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LIGRARY,
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A KEY
TO THE GOSPEL NARRATIVE
RIVINGTONS
ILonBon Waterloo Place
rfbrt) High Street
Trinity Street
A KEY
tfje fiatratt&e of
THE FOUR GOSPELS
BY JOHN PILKINGTON NORRIS, M.A.
'ANON OF BRISTOL, AND FORMERLY ONE OF H. M. INSPECTORS OF SCHOOLS
RIVINGTONS
IConion, O.vforb, anb Cambrtbgc
1869
THIS is an age of historical criticism. Some
think we are carrying it too far. It is
difficult to see how it can possibly be carried too
far, so long as it is sincere and thoroughgoing.
But, rightly or wrongly, so it is. Everything pur-
porting to be a fact in the world's history is being
thus tested, that we may see for ourselves whether
it have about it the character of an authentic fact
or no. The Gospel narratives cannot escape this
kind of criticism.
The purpose of the following pages is to help
our younger students to realize to themselves the
narrative of these four Gospels : to show that they
are not contradictory but supplemental to each
other.
It may not be possible to weave into one con-
sistent chronicle all their anecdotes of our blessed
Lord's ministry. But it may be possible so far to
succeed in reconstructing the original order of
events, as to satisfy any candid mind that their
2000293
discrepancies are only such as might naturally be
expected in four independent portraitures ; and
to quicken the reader's consciousness of the reality
of the Divine original.
This last is the all-important thing. We may
or we may not be able to answer all the cavils of
one who is unwilling to receive the truth. But to
strengthen our own convictions, to learn to read
these records of Christ with a vivid perception of
their intense truthfulness, to freshen and deepen
those impressions which long familiarity may have
weakened, this is of infinite concern, if to know
Him be indeed to us eternal life.
Contents
PART I
s
CHAP. PAGE
I. EXTERNAL TESTIMONIES TO THEIR AUTHEN-
TICITY ....... I
II. THEIR INTERNAL CHARACTER IO
PART IT
The osptl ^arratibr
I. BIRTH AND YOUTH OF OUR LORD . . . 18
II. BAPTISM, TEMPTATION, AND FIRST YEAR'S
MINISTRY 23
III. SECOND YEAR, FIRST QUARTER THE GREAT
GALILEAN MINISTRY 30
IV. SECOND YEAR, SECOND QUARTER PASSOVER
AND NORTHERN TOUR .... 38
V. SECOND YEAR, THIRD QUARTER TRANSFIGU-
RATION AND FEAST OF TABERNACLES . . 46
VI. SECOND YEAR, FOURTH QUARTER FINAL RE-
TURN TO JUDEA, AND FEAST OF DEDICATION 52
viii Cxmtmte
CHAP. PAGE
VII. THIRD YEAR, FIRST QUARTER RAISING OF
LAZARUS, AND FINAL ASCENT TO JERU-
SALEM . . . . . . . 57
VIII. EARLY DAYS OF HOLY WEEK ... 63
IX. THE LAST SUPPER AND THE BETRAYAL . . 72
X. JUDGMENT IN THE JEWISH COURT . . 78
XI. JUDGMENT IN THE ROMAN COURT ... 83
XII. THE CRUCIFIXION 89
XIII. THE BURIAL AND RESURRECTION 95
XIV. THE FORTY DAYS . . IOI
PART III
on tht <&o&yt\. Jlarratite
I. ON THE NARRATIVE OF THE BIRTH AND
INFANCY IO8
II. ON THE SILENCE OF THE GOSPELS RESPECT-
ING OUR LORD'S LIFE AT NAZARETH . . 112
III. ON THE NARRATIVE OF THE TEMPTATION . 115
IV. ON OUR LORD'S MIRACLES . . . .119
v. CHRIST'S DEATH A MYSTERY . . .127
VI. ON THE CHRONOLOGY OF THE GOSPEL NARRA-
TIVE 132
PART I
jFour ospels
CHAPTER I
(External '(Etstiinonics to thrir JUtfmxtidig
NO fact in the world's history is more certain than
that 1800 years ago, in the broad daylight of
the Roman Empire, there came into existence, and
rapidly increased in numbers, a society of men calling
themselves Christians.
The Roman historian of the period 1 , writing with a
strong heathen prejudice, mentions them by name,
and adds that ' their founder was one C/irzstus, who
suffered capital punishment under the procurator
Pontius Pilate, in the reign of Tiberius ; but that this
mischievous superstition, repressed for a while, burst
forth again, not only throughout Judea, where it first
arose, but even in Rome.'
And then he goes on to describe how Nero charged
them with having set fire to Rome, and tried to crush
them by persecution. This was A.D. 64.
Forty years later, the accomplished Pliny found
such multitudes professing Christianity in Asia Minor,
that the temples of the heathen gods were deserted ;
and we have a letter from him to the Emperor Tra-
jan, asking how he was to deal with them, and de-
A- L, * Tacitus, Ann. xv. 44.
A
scribing their habits, how ' they assembled on certain
stated days before it was light, and repeated in alter-
nate verses one with another a hymn or form of prayer
to Christ, as to some God, binding themselves by a
sacrament 1 , not for any criminal purpose but to
abstain from fraud, theft, and adultery, from falsifying
their word, from retaining what did not belong to them 2 ;
after which it was their custom to separate, and then
reassemble to eat in common a harmless meal.'
This, he said, had been going on for twenty years
or more.
In vain the Roman magistrates tried to trample out
this ' new superstition.' The more they crushed it,
the more it grew ; and two centuries later it became
the state-religion of the Empire.
All this is mere matter of notoriety, not resting on
the authority of the Christians or their writings, nor
belonging to any dark ages of the world's history, but
recorded in the contemporary annals of the Roman
Empire in the days of its greatest splendour.
Deeply interesting it must be, from even a merely
historical point of view, to inquire what account these
Christians gave of themselves and of their origin.
An anecdote has been preserved which may serve
to illustrate the unobtrusiveness and modesty of the
early Christians when called upon to give an account
of themselves :
About fifteen years before the date of Pliny's letter,
the Emperor Domitian was alarmed by the revival of
a report which had been very prevalent at the begin-
ning of his father's reign, that a great prince was
1 Pliny would doubtless understand by this an oath merely.
2 May we not recognise here the latter commandments of
the Decalogue ?
(External Ttstimxrtms to tluir JtuthentUitB 3
expected to appear in Judea, and that he was to come
from the house of David. He ordered inquiry to be
made in Palestine for any descendants of David, and
two sons (or grandsons) of Jude ('the Lord's brother')
were brought before him. 'He demanded whether
they were descended from David. They confessed it.
Again he inquired what were their means. They de-
clared that they possessed but 9000 denarii (about
.300), and a few acres of land in Judea. They
showed him their hands, hard with daily toil, in token
of the simple industry by which they gained their
living. Once more the Emperor asked what was the
meaning of Christ's kingdom, to which they replied
that /'/ was not of this world, but should appear at
the consummation of all things. Domitian, it is said,
was satisfied with these answers ; and, it is added,
put a stop from that moment to the persecution of the
Christians.' (Merivale's History of Rome, chap. Ixii.)
This harmlessness and entire absence of worldly
ambition appear in the public ' Apologies,' which from
time to time the Christians addressed to the Imperial
Government. But in these same Apologies there ap-
pears also what the Romans could not comprehend
or forgive their deep enthusiastic reverence for
Christ their Founder ; their intense conviction that
He was living in the unseen world, and daily pouring
His Holy Spirit into their hearts ; their ardent ex-
pectation of His near return to judge the world.
But what had their Founder done, or what had He
left behind Him on the earth to explain all this ?
He left no writings 1 . He had simply left behind
1 Augustine thinks it necessary to explain the reasons of
this at great length in his book De Consensit Evangdistarum.
Him a group of men on whom He had made so deep
an impression that their whole character was changed,
and they were fired with a holy zeal to work in others
that same change of which they were so conscious in
themselves.
Christianity was to them not a doctrine merely, not
a record, but a life 1 , a new vital principle throbbing
in every pulse of their being, which they felt bound to
impart to others also, to as many as they could reach,
before the second coming of their Lord. The pre-
cious memory of all that Christ had said and done and
suffered, while on earth, lived from mouth to mouth,
was the staple of their preaching, was the first lesson
of their catechumens. ' The time was so short ' 2 that it
seemed hardly necessary to stamp with official autho-
rity any of the written records of these facts.
But in the next generation, when Christ's return
was still delayed, and seemed likely to be delayed,
and when the growth of erroneous notions made an
appeal to some written rule of faith a necessity, the
Christians began carefully to treasure and transcribe
such memoirs of Christ as the Apostles or their com-
panions had committed to writing for the use of any
of their converts.
Thus it happened that whereas the earlier Christians
appealed to the facts of Christ's ministry as known by
oral tradition, saying, ' It has been delivered to us by
those who were eye-witnesses,' or the like, a later
generation, beginning with Justin Martyr, began to
appeal to written documents.
In Justin Martyr we find such an appeal repeatedly.
He wrote his Dialogue and his Apology between the
years 140 and 150 A.D. He was of Greek descent,
1 Acts v. 20. 2 I Cor. vii. 29.
(External Ctstitmmics to iluir JtuihentiatB 5
born near the ancient Shechem. After trying all the
schools of Philosophy, and finding them unsatisfac-
tory, he was led by a meek and venerable old man,
whom he met one day on the sea-shore, to embrace
Christianity. ' Many things,' he says, ' this old man
told me which I cannot now record. I saw him no
more. But forthwith a fire was kindled in my soul,
and I was filled with a love of those prophets and
friends of Christ of whom he had spoken. And when
I pondered all his words, I began to see that this was
the only philosophy which was safe, and suited to my
need.'
Twelve times Justin refers to the written Memoirs
of the Apostles, as he calls them ; and that by these
' Memoirs ' he meant our four Gospels, is rendered
highly probable by the fact that wherever he quotes
them and he makes seven such quotations the
words are to be found in one or other of our Gospels.
In his famous account of the Christian Eucharist 1 ,
he says, ' The Apostles, in Memoirs which they wrote,
and which are called Gospels, have recorded these
injunctions of the Lord.' And in the same passage
he tells us how the Christians of the country villages
assembled together every Sunday to hear the Memoirs
of the Apostles, or the books of the Prophets, read
aloud. And again in his Dialogue 2 he writes : ' In
the Memoirs, which I say were composed by the
Apostles and their companions, we read that sweat as
drops streamed down from Him, as He was praying
and saying, Let this cup pass from me.' That by
' the followers of the Apostles ' he here alluded spe-
cially to St. Luke, is very clear, not only because the
passage quoted occurs in St. Luke, but also because
1 Apol. i. 66, 67. 2 Ch. 103.
the Greek word used for ' follower ' is the very word
by which St. Luke describes himself in the preface to
his Gospel.
Papias, a contemporary of Justin, mentions the
Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Mark by name. He
was the friend of Polycarp, and, like him, is said to
have been a disciple of St. John. In his work, An Ex-
position of the Oracles of the Lord, of which fragments
have been preserved to us in Eusebius 1 , he says,
' Matthew composed his oracles in Hebrew, and each
one interpreted them as he was able.' Of St. Mark
he says, ' Mark having become Peter's interpreter,
wrote accurately all that he remembered ; though he
did not record in order that which was said or done
by Christ. For he neither heard the Lord, nor fol-
lowed Him ; but subsequently, as I said, attached him-
self to Peter, who used to frame his teaching to meet
the immediate wants of his hearers ; and not making
a connected narrative of the Lord's discourses.' He
seems too in another fragment to quote St. John.
Either Papias or some contemporary certainly not
later than A.D. 170 wrote a complete Canon of the
Books of the New Testament as then received in the
Christian Church. A precious fragment of this Canon
was discovered in the Ambrosian Library at Milan,
and was published in 1740, by Muratori. It is sadly
mutilated, but enough remains to give it the highest
value.
Mr. Westcott (in his History of the New Testament
Canon) thus gives its substance :
' The fragment commences with the last words of a
sentence which evidently referred to the Gospel of St.
Mark. The Gospel of St. Luke, it is then said, stands
1 Ecc. Hist. iii. 39.
(External testimonies to their ^uthenticitg 7
third in order, having been written by Luke the Physi-
cian, St. Paul's companion, who not being himself an
eye-witness, based his narrative on such information as
he could obtain, beginning from the birth of the Baptist.
The fourth place is given to the Gospel of St. John, a
disciple of our Lord ; and the occasion of its writing
is thus described : In reply to the entreaties of his
fellow-disciples and bishops John said, " Fast with me
for three days from this time, and whatever shall be
revealed to each of us, whether it be favourable to my
writing or not, let us relate it one to another." On the
same night it was revealed to Andrew, one of the
Apostles, that John should relate all things in his own
name, aided by the revision of all. What wonder is
it then that John so constantly brings forward Gospel-
phrases, even in his Epistles, saying in his own person,
" What we have seen with our eyes, and heard with
our ears, and our hands have handled, these things
have we written"? For so he professes that he was not
only an eye-witness, but also a hearer, and moreover
a historian of all the wonderful works of our Lord.'
Though the beginning of this fragment has been de-
stroyed, there can be no doubt that St. Matthew occu-
pied the first place in his Canon. Further on he thus
affirms distinctly the Church's belief in their inspira-
tion : ' Though various points are taught in each of
the Gospels, it makes no difference to the faith of
believers, since in all of them all things are declared
by one overruling Spirit 1 concerning the Nativity, the
Passion, His conversation with His disciples, and His
double advent, at first in humility, and afterwards in
royal power as He will yet appear.' The writer of the
manuscript then mentions the Acts, thirteen Epistles of
1 ' Uno ac principal! spu declarata.'
St. Paul, and other books, some of which the Church
judged afterwards to be Apocryphal.
Irenasus, writing to his friend Florinus (about A.D.
177), and fondly recalling his intercourse in earlier
days with Polycarp, alludes to the four Gospels under
the well-understood title of Scriptures 1 . The passage
is too interesting to be abridged :
' I well recollect seeing thee in Asia Minor, at the
house of Polycarp, when I was a boy, and thou wast
in attendance on Hadrian's court, and seeking to
commend thyself to Polycarp. Indeed, the events of
my boyhood I remember better than what is more
recent. For what is then put into our memory seems
to grow with our growth, and become part of our
very being. I could describe the exact spot where
the blessed Polycarp used to sit and converse ; his
goings-forth and his comings-in ; the whole manner
of his life, and his personal appearance ; I remember
his discourses to the people, and how he would narrate
his intercourse with John and with the others who
had beheld the Lord ; and how he repeated their
words, and what he had heard from their lips about
the Lord and about His miracles and teaching ; all
this, received directly from those who were eye-wit-
nesses of the Word of Life, used Polycarp to relate,
agreeing throughout with the Scriptures'*.
This same Irenasus, in his book 'Against Heresies'
(iii. i), speaks of the Gospel which the Apostles first
preached orally, and afterwards by the will of God
handed down to us in a written form, ' the foundation
and pillar of our faith.' And again in the I2th chap-
1 Compare Matt. xxvi. 54, Luke xxiv. 27, Acts xviii. 28,
I Cor. xv. 3, 4, and 2 Peter iii. 16, where the term seems
to be applied to St. Paul's Epistles.
2 Fragmenta Irencei (Stieren's edition, vol. i. p. 822).
(External <3resiitwmi.es to tht'vc Quthtnticity 9
ter he says, ' Whence it appears that the all-creating
Word, who sitteth between the cherubim, and holdeth
together all things, hath given us the Gospel, fourfold
in form, but held together by one Spirit.'
In the second book his language is as strong as
can well be about the inspiration of the Evangelists.
After expressly defining ' Scripture ' to mean the writ-
ings both of prophets and evangelists in the 27th
chapter, he says in the 28th that where we find diffi-
culties we must assume the fault to be in ourselves,
' because the Scriptures, being spoken by the Word
and Spirit of God, are perfect.'
Thus it appears that within a hundred years of the
fall of Jerusalem, and almost within the lifetime of
disciples of one of the Apostles, the Christian Church
had accepted and stamped with the seal of inspiration
these four Gospels, as the only authoritative records
of our Lord's sojourn upon earth.
From this time forward these four written Gospels
came to be considered the most precious treasures of
the Christian Church. Copies of them were multi-
plied, and they were bound up with the other sacred
books. By the good providence of God two of these
manuscript copies, both written before the close of
the fourth century, have been preserved down to our
own time. One is in the Vatican library at Rome, the
other (discovered in the monastery of Mount Sinai, ten
years ago) is in the Imperial library at St. Petersburg.
A third, of equal authority, written apparently early
in the fifth century, is in the British Museum. Few, if
any, books of ancient times have come down to us so
authenticated by external testimonyas these four Gospel
narratives of our blessed Lord's sojourn upon earth.
CHAPTER II
Internal (Character
WE open these Gospels and read them, and what
do we find ?
Four brief narratives, none of them longer than a
modern pamphlet, none of them a complete biography,
but each one rather a collection of salient anecdotes
and discourses, precisely such as an earnest preacher
would select in order to convey to his hearers in the
shortest compass a vivid portraiture of Him whom
he wished to make known to them. They have much,
necessarily, in common : all proceed upon one main
outline of facts the Baptism, the Ministry, the details
of the Condemnation and Crucifixion, the Resurrection
of our Lord.
And yet how distinct are these four portraitures !
And above all, what a marked difference between the
three earlier Gospels and the fourth ! Of this latter
and most obvious difference let us first speak, the
difference between St. John's 'fiospel and the rest.
The first three Evangelists'until they come to the
final journey to Jerusalem, narrate only what occurred
in Galilee. Whereas St. John's narrative to the extent
of six-sevenths of its space has Jerusalem for its scene.
Again, the three Galilean Gospels (as we may call
them) have many miracles, many parables in com-
mon ; told sometimes in almost identical words, as
3-ntnmal Character
though they had derived their narrative from the often
repeated oral teaching of the self-same eye-witnesses
(and this may well be the explanation). St. John, on
the contrary, relates no parables, and has but one
miracle in common with the rest.
Again, the Three relate chiefly our Lord's popular
discourses concerning His Kingdom ; St. John for
the most part His conversations with the Apostles
or controversies with the Jews about His own Person
and Mission.
But the difference in style is still more striking.
The Three write a plain narrative, making no com-
ment, never speaking in their own person (except in
St. Luke's brief preface) ; St John writes authorita-
tively, theologically, enforcing his own explanation of
the facts which he relates.
These contrasts, which so widely separate the fourth
Gospel from the rest, are at once explained by the
fact which the early Church traditions unanimously
affirm, that St. John wrote thirty years later than the
rest, for a generation of men who had grown up in
the Christian faith, and been familiar from childhood
with that more popular cycle of Apostolic teaching
which the three earlier Evangelists had embodied in
their Gospels. We may accept or reject the anecdote
preserved by Eusebius (Ecc. Hist. iii. 24), that the elders
of Ephesus brought the three earlier Gospels under
the special attention of the aged Apostle, and that he
approved them, only noticing that some things were
yet wanting, and wrote his own Gospel by way of
supplement to them 1 ; but one thing is certain, that,
1 Dr. Routh, in a note on Muratori's Fragment, speaks
without any doubt of the authenticity of this anecdote of the
primitive Church. Rel. Sac. i. 407.
12 ^Lht Jfmtr
if not these actual Gospels, yet at any rate their
substance, as repeated over and over again by the
Apostles and their ministers in preparing catechu-
mens for baptism, was already familiar to the readers
for whom St. John wrote. Hence (what otherwise
would be inexplicable) his silence respecting such
events as the Ascension and Transfiguration, and the
institution of the Eucharist, of each of which, however
(as has been well observed), he seems to assume a
knowledge in his readers' minds 1 .
Setting apart, therefore, this fourth Gospel as pos-
sessing a character of its own altogether distinct from
that of the rest, we proceed to consider the other
three. And here too, in the midst of much general
agreement, we find differences, traces of three dis-
tinct cycles of oral teaching, as though addressed to
three distinct groups of Christian Churches.
We read St. Matthew's Gospel from end to end
continuously, so as to gather one general impression ;
we mark the pedigree from Abraham, the father of
God's chosen people ; the call from Egypt, as with
Israel of old, so with the Hope of Israel ; the ever
recurring appeal to the Old Testament ; the careful
notice of every minute accomplishment of Messianic
prophecy ; the stress laid on Christ's fulfilment of the
Law 2 ; the repeated announcement that a restoration
of the theocratic kingdom was at hand ; the number
of parables specially explaining the nature of this
kingdom ; we cannot mark all these characteristics
1 For St. John's allusions to the Ascension, see vi. 62 ; to
the Transfiguration, i. 14 (comparing 2 Pet. i. 17, and notic-
ing the phrase ' the only begotten of the Father,' in which
there seems to be a reference to the Voice then heard) ; to
the Eucharist, xiii. 2.
a Matt. ii. 15; v. 17.
r Internal Character
without recognising the truth of the Church's constant
tradition that this Gospel was specially addressed to
the people of Israel. St. Matthew wrote to persuade
God's people that in Jesus of Nazareth whom they had
crucified, they might indeed confess the Prophet like
unto Moses, the true Son of David, the restorer of His
kingdom, the Messiah of all prophecy.
We pass on to St. Mark, and we find that his
Gospel is far from being (as St. Augustine so hastily
asserted 1 ) a mere abbreviation of St. Matthew's.
There are incidents in our Lord's ministry that we
know from St. Mark, and St. Mark only, the inter-
vention of His family (iii. 20, 21), the parable of the
seed growing secretly (iv. 26-29), the healing of the
deaf man of Decapolis (vii. 31-37), and of the blind
man of Bethsaida (viii. 22-26), the name of Bartimeus
(x. 46), and of Simon of Gyrene's sons (xv. 21), the
young man's flight at Gethsemane (xiv. 51, 52).
Besides this we have many vivid touches in the nar-
rative, clearly due to an eye-witness wanting in St.
Matthew, as in the account of the Gadarene demoniac,
and of the Transfiguration. Four times he alone of
the Evangelists notices our Lord's look (iii. 34, viii. 33,
x. 21, 23). May we not in this greater vividness of de-
tail recognise the aid of St. Peter, under whose direc-
tion the later Christians believed the Gospel to have
been written ? That it was written, if not at Rome, yet
for Romans, is rendered probable by the constant use
of Latin words, the careful explanation of Jewish
terms and usages, and the rare reference to the Old
Testament. It is a Gospel more of facts than of dis-
courses, of action more than of reflection, suited to the
Roman genius ; it is as though he wished above all
1 De Consetisti Evang. \. i.
14 ^fa Jfmtr
things to portray Christ as more than man, instinct
with divine creative energy, the Lord of Nature ; or,
as he himself puts it, 'The Gospel of Jesus Christ the
Son of God.'
Lastly, we turn to St. Luke, and notice how (in com-
plete contrast to St. Mark) the gradual unfolding and
growth of our Lord's humanity are traced through
birth and infancy and boyhood ; how in the ministry
every detail is brought forward that reveals the human
sympathies of Christ, His sympathies not so much
with the Israelite, as with man as man, 'touched
with a feeling of our infirmities ;' reclaiming the pro-
digal, seeking the lost sheep, the good Samaritan
and friend of all who need Him, of the widow of
Nain, of the dying thief; we notice how the very
pedigree, unlike St. Matthew's, proclaims the tmiver-
sality of Christ's mission, tracing back His descent
not to Abraham only, but to Adam. Can any fail to
recognise in this picture the Redeemer, the Mediator,
the High Priest of the whole human race ? Can
any doubt the truth of the uniform testimony of the
Fathers that St. Luke wrote under the influence of the
Apostle of the Gentiles, for those Greek Churches of
which St. Paul was the founder ?
How entirely this agrees with what we hear in the
Acts and Epistles of their companionship, and with
the striking coincidence of St. Luke's narrative of the
last supper with St. Paul's account of its institution to
the Corinthians !
It is important to realize to the full the distinctness
of these four portraitures : Christ the Messiah of
Israel, Christ the mighty Lord of Nature, Christ the
Friend and Priest of all mankind, Christ the true Light
"TCluir internal Character
and Life of the World. Fourfold our Gospel must
ever be, fourfold as those streams of Eden, fourfold as
those living creatures of the Apostle's Vision, fourfold
as the divine character of Him whom these Evangel-
ists reveal to us. If to know Him in all His fulness
be indeed to us eternal life, we cannot afford to merge
m one these separate aspects of our Lord. Instead
of wondering at their differences, may we not rather
bless and praise God for them ?
No harmony, however perfect, can ever have a
value at all approaching the value of these four
originals.
Why then attempt such a narrative as that which
follows ?
Two reasons may be given.
The first is, that modern criticism will not let these
Gospels rest. If they be not only diverse in character,
but also contradictory, irreconcilable, clearly their cre-
dibility is so far invalidated. How then can this be
best tested ?
If we had before us four separate ancient pictures,
purporting to represent severally the north, east,
south, and west aspects of some stately temple no
longer standing : and they seemed at first sight so
unlike each other, that it was questioned whether they
could really be what they professed, how might their
credibility be best proved ? Obviously, if they were
true and authentic, then a model might be con-
structed having four such sides, which would at the
same time be seen to form one consistent whole,
rough and incomparably inferior in beauty to the
four ancient pictures, but still fulfilling its special
purpose usefully.
So with these four Gospels : if we can really con-
1 6 ^ht Jortr
struct a narrative of events such as might well form a
basis of fact for each one of the four, then all doubt of
their credibility on the score of their discrepancies
would be removed.
Nor need this be done perfectly or exhaustively.
To any candid mind it will be enough if a sufficiently
near approach be made to such a narrative as to sug-
gest the probability that if we knew all it might easily
be perfected.
Not knowing all, any such reconstruction of the
order of events must be to some extent conjectural.
None of the three earlier Evangelists appear to follow
a strict chronological order in their narratives of the
Galilean ministry. Some group kindred parables to-
gether, some group miracles. The healing of the
Gadarene demoniac is placed by St. Mark after a
whole cycle of events which in St. Matthew precede
it. Much of St. Matthew's Sermon on the Mount is
to be found in St. Luke in the chapters that follow
the Transfiguration. The Supper at Bethany, which
St. John tells us clearly took place before Palm Sun-
day, is by the three other Evangelists told after the
events of Tuesday in Holy week, apparently be-
cause they connected it in their minds with Judas's
treachery.
To one who rightly understands the view with which
they wrote, intending to give not a biography but a
portraiture of our blessed Lord, all this will rather in-
crease than lessen his belief that they wrote under the
superintendence of the Holy Spirit. God's purpose
was not that we should know all about Christ, but
that we should know Him ; and for this far higher
purpose, groups of anecdotes so arranged as best
to illustrate His teaching and His character, were
ir Internal Character 17
more likely to be effective than any mere chronicle
from month to month. For this higher purpose we
must ever have recourse to the inspired originals.
For that other lower purpose such a compilation as
the present may be useful.
But there is another and a stronger motive. We can
never truly appreciate the individuality of the originals
until we have tried thus to co-ordinate them. Nothing
helps to quicken the student's enjoyment of these four
Gospels, each in its own special character, more effectu-
ally than having once, at all events, gone through this
process of collating them one with another in four
parallel columns, as it were, and so been led to make out
for himself all their latent harmonies. One Gospel will
be found to throw light on another in a hundred ways
that would never otherwise be suspected. And as in
that beautiful invention of modern days, in which by
combining into one focus two slightly varying aspects
of a view, we gain a depth of perspective, and a
solidity of form that seems to bring the very original
before us ; so here, by stereoscoping into one view
these four aspects of our blessed Lord, we may enable
ourselves to see greater reality in that divine image
which each one separately sets forth.
PART II
CHAPTER I
girth aitb loath of (Dur
IT was in the village of Nazareth, among the green
hills of Galilee, that Mary was living, still in her
own home ; for though she was betrothed to Joseph,
and had pledged to him her faith, yet, according to
the custom of Jewish maidens, she would remain a
twelvemonth longer under her parents' roof. It was
during this period that the angel Gabriel appeared to
her, and told her that she should conceive and bring
forth a son, and that her son should be the Messiah.
A child without a father ! Mary trembled at the
mystery : but the angel revealed all : ' That holy
thing that shall be born of thee shall be the Son of
God!'
Brief as was the interview, the angel left her not
without a token, whereby, when he was gone, she
might ascertain assuredly that this was no illusion :
' Thy cousin Elisabeth hath conceived, and shall also
bear a son.'
To her cousin Elisabeth at Hebron Mary hastens,
a four days' journey, a hundred miles or more ; and it
attb grrttth of (Dur JCotb 19
is even so. Nay, and the aged Elisabeth is inspired
to greet her as the mother of her Lord. Mary's heart
is full, filled with the prophetic inspiration of her race,
and she pours forth the hymn that Christians have
ever since loved to chant in their evening worship.
Three months, or nearly up to the birth of Elisa-
beth's child, she remained her guest ; and then re-
turned to her Galilean home. Then, it must have
been, on her return, that Joseph's mind was troubled
with perplexing doubts. But to him too God revealed
it all. And the days of betrothal being ended, he took
Mary to his house. But can it be that the Son of
David should be born away from David's city ! No :
God's Providence is so ordering it that every prophecy
shall be fulfilled ; and to Bethlehem both Joseph and
Mary are summoned, both being of the tribe and
lineage of David, for the enrolment which the Roman
Emperor had ordered.
There, sheltered for the night in one of the lime-
stone caverns just outside the town, where the peasants
stalled their cattle, so Justin Martyr was told little
more than a hundred years afterwards, doubtless by the
natives of the place 1 , the virgin mother gave birth to
her promised child. She well remembered in after
years, how, as she lay in her weakness, the gentle shep-
herds came with eager haste, telling of the great light,
and of the angel's message of great joy, and wishing to
see the Child who was to be their Saviour.
Comparing our two accounts we may infer that
Joseph now made Bethlehem his home. There on the
eighth day the Babe was circumcised, and named
Jesus, as the angel had commanded.
Forty days after the nativity, according to the law
1 Dial. c. 78.
"Cite
of Moses, the days for the mother's purification being
accomplished, they take the holy Babe up to Jerusalem
(six miles from Bethlehem), and there in the Temple
' present Him to the Lord.' Nor were worshippers
wanting when the infant Messiah thus appeared for
the first time in His Father's Temple. Holy Simeon
was there, and taking the Child in his arms poured
forth his prophetic psalm. The daughter of Phanuel
was there also, the widowed prophetess, lifting up her
voice in praise, and speaking of the child to all who
like herself were looking for redemption in Jerusalem.
Soon after this Presentation, probably, there arrived
in Jerusalem those strange visitors from the East.
Magi, or Wise men, they are called, a priestly caste
of the Medes and Persians, of whom we read much in
the Book of Daniel ; Daniel was made master of the
Magicians and Astrologers, possibly from him they
had derived their expectation of the Jewish Messiah.
Through their knowledge of the stars God revealed to
them that the fulness of time was come : the mystic
weeks of their great master Daniel were fulfilled. No
wonder all Jerusalem was excited ; no wonder the
usurper Herod trembled for his throne. The Sanhe-
drim was summoned ; the sacred books consulted ; at
Bethlehem the Holy Child, if really born, is to be
found. Thither the Chaldaean embassy repair with
their gifts of homage. Thither the incensed tyrant
sends his murderous agents to destroy the Child.
Surely (the king thought) if all born within two years
are slain, this so-called Messiah cannot escape. But
already warned by God's angel in a dream the faith-
ful Joseph, under cover of the night, was far upon the
road to Egypt with the young Child and His mother.
This must have been in February, just when the
girth rmb loath of (Dor
dying tyrant was seeking the baths of Jericho, there
to spend the last six weeks of his miserable life. In
the first week of April the angel reappeared, according
to his promise, to tell Joseph of Herod's death ; and
they retraced their steps towards Bethlehem, their
adopted home. But when Joseph ' heard that Arche-
laus did reign in Judea in the room of his father
Herod, he was afraid to return thither : and 1 being
warned of God in a dream, turned aside into Galilee,'
and once more made Nazareth his abode.
And here a veil falls over that sacred home. For
well-nigh thirty years with one brief exception the
life of Him who was 'the desire of all nations' is
hidden from us. We only know that behind that veil
' the Child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, filled with
wisdom ; and the grace of God was upon Him.'
Once, and once only, that veil is lifted, and we are
permitted to behold Him, a Boy of twelve years,
accompanying His mother and Joseph in their annual
journey to Jerusalem at the Paschal season. Eight
days the feast lasted ; ' and when they had fulfilled
the days, as they returned, the Child Jesus tarried
behind in Jerusalem, and Joseph and His mother
knew not of it.' The caravan of pilgrims was a large
one, and they had kinsfolk in it ; might He not well
be with them ? But no ; their search is in vain. So
Joseph and Mary, 'sorrowing,' retrace their steps.
Two whole days are spent in the crowded city seek-
ing Him. On the third they find Him in one of the
schools or lecture-rooms, apparently, that opened into
the Temple cloister, where the Jewish professors held
their disputations and taught their classes. And
1 The word ' notwithstanding ' in our English Version
is not in the original, and spoils the sense.
CS.asp.cl
there Mary finds her Son, ' sitting among the doctors,
both hearing them and asking them questions.' It
would seem as though she paused, afraid to interrupt
paused long enough to note the admiration with
which these Rabbis were regarding her Son. But
when all is over, and they are alone with Him, Mary
speaks. We must observe this it is Mary alone who
claims authority over Him the mystery of His birth
seems tacitly acknowledged in the prominence con-
ceded to Mary ; and yet, how naturally (such being,
doubtless, the custom of her household) she speaks
of Joseph as ' Thy father,' ' Son, why hast Thou thus
dealt with us ? behold, Thy father and I have sought
Thee sorrowing.' So Mary, most naturally ; but mark
the dawning consciousness of the higher Sonship in
the answer, ' How is it that ye sought Me ? wist ye
not that I must be in the precincts of My Father ?'
for such seems to be the right translation, in the courts
or precincts of My Father's house. But let that be :
observe only how mysteriously, and yet how naturally
also, how instinctively in the depth of His own divine
consciousness, Jesus speaks of Himself, at twelve
years old, as the Son of God ! As the Son of God,
and yet in all things willing 'to learn obedience' 1 ;
for ' He went down with them, and came to Nazareth,
and was subject unto them.'
And here once more the curtain falls ; and for
eighteen long years the life of the youthful Messiah is
veiled from view. It is not yet time for ' the arm of
the Lord' to be revealed. He must 'grow up as a
tender plant,' secluded from our curious eye : enough
for us to know that He was 'increasing in wisdom and
stature, and in favour with God and man.'
i Heb. v. 8.
CHAPTER II
fiaptism, temptation, anb <Jfirst ^tar's
IT was at the commencement of His thirty-first
year, in the month of February, so far as we can
gather from St. Luke's careful date, that Jesus left
His humble home at Nazareth, and mingled, an un-
known stranger, with the crowd who flocked to hear
the child of Elisabeth, now the great prophet of the
wilderness, who was baptizing in the river Jordan.
' In those days came John the Baptist, preaching in
the wilderness of Judea, and saying, Repent ye, for
the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.'
By 'the Kingdom of Heaven' he meant that re-
storation of the Theocracy, that promised reign of
Messiah, that good time coming, of which all the
prophets from Moses to Malachi had spoken ; and
to which the Jews were looking fonvard with an
eagerness and a confidence that we can scarcely
realize. By a careful calculation, based on Daniel's
famous prophecy, they had found that the time was
now fully come ; that any day the Messiah might ap-
pear. Every text in their sacred books which spake
of Him was diligently searched out, and repeated
from mouth to mouth, that so they might be sure to
recognise Him when He arrived. When they heard,
therefore, that after a silence of four hundred years the
spirit of prophecy had burst forth anew, that ' the word
24 'Cite <&os>ptl
of the Lord ' had come to John in the wilderness ; when
they found the Baptist clothed in the hair-cloth dress
of the ancient prophets, a man of the holiest, most
ascetic life, content with such food as the desert
afforded, they made sure that it, was He, the Messiah
whom they were expecting. ' There went out unto
him Jerusalem, and all Judea, and all the region about
Jordan.' A deputation from the Sanhedrim waited
on him, to know if it were so. But John denied that
he was the Messiah ; he was not the Messiah, but he
was sent by God to announce His near approach.
Whenever He, the greater One, should appear, John
would be divinely enabled to recognise Him. This
God had promised, had promised him a sign from
heaven, whereby he should surely know the true Mes-
siah, and so be able to proclaim Him.
To the Baptist then Jesus came, undistinguished in
the crowd. And yet as He approached John seems
to have had a clear presentiment that it was He.
Awe-struck and hesitating he baptized Him ; anxiously
looking for the promised sign. And the sign was given.
As Jesus rose up out of the river, ' Lo, the heavens
were opened unto him ' (to John, but not to others, it
would seem), ' and he saw the Spirit of God descend-
ing like a dove and lighting upon Him : and, lo, a
voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son,
in whom I am well pleased.'
But it was not God's will that the Messiah should
be at once proclaimed. The Spirit had withdrawn
Jesus into the wilderness. Forty days He there spent
in solitary communion with His Father, and in con-
flict with that Evil One, whose power over mankind
He had come to break. Three times the Tempter
assailed Him. Three times Christ repelled him, and
gear's ^tinistrj 25
each time by that ' sword of the Spirit which is the
word of God : '
'// is written, Man shall not live by bread alone,
but 'by every word of God.' Thus Christ met the
temptation of bodily .appetite, of the flesh. No food,
no care of ours, could sustain our bodily life a single
day unless God so willed it : let us therefore do His
will, and leave all else to Him.
Again, ' // is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord
thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve.' Thus He
met the temptation to grasp at once the .Messiah's
dominion the temptation of the world, as we may
call it ; meaning that mere success is not a right aim
or motive, but rather God's service.
And lastly, ' // is written, Thou shalt not tempt the
Lord thy God.' For the devil had bidden Him pre-
sume on God's providential care, fanatically. And
between faith and fanaticism there is the widest dif-
ference : to trust that God will protect us while we
are going His way, is faith ; to expect Him to protect
us equally when going our own way, is fanaticism,
called in Scripture a tempting of God. Unlike the
temptations of the flesh and of the world, this last is
a spiritual temptation, pride, a temptation of the
devil peculiarly, one that he reserves as his last
snare for the saints of God.
Thus was the holy Jesus ' in all points tempted like
as we are, yet without sin.' Thrice vanquished, ' the
devil leaveth Him, and behold angels came and
ministered to Him.'
Returning in the power of the Spirit to the banks
of Jordan, where John was still baptizing, the Messiah
was at once recognised by the Baptist ; ' there standeth
One among you whom ye know not ! ' And again the
26 'i&ht <0spl
next day, standing with two of his disciples, and look-
ing upon Jesus as He walked, he saith, ' Behold the
Lamb of God ! ' And the two, Andrew and the other
one unnamed, but clearly 'the disciple whom Jesus
loved' followed Jesus, and abode with Him that day.
They both seek Simon, and his brother Andrew is
the first to find him, with the news, ' We have found
the Messiah ! ' On the morrow the Lord himself
bids Philip of Bethsaida join Him ; and Philip findeth
his friend Nathanael of Cana, Bartholomew his other
name, all probably disciples of the Baptist.
Jesus and His five companions are invited through
Nathanael the invitation may have come to a mar-
riage feast at Cana. Our Lord's mother was already
at the bridegroom's house ; and may have been re-
lated to him, for we shall find her speaking as with
authority to the servants. Joseph is no longer men-
tioned, and had probably long since been dead.
Noticing that the arrival of the six new guests was
causing some inconvenience, she turned to her Son,
and called His attention to the lack of wine. Pos-
sibly it was the custom then, as now, in the East, for
guests to bring their contributions to a feast ; and
Jesus had brought none. There was something in '
our Lord's reply which led Mary to expect that He
intended by and bye to act on her suggestion, per-
haps to send for wine 1 , but not immediately. She
therefore bade the servants do whatever He might
tell them. Then Jesus turned to the six water-vessels
set probably for the customary washing of the six
newly arrived guests after their journey and bade
the servants fill them with fresh water, and then
draw and serve it to the chairman of the feast ;
1 Compare John xiii. 29.
liar's Jlimstrs 27
and, behold, the water, as they served it, was
changed into wine ! The same divine power, which,
by a slow process of secretion in the vine, turns
the rain-drops into the juices of the grape, had
wrought that self-same change instantaneously. 1 And
thus did Jesus not only declare Himself the Lord of
Nature, but also shadow forth, by way of emblem, the
deep purpose for which He had come, to change the
natural life of man into a divine life, showing that
'the water that He would give should be a well of
water springing up into everlasting life'. 2 In St.
John's words, ' He manifested forth His glory, and
His disciples believed on Him.'
They stayed not many days in Galilee. 'The Pass-
over was at hand.' And at Capernaum they would
find the caravan of pilgrims already gathering. And
Jesus went up with the rest to Jerusalem.
And now that other distinct prophecy respecting the
Messiah must be fulfilled : 'The Lord' must ' come
suddenly to His temple, even the messenger of the
covenant,' . . . 'and purify the sons of Levi.' Mal-
achi's words may well have rushed into the minds of
all, when He, whom the Baptist had so lately pro-
claimed as the Messiah, ' whose fan was in His hand,
and who would throughly purge His floor,' appeared
in the Temple, and with that scourge of small cords
drove out the buyers and sellers and money-changers
who were desecrating His Father's house. And when
they asked Him by what authority He did these things,
a yet greater sign than this He promised them, in
words misunderstood until the event explained them,
1 See St. Augustine's admirable remarks on the ' Quoti-
diana miracula Dei,' in his I26th Sermon.
2 John iv. 14.
28
' Destroy this Temple, and in three days I will build
it up,' meaning the all-sufficient sign of His own
resurrection. Thus distinctly, even from the first,
was the end before Him, the great purpose of suffering
for which He had come into the world.
Half convinced by His miracles at this festival, one
of the Pharisees of high rank, Nicodemus by name,
came to Jesus by night, afraid to confess Him openly,
or join the baptized group on the banks of Jordan 1 ,
but desiring to hear with his own ears a specimen of
His teaching. Darkly, and under a figure which at
the time Nicodemus failed to understand, the figure
of the new birth, Jesus spake to him of that action
of the Holy Spirit on the heart, which, begun in Bap-
tism, must be more and more realized in the after-life
of the Christian.
This was in April. The remainder of that summer
and autumn Christ spent (St. John tells us) on the
banks of Jordan, with those five disciples, baptizing
His converts by their hands : He ever increasing,
John ever decreasing ; the crowds that had followed
John now following Jesus ; and the Baptist rejoicing
that it should be so.
Very affecting is this deep humility of the Baptist.
Since the day when Moses stood on the further side
of that same Jordan, surveying the promised land
which he was not to enter, ' Tendebatque manus ripae
ulterioris amore' 2 , there is nothing in history more
affecting. The least in the kingdom of Christ's bap-
tized was to be greater than he. His work was done ;
his end was drawing near. With the truest modesty, he
combined, as all God's holiest servants have ever com-
bined, the truest courage. In the power and spirit of
1 Luke vii. 30. 2 sEneid \'i. 314.
<dFtrst Star's ^Rinistrg 29
Elijah he had rebuked the vices of Herod Antipas ;
and Herod cast him into prison, there to linger for
nearly four months, and then to be sacrificed to the
vengeance of the adulteress whom his rebukes had
offended.
The imprisonment of the Baptist was near the close
of the year. It was accepted by Jesus as a sign that
the time was now fully come for a far more active and
more public ministry ; and He transferred His labours
from the Jordan wilderness to the populous towns of
Galilee.
His way lay through Samaria. St. John tells us
how, resting by the way, He fell into conversation with
the woman of Samaria, first about the divine life which
all who would should draw from Him ; and then, in
reply to her controversial question, about the true
worship of God, which henceforth was not to be con-
fined to any chosen place or people, but was to be
spiritual and therefore universal. ' God is Spirit : and
they who worship Him must worship Him in spirit
and in truth.'
After a two days' stay at Sychar, a casual allusion
dating it in January, for there wanted four months to the
barley harvest 1 , Jesus passed on to Cana of Galilee,
where, some nine or ten months before, He had made
the water wine.
And here He worked His second wonder, healing
by a word, and that too at a distance of five-and-twenty
miles, the nobleman's son.
Thus we are brought to the end of St. John's fourth
chapter, and to that point in the history at which the
three earlier Gospels commence their account of the
great Galilean ministry.
1 John iv. 35.
CHAPTER III
Second Year, First Quarter
gmt aliUan
nPHE whole period of our Lord's ministry, from His
J- baptism to His crucifixion, according to the
scheme of Irenaeus 1 , adopted in this narrative, covered
two years and three months.
It may be conveniently divided into three equal
portions :
ist. The nine months spent in Judea previous to
the imprisonment of the Baptist, embraced in the last
chapter.
2.d. The nine months spent mostly in Galilee, from
the Baptist's imprisonment to the feast of Tabernacles
in the October of the second year.
3</. The nine remaining months down to the last
Passover when our Lord was crucified.
And of these three equal portions, the first and last
(recorded mainly by St. John) were comparatively
seasons of retirement.
The middle portion, on the contrary, on which we
are now entering, was a season of incessant activity.
Into it are crowded nearly all the miracles and most
of the parables which fill the pages of the earlier
Evangelists.
To arrange the numerous anecdotes of St. Matthew,
1 Lib. ii. cap. xxii. 3. See Part III. chapter vi. of this
volume.
Dear, Jfirst Quarter 31
St. Mark, and St. Luke, in their chronological order
is (for reasons already given 1 ) a difficult, perhaps an
impossible, task. One point, however, breaking the
nine months into two unequal portions of three and
six, is fixed for us.
It is that memorable visit of our Lord to Jerusalem
recorded in the fifth chapter of St. John. If, for
reasons elsewhere 2 given, we reject Kepler's sugges-
tion, and adhere to the more ancient opinion, that
the festival there mentioned was the Passover, this
visit must have been at the end of March (for the
Passover fell on March 29 in this year), just after
John the Baptist's martyrdom. So we have three
months of Galilean ministry before, and six months
of Galilean ministry after, this journey to Jerusalem.
On that earlier portion, on those three eventful
months of January, February, and March, spent by
our Lord in the crowded towns of Galilee, whilst the
Baptist lay lingering in captivity, we now enter.
Thus much it seemed necessary to premise in order
to clear up and justify the arrangement of this part of
the narrative.
' The land of Zabulon and the land of Nephthalim,
by the way of the sea, Galilee of the Gentiles the
people that sat in darkness saw great light ! And to
them which sat in the region and shadow of death
light is sprung up !'
Galilee was the most northern and the most popu-
lous of the three provinces into which the Romans
divided Palestine : a land of corn-fields, fisheries, and
thriving towns ; quite different from the sheep-walks
and vineyards that hung upon the hill-sides of Judea.
The effect of this difference in our Lord's teaching is
1 Part I. chap. ii. " Part in. chap. vi.
(Sasptl Jtarrati&e
very noticeable. In the Galilean parables of the three
earlier Evangelists we are ever reminded of the seed-
time and harvest, the fishermen and merchants, of
that northern province ; while in the Jerusalem dis-
courses we hear rather of the flocks and the shepherds,
the vine and the fig-tree of Judea.
Josephus 1 tells us there were more than 200 towns
of Galilee, each containing on an average 1 5 ,000 people,
no mere villages therefore, but large and thriving towns.
The largest of them clustered on the western side of
the Galilean lake Capernaum, Bethsaida, Chorazin,
Tiberias. This was the trading district, the Lanca-
shire of Palestine ; here the Romans had their custom-
houses ; here passed the great caravans which every
Passover journeyed to the Holy City.
Gladly these Galileans seem to have welcomed their
Messiah, when He came to take up His abode among
them, after the imprisonment of the Baptist. Some
remembered His miracle at Cana nine months before ;
many had witnessed His miracles at Jerusalem at the
Passover, which they too had attended.
Quickly, therefore, would the news spread from town
to town, that the mighty prophet had reappeared among
them ; and they of Capernaum could tell how on His
first return to Cana He had healed by a word, at a
distance of five-and-twenty miles, the nobleman's son
(the son of Chuza and Joanna it may have been), who
lay dying in their town.
One of the first places visited by Jesus in Galilee
was Nazareth, His old home. In the synagogue, on
the Sabbath-day, He stood up to read ; and closing
the book, declared that He had come to fulfil the pro-
phecy they had just heard, that the year on which they
were entering was the ' acceptable year,' that He him-
1 Bell. Jud. iii. 3-20.
<S.eami Hear, <$itst (Quarter 33
self was the Anointed One or Messiah, of whom Isaiah
spoke. Awed at first by His divine eloquence, they
listened and wondered ; but when He began to speak
of the far readier faith which He had found elsewhere,
all their worst passions were roused ; they thrust Him
out ; and had He not miraculously withdrawn Him-
self, they would have flung Him headlong down a
precipice hard by.
Capernaum now became Christ's home. There He
called upon His disciples, Andrew and Peter, James
and John, to devote themselves more entirely than
heretofore to His ministry. Others He added to their
number : Philip doubtless, and Bartholomew, who had
learned to know Him on the banks of Jordan ; and,
soon after, Matthew or Levi, one of the despised pub-
licans or tax-gatherers in the Roman service.
His habit seems to have been to preach regularly
in their synagogues on the Sabbath-days, being ac-
cepted as a Rabbi, even by those who questioned His
Messiahship. Very striking is St. Luke's account of
one of these early Sabbaths. Christ had been preach-
ing with great power ; and in the congregation there
was a man possessed by the Evil One. Such posses-
sion was common in those days 1 , especially among the
fierce, undisciplined mountaineers of northern Galilee.
It would seem as though it had been God's will that
during the humiliation of His Son, the Evil One should
be thus visibly brought face to face with Him who was
to vanquish him. Here, as in the wilderness, the evil
spirit at once recognised Jesus : ' Let us alone ; I
1 Others besides the New Testament writers testify the
frequency of demoniacal possession. See Josephus, Ant.
viii. 2. 5, Bell. Jtid. vii. 6. 3, and Justin, Apol. ii. 6, both of
whom mention cases of it as occurring at Rome.
C
34
know Thee who Thou art the Holy One of God ! '
Startling must have been the effect on the bystanders
of this immediate recognition ; and still more startling
the divine power of Jesus, when He silenced and ex-
pelled the demon before them all !
Returning to Simon Peter's house from the syna-
gogue, and hearing that his wife's mother lay sick of
a fever, He cured her by a word so completely that
she rose from her bed, and served to them their mid-
day meal. And that same evening, so soon as sunset
ended the Sabbath rest, we read how the excited crowd
brought numbers to His door, some sick, some pos-
sessed by evil spirits ; and laying His hands on them
He healed them all.
Nor was His ministry confined to Capernaum.
Touring through the towns of Galilee He 'healed all
manner of disease among the people,' among others
the Leper, and on His return the palsied man whose
sins the Lord forgave.
No wonder that after days of such incessant labour
He was fain to withdraw into the solitudes of the hill-
country, and there spend the night in prayer.
It was after such a night of prayer that He formally
ordained the Twelve Apostles. All of them, not im-
probably, had been disciples of the Baptist ; but since
the close of the Baptist's ministry 1 they had one by
one been called to follow Jesus. And now their num-
ber was completed, and on the second circuit through
Galilee they were the attendants of their Lord. Some
of them, as we have seen, were fishermen ; and of
their boats upon the lake Christ often availed Him-
self, when He wished to withdraw from the crowds
who thronged Him, bidding them row Him across the
lake to the less peopled valleys on the eastern side.
1 Acts i. 21, 22.
Dear, Jfirst Quarter 35
It was in crossing the lake, after one of those days
of long-continued preaching, that the storm overtook
them which all three Evangelists have related. For
convenience He had been preaching from one of their
moored boats, while the multitude sat along the shore
to listen. Over their heads, on the rising bank, He
had seen, perhaps, 'the sower sowing his seed,' of
whom in His parable He had been speaking, for it
was still the early seed-time of the year. Exhausted
as the evening drew on, Jesus asked them to unmoor
the boat and cross the lake ; ' and they took Him
even as He was in the ship ;' and Christ slept as they
rowed, for seeing how weary He was, they had placed
a pillow for Him in the poop. And there came down
on the lake one of those sudden gusts of storm so
common in mountainous countries ; and the waves
broke over the little ship. And they awoke Him, say-
ing, 'Master, we perish!' Then He arose, and re-
buked the wind, and the raging of the water, and
there was a great calm. And they wondered, saying
one to another, 'Who can this be ? for He commandeth
even the winds and water, and they obey Him !'
The next morning the stir of their landing, and of
the crowd that came down to meet Him, attracted the
attention of two miserable demoniacs, and they came
running towards Him. Again Christ silenced and
expelled the evil spirits ; and in the horrid plunge of
the maddened swine, into which the devils passed, all
would see the hideously destructive nature of that Evil
One from whom Christ came to redeem them.
But not only over the great enemy, not only over
disease in every variety of form, but over the spirits
of the dead also, Jesus asserted His divine power.
Twice during this stay in Galilee we hear of our Lord
recalling the dead to life. In the case of Jairus's
36 '(Ehc <g0s}ttl
daughter, the body's life was only that moment extinct ;
in the case of the widow's son at Nain, the 'corpse
was being carried to the grave. In both that word
of power summoned the spirit from the unseen world
to return into the visible body. In both it was done
in compassion for the bereaved parent, and to reveal
Himself to His disciples as the Lord of life and death.
It was to these all-sufficient signs and credentials
of Messiahship that Christ appealed, when from the
Baptist in his captivity there came those messengers
asking, 'Art Thou He that should come, or look we
for another?' 'Go your way,' was Christ's reply,
' and tell John what things ye have seen and heard ;
how that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are
cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, to the
poor the gospel is preached. And blessed is he
whosoever shall not be offended in Me.'
There is an undertone of sadness in these latter
words that cannot escape us, contrasting as it does
with the elation of the multitude around Him. While
the Galilean peasantry were ' glorifying God, and say-
ing that a great prophet was risen among them, and
that God had visited His people,' Christ saw in this
very enthusiasm how surely they would fall away from
Him, as the real purpose of His mission began to be
revealed. Gradually, as they could bear it, but more
and more distinctly, He now began to declare unto
them the spiritual nature of His kingdom.
How clearly is this the intention of that marvellous
sermon on the Mount, which seems to belong to this
period of the ministry !
How affectingly does He there set forth the meek,
forgiving, lowly temper which must be theirs who seek
admission into His kingdom ! rejoicing when perse-
cuted, returning good for the world's evil, ever looking,
2|*ar, ^yirst (iQtrarter 37
not to man, but to their Heavenly Father, for their
reward ! How He unravels the secret motives of our
conduct ! How He purges the conscience, and deep
down in our consciousness of God lays the sure foun-
dations of that Kingdom which, like a house founded
on the rock, shall never fajl !
Such was the new avenue to glory which Christ
opened unto men ; an avenue of suffering and of self-
abasement. But when He bade men follow He led
the way Himself. Not only in His final passion, but
all through His ministry, He bore our griefs and
carried our sorrows. None can read these narratives
attentively without perceiving it. There is something
inexpressibly mournful in our Lord's sense of desola-
tion, in the i ith chapter of St. Matthew, after His third
circuit of Galilee. We see it in His lamentation over
those cities 'wherein most of His mighty works were
done," because they repented not;' in the bitterness
with which He complained of their fickleness ; and
still more in the plaintive close of the same chapter,
where, turning from 'the wise and prudent' who rejected
Him, to the childlike peasantry around Him, He bade
them come to Him, all who laboured and were heavy
laden, and He would give them rest : ' Take my yoke
upon you, and learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly
in heart ; and ye shall find rest unto your souls : for
my yoke is easy, and my burden is light ! '
Weakened by sorrow, exhausted by the pressure of
the poor sufferers who thronged Him, 'for there
were many coming and going,' and He had ' no leisure
so much as to eat,' dejected by the tidings of the
Baptist's martyrdom, which had just reached Him,
Jesus withdrew with His Apostles to the further side
of the lake : ' Come ye yourselves,' He said, ' apart
into a desert place, and rest awhile.'
CHAPTER IV
Second Year, Second Quarter
HEARING of the Baptist's death, Jesus withdrew
with the Twelve in their boat to a desert
place across the lake to seek repose. But His repose
was of short duration. The multitudes, already gather-
ing for the approaching Passover, had seen His de-
parture in the boat, and running round the head of
the lake on foot, overtook Him on the green slopes of
the north-eastern shore. And Jesus was moved with
compassion, for they were as sheep having no shep-
herd, and had come from far with their wives and
little ones, and were faint with hunger. So the Good
Shepherd fed them wonderfully, five thousand of them,
besides the women and children, out of that one basket,
with its five loaves and two small fishes, and so abun-
dantly that, when all were filled, the Twelve filled
each his wallet 1 with the fragments that remained.
Gladly would the astonished multitude have carried
Jesus in triumph to Jerusalem, and proclaimed Him
their king. But Jesus withdrew into the hills, and
bidding His Apostles row back across the lake with-
out Him, spent the night in solitary prayer.
1 Juvenal speaks of the wallet which every Jew carried,
using the same word :
' Judaeis, quorum cophinus foenumque supellex' (iii. 14).
39
A south-west gale had sprung up, and the disciples
were still in the midst of the sea, trying in vain to
make head against it, when, lo, between three and six
o'clock in the morning, they saw Jesus walking on the
sea, and making as though He would pass by them.
But when they cried out in their fear, supposing they had
seen some ghostly apparitidn, He spoke to them and
said, ' Be of good cheer ; it is I ; be not afraid.' Then
Peter, excited and raised by the sight of our Lord into
that higher spiritual state in which one may well con-
ceive the conditions of our bodily life may be sus-
pended, stepped down upon the surface of the water,
and went forward to meet Jesus over-confident as
ever ! but the Lord sustained Him. And as Jesus
entered the ship the wind ceased, and they found
themselves at the further shore.
This miracle seems to have made a deeper impres-
sion on the Apostles than any previous one. ' They
were sore amazed in themselves beyond measure, and
wondered;' and another account says, 'They wor-
shipped Him, and said, Of a truth Thou art the Son
of God.'
St. John tells us how the next day in the synagogue
at Capernaum Christ made this miracle of the loaves
the text of His discourse. From the loaves which He
had given them He endeavoured to raise their thoughts
to the higher truth that He was Himself the bread
that was given from heaven to be the sustenance of
man's spiritual life ; and for this He must be sacrificed,
that they might feed upon the sacrifice, drawing all
their nourishment from Him.
But this mystery was far too spiritual for their
carnal minds too deep even for His disciples. They
thought to make Him their king, and He spoke of
40 'i&ht xrsptl
giving them His flesh to eat ! What could He mean ?
And many turned away, and ' walked no more with
Him.' Very touching is Christ's appeal to the Twelve,
' Will ye also go away ?' and Peter's quick and earnest
answer, ' Lord, to whom shall we go ? Thou hast the
words of eternal life. And we believe and are sure that
Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.'
And yet one of them (Christ said) was a traitor !
This was at Capernaum a few days before the Pass-
over. We must now turn back to St. John's 5th
chapter, for his account. of this Passover 1 .
' After this,' he says, ' was the 2 feast of the Jews,
and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.' It was the Sabbath-
day, the Paschal Sabbath, the greatest Sabbath of the
year therefore ; and Jesus had not only healed an im-
potent man at the Pool of Bethesda, but had bidden
him rise and carry his bed. For this the man is
charged before the Sanhedrim with Sabbath-breaking.
He defends himself by saying that Jesus bade him do
it ; and Jesus therefore is Himself arraigned before
them. This is the turning-point of the whole Gospel
narrative. Ever since that purging of the Temple,
twelve months ago, when they had sent their officers
to ask ' by what authority He did these things,' the
Pharisaic party had looked on Jesus with mingled fear
and aversion, fear because of His great popularity,
aversion because of His unsparing denunciation of
their hypocrisy. Now at last they have found their
opportunity. This would-be Messiah is within their
grasp : He is at their bar on the capital charge of
Sabbath-breaking. And what is Christ's defence?
1 For the order of events here adopted, see chapter vi. of
Part in.
2 The article is inserted in the Sinaitic MS.
Star, cSrnmii (iQrtarter 41
The poor mendicant had sheltered himself under the
name of his benefactor : to whom shall Christ appeal ?
Under whose name shall He seek shelter ? Ah, blind
malignant Pharisees, thinking to crush easily the
Nazarene, were they prepared for Christ's appeal ?
Prophet of Nazareth no longer, leader of a Galilean
multitude no longer, Christ stands before them as the
eternal Son of Him whose Name they durst not utter !
Wonderfully does St. John in a single line sum up
our Lord's sublime defence: 'My Father worketh
hitherto, and I work !' ' The living God, whose energy
upholds from day to day, from hour to hour, the work
of His creation, He resteth not ! nor yet can I, His
Son ! No Sabbath rest for me, until the work which
He hath given Me be done ! Not mine, but His the
work : not Me, but Him are ye accusing } to Him, the
Holy One, My Father, I appeal.'
Not till He was gone, we may well believe, not till
the majesty of that divine Presence had been with-
drawn, did these impious men dare to pass their sen-
tence against Him, not now for Sabbath -breaking only,
but also for blasphemy. His words, His awful appeal,
had not been misunderstood.
Jerusalem is now no safe place for Him : for He
whose words thus quelled the most malignant, may
lift no finger in His self-defence : and His hour is not
yet come. Therefore at Jerusalem Christ must not
stay except when filled (as during the feast-time) with
His Galilean followers.
Abruptly He left Jerusalem, and returned to Caper-
naum. The one hope of the priestly party is now to
set the Galilean multitude if possible against Him.
Into Galilee their agents follow Him 1 .
1 Matt. xii. 2, xv. I ; Mark vii. I. See Part III. chap. vi.
42 ^ht dxrsptl
On the first Sabbath after the Passover 1 they find
Him walking through the corn-fields, and allowing His
disciples to pluck and rub the ears of corn. This is
at once made an occasion for slandering Him as a
Sabbath-breaker. Again, on another Sabbath in the
Capernaum synagogue they are watching Him malig-
nantly, whether He will heal the withered hand. How
grandly St. Mark describes Him, looking round on
them with anger, being grieved at the hardness of
their hearts, and bidding the man stand forth, and
healing him before them all ! They were filled with
madness, and went out and began to plot with the
Herodian party, hoping through them, in all proba-
bility, to bring the Roman power to bear upon Him.
But Christ at once withdraws, and the multitudes fol-
low Him. '-Is not this the Son of David?' they cry ;
' He maketh both the deaf to hear, and the dumb to
speak.' ' Nay,' whispered the scribes, ' it is through
the prince of the devils that He worketh these mira-
cles.' Thus they blaspheme Him first as a Sabbath-
breaker, and then as a demoniac. And now they have
a third slander : ' Why do Thy disciples transgress the
tradition of the elders ? for they wash not their hands
when they eat bread.' Severe and overwhelming was
Christ's rejoinder, showing that it was they, not He,
who transgressed ; for defilement was from the heart,
not from the hands. Let them beware whom they
were resisting, not the Son of Man in His humilia-
tion only that might be forgiven if done in ignorance
but the Holy Spirit of God !
But thus far their malignity triumphed that to stay
longer in Capernaum was impossible. It ceased to be
1 See Part III. chap. vi. (pp. 138, 139), for the meaning of
Luke vi. i.
<Soitb 'jjltnv, (Smrnb Quarter 43
Christ's home. He went thence, we read (in the I5th
of St. Matthew and the 7th of St. Mark), ' and departed
into the coasts of Tyre and Sidon.'
It seems to have been for the purpose of seclusion
rather than of preaching that our Lord retired to these
distant regions. He was now beyond the extreme
limits of the Holy Land, fifty miles north of Caper-
naum. The reading of our two oldest MSS. 1 makes it
almost certain that He passed through the great Gen-
tile town of Sidon, the most renowned seaport of the
ancient world.
Even here the fame of His miracles had preceded
Him, and, as St. Mark says, ' He could not be hid.'
A poor mother, a descendant of the old Canaanite
inhabitants of the land, came out of her house as He
passed, doubting whether the great Israelite Healer
would deign to notice her. ' Thou Son of King David,'
she cried, ' my daughter is grievously vexed with a
devil.' Jesus was silent, and was passing on. ' Send
her away, for she crieth after us,' His disciples said.
Jesus turned and spoke, ' I am not sent but unto the
lost sheep of the house of Israel.' Then she came and
fell at His feet, ' Lord, help me !' But He answered
in the words of a proverb, ' It is not meet to take the
children's bread and give it to our dogs.' ' Truth,
Lord,' she replied, ' for the dogs are content with the
crumbs which fall from their Master's table.' Christ's
heart was so moved by the mother's prayers that He
broke through the rule which He had laid down both
1 Mark vii. 31. 'From the coasts of Tyre He came
through Sidon unto the sea of Galilee.' The readings of
our three oldest MSS. the unlearned reader may find in the
Tauchnitz New Testament (Sampson Low, Son, and Mar-
ston, as. 6d.)
44 ^lu ospcl ^tarnttibc
for Himself and for His Apostles 1 ; and, though the
hour of the Gentiles was not yet come, He granted
her request ; and thus showed forth to His disciples
the mystery of the prevailing power of prayer.
It is not recorded that our Lord worked any other
miracle during His sojourn in these parts, nor does
it appear how long He stayed there. His mission was
to the lost sheep of Israel, and to them He soon re-
turned.
Through the half-Pagan population of the ten con-
federate towns lying to the east of the upper valley of
the Jordan (called Decapolis), He journeyed back to
the eastern shore of the Galilean lake, where a few
weeks or months before He had fed the five thousand.
And here once more a vast multitude gathered round
Him. Three days they remained with Him, up among
the hills ; for it was now summer ; days of incessant
labour to Jesus. Group after group came before Him
with their burdens of sick, casting them down at His
feet. The lame, the blind, the dumb, the possessed,
all were healed. And they glorified the God of Israel,
and said of Jesus, ' He hath done all things well !'
It is noticeable that in the case of two of these
miracles the healing of a blind man's eyes with
spittle, and a deaf man's ears at Bethsaida a few days
later with finger-touch and spittle our Lord seems to
have found difficulty in the accomplishment of the
cure, as though it was dependent in some measure on
the degree of faith of the patient. The frequent phrase,
' Thy faith hath saved thee,' and on one occasion, ' He
could do no miracle because of their unbelief,' con-
firms this explanation. They were a poor half-Gentile
people on this eastern side of Jordan. Still they clung
1 Matt. x. 5.
fjear, <SeconJ) (Quarter 45
to Jesus, and there were no Scribes and Pharisees
among them to poison their minds. And Christ was
moved with compassion, and on the third day fed
them once more this time with seven loaves and a
few little fishes four thousand of them, besides women
and children. And they took up seven baskets of the
fragments after they had eateni
CHAPTER V
Second Year, Third Quarter
Uransfigitratixm aitb <^fcast of
ONCE during this sojourn in Decapolis our Lord
crossed the lake to the Capernaum side, to see
whether after His long absence they would receive
Him. But no ; the Pharisees, now leagued with the
Sadducees, at once assailed Him, asking (as before)
for the promised sign ; and again Christ pointed to
the great sign darkly to them, under the emblem of
Jonah, clearly to His Church ever after the one all-
sufficient sign of His resurrection from the dead.
Thus repulsed, our Lord seems to have re-embarked
forthwith in the vessel by which He came, and returned
to the further side to Bethsaida Julias. From thence
He bent His steps northward once more, this time up
the Jordan valley to Cassarea, a highland town, and
favourite resort in the summer heat, much beautified
of late by the tetrarch Philip, lying at the foot of the
snow-capped Hermon, at the very source of the
Jordan.
It was ' by the way,' as they journeyed up the valley,
that that remarkable conversation took place between
our Lord and His Apostles, in which He sought to
prepare them for His approaching sufferings, and also
for that glimpse of the promised glory to which those
sufferings were to lead.
D*ar, l^htrb Quarter 47
He had been qaestioning them about the people's
opinion of His own divine Person, and had drawn
forth from Peter the good confession, ' Thou art the
Son of the living God,' a confession which Christ
rewarded by the promise that Peter should be one of
the foundation-stones of His Church, with power to
grant or refuse admission thereinto. Content with
this, He forbade them to make Him further known
(doubtless fearing lest any outburst of Galilean en-
thusiasm should hasten the end prematurely) ; and then
began to declare to them far more, clearly than hereto-
fore the sufferings that awaited Him, that He must
go to Jerusalem, fall into the hands of the Sanhedrim,
be put to death, and be raised again the third day.
Not without much inward conflict had Christ pre-
pared Himself to drink this cup of suffering. In
Peter's reply, ' Be it far from Thee ! ' He seemed to
recognise the whispering of one who more than once
(it may be believed) had tempted Him to grasp the
Messiah's kingdom without sufferitig; hence the re-
pulse of the suggestion as though it came from the
Tempter himself, ' Get thee behind me, Satan.' And
in the exhortation to His disciples to sacrifice all, even
their lives, if need be, for God's sake, we see that this
was the one thought now uppermost in His mind, the
thought of sacrifice, that only by suffering could He
' enter into His glory,' and so fulfil all that ' Moses
and the Prophets had written concerning Himself' 1 .
Then He added a distinct and emphatic promise
that the glory of His kingdom should be revealed to
some not to all, but to some of those present, very
shortly.
To three of them, only a week later as all three
1 Luke xxiv. 26.
"Che <S0sprl ^ar
Evangelists are careful to tell us, clearly connecting
what followed with this conversation was vouchsafed
a foretaste of that glory, more wonderful, more im-
pressive, more convincing, than anything they had yet
witnessed. He had taken Peter, James, and John
apart from the rest, and led them up into a high moun-
tain to spend the night in prayer. And as Jesus
prayed a great change was seen to come over Him,
' His face did shine as the sun, and His raiment was
white as the light.' The three Apostles were heavy with
sleep, but they were awakened by the dazzling light,
and kept awake throughout the vision (diaypt}y6pT]ffavTes
etSov) : and, behold, there talked with Him two men
which were Moses and Elijah, who appeared in glory,
and spake of His decease which He should accomplish
at Jerusalem. ' They spake of His decease,' and so
bore witness, the one for the Law and the other for the
Prophets, that it was a suffering Messiah to whom
both Law and Prophets had ever pointed.
And as the two seemed to be departing Peter would
fain have detained them ; but just then there came the
luminous cloud, or Shechinah, the emblem of Jehovah's
presence, and overshadowed them ; and the Apostles
feared as they saw the three enter into the cloud, and
fell on their face, and were sore afraid, and heard a
voice as it were out of the cloud, ' This is My beloved
Son : hear Him ! ' And as they lay on the ground
Jesus came and touched them, and said, 'Arise, be not
afraid ; ' and they looked up and found themselves
once more alone with Jesus.
As they came down from the mountain He charged
them, saying, ' Tell the vision to no man, until the Son
of Man be risen from the dead.' And they kept that
saying within themselves, questioning what the rising
ear, ^hirb Quarter 49
from the dead, of which Christ had thrice so lately
spoken, should mean.
Such was this mysterious revelation, vouchsafed to
three Apostles, for their own sakes exclusively (as
appears from this charge of secrecy) until the yet
greater sign should come. How deep an impression
it left upon them, we know from/the way in which one
of them alludes to it in his old age, near forty years
afterwards 1 .
Some trace of the dazzling glory seems to have
lingered on Christ's countenance, as on that of Moses
when he too came down from the mount ; for St.
Mark tells us that ' all the people when they beheld
Him were greatly amazed.'
His holy presence might well shame the scene of
strife and tumult in the valley. The nine Apostles
had failed to cast out an evil spirit ; on one side were
Christ's old enemies the Scribes, pointing triumphantly
at the disciples' failure ; on the other the unhappy
father, vainly imploring their assistance ; in the midst
the evil spirit himself, still in possession of his victim,
and maddened by the sight of the Holy One who
approached. Here too faith seemed necessary to the
cure, faith not of the dumb helpless child, but of the
father answering in the child's behalf. Feeble was his
faith, more of the heart than of the head ; but Christ
accepted it, expelled the demon, and with His own
hand raised the fainting boy from the ground.
So passed the summer months, from April to
September.
After the Transfiguration Our Lord returned to
Capernaum 2 , giving His Apostles for the second time
1 2 Pet. i. 16-18.
2 At Capernaum, from the anecdote of the collection of
D
50 ^ht xrspfl
a distinct prediction of His Betrayal, Death, and
Resurrection. There His brethren, as they are called
His half-brothers probably, came to Him and urged
Him to accompany them to Jerusalem in the great
caravan of pilgrims then forming for the Feast of
Tabernacles 1 . Though they believed not on Him,
still they were proud of His miraculous powers, and
wished Him to display them at Jerusalem. But the
time for finally transferring His ministry from Galilee
into Judea was not yet come. Our Lord declined to
join the caravan, and delaying His journey some
few days, travelled up privately with few if any of
His apostles, and not till the festival week was half
over went publicly into the Temple to teach.
The appearance of the now famous Galilean Teacher
in the Temple caused no small stir among the Jews.
They wondered how He could have acquired so much
Scripture learning, not having been the pupil of any
of their great Rabbis. His courage too in thus
showing Himself publicly surprised them. For since
His cure of the impotent man on the Sabbath-day at
the previous Passover, their rulers had proscribed
Him as a Sabbath-breaker and blasphemer ; and for
six months He had absented Himself from Jerusalem.
' Is not this He whom they seek to put to death ? ' they
said, ' but, lo, He speaketh boldly, and they say nothing
the Temple tax the half-shekel levied on all householders,
in the autumn of each year, we may infer that Christ had
still a home, where possibly Mary, and perhaps His half-
brothers, made their abode.
1 It seems strange that any should identify these 'brethren'
with any of the Apostles, when St. John adds so plainly
'For neither did His brethren believe on Him;' and St.
Luke (Acts i. 14) mentions them so distinctly in addition to
the Eleven. See Prof. Lightfoot's exhaustive essay in his
' Galatians.'
,S.ccottb gtar, ^hirb ^natter 51
unto Him. Have our rulers discovered that He is
after all the Messiah?' Boldly our Lord defended
that Sabbath miracle ; and on the last great day of
the Feast, when the water from Siloam was brought in
procession and poured on the high altar, He claimed
it as a type of that Holy Spirit which He would Him-
self pour forth upon mankind. The priests dared not
touch Him. Jerusalem was much too full of Christ's
Galilean followers at these great festivals to allow of
His apprehension. Even the officers whom the
Sanhedrim sent to seize Him, came back into the
council-chamber, saying, ' Never man spake like
this man :' and one even of their own number the
same Nicodemus, who, eighteen months before, had
sought by night an interview with Jesus ventured
to remonstrate with them on His behalf. But in vain ;
' was He not a Galilean ? and could the Messiah come
from Galilee?'
So ended the Feast of Tabernacles. When Jesus
next appeared in the Temple we shall find the priests
taunting Him, not with His Galilean origin, but with
being a Samaritan. This was something new, and
requires explanation. And the explanation is sup-
plied, I believe, by St. Luke's Gospel, to which we
now turn.
CHAPTER VI
Second Year, Fourth Quarter
^ttunt to Jutea, aitb Jftast of
ALL the three earlier Gospels tell us distinctly and
emphatically how, not long after His Transfigura-
tion, our Lord with His twelve Apostles bade farewell to
those Galilean cities where He had so long sojourned,
and set forth on His final public progress towards
Jerusalem. Clearly this could not be that journey to
the Feast of Tabernacles, for then St. John tells us
Christ travelled ' not openly, but as it were in secret.'
We must suppose, therefore, that after the Feast of
Tabernacles after the close, therefore, of St. John's
7th chapter (where by some mistake the beautiful
anecdote of the woman taken in adultery has got in-
serted) our Lord, privately, as He had come, left
Jerusalem, and rejoined His Apostles at Capernaum,
and there commenced His preparations for this
solemn Messianic progress towards the scene of His
approaching sufferings. To St. Luke, as I have said,
we owe our knowledge of this striking journey.
Never before, so far as it appears, had Christ taken
His twelve Apostles with Him to Jerusalem. Now
He not only takes them, but, rallying round Him a
great multitude of His followers, He places Himself
at their head, and 'steadfastly set His face to go to
Jerusalem.' Nor is this all. He sends messengers
before His face to prepare the Samaritans to receive
, ^onrth Quarter 53
Him, for through Samaria He means to travel
Chorazin, Bethsaida, Capernaum, had rejected Him.
To the Samaritans, yes, to the despised Samaritans
He will now appeal. To the Twelve, in his earlier
ministry, He had said, ' Into any city of the Samari-
tans enter ye not !' Not so to the Seventy evange-
lists whom He now sends forth/ Into those fields of
Samaria, which, ten months before, He had seen
already whitening unto the harvest, He will now send
forth His labourers. In His parable of the Good
Samaritan, He reproves the exclusive prejudices of
His Jewish followers ; among the lepers whom He
cleansed in the border country, He is careful to
point out that the only thankful one was a Samaritan.
Thus He journeys on from village to village ; gather-
ing followers as He goes. His last pause is at
Bethany, where those faithful friends, of whom we
now for the first time hear, Martha and Mary, receive
Him, Martha serving, and Mary choosing the better
part the one thing needful, and sitting at His feet.
But Christ, thus brought to the very gates of Jeru-
salem, will not now make His triumphal entry. It
is December, and more than three months are yet
wanting to the Paschal season, and not till the
Paschal season can Christ our Passover be slain.
Therefore, after a brief sojourn in the neighbourhood
of Jerusalem perhaps at Bethany, Christ purposes
to draw off His followers to the more secluded banks
of the Jordan, and there resume awhile that ministry
in the wilderness, which, just a year ago, He had
discontinued 1 .
1 We may observe, in passing, how exactly the accounts
of St. Matthew (xix.) and St. Mark (x.) agree here with St. John.
Both of them imply a pause between this public journey up
54 ^he (gospel Jlarnttibe
For Christ's brief sojourn in or near Jerusalem, and
for His public teaching in the Temple in this month
of December, we must turn to the 8th, gth, and loth
chapters of St. John. In the 8th chapter, we find
our Lord in the most public court of the Temple,
called the Treasury, proclaiming Himself, as Isaiah
and holy Simeon had proclaimed Him, not merely
the Messiah of Israel, but a Light to lighten the
Gentiles also, ' The Light of the whole World.'
Never before had Christ so fully declared Himself
in Jerusalem. When they quote against Him His
own words, spoken eight months before, that if He
bore witness of Himself His witness would not be
true, He vindicates Himself by appealing to the
perfect union between the Son and the Father. In
this twofold witness the maxim of their law was
fulfilled.
The calm majesty of His words seems again and
again to abash them. When they venture to ask,
'Who art Thou?' He replies, 'When ye shall have
lifted up your Messiah from the earth, then shall ye
know that I am He.' 'Then shall ye, too, who
believe on Me, be redeemed from your slavery, and
be made the sons of God.'
The multitude is still divided, some standing by
Christ, others angrily resenting this imputation of
being slaves. They slaves, forsooth ! they, of the
pure blood of Abraham, slaves! and this from a
Samaritan, for as such they now revile Him : ' Say
we not well, that Thou art a Samaritan, and hast a
devil ?' (Possibly some of this despised race, who had
from Galilee and the triumphal entry into Jerusalem on
Palm Sunday. Both tell us that this interval was spent in
the confines of Judea beyond Jordan.
.Serrrnb Hear, Jfxmrth Quarter 55
joined Him in His progress through Samaria, were
seen with Him in the Temple.)
Their brutal taunts only draw forth from Jesus
more and more clearly the declaration of His own
divine eternal nature. They can bear it no longer.
They will stone the blasphemer on the spot. But
His disciples close around Him, and our Lord is
enabled to withdraw Himself from their violence.
It was on the following Sabbath, and again in the
streets of Jerusalem, that our Lord, wishing to show
forth the divine truth that He was the Light of the
World, gave sight to a poor blind mendicant. Very
touching is the courage and faith of this poor man,
when summoned to the bar of the Sanhedrim for
this breach of the Sabbath. Boldly avowing his con-
viction that Jesus is from God, he is excommunicated
as a heretic. Our Lord finds the outcast, and reveals
Himself yet more fully to him as the Son of God.
Then, turning to the blind Pharisees, He denounces
them as false shepherds, and proclaims Himself to be
the good shepherd who giveth His life for the sheep.
St. John is careful to tell us how great was the effect
of our Lord's words. Not only the multitude, but
many, even of the hostile party, bore witness to their
power.
Thus Jerusalem was divided : some crying, ' He
hath a devil, and is mad : why hear ye Him ?' others
saying, ' These are not the words of one who hath a
devil. Can a demon open the eyes of the blind ?'
Once more before He withdraws to the further side
of Jordan Christ will deliver His testimony in the
temple. It was the Feast of Dedication, answering
almost exactly to our Christmas, and our Lord was
in the cloister called Solomon's Porch. Again He
56 ^hc <S0spl
declared His divinity : ' I and my Father are one ! '
And again they took up stones to stone Him for what
they deemed His blasphemy, 'because that Thou,
being a man, makest Thyself God.' And Jesus is
compelled to quit Jerusalem, not to appear again in
her sin-stained streets until the final Passover. On
the banks of Jordan He rejoined the multitude of His
disciples, Galileans mostly, and followers of the Baptist
of old. But here was One far greater than the Baptist,
' For John did no miracle ; but all things that John
spake of this man were true.' Here Christ stayed
among them, heating their sick and teaching ; and
thus the winter months went by 1 .
And here we pause. We have had before us
Christ in the Temple at the Feast of Tabernacles,
then that solemn public progress up from Galilee
through Samaria into the confines of Judea ; and
lastly we have had those December discourses in
the Temple, in which our Lord bore such unreserved
witness to His own divinity. As the end approached
our Lord can more and more afford (if one may so
speak) to cast off that reserve with which in His earlier
ministry He had shrouded His own divine nature.
Well He knew that precisely in proportion as He
revealed His own divinity, in that same proportion
would the hate of these malignant Jews be deepened,
and the end be hastened. There is nothing in human
record so tragical, nothing so terrible, as St. John's
description in these latter chapters of the ever deepen-
ing hatred with which these Pharisees thirsted for the
blood of that Holy One who had appeared among
them. His words, His very presence, testified against
them that their works and hearts were evil.
1 Matt. xix. 2 ; Mark x. I.
CHAPTER VII
Third Year, First Quarter
Raising at grants anb final Jtstent to
"\XTE have now reached the last three months of our
Lord's ministry, the first three months of the
thirty-third year (humanly speaking) of our Lord's age
the January, February, and March of our calendar.
Our Lord has withdrawn (as we have seen) from
Jerusalem, and has gathered a vast multitude of His
disciples around Him beyond Jordan, where John at
first baptized. There He ministers to them, healing
their sick and teaching. Possibly to this period of
His ministry belong those I5th and i6th chapters of
St Luke, so rich in parables, the parable of the Lost
Sheep, of the Prodigal Son, of the Unjust Steward, of
the Rich Man and Lazarus. From that retirement
once, and once only, so far as appears, was He drawn
away into the neighbourhood of Jerusalem. We have
seen how on His great journey from Galilee into Judea
His last resting-place was Bethany, in the house of
those two sisters, Martha and Mary, the house of
Simon the leper it is elsewhere called. Possibly
Simon was the father, or possibly the husband, of
Martha, but being leprous was in seclusion, or possibly
he was dead, but the house was still known by his
name. However that may be, there Martha and Mary
58
and Lazarus lived, and Martha was mistress of the
house ; and there Jesus had often found a quiet resting-
place when Jerusalem was unsafe for Him.
A message from these faithful friends is brought to
Him in His retirement beyond Jordan, brief and sad,
from the two sisters, ' Lord, behold, he whom Thou
lovest is sick.' Brief, and yet enough. Well those
sisters knew Christ's love for their brother Lazarus.
Well they knew, too, His almighty healing power.
Christ was some thirty miles off, yet not much further
than He had been at Cana when with a word He
healed the nobleman's son at Capernaum. Yes ! a
word would have sufficed in answer to their prayer.
But Christ had other purposes in view, unknown to
Martha and Mary. For the greater glory of God He
will yet delay. Two days He lingers beyond Jordan,
two days are spent upon the journey. On the fourth
day He draws near to the village. Anxiously they
had been expecting Him. They had received His
message, so mysterious, clearly intended to keep alive
their hope, and yet ere it reached them their brother
was no more.
First Martha and then Mary go forth to meet the
Lord. How full of pathos sorrow mingling with con-
fidence in Christ's love and what a seeking for sym-
pathy there is in their simple greeting, ' Lord, if thou
hadst been here our brother had not died.' By a few
words of profoundest meaning Christ seeks to lift them
into that higher point of view in which what we call
death ceases to be death ; and that higher life He
connects mysteriously with His own person ' I am
the resurrection and the life !' meaning that death is
no interruption to the life in Christ. Their brother is
still living, though beyond the veil ; and this He pur-
'UThirb Hear, Jfirsi (Quarter 59
poses to prove to them by calling him back into his
mortal body. But meantime their natural grief moves
Him deeply ; they bring Him weeping to the grave.
Many mourners stand ' around ; at His bidding they
remove the stone that closed the entrance. Again by
an effort restraining His emotion, He lifted up His
eyes and said, ' Father, I thank Thee that Thou hast
heard Me. And I knew that Thou hearest Me always ;
but because of the people that stand by I said it, that
they may believe that Thou hast sent Me ! ' And when
He had thus spoken He cried with a loud voice,
' Lazarus, come forth !' Then from the recesses of
the tomb, moving with difficulty, bandaged hand and
foot with grave-clothes, and a napkin over the face,
the quickened corpse came forth. ' Loose him, and
let him go !' And Lazarus stood by his sisters' side !
Such was this sign, this mightiest sign of His divinity
that Jesus had thus far shown on earth : proving Him-
self to be Lord both of living and of dead. One only
greater sign He showed, a few weeks later, when by
His divine life He reawakened His own body.
During the few remaining days of Christ's ministry
Lazarus appears to have been His companion. When
next he visited his sisters' home it was as their guest,
newly arrived with our Lord from Ephraim.
The miracle, as Jesus doubtless foresaw, was fol-
lowed by the most important consequences ; on the
one hand it convinced many even among the hostile
party that He was the Messiah, and so swelled the
number of His adherents in Jerusalem that except by
treachery it was now impossible for the rulers to seize
Him. On the other hand His enemies saw plainly
that further to delay their murderous purpose was
most unsafe. A meeting of the Sanhedrim was called
60 ^ht ospcl <|larratibc
at once. Alarmed and perplexed, they expected that
the Galileans might now any moment rise with Jesus
at their head, and march against the Roman garrison
at Jerusalem, and that the Romans would make the
insurrection an excuse for enslaving perhaps destroy-
ing their city and nation. Little did Caiaphas know
the deep prophetic truth that he was uttering when he
told them it was expedient ' that one man should die
for the people.'
It was decreed, therefore, that come what might
Jesus should be sacrificed should be handed over to
the Roman .executioner, although he were one of their
own blood, rather than provoke further the jealousy
of their oppressors. Thus they cloaked their own
personal malice under a show of policy, and gave
orders that if any man knew where Jesus was he
should inform them.
Meanwhile our blessed Lord had withdrawn from
Bethany to a town called Ephraim, near to the wilder-
ness, not far, perhaps, from Jericho ; there, out of
reach of His enemies, He seems to have awaited the
approach of the Galilean caravan of pilgrims to the
Passover.
On the 7th of Nisan (Thursday), followed by His
Apostles and a multitude of Galilean disciples, our
Lord once more set forth on the highway that led
through Jericho to Jerusalem to Jerusalem, where, as
they knew, a hundred enemies thirsted for His blood !
Something there seems to have been in His outward
demeanour He leading the way, and they following
behind that filled His disciples with awe and amaze-
ment. ' And as they followed,' St. Mark .tells us,
' they were afraid.' And Jesus took the Twelve apart,
and said unto them, ' Behold, we go up to Jerusalem ;
ear, dfirsi Quarter 61
and the Son of Man shall be betrayed unto the chief
priests, and unto the scribes, and they shall condemn
Him to death, and shall deliver Him to the Gentiles
(i.e., to the Romans), to mock, and to scourge, and to
crucify ; and the third day He shall rise again.' But
St. Luke adds, ' And they understood none of these
things, and this saying was hid from them, neither
knew they the things that were spoken.' For still
they dreamed of a temporal kingdom, and still their
only thought was who should have the highest rank
therein !
Near Jericho, the crowd ever increasing, He gave
sight to blind Bartimeus, and lodged for the night at
the house of Zaccheus, chief among the excisemen of
the town. Heretofore Zaccheus had served Mammon,
henceforth he will serve God : for the words of his
divine guest have touched his heart, and he vows that
he will give half his wealth to the poor, and restore
fourfold whatever he has wrongfully exacted. Partly,
no doubt, in connexion with this act of faithful steward-
ship, and partly, as St. Luke tells us, to correct their
notion that the Messiah's kingdom in glory was to be
established immediately at Jerusalem, Christ spoke
the parable of the Pounds, signifying that not now,
but at His second coming, after His ' long journey,'
would His kingdom of glory appear, and that in the
meantime His servants must be faithful stewards of
the gifts of grace bequeathed to them.
Again He set forth on the morrow, on the Friday
or Preparation-day, Himself as before leading the way,
ever ascending to Jerusalem. That evening St. John
is careful to fix the day, ' six days before the Passover'
He rested at Bethany, and there spent the Sabbath.
It was at the house of Simon the leper, the house of
62
Martha and Mary, at their Sabbath meal, while Martha
served, but ' Lazarus was one of them that sat at the
table with Jesus,' that Mary came with her costly
perfume and anointed her dear Lord. Very refresh-
ing in that climate is such fragrant lotion, a thousand-
fold more precious to our Lord was the devoted love
which inspired the act, connected as it was in our
Lord's mind, and possibly in Mary's, with His ap-
proaching death.
Meantime the news had reached Jerusalem that the
Messiah was within a mile and a half of its walls.
That evening, so soon as the Sabbath rest was over,
' much people of the Jews came, not for Jesus' sake
only, but that they might see Lazarus also, whom He
had raised from the dead.' l
1 Why do the three earlier Evangelists not even mention
this most stupendous of Christ's miracles ? The following
answer has been suggested. They wrote in the lifetime of
Martha, Mary, and Lazarus. Well might one about whom
there hung the mystery of having passed through death desire
privacy. Nay, his own personal safety required it ; for we
read that the Sanhedrim sought his life, ' because that by
reason of him many of the Jews went away and believed on
Jesus.'
Not, therefore, till that generation had passed away was
the miracle published. The last of the Apostles, writing
sixty years or more after the event, far away at Ephesus,
records with all the vividness of an eye-witness what had
sunk deep into the memory of all the Twelve. So, too, and
doubtless for like reason, he alone of the Evangelists pub-
lishes the name of him who came to Jesus by night, and
brought spices to His tomb.
CHAPTER VIII
ags at Dels m.ttk
' HPELL ye the daughter of Zion, Behold, thy King
J- cometh unto thee, meek, and sitting upon an
ass, and a colt the foal of an ass.' So was it written
in the Prophets, and so must it be fulfilled by Christ.
Every act and every word is now full of deepest mean-
ing. The ass ' and the colt with her ' are duly found
and brought. Seating the spare form of their divine
Master on the foal, they leave the wooded dell of
Bethany, and slowly ascend the rocky path which leads
over the shoulder of the hill towards Jerusalem. Thou-
sands of Galilean pilgrims follow in His train. A vast
multitude from the Holy City stream forth to meet them,
tearing down the long vernal fronds of the palms, and
waving them with loud Hosannas as they approach.
Eagerly they tell or hear of all the wonders He has done,
and most of all of Lazarus. Is not this the Mes-
siah, their promised king? Nor shall royal honours
be wanting : the crowd that meet them, turning and
heading the procession, strew the path with their
palm-leaves, while others carpet the ground under
His feet with their garments. Thus the long proces-
sion sweeps over the crest of the hill, and the Holy
City bursts upon their view. Again the Messianic
psalm is raised by the disciples, ' Blessed be the King
that cometh in the name of the Lord ; peace in
64 Wit (Sospel
heaven and glory in the highest ! ' And the multi-
tude in front take up the strain, while they that follow
make answer, waking the echoes of the deep ravine
with their Hosannas. Nor does He, .the Messiah,
refuse their adoration ; ' I tell you, if these should hold
their peace, the stones would immediately cry out.'
But another vision was rising before the prophetic
eye of Jesus ; a vision of Roman armies, of long lines
of siege, of ruin, and of slaughter ; and as He gazed
at the beautiful city, He wept over it, saying, ' If thou
hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the
things which belong unto thy peace ! but now they
are hid from thine eyes.'
Again they move on, slowly down through the olive-
gardens, and across the deep torrent bed of the Kedron,
and up the rocky slope on the further side, and so
through one of the city gates to the levelled ledge of
Mount Moriah, on which the Temple stood. The
whole day, the whole of that Palm Sunday, seems to
have been spent in this solemn entry 1 .
St. Mark simply tells us that Jesus entered the
Temple; 'and when He had looked round about
upon all things, and now the eventide was come, He
went out again to Bethany with the twelve.' Early,
as it would seem, on Monday morning, Jesus again
bent His steps towards Jerusalem. Hungering by
the way, He went up to a fig-tree, whose unusually
early show of leaves made Him expect to find fruit ;
but finding none, and following the train of feeling
with which the sight of the city on this same spot the
day before had filled His mind, He spoke His thought
aloud, and said, ' No man eat fruit of thee hereafter
1 No one who has read it can forget Dean Stanley's vivid
description of this Entry, in his Sinai and Palestine,
(Earlg bags of l^xrlg SUtek 65
for ever !' oh that His people had shown the fruit
that He looked for in this day of His visitation ! But
now it was too late! Passing on He entered the
Temple. Once more shall ' the Lord come suddenly
to His temple, and purify the sons of Levi.' As at the
first, so now at the last, Passover of His ministry, He
purged the holy courts of His Father's house of the
unseemly traffic which profaned them. The multitude
crowd around Him, Bringing their blind and their
lame : and the Messiah heals them all. The chief
priests and scribes can bear it no longer ; for the very
children were crying, ' Hosanna to the son of David !'
' Hearest Thou what these say ?' they ask indignantly.
' Yes,' Christ answers ; ' have ye never read, Out of
the mouth of babes and sucklings Thou hast perfected
praise?' In the present temper of the people it was
impossible to lay hands on Him. The day was
spent in the Temple ; in the evening He withdrew
again to that favoured home at Bethany.
Tuesday, the I2th of Nisan, appears to have been
spent from early dawn to near sunset in the Temple
in public teaching. In their early morning walk
across the Mount of Olives, the disciples noticed that
the fig-tree was already withered, such was the
power of even the least of Christ's words ! And such
too might be the power of their words (He told them)
if only they would pray in faith.
In the Temple, which He had cleared the day before,
He was met by a deputation from the Sanhedrim,
asking by what authority He had done it. Christ
silenced them by asking in return, in the hearing of
all the people, to what authority they ascribed the
reformation which the Baptist had preached divine
or human ? They could not for shame say St. John's
E
66 <3rh* (feosytl
mission was divine, for they had themselves rejected
him ; they dared not say it was human, for all the
people believed in him. Thus either way they would
be discredited in the eyes of the multitude. Then
Christ took up His parable against the Pharisees, and
denounced their hypocrisy before all the people. They
were like the son who said unto his father, ' I go, sir,'
and went not ; they were like the wicked husbandman
who slew the Heir when He came to seek fruit from
His vineyard ; they were like the rebellious guests
who refused to come to the wedding feast. Even
such were these Pharisees, and even thus were they
drawing down on themselves that fearful retribution
which so continually, during this week, rose up before
Christ's vision.
Stung to the quick by these parables, His enemies
would there and then have laid their hands upon
Jesus ; but the people protected Him, and their
baffled rulers retired to their council-chamber to
concert another mode of attack. Their only hope
now was to discredit Him either with the Romans on
one side, or with the populace on the other. They
will frame a double-edged question, which He cannot
answer without giving offence either to Pilate or to
the Jews : and that His answer, on whichever side it
be, may be duly witnessed and reported, they send,
along with the Pharisees, some Herodians courtiers
of the Roman power. With flattering words they
pretend to be referring to Him a case of conscience.
' What thinkest Thou, is it lawful to give tribute to
Caesar or not?' Little were they prepared for the
divine simplicity with which our Lord at once evaded
the snare, rebuked their malice, and proclaimed one
of the great principles of His kingdom. ' Why tempt
bags of ^olg m,ttk 67
ye Me, ye hypocrites ? show me the tribute-money.'
'Whose is this image and superscription?' Thus He
obliged them with their own mouth to confess the
master whom, for their sins, God had placed over
them. ' Render, therefore, unto Caesar the things
that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are
God's.' Thus Christ reconciled for ever the duty of
obedience to human law and to divine law, what-
ever hardship we suffer under the first, must be ac-
cepted as a penalty for our disobedience to the second.
Assuredly as we obey the second, so surely will God's
providence bring about an amendment of the first.
One party in the Sanhedrim being thus foiled and
silenced, another party came forward. The Sadducees
believed not in a future state, and thought they would
perplex Jesus on this much-disputed question. They
put the case of a woman who had seven husbands in
this world, flippantly asking ' whose wife shall she be
in the next?' Not content with showing the folly of
their question all such relationships ceasing in the
other world, Christ proved from their own Pentateuch
the doctrine they denied. Jehovah would not con-
tinue to call Himself the God of Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob, unless Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were still
living ! He is not the God ot the dead, but of the
living : for all live unto Him !
One more among their number a lawyer made a
last attempt to draw Him into controversy, asking
which was the greatest of the commandments ; but
seems to have been so struck by the wisdom of Christ's
answer, that he was almost induced to range himself
on His side.
Thus one and all they stood discomfited. And
now it was their turn to be questioned. As in His
68 <&ht (feosyd
reply about the resurrection, so now in His ques-
tion about His own divinity, our Lord declared a truth
of the very deepest import to His Church in all ages,
while to those about Him He seemed to be but en-
gaging in one of those discussions about the letter of
Scripture of which alone their narrow minds were cap-
able. ' Whose son do you expect your Messiah to
be ?' They answer, ' The son of David.' ' How then
is it that David in the noth Psalm is inspired to call
Him Lord ?' Thus did Christ show them that in fail-
ing to recognise His divinity they failed to understand
their own Scriptures.
But this kind of victory in argument was far from
being what Christ most cared for. His chief concern
was to guard His flock from being corrupted morally
by this Pharisaic party. Sternly He now reproves
their evil lives and practices, their cruelty, their hypo-
crisy, their pride : and fearful are the woes that He
denounces upon them. And as the vision of the com-
ing doom once more rises before Him, His voice
as of one exhausted by strong emotion sinks into
tones of mournful tenderness : ' O Jerusalem, Jeru-
salem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them
that are sent unto thee, how often would I have
gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth
her chickens under her wings, and ye would not !
Behold, your house is left unto you desolate. For I
say unto you, Ye shall not see Me henceforth, till ye
shall say, Blessed is He that cometh in the name of
the Lord.' And so He left the Temple courts.
But our record of this eventful day is not yet closed.
Pausing, perhaps while the crowd dispersed, in the
chamber where stood the chests for the people's
Temple-offerings, our blessed Lord, Whose eye is ever
on the lowliest, noticed a poor widow casting in her
s of ^olg Wittk 69
two mites. And he called unto Him His disciples,
and said unto them, ' Verily I say unto you, that this
poor widow hath cast more in than all they that have
cast into the treasury : for all they did cast in of their
abundance, but she of her want did cast in all that
she had, even all her living.'
As they left the Temple, the disciples called our
Lord's attention to the marvellous masonry of the
wall which overhung the ravine ; but this too our
Lord assured them would be laid in ruins in the com-
ing doom. Resting on the slope of Olivet, they asked
Him when all this should be, and what would be the
sign of His second coming, and of the end of the
world. Then with the dark shadow of the Temple
in the foreground and the sinking glory of the sunset
beyond, our Saviour revealed so much as He was per-
mitted to reveal of those ' times and seasons which the
Father hath put in His own power.'
It is plain from the disciples' question that they
took it for granted that the fall of Jerusalem would be
the end of the world. Our Lord is careful to correct
this notion : ' Let no man deceive you ; Jerusalem
must be trodden down by the Gentiles, and that too
in the lifetime of this generation ; but the end is not
yet ; the times of the Gentiles must first be fulfilled.'
How long ' the times of the Gentiles' this interval
between the fall of Jerusalem and the end of the
world would be, whether months, or years, or cen-
turies should intervene, was left purposely unrevealed.
Enough that the disciples, when that which most
nearly concerned them came to be fulfilled, and the
Roman armies gathered round the holy city, under-
stood the signs of their Lord's warning, and saved
themselves from the impending woe. God grant that
we too, whenever the end of all shall draw near, may
70 ^Lht
also read aright the signs of the latter portion of this
prophecy ; and be among those ' faithful servants'
found watching for their Master's coming, among
those ' wise virgins' whose lamps will then be trimmed
and burning !
Of Wednesday the I3th of Nisan we have no very
certain record, unless we assign to this day St. John's
anecdote of the Greek proselytes, who, not venturing
themselves beyond the outer court of the Temple, sent
within to Jesus desiring an interview 1 .
As when Nicodemus, two years before, came to
Him in the Paschal week, seeking a specimen of His
divine teaching, so now to these Greek strangers our
Lord vouchsafed one of those weighty sayings in
which a deep truth lay half revealed : ' Verily, verily,
I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the
ground, and die, it abideth alone ; but if it die, it
bringeth forth much fruit.' The decay of the earthly
is necessary to the growth of the heavenly. And yet
how painful is this decay of the earthly painful to
all, a thousand-fold most painful to Him who felt as
none other has felt its connexion with the sin of the
world ! And as He thought thereon a spasm of the
approaching agony seems to have passed over the
soul of Jesus ; when, lo ! there came, for the third
time since His baptism, that mysterious sustaining
voice from heaven ; and some thought it thundered,
and some that an angel spake to Him. But to Jesus
1 There seems no reason why we should suppose that our
Lord discontinued on this day what St. Luke tells us was
His daily practice during this week, of repairing early each
morning to the Temple. On Tuesday, as we have seen, the
multitude were still decidedly in His favour ; on the Friday
we know how they had fallen off from Him. St. John's
narrative supplies the signs of this gradual defection which
the interval seems to require.
<Earlg iags of ^ols SSttek 71
the crisis was for the moment over ; and He began
to speak freely of His own death and the manner of
it, and how in so dying He should draw all men unto
Himself.
But this death of the Messiah was precisely what
the multitude could not and would not accept. They
had always understood that Messiah was to live for
ever ; how could He be lifted up on the cross ? If so,
then He was not the Messiah they were expecting !
Thus darkened and blinded by their sins, even as
Isaiah had foretold (and this is St. John's only explana-
tion of their conduct when he reflects thereon), these
very men who but a day or two before had filled the air
with their Hosannas, now rejected their Messiah when
He spake of His crucifixion. With a few solemn
words of warning Christ withdrew from the Temple,
and this time, as St. John tells us, was compelled to
hide Himself from them.
The week began with triumphant songs and loud
Hosannas. Two days of bitter controversy between
Christ and the Pharisees followed. So far the Galilean
multitude were still with Him. But on the fourth day
their loyalty, as we have seen, began to waver. Sternly
Christ refused for the sake of their support to com-
promise in the very least degree those spiritual pur-
poses for which alone He came into the world. And
they fall away from Him ; the very men whom He
had fed on the shore of the Galilean lake, whose sick
He had healed, who had followed Him to Jerusalem,
who had strewn His path with their garments, fall
away from Him :
' Hosanna now, to-morrow Crucify !
The changeful burden still of their rude lawless cry ! '
CHAPTER IX
(Sapper anb tlu
TO understand aright the four accounts of our
blessed Lord's last Supper and Betrayal, we
must bear in mind the order of the Paschal feast, and
mark well the notes of time which the Evangelists
give us.
The Jewish day was a night and a day, extending
from sunset to sunset. On the afternoon of the I4th of
Nisan the Jews used carefully to put away all leaven from
their houses ; and before sunset, before the close of
the 1 4th therefore, each household sacrificed its Pas-
chal lamb. After sunset (at the beginning therefore of
the 1 5th Nisan according to their reckoning) the lamb
was roasted, and the feast of the Passover began,
lasting all through the night. The whole lamb was to
be consumed in the course of the night, though not
necessarily at one meal. It was eaten with the un-
leavened bread and wine, and sweet sauce and bitter
herbs. This was the Lord's Passover, commencing at
the close of the I4th Nisan, and lasting through the
night.
We take up our narrative on the afternoon of
Thursday, our Lord sending Peter and John to the
house of an unnamed disciple unnamed perhaps for
fear of bringing him into trouble to prepare their
Paschal meal.
)L
|Cast (Stxpjra: aitb gttntjial 73
There in the upper chamber, when the hour was
come, our Lord and His twelve Apostles assembled to
celebrate their last Passover together. Long they
remembered, as long as they lived, the solemnity of
that leave-taking ; remembered how He, the Son of
God, full of His own deep thoughts, knowing that He
was come from God and was going to God, had
poured shame on their want of humility by kneeling
down Himself to wash their feet.
And they needed the lesson. Strange and almost
incredible it seems, that, even at this last supper, they
were disputing (as St. Luke tells us) about precedence.
Humility, therefore, was the first lesson that Christ
would teach them. But there was another more
mysterious lesson which our Lord desired on this last
evening to impress deeply on their mind, and, through
them, on the mind of His Church for ever and that
was the doctrine of His own sacrifice.
Many times He had spoken to them of His approach-
ing death as a sacrifice, a sacrifice of which in some
transcendent way His people were to be partakers.
But they had failed to understand Him. This deep
truth, therefore, that they and we were to draw all our
spiritual nourishment from His sacrificed body and
from His poured-out blood, He will now show forth
and fix in a sacramental act that His Church may
repeat ' in remembrance of Him ' through all time, to
her great and endless comfort.
Not only does our Lord bind His Apostles together
into communion one with another, by dividing among
them the loaf that was before Him, and bidding all
pledge themselves in the one cup ; but, more than this,
He binds them also into a mysterious communion
with Himself for He calls that bread His Body, and
74
that wine His Blood. Yes, this was His deeper
meaning, not bread and wine, but His own Body, His
own Blood was in His thought this it was that He
was giving for the life of the world. None can draw
life from the Holy Communion unless he feed therein,
in heart and mind, upon the Sacrifice of Christ. Does
any ask what is meant by feeding on Christ ? Our
Lord's discourse at this last supper is recorded by St.
John on purpose to explain it. The purpose of that
discourse from first to last was to prepare His dis-
ciples to understand that He was not forsaking them,
but only changing His outward and visible presence
into an inward, invisible, and far more effectual pre-
sence. He left them outwardly that He might return
to them inwardly. Whoever receives Him thus in-
wardly returning, the same feeds on Him ; and never
so effectually as in the Holy Communion of the Lord's
Supper.
The iyth chapter of St. John gives us our Lord's
prayer, as He lifted up His eyes to the moonlight
sky on their way to Gethsemane, and prayed aloud
for them, and added, ' Neither pray I for these alone,
but for them also who shall believe on Me through
their word ; that they all may be one, as Thou, Father,
art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one
in Us !' Such were the far-reaching thoughts of love
that filled the mind of Christ on this night, up to the
very hour of His agony. It is well to notice this ; up
to the very last, up to the very entrance into the
garden, so far as we may gather from that I7th of
St. John, our Lord's mind was serene and tranquil,
full of the joy of returning to His Father's glory, full
of the yet deeper joy of sharing that glory with those
whom He was redeeming. But not without sacrifice,
mtb ^.ctragal 75
not without draining to the last drop this cup of
anguish, can He redeem them. He knew it : and the
hour had now come. Scarcely had He kneeled in the
garden when the agony came upon Him dark, crush-
ing, for the moment overwhelming, as if the sorrows
of hell were upon His soul. Bowed and falling forward
to the earth, it seemed as though His Father had for-
saken Him, as though the Evil One was permitted in
this hour of darkness to overshadow Him, permitted
to make trial of Him to the very uttermost. It is
terrible ; can none share the travail of His soul ?
None! Can none even watch with Him? None!
Alone He must tread the wine-press ! ' I looked and
there was none to help, and I wondered that there was
none to uphold.' But with strong crying and tears
He sent up His prayer unto Him that was able to
save Him from fainting utterly, and was heard, and
an angel was seen to be strengthening Him in His
exhaustion. How fearful this struggle with the Evil
One had been, the Apostles knew when they saw the
crimson stains of perspiration where He had knelt.
But it was over. Calm and tranquil, as before, was
now again His voice, as He approached them, ' Sleep
on now, and take your rest : it is enough.'
An hour or more this agony must have lasted, for
thrice He came and woke the three Apostles, whose
eyes were heavy with sorrow and the lateness of the
hour, and twice they again had fallen asleep. The third
time He told them it was too late now to watch with
Him. The traitor was at hand. And immediately,
while He yet spake, came Judas to the entrance of
the garden ; and with him an armed band of Jewish
and Roman soldiers, with torches and lanterns.
'Jesus, therefore, knowing all things that should
76 ^Lht <0sp*I
come upon Him, went forth, and said unto them,
Whom seek ye?' Then followed the preconcerted
kiss of the traitor, the recoil of the men from that
holy presence, the care of Jesus for His disciples'
safety, Peter's attempted resistance, and Christ's re-
proof, asking permission of the soldiers who held Him
to heal the servant whom the rash sword-stroke had so
nearly slain. Could He, whose merest whisper would
have given Him twelve legions of angels, need the
sword of man to defend Him ? It was His Father's
will, and therefore His will that He should suffer all.
So the soldiers bound Him, and led Him away.
Then the Apostles, and that other disciple who seems
to have risen hastily from his bed on hearing the
alarm, forsook Him and fled.
The priests, who accompanied the soldiers, directed
them to take Him to the palace of Annas, who, though
no longer high priest, seems to have retained the
chief power. The actual high priest was Caiaphas,
his son-in-law, who occupied, perhaps, a portion of
the same palace. Having met with no resistance,
they had brought their prisoner sooner than the
priests expected, and some hours must elapse before
the Sanhedrim could be assembled. The interval
was spent in a private examination of Jesus by Annas,
interrupted only by the brutal servant who struck
Jesus in the face to force Him to reply.
Meantime the Apostle John, who was known to the
high priest, had gained entrance to the palace, and
had asked the damsel who kept the gate to admit
Peter also. As Peter passed her she said, ' Art thou
not one of His disciples?' Peter denied it. Again
mingling with the servants round their fire in the
court-yard, and still hoping to escape notice, he was
|Cast <Stipp*r ani gJetragal 77
charged by the same maid, or by another, with being
a disciple. Again he denied it. Meantime the day
was breaking, and the Sanhedrim was assembling in
the chamber of Caiaphas. Thither now Annas sent
his prisoner. It was perhaps in crossing the court-
yard that one of the High-Priest's slaves in charge of
Jesus, a kinsman of the Malchus whom Peter had
wounded, recognised the Apostle as one of those
whom he had seen with Jesus in the garden ; others
too now joined in the taunt ; and a third time Peter
denied his Lord, and immediately the cock crew ;
and Jesus turned and looked upon Peter. And Peter
remembered the word of the Lord, how He said to
Him, ' Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny Me
thrice.' And he went out and wept bitterly.
CHAPTER X
in the <3Tefoih Cxrttrt
IN the last chapter we had before us the events of
the Thursday evening of Passion Week. The
Paschal Supper, the Agony, the Betrayal, and Peter's
denial, filled up the hours of that night from sunset
to cock-crowing, that is, till three o'clock.
We now enter on the events of Good Friday. So
full are our sacred records of this day, so momentous
each of its details, that we must divide our narrative
into three portions : two will describe the trials of our
Lord, and the third the crucifixion.
And first the two trials, if trials they may be called,
must occupy us. It is important to keep them dis-
tinct : one trial in the Jewish court before sunrise,
and the other trial in the Roman court after sunrise.
These early hours were nothing strange in those times
and countries ; Roman magistrates not unusually ad-
ministered justice soon after sunrise. And, besides,
we may remember what a strong motive the Jewish
rulers had for getting the business finished as early as
possible. Beyond all things they feared an uproar
among the people. This Friday was the greatest feast-
day in the year. In the forenoon there would be the
great Temple sacrifice, followed by the feast. They
must have all over before the forenoon if possible.
Jitbgntent in ike Jtetoish Court 79
Therefore the Sanhedrim had been summoned to
meet at the first breaking of the day, at five o'clock or
thereabouts, not in the Temple, that would have
been hardly legal before sunrise, but in the house of
Caiaphas. The false witnesses were in readiness.
The priests made sure of being able to convict Jesus
of blasphemy. Any attempt, however, to carry out
their sentence by stoning Him on the spot, according
to the law of Moses (Deut. xii.), would be highly
dangerous, and sure to offend the Romans, who re-
served to themselves the exclusive right of inflicting
capital punishment in all their conquered provinces.
The policy of the Pharisees, therefore, was first to
procure a condemnation in their own court on the
charge of blasphemy, and then to carry the case
into the Roman court, expecting that the procurator,
Pontius Pilate, would, as a matter of course, execute
their sentence. And if the sentence were to be exe-
cuted by Romans, then it must be, not by stoning,
but by crucifixion ; for so did the Romans put to
death criminals who had not the rights of citizenship.
This, then, was their plan of proceeding ; and thus
did these evil men bring about the fulfilment of all
that Christ had foretold concerning the order of the
Passion : ' The Son of Man shall be betrayed unto
the chief priests, and unto the scribes, and they shall
condemn Him to death ; and shall deliver Him to the
Gentiles, to mock, and to scourge, and to crucify ;
and the third day He shall rise again.' Thus in most
exact detail had our Lord predicted all that was to
befall Him. He was first to be betrayed to the
priestly party ; secondly, to be condemned in the
Jewish court ; thirdly, to be delivered over to the Gen-
tile, i.e. to the Roman power ; fourthly, to be mocked,
So
scourged, and crucified. We have seen already how
the betrayal took place under cover of the night, while
all the Galilean pilgrims were indoors eating their
Passover. We are now to see how the condemnation,
first in the Jewish, and then in the Roman court, and
then the Roman mode of execution, with the prelimin-
ary scourging, were all brought about in Divine Provi-
dence as the hours of Good Friday went by.
And first the condemnation in the Jewish court.
The morning light had scarcely streaked the sky
above the mountains of Moab, when the Sanhedrim
met, and Jesus, who had been kept waiting in the
chamber of Annas, was taken across the court-yard to
the hall of Caiaphas, and there placed at the bar of
the Sanhedrim.
But in this first stage of the proceeding their evidence
broke down. ' For many bare false witness against
Him, but their witness agreed not together.' Then
came two men who remembered what Christ had said
at the Passover feast two years before, and thought by
a slight perversion of the words to turn it into blas-
phemy against the Holy Place : 'We heard Him say,
I will destroy this temple that is made with hands,
and within three days I will build another made with-
out hands. But neither so did their witness agree
together,' for on cross examination doubtless the truth
came out that Christ had said ' Destroy,' not ' I will
destroy.'
Then the high priest, following the custom of the
court when evidence failed, put the prisoner upon His
oath : ' I adjure Thee by the living God that Thou
tell us whether Thou be the Messiah, the Son of the
Blessed.'
Observe, not the Messiah merely for to have
in tht Jctoish Court 81
claimed Messiahship would not have been so certainly
a blasphemy, but ' the Son of the Blessed,' that
higher title which Jesus was understood to have
claimed, and which no mere man could claim without
fearful blasphemy. If they could only force Jesus to
repeat this claim in open court, His condemnation and
death would be certain.
One can imagine how hushed the court would be
while the high priest put the question ; how all eyes
would be turned on the mysterious Person at the bar ;
how breathless the attention when He who had been
hitherto silent accepted the oath, and slowly and dis-
tinctly affirmed that He was what the high priest said,
the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed ; adding that
henceforth they should see Him, their Messiah, the
' Son of Man ' of Daniel's prophecy, standing on the
right hand of God.
One more chance they gave Him their malignity
could well afford it say rather God's Providence
chose thus to foreclose for ever any doubt His Church
might else have had, one more chance they gave Him
to explain if haply He did not mean all that those
words seemed to imply : ' Art Thou, then,' many
voices asked, ' the Son of God ? ' And He said unto
them, ' I am.' Then the high priest, rising from his
seat, and rending his linen tunic from the neck down-
wards, after the manner of the Jews when they heard
what their religion abhorred, put the question to the
court : 'He hath spoken blasphemy, what need we
any further witness ? Ye have heard the blasphemy,
what think ye?' And the verdict came by acclama-
tion, ' He is guilty of death.' Then Jesus seems to
have been removed from the hall and exposed to the
brutal mockery of the attendants, while the Sanhedrim
F
82
adjourned to the Temple 1 and deliberated how best
they might now insure the execution of their sentence 2 ;
and it was agreed to take the case at once before the
Procurator, while it was yet early, and before the day's
sacrifice should draw together the crowd of Paschal
worshippers. So Jesus was again chained 3 by the
wrist to the Roman soldiers, for St. John implies
that a detachment of the Roman cohort had been
placed at the Sanhedrim's service, and was taken by
them to Herod's palace on the Western Hill, which
the Roman Governor used as his Pretorium during
all these great festivals, his residence at other times
being at Caesarea, on the coast.
1 There Judas found them (Matt, xxvii. 3, 5).
2 Matt, xxvii. I. 3 Matt, xxvii. z.
CHAPTER XI
in tht Sloman
r I ^HE chief priests and other leading members of
-A- the Sanhedrim followed their Prisoner as far as
the Pretorian gate, but went not into the Gentiles' hall,
lest they should be defiled. So Pilate came out to
the deputation, and, seeing Jesus bound, asked what
accusation they brought against Him. The Jews
answered that if He were not a malefactor they would
not have brought Him ; that it was a case for capital
punishment, which their court, as Pilate knew, had
no power to inflict. They expected that Pilate would
be willing to oblige them, and simply execute their
sentence. But this Pilate would not do, requiring
some specific charge of which his own court could
take cognisance. So the Jews, well knowing that
Pilate would neither heed nor understand their charge
of blasphemy, brought forward a new charge against
Jesus the charge of treason, treason against the Roman
empire : Jesus, they said, had affected to be a king,
stirring up the people to insurrection, and forbidding
to pay tribute to the Roman emperor. Then Pilate
went back into the house, and summoned the Prisoner
before him. Thus the second trial before the Roman
magistrate began, for the account of which we are
mainly indebted to St. John.
Writing, as St. John did, for a later generation,
84 e <&ht (gospel |tarratib*
when the Temple and the Jewish polity were swept
away, and the Roman Empire was all in all, we need
not wonder that to him this second trial, in which the
divine Author of Christianity and the representative of
the Roman Empire were brought face to face, had
come to be more interesting than that first trial in the
Jewish court, on which the three earlier Evangelists
as naturally dwell.
Deeply interesting, too, to the modern student, is
the dialogue that now ensued between the Redeemer
of the world and the highly educated Roman knight.
Not only were the two principles of Church and State
confronted, but also Christianity and this world's philo-
sophy were to try conclusions.
In the bad, worldly man before whom He stood,
Jesus recognised merely the official instrument of
Divine Providence. Not to him, but to the Jews, be-
longed the chief sin of these proceedings ; therefore
to Pilate's half-sarcastic, half-curious questions, Christ
answered, with reserve indeed, but with sufficient clear-
ness to make it plain that between the divine king-
dom which He was founding, and the kingdoms of
this world, there never was, nor ever could be, aught
of rivalry or competition. One only right Christ
claimed for Himself and for His kingdom, the right
of ' bearing witness to the truth.'
Freedom of speech, liberty to persuade all who are
willing to be persuaded, this is all that Christ asked,
all that His Church may ask, as of divine right, at
the hand of the State. Nor needs she more. They
who are of the truth will hear her voice. Christ wants
no other subjects for His kingdom.
All this to Pilate seemed the merest, the most harm-
less enthusiasm. He went out to the Sanhedrists and
Jfabgment in the Jlrrman Ccntti 85
said, ' I find no fault in Him.' They persisted that
He had been a teacher of sedition all over the country,
first in Galilee, then in Jerusalem. Hearing mention
of Galilee, Pilate gladly seized the pretext for dismiss-
ing the case from his jurisdiction to that of the Gali-
lean tetrarch, not sorry thus to gratify a native prince
whom he had recently offended. To Herod Antipas,
therefore, who was in Jerusalem for the feast, he sent
them with their prisoner.
This sensual superstitious tyrant had often wished
to witness some of Christ's miracles ; and he asked
Him many questions. Offended by His silence, he
set Him at naught with his body-guard ; and sent
Him back to Pilate in one of his cast-off robes.
Then Pilate again addressed the members of the
Sanhedrim, saying, that neither he nor yet Herod
had found Him guilty of any political crime. But
they were louder than ever in their accusations, for
the day was drawing on, and a crowd was begin-
ning to assemble. Pilate, now perceiving plainly
that the priests and scribes were actuated in the
main by jealousy of Christ's popularity, thought he
might perhaps gain something by an appeal to the
people. It was his custom at these great festivals to
gratify the populace by releasing some political pri-
soner. Pilate proposed, therefore, by way of com-
promise, to allow the usual preliminary of a Roman
execution, the scourging by the lictors, to take place,
and then to release Jesus. But while the wooden tri-
bunal, a sort of pulpit, was being brought and placed
on the tessellated pavement in front of the palace, ready
for the judgment, the priests were busy among the
crowd persuading and exciting them to ask rather for
the release of Barabbas, who for a murderous plot
86 lEhx Q&asycl
against the Roman power had been sentenced to death.
Pilate's sending into the house for the tribunal made
his wife aware that judgment was going to be pro-
nounced, and scarcely had he taken his seat when a
message came from her entreating him to have nothing
to do with that Just One, for in the sleep from which
she was just awakening dreams about Him had
troubled her.
More anxious than ever, Pilate asked the people
which they would have him release, ' Jesus or Barab-
bas?' And they cried, 'Barabbas!' 'What, then,
must I do with Jesus, your Messiah ?' They shouted,
' Crucify Him, crucify Him !' Again Pilate appealed
to them, 'Why, what evil hath He done?' But the
voices of the scribes and of the priests prevailed that
Jesus should be crucified.
In vain Pilate protested ; in vain he appealed in
dumb show to the crowd beyond, washing his hands
before them all, according to the Jewish custom, and
saying, ' I am guiltless of this man's blood,' ' see ye
to it.' ' His blood be on us, and on our children !'
they madly cried. Thus again was the irresolute
Pilate foiled. Thinking it just possible that if the pro-
posed scourging were carried into effect they might
then relent, he gave orders that it should be done.
Then did the Holy One ' give His back to the
smiters, and His cheeks to them that did pluck off the
hair, and hid not His face from shame and spitting.'
For we read that the savage soldiery in the court-
yard, not content with the lictors' scourging terrible
as a Roman scourging was, arrayed Him again in the
crimson robe, and put a mock crown of thorns upon
His brow, and a reed for sceptre in His hand, and
making their approaches and obeisances as unto a
in tht gloman Comt 87
king, struck His face with the palms of their hands,
and spat upon Him, buffeting Him.
' But He was wounded for our transgressions, He
was bruised for our iniquities : the chastisement of
our peace was upon Him ; and with His stripes we
are healed.'
Again Pilate came forward, and pointing to Jesus
said, ' Behold the man !' as much as to say, ' Is not
this enough to content you ?' But still they clamoured
for crucifixion. ' Take ye Him, and crucify Him ! '
Pilate said ironically, knowing they had no power to
do it, ' for I find no fault in Him.' Then the priests,
seeing that their charge of treason had so utterly
failed, fell back upon His condemnation in their own
court for blasphemy. 'We have a law,' they said,
' and by our law He ought to die, because He made
himself the Son of God ;' showing again how clear
and unmistakable had been Christ's claim to be all
that we believe.
These words seem to have increased the super-
stitious fears which his wife's dream had awakened in
Pilate ; and again he withdrew to question Jesus
within as to His origin. But this time Jesus was silent
Before, when Pilate had questioned Him as a magis-
trate on a charge of treason, our Lord answered him ;
but now, when Pilate questions Him from curiosity,
He is silent
' He was oppressed and He was afflicted, yet He
opened not His mouth. Who shall declare His
generation ? For the transgression of God's people
must He be stricken.'
Our Lord's silence, and the calm dignity of His
reproof when Pilate sought to threaten Him, disturbed
and perplexed Pilate more than ever. But whatever
<0irel
scruples he had were scattered to the winds by the
cry which assailed him when he again came forth to
the excited crowd. The threat of being informed
against at Rome for conniving at sedition, was a
threat before which many a better Roman viceroy
had quailed. Such a whisper in the ears of his jealous
master was the very thing that Pilate dreaded, the
very thing which six years later led to his disgrace and
ruin.
He yielded at once, and, mounting the tribunal, gave
sentence for the execution of the Prisoner.
CHAPTER XII
WE have now reviewed in memory all that hap-
pened in the earlier hours of Good Friday :
the trial before the Sanhedrim preceding sunrise, and
the trial before Pontius Pilate occupying apparently
the first hour of the daylight. I say ' apparently,' for
there is a difficulty about the exact time, which must
strike all who carefully compare these Gospels. St.
John dates very emphatically (xix. 14) the conclusion
of that later trial, that moment when Pilate mounted
his tribunal and gave his final order for the crucifixion.
' It was the Passover Friday,' St. John tells us, ' and
about the sixth hour? Now St. Mark tells us no less
emphatically, and no less clearly, that the moment of
erecting the cross was the third hour. How are these
two dates of time to be reconciled ? By the third hour
St. Mark necessarily means what we call nine o'clock
in the morning. If St. John adopts the common
Jewish reckoning, his phrase ' the sixth hour' would
mean twelve o'clock, and this could not possibly be
reconciled with the account of the three other Evan-
gelists. It is conjectured therefore that St. John,
writing far away for the Churches of Asia Minor,
adopted another mode of reckoning like our own,
90 ^hz (gasvptl
and by the sixth hour meant what we call six o'clock,
not long after sunrise 1 .
At this point, then, when Pilate gave the final order
for the execution, between six and seven A.M., we
take up our mournful narrative.
Had Jesus been a Roman citizen, as St. Paul was, His
head would have been struck off by the lictors who
had scourged Him. But being an alien, His sentence
was the sentence of a slave, that he should be impaled
on a cross along with two felons who had also been
condemned to death. A centurion's guard would now
be told off to carry the sentence into effect Our
Lord's upper garment was restored to Him ; and the
three prisoners, each carrying the cross-piece of wood
to which the hands were to be nailed, were con-
ducted to the place of execution. This was just out-
side the city walls, that is certain ; probably it was
where Constantine's Golden Gate now stands, on the
very verge of Mount Moriah, where it overhangs the
valley of Kedron 2 . From Herod's palace on the
Western Hill down the steps those steps on which
Paul stood to address the crowd, along the terrace,
over the bridge (the remains of which were discovered
the other day), and then across the northern part of the
1 The argument in favour of this conjecture may be found
in Dr. Townson's learned dissertation. If it be adopted
nearly all difficulty is cleared away. Pilate gave judgment
' about ' six o'clock, some time, that is, between six and seven ;
and we have more than two hours left for the procession to
Golgotha and the preparations for the Crucifixion.
2 This question we may hope to have settled by the ex-
cavations now going on. The fields outside the Horse
Gate, just to the north of the Temple, were not inclosed
within the city walls until A.D. 45. In Jeremiah's time it
was a place of ' dead bodies ' (Jer. xxxi. 40) ; Athaliah
was executed there (2 Kings xi. 16).
91
Temple hill through the Horse Gate to Golgotha, would
be three-fourths of a mile. Weakened by loss of blood,
for a Roman scourging was very severe, our Lord seems
to have been unable to proceed with His burden, for
we read that the soldiers at the city gate transferred it
to the shoulders of one Simon a Cyrenian, whom they
met coming in from the country, and pressed into
their service. It is interesting to know that this
man's sons, and probably himself too, became Chris-
tian converts.
It was probably during this pause on the way of
tears pictured for all time by the greatest of Chris-
tian painters; those who know not the picture will
remember the engraving, Raphael's ' Spasimo,' as it is
called, the Redeemer, crushed beneath His cross,
turned to the wailing women who followed Him, and,
with the thought of the impending judgment once
more rising in His mind, bade them weep not for
Him, but rather for themselves and for their children,
for the days were coming when they would pray that
yonder hill of Olivet might fall upon them and bury
them for if such were the beginning of sorrows what
would the end be ?
Arrived on the ground, the guard would be formed
into an open square round the prisoners, to keep off
the crowd, while four of their number were charged
with the task of crucifixion. The clothes were taken
off, and formed the perquisite of the four soldiers ;
hence the dividing of our Lord's outer garment the
large square shawl or bernouse still worn in the East
into four parts ; and the casting lots for the long
seamless Galilean shirt. ' They parted My garments
among them, and for My vesture did they cast lots.'
Two of the soldiers held each a hand, and one the
92 ^he (feosyd
feet, while the fourth drove in the nails, the body rest-
ing on a short projecting bar. Then the cross, being
nine or ten feet in length, was slowly reared with its
sacred burden. The soldiers, or perhaps the cen-
turion, offered Jesus a stupefying draught ; but the
first taste told what it was, and Jesus refused to drink
it. The cup which His Father had given Him, that
He would drain in all its bitterness. Over His head
was nailed Pilate's inscription, written in Greek, Latin,
and Hebrew, so as to be understood by all : ' Jesus
the Nazarene, King of the Jews,' Pilate's sarcasm
bearing witness to the fulfilment of all prophecy.
The thieves were also crucified, one on either hand.
Thus did the soldiers ruthlessly fulfil their orders.
' Father, forgive them ; they know not what they do !'
these were the only words that escaped the lips of
Him whom they were crucifying.
It was now nine o'clock ; six hours remain of linger-
ing agony. His mother and her sister (who seems
from the parallel accounts in St. Matthew and St.
Mark to be Salome), with Mary the wife of Cleopas
or Alphaeus, and Mary of Magdala, stood by the
cross, and with them the disciple whom Jesus loved,
the only one of the Apostles who shared the women's
holy courage. Doubtless the nearest friends would
be admitted by the centurion within the square.
Jesus, seeing His widowed mother, commended her
very solemnly to the care of St. John, who forthwith,
apparently, took her to his home in the city himself
returning in time to witness later the piercing of the
side. The other three seem to have withdrawn to
the further side of the narrow Kedron valley, for St.
Matthew and St. Mark mention them by name as
standing, at a later hour, amongst those who were
Cmciftxixm 93
looking on 'afar off.' Indeed, to remain near the
cross would now be hardly safe for the women. The
soldiers, their work done, had been withdrawn, leav-
ing only the centurion and the four, who remained
under arms to see that no rescue was attempted.
The Scribes and Pharisees could now freely approach,
and ceased not to blaspheme Him with the priests.
' Thou that destroyest the Temple and buildest it in
three days, save Thyself!' 'If Thou be the Son of
God, come down from the cross.' ' He saved others,
Himself He cannot save !' ' King of Israel, indeed !
let Him come down from His cross and we will
believe Him!' 'He trusted in God, let God now
deliver Him if He will ; for He said, I am the Son
of God!'
Thus have we an accumulation of evidence, witness
on witness, that Jesus had been clearly and unmistak-
ably understood by all who were present at the trial
not disciples, but enemies to claim that divinity,
that share in His Father's throne, which the Church
has ever ascribed to Him.
But holier and yet deeper evidence than this is
ours : even the evidence on which our faith must
ever mainly rest the power of Christ's Spirit over
the heart of man. Never was Christ's quickening
energy so manifest as when, in this hour of extreme
suffering, He put it forth to redeem the dying sinner
at His side. While one thief was hopelessly hardened,
with the other it was not so ; and Christ saw it. And
to the softened humbled heart of the miserable man
Christ turned, and so filled it with His grace that
there came forth that prayer of faith when the faith
of all around was failing, ' Lord, remember me when
Thou comest into Thy kingdom !' And the blessed,
94 'ftht Qsosytl
oh ! the infinitely blessed, answer was his, ' This day
shalt thou be with Me in Paradise.'
Nor could the powers of Nature withhold their wit-
ness to Him by Whose word they were created. From
twelve to three o'clock, we read, there was darkness,
no eclipse, for the moon was at the full, there was a
preternatural darkness over all the land, followed by
an earthquake. We hear no more of the scoffs of the
priests and scribes during that mysterious gloom.
Four times only was the silence broken by the
words of Him Whose spirit was in agony : the first
cry, 'Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani !' 'My God, my God,
why hast Thou forsaken me ?' which the soldiers, half
understanding the Chaldee, mistook for a crying for
Elias. And then, as the inward fever increased, ' I
thirst.' And when one, softened by the sight, amid
the jeers of his comrades, lifted the spongeful of sour
wine to His parched lips, that cry of deepest meaning,
'It is finished!' And once again a last loud cry,
' Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit !' It
was the last ; the breathing had ceased ; the sacred
head had sunk upon the breast.
CHAPTER XIII
gorial anb
GOOD FRIDAY'S sun was sinking where we left
off in our narrative sinking, but not set ; an
hour or two remained of daylight, and something we
have yet to tell of that remaining time, and of the
Sabbath-day that followed, ere we come to the Easter
morning.
The gloom, the deep darkness, which had hung like
a pall over the land, was clearing away ; the earthquake
had been felt by many : and the yawning graves
which it had opened were connected afterwards
in the disciples' minds with the apparitions of de-
parted friends, to which several bore witness after the
Lord's resurrection. But at the time, thoughts of the
passing hour, as ever, occupied them : the soldiers
of the watch thinking only of their routine of duty ;
the Jews those blinded Jews thinking only of the
letter of that law, whose divine Author they had
crucified, lest the dead or dying bodies, if left hanging
after sunset, should pollute their Sabbath-day, and
therefore urging Pilate to make sure of their death and
have them taken down. In the two thieves life was still
lingering ; their death must therefore be hastened by
a blow of the club. In the sacred body of our Lord
life they found extinct ; and the Scripture is fulfilled,
96 ^ht t^asytl
' A bone of Him shall not be broken.' But one of the
soldiers, to make sure, thrust his spear into His side,
and forthwith came thereout after the spear blood and
water. And thus the other Scripture was fulfilled,
'They shall look on Him whom they pierced.' And
thus, too, was the Apostle St. John, who had returned
and was standing by the cross, enabled to silence for
ever those who in his later days denied the reality of
Christ's body and Christ's death.
And now must God's Providence ere yet Good
Friday's sun have fully set prepare for that yet
greater sign which is to follow.
The body of the Holy One must not be thrown into
the undistinguished grave of those two thieves. No :
God will prepare a chamber which itself too shall
bear its witness. Therefore was Joseph of Arimathea
moved to venture into Pilate's presence with the bold
request that the body might be given to him for
burial ; and therefore was the sepulchre a new one,
' wherein was never man yet laid.' The witness of that
vault on Easter-day must be complete, not one body
less than before, but empty. 'A good man and a
just' was this Joseph ; and though a member of the
Sanhedrim, he 'had not consented to their counsel
and their deed.' And with him came, too, that other
faithful member of the Sanhedrim not now by night,
but openly, the wealthy Nicodemus, with his costly
offering, a hundred pounds weight of myrrh and fra-
grant aloes-wood. Gladly from the hands of the rude
soldiers they receive the bleeding body : and with
reverent care in Joseph's garden, which was near the
spot, they lay it down, and swathe it in their linen
clothes, putting their powdered perfumes between the
folds. There is not time to anoint the body, nor was
l anb 'ffl.tsnxxtctiort 97
stain of embalming to be upon Him Who was to rise.
But the two Maries are sitting there, beholding all ;
and will return so soon as the Sabbath rest shall be
over, and complete the sacred rite.
And now the day was waning, the mournfullest day
this world has seen.
Joseph and Nicodemus have rolled the great round
flagstone in its groove across the entrance of the dark
and silent chamber. The Maries she of Magdala,
and the wife of Cleopas have prepared their spices
and their ointments. Nay, but had not one forestalled
them? Their namesake, who six days before had
anointed His body beforehand for His burial, where
was she? In her chamber, in her home at Bethany,
near the empty seat which He had filled He, the
Resurrection and the Life how those words must
have filled her thoughts, and Lazarus by her side !
And that one other, the Virgin Mother, blessed beyond
them all, sorrowing beyond them all, widowed, child-
less, where is she ? With Salome, in the house of the
beloved Apostle. And the rest, where are they ? W r ith
fainting hearts where they have severally concealed
themselves. And so the Sabbath passes, all ' resting
according to the commandment,' ' mourning and
weeping/ St. Mark tells us, for it seemed to most of
them as though all hope was at an end. They
hoped up to the very last that it was He who should
have redeemed Israel. But all was over ; crushed,
defeated, by the malice of bad men. In their deep
revulsion of feeling all recollection of His words about
rising again never rightly understood had passed
away from their minds. The Pharisees who had heard
the report of His having spoken such words, and
feared some deception, need not have been so care-
G
98
ful to seal and guard the tomb ! And so the Sabbath
passed.
Early on the first day of the week, before the sun
had risen, the sky just reddening perhaps above the
ridge of Olivet, the two Maries set forth, with the
ointments they had prepared, towards the garden out-
side the city walls, questioning, as they walked along
the silent streets, whom they should get to remove for
them the heavy stone with which the cave was closed.
And, behold, when they arrive the stone is gone, and
the vault is open ! The four soldiers who had been
set to guard it in answer to their anxious questions
tell them how there had been a quaking of the ground,
and how, like a flash of light, an angel had descended
and rolled away the stone.
But Mary Magdalene, either mistrusting or not wait-
ing for their account, was already on her way back
into the city to seek St. Peter and St. John, and tell
them her fears that rude hands had violated her Lord's
grave. The other women Joanna and Salome had
now joined them now drew nearer, and perceived in
the opening of the rocky chamber, seated on the stone,
an angel in bright clothing, the same who had so
dazzled and frightened the soldiers. ' Fear not ye,'
he said, ' ye are seeking Jesus the crucified ; He is not
here ; for He is risen, as He said. Come hither and
see the place where the Lord lay.' And as the women
stoop and look within they become aware that there
is another angel also. But they must not tarry. ' Go
quickly,' the angel says, 'and tell His disciples that
He is risen from the dead : and, behold, He goeth
before you into Galilee. There shall ye behold Him.
Lo ! I have told you ! '
99
Hastily the women now returned to Jerusalem in
mingled joy and fear.
Meantime by another road came St. Peter and St.
John in haste, Mary Magdalene returning with them,
but unable to keep pace. And John did outrun Peter ;
and stooping down under the low entrance to the vault,
saw the linen clothes lying, but went not in. Then
came up his bolder companion and went in, and found
the linen clothes lying, and the napkin which had been
about the head not lying with the clothes, but wrapped
together in a place by itself. So careful had been the
ministry of those attendant angels when the Lord of
Glory rose. Then went in St. John also, and was
convinced. For, as he himself confesses, up to that
moment they had never understood the Scriptures
which predicted the Resurrection.
The two Apostles now returned to their home in the
city. But Mary Magdalene, who had by this time
arrived, remained behind at the door of the tomb weep-
ing, and drawing near, she too now stooped down to look
into the chamber. And she beheld what the lower
spiritual sensibility of the two men had failed to see-
the two angels, the same two angels, in their white
apparel, sitting, one at the head and one at the foot,
where the body of their Lord had lain. And they say
unto her, ' Woman, why weepest thou ? ' She saith
unto them, ' Because they have taken away my Lord,
and I know not where they have laid Him.' And
just then she heard a voice behind her repeating the
same question, and, half looking round, supposed it
was the gardener, blinded by her tears and by the
bright vision of the angels, and said unto Him, ' Sir,
if thou have borne Him hence, tell me where thou
hast laid Him, and I will take Him away.' Jesus saith
unto her, ' Mary.' She turned herself quite round and
saith, ' Rabboni,' that is, my Master ! and would have
clasped His knees ; for now that she has regained her
Lord she feels as if she could never leave Him. But
Jesus saith unto her, ' Touch me not, for I have not
yet ascended unto My Father,' these bodily appear-
ances were not that return to abide with them for ever
which He had promised them, 'but go and tell My
brethren that I am ascending to My Father and your
Father, and My God and your God ! ' As though His
one thought now were a longing desire to ascend to
His Father ; till then His joy is incomplete.
Meantime, the other women were on their way into
the city. To them too Christ now appeared ; or possibly
St. Matthew, in recording the appearance to the women,
is only noticing more generally that appearance to one
of their number, which St. John has described in such
minute detail. The way in which Cleopas and his
companion speak afterwards of the tidings brought by
the women (Luke xxiv. 23) seems to render this latter
explanation the more probable.
The guards now went to the chief priests and told
them all ; and the priests refer the matter to the
Sanhedrim, who agree to bribe the soldiers to say that
the disciples came by night and stole the body while
they slept.
The women, rejoined by Mary Magdalene, now tell
the rest of the Apostles the nine who had not been
to the garden all that they have seen ; but their
words seem to them as idle tales, and they believed
them not.
CHAPTER XIV
1ht Jfcrrtg ^ajs
ONE appearance of the risen Christ we have re-
counted, the appearance to Mary Magdalene.
His second appearance, how or where we know not,
was to St. Peter. Not directly, but indirectly only, is
it told us. We find St. Paul distinctly mentioning it in
the 1 5th of ist Corinthians : ' He was seen of Cephas,
then of the Twelve.' Our first thought may be, How
strange that it should not be recorded by the four
Evangelists! Is it not recorded? When those two
returned from Emmaus to the upper chamber, where
the rest were gathered together, what was the greet-
ing with which they were received, ' The Lord is
risen indeed, and hath appeared to Simon,' one of
those many undesigned coincidences which help to
rivet our conviction of Holy Scripture's authenticity.
The third appearance was in the afternoon of this
same Easter-day. Two disciples, Cleopas and another,
neither of them Apostles, were walking to a village called
Emmaus, seven or eight miles from Jerusalem ; and
they talked together as they went of all that had been
happening ; and as they talked and reasoned, Jesus
Himself drew near and joined them in their walk.
But their eyes were holden that they should not re-
cognise Him. And He said unto them, ' What manner
of communications are these that ye have one to
another as ye walk and are sad ?' And Cleopas
answered, 'Art Thou the only visitor at Jerusalem
who knows not what things have happened there
in these last few days ?' And He said, ' What
things ?' And they said, ' About Jesus, the mighty
prophet of Nazareth, and how our priests and rulers
delivered Him over to the Romans for crucifixion.
Howbeit we, His disciples, were hoping that He was
the promised Redeemer of Israel. Yea, and beside all
this, to-day is the third day since His death' (a day
that He more than once pointed to, as to be marked
by some wonder) : ' and what is more, some women of
our company surprised us, who went early this morn-
ing to the sepulchre and found His body gone, and
came back saying they had seen a vision of angels
who said that He was alive. And certain of them that
were with us went to the sepulchre, and found it even
as the women said : but Him they saw not'
Then the Stranger said to them : ' O foolish and
slow of heart to believe all that the prophets spake !
Were not these the sufferings through which your
Messiah was destined to pass into His glory ?'
Then He went through the types and prophecies of
the Old Testament, showing how all, not merely the
prophecies, but also the whole sacrificial system of
Moses, pointed to this deep truth, that the Messiah
must thus suffer, and yet live for ever.
They were by this time near to Emmaus, and their
Companion was taking leave of them as though going
further, but they pressed Him to abide with them, for
it was now late in the afternoon ; and He consented.
And now the three are at their evening meal, the
mysterious Stranger and the two disciples, their eyes
still holden ; when, lo, the look, the attitude they
103
knew so well, taking the bread, and blessing it, and
breaking it, and giving it to each. Yes ! it is even He,
' their eyes were opened, and they knew Him.' And
He vanished from their sight !
No wonder they had felt from the first that there
was a mystery about this Stranger's presence ! ' Did
not our hearts burn within us while He talked with us
by the way, and while He opened to us the Scripture ? '
So one to the other, with bated breath, still gazing
at the vacant place. But they must return, that very
hour they must return to the Apostles at Jerusalem,
with this great news. Two hours would bring them
to Jerusalem. By eight o'clock they are in the upper
chamber, they find it filled, they find it hushed, the
holy women, all are there ; their news has been fore-
stalled : the Lord had appeared, while they were
absent, had appeared to one of the Apostles, to
Simon Peter. We must mark this, mark every-
thing which throws light on the mysterious nature of
these appearances : the Lord had appeared during
their absence, possibly, probably at that very moment
when he vanished at Emmaus. Oh ! the deep emo-
tion of those mutual greetings, ' The Lord is risen !'
Yes, 'the Lord is risen indeed !' And as they com-
pare notes and recount all, in their upper chamber,
within their closed doors, now late in the evening,
suddenly they become aware that He of whom they
speak, the Lord Jesus, is Himself among them, say-
ing, ' Peace be unto you !'
'Terrified and affrighted' these sudden appear-
ances, so unlike the intercourse of other days they
suppose it is some ghostly apparition. And yet the
voice is the same voice, ' Why are ye troubled ? and
why do questionings arise in your hearts ? Behold
104 ^hc <&8s>yd
my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Handle
Me and see ; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones as
ye see Me have !' Then He showed them His hands
and His feet those pierced hands and feet ; so merci-
fully patient, so gently reassuring. Ay and more, while
they yet believe not for joy, and wonder, yet more
will He do for their conviction : the remainder of their
evening meal, the broiled fish and honeycomb, being
still on their table, He took it and did eat before them all.
Then turning to them all, to the ten Apostles, to
the two from Emmaus, to the holy women, to the
rest, He blessed that infant Church, with a blessing
far more solemn than any heretofore, even with a
foretaste of that Holy Comforter Whom He had pro-
mised, perhaps in that selfsame upper chamber, three
days before, breathing upon them with the warm
human breath of His incarnation, and saying, ' Receive
ye the Holy Ghost' that Holy Spirit by whose aid
the assembled Church was to have the power of bind-
ing and of loosing, of admitting and refusing member-
ship in her divine communion.
Thus four times at least on this day of Resurrection
did our Lord manifest Himself bodily to His disciples,
to the Magdalene, to Simon Peter, to the two at
Emmaus, to the rest in the upper chamber.
One week longer the Apostles tarried at Jerusalem,
the feast of the Passover being not yet over, and on
the Sunday following we hear of them as being again
assembled in their upper chamber, with closed doors
for fear of the Sanhedrim ; and this time Thomas is
with them : on that first day he had been absent.
Again Christ appears to them supernaturally, saying,
' Peace be unto you !' and vouchsafes to the doubting
one, to Thomas, the same evidence of hand and side
105
whereby the others had been convinced. ' Reach
hither thy finger, and behold my hands ; and reach
hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side : and be
not faithless, but believing.' ' Wounded for our trans-
gression,' those wounds still open, albeit healed,
Thomas looks ' on Him whom they had pierced,' and
weak in faith, yet faithful in his weakness, pours forth
his adoration, ' My Lord and my God.'
Nor does the everlasting Son of God refuse his
worship ; but accepts it rather as the prelude of an
ever-widening hymn of praise, ' Thomas, because
thou hast seen thou hast believed : blessed are they
that have not seen and yet have believed.' Even as
He had prayed before His passion : ' Neither pray I
for these alone, but for them also who shall believe on
Me through their word.'
Such was our Lord's fifth appearance.
How long after this we know not certainly, but pro-
bably at once (the Passover being now completely over),
the Apostles, by our Lord's direction, returned to the
neighbourhood of Capernaum, where most of them
had homes. Seven of them, at Simon Peter's sugges-
tion, betook themselves to their old means of support
as fishermen. In this we are reminded that He, to
Whom the holy women had ministered so abundantly
of their substance, was now no longer sharing the
necessities of their daily life. Without Him they
could not claim that ministration. I n the twilight of the
early dawn, after a night of fruitless toil, they see some
one standing on the beach, a hundred yards off, call-
ing to them. He asks them, as a passing stranger
might, what success they had had in their fishing,
and bids them cast the net on the right side of the
boat ; and forthwith they enclose a great multitude of
106 <$;ite (feozptl
fishes. Ah, how vividly is that day brought to the
mind of one of them, that day when he was first called
to be a fisher of men ! St. John was the first to recog-
nise the Lord, and to his friend he exclaims, ' It is
the Lord !' St. Peter, ever foremost, swims to shore,
the rest follow with the net. On the beach they find
a charcoal fire with bread and meat whence they
knew not ; in the greater mystery of His presence the
lesser mystery was lost. Nor durst they question,
' knowing it was the Lord.'
Solemnly as before He breaks the bread, and gives
it them. Then, turning to St. Peter, yet humbled by
his fall, He commissions him anew to feed His sheep,
and foretells his martyrdom before the great downfall
of the nation, that first coming of the Son of Man to
judgment, which St. John should live to see.
This was Christ's sixth appearance. A seventh was
on the mountain of Galilee, where St. Matthew tells
us He had appointed them to meet Him : the greatest,
in one sense, of all the appearances, for here probably
were gathered together those five hundred disciples
whom St. Paul mentions as permitted also to be eye-
witnesses of the Resurrection. And here, too, Christ
proclaimed His universal kingdom : 'All power is given
unto Me in heaven and in earth : Go ye, therefore, and
Christianize all nations, baptizing them into the Name
of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.' Reader !
dost thou recognise the full significance of this Divine
formula, now for the first time heard on earth ? To
realize the awe with which those Apostles must have
heard it, bethink thee of the absolute impossibility of
conceiving any other name this world has ever named
being placed in the second place of that mystic Trinity !
Then thou wilt realize the claim now heard by the
107
Apostles from the lips of Him with Whom they had
so often broken bread I
One more, the last, of these appearances remains :
for that to St. James, the Lord's brother, maybe passed
over ; the bare fact and nothing more is recorded by St.
Paul. But to the eleven Apostles one further sign is to
be vouchsafed. To three only had the first Transfigu-
ration been granted. All the Apostles are to behold
this second and yet greater Transfiguration. The ap-
proaching feast of Pentecost, it may be, or our Lord's
command, had drawn them once more to the Holy
City. There the Lord meets them, ten days before
the feast, and conducts them, as of old, across the
Kedron, and up the sloping sides of Olivet, even
towards that well-loved home at Bethany. As they
go Christ sums up all His teaching, pointing onwards
to the ever-widening spread of His gospel, silencing
their curiosity about the times and seasons, repeating
His promise of the blessed Comforter, bidding them
abide in Jerusalem until that Comforter should come.
And then, as He raised His hands in act to bless them,
He was parted from them, and slowly rose from earth
towards heaven, disappearing into the well-known
cloud of glory, the symbol of Jehovah's presence. And
as they gazed and gazed, behold, two men stood by
them in white apparel, which also said, ' Ye men of
Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven ? This
same Jesus which is taken up from you into heaven,
shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go
into heaven !'
Till then He is behind the veil !
PART III
on tfje @ospel ^arrattfce
CHAPTER I
it the ^arratibc of the girth anb Infantg
WHAT is the chief lesson of this curiously de-
tailed narrative of the Birth and Infancy of
Christ ?
Suppose we had it not ; suppose Christmas with
all its lovely memories was cut out from our Christian
year ; suppose all four Gospels had commenced as
St. Mark's commences, with Christ's baptism in
Jordan at thirty years of age, and all before was
blank : no angel's salutation, no mystery of birth, no
pastoral symphony, no star-led wizards, no inspired
canticles, no glimpse of that daily growth in wisdom
as in stature ; but all blank, until the Baptist cried
aloud and said, ' There is One among you whom ye
know not ! ' what then would have been our creed ?
what would have been the creed, I do not say of the
sceptic or rationalist, but of the devout Christian, of
the Christian Church ?
Clearly, and, as it seems to me, inevitably this :
that the time for the Messiah's advent being fully
come, God looked down from heaven upon the
(Dn tlve ^ztrratibE of the Infancti 109
children of men, and singled out one, an Israelite in-
deed, in whom there was no guile, and said, ' This shall
be My Son, in whom I will be pleased that the fulness
of My Spirit shall dwell :' and that this child of man,
thus perfected, thus developed by inspiration and by
the anointing in Jordan into a Son of God, was en-
abled by Divine power to realize this ideal during
some two or three years, was then crucified, raised
again to life, and so disappeared.
Such almost inevitably would have been our creed,
and such verses as John xvii. 5, which speaks of the
glory which He had with the Father before the world
was, or Col. i. 16 and Heb. i. 2, where He is spoken
of as the Creator of the world, would be simply an
inexplicable enigma.
In saying this I am not merely drawing on my
own imagination. As early as the second century
this heresy took root in the Christian Church. Accus-
tomed from childhood to the fables of heathen mytho-
logy, men began to ask themselves whether it might
not be that God, or some emanation from God, had
entered into the man Jesus at his baptism, and so en-
abled him to do all those marvellous works. The
notion gained ground rapidly, and took shape in the
Gospel of Marcion. Marcion was an ardent admirer
of Christ's teaching, a man of the most exemplary,
even ascetic life. But in the creed of the Church he
found difficulties, and to explain them away he
framed his Gospel.
And what is this Gospel of Marcion ? A mere
mutilation of St. Luke's. And what portion specially
of St. Luke did Marcion find it necessary to strike
out ? These first two chapters 1 .
1 Marcion's Gospel begins with the statement that in the
on the (gospel
Yes, he who would attempt to rationalize the Gospel
of Christ, he who would persuade us that Jesus
Christ was after all only an ideal man, into whom the
divine element of Humanity entered so largely, and
was so perfectly developed, that he became, as it were,
the personification of all that is purest and noblest in
our race, he who would thus explain away the
divinity of our Redeemer (our Redeemer no longer)
by any such theory of human development, must
begin at the beginning, must on the very threshold of
the Gospel cut away and get rid of that simple holy
tale of Bethlehem.
The manhood of Christ, and His miracles, all that
his philosophy is able (as he thinks) to grapple with
for who shall limit the spiritual power of a perfected
humanity ? all that he can deal with and idealize. But
this mysterious birth, these clear attestations that the
eternal Son of God was incarnate in that infant child
of Mary, these exact fulfilments of ancient prophecy,
these angel witnesses, this dawning consciousness of
His divine origin, if all this be really historical, then
the sceptic's theory is destroyed, and his philosophy
refuted. He who feared not to assail the Lord Christ
is confounded before the holy child Jesus. Out of
the mouth of the babe and suckling is ordained the
strength that shall still the enemy and the avenger !
If any modern philosophy, compelled to accept
the rise of Christianity as a fact in the world's history
1800 years ago, but wishing to get rid of its super-
natural origin, ever whisper into our ears that the
Christ whom we worship is the ideal man, whom the
fifteenth year of Tiberius, the Christ of God (spiritus salu-
taris) deigned to enter into Jesus in Capernaum. Tertull.
adv. Marc, i. 19 and iv. 7.
<Dn tht Jfrirnttibt of the Sitfattcg in
pious credulity of the Church loved to picture forth
as having once walked this earth, clothing some guile-
less Jewish Rabbi with all conceivable excellences,
then, as we value our own spiritual comfort, let us
cling to these simple Gospel facts which we learned
at our mother's knee, and which all the historic criti-
cism of our age is tending more and more to estab-
lish. Let us cling to our blessed Christmas memories
of Nazareth and of Bethlehem, dear to our childhood,
dearer to our maturer reason, teaching us more clearly,
more persuasively, more convincingly than any sys-
tems of theology can teach, that He in Whom all our
hopes are centred is in very truth a divine eternal
personal Being, altogether distinct in His personality,
above us and beyond us, and yet that we might know
Him and love Him entering into the sphere of our
finite history, incarnate by the Holy Ghost, born of a
woman, sharing our very nature, bone of our bone,
flesh of our flesh, breathing our breath, thinking our
thoughts, feeling our infirmities, One Whom in child-
hood, One Whom in manhood we may know and love,
living His divine life now beyond the grave, gone to
prepare a place for us, warming with the warmth of a
human heart, enlightening with the light of loving
human eyes, that unseen world into which we are all
hastening !
CHAPTER II
ilu (Sileitte of tht <&0s>pds respecting
at
O URELY it is no small proof that one and the
O same Holy Spirit inspired and overruled these
four Evangelists, that, writing as they did for very
different readers, one for the Jewish Church, an-
other for that of Rome, a third for the Churches of
Greece, a fourth for those of Asia Minor, they should
thus all, with one accord, pass over in complete silence
more than nine-tenths of our Lord's earthly life.
Doubtless the faithful memory of her who kept and
pondered all things in her heart, could have supplied
to St. Luke, not only that one precious anecdote of
the boyhood, but also numberless other anecdotes of
the youth and early manhood of the deepest interest.
How we long for them ! What would we not give to
know more of that home at Nazareth, where thirty
long years of that sinless life were spent ! But no !
it is buried in silence. And why ? The silence of
Holy Scripture is often as instructive as its revela-
tions, let us humbly, therefore, learn the lesson of
this mysterious silence.
There were inmates of that Galilean home to
whom was vouchsafed, what is denied to us, the
privilege of watching the growth of Jesus all through
those silent years. And to them it once occurred,
<Dn the .Silence xrf the (gasptls 113
as now to us, to wonder that Jesus did not seek to
make Himself more widely known. ' Show Thyself
to the world,' they said. And what was Christ's reply?
' My time is not yet come : your time is always
ready.'
And what is the Evangelist's own comment ? ' For
neither did His brethren believe on Him.'
Here, then, we have a lesson and a warning.
The lesson : That God's ways are not as man's
ways 1 that whatever is most divine is most secret
in its growth ; as with the seed that groweth secretly,
we know not how, as with the hidden life of grace
within each one of us, so with the Messiah in His
silent home at Nazareth ; 'it is the glory of God to
conceal a thing' 2 . Such is the lesson.
And the warning : That the kind of knowledge
we most crave after is not always the kind of know-
ledge that is best for us. To those ' brethren of the
Lord ' was their knowledge of Christ's daily life all
through those years a blessing to them? No: 'for
neither did His brethren believe on Him.' Let Bible
students, in their curious antiquarian researches, ever
remember this. To know all about Christ is one
thing : to know Christ is quite another thing. Nay,
the first kind of knowledge may, as in the case of those
brethren, actually hinder the second. Let us beware,
lest, by dwelling too minutely and exclusively on the
earthly surroundings of our Lord, we dim to ourselves
the glory of His divine Person. It was not flesh and
blood which revealed to Peter that in Jesus of Nazareth
he beheld the Son of the living God.
1 So Tertullian, with us men ' subito omnia, quae suum et
plenum habent ordinem apud Creatorem.' Adv. Marc.
iv. n. a Prov. xxv. 2.
H
ii4 $ote8 on tht
This, then, is the warning : That the Gospel nar-
rative is not a biography, but rather a revelation.
God grant it be so ! God grant that to all of us
the pages of these Gospels be no mere history, but
ever more and more an. open vision of the Son of
God!
CHAPTER III
(Dit the ^arratib* of the temptation
WHERE so much that a mere biographer would
have been sure to relate is withheld from us,
surely it was for some deep purpose that this mysteri-
ous glimpse into the spiritual experiences of our blessed
Lord, which no mere biographer could possibly have
given us, was by God's inspiration revealed to us.
Three remarks may be made upon it.
We remark, first, that it was in all its circumstances
supernatural.
Secondly, that we have here unanswerably revealed
to us \he personal existence of the Evil One ; and
Thirdly, that in our Lord's manner of meeting these
temptations, we may find a key to all that follows,
we may discern the plan or scheme which Christ had
laid down for Himself, for the accomplishment of His
work on earth.
On each of these three heads a few words of ex-
planation are needed.
And first, the circumstances of this Temptation
were supernatural.
Idle questions have been asked, whether our Lord
really stood on a pinnacle of the Temple, and if so,
how He had been taken thither out of the wilderness ;
and whether He really ascended a mountain, and if
so, what mountain it was.
n6 giotts on the
Idler questions could hardly be.
Let us remind ourselves what in after years befell
two of the Apostles. St. John tells us that he was in
the isle of Patmos on the Lord's day, and was ' in the
Spirit.' What does this mean ? Does it mean that he
was lifted bodily up ? No : the natural man was in
the isle of Patmos the whole time ; and yet he speaks
of beholding Rome on its seven hills one while, and
another while the river Euphrates, clearly in his
state of spiritual trance. Again, St. Paul tells the
Corinthians how he had been once ' caught up to the
third heaven,' and once 'into Paradise.' Does he
mean bodily ? He forbids such idle questions :
' Whether in the body or out of the body, I cannot
tell : God knoweth : ' it was not a natural but a super-
natural experience.
Clear it is that the soul of man is capable of other
and higher experiences than those which his bodily
faculties convey to him. Clear it is that it has
pleased God, and may again please God, so to quicken
our spiritual perceptions as to make us aware of that
angelic world which is ever around us. Most clear
it is that our blessed Lord was, all through His minis-
try, more or less in this state of 'open vision.' No
one who is unwilling to believe this can understand
the Gospel narrative.
Secondly, it is here distinctly revealed that the
Evil One has a most real personal existence. In the
Old Testament this is rarely declared ; but in the
New Testament it is so plainly asserted that none
can deny it without attributing error to Christ and His
Apostles.
Does it occur to those who venture to explain our
Lord's constant allusions to the Evil One as a conde-
(Dn tht ffixvcztibt of tht ^Cemptatimt 117
scansion to Hebrew modes of thought, personifying
the evil tendencies of our nature, just as wisdom is
personified in the Book of Proverbs, does it occur to
them to consider the consequences of their theory
when applied to this Temptation of our Lord in His
solitude, that all these sinful temptations came from
within, not from without, from within His own all-
holy nature? Such a notion only requires to be
stated to be instantly rejected. If the devil have not
an objective personal existence, Christ's Temptation
is an impossibility, and the narrative of it an impious
fabrication. But grant his personality, and not only is
this narrative explained, but also a part of the mystery
of Redemption begins dimly to reveal itself. For if it
were evil in the abstract that Christ vanquished, 'twere
hard to see how His victory could benefit unborn
generations, except by way of example. But if it
were an Evil One, then the power of that Evil One
for all after time was maimed and broken, waiting
only one more final conflict to be crushed and de-
stroyed for ever.
This we rejoice to believe : but let us remember
our belief in this aspect of Redemption is bound up
with our belief in Satan's personality.
Thirdly and lastly, we come to Christ's divine plan
or scheme as shadowed forth in this conflict.
Three things herein may be observed : His attitude
of filial obedience, not ' what I will,' but ' what My
Father wills ' throughout. Again, His self-sacrifice,
not a single miracle in His own behalf. And again,
His refusal of an outward kingdom.
How clearly the broad lines of His divine purpose
are here laid down ! and how it helps to explain all
that follows !
n8 $Lote$ on the xrspcl
To revive in the world, what the world had well-
nigh lost, the consciousness of God : to sacrifice His
outward life, that He might so pass, in this self-reveal-
ing consciousness, into the inward life of men : to
build up on this basis, and none other, that kingdom
of God which is at once outside us and within us :
such, and no less, was the divine plan of Christ.
In connexion with what I have ventured to call ' the
divine plan' of Christ, there is another point which
must be carefully borne in mind by one who would
rightly understand the Gospel narrative. It is this :
Christ came to be the subject, rather than the author,
of Christianity.
Christianity, as a religion and as a church, dates,
not from Christmas, nor yet from the Ministry, but
from Pentecost. It was the work of the Third, rather
than of the Second Person of the ever-blessed Trinity.
Our Lord came to redeem the world, and to atone for
sin. He had a baptism of suffering to be baptized
with ; and till that was accomplished, His teaching
and His ministry were straitened (Luke xii. 50).
This straitening of Christ in His ministry as one
speaking to men still under the old, not yet under the
new, dispensation, with much need therefore of re-
serve must be borne in mind by all readers of our
Lord's discourses. It explains too the often repeated
charge not to make Him known.
When once He was exalted to God's right hand, all
need of this reserve ceased. It is to the later books
of the New Testament, therefore, rather than to the
Gospels, that we must look for the development of
the doctrine and organization of the Church.
CHAPTER IV
Our
THE common objection to the credibility of
miracles, as old as Hume and older, is this :
A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature ; and
as all human experience has established the con-
stancy of those laws, it must always be more likely
that testimony should be mistaken than that a miracle
should have occurred.
The answer is a very simple one : A miracle is
not 'a violation of the laws of nature ;' it is simply
the revelation of a superhuman agent, possessing
superhuman powers, and therefore not included under
the rules generalized from human experience^.
To one who believes in the existence of such a
superhuman Agent, and in the probability of His
willing to make a special revelation of Himself to
mankind, this answer must be entirely satisfactory.
Without going further, therefore, into this question,
let us humbly and reverently endeavour to draw out
the chief lessons which our Lord's miracles were de-
signed to teach.
1 It is much to be regretted that the writer of the article
on Miracles in Aids to Faith should inadvertently have used
the phrase, ' introduction of a new agent, possessing new
powers.' The novelty was not the presence of a Divine
Power in the world, but the revelation of it
an the osp*l
Our Lord's miracles were revelations. A revelation
is the lifting of a veil. Our Lord, in these miracles,
lifted a veil, as it were ; and allowed mankind to see,
what had ever been going on behind it, the working
of Divine Power. It was but for a few short years.
The veil was then again lowered. And the Church
was thenceforth required to believe by faith, what
had been thus revealed, the continued working of the
Divine Power behind the veil.
That Christ should be able thus to lift the veil, or
(to drop the metaphor) to give men these new expe-
riences, was a clear proof of His divinity. For no
mere man could do it. ' If I had not done among
them the works which none other man did, they had
not had sin : but now have they both seen and hated
both Me and My Father.'
To identify Himself with His Father, by showing
that He could do visibly what His Father was ever
doing invisibly, was doubtless the first great purpose
of Christ's miracles. So far from wishing men to
regard His miracles as contrary to the laws of nature,
Christ was careful to teach the very opposite lesson
the perfect harmony of His mode of working, in
these miracles, with God's mode of working in what
is called the ordinary course of nature : ' My Father
worketh hitherto, and I work ;' ' The Son can do
nothing of Himself but what He seeth the Father do ;
for what things soever the Father doeth, these things
doeth the Son likewise.'
Instead, therefore, of presuming to say, ' I under-
stand God's ordinary mode of working in nature, and
these miracles of Christ are quite unlike it, and there-
fore incredible :' let us rather confess that there is
much of mystery in nature, and see what light these
(Dn (Dur garb's
miracles of Christ may throw upon it. And that they
do throw a most blessed light on what, after all, we
most wish to know about this world in which we live,
will more and more appear, the more attentively we
study them.
Our Lord's miracles, with this view, may be con-
veniently divided into three groups :
I. The great draughts of fishes, the calming of the
storm, the withering of the fig-tree. These miracles,
it will be observed, involve nothing new, but only a
providential arrangement of natural events. For
shortness' sake, they may be called ' 'providential?
II. The walking on the sea, the change of water
into wine, the multiplication of the loaves, the cure of
infirmities humanly speaking incurable. Here a new
and strange experience was introduced ; all these
miracles belonged to the world of nature, and yet
were beside nature, men had never seen the like
before. They may be called, for shortness, 'preter-
natural?
III. The expulsion of demons, and the recall of the
departed human spirit. These miracles, as belonging
to a world above and beyond the world of nature, may
most properly be termed ' supernatural?
Now let us endeavour to learn the three lessons
taught severally by these three classes of miracles.
I. Of the miracles of the first class it has been al-
ready remarked that they involved in their results
nothing new or foreign to our ordinary experience.
Often and often before had men's efforts to obtain
their livelihood been unusually prospered, storms
calmed, fruits of the earth blighted. Such occur-
rences were common. But men had observed, or
thought they had observed, indications of design, of
on the teosytl
moral purpose, in these occurrences. Was it so, or
was it not ? If it was so, then the world was
governed not by chance or fate, but by a personal
Providence ; and if so, prayer was a possibility.
Clearly a momentous question ; and one to which
it was highly probable that Christ would give an
answer. And how better could Christ answer it,
than by giving a specimen of such special provi-
dence, in which, not only the result, but also He who
willed that result, should be visible f And this was
precisely what Christ did in this first group of miracles :
' Lord save us, we perish !' Often and often before
had the prayer been uttered to One unseen, in the
hope that such an unseen One was ruling the event.
But here the whole process was laid bare, and the
special providence stood revealed : ' And He arose,
and rebuked the wind, and the wind ceased, and
there was a great calm.'
Let none say that such special providences are in-
compatible with the constancy of nature's laws. This
world of ours is like an organ, not a barrel-organ (to
which the fatalist would liken it), but a key-board
organ, on which, without violating one of those laws
under which the forces of the organ act, the organist
may play what melody he will ; the wish of a child
may change the tune. Even so this system of forces,
to which we give the name of nature, is sufficiently
elastic (as we know by daily experience) to allow room
for our free will, and if for man's free will, then much
more for God's free will, and if so, then for special
providence and prayer.
Such, we may reverently believe, was the special
lesson about nature revealed in this first group of our
Lord's miracles.
<Dit dDur glorb's ^tracks 123
II. But granting the existence of such a Divine
Will arranging and disposing nature's forces, a fur-
ther question about nature, of infinite concern to us,
remains : Which is sovereign, God or nature ?
The human will, although it has a kind of sove-
reignty (the very expression 'free will' implying as
much), acts, nevertheless, under limitations, and these
limitations are imposed by nature. ' Natura non nisi
parendo vincitur : ' Nature to be commanded must be
obeyed 1 : Bacon's Aphorism well expresses the limi-
tation imposed by the constant laws of nature on the
human will. Man's will is free to dispose her forces
(though this only mediately through the interven-
tion of his own bodily organization), but it can neither
increase nor diminish nature's constant amount of
energy 2 , can neither create nor destroy.
Is it so with God's Will ? If it be so, then nature
is co-ordinate and co-eternal with God.
Recoiling instinctively from such nature-worship,
men always trusted they might still believe in the
absolute supremacy of a Personal Will, believe that
behind the Law there was a Lawgiver.
But how could this be proved? How could our
Lord best bring it home to the conviction of the Gali-
lean peasant, and of the simple folk of His Church in
all ages ?
How better than by destroying (for the moment)
some force of nature, creating some new matter, re-
storing some lost energy, before men's eyes ?
In walking on the water, in supplying bread and
1 Nov. Org. \. i.
2 For a discussion of the modern doctrine of the conserva-
tion of force in its relation to free will, see Sir John Her-
schel's essay ' on the origin of force,' in his Lectures on
Scientific Subjects.
124 <^0ts on tht dispel J^arratitoe
wine, in renewing sight and health, Christ gave men
glimpses of creative power.
To think of these acts as violations of nature's
laws, is a confusion of thought ; to create or destroy
a force is not to violate the law under which that
force acts.
As, therefore, in the first group of miracles Christ
revealed God as the Sovereign Disposer of nature's
forces, so in this second group He revealed God as
the Sovereign Creator and possible Destroyer of those
forces.
III. But granting this absolute sovereignty of God
over nature, there was yet another question on which
we needed a revelation.
Man is conscious of living in another world besides
the world of nature. Joy and sorrow, right and wrong,
love and hate, have never yet been weighed in the
naturalist's balance or analysed by his prism. They
are the forces of another world entirely distinct from
that of nature, supernatural, the world of personality
and spirit. In that other world we are conscious of
living ; and what is more, in that other world, some-
thing whispers, we shall continue to live, still subject
to its forces, when to the world of nature we have
died. Is God's will sovereign there also?
This, too, Christ would reveal. To this other super-
natural world the miracles of the third class belong.
In the case of expelling demons this is self-evident.
In raising the dead, a moment's consideration will
show that the miracle was wrought not on the body 1 ,
but on the spirit of the departed.
1 If, along with the recall of the spirit, there was also a
change wrought in the body, a healing of its mortification,
this was a distinct miracle belonging to our second group,
<Dn <Dur glorb's Jftiraxlea ' 125
In all the three recorded instances there was, it
may be observed, a kind of refusal on our Lord's part
to regard the person as dead : ' The damsel is not
dead but sleepeth ;' 'Whosoever liveth and believeth
in Me shall never die.' So the summons was ever as
to one who could yet hear His voice : ' Damsel, I say
unto thee, arise ;' ' Young man, I say unto thee, arise ;'
' Lazarus, come forth.' In all three instances it seemed
to be our Lord's wish to reveal Himself as the ' Lord
both of the dead and living ;' for, in His own words,
' all live unto Him.'
These miracles of the third class, therefore, were
spiritual not physical ; they belonged to a region into
which the laws of nature do not enter, and therefore
in no way contravened them ; and in that higher
region they revealed the sovereignty of God.
To sum up what has been said. All Christ's
miracles whether providential, or preternatural, or
supernatural were visible manifestations of a Divine
Power which is ever working in the two worlds in
which we live and have our being.
They were, at once, both self-revelations, and also
revelations about God.
They were self-revelations ; for that Christ should
be able, in His own Person, to vouchsafe such mani-
festations of Divine Power, proved Himself Divine.
They were also revelations about God, for they
were specimens of God's mode of working.
That God works, in nature, through certain forces,
and that the action of these forces is uniform, this
no miracle was needed to reveal ; God is revealing it
and would by no means have sufficed alone for the restora-
tion of life.
126 giaitz on i\\t (ixrspxl
to us all by daily experience, never so wonderfully
as in these later days to the students of His works.
Without such uniformity providence on man's part
would be impossible. 1
But that these uniformities are compatible with
special Providence and prayer ; that ' Causation is
the Will, Creation the act, of God' ; a that the world of
spirit and the world of nature are governed by one
and the same Heavenly Father ; these were truths
of which no philosophy, no science, could assure us.
They are revealed to us in the miracles of our Lord.
1 Such is the explanation which suggested itself to Butler's
strong practical sense (Analogy, i. 7). No less characteristic
is that of Pascal, that God veils the freedom of His will
under these uniformities, to leave room for faith : ' Si Dieu
se decouvrait continuellement aux hommes, il n'y aurait point
de merite a le croire ; et s'il ne se decouvrait jamais, il y
aurait peu de foi.' PensSes II., xvi. 8.
2 With these noble words, Mr. Grove concludes his essay
on the Correlation of Physical Forces, reminding us of
Bacon, where he tells us that, ' so far is the study of physi-
cal causes from withdrawing men from God and Providence,
that, on the contrary, those who have occupied themselves in
searching them out, have never been able to find the end of
the matter, without having recourse at length to the doctrine
of Divine Providence.' De Aug. iii. 4.
CHAPTER V
Christ's ^ptath a ^ssterg.
NO one can read the Gospel narrative without
seeing that there was a deep significance in
Christ's sufferings and death. The purpose of this
chapter is to show how clearly this is implied in the
four Gospels, taken alone, and without recourse to
the more doctrinal statements of the Epistles.
i. And, first, Christ's death was a martyrdom :
Christ died a martyr to the truth of His Divinity.
This comes out very plainly in the account of the
two trials. Christ was arraigned in the Jewish Court
on the charge of Blasphemy, and condemned. Christ
was then arraigned in the Roman Court on the charge
of Treason, and acquitted. Failing in this second
accusation, the Jews fell back on the first, and per-
suaded Pilate to execute the sentence of their own
Court. Thus Christ was executed because He had
' spoken blasphemy.'
But what was the blasphemy? and how was it
proved ?
The blasphemy was that ' He made Himself the
Son of God ; ' ' We have a law, and by our law He
ought to die, because He made Himself the Son of
God.'
And how was it proved ? Other evidence failing,
the Prisoner was adjured, or put upon oath, by the
128 &otts> an the
High Priest, ' I adjure Thee by the living God that
Thou tell us whether Thou be the Christ, the Son of
God.' Not the Messiah merely (possibly that would
not have been accounted blasphemy), but also 'the
Son of God ;' St. Luke gives them as two separate
questions. Christ accepted the oath, and declared
that He was. And that this declaration was under-
stood at the time in the full sense in which the Church
has ever understood it, is abundantly proved by what
folio wed i.
If Christ had recalled or qualified His words, when
He found them thus understood, He would not have
been condemned ; but He allowed them to stand, to
stand for all ages, as a most solemn assertion of His
Divinity.
He died, therefore, a martyr to this truth. Never
was the mystery of His Person so clearly revealed as
in the process of His death.
2. There was in Christ's Passion an agony which
the mere painfulness of the death cannot possibly
account for.
This, too, plainly appears from the narrative.
As the hour approached, the agony of His inward
sufferings crushed Him to the earth, strained to the
very uttermost His human power of endurance.
Contrast this with what we know of the last hours
of many of His saints, of the Stephens, Polycarps,
Ridleys, Latimers, of later days. Many of them en-
dured torture of body far greater than that of cruci-
fixion ; and yet they met their death unflinchingly,
even cheerfully, without any such agony.
Clearly Christ's agony implies that there was far
more than appeared, a deep mystery, in His sufferings.
1 See pages 8 1 and 93. *
Christ's ^exth a ffi^sittQ 129
3. Christ's sufferings were fore-ordained. This is
again and again insisted on, not only by the Evan-
gelists, but by our Lord Himself, when training His
disciples' minds to understand the mystery of His
death. Before the idea of putting Him to death had
entered into the heart of a single Jew, we find it
vividly present to the mind of Christ. Within two
months of His Baptism He was speaking of it, yea,
and of the very manner of it, to Nicodemus : 'As
Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so
must the Son of Man be lifted up.' Not only did our
Lord, on three several occasions, predict the very cir-
cumstances, the betrayal, the condemnation by the
priests, the delivery to the Romans, the scourging,
the crucifixion, the Resurrection on the third day,
but He carefully traced this fore-ordained purpose all
through the Old Testament Scriptures ; referring not
to a few isolated texts, but to all that was ' written in
the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the
Psalms ' concerning Him.
Now here we have a great help towards under-
standing the mystery of the Death. For how is it to
be traced all through the law of Moses? Plainly
and necessarily in the sacrificial system of that law.
Christ can have meant nothing else ; for of direct
prediction of the Messiah's death there is not in the
books of Moses a single word.
4. Christ's death was therefore a sacrifice. And if
so, what a light this throws on the agony of the suf-
fering, if there was really laid upon Him, in some
mysterious way, the sin of mankind ! For this was
to a Jew's mind, to the Apostles' minds therefore, the
essential notion of a sacrifice. A sacrifice was a free-
will-offering for the expiation of sin.
130 gialts on tht (iospxl
Now both parts of this twofold idea are expressly
connected with Christ's death in the Gospels.
Again and again Christ impressed it on His disci-
ples' minds that His approaching death was a free-
will-offering : ' I am the good shepherd : the good
shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.' 'Therefore
doth My Father love Me, because I lay down My
life.' . . . ' No man taketh it from Me, but I lay it
down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I
have power to take it again.' ' Thinkest thou that I
cannot now pray to My Father, and He shall presently
give Me more than twelve legions of angels ? But
how then shall the Scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it
must be?' ' Not My will, but Thine, be done !'
So, also, again and again, it is implied that Christ's
death was an expiation for the sin of the world :
' Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin
of the world.' ' The Son of Man must be lifted up,
that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish,
but have eternal life.' ' If any man eat of this bread
he shall live for ever, and the bread that I will give is
My flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.'
' The Son of Man came to give His life a ransom for
many.' ' This is My body which is given for you.'
. . . ' This is My blood of the new covenant, which is
shed for many for the remission of sins.' ' For their
sakes I sanctify (or consecrate) Myself.' The sacri-
ficial allusion in all these passages is unmistakable.
5. But there is yet one more mystery connected
with Christ's sufferings. There are clear indications
in the Gospel narrative that those sufferings involved
a conflict, a final conflict, with the Evil One. And if
so, again what a light is thrown on that agony in
Gethsemane !
Christ's JSoith a Jesters 131
And is it not so ? After the Temptation, when the
Devil left Him, it is added that it was ' for a season'
only. And when did he return? In Gethsemane ;
for Christ declared it on His way thither : ' The
Prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in
Me ;' and again, 'this is your hour and the power of
darkness.'
There is another ground for supposing that in the
Garden the conflict of the Wilderness was renewed :
twice, and twice only, do we read of an angel
ministering to Christ, after the Temptation, and after
the Agony. May we not see here an indication that in
both a victory had been won ? And with this thought
I would venture to connect those words recorded by
St. John 1 only : ' Father, save Me from this hour.'
. . . ' Father, glorify Thy name ' (by giving Me the
victory over the Evil One) ; then came there a voice
from heaven, ' I have both glorified and will glorify it
again' (once by the victory in the wilderness, once
again by the victory in Gethsemane).
Thus, to sum up, it is evident from our Gospel
record, that Christ's Passion was not 'only a martyr-
dom, but also a most mysterious agony, the fulfilment
of a fore-ordained purpose, a sacrifice, and a conflict
with the Evil One. That there was all this deep
mystery in it, was plainly revealed, as we have seen,
by Christ to His Apostles, even before the Pente-
costal gift of the Holy Spirit enabled them to compre-
hend the full doctrine of the Atonement which in that
Death was once for all accomplished.
1 John xii. 27, 28.
CHAPTER VI
(Dtt tke ChrxHtffltfgs of tht <&osptl
IT has been well said 1 that the main purpose of the
four Evangelists was not so much to write chro-
nicles, as to set forth such an account of the sayings
and doings of our Lord as might best prove Him to
be the Messiah. This purpose governs, not only their
selection, but also to some extent their grouping, of the
incidents. This will be plain to any one who com-
pares the order of the events of the Galilean ministry
as told by St. Matthew, on the one hand, with the
order of the same events as told by St. Mark and St.
Luke, on the other 2 . Hence the difficulties of the
harmonist But, in the midst of these difficulties, one
is ever comforted by the thought that the matter is
one of altogether secondary importance.
One who studies these four divine portraitures with
1 By Tischendorf in the Prolegomena of his Synopsis
Evangetica. To this work, and to the treatise of Wieseler,
on which it is based, I need hardly say how deeply I am
indebted ; and still more, perhaps, to Bishop Ellicott's
Historical Lectures, which first led me to study the Gospel
arrangement of Wieseler. Where I have ventured to depart
from his order of events it has been with much diffidence,
and only because I gave yet greater weight to the opinion
of some of the early Fathers.
2 See the Table on page 142, for the events of A. D. 28,
Jan., Feb., and March, observing the regular sequence of
chapters in the Mark and Luke columns, and the irregularity
of the Matthew column, noted by the asterisks.
it the (feasptl Chnmxrlmjg 133
the view of compiling from them a dry chronicle, is
studying them with a purpose far lower than that with
which they were written ; nor must he be disappointed
if he fail. Ifive knew all, we could certainly reconcile
their apparent inconsistencies ; not knowing all, we
may well expect to find it impossible.
The tabular view, therefore, which is appended to
this chapter, is given, not for one moment as a com-
plete harmony, but merely as a useful index, present-
ing to the reader's eye, in a form convenient for refer-
ence, the arrangement of the leading facts adopted in
the narrative portion of this volume.
It needs but little explanation.
The dates given in the first column 1 result almost
necessarily from the assumption made throughout
this book that our Lord was born four complete years
before the Dionysian or vulgar era ; that He had just
completed His thirtieth year at His baptism ; and
that His Ministry lasted two years and a quarter.
In justification of these assumptions, a few words
rnay be desired by my more studious readers.
I. The year of our Lord's birth. St. Matthew's
Gospel makes it plain that the Nativity took place
about three months 2 before Herod's death ; and the
date of Herod's death is fortunately fixed for us by
the eclipse of the moon which Josephus 3 mentions as
occurring during his last illness. Astronomers give
the 1 3th of March in the year of Rome 750, or B.C. 4,
1 Where the day of the month is given, it is on the au-
thority of the Tables of full moons, furnished by astronomers.
2 Between the Nativity and Herod's death we must allow
forty days for the Purification (Lev. xii. ), and time (after
that) for the flight into Egypt and sojourn there.
3 Ant. xvii. 6. 4.
134 Jltftes on the ospel
as the date of this eclipse. As Herod died before the
Passover (i2th April), the date of the Nativity is thus
thrown back to the very beginning of B.C. 4, or to the
end of B.C. 5 1 .
1 1. The date of the Baptism. This is carefully de-
nned by St. Luke. It seems to me that his words can
only bear one construction, that our Lord was just
completing His thirtieth year 2 . The Baptism must,
therefore, be dated early in A.U.C. 780, or A.D. 27.
III. The duration of the Ministry. The solution of
this question must be sought in St. John's Gospel.
Any one, carefully following the notes of time
afforded by his first four chapters, will see that the
Feast mentioned in the first verse of the fifth chapter
must have occurred within fifteen months of the Bap-
tism. On this point nearly all commentators are agreed.
Again, all are agreed that the Feast of Tabernacles,
mentioned in his seventh chapter, must have been
within seven months of the Crucifixion.
The duration of the ministry depends, therefore, on
the length of the interval between these two feasts, or
(in other words) between the fifth and seventh chap-
ters of St. John.
The close and intimate connexion of these two
chapters convinces me that this interval cannot have
been a long one, certainly not more than six or seven
months.
In the fifth chapter our Lord cures an impotent man
1 For all this see Wieseler's Chron. Synapse, p. 56.
2 ' The Greek Fathers, who must have understood their
own language best, never took these words to mean anything
else.' Greswell, Dissert, xi. Wieseler and Tischendorf, con-
struing the words with more latitude, put the Baptism at
the end of our Lord's 3 1st year, and thus throw the whole
ministry one year later.
(Dtt tht <&osptl (Ehrxmologg 135
on the Sabbath at Jerusalem, and thereby provokes
the bitter hostility of the Sanhedrim.
The seventh chapter (in close connexion with this)
begins by telling us that Jerusalem was no longer a
safe place for Christ, that He could no longer ' walk
in Jewry, because the Jews sought to kill Him ;' and
that therefore he remained in Galilee until the Feast
of Tabernacles, when He once more appeared in the
Temple. The way in which the controversy of the
fifth chapter is resumed by our Lord, the way in which
He speaks of the Sanhedrim's resolution to put Him
to death, the way in which He alludes to His cure of
the impotent man when He was last among them, as
to something still fresh in men's minds, renders it
highly improbable that the interval had been a long
one.
' Why go ye about to kill Me ?'
' I have done one work, and ye all marvel.'
' Are ye angry with Me because I have made a man
every whit whole on the Sabbath-day ?'
I cannot bring myself to believe that eighteen
months had elapsed since the events which are thus
alluded to. They are clearly alluded to as still in
men's mouths, as still the subject of common talk in
Jerusalem.
If this reasoning be accepted, and the interval be
thus reduced from eighteen to six or seven months,
then the whole Ministry is necessarily shortened from
three years and a quarter to two years and a quarter.
In adopting this shorter term of the Ministry, it is
satisfactory to have the support not only of Wieseler
and those who follow him, but also of many of the
early Fathers.
Jerome says plainly, ' It is written in St. John's
136 $ott3 on the dosptl
Gospel that our Lord attended three Passovers at
Jerusalem, which make two complete years.' 1
A still earlier writer, Irenaeus, would seem in one
place 2 to be of this opinion, resting it also on the fact
that St. John distinctly implies three Passovers, one
soon after the miracle at Cana (ii. 13), one when Jesus
' cured the paralytic who for thirty-eight years had
lain near the bath' (v. i), and one, the final Passover,
' when He ate His paschal meal, and suffered on the
following day' (xiii. l).
With this, too, agrees the venerable tradition pre-
served by Eusebius 3 , that when the Apostle John was
an old man, the presbyters of Ephesus brought to him
the three earlier Gospels, and that St. John approved
them, and bore witness to their truth, only remarking
that there was still wanting a record of the earlier
portion of our Lord's ministry. And Eusebius adds,
' that this account is true, as any one may see ; for
those three Evangelists only relate the events of that
single year which followed the Baptist's imprisonment,
clearly indicating the same at the commencement of
their narratives.'
These passages clearly testify an early belief in the
Church that our Lord's ministry covered a space of
little more than two complete years.
When Ignatius, Melito, Origen, and Chrysostom, in
1 Jerome is commenting on the Greek version of Isaiah
xxix. i. ' Scriptum est in Evangelic secundum Joannem,
per tria paschata Dominum venisse in Jerusalem, quae duos
annos efncumt.' Op. iii. 245.
2 Iren. ii. 22, g 3. The authority of this passage is,
however, weakened by the curious inconsistency of the
sequel, in which Irenseus seems to infer from John viii. 57,
that the ministry lasted between ten and twenty years !
3 Eccles, Hist. iii. 24.
<Dn tht <&Q3$tl Chrflnolcgg 137
the passages quoted by Greswell 1 , speak of a 'three-
years' ministry,' their language seems to me to agree
better with the notion that the ministry was between
two and three years, than with Greswell's notion that
it was between three and four.
Indeed a two-and-a-quarter years' ministry would in
Jewish phrase be certainly termed a ' three-years' '
ministry, just as Christ is said to have been three
night-days* in the heart of the earth. And most
naturally would Christ say, when visiting Jerusalem in
the third spring of His Ministry, ' These three years I
come seeking fruit on this fig-tree ' (Luke xiii. 7).
On all these grounds it may, I think, be safely con-
cluded that the duration of our Lord's Ministry was
two years and a quarter.
IV. The unnamed feast of John v. I. It will be
observed that both Jerome and Irenasus, in the above-
quoted passages, imply their conviction that this feast
was a Passover ; and necessarily, therefore (as they
only allow three Passovers), identify it with the Pass-
over mentioned in John vi. 4. This identification
seems to me perfectly possible, having regard to the
close and intimate connexion of St. John's fifth and
seventh chapters, and the quite independent character
of the memoir (ch. vi.) which possibly after the com-
pletion of his Gospel 3 he inserted between them.
1 Dissert, xiii. 2d ed.
2 Matt. xii. 40. Our Lord used, no doubt, the Aramaic
word corresponding to vvxOri/jiepa..
3 It must strike every attentive reader that the opening
words of the sixth chapter, ' After these things Jesus went
over the sea of Galilee,' hardly suit the end of the fifth chap-
ter, where our Lord was left in the Temple at Jerusalem ;
nor yet do the opening words of the seventh chapter, giving
a reason for leaving Jewry, suit the end of the sixth chapter,
where our Lord was left at Capernaum ; whereas the begin-
138 $Loits on the (irrscptl
But if this identification be judged impossible, then
(with Wieseler and most moderns) we must fall back
on Kepler's suggestion, that the unnamed feast was
that of Purim, in the month preceding the Passover.
The only important point is that the fifth and sixth
chapters both belong to the spring of the same year,
the middle spring, as one may call it, of our Lord's
ministry.
If the feast be Purim, our Lord must have gone up
thus early to Jerusalem, meaning to stay there for the
approaching Passover, but was obliged to leave pre-
maturely by the outbreak of the Sanhedrim's hostility.
But four reasons dispose me to prefer the old Pass-
over hypothesis to the modern one of Purim :
1. None of the Fathers suggest Purim.
2. Not only the Paris Codex, but also the Sinaitic,
have ' the feast,' not ' a feast.'
3. Our Lord at this feast (v. 35) seems to allude to
the Baptist as to one recently dead, and we have
reason to believe that the Baptist was murdered just
before the Passover of A.D. 28 1 .
4. The persecution of our Lord for allowing His
disciples to rub the ears of corn seems to connect
itself closely with this charge of Sabbath-breaking at
the unnamed feast, and St. Luke's expression, that it
ning of the seventh perfectly coheres with the end of the
fifth chapter. I would venture, therefore, to suggest the
possibility that the sixth chapter was added by St. John at
the same time as the acknowledged postscript, chapter xxi.
Both chapters, unlike the rest of the Gospel, are exclusively
Galilean, anecdotes of the Galilean Lake.
1 It was at the yfvtffia of Antipas ; and that these yevtcna
were the anniversary not of his birthday, but of his accession
(i.e. of the death of Herod the Great, p. 133) seems clear
from Wieseler's quotations (p. 293), to which Plato, I Alcib.
c. 17, may be added.
09tx tlu (iosptl (Ehnmoltfgg 139
was ' on the second-first Sabbath,' points most pro-
bably to the first- of the seven Sabbaths reckoned
from the great second day of the Passover, before
which it was unlawful to gather ears of corn 1 . Thus
the incident is dated eight days after a Passover.
The much earlier mention of this rubbing of the
ears by St. Mark and St. Luke is, no doubt, the grand
difficulty which the theory of a two-and-a-quarter
years' Ministry has to encounter. All we can say
is that they were led to mention the rubbing of the
ears and the healing of the withered hand thus pre-
maturely in order to group them with those three
earlier complaints of the Pharisees (the forgiveness of
the Paralytic's sins, the eating with the Publicans,
and the not-fasting of Christ's disciples). Not so
St. Matthew. He separates by a long interval what
St. Mark and St. Luke thus bring together.
V. Date of the Crucifixion. Browne in his Ordo
Scsclorum shows astronomically that in A.D. 29 the
Paschal full moon fell on a Friday, Friday i8th
March ; and adopts this as the date of the Cruci-
fixion 2 . Our Lord's age at His Baptism and the
duration of His Ministry, as given above, point to this
date also. It is satisfactory to remember that this
year agrees with the constant tradition of the first five
centuries (based doubtless on the Acts of Pilate before
that document was corrupted), that Christ suffered in
March in the Consulship of the Gemini, A.D. 29".
That our Lord suffered on a Friday is almost cer-
1 Lev. xxiii. 14; else why should St. Luke be careful to
assign the date ?
2 Wieseler gives 7th April A.D. 30.
3 See Tertull. Adv. Jud. viii. ; Aug. De Civ. Dei, xviii.
54, etc., and for the Consulship of the Gemini, see Tac.
Annal. v. I.
140 giQltz on tht <0sptl
tain. But whether this Friday was the I4th or I5th
of Nisan, is a question which has been much de-
bated : whether the Paschal lamb was slain on Good
Friday, or on the preceding Thursday. On this ques-
tion I must say a few words.
If we had the three earlier Evangelists only, no
doubt could possibly have arisen : they clearly imply
that the Passover was on the Thursday evening.
First we have our Lord's own words (Matt. xxvi. I, 2)
predicting that He would be betrayed at the Pass-
over : ' Ye know that after two days is the Passover,
and the Son of Man is betrayed to be crucified.'
This is unintelligible unless the Passover was on the
night of the betrayal, the night before Good Friday.
But still more explicit are St. Mark and St. Luke,
who not only tell us that on the Thursday afternoon
our Lord sent two of His Apostles to prepare the
Paschal supper, but describe it most carefully as ' the
first day of unleavened bread on which the Passover
must be killed.' Words could not declare more
clearly that the Passover, which our Lord said He
had desired with so much desire to eat with His
disciples before He suffered, was the regular Passover
after the sunset of the i4th Nisan.
But before we dismiss the question we must turn to
St. John, and show briefly that the four notes of time
given in his Gospel agree with this.
i. Those for whom St. John wrote unlike those for
whom the three earlier Evangelists wrote were fami-
liar from childhood with the account of the institution
of the Eucharist ; that therefore he omits ; but what the
others had omitted, the account of the washing of the
disciples' feet at that same supper, he gives in much
detail And how does he describe it ? He describes
(Dn tht diuspd <hr0mjI0gg 141
it a.s taking place just before a meal, and that meal he
tells us was the feast of the Passover (xiii. i). ' Now
before the Paschal feast, . . . supper being on the
table (for such is the right translation), . . . Jesus rose
and washed their feet.' Such is St. John's first note of
time, in perfect harmony, when read aright, with the
earlier accounts.
2. Again, when Judas leaves the room, they think
it is to buy something that they needed for the feast :
what feast ? clearly the feast then going on ; else
why so much despatch ?
3. Again, at six o'clock the next morning, St. John
tells us the Pharisees would not enter the Roman hall
lest they should be defiled, and so unable to eat their
Passover.
It seems irregular, no doubt, that they should
not have finished their Paschal lamb by six o'clock in
the morning ; but when one remembers how actively
employed all night long in their wicked purposes these
conspirators had been, there is no great difficulty in
supposing that some portion of their Passover re-
mained to be consumed. 1
One more note of time there is in which St. John is
so entirely in harmony with the other three that it
seems strange that it should have occasioned difficulty.
In common with all the Evangelists, St. John gives to
Friday its ordinary Jewish name of ' Preparation-day.'
Our translators, instead of saying, ' It was the prepara-
tion of the Passover,' should have rendered it simply
' It was the Friday of the Passover feast,' or, ' It was
the Passover Friday.' Thus in all points it is easy to
bring St. John's Gospel into harmony with the rest
1 Or Wieseler may be right in supposing that the phrase
' to eat the Passover ' may have a wider meaning, as in
2 Chron. xxx. 22.
142
MATT.
MARK.
LUKE.
JOHN.
B.C. 5.
March.
June.
Dec.
B.C. 4.
Feb
Annunciation, . . Page 18
Birth of Baptist, . . .19
Birth of Jesus, . . ....
Presentation, . . ....
I. 21
1.26
i-57
2. 7
2 22
...
Apr.
A.D. 9.
Mar. 29.
A.D. 27.
Feb.
Mar.
Apr. 9.
Dec.
Wise men. Flight to Egypt, 20
Herod's death. Return
Passover ; twelve years old, . 2 1
Baptism. Temptation, . 24
Miracle at Cana, . . .26
1st Passover. Clears Temple, 27
Ministry with the Baptist, . 28
Baptist imprisoned, . . 29
Journey through Samaria, . ...
2. I
2. 23
3- 13
...
4. 12
I- 9
I. 14
2- 39
2. 42
3-21
3- 20
1.32
2. I
2. 13
3. 22
A. A.
A.D. 28.
Jan.
Galilean ministry begins, . 30
Nobleman's son healed, . ...
4. 12
i- 15
4. 14
4-43
Rejection at Nazareth, . 32
Makes Capernaum His home, 33
Calls four Apostles,
Peter's wife's mother cured, . 34
ist Galilean tour, . ....
Leper and Paralytic,
Matthew called, . . ....
4- 13
4. 18
8.14*
4-23
8. 2*
9. 9*
i'"i6
I. 29
i- 39
i. 40
2 14.
4. 16
4-.3I,
5.11*
4-38
4.44
5- 12
c. 27
Feb.
The Twelve ordained, . . 34
Sermon on Mount, . . 36
Centurion's servant cured, . ...
Widow's son raised at Nain, 35
Baptist's message, . . 36
2d Galilean tour with Twelve
10 I*
5-6,7
8- 5
II. 2*
3- H
6. 12
6. 20
7- i
7. ii
7.18
8 i
...
March.
Mar. 29.
Parables, ' Sower,' etc., . 35
Storm. Gadarene demoniac, ...
Jairus' daughter raised, . ...
3d tour: the xii. two and two, ...
Baptist's death, . . .37
5000 fed. Storm, . .38
2d Passover. Bethesda, . 40
13. I*
8.28
9. 18
IO. I
14. i
I4-I5
4- *
5- *
S. 22
6. 7
6. 14
6-35
8. 4
8. 26
8. 41
9. i
9- 9
9. 12
6!"i*
5- i
(Ehrxmxrkrsg.
MATT.
MARK.
LUKE.
JOHN.
A.D. 28.
Apr.
Pharisees' persecution, . Page 41
15- I
7. I.
...
Rubbing corn. Withered hand, 42
12. I
2. 23*
6. i*
...
Tyre, Sidon : the Canaanite, . 43
15.21
7.24
...
Decapolis. 4000 fed, . . 44
15.29
7- 3i
Prediction of death, . . 46
16. 16
8. 29
9. 20
...
Aug. (?)
Transfiguration, . . -47
17. i
9- 2
9. 28
Sep. 23.
Feast of Tabernacles, . . 50
...
7. 10
Nov. (?)
Farewell to Galilee, . . 52
19. i
10. I
9- 5i
...
Progress through Samaria,
9- 5 2
...
Mission of LXX., . . -53
...
10. I
...
Martha and Mary (Bethany?) .
10.38
Controversy in Temple, . . 54
...
...
8. 12
Sabbath cure of blind man, . 55
...
...
9. I
Dec.
Feast of Dedication
1O. 22
A.D. 29.
Jan.
Ministry beyond Jordan, . 56
19. i
10. I
10.40
{Insert here Luke xi.-xviii.T) . 57
Feb. (?)
Raising of Lazarus, . . 5&
11. I
Retirement to Ephraim, . 60
...
"54
March.
Ascending to Jerusalem,
20. 17
10.32
18.31
Jericho. Zaccheus, . .61
2O. 29
10. 46
18-35
12.
Sab. Supper at Bethany, . 62
26. 6*
H- 3*
12. 2
13-
Sun. Messianic entry, . . 63
21. I
u. i
19.29
12. 12
14.
Man. Again clears Temple, . 65
21. 12
11.15
19 45
...
15-
Tues. Controversy in Temple, 66
21.23
11.27
20. i
16.
Wed. Interview with Greeks, . 70
...
...
12.20
17-
Thur. T,d and last Passover, . 7 2
26. 17
14. 12
22. 7
13- I
1 8.
Fri. Crucifixion, . . -89
27. I
15. I
2 3 . I
19. I
20.
Sun. Resurrection, . . 98
28. I
16 i
2 4 . I
2O. I
1st Appearance, to Mary, . 99
16. 9
20. 1 6
2d, to the women, . . . 100
28." 9
3d, to Peter (i Cor. xv. 5), . 101
24-34
4th, going to Emmaus, . .102
16. 12
24-I5
5th, in upper Chamber, . . 103
16. 14
24.36
20.19
27.
6th, Sun., again in upper Chamber, 104
20. 26
April.
7th, to seven by the Lake, . 105
...
21. I
8th, to 500 at once ( I Cor. xv. 6), 106
28. 17
...
...
gth, to James (i Cor. xv. 7), . 107
Ap. 28.
loth, to the Eleven. Ascension, ...
16. 19
24.50
EDINBURGH I T. CONSTABLE,
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CATENA CLASSICORUM,
A SERIES OF CLASSICAL AUTHORS,
EDITED BY MEMBERS OF BOTH UNIVERSITIES UNDER
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FELLOW AND LECTURER OF CLARE COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, LECTURER AND LATE
FELLOW OF ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE,
THE REV. CHARLES BIGG, M.A.
LATE SENIOR STUDENT AND TUTOR OF CHRIST CHURCH, OXFORD, SECOND
CLASSICAL MASTER OF CHELTENHAM COLLEGE.
The following Parts have been already published:
SOPHOCLIS TRAGOEDIAE,
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28
Jttcssrs. Bibington's
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CA TEN A CLA SSI COR UM Opinions of the Press.
Mr. Jebb's Sophocles.
" Of Mr. Jebb's scholarly edition of
the ' Electra ' of Sophocles we cannot
speak too highly. The whole Play
bears evidence of the taste, learning,
and fine scholarship of its able editor.
Illustrations drawn from the literature
of the Continent as well as of England,
and the researches of the highest clas-
sical authorities are embodied in the
notes, which are brief, clear, and
always to the point." Lojuion Re-
vieiv, March 16, 1867.
"The editorship of the work before
us is of a very high order, displaying
at once ripe scholarship, sound judg-
ment, and conscientious care. An ex-
cellent Introduction gives an account
of the various forms assumed in Greek
literature by the legend upon which
' The Electra ' is founded, and institutes
a comparison between it and the
' Choephorae ' of jEschylus. The text
is mainly that of Dindprf. In the notes,
which are admirable in every respect,
is to be found exactly what is wanted,
and yet they rather suggest and direct
further inquiry than supersede exertion
on the part of the student." Atke-
ntnim.
"The Introduction proves that Mr.
Jebb is something more than a mere
scholar, a man of real taste and
feeling. His criticism upon SchlegePs
remarks on the Electra are, we believe,
new, and certainly just. As we have
often had occasion to say in this Review,
it is impossible to pass any reliable
criticism upon school-bcoks until they
have been tested by experience. The
notes, however, in this case appear to
be clear and sensible, and direct at-
tention to the points where attention is
most needed. " Westminster Revieiu.
"We hove no hesitation in saying
that in style and manner Mr. JebVs
notes are admirably suited for their
purpose. The explanations of gram-
matical points are singularly lucid, the
parallel passages generally well chosen,
the translations bright and graceful,
the analysis of arguments terse and
luminous. Mr. Jebb has clearly shown
that he possesses some of the qualities
most essential for a commentator."
Spectator.
"The notes appear to us exactly
suited to assist boys of the Upper
Forms at Schools, and University
students ; they give sufficient help
without over-doing explanations
His critical remarks show acute and
exact scholarship, and a_ very useful
addition to ordinary notes is the scheme
of metres in the choruses." Guardian.
" If, as we are fain to believe, the
editors of the Catena Classiconiiit
have got together such a pick of
scholars as have no need to play their
best card first, there is a bright promise
of success to their series in the first
sample of it which has come to hand
Mr. Jebb's ' Electra.' We have seen
it suggested that it is unsafe to pro-
nounce on the merits of a Greek Play-
edited for educational purposes until it
has been tested in the hands of pupils
and tutors. But our examination of the
instalment of, we hope, a complete
' Sophocles,' which Mr. Jebb has put
forth, has assured us that this is a
needless suspension of judgment, and
prompted us to commit the justifiable
rashness of pronouncing upon its con-
tents, and of asserting after due perusal
that it is calculated to be admirably
serviceable to every class of scholars
and learners. And this assertion is
based upon the fact that it is a by no
means one-sided edition, and that it
looks as with the hundred eyes of
Argus, here, there, and everywhere, to
keep the reader from straying. In a
Itmtron, xfortr, antt
J/Elcssrs. Bitrington's Jlcto "^publications
29
CATENA CLASSICORUM Opinions of the Press.
concise and succinct style of English
annotation, forming the best substitute
for the time-honoured Latin notes which
had so much to do with making good
scholars in days of yore, Mr. Jebb
keeps a steady eye for all questions of
grammar, construction, scholarship, and
philology, and handles these as they
arise with a helpful and sufficient pre-
cision. In matters of grammar and
syntax his practice for the most part is
to refer his reader to the proper section
of Madvig's ' Manual of Greek Syn-
tax :' nor does he ever waste space
and time in explaining a construction,
unless it be such an one as is not satis-
factorily dealt with in the grammars
of Madvig or Jelf. Experience as a
pupil and a teacher has probably taught
him the value of the wholesome task
of hunting out a grammar reference
for oneself, instead of finding it, handy
for slurring over, amidst the hundred
and one pieces of information in a
voluminous foot-note. But whenever
there occurs any peculiarity of con-
struction, which is hard to reconcile
to the accepted usage, it is Mr. Jebb's
general practice to be ready at hand
with manful assistance." Contempo-
rary Review.
"Mr. Jebb has produced a work
which will be read with interest and
profit by the most advanced scholar,
as it contains, in a compact form, not
only a careful summary of the labours
of preceding editors, but also many
acute and ingenious original remarks.
We do not know whether the matter
or the manner of this excellent com-
mentary is deserving of the higher
praise : the skill with which Mr. Jebb
has avoided, on the one hand, the
wearisome prolixity of the Germans,
and on the other the jejune brevity of
the Porsonian critics, or the versatility
which has enabled him in turn to
elucidate the plots, to explain the
verbal difficulties, and to illustrate the
idioms of his author. All this, by a
studious economy of space and a re-
markable precision of expression, he
has done for the 'Ajax* in a volume
of some 200 pages." Athetuntm.
Mr. Simcox 1 s Juvenal.
" Of Mr. Simcox's ' Juvenal ' we can
only speak in terms of the highest com-
mendation, as a simple, unpretending
work, admirably adapted to the wants
of the school-boy or of a college pass-
man. It is clear, concise, and scru-
pulously honest in shirking no real
difficulty. The pointed epigrammatic
hits of the satirist are every where well
brought out, and the notes really are
what they" profess to be, explanatory in
the best sense of the term." London
Review.
" This is a link in the Catena Classi-
corum to which the attention of our
readers has been more than once di-
rected as a good Series of Classical
works for School and College purposes.
The Introduction is a very comprehen-
sive and able account of Juvenal, his
satires, and the manuscripts." AtJte-
n&um.
"This is a very original and en-
joyable Edition of one of our favourite
classics." Spectator.
" Every class of readers those who
use Mr. Simcox as their sole inter-
preter, and those who supplement
larger editions by his concise matter
will alike find interest and careful
research in his able Preface. This
indeed we should call the great feature
of his book. The three facts which
sum up Juvenal's history so far as we
know it are soon despatched ; but the
internal evidence both as to the dates
of his writing and publishing his Sa-
tires, and as to his character as a
writer, occupy some fifteen or twenty
pages, which will repay methodical
study." Churchman.
Pontoon, ifortr, antt (Cambridge
J^tcssrs. Biinngtcn's Qcto publications
CA TENA CLASSICORUM Opinions of the Press.
Mr. Bigg's Thucydides.
" Mr. Bigg in his ' Thucydides '
prefixes an analysis to each book, and
an admirable introduction to the whole
work, containing full information as to
all that is known or related of Thucy-
dides, and the date at which he wrote,
followed by a very masterly critique on
some of his characteristics as a writer."
A theiufum.
" While disclaiming absolute ori-
ginality in his book, Mr. Bigg has so
thoroughly digested the works of so
many eminent predecessors in the same
field, and is evidently on terms of such
intimacy with his author as perforce
to inspire confidence. A well-pondered
and well-writtenintroduction has formed
a part of each link in the 'Catena'
hitherto published, and Mr. Bigg, in
addition to a general introduction,
has given us an essay on ' Some Cha-
racteristics of Thucydides,' which no
one can read without being impressed
with the learning and judgment brought
to bear on the subject." Standard.
" We need hardly say that these
books are carefully edited ; the reputa-
tion of the editor is an assurance on
this point. If the rest of the history is
edited with equal care, it must become
the standard book for school and
college purposes." John Bull.
" Mr. Bigg first discusses the facts
of the life of Thucydides, then passes
to an examination into the date at
which Thucydides wrote ; and in the
third section expatiates on some cha-
racteristics of Thucydides. These
essays are remarkably well written,
are judicious in their opinions, and
are calculated to give the student much
insight into the work of Thucydides,
audits relation to his own times, and to
the works of subsequent historians."
Museum.
Mr. Heslop' s Demosthenes.
" The usual introduction has in this
case been dispensed with. The reader
is referred to the works of Grote and
Thirlwall for information on such
points of history as arise out of these
famous orations, and on points of
critical scholarship to ' Madvig's
Grammar,' where that is available,
while copious acknowledgments are
made to those commentators on whose
works Mr. Heslop has based his own.
Mr. Heslop's editions are, however,
no mere compilations. That the points
required in an oratorical style differ
materially from those in an historical
style, will scarcely be questioned, and
accordingly we find that Mr. Heslop
has given special care to those cha-
racteristics of style as well as of lan-
guage, which constitute Demosthenes
the very first of classic orators."
Standard.
"We must call attention to New
Editions of various classics, in the
excellent ' Catena Classicorum ' series.
The reputation and high standing of the
editors are the best guarantees for the
accuracy and scholarship of the notes."
Westminster J\i"!'U"w.
" The notes are thoroughly 1 good, so
far as they go. Mr. Heslop has care-
fully digested the best foreign com-
mentaries, and his notes are for the most
part judicious extracts from them."
Museum .
' ' The annotations are scarcely less to
be commended for the exclusion of
superfluous matter than for the excel-
lence of what is supplied. Well-known
works are not quoted, but simply re-
ferred to, and information which ought
to have been previously acquired is
omitted. " A thenizum.
TumUon, OxforB, antt (ambrtocrc
Jiacssrs. Btoington's $cto ^ablicattons
CA TEN A CLASSICOR UM Opinions of the Press.
Mr. Green's Aristophanes.
"Mr. Green has discharged his part
of the work with uncommon skill and
ability. The notes show a thorough
study of the two Plays, an independent
judgment in the interpretation of the
poet, and a wealth of illustration, from
which the Editor draws whenever it is
necessary." Museum.
" Mr. Green's admirable Introduction
to 'The Clouds' of the celebrated
comic poet deserves a careful perusal,
as it contains an accurate analysis and
many original comments on this re-
markable play. The text is prefaced
by a table of readings of Dindorf and
Meineke, which will be of great service
to students who wish to indulge in
verbal criticism. The notes are copious
and lucid, and the volume will be found
useful for school and college purposes,
and admirably adapted for private
reading. " Examiner.
"Mr. Green furnishes an excellent
Introduction to 'The Clouds' of
Aristophanes, explaining the circum-
stances under which it was produced,
and ably discussing the probable object
of the author in writing it, which he
considers to have been to put down
the Sophists, a class whom Aristo-
phanes thought dangerous to the morals
of the community, and therefore ca-
ricatured in the person of Socrates,
not unnaturally, though irreverently,
choosing him as their representative.
A tlien&iun.
Mr. Sandy's Isocrates.
" Isocrates has not received the
attention to which the simplicity of
his style and the purity of his Attic
language entitle him as a means of
education. Now that we have so ad-
mirable an edition of two of his Works
best adapted for such a purpose, there
will no longer be any excuse for this
neglect. For carefulness and thorough-
ness of editing, it will bear comparison
with the best, whether English or
foreign. Besides an ample supply of
exhaustive notes of rare excellence,
we find in it valuable remarks on the
style of Isocrates and the state of the
text, a table of various readings, a list
of editions, and a special introduction
to each piece. As in other editions of
this series, short summaries of the
argument are inserted in suitable
places, and will be found of great
service to the student. The commen-
tary embraces explanations of difficult
passages, with instructive remarks on
grammatical usages, and the deriva-
tion and meanings of words illus-
trated by quotations and references."
A then&um.
"This Work deserves. the warmest
welcome for several reasons. In the
first place, it is an attempt to introduce
Isocrates into our schools, and this
attempt deserves encouragement. The
Ad Dememicum is very easy Greek.
It is good Greek. And it is reading of
a healthy nature for boys. The prac-
tical wisdom of the Greeks is in many
respects fitted to the capacities of boys ;
and if books containing this wisdom are
read in schools, along with others of a
historical and poetical nature, they will
be felt to be far from dry. Then the
Editor has done every thing that an
editor should do. We have a series of
short introductory essays ; on the style
of Isocrates, on the text, on the Ad
Demonicum, and on the Patiegyricus.
These are characterized by sound sense,
wide and thorough learning, and the
capability of presenting thoughts clearly
and well." Museum.
" By editing Isocrates Mr. Sandys
does good service to students and
teachers of Greek Prose. He places
in our hands in a convenient form an
author who will be found of great use
in public schools, where he has been
hitherto almost unknown. . . . Mr.
Sandys worthily sustains as a com-
mentator the name which he has
already won. The historical notes are
good, clear, and concise ; the gram-
matical notes scholar-like and practi-
cally useful. Many will be welcome
alike to master and pupil." Cambridge
University Gazette.
, xfortf, antj
32 Jilfssrs. l\ibtngton's fi
CATENA CLASSIC OR UM.
The following Parts are in course of preparation:
PLATONIS PHAEDO,
Edited by ALFRED BARRY, D.D. late Fellow of Trinity College,
Cambridge ; Principal of King's College, London.
DEMOSTHENIS ORATIONES PUBLICAE,
Edited by G. H. HESLOP, M.A. late Fellow and Assistant Tutor
of Queen's College, Oxford ; Head Master of St. Bees.
[Part III. De Falsa Legatione.
MARTIALIS EPIGRAMMATA,
Edited by GEORGE BUTLER, M.A. Principal of Liverpool College ;
late Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford.
DEMOSTHENIS ORATIONES PRIVATAE,
Edited by ARTHUR HOLMES, M.A. Fellow and Lecturer of Clare
College, Cambridge. [Part I. De Corona.
HOMERI ILIAS,
Edited by S. H. REYNOLDS, M.A. Fellow and Tutor of Brasenose
College, Oxford. [Vol. I. Books I. to XII.
HORATI OPERA,
Edited by J. M. MARSHALL, M.A. Fellow and late Lecturer of
Brasenose College, Oxford ; one of the Masters in Clifton
College.
TERENTI COMOEDIAE,
Edited by T. L. PAPILLON, M.A. Fellow and Classical Lecturer of
Merton College, Oxford. [Part I. Andria et Lunuchus.
HERODOTI HISTORIA,
Edited by H. G. WOODS, M.A. Fellow and Tutor of Trinity
College, Oxford.
TACITI HISTORIAE,
Edited by W. H. SIMCOX, M.A. Fellow and Lecturer of Queen's
College, Oxford.
OVIDI TRISTIA,
Edited by OSCAR BROWNING, M.A. Fellow of King's College,
Cambridge ; and Assistant Master at Eton College.
CICERONIS ORATIONES,
Edited by CHARLES EDWARD GRAVES, M.A. Classical Lecturer
and late Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge.
[Part I. Pro P. Sextio.
THEOPHRASTI CHARACTERES,
Edited by A. PRETOR, M.A. of Trinity College, Cambridge;
Classical Lecturer of Trinity Hall.
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