER XXVIII

     (1. St. John iii. 25-30. 2 St. Matt. ix. 14-17; St. Mark ii.
    18-22; St. Luke v. 33-39. 3. St. Matt. xi. 2-14; St. Luke
    vii. 18-35. 4. St. Matt. xiv. 1-12; St. Mark vi.14-29; St.
    Luke ix. 7-9.)

     WHILE the Apostles went forth by two and two on their first
    Mission, [1 This is the only occasion on which they are
    designated as Apostles in the Gospel by St. Mark.] Jesus
    Himself taught and preached in the towns around Capernaum. [a
    St. Matt. xi. 1.] This period of undisturbed activity seems,
    however, to have been of brief duration. [2 Their mission
    seems to have been short, probably not more than two weeks or
    so. But it seems impossible, in consistency with the facts,
    to confine it to two days, as Bishop Ellicott proposes (Hist.
    Lect. p. 193).] That it was eminently successful, we infer
    not only from direct notices, [b St. Mark vi. 12, 13; St.
    Luke ix. 6.] but also from the circumstance that, for the
    first time, the attention of Herod Antipas was now called to
    the Person of Jesus. We suppost that, during the nine or ten
    months of Christ's Galilean Ministry, the Tetrarch had
    resided in his Paraean dominions (east of the Jordan), either
    at Julias or at Machaerus, in which latter fortress the
    Baptist was beheaded. We infer, that the labours of the
    Apostles had also extended thus far, since they attacted the
    notice of Herod. In the popular excitement caused by the
    execution of the Baptist, the miraculous activity of the
    messengers of the Christ, Whom John had annonced, would
    naturally attract wider interest, while Antipas would, under
    the influence of fear and superstition, give greater heed to
    them. We can scarcely be mistaken in supposing, that this
    accounts for the abrupt termination of the labours of the
    Apostles, and their return to Jesus. At any rate, the arrival
    of the disciples of John, with tidings of their master's
    death, and the return of the Apostles, seem to have been
    contemporaneous. [c St. Matt xiv. 12, 13; St.Mark vi. 30.]
    Finally, we conjecture, that it was among the motives which
    influenced the removal of Christ and His Apostles from
    Capernaum. Temporarily to withdraw Himself and His disciples
    from Herod, to give them a season of rest and further
    preparation after the excitement of the last few weeks, and
    to avoid being involved in the popular movements consequent
    on the murder of the Baptist, such we may venture to
    indicated as among the reasons of the departure of Jesus and
    His disciples, first into the dominions of the Tetrarch
    Philip, on the eastern side of the Lake, [a St. John vi. 1.]
    and after that 'into the borders of Tyre and Sidon.' [b St.
    Mark vii. 24.] Thus the fate of the Baptist was, as might
    have been expected, decisive in its influence on the History
    of the Christ and of His Kingdom. But we have yet to trace
    the incidents in the life of John, so far as recorded in the
    Gospels, from the time of His last contact with Jesus to his
    execution.

     1. It was [c St. John iii. 22 to iv. 3.] in the late spring,
    or rather early summer of the year 27 of our era, that John
    was baptizing in AEnon, near to Salim. In the neighbourhood,
    Jesus and His disciples were similarly engaged. [1 Comp.
    chapter vii. of this Book. For the sake of clearness and
    connection, some points formerly referred to have had to be
    here repeated.] The Presence and activity of Jesus in
    Jerusalem at the Passover [d St. John ii. 13 to iii. 21.] had
    determined the Pharisaic party to take active measures
    against Him and His Forerunner. John. As to the first outcome
    of this plan we notice the discussions on the question of
    'purification,' and the attempt to separate between Christ
    and the Baptist by exciting the jealousy of the latter. [e
    St. John iii. 25 &c.] But the result was far different. His
    disciples might have been influenced, but John himself was
    too true a man, and too deeply convinced of the reality of
    Christ's Mission, to yield even for a moment to such
    temptation. Nothing more noble can be conceived than the
    self-abnegation of the Baptist in circumstances which would
    not only have turned aside an impostor or an enthusiast, but
    must have severely tried the constancy of the truest man. At
    the end of a most trying career of constant self-denial its
    scanty fruits seemed, as it were, snatched from Him, and the
    multitude, which he had hitherto swayed, turned after
    Another, to Whom himself had first given testimony, but Who
    ever since had apparently neglected him. And now he had
    seemingly appropriated the one distinctive badge of his
    preaching! Not to rebel, nor to murmur, but even to rejoice
    in this as the right and proper thing, for which he had
    longed as the end of his own work, this implies a purity,
    simplicity, and grandeur of purpose, and a strength of
    conviction unsurpassed among men. The moral height of this
    testimony of John, and the evidential force of the
    introduction of this narrative, utterly unaccountable, nay,
    unintelligible on the hypothesis that it is not true, seem to
    us among the strongest evidences in favour of the
    Gospel-history.

     It was not the greatness of the Christ, to his own seeming
    loss, which could cloud the noonday of the Baptist's
    convictions. In simple Judaean illustration, he was only 'the
    friend of the Bridegroom' (the 'Shoshebheyna'), with all that
    popular association or higher Jewish allegory connected with
    that relationship. [1 Comp. 'Sketches of Jewish Social Life,'
    pp. 152, 153.] He claimed not the bride. His was another joy,
    that of hearing the Voice of her rightful Bridegroom, Whose
    'groomsman' he was. In the sound of that Voice lay the
    fulfilment of his office. And St. John, looking back upon the
    relation between the Baptist and Jesus, on the reception of
    the testimony of the former and the unique position of 'the
    Bridegroom', points out the lessons of the answer of the
    Baptist to his disciples (St. John iii. 31 to 36 [2 These
    verses contain the reflections of the Evangelist, not the
    words of the Baptist, just as previously vv. 16 to 21 are no
    longer the words of Christ but those of St. John.]) as
    formerly those of the conversation with Nicodemus. [a St.
    John iii. 16 to 21.]

     This hour of the seeming abasement of the Baptist was, in
    truth, that of the highest exaltation, as marking the
    fulfilment of his office, and, therefore, of his joy. Hours
    of cloud and darkness were to follow.

     2. The scene has changed, and the Baptist has become the
    prisoner of Herod Antipas. The dominions of the latter
    embraced, in the north: Galilee, west of the Jordan and of
    the Lake of Galilee; and in the south: Peraea, east of the
    Jordan. To realise events we must bear in mind that, crossing
    the Lake eastwards, we should pass from the possessions of
    Herod to those of the Tetrarch Philip, or else come upon the
    territory of the 'Ten Cities,' or Decapolis, a kind of
    confederation of townships, with constitution and liberties,
    such as those of the Grecian cities. [3 Comp. Caspari,
    Chronolog. Georgr. Einl. pp. 83-91.] By a narrow strip
    northwards, Peraea just slipped in between the Decapolis and
    Samaria. It is impossible with certainty to localise the
    AEnon, near Salim, where John baptized. Ancient tradition
    placed the latter a few miles south of Scythopolis or
    Bethshean, on the borders of Galilee, or rather, the
    Decapolis, and Samaria. But as the eastern part of Samaria
    towards the Jordan was very narrow, one may well believe that
    the place was close to, perhaps actually in, the
    north-eastern angle of the province of Judaea, where it
    borders on Samaria. We are now on the western bank of Jordan.
    The other, or eastern, bank of the river would be that narrow
    northern strip of Peraea which formed part of the territory
    of Antipas. Thus a few miles, or the mere crossing of the
    river, would have brought the Baptist into Peraea. There can
    be no doubt but that the Baptist must either have crossed
    into, or else that AEnon, near Salim, was actually within the
    dominions of Herod. [1 AEnon may even have been in Peraea
    itself, in that case, on the eastern bank of the Jordan.] It
    was on that occasion that Herod seized on his person, [a St.
    John iii. 24.] and that Jesus, Who was still within Judaean
    territory, withdrew from the intrigues of the Pharisees and
    the proximity of Herod, through Samaria, into Galilee. [b St.
    John vi. i.]

     For, although Galilee belonged to Herod Antipas, it was
    sufficiently far from the present residence of the Tetrarch
    in Peraea. Tiberias, his Galilean residence, with its
    splendid royal palace, had only been built a year or two
    before; [2 Comp. Schurer, Neutest. Zeitgesch. p. 233. As to
    the name Tiberias, comp. p. 635, note 1.] and it is
    impossible to suppose, that Herod would not have sooner heard
    of the fame of Jesus, [c St. Matt. xiv. 1.] if his court had
    been in Tiberias, in the immediate neighbourhood of
    Capernaum. We are, therefore, shut up to the conclusion, that
    during the nine or ten months of Christ's Ministry in
    Galilee, the Tetrarch resided in Peraea. Here he had two
    palaces, one at Julias, or Livias, the other at Machaerus.
    The latter will be immediately described as the place of the
    Baptist's imprisonment and martyrdom. The Julias, or Livias,
    of Peraea must be distinguished from another city of that
    name (also called Bethsaida) in the North (east of the
    Jordan), and within the dominions of the Tetrarch Philip. The
    Julias of Peraea represented the ancient Beth Haram in the
    tribe of Gad, [d Numb. xxxii. 36; Josh. xiii. 27.] a name for
    which Josephus gives [e Ant. xviii. 2. 1.] Betharamphtha, and
    the Rabbis Beth Ramthah. [f Jerus. Shev. 38 d.] [3 Comp. the
    references in Bottger, Lex. zu Jos. p. 58.] It still survives
    in the modern Beit-haran. But of the fortress and palace
    which Herod had built, and named after the Empress, 'all that
    remains' are 'a few traces of walls and foundations.' [4 See
    the description of the site in Tristram, Land of Moab, p.
    348.]

     Supposing Antipas to have been at the Peraean Julias, he
    would have been in the closest proximity to the scene of the
    Baptist's last recorded labours at AEnon. We can now
    understand, not only how John was imprisoned by Antipas, but
    also the threefold motives which influenced it. According to
    Josephus, [g Ant. xviii. 5, 2.] the Tetrarch was afraid that
    his absolute influence over the people, who seemed disposed
    to carry out whatever he advised, might lead to a rebellion.
    This circumstance is also indicated in the remark of St.
    Matthew, [h St. Matt. xiv. 5.] that Herod was afraid to put
    the Baptist to death on account of the people's opinion of
    him. On the other hand, the Evangelic statement, [i St. Matt.
    xiv. 3, 4; St. Mark vi 17, 18.] that Herod had imprisoned
    John on account of his declaring his marriage with Herodias
    unlawful, is in no way inconsistent with the reason assigned
    by Josephus. Not only might both motives have influenced
    Herod, but there is an obvious connection between them. For,
    John's open declaration of the unlawfulness of Herod's
    marriage, as unlike incestuous and adulterous, might, in view
    of the influence which the Baptist exercised, have easily led
    to a rebellion. In our view, the sacred text gives indication
    of yet a third cause which led to John's imprisonment, and
    which indeed, may have given final weight to the other two
    grounds of enmity against him. It has been suggested, that
    Herod must have been attached to the Sadducees, if to any
    religious party, because such a man would not have connected
    himself with the Pharisees. The reasoning is singularly
    inconclusive. On political grounds, a Herod would scarcely
    have lent his weight to the Sadducean or aristocratic
    priest-party in Jerusalem; while, religiously, only too many
    instances are on record of what the Talmud itself calls
    'painted ones, who are like the Pharisees, and who act like
    Zimri, but expect the reward of Phinehas.' [a Sot. 22 b.]
    Besides, the Pharisees may have used Antipas as their tool,
    and worked upon his wretched superstition to effect their own
    purposes. And this is what we suppose to have been the case.
    The reference to the Pharisaic spying and to their
    comparisons between the influence of Jesus and John, [b St.
    John iv. 1, 2.] which led to the withdrawal of Christ into
    Galilee, seems to imply that the Pharisees had something to
    do with the imprisonment of John. Their connection with Herod
    appears even more clearly in the attempt to induce Christ's
    departure from Galilee, on pretext of Herod's machinations.
    It will be remembered that the Lord unmasked their hypocrisy
    by bidding them go back to Herod, showing that He fully knew
    that real danger threatened Him, not from the Tetrarch, but
    from the leaders of the party in Jerusalem. [c St. Luke xiii.
    31-33.] Our inference therefore is, that Pharisaic intrigue
    had a very large share in giving effect to Herod's fear of
    the Baptist and of his reproofs.

     3. We suppose, then, that Herod Antipas was at Julias, in
    the immediate neighbourhood of AEnon, at the time of John's
    imprisonment. But, according to Josephus, whose testimony
    there is no reason to question, the Baptist was committed to
    the strong fortress of Machaerus. [d Ant. xviii. 5, 2.] [1 A
    little before that it seems belonged to Aretas. We know not,
    how it again passed into the hands of Antipas, if, indeed, it
    ever was fully ceded by him to the Arabs. Comp. Schurer, u.s.
    p. 239, and Wieseler, Chron. Syn. p. 244, Beitr, pp. 5, &c.,
    whose positions are, however, not always quite reliable.] If
    Julias lay where the Wady of the Heshban debouches into the
    Jordan, east of that river, and a little north of the Dead
    Sea, Machaerus is straight south of it, about two and a half
    hours north-west of the ancient Kiriathaim (the modern
    Kureiyat), the site of Chedorlaomer's victory. [a Gen. xiv.
    5.] Machaerus(the modern M'Khaur) marked the extreme point
    south, as Pella that north, in Peraea. As the boundary
    fortress in the south-east (towards Arabia), its safety was
    of the greatest importance, and everything was done to make a
    place, exceedingly strongly by nature, impregnable. It had
    been built by Alexander Jannaeus, but destroyed by Gabinius
    in the wars of Pompey. [b Jewish War i. 8.5.] It was not only
    restored, but greatly enlarged, by Herod the Great, who
    surrounded it with the best defences known at that time. In
    fact, Herod the Great built a town along the shoulder of the
    hill, and surrounded it by walls, fortified by towers. From
    this town a farther height had to be climbed, on which the
    castle stood, surrounded by walls, and flanked by towers one
    hundred and sixty cubits high. Within the inclosure of the
    castle Herod had built a magnificent palace. A large number
    of cisterns, storehouses, and arsenals, containing every
    weapon of attack or defence, had been provided to enable the
    garrison to stand a prolonged siege. Josephus describes even
    its natural position as unassailable. The highest point of
    the fort was on the west, where it looked sheer down into a
    valley. North and south the fort was equally cut off by
    valleys, which could not be filled up for siege purposes. On
    the east there was, indeed, a valley one hundred cubits deep,
    but it terminated in a mountain opposite to Machaerus. This
    was evidently the weak point of the situation. [1 Here Bassus
    made his attack in the fast Jewish war (Jos. War vii. 6.
    1-4).]

     A late and very trustworthy traveller [2 Canon Tristram Land
    of Moab, pp. 255-265; comp. Baedeker (Socin) Palastina, p.
    195 and, for the various passages in Josephus referring to
    Machaerus, Bottger, u.s. pp. 165-167.] has pronounced the
    description of Josephus [c War vii. 6 1,2.] as sufficiently
    accurate, although exaggerated, and as probably not derived
    from personal observation. He has also furnished such
    pictorial details, that we can transport ourselves to that
    rocky keep of the Baptist, perhaps the more vividly that, as
    we wander over the vast field of stones, upturned
    foundations, and broken walls around, we seem to view the
    scene in the lurid sunset of judgment. 'A rugged line of
    upturned squared stones' shows the old Roman paved road to
    Machaerus. Ruins covering quite a square mile, on a group of
    undulating hills, mark the site of the ancient town of
    Machaerus. Although surrounded by a wall and towers, its
    position is supposed not to have been strategically
    defensible. Only a mass of ruins here, with traces of a
    temple to the Syrian Sun-God, broken cisterns, and
    desolateness all around. Crossing a narrow deep valley, about
    a mile wide, we climb up to the ancient fortress on a conical
    hill. Altogether it covered a ridge of more than a mile. The
    key of the position was a citadel to the extreme east of the
    fortress. It occupied the summit of the cone, was isolated,
    and almost impregnable, but very small. We shall return to
    examine it. Meanwhile, descending a steep slope about 150
    yards towards the west, we reach the oblong flat plateau that
    formed the fortress, containing Herod's magnificent palace.
    Here, carefully collected, are piled up the stones of which
    the citadel was built. These immense heaps look like a
    terrible monument of judgment.

     We pass on among the ruins. No traces of the royal palace
    are left, save foundations and enormous stones upturned.
    Quite at the end of this long fortress in the west, and
    looking southwards, is a square fort. We return, through what
    we regard as the ruins of the magnificent castle-palace of
    Herod, to the highest and strongest part of the defences, the
    eastern keep or the citadel, on the steep slope 150 yards up.
    The foundations of the walls all around, to the height of a
    yard or two above the ground, are still standing. As we
    clamber over them to examine the interior, we notice how
    small this keep is: exactly 100 yards in diameter. There are
    scarcely any remains of it left. A well of great depth, and a
    deep cemented cistern with the vaulting of the roof still
    complete, and, of most terrible interest to us, two dungeons,
    one of them deep down, its sides scarcely broken in, 'with
    small holes still visible in the masonry where staples of
    wood and iron had once been fixed'! As we look down into its
    hot darkness, we shudder in realising that this terrible keep
    had for nigh ten months been the prison of that son of the
    free 'wilderness,' the bold herald of the coming Kingdom, the
    humble, earnest, self-denying John the Baptist. Is this the
    man whose testimony about the Christ may be treated as a
    falsehood?

     We withdraw our gaze from trying to pierce this gloom and to
    call up in it the figure of the camel-hair-clad and
    leather-girt preacher, and look over the ruins at the scene
    around. We are standing on a height not less than 3,800 feet
    above the Dead Sea. In a straight line it seems not more than
    four or five miles; and the road down to it leads, as it
    were, by a series of ledges and steps. We can see the whole
    extent of this Sea of Judgment, and its western shores from
    north to south. We can almost imagine the Baptist, as he
    stands surveying this noble prospect. Far to the south
    stretches the rugged wilderness of Judaea, bounded by the
    hills of Hebron. Here nestles Bethlehem, there is Jerusalem.
    Or, turning another way, and looking into the deep cleft of
    the Jordan valley: this oasis of beauty is Jericho; beyond
    it, like a silver thread, Jordan winds through a burnt,
    desolate-looking country, till it is lost to view in the haze
    which lies upon the edge of the horizon. As the eye of the
    Baptist travelled over it, he could follow all the scenes of
    His life and labours, from the home of his childhood in the
    hill-country of Judaea, to those many years of solitude and
    communing with God in the wilderness, and then to the first
    place of his preaching and Baptism, and onwards to that where
    he had last spoken of the Christ, just before his own
    captivity. And now the deep dungeon in the citadel on the one
    side, and, on the other, down that slope, the luxurious
    palace of Herod and his adulterous, murderous wife, while the
    shouts of wild revelry and drunken merriment rise around! Was
    this the Kingdom he had come to announce as near at hand; for
    which he had longed, prayed, toiled, suffered, utterly denied
    himself and all that made life pleasant, and the rosy morning
    of which he had hailed with hymns of praise? Where was the
    Christ? Was He the Christ? What was He doing? Was he eating
    and drinking all this while with publicans and sinners, when
    he, the Baptist, was suffering for Him? Was He in His Person
    and Work so quite different from himself? and why was He so?
    And did the hot haze and mist gather also over this silver
    thread in the deep cleft of Israel's barren burnt-up
    desolateness?

     4. In these circumstances we scarcely wonder at the feelings
    of John's disciples, as months of this weary captivity
    passed. Uncertain what to expect, they seem to have
    oscillated between Machaerus and Capernaum. Any hope in their
    Master's vindication and deliverance lay in the possibilities
    involved in the announcement he had made of Jesus as the
    Christ. And it was to Him that their Master's finger had
    pointed them. Indeed, some of Jesus' earliest and most
    intimate disciples had come from their ranks; and, as
    themselves had remarked, the multitude had turned to Jesus
    even before the Baptist's imprisonment. [a St. John iii. 26.]
    And yet, could He be the Christ? How many things about Him
    that were strange and seemed inexplicable! In their view,
    there must have been a terrible contrast between him who lay
    in the dungeon of Machaerus, and Him Who sat down to eat and
    drink at a feast of the publicans.

     His reception of publicans and sinners they could
    understand; their own Master had not rejected them. But why
    eat and drink with them? Why feasting, and this in a time
    when fasting and prayer would have seemed specially
    appropriate? And, indeed, was not fasting always appropriate?
    And yet this new Messiah had not taught his disciples either
    to fast or what to pray! The Pharisees, in their anxiety to
    separate between Jesus and His Forerunner, must have told
    them all this again and again, and pointed to the contrast.

     At any rate, it was at the instigation of the Pharisees, and
    in company with them, [1 Thus viewed there is no
    contradiction, not even real variation, between St. Matt. ix.
    14, St. Mark ii. 18, and St. Luke v. 33.] that the disciples
    of John propounded to Jesus this question about fasting and
    prayer, immediately after the feast in the house of the
    converted Levi-Matthew. [a St. Matt. ix. 14-17 and
    parallels.] We must bear in mind that fasting and prayer, or
    else fasting and alms, or all the three, were always
    combined. Fasting represented the negative, prayer and alms
    the positive element, in the forgiveness of sins. Fasting, as
    self-punishment and mortification, would avert the anger of
    God and calamities. Most extraordinary instances of the
    purposes in view in fasting, and of the results obtained are
    told in Jewish legend, which (as will be remembered) went so
    far as to relate how a Jewish saint was thereby rendered
    proof against the fire of Gehenna, of which a realistic
    demonstration was given when his body was rendered proof
    against ordinary fire. [b B. Mez. 85 a, 2 towards the end.]

     Even apart from such extravagances, Rabbinism gave an
    altogether external aspect to fasting. In this it only
    developed to its utmost consequences a theology against which
    the Prophets of old had already protested. Perhaps, however,
    the Jews are not solitary in their misconception and
    perversion of fasting. In their view, it was the readiest
    means of turning aside any threatening calamity, such as
    drought, pestilence, or national danger. This, ex opere
    operato: because fasting was self-punishment and
    mortification, not because a fast meant mourning (for sin,
    not for its punishment), and hence indicated humiliation,
    acknowledgment of sin, and reprentance. The second and fifth
    days of the week (Monday and Thursday) [3 Thus a three day's
    fast would be on the second, fifth, and again on the second
    day of the week.] were those appointed for public fasts,
    because Moses was supposed to have gone up the Mount for the
    second Tables of the Law on a Thursday, and to have returned
    on a Monday. The self-introspection of Pharisaism led many to
    fast on these two days all the year round, [c Taan. 12a; St.
    Luke xviii. 12.] just as in Temple-times not a few would
    offer daily trespass-offering for sins of which they were
    ignorant. Then there were such painful minutiae of
    externalism, as those which ruled how, on a less strict fast,
    a person might wash and anoint; while on the strictest fast,
    it was prohibited even to salute one another. [a Taan i.
    4-7.] [1 Comp. 'The Temple, its Ministry and Services,' pp.
    296-298.]

     It may well have been, that it was on one of thoses weekly
    fasts that the feast of Levi-Matthew had taken place, and
    that this explains the expression: 'And John's disciples and
    the Pharisees were fasting. [b St. Mark ii. 18.] [2 This is
    the real import of the original.] This would give point to
    their complaint,' 'Thy disciples fast not.' Looking back upon
    the standpoint from which they viewed fasting, it is easy to
    perceive why Jesus could not have sanctioned, not even
    tolerated, the practice among His disciples, as little as St.
    Paul could tolerate among Judaising christians the, in itself
    indifferent, practice of circumcision. But it was not so easy
    to explain this at the time of the disciples of John. For, to
    understand it, implied already entire transformation from the
    old to the new spirit. Still more difficult must it have been
    to do it in in such manner, as at the same time to lay down
    principles that would rule all similiar questions to all
    ages. But our Lord did both, and even thus proved His Divine
    Mission.

     The last recorded testimony of the Baptist had pointed to
    Christ as the 'Bridegroom.' [c St. John iii. 29.] As
    explained in a previous chapter, John applied this in a
    manner which appealed to popular custom. As he had pointed
    out, the Presence of Jesus marked the marriage-week. By
    universal consent and according to Rabbinic law, this was to
    be a time of unmixed festivity. [d Ber. 6 b.] Even in the Day
    of Atonement a bride was allowed to relax one of the
    ordinances of that strictest fast. [e Yoma viii. 1.] During
    the marriage-week all mourning was to be suspended even the
    obligation of the prescribed daily prayers ceased. It was
    regarded as a religious duty to gladden the bride and
    bridegroom. Was it not, then, inconsitent on the part of
    John's disciples to expect 'the sons of the bride-chamber' to
    fast, so long as the Bridegroom was with them?

     This appeal of Christ is still further illustrated by the
    Talmudic ordinance [f Jer. Sukk. 53 a, near the middle.]
    which absolved 'the friends of the bridegroom,' and all 'the
    sons of the bride-chamber,' even from the duty of dwelling in
    booths (at the Feast of Tabernacles). The expression, 'sons
    of the bride-chamber' ( ), which means all invited guests,
    has the more significance, when we remember that the
    Covenant-union between God and Israel was not only compared
    to a marriage, but the Tabernacle and Temple designated as
    'the bridal chambers.' [a Jer. Megill. 72 d 1.] [1 'And all
    bride-chambers were only within the portions of Benjamin'
    (the Tabernacle and the Temple). Hence Benjamin was called
    'the host of the Lord.'] And, as the institution of 'friends
    of the bridegroom' prevailed in Judaea, but not in Galilee,
    this marked distinction of the 'friends of the bridegroom,'
    [2 Strangely, the two designations are treated as identical
    in most Commentaries.] in the mouth of the Judaean John
    and'sons of the bride-chamber' in that of the galilean Jesus,
    is itself evidential of historic accuracy, as well as of the
    Judaean authorship of the Fourth Gospel.

     But let it not be thought that it was to be a time of
    unbroken joy to the disciples of Jesus. Nay, the ideas of the
    disciples of John concerning the Messianic Kingdom, as one of
    resistless outward victory and assertion of power, were
    altogether wrong. The Bridegroom would be violently taken
    from them, and then would be the time for mourning and
    fasting. Not that this necessarily implies literal fasting,
    any more than it excludes it, provided the great principles,
    more fully indicated immediately afterwards, are contrary to
    the spirit of the joyous liberty of the children of God. It
    is only a sense of sin, and the felt absence of the Christ,
    which should lead to mourning and fasting, though not in
    order thereby to avert either the anger of God or outward
    calamity. Besides the evidential force of this highly
    spiritual, and thoroughly un-Jewish view of fasting, we
    notice some other points in confirmation of his, and of the
    Gospel-history generally. On the hypothesis of a Jewish
    invention of the Gospel-history, or of its Jewish
    embellishment, the introduction of this narrative would be
    incomprehensible. Again, on the theory of a fundamental
    difference in the Apostalic teaching, St. Matthew and St.
    Mark representing the original judaic, St. Luke the freer
    Pauline development, the existence of this narrative in the
    first two Gospels would seem unaccountable. Or, to take
    another view, on the hypothesis of the much later and
    non-Judaean (Ephesian) authorship of the Fourth Gospel, the
    minute archaeological touches, and the general fitting of the
    words of the Baptist [b St. John iii. 29.] into the present
    narrative would be inexplicable. Lastly, as against all
    deniers and detractors of the Divine Mission of Jesus, this
    early anticipation of His violent removal by death, and of
    the consequent mourning of the Church,proves that it came not
    to him from without, as by the accident of events, but that
    from the beginning He anticipated the end, and pursued it of
    set, steadfast purpose.

     Yet another point in evidence comes to us from the eternal
    and un-Jewish principles implied in the two illustrations, of
    which Christ here made use. [a St. Matt. ix. 16, 17.] In
    truth, the Lord's teaching is now carried down to its
    ultimate principles. The slight variations which here occur
    in the Gospel of St. Luke, as, indeed, such exist in so many
    of the narratives of the same events by different
    Evangelists, should noat be 'explained away' For, the sound
    critic should never devise an explanation for the sake of a
    supposed difficulty, but truthfully study the text, as an
    interpreter, not an apologist. Such variations of detail
    present no difficulty. As against a merely mechanical
    unspiritual accord, they afford evidence of truthful,
    independent witness, and irrefragable proof that, contrary to
    modern negative criticism, and three narratives are not
    merely different recensions of one and the same original
    document.

     In general, the two illustrations employed, that of the
    piece of undressed cloth (or, according to St. Luke, a piece
    torn from a new garment) sewed upon the rent of an old
    garment, and that of the new wine put into a old wine-skins,
    must not be too closely pressed in regard to atheir language.
    [1 Godest has shown objections against all previous
    interpretations. But his own view seems to me equally
    untenable.] They seem chiefly to imply this:You ask, why do
    we fast often, but Thy disciples fast not? You are mistaken
    in supposing that the old garment can be retained, and merely
    its rents made good by patching it with a piece of new cloth.
    Not to speak of the incongruity, the effect would only be to
    make the rent ultimately worse. The old garment will not bear
    mending with the 'undressed cloth Christ's was not merely a
    reformation: all things must become new. Or, agaon, take the
    other view of it, as the old garment cannot be patched from
    the new, so, on the other hand, can the new wine of the
    Kingdom not be confined in the old forms. It would burst
    those wine-skins. The spirit must, indeed, have its
    corresponding form of expression; but that form must be
    adapted, and correspond to it. Not the old with a little of
    the new to hold it together where it is rent; but the new,
    and that not in the old wine-skins, but in a form
    corresponding to the substance. Such are the two final
    principles [2 St. Luke v. 39 seems either a gloss of the
    writer, or may be (though very doubtfully) an interpolation.
    There is a curious parallel to the verse in Ab. iv. 20.] ,
    the one primary addressed to the Pharisees, the other to the
    disciples of John, by which th illustrative teaching
    concerning th marriage-feast, with its bridal grment and wine
    of banquet, is carried far beyond th original question of the
    disciples of John, and receives an application to all time.

     5. We are in spirit by the mount of God, and about to
    witness the breaking of a terrible storm. [a St. Luke vii.
    18-35; St. Matt. xi. 2-19.] It is one that uproots the great
    trees and rends the rocks; and all we shall watch it
    solemnly, earnestly, as with bared head, or, like Elijah,
    with face wrap in mantle. Weeks had passed, and the disciples
    of John had come back and showed their Master of all these
    things. He still lay in the dungeon of Machaerus; his
    circumstances unchanged, perhaps, more hopeless than before.
    For, Herod was in that spiritua,ly most desperate state: he
    had heard th Baptist, and was much perplexed. And still he
    heard, but only heard, him gladly. [b St. Mark vi. 20.] [1
    This is boath the correct reading and rendering.] It was a
    case by no means singular, and of which Felix, often sending
    for St. Paul, at whose preaching of righteousness,
    temperance, and the judgement to come, he had trembled,
    offers only one of many parallels. That, when hearing him,
    Herod was 'much perplexed,' we can understand, since he
    'feared him, knowing that he was a righteous man and holy,'
    and thus feraring 'heard him.' But that being 'much
    perplexed,' he still 'heard him gladly,' comnstituted the
    hopelessness of his cse. But was the Baptist right? Did it
    constitute part of his Divine calling to have not only
    denounced, but apparently directly confronted Herod on his
    adulterous marriage? Had he not attempt to lift himself the
    axe which seemed to have slip from the grasp of Him, of Whom
    the Baptist had hoped and said that He would lay it to the
    root of the tree?

     Such thoughts may have been with him, as he passed from his
    dungeon to the audience of Herod, and from such bootless
    interviews back to his deep keep. Strange as it may seem, it
    was, perhaps, better for the Baptist when he was alone. Much
    as his disciples honoured and loved him, and truly zealous
    and jealous for him as they were, it was best when they dwere
    absent. There are times when affection only pains, by forcing
    on our notice inability to understand, and adding to our
    sorrow that of feeling our inmost being a stranger to those
    nearest, and who love us must. Then, indeed, is a man alone.
    It is so with the Baptist. The state of mind and experience
    of his disciples had already appeared, even in the slight
    notices of his disciples has already appeared, even in the
    slight notices concerning them. Indeed, had they fully
    understood him, and not ended where he began, which, truly,
    is the characteristic of all sects, in their crystallisation,
    or, rather, ossification of truth, they would not have
    remained his disciples; and this consciousness must also have
    brought exquisite pain. Their very affection for him, and
    their zeal for his credit (as shown in the almost coarse
    language of their inquiry: 'John the Baptist hath sent us
    unto Thee, saying, Art Thou He that cometh, or look we for
    another?'), as well as their tenacity of unprogressiveness,
    were all, so to speak, marks of his failure. And, if he had
    failed with them, had he succeeded in anything?

     And yet further and more terrible questions rose in that
    dark dungeon. Like serpents that crept out of its walls, they
    would uncoil and raise their heads with horrible hissing.
    What if, after all, there had been some terrible mistake on
    his part? At any rate the logic of events was against him. He
    was now the fast prisoner of that Herod, to whom he had
    spoken with authority; in the power of that bold adulteress,
    Herodias. If he were Elijah, the great Tishbite had never
    been in the hands of Ahab and Jezebel. And the Messiah, Whose
    Elijah he was, moved not; could not, or would not, move, but
    feasted with publicans and sinners! Was it all a reality? or,
    oh, thought too horrible for utterance, could it have been a
    dream, bright but fleeting, uncaused by any reality, only the
    reflection of his own imagination? It must have been a
    terrible hour, and the power of darkness. At the end of one's
    life, and that of such self-denial and suffering, and with a
    conscience so alive to God, which had, when a youth, driven
    him burning with holy zeal into the wilderness, to have such
    a question meeting him as: Art Thou He, or do we wait for
    another? Am I right, or in error and leading others into
    error? must have been truly awful. Not Paul, when forsaken of
    all he lay in the dungeon, the aged prisoner of Christ; not
    Huss, when alone at Constance he encountered the whole
    Catholic Council and the flames; only He, the God-Man, over
    Whose soul crept the death-coldness of great agony when, one
    by one, all light of God and man seemed to fade out, and only
    that one remained burning, His own faith in the Father, could
    have experienced bitterness like this. Let no one dare to say
    that the faith of John failed, at least till the dark waters
    have rolled up to his own soul. For mostly all and each of us
    must pass through some like experience; and only our own
    hearts and God know, how death-bitter are the doubts, whether
    of head or of heart, when question after question raises, as
    with devilish hissing, its head, and earth and heaven seem
    alike silent to us.

     But here we must for a moment pause to ask ourselves this,
    which touches the question of all questions: Surely, such a
    man as this Baptist, so thoroughly disillusioned in that
    hour, could not have been an imposter, and his testimony to
    Christ a falsehood? Nor yet could the record, which gives us
    this insight into the weakness of the strong man and the
    doubts of the great Testimony-bearer, be a cunningly-invented
    fable. We cannot imagine the record of such a failure, if the
    narrative were an invention. And if this record be true, it
    is not only of present failure, but also of the previous
    testimony of John. To us, at least, the evidential force of
    this narrative seems irresistible. The testimony of the
    Baptist to Jesus offers the same kind of evidence as does
    that of the human soul to God: in both cases the one points
    to the other, and cannot be understood without it.

     In that terrible conflict John overcame, as we all must
    overcome. His very despair opened the door of hope. The
    helpless doubt, which none could solve but One, he brought to
    Him around Whom it had gathered. Even in this there is
    evidence for Christ, as the unalterably True One. When John
    asked the question: Do we wait for another? light was already
    struggling through darkness. It was incipient victory even in
    defeat. When he sent his disciples with this question
    straight to Christ, he had already conquered; for such a
    question addressed to a possibly false Messiah has no
    meaning. And so must it ever be with us. Doubt is the
    offspring of our disease, diseased as is its paternity. And
    yet it cannot be cast aside. It may be the outcome of the
    worst, or the problems of the best souls. The twilight may
    fade into outer night, or it may usher in the day. The answer
    lies in this: whether doubt will lead us to Christ, or from
    Christ.

     Thus viewed, the question: 'Art Thou the Coming One, or do
    we wait for another?' indicated faith both in the great
    promise and in Him to Whom it was addressed. The designation
    'The Coming One' (habba), though a most truthful expression
    of Jewish expectancy, was not one ordinarily used of the
    Messiah. But it was invariably used in reference to the
    Messianic age, as the Athid labho, or coming future
    (literally, the prepared for to come), and the Olam habba,
    the coming world or AEon. [1 The distinction between the two
    expressions will be further explained in the sequel.] But
    then it implied the setting right of all things by the
    Messiah, the assumption and vindication of His Power. In the
    mouth of John it might therefore mean chiefly this: Art Thou
    He that is to establish the Messianic Kingdom in its outward
    power, or have we to wait for another? In that case, the
    manner in which the Lord answered it would be all the more
    significant. The messengers came just as He was engaged in
    healing body and soul. [a St. Luke vii. 21.] [1 Negative
    criticism charges St. Luke with having inserted this trait,
    forgetting that it is referred to by St. Matthew.] Without
    interrupting His work, or otherwise noticing their inquiry,
    He bade them tell John for answer what they had seen and
    heard, and that 'the poor, [b St. Matt. xi. 5.] are
    evangelised.' To this, as the inmost characteristic of the
    Messianic Kingdom, He only added, not by way of reproof nor
    even of warning, but as a fresh 'Beatitude:' 'Blessed is he,
    whosoever shall not be scandalised in Me.' To faith, but only
    to faith, this was the most satisfactory and complete answer
    to John's inquiry. And such a sight of Christ's distinctive
    Work and Word, with believing submission to the humbleness of
    the Gospel, is the only true answer to our questions, whether
    of head or heart.

     But a harder saying than this did the Lord speak amidst the
    forthpouring of His testimony to John, when his messengers
    had left. It pointed the hearers beyond their present
    horizon. Several facts here stand out prominently. First, He
    to Whom John had formerly borne testimony, now bore testimony
    to him; and that, not in the hour when John had testified for
    Him, but when his testimony had wavered and almost failed.
    This is the opposite of what one would have expected, if the
    narrative had been a fiction, while it is exactly what we
    might expect if the narrative be true. Next, we mark that the
    testimony of Christ is as from a higher standpoint. And it is
    a full vindication as well as unstinted praise, spoken, not
    as in his hearing, but after his messengers, who had met a
    seemingly cold reception, had left. The people were not
    coarsely to misunderstand the deep soul-agony, which had
    issued in John's inquiry. It was not the outcome of a
    fickleness which, like the reed shaken by every wind, was
    moved by popular opinion. Nor was it the result of fear of
    bodily consequences, such as one that pampered the flesh
    might entertain. Let them look back to the time when, in
    thousands, they had gone into the wilderness to hear his
    preaching. What had attracted them thither? Surely it was,
    that he was the opposite of one swayed by popular opinion, 'a
    reed shaken by the wind.' And when they had come to him, what
    had they witnessed? [2 The two terms are different. The query
    was: would they go out 'to gaze at' a reed, and 'to see' one
    in soft clothing.] Surely, his dress and food betokened the
    opposite of pampering or care of the body, such as they saw
    in the courtiers of a Herod. But what they did expect, that
    they really did see: a prophet, and much more than a mere
    prophet, the very Herald of God and Preparer of Messiah's
    Way. [1 The reader will mark the difference between the
    quotation as made by all the three Evangelists, and our
    present Hebrew text and the LXX., and possibly draw his own
    inferences.] And yet, and this truly was a hard saying and
    utterly un-Judaic, it was neither self-denial nor position,
    no, not even that of the New Testament Elijah, which
    constituted real greatness, as Jesus viewed it, just as
    nearest relationship constituted not true kinship to Him. To
    those who sought the honour which is not of man's bestowing,
    but of God, to be a little one in the Kingdom of God was
    greater greatness than even the Baptist's.

     But, even so, let there be no mistake. As afterwards St.
    Paul argued with the Jews, that their boast in the Law only
    increased their guilt as breakers of the Law, so here our
    Lord. The popular concourse to, and esteem of, the Baptist,
    [a St. Luke vii. 29, 30.] [2 This is a sort of parenthetic
    note by St. Luke.] did not imply that spiritual reception
    which was due to his Mission. [b St. Matt. xi. 14-19.] It
    only brought out, in more marked contrast, the wide inward
    difference between the expectancy of the people as a whole,
    and the spiritual reality presented to them in the Forerunner
    of the Messiah and in the Messiah Himself. [c St. Matt. xi.
    14-19.] Let them not be deceived by the crowds that had
    submitted to the Baptism of John. From the time that John
    began to preach the Kingdom, hindrances of every kind had
    been raised. To overcome them and enter the Kingdom, it
    required, as it were, violence like that to enter a city
    which was surrounded by a hostile army. [3 The common
    interpretations of this verse have seemed to me singularly
    unsatisfactory.] Even by Jewish admission, [4 Comp. the
    Appendix on the Jewish Interpretation of Prophecy.] the Law
    'and all the prophets prophesied only of the days of
    Messiah.' [d Sanh. 99 a; Ber. 34 b; Shabb. 63 a.] John, then,
    was the last link; and, if they would but have received it,
    he would have been to them the Elijah, the Restorer of all
    things. Selah, 'he that hath ears, let him hear.'

     Nay, but it was not so. The children of that generation
    expected quite another Elijah and quite another Christ, and
    disbelieved and complained, because the real Elijah and
    Christ did not meet their foolish thoughts. They were like
    children in a market-place, who expected their fellows to
    adapt themselves to the tunes they played. It was as if they
    said: We have expected great Messianic glory and national
    exaltation, and ye have not responded ('we have piped [5 The
    pipe was used both in feasts and at mourning. So the
    Messianic hope had both its joyous and its sorrowful aspect.]
    unto you, and ye have not danced'); we have looked for
    deliverance from our national sufferings, and they stirred
    not your sympathies nor brought your help ('we have mourned
    to you, and ye have not lamented'). But you thought of the
    Messianic time as children, and of us, as if we were your
    fellows, and shared your thoughts and purposes! And so when
    John came with his stern asceticism, you felt he was not one
    of you. He was in one direction outside your boundary-line,
    and I, as the Friend of sinners, in the other direction. The
    axe which he wielded you would have laid to the tree of the
    Gentile world, not to that of Israel and of sin; the welcome
    and fellowship which I extended, you would have had to 'the
    wise' and 'the righteous,' not to sinners. Such was Israel as
    a whole. And yet there was an election according to grace:
    the violent, who had to fight their way through all this, and
    who took the Kingdom by violence, and so Heaven's Wisdom (in
    opposition to the children's folly) is vindicated [1
    Literally, justified. The expression is a Hebraism.] by all
    her children. [2 I cannot accept the reading 'works' in St.
    Mark.] If anything were needed to show the internal harmony
    between the Synoptists and the Fourth Gospel, it would be
    this final appeal, which recalls those other words: 'He came
    unto His own (things or property), and his own (people, they
    who were His own) received Him not. But as many as received
    Him, to them gave He power (right, authority) to become
    children of God, which were born (begotten,) not . . . of the
    will of man, but of God.' [a St. John i. 11-13.]

     6. The scene once more changes, and we are again at
    Machaerus. [3 As, accordingto Josephus, John was executed at
    Machaerus, the scene must have been there, and not either at
    Tiberias or at Julias.] Weeks have passed since the return of
    John's messengers. We cannot doubt that the sunlight of faith
    has again fallen into the dark dungeon, nor yet that the
    peace of restful conviction has filled the martyr of Christ.
    He must have known that his end was at hand, and been ready
    to be offered up. Those not unfrequent conversations, in
    which the weak, superstitious, wicked tyrant was 'perplexed'
    and yet 'heard him gladly,' could no longer have inspired
    even passing hopes of freedom. Nor would he any longer except
    from the Messiah assertions of power on his behalf. He now
    understood that for which He had come;' he knew the better
    liberty, triumph, and victory which He brought. And what
    mattered it? His life-work had been done, and there was
    nothing further that fell to him or that he could do, and the
    weary servant of the Lord must have longed for his rest.

     It was early spring, shortly before the Passover, the
    anniversary of the death of Herod the Great and of the
    accession of (his son) Herod Antipas to the Tetrarchy. [1 The
    expression leaves it doubtful, whether it was the birthday of
    Herod or the anniversary of his accession. Wieseler maintains
    that the Rabbinic equivalent (Ginuseya, or Giniseya) means
    the day of accession, Meyer the birthday. In truth it is used
    for both. But in Abod. Z. 10 a (about the middle) the Yom
    Ginuseya is expressly and elaborately shown to be the day of
    accession. Otherwise also the balance of evidence is in
    favour of this view. The event described in the text
    certainly took place before the Passover, and this was the
    time of Herod's death and of the accession of Antipas. It is
    not likely, that the Herodians would have celebrated their
    birthdays.] A fit time this for a Belshazzar-feast, when such
    an one as Herod would gather to a grand banquet 'his lords,'
    and the military authorities, and the chief men of Galilee.
    It is evening, and the castle-palace is brilliantly lit up.
    The noise of music and the shouts of revelry come across the
    slope into the citadel, and fall into the deep dungeon where
    waits the prisoner of Christ. And now the merriment in the
    great banqueting-hall has reached its utmost height. The king
    has nothing furhter to offer his satiated guests, no fresh
    excitement. So let it be the sensuous stimulus of dubious
    dances, and, to complete it, let the dancer be the fair young
    daughter of the king's wife, the very descendant of the
    Asmonaean priest-princes! To viler depth of coarse
    familiarity even a Herod could not have descended.

     She has come, and she has danced, this princely maiden, out
    of whom all maidenhood and all princeliness have been brazed
    by a degenerate mother, wretched offspring of the once noble
    Maccabees. And she has done her best in that wretched
    exhibition, and pleased Herod and them that sat at meat with
    him. And now, amidst the general plaudits, she shall have her
    reward, and the king swears it to her with loud voice, that
    all around hear it, even to the half of his kingdom. The
    maiden steals out of the banquet-hall to ask her mother what
    it shall be. Can there be doubt or hesitation in the mind of
    Herodias? If there was one object she had at heart, which
    these ten months she had in vain sought to attain: it was the
    death of John the Baptist. She remembered it all only too
    well, her stormy, reckless past. The daughter of Aristobulus,
    the ill-fated son of the ill-fated Asmonaean princess
    Mariamme (I.), she had been married to her half-uncle, Herod
    Philip, [2 From the circumstance that Josephus calls him
    Herod and not Philip, a certain class of critics have imputed
    error to the Evangelists (Schurer, u. s., p. 237). But it
    requires to be kept in view, that in that case the
    Evangelists would be guilty not of one but of two gross
    historical errors. They would (1) have confounded this Herod
    with his half-brother Philip. the Tetrarch, and (2) made him
    the husband of Herodias, instead of being her son-in-law,
    Philip the Tetrarch having married Salome. Two such errors
    are altogether inconceivable in so well-known a history, with
    which the Evangelists otherwise show such familiarity. On the
    other hand, there are internal reasons for believing that
    this Herod had a second name. Among the eight sons of Herod
    the Great there are three who bear his name (Herod). Of only
    one, Herod Antipas, we know the second name (Antipas). But,
    as for example in the case of the Bonaparte family, it is
    most unlikely that the other two should have borne the name
    of Herod without any distinctive second name. Hence we
    conclude, that the name Philip, which occurs in the Gospels
    (in St. Luke iii. 19 it is spurious), was the second name of
    him whom Josephus simply names as Herod. If it be objected,
    that in such case Herod would have had two sons named Philip,
    we answer (1) that he had two sons of the name Antipas, or
    Antipater, (2) that they were the sons of different mothers,
    and (3) that the full name of the one was Herod Philip (first
    husband of Herodias), and of the other simply Philip the
    Tetrarch (husband of Salome, and son-in-law of Herodias and
    of Herod Philip her first husband). Thus for distinction's
    sake the one might have been generally called simply Herod,
    the other Philip.] the son of Herod the Great and of Mariamme
    (II.), the daughter of the High-Priest (Boethos). At one time
    it seemed as if Herod Philip would have been sole heir of his
    father's dominions. But the old tyrant had changed his
    testament, and Philip was left with great wealth, but as a
    private person living in Jerusalem. This little suited the
    woman's ambition. It was when his half-brother, Herod
    Antipas, came on a visit to him at Jerusalem, that an
    intrigue began between the Tetrarch and his brother's wife.
    It was agreed that, after the return of Antipas from his
    impending journey to Rome, he would repudiate his wife, the
    daughter of Aretas, king of Arabia, and wed Herodias. But
    Aretas' daughter heard of the plot, and having obtained her
    husband's consent to go to Machaerus, she fled thence to her
    father. This, of course, led to enmity between Antipas and
    Aretas. Nevertheless, the adulterous marriage with Herodias
    followed. In a few sentences the story may be carried to its
    termination. The woman proved the curse and ruin of Antipas.
    First came the murder of the Baptist, which sent a thrill of
    horror through the people, and to which all the later
    misfortunes of Herod were attributed. Then followed a war
    with Aretas, in which the Tetrarch was worsted. And, last of
    all, his wife's ambition led him to Rome to solicit the title
    of King, lately given to Agrippa, the brother of Herodias.
    Antipas not only failed, but was deprived of his dominions,
    and banished to Lyons in Gaul. The pride of the woman in
    refusing favours from the Emperor, and her faithfulness to
    her husband in his fallen fortunes, are the only redeeming
    points in her history. [a Jos. Ant. xviii. 7. 1, 2; War ii.
    9. 6.] As for Salome, she was first married to her uncle,
    Philip the Tetrarch. Legend has it, that her death was
    retributive, being in consequence of a fall on the ice.

     Such was the woman who had these many months sought with the
    vengefulness and determination of a Jezebel, to rid herself
    of the hated person, who alone had dared publicly denounce
    her sin, and whose words held her weak husband in awe. The
    opportunity had now come for obtaining from the vacillating
    monarch what her entreaties could never have secured. As the
    Gospel puts it, [a St. Matt. xiv. 8.] 'instigated' by her
    mother, the damsel hesitated not. We can readily fill in the
    outlined picture of what followed. It only needed the
    mother's whispered suggestion, and still flushed from her
    dance, Salome reentered the banqueting-hall. 'With haste,' as
    if no time were to be lost, she went up to king: 'I would
    that thou forthwith give me in a charger, the head of John
    the Baptist!' Silence must have fallen on the assembly. Even
    into their hearts such a demand from the lips of little more
    than a child must have struck horror. They all knew John to
    be a righteous and holy man. Wicked as they were, in their
    superstition, if not religiousness, few, if any of them,
    would have willingly lent himself to such work. And they all
    knew, also, why Salome, or rather Herodias, had made this
    demand. What would Herod do? 'The king was exceeding sorry.'
    For months he had striven against this. His conscience, fear
    of the people, inward horror at the deed, all would have kept
    him from it. But he had sworn to the maiden, who now stood
    before him, claiming that the pledge be redeemed, and every
    eye in the assembly was now fixed upon him. Unfaithful to his
    God, to his conscience, to truth and righteousness; not
    ashamed of any crime or sin, he would yet be faithful to his
    half-drunken oath, and appear honorable and true before such
    companions!

     It has been but the contest of a moment. 'Straightway' the
    king gives the order to one of the body-guard. [1 A
    speculator, one of a body-guard which had come into use, who
    attended the Caesars, executed their behests and often their
    sudden sentences of death (from speculor). The same word
    occurs in Rabbinic Hebrew as Sephaqlator ( ), or Isphaqlator
    ( ), and is applied to one who carries out the sentence of
    execution (Shabb. 108 a.).] The maiden hath withdrawn to
    await the result with her mother. The guardsman has left the
    banqueting-hall. Out into the cold spring night, up that
    slope, and into the deep dungeon. As its door opens, the
    noise of the revelry comes with the light of the torch which
    the man bears. No time for preparation is given, nor needed.
    A few minutes more, and the gory head of the Baptist is
    brough to the maiden in a charger, and she gives the ghastly
    dish to her mother.

     It is all over! As the pale morning light streams into the
    keep, the faithful disciples, who had been told of it, come
    reverently to bear the headless body to the burying. They go
    forth for ever from that accursed place, which is so soon to
    become a mass of shapeless ruins. They go to tell it to
    Jesus, and henceforth to remain with Him. We can imagine what
    welcome awaited them. But the people ever afterwards cursed
    the tyrant, and looked for those judgments of God to follow,
    which were so soon to descend on him. And he himself was ever
    afterwards restless, wretched, and full of apprehensions. He
    could scarcely believe that the Baptist was really dead, and
    when the fame of Jesus reached him, and those around
    suggested that this was Elijah, a prophet, or as one of them,
    Herod's mind, amidst its strange perplexities, still reverted
    to the man whom he had murdered. It was a new anxiety,
    perhaps, even so, a new hope; and as formerly he had often
    and gladly heard the Baptist, so now he would fain have seen
    Jesus. [a St. Luke ix. 9.] He would see Him; but not now. In
    that darknight of betrayal, he, who at the bidding of the
    child of an adulteress, had murdered the Forerunner, might,
    with the pprobation of a Pilate, have rescured Him whose
    faithful witness John had been. But night was to merge into
    yet darker night. For it was the time and the power of the
    Evil One. And yet: Jehovah reigneth.'

 THE ASCENT: FROM THE RIVER JORDAN TO THE MOUNT OF
    TRANSFIGURATION

    THE MIRACULOUS FEEDING OF THE FIVE THOUSAND

    CHAPTER XXIX

     (St. Matt. xiv. 13-21; St. Mark vi. 30-44; St. Luke ix.
    10-17; St. John vi. 1-14).

     In the circumstances described in the previous chapter,
    Jesus resolved at once to leave Capernaum; and this probably
    alike for the sake of His disciples, who needed rest; for
    that of the people, who might have attemted a rising after
    the murder of the Baptist; and temporarily to withdraw
    Himself and His followers from the power of Herod. For this
    purpose He chose the place outside the dominions of Antipas,
    nearest to Capernaum. This was Beth-Saida ('the house of
    fishing,' 'Fisher-town,' [1 The common reading, 'House of
    fishes,' is certainly inaccurate. Its Aramaic equivalent
    would be probably Tseida means literally hunting as well as
    fishing, having special reference to catching in a snare or
    net. Possibly, but not so likely, it may have been
    (Tsayyada), house of a snareer-huntsman, here fisher. It will
    be noticed, that we retain the textus receptus of St. Luke
    ix. 10. as we might call it), on the eastern border of
    Galilee, [a Jos. War iii. 3. 5.] just within the territory of
    the Tetrarch Philip. Originally a small village, Philip had
    converted it into a town, and named it Julias, after Caesar's
    daughter. It lay on the eastern bank of Jordan, just before
    that stream enters the Lake of Galilee. [b Jos. Ant. xviii.
    2. 1.] It must, however, not be confounded with the other
    'Fisher-town,' or Bethsaida, on the western shore of the
    Lake, [2 I do not quite understand the reasoning of Captain
    Conder on this point (Handb. of the Bible, pp. 321, &c.), but
    I cannot agree with his conclusions.] which the Fourth
    Gospel, evidencing by this local knowledge its Judaean, or
    rather Galilean, authorship, distinguishes from the eastern
    as Bethsaida of Galilee.' [c St. John xii. 21; comp. i. 44;
    St. Mark vi. 45.] [3 On the wholequestion comp. the
    Encyclopaedias, Caspair u. s. pp. 81, 83; Baedeker (Socin),
    p. 267; Tristram, Land of Israel, p. 443 &c.]

     Other minute points of deep interest in the same direction
    will present themselves in the course of this narrative.
    Meantime we note, that this is the only history, previous to
    Chirst's last visit to Jerusalem, which is recorded by all
    the four Evangelists; the only series of events also in the
    whole course of that Galilean Ministry, which commenced after
    His return from the 'Unknown Feast,' [a St. John v.] whichis
    referred to in the Fourth Gospel; [1 Professor Westcott
    notes, that the account of St. John could neither have been
    derived from those of the Synoptists, nor from any common
    original, from which their narratives are by some supposed to
    have been derived.] and that it contains to distinct notices
    as to time, which enable us to fit it exactly into the
    frame-work of this history. For, the statement of the Fourth
    Gospel, [b St. John vi. 4.] that the 'Passover was high,' [2
    There is no valid reason for doubting the genuineness of
    these words, or giving them another meaning than in the text.
    Comp. Westcott, ad. loc.] is confirmed by the independent
    notice of St. Mark, [c St. Mark vi. 39.] that those whom the
    Lord miraculously led were ranged ' on the green grass.' In
    that climate ther would have been no 'green grass' soon after
    the Passover. We must look upon the coincidence of these two
    notices as one of the undesigned confirmations of thier
    narrative.

     For, miraculous it certainly is, and the attempts
    reationalistically to explain it, to sublimate it into a
    parable, to give it the spiritualistic meaning of spiritual
    feeding, or to account for its mythical origin by the
    precedent of the descent of the manna, or of the miracle of
    Elisha, [3 Even those who hold such views assert them in this
    instance hesitatingly. It seems almost impossible to
    conceive, that a narrative recorded in all the four Gospels
    should not have an historical basis, and the appeal to the
    precedent of Elisha is the more inapt, that in common Jewish
    thinking he was not regarded as specially the type of the
    Messiah.] are even more plapable failures than those made to
    account for the miracle at Cana. The only alternative is to
    accept, or entirely to reject it. In view of the exceptional
    record of this history in all the four Gospels, no unbiassed
    historical student would treat it as a simple invention, for
    which there was no ground in reality. Nor can its origin be
    accounted for by previous Jewish expectancy, or Old Testament
    precedent. The only rational mode of explaining it is on the
    suposition of its truth. This miracle, and what follows, mark
    the climax in our Lord's doing, as the healing of the
    Syro-Phoenician maiden the utmost sweep of His activity, and
    the Transfiguration the highest point in regard to the
    miraculus about His Person. The only reason which can be
    assigned for the miracle of His feeding the five thousand was
    that of all His working: Man's need, and, in view of it, the
    stirring of the Pity and Power that were King Herod, and the
    banquet that ended with the murder of the Baptist, and King
    Jesus, and the banquet that ended with His lonely prayer on
    the mountain-side, the calming of the strom on the lake, and
    the deliverance from death of His disciples.]

     Only a few hours' sail from Capernaum, and even a shorter
    distance by land (round the head of the Lake) lay the
    district of the Bethsaida-Julias. It was natural that Christ,
    wishing to avoid public attention, should have gone 'by
    ship,' and equally so that the many 'seeing them departing,
    and knowing', viz., what direction the boat was taking,
    should have followed on foot, and been joined by others from
    the neighbouring villages, [1 This seems the fair meaning of
    St. mark vi. 31-33, comp. with St. Matt. xiv. 13.] as those
    from Capernaum passed through them, perhaps, also, as they
    recognised on the Lake the now well-known sail, [2 St. Mark
    vi. 32 has it 'by (or rather in) the ship,' with the definite
    article. Probably it was the same boat that was always at His
    disposal, perhaps belonging to the sons of Jonas or to the
    sons of Zebedee.] speeding towards the other shore. It is an
    incidental but interesting confirmation of the narrative,
    that the same notice about this journey occurs, evidently
    undesignedly, in St. John vi. 22. Yet another we find in the
    fact, that some of those who 'ran there on foot' had reached
    the place before Jesus and His Apostles. [a St. Mark vi. 33.]
    Only some, as we judge. The largest proportion arrived later,
    and soon swelled to the immense number of 'about 5,000 men,'
    'besides women and children.' The circumstances that the
    Passover was nigh at hand, so that many must have been
    starting on their journey to Jerusalem, round the Lake and
    through Peraea, partly accounts for the concourse of such
    multitudes. And this, perhaps in conjunction with the effect
    on the people of John's murder, may also explain their ready
    and eager gathering to Christ, thus affording yet another
    confirmation of the narative.

     It was a well-known sport where Jesus and His Apostles
    touched the shore. Not many miles south of it was the Gerasa
    or Gergesa, where the great miracle of healing the demonished
    had been wrought. [b St. Mark v. 1-16.] Just beyond Gerasa
    the mountains and hills recede, and the plain along the shore
    enlarges, till it attains wide proportions on the northern
    bank of the Lake. The few ruins which mark the site of
    Bethsaida-Julias, most of the basalt-stones having been
    removed for building purposes, lie on the edge of a hill,
    three or four miles north of the Lake. The ford, by which
    those who came from Capernaum crossed the Jordan, was, no
    doubt, that still used, about two miles from where the river
    enters the Lake. About a mile further, on that wide expanse
    of grass, would be the scene of the great miracle. In short,
    the locality throughly accords with the requirements of the
    Gospel-narrative.

     As we picture it to ourselves, our Lord with His disciples,
    and perhaps followed by those who had outrun the rest, first
    retired to the top of a height, and there rested in teaching
    converse with them. [a St. John vi. 3.] Presently, as He saw
    the great multitudes gathering, He was 'moved with compassion
    towards them.' [b St. Matt. xiv. 14.] [1 Canon Westcott
    supposes that 'a day of teaching and healing must be
    intercalated before the miracle of feeding,' but I cannot see
    any reason for this. All the events fit well into one day.]
    There could be no question of retirement or rest in view of
    this. Surely, it was the opportunity which God had given, a
    call which came to Him from His Father. Every such
    opportunity was unspeakably precious to Him, Who longed to
    gather the lost under His wings. It might be, that even now
    they would learn what belonged to their peace. Oh, that they
    would learn it! At least, He must work while it was called
    to-day, ere the night of judgment came; work with that
    unending patience and intense compassion which made Him weep,
    when He could no longer work. It was this depth of longing
    and intenseness of pity which now ended the Saviour's rest,
    and brought Him down from the hill to meet the gathering
    multitude in the 'desert' plain beneath.

     And what a sight to meet His gaze, these thousands of strong
    men, besides women and children; and what thoughts of the
    past, the present, and the future, would be called up by the
    scene! 'The Passover was night,' [c St. John vi. 4.] with its
    remembrances of the Paschal night, the Paschal Lamb, the
    Paschal Supper, the Paschal deliverance, and most of them
    were Passover-pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem. These
    Passover-pilgrims and God's guests, now streaming out into
    this desert after Him; with a murdered John just buried, and
    no earthly teacher, guide, or help left! Truly they were 'as
    sheep having no shepherd. [d St. Mark vi. 34.] The very
    surroundings seemed to give tothe thought the vividness of a
    picture: this wandering, straying multitude, the desert sweep
    of country, the very want of provisions. A Passover, indeed,
    but of which He would be the Paschal Lamb, the Bread which He
    gave, the Supper, and around which He would gather those
    scattered, shepherdless sheep into one flock of many
    'companies,' to which His Apostles would bring the bread He
    had blessed and broken, to their sufficient and more than
    sufficient nourishment; from which, indeed, they would carry
    the remnant-baskets full, after the flock had been fed, to
    the poor in the outlying places of far-off heathendom. And so
    thoughts of the past, the present, and the future must have
    mingled, thoughts of the Passover in the past, of the Last,
    the Holy Supper in the future, and of the deeper inward
    meaning and bearing of both the one and the other; thoughts
    also of this flock, and of that other flock which was yet to
    gather, and of the far-off places, and of the Apostles and
    their service, and of the provision which they were to carry
    from His Hands, a provision never exhausted by present need,
    and which always leaves enough to carry thence and far away.

     There is, at least in our view, no doubt that thoughts of
    the Passover and of the Holy Supper, of their commingling and
    mystic meaning, were present to the Saviour, and that it is
    in this light the miraculous feeding of the multitude must be
    considered, if we are in any measure to understand it.
    Meantime the Saviour was moving among them, 'beginning to
    teach them many things,' [a St. Mark vi. 34.] and 'healing
    them that had need of healing.' [b St. Luke ix. 11.] Yet, as
    He so moved and thought of it all, from the first, 'He
    Himself knew what He was about to do. [e St. Johnvi. 6.] And
    now the sun had passed its meridian, and the shadows fell
    longer on the surging crowd. Full of the thoughts of the
    great Supper, which was symbolically to link the Passover of
    the past with that of the future, and its Sacramental
    continuation to all time, He turned to Philip with this
    question: 'Whence are we to buy bread, that these may eat?'
    It was to 'try him,' and show how he would view and meet
    what, alike spiritually and temporally, has so often been the
    great problem. Perhaps there was something in Philip which
    made it specially desirable, that the question should be put
    to him. [d Comp. St. John xiv. 8, 9.] At any rate, the answer
    of Philip showed that there had been a 'need be' for it.
    This, 'two hundred denarii (between six and seven pounds)
    worth of bread is not sufficient for them, that every one may
    take a little,' is the course realism, not of unbelief, but
    of an absence of faith which, entirely ignoring any higher
    possibility, has not even its hope left in a 'Thou knowest,
    Lord.'

     But there is evidence, also, that the question of Christ
    worked deeper thinking and higher good. As we understand it,
    Philip told it to Andrew, and they to the others. While Jesus
    taught and healed, they must have spoken together of this
    strange question of the Master. They knew Him sufficiently to
    judge, that it implied some purpose on His part. Did He
    intend to provide for all that multitude? They counted them
    roughly, going along the edge and through the crowd, and
    reckoned them by thousands, besides women and children. They
    thought of all the means for feeding such a multitude. How
    much had they of their own? As we judge by combining the
    various statements, there was a lad there who carried the
    scant, humble provisions of the party, perhaps a fisher-lad
    brought for the purpose from the boat. [a Comp. St. John vi.
    9 with St. Matt. xiv. 17; St. Mark vi. 38; St. Luke ix. 13.]
    It would take quite what Philip had reckoned, about two
    hundred denarii, if the Master meant them to go and buy
    victuals for all that multitude. Probably the common stock,
    at any rate as computed by Judas, who carried the bag, did
    not contain that amount. In any case, the right and the wise
    thing was to dismiss the multitude, that they might go into
    the towns and villages and buy for themselves victuals, and
    find lodgment. For already the bright spring-day was
    declining, and what was called 'the first evening' had set
    in. [1 The expression in St. Mark vi35 is literally, 'a late
    hour,'] For the Jews reckoned two evenings, although it is
    not easy to determine the exact hour when each began and
    ended. But, in general, the first evening may be said to have
    begun when the sun declined, and it was probably reckoned as
    lasting to about the ninth hour, or three o'clock of the
    afternoon. [b Comp. Jos. Ant. xvi. 6. 2.] Then began the
    period known as 'between the evenings,' which would be longer
    or shorter according to the season of the year, and which
    terminated with 'the second evening', the time from when the
    first star appeared to that when the third star was visible.
    [c OrachChajim 261.] With the night began the reckoning of
    the following day.

     It was the 'first evening' when the disciples, whose anxiety
    must have been growing with the progress of time, asked the
    Lord to dismiss the people. But it was as they had thought.
    He would have them give the people to eat! Were they, then,
    to go and buy two hundred denarii worth of loaves? No, they
    were not to buy, but to give of their own store! How many
    loaves had they! Let them go and see. [d St. Mark vi. 38.]
    And when Andrew went to see what store thefisher-lad carried
    for them, he brought back the tidings, 'He hath five barley
    loaves and two small fishes,' to which he added, half in
    disbelief, half in faith's rising expectancy of impossible
    possibility: 'But what are they among so many?' [e St. John
    vi. 9.] It is to the fourth Evangelist alone that we owe the
    record of this remark, which we instinctively feel gives to
    the whole the touch of truth and life. It is to him also that
    we owe other two minute traits of deepest interest, and of
    far greater importance than at first sight appears.

     When we read that these five were barley-loaves, we learn
    that, no doubt from voluntary choice, the fare of the Lord
    and of His followers was the poorest. Indeed, barley-bread
    was, almost proverbially, the meanest. Hence, as the the
    Mishnah puts it, while all other meat-offerings were of
    wheat, that brought by the woman accused of adultery was to
    be of barley, because (so R. Gamaliel puts it), 'as her deed
    is that of animals, so her offering is also of the food of
    animals.' [a Sotah. ii. 1.] The other minute trait in St.
    John's Gospel consists in the use of a peculiar word for
    'fish' ( ), 'opsarion, which properly means what was eaten
    along with the bread, and specially refers to the small, and
    generally dried or pickled fish eaten with bread, like our
    'sardines,' or the 'caviar' of Russia, the pickled herrings
    of Holland and Germany, or a peculiar kind of small dried
    fish, eaten with the bones, in the North of Scotland. Now
    just as any one who would name that fish as eaten with bread,
    would display such minute knowledge of the habits of the
    North-east of Scotland as only personal residence could give,
    so in regard to the use of this term, which, be it marked, is
    peculiar to the Fourth Gospel, Dr. Westcott suggests, that
    'it may have been a familiar Galilean word,' and his
    conjecture is correct, for Ophsonin ( ) derived from the same
    Greek word ( ), of which that used by St. John is the
    diminutive, means a 'savoury dish,' while Aphyan ( ) or
    Aphits ( ), is the term for a kind of small fish, such as
    sardines. The importance of tracing accurate local knowledge
    in the Fourth Gospel warrants our pursuing the subject
    further. The Talmud, declares that of all kinds of meat, fish
    only becomes more savoury by salting, [b Babha. B. 740 b.]
    and names certain kinds, specially designated as 'small
    fishes,' [c ( ) Beza 16 a.] which might be eaten without
    being cooked. Small fishes were recommended for health; [d
    Ber. 40 a, near the middle.] and a kind of pickle or savoury
    was also made of them. Now the Lake of Galilee was
    particularly rich in these fishes, and we know that both the
    salting and pickling of them was a special industry among its
    fishermen. For this purpose a small kind of them were
    specially selected, which bear the name Terith ( ). [1 Comp.
    Herzfeld, Handelsgesch. pp. 305, 306. In my view he has
    established the meaning of this name as against Lewysohn,
    Zool. d. Talm. pp. 255, 256, and Levy, Neuhebr. Worterb. ii.
    192 a.] Now the diminutive used by St. John ( ) of which our
    Authorized Version no doubt gives the meaning fairly by
    rendering it 'small fishes,' refers, no doubt, to those small
    fishes (probably a kind of sardine) of which millions were
    caught in the Lake, and which, dried and salted, would form
    the most common 'savoury' with bread for the
    fisher-population along the shores.

     If the Fourth Gospel in the use of this diminutive displays
    such special Lake-knowledge as evidences its Galilean origin,
    another touching trait connected with its use may here be
    mentioned. It has already been said that the term is used
    only by St. John, as if to mark the Lake of Galilee origin of
    the Fourth Gospel. But only once again does the expression
    occur in the Fourth Gospel. On that morning, when the Risen
    One manifested Himself by the Lake of Galilee to them who had
    all the night toiled in vain, He had Provided for them
    miraculously the meal, when on the 'fire of charcoal' they
    saw the well-remembered 'little ish' (the opsarion), and, as
    He bade them bring of the 'little fish' (the Opsaria) which
    they had miraculously caught, Peter drew to shore the net
    full, not of opsaria, but 'of great fishes' ( ). And yet it
    was not of those 'great fishes' that He gave them, but 'He
    took the bread and gave them, and the opsarion likewise.' [a
    St. John xxi. 9, 10, 13.] Thus, in infinite humility, the
    meal at which the Risen Saviour sat down with His disciples
    was still of 'bread and small fishes', even though He gave
    them, the draught of large fishes; and so at that last meal
    He recalled that first miraculous feeding by the Lake of
    Galilee. And this also is one of those undesigned, too often
    unobserved traits in the narrative, which yet carry almost
    irresistible evidence.

     There is one proof at least of the implicit faith or rather
    trust of the disciples in their Master. They had given Him
    account of their own scanty provision, and yet, as He bade
    them make the people sit down to the meal, they hesitated not
    to obey. We can picture it to ourselves, what is so
    exquisitely sketched: the expanse of 'grass.' [ b St.
    Mattxiv. 19.] 'green,' and fresh, [c 'St. Mark vi. 39.] 'much
    grass;' [d St. John vi. 10 .] then the people in their
    'companies' [e St. Mark vi. 39.] of fifties and hundreds,
    reclining, [f. St. Luke ix. 14.] and looking in their
    regulare divisions, and with their bright many-coloured
    dresses, like 'garden-beds' [g St. Mark vi. 40.] [The literal
    rendering of is 'garden-bed.' In Mark vi. 40, 'garden-beds,
    garden-beds.' In the A. V. 'in ranks.'] on the turf. But One
    Figure must every eye have been bent. Around Him stood His
    Apostles. They had laid before Him the scant provision made
    for their own wants, and which was now to feed their great
    multitude. As was wont at meals, on the part of the head of
    the household, Jesus took the bread, 'blessed' [h Ber.46
    a.]or, as St. John puts it, 'gaves thanks,' [2 and 'brake'
    it. The expression recalls that connected with the Holy
    Eucharist, and leaves little doubt on the mind that, in the
    Discourse delivered in the Synagogue of Capernaum, [i St.
    John.] there is also reference to the Lord's Supper. As of
    comparatively secondary importance, yet helping us better to
    realise the scene, we recall the Jewish ordinance, that the
    Head of the meal, yet if they who sat down to it were not
    merly guests, but his children, or his household, then might
    he speak it, even if he himself did not partake of the bread
    which he had broken. [a Rosh haSh 29 b.]

     We can scarcely be mistaken as to the words which Jesus
    spake when 'He gave thanks.'The Jewish Law [b Sot. vii. 1.]
    allows the grace at meat to be said, not obly in Hebrew, but
    in any language, the Jerusalem Talmud aptly remarking, that
    it was proper a person should understand to Whom he was
    giving thanks ( ). [c Jer. Sot. p. 21 b .] Similarly, we have
    very distinct information as regards a case like the present.
    We gather, that the use of 'savoury' with bread was specially
    common around the Lake of Galilee, and the Mishnah lays down
    the principle, that if bread and 'savory' were eaten, it
    would depend which of the two was the main article of diet,
    to determine whether 'thanks-giving should be said for one or
    the other. In any case only one benediction was to be used.
    [d In this case, of course, it would be spoken over the
    berad, the 'savory' being merly an addition. There can be
    liottle doubt, therefore, that the words which Jesus spake,
    whether in Aramaean, Greek, or Hebrew, were those so well
    known: 'Blessed art Thou, Jehovah our God, King of the world,
    Who causes to come forth ( ) bread from the earth.' Assuredly
    it was this threefold thought: the upward thought (sursum
    corda), the recognition of the creative act as regards every
    piece of bread we eat, and the thanksgiving, which was
    realised anew in all its fulness, when, as He distributed to
    the desciples, the provision miraculously multiplied in His
    Hands. And still they bore it from His Hands from company to
    company, laying before each a store. When they were all
    filled, He that had provided the meal bade them gather up the
    fragments before each company. So doing, each of the twelve
    had his basket filled. Here also we have another life-touch.
    Those 'baskets' ( ), known in Jewish writings by a similar
    name (kephiphah), made of wicker or willows [1 Not an
    Egyptian basket, as even Jost translates in his edition of
    the Mishnah. The word is derived from (Metser), wicker or
    willow).] ( ) were in common use, nut considered of the
    poorest kind. [e Comp. Sotah. ii. 1.] There is a sublimeness
    of contrast that passes descraiption between this feast to
    the five thousand, besides women and children and the poor's
    provision of barley bread and the two small fishes; and,
    again, between the quantity left and the coarse wicker
    baskets in which it was stored. Nor do we forget to draw
    mantally the parallel between this Messianic feast and that
    banquet of 'the latter days ' which Ranninism pictured so
    realistically. But as the wondering multitude watched, as the
    disciples gaathered from company to company the fragments
    into their baskets, the murmur ran through the ranks: 'This
    is truly the Prophet, "This is truly the Prophet, "the coming
    One" (habba, ) into the world. ' And so the Baptist's last
    inquiry, 'Art Thou the Coming One?' [1 See the meaning of
    that expression in the previouschapter.] was fully and
    publicly answered, and that by the Jews themselves.

 THE ASCENT: FROM THE RIVER JORDAN TO THE MOUNT OF
    TRANSFIGURATION

    THE NIGHT OF MIRACXLES ON THE LAKE OF GENNESARENT.

    CHAPTER XXX.

     St. Matt. xiv. 22-36; St. John 15-21.) THE last question of
    the Baptist, spoken in public, had been: 'Art Thou the Coming
    One, or look we for another?' It had, in part, been answered,
    as the murmur had passed through the ranks: 'This One is
    truly the Prophet, the Coming One!' So, then, they had no
    longer to wait, nor to look for another! And this 'Prophet'
    was Israel's long expected Messiah. What this would imply to
    the poeple, in the intensity and longing of the great hope
    which, for centuries, nay, far beyond the time of Ezra, had
    swayed their hearts, it is impossible fully to conceive.
    Here, then, was the Great Reality at last before them. He, on
    Whose teaching they had hung entranced, was 'the Prophet,'
    nay, more, 'the Coming One:' He Who was coming all those many
    centuries, and yet had not come till now. Then, also, was He
    more than a Prophet, a King: Israel's King, the King of the
    world. An irresistible impulse seized the people. They would
    proclaim Him King, then and there,; and as they knew,
    probably from previous utterances, perhaps when similar
    movements had to be checked, that He would resist, they would
    constrain Him to declare Himself, or at least to be
    proclaimed by them. Can we wonder at this; or that thoughts
    of a Messianic worldly kingdom should have filled, moved, and
    influenced to discipleship a Judas; or that, with such a
    representative of their own thoughts among the disciples, the
    rising waves of popular excitment should have swollen into
    the mighty billows?

     'Jesus therefore, perceiving that they were about to come,
    and to take Him by force, that they might make Him King, [1
    Note here the want of the article: We owe this notice to the
    Fourth Gospel, and it is in marked inconsistency with the
    theory of its late Ephesian authority.] withdrew again into
    the mountain, Himself alone,' or, as it might be rendered,
    though not quite in the modern usage of the expression,
    'became an anchorite again . . . Himself alone.' [a St. John
    vi. 15.] This is another of those sublime contrasts, which
    render it well-nigh inconceivable to regard this history
    otherwise than as true and Divine. Yet another is the manner
    in which He stilled the multitude, and the purpose for which
    He became the lonely Anchorite on the mountain-top. He
    withdrew to pray; and He stilled the people, and sent them,
    no doubt solemnised, to their homes, by telling them that He
    withdrew to pray. And He did pray till far on, 'when the
    (second) evening had come,' [b St. Matt. xiv. 23.] and the
    first stars shone out in the deep blue sky over the Lake of
    Galilee, with the far lights twinkling and trembling on the
    other side. And yet another sublime contrast, as He
    constrained the disciples to enter the ship, and that ship,
    which bore those who had been sharers in the miracle, could
    not make way against storm and waves, and was at last driven
    out of its course. And yet another contrast, as He walked on
    the storm-tossed waves and subdued them. And yet another, and
    another, for is not all this history one sublime contrast to
    the seen and the thought of by men, but withal most true and
    Divine in the sublimeness of these contrasts?

     For whom and for what He prayed, alone on that mountain, we
    dare not, even in deepest reverence, inquire. Yet we think,
    in connection with it, of the Passover, the Manna, the
    Wilderness, the Lost Sheep, the Holy Supper, the Bread which
    is His Flesh, and the remnant in the Baskets to be carried to
    those afar off, and then also of the attempt to make Him a
    King, in all its spiritual unreality, ending in His View with
    the betrayal, the denial, and the cry: 'We have no King but
    Caesar.' And as He prayed, the faithful stars in the heavens
    shone out. But there on the Lake, where the bark which bore
    His disciples made for the other shore, 'a great wind'
    'contrary to them' was rising. And still He was 'alone on the
    land,' but looking out into the evening after them, as the
    ship was 'in the midst of the sea,' and they toiling and
    'distressed in rowing.'

     Thus far, to the utmost verge of their need, but not
    farther. The Lake is altogether about forty furlongs or
    stadia (about six miles) wide, and they had as yet reached
    little more than half the distance (twenty-five or thirty
    furlongs). Already it was 'the fourth watch of the night.'
    There was some difference of opinion among the Jews, whether
    the night should be divided into three, or (as among the
    Romans) into four watches. The latter (which would count the
    night at twelve instead of nine hours) was adopted by many.
    [c Ber. 3 b.] In any case it would be what might be termed
    the morning-watch, [1 Probably from 3 to about 6 A. M.] when
    the well-known Form seemed to be passing them, 'walking upon
    the sea.' There can, at least, be no question that such was
    the impression, not only of one or another, but that all saw
    Him. Nor yet can there be here question of any natural
    explanation. Once more the truth of the event must be either
    absolutely admitted, or absolutely rejected. [2 Even the
    beautiful allegory into which Keim would resolve it, that the
    Church in her need knows not, whether her Saviour may not
    come in the last watch of the night, entirely surrenders the
    whole narrative. And why should three Evangelists have
    invented such a story, in order to teach or rather disguise a
    doctrine, which is otherwise so clearly expressed throughout
    the whole New Testament, as to form one of its primary
    principles? Volkmar (Marcus, p. 372) regards this whole
    history as an allegory of St. Paul's activity among the
    Gentiles! Strange in that case, that it was omitted in the
    Gospel by St. Luke. But the whole of that section of
    Volkmar's book (beginning at p. 327) contains an
    extra-ordinary congeries, of baseless hypotheses, of which it
    were difficult to say, whether the language is more painfully
    irreverent or the outcome more extravagant.] The difficulties
    of the latter hypothesis, which truly cuts the knot, would be
    very formidable. Not only would the origination of this
    narrative, as given by two of the Synoptists and by St. John,
    be utterly unaccountable, neither meeting Jewish expectancy,
    nor yet supposed Old Testament precedent, but, if legend it
    be, it seems purposeless and irrational. Moreover, there is
    this noticeable about it, as about so many of the records of
    the miraculous in the New Testament, that the writers by no
    means disguise from themselves or their readers the obvious
    difficulties involved. In the present instance they tell us,
    that they regarded His Form moving on the water as 'a
    spirit,' and cried out for fear; and again, that the
    impression produced by the whole scene, even on them that had
    witnessed the miracle of the previous evening, was one of
    overwhelming astonishment. This walking on the water, then,
    was even to them within the domain of the truly miraculous,
    and it affected their minds equally, perhaps even more than
    ours, from the fact that in their view so much, which to us
    seems miraculous, lay within the sphere of what might be
    expected in the course of such a history.

     On the other hand, this miracle stands not isolated, but
    forms one of a series of similar manifestations. It is
    closely connected both with what had passed on the previous
    evening, and what was to follow; it is told with a minuteness
    of detail, and with such marked absence of any attempt at
    gloss, adornment, apology, or self-glorification, as to give
    the narrative (considered simply as such) the stamp of truth;
    while, lastly, it contains much that lifts the story from the
    merely miraculous into the domain of the sublime and deeply
    spiritual. As regards what may be termed its credibility,
    this at least may again be stated, that this and similar
    instances of 'dominion over the creature,' are not beyond the
    range of what God had originally assigned to man, when He
    made him a little lower than the angels, and crowned him with
    glory and honour, made him to have dominion over the works of
    His Hands, and all things were put under his feet. [a Ps.
    viii. 5, 6; comp. Hebr. ii. 6-9.] Indeed, this 'dominion over
    the sea' seems to exhibit the Divinely human rather than the
    humanly Divine aspect of His Person, [1 On the other hand,
    the miraculous feeding of the multitude seems to exhibit
    rather the humanly-Divine aspect of His Person.] if such
    distinction may be lawfully made. Of the physical possibility
    of such a miracle, not to speak of the contradiction in terms
    which this implies, no explanation can be attempted, if it
    were only on the ground that we are utterly ignorant of the
    conditions under which it took place.

     This much, however, deserves special notice, that there is
    one marked point of difference between the account of this
    miracle and what will be found a general characteristic in
    legendary narratives. In the latter, the miraculous, however
    extraordinary, is the expected; it creates no surprise, and
    it is never mistaken for something that might have occurred
    in the ordinary course of events. For, it is characteristic
    of the mythical that the miraculous is not only introduced in
    the most realistic manner, but forms the essential element in
    the conception of things. This is the very raison d'etre of
    the myth or legend, when it attaches itself to the real and
    historically true. Now the opposite is the case in the
    present narrative. Had it been mythical or legendary, we
    should have expected that the disciples would have been
    described as immediately recognising the Master as He walked
    on the sea, and worshipping Him. Instead of this, they 'are
    troubled' and 'afraid.' 'They supposed it was an apparition,'
    [2 Literally, a phantasma. This word is only used in this
    narrative (St. Matt. xiv. 26 and St. Mark vi. 49.).] (this in
    accordance with popular Jewish notions), and 'cried out for
    fear.' Even afterwards, when they had received Him into the
    ship, 'they were sore amazed in themselves,' and 'understood
    not,' while those in the ship (in contradistinction to the
    disciples), burst forth into an act of worship. This much
    then is evident, that the disciples expected not the
    miraculous; that they were unprepared for it; that they had
    explained it on what to them seemed natural grounds; and
    that, even when convinced of its reality, the impression of
    wonder, which it made, was of the deepest. And this also
    follows is a corollary, that, when they recorded it, it was
    not in ignorance that they were writing that which sounded
    strangest, and which would affect those who should read it
    with even much greater wonderment, we had almost written,
    unbelief, than those who themselves had witnessed it.

     Nor let it be forgotten, that what had just been remarked
    about this narrative holds equally true in regard to other
    miracles recorded in the New Testament. Thus, even so
    fundamental an article of the faith as the resurrection of
    Christ is described as having come upon the disciples
    themselves as a surprise, not only wholly unexpected, but so
    incredible, that it required repeated and indisputable
    evidence to command their acknowledgment. And nothing can be
    more plain, than that St. Paul himself was not only aware of
    the general resistance which the announcement of such an
    event would raise, [a Acts xxvi. 8.] but that he felt to the
    full the difficulties of what he so firmly believed, [b 1
    Cor. xv. 12-19.] and made the foundation of all his
    preaching. [c Acts xvii. 31, 32.] Indeed, the elaborate
    exposition of the historical grounds, on which he had arrived
    at the conviction of reality, [d 1 Cor. xv. 1-8.] affords an
    insight into the mental difficulties which it must at first
    have presented to him. And a similar inference may be drawn
    from the reference of St. Peter to the difficulties connected
    with the Biblical predictions about the end of the world. [e
    2 Pet. iii. 4.] [1 The authenticity of the Second Epistle of
    St. Peter is here taken for granted, but the drift of the
    argument would be the same, to whatever authorship it be
    ascribed.]

     It is not necessary to pursue this subject further. Its
    bearing on the miracle of Christ's walking on the Sea of
    Galilee will be sufficiently manifest. Yet other confirmatory
    evidence may be gathered from a closer study of the details
    of the narrative. When Jesus 'constrained the disciples to
    enter into the boat, and to go before Him unto the other
    side, [f St. Matt. xiv. 22.] they must have thought, that His
    purpose was to join them by land, since there was no other
    boat there, save that in which they crossed the Lake. [g St.
    John vi. 22.] And possibly such had been his intention, till
    He saw their difficulty, if not danger, from the contrary
    wind. [2 Weiss (Matthaus-Evang. p. 372) sees a gross
    contradiction between what seems implied as to His original
    purpose and His walking on the sea, and hence rejects the
    narrative. Such are the assumptions of negative criticism.
    But it seems forgotten that, according to St. Matt. xiv. 24,
    the journey seems at first to have been fairly prosperous.]
    This must have determined Him to come to their help. And so
    this miracle also was not a mere display of power, but, being
    caused by their need, had a moral object. And when it is
    asked, how from the mountain-height by the Lake He could have
    seen at night where the ship was labouring so far on the
    Lake, [3 Weiss (u. s.) certainly argues on the impossibility
    of His having seen the boat so far out on the Lake.] it must
    surely have been forgotten that the scene is laid quite
    shortly before the Passover (the 15th of Nisan), when, of
    course, the moon would shine on an unclouded sky, all the
    more brightly on a windy spring-night, and light up the
    waters far across.

     We can almost picture to ourselves the weird scene. The
    Christ is on that hill-top in solitary converse with His
    Father, praying after that miraculous breaking of bread:
    fully realising all that it implied to Him of self-surrender,
    of suffering, and of giving Himself as the Food of the World,
    and all that it implied to us of blessing and nourishment;
    praying also, with that scene fresh on His mind, of their
    seeking to make Him, even by force, their King, that the
    carnal might become spiritual reality (as in symbol it would
    be with the Breaking of Bread). Then, as He rises from His
    knees, knowing that, alas, it could not and would not be so
    to the many, He looks out over the Lake after that little
    company, which embodied and represented all there yet was of
    His Church, all that would really feed on the Bread from
    Heaven, and own Him their true King. Without presumption, we
    may venture to say, that there must have been indescribable
    sorrow and longing in His Heart, as His gaze was bent across
    the track which the little boat would follow. As we view it,
    it seems all symbolical: the night, the moonlight, the little
    boat, the contrary wind, and then also the lonely Saviour
    after prayer looking across to where the boatmen vainly
    labour to gain the other shore. As in the clear moonlight
    just that piece of water stands out, almost like burnished
    silver, with all else in shadows around, the sail-less mast
    is now rocking to and fro, without moving forward. They are
    in difficulty, in danger: and the Saviour cannot pursue His
    journey on foot by land; He must come to their help, though
    it be across the water. It is needful, and therefore it shall
    be upon the water; and so the storm and unsuccessful toil
    shall not prevent their reaching the shore, but shall also be
    to them for teaching concerning Him and His great power, and
    concerning His great deliverance; such teaching as, in
    another aspect of it, had been given them in symbol in the
    miraculous supply of food, with all that it implied (and not
    to them only, but to us also) of precious comfort and
    assurance, and as will for ever keep the Church from being
    overwhelmed by fear in the stormy night on the Lake of
    Galilee, when the labour of our oars cannot make way for us.

     And they also who were in the boat must have been agitated
    by peculiar feelings. Against their will they had been
    'constrained' by the Lord to embark and quit the scene; just
    as the multitude, under the influence of the great miracle,
    were surrounding their Master, with violent insistence to
    proclaim him the Messianic King of Israel. Not only a Judas
    Iscariot, but all of them, must have been under the strongest
    excitement: first of the great miracle, and then of the
    popular movement. It was the crisis in the history of the
    Messiah and of His Kingdom. Can we wonder, that, when the
    Lord in very mercy bade them quit a scene which could only
    have misled them, they were reluctant, nay, that it almost
    needed violence of His part? And yet, the more we consider
    it, was it not most truly needful for them, that they should
    leave? But, on the other hand, in this respect also, does
    there seem a 'need be' for His walking upon the sea, that
    they might learn not only His Almighty Power, and
    (symbolically) that He ruled the rising waves; but that, in
    their disappointment at His not being a King, they might
    learn that He was a King, only in a far higher, truer sense
    than the excited multitude would have proclaimed Him.

     Thus we can imagine the feelings with which they had pushed
    the boat from the shore, and then eagerly looked back to
    descry what passed there. But soon the shadows of night were
    enwrapping all objects at a distance, and only the bright
    moon overhead shone on the track behind and before. And now
    the breeze from the other side of the Lake, of which they may
    have been unaware when they embarked on the eastern shore,
    had freshened into violent, contrary wind. All energies must
    have been engaged to keep the boat's head towards the shore.
    [1 According to St. Matt. xiv. 24, they seem only to have
    encountered the full force of the wind when they were about
    the middle of the Lake. We imagine that soon after they
    embarked there may have been a fresh breeze from the other
    side of the Lake, which by and by rose into a violent
    contrary wind.] Even so it seemed as if they could make no
    progress, when all at once, in the track that lay behind
    them, a Figure appeared. As it passed onwards over the water,
    seemingly upborne by the waves as they rose, not disappearing
    as they fell, but carried on as they rolled, the silvery moon
    laid upon the trembling waters the shadows of that Form as it
    moved, long and dark, on their track. St. John uses an
    expression, [2 St. John, in distinction to the Synoptists,
    here uses the expression (St. John vi. 19), which in the
    Gospels has the distinctive meaning of fixed, earnest, and
    intent gaze, mostly outward, but sometimes also inward, in
    the sense of earnest and attentive consideration. The use of
    this word as distinguished from merely seeing, is so
    important for the better understanding of the New Testament,
    that every reader should mark it. We accordingly append a
    list of the passages in the Gospels where this word is used:
    St. Matt. xxvii. 55; xxviii. 1; St. Mark iii. 11; v. 15, 38;
    xii. 41; xv. 40, 47; xvi. 4; St. Luke x. 18; xiv. 29; xxi. 6;
    xxiii. 35, 48; xxiv. 37, 39; St. John ii. 23; iv. 19; vi. 2
    (Lachm. and Treg.), 19, 40, 62; vii. 3; viii. 51; ix. 8; x.
    12; xii. 19, 45; xiv. 17, 19; xvi. 10, 16, 17, 19; xvii. 24;
    xx. 6, 12, 14. It will thus be seen, that the expression is
    more frequently used by St. John than in the other Gospels,
    and it is there also that its distinctive meaning is of
    greatest importance.] which shows us in the pale light, those
    in the boat, intently, fixedly, fearfully, gazing at the
    Apparition as It neared still closer and closer. We must
    remember their previous excitement, as also the presence,
    and, no doubt, the superstitious suggestions of the boatman,
    when we think how they cried out for fear, and deemed It an
    Apparition. And 'He would have passed by them,' [a St. Mark
    vi. 48.] as He so often does in our case, bringing them,
    indeed, deliverance, pointing and smoothing their way, but
    not giving them His known Presence, if they had not cried
    out. But their fear, which made them almost hesitate to
    receive Him into the boat, [1 This seems to me implied in the
    expression, St. John vi. 21: 'Then they were willing to take
    Him into the ship.' Some negative critics have gone so far as
    to see in this graphic hint a contradiction to the statements
    of the Synoptists. (See Lucke, Comment. u. d. Evang. Joh. ii.
    pp. 120-122.).] even though the outcome of error and
    superstition, brought His ready sympathy and comfort, in
    language which has so often, and in all ages, converted
    foolish fears of misapprehension into gladsome, thankful
    assurance: 'It is I, be not afraid!'

     And they were no longer afraid, though truly His walking
    upon the waters might seem more awesome than any
    'apparition.' The storm in their hearts, like that on the
    Lake, was commanded by His Presence. We must still bear in
    mind their former excitement, now greatly intensified by what
    they had just witnessed, in order to understand the request
    of Peter: 'Lord, if it be Thou, bid me come to Thee on the
    water.' They are the words of a man, whom the excitement of
    the moment has carried beyond all reflection. And yet this
    combination of doubt ('if it be Thou'), with presumption
    ('bid me come on the water'), is peculiarly characteristic of
    Peter. He is the Apostle of Hope, and hope is a combination
    of doubt and presumption, but also their transformation. With
    reverence be it said, Christ could not have left the request
    ungranted, even though it was the outcome of yet unreconciled
    and untransformed doubt and presumption. He would not have
    done so, or doubt would have remained doubt untransformed;
    and He could not have done so, without also correcting it, or
    presumption would have remained presumption untransformed,
    which is only upward growth, without deeper rooting in inward
    spiritual experience. And so He bade him come upon the water,
    [2 As to the physical possibility of it, we have to refer to
    our former remarks.] to transform his doubt, but left him,
    unassured from without, to his own feelings as he saw the
    wind, [3 The word 'boisterous' must be struck out as an
    interpolated gloss.] to transform his presumption; while by
    stretching out His Hand to save him from sinking, and by the
    words of correction which He spake, He did actually so point
    to their transformation in that hope, of which St. Peter is
    the special representative, and the preacher in the Church.

     And presently, as they two came into the boat, [1 I cannot
    see (with Meyer) anyvariation in the narrative in St. John
    vi. 21. The expression, 'they were willing to take him into
    the ship,' certainly does not imply that, after, the incident
    of Peter's failure, He did not actually enter the boat.] the
    wind ceased, and immediately the ship was at the land. But
    'they that were in the boat', apparently in contradistinction
    to the disciples, [2 Weiss (p. 373) assures us that this view
    is 'impossible;' but on no better ground than that no others
    than ten disciples are mentioned in St. Matt. xiv. 22, as if
    it had been necessary to mention the embarkation of the
    boatmen.] though the latter must have stood around in
    sympathetic reverence, 'worshipped Him, saying, Of a truth
    Thou art the Son of God.' The first full public confession
    this of the fact, and made not by the disciples, but by
    others. With the disciples it would have meant something far
    deeper. But as from the lips of these men it seems, like the
    echo of what had passed between them on that memorable
    passage across the Lake. They also must have mingled in the
    conversation, as the boat had pushed off from the shore on
    the previous evening, when they spake of the miracle of the
    feeding, and then of the popular attempt to proclaim Him
    Messianic King, of which they knew not yet the final issue,
    since they had been 'constrained to get into the boat,' while
    the Master remained behind. They would speak of all that He
    was and had done, and how the very devils had proclaimed Him
    to be the 'Son of God,' on that other shore, close by where
    the miracle of feeding had taken place. Perhaps, having been
    somewhat driven out of their course, they may have passed
    close to the very spot, and, as they pointed to it recalled
    the incident. And this designation of 'Son of God,' with the
    worship which followed, would come much more readily, because
    with much more superficial meaning, to the boatmen than to
    the disciples. But in them, also, the thought was striking
    deep root; and presently, by the Mount of Transfiguration,
    would it be spoken in the name of all by Peter, not as demon-
    nor as man-taught, but as taught of Christ's Father Who is in
    Heaven.
     Yet another question suggests itself. The events of the
    night are not recorded by St. Luke, perhaps because they did
    not come within his general view-plan of that Life; perhaps
    from reverence, because neither he, nor his teacher St. Paul,
    were within that inner circle, with which the events of that
    night were connected rather in the way of reproof than
    otherwise. At any rate, even negative criticism cannot
    legitimately draw any adverse inference from it, in view of
    its record not only by two of the Synoptists, but in the
    Fourth Gospel. St. Mark also does not mention the incident
    concerning St. Peter; and this we can readily understand from
    his connection with that Apostle. Of the two eyewitnesses,
    St. John and St. Matthew, the former also is silent on that
    incident. On any view of the authorship of the Fourth Gospel,
    it could not have been from ignorance, either of its
    occurrence, or else of its record by St. Matthew. Was it
    among those 'many other things which Jesus did,' which were
    not written by him, since their complete chronicle would have
    rendered a Gospel-sketch impossible? Or did it lie outside
    that special conception of his Gospel, which as regards its
    details, determined the insertion or else the omission of
    certain incidents? Or was there some reason for this omission
    connected with the special relation of John to Peter? And,
    lastly, why was St. Matthew in this instance more detailed
    than the others, and alone told it with such
    circumstantiality? Was it that it had made such deep
    impression on his own mind; had he somehow any personal
    connection with it; or did he feel, as if this bidding of
    Peter to come to Christ out of the ship and on the water had
    some close inner analogy with his own call to leave the
    custom-house and follow Christ? Such, and other suggestions
    which may arise can only be put in the form of questions.
    Their answer awaits the morning and the other shore.

 THE ASCENT: FROM THE RIVER JORDAN TO THE MOUNT OF
    TRANSFIGURATION

    FOR THE FIRST VOLUME

    EXPLANATORY NOTES AND CORRECTIONS

     Page 7, note 1: i.e. the mind of the one was settled like
    men, that of the others unsettled as women. Page 12, note 2:
    'Diety' = 'Shekhinah.' Page 35, note 3: See Zunz, Gottesd.
    Vortr. p. 323, note b. Page 97, note 1. This, of course, is
    and inference from the whole history and relation there
    indicated. Page 174, note 1a, line 7, read: 'Hath He said,
    and shall He not do it?' being the quotation from Numb.
    xxIII. 19, which is intended as an answer to the pretension.
    The rendering of the passage by the learned Dr. Schwab is
    untenable. Page 268, note 3: the quotation is taken from the
    unmutilated and sublime citation as given in R. Martini Pugio
    Fidei, ed. Carpzov. p. 782. Page 271(k). This is the view of
    Beer, Leben Abr. p. 88. Page 292: for 'temptations' read
    'temptation.' The ten tempatations of Abraham are referred to
    in Ab. P. 3, and enumerated in Ab. de R. N. 33 and Pirque de
    R. El. 26. Page 312h . Of course, this is the expression of a
    later Rabbi, but it refers toPharisaic interpretations. Page
    358c. So lightfoot infers from the passage; but as the Rabbi
    who speaks is etymologising and almost punning, the inference
    should perhaps not be pressed. Page 384, note 1: In Vayy. R.
    30, the expression refers to the different condition of
    Israel after the time described in Hos. iii. 4, or in that of
    Hezekiah, or at the deliverance of Mordecai. In Bemid. R. 11,
    the expression is connected with their ingathering of
    proselytes in fulfilment of Gen. xii. 2. Page 387, lines 17
    and 18. On this subject, however, other opinions are also
    entertained. Comp. Sukk. 5 a. Page 443, as to priest guilty
    of open sin, the details, which I refrained from giving, are
    mentioned in Duschak, Jud. Kultus, p. 270. Page 444, note 3.
    This, of course, in regard to an unlearned priest. See
    discussion in Duschak, u.s. p. 255. Page 447(c). Ber. 6 b.
    Probably this was to many the only ground for reward, since
    the discourse was the Pirqa, or on the Halakah. Ib.(e) Taan.
    16 a: though the remark refers to the leader ot the devotions
    on fast-days, it is also applied to the preacher by Duschak,
    p. 285. Page 505, note 3, see correction of p. 174, note
    (u.s.). Page 514, note 2: in Taan. 20 a the story of the
    miracle is cold which gave him the name Nicodemus. Page
    536(g). I refer to the thanksgiving of Nechunyah. See also
    the prayer put into the mouth of Moses, Ber. 32 a. And
    although such prayers as Ber. 16 b, 17 a, are sublime, they
    are, in my view, not to be compared with that of Christ in
    its fulness and breadth. Page 539(c). sanh. 100 b is, of
    course, not verbatim worded. This would be in the second
    sentence: 'Possibly on the morrow he will not be, and have
    been found caring for a world which is not his.' Page 557b,
    read in text: the common formula at funerals in Palestine
    was, 'Weep with him,' &c. Page 597, note, line 9 from bottom:
    for 'our' 'their' and for 'us' read 'them'. Page 620, line 4
    from bottom, 'The dress of the wife,' &c., read 'The
    clothing,'the meaning being that in th alternative between
    saving the life of the ignorant and clothing the wife of the
    learned (if she had no clothes), th latter is of more
    importance. Page 622, margin, delete the second' in .

 THE ASCENT:

    THE CAVILS OF THE PHARISEES CONCERNING PURIFICATION, AND THE
    TEACHING OF THE LORD CONCERNING PURITY, THE TRADITIONS
    CONCERNING 'HAND-WASHING' AND 'VOWS.'

    CHAPTER XXXI.

     (St. Matt. xv. 1-20; St. Mark vii. 1-23.)

     As we follow the narrative, confirmatory evidence of what
    had preceded springs up at almost every step. It is quite in
    accordance with the abrupt departure of Jesus from Capernaum,
    and its motives, that when, so far from finding rest and
    privacy at Bethsaida (east of the Jordan), a greater
    multitude than ever had there gathered around Him, which
    would fain have proclaimed Him King, He resolved on immediate
    return to the western shore, with the view of seeking a
    quieter retreat, even though it were in 'the coasts of Tyre
    and Sidon.' [a St. Matt. xv. 21.] According to St. Mark, [b
    St. Mark vi. 45.] the Master had directed the disciples to
    make for the other Bethsaida, or 'Fisherton,' on the western
    shore of the Lake. [c St. John xii. 21.] Remembering how
    common the corresponding name is in our own country, [1 I
    have myself counted twelve different places in England
    bearing names which might be freely rendered by 'Bethsaidsa,'
    not to speak of the many subruns and quarters which bear a
    like designation, and, of course, my list is anything but
    complete.] and that fishing was the main industry along the
    shores of the Lake, we need not wonder at the existence of
    more than one Beth-Saida, or 'Fisherton.' [2 In Jer. Megill.
    (p. 70 a, line 15 from bottom) we read of a , but the
    locality scarcely agrees with our Beth-Saida.] Nor yet does
    it seem strange, that the site should be lost of what,
    probably, except for the fishing, was quite an unimportant
    place. By the testimony both of Josephus and the Rabbis, the
    shores of Gennesaret were thickly studded with little towns,
    villages, and hamlets, which have all perished without
    leaving a trace, while even of the largest the ruins are few
    and inconsiderable. We would, however, hazard a geographical
    conjecture. From the fact that St. Mark [d St. Mark vi. 45.]
    names Bethsaida, and St. John [e St. John vi. 17.] Capernaum,
    as the original destination of the boat, we would infer that
    Bethsaida was the fishing quarter of, or rather close to,
    Capernaum, even as we so often find in our own country a
    'Fisherton' adjacent to larger towns. With this would agree
    the circumstance, that no traces of an ancient harbour have
    been discovered at Tell Hum, the site of Capernaum. [1 Comp.
    Baedeker (Socin) Palast. page 270.] Further, it would
    explain, how Peter and Andrew, who, according to St. John, [a
    St. John i. 44; xii. 21.] were of Bethsaida, are described by
    St. Mark [b St. Mark 1. 29.] as having theirhome in
    Capernaum. It also deserves notice, that, as regards the
    house of St. Peter, St. Mark, who was so intimately connected
    with him, names Capernaum, while St. John, who was his
    fellow-townsman. names Bethsaida, and that the reverse
    difference obtains between the two Evangelists in regard to
    the direction of the ship. This also suggests, that in a
    sense, as regarded the fishermen, the names were
    interchangeable, or rather, that Bethsaida was the
    'Fisherton' of Capernaum. [2 May this connection of Capernaum
    and Beth-Saida account for the mention of the latter as one
    of the places which had been the scene of so many of His
    mighty works (St. Matt. xi. 21; St. Luke x. 13)?]

     A superficial reader might object that, in the
    circumstances, we would scarcely have expected Christ and His
    disciples to have returned at once to the immediate
    neighbourhood of Capernaum, if not to that city itself. But a
    fuller knowledge of the circumstances will not only, as so
    often, convert the supposed difficulty into most important
    confirmatory evidence, but supply some deeply interesting
    details. The apparently trivial notice, that (at least) the
    concluding part of the Discourses, immediately on the return
    to Capernaum, was spoken by Christ 'in Synagogue,' [c St.
    John vi. 59.] [3 There is no articlein the original.] enables
    us not only to localise this address, but to fix the exact
    succession of events. If this Discourse was spoken 'in
    Synagogue,' it must have been (as will be shown) on the
    Jewish Sabbath. Reckoning backwards, we arrive at the
    conclusion, that Jesus with His disciples left Capernaum for
    Bethsaida-Julias on a Thursday; that the miraculous feeding
    of the multitude took place on Thursday evening; the passage
    of the disciples to the other side, and the walking of Christ
    on the sea, as well as the failure of Peter's faith, in the
    night of Thursday to Friday; the passage of the people to
    Capernaum in search of Jesus, [d St. John vi. 22-24.] with
    all that followed, on the Friday; and, lastly, the final
    Discourses of Christ on the Saturday in Capernaum and in the
    Synagogue.

     Two inferences will appear from this chronological
    arrangement. First, when our Lord had retraced His steps from
    the eastern shore in search of rest and retirement, it was so
    close on the Jewish Sabbath (Friday), that He was almost
    obliged to return to Capernaum to spend the holy day there,
    before undertaking the further journey to 'the coasts of Tyre
    and Sidon.' And on the Sabbath no actual danger, either from
    Herod Antipas or the Pharisees, need have been apprehended.
    Thus (as before indicated), the sudden return to apprehend.
    Thus (as before indicated), the sudden return to Capernaum,
    so far from constituting a difficulty, serves as confirmation
    of the previous narrative. Again, we cannot but perceive a
    peculiar correspondence of dates. Mark here: The miraculous
    breaking of Bread at Bethsaida on a Thursday evening; the
    breaking of Bread at the Last Supper on a Thursday evening;
    the attempt to proclaim Him King, and the betrayal; Peter's
    bold assertion, and the failure of his faith, each in the
    night from Thursday to Friday; and, lastly, Christ's walking
    on the angry, storm-tossed waves, and commanding them, and
    bringing the boat that bore His disciples safe to land, and
    His victory and triumph over Death and him that had the power
    of Death.

     These, surely, are more than coincidences; and in this
    respect also may this history be regarded as symbolic. As we
    read it, Christ directed the disciples to steer for
    Bethsaida, the 'Fisherton' of Capernaum, But, apart from the
    latter suggestion, we gather from the expressions used, [a
    St. Mark vi. 53.] that the boat which bore the disciples had
    drifted out of its course, probably owing to the wind, and
    touched land, not where they had intended, but at Gennesaret,
    where they moored it. There can be no question, that by this
    term is meant 'the plain of Gennesaret,' the richness and
    beauty of which Josephus [b Jewish War iii. 10.7, 8.] and the
    Rabbis [c Pes. 8 b; Meg. 6 a; Ber. R. 98.] describe in such
    glowing language. To this day it bears marks of having been
    the most favoured spot in this favoured region. Travelling
    northwards from Tiberias along the Lake, we follow, for about
    five or six miles, a narrow ledge of land shut in by
    mountains, when we reach the home of the Magdalene, the
    ancient Magdala (the modern Mejdel). Right over against us,
    on the other side, is Kersa (Gerasa), the scene of the great
    miracle. On leaving Magdala the mountains recede, and form an
    amphitheatric plain, more than a mile wide, and four or five
    miles long. This is 'the land of Gennesaret' (el Ghuweir). We
    pass across the 'Valley of Doves,' which intersects it about
    one mile to the north of Magdala, and pursue our journey over
    the well-watered plain, till, after somewhat more than an
    hour, we reach its northern boundary, a little beyond Khan
    Minyeh. The latter has, in accordance with tradition, been
    regarded by some as representing Bethsaida, [1 Baedeker
    (Socin) has grouped together the reasons against identifying
    Khan Minyeh with Capernaum itself.] but seems both too far
    from the Lake, and too much south of Capernaum, to answer the
    requirements.

     No sooner had the well-known boat, which bore Jesus and His
    disciples, been run up the gravel-beach in the early morning
    of that Friday, than His Presence must have become known
    throughout the district, all the more that the boatmen would
    soon spread the story of the miraculous occurences of the
    preceding evening and night. With Eastern rapidity the
    tidings would pass along, and from all the country around the
    sick were brought on their pallets, if they might but touch
    the border of His garment. Nor could such touch, even though
    the outcome of an imperfect faith, be in vain, for He, Whose
    garment they sought leave to touch, was the God-Man, the
    Conqueror of Death, the Source and Spring of all Life. And so
    it was where He landed, and all the way up to Bethsaida and
    Capernaum. [a St. Matt. xiv. 34-36; St. Mark vi 53-56.] [1
    Mr. Brown McClellan (N.T. vol. i. p. 570) holds, that both
    the Passover and Pentecost had intervened, I know not on what
    grounds. At the same time the language in St. Mark vi. 56,
    might imply more than one occasion on which the same thing
    happened.]
     In what followed, we can still trace the succession of
    events, though there are considerable difficulties as to
    their precise order. Thus we are expressly told, [b St. John
    vi. 22-25.] that those from 'the other side' came to
    Capernaum' on 'the day following' the miraculous feeding, and
    that one of the subsequent Discourses, of which the outline
    is preserved, was delivered 'in Synagogue.' [c Pes. 55 a.] As
    this could only have been done either on a Sabbath or
    Feast-Day (in this instance, the Passover [d St. John vi.4.]
    ), it follows, that in any case a day must have intervened
    between their arrival at Capernaum and the Discourse in
    Synagogue. Again, it is almost impossible to believe that it
    could have been on the Passoverday (15th Nisan). [2 This is
    propounded in Wieseler, Chronolog. Synopse, pp. 276, 290, as
    a possible view.] For we cannot imagine, that any large
    number would have left their homes and festive preparations
    on the Eve of the Pascha (14th Nisan), not to speak of the
    circumstance that in Galilee, differently from Judaea, all
    labour, including, of course, that of a journey across the
    Lake, was intermitted on the Eve of the Passover. [e ver.
    59.] Similarly, it is almost impossible to believe, that so
    many festive pilgrims would have been assembled till late in
    the evening preceding the 14th Nisan so far from Jerusalem as
    Bethsaida-Julias, since it would have been impossible after
    that to reach the city and Temple in time for the feast. It,
    therefore, only remains to regard the Synagogue-service at
    which Christ preached as that of an ordinary Sabbath, and the
    arrival of the multitude as having taken place on Friday in
    the forenoon.

     Again, from the place which the narrative occupies in the
    Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Mark, as well as from certain
    internal evidence, it seems difficult to doubt, that the
    reproof of the Pharisees and Scribes on the subject of 'the
    unwashed hands,' [a St. Matt. XV. 1; St. Markvii. 1.] was not
    administered immediately after the miraculous feeding and the
    night of miracles. We cannot, however, feel equally sure,
    which of the two preceded the other: the Discourse in
    Capernaum, [b St. John vi. 59 or the Reproof of the
    Pharisees. [c St. Matt. xv. 1 &c.] Several reasons have
    determined us to regard the Reproof as having preceded the
    Discourse. Without entering on a detailed discussion, the
    simple reading of the two sections will lead to the
    instinctive conclusion, that such a Discourse could not have
    been followed by such cavil and such Reproof, while it seems
    in the right order of things, that the Reproof which led to
    the 'offence' of the Pharisees, and apparently the withdrawal
    of some in the outer circle of discipleship, [d St. Matt. xv.
    12-14.] should have been followed by the positive teaching of
    the Discourse, which in turn resulted in the going back of
    many who had been in the inner circle of disciples.

     In these circumstances, we venture to suggest the following
    as the succession of events. Early on the Friday morning the
    boat which bore Jesus and His disciples grated on the sandy
    beach of the plain of Gennesaret. As the tidings spread of
    His arrival and of the miracles which had so lately been
    witnessed, the people from the neighbouring villages and
    towns flocked around Him, and brough their sick for the
    healing touch. So the greater part of the forenoon passed.
    Meantime, while they moved, as the concourse of the people by
    the way would allow, the first tidings of all this must have
    reached the neighbouring Capernaum. This brought immediately
    on the scene those Pharisees and Scribes 'who had come from
    Jerusalem' on purpose to watch, and, if possible, to compass
    the destruction on Jesus. As we conceive it, they met the
    Lord and His disciples on their way to Capernaum. Possibly
    they overtook them, as they rested by the way, and the
    disciples, or some of them, were partaking of some
    food--perhaps, some of the consecrated Bread of the previous
    evening. The Reproof of Christ would be administered there;
    then the Lord would, not only for their teaching, but for the
    purposes immediately to be indicated, turn to the multitude;
    [f St. Matt. xv. 10; St. Mark vii. 14, 15.] next would follow
    the remark of the disciples and the reply of the Lord,
    spoken, probably, when they were again on the way; [g St.
    Matt. xv. 12-14.] and, lastly,the final explanation of
    Christ, after they had entered the house at Capernaum. [h St.
    Matt. xv. 15-20; St. Mark vii. 17-23.] In all probability a
    part of what is recorded in St. John vi. 24, &c. occurred
    also about the same time; the rest on the Sabbath which
    followed.

     Although the cavil of the Jerusalem Scribes may have been
    occasioned by seeing some of the disciples eating without
    first having washed their hands, we cannot banish the
    impression that it reflected on the miraculously provided
    meal of the previous evening, when thousands had sat down to
    food without the previous observance of the Rabbinic
    ordinance. Neither in that case, nor in the present, had the
    Master interposed. He was, therefore, guilty of participation
    in their offence. So this was all which these Pharisees and
    Scribes could see in the miracle of Christ's feeding the
    Multitude--that it had not been done according to Law! Most
    strange as it may seem, yet in the past history of the
    Church, and, perhaps, sometimes also in the present, this has
    been the only thing which some men have seen in the
    miraculous working of the Christ! Perhaps we should not
    wonder that the miracle itself made no deeper impression,
    since even the disciples 'understood not' (by reasoning)
    'about the loaves' --however they may have accounted for it
    in a manner which might seem to them reasonable. But, in
    another aspect, the objection of the Scribes was not a mere
    cavil. In truth, it represented one of the great charges
    which the Pharisees brought against Jesus, and which
    determined them to seek His destruction.

     It has already been shown, that they accounted for the
    miracles of Christ as wrought by the power of Satan, whose
    special representative--almostincarnation--they declared
    Jesus to be. This would not only turn the evidential force of
    these signs into an argument against Christ, but vindicate
    the resistance of the Pharisees to His claims. The second
    charge against Jesus was, that He was 'not of God;' that He
    was 'a sinner.' [a St. John ix. 16, 24.] If this could be
    established, it would, of course, prove that He was not the
    Messiah, but a deceiver who misled the people, and whom it
    was the duty of the Sanhedrin to unmask and arrest. The way
    in which they attempted to establish this, perhaps persuaded
    themselves that it was so, was by proving that He sanctioned
    in others, and Himself committed, breaches of the traditional
    law; which, according to their fundamental principles,
    involved heavier guilt than sins against the revealed Law of
    Moses. The third and last charge against Jesus, which finally
    decided the action of the Council, could only be fully made
    at the close of His career. It might be formulated so as to
    meet the views of either the Pharisees or Sadducees. To the
    former it might be presented as a blasphemous claim to
    equality with God--the Very Son of the Living God. To the
    Sadducees it would appear as a movement on the part of a most
    dangerous enthusiast--if honest and self-deceived, all the
    more dangerous; one of those pseudo-Messiahs who led away the
    ignorant, superstitious, and excitable people; and which, if
    unchecked, would result in persecutions and terrible
    vengeance by the Romans, and in loss of the last remnants of
    their national independence. To each of these three charges,
    of which we are now watching the opening or development,
    there was (from the then standpoint) only one answer: Faith
    in His Person. And in our time, also, this is the final
    answer to all difficulties and objections. To this faith
    Jesus was now leading His disciples, till, fully realised in
    the great confession of Peter, it became, and has ever since
    proved, the Rock on which that Church is built, against which
    the very gates of Hades cannot prevail.

     It was in support of the second of these charges, that the
    Scribes now blamed the Master for allowing His disciples to
    eat without having previously washed, or, as St.
    Mark--indicating, as we shall see, in the word the origin of
    the custom--expresses it with graphic accuracy: 'with common
    hands.'[1 The word quite corresponds to the Jewish term.
    Notwithstanding the objection of the learned Bishop Haneberg
    (Relig. Alterth. p. 475, note 288) I believe it corresponds
    to the Rabbinic or profanus, in the sense of 'common,' 'not
    hallowed.'] Once more we have to mark, how minutely
    conversant the Gospel narratives are with Jewish Law and
    practice. This will best appear from a brief account of this
    'tradition of the elders,' [2 The fullest account of it
    within reach of ordinary readers is in the Notes to Pocock's
    Porta Mosis (pp. 350-402) though it is confused, not quite
    accurate, and based chiefly on later Jewish authorities.
    Spencer (de Leg. Hebr. pp. 1175-1179) only adds references to
    similar Gentile rites. Goodwin, even under the revision of
    Hottinger (pp. 182-188), is in this instance inferior to
    Pocock. Buxtorf (Synag. pp. 179-184) gives chiefly
    illustrative Jewish legends; Otho (Lex. Rabb. pp. 335, 336)
    extracts from his predecessors, to little advantage. The
    Rabbinic notes of Lightfoot, Winsche, Schottgen, and Wetstein
    give no clear account; and the Biblical Dictionaries are
    either silent, or (as Herzog's) very meagre. Other accounts
    are, unfortunately, very inaccurate.] the more needful that
    important differences prevail even among learned Jewish
    authorities, due probably to the circumstance that the brief
    Mishnic Tractate devoted to the subject [3 Yadayim, in four
    chapters, which, however, touches on other subjects also,
    notably on the canonicity of certain parts of the O.T.] has
    no Gemara attached to it, and also largely treats of other
    matters. At the outset we have this confirmation of the
    Gospel language, that this practice is expressly admitted to
    have been, not a Law of Moses, but 'a tradition of the
    elders. [4 We refer here generally to chull. 105 a, b, 106 b.
    Still, and perhaps on this very account, it was so strictly
    enjoined, that to neglect it was like being guilty of gross
    carnal defilement. Its omission would lead to temporal
    destruction, [a Sot. 4 b.] or, at least, to poverty. [b
    Shabb. 62 b.] Bread eaten with unwashen hands was as if it
    had been filth. [a Sot. 4 b.] Indeed, a Rabbi who had held
    this command in contempt was actually buried in
    excommunication. [b Eduy. v. 6; Ber. 19 a.] Thus, from their
    point of view, the charge of the Scribes against the
    disciples, so far from being exaggerated, is most moderately
    worded by the Evangelists. In fact, although at one time it
    had only been one of the marks of a Pharisee, yet at a later
    period to wash before eating was regarded as affording the
    ready means of recognising a Jew. [c Chull. 106 a; Bemidb. R.
    20, ed. Warsh. p. 81 b.][1 Many illustrative stories are
    given of its importance, on the one hand, and of the danger
    of neglecting it on the other. With these legends it is not
    necessary to cumber our pages.]

     It is somewhat more difficult to account for the origin of
    the ordinance. So far as indicated, it seems to have been
    first enjoined in order to ensure that sacred offerings
    should not be eaten in defilement. When once it became an
    ordinance of the elders, this was, of course, regarded as
    sufficient ground for obedience. [d Chull. 106 a.] Presently,
    Scriptural support was sought for it. Some based it on the
    original ordinance of purification in Lev. XV. 11; [e Chull.
    106 a.] while others saw in the words [f Lev xi. 44.]
    'Sanctify yourselves,' the command to wash before meat; in
    the command, 'Be ye holy,' that of washing after meat; while
    the final clause, 'for I am the Lord your God,' was regarded
    as enjoining 'the grace at meat.' [g Ber. 53 b, end.] For,
    soon it was not merely a washing before, but also after
    meals. The former alone was, however, regarded as 'a
    commandment' (Mitsvah), the other only as 'a duty' (Chobhah),
    which some, indeed, explained on sanitary grounds, as there
    might be left about the hands what might prove injurious to
    the eyes. [h Erub. 17 b; Chull. 105 b.] [2 The danger from
    'Salt of Sodom is specially mentioned.] Accordingly, soldiers
    might, in the urgency of campaigning, neglect the washing
    before, but they ought to be careful about that after meat.
    By-and-by, the more rigorous actually washed between the
    courses, although this was declared to be purely voluntary.
    [i Chull. 105 a, b.] This washing before meals is regarded by
    some as referred to in Talmudic writings by the expression
    'the first waters' (Mayim rishonim), while what is called
    'the second' (sheniyim), or 'the other,' 'later,' or
    'afterwaters' (Mayim acharonim), is supposed to represent the
    washing after meals.

     But there is another and more important aspect of the
    expression, which leads us to describe the rite itself. The
    distinctive designation for it is Netilath Yadayim, [3
    sometimes though rarely, but not which refers to ordinary
    washing. Occasionally it is simply designated by the term
    Netilah.] literally, the lifting of the hands; while for the
    washing before meat the term Meshi or Mesha [k (Chull. 107 a
    and b).] is also used, which literally means 'to rub.' Both
    these terms point to the manner of the rite. The first
    question here was, whether 'second tithe,' prepared
    first-fruits (Terumah), or even common food (Chullin), or
    else, 'holy' i.e. sacrificial food, was to be partaken of. In
    the latter case a complete immersion of the hands ('baptism,'
    Tebhilath Yadayim), and not merely a Netilath, or
    'uplifting,' was purifications were so frequent, and care had
    to be taken that the water had not been used for other
    purposes, or something fallen into it that might discolour or
    defile it, large vessels or jars were generally kept for the
    purpose. These might be of any material, although stone is
    specially mentioned. [This and what follows illustrates St.
    John ii. 6.] It was the practice to draw water out of these
    with what was called a natla, antila, or antelaya, [b
    avtyior. very often of glass, which must hold (at least) a
    quarter of a log [c Chull. 107 a; Baba B. 58 b, and often.] a
    measure equal to one and a half 'egg-shells.' For, no less
    quantity than this might be used for affusion. The water was
    poured on both hands, which must be free of anything covering
    them, such as gravel, mortar, &c. The hands were lifted up,
    so as to make the water run to the wrist, in order to ensure
    that the whole hand was washed, and that the water polluted
    by the hand did not again run down the fingers. Similarly,
    each hand was rubbed with the other (the first), provided the
    hand that rubbed had been affused: otherwise, the rubbing
    might be done against the head, or even against a wall. But
    there was one point on which special stress was laid. In the
    'first affusion,' which was all that originally was required
    when the hands were Levitically 'defiled,' the water had to
    run down to the wrist [The language of the Mishnah shows that
    the word which bears as vague and wide meaning as, which
    seems a literal translation of it, can only apply to the
    wrist.] ( ) lappereq, or ad happereq). If the water remained
    short of the wrist (chuts lappereq), the hands were not
    clean. [d Comp. Yad. ii. 3; Chull. 106 a and b.] Accordingly,
    the words of St. Mark [e St. Mark vii. 3.] can only mean that
    the Pharisees eat not 'except they wash their hands to the
    wrist.' [3 The rendering 'wash diligently,' gives no meaning;
    that 'with the fist' is not in accordance with Jewish Law;
    while that 'up to the elbow' is not only contrary to Jewish
    Law, but apparently based on a wrong rendering of the word
    This is fully shown by Wetstein (N. T. i. p. 585), but his
    own explanation, that refers to the measure or weight of the
    water for washing, is inadmissible.]

     Allusion has already been made to what are called 'the
    first' and 'the second,' or 'other' 'waters.' But, in their
    original meaning, these terms referred to something else than
    washing before and after meals. The hands were deemed capable
    of contracting Levitical defilement, which, in certain cases,
    might even render the whole body 'unclean.' If the hands were
    'defiled,' two affusions were required: the first, or 'first
    waters' (mayim rishonim) to remove the defilement, and the
    'second,' or 'after waters' (mayim sheniyim or acharonim) to
    wash away the waters that had contracted the defilement of
    the hands. Accordingly, on the affusion of the first waters
    the hands were elevated, and the water made to run down at
    the wrist, while at the second waters the hands were
    depressed, so that the water might run off by the finger
    points and tips. By-and-by, it became the practice to have
    two affusions, whenever Terumah (prepared first-fruits) was
    to be eaten, and at last even when ordinary food (Chullin)
    was partaken of. The modern Jews have three affusions, and
    accompany the rite with a special benediction.

     This idea of the 'defilement of the hands' received a very
    curious application. According to one of the eighteen
    decrees, which, as we shall presently show, date before the
    time of Christ, the Roll of the Pentateuch in the Temple
    defiled all kinds of meat that touched it. The alleged reason
    for this decree was, that the priests were wont to keep the
    Terumah (preserved first-fruits) close to the Roll of the
    Law, on which account the latter was injured by mice. The
    Rabbinic ordinance was intended to avert this danger. [a
    Shabb. 14 a.] [1 InYad. iv. 6, the Pharisees in dispute with
    the Sadducees indicate what seems to me a far more likely
    reason, in the desire to protect the Scriptures from profane
    use.] To increase this precaution, it was next laid down as a
    principle, that all that renders the Terumah unfit, also
    defiles the hands. [b Yad. iii. 2.] Hence, the Holy
    Scriptures defiled not only the food but the hands that
    touched them, and this not merely in the Temple, but
    anywhere, while it was also explained that the Holy
    Scriptures included the whole of the inspired writings, the
    Law, Prophets, and Hagiographa. This gave rise to interesting
    discussions, whether the Song of Solomon, Ecclesiastes, or
    Esther were to be regarded as 'defiling the hands,' that is,
    as part of the Canon. The ultimate decision was in favour of
    these books: 'all the holy writings defile the hands; the
    Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes defile the hands.' [c Yad.
    iii. 5.] Nay, so far were sequences carried, that even a
    small portion of the Scriptures was declared to defile the
    hands if it contained eighty-five letters, because the
    smallest 'section' (Parashah) in the Law [d Numb. x. 35, 36.]
    consisted of exactly that number. Even the Phylacteries,
    because they contained portions of the sacred text, the very
    leather straps by which they were bound to the head and arm,
    nay, the blank margins around the text of the Scriptures, or
    at the beginning and end of sections, were declared to defile
    the hands. [a Yad. iii. 3-5.] [1 By a curious inversion the
    law ultimately came to be, that the Scriptures everywhere
    defiled the hands, except those of the Priests in the Temple
    (Kel. xv. 6). This on the ground that, taught by former
    enactments, they had learned to keep the Terumah far away
    from the sacred rolls, but really, as I believe, because the
    law, that the Priests' hands became defiled if they touched a
    copy of the sacred rules, must have involved constant
    difficulties.]

     From this exposition it will be understood what importance
    the Scribes attached to the rite which the disciples had
    neglected. Yet at a later period Pharisaism, with
    characteristic ingenuity, found a way of evading even this
    obligation, by laying down what we would call the Popish (or
    semi-Popish) principle of 'intention.' It was ruled, that if
    anyone had performed the rite of handwashing in the morning,
    'with intention' that it should apply to the meals of the
    whole day, this was (with certain precautions) valid. [b
    Chull. 106 b.] But at the time of which we write the original
    ordinance was quite new. This touches one of the most
    important, but also most intricate questions in the history
    of Jewish dogmas. Jewish tradition traced, indeed, the
    command of washing the hands before eating, at least of
    sacrificial offerings, to Solomon, [c Shabb. 14 b, end.] in
    acknowledgment of which 'the voice from heaven' (Bath-Qol)
    had been heard to utter Prov. xxiii. 15, and xxvii. 11. But
    the earliest trace of this custom occurs in a portion of the
    Sibylline Books, which dates from about 160 B.C., [d Or. Sib.
    iii. 591-593.] where we find an allusion to the practice of
    continually washing the hands, in connection with prayer and
    thanksgiving. [2 We must bear in mind, that it wasthe work of
    an Egyptian Jew, and I cannot help feeling that the language
    bears some likeness to what afterwards was one of the
    distinctive practices of the Essenes.] It was reserved for
    Hillel and Shammai, the two great rival teachers and heroes
    of Jewish traditionalism, immediately before Christ, to fix
    the Rabbinic ordinance about the washing of hands (Netilath
    Yadayim), as previously described. This was one of the few
    points on which they were agreed, [e Shabb. 14 b, about the
    middle.] and hence emphatically 'a tradition of the Elders,'
    since these two teachers bear, in Rabbinic writings, each the
    designation of 'the Elder.' Then followed a period of
    developing traditionalism, and hatred of all that was
    Gentile. The tradition of the Elders was not yet so
    established as to command absolute and universal obedience,
    while the disputes of Hillel and Shammai, who seemed almost
    on principle to have taken divergent views on every question,
    must have disturbed the minds of many. We have an account of
    a stormy meeting between the two Schools, attended even with
    bloodshed. The story is so confusedly, and so differently
    told in the Jerusalem [a Jer. Shabb. p. 3 x, d.] and in the
    Babylon Talmud, [b Shabb. 13b to 14 b.] that it is difficult
    to form a clear view of what really occurred. Thus much,
    however, appears that the Shammaites had a majority of votes,
    and that 'eighteen decrees' were passed in which the two
    Schools agreed, while on other eighteen questions (perhaps a
    round number) the Shammaites carried their views by a
    majority, and yet other eighteen remained undecided. Each of
    the Schools spoke of that day according to its party-results.
    The Shammaites (such as Rabbi Eliezer) extolled it as that on
    which the measure of the Law had been filled up to the full,
    [c Jer. Shabb. 3 c.] while the Hillelites (like Rabbi Joshua)
    deplored, that on that day water had been poured into a
    vessel full of oil, by which some of the more precious fluid
    had been split. In general, the tendency of these eighteen
    decrees was of the most violently anti-Gentile, intolerant,
    and exclusive character. Yet such value was attached to them,
    that, while any other decree of the sages might be altered by
    a more grave, learned, and authoritative assembly, these
    eighteen decrees might not under any circumstances, be
    modified. [d Jer. Shabb. 3 d.] But, besides these eighteen
    decrees, the two Schools on that day [e Shabb.13 b; 14 b.]
    agreed in solemnly re-enacting 'the decrees about the Book
    (the copy of the Law), and the hands'. The Babylon Talmud [f
    Shabb. 14 b, towards end.] notes that the latter decree,
    though first made by Hillel and Shammai, 'the Elders,' was
    not universally carried out until re-enacted by their
    colleges. It is important to notice, that this 'Decree' dates
    from the time just before, and was finally carried into force
    in the very days of Christ. This fully accounts for the zeal
    which the Scribes displayed, and explains 'the extreme
    minutenes of details' with which St. Mark 'calls attention'
    to this Pharisaic practice. [1 In the 'Speaker's Commentary'
    (ad loc.) this 'extreme minuteness of details' is, it seems
    to me not correctly, accounted for on the ground of 'special
    reference to the Judaisers who at a very early period formed
    an influential party at Rome.'] For, it was an express
    Rabbinic principle [g Ab. Z. 35 a.] that, if an ordinance had
    been only recently re-enacted, it might not be called in
    question or 'invalidated' . [2 This is the more striking as
    the same expression is used in reference to the opposition or
    rather the 'invalidating' by R. Eliezer ben Chanokh of the
    ordinance of hand-washing, for which he was excommunicated
    Eduy. v. 6). The term , which originally means to stop up by
    pouring or putting in something, is used for contemning or
    bringing into contempt, invalidating, or shaking a decree,
    with the same signification as. This is proved from the use
    of the latter in Ab. Z. 35 a, line 9 from bottom, and 36 a,
    line 12 from top.] Thus it will be seen, that the language
    employed by the Evangelist affords most valuable indirect
    confirmation of the trustworthiness of his Gospel, as not
    only showing intimate familiarity with the minutix of Jewish
    'tradition,' but giving prominence to what was then a present
    controversy, and all this the more, that it needs intimate
    knowledge of that Law even fully to understand the language
    of the Evangelist.

     After this full exposition, it can only be necessary to
    refer in briefest manner to those other observances which
    orthodox Judaism had 'received to hold.' They connect
    themselves with those eighteen decrees, intended to separate
    the Jew from all contact with Gentiles. Any contact with a
    heathen, even the touch of his dress, might involve such
    defilement, that on coming from the market the orthodox Jew
    would have to immerse. Only those who know the complicated
    arrangements about the defilements of vessels that were in
    any part, however small, hollow, as these are described in
    the Mishnah (Tractate Kelim), can form an adequate idea of
    the painful minuteness with which every little detail is
    treated. Earthen vessels that had contracted impurity were to
    be broken; those of wood, horn, glass, or brass immersed;
    while, if vessels were brought of Gentiles, they were (as the
    case might be) to be immersed, put into boiling water, purged
    with fire, or at least polished. [a Ab. Zar. v passim.]

     Let us now try to realise the attitude of Christ in regard
    to these ordinances about purification, and seek to
    understand the reason of His bearing. That, in replying to
    the charge of the Scribes against His disciples, He neither
    vindicated their conduct, nor apologised for their breach of
    the Rabbinic ordinances, implied at least an attitude of
    indifference towards traditionalism. This is the more
    noticeable, since, as we know, the ordinances of the Scribes
    were declared more precious, [b Jer. Chag. 76 d.] [1 In this
    passage there is a regular discussion, whether that which is
    written (the Pentateuch), or that which is oral (tradition is
    more precious and to be loved. The opinion is in favour of
    the oral.] and of more binding importance than those of Holy
    Scripture itself. [c Jer. Ber. 3 b; Sanh. xi. 3; Erub. 21 b.]
    But,even so, the question might arise, why Christ should have
    provoked such hostility by placing Himself in marked
    antagonism to what, after all, was indifferent in itself. The
    answer to this inquiry will require a disclosure of that
    aspect of Rabbinism which, from its painfulness, has hitherto
    been avoided. Yet it is necessary not only in itself, but as
    showing the infinite distance between Christ and the teaching
    of the Synagogue. It has already been told, how Rabbinism, in
    the madness of its self-exaltation, represented God as
    busying Himself by day with the study of the Scriptures, and
    by night with that of the Mishnah; [d Targum (ed. Ven.) on
    Cant. v. 10; comp. Ab. Z. 3 b.] and how, in theheavenly
    Sanhedrin, over which the Almighty presided, the Rabbis sat
    in the order of their greatness, and the Halakhah was
    discussed, and decisions taken in accordance with it. [a Baba
    Mez. 86 a.] Terrible as this sounds, it is not nearly all.
    Anthropomorphism of the coarsest kind is carried beyond the
    verge of profanity, when God is represented as spending the
    last three hours of every day in playing with Leviathan, [b
    Ab. Z. u. s.] and it is discussed, how, since the destruction
    of Jerusalem, God no longer laughs, but weeps, and that, in a
    secret place of His own, according to Jer. xiii. 17. [c Comp.
    Chag. 5 b.] Nay, Jer. XXV. 30 is profanely misinterpreted as
    implying that, in His grief over the destruction of the
    Temple, the Almighty roars like a lion in each of the three
    watches of the night. [d Ber. 3 a.] The two tears which He
    drops into the sea are the cause of earthquakes; although
    other, though not less coarsely realistic, explanations are
    offered of this phenomenon. [e Ber. 59 a.]

     Sentiments like these, which occur in different Rabbinic
    writings, cannot be explained away by any ingenuity of
    allegorical interpretation. There are others, equally
    painful, as regards the anger of the Almighty, which, as
    kindling specially in the morning, when the sun-worshippers
    offer their prayers, renders it even dangerous for an
    individual Israelite to say certain prayers on the morning of
    New Year's Day, on which the throne is set for judgment. [f
    Ber. 7 a; Ab. Z. 4 b.] Such realistic anthropomorphism,
    combined with the extravagant ideas of the eternal and
    heavenly reality of Rabbinism and Rabbinic ordinances, help
    us to understand, how the Almighty was actually represented
    as saying prayers. This is proved from Is. lvi. 7. Sublime
    through the language of these prayers is, we cannot but
    notice that the allcovering mercy, for which He is
    represented as pleading, is extended only to Israel. [g Ber.
    7 a.] It is even more terrible to read of God wearing the
    Tallith, [h Shem. R. 42, comp. Rosh haSh. 17 b.] or that He
    puts on the Phylacteries, which is deduced from Is. lxii. 8.
    That this also is connected with the vain-glorious boasting
    of Israel, appears from the passage supposed to be enclosed
    in these Phylacteries. We know that in the ordinary
    Phylacteries these are: Exod. xiii. 1-10; 10-16; Deut. vi.
    4-10; xi. 13-22. In the Divine Phylacteries they were: 1
    Chron. xvii. 21; Deut. iv. 7-8; xxxiii. 29; iv. 34; xxvi. 19.
    [i Ber. 6 a.] Only one other point must be mentioned as
    connected with Purifications. To these also the Almighty is
    supposed to submit. Thus He was purified by Aaron, when He
    had contracted defilement by descending into Egypt. [k Shem.
    R. 15, ed. warsh. p. 22 a, line 13 from top.] This is deduced
    from Lev. xvi. 16. Similarly, He immersed in a bath of fire,
    [m Is. lxvi. 15; comp. Numb. xxxi. 23.] after the defilement
    of the burialof Moses.

     These painful details, most reluctantly given, are certainly
    not intended to raise or strengthen ignorant prejudices
    against Israel, to whom 'blindness in part' has truly
    happened; far less to encourage the wicked spirit of contempt
    and persecution which is characteristic, not of believing,
    but of negative theology. But they will explain, how Jesus
    could not have assumed merely an attitude of indifference
    towards traditionalism. For, even if such sentiments were
    represented as a later development, they are the outcome of a
    direction, of which that of Jesus was the very opposite, and
    to which it was antagonistic. But, if Jesus was not sent of
    God, not the Messiah, whence this wonderful contrast of
    highest spirituality in what He taught of God as our Father,
    and of His Kingdom as that over the hearts of all men? The
    attitude of antagonism to traditionalism was never more
    pronounced than in what He said in reply to the charge of
    neglect of the ordinance about 'the washing of hands.' Here
    it must be remembered, that it was an admitted Rabbinic
    principle that, while the ordinances of Scripture required no
    confirmation, those of the Scribes needed such, [a Jer. Taan.
    66 a, about the middle.] and that no Halakhah (traditional
    law) might contradict Scripture. [1 It was, however, admitted
    that the Halakhah sometimes went beyond the Pentateuch (Sot.
    16 a).] When Christ, therefore, next proceeded to show, that
    in a very important point, nay, in 'many such like things',
    the Halakhah was utterly incompatible with Scripture, that,
    indeed, they made 'void the Word of God' by their traditions
    which they had received, [b St. Matt. xv. 3, 6; St. Mark vii.
    9. 13.] He dealt the heaviest blow to traditionalism.
    Rabbinism stood self-condemned; on its own showing, it was to
    be rejected as incompatible with the Word of God.

     It is not so easy to understand, why the Lord should, out of
    'many such things,' have selected in illustration the
    Rabbinic ordinance concerning vows, as in certain
    circumstances, contravening the fifth commandment. Of course,
    the 'Ten Words' were the Holy of Holies of the Law; nor was
    there any obligation more rigidly observed, indeed, carried
    in practice almost to the verge of absurdity [2 See the
    remarks this point in vol. i. pp. 567, 576, 577.] than that
    of honour to parents. In both respects, then, this was a
    specially vulnerable point, and it might well be argued that,
    if in this Law Rabbinic ordinances came into conflict with
    the demands of God's Word, the essential contrariety between
    them must, indeed, be great. Still, we feel as if this were
    not all. Was there any special instance in view, in which the
    Rabbinic law about votive offerings had led to such abuse? Or
    was it only, that at this festive season the Galilean
    pilgrims would carry with them to Jerusalem their votive
    offerings? Or, could the Rabbinic ordinances about 'the
    sanctification of the hands' (Yadayim) have recalled to the
    Lord another Rabbinic application of the word 'hand' (yad) in
    connection with votive offerings? It is at least sufficiently
    curious to find mention here, and it will afford the
    opportunity of briefly explaining, what to a candid reader
    may seem almost inexplicable in the Jewish legal practice to
    which Christ refers.

     At the outset it must be admitted, that Rabbinism did not
    encourage the practice of promiscuous vowing. As we view it,
    it belongs, at best, to a lower and legal standpoint. In this
    respect Rabbi Akiba put it concisely, in one of his truest
    sayings: 'Vows are a hedge to abstinence.' [a Ab. iii. 18.]
    On the other hand, if regarded as akind of return for
    benefits received, or as a promise attaching to our prayers,
    a vow, unless it form part of our absolute and entire
    self-surrender partakes either of work-righteousness, or
    appears almost a kind of religious gambling. And so the
    Jewish proverb has it: 'In the hour of need a vow; in time of
    ease excess.' [b Ber. R. 81.] Towards such workrighteousness
    and religious gambling the Eastern, and especially the
    Rabbinic Jew, would be particularly inclined. But even the
    Rabbis saw that its encouragement would lead to the
    profanation of what was holy; to rash, idle, and wrong vows;
    and to the worst and most demoralising kind of perjury, as
    inconvenient consequences made themselves felt. Of many
    sayings, cordemnatory of the practice, one will suffice to
    mark the general feeling: 'He who makes a vow, even if he
    keeps it, deserves the name of wicked.' [c Nedar. 9 a; 22 a.]
    Nevertheless, the practice must have attained terrible
    proportions, whether as regards the number of vows, the
    lightness with which they were made, or the kind of things
    which became their object. The larger part of the Mishnic
    Tractate on 'Vows' (Nedarim, in eleven chapters) describes
    what expressions were to be regarded as equivalent to vows,
    and what would either legally invalidate and annual a vow, or
    leave it binding. And here we learn, that those who were of
    full age, and not in a position of dependence (such as wives)
    would make almost any kind of vows, such as that they would
    not lie down to sleep, not speak to their wives or children,
    not have intercourse with their brethren, and even things
    more wrong or foolish, all of which were solemnly treated as
    binding on the conscience. Similarly, it was not necessary to
    use the express words of vowing. Not only the word 'Qorban'
    [Korban], 'given to God', but any similar expression, such as
    Qonakh, or Qonam [ Accordin[1 According to Nedar. 10 a, the
    Rabbis invented this word instead of 'Qorban to the Lord'
    (Lev. i. 2), in order that the Name of God might not be idly
    taken.] (the latter also a Phoenician expression, and
    probably an equivalent for Qeyam, 'let it be established')
    would suffice; the mention of anything laid upon the altar
    (though not of the altar itself). such as the wood, or the
    fire, would constitute a vow, [a Nedar. i. 1-3.] nay, the
    repetition of the form which generally followed on the votive
    Qonam or Qorban had binding force, even though not preceded
    by these terms. Thus, if a man said: 'That I eat or taste of
    such a thing,' it constituted a vow, which bound him not to
    eat or taste it, because the common formula was: 'Qorban (or
    Qonam) that I eat or drink, or do such a thing,' and the
    omission of the votive word did not invalidate a vow, if it
    were otherwise regularly expressed. [b Jer. Nedar. 36 d, line
    20 from top.]

     It is in explaining this strange provision, intended both to
    uphold the solemnity of vows, and to discourage the rash use
    of words, that the Talmud [c u. s.] makes use of the word
    'hand' in a connection which we have supposed might, by
    association of ideas, have suggested to Christ the contrast
    between what the Bible and what the Rabbis regarded as
    'sanctified hands,' and hence between the commands of God and
    the traditions of the Elders. For the Talmud explains that,
    when a man simply says: 'That (or if) I eat or taste such a
    thing,' it is imputed as a vow, and he may not eat or taste
    of it, 'because the hand is on the Qorban' [d (Jer. Nedar. 36
    d, line 22).], the mere touch of Qorban had sanctified it,
    and put it beyond his reach, just as if it had been laid on
    the altar itself. Here, then, was a contrast. According to
    the Rabbis, the touch of 'a common' hand defiled God's good
    gift of meat, while the touch of 'a sanctified' hand in rash
    or wicked words might render it impossible to give anything
    to a parent, and so involve the grossest breach of the Fifth
    Commandment! Such, according to Rabbinic Law, was the
    'common' and such the 'sanctifying' touch of the hands, and
    did such traditionalism not truly 'make void the Word of
    God'?

     A few further particulars may serve to set this in clearer
    light. It must not be thought that the pronunciation of the
    votive word 'Qorban,' although meaning 'a gift,' or 'given to
    God,' necessarily dedicated a thing to the Temple. The
    meaning might simply be, and generally was, that it was to be
    regarded like Qorban, that is, that in regard to the person
    or persons named, the thing termed was to be considered as if
    it were Qorban, laid on the altar, and put entirely out of
    their reach. For, although included under the one name, there
    were really two kinds of vows: those of consecration to God,
    and those of personal obligation [See Maimonides, Yad
    haChas., Hilkh. Nedar. i. 1, 2.], and the latter were the
    most frequent.

     To continue. The legal distinction between a vow, an oath,
    and 'the ban,' are clearly marked both in reason and in
    Jewish Law. The oath was an absolute, the vow a conditional
    undertaking, their difference being marked even by this, that
    the language of a vow ran thus: 'That' or 'if' 'I or another
    do such a thing,' 'if I eat;' [a.] while that of the oath was
    a simple affirmation or negation, [b.] 'I shall not eat.' [c
    Jer. Ned. u. s.] On the other hand, the 'ban' might refer to
    one of three things: those dedicated for the use of the
    priesthood, those dedicated to God, or else to a sentence
    pronounced by the Sanhedrin. [d Tos. Arach. iv.] In any case
    it was not lawful to 'ban' the whole of one's property, nor
    even one class of one's property (such as all one's sheep),
    nor yet what could not, in the fullest sense, be called one's
    property, such as a child, a Hebrew slave, or a purchased
    field, which had to be restored in the Year of Jubilee; while
    an inherited field, if banned, would go in perpetuity for the
    use of the priesthood. Similarly, the Law limited vows. Those
    intended to incite to an act (as on the part of one who sold
    a thing), or by way of exaggeration, or in cases of mistake,
    and, lastly, vows which circumstances rendered impossible,
    were declared null. To these four classes the Mishnah added
    those made to escape murder, robbery, and the exactions of
    the publican. If a vow was regarded as rash or wrong,
    attempts were made [e they open a door.'] to open a door for
    repentance. [f Nedar. ix. passim.] Absolutions from a vow
    might be obtained before a 'sage,' or, in his absence, before
    three laymen, [Maimonides u. s. Hilk. Shebh. v. 1.] when all
    obligations became null and void. At the same time the
    Mishnah [g Chag. i. 8.] admits, that this power of absolving
    from vows was a tradition hanging, as it were, in the air,
    [This is altogether a very curious Mishnah. It adds to the
    remark quoted in the text this other significant adminission,
    that the laws about the Sabbath, festive offerings, and the
    malversation of things devoted to God 'are like mountains
    hanging by one hair,' since Scripture is scant on these
    subjects, while the traditional Laws are many.] since it
    received little (or, as Maimonides puts it, no) support from
    Scripture. [On the subject of Vows see also 'The Temple and
    its Services,' pp. 322-326. The student should consult
    Siphre, Par. Mattoth, pp. 55 b to 58 b.]

     There can be no doubt, that the words of Christ referred to
    such vows of personal obligation. By these a person might
    bind himself in regard to men or things, or else put that
    which was another's out of his own reach, or that which was
    his own out of the reach of another, and this as completely
    as if the thing or things had been Qorban, a gift given to
    God. Thus, by simply saying, 'Qorban,' or 'Qorban, that by
    which I might be profited by thee,' a person bound himself
    never to touch, taste, or have anything that belonged to the
    person so addressed. Similarly, by saying 'Qorban, that by
    which thou mightest be profited by me,' he would prevent the
    person so addressed from ever deriving any benefit from that
    which belonged to him. And so stringent was the ordinance
    that (almost in the words of Christ) it is expressly stated
    that such a vow was binding, even if what was vowed involved
    a breach of the Law. [a Nedar. ii. 2.] It cannot be denied
    that such vows, in regard to parents, would be binding, and
    that they were actually made. [I can only express surprise,
    that Wunsche should throw doubt upon it. It is fully admitted
    by Levy, Targ. Worterb. sub.] Indeed, the question is
    discussed in the Mishnah in so many words, whether 'honour of
    father and mother' [b.] constituted a ground for invalidating
    a vow, and decided in the negative against a solitary
    dissenting voice. [c Ned. ix. 1.] And if doubt should still
    exist, a case is related in the Mishnah, [d Nedar. v.] in
    which a father was thus shut out by the vow of his son from
    anything by which he might be profited by him ()[In this case
    the son, desirous that his father should share in the
    festivities at his marriage, proposed to give to a friend the
    court in which the banquet was to be held and the banquet
    itself, but only for the purpose that his father might eat
    and drink with him. The proposal was refused as involving
    sin, and the point afterwards discussed and confirmed,
    implying, that in no circumstances could a parent partake of
    anything belonging to his son, if he had pronounced such a
    vow, the only relaxation being that in case of actual
    starvation ('if he have not what to eat') the son might make
    a present to a third person, when the father might in turn
    receive of it.] Thus the charge brought by Christ is in
    fullest accordance with the facts of the case. More than
    this, the manner in which it is put by St. Mark shows the
    most intimate knowledge of Jewish customs and law. For, the
    seemingly inappropriate addition to our Lord's mention of the
    Fifth Commandment of the words: 'He that revileth father or
    mother, he shall (let him) surely die,' [e Ex. xxi. 17.] is
    not only explained but vindicated by the common usage of the
    Rabbis, [Comp. Wunsche, ad loc.] to mention along with a
    command the penalty attaching to its breach, so as to
    indicate the importance which Scripture attached to it. On
    the other hand, the words of St. Mark: 'Qorban (that is to
    say, gift (viz., to God)) that by which thou mightest be
    profited by me,' are a most exact transcription into Greek of
    the common formula of vowing, as given in the Mishnah and
    Talmud ( ). [Other translations have been proposed, but the
    above is taken from Nedar. viii. 7, with the change only of
    Qonam into Qorban.]

     But Christ did not merely show the hypocrisy of the system
    of traditionalism in conjoining in the name of religion the
    greatest outward punctiliousness with the grossest breach of
    real duty. Never, alas! was that aspect of prophecy, which in
    the present saw the future, more clearly vindicated than as
    the words of Isaiah to Israel now appeared in their final
    fulfilment: 'This people honoureth Me with their lips, but
    their heart is far from Me. Howbeit, in vain do they worship
    Me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.' [The
    quotation is a 'Targum,' which in the last clause follows
    almost entirely the LXX.] But in thus setting forth for the
    first time the real character of traditionalism, and setting
    Himself in open opposition to its fundamental principles, the
    Christ enunciated also for the first time the fundamental
    principle of His own interpretation of the Law. That Law was
    not a system of externalism, in which outward things affected
    the inner man. It was moral and addressed itself to man as a
    moral being, to his heart and conscience. As the spring of
    all moral action was within, so the mode of affecting it
    would be inward. Not from without inwards, but from within
    outwards: such was the principle of the new Kingdom, as
    setting forth the Law in its fulness and fulfilling it.
    'There is nothing from without the [2 Mark the definite
    article.] man, that, entering into him, can defile him; but
    the things which proceed out of the man, those are they that
    defile the man.' [3 The words in St. Mark vii. 16 are of very
    doubtful authenticity.] Not only negatively, but positively,
    was this the fundamental principle of Christian practice in
    direct contrast to that of Pharisaic Judaism. It is in this
    essential contrariety of principle, rather than in any
    details, that the unspeakable difference between Christ and
    all contemporary teachers appears. Nor is even this all. For,
    the principle laid down by Christ concerning that which
    entereth from without and that which cometh from within,
    covers, in its full application, not only the principle of
    Christian liberty in regard to the Mosaic Law, but touches
    far deeper and permanent questions, affecting not only the
    Jew, but all men and to all times.

     As we read it, the discussion, to which such full reference
    has been made, had taken place between the Scribes and the
    Lord, while the multitude perhaps stood aside. But when
    enunciating the grand principle of what constituted real
    defilement, 'He called to Him the multitude.' [a St. Matt.
    xv. 10; St. Mark vii. 14.] It was probably while pursuing
    their way to Capernaum, when this conversation had taken
    place, that His disciples afterwards reported, that the
    Pharisees had been offended by that saying of His to the
    multitude. Even this implies the weakness of the disciples:
    that they were not only influenced by the good or evil
    opinion of these religious leaders of the people, but in some
    measure sympathised with their views. All this is quite
    natural, and as bringing before us real, not imaginary
    persons, so far evidential of the narrative. The answer which
    the Lord gave the disciples bore a twofold aspect: that of
    solemn warning concerning the inevitable fate of every plant
    which God had not planted, and that of warning concerning the
    character and issue of Pharisaic teaching, as being the
    leadership of the blind by the blind, [1 Both these sayings
    seem to have been proverbial at the time, although I am not
    able to quote any passage in Jewish writings in which they
    occur in exactly the same form.] which must end in ruin to
    both.

     But even so the words of Christ are represented in the
    Gospel as sounding strange and difficult to the disciples, so
    truthful and natural is the narrative. But they were earnest,
    genuine men; and when they reached the home in Capernaum,
    Peter, as the most courageous of them, broke the reserve,
    half of fear and half of reverence, which, despite their
    necessary familiarity, seems to have subsisted between the
    Master and His disciples. And the existence of such
    reverential reserve in such circumstances appears, the more
    it is considered, yet another evidence of Christ's Divine
    Character, just as the implied allusion to it in the
    narrative is another undesigned proof of its truthfulness.
    And so Peter would seek for himself and his fellow-disciples
    an explanation of what still seemed to him only parabolic in
    the Master's teachings. He received it in the fullest manner.
    There was, indeed, one part even in the teaching of the Lord,
    which accorded with the higher views of the Rabbis. Those
    sins which Christ set before them as sins of the outward and
    inward man, [2 In St. Mark vii. 21 these outcomings of 'evil
    thoughts' are arranged in three groups of four, characterised
    as in the text; while in St. Matt. xv. 19 the order of the
    ten commandments seems followed. The account of St. Mark is
    the fuller. In both accounts the expression 'blasphemy'
    rendered in tho Revised Version by .railing', seems to refer
    to calumnious and evil speaking about our fellow-men.] and of
    what connects the two: our relation to others, were the
    outcome of evil thoughts.' And this, at least, the Rabbis
    also taught; explaining, with much detail, how the heart was
    alike the source of strength and of weakness, of good and of
    evil thoughts, loved and hated, envied, lusted and deceived,
    proving each statement from Scripture. [a Midr. on Eccles. i.
    16.] But never before could they have realised, that anything
    entering from without could not defile a man. Least of all
    could they perceive the final inference which St. Mark long
    afterwards derived from this teaching of the Lord: 'This He
    said, making all meats clean. [b St. Mark vii. 19, last
    clause.] [3 I have accepted this rending of the words, first
    propounded by St. Chrysostom, and now adopted in the Revised
    Version, although not without much misgiving. For there is
    strong objection to it from the Jewish usus and views. The
    statement in Ber. 61 a, last line, 'The oesophagus which
    causeth to enter and which casteth out all manner of meat.
    seems to imply that the words of Christ were a proverbial
    expression. The Taimudic idea is based on the curious
    physiological notion (Midr. on Eccles. vii. 19), that the
    food passed from the oesophagus first into the larger
    intestine (Hemses, perhaps=omasum), where the food was
    supposed to be crushed as in a mill (Vayyik R. 4, 18; Midr.
    on Eccl. xii. 3), and thence only, through various organs,
    into the stomach proper. (As regards the process in animals,
    see Lewysohn, Zool. d. Talm. pp. 37-40). (The passage from
    Ber. 61 a has been so rendered by Wunsche, in his note on St.
    Matt. xv. 17, as to be in parts well nigh unintelligible.) It
    may interest students that the strange word rendered both in
    the A.V. and the R.V. by 'draught,' seems to correspond to
    the Rabbinic Aphidra which Levy renders by 'the floor of a
    stable formed by the excrements of the animals which are
    soaked and stamped into a hard mass.']

     Yet another time had Peter to learn that lesson, when his
    resistance to the teaching of the vision of the sheet let
    down from heaven was silenced by this: 'What God hath
    cleansed, make not thou common.' [a Acts x.14.] Not only the
    spirit of legalism, but the very terms 'common' (in reference
    to the unwashen hands) and 'making clean' are the same. Nor
    can we wonder at this, if the vision of Peter was real, and
    not, as negative criticism would have it, invented so as to
    make an imaginary Peter, Apostle of the Jews, speak and act
    like Paul. On that hypothesis, the correspondence of thought
    and expression would seem, indeed, inexplicable; on the
    former, the Peter, who has had that vision, is telling
    through St. Mark the teaching that underlay it all, and, as
    he looked back upon it, drawing from it the inference which
    he understood not at the time: 'This He said, making all
    meats clean.'

     A most difficult lesson this for a Jew, and for one like
    Peter, nay, for us all, to learn. And still a third time had
    Peter to learn it, when, in his fear of the Judaisers from
    Jerusalem, he made that common which God had made clean, had
    care of the unwashen hands, but forgot that the Lord had made
    clean all meats. Terrible, indeed, must have been that
    contention which followed between Paul and Peter. Eighteen
    centuries have passed, and that fatal strife is still the
    ground of theological contention against the truth. [1 It is,
    of course. well known that the reasoning of the Tubingen
    school and of kindred negative theology is based on a
    supposed contrariety between the Petrine and Pauline
    direction, and that this again is chiefly based on the
    occurrence in Antioch recorded in Gal. ii. 11 &c.] Eighteen
    centuries, and within the Church also the strife still
    continues. Brethren sharply contend and are separated,
    because they will insist on that as of necessity which should
    be treated as of indifference: because of the not eating with
    unwashen hands, forgetful that He has made all meats clean to
    him who is inwardly and spiritually cleansed.

 THE ASCENT:

    THE GREAT CRISIS IN POPULAR FEELING, THE LAST DISCOURSES IN
    THE SYNAGOGUE OF CAPERNAUM, CHRIST THE BREAD OF LIFE, 'WILL
    YE ALSO GO AWAY?'

    CHAPTER XXXII.

     (St. John vi. 22-71.) [1 It is specially requested that this
    chapter be read along with the text of Scripture.]

     THE narrative now returns to those who, on the previous
    evening, had, after the miraculous meal, been 'sent away' to
    their homes. We remember, that this had been after an
    abortive attempt on their part to take Jesus by force and
    make Him their Messiah-King. We can understand that the
    effectual resistance of Jesus to their purpose not only
    weakened, but in great measure neutralised, the effect of the
    miracle which they had witnessed. In fact, we look upon this
    check as the first turning of the tide of popular enthusiasm.
    Let us bear in mind what ideas and expectations of an
    altogether external character those men connected with the
    Messiah of their dreams. At last, by some miracle more
    notable even than the giving of the Manna in the wilderness,
    enthusiasm has been raised to the highest pitch, and
    thousands were determined to give up their pilgrimage to the
    Passover, and then and there proclaim the Galilean Teacher
    Israel's King. If He were the Messiah, such was His rightful
    title. Why then did He so strenuously and effectually resist
    it? In ignorance of His real views concerning the Kingship,
    they would naturally conclude that it must have been from
    fear, from misgiving, from want of belief in Himself. At any
    rate, He could not be the Messiah, Who would not be Israel's
    King. Enthusiasm of this kind, once repressed, could never be
    kindled again. Henceforth there was continuous
    misunderstanding, doubt and defection among former adherents,
    growing into opposition and hatred unto death. Even to those
    who took not this position, Jesus, His Words and Works, were
    henceforth a constant mystery. [2 We are here involuntarily
    reminded of the fate of Elijah on the morning after the
    miracle on Mount Carmel. But how different the bearing of
    Christ from that of the great prophet!] And so it came, that
    the morning after the miraculous meal found the vast majority
    of those who had been fed, either in their homes or on their
    pilgrim-way to the Passover at Jerusalem. Only comparatively
    few came back to seek Him, where they had eaten bread at His
    Hand. And even to them, as the after-conversation shows,
    Jesus was a mystery. They could not disbelieve, and yet they
    could not believe; and they sought both 'a sign' to guide,
    and an explanation to give them its understanding. Yet out of
    them was there such selection of grace, that all that the
    Father had given would reach Him, and that they who, by a
    personal act of believing choice and by determination of
    conviction, would come, should in no wise be rejected of Him.

     It is this view of the mental and moral state of those who,
    on the morning after the meal, came to seek Jesus, which
    alone explains the question and answers of the interview at
    Capernaum. As we read it: 'the day following the multitude
    which stood on the other (the eastern) side of the sea' 'saw
    that Jesus was not there, neither His disciples.' [a vv. 22,
    24.] But of two facts they were cognizant. They knew that, on
    the evening before, only one boat had come over, bringing
    Jesus and His disciples; and that Jesus had not returned in
    it with His disciples, for they had seen them depart, while
    Jesus remained to dismiss the people. In these circumstances
    they probably imagined, that Christ had returned on foot by
    land, being, of course, ignorant of the miracle of that
    night. But the wind which had been contrary to the disciples,
    had also driven over to the eastern shore a number of
    fishing-boats from Tiberias (and this is one of the
    undesigned confirmations of the narrative). These they now
    hired, and came to Capernaum, making inquiry for Jesus.
    Whether on that Friday afternoon they went to meet Him on His
    way from Gennesaret (which the wording of St. John vi. 25
    makes likely), or awaited His arrival at Capernaum, is of
    little importance. Similarly, it is difficult to determine
    whether the conversation and outlined address of Christ took
    place on one or partly on several occasions: on the Friday
    afternoon or Sabbath morning, or only on the Sabbath. All
    that we know for certain is, that the last part (at any rate
    [b St. John vi. 53-58.] was spoken 'in Synagogue, as He
    taught in Capernaum.' [c ver. 59.] It has been well observed,
    that 'there are evident breaks after verse 40 and verse 51.'
    [1 Westcott, ad. loc.] Probably the succession of events may
    have been that part of what is here recorded by St. John [d
    vi. 25-65.] had taken place when those from across the Lake
    had first met Jesus; [e vv. 25-36.] part on the way to, and
    entering, the Synagogue; [f vv. 41-52.] and part as what He
    spoke in HisDiscourse, [a vv. 52-58.] and then after the
    defection of some of His former disciples. [b vv. 61-65.] But
    we can only suggest such an arrangment, since it would have
    been quite consistent with Jewish practice, that the greater
    part should have taken place in the Synagogue itself, the
    Jewish questions and objections representing either an
    irregular running commentary on His Words, or expressions
    during breaks in, or at the conclusion of, His teaching.

     This, however, is a primary requirement, that, what Christ
    is reported to have spoken, should appear suited to His
    hearers: such as would appeal to what they knew, such also as
    they could understand. This must be kept in view, even while
    admitting that the Evangelist wrote his Gospel in the light
    of much later and fuller knowledge, and for the instruction
    of the Christian Church, and that there may be breaks and
    omissions in the reported, as compared with the original
    Discourse, which, if supplied, would make its understanding
    much easier to a Jew. On the other hand, we have to bear in
    mind all the circumstances of the case. The Discourse in
    question was delivered in the city, which had been the scene
    of so many of Christ's great miracles, and the centre of His
    teaching, and in the Synagogue, built by the good Centurion,
    and of which Jairus was the chief ruler. Here we have the
    outward and inward conditions for even the most advanced
    teaching of Christ. Again, it was delivered under twofold
    moral conditions, to which we may expect the Discourse of
    Christ to be adapted. For, first, it was after that
    miraculous feeding which had raised the popular enthusiasm to
    the highest pitch, and also after that chilling
    disappointment of their Judaistic hopes in Christ's utmost
    resistance to His Messianic proclamation. They now came
    'seeking for Jesus,' in every sense of the word. They knew
    not what to make of those, to them, contradictory and
    irreconcilable facts; they came, because they did eat of the
    loaves, without seeing in them 'signs.' [c ver. 26.] And
    therefore they came for such a 'sign' as they could perceive,
    and for such teaching in interpretation of it as they could
    understand. They were outwardly, by what had happened,
    prepared for the very highest teaching, to which the
    preceding events had led up, and therefore they must receive
    such, if any. But they were not inwardly prepared for it, and
    therefore they could not understand it. Secondly, and in
    connection with it, we must remember that two high points had
    been reached, by the people, that Jesus was the Messiah-King;
    by the ship's company, that He was the Son of God. However
    imperfectly these truths may have been apprehended, yet the
    teaching of Christ, if it was to be progressive, must start
    from them and then point onwards and upwards. In this
    expectation we shall not be disappointed. And if, by the side
    of all this, we shall find allusions to peculiarly Jewish
    thoughts and views, these will not only confirm the Evangelic
    narrative, but furnish additional evidence of the Jewish
    authorship of the Fourth Gospel.

     1. The question [a St. John vi. 25-29.]: 'Rabbi, when camest
    Thou hither?' with which they from the eastern shore greeted
    Jesus, seems to imply that they were perplexed about, and
    that some perhaps had heard a vague rumour of the miracle of
    His return to the western shore. It was the beginning of that
    unhealthy craving for the miraculous which the Lord had so
    sharply to reprove. In His own words: they sought Him not
    because they 'saw signs,' but because they 'ate of the
    loaves,' and, in their coarse love for the miraculous, 'were
    filled.' [1 Canon Westcott notes the intended realism in the
    choice of words: 'Literally, "were satisfied with food as
    animals with fodder."'] What brought them, was not that they
    had discerned either the higher meaning of that miracle, or
    the Son of God, but those carnal Judaistic expectancies which
    had led them to proclaim Him King. What they waited for, was
    a Kingdom of God, not in righteousness, joy, and peace in the
    Holy Ghost, but in meat and drink, a kingdom with miraculous
    wilderness-banquets to Israel, and coarse miraculous triumphs
    over the Gentiles. Not to speak of the fabulous Messianic
    banquet which a sensuous realism expected, or of the
    achievements for which it looked, every figure in which
    prophets had clothed the brightness of those days was first
    literalised, and then exaggerated, till the most glorious
    poetic descriptions became the most repulsively incongruous
    caricatures of spiritual Messianic expectancy. The
    fruit-trees were every day, or at least every week or two, to
    yield their riches, the fields their harvests; [b Shabb. 30
    b; Jer. Sheqal. vi. 2.] the grain was to stand like palm
    trees, and to be reaped and winnowed without labour. [c
    Kethub. 111b.] Similar blessings were to visit the vine;
    ordinary trees would bear like fruit trees, and every
    produce, of every clime, would be found in Palestine in such
    abundance and luxuriance as only the wildest imagination
    could conceive.

     Such were the carnal thoughts about the Messiah and His
    Kingdom of those who sought Jesus because they 'ate of the
    loaves, and were filled.' What a contrast between them and
    the Christ, as He pointed them from the search for such meat
    to 'work for the meat which He would give them,' not a merely
    Jewish Messiah, but as 'the son of Man.' And yet, in uttering
    this strange truth, Jesus could appeal to something they knew
    when He added, 'for Him the Father hath sealed, even God.'
    The words, which seem almost inexplicable in this connection,
    become clear when we remember that this was a well-known
    Jewish expression. According to the Rabbis, 'the seal of God
    was Truth (AeMeTH),' the three letters of which this word is
    composed in Hebrew ( ) being, as was significantly pointed
    out, respectively the first, the middle, and the last letters
    of the alphabet. [a Jer. Sanh. 18a; Ber. R. 81.] Thus the
    words of Christ would convey to His hearers that for the real
    meat, which would endure to eternal life, for the better
    Messianic banquet, they must come to Him, because God had
    impressed upon Him His own seal of truth, and so
    authenticated His Teaching and Mission.

     In passing, we mark this as a Jewish allusion, which only a
    Jewish writer (not an Ephesian Gospel) would have recorded.
    But it is by no means the only one. It almost seems like a
    sudden gleam of light, as if they were putting their hand to
    this Divine Seal, when they now ask Him what they must do, in
    order to work the Works of God? Yet strangely refracted seems
    this ray of light, when they connect the Works of God with
    their own doing. And Christ directed them, as before, only
    more clearly, to Himself. To work the Works of God they must
    not do, but believe in Him Whom God had sent. Their twofold
    error consisted in imagining, that they could work the Works
    of God, and this by some doing of their own. On the other
    hand, Christ would have taught them that these Works of God
    were independent of man, and that they would be achieved
    through man's faith in the Mission of the Christ.

     2. As it impresses itself on our minds, what now follows [b
    St John vi. 30-36.] took place at a somewhat different time,
    perhaps on the way to the Synagogue. It is a remarkable
    circumstance, that among the ruins of the Synagogue of
    Capernaum the lintel has been discovered, and that it bears
    the device of a pot of manna, ornamented with a flowing
    pattern of vine leaves and clusters of grapes. [1 Comp.
    'Sketches of Jewish Social Life,' pp. 256, 257.] Here then
    were the outward emblems, which would connect themselves with
    the Lord's teaching on that day. The miraculous feeding of
    the multitude in the 'desert place' the evening before, and
    the Messianic thoughts which clustered around it, would
    naturally suggest to their minds remembrance of the manna.
    That manna, which was Angels' food, distilled (as they
    imagined) from the upper light, 'the dew from above' [c Yoma
    75 b.], miraculous food, of all manner of taste, and suited
    to every age, according to the wish or condition of him who
    see ate it, [d Shem. B. 25.] but bitterness to Gentile
    palates, they expected the Messiah to bring again from
    heaven. For, all that the first deliverer Moses had done, the
    second, Messiah, would also do. [a Midr. on Eccles. i. 9.]
    And here, over their Synagogue, was the pot of manna, symbol
    of what God had done, earnest of what the Messiah would do:
    that pot of manna, which was now among the things hidden, but
    which Elijah, when he came, would restore again!

     Here, then, was a real sign. In their view the events of
    yesterday must lead up to some such sign, if they had any
    real meaning. They had been told to believe on Him, as the
    One authenticated by God with the seal of Truth, and Who
    would give them meat to eternal life. By what sign would
    Christ corroborate His assertion, that they might see and
    believe? What work would He do to vindicate His claim? Their
    fathers had eaten manna in the wilderness. To understand the
    reasoning of the Jews, implied but not fully expressed, as
    also the answer of Jesus, it is necessary to bear in mind
    (what forms another evidence of the Jewish authorship of the
    Fourth Gospel), that it was the oft and most anciently
    expressed opinion that, although God had given them this
    bread out of heaven, yet it was given through the merits of
    Moses, and ceased with his death. [b Targ. PseudoJon. on
    Deut. xxxiv. 8; Taan. 9 a.] This the Jews had probably in
    view, when they asked: 'What workest Thou?'; and this was the
    meaning of Christ's emphatic assertion, that it was not Moses
    who gave Israel that bread. And then by what, with all
    reverence, may still be designated a peculiarly Jewish turn
    of reasoning, such as only those familiar with Jewish
    literature can fully appreciate (and which none but a Jewish
    reporter would have inserted in his Gospel), the Saviour
    makes quite different, yet to them familiar, application of
    the manna. Moses had not given it, his merits had not
    procured it, but His Father gave them the true bread out of
    heaven. 'For,' as He explained, 'the bread of God is that [1
    Not as in the A.V. of ver. 33: 'He Which cometh down from
    heaven.' The alteration is most important in the argument as
    addressed to the Jews: the one they could understand and
    would admit, not so the other.] which cometh down from
    heaven, and giveth life unto the world.' Again, this very
    Rabbinic tradition, which described in such glowing language
    the wonders of that manna, also further explained its other
    and real meaning to be, that if Wisdom said, 'Eat of my bread
    and drink of my wine,' [c Prov. ix. 5.] it indicated that the
    manna and the miraculous water-supply were the sequence of
    Israel's receiving the Law and the Commandments [d Shem. R.
    25.], for the real bread from heaven was the Law. [e Comp.
    Chag. 14 a.] [2 In the Midrash on Eccl. ii. 24; iii. 12;
    viii. 15, we are told, that when in Ecclesiastes we read of
    eating and drinking, it always refers to the Law and good
    works.]

     It was an appeal which the Jews understood, and to which
    they could not but respond. Yet the mood was brief. As Jesus,
    in answer to the appeal that He would evermore give them this
    bread, once more directed them to Himself, from works of men
    to the Works of God and to faith, the passing gleam of
    spiritual hope had already died out, for they had seen Him
    and 'yet did not believe.'

     With these words of mingled sadness and judgment, Jesus
    turned away from His questioners. The solemn sayings which
    now followed [a St. John vi. 37-40.] could not have been
    spoken to, and they would not have been understood by, the
    multitude. And accordingly we find that, when the
    conversation of the Jews is once more introduced, [b ver.
    41.] it takes up the thread where it had been broken off,
    when Jesus spake of Himself as the Bread Which had come down
    from heaven. Had they heard what, in our view, Jesus spake
    only to His disciples, their objections would have been to
    more than merely the incongruity of Christ's claim to have
    come down from heaven. [1 After having arrived at this
    conclusion,I find that Canon Westcott has expressed the same
    views, and I rejoice in being fortified by so great an
    authority.]

     3. Regarding these words of Christ, then, as addressed to
    the disciples, there is really nothing in them beyond their
    standpoint, though they open views of the far horizon. They
    had the experience of the raising of the young man at Nain,
    and there, at Capernaum, of Jairus' daughter. Besides,
    believing that Jesus was the Messiah, it might perhaps not be
    quite strange nor new to them as Jews, although not commonly
    received, that He would at the end of the world raise the
    pious dead. [2 But not here and there one dead. In general,
    see vol. i. p. 633, where the question of Jewish belief on
    that subject is discussed.] Indeed, one of the names given to
    the Messiah, that of Yinnon, according to Ps. lxxii. 17 [c
    Sanh. 98 b.], has by some been derived from this very
    expectancy. [d Midrash on Ps. xciii. 1; Pirke de R. Eliez.
    32, ed. Lemb. p. 39 b.] Again, He had said, that it was not
    any Law, but His Person, that was the bread which came down
    from heaven, and gave life, not to Jews only, but unto the
    world, and they had seen Him and believed not. But none the
    less would the loving purpose of God be accomplished in the
    totality of His true people, and its joyous reality be
    experienced by every individual among them: 'All that (the
    total number ) which the Father giveth Me shall come unto Me
    (shall reach Me [3 So Canon Westcott; and also Godet ad
    loc.]), and him that cometh unto Me (the coming one to Me) I
    will not cast out outside.' What follows is merely the
    carrying out in all directions, and to its fullest
    consequences, of this twofold fundamental principle. The
    totality of the God-given would really reach Him, despite all
    hindrances, for the object of His Coming was to do the Will
    of His Father; and those who came would not be cast outside,
    for the Will of Him that had sent Him, and which He had come
    to do, was that of 'the all which He has given' Him, He
    'should not lose anything out of this, but raise it up in the
    last day.' Again, the totality, the all, would reach Him,
    since it was the Will of Him that sent Him 'that everyone ( )
    who intently looketh [1 Mark the special meaning of as
    previously explained.] at the Son, and believeth on Him,
    should have eternal life;' and the coming ones would not be
    cast outside, since this was His undertaking and promise as
    the Christ in regard to each: 'And raise him up will I at the
    last day.'[a St. John vi. 40.]

     Although these wonderful statements reached in their full
    meaning far beyond the present horizon of His disciples, and
    even to the utmost bounds of later revelation and Christian
    knowledge, there is nothing in them which could have seemed
    absolutely strange or unintelligible to those who heard them.
    Given belief in the Messiahship of Jesus and His Mission by
    the Father; given experience of what He had done, and
    perhaps, to a certain extent, Jewish expectancy of what the
    Messiah would do in the last day; and all this directed or
    corrected by the knowledge concerning His work which His
    teaching had imparted, and the words were intelligible and
    most suitable, even though they would not convey to them all
    that they mean to us. If so seemingly incongruous an
    illustration might be used, they looked through a telescope
    that was not yet drawn out, and saw the same objects, through
    quite diminutively and far otherwise than we, as gradually
    the hand of Time has drawn out fully that through which both
    they and we, who believe, intently gaze on the Son.

     4. What now follows [b St. John vi. 41-51.] is again spoken
    to 'the Jews,' and may have occurred just as they were
    entering the Synagogue. To those spiritually unenlightened,
    the point of difficulty seemed, how Christ could claim to be
    the Bread come down from heaven. Making the largest
    allowance, His known parentage and early history [2 This is
    not narratedin the Fourth Gospel. But allusions like this
    cover the whole early history of Jesus, and prove that
    omissions of the most important facts in the history of Jesus
    are neither due to ignorance of them on the part of the
    writer of the Fourth Gospel, nor to the desire to express by
    silence his dissent from the accounts of the Synoptists.]
    forbade anything like a literal interpretation of His Words.
    But this inability to understand, ever brings out the highest
    teaching of Christ. We note the analogous fact, and even the
    analogous teaching, in the case of Nicodemus. [a St. John
    iii. 3 &c.] [1 Canon Westcott has called attention to this.]
    Only, his was the misunderstanding of ignorance, theirs of
    wilful resistance to His Manifestation; and so the tone
    towards them was other than to the Rabbi.

     Yet we also mark, that what Jesus now spake to 'the Jews'
    was the same in substance, though different in application,
    from what He had just uttered to the disciples. This, not
    merely in regard to the Messianic prediction of the
    Resurrection, but even in what He pronounced as the judgment
    on their murmuring. The words: 'No man can come to Me, except
    the Father Which hath sent Me draw him,' present only the
    converse aspect of those to the disciples: 'All that which
    the Father giveth Me shall come unto Me, and him that cometh
    unto Me I will in no wise cast out.' For, far from being a
    judgment on, it would have been an excuse of, Jewish
    unbelief, and, indeed, entirely discordant with all Christ's
    teaching, if the inability to come were regarded as other
    than personal and moral, springing from man's ignorance and
    opposition to spiritual things. No man can come to the
    Christ, such is the condition of the human mind and heart,
    that coming to Christ as a disciple is, not an outward, but
    an inward, not a physical, but a moral impossibility, except
    the Father 'draw him.' And this, again, not in the sense of
    any constraint, but in that of the personal, moral, loving
    influence and revelation, to which Christ afterwards refers
    when He saith: 'And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will
    draw all men unto Myself.' [b St. John xii. 32.]

     Nor did Jesus, even while uttering these high, entirely
    un-Jewish truths, forget that He was speaking them to Jews.
    The appeal to their own Prophets was the more telling, that
    Jewish tradition also applied these two prophecies (Is. liv.
    13; Jer. xxxi. 34) to the teaching by God in the Messianic
    Age. [c Is. liv. 13 in Ber. R. 95 on Gen. xlvi. 28; Jerem.
    xxxi. 34 in Yalkut vol ii. p. 66 d.] [2 For other Rabbinic
    applications of these verses to the Messiah and His times,
    see the Appendix on Messianic assages.] But the explanation
    of the manner and issue of God's teaching was new: 'Everyone
    that hath heard from the Father, and learned, cometh unto
    Me.' And this, not by some external or realistic contact with
    God, such as they regarded that of Moses in the past, or
    expected for themselves in the latter days; only 'He Which is
    from God, He hath seen the Father.' But even this might sound
    general and without exclusive reference to Christ. So, also,
    might this statement seem: 'He that believeth [3 The words
    'on Me' are spurious.] hath eternal life.' Not so the final
    application, in which the subject was carried to its ultimate
    bearing, and all that might have seemed general or mysterious
    plainly set forth. The Personality of Christ was the Bread of
    Life: 'I am the Bread of Life.' [a ver. 48.] The Manna had
    not been bread of life, for those who ate it had died, their
    carcasses had fallen in the wilderness. Not so in regard to
    this, the true Bread from heaven. To share in that Food was
    to have everlasting life, a life which the sin and death of
    unbelief and judgment would not cut short, as it had that of
    them who had eaten the Manna and died in the wilderness. It
    was another and a better Bread which came from heaven in
    Christ, and another, better, and deathless life which was
    connected with it: 'the Bread that I will give is My Flesh,
    [1 The words in the A.V., which I will give,' are spurious.]
    for the life of the world.'

     5. These words, so deeply significant to us, as pointing out
    the true meaning of all His teaching, must, indeed, have
    sounded most mysterious. Yet the fact that they strove about
    their meaning shows, that they must have had some glimmer of
    apprehension that they bore on His self-surrender, or, as
    they might view it, His martyrdom. This last point is set
    forth in the concluding Discourse, [b vv. 53-58.] which we
    know to have been delivered in the Synagogue, whether before,
    during, or after, His regular Sabbath address. It was not a
    mere martyrdom for the life of the world, in which all who
    benefited by it would share, but personal fellowship with
    Him. Eating the Flesh and drinking the Blood of the Son of
    Man, such was the necessary condition of securing eternal
    life. It is impossible to mistake the primary reference of
    these words to our personal application of His Death and
    Passion to the deepest need and hunger of our souls; most
    difficult, also, to resist the feeling that, secondarily, [2
    Canon Westcott (ad loc.) clearly shows,that the reference to
    the Holy Supper can only be secondary. Mark here specially,
    that in the latter we have 'the Body,' not 'the Flesh' of the
    Lord.] they referred to that Holy Feast which shows forth
    that Death and Passion, and is to all time its remembrance,
    symbol, seal, and fellowship. In this, also, has the hand of
    History drawn out the telescope; and as we gaze through it,
    every sentence and word sheds light upon the Cross and light
    from the Cross, carrying to us this twofold meaning: His
    Death, and its Celebration in the great Christian Sacrament.

     6. But to them that heard it, nay even to many of His
    disciples, this was an hard saying. Who could bear it? For it
    was a thorough disenchantment of all their Judaic illusions,
    an entire upturning of all their Messianic thoughts, and
    that, not merely to those whose views were grossly carnal,
    but even to many who had hitherto been drawn closer to Him.
    The 'meat' and 'drink' from heaven which had the Divine seal
    of 'truth' were, according to Christ's teaching, not 'the
    Law,' nor yet Israel's privileges, but fellowship with the
    Person of Jesus in that state of humbleness ('the Son of
    Joseph,' [a ver. 42.]),nay, or martydom, which His words
    seemed to indicate, 'My Flesh is the true [1 Comp. here the
    remarks on ver. 27, about Truth as the seal with which God
    sealed the Christ.] meat, and My Blood is the true drink;' [b
    ver. 55.] and whateven this fellowship secured, consisted
    only in abiding in Him and He in them; [c ver. 56.] or, as
    they would understand it, in inner communion with Him, and in
    sharing His condition and views. Truly, this was a totally
    different Messiah and Messianic Kingdom from what they either
    conceived or wished.

     Though they spake it not, this was the rock of offence over
    which they stumbled and fell. And Jesus read their thoughts.
    How unfit were they to receive all that was yet to happen in
    connection with the Christ, how unprepared for it! If they
    stumbled at this, what when they came to contemplate [2 Mark
    here also the special meaning of .] the far more mysterious
    and un-Jewish facts of the Messiah's Crucifixion and
    Ascension ! [d ver. 62.] Truly, not outward following, but
    only inward and spiritual life-quickening could be of profit,
    even in the case of those who heard the very Words of Christ,
    which were spirit and life. Thus it again appeared, and most
    fully, that, morally speaking, it was absolutely impossible
    to come to Him, even if His Words were heard, except under
    the gracious influence from above. [e ver. 65; comp. vv.
    37,44.]

     And so this was the great crisis in the History of the
    Christ. We have traced the gradual growth and development of
    the popular movement, till the murder of the Baptist stirred
    popular feeling to its inmost depth. With his death it seemed
    as if the Messianic hope, awakened by his preaching and
    testimony to Christ, were fading from view. It was a terrible
    disappointment, not easily borne. Now must it be decided,
    whether Jesus was really the Messiah. His Works,
    notwithstanding what the Pharisees said, seemed to prove it.
    Then let it appear; let it come, stroke upon stroke, each
    louder and more effective than the other, till the land rang
    with the shout of victory and the world itself re-echoed it.
    And so it seemed. That miraculous feeding, that
    wilderness-cry of Hosanna to the Galilean King-Messiah from
    thousands of Galilean voices, what were they but its
    beginning? All the greater was the disappointment: first, in
    the repression of the movement, so to speak, the retreat of
    the Messiah, His voluntary abdication, rather, His defeat;
    then, next day, the incongruousness of a King, Whose few
    unlearned followers, in their ignorance and un-Jewish neglect
    of most sacred ordinances, outraged every Jewish feeling, and
    whose conduct was even vindicated by their Master in a
    general attack on all traditionalism, that basis of Judaism,
    as it might be represented, to the contempt of religion and
    even of common truthfulness in the denunciation of solemn
    vows! This was not the Messiah Whom the many, nay, Whom
    almost any , would own. [a St. Matt. xv. 12.]

     Here, then, we are at the parting of the two ways; and, just
    because it was the hour of decision, did Christ so clearly
    set forth the highest truths concerning Himself, in
    opposition to the views which the multitude entertained about
    the Messiah. The result was yet another and a sorer
    defection. 'Upon this many of His disciples went back, and
    walked no more with Him.' [b St. John vi. 66.] Nay, the
    searchingtrial reached even unto the hearts of the Twelve.
    Would they also go away? It was an anticipation of
    Gethsemane, its first experience. But one thing kept them
    true. It was the experience of the past. This was the basis
    of their present faith and allegiance. They could not go back
    to their old past; they must cleave to Him. So Peter spake it
    in name of them all: 'Lord, to whom shall we go? Words of
    Eternal Life hast Thou!' Nay, and more than this, as the
    result of what they had learned: 'And we have believed and
    know that Thou art the Holy One of God.' [c vv. 68, 69.] [1
    This is the reading of all the best MSS., and not as in the
    A.V. 'that Christ, the Son of the Living God.' For the
    history of the variations by which this change was brought
    about, see Westcott, ad loc.] It is thus, also, that many of
    us, whose thoughts may have been sorely tossed, and whose
    foundations terribly assailed, may have found our first
    resting-place in the assured, unassailable spiritual
    experience of the past. Whither can we go for Words of
    Eternal Life, if not to Christ? If He fails us, then all hope
    of the Eternal is gone. But He has the Words of Eternal life,
    and we believed when they first came to us; nay, we know that
    He is the Holy One of God. And this conveys all that faith
    needs for further learning. The rest will He show, when He is
    transfigured in our sight.

     But of these Twelve Christ knew one to be 'a devil', like
    that Angel, fallen from highest height to lowest depth. [2
    The right reading of ver. 71 is: 'Judas the son of Simon
    Iscariot,' that is, 'a man of Kerioth.' Kerioth was in Judaea
    (Josh. xv. 25), and Judas, it will be remembered, the only
    Judaean disciple of Jesus.] The apostasy of Judas had already
    commenced in his heart. And, the greater the popular
    expectancy and disappointment had been, the greater the
    reaction and the enmity that followed. The hour of decision
    was past, and the hand on the dial pointed to the hour of His
    Death.

 THE ASCENT:

    JESUS AND THE SYRO-PHOENICIAN WOMAN

    CHAPTER XXXIII

     (St. Matt. xv. 21-28; St. Mark vii. 24-30.)

     THE purpose of Christ to withdraw His disciples from the
    excitement of Galilee, and from what might follow the
    execution of the Baptist, had been interrupted by the events
    at Bethsaida-Julias, but it was not changed. On the contrary,
    it must have been intensified. That wild, popular outburst,
    which had almost forced upon Him a Jewish Messiah-Kingship;
    the discussion with the Jerusalem Scribes about the washing
    of hands on the following day; the Discourses of the Sabbath,
    and the spreading disaffection, defection, and opposition
    which were its consequences, all pointed more than ever to
    the necessity of a break in the publicity of His Work, and to
    withdrawal from that part of Galilee. The nearness of the
    Sabbath, and the circumstance that the Capernaum-boat lay
    moored on the shore of Bethsaida, had obliged Him, when
    withdrawing from that neighbourhood, to return to Capernaum.
    And there the Sabbath had to be spent, in what manner we
    know. But as soon as its sacred rest was past, the journey
    was resumed. For the reasons already explained, it extended
    much further than any other, and into regions which, we may
    venture to suggest, would not have been traversed but for the
    peculiar circumstances of the moment.

     A comparatively short journey would bring Jesus and His
    companions from Capernaum 'into the parts,' or, as St. Mark
    more specifically calls them, 'the borders of Tyre and
    Sidon.' At that time this district extended, north of
    Galilee, [a Jos. War iii. 3. 1.] from the Mediterranean to
    the Jordan. But the event about to be related occurred, as
    all circumstances show, not within the territory of Tyre and
    Sidon, but on its borders, and within the limits of the Land
    of Israel. If any doubt could attach to the objects which
    determined Christ's journey to those parts, it would be
    removed by the circumstance that St. Matthew [b St. Matt. xv.
    21.] tells us, He 'withdrew' [1 So correctly
    rendered.]thither, while St. Mark notes that He 'entered into
    an house, and would have no man know it.' That house in which
    Jesus sought shelter and privacy would, of course, be a
    Jewish home; and, that it was within the borders of Israel,
    is further evidenced by the notice of St. Matthew, that 'the
    Canaanitish woman' who sought His help 'came out from those
    borders', that is, from out the Tyro-Sidonian district, into
    that Galilean border where Jesus was.

     The whole circumstances seem to point to more than a night's
    rest in that distant home. Possibly, the two first
    Passover-days may have been spent here. If the Saviour had
    left Capernaum on the Sabbath evening, or the Sunday morning,
    He may have reached that home on the borders before the
    Paschal Eve, and the Monday and Tuesday [1 Or, the
    Passover-eve may have been Monday evening.] may have been the
    festive Paschal days, on which sacred rest was enjoined. This
    would also give an adequate motive for such a sojourn in that
    house, as seems required by the narrative of St. Mark.
    According to that Evangelist, 'Jesus would have no man know'
    His Presence in that place, 'but He could not be hid.'
    Manifestly, this could not apply to the rest of one night in
    a house. According to the same Evangelist, the fame of His
    Presence spread into the neighbouring district of Tyre and
    Sidon, and reached the mother of the demonised child, upon
    which she went from her home into Galilee to apply for help
    to Jesus. All this implies a stay of two or three days. And
    with this also agrees the after-complaint of the disciples:
    'Send her away, for she crieth after us.' [a St. Matt. xv.
    23.] As the Saviour apparently received the woman in the
    house, [b St. Mark vii. 24, 25.] it seems that she must have
    followed some of the disciples, entreating their help or
    intercession in a manner that attracted the attention which,
    according to the will of Jesus, they would fain have avoided,
    before, in her despair, she ventured into the Presence of
    Christ within the house.

     All this resolves into a higher harmony those small seeming
    discrepancies, which negative criticism had tried to magnify
    into contradictions. It also adds graphic details to the
    story. She who now sought His help was, as St. Matthew calls
    her, from the Jewish standpoint, 'a Canaanitish [c Ezra ix.
    1.] woman,' by which term a Jew would designate a native of
    Phoenicia, or, as St. Mark calls her, a Syro-Phoenician (to
    distinguish her country from Lybo-Phoenicia), and 'a Greek',
    that is, a heathen. But, we can understand how she who, as
    Bengel says, made the misery of her little child her own,
    would, on hearing of the Christ and His mighty deed, seek His
    help with the most intense earnestness, and that, in so
    doing, she would approach Him with lowliest reverence,
    falling at His Feet. [a St. Mark vii. 25.] But what in the
    circumstances seems so peculiar, and, in our view, furnishes
    the explanation of the Lord's bearing towards this woman, is
    her mode of addressing Him: 'O Lord, Thou Son of David!' This
    was the most distinctively Jewish appellation of the Messiah;
    and yet it is emphatically stated of her, that she was a
    heathen. Tradition has preserved a few reported sayings of
    Christ, of which that about to be quoted seems, at least,
    quite Christ-like. It is reported that, 'having seen a man
    working on the Sabbath, He said: "O man, if indeed thou
    knowest what thou doest, thou are blessed; but if thou
    knowest not, thou are cursed, and art a transgressor of the
    Law."' [1 Comp. Cannon Westcott, Introduction to the Study of
    the Gospels, Appendix C.] The same principle applied to the
    address of this woman, only that, in what followed, Christ
    imparted to her the knowledge needful to make her blessed.

     Spoken by a heathen, these words were an appeal, not to the
    Messiah of Israel, but to an Israelitish Messiah, for David
    had never reigned over her or her people. The title might be
    most rightfully used, if the promises to David were fully and
    spiritually apprehended, not otherwise. If used without that
    knowledge, it was an address by a stranger to a Jewish
    Messiah, Whose works were only miracles, and not also and
    primarily signs. Now this was exactly the error of the Jews
    which Jesus had encountered and combated, alike when He
    resisted the attempt to make Him King, in His reply to the
    Jerusalem Scribes, and in His Discourses at Capernaum. To
    have granted her the help she so entreated, would have been,
    as it were, to reverse the whole of His Teaching, and to make
    His works of healing merely works of power. For, it will not
    be contended that this heathen woman had full spiritual
    knowledge of the world-wide bearing of the Davidic promises,
    or of the worldembracing designation of the Messiah as the
    Son of David. In her mouth, then, it meant something to which
    Christ could not have yielded. And yet He could not refuse
    her petition. And so He first taught her, in such manner as
    she could understand, that which she needed to know, before
    she could approach Him in such manner, the relation of the
    heathen to the Jewish world, and of both to the Messiah, and
    then He gave her what she asked.

     It is this, we feel convinced, which explains all. It could
    not have been, that from His human standpoint He first kept
    silence, His deep tenderness and sympathy forbidding Him to
    speak, while the normal limitation of His Mission forbade Him
    to act as she sought. [1 This view is advocated by Dean
    Plumptre with remarkable beauty, tenderness, and reverence.
    It is also that of Meyer and of Ewald. The latter remarks,
    that our Lord showed twofold greatness: First, in his calm
    limitation to His special mission, and then in His equally
    calm overstepping of it, when a higher ground for so doing
    appeared.] Such limitations could not have existed in His
    mind; nor can we suppose such an utter separation of His
    Human from His Divine consciousness in His Messianic acting.
    And we recoil from the opposite explanation, which supposes
    Christ to have either tried the faith of the woman, or else
    spoken with a view to drawing it out. We shrink from the idea
    of anything like an after-thought, even for a good purpose,
    on the part of the Divine Saviour. All such afterthoughts
    are, to our thinking, incompatible with His Divine Purity and
    absolute rectitude. God does not make us good by a device,
    and that is a very wrong view of trials, or of delayed
    answers to prayer, which men sometimes take. Nor can we
    imagine, that the Lord would have made such cruel trial of
    the poor agonised woman, or played on her feelings, when the
    issue would have been so unspeakable terrible, if in her
    weakness she had failed. There is nothing analogous in the
    case of this poor heathen coming to petition, and being tried
    by being told that she could not be heard, because she
    belonged to the dogs, not the children, and the trial of
    Abraham, who was a hero of faith, and had long walked with
    God. In any case, on any of the views just combated, the
    Words of Jesus would bear a needless and inconceivable
    harshness, which grates on all our feelings concerning Him.
    The Lord does not afflict willingly, nor try needlessly, nor
    disguise His loving thoughts and purposes, in order to bring
    about some effect in us. He needs not such means; and, with
    reverence be it said, we cannot believe that He ever uses
    them.

     But, viewed as the teaching of Christ to this heathen
    concerning Israel's Messiah, all becomes clear, even in the
    very brief reports of the Evangelists, of which that by St.
    Matthew reads like that of one present, that of St. Mark
    rather like that of one who relates what he has heard from
    another (St. Peter). She had spoken, but Jesus had answered
    her not a word. When the disciples, in some measure,
    probably, still sharing the views of this heathen, that he
    was the Jewish Messiah, without, indeed, interceding for her,
    asked that she might be sent away, because she was
    troublesome to them, He replied, that His Mission was only to
    the lost sheep of the house of Israel. This was absolutely
    true, as regarded His Work while upon earth; and true, in
    every sense, as we keep in view the world-wide bearing of the
    Davidic reign and promises, and the real relation between
    Israel and the world. Thus baffled, as it might seem, she
    cried no longer 'Son of David,' but, 'Lord, help me.' It was
    then that the special teaching came in the manner she could
    understand. If it were as 'the Son of David' that He was
    entreated, if the heathen woman as such applied to the Jewish
    Messiah as such, what, in the Jewish view, were the heathens
    but 'dogs,' and what would be fellowship with them, but to
    cast to the dogs, housedogs, [1 The term means 'little dogs,'
    or 'house - dogs.'] it may be, what should have been the
    children's bread? And, certainly, no expression more common
    in the mouth of the Jews, than that which designated the
    heathens as dogs. [a Midr. on Ps. iv. 8; Meg. 7 b.] [2 Many
    passages might be quoted either similar, or based on this
    view of Gentiles.] Most harsh as it was, as the outcome of
    national pride and Jewish self-assertion, yet in a sense it
    was true, that those within were the children, and those
    'without' 'dogs.' [b Rev. xxii. 15.] Only, who were they
    within and who they without? What made 'a child,' whose was
    the bread, and what characterised 'the dog,' that was
    'without'?

     Two lessons did she learn with that instinct-like rapidity
    which Christ's personal Presence, and it alone, seemed ever
    and again to call forth, just as the fire which fell from
    heaven consumed the sacrifice of Elijah. 'Yea, Lord,' it is
    as Thou sayest: heathenism stands related to Judaism as the
    house-dogs to the children, and it were not meet to rob the
    children of their bread in order to give it to dogs. But
    Thine own words show, that such would not now be the case. If
    they are house-dogs, then they are the Master's, and under
    His table, and when He breaks the bread to the children, in
    the breaking of it the crumbs must fall all around. As St.
    Matthew puts it: 'The dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from
    their Master's table;' as St. Mark puts it: 'The dogs under
    the table eat of the children's crumbs.' Both versions
    present different aspects of the same truth. Heathenism may
    be like the dogs, when compared with the children's place and
    privileges; but He is their Master still, and they under His
    table; and when He breaks the bread there is enough and to
    spare for them, even under the table they eat of the
    children's crumbs.

     But in so saying she was no longer 'under the table,' but
    had sat down at the table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and
    was partaker of the children's bread. He was no longer to her
    the Jewish Messiah, but truly 'the Son of David.' She now
    understood what she prayed, and she was a daughter of
    Abraham. And what had taught her all this was faith in His
    Person and Work, as not only just enough for the Jews, but
    enough and to spare for all, children at the table and dogs
    under it; that in and with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and David,
    all nations were blessed in Israel's King and Messiah. And so
    it was, that the Lord said it: 'O woman, great is thy faith:
    be it done unto thee even as thou wilt.' Or, as St. Mark puts
    it, not quoting the very sound of the Lord's words, but their
    impression upon Peter: 'For this saying go thy way; the devil
    is gone out of thy daughter.' [1 Canon Cook (Speaker's Comm.
    on St. Mark vii. 26) regards this 'as one of the very few
    instances in which our Lord's words really differ in the two
    accounts.' With all deference, I venture to think it is not
    so, but that St. Mark gives what St. Peter had received as
    the impression of Christ's words on his mind.] 'And her
    daughter was healed from that hour.' [a St. Matt. xv. 28.]
    'And she went away unto her house, and found her daughter
    prostrate [indeed] upon the bed, and [but] the demon gone
    out.'

     To us there is in this history even more than the solemn
    interest of Christ's compassion and mighty Messianic working,
    or the lessons of His teaching. We view it in connection with
    the scenes of the previous few days, and see how thoroughly
    it accords with them in spirit, thus recognising the deep
    internal unity of Christ's Words and Works, where least,
    perhaps, we might have looked for such harmony. And again we
    view it in its deeper bearing upon, and lessons to, all
    times. To how many, not only of all nations and conditions,
    but in all states of heart and mind, nay, in the very lowest
    depths of conscious guilt and alienation from God, must this
    have brought unspeakable comfort, the comfort of truth, and
    the comfort of His Teaching. Be it so, an outcast, 'dog;' not
    at the table, but under the table. Still we are at His Feet;
    it is our Master's Table; He is our Master; and, as He breaks
    the children's bread, it is of necessity that 'the children's
    crumbs' fall to us, enough, quite enough, and to spare. Never
    can we be outside His reach, nor of that of His gracious
    care, and of sufficient provision to eternal life.
     Yet this lesson also must we learn, that as 'heathens' we
    may not call on Him as 'David's Son,' till we know why we so
    call Him. If there can be no despair, no being cast out by
    Him, no absolute distance that hopelessly separates from His
    Person and Provision, there must be no presumption, no
    forgetfulness of the right relation, no expectancy of
    magic-miracles, no viewing of Christ as a Jewish Messiah. We
    must learn it, and painfully, first by His silence, then by
    this, that He is only sent to the lost sheep of the house of
    Israel, what we are and where we are, that we may be prepared
    for the grace of God and the gift of grace. All men, Jews and
    Gentiles, 'children' and 'dogs', are as before Christ and God
    equally undeserving and equally sinners, but those who have
    fallen deep can only learn that they are sinners by learning
    that they are great sinners, and will only taste of the
    children's bread when they have felt, 'Yea, Lord,' 'for even
    the dogs' 'under the table eat of the children's crumbs,'
    'which fall from their Master's table.'

 THE ASCENT:

    A GROUP OF MIRACLES AMONG A SEMI-HEATHEN POPULATION

    CHAPTER XXXIV

     (St. Matt. xv. 29-31; St. Mark vii 31-37; St. Mark viii.
    22-26; St. Matt. xi. 27-31.)

     If even the brief stay of Jesus in that friendly Jewish home
    by the borders of Tyre could not remain unknown, the fame of
    the healing of the Syro-Phoenician maiden would soon have
    rendered impossible that privacy and retirement, which had
    been the chief object of His leaving Capernaum. Accordingly,
    when the two Paschal days were ended, He resumed His journey,
    extending it far beyond any previously undertaken, perhaps
    beyond what had been originally intended. The borders of
    Palestine proper, though not of what the Rabbis reckoned as
    belonging to it, [1 For the Rabbinic views of the boundaries
    of Palestine see 'Sketches of Jewish Social Life,' ch. ii.]
    were passed. Making a long circuit through the territory of
    Sidon, [2 The correct reading of St. Mark vii. 31, is
    'through Sidon.' By the latter I do not understand the town
    of that name. which would have been quite outside the
    Saviour's route, but (with Ewald and Lange) the territory of
    Sidon.] He descended, probably through one of the passes of
    the Hermon range, into the country of the Tetrarch Philip.
    Thence He continued 'through the midst of the borders of
    Decapolis,' till He once more reached the eastern, or
    south-eastern, shore of the Lake of Galilee. It will be
    remembered that the Decapolis, or confederacy of 'the Ten
    Cities,' [3 The fullest notice ofthe 'Ten Cities' is that of
    Caspari, Chronolog. Geogr. Einl. pp. 83-91, with which
    compare Menke's Bibel-Atlas, Map V.] was wedged in between
    the Tetrarchies of Philip and Antipas. It embraced ten
    cities, although that was not always their number, and their
    names are variously enumerated. Of these cities Hippos, on
    the southeastern shore of the Lake, was the most northern,
    and Philadelphia, the ancient Rabbath-Ammon, the most
    southern. Scythopolis, the ancient Beth-Shean, with its
    district, was the only one of them on the western bank of the
    Jordan. This extensive 'Ten Cities' district was essentially
    heathen territory. Their ancient monuments show, in which of
    them Zeus, Astarte, and Athene, or else Artemis, Hercules,
    Dionysos, Demeter, or other Grecian divinities, were
    worshipped. [1 Comp. Schurer, pp. 382, 383.] Their political
    constitution was that of the free Greek cities. They were
    subject only to the Governor of Syria, and formed part of
    Coele-Syria, in contradistinction to Syro-Phoenicia. Their
    privileges dated from the time of Pompey, from which also
    they afterwards reckoned their era.

     It is important to keep in view that, although Jesus was now
    within the territory of ancient Israel, the district and all
    the surroundings were essentially heathen, although in
    closest proximity to, and intermingling with, that which was
    purely Jewish. St. Matthew [a St. Matt xv. 29-31.] gives only
    a general description of Christ's activity there, concluding
    with a notice of the impression produced on those who
    witnessed His mighty deeds, as leading them to glorify 'the
    God of Israel.' This, of course, confirms the impression that
    the scene is laid among a population chiefly heathen, and
    agrees with the more minute notice of the locality in the
    Gospel of St. Mark. One special instance of miraculous
    healing is recorded in the latter, not only from its
    intrinsic interest, but perhaps, also, as in some respects
    typical.

     1. Among those brought to Him was one deaf, whose speech
    had, probably in consequence of this, been so affected as
    practically to deprive him of its power. [2 or does not mean
    one absolutely dumb. It is literally: difficulter loquens.
    The Rabbinic designation of such a person would have been
    Cheresh (Ter. i. 2) although different opinions obtain as to
    whether the term includes impediment of speech (comp. Meg.
    ii. 4; Gitt. 71 a).] This circumstance, and that he is not
    spoken of as so afflicted from his birth, leads us to infer
    that the affection was, as not unfrequently, the result of
    disease, and not congenital. Remembering, that alike the
    subject of the miracle and they who brought him were
    heathens, but in constant and close contact with Jews, what
    follows is vividly true to life. The entreaty to 'lay His
    Hand upon him' was heathen, and yet semi-Jewish also. Quite
    peculiar it is, when the Lord took him aside from the
    multitude; and again that, in healing him, 'He spat,'
    applying it directly to the diseased organ. We read of the
    direct application of saliva only here and in the healing of
    the blind man at Bethsaida. [b St. Mark v. iii. 23.] [3 InSt.
    John ix. 6 it is really application of clay.] We are disposed
    to regard this as peculiar to the healing of Gentiles.
    Peculiar, also, is the term expressive of burden on the mind,
    when, 'looking up to heaven, He sighed.' [4 occurs only here
    in the Gospels. Otherwise it occurs in Rom. viii. 23; 2 Cor.
    v. 2, 4; Hebr. xiii. 17; James v. 9; the substantive in Acts
    vii. 34; Rom, viii. 26.] Peculiar, also, is the 'thrusting'
    [5 So literally.] of His Fingers into the man's ears, and the
    touch of his tongue. Only the upward look to Heaven and the
    command 'Ephphatha', 'be opened', seem the same as in His
    every day wonders of healing. But we mark that all here seems
    much more elaborate than in Israel. The reason of this must,
    of course, be sought in the moral condition of the person
    healed. Certain characteristics about the action of the Lord
    may, perhaps, help us to understand it better. There is an
    accumulation of means, yet each and all inadequate to effect
    the purpose, but all connected with His Person. This
    elaborate use of such means would banish the idea of magic;
    it would arouse the attention, and fix it upon Christ, as
    using these means, which were all connected with His own
    person; while, lastly, the sighing, and the word of absolute
    command, would all have here their special significance.
     Let us try to realize the scene. They have heard of Him as
    the wonder-worker, these heathens in the land so near to, and
    yet so far from, Israel; and they have brought to Him 'the
    lame, blind, dumb, maimed, [1 means here incurvatus, and not
    as in ix. 43 mutilatus.] and many others,' and laid them at
    His Feet. Oh, what wonder! All disease vanishes in presence
    of Heaven's Own Life Incarnate. Tongues long weighted are
    loosed, limbs maimed or bent by disease [1 means here
    incurvatus, and not as in ix. 43 mutilatus.] are restored to
    health, the lame are stretched straight; the film of disease
    and the paralysis of nerve-impotence pass from eyes long
    insensible to the light. It is a new era, Israel conquers the
    heathen world, not by force, but by love; not by outward
    means, but by the manifestation of life-power from above.
    Truly, this is the Messianic conquest and reign: 'and they
    glorified the God of Israel.'

     From amongst this mass of misery we single out and follow
    one, [a St. Mark vii.31-37.] whom the Saviour takes aside,
    that it may not merely be the breath of heaven's spring
    passing over them all, that wooeth him to new life, but that
    He may touch and handle him, and so give health to soul and
    body. The man is to be alone with Christ and the disciples.
    It is not magic; means are used, and such as might not seem
    wholly strange to the man. And quite a number of means! He
    thrust His Fingers into his deaf ears, as if to make a way
    for the sound: He spat on his tongue, using a means of
    healing accepted in popular opinion of Jew and Gentile; [b
    Shabb. 108 b; Pliny, H. N. xxviii. 7; Suet. Vesp. 7.] [2
    Wunsche (ad. loc.) is guilty of serious misapprehension when
    he says that the Talmud condemns to eternal punishment those
    who employ this mode of healing. This statement is incorrect.
    What it condemns is the whispering of magical formulas over a
    wound (Sanh. 90 a), when it was the custom of some magicians
    to spit before (Sanh. 101 a), of others after pronouncing the
    formula (Jer. Sanh. 28 b). There is no analogy whatever
    between this and what our Lord did, and the use of saliva for
    cures is universally recognised by the Rabbis.] He touched
    his tongue. Each act seemed a fresh incitement to his faith,
    and all connected itself with the Person of Christ. As yet
    there was not breath of life in it all. But when the man's
    eyes followed those of the Saviour to heaven, he would
    understand whence He expected, whence came to Him the power,
    Who had sent Him, and Whose He was. And as he followed the
    movement of Christ's lips, as he groaned under the felt
    burden He had come to remove, the sufferer would look up
    expectant. Once more the Saviour's lips parted to speak the
    word of command: 'Be opened' [a .] and straightway the
    gladsome sound would pass into 'his hearing,' [1 So
    literally, or rather 'hearings', in the plural.] and the bond
    that seemed to have held his tongue was loosed. He was in a
    new world, into which He had put him that had spoken that one
    Word; He, Who had been burdened under the load which He had
    lifted up to His Father; to Whom all the means that had been
    used had pointed, and with Whose Person they had been
    connected.

     It was in vain to enjoin silence. Wider and wider spread the
    unbidden fame, till it was caught up in this one hymn of
    praise, which has remained to all time the jubilee of our
    experience of Christ as the Divine Healer: 'He hath done all
    things well, He maketh even the deaf to hear, and the dumb to
    speak.' This Jewish word, Ephphatha, spoken to the Gentile
    Church by Him, Who, looking up to heaven, sighed under the
    burden, even while He uplifted it, has opened the hearing and
    loosed the bond of speech. Most significantly was it spoken
    in the language of the Jews; and this also does it teach,
    that Jesus must always have spoken the Jews' language. For,
    if ever, to a Grecian in Grecian territory would He have
    spoken in Greek, not in the Jews' language, if the former and
    not the latter had been that of which He made use in His
    Words and Working.

     2. Another miracle is recorded by St. Mark, [b St. Mark
    viii. 22-26.] as wrought by Jesus in these parts, and, as we
    infer, on a heathen. [2 Most commentators regard this as the
    eastern Bethsaida, or Bethsaida-Julias. The objection (in the
    Speaker's Commentary) that the text speaks of 'a village'
    (vv. 23, 26) is obviated by the circumstance that similarly
    we read immediately afterwards (ver. 27) about the 'villages
    of Caesarea Philippi.' Indeed, a knowledge of Jewish law
    enables us to see here a fresh proof of the genuineness of
    the Evangelic narrative. For, according to Meg. 3 b the
    villages about a town were reckoned as belonging to it,
    while, on the other hand, a town which had not among its
    inhabitants ten Batlanin (persons who devoted themselves to
    the worship and affairs of the Synagogue) was to be regarded
    as a village. The Bethsaida of ver. 22 must refer to the
    district, in one of the hamlets of which the blind man met
    Jesus. It does not appear, that Jesus ever again wrought
    miracles, either in Capernaum or the western Bethsaida, if,
    indeed, He ever returned to that district. Lastly, the scene
    of that miracle must have been the eastern Bethsaida
    (Julias), since immediately afterwards the continuance of His
    journey to Caesarea Philippi is related without any notice of
    crossing the Lake.] All the circumstances are kindred to
    those just related. It was in Bethsaida-Julias, that one
    blind was brought unto Him, with the entreaty that He would
    touch him, just as in the case of the deaf and dumb. Here,
    also, the Saviour took him aside, 'led him out of the
    village', and 'spat on his eyes, and put His Hands upon him.
    We mark not only the similarity of the means employed, but
    the same, and even greater elaborateness in the use of them,
    since a twofold touch is recorded before the man saw clearly.
    [1 The better reading of the words is given in the Revised
    Version.] On any theory, even that which would regard the
    Gospel-narratives as spurious, this trait must have been
    intended to mark a special purpose, since this is the only
    instance in which a miraculous cure was performed gradually,
    and not at once and completely. So far as we can judge, the
    object was, by a gradual process of healing, to disabuse the
    man of any idea of magical cure, while at the same time the
    process of healing again markedly centered in the Person of
    Jesus. With this also agrees (as in the case of the deaf and
    dumb) the use of spittle in the healing. We may here recall,
    that the use of saliva was a well-known Jewish remedy for
    affections of the eyes. [a Jer. Shabb. xiv. 4; Baba B. 126
    b.] It was thus that the celebrated Rabbi Meir relieved one
    of his fair hearers, when her husband, in his anger at her
    long detention by the Rabbi's sermons, had ordered her to
    spit in the preacher's face. Pretending to suffer from his
    eyes, the Rabbi contrived that the woman publicly spat in his
    eyes, thus enabling her to obey her husband's command. [b
    Jer. Sot. 16 d, about the middle.] The anecdote at least
    proves, that the application of saliva was popularly regarded
    as a remedy for affections of the eyes.

     Thus in this instance also, as in that of the deaf and dumb,
    there was the use of means, Jewish means, means manifestly
    insufficient (since their first application was only
    partially successful), and a multiplication of means, yet all
    centering in, and proceeding from, His Person. As further
    analogies between the two, we mark that the blindness does
    not seem to have been congenital, [c Comp. St. Mark viii.
    24.] but the consequence of disease, and that silence was
    enjoined after the healing. [d ver. 26.] Lastly, the
    confusedness of his sight, when first restored to him, surely
    conveyed, not only to him but to us all, both a spiritual
    lesson and a spiritual warning.

     3. Yet a third miracle of healing requires to be here
    considered, although related by St. Matthew in quite another
    connection. [e St. Matt. ix. 27-31.] But we have learned
    enough of the structure of the First Gospel to know, that its
    arrangement is determined by the plan of the writer rather
    than by the chronological succession of events. [2 Thus, the
    healing recorded immediately after this history, in St. Matt.
    ix. 32-35, belongs evidently to a later period. Comp. St.
    Luke xi. 14.] The manner in which the Lord healed the two
    blind men, the injunction of silence, and the notice that
    none the less they spread His fame in all that land, [1 I
    admit that especially the latter argument is inconclusive,
    but I appeal to the general context and the setting of this
    history. It is impossible to regard St. Matt. ix. as a
    chronological record of events.] seem to imply that He was
    not on the ordinary scene of His labours in Galilee. Nor can
    we fail to mark an internal analogy between this and the
    other two miracles enacted amidst a chiefly Grecian
    population. And, strange though it may sound, the cry with
    which the two blind men who sought His help followed Him,
    'Son of David, have mercy on us,' comes, as might be
    expected, more frequently from Gentile than from Jewish lips.
    It was, of course, pre-eminently the Jewish designation of
    the Messiah, the basis of all Jewish thought of Him. But,
    perhaps on that very ground, it would express in Israel
    rather the homage of popular conviction, than, as in this
    case, the cry for help in bodily disease. Besides, Jesus had
    not as yet been hailed as the Messiah, except by His most
    intimate disciples; and, even by them, chiefly in the joy of
    their highest spiritual attainments. He was the Rabbi,
    Teacher, Wonder-worker, Son of Man, even Son of God; but the
    idea of the Davidic Kingdom as implying spiritual and Divine,
    not outwardly royal rule, lay as yet on the utmost edge of
    the horizon, covered by the golden mist of the Sun of
    Righteousness in His rising. On the other hand, we can
    understand, how to Gentiles, who resided in Palestine, the
    Messiah of Israel would chiefly stand out as 'the Son of
    David.' It was the most ready, and, at the same time, the
    most universal, form in which the great Jewish hope could be
    viewed by them. It presented to their minds the most marked
    contrast to Israel's present fallen state, and it recalled
    the Golden Age of Israel's past, and that, as only the symbol
    of a far wider and more glorious reign, the fulfilment of
    what to David had only been promises. [2 He is addressed as
    'Son of David,' in this passage, by the Syro-Phoenician woman
    (St. Matt. xv. 22), and by the blind men near Jericho (St.
    Matt. xx. 30, 31; St. Mark x. 47, 48; St. Luke xviii, 38,
    39), and proclaimed as such by the people in St. Matt. xii.
    23; xxi. 9, 15.]

     Peculiar to this history is the testing question of Christ,
    whether they really believed what their petition implied,
    that He was able to restore their sight; and, again, His
    stern, almost passionate, insistence [3 --the word occurs in
    that sense only here and in St. Mark i. 43; otherwise also in
    St. Mark xiv. 5, and in St. John xi. 33, 38.] on their
    silence as to the mode of their cure. Only on one other
    occasion do we read of the same insistence. It is, when the
    leper had expressed the same absolute faith in Christ's
    ability to heal if He willed it, and Jesus had, as in the
    case of those two blind men, conferred the benefit by the
    touch of His Hand. [a St. Mark i. 40, 41.] In both these
    cases, it is remarkable that, along with strongest faith of
    those who came to Him, there was rather an implied than an
    expressed petition on their part. The leper who knelt before
    Him only said: 'Lord, if Thou wilt, Thou canst make me
    clean;' and the two blind men: 'Have mercy on us, Thou Son of
    David.' Thus it is the highest and most realising faith,
    which is most absolute in its trust and most reticent as
    regards the details of its request.

     But as regards the two blind men (and the healed leper
    also), it is almost impossible not to connect Christ's
    peculiar insistence on their silence with their advanced
    faith. They had owned Jesus as 'the Son of David,' and that,
    not in the Judaic sense (as by the Syro-Phoenician woman [1
    It should be borne in mind, that the country, surroundings,
    &c., place these men in a totally different category from the
    Syro-Phoenician woman.]), but as able to do all things, even
    to open by His touch the eyes of the blind. And it had been
    done to them, as it always is, according to their faith. But
    a profession of faith so wide-reaching as theirs, and sealed
    by the attainment of what it sought, yet scarcely dared to
    ask, must not be publicly proclaimed. It would, and in point
    of fact did, bring to Him crowds which, unable spiritually to
    understand the meaning of such a confession, would only
    embarrass and hinder, and whose presence and homage would
    have to be avoided as much, if not more, than that of open
    enemies. [b St. Mark i. 45.] For confession of the mouth must
    ever be the outcome of heart-belief, and the acclamations of
    an excited Jewish crowd were as incongruous to the real
    Character of the Christ, and as obstructive to the progress
    of His Kingdom, as is the outward homage of a world which has
    not heart-belief in His Power, nor heart-experience of His
    ability and willingness to cleanse the leper and to open the
    eyes of the blind. Yet the leprosy of Israel and the
    blindness of the Gentile world are equally removed by the
    touch of His Hand at the cry of faith.

     The question has been needlessly discussed, [2 Roman
    Catholic writers mostly praise, while Protestants blame,
    their conduct.] whether they were to praise or blame, who,
    despite the Saviour's words, spread His fame. We scarcely
    know what, or how much, they disobeyed. They could not but
    speak of His Person; and theirs was, perhaps, not yet that
    higher silence which is content simply to sit at His Feet.

 THE ASCENT:

    THE TWO SABBATH-CONTROVERSIES, THE PLUCKING OF THE EARS OF
    CORN BY THE DISCIPLES, AND THE HEALING OF THE MAN WITH THE
    WITHERED HAND

    CHAPTER XXXV

     (St. Matt. xii. 1-21; St. Mark ii. 23-iii. 6; St. Luke vi.
    1-11.)

     IN grouping together the three miracles of healing described
    in the last chapter, we do not wish to convey that it is
    certain they had taken place in precisely that order. Nor do
    we feel sure, that they preceded what is about to be related.
    In the absence of exact data, the succession of events and
    their location must be matter of combination. From their
    position in the Evangelic narratives, and the manner in which
    all concerned speak and act, we inferred, that they took
    place at that particular period and east of the Jordan, in
    the Decapolis or else in the territory of Philip. They differ
    from the events about to be related by the absence of the
    Jerusalem Scribes, who hung on the footsteps of Jesus. While
    the Saviour tarried on the borders of Tyre, and thence passed
    through the territory of Sidon into the Decapolis and to the
    southern and eastern shores of the Lake of Galilee, they were
    in Jerusalem at the Passover. But after the two festive days,
    which would require their attendance in the Temple, they seem
    to have returned to their hateful task. It would not be
    difficult for them to discover the scene of such mighty works
    as His. Accordingly, we now find them once more confronting
    Christ. And the events about to be related are
    chronologically distinguished from those that had preceded,
    by this presence and opposition of the Pharisaic party. The
    contest now becomes more decided and sharp, and we are
    rapidly nearing the period when He, Who had hitherto been
    chiefly preaching the Kingdom, and healing body and soul,
    will, through the hostility of the leaders of Israel, enter
    on the second, or prevailingly negative stage of His Work, in
    which, according to the prophetic description, 'they
    compassed' Him 'about like bees,' but 'are quenched as the
    fire of thorns.'

     Where fundamental principles were so directly contrary, the
    occasion for conflict could not be long wanting. Indeed, all
    that Jesus taught must have seemed to these Pharisees
    strangely un-Jewish in cast and direction, even if not in
    form and words. But chiefly would this be the case in regard
    to that on which, of all else, the Pharisees laid most
    stress, the observance of the Sabbath. On no other subject is
    Rabbinic teaching more painfully minute and more manifestly
    incongruous to its professed object. For, if we rightly
    apprehend what underlay the complicated and intolerably
    burdensome laws and rules of Pharisaic Sabbath-observance, it
    was to secure, negatively, absolute rest from all labour,
    and, positively, to make the Sabbath a delight. The Mishnah
    includes Sabbath-desecration among those most heinous crimes
    for which a man was to be stoned. [a Sanh. vii. 4.] This,
    then, was their first care: by a series of complicated
    ordinances to make a breach of the Sabbath-rest impossible.
    How far this was carried, we shall presently see. The next
    object was, in a similarly external manner, to make the
    Sabbath a delight. A special Sabbath dress, the best that
    could be procured; the choicest food, even though a man had
    to work for it all the week, or public charity were to supply
    it [b Peah viii. 7.] ,such were some of the means by which
    the day was to be honoured and men to find pleasure therein.
    The strangest stories are told, how, by the purchase of the
    most expensive dishes, the pious poor had gained unspeakable
    merit, and obtained, even on earth, Heaven's manifest reward.
    And yet, by the side of these and similar strange and sad
    misdirections of piety, we come also upon that which is
    touching, beautiful, and even spiritual. On the Sabbath there
    must be no mourning, for to the Sabbath applies this saying:
    [c In Prov. x. 22.]'The blessing of the Lord, it maketh rich,
    and He addeth no sorrow with it.' Quite alone was the Sabbath
    among the measures of time. Every other day had been paired
    with its fellow: not so the Sabbath. And so any festival,
    even the Day of Atonement, might be transferred to another
    day: not so the observance of the Sabbath. Nay, when the
    Sabbath complained before God, that of all days it alone
    stood solitary, God had wedded it to Israel; and this holy
    union God had bidden His people 'remember,' [d Ex. xx. 8.]
    when it stood before the Mount. Even the tortures of Gehenna
    were intermitted on that holy, happy day. [e Comp. Ber. R.
    111 on Gen. ii. 3.]

     The terribly exaggerated views on the Sabbath entertained by
    the Rabbis, and the endless burdensome rules with which they
    encumbered everything connected with its sanctity, are fully
    set forth in another place. [1 See Appendix XVII: The
    Ordinances and Law of the Sabbath.] The Jewish Law, as there
    summarised, sufficiently explains the controversies in which
    the Pharisaic party now engaged with Jesus. Of these the
    first was when, going through the cornfields on the Sabbath,
    His disciples began to pluck and eat the ears of corn. Not,
    indeed, that this was the first Sabbath-controversy forced
    upon Christ. [a Comp. St. John v. 9, 16.] But it was the
    first time that Jesus allowed, and afterwards Himself did, in
    presence of the Pharisees, what was contrary to Jewish
    notions, and that, in express and unmistakable terms, He
    vindicated His position in regard to the Sabbath. This also
    indicates that we have now reached a further stage in the
    history of our Lord's teaching.

     This, however, is not the only reason for placing this event
    so late in the personal history of Christ. St. Matthew
    inserts it at a different period from the other two
    Synoptists; and although St. Mark and St. Luke introduce it
    amidst the same surroundings, the connection, in which it is
    told in all the three Gospels, shows that it is placed out of
    the historical order, with the view of grouping together what
    would exhibit Christ's relation to the Pharisees and their
    teaching. Accordingly, this first Sabbath-controversy is
    immediately followed by that connected with the healing of
    the man with the withered hand. From St. Matthew and St. Mark
    it might, indeed, appear as if this had occurred on the same
    day as the plucking of the ears of corn, but St. Luke
    corrects any possible misunderstanding, by telling us that it
    happened 'on another Sabbath', perhaps that following the
    walk through the cornfields.

     Dismissing the idea of inferring the precise time of these
    two events from their place in the Evangelic record, we have
    not much difficulty in finding the needful historical data
    for our present inquiry. The first and most obvious is, that
    the harvest was still standing, whether that of barley or of
    wheat. The former began immediately after the Passover, the
    latter after the Feast of Pentecost; the presentation of the
    wave-omer of barley making the beginning of the one, that of
    the two wave-loaves that of the other. [1 Comp. 'The Temple
    and itsServices,' pp. 222, 226, 230, 231.] Here another
    historical notice comes to our aid. St. Luke describes the
    Sabbath of this occurrence as 'the second-first', an
    expression so peculiar that it cannot be regarded as an
    interpolation, [2 The great majority of criticsare agreed as
    to its authenticity.] but as designedly chosen by the
    Evangelist to indicate something well understood in Palestine
    at the time. Bearing in mind the limited number of Sabbaths
    between the commencement of the barley and the end of the
    wheat-harvest, our inquiry is here much narrowed. In Rabbinic
    writings the term 'second-first' is not applied to any
    Sabbath. But we know that the fifty days between the Feast of
    Passover and that of Pentecost were counted from the
    presentation of the waveomer on the Second Paschal Day, at
    the first, second, third day, &c., after the 'Omer.' Thus the
    'second-first' Sabbath might be either 'the first Sabbath
    after the second day,' which was that of the presentation of
    the Omer, or else the second Sabbath after this first day of
    reckoning, or 'Sephirah,' as it was called ( ). To us the
    first of these dates seems most in accord with the manner in
    which St. Luke would describe to Gentile readers the Sabbath
    which was 'the first after the second,' or, Sephirah-day. [1
    The view which I have adopted is that of Scaliger and
    Lightfoot; the alternative one mentioned, that of Delitzsch.
    In regard to the many other explanations proposed, I would
    lay down this canon: No explanation can be satisfactory which
    rests not on some ascertained fact in Jewish life, but where
    the fact is merely 'supposed' for the sake of the explanation
    which it would afford. Thus, there is not the slightest
    support in fact for the idea, that the first Sabbath of the
    second month was so called (Wetstein, Speaker's Commentary),
    or the first Sabbath in the second year of a septennial
    cycle, or the Sabbath of the Nisan (the sacred) year, in
    contradistinction to the Tishri or secular year, which began
    in autumn. Of these and similar interpretations it is enough
    to say, that the underlying fact is 'supposed' for the sake
    of a 'supposed' explanation; in other words, they embody an
    hypothesis based on an hypothesis.]

     Assuming, then, that it was probably the first, possibly,
    the second, Sabbath after the 'reckoning,' or second Paschal
    Day, on which the disciples plucked the ears of corn, we have
    still to ascertain whether it was in the first or second
    Passover of Christ's Ministry. [2 There were only three
    Paschal feasts during the public ministry of Christ. Any
    other computation rests on the idea that the Unknown Feast
    was the Passover, or even the Feast of Esther.] The reasons
    against placing it between the first Passover and Pentecost
    are of the strongest character. Not to speak of the
    circumstance that such advanced teaching on the part of
    Christ, and such advanced knowledge on the part of His
    disciples, indicate a later period, our Lord did not call His
    twelve Apostles till long after the Feast of Pentecost, viz.
    after His return from the so-called 'Unknown Feast,' [a St.
    John v.] which, as shown in another place, [3 Comp. Appendix
    XV.] must have been either that of 'Wood-Gathering,' in the
    end of the summer, or else New Year's Day, in the beginning
    of autumn. Thus, as by 'the disciples' we must in this
    connection understand, in the first place, 'the Apostles,'
    the event could not have occurred between the first Passover
    and Pentecost of the Lord's Ministry.

     The same result is reached by another process of reasoning.
    After the first Passover [b St. John ii. 13.] our Lord, with
    such of His disciples as had then gathered to Him, tarried
    for some time, no doubt for several weeks, in Judaea. [c St.
    John iii. 22; v. 1-3.] The wheat was ripe for harvesting,
    when he passed through Samaria. [a St. John iv. 35.] And, on
    His return to Galilee, His disciples seem to have gone back
    to their homes and occupations, since it was some time
    afterwards when even His most intimate disciples, Peter,
    Andrew, James, and John, were called a second time. [b St.
    Matt. iv. 18-22.] Chronologically, therefore, there is no
    room for this event between the first Passover and Pentecost.
    [1 Few would be disposed to place St. Matt. xii. before St.
    Matt. iv.] Lastly, we have here to bear in mind, that, on His
    first appearance in Galilee, the Pharisees had not yet taken
    up this position of determined hostility to Him. On the other
    hand, all agrees with the circumstance, that the active
    hostility of the Pharisees and Christ's separation from the
    ordinances of the Synagogue commenced with His visit to
    Jerusalem in the early autumn of that year. [c St. John 14.]
    If, therefore, we have to place the plucking of the ears of
    corn after the Feast recorded in St. John v., as can scarcely
    be doubted, it must have taken place, not between the first,
    but between the Second Passover and Pentecost of Christ's
    Public Ministry.

     Another point deserves notice. The different 'setting'
    (chronologically speaking) in which the three Gospels present
    the event about to be related, illustrates that the object of
    the Evangelists was to present the events in the History of
    the Christ in their succession, not of time, but of bearing
    upon final results. This, because they do not attempt a
    Biography of Jesus, which, from their point of view, would
    have been almost blasphemy, but a History of the Kingdom
    which He brought; and because they write it, so to speak, not
    by adjectives (expressive of qualities), nor adverbially, [2
    Adverbs answer to the questions, How, When, Why, Where.] but
    by substantives. Lastly, it will be noted that the three
    Evangelists relate the event about to be considered (as so
    many others), not, indeed, with variations, [3 Meyer insists
    that the or more correctly, (St. Mark ii. 23) should be
    translated literally, that the disciples began to make a way
    by plucking the ears of corn. Accordingly, he maintains, that
    there is an essential difference between the account of St.
    Mark and those of the two other Evangelists, who attribute
    the plucking of the ears to hunger. Canon Cook (Speaker's
    Commentary, New Testament i. p. 216) has to my mind,
    conclusively shown the untenableness of Meyer's contention.
    He compares the expression of St. Mark to the Latin 'iter
    facere.' I would suggest the French 'chemin faisant.' Godet
    points out the absurdity of plucking up ears in order to make
    a way through the corn.] but with differences of detail,
    showing the independence of their narratives, which, as we
    shall see, really supplement each other.

     We are now in a position to examine the narrative itself. It
    was on the Sabbath after the Second Paschal Day that Christ
    and His disciples passed [4 In St. Mark also the better
    reading is .], probably by a field-path, through cornfields,
    when His disciples, being hungry, [a St. Matthew.] as they
    went, [b St. Mark.] plucked ears of corn and ate them, having
    rubbed off the husks in their hands. [c St. Luke.] On any
    ordinary day this would have been lawful, [d Deut xxiii 25.]
    but on the Sabbath it involved, according to Rabbinic
    statutes, at least two sins. For, according to the Talmud,
    what was really one labour, would, if made up of several
    acts, each of them forbidden, amount to several acts of
    labour, each involving sin, punishment, and a sin-offering.
    [e Shabb. 70 a.] [1 Thus (Shabb. 74 b, lines 12, 11 from
    bottom), if a person were to pull out a feather from the wing
    of a bird, cut off the top, and then pluck off the fluff
    below it would involve three labours and three
    sin-offerings.] This so-called 'division' of labour applied
    only to infringement of the Sabbath-rest, not of that of
    feast-days. [f Macc. 21 b.] Now in this case there were at
    least two such acts involved: that of plucking the ears of
    corn, ranged under the sin of reaping, and that of rubbing
    them, which might be ranged under sifting in a sieve,
    threshing, sifting out fruit, grinding, or fanning. The
    following Talmudic passage bears on this: 'In case a woman
    rolls wheat to remove the husks, it is considered as sifting;
    if she rubs the heads of wheat, it is regarded as threshing;
    if she cleans off the side-adherences, it is sifting out
    fruit; if she bruises the ears, it is grinding; if she throws
    them up in her hand, it is winnowing.' [g Jer. Shabb. p. 10
    a, lines 28 to 26 from bottom.] One instance will suffice to
    show the externalism of all these ordinances. If a man wished
    to move a sheaf on his field, which of course implied labour,
    he had only to lay upon it a spoon that was in his common
    use, when, in order to remove the spoon, he might also remove
    the sheaf on which it lay! [h Shabb. 142 b, line 6 from
    bottom.] And yet it was forbidden to stop with a little wax
    the hole in a cask by which the fluid was running out, [i
    Shabb. 146 a.] or to wipe a wound!

     Holding views like these, the Pharisees, who witnessed the
    conduct of the disciples, would naturally harshly condemn,
    what they must have regarded as gross desecration of the
    Sabbath. Yet it was clearly not a breach of the Biblical, but
    of the Rabbinic Law. Not only to show them their error, but
    to lay down principles which would for ever apply to this
    difficult question, was the object of Christ's reply. Unlike
    the others of the Ten Commandments, the Sabbath Law has in it
    two elements; the moral and the ceremonial: the eternal, and
    that which is subject to time and place; the inward and
    spiritual, and the outward (the one as the mode of realizing
    the other). In their distinction and separation lies the
    difficulty of the subject. In its spiritual and eternal
    element, the Sabbath Law embodied the two thoughts of rest
    for worship, and worship which pointed to rest. The keeping
    of the seventh day, and the Jewish mode of its observance,
    were the temporal and outward form in which these eternal
    principles were presented. Even Rabbinism, in some measure,
    perceived this. It was a principle, that danger to life
    superseded the Sabbath Law, [1 But only where the life of an
    Israelite, not of a heathen or Samaritan, was in danger (Yoma
    84 b).] and indeed all other obligations. [2 Maimonides,
    Hilkh. Shabb. ii. 1 (Yad haCh. vol. i. part iii. p. 141 a):
    'The Sabbath is set aside on account of danger to life, as
    all other ordinances'.] Among the curious Scriptural and
    other arguments by which this principle was supported, that
    which probably would most appeal to common sense was derived
    from Lev. xviii. 5. It was argued, that a man was to keep the
    commandments that he might live, certainly not, that by so
    doing he might die. [a Jer. Shabb. xiv. 4, pp. 14 d, 15 a.]
    In other words, the outward mode of observation was
    subordinate to the object of the observance. Yet this other
    and kindred principle did Rabbinism lay down, that every
    positive commandment superseded the Sabbath-rest. This was
    the ultimate vindication of work in the Temple, although
    certainly not its explanation. Lastly, we should in this
    connection, include this important canon, laid down by the
    Rabbis: 'a single Rabbinic prohibition is not to be heeded,
    where a graver matter is in question.' [b Jer. Shabb. xvi.
    1.]

     All these points must be kept in view for the proper
    understanding of the words of Christ to the Scribes. For,
    while going far beyond the times and notions of His
    questioners, His reasoning must have been within their
    comprehension. Hence the first argument of our Lord, as
    recorded by all the Synoptists, was taken from Biblical
    History. When, on his flight from Saul, David had, 'when an
    hungered,' eaten of the shewbread, and given it to his
    followers, [3 According to 1 Sam. xxii. 9 Ahimelech (or
    Ahijah, 1 Sam. xiv. 3) was the high Priest. We infer, that
    Abiathar was conjoined with his father in the priesthood.
    Comp. the 'Bible-History,' vol. iv. p. 111.] although, by the
    letter of the Levitical Law, [c Lev. xxiv 5-9.] it was only
    to be eaten by the priests, Jewish tradition vindicated his
    conduct on the plea that 'danger to life superseded the
    Sabbath-Law, and hence, all laws connected with it, [4 The
    question discussed in the Talmud is, whether, supposing an
    ordinary Israelite discharged priestly functions on the
    Sabbath in the temple, it would involve two sins: unlawful
    service and Sabbath-desecration; or only one sin, unlawful
    service.] while, to show David's zeal for the Sabbath-Law,
    the legend was added, that he had reproved the priests of
    Nob, who had been baking the shewbread on the Sabbath. [d
    Yalkut ii. par. 130, p. 18 d.] To the first argument of
    Christ, St. Matthew adds this as His second, that the
    priests, in their services in the Temple, necessarily broke
    the Sabbath-Law without thereby incurring guilt. It is
    curious, that the Talmud discusses this very point, and that,
    by way of illustration, it introduces an argument from Lev.
    xxii. 10: 'There shall no stranger eat of things
    consecrated.' This, of course, embodies the principle
    underlying the prohibition of the shewbread to all who were
    not priests. [a Jer. Shabb. ii. 5, p. 5 a.] Without entering
    further on it, the discussion at least shows, that the Rabbis
    were by no means clear on the rationale of Sabbath-work in
    the Temple.

     In truth, the reason why David was blameless in eating the
    shewbread was the same as that which made the Sabbath-labour
    of the priests lawful. The Sabbath-Law was not one merely of
    rest, but of rest for worship. The Service of the Lord was
    the object in view. The priests worked on the Sabbath,
    because this service was the object of the Sabbath; and David
    was allowed to eat of the shewbread, not because there was
    danger to life from starvation, but because he pleaded that
    he was on the service of the Lord and needed this provision.
    The disciples, when following the Lord, were similarly on the
    service of the Lord; ministering to Him was more than
    ministering in the Temple, for He was greater than the
    Temple. If the Pharisees had believed this, they would not
    have questioned their conduct, nor in so doing have
    themselves infringed that higher Law which enjoined mercy,
    not sacrifice.

     To this St. Mark adds as corollary: 'The Sabbath was made
    for man, and not man for the Sabbath.' It is remarkable, that
    a similar argument is used by the Rabbis. When insisting that
    the Sabbath Law should be set aside to avoid danger to life,
    it is urged: 'the Sabbath is handed over to you; not, ye are
    handed over to the Sabbath.' [b Mechilt. on Ex. xxxi. 13, ed.
    Weiss, p. 109 b.] Lastly, the three Evangelists record this
    as the final outcome of His teaching on this subject, that
    'the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath also.' The Service of
    God, and the Service of the Temple, by universal consent
    superseded the Sabbath-Law. But Christ was greater than the
    Temple, and His Service more truly that of God, and higher
    than that of the outward Temple, and the Sabbath was intended
    for man, to serve God: therefore Christ and His Service were
    superior to the Sabbath-Law. Thus much would be intelligible
    to these Pharisees, although they would not receive it,
    because they believed not on Him as the Sent of God. [1 We
    may here again state,that Cod. D has this after St. Luke vi.
    4: 'The same day, having beholden a man working on the
    Sabbath, He said to Him: "Man, if thou knowest what thou
    dost, blessed are thou: but if thou knowest not, thou art
    accursed and a transgressor of the Law"' (Nicholson, Gospel
    according to the Hebrews, p. 151). It need scarcely be said,
    that the words, as placed in St. Luke, are a spurious
    addition, although as Canon Westcott rightly infers, 'the
    saying [probably] rests on some real incident' (Introd. to
    the Study of the Gospels, p. 454, note.]

     But to us the words mean more than this. They preach not
    only that the Service of Christ is that of God, but that,
    even more than in the Temple, all of work or of liberty is
    lawful which this service requires. We are free while we are
    doing anything for Christ; God loves mercy, and demands not
    sacrifice; His sacrifice is the service of Christ, in heart,
    and life, and work. We are not free to do anything we please;
    but we are free to do anything needful or helpful, while we
    are doing any service to Christ. He is the Lord of the
    Sabbath, Whom we serve in and through the Sabbath. And even
    this is significant, that, when designating Himself Lord of
    the Sabbath, it is as 'the Son of Man.' It shows, that the
    narrow Judaistic form regarding the day and the manner of
    observance is enlarged into the wider Law, which applies to
    all humanity. Under the New Testament the Sabbath has, as the
    Church, become Catholic, and its Lord is Christ as the Son of
    Man, to Whom the body Catholic offers the acceptable service
    of heart and life.

     The question as between Christ and the Pharisees was not,
    however, to end here. 'On another Sabbath', probably that
    following ,He was in their Synagogue. Whether or not the
    Pharisees had brought 'the man with the withered hand' on
    purpose, or placed him in a conspicuous position, or
    otherwise raised the question, certain it is that their
    secret object was to commit Christ to some word or deed,
    which would lay Him open to the capital charge of breaking
    the Sabbath-law. It does not appear, whether the man with the
    withered hand was consciously or unconsciously their tool.
    But in this they judged rightly: that Christ would not
    witness disease without removing it, or, as we might express
    it, that disease could not continue in the Presence of Him,
    Who was the Life. He read their inward thoughts of evil, and
    yet he proceeded to do the good which He purposed. So God, in
    His majestic greatness, carries out the purpose which He has
    fixed, which we call the law of nature, whoever and whatever
    stand in the way; and so God, in His sovereign goodness,
    adapts it to the good of His creatures, notwithstanding their
    evil thoughts.

     So much unclearness prevails as to the Jewish views about
    healing on the Sabbath, that some connected information on
    the subject seems needful. We have already seen, that in
    their view only actual danger to life warranted a breach of
    the Sabbath-Law. But this opened a large field for
    discussion. Thus, according to some, disease of the ear, [a
    Debar. R. 10.] according to some throat-disease, [b Yoma
    viii. 6.] while, according to others, such a disease as
    angina, [c Yoma 84 a.] involved danger, and superseded the
    Sabbath-Law. All applications to the outside of the body were
    forbidden on the Sabbath. As regarded internal remedies, such
    substances as were used in health, but had also a remedial
    effect, might be taken [d Shabb. xiv. 3.] although here also
    there was a way of evading the Law. [1 Thus, when a Rabbi was
    consulted, whether a man might on the Sabbath take a certain
    drink which had a purgative effect, he answered: 'If for
    pleasure it is lawful; if for healing forbidden' (Jer. Shabb.
    14 c).] A person suffering from toothache might not gargle
    his mouth with vinegar, but he might use an ordinary
    toothbrush and dip it in vinegar. [e u. s. 4.] The Gemara
    here adds, that gargling was lawful, if the substance was
    afterwards swallowed. It further explains, that affections
    extending from the lips, or else from the throat, inwards,
    may be attended to, being regarded as dangerous. Quite a
    number of these are enumerated, showing, that either the
    Rabbis were very lax in applying their canon about mortal
    diseases, or else that they reckoned in their number not a
    few which we would not regard as such. [2 Thus one of the
    Rabbis regarded foetor of the breath as possibly dangerous
    (u. s. 14 d).] External lesions also might be attended to, if
    they involved danger to life. [3 Displacement of the frontal
    bone, disease of the nerves leading from the ear to the upper
    jaw, an eye starting from its socket, severe inflammations,
    and swelling wounds, are specially mentioned.] Similarly,
    medical aid might be called in, if a person had swallowed a
    piece of glass; a splinter might be removed from the eye, and
    even a thorn from the body. [f Comp. Jer. Shabb. 14 d.]

     But although the man with the withered hand could not be
    classed with those dangerously ill, it could not have been
    difficult to silence the Rabbis on their own admissions.
    Clearly, their principle implied, that it was lawful on the
    Sabbath to do that which would save life or prevent death. To
    have taught otherwise, would virtually have involved murder.
    But if so, did it not also, in strictly logical sequence,
    imply this far wider principle, that it must be lawful to do
    good on the Sabbath? For, evidently, the omission of such
    good would have involved the doing of evil. Could this be the
    proper observance of God's holy day? There was no answer to
    such an argument; St. Mark expressly records that they dared
    not attempt a reply. [g St. Mark iii. 4.] On the other hand,
    St. Matthew, while alluding to this terribly telling
    challenge, [h St. Matt. xii. 12.] records yet another and a
    personal argument. It seems that Christ publicly appealed to
    them: If any poor man among them, who had one sheep, were in
    danger of losing it through having fallen into a pit, would
    he not lift it out? To be sure, the Rabbinic Law ordered that
    food and drink should be lowered to it, or else that some
    means should be furnished by which it might either be kept up
    in the pit, or enabled to come out of it. [a Shabb. 128 b.]
    But even the Talmud discusses cases in which it was lawful to
    lift an animal out of a pit on a Sabbath. [b Shabb. 117 b,
    about the middle.] There could be no doubt, at any rate, that
    even if the Law was, at the time of Christ, as stringent as
    in the Talmud, a man would have found some device, by which
    to recover the solitary sheep which constituted his
    possession. And was not the life of a human being to be more
    accounted of? Surely, then, on the Sabbath-day it was lawful
    to do good? Yes, to do good, and to neglect it, would have
    been to do evil. Nay, according to their own admission,
    should not a man, on the Sabbath, save life? or should he, by
    omitting it, kill?

     We can now imagine the scene in that Synagogue. The place is
    crowded. Christ probably occupies a prominent position as
    leading the prayers or teaching: a position whence He can
    see, and be seen by all. Here, eagerly bending forward, are
    the dark faces of the Pharisees, expressive of curiosity,
    malice, cunning. They are looking round at a man whose right
    hand is withered, [c St. Luke vi. 6.] perhaps puttinghim
    forward, drawing attention to him, loudly whispering, 'Is it
    lawful to heal on the Sabbath-day?' The Lord takes up the
    challenge. He bids the man stand forth, right in the midst of
    them, where they might all see and hear. By one of those
    telling appeals, which go straight to the conscience, He puts
    the analogous case of a poor man who was in danger of losing
    his only sheep on the Sabbath: would he not rescue it; and
    was not a man better than a sheep? Nay, did they not
    themselves enjoin a breach of the Sabbath-Law to save human
    life? Then, must He not do so; might He not do good rather
    than evil?

     They were speechless. But a strange mixture of feeling was
    in the Saviour's heart, strange to us, though it is but what
    Holy Scripture always tells us of the manner in which God
    views sin and the sinner, using terms, which, in their
    combination, seem grandly incompatible: 'And when He had
    looked round about on them with anger, being grieved at the
    hardening of their heart. It was but for a moment, and then,
    with life-giving power, He bade the man stretch forth his
    hand. Withered it was no longer, when the Word had been
    spoken, and a new sap, a fresh life had streamed into it, as,
    following the Saviour's Eye and Word, he slowly stretched it
    forth. And as He stretched it forth, his hand was restored.
    [1 The tense indicates, that it was restored as he stretched
    it out. And this is spiritually significant. According to St.
    Jerome (Comm. in Matt. xii. 13), in the Gospel of the
    Nazarenes and Ebionites this man was described as a mason,
    and that he had besought Jesus to restore him, so that he
    might not have to beg for his bread.] The Saviour had broken
    their Sabbath-Law, and yet He had not broken it, for neither
    by remedy, nor touch, nor outward application had He healed
    him. He had brokmen the Sabbath-rest, as God breaks it, when
    He sends, or sustains, or restores life, or does good: all
    unseen and unheard, without touch or outward application, by
    the Word of His Power, by the Presence of His Life.

     But who after this will say, that it was Paul who first
    introduced into the Church either the idea that the
    Sabbath-Law in its Jewish form was no longer binding, or
    this, that the narrow forms of Judaism were burst by the new
    wine of that Kingdom, which is that of the Son of Man?

     They had all seen it, this miracle of almost new creation.
    As He did it, He had been filled with sadness: as they saw
    it, 'they were filled with madness.' [a St. Luke vi. 11.] So
    their hearts were hardened. They could not gainsay, but they
    went forth and took counsel with the Herodians against Him,
    how they might destroy Him. Presumably, then, He was within,
    or quite close by, the dominions of Herod, east of the
    Jordan. And the Lord withdrew once more, as it seems to us,
    into Gentile territory, probably that of the Decapolis. For,
    as He went about healing all, that needed it, in that great
    multitude that followed His steps, yet enjoining silence on
    them, this prophecy of Isaiah blazed into fulfilment: 'Behold
    My Servant, Whom I have chosen, My Beloved, in Whom My soul
    is well-pleased: I will put My Spirit upon Him, and He shall
    declare judgment to the Gentiles. He shall not strive nor cry
    aloud, neither shall any hear His Voice in the streets. A
    bruised reed shall He not break, and smoking flax shall He
    not quench, till He send forth judgment unto victory. And in
    His Name shall the Gentiles trust.'

     And in His Name shall the Gentiles trust. Far out into the
    silence of those solitary upland hills of the Gentile world
    did the call, unheard and unheeded in Israel, travel. He had
    other sheep which were not of that fold. And down those
    hills, from the far-off lands, does the sound of the bells,
    as it comes nearer and nearer, tell that those other sheep,
    which are not of this fold, are gathering at His call to the
    Good Shepherd; and through these centuries, still louder and
    more manifold becomes this sound of nearing bells, till they
    shall all be gathered into one: one flock, one fold, one
    Shepherd.

 THE ASCENT:

    THE FEEDING OF THE FOUR THOUSAND, TO DALMANUTHA, 'THE SIGN
    FROM HEAVEN', JOURNEY TO CAESAREA PHILIPPI, WHAT IS THE
    LEAVEN OF THE PHARISEES AND SADDUCEES?

    CHAPTER XXXVI

     (St. Matt. xv. 32-xvi. 12; St. Mark viii. 1-21.)

     THEY might well gather to Jesus in their thousands, with
    their wants of body and soul, these sheep wandering without a
    shepherd; for His Ministry in that district, as formerly in
    Galilee, was about to draw to a close. And here it is
    remarkable, that each time His prolonged stay and Ministry in
    a district were brought to a close with some supper, so to
    speak, some festive entertainment on his part. The Galilean
    Ministry had closed with the feeding of the five thousand,
    the guests being mostly from Capernaum and the towns around,
    as far as Bethsaida (Julias), many in the number probably on
    their way to the Paschal feast at Jerusalem. [1 Comp. ch.
    xxix. of this Book.] But now at the second provision for the
    four thousand, with which His Decapolis Ministry closed, the
    guests were not strictly Jews, but semi-Gentile inhabitants
    of that district and its neighbourhood. Lastly, his Judaean
    Ministry closed with the Last Supper. At the first 'Supper,'
    the Jewish guests would fain have proclaimed Him
    Messiah-King; at the second, as 'the Son of Man,' He gave
    food to those Gentile multitudes which having been with Him
    those days, and consumed all their victuals during their stay
    with him, He could not send away fasting, lest they should
    faint by the way. And on the last occasion, as the true
    Priest and Sacrifice, He fed His own with the true Paschal
    Feast, ere He sent them forth alone into the wilderness. Thus
    these three 'Suppers' seem connected, each leading up, as it
    were, to the other.

     There can, at any rate, be little doubt that this second
    feeding of the multitude took place in the Gentile Decapolis,
    and that those who sat down to the meal were chiefly the
    inhabitants of that district. [2 This appears from the whole
    context. Comp. Bp. Ellicott's Histor. Lect. pp. 220, 221, and
    notes.] If it be lawful, departing from strict history, to
    study the symbolism of this event, as compared with the
    previous feeding of the five thousand who were Jews, somewhat
    singular differences will present themselves to the mind. On
    the former occasion there were five thousand fed with five
    loaves, when twelve baskets of fragments were left. On the
    second occasion, four thousand were fed from seven loaves,
    and seven baskets of fragments collected. It is at least
    curious, that the number five in the provision for the Jews
    is that of the Pentateuch, just as the number twelve
    corresponds to that of the tribes and of the Apostles. On the
    other hand, in the feeding of the Gentiles we mark the number
    four, which is the signature of the world, and seven, which
    is that of the Sanctuary. We would not by any means press it,
    as if these were, in the telling of the narrative, designed
    coincidences; but, just because they are undesigned, we value
    them, feeling that there is more of undesigned symbolism in
    all God's manifestations, in nature, in history, and in
    grace, than meets the eye of those who observe the merely
    phenomenal. Nay, does it not almost seem, as if all things
    were cast in the mould of heavenly realities, and all earth's
    'shewbread' Bread of His Presence'?

     On all general points the narratives of the two-fold
    miraculous feeding run so parallel, that it is not necessary
    again to consider this event in detail. But the attendant
    circumstances are so different, that only the most reckless
    negative criticism could insist, that one and the same event
    had been presented by the Evangelists as two separate
    occasions. [1 For a summary of the great differences between
    the two miracles, comp. Bp. Ellicott, u. s. pp. 221, 222. The
    statements of Meyer ad loc. are unsatisfactory.] The broad
    lines of difference as to the number of persons, the
    provision, and the quantity of fragments left, cannot be
    overlooked. Besides, on the former occasion the repast was
    provided in the evening for those who had gone after Christ,
    and listened to Him all day, but who, in their eager haste,
    had come without victuals, when He would not dismiss them
    faint and hungry, because they had been so busy for the Bread
    of Life that they had forgotten that of earth. But on this
    second occasion, of the feeding of the Gentiles, the
    multitude had been three days with Him, and what sustenance
    they had brought must have failed, when, in His compassion,
    the Saviour would not send them to their homes fasting, lest
    they should faint by the way. This could not have befallen
    those Gentiles, who had come to the Christ for food to their
    souls. And, it must be kept in view, that Christ dismissed
    them, not, as before, because they would have made Him their
    King, but because Himself was about to depart from the place;
    and that, sending them to their homes, He could not send them
    to faint by the way. Yet another marked difference lies even
    in the designation of 'the baskets' in which the fragments
    left were gathered. At the first feeding, there were, as the
    Greek word shows, the small wickerbaskets which each of the
    Twelve would carry in his hand. At the second feeding they
    were the large baskets, in which provisions, chiefly bread,
    were stored or carried for longer voyages. [1 The (St. Matt.
    xiv20) was the small handbasket (see ch. xxix), while the
    (the term used at the feeding of the four thousand) is the
    large provision-basket or hamper, such as that in which St.
    Paul was let down over the wall at Damascus (Acts ix. 25).
    What makes it more marked is, that the distinction of the two
    words is kept up in the reference to the two miracles (St.
    Matt. xvi. 9, 10).] For, on the first occasion, when they
    passed into Israelitish territory, and, as they might think,
    left their home for a very brief time, there was not the same
    need to make provision for storing necessaries as on the
    second, when they were on a lengthened journey, and passing
    through, or tarrying in Gentile territory.
     But the most noteworthy difference seems to us this, that on
    the first occasion, they who were fed were Jews, on the
    second, Gentiles. There is an exquisite little trait in the
    narrative which affords striking, though utterly undesigned,
    evidence of it. In referring to the blessing which Jesus
    spake over the first meal, it was noted, [2 See ch. xxix.]
    that, in strict accordance with Jewish custom, He only
    rendered thanks once, over the bread. But no such custom
    would rule His conduct when dispensing the food to the
    Gentiles; and, indeed, His speaking the blessing only over
    the bread, while He was silent when distributing the fishes,
    would probably have given rise to misunderstanding.
    Accordingly, we find it expressly stated that He not only
    gave thanks over the bread, but also spake the blessing over
    the fishes. [a St. Mark viii. 6, 7.] Nor should we, when
    marking such undesigned evidences, omit to notice, that on
    the first occasion, which was immediately before the
    Passover, the guests were, as three of the Evangelists
    expressly state, ranged on 'the grass,' [b St. Matt. xiv. 19;
    St. Mark vi. 39; St. John vi. 10.] while, on the present
    occasion, which must have been several weeks later, when in
    the East the grass would be burnt up, we are told by the two
    Evangelists that they sat on 'the ground.' [3 Literally,
    'upon the earth.'] Even the difficulty, raised by some, as to
    the strange repetition of the disciples' reply, the outcome,
    in part, of non-expectancy, and, hence, non-belief, and yet
    in part also of such doubt as tends towards faith: 'Whence
    should we have, in a solitary place, [1 The word means a
    specially lonely place.] so many loaves as to fill so great a
    multitude?' seems to us only confirmatory of the narrative,
    so psychologically true is it. There is no need for the
    ingenious apology, [2 Of Bleek.] that, in the remembrance and
    tradition of the first and second feeding, the similarity of
    the two events had led to greater similarity in their
    narration than the actual circumstances would perhaps have
    warranted. Interesting thoughts are here suggested by the
    remark, [3 By Dean Plumptre, ad loc.] that it is not easy to
    transport ourselves into the position and feelings of those
    who had witnessed such a miracle as that of the first feeding
    of the multitude. 'We think of the Power as inherent, and,
    therefore, permanent. To them it might seem intermittent, a
    gift that came and went.' And this might seem borne out by
    the fact that, ever since, their wants had been supplied in
    the ordinary way, and that, even on the first occasion, they
    had been directed to gather up the fragments of the
    heaven-supplied meal.

     But more than this requires to be said. First, we must here
    once more remind ourselves, that the former provision was for
    Jews, and the disciples might, from their standpoint, well
    doubt, or at least not assume, that the same miracle would
    supply the need of the Gentiles, and the same board be
    surrounded by Jew and Gentile. But, further, the repetition
    of the same question by the disciples really indicated only a
    sense of their own inability, and not a doubt of the
    Saviour's power of supply, since on this occasion it was not,
    as on the former, accompanied by a request on their part, to
    send the multitude away. Thus the very repetition of the
    question might be a humble reference to the past, of which
    they dared not, in the circumstances, ask the repetition.

     Yet, even if it were otherwise, the strange forgetfulness of
    Christ's late miracle on the part of the disciples, and their
    strange repetition of the self-same question which had once,
    and, as it might seem to us, for ever, been answered by
    wondrous deed, need not surprise us. To them the miraculous
    on the part of Christ must ever have been the new, or else it
    would have ceased to be the miraculous. Nor did they ever
    fully realise it, till after His Resurrection they
    understood, and worshipped Him as God Incarnate. And it is
    only realising faith of this, which it was intended gradually
    to evolve during Christ's Ministry on earth, that enables us
    to apprehend the Divine Help as, so to speak, incarnate and
    ever actually present in Christ. And yet even thus, how often
    we do, who have so believed in Him, forget the Divine
    provision which has come to us so lately, and repeat, though
    perhaps not with the same doubt, yet with the same want of
    certainty, the questions with which we had at first met the
    Saviour's challenge of our faith. And even at the last it is
    met, as by the prophet, in sight of the apparently
    impossible, by: 'Lord, Thou knowest.' [a Ezek. xxxvii. 3.]
    More frequently, alas! is it met by nonbelief, misbelief,
    disbelief, or doubt, engendered by misunderstanding or
    forgetfulness of that which past experience, as well as the
    knowledge of Him, should long ago have indelibly written on
    our minds.

     On the occasion referred to in the preceding narrative,
    those who had lately taken counsel together against Jesus,
    the Pharisees and the Herodians, or, to put it otherwise, the
    Pharisees and Sadducees were not present. For, those who,
    politically speaking, were 'Herodians,' might also, though
    perhaps not religiously speaking, yet from the Jewish
    standpoint of St. Matthew, be designated as, or else include,
    Sadducees. [1 Compare, however, vol. i. pp. 238, 240, and
    Book V. ch. iii. Where the political element was dominant,
    the religious distinction might not be so clearly marked.]
    But they were soon to reappear on the scene, as Jesus came
    close to the Jewish territory of Herod. We suppose the
    feeding of the multitude to have taken place in the
    Decapolis, and probably on, or close to, the Eastern shore of
    the Lake of Galilee. As Jesus sent away the multitude whom He
    had fed, He took ship with His disciples, and 'came into the
    borders of Magadan,' [b St. Matt. xv. 39.] [2 It need
    scarcely be said that the best reading is Magadan, not
    Magdala.] or, as St. Mark puts it, 'the parts of Dalmanutha.'
    'The borders of Magadan' must evidently refer to the same
    district as 'the parts of Dalmanutha.' The one may mark the
    extreme point of the district southwards, the other
    northwards, or else, the points west [3 It has been
    ingeniously suggested, that Magadan might represent a
    Megiddo, being a form intermediate between the Hebrew
    Megiddon and the Asyrian Magadu.] and east, in the locality
    where He and His disciples landed. This is, of course, only a
    suggestion, since neither 'Magadan,' nor 'Dalmanutha,' has
    been identified. This only we infer, that the place was close
    to, yet not within the boundary of, strictly Jewish
    territory; since on His arrival there the Pharisees are said
    to 'come forth' [c St. Mark viii. 11.], a word 'which
    implies, that they resided elsewhere,' [4 Canon Cook in the
    'Speaker's Commentary,' ad loc.] though, of course, in the
    neighbourhood. Accordingly, we would seek Magadan south of
    the Lake of Tiberias, and near to the borders of Galilee, but
    within the Decapolis. Several sites bear at present somewhat
    similar names. In regard to the strange and un-Jewish name of
    Dalmanutha, such utterly unlikely conjectures have been made,
    that one based on etymology may be hazarded. If we take from
    Dalmanutha the Aramaic termination -utha, and regard the
    initial de as a prefix, we have the word Laman, Limin, or
    Liminah, which, in Rabbinic Hebrew, means a bay, or port, and
    Dalmanutha might have been the place of a small bay.
    Possibly, it was the name given to the bay close to the
    ancient Tarichoea, the modern Kerak, so terribly famous for a
    sea-fight, or rather a horrible butchery of poor fugitives,
    when Tarichaea was taken by the Romans in the great Jewish
    war. Close by, the Lake forms a bay (Laman), and if, as a
    modern writer asserts, [1 Sepp, ap. Bottger, Topogr. Lex. zu
    Fl. Josephus, p. 240.] the fortress of Tarichaea was
    surrounded by a ditch fed by the Jordan and the Lake, so that
    the fortress could be converted into an island, we see
    additional reason for the designation of Lamanutha. [2
    Bearingin mind that Tarichaea was the chief depot for salting
    the fish for export, the disciples may have had some
    connections with the place.]

     It was from the Jewish territory of Galilee, close by, that
    the Pharisees now came 'with the Sadducees' tempting Him with
    questions, and desiring that His claims should be put to the
    ultimate arbitrament of 'a sign from heaven.' We can quite
    understand such a challenge on the part of Sadducees, who
    would disbelieve the heavenly Mission of Christ, or, indeed,
    to use a modern term, any supra-naturalistic connection
    between heaven and earth. But, in the mouth of the Pharisees
    also, it had a special meaning. Certain supposed miracles had
    been either witnessed by, or testified to them, as done by
    Christ. As they now represented it, since Christ laid claims
    which, in their view, were inconsistent with the doctrine
    received in Israel, preached a Kingdom quite other than that
    of Jewish expectancy, was at issue with all Jewish customs,
    more than this, was a breaker of the Law, in its most
    important commandments, as they understood them, it followed
    that, according to Deut. xiii., He was a false prophet, who
    was not to be listened to. Then, also, must the miracles
    which He did have been wrought by the power of Beelzebul,
    'the lord of idolatrous worship,' the very prince of devils.
    But had there been real signs, and might it not all have been
    an illusion? Let Him show them 'a sign,' [3 The word here
    used would, to judge by analogous instances. be (Oth), and
    not (Siman), as Wunsche suggests, even though the word is
    formed from the Greek. But the Rabbinic Siman seems to me to
    have a different shade of meaning.] and let that sign come
    direct from heaven!

     Two striking instances from Rabbinic literature will show,
    that this demand of the Pharisees was in accordance with
    their notions and practice. We read that, when a certain
    Rabbi was asked by his disciples about the time of Messiah's
    Coming, he replied: 'I am afraid that you will also ask me
    for a sign.' When they promised they would not do so, he told
    them that the gate of Rome would fall and be rebuilt, and
    fall again, when there would not be time to restore it, ere
    the Son of David came. On this they pressed him, despite his
    remonstrance, for 'a sign,' when this was given them, that
    the waters which issued from the cave of Pamias were turned
    into blood. [a Sanh. 98 a last 4 lines.] [1 However, this
    (and, for that matter,the next Haggadah also) may have been
    intended to be taken in an allegoric or parabolic sense,
    though there is no hint given to that effect.] Again, as
    regards 'a sign from heaven,' it is said that Rabbi Eliezer,
    when his teaching was challenged, successively appealed to
    certain 'signs.' First, a locust-tree moved at his bidding
    one hundred, or, according to some, four hundred cubits.
    Next, the channels of water were made to flow backwards; then
    the walls of the Academy leaned forward, and were only
    arrested at the bidding of another Rabbi. Lastly, Eliezer
    exclaimed: 'If the Law is as I teach, let it be proved from
    heaven!' when a voice fell from the sky (the Bath Qol): 'What
    have ye to do with Rabbi Eliezer, for the Halakhah is as he
    teaches?' [b Baba Mez. 59 b, line 4 from top, &c.]

     It was, therefore, no strange thing, when the Pharisees
    asked of Jesus 'a sign from heaven,' to attest His claims and
    teaching. The answer which He gave was among the most solemn
    which the leaders of Israel could have heard, and He spake it
    in deep sorrow of spirit. [c St. Mark viii. 12.] They had
    asked Him virtually for some sign of His Messiahship; some
    striking vindication from heaven of His claims. It would be
    given them only too soon. We have already seen, [2 See ch.
    xxvii. vol. i. p. 647.] that there was a Coming of Christ in
    His Kingdom, a vindication of His kingly claim before His
    apostate rebellious subjects, when they who would not have
    Him to reign over them, but betrayed and crucified Him, would
    have their commonwealth and city, their polity and Temple,
    destroyed. By the lurid light of the flames of Jerusalem and
    the Sanctuary were the words on the cross to be read again.
    God would vindicate His claims by laying low the pride of
    their rebellion. The burning of Jerusalem was God's answer to
    the Jews' cry, 'Away with Him, we have no king but Caesar;'
    the thousands of crosses on which the Romans hanged their
    captives, the terrible counterpart of the Cross on Golgotha.

     It was to this, that Jesus referred in His reply to the
    Pharisees and 'Sadducean' Herodians. How strange! Men could
    discern by the appearance of the sky whether the day would be
    fair or stormy. [3 Although some of the best MSS. omit St.
    Matt. xvi. 2, beginning 'When it is evening,' to the end of
    ver. 3, most critics are agreed that it should be retained.
    But the words in italics in vv. 2 and 3 should be left out,
    so as to mark exclamations.] And yet, when all the signs of
    the gathering storm, that would destroy their city and
    people, were clearly visible, they, the leaders of the
    people, failed to perceive them! Israel asked for 'a sign'!
    No sign should be given the doomed land and city other than
    that which had been given to Nineveh: 'the sign of Jonah.' [1
    So according to the best reading.] The only sign to Nineveh
    was Jonah's solemn warning of near judgment, and his call to
    repentance, and the only sign now, or rather 'unto this
    generation no sign,' [a St. Mark viii. 12.] was the warning
    cry of judgment and the loving call to repentance. [b St.
    Luke xix. 41-44.]

     It was but a natural, almost necessary, sequence, that 'He
    left them and departed.' Once more the ship, which bore Him
    and His disciples, spread its sails towards the coast of
    Bethsaida-Julias. He was on His way to the utmost limit of
    the land, to Caesarea Philippi, in pursuit of His purpose to
    delay the final conflict. For the great crisis must begin, as
    it would end, in Jerusalem, and at the Feast; it would begin
    at the Feast of Tabernacles, [c St. John vii.] and it would
    end at the following Passover. But by the way, the disciples
    themselves showed how little even they, who had so long and
    closely followed Christ, understood His teaching, and how
    prone to misapprehension their spiritual dulness rendered
    them. Yet it was not so gross and altogether
    incomprehensible, as the common reading of what happened
    would imply.

     When the Lord touched the other shore, His mind and heart
    were still full of the scene from which He had lately passed.
    For truly, on this demand for a sign did the future of Israel
    seem to hang. Perhaps it is not presumptuous to suppose, that
    the journey across the Lake had been made in silence on His
    part, so deeply were mind and heart engrossed with the fate
    of His own royal city. And now, when they landed, they
    carried ashore the empty provision-baskets; for, as, with his
    usual attention to details, St. Mark notes, they had only
    brought one loaf of bread with them. In fact, in the
    excitement and hurry 'they forgot to take bread' with them.
    Whether or not something connected with this arrested the
    attention of Christ, He at last broke the silence, speaking
    that which was so much on His mind. He warned them, as
    greatly they needed it, of the leaven with which Pharisees
    and Sadducees had, each in their own manner, leavened, and so
    corrupted, [2 The figurative meaning of leaven, as that which
    morally corrupts, was familiar to the Jews. Thus the word
    (Seor) is used in the sense of 'moral leaven' hindering the
    good in Ber. 17 a while the verb (chamets) 'to be come
    leavened,' is used to indicate moral deterioration in Rosh
    haSh. 3 b, 4 a.] the holy bread of Scripture truth. The
    disciples, aware that in their hurry and excitement they had
    forgotten bread, misunderstood these words of Christ,
    although not in the utterly unaccountable manner which
    commentators generally suppose: as implying 'a caution
    against procuring bread from His enemies.' It is well-nigh
    impossible, that the disciples could have understood the
    warning of Christ as meaning any such thing, even
    irrespective of the consideration, that a prohibition to buy
    bread from either the Pharisees or Sadducees would have
    involved an impossibility. The misunderstanding of the
    disciples was, if unwarrantable, at least rational. They
    thought the words of Christ implied, that in His view they
    had not forgotten to bring bread, but purposely omitted to do
    so, in order, like the Pharisees and Sadducees, to 'seek of
    Him a sign' of His Divine Messiahship, nay, to oblige Him to
    show such, that of miraculous provision in their want. The
    mere suspicion showed what was in their minds, and pointed to
    their danger. This explains how, in His reply, Jesus reproved
    them, not for utter want of discernment, but only for 'little
    faith.' It was their lack of faith, the very leaven of the
    Pharisees and Sadducees, which had suggested such a thought.
    Again, if the experience of the past, their own
    twice-repeated question, and the practical answer which it
    had received in the miraculous provision of not only enough,
    but to spare, had taught them anything, it should have been
    to believe, that the needful provision of their wants by
    Christ was not 'a sign,' such as the Pharisees had asked, but
    what faith might ever expect from Christ, when following
    after, or waiting upon, Him. Then understood they truly, that
    it was not of the leaven of bread that He had bidden them
    beware, that His mysterious words bore no reference to bread,
    nor to their supposed omission to bring it for the purpose of
    eliciting a sign from Him, but pointed to the far more real
    danger of 'the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees,'
    which had underlain the demand for a sign from heaven.

     Here, as always, Christ rather suggests than gives the
    interpretation of His meaning. And this is the law of His
    teaching. Our modern Pharisees and Sadducees, also, too often
    ask of him a sign from heaven in evidence of His claims. And
    we also too often misunderstand His warning to us concerning
    their leaven. Seeing the scanty store in our basket, our
    little faith is busy with thoughts about possible signs in
    multiplying the one loaf which we have, forgetful that, where
    Christ is, faith may ever expect all that is needful, and
    that our care should only be in regard to the teaching which
    might leaven and corrupt that on which our souls are fed.

 THE ASCENT:

    THE GREAT CONFESSION, THE GREAT COMMISSION, THE GREAT
    INSTRUCTION, THE GREAT TEMPTATION, THE GREAT DECISION.

    CHAPTER XXXVII.

     (St. Matt. xvi. 13-28; St. Mark viii. 27, ix. 1; St. Luke
    ix. 18-27.)

     If we are right in identifying the little bay, Dalmanutha,
    with the neighbourhood of Tarichaea, yet another link of
    strange coincidence connects the prophetic warning spoken
    there with its fulfilment. From Dalmanutha our Lord passed
    across the Lake to Caesarea Philippi. From Caesarea Philippi
    did Vespasian pass through Tiberias to Tarichaea, when the
    town and people were destroyed, and the blood of the
    fugitives reddened the Lake, and their bodies choked its
    waters. Even amidst the horrors of the last Jewish war, few
    spectacles could have been so sickening as that of the wild
    stand at Tarichaea, ending with the butchery of 0,500 on land
    and sea, and lastly, the vile treachery by which they, to
    whom mercy had been promised, were lured into the circus at
    Tiberias, when the weak and old, to the number of about
    1,200, were slaughtered, and the rest upwards of 30,400, sold
    into slavery. [a Jos. Jew. War iii. 10.] [1 If it were for no
    other reason than the mode in which the ex-general of the
    Galileans, Josephus, tells this story, he would deserve our
    execration.] Well might He, Who foresaw and foretold that
    terrible end, standing on that spot, deeply sigh in spirit as
    He spake to them who asked 'a sign,' and yet saw not what
    even ordinary discernment might have perceived of the red and
    lowering sky overhead.

     From Dalmanutha, across the Lake, then by the plain where so
    lately the five thousand had been fed, and near to Bethsaida,
    would the road of Christ and His disciples lead to the
    capital of the Tetrarch Philip, the ancient Paneas, or, as it
    was then called, Caesarea Philippi, the modern Banias. Two
    days' journey would accomplish the whole distance. There
    would be no need of taking the route now usually followed, by
    Safed. Straight northwards from the Lake of Galilee, a
    distance of about ten miles, leads the road to the uppermost
    Jordan-Lake, that now called Huleh, the ancient Merom. [1 For
    the geographical details I must refer to the words of Stanley
    and Tristram, and to Badeker's Palastina. I have not deemed
    it necessary to make special quotation of my authority in
    each case.] As we ascend from the shores of Gennesaret, we
    have a receding view of the whole Lake and the Jordan-valley
    beyond. Before us rise hills; over them, to the west, are the
    heights of Safed; beyond them swells the undulating plain
    between the two ranges of Anti-Libanus; far off is Hermon,
    with its twin snow-clad heads ('the Hermons'), [a Ps. xiii.
    6.] and, in the dim far background, majestic Lebanon. Itis
    scarcely likely, that Jesus and His disciples skirted the
    almost impenetrable marsh and jungle by Lake Merom. It was
    there, that Joshua had fought the last and decisive battle
    against Jabin and his confederates, by which Northern
    Palestine was gained to Israel. [b Josh. xi. 1-5.] We turn
    north of the Lake, and west to Kedes, the Kedesh Naphtali of
    the Bible, the home of Barak. We have now passed from the
    limestone of Central Palestine into the dark basalt
    formation. How splendidly that ancient Priest-City of Refuge
    lay! In the rich heritage of Naphtali, [c Deut. xxxiii. 23.]
    Kedesh was one of the fairest spots.As we climb the steep
    hill above the marshes of Merom, we have before us one of the
    richest plains of about two thousand acres. We next pass
    through olive-groves and up a gentle slope. On a knoll before
    us, at the foot of which gushes a copious spring, lies the
    ancient Kedesh.

     The scenery is very similar, as we travel on towards
    Caesarea Philippi. About an hour and a half farther, we
    strike the ancient Roman road. We are now amidst vines and
    mulberry-trees. Passing through a narrow rich valley, we
    ascend through a rocky wilderness of hills, where the
    woodbine luxuriantly trails around the planetrees. On the
    height there is a glorious view back to Lake Merom and the
    Jordan-valley; forward, to the snowy peaks of Hermon; east,
    to height on height, and west, to peaks now only crowned with
    ruins. We still continued along the height, then descended a
    steep slope, leaving, on our left, the ancient Abel Beth
    Maachah, [d 2 Sam. xx. 14.] the modern Abil. Another hour,
    and we are in a plain where all the springs of the Jordan
    unite. The view from here is splendid, and the soil most
    rich, the wheat crops being quite ripe in the beginning of
    May. Half an hour more, and we cross a bridge over the bright
    blue waters of the Jordan, or rather of the Hasbany, which,
    under a very wilderness of oleanders, honeysuckle, clematis,
    and wild rose, rush among huge boulders, between walls of
    basalt. We leave aside, at a distance of about half an hour
    to the east, the ancient Dan (the modern Tell-Kady), even
    more glorious in its beauty and richness than what we have
    passed. Dan lies on a hill above the plain. On the western
    side of it, under overhanging thickets of oleander and other
    trees, and amidst masses of basalt boulders, rise what are
    called 'the lower springs' of Jordan, issuing as a stream
    from a basin sixty paces wide, and from a smaller source
    close by. The 'lower springs' supply the largest proportion
    of what forms the Jordan. And from Dan olivegroves and
    oak-glades slope up to Banias, or Caesarea Philippi.

     The situation of the ancient Caesarea Philippi (1,147 feet
    above the sea) is, indeed, magnificent. Nestling amid three
    valleys on a terrace in the angle of Hermon, it is almost
    shut out from view by cliffs and woods. 'Everywhere there is
    a wild medley of cascades, mulberry trees, fig-trees, dashing
    torrents, festoons of vines, bubbling fountains, reeds, and
    ruins, and the mingled music of birds and waters.' [1
    Tristram, Land of Israel, p. 586.] The vegetation and
    fertility all around are extraordinary. The modern village of
    Banias is within the walls of the old fortifications, and the
    ruins show that it must anciently have extended far
    southwards. But the most remarkable points remain to be
    described. The western side of a steep mountain, crowned by
    the ruins of an ancient castle, forms an abrupt rock-wall.
    Here, from out an immense cavern, bursts a river. These are
    'the upper sources' of the Jordan. This cave, an ancient
    heathen sanctuary of Pan, gave its earliest name of Paneas to
    the town. Here Herod, when receiving the tetrarchy from
    Augustus, built a temple in his honour. On the rocky wall
    close by, votive niches may still be traced, one of them
    bearing the Greek inscription, 'Priest of Pan.' When Herod's
    son, Philip, received the tetrarchy, he enlarged and greatly
    beautified the ancient Paneas, and called it in honour of the
    Emperor, Caesarea Philippi. The castle-mount (about 1,000
    feet above Paneas), takes nearly an hour to ascend, and is
    separated by a deep valley from the flank of Mount Hermon.
    The castle itself (about two miles from Banias) is one of the
    best preserved ruins, its immense bevelled structure
    resembling the ancient forts of Jerusalem, and showing its
    age. It followed the irregularities of the mountain, and was
    about 1,000 feet long by 200 wide. The eastern and higher
    part formed, as in Machaerus, a citadel within the castle. In
    some parts the rock rises higher than the walls. The views,
    sheer down the precipitous sides of the mountain, into the
    valleys and far away, are magnificent.

     It seems worth while, even at such length, to describe the
    scenery along this journey, and the look and situation of
    Caesarea, when we recall the importance of the events enacted
    there, or in the immediate neighbourhood. It was into this
    chiefly Gentile district, that the Lord now withdrew with His
    disciples after that last and decisive question of the
    Pharisees. It was here that, as His question, like Moses'
    rod, struck their hearts, there leaped from the lips of Peter
    the living, life-spreading waters of his confession. It may
    have been, that this rock-wall below the castle, from under
    which sprang Jordan, or the rock on which the castle stood,
    supplied the material suggestion for Christ's words: 'Thou
    art Peter, and on this rock will I build My Church.' [1 So
    Dean Stanley, with his usual charm of language, though
    topographically not quite correctly (Sinai and Palestine, p.
    395).] In Caesarea, or its immediate neighbourhood, [2
    Nothing in the above obliges us to infer, that the words of
    Peter's confession were spoken in Caesarea itself. The place
    might have been in view or in the memory.] did the Lord
    spend, with His disciples, six days after this confession;
    and here, close by, on one of the heights of snowy Hermon,
    was the scene of the Transfiguration, the light of which
    shone for ever into the hearts of the disciples on their dark
    and tangled path; [a 2 Pet. i. 19.] nay, far beyond that,
    beyond life and death, beyond the grave and the judgment, to
    the perfect brightness of the Resurrection-day.

     As we think of it, there seems nothing strange in it, but
    all most wise and most gracious, that such events should have
    taken place far away from Galilee and Israel, in the lonely
    grandeur of the shadows of Hermon, and even amongst a chiefly
    Gentile population. Not in Judaea, nor even in Galilee, but
    far away from the Temple, the Synagogue, the Priests,
    Pharisees and Scribes, was the first confession of the Church
    made, and on this confession its first foundations laid. Even
    this spoke of near judgment and doom to what had once been
    God's chosen congregation. And all that happened, though
    Divinely shaped as regards the end, followed in a natural and
    orderly succession of events. Let us briefly recall the
    circumstances, which in the previous chapters have been
    described in detail.

     It had been needful to leave Capernaum. The Galilean
    Ministry of the Christ was ended, and, alike the active
    persecutions of the Pharisees from Jerusalem, the inquiries
    of Herod, whose hands, stained with the blood of the Baptist,
    were tremblingly searching for his greater Successor, and the
    growing indecision and unfitness of the people, as well as
    the state of the disciples, pointed to the need for leaving
    Galilee. Then followed 'the Last Supper' to Israel on the
    eastern shore of Lake Gennesaret, when they would have made
    Him a King. He must now withdraw quite away, out of the
    boundaries of Israel. Then came that miraculous
    night-journey, the brief Sabbath-stay at Capernaum by the
    way, the journey through Tyrian and Sidonian territory, and
    round to the Decapolis, the teaching and healing there, the
    gathering of the multitude to Him, together with that
    'Supper,' which closed His Ministry there, and, finally, the
    withdrawal to Tarichaea, where His Apostles, as fishermen of
    the Lake, may have had business-connections, since the place
    was the great central depot for selling and preparing the
    fish for export.

     In that distant and obscure corner, on the boundary-line
    between Jew and Gentile, had that greatest crisis in the
    history of the world occurred, which sealed the doom of
    Israel, and in their place substituted the Gentiles as
    citizens of the Kingdom. And, in this respect also, it is
    most significant, that the confession of the Church likewise
    took place in territory chiefly inhabited by Gentiles, and
    the Transfiguration on Mount Hermon. That crisis had been the
    public challenge of the Pharisees and Sadducees, that Jesus
    should legitimate His claims to the Messiahship by a sign
    from heaven. It is not too much to assert, that neither His
    questioners, nor even His disciples, understood the answer of
    Jesus, nor yet perceived the meaning of His 'sign.' To the
    Pharisees Jesus would seem to have been defeated, and to
    stand self-convicted of having made Divine claims which, when
    challenged, He could not substantiate. He had hitherto
    elected(as they, who understood not His teaching, would
    judge) to prove Himself the Messiah by the miracles which He
    had wrought, and now, when met on His own ground, He had
    publicly declined, or at least evaded, the challenge. He had
    conspicuously, almost self-confessedly, failed! At least, so
    it would appear to those who could not understand His reply
    and 'sigh.' We note that a similar final challenge was
    addressed to Jesus by the High-Priest, when he adjured Him to
    say, whether He was what He claimed. His answer then was an
    assertion, not a proof; and, unsupported as it seemed, His
    questioners would only regard it as blasphemy.

     But what of the disciples, who (as we have seen) would
    probably understand 'the sign' of Christ little better than
    the Pharisees? That what might seem Christ's failure, in not
    daring to meet the challenge of His questioners, must have
    left some impression on them, is not only natural, but
    appears even from Christ's warning of the leaven, that is, of
    the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees. Indeed, that
    this unmet challenge and virtual defeat of Jesus did make
    lasting and deepest impression in His disfavour, is evident
    from the later challenge of His own relatives to go and meet
    the Pharisees at headquarters in Judaea, and to show openly,
    if He could, by His works, that He was the Messiah. [a St.
    John vii. 1-5.] All the more remarkable appears Christ's
    dealing with His disciples, His demand on, and training of
    their faith. It must be remembered, that His last 'hard'
    sayings at Capernaum had led to the defection of many, who
    till then had been His disciples. [b St. John vi. 60-66;
    comp. St. Matt. xv. 12.] Undoubtedly this had already tried
    their faith, as appears from the question of Christ: 'Will ye
    also go away? [c St. John vi. 67.] It was this wise and
    gracious dealing with them, this putting the one
    disappointment of doubt, engendered by what they could not
    understand, against their whole past experience in following
    Him, which enabled them to overcome. And it is this which
    also enables us to answer the doubt, perhaps engendered by
    inability to understand seemingly unintelligible, hard
    sayings of Christ, such as that to the disciples about giving
    them His Flesh to eat, or about His being the Living Bread
    from heaven. And, this alternative being put to them: would
    they, could they, after their experience of Him, go away from
    Him, they overcame, as we overcome, through what almost
    sounds like a cry of despair, yet is a shout of victory:
    'Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal
    life.'

     And all that followed only renewed and deepened the trial of
    faith, which had commenced at Capernaum. We shall, perhaps,
    best understand it when following the progress of this trial
    in him who, at last, made shipwreck of his faith: Judas
    Iscariot. Without attempting to gaze into the mysterious
    abyss of the Satanic element in his apostasy, we may trace
    his course in its psychological development. We must not
    regard Judas as a monster, but as one with passions like
    ourselves. True, there was one terrible master-passion in his
    soul, covetousness; but that was only the downward, lower
    aspect of what seems, and to many really is, that which leads
    to the higher and better, ambition. It had been thoughts of
    Israel's King which had first set his imagination on fire,
    and brought him to follow the Messiah. Gradually,
    increasingly, came the disenchantment. It was quite another
    Kingdom, that of Christ; quite another Kingship than what had
    set Judas aglow. This feeling was deepened as events
    proceeded. His confidence must have been terribly shaken when
    the Baptist was beheaded. What a contrast to the time when
    his voice had bent the thousands of Israel, as trees in the
    wind! So this had been nothing, and the Baptist must be
    written off, not as for, but as really against, Christ. Then
    came the next disappointment, when Jesus would not be made
    King. Why not, if He were King? And so on, step by step, till
    the final depth was reached, when Jesus would not, or could
    not, which was it?, meet the public challenge of the
    Pharisees. We take it, that it was then that the leaven
    pervaded and leavened Judas in heart and soul.

     We repeat it, that what so, and permanently, penetrated
    Judas, could not (as Christ's warning shows) have left the
    others wholly unaffected. The very presence of Judas with
    them must have had its influence. And how did Christ deal
    with it? There was, first, the silent sail across the Lake,
    and then the warning which put them on their guard, lest the
    little leaven should corrupt the bread of the Sanctuary, on
    which they had learned to live. The littleness of their faith
    must be corrected; it must grow and become strong. And so we
    can understand what follows. It was after solitary prayer, no
    doubt for them [a St. Luke ix. 18.], that, with reference to
    the challenge of the Pharisees, 'the leaven' that threatened
    them, He now gathered up all their experience of the past by
    putting to them the question, what men, the people who had
    watched His Works and heard His Words, regarded Him as being.
    Even on them some conviction had been wrought by their
    observance of Him. It marked Him out (as the disciples said)
    as different from all around, nay, from all ordinary men:
    like the Baptist, or Elijah, or as if He were one of the old
    prophets alive again. But, if even the multitude had gathered
    such knowledge of Him, what was their experience, who had
    always been with Him? Answered he, who most truly represented
    the Church, because he combined with the most advanced
    experience of the three most intimate disciples the utmost
    boldness of confession: 'Thou art the Christ!'

     And so in part was this 'leaven' of the Pharisees purged!
    Yet not wholly. For then it was, that Christ spake to them of
    His sufferings and death, and that the resistance of Peter
    showed how deeply that leaven had penetrated. And then
    followed the grand contrast presented by Christ, between
    minding the things of men and those of God, with the warning
    which it implied. and the monition as to the necessity of
    bearing the cross of contempt, and the absolute call to do
    so, as addressed to those who would be His disciples. Here,
    then, the contest about 'the sign,' or rather the challenge
    about the Messiahship, was carried from the mental into the
    moral sphere, and so decided. Six days more of quiet waiting
    and growth of faith, and it was met, rewarded, crowned, and
    perfected by the sight on the Mount of Transfiguration; yet,
    even so, perceived only as through the heaviness of sleep.

     Thus far for the general arrangement of these events. We
    shall now be prepared better to understand the details. It
    was certainly not for personal reasons, but to call attention
    to the impression made even on the popular mind, to correct
    its defects, and to raise the minds of the Apostles to far
    higher thoughts, that He asked them about the opinions of men
    concerning Himself. Their difference proved not only their
    incompetence to form a right view, but also how many-sided
    Christ's teaching must have been. We are probably correct in
    supposing, that popular opinion did not point to Christ as
    literally the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah, or one of the other
    prophets who had long been dead. For, although the literal
    reappearance of Elijah, and probably also of Jeremiah, [1 I
    confess, however, to strong doubts on this point. Legends of
    the hiding of the tabernacle, ark, and altar of incense on
    Mount Nebo by Jeremiah, were, indeed, combined with an
    expectation that these precious possessions would be restored
    in Messianic times (2 Macc. ii. 1-7), but it is expressly
    added in ver. 8, that 'the Lord' Himself, and not the
    prophet, would show their place of concealment. Dean
    Plumptre's statement, that the Pharisees taught, and the Jews
    believed in, the doctrine of the transmigration of souls must
    have arisen from the misapprehension of what Josephus said,
    to which reference has already been made in the chapter on
    'The Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes.' The first distinct
    mention of the reappearance of Jeremiah, along with Elijah,
    to restore the ark, &c., is in Josippon ben Gorion (lib. i.
    c. 21), but here also only in the Cod. Munster., not in that
    used by Breithaupt. The age of the work of Josippon is in
    dispute; probably we may date it from the tenth century of
    our era. The only other testimony about the reappearance of
    Jeremiah is in 4 Esd. (2 Esd.) ii. 18. But the book is
    post-Christian, and, in that section especially, evidently
    borrows from the Christian Scriptures.] was expected, the
    Pharisees did not teach, nor the Jews believe in, a
    transmigration of souls. Besides, no one looked for the
    return of any of the other old prophets, nor could any one
    have seriously imagined, that Jesus was, literally, John the
    Baptist, since all knew them to have been contemporaries. [2
    On the vague fears of Herod, see vol. i. p. 675.] Rather
    would it mean, that some saw in Him the continuation of the
    work of John, as heralding and preparing the way of the
    Messiah, or, if they did not believe in John, of that of
    Elijah; while to others He seemed a second Jeremiah,
    denouncing woe on Israel, [3 A vision of Jeremiah in adream
    was supposed to betoken chastisements (Ber. 57 e, line 7 from
    top).] and calling to tardy repentance; or else one of those
    old prophets, who had spoken either of the near judgment or
    of the coming glory. But, however men differed on these
    points, in this all agreed, that they regarded Him not as an
    ordinary man or teacher, but His Mission as straight from
    heaven; and, alas, in this also, that they did not view Him
    as the Messiah. Thus far, then, there was already
    retrogression in popular opinion, and thus far had the
    Pharisees already succeeded.
    There is a significant emphasis in the words, with which
    Jesus turned from the opinion of 'the multitudes' to elicit
    the faith of the disciples: 'But you, whom do you say that I
    am?' It is the more marked, as the former question was
    equally emphasised by the use of the article (in the
    original): 'Who do the men say that I am?' [a St. Mark viii
    27, 29.] In that moment it leaped, by the power of God, to
    the lips of Peter: 'Thou art the Christ (the Messiah), the
    Son of the Living God.' [b St. Matt. xvi. 16.] St. Chrysostom
    has beautifully designated Peter as 'the mouth of the
    Apostles', and we recall, in this connection, the words of
    St. Paul as casting light on the representative character of
    Peter's confession as that of the Church, and hence on the
    meaning of Christ's reply, and its equally representative
    application: 'With the mouth confession is made unto
    salvation.' [c Rom. x. 10.] The words of the confession are
    given somewhat differently by the three Evangelists. From our
    standpoint, the briefest form (that of St. Mark): 'Thou art
    the Christ,' means quite as much as the fullest (that of St.
    Matthew): 'Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God.'
    We can thus understand, how the latter might be truthfully
    adopted, and, indeed, would be the most truthful, accurate,
    and suitable in a Gospel primarily written for the Jews. And
    here we notice, that the most exact form of the words seems
    that in the Gospel of St. Luke: 'The Christ of God.'

     In saying this, so far from weakening, we strengthen the
    import of this glorious confession. For first, we must keep
    in view, that the confession: 'Thou art the Messiah' is also
    that: 'Thou art the Son of the Living God.' If, according to
    the Gospels, we believe that Jesus was the true Messiah,
    promised to the fathers, 'the Messiah of God', we cannot but
    believe that He is 'the Son of the Living God.' Scripture and
    reason equally point to this conclusion from the premisses.
    But, further, we must view such a confession, even though
    made in the power of God, in its historical connection. The
    words must have been such as Peter could have uttered, and
    the disciples acquiesced in, at the time. Moreover, they
    should mark a distinct connection with, and yet progress
    upon, the past. All these conditions are fulfilled by the
    view here taken. The full knowledge, in the sense of really
    understanding, that He was the Son of the Living God, came to
    the disciples only after the Resurrection. [d Comp. Rom. i.
    4.] Previously to the confession of Peter, the ship's
    company, that had witnessed His walking on the water, had
    owned: 'Of a truth Thou art the Son of God,' [e St. Matt.
    xiv. 33.] but not in the sense in which a well-informed,
    believing Jew would hail Him as the Messiah, and 'the Son of
    the Living God,' designating both His Office and His Nature,
    and these two in their combination. Again, Peter himself had
    made a confession of Christ, when, after his discourse at
    Capernaum, so many of His disciples had forsaken Him. It had
    been: 'We have believed, and know that Thou art the Holy One
    of God.' [a St. John vi. 69.] [1 This is the correct
    reading.] The mere mention of these words shows both their
    internal connection with those of his last and crowning
    confession: 'Thou art the Christ of God,' and the immense
    progress made.

     The more closely we view it, the loftier appears the height
    of this confession. We think of it as an advance on Peter's
    past; we think of it in its remembered contrast to the late
    challenge of the Pharisees, and as so soon following on the
    felt danger of their leaven. And we think of it, also, in its
    almost immeasurable distance from the appreciative opinion of
    the better disposed among the people. In the words of this
    confession Peter has consciously reached the firm ground of
    Messianic acknowledgment. All else is implied in this, and
    would follow from it. It is the first real confession of the
    Church. We can understand, how it followed after solitary
    prayer by Christ [b St. Luke ix. 18.], we can scarcely doubt,
    for that very revelation by the Father, which He afterwards
    joyously recognised in the words of Peter.

     The reply of the Saviour is only recorded by St. Matthew.
    Its omission by St. Mark might be explained on the ground
    that St. Peter himself had furnished the information. But its
    absence there and in the Gospel of St. Luke [2 There could
    have been no anti-Petrine tendency in this, since it is
    equally omitted in the Petrine Gospel of St. Mark.] proves
    (as Beza remarks), that it could never have been intended as
    the foundation of so important a doctrine as that of the
    permanent supremacy of St. Peter. But even if it were such,
    it would not follow that this supremacy devolved on the
    successors of St. Peter, nor yet that the Pope of Rome is the
    successor of St. Peter; nor is there even solid evidence that
    St. Peter ever was Bishop of Rome. The dogmatic inferences
    from a certain interpretation of the words of Christ to Peter
    being therefore utterly untenable, we can, with less fear of
    bias, examine their meaning. The whole form here is
    Hebraistic. The 'blessed art thou' is Jewish in spirit and
    form; the address, 'Simon bar Jona,' proves that the Lord
    spake in Aramaic. Indeed, a Jewish Messiah responding, in the
    hour of his Messianic acknowledgment, in Greek to His Jewish
    confessor, seems utterly incongruous. Lastly, the expression
    'flesh and blood,' as contrasted with God, occurs not only in
    that Apocryphon of strictly Jewish authorship, the Wisdom of
    the Son of Sirach, [a Ecclus, xiv. 18; xvii. 31.] and in the
    letters of St. Paul, [b 1 Cor. xv. 60; Gal. i. 16; Eph. vi.
    12.] but in almost innumerable passages in Jewish writings,
    as denoting man in opposition to God; while the revelation of
    such a truth by 'the Father Which is in Heaven,' represents
    not only both Old and New Testament Teaching, but is clothed
    in language familiar to Jewish ears ( ).

     Not less Jewish in form are the succeeding words of Christ,
    'Thou art Peter (Petros), and upon this rock (Petra) will I
    build my Church.' We notice in the original the change from
    the masculine gender, 'Peter' (Petros), to the feminine,
    'Petra' ('Rock'), which seems the more significant, that
    Petros is used in Greek for 'stone,' and also sometimes for
    'rock,' while Petra always means a 'rock.' The change of
    gender must therefore have a definite object which will
    presently be more fully explained. Meantime we recall that,
    when Peter first came to Christ, the Lord had said unto him:
    'Thou shalt be called Cephas, which is, by interpretation,
    Peter [Petros, a Stone, or else a Rock]' [c St. John i. 42.],
    the Aramaic word Kepha ( , or ) meaning, like Peter, both
    'stone' and 'rock." But both the Greek Petros and Petra have
    (as already stated) passed into Rabbinic language. Thus, the
    name Peter, or rather Petros, is Jewish, and occurs, for
    example, as that of the father of a certain Rabbi (Jose bar
    Petros). [d Pesiqta, ed. Buber, p. 158 a, line 8 from
    bottom.] When the Lord, therefore, prophetically gave the
    name Cephas, it may have been that by that term He gave only
    a prophetic interpretation to what had been his previous name
    Peter ( ). This seems the more likely, since, as we have
    previously seen, it was the practice in Galilee to have two
    names, [1 See the remarks on Matthew-Levi in vol. i. ch.
    xvii. p. 514 of this Book.] especially when the strictly
    Jewish name, such as Simon, had no equivalent among the
    Gentiles. [2 Thus, for example, Andrew was both and (Anderai)
    'manly,' 'brave.' A family Anderai is mentioned Jer. Kethub.
    33 a.] Again, the Greek word Petra, Rock, ('on this Petra
    [Rock] will I build my Church') was used in the same sense in
    Rabbinic language. It occurs twice in a passage, which so
    fully illustrates the Jewish use, not only of the word, but
    of the whole figure, that it deserves a place here. According
    to Jewish ideas, the world would not have been created,
    unless it had rested, as it were, on some solid foundation of
    piety and acceptance of God's Law, in other words, it
    required a moral, before it could receive a physical
    foundation. Rabbinism here contrasts the Gentile world with
    Israel. It is, so runs the comment, as if a king were going
    to build a city. One and another site is tried for a
    foundation, but in digging they always come upon water. At
    last they come upon a Rock (Petra,). So, when God was about
    to build his world, He could not rear it on the generation of
    Enos nor on that of the flood, who brought desctruction on
    the world; but 'when He beheld that Abraham would arise in
    the future, He said: Behold I have found a Rock (Petra,) to
    build on it, and to found the world,' whence also Abraham is
    called a Rock (Tsur,) as it is said: [a Is. li 1.] 'Look unto
    the Rock whence ye are hewn.' [b Yalkut on Numb. xxiii. 9,
    vol. i. p.243, b, last 6 lines, and c, first 3 lines.] [1 The
    same occurs in Shem. R. 15, only that there it is not only
    Abraham but 'the fathers' who are 'the Rocks' (the word used
    there is not Petra but Tsur) on whom the world is founded.]
    The parallel between Abraham and Peter might be carried even
    further. If, from a misunderstanding of the Lord's promise to
    Peter, later Christian legend represented the Apostle as
    sitting at the gate of heaven, Jewish legend represents
    Abraham as sitting at the gate of Gehenna, so as to prevent
    all who had the seal of circumcision from falling into its
    abyss. [c Erub.19 a Ber. R. 48.] [2 There was a strange idea
    about Jewish children who had died uncircumcised and the
    sinners in Israel exchanging their position in regard to
    circumcision. Could this, only spiritually understood and
    applied, have been present to the mind of St. Paul when he
    wrote Romans ii. 25, 26, last clauses?] To complete this
    sketch, in the curious Jewish legend about the Apostle Peter,
    which is outlined in an Appendix to this volume, [3 See
    Appendix XVIII.] Peter is always designated as Simon Kepha
    (spelt), there being, however, some reminiscence of the
    meaning attached to his name in the statement made, that,
    after his death, they built a church and tower, and called it
    Peter ( ) 'which is the name for stone, because he sat there
    upon a stone till his death ( ).[1 The same occurs in Shem.
     R. 15, only that there it is not only Abraham but 'the
    fathers' who are 'the Rocks' (the word used there is not
    Petra but Tsur) on whom the world is founded.] [4 The reader
    will have no difficulty in recognizing a reference to the See
    of Rome, perhaps 'the Chair of St. Peter,' mixed up with the
    meaning of the name of Peter.]

     But to return. Believing, that Jesus spoke to Peter in the
    Aramic, we can now understand how the words Petros and Petra
    would be purposely used by Christ to mark the difference,
    which their choice would suggest. Perhaps it might be
    expressed in this somewhat clumsy paraphrase: 'Thou art Peter
    (Petros, a Stone or Rock, and upon this Petra, the Rock, the
    Petrine, will I found My Church.' If, therefore, we would not
    certainly apply them to to the words of Peter's confession,
    we would certainly apply them to that which was the Petrine
    in Peter: the heaven-given faith which manifested itself in
    his confession. [5 The other views of the words are (a) that
    Christ pointed to Himself as the Rock, (b) or to Peter as a
    person, (c) or to Peter's confession.] And we can further
    understand how, just as Christ's contemporaries may have
    regarded the world as reared on the rock of faithful Abraham,
    so Christ promised, that He would build His Church on the
    Petrine in Peter, on his faith and confession. Nor would the
    term 'Church' sound strange in Jewish ears. The same Greek
    word ( ), as the equivalent of the Hebrew Qahal,
    'convocation,' 'the called,' [1 The other word is Edah. Comp.
    Bible Hist. vol. ii. p. 177, note.] occurs in the LXX.
    rendering of the Old Testament, and in 'the Wisdom of the Son
    of Sirach' [a Ecclus. xxiv. 2.] and was apparently in
    familiar use at the time. [b Comp. Acts vii. 38, and even St.
    Matt. xviii. 17.] In Hebrew use it referred to Israel, not in
    their national but in their religious unity. As here
    employed, it would convey the prophecy, that His disciples
    would in the future be joined together in a religious unity;
    that this religious unity or 'Church' would be a building of
    which Christ was the Builder; that it would be founded on
    'the Petrine' of heaven-taught faith and confession; and that
    this religious unity, this Church, was not only intended for
    a time, like a school of thought, but would last beyond death
    and the disembodied state: that, alike as regarded Christ and
    His Church, 'the gates of Hades [2 It is important to notice
    that the word is Hades, and not Gehenna. Dean Plumptre calls
    attention to the wonderful character of such a prophecy at a
    time when all around seemed to foreshadow only failure.]
    shall not prevail against it. [e Acts xv. 7.]

     Viewing 'the Church' as a building founded upon 'the
    Petrine, [3 Those who apply the words 'upon this Rock, &c.,'
    to Peter or to Christ must feel, that they introduce an
    abrupt and inelegant transition from one figure to another.]
    it was not to vary, but to carry on the same metaphor, when
    Christ promised to give to him who had spoken as
    representative of the Apostles, 'the stewards of the
    mysteries of God', 'the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven.' For,
    as the religious unity of His disciples, or the Church,
    represented 'the royal rule of heaven,' so, figuratively,
    entrance into the gates of this building, submission to the
    rule of God, to that Kingdom of which Christ was the King.
    And we remember how, in a special sense, this promise was
    fulfilled to Peter. Even as he had been the first to utter
    the confession of the Church, so was he also privileged to be
    the first to open its hitherto closed gates to the Gentiles,
    when God made choice of him, that, through his mouth, the
    Gentiles should first hear the words of the Gospel, [c Acts
    xv. 7.] and at his bidding first be baptized. [d Acts x. 48.]

     If hitherto it has appeared that what Christ said to Peter,
    though infinitely transcending Jewish ideas, was yet, in its
    expression and even cast of thought, such as to be quite
    intelligible to Jewish minds, nay, so familiar to them, that,
    as by well-marked steps, they might ascend to the higher
    Sanctuary, the difficult words with which our Lord closed
    must be read in the same light. For, assuredly, in
    interpreting such a saying of Christ to Peter, our first
    inquiry must be, what it would convey to the person to whom
    the promise was addressed. And here we recall, that no other
    terms were in more constant use in Rabbinic Canon-Law than
    those of 'binding' and 'loosing.' The words are the literal
    translation of the Hebrew equivalents Asar ( ), which means
    'to bind,' in the sense of prohibiting, and Hittir ( , from )
    which means 'to loose,' in the sense of permitting. For the
    latter the term Shera or Sheri ( , or ) is also used. But
    this expression is, both in Targumic and Talmudic diction,
    not merely the equivalent of permitting, but passes into that
    of remitting or pardoning. On the other hand, 'binding and
    loosing' referred simply to things or acts prohibiting or
    else permitting them, declaring them lawful or unlawful. This
    was one of the powers claimed by the Rabbis. As regards their
    laws (not decisions as to things or acts), it was a
    principle, that while in Scripture there were some that bound
    and some that loosed, all the laws of the Rabbis were in
    reference to 'binding.' [a Jer. Ber. 3 b; Jer. Meg. 71 a;
    Jer. Sanh. 30 a.] If this then represented the legislative,
    another pretension of the Rabbis, that of declaring 'free' or
    else 'liable,' i.e., guilty (Patur or Chayyabh), expressed
    their claim to the judicial power. By the first of these they
    'bound' or 'loosed' acts or things; by the second they
    'remitted' or 'retained,' declared a person free from, or
    liable to punishment. to compensation, or to sacrifice. These
    two powers, the legislative and judicial, which belonged to
    the Rabbinic office, Christ now transferred, and that not in
    their pretension, but in their relity, to His Apostles: the
    first here to Peter as their Representative, the second after
    His Resurrection to the Church. [b St. John xx. 23.]

     On the second of these powers we need not at present dwell.
    That of 'binding' and 'loosing' included all the legislative
    functions for the new Church. And it was a reality. In the
    view of the Rabbis heaven was like earth, and questions were
    discussed and settled by a heavenly Sanhedrin. Now, in regard
    to some of their earthly decrees, they were wont to say that
    'the Sanhedrin above' confirmed what 'the Sanhedrin beneath'
    had done. But the words of Christ, as they avoided the
    foolish conceit of His contemporaries, left it not doubtful,
    but conveyed the assurance that, under the guidance of the
    Holy Ghost, whatsoever they bound or loosed on earth would be
    bound or loosed in heaven.

     But all this that had passed between them could not be
    matter of common talk, least of all, at that crisis in His
    History, and in that locality. Accordingly, all the three
    Evangelists record, each with distinctive emphasis [1 The
    word used by St. Matthew ( ) means 'charged;' that by St.
    Mark ( ) implies rebuke; while the expression employed by St.
    Luke ( ) conveys both rebuke and command.] that the open
    confession of his Messiahship, which was virtually its
    proclamation, was not to be made public. Among the people it
    could only have led to results the opposite of those to be
    desired. How unprepared even that Apostle was, who had made
    proclamation of the Messiah, for what his confession implied,
    and how ignorant of the real meaning of Israel's Messiah,
    appeared only too soon. For, His proclamation as the Christ
    imposed on the Lord, so to speak, the necessity of setting
    forth the mode of His contest and victory, the Cross and the
    Crown. Such teaching was the needed sequence of Peter's
    confession, needed, not only for the correction of
    misunderstanding, but for direction. And yet significantly it
    is only said, that 'He began' to teach them these things, no
    doubt, as regarded the manner, as well as the time of this
    teaching. The Evangelists, indeed, write it down in plain
    language, as fully taught them by later experience, that He
    was to be rejected by the rulers of Israel, slain, and to
    rise again the third day. And there can be as little doubt,
    that Christ's language (as afterwards they looked back upon
    it) must have clearly implied all this, as that at the time
    they did not fully understand it. [2 Otherwise they could not
    afterwards have been in such doubt about His Death and
    Resurrection.] He was so constantly in the habit of using
    symbolic language, and had only lately reproved them for
    taking that about 'the leaven' in a literal, which He had
    meant in a figurative sense, that it was but natural, they
    should have regarded in the same light announcements which,
    in their strict literality, would seem to them well nigh
    incredible. They could well understand His rejection by the
    Scribes, a sort of figurative death, or violent suppression
    of His claims and doctrines, and then, after briefest period,
    their resurrection, as it were, but not these terrible
    details in their full literality.

     But, even so, there was enough of terrible realism in the
    words of Jesus to alarm Peter. His very affection, intensely
    human, to the Human Personality of his Master would lead him
    astray. That He, Whom he verily believed to be the Messiah,
    Whom he loved with all the intenseness of such an intense
    nature, that he should pass through such an ordeal, No!
    Never! He put it in the very strongest language, although the
    Evangelist gives only a literal translation of the Rabbinic
    expression [3 It is very remarkable that the expression
    literally 'have mercy on thee,' is the exact transcript of
    the Rabbinic Chas lecha ( ). See Levy, Neuhebr. Worterb. vol.
    ii, p. 85. The commoner expression is Chas ve Shalom, 'mercy
    and peace,' viz. be to thee, and the meaning is, God forbid,
    or God avert, a thing or its continuance.] God forbid it,
    'God be merciful to Thee:' [1 So the Greek literally.] no,
    such never could, nor should be to the Christ! It was an
    appeal to the Human in Christ, just as Satan had, in the
    great Temptation after the forty days' fast, appealed to the
    purely Human in Jesus. Temptations these, with which we
    cannot reason, but which we must put behind us as behind, or
    else they will be a stumbling-block before us; temptations,
    which come to us often through the love and care of others,
    Satan transforming himself into an Angel of light;
    temptations, all the more dangerous, that they appeal to the
    purely human, not the sinful, element in us, but which arise
    from the circumstance, that they who so become our
    stumbling-block, so long as they are before us, are prompted
    by an affection which has regard to the purely human, and, in
    its onesided human intenseness, minds the things of man, and
    not those of God.

     Yet Peter's words were to be made useful, by affording to
    the Master the opportunity of correcting what was amiss in
    the hearts of all His-disciples, and teaching them such
    general principles about His Kingdom, and about that implied
    in true discipleship, as would, if received in the heart,
    enable them in due time victoriously to bear those trials
    connected with that rejection and Death of the Christ, which
    at the time they could not understand. Not a Messianic
    Kingdom, with glory to its heralds and chieftains, but
    self-denial, and the voluntary bearing of that cross on which
    the powers of this world would nail the followers of Christ.
    They knew the torture which their masters, the power of the
    world, the Romans, were wont to inflict: such must they, and
    similar must we all, be prepared to bear, [2 In those days
    the extreme suffering which a man might expect from the
    hostile power (the Romans) was the literal cross; in ours, it
    is suffering not less acute, the greatest which the present
    hostile power can inflict: really, through perhaps not
    literally, a cross.] and, in so doing, begin by denying self.
    In such a contest, to lose life would be to gain it, to gain
    would be to lose life. And, if the issue lay between these
    two, who could hesitate what to choose, even if it were ours
    to gain or lose a whole world? For behind it all there was a
    relity, a Messianic triumph and Kingdom, not, indeed, such as
    they imagined, but far higher, holier: the Coming of the Son
    of Man in the glory of His Father, and with His Angels, and
    then eternal gain or loss, according to our deeds. [a St.
    Matt. xvi. 24-27.]

     But why speak of the future and distant? 'A sign', a
    terrible sign of it 'from heaven,' a vindication of Christ's
    'rejected' claims, a vindication of the Christ, Whom they had
    slain, invoking His Blood on their City and Nation, a
    vindication, such as alone these men could understand, of the
    relity of His Resurrection and Ascension, was in the near
    future. The flames of the City and Temple would be the light
    in that nation's darkness, by which to read the inscription
    on the Cross. All this not afar off. Some of those who stood
    there would not 'taste death,' [1 This is an exact
    translation of the phase, which is of such very frequenct
    occurrence in Rabbinic writings. See our remarks on St. John
    viii. 52 in Book IV. ch. viii.] till in those judgments they
    would see that the Son of Man had come in His Kingdom. [a St.
    Matt. xvi. 28.]

     Then, only then, at the burning of the City! Why not now,
    visibly, and immediately on their terrible sin? Because God
    shows not 'signs from heaven' such as man seeks; because His
    long-suffering waiteth long; because, all unnoticed, the
    finger moves on the dial-plate of time till the hour strikes;
    because there is Divine grandeur and majesty in the slow,
    unheard, certain nigh-march of events under His direction.
    God is content to wait, because He reigneth; man must be
    content to wait, because he believeth.