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THE LIFE & TEACHING OF
JESUS CHRIST OUR LORD
VOLUME II
THE LIFE TEACHING OF
JESUS CHRIST OUR LORD
By
THE REV. JULES LEBRETON, S.J.
Professor at L'Institut Catholique, Paris
Translated from the French
" Now this is eternal life : That they may know thee, the
only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent."
(John xvii, 3.)
VOLUME II
LONDON
BURNS GATES & WASHBOURNE LTD
PUBLISHERS TO THE HOLY SEE
^
MADE AND PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN
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1935
NIHIL OBSTAT:
REGINALDUS PHILLIPS, S.Th,L. ;
Censor deputatus.
IMPRIMATUR:
Ji JOSEPH BUTT,
Vic. Gen.
WESTMONASTERII,
die 140. Octobris, 1955.
MADE AND PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN
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1935
CONTENTS
VOLUME II
THE MINISTRY IN JUDEA THE PASSION
THE RESURRECTION
CHAJPTER PAGE
I. THE JOURNEY TO JUDEA. THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES . i
i. The Journey to Judea ...... I
The Gospel narratives S. John S. Luke The departure
for Jerusalem.
2. The Feast of Tabernacles ...... 8
The traditional ceremonies The people and their leaders
Jesus reaches Jerusalem His teaching Violent opposition
and vacillation of the Jews Believers The last day of the
Feast rOur Lord's solemn appeal Impassioned discussions.
3. The Woman taken in Adultery . . . . .18
4. Jesus the Light of the World . . . , .21
The Witness of the Son The Testimony of the Father
' You are from beneath, I am from above ' ' The truth
shall make you free ' Children of Abraham ' Which of
you shall convince Me of sin ' ' Abraham rejoiced ' ' I am.'
5. The Man Born Blind 32
Jesus and the blind man The pool of Siloe The miracle
The miracle questioned Opposition of the Pharisees.
6. The Good Shepherd 38
Jehovah Shepherd of Israel Christ the Shepherd and the
Door He knows and gives His life for His sheep Obedience
of the Son of God Disagreement among the Jews.
II. JESUS IN SAMARIA AND JUDEA ..... 45
i. The Disciples . . . . . 45
Jesus in Samaria The seventy disciples Their mission
Their return Rejoicing and thanksgiving of Christ.
2. The Conditions of Service . .... 52
The demands of Christ Renunciation The wedding guests.
3. The Good Samaritan ...... 56
4. Martha and Mary ....... 57
Bethania Martha and Mary.
5. The Prayer 60
The Our Father The setting Matthew and Luke ' Our
Father ' ' Who art in heaven ' ' Hallowed be Thy name '
' Thy kingdom come ' ' Thy Will be done ' The daily
bread Forgiveness Temptation ' Deliver us from evil '
.< Teaching on prayer.
1 v
vi CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
6. The Parables of Mercy ...... 79
The lost sheep The Groat The Prodigal Son The '
Pharisee and the Publican.
7. The Unjust Steward ...... go
8. Dives and Lazarus ...... 92
Dives and Lazarus The Rich Fool The one imperishable
treasure.
9. The Rich Young Man . . . . . .97
The young man Peter and the Apostles An hundredfold.
III. THE FEAST OF DEDICATION . . . . . 101
i. The Feast of Dedication . . . . . . 101
Origin and character of the Feast Union of the Father and
the Son The Son of God The witness of works Jesus in
Perea Pilate and the Galileans The barren fig-tree.
2. Jesus in Perea . . . . . . ,114
Divorce Virginity Jesus and little children The workers
in the vineyard.
IV. THE RAISING OF LAZARUS. JESUS AT JERICHO . .123
i. The Raising of Lazarus ...... 123
Character of the narrative Message of the two sisters The
return to Judea Jesus and Martha Jesus at the grave
The miracle Impressions of the Jews Deliberation of the
Sanhedrin Council of Caiphas Jesus at Ephrem.
2. The Journey to Jerusalem . . . . .135
The Passion foretold Request of the sons of Zebedee
Service and ransom.
3- Jesus at Jericho . . . . . . .140
Blind Bartimaeus Zacchaeus Parable of the Talents.
V. THE LAST WEEK 150
i. The Anointing at Bethania . . . . .150
2. The Traitor Judas ....... 152
3. The Triumphal Entry ...... 154
Homage to the Messias Hostility of the Pharisees Jesus
weeps over Jerusalem The Greeks wish to see Jesus His
anguish of soul.
4. The Barren Fig-tree ...... 161
5. Jesus in the Temple . . . . . .162
By what authority John's baptism The two sons The
husbandman Headstone of the corner Tribute to Caesar
The Resurrection The great commandment David's Son
and Lord.
6. Jesus and the Pharisees . . . . . .179
The people warned The Pharisees cursed Last appeal to
Jerusalem.
7. The Consummation of the World, and the Parousia . 185
The destruction of the Temple Warnings and exhortations
Fall of Jerusalem The times of the nations The end of
CONTENTS vii
CHAPTER ' PAGE
. the world Coining of the Son of Man Symbolism of the
fig-tree The two catastrophes Length of the delay
Master and servant The ten virgins The Last Judgement
The Son of Man, Judge and Head of the human race
The sheep and the goats Theory of the eschatological
school Our Lord's eschatological teaching Waiting for the
last day Ignorance and hope.
VI. THE LAST SUPPER . . . . . . . . 213
i. The Date of the Last Supper 213
The 14 Nisan The Supper, the Paschal meal suggested
solutions.
2. Preparations for the Supper. The Washing of the
Disciples' Feet . . . . . . .220
Judas' treachery Preparations for the Supper The dispute
as to precedence The washing of feet S. Peter Poverty
and humility.
3. The Supper 228
Jesus announces Judas' treachery Judas leaves Institution
of the Holy Eucharist The accounts of S. Paul and the
Synoptics The Church's faith Preparation for the mystery ;
Capharnaum, the miracles The faith of the Apostles The
Sacrifice of the New Testament The Blood of the Testament
The Communion Institution of the Sacrament Christ's
Presence The ' hymn ' Prophetic warnings.
4. The Discourse after the Supper ..... 255
The glorification of the Son of man The New Command-
ment ' Believe in Me ' The Way, the Truth and the Life
' He that seeth Me seeth the Father ' The gift of the
Paraclete ' I will not leave you orphans ' ' I will manifest
Myself to him ' ' My peace I give unto you ' ' The Father is
greater than I ' ' That the world may know that I love the
Father.'
5. The True Vine 268
The True Vine ' Abide in Me ' ' Keep My command-
ments ' ' Love one another ' ' I have chosen you ' Hatred
and persecution The coming of the Paraclete His role
The Holy Trinity Weeping and joy ' The Father loveth
you ' ' The Father is with Me.'
6. The Prayer of the Son of God .' . . . .281
The Father and the Son The hour of glorification Those
whom the Father had given The World Life Eternal
Made perfect in unity.
VII. THE PASSION OF OUR LORD 289
i. The Agony 289
The priestly prayer and the agony The Son and the Father
The beatific vision and the agony Gethsemani The
Temptation The prayer of Christ His sufferings Grief and
fear Israel's apostasy The Apostles The Church's suffer-
ings The Son of God perfected by suffering His priesthood
Not My will, but Thine The Angel The weight of our
sins The Apostles sleep Watch and pray.
viii CONTENTS
CHAFTE-R PAGE
2. The Arrest 321
Judas and his band The kiss of Judaa The soldiers fall
to the ground Peter and Malchus The Apostles scattered
Jesus arrested and dragged away.
3. The Jewish Trial ....... 330
Responsibility of the Jews The Sanhedrin Its composition
and competence Criminal procedure Jesus before Annas
Jesus before Caiphas Peter's denial Derision and outrage
Condemnation by the Sanhedrin- Caiphas sums up
The Christ, the Son of God The supreme testimony
Judas' despair.
4. The Roman Trial ....... 355
Pilate, the Procurator The case referred to Pilate His
haughty attitude ; persistence of the Jews Christ's
Kingship The witness of the truth.
5. Jesus before Herod ....... 365
Character and source of S. Luke's narrative Herod's
curiosity and Jesus' silence The mocking.
6. Jesus before Pilate ....... 370
Jesus and Barabbas Pilate's wife Frenzied hatred of the
Jews The scourging Outrages of the Roman soldiery.
7. Condemnation. Crucifixion. Death .... 379
Behold the man The Son of God Pilate's vacillation
Threat of the Jews Pilate washes his hands Condemnation
The carrying of the Cross The women of Jerusalem
The Crucifixion Sharing of our Lord's garments Insults and
derision Mary at the foot of the Cross The last prayer
' It is consummated ' ' I will draw all men unto Me.'
VIII. THE RESURRECTION. THE APPEARANCES. THE ASCENSION 398
i. The Resurrection in the Apostolic Catechesis . . 398
Christ's glorified life The Resurrection of Christ : its
capital importance in the Christian faith Its witnesses.
2. The Burial. The Empty Tomb. The Appearances at
Jerusalem and Emmaus ..... 403
The burial The guards The holy women The empty
tomb, the angels Mary Magdalen Peter The disciples
of Emmaus Jesus in the Cenacle The gift of the Holy
Ghost The remission of sins Thomas.
3. The Appearances in Galilee ..... 417
Judea and Galilee On the shore of the lake On the
mountain The Apostles' mission The Trinity ' I am
with you.'
4. The Ascension ....... 427
Narrative of the Ascension The mystery of the Ascension
We know not Christ according to the flesh Life eternal.
EPILOGUE. THE FRUITS OF CHRIST'S MINISTRY. THE
REVELATION OF THE SON OF GOD .... 433
i. Belief and Unbelief . The Grace of Calvary . . 433
Drawing to Christ of the Apostles and of the crowd The
Son of God misunderstood The efficacy of the miracles ;
CONTENTS ix
FACE
religiously, often none Emotion often keen but transitory
Sometimes blind obstinacy in the case of the most evident
miracles ; this inexcusable Precious help Awakening of
souls Efficacy of the discourses Rock and sand The crowd
unteachable The Apostles imperfectly so Scandalization
of the Jews in face of the great mysteries The rich
young man Calvary source of grace Pentecost.
2. The Revelation of the Son of God .... 451
The definitive Divine revelation a grace from the Father
Religious efforts of the disciples called forth by the Master
Progressive apprehension of the mystery The central
mystery : the Son of God.
3. Jesus Christ our Life ...... 458
INDEX ........... 461
ABBREVIATIONS OF THE TITLES OF WORKS FREQUENTLY QUOTED
at end of volume
THE LIFE AND TEACHING
OF JESUS CHRIST OUR LORD
VOLUME II
CHAPTER I
THE JOURNEY TO JUDEA. THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES
/. The Journey to Judea,
FOLLOWING the Gospel record, we have reached the decisive
period of our Lord's life. The great disclosures of Caesarea
Philippi, with the Transfiguration, mark the culminating
point in the revelation of Christ. The Apostles have received
from our Lord, at least in expectation and in promise, the
powers necessary to secure the permanence of their work ;
the Church has been founded, and against her the gates of
Hell shall in no way prevail.
But simultaneously with His profound and definitive
influence upon the Apostles, we have observed also our
Lord's attitude in the presence of the general multitude, in
His relations with whom He had, for some months now,
imposed upon Himself a greater degree of reserve. He had
had to leave the shores of the lake and even Galilee itself,
and when from Phenice and Philip's country He retraced
His steps over the territory of Herod, He would only do so
provided that His identity remained unknown. These pre-
cautions were signs of growing danger ; only a few months
and there would break the storm of which every indication
heralded the immediate approach.
In tracing the history of these few months we can no
longer make use of those sources which, up to now, have
been the guides upon whom we have relied most ; we mean
S. Matthew and S. Mark. Their account carries us suddenly
to the last weeks of our Lord's life. On the other hand,
the remaining two evangelists, S. John and S. Luke, relate
2 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
the events of this last period in great detail ; moreover,
their accounts are entirely independent of one another.
Before we follow them step by step, it will be useful to try
to make clear the purpose and main characteristics of each.
In this difficult question, which has been the subject of
much controversy, we do not aspire to reach any certain
conclusions and shall content ourselves with following up
probabilities alone.
So far as S. John is concerned, Dr. Sanday writes (D.B.,
II, 630^) : ' The historical value of the Fourth Gospel
comes out strongly in this period ; rarely has any situation
been described with the extraordinary vividness and truth to
nature of ch. vii (see esp. w. 1115, 25-27, 31, 32, 4052).
Not less graphic are the details of ch. ix ; and there is
marked precision in the statement of John x, 22 ff., 40 ff. ; xi,
54-57. We note a special intimacy with what passes in the
inner counsels of the Sanhedrin (John vii, 4752 ; xi, 47-53) .
This intimate knowledge might have been derived through
Nicodemus or through the connection hinted at inxviii, 15.
But apart from the peculiar verisimilitude of these details,
some such activity as that described in these chapters is
required to explain the great catastrophe which followed.
It is impossible that Jesus should have been so much a
stranger to Judea and Jerusalem as the synoptic narrative
would at first sight seem to make Him. 3
In this account of S . John we first find our Lord at Jerusalem
for the Feast of Tabernacles (vii), and the narrative then
passes to events that must have followed a little later on (vii-
x, 21), all of which must have taken place in the second half
of October and so could not have occupied more than
fourteen days. We then (x, 22) see Jesus at Jerusalem again
for the Feast of Dedication, towards the end of December,
after which He at once retires to Perea, beyond Jordan,
where John the Baptist's ministry had been carried on.
From there, at the invitation of Lazarus' sisters, He went to
Bethania, later withdrawing to Ephrem on the borders of
the desert to the north-east of Jerusalem (xi, 55), finally
leaving there for the capital itself, where He was to celebrate
the Passover and die. All these events are closely linked
to each other, apart from an interval ofseven or eight weeks
between the Feasts of Tabernacles and Dedication.
It is into this interval that many commentators insert
the facts related by S. Luke (ix, 5i-xix, 27). Thus Godet
THE JOURNEY TO JUDEA 3
in his Saint Luc (II, p. 7) writes : ' How are we to fill up
the six or seven months between the Feast of Tabernacles
and the Passover that witnessed our Lord's death? Not
by the scanty records of Matt, xix and xx, and Mark x,
which scarcely contain enough matter to account for a
single week. Immediately after the Feast of Tabernacles,
therefore, Jesus returned to Galilee, and it was then that
He took His final leave of that province, setting out, as we
read in Luke ix, 51, to approach Jerusalem by slow stages,
carrying on His ministry all the time. ... In each case,
S. Luke's narrative supplies the natural transition between
those of the other Synoptics and S. John. ... As to the con-
tents of Luke's ten chapters, they fit in perfectly with the
situation as a whole. Our Lord took with Him into Judea
all that Galilee had given Him in the shape of devoted
followers, forming the nucleus of His future Church. . . .
To prepare them, while on the journey, for their future
mission was His unflagging task, and He worked at it
continuously, in two ways. He sent them out as missionaries
before Him as He had previously sent the twelve, thus
making them also like the twelve serve the apprenticeship
of their coming apostolate. Further, since the first condition
of this ministry of preaching was the breaking of the ties
linking them to earthly tilings, a complete separation
from the world and from the possession of its goods, most of
His teaching was necessarily concerned with the attitude of
the believer to temporal wealth.'
But this hypothesis has been demolished by Sanday (loc.
cit.) who says : '. . . to suppose that the whole section must be
localized there, is to misunderstand the structure and char-
acter of S. Luke's Gospel. It is far more probable that he has
massed together a quantity of material derived from some
special source to which he had access and which could not be
easily fitted into the framework supplied to him by S. Mark.'
Another attempt has been made, on different principles,
to harmonize S. Luke's narrative and that of the other
evangelists. This is based on the implication of three
passages to be found in these ten chapters which read as
follows : ' He steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem '
(ix, 51). ' He went through the cities and towns teaching,
and making His journey to Jerusalem ' (xiii, 22). ' And it
came to pass as He was going to Jerusalem, He passed
through the midst of Samaria and Galilee ' (xvii, u).
4 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
Starting from the indications here given, Wieseler thus
distinguishes three different journeys : ' The journey in
S. Luke ix, 51 would correspond to that taken by our Lord
to keep the Feasts of Tabernacles (John, vii, i-x, 39) and
of the Dedication, concluding with a stay in Perea (John
x, 40), while the mention of a journey in xiii, 22 would
refer to that made from Perea to Bethania for the purpose of
raising Lazarus from the dead (John xi), after which our
Lord went to Ephrem. Finally, the journey we find men-
tioned in Luke xvii, n would correspond to that taken
from Ephrem to Jerusalem for the last Passover (John xi,
55). On this occasion our Lord would have passed through
Galilee, for the last time entering that province by Samaria
Luke xvii, n must be translated "by the midst of
Samaria and of Galilee " and returning to Judea by Perea
(Matt, xix ; Mark x).'
Godet, from whom I have borrowed this account (II, p. 4),
thus sums up against the theory in question : ' We cannot
concede the least probability to this view. First, these three
passages from S. Luke obviously do not imply three different
departures or journeys, at least in the author's mind. Second,
the journey recorded in ix, 51 would have had to take
place with the greatest publicity, owing to the sending out
of the seventy disciples, and, therefore, could not be identified
with that recorded in S. John vii, i, which was made in
secret. Third, Wieseler's interpretation of xvii, 1 1 seems
to us quite inadmissible.'
In his book on the Four Gospels, 1 Levesque has
revived the same hypothesis of three distinct journeys, but
connects them with different periods of our Lord's life.
The first would be that recorded by S. John in his fifth
chapter (p. 126) ; the second would fall between the Feasts
of Tabernacles and Dedication (p. 136) ; while the third,
which is recorded by the two other Synoptics, must be placed
after the Dedication (p. 142 ; cp. 63). This theory has been
adopted by Chaume (R.B., 1918, 515, n. i), Buzy (ibid.,
562) taking up an attitude of greater reserve. 2
The whole exegetical edifice thus raised seems to us
fragile in the extreme, conflicting, as it does, with the very
first words of the chapters it purports to explain. Thus
1 Les Quatres Evangiles.
2 Cp. supra, vol. I, p. xxi. Levesque has again introduced and defended
his interpretation in an article in Revue apologetique,A.ngnst 1929, pp.i32-4O.
THE JOURNEY TO JUDEA 5
S. Luke ix, 51 reads : ' And it came to pass, when the days
of his assumption were accomplishing, that He steadfastly
set His face to go to Jerusalem. 3 It is very difficult to find
here any reference to a journey preceding the death of Christ
by eighteen months. To refute this objection Levesque
comments as follows (p. 1 23) : ' We must take this statement,
according to custom, as referring to the. conclusion of the
third part of our Lord's life, i.e. the Galilean ministry, and
not to the beginning of the following period.' Nevertheless
it would seem that the words in question are very closely
connected with those that follow : ' And He sent messengers
before His face.' Most damaging of all is the necessity of
having recourse to a series of suppositions difficult to accept
and which lend a very artificial character to the whole theory.
We have to suppose that, in order to remain faithful to his
quadripartite plan, S. Luke has deliberately omitted the
topographical and chronological illustrative matter that he
had collected. Thus we read : ' In order to record these
journeys without interfering with the quadripartite plan
consecrated by the exigencies of catechetical instruction,
S. Luke has recourse to a curious procedure, which consists
in narrating the facts while refraining from giving any
indication of time and place, which might too openly mark
our Lord's presence on the outskirts of Jerusalem, or in
Jerusalem itself, before the last week of His life' (p. 66).
Later on, in his interpretation of the abbreviated Lord's
Prayer (xi, 1-13), Levesque writes : ' Instead of pointing out
the scene of action as he generally does in the first part of
his Gospel, S. Luke uses a vague expression ; cum esset in
quodam loco orans. This phrase in qu.od.am loco is intentionally
lacking in precision, in the same way that the quoddam
castellum, a few verses before, is used to hide the identity
of Bethania ' (p. 67) . It seems very difficult to imagine that
the evangelist, when he wrote like this, did so with a view
to concealing the real setting, well known to himself, of the
facts that he was recording ; much more probably, if he
remains vague, it is because the data possessed by him did
not allow him to be more definite.
We shall not, therefore, try to determine the time and
place of events, where this has not been done by S. Luke
himself. Doubtless in the incidents recorded by him there
are quite a number of details which had reached him
without any indications of this kind, and which he has
6 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
grouped together according to the analogy of the subjects
to which they refer. We lay no claim to have recovered
the real order of these events. So far as the present point
of discussion, the departure for Jerusalem (ix, 51), is con-
cerned, we shall place it not before but after the Feast of
Tabernacles and before Dedication. Consequently, from
this point on, we take S. John as our guide.
' After these things,' records the evangelist, c Jesus
walked in Galilee, for He would not walk in Judea, be-
cause the Jews sought to kill Him. Now the Jews' feast
of tabernacles was at hand. And His brethren said to
Him : Pass from hence and go into Judea : that Thy
disciples also may see Thy works which Thou dost.
For there is no man that doth anything in secret, and he
himself seeketh to be known openly. If Thou do these
things, manifest Thyself to the world. For neither did
His brethren believe in Him. Then Jesus said to them :
My time is not yet come : but your time is always ready.
The world cannot hate you : but Me it hateth : because
I give testimony of it, that the works thereof are evil.
Go you up to this festival day, but I go not up to this fes-
tival day : because My time is not accomplished. When
He had said these things, He Himself stayed in Galilee.
But after His brethren were gone up, then He also went
up to the feast, not openly, but as it were in secret. The
Jews therefore sought Him on the festival day, and said :
Where is He ? And there was much murmuring among
the multitude concerning Him. For some said : He is a
good man. And others said : No, but He seduceth the
people. Yet no man spoke openly of Him, for fear of the
Jews.' (John vii, 1-13.)
From this very first paragraph we are gripped by the life
and action of the narrative. Here are our Lord's brethren
with their vulgar ambition and lack of faith ; surging
passionately around Him, the crowd, whose low-voiced
discussion ' for fear of the Jews ' we seem to overhear ;
the leaders of the people, whom S. John calls specifically
' the Jews,' and who from this time on are determined
on the Saviour's death ; and last, and above all, Jesus
Himself, dominating events and marching with a firm
step to death. All this seems to live and move before our eyes
and it will fill the whole stage during these last six months.
THE JOURNEY TO JUDEA 7
We are already acquainted with our Lord's ' brothers/
to whom S. John refers here. S. Augustine (1623) recalls
them to his hearers' minds in words like these : ' Under-
stand the term brothers in the sense already familiar to
you ; for the expression is not a new one to your ears.
The relatives of the Virgin Mary were called brothers of our
Lord.' We still have in mind the scheme concocted by
these * brothers ' of Jesus that led them to Capharnaum to
take Him away from His ministry and bring Him back to
Nazareth (supra, vol. I, 236). Since then, many of our Lord's
utterances and miracles must have affected them, but such
self-revelation was always tempered with the reserve that was
a rule with Him, but which was unintelligible to them.
' If anyone wants to make himself known,' they would say
in their clumsy common sense, ' let him openly show himself
to the world at large.' It was in this spirit that they sought
Jesus at the present juncture ; they had noticed that He
was not appearing in Galilee with the same freedom as
before, and the mystery with which He was always half
enveloped was being more and more strictly maintained.
They understood nothing of this reserve and they wished
to provoke a decisive manifestation, rather like the Jews
who would soon be saying in Jerusalem : ' How long wilt
Thou hold us in suspense ? '
Our Lord's reply is a mysterious one : ' My time is not
yet come.' For Him this ' time ' was always that of His
Passion ; for His ' brothers ' it was that of His glorious
manifestation. In reality it was both at the same time, for
it was by His death that Christ was to reveal Himself and
draw all men to Him. For this glorious manifestation which,
in spite of themselves, the Jews will be instrumental in
bringing about, the time is not yet ripe, and so He will
continue to hide Himself for the present. As for His
' brothers,' let them go without let or hindrance, the
world cannot hate them and they run no risks. In the
same spirit Jesus will later on tell His disciples :
' If the world hate you, know ye that it hath hated Me
before you. If you had been of the world, the world would
love its own : but because you are not of the world, but
I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world
hateth you.' (John xv, 18, 19.)
VOL. II. B
8 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
//. The Feast of Tabernacles.
This Feast of Tabernacles, which our Lord's 'brothers'
wished to make Him attend, was one of the most solemn of
those observed in the Jewish religion, Josephus even calling
it ' the pre-eminently great and holy feast ' (A.J., VIII, 4, i,
loo). 1 Early on the i4th Tishri (the end of September or the
beginning of October), the pilgrims many from the most
remote parts of the country began to arrive. At that period
of the year, when harvesting was over and the temperature
was becoming moderate, transport was easier than at
the time of the Passover and especially of the Dedication.
Hospices were to be found on all sides and were crowded.
Booths made of boughs sprang up rapidly on every hand, in
the courtyards and on the roofs, reminding the Israelites
of their fathers who had dwelt so long in tents. ' The olive,
the pine, the myrtle and the palm were stripped of their
branches ; shelters made of boughs were set up in the streets
and the squares, on the flat roofs of mansions and the city
walls, so that Jerusalem looked like a forest of verdant
green.' 2 In obedience to the precept : 'You shall take to
you on the first day the fruits of the fairest tree, and branches
of palm trees and boughs of thick trees, and willows of the
brook ; and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God '
(Lev. xxiii, 40), each Israelite held in his right hand the
Lulab, a bundle composed of a palm with some blades of
willow and myrtle, and the Ethrog, which consisted of a
citron, in his left. Raising these aloft they waved them
towards the four points of the compass, while the strains of
the Hallel 3 rose up to Heaven.
The joy displayed was all the more lively, since the Feast
of Tabernacles was preceded by the great Day of Atonement.
In all this forest of verdure, only the sombre mass of
the Antonia stood out in contrast ; there at the Temple gate
were the heathen, and not only so, but they were masters as
well.
These traditional ceremonies bore a symbolic meaning
which not only recalled the noble memories of the past,
but also brought the future to mind. The seventy bulls
destined for sacrifice represented the seventy nations of the
Pagan world ; while the streams of water flowing copiously
1 Cp. Billerbeck, Exkurs, Das Laubhiittenfest, II, pp. 774-812.
2 Fouard, II, 49. 3 Bonsirven, Sur les ruines du Temple, p. 242.
THE JOURNEY TO JUDEA 9
on every side signified the outpouring of the Holy Spirit
of God. At night the Temple was illuminated, and at the
first rays of dawn the Levites, forming a circle round two
priests, went up to the top of the fifteen steps separating
the Court of Israel from the Court of the Women. Immedi-
ately at cockcrow the two priests blew their silver trumpets
three times, repeating the same triple blast on the tenth
step, and yet once again when the Court of the Women was
reached. Then, sounding their trumpets all the time, they
crossed this court to the Beautiful Gate. Arrived there they
turned and, looking towards the west, in the direction of
the Holy of holies, they said : ' Our Fathers, who stood
in this place, turned their backs to the sanctuary of Jehovah
and their faces to the east, since they adored the rising
sun ; but we, with our eyes turned towards Jehovah,
belong solely to Him. 5 By this solemn oath, taken on
the very threshold of the Court of the Gentiles upon
which their backs were turned, the priests, in the name
of the entire nation whose representatives they were, swore
to Jehovah that they rejected all the superstitions of the
pagans and that they would have none but Him.
No doubt these glorious memories were often sullied by
acts of licence, of which the story of the woman taken in
adultery furnishes an example, and the protestations of
exclusive fidelity to the God of Israel were joined in many
cases to a blind obstinacy which was soon to result in the
rejection and condemnation of the Messias ; but in spite
of all this, we have here an august and holy ceremony, and
we can well believe that it was with a thrill of emotion that
our Blessed Lord took part in it with His people for the last
time.
The celebrations lasted eight days, but our Lord was not
there at the beginning, arriving only in the middle of the
Feast. Still everyone was talking about Him, not daring
to take sides openly on account of the attitude of the scribes
who, it is true, had not openly condemned Jesus, but who
made their hostility clear enough, and intimidated the rest.
'At every turn, 5 says S. Chrysostom (274), 'we see that
the leaders are corrupt while the judgement of the people
is sound enough ; only they lacked the courage to maintain
it. 5 Perhaps this is too optimistic a view ; at that period
and in Jerusalem, it is by no means certain that the
people would have been won for Christ ; on the other hand
io LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
it is quite certain that almost all their chiefs were hostile to
Him. 1
This uncertain attitude of the people throws light on
S. Peter's reply to our Lord at Csesarea Philippi, where he
was only repeating the opinion of those who were saying :
* He is a good man,' and even among them how much
ignorance and uncertainty there was ! But there is much
worse than this, for there were those who said : ' He is a
seducer,' which is what the priests were to say about Him
after His death (Matt, xxvii, 63). And yet they had only
to look at His record of teaching and miracles during
two whole years ! Cyril of Alexandria recalls the Psalmist's
words : ' O taste and see how that the Lord is sweet ! '
' Still for that,' he adds, * one must have a sound taste.' 2
However, in the middle of the Feast, Jesus did go up to
the Temple, and began to teach, a fact that, as formerly at
Nazareth, aroused the greatest surprise, reflected in the
question : * How doth this man know letters, having never
learned ? ' 3 Our Lord made use of this astonishment to
bring His hearers face to face with a still higher mystery :
' My doctrine/ He replied, ' is not Mine, but His that sent
Me.' S. Chrysostom and, still more, S. Augustine, in drawing
out the meaning of our Lord's words, shows how, in His
Person, there meet the two elements of union with, and at
the same time dependence upon, the Father : ' What,' says
S. Augustine, ' is the teaching of the Father if not the Word
1 Augustine observes here (1628) : ' Qui non loqiiebantur de illo
propter metum ludaeorum ? Utique qui dicebant, Bonus est ; non qui
dicebant : Seducit turbas. Qui dicebant, Seducit turbas, sonitus eorum
audiebatur tamquam aridorum foliorum. Seducit turbas, clarius sona-
bant : Bonus est, pressius susurrabant : Modo autem, fratres, quamvis
nondum venerit ilia gloria Christi quae nos aeternos factura est ; modo
tamen ita crescit Ecclesia eius, ita earn dignatus est per cuncta diffundere,
ut iam susurretur, Seducit turbas ; et clarius personet, Bonus est.'
2 These same contradictory judgements are expressed to-day about
those who follow Christ. When it is asked whether they are good
people or impostors, the question is discussed in the same way that
there might be a dispute in winter as to whether a tree was alive or dead.
' So long as it is winter the matter is not clear : summer will establish the
truth and test the opinions. And our summer will be when Christ is
revealed ' (S. Augustine, 1627).
3 ' Multi noverant ubi natus, quern ad modum fuerit educatus ;
numquam eum viderant litteras discentem, audiebant autem de Lege
disputantem, Legis testimonia proferentem, quse nemo posset proferre
nisi legisset, nemo legere nisi litteras didicisset : et ideo mirabantur '
(Augustine, 1628-9).
S. Cyril takes the opportunity of pointing to the infinite Wisdom
innate in our Lord, from which all our wisdom has its source. (657-660.)
THE JOURNEY TO JUDEA 11
of the Father ? Therefore Christ is the teaching of the Father,
if He is the Father's Word. But, since the Word must neces-
sarily be the word of someone, He asserts at the same time
that His teaching is Himself, and yet that it is not His own,
because He is the Word of the Father. For what is so much
your own as yourself : and yet what less, since your being
is derived from another ? 51 Our Lord Himself calls on us
to put His doctrine to the test if we wish to judge it : 'If
any man,' He says, ' will do the will of him, he shall know
of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of
myself (John vii, 17).
We find a similar idea in John iii, 2 1 , where we read :
' But he that doth truth cometh to the light ' ; once more
He refers His hearers to their experience as the test : ' Let
them do the will of God and they will be able to judge if
the doctrine is of God.' S. Augustine's explanation of the
matter is as follows :
c What is meant by doing God's will ? It is to do what
pleases Him. " This is the will of God, to believe in Him
whom He hath sent." To believe in Him ; not merely to
believe Him : for if you believe in a person you believe
Him, but it does not follow that if you believe a person
you believe in him. We believe Paul, but we do not
believe in Paul : we believe Peter, but we do not believe in
Peter. . . . What does it mean, then, to believe in Him ?
It means to love and cherish Him, to approach Him and
be incorporated in Him all the time that you believe in
Him. This is the faith that God requires of us ... not any
sort of faith, but a faith that works by charity ; let this
faith be yours and you will be able to judge the doctrine ;
and what will your judgement be? Surely, that this
doctrine is not mine but His who sent me, that is, you will
judge that Christ is the Son of God, and His teaching the
Father's' (1631).
We recognize here our Lord's own teaching in His
discourse on the Bread of Life. The believer is he who
1 After having insisted on these ineffable relationships S. Augustine
concludes : ' If -we have understood, God be praised ; but if anyone has
grasped but little, at any rate man has done what he could, so as to see
from, whence comes his hope. We are but labourers who plant and water
from without ; but God gives the increase. . . . Do you wish to under-
stand ? Then believe. For God has said by the Prophet, unless ye believe
ye shall not understand ' (1629-30).
12 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
comes to Christ, knows Him and judges of His teaching
and bears witness to it.
The next argument 1 is of less logical force ; as Maldonatus
remarks : ' Morale, non necessarium est.' Since Christ
does not seek His own glory it is clear that He is a dis-
interested ambassador and we are ready to recognize the
truth of what He says, and that He only hands on the message
He has received from Him whose glory is the exclusive
preoccupation of His life.
Having thus disclosed the title of His mission, Jesus him-
self takes the offensive. ' Why,' He asks, ' seek you to kill
Me ? ' No doubt, from this time on, the chiefs of the
people are laying their plot for our Lord's destruction ; but
as yet, this fact is unknown to the people at large, who
consequently see in His question nothing but the fruit of a
mad delusion. While the better-informed hold their peace,
the crowd cry : ' Thou hast a devil.' This is the odious
accusation circulated by the scribes and we meet it in
Jerusalem without surprise.
This opposition of the Jews to our Lord had been
aggravated, more than in any other way, by the cure of the
paralytic on the Sabbath day. Therefore, Jesus recalled
this miraculous work, the memory of which was still vivid in
the capital, and justified it by the authority of Moses himself.
Such a possible conflict with the law of the Sabbath rest
had not been foreseen in the only passage , relating to
circumcision in the Mosaic code (Lev. xii, 3), but in
practice the Jews gave the law of circumcision precedence
over that of the Sabbath. Surely, then, our Lord reasons,
He had the right to heal a man on the Sabbath, all the more
since such a cure involved, not the body only, but the soul
as well (cp. v, 14). The Jews should have judged by the
real facts and not by appearance alone.
' Some therefore of Jerusalem said : Is not this He whom
they seek to kill ? And behold, He speaketh openly : and
they say nothing to Him. Have the rulers known for a
truth that this is the Christ ? * (John vii, 25, 26.)
At this point it is the inhabitants of Jerusalem who come
most into the picture. They knew the plans of their leaders
better than anyone else, and were therefore surprised to see
1 ' He that speaketh of himself seeketh his own glory : but he that
seeketh the glory of him that sent him, he is true . . .' (John vii, 18).
THE JOURNEY TO JUDEA J 3
our Lord speaking thus freely in the Temple. They could
not understand why He was let alone, and even asked
themselves if, after all, the authorities recognized Him as the
Christ. We meet here that passive docility which was the
chief cause of the subjection of the Jews to the scribes and
Pharisees ; if our Lord had been acknowledged by these
masters of theirs, the whole people would have followed
suit ; a fact that implies a tremendous responsibility for the
leaders, and makes our Blessed Lord's patience with the
people and His compassion for them easy to understand,
for they were truly as sheep without a shepherd. However,
they insist that this cannot be the Christ, for, while no one
knows from whence the Messias will come, the origin of
this man was well known. Later, Tryphon will argue
in the same sense with Justin (Dial., 8, cp. 1 10) : ' Even,' he
says, ' when the Messias is actually born and residing some-
where, He will be unknown and even unconscious of His
own identity, until Elias comes to anoint Him and make Him
known to all.' 1
More powerful, possibly, than these dreams of a hidden
Messias was the impression, unanalysed perhaps, but
irresistible to many, that He who was expected, and upon
whom rested the whole hope of the nation, could not be
this man whose humble origin, family connections and past
life were well known. It is, in another form the objection
raised by the people of Nazareth : ' Is not this the carpenter's
son ? Is not His mother called Mary, and His brethren
James and Joseph and Simon and Jude ? And His sisters,
are they not all with us ? '
In replying to this objection, of which, although un-
expressed, He was fully aware, our Lord made no reference
to His birth at Bethlehem. Neither this nor His Davidic
descent were in question at the moment, but only His
Divine origin and mission in the world. They thought they
knew Him and from whence He sprang, when in reality
they had not the faintest suspicion of the true source of His
Being or of the authority that He possessed. Really, what
they did not know was, from whom He proceeded and from
whom His mission was derived. ' But I know Him,' He
adds a supreme affirmation that He is to repeat many
times and which is the first principle of His polemic against
the Jews as recorded by S. John. ' Neither Me do you
1 Cp. 4 Esdras xiii, 52 ; Billerbeck, II, 489.
i 4 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
know, nor My Father. If you did know Me, perhaps you
would know My Father also ' (viii, i g) . ' It is My Father that
glorifieth Me, of whom you say that He is your God. And
you have not known Him : but I know Him. And if I
shall say that I know Him not, I shall be like to you, a liar '
(viii, 54-55). He speaks in the same sense in S. Matthew's
Gospel : ' And no one knoweth the Son, but the Father :
neither doth anyone know the Father, but the Son and he to
whom it shall please the Son to reveal Him ' (Matt, xi, 27).
This statement was understood well enough, at least by
our Lord's enemies ; so much so that they wished to seize
Him, but could not do so, for ' His hour was not yet come.
But of the people many believed in Him and said : When
the Christ cometh, shall He do more miracles than these
which this man doth ? ' (John, vii, 30-31).
Those who had been already whispering : ' He is a good
man,' now made so bold as to ask : ' Is not this the
Messias ? ' but in a low voice owing to the constant fear
that their leaders inspired. They were moved by the proof
everywhere appealed to in the Gospels, namely, that drawn
from our Lord's miracles. Surely, it was asked, the Messias
Himself could not work more ? There is no special reference
here to the recent cure of the paralytic of Bethsaida, but to
miracles of Jesus in general. Probably these people were not
inhabitants of Jerusalem at all, but men from Galilee, who
had seen many miracles there, the impression of which was
still strong in their minds.
It was only a whisper, but it did not pass unnoticed by
our Lord's enemies, who were ever on the watch, and it
was then that they took the step of sending their emissaries
to seize Him, probably giving them instructions not to take
Him at once but to use the first favourable opportunity of
doing so ; they feared the mob, just as the mob feared
them.
Our Lord took notice of all this vile plotting. It did not
disturb Him, but He duly warned those whom He was so
soon to leave. He was about to return to His Father, and
men would seek Him and find Him not. As usual the Jews
whose impression S. John records utterly missed our
Lord's point ; they made a jest of it, and ironically re-
marked : ' Whither will He go that we shall not find
Him ? Will He go unto the dispersed among the Gentiles
and teach the Gentiles ? ' Coming from them, it was a
THE JOURNEY TO JUDEA 15
mere gibe : the very idea of a Messias abandoning Israel
for the Gentiles ! yet this was the Divine plan, and S. John
deliberately narrates the incident, just as later on he will
record the unconscious prophecy of the High Priest announc-
ing Christ's approaching death for the people.
In commenting on this passage, the Fathers, and especially
S. Cyril (745-748), recall the ceremonies of the Feasts, and
show how our Lord interpreted the old covenant types, at
the same time raising them to a higher plane.
The rite of libation is described in the Mishnah. 1 After
the sacrifice had been offered, a priest, followed by all the
people, went down from the Temple to the fountain of
Siloe, where he filled a pitcher made of gold. The procession
then returned, being saluted on the way by three blasts of
the horn, of which the first and third were brief and the
second prolonged. Then the priest, ascending the staircase
on the south side of the Altar of Burnt Offerings, turned to
the left, that is, to the west. There he found ready two silver
vases pierced with holes, into which he poured wine and
water respectively. This solemn libation was celebrated on
each of the eight days of the Feast, even on the Sabbath,
but then the procession was omitted, the water having been
drawn from Siloe the day before.
In elucidating the meaning of this ceremony, reference
was often made to Isaias xii, 3 : ' You shall draw waters
with joy out of the Saviour's fountains,' and, indeed, the
whole feast was radiant with joy. ' He who has not
tasted of the joys of this feast, has never known joy in his life.' 2
This ceremony of the Libation recalled the Rock in the
Wilderness, at which the chosen people quenched their
thirst, a miracle which is more directly the subject of our
Lord's own words than the Temple rite we have just
described, which was merely a ceremony of libation, while
in the desert man could draw near and drink. And it is to
do this that Christ invites all who believe in Him : * If any
man thirst, let him come to Me and drink.' As S. Cyril
reminds us, the Psalmist thus addresses Almighty God :
' . . . the children of men shall put their trust under the
covert of Thy wings. They shall be inebriated with the plenty
of Thy house ; and Thou shalt make them drink of the
torrent of Thy pleasure' (xxxv, 8). While in Isaias we
1 Suhka, esp. IV, g. Cp. Billerbeck, II, 799 ff. ; Moore, Judaism, II, p. 44.
2 Sukka, V, i. Cp. Billerbeck, I, 806.
1 6 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
read : ' Behold I will bring upon her, as it were a river of
peace ... as an overflowing torrent' (Ixvi, 12). . . . Still
more explicitly is this image of the rock adopted by S. Paul :
' And they did all eat the same spiritual food, and all drank
the same spiritual drink. And they drank of the spiritual
rock that followed them : and the rock was Christ ' (i Cor.
x, 3, 4)-
Here we see once again how, according to S. John, all
the Old Testament types are recalled and interpreted by
our Lord : the Temple (ii), the brazen serpent (iii), the
manna (vi), the rock (vii), the cloud (viii), and finally the
paschal lamb (xix).
In our Blessed Lord's discourses of preceding days, as the
evangelist records them, He replies to the attacks of His
enemies, but here, ignoring these, He addresses those who
believe in Him and, as previously to the Samaritan woman
and the Jews at Capharnaum, He promises them life
eternally renewed, under the figure of living water in rivers
from their breast. S. Augustine's commentary on this
passage is as follows : ' Man's breast is here to be understood
as his conscience, which, purified by this heavenly draught,
revives. In drawing it he finds, nay, he becomes himself,
a spring. And what is this spring, this river flowing from
the depths of the inner man ? It is the beneficence with
which he comes to his neighbour's aid ; for if he thinks that
this refreshing draught is for him alone, no longer will the
living water flow from his breast ; but if, on the other hand,
he hastens to his neighbour's help, it flows, nor can it any
more run dry. ... In this way everyone can test whether
he is really drinking and living by what he drinks ; for the
stream will not abandon us unless we first abandon the
stream ' (1643).
And likewise S. Chrysostom (284) : ' He calls grace living
water because it is always flowing, for the grace of the Holy
Spirit, when it enters and dwells in a soul, wells up with
greater vigour than any other spring, never ceasing to flow,
never drying, never failing in its supply. And our Lord, in
order to characterize this inexhaustible gift, this ineffable
force, calls it a spring, and also rivers ; not merely a river, but
rivers innumerable ; and He calls it living water to emphasise
its buoyancy and strength. To understand this well, let us
think of Stephen's wisdom, of Peter's readiness of speech,
of Paul's driving force. Nothing was strong enough to
THE JOURNEY TO JUDEA 17
hold in or stop their onward march ; neither the
wrath of peoples, nor the violence of tyrants, nor the attacks
of demons, nor the mortifications of every day ; but as
rivers are driven by the force of some mighty current, so
they swept everything before them.'
' As yet,' S.John adds, ' the Spirit was not given, because
Jesus was not yet glorified,' 1 and in point of fact it was not
until after His resurrection that our Lord said to His
Apostles : ' Receive ye the Holy Ghost.' No doubt the
Spirit had already been given to the Old Testament prophets
and to Simeon, Anne, and John the Baptist ; but, as
S. John Ghrysostom remarks, He was given to individuals
only, and without the abundance of gifts that signalized the
beginning of Christianity. Nor was there any power of
passing on the gift to others. 2
During these few days our Lord's discourses have already
borne fruit ; those who were favourably disposed to Him
were strengthened in their attitude, and, no longer content
with saying ' He is a good man,' they are now exclaiming
' He is the Prophet,' ' He is the Christ.' All those contra-
dictory opinions quoted by S. Peter at Csesarea Philippi can
be heard competing with each other here. Those who do
not believe, bring forward as an objection the circumstances
of our Lord's birth. Already at the very beginning of His
public life, Nathanael had asked : ' Can any thing of good
come from Nazareth ? ' These people repeat the same
thought : ' Doth the Christ come out of Galilee ? ' ; and
they recall the promises made to David. To their objection
John gives no reply ; a fact that has led some to the perverse
conclusion that he knew nothing of our Lord's birth at
1 By the glorification of Christ, referred to here, is meant the sum-total
of the events, both sorrowful and glorious, by which His works here below
and our salvation were accomplished ; and which are usually referred to
under this aspect by S. John ; cp. xii, 32 : ' And I, if I be lifted up from
the earth will draw all things to myself.' xii, 23 : ' The hour is come, that
the Son of Man should be glorified.' xiii, 31 : ' When he therefore was
gone out, Jesus said : Now is the Son of Man glorified ; and God is glorified
in Him.' xvi, 14 ; xvii, 5. And Westcott adds :' By this use of the phrase
the Evangelist brings out clearly the absolute divine unity of the works
of Christ in His whole " manifestation " (i John iii, 5, 8 ; i, 2) which
he does not, like S. Paul, regard as distinct stages of humiliation and
exultation.'
2 In the same sense Augustine writes (1645) : ' Before our Lord had
been glorified by the resurrection of His flesh, we find no uncertain signs of
the presence of the Holy Ghost. It was not another Spirit that was
received by the prophets who had foretold the coming of Christ. But the
Spirit was to be given in quite a different way than of old, and that is the
point here.'
1 8 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
Bethlehem ; Westcott says : ' It seems strange that anyone
should have argued from this passage that the writer of the
Gospel was unacquainted with Christ's birth at Bethlehem.
He simply relates the words of the multitude who were un-
acquainted with it (cp. Luke iv, 23) ; and there is a tragic
irony in the fact that the condition which the objectors
ignorantly assumed to be unsatisfied was actually satisfied '
(Gospel according to St. John, 1908, I, p. 280, note).
Amidst all this impassioned discussion, the agents of the
Jewish authorities either dared not or could not find the
opportunity that they sought of arresting Christ ; they
then returned to their masters saying : ' Never man spake
like this man.' S. Chrysostom (287) sees in these words the
avowal of a sincere acceptance of Jesus of a true conver-
sion, in short ; but perhaps this is too much to say. These
men had felt the overpowering influence of our Lord's
incomparable teaching, as the mob had often done before,
but they were still far from being really convinced. Their
leaders visited them with scornful rebukes, and brought
forward their own line of conduct as a decisive argument ;
and indeed it is at this decisive stage of our Lord's life that the
terrible responsibility of the priests and Pharisees is most
clearly seen. In this connection S. Cyril (708-709) recalls
the words of Jeremias (x, 21) : 'Because the pastors have
done foolishly and have not sought the Lord : therefore
have they not understood and all their flock is scattered.'
Throughout the whole affair we see the people looking to
their leaders for guidance, asking them questions, trying to
understand their attitude, quite ready to believe if they wish
it. But these chiefs of the people keep to themselves, despis-
ing and condemning the common herd.
Nicodemus, it is true, makes a timid attempt to intervene
and is promptly referred to the Scripture without the
slightest attempt even to discuss our Lord's credentials and
claims. They judge and condemn Him on the ground of
His origin : He is a Galilean ; thus furnishing one more
example of the way in which the world rejects as folly
the very Wisdom of God.
///. The Woman taken in Adultery. (John vii, 53-viii, 1 1 .)
This story, at once so familiar to Christian piety and so
moving in itself, raises some grave questions of textual
criticism. If we consult the writings of those Greek Fathers
THE JOURNEY TO JUDEA 19
who have commented on S.John, i.e. notably S. Chrysostom
and S. Cyril of Alexandria, we notice that they pass directly
from chap, vii, 52 to viii, 12, without appearing even to
suspect the existence of this section ; the same is true of
Tertullian and S. Cyprian, but with S. Ambrose and S.
Augustine its authenticity is not in doubt. Nor is the
testimony of the manuscripts any more unanimous on the
point. It is not in the best Greek manuscripts, although D
and other ancient Greek and Latin manuscripts have it ; and
even in these it is not always found in the same place. In
some it forms an appendix at the end of the Gospel ; in
another it is put after vii, 36, before the end of the section on
the Feast of Tabernacles ; and others assign it to S. Luke. 1
This uncertainty in the tradition on the subject had already
been noticed in antiquity, and is explained by S. Augustine
as due to a fear that our Lord's example might be abused,
by absolution in such cases being too easily given. 2 Certainly
the decree of the Council of Trent on the integrity of the
Holy Scriptures has a bearing on this subject. 3 ' We must
then hold, 5 says Knabenbauer (p. 272), ' that this passage
belongs to the inspired Scriptures, but that it was written
by S. John is not in any way defined.' 4
We need not pursue the discussion ; for the story of
1 The author of the Didascalia quotes this incident (chap, vii) but
without attributing it to S. John. On this Dom Connolly writes : ' We
may suppose that the author had read it either in Papias or in the gospel
to the Hebrews.' (Didascalia Apostolorum, Oxford, 1929, p. 71.)
2 De coniugiis adutterinis, II, 7 (40, 474) : after having remarked that
a husband ought to forgive his guilty but repentant wife, he goes on :
' But from this view, indeed, the general sense of unbelievers shrinks, so
that some of feeble faith or rather, I should say, who are hostile to the
true faith, imagine that they will make it easy for their wives to sin with
impunity. Consequently, they delete from their manuscripts our Lord's
act of pardon in the case of the adulterous woman ; as if licence to sin
would be given by Him who said : " Go, and now sin no more " ; or as if
the woman ought not to have been healed by the remission of her sin by
the Divine Physician, lest cause of offence be given to those who are yet
unhealed.'
3 For I cannot follow the contrary view of Sickenberger (Leben Jesu,
P- 183).
4 Among those who reject the Johannine authorship of this passage
there are some who willingly acknowledge its historical value ; so Loisy,
ist ed., p. 534 ; cp. 2nd ed., pp. 279-81. ' The section dealing with the
woman taken in adultery is, in this Gospel, an added piece, although it is
a well-authorized portion of the Gospel tradition ... we are in the presence
of a story which happened exactly as reported ; which has no other mean-
ing than that which follows naturally from its text and from the incident
itself ; which belongs to the most reliable synoptic tradition, and which is
in no wise Johannine in conception. The last chapter of the Gospel is in
20 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
our Lord's life as we are trying to trace it, the incident
has, on any hypothesis, an undoubted value, which fact
is quite sufficient to justify the use we make of it here. 1
The Mount of Olives is mentioned several times by the
Synoptics in the last part of our Lord's life (Matt, xxi, i ;
xxiv, 3 ; xxvi, 30 ; and similarly in S. Mark and S. Luke).
It is not mentioned anywhere else in S. John, but, without
naming it, he speaks of the garden situated on the other side
of Cedron where Jesus often went with His disciples (xviii,
1-2). Doubtless it was to this spot that our Lord retired
for the night, returning in the morning to the Temple, where
He recommenced His work of instructing the people. As
the crowd flocked to Him (cp. Luke v, 3) He sat down and
began to teach. It was then that they brought to Him the
woman taken in adultery. 2
The aim of our Lord's enemies is clear enough, namely
to bring Jesus into conflict either with popular sentiment
or with the Law of Moses itself. It is a snare spread for
Him, like to many others in the last weeks of His life an
effort to destroy His influence with the people and it is
the failure of all these attempts that will at last drive His
opponents to violence itself. Our Lord saw through the
game they were playing and treated it with contempt ; and
so, remaining in the stooping attitude in which they had
discovered Him, He wrote on the ground. 3 On another
an analogous though not identical position. . . . Chapter xxi belongs to
the Gospel of John as a traditional fragment inserted into the mystical
Gospel by those who procured its publication. The section on the
adulterous woman is not in this category ; it does not belong even arti-
ficially to the Gospel ; it was marooned there, so to speak, some time after
the book, with the appendix to its last chapter, was published ; and it
remains isolated, like an old picture astray in a modern picture-gallery.'
1 Cp. Lagrange, 5. Jean, -pp. 221-226; Durand, S. Jean, p. 243 ff . ; L.
De Grandmaison, Jesus Christ, II, p. 128 ff . ; Bernard, St. John, p. 715-721.
2 Farrar, followed by Fouard, thinks that the Feast of Tabernacles
gave occasion for many disorders. This is contested by Edersheim. In
any case it is a question of conjecture only, although of a probable kind.
Punishment by stoning was provided by the Law in the case of an un-
faithful betrothed woman (Deut. xxii, 23, 24) ; death, for an adulterous
wife (Lev. xx, 10) , the kind of death being unspecified. It would seem that,
at this period, stoning was employed in all cases, and also that the woman
brought to Jesus was merely betrothed ; these are secondary details,
which in any case do not justify Edersheim's suspicious attitude to the
whole narrative.
3 Maldonatus explains thus : ' Mihi valde placet quod quidam dicunt,
nihil scripsisse quod legi posset, nullos enim certos formasse characteres,
sed incertas nihilque significantes figuras delineasse, quales homines
meditabundi solent facere.'
THE JOURNEY TO JUDEA 21
occasion, to the man who asked Him to divide the inherit-
ance between his brother and himself, Jesus answered :
' Man, who hath appointed Me judge or divider over you ? '
(Luke xii, 13-14). Similarly, in the present case, He brushes
on one side the question put to Him : it is not for Him to
judge this woman's sin or decide her fate. But as the Pharisees
insist, our Lord closes the discussion with a word : ' He that
is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.'
And her accusers, seeing that their secret motive was known
and having no wish to pursue the subject on such a ground,
slipped away, the oldest, in their greater discretion, being
the first to withdraw. Then our Lord, finding Himself
alone with the woman, sat up and spoke to her. ' Where are
they that accused thee ? Hath no man condemned thee ? . . .
Neither will I condemn thee. Go, and now sin no more '
(Johnviii, 10-11).
S. Augustine loved to see in this last scene ' misery and
mercy ' face to face, and he justly remarks that our Lord's
judgement in the matter was, at one and the same time,
merciful to the sinner and pitiless towards the sin. All this
is very well put, but no amount of analysis can alter the
exquisite simplicity of the narrative. As everywhere in the
Gospels, Jesus appears merciful to the point of giving scandal,
but at the same time sovereign Master of souls and of the
Divine Law ; He can forgive the worst offence with a word,
because it is against Him that they have been committed ;
He is the sole creditor of all who are burdened with the
debt of sin. He can pardon with a word, because in an
instant He can purify and restore the soul, while men must
be given surety against an only too probable relapse into the
same fault ; unable to cure the soul, or even to have an
exact knowledge of its state, they have to demand that the
sinner shall amend his ways and give proof of his intention
to do so, all of which is superfluous in the case of Him who
both reads and forms the hearts of men. ' To-day shalt
thou be with Me in Paradise ' He will say to the dying thief,
and similarly He absolves and restores the erring woman
with a single word.
IV. Jesus the Light of the World, (viii, 12-20.)
Our Lord's teachings recorded in this passage continue
those contained in chapter vii : in neither case was He
defending His position but rather explaining His nature
22 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
and function in the world. In so doing, He made use of
symbols that lay to His hand in the Jewish religion itself.
The Feast of Tabernacles was finished, and the people
had dispersed in all directions, only those of Jerusalem
remaining to form an audience for our Lord. He was
teaching in the Women's Court, where were to be seen the
brilliant illuminations that were a feature of the Feast ; 1 but
there is no need to recall the fact in order to understand His
words : ' I am the light of the world.' ' The Light ' was a
messianic title, and it is in this sense that we are to under-
stand Isa. Ix, i : ' Arise, be enlightened, O Jerusalem : for
thy light is come,' 2 and still more clearly Isa. xlix, 6, record-
ing words spoken by Jehovah to His servant, to raise up the
tribes of Jacob and to convert the dregs of Israel. Behold
I have given thee to be a light of the Gentiles, that thou
mayest be My salvation even to the farthest part of the earth.'
Moreover, holy Simeon in the Temple had applied to the
Infant Jesus the prophecy contained in his words : ' My
eyes have seen Thy salvation, which Thou hast prepared
before the face of all peoples : a light to the revelation of the
Gentiles, and the glory of Thy people Israel ' (Luke ii,
30-32). Again, Jesus in His turn had said to His disciples :
' You are the light of the world ' (Matt, v, 14). While we
shall find the Apostle Paul, and especially John, adopting
the same metaphors and applying them sometimes to Chris-
tians (Phil, ii, 15), sometimes to God Himself (i John i, 5).
This teaching of our Lord lacks the solemn character
of that which preceded it. Then the evangelist represents
Jesus standing on the last day of the Feast and calling aloud
to the people, like Wisdom, as described of old ; while here
we have an informal conversation with those immediately
surrounding Him. * I am the light of the world. He that
followeth Me walketh not in darkness, but shall have the
light of life,' He says (John viii, 12), and the Pharisees inter-
rupt Him at once with the remark : ' Thou givest testimony
of Thyself Thy testimony is not true '(13). It is the argu-
ment of the legist whose only concern is with the form of law.
In fact we find in the Mishnah the principle laid down 3 that :
' No man gives testimony of himself,' and it is this legal axiom
with which Jesus is confronted by the Pharisees. To this He
gives a double reply ; dismissing the question of form, He
1 Sukka, V, i ff. Billerbeck, II, 806. 2 Gen. R., 1, 2 c. Billerbeck, 1, 67.
3 Keiubot, II, 9. Billerbeck, II, 522.
THE JOURNEY TO JUDEA 23
answers in substance that He and He alone knows Himself,
and is therefore alone qualified to bear witness of
Himself.
' Although I give testimony of Myself, My testimony is
true : for I know whence I came and whither I go. But
you know not whence I come or whither I go. You judge
according to the flesh : I judge not any man. And if I do
judge, my judgement is true : because I am not alone, but
I and the Father that sent Me. And in your law it is
written that the testimony of two men is true. I am one
that give testimony of Myself : and the Father that sent
Me giveth testimony of Me. They said therefore to Him :
Where is Thy Father ? Jesus answered : Neither Me do
you know, nor My Father. If you did know Me, perhaps
you would know My Father also.' (John viii, 14-19.)
And this is what He has already said to Nicodemus :
' . . . We speak what we know, and we testify what
we have seen : and you receive not our testimony. . . .
No man hath ascended into Heaven, but He that
descended from Heaven, the Son of Man, who is in
Heaven (iii, n, is). 1
This testimony of Christ is luminous indeed the very
light of the world ; but ' the light shineth in darkness, and
the darkness did not comprehend it.' . As S. Augustine
explains (1660), with reference to this passage, all other
witnesses, Precursor and prophet, have received this light ;
but since we ourselves are plunged in darkness, with eyes too
weak to support the light, it is for us to follow this light of
theirs.
He imagines a heathen asking, * Who is Christ ? ' The
answer is, ' He whom the prophets foretold.' ' What
prophets ? ' he asks. Mention is made of Isaias, Daniel,
Jeremias and the rest. ' You have invented all that,' he
says. ' No,' is the answer, ' their books are in the hands of
the Jews. Thus do torches bear witness to the day because
of our infirmity which cannot support the light of the Day ;
1 ' Jesus,' says Godet, ' is distinctly conscious of Himself as One come
from and returning on high., for whom, consequently, this world's lif e is only
a journey with a mission of salvation to fulfil a passage from Heaven back
to Heaven. The whole Christian religion rests on this consciousness of our
Lord as to His own Person, and the very heroism of faith is for us to abandon
ourselves to the extraordinary testimony that He bears to Himself.'
VOL. ii. c
24 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
and, as for us, we are too feeble ; likewise we are told by
S. Peter : " We have the more firm prophetical word :
whereunto you do well to attend, as to a light that shineth
in a dark place, until the day dawn and the day-star arise
in your hearts " ' (2 Pet. i, 19).
' But, 5 Augustine continues, ' when Christ appears, in
the presence of so great a light, torches will be needed no
longer ; no more shall we read the prophets nor open the
books of the Apostles, nor look for John's testimony, nor
need even the Gospel itself. Of old, at the beginning, you
felt the morning dew ; a ray of light shining obliquely
through a chink in the wall had fallen into the darkness
of your heart, but now you see the light itself. . . . Now I
shall lay down this book and each one of you will return
home. Together have we enjoyed this light and rejoiced
in it, so that we tremble with delight. We are going
to separate from each other, but from this light,
never. 5
The admirable passage that we have summarized here
is something more than a mere pious aspiration ; it is a
splendid commentary on the Gospel, with the interpreta-
tion of which we are here concerned. For to those who asked
for the proof of His mission, our Lord, especially as we see
Him in S. John 5 s Gospel, gives none other than His own
testimony and that of His works ; every other proof is
subordinated to these.
' You sent to John,' He says (v, 33), ' and he gave
testimony to the truth. But I receive not testimony from
man : but I say these things, that you may be saved. . . .
But I have a greater testimony than that of John : for the
works which the Father hath given Me to perfect, the works
themselves which I do, give testimony of Me, that the
Father hath sent Me. And the Father Himself who hath
sent Me hath given testimony of Me. 5
And in the present passage we find the same current of
ideas ; to His own testimony to Himself our Lord joins
that of His Father, and uses it to show the Pharisees that He
is not alone, and that He really offers them the double
testimony that they require. For the rest, here was an oppor-
tunity, at once seized by Him, to lead them back to that
testimony of the Father which is the supreme guarantee of
THE JOURNEY TO JUDEA 25
His mission. It is true that we hear of miraculous works
that the Father has wrought through His Son, such as are
recalled in S. John v, 36 ; but even this very passage
distinguishes the testimony of the Father and that of the
works. For there is something else beside the miracles
appreciable by sight and touch ; there is the interior
witness of the Father Himself. It is He who revealed the
Son to Peter (Matt, xvi, 17), and who draws believers to
Himself (John vi, 44) . Moreover, the Son possesses that in-
finite knowledge that, like all His being, comes to Him from
His Father, and whose object is Himself. The Father knows
Him absolutely (Matt, xi, 27) and communicates this know-
ledge to the Son ; cp. v, 32 : ' There is another that beareth
witness of Me : and I know that the witness which he wit-
nesseth of Me is true.' To the same intent was our Lord's
later utterance (vii, 16) : ' My doctrine is not Mine, but
His that sent Me.' 1
' Again therefore Jesus said to them : I go : and you
shall seek Me. And you shall die in your sin. Whither I
go, you cannot come. The Jews therefore said : Will He
kill Himself, because He said : Whither I go, you cannot
come ? And He said to them : You are from beneath : I
am from above. You are of this world : I am not of this
world. Therefore I said to you that you shall die in your
sins. For if you believe not that I am He, you shall die in
your sin. They said therefore to Him : Who art Thou ?
Jesus said to them : The beginning, who also speak unto
you. Many things I have to speak and to judge of you.
But He that sent Me, is true : and the things that I have
heard of Him, these same I speak in the world. And they
understood not that He called God His Father. Jesus
therefore said to them : When you shall have lifted up the
Son of man, then shall you know that I am He and that I
do nothing of Myself. But as the Father hath taught Me,
these things I speak. And He that sent Me is with Me :
and He hath not left Me alone. For I do always the things
that please Him. When He spoke these things, many
believed in Him.' (John viii, 21-30.)
1 All this was spoken ' near the Treasury ' (ya!:o<pv\dKiov). There
were several ya.o<t>v\<iKia. in the Temple : B. J., V, 5, 2 ; VI, 5, 2 ; but there
was a special one in the Women's Court (A.J., XIX, 6, i) ; cp. Billerbeck,
n - 37-45-
26 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
S. Augustine, commenting on these verses, reminds his
hearers (1666) of the distinctive symbols of the Four
Evangelists, the eagle being appropriated to S. John :
' You see,' he observes, ' that he who has been compared
to the eagle could not but utter sublime things : yet we,
who crawl on the earth, feeble as we are and of little account
among men, dare to comment on these passages and try
to explain them. We think we understand them when we
meditate on them, and that we can make you understand
when we try to explain them ! ' And he goes on : ' Perhaps
one of you will say to me : " Leave the book alone ;
why undertake what is beyond your powers ? " I reply :
There are many heretics in the world . . . and in their error
they have put irksome questions to the faithful, thus troubling
them ; so it is very necessary that spiritual men who under-
stand something of our Lord's divinity should fight with
Christ's weapons against those of the Devil.'
If S. Augustine needed so to excuse himself before
commenting on our Lord's discourses, surely it is much
more necessary for us to do the same ! And our excuse
can only be his, that we have our ministry to fulfil. It is
certain that this eighth chapter of S.John is perhaps the most
difficult as well as the most sublime of the whole Gospel,
and S. Augustine's commentary, which is particularly
excellent at this point, will guide us past the pitfalls that
lie in our path.
However, we must dissociate ourselves from his inter-
pretation of the opening words of the passage in question,
where he understands our Lord's statement ' You shall
seek Me ' as referring to the Jews' pursuit of Jesus in order
to kill Him. It seems more likely that the allusion is to the
despairing effort of those who have lost their Saviour and
are seeking in vain to find Him again. No doubt our Lord
means to condemn them, but still they should already have
believed in Him, and in default of this faith they will die in
their sins. Really, they belong to a different world from
Him ; He is from above, they are from beneath ; and it is
faith alone that can make them pass from the one state to
the other ; without that, they will remain ' beneath,' far
from the Saviour, who will be inaccessible to them. This
opposition had already been emphasized by Christ in His
interview with Nicodemus : ' No man,' He said, ' hath
ascended into heaven but He that descended from heaven,'
THE JOURNEY TO JUDEA
27
and He went on to say : ' As Moses lifted up the serpent
in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up : that
whosoever believeth in Him may not perish, but may have
life everlasting.' And now that He is discussing these
subjects afresh, He returns to the same point : ' When you
shall have lifted up the Son of Man, then shall you know
that I am He.' And once more, for this faith would be
required ; but he who should possess this faith in Him
would have eternal life and would know Him as the Son of
Man.
But while Jesus is speaking to them, there in the Temple,
they are far enough from this knowledge, and they only
reply : ' Who art Thou ? ' Our Lord's reply has been
interpreted in many different ways. In the Latin versions,
following the Vulgate, we often get the translation : ' (I am)
the beginning (principium), who also speak unto you.' But
this is not the sense of the Greek text, where the words are
an adverbial phrase, meaning, ' to begin with,' or c first of
all.' This is S. Ghrysostom's interpretation (293) : 'You
are altogether unworthy to hear My words, and much more
to know who I am.' Similarly, S. Cyril of Alexandria
interprets (817) : 'I receive nothing but dishonour at your
hands, although all I say is for your salvation . . . and I
ought to have expected it from the moment that I began to
speak to you . . .' or, again, alternatively, ' I ought not even
to have begun to speak to you, but should rather have kept
my words for those who are inclined to profit by them.'
The same general sense underlies all these interpretations,
namely, a kind of disheartened questioning : c First of all,
why do I speak to you at all ? 51 The wi ^.ess of these state-
ments of our Lord was not without its effect, for many
believed on Him, but with a timid and tottering faith.
The discourse recorded by S. John (31-47) here runs
parallel to that on the Bread of Life. On that occasion the
men of Galilee had been won by the miracle of the multiplica-
tion of the loaves, but were unable to receive our Lord's
exalted teaching on His heavenly origin and on the life He
gives to men ; scandalized, they left Him. Then, too, large
numbers of Jews were moved by Jesus' words, and believed,
. 1 Fr. Condamin (Revue biblique, 1899, 409-12) gives a slightly different
interpretation of this passage. ' " You ask Me who I am. First of all,
what do you mean ? Do you ask what is the source of My teaching ? That is
what you should ask first, for it is My words that bear testimony of Me.
My teaching is from My Father, and proves My divine mission." The
28 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
but with a superficial faith, and the word had * no place
in ' them (37). So when He first puts His teaching before
them they accept it eagerly but with a precarious allegiance
that soon ends in violent opposition. This very conflict
throws a powerful light on our Lord's history and teaching.
The very first words are themselves a revelation : ' If
you continue in My word, you shall be My disciples indeed.
And you shall know the truth : and the truth shall make
you free.' 1
S. Augustine writes : ' What appeal can I make to your
charity ? Oh, if only our hearts aspired, be it ever so feebly,
to this unspeakable glory ! Oh, if with groans we felt that
we are but pilgrims, if we were without love for the world,
if only we knocked unceasingly and with pious souls at the
gate of heaven, ever ready to open to us ! Our desires and
our heart are one : we shall receive within us this God, if
we extend this desire as far as we can. . . . Love, then,
together with me ! He loves money little who loves God.
Alas, when I speak like this I feel my own weakness, and I
dare not say that such a man does not love money, but that
he does not love it much ; as if forsooth, money were worthy
to be loved, but not much. Oh ! if we loved God as He
deserves we should not love money at all. ... If this is your
case, lift up your heart, for indeed you may, and listen to
me ! if it be thus with you, you will obtain His promises.
This is not beyond you, for His hand is powerful and it is
He who calls you ' (1691).
These fervent aspirations uplift every Christian heart ;
but the Jews to whom our Lord was speaking did not
understand such language at all, and were only moved to
indignation at His words. ' We are the seed of Abraham :
and we have never been slaves to any man. How sayest
rest of the discourse is a splendid development of this idea.' He rejects
the interpretation of the Greek commentators. ' If,' he says ' the senti-
ment expressed is really this : " You do not deserve to be told who I am ;
why should I speak to you at all ? You are not worthy to understand My
words " : we are surprised to see the discussion last so long after that.'
But this objection scarcely seems decisive, and we may compare with the
present passage Matt, xvii, 16 : ' O unbelieving and perverse generation,
how long shall I suffer you ? ' where immediately after this severe rebuke
He adds : ' Bring (the child) hither to Me.'
1 S. Augustine says (1690) : ' Quid enim ? non illam cognoverant,
quando Dominus loquebatur ? si non cognoverant, quomodo crediderunt ?
Non quia cognoverunt crediderunt, sed ut cognoscerent crediderunt,' and
then he goes on to develop afresh the relationship between Faith and
knowledge : fides qucerens intellectum.
THE JOURNEY TO JUDEA 29
thou : You shall be free ? ' The discussion that followed
was to turn almost entirely on this descent from Abraham,
of which the Jews made so perverse a boast. In the dis-
course about the Bread of Life, it was Moses that the Jews
opposed to Christ as the great wonderworker and lawgiver
of Israel ; but here it is Abraham, the Father of all Israel.
S. John the Baptist had already contested the Jewish claims
in this respect : ' Think not to say : we have Abraham for
our Father. For I tell you that God is able of these stones
to raise up children to Abraham ' (Matt, iii, 9) ; while later
on S. Paul, in his turn, will lay it down that Abraham is the
father of those who believe, whether Jew or Gentile, circum-
cised or uncircumcised (Rom. iv, n). This teaching, from
which later on the Jews were to shrink in horror, was not
less shocking to them at the moment, and all the more
because our Lord laid it down with an authority more
absolute than any that Precursor or Apostle could possess.
From His first word He makes His position perfectly
clear. . . . ' Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin.'
So the freedom of which He has just spoken is in no sense
something inherited by birth, rather it is a moral disposition
of which a man's works are at once the means of development
and the test. This idea that every good man is free, and every
bad one a slave, is one of the familiar theses of stoicism, and
the moralists of the Porch such as Philo vie with each
other in developing it. But the special feature of our Lord's
teaching on the point is, that He promises freedom to those
who follow Him and receive His word. In no sense does
He seek to call forth a spontaneous movement of the soul
which would be sufficient to bring freedom of itself, such as
the Pelagians, those true disciples of the Stoics, dreamed of
later on ; but, although the soul could not free itself, He,
the Son of God, could set it free. And S. Augustine recalls
the fact that men born free, but who had been cast into
slavery by some act of wicked violence, had recourse to the
Church, supplicating the Bishop to give them the freedom
to which they had a right.
' Let us then flee to Christ,' Augustine cries (1694), ' let
us appeal against sin to God our deliverer ; let us beseech
Him to ransom us, and that by His Blood. For the Lord
hath told us : You were sold gratis, and you shall be
redeemed without money (Isa. Hi, 3). For it is not you
30 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
that pay the price, saith the Lord, but I. He Himself
has paid the price, not in money, but by His Blood.'
So the discussion went on, and became more and more
embittered, the Jews indignantly repeating that they were
the sons of Abraham and that they had God for their Father,
and Jesus replying that they did not the works of Abraham,
nor received the word of God and that therefore their father
was the Devil. 1 Among our Lord's replies to His opponents
we particularly observe the challenge : ' Which of you con-
vinceth Me of sin ? ' If His enemies are slaves, it is because
they commit sin : if He could be convicted of doing so, He
who has given Himself as deliverer, the whole proof of His
mission would be ruined, but He challenges them so to con-
vict Him. To issue such a challenge, under such circum-
stances, to people whom He had accused of being sons of the
Devil, and who were about to reply that He Himself was
possessed, reveals the most inveterate self-confidence on our
Lord's part ; and this self-confidence is more enlightening
than the challenge itself. He has a much stronger sense of sin
than His adversaries, and He declares Himself free from it.
We have here an assurance beyond compare.
' The Jews therefore answered and said to Him : Do not
we say well that Thou art a Samaritan and hast a devil ?
Jesus answered : I have not a devil : but I honour My
Father. And you have dishonoured Me. But I seek not My
own glory : there is one that seeketh and judgeth.' (John
viii, 48-50.)
In his first Epistle, S. Peter puts before his readers the
example of Christ : ' Who did no sin, neither was guile
found in His mouth. Who when He was reviled did not
revile : when He suffered He threatened not, but delivered
Himself to Him that judged Him unjustly ' (ii, 22, 23).
The characteristic meekness of Christ, in face of the worst
possible insults, is especially noticeable in this part of the
narrative : ' Thou art a Samaritan and hast a devil,' they
1 Godet (107) writes : ' Ever since the return from the captivity, a
union with a heathen woman was looked on as impure, and the issue of
such a marriage as illegitimate, as belonging through one of its parents to
the family of Satan, the god of the heathen. It is probably in this sense
that the Jews said : We have one Father, even God. They are born in
the normal conditions of their theocracy, without a drop of idolatrous
blood in their veins ; Hebrews of the Hebrews (Phil, i, 3-5). Thus, even
when at our Lord's instance they rise to the moral point of view, they
cannot entirely free themselves from their idea of physical filiation.'
THE JOURNEY TO JUDEA 31
scream at Him, while He abandons Himself to the protection
of Almighty God who has His cause in hand. Beyond doubt
Christ bears witness to Himself, but only when moved to do
so by His Father, and this inspiration which is His guide in
all things is the rule that governs His self-manifestation to
men. In this sense, the initiative of such manifestations lies
with the Father ; He it is who reveals Him to men, and bears
witness to Him before them.
Whoever receives this testimony will find in it life eternal ;
it is the great gift of the Son of God, which He has solemnly
promised, more especially hi the discourse on the Bread of
Life. To 'unbelieving men it was a shock, as it is still a
stumbling-block to them to-day. And the ground of offence
is always the same. ' Art Thou greater than our father
Jacob ? ' cries the Samaritan woman ; while the Jews of
Capharnaum confronted Him with Moses and the manna.
And the Jews of Jerusalem follow the same line of reasoning :
' Abraham is dead, and the prophets ... art Thou greater
than our father Abraham . . . ? Who makest Thou Thyself? '
Our Lord's only reply is to appeal to His Father's
testimony, and, face to face with the blindness of the Jews
who neither know the Father nor receive His testimony, He
feels all the strength and exhilaration of the complete know-
ledge possessed by Himself : ' And if I shall say that I know
Him not, I shall be like to you, a liar. But I do know Him
and do keep His word' (John viii, 55).
Our Lord had closed a former discussion with the words :
' Think not that it is I that accuse you before the Father ;
he who accuses you is Moses, in whom you put your hope.
If you believe Moses you would believe Me also, for he wrote
of Me ' (v, 45, 46) . Here is the same line of thought, more
boldly expressed : throughout the present discussion it is
not Moses but Abraham whom the adversaries of Jesus
invoke, and, in so doing, misunderstand and insult Him.
' Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day : he saw it
and was glad.' At His transfiguration, our Lord had wished
to make His Apostles see that Moses and Elias, the very
fathers of Judaism, had seen and rejoiced in His glory ;
and now He makes the same assertion about Abraham,
who appears before the Jews only to confound them by his
testimony, since Jesus shows them that He had seen His
day, and rejoiced ; and that Almighty God is in no sense
the God of the dead, but of the living, since to Him all are
32 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
alive. Such a statement only filled the Jews with indigna-
tion, for they understood but half of it. ' Thou art not yet
fifty years old, and hast Thou seen Abraham ? ' x
In view of this last sign of blindness, Christ only repeats
His statement in more explicit terms : ' Before Abraham
was, I am.' ' Weigh the words well,' says S. Augustine
(1713), ' and understand the mystery. Notice that " was "
refers to man's creation by which he came into being ; that
" I am " denotes the Divine substance ' ; and that Christ
did not say : ' I was ' but : ' I am, 3 thus expressing the
eternity of His being. 2 The Jews shouted blasphemies, and
picked up stones, and our Lord turned away. ' No doubt,'
adds Augustine, ' He could have engulfed them all in hell,
an easy matter for Almighty God ; but He wished to give
an example of patience rather than make a demonstration
of power.'
V. The Man Born Blind.
In the preceding discussion of our Lord with the Jews,
we can still trace the effect of the miracle at the pool of
Bethsaida. Now, a new miracle is about to be worked, and
one destined to stir up still livelier sentiments among both
our Lord's enemies and friends. 3
1 Harnack has tried to prove by this text that John represents Jesus
as much older than the Synoptics do ; this implying that he had not
really known Him, whose disciple he claimed to be. In confirmation of
this inference from the Gospel, he quotes two texts of S. Irenaeus, implying
that our Lord passed through all the ages normal to man (Hcsr., Il.xxii, 5, 6) .
This whole exegetical structure is a fragile one. It seems clear that
Irenseus was mistaken as to the age at which our Lord died ; but S. John
cannot be held responsible for this, and it is in no way implied in the
present passage. ' Fifty is to be taken as a round number ; it was the age
that marked the close of the active period of life. The real sense of the
words in question is : " You are not an old man yet," an expression from
which nothing can be inferred as to the real age of Jesus, since in a case
of this sort ten or twenty years, more or less, make no change in the situation
at all ' (Godet).
2 Cp. Ps. ci, 26-28, applied in the Epistle to the Hebrews (i, 10-12)
to the Son of God : ' Thou in the beginning, O Lord, didst found the earth :
and the works of Thy hands are the heavens. They shall perish : but
Thou shalt continue. And they shall all grow old as a garment. And as
a vesture shalt Thou change them : and they shall be changed. But
Thou art the selfsame : and Thy years shall not fail.'
3 Westcott (in his notes on ix, i and x, 22) separates this from the
preceding part of the narrative and attaches it to the following (x, 22 ff .) ;
similarly Bernard, p. 323. According to this hypothesis, the cure of the
man born blind would not have taken place at the time of the Feast
of Tabernacles, but in winter, round and about the Feast of the Dedication.
This opinion rests on an interpretation of x, 22 which does not seem to be
very probable ; on the contrary, ix, i seems to go very well with, the
passage that precedes it.
THE JOURNEY TO JUDEA 33
Afflicted persons often asked alms at the Temple gate
(Acts iii, 2); and it would seem that it was here that
Jesus encountered the man born blind. The sight of him
immediately brought to the disciples' lips questions that
betrayed a Jewish prejudice which they had not yet been
able to shake off : * Who,* they ask, ' has sinned, this man
or his parents ? ' 1
Our Blessed Lord gave His disciples a wider view.
Sickness is not a punishment blindly inflicted by God,
but before all else it is an occasion of greater good and
of a manifestation of the Divine glory. Once again Jesus
recalled His quite recent teaching ; He did the works of
His Father (viii, 28, 29) ; He was the Light of the world
(viii, 12) ; and of this solemn claim, the impending miracle
was the seal.
Spitting on the ground, He made clay of the spittle and
spreads it on the eyes of the blind man. We have already
met a parallel incident in S. Mark (viii, 23) when, as a
means of curing a similar case at Bethsaida, our Lord
touched the eyes with saliva and then laid His hands upon
the afflicted man. As we remarked then, this use of saliva
was looked upon by the Jews as a remedy and, as such,
forbidden on the Sabbath day. Of course, no man could
have hoped thus to cure those blind from birth, but with
our Lord it was a means of arousing the faith and hope of
the sick man, and at the same time showing forth the life-
giving power of His sacred humanity.
1 Use has been made of this passage to suggest the view that the doctrine
of metempsychosis was prevalent among our Lord's contemporaries.
Thus we read in Josephus (B. J., II, 8, 14, 163) : ' The Pharisees think that
every soul is imperishable, the good ones alone passing into another
body, while the bad undergo eternal chastisement.' On this Reinach
remarks : ' A very inaccurate way of expressing the doctrine of the
Resurrection of the flesh.' Elsewhere Josephus expresses this doctrine
a little better (A.J., XVIII, i, 3, 14) : ' They believe that souls have an
immortal vigour and that those who during life have practised virtue or
vice receive rewards or punishments beneath the earth, the wicked being
subjected to a perpetual imprisonment, and the good being able to rest in
a new life.'
We can only see in these passages examples of the distortion that
Jewish doctrine usually underwent at the hands of Josephus, in his efforts
to assimilate it to Grecian ideas. In reality, there is not a single trace of
metempsychosis to be found on the Gospel page. The disciples are assum-
ing either a fault already contracted before birth, or a sin of the parents
themselves.
. In any case, the affliction appears to them to be the result of some fault,
and that this view was shared by the Pharisees is shown by their taunt:
Thou wast wholly born in sin,' i.e. under the assumed influence of his
parents' sins. (Vide Edersheim, 178.)
34 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
He sends the man born blind to the pool of Siloe, 1 a sacred
spring in the eyes of the Jews, and as such set in opposition
to the Euphrates by the prophet Isaias (viii, 6-7) : ' Foras-
much as this people hath cast away the waters of Siloe, that
go with silence, and hath rather taken Rasin and the son of
Romelia : therefore, behold the Lord will bring upon them
the waters of the river, strong and many. . . . And he shall
come up over all his channels, and shall overflow all his
banks ' ; every day during the Feast of Tabernacles, except
the Sabbath and the first day of the Feast itself, the priest
would go there to draw water, which was then carried in
procession to the Temple for the solemn libations. It was
from this that our Lord took the figure of the living waters
welling up from the believer's breast. Besides as S. John
observes here the name Siloe, meaning ' one sent,' was in
itself symbolic of Him who, in all His utterances, constantly
represented Himself as He who was sent by the Father. 2
The man therefore went to the pool of Siloe, bathed
there and was cured, and immediately found himself the
centre of a violent hubbub. Amid the opposing cries of
' This is the beggar, cured * and ' No, it is someone like
him,' is heard his own simple statement : ' I am he.'
In reply to the question as to how he had been cured, he
replied : ' That man that is called Jesus made clay and
anointed my eyes and said to me : Go to the pool of Siloe
and wash. And I went : I washed and I see. And they
said to Him : Where is He ? He saith : I know not.'
In this admirably natural and dramatic narrative, we
can follow step by step the movements of Christ and of the
blind man. This man was not a believer : he knew that
he had been cured by someone called Jesus, and that was
all. It is a somewhat similar case to that of the paralytic at
Bethsaida, 3 who did not even know who had cured him
(v, 13) ; both miracles are irreconcilable with the theory
of ' the faith that cures.' And in both cases Jesus disappears ;
but the subject of the miracle speaks freely, the crowd are
aroused, and the Pharisees carry on an inquiry into the
1 On the excavations at Siloe, see Vincent-Abel, Jerusalem, II, pp.
860-864.
2 In the Middle Ages, Mudjir ed-Din repeats this saying of an ancient
writer : ' Whoever goes to Jerusalem ought to go to Mihrab Daoud to say
his prayers and bathe in the water of Siloe, for they come from Paradise '
(quoted by Vincent, Jerusalem, II, p. 864).
3 And of the lame man at the Gate Beautiful (Acts iii, 2 &.).
THE JOURNEY TO JUDEA 35
matter. In the present case this is described with a precision
that permits us to follow all the details.
In once more choosing a Sabbath day for this amazing
cure, our Lord had a well-defined intention in view ; He
was making a frontal attack on the rabbinic casuistry here
in Jerusalem, and in the Temple itself ; but He was going
to work a miracle to lend authority to the step He was about
to take. This miracle was condemned in advance, so far
as the most obstinate of His adversaries were concerned ;
it was judged in the light of the doctrine that He taught.
The others said to themselves : ' If this man was a sabbath-
breaker, how could he perform such miracles ? ' Conse-
quently there was a division in the very heart of the Sanhe-
drin, or, we may prefer to say, in each conscience there broke
out a conflict between a tradition revered as equal to the law
and the evidence of a work wrought by the manifest power
of God.
At first there was no disposition to believe the miracle
itself ; it was asked whether the man was really blind from
birth or whether he had been cured at all. He was
summoned to appear and, his testimony not being regarded
as sufficient, his parents were called too. In their replies
we can already trace the effect of the predetermined line
that the Jewish leaders were taking, namely that whoever
acknowledged Jesus as the Messias was to be cast out of the
synagogue. Such an excommunication was a very terrible
punishment indeed ; x and especially for those who were
poor and consequently dependent upon others, like the
parents of the blind man. Unable to face it they shirked
the issue ; their son was old enough to speak for himself ;
let them ask him. So he was brought before them once
again.
The Pharisees call on him to swear in the name of God
(cp. Josue vii, 19 ; i Esdras ix, 8), while at the same time
they try to intimidate him by imposing upon him their own
1 In its mildest form it was merely a reprimand (Nezipha) which, isolated
the offender for a week or, at the most, a month. In its second degree
(Niddui) it lasted a month : the culprit had to sit on the ground, wear
mourning, let his beard and hair grow untended, be deprived of ritual baths
and anointings, and keep himself apart from the community during the
common prayers. The third degree of the ban proper (Herem) was the
most terrible of all : it lasted indefinitely and might involve the con-
fiscation of goods, while all intercourse with the delinquent, even of a
private nature, became unlawful. (Cp. Billerbeck, Der Synagogenbann, IV,
pp. 292-333.
36 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
authority as doctors of the law. ' Here,' says Loisy, ' we
have judges who demand to be told the truth under oath,
while all the time they pretend to know it and dictate to
the witness the evidence that they wish to hear.' They
reckoned that to a mere beggar such high-handed methods
would prove irresistible ; but their bad faith was too
evident and the man holds his own after all. ' If he be a
sinner I know not ; one thing I know that whereas I was
blind, I now see. 5 There follow further interrogations
about his cure, the authorities hoping to make him contra-
dict himself or at least extract such a statement from him
as would allow them to interpret the whole incident as a
fraud, or case of healing by merely natural powers. Provoked
to retaliation by all these manoeuvres the man answers
with spirit : ' I have told you already. . . . Why would you
hear it again ? Will you also become His disciples ? ' And
they, cut to the quick by this sally, reply with bitter pride :
' Be thou His disciple but we are the disciples of Moses.'
And once more taking their stand on their learning and
authority as doctors of the Law, they continue : ' We know
that God spoke to Moses : but as to this man we know not
from whence He is.' They did not dare repeat their state-
ment that He was a sinner, but contented themselves with
simply rejecting His claims. It is the same hypocritical
evasion upon which they will fall back a little later when
questioning Jesus Himself, and when in reply to His question
as to whether the baptism of John was from Heaven or
earth, they will reply : ' We know not ' (Matt, xxi, 27).
Once again the man perceives the bad faith of the reply
and presses the point home. ' Why, herein is a wonderful
thing, that you know not from whence He is, and He hath
opened my eyes.' And appealing to a classical principle
among the Jews he adds : ' Now we know that God doth
not hear sinners : but if a man be a server of God and doth
His will, him He hears.' The Pharisees, driven to extremes,
remind him with bitter contempt that he was born in sin
and forthwith cast him out ; when our Lord meets him and
brings about his conversion to Himself.
' Jesus heard that they had cast him out. And when He
had found him, He said to him : Post thou believe in the
Son of God ? He answered, and said : Who is He, Lord,
that I may believe in Him ? And Jesus said to him : Thou
THE JOURNEY TO JUDEA 37
hast both seen Him ; and it is He that talketh with thee.
And he said : I believe, Lord. And falling down, he adored
Him. And Jesus said : For judgement I am come into
this world ; that they who see not may see ; and they who
see may become blind. And some of the Pharisees, who
were with him, heard : and they said unto Him : Are we
also blind ? Jesus said to them : If you were blind, you
should not have sin : but now you say : We see. Your sin
remaineth.' (John ix, 35-41.)
Driven away by the Jews, he is made welcome by the
Messias : ' He that shall lose his life for My sake shall find it.'
As we can see by his former replies this poor man looked
upon Jesus as a faithful servant of God and as a prophet
indeed. Our Lord revealed Himself to him as the Son of
Man, and at the same time enlightened him interiorly so
that he fell adoring at His feet. And so the judgement
took place ; for our Lord had said further back in the
narrative that He had not come to judge anyone and that
men really judge themselves : ' And this is the judgement :
because the light is come into the world, and men loved
darkness rather than the light ' (iii, 1 9) . And to this reversal
of roles whereby the seeing become the blind and the blind
are made to see, our Lord bore witness when He blessed
God and said : ' Thou hast hid these things from the wise
and prudent and hast revealed them to little ones.'
Some of the Pharisees still lingered with our Lord during
this last phase of the affair. Possibly, as S. Chrysostom
thinks, they were wavering disciples ; perhaps they were
enemies seeking every opportunity to spy upon Him. * Are
we also blind ? ' they say, strangely enough when they
have but just confessed : ' We know not from whence He
is.' The truth is they were not blind, and it was this that
condemned them. ' If you were blind,' said our Lord,
you should not have sin : but now you say : We see.
Your sin remaineth.' A terrible responsibility indeed for
these men whom the people revered for their learning, who
never wearied of asserting their wisdom, and who only
used their influence and knowledge to hide the light from
those who could not find it for themselves. ' You have
taken away the key of knowledge. You yourselves have not
entered in : and those that were entering in you have
hindered' (Luke xi, 52).
38 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
VI. The Good Shepherd, (x, 1-21.)
In the discourses of our Lord upon which we have been
commenting up to the present, we have seen Him take up
one Old Testament symbol after another in order to apply
it to Himself; the water from the rock, the manna, the
luminous cloud. And now, in the same way, He seized
upon an allegory frequently upon the lips of the prophets
of Israel :
'Son of man, prophesy concerning the shepherds of
Israel : prophesy and say to the shepherds : Thus saith
the Lord God : Woe to the shepherds of Israel that fed
themselves ! Should not the flocks be fed by the shepherds?
You ate the milk and you clothed yourselves with the
wool and you killed that which was fat : but My flock
you did not feed. . . . Therefore, ye shepherds, hear the
word of the Lord : Thus saith the Lord God : Behold
I Myself come upon the shepherds. I will require My
flock at their hand, and I will cause them to cease from
feeding the flock any more : neither shall the shepherds
feed themselves any more. And I will deliver My flock
from their mouth and it shall no more be meat for them.
For thus saith the Lord God : Behold I Myself will seek
My sheep and will visit them. . . . And I will bring them
out from the peoples and will gather them out of the
countries and will bring them to their own land. . . .
I will feed My sheep and I will cause them to lie down,
saith the Lord God. I will seek that which was lost : and
that which was driven away, I will bring again. And I
will bind up that which was broken and I will strengthen
that which was weak . . . and I will feed them in judge-
ment.' (Ezech. xxxiv, 2-16.)
Here we have an admirable picture, no doubt, but one
which like all prophecies was destined to be surpassed by
the reality. ' I lay down My life for My sheep,' this is what
the Good Shepherd will say and do, and it is something of
which not the slightest suspicion was in Ezechiel's mind. At
the same time this description of Jehovah as Himself the
Shepherd of Israel was bound to throw light on the person
of Jesus Himself ; for here God is heralded as Himself
coming to deliver His flock from the evil shepherds and to
THE JOURNEY TO JUDEA 39
restore justice ; and lo ! He that appears is Christ, who
once more in His own Person brings about the realization
of what, long since, the prophets had foretold.
Even apart from these venerable passages of Holy
Scripture every detail of the allegory employed by our Lord
was clear enough to those to whom He spoke. The flocks
were shut up for the night in enclosures surrounded by walls
of loose stone, breast high. Several flocks were gathered
together for the night in one enclosure, and entrusted to
one watchman ; the shepherds came in the morning to
call their own sheep and lead them away.
And this was the role fulfilled by Christ Himself. In due
time He comes, making no attempt, as a robber would, to
scale the surrounding wall, but knocking at the door and
letting the porter open it in response. He calls His sheep
who, although they have mingled with the others, know
His voice and run to meet Him. One may recall, for
example, that one word uttered by Him to Mary Magdalen
after the resurrection : ' Mary '. It was the Good Shepherd
who called her by her name ; and straightway she answered :
' Rabboni ! 3 Then He goes forth at the head of the flock,
all His sheep following Him, which is all they need to
do to find the good pasturage that they seek. Others call
them, too hirelings but their voices are unknown to the
sheep and at the very sound of them they flee. * To whom
shall we go ? Thou hast the words of eternal life.'
' I am the door of the sheep.' In these words our Lord
is making use of another aspect of the life of a shepherd and
his sheep. For after the early morning exodus from the
fold, the door remains open so that the sheep can go in and
out at will. If anything frightens them they seek safety
within the enclosure ; if they are hungry they go forth to
the pastures outside. It is by the door of the fold that they
find safety and nourishment, and all they need.
Then the thought flies back to the contrast between the
hireling and the Good Shepherd, and here we trace anew
the features that Ezechiel had already noted in his times.
The bad shepherds who preceded Christ had no care but
to enrich themselves at the expense of the flock which they
robbed and slew at will. But Christ came to give life and
to give it more abundantly.
Those who are not betrayers of their trust are at least hire-
lings ; the sheep are not really theirs and they care nothing
VOL. II. D
40 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
about them at all. In the wide solitudes of Judea the|care
of the flocks was not without its risks. David told Saul how,
in defending his flock, he had slain both a lion and a bear,
and although as early as the time of Christ these animals had
disappeared, there remained the jackal, the hyena and the
wolf. The presence of these enemies, only too familiar as they
were, revealed the difference between the hireling and the
true shepherd, the one forsaking the flock, and the other
defending it with his own life.
Later on, S. Peter will write to the ancients :
' Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking
care of it, not by constraint but willingly, according to
God : not for filthy lucre's sake but voluntarily : neither as
lording it over the clergy but being made a pattern of the
flock from the heart. And when the prince of pastors shall
appear, you shall receive a never-fading crown of glory.'
(i Peter v, 2-4.)
Similarly we find S. Paul thus addressing the ancients
of Ephesus :
' Take heed to yourselves and to the whole flock, wherein
the Holy Ghost hath placed you bishops, to rule the Church
of God which He hath purchased with His own blood.
I know that after my departure ravening wolves will
enter in among you, not sparing the flock. And of your
own selves shall arise men speaking perverse things, to
draw away disciples after them.' (Acts xx, 28-30.)
Contrasting Himself with the hirelings Jesus says : ' I am
the Good Shepherd, and I know Mine and Mine know Me ;
the Father knoweth Me and I know the Father.' ' No one
knoweth the Son but the Father : neither doth anyone
know the Father but the Son. . . .' This close and exclusive
relation is not based only on mutual knowledge but on the
community of life which that implies, and the same may be
said, all due proportion being preserved, of the mutual
knowledge of the Shepherd and His sheep. ' When He
speaks of knowledge,' S. Cyril remarks (1044-1048),
' Christ does not mean only an operation of the understand-
ing, but rather a community of life, whether this be a
quality of nature or a free gift of Grace.' S. John writes
in the same sense : c Everyone that loveth is born of God,
and knoweth God ' (i John iv, 7).
THE JOURNEY TO JUDEA 41
Once more it is this same community of life to which our
Lord refers in the discourse after the Last Supper : ' As
the Father hath loved Me, I also have loved you. Abide
in My love 5 (xv, 9). Running through both passages is
the parallel which our Lord was so fond of drawing between
the relations of the Father with the Son and that of Christ
with Christians.
' I lay down My life for My sheep.' ' These words/
Godet remarks, 'formed a sort of refrain (cp. n, 17, 18),
like a number of other sayings recorded by S. John as having
been spoken at times when our Lord was deeply moved '
(iii, 15, 16 ; iv, 23, 24 ; vi, 39, 40, 44, 54). The sacrifice
referred to by the words in question is only very faintly
represented by the allegory of the shepherd, for here as every-
where the symbol is infinitely surpassed by the divine reality
for which it stands. The shepherd, indeed, may expose
himself to danger in defending his sheep and may rescue
them at the risk of his own life ; but the sacrifice can never
be a source of life and more abundant life to the sheep, just
as his relations with them and the familiar sound of his voice
will never represent the ineffable union between Christians
and Christ.
And our Lord's vision embraces not only Jerusalem and
Jewry as a whole, but the entire world of men. ' And other
sheep I have that are not of this fold : them also I must
bring. And they shall hear My voice. . . .' The reference
here is not to other flocks, but to sheep scattered, and without
a Shepherd at all. It is of these that John is thinking when
he writes a little further on : ' Jesus should die . . . not only
for the nation, but to gather together in one the children of
God that were dispersed' (John xi, 51, 52). This call to
the sheep in order to gather them into one fold is God's
will, and will come to pass, a fact emphasized by our Lord's
use here of His favourite word for expressing a Divine
decree. Thus, ' The Son of Man must be lifted up ' (iii, 14) ;
' He must increase ' (iii, 30) ; c I must work the works of
Him that sent Me ' (ix, 4) ; ' The Son of Man must be
lifted up ' (xii, 34) ; ' He must rise again from the dead '
(xx, 9). Moreover, He speaks with the assurance that
admits of no hesitation or doubt. The sheep are His already
and they will hear His voice. We find here the same note
of confidence as in the closing words of the Acts : ' Be it
known,' said S. Paul to the Jews of Rome, ' therefore to you
42 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
that this salvation of God is sent to the Gentiles : and they
will hear it ' (Acts xxviii, 28) .
For all these sheep of His, Jesus is going to die freely and
of His own will ; and He takes pains to emphasize the
spontaneousness of His death from which its true character
is derived. This expression TiQevai ryv ifsvx>jv is the same
that S. Peter uses when he protests his readiness to sacrifice
himself for our Lord (xiii, 37) and Jesus Himself takes it
from his lips with a sad irony (xiii, 38) ; while a little later
He will remind His disciples that there is no greater love
than that shown by a man who lays down his life for his
friends (xv, 13). Finally, this voluntary sacrifice is the
special object of the Father's satisfaction in His Son :
' Therefore doth the Father love Me.'
Moreover, the object of this satisfaction is not only Christ's
devotion to men in giving His life for them, but also His
obedience to His Father's command. Godet, however,
seems to be afraid that to stress this notion of a command
will have the effect of compromising the independence of
the Son ; consequently he writes : ' The real tenor of this
" command " with which our Lord was sent into the world
is this : " You may die or not, rise again or not, according
to the free promptings of your heart," and Christ Himself
only refers to it as a " command " in order to cover His
incomparable prerogative with a veil of humility' (181).
This is to do violence to our Lord's own words with
the idea of safeguarding His dignity as the Son of God ;
surely His most prominent characteristic, particularly as
we see Him in S. John, is His entire dependence upon His
Father. ' I have not spoken of Myself ; but the Father
who sent Me, He gave Me commandment (evroXyv SeSwicev)
what I should say and what I should speak . . .' (xii, 49).
And a little further on : 'If you keep My commandments
you shall abide in My love : as I also have kept My Father's
commandments and do abide in His love . . .' (xv, 10).
And then He adds almost immediately : ' This is My
commandment, that you love one another as I have loved
you. Greater love than this no man hath ; that a man
lay down his life for his friends ' (xv, 12-13).
It follows that this also was the commandment which
the Father had given the Son, to love His own to the
point of giving His life for them ; and it is the fulfilment of
this precept that gives occasion to the Apostles to admire
THE JOURNEY TO JUDEA 43
the obedience of Christ (Rom. v, 19 ; Phil, ii, 8 ; Heb.
v, 8).
Certainly all this will not lead us to forget that the Son
of God is God, like His Father, and that the great plan that
provides for man's redemption was determined upon by
the united will of the Father and the Son. But even within
the bosom of the Holy Trinity the Son receives everything
from His Father ; and if we look towards His Sacred
Humanity we find within it a human will capable of gaining
merit by obedience to the commands of God.
No doubt this particular command was the most terrible
ever issued by God, but it was destined to bear an incom-
parable fruit of salvation for man, of bliss for Christ, and
of glory for God the Father Himself.
' A dissension rose again among the Jews for these
words. And many of them said : He hath a devil and is
mad. Why hear you Him ? Others said : These are not
the words of one that hath a devil. Can a devil open the
eyes of the blind? ' (John x, 19-21.)
This brief epilogue which S. John adds to our Lord's
discourse shows clearly enough the persistent division that
obtained in Jewish opinion at the time. Here, as throughout
the Gospel, the same utterances and the same miracles
produce contrary effects among those who witness them,
some being roused to hostility and anger, and others touched.
But also, here as through the whole of Christ's life, it was
His enemies who were firm, while His followers were
timid and afraid. The one party clinched the matter by
condemning Him out of hand : ' He has a devil, he is
mad, why do you listen to Him ? ' are the kind of remarks
they made. The others, like Nicodemus, raised objections
but without daring openly to declare their allegiance to
Christ. By and by these sound but wavering wills would
have to be gripped and transformed by the grace of the
Holy Ghost.
But while the world waits for this miracle of grace, Jesus
moves on to His death. Already there is a sense_of its near-
ness, and His own predictions of its approach grow more and
more frequent as the days go by. The very choice of allegory
is significant ; sheep, representing the disciples. Further
back, during the active apostolate in Galilee, Christ com-
pared His followers to strong beasts of burden bending
44 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
under the yoke and finding it light and easy to the neck
(Matt, xi, 29) ; but now they are sheep about to be sent
in the midst of wolves. But still He encourages them with
the words : ' Fear not, little flock, for it hath pleased your
Father to give you a kingdom ' (Luke xii, 32) .
CHAPTER II
JESUS IN SAMARIA AND JUDEA
I. The Disciples.
THE discourse of our Lord that we have just been studying
afresh is pre-eminent among all the rest for its intimate and
tender tone. The Good Shepherd gathers His little flock
around Him, and at the same time calls to Him His ' other
sheep,' still scattered far and wide. We shall frequently
recognize the same features in S. Luke's narrative and in
the discourses recorded by him in the section that we are
about to explore.
' And it came to pass, when the days of His assumption
were accomplishing that He steadfastly set His face to go
to Jerusalem.' (Luke ix, 51.)
This solemn introduction at once brings to the front tho
gravity of the step now taken by our Lord. In going te
Jerusalem He was passing straight on to His death, and He
knew it, but His time was nearly accomplished and He
stepped firmly on, in fulfilment of what had been written of
Him of old. For the rest, the expression 1 itself marks the
glorious approaching end of His earthly trial.
With Him went a considerable band of followers ; the
twelve Apostles and also, no doubt, other disciples of whom we
shall be hearing more before long ; and He had sent before
Him agents to secure and prepare a lodging for Him and
His friends. The route through Samaria was the one usually
taken by pilgrims to Jerusalem and, as a rule, they were
not interfered with by the Samaritans. But on this occasion
the party were refused the hospitality asked for, which
would have had to be extended to a large number of persons.
Whereupon the two sons ofZebedee, filled with indignation,
called down on the offenders fire from Heaven. Jesus had
1 dvd\t]\{/is, cp. fywOijvai ( John iii, 14 ; viii, 28 ; xiii, 3) .
45
46 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
named them Sons of Thunder, and He recognized their
zeal, ill-regulated though it was as yet. Perhaps the quite
recent experience of the Transfiguration was still fresh in
their minds, and they were tempted to imitate Elias 1 who
consumed Achab's messengers with a word. Christ rebuked
them and the little band turning out of its way ' went
into another town.' 2
It was during this journey, or perhaps at the end of it, 3
that our Lord sent His seventy 4 disciples on their missionary
journey.
' And after these things the Lord appointed also other
seventy-two. And He sent them two and two before His
face into every city and place whither He Himself was to
come. And He said to them : The harvest indeed is great
but the labourers are few. Pray ye therefore the lord of the
harvest that he send labourers into his harvest. Go :
behold I send you as lambs among wolves. Carry neither
purse, nor scrip, nor shoes : and salute no man by the
way. Into whatsoever house you enter, first say : Peace
be to this house. And if the son of peace be there, your
peace shall rest upon him : but if not, it shall return to
you. And in the same house remain, eating and drinking
such things as they have : for the labourer is worthy of
his hire. Remove not from house to house. And into
what city soever you enter, and they receive you, eat such
things as are set before you. And heal the sick that are
therein and say to them : The kingdom of God is come
nigh unto you. But into whatsoever city you enter and they
receive you not, going forth into the streets thereof say :
Even the very dust of your city that cleaveth to us we wipe
off against you. Yet know this, that the kingdom of
God is at hand. I say to you, it shall be more tolerable
at that day for Sodom than for that city. 5 (Luke x, 1-12.)
1 A variant found in. some of the best MSS. (ACDeW) in several of
the most ancient versions, and in some Fathers, expressly adds (v. 54), to
the disciples' words : ' Lord, wilt Thou that we command fire to come
down from Heaven and consume them,' the words ' as did Elias.' Two
other variants, less well-attested, add to verse 55 : ' You dp not know of
what spirit you are ; ' and to verse 56 : ' The Son of man is not come to
destroy souls, but to save.'
2 Luke records here our Lord's answer to the three disciples (cp.
Matt, viii, 1922).
3 ' It may be conjectured that it was near Jerusalem, perhaps at
Bethania, that the seventy-two received their mission ' (Lagrange).
* The MSS. and the Fathers give two readings : seventy and seventy-
two. We adopt the first, which seems the better attested of the two.
JESUS IN SAMARIA AND JUDEA 47
In S. Matthew's Gospel (chap, x) we have already met
with a similar mission accompanied by almost identical
instructions ; only then, it was the twelve who were
addressed by our Lord, while it is the seventy here. Doubt
has been thrown on the historical character of this second
mission, which has been regarded as nothing more than an
adaptation of that of the Apostles themselves. In reality
the mission of the Apostles, also recorded by S. Luke himself
(ix, 1-5), took place under other circumstances, towards
the end of the ministry in Galilee, Jesus sending on the
twelve into the north of that province, after having first
preached the Gospel there Himself. Here, on the other
hand, He makes the disciples precede Him before He
undertakes the evangelization of the south. Everywhere
the instructions given are similar, except for differences of
detail : for example, the twelve receive power to raise from
the dead, of which there is no mention here ; the twelve are
recommended to confine their efforts to the lost sheep of
the house of Israel, and not to approach the territory of the
Gentiles or the Samaritans (Matt, x, 5-6) ; a distinction
again without any counterpart in the present narrative.
The names of the seventy have not come down to us, but
many facts show that, grouped around the twelve, there
was a number of faithful attached to our Lord, and when it
becomes a question of finding a successor to Judas, Peter
makes it a condition that the new Apostle should have
followed the Saviour from the baptism of John until our Lord's
own Ascension into Heaven. The instances (e.g. Luke ix, 5 7-
62) of men called by Jesus to follow Him and either obeying
or disappearing altogether from the scene, show that Christ
had among His adherents others besides the twelve ; all the
same, this group of disciples did not form a permanent
body like the twelve Apostles themselves, and we can easily
imagine that it was very soon dispersed. 1 The number
seventy was consecrated by Jewish use. Thus Jehovah
1 On this subject Eusebius (H.E., I, 12) writes : ' Everyone knows
perfectly well the names of the Apostles as recorded in the Gospels ; but
a list of the seventy disciples nowhere exists. It is said, however, that
Barnabas 'was among them, since he is mentioned several times in the
Acts and also in S. Paul's epistle to the Galatians. The same is claimed
for Sosthenes, who was associated with S. Paul in writing to the Corin-
thians ; and Clement, in the fifth of the Hypotyposes, maintains this, and
also that the Cephas of whom S. Paul wrote : " When Cephas was come to
Antioch, I withstood him to the face," is one of the seventy disciples, who
bore the same name as the Apostle Peter. He records further that Matthias,
48 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
commanded Moses to appoint seventy elders who should
receive the spirit of prophecy and assist in the government
of the people (Num. xi) ; the Sanhedrin, later on, being
formed on this model with seventy members and a president.
Again when Josephus wished to organize Galilee he chose
seventy elders and entrusted the government to them
(B.J., I, 20, 5 ; Life, 14). And the zealots of Jerusalem,
having suppressed the existing courts of justice, replaced
them by a council of seventy chiefs (B.J., IV, 5, 4). 1
The nations of the earth were reckoned as seventy by the
Jews (Gen. x) ; and to correspond to this number seventy
bulls were offered in the Temple at the Feast of Tabernacles.
This feast had only recently taken place when our Lord
sent out the seventy, so perhaps there is some connection
between the two events, and perhaps it is germane to the
subject to recall what He had said about the sheep who
were not of this fold, but whom He would call and who
would hear His voice. Some confirmation of these con-
jectures may be found in the omission, already noted, of the
prohibition formerly issued to the Apostles, by which they
were forbidden to go among the Gentiles, and by the highly
mixed character of the population of Perea, whither the
seventy seem to have been sent.
What is at once more certain and more important is the
development that the mission of the seventy implies in the
movement initiated by Christ. No longer is He to confine
His preaching of the kingdom to the land of Israel or to be
who was chosen by the Apostles in Judas' place, and that other disciple
who was honoured by being associated with him in this election by lot,
had both been judged worthy of the vocation of the seventy. The name of
Thaddseus is also brought forward in this connection ; and about him I am
going shortly to relate a story that has come down to us. For the rest, if
we think about it, we shall find that there were more than these seventy
disciples of the Lord, as S. Paul testifies when he says that after His
resurrection from, the Dead the Saviour had been seen first by Cephas,
then by the twelve, and on a single occasion by five hundred brethren,
of whom several, he tells us, are dead, but the greater number were still
in the world at the time at which he wrote. He goes on to say that the
Saviour appeared to James, one of those who were called brothers of the
Lord. And then, since there were many besides who were apostles after
the model of the twelve, he adds the words, " then He was seen by all the
apostles." But enough on this subject.'
This passage shows that at the time of Eusebius, and even of Clement of
Alexandria, there existed no fuller data on the subject of the seventy than
we possess to-day. By mere conjecture there were included among them
persons mentioned in the Acts, or Apostles, like Cephas and Thaddseus,
who are known by two names.
1 We may recall also the legend of the Septuagint.
JESUS IN SAMARIA AND JUDEA 49
assisted only by the twelve ; on the contrary, His disciples
are dispersed far and wide, preaching and working miracu-
lous cures. Through the hospitality shown them they are
able to penetrate everywhere and to bring the whole
population into direct contact with the Gospel message.
In the early records of the Christian religion we shall find
missionary undertakings of an analogous kind, and our
Lord's followers going out to preach the Gospel two by two :
so Barnabas and Paul (Acts xiii, 2) ; Judas and Silas (xv,
27) ; Barnabas and Mark (xv, 39) ; Paul and Silas (xv,
40) ; Timothy and Silas (xvii, 14) ; Timothy and Erastus
(xix, 22). Later still, the work of the Apostles was carried
on by evangelists of whom an admirable portrait has been
drawn by Eusebius. 1
And the seventy returned with joy, saying : ' Lord, the
devils also are subject to us in Thy name' (x, 17). This
return of the seventy forms one of the most vivid pictures of
rejoicing in the Gospel story, and also one of the last. These
disciples, only recently won over to the Faith, still imper-
fectly trained, babes and lowly, lambs sent among wolves,
return like victors from the fight. They have even driven
devils out of men. And Christ, in reply to their eager
1 H.E., III, 37 : ' Quadratus was among those who flourished at this
time, of whom it is said that, like Philip's daughters, he was honoured
with prophetic gifts. And there are many other celebrated examples
among those having the first rank in the succession of the Apostles.
Wonderfully apt pupils of such masters, they built on the foundations of
the Churches that these had founded in every land ; developing and
extending the preaching of the Gospel and spreading far and wide through
all the earth the saving seeds of the kingdom of Heaven. For many
disciples of that time felt their souls enriched by the Divine Word with an
overpowering love for heavenly wisdom. They began by fulfilling the
Saviour's counsel and distributing their goods to the poor. Then they
left their country and set forth to fulfil the mission of evangelists in the
world. They vied with each other in preaching and transmitting the book
of the Holy Gospels to those who as yet had heard nothing of the teaching
of the Faith. They were content to lay the foundations of the Faith
among foreign nations, instituting pastors among them and handing over
to these the care of those whom they had but lately won over to belief.
Finally they departed to other countries and other nations, with the grace
and help of God, for all the while the countless and potent influences of
the Divine Spirit were working within their souls. And so, from the first
announcing of the heavenly tidings crowds gathered and eagerly received
within their souls the religion of the Creator of the World. We cannot
possibly give the number or names of those who form the immediate
successors of the Apostles or became pastors and evangelists of the various
churches in the world. Here we can do no more than barely mention and
record the names of those whose memory hands down to us the tradition
of apostolic teaching.'
50 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
account, tells them that He too has seen Satan ' like lightning
falling from Heaven.'
In answering the Pharisees of Galilee He had said (Matt,
xii, 28) : ' If I, by the Spirit of God cast out devils, then is the
kingdom of God come upon you' ; but now this is no longer
His work alone, since it is performed by all the disciples in
His name ; and the strong man armed is driven from his
house. Soon Jesus would exclaim : ' Now is the judgement of
the world ; now shall the prince of this world be cast out '
(John xii, 31). But He did not wish the foundations of His
disciples' rejoicing to be of the wrong kind. Not long ago He
told those who called His Mother blessed : ' Yea, rather
blessed are they who hear the word of God and keep it '
(Luke xi, 28). And here in the same way, if the disciples
must rejoice, it should be less because they can drive out
devils than that their names are written in the kingdom of
heaven. 1 This was the occasion on which, according to S.
Luke, our Lord exclaimed with joy as He contemplated this
disposition of Providence (Luke x, 21-24) :
' In that same hour, He rejoiced in the Holy Ghost and
said : I confess to Thee, O Father, Lord of Heaven and
earth, because Thou hast hidden these things from the
wise and prudent and hast revealed them to little ones.
Yea, Father, for so it hath seemed good in Thy sight.
All things are delivered to Me by My Father. And no one
knoweth who the Son is, but the Father : and who the
Father is but the Son and to whom the Son will reveal
Him. And turning to His disciples, He said : Blessed are
the eyes that see the things which you see. For I say to you
that many prophets and kings have desired to see the things
that you see and have not seen them ; and to hear the
things that you hear and have not heard them. 5
We have already met these two passages in S. Matthew's
Gospel, one coming after the account of the deputation from
S.John the Baptist (xi, 25) and the other after the parables
(xiii, 1 6), different contexts in which our Lord's words are
equally in place. And here, however, on the occasion of
1 See Augustine, Enarr. in Ps. cxxx. : ' Non omnes Christian! boni
daemonia eiciunt ; omnium tamen nomina scripta sunt in coelo. Non eos
voluit gaudere ex eo quod proprium habebant, sed ex eo quod cum ceteris
salutem tenebant' (P.L., XXXVII, 1709, 1710). So S. Paul, after having
enumerated the better gift, adds : ' And I show unto you a yet more
excellent way : the way of charity ' (i Cor. xii, 31).
JESUS IN SAMARIA AND JUDEA 51
the joyous return of the disciples, their bearing is still more
easily seen. It may be asked, ' Are these preachers and
wonder-workers ? ' And the reply is, ' Truly nothing but
children, simple souls, without learning, themselves full of
wonder at rinding such power in their hands ; yet compared
with them, the learned and the wise are blind.' It is only
the law of Divine Providence which our Lord had recently
proclaimed after the cure of the man born blind : '. . . I
am come into this world ; that they who see not may see ;
and they who see may become blind ' (John ix, 39). It is
this same law that we shall find so often extolled by S. Paul :
* For it is written : I will destroy the wisdom of the wise :
and the prudence of the prudent I will reject. Where is the
wise ? Where is the scribe ? Where is the disputer of this
world ? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this
world ? For, seeing that in the wisdom of God, the world, by
wisdom, knew not God, it pleased God, by the foolishness
of our preaching, to save them that believe. . . . For see
your vocation, brethren, that there are not many wise
according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble.
But the foolish things of the world hath God chosen, that
He may confound the wise ; and the weak things of the
world hath God chosen that He may confound the strong ;
and the base things of the world . . . hath God chosen . . .
that He might bring to nought things that are : that no
flesh should glory in His sight.' (i Cor. i, 19-29. Gp. 2 Cor.
iv, 3, 4 ; Rom. i, 22.)
Everywhere it is the same thought, but with the difference
of emphasis that distinguishes the Apostle from the Lord.
With S. Paul it is the paean of a soul triumphant at the sight
of the exaltation of God and the humiliation of His enemies ;
with Jesus it is the placid contemplation of that all-powerful
majesty which exalts the lowly and humbles the proud.
And, in giving Himself over to this transport of religious
emotion, Christ revealed the profoundest characteristic of
His life ; namely, the mutual and absolute comprehension
of the Father and the Son. Into this mystery, inaccessible
to every intelligence besides, They can introduce by Grace
whom They will, but it is Theirs alone by natural right.
The Father and the Son are equally above all created
intelligence, and equally comprehend each other. All the
Johannine theology is to be found in these few words of
our Lord.
52 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
//. The Conditions of Service.
The passages upon which we have just been commenting
enable us to catch a glimpse of the little band of disciples
surrounding Jesus and the twelve. It is especially S. Luke
who makes them known to us, and certain incidents recorded
by him, in this part of his Gospel, inform us as to the con-
ditions imposed by Christ upon His followers and His
promises to them.
' And it came to pass as they walked in the way, that a
certain man said to Him : I will follow Thee whitherso-
ever Thou goest. Jesus said to him : The foxes have
holes, and the birds of the air nests ; but the Son of man
hath not where to lay His head. But He said to another :
Follow Me. And he said : Lord, suffer me first to go and to
bury my father. And Jesus said to him : Let the dead
bury their dead, but go thou and preach the kingdom of
God. And another said : I will follow Thee, Lord ; but
let me first take my leave of them that are at my house.
Jesus said to him : No man putting his hand to the plough
and looking back is fit for the kingdom of God.' (Luke
ix, 57-62 ; cp. Matt, viii, 19-22.)
Of these incidents, the two first are also recorded by
S. Matthew, who places their occurrence in Galilee before
the crossing of the lake which preceded the deliverance of the
demoniac of Gergesa (supra, vol. I, p. 267). The date matters
little, the true value of the narrative lying in the lesson
which it yields, as to what our Lord offered to His disciples
and what He demanded of them. Nor are the heroes of
these episodes better known to us than their date. The first,
according to S. Matthew, was a scribe and is judged severely
by S. Jerome (pp. 52-53) who considers that he wished,
like Simon Magus later, to follow our Lord from motives of
avarice and ambition alone. S. Chrysostom also regards
him as an insolent and grasping intruder, dismissed by Jesus
as He dismissed the flatterer who approached Him with the
words ' Good Master ' upon his lips (pp. 346-347) . We
may ask if there is any justification for such severe views
as these. Possibly there is, but we know nothing about it
really, the only care of the evangelists being to make clear
the attitude of our Lord. He was not eager to accept an offer
of service which, however sincere, did not seem to be the
result of careful thought ; He wishes people to know the
cost of being His disciple ; as He would be saying very soon,
JESUS IN SAMARIA. AND JQDE\ 55
before beginning to build a tower, it is necessary to make sure
that one has wherewithal to finish it, in view of the exacting
nature of the work. To the two disciples of S. John the Bap-
tist, who were the first to seek Him and ask where He lived,
He answered : ' Come and see ; ' but to this scribe, doubtless
accustomed to an easy life, while giving the same reply He
expressly emphasizes the life of deprivation that He has
chosen, and with which His disciples must fall in. In the
second case, the man is already a disciple, but asks for a re-
spite while he goes to bury his father ; but Christ insists on
being followed without delay. 1
Possibly it was because of His own imminent departure
that our Lord took this line. Clement of Alexandria
(Strom., Ill, 4, 25) has identified this disciple with Philip the
JDeacon. If this be the case he was one of the seventy dis-
ciples ; his departure to follow our Lord, in such circum-
stances, must indeed have cost him dear, but he gained a
glorious vocation and a whole series of graces for his family
and himself ; his four daughters were prophetesses, while he
was the Apostle of Samaria and Saron. Whatever may be
the fact about this identification, the great lesson that our
Lord and the evangelist wish to pass on is that the kingdom
of God must be preferred to any family interests whatsoever :
' He that loveth father and mother more than Me is not
worthy of Me ' (Matt, x, 37).
The third disciple was more hesitating and seems to have
been dismissed by our Lord. The kingdom of God must be
sought before everything else, and whoever gives way to
regrets by looking behind him cannot be a disciple of Christ.
We may recall how, in the time of the Judges, Gedeon
recruited his army. It was to be a select body and not a mob.
Our Lord's demands are stricter still, inasmuch as the cam-
paign that He has set on foot is of a more sacred kind.
These demands are expressed still more clearly in our
Lord's utterances during this journey as they are recorded
by S. Luke :
' And there went great multitudes with him. And
turning He said to them : If any man come to Me
and hate not his father and mother and wife and
1 We have little information that could throw light on this incident.
Plummer (S. Matthew, p. 130, n.) remarks : ' It is probable that the father
was still alive. At the present day, an Oriental, with his father sitting by
his side, has been known to say respecting his future projects : " But I
must first bury my father." '
S. Chrysostom supposes that to return home would have been for this
man the occasion of a lapse to which he would have yielded, after the
funeral. There would have been the division of the inheritance and a whole
sequence of affairs to which he would have had to attend (p. 348).
54 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
children and brethren and sisters, yea, and his own life
also, he cannot be My disciple. And whosoever doth not
carry his cross and come after Me cannot be My
disciple.' (Luke xiv, 25-27.)
We have already had before us these stern words which
were spoken by our Lord to the Apostles after He had fore-
told His passion to them for the first time (Matt, x, 37, 38).
Now that passion draws near and it is not to the twelve only
that He wishes to make known the conditions of His service
but to all who bear the Christian name. So He insists :
'. . . which of you, having a mind to build a tower, doth
not first sit down and reckon the charges that are necessary,
whether he have wherewithal to finish it : lest, after he
hath laid the foundation and is not able to finish it, all that
see it begin to mock him, saying : This man began to
build and was not able to finish. Or what king, about to
go to make war against another king, doth not first sit
down and think whether he be able, with ten thousand,
to meet him that, with twenty thousand, cometh against
him ? Or else, while the other is yet afar off, sending an
embassy, he desireth conditions of peace. So likewise,
every one of you that doth not renounce all that he pos-
sesseth, cannot be My disciple.' (Luke xiv, 28-33.) 1
From the very beginning of His ministry Jesus had many
times been aware that a thrill of enthusiasm was passing
over the multitude to whom He spoke, and indeed His
teaching and especially His miracles could stir up a spirit
of zeal that seemed as if it must carry everything before it ;
but all this was as fragile as a house built by the side of a
rapid river, which might be carried away at the first shower
of rain. It was not on such passing sentiments as these that
our Lord wished to build His Church, but rather on faith ;
and since its structure would be lofty and threatened by
many a storm, the foundations must be deeply laid, it being
each man's business to make sure whether he can dig to the
very rock, renouncing all his possessions as a necessary con-
dition of this feat.
The parable of the marriage feast recorded in this same
1 Jiilicher's attempt to find a parallel to this passage in Epictetus
(Entretiens, III, xv, 8) is without justification ; cp. our work, La Vie
Ghretienne, pp. 66 ff.
JESUS IN SAMARIA AND JUDEA 55
chapter of S. Luke, makes clear the kind of welcome that
greeted our Blessed Lord's advances to men :
' A certain man made a great supper and invited many.
And he sent his servant at the hour of supper to say to
them that were invited, that they should come ; for now
all things are ready. And they began all at once to make
excuse. The first said to him : I have bought a farm, and I
must needs go out and see it. I pray thee, hold me excused.
And another said : I have bought five yoke of oxen, and
I go to try them. I pray thee hold me excused. And
another said : I have married a wife, and therefore I
cannot come.' (Luke xiv, 16-20.)
Now all these people had accepted the invitation given,
but when the appointed hour had arrived and the summons
came, they all found a loophole of escape. If we are to
respond to Christ's gracious invitation we must break all the
ties that bind us, and only too often we dare not. Our
wavering wills harden themselves in the illusion, condemned
from the very beginning by Christ Himself, that it is possible
to serve two masters at the same time. Soon we shall see
another victim of this temptation in the form of the rich
young man.
And so, in the course of these last months, our Lord con-
tinues the training of His disciples, for, if the Galilean
multitudes are wavering and still only half-converted, He
would, at least, assure Himself of the fidelity of the little
band which surrounded Him. Hence the warnings pre-
served to us by S. Luke ; and if these utterances sometimes
seem more exacting than those in the Sermon on the Mount
it is because Jesus is now speaking to a chosen few.
' Fear not, little flock, for it hath pleased your Father to
give you a kingdom. Sell what you possess and give alms.
Make to yourselves bags which grow not old, a treasure in
heaven which faileth not : where no thief approacheth nor
moth corrupteth. For where your treasure is, there will
your heart be also.' (Luke xii, 32-34.)
Soon the shepherd will be stricken down and the ' little
flock ' scattered ; but the terrible panic of the Passion will
do no more than pass over it, the Good Shepherd will call
His sheep together again and the flock be reassembled for
all time ; remaining what our Lord made it, humble and
VOL. II. E
56 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
defenceless like sheep in the midst of wolves (Luke x, 3) :
but faithful to its Shepherd and to those shepherds who take
His place here below, Peter and his successors, to the end
(John xxi, 1 6, 17).
III. The Good Samaritan.
At the end of this section of S. Luke we see Jesus in
Samaria ; where, apparently, He put forward the parable
of the Good Samaritan (Lukex, 25-37).
' And, behold, a certain lawyer stood up, tempting Him,
and saying, Master, what must I do to possess eternal
life ? But He said to him : What is written in the law ?
How readest thou ? He answering said : Thou shalt love
the Lord thy God with thy whole heart and with thy
whole soul and with all thy strength and with all thy
mind : and thy neighbour as thyself. And He said to
him : Thou hast answered right. This do : and thou
shalt live. But he, willing to justify himself, said to Jesus :
And who is my neighbour ? And Jesus answering said :
A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho and
fell among robbers, who also stripped him and having
wounded him went away, leaving him half dead. And it
chanced, that a certain priest went down the same way :
and seeing him, passed by. In like manner also a Levite,
when he was near the place and saw him, passed by. But
a certain Samaritan, being on his journey, came near
him : and seeing him was moved with compassion : and
going up to him bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and
wine : and setting him upon his own beast, brought him
to an inn and took care of him. And the next day he took
out two pence and gave to the host and said : Take care
of him : and whatsoever thou shalt spend over and above,
I, at my return, will repay thee. Which of these three, in
thy opinion, was neighbour to him that fell among the
robbers ? But he said : He that shewed mercy to him.
And Jesus said to him : Go and do thou in like manner.'
(Luke x, 25-37.)
The story here told is founded on real events of every-day
life. From the Fountain of Eliseus, near Jericho, to that of
the Apostles, about two miles from Jerusalem, there is not
a drop of water to be found : moreover, this Judean desert
is still dangerous to cross to-day outside the pilgrimage
JESUS IN SAMARIA AND JUDEA 57
season, when the many visitors help to protect each
other. 1
Every detail of the story would remind those who heard it
of the experiences of daily life : so that the main lesson as
to who is our neighbour would stand out with startling
clearness. This was the heart of the discussion. We remem-
ber our Lord's words in the Sermon on the Mount : ' You
have heard that it hath been said : Thou shalt love thy
neighbour and hate thy enemy. But I say to you : Love
your enemies . . . pray for them that persecute you ' (Matt,
v, 43). Here it is the same lesson in a different form. The
Samaritan, put forward by Christ as a very model of charity,
was to the Jews more than a stranger ; rather was He an
enemy from whom one could not even ask for something to
drink (John iv, 9) . But our Lord would tell the Jew that
the Samaritan is his neighbour, and to make the lesson clear
and inescapable He drew this picture of his deed of mercy ;
he was at least a ' neighbour ' to the Israelite lying wounded
by the way. 2
IV. Martha and Mary.
' Now it came to pass, as they went, that He entered
into a certain town : and a certain woman named
Martha received Him into her house. And she had a
1 Cp. Fonck, Parabeln, pp. 658-659. S. Jerome mentions the signs of
brigandage in this spot : In Jer., Ill, 2 ; Epist., cviii, 12 (P.L., XXIV,
726 ; XXII, 887). He explains the name Adommim thus : ' Latine
appellari potest ascensus ruforum sive rubrantium, propter sanguinem, qui
illic creber a latronibus funditur . . . ubi et castellum militum situm est
ob auxilia viatorum. Huius cruenti et sanguinarii loci Dominus quoque in
parabola descendentis lerichum de lerosolyma recordatur.'
The Bedouins of to-day behave just like the brigands of former times :
robbers and pillagers before all else, they strip the traveller of everything
he possesses and then leave him, whether wounded or no And the
methods of healing are the same. Michel Julien (L'Egypte, Lille, 1895,
p. 276) relates the following incident. A Franciscan Father was going from
Jerusalem to Jericho, when the Bedouin who was acting as his guide some-
how got hurt while in the stirrup, the leg being badly grazed. ' Have you
any wine ? ' he asked the Father, and this being forthcoming, mixed it
with some olive oil that he carried in a little phial. With this he washed
the wound, dressed it and set out, duly mounted, on the road.
2 ' Since the expression Neighbour involves the idea of correlation, our
Lord has a right to reverse the terms, and He has good reason for doing
so. For to ask : " By whom would I be helped when in distress ? " is a
question more sure of an answer than : " Whom would I help in like case ? ' '
There is no doubt what the answer to the first question would be, for love
of self comes to the aid of conscience in producing the reply : " By
anybody." ' (Godet, p. 50.)
58 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
sister called Mary, who sitting also at the Lord's feet, heard
His word. But Martha was busy about much serving.
Who stood and said : Lord, hast Thou no care that my
sister hath left me alone to serve ? Speak to her, there-
fore, that she help me. And the Lord answering, said
to her : Martha, Martha, thou art careful and art
troubled about many things. But one thing is necessary.
Mary hath chosen the best part, which shall not be taken
away from her.' (x, 38-43.)
No date or place is assigned by S. Luke to this episode,
which is one of the most charming that he records in his
Gospel. However, he gives the names of the two sisters,
Martha and Mary, and we at once recognize the same two
with whom S. John has made us acquainted in connection
with the raising of Lazarus, nor do we find any difference
between the picture drawn by him and that which we have
before us here.
' The characteristics of the two sisters are brought out in
a very subtle way. In S. Luke the contrast is summed up,
as it were, in one definite incident : in S. John it is developed
gradu ally in the course of a continuous narrative. In S . Luke
the contrast is direct and trenchant, a contrast (one might
almost say) of light and darkness. But in S. John the
characters are shaded off, as it were, into one another.' 1
The identification of the characters enables us to recognize
Bethania as the scene where the incident took place. In our
Lord's time it appeared to the traveller who had just
crossed the Judean desert as forming a setting of refreshing
verdure. To-day it is a mean village, but glorified in
Christian eyes by this passage from the Gospel page. 2
Martha 3 was the mistress of the house, and it was
naturally she who received the Lord, 4 a duty that she
exerted herself to fulfil as fittingly as she possibly could.
But her sister Mary was sitting like a disciple at the Master's
feet.
This difference in attitude did not seem to have been
noticed by our Lord, and Martha, becoming impatient,
1 Lightfoot, Biblical Essays, 38, quoted by Plummer, p. 290, n. i.
2 Cp. Vincent, R.B. (1914), pp. 438 ff. ; Dalman, Itineraires, pp. 325 ff.
3 The name is common enough, and. is found in the ancient cemetery
at Bethania itself, along with Eleazar and Simon.
4 This expression ' the Lord ' is often used by S. Luke ; cp. vii, 13 ;
xi, 39 ; xii, 42 ; xiii, 15 ; xvii, 5, 6 ; xviii, 6 ; xix, 8 ; xxii, 61.
JESUS IN SAMARIA AND JUDEA 59
approached Him with these words of complaint : ' Lord,
hast Thou no care that my sister hath left me alone to
serve? Speak to her, therefore, that she help me. 5
Mary remained silent, but Jesus replied with affectionate
emphasis : ' Martha, Martha, 1 thou art careful and art
troubled about many things. But one thing is necessary.
Mary hath chosen the best part which shall not be
taken away from her.' On this reply, S. Augustine
comments : ' Mary was listening, entranced by the gentle
words of Christ, her heart held captive by Him. When she
heard her sister's appeal, how great was her fear that she
would hear Him say : " Rise up, and help thy sister," for
she was held captive by a potent charm. . . .- But the Lord
excuses her, and from that moment she listens without fear.' 2
Many lessons have been drawn from this reply of our
Blessed Lord, such as the superiority of contemplation over
action, and of the future over the present life, and all quite
legitimately ; but the first and immediate message of
Jesus' words is that of the Sermon of the Mount : ' Seek
ye, therefore, first the kingdom of God and His justice :
and all these things shall be added unto you.' ' In Heaven,'
as S. Augustine (617) tells us, 'the toil of many hands
passes away, and charity born of unity remains.' But even
here below, the energies of a truly Christian life do not tend
to be scattered over a thousand perishable goods, but
rather to be concentrated on the quest of the kingdom of
God. It was this that S. Paul inculcated on the faithful of
his time : ' . . . I would have you to be without solicitude.
He that is without a wife is solicitous of the things that
belong to the Lord : how he may please God. . . . And I
speak for your profit . . . for that . . . which may give
you power to attend upon the Lord, without impediment '
(i Cor. vii, 32-35). Beyond all doubt, to have an opportunity
of serving God is a great grace 3 , and it will always be an
honour to Martha to have been the hostess of the Lord ;
but she should have fulfilled this ministry without anxiety
or pre-occupation, with eyes and heart fixed on the one
thing necessary.
Nor is it without reason that the Church makes us read
this particular Gospel on Feasts of our Blessed Lady.
1 This repetitive form of address is peculiar to Luke ; cp. viii, 24 ;
xxii, 31 ; Acts ix, 4 ; xxii, 7 ; xxvi, 14.
2 Serm. 104 (P.L., XXXVIII, 616). 3 Cp. S. Augustine, Serm. 103, 613.
6o LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
More than Martha, she was the servant of the Lord ; un-
aided she nourished and reared Him ; but at the same time
like Mary and again, more than she did she listen to His
words and cherish them in her heart : ' Blessed are they who
hear the word of God and keep it.'
V. The Prayer.
Among all the evangelists it is S. Luke who has preserved
most carefully for us the teaching of Jesus about prayer,
both by precept and example ;* and it is in the part of his
Gospel that we are studying at the moment that he has
brought together the most precious of our Lord's instruction
on the point namely, the Lord's Prayer, and the parable
of the importunate friend.
In S. Matthew we find the Our Father included in the
Sermon on the Mount ; but a brief study of the context will
suffice for us to recognize here an interpolation on the part
of the evangelist himself. Christ's precepts concerning
almsgiving, prayer, and fasting, form a group whose three
members are strictly parallel with each other, namely,
vi, 1-4, 5-6, 1 6-1 8. Three times in succession Christ
reminds His disciples of the hypocritical practices of the
Pharisees, and thrice He repeats the words : ' they have
received their reward ' ; going on immediately to enjoin
His disciples to perform these works of religion in secret,
again adding each time a kind of formula : ' thy Father
who seeth in secret will repay thee.' Now, in the central
part of this consistent whole, we notice some verses about
prayer, having no parallel in the other parts ; no longer is
it a question of secret prayers, but simply of prayer in itself,
made without vain repetitions after a form taught by the
Lord to His disciples. It may be supposed, with great
probability, that this teaching, given by Jesus on another
occasion, has been recorded here by S. Matthew so that he
may present as a whole the teaching of the Christian Gospel
as to prayer.
1 Thus our Lord prayed at His Baptism (iii, 21) ; He went apart,
after a miracle, and prayed (v, 16) ; He passed the night in prayer before
choosing His Apostles (vi, 12) ; He prayed apart, before S. Peter's con-
fession (ix, 1 8) ; it was ' while He prayed ' that He was transfigured (ix,
29) ; it was the example of His own prayer that called for the Apostles'
question (xi, i) ; He prayed for Peter (xxii, 32) and in the Garden (xxii,
41-44) ; and He prayed on the Cross itself (xxiii, 34-46). Cp. Valensin-
Huby, p. 172.
JESUS IN SAMARIA AND JUDEA 61
This hypothesis is confirmed by S. Luke, who does not
assign the teaching of the Our Father to the Sermon on the
Mount, but much later, in that collection of discourses,
parables and miracles which he has grouped around our
Lord's journey from Galilee to Jerusalem. As we have
already remarked, it is, more often than not, very difficult
to determine the setting of time and place of the incidents
recorded in these particular chapters. We meet the same
difficulty here, where we read (xi, i) : ' And it came to pass
that as He was in a certain place praying, when He ceased,
one of His disciples said to Him : Lord, teach us to pray, as
John also taught his disciples. And He said to them :
When you pray, say : Father, hallowed be Thy name . . .'
The question arises whether it is possible to clarify the
indeterminate character of this passage. J. Armitage
Robinson has tried to do so. 1 No doubt this is a matter in
which conjecture alone is possible, but in such cases con-
jecture has a value of its own. The event recorded by S.
Luke immediately before (x, 38-42) is our Lord's visit to
Martha and Mary. The evangelist does not tell us the scene
of this episode but merely that it took place in ' a certain
town,' but we know from S. John that the two sisters in
question lived in Bethania (xi, i), a village situated near
Jerusalem, 'about fifteen furlongs off' (xi, 18), on the
actual site of the present village of that name, on the eastern
slope of the Mount of Olives. If, therefore, we may legiti-
mately connect with each other these two incidents thus
recorded by S. Luke, we shall look for the scene of our
Lord's own prayer not far from Bethania, and the Mount of
Olives. Nor is this proposed identification a new one, for on
the western side of the Mount of Olives, a little below the
Sanctuary of the Ascension, the church of the Pater Master was
built, which the Crusaders restored and enlarged. In 1869
the Princess de la Tour d'Auvergne bought the ground and
built there the monastery of the Pater, of which the French
Carmelites took possession in 1876. Perhaps we can fix the
spot with still greater precision. Both S. Matthew (xxvi, 36)
and S. Mark (xiv, 32) tell us that the scene of our Lord's
agony was a piece of land (xtapiov) called Gethsemani.
The word as used by both evangelists always means 2 a plot of
1 On the locality in which the Lord's Prayer was given, in F. H.
Chase, The Lord's Prayer in the Early Church, pp. 123-125.
2 Johniv, 5; Actsi, 18-19; iv, 34; v, 3-8; xxviii, 7.
62 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
ground belonging to a particular person. S. John (xviii, i)
says still more definitely : ' Jesus . . . went forth with His
disciples over the brook Cedron, where there was a garden
into which He entered with His disciples. And Judas also,
who betrayed Him, knew the place : because Jesus had
often resorted thither together with His disciples. 5 This
spot, therefore, was a familiar one to our Lord, who often
took His disciples there with Him ; and it does not seem
rash to suppose that He was also there with them when, after
Himself praying, He taught them the Lord's Prayer. 1 If
this is so, His words indeed acquire a profound significance
when we think of them as uttered in the very garden where
later on He is to wrestle unto blood in prayer, and once
more bid His disciples ' watch ye ; and pray that you enter
not into temptation.' It was this very thing that He had
told them to ask for in the prayer He had taught them :
' Lead us not into temptation. 5
On this hypothesis the scene before us has something
solemn and almost tragic about it, and the Our Father
itself seems like an anticipatory echo of our Lord's own last
prayer. But apart from theories of any kind, it is sufficiently
precious to us to merit, as much as any passage of the Gospel,
all the loving attention that we are able to give it. For
the rest there is no passage which has been more
studied, from the earliest days of the Christian Church. 2
Apart from the various commentaries on the Gospels and
on the Sermon on the Mount, mention may be made of the
treatises of Tertullian, S. Cyprian, Origen and S. Gregory
of Nyssa. Even before the commentators arose, Christian
sentiment was much attached to the passage : it became the
Christian's daily prayer. As early as the Didache (viii, 2, 3),
1 Fr. Abel (Jerusalem, II, p. 375) makes use of a passage from. S. Mark
(xi, 2326) in the same sense. The evangelist is recording a teaching
given by Christ on the double subject of pardon and prayer, the last words
of -which especially are a repetition of a clause of the ' Our Father ' : ' And
when you shall stand to pray, forgive, if you have aught against any man :
that your Father also, who is in heaven, may forgive you your sins.' This
teaching on prayer was given by Jesus Christ when passing the Mount of
Olives, on the second day after the triumphal entry into Jerusalem.
Further, if we see in this combination of circumstances a resemblance to
S. Luke's narrative where the ' Our Father ' is represented as having been
taught in a place apparently near the village of Martha and Mary, we shall
naturally end by fixing the scene of the teaching of the Lord's Prayer to
the disciples on the Mount of Olives, in the very spot where our Lord's
teachings were habitually given.
2 Cp. Histoire du Dogme de la Trinite, II, pp. 183 ff.
JESUS IN SAMARIA AND JUDEA 63
we read : ' Do not pray like the hypocrites ; but pray in
this manner as our Lord has commanded in His Gospel :
Our Father . . . pray thus three times a day.'
Before setting ourselves, in our turn, to study the Lord's
Prayer, an attempt must be made to solve a question which
rises inevitably from a comparison between S. Matthew and
S. Luke. Not only is the historical setting different, as we
have already seen, but there are notable divergences in the
text of the prayer itself. The two passages read as follows :
(Matthew vi, 9-13) : ' Thus therefore shall you pray :
Our Father who art in heaven. Hallowed be Thy name.
Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in
heaven. Give us this day our supersubstantial bread. And
forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors. And
lead us not into- temptation. But deliver us from evil.
Amen.'
(Luke xi, 2-4.) : ' And He said to them : When you pray,
say : Father, hallowed be Thy name Thy kingdom come.
Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins,
for we also forgive everyone that is indebted to us. And
lead us not into temptation.'
Origen 1 already, in stressing these differences, concluded
that the evangelists were recording neither the same fact nor
the same prayer, and Chase writes in the same sense (p. 11) :
' As the occasions described by the two evangelists differ, so
do also the versions of the Prayer which they respectively
give. That contained in St. Luke's Gospel diverges from
that contained in St. Matthew's both in regard to the length
of the Prayer, and in the wording of the clauses which
are common to both Gospels.' In the opinion of that author
(Chase), the Lord's Prayer was taught by Christ on two
separate occasions, once to the multitude in the Sermon on
the Mount, and once to the disciples in private intercourse.
But this theory does not seem very probable. If, as appears
likely, the Sermon on the Mount took place before the private
conversation referred to, it is difficult to understand why the
disciples should have asked the Lord to give them instruction
of a kind that they had already received, and of which, none
the less, they seemed to have no recollection at all. As we
have seen, there is no difficulty in explaining the difference
of setting in the two accounts as being due to a process
1 De orat., xviii. P.G., XI, 473.
64 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
of redaction on the part of S. Matthew, who has brought
together in the same discourse all the teaching of our
Lord relating to the subject in hand. It is the same
problem that we have encountered in the case of the Beati-
tudes, where, again, S. Luke's version is shorter, a number
of beatitudes being missing, while those included are found
in a more precise form. And it is the same with the Our
Father. The third petition : ' Thy will be done on earth
as it is in heaven ' is missing in Luke, as also the second part
of the sixth : ' But deliver us from evil ' ; in Luke, instead of
' Our Father who art in heaven, 5 we have simply ' Father ' ;
once more, S. Matthew uses the expression : ' Our debts,
while S. Luke has ' our sins.'
Such variations should not surprise us in a form of words
from the very beginning so often on the lips of Christian
people and which naturally became modified by local usage,
here and there. We find something similar in France to-
day, where some are found saying ' notre pain quotidien ' and
others ' notre pain de chaque jour.' These variations, in fact,
multiply very quickly ; the tradition of the manuscripts
and the writings of the Fathers bear many traces of the
process. For example, the version of the Our Father found
in the Didache (viii, 2), which in other respects follows that of
S. Matthew, ends with the following doxology (missing in
the best MSS. but found in many others) r 1 ' For thine is the
kingdom, the power and the glory ' ; while, in S. Luke's
version, instead of : ' Thy kingdom come,' certain Fathers
read : ' May thy Holy Spirit come among us and purify us.' 2
That differences of this kind should have slipped into the
text from the very beginning is a thing that need not cause
us any surprise.
Here, as everywhere in his Gospel, S. Matthew seems to
give the most literal rendering of our Lord's words. In him
we can detect most clearly the accent of the Jew, as in the
opening petition itself : ' Our Father who art in heaven,'
and in the phrase ' our debts,' where S. Luke has ' our sins.'
Besides, the Church has constantly preferred Matthew's
version ; liturgical use, as the Didache bears witness, early
1 Cp. Chase, p. 168.
2 So S. Gregory of Nyssa (P.G., XLIV, col. 1157). Cp. Chase, pp. 25-28.
Harnack (Spruche und Redcn Jesu, p. 47) regards this variant as the
primitive text of S. Luke ; while Von Soden (P.R.E., xx, 439, 9) with still
less probability sees in it a marginal note containing the prayer taught by
John the Baptist to his disciples.
JESUS IN SAMARIA AND JUDEA 65
revealed this process, and we shall meet it over and over
again. 1
Before discussing the Lord's Prayer in detail, let us stop
for a moment to consider its origin and general character.
Tertullian, recalling the passage in S. Luke, writes : 'John
the Baptist also had taught his disciples to pray : but
everything done by John was in preparation for Christ to
such an extent that . . . the whole work of the Precursor,
with his Spirit, passed into our Lord's hands. Moreover, no
formula of prayer taught by John is recorded in the Gospel :
it would but have contained earthly words, falling dead
before the words coming from heaven. " He who is of the
earth," says he, " speaks the things of the earth ; but he who
is of heaven speaks of that which he has seen." ' 2 And
S. Cyprian says : ' Let us pray then, dearly beloved
brethren, as God our Master has taught us. That will be a
prayer dear and familiar to God, in which are repeated His
own words, and in which the prayer of Christ Himself
ascends to His ears. When we make our prayer, may the
Father recognize the words of His Son ; may He who dwells
in us in our very heart be also on our lips ; and since He
our advocate is near the Father, when we poor sinners
pray for our sins and the remission of our faults, let us
repeat our advocate's words.' 3
The Fathers also comment on the collective character of
the Prayer : ' We may be certain before all else,' says
S. Cyprian, ' that the Teacher of Peace and Master of Unity
would not wish our prayer to be of an isolated and solitary
kind, or that when the Christian prays, he should pray only
for himself. We do not say : " My Father, who is in
Heaven," or " Give me this day my daily bread " ; it is not
for ourselves alone that we implore the remission of sins, or
ask not to be led into temptation or to be delivered from evil.
This is a public and general prayer, and when we pray we
do not pray for one person alone, but for the whole people ;
for this whole people makes up one body of which we are a
part. The God of Peace and Master of Concord, He who has
taught us unity, has wished that each should pray for all,
just as we are all carried together on His sacred breast.' 4
1 On the comparison between the two texts, cp. Votaw, Dictionary of
the Bible, V, pp. 32-34.
2 De Oratione, i ; P.L., I, col. 1152.
3 De Dominica Oratione, 3, Ed. Hartel, I, p. 268.
4 De Dominica Oratione, 8.
66 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
In the same way S. Chrysostom insists on the collective
character of all the petitions in the Lord's Prayer : ' Our
Father, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven, give us
our daily bread, forgive us our sins, lead us not into tempta-
tion ; deliver us : He wants us always to speak in the plural
so that there may not be in us any trace of anger against our
neighbour.' 1
We must not conclude from all this that the Our Father
was composed by Christ with a view to liturgical use ; a
long time was to elapse before such a use was in existence at
all, and our Lord's first object was to teach His disciples to
pray. But even in private prayer He wished them not to
forget their brethren, or to cut themselves off from others,
but to love to feel that they were all one, sons of the same
Father and disciples of the same Master. Besides, when we
recite this prayer it is surely a strength and consolation to us
to remember that great bond of Christian unity that unites
us to the whole Church,both to those who are praying at the
present day, and who have prayed thus ever since the time
of Christ Himself. 2
As we shall see later on, this prayer expresses our Lord's
own sentiments when in addressing His Father, with the
obvious exception of one petition. Christ has nothing for
which to gain forgiveness and cannot ask for it ; for the rest
it would be seriously to misunderstand His unique Sonship
if we regarded Him as taking His place in the ranks of the
faithful, so far as this matter of prayer is concerned. Truly,
He teaches His disciples to say ' Our Father,' but He never
speaks in this way Himself. ' Your Father ' and ' My
Father ' 3 are the phrases used by Him.
Having thus emphasized the impassable gulf that separates
Christ and ourselves, we must none the less take note of that
participation in His unique Sonship which He deigns to
grant us, and which gives us the right to say ' Our Father. 5
1 Horn, xix, 7. P.G., LVI, 283.
2 Cp. Newman, Forms of Private Prayer, Parochial and Plain Sermons,
I, 269.
3 This was long since observed by S. Augustine : ' Non tamen sicut
Christi Pater, ita et nosier Pater: numquam enim Christus ita nos coniunxit,
ut nullam distinctionem facer et inter nos et se. Ille enim Filius cBqualis
Patri, ille aternus cum Patre Patrique coceternus ; nos autem facti -per
Filium, adoptati per unicum. Proinde numquam auditum est de ore Domini
nostri Jesu Christi, cum ad discipulos loqueretur, dixisse ilium de Deo
summo Patre suo, Pater noster ; sed aut, Pater meus, dixit, aut Pater vester.'
(In Joan., tract, xxi, 3 ; XXXV, 1565-6.)
JESUS IN SAMARIA AND JUDEA 67
Origen, who knew the Holy Scriptures better than anyone,
long ago remarked in his commentary on the Our Father :
' It would be worth while to search the Old Testament, if
somewhere there we could find a prayer in which God is
addressed as " Father " : for our part we have searched as
carefully as we are able, and up to the present we have
found none. We do not mean that God is not called
Father, and those who believe in Him the children of God ;
we only say we have found no prayer in which man dares to
address God by the name of Father, as our Redeemer here
teaches us to do.'
And after having recalled those Old Testament passages
in which Almighty God is spoken of as the Father of Israel
or of the just, Origen concludes : ' The very texts we have
quoted show those who are called God's children as being in
reality His subjects ; and so justify the saying of S. Paul
that " as long as the heir is a child, he differeth nothing
from a servant . . . but is under tutor and governor until
the time appointed by the father " ' (Gal. iv, i-a). 1
' Who art in Heaven.' This qualification, which is very
frequent in S. Matthew, but exceptional in S. Luke, 2 was
1 In the Judaism of our Lord's time the name of Father was some-
times given to God in prayer ; cp. Dalman, Die Worte Jesu, p. 150 ; Nestle,
art. Lord's Prayer, Encyclopedia Biblica, 2822. Haussleiter, art. Vater-
unser, P.R.E., XX, 434. Thus we read in Schemone-Esre (existing text),
5 : ' Recall us, our Father, to Thy Law, and draw us, our King, into
Thy service, and grant us to be converted by a perfect repentance before
Thy face. Blessed be Thou, O Lord, who accepteth repentance.' 6 : 'Forgive
us, our Father, for we have sinned ; spare us, our King, for we have
committed faults. Very willingly dost Thou spare and forgive. Blessed
art Thou, O Lord, who art full of mercy and forgivest much.' (So
Schlirer, II, 539 ; cp. Dalman, p. 299 : Palestinian Recension, 4 and 6.)
More striking parallels are to be found in the Habinenu : but this prayer,
really an abridged recension of the Schemone-Esre (Dalman, 304), is
attributed to Schemuel, who died in 254. We can compare further the
Kaddish of the Jewish Liturgy (Dalman, p. 305), which begins thus :
' Magnified and sanctified be His great name in the world which He hath
created according to His will. May He establish His kingdom during
your life and during your days, and during the life of all the house of Israel,
even speedily and at a near time, and say ye, Amen.' We may therefore
find Jewish formulas similar to the opening words of the ' Our Father '
and its two first petitions, but there the resemblance stops. We can
understand well enough that our Lord in giving His disciples a form of
prayer would have made use of expressions already familiar to them ; but
in adopting them He would have given them a new value. The title of
Father, sometimes given to Almighty God in Jewish forms of prayer, is
more often than not associated with that of King, which makes clearer
its true meaning in this connection. It expresses veneration rather than
tenderness recalling the words of Malachias : ' If then I be a father, where
is my honour ? ' rather than the prayers or parables of the Gospels.
s Only in ii, 13 ; cp. x, 21 : ' Father, Lord of heaven.'
68 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
habitual among the Jews in our Lord's time, and it is to be
remarked that He never employed it when praying to His
Father. 1 This was because He had no other Father. On
the other hand, so far as His disciples were concerned. He
followed the common use, and while exhorting them to call
no one father here below (Matt, xxiii, 9), He bade them
pray to their Father ' in heaven.' In this way He respected
the traditional custom, and, above all, raised the thought of
the praying Christian to heaven, from the very first words
turning him from thoughts of earth to those of heaven, and
inspiring him with sentiments of reverence and trust. The
Father to whom He prays is on high, above all our miseries
and weaknesses and yet at the same time so intimately near
us. This is the Father ' who seeth in secret.'
' Hallowed be Thy name' In the Old Testament, the
term ' name ' often has the value of a simple circumlocution
signifying God Himself; but, again, often it expresses all
that God reveals of Himself, or, if we like, His attributes as
known, loved, and revered by men.
Thus, ( In Judsea God is known : His name is great in
Israel ' (Ps. Ixxvi, 2) : ' All they that love Thy name shall
glory in Thee ' (Ps. v, 1 2) : ' Let them trust in thee that know
thy name' (Ps. ix, n) : ' Thy name, O Lord, is for ever :
Thy memorial, O Lord,unto all generations' (Ps. cxxxiv, 13) :
' But when He shall see His children, the works of My hands
in the midst of Him, sanctifying My name. And they shall
sanctify the Holy One of Jacob : and shall glorify the God
of Israel ' (Isa. xxix, 23) : ' For, from the rising of the sun
even to the going down, My name is great among the Gen-
tiles : and in every place there is sacrifice and there is offered
to My name a clean oblation. For My name is great
among the Gentiles, saith the Lord of Hosts ' (Mai. i, u).
Jesus Himself spoke in the same sense, when, on the last
day of His life, addressing His Father, He said : ' I have
manifested Thy name to the men whom Thou hast given
Me out of the world ' (John xvii, 6) .
Further, the passages just quoted, particularly Isa. xxix,
23, make clear in what the ' hallowing ' of God's name
consists : the fear, reverence, and worship due to God are
offered to Him at the hands of men. In Isaias, too, we find
the noblest revelation of God's holiness that the Old
Testament contains : ' In the year that King Ozias died,
1 Cp. Dalman, op. cit., 157.
JESUS IN SAMARIA AND JUDEA 69
I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne high and elevated :
and his train filled the temple. Upon it stood the Seraphims :
the one had six wings, and the other had six wings : with
two they covered his face, and with two they covered his
feet, and with two they flew. And they cried one to another,
and said : Holy, Holy, Holy, the Lord God of Hosts, all
the earth is full of His glory. And the lintels of the doors were
moved at the voice of him that cried : and the house was
filled with smoke. And I said : Woe is me, because I have
held my peace ; because I am a man of unclean lips, and
I dwell in the midst of a people that hath unclean lips,
and I have seen with my eyes the King, the Lord
of Hosts ' (Is. vi, 1-5). Tertullian reminds his readers of
this vision when commenting on this petition of the Lord's
Prayer. 1
Doubtless, God's name is always holy, but it is not
honoured always and everywhere in the same degree.
' If,' says S. Augustine, ' we ask for this, it is not that God's
name is not holy, but that we wish it to be regarded as holy
by all men ; that is, we wish God to be well known to all,
that there should be nothing here below that they look
upon as so holy, nothing that they so fear to injure or
despise.' 2 Like the rest, this petition is universal in scope :
we wish to see the Divine Name hallowed on every hand,
but still, in ourselves first. ' God has said to us : Be holy
because I am holy ; therefore, we ask that we, who
were sanctified in Baptism may be enabled to persevere in
the sanctifying process thus begun ; and this is our daily
request, since we need daily sanctification to purge the
everyday faults which we commit daily.' 3 ' Almighty
God, 3 says Gregory of Nyssa, ' curses those who, by their
sins, cause His Name to be blasphemed among the nations '
(Isa. Hi, 5) ; so we humbly ask Him that we may in no wise
be of those scandalous ones, but, on the contrary, may so
live that men may see our good works and glorify our
Father, who is in heaven.' 4
1 ' Quando non sanctum et sanctificatum est per semetipsum nomen
Dei, cum ceteros sanctificet ex semetipso ? Cui ilia angelorum circum-
stantia non cessant dicere : Sanctus, Sanctus ! Proinde igitur et nos
angelorum, si meminerimus, candidati iam hinc cselestem illam in Deum
vocem et officium futurae claritatis ediximus.'
z De Sermone Domini in monte, 5-, 19.
3 S. Cyprian, 12.
* P.G., XLIV, col. 1153. Thus we find an echo of the Lord's Prayer
in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt, v, 16).
70 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
' Thy kingdom come? The first petition of the Lord's
Prayer has defined the end towards which everything tends,
i.e., the hallowing of the Divine Name ; the two following,
closely connected with each other as they are, have for their
object the fulfilment of the conditions of this glorifying of
Almighty God : the coming of His kingdom, first of all.
By this is to be understood a state of holiness and justice, to
which Almighty God will be the Master acknowledged and
obeyed by all.
As our Lord often taught in the Gospels, this kingdom
which He came to proclaim and establish here below, must
develop gradually like seed or leaves, and it is this pro-
gressive expansion that we must look for, in the first instance,
both in ourselves and in the world as a whole. But the ful-
filment of this growth with the establishment of God's
kingdom in uncontested and absolute sway will only be
realized at the second coming of Christ, by Whom it will be
inaugurated at the end of the world. Then will resound the
triumphant canticles of the Apocalypse (xi, 15) : ' The
kingdom of this world is become our Lord's and His Christ's.
And He will reign for ever and ever. Amen.' And again
(xi, 17):' We give thanks, O Lord, God Almighty : who
art and who wast to come : because Thou hast taken to
Thee Thy great power and hast reigned.' And once more
(xii, 10) : ' Now is come salvation and strength and the
kingdom of our God and the power of His Christ.' 1
1 The majority of the Fathers, too, insist on the eschatological character
of this petition. Thus Tertullian, V, 1158, writes : ' Si ad Dei voluntatem
et ad nostram suspensionempertinet regni dominicireprassentatio, quomodo
quidam protractum quemdam saeculo postulant, cum regnum Dei, quod ut
adveniat oramus, ad consummationem sasculi tendat ? Optamus maturius
regnare et non diutius servire. . . . Quam celeriter veniat, Domine,
regnum ttram ! Votum christianorum, confusio nationum, exultatio
angelorum, propter quod conflictamur, imo potius propter quod oramus.'
Cyprian, XIII, 275 : ' Nostrum regnum petimus advenire a Deo nobis
repromissum ; Christi sanguine et passione qusesitum, ut qui in sseculo
ante servivimus postmodum Christo dominante regnemus, sicut ipse
pollicetur et dicit : Venite, benedicti Patris mei, percipite regnum quod
vobis paratum est ab origine rmindi.' Augustine, XX, 1278 : ' Deinde
sequitur : Adveniat regnum tuum. Sicut ipse Dominus in Evangelic docet,
tune futurum esse iudicii idem, cum Evangelium prsedicatum fuerit in
omnibus gentibus, quas res pertinet ad sanctificationem nominis Dei. Non
enim et hie ita dictum est : adveniat regnum tuum, quasi mine Deus non
regnet. . . . Adveniat ergo accipiendum est, manif estetur hominibus. . . .
Nulli autem licebit ignorare regnum Dei, cum eius Unigenitus non solum
intelligibiliter, sed etiam visibiliter in homine dominico de cselo venerit
iudicare vivos et mortuos.' (In his Retractationes (1, 19, 8 ; XXXIII, 616),
Saint Augustine corrects the expression ' homo dominicus/ but not the
rest of the text.)
JESUS IN SAMARIA AND JUDEA 71
' Thy will be done.' This petition is closely connected with
the preceding one, for, surely, the kingdom of God is nothing
else than the recognition of His will, as the sovereign,
universal, absolute rule of all life. At the same time, the
one petition determines more clearly the meaning of the
other. Those who expect that the kingdom of God will be
inaugurated by some cataclysm almost by some stage
effect are here reminded by our Lord that this kingdom
will be established only little by little, by the gradual con-
formity of the wills of men to that of God. We shall hear an
echo of this prayer later in the garden : ' Father, if this
chalice may not pass away, but I must drink it, Thy will
be done' (Matt, xxvi, 42).
No doubt it is not precisely the same sentiment that is
present on both occasions. When Jesus taught His disciples
the Our Father, He meant the words ' Thy will be done ' to
be the expression of a passionate and fervent wish ; while
in the garden it revealed a spirit of utter resignation,
the most intense anguish notwithstanding. Nevertheless, the
two sentiments, different as they are, are inspired by the
same love ; for Christ, the will of God was the sovereign
Good ; to fulfil it is His very food, and only task on earth
(John iv, 34 ; xviii, 4). In times of calm it was His sole joy,
and in moments of anguish He concentrated upon it with all
His strength.
' On earth as it is in heaven.' On this subject the catechism of
the Council of Trent has pronounced as follows :
' It falls to the pastor to call the attention of the faithful
to the fact that these words " on earth as it is in heaven "
could equally well be annexed to each of the preceding
petitions, thus : " Hallowed be Thy name " on earth as it
is in heaven ; " Thy kingdom come " on earth as it is in
heaven; "Thy will be done" on earth as it is in heaven.'
The same interpretation had already been advanced by
Origen who shows how in heaven God's name is reverenced
as holy, His kingdom is established, His will fulfilled ; and
we ask of the Lord that all this may be realized on earth as
perfectly as in heaven (26).
Thus, as we may see from these passages, the eschatological interpreta-
tion of this petition of the ' Our Father ' has plenty of Catholic authority
behind it, and if it has also found defenders in some radical exegetists of
our own time (e.g. Loisy, I, 604 ; cp. Haussleiter, P.R.E., XX, 437), this
is in itself no reason to suspect or discard it.
VOL. II. F
72 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
' Give us this day our daily bread* The three first petitions
had for their object eternal goods : the hallowing of God's
name, the coming of His kingdom, the fulfilment of His
will. No doubt we may experience their beginnings here
below, but their full enjoyment is reserved for heaven. And
we are not in heaven, but on earth, struggling with diffi-
culties of every kind in the physical and moral order alike.
Our Blessed Lord knows this and, as being Himself subject
to trials, He teaches us to ask of God the necessary graces for
this warfare. This is the object of the three last petitions
of the Lord's prayer. And in the first of these we ask for
our daily bread.
As to the nature of this bread, S. Augustine has written :
' By our daily bread is meant either everything necessary for
our present life, or the sacrament of Christ's Body, which
we receive daily, or that spiritual food of which our Lord
spoke when He said : " Labour not for the meat that
perisheth," and again : " I am the living bread which came
down from heaven." 51
We find the same three interpretations in other Fathers,
and we may remark especially the stress laid by them on the
fact that our Lord was here alluding to the Eucharistic
Bread, 2 and we may observe how, at any rate for the
majority of these Fathers, the Bread of the Eucharist is
' the daily bread.' In this connection some light is thrown
on the passage in question by S. Augustine, who calls
attention to a difference between the discipline of East and
West. ' Many in the East,' he says, ' do not communicate
every day at the Lord's Supper ' (26), and in this fact finds
a reason for doubting that this petition is to be understood
of the Eucharistic Bread. He himself prefers the third of the
1 De sermone Christi, II, vii, 25, 1280.
2 So Tertullian : ' Panem nostrum cotidianum da nobis hodie spirit-
aliter potius intelligamus. Christus enim panis noster est, quia vita
Christus et vita panis. Ego sum, inquit, panis vitas. Et paulo supra :
Panis est sermo Dei vivi, qui descendit de caslis. Turn quod et corpus
eius in pane censetur. Hoc est corpus meum. Itaque petendo panem
cotidianum perpetuitatem postulamus in Christo, et individuitatem a
corpore eius ' (6).
And S. Cyprian : ' Potest et spiritaliter et simpliciter intelligi, quia
et uterque intellectus utilitate divina proficit ad salutem. Nam panis
vitas Christus est. . . . Hunc autem panem dari nobis cotidie postulamus,
ne qui in Christo sumus et eucharistiam eius cotidie ad cibum salutis
accipimus, intercedente aliquo graviore delicto ... a Christi corpore
separemur. . . . Et ideo panem nostrum, id est Christum, dare nobis cotidie
petimus, ut qui in Christo manemus et vivimus a sanctificatione eius et
corpore non recedamus ' (18).
JESUS IN SAMARIA AND JUDEA 73
three interpretations suggested by him, and says that if any
one wishes to adopt another one he had better take all
three. 1
None the less it seems better to retain the first as expressing
the primary sense of the passage, the ' bread ' for which we
seek being that which our daily physical nourishment
requires. True, whenever we say the Our Father we shall
think also of the ' bread of life ' given to us by Christ for the
nourishment of our souls ; but this will only be a secondary
application of the passage, and not its primary and literal
sense. 2
* Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.' (Luke :
'Forgive us our sins as we also forgive every one that
is indebted to us.') The two versions only differ in a
mere shade of meaning, and here again it would seem
that S. Matthew is nearer to the primitive version than
Also Origen writes : ' Since there are some who imagine that we are
told to ask for material bread, it is necessary to refute their error and estab-
lish the truth on the subject of this substantial bread we receive. . . .
The true bread is that which nourishes the true man made in the image of
God, and which, in nourishing him, gives him a resemblance to his Creator.
And who can give nourishment to the very essence of a man better than
the Word ? ' (27).
And again S. Jerome : ' Quando petimus ut peculiarem vel prascipuum
nobis Deus tribuat panem, ilium petimus qui dicit : Ego sum panis vivus
qui de caslo descendi ' (i, 7).
1 ' Si quis autem etiam de victu corporis necessario vel de Sacramento
dominici corporis istam sententiam vult accipere, oportet ut conjuncte
accipiantur omnia tria ; ut scilicet cotidianum panem simul petamus, et
necessarium corpori, et sacratum visibilem, et invisibilem verbi Dei ' (27).
2 The word eTriofaios which we translate ' daily,' is not without its
own difficulties of interpretation. On this subject Origen had already
written : ' It must be observed first of all, that the word was never
employed by any Greek of literary attainment, nor did it occur in the
common speech of the people, but seems to have been invented by the
evangelists themselves ' (27). Since Origen's time, after a fruitless search
in Greek literature, the word was discovered at last in a mutilated papyrus,
published by Sir Flinders Petrie, and subsequently by Father Preisigke,
Sammelbuch Griechischer Urkiinden aus JEgypten, I (Strasbourg, 1915),
p. 522, n. 5224; cp. F. Zorrell, Biblica, 1925, pp. 321, 322; Bauer, s.v.
eirioiio-ios. Two renderings are proposed by Origen, as also with slightly
different shades of meaning, by scholars of the present time. The first of
these preferred by Origen himself tends to assimilate emoviriostoirepiovtrios,
thus connecting it with o&a-ia ; Origen then translates ' substantial ' and
also in the interests of his philosophical theories ' spiritual ' bread.
Others, he says, prefer to connect IWIOIHTLOS with tirdvai and to translate
' bread of the world to come.' S. Jerome translates from S. Matthew's
version ' supersubstantial ' bread but adds : ' In Evangelic quod
appellatur secundum Hebraeos, pro supersubstantiali pane reperi mahar
quod dicitur crastinum ; ut sit sensus Panem nostrum crastinum, id est,
futurum da nobis hodie.' (43.) Similarly in a homily on Psalm cxxxv
(Anecdota Maredsolana, ed. G. Morin, III, ii, 262) : ' In Hebraico evangelic
74 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
S. Luke. 1 What is more important than these slight vari-
ations is our Lord's anxiety to make us learn the duty of
forgiveness. He thought well to insert this clause in the prayer
that He taught us in order that, in some sense, He might
leave our fate in our own hands. We are all sinners and
debtors to Almighty God, and insolvent debtors at that ;
but God could certainly forgive our sins without any con-
dition whatsoever. On the contrary, He ordained the moral
law expressed in this petition that He might lay upon us the
strictest obligation of mercy towards our fellow-men. In
that way He would ensure the preservation among us all of
peace, the most precious of all social blessings ; and secure
in each of our hearts the reign of charity, the greatest
treasure of every Christian soul. And that no one should
pretend ignorance of this law, He has put it on our lips when
secundum Matthaeum ita habet : Panem nostrum crastinum da nobis hodie
hoc est, panem, quern daturus es nobis in regno tuo, da nobis hodie.'
In these two interpretations we recognize the same two that were pro-
posed by Origen ; and exegetes of to-day are still divided between
them. Those who prefer the second view translate ' the bread of the day
to come ' (Chase, p. 44), or ' the bread of the future of all the time that I
have yet to live ' (Haussleiter, p. 440). No doubt this is more correct from
the morphological point of view, but it is difficult to reconcile with our
Lord's teaching as contained in the command : ' Be not . . . solicitous
for the morrow ' (Matt, vi, 34) . The other school understand the petition
in the sense : ' the bread necessary to life.' ' In the same way,' says
Votaw (p. 37), ' that irepiotia-ios means more than what is necessary, so eirioiia-ios
means what is barely necessary and no more.' This is S. Chrysostom's view :
' the bread necessary to our daily sustenance, so that we may concern our-
selves neither with superfluities nor with to-morrow's needs ' (Horn, xix, 5,
280). Similarly S. Gregory of Nyssa insists on the limits which our Lord
would have us observe in our prayer : ' We ask for bread, and nothing
more ' (1169). And this was S. Paul's instruction to Timothy (i Tim. vi,
8) : ' Having food and wherewith to be covered, with that we are content.'
Cp. Cyprian, 19.
1 Cp. Chase, op. cit., pp. 54-7. S. Luke may have preferred the render-
ing ' sins ' to ' debts,' the better to emphasize the religious bearing of the
expression and to avoid the restricted sense of pecuniary obligation
attached to it in the current Greek use. He has, however, kept the expres-
sion ' everyone indebted to us,' a fact which helps to guarantee the
authenticity of the term ' debts ' which, in any case, is supported by other
passages in the Gospels. Thus, in speaking of the eighteen men who were
crushed under the tower of Siloe, our Lord said : ' Think you that they also
were debtors above all the men that dwelt in Jerusalem ? ' (Luke xiii, 4).
All men are insolvent debtors before God, who can only hope for the
remission of their debts in so far as they themselves surrender their claims
over their fellow-men (Matt, xviii, 235). Possibly, too, S. Luke has
softened the expression in the second part of the petition, writing ' for
we also forgive ' instead of ' as we have also forgiven/ to avoid any appear-
ance of proportion between our pardon and God's.
For the rest, the difference here is very slight, and all are agreed that
in the matter of mercy as in all else, there is an infinite distance between
ourselves and God.
JESUS IN SAMARIA AND JUDEA 75
we say pur daily prayer ; and, not content with making us
thus repeat this assurance to God, He returns to it at the end
of the whole Prayer ; of all the petitions of the Our Father,
the only one which He repeats is this one (Matt, vi, 14-15) :
' For if you will forgive men their offences, your heavenly
Father will forgive you also your offences. But if you will
not forgive men, neither will your Father forgive you your
offences.' 1
' And lead us not into temptation. But deliver us from evil.
Amen.' In the first part of this petition two interesting
variants are found in the Latin tradition. On this matter
S. Augustine writes : ' Instead of saying, " Lead us not into
temptation," many Christians in their prayers say, " Suffer
us not to be led into temptation," while others, following
S. Hilary, use the formula : " Let us not fall into a tempta-
tion that we are not able to bear." ' 2
In both these series of variants, which we meet with in
other authors as well, the same thought is apparent : c God
does not tempt us, but He allows us to be tempted.' The
French translation : ' Ne nous laissez pas succomber a la
tentation ' clearly contains the same idea, to which Bossuet
also alludes (27 me journee), quoting S. James' words :
'God . . . tempteth no man' (i, 13). ' It is therefore
clear,' he goes on, c that when we pray : " Lead us not into
temptation " we must be understood in the sense : " Let us
not fall into temptation," and this is the sense of S. Paul's
words : " God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be
1 Cp. Chrysostom, 67, 281284.
z ' Nonnulli codices habent " inducas," quod, tantumdem valere
arbitror ; nam ex uno Graeco quod dictum, est eiff&iyKys utrumque
translatum est. Multi autem precando ita dicunt : " Ne nos patiaris
induci in tentationem," exponentes videlicet quomodo dictum sit " in-
ducas." Non enim per seipsum inducit Deus, sed induci patitur eum quern
suo auxilio deseruerit.' (Augustine, De sermone Domini, II, 9, 30, 1282).
By the same, in his De dono per sever antiae, 6 (XLV, 1000) : ' Unde sic
orant nonnulli et legitur in codicibus plurimis et hoc sic posuit beatissimus
Cyprianus : " ne patiaris nos induci in tentationem." In Evangelic tamen
Graeco nusquam inveni nisi " ne nos inferas in tentationem." ' Cp.
Cyprian, 25, Chase, p. 63. S. Hilary, In Psalm 118, IX, 510 : ' Scientes
quidem frequenter nos ab eo ob temptationes derelinqui, ut per eas fides
nostra probabilis fiat. Verumtamen secundum prophetam ne nos penitus
derelinquat deprecandus est ; ait enim : Non me derelinquas usquequaque
nimis. Quod et in dominicae orationis ordine continetur, cum dicitur :
Non derelinquas nos in temptatione quam ferre non possimus. Scit
Apostolus derelinqui nos ad temptandum ; sed novit et mensuram infirmi-
tatis nostrae Deum nosse, dicens : Fidelis est Deus, qui non permittat nos
teraptari super quam possumus.' Cp. Chase, p. 66.
76 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
tempted above that which you are able " (i Cor. x, 13) :
but our strength lies chiefly in our prayers. '
This interpretation is perfectly correct, so far as it goes,
but it must be added that the original Greek word Tretpaor/uo?
has a wider sense than ' temptation ' and includes all kinds
of trial persecution, sickness, suffering, distress. It was in
this sense that at the Last Supper our Lord told His disciples:
' You are they who have continued with Me in My tempta-
tions. And I dispose to you, as My Father hath disposed to
Me, a kingdom' (Luke xxii, 28, 29) : and that S. James
wrote : ' My brethren, count it all joy, when you fall into
divers temptations : knowing that the trying of your faith
worketh patience ' (James i, 2-3) .
Thus Origen, in commenting on this petition, observes
that we do not ask Almighty God to spare us every trial,
which would be impossible, seeing that human life is one
long story of trial and trouble. It would even be harmful,
for trials are useful to us in promoting self-knowledge and
humility, and stimulating our service of Almighty God. We
do pray that we may not be forced into a struggle beyond
our powers and that we may be kept from yielding in the
fight. We find an echo of this prayer in our Lord's counsel
to His Apostles in the garden : ' Pray, lest ye enter into
temptation ' (Luke xxii, 40, 46) . They were not to ask to
be exempt from temptation, but that they should not fail.
' But deliver us from evil.' This petition, not found in
S. Luke, is not distinct from the preceding one ; on the
other hand it is closely connected with it, and, in fact, com-
pletes its meaning. 1 The question arises whether ' malo ' is
to be taken as masculine or neuter, in other words, whether
we should translate : ' Deliver us from the evil one, 5 or
' Deliver us from evil.' Generally speaking, the Greek
Fathers interpret in the former sense, the alternative ren-
dering being adopted by most of the Latins. Present-day
scholars are divided on this point, 2 which is not easy to
1 ' At vero quod ille in ultimo posuit : " Sed libera nos a malo," iste
non posuit, ut intelligeremus ad illud superius, quod de tentatione dictum
est, pertinere. Ideo quippe ait : " Sed libera," non ait : " Et libera,"
tamquam unam petitionem esse demonstrans (noli hoc, sed hoc) : ut sciat
unusquisque in eo se liberari a malo, quod non infertur in tentationem '
(Augustine, Enchir., 116, 30, XL, 286).
2 English writers, following Lightfoot, translate : ' Deliver us from the
Evil One,' that is, the tempter ; they compare John v, 18, 19 : ' We know
that whosoever is born of God sinneth not : but the generation of God
preserveth Him and the wicked one toucheth Him not. We know that we
JESUS IN SAMARIA AND JUDEA 77
decide. If we were dealing with a passage in S. John's
Gospel, there is no doubt that the rendering in which
' malo ' is taken as referring to a person would be the more
probable, for S.John is fond of putting Christ in opposition
to the Devil, His personal enemy, and that of all His fol-
lowers. But this is not S. Matthew's way of writing, and we
may safely adhere to the interpretation common to the
Latin Fathers. For the rest, there is very little point in the
discussion : whatever the grammatical gender of this particu-
lar word, the general sense of the petition is the same : we
ask God our Father to keep us safe from all evil influences,
that we may be His and His alone.
At the beginning of his treatise on prayer, Origen reminds
us that when we pray, we are not alone, but that the Word
of God joins with us, as also the angels and saints (II).
More especially should this thought strike us when we
recite the Lord's Prayer, for then all our brethren in Christ
pray with us in the same way, and we are conscious that these
identical petitions have been incessantly ascending to God
our Father from the earliest days of the Church herself :
and when we repeat them in our turn, we feel ourselves in
communion with those countless numbers of saints whose
lives hallowed the earth and who now people heaven. To
use a figure of speech which was a favourite with S. Clement
of Alexandria, it is Christ Himself who leads this choir of
prayer. It is true, as we have seen, that the Our Father
contains certain petitions that our Lord could never have
uttered in His own name, for example, ' forgive us our
debts ' and ' deliver us from the evil one,' even if He has
placed this petition as it stands, upon our lips, for as He Him-
self said on the last day of His life, Satan had ' not any-
thing ' in Him (John xiv, 30). But, with these reservations,
it is easy enough to see that the prayer dictated to us by the
are of God and that the whole world is seated in wickedness ' (cp. Westcott) .
I Thess. iii, 3 : ' God is faithful, who will strengthen and keep you from
evil ' (cp. Milligan) ; and especially John xvii, 15 : ' I pray not that Thou
shouldst take them out of the world, but that Thou shouldst keep them
from evil ' (cp. Westcott). Chase, especially, has made himself the cham-
pion of this view (pp. 71167).
Other scholars, and especially Haussleiter, prefer to take ' malo ' as a
neuter and compare 2 Tim. iv, 18 : ' The Lord hath delivered me from
every evil work and will preserve me unto His heavenly kingdom. To
whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.' This was also S. Cyprian's
view : ' At the end we put : " Deliver us from evil," by which we under-
stand all those hindrances that the enemy hath devised against us in this
world ' (27, 287). Cp. Augustine, XXXV, 1284.
78 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
Master consists of petitions of which, generally speaking, He
Himself made constant use. If we read once again our
Lord's last prayer as recorded by S. John (John xvii) 1 we
shall not find there the Our Father in its concise form. On
the contrary, we have a long, free outpouring of our Lord's
Sacred Heart, in which He recommends Himself, His dis-
ciples and all His works to His Father's care. But precisely
the same sentiments breathe through the two prayers, and
the same blessings are implored the hallowing of the
Heavenly Father's name, the coming of His kingdom, the
fulfilment of His will, protection against all evil, while both
prayers are addressed to God as Father and are directed to
bringing about the unity of the Christian family in the love
of God.
In S. Luke's Gospel we find, attached to the Our Father,
certain instructions on the general subject of prayer (xi,
5-13 ; cp. Matt, vii, 7-11). Taking their everyday ex-
perience as a starting-point Jesus showed His disciples how,
even in the natural order, a persistent supplication has the
power to touch the hearts of men. Thus a man is aroused in
the middle of the night. Some one is calling to him through
the closed door. ' Friend, lend me three loaves, because a
friend of mine is come off his journey to me, and I have not
what to set before him.' The man excuses himself; his
house is shut up, everybody is in bed. But still the other
persists in his request and, to get rid of him, is given what he
asks. ' And,' our Blessed Lord continues, ' I say to you :
Ask, and it shall be given you : seek, and you shall find :
knock, and it shall be opened to you. For every one that
asketh receiveth ; and he that seeketh findeth ; and to him
that knocketh it shall be opened.' And then, to make
His meaning clearer, Christ makes use of another example,
'. . . which of you, if he ask his father bread, will he
give him a stone ? Or a fish, will he for a fish give him a ser-
pent ? Or if he shall ask an egg, will he reach him a scorpion?
If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your
children, how much more will your Father from heaven give
the good Spirit to them that ask Him ? '
Men are wicked and avaricious, 2 yet who among them,
1 Cp. Chase, p. in, and infra in this volume, chap, vi, vi.
2 We may notice here how once again Jesus unobtrusively but quite
definitely separates Himself from other men, taking an isolated position
among the human race. ' You who are evil ..." On this perversity of
mankind, cp. Matt, vi, 23.
JESUS IN SAMARIA AND JUDEA 79
who happens to be a father, will greet his own son with
mocking and derision, giving him useless or harmful objects
instead of the good things for which he asks, which his
spurious gifts may more or less resemble in a superficial way? 1
Surely Almighty God will not be less beneficent or prudent,
where His own children are concerned. Our Lord's assur-
ances on this point are guaranteed to us both by His own all-
sufficient word and by the good traits found even in a per-
verse humanity, and revealing something "of the supreme
goodness to our minds 2 ; yet through our Lord's death it all
becomes still more secure. ' He that spared not even His
own Son but delivered Him up for us all, how hath He not
also, with Him, given us all things ? ' (Rom. viii, 32).
VI. The Parables of Mercy.
(Luke xv, i, 2) : ' Now the publicans and sinners drew
near unto him to hear him. And the Pharisees and the
scribes murmured, saying : This man receiveth sinners and
eateth with them.'
These two verses are S. Luke's only introduction to the
three parables that immediately follow, and we have no
information as to where and when they were spoken by Christ.
All we are told, and all we need to know, is the occasion of
their utterance by our Lord, and the purpose He had in
view. Surrounded by relentless critics, who were reproach-
ing Him for His condescension to sinners, He counters their
rebukes by showing them something of the mercy of God.
Earlier in His Ministry He had repelled such criticisms by
quoting the prophet's words : ' I desire mercy and not
sacrifice,' but here His reply has still greater appeal,
enshrined as it is in parables which come straight from our
Lord's own heart :
' And He spoke to them this parable, saying : What
man of you that hath an hundred sheep, and if he shall
lose one of them, doth he not leave the ninety-nine in the
desert, and go after that which was lost until he find it ?
And when he hath found it, lay it upon his shoulders,
1 Cp. Matt, iv, 3 : ' . . . Command that these stones be made bread.'
2 We find a similar line of argument in the parable of the unjust judge
(Luke xviii, 2-8), who fearing neither God nor man, none the less is over-
come by the entreaties of a widow to whom he does justice in order to rid
himself of her importunity. ' And will not God revenge His elect who cry
to Him day and night ? . . . I say to you that He will quickly revenge them.'
8o LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
rejoicing ? And coming home call together his friends and
neighbours, saying to them : Rejoice with me, because
I have found my sheep that was lost ? I say to you that
even so there shall be joy in heaven upon one sinner that
doth penance, more than upon ninety-nine just who need
not penance. 3 (Luke xv, 3-7.)
This parable is recorded by Matthew (xviii, 12-14), in the
course of our Lord's teaching on scandal : '. . . it is not
the will of your Father who is in heaven that one of these
little ones should perish. 5 In this case the lesson follows more
immediately upon the story ; and the meaning of the
parable is clearer at first sight. Our Redeemer was speaking
of one of the facts of daily life. In the wide tracts of Judean
country where sheep are allowed to roam at large, it is not
unusual for one here and there to go astray, and, if not
recovered by the shepherd, the unfortunate wanderer must
be given up for lost, since it has no sense of direction and no
strength adequate to self-defence. But the shepherd hastens
to search for it, driven not only by the desire to recover his
own property, but by pity as well. He finds it, lays it on his
shoulders and brings it back in safety a touching picture
indeed and one ever cherished by the piety of the Christian
world ; for example, it inspired the favourite representation
of our Lord in the art of the catacombs. We meet here once
again, the Good Shepherd as He revealed Himself in the
Temple at the Feast of Tabernacles. There He appeared in
the setting of the security and peace of daily life, calling His
sheep, leading them to and from the pastures ; but also
showing Himself, in times of peril, ready to endanger His life
for them. Here, on the other hand, we see Him with the
same whole-hearted devotion, pursuing them when they
wander and bringing them back to the fold.
Then come the rejoicings ; and here our Lord avails
Himself of the exuberant character of Oriental manners in
describing the gathering of friends and neighbours to share
in the shepherd's own joy, the whole forming a faint picture
of the joys of heaven. Conformably to Jewish use, Almighty
God is described here as in Matthew only by a reverent
figure of speech : '. . . it is not the will of your Father who
is in heaven ' ; and again, '. . . there shall be joy in
heaven.' But in spite of this restraint in language we feel
here the heart of God, very close to men.
JESUS IN SAMARIA AND JUDEA 81
' Or what woman having ten groats, if she lose one
groat, doth not light a candle and sweep the house and
seek diligently until she find it ? And when she hath
found it call together her friends and neighbours, saying :
Rejoice with me, because I have found the groat which
I had lost. So I say to you, there shall be joy before the
angels of God upon one sinner doing penance. 3 (Luke
xv, 8-10.)
The charming simplicity of this parable which is only
found in S. Luke has itself been a cause of offence to some
Biblical scholars. Thus Reuss (491) thinks that no one
would be as interested in a small coin as in a sheep, and that
the poor woman in the story is too lowly a personage to
stand here for none other than God Himself. Wright
tries to find some solution to this ' difficulty ' by supposing
that the ten coins formed a personal ornament which had
somehow got lost. This is to go out of one's way to explain
teaching which our Lord meant to put within the reach of
all. No doubt a groat is a small matter, perhaps only
a penny in value, but it represented the wages of a hard
day's work. And in a time and country when money was
none too plentiful, a woman possessed of ten groats would
not lose one of them with a light heart. She knows well
enough that it has not been lost outside, for she was very
careful to bring her money home, but the room is dark, it
is only through the door that any light can get in, and in
the nooks and corners where everything is heaped together
it is no easy matter to find so small a coin. She lights the
lamp, sweeps in all the corners and looks everywhere,
retrieves her lost coin and comes to the door to show it to
her neighbours, and, laughing for joy, ' Look,' she says,
' I have found it again.'
So do the angels rejoice over the conversion of a single
sinner to God. Such is our Lord's own application of the
parable, and a very moving one it is, all the more so, since
it is inspired by so simple a scene. We cannot help feeling
that to our Blessed Lord heaven and earth are in communion
with each other ; that earth's lowliest joys, and the most
sublime delights of heaven, are felt each as truly as the other
and as simply shared. The thought here is a little different
from that of the preceding parable, for while the lost sheep
itself called forth our pity, the same cannot be said of the lost
8s LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
groat. But it is easy to understand that the most insignificant
of sinners, if lost, leaves a void in the treasury of heaven, and
that when this void is filled again, all heaven is rejoicing.
' And He said : A certain man had two sons. And the
younger of them said to his father : Father, give me the
portion of substance that falleth to me. And he divided
unto them his substance. And not many days after, the
younger son, gathering all together went abroad into a far
country : and there wasted his substance, living riotously.
And after he had spent all, there came a mighty famine in
that country : and he began to be in want. And he went
and cleaved to one of the citizens of that country. And
he sent him into his farm to feed swine. And he would
fain have filled his belly with the husks the swine did eat :
and no man gave unto him. And returning to himself,
he said : How many hired servants in my father's house
abound with bread, and I here perish with hunger ! I
will arise and will go to my father, and say to him : Father,
I have sinned against heaven and before thee. I am not
worthy to be called thy son : make me as one of thy
hired servants. And rising up, he came to his father. And
when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him and
was moved with compassion, and running to him fell
upon his neck and kissed him. And the son said to him :
Father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee : I
am not now worthy to be called thy son. And the father
said to his servants : Bring forth quickly the first robe
and put it on him : and put a ring on his hand and shoes
on his feet. And bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it :
and let us eat and make merry : because this my son
was dead and is come to life again, was lost and is found.
And they began to make merry.' (Luke xv, 11-24.)
In the whole preaching of the Gospel there is no more
moving passage than this, nor one more familiar to every
Christian soul. Every detail of the story is graven on all our
memories, as well as the moral lessons which have been drawn
from it lessons no doubt legitimate in themselves. None the
less, if we wish to get down to our Lord's teaching in itself, we
must free it from the interpretations to which Christian
piety has given birth. As a matter of fact, like the other
parables of our Lord, this story must not be treated as an
JESUS IN SAMARIA AND JUDEA 83
allegory, every detail of which has its own symbolic value,
and must have its proper place in the interpretation as a
whole ; the ' first robe,' for example, representing bap-
tismal innocence, the ring the Holy Ghost, and the feast
the Eucharist. All such applications may give rise to useful
thoughts, but they are not directly implied by the Gospel
itself. The picture drawn here, like that in the two preceding
parables, brings before us the thought of God's mercy ; but
here the impression is more obvious and more expressive.
God's pity and love for sinners appear even more clearly
under the figure of a father's relations with his wandering
son, than under that of the shepherd and his sheep or of the
woman and her lost groat.
Some pen-pictures in the Old Testament have already
given glimpses of this mercy ; as, for example :
' For their mother [i.e. of the Israelites] hath committed
fornication, she that conceived them is covered with
shame. For she said : I will go after my lovers that give
me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my
oil and my drink. Wherefore behold I will hedge up thy
way with thorns and I will stop it up with a wall : and she
shall not find her paths. And she shall follow after her
lovers and shall not overtake them and she shall seek them
and shall not find. And she shall say : I will go and return
. to my first husband, because it was better with me then
than now.' (Osee ii, 5-7.)
Plainly in this story of infidelity, followed by repentance,
we have the same theme of the Prodigal Son under a
different form a soul urged to action by present misfortune
and the thought of former peace. But the picture drawn
in the Gospels stands out in higher relief ; especially is the
attitude of Almighty God to the sinner painted with greater
depth. In Osee, Jehovah is represented as stopping the
path of the faithless spouse so that she may not regain her
lovers, while, on the contrary, the father of the Prodigal
Son makes over to him his part of the inheritance. So
Almighty God may give over the sinner to the desire of his
heart (Rom. i, 24-28), knowing that he will exhaust himself
in vain in his futile quest and that he will turn again if,
indeed, he be of a sincere and upright heart.
In Jewish law, after the death of a farmer, the inheritance
was divided among the sons, the eldest receiving a double
84 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
portion with the obligation of providing for his mother and
unmarried sisters. Before death, the father of a family
could dispose freely of his property and even alienate it
altogether in favour of strangers. Thus the younger son
could not assert any rights in the matter. He had only
hopes, and was anxious to see them fulfilled. He found the
atmosphere of the home oppressive with the constant
presence of his elder brother and even of the father himself.
So the father gave him what he asked and the young man
went his way. But soon all his wealth was dissipated in de-
bauchery ; and a famine came upon the country in which he
was sojourning. The prodigal entered the services of a land-
owner of the country, who sent him to look after the swine
the last resource, in the way of occupation, for a Jew. He
is unpaid and underfed, and he even began to long for the
food of the very animals themselves. There is a proverb of
the Rabbis recorded in the Midrash on Leviticus 1 to the effect
that ' when Israel is driven to feed on carob-pods she will
repent.' And if this seems to represent the lowest depths
of desolation, the prodigal had fallen yet lower, since he is
refused even the wretched provender with which he might
at least have kept his stomach filled. None of his fellow-
swineherds thought of succouring this stranger. It was
known that he had ruined himself by dissipation, and now
he was dying of hunger. That was only justice, after all.
Then there came before him the vision of his father's
home, where the poorest of daily labourers was well fed
and, indeed, generously treated in every respect. It was
no longer possible to resume his former position there, but
the lowest place in those dear surroundings would be better
than the utter desolation of his present life. Such sentiments
of the soul often find expression in the Psalms :
' One thing I have asked of the Lord, this will I seek
after : that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the
days of my life. That I may see the delight of the Lord
and may visit His temple' (xxvi, 4). . . . ' My soul hath
thirsted after the strong living God. When shall I come
and appear before the face of God ? My tears have been
my bread day and night, whilst it is said to me daily :
Where is thy God ? These things I remembered, and
poured out my soul in me : for I shall go over into the place
1 Vayyikra Rabba, 35, pp. 53b, 54a. Quoted by Edersheim, II, 261.
JESUS IN SAMARIA AND JUDEA 85
of the wonderful tabernacle, even to the house of God :
with the voice of joy and praise ; the noise of one feasting.
Why art thou sad, O my soul ? And why dost thou
trouble me ? Hope in God, for I will still give praise
to Him : the salvation of my countenance, and my God '
(xli, 3-7). '. . . For better is one day in thy courts above
thousands. I have chosen to be an abject in the house
of my God, rather than to dwell in the tabernacles of
sinners' (Ixxxiii, n).
Urged on by such regret and remorse, the prodigal made
up his mind. He returned fallen but repentant, and asked
to be allowed to take the lowest place. He had thought over
what he would say to his father : ' Father, I have sinned
against heaven and before thee. I am not worthy to be
called thy son : make me as one of thy hired servants.'
And the father saw him still a long way off. He had
wandered once more down the road taken by his son when
he went away, and along which he felt sure he would one
day return. Suddenly he caught sight of him further on :
emaciated, dirty, ragged, unrecognizable by anyone else.
But his father knew him and, running, reached him at last,
threw himself on his neck and embraced him : ' Father,'
says the lad, ' I have sinned against heaven and before thee.
I am not worthy to be called thy son.' But the father will
hear no more, his one desire being to see his son as he had
known him before his fall. Let the servants make haste to
bring the best robe, a ring and suitable foot-gear, and let
them kill the fatted calf and prepare a feast, and let all be
merry ; because this my son was dead and is come to life
again, was lost and is found.
If the story had stopped here it would have been complete
in itself, like the parables of the groat and the lost sheep.
However, Jesus carried it further and, for Him, the second
part of the parable is as important as what has gone before :
' Now his elder son was in the field : and when he came
and drew nigh to the house, he heard music and dancing.
And he called one of the servants and asked what these
things meant. And he said to him : Thy brother is come,
and thy father hath killed the fatted calf, because he hath
received him safe. And he was angry and would not go in.
His father therefore coming out began to entreat him.
And he answering, said to his father : Behold, for so many
86 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
years do I serve thee and I have never transgressed thy
commandment : and yet thou hast never given me a
kid to make merry with my friends. But as soon as this
thy son is come, who hath devoured his substance with
harlots, thou hast killed for him the fatted calf. But he
said to him : Son, thou art always with me ; and all I
have is thine. But it was fit that we should make merry
and be glad : for this thy brother was dead and is come to
life again ; he was lost, and is found.' (Luke, xv, 25-32.)
This fresh picture betrays all the delicacy of touch of the first.
The servant who answered the elder brother's query was in-
different, and trite enough in his reply : ' Thy brother has
returned in good health.' That is all he saw in the prodigal's
return. But the elder brother had all the pride of his stainless
life and long service, never as yet openly acknowledged by his
father ; he was indignant at such compassion being shown
to the prodigal ; he was not going to call the prodigal
' Brother,' just as he was determined not to say ' Father ' any
more. The father's condescension and tact are admirable.
Going out himself to his son, he begged him to come in, and
replied gently and tenderly to his reproaches : ' Son, thou art
always with me ; and all I have is thine.'
And there the story ends, although we should like to
know if the elder brother allowed himself to be won over,
and if the younger one persevered. But of this our Lord
says nothing : it was a problem for the parties themselves
to work out in their own lives.
Many varying interpretations of this parable have been
proposed. The following questions were asked of S. Jerome
by Pope S. Damasus : J ' Who is this father who divides his
property between his two sons ? Who are the two sons ?
Who is the elder son, who the younger? In what sense
has the younger son squandered his patrimony among
harlots ? . . . Who is meant by the elder brother, and why
is he so indignant with the reception accorded to the younger
when he hears of it on his return from the fields ? . . .' And
Damasus adds that he is familiar with the various inter-
pretations that have been proposed. Some, he says, see in
the prodigal son the Gentile races, and in the elder brother
the Jews ; but then, how can we explain the fact that the
elder brother has never transgressed the paternal command ?
1 Jerome, Epist. xxi, P.L., XXII, 379.
JESUS IN SAMARIA AND JUDEA 87
Again, others take the prodigal to represent the sinner and
the elder brother the just ; but in that case it seems unlikely
that such jealousy should have arisen.
In reply S. Jerome starts from S. Luke's own introduction
to this section, and this is really the best method. We see
there that all these three parables the Lost Sheep, the
Groats, and the Prodigal Son were called forth by the
reproaches of the Pharisees, who were shocked at our Lord's
relations and those of His disciples with publicans and
sinners. Consequently, we must take the opposing groups
as standing respectively for the two sons of the parable.
No doubt, at the present day, we may leave the historical
circumstances out of account, making the rough division
into the just and sinners a sufficient foundation on which
to put the moral lesson that our Lord meant to teach, but
if we are anxious to appreciate the delicate shades of meaning
in our Lord's thought here, we must take into account the
situation as He had it before Him, and those who actually
represented to Him the just and the sinners namely the
Pharisees on the one hand and the publicans on the other.
Then it becomes clear that the lesson here is the same as that
of the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican ; except
for the great indulgence with which the Pharisee is treated.
' For so many years do I serve Thee and I have never
transgressed Thy commandment.' And our Lord does not
rebuke or correct this lofty attitude ; He only tries to make
him realize the infinite reward already attending such a
life, ill requited as the Pharisee deems it to be : ' . . . Thou
art always with me,' words that recall those by which Israel
is made by the Psalmist to address Jehovah Himself :
'. . . I am always with Thee. Thou hast held me by
my right hand : and by Thy will Thou hast conducted
me : and with Thy glory Thou hast received me. For
what have I in heaven? And besides Thee what do I
desire upon earth ? For Thee my flesh and my heart
hath fainted away. Thou art the God of my heart, and
the God that is my portion for ever.' (Ps. Ixxii, 23-26.)
Here there is painted the lot of the true Israelite, and if
once its glory has struck him, there will be no place for envy
of anyone else. But, alas ! he has ceased to be conscious of
it : his is a mind narrowed down to the daily task, at once
his duty and his pride. He is full of complaint because no
VOL. II.-
88 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
fatted calf has been killed for him, and he overlooks the fact
that all God's good things are his, at his request. On the
last day of His life Christ would say to His Father : ' All
My things are Thine, and Thine are Mine ' (John xvii, 9).
A common ownership, resting, no doubt, on titles of a
unique and incommunicable kind ; yet in a lesser degree
every just man in union with the Father, and incorporated
with this true Elder Brother, can say with confidence :
' All my things are Thine, and Thine are mine.'
But for that, as S. Paul tells his faithful (Phil, ii, .5), we
must share our Lord's attitude to others, ' each one not
considering the things that are his own, but those that
are other men's.' We must see nothing amiss in the
Father's mercy for the Prodigal, and, to quote another of
our Lord's parables, our ' eye must not be evil, because
God is good.'
In hearts where Christ's spirit dwells no longer, the sinner
has no longer any pardon to hope for, and the just becomes
none other than a judge. It is Christianity's glory to have
so exalted penance, that the just may, in a sense, be envious
of the repentant sinner, but with a holy envy which only
leads him to share his joy as he sits beside him at table, in
his Father's house.
In order to finish our survey of Christ's teaching on mercy
and justice, we must compare the parable of the Prodigal'
Son with that of the Pharisee and Publican. This is
recorded by S. Luke a little further on, but with no
indication as to the circumstances under which it was
uttered. The evangelist places it immediately after the
parables of the Unjust Judge, and it does in fact complete
our Lord's teaching on prayer, although it has a wider
application than this.
' And to some who trusted in themselves as just and
despised others, He spoke also this parable : Two men
went up into the temple to pray : the one a Pharisee and
the other a publican. The Pharisee standing, prayed
thus with himself: O God, I give Thee thanks that I
am not as the rest of men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers,
as also is this publican. I fast twice in a week : I give
tithes of all that I possess. And the publican, standing
afar off, would not so much as lift up his eyes towards
heaven : but struck his breast, saying : O God, be
JESUS IN SAMARIA AND JUDEA 89
merciful to me a sinner. I say to you, this man went
downinto his house justified rather than the other : because
everyone that exalteth himself shall be humbled : and he
that humbleth himself shall be exalted. 5 (Luke xviii, 9-14.)
Although the Pharisees put themselves forward as
specialists in the practice of justice and all virtues, their
life was often far enough from corresponding to their claims.
Our Lord attacked these ' whited sepulchres,' which in
spite of their fair exterior were full of interior corruption ;
and S. Paul himself, a convert Pharisee, was no less severe.
' Thou therefore that teachest another, teachest not thyself ;
thou that preachest that men should not steal, stealest.
Thou that sayest men should not commit adultery, com-
mittest adultery . . .' (Rom. ii, 21 ff.).
But such hypocrisy was not the sole complaint that could
t>e made against the Pharisees. Even if their professed
righteousness were real, it was saturated with pride, and
valueless in the sight of God.
This is the lesson that our Lord teaches here, treating it
apart from all others, in order to set it in greater relief.
The Pharisee painted here was faithful in observing every
point of the law and of tradition, while the publican was
truly a sinner, just as he represented himself to be ; only
while the one is filled with self-complacency and is therefore
rejected, the other implores the mercy of God, who conse-
quently accedes to his prayer. 1
1 The good works of which the Pharisee boasted were not prescribed
by the Law. Thus, as we have already pointed out, the only fast ordered
by the Mosaic Law was that of the Day of Atonement ; the fast on
Mondays and Thursdays was an act of self-imposed devotion practised by
many Pharisees. Neither the tithe on all gains, nor that of the mint and
cummin (Matt, xxiii, 23) was any longer of obligation ; and all these
observances were included in the Pharisee's boast. To this, Rabbinical
literature presents many parallels. Thus in Berachoth, z&b, we read :
' " I praise Thee, O Lord," said a Rabbi, " that Thou hast put me among
those seated in this house of instruction and not with those others (money-
changers and shopkeepers) who are found in the public squares. I rise early
in the morning as they do also ; but I, to study the words of Thy Law,
and they to pursue the vanities of life. I work, and they, too ; but for my
work I receive a reward, and they none. I run a course, and so do they ;
but my goal is the life of the world to come, and theirs is the abyss." '
So also another writer (Erub., aib) : ' Lord of the World, judge me not like
those who live in great towns (such as Rome), where reign impurity,
perjury and theft." Finally, we have this saying of R. Simeon ben Jochai
(Ber. Rabba, XXXV, p. 64b) : ' If there are only two just men in the world,
they are myself and my son ; and if there is one only, I am the one.'
Quoted by Edersheim, II, 29.
go LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
Montefiore, himself a Jew, in commenting on this parable,
writes : ' No parable in the Gospels is more characteristic
than this. None reflects better an essential feature of the
teaching of Jesus. A legal religion has its dangers . . . and
what they are is inimitably hit off in this admirable
story. It touches the spot ; it reveals the sore place. It
is true.' 1
The whole meaning of the parable is summed up in our
Lord's brief words, which have penetrated to the depths of
the conscience of the Christian world : ' Everyone that
exalteth himself shall be humbled, and he that humbleth
himself shall be exalted.'
VII. The Unjust Steward. (Luke xvi, 1-9.)
Perhaps there has been no passage of the Gospels which
has been the subject of so much literature, critical and
expository, as this. 2 More than a hundred essays and
monographs have dealt with the matter, and of these it is
said the majority are not worth the effort of reading them.
Many authors, disgusted by the dishonesty of the unjust
steward, have asked how such a man came to be set before
us as an example. We may recall Kenan's sneer (Les
Evangiles, p. 276) that ' in Christ's kingdom it pays better
to make friends of the poor, even by unjust means, than to
have been an upright steward,' a charge which, so far from
being a product of modern scepticism, is as old as Julian the
Apostate. On the other hand there have not been wanting
authors ready to defend the unjust steward. Thus, Wright
thinks that the debtors who had their accounts reduced by
him were tenants who had been subject to extortion, like
the victims of the rack-rents in Ireland ; and that, in reducing
their rent, this official not only restored justice to the oppressed
but did a service to his master, whose interest it could not
be to exact from his tenant-farmers more than the soil
would yield.
All this is ingenious enough, but does violence to the
1 Synoptic Gospels, ist ed., p. 1022. In the second edition (II, p. 556)
this passage has been retouched, and the concluding admission expunged ;
instead, the author is at pains to demonstrate the humility of the Pharisees.
2 These interpretations are critically set forth in Ad. Riicker, Ueber
das Gleichnis vom ungerechten Verwalter (Biblische Studien, XVII, 5),
Freiburg, 1912. Cp. Fonck, 676 ff.
JESUS IN SAMARIA AND JUDEA 91
Gospel account ; it is quite clear that Jesus represents the
steward as a dishonest man, but it is not for that that He
praises him ; and if He sets him before us as an example, it
is on account of his ability and resource. In their own sphere,
and dealing with others like themselves, the children of this
world are wiser in their generation than the children of light.
That is the lesson that our Lord wishes us to learn. The
accompanying details have no independent value of their
own, but are intended to make the lesson clearer and more
easily grasped. 1 This particular steward was evidently not
a slave ; since the master does not threaten to sell him, but
only to drive him from his service. Probably, like most
officials of the kind, he was a freedman. His vices were
those commonly found in his line of life, at least in the East,
where such abuses of trust are an everyday affair. His
employer had not made a practice of keeping in close touch
with the management of his property, but denunciation
from other sources had opened his eyes. When sent for by
his master, the steward does not attempt to justify himself.
He knows that his management has been indefensible ;
besides, he has by no means saved all that he has stolen
from his employer, having dissipated most of it in pleasure-
seeking, like the prodigal son. Neither work nor a beggar's
life are possibilities to be entertained ; so he must make the
best of his remaining days of power by creating potential
friends bound by ties of obligation to himself.
Apparently, the property of which this official was the
steward, like most Palestinian property of the period, con-
sisted of fields of olive and wheat. Debts were paid in kind,
namely corn and oil. It is thought that there is reference
here to farm rents ; if so, the steward was doubly interested
in reducing the account, since in this way not only did he
render a service to the debtors, but at the same time covered
up the traces of his own defalcations. The Galilean bath,
1 We may recall, as a curiosity, the allegorical interpretation suggested
by Theophilus of Antioch and recorded by S. Jerome in his letter to
Algasia (Epist. 121, 6. P.L., XXII, 1020). ' The rich man is Almighty God ;
His steward is S. Paul, to whom, at Gamaliel's feet, was entrusted the Law
of God. When he began to scatter the Christians, being reproved by his
master he exclaimed : " What shall I do ? I cannot dig. The Law has
fallen to the ground ; I cannot beg, for that would make me the disciple
of the Gentiles and of Ananias." Then calling the debtors of the Law he
reduced their debt by teaching them salvation by Faith and for this he
is praised by the Lord.' All this is a pious allegory in tune with the
Gospel, but evidently not conveying its literal sense.
92 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
which would probably have been the measure used in the
transactions here described, was the equivalent of about
nine gallons, and since the nine hundred gallons, or so, of
oil alluded to in the parable would have been worth about
250 francs, 1 the unjust steward would have offered each
debtor a barrel of wine at a price of 125 francs. 1 Similarly
one hundred cor of wheat being worth about 2,500 francs, 1
the agreed reduction of twenty cor would have come to
500 or 600 francs, 1 not large amounts in absolute value, but
representing a great sum for the period concerned. The
alteration of the receipts would not have been difficult if,
as was probably the case, they were written on tablets of
wax. Besides, no doubt this was not the steward's first
transaction of this kind ; he was only doing for the tenants
what he had done more than once on his own behalf. When
his employer came to know all that had taken place, he
could not help remarking on the capability of his former
servant.
The application of this story is simple enough. The
rascally steward had been prudent and resourceful, and the
sons of light must possess these qualities in no less degree.
The evil wealth of a passing world is theirs, but only for a
short time. It will fail them soon, so let them use it to make
friends who will receive them later on.
It has been asked, in this connection, how we are to know
that the poor will be in heaven before us, to receive us there ?
Must they always be the first to die ? This can only be a
difficulty for those who forget the scene of the Last Judgment.
' I was hungry, and you gave me to eat ' ; ' ... as long
as you did it to one of my least brethren, you did it to me.'
In that last great day, Christ will await us surrounded by
His own disciples and friends. It is they who will receive
us into everlasting dwellings.
VIII. Dives and Lazarus. (Luke xvi, 19-30.)
The lesson that our Lord wished to teach us here finds
its complement in a second parable recorded in the same
chapter of S. Luke, a few verses later on. Here, too, some
have tried to work out an allegorical interpretation, in
which Lazarus stands for the Jewish people under the heel of
1 See note i, p. 384 of Vol. I, supra.
JESUS IN SAMARIA AND JUDEA 93
oppressors, while in Dives' five brethren some see the five
Herods who succeeded Herod the Great, namely Archelaus,
Philip, Antipas and the two Agrippas ; others the High
Priest Annas' five sons. As Godet very justly remarks : (p. 221)
' Jesus would never have descended to personalities of this
kind.' 1
In reality, as in the other parables, we have here a moral
lesson in concrete form, of which by no means every detail
has a symbolic value, this belonging only to the narrative
as a whole. There has been considerable discussion as to
the correct interpretation here. Those who would accuse
S. Luke of Ebionitism have made use of this parable, espe-
cially of verse 25 2 ; where they claim to find a kind of law of
retaliation by which those who are the favourites of fortune
in this life are to be tormented hereafter, while the unhappy
here will receive their consolation above. Such a law of
the reversal of parts is of a crude simplicity, which in no
way corresponds to our Lord's teaching here or anywhere
else. When .Dives asks that his five brothers may be warned,
he does not mean that they must necessarily adopt the role
of Lazarus, but do penance and hear Moses and the Prophets.
On the other hand, many scholars consider that Dives
was being punished for his hard-hearted treatment of Lazarus
a not unnatural interpretation, but one in no way required
by the text. Against it Fr. Buzy has accumulated objections
that are far from lacking in force : ' (Dives),' he says,
' only maintained his position and lived as other rich men
did. In any case there is not a word in this passage about
his alleged inhumanity to the poor. Rather it is the contrary
that is implied in the picture of the poor man at Dives'
gate, where evidently he was accustomed to lie and where he
picked up the bare necessaries of life. ... In Palestine these
beggars in tatters and covered with ulcers are legion, and
are content if they can feel sure of a sufficient pittance from
the rich to keep them from dying of want. Moreover, the
rich man's request to Abraham (24) would be very difficult to
explain if he had treated Lazarus with inhumanity. . . .
Finally, I cannot help thinking that, if his conscience smote
him on this point, he would have invoked all the saints of
1 Loisy (p. 177, n.) sees in the five brethren the five books of the Law.
Of course, nights of fancy of this kind can be pursued indefinitely.
* ' . . . thou didst receive good things in thy lifetime, and likewise
Lazarus evil things ; but now he is comforted and thou art tormented.'
94 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
Paradise before having recourse to the prayer of his
dependent of past days. . . . 51
And Fr. Buzy concludes : ' If I am not mistaken, the
cumulative effect of these reasons is to establish a clear proof
of the point in question ; namely that the rich man is to
be exonerated from any charge of inhumanity. No mention
is made in the sacred text of the causes either of his damna-
tion or of the salvation of Lazarus. . . . The parable does not
deduce a general law from a constantly observed fact ; it
only states a possibility which might become a reality at
any time. Not only does the possession of this world's
goods afford no guarantee of attainment to those of the world
to come, but it is possible to be cast from the very heart of
riches into the fires of hell. Not only is there nothing final
about material unhappiness, but it may well be that the
poor may exchange their pitiable condition for the unspeak-
able glories of heavenly bliss.' 3
No doubt we have here a judicious interpretation, rather
excessively so, in fact ; for, understood in this way, the par-
able contains practically no teaching at all. It would seem that
the position in which S. Luke places it in his Gospel suggests
a more probable explanation. The Unjust Steward knew
how to secure his future, while Dives in his lack of foresight
never gives the matter a thought, and in the great day finds
himself deprived of all. It is from this culpable neglect that
our Lord wishes to preserve us ; and so He shows us a picture,
not of a man specially lacking in pity or debauched or cruel,
but simply with no thought but to enjoy his present fortune,
only to find that he has lost everything in the end. He, too,
could have made friends who would have received him into
everlasting dwellings, but he never gave it a thought. He
let the poor beggar feed on the crumbs that fell from his
table, but without doing anything else for him ; and after
death he found himself in hell, while the beggar was carried
by the angels into Abraham's bosom.
So the lesson of the parable is ' the necessity of thinking
in good time of the life beyond the grave, while we are still
surrounded by earthly goods. The rich man is the only
figure that really matters ; Lazarus is only part of the frame-
work . . . and of no more importance in the picture than his
five brothers. As for Dives, he had been well grounded as
1 R.B., 1918, p. 194. z Ibid., p. 196.
JESUS IN SAMARIA AND JUDEA 95
to the necessity of keeping the future in mind. After all,
he had Moses and the prophets as his teachers.' 1
All the same, it must be admitted that it was not without
reason that our Lord assigned Lazarus to Abraham's
bosom. Certainly his poverty was not in itself enough to
save him, and the duty of hearing Moses and the prophets,
and of doing penance, was incumbent upon him, as much as
upon anyone else ; but his circumstances made such penance
easier by freeing him from the cares and snares of wealth.
Let us compare the above parable with the following
one, somewhat shorter, and related by S. Luke a little earlier
in his Gospel :
' And He spoke a similitude to them, saying : The
land of a certain rich man brought forth plenty of fruits.
And he thought within himself, saying : What shall I
do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits ?
And he said : This will I do : I will pull down my
barns, and will build greater : and into them will I
gather all things that are grown to me, and my goods.
And I will say to my soul : Soul, thou hast much goods
laid up for many years, take thy rest, eat, drink, make
good cheer. But God said to him : Thou fool, this
night do they require thy soul of thee : and whose shall
those things be which thou hast provided ? So is he that
layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich towards
God. 3 (xii, 1 6-2 1.) .
The meaning of this parable is so plain that comment is
needless. In other cases it is sometimes difficult to separate
the main lesson from the subsidiary details ; but here our
Lord has done this for us, leaving the rich man alone in the
picture with Almighty God Himself; who, however, only
interferes suddenly, at the end. The rich man's one
thought is to get as much enjoyment out of life as possible,
and his sole problem, as he views his superabundant harvest,
is to find barn-room and adequate security for this property
of his, that he may enjoy it to the full. And the problem
was easily solved. The existing barns were to be pulled
down and larger ones built, thus securing to him the enjoy-
ment of his wealth for many years to come. Ah 1 he had to
do was to sit at table and make good cheer. But at that
1 Reuss, p. 505.
96 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
moment Almighty God interposed : ' This night they
will require thy soul of thee. 5
In view of all the self-centred scheming, so tragically frus-
trated, of the principal characters of these parables, the
teaching of the Sermon on the Mount seems to gain added
force, and indeed it is in this passage (xii, 22 ff.) that many
of its sayings are quoted by S. Luke.
' Be not solicitous for your life, what you shall eat ;
nor for your body, what you shall put on. . . . Seek not
what you shall eat, or what you shall drink : and be not
lifted up on high. For all these things do the nations of
the world seek. But your Father knoweth that you have
need of these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of
God and His justice ; and all these things shall be added
unto you. Fear not, little flock, for it hath pleased your
Father to give you a kingdom. Sell what you possess
and give alms. Make to yourselves bags which grow not
old, a treasure in heaven which faileth not : where no
thief approacheth, nor moth corrupteth. For where
your treasure is, there will your heart be also.' (Luke
xii, 22, 29-34.)
We have already (supra, Vol. I, p. 136 ff.) compared these
sayings of our Lord with those recorded by S. Matthew,
noting that the difference between them lies in the fact that,
while in S. Matthew we find Jesus recommending interior
dispositions such as detachment from riches, in S. Luke He
goes still further, and demands an effective renunciation of
worldly cares. And at this stage of our Saviour's ministry
we can understand very well that it should be so. The
' little flock ' before Him is no longer the crowd that pressed
around Him on the lake-side of Galilee, following Him for
hours, or even days, and then returning to the occupations
of daily life. No, it is a band of definitely-attached disciples
Apostles, too, who have left all for Him, and who are His
companions on the journeys through the length and breadth
of Judea, or who themselves carry on the work of preaching
the Gospel, as they pass from town to town. The kingdom
of heaven is theirs, but they must leave themselves in their
heavenly Father's hands, so far as the cares of life are
concerned. Yet once more we notice, as on several previous
occasions, the change that has come over the evangelical
JESUS IN SAMARIA AND JUDEA 97
ministry of our Blessed Lord : no longer directed to the
general mass of the people it is now concentrated on the
' little flock ' of definite disciples, while, at the same time,
it reveals more exacting claims and requires a higher
standard of perfection than before. This is particularly
evident in the episode of the rich young man.
IX. The Rich Young Man.
This incident belongs to the period that we are studying
at the moment (of the journey into Judea), and is found in all
three Synoptics, being recorded with especial detail in S.
Mark (x, 17-31 ; cp. Matt, xix, 16-30 ; Luke xviii, 18-30).
We know nothing of the young man beyond what the Gospels
tell us, but their brief account is moving in the extreme.
Faithful in his fulfilment of the Law and sincerely desirous
of eternal life, there is a simplicity and uprightness about the
young man as he comes to ask counsel of Jesus, so that our
Lord looked on him and loved him as he knelt before Him.
But there was one thing wanting and he had not the cour-
age that it required he must sell his property, give it to the
poor, and follow Christ. In vain did our Lord promise him
treasure in heaven heaven was too far off and his wealth too
near at hand ; he seemed to be caught in a tangle of thorns
which recalls the parables of the lake. And so, when he
heard our Lord's demands a gloom came over him, he lost
courage and went away. After all, how long would he
enjoy his wealth ? In the uncertain state of the country,
how long would the Romans leave him the free disposal
of his property ? Of all this he could know nothing, but
to one of weak faith the greatest uncertainties seem more
definite than the promises of Heaven.
And our Lord's glance, which had been fixed upon the
young man, now rested on the disciples, while He remarked
sadly : ' How hardly shall they that have riches enter into
the kingdom of God ? ' When He sees their astonishment,
He only repeats Himself in stronger terms. ' . . . how
hard is it for them that trust in riches to enter into the
kingdom of God.' The Apostles' surprise, as depicted here,
has been shared by all readers of the Gospel from the first
ages of the Church ; and Clement of Alexandria, in his
homily, ' What rich can be saved ? ' tries to meet the
perplexities that so many have felt. Efforts have been made
98 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
to soften the asperities of the passage by interpretations less
severe in character, in which the camel is taken to be a thread,
or the needle's eye as one of, the gates of Jerusalem. Such
naive devices are futile. 1 The text must stand as it is, with
its teaching that salvation is impossible to man, but not to
God. For the rest, although it is made here of the rich, this
statement applies to us all. Everyone must deny himself
and take up his cross and follow Christ, and for everyone
the task is beyond his unaided strength. It is God alone
that can accomplish it in us. 2
Still the disciples' difficulty is not the thought, but the mode
by which it is expressed. ' Who then,' they ask, ' can be
saved ? ' Clement of Alexandria raises the point 3 as to what
it was which caused this agitation on the disciples' part.
They themselves had never been rich, and they had given
up everything that they had. Yes, but at that moment
they understood something of our Lord's imperious demand
for utter surrender to Himself. Here was this young man,
a faithful observer of the Law, sincerely desiring eternal life,
but without the courage necessary to face the inevitable
cost. Surely there is here something of the ' terrific serious-
ness ' of the Christian life. And our Lord, in His reply,
only affirmed the fact more strongly, while seeking to raise
1 Hyperbolical expressions such as our Lord uses here were familiar
to His hearers, and we find the same allusion to impossible feats in several
Rabbinical texts. In these cases it is an elephant that is made to pass
through the needle's eye. So Berakot, 5$b ; Baba Metsia, 38b ; cp.
Billerbeck, I, p. 238.
2 Many, until they have assimilated this lesson as the supreme point
of importance in our Lord's teaching here, have been disconcerted by His
words to the young man : ' "Why caUest thou Me good ? None is good but
one, that is God.' These, however, have been excellently explained by
Victor (Cramer, 376). 'As is often the case,' he says, 'our Lord only
answers the thought in the mind of His questioner. So, for example, He
tells the Samaritan woman : " You adore that which you know not : we
adore that which we know. For salvation is of the Jews." In the same
way to one who looks on Him only as a man He replies as a man, teaching
him to wean himself from all flattery, to attach himself only to God,
seeing the source of all goodness in Him.'
Glover (The Jesus of History, p. 14), writing of the tone of restraint
always characteristic of the Gospels, recalls this incident : ' Why callest
thou Me good ? So it is recorded that Jesus once answered a compliment ;
and it looks as if the mood had passed over to His intimates, and from
them to their friends who wrote the Gospels. He meant too much for them
to seek the facile relief of praise. The words of praise die away, yes, and
the words of affection, too : and their silence and self-restraint are in
themselves evidence of their truth, and more winning than words could
have been.'
3 P.G., IX, 624-625.
JESUS IN SAMARIA AND JUDEA 99
our hopes by the thought of Divine help. ' With men it is
impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible
with God.'
Then Peter, recovering himself, recounted with some pride
the sacrifices that all present had made : ' Behold, we have
left all things and have followed Thee.' And Jesus replied
with a promise of reward, taking care, at the same time, to
widen the perspective, in order to show the disciples that
they would not be the only ones to give up everything for
Him. His words, together with this whole incident of the
rich young man, have embarrassed the scholars of the Pro-
testant world. Thus Godet (ii, 252) writes : ' The act that
forms the true condition of entry into the kingdom of heaven
is expressed by the last two words of our Lord to the young
man, in which the whole teaching of the passage is summed
up : " Follow Me." The way in which Jesus is to be
followed changes with changing times. In those days, for
anyone to adhere to Christ interiorly involved an outward
following of Him, and consequently the abandonment of
the disciple's earthly estate. On the other hand, to-day
when our Lord's bodily presence is no longer here, the
spiritual condition alone remains, but with all the moral
results which flow from relationship with Him, according
to the character and position of each.'
But at all periods of her history the Catholic Church has
understood these words far otherwise. S. Paul, like S. Peter,
took them in the most literal sense, and after the Apostles,
their own disciples carried on their mode of life. We need
only recall Eusebius' admirable description of the life of the
evangelists of the sub- Apostolic age (supra, p. 48, note i).
As for the reward promised by Christ, it will be realized
on two different levels ; in this life a hundredfold houses,
brethren, mothers, children, fields, 1 with persecutions ;
the last element sufficing to show that there is no question
1 The Millenarians pictured an earthly paradise where the elect would
receive an hundredfold the material goods they had forsaken for Christ.
Such speculations are refuted by S. Jerome in. his commentary on S.
Matthew, where he asserts that spiritual goods are worth a hundred times
more than material ones. This is, of course, true enough, but, none the
less, these material goods are promised to the faithful in all their con-
crete reality ' houses, brethren, sisters, mothers, children, fields.' Fr.
Lagrange (S. Marc, p. 277) thinks we may take ' houses, brethren,' etc.,
literally, but understanding them to refer to a religious fraternity of the
kind that existed in the early days of the Christian Church ; this is the
interpretation of all modern scholars, Catholic and independent alike.' I
ioo LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
of an earthly paradise here. But in the background and
in the world to come the reward is eternal life. It is then
that the great reversal of parts so often foretold in the
Gospels will be accomplished in the sight of all, when the
first shall become the last, and the last shall pass into the
front rank.
cannot think that this is a sufficient explanation of the passage in question :
the religious fraternity at Jerusalem, together with the conditions of life
that it presupposed, only lasted a few years. Christ's promises are never
out of date ; besides, we cannot restrict their application to the common
sharing of goods that is a feature of the religious life.
We shall understand our Lord's promise better if we recall the conditions
of His service, in which we lose our life in order to find it. And so it is
with all worldly goods ; if we amass them eagerly, we become their slave ;
if we remain detached from them, we are their masters instead. And in
this way, not only do we win liberty for ourselves, but at the same time
we acquire that religious intuition which enables us to discover in created
things the presence and action of God. Hence the humblest thing can
bring a joy to the soul that no miser can ever hope to possess. Having
nothing, we possess all things. Tamquam nihil habentes, et omnia possi-
dentes. Cp. Rech. de Sc. Relig., 1930, pp. 42-4 ; S. John of the Cross,
The Ascent of Mount Carmel, III, ii, ch. 25.
CHAPTER III
THE FEAST OF DEDICATION. THE SOJOURN IN PEREA
/. The Feast of Dedication.
IN the last portions of S. John's narrative that we have
examined, we saw Jesus at Jerusalem, during the Feast of
Tabernacles. Since then, two or three months have passed
by, and winter has come, bringing with it the Feast of
Dedication.
We find an account of the origin of this feast in the First
Book of Machabees (iv, 59), referring to the period immedi-
ately after the Purification of the Temple by Judas Macha-
beus himself :
' And Judas and his brethren and all the church of Israel
decreed, that the day of the dedication of the altar should
be kept in its season from year to year, for eight days from
the five and twentieth day of the month of Casleu, with
joy and gladness. 5
Josephus writes in the same sense (A.J., xii, vii, 7) :
' The celebrations of Judas and his fellow-citizens, in
honour of the re-establishment of the sacrifices in the
Temple, lasted for eight days. No kind of jubilation was
omitted. He entertained his fellow-countrymen with
costly and splendid sacrifices and caused to be sung hymns
and psalms designed at the same time to exalt the glory of
God and to rejoice the people. So happy were they to
resume their customs and to recover their liberty of wor-
ship after so long a time and in such an unexpected way,
that they enacted a law by which their descendants were
bound every year, for eight days, to celebrate the restora-
tion of the Temple. And ever since, up to the present day,
we keep this feast, which we call the feast of lights, which
name, I imagine, was given to it because this freedom had
shone upon us in so unexpected a way.'
In origin this feast resembled the Feast of Tabernacles
(2 Mach. x, 6-7) : ' And they kept eight days with joy, after
IOI
102 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
the manner of the feast of tabernacles, remembering that
not long before they had kept the feast of tabernacles when
they were in the mountains and in dens like wild beasts.
Therefore they now carried boughs and green branches and
palms for Him that had given them good success in cleansing
His place.' But before long the two feasts began to diverge in
character : that of the Dedication (Chanukhah) was the
Feast of Lights ; the Temple and all buildings of special
importance being illuminated. 1 As at the Feast of Taber-
nacles, the psalm of the Hallel (Psalms 113-118) were sung to
the accompaniment of flutes, the Levites intoning the first
verse which was repeated by the people, who after each
succeeding verse responded Hallelujah, i.e. Praise the Lord.
This feast, although essentially religious, was more national
in character than other feasts, since it commemorated the
purification of the Temple, denied first by the Assyrians and
then by the Greeks, and at the same time the deliverance of
Israel itself. And now into the midst of the illuminations and
joyful tumult came our Lord. It was in December, and
the weather was cold. 2 Jesus stood under Solomon's Gate,
destined later to be the place of meeting of the first Christians
and in a sense the first Christian Church (Acts iii, n ;
v, 12). 3
1 A letter from the Jews of Jerusalem, recorded in. the Second Book
of the Machabees, gives the following explanation of the origin, of these
illuminations : ' For when our fathers were led into Persia, the priests
that then were worshippers of God took privately the fire from the altar
and hid it in a valley where there was a deep pit without water : and there
they kept it safe so that the place was unknown to all men. But when
many years had passed and it pleased God that Nehemias should be sent
by the king of Persia, he sent some of the posterity of those priests that
had hid it, to seek for the fire : and as they told us, they found no fire but
thick water. Then he bade them draw it up and bring it to him : and
the priest Nehemias commanded the sacrifices that were laid on to be
sprinkled with the same water, both the wood and the things that were
laid upon it. And when this was done and the time came that the sun
shone out, which before was in a cloud, there was a great fire kindled, so
that all wondered ' (2 Mach. i, 1922). Later on the following legend
found its way into the Talmud : ' When the Hasmonean priests re-entered
the Temple defiled by the Greeks they found only a phial of consecrated
oil, still carrying its seal. It contained scarcely one day's supply and yet
lasted for eight days. Meg. Taan., 9. Billerbeck, II, pp. 539 ff. Jewish
Encyclopedia, VI, 224a.
2 Cp. i Esdras x, 9 : "... in the ninth month, the twentieth day of
the month ... all the people sat in the street of the house of God,
trembling, because of the sin and the rain.'
3 Fouard (II, 127, n. i) writes : ' The name of Solomon was given to
this gate because it was constructed out of the debris of the ancient
temple, A. J., XX, ix, 7.' This passage from Josephus has been incorrectly
understood. This is how it runs : ' At that time the temple had been
THE FEAST OF DEDICATION 103
S. Cyril of Alexandria, in commenting on this passage of
S. John, suggests that if our Lord were in Jerusalem at this
time, it was not to take part in a Jewish feast, but only because
He would have an opportunity of preaching to the people
gathered there. (P.O., LXXIV, 16.) Such an interpretation
is natural enough in a fifth-century author to whom all Jewish
solemnities are abominations. But in our Lord's time it was
not so. ' Salvation is of the Jews.' Our Lord mingled with
the people at their prayers and shared both them and the
prevailing joy. But for Him it was no longer a peaceful
celebration ; already He was surrounded by enemies and
spies.
' The Jews therefore came round about Him, and said
to Him : How long dost Thou hold our souls to suspense ?
If Thou be the Christ tell us plainly. Jesus answered
them : I speak to you, and you believe not : the works
that I do in the name of My Father, they give testimony
of Me. But you do not believe : because you are not of
My sheep. My sheep hear My voice : and I know them,
and they follow Me. And I give them life everlasting ;
and they shall not perish for ever, and no man shall pluck
them out of My hand. That which My Father hath given
Me is greater than all : and no one can snatch them out of
the hand of My Father. I and the Father are one.' (John
x, 24-30.)
We have here an echo of our Lord's instruction on the
Feast of Tabernacles ; there was the same teaching and it
finished (under Agrippa II) and the people seeing that the workers, who
numbered more than 18,000, were unemployed . . . requested the king to
rebuild the eastern gate. This was situated in the outer part of the Temple
where it overlooked a deep valley. It had four hundred cubits of walls
and was built of square stone of great whiteness, each stone being twenty
cubits long and six high. The gate was the work of Solomon, who was the
first to build the Temple as a whole. The king, reflecting that this gate
especially would be easy to demolish and difficult to build, owing to the
time and money required, refused the request that had been made to
him, but did nothing to prevent the paving of the town with white
stones ' (A.J., XX, ix, 219-222).
It is evident from this passage that the gate in question was in no sense
built out of the remains of the ancient temple ; on the contrary, it was part
of the ancient Temple itself, still standing, and was used by Agrippa II as a
quarry from which to obtain stones for paving the town. No doubt it was
this handsome work to which one of the Apostles admiringly drew the
attention of our Lord. ' Master, behold what- manner of stones and what
buildings are here,' and Jesus replied : ' Seest thou all these great buildings.
There shall not be left a stone upon a stone, that shall not be thrown
down ' (Mark xiii, 12 ; cp. A.J., XV, xi, 3).
VOL. II. H
104 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
was received in the same way. It is only the sheep of the
Good Shepherd who hear His voice, and those who were
about Him then were not His sheep. Their motive in sur-
rounding Him was not at all that of the Galilean crowds of
whom the disciples said (Mark v, 31) : 'Thou seest the
multitude thronging Thee ; and sayest Thou who hath
touched Me ? ' Then it was the pressure of enthusiasm ;
to-day the crowds are still about Him, but only that they
may hinder His flight, and take Him captive. This was the
sole purpose of their insistent questioning : they willed His
destruction, and nothing else. As S. Chrysostom, with much
insight, observes (LIX, 337) : ' When He teaches them by
His discourses they ask Him : " What sign doest Thou that
we may believe in Thee ? " When He brings before them
the proof of His mighty works : " If Thou be the Christ,"
they say, " tell us plainly." The works cry aloud, but they
want words ; and when they have words to instruct them,
they vie with each other in asking for works. 5 So Jesus con-
tented Himself with recalling His statements of heretofore,
and the miracles by which He verified them ; merely
adding that if they did not believe in Him they were not
His sheep.
' And I give them life everlasting . . .' Even in speaking
to His enemies whose only object in seeking Him was His
destruction, our Lord has no thought but for their salvation,
and, as always, He sets before their eyes the infinite and
eternal reward that He gives to His own. The security that
the Good Shepherd had lately promised under the figure of
the sheepfold and the door, He now offers under a still
more expressive image. He holds His sheep in His hands
and none can snatch them away. Whoever feels the strong
but tender grip of that all-powerful hand has no cause to
fear either wolf or robber.
And then, suddenly, as if to give a more striking pledge of
His omnipotence, Jesus reveals the great mystery that lies
beneath : ' That which My Father hath given Me is
greater than all. ... I and the Father are ONE.' And if
it be asked what is this thing greater than all others, the gift
of the Father making Him one thing with Himself, the
answer is that it is the Divine nature which He has from His
Father and holds in common with Him. ' The Father, 3 says
S. Augustine (1743), ' in begetting the Son gave Him to be
God ; in begetting Him He gave Him to be eternal like
THE FEAST OF DEDICATION 105
Himself ; in begetting Him He gave Him to be His equal.
This is a thing greater than aught else.' And this great
declaration of our Lord's is emphasized in the words that
follow : ' No one can snatch them out of the hand of My
Father. I and the Father are one.' Between the two Divine
Persons, therefore, there is a community of power having its
roots in a community of nature. Our Lord's statement is
categorical and the Jews understand it well enough, although
they reject it with loathing. ' The Jews,' remarks S.
Augustine, ' understood what the Arians missed ; and if it
aroused their anger it was because they saw that Christ
could not say : " I and the Father are ONE," without
affirming the equality of the Father and the Son.'
But this very reaction is an index to their dis-
positions : they demanded a positive statement from
Jesus ; and when they get it, it moves them to more frantic
wrath.
It must be admitted, however, that the statement they
received was not what they expected. They wanted to
drive our Lord into a corner and compel Him to retract, or
at least compromise Himself by His reply. It is a similar
method to that adopted by the Sanhedrin on the last day of
His life : ' If Thou be the Christ, tell us ' (Luke xxii, 67).
Here they were counting especially upon the political
aspirations which the title Messias was calculated to evoke.
If Jesus recognized them, they would denounce Him to the
Romans ; if He discouraged them, by that very fact He
would lose His authority with the crowds. Here we have
already the plot that we are shortly to meet again when
Christ is interrogated about the title of Son of David. But
He would not follow them on to this ground, either at the
time of His Passion or, still less at the moment under con-
sideration. When He is pressed as to His title Messias,
He stresses its purely spiritual meaning. His kingdom is not
of this world. Thus, in this discussion, He at once leads His
hearers on to His own ground, preaching to them once more
faith, eternal life, the Father, and His own union with Him.
No doubt His enemies in their blindness will take His state-
ments as blasphemies and will want to stone Him, just as
later, at His Passion, they will shout blasphemies and call
for His death. But if Jesus does not avoid danger, at least
He dispels all misunderstanding. It is His will to die, that
He may bear witness to Himself as a martyr to spiritual
io6 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
truth, but not for having laid claim to royalty or roused the
people to revolt. 1 So in the very struggle that was to
end in His death, our Lord betrays the all-conquering
assurance that gave Him His peculiar power over His
enemies, a power affirmed most forcibly in verse 28 :
'. . . no man shall pluck them out of My hand. 5 We may
see here an allusion to the man born blind who had recently
been cast out of the synagogue for his belief in Christ ; and,
more generally, to all those disciples, humble and feeble
like sheep, whom Jesus holds safe in His hand, and from
which no power can ever snatch them away.
' The Jews then took up stones to stone Him. Jesus
answered them : Many good works I have shewed you
from My Father : for which of those works do you stone
Me ? The Jews answered Him : For a good work we
stone Thee not, but for blasphemy : and because that
Thou, being a man, makest Thyself God. Jesus answered
them : Is it not written in your law : I said, you are
gods ? If he called them gods, to whom the word of God
was spoken ; and the scripture cannot be broken : Do you
say of Him, whom the Father hath sanctified and sent into
the world : Thou blasphemest ; because I said : I am the
Son of God ? If I do not the works of My Father, believe
Me not. But if I do, though you will not believe Me,
believe the works : that you may know and believe that
the Father is in Me, and I in the Father. They sought
therefore to take Him : and He escaped out of their
hands.' (John x, 31-39.)
1 Compare Charue's explanation (L'incredulite des Juifs) of our Lord's
discourses at Jerusalem and especially of this one (p. 234) : ' These
questions (about the Messiasship) were put explicitly by the Jews from, at
latest, the last winter feast of Dedication. And our Lord did not shirk
the issue. Although marked by discretion His reply left no possibility of
doubt : He presented Himself as the Messias foretold by the Prophets.
All the same, the fateful title has not yet been spoken. Rising quickly
above the bare claims of Messiasship, His self-avowal goes straight to the
point of the identity of nature between the Father and the Son.' And
again on page 62 : ' During the last months, while allowing Himself to be
proclaimed as the Messias, He personally maintained an attitude of reserve,
even of mystery on the subject, until the affirmation of His divinity should
have dissociated His work from all complicity with nationalist schemes at
that time so much in the air.'
These remarks are just. Our Lord's efforts especially as described by
S. John are directed towards leading His hearers to the very heart of the
mystery, the Divine Sonship, rather than to the Messianic claims a self-
manifestation infinitely deeper and more spiritual, as well as free from the
dangerous equivocations of the national Messianism of the time.
THE FEAST OF DEDICATION 107
These few verses have puzzled a good many readers, for
after the express declarations they have just been reading,
they can scarcely avoid the impression that we have here a
distinct weakening of the truth that has just been pro-
claimed. Before discussing the point let us reproduce one
conclusion that has been formed from the facts : . ' It is
absolutely impossible/ remarks Godet (p. 204), ' to suppose
that a later writer who was also the inventor of the Logos
theory, could have imagined a line of argument such as we
find in this small section of the Gospel record. How can we
suppose that such a man could have attributed to Jesus
a mode of reasoning that seems, on the face of it, to contra-
dict all that He had yet affirmed about His own divinity ?
On the contrary, such a line of argument as we have here
carries its historical character on its face, while, at the same
time, it shows the clearest understanding of the Old Testa-
ment scriptures that we can conceive. Quite clearly the
whole discourse can be attributed to none other than
Jesus Himself.' And elsewhere he adds (p. 261) : ' Let us
suppose that the evangelist himself had invented the whole
line of argument that we find here. We cannot believe that
he, claiming to be the author of the Logos theory, could not
have resisted the temptation to put into our Lord's own
mouth that favourite title by which he had called Him in the
prologue to his work. It would have been a natural way of
developing the argument. The Law gives the title of gods to
those to whom the Divine Word is addressed. Surely, then,
there could be no question of charging with blasphemy Him
who was the Word itself, when He claimed the title of God ?
John did not yield to the temptation, or rather it did not
exist for him, he who had no other object than to faithfully
record his Master's words.'
These valuable reflections help to make the true position
clear. We must not regard this particular conversation of
our Lord's, any more than any other passage of the Gospels,
as a systematic exposition of Christian doctrine, primarily
and directly addressed to all generations of the Christian
Church. No doubt Christ intended His words for us, but
it is to His Jewish questioners that He was speaking in the
first instance, repelled as they were by His exalted claims,
and ready to stone Him in their indignation and disgust.
But His hour had not yet come, and He had no desire just
then to carry the struggle to the bitter end ; particularly He
io8 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
did not wish to give up all hope of bringing to Him these
weak souls blinded by the brilliant light of truth. On the
other hand, He neither could nor would withdraw anything
that He had said. His task was to parry the attack, and to try
especially to make the truth more acceptable to them by
presenting it under a different guise and in a softer light.
Here there is an exact parallel with the discourse on the
Bread of Life. There, too, Jesus was speaking to feeble
souls, puzzled and shocked by His stupendous claims His
descent from Heaven, His promise to give His Flesh and
Blood as food. Our Lord withdrew nothing of all this, but
He did try to lead them to the truth by another way when
He reminded them that ' It is the spirit that quickeneth :
the flesh profiteth nothing.' If they would only follow that
train of thought they would understand that Christ's flesh is
life-giving because it is united to, and the instrument of His
Godhead. Similarly here, He shelved the main argument
in order to deal with the objections that were being pressed
at the moment. The Jews had in their minds the thought of
Jehovah's incommunicable majesty, of which our Blessed
Lord's claims seemed to them to be a blasphemous usurpa-
tion ; so He tries to show them how, even in their own
scriptures, this majesty is to be seen resting on mere men,
such as the judges of Israel, and how it is still more reasonable
to accept a claim based on a Divine revelation, into further
details of which, however, He did not propose to enter
then. 1 To make it clear how great was the gulf between
1 Cp. Lagrange, S. Jean, pp. 175 ff. ' "While the word " son " in Greek
necessarily expresses the idea of sonship, natural or legal, in the Semitic
languages the term " son of God " may stand for a vaguer relationship.
Thus Israel was God's son even His only son as was also the king as
representing the chosen people of God. . . . The same was true of magistrates
who were endowed with special gifts in virtue of their functions. It is on
this last point that our Lord relies in trying to lead the Jews to a recognition
of His true nature. All that was necessary was an easy transition of thought
to the proper from the figurative sense of the word, which none the less
implied a real participation in Divine gifts. Really, therefore, a passage
such as this of John (x, 34 ff .) , generally regarded as presenting considerable
difficulty, throws much light on the whole question of our Lord's Person.
. . . These words of Jesus, as recorded by S. John, form a link between
the Old Testament and His own teaching as to His nature and mission ;
they involve the fundamental idea of the Gospel, as registered in the
Synoptics and developed by S. Paul.'
This is the sense of S. Augustine's comment : ' Observe how the Lord
dealt with these sluggish minds. He saw that they could not bear the full
splendour of truth, and He tempered it to them by a screen.' On the
other hand S. Chrysostom rightly remarks : ' The Jews, understanding
that our Lord claimed equality with the Father, wanted to stone Him.
THE FEAST OF DEDICATION 109
these ' gods ' and Himself, He goes on to say that while to
them the word of God had been spoken, He had received in-
finitely more than this : for He had been sanctified by the
Father and sent into the world. This was the consecration by
which the Father had dedicated Him to His work in the
world. This was the thought running through our Lord's
words in His great priestly prayer for His disciples on the
last night of His life. ' Sanctify them in truth. Thy word
is truth. As Thou hast sent Me into the world, I also have
sent them into the world. And for them do I sanctify
Myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth.' These
words were uttered only a few hours before the death of
Christ, and the ' sanctification ' of which He speaks is the
supreme act of consecration by which He prepares for the
final act of sacrifice He is about to make. And it would
seem that it is in this sense that we are to understand the
consecration by which the Father dedicates Him to His
work and sent Him into the world. 1
Having thus diverted His enemies' attack and put them in
the way of a better understanding of His union with the
Father, our Lord went on to point to His works as evidence
of His Divine mission. However, here as elsewhere, the
testimony of the works was only invoked as a last resource
to convince those who otherwise refused to believe.
5 Though you will not believe Me, believe the works.'
Christ's own sheep, who know His voice, have no need of
such witness (viii, 14) ; for them He is sufficient in Himself.
But those who are slower, and duller in faith, have to be won
over by the mighty deeds that He has wrought.
But in spite of all His efforts to convince them, the hostility
of His enemies was in no way disarmed. They tried to seize
Him, but He escaped out of their hands.
None the less He did nothing to correct their view of the matter, although
if this were ill-founded He had only to put them right in some such words
as these : " What is the meaning of this ? In all that I have said I never
had any intention of claiming equality of power with the Father." As a
matter of fact He did the precise 'contrary, confirming and deliberately
strengthening their impression, and this notwithstanding the pitch of
frenzy they had reached. Far from excusing Himself for having spoken
amiss, He rebukes them for thinking less of Him than His claims demand.
. . . All that He said in this connection amounts to this : If those whose
dignity is theirs by favour can call themselves gods, surely He who is God
by nature has the right to say so .? '
1 However, S. Augustine understands it to refer to His eternal genera-
tion : ' Sic sanctificavit, quomodo genuit, ut enim sanctus esset, gignendo
ei dedit.'
no LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
' And He went again beyond the Jordan into that place
where John was baptizing first : and there He abode.
And many resorted to Him, and they said : John indeed
did no sign : But all things whatsoever John said of this
man were true. And many believed in him.' (John x,
40-42.)
In this outline, brief but breathing the full spirit of peace,
we find a momentary rest from the conflict in Jerusalem.
The evangelist himself evidently felt the charm of the
memories associated with the scene where he himself
had followed S. John the Baptist and where, for the first
time, he had attached himself to Christ. So he ends
the story of our Lord's ministry at the very place where it
was begun. Among the people of the district of Perea the
influence of the Sanhedrin was less strongly felt, while the
memory of John the Baptist was a living thing. They liked
to remember now all that he had said about this young
Teacher whose words and deeds of wonder had aroused the
whole of Judea. True, John himself had never performed
any miracles ; but he had heralded Jesus, and all his
prophecies had been fulfilled, and more. And so, from
beyond the grave, the Precursor carried on his work, still
leading to Christ those who had been already touched by
his words.
The Synoptics give a longer account of this stay in Perea,
which is rather lightly touched upon by S. John ; but before
studying their account we may glance once more at the
scenes we have just left. Frequently before, both in Galilee
and at Jerusalem, the hostility of the Pharisees and indeed
their murderous intent, had been clear enough ; but this was
the first time that their designs had begun to take the precise
form which we shall meet with in the story of the Passion
itself. Then they will simply resume the tactics they had
already begun, provoking Jesus to declare Himself the
Messias and then rejecting His claims as blasphemous in
themselves. ' If Thou be the Christ, tell us plainly,' they
urge, and as soon as they have received the answer, cry :
' You have heard the blasphemy ; He is worthy of death.'
Confident as they were of victory, they could not but follow
our Lord on to the ground chosen by Himself. We hear no
more feigned pretence about the Sabbath or the Law ;
no more political wrangling on the kingship of the Messias ;
THE FEAST OF DEDICATION in
there remained only the purely religious conflict between the
Son of God affirming His claims, and those who rejected
them in their unbelief.
' And there were present at that very time some that
told Him of the Galileans, whose blood Pilate had mingled
with their sacrifices. And He answering said to them :
Think you that these Galileans were sinners above all the
men of Galilee, because they suffered such things ? No,
I say to you : but unless you shall do penance, you shall
all likewise perish. Or those eighteen upon whom the
tower fell in Siloe, and slew them : think you that they
also were debtors above all the men that dwelt in Jerusa-
lem ? No, I say to you : but except you do penance, you
shall all likewise perish.' (Luke xiii, 1-5.)
These two sayings of our Lord are here connected by S.
Luke with the teaching recorded in the preceding chapter
on avarice, watchfulness, and the giving of alms. We
cannot make any attempt to decide when and where they
were spoken, but since the facts which occasioned them took
place in Jerusalem, they may safely be assigned to the time
of the arrival of Jesus in the Holy City. We have here the
same teaching as in the case of the man born blind (John
ix, 2) : and its burden is that human calamities are not to be
regarded as chastisements reserved by Almighty God for
great sinners only. We are all sinners, and all exposed to
misfortunes of a similar kind. We know nothing of the
catastrophe at Siloe or of this Galilean revolt beyond what
we are told in this passage ; but many similar facts are
recorded of the ever-turbulent Galileans and of Pilate,
always inclined to be cruel. 1
It has been suggested that it was during this insurrection
1 We give one example from among many others of acts of savage
repression similar to those recorded here :
B.J., II, ix, 4, 175 : ' A little later Pilate caused a fresh disturbance
by using the sacred treasure of the Corbona to finance the construction
of a new aqueduct, the water being brought from, a distance of over fifty
miles. As soon as this was known, the greatest indignation was felt among
the people, who, shouting imprecations and threats, gathered in large
numbers round Pilate's tribunal, which was then at Jerusalem. Pilate,
having foreseen a rising, had taken the precaution of distributing a large
number of armed soldiers in civilian dress among the mob with instructions
to refrain from using the sword while making free use of the club, the
action to commence at an agreed signal, given from the tribunal, by himself.
A great number of Jews perished, whether by the blows of the military
or by being crushed in the panic that ensued ; while the main body of
rioters, terror-struck, withdrew in silence.'
ii2 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
that Barabbas committed the crime for which he had been
condemned ; and also that the .brutal, murderous repression
of so many Galileans was the cause of the dissension between
Herod and Pilate. These conjectures are plausible enough
but they can never be more than conjectures, and it is of
greater importance to extract from these facts what is really
relevant to the story of our Lord's life.
In the first place we have here some light on the brutal
and violent character of Pilate himself. Nor is it only
Josephus who depicts him in this way ; we have also
Agrippa's letter to Caius as preserved in Philo (Legat., 38,
299-302) : ' Pilate, who was procurator of Judea, dedi-
cated some golden shields in Herod's palace, in the heart of
the Holy City itself, not so much in honour of Tiberius as
to annoy the people. . . . The fact becoming known, an
assembly of the citizens was held and a deputation consisting
of the King's four sons was sent to the Governor. . . .
Pilate, however, who was a hard and obstinate man, returned
a stubborn reply to their petition. Then the people shouted :
" We will have no dealings with you, but will send deputies
to the Emperor himself," which made him more angry than
anything else had done. For he was afraid that in the event
of deputies being sent to Rome, other faults in his adminis-
tration would come out ; his vexatious measures, robberies,
unjust dealings, outrages, illegal executions, and insufferable
cruelty.'
The result was that Tiberius disowned the procurator and
compelled him to transfer the offending shields to Csesarea.
The whole incident serves to reveal once again Pilate's
character and that of his rule. And it was to this man, who
slew citizens without trial, that Jesus was shortly to be
given up.
On the other hand, opposed to this gloomy and cruel
administration, was a population always on the verge of
revolt. The Galileans were particularly suspect since the
nationalist spirit ran higher and more turbulently in them
than in the rest. In a few weeks, when Jesus would be
brought before Pilate, his first impulse would certainly be
to remark : ' Here is another of these Galileans like those in
the last rebellion whom I had slain in the Temple.' And in
the same way, later on, the tribune of the guard would take
S. Paul for ' the Egyptian, leader of the brigands ' who had
stirred up Judea a short time before (Acts xxi, 38) . Such
THE FEAST OF DEDICATION 113
being the situation, we have no difficulty in understanding
that the Jewish leaders hoped to catch Jesus in the snare of
Messianic claims, and to secure His immediate execution by
the Roman procurator.
However, it was not His own danger that was in our
Lord's mind just then ; the point of the disasters of which
He had just spoken was the lesson they contained. ' Unless
you shall do penance you shall all likewise perish ; ' a
warning that was fulfilled in every detail with striking
precision. Against the picture of the Galileans ' whose blood
Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices,' we can put
Josephus' description of the sack of the Temple, some years
later on (B.J., V, 1,3).
5 The missiles hurled by the engines of war reached the
Temple and the altar itself, falling on the priests and their
assistants ; while many even of the pilgrims who had come
from the ends of the earth to venerate this famous spot,
sacred to the whole known world, fell in front of the sacri-
ficial victims and reddened this altar, venerated by all,
with their blood. Greeks and heathen, natives of the soil
and foreigners alike, priests and laity, they fell indis-
criminately, the blood flowing from so many corpses
bathing the sacred altars like a sea.'
And our Divine Redeemer had sights like these in all their
horror before His mind, knowing all the time that the con-
version of the Jews would have removed the danger, once
and for all. Consequently, He repeats the warning He had
just given under the form of a parable thus recorded by
S. Luke (xiii, 6-9) :
' He spoke also this parable : A certain man had a fig-
tree planted in his vineyard, and he came seeking fruit on
it, and found none. And he said to the dresser of the vine-
yard : Behold for these three years I come seeking fruit on
this fig-tree, and I find none. Cut it down therefore, why
cumbereth it the ground ? But he answering said to him :
Lord, let it alone this year also, until I dig about it, and
dung it. And if happily it bear fruit : but if not, then
after that thou shalt cut it down.'
In this passage we have an echo of Isaias' prophecy con-
cerning Jehovah's vine (Is. v, 1-7). In both cases we meet
the same loving care, the same deception, the same terrible
threats. And yet Christ still holds out one last hope of
ii4 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
respite ; if this be neglected the punishment will be more
terrible than that which the prophet foretold ; not mere
abandonment only, but condemnation to death. 1
Often in the following weeks will be heard warnings of a
similar kind, all, alas, of no effect ! Jerusalem, Jehovah's
cherished plantation, has no thought but to kill the prophets.
Soon the Cross will be raised in her ; yet a few more years
and her splendid buildings will fall upon the inhabitants like
the Tower of Siloe, while in the courts of the profaned
Temple, mingled like that of the Galileans with the blood of
the victims, will flow the life-blood of thousands of Jews.
//. Jesus in Perea.
For the first time we resume contact with the writers of
the two first Synoptical Gospels. Both pass over in silence the
journeys to Jerusalem that we have seen recorded in S.
John ; and both are without anything corresponding to the
great collection of sayings and parables found in the ninth
to the eighteenth chapters of S. Luke ; while both record the
discourse at Capharnaum as having taken place immedi-
ately before these, just after the Transfiguration of Christ.
S. Matthew closes this long collection with the usual formula :
' and it came to pass when Jesus had finished his discourse.'
Both again take us to the other side of the Jordan, in what
proves to be the final departure of our Lord from Galilee,
whither He would never return until He was risen from the
dead. It must have been a sad experience to watch, fading
into the distance, what had been the setting of so many
familiar conversations, so many miracles and conversions to
the truth. There were the Lake, Capharnaum, the Plain of
Genesareth, all full of memories. But He ' set His face ' to
go to Jerusalem. There the Passion and the Cross awaited
Him, a new baptism, with which He hastened to be baptized.
In Perea through the whole of which He now passed
1 It would seem tempting to press the parable a little further and to
see in the three years of trial the three years' ministry of Christ, but such
an interpretation is doubtful, to say the least. Even before the Incarnation
Almighty God had come to look for the fruit on His fig-tree and had found
it barren. Several of the Fathers see in these three years the principal
phases of Old Testament history ; so Ambrose (P.L., XV, 1743) : Abraham,
Moses, Mary ; and Cyril (P.G., LXXII, 753) : Moses, josue and the
Prophets. These are ingenious applications of our Lord's words rather
than their direct sense. Here, again, we must not make an allegory of the
parable, but must be content with seeing in the three years the time
necessary for the fig-tree to bear fruit. If at the end of this time it is still
barren, it is good for nothing but to be cut down.
THE FEAST OF DEDICATION 115
Jesus carried on His ministry in the ordinary way ; S.
Matthew stressing His miracles and S. Mark His teaching.
The first incident recorded by either of them (Matt, xix, i-
12 ; Mark x, 1-12) was brought about by one of those in-
terrogations to which the Pharisees were accustomed to
subject our Lord. In the Sermon on the Mount (v, 31),
among other points in the Mosaic system, He had considered
the law of marriage in order to bring it to perfection, and in
doing so prohibited divorce. Here was a great chance for the
Pharisees to represent Jesus as opposed to the Law of Moses,
a chance of which they were not slow to make the most.
We know the Mosaic Law on this question. A man who
had grave cause of complaint against his wife could give her
a bill of divorce and { put her away.' 1
We are aware, too, how the two great Jewish schools were
opposed in the interpretation of this law ; that of Shammai
only permitting divorce for the very gravest reason, par-
ticularly for infidelity, while the school of Hillel was icady
to grant it for reasons of every kind for a burnt dish at the
table, or simply because the husband had found another
more attractive woman. This second interpretation became
the generally accepted one. 2
This right of divorce was much cherished by the Jews, who
regarded it as a privilege conceded to them but refused to
the Gentiles. 3 In a directly contrary sense, Christ declared
that it was only a concession to their hardness of heart, and
1 The following is the text of such a document, taken from Alfasi's
summary of the Talmud (Billerbeck, I, 311) : ' On such and such a day
of the week, and such and such a day of the month, in such and such a
year from the Creation of the World, according to the common computa-
tion, in such and such a place, I, N., son of N. and of N. or of whatever
other name I may be called, of such and such a place, of my own motion,
freely and without any compulsion whatsoever, do put away, dismiss
and drive out thee, N., daughter of N. and of N. or of whatever other
name thou mayst be called, of such and such a place, thee, who have been
up to the present my wife. And I now repudiate thee ; thee, N., daughter
of N. and N., or of whatever other name thou mayst be called, of such and
such a place, so that thou art free and thine own mistress, able to marry
whom thou pleasest, no man hindering thee ; this to date from to-day
and for ever. See, then, thou art free to marry whom thou wiliest, and
let this be to thee on my part, the instrument of repudiation, the letter
of divorce, the certificate of dismissal, according to the Law of Moses and
of Israel ! Reuben, son of Jacob, witness Eleazar, son of Gilead, witness. '
2 Cp. Weil's note on Josephus (A. J., IV, viii, 253) : ' A man who wishes
to separate himself from the woman who dwells with him from any motive
whatever and this sort of man is common enough is bound to declare
in writing that he will have no further relations with her.' (Cp. A. J., XVI,
198 ; Life, 426.)
3 / Qidduchin, 580, following the amor aim of the fourth century.
ii6 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
to the Mosaic legislation on the point He opposed the
primitive plan of Almighty God as it appears in creation
itself. On this question, Victor's comment throws a good
deal of light.
' Christ's teaching here was hard to accept and likely to
lead to misrepresentation, so He appealed straight to the
primitive law. " From the beginning of Creation," He says,
" God made them male and female," that is, from the
beginning He prescribed something that was the very
reverse of the current tradition. . . . Nor was His
argument based only on the work of creation, but also even
more on the direct precept of Almighty God . . . for by
the law prescribed by Him, God makes it clear that the same
man ought always to live with the same woman, without
ever breaking the bond between them ; for they are, He
says, born of one stock, and they form but one body.'
It is to be noticed that our Lord here appeals from the
law of Moses to the primitive law an appeal unique in the
Gospels, although paralleled by S. Paul's similar appeal
from Moses to Abraham. Only Christ Himself could have
had the authority necessary to originate such a method, and
to interpret the law as a Master. This authority had
already been claimed in the Sermon on the Mount, but
there it was used only to make the law more perfect and more
personal in its scope. Here, too, our Lord's authority is
exercised in the same sense, but it is more unequivocally
affirmed, and does not hesitate to annul a concession of
Moses himself. But, once safely home, the disciples, who
were rather disturbed at our Lord's reply, were able to enter
more deeply into the question, while His own treatment of
it differs from His method in the more public setting of the
Sermon on the Mount. Then He was speaking to the
people as a whole, but now to the privileged audience of His
own disciples ; and consequently, in this privacy, He did
not shrink from stating a conclusion which He had not
affirmed in the discourse itself. In S. Matthew's account we
read : ' His disciples say unto Him : If the case of a man
with his wife be so, it is not expedient to marry.' The follow-
ing is S. Jerome's comment : ' Marriage becomes a heavy
burden if a man can only dismiss his wife for adultery. What
is to happen if she drinks, is bad-tempered, troublesome, dissi-
pated, gluttonous, a gadabout, quarrelsome, a scandal-
monger ? Must she be kept ? Yes, indeed, for better for
THE FEAST OF DEDICATION 117
worse. We were free, and have voluntarily placed the yoke
on our necks. So the Apostles, seeing that the yoke is indeed
heavy, express their feelings quite simply in the remark :
" If the case of a man with his wife be so, it is not expedient to
marry." '
Our Lord did not contradict them by any means, but He
raised their thoughts from those somewhat selfish levels to
the quest of the kingdom of heaven. For the sake of that
kingdom it was good to renounce marriage altogether. And
He concludes with His customary formula when discoursing
on a higher or more mysterious plane : " He that can take,
let him take it."
And, in order to engrave it more deeply on their minds,
Jesus, as He often chose to do, gave a slightly paradoxical
turn to His teaching at this point. A Protestant author,
Reuss, with little sympathy for the celibate state, has, none
the less, very accurately reproduced the sense of our Lord's
remarks about the eunuchs who had made themselves such
for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. ' Generally,' he
says, ' the term eunuch is applied to persons impotent by
nature or mutilated by the hand of men ; but, for my part,
I would also apply it to those who have freely and courage-
ously renounced all that the married life can give of moral
and material delight, in order to devote themselves to higher
things.' And Reuss goes on to ask whether the last phrase,
' let him take it ' is to be understood only in an intellectual
sense : ' Let him understand it, if he can,' or, as he himself
prefers, ' in a moral sense,' translating : ' let him " take
it " who can adopt this principle in his own life, rise to this
height, impose such an obligation upon himself, and who
is capable of such self-sacrifice, and we think,' he continues,
' that this is a perfect translation of the original.'
We entirely accept this second interpretation, but it does
not exclude the first. On the contrary, the high moral
standard here upheld by our Redeemer, as in so many other
cases, can only be fully understood by those who have tried
to apply it in real life. There is no question here of a merely
speculative understanding of the matter, but of a sympa-
thetic appreciation, that can enter into our Lord's intimate
thought, make it our own and let it pour out into our lives.
An Anglican writer, Plummer, also far from being favourable
to celibacy, justly observes : ' This passage should be com-
pared with Christ's sayings in which He declares that His
n8 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
disciples must be ready, if called upon, to sacrifice all they
possess, even their very life, for the love of Him. 3 Really,
this is only just one of those counsels which are part of the
scheme of the perfect life ; another of which had only
lately been put by Jesus before the rich young man : ' If
thou wilt be perfect, go sell what thou hast and give to the
poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven. And come,
follow Me.' Unfortunately the young man heard our
Lord's words, but did not act on them. And it is the same
thing here : many hear and read ; only a few apply the
principles in their own lives. Later on we shall find S. Paul
(i Cor. vii, 8, 32) dropping hints of the same kind
restrained but full of power for those whom grace had
touched.
' And they brought to Him young children, that He
might touch them. And the disciples rebuked them that
brought them. Whom when Jesus saw, He was much
displeased and saith to them : Suffer little children to
come unto Me and forbid them not ; for of such is the
kingdom of God. Amen I say to you, whosoever shall not
receive the kingdom of God as a little child shall not enter
into it. And embracing them and laying His hands upon
them, He blessed them.' (Mark x, 13-16 ; cp. Matt, xix,
13-15 ; Luke xviii, 15-17.)
Earlier in the Gospel story (Matt, xviii, 2) we have seen
Jesus enter a house at Capharnaum, drawing towards Him
a little child and setting him forward as an example to His
disciples, whose ambition was leading them astray. Here
we have an incident of a somewhat similar kind. The
scene is once more the interior of a house, whither the
disciples have accompanied our Lord to have Him to
themselves, and ask Him as many questions as they please.
No sooner was He seen to enter, than children, probably
those of the household, were brought to Him, much to the
indignation of the disciples who thought they would weary
the Master, and distract His attention from more important
things, for example, the teaching He was giving to them-
selves. But Jesus is displeased at their attitude, and seized
the opportunity furnished by the incident to repeat yet once
again that it is to children and those like them that the
kingdom of heaven belongs. So He embraces the little
THE FEAST OF DEDICATION 119
ones, lays His hands on them and blesses them. A charming
scene and rightly dear to the piety of the Christian world. 1
Following on this passage in the three Synoptic Gospels
we have the story of the rich young man (Matt, xix, 16-30 ;
Mark x, 17-31 ; Luke xviii, 18-30) which forms a fitting
conclusion to our Lord's teaching on evangelical per-
fection. As we have already commented upon it (supra, pp. 94
if.) we will not return to it here, passing straight on to the
parable of the workers in the Vineyard, which follows
immediately in S. Matthew (xx, 11-16), but is not found
in the other synoptical writers.
This parable has been discussed almost as much as that of
the Unjust Steward and it is a stumbling-block to a good
many people to-day. ' Equal work, equal wages,' is a well-
known slogan, and our Lord seems to teach the exact con-
trary here. The truth is that it was not His intention, in
this passage, to throw light on the social question, or the
wages problem, or anything of the kind, as will be easily
seen by closer study of the text.
The theme of the parable is borrowed from everyday life.
Vineyards are rare in Palestine, to-day, but, in our Lord's
time, olives and vines were everywhere. The proprietor
introduced by our Lord goes out in the early morning to
look for labourers. In the East the vine is much less care-
fully tended than in the West, and its care requires less
manual work, since it is left to creep on the ground, without
being supported or tied up. For the vintage, however, labour
is needed, there as everywhere else. A working day had
1 Jewish writers have sought to show that this tenderness for little
children is the authentic spirit of Judaism. Thus Abrahams (Studies in
Pharisaism, 119) relates the following passage from the rabbinical collection
Echa Rabba : ' The Rabbi sent R. Assi and R. Ammi to visit the towns
of Palestine and see that all local affairs were in order. So one fine day
they arrived in a certain town and asked to see the guardians of the place,
upon which they brought them, the chiefs of the military. " But these
good men," said the Rabbis, " are not the guardians of the town, they
are its destroyers." " Who then," they were asked, " are its true
guardians ? " " Surely," they replied, " the teachers in the schools. The
peoples of the earth ask : ' Can we prevail against Israel ? ' No, not if
you can hear the children's voices, stumbling over their lessons in the
synagogues. . . . See how God loves children. When the Sanhedrin were
in exile the Shekinah did not follow them ; when the priests were exiled
the Shekinah remained behind. But when the children were exiled the
Shekinah went with them, for it is written : ' Her children are led into
captivity ' (Lam. i, 5), and almost immediately after : ' From the daughter
of Sion all her beauty is departed." ' A touching passage ; but its spirit is
quite different from that of the Gospel ; what is admired in these children
being merely the study of the Law.
VOL. II. I
120 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
dawned, and since the proprietor's regular employees
would not be sufficient, it was necessary at once to see about
hiring others. Nor would this be difficult ; there was no
need to look far or to make arrangements in advance. All
that was necessary was to visit the public resorts of the town,
and more especially the neighbourhood of its gates, where
the employer of labour would be sure to find what he sought.
The good man in our story did so, and a contract was made
on terms of a penny a day. J
Having engaged his workmen, the master followed them
to the vineyard ; but he knew that the work was urgent and
that his helpers were not yet enough. So he returned to the
public places at the third, sixth, ninth, and, finally, the
eleventh hour. It must not be thought that the labourers he
hired thus late had become lazy through enforced idleness ;
they responded to the first invitation to work that came their
way, making no agreement as to terms with the proprietor,
but leaving the matter to him. At last evening comes, the
time of payment ; and, following his master's instructions,
the steward paid the late-comers first. This was necessary
in the parable, the point of which depended upon those
hired first being able to compare their wages with the sum
that the late-comers received. This they did, and were highly
indignant at the result. The master took it all calmly, but
reminded them of their contract ; surely he can dispose
at will of his own money, without anyone having the right
to look askance at what he does.
The story is clear enough, but the question of appli-
cation arises. Two, not mutually exclusive, interpretations
have been advanced. There are two classes of workmen in
the story, those hired at the beginning of the day, and the
rest. With the first class there had been a formal contract,
but not with the second ; but the payment was the same,
and jealousy at once arose among those who had borne the
' burden of the day and the heats.' Thus reduced to its
essential elements the parable seems clear enough : the
first class represents the Jews who had long been workers in
God's vineyard under a contract of a very definite kind in
other words the Law, with its clearly defined obligations
1 This was the sum that Tobias offered to his son's guide : Tob. v, 15
(Greek version) : ' I will give you a drachma and all that is necessary.'
There was no question of providing food ; no doubt it was the same then
as in the East to-day ; the workman shifted for himself with a little bread
and olives and other fruits (Fonck, p. 352).
THE FEAST OF DEDICATION 121
and rewards. But there are other workers, long idle because
unreached by the Master's call. No sooner do they hear it
than they betake themselves to the work at once, but with-
out contract or agreement of any kind ; late-comers, they
throw themselves into their task with all the energy at their
command, relying on the Master to treat them justly, and
when evening comes they are pleasantly surprised to receive
payment for a whole day's work. The Jews are indignant
both at the call itself and at the reward, but Almighty God
would have them know that He is the Master of His own
gifts and that He has done them no wrong at all. In their
murmurs we have an echo of the elder brother's indignant
complaint. 1
This comparison with the Prodigal Son reminds us of
S. Damasus' question to S. Jerome and the reply. In the
early labourers, representing the eldest son in the com-
panion parable, we can see the Jews, but also, in a wider
sense, every just person who, like the Pharisees, prides him-
self on his righteousness, and looks askance at the overflowing
mercy of God. We shall grasp the point better if we com-
pare this parable of the Gospel with one of the Talmud,
similar in theme but very different in its moral bearing. 2
' To whom is Rabbi Bun bar Chaija to be compared ?
To a king who hired many workmen. Among them was
one who had performed a difficult piece of work with con-
spicuous ability and care. So what did the king do, but
make him his companion and take him about wherever he
went. At evening time the workmen came to receive their
wages, and this man received full wages like the rest.
Whereat the labourers murmured, saying : " We have
worked hard all day, and this man who has only worked
two hours, receives the same wages as we." But the king
replied : " This man has done more in two hours than you
in a whole day." In the same way Rabbi Bun applied
himself more to a study of the Law in twenty-eight years than
1 Loisy, 228 : ' At bottom this parable has the same meaning as that
of the Prodigal Son. Our Lord had no intention of teaching that absolute
equality is the law of the kingdom of heaven, for elsewhere He lays it
down that there is a certain proportion between sacrifice and reward, and
that there are differences between the many mansions in the kingdom of
heaven ' (Luke xix, 1127 > Matt, xix, 28, 29) : but He rejects the whole
idea of privileges for certain groups and proclaims God's goodness and
justice to all men without distinction of any kind.'
2 /. Berakot, II, 8 ; cp. Fonck, 360.
122 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
did others in a hundred years.' 1 In this little story, it is the
exceptional assiduity that the Master rewards, while in the
Gospel parable it is of His own generosity. Already we have a
hint of this lesson in Wisdom iv, 1 3 : ' Being made perfect in a
short time, he fulfilled a long time. For his soul pleased
God. Therefore He hastened to bring him out of the midst
of iniquities.' And we find it more strongly stated in
S. Paul (Rom. ix, 14-16) : ' What shall we say then? Is
there injustice with God ? God forbid ! For He saith to
Moses : I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy.
And I will shew mercy to whom I will shew mercy. So
then it is not of him that willeth nor of him that runneth, but
of God that sheweth mercy.'
Above all, God is independent in the distribution of His
gifts and jealous of His independence ; nor must the just
who have long served Him take it amiss that the sinner who,
although late, has answered God's call should receive the
same reward as themselves.
This personal application of the parable, to the just and
sinners, seems to be suggested by the evangelist himself;
for the words with which he introduces the story closely
connect it with what has just gone before, that is, with our
Lord's reply to S. Peter's question inspired by the incident
of the rich young man. '. . . you, who have followed Me,
in the regeneration when the Son of Man shall sit on the seat
of his majesty, you also shall sit on twelve seats. And many
that are first shall be last : and the last shall be first.' And
this same sentence comes at the end of the parable, as its
fitting conclusion : ' But many that are first shall be last,
and the last first ; ' with evident reference to our Lord's
disciples, many of whom, in the eyes of the Pharisees, were
the least in the kingdom of heaven. But they have become
the first. 2
1 On the Jewish conception of Divine Retribution as compared with
Christ's teaching here, cp. Billerbeck, Exkurs 20 (IV, pp. 484-500).
2 A good many manuscripts add : ' Many are called but few chosen.'
We shall find these words elsewhere (xxii, 14). They do not seem to be in
place here.
CHAPTER IV
THE RAISING OF LAZARUS. JESUS AT JERICHO
/. The Raising of Lazarus.
THE story contained in chapter xi of S. John's Gospel is of
capital importance both for the evangelist and for our-
selves, since the whole purpose of this Gospel, dictating the
choice of episodes and apparently of miracles, is to ground
the faith of its readers in Jesus Christ the Son of God (xx, 31),
and from that point of view, no other miracle could have
been so effective as this. The raising to life of a person who
had been dead for four days, corruption having already set
in, and this at the very gates of Jerusalem and on the eve of
the Passover before a crowd of witnesses, favourable and
otherwise, is manifestly a work of God, bearing the clearest
possible witness to His Divine Son. At the same time it is
a revelation of His glory : the Word made flesh is the life of
the world, a fact never more evidently shown than on this
day when, by a word, He raised the dead to life.
These two aspects of the miracle cannot be separated from
each other ; here, as throughout the Fourth Gospel, the
flesh is shown united to the spirit, so that in this outstand-
ing event, especially the historical reality of the fact cannot
be severed from its theological meaning. It is, most surely,
a revelation from on high into which faith alone can fully
penetrate but which is, at the same time, a reality that can
be seen and touched. And this is rendered all the more sure
by its close connection with our Lord's condemnation and
death, which form the last phase of His life.
It was the commotion caused by this miracle that precipi-
tated the Sanhedrin's final decision to bring about the death
of Christ. In his Vie de Jesus, Renan was compelled to reduce
this whole narrative to a misunderstanding, while at the
same time he had to recognize that this ' misunderstanding '
was a necessary support of the whole historical structure
123
124 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
whose solidity he did not for a moment deny. ' It is a remark-
able thing,' he says, ' that the story of the raising of Lazarus
is so closely linked with these last pages of the Gospel that,
if it be rejected as imaginary, the whole structure of these
last weeks of Jesus' life, so solidly presented here, falls at a
single blow' (513-514). It is enough to read these two
passages to realize the inconsistency of the author's position.
We can readily understand that the silence of the Synop-
tics on so stupendous a miracle is bound to cause some
surprise. This silence ought to be explained, and it can
be ; x but what is not only inexpli cable but clearly inad-
missible is the theory that we have here an allegory
embodied in fiction, the fruit of S. John's imagination ;
that when he wished to ground the faith of the disciples on
certain testimony, he relied upon the wildest dreams, and
that he explained the murderous resolve of Caiphas and his
party as the effect of a miracle imagined by himself.
The precise and detailed introduction prefixed by S. John
to this portion of his narrative carries us back once more
beyond Jordan to the scenes where John baptized and to
which our Lord withdrew after the Feast of the Dedication
(x, 40), and it was in this quarter that He was found by the
messengers whom Martha and Mary had sent. We may
reckon about five hours' journey from Bethania to Jericho,
and if one or two more hours are allowed for the passage of
the Jordan, it would have meant a day's travel before Jesus
could have been reached. After receiving the message He
stayed where He was for another two days before setting out,
and reached Bethania four days after Lazarus' death ; so it
was not until the last moment that the two sisters had sent
to tell Jesus what was happening, the sick man dying while
1 The best explanation is based on the system of instruction followed
by the Synoptics, which passed lightly over our Lord's ministry in Jeru-
salem up to Palm Sunday ; a method probably imposed by S. Peter
himself on those responsible for the catechetical teaching of the primitive
church. Peter, personally, had been intimately connected with the
Galilean ministry, while he does not seem to have followed that of Judea
to the same extent. (Cp. Bernard, 5. John, pp. clxxxiii and 381 ; Lagrange,
L'Evangile, p. 408.) Besides, it would seem that even in our Lord's lifetime
the Jewish authorities contemplated getting rid of Lazarus (John xii, 10),
and probably their hostility still pursued him later on, and his sisters as
well. Consequently silence was dictated both by prudence and by the
respect due to our Lord's friends. On the other hand, when John wrote,
Jerusalem had been destroyed, the Sanhedrin had lost all power, and the
family of Bethania had ceased to exist. Similarly, at the present day,
after half a century passes, any biographer possesses a freedom in writing
that would not be his on the morrow of his hero's death.
THE RAISING OF LAZARUS 125
the messenger was still on his way. We may fairly infer that
the disease took a rapid course, but it is at the same time
most probable that our Lord's friends, knowing the danger
He ran in Judea, hesitated to call Him back. It is in har-
mony with 'this that when, in view of the imminent crisis,
they decided to inform Jesus, they did not even then ask Him
to come, but merely sent the message : ' He whom Thou
lovest is sick.' By way of introducing the sick man to his
readers, S. John notes that he lived at Bethania and was
brother to Martha and Mary, which proves that the two
sisters were known in the Christian community ; and, to be
more definite still, he recalls Jesus' anointing at Mary's
hands. If Mary and the Magdalene are to be identified, this
anointing would be the same as that narrated by S. Luke
(viij 37) j if they are distinguished, it may be thought that
S. John here mentions in advance the anointing to be
recorded later on (xii, 3) no doubt already well known to
those who would read his book.
Our Lord's reply, as often, in S. John's pages, was of a
mysterious kind : ' This sickness is not unto death, but for
the glory of God : that the Son of God may be glorified by
it.' This was naturally taken both by the messenger and by
the disciples as implying that the sickness was not mortal,
but our Lord was looking further than that. By this death,
which was no more than a passing accident, He saw that the
common glory shared by His Father and Himself would be
made known ; the same miracle was about to glorify both
Father and Son and at the same time be a revelation of both.
'Jesus loved Martha and her sister Mary.' We may
wonder why this love is mentioned here. Our Lord's words
are sometimes connected with those almost immediately
following : ' He still remained in the place two days,' the
inference being that just because He loved them He
wished to test their love and trust in Him. The thought is
sound enough, but as an interpretation of the present
passage it seems a little forced, while it would appear
natural to take all that follows as expressing one idea, namely,
that because He loved them He went to them after the two
days' delay. And if it be asked further, whether this same
delay was to give time for Lazarus' death in order to increase
the stupendous nature of the miracle about to be performed,
we reply that this would not seem to be the case, especially
since, as we have seen, Lazarus was already dead when the
126 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
messenger reached our Lord. At this solemn moment, as all
through His life, Jesus awaited His Father's time. ' My
hour is not yet come,' He had once said at Cana of Galilee.
And now, once more, He waited, and when the hour
predestined by His Father came, then, and then only, did
He set forth.
And it was then that He said to His disciples : ' Let us go
into Judea again.' It was just this return into Judea that
they feared, and it was to cure them of this fear that the
Master makes a point of calling forth its avowal. And
the disciples respond at once : ' Rabbi, the Jews but now
sought to stone Thee and goest Thou thither again ? '
Here we sense something of the state of mind described by
S. Mark (x, 32), when Jesus went before, and they followed
astonished and afraid. And our Lord reassured them by one
of those sayings so often on His lips, and especially recorded
by S. John. When, at the Feast of Tabernacles, He was
about to cure the man born blind He had said : ' I must
work the works of Him that sent Me, whilst it is day ; the
night cometh when no man can work ' (ix, 4) . And it is the
same thing now : ' Are there not twelve hours of the day ?
If a man walk in the day he stumbleth not, because he seeth
the light of this world. But if he walk in the night, he
stumbleth because the light is not in him.' And a little later
He will be saying to His hearers : ' Yet a little while, the
light is among you.. Walk whilst you have the light, that the
darkness overtake you not. And he that walketh in dark-
ness knoweth not whither he goeth. Whilst you have the
light believe in the light, that you may be the children of the
light ' (xii, 35-36). True, the sense is a little different here
where He is no longer speaking of Himself but of those who
follow Him and walk in His light. But the root idea is the
same. While we have God's protection and walk in His
light, progress is assured and work fruitful. In that light He
Himself was walking at the moment, but in a few days the
night would have come upon Him and He would tell His
enemies : '. . . this is your hour and the power of dark-
ness ' (Luke xxii, 53) .
But here He went on at once to say : ' Lazarus our friend
sleepeth : but I go that I may awake Him out of sleep.' As
so often, the disciples failed to understand, and always
fearing this journey into Judea, took ad vantage of His words
to dissuade Him from going there. ' If he is sleeping,' they
THE RAISING OF LAZARUS 127
said, in effect, ' he will recover, therefore why expose yourself
to needless danger ? ' But Jesus persisted in His resolve and
at last told them plainly : ' Lazarus is dead. And I am glad
for your sakes that I was not there, that you may believe.
But let us go to him.' It was then that Thomas said : ' Let us
go also, that we may die with Him,' a remark that betrayed
more love than trust ; for in spite of the Master's encourage-
ment he could not shake off the impression that they were
going to their deaths, although he meant to go with a good
heart. It was the same after the Resurrection. Deeply
attached to Christ, and utterly overcome by His death,
he abandoned himself to discouragement, as now to his
fears. So they set forth.
The scene is now abruptly transferred to Bethania near the
gates of Jerusalem. The name of the present-day village,
El-Azarieh, recalls the memory of the miracle, but the place
itself is a mere hamlet inhabited by some thirty families of
the Mohammedan faith. Martha and Mary were there
when our Lord arrived, but not alone, a good number of
their Jewish friends having come to pay the visits of
condolence in the customary way. The term ' Jew ' usually
has a sinister significance with S. John, and it is the same
here, for we shall see before long that these visitors were
hostile to our Lord. The presence of this ill-favoured com-
pany explains many of the details in the events about to be
described, and makes the miracle more evident by supplying
witnesses who up to then had been adversaries of Christ.
The two sisters themselves appear here with the same diverse
characters as in S. Luke (x, 38). Martha is still the woman
of activity and the mistress of the house ; it is she who was
told that Jesus had arrived, and upon receiving the news she
went to meet Him at once. Mary, less active and more
sensitive, was entirely absorbed in her grief, remaining in her
room and knowing nothing of what was going on outside.
Martha's first word is a cry of grief and regret, quite un-
mingled with reproach. ' If Thou hadst been here,' not,
' if Thou hadst come,' were the words she used. No doubt
the cause of that fatal absence was our Lord's persecution
by the Jews, but the stark fact was that the sisters had lost
their support and that he whom Jesus loved was dead.
However, Martha still hoped without being able to define
her hope : ' I know that whatever Thou shalt ask of God,
God will give it Thee. 5 It was only the expression of an
128 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
imperfect faith, but it was a beginning, and Jesus meant to
strengthen and develop it. ' Thy brother shall rise again,'
He said, confining Himself to a general statement in order
to lead Martha to a higher level of thought. But at present
she dared not go any further, taking her stand on the
Jewish belief in a general resurrection and uncertain if she
ought to ask for anything more. It was for Christ Himself to
lead her on if He so willed, and so, still without definitely
promising the half-foreshadowed miracle. He confined Him-
self to the general statement that should be the foundation
of Martha's faith and of that of Christians in every age :
' I am the Resurrection and the Life.' It was a lesson that
had been already given in the discourse on the Bread of
Life, and the line of exposition followed in both cases is the
same. Commencing by a general statement to be made
more precise later on (vi, 35) : ' I am the Bread of Life,'
Martha understood that the Master was calling upon her to
believe, and responded by making a profession of faith
in which she gave a full and deliberate adhesion to the
mystery He revealed : ' Yea, Lord, I have believed that
Thou art Christ, the Son of the Living God, who art come
into the world.' * Then she calls Mary, her sister, saying in a
low voice : ' The Master is come and calleth for thee.'
The whole episode now moves on ; tensely and rapidly,
with every incident in place. Probably Jesus Himself sent
Martha to look for Mary, at the same time counselling her
to act in secret ; for the danger realized by the Apostles
with growing apprehension as they approached Jerusalem
was only too real, and the Jews surrounding Mary at the
moment were for the most part enemies of our Lord.
Martha fulfilled her mission with discretion, but she could
not keep all her friends from following her sister, and
Almighty God could make these hostile bystanders minister
to His greater glory. Mary was absorbed in grief and
1 Godet justly observes : ' It would be strangely to underrate this
profession of Martha if, like some, we were to see in it a simple confession
of inability to understand what Jesus had just said. " I understand
nothing of the profound truths of which you are speaking, but I believe
you to be the Messias." This would be almost to burlesque a scene of the
utmost gravity. By her simple reply : " Yes, Lord," Martha certainly
accepted everything that Jesus had just stated about Himself. Only she
did not feel in a position to put into words on her own account her faith
in mysteries so new to her, and so used familiar terms to express the
fact that to her Jesus represented all that was greatest and best, and that
whatever He might say about Himself would never be too much, at least
for the faith of her with whom He was speaking then.'
THE RAISING OF LAZARUS 129
love, but she rose at once and throwing herself at the
Master's feet repeated her sister's words : ' Lord, if Thou
hadst been here my brother had not died.' In consoling
Martha, more active in disposition and temperament and
less absorbed in her grief, our Lord had appealed to her
faith ; with Mary, more highly strung and therefore suffer-
ing more, He acted differently and wept with her. This
keen emotion of Jesus has been interpreted in various ways.
In one view it was a reaction against the false grief of those
who surrounded Him ; others ascribe it to mental anguish
at the tyranny of death and of the Devil ; while others see
in it a strong reaction on our Lord's part against a too
sentimental emotion which He wished to keep in check ;
Loisy would carry the whole incident into the metaphysical
sphere : ' Christ,' he says, ' was filled with loathing at the
sight of all these people weeping over a dead body in the
presence of Him who is the Source of all Life.' 1 Such
explanations are too subtle, and fail to express the intense
emotion and simple naturalness of the scene. We have here,
before all else, grief for a dead friend, together with indig-
nation at the hostility of so many of those present, whom the
miracle will in no way convince, but rather supply them
with a deadly weapon against our Lord Himself. 2 However,
controlling His emotion, our Lord asked : ' Where have you
laid him ? ' and followed where Mary and her companions
led the way, weeping as He went.
Once more we are conscious of the reality of the human
nature that the Son of God had taken to Himself : ' If/
remarks Godet, ' Saint John's Gospel was, as Baur believed,
the product of mere speculative thought, this particular
verse (31) would not be here at all. Jesus would have raised
His friend with a look of triumph and a light heart, as a
veritable Logos, human in outward appearance and in
1 Quatrieme Evangile, 2nd ed., p. 350.
2 Godet remarks : ' For a similar display of emotion we have to turn
to John xiii, 21, where Jesus is seen bracing Himself to face the fact of
Judas' treachery. " He was troubled in spirit ..." a parallel that throws
some light on our Lord's action here. . . . By this miracle, the most glorious
that He ever worked, He supplied His enemies with an additional motive
for His condemnation. A section of the very people whose sobs urged
Him to action would be among those who would make Him pay for the
crime of having conquered death. Horror seized Him at the thought,
revealing a devilish perversity that shook His pure soul to its uttermost
depths. We may recall Jesus' own saying : " Many good works I have
shewed you from My Father. For which of these works do you stone Me ? "
Here we have the most direct application of these words.'
130 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
nothing else. ... It is not with a heart heavy as a stone that
one raises someone from the dead.'
This is the only passage in the Gospels 1 in which we read
of the tears of Christ (eSdicpva-ev, lacrimatus esf), with the
exception of Luke (xix, 41), where we see Jesus weeping
(eK\avcrev, flevit] over Jerusalem. In both cases we are
conscious of the depth of human emotion thus moved by the
death of a friend and indeed of all mankind, and grieving
over the approaching destruction of His city and His race.
In view of an affection so tender and moving as this, the
Jews became divided among themselves, and it is at this
point that we begin to sense the hostility that, at least in a
number of cases, the miracle could in no way disarm.
Some gave way to the emotion of the moment, remarking
simply : ' Behold how He loved him. 5 But others threw off
all such impressions with the argument : ' Could not He
that opened the eyes of the man born blind, have caused
that this man shouldst not die ? ' They would not so argue
for long, it is true, but the fact that they did so at all is
enough to betray their hesitation, and even suspicion. It
seemed difficult to think that such grief could be sincere, in
view of such powers over nature as He seemed to possess.
Or perhaps, after all, the recent miracle was not really the
wonderful work that it had been taken to be. No allusion
seems to have been made to the other occasions when our Lord
had raised from the dead. These miracles had taken place far
from Jerusalem. No, it was the cure of the man born blind
which affected them so profoundly. They had witnessed it
themselves and its memory was still fresh in the Holy City.
'Jesus, therefore, again groaning within Himself,
cometh to the sepulchre. Now it was a cave and a stone
was laid over it. 3
This summary description of Lazarus' tomb may be supple-
mented by what we know generally of Jewish burial customs,
and by what we can still see in Palestine at the tombs of
the kings, or, notably, at that of our Lord Himself. These
tombs are simply caverns, natural or otherwise, in the
solid rock, closed by a large stone rolled to the entrance. In
the present case, the stone seems to have been placed in front
of the cavity rather than against it, so that to leave the tomb
Lazarus would have no need to climb over the edge but
1 Cp. Heb. v, 7.
THE RAISING OF LAZARUS 131
merely to cross the threshold of the cave. Here, therefore,
our Lord came, groaning afresh as He heard around Him
the murmurs of witnesses without faith. Then came the
command : ' Take away the stone ' ; Mary remains
passive, but Martha intervenes, moved by consideration for
our Lord and by a kind of sisterly modesty. Lazarus had been
lying there four days now and ' he stinketh ' ; a fact she
had, no doubt, noticed in one of her visits to the tomb.
This intervention must not be taken as a sign of incredulity
on Martha's part. In no sense was she disowning her recent
profession of faith in Christ, but she was wholly preoccupied
by her mourning, and had little thought for anything but
the tomb and for him who lay there. And, for the last time,
our Lord called her to a higher plane : '. . . if thou believe
thou shalt see the glory of God. 3 It is the lesson that our
Lord was constantly teaching : men only believe when they
have seen ; while, really, sight should be the reward of
faith.
Then Jesus raised His eyes as if to His Father in heaven
and gave thanks in a loud voice. This act of thanksgiving
was a kind of solemn attestation publicly made, before a
miracle which would be decisive in evidential value, and in
the presence of witnesses hopelessly divided among them-
selves. We are reminded here of one of the first scenes of the
Galilean ministry ; the cure of the paralytic at Capharnaum,
in the presence of doubting and suspicious scribes : '. . . That
you may know that the Son of Man hath power on earth to
forgive sins. . . .' On this occasion such a declaration was
even more necessary, in the presence of bystanders more
malevolent still, and at the close of a ministry soon to be
broken by death. But this time the testimony was to be
of a more striking character than ever before.
In a loud voice, our Lord called upon Lazarus to come
forth. In all cases where He raised from the dead, Christ
acted as the Master of life and death. It was so with the
widow's son, and with Jairus' daughter, but it is more
manifest here than ever before. No doubt, so far as the
miracle itself was concerned, it was quite immaterial whether
the dead was audibly addressed or raised by a silent
act of the will. But on this occasion our Lord was thinking
of those around Him, openly giving thanks to His
Father and now publicly calling Lazarus, for their sakes
alone. And suddenly at our Lord's words, the dead man
132 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
came forth from the tomb, still bandaged and enveloped in
his shroud. S. John makes no attempt to describe the
emotion of the sisters or the excitement of the crowd, and
we will not attempt it either. We prefer instead to call
attention to the perfect composure of our Lord Himself,
always noticeable on these occasions. These miraculous
works were natural to Him, involving no disturbance or
excitement of any kind : at Nairn He had simply handed
the young man over to his mother, and when He had
raised Jairus 3 daughter with the words Talitha cumi He merely
ordered that she should be given something to eat. And it
is the same here : ' Loose him and let him go, 5 as He had
said to the paralytic : ' Take up thy bed and walk. 3 Life
is restored simply and completely, and there is nothing more
to be done but to live and go one's way.
' Many therefore of the Jews, who were come to Mary
and Martha and had seen the things that Jesus did,
believed in Him. But some of them went to the Pharisees,
and told them the things that Jesus had done. 5 (John xi,
45-46.)
And so immediately after this moving scene, full of the
Divine Glory, we turn to human scheming seen in its
cruellest and most sordid form. But this very contrast
only lights up this miracle of friendship all the more.
By returning to Bethania and performing before so many
witnesses such a striking deed of wonder, there is no doubt
that Jesus hastened His own death. So in the raising of
Lazarus we see not only a gracious gift from the Son of
God, but also the heroic devotion of a friend to whom the
miracle would cost His own life. Here, too, we can see
more clearly than in any other episode in the Gospels the
different reactions that the same divine work could produce
in different souls ; a lesson of which we cannot but remind
those whose temptation it is to be always looking for further
light from God. Surely nothing clearer could be desired
than this raising of a dead man, already in a state of de-
composition, by a single word. And yet, as always, God's
light could only enlighten those who wished to see ; leaving
the others blinder still. The first believed and the others
hurried to denounce Jesus to His foes.
It is often asked what it was that these people could find
to denounce. To raise a man from the dead is not a crime
THE RAISING OF LAZARUS 133
nor matter for an informer to use. Consequently, some
ancient authors, for example Theodore of Mopsuestia,
have conjectured that the accusation was one of sacrilege
on account of the disinterment of a corpse. But this is to
go too far to look for an explanation that is clear enough in
the text itself. When the council actually met, almost the
first words uttered were : ' This man doth many miracles.'
That was what the Pharisees were told and what alarmed
them so much ; Jesus could not be restrained or controlled
in His work, and He must therefore be got rid of altogether.
And of this attitude the informers are well aware : their
purpose is to intensify it by the news of this latest miracle,
either because they share the opinions of Jesus' enemies or
because they wish to flatter them. It was the Pharisees
they approached those first opponents of Christ who, from
the earliest days of His preaching, had persecuted Him in
Jerusalem and throughout Judea, and had then followed
Him everywhere He went in Galilee, in Philip's territory,
and in Perea. Very soon, however, more formidable
enemies took the matter in hand : these were the members
of the high-priestly circle all Sadducees. Too sceptical
to be much interested in the theological and legistic questions
canvassed by the Pharisees, they were too politically minded
to ignore our Lord's Messianic claims. Up to then they
had played only an obscure part in the opposition to Him,
but from then on they would come more and more to the
front. Henceforth it was not a question of excommunication
or of being cast out of the synagogue, but of death itself.
Both the leading parties were represented in the Sanhedrin ;
those in the circle of the High Priest being Sadducees while
the Scribes were Pharisees. Later, when the same assembly
met to sit in judgement on S. Paul, the Apostle was able to
find a way of putting the representatives of these two
fundamentally opposed factions at loggerheads with each
other ; but we shall see them united against our Lord,
urged on by motives, different, but equally strong. No doubt
this particular meeting was inspired by the Pharisees, who
having received the news of the miracle and its effect, would
have communicated it to the priests. There was no
question, on either side, of our Lord's miracles being
denied ; the Pharisees had already recognized them
anyhow, attributing them to Beelzebub; while the
Sadducees would not be likely to be interested in them
134 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
except to resent them as so many acts of imprudence in an
already sufficiently dangerous affair.
Almost at once Caiphas intervened in the discussion with
a crude and overbearing remark, ' You know nothing,' he
said, * neither do you consider that it is expedient for you
that one man should die for the people and that the whole
nation perish not.' This Caiphas was the High Priest for
that year ; since, although the High Priesthood was a
lifelong charge, the Romans had suppressed the Jewish
tradition on this point and frequently deposed the High
Priest for any reason that commended itself to them-
selves. Thus Josephus (A.J., XVIII, ii, 2, 34) records the
fact that Valerius Gratus ' took away the High Priesthood
from Annas and conferred it on Ishmael, then, shortly
after having deposed him, set up Eleazar, Annas' son ;
after a year deposing him in his turn and appointing Simon
in his place, who having held the office for not more than
a year was succeeded by Joseph, surnamed Caiphas ' ; Cai-
phas, owing his appointment to the favour of the Romans
in A.D. 25, was himself set aside by Vitellius in the year 37.
Caiphas was son-in-law of Annas who had been High Priest
from A.D. 7 t 14 and still retained the principal influence
in the nation, in spite of his removal from power. His inter-
vention at this time bears out Josephus' description of the
character of the Sadducees (B.J., II, viii, 14, 166) : 'The
Pharisees were distinguished by mutual affection and studied
concord among themselves for the sake of their common
good : but the ways of the Sadducees were much rougher,
both among themselves and towards their fellow-country-
men, whom they treated as members of a foreign race.'
Caiphas' brutal and cynical advice meant only one thing
in the mind of him who gave it, namely that to remove the
danger of a struggle with Rome, it was necessary to get rid
of our Lord. But, all unknown to himself, his words had
a much deeper meaning. Christ's death would be truly
the salvation of the Jews, and not of the Jews only but of all
mankind. So, of old, had the Spirit of God fallen upon
Balaam, making him bless God's people in spite of himself
(Num. xxiv, 5) ; so did other enemies of Almighty God, such
as Pharao and Nabuchodonosor, dream prophetic dreams
without being always able to interpret them themselves
(Gen. xxi, 2 ; Dan. iv, 2). And the evangelist, while
struck by the hidden sense of Caiphas' pronouncement,
THE RAISING OF LAZARUS 135
shows that this was more than fulfilled in the event, for all
God's scattered children were to be reunited in one body,
and that by our Lord's death. 'When I am lifted up,
I will draw all men to Me.'
Jesus was no doubt informed of this secret meeting of
the Sanhedrin, possibly by Nicodemus, and, consequently,
withdrew from the city. So far from this being a hasty
flight, it was a calm and prudent retreat. He knew that His
hour was not yet come, and He would not be seized before
He so willed, but He intended to take the precautions that
prudence would normally suggest. The little town of
Ephrem, frequently associated with Bethel (II Paral. xiii,
19 ; B.J., IV, ix, 9), was some leagues to the north of
Jerusalem, and, as the evangelist remarks, was ' near the
desert,' which made it easy, in case of pursuit by the Jews, to
escape thither and from there to pass into Perea. This was, in
fact, the route that our Lord followed when He went up
to keep the Passover ; to Jericho by way of the desert, and
thence to Jerusalem itself.
In spite of the measures passed by the Sanhedrin, probably
no great pains were taken just then in the attempt to secure
our Lord. It would not be difficult to track Him and His
little band of companions as far as Ephrem, but the main
object of the Jewish leaders in decreeing His arrest was, by
publicly outlawing Him, to intimidate His followers, and
force Him to hide Himself. In that way the paschal cele-
brations could pass without incident, and immediately after-
wards they would take the final steps to carry out their plans.
But our Lord was about to upset these arrangements and to
show His sovereign independence of all human scheming
by riding as a conqueror into the Holy City. No doubt this
would lead straight to His death, but it would not be the
obscure and unknown death planned by His enemies ; on the
contrary He would die at the height of the Paschal Feast,
surrounded by the Jews gathered together from all parts.
//. The Journey to Jerusalem. The Sons of %ebed.ee.
' And they were in the way going up to Jerusalem :
and Jesus went before them, and they were astonished :
and following were afraid. And taking again the twelve,
He began to tell them the things that should befall Him.
Saying : Behold we go up to Jerusalem, and the Son of
VOL. II. K
136 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
man shall be betrayed to the chief priests, and to the scribes
and ancients, and they shall condemn Him to death, and
shall deliver Him to the gentiles. And they shall mock
Him, and spit on Him, and scourge Him and kill Him :
and the third day He shall rise again. 5 (Mark x, 32-34.) *
This is the third occasion on which the Synoptics describe
our Lord as foretelling His own death, 2 a perfectly natural
thing to do under the circumstances of the moment.
The Lord was on His way to Jerusalem, and a presentiment
of the gravest danger was in the minds of all his followers.
S. Mark's narrative shows Him walking at the head of His
little band, but behind Him there was nothing but perplexity
and fear. The twelve were not His only followers, for there
was still the little band of disciples who had surrounded Him
ever since the journey had begun. Jesus stopped a moment to
let the twelve come up with Him, and then walked on with
them while He told them what they would have to expect,
this time in clearer and more detailed terms than ever
before. He had already foretold His betrayal, condemna-
tion, death and resurrection ; and now, for the first time,
He mentions His deliverance to the Gentiles, implying
His crucifixion, more explicitly included in S. Matthew's
version. For the first time, too, is it foretold that the ' Son
of Man ' is to be mocked, spit upon and scourged, but, once
more for the first time, Jesus now adds to these terrible
predictions the promise of His Rising from the Dead. And
still the Apostles fail to understand, betraying a blindness
in the face of repeated warnings that has astonished many.
Yet the explanation is simple when once we remember what
kind of Messias it was that was expected by these men.
The more their faith in Jesus as the Messias grew, the more
averse they became to these terrible prophecies, which did
1 Cp. Matt, xx, 1719 ; Luke xviii, 31-34; where we have the same
prediction with some variations. Thus Matthew has ' and (He shall be)
crucified ' ; Matthe\v and Luke : ' and the third day He shall rise again ' ;
Luke : ' And they understood none of these things, and this word was hid
from them : and they understood not the words that were said.' Mark
supplies the details about the Apostles' sadness, and Jesus walking at the
head of His little band. Luke only notes that all these sufferings had been
foretold by the prophets with reference to the Son of Man.
2 The first was after Cassarea Philippi (Mark viii, 31), and the second
after the Transfiguration (Mark ix, 31). S. Luke adds a third (xvii, 25)
which he embodies in a prediction of the Second Coming. It is most
probable that more than one warning of this kind had been given to the
Apostles without being recorded in the Gospels.
THE RAISING OF LAZARUS 137
violence to all their dreams. So they turned away their
minds from them only wishing to remember the promise
of His resurrection ; this was to be His final triumph and
they were impatient to take their part in it.
And this explains the incident that follows immediately,
that of the ambitious request of the sons of Zebedee. The
moment seems an ill-chosen one to be busy with thoughts
like these. It was the same when, after the Transfiguration,
our Lord had uttered a prophecy of a similar kind. Scarcely
had He told them : ' the Son of Man shall be delivered into
the hands of men : and they shall . . . kill Him and the
third day He shall rise again ' than, as they talked by the
way, the twelve began to discuss who should be the greatest
among them all. Their only thought was of Christ's glory,
and that first share in it that each meant to claim. It
was the same spirit that moved the sons of Zebedee now :
'. . . grant to us that we may sit, one on Thy right hand and
the other on Thy left hand, in Thy glory' (Mark x, 37).
According to S. Matthew (xx, 21), it is the mother who makes
the ambitious request on behalf of her sons : ' Say that these
my two sons may sit, the one on Thy right hand, and the
other on Thy left, in Thy kingdom.' In both cases the re-
quest is represented as in effect coming from the two
Apostles, as also in S. Matthew when our Lord replies directly
to them. For the rest, the mother's action is probable
enough, for she was among those who followed Jesus and
ministered to Him (Matt, xxvii, 56). *
Possibly besides being called forth by our Lord's prediction
of His Resurrection, this request was also prompted by the
promise of the twelve thrones (Matt, xix, 28) made not long
before the episode in question occurred.
But Jesus brings the two Apostles back to realities : before
there could be any question of glory it was necessary to
think of the chalice and baptism of suffering, two figures
1 If we identify Salome as the sister of Mary the Mother of Jesus
(supra, vol. I, p. 35), we can understand her action better ; as a near relative
of Jesus she intervened in favour of her sons, His first cousins. In a some-
what similar way Bethsabee interceded with David in order to secure the
royal succession to her son Solomon (3 Kings i, 15).
Although Fr. Lagrange in his S. Marc (p. 93) rejects this identification,
in commenting on this passage he writes (p. 278) : ' If the two brothers were
relatives of our Lord, being accustomed to Eastern laws on the privileges
of kinsmen, they probably thought they were within their rights. The
whole family would be considered as having " arrived " with that member
of it who had risen to power.'
138 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
of speech by no means new 1 to the Apostles, and well
understood by them. 2 ' Can you drink of the chalice that
I drink of? ' And on a generous and sincere impulse, not
dictated solely by ambition, but also by devotion to Christ,
the two brothers answer, ' We can.' It was much the same,
a little later, with S. Peter's protestations of fidelity. And
our Lord told them that they should drink His chalice, an
assurance, as we know, literally fulfilled, S. James being put
to death at Jerusalem in A.D. 44. As for S. John, those who
reject the authenticity of the Fourth Gospel take advantage
of our Lord's prediction recorded here, to assert that he too
suffered martyrdom, at least before the Synoptic Gospels
were compiled. But this is to do violence to history. 3
In any case our Lord's words present no difficulty, even if
they are only understood to mean that these two Apostles
would share in His sufferings in the same sense as His other
disciples. 4
During this incident of the Zebedee family, the ten stood
aside, but they understood what was happening well enough,
and were correspondingly annoyed. So Jesus called them
and tried to show them wherein true greatness lies. He had
given them a similar lesson before, just after the Transfigura-
tion, and on that occasion had set before them, as their model,
a little child (Mark ix, 35). But now He supplied them with
1 The cup of wrath given to Jerusalem by Jehovah : Isa. li, 17, 22;
Ps. bcxiv, 9 : ' For in the hand of the Lord there is a cup of strong wine
full of mixture. And He hath poured it out from this to that : but the
dregs thereof are not emptied : all the sinners of the earth shall drink.'
Ezech. xxiii, 31 ; Lam. iv, 21 (quoted by Lagrange) : similarly, misfortune
was often described as a flood engulfing a man (Ps. xvii, 5 ; xxxi, 6).
And it was in this sense that our Lord said : ' I have a baptism wherewith
I am to be baptized. And how am I straitened until it be accomplished ? '
(Luke xii, 50).
2 Loisy writes : ' It is very remarkable that the disciples who are
represented as not understanding our Lord when He foretells His death
in the clearest terms, seem to have no difficulty in doing so, when He speaks
in figurative terms.' The surprise here expressed will be greatly diminished
if it be taken into consideration that our Lord's plain language in this
matter was all the more frightening on account of its very clearness, and
that just because they were terrified, the disciples were unwilling to listen
or to understand. On the other hand, the traditional metaphors used by
Him caused no astonishment since they were already accustomed to them
and because their meaning was sufficiently vague.
3 Cp. L. de Grandmaison, Jesus Christ, I, pp. 146-54.
4 Cp. Mark viii, 34 (let him . . . take up his cross) ; Rom. viii, 17 (if
we suffer with Him, that we may be also glorified with Him) ; 2 Tim. ii,
ii (if we be dead with Him we shall also live with Him ; if we suffer we
shall also reign with him . . .).
THE RAISING OF LAZARUS 139
a much more touching and forceful example, in short His
own ; with due restraint reminding them of His coming
into the world and of its purpose, namely to serve. It is
the great lesson that He would teach them again later on at
the Supper, and that would be emphasized by S. John when
referring to the fact that ' the Father had given him all things
into his hands, and that he came from God and goeth to God'
(xiii, 3). So there began to act on the Christian conscience
a force destined later to attain such incomparable strength
that of the Imitation of Christ. We find little trace of it
in the Sermon on the Mount, for it represents an ideal set
by Jesus before those who wish to follow Him more closely
than others. He trained His disciples mainly by His daily
contact with them, while, from time to time, He expressly
called their attention to the need of copying His example
in their lives.
More especially do our Lord's last words on this occasion
call for notice : ' For the Son of Man also is not come to
be ministered to, but to minister and give His life a ransom
for many.' The whole dogma of the Redemption lies there.
Nor was this sublime thought of redemption through suffer-
ing alien from Judaism. Lagrange (Le Messianisme, 236)
recalls these words of the last of the seven Machabean
brothers (2 Mach. vii, 37) : ' But I, like my brethren, offer
up my life and body for the laws of our fathers : calling
upon God to be speedily merciful to our nation . . . but in
me and in my brethren the wrath of the Almighty, which
hath justly been brought upon all our nations, shall cease ! '
Or, still more explicitly in the fourth book of the Machabees,
' (the seven brothers) were as a ransom for the sins of the
people, so that by the blood of these pious men and by their
redemptive death, Divine Providence has saved Israel from
all the evils that afflicted her.' 1
We can well imagine that Caiphas had this idea more or
less clearly in his mind when, in unconscious prophecy, he
made his assertion that it is more expedient to sacrifice one
man than the whole people (John xi, 50). And far more
than all these, Jesus saw clearly the end to be reached and
the price to be paid. All around Him men were still
chasing the phantom of a Messias triumphant in a worldly
sense. He knew that the Son of Man must suffer, but also
that His sufferings would be the salvation of the people.
1 4 Mach. xvii, 22, quoted by Swete and Lagrange.
140 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
And to-day, for the first time, He appears to have spoken
definitely to His apostles on the subject : soon, on the
night of the Last Supper, He is to speak to them of it again :
' This is My body, which is given for you ; this is the chalice, '
the new testament in My blood which shall be shed for
you ' ; and the next day He consummated His redemptive
sacrifice, already begun.
///. Jesus at Jericho.
At the present day, when we have crossed the torrid and
fever-stricken valley of the Jordan and reached the foot of
the naked slopes behind which lie Jerusalem, we find it
difficult to see in the miserable hamlet of Er Riha what is
left of the Jericho of our Lord's time, a city of sun and
light, like Nice or Cannes to-day. The following is
Josephus' description of the district (B.J., IV, 8, 3, 469-4.73) :
' It can be said with truth that this soil is divine, since
it brings forth in abundance the rarest and finest fruits.
And, with regard to all the other products of the soil,
they can scarcely be equalled in any other climate, so
great is the fertility of everything which is put into the
ground in this country. The cause of this great fertility
seems to me to be the warmth of the air and the great
number of streams. This country has such a tropical heat,
that it is scarcely possible to go out of doors ; and as for the
water, if it be drawn before sunrise, and thereafter be
exposed to the air, it becomes exceedingly cold, quite
other than the atmosphere which surrounds it ; but,
in the winter, the water is tepid, and to bathe in it is a
real pleasure. Furthermore, the temperature is then so
mild, that, when the rest of Judea is covered with snow,
people go out here in linen garments.'
The amenities of a climate like this had attracted Herod
the Great, who had built a palace there ; Archelaus lived
there, and there was a Roman garrison in the place (B.J.,
II, xviii, 6). But it was not a Greek town like Tiberias or
Phasael ; priests and levites resorted there in large numbers
(Luke x, 31) ; and our Lord, who never entered Tiberias,
did not avoid Jericho and was willing to accept hospitality
from its inhabitants.
Jericho was the last stage in the journey from Perea to
THE RAISING OF LAZARUS 141
Jerusalem ; and, naturally, our Lord passed through it on
His way. The pilgrims were noisy enough and attracted
the attention of the citizens, but this was nothing to the
excitement caused by the knowledge that Jesus of Nazareth
was among them. Bartimeus, the blind man, began to cry
out : ' Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me ! ' which
was a sign of his faith and of that of those surrounding him ;
they believed that it was the Messias who was passing by !
Here we already have the first murmurs of the enthusiasm
of Palm Sunday ; but the disciples are annoyed. The
Master, doubtless engaged in teaching those about Him,
must not be disturbed in this way. However, all rebukes
only increased the persistence of the blind man. Then, as our
Lord stopped and called him, the attitude of the crowd is
at once changed ; full of expectation they ceased their
efforts to suppress Bartimeus' importunity and began to
encourage him instead. But there was no need ; ' casting
off his garment he leaped up ' and hastened to the Master's
side. ' What wilt thou that I should do to thee ? ' an offer
royal in its bounty from Him who had all power in heaven
and earth in His hands. ' Rabboni, that I may see. 5 At
once his prayer was answered and he ' followed Him in the
way,' encircled by a multitude loud in its praises of God.' 1
It had been our Lord's custom to enjoin silence upon those
whom He cured, but now He makes no attempt to hide the
miraculous character of His works or to restrain the
enthusiasm of the crowd ; and it was amidst their cries of
joy and triumph that He commenced the journey to
Jerusalem where He was to die.
As He was passing through Jericho, Jesus noticed a man
who had climbed a sycamore tree to get a better view of Him
as He passed. We know the familiar words addressed to him
by our Lord : c Zacheus, make haste and come down : for
this day I must abide in thy house.'
Zacheus' story is told by S. Luke (xix, i-io) in a manner
so detailed and vivid that it must be graven on the memory
of everyone who has read the Gospels at all. 2 When he
1 Mark x, 46-52 ; Matt, xx, 29-34 ' Luke xxiii, 35-43. The slight
variations in the three accounts have no bearing on the identity of the
miracle that they relate. Cp. Durand, S. Mathieu, p. 336 ; Valensin-Huby,
S. Luc, p. 332.
2 Certain points, however, remain obscure. Thus it may be asked :
' Was Zacheus a Jew ? ' The name is Jewish and is found in the Old
Testament, its meaning being ' pure.' Further, the Talmud mentions as
142 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
knew that Jesus was coming, Zacheus tried in vain to see
Him, so taking the means that lay to hand he climbed into
a sycamore tree, hoping to get a better view from there.
The apparent boldness of this step has been sometimes
criticized, and it is certain that among ourselves it would
cause astonishment if a receiver-general of customs climbed a
tree to see a great man go by. But it must be remembered
that in this sort of thing Eastern manners are not so serious
and ceremonious as ours, and that such eagerness as Zacheus
displayed would not provoke a smile. If there was any par-
ticular courage in his action, it was in his showing himself at
all to this crowd aflame with enthusiasm, in whose sight he
was of ill-favour and even an object of hate. But his reward
was to be far beyond anything that he could have hoped.
Possibly he had been noticed in the tree, and Jesus may
have heard remarks none too kindly passed about him by
the crowd. So He calls him : ' Zacheus, make haste
and come down : for this day I must abide in thy house. 5
The word ' must ' used by our Lord here is His usual term
for denoting some fact in His life that had been definitely
determined by His Father's will. So here we have one more
mystery of predestination in the fact that this sinner had been
designed by Almighty God to be our Lord's host and to be
saved by Him.
So Zacheus came down in great haste, to give a glad
welcome to our Lord. But then the criticisms begin to
make themselves heard. No doubt the rapid conversation
belonging to this very town of Jericho a certain Zacheus who was the
father of the famous Rabbi Jochanan ben Zacchai, and we know, in any
case, that it was no uncommon thing for a Jew to be employed as a
publican. However, a good many Fathers, including Tertullian, S. Chry-
sostom and S. Cyprian, believed him to be a pagan. This view is less
common to-day, but it is defended by Reuss, while Maldonatus regards
it as probable ; and the word ' sinner ' (9) can quite easily denote a pagan.
In this case it would be easier to understand the indignation of the Jews
(cp. Acts x, 28 ; xi, 3), and our Lord's reply : ' ... he also is a son of
Abraham ' (9), would acquire a new force. Still, we must not dwell toolong
on an uncertain point. Even if Zacheus were a Jew, we know from
S. Matthew's personal history that such visits as Jesus paid here were
odious to the Jews ; and this feeling would very likely be stronger in Jericho
where there were so many priests, while Zacheus' own rank and wealth
would serve to emphasize the significance of the step taken by our Lord.
A further question is whether Zacheus' statement about his deeds of
restitution and almsgiving refers to what was already his custom or to a
new resolution taken at the moment. S. Cyprian, followed by Godet,
takes the former view, but it does not seem a very probable one ; w. 9
and 10 show that up to then Zacheus had been a sinner and that it was
our Lord's coming that saved him.
THE RAISING OF LAZARUS 143
between the two was only audible to those who were quite
near, but everyone saw Jesus entering the house of a publican
and sinner, and a murmur of indignation passed through
the whole crowd. And so it appeared that our Lord's
constant teaching had not succeeded in winning over public
opinion to His side. The pharisaical instinct was too
strong, and it put the publican among those with whom one
did not take a meal. And Zacheus felt this almost at once.
So, coming to his guest he told Him the resolution he had
made, including much almsgiving and restitution ' four-
fold. 5 We are reminded of the law laid down in Exodus
xxii, i : 'If any man steal an ox or a sheep, and kill or
sell it, he shall restore five oxen for one ox, and four sheep
for one sheep. . . . If that which he stole be found with him,
either ox, or ass, or sheep, he shall restore double.' It is
clear that only in special cases was fourfold restitution for
stolen goods envisaged by the law ; restitution twofold and
fivefold being contemplated in other cases. Consequently
it was no legal consideration that dictated Zacheus'
conduct on this occasion, but the desire to make ample
reparation for all the wrongs he may have caused.
And this was his salvation. We know on our Lord's own
authority that it is more difficult for a rich man to be saved
than for a camel to pass through the needle's eye ; yet here
is a rich man, whose fortune seems, partly at least, to have
been ill-gotten, securing his salvation by amply satisfying
the rights of justice and by an abundant giving of alms.
And the fact only confirms what we have said more than
once about the alleged Ebionitism of S. Luke. We are not
told that Zacheus made himself poor or that he got rid
of all his goods : and yet salvation enters his home. It
follows that entire self-spoliation is not an essential condition
of salvation.
This converted publican will always be dear to Christian
piety, and in the Clementine Homilies (iii, 63) we find him
as S. Peter's companion and afterwards Bishop of Cassarea.
It is only a legend, and there seems no reason for us to improve
upon the vivid light thrown by the Gospels on the wealthy
publican of Jericho.
It was while He sat at Zacheus' table that Jesus spoke
a parable for the benefit of His fellow-guests, in which He
strove to dissipate some of their illusions about the Kingdom
of God, at the same time showing them something of His
144 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
own part in the Divine Plan. 1 S. Luke tells us that these
people were expecting the immediate manifestation of the
kingdom of God, nor is it difficult to understand the
source of this impatient anticipation of that event. Jesus,
who for so long had kept Himself in the background,
was now on His way to Jerusalem to celebrate the Pass-
over, and everyone felt that the final struggle between
Him and the chiefs of the people was inevitable and
close at hand. No one, in the enthusiastic crowd follow-
ing Him on His journey, could tolerate for a single moment
the thought that this struggle was to end in His death ;
while the murmurs that had followed His entry into
Zacheus' house proved that the Jews had discarded none
of their prejudices : according to them, the kingdom
belonged to the true children of Abraham ; to the holy
and the pure. And these claims, which nothing would
induce them to forgo, they were ready to stake on the
person of Christ Himself. After all the other miracles that
they had witnessed, here was the cure of the blind man :
surely none could resist a wonder-worker such as this ? No
doubt our Lord had told them more than once that His
power was not at the service of their dreams : but these
were hard words which they would not hear. And when
at last their illusions were shattered by His death, everything
seemed lost : ' We hoped that it was He that should have
redeemed Israel.' Still, our Lord would warn them once
again, at the same time showing them something of His own
function, of the opposition He would encounter and of the
punishment reserved for His determined foes (Luke xix,
12-27).
The theme that He chose to convey this lesson was the
undertaking of a man of high birth who went into a far
country to receive for himself the investiture of a kingdom. In
this connection all the commentators recall the history of
Archelaus. ' Everyone on the spot, 3 says Fr. Ollivier, 2
' could easily see the palace rebuilt by Archelaus, twenty-five
years before, after the fire started by Simon, rebel slave of
the first Herod. Our Lord's eyes would have rested on the
high marble walls, and as His heart went out to this people
1 'As they were hearing these things, He added and spoke a parable,
because He was nigh to Jerusalem, and because they thought that the
kingdom of God should immediately be manifested ' (Luke xix, u).
2 Ollivier, Revue biblique, I (1892), pp. 592 ff.
THE RAISING OF LAZARUS 145
who were dreaming of the restoration of David's kingdom
to the prince so lately fallen from the usurped throne of the
Asmoneans, He allowed His hearers to see something of the
anguish that the thought of Israel's approaching ruin,
intensified by these sad memories, brought to His soul.
A groan ran through the crowd at the thought of this man
whose ambition seemed justified by his high birth, but who
was in no way of royal descent and who had to supplicate
for the very right to assume a crown.' No doubt this is all
very vividly expressed, but I doubt if such pointed allusions
were really worthy of Christ ; and for the rest, all petty
sovereigns of the East were in the same position as Archelaus
himself. 1 The princes of Chalcis, Abilene, Commagene
and Damascus all had to receive their investiture from
Rome. It was in no way the sign of an inordinate ambition
meeting its reward, but the consequence of the subjection
of all nations to the Roman power. In 40 B.C. Herod the
Great had himself gone to Rome to secure the revision of
the decision of the senate by which Antigonus was made
king of Judea (A.J., XIV, vii, 3 ; B.J., I, xiv, 4). Again
in 4 B.C. Archelaus took the same step to obtain the con-
firmation of the disposition of his father's will, by which
he became king, and the Jews had sent a deputation of
fifty representatives to request that Judea should be
administered directly by Rome ; the result being that
Augustus refused Archelaus the title of king, but gave him
that of tetrach instead. A little later Antipas, in his turn,
went to Rome to demand the royal crown, and suffered ban-
ishment for his pains. Such events were frequent in those
days, and, in alluding to them, Jesus was not satirizing the
misfortunes of a fallen prince ; rather, He was reminding
His hearers of a subjection of which He had had only too
much experience among men ; and upon this background
He unfolded to them His position in relation to Almighty
God and His mission in the world.
The interpretation of the parable is easy enough. The
nobleman is Christ Himself, who had come into a far
country to receive the formal recognition of His reign over
men. This long journey denotes less the distance traversed
than the period during which He was absent from home.
We are conscious here of the teaching that, according to
S. Luke, our Lord wished to give His hearers. All around
1 Cp. Fonck, Parabeln, p. 631.
146 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
Him men were expecting the imminent appearance of the
kingdom of God : but they were mistaken, there would be
long delays yet. The King must first go away for a long
time ; then He would return invested with the insignia of
His kingship.
And there is another lesson to be drawn from the parable.
The opposition around Him was growing more menacing
every day. There were many who wanted neither Him
nor His rule. At present He would only bow before their
hatred, but later, when He returns, it will be His turn to
punish. And the parable ends on this terrible note : ' But
as for those my enemies, who would not have me reign
over them, bring them hither and kill them before me.'
And in forty years' time the storm thus predicted would
break over Jerusalem, the Holy City, and Christ's enemies
by hundreds and thousands would be massacred in the
Temple which had been their pride, and which was to be
their tomb. In this prediction of the last things we can already
see traces of something that will appear more clearly still
in the discourse at Jerusalem : the second coming of Christ
in His avenging power will not take place until the end of
time ; but we have its prelude already in the destruction
of Jerusalem, at once a presage and an anticipation on a small
scale of the end of the world.
This long journey of the king, with the hostility that
pursued him, his return and final vengeance, are features
that form a picture, and convey a lesson in themselves.
But side by side with this parable we have a second, that
of the ' pounds. 3 Before the king's departure he had
deposited his money in trust to his servants and, on his return,
demanded an account of its use. To this second part of
the parable corresponds that of the talents 1 recorded in
S. Matthew (xxv, 14-30). A man goes a long journey and
hands over to his servants five talents, two, and one talent re-
spectively, and at his return demands an account of what had
been entrusted to their care. The two first have put their
talents out at interest and have doubled the amount
entrusted to them, but the third has left his unproductive.
The two first are congratulated and permitted to enter
1 Maldonatus had already written (on Matt, xxv) : ' It is scarcely
probable that Christ would have repeated the same parable twice under
different forms, within an interval of only a few days. Luke has related
it in a setting of time and place that differs from that in Matthew, but it is
THE RAISING OF LAZARUS 147
into the joy of their Lord while the third is cast into outer
darkness, his talent being taken from him and given to
him that had ten.
Christ Himself is going away and for a long time, a state-
ment recorded both in S. Matthew and S. Luke. This
point ought not to be lost sight of when we are considering
the question of the Second Coming and the expectation of
Christ. The faithful in their easily-understood impatience,
moreover supported in this respect by Jewish aspirations
as well, may hope that a return so ardently desired will be
delayed but a short time ; but our Lord Himself has warned
us that we shall have to wait for His coming, in words that
are graven in the Gospel text.
But during the long time of waiting, the Master is aware
of the use made of the trust He has left in His servants'
hands. This is the lesson that stands out most clearly in
both parables. In both we have two groups the industrious
servants who have made the most of the money they have
received in trust, and the unenterprising and lazy ones who
have buried it out of sight. In the first group we have
several depositaries with unequal amounts left in their care,
but who have made equally praiseworthy efforts to turn
them to good account, with similar good results, and
receiving a similar reward. This equality of rewards is
especially stressed in S. Matthew, where each receives the
same invitation to enter into their Master's joy. In S. Luke's
version the reward is proportionate to the yield from the
money left in trust, at least in the sense that it increases
with it, but it is incomparably greater than its absolute
value, a gain of ten 'pounds' being rewarded by the
governorship of a whole province a faint reflection of the
difference between our poor efforts and their heavenly reward.
And it should be noted that this reward does not consist in
no strange thing that the evangelists should differ in these respects, once we
grasp that they are concerned with essentials of fact and not with their order
or date. We must therefore believe that Christ spoke this parable before
His entry into Jerusalem. This is asserted by Luke and while Matthew
is silent he does not contradict the fact. ... So far as the text of the parable
is concerned we may believe that Matthew has recorded our Lord's words
mpre exactly than S. Luke. He was present himself and, in any case, his
record seems the clearer of the two.'
These remarks of Maldonatus seem to me to be just. The differences
of detail between the two parables are manifold, but the resemblance is
so strong as to make probable the original unity of the parable. Certainly
it is clearer and easier to follow in Matthew's version. However, we take
it here at the point where it is inserted by Luke.
148 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
a kind of honourable retirement characterized by repose,
but in still greater activity, implying rule over others with
redoubled responsibility, if also with the joy of the Lord.
Nor do the two aspects exclude each other. Heaven is not
a place of restraint and inaction, but of more intense
activity than before. Even on earth, activity is not measured
by external effort, by occupations of a more or less absorbing
kind ; at this rate, it would often be the most energetic
who most developed their interior life. On the contrary,
true activity is the intimate life of the soul, checked by so
many things here below, but destined to expand in heaven
by participation in the very life of God Himself. If this be
understood we shall not expect, like the English author
Plummer, to find here an intimation of an indefinite suc-
cession of many lives and probationary states. This present
life decides our future, but it leads to a new life and not to
effortless repose.
Opposed to this group of active servants we find in both
parables the sullen and defiant figure of the man who had
secured the pound in his girdle, or buried his talent in the
earth, his sole excuse being that his master is a hard man ;
clearly showing that his idleness was inspired by a spirit
of injured pharisaism. Only one thing mattered and that
was, not to run any risk ; but our Lord's reply expressed
His condemnation of a calculating spirit, barren in itself
and insulting to Almighty God. Quite other is the attitude
of mind that He expects His servants to show. They must
work for God with confidence and zeal, not contenting
themselves with saying to their Master on His return,
' Behold, here is Thy pound,' but hoping like the others to
tell Him with modesty and yet with honest pride : ' Thy
money hath doubled in my hands.' And the love implied
in this attitude to our Lord will rest also on the confidence
with which they serve a master of whose goodness they are
well assured ; it will be their assurance against the risks
they may run in their efforts to do their best. A similar
lesson is found in the words : ' Be ye good bankers,' attri-
buted by several ancient writers to our Lord (Agrapha, II).
And this parable has yet another truth to teach, namely
that God's gifts and the talents He has entrusted to us
cannot remain unproductive without being lost ; that
whoever buries them out of sight destroys them, for all
practical purposes, by that very act ; that they cannot be
THE RAISING OF LAZARUS 149
preserved except by being turned to good account and
developed so far as opportunity permits.
Our Lord, in this parable, does not bring on the scene
those who dissipated the treasure entrusted to them with
a light heart, or who developed it to the detriment of the
Master who had confided it to their care. Of them He
says not one word ; but it may well be asked what the fate
of the fraudulent depositary will be, if the merely idle one is
treated in so severe a way ?
The last sentence of the parable is full of teaching for us
all :' ... to everyone that hath shall be given . . . and
from him that hath not, even that which he hath shall
be taken from him' (Luke xix, 26). When the Master
commanded the idle talent to be given to him who already
had ten, the bystanders were astonished, but He answered
them in the above words, which we have already met with on
our Lord's lips when He was explaining to His Apostles
the principles underlying the interpretation of His parables
(ibid, viii, 1 8) . On that occasion He made them understand
how the Jews, blind and deaf, could not but become
spiritually poorer and poorer, while the Apostles, because
they were already rich in the secrets of the Gospel, were
bound to become richer still. Here we have a similar lesson
but of wider scope. He who is without possessions loses
what he already has, a truth that applies in many different
departments of life fortune, knowledge, influence and the
rest, and is especially true in the realm of spiritual goods.
God's friends, those who are generous towards Him and
have risked for His sake all that they possess, will see these
possessions unceasingly multiplying in their hands, while
others are stripped of theirs more and more as the days go
by. This is the inexorable law of life, but it is also the Will
of our Heavenly Father, who is more pleased with the
heights of sanctity reached by one of His servants than He
is displeased with the unfaithfulness of a whole multitude.
CHAPTER V
THE LAST WEEK. THE ANOINTING AT BETHANIA. PALM
SUNDAY. DISCUSSIONS IN THE TEMPLE. THE CONSUMMA-
TION OF THE WORLD
/. The Anointing at Bethania.
AT Jericho, our Lord mingled with the crowd of pilgrims
going up to Jerusalem, but before entering the Holy City He
separated Himself from them in order to make a halt at
Bethania. 1 This was on Sunday, such a journey having been
impossible on the previous day, the Jewish Sabbath. Jesus'
friends at Bethania had decided to give a party in His honour,
and all the more because of the debt of gratitude they owed
Him, and of the danger that they knew threatened Him
only too closely. The guests met at the house of Simon the
Leper, a personage otherwise unknown to us, although it
has been supposed that he was the father of Lazarus and
his two sisters. He is not mentioned in S. John's account,
although even there Lazarus is introduced rather as a guest
than as the master of the house. Martha and Mary appear
just as we know them already : Martha full of external
activity, Mary giving herself in utter devotion, more
superbly expressed than ever before. Some of the purest
spikenard, doubtless imported from, the Indies, was preserved
in a flask, hermetically sealed. She breaks open the alabaster
1 Matt, xxvi, 613 ; Mark xiv, 39 ; John xii, i 10. According to
Matthew and Mark, the meal in Simon the Leper's house at Bethania was
immediately followed by Judas' step of seeking an interview with the
Sanhedrin in order to betray Jesus. The juxtaposition of the two incidents
explains why this narrative is placed just before the betrayal, instead of
being found, as in S. John, before the entry into Jerusalem. On the
connection between the anointing at Bethania and that which Jesus
received from S. Mary Magdalene in the Pharisee's house, cp. Fr. Le-
monnyer in Melanges Grandmaison, Recherches de Science Religieuse, 1928,
pp. 105-17 ; and Bernard, S. John, pp. 409-13. These authors and
especially the second make the most of the reasons for identifying not
the two anointings but the two central figures Mary Magdalene and Mary
of Bethania. Their reasons are strong but the objections on the other side
are not without force. Cp. Lagrange, L'Evangile de Jesus Christ, pp. 160 ff. ;
and supra, vol. I, p. 219, note i.
150
THE LAST WEEK 151
flask ; the oil, a pound's weight of it, enormous for so precious
a substance, begins to flow, and Mary pours it first on our
Lord's head. This was a usual mark of greeting and respect
which, however, the Pharisee in S. Luke's story had refused
to Jesus (Luke vii, 46). But immediately afterwards she
poured the rest of the substance on our Lord's feet, wiping
them with her hair, thus giving expression to her veneration
and gratitude by a prodigality and a salutation of so excep-
tional a kind. The whole house was filled with the odour
of the spikenard, and Judas made his famous protest. He
is not named by the Synoptics, who seem to imply that some
of the other disciples were associated with his action on
this occasion. Perhaps we need not see more in this than
a peculiarity of S. Matthew's style, but it may well be that
we have here a trace of the sinister influence of Judas, as
already beginning to affect the other Apostles.
The ground of his complaint may seem specious enough.
' Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence
and given to the poor ? ' There will always be those who,
in their wisdom, criticize generous gifts made in God's
service on the pretext of care for the poor, and in this case
the sum involved was considerable three hundred pence
and Judas would only ask thirty pieces for betraying our
Lord. Mary herself kept silence as in the incident recorded in
Luke x, 41 (cp. Luke vii, 40), but this time our Lord Himself
assumed the defence of one whose only thought was for Him
and who had no idea of defending herself. Judas could see
nothing in her action but a piece of useless waste, but in
our Lord's eyes it was an act of homage to His Sacred Body
and a kind of anticipation of its embalming after death. 1
Then, perfumes and precious substances would be used
without stint and without comment, and, practically, it
should be the same now, with His death so near a touching
allusion for all present and, one would think, a peculiarly
piercing one for Judas, since this death was to be his work ;
but he remained unmoved, suffering only from his outraged
1 John xii, 7 : ' Let her alone, that she may keep it against the day of
my burial.' Bernard (pp. 413, 421) observes that these words can be more
easily understood if Mary of Bethania is identified with Mary Magdalene.
In all four evangelists we find Mary Magdalene at the tomb of Christ ;
nor, apart from the present passage, is she ever called Mary of Bethania.
' Thus she who began His /Ta0xayt6s by anointing the Lord's feet in
Bethany, was among the women who finished the anointing of His body
eight days later.'
VOL. II. L
152 LIFE AND TEACHING OP JESUS CHRIST
greed. And our Lord adds r 1 ' Amen, I say to you, where-
soever this gospel shall be preached in the whole world,
that also which she hath done shall be told for a memory
of her ' a striking prophecy indeed and one that is fulfilled
daily under our very eyes ; a sublime reward, covering the
generosity of a moment with a glory that shall penetrate
everywhere, and last for ever.
It is easier to imagine than to analyse Mary's emotion
at hearing such words as these. Once more she felt the
joy of being defended by Christ, her soul full of wondering
love at this superb promise half-revealing infinite horizons
before her eyes. Yet she is more moved still at the thought
of our Lord's approaching death. Like the Apostles, and
doubtless more than they, she felt its nearness and groaned
in spirit, but then as always she kept silence, waited and
loved.
//. The Traitor Judas.
Meanwhile Judas was on the point of betraying his Lord.
It may be asked why Jesus, who knew him through and
through, should have entrusted him with the common
purse, thus, apparently, putting him in an occasion of sin.
But when he was first called, Judas was not unworthy of the
confidence placed in him by Christ, who made him one
of the twelve and gave him all the helps by which he might
become an Apostle and a saint. It was then that He, or
perhaps the little community as a whole, chose him for this
position of trust, for which, possibly, he was fitted by past
experience. In a matter like this our Lord did not wish to
use His foreknowledge, in spite of the suffering that it brought
Him ; and He would not treat the Apostle who was to
betray Him differently from the rest. In fact, Judas had
already been lost to Him for a whole year ; the first hint we
have of the situation coming to us from S. John (vi, 70),
when Christ's refusal to be made a king after the miracle
of the five thousand had been a severe blow to the ambitious
Jews, and, no doubt, particularly so to Judas ; the discourse
on the Bread of Life had completed his alienation from his
Master, and, at the end of this day, when Peter answers :
' Lord, to whom shall we go ? Thou hast the words of
eternal life. Jesus says to him, ' Have I not chosen you
twelve ? And one of you is a devil.' And the evangelist
1 According to Matthew and Mark.
THE LAST WEEK 153
adds : ' Now He meant Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon :
for this same was about to betray Him, whereas he was one
of the twelve. 5
None of the Apostles had understood this warning at the
time, and a year had passed without any suspicion of the
true facts of the case arising, and this in a small community
of men in daily contact with each other, and among whom
jealousy was by no means unknown. From these facts
we can gather something of the patience and discretion
exercised by our Blessed Lord. Nor did He abandon the
fallen Apostle without any effort to save him from himself,
as many warnings against the dangers of riches, of the sin
of hypocrisy and the betrayal of confidence remain to prove.
So we read in Luke xii, 1-2 : ' Beware ye of the leaven of
the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy, for there is nothing
covered that shall not be revealed ; nor hidden that shall
not be known ' ; and again in xvi, 11,12: 'If then you
have not been faithful in the unjust mammon, who will
trust you with that which is the true ? And if you have not
been faithful in that which is another's, who will give .you
that which is your own ? ' All these warnings, and many
others on how difficult it is for the rich to enter the kingdom
of heaven, acquire still greater force when we reflect that
it was in Judas' presence that our Lord spoke such words.
And the traitor listened, annoyed or indifferent, and went on
turning the small resources of the Apostolic band to his
own use. Meanwhile, Jesus' ,danger became ever greater
and Judas saw the fair hope of a brilliant future by which
he had been attracted, little by little fading away. Decidedly,
things were going wrong and he must withdraw from the
ill-starred adventure, taking with him what he could. The
anointing at Bethania was only one incident among others ;
it decided Judas, and soon after he went to the chief priests.
The fact of our Lord's presence at Bethania was soon
known in Jerusalem, whose inhabitants flocked in crowds
to see Him and Lazarus whom He had raised from the
dead. Confronted with this situation the Jewish leaders,
for the present, held their peace. In fact their impotence
was only emphasized by the proclamation recently issued
in their name ; they had forbidden the people to go after
Christ, and now He is at the gates of Jerusalem, the centre
of a multitude drawn from every side ; and yet they are
not taking any further steps. It is the same hatred cowardly
154 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
and futile, but more violent that our Lord encountered
at the Feast of Tabernacles, when the people asked (John vii,
25) : 'Is not this He whom they seek to kill ? And behold He
speaketh openly, and they say nothing to Him. Have the
rulers known for a truth that this is the Christ ? ' To
escape from this embarrassment the chief priests decided
to bring about Lazarus' death as well, but all their con-
sultations failed to meet the difficulty as to how to seize
either Jesus or Lazarus in the midst of an enthusiastic
crowd. Judas' treason and the snare of Gethsemane were
soon to solve the problem. But the time had not come yet,
nor the ' power of darkness ' ; there were still several hours
to run and Christ was going to use them to complete His
work.
///. The Triumphal Entry.
Our Lord's triumphal entry into Jerusalem is recorded
by all four evangelists, 1 but certain features separate the
account of the Synoptics from that of S. John. The three
first evangelists describe the event with greater detail,
omitting, however, the halt at Bethania. If they stood by
themselves, we should have thought that Jesus came
straight from Jericho with the crowd of pilgrims and passed
on without stopping at Bethphage and Bethania at all ; while
S. John gives only a very brief account, but by including the
incident of the anointing at Bethania he makes the entry
into Jerusalem itself easier to understand. Already, the
evening before, a great number of people had come from
Jerusalem to Bethania to see Jesus and Lazarus, and now
that it is known that the Master is coming into Jerusalem,
these visitors of the previous evening put the whole place
into a state of ferment and a triumphal entry is arranged.
In the preceding year, when the Galilean crowd wished
to make Him a king, Jesus had escaped from their hands
(John vi, 15) ; but now He no longer refuses this act of
homage. It was fitting that He should act, at least once,
publicly as the Messias, but He would do it in the humblest
possible way. 2 It is clear, too, from S . John's account that the
1 Matt, xxi, i-n ; Mark xi, i-n ; Luke xix, 28-38 ; John xii, 12-16.
2 Cp. Lagrange, S. Marc, 292 : ' Jesus was in truth the promised
Messias, but since He was not the sort of Messias of whom the people
dreamed, before He publicly manifested Himself He waited for a moment
when He would no longer run the risk of being drawn into a mad adventure,
at the very gates of Jerusalem and under the eyes of the Roman authorities
themselves. Still, it was His duty to present Himself as the Messias so
THE LAST WEEK 155
disciples' action was not dictated by any thought of pro-
phecy ; it was only later that they observed that such an
entry upon an ass had been foretold. But our Lord thought of
it and guided His Apostles in this direction, sending two of
them, presumably Peter and John, to loose the animal, show-
ing, by the instructions He gave, at once His supernatural
knowledge, His discretion and His empire over souls. The
owner of the beast, who lent it at the first request, was,
doubtless, like the master of the Cenacle, a secret disciple,
unknown to the Apostles themselves.
Our Lord's wish to detach Himself a little from the
crowd shows that, for once, He had consented to receive
its homage, and to place Himself, so to speak, in the centre
of the stage. For the first time the people felt their en-
thusiasm welcomed by Christ Himself and responded with
greater fervour still. The Apostles cast their garments upon
the ass, which, no doubt, was unsaddled since no one had
yet ridden upon it, while others from further afield spread
theirs upon the road ; some cut down green branches and
strewed them in the way, while others again, carrying palms
in their hand, formed a procession in honour of the Son of
David. 1
As they advanced, the crowd became denser and more
had refused the title for Himself. So our Lord chose a mode of entry
that the Jews should not allege that they could not accept as such one who
incontestably Messianic, since it fulfilled one of the clearest of the Messianic
texts (Zach. ix, 9), but at the same time one of the most modest that could
be conceived. He allowed Himself to be acclaimed, in a sense He invited
it, by adopting the guise that the prophet had described. But the
simplicity as dwelt on by the prophet and now realized by Himself ought
to have made it clear that He had not come to establish a temporal
kingdom or one of a kind likely to uselessly provoke the vigilance of the
Romans.'
1 Similar proceedings took place at the enthronement of Jehu : ' Then
they made haste and taking every man his garment laid it under his feet
after the manner of a judgement seat. And they sounded the trumpet
and said : " Jehu is king"' (4 Kings ix, 13). Or again at the entry of
Simon Machabeus into Jerusalem : ' And they entered into it the three
and twentieth day of the second month, in the year one hundred and
seventy-one, with thanksgiving and branches of palm trees, and harps
and cymbals and psalteries and hymns and canticles because the great
enemy was destroyed out of Israel ' (i Mach. xiii, 51).
We may also compare our Lord's entry into Jerusalem to the triumphal
entries of kings of which the au%ors of antiquity have left us numerous
descriptions, collected by Erik Peterson, Die Einholung des Kyrios, Zeit-
schrift fur systematische Theologie, 1929, pp. 682702 : for example,
Vespasian's entry into Rome (Josephus, B.J., VII, 4, i, 68-71) or Titus'
into Antioch (ibid., 5, 2, 100-103). Such a comparison throws into relief
the religious character of our Lord's entry, with little of the pomp of
imperial triumphs, but capable of arousing enthusiasm of an infinitely
deeper kind.
156 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
enthusiastic still : ' And when He was now coming near
the descent of Mount Olivet, the whole multitude of His
disciples began with joy to praise God with a loud voice for
all the mighty works they had seen, 1 crying : Blessed be
the king who cometh in the name of the Lord ! Peace in
heaven and glory on high ' (Luke xix, 37, 38), words that
recalled the Angels' song at Bethlehem ; a touching
coincidence marking the unity of our Lord's life and uniting
the manger to the cross. But above all bursts forth the
Messianic paean : ' Hosanna to the Son of David ! Blessed
be the reign of our father David that cometh ! Blessed be He
that cometh in the name of the Lord, the King of Israel ! '
There could be no doubt of the burning enthusiasm of these
people, but it was ill-informed and national rather than
religious in character. In our Lord's ears their cries of
fervour had a painful sound : they seemed already mingled
with the ' Tolle, crucifige ! ' of a few hours later on.
As the procession entered the city the fervour of the
crowd redoubled. ' And when He was come into Jerusalem
the whole city was moved, saying : Who is this ? And the
people said : This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth of
Galilee' (Matt, xxi, 10, n). The flame of enthusiasm
spread from one quarter to another until it took possession
of the whole town. The Pharisees felt themselves defeated.
' Do you see that we prevail nothing ? Behold, the whole
world is gone after Him ' (John xii, 19). We have reached
the supreme crisis in that growth of opinion favourable to our
Lord described by S. John, especially from the Feast of
Tabernacles onward. Then the admirers of Jesus could
scarcely utter more than a timid whisper ; now the air is full
of their cries of salutation and joy.
But the annoyance of the Pharisees was only increased
and since they could do nothing to silence the crowd, they
appealed to Jesus Himself to intervene : ' Master, rebuke
Thy disciples. To whom He said : I say to you that if
these shall hold their peace, these stones will cry out'
(Luke xix, 39, 40). In this way the Temple was reached
and our Lord inspects it somewhat in the same way that a
1 Among these miracles, John makes more explicit mention of the
raising of Lazarus : ' The multitude therefore gave testimony, which was
with Him, when He called Lazarus out of the grave, and raised him from
the dead. For which reason also the people came to meet Him, because
they heard that He had done this miracle ' (xii, 17, 18).
THE LAST WEEK 157
master might examine the state of his house which had been
thrown into disorder by unfaithful servants. Meanwhile
the blind and the lame continued to approach Him and were
cured, the cries of the people waxing stronger, as also the
indignation of the chief priests and scribes, who : ' . . . Seeing
the wonderful things that He did, and the children crying
in the temple and saying, Hosanna to the Son of David,
were moved with indignation, and said to Him : Hearest
Thou what these say ? And Jesus said to them : Yea,
have you never read : Out of the mouth of infants and of
sucklings thou hast perfected praise ? ' (Matt, xxi, 14-16).
Ever since the beginning of our Lord's ministry we have
felt the jealousy of His opponents gradually working, silently
at first, but more and more openly as the months passed
by. Now, confronted with the triumph of this first Palm
Sunday, it bursts forth. Surely, the whole thing was a
scandal and a piece of arrant folly. There were the Romans
in the Antonia, from whence they looked out on the Temple ;
what would they think of a demonstration like this in the
heart of the city and on the eve of the Passover itself !
Such pretexts but ill concealed their bitter contempt and
pride ; and Jesus putting all this aside came to the defence
of His disciples. Once more the Good Shepherd is ready
to shield His little flock, as formerly when, as they plucked
the ears of corn, His disciples were accused of breaking the
Sabbath ; or when at His two anointings He defended the
Magdalen against the Pharisees and Mary against Judas.
No more, on this occasion, will He disown His followers
and the children who greet Him as He comes, while He
reminds the Pharisees of the eighth psalm, dear to Him
because of its allusion to the Son of man ' made a little
less than the angels.' Surely then this were fitting homage
to the Son of God as He enters Jerusalem : and if men
' held their peace, the very stones would cry out. 5 None
the less, in the midst of this enthusiasm, infecting the whole
town and disconcerting His enemies, Jesus never lost sight
of His approaching Passion, and these intimate thoughts
of His are revealed in two incidents, related respectively by
S. Luke and S. John, and betraying the poignant grief that
lay hidden amid the glory of His triumph.
' And when He drew near, seeing the city, He wept
over it, saying : If thou also hadst known, and that in
158 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
this thy day, the things that are to thy peace : but now
they are hidden from thy eyes. For the days shall come
upon thee : and thy enemies shall cast a trench about
thee, and compass thee round, and straiten thee on
every side. And beat thee flat to the ground, and thy
children who are in thee : and they shall not leave in
thee a stone upon a stone : because thou hast not known
the time of thy visitation.' (Luke xix, 41-44.)
We cannot, even to-day, descend from the Mount of
Olives in the direction of Jerusalem, without recalling these
tears of Christ. The Crusaders raised a chapel here under
the name of Dominus flevit, traces of which have been
preserved to our own time, while on the northern side,
towards the Scopus, are the remains of the entrenchment
foretold by Christ, the constraint of whose dread presence
was to stifle Jerusalem, reduce it to the most frightful famine,
until temple, ramparts, palaces, all should fall together in
the final assault. And amidst the salutations that greeted
Him on every hand Jesus paused for an instant to weep.
We are tempted to repeat here, concerning His attitude to the
Holy City and its people, the remark made at the tomb of
Lazarus : ' Behold, how He loved him,' while some might
be inclined to add : ' Could not He who cured the man
born blind, and raised Lazarus from the dead, have saved
this race from its impending doom ? ' It is the dread
mystery of human freedom, capable of drawing to its ruin
a nation so beloved of God that He was about to give for
it His own life !
The special value of this incident is that it shows us our
Lord's true state of mind at the time of His entry into
Jerusalem. When we see Him not only encouraging but
inspiring the triumphant demonstrations of which He was
the object, superficial readers might think that He was
carried away, like the crowd, by an access of Messianic
enthusiasm. But all such illusions as to our Lord's motives
melt away as we behold His tears. He was willing, indeed,
to be recognized as the Messias for He was that but even
at a moment like this His Messiasship remained entirely
religious in character, and in no way political like the con-
ception of the Messias that had intoxicated the minds of the
Jews. It was this conception that He felt everywhere around
Him, without being able to dissipate it, that so afflicted His
THE LAST WEEK 159
spirit. It was the fatal illusion, destined to-morrow to bring
about His own death and before long the ruin of His
people. 1
Apparently it was during this entry into Jerusalem 2 that
there occurred another incident, still more moving, which is
recorded by S. John (xii, 20-36). Some Greeks who were
in Jerusalem for the Passover approached S. Philip with the
request : '. . . we would see Jesus,' which Philip passes on
to Andrew, and both Apostles go to Jesus Himself. And
our Lord, with His mind fixed on that Will of His Father in
which He could see every stage of His life foreknown and
foreordained, answered : e The hour is come that the Son
of Man should be glorified.' But this glory could be none
other than the fruit of His own death.
' Amen, amen, I say to you, unless the grain of wheat
falling into the ground die, itself remaineth alone. But
if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. He that loveth his
life shall lose it : and he that hateth his life in this world,
keepeth it unto life eternal. 3 (John xii, 24-25.)
These terrible words had resounded more than once in
the Apostles' ears 3 and our Lord had always applied to
Himself the severe law that He imposed on all His disciples :
each must carry his cross, but He had gone before them all,
and they had only to follow Him. And now the hour was
come ; the grain of corn was about to fall into the earth and
die ; yet this grain was the very bread of life come down
from heaven.
1 Reuss writes : ' He does not allow Himself to be carried away by
deceitful hopes as to the moral tendencies of the people, still less as to
their political dreams. Intoxicated with joy and hailing the coming of
the Son of David they let pass this last day of respite when they could still
follow Him into the only way of salvation in this day of their visitation
(Luke i, 68) and when Almighty God is giving them the opportunity of
assuring their future, wasting it in futile demonstrations and in pre-
occupations vainer still. They can go on dreaming of political restoration
and thus put the seal on their own ruin. Salvation does not lie that way,
nor can the kingdom be of this world.'
2 Cp. Lagrange and Bernard, in hoc loco. Both these writers connect
the incident with the entry into Jerusalem ; but in L'Evangile de Jesus
Christ, p. 429, Fr. Lagrange transfers it to the evening of the same day.
This difference is unimportant.
3 After S. Peter's confession (Mark viii, 35 ; Matt, xvi, 25 ; Luke ix,
24), and in the warnings given to the disciples (Matt, x, 39 ; Luke
xvii, 33).
i6o LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
And in face of this death, terrible and imminent, our
Lord was ' troubled ' :
' Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say ?
Father, save me from this hour. But for this cause I came
unto this hour. Father, glorify Thy name. A voice
therefore came from heaven : I have both glorified it,
and will glorify it again.* (John xii, 27-28.)
In the midst of His triumph the agony was already upon
Him, and the prayer in the garden on His lips : ' Remove
this chalice from me : ' but also there was the same will,
unchangeably directed to the glorification of the Father.
And the Father Himself, who in the garden will reply by
sending an angel, here answers by a voice from heaven : 'I
have both glorified . . . (My name) and will glorify it
again. 3
The people heard the voice but without distinguishing the
words j 1 but still it was for their sakes that it was heard at
all. And Jesus interpreted it for them :
Now is the judgement of the world : now shall the
prince of this world be cast out. And I, if I be lifted up
from the earth, will draw all things to Myself.' (31-32.)
The Jews, who only half understood our Lord's words,
gave vent to their mystification : ' We have heard out of the
law that Christ abideth for ever. And how sayest thou :
The Son of Man must be lifted up ? Who is this Son of
Man ? ' But Jesus, without lingering over the discussion,
continued to press the main issue upon His hearers : ' Yet
a little while the light is among you. Walk whilst you have
the light, that the darkness overtake you not . . . believe
in the light, that you may be the children of light.' ' And
He went away and hid Himself from them ' (xii, 35-36).
Thus ends S. John's account of this triumphal day, and
the evangelist pauses dumbfounded before such moral
blindness as the Jews displayed. ' Whereas He had done so
many miracles before them, they believed not in Him.' Yet
this was nothing but the fulfilment of Isaias' prophecy :
' Lord, who hath believed our hearing ? And to whom hath
the arm of the Lord been revealed. 3 This great mystery of
the unbelief of the Jews was before the prophet's eyes even
1 It was the same with. S. Paul's companions on the road to Damascus
(Acts ix, 7 ; cp. xxii, 9).
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while he contemplated the glory of the Son of God. 1 How-
ever, even in so apparently incredulous a company as this,
there were concealed some timid believing souls and that
among ' the chief men ' ; ' but because of the Pharisees
they did not confess Him, that they might not be cast out of
the synagogue ; for they loved the glory of men more than
the glory of God ' (xii, 42) . The flagging courage of these
weak disciples would soon be fortified by Christ's death and
the outpouring of the Holy Ghost ; when these seeds of
faith would shoot up and ripen, while the Apostles would
reap in joy what their Master had sown in tears.
IV. The Barren Fig-tree.
Jesus, whose life was in danger in Jerusalem, withdrew on
the Sunday evening to Bethania, which He was also to do on
each of the next few days. The next morning when He left
Bethania, being hungry, and seeing in the distance a fig-tree,
He approached it to see if He could find any fruit there, and
this proving not to be the case, ' He said to it : May no man
hereafter eat fruit of thee any more for ever. 3 That evening,
when they passed that way, our Lord and His Apostles
found the fig-tree ' dried up from the roots 3 (Mark xi,
12-14, 20 ff.).
Many commentators have perversely found a veritable
stumbling-block in this miracle. 2 But it was not in any
sense our Lord's purpose to demonstrate His power to His
disciples, still less to visit His wrath upon a tree. His whole
1 It will be noticed how, in this passage of S. John's Gospel, the subject
of the great theophany of Isa. vi, i is the Son of God. We have already
met this same passage of Isaias in the Synoptics (supra, vol. I, p. 248) and
recalled S. Paul's reference to it. (Acts, xxviii, 26 ff.)
2 Thus so early a critic as Reuss writes (p. 557) : ' The story of the fig-
tree is an inscrutable enigma. These trees are very common in Palestine,
producing their first fruit before the leaves, and continuing to ripen until
the end of the season. As early as Easter, however, they have as yet no
fruit fit to be eaten, a fact that Mark has been at pains to observe here.
. . . Since it is difficult to persuade ourselves that Jesus could have felt
any need to demonstrate His power to His disciples, who would have never
dreamt of doubting it, and since it is scarcely less difficult to believe that
He would have vented His anger upon a tree, we are naturally led to
suppose that there is here some error in the tradition. As a matter of
fact, many commentators have identified the narrative in Matthew and
Mark with the parable recorded by S. Luke (xiii, 6). However, the
resemblance between the two passages is not particularly close, and the
changes that would have to be made are too remarkable for this hypothesis
to have any chance of being generally accepted.' The hypothesis thus
rejected has been adopted afresh by Loisy, II, 286.
1 62 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
object was, by a parable in action, to show to men the fate
reserved by Him for those whom He compares to barren
trees, which, having no vitality except in appearance, bear
leaves and not fruit. Of this severe lesson, a tree was made
the concrete example, while His deeds of mercy were wrought
upon men. By this incident the disciples would understand
the fate of Jerusalem and of the Chosen Race, a fate already
prefigured in the parable of the barren fig-tree (Luke xiii, 6) :
and now recognized afresh in this symbolic action of Christ,
which has so many parallels in similar actions of the prophets
of old. 1
V. Jesus in the Temple.
' And it came to pass that on one of the days, as he was
teaching the people in the temple and preaching the
gospel, the chief priests and the scribes, with the ancients,
met together and spoke to him, saying : Tell us, by what
authority dost thou these things ? Or, who is he that hath
given thee this authority ? And Jesus answering, said to
them : I will also ask you one thing. Answer me : The
baptism of John, was it from heaven, or of men ? ' (Luke
xx, 1-4.)
Not daring to reply to this question, the Jews withdrew. 2
This was the first time that the chief priests took a per-
sonal part in the opposition to our Lord, although their
attitude had been determined ever since the raising of
Lazarus from the dead ; this man must die rather than
imperil the existence of a whole nation (John xi, 50). Our
Lord's triumphal entry into Jerusalem and the authority
He displayed in the Temple exasperated them still more, so
that ' they sought how they might destroy Him 3 (Mark xi,
1 6 ; Luke xix, 47). On their part the scribes, burning to
avenge their own grievance, supported the priests, while the
1 Fr. Lagrange cites several of these : Isa. xx, i ; Jer. xiii, i ; xix, i,
etc.
2 Luke xx, 1-8 ; cp. Matt, xxi, 2327 ; Mark xi, 2733. S. Matthew
and S. Mark associate the summary here given with the expulsion of the
traders from the Temple, a connection that does not appear in S. Luke.
It may be reasonably conjectured that this purification of the Temple
which S. John dates at the time of the first passover, has been recorded by
the Synoptics here because the traditional catechetical scheme that they
followed left out our Lord's previous visits to Jerusalem. The dialogue
transcribed above differs completely from that recorded by S. John. In
accordance with S. Luke's version it is independent of the incident of the
cleansing of the Temple. Our own view is that the expulsion of the traders
only took place at the time of the first Passover (supra, vol. I, p. 54,
note i).
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elders joined themselves to the two other groups. Here we
have already a microcosm of the Sanhedrin itself.
The complaint against our Lord was that He had usurped
the authority of a Master and Doctor openly and in the
Temple itself ; and they questioned Him, although not yet
formally, as to the source from which this authority came. 1
The purpose of the deputies of the Sanhedrin, as on
similar occasions during these last few days, was to provoke
Jesus to make the final declaration that should be His ruin ;
if He appealed to His authority as the Messias, proceedings
against Him would be taken almost at once ; if He evaded
this issue He would lose ground with the people.
Our Lord's reply was in quasi-rabbinical form, answering
one question by putting another ; but it must not be inter-
preted as being merely a dialectical display. ' Why, 3 asks
J. H. Michael, 2 ' did Jesus put this counter-question ?
Assuredly not because He foresaw that He would embarrass
His opponents, and consequently excuse Himself from
replying to them. We cannot imagine our Lord con-
descending to manceuvres of this kind with a view to an easy
dialectical victory. The point of His reply is that if they had
penetrated to the real meaning of S. John's baptism, they
would have recognized the source of His own authority as
well.'
These remarks are just. It must be added that John was
the witness to Christ, and that Christ Himself on a similar
occasion had recalled ,the fact (John v, 33) . ' You sent
to John and he gave testimony to the truth. But I receive
not testimony from man : but I say those things that you
may be saved. 3 And once more the same care governs
His action ; to these men who have no thought but to
compromise and destroy Him He would recall the memory
of His Precursor ; if they are but willing to be taught, he
will lead them to Christ as he has led so many others before.
But they care nothing about salvation : their sole thought
is to escape without discomfiture from an embarrassing
discussion.
1 ' It is scarcely likely that, if they intended to introduce a regular and
\ong drawn-out process, they would have sent a deputation to our Lord
instead of citing Him to appear before them. For the rest there is nothing
in question, answer, or any feature of the narrative to suggest that this
interview differed from so many others that we have met with already '
(Reuss).
2 Journal of Theological Studies, XXI (1920), p. 158.
1 64 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
With John the Baptist, they had always taken up a defiant
attitude, and that too openly for them to acknowledge him
now without a complete change of front. Yet, face to face
with a crowd still full of enthusiasm for his name, they dared
not assert that his baptism was ' of men.' The tragic death of
the Precursor had only increased his influence, and so con-
vinced were the people of his Divine mission that they saw
in the misfortunes of Antipas a judgement from heaven
brought upon him by the prophet's death. Wishing neither
to withdraw from their position nor to come into conflict
with the people, the Pharisees simply shirked the issue ;
taking refuge in a profession of ignorance upon the point
raised.
Our Lord might well have pressed His advantage, like the
man born blind in the face of a similar reply : ' Why,
herein is a wonderful thing, that you know not from whence
He is, and He hath opened my eyes ' (John ix, 30). But
these dialectical triumphs, so dear to human pride, were
unworthy of Him who sought only His Father's glory and the
salvation of men. Before His opponents' bad faith He
remained silent ; there was to be no question of casting
pearls before swine. But He went on instructing the people,
all the same.
' But what think you ? A certain man had two sons,
and coming to the first, he said : Son, go work to-day in
my vineyard. And he answering, said : I will not. But
afterwards, being moved with repentance, he went.
And coming to the other, he said in like manner. And
he answering, said : I go, Sir. And he went not. Which of
the two did the father's will ? They say to Him : The
first.' (Matt, xxi, 28-31.)
The meaning of the parable was clear enough, and Jesus
supplied its application Himself.
'Jesus saith to them : Amen, I say to you, that the
publicans and the harlots shall go into the kingdom of God
before you. For John came to you in the way of justice :
and you did not believe him. But the publicans and the
harlots believed him : but you, seeing it, did not even
afterwards repent, that you might believe him.' (Ibid., 31,
32.)
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In the same strain, when recording our Lord's reply to
the messengers sent by John, S. Luke remarked (vii, 29) :
' And all the people hearing, and the publicans, justified
God, being baptized with John's baptism. But the
Pharisees and the lawyers despised the counsel of God
against themselves, being not baptized by him.'
Here we have the strongly contrasted attitude of the two
sons in the parable : on the one hand the stubborn children
who answer ' I will not ' to their father's command ; on the
other, sons eager and respectful, and making a great profession
of obedience : ' I go, Sir.' But the first repent and, touched
by the preaching of the Precursor, they are baptized and
bring forth fruits worthy of penance ; the others pride
themselves on their show of submission, and there, for them,
the matter ends.
It is the same warning so often given by Christ to those
who made a great show of virtue and of their fidelity to the
law, but went no further. It is the Pharisee and the publican
over again, and it is the lesson taught by Christ in the
Sermon on the Mount (Matt, vii, 21) : ' Not everyone that
saith to Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of
heaven : but he that doth the will of My Father who is in
heaven.' This was His teaching from the very commence-
ment of His ministry in Galilee : '. . . I am not come to
call the just, but sinners ' (ix, 13). And in this parable we
see clearly where lies the superiority of sinners over the self-
styled just, namely the humble acknowledgement of their
fault, and the virile resolution that such penance brings
forth. And once more our Lord tries to awaken this spirit,
and to arouse these souls slumbering in the false security of
their fancied justice ; and once more He fails, only irritating
without enlightening them.
And then in the parable of the husbandmen recorded by
all three Synoptics, He gave them a more solemn warning
still.
' A certain man planted a vineyard and made a hedge
about it, and dug a place for the winefat, and built a
tower, and let it to husbandmen ; and went into a far
country. And at the season he sent to the husbandmen a
servant to receive of the husbandmen, of the fruit of the
vineyard. Who having laid hands on him, beat him, and
1 66 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
sent him away empty. And again he sent to them
another servant ; and him they wounded in the head, and
used him reproachfully. And again he sent another and
him they killed : and many others, of whom some they
beat, and others they killed. Therefore, having yet one
son most dear to him, he also sent him unto them last
of all, saying : They will reverence my son. But the
husbandmen said one to another : This is the heir :
come let us kill him, and the inheritance shall be ours.
And laying hold of him they killed him, and cast him out
of the vineyard. What, therefore, will the lord of the
vineyard do ? He will come and destroy those husband-
men : and will give the vineyard to others.' (Mark xii, 1-9 ;
cp. Matt, xxi, 33-43 ; Luke xx, 9-18.)
Here, for the third time our Lord returns to the traditional
figure of the vineyard, so often employed by the prophets as
an illustration of the relations between God and His chosen
people, and especially in the fifth chapter of Isaias :
' I will sing to my beloved the canticle of my cousin
concerning his vineyard. My beloved had a vineyard on
a hill in a fruitful place. And he fenced it in, and picked
the stones out of it, and planted it with the choicest vines,
and built a tower in the midst thereof, and set up a wine-
press therein. And he looked that it should bring forth
grapes : and it brought forth wild grapes. And now, O ye
inhabitants of Jerusalem and ye men of Juda, judge
between me and my vineyard. What is there that I
ought to do more to my vineyard, that I have not done to
it ? Was it that I looked that it should bring forth grapes,
and it hath brought forth wild grapes ? And now I will
show you what I will do to my vineyard. I will take
away the hedge thereof, and it shall be wasted : I will
break down the wall thereof, and it shall be trodden down.
And I will make it desolate. It shall not be pruned and it
shall not be digged : but briers and thorns shall come up.
And I will command the clouds to rain no rain upon it.
For the vineyard of the Lord of Hosts is the house of Israel :
and the man of Juda his pleasant plant. And I looked that
he should do judgement, and behold iniquity : and do
justice, and behold a cry.' (Isa. v, 1-7.)
It is sufficient to read this passage through to notice how
it differs from our Lord's parable. Isaias speaks to the whole
people, who are themselves the vineyard that has disap-
THE LAST WEEK 167
pointed the expectation of Jehovah, and who will be punished
accordingly, while Christ's words apply only to the leaders
of the people ; it is they who have been entrusted with the
cultivation of God's vineyard and who are responsible for its
fruitfulness to Him alone. Often has He claimed His just
returns ; but His messengers, the prophets, have all been ill-
treated or slain. At last He sends His only Son, and He,
too, is cast out of the vineyard and put to death.
So transparent is the image that the chiefs of the people
understood it at once and felt that it was directed against
themselves. The teaching underlying it is excelled nowhere
in the Gospels in sublimity and depth. No wonder that
scholars of the pseudo-critical school have refused to accept
the evangelists' account. 1
But their objections have little weight. Because the form
of our Lord's discourse is that of an allegory rather than a
parable, there is no need to doubt its authenticity. Indeed,
Loisy himself admits that Jesus ' may, exceptionally, have
taught in allegorical form, and, on other occasions, have
quoted from the prophets.' That we have here prophecy and
a threat is obvious, but our Lord's very mercy obliged Him to
give these terrible warnings to His adversaries, and their
authenticity is confirmed by the very form in which they
are clothed :
'. . . I find,' writes Burkitt, ' a great difficulty in imagin-
ing any early Christian of any school who could do it (i.e.,
put this parable into our Lord's mouth). It seems to me
certain that the thing which is not there is exactly what
Christian invention would have put in : I mean, some
reference to the Resurrection.' 2
1 Thus Loisy, II, 318 : ' Are we bound to regard this allegory of the
vineyard as an authentic portion of our Lord's preaching in Jerusalem,
apparently delivered at a given moment as His last public discourse upon
earth ? No doubt, with the quotation from the prophet with which it
ends, it belongs to a tradition already sufficiently established before the
final redaction of the Gospels as we have them ; but this does not guarantee
it to be the actual words of Christ. . . . Like many allegories, its only value
is in the realm of theory and theological thought. . . . We have to deal with
an apocalypse, not preaching. It would not have been Christ's intention to
win those to whom He was speaking : He would have declared them fallen
and under censure, not to bring them to repentance, but to show His
own knowledge of the Divine decrees. ... If Jesus had proclaimed
Himself Son of God before so many witnesses who were fully aware of His
meaning, it is difficult to understand why His arrest was delayed a
moment longer.'
2 Transactions of the Third International Congress of the History of
Religions, Oxford, 1908, II, pp. 321 ff.
VOL. II. M
1 68 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
And we may add that our Lord was careful to limit the
terrible responsibility of His death to the chiefs of the people.
The populace themselves were still attached to Him at that
time ; and further, as Lagrange remarks, the vineyard which
represents them is neither blameworthy nor threatened with
punishment. ' Peter, on the other hand, except when he
speaks before the Sanhedrin (Acts iv, io 3 n ; v, 30, 31),
makes no such distinction, but accuses all Israelites alike of
the judicial murder of Christ (ii, 22, 23 ; iii, 15). From the
moment that this parable was uttered the situation was
changed.'
The authenticity of the parable being thus established we
may pass on to its interpretation ; in which the principle is
the unique and transcendent role of the Son of God. All who
came before Him, however great, were merely servants sent
by God : He is the only-begotten Son. 1 Already in much of
His previous teaching, from the Sermon on the Mount
onwards, there had been hints of our Lord's relation to His
Father and of His own pre-eminent authority. ' It hath
been said . . . but I say to you . . .' and still more clearly in
certain rare and mysterious pronouncements which He made
from time to time : ' Neither doth any one know the Father
but the Son, and he to whom it shall please the Son to reveal
Him ' : but this pre-eminence is more clearly evident here
than anywhere else ; under the transparent veil of the
allegory we have the same teaching that we find later in the
Epistle to the Hebrews : { God, who at sundry times and in
divers manners, spoke in times past to the fathers by the
prophets, last of all, in these days hath spoken to us by His
Son.' It is precisely because of the clearness of this declar-
ation that Loisy, as we have seen, regards it as improbable :
Jesus, he thinks, would have been arrested if He had spoken
like this. This difficulty is answered by the Gospel itself :
' And they sought to lay hands on Him : but they feared the
people' (Mark xii, 12).
And, with this Divine dignity of the Son of God, the fate
that awaits Him is made clear. This is the first time that
our Lord had foretold His death before the people ; although
we have already noticed the occasions on which He did
so in the presence of His Apostles alone at Csesarea Philippi
(Mark viii, 31) ; after the transfiguration (ix, 31) ; on the
1 On the meaning of this expression, cp. Origines.du Dogme de la
Trinite, I, p. 324, note 2.
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way to Jerusalem (x, 32). Then our Lord had only the
twelve with Him, and He was preparing them for the terrible
trial that was coming upon them ; here He warns the
people as a whole, and consequently His warning takes on
a new note. It is no longer only a prophecy, but a threat.
He is making a final effort to prevent the crime that will
complete the ruin of Israel.
In his note on this parable, Burkitt (p. 325) shows how
this prediction of Christ's fits in with His teaching as a whole.
At the time that our Lord came into the world, there was a
widespread belief that the kingdom of God was at hand ;
a belief that found expression in Apocalyptic literature, and
in the words of the Precursor and of our Lord Himself :
' The time is accomplished and the kingdom of God is at
hand 3 (Mark i, 15). So imminent was the fulfilment of
this expectation that the Apostles would not have time to
traverse all the cities of Israel before the Son of Man should
come in His glory (Matt, x, 23). Yet, somehow, the mani-
festation so long expected tarries ; something is delaying
the imminent coming of the kingdom ; '. . . when the
fruit is brought forth ... he putteth in the sickle ' (Mark
iv, 29). But was the fruit ripe, and had the people been
really converted by the preaching of John and of our Lord
Himself? No, indeed. This is the meaning of the curses
against the cities of the Lake, of the severe sayings about the
perverse and adulterous and incredulous generation (viii,
12, 38 ; ix, 19) : all warnings uttered only shortly before
the journey to Jerusalem. Taken as a whole, the nation was
not repentant ; its sin remained and the coming of the
kingdom was delayed. Almighty God was waiting : He
would avenge His elect who cried to Him day and night
(Luke xviii, 7). As our Lord assumes, in this very passage,
God may long postpone the day of His vengeance, but at
last His hour will come.
This death of the Son, foretold in the parable, would
precipitate the catastrophe and, in this sense, serve the
Divine purpose ; since it would be the means of saving the
vineyard and of taking it out of the hands of the dishonest hus-
bandmen whose one idea was to exploit it for their own gain.
As we read the story, we cannot help feeling surprised that
the master of the vineyard should thus expose his son,
and it appears that this final effort was doomed to failure and
the sacrifice involved proved fruitless after all ; in time,
i yo LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
exemplary punishment would fall on the wrong-doers, but
this tardy chastisement would be but a poor consolation for
the death of the only son. But all this is cleared up when the
application of the parable is understood. Almighty God
knew that He was sending His beloved Son to His death ;
but He knew also that that death would be for the salvation
and redemption of men ; a truth already explained to the
Apostles by our Lord Himself: '. . . the Son of Man also
is not come to be ministered unto ; but to minister and to
give His life a redemption for many ' (Mark x, 45) . ' Which
they hearing, said to Him : God forbid.' This exclamation
of the crowd, recorded only by Luke (xx, 16), shows plainly
enough that they were under no misapprehension as to
what was meant by the vineyard being taken out of the hands
of the wicked husbandmen and entrusted to other care. And
our Lord, { looking on them ' only pressed home His point :
' Have you never read in the Scriptures : The stone which
the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the
corner ? By the Lord, this has been done, and it is wonder-
ful in our eyes. . . . And whosoever shall fall on this stone
shall be broken : but on whomsoever it shall fall, it shall
grind him to powder ' (Matt, xxi, 42, 43).
Our Lord's concluding words lend a terrific force to His
whole discourse as recorded here. We seem to see Him, as
painted by S. Luke, fixing His enemies with His glance, and
threatening them with the fall and utter destruction which
He has just described. A glorious prophecy, no doubt, but
painful, too, showing Christ to be truly, as Simeon had
foretold, ' set for the fall and resurrection of many.'
The chief priests and the scribes would have seized Jesus
there and then, but their fear of the people held them back,
and they left Him for the time being. This hatred and
timidity had already been noticed by S. Mark as evident
after the triumphal entry into Jerusalem (xi, 18), as on the
present occasion (xii, 12) ; and all through this last week
we shall find the same furious hostility restrained by fear ;
indeed, speaking of the very day when the Passion begins
the evangelist observes : ' the chief priests and the scribes
sought how they might by some wile lay hold on Him and
kill Him' (xiv, i). Our Lord's teaching became ever
clearer and His threats more terrible ; its blinding light
only wounded without converting them ; and they were
kept from seizing Him by fear alone. But soon Judas would
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put himself at their service and give them the guarantees
they needed for their deadly work.
However, they go on with their attempts to catch our
Redeemer in His speech. 1 Worsted, so far, in all the
encounters they had provoked, they could not believe that
an unlettered Galilean could for long escape their snares.
So they approached Him again, but with greater caution :
' Master, we know that Thou art a true speaker and carest
not for any man ; for Thou regardest not the person of men,
but teachest the way of God in truth. Is it lawful to give
tribute to Caesar, or shall we not give it ? '
The question thus raised was captious in the last degree,
and Jesus' enemies might well natter themselves that they
had Him securely in a trap. In the eyes of the Romans, to
refuse to pay taxes was an act of rebellion ; and in order to
compass His destruction, in spite of His caution, they would
not fail to say later that He had sought to dissuade the people
from paying tribute to Czesar. But, to the people, to submit
to such payment was an odious act of subjection ; so that,
surely, to claim to be the Messias and the King of Israel
and yet, at the same time, to preach the payment of the
impost, was to renounce the dearest hopes of Israel and one's
own claims at the same time. The scandal of such action
would have been felt most acutely by the Galileans, our
Lord's most faithful followers, 2 for it was from their ranks that
the zealots of the Jewish national movement were recruited
on the largest scale ; one of the Apostles and doubtless many
of our Lord's disciples belonging to this extreme party in
the state. To take Jesus in this particular snare, a deputa-
tion of Pharisees and Herodians was sent to Him. The
second of these wished to see Judea brought under the
sceptre of a prince of the Herodian line ; meanwhile they
submitted to the Roman power ; and the presence of Herod
himself at the Passover celebrations had brought a large
number of his supporters to the Holy City. In spite of their
opposition to the Pharisees, they joined with them in their
attempt to ensnare our Lord.
1 Following Mark, we pursue the story of our Lord's contest with His
enemies. Matthew inserts here the parable of the Wedding Feast (xxii,
1-14).
a Josephus (B. J., II, 8, i) relates the rising in the time of Coponius,
which was instigated by a Galilean named Judas : ' he made his fellow-
countrymen ashamed to pay tribute to the Romans, and to suffer any
other master than God, i.e., mortal masters ' (Billerbeck, I, 884).
172 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
To the question thus maliciously proposed to Him,
Jesus gave a perfectly simple reply. He sent for a ' penny,' .
the silver coin used to pay the Roman tribute. It was not
very common in Palestine, and probably neither our Lord
nor His questioners had one by them at the moment. The
coin was brought and our Lord asks : ' Whose is this image
and inscription ? ' It was not possible to reply by silence
or by a profession of ignorance, as the Jews had done when
the baptism of John was the point at issue. So the answer
was given, ' Caesar's. 3 ' Render therefore,' said our Lord,
' to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things
that are God's.'
The reply was eminently natural and could not be
thought otherwise by the Jews themselves. To employ a
foreign coinage was felt to be an act of subjection, which
was why the Machabees had created a new currency and
why Bar Kokebas tried later on to do the same. However,
Caesar's money was accepted, which meant that the Jews
acknowledged that they were his subjects and that they
forced themselves to pay his tribute. But our Lord's reply
goes further than this. ' To Caesar what is Caesar's : to
God what is God's ; ' an eternally fertile principle which,
if acted upon, would bring peace and order to the world,
and which was particularly necessary at that period and in
the environment of the time. In the little Jewish world in
which Jesus moved and spoke, men were still influenced by
the grand memories of a theocratic government of the past :
' the kingdom of David, our father.' This was the subject of
their acclamations only a few days ago ; and it is this that
they are awaiting with feverish impatience now. To these
zealots any submission to a foreign power seemed an act
of infidelity to God, the only King of Israel ; and our
Lord's words would teach them peacefully to obey earthly
kings while keeping inviolate their loyalty to God. Soon
the Church would begin to spread in the Pagan world and
would have to triumph over a prejudice of an opposite kind,
but still more dangerous, by which the Divine Majesty
would be brought to the level of earthly rulers ; and
Caesar, the god, would claim all the homage of men. But
in the midst of this universal servility Christians would
keep their souls free ; recalling the Master's precepts, they
would give to Roman emperors and governors obedience
and respect, indeed ; but they would keep their faith in
THE LAST WEEK 173
God ; and at that moment true freedom would have
entered the world.
After the Pharisees, the Sadducees intervened in their
turn (Mark xii, 18-27 J Matt, xxii, 23-33 5 Luke xx,
27-40). Disturbed at the growing influence of Jesus they
were determined to bring about His death. Really, as we
are told definitely in Acts v, 1 7, by the Sadducees is meant
the party of the High Priest. The question that they put
to our Lord seems to have been meant to mock rather than
to compromise Him. They did not believe in a resurrection
any more than in angels or spirits of any kind (Acts xxiii,
8 ; Josephus, A.J., xviii, i, 4) ; so they manufactured a
' case ' for their present purpose.
' Master, Moses wrote unto us, that if any man's
brother die, and leave his wife behind him, and leave no
children, his brother should take his wife and raise up
seed to his brother. Now there were seven brethren ; and
the first took a wife, and died leaving no issue. And the
second took her and died ; and neither did he leave any
issue. And the third in like manner. And the seven all
took her in like manner : and did not leave issue. Last
of all the woman also died. In the resurrection, therefore,
when they shall rise again, whose wife shall she be of them ?
for the seven had her to wife.' (Luke xx, 28-32 ; cp. Mark
xii, 19-23 ; Matt, xxii, 24-28.) 1
Confronted with this piece of * heckling ' our Lord
remained calm and answered gently ; but He raised the
question to a higher plane and without keeping to the
ridiculous case that had been proposed, proceeded to
instruct His enemies and all who were listening to Him at
the time. As a matter of fact He never contented Himself
with merely closing His opponents' mouths, but always
attempted to give them some teaching on positive lines.
In this particular case He reproved the Sadducees for
failing to understand the Scriptures and for having an
inadequate idea of the power of God. To their unbelief
1 In Jebamotk, iv, 6b, 35 we find the history of an Israelite who, having
lost his twelve brothers, and being called upon by the twelve widows to
obey the leviratical law, agreed to take each one of them as his wife during
one month of the year. At the end of three years he was father of thirty-
six children (Billerbeck, III, 650). This story is told of the time of Rabbi
Jehudah ; no doubt, like this of the Sadducees, it is only an imaginary
case ; but it shows the extent to which Jewish casuistry concerned itself
with the ' levirate ' laws.
174 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
He opposed and enlarged upon a text from Exodus : ' I am
the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of
Jacob ' ; ' God/ He said, ' is not the God of the dead but
of the living ; for all live to Him.' S. Irenaeus, when oppos-
ing the Gnostics, makes use of this text together with our
Lord's interpretation of it : ' If God is not the God of the
dead but of the living, and if, moreover, this God is called
the God of the dead patriarchs, it inevitably follows that
they live to God and that they are not dead, since they are
sons of resurrection. But the resurrection is our Lord
Himself. 51
Other passages in the Old Testament could be quoted as
supporting faith in the resurrection, but none could do so
more clearly than this sublime utterance as interpreted by
Christ. The Church, later on, would call it to memory in
her office df the dead. ' Regem, cui omnia vivunt, venite
adoremus.' The friends of God live of His life, and it will
have no end. But this new life, communicated by God to
His elect, will not be modelled on that here below ; the
' sons of Resurrection ' will be like the angels of heaven :
' they shall neither marry nor be married.' 2
This sublime teaching on the divine life of the elect was
called forth by the miserable raillery of the Sadducees, and
as we read the passage over again we inevitably recall our
Lord's words : ' You are from below : I am from above.'
Many among His hearers felt the force of His teaching ;
even the most hardened had to acknowledge that He had
1 Adv. Haer., IV, 5, z ; P.G., VII, 984-985. Cp. Histoire du Dogme de
la Trinite, II, p. 547. S. Jerome, raising the question as to why our Lord
chose this particular text from Exodus, gives the following reason : ' The
Sadducees only accepted the five books of Moses, rejecting the oracles
of the prophets ; so that it would have been folly to confront them with
witnesses whose authority they refused to admit.' However, at the present
day, this interpretation is called in question. Thus Schiirer (II, 480-1)
writes : ' The statement made by several of the Fathers that the Sadducees
only received the Pentateuch, rejecting the prophets, finds no support in
Josephus and is therefore denied by the majority of contemporary scholars,
and indeed we can hardly believe that, strictly speaking, they refused the*
authority of the prophets. Still, it is quite possible that the Sadducees
regarded the Pentateuch only as being canonical in the strict sense of the
word.' This last hypothesis would suffice to explain our Lord's choice of
a text whose meaning was less clear than many passages in the
prophets, but whose authority was greater than theirs. Further, as we
have pointed out above, there are yet other reasons for our Lord's
choice.
2 On this point Jesus opposes the theology of the Pharisees which often
ascribes to risen bodies the same sexual relations that they had on earth.
Cp. Billerbeck, II, 888, but also Berakot, 173..
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the best of the dispute, and no one dared to try to catch Him
any more.
' And there came one of the scribes that had heard
them reasoning together, and seeing that He had
answered them well, asked Him which was the first
commandment of all. And Jesus answered him : The
first commandment of all is. Hear, O Israel : the Lord
thy God is one God. And thou shalt love the Lord thy
God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and
with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength. This
is the first commandment. And the second is like to it :
Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is no
other commandment greater than these. And the scribe
said to Him : Well, Master, Thou hast said in truth, that
there is one God, and there is no other besides Him. And
that He should be loved with the whole heart, and with
the whole understanding, and with the whole soul, and
with the whole strength : and to love one's neighbour as
oneself, is a greater thing than all holocausts and sacrifices.
And Jesus, seeing that he had answered wisely, said to
him : Thou art not far from the kingdom of God. And
no man after that durst ask him any question.' 1 (Mark
xii, 28-34.)
There were frequent discussions among the Jews of that
period as to the relative importance of the commandments ;
a good example is to be found in the following parable from
the Debarim Rabba, 6, with reference to Deut. xxii, j. 2
' A king hired workmen and sent them into his garden,
and in the evening made inquiries as to the work done by
each. Calling the first, he asked him : " What tree have
you been working under ? " " Under such and such a
one," was the reply. " That is a pear-tree, and the wages
are a piece of gold." Galling another, he puts the same
question to him, and hearing the reply : " That is an
almond-tree," he said, " the wages are a half-piece of gold."
Similarly with a third, in whose case, " that is an olive,"
1 In Matt, xxii, 34-40 we have the same question, and answer, but the
question is put with the intention of testing our Lord. By way of reconcil-
ing the two accounts we may hold with Victor and Knabenbauer that the
scribe, ill-disposed at first, is won over by our Lord's reply. Luke does not
record the question here, but in the narrative describing our Lord's journey
(x, 25-37), he mentions a similar question, followed by a reply from our
Lord and by the parable of the Good Samaritan.
a Quoted by Abrahams, Studies in Pharisaism, I, p. 26.
176 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
remarks the king, " the wages are two hundred
When the workmen ask him : " Why did you not tell us
that work on this particular tree carried with it a higher
reward, so that we could have chosen it ? " the king
answers : " If I had warned you, I should never have had
my whole garden tended." In the same way the Holy One
has not revealed the reward reserved for good work done
except in the case of two commandments, the most im-
portant of the greater ones ; namely, ' honour thy parents '
(Exodus xx, 12), and the least among the least : ' thou shalt
let her go, keeping the young [bird] which thou hast
caught ' (Deut. xxii, 7) . For these two commandments
He has fixed the reward that is, a long life.'
This little fable, whose morality is not above suspicion,
at least shows the kind of question that exercised the Jews ;
they did not know which were the most important and the
best rewarded commandments, and they wished to know.
For the rest, at this period there seems to have been, on the
part of the Pharisees, a certain mistrust of these simplifi-
cations of the law. 1 A great effort was being made to multi-
ply proselytes, and in order to make Judaism more accessible
to them, in the form in which it was presented to inquirers
its obligations were considerably reduced ; the seven
precepts of Noe, which lay at the bottom of the principal
duties, being given the most prominent place. In other cases
a double catalogue of commandments was set forth, namely,
what must be done honouring parents, doing kind acts,
reconciling those who had quarrelled, studying the Torah ;
and what must be avoided idolatry, incest, bloodshed,
homicide (Aboth of R. Nathan). ' Such catalogues, 5 remarks
Gudemann, ' were often suspect to the zealots, who saw in
them a minimizing policy, which misled the ignorant by
leading them to suppose that they could be faithful members
of the Jewish faith at but little cost. 5
In the maze of all these guesses, calculations and fruitless
inquiries, Jesus traces the path by which men must go to
God. All the law and the prophets (Matt, xxii, 40) meet in
these two commandments, the love of God and of our
neighbour. We may recognize, for example, the echo of this
1 Usually 613 commandments were enumerated, i.e. 248 positive
precepts and 365 prohibitions, while an attempt was made to distinguish.
the commandments of greater and lesser importance in those lists. Cp.
Makkot, 23b-24a ; Sifre, Deut. xii, 23 ; Mekhilia, Exod. xx, 2.
THE LAST WEEK 177
teaching on the opening page of the Didache. ' There are
two ways, the way of life and the way of death, and there
is much difference between the two. This is the way of life :
First, thou shalt love God who has created thee ; secondly,
thy neighbour as thyself; and whatsoever thou dost not
wish to happen to thyself, thou shalt not do to others. 5
No one dared to question Jesus further. It was He who
now took the initiative and interrogated the Pharisees in
their turn :
' What think you of Christ ? Whose son is He ? They
say to Him : David's. He saith to them : How then
doth David in spirit call Him Lord, saying : The Lord
said to my Lord : Sit on my right hand, until I make thy
enemies thy footstool ? If David then call Him Lord,
how is He his son ? And no man was able to answer Him
a word : neither durst any man from that day forth ask
Him any more questions.' (Matt, xxii, 42-46 ; cp. Mark
xii, 35-37 J Luke ^ 4 I ~44-)
S. Matthew records this incident in the form of a question
put to the Pharisees. Our Lord's enemies are reduced to
silence, and from this day onward, no one dared to ' ask
Him any more questions.' However, according to Mark arid
Luke, Christ did not address His remarks to His opponents,
but taught the crowd at large. We must not exaggerate this
apparent discrepancy. As we have already remarked, in'
no single case did our Lord set out with the exclusive pur-
pose of silencing His adversaries : it was always His
intention to teach the people as well. But as we shall
readily understand, while Mark dwells only on this teaching,
S. Matthew, as usual, stresses the polemical side of Jesus'
words.
What is more important is to discover the precise purpose
that our Lord had in view. Most critics of the liberal school
consider that He intended to deny His descent from David. 1
But this is most improbable if we remember that, as even
Loisy admits, certainly Matthew and Luke, and very
probably Mark, regarded Jesus as the descendant of David,
1 So Loisy : ' From the question here put by Jesus, we may conclude
that He did not consider Himself to be descended from David, thus over-
throwing and anticipating the objection that could be drawn from this
circumstance against His Divine mission. Freed from all theological
subtlety, the burden of His discourse is that Christ has no need to be the
Son of David and that His dignity is derived from a higher source.'
178 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
and could not, therefore, intend to imply here a denial of
that fact. The same critic interprets this passage with
greater accuracy some pages earlier in his book (361).
' David,' he says, ' could speak like this because the Messias
is more than a son of David and a king of Israel ; such is
the conclusion to which Christ wishes to lead His hearers.
Jesus is conscious of being greater than Solomon, greater
than Jonas, greater than David himself, and consequently
He has a greater title than could be His by any merely
Davidic descent. It might even be said that He was inde-
pendent of anything of the kind, and made little of any
passages from which the Davidic descent of the Messias
might be inferred. 5
Disregarding the concluding words of this passage, the
rest supplies an exact interpretation of our Saviour's words.
He is conscious of being greater than David and He wishes
to lead on His hearers to share this consciousness with Him.
It by no means follows that He denies the fact of His Davidic
descent ; He had been saluted as Son of David, especially
at His triumphant entry into Jerusalem, and had not
repudiated such homage in any way. But He had no in-
tention of leaving the matter there. That would involve
not only a misconception of His true greatness, but also a
narrow and dangerously nationalistic view of the Messias-
ship itself. Against this kind of Messianism He had always
contended and would do so especially during the last days
of His life. 1
1 Ps. cix was regarded as a Messianic psalm by the Jews of our Lord's
time ; but in the second century this interpretation was abandoned through
anti-Christian feeling ; hence it was applied either to Abraham (see
Billerbeck, IV, 453-6) or to Ezechias (Justin, Dial., 33 and 83). A century-
later there was a reaction in favour of the Messianic interpretation.
Cp. Billerbeck, 18. Excurs. Der no. Psalm in der altrabb. Literatur (IV,
452-65) ; E. G. King, Ps. ex, J.T.S., IV (1903), PP- 338-44 (see esp. p. 343) ;
Klausner, Jesus of Nazareth, p. 320.
Most contemporary critics reject the Davidic authorship of the psalm
here quoted : the question, therefore, arises whether this hypothesis can
be reconciled with our Lord's authority as a teacher and with the force of
His argument on this occasion. Some authors think not, for example,
Knabenbauer (Matt., II, 273), according to whom if David is not the author
of the psalm our Lord's conclusions are ' futilia, ridicula, falsa.' On the
other hand, Lagrange (Marc, p. 327) writes : ' It was neither absurd nor
useless to establish the fact that the scribes were not even consistent with
their own principles in refusing to recognize that the Messias must be far
superior to David and even to point out His supernatural origin. . . . The
whole argument was of the nature of a refutation, and must be left as such.
As a refutation it is admirably conclusive and rigorously precise and that
was all that was necessary at the moment.'
Plummer (Matt., 311), in discussing the same question, proposes three
THE LAST WEEK 179
VI. Jesus and the Pharisees.
Each time that our Lord was present in Jerusalem He
encountered the hostility of the Pharisees, finding them on
every occasion more implacable than before. He saw His
disciples threatened with excommunication (John ix, 22 ;
xii, 42), and Himself condemned to death, so far as this lay
within His enemies' power, while after the raising of Lazarus
He was pursued with a fury that knew no bounds. His
influence over the people continued to protect Him for a few
days ; but the Pharisees, in league with the Sadducees
and making use of Judas' avarice, were soon to bring this
slender support to the ground.
During the first days of this last week, these captious
dialecticians tried in vain to entangle our Blessed Lord in
their net. But Jesus broke through their meshes, and having
reduced them to silence, devoted His few remaining days of
freedom to giving one last warning to the people and to the
false shepherds who were responsible for their souls. This
final discourse, reproduced very fully in S. Matthew (xxiii),
is recorded much more briefly in S. Mark (xii, 37-40) and
S. Luke (xx, 45-47) in whose version we find several passages
recorded in other connections (xi, 39-52 ; xiii, 34-5) by
the same evangelist.
Possibly, S. Matthew has grouped the scattered sayings
into one whole, as in the case of the parables and the
Sermon on the Mount. Very probably, however, this
discourse of our Lord was actually much fuller than we
should gather from either S. Mark or S. Luke, 1 and it is
S. Matthew who seems to us to put in the clearest light,
writing of the very last day of our Lord's life, the invincible
opposition between His teaching and that of the Pharisees.
The discourse can be divided into three parts. 2 In the
first (1-12) Christ addressed the crowd and His own dis-
solutions : the first is that of Lagrange, the second cannot be admitted,
the third may be held. The three views are :
1. Jesus argues on the hypothesis of His opponents.
2. Jesus shared the error of His time.
3.- The psalmist speaks in the person of David. So the argument
retains its value whoever the author of the psalm may be, provided
that it is David into whose mouth the words are actually put.
1 Cp. Plummer, S. Matt., p. 313.
2 Among the charges made by our Lord in this discourse, J. Jeremias
(Jerusalem zur zeit Jesu, II, p. 124) distinguishes between those that refer
chiefly to the scribes (1-22, 29-36) and those directed at the Pharisees
i8o LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
ciples, in the second (13-36), which is the longest and most
severe, He directly attacked the Pharisees ; the third part
(37-40) contains His farewell to Jerusalem, in which He
records with emotion what He has done for that city, all,
alas, in vain.
The solemn lessons which our Lord taught on this occasion
were all the more necessary because of the sacred nature of
the authority that the Pharisees had abused. He, Himself,
took care to safeguard this authority in His opening words.
' The scribes and the Pharisees have sitten on the chair
of Moses. All things therefore whatsoever they shall say
to you, observe and do ; but according to their works do
ye not : for they say, and do not. For they bind heavy
and insupportable burdens : and lay them on men's
shoulders : but with a finger of their own they will not
move them. And all their works they do for to be seen
of men.' (2-5.)
Here Pharisaism appears as an essentially human religion
which is precisely what made it barren, insufferable and
hypocritical to so great an extent. Its authority rested on
the ' traditions of men,' and in their approval it looked for
its reward, while it left out of account the glory that comes
from God alone. 1 It was just here that they were in oppo-
sition to Christ's religion, wholly heavenly and divine.
' You are from below, I am from above.' Hence the quest
for the first place at the feast, and for precedence in the
synagogues (6). Even our Lord's own disciples, who had
received their early training in this school, had learned there
a jealous desire of high position in the very kingdom of God
itself ; and our Lord had spared no pains to convert them
from this spirit of pride, although, so far, His most pressing
warnings had glanced lightly over their souls. The weight
of the Cross would be needed before their lesson of humility
was learned.
(23-8). Similarly in the Sermon on the Mount, our Lord seems sometimes
to have the scribes chiefly in mind (Matt, v, 2148) and sometimes the
Pharisees (vi, 1-18). These two classes of our Lord's enemies are clearly
distinguished in Luke xi, 39-44 and 46-52. Really the leaders of the
Pharisees were all scribes, but many Pharisees were not, and instances
can be quoted of scribes who were not Pharisees (ibid., p. 127).
1 Cp. John xii, 43 : ' They loved the glory of men more than the glory
of God.' And v. 44 : ' How can you believe, who receive glory one from
another : and the glory which is from God alone you do not seek ? '
THE LAST WEEK 181
The Pharisees laid claim to dominion over men's souls,
and insisted on being called Master, Doctor, Father ;
titles destined to become inoffensive enough when the
Christian, hailing his ' Father ' in the person of the Apostle,
would remember that every grace came to him from God,
who alone was truly his Father. 1
To that extent, our Lord's word must be taken in the
most literal sense.
' Gall none your father upon earth : for one is your
Father who is in heaven. Neither be ye called masters,
for one is your Master, Christ. 3 (9, 10.)
Further, from this anxiety to shine before men and to
please them sprang that casuistry which, sometimes aiming
at a pitiless rigidity, at others taught the shirker as to how
to evade duties of the gravest kind ! ' Whosoever shall swear
by the Temple it is nothing ; but he that shall swear by the
gold of the Temple, he is a debtor ' (18). There would be
a tendency to parade the most scrupulous fidelity to the most
exacting minutiae of the rabbinic tradition, ' the tithe, mint
and anise and cummin,' thus attracting the notice of men ;
while despising the religion that God loves : 'judgement
and mercy and faith ' (23) . And this distortion of con-
science was all the more grave because it was taught to God's
people by their religious guides, who put all their im-
passioned zeal into the work of drawing into their error all
whom they could reach, Jew or Pagan alike.
Many times before, at Capharnaum, in the Sermon on
the Mount, throughout the whole Galilean ministry, Jesus
had denounced this deadly peril of Pharisaism, and tried
to snatch souls from its grasp. And on this last day of His
ministry He makes a final attempt. Apparently He failed,
for His opponents remained obstinate in their error, inflamed
against Himself ; yet ' heaven and earth shall pass away,'
but never the words of Christ ; they are graven on the
disciples' mind, and have become the law of the Church
herself. Christians too are exposed to the danger of a merely
human religious life, to hypocrisy and to pride ; and if the
' little flock ' are preserved from this, they owe it only to the
teaching and the grace of Christ. Once again let us read
our Lord's burning words :
' But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites,
1 i Cor. iv. 15. Cp. ibid., iii, 7 ; Eph. iii, 15.
1 82 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
because you shut the kingdom of heaven against men : for
you yourselves do not enter in and those that are going
in you suffer not to enter. 1 Woe to you scribes and
Pharisees, hypocrites, because you devour the houses of
widows, praying long prayers. For this you shall receive
the greater judgement. Woe to you, scribes and
Pharisees, hypocrites, because you go round about the
sea and the land to make one proselyte. And when he is
made, you make him the child of hell, twofold more than
yourselves. Woe to you, blind guides, that say, Who-
soever shall swear by the Temple, it is nothing : but he
that shall swear by the gold of the Temple is a debtor.
Ye foolish and blind : for whether is greater, the gold, or
the Temple that sanctifieth the gold ? And whosoever
shall swear by the altar, it is nothing : but whosoever
shall swear by the gift that is upon it is a debtor. Ye
blind : for whether is greater, the gift, or the altar that
sanctifieth the gift ? He therefore that sweareth by the
altar sweareth by it and by all things that are upon it.
And whosoever shall swear by the Temple sweareth by it
and by Him that dwelleth in it. And he that sweareth
by heaven sweareth by the throne of God and by Him
that sitteth thereon. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees,
hypocrites : because you tithe mint and anise and
cummin and have left the weightier things of the law :
judgement and mercy and faith. These things you ought
to have done and not to leave those undone. Blind
guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel. Woe
to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites : because you
make clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but
within you are full of rapine and uncleanness. Thou
blind Pharisee, first make clean the inside of the cup and
of the dish, that the outside may become clean. Woe to
you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites : because you are
like to whited sepulchres, which outwardly appear to men
beautiful, but within are full of dead men's bones and of
all filthiness. So you also outwardly indeed appear to
men just : but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and
iniquity. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites,
that build the sepulchres of the prophets and adorn the
monuments of the just. And say : If we had been in the
days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers
1 Verse 14 is of doubtful authenticity. Cp. Durand, p. 373.
THE LAST WEEK 183
with them in the blood of the prophets. Wherefore you
are witnesses against yourselves, that you are the sons of
them that killed the prophets. Fill ye up then the measure
of your fathers. You serpents, generation of vipers, how
will you flee from the judgement of hell ? Therefore
behold I send to you prophets and wise men and scribes :
and some of them you will put to death and crucify : and
some you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute
from city to city. That upon you may come all the just
blood that hath been shed upon the earth, from the
blood of Abel the just, even unto the blood of Zacharias
the son of Barachias, whom you killed between the Temple
and the altar. Amen, I say to you, all these things shall
come upon this generation.' (Matt, xxiii, 13-36.)
This is the most terrible utterance in the whole Gospel,
and has scandalized many. Thus Montefiore writes : ' The
truth is that the Gospels, of which men commonly speak as
if one found in them nothing but love and charity, are
sometimes full of hatred. . . . What has become of the
precept of Deuteronomy : the fathers shall not be put to
death for the children, neither shall the children be put to
death for the fathers ? Is it not here the Old Law which
might proudly turn the tables and say in its turn : You pre-
tend that my children shall expiate the blood of the
righteous ; but I say unto you : Where are the suavities of
the Sermon on the Mount ? Where are the beatitudes ?
Where the order to bless those who curse you ? '
These words, so unjust and so blind, have been borrowed
by E. Havet. 1 We may excuse them up to a certain point in
a Jew, but we utterly fail to understand their use by one who
has had a Christian upbringing. All the same, they may
serve to call our attention to a fact we might have over-
looked, and if familiarity has somewhat softened our first
impression, they will make us realize how exceptional, in
the Gospel, these terrible maledictions are.
For the rest, if they are terrible, many warnings had gone
before them. First, John the Baptist had told the Pharisees
who came to hear him : ' Ye brood of vipers, who hath
showed you to flee from the wrath to come ? ' These are the
very words that our Lord uses here. We rightly remember
the beatitudes, but we must not forget the maledictions that
1 Le Christianisme et ses Origines, IV, 244, 273. Montefiore, The
Synoptic Gospels (London, 1927), II, 303.
VOL. II. N
1 84 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
follow immediately after in S. Luke : ' Woe to you that are
rich ; woe to you that are filled ; woe to you that now
laugh ; woe to you when men shall bless you.' Those
thus condemned by our Lord were those who took exactly
the opposite line to that of the moral teaching of the Gospel ;
but we can easily understand that the severest condemnation
is kept for those who are teachers of error, and occasions of
scandal to the people, and only wishing to become the
executioners of Christ Himself. A little farther back we
read : ' Woe to him through whom (an offence) cometh.
It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about
his neck and he cast into the sea.' Here again we are led to
.realize something of the difference between the responsi-
bility of him who scandalizes a child, and that of the Phari-
sees who cause the loss of the whole people of God, and
bring about the Messias' death !
We remember perfectly well that children ought not to be
condemned for their fathers' faults, nor is that the sense of
the Gospel curses. All the blood shed would fall on this
generation because it was to put to death Him whom all the
just and all the prophets had desired and foretold. Not
long before, Jesus had told His Apostles : ' Many kings have
desired to see the things that you see and have not seen
them.' And now it is this Desire of the ages that the Pharisees
and scribes are going to put to death ! And so, just as all the
sanctity of the patriarchs and prophets is about to be ful-
filled in this Messias, who is the climax of all their hopes, in
the same way all the outrages of the past are to be con-
summated in this unjust crime. And after our Lord, His
followers will be persecuted by the same enemies, scourged,
hunted from town to town, and put to death.
Jesus saw open before Him all this future of bloody
persecution, and for the last time He tried to turn the people
from the path they were pursuing to their own destruction.
This was the purpose of the parables of the preceding days ;
and now He tries to make it clearer in the terrible invectives
that we find here. No one has any right to be surprised ;
quite the reverse ; it would have been surprising if our Lord,
who loved His people, had not, just before His Passion, made
a last effort to warn them and gather them to Himself.
And if anyone still doubts if His love can be found in
curses like these, let them read the passage to the end : for
they will finish with a sob.
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'Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets
and stonest them that are sent unto thee, how often would
I have gathered together thy children, as the hen doth
gather her chickens under her wings, and thou wouldest
not. Behold, your house shall be left to you, desolate.
For I say to you, you shall not see me henceforth till you
say : Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. 5
(Matt, xxiii, 37-39.)
This tragic appeal was the last made to Jerusalem. Jesus
had only a few more days to live, and He was going to devote
them to His faithful followers alone. The city would hear
Him no more, and the Temple would be deserted by Him.
Yet from afar we catch a glimpse of a very different prospect,
that of a glorious and triumphant return, which, at long
last, Jerusalem would hail with joy. But when this should
be was God's secret ; a point that our Lord would develop
still further with His disciples as they left the terraces of the
Temple behind them.
VII. The Consummation of the World, and the Parousia.
This great eschatological discourse is closely connected,
at least in S. Matthew, with our Lord's maledictions against
the Pharisees. Having uttered these curses and wept over
Jerusalem and the Temple, He left the place, and crossing
Cedron with His disciples ascended the Mount of Olives.
The higher they climbed the more the great mass of the
Temple stood out in ever stronger relief on the hill they had
just left, and the disciples could not take their eyes off it.
' Do you see all these things ? ' said our Lord. ' Amen, I
say to you, there shall not be left here a stone upon a stone
that shall not be destroyed.' And when they paused, and
our Lord was sitting on the Mount, ' the disciples came to
Him privately, saying : " Tell us when shall these things
be ? And what shall be the sign of Thy coming and of the
consummation of the world ? " ' (Matt, xxiv, 2-3).
The disciples' admiration for this great building which
seemed to defy the passage of time, and their veneration for
the holy ground on which it stood, made more painful still
our Lord's prophecy, that of its massive framework one stone
should not rest upon another. They kept silence for the
moment, no doubt overwhelmed by the grim prospect as
they had been more than once by the prediction of His
i86 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
Passion. But they knew, too, the danger of such prophecies :
one of the accusations that would soon be brought against
Jesus would be precisely that He had foretold the destruction
of the Temple (Mark xiv, 58 ; Matt, xxvi, 61) ; while later
on, the same complaint would be renewed against the first
martyr, S. Stephen : '. . . we have heard him say that
this Jesus of Nazareth shall destroy this place and shall
change the traditions which Moses delivered unto us'
(Acts vi, 14). So they waited until the summit of the Mount
was reached, and when our Lord was seated, Peter, James,
John and Andrew came to question Him of themselves.
The immediate bearing of their question was on the Parousia
and the end of the world. Such a catastrophe as the ruin
of the Temple was envisaged by them only in the per-
spective of the Last Day ; and, as a matter of fact, our Lord
did associate the two groups of facts in His reply. Jerusalem
and its holy ground would disappear in a terrible catas-
trophe ; the whole earth and the whole universe would
be dissolved in a final cataclysm at the consummation of
the world.
Before, however, describing these great tragedies Christ
warns His Apostles : ' Take heed that no man seduce you.
For many will come in My name, saying, I am Christ.
And they will seduce many ' (Matt, xxiv, 4, 5).
This warning is to be explained by the events that our
Lord had just foretold, and by the dispositions of the
Apostles themselves. The ruin of the Temple, that would
bring all of what Christ was then speaking in its train,
would seem to be the final and decisive crisis in the Apostles'
eyes ; and amidst the distress and anguish of that time,
false prophets and false Messiases would multiply, likeTheudas
who, giving himself out to be a new Josue, would promise
the people to lead them dry foot over Jordan once again. 1
Nor would it be only the sheer horror of the crisis that would
bring forth such impostors, spontaneously, so to speak ;
there would be the impatience born of Apocalyptic hopes
as well. Already, during our Lord's preaching, men had
been looking forward to a kingdom of God that should
come like some cataclysmic display of nature ; and it
would be the same after He had gone. Even in the Church
would be found those of fervid imagination who would
expect Christ's coming from one day to another, and who
1 A.J., XX, v, i, 97-99- Cp. R.B., 1906, 384.
THE LAST WEEK 187
would see in the catastrophe at Jerusalem the signal for a
mighty manifestation of His power. Against any such
temptation the Apostles must be on their guard, and wars,
famines and plagues notwithstanding, must give no credence
to impostors who present themselves as the Messias. They
must go on with their work amid persecutions and sufferings
of every kind.
' But look to yourselves. For they shall deliver you
up to councils : and in the synagogues you shall be
beaten : and you shall stand before governors and kings
for my sake, for a testimony unto them. And unto all
nations the gospel must first be preached.' (Mark xiii,
9> 10.)
The same predictions occur in a different context in
S. Matthew, where they appear among the instructions
given by Jesus to His disciples before He sent them out on
their missionary tour. 1
Still they are not out of place here. These great trials,
which will be the beginning of sorrows, will personally
affect the disciples, putting their constancy to the proof and
provoking their impatience. Persecution, more even than the
sight of external calamities, will tend to excite apocalyptic
dreams ; and our Lord wished to warn His Apostles against
such impatience, and to point out to them the long endurance
that would be necessary if, without weakening, they were to
bear all these trials. One detail, found also in S. Matthew,
stresses the fact of this duration : c . . . Unto all nations the
Gospel must first be preached,' or, in S. Matthew's words :
'. . . In the whole world, for a testimony to all nations : and
then shall the consummation come.' This was enough to give
the Apostles at least a glimpse of the immense prospect
opening up before them ; the last hour must remain unknown
to them, while it would be the object of their ardent desires ;
yet in spite of all, they could not forget the immense field
that Christ had opened to them, and that His Gospel would
cover ; but they could not know how long it would be
before that could come to pass.
And with these glimpses into the future were mingled
1 Lagrange, R.B., 385, thinks that the second context is the more
natural one ; but adds : ' The tone does not cease to be apocalyptic
because of the picture of dissensions penetrating into the family circle
itself. We find this in Micheas vii, 6 ; but it goes still further back.' Cp.
the same writer's commentary on S. Mark xiii, 12, p. 339.
1 88 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
certain exhortations to the Apostles themselves : confidence
in the Holy Ghost, who would dictate to them the answers
they must give ; and assurance of salvation, together with
the warning that it is by patience that this would be
accomplished ; once more they drank in the instruction
that our Lord had so often given them before, culminating
in the promise : ' He that shall lose his life for Me shall
find it.'
And having thus prepared them He put before them the
terrible picture of the ruin of the Temple and of the Holy
City itself :
' And when you shall see the abomination of desolation,
standing where it ought not (he that readeth let him
understand) : then let them that are in Judea flee unto
the mountains. And let him that is on the house-top not
go down into the house nor enter therein to take anything
out of the house. And let him that shall be in the field
not turn back to take up his garment. And woe to them
that are with child and that give suck in those days.
But pray ye that these things happen not in winter.'
(Mark xiii, 14-18 ; cp. Matt, xxiv, 15-20 ; Luke xxi,
20-23.)
It is in S. Mark, whose version we have quoted, that this
prophecy seems to represent most nearly our Lord's words.
Veiled and mysterious in character, it reproduces the
language of Daniel to express the profanation of the holy
place ;* a parenthetical note calling the reader's attention
to the fact. When they shall see all this coming let the
faithful flee : Jerusalem is doomed and they must fly to the
1 Cp. Lagrange, L'Evangile de Jesus Christ, p. 478 : ' S. Luke, who
understood the signs of the times, has put in clear terms what in his
predecessors remained obscure. It is more especially to these then that
we must turn for the oldest traditional form of the Sermon on the Mount,
and preferably to S. Mark, who has not mixed it with other elements.'
And on Luke xxi, 24 he writes (ibid., p. 482, n. 3) : ' We are very much
tempted to say that Luke wrote in the light of subsequent events. Never-
theless if weighty evidence obliges us, as we think it does, to fix the date
of the composition of his Gospel and the Acts before the year 70, we may
say with great probability that events begin to stand out clearly from that
time and that the Christian tradition as to the interpretation of the
Sermon as a whole was already fixed.' S. Augustine has akeady remarked
on S. Luke's great precision : ' Lucas evangelista et hanc dierum brevia-
tionem, et abominationem desolationis, quae duo ipse non dicit, sed
Matthaeus. Marcusque dixerunt, ad eversionem Jerusalem docuit pertinere,
alia cum eis dicens apertius de hac eadem re, quse illi posuerunt obscurius '
(epist. 199, quoted by Lagrange, p. 478, n. 2).
THE LAST WEEK 189
mountain, and that as soon as possible, without taking up
any time in going home to bring away necessaries, not even
a cloak. The state of women in pregnancy, or suckling
their children, will be peculiarly cruel. The calamity will
be worse if it takes place in winter, for in that damp and
inclement season it is impossible to pass the night out of
doors, and the flight itself would be cut off by the swollen
streams. In S. Luke we find the same predictions but with
direct reference to Jerusalem only and not specially to the
Temple. As a matter of fact, when these events actually
took place, warned by our Lord's instructions and urged
on by the prophets of the Christian community, the faithful
did leave Jerusalem and withdrew to Pella (Eusebius, H.E.,
III, v, 3).
The picture is completed by the following verses from
S. Luke :
' . . . There shall be great distress in the land and wrath
upon this people. And they shall fall by the edge of the
sword and shall be led away captives into all nations :
and Jerusalem shall be trodden down by the Gentiles
till the time of the nations be fulfilled.' (Luke xxi, 23-24.)
After the siege and ruin of the city was to come the
massacre and captivity, and the bondage of the Holy City
until ' the times of the nations shall be fulfilled.'
The Lord had told His Apostles : ' Unto all nations the
Gospel must first be preached' (Matt, xiii, 10). This
evangelization of the world was not, however, to take place
before the ruin of Jerusalem, but in the interval between
this first catastrophe and the end of time. This is the
* times of the nations ' *; and so between the two planes
1 Lagrange, R.B., 1906, 405, writes : ' Even if we were not aware that
S. Luke had been the disciple of S. Paul, we could only explain these times
of the nations in accordance with the teaching of that apostle (Rom. xi, 25),
namely, that Israel's rejection permits the entry of the Gentiles into the
bosom of the Church.' Godet, 322, shows that if S. Luke alone clearly
faces this time of the nations after the fall of Jerusalem ' we may rest
assured that the thought thus expressed is in perfect conformity with that
of our Lord. Such an idea without any point of contact with past intui-
tions might have faded or totally disappeared if left to oral tradition alone.
S. Luke, possessed of written and therefore more exact testimony, here as
in many other cases, has assigned their true purport to our Lord's words.
If Christ, who foretold with such precision the date of the destruction of
Jerusalem (" this generation "), declared in the same breath that He
Himself was ignorant of the day of His own coming, it must infallibly be
because He was asserting the existence of a more or less considerable
interval between the two events, an interval precisely identical with the
period of the Gentiles.'
i go LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
that divide this perspective of the future between them,
Luke gives us a glimpse of a period of indefinite duration,
probably of great length.
Then we have another picture, more terrible, universal
and inevitable than the first :
' For in those days shall be such tribulations as were
not from the beginning of the creation which God created
until now : neither shall be. And unless the Lord had
shortened the days, no flesh should be saved : but, for
the sake of the elect which He hath chosen, He hath
shortened the days.' (Markxiii, 19, 20 ; cp. Matt, xxiv,
21-22.)
The anguish with which we are confronted in this passage
is no longer that of Jerusalem and Judea, but of the whole
world ; and it has ceased to be possible to take refuge in
flight. In the previous case, those who might be surprised by
the catastrophe were advised to flee into the mountains, but
there is no question of that now, and if Almighty God were
not to cut short the agony, all flesh would perish. 1 Once
more, we are no longer face to face with the affliction of
Judea alone, but of the whole world, whose population is
threatened by the cataclysm that has burst upon it.
And in the midst of these frightful calamities fresh
temptations will arise ; false Christs and false prophets will
raise their heads ' and they shall show signs and wonders,
to seduce (if it were possible) the very elect ' (Mark xiii, 22).
The same warning occurs in S. Luke in the midst of the
'journey narrative 5 : 2
' The days will come when you shall desire to see one
day of the Son of Man. And you shall not see it. And
they will say to you : See here, and see there. Go ye
not after, nor follow them. For as the lightning that
lighteneth from under heaven shineth unto the parts
1 The salvation in question here is not the salvation of the soul, but life
itself : R.B., 387 : ' It is no longer the faith of the elect that is threatened
by calamity ; it is their very life. As in the time of Isaias, there will be
a short respite designed to show forth the omnipotence of God who has
spared those whom He would.'
2 In the verses immediately preceding (xvii, 20-21), our Lord answers
the Pharisees who have asked Him when the Kingdom of God will come.
' The kingdom of God cometh not with observation. Neither shall they
say : Behold here or behold there. For lo, the kingdom of God is within
'you.' And our Lord goes on with the instruction quoted above.
THE LAST WEEK 191
that are under heaven, so shall the Son of Man be in His
day. But first He must suffer many things and be rejected
by this generation. And as it came to pass in the days
of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of Man.
They did eat and drink, they married wives and were
given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into
the ark and the flood came and destroyed them all.
Likewise as it came to pass in the days of Lot. They did
eat and drink, they bought and sold, they planted and
built. And in the day that Lot went out of Sodom, it
rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed
them all. Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son
of Man shall be revealed. In that hour, he that shall be
on the house-top, and his goods in the house, let him not
go down to take them away : and he that shall be in the
field, in like manner, let him not return back. Remember
Lot's wife. Whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose
it : and whosoever shall lose it shall preserve it. I say
to you : In that night there shall be two men in one bed.
The one shall be taken and the other shall be left. Two
women shall be grinding together. The one shall be
taken and the other shall be left. Two men shall ,be in
the field. The one shall be taken and the other shall be
left. They answering, say to Him : Where, Lord ?
Who said to them : Wheresoever the body shall be,
thither will the eagles also be gathered together.' 1 (Luke
xvii, 22-37.)
1 In this passage two lines of teaching can be traced : one addressed
to the Pharisees, and the other to the disciples themselves. The first had
as its subject the kingdom of God, as it was being set up by our Lord by
His preaching then and there ; the other, the kingdom that He will establish
on His return. As for the former we must not look for its sudden appear-
ance in this place or in that, for it is already within God's people without
being observed ; the second will come unexpectedly and will lighten up the
whole earth as by a flash. We must not give ear to lying statements.
Behold here He is, or there ! For all men will see His coming and will be
surprised by it in the middle of their daily tasks. The same prophecy,
which is not to be found in this identical position in Matthew or Mark,
reappears, like the whole journey narrative in a shorter form in the dis-
course before us. Lagrange remarks : ' If the hypothesis of two written
sources cannot be established in the case of Mark, then the tradition of two
discourses ... is confirmed by the fact that S. Luke has inserted the
equivalent of verse 21 in a discourse about the appearance of the Son of
Man (xvii, 23) .... In Matthew, too, there are traces of the double character
of the discourse, although he has fused the two elements, since verses 26-28
resume the idea already expressed in verses 23-25, which are parallel to
Mark, and develops it with S. Luke in connection with the Parousia. It is
impossible that Mark should have been unaware of the fact that in its
original meaning the passage referred to the coming of the Son of Man.
iga LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
We find ourselves suddenly in the midst of the supreme
crisis ; the whole world is shaken to its foundations, and the
Son of Man appears.
' But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun shall
be darkened and the moon shall not give her light. And
the stars of heaven shall be falling down and the powers
that are in heaven shall be moved. And then shall they
see the Son of man coming in the clouds, with great power
and glory. And then shall He send His angels and shah 1
gather together His elect from the four winds, from the
uttermost part of the earth to the uttermost part of heaven.'
(Mark xiii, 24-27 ; cp. Matt, xxiv, 29-31 ; Luke xxi,
23-25-)
Most of the details in this description are borrowed from
the Jewish traditions ; x for, as elsewhere, Christ was speak-
If, repeating himself, lie puts it here, it is this new situation that he has in
view, different from the former referred to in v. 6. It is no longer a question
of false Messiases throwing out hopes of salvation when ruin is at the door.
Henceforth the scene is changed. The faithful in the midst of unheard-of
calamities await with impatience the coming of Christ, who is, for them,
Jesus (i.e., their Saviour). False Christs and false prophets try to seduce
them, and by means of prodigies to get themselves accepted as the Christ '
(S. Marc, p. 344).
1 We find reference to supernatural signs in the prophets in connection
with happenings incomparably less important than the end of the world.
Lagrange (Messianisme, 47, 48) writes : ' In connection with the capture
of Babylon by the Medes we read in Isa. xiii, 9-10 : " Behold the day of
the Lord shall come, a cruel day, and full of indignation and of wrath and
fury, to lay the land desolate, and to destroy the sinners thereof out of it.
For the stars of heaven and their brightness shall not display their light ;
the sun shall be darkened in his rising, and the moon shall not shine with
her light." And in the same book, where the judgement that is due to
Edom is mentioned, we are presented with a tableau of all nations and all
nature as if the chastisement of Edom were a miniature of the whole
world. See, too, Isa. xxxiv, 46 : " And all the host of the heavens shall
pine away, and the heavens shall be folded together as a book ; and all
their host shall fall down, as the leaf falleth from the vine and from the
fig-tree. For my sword is inebriated in heaven : behold it shall come down
upon Idumea, and upon the people of my slaughter unto judgement. The
sword of the Lord is filled with blood. It is made thick with the blood of
lambs and buck-goats, with the blood of rams full of marrow : for there
is a victim of the Lord in Bosra and a great slaughter in the land of Edom."
The same measures are described in Jeremias (v, 23, 24) in connection
with the misfortunes threatening Judea and Jerusalem : " I beheld the
earth, and lo it was void and nothing : and the heavens, and there was no
light in them. I looked upon the mountains, and behold they trembled :
and all the hills were troubled." Again in Ezech. xxxii, 7, 8 : all heaven
mourns the destruction of Egypt. In the midst of a plague of locusts
Joel (ii, 10) writes : " At their presence, the earth hath trembled, the
heavens are moved : the sun and moon are darkened and the stars have
withdrawn their shining." The last example, perhaps, is the most
characteristic of all. After that, it is quite natural that hills should gambol
THE LAST WEEK 193
ing the language of His time and country, and there is
nothing to prove a priori that His words are to be interpreted
otherwise than the similar expressions of Isaias, Jeremias,
Ezechiel or Joel. Besides, it is to be noticed that Luke, who
wrote for readers less accustomed to such language, softens
the violence of the expressions and contents himself with
predicting ' signs in the sun and in the moon and in the stars. 5
The description of the coming of the Son of Man also
betrays features borrowed from the book of Daniel :
' I beheld therefore in the vision of the night, and lo,
one like the son of man came with the clouds of heaven.
And he came even to the Ancient of days : and they
presented him before him. And He gave him power
and glory and a kingdom : and all peoples, tribes and
tongues shall serve him. His power is an everlasting
power that shall not be taken away : and his kingdom
that shall not be destroyed.' (Dan. vii, 13, 14.)
And similar language is used in the book of Enoch (Ixii,
3, 5) : ' In that day all the kings and the mighty ones of the
earth shall stand up and shall see and know him as he sits
on the throne of his glory ; before him justice will be judged
and no vain word will be spoken before him. . . . One half
of them will look upon the other half and fear will seize
upon them ; they will hold down their heads and grief
will come upon them when they see the son of man seated
upon the throne of his glory.'
The passages just quoted show that apocalyptic images
are capable of being interpreted in various ways ; and
cannot by themselves determine with certitude the particular
catastrophe described here, which on this data alone might
be the ruin of Jerusalem and the Temple and not the
consummation of the world. But the uncertainty is removed
by what follows, describing the appearance of the Son of
Man before whom all the races of the earth lament, and the
gathering of the elect from one end of the world to the other.
These are the essential elements of the prediction : Christ
appears in His glory, and while all the human race recog-
nizes Him with fear, the elect are gathered together by Him.
like lambs when our Lord comes to accomplish the marvels of His mission
upon earth. Clearly, it would be a gross misinterpretation to take these
images in a literal sense. That would be to misunderstand the style of the
Bible, which has usually inspired the apocalyptic literature and furnished
the canvas for the verbal pictures there drawn.'
194 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
This worldly setting is a secondary affair to these great
events, and its traditional features are adopted by Christ
as such. But He keeps to the picture, gaining, as we have
seen, His inspiration from the descriptions of the prophets,
but transforming them at the same time. The personage
who appears in Daniel is of indeterminate character ' like
the son of man ' ; while in the book of Enoch the son of
man is still more vaguely described, being neither properly
speaking a man or a god. If he mingles with men, it is
only in that far-off paradise where the just shall become
angels. There is nothing in him that recalls the Saviour's
humility, sufferings and mercy ; nothing that reveals in
him the Son of God. 1 But it is quite the contrary here.
The Son of Man whose return is foretold is Jesus Himself,
a fact of which He will soon be giving still more solemn
assurance in His reply to the High Priest. It is this that
gives its unshakeable foundation to the Christian hope,,
expressed in the prayer of the Apocalypse, ' Come, Lord
Jesus,' that Christian lips will repeat to the end of the world.
Similarly is transformed the prophecy of the gathering
together of the elect. The Jews expected and prayed for
the reassembling of the scattered tribes of the Diaspora :
' If thou be driven as far as the poles of heaven, the Lord
thy God will fetch thee back from thence, and will take thee
to Himself (Deut. xxx, 4). But these whom the Son of Man
will gather together will not be the tribes of Israel, but the
elect (cp. 2 Thess. ii, i) ; and it is this vast multitude of all
nations and tribes that the seer of the Apocalypse beheld about
the throne of the Lamb (vii, 9).
The sublime picture here traced must have recalled to the
disciples' mind the already distant memories of the parables
of the lake. Then, in interpreting the parable of the cockle,
our Lord had told them :
' The Son of Man shall send His angels : and they shall
gather out of His kingdom all scandals and them that
work iniquity. And shall cast them into the furnace of
fire. There, shah 1 be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Then shall the just shine as the sun in the kingdom of
their Father.' (Matt, xiii, 41-43.)
Here the angels appear as the servants of the Son of Man,
1 Cp. Hist, du Dogme de la Trinite, I, p. 174.
THE LAST WEEK 195
and it is they who, from one end of the world to the other,
will gather together the elect.
In bringing this great discourse to an end, Christ returned
to the question that had called it forth. The Apostles to
whom He had just foretold the destruction of the Temple
had asked Him, ' When shall these things be, and what
shall be the sign when all these things shall begin to be
fulfilled ? ' and now He tells them :
' Now of the fig-tree learn ye a parable. When the
branch thereof is now tender and the leaves are come
forth, you know that summer is very near. So you also
when you shall see these things come to pass, know ye
that it is very nigh, even at the doors. Amen, I say to
you that this generation shall not pass until all these
things be done. Heaven and earth shall pass away : but
My word shall not pass away. But of that day or hour, no
man knoweth, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son,
but the Father.' (Mark xiii, 28-32 ; cp. Matt, xxiv, 32-36 ;
Luke xxi, 29-33.)
In this, as in many other sections of the discourse, Mark
and Matthew's versions are strictly parallel, while Luke's
is not so close. In the first place he omits the last verse, in
which Jesus declares that the last day is unknown to all,
except the Father Himself. As for the earlier happenings
of coming catastrophe, just as the appearance of leaves
heralds the approach of summer, so in these can be read
the fact of the coming of the kingdom of God. It is in the
same sense that He says in the previous verse (28) : ' When
these things begin to come to pass, look up and lift up your
heads, because your redemption is at hand. 5 By this
liberation of God's people and the coming of His kingdom
is meant the fall of Jerusalem and the Temple ; and
similarly, in this whole group of verses (28-33), Luke has
before him only the first instalment, so to speak, of coming
events ; that is, the Jewish catastrophe at Jerusalem, and not
the consummation of the world.
It is different in Mark and Matthew, where there are two
groups of facts, one of which is as evident as the approach
of summer, while the date of the other is a secret of the most
mysterious kind. We have here a distinction that we have
recognized already, when we remarked above that Christ
spoke first of a catastrophe that should take place in Judea,
ig6 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
from which immediate flight into the mountains would be
the only means of escape (Mark xiii, 14). He then passed
on to speak of a vast calamity that would affect all flesh,
and from which no one could take refuge in flight (19, 20) ;
and of the coming of the Son of Man, which would be as
sudden as the lightning as it darts from one horizon to
another (Matt, xxiv, 27). Here, too, there is question of a
catastrophe, to be heralded by premonitory signs, that
would fall upon the generation to which Christ spoke ;
and then of the last day, unknown to all.
And so throughout the whole of this discourse, we are
conscious of two sets of facts alternatively unveiled by our
Blessed Lord ; first, the destruction of Jerusalem and of
the Temple, and then the consummation of the world. 1
For the interpretation of the great eschatological discourse
it will be useful to refer to the discussion of De Grand-
maison, ' Propheties de Jesus sur la consommation des
choses,' Jesus Christ, II, pp. 280-321 ; to the dissertation
of K. Weiss, Exegetisches zur Intumslosigkeit und Eschatologie
Jesu Christi (Minister, 1916), and to Fr. Lagrange's various
works, especially LEvangile de Jesus Christ, pp. 473-486.
In his previous commentaries (Marc, p. 329 ; Luc, p. 536),
Fr. Lagrange proposed a very attractive critical solution
of the problems involved, which is briefly as follows : The
discourse on the coming of the Son of Man is recorded by
S. Luke in chapter xvii in a wholly different context.
' Now,' says Father Lagrange, ' if Luke has placed this
great (eschatological) discourse in its historical setting, that
1 This alternation is particularly noticeable in S. Mark. Lagrange,
R.B., 393, has made it more apparent by arranging these prophecies in the
form of alternate strophe and antistrophe, which answer one another as
in the prophetical books. In either part is found this description of the
tribulation of that time, 6 . . . 19 . . . ; advice concerning the line of
conduct to be pursued, 9 . . . 21 . . . ; the description of the catastrophe,
14 . . . 24 . . . ; and finally a last warning as to the dates of these events ;
on the one hand a date that can be foreseen and recognized by its signs,
28 . . . ; and on the other a date unknown, when the storm will burst, all
unexpected, on the whole race, 32. ...
We cannot follow this arrangement in every detail, since the two groups
of events are not independent of one another ; the first group is the
anticipated image of the second. We must therefore expect to find the
same characteristics in the descriptions of each. Thus, as we have noted
above, the features of the ultimate upheaval at the end of time are those
upon which the prophecies dwell in describing local disasters, such as the
ruin of Babylon or Edom. But in the light of this fact we have to recognize
in this great discourse the presence of this double series of predictions ;
and the latest exegetical research, far from effacing this distinction, has
tended to confirm it more and more.
THE LAST WEEK 197
is only what we should expect from, his fondness for orderly
composition. It follows that it is Matthew who has trans-
ferred a part of this discourse to that on the destruction of
the Temple. And to go a step further, we may suppose
that Mark himself has succeeded very well in fusing the two
into one. This hypothesis cuts out the objection from the
root.'
This solution is certainly attractive ; but we must be
careful not to press the assumption behind it too far, assign-
ing to Luke's historical setting a rigidity which, especially
in the 'journey narrative,' it does not seem to possess.
And we may remark further that Luke himself includes in
the second discourse features that manifestly refer to the
end of the world, the Parousia, and our Lord's coming on
the clouds of heaven (21, 27). But at least it will remain
true that the eschatological discourse is found, in chapter xvii,
detached from every other element, and that by studying it
there we can better distinguish it from the near prospect of
the catastrophe at Jerusalem. 1
A careful study, then, of our Lord's discourse has led us
to distinguish the two great events that He foretold : the
destruction of the Temple and the end of the world. Between
the two there lies apparently a considerable interval,
namely the ' times of the Gentiles.' The moral exhortations
that form the conclusion of the discourse will help us to
realize more clearly how long this interval is to be.
' Take ye heed, watch and pray. For ye know not
when the time is. Even as a man who, going into a far
country, left his house and gave authority to his servants
over every work and commanded the porter to watch.
Watch ye therefore (for you know not when the lord of
the house cometh, at even, or at midnight, or at the
cock-crowing, or in the morning) : lest coming on a
sudden, he find you sleeping. And what I say to you, I
say to all : Watch.' (Mark xiii, 33-37.)
To our Lord this exhortation to watchfulness is the most
important part of His discourse, so He is careful to enlarge
1 In L'Evangile de Jesus Christ, p. 476, Fr. Lagrange has made all
necessary reservations concerning this hypothesis. ' If this analysis/ he
writes, ' may serve as a reply to critics accustomed to literary dissections
of a far bolder character, nevertheless we have denied ourselves the
satisfaction of dwelling upon it. The literary agreement of the first three
gospels is much too important to be ignored. 1 Cp. new edition of S. Marc,
P- 353>
1 98 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
on its significance. According to Mark, He had for His
hearers only the four privileged Apostles, but He wishes
this great lesson of vigilance : ' Watch ' to reach all His
disciples. So He repeats it under a thousand different forms :
' Take heed to yourselves, lest perhaps your hearts be
overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness and the
cares of this life : and that day come upon you suddenly.
For as a snare shall it come upon all that sit upon the face
of the whole earth. Watch ye, therefore, praying at all
times, that you may be accounted worthy to escape all
these things that are to come and to stand before the Son
of Man. 5 (Luke xxi, 34-36.)
It is the same counsel that we find in S. Mark, but, as
usual, Luke attaches particular importance to the absence
of material cares, to liberty of heart, and to prayer.
Matthew has developed these warnings at much greater
length, and, following his usual method, he has here
gathered together all the teachings of Christ relating to the
subject in hand, concluding with the following pregnant
parable which, as a matter of fact, has profoundly impressed
the Christian conscience in every age :
' Who, thinkest thou, is a faithful and wise servant,
whom his lord hath appointed over his family, to give
them meat in season? Blessed is that servant, whom
when his lord shall come he shall find so doing. Amen
I say to you : He shall place him over all his goods. But
if that evil servant shall say in his heart : My lord is
long a-coming : and shall begin to strike his fellow-
servants and shall eat and drink with drunkards : the
lord of that servant shall come in a day that he hopeth
not and at an hour that he knoweth not : and shall
separate him and appoint his portion with the hypocrites.
There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.' (Matt,
xxiv, 45-51 ; cp. Luke xii, 42-46.)
This short parable can be applied to all Christians, but
it is aimed more directly at the Apostles, who are they that
have been set by the Lord over the whole house and charged
with the distribution of His people's food. What Christ is
especially urging upon them is to be ready at every moment,
and to drive home the lesson He appeals to their experience
of daily life. In the dead of night, thieves pierce the mud
THE LAST WEEK 199
walls of the houses of that period ; a thing that the master
of the house would never have allowed to happen if he had
only known what time they would come. This warning is
graven on the Christian conscience. ' But you, brethren,'
writes S. Paul to the Thessalonians (i, v, 4), ' are not in
darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief;
for all you are the children of light and children of the day.'
And in 2 Peter iii, 10, we read : ' The day of the Lord
shall come as a thief.' And in the Apocalypse iii, 3 : ' If
then thou shalt not watch, I will come to thee as a thief :
and thou shalt not know at what hour I will come to thee.'
And in xvi, 15: ' Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he
that watcheth and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked,
and they see his shame.'
But what strikes us most in this parable is the wicked
servant's reflection : ' My lord is long a-coming ' ; where-
upon he began to strike his fellow-servants and to give
himself over to carousing with companions of the worst
kind. On this subject Billot writes 1 : ' My Lord is long
a-coming. ... It is a strange reason and it has not found
its way here by chance. It is the reason of an unbeliever
who absolutely mocks at the idea of the Lord's coming but
whose incredulity veils itself in an ironical comment on His
delay. . . . Such are those of whom S. Peter speaks in his
second epistle : " Knowing this first : That in the last days
there shall come deceitful scoffers, walking after their own
lusts, saying : Where is His promise of His coming ? For
since the time that the fathers slept, all things continue as
they were from the beginning of the creation" (2 Peter iii,
3, 4). All this, with much more than it is easy to imagine,
lurks in the irony of these words : moram facit dominus meus
venire ! '
We find the same teaching in the parable of the Ten
Virgins (Matt, xxv, 1-13). The main theme of the parable
can be followed easily enough. 2 A marriage was generally
celebrated in the evening. The bridegroom and his com-
panions arrived before the bride, to the sound of music and in
the blaze of lights. The bride, similarly attended, left her
father's house, met the bridegroom and was led by him to
what was to be their common abode. This is where the ten
virgins with their lamps intervened. c In the country of
1 La Parousie, p. 172.
2 Cp. Billerbeck, I, pp. 500-18.
VOL. II. O
200 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
Ismael it was the custom to conduct the bride from her
father's house to that of the bridegroom : preceded by about
ten wooden torches supporting little vessels like saucers,
with wicks made of cloth, steeped in a little oil and pitch.' 1
We can imagine that lamps like these would hold only
a very little oil, a fact remembered by the wise virgins who
brought a spare vessel of oil with them ; on the other hand,
the foolish virgins remarked that since the company would
arrive almost at once there was no need to make provision
to such an extent. However, the bridegroom tarried. We
find here the same warning as in the preceding parable :
the delay was so long that the virgins, wise as well as foolish,
slept. Still, there was no complaint made against them on
this ground, and those who were excluded from the marriage
feast were so excluded, not because they slept, but for not
being duly prepared before their sleep. The sleep is death ;
and the bridegroom of the parable, Christ, the supreme
judge. At the last day the foolish virgins will come and
knock at the door, and in tones full of anguish will cry :
' Lord, Lord, open to us.' But He will answer them :
' Amen, I say to you, I know you not.' It is always the
same teaching, the same watchword constantly renewed :
c Watch.'
While listening to these last exhortations, the Apostles
would have recalled the former teaching recorded by Luke, in
his 'journey narrative ' :
' Let your loins be girt and lamps burning in your
hands. And you yourselves like to men who wait for
their lord, when he shall return from the wedding ; that
when he cometh and knocketh, they may open to him
immediately.' (Luke xii, 35, 36.)
' But when the master of the house shall be gone in
and shall shut the door, you shall begin to stand without
and knock at the door, saying : Lord, open to us. And
he answering, shall say to you : I know you not, whence
you are. Then you shall begin to say : We have eaten
and drunk in thy presence : and thou hast taught in our
streets. And he shall say to you : I know you not, whence
you are. Depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity.'
(Luke xiii, 25-27.)
The resemblance to the teaching of the parable we have
1 Raschi on Kelim, II, 8, quoted by Billerbeck, I, p. 969.
THE LAST WEEK 201
just considered is clear, but we must remark that during
His last few days on earth Christ insists more and more on
the long delays that will precede His return.
Once more we have the same lesson in the parable of the
talents, recorded by S. Matthew here and already com-
mented on by us when comparing it with the parable of
the pounds, found only in S. Luke. Here we only notice
our Lord's reiterated teaching about His return. After
telling the story of the man who went on a voyage and
entrusted his silver to his servants' care, He goes on (xxv, 19) :
' After a long time the lord of those servants came and
reckoned with them.' A clear purpose runs through all
these variations, and we must return to it very soon ; but
let us finish the reading of the chapter first :
' And when the Son of Man shall come in His majesty,
and all the angels with Him, then shall He sit upon the
seat of His majesty. And all nations shall be gathered
together before Him : and He shall separate them one
from another, as the shepherd separateth the sheep from
the goats : And He shall set the sheep on His right
hand, but the goats on His left. Then shall the King
say to them that shall be on His right hand : Gome, ye
blessed of My Father, possess you the kingdom prepared
for you from the foundation of the world. For I was
hungry, and you gave Me to eat : I was thirsty, and you
gave Me to drink : I was a stranger, and you took Me
in : naked, and you covered Me : sick, and you visited
Me : I was in prison, and you came to Me. Then shall
the just answer Him, saying : Lord, when did we see
Thee hungry and fed Thee : thirsty, and gave Thee
drink ? And when did we see Thee a stranger and took
Thee in ? Or naked and covered Thee ? Or when did we
see Thee sick or in prison and came to Thee ? And
the King answering shall say to them : Amen I say to you,
as long as you did it to one of these My least brethren, you
did it to Me. Then He shall say to them also that shall be
on His left hand : Depart from Me, you cursed, into ever-
lasting fire, which was prepared for the devil and his angels.
For I was hungry, and you gave Me not to eat : I was
thirsty, and you gave Me not to drink. I was a stranger,
and you took Me not in : naked, and you covered Me not :
sick and in prison, and you did not visit Me. Then they
202 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
also shall answer Him, saying : Lord, when did we see Thee
hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in
prison, and did not minister to Thee ? Then He shall
answer them, saying : Amen I say to you, as long as you
did it not to one of these least, neither did you do it to
Me. And these shall go into everlasting punishment :
but the just, into life everlasting.' (Matt, xxv, 31-46.)
This stupendous scene forms the conclusion of the
eschatological prophecies of our Lord. The future destiny
of the world has been sketched in a few bold lines from the
point of view of the propagation of the Gospel, the only
one that matters from the standpoint of eternity. The
kingdom of Christ will be preached to every nation through-
out the whole world. Then will the Son of Man suddenly
appear, and He will judge the world. In this final judgement
all nations and angels will assemble before His throne. Long
before Christ, Judaism looked for the visitation of God, for
His coming in majesty, and for the judgement that He would
exercise here below. But this function of universal judge
was too Divine a prerogative to be delegated to His Messias :
' In the same way,' it was said, ' that God has created alone
and not by another, so He will judge alone and not by
another.' Only in the Parables of Enoch is the judge's
role given to the Messias, and then it is not a universal
judgement that He has to carry out. 1 Our Lord claims
this Divine office for Himself ; and, what is perhaps more
remarkable still, He offers Himself to all men, just and
sinners alike, as the aim of their whole moral life : it is
according to their relations with Christ that all men will
be saved or lost. If they have loved and cherished Him
they are among the sheep, destined for the eternal paradise ;
if not, they are goats, doomed to eternal pains. By this
double prerogative of being, at the same time, Judge of
men and their last End, the Person of Christ appears to us
in a majesty manifestly Divine.
But this is not the only lesson that this great prophecy
has to teach : it shows us, too, that the service of Christ, on
which depends all the moral worth and eternal happiness
of men, is the service of our neighbour, too. ' As long as
you did it to one of these, My least brethren, you did it to
Me.' These words of the Judge will be a revelation for all ;
1 Cp. Histoire dn Dogme de la Trinite, I, pp. 283 ff.
THE LAST WEEK 203
both for the beneficent just and the pitiless wicked ; for
those who have helped the needy, equally with those who
have despised them, will give place to the Son of Man, the
Judge of all, and in every cause. Here, more than anywhere
else, we see how the Son of Man sums up all humanity in
Himself, how He is charged with its miseries, not only that
He may take His share, but that He may suffer for those of
each of us as well, and claim for each of us his neighbour's
help. Two days later, after the Last Supper, He would
say to His Apostles :
* A new commandment I give Unto you : That you
love one another, as I have loved you, that you also love
one another. By this shall all men know that you are
My disciples, if you have love one for another.' (John
xiii, 34, 35.)
By these words our Lord would crown the teaching of
His whole life. From the Sermon on the Mount onwards,
what He had preached above all else had been the love of
all, and particularly of enemies ; the forgiveness of injuries,
in imitation of the Heavenly Father who sends His sun and
rain on good and bad alike ; and according as this pardon
is granted or refused, so will it be with God's forgiveness
of ourselves. Many times in His parables He had repeated
the same teaching again and again ; and often in the
teachings of the last few months He had shown that all
the law and the prophets is summed up in these two com-
mandments, to love God and our neighbour ; that these
two commandments are alike, and closely linked, one to
another. 1 But all such teaching is less expressive than the
judgement scene which Christ here, so to speak, sets before
our very eyes : putting Himself in the place of the least
amongst us, He claims our succour for Himself. Having
received all from Him, having everything to fear
from Him, can we refuse the humble services that He asks ?
Thus are men divided sheep and goats. All the preced-
ing parables have already given us a glimpse of this terrible
sentence which must for ever put humanity in two camps,
1 Later S. John was to repeat the same teaching : ' If any man say : I
love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar. For he that loveth not his
brother whom he seeth, how can he love God whom he seeth not ? And
this commandment we have from God, that he who loveth God love also
his brother ' (i John iv, 20-21).
204 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
the evil and the good. So were condemned the murderous
husbandmen (Matt, xxi, 41) ; so was the guest without a
wedding garment cast, bound hand and foot, into the
exterior darkness (xxii, 13) ; so was the wicked servant,
surprised by his master, cut off and given over to weeping
and gnashing of teeth (xxiv, 51). So again were the wise
virgins brought into the wedding feast, and the foolish ones
left outside (xxv, 12) ; the faithful depositaries, who had
increased their talents, made to enter into the joy of their
Lord, and the idle and useless servant deprived of everything
and cast into the exterior darkness, too (xxv, 21-23, 28-30).
And here we have the same lesson once more. Some
Protestant theologians have found here a cause of offence,
being unable to understand how, ' morally speaking, there
are only two classes of men, separated by an impassable
gulf, and without intermediate gradation of any kind.'
Reuss, who raises this objection in his commentary (p. 617),
renews it in his Theologie chretienne (I, 249) : ' Are men's
works so universally imperfect and full of defects, to bring
about a separation so complete that the least culpable of
the reprobate will be severed and that for ever by an
impassable gulf, from the least meritorious of the elect ? '
This objection misses the essential difference, between a
grave fault, and works simply ' imperfect and full of defects.'
Still, it contains a partial truth that we have no difficulty
in acknowledging. It is too true that our works are
universally imperfect and defective ; and if, through all
eternity, the just had to bear the stain that such imper-
fections bring, we should have to recognize in this division
of men into two classes an abstract simplification correspond-
ing ill with the complexities of real life. But we believe in
Purgatory. These just souls, although laden with so many
imperfections and faults, will, after death, be purged of them
by Almighty God, and when they present themselves before
Him, they will be truly without stain. So are they in truth
the blessed of the Father, whom Christ introduces into His
paradise above. Absolute and indelible is the difference
between them and the damned. No doubt many would
like to say, with Renan, that the difference between good
and evil, true and false, lies only in a series of imperceptible
shades, like those on a dove's neck. Not so can a Christian
speak. His yes is yes, and his no, no. ' He who is not with
Me is against Me,' said our Lord.
THE LAST WEEK 205
More are dismayed at the eternal perspectives here
opened by our Lord. So are we, but that does not hide
them from our sight. And if we do shut our eyes to them,
the Gospel teaching will be true, just the same. ' These
(the wicked) shall go into everlasting punishment, but the
just into life everlasting.' Equally eternal is the destiny of
both ; if we wish to snatch the damned from their pains,
so must we the elect from their eternal life. 1 At least let us
observe the terms used by Christ to distinguish the fate of
each. For the just it is the kingdom prepared for them from
the beginning of the world ; for the wicked, the eternal fire
prepared for the devil and his angels. So it is for His
children that God has prepared His kingdom, from the
foundation of the world ; but Hell has not been made for
guilty men, but for the devil himself. Let not men make
themselves the accomplices of the devil here below ; then
in no wise will they be companions of his torments later on. 2
We have reached the end of the public teaching of our
Lord, and we have just finished reading afresh all that
concerns the coming of the kingdom of God, the parousia
of the Son of Man, and the end of the world. Over this we
must still linger, for the subject is of capital importance and
Christ's teaching about it has often been misunderstood.
Thus Renan wrote (Vie de Jesus, c. 17) : ' His declarations
of the nearness of the final catastrophe leave room for no
sort of equivocation. The present generation, He assured
His hearers, would not pass until all these things were
fulfilled. . . . These formal assurances were the preoccupation
1 In this connection may be read the words of Charles Gore in comment-
ing on Luke ix, 51-6 (A New Commentary on Holy Scripture, pp. 222 ff.) :
' It is very important that we should consider what sort of judicial or
punitive action it is which our Lord repudiates : it is the demanding
Divine vengeance on our adversaries; in Elijah's case, innocent people.
But our Lord does not repudiate all idea of Divine judgement, and He
pronounces tremendous judgements Himself on those whom He recognizes
as the real and deliberate adversaries of God. There is a sort of Neo-
Marcionism much in fashion to-day which would have us think of judge-
ment and wrath as altogether alien to God an idea which is quite alien
to the New Testament.'
2 In commenting on Matt, xxv, 3146, in the same commentary
(p. 196) Levertoff-Goudge interprets the judgement scene as follows :
from xxiv, 42 to xxv, 30 the parousia is considered in relation to the
Church. In xxv, 3146 there is no longer question of the Church but the
heathen ; the justice meted out to them depending upon their attitude
towards the humblest members of the Church. This interpretation does
violence to the text ; it is the whole of mankind that is judged by Christ,
and the judgement is motived by the disposition of each man, not speci-
fically towards Christians but simply towards his neighbour.
206 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
of the Christian family for nearly seventy years. ... If the
first Christian generation had a deep and constant faith, it
was because the world was on the point of coming to an
end, and the great revelation of Christ was soon to take
place. . . .' During many years, and especially after
J. Weiss' book on the kingdom of God, these theses have
been ever more imperiously maintained ; all the exegesis
of Loisy has been long dominated by them, so much so
that at the end of his introduction (p. 252) he thought it
possible thus to sum up our Lord's career : ' The career
and teaching of Jesus was the grain of mustard seed that
became a tree ; the lump of leaven that caused the whole
mass to ferment. Nothing apparently more insignificant
could be conceived : a village workman, simple and
enthusiastic, who believed in the speedy coming of the end
of the world, the inauguration of a reign of justice, and the
coming of God upon the earth, and who, strong in this
initial illusion, ascribed to himself the principal role in the
organization of this city of dreams. Then he took up the
part of a prophet, inviting all his fellow-countrymen to
repent of their sins, so as to conciliate the great judge, whose
coming was imminent and would be like that of a thief in
the night. He recruited a small number of unlettered
followers, being scarcely able to find any others, and stirred
up an agitation not very deep, however in popular
circles. He was bound to be promptly arrested by the
competent authorities, and he was ; he could not hope to
escape a violent death, nor did he.' 1
If we could avoid being saddened by the blasphemies of
this passage, we should be shocked by its contradictions,
and by the nonsense it makes of the interpretation of the
Gospels. Loisy recalls the parables of the mustard seed
and the leaven, and he is right : these symbols, created by
Jesus Himself, most surely reveal His thought. But this
thought is the precise contrary of everything we find here.
The kingdom of heaven is like a seed that man casts into
the earth, where he leaves it to its natural vital force, and
the action of Almighty God. Meanwhile he goes about his
affairs, sleeps and wakes again, and the seed grows without
him knowing how, bringing forth of itself, first the stalk,
then the ear, then the full corn in the ear ; then at last all
is ripe for the harvest and the sickle is brought into use.
1 Les Evangiles Synoptiques, I, p. 252.
THE LAST WEEK 207
The kingdom of God is like a grain of mustard seed, the
smallest of all the seeds, but from it springs a great tree, a
shelter for the birds of the air. The kingdom of heaven is
like leaven which a woman takes to knead into three measures
of meal until it leavens the whole paste.
The setting of these parables was no matter of chance ;
they all have one and the same meaning. The kingdom
of God is to develop with power, but slowly and progressively,
as living beings do. Here is no sudden transformation, but
a progressive evolution, invading and transforming all,
almost unnoticed by men. It was what Christ was to say
directly, and without any parable to the Pharisees, when they
asked Him when the kingdom of God was to come. ' The
kingdom of God cometh not with observation, neither shall
they say behold here, or behold there. For lo, the kingdom
of God is within you.' It was to counteract attacks of
impatience that He set before His Galilean hearers the
parable of the cockle. ' Wilt thou that we go and gather
it up ? ' said the servants. ' No,' was the reply, ' suffer
both wheat and cockle to grow until the harvest, and in the
time of the harvest they will separate the wheat and the
cockle.'
This long-suffering patience is the law of the Heavenly
Father's providence with regard to the progress of individuals
as they approach nearer and nearer to the kingdom of God.
But it appears still more clearly in the gradual transformation
of the world ; there also are to be applied the Gospel
parables of the seed and the wheat. Christ has lodged
these vital forces in the human soul ; He is sure of their
final triumph ; but He awaits it without any impatience
at all. The instructions that He gave His Apostles when
sending them on their first preaching mission show very
clearly that it was as yet only a question of taking a first
step on a road which will be found long indeed. They will
go neither to Samaritans nor Gentiles, as yet, but only to
the lost sheep of Israel (Matt, x, 5) ; but the Gentiles will
have their time (Luke xxi, 24) ; and when it comes they
will enter the kingdom, too. ' To-day they burn the visible
sanctuary of Jerusalem ; soon they will come and gather
around the sanctuary not made with hands (Mark xiv, 58),
which is to take its place and against which the gates of Hell
itself will not prevail (Matt, xvi, 18). The victory is
assured, the enemy has already fallen from heaven, and has
208 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
no longer the power to arrest the movement which is to end
in his complete overthrow (Luke x, I7).' 1
We know all these facts well enough, and they form a
consistent whole which is part of the warp and woof of the
Gospel itself. And patently it is the same thought that we
find in the teaching of this last week. On the eve of the
entry into Jerusalem we find it in the parable of the pounds,
the meaning of which is given to us by Luke (xix, n) :
c . . . He added and spoke a parable, because He was nigh
to Jerusalem, and because they thought that the kingdom
of God should immediately be manifested.' With even
greater emphasis, Matthew records the same warning in the
parable of the servants : ' My Master is long a coming '
(xxiv, 48) ; in that of the ten virgins : ' And the bridegroom
tarrying they all slumbered and slept ' (xxv, 5) ; in that of
the talents : ' . . . After a long time the lord of those servants
came' (xxv, 19) ; nor can we see the hand of a redactor
in significant touches like these. Not a detail has been
thrown in by chance ; on the contrary this delay is supposed
by the whole trend of the parable itself. It is because the
Master tarries that the servants fight among themselves ;
because the Bridegroom is late that the virgins sleep ; because
the owner of the property delays that the depositaries have
leisure to use or waste the talents they have received in
trust. All these parables repeat the same lesson ; Christ's
return is something for which men have to wait, and His
servants must see to it that they do so with constancy and
vigilance alike.
Finally, we are led to the same conclusion by the eschato-
logical discourse itself. The fall of Jerusalem and the
Temple was near at hand, but that was in no sense the
consummation of the world. Men could see this first
catastrophe coming, and, taking refuge in the mountains,
could thus escape by flight. But the other will burst suddenly
on the world, at a date unknown to all ; it will be like a
great cast of the net, enveloping the whole human race.
More than that, between these two great events a long delay
will be necessary, that the time of the nations may be
fulfilled.
All these facts are fundamental and authentic, but, after
all, a difficulty remains. It is certain that, in the apostolic
age, there was a widespread belief in the imminent return
1 Reuss, Theol. chret., I, 259-260.
THE LAST WEEK 209
of Christ ; and, it may well be asked, where did that
belief come from, if not from the teaching of Christ Himself?
In replying to this difficulty, we must first call attention
to the state of mind of the Jews at the time of our Lord.
A certain number of them, and notably the Sadducees, had
relinquished messianic hopes altogether. On these we have
no need to dwell ; they were unrepresented in the Church,
and if any of them did become Christians, it was after being
converted to a messianic faith. This hope of the Messias
was the very soul of Christianity, so much so that S. Paul
could say : ' Because that for the hope of Israel, I am
bound with this chain' (Acts xxviii, 20). Now, at this
period, even before our Lord's coming, the messianic hope
was, for the most part, impatient in character ; those
swayed by it believed themselves on the eve of the great
manifestation awaited so long, and there was no question
of distinguishing the different comings of Christ. No
sooner had John the Baptist begun to preach, than they
asked him : c Art thou he that is to come ? ' ' Art thou the
prophet ? ' 'Art thou the Christ ? ' And when Jesus began
to reveal Himself as the Messias the initial confusion became
clear. He was asked for a sign from heaven, that is, for that
dazzling apparition that all looked for as the proper manifes-
tation of the Messias ; even the Apostles betrayed impatience
from time to time, and up to the very day of the ascension
itself: ' . . . Wilt Thou at this time, restore again the king-
dom to Israel ? ' was the question they asked, even so late
in the day as that.
To such impatience Jesus was content to reply : ' It is
not for you to know the times or moments, which the Father
hath put in His own power ' (Acts i, 7) . In spite of its
reserve this answer could still supply the eager enthusiasm
necessary to lead the Christian world to an expectation of
the Master's coming. Our Lord in no way destroyed this,
nor did He wish to. He wanted to keep in full play the
fervour of His whole Church and of each of His disciples
in particular. He wished the spirit of watchfulness, that
He constantly preached, to be the law of the whole human
race, and of each individual as well. For most men, indeed,
the parousia was bound to be a far-distant event ; but Christ's
return to each at the moment of His death was a thing near
in every case, and to be expected at any time. 1
1 S. Augustine, ep. 199, 2, 3, tr. Billot, La Parousie, 141 : ' What
is to be feared on the last day, in so far as it is to come on the ungodly
2io LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
Indubitably, this personal aspect of the matter is found
in certain of the parables, such as that of the rich fool
(Luke xii, 20) : ' Thou fool, this night do they require
thy soul of thee and whose shall these things be which thou
hast provided ? ' 1
This application to individuals of our Lord's warnings
helps to explain His urgency in giving them ; but, as we
have already said, another even stronger reason conies in.
Christ wished to leave His Church uncertain as to the last
day, so that it might always live in the expectation and hope
of His return. When explaining the Sermon on the Mount
and the Our Father, we remarked with what fervour the
Fathers repeated from age to age : ' Thy kingdom come, the
redemption of Thy children, the humiliation of Thy enemies,
the unity and consummation of the saints ! ' And these
aspirations are the more ardent because the date of their
realization is unknown. In his book on L'esperance du salut
au debut de I'ere chretienne, Fr. d'Ales writes (p. 236) : ' It
is no less true that early Christian literature gives an impres-
sion of a general belief in the imminence of the last day, or,
as it was then called, the parousia of Christ. Indeed the
Apostles helped to spread it, not deliberately, for, once
like a thief, ought to be dreaded by each of us on the last day of his life,
and for the same reason. For in whatever state each soul finds itself on
the day of death, in that state will it be found on the last day of the world,
and as it dies on the one, so will it be judged on the other. To this is to
be referred that which is written in the Gospel of S. Mark : " Watch you,
therefore (for you know not when the Lord of the house cometh, at even
or at midnight, or at the cock-crowing, or in the morning) , lest coming on
a sudden. He find you sleeping. And what I say to you, I say to all :
Watch." For who are these " all " to whom He speaks, if not all His
faithful, all the members of His mystical body which is the Church, in a
word, all Christians ? So He did not speak only to those who were listen-
ing to Him at the moment, but to us who are come after them, as He spoke
to those who will come after us, up to the day of His own last coming.
But how then ? Will it be that this day will find them all living upon the
earth, or that, perchance, it is to those also who lie in their tombs that may
be applied these words : " Watch, lest coming on a sudden, the Master
find you sleeping ? " Why then say to all what evidently can only apply
to those who are alive at the last day ? Why, once more why, if not
because contemporaries of that day all must in effect be, in the way that
I have said ? For then truly will arrive for each one the last day, when
the moment comes for him to leave the world, in the state, from henceforth
fixed and immovable, in which he will be judged on that other day. There-
fore every Christian ought to watch that the coming of the Lord may not
find him unprepared ; but unprepared at the last day will be found every-
one who is found unprepared at the last day of his life.'
1 Reuss finds it also in several passages of the eschatological discourse
(Th. chr., I, 254) : ' The hour of death is uncertain ; it will come unex-
pectedly like a thief in the night ; but it will come without fail ; the Lord
THE LAST WEEK 211
again, they refrained from teaching what they themselves
did not know ; but mainly by the energy of their exhortations,
and also by their silence. Around them, and, under the
influence of their words, current ideas grew up, of which
they were not the authors in any direct sense. . . . And they
were only bound to oppose them, in so far as they menaced
the faith or Christian life of the churches under their care.'
And what can rightly be said of the Apostles, can and
ought to be applied, with certain reservations, to Christ
Himself. He, whose knowledge was universal and infallible,
willed, none the less, to tell His disciples that He was
ignorant of this day which was known only to the Father,
in order that He might make them understand clearly that
the date in question was always to remain an impenetrable
mystery, even for Holy Church herself. 1 At the same time
He was for ever urging them to be ready. These exhorta-
tions and uncertainties falling upon souls already obsessed
by impatience for the last day, and wholly possessed with
the desire to see their Master once again, were bound to
develop these aspirations of which the ancient Christian
literature is full. ' Come, Lord Jesus ! ' It is the cry of the
Church that rings out in the last verse of the Apocalypse,
and echoes across the history of the world. Men, alas, are
only too prone to forget heavenly vistas in their desire to
establish themselves definitely here below ; and there was
only too good reason to fear that if the faithful ceased to
expect the prompt return of Christ, they would come to
hope that that return might be delayed, and at last that it
might never take place at all. This abandonment of
Christian hopes would be the very death of Christianity
itself, involving the irremediable decay of the Church.
Then would be seen the fulfilment of our Lord's words, His
servants fighting among themselves, or giving themselves
over to enjoyment, with the boast : ' The Master is long
will visit His servants ; happy those who shall be prepared to receive
Him ! Death strikes, now one, now another, and no human calculations
can determine who will be the next to be called before his judge. The
external condition of two individuals might be precisely the same, but that
would not have the slightest influence on the moment of their death. One
will be taken and the other left ; and no one can say the day, or which
will go first. Watch then, says our Lord ; be on your guard. . . . This
exhortation is addressed to all, and not exclusively to those of any particular
or distinctive period.'
1 On this ignorance of the last day, cp. Origines du Dogme de la Trinite,
note C, pp. 559-90.
212 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
a coming : He will come no more.' Such servants indeed,
lacking faith and hope, we shall always find. But ever
against them stand the faithful ones, who with loins girded
and torch aglow, await without faltering through the long
night, the return for which they hope : ' Amen. Come,
Lord Jesus.'
CHAPTER VI
THE LAST SUPPER. INSTITUTION OF THE HOLY EUCHARIST.
THE DISCOURSE AFTER THE SUPPER
7. The Date of the Last Supper.
THESE discourses on the return of the Son of Man and the
Judgement are the last public utterances of our Lord ; they
were the last warnings that He gave. During the two days
that He still had to live, He would confine Himself to the
inner circle of His own disciples, appearing no more in
public except for His condemnation and death.
These last events in Jesus' life are of decisive importance
in the history of our redemption. So we find them recorded
by the four evangelists with a detail and precision that we
find nowhere else. We can see how, from the very beginning,
the apostolic catechesis, the source of our Synoptic Gospels,
aimed at engraving all the details of this story on the
Christian mind. And we find the same concern in S. John.
He who generally leaves out of his picture the facts already
related, by the Synoptics, here sets himself to re-tell, in his
turn, and with the greatest possible detail, what Jesus said
and did during those last days. The only exception is the
institution of the Holy Eucharist. He had already recorded
at length the discourse on the Bread of Life, at Capharnaum,
and he judged it superfluous to repeat here what had been
already related by the synoptical writers, but he wished to
fill up the gaps in their narrative by describing the washing
of the feet, and recording the discourse after the Supper at
length. All that follows, and that, properly speaking, con-
stitutes the history of the Passion, from the Garden of Olives
to Calvary, is related by all four evangelists with a parallelism
closer here than is found in the whole story of the life of
Christ.
This exceptional multiplicity and abundance of sources
is, for the Christian, a treasure-trove. Perhaps, for the
historian, it is an embarrassment, at times. We have
noticed on many occasions in this history that each of the
213
214 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
evangelists had followed his own path in independence of
the others. No doubt the simple, straightforward assurance
of this method is for the historian a precious guarantee,
bringing him into contact with certain facts, set forth in
perfect good faith, and evidently without fear of any super-
vision from outside. In fact any anxiety on the part of the
author to bring himself into agreement with other witnesses
would have aroused suspicions of a legitimate kind. Here
is an advantage of the first order, lightly bought by any
embarrassments it may cause us on other grounds. But we
must acknowledge such embarrassments when we meet
them ; and they are particularly appreciable in the history
of the Last Supper, and of the Passion itself.
A first difficulty arises at once, in relation to the date of
our Lord's death. To follow the brief discussion necessary
on this point we must recall some elements in the Jewish
calendar. In the Christian Church the celebrations con-
nected with Easter take place always on the same days of
the week ; that of our Lord's death on Friday, and His
Resurrection on Sunday. This custom, which was a
subject of discussion in the second century, in Pope Victor's
time, has been universal ever since. On the other hand,
among the Jews the celebration of the Passover is always
fixed for the same day of the month ; the great feast always
falling on the I5th Nisan, whatever day of the week that may
happen to be. Further, we must remember that, in Jewish
usage, the day commences in the evening, at sunset ; so the
evening following the i/j-th Nisan belonged already to the
1 5th and to the feast. Finally, it will be remembered that
the Jewish months are precisely lunar months. With us the
first of the New Moon may fall on any day of the month,
but with the Jews it is by definition the first day of the
month ; so the Passover is the fifteenth day of the Paschal
Moon.
Having remarked this much, we must add that there is
no doubt that Jesus died on a Friday. 1 But the question is
whether this Friday was the 141x1 or i5th Nisan, To clear
this up let us re-read the passage of Exodus in which the
details of the Passover celebrations are laid down :
' On the tenth day of this month let every man take a
lamb by their families and houses. But if the number be
1 This point has been definitely established ; supra, vol. I, p. xxxi.
THE LAST SUPPER 215
less than may suffice to eat the lamb, he shall take unto
him his neighbour that joineth to his house, according to
the number of souls which may be enough to eat the lamb.
And it shall be a lamb without blemish, a male, of one
year : according to which rite also you shall take a kid.
And you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this
month : and the whole multitude of the children of
Israel shall sacrifice it in the evening. And they shall
take of the blood thereof, and put it upon both the side
posts, and on the upper door posts of the house, wherein
they shall eat it. And they shall eat the flesh that night
roasted at the fire : and unleavened bread with wild
lettuce. You shall not eat thereof any thing raw, nor
boiled in water, but only roasted at the fire. You shall
eat the head with the feet and entrails thereof. Neither
shall there remain any thing of it until morning. If there
be any thing left, you shall burn it with fire. And thus
you shall eat it : You shall gird your reins, and you shall
have shoes on your feet, holding staves in your hands,
and you shall eat in haste ; for it is the Phase (that is the
Passage) of the Lord. And I will pass through the land
of Egypt that night, and will kill every firstborn in the
land of Egypt, both man and beast : and against all the
gods of Egypt I will execute judgements. I am the Lord.
And the blood shall be unto you for a sign in the houses
where you shall be : and I shall see the blood, and shall
pass over you. And the plague shall not be upon you to
destroy you, when I shall strike the land of Egypt. And
this day shall be for a memorial to you : and you shall
keep it a feast to the Lord in your generations with an
everlasting observance. Seven days shall you eat un-
leavened bread. In the first day there shall be no leaven
in your houses : whosoever shall eat any thing leavened,
from the first day until the seventh day, that soul shall
perish out of Israel. The first day shall be holy and
solemn, and the seventh day shall be kept with the like
solemnity : you shall do no work in them, except those
things that belong to eating.' (Exodus xii, 3-16.)
The great feast, therefore, was on the fifteenth day of the
month. In accordance with the usual Jewish usage it
commenced the night before ; and it was on this eve that
the paschal lamb was consumed.
VOL. n. p
2i6 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
Now the difficulty is this : on the one hand the Synoptic
narratives represent the Last Supper celebrated by Jesus
with His Apostles as being the paschal meal ; on the other,
S. John clearly asserts that the day of the paschal meal was
the day on which Jesus was slain. According to the
Synoptics, then, Christ died on the I5th Nisan ; according
to S. John, on the I4th.
In our study of the chronology of our Lord's life (supra, vol.
I, p. xxxii), we have shown that the passages to be quoted
from S. John are decisive, and that even in the Synoptics
themselves there are certain points which lead us to think
that Jesus died on a working day, which consequently was
not the great day of the feast. 1 Therefore, the date of i4th
Nisan, which is forced upon our acceptance by S. John, 2 is
also suggested by certain details of the Synoptic gospels
and, together with most historians, we have no wish to
investigate further on that particular point.
But from this arises another problem, by no means easily
solved, i.e. : Was the Last Supper a paschal meal ? And if
so, how can we explain the fact that Jesus ate the Pasch
the night before His death, while the Pharisees ate it the
next day ; in other words, on the evening of the day when
Jesus died? (Johnxviii, 28).
Before discussing this question, it may be useful to remind
ourselves of what the paschal meal consisted in our Lord's
time. Here is the description as given in the Mishnah,
Pesachim, x (ed. Beer, pp. 186 ff.) :
On the eve of the pasch, from about the hour of Minchah,
nothing must be eaten before the night. Even the poor in
Israel must eat nothing before they come to the table. Not
less than four cups of wine must be supplied, even if it be
necessary to have recourse to the poor fund for this.
1 Cp. Lagrange, S. Marc, p. 356 : ' And we may confidently assert
that in the Synoptics the day of the Passion was not a holiday, since
Simon of Cyrene returned from the fields, that is, probably from his work
(Mark xv, 21 ; Matt, xxvii, 32 ; Luke xxiii, 26) ; and since it was possible
to purchase a winding sheet (Mark xv, 46) ; and to prepare spices (Luke
xxiii, 56) ; and that not only the guards, but a disciple too, were armed
(Mark xiv, 47). These points of agreement of the Synoptics with John,
which are, so to speak, under the surface, are only the more characteristic
for that.'
2 Fr. Tillmann, Das Johannesevangelium (Bonn, 1931), thinks it possible
to get rid of the apparent contradiction between John and the Synoptics
by interpreting John xviii, 28, not of the eating of the paschal lamb, but
of an ordinary meal at Paschal-tide. Hence, he thinks, there is nothing in
John inconsistent with the date 15 Nisan (pp. 310311). This inter-
pretation does not seem to us to be tenable.
THE LAST SUPPER 217
When the first cup is poured out, according to the disciples
of Shammai, first the blessing of the day is pronounced, and
then that of the wine ; but according to the followers of
Hillel, the reverse order is to be observed. This is brought
before those present (the entry), while the lettuce is left to
soak in the sauce until the beginning of the meal. Then the
unleavened bread is brought forward, with the lettuce and
the sauce to moisten it, but the sauce is not obligatory,
although Rabbi Eleazar ben Rabbi 'Sadduc says that it is.
When the Temple was still standing the paschal lamb was
brought in. The second cup is poured out, and then the
son asks the father the traditional questions . . . and the
Hallel is sung as far as : ' Blessed art Thou, Jehovah,
Saviour of Israel.'
Then the third cup is poured out, and the blessing on the
meal pronounced ; then the fourth ; the Hallel is finished
and the Blessing intoned. Between the cups anyone
may drink, if they so wish, but not between the third and
fourth cup. Those present are not dismissed. After the
paschal meal comes the aphiqomen. If anyone falls
asleep the others may go on eating, but not if all have slept. 1
If we compare this description with the Synoptic narra-
tives, it is difficult to work out an agreement between the
two accounts. Those exegetes who have tried to distinguish
within the Gospel accounts the various stages in the paschal
meal, have nothing better than conjectures to propose ; and
those historians who think that Christ did not celebrate the
Passover naturally stress the difficulties involved. On the
other hand, the Synoptics reproduce features the significance
of which it is impossible to misunderstand. It is certain that
Peter and John were sent to Jersualem to prepare the Pass-
over (Mark xiv, 12 ; Matt, xxvi, 17 ; Luke xxii, 7) ; the
meal that follows is certainly the paschal meal that they had
prepared (Mark xiv, 17 ; Matt, xxvi, 20 ; Luke xxii, 14),
and Jesus Himself said quite explicitly : ' With desire I have
desired to eat this pasch with you before I suffer ' (Luke
xxii, 15).
1 Beer remarks : ' This sleep may have been produced by the wine.
If some slept, the others might at least redeem the honour of the evening."
On this abuse cp. Amos vj., 5 ; Osee iv, i ; Isa. v, n ff . ; xxii, 12 ; xxviii, i,
7 ff . This last detail, introduced by a writer who, none the less, treats the
Talmudic texts with great respect-and sees nothing but what is beautiful
in the celebration of the Passover, shows how, even in this holy feast, abuses
had crept in. After that, we can better understand i Cor. xi, 21. On the
question of the aphiqomen, cp. H. Lietzmann, Zeitschrift f. N. T. Wiss.,
XXV (1926), pp. 1-5.
2i8 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
It is difficult to elude the force of these passages, and
especially of the last. Lagrange, after having explained the
reasons that can be brought in favour of the hypothesis
denying the paschal character of the meal, concludes
(S. Marc, p. 360) : ' If in our first edition we expressed the
view that this theory has less to be said for it than others, a
more careful study of S. Luke has convinced us that it is not
tenable at all.'
This is our own view. Not only do we reject the opinion
of those who admit a contradiction between the evangelists
at this point, and therefore discard either S. John's testi-
mony or that of the Synoptics, 1 but we also part company
with those exegetes who think it possible to reconcile the
denial of the paschal character of the supper with the
Synoptic narrative. 2
Several theories have been put forward to explain how it
was that Jesus was crucified on I4th Nisan, although He
ate the Passover on that same day, the eve of the feast :
(a) Jesus anticipated the celebration of the Passover. This
view is thus set forth by Godet (Saint Luc, II, 342 ff.) :
' Matt, xxvi, 1 8, has preserved for us, in our Lord's
message to the master of the house, a saying that deserves
to be well weighed. " My time is near at hand. With thee
I make the pasch with My disciples." We shall not really
understand what was in our Lord's mind unless we see in
1 For example, Reuss, Histoire Evangelique, p. 627 ; Wright, Synopsis,
pp. 139, etc.
2 We acknowledge, however, that this opinion is not new. Dora
Calmet, who upheld it, has claimed for it the support of the. Fathers
of the second and third centuries, who, in controversy with the Quarto-
decimans, maintained that Christ did not eat the Paschal Lamb on
the 14 Nisan. Bossuet, in his Explication des prieres de la messe, XXIII,
acknowledges that many have held that Christ could not have eaten the
legal passover this year, having been Himself immolated at the same time
as the Paschal Lamb. Fouard, II, 503, ' without going so far as to adopt
this opinion ( Calmet 's), which is shocking to the general sentiment of the
Church,' thinks at least that Jesus did not eat the Paschal Lamb. Le
Camus, III, 183, thinks that the Passover had been put back to the isth
to avoid two feasts coming in succession, or that Christ did not eat the legal
Passover.
This interpretation has been confirmed by the aid of another hypothesis :
the supper would not have been a paschal meal but a qidduch. This
view has been expounded by Box in The Jewish Antecedents of the Eucharist,
J.T.S., III (1902), 357-9. Batiffol accepts it in the first editions of his
Eucharistie, p. 36, but abandons it in the fourth and following editions
(p. 133). This theory has been taken up by W. O. E. Oesterley, The
Jewish Background of the Christian Liturgy (Oxford, 1925), pp. 156-93.
But it is not tenable ; cp. Lagrange, S. Marc, p. 358.
THE LAST SUPPER 219
these words a hidden reference to the obligation in which
He found Himself, owing to His approaching death, of
anticipating the celebration of the Passover. " My death
is at hand ; to-morrow it will be too late for Me to celebrate
the pasch ; so let Me celebrate it in your house, with My
disciples to-night." It is an invitation to the owner of the
house at once to get ready a room and all that was necessary
for the meal, the two disciples making all preparations con-
jointly with the host. No doubt the paschal lamb would be
immolated in the Temple that evening ; but then, since
Jesus was excommunicated with all His followers and was
perhaps already the subject of a decree of arrest on the part
of the Sanhedrin (John xi, 53), it may be doubted whether
in any case He would have been able to immolate the lamb
for Himself the next day, according to the official form. It
is not at all likely that He would. Therefore He exempted
Himself from following the accustomed use, as far as the
mode of celebration was involved, just as He exempted
Himself from the law itself as regards the day. He was
driven to this course by the decision of the Sanhedrin to
bring about His death before the feast (Matt, xxvi, 5).'
This hypothesis is not improbable ; but it raises diffi-
culties of its own. Such an anticipation of the Passover must
have left a strong impression on the disciples, and yet they
do not seem to have been aware of it at all.
(b] Fr. Lagrange supposes a divergence in the com-
putation of the days of the month (S. Marc, pp. 362 ff.) :
He writes : ' In the Jewish system, like that which prevails
even to-day in the Mohammedan world, a month does not
commence precisely at the New Moon in accordance with
astronomical methods, but on the evening when the New
Moon was seen for the first time. Now, even in fine weather,
some would see this while others would not. No doubt the
competent authority would satisfy itself as to the value of
stated evidence on the point, but if that authority was suspect
to a religious party, such as might have been the case with the
Pharisees, the question would remain a disputed one. . . .
Now it is possible to suppose that in the year of our Lord's
death, there were some who believed that Thursday was
1 4th Nisan, while the heads of the nation were awaiting it
on the Friday. I 'do not know that this solution has ever
been proposed, and I do not attach much importance
to it myself. But it would explain how S. Luke came to
220 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
regard the day of the supper as the legal day of the
pasch.' 1
//. The Preparations for the Supper.
The Washing of the Disciples' Feet.
This discussion finished, we can now turn to the principal
facts of this great week. Six days before the Passover there
had been the repast and the anointing at Bethania (John xii,
i), and this day being a Sabbath it must be regarded as
certain that Jesus had reached Bethania the night before.
The next day, a Sunday, the triumphal entry into Jerusalem,
took place, our Lord returning to Bethania in the even-
ing (Mark xi, n). On the three following days were
given the instructions on which we have commented above,
the parables, followed by questioning, and the great
eschatological discourse. Luke (xxi, 37, 38) adds : '. . . in
the daytime He was teaching in the Temple, but at night,
going out, He abode in the Mount that is called Olivet.
And all the people came early in the morning to Him in the
Temple, to hear Him.' There was a sense of approaching
1 A similar explanation has been thus worked out by Strack, Pesachim
(Leipzig, 1921), p. 10 : ' There was not complete unanimity in computing
the beginning of Nisan ; many, however, and Jesus among them, perhaps
following their own observations, fixed the ist of Nisan, and possibly the
1 4th, a day sooner than the supreme Sadducean court and the priests.'
Billerbeck has taken up and confirmed this hypothesis in his excursus,
The Day of Jesus' Death, II, pp. 812-53, especially 847 ff. Cp. pp. 598 ff. (on
Acts ii, i) : ' The priests of the house of Boethus (which from. 24 B.C. to
A.D. 65 had given six of its members to the High Priesthood : cp. Schiirer,
II, 270 ff.) wished the Day of Pentecost always to fall on a Sunday, thus
conflicting with the Pharisees, who only considered the fifty days after the
Passover, whatever the day of the week might be. It is possible that when
15 Nisan fell on a Friday, Boethus' followers, with the support of other
Sadducees, kept back the feast by a day so that the first day of Passover
should fall on a Saturday, and Pentecost on a Sunday. This is what
happened in the year of our Lord's death ; the Sanhedrin fixed the I5th
Nisan on the Sabbath ; the Pharisees, followed by the mass of the people,
on the Friday. Jesus and His disciples, following the computation of the
Sanhedrin, ate the Passover on the Thursday ; the Sanhedrites, on the
Friday. John preferred this computation, which stressed the symbolical
significance of our Lord's death. None the less, Christ's words, " That
which thou dost, do quickly," and the meaning attached to them by the
disciples (xiii, 27 ff.), show that they considered themselves to have
already reached the day of preparation for the Passover.'
On this whole question always obscure of this Passover of Christ,
may be read the very learned dissertation of G. Dalman, Jesus- Jeschua,
pp. 80-166. Dalman prefers the Synoptic narrative, in this connection.
. . . See also Lietzmann, Messe und Herrenmahl (Bonn, 1926), pp. 211 ff.,
according to whom the supper was not a paschal meal, and the primitive
rite of the Christian supper owed nothing to the Jewish Passover. Cp.
E. Schwartz, Z.n.t.W., VII, 12 ff. ; Burkitt, J.T.S., XVII (1916), 291 ff. ;
Ed. Meyer, Ur sprung und Anfange, I, 173 ff.
THE LAST SUPPER 221
crisis in the air ; on the one hand, the people pressed
around Him, on the other, so malevolent were the authori-
ties that Jesus could not pass the night in Jerusalem. This
precaution on His part made His arrest more difficult.
They did not dare seize Him during the day, surrounded,
as He was, by the crowd ; yet they hesitated to pursue Him
at night to the Mount of Olives, where some ambush, or at
least desperate resistance might be feared from the little
band always at His side. It was Judas' treachery that
delivered the Jews from the difficulty in which they found
themselves placed.
' Now the feast of the pasch and of the Azymes was
after two days : and the chief priests and the scribes
sought how they might by some wile lay hold on Him and
kill Him. But they said : Not on the festival day, lest
there should be a tumult among the people.' 1 (Mark xiv,
1-2.)
Twelve or fifteen years later, when King Agrippa,
encouraged by S. James' execution, resolved to put S.
Peter to death, he kept him in prison, in order to bring
him to trial when the Passover was at an end (Acts xii,
4), On that occasion he was sure of the popular feeling,
but he wished to respect the feast all the same. In our
Lord's case, such caution was even more necessary ; for
there was reason to fear popular sentiment, especially among
the Galileans, who were attached to their prophet, and had
come in large numbers for the feast. When they had gone
back to their province the execution could take place with-
out hindrance of any kind. 2
1 Wright has written : ' The Feast of the Passover was older than the
Feast of Unleavened Bread, and originally distinct from it, but in Num.
xxviii, 1 6 ff., the two are united. Passover extended over parts of two
days (Nisan 14 and 15), Unleavened Bread over seven days (Nisan 15-21),
thus the night of the 15th is common to both feasts. In New Testament
times the two feasts were so completely amalgamated into one feast of
eight days, that the names " Feast of the Passover " (Luke ii, 41) and
" Feast of Unleavened Bread " (Luke xxii, 17) are used indifferently.
S. Mark's phrase " On the first day of Unleavened Bread," though legally
incorrect and not to be reconciled with Old Testament language, was
practically true, for the Rabbis, in their desire " to put a fence about the
Law," forbade the eating of leavened bread at and after the midday meal
of Nisan I4th. The " Western " reading in Luke xxii, 7 is therefore a
correction by a legalist.' (Cp. Billerbeck, I, p. 988.)
2 Similar discussions are recorded by Matthew and Luke ; Matt, xxvi, 3
adds the detail that the meeting of the chief priests and elders was in
Caiphas' house.
222 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
While they were in this perplexity, our Lord's enemies
received a visit from Judas. ' What will you give me,' he
asks, ' and I will deliver Him unto you.' ' But they
appointed him thirty pieces of silver ' (Matt, xxvi, 15 ; cp.
Mark xiv, 10, n ; Luke xxii, 3-6).
It was the anointing at Bethania that had precipitated
Judas' treachery, the unhappy man thinking himself
defrauded by what he regarded as the wastefulness of
Mary Magdalen. The next few days saw his feet more
firmly planted on his accursed path. With all the insight
of fear and hatred he saw that between Jesus and the Jewish
leaders it was a war to the death. Our Lord's own attitude
on the evening of Palm Sunday had shown clearly enough
that He had not the faintest wish for the Jewish national
kingship that the people were still ready to give Him ; and
the teaching of the next few days made the impression
clearer still. The parable of the husbandmen had made it
clear that Christ foresaw and accepted His death ; hence
surely there was no longer anything to look for or any
reason to remain any longer attached to a ruined cause.
The distant prospects of the parousia were too far and too
exalted to attract Judas, and he thought it the wiser course to
withdraw from this adventure in which he had imprudently
allowed himself to become involved. And he would go
further still ; in betraying his Master he would more surely
protect himself, and gain financially too.
This atrocious step, prepared and brought to fruition in
our Lord's own inner circle, is a crime by the horror of which
we are astonished and dismayed. On reflection, however, it
surprises us less than the prolonged hypocrisy of the man.
His defection is pointed out by John so early as the preceding
Passover at Capharnaum ; which means that he had been
able to pass at least a year close to Jesus, without allowing
himself to be touched by so many discourses and miracles,
and without once letting the eleven Apostles, in whose
company he continually was, see that his heart was with
them no more. Such persistent duplicity could only go with
utter callousness, and nothing in this unfortunate man could
cause us any further surprise. We see our Blessed Lord, at
the Last Supper, multiplying His efforts to touch this heart
into which Satan had found his way. He is offered thirty
pieces of silver in Temple money, from its weight equal to
a little over 80 francs ; in purchasing power representing
THE LAST SUPPER 223
from 500 to 600 francs, 1 ' a much more considerable sum,'
remarks Reuss, ' than Judas already possessed. And even
if it had been less, we must remember that cupidity, once
aroused, is content with less than it had hoped for at first.'
' Now on the first day of the unleavened bread, when
they sacrificed the pasch, the disciples say to Him :
Whither wilt Thou that we go and prepare for Thee to
eat the pasch ? And He sendeth two of His disciples and
saith to them : Go ye into the city ; and there shall meet
you a man carrying a pitcher of water. Follow him.
And whithersoever he shall go in, say to the master of the
house, The Master saith, Where is My refectory, where
I may eat the pasch with My disciples ? And he will show
you a large dining-room furnished. And there prepare ye
for us. And His disciples went their way and came into
the city. And they found as He had told them : and they
prepared the pasch.' (Mark xiv, 12-16. Cp. Matt, xxvi,
17-19 ; Luke xxii, 7-13.)
These very precise details have remained graven in the
memory of Peter, who was one of the two disciples, according
to Luke ; and is found with John, with whom he will be
constantly associated, both at the Resurrection and in the
Acts. The whole series of preparations here recorded
resembles those that preceded our Lord's entry into Jeru-
salem. Then He sent His disciples to seek the foal, now to
retain the room ; in both cases acting as Master and friend.
The man on whose services He counted was, no doubt, a
disciple too ; but he was not known to the Apostles them-
selves and, in order that he might be recognized, a provi-
dential meeting had to be arranged by our Lord. In
Jerusalem, more than anywhere else, such mystery was a
necessity, and the Master's discretion is plain. And so is
His fore-knowledge. In these tragic days, so close to the
fatal end, He was careful to show everyone, His faithful
disciples and the traitor alike, that He knew where He was
going and that He went entirely of His own accord. 2
1 See supra, vol. I, p. 384, note i.
2 On the cenacle, Lagrange remarks : ' If the Kara\v/j.a is not,
properly speaking, the private chamber reserved for guests, it is, at least, a
place where they are received (3 Kings i, 18 ; ix, 22 ; Ecclus. xiv, 25). It
is still the Eastern custom to lodge guests in the reception-room, or divan,
where they may make themselves comfortable for the night. . . . The
room in question is the large one on the first floor, sometimes the only one
on that floor, often lighted from above by a square skylight, and set apart
224 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
Thus passed Thursday, the last day of freedom that Jesus
was to enjoy. While the two disciples were preparing
for the meal He remained at Bethania, with the rest.
Surrounded by Jews preparing for the feast, beset by
the growing anxiety of the Apostles who felt the darkness
of night falling around them, we can imagine something of
what our Lord's thoughts were in those last hours that still
separated Him from the institution of the Eucharist, and
from His agony and death.
' And when the hour was come, He sat down, and the
twelve Apostles with Him. And He said to them : With
desire I have desired to eat this pasch with you, before
I suffer. For I say to you that from this time I will not
eat it, till it be fulfilled in the kingdom of God.' (Luke
xxii, 14-16.)
In these words we sound at once a depth of tenderness and
grief. As Jesus had sent word to the master of the house,
His time was at hand, and this Passover would be His last :
beyond that there would be nothing but the final con-
summation in the kingdom of God.
The Jews love to picture heavenly joys under the form of
a feast. So it was that, at a meal where Jesus was present,
one of the guests, after hearing His words, exclaimed :
' Blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God '
(Luke xiv, 15). In the same way Jesus Himself, in His
parables, described the happiness of heaven under the
imagery of a marriage feast. But between this supreme
reality and the ordinary Passover of the Jews, another feast
was to find a place, the Supper, which He was to institute
without delay.
And in this solemn hour, full of love and grief, the Apostles
began yet another contest about precedence.
' And there was also a strife amongst them, which of
them should seem to be the greater. And He said to them :
The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them ; and they
that have power over them are called beneficent. But
you not so : but he that is the greater among you, let him
for the reception of guests, especially those who were expected to stay.
It is furnished with carpets and divans, so that the occupant can take his
meals in comfort and settle himself for sleep. ... It would seem that the
disciples had to prepare the repast, the owner putting the room at their
service and leaving them free to make their own arrangements and get in
provisions as they would.'
THE LAST SUPPER 225
become as the younger : and he that is the leader, as he
that serveth.' (Luke xxii, 24-27.)
This dispute, placed by Luke towards the end of the meal,
would be more easily understood as taking place at the
arrival of the guests in the cenacle itself. 1 The places at
the table were assigned according to the most strict rules of
precedence, jealously observed. Under other circumstances
(Luke xiv, 7), our Lord had noticed and blamed the
anxiety of guests to appropriate the best places at a feast,
but His warning, like so many others to the same purpose,
had been quickly forgotten by the Apostles, and now, the
very solemnity of the paschal meal and the imminence of
the kingdom, as well as the desire to be near the Master
Himself, made their ambition more eager and jealous still :
so that while Jesus was full of the emotion of this last meal
they allowed themselves to be absorbed by their spirit of
rivalry and jealous strife. So our Lord resolved to give them
a great example that they would never forget ; the evan-
gelist who records it precedes his account with a solemn
prologue in which its immense significance is .stressed. 2
' Before the festival day of the pasch, Jesus knowing
that His hour was come, that He should pass out of this
world to the Father : having loved His own who were in
the world, He loved them unto the end. And when
supper was done (the devil having now put into the heart
of Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon, to betray Him),
knowing that the Father had given Him all things into
His hands and that He came from God and goeth to God,
He riseth from supper and layeth aside His garments and,
1 Cp. Levesque, Nos quatre Evangiles, p. 171 ; Lagrange, L'Evangile
de Jesus Christ, p. 502, etc.
2 These prologues, intended to give the meaning of the great Gospel
incidents, are characteristic of S. John (cp. Godet in hoc loco). Each of
the principal episodes in his narrative is preceded by a short introduction,
just as a prologue stands at the head of his whole work. It is so before the
story of Nicodemus (ii, 23-5) : ' Now when He was at Jerusalem, at
the pasch, upon the festival day, many believed in His name, seeing the
signs which He did. But Jesus did not trust Himself unto them : for
that He knew all men. And because He needed not that any should give
testimony of man : for He knew what was in man.' In iii, 2224, before
the incident of the jealousy of John the Baptist's disciples : Jesus baptized
in Judea, and John at Ennon. In iv, 1-3 : knowing the jealousy of the
Pharisees, Jesus withdrew into Galilee. In iv, 4345 ' the Galileans
received Him, knowing what He had done at Jerusalem (it was just after
the healing of the centurion's son). Thus, it is sometimes the historical
226 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
having taken a towel, girded Himself. After that, He
putteth water into a basin and began to wash the feet of
the disciples and to wipe them with the towel wherewith
He was girded.' (John xiii, 1-5.)
To wash the feet of guests was an office of hospitality in
the East, and, on a former occasion, our Lord had com-
plained that He had not received it from the hands of the
Pharisee who had invited Him to a meal at his house (Luke
vii, 44) . But it was an office that was performed by servants,
while Jesus was determined to carry it out Himself. Every
detail of this humble ministry is noted with tender admira-
tion by S. John. Taking ofTHis upper garments He only kept
on the tunic, which was worn by servants ; like a servant He
girded Himself with an apron : He had to carry the basin
in both hands, and then, putting it down, to wash the
disciples' feet, filling and refilling it Himself. And the
Apostles watched Him ; now, as always, looking on with
respect. It was the same when, in the first days of the
common ministry, they had seen Him conversing with the
Samaritan woman, and none of them had dared ask Him :
' Why talkest Thou with her ? ' This respect with which
He had inspired them from the first, had grown during those
two years, and on this last day, by giving them this great
example of humility, He was going to renew it powerfully
in their minds. But S. Peter could not contain himself. It
was to him that our Lord came first, and when he saw Him
coming thus servant-wise with apron and basin, he cried
aloud : ' Lord, dost Thou wash my feet ! ' ' What I do
thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter,' was
the reply. It was only a few hours now to the Passion, and
this excess of humility and sufferance was beginning to open
the disciples' eyes. Above all, Pentecost would follow, when
Peter would understand the great lesson that was so full of
mystery to him now. But just now he could not even under-
stand what our Lord meant, or accept what seemed to him
intolerable at the moment, and once more he protested
with redoubled energy : ' Thou shalt never wash my feet. 5
Jesus would argue no further with His Apostle still so blind,
setting that is recapitulated, sometimes the dispositions of those who are
about to come into contact with our Lord, sometimes the sentiments of
Jesus Himself. It is these that are described here, and with an emotion
in which all the adoration and love of the Beloved Disciple passes before
our minds.
THE LAST SUPPER 227
but with deep emotion tells him : ' If I wash thee not thou
shalt have no part with Me.'
Such words were irresistible to anyone who loved our
Lord ; they might not understand His demands, but they
would yield to them at once ; anything rather than a
rupture of that kind. ' To whom shall we go ? Thou hast
the words of eternal life.' Now, even more than at
Capharnaum, Peter was laid hold of by Christ, and could not
withdraw from that embrace. He obeyed, and now his
impulsive temperament carried him to the other extreme :
' Not only my feet, but also my hands and my head ! '
The others followed Peter's example, and like him, sub-
mitted one after another to our Lord's wish : and Judas,
too ! But him our Lord warned with the words : ' You are
clean, but not all ' a warning that knocked at Judas'
heart without finding a way in ; Satan was there, and his
mastery was supreme.
Our Lord lost no time in drawing the appropriate lesson
from the great example He had just set, and, to bring it
home with greater force, He did not shrink from insisting
on who He was : ' You call Me Master and Lord, and you
say well, for so I am.' So does Christian humility not mis-
understand true dignities ; rather it consecrates them.
Jesus bent at the feet of His Apostles, but remaining what
He was all the time, and continuing to be treated as such ;
Master and Lord. And His example is more eloquent than
speech, teaching us that service is no degradation and that
true greatness need have no fear of lowering itself by
humility and service. His Church would receive from Him
this rite of the Washing of Feet, but above all she would
have learnt and preserved the great lesson of the virtue for
which that rite stands. The leaven of jealousy and the
spirit of domination will always remain active in the depths
of every human heart ; but in all true Christians it will be
stifled by the spirit of the Gospel ; they will remember that in
the Church of God, the most exalted dignities are only
services and that the Sovereign Pontiff loves to call himself
Servant of the Servants of God.
And this washing of feet enshrined another lesson too ;
by which Jesus would teach all Christians something of the
purity they are expected to bring to the celebration of the
mysteries of His Body and Blood. He was just about to
institute the Holy Eucharist, and He wished to prepare His
228 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
Apostles to receive it. They are pure, no doubt, except the
traitor ; but in passing along the dusty road of life, they have
contracted some slight stains. These Christ wished to
remove, and none other could do so but He : if they
refused they could have no part with Him ; but purified by
Him, they could take their places at the table, where they
were about to share in that great mystery so long foretold,
and which it was time to accomplish at last.
///. The Supper.
It is very difficult to follow in all its details the Supper
celebrated by our Lord ; x but in the Gospel narratives there
are at least certain facts that stand out clearly ; namely,
the announcement of Judas' treachery and the institu-
tion of the Holy Eucharist. Jesus had a number of motives
for speaking of His betrayal in advance. Several times,
since Caesarea Philippi, He had chosen to predict the ill-
treatment that He would receive at His enemies' hands,
and in that way, little by little, He strengthened the spirit
of His Apostles against these terrible facts. Even if He did
not succeed in dissipating their presumption and softening
the unlooked-for shock that they were to receive, He gave
them the strength to recover immediately, when they
remembered that all had been foreseen and accepted by
their Master Himself. And it was the same with the treason
of Judas. Apparently Jesus was going to fall a victim to an
ambuscade ; so it was necessary that He should show that He
was not unaware of the fact ; and that He was going to His
fate of His own free will and that the wretched man whom He
had so long honoured with His friendship had not deceived
Him in the least degree. Thus would the faith of His true
disciples be confirmed ; thus, too, would be confirmed the
completely voluntary character of His sacrifice, which He
was at such pains to put beyond all reasonable doubt :
' No man taketh it [My life] away from Me : but I lay it
down of Myself. And I have power to lay it down ; and
I have power to take it up again ' (John x, 18).
But for these warnings there was another and more
pressing motive still. Our Blessed Lord had no part in the
traitor's fall. To Him all His Apostles were dear, even this
1 However, if anyone wishes for an outline, with some claims to
probability, though not certainty, he may follow that proposed by Berning,
Die Einsetzung dev heiligen Eucharistie, pp. 155, 156 (end of the book).
THE LAST SUPPER 229
hapless son of perdition upon whom Satan had laid his
hand. During that last hour of intimate converse, Christ
had multiplied His attempts to bring him once more to His
feet ; but all efforts were to prove vain. Even as early in
the evening as at the washing of the feet, Jesus had revealed
the impending betrayal : ' You are clean, but not all ' ;
and when on the point of instituting the Holy Eucharist, He
spoke more clearly still :
' And when they were- at table and eating, Jesus saith :
Amen, I say to you, one of you that eateth with Me shall
betray Me. But they began to be sorrowful and to say to
Him, one by one : Is it I ? Who saith to them : One of
the twelve, who dippeth with Me his hand in the dish.
And the Son of Man indeed goeth, as it is written of
Him : but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man shall
be betrayed. It were better for him, if that man had not
been born. 5 (Mark xiv, 18-21.)
This painful scene, described with such restraint, shows
plainly the vivid impression that it left on the Apostles'
mind ; so great was their confidence in their Master's
intuitions that they even began to doubt themselves ; and
from every side we get the anguished question : ' Is it I ? '
Judas had no wish to betray himself by his silence and,
impudently, he asked the same question as the rest. 'Is
it I, Rabbi ? ' ' Thou hast said it ' (Matt, xxvi, 25) was our
Lord's reply, understood only by the traitor himself. He
knew now that he was discovered, but he remained obstinate
in his design. The others in their eager cross-questioning
had not heard Jesus' reply, while His words were too general
in character to remove their uncertainty ; they, too, all
twelve, were eating with Him ; they, too, were dipping their
hand in the same dish ; and while mentioning this detail
our Lord did not wish to give any more precise indication
of the truth, but only sadly to point out the most odious
feature of the betrayal, on the part of one who was there and
who was sharing in this very meal. It had been the Psalmist's
complaint, centuries before (Ps. xl, 10 ; cp. John xiii, 18) :
' (he) who ate my bread, hath greatly supplanted me.'
We get a glimpse of the profound emotion by which the
little group was stirred, in the fact that instead of questioning
the Master any further, ' they began to inquire among
themselves which of them it was that should do this thing.'
230 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
Shortly before, there had been the wretched quarrel about
precedence ; and in that atmosphere suspicions of the worst
kind would easily arise : the great question was how to
inaugurate the mystery of love, amidst all this agitation and
distress.
So, urged on in any case by Peter's anxious insistence, our
Lord hurried the incident to a close :
' When Jesus had said these things, He was troubled in
spirit ; and He testified, and said : Amen, amen, I say
to you, one of you shall betray Me. The disciples there-
fore looked one upon another, doubting of whom He
spoke. Now there was leaning on Jesus' bosom one of
His disciples, whom Jesus loved. Simon Peter therefore
beckoned to Him and said to Him : Who is it of whom He
speaketh ? He, therefore, leaning on the breast of Jesus,
saith to Him : Lord, who is it ? Jesus answered : He it
is to whom I shall reach bread dipped. And when He
had dipped the bread, He gave it to Judas Iscariot, the
son of Simon. And after the morsel, Satan entered into
him. And Jesus said to him : That which thou dost, do
quickly. Now no man at the table knew to what purpose
He said this unto him. For some thought, because Judas
had the purse, that Jesus had said to him : Buy those
things which we have need of for the festival day : or
that he should give something to the poor. He, therefore,
having received the morsel, went out immediately. And
it was night.' (John xiii, 21-30.)
This is one of the most dramatic incidents in the Gospel,
as well as one of those most deeply graven in the memory of
S. John. He loved to describe himself as he who leaned on
the Lord's breast at supper and said : ' Lord, who is he
that shall betray Thee ? ' (xxi, 20). As in S. Luke, we see
the Apostles questioning each other, at least by look : ' Who
is it ? ' And Jesus repeated His solemn statement : ' Amen,
amen, I say to you, one of you shall betray Me.' Then Peter
could contain himself no longer. We know the special ties
that bound him to John, his usual companion in missions
and journeys of every kind. To John, then, he signalled to
question Jesus, and with the simple familiarity bred of his
purity and his love for Christ, John asked Him : ' Lord, who
is it ? ' Our Lord answered him, at the same time giving him
to understand that it was a secret that he must keep. Other-
THE LAST SUPPER 231
wise, no doubt, Peter's impulsive zeal would have betrayed
him into striking Judas, as he would Malchus very soon.
John suffers and says nothing ; and in this silent confidant of
Christ we have already a fore-glimpse of him who in the
apostolic college will be depositary of the great secrets and
treasures of Almighty God. To Peter the supreme authority,
with the responsibility of great decisions ; to Paul the
apostolate, with its incessant labour and the ' solicitude of
all the churches ' that it involves ; but to John, the guard-
ianship of our Lord's Mother, the secrets of the last days, the
mysteries of the intimate life of God.
The sign given by Jesus was itself a mark of friendship, a
last effort to win over Judas ; but the traitor hardens him-
self against it, and this very last effort ends in his final
delivery into Satan's power. 1
All this took place so rapidly that no one, except him who
was our Lord's confidant in the matter, realized the meaning
of His words nor the purpose of Judas' abrupt departure;
they were accustomed to see him busy about temporal
affairs, purchases and alms ; and they looked no further.
This fact, among many others, shows the deep duplicity of
the traitor who, up to the last moment, succeeded in mis-
leading the eleven whose constant companion he had
been. We shall also be justified in finding here an example
of the reciprocal confidence that Jesus had established
among His followers. Much rivalry among them there
was, but at least grave suspicion was unknown. So moved
were they by our Lord's most urgent warnings as even
to doubt themselves, and to ask the anxious question :
' Master, is it I ? ' They questioned one another, too,
looking stupefied at each other ; but in spite of all this
anguish and all these doubts, their suspicions dared not
1 Godet, Jean, 359 : ' Up to this point, in the interests of his over-
mastering passion, Judas had stifled within him the conviction of the
divinity of our Lord. But now he is pierced by the radiance of the Divine
knowledge, of which previous warnings had merely given him a glimpse.
By this sign and its accompanying words Jesus was telling him plainly :
" You it is who are eating My bread, while yet you are about to betray
Me ! " But at the same time He let him know that he was still numbered
among His disciples, so that it was still possible for him to retrace his
steps. But he would do nothing of the kind ; and the violent effort that
he had to make to close his heart to heavenly influences, opened its doors
to diabolical ones instead. In fact, it was in these that he had to seek the
strength to accomplish this last act of resistance to grace. As it was said
of David that he strengthened himself in the Lord, so Judas strengthened
himself in Satan.'
VOL. II. Q
232 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
light upon anyone, and Judas left without his departure
giving the alarm.
' And it was night. 3 This last detail succeeds in con-
veying the impression made by the whole scene ; and when
John wrote the words he still felt the anguish of the darkness
that gripped all hearts as it fell. c Men loved darkness
rather than light,' he had already written of the enemies of
Christ. And now their hour was at hand ; a few more
moments of freedom, and soon in the garden Jesus will say :
' This is your hour and the power of darkness. 3 (Luke
xxii, 53.)
It was probably after the departure of Judas that the
institution of the Holy Eucharist took place. We know that
this point has been minutely discussed, and in fact the
Gospel texts can be taken in both ways. On the one hand,
Luke (xxii, 21-23) does not record our Lord's warnings
about the betrayal until after the account of the institution of
the Eucharist (xxii, 19-20) ; but in Matthew and Mark we
find the order reversed : first the prediction of the betrayal
(Matt, xxvi, 21-25 ; Mark xiv, 18-21), then the institution
of the Eucharist (Matt, xxvi, 27-29 ; Mark xiv, 22-25) >
while the discussion cannot be closed by a reference to John,
since he does not relate the institution of the Eucharist at all.
A great number of the Fathers thought that Judas had com-
municated, and they draw spiritual instructions from the
fact. However, several have taken the opposite view, and
this is the general opinion to-day. This seems to us to be
right. In such matters reasons of edification can be brought,
for and against ; we will say nothing about all that, but
the evidence of the texts seems to favour the negative view. 1
Judas was gone, and Jesus found Himself alone with His
1 Only Luke seems to write in the contrary sense ; but since we have
already transferred to the beginning of the meal the dispute placed by
him at the end, relying on the two other Synoptics, we may in the same
way invert the order here. Cp. Levesque, 173, n. i : ' From a comparison
of John with the Synoptics it follows that Judas had not communicated.
A good number of Fathers have maintained the contrary, relying on the
authority of S. Luke. But several Fathers and modern theologians and
commentators in general are for the negative view. We have seen above
that Luke has made no attempt here to follow the chronological order.'
It has been further remarked (Berning, 251) that nothing could be taken
after the paschal lamb ; so that if Jesus had celebrated the Passover, the
morsel that He gave to Judas, who went out immediately after receiving
it, belongs to the paschal supper in the proper sense. It was certainly not
the Eucharist, and it could not be any other service, since the Eucharist
followed the paschal meal.
THE LAST SUPPER 233
faithful disciples. The moment so greatly longed for had
come ; that moment to which Christ alluded when, at the
beginning of the meal, He told them : ' With desire I have
desired to eat this pasch with you before I suffer.' The
institution of the Eucharist is not related by S. John, and
this is certainly one of the most notable omissions of his
Gospel, so much so that some Protestants of the last century
were disposed to conclude that the institution never occurred
in actual fact. In their view, the Eucharist was unknown to
S. John. No one would attempt to sustain this thesis to-day ;
for it is too certain that when John wrote his Gospel, the
Eucharist was celebrated in the Church as a rite going back
to the time of our Lord Himself. For the rest, the long dis-
course in chapter vi of S. John's Gospel clearly has the
Eucharist as its subject, a fact accepted without difficulty at
the present time. If anyone still asks why the evangelist has
omitted the narrative of the institution, the best answer is
derived from the purpose of his book. Above all, he is
following out a doctrinal scheme, with instruction as his
end, which is why he has recorded at such great length our
Lord's eucharistic discourse, full of lessons as it L. As to the
fact of the institution itself, no doubt he considered that the
Synoptics' narrative was sufficient, and found nothing to
add. For the rest, there is more than one feature in his own
account upon which light is thrown by the fact that the
Eucharist was an ever-present memory in his mind. Thus,
at the commencement of the supper : ' Before the festival
day of the pasch, Jesus knowing that His hour was come that
He should pass out of this world to the Father : having
loved His own that were in the world, He loved them unto
the end.' So again, in the long discourse that followed the
Supper, we have these exhortations so tender and so insistent,
and repeated so many times : ' Abide in Me, and I in you,'
and towards the end, the last prayer to His Father : ' That
they all may be one, as Thou, Father in Me, and I in Thee :
that they all may be one in Us.' We recognize here the
eucharistic doctrine as developed in chapter vi : ' He that
eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood abideth in Me and
I in him. As the living Father hath sent Me and I live by
the Father ; so he that eateth Me, the same also shall live
by Me.' The memory of this discourse at Capharnaum helps
us, too, to understand what we read here. No doubt the
Apostles had entire faith in their Master ; still, it would
234 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
have been difficult for them to have risen at a single flight
to a belief in the Eucharist, if they had not been already
prepared. There was nothing in Judaism to lead them up
to this mystery, naturally so far beyond their reach ; and
we should have been surprised if Christ had suddenly, and
without preparation, brought them face to face with a
mystery so new and so sublime. And this all the more,
because in all other matters our Lord took care to prepare
the souls with which He dealt for the calls and revelations
He intended to give them. How many times in succession, at
the Jordan, on the shores of the Lake, did He call His
Apostles before He definitely attached them to Himself!
In how many prophecies, during a whole year, did He give
them a hint of their Master's Passion, and of their own com-
ing trials ! It would be strange if the ground had not been
similarly prepared for the revelation of the Eucharist, so
divine, and therefore so baffling for men. And indeed S.
John's narrative shows us how this distant preparation,
veiled and discreet as it was, appeared to most of the disciples
as a crushing weight that they refused to carry. It is then
that we get the first hint in the Gospels of Judas' defection,
no less than of Peter's closer attachment to his Divine Master,
while he confirmed the faith of the other Apostles as well.
' To whom shall we go ? Thou hast the words of eternal life.'
The faith so courageously professed by the lakeside, was, in
the cenacle, to receive its full reward.
We have accounts of this great mystery, left not
only by the three Synoptics, but also by S. Paul in his
epistle to the Corinthians. Let us read once again those
passages, which it is illuminating merely to put side by
side :
' For I have received of the Lord that which also I
delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus, the same night
in which He was betrayed, took bread, and giving thanks,
broke and said : Take ye and eat : This is My body,
which shall be delivered for you. This do for the com-
memoration of Me. In like manner also the chalice, after
He had supped, saying : This chalice is the New Testa-
ment in My blood. This do ye, as often as you shall
drink, for the commemoration of Me. For as often as you
shall eat this bread and drink the chalice, you shall show
the death of the Lord, until He come. Therefore, who-
THE LAST SUPPER 235
soever shall eat this bread, or drink the chalice of the Lord
unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and of the blood of
the Lord. But let a man prove himself : and so let him
eat of that bread and drink of the chalice. For he that
eateth and drinketh unworthily eateth and drinketh
judgement to himself, not discerning the body of the
Lord.' (i Cor. xi, 23-29.)
In this passage, written about the year 55, only twenty-
five years after the Last Supper, we recognize the traditional
narrative of the institution, and our Lord's words, as they
were graven in the memories of Christians and as we find
them in the synoptical writers as well :
' And whilst they were at supper, Jesus took bread and
blessed and broke and gave to His disciples and said :
Take ye and eat. This is My body. And taking the
chalice, He gave thanks and gave to them, saying :
Drink ye all of this. For this is My blood of the New
Testament, which shall be shed for many unto remission
of sins. And I say to you, I will not drink from hence-
forth of this fruit of the vine until that day when I shall
drink it with you new in the kingdom of My Father. 5
(Matt, xxvi, 26-29.)
' And whilst they were eating, Jesus took bread ; and
blessing, broke and gave to them and said : Take ye.
This is My body. And having taken the chalice, giving
thanks, He gave it to them. And they all drank of it.
And He said to them : This is My blood of the New
Testament, which shall be shed for many. Amen, I say
to you that I will drink no more of the fruit of the vine
until that day when I shall drink it new in the kingdom
of God. 3 (Mark xiv, 22-25.)
' And when the hour was come, He sat down : and the
twelve Apostles with Him. And He said to them : With
desire I have desired to eat this pasch with you, before I
suffer. For I say to you that from this time I will not eat
it, till it be fulfilled in the kingdom of God. And having
taken the chalice, He gave thanks and said : Take and
divide it among you. For I say to you that I will not
drink of the fruit of the vine till the kingdom of God come.
And taking bread, He gave thanks and brake and gave to
2 3 6 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
them, saying : This is My body, which is given for you.
Do this for a commemoration of Me. In like manner, the
chalice also, after He had supped, saying : This is the
chalice, the New Testament in My blood, which shall be
shed for you.' 1 (Luke xxii, 14-20.)
The first cup mentioned by S. Luke (xxii, 17, 18) is one
of the cups that were passed round during the paschal meal ;
it was probably in taking it and causing it to be passed
round among the Apostles that Jesus said : ' I will not
drink of the fruit of the vine till the kingdom of God come.'
Matthew and Mark, who do not mention this cup, record
the words a little later on, when Jesus had already offered to
the Apostles the cup that He is going to consecrate with
His blood. The order followed by Luke is more natural,
and it is no doubt with a view to recording these memorable
words that Luke mentions the incident of this cup. The
meaning of this solemn prediction is quite clear. In the
kingdom of God the Jews were looking for an entirely new
order of things, a new heaven and a new earth, 2 and it was
to these hopes that our Lord alluded when He spoke of the
new wine that He would drink with His Apostles in His
Father's kingdom ; but they knew that He would reach
1 In this text of Luke, the verses igb-so (from ' given for you ' to the
end) are missing in several ancient manuscripts, namely the Codex Bezae
and three manuscripts of the pre-Jerome Latin version, i.e. Vercellensis,
Corbeiensis, Vindobonensis. The omission of these two verses is peculiar
to the Western text, and is easily enough explained by the desire to suppress
the apparent difficulty created by the double mention of the cup (1718
and 20). On the other hand, these two verses are found in all the great
Greek manuscripts, except D, which is bilingual ; and they are required
by the parallelism of the narrative (v. 20 corresponding to v. 19, like 17
1 8 to 1516). Finally, we should be at a loss to explain their insertion in
this passage ; if they were borrowed from Paul, from whence comes the
addition of ' shed for you,' or the omission of the second command to ' Do
this ' ? They are retained by Tischendorf and Nestle, but suppressed by
Westcott and Hort. On this question of textual criticism may be consulted
M. de La Taille, Mysterium Fidei, pp. 33-5 ; also the commentaries of
Lagrange, pp. 5457, and of Valensin-Huby, pp. 3824. In the contrary
sense, F. C. Burkitt, J.T.S., xxviii (1927), pp. 178-81, supports the
authenticity of the shorter form. In the same review, xxviii (1927),
pp. 362-8, H. N. Bate supposes the existence of an original text from
which all mention of the Eucharist would be absent (v. 19 being wholly
suppressed), this silence being attributed to the discipline of the arcana.
This conjecture has been adopted by Gore, in A New Commentary, p. 235 ;
but it seems to me very weak, and to attribute an influence to the discipline
of the arcana which is improbable at this date. It should be remarked
that this conjecture had already been put forward by Blass and Lietzmann,
but that Lietzmann subsequently abandoned and refuted it : Messe und
Abendmahl, p. 216, n. 3.
2 Isa. Ixv, 17 ; xliii, 19 ; Ixvi, 22. Cp. Lagrange, S. Marc, p. 381.
THE LAST SUPPER 237
that kingdom only through His death ; so they realized that
this was the last meal they would take with Him here below,
and that His death was at hand ; but that it would be
followed by the coming of that kingdom that was the goal
of all their desires.
It was after He had uttered these predictions, the meal
being now finished and Judas gone, that Jesus took bread,
gave thanks, broke it and gave it to His disciples with the
words : ' Take ye and eat : This is My body.' Then, similarly,
He took a cup, gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying at the
same time : ' Drink ye all of this. For this is My blood of
the New Testament, which shall be shed for many unto
remission of sins.'
The faithful literalness with which these words have been
handed down to us by the synoptics and S. Paul show how
they are graven in the memory of the Church. Of this our
Lord's last meal, so full, we should have thought, of unfor-
gettable lessons, the other incidents are only known to us
through fragments, and through a single witness in almost
every case. The discourse after the Supper has been pre-
served to us only by S. John, although its importance for the
understanding of Christianity, and above all of the person
and mission of Christ Himself, is comparable only to that of
the Sermon on the Mount. It is the same with the moving
and significant scene of the Washing of Feet. It is true that
the last warnings to Judas resound in all the Gospels, but
under divergent forms and at different times. It is difficult
to determine the nature of the meal itself, since it is not
possible to be certain if it was the Paschal Supper, and if
Christ then ate the paschal lamb or not. But all these
obscurities make the central picture stand out, by contrast
so firm in its drawing, and set in so strong a light. We are
conscious that the Eucharist then instituted was, from the
first years of Christianity, the centre of the Church's life and
worship, and our Lord's words, scrupulously preserved,
have remained, not only as the liturgical form of this
great action, but still more as the foundation of the Christian
Faith. S. Paul's instructions to his faithful bear witness with
what a docile and simple faith the Church of that age
received and believed these solemn statements of her Lord :
'. . . Whosoever shall eat this bread, or drink the chalice of
the Lord unworthily shall be guilty of the body and blood
of the Lord ... he that eateth and drinketh unworthily
238 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
eateth and drinketh judgement to himself, not discerning
the body of the Lord.'
And so, as far back as we can go in the history of
Christianity, the Church's faith appears to us in all that
luminous strength which it was always to preserve. She
had received the Lord's word and believed it, simply,
faithfully, and without reservation of any kind. So, later,
would write the great Gallic doctor, Hilary : ' We must not
speak of the things of God in a human way . . . we must
read what is written and understand what we read, and
then we shall have accomplished the whole duty of the
Faith. . . . Christ has told us Himself : " My flesh is meat
indeed and My blood is drink indeed. He that eateth My
flesh and drinketh My blood abideth in Me and I in him."
Concerning the reality of this flesh and blood there is no
room for doubt. For our Lord Himself proclaims and our
faith accepts, that it is truly His flesh and blood, and those
who eat and drink it are truly in Christ, and Christ in them.
And this, surely, is truth to all except those who deny that
Christ is truly God.' 1
These last words are decisive ; we are face to face with a
great mystery, but there is nothing to discourage a true
Christian in that. In the discourse on the Bread of Life,
our Lord said :
' I am the Bread of Life. Your fathers did eat manna
in the desert : and are dead. This is the bread which
cometh down from heaven : that if any man eat of it,
he may not die. I am the living bread which came down
from heaven. If any man eat of this bread, he shall live
for ever, and the bread that I will give is My flesh, for
the life of the world.' (John vi, 48-52.)
Thus He links together these two mysteries, the Incar-
nation and the Eucharist : and in fact they throw light on
each other. For if in the Incarnation the Son of God has
taken human flesh, this was to save us and unite Himself to
us ; and it is in the Eucharist that the consummation of
this salvation and union is reached. And so it is that these
two mysteries are so closely bound together, that they
guarantee and confirm each other. 2
1 S. Hilary, De Triniiate, viii, 14 (P.L., X, 247).
2 Bossuet, echoing the tradition of the Fathers, has expressed the union
of the two mysteries with considerable force : Meditations sur I'Evangile,
THE LAST SUPPER 239
No doubt these considerations were not developed all at
once, but they were all present in germ in the discourse to
which the Apostles had listened a year earlier at Caphar-
naum. And if it be asked whether, in the interval, our Lord
had reminded them of His words, the answer is most pro-
bably yes, for thus to go over His teaching again and again
is in accordance with the method that He pursued. He was
never content to state just once the truths He wished to be
believed, especially when they were likely to puzzle His
hearers, or to come into collision with their traditional
prejudices. On the contrary, He recalled them often, and
in many forms. Thus, on several occasions He repeated the
prediction of His Passion, namely at Caesarea Philippi, after
the Transfiguration, and when going up to Jerusalem.
Probably, it was the same with the Eucharist, which, when
first foreshadowed at Gapharnaum, caused so much scandal
and so general a falling away. The Apostles, amazed as
they too may have been, withstood the shock : later, they
were once more to be brought face to face with this exalted
truth, which would one day be the centre of their whole life.
For the rest, there was much to prepare them for this
great mystery in what they had already seen and heard,
for example, the multiplication of the loaves. On two
occasions they had seen Jesus take bread and break it,
after giving thanks, as He did on the evening of the Supper,
and the bread was multiplied in His hands. Better still,
there was that whole collection of miracles of which they had
been the privileged witnesses for more than two years : the
miraculous draught of fishes, the walking on the sea, cures,
raisings from the dead deed after deed of wonder had day
by day strengthened and purified their faith. And this faith
was their great source of strength : it was the thing above all
32"" journee. We see how Christ, so to speak, submerges Himself con-
tinually in matter and that ever more and more. He introduces His
discourse on the Bread from Heaven in connection with the material bread
that He had just given to the people ; and He goes so far as to say that He
will give them His Flesh and Blood to eat. And this He teaches with as
much insistence as He did the fact of His Incarnation ; in this way clearly
instructing us that we ought as really to eat His Flesh and drink His Blood,
as He has taken both into union with Himself, and that this is our salvation
and our life. For in this way He does not simply take human flesh in
general, but He takes the flesh of each of us, when each of us receives His
own. Therefore, He is made man for us and applies to us His Incarnation ;
as S. Hilary said, He only wears or takes the flesh of him who takes His
own ; He is by no means our Saviour, and it is not for us that He was made
incarnate, if we do not ourselves take the flesh that He has taken. Thus
the work of our salvation finds its completion in the Eucharist, when we
eat the Flesh of the Redeemer Himself.'
240 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
else that our Lord had yet Himself to develop in them, and
it was here that His training had the most effect. They were
slow to believe, and they had but little spiritual insight as
yet ; but they put a blind and simple trust in their Master's
words : ' Bid me come to Thee upon the waters, 5 said
Peter, on one occasion, as on another, the sons of Zebedee
asked : ' Lord, wilt Thou that we command fire to come
down from heaven and consume them ? ' They them-
selves, in their short missionary expedition, had put to the test
the miraculous powers with which they had been entrusted,
and they had returned full of enthusiasm at what they had
been able to do. And all these impressions gained fresh
strength from their Master's teaching, so often and with
such energy repeated : ' All things are possible to him that
believeth ' (Mark ix, 22). 'Amen, I say to you, if you
have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you shall say to this
mountain, remove from hence hither, and it shall remove ;
and nothing shall be impossible to you' (Matt, xvii, 20).
At the time we have now reached, this faith was stronger
than it had ever been ; a fact of which we shall soon find
proof as we go through the discourse after the Supper. So
when confronted with these mysterious sayings, they did
what they had always done in Christ's school : they just
believed.
Although we are not writing controversially here, we may
note, just in passing, that what we know of the Apostles
renders more improbable than ever all those allegorical
interpretations that have been invented with a view to
effacing the real and direct meaning of our Lord's words.
He knew the simple and docile minds with which He had to
deal ; it was to them that He had confided the secrets of
His kingdom, as to depositaries who were to pass them on
to the whole world. Consequently He spared no pains to
banish all equivocation and to make clear those first elements
of Christianity which would be illuminated and strengthened
later by the coming of the Holy Ghost. When, one day, He
said : ' Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees,' the Apostles
took Him literally, thinking that He meant to reproach
them for not having made any provision of food, where-
upon the Lord explained that He had not intended to speak
of the leaven of the Pharisees, but of their teaching. Another
time, when His hearers were troubled and scandalized at
His statement that : ' Not that which goeth into a man
THE LAST SUPPER 241
defileth a man, but what cometh out of the mouth, this
defileth a man, 3 our Lord took the trouble to explain Him-
self more clearly when He and His Apostles were alone.
Similarly, when He had spoken to the people in parables He
gave their interpretation to the twelve. It is surely im-
possible to suppose that this constant solicitude would have
failed at this, the most important point of all. For those
Protestants who reject the obvious and traditional interpre-
tation of the Supper, it must remain an indecipherable puzzle
with whose attempted solutions it is no longer possible to
keep pace. In 1577, only sixty years after the beginning of
the Reformation, a theologian enumerated two hundred
different interpretations, suggested by Protestants, of the
words : ' This is My body.' Surely it is impossible to pretend
that this is what Christ wished, and that in His last farewell
meal He had no other intention than to put before His
Apostles an insoluble enigma, which from the morrow of
His death onward was to be interpreted by the whole Church
in the wrong way ?
The surest way exactly to grasp the words spoken by Christ
to the Apostles is to let ourselves be penetrated, as far as
possible, with their spirit ; to try to understand Him as
they would have done. To this end we must cut away
all the undergrowth of forced interpretation and arbitrary
glosses ; and, returning to our Lord's own words, hear them
with a faith simple and direct. ' What clearness,' writes
Bossuet, 1 ' what precision ! what strength ! But at the same
time what authority and power are in Thy words : Woman,
thou art cured; and she is cured on the spot. This is My Body ;
and it is His Body. This is My Blood ; and it is His Blood.
Who can speak after this fashion, but He who hath all things
in His hand ? Who could make Himself believed, but He to
whom to do and to speak is one and the same thing ? ... In
thy faith, He desires the same simplicity that He has shown in
His words. This is My Body ; and it is His Body. This is
My Blood ; and it is His Blood. In the ancient way of com-
municating, the priest said : The Body of Jesus Christ ;
and the faithful answered : Amen ; it is so. The priest
said : The Blood of Jesus Christ ; and the faithful answered :
Amen ; it is so. All was done, said, explained by these few
words. I am silent, I believe, I adore ; all is done ; all is said.'
So far, in the Lord's Supper, we have considered only the
1 Meditations sur I'Evangile, 2.2"" journee.
242 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
sacrament by which He really gives us His Flesh and Blood ;
yet this is far from being the only aspect of the Eucharist ;
there are others, the importance of which is no less. Christ
gave Himself to His Apostles, but He gave Himself as a
victim by whose offering the New Testament was ratified,
who was given for man, and paid a ransom for their sins.
Not only did Christ say : ' This is My body, this is My
blood ; ' but : ' This is My body which shall be delivered
for you ' (i Cor. xi, 24) ; ' This is My body, which is given
for you ' (Luke xxii, 19); ' This is my blood of the new
testament, which shall be shed for many unto remission of
sins' (Matt, xxvi, 28). 1
The first fact that emerges from a careful reading of these
passages is that our Lord's body is here as ' given,' His
blood as ' shed.' ' He means, therefore, that this body is not
only given to us in the Eucharist : Take, eat ; this is My
body ; but further that it is given for us, quite as much as
upon the Cross : which shows that He is here our victim,
that He is offered here, too, although in another way.' 2 This
relation of the Eucharist to the Cross is fundamental : if
the Eucharist is a true sacrifice, it is because it really repre-
sents the sacrifice of Calvary ; being, in no sense, a symbol,
image, or simple memorial, but the same sacrifice offered
to God the Father, in an unbloody form. And it was this
sacrifice that Jesus meant when He told His apostles that
this body that He offered them was a body ' given,' broken
for them ; this blood a blood c shed,' none other than the
blood of the New Testament itself. 3
In order to grasp the full significance of this new covenant,
it is necessary to have before us the account of the old
covenant, the very centre of the faith of Israel, which the
word alone would recall to the Apostles' mind.
c So Moses came and told the people all the words of
the Lord, and all the judgements. And all the people
answered with one voice : We will do all the words of
1 Cp. ' This is My blood of the New Testament, which shall be shed for
many ' (Mark xiv, 24) ; ' This is the chalice, the New Testament in My
blood, which shall be shed for you ' (Luke xxii, 20) ; ' This chalice is the
New Testament in my blood ' (i Cor. xi, 24).
2 Bossuet, 6o'" f journee.
3 This unity of the sacrifice of Christ, both at the Supper and on the
Cross, has been powerfully brought out by Fr. de la Taille, Mystp.riwm
Fidei (Paris, 1924).
THE LAST SUPPER 243
the Lord, which he hath spoken. And Moses wrote all
the words of the Lord : and rising in the morning he built
an altar at the foot of the mount, and twelve titles accord-
ing to the twelve tribes of Israel. And he sent young men
of the children of Israel : and they offered holocausts, and
sacrificed pacific victims of calves to the Lord. Then
Moses took half of the blood, and put it into bowls : and
the rest he poured upon the altar. And taking the book
of the covenant, he read it in the hearing of the people :
and they said : All things that the Lord hath spoken we
will do. We will be obedient. And he took the blood
and sprinkled it upon the people, and he said : This is
the blood of the covenant which the Lord hath made
with you concerning all these words.' (Exodus xxiv,
3-8.)
It is only necessary to compare these last words with those
of Christ at the Last Supper, to recognize the link by which
the two covenants were united in our Lord's mind ; a con-
nection that is stressed in the Epistle to the Hebrews :
' And therefore He is the mediator of the New Testa-
ment : that by means of His death for the redemption
of those transgressions which were under the former
testament, they that are called may receive the promise
of eternal inheritance. For where there is a testament the
death of the testator must of necessity come in. For a
testament is offeree after men are dead : otherwise it is
as yet of no strength, whilst the testator liveth. Where-
upon neither was the first indeed dedicated without
blood. For when every commandment of the law had
been read by Moses to all the people, he took the blood of
calves and goats, with water and scarlet wool and hyssop :
and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people,
saying : This is the blood of the testament which God
hath enjoined unto you. The tabernacle also and all the
vessels of the ministry, in like manner, he sprinkled with
blood. And almost all things, according to the law, are
cleansed with blood : and without shedding of blood
there is no remission.' (Hebrews ix, 15-22.)
The reader will have observed the transition from the idea
of covenant to that of testament ; the same word SiaOjjKij as
a matter of fact expressing both. This idea of testament is
244 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
dear to S. Paul, and we find it not only in this passage
from Hebrews, but also in Galatians iii, 15-17 : and it is
in perfect harmony with the true conception of the Euchar-
ist. ' There are testaments of which the law prescribes
that they shall be written by the hand of the testator ; but
the law of the testament of Jesus Christ is that it must be
confirmed, and as it were written, by His blood. The
instrument of this testament is the act by which it is written,
that is the Eucharist. The promises of Jesus Christ and of
the new inheritance are made to us by the death of Jesus
Christ, who thus rescues us from Hell and assures us of
heaven : and the act in which that promise is drawn up,
the instrument in which the will and testament of our
Father is written, this act, this instrument, is wholly written
in His blood : in a word, His testament is the Eucharist
itself.' 1
But even all this does not exhaust the meaning of the
Eucharistic mystery, as it appeared to the Apostles on the
evening of the supper. On Sinai, Moses sprinkled the blood
of the covenant over the book and the people ; but he did
not give it to them to drink. The sacrifice of expiation is
thus described :
c [That he may enter into the sanctuary, Aaron] shall
offer a calf for sin, and a ram for a holocaust ... he shall
offer the calf : and praying for himself and for his own
house, he shall immolate it. ... He shall take also of the
blood of the calf, and sprinkle with his finger seven times
towards the propitiatory to the east. And when he hath
killed the buck-goat for the sin of the people, he shall
carry in the blood thereof within the veil ; as he was com-
manded to do with the blood of the calf, that he may
sprinkle it over against the oracle.' (Lev. xvi, 3-15 )
In chapter xvii there are similar rules for the expiatory
sacrifices offered by the Israelites, and here we note
especially the prohibition of the eating of the victim's
blood :
' If any man whosoever of the house of Israel, and of
the strangers that sojourn among them, eat blood, I will
set My face against his soul, and will cut him off from
among his people. Because the life of the flesh is in the
1 Bossuet, 6 i'" e journee.
THE LAST SUPPER 245
blood ; and I have given it to you, that you may make
atonement with it upon the altar for your souls, and the
blood may be for an expiation of the soul. Therefore I
have said to the children of Israel : No soul of you, nor
of the strangers that sojourn among you, shall eat blood.'
(Lev. xvii, 10-12.)
We know that this prohibition was always scrupulously
observed by the Jews. When it was a question of regulating
the admission of Gentiles to the Church, they were dispensed
from circumcision, but were bidden to abstain from things
sacrificed to idols and from blood and from animals killed
by strangulation, and from fornication (Acts xv, 29). The
reason for this abstinence is very clearly given in the chapter
of Leviticus from which we have just quoted : ' The life
(the soul) of the flesh is in the blood : and I have given it to
you that you may make atonement with it upon the altar for
your souls. Thus by the death of the victims their blood was
offered a first time to God, to whom, instead of his own life,
the guilty man offered this life of the victim that he had
put in his place. And this offering became still more
explicit in the second act of sacrifice, which consisted in
sprinkling the blood of the victim over the altar ; by which
expressive symbolism the life was in this sense returned to
Almighty God ; being, by that very act, placed beyond
the lawful icach of any man. Even apart from sacrifice,
the Israelite always refrained from consuming blood : it
belonged to God ; and man respected it. At most, as in
the sacrifice of the Covenant, the blood would be sprinkled
over the people to consecrate them by its contact and draw
them nearer to their God. 1
But in instituting the Eucharist Christ set up quite other
laws than these. No doubt this great sacrifice has many
features recalling those of the Old Testament. As the
sacrifice of expiation opened the Holy of Holies to the High
Priest so has the Blood of Christ given access to heaven !
' Neither by the blood of goats or of calves, but by His
own blood, entered once into the Holies, having obtained
eternal redemption.' (Heb. ix, 12.)
And in the same way this blood, thus shed for us, purifies
and saves us ; it is ' the sprinkling of blood which speaks
1 On all this cp. Westcott, Epistles of S. John, pp. 34-37 ; Hebrews,
295-7-
246 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
better than that of Abel ' (ibid, xii, 24) ; the blood that
sanctifies us (xiii, 12) ; the blood that cleanseth us (i John
i, 7) ; that washes us from our sins (Apoc. i, 5) ; that has
redeemed us to God (v, 9) ; that has washed the robes of
the martyrs (vii, 14) ; that has enabled them to overcome
(xii, 1 1 ) . All these aspects of the redemptive virtue of the
precious blood had been more or less clearly symbolized by
the Old Testament sacrifices. But what is new is our Lord's
command to drink His blood, an order given to the Apostles,
and through them to all Christians alike. This means that He
took upon Himself His Blood, like His sacred Flesh, for our
sakes alone ; so that from the moment of His Incarnation
He belongs to us. He is offered to the Father as our ransom,
but, at the same time, He is given to us as the rule of
our life. For it is none other than this that we find in the
precious blood : ' He that eateth My flesh and drinketh
My blood hath everlasting life ' (John vi, 55) ; so while
in the Old Law the blood of the sacrificial victims, and
indeed of all animals, is forbidden to the Jews, because
' the blood is in the life,' it is for that very reason that the
Blood of Christ is given to us now. The uncertain life of an
animal, God forbids us to touch ; but that eternal and
Divine life that we find in the Blood of Christ, He offers
us ; nay, much more, He commands us to receive.
But we have not yet exhausted the meaning of this great
mystery, as it was foreshadowed in the Old Testament and
understood by the first members of the Church. Among
their animal sacrifices the Jews not only had expiatory
sacrifices offered for sin, but also sacrifices of thanksgiving
and peace. In these, one part of the victim, the fat, was
burnt ; the breast and right shoulder were given to the
priest ; and the rest was left at the disposal of the offerer
himself (Lev. vii, 29 ; xix, 5 ; Deut. xii, 6). So God
returned to His worshipper a portion of what He had
received from him, and, to quote Philo (De vict., viii, 221),
invited him to his table. The heathen, too, all had their
sacred feasts, which S. Paul had to forbid his converts to
frequent ; in doing so, he reminds them of the Eucharistic
feast, the sacred meal of the Christian Church (i Cor. x,
14-21) :
' Wherefore, my dearly beloved, fly from the service of
idols. I speak as to wise men : judge ye yourselves what
THE LAST SUPPER 247
I say. The chalice of benediction which we bless, is it
not the communion of the blood of Christ ? And the
bread which we break, is it not the partaking of the
Body of the Lord ? For we, being many, are one bread,
one body : all that partake of one bread. Behold Israel
according to the flesh. Are not they that eat of the
sacrifices partakers of the altar ? What then ? Do I say
that what is offered in sacrifice to idols is any thing ?
Or that the idol is any thing ? But the things which the
heathens sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils and not to God.
And I would not that you should be made partakers with
devils. You cannot drink the chalice of the Lord and the
chalice of devils ; you cannot be partakers of the table of
the Lord and of the table of devils.' 1
The Corinthians might object that an idol is nothing ;
' No doubt,' replied the Apostle, ' but this religious feast is
something.' It was a true partaking in the idolatrous repast
offered to the demon, just as the religious feasts of the Jews
put them into communion with the altar, uniting them to
God. And to keep them from such participation S. Paul
reminds these Christians that they were sharers in the
Table of the Lord. In so doing he throws light on another
aspect of the Eucharistic mystery, explained by Bossuet in
the following passage : ' These words of our Saviour :
" Take, eat, this is My Body given for you," show us how,
just as the Israelites of old were not only united in spirit to the
sacrifice of the victims offered by them, but actually ate
the flesh immolated as well, this was a sign to them of
their own part in the oblation. So Jesus Christ, having
made Himself our Victim, has willed that we should
effectively eat the flesh of this sacrifice, so that the actual
partaking of this adorable Flesh might be to each of us in
particular a perpetual witness that it is for us that He has
taken it and that He has sacrificed it for us.' 2
It remains to notice another detail in this Supper of the
Lord, and that by no means the least important. ' Do this
for a commemoration of Me,' our Lord said. These words,
1 To bring out more clearly the meaning of this passage, Fr. Prat
(Theol. de S. Paul, I, 160) compares it with various invitations to sacred
meals found in the Oxyrhynchus papyrus : ' Cheremon begs you to dine
at the table of the Lord Serapis, in the Serapeum, to-morrow, that is the
1 5th, at the ninth hour.'
2 Exposition de la doctrine cathalique, x.
VOL. II. R
248 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
preserved by S. Paul (with reference to the consecration of
both our Lord's Body and Blood, and by S. Luke referring
to the consecration of His Body), clearly show what our
Lord's intention was. It was not only that He wished to
give His disciples a sign of His love, but that He was institut-
ing a permanent rite ; and what He did then, they must
do after Him, in memory of Him. This capital point was
for a long time outside all controversy ; but since the end
of the last century it has been extensively denied. On this
subject Frankland wrote in 1902 : ' In the last ten years a
vague scepticism has tended to obscure what during
eighteen centuries had been considered an indisputable
fact.' 1 These denials do not spring from difficulties inherent
in this particular subject, but from a general system of
interpretation of the Gospel history. For those who see in
Jesus nothing but the blind promoter of a messianic move-
ment, such an institution as the Eucharist is sheer nonsense.
It supposes not only a church and a priesthood, but a
continuance and a permanence which for the critics in
question would have meant the very negation of our Lord's
dreams. He, so they think, was awaiting with a naive
confidence the final catastrophe in which the whole universe
would be destroyed ; and therefore would never dream of
instituting rites and sacraments for ages which He could not
foresee. 2 Such a theory is in direct conflict with the words
of S. Paul, whom these writers wish to regard as the author
of the institution of the Holy Eucharist. But that Apostle
expressly regards it as part of the tradition that he had
himself received. He had ' received ' it of the Lord, and
his intimate knowledge of the facts and their mysterious
meaning had been revealed to him by none other than
Christ Himself. But these very facts also came to him from
the primitive tradition, as can be seen by a comparison of
his narrative of the Supper with that of the Synoptics ; all
evidently proceed from the same source, which they faithfully
1 The Early Eucharist (Cambridge, 1902), p. 47.
8 Loisy argues as follows (Synopt., II, 540) : ' Jesus' words give no hint,
either of the foundation of the Church or of the organization of Christian
worship. They may imply His own death and resurrection, but they
certainly do not affirm, them. Like all Christ's teachings they keep in view
the prospect of a speedy messianic coming. We can see clearly enough
how this prospect was marred by events, but less clearly how, after the
Passion, it was possible for faith to find in the effective eucharistic words the
Christian Sacrament of later tunes. The historian can only seek for this
explanation apart from the main facts. By an examination of the
THE LAST SUPPER 249
reproduce. It is the same then with this tradition as with
that to which S. Paul refers a little later on, when speaking
of the death and resurrection of Christ. There, too, there
is a whole collection of facts which the Apostle has received
and passes on, and in addition a religious teaching that
interprets these facts in the light of Divine Revelation.
' Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures : and
. . . He was buried ; and rose again the third day according
to the scriptures. . . .' And if we inquire whence this
tradition had been derived by S. Paul, we are carried back
to the church at Jerusalem where the convert of Damascus
betook himself about A.D. 38 or 39, less than ten years
after the death of Christ. On this subject Cremer, a
Protestant theologian, has remarked : ' This resemblance
gives so much weight to the Apostle's testimony that we
are obliged to admit that no fact is better established than
the institution by Jesus Himself of the Supper, for the
community founded by Him.' 1
For the rest, this testimony of S. Paul is confirmed by the
primitive usage of the Church at Jerusalem, where from the
beginning we find the celebration of the Supper taking
place (Acts ii, 42, 46), while even our opponents recognise
that it was from there that S. Paul received the rite, the use
of which he had established at Corinth. 2 And we can go
further back still to these words of Christ which we know
through the witnesses who have recorded them : ' Do this
for a commemoration of Me.'
resurrection narratives we shall see that the faith in the risen Christ was
closely linked with the primitive conception of the Eucharist. Jesus was
already the Christ in the glory of His kingdom ; but at the same time He
was still with His followers ; and especially in the common meal which
gathered the faithful round it, and which was already the marriage-feast
of the kingdom, at which our Lord's disciples were His welcome guests.
The meeting took place with Him and in memory of Him. Even during
our Lord's earthly ministry the common meal was already the external
link within the apostolic band. S. Paul does no more than interpret this
tradition in accordance with his own conception of Christ and salvation,
in such a way as to see in the eucharistic meal the effective symbol of the
union of the faithful in the ever-living Christ, the memorial of the crucified,
of Him who had delivered up His body and poured out His blood for the
salvation of the world. He must have been the first to conceive and
represent this Christian custom as an institution founded on a wish of
Jesus as expressed and symbolized in the Last Supper.'
1 Art. Abendmahl, Realencyklopizdie f. protest. Theol., I, p. 33.
2 Julicher, Theol. Abhandlungen, p. 234. This theologian believes that
he can explain this primitive usage by supposing that the Church made the
mistake of regarding as an institution what, for our Lord, was only a
parable. This thesis has been effectively refuted by Batiffol, L'Euckaristie,
p. 62.
250 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
It may be objected that this command is found only in
Luke and Paul, and is missing in Mark and Matthew. Yet
this should not surprise us. All readers of the Synoptics are
accustomed to these accidental omissions found in one and
supplied in another : and we may add with BatifFol (p. 59) :
' We cannot help stressing the arbitrary method by which
those witnesses who speak are silenced in order that we may
hear those who say nothing. 3 But we can go further than
this. This command, which has not been expressly recorded
by Matthew and Mark, is sufficiently revealed by all the
circumstances of the paschal meal, as described by them.
' The decisive fact that settles the question (of the institution)
in the affirmative sense is not so much the formula preserved
by Paul and Luke as the general attitude of our Lord, who
evidently wished to retain the Passover, but with a new
meaning. The institution of the Christian rite was implied
and contained in the celebration of the paschal meal. The
repetition of a precise command was not necessary, for it
sprang from the very fact of the celebration of the rite itself.' 1
We have lingered a little over this discussion, because the
importance of the subject requires it, involving, as it does,
a point essential in religion and also in the history of our
Lord. Let us suppose, for a moment, that we admit the
interpretation of our opponents : what are we to make of
the Last Supper then ? No doubt it remains an impressive
meal, but calling for pity rather than for admiration. In
this His last hour, Jesus is still so much under the spell of
His chimerical hopes that He sees nothing but a brilliant
apotheosis at the very moment when the shadow of the
Cross is growing upon Him more and more. Soon disillusion
will come upon Him with crushing force, but His disciples
recover themselves, under some unknown influence, trans-
forming His dreams into an institution of the most fruit-
ful kind. Let us turn from glosses of this sort and read
the Gospels once again : and we shall find something very
different indeed. Truly the last hour was imminent, but
foreseen, accepted, nay, desired ; and beyond that blood-
stained horizon lay the immense perspective of the Church's
life. The death to which Christ was going in no way gave the
lie to His dreams, rather it was the consecration of His
redemptive wish. He had come to save the world, and He
would save it by the Cross that His enemies had prepared
1 Lobstein, La Doctrine de la sainte Cene (Strasbourg, 1889), p. So.
THE LAST SUPPER 251
for Him themselves. And yet this unique sacrifice is not
enough. This one sacrifice, which was to take the place
of all others from henceforth abrogated, was to be renewed
unceasingly to the end cf time, and unceasingly, too, would
the faithful come to partake of it, truly receiving the Victim
who is there immolated, and who fills them with life. So
this institution of the Supper enables us to penetrate into the
inmost life of Christ. In a few hours the powers of darkness
would lay hold upon Him, dragging Him before His judges
and executioners and to Calvary itself ; but this violence
had to be first accepted and willed by Him : ' No man
taketh (My life) from Me, but I lay it down of Myself.'
And this freedom of choice was apparent at the Supper, too.
' This is My Body, which is given for you ; this is ... My
Blood, which shall be shed for you ' ; this oblation which
was to cost Him so dear would never be forgotten by His
Church ; and she would continually remind herself of it
by this memorial, which would not be a mere symbol or
image, but a living and true reproduction of it. And to
the end of time all Christians would be able to assist at this
saving sacrifice, and to share in it even more effectively
than at Calvary, since in Holy Communion they receive
the very Victim immolated for them.
And this institution of the Eucharist throws light on yet
another aspect of the Gospel narrative. On several occa-
sions Jesus promised His Presence to His disciples : ' Where
there are two or three gathered together in My name,
there am I in the midst of them ' (Matt, xviii, 20) ; ' Behold,
I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the
world ' (xxviii, 20). But it is especially in S. John, in the
discourse after the Supper, that we find these promises
repeated the greatest number of times : ' I will not leave
you orphans, I will come to you. Yet a little while and the
world seeth Me no more. But you see Me because I live ;
and you shall live 3 (xiv, 18), and so many other passages
that will come before us again very soon. No doubt, not
all these passages relate to the Eucharist : some of them may
only denote a moral assistance, while others refer to the
coming of the Holy Ghost ; but if we take them all together
they imply a permanent and effective presence of Jesus
among His faithful ; and it is in the Eucharist that this
presence is most completely fulfilled.
If we consider our Blessed Lord's work in the state it was on
2 5 s LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
the eve of His death, we can justly say that it existed so far
only in outline. His revelations are incomplete : ' I have yet
many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.'
The Jews were scarcely persuaded as yet ; the rest of the world
had not been affected at all. It was not to be thought of
that Jesus would leave His Church to face this immense
task alone. No doubt He would send her His Holy Spirit,
but He willed also Himself to abide in her, to guide and
quicken her, and to crown her efforts with fruit. And indeed
He might well say : ' It is expedient to you that I go,' and
this was true not only because of His Holy Spirit's coming,
but also because His own abiding Presence with them, in the
Eucharist, would be more intimate and full of blessing than
had been His sojourn on the earth.
And now, at the end of this Eucharistic meal, we can
better understand our Lord's meaning when He said :
' With desire I have desired to eat this Pasch with you
before I suffer.' Here He was not only expressing the natural
wish once more to share this sacred meal with His disciples,
but, too, His burning desire, in this very meal, to give them
and His disciples in every age this supreme mark of His love.
And we have no difficulty in understanding why Jesus
wished to connect this institution with the great memorial
of the Passover. He was the Lamb of God as, at the Jordan,
the Baptist had already proclaimed Him to be ; by His
Blood He was about to take away the sins of the world, so
it was His Will that His death should take place on the very
day and at the very hour when the Jews were sacrificing
the Paschal Lamb, so that all might understand that the
true Paschal Lamb was Christ Himself: Pascha nostrum
immolatus est Christus. But this one sacrifice of the Cross was
to be represented to the end of time by the Eucharistic
sacrifice, of which all Christians would be bound to partake.
This new repast, this supper of the Christian world, He
instituted in the course of the Paschal meal ; our Lord being
thus able to consecrate the New Covenant with His Blood,
and to set up in His Church this holy sacrifice, of which the
Paschal Lamb had been merely the type, and which would
be for them the source of life and purity, of unity among
themselves, and union with God.
' And when they had sung an hymn, they went forth to
the Mount of Olives' (Mark xiv, 26). At the Passover,
after the third cup, was sung the second part of the Hallel,
THE LAST SUPPER 253
that is Pss. cxv-cxviii j 1 this is probably the hymn mentioned
in Mark and Matthew. Repeated at such a moment, after
the institution of the Eucharist and on the very road to the
Passion, these Psalms would take on a meaning of a new and
poignant kind.
' Not to us, O Lord, not to us : but to Thy name give
glory. For Thy mercy, and for Thy truth's sake : lest
the Gentiles should say : Where is their God ? But our
God is in heaven : He hath done all things whatsoever
He would. The idols of the Gentiles are silver and
gold, the works of the hands of men. 3 (Ps. cxiii, 2nd
part, 1-4.)
' I have loved, because the Lord will hear the voice of
my prayer. Because He hath inclined His ear unto me :
and in my days I will call upon Him. The sorrows of
death have compassed me : and the perils of hell have
found me. I met with trouble and sorrow and I called
upon the name of the Lord. O Lord, deliver my soul.'
(Ps. cxiv, 1-4.)
' Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of
His saints. O Lord, for I am Thy servant : I am Thy
servant, and the son of Thy handmaid, Thou hast
broken my bonds. I will sacrifice to Thee the sacrifice of
praise : and I will call upon the name of the Lord. I will
pay my vows to the Lord in the sight of all His people :
in the courts of the house of the Lord, in the midst of
thee, O Jerusalem.' (Ps. cxv, 15-18.)
According to Mark and Matthew, it was at this moment
that our Lord foretold to the Apostles their own dispersion
and flight, Luke and John placing the incident a little
earlier, in the cenacle itself. This slight difference is with-
out significance. What is important to notice is the very
fact of this painful prediction, after the supper, and with
Gethsemane almost in sight. As His custom was, our Lord
took the words of a prophet upon His lips : ' Awake, O
sword, against my shepherd and against the man that
cleaveth to me, saith the Lord of Hosts. Strike the shepherd
and the sheep shall be scattered 5 (Zacharias xiii, 7). It
would seem that the shepherd to whom the words referred
directly, was the King Sedecias, who was about to be
1 The followers of Sh.amm.ai recited Pss. cxiv-cxviii; those of Hillel,
Pss. cxv-cxviii (Beer, note on Pesachim, x, 7).
254 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
stricken by the Assyrians, and the whole people, represent-
ing his flock, would be scattered by the blow. But Jesus
applied these words to Himself : much more than Sedecias
He was truly the shepherd of those gathered around Him,
whom He had found wandering as sheep without a shepherd.
In a few hours the Good Shepherd Himself would be stricken,
and the whole flock thrown into confusion. But this was
too much for Peter and he made his famous protest :
' Although all shall be scandalized. ... I, never.' If we
take them literally the Apostle's words are certainly
highly blameworthy on account of the presumption that
they reveal, of their contradiction of our Lord's direct
statement, and of the spirit of exclusive self-confidence in
which Peter puts himself above the rest. But we shall judge
less severely if we recall Peter's impulsive disposition and
his ardent love for our Blessed Lord. He did not feel his
weakness, but he was conscious of his passionate affection ;
and his mistake lay in building on his impulses and entrusting
himself entirely to them, instead of humbly accepting the
advice that he had received. So Jesus insisted '. . . before the
cock crow thou wilt deny Me thrice ; ' but He did not leave
the matter there ; rather He was careful to foretell the re-
covery together with the fall j 1 just as while predicting the
dispersion of the whole band, He once more foretold His own
resurrection : ' After I shall be risen again, I will go before
you into Galilee.' Here once again, as so often before, we
see the divine method of instruction, the most terrible
predictions being fulfilled against a background of glory.
In a few hours, dispersion, flight, death ; but soon the
resurrection and reunion in Galilee.
The peculiar form of the warnings and prophecies, as
recorded by Luke, call for remark : ' Satan hath desired to
have you that he may sift you as wheat, but I have prayed
for thee that thy faith fail not.' Here there half opens
before our eyes the unseen world in which our Lord lived
at the same time as He lived the life of earth ; here below we
1 S. Augustine comments thus on this passage : ' Noli extolli pres-
sumendo : non -potes modo : noli deiici desperando : sequeris -posted.' John's
account (xiii, 36-8) of this short dialogue is as follows : ' Simon Peter
saith to Him : Lord, whither goest Thou ? Jesus answered : Whither I
go, thou canst not follow Me now : but thou shalt follow hereafter. Peter
saith to Him : Why cannot I follow Thee now ? I will lay down my life
for Thee. Jesus answered him : Wilt thou lay down thy life for Me ?
Amen, amen, I say to thee, the cock shall not crow, till thou deny Me
thrice.'
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see only human sufferings and struggles, but in that beyond
there exists a world of enemies and friends, the one company
watching over us, the other pursuing us with relentless hate.
It is this world from which our Lord half drew the veil when
He said of little children that ' their angels in heaven always
see the face of My Father who is in heaven ' (Matt, xviii,
10) ; or whose presence we seem to feel when we read His
words : ' I saw Satan like lightning fall from heaven '
(Luke x, 1 8). In that world, as here below, He reigned as
Master, so far as He would. He could, if He so desired,
summon to His aid twelve legions of angels (Matt, xxvi, 53),
and His Father would send them without delay ; equally,
He could bind Satan in chains ; He would deliver Himself
into his power, but would never abandon to him His own.
Very soon, in the Garden, He would be saying to the soldiers
sent to take Him : ' If, therefore, you seek Me, let these go
their way, 3 and the Apostles went free ; and just as He re-
strained the power of the Jewish officers, so He held the
demons in check. Satan had wished to destroy the eleven as
he destroyed Judas ; but Jesus had prayed for them, and
especially for S. Peter, who would be converted, and hence-
forth every unstable and, so to speak, fluid element in his
character would be transmuted into the firmness of a rock
upon which the whole Church would rest : ' and thou, being
once converted, confirm thy brethren : ' surely these words
echo those of Gsesarea Philippi : ' Thou art Peter, and upon
this rock I will build my church. And the gates of hell shall
not prevail against it.'
IV. The Discourse after the Supper.
The long discourse to which we must now turn is found
only in S. John's Gospel, where it holds a place analogous to
that held in S. Matthew by the Sermon on the Mount ; but
between the two there is a great difference in significance
and tone. The Sermon on the Mount was spoken at the
beginning of our Lord's ministry, before a great crowd :
the Discourse after the Supper brought to a close the final
teachings of Christ, which were confided to His little band
of disciples. Besides, there is an intimate tone about it
which the Sermon lacked, and it unveiled mysteries that in
the earlier utterance were left obscure. In commenting on
this discourse, S. Augustine begins as follows : ' I implore
256 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
you of your charity, my dear brethren, to be attentive to
this discourse which our Lord addressed to His disciples
before His Passion, for it is deep indeed ; he who would
comment on it must make a great effort ; and he who
listens must neglect nothing.'
The discourse begins with a cry of triumph : ' Now is the
Son of Man glorified ; and God is glorified in Him ' (xiii,
31). The glorification of which our Lord speaks is, in the
first place, that He was surrounded only by pure souls :
' You are clean, but not all,' He had said only a very short
time before ; but now Judas had left, 1 and only the faithful
ones remained with Him in the cenacle. S. Augustine sees in
this a sort of prelude to what will take place at the last day :
the goats being driven far from the Son of Man, and the
sheep alone remaining near Him in the glory of the Father.
Still this is only a subordinate meaning, the essential feature
of His glory being the sacrifice our Lord was about to make. 2
In S. John's Gospel the Passion of Christ is habitually
represented as the glorification of His Father and of Him-
self. For this death of Christ is the greatest possible sign of
love and worship : it is the supreme homage rendered to
God, and there could be nothing more conducive to God's
glory, nor to that of the Sufferer Himself. From that
moment the Passion had begun ; the traitor had gone out
to lay his snare : the Son of Man was delivered ; and in
that very fact was glorified. Yet at once His thoughts turn
to those He is about to leave, and His affection for them
pours itself out in profoundly moving words :
' Little children, yet a little while I am with you. You
shall seek Me. And as I said to the Jews : Whither I go
1 ' When he therefore was gone out, Jesus said : Now is the Son of
Man glorified.'
2 vii, 39 : ' ... as yet the spirit was not given, because Jesus was not
yet glorified ' ; xii, 16 (Palm Sunday) : ' These things His disciples did
not know at first : but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered
that these things were written of Him, and that they had done these
things to Him ' ; xii, 23 (the Greeks) : ' The hour is come that the Son
of Man should be glorified. Amen, amen, I say to you, unless the grain
of wheat falling into the ground die, itself remaineth alone. But if it die
it bringeth forth much fruit ' ; xii, 27 : ' Now is my soul troubled. And
what shall I say ? Father, save me from this hour. But for this cause I
came unto this hour. Father, glorify Thy name. A voice, therefore, came
from heaven : I have both glorified it and will glorify it again.' We shall
find this expression several times in this discourse (xiv, 13 ; xv, 8 ; xvii,
i, 4, 5, 10). Later (xxi, 19), the evangelist will apply the same expression
to S. Peter's martyrdom : ' And this he said signifying by what death he
should glorify God.'
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you cannot come : so I say to you now. A new com-
mandment I give unto you : That you love one another,
as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By
this shall all men know that you are My disciples, if you
have love one for another.' (John xiii, 33-35.)
Never had our Lord spoken in so tender a tone. * The first
word was one of farewell. The parting was at hand, and the
Apostles did not understand it yet. Ever haunted by their
impatient dreams they were far from foreseeing that long
years would be passed in obscure and perilous toil, far away
from their Lord. ' You shall seek Me. 3 A moving pre-
diction to be fulfilled so forcibly in days to come. To be
near to Christ, that was the one wish of the Apostles here
below : S. Paul's epistles are full of it, and the Apocalypse
ends with the cry : ' Gome, Lord Jesus ! '
Nor did our Lord stop there. Before leaving His own, He
gave them His last behest. He was giving Himself utterly
for them, and in a few more hours would take place His
sanguinary death ; and He asks of them only one thing
brotherly love among themselves. ' A new commandment
I give unto you.' ' This is My commandment' (xv, 12).
No doubt it was not entirely new, for it had been given to
the disciples many times before, in the parables, and, earlier
still, in the Sermon on the Mount ; but what gave it its new
force was the example of our Lord Himself. '. . . As I
have loved you.' After the washing of the feet they had
heard Him say : '. . . I have given you an example, that
as I have done to you, so do you also : ' and indeed it was
a lesson of humility and mutual regard. And now mutual
charity was the burden of His speech, preached by His
example most of all. It was a new and decisive step in the
Gospel teaching ; and from henceforth the imitation of
Christ will be one of the Christian's greatest sources of
strength. If S. Paul bade his faithful to follow him as he
followed Christ, it was on that last sacred evening of our
Lord's life that the disciples received that all-urgent incen-
tive and perfect rule. It would be above all on the founda-
tion of Christian charity that this effort of imitation was to be
made, and it was by this characteristic that the likeness of
Christ was to be reproduced in themselves : let the Apostles
remember what they had seen, and better still what they
1 This expression : ' little children ' is only found in this place in the
gospel ; it occurs many times in S. John's epistles.
258 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
had themselves experienced of the love of Christ, and let
them reproduce it in their own lives. Such an appeal came
with peculiarly moving force when made at such a moment
by our Lord after the Supper and at the point of going to
His death. The spirit of self-immolation which, not content
with one act of sacrifice, is willing to be perpetuated and
renewed without end, forms a model, the perfect following
of which is infinitely beyond us, but which is none the less
our rule, short of which no one has the right to stop. It was
on this evening that the Christian family was founded and
that all Christians became one in Christ. Before long,
after Pentecost, it would be said of the Christians in Jeru-
salem that they were of one heart and soul, and, despite the
weaknesses incidental to any group of men, this characteristic
would remain, as Christ willed, the distinctive note of His
disciples. ' They love each other even before they know
each other,' would say Minucius Felix of the Christians
later on ; while the satirist Lucian would remark :
' Their Master has made them believe that they are all
brothers.'
This thought, however, could not turn away the attention
of S. Peter from the first words of Christ, and the announce-
ment that He was about to go away : ' Lord, whither goest
Thou ? ' (36). Peter has only one thought : to go with our
Lord. He had not even understood what had just been said
about charity ; he was wholly preoccupied by the one idea :
. the Master was going to leave them, and why could not they
go too ? Here we have the same impetuosity as formerly on
the lake, when Peter asked Jesus that he might go to Him,
walking upon the water. He was uneasy at the slightest
suspicion of distrust ; he felt so sure of himself ! And now,
without distinctly foreseeing the future, he felt the approach-
ing crisis, with its accompaniments of prison and death ;
and he thought himself ready for it all. We already know our
Lord's reply, sad and firm, but, at the same time, with hope
or rather assurance for the future : ' thou shalt follow here-
after.'
Our Lord's words to S. Peter were bound to increase the
consternation of the disciples. Throughout the evening
there had been a series of terrible predictions (xiii, 21, 33, 36)
and we have no difficulty in imagining the mournful silence
that would have followed this last reply. So our Lord
hastened to reassure them. ' Let not your heart be troubled :
THE LAST SUPPER 259
you believe in God : believe also in Me.' So the Vulgate :
but the Greek may also be rendered : ' You believe in God
and you believe in Me/ which we are inclined to prefer as
more expressive, and better representing the movement of
faith as directed with the same fervour towards the Father
and the Son. Then our Lord spoke to them familiarly of
heaven as of His Father's house : ' In My Father's house
there are many mansions. ... I go to prepare a place for
you.' Their thoughts may well have flown to the Temple,
God's house here below, whose spacious and splendid build-
ings had often struck them with amazement, but these were
nothing to the riches of heaven. Theie were dwellings
innumerable, which our Lord was going to prepare for them.
It was thus that, in the desert, ' the ark of the covenant went
before them [the Israelites] for three days, providing a place
for the camp' (Num. x, 33). So would Jesus go before
them : ' which we have as an anchor of the soul, sure and
firm, and which entereth in even within the veil : where
the forerunner Jesus is entered for us, made a high priest
for ever according to the order of Melchisidech ' (Heb. vi,
19, 20). So this departure, the very thought of which had
filled them with dismay, was only the act by which their
Master took possession of their eternal abode ; and He would
return and take them with Him so that all would meet
once more. And having thus consoled them He added with
gentle condescension : ' Whither I go you know, and the
way you know. 5 But Thomas persists : ' Lord, we know
not whither Thou goest. And how can we know the way ? '
thus calling for Christ's great declaration : ' I am the way,
and the truth, and the life. No man cometh to the Father
but by Me. If you had known Me you would without
doubt have known My Father also ; and from henceforth
you shall know Him. And you have seen Him.'
We know Thomas in this mood. He loved his Lord and
was devoted to Him, but he was easily cast down. It was
he who before the raising of Lazarus said : ' Let us also go
that we may die with Him ; ' and who after our Lord's
resurrection would only believe when he had touched His
hands. And here, before these statements of our Lord, so
sublime and encouraging to faith, he remains mournful and
cast down. ' How can we know the way, when we do not
even know where you are going at all ? '
As usual, our Lord wasted no time over the difficulties
260 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
proposed, but went on with His teaching gently and
patiently, replying indirectly by new statements to the
questions that had been raised : * I am the way, and the
truth, and the life.' So, not long before, in answer to
Martha's hesitating confession of faith, ' I know that he
shall rise again, in the resurrection at the last day,' He had
been content to reply : ' I am the resurrection and the
life.' Face to face with these souls, believing, devoted, but
weak, He would not pause for discussions that would only
tire them still more ; preferring to set before them the
fundamental truths of Christianity, supporting their
wavering faith on this rock alone. 1 If we wish more
explicitly to compare these three terms, while keeping within
the limits of our Lord's own explanations, we may say that
He is the Way, just because He is the Truth and the Life.
And He is all this by a title transcendent and unique ; there
is no other way of going to the Father, because Jesus is His
only Truth and Life.
And then straightway He led His Apostles in thought to
what must be their goal ; the Father Himself. He was
the object of their love and desire, and the ultimate aim of the
whole teaching of the Son of God ; but as yet they knew
Him not, because they did not know the Son Himself. Still
Jesus replied : ' From henceforth you shall know Him, and
you have seen Him.' In other words, in spite of their
imperfect faith they believed in Him : recognizing Jesus as
the Son of God, they necessarily began to know the Father
too. But it was only a beginning and could not satisfy their
desire :
' Philip saith to Him : Lord, show us the Father : and
it is enough for us. Jesus saith to him : Have I been so
long a time with you and have you not known Me ?
Philip, he that seeth Me seeth the Father also. How
sayest thou : Show us the Father. Do you not believe
that I am in the Father and the Father in Me ? The
words that I speak to you, I speak not of Myself. But the
Father who abideth in Me, He doth the works.' (John
xiv, 8-10.)
1 On this passage it is a pleasure to re-read the comment in the
Imitation, III, 56 : ' Ego sum via, veritas et vita ; sine via non itur, sine
veritate non cognoscitur, sine vita non vivitur ; Ego sum. via quam sequi
debes, veritas cui credere debes, vita quam sperare debes.' On the saying
attributed to Al Hallaj, ' I am the Truth,' cp. L. de Grandmaison, Jesus
Christ. II, 77, 78.
THE LAST SUPPER 261
This fresh interruption emphasizes the familiar character
of our Lord's conversations with His disciples. There
could be no more sublime teaching than that given on this
evening, and no more solemn setting for it, and yet the
dialogue remains what it had always been : a father's
conversation with his children. And at the same time Philip
reveals to us something of his own disposition and those
of the other Apostles ; still blind to supernatural truth
but already desiring it or, rather, desiring nothing else :
' Show us the Father, and it is enough for us.' No doubt he
was thinking of the theophany of Sinai and of the promises
of the prophets. Isaias had said, speaking of Messianic days,
(xl, 5) : ' And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed :
and all flesh together shall see that the mouth of the Lord
hath spoken.' Surely the hour was come when this promise
should be fulfilled ? Might not the Apostles be able to repeat
the Psalmist's words : ' I shall be satisfied when Thy glory
shall appear.' All that was natural enough among the Jews,
and, unfortunately, they still were Jews.
And, with poignant sadness, our Lord comments on the
fact. ' Have I been so long a time with you and have you
not known Me? Philip . . - 1 he that seeth Me seeth the
Father also. How sayest thou : Show us the Father ? '
Many times have we noticed this painful surprise on the
part of Christ when confronted with the lack of intelligence
of the disciples and the crowds ; but never had any mis-
understanding so keenly affected Him as this. This union
of the Father and the Son is the very being of Christ ; His
human nature depends on it ; His teaching radiates from
this light. And yet this mystery has not yet penetrated to
the understanding of His disciples, who have loved Him so
long, who have had Him before their eyes and listened to
His words : ' O ye sons of men, how long will ye be thus
dull of heart?'
Once again, patiently, Jesus takes up His familiar teaching :
' Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father
in me ? The words that I speak to you I speak not of
Myself. But the Father who abideth in Me, He doth the
works.' This reciprocal interpenetration of the Father and the
Son appears in the words and works of Christ. He is in the
Father ; all that He says is the Father's teaching, conveyed
1 The apostrophe ' Philip ' marks the depths of our Lord's emotion.
Cp. ' Mary ' (xx, 16) : ' Simon, son of Jonas ' (xxi, 15).
262 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
by Him. Again, the Father is in Him, and all that He does
is done by the Father Himself. And this declaration of His
is confirmed by the proof that He is always ready to give.
' Otherwise believe Me for the very works sake.'
And having thus strengthened and enlightened His
apostles' faith, Jesus returned to the subject of His instruc-
tion His departure to His Father's side :
' Amen, amen, I say to you, he that believeth in Me,
the works that I do, he also shall do : and greater than
these shall he do. Because I go to the Father : and
whatsoever you shall ask the Father in My name, that
will I do : that the Father may be glorified in the Son.
If you shall ask Me anything in My name, that I will do.'
(John xiv, 12-14.)
Our Lord has been speaking of His works as a proof of
the Father's presence in Himself, and it might be asked if
all that would disappear with Him when He left the world.
And the answer would certainly be : No. Christ would still
perform His works His Father's works that His Father
might be glorified in Him ; nay, they would be even greater
works than those He had wrought on earth. This has
sometimes been understood in the sense that there would be
more and more striking miracles than those of Christ's
earthly ministry, but this may well be questioned even as
to the fact. It is difficult to see how there can have been
more startling miracles than the raising of Lazarus from the
dead ; and, as far as the number is concerned, we must
remember that ' if they were written every one, the world
itself . . . would not be able to contain the books that
should be written' (John xxi, 25). It would seem more
correct to see a reference here to the gifts of the Spirit, the
charismata, the spiritual favours of every kind, which Christ
did not bestow during His life, and which, since His return
to His Father, He has distributed with so bountiful a hand.
This is the highest source of the glorification of God ; this
the great revelation, the grand promise of the Son in these
last days :
' If you love Me, keep My commandments. And I will
ask the Father : and He shall give you another Paraclete,
that He may abide with you for ever : The Spirit of
truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth
THE LAST SUPPER 263
Him not, nor knoweth Him. But you shall know Him :
because He shall abide with you and shall be in you.'
(John xiv, 15-17.)
This is the first occasion on which we find our Lord speak-
ing clearly of the Holy Ghost. On several occasions He had
held out the hope of this gift of God, but only in some
promise remote and veiled. So He told Nicodemus : ' Amen,
amen, I say to thee, unless a man be born again of water
and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the kingdom of
God ' (John iii, 5, 6) . And more explicitly at the Feast of
Tabernacles : ' If any man thirst, let him come to Me and
drink. He that believeth in Me, as the Scripture saith :
Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water ' (John vii,
37, 38). And the evangelist adds : ' Now this He said of
the Spirit which they should receive who believed in Him :
for as yet the Spirit was not given, because Jesus was not yet
glorified ' (John vii, 39) .
And of that end, then looked forward to, the hour was now
near ; the Spirit was about to come ; but He could only
come among His own. So at the beginning Jesus said :
' If you love Me, keep My commandments,' and then,
almost at once He went on to speak of the Spirit of truth,
whom the world cannot receive.'
Preparation, therefore, was necessary, and this the
Apostles had received from Christ. They knew the Spirit
and already He ' abode with them ' ; soon He would be in
them ; always at hand to help. Soon He would hallow
them as His Temple, and lay hold of them as the instru-
ments of His works. 1 And if it were asked if the coming
of another Paraclete would deprive the disciples of their
Master's presence, the answer was, on the contrary, it would
1 The reader will notice the special name here given to the Holy Ghost
' another Paraclete.' This expression is nowhere found in the New
Testament, outside the writings of S. John, either in the discourse after
the Supper (xiv, 16-26 ; xv, 26 ; xvi, 7) or in i John ii, i : 'If any man
sin, we have an advocate [Paraclete] with the. Father, Jesus Christ the
Just.' The word is evidently used in the sense of advocate, in which sense
it is also used in. Rabbinical literature ; for example, in the saying : ' He
who fulfils a precept makes sure of a paraclete ; he who commits a fault
prepares an accuser ' (Westcott, 212) . Jesus is our Paraclete and advocate ;
the Holy Ghost will be another paraclete ; this comparison between Christ
and the Holy Spirit, this similarity of function, shows up both the personal
character of the Holy Ghost, and the divinity of Christ. Cp. Origines du
Dogme de la Trinite, p. 534. Lemonnyer, L'Esprit Saint Paradet, Rev.
des Sc. Philos. et Theol., xvi (1927), pp. 292-307.
VOL. II. S
264 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
make it more secure. When the Son of God was made flesh
it was by the operation of the Holy Ghost that Jesus was
conceived in the Virgin's womb : and if He was to be born
and to grow in the hearts of the faithful, it was through the
Holy Spirit that that new birth must be brought about :
' I will not leave you orphans : I will come to you.
Yet a little while and the world seeth Me no more. But
you see Me : because I live, and you shall live. In that
day you shall know that I am in My Father : and you in
Me, and I in you. He that hath My commandments and
keepeth them : he it is that loveth Me. And he that
loveth Me shall be loved of My Father : and I will love
him and will manifest Myself to him. 5 (John xiv,
1 8-2 1.)
' In that day : ' this is a prediction of Pentecost, with the
whole new dispensation that it would usher in. 1 Then,
indeed, will Christ's faithful followers know that they
are in Him and He in them, and this experience will
make them understand, at last, something of the mutual
indwelling of the Father and the Son. No doubt the re-
lations are not identical, but they are analogous : there
being, in both cases, a common sharing of life, and
consequent mutual dependence and indwelling. It is
by the faithful practice of the Christian life that we are
introduced more intimately into the mysteries of the Divine
life : ' You see Me : because I live and you shall live.'
1 Some scholars, for example, Loisy, have seen in this passage a promise
of the appearances of Christ after the Resurrection : an interpretation for
which there is very little to be said. These appearances would only be
short visits, and could scarcely be identified with the return and sojourn
of our Lord that is spoken of here. Still less probable is the view that the
reference is to the Second Coming of Christ. S. Augustine understands
all these promises of the future life in heaven. ' In illo die, quando vivemus
ea vita qua mors absorbebitur, cognoscemus quia ipse in Patre, et nos in ipso,
et ipse in nobis ; quia tune perficietur hoc ipsum quod et nunc inchoatum est
iam per ipsum, ut sit in nobis et nos in ipso ' (Tract. 75, 4). No doubt all
will find its full fruition in heaven ; but it is on earth in the daily Christian
life that these promises begin to be fulfilled ; and it is this that Christ
meant to make clear. That is no reason why the passage should be used
to support the view that there is no distinction between the Holy Spirit
and Christ, as is done by many Protestant theologians, notably Reuss,
S. Jean, p. 287 ; Theologie chretienne, II, 532 ; Holtzmann, N.T. Theologie,
II, 516.
No doubt, the Holy Ghost will not come to the faithful without the
Son of God coming too ; nay, we would add, without the Father coming
with Christ and the Spirit, as Jesus would be saying very soon (v. 23).
But all this follows from the indissoluble union of the Three Persons, and
not from their confusion. Cp. Origines du Dogme de la Trinite, pp. 534 ff.
THE LAST SUPPER 265
And to this love, awakened and fostered by the Holy
Ghost in the soul, Christ responds with His love and the
revelation of Himself : ' He that loveth Me ... I will
love him and manifest Myself to him.' No longer would
Jesus be forced to say to His disciples : c Have I been so
long a time with you, and have you not known Me ? '
but rather, not now with sadness, but with certainty of
being understood : ' He that seeth Me, seeth the Father
also.'
Thus, to see the Father and the Son is the one aim of
every Christian soul ; x it is life eternal, and nothing less
(xvii, 3) ; but the question arises : Why is it promised to a
few faithful souls and not to the whole world ?
'Judas saith to Him, not the Iscariot, Lord how is it
that Thou wilt manifest Thyself to us, and not to the
world ? ' (22). The question is a faint echo of the words of
our Lord's brethren, before the Feast of Tabernacles : ' If
Thou do these things, manifest Thyself to the world.'
Beyond all question Judas believed in Christ, but he still
expected that universal glorious and irresistible mani-
festation of which he had always dreamed : a revelation
such as this, intimate, secret, and purely spiritual, reversed
all his previous ideas, so that he could not help asking :
Whence is this ? What means this entire subversion of the
original plan ? And Jesus, as usual, went on with His
teaching, without pausing to deal with the objection raised.
' If any one love Me, he will keep My word. And My
Father will love him ; and We will come to him and make
Our abode with him.'
Our Lord will only manifest Himself to those who love
Him, that is, who keep His words : He has just said it and
He says it again now. He who loves thus will be loved of the
Father and the Son, and They will make their abode with
him. Such love and such indwelling is offered to all, but
forced upon none ; Christ gives it to those who love Him,
that is who keep His commandments. Dread indeed is the
power of the human will, which, as it pleases, can welcome
or reject its God. 2
1 It will be remembered that this promise of Christ is the starting-point
of the Dialogue of S. Catherine of Siena.
2 Augustine comments (tr. 76, 2) : ' Jesus thus explains why He will
manifest Himself to His own and not to strangers, which He here calls the
world ; the reason being that He is loved by the one company and not by
the other. . . . Judas' question concerned the manifestation of Christ ; but
266 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
Then our Lord repeats and; ompletes all that He has said
about the impending separation between the disciples and
Himself (25-3 1 ) . He leaves them very imperfect still, quite
unequal to the part they will have to play, and above all
overwhelmed by the sense of impending disaster : yet He
wishes them to be at peace and even full of joy. ' Peace
I leave with you. My peace I give unto you. . . . Let not
your heart be troubled, nor let it be afraid. 5 In the first
place, He repeats the promise of the Holy Ghost. The
disciples are far from having understood their Master, as
their questions that night are quite sufficient to prove.
There were many things that He had not told them, many
forgotten by them, many ill-understood ; but the Holy
Ghost would come and would teach them all, bringing to
their remembrance all that they had been told by Christ.
This action of the Holy Ghost the Apostles were soon to
experience ; most evidently in the case of him by whom
the promise was related. 1
Thus, the Apostles' teaching could have no other source
that that of our Lord Himself ; only, under the action of the
Holy Ghost they would grasp it as a whole, with a fulness
and clearness unknown to them before.
' My peace I give unto you. 3 The usual form of salutation
among the Jews was : ' Peace be with you,' but this was, in
fact, little more than a formula, or at the most a wish.
With our Lord it was a gift ; only He could give that con-
fident assurance and that harmony without which there is
no peace ; and He gave it without stint. And once again,
He dispels the sadness and gloom of the Apostles, as He had
done before. In spite of everything, however, He saw that
He could not overcome the impression caused by His words :
the answer he received spoke of indwelling and love. There is, therefore
an intimate manifestation of God, unknown to the wicked.' While a little
further back, speaking of the Holy Ghost (tr. 74, 5), he had said : ' He
cannot be truly seen and known of us, unless He is in us.'
1 Cp. Origines du Dogma de la Trinite, p. 487. S. John is conscious of
not having at first understood the full sense of our Lord's words. Thus,
having recorded His prophecy, ' Destroy this temple and in three days I
will raise it up,' he goes on : ' When, therefore, He was risen again from
the dead, His disciples remembered that He had said this : and they
believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had said.' And, later on,
speaking of our Lord's entry into Jerusalem, he recalled the prophecies
in which that event had been foretold, adding : ' These things His disciples
did not know at the first : but when Jesus was glorified, then they remem-
bered that these things were written of Him and that they had done these
things to Him.'
THE LAST SUPPER 267
' I go away ; ' that was the cause of their sadness and dis-
tress. So with infinite delicacy He tells them : ' If you
loved Me you would indeed be glad, because I go to the
Father, for the Father is greater than I.' It is well known
that the Arians misused this passage by way of proving that
the Son of God was only half divine, and, therefore, inferior
in nature to the Father. The reply lies in the text itself. No
doubt Jesus is less than the Father ; but only in virtue of
that humanity in which He will die and go to the Father in
heaven. Of this only is there any question here, and not
of the Divinity, which cannot be spoken of in terms of
separation, departure, or return. 1 For the rest, in this very
discourse, the perfect divinity of the Son of Man is clear
enough. Speaking of His Father and Himself, He said :
' We will come to Him and make our abode with Him. 5
God alone could thus dwell with us, and God alone could
thus associate Himself with the Heavenly Father in such a
formula of perfect equality : ' We will come . . .' The same
thought is suggested by the part played by the Holy Ghost,
whose divinity was never doubted by the Apostles, and who
is here introduced as He who, as another Paraclete, should
succeed our Lord.
However, our Lord adds : * I will not now speak many
things with you. For the prince of this world cometh.' It
would seem that Jesus was already conscious of this approach
which, almost at once, in the Agony, would become more
violent and aggressive in character. After, the story of the
temptation we read that : ' the devil departed from Him
for a time ' (Luke iv, 13). He came back now : but he had
no influence on our Lord. All others of the sons of men had
put themselves in his power ; but the Son of God owed him
nothing, and yet He was going to the death to which Satan
had no dearer wish than to drag Him : and He gave the
reason Himself : '. . . that the world may know that I love the
Father, and as the Father hath given Me commandment,
so do I : Arise, let us go hence. 3 Formerly, at Capharnaum,
when working one of His first miracles, our Lord had said :
' that you may know that the Son of Man hath power on
earth to forgive sins . . .' (Matt, ix, 6). Now He wills to
1 ' Per quod ergo Films non est asqualis Patri, per hoc iturus erat ad
Pattern, a quo venturus est vivos iudicaturus et mortuos ; per illud autem
in quo sequalis est Gignenti Unigenitus numquam recedit a Patre ; sed
cum illo est ubique totus pari divinitate, quam nullus continet locus '
(Augustine, tr. 78, i). Cp. Origines du Dogme de la Trinite, p. 522.
268 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
give us a much more intimate revelation, and one more
glorious for His Father and Himself; nor, as its pledge, is
it too much that He should give His very blood. The
glorification of the Father and the Son was in no sense the
miracle-working activity so admired by the Galilean crowd ;
it was the whole-hearted acceptance of the Passion, as an
act of obedience to the Father, and as the means of saving us
from our sins.
V. The True Vine.
' I am the true vine : and My Father is the husband-
man. Every branch in Me that beareth not fruit, He will
take away : and every one that beareth fruit, He will
purge it, that it may bring forth more fruit.' (John
XV, I, 2.) 1
1 The sequence both, of thought and of incident, in this passage, raises
a question of which many solutions have been proposed. The last words
of chap, xiv give the signal for leaving the cenacle ; and they are of
similar purport to the command given to the disciples after the Agony in
the garden : ' Rise up : let us go ' (Mark xiv, 42 ; Matt, xxvi, 46). Then
our Lord saw the traitor coming ; now He is conscious of the Devil's
approach. Nevertheless the discourses go on for another three chapters,
and at the beginning of chap, xviii, we read : ' When Jesus had said
these things, He went forth with His disciples over the brook Cedron. . . .'
The question therefore arises as to where the discourses in xv xvii should
be placed. We can hardly suppose that these intimate outpourings of our
Blessed Lord's soul had for their setting the streets of the town, congested
with the Passover crowd. Some scholars have thought that Jesus, having
given the signal to depart, rose up, but without leaving the cenacle (Mal-
donatus, Zahn, Knabenbauer, Simon, p. 539) ; while others place the dis-
courses outside the town (Godet, Westcott) ; but to both theories many
objections can be raised. Cp. Durand, p. 409. Moreover, it is not only
the order of facts that needs explaining, but that of texts as well, since
in chaps, xv, xvi a return is made more than once to ideas already
expressed in chaps, xiii, xiv ; cp. Bauer and Lagrange.
To solve these difficulties certain transpositions have been proposed.
Thus in A New Commentary (p. 263), W. Lock writes : ' Many editors would
rearrange thus: xiii, 1-30; xv ; xvi: xiii, 31-38; xiv,' although he
himself refrains from making such a rearrangement. Bernard thinks it
ought to be made : Introd., p. xx, and in hoc loco. These manipulations
are both gratuitous and ineffective, as has been observed by Bauer, p. 183.
Wellhausen (Johann, 77-80) and Ed. Meyer (Ursprung, I, p. 313) see in
chaps, xv xvii an addition of the redactor of the Gospel. This sweeping
hypothesis is quite improbable : these three chapters are manifestly by
the same author as chaps, xiii xiv.
The solution that to us seems most likely is that proposed by several
Catholic scholars (Lepin, Durand, Lagrange). In this view, chaps, xv
xvi are a supplement added to the previous chapters by the evangelist
himself. The Discourse at the Supper ' had already been drafted and added
to the main body of the narrative, when the evangelist, going over his
recollections, added two intermediate chapters ; not with a view to develop-
ing our Lord's words by His personal reflections, but in order to complete
the first redaction ' (Durand, p. 408).
THE LAST SUPPER 269
Many times before, following the example of the prophets,
Jesus had taken the vine and the husbandman as illustrations
whereby to give His disciples a clearer grasp of their relations
with Almighty God and with Himself ; now He repeats the
same example, but in order to draw from it a lesson of a
different kind. Up to the time of Christ, the Jews had seen
in the vine the figure of a divine plantation, tended
by loving care, yet refusing the fruits for which He looked ;
but now Christ taught His Apostles that if the vine was to
bear its fruit it must be by remaining united to Him ; on
this condition it will be fruitful and laden with grapes ;
otherwise it is simply wood for the fire. 1
And the lessons of this parable are reinforced by the
pressing exhortations of Christ : ' Abide in Me, and I in
you. . . . Abide in My love.'
If the branches fall to the ground it is only because they
have detached themselves ; not at all that they have been
rejected by the vine : hence the command : ' Abide in Me,
and I in you. 5 That Christ should so abide in them depends
on themselves. And the figure thus used by our Lord
suggests another lesson still : without bearing branches the
vine cannot live. It is only by them that it can be fertile
and bear fruit. No doubt the grapes grow by the sap from
the vine, but it is only on the branches that they shoot
forth and mature. This figure makes plain the function of
the humanity of our Blessed Lord. It is only for men's sake
that He has taken His human nature at all, only in and
through men that it will bear fruit. Certainly, no individual
is essential ; and there is no branch which may not be cut
down and cast into the fire ; but the branches that thus fall
will be replaced by others ; for the heavenly sap will never
be without its fruit.
1 Ezechiel had long ago said : ' Son of man, what shall be made
of the wood of the vine, out of all the trees of the woods that are among
the trees of the forests ? Shall wood be taken of it to do any work, or shall
a pin be made of it for any vessel to hang thereon ? Behold it is cast into
the fire for fuel : the fire hath consumed both ends thereof, and the midst
thereof is reduced to ashes. Shall it be useful for any work ? Even when
it was whole, it was not fit for work : how much less, when the fire hath
devoured and consumed it, shall any work be made of it ? ' (xv, 25).
Referring to this passage from Ezechiel, S. Augustine writes (tr. 82, 4) :
' Ligna itaque vitis tanto sunt contemptibiliora si in vite non manserint,
quanto gloriosiora si manserint ; denique, sicut de his etiam per Ezechielem
prophetam Dominus dicit, prsecisa nullis agricolarum usibus prosunt,
nullis fabrilibus operibus deputantur. Unum de duobus palmiti congruit,
aut vitis aut ignis ; si in vite non est, in igne erit ; ut ergo in igne non sit,
in vite sit.'
270 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
This is a truth that will be expressed under another
figure by S. Paul. Christ is the Head, we are the members,
to whom life is impossible, except in union with the Head.
But still it may be said that a head without members cannot
be imagined ; if some members are unworthy and deserve
to be cut off from the body of Christ, that is to say, the
Church, others will take their place, but in one way or
another the Church will come to its full growth, both here
and in heaven above. And it will be the same with the
mystic vine ; its sap is inexhaustible ; incessantly it will
bring forth new branches until it covers the whole earth ;
happy those who remain attached to it to the end !
Christ had already conveyed these mysteries in other
parables, showing the unworthy guests of the Kingdom of
heaven driven from the bride-chamber, and cast into the
outer darkness or the fire. Here the warning is at once more
urgent and more moving. The unity that must not be broken
is Christ Himself, and those who sever themselves from it will
no longer be spoken of as driven from the feast, but as cut
off from the Body of Christ ; a severance fatal for them and
painful for their Head. The rest live like Christ and by His
life ; and their prayers are always heard, as are His. 1
And then our Lord goes on to explain more definitely
what is meant by abiding in Him : ' If you keep My
commandments you shall abide in My love : as I also have
kept My Father's commandments and do abide in His
love.' Shortly before, He had already said : ' If you love
Me keep My commandments' (xiv, 15), and soon He
would return to the matter again, for this Evangelist of love
never loses Himself in clouds of idle contemplation, and in
this farewell discourse, which is just one long outpouring of
tenderness, the call to obedience is more insistent than it
has ever been before. For the rest, our Lord was only
applying to His disciples the law He had received and
studiously kept ; and His words have a peculiar force,
coming so soon after that other saying of His : ' that the
world may know that I love the Father, and as the Father
hath given me commandment so do I. Arise, let us go
hence.' And in all this there was no sense of constraint, but
only a great sense of exaltation and joy.
1 ' If you abide in Me . . . you shall ask whatever you will : and it shall
be done unto you ' (v. 7) .
THE LAST SUPPER 271
f These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may be
in you, and your joy may be filled. This is My command-
ment, that you love one another, as I have loved you.
Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down
his life for his friends. You are My friends, if you do the
things that I command you. 3 (John xv, 11-14.)
In these few verses Christ promulgates His commandment
anew, and once more puts forward His own example as that
which should be the disciples' rule in this affair. And His
example is love unto death.
This lesson and example remained graven in the Apostles'
minds. '. . . He hath laid down His life for us : and we
ought to lay down our lives for the brethren ' ( i John iii,
1 6) : ' Christ also suffered for us, leaving you an example,
that you should follow His steps ' (i Peter ii, 21) : '. . . the
charity of Christ presseth us ... and Christ died for all ;
that they also who live may not now live to themselves, but
unto Him who died for them and rose again ' (2 Cor. v,
14-15). Truly a compelling example, but higher than any
of earth will ever reach ! The martyrs will be the ' disciples
and imitators of the Lord,' but distance is infinite between
their sacrifice and His, and none are more conscious of it than
the martyrs themselves. 1
Our Lord passed over in silence most of the inimitable
privileges of His own love. But there is one upon which
He insisted, namely, that it was He who had taken the first
step ; it was He who had chosen His friends ; those to whom
1 Letter from, the church, of Smyrna on the martyrdom of S. Polycarp
(xvii, 2, 3) : The Jews, knowing the devotion with which the Christians
surrounded the holy martyr, requested the governor to refuse them the
body, ' for fear,' said they, ' lest they abandon the Crucified to give
worship to this fellow.' The redactors of the letter add at once : ' They did
not know that we could never abandon Christ who suffered for the salvation
pf all those who are saved in the whole world : He, the innocent one
immolated for sinners, nor could we render worship to another. For Him
we adore as being the Son of God ; as for the martyrs, we love them as
disciples and imitators of the Lord, and they are worthy of it through
their supreme attachment to their Master and King.' Cp. Histoire du
Dogme de la Trinite, ii, pp. 204 ff.
The reader will like to see S. Augustine's comment on these verses of
S. John. He first quotes a text from Prov. xxiii, 1-2 : ' Si sederis ccenare
ad mensam potentis, considerans intellige quse apponuntur ibi ; et sic
mitte manum tuam, sciens quia talia te oportet praeparare.' ' What,' he
asks, ' is the table of the rich, if not the table where we receive the Body
and Blood of Him who has given His life for us ? ' We must therefore
prepare to serve in the same way, that is, give our life for our brethren,
as Christ has given His life for us. So did the martyrs : ' talia enim suis
272 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
all His secrets were revealed, those for whom He was to die,
had been chosen by Him, and had not themselves chosen
Him. More than once the Apostles had seen in this calling
only the sacrifice asked of them, regarding it above all as a
mark of their generosity and love : ' Lord, we have left all
and followed Thee ; what then shall we receive ? ' To-
night, at least. He makes them understand that all the giving
has been on His part, and that the only fitting attitude for
them is that of gratitude for an unsolicited call, much
more than one of complacent and, if need be, exacting
consciousness of service given. ' You have not chosen
Me, but I have chosen you.' Then, having once more
urged mutual charity upon them, our Lord forecasts the
reception that awaits them here below :
' If the world hate you, know ye that it hath hated Me
before you. If you had been of the world, the world
would love its own : but because you are not of the
world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore
the world hateth you. Remember My word that I said
to you : The servant is not greater than his master. If
they have persecuted Me, they will also persecute you.
If they have kept My word, they will keep yours also.
But all these things they will do to you for My name's
sake : because they know not Him that sent Me.' (John
xv, 1 8-2 1.)
Here Jesus puts before His Apostles the destiny in store
for them, which is none other than His own. During these
years of ministry with Him, they had had plenty of oppor-
tunities of seeing how His word had been received. Some
had welcomed it with generous faith ; many had rejected
it with bitter hatred ; and this would be their own experi-
ence too. They would gain many faithful disciples, but they
would fall foul of the great mass, frantic with fanaticism and
hate. And our Lord turns for a moment from these vistas
of the future to consider the terrible blindness with which
fratribus exhibuerunt, qualia de Domini mensa pariter acceperunt.' Yet,
in spite of all the distance between them and Him, He has the power to
lay down His life and to take it up again, but we cannot live as long as we
wish and we must even die against our will . . . therefore, although brethren
die for brethren, yet the blood of martyrs has not been shed like the Blood
of Christ, to wash away the sins of their brethren ; in this respect we can
admire His sacrifice but we cannot imitate it. But if the martyrs have
truly been able to shed their blood for their brethren, it can only have
been by the grace they received at this table of the Lord.'
THE LAST SUPPER 273
He had been met : ' If I had not come and spoken to them,
they would not have sin : but now they have no excuse for
their sin ' (22). No doubt, before Him, they had persecuted
and slain the prophets, and He had, more than once,
reminded them of the fact ; but, still, all these crimes might
have been excused if they had not been followed by this sin
committed against the Son of God, barefacedly, and in the
sight of works such as none had ever wrought before. So,
later, S. Stephen would reproach the Jews with their con-
tinual resistance to the Holy Ghost, of which their opposition
to Christ had filled up the cup : ' Which of the prophets
have not your fathers persecuted ? And they have slain
them who foretold the coming of the Just One : of whom
you have been now the betrayers and the murderers '
(Acts vii, 52) . Then once again Jesus foretold to His apostles
the terrible destiny that lay before them : excommuni-
cation from the synagogues, and a burning fanaticism that
would believe that in persecuting them it was doing service to
God. To men like the Apostles, attached to their fatherland
and their national faith, such prospects were simply terrify-
ing ; to be rejected of the synagogue and of Israel was, so to
speak, to find themselves utterly out of their depth. 1
All these sombre predictions are reserved by our Blessed
Lord until His last few hours. While He was with His dis-
1 These predictions should be compared with the instructions given to
the Apostles after the Supper and recorded by S. Luke (xxii, 35-8) : ' When
I sent you without purse- and scrip and shoes, did you want anything ?
But they said : Nothing. Then said He unto them : But now he that
hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise a scrip ; and he that hath not,
let him sell his coat and buy a sword. For I say to you that this that is
written must yet be fulfilled in Me : and with the wicked was he reckoned.
For the things concerning Me have an end. But they said : Lord, behold,
here are two swords. And He said to them : It is enough.' This passage
has no equivalent in the other Synoptics ; and its tone is very different
from that of the discourse after the Supper. Here our Lord's predictions
are veiled under figures and not made directly, as in S. John, but in both
cases the meaning is sufficiently similar : The Apostles in their trial mission
were welcomed with enthusiasm, profiting by the veneration that sur-
rounded their Lord. But henceforward it would be different : their Master
would be reckoned with the wicked, and themselves held suspect. So
they must look to their maintenance and also to their defence ; just now,
a cloak would be of less use to them than a sword. These counsels were
given, less with the intention that they should be taken literally than to
give the Apostles an idea of what their life from henceforth was to be.
But once again the disciples could see nothing beyond the letter of our
Lord's words : ' Behold here are two swords,' said they, and, with a sad
smile, Jesus replied : ' It is enough.' He saw that they had not grasped
His point, and so He pressed it no further : they would understand it
later on.
274 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
ciples there was little use in saddening them with these
distant previsions, so hard for their weakness to sustain ; but
now He must tell them all, so that they might remember and
be strengthened in the day of trial. 1
And then, no sooner had He warned His apostles, than
Christ restored their courage once again. So stricken were
they by their Master's prophecies that they listened without
question or remark. Just now they had been asking Him :
Whither goest Thou ? but they did so no longer, and for
this they were gently reproached by our Lord : ' . . . none
of you asketh Me : Whither goest Thou ? But because I
have spoken these things to you, sorrow hath filled your
heart. But I tell you the truth : it is expedient to you
that I go. For if I go not, the Paraclete will not come to
you: . . .' ( John xvi, 5-7).
The coming of the Paraclete here foretold is sufficient in
itself to show the divinity of Him thus promised. Only of a
God could it be said that His coming was so precious that
it would be gladly purchased at the cost of the absence of
Christ Himself. And He would convince the world : in
other words, the enemies of Christ. He would convince
them of sin. The Jews took notice only of legal faults ;
they strained out the gnat and swallowed the camel : in
disbelieving in Christ they were guilty of the gravest sin,
without suspecting its gravity in the least. But the Holy
Ghost would convince them of it. And He would convince
them of justice. On this point the error of Judaism was
equally grave. Christ's enemies believed themselves to be
just, like the Pharisee in the parable, and despised Jesus as
one of the friends of the publicans and sinners : and in this
folly they would be confirmed by the Passion itself. The
Ascension, followed by the sending of the Holy Ghost,
would show Jesus as reigning in the glory of the Father and
triumphant over the world. Finally, the Holy Ghost would
convince the world of judgement, on which subject the Jews
deceived themselves no less than on that of justice and of sin.
All they saw in it was a sanction for their national ambitions ;
but judgement is something deeper and holier than that.
It functions in the very soul and under the dictate of the
1 No doubt we can find something analogous to this in the tenth
chapter of S. Matthew ; but this discourse, related in connection with the
first sending out of the Apostles, seems as so often in S. Matthew to
have been formed by collating several of our Lord's discourses belonging to
different periods of His life.
THE LAST SUPPER 275
innermost dispositions of a man. And already the prince
of this world was judged ; he had lost his empire for having
made war upon the Just One ; and the Holy Ghost, promul-
gated at Pentecost, would take away his conquests and
overthrow his rule.
Having thus outlined this action of the Holy Ghost on the
world, our Lord returned to the Apostles themselves, warn-
ing them that they had much to learn, but promising them
that the Holy Ghost would teach them all. Shortly before,
He had said : ' I have called you friends, because all things
whatsoever I have heard of My Father, I have made known
to you ' (xv, 15). Still, He in no way contradicted Himself.
He had told them all that -they could assimilate, on His part
without reserve ; but there were many things that they could
not understand yet ; for example, the abrogation of Judaism
and its rites, and the free admission of the heathen into the
Church. These things the Holy Spirit would teach them,
leading them into all truth. Christ is the Way (6S6i) ', He
will be their guide in the way (oSrj-yp?}, and this function
He would discharge, not speaking of Himself whatsoever
things He should hear ; receiving that which was the
Son's.
This description is the most explicit revelation contained
in the New Testament on the subject of the Holy Spirit's
work, which it presents as something very similar to that of
the Son of God. Several times did our Lord protest that He
said nothing of Himself : ' My doctrine is not mine but
His that sent Me.' 1 So will it be with the Holy Ghost :
' He shall not speak of Himself, but what things soever
He shall hear, He shall speak.' Jesus is, above all, the
accredited witness of the Father and of the heavenly
mysteries : ' Amen, amen, I say to thee [to Nicodemus]
that we speak what we know and we testify what we have
seen, and you receive not our testimony ' (iii, 1 1 ) . Similarly,
the Holy Ghost gives testimony to the Son (xv, 26). Jesus
has glorified the Father it was His whole work here below
and He would be referring to it shortly in His last great
prayer ; so would the Spirit glorify Him (xvi, 14). Finally,
the Son has been sent by the Father, and in His turn, He
will send the Holy Ghost (xv, 26 ; xvi, 7).
1 Cp. ' . . . I have not spoken of Myself ; but the Father who sent Me,
He gave Me commandment what I should say . . . And I know that His
commandment is life everlasting. The things therefore that I speak, even
as the Father said unto me, so do I speak ' (John xii, 49, 50).
276 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
Thus the relations between the Holy Ghost and the Son
resemble those between the Son and the Father. 1 At the
same time this analogy brings with it the essential differ-
ences ; thus, filiation is the characteristic feature of the
relationship between the Father and the Son, but it finds no
place in the theology of the Spirit. The Father is the single
principle of the Son ; the same is not the case with the Son
in relation to the Holy Ghost. The Son sends the Spirit,
but only on behalf of the Father ; and it is from the Father
that He receives all that He gives to the Holy Ghost. This
whole doctrine is well summed up in the symbolical vision
of the Apocalypse, xxii, i : ' . . . a river of water of life,
clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God, and of
the Lamb. 5
These revelations give us a glimpse of what is most inti-
mate in the Divine life. If we can get behind mere human
words, the Son of God, and the Holy Ghost, appear to us as
receiving everything from another, doctrine, operation and
life, and in an irresistible movement of love and glory bearing
all back to the source from which all proceeds, and to which
all returns. And if our contemplation is to be faithful to the
teaching of Christ, it can never see in either the Son or the
Spirit a person who has his origin and term within himself ;
eternally he receives all from another, and eternally, with all
his energy, returns it to its source.
So it is that our Lord's discourse at the Last Supper
completes His previous teaching concerning the Holy
Spirit and Himself. From hence God is known to
Christians, not at all as the God of the philosophers, but as
the Living God. The patriarchs had believed in Him without
having seen Him, and the prophets had handed on His
oracles without revealing Him Himself. Alone, the Only
Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, was able to make
Him known to us, and He has done so, introducing all His
disciples and all His brethren within the intimacy of the
Divine life. Inaccessible as He was, men had thought of
Him as alone, and now they discover the existence of those
outpourings of love in which the Three Persons give
Themselves totally to each other, finding in each other Their
*/
1 Cp. Histoire du Dogme de la Trinite, I, 492 : ' This parallelism, is very
close, and when, in his letters to Serapion, S. Athanasius undertakes to
defend and develop the traditional doctrine of the Holy Spirit, \ve find
him choosing no other starting-point than this.'
THE LAST SUPPER 277
whole satisfaction, and mutually bound together in the unity
of a single nature. And this life, that seemed so far off, has
seized men also in its graspi, to transform and make them
one : ' That they all may be one, as Thou, Father, in Me,
and I in Thee ; that they also may be one in us ' ; this is
the supreme prayer of Christ to His Father (xvii, 20-23) ;
to this end would from henceforth be directed all the action
of the Holy Ghost in the Church. 1
Finally, we may notice our Lord's description of this
revelation that the Holy Ghost will communicate to the
Apostles. Its source will be the Son of God Himself : ' He
shall receive of Mine and shall show it to you.' Its end will
be the glorification of the Son of God : ' He shall glorify
Me.' And so, in Christianity, there is nothing that has not
its origin or fulfilment in Christ. The first word of the
Creed itself would be that profession of elementary faith
that the Holy Spirit alone could inspire : 'Jesus is Lord.'
The object of that faith would never be wholly within our
grasp, for it is none other than the inexhaustible riches of
Christ ; and His glorification is its end. ' There is nothing
essentially Christian that is not Divine, nothing Divine that
cannot find its fulfilment and its centre in the Christian
fact.' 2
After these teachings on the struggle with the world
and the revelation of the Holy Ghost, Jesus, returning to the
thought of the coming separation, spoke to His Apostles a
last word of farewell (xvi, 16-33), foil of tenderness,
emotion, and half-veiled revelations of truth. At the very
first words the Apostles were discouraged, and led to ask
among themselves : ' What is this that He saith : A little
while ? ' What, they wonder, can be meant by this short
interval of time ? Above all, they could not get used to the
idea that Christ was going away before He had established
His reign upon earth, and so could attach no meaning to
His departure to His Father. And, as usual, Jesus antici-
pates their question, without, however, at first, replying to
it in a direct way. Instead, He puts before them the lot
that they must expect, tears and mourning, while the world
is glad. From the beginning of His ministry, He had fore-
told the grief of those days that would follow His departure
from their midst. '. . . the days will come when the bride-
1 Cp. Le Dieu vivant, p. 126.
" Godet, in hoc loco.
278 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
groom shall be taken away from them ; and then shall they
fast in those days ' (Mark ii, 20). And He foretold it still,
but now He impressed upon them that such anguish would
bear fruit and be turned into joy, like that of a woman
who brings a son into the world. This comparison was
familiar to the prophets (Isa. Ixvi, 6 ; Osee xiii, 13) ; and
our Lord Himself had used it to describe the terrible anguish
of the last days (Mark xiii, 9 ; Matt, xxiv, 8). And S. Paul
in his turn would say to his faithful : ' My little children,
of whom I am in labour again, until Christ be formed in
you 3 (Gal. iv, 19). And these hearers of Christ would
know these griefs, terrible indeed, but followed by over-
whelming joy.
The source of this joy would be our Lord's return : ' I
will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice. And your
joy no man shall take from you.' 1
This joy that our Lord promised them would be assured
and full ; none would take it from them. Nor would they
need to question Him any more, for they would receive all
they asked, so that their joy would be full. 2 We may recall
the prophecy of Jeremias :
' Not according to the covenant which I made with
their fathers, in the day that I took them by the hand to
bring them out of the land of Egypt : the covenant
1 What is meant by this ' return ' ? Some take it to be the Resurrec-
tion : Weiss, Lange . . . ; but what follows, especially w. 25, 26, makes this
interpretation very improbable. ' The hour cometh when I will no more
speak to you in proverbs, but I will show you plainly of the Father. In
that day you shall ask in My name.' All this is better understood of the
spiritual presence of Christ after Pentecost, and Godet makes all these
promises refer to that : ' The first " a little while " relates to the short
space of time between that moment and His death ; the second, to the
interval between His death and Pentecost ' (459). S. Augustine under-
stands it to refer to the parousia : ' Modicum est hoc Mum spatium quo
prcesens pervolat saculum. . . . NontardatDominuspromissum; modicum, et
videbimus eum, ubi jam nihil rogemus, nihil interrogemus ; quia nihil
desiderandum remanebit, nihil quesrendum latebit. Hoc modicum longum
nobis videtur, quoniam adhuc agitur ; cum finitum fiterit, tune sentiemus
quam modicum fuerit ' (tr. 101, 6). Westcott (on xvi, 20) considers that
all these interpretations can be combined, and this seems the most probable
view : ' These words, which had an immediate fulfilment in the experience
of the Apostles before the Resurrection, and again before Pentecost, have
also a wider application. The attitude of sorrow marks in one aspect the
state of the Church until the return of Christ.'
2 Cp. i John ii, 27 : ' . . . you have no need that any man teach you :
but as His unction teacheth you of all things and is truth anr] is no lie.
And as it hath taught you abide in Him. 1
THE LAST SUPPER 279
which they made void, and I had dominion over them,
saith the Lord. 5 (Jeremias xxxi, 32.)
This, Christ would fulfil in coming to dwell with His
disciples : He would be their Master, ruling from within,
and they would not need to question Him, since they would
carry the source of all knowledge within themselves.
Further, this teaching would no longer be such as Jesus had
given them on earth, by figures and parables, but He would
speak to them openly and clearly, because He would speak to
them immediately, appealing to their hearts. Augustine
(treatise 102, 4) recalls S. Paul's words, spoken later on to
his disciples : ' ... we speak wisdom among the perfect '
(i Cor. ii, 6). 'I ... could not speak unto you as unto
spiritual but unto carnal. As unto little ones in Christ '
(iii, i) : ' we speak, not in the learned words of human
wisdom, but in the doctrine of the Spirit, comparing
spiritual things with spiritual. But the sensual man per-
ceiveth not these things, that are of the Spirit of God '
(ii, 13). This comparison is most just, and shows up clearly
what was still defective in the Apostles' equipment for
directly understanding the mysteries of God. To this must
be added the inherent imperfection of human language and
the superiority of the Master speaking from within us,
over any teacher who reaches us through our hearing, even
if it be Christ Himself.
Then, too, will all their prayers be heard, since they are
made in the name of Christ. ' Hitherto you have not asked
anything in My name.' Our Lord had no intention here
of reproaching the disciples with their lack of faith or trust,
but He wished to make them understand that later, united
to Him by the most intimate spiritual bonds, in that very
union they would find all their strength in prayer. ' . . . I
say not to you that I will ask the Father for you. For the
Father Himself loveth you.' Here we have a thought of
infinite delicacy expressed in some of the most moving
words in the whole discourse. Jesus introduces His friends
into the intimacy of the Divine life, and as sons in the true
sense. Shortly before, He had spoken to them of His Father's
kingdom as the paternal mansion in which He was going
to prepare them an abode ; but now it is the Father Himself
who appears as infinitely close to them, through love, the
motive of which is their love of Jesus and their belief in
VOL. II. T
s8o LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
Him : but both love and faith are the Father's own gift.
' No man can come to Me except the Father . . . draw Him.'
So this charity has its origin with God Himself; and man
can only receive it, and respond. ' In this,' S. John will say
later, ' is charity : not as though we had loved God, but
because He hath first loved us, and sent His Son to be a
propitiation for our sins ' (i John iv, 10).
And then, in two words summing up His whole career,
our Lord told them : ' I came forth from the Father and
am come into the world : again I leave the world and I go
to the Father.' Often before, and from the very beginning
of His ministry, we have heard Him speak of His coming
into the world, but here His statement is more explicit, and
is made clearer by the contrast with His return. To the
Apostles it came like a flash of light ; no more parables now,
but the truth in all its transparent clearness. And in the
joy of this illumination they cried :
c Behold, now Thou speakest plainly and speakest no
proverb. Now we know that Thou knowest all things,
and Thou needest not that any man should ask Thee.
By this we believe that Thou earnest forth from God.'
(John xvi, 29-30.)
' Do you now believe ? ' In these words of our Lord,
Godet sees an exclamation of joy. c For Christ,' he says,
' it was a moment of ineffable sweetness : at last He is
recognized and understood ; He, Jesus, by these eleven
Galileans. That was enough for Him : for the moment,
His work was finished, to be completed later by the Holy
Spirit's glorification of Him in them, and, through them, in
humanity at large. There was nothing left to do but to
close the instruction and give thanks.' This interpretation
seems to be supported by John xvii, 8 : ' . . . They . . . have
known in very deed that I came out from Thee : and they
have believed that Thou didst send me,' but it conflicts
with the words of John xvi, 32 : ' The hour cometh that you
. . . shall leave me alone.' Consequently S. Augustine
(treatise 103, 3) sees here a question on our Lord's part.
' Do you now believe ? Soon you will be in such dis-
comfiture that you will abandon faith itself,' a prophecy
which was at least verified in the case of the disciples at
Emmaus. * We hoped that it was He that should have
THE LAST SUPPER 281
redeemed Israel.' At this moment their faith is sincere, but
weak.
And no sooner had He foretold their defection than our
Lord went on to make it clear to them that He found His
support in His Father, and not in them. ' I am not alone
because the Father is with Me. 5 And surely this was true
of His whole life ? He had spent it in doing good, and in
radiating affection and devotion around Him, but without
finding a single soul whose understanding of Him penetrated
to the depths ; and this isolation had been the rule of His
whole life upon earth. Even the love of His Mother, so
pure and so complete, had not been able to bridge this
mighty gulf. His Father's love had been His joy and
support, and He wanted none other in His last hour, in
spite of the terrible desolation that He was to suffer in the
sensible part of His being. ' The Father is with Me.' That
was enough.
But if His Apostles could be no support to Him, He would
be their strength ; and His word was spoken to bring assur-
ance to them. ' In the world you shall have distress. But
have confidence. I have overcome the world.'
Having thus given all to them, as fully as He could in
His mortal life, He turned to His Father to offer Him His
last prayer. But even then He did not forget His disciples.
Until then, He had always retired alone to pray : but now
He remained in their midst and prayed aloud, a prayer
which would thus be to them the most intimate of revela-
tions, and of all possible consolations the most precious that
can be conceived.
VI. The Prayer of the Son of God.
' These things Jesus spoke : and lifting up His eyes to
heaven, He said : Father, the hour is come. Glorify
Thy Son, that Thy Son may glorify Thee. As Thou
hast given Him power over all flesh, that He may give
eternal life to all whom Thou hast given Him. Now this
is eternal life : that they may know Thee, the only true
God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent. I have
glorified Thee on the earth ; I have finished the work
which Thou gavest Me to do. And now glorify Thou
Me, O Father, with Thyself, with the glory which I had,
'before the world was, with Thee. I have manifested Thy
28s LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
name to the men whom Thou hast given Me out of the
world. Thine they were : and to Me Thou gavest them.
And they have kept Thy word. Now they have known
that all tilings which Thou hast given Me are from Thee.
Because the words which Thou gavest Me, I have given
to them. And they have received them and have known
in very deed that I came out from Thee : and they have
believed that Thou didst send Me. I pray for them, I
pray not for the world, but for them whom Thou hast
given Me : because they are Thine. And all My things
are Thine, and Thine are Mine : and I am glorified in
them. And now I am not in the world, and these are
in the world, and I come to Thee. Holy Father, keep
them in Thy name, whom Thou hast given Me : that
they may be one, as We also are. While I was with
them, I kept them in Thy name. Those whom Thou
gavest Me have I kept : and none of them is lost, but the
son of perdition, that the scripture may be fulfilled. And
now I come to Thee : and these things I speak in the
world, that they may have My joy filled in themselves.
I have given them Thy word, and the world hath hated
them : because they are not of the world, as I also am
not of the world. I pray not that Thou shouldst take
them out of the world, but that Thou shouldst keep them
from evil. They are not of the world, as I also am not
of the world. Sanctify them in truth. Thy word is truth.
As Thou hast sent Me into the world, I also have sent
them into the world. And for them do I sanctify Myself,
that they also may be sanctified in truth. And not for
them only do I pray, but for them also who through their
word shall believe in Me. That they all may be one, as
Thou, Father, in Me, and I in Thee ; that they also may
be one in Us : that the world may believe that Thou hast
sent Me. And the glory which Thou hast given Me, I
have given to them : that they may be one, as We also
are one. I in them, and Thou in Me : that they may be
made perfect in one : and the world may know that Thou
hast sent Me and hast loved them, as Thou hast also
loved Me. Father, I will that where I am, they also
whom Thou hast given Me may be with Me : that they
may see My glory which Thou hast given Me, because
Thou hast loved Me before the creation of the world.
Just Father, the world hath not known Thee : but I
THE LAST SUPPER 283
have known Thee. And these have known that Thou
hast sent Me. And I have made known Thy name to
them and will make it known : that the love wherewith
Thou hast loved Me may be in them, and I in them.'
(John xvii, 1-26.)
Of all passages in the Gospel, this is beyond question the
most intimate in tone. It is the last outpouring of the
Lord's soul in prayer to His Father before going to His
death, recommending to His care all that is dearest in the
world. So simple and clear are its phrases that commentary
seems useless ; and yet so profound that we should prefer
to enter into their meaning in silence rather than make them
the subject of speech. 1
Jesus ' lifted His eyes to heaven, 3 where He has taught us
to look for His Father ; whither fly with all their strength
His own heart and mind. ' You are from beneath : I am
from above,' He had told the Jews ; and to this heaven,
from which He had never for a moment been severed, He
turned in an outpouring of His whole soul. And at the
same time He raises us thither, too. Unless we are to blind
ourselves, like the publican we dare not even lift our eyes to
heaven, most certainly not by ourselves alone : but we
shall not hesitate, if we unite our prayer to the prayer of the
Master who has already pierced the skies.
His first word is of joy and confidence : ' the hour is come.'
A few days before, at His entry into Jerusalem, Jesus had
groaned at the approach of this very hour (xii, 27) : ' Now '
said He, ' is My soul troubled. And what shall I say ?
Father, save Me from this hour ? But for this cause I came
unto this hour.' In the garden Christ would give Himself
up to this anguish afresh. But now He saw only the exceed-
ing glory, the royal purple of the Passion displayed before
His eyes : the glorification of the Son revealing His incom-
parable love and redeeming the world ; and the glorification
of the Father, whose honour is vindicated and whose
kingdom is established upon the earth.
1 This is the advice given by Bossuet in his Meditations ; 39""* journee :
' Read, then, and re-read, consider, ruminate, accept all the thoughts that
come simply and naturally into your mind, hear all, weigh all, listen
chiefly to what grips the heart, inclines towards God and Jesus Christ ;
that which casts down, humbles, restores, causes to tremble, consoles ;
and say within yourselves : All that is true, all that is just ; let us keep
quiet here and listen in profound silence to the impenetrable mysteries of
God.'
284 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
And at the same time Jesus asks, both for Himself and His
members, that glory in which He had rejoiced with His
Father from all eternity, before the creation of the world.
Later, in the Apocalypse, the glory of the Son of God will
appear under both aspects, as at the same time the in-
communicable privilege of His divinity, and the reward of
His sufferings upon earth. 1 S. John will sing of Him as the
first-born of creation, the Lord of the kings of the earth,
the King of kings and Lord of lords, but also : ' The Lamb
that was slain is worthy to receive power and divinity and
wisdom and strength and honour and glory and benediction.'
' To him that shall overcome, I will give to sit with Me on
My throne : as I also have overcome and am set down with
My Father on His throne. 3 It is this glory that Christ asks
the Father here : it was His from all eternity, in the bosom
of the Father, but He wishes to hold it from Him by a new
title, after the triumph of His Passion has taken place.
Nor did He ask this only for Himself, but for all that are
His. As He repeated over again, they belonged above all
to the Father, who had given them to Him, and He had
kept them faithfully to the end. Here we recognize a thought
often expressed by our Lord, especially in the discourse at
Capharnaum :
' All that the Father giveth to Me shall come to Me :
and him that cometh to Me, I will not cast out. Because
I came down from heaven, not to do My own will but
the will of Him that sent Me. Now this is the will of the
Father who sent Me : that of all that He hath given Me,
I should lose nothing : but should raise it up again in
the last day.' 2 (John vi, 37-39.)
' Murmur not among yourselves. No man can come
to Me except the Father who hath sent Me, draw Him.
And I will raise Him up in the last day. It is written in
the prophets : And they shall all be taught of God.
Everyone that hath heard of the Father and hath learned
cometh to Me.' (vi, 43-45.)
1 Cp. Histoire dn Dogma de la Trinite, I, 466 fi.
2 Similarly in the Temple at the Feast of Dedication (x, 27-30) : ' My
sheep hear My voice. And I know them : and they follow Me. And I
give them life everlasting : and they shall not perish for ever. And no
man shall pluck them out of My hand. That which My Father hath given
Me is greater than all : and no one can snatch them out of the hand of
My Father. I and the Father are one.'
THE LAST SUPPER 285
' But there are some of you that believe not. For
Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that did
not believe and who he was that would betray Him. And
He said : Therefore did I say to you that no man can
come to Me, unless it be given him by My Father.'
(John vi, 65, 66.)
These last words show that the son of perdition had not
been given by the Father to our Lord. We have here the same
tone in which, later on, S. John would write of false teachers
and Antichrists : ' They went out from us, but they were
not of us. For if they had been of us they would no doubt
have remained with us. . . .' Christ had spared no efforts
to save this son of perdition ; during the last days, and
especially the last hours, He had multiplied warnings,
appeals, threats, advances ; and even in the garden when
the traitor appeared He would say : 'Judas, dost thou
betray the Son of Man with a kiss ? ' But it was all in vain.
Jesus could not find in this soul the faith that the Father
had given to His children, and the faith that led them to
put themselves unreservedly in our Lord's hands. But the
others were truly His : ' They . . . have known in very deed
that I came out from Thee : and they have believed that
Thou hast sent Me.' Besides the son of perdition, there are
still other reprobates for which Jesus will not pray : these
are ' the world.' In S. John's writings in general, and in
this very prayer, there are two senses in which this word is
to be understood. Sometimes it is the universe created by
Almighty God, and it is with this meaning that our Lord
spoke of the glory that He had in the bosom of the Father
before the creation of the world (w. 5 and 24) ; but there
is also the large number of our Lord's enemies, condemned
and lost, for whom He refuses to pray (v. 9). It is an easy
transition from one sense to the other, for the whole creation
has turned aside from and disowned its God : ' the world was
made by Him and the world knew Him not ' (i, 10) ; and
again : ' the whole world is seated in wickedness ' (i John v,
19). And it was from the heart of this very corruption that
the Apostles had been drawn by Almighty God (xvii, 6).
This most important allusion makes it clear that the world is
not a hell from which no one can escape ; on the contrary, it
is from the world that God -has drawn His elect, so that it is
possible to escape from it, with His grace. And if Jesus here
286 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
refuses to pray for the world, He is represented elsewhere as
the ' lamb . . . who taketh away the sins of the world ' (i, 29) ;
as the ' propitiation . . . for the sins of the whole world '
(i John ii, 2) ; and only just now He was saying to His
Apostles : ' Have confidence, I have overcome the world '
(xvi, 33) . And by saying that, He assured them, not only
that the world could do nothing against them, but that
they themselves would make conquests over the world, by
snatching from it souls to give to Christ.
Face to face with these adversaries, apparently so menac-
ing, but in reality already conquered, was the little flock
the Apostles and those who later would believe on their
word. Our Lord was leaving the world, and they were
remaining behind ; better still, they were sent by Christ
like sheep in the midst of wolves. The world hated them
because it knew well enough that they belonged to it no
more (14). Against this hatred they would be protected
by Almighty God : ' I pray not that Thou shouldst take
them out of the world, but that Thou shouldst keep them
from evil' (15). Their strength would be Christ's words
which they had received and in which they believed (14) ;
so were they in possession of eternal life. ' This is eternal
life : that they may know Thee, the only true God, and
Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent' (3). The knowledge
of which our Lord was speaking here was not mere specula-
tion, but knowledge loving and fruitful in daily life (i John
ii, 4, 5) : ' He who saith that He knoweth Him and keepeth
not His commandments is a liar ; and the truth is not in
him. But he that keepeth His word, in him in very deed
the charity of God is perfected. 3
By this life eternal, that is, by this knowledge of God and
of Christ, God is with His children, a fact from which they
derive invincible strength ; and here, again, the epistles
are the best commentary on our Lord's prayer :
' You are of God, little children, and have overcome
Him. Because greater is He that is in you, than he that
is in the world. They are of the world. Therefore of
the world they speak : and the world heareth them. We
are of God. He that knoweth God heareth us. He that
is not of God heareth us not.' (i John iv, 4, 5.)
So our Lord's whole endeavour and the burden of His
THE LAST SUPPER 287
prayer was to ensure for His Apostles that Divine union
which could save their souls. c I in them and Thou in Me :
that they may be made perfect in one' (23). But this
unity cannot exist without at the same time ensuring the
unity of men among themselves : c That they all may be
one, as Thou, Father, in Me, and I in Thee ; that they also
may be one in Us ' (21) ; and here, again, we find a faithful
echo of the doctrine in the epistle :
' We know that we have passed from death to life,
because we love the brethren. He that loveth not abideth
in death.' (i John iii, 14.)
' In this we have known the charity of God, because
He hath laid down His life for us : and we ought to lay
down our lives for the brethren.' (i John iii, 16.)
' And this is His commandment : that we should
believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ and love one
another, as He hath given commandment unto us. And
he that keepeth His commandments abideth in Him,
and He in him. And in this we know that He abideth
in us by the Spirit which He hath given us. 5 (i John iii,
23, 24.)
And in closing His prayer Jesus speaks to His Father with
all the assurance of a beloved son. ' Father, I will that
where I am, they also whom Thou hast given Me may be
with Me, that they may see My glory.'
At the beginning He had said : ' This is eternal life :
that they may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus
Christ, whom Thou hast sent.' Already here below, this
knowledge, born of faith, is indeed eternal life, but in the
seed only, and in hope ; but the seed will grow, and the hope
be fulfilled, when we see Him as He is, in that contemplation
of His glory asked for us from His Father by our Blessed
Lord.
This utterance of Jesus is among those passages of the
Gospel bound to move most keenly the Christian heart :
' And not for them only do I pray, but for them also who
through their word shall believe in Me.' We have believed
through the Apostles' word, and, in that last hour, Christ
has prayed for us, asking for us from His Father that vision
face to face that is the goal of all our desire. He has asked
288 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
it with the assurance of a Son who has received from His
Father the fullness of His Divine rights, and who has given
and sacrificed all to Him in return : * Father, I will.' This
last will and testament of the dying Christ is the foundation,
solitary but unshakable, of all our hope.
CHAPTER VII
THE PASSION OF OUR LORD
/. The Agony.
AT last we come to the decisive events of the Passion and
Resurrection of our Blessed Lord ; the goal of all His
desires, and the end to which was directed His whole life.
' I have a baptism wherewith I am to be baptized ; and
how am I straitened until it be accomplished ! ' The Incarna-
tion itself is only to be understood as a first step towards
this end : and on Palm Sunday, when He felt the first
tremors of the coming agony, we hear Him exclaim :
' Now is My soul troubled. And what shall I say ?
Father, save Me from this hour. But for this cause I
came unto this hour. Father, glorify Thy name. A voice
therefore came from heaven : I have both glorified it
and will glorify it again.' (John xii, 27, 28.)
This trial, at once terrible and glorious as it was, was the
keystone of the divine plan, and upon it the whole structure
of our salvation rests. ' ... I, if I be lifted up from the earth,
will draw all things to Myself (ib. 32). All the fruitfulness
of our Lord's ministry is drawn from Calvary alone ; and
this was His own teaching on the occasion to which we have
just referred : ' Amen, amen, I say to you, unless the grain
of wheat falling into the ground die, itself remaineth alone ;
but if it die it bringeth forth much fruit ' (xii, 24).
To every Christian the story of our Lord's terrible suffer-
ings must bring an emotion of poignant grief; and all
right-minded men must be moved to indignation when they
contemplate the cruelty and injustice of His foes. Such
sentiments are too natural for us to attempt to conceal them ;
but, natural as they are, they are human sentiments, which, in
our present task, must be kept under restraint. The writer
of our Lord's life must take as his model the evangelists,
whose love for their Master far surpassed our own, and
whose emotion, especially that of John, the eye-witness of
289
ago LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
the whole drama, was infinitely keener than we could ever
conceive. And yet their narrative is of the nature of a
repressed emotion which moves us much more than
heart-rending cries would do. They understood well
enough that silence was imposed on them by their very
respect for the Victim they adored. Contemplating the
death and agony of the Son of God, a man's impressions
must be such as to make him hold his peace. This reserve,
or as Pascal puts it, this { admirable coolness ' of the evan-
gelists, was the highest tribute they could render to Him
before whom, in self-annihilation, they sank. Like them,
we will be careful not to hide the Cross by a veil of human
emotions, however natural they may be : our every effort
will be to make Jesus Christ seen and understood.
The first act of the drama is the most mysterious, but it is
the one that helps us to understand best wherein the true
nature of our Lord's Passion lay. In the courts of Caiphas,
Herod, Pilate, and on Calvary itself, our Lord's enemies, so
to speak, will obstruct the view, hiding from careless eyes
the two great actors of the drama : Christ and His Father.
In the garden they- are together alone. It is true that,
surrounding them, we are conscious of the presence of
supernatural persons, angels or devils ; but their part is
secondary, scarcely distinguishable by the eye of faith.
But before its vision stands out in clear fight the Lamb laden
with the world's sins, and God whom those sins have offended
and whom the Saviour's painful death is to reconcile with
the world. And most certainly this is no matter of chance.
It was our Lord's will that, on the very threshold of His
Passion, that mystery should appear to us in its simple and
intimate truth, so that through all that follows, our glance
may remain fixed on those supernatural depths which He
has revealed to us, and which give its meaning to all the rest.
' When Jesus had said these things, He went forth with
His disciples over the brook Cedron, where there was a
garden into which He entered with His disciples.' (John
xviii, i.)
Thus S. John begins the story of the Passion, linking it
closely with the sacerdotal prayer that He had recorded
just before. We have read this prayer ; and we shall see
how it lights up the episode of the Agony in the Garden,
which we have to consider now.
THE PASSION OF OUR LORD 291
We read in the Acts of the Martyrdom of S. Polycarp (vii),
that when the soldiers sent to seize him arrived at the house
where he had taken refuge, the Saint was resting in an
upper room. He came down at once, welcomed the men
familiarly, had a meal prepared for them, and only asked
them to let him pray to God before they led him away.
Then, full of grace from on high, this old man of eighty-six
prayed aloud for two hours. The Christians present listened
in admiration, while the officers themselves were amazed
and confused at having arrested this old man, full of the
spirit of God. And the Saint recommended to God all
those, great and small, whom he had known, and then the
whole Church throughout the world, and the struggle
he was about to sustain for the Lord's sake, by which his
days would be brought to an end. Then he gave himself up
to his enemies, and was by them dragged away to death.
And so it was with our Lord's sacerdotal prayer. The
King and Master of all martyrs is about to be betrayed,
condemned, crucified ; and marching in advance of His
visible enemies comes the demon, there and then to attack
Him anew. And before submitting Himself to these final
assaults, Jesus prays, and in His prayer are unveiled the
innermost depths of His soul, showing the infinitely close
union between the Father and the Son.
Now is revealed the source of energy of our Redeemer's life.
That calm assurance, never once impaired, and that trans-
parent sincerity could have had no source other than this
close union with the Father in heaven. ' I and my Father
are one,' He had said not long before, in words that made us
feel the unity of power and action of the Father and the Son,
and the impression is renewed in the superb saying : ' All
My things are Thine, and Thine are Mine,' and again in
that supremely confident prayer : ' Father, I will that where
I am, they also whom Thou hast given Me may be with
Me. 3 At the same time we feel, too, and still more keenly,
the intimate character of this blissful union which is set
before us as the ideal model of our union with God and
among ourselves : ' That they all may be one ... as we
also are one. I in them and Thou in Me : that they may
be made perfect in one.'
There truly lies the secret that gives us the key to this
whole life of our Lord. On each separate occasion as it
arises, we are conscious of the treasures of tenderness and
292 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
affection that are poured out upon all men. We have only
to recall His pity for the multitude who were without a
shepherd, the look of love cast on the young man who asked
Him what there remained to be done in order to become
perfect, the tears over Lazarus' tomb ; and this affection,
so tender, compassionate and generous, is at the same time
entirely detached. The greatest of the Saints have found
comfort and consolation in the affection of their disciples
and their friends. So it was that S. Paul could write
(2 Cor. vii, 6 : ' . . . God who comforteth the humble,
comforted us by the coming of Titus ' ; and to the
Philippians (ii, 27) : ' ... he (Epaphroditus) was sick,
nigh unto death, but God had mercy on him. And not
only on him, but on me also, lest I should have sorrow
upon sorrow.' We have here sentiments profoundly human
in character, and we love the humble sincerity with which
they are expressed ; but with Jesus we find nothing of the
sort. Certainly there is a spirit of aloofness, not stoical
isolation, but the complete detachment of a heart that gives
all to men, without asking anything in return. It is S. Paul
himself who records our Lord's words : ' It is a more
blessed thing to give rather than to receive.' This happiness
had always been His : even with His holy Mother, we never
find that He claims her affection as a support of which He
has any personal need. And if we ask whence comes this
supreme detachment in a Heart so prodigal of love, the
answer is given by Christ Himself, in words spoken to His
Apostles near the end of the discourse in the upper room
(xvi, 32) : ' Behold, the hour cometh, and is now come,
that you shall be scattered every man to his own, and shall
leave Me alone. And yet I am not alone, because the
Father is with Me. 5 There lay the treasure of infinite
richness, which the world could never take away, and it
was enough.
But we can understand what the agony would be if God
were to withdraw Himself; this would mean that in one
instant would fail not only a consolation and support, but
the whole life of the soul. But it may be asked how such a
support could ever be lacking in the case of our Lord, who,
in the Beatific Vision, was always in possession of the
contemplation of God. We admit that there is a mystery
here which we make no claim to solve. We can, however,
try to understand it better by having recourse to comparisons
THE PASSION OF OUR LORD 293
the least unworthy to be recalled here, namely those that can
be drawn from the lives of the great mystical authors and
saints. S. Teresa thus describes one of the trials of con-
templative souls (Life, ch. xx) :
' All at once the soul feels within herself an indescribable
longing for Almighty God, and in an instant, pierced through
and through by this longing, she enters into such an ecstasy
of pain, that she seems altogether raised above herself and
all created things. God places her in so vast a desert that
even by the greatest efforts she cannot find one single soul
to bear her company ; besides, if she could, she would not.
She has no other wish than to die in this solitude. Although,
at those times, God seems to be very far removed from the
soul, yet often He reveals to it His supreme glories in a
manner so extraordinary as to surpass anything that we can
conceive. Besides, there are no terms with which to express
it, and in my judgement it is necessary to have experienced
it to be able to imagine it or even to believe that it exists.
The end of this sublime communication is not to comfort
the soul, but to show her how justly she afflicts herself at
beholding herself absent from a good containing in itself
all other goods. At this sight, the soul feels her hunger and
thirst for God increase, as also the sense of her own solitude.
She becomes a prey to a pain so subtle and piercing, and
feels herself in a desert of such unrelieved desolation, that
she can exclaim literally with David : "I have watched
and am become as a sparrow, all alone upon the house-top."
In this state the soul seems to be herself no more, but, like
the sparrow on the roof, she dwells solitary in the highest
part of herself, commanding all creatures from this height ;
nay, I would go further, and say that it is above her own self
that she has her abode. From time to time, while in this
state, I remembered S. Paul's saying that he was crucified
to the world . . . something similar takes place in the soul
at that time. She gets no consolation from heaven, where
she no longer dwells, nor from earth, to which she cleaves
no more, and from which she wills to receive nothing ; she
is truly crucified between heaven and earth, a prey to
suffering, without receiving consolation from either side.
From heaven, it is true, there comes to her that admirable
knowledge of God of which I have spoken, far surpassing
all our desires ; but such a sight of God increases rather
than diminishes her torment, since she is still more inflamed
294 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
with the desire to possess Him for herself. So great, at times,
is the intensity of her suffering that she seems to lose feeling
altogether ; but, as a matter of fact, this last effect does not
endure for long. All this is like the last pangs of death ;
but in the midst of all this anguish, there is so great a joy
that I know not to what it may be fitly compared. It is an
unspeakable martyrdom, made up at the same time of pain
and delights. So far from wishing to seek the least relief
in the pleasures formerly presented by the world, the soul
cannot bear the sight of them, casting them far from her
with a supreme disgust. She knows well that she wishes for
nothing but her God, but there is no special characteristic
that she loves in Him ; she simply loves all that He is,
without knowing at all what she loves. The powers of the
soul, in this case, are suspended by her pain, as they are
by pleasure where the experiences of union and transport
are undergone.'
No doubt this admirable passage is very far from introduc-
ing us to all the secrets of the agony of Christ. The union of
the Son with the Father is something infinitely closer than
that between the greatest saint and his God can ever be ;
but there still remains a certain analogy between the two.
' That they all may be one ... I in them and Thou in Me :
that they may be made perfect in one. 3 In the same way
the knowledge of the divinity possessed by our Lord's
human soul is quite different from that given by the highest
graces of contemplation to the souls of saints. In short, it
was the beatific vision ; but it is true also that the intuitive
vision of God is the end towards which supernatural con-
templation tends, without, however, reaching it here below.
And so these mystical sufferings, although at an infinite
distance from the agony of God's Son, are a participation
in it all the same. Especially we may notice what this
saint says of the suffering of the soul, ' crucified between
heaven and earth, a prey to suffering, without receiving
consolation from either side.' That seems to me to be one
of the truest expressions of the sufferings of our Blessed
Lord.
On this mystery a passage from S. Thomas may throw
further light (III a , Q,. 46, 7, 8). To the question whether
Christ, in His Passion, suffered in His whole soul, the holy
doctor gives this reply : ' We may consider either its essence
or its faculties when we are speaking of the soul. Now, with
THE PASSION OF OUR LORD 295
regard to the essence, it is certain that the soul suffered in
its entirety, since the soul is entirely present in every part
of the body, and cannot, without suffering, be severed from,
it. If, however, we consider its faculties, they all suffered,
inasmuch as they all depend on the essence of the soul
which itself was suffering at that time. So far as their
proper operations are concerned, the lower powers were
tormented by manifold pains ; but the higher reason found
in its object, which is God, not pain but joy.' And in
Article 8 S. Thomas asks whether, in the Passion, the whole
soul of Christ rejoiced in the Beatific Vision, and he replies
in the same way : ' If we consider the essence of the soul, it
rejoiced as a whole, since it is the subject of the higher
reason, as a whole ; but if we consider the powers of the
soul, the joy of this reached the higher powers alone ; for
the Beatific Vision cannot be the proper act of the lower
powers. Nor could it be in any way reflected within them
as will be the case in heaven. For, Christ not being yet
entered into this glory, this joy that He never ceased to
experience could not affect the body nor the lower powers
of the soul. On the other hand, the intelligence was not
hindered in its contemplation by the sufferings of the sensible
faculties, nor by those of the body itself.'
No doubt all this is very mysterious, and no Christian will
be surprised at the fact. On the contrary, he would be
distrustful of a naive psychology, that rashly claimed to
furnish the secret of the life, sufferings and happiness of the
Son of God, and adequately to translate these transcendent
realities in terms of the humblest experiences of our own
lives. But we must once more assert that the experiences of
the mystics do cast some light into these unsoundable
depths. ' All this, 5 says S. Teresa in the passage quoted
above, ' is like the last pangs of death, but in the midst of
all this anguish there is so great a joy that I know not to
what it may be fitly compared. It is an unspeakable
martyrdom, made up at the same time of pain and delights.
. . . The powers of the soul, in this case, are suspended by
her pain, as they are by pleasure where the experiences of
union and transport are undergone.'
Finally, we must observe that the higher powers of the
soul themselves, namely the intelligence and the will, had
their own proper pains in the agony of Christ. They
suffered from the horror and the shame of sin that our
VOL. II. U
296 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
Saviour had to bear, the intolerable burden of which
He felt more than anyone else could possibly have
done. 1
These truths, doubtless very mysterious, but most certain,
must determine our attitude before the Passion of our Blessed
Lord. We approach it with all our heart's love, with all
its sorrowful compassion, but also with all the adoration
within our power. On Good Friday our tabernacles are
empty, but Holy Church makes us bend our knees before
the Cross. And this is that we may understand that, even
in His most cruel humiliations, He who had not any longer
even the face of a man, He who, in the prophet's words,
became as a worm of the earth, is, none the less, the Son
of God, in closest union with His Father, and contemplating
His glory at that very hour :
' Then Jesus came with them into a country place
which is called Gethsemani. And He said to His disciples :
Sit you here, till I go yonder and pray. And taking with
Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, He began to
grow sorrowful and to be sad. Then He saith to them :
My soul is sorrowful even unto death. Stay you here and
watch with Me.' (Matt, xxvi, 36-38.)
' And going out, He went, according to His custom,
to the mount of Olives. And His disciples also followed
Him. And when He was come to the place, He said unto
them : Pray, lest ye enter into temptation.' (Luke xxii,
39> 40-)
A comparison of these texts will at once reveal certain
differences between the two accounts. S. John omits the
agony, while the three Synoptics relate the moral sufferings of
our Lord, with, however, a closer resemblance between
S. Matthew and S. Mark. S. Luke is more independent,
neither mentioning the choice of the three privileged ones
nor describing our Lord's anguish, except in so far as it is
revealed in His prayer. But these are unimportant
differences.
The spot to which Jesus went with His disciples is called
by Matthew a ' country place ' ; by Mark, a ' farm ' ;
John calls it a garden (xviii, i). c It was, 5 writes Lagrange
1 The following proposition was condemned by Innocent XII, 1699 :
' Inferior Christi pars in cruce non communicavit supeviori suas involuntarias
perturbationes.' But it remains true that the highest part of the soul was
always enlightened by the intuitive vision.
THE PASSION OF OUR LORD 297
(S. Marc, p. 386), 'no doubt a small field planted with olive
trees, with a press ; such a rustic installation as was to be
found in great numbers in Palestine, and still is to-day.
According to John xviii, I, this garden was beyond the brook
Gedron, was fenced in, and was a frequent resort for Jesus
and His disciples.' The incident recorded in Mark (xiv,
51-52), of the young man with the linen cloth about his
naked body, seems to imply that there was a dwelling-house
there, occupied by friends of our Lord. Finally, the part
played by Judas implies that Jesus was in an enclosed space,
to which an entry had to be made without suspicion being
aroused. The emissaries of the Sanhedrin had no need of
the traitor's services to discover where Jesus usually went in
the evenings, a fact which everyone in Jerusalem would
know ; but they wished to make their way in to Him without
at the very outset provoking resistance of an armed kind. 1
Many a time had Jesus passed the night in prayer, as we
have seen, at the beginning of His ministry (Mark i, 35), and
often since then, especially on the eve of decisive events, such
as the choosing of the Apostles would have been (Luke vi,
12). But no previous events were comparable to these of
which the hour was now at hand ; it was the final struggle
and also the great temptation. Satan did not appear in
visible form in the garden, as he did in the desert, but there
is no doubt that he attacked Christ there and the Apostles as
well. This is the great encounter at which Luke hints (iv, 1 3)
in his account of the temptation in the wilderness : ' And all
the temptation being ended, the devil departed from him
for a time.' It was this return that our Lord already felt
to be at hand when He told His Apostles : ' . . . the prince
of this world cometh ; and in Me he hath not anything '
(that is, he will find no vulnerable point ; John xiv, 30).
Later, in the Acts of the Martyrs, we shall find that the whole
contest was not between the confessors and the executioners,
but between Christ, who contended in the persons of His
faithful, and the devil, who multiplied his efforts to snatch
them out of the Redeemer's hand. It is in this wise that the
Passion of our Lord is manifested to us from the very first :
a duel between Christ and Satan.
1 On this little estate there was a shelter, and it was there, no doubt,
that Jesus left eight of His Apostles ; at this time of the year the nights
in Jerusalem are cold and often damp ; and indeed we shall soon see Peter
warming himself, because of the cold, in the High Priest's court.
298 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
But this time the Lord will not be attacked alone ; the
Apostles also will be tempted and for them the trial will have
fatal results. Christ had tried to fortify them against this
assault, not only urging them to prayer, but also trying to
unite them with His own prayer. So He takes with Him
three of their number the three intimates upon whom,
above all, He ought to have been able to count ; if they stood
firm, they would sustain or support the rest. And then, in
the mortal anguish that was soon to take hold of Him, Jesus
did not wish to be alone. He was about to suffer for the
whole sinning human race, and so He willed that it should
be represented at His side. That race, as thus represented,
ought to unite with Him in His prayer ; at least it would
hear it, and the three witnesses of the scene, all oppressed
with sadness and fatigue as they were, would see and hear
enough of it to be able to tell us what our salvation cost the
Son of God :
' And when He was gone forward a little, He fell flat
on the ground : and He prayed that, if it might be, the
hour might pass from Him. And He saith : Abba,
Father, all things are possible to Thee : remove this
chalice from Me : but not what I will, but what Thou
wilt. And He cometh and findeth them sleeping. And
He saith to Peter : Simon, sleepest thou ? Couldst thou
not watch one hour ? Watch ye : and pray that you
enter not into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing,
but the flesh is weak. And going away again, He prayed,
saying the same words. And when He returned, He found
them again asleep (for their eyes were heavy) : and they
knew not what to answer Him. And He cometh the third
time and saith to them : Sleep ye now and take your rest.
It is enough. The hour is come : behold the Son of Man
shall be betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise up : let
us go. Behold, he that will betray Me is at hand. 3
(Mark xiv, 35-42 ; cp. Matt, xxvi, 39-46 ; Luke xxii,
41-46.)
Here, once more, the two first Synoptics are closely parallel
in their accounts ; but S. Luke diverges. He does not
distinguish between the three visits that Jesus made to His
Apostles ; while on the other hand he relates two incidents
of which he is the only witness : the visit of the angel,
and the sweat of blood. We shall speak a little later of the
THE PASSION OF OUR LORD 299
uncertainties of the manuscript tradition, and of our
reasons for preserving both elements of the narrative intact.
Another very notable divergence calls for attention here,
namely S. John's silence about the agony.
This silence had already been remarked by the ancients
both Christian and pagan Origen, Julian the Apostate,
Theodore of Mopsuestia 1 being examples. From this fact
Strauss formed the negative conclusion : ' Every attempt
to insert the agony at Gethsemani between chapters xvii
and xviii in S. John's narrative is an attack on the moral
elevation and even the character, as a man, of Jesus Christ.' 2
As a matter of fact, this omission is not more notable than
many others that we have already noticed ; besides, in xii,
24-27, we have the characteristic narrative of S. John ; in
following his familiar method, he gives by anticipation the
meaning of events already known, upon which there is no
need to return. 3
The story of our Lord's agony is, for believers, an in-
comparable source of strength, but a stumbling-block
certainly for others ; and as early as the second century
Celsus used it to attack Christ : ' How can we hold to be
a God this man who never fulfilled His promises at all ?
When He has been convicted, judged and condemned to
punishment, He hides Himself, takes to flight, and allows
Himself to be arrested in a shameful manner, and it was
by the very men whom He called His disciples that He was
betrayed. It is quite out of keeping with His supposed
divinity that He should flee, and allow Himself to be dragged
along by cords ; still less that He should be abandoned and
betrayed by those with whom He lived, who called Him
Master, and looked on Him as their Saviour, as an angel
and a highly exalted Son of God.' 4 And later on : 'If
things had fallen out as He wished, if He had been stricken
while obeying His Father's will, it is clear that nothing
could have been hard or painful to Him, since He was God
and wiUed it all. Why then these groans and laments, this
attempt to avoid the death He dreaded ; why the cry :
" If it be possible let this chalice pass from Me " ? ' 5
These attacks of Celsus have been effectively refuted by
1 Keim, Geschichte Jesu von Nazara, III, p. 306, n. i.
z Das Leben Jesu, p. 553.
3 So lie interprets the Eucharist, chap, vi, and Baptism in chap. iii.
4 Cp. Origen, Contra Cels., II, 9 (P.G., XI, 808).
6 Ibid., II, 21 (841).
300 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
Origen. He shows that Christ in no sense hid Himself,
since He entered the very garden where He knew the
traitor would find Him out ; that, if He suffered this sadness,
and shrinking overtook Him, it was voluntarily, and for the
salvation of our souls ; that His prayer, of which Celsus
quotes only the first words, is a prayer of resignation into
His Father's hands. All this is very clear to us, but our
Christian education must not blind us to the scandal that this
part of the Gospel narrative with all its simple sincerity was
bound to cause in pagan circles. All the admiration of that
hard and heartless world (Rom. i, 31) was reserved for
strength, which a man pretended to possess, even if he did
not. As Pindar puts it, one only lets the best side of oneself be
seen, that is, whatever one possesses of endurance and
imperturbable calm ; a heart, or at least a face, of brass.
Education on these lines, breathing the spirit of Sparta
and the Stoics, had penetrated the whole ancient world ;
even S. Augustine, with his great heart, had to excuse
himself for having shed a few tears when his mother, Monica,
died. In the face of prejudices like these, Christ's agony, so
deeply felt and so sincerely described, was bound to appear
as a weakness to unbelievers' eyes. Even believers at times
have let themselves be drawn by the general opinion, not
indeed into denying this sadness, which cannot be eliminated
from the Gospel, but at least into excluding from it all
sentiment of personal fear. 1
1 Thus the Arians, misusing this passage in order to impute fear to
our Lord in His Divine nature, have made some of the Fathers less con-
fident than they would otherwise have been. So S. Hilary writes, In
Psalm., 138, 25-26 (P.L., IX, 805) : ' And I said : " Perhaps darkness
shall cover me." These seem to be the words of a man, since some, by
irreligion or ignorance, think that He trembled under the fear of His
Passion. But to show clearly that this saying : " Perhaps darkness shall
cover Me," means not that His nature trembled, but that the understand-
ing of the wicked wavered in His regard, He immediately adds : " and
night shall be My light in My pleasures." How then can He be crushed by
darkness, for whom death is light and pleasure ? Thus the Lord found
His delights in His Passion : He destroyed the gates of brass, breaking the
chains of iron, despoiling all and triumphing over every other power. He
redeems that which He had made in His image, and restores it to the joys
of paradise.' De Trinitate, x, g S. (X, 349) : Hilary attacks those who
argue from Christ's sorrow to prove that His Divine nature was inferior
to that of His Father ; and refutes them by showing that He had no fear
of death, He who had taught His disciples not to be afraid, whose death,
was voluntary (n), who could fear nothing for His own Body and Soul (12)
or any physical pain (13).
S. Ambrose energetically affirms the reality of our Lord's sorrow, and
proves against the Apollinarists that it was His soul and not His divinity
THE PASSION OF OUR LORD 301
As for the Church's own view of the matter, we find this
admirably put by S. Thomas (111% Q,. xlvi, 6, and ad 4).
Our Lord's pains, he tells us, were extreme. c Pains of the
body, since the punishment of crucifixion is the most painful
of all ; pains of the soul, motivated by all the sins of all
mankind ; the impending punishment of the Jews, and of
the executioners ; the scandalization of the Apostles ; and
finally the loss of the bodily life, which naturally strikes our
human nature with horror.' These pains were all the greater
in Him inasmuch as the composition of His sacred Body
was more perfect, and the apprehension of sensible suffering
therefore more exact. These sufferings were pure and
without any alloy of bitterness. Finally, they had been
voluntarily chosen by Him, and proportioned to the end
He had set before Him, namely the salvation of our souls.
that was thus affected, but at the same time he maintained that Jesus
was afflicted not on account of Himself, but of us. Thus In Luc. (XV)
1817), he writes : ' " Father, if it be possible ..." Many find a difficulty
in this passage, because they connect the Redeemer's sorrow with the nature
that was His from eternity rather than with the weakness He took in time,
and so they try to twist the sense of this passage. For myself, I see nothing
here that requires excuse, but I admire more here than anywhere else the
Lord's dignity and devotion ; for He would have brought me less support
and consolation if He had not taken my feelings upon Him. So it was for
me that He suffered He who had nothing that could make Him suffer
keeping the bliss of His eternal divinity apart that He might experience
the mortification of my weakness. For He has taken my sorrow to give
me His joy, and He came down to walk in our footsteps, following them
even to death that He might lead us back, in His footsteps, to life. So I
dare speak of His sadness, since I mention the cross ; for He was not made
incarnate in appearance, but in truth. So He had to take upon Him pain
as well so as to conquer, and not to forbid it all approach. For how could
we imitate Thee, Lord Jesus, if we did not follow Thee as a man, if we did
not believe in Thy death, if we had not seen Thee covered with wounds ?
How could the disciples have believed that He had to die if they had not
known the sorrow of His agony ? . . . Thou sufferest, then, Lord ; not
from Thy wounds but from mine ; not from Thy death but from our
weakness ; and we have believed that Thou wast in pains, when Thou
didst suffer not for Thee but for me ; for Thou wast stricken with weakness,
only for our sins. He was sad ; not Himself, but His soul. It is in no way
the Eternal Wisdom that feels sorrow, nor the divine substance, but the
soul. He has taken my body, and has not deceived me in being other than
He appeared. He appeared sad and He was sad ; but not from His
Passion, but from our falling-away. He was sad because He was leaving
us orphans. For the rest, the Scriptures show us with what courage He
offered Himself to death. Further, we may say with truth that He was
sad for His persecutors, whom He saw burdening themselves with a terrible
crime of which they would have to pay the penalty later on. And this is
why He said : " Remove this chalice " ; not because the Son of God
feared death, but because He did not wish to see even the wicked perish.'
This commentary, taken as a whole, is excellent, and we especially note
the affirmation of the reality of our Saviour's humanity, and of His sadness,
and of the force of His example for ourselves. Still, we see the pains
302 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
Such considerations as these throw light on our path,
and give us entry into the innermost sanctuary of the
sacred mystery with which we are concerned. 1 During the
which. S. Ambrose took to eliminate all idea of personal fear on our Lord's
part ; the only object of His sadness was the falling-away of His disciples,
and the punishment of those who put Him to death.
And we find S. Jerome still more concerned to make the same point.
Thus he writes (In Matt., IV ; xxvi, 197) : ' What we have said above
about the Passion and what went before it, finds its application still more
in this chapter : to establish the reality of the human nature that He had
taken, the Lord truly felt sadness, but the Passion did not dominate His
soul, for He had begun to feel this sadness before. Besides if He was sad,
it was in no sense for fear of suffering He who had come to suffer and had
rebuked Peter for his timidity ; but it was for the unfortunate Judas,
for the scandalization of all the Apostles, for His rejection by the Jews,
for the destruction of unhappy Jerusalem. And it is His soul that is
sorrowful, not because of death, but unto death ; until by His Passion, He
had set His Apostles free. Not from fear of suffering, but from pity for
His own people, did He ask that He might not drink the chalice that that
same people pressed to His lips. And this was why He said precisely not,
let the chalice pass, but let this chalice pass, that is, the chalice of the
Jewish people, who had not the excuse of ignorance. Still, recovering
Himself, what He had refused as man He confirmed as God, and as the
Son of God : " not what I will, but what Thou wilt." '
S. Augustine says little of our Lord's agony ; but (Enarr. in Ps., 93,
19 ; XXXVII, 1208) he affirms the reality of His sorrow, and adds that if
it be denied, we must at the same time deny all reality to the human nature
of our Lord.
S. Chrysostom (In Matt., horn. 83 ; LVIII, 745-746) shows how our
Lord wished to prove the reality of His Incarnation by His sorrow, by His
prayer and by His bloody sweat.
We have no intention, by means of these references, of entering into the
whole question of patristic exegesis, still less of gloating over the hesita-
tions and repugnances of the ancient Fathers. Our whole purpose is to
produce a better realization of the sincerity of the Gospel narrative in its
description of the Agony of our Blessed Lord.
1 Merely as a matter of interest we may recall the efforts made by certain
rationalist critics to dispose of our Lord's Agony in the Garden. Heumann,
for example, suggested that Jesus had taken a chill in crossing the brook
Cedron ; Thiess, that He had been seized with an attack of fever (Strauss,
II, 447 ; Keim, III, 304, n. i). Schleiermacher, without having recourse
to this absurd interpretation of the narrative, tries to confound the testi-
mony of the Synoptics by calling in that of John (Weiss, II, 536, n.).
Strauss, II, 472, claims to detect disagreement between the two sets of
witnesses, and equally challenges both. The whole story, according to
him, is nothing more than a mythological figment : it was imagined that
Jesus foresaw all the details of His Passion : on that assumption the
Synoptics embroidered the scene of the Agony, and John, outdoing them,
showed Jesus walking to His doom with a firm step in the face of all.
Very few critics to-day would take upon themselves the responsibility of
these denials, confronted with this, one of the most manifestly sincere
narratives in the whole Gospel. Nevertheless, Loisy sets out to show that
the narrative of Mark is artificial : ' Mark relates what Jesus did and said,
while the Apostles were asleep, just as he relates further on the discovery
of the empty tomb by women who had never in their lives spoken of it '
(562). ' The various elements that go to make up the prayer of Christ are
not less identifiable. Into this Mark first introduces the Aramaic word
THE PASSION OF OUR LORD 303
great discourse and the priestly prayer, Jesus had revealed
a calmness of soul which it seemed that no apprehension
could disturb, no circumstance affect. And in an instant
all was changed. It was as though a dike had suddenly
given way, opening a passage for the great waters of
tribulation, overflowing and seeming to engulf His soul.
He staggered, fell with His face to the ground, and prayed.
The mortal affliction that He suffered then and acknow-
ledged to His Apostles, came, in the first place, from the
imminence of His Passion ; He was man, and wished to
take upon Him all our infirmities that He might cure them
all. Death is a frightening thing for everyone ; God has
made it into a punishment for us, and it always keeps this
character of a horrible and unnatural ill. When we feel
its approach, when its first terrors grip our heart, that is
an experience of dire anguish for all who are about to die.
Anyone who has been present at a death-bed cannot, surely,
recall without emotion this agitation of the whole being
that finds itself in the grip of death. And our Blessed Lord
wished to undergo this experience, so that to all in their
agony His example might be a source of consolation and
strength. Nor did His trouble spring only from the fact
of death, already weighing upon His spirit, but from the
whole series of horrible sufferings through which He had
to pass. Garvie, an Anglican, rejects this interpretation as
unworthy of Christ : ' . . . this is to ascribe to Jesus a
weakness from which many men and women have been
entirely free, and which has in many other cases been
entirely overcome by faith in Him. Is it likely that the
Chief of the martyr band would bear Himself less bravely
and calmly in the face of death than those who, following
in His footsteps, and upheld by His companionship, faced
death in many forms of torment with a smile or a song
" Abba," father, followed by its Greek translation, in accordance with the
usage of the primitive communities, among whom " Abba " had become
a sort of sacramental term, followed usually by the word " father " in the
vocative case. Our Lord's conditional request is repeated in direct speech,
which shows its source ; the chalice of His death comes from Paul, as also
the Eucharistic Feast ; submission to the will of God is part of the Lord's
Prayer. Peter, James and John need not necessarily have heard these
words in Gethsemani for Mark to have been able to write them ' (564) .
And then there are touches drawn from the equally artificial narrative of
the Transfiguration : ' their eyes were heavy, they knew not what to
reply ' (568). All this may be very ingenious, but it has hardly more
bearing upon the subject than the hypothesis of our Lord's taking a chill
when crossing the brook Cedron.
304 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
upon their lips ? To the writer this explanation seems
intolerable/ 1
We understand this protest, but we do not subscribe to
it. Certainly, the strength and spirit of the martyrs came
to them from Christ Himself; and if Jesus had so wished,
He, too, would have welcomed death and torment with
laughter and song. But He preferred to give the rein to
His natural shrinking in face of the Cross, and we ought to
thank Him for it ; without doubt we admire the joyous
zeal of a S. Blandina, as she ran, from one torture to another,
the whole length of that continuous thorn-hedge that divided
the amphitheatre into two ; while whips, iron combs and
the red-hot chair reproduced one after another all the
torments of hell. In this superhuman joy, in this eagerness
to grave upon her body all the wounds she could, in order to
present them to Christ, we are lost in reverent admiration at
the strength that His athletes receive from Christ ; we
admire but we are conscious that this is a gratuitous gift,
upon the possession of which our fidelity and our eternal
regard in no way depend. Our Lord's own example shows
us that God does not condemn our natural agonies, and that
the strong courage of a Christian may overcome them, with-
out pretending to ignore them.
This aspect of our Lord's agony has been brought out
by Reuss. He can see no other, and that is his weak point,
but at least he has expressed himself well : ' There is,' he
writes, ' no room for hesitation ; the text speaks of a trial
undergone by Jesus in the garden of Gethsemani, and
Christian sentiment, yielding to the impression naturally
produced by a narrative as simple as it is moving, has never
had any difficulty in understanding the anguish of this soul,
in sympathizing with its painful struggle, and fortifying
itself by its triumph. . . . Far from fearing that the Saviour's
dignity would suffer, the three narrators, we might say,
take a kind of pleasure in painting the state of His soul in
the gloomiest colours. They heap up synonyms to describe
His state of prostration, calling His agitation an agony, a
final and a desperate struggle, so to speak. . . . Nay, we would
dare to add that if, in relation to this profound discourage-
ment, we view His repeated exhortations to His disciples,
the evangelists do not recoil before the possibility that these
same exhortations were addressed also to the very Person
1 Expositor (1907), II, p. 167.
THE PASSION OF OUR LORD 305
by Whom they were uttered and Who felt the need of them
more than anyone else ever could. But, too, with equal
simplicity, free from affectation, they are careful to show
how, gaining the mastery over these sentiments, Christ
recovered His serenity of spirit, that joyous union of His
and His Father's wills to which He Himself had pointed
as the most authentic seal of His superiority and His mission
upon earth. Thus the whole narrative is as edifying as it
is intelligible from the religious and psychological points of
view. . . . The ideal goal of the Christian is the victory that
must be gained over human weakness, with the help of the
strength that comes from God ; and thus regarded, this
ideal has nowhere been realized more perfectly than in
this scene at Gethsemani, which would be the most sublime
page of a poem, were it not the divinest event in a history.' 1
Still, all this fails to bring us into touch with the heart
of the mystery, to which we can get a little nearer by recalling
other Gospel incidents which will help us in its interpreta-
tion. First, there is the Temptation, which appears as a
struggle markedly similar to the Agony, on the threshold
of the public ministry of our Lord. Then Satan attacked
the Son of God, making use of images that foreshadowed
those with which, in Gethsemani, he would try to over-
power His will ; and above all, the prospect of a national
Messianism, triumphant and drawing all Israel in its train
with a common enthusiasm delirious with joy, and sweeping
away every obstacle in its march. From the Mount of
temptation Jesus had looked out upon these prospects, had
contemplated this dazzling mirage which Satan was urging
Him to realize in fact. Such an ideal was not His will, but
His whole life suffered from it. He saw the crowds who had
so often hailed Him with enthusiasm, in their desire to make
Him a king, gradually turning from a vocation too high for
them, which they despaired of ever reducing to a standard
within their reach. The hosannas of Palm Sunday were still
in His ears, and yet He could almost hear the tolle, tolle,
crucifige rising, hideous, upon the air. It was His condemna-
tion and that of His people too : ' His blood be upon us
and upon our children,' was their own cry. So His coming
into the world, His works, His miracles, His teachings
all would only end in the condemnation of those whom He
loved most in the world. ' If I had not come and spoken
1 Histoire Evangelique, p. 653.
306 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
to them, they would not have sin : but now they have no
excuse for their sin 3 (John xv, 22). We are reminded of
S. Paul's cry of grief :
' I speak the truth in Christ : I lie not, my conscience
bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost : that I have
great sadness and continual sorrow in my heart. For I
wished myself to be an anathema from Christ, for my
brethren : who are my kinsmen according to the flesh :
who are Israelites : to whom belongeth the adoption as
of children and the glory and the testament and the
giving of the law and the service of God and the promises :
Whose are the fathers. . . .' (Rom. ix, 1-5.)
And S. Paul's sorrow is nothing compared with that of
our Lord, first because his love of his people is infinitely
less ardent than the charity of Christ, and then because he
had not, like his Master, so poignant a motive of grief ; it
was His death, nay, His very sacrifice on their behalf that
would do His people harm. S. Paul wished himself
anathema ; Christ wished it and was so ; but it was this
very immolation of Himself that brought ruin in its train.
It was only a few steps from here, on this same Mount of
Olives, that Christ, scarcely a few hours since, had looked
on Jerusalem through His tears : ' And thou wouldst not.'
Jerusalem was not willing, and the time of visitation was
past ; the day of the great crime had arrived, and soon
that of chastisement would come. And no doubt the
Tempter was there as he had been at the mountain after the
forty-days' fast, suggesting to Jesus that, if He so willed, His
ministry could be nothing but a triumph, and His people
would be saved.
Closer to Himself than His people, Jesus saw the little
band of His Apostles, and here too sadness reigned ! First,
there was Judas. We have been through the story of the
Supper, and we remember the anguished predictions of our
Lord :
' Amen I say to you, that one of you is about to betray
Me. And they being very much troubled began everyone
to say : Is it I, Lord ? But He answering said : He that
dippeth his hand with Me in the dish, he shall betray
Me. The Son of Man indeed goeth, as it is written of
Him. But woe to that man by whom the Son of Man
THE PASSION OF OUR LORD 307
shall be betrayed. It were better for him, if that man had
not been born.' (Matt, xxvi, 21-24.)
In these words we feel the presence of all our Lord's
horror of the crime, and dismay at its punishment ; and now
the hour was come, and almost immediately Judas would
be there, infatuated by His infamous design. Satan had
entered into him, but Jesus loved him still, and we are
conscious of this love vibrating in the words with which
his coming is hailed : ' Friend, whereto art thou come ? '
(Matt, xxvi, 50). More than ever, at this moment, He felt
the force of this love and it was His torment ; like a mother
who sees the ingratitude of her only son, and is rejected and
betrayed by him at the very moment that she gives her life
on his behalf.
And what of the others whom the Lord had received into
the inner circle of His friends ? Even in them He finds
nothing but torpor and sloth. Already He is aware of the
terrible temptation that is about to swallow them up ; in
vain He warns them and urges them to prayer ; they sleep,
and soon they will be scattered, and Peter will crown all by
his denial,. And then He is oppressed by a further grief on
their account, knowing the persecutions to which He is
leaving them exposed. It was more especially in the last
days of His life that these sombre forebodings were present
to His mind. We noticed them in the great eschatological
discourse (Mark xiii, 9-13) ; and we find them again in the
discourse after the supper (John xvi, 1-4; 20-22). On
these occasions, we are not only conscious of our Lord's
anxiety to forewarn His Apostles against the ills that lay
across their path ; we recognize, too, His gentle compassion,
which saw those whom He tenderly loved exposed in all
their weakness to such terrible trials :
' Because I have chosen you out of the world, therefore
the world hateth you. The hour cometh that whosoever
killeth you will think that he doth God a service. You
shall lament and weep, but the world shall rejoice.'
These pictures of the future were already sufficiently
frightening ; and yet our Lord could not paint them for the
Apostles in all the detail in which He saw them Himself.
He had before His eyes persecutions that would end only
with the world itself. He saw His Church pass through the
world as He Himself would in a few moments be passing
308 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
through the streets of Jerusalem ; in the midst of insults,
howls, and blows. When He appeared to Saul on the road
to Damascus, He would say : ' Saul, Saul, why persecutest
thou Me ? ' The truth is that all the wounds of His faithful
were His, too. Not only in figure were they His members
and He their Head. In His agony His Blood would effuse
over His whole body, and in that act S. Augustine 1 saw a
figure of the sufferings of the Church. Truly is she the
body of Christ, and truly she is covered with blood. In
every country and age she has been stricken in the person of
her martyrs, who in their agony called upon their Lord.
For example, we may recall the following touching
incident in the acts of S. Agathonice. At the sight of the
torments of SS. Papylus and Carpus she rushed forth, crying
in her excess of zeal : ' This feast is made ready for me,
too ! ' But if the spirit is willing, the flesh is weak ; and
when in her turn the tortures were upon her, she cried out in
anguish : ' Lord, Lord, Lord, come to my help ! it is in
Thee that I trust ! ' And Christ heard her, calmed her, and
gathered her soul to Himself ; but there was none to hear
Him, on this awful night. He was alone or rather, not, for
from the whole earth there rose to Him this cry of the
saints : ' Lord, Lord, come to our help ! ' And if He could
calm their anguish, it was because He had been pierced with
it Himself. And then, alas, the martyrs are not the only
people in the Church ; there are sinners and apostates, too.
In the apostolic college there was only one traitor in twelve ;
but in the Church's vast expanse of space and time, how
many there have been ! S. Paul could cry : ' Who is weak,
and I am not weak ? Who is scandalized, and I am not
on fire ? ' (2 Cor. xi, 29).
But once again, what comparison was there between him
and Christ ? Doubtless he felt the miseries and the falls of
those whose spiritual father he was ; but they were not his
members, and when they severed themselves from him
they did not, so to speak, take with them his very life. But
Christ felt all the pain of this broken union. As to His
Apostles, so to all the afflicted He repeats His words :
' Abide in Me.' But they will not listen ; rather, they cast
themselves off from Him ; branches barren and dead, fit
for nothing but the fire.
Seeing the inconstancy of his Galatians, S. Paul told them :
2 In Psalm., 140, 4 (P.L., XXXVII, 1817).
THE PASSION OF OUR LORD 309
*. . . then Christ died in vain' (Gal. ii, 21). Surely this
mournful cry penetrated on that last night to the very heart
of our Divine Lord ! Was He not about to die in vain, or
rather would not His Passion be for many men, as for
Jerusalem and the Jewish nation, the cause of a heavier
responsibility and a severer condemnation than would
otherwise have been theirs ? ' If I had not come, they would
not have sin : but now they have no excuse for their sin.'
Yet in all this we do not touch as yet what was most bitter
and most profound in these torments of our Lord. For this
we must penetrate to that union of the Son with the Father,
which was the most intimate characteristic of the Son of
God.
In seeking to penetrate this great mystery, we have as
aids not only the Gospels, but also S. Paul in the Epistle
to the Hebrews. After reminding his readers that in Jesus
Christ we have a High Priest who can feel with us in our
weakness, he goes on :
' For every high priest taken from among men is
ordained for men in the things that appertain to God,
that he may offer up gifts and sacrifices for sins : Who
can have compassion on them that are ignorant and that
err : because he himself also is compassed with infirmity.
And therefore he ought, as for the people, so also for
himself, to offer for sins. Neither doth any man take the
honour to himself, but he that is called by God, as Aaron
was. So Christ also did not glorify Himself, that He
might be made a high priest : but He that said unto
Him : Thou art My Son : this day have I begotten Thee.
As he saith also in another place : Thou art a priest for
ever, according to the order of Melchisedech. Who in the
days of his flesh, with a strong cry and tears, offering up
prayers and supplications to Him that was able to save
him from death, was heard for his reverence. And
whereas indeed He was the Son of God, He learned
obedience by the things which He suffered. And being
consummated, He became to all that obey Him, the
cause of eternal salvation : called by God a high priest,
according to the order of Melchisedech.' (Heb. v, i-io.)
And immediately the Apostle adds : ' Of whom we have
much to say and hard to be intelligibly uttered.' It is not
3io LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
for us, then, to presume to exhaust the subject, but we can
at least consider it and learn from it to understand better
our Saviour's agony and prayer. Nor is this an isolated
passage in Hebrews, for in chapter ii, 9, 10, we read :
'. . . who was made a little lower than the angels, for
the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour :
that through the grace of God He might taste death for
all. For it became Him for whom are all things and by
whom are all things, who had brought many children
into glory, to perfect the author of their salvation, by His
Passion.'
And again in 17, 1 8 :
' Wherefore it behoved Him in all things to be made
like unto His brethren, that He might become a merciful
and faithful high priest before God, that He might be a
propitiation for the sins of the people. For in that
wherein He Himself hath suffered and been tempted He
is able to succour them also that are tempted.'
From all these passages, Almighty God wishes us to learn
the part that suffering had to play in the life of Christ. We
know well enough that we are trained and formed by suffer-
ing, but it is Jesus Himself whom we here see put to this
school and perfected in this hard apprenticeship. Yet it
is certain that He is God's Son and in this very passage the
sacred author reminds us of the fact. It follows that through
His Divine nature He is infinitely perfect, and that suffering
can bring Him no perfection that He lacks, nor reveal to Him
anything that He does not know. But what it does bring
Him is a human experience, and that a painful one, destined
to form Him in His role of Head and High Priest of the
human race. For if He had become incarnate in a humanity
that had known neither fall nor punishment, He would not
have had to learn this hard lesson of trial, to which we His
brethren would never have had to submit. But the humanity
of which He is head is just this guilty and suffering humanity
in which ' all heads droop and all hearts are broken.' If
He was truly our brother, to be the model by which we are
taught, consoled, and inspired, our Lord could never have
passed through the world impassible and with a smile on
His face. He had to take His part in our ills, and at this
price, ' having Himself suffered and been tempted He is
THE PASSION OF OUR LORD 311
able to succour also them that are tempted,' ' who can
have compassion on them that are ignorant and err :
because He Himself also is compassed with infirmity.'
Such considerations, profound and moving as they are,
are full of comfort for every Christian soul. Whoever loves
Christ cannot contemplate His Passion without being
stirred by emotion of a painful kind, an emotion all the
keener because each one of us bears his measure of responsi-
bility for this overwhelming catastrophe ; it was for our
sins that He was bruised. But the thought that can most
effectively console us in this grief is that these sufferings
were, for Christ Himself, the instrument of His greatness,
or of His perfection, to use the word employed by the
inspired author himself.
And this great idea of the Head of the human race,
formed and perfected by suffering, is seen still more fully in
the conception of the priesthood of our Lord. This priest-
hood, as the Apostle tells us, is a glory that Christ did not
take upon Himself ; having received it from Him who said :
' Thou art a priest for ever according to the order of
Melchisedech.' It is a glory, but it is a heavy burden, too ;
for it is the Divine Will that the priest who intercedes for the
faults of all should share the responsibilities and the in-
firmities of all. Other priests, drawn from the ranks of
sinful humanity, feel themselves to be weak and sinful :
before God they will be humble, and indulgent in dealing
with their fellow-men. And in accepting this burden of the
priesthood, the Son of God by no means repudiated this
common law : c He, too, willed to be compassed with
infirmity,' and it was thus that He appeared in the garden :
He, with a strong cry and tears offered up prayers and suppli-
cations : He was bruised by our sufferings and bore the
weight of our sins. It was this that gave to His prayer that
tone of humility, we might say better, of confusion, which
was so new to Him and eloquent of so poignant a grief,
when it is remembered that He who prayed thus was none
other than the Son of God Himself.
This prayer has been recorded in almost identical terms
by the three Synoptics, which is the more remarkable
inasmuch as, in the Passion narrative, Luke usually takes a
more independent line. We may well believe that the
three Apostles heard this prayer that our Lord, as they
observe (Mark xiv, 39), repeated several times : ' Abba,
VOL. n. x
312 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
Father, all things are possible to Thee : remove this chalice
from Me ; but not what I will, but what Thou wilt ' (Mark
xiv, 36).
It all brings back to us the memory of the prayer that
Jesus had taught His disciples many months before. We
have already said, in commenting on the Our Father, that it
was probably on this same Mount of Olives that the Apostles
learnt the Lord's prayer from our Redeemer's lips ; and in
this great crisis of His Passion, it comes out at every point of
the Gospel text. It represents all that belongs to the inner-
most citadel of our Saviour's human soul ; it embodies the
revelation that He makes to us under the pressure of grief
and pain. We have already noticed this when comparing
the Lord's Prayer with the priestly prayer of Christ j 1 and
it stands out still more clearly in the story of the agony.
'. . . Pray,' He told His Apostles, ' that you enter not into
temptation.' Surely we have here an echo of His own
prayer : ' Lead us not into temptation.' And, above all, in
the oft-repeated words : ' not what I will, but what Thou
wilt,' we find the very petition : Pater, fiat voluntas tua, that
we ourselves have learned to repeat. But when He taught
us to say that, He was full of joyful satisfaction in His Father's
will (Luke x, 21). Now, once more, He repeated the words
when, for the first time, His will experienced a dreadful
repugnance for the chalice that His Father puts to His lips.
Later on, theologians would gain much light from this
passage, which would enable them to distinguish with
certainty the two wills belonging respectively to our Lord's
two natures, human and Divine. It is one more factor in the
process by which He manifests to us the truth of His Incar-
nation : truly, He has taken our nature, except our sin. In
this connection Maldonatus remarks : ' Christ in this
passage spoke as if He were a man to whom the Divine will
was imperfectly known, and as one who had not sufficient
strength to overcome death.' Thus He made clear to us
the repugnance of His human will, but at the same time He
taught us by His example to submit to the Divine will, the
supreme rule to which that human will of His was infallibly
attached : guae placita sunt ei,facio semper.
Surely we see Him here as He is put before us by S. Paul,
clothed with weakness and therefore able to be indulgent
to those who are ignorant and have gone astray. And this
1 Chase, The Lord's Prayer, p. in.
THE PASSION OF OUR LORD 313
very weakness makes more winning the lesson that He has
to teach : ' Abba, Father. All things are possible to
Thee.' It is His first word, at this very hour when He could
see Judas coming with his band of armed men. He knew
that God could do everything, and that His intervention at
any moment would be all-powerful, rescuing them all, and
effectively thwarting Judas or Gaiphas or Pilate or the
executioners of Calvary. And if He did not wish to inter-
fere, let His will be done ; that was all that mattered ;
Christ's own will did not count at all.
And at that moment, as S. Luke tells us, there came to
comfort Him an angel from heaven once more reminding
us of the Temptation in the wilderness. Then, too, the
angels came, but to minister to Him, for the struggle was
at an end, and Jesus had triumphed over Satan. But now
the agony was to become more terrible, for it was after the
angel's visit that we find mentioned the sweat of blood.
Both these incidents have appeared to many readers in so
surprising a light that many manuscripts of S. Luke omit
them altogether. However, they are mentioned in S. Justin
and S. Irenaeus ; x and we can well understand that a mis-
taken reverence might have caused their omission, since their
insertion in this narrative could not be easily explained.
We are reminded of the words in Hebrews : ' Thou hast
made Him (by His Incarnation) a little lower than the
angels,' and we are not surprised that it should have been
by an angel that this human nature, crushed by such
devastating sorrow, should have been sustained. As for the
sweat of blood, other examples can be quoted of this, and
we can understand without difficulty that the Apostles, who
saw our Lord return to them three times during that night,
should have been struck by it, and should have kept its
memory in their hearts. 2
But what we feel to be most precious in this episode is
1 Justin, Dial., 103, 8 (P.O., VI, 7170). Irenasus, Adv. Haer., Ill, 22, 2
(P.O., VII, Q57a). Cp. Epiphanius, Ancoratus, XXXI, 4 ff. (P.G., XLIII,
73a).
2 On the sweat of blood, cp. Suarez in III, ix, 46, a. 8, Disput. xxxiv, 2
(ed. Paris, XIX, 542-5). Jesus really sweated blood, and this sweat was not
miraculous, but natural. It was the result of His utter exhaustion of body
and agony of soul. ' Licet Christus naturali affectu timeret, tamen deliberata
voluntate et efficaci, et actu appetitus a voluntate imperato, mortem et omnes
dolores, qui efficacissime proponebantur, amplectebatur, et naturalem affectum
superabat, et hinc agonia proveniebat. Ex hoc ergo actufortitudinis et audaoice,
magis quam ex timore et tristitia, ilia corporis alteratio et sanguinis emissio
provenire potuit.'
314 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
the fact that the bloody sweat was only a symbol of the
agony that was taking place in our Blessed Lord's soul. To
fully understand this mystery we must understand the
nature of sin, and God Himself, and the union between the
Father and the Son. True, all this is infinitely beyond us ;
still we must speak of it, and what little we can understand
of it will be precious indeed.
The first thing to be observed is the distinction just made
between our Lord's human will and the Divine will of His
Father in heaven. ' Not what I will, but what Thou wilt.'
Here is a note that we have not encountered anywhere in
the Gospel before. Up to then, Jesus, living in intimate
relationship with His Father and entirely dependent upon
His life, had no will other than that of the Father Himself.
' My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me.' That was
His strength, His joy and His life, and with His eyes fixed
upon this will that He knew and loved so well, He went on
with His work in the world. Men might press Him to do
miracles, to reveal or hide Himself: all these human
suggestions are a matter of indifference for Him : it is from
His Father alone that He awaits both direction and motive
force : ' I do always the things that please Him.' Why
then this divergence that we have before us now ? ' Not
what I will, but what Thou wilt.' Certainly, there is no
question of any resistance to the Father's will, for this very
prayer breathes the spirit of entire submission ; but this
holy and beloved will did not allow itself to be felt ; the
sensible contact hitherto experienced by Him had been lost,
His Father was far from Him had, in fact, forsaken Him,
as He would complain presently upon the Cross ; whence
the prayer, the tone of which Maldonatus has so well
interpreted, in a passage quoted above : ' Jesus speaks as if
He were a man to whom the Divine will were imperfectly
known, and who had not the strength to support the crisis
of death.' The fact is beyond dispute, and we take it direct
from the Gospel itself; but to appreciate its significance is
another thing. As we remarked above, our Lord's life
entirely depended on that of His Father. From earth He
derived no consolation, joy, or support ; all came to Him
from above ; and now the heavens are closed } and solitude
and desolation have taken the place of a conscious union
that had filled His human heart with a beatitude of which
we can form no idea.
THE PASSION OF OUR LORD 315
The first impression is that of one who has lost all the
bearings of his life ; it is like a nocturnal vertigo. Hence
the dismay and anguish of the prayer : ' If it be possible, let
this chalice pass from Me. Nevertheless, not as I will, but
as Thou wilt. 3
And what lent such infinite cruelty to this agony was the
weight of sin, the crushing burden of which was laid upon
our Lord.
If He is thus separated from His Father, so as to be
scarcely able any longer to recognize that will which, up to
then, had been His sustenance and His very life, it is because
now, between Him and His Father, there is an obstacle
impeding all outpouring of soul on His part, and all con-
solation on the part of God : and that obstacle is our sin.
This was the burden of Isaias' prophecy : ' Surely He hath
borne our infirmities and carried our sorrows : and we have
thought of Him as it were a leper, and as one struck by God
and afflicted. But He was wounded for our iniquities : He
was bruised for our sins. The chastisement of our peace
was upon Him : and by His bruises we are healed.' And,
even more forcibly, S. Paul expresses the same thought.
' Him, who knew no sin, He hath made sin for us : that we
might be made the justice of God in Him ' (2 Cor. v, 21) ;
and, again : ' Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of
the law, being made a curse for us, for it is written : Cursed
is every one that hangeth on a tree. That the blessing of
Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Christ Jesus :
that we may receive the promise of the Spirit by faith '
(Gal. iii, 13-14). The precise meaning of these passages
has been very accurately rendered by Fr. Prat : ' Pro-
perly speaking, there is no substitution of persons, but
rather solidarity of action. Sin is not transferred from men
to Christ, but it is extended to Him as representative of the
human race. In the same way God's justice is not trans-
ferred from Christ to men, but extended from Christ to
them, when they are clothed with Divine nature by the
adoption of sons. ... As Head of the human race, of which
He represents the cause and identifies Himself with the
interests, Jesus Christ personifies sin : He is made " sin for
us," not in our place, but on our behalf, since by making
Himself sharer of our lot, He associates Himself with our
destiny as well. Thus having become sin for us, He makes
us just with God's justice in Himself.' And he adds a little
316 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
further on : 'In our order of providence where redemption
comes about by virtue of the principle of solidarity, Christ
had to become man to ransom men, to become subject to
the Law to deliver His own subjects from the Law, to become
a member of a sinful family that He might save sinners, to
be clothed with flesh that He might subdue the flesh in His
own person, to be closely linked with the guilty that His
justice might reflect itself upon them ; in a word, to be
subject to all our infirmities and miseries, that He might be
the ideal pontiff capable of opening to us the gate of heaven.' 1
I have quoted this passage at some little length in order
to refute the false interpretations that have arisen in a matter
delicate in itself and much discussed ; and more especially
the blasphemies of the early so-called Reformers. In their
view Christ, in His Passion, suffered the torments of the
damned, the consciousness of rejection by God, and even
despair itself. This was the teaching of Calvin, 2 and also
of Lutherans like Quenstedt : ' Christ,' he says, ' was
subject to eternal death, but not for ever. This death, and
the torments of hell, He experienced, not after but before
His physical death, both in the Garden of Olives and on the
cross.' 3
And, as always, blasphemous exaggerations such as these
have provoked unbalanced reaction in the ranks of
Protestantism itself. The liberal Protestantism of later
years would see in the Redemption nothing but a moving
example of devotion and love, which is the thesis specially
developed by Sabatier in his book La Doctrine de V Expiation
et son evolution historique. Thus on page 69 we read : ' In
the work of saving sinners Christ had no need to exert any
influence upon God, whose own love had appropriated and
retained the initiative of pardon. Almighty God had no
need of being brought into touch with man, or of being
reconciled to him ; it was man who needed to be brought
back to God. Yet the task of accomplishing this was no
less necessary or immense. Since the forgiveness of sins can
only be brought about by the repentance and return to
1 Theologie de saint Paul, II, 295-9.
a In harm. ev. (Matt, xxvi, 37, quoted by Strauss, II, 446) : ' Non
mortem horruit simpliciter, quatenus transitus est e mundo, sed quia formid-
abile Dei tribunal illi erat ante oculos, index ipse incomprehensibili vindicta
armatus, peccata vero nostra, quorum onus illi erat impositum, sua ingenti
mole eum premebant.'
3 Quoted by Sabatier, La Doctrine de I'Expiation et son evolution
historique (1902), p. 46.
THE PASSION OF OUR LORD 317
God of those separated from Him by sin, Christ's work will be
to induce in the individual, and the race at large, that state
of repentance in which alone the Father's forgiveness will
take effect. ... So do the Passion and Death of Christ act
on the sinner's soul. This is the most powerful call to
repentance that humanity has ever heard, and the most
efficacious as well, the most fertile, too, in wonderful results.
The Cross is only an atonement for sin in the sense that it
is the cause of that repentance to which the promise of
forgiveness has been attached. . . . Once the drama of
Calvary is thus restored to its true nature, it becomes what
it was before, an historic human drama, the greatest and
most tragic that history has ever seen. All the magic of
sacerdotal ritual, all juridical fiction has vanished ; and we
find ourselves in the realities of the moral world.' There
is no need of a long discussion to show that the whole mystery
of the Redemption disappears in any theory such as this.
With the ' magic of sacerdotal ritual ' goes the Epistle to the
Hebrews ; and with ' the juridical fiction ' the theology of
the epistles to the Corinthians and Galatians as well. Of the
great and fertile dogma of the Atonement, of the solidarity of
the human race, nothing remains. No longer is Christ the
Head of humanity ; if He has suffered, it is no longer as one
with the guilty race of men ; if He saves us, it is no longer as
members vivified by Him. All is broken and dissolved in
individualism. Jesus is no longer anything more than an
example to us, on which our life no longer depends, but
after which, by its own efforts, it ought to form itself. In
short, every distinct element of this drama of Gethsemani has
been effaced, leaving nothing but the anguish of an un-
fortunate man who sees the failure of his work, and is
conscious of approaching death.
If we wish to flee from this sterile rationalism, and re-enter
the great current of Christian tradition, let us read again
those passages from S. Paul which we quoted only just now :
' Him, who knew no sin, He hath made sin for us : that we
might be made the justice of God in Him.' ' Christ hath
redeemed us from the curse . . . being made a curse for us.'
We may recall here one of the most striking passages of the
Old Testament. Isaias is relating his vision of the Divine
majesty, when suddenly he exclaims : ' Woe is me, because
I have held my peace : because I am a man of unclean lips,
and I dwell in the midst of a people that hath unclean lips,
3i8 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
and I have seen with my eyes the King, the Lord of Hosts '
(vi, 5). We have here just a faint picture of what the Son
of God felt in that night of agony. Of the all-powerful and
infinitely holy God He had a vision, to which that of Isaias
could not be compared ; but at the same time He felt the
shame of sin far more than Isaias ever could. All the time
He had suffered from this contact, and He had exclaimed
with indignation and grief : ' O unbelieving and perverse
generation, how long shall I be with you ? How long shall
I suffer you ? ' (Matt, xvii, 1 7) . But if this contact was a
painful experience, at least Jesus Himself was not merged
in that perverse mass. To men He said : ' You being evil,'
but of Himself : ' Which of you shall convince Me of sin ? '
But now He no longer speaks in this way. Personally, He
is free from sin and remains so to the end ; He is the green
wood, while the others are the dry. But all the same He had
become identified with the sins of all, and He bore their
shame. With equal truth and equal confusion He could
say with Isaias : ' I dwell in the midst of a people that hath
unclean lips, and I have seen with My eyes the king, the
Lord of Hosts. 5
And it must be added that He saw the sins He was bearing
more clearly than any other man would ever do : ' He
knew what was in man ' ; and He penetrated to those
innermost recesses which we dare not bring into the light
of day. For the sinner who repents, He is always ready with
treasures of mercy ; for the Magdalen, the woman taken in
adultery, the Prodigal Son. But if He was always ready
to forgive, it is not because He was under any illusion as
to the gravity of sin or the sacred character of the laws of
God. It was because He knew that He Himself would pay
our debts, satisfy the jus dee of His Father, and leave the
path to mercy open. Now the hour to make this satisfaction
is come, and the awful burden of it weighs upon His soul.
None the less He rose and went back to the three Apostles
once more (Matt, xxvi, 40-46 ; Mark xiv, 37-42 ; Luke
xxii, 45,_46). 1 _
In doing this Jesus was quite aware how little He would
find there to sustain Him in His trial. His repeated warnings
1 Once again Luke's narrative is different from that of the other two
Synoptics, since he mentions only one visit and one exhortation of our
Lord, while in Matthew and Mark He is seen coming three times to try
to rouse the Apostles from their sleep. ' Knabenbauer has well observed
that people overwhelmed with sorrow can never remain in one place. At
THE PASSION OF OUR LORD 319
to His disciples during the supper, and His prophecy of
their desertion of Him, showed that He was under no
illusion upon the point. But He went to them, simply and
humbly, like a man suffering and in need of support.
Besides, He wanted to show them something of His agony,
and to awaken within them that devotion, dulled by weari-
ness, which was their chief strength. Above all, He wanted
to unite them with His own sufferings. In this mortal
anguish that the Son of Man suffered for all mankind, it was
only fitting that He should not be alone, and that erring
humanity should be associated with Him at least in the
persons of some of His Apostles a terrible trial, no doubt,
but also an incomparable grace which Christ willed to
offer to His favoured ones, but which, devoid of under-
standing, they let fall from their grasp. Only in the last
stage of His torment would Jesus see S. John, at least, taking
the place that should have been occupied by all at the
foot of the Cross.
Finding them thus asleep our Lord turns specially to
S. Peter, who had protested his fidelity more than all the
rest. ' Although all shall be scandalized in thee, yet not I.'
And yet he had not been able to watch for even one hour.
Very gentle is our Lord's reproach. He calls him ' Simon '
a name not applied to Peter by S. Mark since his call to
the apostolate (iii, 16). It is as though on this evening
Jesus found him as he actually was, before his call. Soon
and for always he will be Peter the Rock, and that unshak-
able stability had been promised him from the beginning ;
but of this great gift he had little more than the pledge as
yet. For the present, all that could be said was that the
heavenly graces by which he was enlightened and consoled
were an earnest of what he was to become ; and then
through his great weakness he falls back for a time into
being his old self.
But Jesus does not speak only to him, but to all three :
' Watch ye : and pray that ye enter not into temptation.'
This torpor and gloom that is weighing upon them is as
yet only the beginning of temptation. It is the early fall
one time Jesus is praying, at another He seeks a little comfort among His
three dearest disciples. That is the most natural explanation of this
thrice-repeated incident that appeared artificial in Loisy's eyes. The
disciples had, no doubt, made an effort to rouse themselves at their Master's
command, and they had been able to understand His first words : but they
had fallen asleep again ' (Lagrange, S. Marc, p. 389).
320 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
of the night around their souls, destined soon to have them
completely in its grip. So let them pray while their Master
is still with them, and while their souls, though heavy, are
not yet completely overwhelmed. ' The spirit ... is willing,
but the flesh weak.' Words which were a warning indeed
but at the same time an indulgent excuse by which, at the
outset, He lets His poor Apostles know that He does not for
a moment question the sincerity of their affection, but the
weakness of their will.
Luke notes that their prostration was the direct result
of grief. For eight hours they had been living in a state of
over-excitement and anguish of soul. And all this had
been intensified by the events of the last hour or two the
supper, and the discourse of our Lord. And now the
reaction has set in. They are conscious of the imminent
danger, without having the courage to face a crisis so often
foretold, but upon which they had constantly refused to
dwell. They see even the Master Himself gripped by a
fear and anguish even unto death. Up to then His power
and also His serenity of mind had been their chief support ;
now this had suddenly failed them, and dizzy with terror
and grief they began to fail.
Against this truly terrible temptation our Lord had warned
them many times ; but they had not listened. They were
so sure of themselves and of Him. And still with the greatest
earnestness He urged them to fortify themselves by prayer.
But among them as yet He found no adequate support.
With minds confused, they knew not what to reply, and let
themselves once more be overcome by sleep. And so three
times the Lord came to them ; and at the third He bade
them : ' Sleep ye now and take your rest.' 1 But their
sleep was interrupted almost at once. The traitor was at
hand and Jesus gave the signal to arise : ' It is enough.
1 In interpreting these words we follow S. Augustine (P.L., XXXIV,
1163) : ' Why does one read above : " Sleep ye now, and take your rest,"
when the text immediately goes on : " Behold, the hour is come," and He
says accordingly : " Rise up, let us go ? " Some, on reading this, are
puzzled by the apparent lack of harmony between the two commands,
and suggest that the words " Sleep ye now, and take your rest " were
meant as a reproach, and not as a permission. This would be reasonable,
if such an interpretation were necessary. But since Mark, in recalling the
same episode, follows " Sleep ye now, and take your rest " with " It is
enough : the hour is come : behold the Son of Man shall be betrayed into
the hands of sinners," we may assume that after the words Dormite iam
et requiescite, our Lord was silent for a time, while they slept as He had
permitted.'
THE PASSION OF OUR LORD 321
The hour is come : behold, the Son of Man shall be
betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise up : let us go.
Behold, he that will betray Me is at hand ' (Mark xiv, 41-42) .
//. The Arrest. 1
Our Blessed Lord's arrest has been described in detail by
the four evangelists, the exegetes discovering slight differ-
ences in their accounts. 2 These slight differences of stress
and detail are of great value to the historian, as implying
that different sources of information have been brought
into use.
In all four Gospels one figure that of Judas appears in
the front of the stage. It was he who conceived and put
into execution the whole plan. In every step that he took
we are conscious of a profound perversity already hardened
beyond hope of change ; and we admire all the more the
restraint shown by the evangelists in their accounts. All
expressions of indignation with regard to the traitor are
suppressed ; while to mark the hatefulness of his crime
1 Matt, xxvi, 47-56 ; Mark xiv, 43-52 ; Luke xxii, 47-53 ; John xviii,
i-n.
2 A single reading is enough to reveal the differences between the three
accounts. As usual, there is a close correspondence between Matthew's
and Mark's account ; still, it is to be once more noted that Matthew insists
on the fulfilment of the prophecies (54), whereas Mark puts in several short
and concrete details : for instance, the traitor's recommendation to ' Lay
hold on Him ! ' and, especially, the incident of the young man.
Luke, as throughout his narrative of the Passion, is quite independent ;
neglecting the agreement between Judas and the others as to the sign
(the kiss), but, by way of compensation, showing us the disciples asking :
' Master, shall we strike ? ' Also he gives a more energetic account of our
Lord's complaint against the brutality of His arrest ; and especially, the
concluding words : ' But this is your hour, and the power of darkness,' are
peculiar to his narrative. As far as John is concerned, we have already
drawn attention to the most notable difference : he omits the Agony, and
immediately after our Lord's arrival in the Garden, he relates the coming
of the traitor. This account agrees well enough with that of the Synoptics,
but the colour of the narrative is different. In this very first episode one
notices the same features that characterize his narrative of the Passion
(Westcott, 249) : he is careful all along to throw into especial relief the
voluntary nature of our Lord's suffering (xviii, 4, 8, n, 36 ; xix, 28, 30),
the fulfilment of the Divine Plan in these sufferings (xviii, 4, 9, n ; xix,
ii, 24, 28), and the majesty revealed therein (xviii, 6, 20, 37 ; xix, n, 26,
36). The Synoptics themselves undoubtedly stress these features, too :
the fulfilment of the Divine Plan is strongly brought out in Matthew and
Mark ; the power of Jesus exemplified by Malchus' cure in Luke ; in all
of them, the voluntary character of His sacrifice, forbidding any resistance
and leading him to give Himself up to His enemies. These points were not
indeed originated by John, but he emphasizes them more than the others.
322 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
they content themselves with calling him ' Judas, one of the
twelve.' But this discreet reference is omitted by John,
who simply refers to him as : 'Judas . . . who betrayed
Him.'
Behind the traitor came ' a great multitude with swords
and staves, 1 from the chief priests and the scribes and the
ancients ' (Mark xiv, 43) . Thus the three groups composing
the Sanhedrin were acting in concert in this assault, the
leaders coming themselves, moved by the desire personally to
conduct this police operation to which so much importance
was attached by them. 2 They had obtained from the
Roman governor a detachment of soldiers, 3 but this small
company made no direct intervention, having no other
mission than to support the Jewish police officers in case of
need. There is no doubt that our Lord's enemies feared
Him and His followers, as is proved by every step they took.
The Romans were there to furnish the assistance of brute
force, but it was the Jewish satellites who were charged with
the capture of Jesus, and since they met with no resistance,
they acted alone. They came ' with swords and clubs ' ;
no doubt it was the season of the full moon ; but its uncertain
radiance would not perhaps have been sufficient to guide
the Jews in the undergrowth of olives and into the depths of
1 On these retainers and their staves, cp. the satirical song quoted by
us supra, vol. I, p. 56, and recalled here by Klausner (p. 337).
2 ' . . . Jesus said to the chief priests and magistrates of the Temple
and the ancients that were come unto Him . . .' (Luke xxii, 52).
3 John xviii, 3. Reuss, like all S. John's commentators, justly raises
this point (John, p. 315) : ' Clearly the author distinguishes two different
contingents : the officers of the Sanhedrin, and the Roman soldiers ' ;
but he sees here a mistake on the part of the evangelist. Cp. Histoire
Evangelique, p. 657. Fr. Ollivier (Passion, p. 88), with all due respect
to John's narrative, tries to explain it in the same way. ' It was a veritable
mob, made up, according to the mistaken account of the Synoptics, half
of the ordinary guard of the Temple in the pay of the High Priest, and
half of burly retainers, hired by the Sanhedrin. In this matter of the
betrayal, it seems, the evangelist wished entirely to exonerate from blame
the Roman. cohort quartered in the Antonia and the palace of the chief
town ; as if he feared to cast a slur on military honour, that one surviving
virtue of a dying social organism. It is astounding that most modern
historians should go wrong here, when Catherine Emmerich, an unlettered
woman, needed nothing more than her good sense to perceive the truth
clear enough withal in the Gospel narrative.' We will put aside the
authority of Catherine Emmerich, and as for the respect for military
honour, we think it need not worry us in this question of exegesis, since
even if the Roman cohort took no part in the arrest of Jesus, yet in the
Passion it played sufficiently odious a part, and that incontestably :
scourging and crowning with thorns. Let us return to the unadorned text
of John.
THE PASSION OF OUR LORD 323
the hiding-places where Jesus might have remained
concealed.
To make things still more secure, Judas had agreed with
his party on a sign by which he should make clear to them
which of the company was our Blessed Lord. This was to
be a kiss, the mark of affection and respect which a disciple
would give to his Master when they met. Jesus at once
reacted to this bitter blow, and made the traitor feel the
baseness of it, too. 1
It has been asked why the officers of the Sanhedrin needed
a sign by which to recognize Christ, whom they had so
often seen. Perhaps at night they were less sure of them-
selves, and no doubt they feared some ruse by which our
Lord would escape or by which one of His disciples would
take His place.
What, perhaps, is still more odious on Judas' part is his
advice to the band of captors : ' Lay hold on Him and lead
Him away carefully.' So many times had he seen his Master
escape from pursuit and pass through the midst of His
enemies, that he was afraid lest this time, too, He should
slip through their hands. So, paid as he was for this very
end, he was determined to see that the arrest was effective,
and that his prisoner was safely delivered into the Sanhedrin' s
power.
And now the band had crossed the valley of the Gedron
and were advancing through the orchards in the moonlight
and the torches' glare. When, suddenly they saw rising
before them Jesus Himself, who had left His apostles and
was walking straight towards His implacable foes. And
Judas, detaching himself from the rest, went to meet Him,
with the kiss, and the greeting ' Rabbi.'
Before such hypocrisy our Lord shuddered : ' Friend,
whereto art thou come ? ' (Matthew) . ' Judas, dost thou
betray the Son of Man with a kiss ? ' (Luke) . The former
of the two replies sounds less tender in the original than it
does in our own tongue ; eraipe was the very word used
by the king in speaking to the man without a wedding
garment at the marriage feast (Matt, xxii, 12). z To this
1 This poignant incident of the kiss is missing in John an evangelist
who is accused of overdrawing the character of Judas.
2 ' The word here translated by " friend " since the French language
does not supply us with a better must not be taken as uttered in an
affectionate sense. It is the greeting addressed, in casual encounter, to
someone unknown, and at this moment was a sign rather of interior
estrangement than of anything else ' (Reuss, in hoc loco).
324 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
severe admonition Luke tells us that our Lord added a
question full of emphasis, and moving in the extreme. The
name of the Apostle must have recalled many a similar
appeal in the past ;* this very title of Son of Man, so many
of our Lord's teachings, on His Messianic rLle, His Passion,
His resurrection, and His glorification ; and above all the
concluding phrase : ' with a kiss. . . .' We recognize here
our Lord's character as described so well by de Grand-
maison : ' In an ordeal unlimited in its severity, Jesus
remained equally removed from all boastfulness on the one
hand, or weakness on the other. Here was no touch of
stoicism, no defiance, no attitude of studied composure. He
did not deny or minimize the evil. But without the least
weakening of His will, wholly surrendered and fixed on that
of His Father, the sensitive part of His nature was stirred to
the depths, trembled, uttered sounds pure, tender, heart-
rending, as the case may be.' 2
This last effort was wasted on Judas, as all previous ones
had been ; and waving the wretched man aside, Jesus
walked straight up to His foes. ' Whom seek ye ? ' He asked.
He wished to make clear the voluntary character of His
death, and at the same time to cover His disciples' flight.
But the armed men to whom He thus presented Himself
had not anticipated the spontaneous approach of One
whose capture they had expected to be difficult ; and so
they simply repeated the name ' Jesus of Nazareth ' which
had been given them in the instructions they had received.
' I am He,' was our Lord's reply. Several times before, on
other solemn occasions, had He spoken these same simple
words : to the Samaritan woman (John iv, 26) ; to the
terrified Apostles on the lake (vi, 20) ; to the Jews at the
Feast of Tabernacles (viii, 24, 28) ; and when foretelling
Judas' treachery to the Apostles in the Upper Room (xiii,
19). For Judas, at least, they must have been full of meaning
and memory. The officers, too, were vividly impressed by
the scene. They saw their guide brought in confusion to a
halt, and Him whom they were seeking coming towards
them as if He was their Master. Perhaps they were asking
themselves if this Messias, this Wonder-worker, was not
going to strike them with lightning, as Elias had done with
1 We may compare similar questions addressed to Martha (Luke x, 41),
Philip (John xiv, 9) and Simon (Mark xiv, 37).
* Jesus Christ, II, p. 118.
THE PASSION OF OUR LORD 325
the fifty men sent to take him captive, many centuries before.
They drew back and fell to the ground. So Christ persisted
in showing the voluntary nature of His sacrifice but, as
with the manifestation of His power recorded in the Gospels,
more in warning than in punishment with mercy and
restraint.
And our Lord's enemies, surprised but not converted,
regained their self-control ; and as He advanced again, a
similar dialogue took place. ' Whom seek ye ? Jesus of
Nazareth I have told you that I am He. If therefore you
seek Me, let these go their way. 5
Here we recognize the Good Shepherd once again. The
hireling, wholly regardless of his flock, flies at the wolf's
approach, and the sheep are carried off and torn to pieces,
but the Good Shepherd gives His life for the sheep. ' Of
them whom Thou hast given Me I have not lost any one.'
In thus defending them, not only did our Lord spare them
the outrage and the brutalities of arrest, but above all He
preserved them from a temptation that would have been
too great for their strength. As Jesus had foretold, only
one would succumb to this terrible trial the son of perdition,
given up to Satan, to whom he had given up his Master in
his turn.
But even yet the Apostles did not feel their weakness,
and seeing how things were going they asked Him : ' Lord,
shall we strike with the sword ? ' And then without waiting
for a reply, Peter, drawing his sword, struck Malchus, wound-
ing him in the ear. 1
But this hasty action drew upon him a well-merited
reproof : ' Put up again thy sword into its place : for all
that take the sword shall perish with the sword ' (Matt.).
1 The name of the Apostle and of the servant have come down to us only
through. John ; writers who deny to the Fourth Gospel any real historical
value regard these features as of no more than legendary worth. Thus
Goguel, Les sources du recit johannique de la Passion, 77, writes : ' The
redactor might easily have introduced the name Malchus as a touch of
realism. The act of violent intervention here described might easily have
been attributed to Peter in the recollection that, according to Mark, it
was he who had rebuked our Lord the first time He spoke of His death '
(Mark viii, 32-33) . Westcott, on the contrary, very reasonably remarks
that one can easily understand that, at the time of the first drawing-up of
the Christian catechesis, the two names of Malchus and Peter would have
been omitted, both of them being alive and in Jerusalem, and that such
a mention of Peter's name might easily have had dangerous consequences
for him. Here, as in a good many other cases, the passage of time enabled
John to be more explicit than his predecessors could have been.
326 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
From henceforth this was to be the rule of the martyrs of
every age. Our Lord had told His Apostles : ' . . . I send
you as sheep in the midst of wolves ' (Matt, x, 16). And
of this heroic patience, requiring more courage than an
armed struggle, He wished to give them an example, which
was destined to be understood. It was one of the most
hasty among them all one of the ' Sons of thunder ' no
less who, in the Apocalypse, would describe the rage of
the beast who makes war on the saints and triumphs over
them for a while. But, confronting him, is the ' lamb slain
from the foundation of the world ' ; and the Apostle adds :
' If any man have an ear, let him hear ... he that shall
kill by the sword must be killed by the sword. Here is the
patience and the faith of the saints ' (Apoc. xiii, 7-10).
So Jesus cured Malchus ; it was the only miracle He
worked that night a miracle of compassion and kindness
to a foe.
Still, He did not intend to let the indignity with which
He was treated pass without protest of any kind.
' You are come out, as it were, against a robber, with
swords and clubs to apprehend Me. I sat daily with you,
teaching in the Temple : and you laid not hands on Me.
Now all this was done that the scriptures of the prophets
might be fulfilled.'
We have here, certainly, the sense of insults sustained, but
much more the assertion of the free character of our Lord's
sacrifice. We have only to recall His ascendancy over the
traffickers in the Temple, driving them out with whips,
while they dared not resist ; and over the Pharisees sent
to arrest Him, returning with the words : ' Never did man
speak like this man ' (John vii, 46) . And it was the same
repeatedly with the mob, who, in spite of their wish to
stone Him, never dared to seize Him and lead Him away
(Luke iv, 30 ; John viii, 20 ; viii, 59 ; x, 39). It was to
all this that our Lord alluded when He said : ' I was daily
with you in the Temple . . . and you did not lay hands on
Me.' 1
In all previous crises of the same kind, the hatred involved
was as keen as on that fatal night. Jesus was without
defence in His enemies' hands ; yet they could not seize
1 Here again we notice that occasions of preaching in the Temple,
though not explicitly recorded by the Synoptics, were in their minds ;
our Lord's words could not have referred only to the three preceding days.
THE PASSION OF OUR LORD 327
Him because His hour was not yet come. But now the
contrary is the case. ' This is your hour and the power of
darkness.'
His Father no longer protects Him, and He will not
protect Himself. ' The chalice which My Father hath
given Me, shall I not drink it ? ' We have here an echo
of the prayer of the agony, 1 but a faint echo all the same.
He no longer says : ' Let this chalice pass from Me.' The
Father presents it, and He receives it from His hands,
without showing any desire for its removal by a gesture or
a single word. ' Then the disciples leaving Him, fled.'
Possibly Peter's blow had caused a scuffle in which the
disciples were attacked and threatened with arrest. Cer-
tainly they were disconcerted by the calm resignation of
our Lord. They still had enough conscious zeal to show
some sort of resistance to armed force, but not enough
courage to share their Master's fate and let themselves be
led away with Him, so they took advantage of the freedom
He gave them, and fled.
S. Mark adds : ' And a certain young man followed
Him, having a linen cloth cast about his naked body. And
they laid hold on him. But he casting off the linen cloth,
fled from them naked.' This shows plainly enough that if
the disciples had not fled, and their flight had not been
covered by our Lord Himself, they would have been, taken
with Him. The incident seems to be recorded from personal
memory by S. Mark and, in this young man, many com-
mentators have recognized S. Mark himself, 2 an identifica-
tion that would seem still more probable if it could be proved
that the Garden of Gethsemani was the property of Mary,
the mother of Mark. 3 So this last friend of Jesus had
disappeared, and He found Himself alone in the hands of
His relentless foes. From henceforth He will not see His
1 It is by S. John (xviii, u) that these words are recorded. He does not
describe the Agony, -which is related by the Synoptics ; but he notes its
approach (xii, 27) and we catch its echo here.
2 Huby, in hoc loco ; Lagrange, L'Evangile de Jesus Christ, p. 537, etc.
3 Expositor, IV, n.p. 225, quoted by Swete. On this garden, cp. Abel,
Jerusalem, II, pp. 302 ff. : ' Every well-managed villa or farm had its
torcularium. . . . Cato required that the torcularium should be provided
with beds for the use of the guards. According to a papyrus from Fayum,
a certain Apollonius is known to have hired an oil-press (t\aiovpye1ov)
along with the rooms in the top storey ; which might explain the sudden
appearance on the scene of the young man dressed in a linen cloth at the
time of our Lord's arrest.'
VOL. II. Y
328 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
followers any more, except to witness their fall (Peter) or
their grief (Mary and John at the foot of the Cross). He
has emerged from His agony exhausted by its terrible anguish
and by the sweat of blood ; but for Him there is no more
comfort or repose ; nothing but the brutality of His guards,
while He awaits approaching torture at the executioners'
hands. With all condemned persons this first stage in their
captivity is always painful ; but it was more so at this
period, when prisoners were treated with a brutality that
knew neither pity nor shame. 1
Such was the treatment that our Lord was beginning to
undergo ; but only a few of its more odious features are
recorded on the Gospel page : the blow in the presence of
the High Priest ; the blows and spitting from the military
guard ; the crown of thorns in Pilate's house. We can
imagine the rest, coming from men who were simply the
priests' servants, and who knew that all services rendered
would be an act of service to those in whose employment they
were.
In this mob, by whom Jesus was surrounded and dragged
away, there was one man whose position was grievous in
the extreme ; and that was Judas himself. He was bent on
seeing that the prisoner was held fast and given no oppor-
tunity to escape ; and in a few moments he would himself
deliver Him into the hands of the high priests.
Of all those who bear the responsibility of the death of
1 Similarly in the Acts of the Lyons martyrs we read of the aged Bishop
Pothinus being so brutally treated by the guards who led him to the tribunal
that he died while returning to his cell, and it was much the same with
S. Polycarp. This old man of eighty-six at first received a certain kindness
and consideration from the two magistrates who had come to arrest him.
They persuaded him to get into their chariot to convey him to Smyrna
where he was summoned to appear. But the moment they saw they
could not induce him to deny Christ they brutally thrust him backwards
and caused him, old as he was, to fall from the chariot.
Fifty years earlier we see S. Ignatius fetched away by his executioners
from Antioch to Rome. The Saint hungers after suffering : ' May the
fire, the cross, fighting with wild beasts, laceration, being torn asunder,
dislocation of my joints, grinding of my whole body to pulp may the
cruellest tortures of the devil fall to my lot, so I possess in the end Jesus
Christ ! ' Even so, in that same epistle and in that same chapter (Rom. , v) ,
he finds it necessary to complain of the brutality of his guards : ' From
Syria to Rome, by land and sea, by night and by day, I am already in
conflict with the beasts, chained to ten leopards as I am. I wish to speak
to the soldiers who guard me ; but the better one behaves towards them,
the more wicked they show themselves to be. The ill-treatment received
at their hands is a school for me, in which I form myself daily ; but I am.
not hereby justified.'
THE PASSION OF OUR LORD 329
the Son of God there is none whose culpability equals that
of Judas. The executioners who would nail Christ to the
cross would find their Victim Himself ready to intercede for
them, and to ensure that their blindness should be taken into
account. Pilate had less excuse. He could have known
who Jesus was ; he had questioned Him at length, recog-
nized His innocence and, finally, through weakness, given
Him. over to the malice of His foes ; in fact he condemned
himself when he told our Lord : ' I have power to crucify
Thee and I have power to release Thee. 5 Still his respon-
sibility was less than that of Judas : ' ... he that hath
delivered Me to thee hath the greater sin.' The Jews, and
especially their leaders, were certainly more guilty than
Pilate was. For two years they had seen the works and
heard the teaching of our Lord : they had ' no excuse for
their sin.' And yet it was to them that Peter in his discourse
would say : ' I know that you did it through ignorance, as
did also your rulers. But those things which God had
showed by the mouth of all the prophets, that His Christ
should suffer, He hath so fulfilled ' (Acts iii, 17). As for
Judas, he was truly without excuse, since he had sinned
barefacedly. Chosen by Jesus as one of the twelve, sharer
of His life for three years, witness of His miracles, recipient
of His most intimate and confidential teaching, himself
associated with Christ's apostolate and having, in His name,
worked miracles and conversions like the rest, he had given
himself up to Satan, and had sold his Lord. This extreme
culpability alone explains Judas' attitude during these first
scenes of the Passion. So great an effort had he made to
break away from our Lord that he had plunged desperately
into evil ; truly, as the Gospel puts it, Satan had entered
into him. And inasmuch as Satan had need of this wretched
instrument, he had made him blind and callous. Judas
went onwards on his course, and carried out his plan with
lowered head, so to speak, like a bull which nothing will
stop ; confused and half-paralysed for a moment, he soon
recovered himself ; the die was cast, and he would go on to
the end. But when the sin was complete Satan opened his
eyes and hurled him into despair. In this connection, it has
been justly recalled what Tacitus wrote about Nero after he
had murdered his mother Agrippina : ' When the crime was
accomplished, he understood its enormity at last.' 1
1 ' Perfecto demum scelere, magnitude eius intellecta est ' (Annales,
XIV, 10, i), quoted by Plummer, art. Judas, D.B., 797.
330 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
///. The Jewish Trial.
Since Judea was under the Romans, it was subject to
two different authorities : respectively native, and of the
conquering power. Consequently our Lord's trial would
take place successively under two jurisdictions ; first before
the Sanhedrin and then before Pilate himself. The presence
of Herod at Jerusalem would even bring it before a third
tribunal, namely that of this same prince.
These different stages of the trial are very clearly dis-
tinguished in the Gospels ; but certain historians refuse to "
acknowledge them, nevertheless. These are more par-
ticularly the Jewish writers, who try to throw off the
responsibility that rests upon their race. It will be necessary
to discuss these objections before studying in detail the story
as told in the Gospels themselves.
In his commentary on the Synoptic Gospels, published
in 1909, Montefiore contented himself with allowing the
responsibility for the trial to fall upon the Sadducees
alone (346) : ' The balance of probability strongly inclines
to the view that the Gospel narratives are so far correct, in
that Jesus was really put to death by the Romans at the
instance and instigation of the Jewish authorities, and more
especially of the ruling priesthood. That there was any
meeting of the full Sanhedrin is most doubtful ; doubtful
also is the part played by the Scribes and Pharisees ; but
that the Sadducean priesthood was at the bottom of the
arrest and of the " trial," and that the rest of this trial was
adequate to obtain a condemnation from Pilate, cannot
reasonably be doubted.' 1
Juster (Les Juifs dans I' Empire romain, II, 134) goes further
still, totally denying the responsibility of his race. To do this
he tries to put the Gospel narrative out of court 2 and con-
cludes that a choice must be made between two hypotheses.
One of these is that the trial of Jesus was entirely religious,
1 The same thesis is defended in the second edition (1927), II, p. 352.
2 ' As works in which an obscure oral tradition has been repeatedly
taken up and retouched to serve divergent apologetic purposes namely
by turns either to exculpate or accuse the Romans or the Jews and
thereby giving rise to multiple contradictions, the Gospels could not
possibly serve as a basis on which to construct a juridical theory.
' Now, outside the Gospels, we have no evidence, in the period we are
studying, that the judicial sentences of self-governing countries were sub-
mitted for confirmation to the Roman Governor of trie regions concerned.
' Even if we were to concede to him (Mommsen) that the sentences
THE PASSION OF OUR LORD 331
in which case it evidently took place before the Sanhedrin,
and would have ended with the capital penalty in the form,
that is, stoning, sanctioned by the Jewish penal code. The
other theory is that the trial was purely political in character,
being for treason or sedition against the Roman power, and
that it was brought to a close by the Roman governor
inflicting upon Jesus the punishment in use among the
Romans, namely that of the cross. And since no one can
doubt that Jesus was not stoned but crucified, it must be
concluded that Pilate alone had the responsibility of the
sentence, and that the Jews are to be exonerated from all
blame. So solid has this whole structure seemed to
Loisy that he has built upon it his own theory of S. Stephen's
death. 1
' The evangelists relate what took place and the solution
is simple enough. Those who wished to bring about our
Lord's death Pharisees and Sadducees, united by hate
could only initiate a religious trial, and that is what they
did. The condemnation pronounced by them had to be
confirmed, but it had no chance of being so unless the
religious proceedings brought against an innocent man
were presented in the guise of a danger to the Roman
power. Hence the Messianism with which Jesus was
charged took on the hue of sedition before the Roman
Governor. When he once determined to act, the case took
a turn inspired by him ; and it was brought before his own
court. There was only one accusation, that of Messianism,
which was blasphemy to the Sanhedrin but revolutionary
agitation in Pilate's eyes. The process developed with the
of the Sanhedrin needed to be confirmed by the Procurator and, after
all, it is not impossible that means, logically, that after confirmation
the Jews were at liberty to carry their sentences into effect ! Now it is
at this, the most difficult point, that logic and documentary evidence
discount the veracity of the evangelists, who maintain that after the trial
before the Sanhedrin, in which Jesus was condemned to death, the affair
was resumed before Pilate and that Pilate submitted himself to the
decision of the Jews . . . having Jesus executed by the Roman soldiery.
' Both juridical principles and simple logic are against admitting that
the trial of Jesus provides us with an example (which would be unique)
of the confusion of different jurisdictions and juridical methods in countries
subject to the Roman Empire. No. Such confusion never existed at all.'
1 Actes, 309 : ' It seems certain that the Sanhedrin retained complete
jurisdiction over the Jews of Palestine in religious matters and that their
competence was only limited in political affairs (see Juster, II, 12749).
The false perspective in which the evangelists have set our Lord's trial
has contributed more than any other cause to lead criticism astray on the
point.'
332 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
change of jurisdiction, and the execution was naturally
ordered by the final court.' 1 A simple reading of the
Gospel itself is sufficient to establish this order of facts,
natural and coherent as it is.
This controversy being disposed of, it becomes necessary
to determine more exactly the historical setting in which
our Lord's trial took place, and with this in view we must
speak first of the Sanhedrin, the court of justice before
which He appeared. In this historical reconstruction we
might be tempted to make use chiefly of the treatise
Sanhedrin in the Mishnah. Many historians have done so ;
and since the juridical rules there formulated contradict
the Gospels on many points, it has been deduced that either
the Gospels give us a faulty account of what took place, or
our Lord's judges violated all the rules of the Jewish penal
code. In this second conclusion there is nothing im-
probable ; but a more attentive examination of this
rabbinical composition puts us on our guard. 2 The fact
is that the rules there to be found describe much more
the ideal state of things imagined by the rabbis, than the
reality which had long passed away when the Mishnah
was compiled (at the end of the second and the beginning
of the third centuries). One example will suffice to show
the character of the work. According to the rabbis the
presidency of the Sanhedrin had always belonged to the
most famous legists, and the rabbinical tradition classes
them in pairs, of which one would be president of the
Sanhedrin and the other vice-president. 3 In direct contra-
diction to this it is well established that the presidency of
1 Lagrange, Revue biblique (1918), p. 264.
2 Moore, Judaism, II, p. 187, after explaining the procedure according
to the Mishnah, writes : ' These rules of procedure impress us as purely
academic. ... It cannot be imagined that any government charged with
the maintenance of public order and security ever devised and put into
practice a code of procedure the effect and intent of which was to make
the conviction of criminals impossible,' and, ibid., n. 5 : ' The inquiry
whether the trial of Jesus was legal, i.e. whether it conformed to the rules
in the Mishnah, is futile because it assumes that those rules represent the
judicial procedure of the old Sanhedrin.'
These rules of procedure are explained below, as also the judgement
brought to bear on them by Danby and Klausner ; this judgement only
confirms that of Moore.
3 Schurer, II, 254. Cp. Moore, Judaism, I, p. 45, n. z : ' According to
M. Hagigah, ii, 2, the first-named in each pair was the president, the
second the vice-president, of the Sanhedrin. This is carrying back into
antiquity the organization of the high court after the destruction of
Jerusalem.'
THE PASSION OF OUR LORD 333
the Sanhedrin at no time belonged to the legists, but to the
High Priest in office at the time. These chief priests belonged
to the aristocratic Sadducees and the rabbis had no more
sympathy for them than the Pharisees of their own. time.
And the same must be said as to the powers of the great
court of justice. We are told, for example (Sanhedrin, II, 4),
that if the king wishes to declare war, he can only do so
after a vote of the seventy-one. This king and Sanhedrin
alike are dreams of the rabbis ; we should search for them
in history in vain.
If we wish to consider, not rabbinic dreams but historical
reality, we shall see the Sanhedrin somewhat in this wise. 1
It comes on the scene only in the Hellenic period, under the
form of an aristocratic senate, analogous to those we meet
with in the Greek cities ; being first mentioned in Josephus
(A.J., XII, iii) at the time of Antiochus the Great (223-187) .
The Machabean movement changed its character, and
instead of the ancient sacerdotal families, of hellenizing
tendency, the Hasmoneans and their partisans entered the
great council, although, under the princes and the High
Priests, representatives of the old nobility of Jerusalem still
remained. From the reign of Alexandra, the growing
influence of the Pharisees brought them into the Sanhedrin.
It is called Sanhedrin, <rweSpiov, for the first time by Josephus,
with reference to the trial of Herod (A. J., XIV, ix, 35) ,
who was forced to appear before it on a charge of murder,
but who avenged himself at once by having all its members
put to death. At Herod's death the Sanhedrin found its
jurisdiction restricted, like Archelaus' dominions, to Judea
and Samaria ; but, on the other hand, in these provinces
its authority became greater than it had been under Herod
(A.J., XX, x) : ' After the death of Herod and Archelaus,
the government became aristocratic, and the High Priests
received authority over the people.' At that time it was
composed of two principal parties : the nobility, both
sacerdotal and lay, 2 which was Sadducean, and the legists,
who were Pharisees. The Mishnah reckoned its membership
as seventy-one. As to the method of recruiting it, we know
very little. 3 The members remained in office for quite a
1 Schiirer, II, 238-67.
2 The ' ancients,' who represented the lay aristocracy, belonged, like
the High Priests, to the Sadducean party. Cp. J. Jeremias, Jerusalem zur
Zeit Jesu (Leipzig, 1929), II, pp. 88-100.
3 Moore, I, 82, n. 4 : ' The composition of the Council, or Senate, as
it had earlier been called, and the mode of election to it, are nowhere
334 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
long time, perhaps for life. Possibly they recruited them-
selves by co-optation, perhaps they were nominated by the
political authorities : Herod or the Romans themselves.
The most influential members were the High Priests ;*
and next to them we find the legists, whose knowledge of
the law gave them great authority ; in the course of the
first century, their influence became preponderant. 2 The
presidency of the Sanhedrin belonged to the High Priest,
and it is in that capacity that Caiphas appears in the trial
of Christ (Matt, xxvi, 3), and Ananias in that of S. Paul
(Acts xxiii, 2 ; xxiv, i). The legal jurisdiction of the
Sanhedrin did not extend beyond Judea and its eleven
toparchies ; and so long as Jesus was in Galilee He was
outside the sphere of its power. Still the decisions of this
great body everywhere commanded the respect of pious
Jews ; it was in this way that Saul was able to receive a
mission for Damascus from the Sanhedrin's hands. The
nature of this jurisdiction was not that of a religious tribunal
like the Inquisition, handing over the execution of its
sentences to the civil power. Rather it represented a native
judicial body, functioning, in the matters with which it
could deal, under the control of the occupying power.
Within its province were all causes not belonging to the
jurisdiction of an inferior court, nor to that of Rome. We
see the Sanhedrin proceeding against Jesus for blasphemy
(Matt, xxvi, 65), Peter and John as false prophets and
seducers of the people (Acts iv, 5), Stephen as a blasphemer
(Acts vi, 13), and Paul for violating the law (Acts xxiii).
From these examples we see, too, that it took the initiative
in the matter of arrest, and, in any but a capital case
(Acts iv, 5), could give a final decision ; but it had not the
power of life and death. ' It is not lawful for us to put any
described in our sources.' He himself describes it as follows (p. 82) : ' In
this body, under the presidency of the High Priest, besides the heads of
the great priestly families, lay elders, men of rank and authority, had seats :
among both, probably, there were legal experts, scribes. The upper
priesthood was prevailingly Sadducean ; among the other members of the
Sanhedrin the Pharisean party was represented.'
1 The High Priests, called apxitpeis in the Gospel and the Acts,
fulfilled the highest sacerdotal functions : High Priest, ' officer ' of the
temple (arpaT^fb^ TOU Jepou) (Acts iv, i ; v, 24) and treasurers. Cp.
J. Jeremias, II, 17 ff. They belonged to the priestly aristocracy ; and, in
our Lord's time, they were mostly sprung from the non-Sadocite families
of Boethus, Hannas, and Phiabi, and regarded as illegitimate (ibid., pp.
54-9)-
* A.J., XVIII, i, 4, 17.
THE PASSION OF OUR LORD 335
man to death' (John xviii, 31). Of this restriction of the
judicial power of the Sanhedrin, rabbinic tradition has
preserved a memory : ' Forty years before the destruction
of the Temple, the right of life and death was taken away
from Israel ' (Sanhedrin,] ex., I, i). ' Forty years ' is inexact :
this power was lost earlier, at the time when Judea passed
under the jurisdiction of a procurator.
This outline confirms what we have already learned
from the Gospels. It was at Jerusalem that the greatest
danger threatened our Blessed Lord. For this reason it
was not possible for Him to remain there, and after a first
preaching effort He had to retire to Galilee. His subsequent
visits recorded by John were the occasion of as many crises ;
and if Jesus escaped from His enemies it was only because
His time had not yet come. And when at last, at the
request of the two sisters, He went up to Bethania, His
Apostles felt that He was going to His death. ' The Jews
but now sought to stone Thee. And goest Thou thither
again ? ' ' Let us also go that we may die with Him.'
Similarly, in Mark, we have the same picture of the Apostles,
frightened and sorrowful, following Jesus, who went before.
We have seen, too, how both sections of the Sanhedrin
were hostile. The Pharisees had declared themselves so
first, and that from the very beginning of our Lord's preach-
ing. The Sadducees were for a long time contemptuous ;
but at last the popular movement stirred them into action.
They saw in it a danger for themselves, and from that day
Christ's destruction was already decided upon in their
minds. ' It is expedient . . . that one man should die for the
people. 5 It was the same Gaiphas, who gave this advice,
who would preside a little later at our Lord's trial.
Caiphas was, in fact, High Priest at the time. This office,
which by right should have been held for life, had been for
a long while precarious and subject to the caprice of the
authorities : Herod or the Romans themselves. In the
hundred years between the rise of Herod (37 B.C.) and the
revolt against Rome (A.D. 67), we reckon twenty-eight
high priests. Eight are enumerated during the life of Christ. 1
In spite of these frequent changes in personnel, the power
1 Joasar, son of Boethus (4 B.C.), appointed by Herod ; by Archelaus :
Eleazar, son of Boethus ; Jesus, son of See ; and Joasar, a second time ;
by Quirinius : Annas (615) ; by Valerius Gratus : Ishmael, son of
Phiabi ; Eleazar, son of Annas ; Simon, son of Kamithis ; Josephus,
surnamed Caiphas (18-36).
336 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
remained in the same families more often than not. Thus
out of twenty-eight High Priests, there were eight of the
family of Annas ; himself, his son Eleazar, his son-in-law
Caiphas, his sons Jonathan, Theophilus, Matthias and
Annas, and his grandson Matthias, Theophilus' son. We
can easily understand the influence that the head of the
family, himself a former High Priest, would continue to
exercise even after his own departure from office, and we
are not surprised to see him taking the trial of Christ in
hand.
The Criminal Procedure of the Treatise ' Sanhedrin'
At the head of the story we are about to tell, it will not
be without interest to put the judicial rules drawn up by the
rabbis ; this is not in order to stress the illegalities committed
against our Lord ; there is no proof of the historical character
of all the traditions which we are about to pass in review,
even if we keep strictly to the Mishnah. 1 Besides, the crimes
of which the Jewish leaders were guilty in this affair are
graver than all possible errors of procedure which may
emerge as we trace the history of the trial. But at least in
the treatise Sanhedrin we shall find the forms of ideal justice,
as conceived by the Jews themselves ; and this will put the
gravity of their crime in a clearer light. 2
Chapter iv : In a case where the penalty is a fine
there must be three judges ; in a capital case, twenty-
three. In the one, the trial may begin with the evidence
of the witnesses for the defence, or for the prosecution, at
choice ; in the other, by that of the defence and not of the
prosecution. When the penalty is a fine, the condemna-
tion, as also the acquittal, may be carried by a majority of
a single vote ; in a capital case, a majority of one shall suffice
for acquittal, but two shall be needed for a condemnation.
When only a fine is involved, the trial may be begun by
day and finished at night ; where the penalty is death, the
whole must be carried through by day ; if the trial ends
in an acquittal it may be finished the same day ; if in a
condemnation, it must not be concluded until the morrow,
1 As we observed above with G. F. Moore, all this procedure is ' purely
academic.' We may read to the same effect H. Danby, ' The bearing of
the Rabbinical Criminal Code on the Jewish Trial Narratives in the
Gospels/ J.T.S. (October, 1919), 51-76, especially 64 ff.
Sanhedrin, ed. Strack, Berlin, 1910.
THE PASSION OF OUR LORD 337
which is why such trials do not take place on the eves of
the Sabbath or offcasts.
The Sanhedrin was arranged in a semicircle, in such a
way that the judges could see each other. Two clerks
stood before them, one on the right and the other on the
left, recording respectively the words of those who were
for condemnation, or for acquittal. Three ranks of
disciples sat before them, each having his own place. The
following method was adopted of inspiring the witnesses
in a capital case with a salutary fear. On being brought
into court they were told : ' Perhaps you mean to give
evidence resting only on supposition or hearsay, like a
witness who has learnt his testimony from another, and
who says : " We have heard this from a man worthy of
trust " ? Or perhaps you do not know that at the end we
shall check your evidence by questioning and cross-
examination ? Note well that capital cases do not
resemble those in which there is only a question of a fine.
For in these a man may give a sum of money, and all is
put right. But in capital cases, he bears the responsibility
for the blood of the condemned, and all his descendants
to the end of the world. That is why man has been
created alone in the world, to teach us that whosoever
destroys a life shall be held guilty of having destroyed a
whole world.' A witness was examined under seven
heads : ' In what week of years ? In what year ? In
what month ? On what day of the month ? On what day
of the week ? At what hour ? In what place ? ' Further,
they were asked : 'Do you know him ? Have you warned
him ? ' . . . The judge who examines well is worthy of
praise. Then the second witness was intoduced and
questioned. If their evidence was found to agree, there be-
gan the examination of possible reasons for acquittal. ... If
good reasons could be found, acquittal followed ; if not,
judgement was deferred until the next day and they went
away two by two ; they ate little and drank no wine the
whole day, and pondered the affair all night. The next
day they came early to the court. Anyone who, the night
before, had expressed himself in favour of condemnation
could, at this second session, decide for acquittal, but a
change in the opposite sense was not allowed. If twelve
were in favour of acquittal and eleven of condemnation,
the accused was acquitted ; if eleven voted for acquittal
338 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
and twelve for condemnation, appeal had to be made to
new judges to the total number of seventy-one. Once
the condemnation was pronounced, the prisoner was led
away to be stoned ; but even then, if the condemned
man claimed to have something to say in his defence, he
was brought back to the tribunal up to four or five times,
provided that his claim seemed a serious one. The public
crier preceded him, announcing : ' N N, son of N N, is
being led away to be stoned, because he has committed
such and such a crime. N N and N N are his witnesses ;
whoever knows anything in his favour, let him come
forward and make it known.'
In this legislation it is difficult to distinguish between
historical tradition and mere imagination. But that
matters little here. What is more important is to notice
how the Jewish conscience has accumulated precautions,
especially in a capital case, to avoid a precipitate judgement,
or one dictated by passion alone. The witnesses are warned
beforehand of the responsibility they incur ; the judges, so
far as possible, are put on their guard against all seduction
or attempt to force their hands. When we finish reading
this passage and turn once more to the Gospel narrative,
we pass from dreams of justice to a reality as odious and
brutal as can be conceived. However, there is one word
of the treatise that finds an echo in the Gospels and which .
even now rings in our ears, that is, the warning given to the
witness : ' ... he bears the responsibility for the blood of
the condemned ' and ' whoever destroys a life shall be held
guilty of having destroyed a whole world.' These words
indeed acquire a terrible meaning when it is remembered
that the life thus lost is that of the Son of God. ' His blood
be upon us and upon our children.'
Annas and Caiphas.
' Then the band and the tribune and the servants of
the Jews took Jesus and bound Him. And they led Him
away to Annas first, for he was father-in-law to Caiphas,
who was the High Priest of that year. . . . And Annas
sent Him bound to Caiphas, the High Priest.' (John
xviii, 12, 13, 24.!)
1 The sequence followed here assumes an inversion of the order of the
Scriptural text. Verse 24 is displaced and made to come immediately
after v. 13. This reading is adopted by the Codex Syro-Sinaiticus and by
Cyril of Alexandria. It is accepted by a large number of modern critics.
THE PASSION OF OUR LORD 339
This appearance before Annas is only known to us through
S. John, and does not bear the character of an official
examination. By permitting it Caiphas paid a mark of
respect to the head of the family and a former High Priest ;
and, moreover, in this thorny matter he probably was not
sorry to have him as a support. 1
The ' old stager ' of politics received this mark of respect
without displeasure, especially as it also ministered to his
curiosity, but he avoided becoming deeply involved in the
case, which he referred back to his son-in-law. His attitude,
curious but cautious as it was, was the same as that instinc-
tively adopted by Herod the Tetrarch, another 'fox.'
Jesus then was led to Caiphas ; ' Now Caiphas was he who
had given the counsel to the Jews : that it was expedient
that one man should die for the people ' ; in other words,
the judge who was going to try the case had already decided
what the sentence was to be. He asked Jesus of His disciples
and His doctrine, thus trying to bring together the various
and has the advantage of making it easier to harmonize the accounts of
the Synoptics and of S. John. Peter's denial occurred in the palace of
Caiphas where the Synoptics certainly placed it and it is no longer
necessary to suppose that the two palaces had one courtyard between
them (Euthymius, Godet, Fouard, etc.) ; the questioning was conducted
by Caiphas, and this also agrees with the account of the Synoptics, espe-
cially Mark and Matthew.
Still, we might ask whether there is any justification for this amendment
of the text beyond purely and simply a desire to harmonize the narratives ;
cp. Bernard, in hoc loco and introd., p. 27 ; Bauer, in hoc loco ; Schmiedel,
E.B., 4580.
Without here claiming to have settled the controversy once and for all,
we merely adopt this reading, not as certainly true, but as probable.
1 Josephus, A. J., XX, ix, i ff., writes thus about Annas and his family :
' Annas the elder was renowned for his good fortune ; for he had five sons,
all of whom were high priests of the Most High, and he himself had held
that position for a good number of years, a thing which certainly never fell
to the lot of any high priest in our time. Annas the younger, who, as we
have seen, succeeded to the High Priesthood, was a harsh manner of man
and very bold, besides being attached to the sect of the Sadducees, who
are in their judgements the cruellest of all the Jews. Annas, being a man
of this character, thought to seize a favourable moment ; Festus had just
died, Albinus was on his way to take his place ; he called together the
Sanhedrin and summoning before it James, the brother of Jesus called
the Christ, and several others, he accused them of having broken the law,
and had them stoned. This judgement roused to anger every peaceable
and law-abiding citizen in the town ; and they sent messengers in secret
to the king, demanding that Annas should henceforth be forbidden to act
in such wise for it was not the first time. And some of their number met
Albinus on his way from Alexandria and explained to him that Annas
was not allowed to call together the Sanhedrin without his permission, so
that Albinus, persuaded by them, wrote angrily to Annas threatening him
with punishment.'
340 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
elements of the trial. The questions about the disciples might
have been simply intended to make clear the significance of
our Lord's work ; but they might also have involved an
attempt to draw into the case those who had been close
followers of Christ. On this point our Lord answered
nothing at all ; here, as in the Garden, He wished to be
alone in the case. ' If therefore you seek Me, let these go
their way.' As regards His teaching He was content to
refer the High Priest to the testimony of those who had
heard Him. And here again we have an echo of Jesus'
words to His would-be captors in the Garden : ' I was
daily with you in the Temple teaching.' Witnesses of the
teaching thus given are easily found ; let them be brought.
This was to recall the judge to legal procedure : it was in
no way his duty to catch the accused in a snare, but to
confound them by witnesses. Here, too, there is a contrast
between the openness and freedom of Christ's teaching, and
all the tortuous methods and tricks used against Him. They
had spread an ambush for Him, as for a brigand, when they
could have arrested Him any day in the Temple ; now they
try to catch Him in a snare, as if He was a knave and a
seducer, while all the time He had taught in the most open
way : ' I have spoken openly to the world. I have always
taught in the synagogue and in the Temple whither all the
Jews resort. And in secret I have spoken nothing. Why
askest thou Me ? Ask them who have heard what I have
spoken unto them. Behold, they know what things I have
said.' To this the High Priest made no reply, but one of his
officers showed his zeal by rudely striking our Lord in the
face. Later, S. Paul would be treated in the same way and at
the express order of the High Priest himself (Acts xxiii 1,2):
' Men, brethren, I have conversed with all good conscience
before God until the present day. And the High Priest
Ananias commanded them that stood by him to strike him
on the mouth. Then Paul said to him : God shall strike
thee, thou whited wall. For sittest thou to judge me accord-
ing to the law and, contrary to the law, commandest me to
be struck ? ' We see from this example that these brutalities
were well within the customs of the Sanhedrists : S. Paul's
indignation was quite natural, and who would blame him ?
But in its calm and dignity our Lord's reply was of an
infinitely superior kind. ' If I have spoken evil, give
testimony of the evil ; but if well, why strikest thou Me ? '
THE PASSION OF OUR LORD 341
We recognize here the same sovereign voice that we heard
in the Garden so restrained and yet so full of power : and
during the Passion its accent will be the same. Surely
there is the ideal Martyr whose portrait is painted for us by
Jeremias suffering, sorrowful, broken to the soul's depth,
crying to God in the anguish of his heart and yet : ' a wall
of brass ... to the kings of Juda, to the princes thereof, and
to the priests and the people of the land.'
By this first examination the High Priest was led to realize
the danger of the proceeding in which he was engaged ;
he could not tell yet whether he would be likely to triumph
over the discretion of the Accused, leading Him on to the
imprudent statements for which he hoped. At least he
felt keenly the necessity of preparing for to-morrow's session,
and of collecting witnesses whose agreement among them-
selves he would secure. The rest of the night was devoted
to these manoeuvres and to gathering the Sanhedrin
together. But while this violent and confused scene was
taking place inside the palace, another drama was being
played out in the court of a kind still more painful to our
Lord. This was the fall of His Apostle, of the very man
who was to be the unshakable rock on which the Church
would be built. 1
The three Synoptics describe S. Peter's denial as taking
place in the court of Caiphas' palace. But while Matthew
and Mark insert in the middle of this incident the story of our
Lord's examination, Luke proceeds without interruption
with the story of S. Peter's denial, adding immediately an
account of our Lord's illrtreatment and of His final examina-
tion before the High Priest. It is in Luke, too, that we find
the touching incident of Jesus looking at Peter. In spite
of difference of detail, it is beyond question that the same
fact is recorded by the Synoptics and S. John. The
synoptical writers explicitly recall our Lord's prediction of
the event (Matt, xvi, 75 ; Mark xiv, 72 ; Luke xxii, 61),
while John (xviii, 27) refers to it implicitly but very clearly
nevertheless.
Under these circumstances, everything leads us to dis-
cover in all three narratives the record of a triple fall. No
doubt, in detail the evangelists differ from each other, and
1 Matt, xxvi, 58, 69-75 ; Mark xiv, 54, 66-72 ; Luke xxii, 54-63 ;
John xviii, 15-18, 25-7.
342 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
if we wished to construct a complete and minute account
of all the denials we should find more than three.
But it is more to the point to consider the three principal
situations in which the Apostle succumbed. The scene of
the fall is the court of the sacerdotal palace, into which
Peter had followed John. x There he found himself mingling
with the crowd of servants of the High Priest.
The first test was a question on the part of one of these.
John, who was known in the house, had had no difficulty
in getting in ; but his friend, Peter, remained outside.
Seeing this, John said a word to the portress and secured
his admission, while John himself did not remain in the
court but went on into the palace to follow the examination
of Christ. So Peter, finding himself alone in the court,
acted like the others and drew near to the fire, thus placing
himself in full view of them all. The servant-maid looked at
him closely for a moment and then recognizing him, said
to the others : ' This man also was with Him ' (Luke xxii,
56) ; and then addressing him directly : ' Art thou not also
one of his disciples ? ' And he answered before them all :
' I know not what thou sayest.'
Feeling himself suspect, Peter drew aside a little, retiring
to the porch (Matt., Mark) ; but the alarm had been given,
and on all sides questions began. ' This is one of them ' ;
' Art not thou also one of this man's disciples ? ' But he
denied it again, strengthening his denial by an oath.
Yet another hour passed and the questions began again,
and this time they were more pressing ; Peter's accent
and dialect betrayed him and gave the lie to his denials ;
moreover, a relation of Malchus asked : ' Did I not see thee
in the garden with Him ? ' And the unhappy Apostle,
feeling himself thus pressed on all sides, went on stubbornly
with his denials and oaths and curses, doubtless in the
traditional form : ' May God do so to me, and more also,
if I have ever known that man.'
And then the cock crew, and Christ came out, encumbered
with bonds, and crossed the court, and as He did so looked
at His faithless Apostle. And Peter awoke, as if from a bad
dream ; the look, the crowing of the cock, the prophecy
which it recalled to his mind, all this brought him to him-
self, and suddenly he saw as an accomplished fact the very
1 The anonymous disciple mentioned must, it would seem, be John
(John xviii, 15 ff.}.
THE PASSION OF OUR LORD 343
fault that he had believed impossible and had committed
almost without being aware of the fact. He burst into sobs
and went away.
So heavy a fall, following closely upon the most im-
passioned declaration of fidelity and perseverance until
death, is a terrible warning to Christians of every age. No
doubt that is why the Lord permitted it, as well as to teach
the lesson of the flesh's weakness to His Apostle, so pre-
sumptuous up to then. It would seem that this presumption
was his greatest fault. Warned so often, he had constantly
neglected to watch and pray, and consequently had been
content to rely on himself and on the fervour of which he
was conscious, which was so soon to grow feeble and
cold. The torpor that came over him in the Garden was
the first sign of weakness. He had thrown it off by an effort
when he drew his sword and struck Malchus, but all his
strength was spent in this act of inconsiderate zeal, dis-
owned by our Lord Himself. He had seen Christ give
Himself up, and the others flee, and he did as they. Still,
he recovered himself once more. He could not take a share
in abandoning One whom he loved passionately, after all,
and he was determined to ' see the end.' So he took his
stand by the palace gate, where John observed him and
took him in, alas, exposing him to temptation. This
temptation was of a kind for which he was little prepared
and which was most dangerous for him : ' Peter was brave
and would perhaps have shown more resolution if he had
been attacked more openly, and by armed force. But he
was always sensitive to other people's opinion (Gal. ii, n) ;
and now he flees before it, trying to escape by an equivoca-
tion, affecting not to understand. Actually this was
equivalent to saying that he was not our Lord's disciple,
but the terms were not formal ' (Lagrange) . Caught in this
net, he became more and more involved, passing on to
formal denials, oaths and curses, until Jesus passed and saved
His unhappy disciple by a look.
These sobs and tears of Peter were his salvation. We
tremble to think of the despair that might have seized upon
this unhappy Apostle, with his sensitive nature, at the
thought of his terrible sin. But we remember our Lord's
own words : ' Simon, Simon, behold Satan hath desired
to have you, that he may sift you as wheat. But I have
prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not : and thou, being
VOL. II. Z
344 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
once converted, confirm thy brethren ' (Luke xxii, 31-32).
We remember, too, the storm on the lake, and Peter's
sincere but presumptuous request : ' Lord, if it be Thou,
bid me come to Thee upon the waters, 5 and how, seized
with sudden doubt, he began to sink, and was rescued by
our Lord. To-day the storm is more violent, and the abyss
deeper ; but if he was already sinking, the same Hand grips
him still ; and henceforth he knows that it alone can save.
Jesus had saved Peter, but He Himself remained, a play-
thing in His enemies' hands. ' . . . They spat in His face
and buffeted Him, and others struck His face with the
palms of their hands, saying, Prophesy unto us, O Christ,
who is he that struck Thee ? ' (Matt, xxvi, 67, 68 ; cp.
Mark xiv, 65). And the servants imitated their masters,
giving themselves up to the sport with a light heart :
' (they) mocked Him and struck Him. And they
blindfolded Him and smote His face. And they asked Him,
saying : Prophesy, who is it that struck Thee ? 31 (Luke
xxii, 63).
After what had taken place in full council before the
High Priest, these revolting outrages can cause no surprise.
We have only to think of the long-standing grudges
accumulated against our Lord, and of the many attempts
to seize and do Him to death. At last, the Sanhedrists had
Him at their mercy ; each one contributed his blow or his
insult, while the servants went further than their masters
in these displays of brutality and hate.
And Jesus kept silence. This is not to say, however, that
He was insensible to these scandalous affronts. Indeed He
felt all their bitterness. In His predictions about His
Passion, He made no reference to them at first ; but, on
the last occasion, on His way from Jericho to Jerusalem,
when He wished more carefully than ever to forewarn His
Apostles against all the disasters that were to come, He
mentioned this evil treatment as among the most painful
torments He would undergo :
' Behold, we go up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man
shall be betrayed to the chief priests and to the scribes
1 This brutal sport of the soldiers seems to have been suggested by a
children's game, similar enough to our own Blind Man's Buff, and thus
described by Pollux (Onomast., IX, 129) : ' Someone covers his eyes with
his hands ; another strikes him, asking him with which hand he had
struck him ; this is called coXXajS^ety' (quoted by W. C. van Unnik,
Z.n.t.W., 1930, p. 311).
THE PASSION OF OUR LORD 345
and ancients. And they shall condemn Him to death
and shall deliver Him to the Gentiles. And they shall
mock Him and spit on Him and scourge Him and kill
Him : and the third day He shall rise again.' (Mark x,
33, 34-)
These indignities would be renewed shortly in Pilate's
house, with greater cruelty but less religious caricature ;
while on His very Cross the dying Lord would be exposed
to the derision of His foes.
And so it was throughout His Passion. Our Blessed Lord
was always to suffer both ignominy and torture, thus at the
same time making reparation for our faults both of sensuality
and pride. After commenting on these painful incidents
S. Ghrysostom adds (Horn. Ixxxv, 757) : ' Let us never cease
to read these stories ; let us listen to them as we should ; let
us grave them on our heart, for they are our glory. Here is
what gives me sublime thoughts of Christ not only the
myriads whom He has raised from the dead, but the suffering
He has endured. These are the memories that S. Paul puts
unceasingly before our eyes : His cross, His death, His
sufferings, the insults, mockeries and outrages He endured.'
And then he adds : ' Let us go forth, therefore, to Him
without the camp, bearing his reproach ' (Heb. xiii, 13).
The Condemnation of Jesus by the Sanhedrin. (Matt, xxvi, 59-
xxvii, 2 ; Mark xiv, 53-xv, i ; Luke xxii, 54-xxiii, I. 1 )
The event described in these passages is of capital impor-
tance in the story of the Passion of our Blessed Lord. The
condemnation before Pilate would be no more than the
result of what was decided by the Sanhedrin at this time.
In the rejection of the Messias, the rupture between God and
His people is complete, and it is in this sinister assembly
that it takes place. But at the same time this scene, so full
of pain and shame if we think of the part played in it by
our Lord's enemies, takes on an entirely opposite aspect
when we turn our attention to Jesus Himself. For it was
then that He gave that categorical testimony of Himself
1 The examination of Jesus is reported by Matthew and Mark as having
taken place at the night session ; by Luke, at the morning session. ' Luke's
order is much more probable ; we cannot really admit the possibility of
two sessions almost exactly similar ' (Lagrange, L'Evangile, p. 544, n. i).
S. John says nothing of this session.
346 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
that He was about to seal with His own blood. Until
then, knowing that His hour had not come. He had
avoided this express declaration, which His enemies sought
to wring from Him in vain. ' How long dost Thou hold
our souls in suspense ? If Thou be the Christ, tell us plainly '
(John x, 24) . Especially during this last week the Pharisees
had multiplied questionings and traps to force Jesus either
to disclaim His Messiasship or to acknowledge it in an
unequivocal way. But He had always foiled their man-
oeuvres in the past. Now He was going to anticipate them
instead, and, applying to Himself the most formal prophetic
passages of the Old Testament, declare Himself Messias
and Son of God. The years of instruction were passed and
the time of martyrdom had come. He would bear testimony
to Himself. And so at this stage of His trial, where He
seemed to be the plaything of His enemies, Christ triumphed
after all. In spite of Caiphas and his friends, the decisive
question as to our Lord's Messiasship and Divine Sonship
was put just as He willed it to be. Every effort was made
to draw Him on to other ground, and to secure His con-
demnation as a blasphemer of the Temple ; but the whole
network of captious testimony fell to pieces of its own
accord, and the decisive question had to be put : ' Art
Thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One ? n
1 Several critics of the radical school, for example, Wellhausen and
Montefiore (ist ed., p. 348 ; 2nd ed., p. 355), have attempted to correct
the Gospel narrative (this correction has been rightly rejected by Ed.
Meyer, I, pp. 188 ff.). The Gospel text distinguishes clearly between two
juridical charges brought against Christ ; the first, formulated by the
witnesses, relates to the destruction of the Temple ; the second, raised by
the question of the High Priest, is founded on the messianic claims. It is
suggested that only the first of these two is historic. The first argument
put up is that our Lord's claim to be the Messias was not a blasphemy :
' To the Jews, a man who claimed to be the Messiah was not a criminal,
as he was to the Romans. Although one cannot well doubt that Jesus
ended by representing Himself publicly as the Messiah, and was therefore
crucified by Pilate, nevertheless His condemnation by the Jewish author-
ities must necessarily have had another legal motive than this. According
to Jewish ideas there could be no blasphemy in a man's declaring himself
to be the Messiah, the Son of God ' (Montefiore, 2nded., 356). He adds that
the earliest Christians largely shared the Jewish respect for the Temple, and
they would have hated to think that it was for having blasphemed against
it that Jesus had been condemned. They preferred to divert the force of
the accusation against the messianic claim, which was the great bone of
contention between Jews and Christians.
This is all very ingenious, but very weak ; we shall see presently that
the messianic claims of Jesus, formulated as they were, could have seemed
blasphemous to His enemies. As for the words relating to the Temple,
we can understand that they had been collected and repeated by witnesses
THE PASSION OF OUR LORD 347
We notice from the first, in the Gospel records, the attempts
of Christ's enemies to combine under one head many false
testimonies. The rabbinical writings themselves seem to
preserve the memory of a snare set for our Lord. 1 And
this is a curious fact when we remember that, of His life and
trial, they have, for the most part, preserved only traces,
half concealed and deliberately defaced.
The first thing to be remarked in the Gospel narrative
is that Judas appears to have no place in this inquiry. And
yet his testimony would have been of the greatest value to
our Lord's enemies, enabling them to penetrate to the
intimacy of the apostolic band. For example, it might have
brought out the incident at Cassarea Philippi and the
explicit declaration of Messiasship there made, which they
had looked for elsewhere in vain. It is probable that, by
this time, the traitor had come to look with horror on the
part he had played. He had promised to deliver up his
Master, and had fingered his money. He had carried out
the task for which he had been paid, but he would go no
further, contenting himself with watching the results of his
treason from a distance, and not without anguish of mind.
In default of him, the Sanhedrists had at their call only
persons drawn from the vulgar crowd of the Master's
hearers, who, without following the Master closely or being
intimately initiated into His teaching, had listened to Him
from time to time. They denounced, while at the same
time garbling what had been said about the Temple by
our Lord. In John ii, 18, we are told that when He drove
the traffickers out of the Temple, He was asked to prove by
for the prosecution, who were merely searching their memories for some
pretext on which to base a condemnation, but they bore too manifestly
the mark of a misapprehension to be able to support the whole structure of
the trial, even before the most biased of judges. To get out of the difficulty,
Caiphas tried to provoke our Lord to declare Himself the Messias, just as
the Pharisees had so often tempted Him to do. And this time, contrary,
no doubt, to his expectation, Jesus completely disclosed Himself and
rendered any further examination unnecessary.
1 Sanhedrin, X, n : 'In the case of those accused on a capital charge,
resort is not to be had to a trick except in the case of those deemed guilty
of leading others astray. Two of the sage's disciples are posted in an inner
room, he himself being made to sit in the outer one, where a lamp is placed
in such a way that (the witnesses) can see him and hear every word he
says. In this way Ben Stada was dealt with at Lud. Two of the sage's
disciples were chosen to spy on him, and they led him to the Sanhedrin
and stoned him.'
This passage was developed a little by the Gemara of Jerusalem and
also that of Babylon, and the second version is especially interesting.
348 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
a sign His right to act in such a way. And His answer
was : ' Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise
it up. The Jews then said : Six and forty years was this
temple in building ; and wilt Thou raise it up in three days ?
But He spoke of the temple of His body. When, therefore.
He was risen again from the dead, His disciples remembered
that He had said this : and they believed the scripture and
the word that Jesus had said ' (John ii, 19-22).
Our Lord's hearers were misled as to the meaning of this
saying, and it was not until after the resurrection that it
was understood by the disciples themselves ; but however
obscure it might be, it could not have appeared as a
blasphemy unless its form were completely changed. This
is what it became in the testimony of these two men : ' I
am able to destroy the temple of God and after three days
to rebuild it ' (Matthew) ; ' I will destroy this temple
made with hands, and within three days I will build another
not made with hands ' (Mark).
All this was neither consistent nor clear ; still, it was a
grave charge. To the Jews, the Temple was the most
sacred thing on earth and, as Fr. Lagrange reminds us,
Jeremias had been judged worthy of death for having
prophesied its fall (Jer. xxvi, 6). It is possible that to
Christ's words, as John records them, there had been added
prophecies uttered by our Lord during this last week.
The whole of this examination has been briefly summar-
After describing, like the Tosephta, the relative dispositions of the
witnesses, it goes on : ' Someone says to him : " Tell me privately what
thou saidst to me." And he tells him. And another says to him : "How
is it necessary that we should desert our God, who is in Heaven, to practise
a false religion ? " If he repents, it is well. If, on the other hand, he says :
" It is our duty, in such wise we are bound to do," the witnesses listening
outside (here the relative dispositions are reversed) lead him away to Beth-
Din and stone him. Even so did they with Ben Stada at Lud, and they
hung him on the eve of the Passover ' (b. Sank., 6ya).
Ben Stada here, as elsewhere in the Talmud, is another name for Jesus.
The mention of Lud (Lydda) is rather strange ; it is explained possibly by
the fact that after the destruction of Jerusalem Lydda became the capital
of Rabbinical Judaism. The Tosephta says that Jesus was stoned ; but
elsewhere one reads : ' He was hung on the eve of the Passover ' (b.
Sank., 6ya).
In respect of the other details it is difficult to follow Herford who
delves back for their historical origins. All that is necessary to remember
is that in the Rabbinical tradition the trial of Jesus was conducted outside
the normal regulations, and that His condemnation was obtained by a
trap ; the whole business was rather dishonest, and the Rabbis in their
hearts felt so themselves ; but with a seducer, they thought, anything
was allowable. Cp. Herford, Christianity in Talmud and Midrash (London,
1903'), pp. 78 fi-
THE PASSION OF OUR LORD 349
ized by the evangelists ; but what they say about it is
sufficient to show the prejudice and embarrassment of the
judge by whom the inquiry was carried on. There was no
lack of witnesses ; they had come in considerable numbers
in fact ; but they all were confused, and contradicted each
other until the evidence of the two whose deposition is here
recorded was reached. To escape from the difficulty,
Caiphas asked Jesus what He had to say in reply to all this. 1
But our Lord kept silence, and His silence deprived
Caiphas of his last weapon. So, in despair of gaining any-
thing of value on the question of the destruction of the
Temple, the High Priest passed to another question the
essential question really, but kept back until then. ' Art
Thou the Christ, the Son of God ? ' and he put the question
in such a way as to make the reply an oath : ' I adjure thee
by the living God ' (Matt.).
This, it would have seemed, was the first question to
have put to Christ, for there lay the great quarrel between
the leaders of the people and Himself. Further, it was
the only complaint of a religious kind that would make any
impression upon Pilate ; and in bringing Jesus before the
governor, it was most necessary to put the matter on this
ground. So it may well be asked, why was this not done
at once ? 2
To put the question directly on the ground of messianic
claims was, from several points of view, little to be desired.
To claim to be the Messias was not, in itself, a blasphemy,
at least if not associated as usually with more ambitious
claims. It was, therefore, difficult to hope to destroy Jesus
1 The text of Mark it would seem, must be rendered in the form of two
separate questions : ' Answerest Thou nothing ? What witness do these
men bring against Thee ? '
2 So he decided (not, of course, without a certain reluctance, since he
had not so begun) to ask Jesus point-blank whether He claimed to be the
Messias or not. To understand the gravity of this question in the trial, we
must bear in mind two facts. First, they had thoroughly set their faces
against acknowledging the messianic dignity of the Galilean which, besides,
did not present itself at all in the form previously determined upon by the
science of the schools, and the popular conceptions of the time. Second, if
by chance Jesus had said : " No, I am not " (which He might easily have
done, for the very reasons we have just pointed out), all the legal pretexts
for a death-sentence would have been lacking, and it would have been
necessary to have recourse to some extra-judiciary violence which, on
account of the Romans, was difficult, as we shall see later on. Possibly
they would have been reduced to discrediting Him before the people by a
negative statement, getting Him out of the way later at the first oppor-
tunity that occurred ' (Reuss, Hist. Evang., 664).
350 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
in this way. And then, the fresh memory of recent con-
troversies had warned the Pharisees of the extreme difficulty
they would find in enticing our Lord on to ground where
He was not willing to follow and in drawing Him out of a
reserve which had become with Him a rule. It was for them
to remember the discomfiture of those who had asked on
what authority Christ had acted, or again of those who had
questioned Him on the tribute to be given to Czesar. If,
then, before all the people, ready to defend Him if He
asserted His messianic role, or to be scandalized if He denied
it, it had not been possible to make Him declare Himself,
greater success could scarcely be hoped for in this judicial
examination, in which Jesus knew that the witnesses had
failed to accomplish His destruction, and that He could no
longer be compromised by His own replies.
To Caiphas the hope of success seemed slight, but it was
the last chance, and he tried it, adding urgency to his
questions by the solemn adjuration which accompanied
them. Thus, judicially examined by the highest religious
authority of the nation, and commanded in God's name to
reply, He did so. He knew that this reply would sign His
death-warrant, but He, first of all the martyrs, was willing
to seal, by His testimony and His blood, this truth on which
our whole faith rests. For the rest, it must be observed
that Caiphas' questions and Jesus' reply went beyond the
simple claim of Messiasship and reached the level of the
divine Sonship itself. 1
The dicussion that had taken place in the Temple during
this week had thrown a vivid light on the preaching of our
Lord. His pressing questions about the Messias, the Son
1 On this particularly important point we need to notice the subtle
shades of difference between the three Synoptics. Matt, xxvi, 63, 64 :
' And the High Priest said to Him : I adjure Thee by the living God,
that Thou tell us if Thou be the Christ, the Son of God. Jesus saith to
him : Thou hast said it. Nevertheless I say to you, hereafter you shall
see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of the power of God, and
coming in the clouds of heaven.' Mark xiv, 61 : ' Again the High Priest
asked Him, and said to Him : Art Thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed
God ? And Jesus said to him : I am. And you shall see the Son of Man
sitting on the right hand of the power of God, and coming with the clouds
of heaven.' Luke xxii, 66-70 : ' And as soon as it was day, the ancients of
the people, and the chief priests and scribes came together, and they
brought Him into their council, saying : If Thou be the Christ, tell us.
And He saith to them : If I shall tell you, you will not believe Me : and if
I shall also ask you, you will not answer Me, nor let Me go. But hereafter
the Son of Man shall be sitting on the right hand of the power of God.
THE PASSION OF OUR LORD 351
of David, and the parable of the husbandmen, had made it
clear to all, both friends and enemies, that the Messiasship
that He claimed implied a higher origin than that in-
volved in Davidic descent, and united Him to His Father,
God, by ties which isolated Him from humanity at large :
other men were servants ; He the only and well-beloved
Son.
All this had been said openly in the Temple, face to face
with the Pharisees, and had not failed to be reported to the
chief priests, who just then were thinking of nothing but of
preparing a case against Jesus. These, therefore, were the
statements that suggested to Gaiphas the questions that
he put to our Lord. No more than the rest of his party did
the High Priest take the messianic hopes seriously ; much
less was he tempted to go beyond the popular beliefs. If
he did so on this occasion, it was because he was led to it
by our Lord's own statements and because, in these high
claims, he sensed the possibility of the imprudent avowal
that it was his object to obtain.
And, the moment he heard it, he emphasized its sig-
nificance by the indignation that he affected ; tearing his
clothes and crying aloud that blasphemy had taken place.
It is admitted, 1 and we have already observed as much,
that a mere claim to be the Messias was not regarded as a
blasphemy in itself. What in Caiphas' eyes constituted
the blasphemy here, was the superhuman and truly divine
dignity that, in proclaiming that He was the Messias, Jesus
asserted for Himself.
This accusation of blasphemy, which alone could involve
condemnation to death, was all that Caiphas had in view
in this examination, and we can understand with what
eagerness he seized upon it, turning it to his own ends. At
last he had his prey within his grasp, and on the horns of a
fatal dilemma. Either He must deny His mission or con-
Then said they all : Art Thou then the Son of God ? Who said : You
say that I am.'
According to Matthew and Mark, the High Priest asks Him point-blank :
' Art Thou the Christ, the Son of God ? ' According to Luke, the question
is simply : ' If Thou be the Christ, tell us ! ' And Jesus' reply, stating
definitely His claim to be Messias, leads to the second question : ' Art
Thou then the Son of God ? '
1 Billerbeck, I, 1017 : ' The Jewish conscience was not shocked at the
idea of the man chosen by God to be the Messias knowing and representing
himself as such. . . . Consequently the High Priest could have seen no
blasphemy in a simple claim on our Lord's part to be the Messias.'
352 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
demn Himself to death. He seemed to have triumphed ;
but the real victor was the Condemned. Jesus was going
to His death, and He knew it and willed it too. But He would
not undergo this death, prepared for Him by His enemies
under a pretext that was false. He intended His death to
be a martyrdom, which should put upon His teaching the
final seal, so He rejected or ignored all false charges : before
the Sanhedrin it is no longer a question of the Temple ;
and shortly, before Pilate, the charge of sedition would
have to be given up. If He is condemned by the Jewish
and Roman tribunals, it will be as the Son of God. So far
from avoiding or ignoring this accusation, He affirmed it
in the clearest terms.
To convey the full force of this declaration, our Lord
appealed to two of the most explicit passages to be found in
the Old Testament. One of these is Dan. vii, 13, 14 :
' I beheld therefore in the vision of the night, and lo,
one like the son of man came with the clouds of heaven.
And he came even to the Ancient of days : and they
presented him before him. And he gave him power
and glory and a kingdom : and all peoples, tribes and
tongues shall serve him. His power is an everlasting
power that shall not be taken away : and his kingdom
that shall not be destroyed. 5
This passage, vividly echoed in the Book of Enoch, was
familiar to all Jews, and Christ had already appealed to it
more than once. This title of ' Son of Man,' which He had
adopted almost as His personal name, called up this superb
vision, and, almost always when He presented Himself under
this title to His Apostles, He reminded them of the vast
perspectives that that vision contained. And He added
that this Son of Man would appear seated at the right hand
of the Power (of God) . This was an allusion to another
messianic text, also well known to the Jews (Ps. cix, i) :
' The Lord said to my Lord : Sit Thou at My right hand. 3
Scarcely a few days before, our Lord had reminded the
Pharisees of this verse, while asking them how the Messias,
whom they recognized as the Son of David, could be at the
same time David's Lord. They were confounded and
silenced, and now He repeats this verse, applying it to
Himself and presenting Himself not only as the Messias,
son of David, but as His Lord.
THE PASSION OF OUR LORD 353
And in making this reply Christ was not only vindicating
His title but also giving a last warning to those by whom
He was judged. To all appearance He was delivered into
their power, helpless and already condemned ; and yet
this hour of darkness was, for Him, the dawn of a triumphal
day. We have observed several times how, in S. John, our
Lord's torments were to be also the principle of His exalta-
tion : ' I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all
things to Myself. 3 And on this day, in the darkest hour of
His Passion, He repeats this statement with the same
assurance : ' Hereafter you shall see the Son of Man sitting
on the right hand of the power of God.' The proto-martyr
of the Church before his judges would be granted the vision
of this glory of Christ : ' I see the heavens opened and the
Son of Man standing on the right hand of God ' (Acts vii,
56) . On hearing this, Stephen's judges fell into a transport
of rage ; stopping their ears, they threw themselves upon
him, and dragged him outside the city to stone him. The
Master was treated like the disciple would be later on.
The High Priest tore his clothes : ' What further need have
we of witnesses ? Behold, now you have heard the blas-
phemy. What think you ? But they answering, said : He
is guilty of death.' 1 Then they knew what procedure to
take and what accusations to bring, and at once betook
themselves to the Pretorium, dragging Jesus with them as
they went. It was then that Judas, seeing his Master
condemned, suddenly understood the enormity of his
crime, and gave way to despair. S. Matthew relates how
this revulsion of feeling took place :
' Then Judas, who betrayed Him, seeing that He was
condemned, repenting himself, brought back the thirty
pieces of silver to the chief priests and ancients, saying :
I have sinned in betraying innocent blood. But they
said : What is that to us ? Look thou to it. And casting
down the pieces of silver in the Temple, he departed and
went and hanged himself with an halter. But the chief
1 People rent their garments as a sign of grief, at the death of a father,
a mother, or a master (Billerbeck, I, 1007) ; also to express pain and
indignation at hearing a blasphemy. It was customary for judges to do it
when a witness gave them the terms of a blasphemy he had heard : Sank.,
vii, 5 (ibid., 1022). When the witnesses had concluded their evidence, the
judge presiding would turn to his assistants with the question : ' Will you
give me your opinion ? ' They would reply : ' For life ' or ' For death '
(Billerbeck, I, 1020, following Tanchuma, I26a).
354 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
priests having taken the pieces of silver, said : It is not
lawful to put them into the corbona, because it is the
price of blood.' (Matt, xxvii, 3-6.)
This incident is described with almost cruel precision and
restraint. All Satan's victims come under review just as
Satan had left them when they had done his work. Judas,
whom he needed no longer and had thrust contemptuously
on one side ; the priests who swallowed the camel while
they strained out the gnat ; they had no scruple about
Christ's death, yet dared not touch the price of blood, and
would use it to perform a work of charity. And Judas,
driven to despair at the thought of his crime, went away
and hanged himself.
This tragic story stands out in a still more vivid light if
we compare it with the ideal legislation represented by the
Rabbis as that followed by the Sanhedrin. We may well
ask where are the grave admonitions to the witnesses not
to burden their conscience in any way ; where those repeated
appeals for witnesses for the defence, never ceasing even on
the road to execution itself. Here none care for the traitor's
distress. c I have sinned in betraying innocent blood.'
' What is that to us ? Look thou to it.' Not a soul thought
of turning this change of attitude to the benefit of the
accused. Only one thing matters now : to force Pilate's
hand and wring a condemnation from him.
There are to be found in Christian antiquity one or two
authors who have somehow managed to take the part of
the traitor in his despairing death. Origen, In Matt. (P.G.,
XIII, 1766-7), although he dare not excuse him, interprets
his death in this too-indulgent way : ' As soon as he saw
Jesus delivered to Pilate, he repented ; perhaps he remem-
bered that Christ had often spoken of His future resurrection
to His disciples. So, realizing what he had lost, Judas
repented and confessed his sin in betraying the blood of the
Just One, but he did not know how his repentance was to
be carried out. He could think of nothing but to anticipate
the death of his Master by his own, and to go before Him in
his soul separated from the body, to obtain mercy by con-
fession and prayer.' This strange interpretation has found
no echo in the Church, nor should it ; it was not after
death, in the other life, that Judas could hope to obtain his
pardon, but in the very hour of his sin, like Peter, by a look
THE PASSION OF OUR LORD 355
from Christ. But he had to get the better of his despair,
believing still in the love of Him whom he had betrayed.
Judas had not the courage to make this supreme effort ; he
hanged himself, and on his memory hangs the terrible
judgement of Christ : ' It were better for him if that man
had not been born.' 1
IV. The Roman Trial.
The procurator before whom Jesus was about to appear 2
was one of those who governed longest in Judea. Appointed
by Tiberius in the twelfth year of his reign (26), he remained
in charge ten years. It would be rash to see in the length
of his administration the proof of his integrity. In these
matters Tiberius applied a principle that he held dear,
namely that newly-arrived governors make haste to enrich
themselves, but when they have been in charge for some
time they are less avaricious, having already had their fill.
This pleasantry he enlivened by a comparison for which
Josephus is our authority (A.J., XVIII, vi, 5) : ' A wounded
traveller lay stretched out upon a road, his wound covered
with flies. These were observed by a passer-by who, out of
pity, wished to drive them away. " Do nothing of the kind,"
said the wounded man : " these are already gorged and
less greedy ; if you drive them away, others, more voracious,
will come." ' This little parable does not suggest a high
idea of the integrity of his administrators on Tiberius' part,
nor did Pilate merit any such regard. Some contemporary
historians have sought to rehabilitate him, notably Jackson
and Lake in their book, The Beginnings of Christianity (p. 13) ;
and Renan (Vie de Jesus, 414) had already written : ' All the
acts of Pilate known to us show him as a good administrator.
In his first years of office he had had difficulties with his
subjects, whom he had dealt with very brutally, but not, it
would seem, at bottom, without reason. The Jews must
have seemed to him a backward people. No doubt he would
1 The Cainite Gnostics made Judas one of their heroes. He had, accord-
ing to them, the especial merit of having overturned the power of the
Demiurge in causing the death of Christ ; they even attributed to him a
Gospel of Judas : Iren., I, 31, i ; Epiph., kaer., I, 38, i ; Theodoret,
haeret. fabul., I, 15 ; ps. Tert., 2. This is an instance of those absurd
imaginings by which the Gnostic sects allowed themselves to be carried
away.
2 On this appearance before the judges, cp. Regnault, Une province
procuratorienne au debut de I' empire remain. Le proces de Jesus-Christ,
Paris, 1909 ; K. Kastner, Jesus vor Pilatus, Miinster, 1912.
356 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
have judged them as a liberal prefect would have judged the
old-fashioned Bretons, flying into revolt at the opening of
a new road, or the establishment of a school.' ' The Jewish
historians who refer to the matter are far from speaking in
this detached tone. So Josephus (B.J., II, ix, 2, 169 ff.) :
' Pilate, who had been sent by Tiberius as procurator
into Judea, had the effigies of Caesar, known as insignia,
brought into Jerusalem by night and covered with a veil.
When the morning came this spectacle stirred up a great
tumult among the Jews. The Jewish mob gathered round
Pilate at Caesarea to implore him to withdraw the insignia
from Jerusalem and to maintain the laws that their ancestors
had handed down. Since Pilate refused, they lay down
around his house and there remained prostrate for five
days and five nights. The next day Pilate sat before his
tribunal in the Grand Stadium and called together the
people on the pretext of giving them a reply. Then he gave
the signal to the soldiers in arms to surround the Jews.
When they saw the troops massed around them in three
ranks the Jews were in consternation at this spectacle, entirely
unforeseen. Having threatened to slaughter them if they
did not receive Caesar's images, Pilate made a sign to the
soldiers to draw their swords. But the Jews with one
accord threw themselves on the ground in close ranks, offering
their necks to the blade, declaring themselves ready to die
rather than violate their law. Struck with astonishment
before such ardent religious zeal, Pilate gave the order to
withdraw the insignia from Jerusalem without delay. A
little later he caused another rising by using up the sacred
treasure known as Corbona to make an aqueduct, the
water being brought a distance of more than fifty miles.
At this news the people were filled with indignation, and
gathered vociferating around Pilate's tribunal, he being
then at Jerusalem. But he, having foreseen the sedition,
had taken care to mingle with the crowd a troop of soldiers,
armed but in civilian dress, and while forbidding them to
use the sword commanded them to strike the demonstrators
with clubs. From the vantage-point of his tribunal he gave
the agreed signal, and the Jews perished in large numbers,
some under the soldiers' blows, some by crushing each other
in their flight. The mass of the people, terrified by this
massacre, fell back in silence.'
THE PASSION OF OUR LORD 357
Similarly, Philo, quoting a letter from Agrippa to Gaius :
' Pilate, who was procurator of Judea, consecrated inside
Jerusalem, in Herod's palace, some golden shields, less to
honour Tiberius than to displease the people. They bore
upon them no image nor anything that was expressly
forbidden, but only an inscription containing the names of
those who had dedicated them and him to whom the
dedication had been made. The news having spread, the
people assembled and sent the king's four sons as a deputation
to the procurator. . . . To these entreaties Pilate gave a
refusal full of the spirit of inflexible obstinacy, for he was ol
a hard and self-opinionated character. . . . Then there was
a cry : " We will not address ourselves to you, we will send
deputies to carry a petition to the supreme lord himself."
These words increased his irritation more than anything
else. He was afraid that, if deputies were sent, the
other misdeeds of his administration would be discovered :
his robberies, his injustices, his outrages, the citizens
whom he had put to death without trial, and finally
his insupportable cruelty in general. Wounded to the
quick, Pilate did not know what step to take. He dared
not remove the consecrated objects, nor did he wish to
be more lenient to his subjects ; besides, he knew Tiberius'
severity in matters of this kind. The Jewish leaders divined
the state of affairs easily enough, and saw that Pilate
regretted what he had done, although he did not wish
to show it. So they wrote to Tiberius a letter filled with
petitions couched in the humblest terms. Although little
inclined to anger, when the Emperor heard of Pilate's
reply and of his threats, he became visibly annoyed, a fact
scarcely worth recording, since its proof is in the event. On
the spot and without putting the matter off for a single day,
he wrote to Pilate, energetically blaming him for his rashness
and ordering him to remove the shields at once. From the
Jewish metropolis they were carried to Caesarea, the city
to which his great-grandfather Augustus had given his
name ; and there they were consecrated in the temple of
Augustus. In that way the respect due to the prince was
brought into harmony with the observance of the ancient
customs of the country.' 1
1 Leg. ad Caium, 38, 299-305 (M., II, 589 ff.). This incident is assigned
by Delaunay to the year 32 ; cp. Schiirer, I, 492, n. 147 : it would seem
to belong to the last years of Pilate's administration, since according to
358 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
We may also recall the incident mentioned by Luke
(xiii, i) of the Galileans whose blood Pilate mingled with
their sacrifices ; of the sedition in which Barabbas had
taken part (Mark xv, 7) ; and finally of the events that led
to Pilate's recall. In 35 a pseudo-prophet had promised
the Samaritans to show them on Mount Gerizim the sacred
vessels of the former temple. A crowd assembled at
Tirathana at the foot of the mountain, where they were
attacked by soldiers at Pilate's command. Some fled, and
others were taken, the most important of them being tried
and executed. Complaint was made to Vitellius, proconsul
of Syria, who sent Pilate to Rome where he did not arrive
until after Tiberius' death (Josephus, A.J., XVIII, iv, 1,2).
These various incidents give us a good idea of the pro-
curator's character ; always hostile in his dealing with the
Jews, seeing the menace of sedition on every side, and ready
at the least alarm to resort to cruelty and executions. For
such a man, so suspicious by nature, and with so little
respect for Jewish life, to have hesitated to deliver Jesus to
the executioners, he must have been well satisfied as to the
emptiness of the charge brought against our Lord. At the
same time we see something of the terrible fanaticism of the
Jews. Even at Caesarea, at the beginning of his administra-
tion, Pilate had to yield in the matter of the insignia, and
at Jerusalem his position was more difficult still. There
especially a rising was a thing to be dreaded, and at the
Passover above all. Finally, the threat of recourse to
Tiberius was by no means a vain one, as Pilate had learnt
to his cost in the matter of the shields ; the consequences
might be graver still in the matter of our Lord's trial. 1
Knowing now something about the procurator we can
more easily follow the story of our Lord's appearance in
court and condemnation. 2
Philo, Leg., 24, it was after the death of Sejanus (A.D. 31) that Tiberius
became well disposed towards the Jews. Sejanus had been a great enemy
of theirs, and to him we must attribute the expulsion of the Jews from
Rome (19) and Pilate's brutality on his arrival in Judea. Cp. supra,
pp. in ff.
1 Legend has possessed itself of the fact of Pilate's disgrace and gives
various accounts of his death : Schurer, I, 492, n. 151 : It seems at least
certain that his death was a violent one. Eusebius quotes ' the Roman
historians ' in this connection (Chron., II, 150 ; cp. H.E., II, 7), and Philo
ranks him among the persecutors of the Jews whom God punished by a
violent death (Schurer, III, 679).
2 Matt, xxvii, 11-14; Mark xv, 2-5; Luke xxiii, 2-4; John xviii,
28-38.
THE PASSION OF OUR LORD 359
In comparing the accounts of the various Gospels we
recognize once more the three groups that we have often
distinguished before : Matthew-Mark ; Luke ; and John.
The first, which was the most explicit on the Jewish trial,
is the most summary on the Roman trial. Luke is more
detailed, and adds the examination before Herod, which is
recorded by him alone. John is the most complete of all
on what took place in the Pretorium, and it is he who really
enables us to consider the points which are dismissed by the
other writers with a word.
To grasp the bearing of this new phase in the trial of
our Lord, we must first be clear about the relation between
the Jewish and the Roman trials. As we have already
seen, and as S. John's narrative will remind us more
explicitly later on, the Jews had no longer the power of
life and death. We cannot, therefore, say that they came to
claim from Pilate an exequatur for the sentence they had
passed ; in fact, it is clear that a new trial had commenced.
H. Regnault 1 thus presents the chain of events. ' The
Jews alone took Jesus, by night, leading Him before
the Sanhedrin, much less to obtain a regular judgement
than to establish the blasphemous character of His words.
Then, when everyone was convinced that He was worthy
of death, there emerges a fact that seems at first sight
inexplicable, that is, a second meeting of the Sanhedrin.
Thanks, however, to Matthew's account its utility is per-
fectly clear : " And when morning was come (they) took
counsel against Jesus, that they might put Him to death."
Indeed that was the only part of the programme yet to be
fulfilled : Pilate must slay Him whom the interested parties
have found guilty. So in this morning's session there is a
discussion as to what accusation shall be brought before the
procurator, and what complaints will be necessary for a
condemnation to be secured. We may recall Pilate's hesita-
tion, sarcasms and declarations of the innocence of our
Lord ; probably due much less to the procurator's belief
in the innocence of his prisoner, than to his chagrin at being
obliged to play the part that the Jews had planned for him
in this affair.'
So the Sanhedrists have condemned Jesus. In their eyes
the case is closed. But if the condemnation was to be
effective, it must be pronounced by Pilate. Hence their
1 Une province procuratorienne au debut de I' empire romain, p. 118.
VOL. II. 2 A
360 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
efforts to force it from him ; hence also the new form given
to the charge. For them the decisive accusations had been
the religious ones, blasphemy most of all ; before Pilate,
political charges must have the first place. 1
Accordingly they presented themselves in the morning,
not wishing, however, to enter the Pretorium, as to avoid
defilement and thus be able to partake of the Passover meal.
Pilate knew their scruples and respected them, going out
to them instead. From the first word, however, the opposi-
tion between the two points of view was clear. Pilate
intended to receive from them, not a sentence to ratify, but
an accusation to judge. They were indignant at this : ' If
He were not a malefactor, we would not have delivered
Him up to thee, 3 they exclaimed, and Pilate replied : ' Take
Him you, and judge Him according to your law.' We
perceive here all the contempt of the Roman for the Jew.
It is the same attitude that would be taken later by the
proconsul Gallio at Corinth, when S. Paul had been brought
before him by the Jews (Acts xviii, 14-17) :
' If it were some matter of injustice or an heinous deed,
Jews, I should with reason bear with you. But if they
be questions of word and names and of your law, look
you to it. I will not be judge of such things. And he
drove them from the judgement seat. And all laying
hold on Sosthenes, the ruler of the synagogue, beat him
before the judgement seat. And Gallio cared for none
of those things.'
1 Attempts have been made to throw light on criminal procedure in
the Roman Provinces (of which we know so little) by the evidence of the
Egyptian papyri : Danby, J.T.S. (October, 1919), 58, and R. W. Husband,
The Prosecution of Jesus (Princeton, 1916).
In Egypt there were three distinct departments for the administration
of criminal law : at the head, the prefect, appointed by the emperor ; in
each of the three districts, an epistrategus, also appointed by the emperor
but responsible to the prefect ; in each nome a strategus, who seems to
have been a native magistrate. The prefect made a periodic visit of the
different nomes, and there administered justice ; the arrangement for the
trial being made before his arrival in the place. The less important cases
were tried by the local authorities ; the most serious, by the prefect. If
this system be applied to Judea it will be admitted that the Jewish author-
ities had power of arrest and investigation ; that it was within their
province to deal with the less serious cases, referring the others to the
procurator himself.
This scheme applies well enough to the trial of our Lord, except only
that here the Jews were not content with their role of magistrate-
inquisitors ; they acted as if it were within their power to conduct a
definitive and irrevocable trial, and determined to avail themselves of the
Aveapons of the law in order to give effect to their sentence by bringing it
before the governor's court.
THE PASSION OF OUR LORD 361
It was the same detached and haughty attitude that
Pilate wished to adopt, but the Jews would have none of it.
What they wanted was not simply to ill-treat Jesus, to beat
Him before the tribunal like Sosthenes at Corinth, but to
put Him to death. And that they could not do. ' It is not
lawful for us to put any man to death.'
S. John sees here a fulfilment of a divine plan, already
made known by our Lord. If Jesus had been put to death
by the Jews, He would have suffered stoning like Stephen.
By handing Him over to the Romans, the Jews were deliver-
ing Him up to the punishment of the Gross, a frightful
one, no doubt, but chosen by Himself. He would not fall
under stones and blows in the violent death of stoning.
He would die amidst atrocious sufferings, but from the
height of His Gross dominating the world that contemplated
His agony ; the world that He would draw to Himself,
raised like the brazen serpent between heaven and earth.
Faced with this determination, Pilate could not do other-
wise than order a trial. Certainly, Jesus was not unknown
to him. He was already in office as procurator when Christ
began to preach ; and this ministry could not have gone
on for two years throughout the length and breadth of
Palestine without inquiry being made into the matter by so
suspicious an official as we know Pilate to have been. Even
without previous information, the events of the last few days
would have been sufficient to put him on his guard. The
triumphal entry on Palm Sunday and, since then, the daily
disputes with -the Pharisees in the Temple must have
attracted the attention of the most negligent police, and
the Roman police were not that. From the beginning of
the trial, therefore, Pilate knew what line to take about
the Accused and those by whom He was arraigned : Matthew
(xxvii, 1 8) and Mark (xv, 10) tell us that ' he knew that for
envy they had delivered Him.' This conviction must have
been confirmed by the trial itself; but it was certainly
anterior to it, and this is the explanation of Pilate's attitude
in the situation that had arisen. He saw perfectly clearly
that the Man brought to him was not a political agitator,
and that all the charges brought against Him were only
pretexts to wring from himself that condemnation that envy
claimed. 1 But, it may be asked, if Pilate was convinced
1 Pilate's conviction on this point is for us a precious piece of evidence
indeed. It is the most decisive confirmation of everything we know
362 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
of Christ's innocence, why did he allow himself to be drawn
by the Jews, first into such unworthy subterfuges and then
into a condemnation itself? Manifestly this was through
fear of an appeal to Rome. To release Jesus without inquiry
would seem to show a carelessness about the public order,
disturbed by messianic pretensions at the time. To dismiss
Him, once accusations on religious grounds had been
raised by the Jews, would seem to tolerate the violation of
their law, which Rome, and Tiberius in particular, made a
point of treating with respect. No doubt this fear on
Pilate's part was a great crime, but human weakness makes
it only too easy to understand, especially in the case of a
man to whom the life of a Jew was a thing of such little
account.
Jesus was already in the Pretorium, and Pilate had Him
called. The examination that followed took place apart
from the Jews, whom religious scruples kept outside.
' Art Thou the King of the Jews ? ' Pilate's opening
question is found not only in John but also in the three
Synoptics, who scarcely preserve any other incident of this
interrogation on Pilate's part. This, indeed, was the
capital point that Pilate had to make clear ; it was the one
charge that he retained and had affixed to the head of the
cross : ' Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews. 3 In this
he was really indicating the messianic claims with which
the Jews reproached our Lord. No doubt it was the first
charge they brought, and they returned to it again at the
end, to wring from Pilate the condemnation that he refused.
Before replying directly, our Lord tried to induce Pilate
to state his accusation in more precise terms. Did he say
this on his own initiative, or had he heard it from others ?
It was a first attempt to arouse the interest of the judge, and
to bring him, little by little, if that were possible, to realize
the true nature of the sentence he was about to pass, by
giving some idea of the dignity of Him who was to be judged.
On this effort fell the full force of Pilate's disdain : ' Am
I a Jew ? Thy own nation and the chief priests have
already of Christ's ministry and its purely religious character. If in such
turbulent times so suspicious a Roman governor found in our Lord's
activities nothing to justify His prosecution, it was indeed because there
was nothing that could have given rise to the slightest suspicion. To
appreciate the significance of this restraint on Pilate's part we might well
call to mind what we know of the bloody persecution of the pilgrims of
Mount Gerizim, to which we have referred above.
THE PASSION OF OUR LORD 363
delivered Thee up to me. What hast Thou done ? ' We
find here in Pilate the same contempt that we saw just now
in Gallio for the verbal disputes so dear to the Jewish mind.
It was simply to mock him, he thought, to suppose that he
took the slightest personal interest in the Jews and their
king. ' Let us come to facts,' he seems to say. ' They have
delivered Thee to me. What hast Thou done ? '
So Jesus returned to the question put by Pilate, making
it clear to him in a word that he had nothing to fear from
His claims : ' My kingdom is not of this world,' and giving
as His proof that otherwise His servants would defend Him,
while manifestly there was not the slightest attempt at
resistance of any kind.
Here again, in our Lord's reply there was more than a
simple justification of His conduct. There was an attempt
to draw Pilate on to higher ground a vain effort, like the
previous one. But all that interested the governor in our
Lord's words was an avowal which did not seem to him
quite clear, and upon which, therefore, he insisted : ' Art
Thou a king, then ? ' And we have our Lord's answer :
' Thou sayest that I am a king.' It was the same form of
reply that He had already used before Gaiphas. 1
In both these cases Jesus gives due testimony on His
Person and Mission testimony that was to be consecrated
by His death. To the Jews He recalled to mind a prophetic
oracle : ' . . . You shall see the Son of Man sitting on the
right hand of the power of God and coming in the clouds
of heaven ' ; while with the heathen judge He strove to
arouse the voice of conscience, and the instincts of the soul,
naturally Christian, which carries it towards the truth :
' For this was I born, and for this came I into the world ;
that I should give testimony to the truth. Everyone that
is of the truth heareth My voice.' Here there was no question
of the second coming, for which Pilate did not look, and
which could have no meaning for him. Our Lord referred
to His own coming into the world.
Here, especially, we are conscious of the effort our Blessed
Lord was making to lay hold of this soul through the attrac-
tion of truth, so powerful in every human heart. In most of
1 This form of reply is very rare in the Old Testament and the Hebrew
of the Talmud ; it has been compared to Exod. x, 29, and to a text in
Baba Qamma, I, 6 ; Dalman, Die Worte Jesu, I, 254 ; Billerbeck, I, 990 ;
Abrahams, Studies in Pharisaism, II, pp. 1-3. The sense is affirmative.
364 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
the authentic Acts of the martyrs, we find in these confessors
of Christ the same anxiety to enlighten and, if possible, to
save the magistrate before whom they stood. So Carpus,
having explained the faith in the true God and the folly
of idolatry, went on to say : ' Believe me, Sir, your worship
is vain indeed.' Again, Pothinus, when asked who was the
God of the Christians, replied : ' You will know Him, if you
are worthy of Him. 5 And once more, to the proconsul
Perennius, Apollonius the martyr addressed the following
earnest words : ' I grieve to see you so blind before the
beauties of grace. The Lord's word, Perennius, belongs to
the heart that sees, as the light to the eyes that see. It is of no
more use to speak to the foolish, than to try to give light to the
blind.' Preoccupied much less by the death that threatened
them than by the blindness of which they were witnesses,
they made every effort to rescue from it those by whom
their own death was decreed. And in that they were
but imitating their Master, the faithful Witness, the martyrs'
King. This last effort failed like the others. ' What is
truth ? ' We need not see in Pilate's words the anguish of
a man who despaired of ever reaching the truth of which
he spoke ; but merely the sceptical jest of an official who
was plagued by such ideology and wished to relieve himself
of a barren interview. At least he had heard enough to
convince him more than ever that this ' king of the Jews '
who had been brought to him by the chief priests was not
a danger to public peace ; He was a dreamer, rather. So
he went out once more, and told the Jews : ' I find no
cause in Him.'
But Christ's enemies were not to be so easily disarmed.
Frenzied with rage, they piled up political charges against
Him. He was a seditious person who stirred up the people
and opposed the paying of tribute to Csesar. Christ was
there, hearing all, and saying nothing. He was silent as
He had been before Caiphas, and would be before Herod.
In all these questionings He spoke only to give testimony
and to make known the truth. This duty fulfilled, He said
no more. 1
1 Jerome, In Matt., xxvii, 13, writes : ' Nihil respondere voluit, ne
crimen diluens a prcsside dimitteretur, et crucis utilitas differetur.' Lagrange :
' From this moment everything was in the hands of His Father ; He had
accepted death ; it did not befit Him to take sides against the rulers of His
people before a foreign tribunal.'
THE PASSION OF OUR LORD 365
The bad faith of those who thus accused Him is manifest.
Leaving out the true motive of their pursuit, they hurled
against Jesus charges in which they could not have believed
themselves, and which at the slightest investigation would
have fallen to the ground. So, for instance, with the
question of tribute to Caesar. Our Lord's reply in that
matter was only a week old, and all Jerusalem knew it :
' Render, therefore, to Caesar the things that are Caesar's ;
and to God, the things that are God's.' It was for Pilate
to put them right, if he wished to ; Jesus had nothing to say.
However, the Jews went on (Luke xxiii, 5) : ' He stirreth
up the people, teaching through all Judea, beginning from
Galilee to this place.' In thus mentioning Galilee, the
classic land of revolt, the Jews thought to lend plausibility
to their charges, but Pilate saw in the reference only a means
of escape from the embarrassment in which he was placed.
Galilee was Herod's domain, and Herod was in Jerusalem.
Pilate would take advantage of the fact to refer this vexatious
case to him, with instructions, if not to decide it to examine
it, at least.
V. Jesus before Herod. 1
Pilate's purpose in sending Jesus on to Herod is easy to
understand. He wished to shift the responsibility of a
1 This episode is related only by Luke (xxiii, 412), and has long been
suspect to the critics. Strauss, Renan, Keim, and many others, approach-
ing the question from very different points of view, all come to the same
conclusion, set forth by Loisy in Evang. Synopt., II, 63840. This agree-
ment has impressed a number of scholars who cannot be accounted of the
liberal school ; for instance, Verrall, J.T.S., April 1909, 32153, Christ
before Herod. Our Lord's silence and the accusations of the priests might
be reproduced in both tribunals without arousing suspicion ; but not so,
he says, with the mockery scene ; that before Herod, as before Pilate, the
soldiers should have mocked Christ, that the theme of their raillery should
in both cases have been the title King of the Jews, that in both scenes their
derision should have been expressed in a travesty of investiture, is alto-
gether a matter for surprise. If, furthermore, the evangelist who describes
all these things as happening before Herod, leaves them out as occurring
before Pilate, we are led to wonder whether there is not some misunder-
standing here. To dissipate all these suspicions, at the same time accepting
and upholding the appearance before Herod, which seems to him amply
attested, Verrall cuts out of this narrative everything that properly speak-
ing could be called mockery, derision or travesty. We shall see shortly
what must be thought of this correction.
We must first consider this episode in its entirety, and at this point
an observation is necessary : not only in his account of the Passion, but
in his whole gospel, Luke gives us more information about Herod than do
the other evangelists : cp. Headlam, art. Herod, D.B., II, 358b. Luke
366 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
troublesome matter on to the shoulders of that prince. At
the same time he saw in his proposed action a deferential
gesture which might improve the relations existing between
the tetrarch and himself. 1
The Gospel, however, does not tell us that Jesus was sent to
Herod for final judgement, nor does this seem very likely in
itself. We shall understand the whole proceeding better if we
consider this new appearance in court of our Lord as an
alone tells us of this characteristic incident (xiii, 31) : ' The same day
there came some of the Pharisees, saying to Him : Depart and get Thee
hence, for Herod hath a mind to kill Thee. And He said to them : Go,
and tell that fox, Behold, I cast out devils, and do cures to-day and to-
morrow, and the third day I am consummated. Nevertheless, I must
walk to-day and to-morrow and the day following, because it cannot be
that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem.' Again, higher up (ix, 9) ; ' And
Herod said : John I have beheaded ; but who is this of whom I hear such
things ? And he sought to see Him.' These passages are admirably in
harmony with the narrative of the Passion. But according to Loisy (639),
this very harmony is suspect. ' We are prepared for Herod's intervention a
long time beforehand. Luke says first of all that the tetrarch desired to see
Jesus ; then, that he intended to bring about His death, and that in this
last circumstance, Jesus had charged the Pharisees, who told Him of it, to
warn Herod that a prophet might not perish elsewhere than in Jerusalem.
All this is connected in the evangelist's mind with the incident here
described. But it is hardly likely that Luke himself worked out these
approximations. He found them ready-made in one or more documents, in
which what passed between Antipas and Jesus had been described.' The
last lines of this quotation contradict the supposition laid down in the first.
Luke's purpose in relating the first incidents was not to prepare us for
Herod's intervention in the Passion ; he did no more than describe what
passed between Antipas and Jesus, as he found it recorded in the documents
of which he made use. It is possible to trace probable, if not certain,
indications of Luke's real source. For many years Luke's mention of
Joanna, wife of Chusa, Herod's steward (viii, 3), has been remarked upon ;
and he alone names her among the women whom Jesus had delivered from
evil spirits, and who helped Him with their resources ; we may believe
that through her Luke gathered information about the court of Herod
that had dropped out of the first Christian catechesis. It should be added
that this appearance in court before Herod, as we see it, was doubtless
quite unofficial, and must have taken place before a very few witnesses.
This preliminary discussion may be concluded by mentioning that
passage in the Acts which speaks of the part played by Herod in com-
parison with that of Pilate : Peter and John, released by the Sanhedrin,
are come back among the faithful. All pray together (iv, 27) : ' For of a
truth there assembled together in this city, against Thy holy child Jesus,
whom Thou hast anointed, Herod, and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles
and the people of Israel, to do what Thy hand and Thy counsel decreed to
be done.' Cp. Kastner, Jesus vor Pilatus, pp. 69-78.
1 It may be asked if Herod was competent to judge Jesus. Regnault
thus refutes the argument of Rosadi (242) : ' Either the cause of Jesus was
a religious one and so within the jurisdiction of the great Sanhedrin alone ;
or it was political, and, if Pilate was not competent to deal with it, should
have been referred, not to Herod, who had no jurisdiction over it,
but to his colleague, the vice-governor of Galilee.' No such vice-governor
existed. In Galilee Herod possessed the powers that Archelaus had enjoyed
THE PASSION OF OUR LORD 367
examination of a supplementary kind. 1 c He stirreth up the
people from Galilee to this place.' This new charge, brought
by the Jews, supplied the motive for a new inquiry. It was
not enough to investigate Jesus' words and actions in Jeru-
salem during the last few days, but also what they had been
in Palestine as a whole, and particularly in Galilee, since it
was there, especially, that He had worked and preached.
For such an inquiry, none more suitable than the tetrarch
could be found. He was in Jerusalem, and so he could be
charged with the affair. Pilate was not going to ask him
to settle the case, but to examine it. This, no doubt, would
not be an official procedure, but, for the procurator, it
would be a source of useful information, while the tetrarch
would see in such a step a mark of confidence and respect.
Herod lent himself very willingly to Pilate's wish. He
was flattered by the courtesy, of a kind, no doubt, to which
the Romans had done little to accustom him. Above all,
he saw in this appearance in court an unexpected oppor-
tunity of satisfying the curiosity that he felt : ' he was
desirous of a long time to see Him, because he had heard
many things of Him ; and he hoped to see some sign
wrought by Him. 5 And indeed this desire dated a long way
back ; when Jesus was preaching in Galilee he had already
in Judea, and retained them until he was deposed in 39 ; but he had no
jurisdiction outside Galilee : ' If Herod had no jurisdiction, it was for the
simple reason that he was officially outside his own jurisdiction ; once
outside Galilee and Perea, he was just a private individual, a stranger of
somewhat high rank and dignity perhaps, but possessing no power in
Jerusalem whatever. Even granting that Herod had the power to judge
Jesus, he could have had no concern with the matter elsewhere than in his
tetrarchy. His presence in Jerusalem might make it materially easier for
Jesus to appear before him, but constitutionally it prevented him from
deciding the case.'
Le Camus among others thought he had found an indubitable precedent
in an incident described by Josephus (B.J., III, x, 540-2). Josephus
describes the disposal of the captives : ' The rest of the multitude, to
the number of thirty thousand four hundred heads, was sold by auction,
except those Vespasian presented to Agrippa, namely the native Jews
of his kingdom ; the general let him dispose of them at his discretion, and
the king in his turn sold them. The bulk of this crowd were natives of
Trachonitis, of Gaulanitis, of Hippos, and of Gadara for the most part :
a mob of the seditious and .outlawed, who, despised and scorned in time of
peace, had contrived in their infamy the means to stir up war.' This is
obviously quite different from what is described in the Gospel : here there
is no question of competence ; the Galileans sent by Vespasian to Agrippa
were not passed on to his tribunal, but abandoned to his good pleasure.
These were prisoners of war, already looked upon as slaves, and a group of
them was delivered to the prince. On the contrary, Jesus was a dependant
whose fate was as yet undecided, and Pilate sent Him to Herod.
1 Cp. Verrall, art. cit., p. 332.
368 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
said : 'John I have beheaded. But who is this of whom I
hear such things ? And he sought to see Him ' (Luke ix, 9) .
Up to then, Jesus had not lent Himself to these wishes ; He
had kept the tetrarch at a distance and spoken of him without
reserve as a ' fox ' (Luke xiii, 31). Now Herod had Him at
his mercy ; on the inquiry he was about to make, our
Lord's life and death might depend ; and from all this it
would surely follow that the Prophet would be ready to
comply with all his desires.
If, in this matter, Herod should displease the Jews, he
did not care very much for that ; for all these Sanhedrists,
who were dragging Christ to his tribunal, he had the same
contempt as his father Herod had. A monarch, Greek as
much as Jewish, he had taken for his capital that Tiberias
which he had built on ground that every Jew held to be
defiled, and there, or at Macheron in Perea, he usually
lived, outside the sphere of influence of the Jewish authorities,
and caring little for their anathemas. In fact he had no
need even to take, with them, the same precautions as
Pilate ; the procurator was often in Jerusalem, in contact
with the heads of the Jewish race ; Herod only encountered
them occasionally, and could offend them without danger
to himself.
So as soon as he saw Jesus, he greeted him with a string
of questions, but without receiving any reply. However,
the Pharisees pressed their charges with violence ; they were
as much annoyed by the contempt of the tetrarch as by the
superciliousness of Pilate ; but the worst insults were a
matter of indifference to them, provided they could get from
him the condemnation which was the object of their pursuit.
In the midst of this contest, impassioned and confused,
Jesus kept silence ; He had replied to Caiphas and Pilate ;
to Herod He had nothing to say. Throughout His Passion
He defended Himself only in the strict measure that
obedience to legitimate authority required. The High
Priest, adjuring Him in the name of God, had the right to an
answer, and received it ; the Roman procurator enjoyed
a legitimate authority, possessing the right of inquiry and
judgement ; and to him also Jesus replied. Herod had no
rights in the matter at all ; his examination was merely
directed to satisfying his haughty curiosity ; and to him
Jesus said not a word. He might have pleaded for His life,
and He would seem to have had a good chance of success,
THE PASSION OF OUR LORD 369
but ' the chalice which My Father hath given Me, shall I
not drink it ? ' And to this general reason, which governed
His whole attitude during that day, were added motives of
a particularly pressing kind. The prince before whom He
stood was the man responsible for John the Baptist's im-
prisonment and death. He had had him arrested, but all the
time that he was his gaoler, he was susceptible to his
influence. Thus he played the double role of tyrant and
dilettante, until at last a woman's cruelty carried him away
and obtained the prophet's death at his hands. And he
wished to deal with Christ in the same way, pleasing his
curiosity by listening to Him, and then casting Him aside,
like a plaything of which he was tired. But Jesus would be
no party to these wretched schemes : it was not His practice
to cast pearls before swine.
The lesson of our Lord's silence was not lost on Herod
and, in revenge, he had recourse to mockery his weapon
of choice. Verrall, as we have said, will not allow the
presence of any hostile intention on Herod's part. His
interpretation of the incident is as follows. ' Herod judged
the Man to be of no importance and with his soldiers
amused himself at His expense ; he gave Him a fine robe
and sent Him back to Pilate ' (p. 345) . All the more then
we are confronted with an attitude of contemptuous
frivolity ; but the Gospel goes much further than that ; the
prince felt himself despised and was taking his revenge.
But the particular insult he devised would, at the same time,
hit both Jesus and the Jews. By clothing Him with a
' white garment ' he presented Him to the Jews as their
king. No doubt it was a satisfaction to the tetrarch to make
sport of all his enemies at the same time, and to dismiss
them all with equal contempt. This interpretation in no
way makes improbable the subsequent mockery before
Pilate ; quite the contrary. We can imagine with great
likelihood that our Lord's return thus derisively apparelled
would have inspired the raillery of the Roman soldiers ; a
king of the Jews had been sent back to them ; well, they
would treat Him as such.
Thus were intensified the outrages which Jesus had
suffered from the beginning of His Passion, and which would
cease only with His death ; cruelties and insults broke over
Him, becoming even more brutal as He went from court to
court. Men, alas, lend themselves to such cruel sport, and
370 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
the Acts of the Martyrs are full of them ; but here, behind his
wretched instruments, Christian faith perceives the Enemy
whose hour it is, and who is raging over the Victim now
within his power. And Christ on His part accepts all this
insult and brutality, knowing that thereby He is redeeming
us from sensuality and pride. 1
This whole incident was probably witnessed only by a
few, and is therefore passed over in silence by the other
Synoptics. Jesus had been accompanied to Herod's house
only by a few guards, and by a few accusers and witnesses as
well. He is sent back to Pilate, and the official examination
is about to be resumed.
VI. Jesus before Pilate.
Pilate had not derived from his scheme all the advantage
for which he had looked. Herod had sent back to him the
Accused without having in any degree released the pro-
curator from the responsibility that was his. However, the
step taken had been a mark of deference ; at least, it had
been received as such, and the two rivals had become friends.
Further, both had taken the same view of the affair ; the
Accused was only a poor man of no importance, at whom
no one could take offence. His accusers were moved by
envy and worthy of all contempt. But if they were con-
temptible, the Jews were to be dreaded, too, and as a matter
of fact Pilate did dread them. Burdened once more with
the tiresome responsibility of judgement, he thought of a
pardon as a possible way of escape.
All four evangelists 2 record Pilate's new expedient a
worse one than that which preceded it. In sending Jesus
to Herod, the Roman procurator had tried to shelter himself
behind the responsibility of the tetrarch. Now, in offering
an act of clemency to the people, he presented our Lord as
a condemned man who deserved punishment, but could be
pardoned on the occasion of the feast. But before reaching
this point, S. Luke tells us that he outlined a new defence :
' ... I ... find no cause in this man . . . no, nor Herod
1 Verrall is of the opinion that this fine garment given to Jesus by
Herod was worn by Him up to the hour of Calvary, and that this must
have been the seamless garment for which the soldiers cast lots.
This is quite likely ; in any case, we may be certain that the mockery
of which this was the beginning followed Him even to His death.
2 Matt, xxvii, 15-26 ; Mark xv, 6-15 ; Luke xxiii, 14-25 ; John xviii,
38-40.
THE PASSION OF OUR LORD 371
either. ... I will chastise Him therefore and release Him.'
To avoid offending the susceptibilities of the Jews, Pilate
dare not plead the complete innocence of our Lord ; he
admitted that He ought to be chastised, and promised that
it should be done. But this half-measure in no way assuaged
the hatred of Christ's enemies, a fact which Pilate perceived
at once. It was then that he had recourse to the pitiable
expedient of the pardon to which we have just referred.
According to Mark (xv, 8) it would seem that this idea
was suggested to the procurator by an overture on the
part of the mob itself. Going up to the Pretorium they
claimed the application of the right of pardon that Pilate
possessed, so that there was no need for him to invent a
fresh expedient, and he simply seized the opportunity
offered him by this step on the part of the Jews. x
In this matter of Pilate's action there are slight differ-
ences of stress and colour in the Gospel accounts. According
to Matthew, the procurator formally proposed the choice
between Barabbas and Christ. ' Whether will you of
the two be released unto you ? ' In Mark and John he
contents himself with suggesting the pardon of our Lord.
' Will you that I release to you the King of the Jews ? '
The restraint here implied would seem to show greater skill
in dealing with the situation ; all the same, the title ' King
of the Jews ' given to the Accused might appear to be an
insult, and have an irritating effect on the mob. To the
question put by the procurator, the Jews did not reply
immediately ; there seeming to be a moment of hesitation
among them ; meanwhile Pilate waits.
According to Matthew, it was then that there came the
1 One point in this incident was for a long time obscure ; namely, as
to what was this right of pardon appealed to by the populace and put into
operation by Pilate. Loisy sees here just a legend with no historical
reality behind it (Evang. Syn., II, 642) : ' According to a custom recorded
only in the Gospels, for whose antiquity or even authenticity we have no
other guarantee, the populace at every Paschal-time enjoyed the privilege
of a prisoner's release. This custom must have been of Jewish origin
its connection with the Passover could not have been simply a coincidence
and the liberation of a prisoner would doubtless have been a com-
memoration of the deliverance of Israel by the Lord from the servitude of
Egypt. Still, we must confess that Mark's statement looks much more like
a popular legend than the record of a juridical fact.' A recently published
papyrus comes to our aid in throwing light upon this point of the Gospel
history ; it is quoted by Lagrange (S. Marc, p. 413) : ' A papyrus (Papiri
greco-egizii, No. 61, published by G. Vitelli) of the years A.D. 86-8 is the
official report of an audience of C. Septimius Vegetus, prefect of Egypt.
Apparently a certain Phibion, one of those persons who came up before
372 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
incident of the intervention of Pilate's wife. ' And as he
was sitting in the place of judgement, his wife sent to him,
saying : Have thou nothing to do with that just Man ; for
I have suffered many things this day in a dream because of
Him.' 1
This episode helps us to understand better Pilate's attitude,
and his efforts to save our Lord. No doubt from the begin-
ning he had satisfied himself that the Man brought to him
was innocent, and that His persecutors were jealous of
the influence He had acquired ; but this opinion would
probably not have been sufficient to inspire so long a resist-
ance to their demands. An alien's life was a small matter
to a pagan, and especially to a man like Pilate ; and
then there were the risks he ran in displeasing the leaders
of the Jews ! But it all becomes easier to understand
if, in Pilate's mind, regard for justice was mingled with
religious fear. In the life of the Romans, dreams played a
decisive part, and their influence became still greater in the
his tribunal, had tried to obtain justice by seizing his adversary and the
women of his household. The prefect declared that on this head he deserved
scourging ; but, he added, I pardon you in deference to the mob. . . .
And although the sentence is certainly very puzzling, the remission of the
penalty in deference to the people cannot be doubted.'
Regnault, in his thesis, discusses at length the procedure adopted by
Pilate. Following Merkel, he distinguishes between two forms of judicial
pardon : the abolitio and the indulgentia (129). The abolitio is the annul-
ment of the prosecution ; the plaintiff may avail himself of it by asking
the judge to consider the action null and void ; or it can be granted by the
recognized authority for a whole list of offences, in the event, for example,
of a victory, or on an anniversary, or on a feast day. The prosecution
is abandoned, but may be taken up again later on. The indulgentia,
on the contrary, is a definite pardon ; it is in order after the condemna-
tion has been pronounced, and definitely prevents it from being carried
into effect. We see, in a letter from Pliny to Trajan (X, 40, 41), that
a number of prisoners condemned to the mines had been pardoned :
' Erant tamen qui dicerent, deprecantes iussu proconsulum legatorumve
dimissos.' And Pliny ends by saying : ' Another thing strengthens my
faith in their word : I cannot yet believe they would have dared to do it
without authority. ' From this, Regnault concludes that certain governors
had the right of pardon : ' Perhaps, to return to Pilate, we might possibly
conceive in his person a delegation of the right of pardon from the
Emperor, not necessarily with any reference to a definitely established
right of abolitio or indulgentia, but allowing him, by its very uncertainty,
to release to the populace whomsoever it clamoured for, before, during or
after the trial. In this way they would be shown that, at this festal time,
the victor was not without cognizance of the customs of the vanquished.'
1 This woman, to whom a manuscript of the Gospel of Nicodemus gives
the name Procla, is honoured as a saint in the Greek Church. The Gospel
of Nicodemus puts in a legendary detail : Pilate describes his wife's
dream to the people, and the Pharisees reply : ' Did we not tell you this
man was a sorcerer ? You see, he has sent your wife a dream.'
THE PASSION OF OUR LORD 373
environment of the mysterious East. As for Pilate's wife,
we know too little to see with any certainty what her motive
was. We may reasonably conjecture that, like many Roman
women of her time and class, she was attracted by Oriental
faiths and particularly by that of the Jews, which she had
come to know better through her stay in Palestine. No doubt
she had heard of Jesus ; of His preaching and marvellous
works, and of the popular movement that He had called
into being from Galilee to Jerusalem itself. She might have
known of His arrest the night before, in which the Roman
cohort had taken part ; and during the night she had a
dream about Him, which she did not describe but which
made her suffer very much. From that moment she had
only one care, namely to keep herself and her husband out
of this troublesome affair. Her immediate aim in the
course she took was the security of Pilate, and not the
safety of the Accused.
While this episode was in progress, the chief priests were
not wasting their time. Mixing, in all directions, with the
crowd, they stirred it up against our Lord, and we need
not be surprised that they succeeded so well. For a long
time the people, especially of Jerusalem, had been divided
between the influence of the Pharisees and that of the new
Prophet ; and S. John's Gospel enables us to follow the
fluctuations of opinion in this regard. For some months now
our Lord's followers had been fewer, and had kept quiet,
while those of the Pharisees loudly proclaimed Him to be a
dangerous man, a seducer, leading the people astray. The
events of the last few weeks, and especially the raising of
Lazarus, had caused an appreciable revulsion of feeling,
which did not, however, go very deep ; this culminated in
the Palm Sunday entry into Jerusalem, the triumph of a day.
During the following days days of cavilling and discussion
we feel that the chance had been lost ; Jesus was no longer
safe in Jerusalem, and had to retire to Bethania every day, as
evening fell. The events of the previous night and of the
morning completed the ruin of His popularity with the mob ;
He was arrested without resistance as a common malefactor,
and His Apostles had either turned against Him or taken
refuge in flight. Before Annas, Caiphas, Herod, Pilate,
He kept silence or scarcely defended Himself at all ; in fact
all the hopes that had rested upon Him collapsed at a single
blow. Hence, if He were not the dreamed-of Messias, who
374 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
could He be but the seducer that the leaders of the people
had always denounced ? These disasters, and the bitterness
they produced, would of themselves suffice to explain the
change of attitude of the crowd, but, no doubt, in some
cases, the element of fear was there as well. Most certainly
the Pharisees would carry the day ; the strength of their
hatred was well known. The Apostles themselves did not
dare expose themselves to its blast, and who among Christ's
ephemeral disciples would have the courage to brave the
violence of these men ? So, to atone for their acclamations
of a few days since, they redoubled their maledictions now.
When Pilate again asked them : ' Will you that I release
to you the King of the Jews ? ' they cried : ' Not this Man,
but Barabbas.' But Pilate insisted still, thinking, perhaps,
that it was more the popularity of Barabbas than hatred
of Jesus that had inspired their choice. * What will you
then that I do to the King of the Jews ? ' Once more they
cried : ' Crucify Him.' Still Pilate carried on the debate.
' Why, what evil hath He done ? ' But the shouts only
grew louder : ' Crucify Him ! '
The trial and failure of these expedients, one after another
now Herod, then Barabbas had brought home to the
crowd the timidity of the procurator ; they had him fast
and by the same pressure they would draw him on to the
end, without reopening a discussion that was henceforth
useless. But Pilate had not lost all hope ; scourging
precedes crucifixion ; he would have Jesus scourged, and
then try to get some pity out of the Jews. Alas ! hatred is
not calmed by the sight of blood, and the Jews, who felt
themselves already conquerors, would gloat over this new
cruelty still more. Once more Jesus was to be the victim
of Pilate's weakness ; once more He would be overwhelmed
by the rage of His foes ; and this programme of suffering
and shame had been willed and chosen by Him, and by it
did He win salvation for our souls.
The scourging is stressed in the predictions of the Passion
made by our Lord on His way up to Jerusalem : ' . . . the
chief priests and the scribes . . . shall deliver up (the Son
of Man) to be mocked and scourged and crucified : and
the third day He shall rise again ' (Matt, xx, 19 ; Mark x,
34 ; Luke xviii, 33). Itself a punishment at once degrading
and terrible, the scourging was, indeed, one of the most
cruel episodes of the Passion.
THE PASSION OF OUR LORD 375
The punishment of the whip was not unknown to the
Jews, but, with them, it was inflicted in a sufficiently
merciful form. 1 Quite other was the terrible Roman
scourging. The thongs of the whip were furnished with
small pieces of bone, or balls of lead, which not only lacer-
ated the flesh but might even break the bones. This infamous
punishment came to Rome from the East, and was reserved
by law for foreigners and slaves. It could not be applied
in the case of Roman citizens, 2 and to avoid it Paul had
merely to appeal to his rights as a Roman citizen (Acts xxii,
24, 25). Even certain foreigners were treated less brutally
than others. 3
1 This is described in the treatise Mahkoth, III, 12 ; the whip had three
thongs of leather ; the criminal received thirteen strokes on the chest and
thirteen on each of the shoulders ; thus a total of thirty-nine strokes was
observed, to make sure of being on the right side of the law, which forbade
more than forty strokes, lest the sufferer should be torn to pieces by the
whip. This punishment was inflicted five times on S. Paul in the Jewish
synagogue (z Cor. xi, 24).
2 Cic. Rob. 4 : ' Portia lex virgas ab omnium civium corpore amovit ;
hie misericors flagella retulit.'
3 In his treatise against Flaccus, Philo thus describes the tortures
inflicted upon the Jews at Alexandria :
' In the city, distinction is made in scourging, according to the status
of the person chastised : the Egyptians are not whipped like the others,
and the Alexandrians are scourged by the lictors of Alexandria, who are
called spathephores. The presidents, predecessors of Flaccus, and Flaccus
himself, in the earlier days, had kept to this custom in dealing with us ;
and it is undoubtedly some mitigation of infamy, some alleviation of
torture, when things go on in accordance with the law, and punishment is
not maliciously refined. But it was the last word in iniquity, at the time
when the Jews received punishment for their misdeeds as citizens of
Alexandria, to see magistrates and senators, whose age and title made
them worthy of some respect, treated with less regard than their sub-
ordinates, and cruelly whipped, as if they were the vilest Egyptians
making just expiation for their crimes. . . . Under the presidents, who do
not overstep the law, and honour their benefactors (the Emperors), it is a
custom not to punish criminals until after the celebration of the feasts
which take place on the anniversaries of the deaths of the Emperors. . . .
I remember seeing the bodies of the crucified being taken down at the
approach of these feasts and handed over to their relatives to be buried.
. . . Far from having the crucified taken down from their cross, Flaccus
crucified the living, for whom the circumstance of the time brought not,
indeed, pardon, but merely respite. Before thus crucifying them, he did
not forget to have them scourged in the middle of the arena, and put
through the torture of iron and fire. The order of entertainment was as
follows : From morning to about the third or fourth hour the Jews were
scourged, hung up, tortured by the wheel, brought up for trial, and then
led across the orchestra for execution ' (In Flaccum, X, 78, 299 ; M. II,
528, tr. Delaunay, p. 228).
This text is interesting for several reasons : we notice here not only
the various kinds of scourging, but also the custom, frequently attested
elsewhere, of preceding the extreme torment of the cross by that of the
scourge, and finally of handing over the bodies of the crucified to their
relatives, on occasions of great solemnity.
VOL. II. 2 B
376 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
But, in His own punishment, Jesus could not look for
any of the mitigations or the consideration of which the
Alexandrians or other subjects of Rome could avail them-
selves. He was only a Jew, and a Galilean at that ; sprung
from the people, and to be treated by the Romans as
these despised and refractory mountaineers generally were.
Further, the executioners would be Syrian soldiers, recruited
among the enemies of the Jews, whom they pursued every-
where with their hatred and contempt.
The evangelists are content with a bare mention of this
frightful punishment, without any attempt at a description
by which no useful purpose could be served. All their
readers had seen it inflicted more than once and were
familiar with every phase ; the condemned man stripped
of his clothes and tied to a low column or post, while on the
tightened skin, on back, breast, stomach, eyes and face,
the blows rain down. In the authors of the period, we still
seem to hear the cries of the judges urging the executioners
on : firme ! (Suet., Cal. } 26} ; adde virgas f (Livy, xxvi, 16) ;
and we read of the body of the victim stretched on the
ground, bathed in his own blood (Cicero, Verr., v, 54),
writhing with pain (Plut., Coriol., 24), often expiring on tike
spot (Verr., iii, 29 ; iv, 39 ; v, 54). Thus was treated the
Son of God.
At the end the soldiers raised Him, restored His clothes,
and then, before this Jew, this royal claimant, this Messias,
gave themselves over to the diversion of the moment.
' And the soldiers led Him away into the court of the
palace : and they called together the whole band. And
they clothe Him with purple : and platting a crown of
thorns, they put it upon Him. And they began to salute
Him : Hail, King of the Jews. And they struck His head
with a reed : and they did spit on Him. And bowing
their knees, they adored Him. And after they had
mocked Him, they took off the purple from Him and put
His own garments on Him.' 1
This scene of derision, too, had been foreseen and foretold
by our Lord (Mark x, 33) : ' they shall . . . deliver Him to
the Gentiles : and they shall mock Him, and spit on Him,
and scourge Him, and kill Him.' This infamous treatment
of a condemned man without defence has justly revolted
1 Mark xv, 16-20. Cp. Matt, xxvii, 27-31 ; John xix, 2, 3.
THE PASSION OF OUR LORD 377
the readers of the Gospel. By way of explanation Origen
(P.G., XIII, 1775) writes : ' It is probable that the soldiers,
on account of the recent accession of a new emperor, were
still in a disorderly state, and therefore, contrary to the
discipline now in force, acted as they did, making a play-
thing of our Lord, and taking advantage of His title " King
of the Jews." But, for my part, I believe that the soldiers
acted as they did at the instigation of the invisible kings,
the princes of this world, leagued against the Lord and His
Christ. Thus the pretorian cohort represented the hosts
of evil. . . .' This explanation has its value, but we must
recognize that the soldiers and lictors were often pitiless to
their victims, and loved to make a sport of them. Thus
Cicero (Verr., v, 54, 142) describes the punishment of a
Roman citizen, Servilius, whom Verres had scourged by
six of the strongest and most skilful lictors at his command.
At the end, one of them, Sextius, reversed his whip and
struck the unfortunate man in the eyes with the handle
and he fell, face and eyes covered with blood. In our Lord's
case, too, as we have already said, the executioners were the
enemies of the Jews, and it was a piece of luck for them to be
able with impunity to torture and mock this ' King of the
Jews.' 1
1 A good many examples of this hatred are set down by Josephus :
thus, for instance, under the procurator Cumanus, a revolt suddenly broke
put in the Temple, during the celebrations of the Passover, through some
indecent joke on the part of a soldier who had been jeering at the Jews
(B. J., II, xu, i) : some time later, under the same procurator, a soldier,
finding a copy of the Law, tore it to pieces and threw it in the fire (229) .
Other examples are to be found (B.J., V, xi, i ; A.J., XIX, ix, i). The
special form taken by the insults of the soldiers was put into their
heads by the military ceremony of saluting the Emperor : Ave, Ccesar
Auguste (Martial, Epig., XIV, Ixxi, 2) ; these passages are mentioned by
Keim, III, p. 393, n. i, and 394, n. i. More probably still, Philo describes
a sufficiently similar scene of mockery which occurred in Alexandria when
King Agrippa was passing through the city :
' There was in Alexandria a fool called Karabas . . . this wretch was
dragged to the gymnasium, and there set down on a raised seat where he
could be seen by all. On his head was placed a large sheet of paper like
a diadem, and round his body was wound a huge mat by way of a mantle ;
and one of them, noticing a reed by the roadside, picked it up and put it
in his hand as a sceptre. Having decorated him in this way with the
insignia of royalty, thus transforming him into a mimic king, young men
shouldering sticks formed up round him like a guard. Then some came
up to salute him, others to demand justice, and others to give him advice
on public affairs. The crowd round about loudly acclaimed him, saluting
him with the title " Marin," a word which in Syrian is said to signify
prince. It was well known to them that Agrippa was of Syrian origin, and
that the greater part of his kingdom was in Syria.' (In Flaccum, VI, 36 ff .)
It is now two or three centuries since this account of Philo's was brought
37$ LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
The thought of this spectacle, as described for us in the
Gospels, fills us with horror and shame. It is a page of
history that, for the honour of humanity, we would gladly
efface, even with our blood ; but it is too deeply graven in
fact for that. It ought, at least, to teach us man's nature,
and God's. For the study of the Gospels shows us with
what supreme respect Christ treats man. He never conquers,
but wins them ; never crushes, but lifts up. His Apostles
to light and compared with the Gospel texts : we must not therefore draw
from the comparison more than it has to tell us, namely the delight taken
by the Orientals in jeering at the Jews, and, in particular, scoffing at their
real or pretended kings. M. S. Reinach (Orpheus, p. 337) saw much more
in the passage in question and thought he would be justified in using it to
reduce the story of Christ's Passion to a misunderstanding. ' . . . The
circumstances of the Passion,' he writes, ' have an altogether suspicious
resemblance to certain rites celebrated many years before in connection
with special feasts. On the feast of the Sacasa in Babylonia and Persia,
a condemned criminal was led out in triumph dressed like a king. When
the feast was over, his fine clothes were torn off and he was whipped, and
finally crucified or hung. We know from Philo that the populace of
Alexandria raised Karabas to the dignity of one of these improvised
monarchs, and heaped derisory honours upon his head, only to ill-treat
him in the end. But Karabas means nothing either in Greek or Aramaic ;
we must correct it to Barabas, which in Aramaic means son of the Father.
In the Gospels we see Jesus given the title King of the Jews, crowned, and
invested with a scarlet robe, while for a sceptre a reed is placed in His
hand ; in fact, He is treated exactly like a Barabbas. But then, what is the
significance of the story of the seditious Barabbas, and the choice left to
the populace between Jesus and him ? In addition to this we find Origen,
in about the year 250, reading in a very ancient manuscript of the Gospel
of S. Matthew, that Barabbas was called Jesus Barabbas. From this com-
parison we conclude that Jesus would in all probability have been put to
death, not in preference to Barabbas, but in the character of Barabbas. The
evangelists understood neither the ceremony they were describing, nor
the nature of the mock honours rendered to Jesus ; they have converted
what must have been a rite into a myth. If any historical truth lies behind
their narrative, it is so smothered in legend that it has become impossible
to disengage it.'
The whole of this argument rests upon strangely confused ideas. The
Feast of the Sacsea has nothing to do with the story of the Passion ; this
feast belonged to the cult of Anaitis (Strabo, u, 8, 5) quoted by Lagrange
(S. Marc, p. 422). There is no trace of this Pagan cult in the holy city
of the Jews. Moreover, the Feast of the Sacsea took place not in the spring,
like the Passover, but in July August. As for the account of Philo,
Reinach must have completely forgotten it, to interpret it as he does here.
Philo is not describing a rite, occurring at a fixed time of the year, in which
it was customary to heap mock honours, followed by ill-treatment, upon
an improvised king called Karabas : he merely tells us that in ridicule
of Agrippa they seized a fool called Karabas, and treated him as a mock
king of Syria. We would add finally that Reinach's last observation
has no more point than what has gone before. ' Karabas,' he says, ' means
nothing either in Aramaic or Greek, and we must read Barabas. 1 On the
contrary, Karabas is very well attested ; an inscription of Palmyra
acquaints us with a woman called Karaba, which word means battle '
(Lagrange, ib., 423).
THE PASSION OF OUR LORD 379
were drawn by Him from nothing, and brought slowly and
patiently to the loftiest heights of the moral life. So does
God treat those whose Master He is. And here we see the
other side of the picture how man treats God when he
has, or thinks he has, Him within his power ; cruelties,
mockery, derision he heaps upon Him everything that can
bring physical and mental pain. And God lets him do it,
for He bears within Him such a treasure of life and glory
that by His death He can bring life to the world, and
glorify it by His shame.
VIL Condemnation. Crucifixion. Death.
As the drama proceeded, passions rose to a higher pitch,
and since early morning the Jews had been raging for their
prey. In vain had Pilate multiplied expedients by which
to snatch Jesus from their hands ; his scheming and his
cruelty did nothing but stir up their insolence still more.
The scourging and crowning with thorns had taken place
inside the Pretorium ; but now Pilate brought Jesus out
and presented Him to the crowd. 1
And our Lord appeared, covered with blood, disfigured,
dressed up in a soldier's cloak, and wearing a crown of
thorns. ' Behold the Man, 5 said Pilate, with a mixture of
pity and contempt. Had He not been punished enough ?
What could they fear from Him any more ? But the
Pharisees were not so easily pleased : ' Crucify Him, crucify
Him ! ' they cried, with a hatred that their first successes
had only served to increase. And Pilate, losing heart before
their stubborn rage, answered : ' Take Him you, and crucify
Him : for I find no cause in Him.' The permission thus
grudgingly given provided only a moderate guarantee for
Christ's enemies, with which they were by no means content.
Taking advantage of the feast, the Galileans might still
attempt some movement to save their Prophet ; above all, in
the future they might avenge the crime. To secure them-
selves, the Pharisees wished to be protected by the authority
of Rome, and they saw well enough that its representative
1 These last efforts of Pilate and Ms final capitulation are related by
S. John (xix, 416). S. Matthew adds one detail, that of Pilate washing
his hands with the words : ' I am innocent of the blood of this just Man ' ;
to which all the people reply : ' His blood be upon us and upon our
children' (Matt, xxvii, 24).
380 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
was so feeble and shaken that he would not resist a new
assault. So they brought forward a new charge. They
had a law, recognized and protected by Rome, and Jesus
had broken it by calling Himself the Son of God. Thus
the character of the accusation was changed. Up to then
it had been purely political, representing Jesus as a seditious
person ; now it becomes religious. Jesus is a blasphemer,
who violates the law by His claims to be the Son 01
God.
This new method of procedure would seem to have been
quite in order. The Jewish law was, as a matter of fact,
protected by the Roman authority, which punished its
transgressors. Thus the Roman soldier who had torn up
and burnt a copy of the Law, having been denounced by the
Jews, had been condemned and put to death. The history
of S. Paul, too, shows us how the sanctity of the Temple
was protected by the Roman authorities, and to bring
pagans into the enclosure reserved to the Jews was a crime
habitually punished by them. It cannot therefore be
doubted that teaching blasphemous in character, and in-
jurious to the law, would be punished in the same way.
And yet we can see clearly enough that it was with regret
that the Pharisees advanced on to the religious ground.
Caiphas, shortly before, had only with the greatest
reluctance put to Jesus the decisive question : ' Art Thou
the Messias, the Son of the Blessed God ? ' and he only did
so when the other charges had vanished into thin air. And
it is the same now. First, the Jews had sought to snatch
a condemnation without inquiry : ' If He were not a
malefactor we would not have delivered Him up to thee.'
Failing to obtain this, they tried at least to keep on political
ground : Christ was a seditious person, stirring up the
people, trying to prevent the payment of tribute to Caesar.
This manoeuvre having failed, they were reduced to playing
their last card : ' He made Himself the Son of God. 5
From their point of view this was a grave imprudence,
the consequences of which they could themselves foresee.
Our Lord's followers, terrorized for the moment, would
not fail to recover themselves, when they would certainly
want to know the reason for the persecution that their
Master had undergone. If Jesus had been condemned as
a revolutionary by the Romans, it would have been merely
a political condemnation, of which the odium would have
THE PASSION OF OUR LORD 381
fallen on the procurator alone ; but if He had been con-
demned as the Messias, the Son of God, it would have been
impossible to veil the religious character of the proceedings.
Hence those responsible would be the religious heads of the
people, the Romans being merely their instruments, and it
would have been a terrible responsibility indeed to have
stifled all Israel's hopes, through recourse to a foreign and
usurping power. S. Paul would say later to the Jews at
Rome : ' . . . for the hope of Israel I am bound with this
chain ' (Acts xxviii, 20) . The Sanhedrists felt the full force
of these claims, and did not expose themselves to their effects
with a light heart.
But in this, like Caiphas, they were led by a will stronger
than their own. Almighty God was giving up His Divine
Son to death, but He willed that He should be stricken as
a martyr and not as a rebel. Later on, S. Peter would say
to the Christians to whom he wrote (i Pet. iv, 15) : ' Let
none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or a railer, or a
coveter of other men's things. But if as a Christian, let him
not be ashamed : but let him glorify God in that name.'
It was thus that the King of Martyrs was to glorify His
Father by His death.
However, this new charge, far from deciding Pilate, only
troubled him still more. He knew very little about the
Jewish religion, and could scarcely be expected to appreciate
the exact force of the term Son of God. But what he knew
of Eastern religions in general made him feel that something
mysterious and terrible was at hand. From the moment
the case had come before him, he felt himself in contact
with forces terrifying and obscure. The inveterate hatred
of the Jewish religious heads, the simple and majestic
silence of the Accused, all seemed to him a confirmation of his
wife's warning : ' Have thou nothing to do with that just
Man.' The new charge brought forward by the Sanhedrists
lent still greater force to these apprehensions. A Son of
God ! What if this Man were so, after all !
Without daring directly to face this agonizing question,
Pilate asked his Prisoner : c Whence art Thou ? ' But
Jesus answered not a word. He could not explain the
mysteries of His origin to this man, so ill-prepared to hear
them ; for the rest, Pilate already knew enough for his
path of duty to be clearly traced.
The procurator was surprised and irritated at this silence.
382 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
He thought he was acting very graciously in deigning to
undertake this new examination, and he did not expect to
see his advances disregarded by a Man whom he had within
his power. He could only think that the Man must be a
visionary, with no sense of the risks He ran. ' Speakest
Thou not to me ? Knowest Thou not that I have power to
crucify Thee, and I have power to release Thee ? ' To the
Roman governor, our Lord's reply was to be more dis-
concerting than His silence. This Man, tortured and half
dead, whose life could be terminated by a word from Pilate,
cared nothing for His own defence, and was only interested
in the responsibility of the judges before whom He stood.
Yes, no doubt, Pilate had power over Him, but it was a
power that he held from on high, of which he would have
to give account. Those who had delivered Jesus into his
hands were the depositaries of a power more sacred than
his, which they had abused, and their reckoning would be
heavier than his. ' Therefore, he that hath delivered Me
to thee hath the greater sin. 3
Did Pilate grasp the meaning of all this teaching ? It
is very doubtful. But, at least, he understood enough to
feel more keenly the responsibility that, in the event of a
condemnation, would be his. And ' from henceforth
Pilate sought to release Him.' At the beginning he had
made some efforts to save Jesus, but they had been timid
and indirect, aimed at securing the desistance of the Jews,
or substituting Herod's responsibility for his own. Now he
makes a positive attempt to stop the whole affair, and to
release our Lord.
But these sincere intentions met a new obstacle, which
they could never surmount. ' If thou release this Man
thou art not Csesar's friend. For whosoever maketh himself
a king speaketh against Caesar.' So the Jews returned to
the political charge, but this time they pushed it right home.
Caesar himself was brought into the case, and Pilate under-
stood that, if he resisted, his adversaries would carry the case
to Rome. There was a real danger to him there. Acts of
violence had marked the beginning of his rule ; there had
been the affair of the standards, and then of the sacred
treasure, and it is quite possible that these high-handed
methods had not been altogether approved at Rome. He
could still count upon the support of Sejanus (d. A.D. 31), but
none the less he must not drive those under him to extremes.
THE PASSION OF OUR LORD 383
' Suppose, on the other hand, the Jews had written to the
Emperor to the following effect : We had secured a Man
who had risen against you, and your representative had
refused to judge Him under the pretext that he had not
arrested Him himself, it is probable that, once more, they
would have put Pilate in bad odour. Unfortunately for
himself as for Jesus, from his experience of the Jews, Pilate
quickly gauged the danger of the revolution whose first
mutterings he heard on every hand, envisaging the great
mass of native Jews swelled by their co-religionists come
from all parts of the empire to keep the Pasch in the Holy
City, and the secret support of the priests and elders of
the people. ... So Pilate first found himself powerless to
protest, and was then compelled by the force of circum-
stances to deliver Jesus to destruction, whose innocence he
acknowledged and whom he wished to set free.' 1
So Pilate left the Pretorium, had Jesus brought out, and
sat down at his tribunal to pass sentence on the Accused. At
the sight of the Prisoner and His judge, the Jews once more
uttered a cry of hatred, but this time in a more imperative
and decisive tone. ' Away with Him, away with Him :
crucify Him. 3 Pilate dare not resist any longer, but by a last
bit of irony he tried to avenge his defeat. ' Shall I crucify
your King ? ' The Jews, with their prey at last in their
hands, forgot everything else and, to gratify with hate,
gave the lie to all their cherished hopes : ' We have no king
but Caesar.' The procurator heard this cry of servility and
hatred. If at the beginning of this affair he had doubts as
to the motives of the Pharisees, he had none now. Never
had he so heartily despised the Jews. He made no further
effort to snatch from them their prey, but he intended to
dissociate himself from the responsibility for what was
taking place. The ever-growing tumult drowned his
voice, so he had recourse to a symbolic action familiar to
Jews and pagans alike ; 2 causing water to be brought, he
1 Regnault, loc. cit., p. 122.
2 Thus in Deut. xxi, i 8, we read : ' When there shall be found in the
land, which the Lord thy God will give thee, the corpse of a man slain,
and it is not known who is guilty of the murder : thy ancients and judges
shall go out, and shall measure from the place where the body lieth the
distance of every city round about. And the ancients of that city, which
they shall perceive to be nearer than the rest, shall take a heifer of the herd,
that hath not drawn in the yoke, nor ploughed the ground. And they shall
bring her into a rough and stony valley, that never was ploughed, nor
sown. And there they shall strike off the head of the heifer. . . . And
384 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
washed his hands in the presence of the people, with the
words : ' I am innocent of the blood of this just Man.
Look you to it. 3 And the people replied : ' His blood be
upon us and upon our children.' 1
For our Lord Himself this was one of the most painful
scenes of His whole Passion. He was a Jew, and He loved
His people. Quite recently He had wept over Jerusalem,
recalling in the midst of His tears how He had wished to
gather all its children around Him, but Jerusalem willed
it not. Now there is the same obstinacy, and worse still,
the curse of blood. Blinded by passion, the Jews have called
down its whole weight upon themselves and their children,
and they were to feel it in very truth. In the lot of this
people there is a lesson for the whole human race, namely
that the worst chastisements are those that a man inflicts
upon himself, when God leaves him to his folly and acts no
more as his guide. Of this the whole history of Israel is a
witness, and the prophets referred to the fact often enough :
' Destruction is thy own, O Israel.' But here these judge-
ments of God appear as in a flash of lurid light : ' We have
no king but Caesar ' ; as a matter of fact, they would never
have any other king but Caesar ; and in spite of all their
dreams of independence and all their frenzied revolts,
the same yoke would fall upon them again and again,
implacable, crushing, until it ground them to the dust.
' Away with Him, away with Him : crucify Him ! ' ' His
blood be upon us and upon our children ! ' And their
Christ, their Hope, died, indeed, nailed to the gibbet ;
and this blood, that should have given them life, cried
vengeance upon them, louder than Abel's blood. Before
such chastisement Christ wept, but He wept in vain. In
dying, He saw that His torments and death would be for
the whole world a source of life ; but for the people He
loved most here below, it would be the cause of a terrible
chastisement. His mercy spent itself against their stubborn
will.
the ancients of that city shall come to the person slain, and shall wash
their hands over the heifer that was killed in the valley : and shall say :
Our hands did not shed this blood, nor did our eyes see it. Be merciful
to thy people Israel, whom Thou hast redeemed, O Lord, and lay not
innocent blood to their charge, in the midst of Thy people Israel. And the
guilt of blood shall be taken from them.'
We find an allusion to this same rite in Ps. xxv, 6 ; Ixxii, 13 ; and
similarly in Pagan writers ; En., II, 719 ; Ovid, Fast., II, 54.
1 Kastner, p. 61, compares 2 Kings iii, 28 ; Dan. xiii, 46 ; Acts xx, 26 ;
and on p. 63 : 2 Kings i, 16 ; Jer. li, 35 ; Acts xviii, 6.
THE PASSION OF OUR LORD 385
But if, in this whole matter, the chief responsibility rests
with the Jews, it does not follow that Pilate was innocent :
he gave Him over to them, and by a formal judgement, too.
This last point is less clearly in evidence, and might be
doubted, if we paid attention only to those texts which tell
us that Pilate delivered up Jesus to be crucified, viz. : * he
delivered Him to them to be crucified ' (John xix, 1 6) ;
' Pilate . . . delivered up Jesus ... to be crucified ' (Mark xv,
15) ; ' . . . delivered Him unto them to be crucified ' (Matt,
xxvii, 26) ; ' And Pilate gave sentence that it should be as
they required. . . . But Jesus he delivered up to their will '
(Luke xxiii, 24-25). But, side by side with these, there are
other passages that speak of a condemnation in the proper
sense of the word. 1 This is the meaning of the incident
recorded by S. John (xix, 13) : ' Pilate . . . sat down in the
judgement seat ' ; and is implied still more clearly in what
we are told of the inscription bearing the sentence (John xix,
19) : ' Pilate wrote a title also : and he put it upon the
cross. And the writing was : JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING
OF THE JEWS ' (John xix, 1 9) .
This inscription, formally stating the sentence, was read
by the judge who had pronounced it, then it was carried
ostentatiously before the condemned man, and finally
attached to the gibbet 2 on which he was put to death. By
the brutal brevity of its composition Pilate avenged himself
in his own way upon the Jews who had forced his hand ; and
when they wanted to make him adopt a less positive Version
he regained all his haughtiness once more. ' What I have
written, I have written.'
Pilate sent Jesus to punishment in the company of two
other condemned men. This insulting association of the
King of the Jews with two thieves was quite in keeping with
Roman custom ; in the Acts of the Martyrs we meet it
often enough. 3
It may be that, in thus ordering this collective execution,
1 Regnault, 113.
2 In the same way, according to the Acts of the Martyrs of Lyons, a
board was carried before the martyr Attains, bearing the Latin inscription :
' This is Attains, the Christian ' (H.E., V, i, 44).
3 Thus in the Acts of the Martyrs of Palestine, VI, 4 : ' Agapius was
led to the middle of the arena in company with a criminal, in custody, it
was said, for killing his master. And lo ! the murderer of his master,
offered to the beasts, was judged worthy of pity and benevolence, very
much like that infamous fellow Barabbas in our Saviour's time ; whereupon
shouts and acclamations re-echoed throughout the theatre, because the
homicide had been spared by the philanthropy of the Emperor and deemed
worthy of honour and liberty. . . .'
386 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
Pilate wished to take advantage of it in order to empty the
prisons before the feast. In any case, it shows that he had
little care for Jesus, and that all his hesitations and fears
had scarcely affected the frivolous scepticism of his mind.
The carrying of the Cross is disposed of in a word by
S. John, but described a little more closely in the other
Gospels ; and Luke, especially, relates some details of great
value. 1 When we read these narratives, so restrained and
yet charged with such terrible realities, we cannot help
recalling our Lord's own words to His disciples : ' If any
man will come after Me, let him deny himself and take up
his cross and follow Me ' (Matt, xvi, 24 ; cp. x, 38) .
This was no more than a metaphor at the time ; but now
our Lord's torment had brought it home to His disciples
as a terrible fact. The prediction at Cassarea Philippi,
against which Peter had revolted, was a pale description
indeed compared with the scene that all Jerusalem had now
before its eyes. And from then onwards Christians of every
generation, who would read those words of our Lord, would
understand them in the light of Calvary itself.
Moreover, Jesus had wished to give the greatest publicity
to this event. The whole Jewish world was gathered at
Jerusalem for the feast ; and now, more than at Pentecost
within fifty days' time, there might have been seen people
from all nations under heaven, ' Parthians and Medes and
Elamites and inhabitants of Mesopotamia, Judea and
Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia,
Egypt and the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and strangers
of Rome, Cretes and Arabians,' all had come to eat the
Paschal Lamb at Jerusalem, all were about to be witnesses
of the sacrifice of the Lamb of God. There they were, press-
ing across the town to make the last preparations for the feast,
in quest, some of a lodging, another of a victim, joyful, busy,
already feeling the dear memories of Passover and deliver-
ance pass across their minds like the warm breeze of Egypt.
When suddenly they were brought to a stand by this eddying
stream of riot, by these cries of death which sounded from
the Pretorium across the whole town, and at last they
saw the mournful procession painfully making its way
through the Holy City's congested streets.
It was the Roman custom to give to these executions the
greatest possible publicity, and in Josephus' accounts of
1 Mark xv, 20-3 ; Matt, xxvii, 31-3 ; Luke xxiii, 26-34.
THE PASSION OF OUR LORD 387
that of Geler (A.J., XX, vi, 3), and again Niger (B.J.,
IV, vi, i), we read of both being dragged right across
the town. Nor was Jesus spared ; this exhibition being
insisted upon by the Jews more than by the Romans them-
selves. According to custom, a centurion was put in charge
of the execution, 1 having at his disposal a small troop,
manipulum, or century, i.e. sixty to one hundred men.
Probably, on this occasion, greater precautions were taken,
since the ' King of the Jews ' was involved and, especially
at Passover time, a rising of His followers might have been
feared. Surrounded by this escort, the three condemned
men advanced carrying their crosses, which may refer here
to the whole cross, dragged along by the prisoner, or only to
the cross-beam, carried under the arm. In any case, it soon
became evident that, exhausted as He was by the scourging,
Jesus could not Himself carry the instrument of His punish-
ment, so the soldiers requisitioned the services of a Jew
who was returning from the fields. This was a Gyrenian
named Simon, whose two sons, Alexander and Rufus, are
named by Mark, no doubt as being well known to the
Christian community of his time. So for this man and his
family the cross became an instrument of salvation ; first
of all others he had fulfilled to the letter the Master's
precept : ' If any man will come after Me, let him . . . take
up his cross and follow Me.' It is true that for him it was
only a compulsory burden, imposed by authority, and no
doubt submitted to against his will ; but already the virtue
of the Holy Cross was working wonders in his soul, as it
would, a little later, in that of the good thief.
Alone among the evangelists S. Luke refers to the ' great
multitude of people ' that followed the procession. There
were all those whom a morbid curiosity drove to witness
such scenes ; but there were, too, those who were attached
to our Lord, who, troubled, wavering, despairing, wished
at least to ' see the end ! ' Indeed, soon the two travellers
to Emmaus would be telling the unknown Stranger who
joined them on the way that He was the only person in
Jerusalem who was not aware of the dreadful catastrophe
that had taken place. And there were some faithful souls,
such as the holy women, mentioned especially by S. Luke.
These were not the Galileans whom we shall meet again
1 Seneca, De ira, i, 16 : letter of the Smyrnites on the death of Polycarp
(H.E., IV, 15, 43).
388 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
later at the foot of the Cross, but another group, composed
especially of women of Jerusalem itself. While men kept
silence or joined the blasphemers, women had the courage
to weep ; their presence and affliction adding one more
piece of evidence to many others, of our Lord's work and
influence in the Holy City. And Christ, in His reply, once
more revealed Himself. Before Pilate, in utter self-forgetful-
ness, He had no care but for the responsibility of His
judge ; but here, with the faithful souls who wept over Him,
it was the evils that threatened them that alone were in His
mind. Repeating His former predictions concerning the
last days, He painted the immeasurable anguish that would
soon hold the women of Jerusalem in its grasp, His own
Passion being but the prelude to these appalling calamities
that would break over the city that was murdering its God.
' For behold the days will come wherein they will say :
Blessed are the barren and the wombs that have not borne ! '
And all was summed up in the closing words, forming for
us all one of the gravest warnings on the Gospel page :
' . . . if in the green wood they do these things, what shall
be done in the dry ? ' Jesus, feeling the weight of Divine
justice, warns us, He, the Innocent One, suffering for us, the
guilty, that that weight is terrible indeed.
And we find the same tender care still more movingly
expressed in that other saying, also recorded by S. Luke r 1
' Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.'
These were our Lord's words as they nailed Him to the
Cross. Those for whom He interceded are not solely, or
first of all, the soldiers who did the deed : ' As for those
poor wretches, it is too evident that they did not know
what they were doing, for they had no idea that they were
doing any harm ' (Lagrange) . No, it was the arch-
offenders who were meant, they against whom, through
Christ's death, divine justice was being armed ; those who
had called down upon themselves the curse of blood the
Jews. Compared with them, Pilate himself had the lesser
sin. Yet it is the case that they themselves did not realize
the full horror of their crime : ' And now, brethren,' Peter
would be saying soon, ' I know that you did it through
ignorance, as did also your rulers ' (Acts iii, 17 ; cp. xiii, 27).
This persistence in praying for them shows the great grief
1 On the authenticity of these words see Lagrange's note on that of
Valensin-Huby.
THE PASSION OF OUR LORD 389
that was tearing at our Lord's Sacred Heart ; His death,
the atonement for men's sins, was, for those who brought it
about, the greatest sin of the world, and its punishment
would be the most rigorous of all.
And now they had reached Golgotha, a rocky peak, then
outside the ramparts of the town. 1
It was there that the last and most terrible act of the
sacred drama would be played out. Josephus relates (B.J.,
VII, vi, 4) how it was by the fear of the atrocious punish-
ment of the cross that the capitulation of Macheron was
brought about. A Jew named Eleazar was the soul of the
defence ; being surprised and made prisoner, he was
scourged in full sight of the defenders of the town. At
last a cross was set up, and he was led up to it ; the man,
up to then so brave, felt himself giving way, and cried out
to his friends to surrender, in order to save his life. From the
town, his relations and friends cried with a loud voice that
this torture was intolerable and that he must be rescued from
it ; so intense was the emotion, that the citadel capitulated.
But no one intervened on our Lord's behalf ; some women
wept, while his enemies triumphed, and the crowd looked on
and let things take their course. He was offered a tardy
mitigation of His pain (Mark xv, 23) : ' And they gave Him
to drink wine mingled with myrrh, but He took it not.' We
read in the Babylonian Talmud : ' They used to give
condemned men a cup of wine, with a grain of incense, to
drink, to make them less conscious of the pain, according to
Prov. xxxi, 6. The tradition is that the generous women
of Jerusalem did this spontaneously at their own expense.' 2
This text from the Talmud is undoubtedly too recent for
one to be able to obtain reliable information from it ; it
has always seemed that it was rather on account of a feeling
of compassion that Jesus was offered this cup of spiced wine,
and one may easily believe ' that it was persons friendly to
Jesus, perhaps the holy women themselves, who prepared
1 On the site of Calvary should be read Vincent, Jerusalem, II, pp. 89 ff .
' Apart from proofs to be produced later, it is already clear that the
authenticity of Calvary and the Holy Sepulchre is possessed of the best
guarantees of certainty that can be looked for on such a subject ' (p. 89).
The position of the sun over Golgotha is minutely studied and described
(pp. 97-104) ; and the Gospel data on the death and burial of Christ are
analysed (pp. 92-5).
2 Sanhedrin, 43a. The text of Proverbs runs : ' Give strong drink to
them that are sad : and wine to them that are grieved in mind : let them
drink and forget their want, and remember their sorrow no more.'
3go LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
this beverage, and succeeded in getting it offered to Jesus.
But He would not accept this assuagement of His sufferings,
which He desired to endure without any impairment of His
mental powers.' 1
We are sufficiently well informed as to the nature of the
punishment of the cross. The chief classical sources of
knowledge on the subject have been assembled by G.
Humbert : 2 ' Generally, the condemned were first beaten
with rods, after having been bound to the ' fork,' and then
had to carry the cross, or at least the cross-piece, to the place
of execution, being thus exposed to the insults and blows of
the populace on the way. The cross was set up, and the
doomed man raised upon it with the aid of straps and cords,
then fixed to it with long nails driven through the hands and
feet. A tablet describing the nature of the crime was placed
on the higher part of the cross. Slaves were generally
crucified outside the town. There a forest of crosses would
arise, from which groans would proceed ; for the wretched
victims were left to die of hunger and thirst, and to serve as
fodder for vultures and dogs. Sometimes they lived in this
condition for several days, unless, by a mitigation of the
punishment, their limbs were ordered to be broken. This
was the case among the Jews, so that the body might
be taken down in the evening of the same day. So it was
that, after the death of Christ, His Body was given up for
burial.' The feet were fixed by two nails, probably on a
sort of support resting on a stake. 3
Their task finished, and all the condemned having been
nailed to their crosses, the soldiers seated themselves at the
foot of the gibbet, where they cast lots for our Blessed Lord's
clothes. John, as an eye-witness, describes these events and
1 See Lagrange, S. Marc, p. 427, where will be found the two passages
referred to above.
2 Dictionnaire des Antiquites, art. Crux, col. 1573.
3 In connection with the division of the garments it has been asked if
Jesus was crucified completely naked. Suarez (in Illam, Qu. 46, Art. 8)
writes : ' The most usual opinion among the holy Fathers was that Christ
was crucified completely naked,' and to this effect he quotes S. Ambrose,
In Luc., X, no ; S. Augustine, C. Faustum, XII, 23 ; De Civitate Dei,
xvi, 2 ; S. Cyprian, epist. 63, 3. Upon this point Jewish custom was not
clearly determined, and the Mishnah quotes to the contrary the opinion of
R. Jehuda, adding, nevertheless, that it is contradicted by the majority
of sages (Sank., VI, 3) : ' When they had come within four cubits of the
stoning place, the condemned man was stripped of his garments. If it
was a man, he was covered in front, if a woman, she was covered both in
front and behind. Thus says R. Jehuda. But according to the sages, men
are stoned naked, but women not. 1
THE PASSION OF OUR LORD 391
gives the most detailed account of this. He was impressed
by the literal fulfilment of the prophecy : for the Son of
David had seen His garments ' parted,' while on His vesture
they cast lots. Perhaps this seamless cloak had been woven
by our Lady or the holy women j 1 in the minds of Christians
it would remain always the symbol of the unity of the
Church.
And while this spoliation and rough sport were going on,
Jesus was in His agony, a sight upon which His cruel foes
were feasting their eyes. Several distinct groups of on-
lookers are mentioned by the evangelists. The people
looked on (Luke xxiii, 35) and were silent. No doubt there
were many friends of Jesus in the crowd, but terror-stricken
at the catastrophe and scared by the Jews. There were,
too, and in much larger numbers, waverers of the night
before, whose attitude had been completely reversed by the
scandal of the Cross ; their faith is dead ; they had hoped
in this Man, and now there was nothing else in which either
to believe or hope. There were also ' they that passed by '
mentioned by Mark (xv, 29) and Matthew (xxvii, 39).
These seemed to know nothing of Jesus except what they
had heard repeated all day by the people's leaders. He was
a blasphemer, who boasted of His power to destroy the
Temple and rebuild it in three days. Like the servant who
struck Jesus before Annas, these, too, thought of nothing but
paying court to their chiefs ; and they passed before the
Cross ' wagging their heads and saying : Vah, Thou that
destroyest the Temple of God and in three days buildest
it up again : save Thyself, coming down from the cross.'
Nor were the chiefs themselves absent from the crowd ; so
full were their hearts of hatred and fierce joy that they
could not keep silent, and disdaining directly to address
their Victim, laughing among themselves, they indulged in
such remarks as ' He saved others ; Himself He cannot save.
Let Christ the King of Israel come down now from the
Cross, that we may see and believe ! ' (Mark). Matthew
records the same outrages while stressing the blasphemy :
' He trusted in God : let Him now deliver Him, if He will
have Him. For He said : I am the Son of God.' Diverted
at the sight of the Jewish leaders thus insulting their Messias,
the very soldiers themselves joined in the chorus of con-
1 Some commentators see here a reference to the white robe with which
Herod bedecked our Lord. Cp. supra, p. 370, n. i.
VOL. II. 2 C
392 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
tempt : ' If Thou be the King of the Jews, save Thyself ! '
(Luke). While they were saying these things, they offered
the Crucified One a small quantity of their usual beverage,
posca, a mixture of vinegar and water.
And all this tumult was echoed in its turn by the dying
thieves ; an incident that Luke has related in greater
detail than the rest.
One of these two simply repeated what he had heard
being said around him on every side : e If Thou be Christ,
save Thyself and us.' But he was rebuked by the other :
' Neither dost thou fear God, seeing thou art under the
same condemnation. And we indeed justly : for we
receive the due reward of our deeds. But this Man hath
done no evil.' And then, suddenly moved by grace, he
uttered that wonderful cry : ' Lord, remember me when
Thou shalt come into Thy kingdom ! '
' This day,' answered Jesus, ' thou shalt be with Me in
Paradise ' : words of sovereign dignity and love, revealing
our Blessed Lord in the most perfect way. To the worst
outrages there had been no reply ; but here was the promise
of the kingdom to the first prayer of a contrite heart. His
enemies thought that they had Him utterly in their power ;
His very clothes had been snatched away, and the execu-
tioners were sharing them among themselves, and it is at
this moment that He was disposing of Paradise as its
undoubted Lord. 1
During these last hours of our Lord's Agony occurred the
darkness that spread over the whole earth, and at the same
time the silence that made itself felt around the Cross ; and
it was then that the little group of faithful followers of our
Lord approached :
' Now there stood by the cross of Jesus, His mother
and His mother's sister, Mary of Cleophas, and Mary
Magdalen. When Jesus therefore had seen His mother
1 Christian piety, craving for a more detailed account of this most
touching incident, has wished to give names to the two robbers. Some
Gospel manuscripts (Swete, Mark) call them Zoathan and Chammatha ;
the Acts of Pilate, Dysmas and Gestas ; the Arabic gospel of the Infancy,
Titus and Dumachus ; all which diversity of opinion is proof of how little
we know. We may think, if we like, that these brigands belonged to the
troop of Barabbas, and that they were Galileans who had possibly heard
of Christ and perhaps even come into contact with Him. But all that is
merely of supplementary interest. The essential thing, so unmistakably
indicated by the Gospel account, is the sovereign efficacy of the Cross,
that could make a brigand into a saint : ' whosoever is near the fire is
near God.'
THE PASSION OF OUR LORD 393
and the disciple standing whom He loved, He saith to
His mother : Woman, behold thy Son. After that, He
saith to the disciple : Behold thy mother. And from that
hour the disciple took her to his own.' (John xix, 2 5-2 7. x )
This scene, so touching in its intimacy, has always been
specially dear to the piety of the Christian world. Our
readers may like to have S. Ambrose's comment upon it,
in his letter to the clergy of Vercelli (P.L., XVI, 1218) :
' Mary, our Lord's Mother, stood before the Gross of her
Son ; I know this through no other authority than that of
the evangelist S. John. Others have recorded how the world
was shaken during the Lord's Passion, the sky veiled by
darkness, the sun having taken to flight ; how the thief was
received into paradise after the pious confession he had made.
But it is John who has taught me what the others have not ;
how, on His Cross, Jesus called to His Mother. John has
laid more stress upon this mark of filial piety, received by His
Mother from Christ, Vanquisher of torments, than he did
upon the gift of participation in the kingdom of Heaven. No
doubt it was a sign of goodness to pardon the thief ; but
much more was it a mark of piety to honour His Mother with
such a love. " Woman," He says, " behold thy Son " ;
" Behold thy Mother." It is Christ's testament from the
Cross, dividing the duties of piety between His Mother and
the disciple whom He loved. Thus the Lord drew up His
testament, not only His public one, but His domestic one
as well, and John added to it his signature, a worthy witness
to a Testator so great. Precious testament, by which is
bequeathed not money but eternal life ; which is written
not with ink, but by the Spirit of the Living God, of Him
who said : " My tongue is the pen of a scrivener that
writeth swiftly " (Ps. xliv, 2). Nor had Mary fallen below
what was fitting for the Mother of Christ. While the
Apostles were in flight, she had stood at the foot of the
Cross, while with her maternal eyes she contemplated her
Son's wounds, not expecting from them so much the death
1 We may understand this text in two ways : either identifying the
sister of Mary with the wife of Cleophas, or no less reasonably here distin-
guishing four holy women. The second, the sister of Mary, would be unnamed,
but by comparison with Mark xv, 40 she would be identified with Salome,
mother of the sons of Zebedee (Matt, xx, 20): This second interpretation
is not unlikely ; the anonymity in which John thus leaves his mother is
characteristic enough ; moreover, the relationship which connects him
with Mary helps us to understand later on our Lord's gift of John to
Mary and Mary to John. Cp. supra, I, p. 35.
394 LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST
of her Well-beloved as the salvation of the world. Or
perhaps because she knew, she, the dwelling-place of the
King, that her Son's death was the redemption of the
world ; perhaps, I say, she thought that she herself would
add something to this gift which was to enrich the world.
But Jesus had no need of aid in His redemption of the
world, He who, without help from, anyone, wrought the
salvation of all. Hence the words : "I am become as a
man without help, free among the dead " (Ps. Ixxxvii, 5).
He welcomed His Mother's love, but He sought the assistance
of no man.'
To this passage we will add nothing, contemplating this
great mystery in silence. Like Sinai of old, Calvary is
veiled in darkness, with a veil of mystery, but of mourning
above all. The blasphemers are quiet now, overwhelmed, in
spite of themselves, by the horror of the anguish close at
hand ; and the Crucified is silent, too, plunged with His
faithful ones in this dark night. Never had they suffered so
much, yet never had they prayed so much ; never had they
felt themselves so near to Christ and so intimately united to
Him as in this agony, where all seemed lost and gone. 1
Suddenly from the Cross resounded a great cry : ' Eloi,
Eloi, lamina sabacthani ? ' These are the first words, i 
