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THE
LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST
HISTORICAL CONNEXION AND HISTORICAL
DEVELOPEMENT.
AUGUSTUS NEANDER.
TRANSLATED FROM THE
jFourtti ffierman lEtjftfon,
JOHN M'CLINTOCK AND CHARLES E. BLUMENTHAl,
FBOFE380BS IN DICKINSON COLLEGE.
NEW YORK:
HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS,
82 CLIFF STREET.
18 48.
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year one thousand
eight hundred and forty-eight, by
Harper & Brothers,
in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Southern District
of New York.
TO MY CHRISTIAN BRETHREN
IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
The present age may be considered an epoch of transition in
the developement of the kingdom of God ; and, as such, it is full
of signs. Among the most striking of them is a greater zeal for
the spread of the Gospel and the Bible through all nations, com-
bining many and various agencies for that work ; as well as a
closer union among all earnest Christians, seekers of salvation and
truth, of all lands, however widely separated — a new Catholic
Church, which, amid all the diversity of outward ecclesiastical
forms, is preparing that unity of the spirit which has Christ for its
foundation. Especially is it matter of rejoicing to see a grow-
ing spirit of fraternal union between the Christians of the Old
World and those of the New ; a land in which Christianity (the
destined leaven for all the elements of humanity, how various so-
ever) developes its activities under secular relations so entirely
novel.
It was, therefore, very gratifying to me to learn that Professors
M'Clintock and Blumenthal had determined to put this volume,
the fruit of my earnest inquiries, before the transatlantic Christian
public in an English dress. To see a wider sphere of influence
opened for views which we ourselves (amid manifold struggles,
yet guided, we trust, by the Divine Spirit) have recognized as true,
and which, in our opinion, are fitted to make a way right on
through the warring contradictions of error, cannot be otherwise
than grateful to us. For truth is designed for all men : he who
serves the truth works and strives for all men. The Lord has
given to each his own charisma, and with it each must work for
all. What is true and good, then, is no man's own ; it comes from
the Father of Lights, the Giver of every good gift, who lends it
to us to be used for all. And what is true, must prove itself such
by bearing the test of the general Christian consciousness.
But the pleasure with which I write these words is not un-
mingled with anxiety. To write a history of the greatest Life that
has been manifested upon earth — that Life in which the Divine
X THE AUTHOR'S ADDRESS.
glory irradiated earthly existence — is indeed the greatest of hu-
man tasks. Yet tlie attempt is not presumptuous (as I have said
in the preface to the German edition), if it be made upon the
Gospel basis : every age witnesses new attempts of the kind. It
is part of the means by which we are to appropriate to ourselves
this highest life ; to become more and more intimate with it ; to
bring it nearer and nearer to ourselves. Every peculiar age will
feel itself compelled anew to take this Divine Life to itself through
its own study of it, by means of science, animated by the Holy
Spirit ; to gain a closer living intimacy with it, by copying it. To
eat His flesh and drink His blood (in the spiritual sense) is indeed
the way to this intimacy ; but science also has its part to do, and
this work is its highest dignity. But yet, in view of the grandeiu-
and importance of this greatest of tasks, in view of the difficulties
that environ it, and our own incapacity to execute it adequately,
we cannot see our work diffused into wider and more distant
circles, without fear and trembling. We are fully conscious of the
dimness that surrounds us, growing out of the errors and defects
of an age just freeing itself from a distracting infidelity. May we
soon receive a new outpouring of the Holy Ghost, again bestow-
ing tongues of fire, so that the Lord's great works may be more
worthily praised !
I have another, and a peculiar source of anxiety. This book
has arisen (and it bears the marks of its origin) amid the intel-
lectual struggles which yet agitate Germany, and constitute a
preparatory crisis for the future. Those who are unacquainted
with those struggles may, perhaps, take offence a't finding not only
many things in the book hard to understand, but also views at va-
riance with old opinions in other countries yet undisturbed. The
English churches (even those of the United States, where every
thing moves more freely) have perhaps, on the whole, been but
slightly disturbed by conflicting opinions of precisely the kind that
find place among us. Had they to deal with the life-questions
with which we have to do, they would be otherwise engaged than
in vehement controversies about church order and other unessen-
tial points. It would be easier, then, for them to forget their minor
differences, and rally under the one banner of the Cross against
the common foe. Perhaps a nearer acquaintance with the relig-
ious condition of other lands may contribute to this end.
I am, notwithstanding, still afraid thc»t some readers unac-
quainted with the progress of the German mind, which has de-
THE AUTHOR'S ADDRESS. xi
veloped new intellectual necessities even for those who seek the
truth believingly, may take offence at some of the sentiments of
this book. Especially will this be likely to happen with those
who have not been accustomed to distinguish what is Divine from
what is human in the Gospel record ; to discriminate its immutable
essence from the changeful forms in which men have apprehended
it ; in a word, with those who exchange the Divine reality for the
frail support of traditional beliefs and ancient harmonies. I would
lead no man into a trial which he could not endure ; I would
willingly give offence to none, unless, indeed, it were to be a transi-
tory offence, tending afterward to enlarge his Christian knowledge
and confirm his faith. How far this may be the case, I am not
sufficiently acquainted with the transatlantic Church to be a com-
petent judge. Nor would I, on my own sole responsibility, have
introduced this work (which arose, as I have said, among the
struggles of our own country) to a foreign public : this I leave
to the esteemed translators, hoping that their judgment of the con-
dition of things there may be well founded.
But of this I am certain, that the fall of the old form of the
doctrine of Inspiration, and, indeed, of many other doctrinal preju-
dices, will not only not involve the fall of the essence of the Gospel,
but will cause it no detriment whatever. Nay, I believe that it
will be more clearly and accurately understood ; that men will be
better prepared to fight with and to conquer that inrushing infidelity
against which the w^eapons of the old dogmatism must be power-
less in any land ; and that from such a struggle a new theology,
purified and renovated in the spirit of the Gospel, must arise.
Everywhere w^e see the signs of a new creation; the Lord will
build himself, in science as well as in life, a new tabernacle in
which to dwell ; and neither a stubborn adherence to antiquity, nor
a profane appetite for novelty, can hinder this work of the Lord
which is now preparing. May we never forget the words of the
great apostle, " Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is Liherty."
Whatever in this book rests upon that one foundation than which
none other can be laid, will bear all the fires of the time ; let the
wood, hay, and stubble which find place in all works of men, be
burned up.
Perhaps the impulse* which the American mind has received
* Not, it is to be hoped, a one-sided, partisan tendency, as is justly remarked by Professor
Porter, whose article on " Coleridge and his American Disciples," in the Bibliotbeca
Sacra for February, 1847, I have read with great interest.
xii THE AUTHOR'S ADDRESS.
from the profound Coleridge, who (hke Schleiermacher among
ourselves) has testified that Christianity is not so much a definite
system of conceptions as a power of life, may have contributed,
and may still further contribute, to prepare the way for a new
tendency of scientific theology in your beloved country.
A. Neander.
Berlin, November 4, 1847.
TRAxNSLATORS' PREFACE.
The work, of which an English version is presented in this
volume, appeared originally in 1837. It has already passed
through four editions, from the last of which* this translation has
heen made.
It is well known that Dr. Neander has been engaged for many
years in writing a " General History of the Christian Religion and
Church," and that he has published separately an account of the
" Planting and Training of the Early Christian Church by the
Apostles." He would doubtless have felt himself constrained, at
some period, to give a history of the life and ministry of the Divine
Founder of the Church ; and, indeed, he states as much in the
preface to this work (page xxi.). The execution of this part of his
task, however, would perhaps have been deferred until the com-
pletion of his General History, had not the " signs of the times"
urged him to undertake it at once. Its immediate occasion was
the publication, in 1835, of Strauss's " Life of Christ,"t a work
which, as every one knows, created a great sensation, not merely
in the theological circles of Germany, but also throughout Europe.
A brief sketch of the state and progress of parties in Germany
may be useful to readers not familiar with the literature of that
country ; and we here attempt it, only regretting our incapacity
to give it fully and accurately.
Notwithstanding the dread with which German theology is
regarded by many English and some American divines, it was
not in German soil that the first seeds of infidelity in modern
times took root. It was by the deistical writers of England, in
the early part of the last century, that the authenticity of the sa-
cred records was first openly assailed. The attacks of Toland,
Chubb, Morgan, &c., were directed mainly against the credibil-
ity and sincerity of the sacred writers ; and their blows were
* Das Leben Jesu Christi, in seinem geschichtlichen Zusammenhange und seiner ge-
Bchichtlichen Entwickelung dargestellt von Dr. August Neandek, vierte und verbesserte
Auflage, Hamburg, bei Friedrich Perthes, 1845.
t Das Leben Jesu, Kritisch bearbeitet von Dr. David Friedrich Strauss. 2 Bdo.
Tubingen, 1835, 4te Aufl., 1840.
xiv TRANSLATORS' PREFACE.
aimed, avowedly, against the whole fabric of Christianity. It
is needless to say that they failed, not merely in accomplishing
their object, but in making any very strong or permanent impres-
sion on the English mind. Nor has an infidelity of exactly the
same type ever obtained firm footing in Germany. The English
Deism, first promulgated in the WolfenbiUtel fragments, set the
German theologians at work upon the canon of Scripture, and
upon Biblical literature in general, with a zeal and industry un-
known before ; and many of them pushed their inquiries with u
freedom amounting to recklessness ; but a direct and absolute de-
nial of the authority of the word of God is a thing almost unknown
among them. Still, professed theologians, of great talents and
learning, and holding high official positions, adopted a theory (the
so-called Rationalism) more dangerous than avowed infidelity,
and succeeded, for a time, in diflTusing its poison to a painful extent.
The declared aim of the Rationalists was to interpret the Bible
on rational principles ; that is to say, to find nothing in it beyond
the scope of human reason. Not supposing its writers to be im-
postoi-s, nor denying the record to be a legitimate source, in a cer-
tain sense, of religious instruction, they sought to free it of every
thing supernatural ; deeming it to be, not a direct Divine revela-
tion, but a product of the human mind, aided, indeed, by Divine
Providence, but in no- extraordinary or miraculous way. The
miracles, therefore, had to be explained away ; and this was done
in any mode that the ingenuity or philosophi/ of the expositor
might suggest. Sometimes, for instance, they were no miracles
at all, but simple natural facts ; and all the old interpreters had
misunderstood the writers. Sometimes, again, the writers of the
sacred history misunderstood the facts, deeming them to be mi-
raculous when they were not; e. g., when Christ "healed the
sick," he merely prescribed for them, as a kind physician, with
skill and success ; when he " raised the dead," he only restored
men from a swoon or trance ; when he "subdued the storm," there
was simply a happy "coincidence," making a strong impression
upon the minds of the disciples ; when he fed the " five thousand,"
he only set an example of kindness and benevolence w4iich the
rich by-standers eagerly followed by opening their stores to feed
the hungry multitude, &c., &c. But even this elastic exegesis,
when stretched to its utmost capacity, would not explain every
case : some parts of the narratives were stubbornly unyielding,
and new methods were demanded. For men who had gone so
TRANSLATORS' PREFACE. xv
far, it was easy to go farther ; the text itself was not spared ; this
passage was doubtful, that was corrupt, a third was spurious. In
short, " criticism," as this desperate kind of interpretation was
called, was at last able to make any thing, and in a fair way to
malie nothing, out of the sacred records. But still the rationalist
agreed with the orthodox supernaturalist in admitting that there
was, at bottom, a basis of substantial truth in the records ; and
asserted that his efforts only tended to free the substantive verity
from the envelopements of fable or perversion with which tradition
had invested it. The admission was a fatal one. The absurdities
to which the theory led could not long remain undetected. It was
soon shown, and shown effectually, that this vaunted criticism was
no criticism at all ; that the objections which it offered to the Gos-
pel history were as old as Porphyry, or, at least, as the English
Deists, and had been refuted again and again ; that the errors of
interpretation into which the older expositors had fallen might be
avoided without touching the truth and inspiration of the Evan-
gelists ; and, in a word, that there could be no medium between
open infidelity and the admission of a supernatural revelation.
During the first quarter of the present century the conflict was
waged with ardour on both sides, but with increasing energy on
the side of truth ; and every year weakened the forces of rational-
ism. Still, the theological mind of Germany was to a consid-
erable extent unsettled: its Tholucks and Hengstenbergs stood
strong for orthodoxy ; its Twesten and Nitszch applied the clear-
est logic to systematic theology ; its Marheineche and Daub phi-
losophized religiously ; its Bretschneider and Hase upheld reason
as the judge of revelation ; while not a few maintained the old ra-
tionalism, though with less and less of conviction, or at least of
boldness.
It was at this point that Strauss conceived the audacious idea
of applying the mythical theory to the whole structure of the
Evangelical history. All Germany has been more or less infected
with the mytho-mania, since the new school of archeeologers have
gone so deeply into the heathen mythology. A mythis omnis pris-
corum hominum cum historia turn philosophia procedit, says Heyne :
and Bauer asks, logically enough, " if the early history of every
people is mythical, why not the Hebrew ?"* The mere applica-
tion of this theory to the sacred records was by no means original
with Strauss : he himself points out a number of instances in which
• Strauss, i., § 8.
xvi TRANSLATORS' PREFACE.
Eichhorn, Gabler, Vater, &c., had made use of it. His claim is
to have given a completeness to the theory, or rather to its appli-
cation, which former interpreters had not dreamed of; and, to
tell the truth, he has made no halting vi^ork of it. That Jesus
lived ; that he taught in Judea ; that he gathered disciples, and so
impressed them with his life and teaching as that they believed
him to be the Messiah ; this is nearly the sum of historical truth
contained in the Evangelists, according to Strauss. Yet he as-
cribes no fraudulent designs to the writers ; his problem is, there-
fore, to account for the form in which the narratives appear ; and
this is the place for his theory to work. A Messiah was expect-
ed ; certain notions were attached to the Messianic character and
office; and with these Christ was invested by his followers.
" Such and such a thing must happen to Messiah ; Jesus was the
Messiah ; therefore such and such a thing must have happened to
him." " The expectation of a Messiah had flourished in Israel
long before the time of Christ ; and at the time of his appearance
it had ripened into full bloom ; not an indefinite longing either, but
an expectation defined by many prominent characteristics. Mo-
ses had promised (Deut., xviii., 15) 'a prophet like unto himself,'
a passage applied, in Christ's time, to Messiah (Acts, iii., 22 ; vii.,
37). The Messiah was to spring of David's line, and ascend his
throne as a second David (Matt., xxii., 42 ; Luke, i., 32) ; and there-
fore he was looked for, in Christ's time, to be born in the little
town of Bethlehem (John, vii., 42 ; Matt., ii., 5). In the old legends
the most wonderful acts and destinies had been attributed to the
prophets : could less be expected of the Messiah ? Must not his
life be illustrated by the most splendid and significant incidents
from the lives of the prophets ? Finally, the Messianic era, as a
whole, was expected to be a period of signs and wonders. The
eyes of the blind were to be opened ; the deaf ears to be unstop-
ped ; the lame were to leap, &c. (Isa., xxxv., &c.). These ex-
pressions, part of which, at least, were purely figurative, came to
be literally understood (Matt., xi., 5 ; Luke, vii., 21, sqq.) ; and thus,
even before Christ's appearance, the image of Messiah was con-
tinually filling out with new features. And thus many of the le-
gends respecting Jesus had not to be newly invented ; they exist-
ed ready-made in the Messianic hopes of the people, derived
chiefly from the Old Testament, and only needed to be transferred
to Christ and adapted to his character and teachings."*
* Strauss, i., $ 14.
TRANSLATORS' PREFACE. xvii
These extracts contain the substance of Strauss's theory ; his
book is Httle more than an application of it to the individual parts
of the history of Christ as given in the Evangehsts. A few in-
stances of his procedure will suffice. He finds the key to the
miraculous conception in Matt., i., 22 : " All this was done that it
might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet,
saying,"* &c. " The birth of Jesus, it was said, must correspond
to this passage ; and what was to be, they concluded, really did oc-
cur, and so arose the myth." The account of the star of the Magi-
ans, and of their visit from the East, arose from a similar applica-
tion of Numbers, xxiv., 17; Psa. Ixxii., 10; Isa., Ix., l-6,f &c.
The temptation of Christ was suggested by the trials of Job ; its
separate features helped out by Exod., xxxiv., 28 ; Lev., xvi., 8,
10 ; Deut., ix., 9,J &c. The Transfiguration finds a starting-point
in Exod., xxxiv., 29-35.§ So we might go through the book.
The appearance of the work, as we have said, produced a won-
derful sensation in Germany ; greater, by far, than its merits
would seem to have authorized. It was the heaviest blow that
unbelief had ever struck against Christianity ; and the question
was, what should be done ? The Prussian government was dis-
posed to utter its ban against the book ; and man}^ evangelical
theologians deemed this the proper course to pursue in regard to
it. But Dr. Neander deprecated such a procedure as calculated
to give the work a spurious celebrity, and as wearing, at least, the
aspect of a confession that it was unanswerable. He advised that
it should be met, not by authority, but by argument, believing that
the truth had nothing to fear in such a conflict. His counsel pre-
vailed ; and the event has shown that he was right. Replies to
Strauss poured forth in a torrent ; the Gospel histories were sub-
jected to a closer criticism than ever ; and to-day the public mind
of Germany is nearer to an orthodox and evangelical view of
their contents than it has been for almost a century.
Besides the general impulse given by Strauss to the study of
the Four Gospels, he has done theology another good service.
His book has given a deadly blow to rationalism properly so
called. Its paltry criticism and beggarly interpretations of Scrip-
ture are nowhere more eflJectually dissected than in his investiga-
tions of the different parts of the history and of the expositions
that have been given of it. In a word, he has driven rationalism
out of the field to make way for his myths ; and Neander, Eb-
* Strauss, i., $ 29. t Ibid., § 36. X Ibid., $ 56. $ Ibid., $ 107.
2
XTiii TRANSLATORS- PREFACE.
rard, and others have exploded the myths ; so that nothing re-
mains but a return to the simple, truthful interpretations wliich,
in the main, are given by the evangelical commentators.
But, it may be asked, why trouble ourselves with controversies
t)f this kind here ? We cannot help it. Strauss's book, at first,
could not find a respectable publisher in England ; and a garbled
translation, containing its very worst features, was put out in a
cheap form for the million. The same, or a similar abridgment,
has been circulated to a considerable extent in this country. And
within the last year a translation of the whole work, from the
last German edition, has been published in London in three hand-
some volumes. That the soil of many minds is ready to receive
its pestilent doctrines, both in that country and in our own. is too
sadly true to be denied. The Westminster Review for April, 1 847,
contains an article on Strauss and Parker which talks about the
Evangelists in the coolest strain of infidelity imaginable, and refers,
with obvious complacency, to the signs of" unbelief or illumination*'
(it cares not which) that are at present so abundant in England.
To a certain extent, as we have remarked, Xeander's Life of
Christ has a polemic aim against Strauss. But this is a small part
of its merits : indeed, but for the notes, an ordinary reader would
not detect any such specific tendency. It unfolds the life of the
Saviour from the record with great clearness and skill ; it invests
the outline, thus obtained, with the fresh colours of life, without re-
sortinsr to forced constructions and vain imaginings : and. above
all, it seeks, with child-like humility and reverence, to learn and
exhibit the mind of the Spirit. The characteristic of spirituality,
so strongly stamped upon all the works of this great writer, is espe-
cially prominent here. None, we think, can read the book without
becoming not merely better acquainted with the facts of the life
of Christ, but more anxious than ever to drink into its spirit.
At the same time, it is not to be concealed that Neander diflers
in his views on some points of doctrine, as well as of interpreta-
tion, from most Evangelical theologians. We wish to state dis-
tinctly that we do not hold ourselves responsible for these pecu-
liarities of opinion. It was at one time our purpose to append
notes to such passages as we deemed most objectionable ; but af-
ter mature deliberation this intention was laid aside. It is hardly
fair to criticise a man in his own pages, even if one is able to do
it. The general spirit and tendency of the work cannot, we are
TRANSLATORS' PREFACE. xix
sure, be otherwise than beneficial, or we should never have at-
tempted to translate it. Its specific errors can be met and refuted
elsewhere.
The noble candour of Neander in the letter which precedes
this preface must disarm all severity. Let us remember, in our
judgment of what may appear to us even grave errors of opinion
in the book, that its author has fought for every step of ground
that has been gained of late years by spiritual religion in Ger-
many ; and, while we lament the " dimness" which this great man
confesses with such Christian-like humility, let us acknowledge
the grandeur of his idea of the kingdom of God, and the earnest-
ness of his devotion to it. His starting-point, and many of his
paths, are different from ours ; it must, therefore, gladden our
hearts, and may, perhaps, confirm our faith, to see that he reaches,
after all, the general results of Evangelical theology.
One word for the translation. We have tried to do our best ;
but we feel that we have not done very well. It is hard to trans-
late German : and of all German that we have tried to put into
intelligible English, Xeander's is the hardest. We have not at-
tempted a literal version (for we want the book to be read) ; nor,
on the other hand, have we willingly gone into mere paraphrase.
We have sought to seize the sense of the author, and to express
it in our own tongue ; but none can be better assured than our-
selves that we have very often failed. Readers of the original
work will see that we have taken some liberties with it which de-
mand explanation. The division of the text into books, chapters,
and sections will, we hope, make the work more intelligible and
acceptable to English readers. In many of the authors para-
phrases of Scripture passages we have substituted the words of
the Encrlish version, where it could be done without affecting the
sense ; and many passages, also, to which he had merely alluded,
are quoted at length. A few sentences have been transferred
from the text to the notes ; and a few passages of the notes, of
purely polemical interest, which would have needed explana-
tion to put them fairly before the American public, have been
omitted. In all that we have done, we have endeavoured to com-
ply with the spirit of Dr. Xeander's wishes, as kindly communi-
cated to us by himself.
JoRvary 5, 1848,
XX TRANSLATORS' PREFACE.
LIST OF DR. NEANDER'S WORKS.
Das Leben Jesu Chi-isti, in seinera geschiclitliclien Zusammenliange und seiner
geschichtlichen Entwickelung: 1"^ Aufl., 1837; 4^" Aufl., 1845 (The Life of Jesus
Christ, in its Historical Conuexiou and Historical Developemeut : 1st ed., 1837 ; 4th
ed., 1845).
Geschichte der Pflanzung und Lcitung der Christlichen Kirche durch die Apostel:
1'*^ Aufl., 183-2 ; 4'« Aiifl., 1847 (Historj- of the Planting and Training of the Christian
Church by the Apostles: 1st ed., 1832; 4th ed., 1847).
Allgemeine Geschichte der Christlichen Religion und Kirche (General Histoiy of
the Christian Religion and Church).
(a) Die drei ersten Jalirhunderte : l«e Aufl. in 3 Banden ; 2te Aufl. in 2 Bd., 1843-43. (The three
first centuries : 1st edition in 3 volumes, 1825 ; 2d editiou in 2 vols., 1842-43.)
(b) Das 4te-6te Jahrhundert : Ite Aufl. in drei Banden, 1&28 ; 2te Aufl. in 2 Bd., 18 16-47. (Fourth
to sixth century : 1st ed. in 3 vols., 1828 ; 2d in 2 vols., 18415-47.)
(c) Cte-8te, in 1 Bd. (Sixth to eighth, 1 vol.), 1834.
(d) Ste-llf, m 1 Bd. (Eighth to eleventh, 1 vol.), 183G.
(e) llte-l3w, in 2 Banden. (Eleventh to thirteenth, 2 vols.), 1841 and 1845.
Ueber den Kaiser Julianus und seiu Zeitalter (The Emperor Juliau and his Times),
1812.
Genetische Entwickelung der vornehmstcn Gnostischen Systeme (Genetical Devel-
opement of the jiriucipal Gnostic Systems), 1818.
Anti-Gnosticus. Geist des Tertullianus und Einleitung in desscn Schriften (Anti-
Gnosticus. Genius of Tertiillian and Litroduction to his Writings), 1825.
Der heilige Chrysostomus und die Kirche in dessen Zeitalter, 2 Bd., 1820 ; 2'*= Aufl.
1'^ Bd., 1832 (Chrysostom and the Church iu his Times, 2 vols., 1820 ; 2d ed. of 1st.
vol., 1832).
Der heilige Benahard und sein Zeitalter (Bernard and his Times), 1813.
Denkwiirdigkeiten aus der Geschichte des Christenthums und des Christlichen
Lebens: 1'^ Aufl. in 3 Bd., 1822; 3**= Aufl. in 2 Bd., 1845-46 (Memorabilia from the
Historj- of Christianity and the Chri.slian Life : 1st ed. 3 vols., 1822; 3d ed. 2 vols.,
1845-46).
Kleine Gelegenheitschriften praktisch-Christlichen, vornehmlich exegetischen und
historischen Inhalts, 3"-' Aufl., 1829 (Smaller Treatises, chiefly exegetical and historical,
3d ed., 1829).
Das Eine und das Mannichfaltigc des Christlichen Lebens; Eine Reihe kleiner
Gelegenlieitschriften, grossertentheils biographischen Lihalts (Series of smaller Treat-
ises, chiefly biographical), 1840.
Das Priucip der Reformation, oder Staupitz und Luther (The Principle of the Ref-
ormation ; or Staupitz and Luther), 1840.
PREFACE
THE FIRST EDITION.
I\ the Preface to my Representation of the Christian Religion
and Church in the Apostolic Age, I assigned my reasons for the
separate publication of that work, and stated its relations to my
General History of the Church. It remained for me to treat of
that which formed the ground of the manifestation and existence
of the Apostolical Church itself, viz., the Life and Ministry of the
Divine Founder of the Church ; and I have, moreover, been urged
from many quarters to execute this necessary portion of my work.
I was made to pause in the former undertaking by the lofty sa-
credness of the subject and its many difficulties ; how much more,
then, in the latter ! But the signs of the times (to which, as a his-
torian of the Church, I could not but take heed), the uncertainty
of human affairs, and the opportunity afforded by a pause in my
General History, have overcome my scruples, and led me, trusting
in God, to go on with this work.
Yet well may he hesitate who undertakes to write the life of
Cfirist! "Who, indeed (as Herder finely answered Lavater),
could venture, after John, to write the life of Christ ?"* Who
will not agree with Anna Maria von Schurmann, that such an
attempt is "to paint the sun with charcoal : the life of a Christian
is the best picture of the life of Christ ?"t
Yet why should not history (though assured that its description
must be far behind the reality) occupy itself with the highest man-
ifestation that has appeared in humanity — a manifestation which
sanctifies, but does not spurn, the labours of men ? The artist, in-
* '• 7 write the life of Christ—/? Never. The Evangelists have written it as it cau
and ought to be written. Let ns, however, not write it, but become it ?" (Beitraee zur n;i-
heren Kenntuiss Lavater's, von Ulrich Hegener: Leips., 1836.) May the good Zurichers,
who have lately shown themselves so worthy of their sires in their resistance to revolution-
Kry violence and their enthusiasm for the faith (dogma Christiannm- dogma popiilare, Au-
gostin. opus impeif. e. Julian, ii., 2), erect a Christian national memorial by an edition, as
coniplete»as possible, of Lavater's correspondence.
t Cf. Reinhard, Plan Jesu, 1 ; Heubnpr'« A^m.
xxii PREFACE.
spired by devotion, paints a picture of Christ without any aid from
history, merely from intuition of the idea of Christ. But we have
the lineaments of the historical Christ, in fragments at least ; and
there is wanting only insight into their connexion to frame them
into a harmonious whole. We feel the necessity of calling up
vividly before our minds, in our own stage of life and scientific
progress, this realized Ideal, which belongs to all ages ; and at
pai'ticular epochs in the mutations of time this necessity is always
felt anew. The image of Christ, not of yesterday nor to-day,
ever renews its youth among men, and, as the world grows old,
penetrates it with a heaven-tending youthful vigour. What Pno-
Tius says of the various ideas of Christ among different nations
may be applied to different periods of time, viz., "that each, by a
new representation, must make itself familiar with the image of
Christ." Obviously, however, the peculiarities of different periods
must be distinguished. Some periods mark a new creation in the
Christian Church and in humanity, as already appeared ; others,
by dissolution and crisis, prepare the way for it. Our age belongs
to the latter class : we stand between the old world and a new
one to be called into being by the ever old and ever new Gospel.
For the fourth time Christianity is preparing a new epoch in the
life of humanity. Our labors can only be preparatory to that new
creation, when, after the regeneration of life and science, the great
acts of God shall be proclaimed with new tongues of fire !*
But it may be questioned, also, whether it is possible, from the
authorities in our hands, to exhibit a connected description of the
life of Christ ? Christian consciousness will be satisfied with no-
thing less than an intuition of Christ's life as a whole ; and, there-
fore, science must undertake to free it from all alloy, and to found it
on a substantial basis. It is by means of the Christian conscious-
ness that we feel ourselves allied to all Christianity since the out-
pouring of the Holy Ghost — Christian consciousness, the living
source from which every thing in life and science, which has
really enriched the Church, has proceeded and must proceed : a
far different thing from the changeful culture of the day, which,
without it, must ever be ephemeral and transitory. To serve this
last is the most wretched of servitudes. It is, indeed, time for a
new beginning of Biblical criticism, of New Testament exegesis.
* Most keenly does tlie author feci (as did liis late friend, 5. Jacobi, wlio lias left behind
him a blessed and boiionrcd nienioiy) that liis work bears the marks of its prodaction in an
age of crisis, of isolation, of pain, and of throes.
PREFACE. xxiii
of inquiries into the formation of the canon. There are great dif-
ficulties, indeed, especially in the chronology,* in the work which
we have to do. But this, instead of deterring, must only stimu-
late us to greater efforts. We must only guard against relinquish-
ing our hopes too hastily, and keep aloof from all prejudices either
of antiquity or novelty ; and then this undertaking may be one of
the preparations, however trifling, for a new epoch in this part of
history.
As for those who deny that our field is properly historical, and
place it in a pre-historical and mythical region, I need say nothing
here, as I have sought to refute them in the course of the work
itself
In regard to my relations to the various theological parties of
the age, I must refer to the Preface to the first volume of my
"Apostolic Age;" and to my letter to Dewar, chaplain to the
British Embassy in Hamburg. Whatever appears to me to be
true, or most probable, after candid and earnest inquiry, with
ail reverence for the sacredness of the subject, I utter, without
looking at consequences. Whoever has a good work to do must,
as Luther says, let the devil's tongue run as it pleases. There
are two opposite parties whom I cannot hope to please, viz., those
who will forcibly make all things new, and fancy, in their folly,
that they can shake the rock which ages could not undermine;
and those who would retain, and forcibly reintroduce, even at the
expense of all genuine love of truth, every thing that is old ; nay.
even the worn-out and the obsolete. I shall not please those hy-
percritics who subject the sacred writings to an arbitrary subtil-
ty, at once superrational and sophistical ; nor those, on the other
hand, who believe that here all criticism — or at least all ci'iticism
on internal grounds — cometh of evil. Both these tendencies are
alike at variance with a healthful sense for truth and conscientious
devotion to it ; both are alike inimical to genuine culture. There
is need of criticism where any thing is communicated to us in 'the
form of a historical tradition in written records ; and I am sure
that an impartial criticism, applied to the Scriptures, is not only
consistent with that child-like faith without which thei-e can be no
Christianity or Christian theology,-)- but is necessary to a just
* Wherever I have not sure grounds for decision, I say " perhaps :" nor am I ashamed
of it, unfashionable as " perhaps" is, nowadays, in matters of science. Would that our
young votaries of science would lay to heart the excellent words of Niebuhk, on the de-
grees of confidence, in the " Lebensnachrichten," ii., 208.
t But the theologian must have more than a merely critical mind and critical aims : he
xxiv PREFACE.
acuteness* and profoundness of thought, as well as to that true
consecration of mind which is so essential to theology. The child-
like faith of the theologian who cannot violently rid himself of the
critical element of his times or of human nature, is thus proved,
as it were, in the fire of temptation ; this is the tentatio (particu-
larly in this age of scientific struggle) which must go along with
oraiio and ?neditatio, in the depths of the earnest and humble
spirit. Without this priestly consecration, there can be no theol-
ogy. It thrives best in the calmness of a soul consecrated to God.
What grows amid the noisy bustle of the world and the empty
babble of the age is not theology.
God reveals himself in his word as he does in his works. In
both we see a se\f-revealing, seU-concealing God, who makes him-
self known only to those who earnestly seek him ;-j- in both we
find stimulants to faith and occasions for unbelief; in both we find
contradictions whose higher harmony is hidden except from him
who gives up his whole mind in reverence ; in both, in a word, it
is the law of revelation that the hecwt of man should be tested in
receiving it ; and that, in the spiritual life as well as in the bodily,
man must eat his bread in the sweat of his hrow.
Berlin, July 18, 1837.
needs a spiritual mind, a deep acquaintance with divine thins^s ; and lie must study the
Scriptures with his heart as well as head, unless he wishes his theology to be robbed of its
salt by his criticism.
* Not too sharp, so as to be notched.
t This is the pervading thought of Pascal (the sage for all centuries) in his Pcnsees,
though blended with many errors of Catholicism and absolute Predestination. Great
thanks are due to Fau^ere for the edition of this work (I8H) in its original form.
PREFACE
THE THIRD EDITION
The reception of this work among the opposing theological
parties of the age has been such as I anticipated in the Preface to
the first edition. It is, therefore, the less necessary for me to vin-
dicate myself against special accusations on any side. 1 am sat-
isfied that the principles of my theological procedure are in the
main correct, and that their claims will finally be justified. To
answer the revilings or false inferences of fanatical prejudice on
either hand, or to enter into purely personal controversy, forais
no part of my purpose. Yet, in order to leave no room for doubt
as to my own theological stand-point, it appears necessary that I
should notice a few of the opinions that have been passed upon
the work.
A review from the pen of Consistorial Counsellor Schulz
has appeared in the Allgemeine Darmst'ddtische Kirclienzeitung,
which opposes me merely by dictatorial decisions; and, by isola-
ting various passages* of my work from their connexion, ascribes
to me opinions which are foreign to my whole theological system.
What I say will not be disputed by any one who candidly exam-
ines that review and compares it with my work. I have called
the attention of my readers in this edition to these perversions of
my words ; perversions in which Sciiulz shakes hands with men of
a school directly opposite to his own. Were I not satisfied of his
integrity, I should be under the necessity of calling them dishonest
perversions ; as tlie case is, I see in them only the prejudice of
that enthusiasm of reason so admirably characterized by Jacobi in
his remarks upon "Reason which is not Reason" (ii,, 492). Of
those who are enslaved by this enthusiasm, he says : " Their belief
is always reason, nor can they recognize another's reason except
in his belief. They inquire not how he feels, perceives, observes,
* The reviewer has been able to point out but one oversight — certaiuly uo proof of care-
less haste in a work on such a subject. The mistake was one which might have happened
to any one in an unlucky moment, which could not fail to be noticed by any one, and which,
in fact, was noticed by myself as soon as I glanced again at the passage.
xxvi PREFACE.
or infers, but only what liis opinions are — whether they agree
with their canon or not ; and that decides the matter." This
stand-point as surely generates a prejudice which precludes all
just judgment of the opinions of others, and leads (though uncon-
sciously) to falsehood, as does the enthusiasm for an absolute sys-
tem of doctrines which lays down, as a standard, a definite num-
ber of articles of faith, or principles therewith connected, and
makes this standard a criterion of every one's claim to Christian-
ity. In the judgments formed of my work, as well as in manv
other matters of our time, these two sets of prejudices have led
to similar results.
" What," inquires Schulz several times, " will the believers in
creeds say to this V Now, as to the opinion of this or that set of
men, I am indifferent ; it concerns me only to know how far mv
statements accord with truth, especially Christian truth. It is
proper that I should say, however, that I go along with those w^ho
oppose " creed-believers" (to use Schulz's term) so far as this,
viz., that I could not subscribe to any of the existing symbols (ex-
cept the Apostles' creed, which testifies to those fundamental facts
of Christianity that are essential to the existence of the Christian
Church) as an unconditional expression of my religious convic-
tions.
I believe that our path lies, through the strifes and storms of the
present time, to a new creation in the Church, w^hen the same
Holy Spirit* that works in the life of the Church, and produces
all truly Christian creeds as expressions (defective, indeed, as all
human representations of the Divine must be, and stamped with
the varying culture of the time) of Christian truth, will produce
a syrpbol adapted to the new stage of the Church's developement,
if it become necessary that such an expression of the animatini:^
faith of the Church be given in a new literal form. But I go
along with the theologians (so called creed-believers) in what I
believe to be the fundamental principle of the Reformation and of
the Evangelical Church ; the doctrines, viz., of the corruption of
human nature (not, however, excluding, but presupposing, an ele-
ment of affinity for God [Gottverwnndte] in human nature): nnd
* The Holy Spirit going out from faith in Clwist, who was crucified for the sins of men,
who truly rose from the dead and ascended to heaven ; the Holy Spirit, which lias proved
itself the same since the first Christian Pentecost, at all times, among nil people, learne-i
or unlearned ; not the chanceful spirit of ihe times, which corresponds more nearly to what
is called in the New Testament the spirit of the world, and whose manifestntions slan.i
opposed to those of the Holy Si))rit.
PREFACE. xxvii
of justification by faith in Jesus as the Redeemer. The essential
part of the Evangelical Confession (the Augsburg Confession and
its Apology), so far as it is an exposition of this doctrine, togeth-
er with the unchangeable verities to w^hich the Apostles' Creed
bears witness, seem to me the irrefragable basis of the Evan-
gelical Church; which, on this basis, protests against all popery,
whether the Roman or any other impure spirit of the age ; against
human statutes, no matter of what kind. Dr. Schulz reproaches
me for speaking of the sinfulness of human nature. On the other
hand, I cannot but be astonished that this truth, so clearly re-
vealed in the Scriptures, nay, lying at their basis, and so plainly
written upon every human heart, should be denied by any man.
He wishes, moreover, that the terms " natural reason" and " self-
righteousness" may hereafter not appear in my writings. In this
respect I cannot possibly gratify him. These terms have a well-
. established right in the Evangelical Church ; the conceptions
which they express are closely connected with its fundamental
principle ; they are, moreover, firmly founded in Biblical Anthro-
pology.* They are not the offshoot of a " new Evangelical"
Theology, but of an old Evangelical faith. It is a mere pretended
"enlightenment" (which, notwithstanding it may, by destroying,
prepare the way for better things, is yet in its positive elements a
source of darkness) that can object to those conceptions.
I have to thank Dr. Hase for the kindness with which he has
spoken of my work in the Jalirhudier far ivlssenschaftliche Kri-
tik; but it would take more space than a preface will allow to
come to an understanding with him upon the points in Apologet-
ics and Dogmatics on which he touches in his review. I can only
remark, that a description of the life of Christ (although it tnust
proceed from the Christian consciousness, which alone can afford
a living intuition of it) does not necessarily demand for its found-
ation a complete and well-defined theory of the person of Christ.
On the contrary, it would be one of the excellences of such a
* It is a trick oi' Jesuitism (wl:icli is by no means confined to one form, but often assumes
tlie shaoe of the fanaticism of reason or understanding) to protest I'm form) against the ten-
dencies of the journal called the Evangdische Kirekeuzciluiig-, while, in fact, the protest is
not meant to bear against those tendencies — not against antiquated dogmas — biit against
the unchangeable fundamental truths of the Church of Christ; traths which can appear to
be antiquated dogmas only to the shallow and superiicial spirit of the times ; a spirit as
contracted as it is conceited. At the same time, it cannot be denied that the one-sided-
ness, the exaggerations and multiform sickliness of the tendencies referred to may have
contributed to produce a reaction. We say this sine ira et studio, with a full sense of the
sincere and earnest zeal, and the true Christian endeavours and residts of those tenden-
cies wliich find an organ in the Kirchcnzeilung.
xxviii PREFACE.
work, that various doctrinal tendencies (if supranaturalistic) could
be satisfied with it. It must deal with facts, which are more
weighty than men's conceptions, changeful as they are. All dog-
matical theories except those which are willing to do violence to
history must agree in acknowledging certain facts. What I havo
said of the human developement of the life of Christ harmonizes
well with the consequent doctrine of a status exinanitionis ; with-
out this, in fact, the human life of Christ can have no reality. As
to my views of the Ascension, I must adhere to them, until I can
be convinced that without them the full import of Christ's resur-
rection can be asserted. Nor is it simply strength of faith that
leads me to these results ; from the beginning my religious lifo
has been too much affected by the culture of this age to allow me
to glory in such a faith — to compare myself with those men of
child-like simplicity, those heroes whose Divine confidence is ex-
alted above all doubt.* I have adopted them from consecutive
reasoning upon the principles of the Christian faith. There is no
middle ground here ; unless, indeed, in order to avoid admitting
a limit to all explanation, without, at the same time, affirming the
opposite, we cover up the difficulty in phrases and formulas.
To all those who consider the Socratic ignorance as folly, and
who have settled beforehand the highest questions — questions
whose right answers the great Melancthon placed among the
beatitudes of the intuition of a better life — my dogmatical system
must appear weak and unsatisfactor3\
In the reviewer of my work in the Halle Literalurzeitung
(C^hurch-counsellor Schwarz of Jena), I am happy to recognize a
worthy man, who can acknowledge with congenial spirit, even
amid differences of opinion, the work of an earnest mind and of
serious study— a phenomenon every day becoming rarer in tliis
age of selfish and excited party spirit. I am gratified, though
not surprised, to find, from the beautiful notice of my book by Dr.
LiicKR, that that old and worthy friend agrees with me in a'll es-
sential points.
To find ourselves at one in the recognition of certain trutlis
with men whom we must admire and honour on many accounts,
even though our convictions, on important subjects, may be op-'
posed to each other, cannot be otherwise than gratifying. I have
• Truth before all things I would not scent to be what I am not. Tiiis book, which coul.i
oidy have aiNsen in this age of strife and discord, is itself a mirror of the progress of my
PREFACE. xxix
no sympathy with that narrowness of maid which refuses to do
justice to the advocate, however able, of opinions which we our-
selves must reject. That is an unworthy arrogance which, in its
zealous defence of a holy cause (a cause which, above all others
breathes humility, and teaches us more and more that all our
knowledge is but fragmentary), deems itself authorized to look
down haughtily upon its opponent, however superior in scientific
ability ; or even seeks to cover the weakness of its own argu-
ments by what is intended, according to the sickly taste of the
age, to pass for wit and humour.
I cannot, therefore, but rejoice to find that my treatment of the
subject, with that of others engaged in the same controversy, has
induced Dr. Strauss to soften down his mythical theory of the
Ufe of Christ in various points, and to acknowledge the truth of
several results arrived at by my historical inquiries. In his pub-
lic acknovvdedgment of this I recognize a candour and love of truth
which is far more honourable than mere intellectual greatness.
At the same time, I am grateful to him for the kindness with which
he lias spoken of me personally. A certain degree of harmony,
then, may be attained by the application of those fundamental
principles of historical criticism which all sound thinkers must ac-
knowledge to be correct. Yet it is only a certain degree ; it is
easy to be understood how the harmony thus reached is inter-
rupted by the wider difierences which lie at the foundation of the
subject.
The chief points of controversy turn upon essential differences
of religious thought and feeling. These fundamental differences
are clearly set forth by Dr. Strauss in the closing dissertation of
his third edition, and in his essay on the Permanent and the Tran-
sitory {das Bleihende und Verg'dngliche) in Christianity. They are
to be found chiefly in opposing viev/s of the relation of God to the
world, of the personality of spirit, of the relation between the
here and the hereafter, and of the nature of sin. The contro-
versy, to our mind, does not lie between an old and a new view
of Christianity, but between Christianity and a human invention
directly opposed to it. It is nothing less than a struggle between
Christian Theism and a system of world- and self-deification.
This system (by a relative historical necessity) had to unfold it-
self in theological and philosophical rationalism, in order to be
overthrown by the power of Christian truth in the natural prog-
ress of life and thought. Symptoms of it can be detected in the
XXX PREFACE.
sects of the ^Middle Ages, and in many of the manifestations that
preceded the Reformation ; and it would have broken forth at all
earher period, had not the EvangeUcal enthusiasm of the Refor-
mation suppressed it for a time. We may apply here the words
of Melan'cthon, uttei'ed, with his deep historical insight, in a con-
nexion akin to this: Dogmatuni semina, quce longe graviora tuinul-
tus aliquando excitatura fuerant, nisi Lictherus exortus esset ac stu-
dia hominufn alio ti'axisset (Corpus Reformator., tom. i., f. 1083).
Far be it from me to judge the heart of any man ; in this regard
each must be his own accuser. A man that knows he serves a
truth above the range of the human mind knows, at the same
time, how far below it he himself stands, and how high, on the
other hand, others, whose individual culture modified by the spirit
of the age may liave laid them open to error, may in heart be
raised above their error. Whoever has entered into the struggles
of his age will be willing, at the same time that he judges himself,
to be mild in his judgments of others, who, although they may
have been further carried away by those same struggles, have
preserved a seemly and becoming moderation. It is ihe principle
alone that is in question, and that cannot be judged too strictly.
I conclude with the golden words of one of the greatest men
of modern times in testimony of the truth, and in opposition, not
only to the vain attempt to amalgamate Christianity with the
])rinciple of modern ;/</i--culture, but also to the spirit which seeks
to reduce all minds to one mode of doctrinal conception — to the
stand-point which strives to make the piece-work of human knowl-
edge absolute. " The man who does not hold Christ's earthly
life, with all its miracles, to be as properly and really historical as
any event in the sphere of history, and who does not receive all
points of the Apostolic Creed with the fullest conviction, I do not
conceive to be a Protestant Christian. And as for that Christian-
ity which is such according to the fashion of the modern philoso-
phers and Pantheists, without a personal God, without immortal-
ity, without an individuality of man, without historical faith — it
may be a very ingcn'ous and s\.\h\\e philosophy, but it is no Chris-
tianity at all. Again and again have I said that I know not what
to do with a metaphysical God ; and that I will have no other but
the God of the Bible, who is heart to heart. Whoever can recon-
cile the metaphysical God with the God of the Bible, may try it,
and write symbolical books to suit all ages ; but he who admits the
absolute inexplicability of the main point, which can only be ap-
PREFACE. xxxi
proached by asymptotes, will never grieve at the impossibility of
possessing any system of religion."* May the man who, with rare
world-historical insight, was able to explain the signs of the times,
be heard of many !
Berlin, May Q, 1839.
* Lcbeii Niebuhr's, Thl. ii., 344. We cannot be too grateful to the publishers for put-
ting forth this treasure of sound feeling and profound truth.
PREFACE
TO
THE FOURTH EDITION.
1 HAVE sought, in this fourth edition, to improve, as far as I
could, both the matter and form of the work ; but do not deem it
necessary to add any thing to what has been said in former pref-
aces upon my mode of treating the subject. I have thought it
best, in spite ©f a desire to economize space, to repubhsh those
prefaces ; adding here and there a remark called for by the rela-
tions of the times, which I should have otherwise put into a separ-
ate preface. Although I would willingly have buried in oblivion
the unpleasant personal allusions (contained in the second pref-
ace) to a man whom I honour and esteem, I have considered it
necessary to republish it, in view of the truths which it contains,
and their bearing upon the times.
And now let my book, with the blessing of God, enter anew
among the strifes of the age : standing in the midst of which, I
shall not suffer myself to be shaken or perplexed b)^ the " rd sv
Hi.a(x) d[i,(j)07epo)d£v KreiveTai."
A. Neander.
Berlin, 3d August, 1815.
CONTENTS.
INTRODUCTION.
CHAPTER I.
THE IDEA OF THE HISTORY OF CHRIST IN GENERAL.
Pag6
5 1. The Indifference of Criticism rejected 1
§1 2. The Truth, that Christ is God-man, presupposed .... 2
^ 3. This Presupposition and the historical Accounts mutually confirm and
illustrate each other .........?
CHAPTER n.
SOURCES OF THE HISTORY OF CHRIST.
§ 4. Traditional Orison of the Synoptical Gospels ...... 6
§ 5. Genuineness of Joan's Gospel t . . . . . . • 6
§ 6. Results of Criticism . ......... 7
BOOK I.
BIRTH AND CHILDHOOD OF JESUS.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTION.
5 7. Scantiness of our Information in regard to this Period of Christ's Life ;
nothing further essential to the Interests of Religion . . .11
§ 8. Fundamentally opposite Modes of apprehending the Accounts . . 11
CHAPTER II.
THE MIRACULOUS CONCEPTION.
^ 9. The miraculous Conception demanded a priori, and confinned a pos-
teHori .......■•■•■
^ 10. No trace of a Mythus in the NaiTative. Such a Myth could not have
originated among the Jewi.sh People ...... 13
§ 11. Objections to the Credibility of the Narrative fi-om the subsequent Dis-
positions of Christ's Relations answered, (1) from the Nature of the
Case ; (2) from the Name .Jesus 1*5
$ 12. Analogical Ideas among the Heathen I''
CHAPTER III.
THE BIRTH AND CHILDHOOD OF CHRIST.
§ 13. The Birth of Christ in its Relations to the Jewish Theocracy . . 18
§ 14. The mii'aculous Events that accr)mpanied it . . . . .1!)
$15. The Taxing; Jesus bom at Bethlehem 20
13
xxxvi CONTENTS.
Pags
^ 16. The Aiinoiuicement of the Shepherds ....... 21
$ 17. The Sacrifice of " rurification," and the " Rausoin of the Fh-st-burn."
Then- Weight a.s Proof again.st the Mythical Theory . . . 23
§ 18. Simeon's prophetic Discourse ........ 24
$ 19. The longing of the Ileatiieu for a Saviour. The Star of the Wise Men 2.'>
$ 20. The Massacre of the Innocents, and the Flight into Egypt . . .27
$ 21. The Return to Nazareth 2S
$ 22. Brothers and Sisters of Jesus; the mention of them in the Gospel Nar-
rative a Proof of Credibility 29
§ 23. Consciousness of Messiahship in the Mind of Jesus. Christ among the
Doctor.^ 30
/
BOOK II.
THE MENTAL CULTURE OF JESUS: HIS LIFE TO THE
TIME OF HIS PUBLIC MINISTRY.
CHAPTER I.
JESUS NOT EDUCATED I.V THE THEOLOGICAL SCHOOLS OF THE JEWS.
§ 24. The Pharisees . . .1.->
$ 25. The Sadducees 35
$ 26. The Essenes 37
$ 27. The Alexandrian Jews 3'J
$ 28. Affinity of Christianity, as absolute Tmth, for the various opposing
Systems ............ 3!)
$ 29. Christ's Doctrine revealed from Withui, not received from Without . 3!)
§ 30. The popular Sentiment in regard to his Connexion with the Schools . 40
CHAPTER n.
THE LIFE OF JESUS TO THE OPENING OF HIS PUBLIC MINISTRY.
§31. Consciousness of Messiahship in Christ 41
BOOK III.
PREPARATIVES TO THE PUBLIC MINISTRY OF CHRIST.
PART L
OBJECTIVE PREPARATION: MINISTRY OF JOHN THE BAPTIST.
CHAPTER I.
UELATION OF THE BAPTIST TO THE JEWS.
5 32. How far the Baptist ret;it;e<i the Expectation of a Messiah . . .' -4.')
$ 33. Causes of Ob.scurity in the Accounts left us of the Baptist. Sources,
viz., tho EvangdistK, Joxcphus ....... AG
$ 34. The Baptist's mode f)f Life and Toacliing in the Desert . . . -IS
$ 35. John as Bajitist and Preacher of Repentance 4<)
$ 30. Relations of tho Plmrisees and Sadducees to tlie Baptist . . . .''.()
§ 37. Relations of the Baptist to the Peopl(>, and to the narrower Circle of
his own Disciples r^^
5 38. Joliii's Demands upon the People compared with those of Christ. His
huiuMc Opiuioa of his own Calling , .')2
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER II.
THE RELATION OK THE BAPTIST TO THE MESSIAH.
§ 39. The Baptist's Explauatiou of liis Relation to Messiah
by Water and by Fire
$ 40. The Baptist's Conception of Messiah's Kingdom .
§41. The Baptist's Recognition of Jesus as Messiah
(1) Import of his Baptism of Jesus
(2) The Continuance of his Ministry . .
(3) Possible Wavering in his Cou\'ictions
(4) His Message from Prison ....
(5) Conduct of his Disciples towards Jesus
§ 42. The Phenomena at the Baptism, and their Import
(1) No ecstatic Vision .....
(2) The Ebionitish View, and its Opposite
(3) Developement of the Notion of Baptism in New T(
(4) The Baptism of Christ not a Rite of Purification
(.5) But of Consecration to his Theocratic Reign .
(6) John's previous Acquaintance with Christ
(7) Explanation of John, i., 31 .
(8) The Vision and the Voice: intended exclusively for the Baptist
The Baptism
cstament
54
.'3.5
57
57
58
60
60
61
61
62
63
64
65
65
66
67
PART II.
SUBJECTIVE PREPARATION : THE TEMPTATION OF CHRIST.
CHAPTER I.
IMPORT OF THE INDIVIDUAL TEMPTATIONS.
§ 43. The Hunger 70
§44. The Pinnacle of the Temple 71
5 45. The World-Dominion 72
CHAPTER II.
IMPORT OF THE TEMPTATION AS A WHOLE.
§ 46. Fundamental Idea 73
$ 47. The Temptation not an inward one, but the Work of Satan . . 73
BOOK IV.
THE PUBLIC MINISTRY OF CHRIST ACCORDING TO ITS
REAL CONNEXION.
^
PART L
THE PLAN OP CHRIST.
CHAPTER I.
THE PLAN OF CHRIST l.\ GENERAL.
§ 48. Had Christ a conscious Plan ?......,. 79
$ 49. Connexion with the Old Testament Theocracy 81
$50. Christ's steadfast Consciousness of Messiahship 81
coNTEr rs.
Page
5 51. His Plan underwent no Alterations
§ 52. Two-fold Bearing of the Kingdom of God. (1) An inward, spiritual
Power: (2) A world-renewing Power
, CHAPTER II.
' THE PLAN OF CHRIST IN ITS RELATION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT IDEA OF THE
KINGDOM OF GOD.
$ 53. Christ's observance of the Je-wish Worship and Law .
§ 54. His Manifestation greater than the Temple
$ 55. The Conversation with the Samaritan Woman ....
$ 56. The " Destroying" and " FulfiUing" of the Law ....
$ 57. The Interpolation in Luke, vi., 4. (Cod. Cant.) ....
86
89
90
91
92
CHAPTER III.
' ' NEW FOR.M OF THE IDEA OF THE PERSON OF THE THEOCRATIC KING.
$ 58. The Names " Son of God" and " Son of Man" 94
§ 59. Import of the Title " Son of Man," as used by Clirist himself. Rejec-
tion of Alexandrian and other Analogies 95
§ 60. Import of the Title "Son of God" 96
(1) John's Sense of the Title accordant with that of the other Evan-
gelists 96
(2) And confirmed by Paul's 97
PART 11.
THE MEANS AND INSTRUMENTS OP CHRIST.
CHAPTER I.
THE MEANS OF CHRIST IN GENERAL.
$61. Christ a Spiritual Teacher 99
$62. Different Theatres of liis Work as Teacher 99
$ 63. Choice and Training of the Apostles to be subordinate Teachers . 100
CHAPTER II.
Christ's mode of teaching in regard to its method and form,
a. its general principles.
§ 64. His Mode of Teaching adapted to the Stand-point of his Hearers . . 101
§ 65. His Truth presented in Ger-tn to be developed : Seeds of Thought . 102
$ 66. Its Results dependent upon the Susceptibility of the Hearers . . 103
$ 67. This con-esponds to the general Law of Developement of the Kingdom
ofGod 106
B. CHRIST'S USE OF PARABLES.
$ 68. Idea of the Parable. Distinction between Parable, Fable, and Mythus 107
$ 69. Order in wliich the Parables were delivered. Their Perfection. Mode
of interpreting them 108
$ 70. Christ's Teacliing not confined to Parables, but conveyed also in longer
Discourses . . . . . . . . . . .109
§ 71. John's Gos[)el contains chiefly connected and profound Discourses, and
why? 110
$ 72. The Parable of the Shepherd, in John, compared with the Parables m
the other Gospels HI
CONTENTS. xxxix
C. CHRIST'S USE OF ACCOMMODATION.
$73. Necessity of AccommoLlatiou . . 113
$74. Distinction between Material and Formal Accommodation . . . 114
$ 75. Christ's Application of Passages from Old Testament .... 115
CHAPTER III.
CHOICE AND TRAINING OF THE APOSTLES AS TEACSERS.
§ 76. Christ's Relation to the Twelve. Significance of the Number. The
Name Apostle . . . . . . . . . . . Ilti
$77. Choice of the Apostles. Of Judas Iscariot 117
$78. The Apostles uneducated Men 119
$ 79. Two Stages in their Dependence upon Christ 120
$80. Christ's peculiar Method of Training the Apostles . . . .121
CHAPTER IV.
THE CHURCH AND BAPTISM.
$ 81. Foundmg of the Church. Its Objects 122
$ 82. Name of the Church. Its Form traced back to Christ . . . 123
$83. Later Institution of Baptism as an initiatoiy Rite . .... 126
CHAPTER V.
THE MIRACLES OF CHRIST: THEIR CHARACTER AND OBJECTS.
A. THE OBJECTIVE CHARACTER OF MIRACLES.
$ 84. Connexion of Christ's Miracles with his Mode of Teaching . . 127
$ 85. Negative Element 127
$ 86. Positive Element. Teleological Object 129
$ 87. Relation of Miracles to the Course of Nature 130
$ 88. Relation of the individual Miracles to the highest Miracle, viz., the
Manifestation of Christ ......... 131
$ 89. Relation of Miracles to History 13ii
B. THE MIRACLES OF CHRIST AS VIEWED BY HIS CONTEMPORARIES.
$ 90. Miracles deemed an essential Sign of Messiahship .... 132
C. CHRIST'S OWN ESTIMATE OF HIS MIRACLES.
$91. Apparent Discrepancies : Mode of removing them .... 134
(1) Two-fold Object of the Mu-acles . 134
(2) A Susceptibility for Impression presupposed ..... 135
$92. His Explanation of the " Sign of the Prophet Jonah" .... 136
$ 93. His Declaration, " Destroy this Temple," &c. . . . . . 137
$ 94. His Distinction between the Material and Formal in the Miracles . 137
$ 95. His Appeals to Miracles as Testimony. Three different Stages of Faith 138
$ 96. The Communication of the Divine Life the highest Miracle . . .140
CHAPTER VL
THE MIRACLES OP CHRIST CONSIDERED IN REGARD TO SUPERNATURAL AGENCY.
$ 97. Transition from the Natural to the Supernatural in the Miracles . .140
A. MIRACLES WROUGHT UPON HUMAN NATURE.
I. The Healing of Diseases.
$ 98. Use of Spiritual Agencies. Faith demanded for the Cure . . . 141
$99. Use of Physical Agencies 142
xl CONTENTS.
$ 100 Relation between Sin and Physical Evil. Jewish Idea of Punitive
Justice. Christ's Doctrine on the Subject . . . . .143
II. Demoniacal Possession.
$ 101. Two e.xtreme Theories. Analogous Phenomena . . . .145
$ 102. Comiexion of the Phenomena with the State of the Times . . . 146
$ 103. Accommodation of the two extreme Theories ..... 147
$ 104. Cluist's Explanations of Demonism pm'ely Spu'itual. His Accom-
modation to the Conceptions of the Demoniacs . . . .149
$ 10-3. DitTerences between Christ's Cures of Demoniacs and the Operations
of the Jewish Exorcists . .150
III. The Raising of the Dead.
$ 106. Different Views on these Miracles 151
B. MIRACLES WROUGHT UPO.N MATERIAL NATURE.
$107. Most obvious Manifestations of SujieruatTiral Power .... 152
BOOK V.
THE PUBLIC MINISTRY OF CHRIST ACCORDING TO ITS
CHRONOLOGICAL CONNEXION.
INTRODUCTION.
ON THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE SYNOPTICAL GOSPELS AND
JOHN.
$ 108. Differences in Chronology ......... 155
$109. Differences as to the Theatre of Christ's Labours . . . .155
$ 110. Proof that Christ frequently exercised his Ministiy in Judc;i and
Jerusalem ........... 1j6
PART L
FROM THE COMMENCEMENT OF CHRIST'S PUBLIC MINISTRY TO THE
TRIUMPHAL ENTRY.
CHAPTER I.
JESUS AND JOH.S THE BAPTIST. THE FIRST DISCI Pl.r.S.
$111. Messjigc of the Sanhedrim to John at Bothabara . . . .159
$ 112. John points to Jesus as the Suffering Mossiali, and teslilies to his Iligln r
Dignity IGO
$ 113. John and Andrew, Disciples of the Baptist, attacli thcm.selves to Jesus.
Ciradual Attraction of others ........ 162
CHAPTER II.
FIRST PUBLIC TEACHING OF CHRIST. CAPERNAUM.
$ 114. Miraculous Draught of Fishefl. Effect on Peter, Andrew, James, and
John 162
$115. The Calling of Nathanael 1G4
CHAPTER III.
CHRIST AT C A N A.
J 116. The Water changed into Wine. Character and Import of the Miracle lofi
CONTENTS. xU
CHAPTER IV.
FIRST JOURNEY TO JERUSALEM TO ATTExVD THE FEAST OF PASSOVER.
Page
1(J8
170
17:5
173
174
175
177
§117. The Cleansing of the Temple ....
. § 118. The Saying of Christ, " Destroy this Temple," &c.
§ 119. Christ and Nicodemus . . . .
(1) Dispositions of the Pharisees and People: of Nico
(2) The New Birth
(3) The Bu-th of " Water and tlie Spirit" .
^,rf, (4) Christ intimates his own Sufferings
CHAPTER V.
JESUS AT .ENON, NEAR SALIM.
$ 120. Jealousy of John's Disciples. Final Testimony of the Baptist. His
Imprisonment . . . . . . . . . . .178
CHAPTER VI.
RETURN THROUGH SAMARIA TO GALILEE: THE SAMARITAN WOMAN.
§ 121. First Impressions of the Samaritan Woman . . . . .180
$ 122. Christ's Decision between the Worship of the Jews and that of the
Samaritans 181
§ 123. The Worship of God in "Spirit and in Truth" 182
$ 124. Bearing of the Spii'itual Worship upon Practical Life . . . .183
§ 125. Christ Glances at the future Progress of his Kingdom, and at his own
■*■ Death 184
§ 126. Subsequent State of the Samaritans ....... 185
CHAPTER VII.
Christ's first general ministry in galilee.
$ 127. Christ heals the Nobleman's Son. Chooses Capernaum as his Abode 185
§ 128. Christ appears in the Synagogue at Nazareth. His Life is Endangei-ed 186
$ 129. Parable of the Sower. Christ's Explanation of it .... 188
§ 130. Parable of the Draw-net: of the Wheat and Tares . . . .190
§ 131. Christ subdues tlie Storm. Character of the Miracle. Its moral
Import 191
§ 132. The Gadarene Demoniac ......... 192
$ 133. Return to the west Side of the Sea. Healing of the Issue of Blood . 195
§ 134. Raising of Jairas's Daughter, and of the Widow's Son at Nain . .196
$ 135. Doubts of John Baptist in Prison. His Message. Christ's Testimony
concerning Him. Relation of Old and New Dispensations . . 198
§ 136. Relation of the People to the Baptist and to Christ. The Easy Yoke
and the Light Burden. Jewish Legalism contrasted witli Christian
Liberty . . 201
$ 137. Christ's Conversation with tlie Pharisees in regard to his Disciples'
Mode of Life. The Morals of Fasting 203
$ 138. Pai'able of the New Patch on the Old Garment : of the New Wine in
Old Bottles 205
§ 139. Forms of Prayer. The Lord's Prayer 208
§ 140. Christ and the Magdalen at Simon's House. Reciprocal Action of
Love and Faith in the Forgiveness of Sins . . . . .211
^ 141. Call of Matthew the Publican. The Feast 213
xlii CONTENTS.
Page
$ 142. Christ's different Modes of Reply to those who questioned his Con-
duct in consorting with Sinners. Parable of the Prodigal Son : of
the Pharisee and Publican 214
CHAPTER VIII.
Christ's second journey to Jerusalem.
V^ 143. The Miracle of the Pool of Bethesda. The Words of Christ in the
Temi)le to the Man healed 217
§ 144. Christ accused of Sabbath-breakmg and Blasphemy. His Discourse
in Vindication 218
§ 145. The Discourse continued: Christ intimates his greater Works. His
Judgment, and the Resurrection 211)
§ 14G. The Discourse continued: Christ Appeals to the Testimony of his
Works 220
^ $ 147. The Discourse continued : Incapacity of the Jews to Understand the
Testimony of God in the Scriptures 221
CHAPTER IX.
Christ's second course of extended labour in galilee.
The Sermon on the Mount.
Introduction.
$ 148. (1) Place and Circumstances 223
(2) Subject-matter of the Sermon; viz., the Kingdom of God as the
Aim of the Old Dispensation 223
(3) Two Editions of the Sermon: Matthew's and Luke's . . . 224
^^^ (4) Its Pervadmg Rebuke of Carnal Conceptions of the Messiahship . 224
-''' I. The Beafitndes.
$ 149. Moral Requisites for Entering the Kingdom of God .... 224
(1) Poverty of Spirit 224
(2) Meekness . 225
(3) Hungering and Thirsting after Righteousness .... 22«
^ 150. Moral Result of Entering the Kingdom. " The Pure in Heart see God" 22fi
$ 151. Moral Relations of the Members of the Kingdom to their Fellow-men;
viz., they are " Peace-makers," and " Persecuted" .... 227
II. Inflztence of the Members of the Kingdom of God in Renewing the World.
§ 152. The Disciples of Christ the " Light" and "Salt" of the Earth . . 228
III. The Laic of Christian Life the Fulfilment of the Old Late.
5 153. FnlHlling the Law and the Proi^hets 22r>
$ 154. Fulfilling the Law in the Higher Sense. General Contrast between
the Juridical and Moral Stand-points 23]
$ 155. Fulfilling the Law in the Higher Sense. Special Examples, viz., (1.)
Murder; (2.) Adultery; (3.) Divorce; (4.) Peijury; (5.) Revenge;
(0.) National Exclusiveness 232
IV. True Religion contrasted with the Mock Piety of the Pharisees.
$ 156. (1.) Alms, Prayer, and Fasting; (2.) Rigid Judgment of Self, Mild
Judgment of others; (3.) Test of Sincerity 235
V. Warning to the Childrcti of the Kingdom.
$157. E.xhortation to Self-denial. Warning against Seducers . . . 23S
VI. True and False Disciples Contrasted.
§ 158. Test of Disciplcship 237
CONTENTS. xliii
Page
$ 159. Healing of the Leper on the Way to Capernaum .... 237
$160. Healhig uf the Centui-jon's Slave at Capernaum 238
$ 161. Healing of the Deaf and Dumb Demoniac. Charge of a League with
Beelzebub reflited 23D
$ 162. Conjurations of the Jewish Exorcists 241
§ 163. Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, and against the Son of Man . 243
$104. Puqiose of Christ's Relatives to confine him as a Limatic . . . 244
_^$ 165. Demand for a Sign answered by " the Sign of the Prophet Jonah" . 245
.-^ % 166. Discourse at a Feast against the Pharisees and Lawyers . . . 246
$ 167. The Disciples Warned against the Pharisees. Power of Trath . . 248
$ 168. Christ Heals a Paralytic at Capernaum. Charge of Blasphemy Re-
pelled 250
5 169. Withered Hand healed on the Sabbath. Objections anticipated . 252
% 170. Infirm Woman healed on the Sabbath. Pharisees disconcerted . . 253
$171. Precedence at Feasts. Parable of the Great Supper .... 254
$ 172. The Pharisees attack the Disciples for plucking Corn on the Sabbath.
Christ defends them 255
$ 173. Discourse against the merely outward Cleanliness of the Pharisees . 256
$174. Ti-ial Mission of the Apostles in Galilee 257
(1) Objects of the Mission. Powers of the Missionaries . . . 257
(2) Instnictions to the Missionaries. Reasons for the Exclusion of
Samaritans and Heathen 258
(3) Instnictions continued : the Apostles to rely on Providence . . 260
$ 175. Various Opinions entertained of Jesus 260
'^$ 176. Return of the Apostles. Feeding of the Five Thousand . . . 261
$ 177. Christ Walks upon the Waters 264
$ 178. Christ in the Synagogue at Capernaum 255
(1) Carnal Mind of the Multitude rebuked 265
^_^ (2) Christ the "Bread of Life" 266
,>-''"^ ^(3) Eating Christ's Flesh and Drinking liis Blood . . . .267
'"^ (4) Sifting of the Apostles. Confession of Peter .... 269
CHAPTER X.
JESUS IN NORTH GALILEE, AND ON THE WAY TO CESAREA PHILIPPI.
$ 179. Reasons of the Journey 270
$ 180. Blind Man cured at Bethsaida. Peter's Second Confession. Power
of the Keys 270
,.-$ 181. The Disciples forbidden to reveal Christ's Messianic Dignity. Peter's
y Weakness rebuked 272
$ 182. Monitions to the Apostles 273
(1) Wisdom of Serpents and Harmlessness of Doves . . . . .273
(2) Parable of the Unjust Steward 274
(3) " Friends of the Mammon of Unrighteousness" .... 275
$ 183. Caution against impradent Zeal 277
$ 184. The Syro-PhcEuician Woman. (1.) Her Prayer; (2.) Her Repulse;
(3.) Her persevering Faith; (4.) The Result 279
$ 185. The Transfigiu-atiou 281
$ 186. Elias a Foremimer of Messiah . . . . . . . . 283
$187. Cure of a Demoniac, after vain Attempts of the Disciples . . . 283
$ 188. The Disciples' Failure explained. The Power of Faith. Prayer and
Fasting 285
$ 189. Return to Capernaum. Dispute for Precedence. The Child a Pattern.
Acting ui the Name of Christ 286
xliv CONTENTS.
rage
$ 190. Chi-ist's two Sayings, "He that is not against you is for you;" and,
" He tliat is not /or me is against me" ■ ~88
§ 191. The Stater in the Fish 290
CIIArXER XI.
Christ's journey to Jerusalem to attend the feast of tabernacles.
$192. His Precautions against the Sanhedrim -91
$ 193. Christ E.vi)lains the Nature of his Teaching as Divine Revelation . 292
$ 194. The Pharisees attem^Jt to arrest Him 293
$ 195. Christ a "Spring of Living Water," and the "Light of the World."
Validity of his Testimony of Himself 294
$ 196. Connexion between Steadfastness, Tmth, and Freedom . . . 296
$ 197. Vain Attempts of the Sanhedrim. Finst Decision against Christ . 297
$ 198. Man born Blind healed on the Sabbath. Individual Sufferings not to
be judged a Punishment for Siu 298
6 199. Attempts of the Sanhedrim to cornipt the restored Man. " The Sight
of the Blind, and the Bluidness of the Seeing" .... 300
§ 200. Parable of the Good Shepherd. The Parable extended . . . 301
§201. Divisions among the People. Christ returns to Galilee . . . 302
CHAPTER XII.
RETURN FROM CAPERNAUM TO JERUSALEM THROUGH SAMARIA.
$ 202. Reasons for the Journey through Samaria 303
§ 203. Mission of the Seventy. Significance of the Number .... 304
§ 204. Insti-uctions to the Seventy. The Wo to the Unbeheving Cities . 30.'>
$ 20.>. Exultation of the Disciples. Christ warns them against Vanity . . 30G
§ 20G. The Kingdom revealed to Babes. Blessedness of the Disciples in be-
holding it 307
^ § 207. Requisites of Discipleship. Self-Denial, Submission, taking up the
^ Cross 309
§ 208. Self-Denial further illustrated: Pai-ables of the building of the Towei-.
of the Warring King, of the Sacrificial Salt, of the Treasure hid in a
Field, of the Pearl of Great Price 311
§ 209. Cla-ist refu.ses to interfere in Civil Disputes. His Decision in the Case
of the Adulteress . . . .312
$210. Christ Intimates the Future . . . . . . . .314
5 211. Parables of the Mustard Seed and the Leaven 314
^^§212. The Fire to be Kindled. The Baptism of Sufterings. Christianity not
-^ Peace, but a Sword 315
$213. Tiie Kingdom of God Cometh not with Observation .... 317
$214. Christ's personal Return and the Day of Judgment .... 317
$ 215. Exhortation to Watch for Christ's Coming. The importunate Widow 318
$216. Call to entire Devotion. The Straight Gate 319
$ 217. The Signs of the Times 320
$ 218. Tlie contracted Jewish Theocracy Rejected .... 321
$219. Parable of Dives and Lazanis . . . . .321
$ 220. Persecutions of Ilerod Autipas . 323
>'$221. Christ Speaks of Ills Death 323
$ 222. Healing of tlie Ten Lepers. Ingratitude of the Nine. Gratitude of
the one Samaritan 324
CONTENTS.
xlv
CHAPTER XIII.
Christ's stay at Jerusalem during the feast of dedication.
Pas?
9 223. His Statemeiit of the Proofs of bis Messiahsliij). His Oueuess with
the Father. He defends his Words from the Old Testament . . 32fj
CHAPTER XIV.
CHRIST IN PERjEA (bETHABARa).
§ 224. His Decision on the Question of Divorce. Celibacy
I 225. The Blessing of Little Children ....
§ 226. Convei'sation with the rich Ruler of the Synagogue
§ 227. The Dangers of Wealth
^ 223. The Reign of Believers with Christ .
32,S
331
332
334
335
^
CHAPTER XV.
CHRIST IN BETHANY.
§ 229. Family of Lazarus. Martha and Maiy. Their different Tendencies 33'i
9 230. Sickness of Lazarus. Christ's Reply to the Messengers . . . 337
$231. Death of Lazanis. Christ's Conversation with the Disciples in regard
to it 338
§ 232. Death of Lazarus. Christ's Conversation with Martha ; whh Mary . 340
§ 233. Resurrection of Lazarus. Christ's Prayer 342
§ 234. IMeasures of the Sanhedrim 343
CHAPTER XVL
CHRIST IN EPHRAIJI.
$ 235. The Necessity for his Death 344
CHAPTER XVIL
CHRIST'S LAST PASSOVER JOURNEY TO JERUSALEM.
§ 236. .Tourney to Jericho. Blind Bartimeus 345
§ 237. Christ Lodges with Zaccheus 346
ij 238. The Request of Salome. Ambition of the Disciples rebuked . . 347
§ 239. Parable of the Pounds 348
6 240. Parable of the Laboin-ers in the Vineyard ...... 349
§ 241. Passion for Rewards rebuked ........ 350
$ 242. Christ Anointed by Mary iu Bethany 351
PART II.
FROM THE TRIUMPHAL ENTRY TO THE ASCEN.'^IOK.
CHAPTER L
FROM THE TRIUMPHAL ENTRY TO THE LAST SUPPER
§ 243. The Entiy into .Jerusalem ......
§ 244. Sadness of Christ at Sight of the City .
§1 245. The Fig-tree Cursed. Parable of the Fig-tree .
§ 246. Machinations of the Pharisees .....
§ 247. Union of the Pharisees and Herodians. Tribute to Caesar
§ 248. Christ's Reply to the Pharisees about the Resurrection
§ 249. His Exposition of the First and Great Commandment
§ 250. Parable of the Good Samaritan
354
3.56
357
359
•360
361
3C2
363
xlvi CONTENTS.
Page
§251. Christ's Interpretation of Psalm ex., 1 364
$ 2.52. The Widow's Mite 366
§ 253. Christ predicts the Divine Judgments upon Jerusalem . . . 366
§ 254. He predicts the Coming of the Kingdom, and the Second Advent . 367
§ 255. Tai-able of the Maniage Feast of the King's Son .... 369
$256. Tarable of the wicked Vine-dressers 371
$ 257. Parable of the Talents compared with that of the Pounds . . . 372
§ 258. Parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins 373
$ 259. Christ teaches that Faith must prove itself by Works . . . . 373
$ 260. The Heathens with Christ 375
$ 261. Christ's Straggles of Soul. The Voice from Heaven . . .376
$ 262. Chri.st closes his Public Ministry 373
§263. Machinations of his Enemies 378
§264. Motives of Judas in Betraying Clirist 379
. (1) Avarice? 380
(2) False Views of Christ's Messiahship ? 381
(3) Gradually developed Hostility? 383
CHAPTER II.
THE LAST SUPPER.
§ 265. Object of Christ in the Last Supper 384
§266. Christ's washing of the Disciples' Feet 386
§ 267. His Words with, and concerning, his Betrayer 387
§ 268. Institution of the Eucharist 383
CHAPTER III.
Christ's last discourses at table with the disciples.
§ 269. The New Commandment 391
§270. The Request of Peter : Christ predicts his Denial .... 392
§271. He predicts Danger to his Disciples . . . . . . . 392
§ 272. He consoles the Disciples . 394
§ 273. Conversation with Philip and Thomas 395
§274. Of Prayer in the Name of Christ. He promises the Comforter . . 3IJ7
§ 275. Christ's Salutation of" Peace." Its Import 398
CHAPTER IV.
DISCOURSES OF CHRIST AFTER RISING FROM TABLE.
§276. Similitude of the Vine and Branches. The Law of Love . . . 399
§ 277. Final Promise of the Holy Ghost 400
§ 278. Christ's Prayer as High-priest 402
CHAPTER V.
G E T H S E M A N E.
§ 279, Comparison of John's Gospel with tlie Synoptical Gospels . . • 404
§ 280. The Agony in the Garden 407
§281. The Arrest. Peter's Haste rebuked 403
CHAPTER VL
THE TRIAL AND CO.VDEMNATION.
§282. Night. Examination before Annas .410
^ 283. Morning. Examination before Caiaphaa 41]
CONTENTS. xlvii
§284. Dotible-dealing of the Sanhedrim 412
$285. Christ before Pilate. His Kmgdom not of this VVorid . . . 413
§286. Christ sent to Herod .415
§287. Pilate's Fruitless Efforts to save Christ. Dream of Pilate's Wife . 415
§ 288. Last Conversation with Pilate. The Sentence 416
§ 289. Christ led to Calvaiy. Simon of Cyrene 417
CHAPTER Vn.
THE CRUCIFIXION.
§ 290. Details of the Crucifixion 418
§ 291. Christ prays for his Enemies. The two Thieves .... 419
§ 292. Christ's Exclamation, Psalm xxii. His last Words .... 420
§293. Phenomena accompanying the Death of Christ 121
CHAPTER Vm.
THE RESURRECTION.
§294. Did Clnist predict his Resun-eclion ? 422
§ 295. Sudden Transition of the Apostles from Dejection to Joy. Argument
from this 423
§ 29G. Was the Reappearance of Clu-ist a Vision ? 424
§ 297. Was Christ's a real Death? 425
§ 298. The Resurrection intended only for Believers 428
§ 299. The Women, Peter, and John at the Grave 428
§ 300. Christ appears to the Women ; to Mary ; to the two Disciples on the
Way to Emmaus 429
§301. Christ appears to Peter ; to all the Apostles except Thomas . . 431
§302. Christ appears to five hundred Believers; to James; to all the
Apostles. Conversation with Thomas *. 432
§ 303. Christ appears in Galilee to the Seven on Genesareth . . . 434
§ 304. Christ appears in Galilee for the last Time 435
§ 305. Christ appears for the last Time near Jerasalem .... 435
CHAPTER IX.
THE ASCENSION.
§306. Connexion of the Ascension vdth the Resurrection .... 436
§ 307. The Ascension necessary for the Conviction of the Apostles . . 437
§ 308. Connexion of all the supernatural Facts in Christ's Manifestation . 438
INTRODUCTION.
CHAPTER I.
THE IDEA OF THE HISTORY OF CHRIST IN GENERAL.
§ 1. The Indifference of Criticism rejected.
IT has been often said that, in order to true inquiry, we must take noth-
ing for granted* (Of late this statement has been reiterated anew,
with special reference to the exposition of the I-tife of Christ. At the
outset of our work we refuse to meet such a demand. To comply with
it is impracticable ;'• the very attempt contradicts the sacred laws of our
being. We cannot entirely free ourselves from presuppositions, which
are born with our nature, and which attach to the fixed course of prog-
ress in which we ourselves are involved. They control our conscious-
ness, whether we will or no ; and the supposed freedom from them is,
in fact, nothing else but the exchange of one set for another. \ Some of
these prepossessions, springing from a higher necessity, founded in the
moral order of the universe, and derived from the eternal lawst of the
Creator, constitute the very ground and support of our nature. From
such we must not free ourselves.
But we are ever in peril of exchanging these legitimate sovereigns
of our spiritual being, against which nothing but arbitrary will can re-
bel, for the prepossessions of a self-created or traditional prejudice,
which have no other than an arbitrary origin, and which rule by no
better title than usurpation. But for this peril, the way of the science
of life would be as safe as the way of life itself. Life moves on in the
midst of such diversified and ever-commingling prepossessions, espe-
cially in our own time, which, torn by contrarieties (contrarieties, how-
ever, which subserve a higher wisdom by balancing each other), forms
the period of transition to a new and better creation. On the one hand
we behold efforts to bring the human mind again into bondage to the
host of arbitrary prejudices which had long enough enslaved it ; and,
* [Vora7isselzunc!'sIosigkeU : "freedom from presuppositions."]
t Of which, saj-s Sophocles, beautifully,
naTYip iibvns, oiiSi viv ^vara
<f>vaii avipoiv ctiktcv, 6vic
ydv iroTtXdda KaTaKoindau
Itiyai fV TOVTOli 5soj
ovie ytipduKu.
1
2 INTRODUCTION.
on the other, we see a justifiable protest against these prejudices run-
ning into the extreme of rejecting even those holy prepossessions which
ought to rule our spiritual being, and which alone can offer it true
freedom.
What, then, is the duty of Science ? Must she dismiss all prepos-
sessions, and work out her task by unassisted thought % Far from it.
From nothing nothing comes; the Father of spirits alone is a Creator.
Empty indeed is that enthusiasm which seeks only the mere sound of
truth — abstract, formal truth.* This absolute abnegation of all pre-
possessions would free the soul from those holy ties by which alone it
can connect itself with its source — the source of all truth — and com-
prehend it by means of its revelations in humanity. The created spirit
cannot deny its dependence upon God, the only creative Spirit ; and
it is its obvious destination to apprehend the revelation of God in crea-
tion, in nature, and in history. So, the work of science can only be to
distinguish the prepossessions which an inward necessity constrains us
to recognize, from such as are purely voluntary. Indeed, the healthful-
ness of our spiritual life depends upon our ridding ourselves of the latter,
and, at the same time, yielding in lowliness and singleness of heart to
the former, as the law of the Creator, as the means by which light from
heaven may be conveyed to our minds. All that the intellect ha?, to do
in regard to these last is to demonstrate their necessity, and to show
that our being contradicts itself in rebelling against them.
§ 2. The Truth, that Christ is God-Man, presitpjwscd.
What, then, is the special presupposition with which we must ap-
proach the contemplation of the Life of Christ 1 It is one on which
hangs the very being of the Christian as such ; the existence of the
Christian Church, and the nature of Christian consciousness.f It is
* It is one of Pascal's best thouglits, that " On se fait niie idole de la verity mCnue : car
la veritc hors de la cliarite n'est pas Dieu ; c'est son image, et une idole, qu'il no faat point
aimer, ni adorer, et encore moius faut-il aimer ou adorer son contraLre, qui est le men-
songe."
t It was one of the epoch-making iadica-tiotis of Schleiermacher's inflaence upon theol-
ogy that he succeeded in stamping this phrase (Christian consciousness) as current, with
the meaning that he assigned to it, in an age which (although some men, blind to the les-
sons of history, look back upon it longingly as the golden age of our nation) was guiilod
only by the naked understanding, and destitute at once of faith and of true historical insiLrht.
He used it to denote Christianity as an undeniable, self-rcvoaling power, entering into the
life of humanity ; an immediate, internal power in the spiritual world, from which wc-nt
forth, and is ever going forth, the regeneration of the life of man, and which produces phe-
nomena which can be explained in no other way. This phrase, and tlie thought whidi it
expresses, arc able to maintain their ground against that formalism of thought which is so
hostile to every thing immediate, and wishes to substitute empty abstractions for the living
powers that move the human race, as well as against that low and mean view of the world
(impertinently obtrusive as it has been of late) which owns no jjower above those which
build railways and set steam-engines agoing. As the intuitive consciousness of God in-
dicates to the human niiud the existence, the omnipresent power, and the self-revelation of
INTRODUCTION. 3
one at whose touch of power the dry bones of the old world sprung up
in all the vigour of a new creation. It gave birth to all that culture (the
modei-n as distinguished from the ancient) from which the Germanic
nations received their peculiar intellectual life, and from which the
emancipation of the mind, grown too strong for it* bonds, was devel-
oped in the Reformation. It is the very root and ground of our mod-
ern civilization ; and the latter, even in its attempts to separate from
this root, must rest upon it : indeed, should such attempts succeed, it
must dissolve into its original elements, and assume an entirely new
form. It is, in a word, the belief that Jesus Christ is the Son of God in
a sense lohich cannot be j^'t'cdicated of any human hcing, — the perfect
image of the personal God in the form of that humanity that was es-
tranged from him ; that in him the source of the Divine life itself in
humanity appeared ; that by him the idea of humanity was realized.
§ 3. This presupposed Truth and the Historical Accounts mutually con-
firm and illustrate each other.
But as man's higher nature can only reach its true destiny in Chris-
tian consciousness, from which the great First Truth just mentioned is
inseparable, it is necessary that this first truth should be shown to be
essential also to the general consciousness of man. That it is so can
be proved from its harmony with the universal and essential prepos-
sessions of human nature ; but the exhibition of this proof belongs more
properly to the department of Apologetics. It is shown to be a neces-
sary and not a voluntary prepossession ; first, because it satisfies a fun-
damental want of human nature, a want created by history, and fore-
shadowing its own fulfilment ; and, secondly, because this view ot
Christ's person arose from the direct impression which his appearance
among men made upon the eye-witnesses, and, through them, upon the
whole human race. This image of Christ, which has always propa-
gated itself in the consciousness of the Christian Church, originated in,
and ever points back to, the revelation of Christ himself, without which,
indeed, it could never have arisen. As man's limited intellect could
never, without the aid of revelation, have originated the idea of God,
so the image of Christ, of which we have spoken, could never have
sorung from the consciousness of sinful humanity, but must be regai'd-
ed as the reflection of the actual life of such a Christ. It is Christ's
self-revelation, made, through all generations, in the fragments of his
history that remain, and in the workings of his Spirit which inspires
a personal Deity, so does this " Christian consciousness" testify tliat Christ lived, and that
he continues, by his Spirit, to operate upon mankind. The works of creation only reveal
God to him who already has a consciousness of the Divine existence ; for he who has not
God within can find him nowhere. So it is only he who has a " Christian consciousness"
that can recognize Christ in the fragments of tradition and the. manifestations of history,
or that can comprehend the history of Christ and his Church.
4 INTRODUCTION.
these fragments, and enables us to recognize in them one complete
whole.* It is a stream of the Divine Life which has spread abroad
through all ages since the establishment of the Christian Church. And
the peculiar mark of this Divine Life is precisely this, that it is ground-
ed in a consciousness of absolute dependence upon Christy that it is
nothing else but a constant renewing after the image of Christ. But
as we often find this stream darkened and troubled, wo are necessarily
led back to Him, the well-spring from whom the full-flowing fountain
of Divine Life gushes forth in all its purity; the Son of God, and the
Redeemer of men. He who could with Divine confidence present
himself as such to mankind, and call all men to come unto him to satis-
fy the cravings of their higher nature, must have had within himself
the authority of an infallible consciousness.
Now if we can show that the Life of Christ, without the aid of the
First Truth which forms the gi'ound of our conception of it, must be
unintelligible, while, on the contrary, with its assistance, we can frame
the Life into a harmonious whole, then its claims will be established
even in the exposition of the Life itself t Nay, the idea of Christ
*" Strauss, iu his " Lcben Jesu" (part ii., p. 719), has drawn a just distinction between
the abstract idea of human perfection which is involved iu oar consciousness of sinfuhiess,
and seems inseparable from our natural tendency to the idea of God, and the " actual (con-
crete) working out of the picture, with the traits of individual reality." In relation to this
last he says, " Such a faultless picture could not be exhibited by a sinful man in a sinfizl
age; but," adds he, "such an age, itself not fVee from these defects, would not bo conscious
of them ; and if the picture is only skc/cked, and stands in need of much illustration, it may,
even in a later and more clearsighted age, willing to aiTord favorable illustrations, be re
garded as faultless." In opposition to this, we have to say that the picture of the Life of
Christ which has been handed down to us does not exhibit the spirit of that age, but a far
higher Spirit, which, manifesting itself in the lineaments of the picture, exerted a regen-
erating influence not only in that age, but on all succeeding generations. The image of hu-
man perfection, concretely presented in the Life of Christ, stands in manifold contradiction
to the tendencies of humanity in that period ; no one of them, no combination of them, dead,
as they were, could account for it. Whence,' then, in that impure age, came such a pic-
ture (a picture which the age itself could not completelj' understand, of which the age could
only now and then seize a congenial trait to make a caiicature of), the contemplating of
which raised the human rare of that and following ages to a new developemeut of spiritual
life ? Thestudy of this picture has given anew view of the destiny of humanity ; a new con-
ception of what tire ideal of human virtue should be, and a new theory of morals: all which
vanish, however, when we withdraw our gaze from its lineaments. The spirit of ethics,
which had taken to itself only certain features of the picture broken from their connexion
with the whole, and was corrupted by foreign elements that had bound themselves up with
the Christian consciousness, was imrified again iu contemplating the nnmutilated historical
Prototype in the days of the Reformation. And whenever the spirit of the age cuts itself
loose, cither in the popular turn of thought or in the schools of philosophy, from this his-
torical relation, it estranges itself also from the ethics of Christianity, and sets up a new
and dill'erent ideal of perfection from that which the revelation of Christ has grounded in
the consciousness of man.
So much for what Strauss, 1. c, and Baur (Gnosis, p. C55), have said against Schkier-
mocker.
t T«f iiToOiaiii Ttoiovficvoi uvk ap\ai, aWit t'o oiri viroOcaeti, oiov iiriBdaeii TC nai hpjiai, as Plato
says, Id a different couiicxiun, at the end of the sixth book of the Republic.
INTRODUCTION. 5
which has come down to \is through Christian consciousness (the chief
element of which is the impress which He himself left upon the souls
of the Apostles) will, by comparison with the living manifestation [i. e.,
of Christ in his life), be more and more distinctly defined and devel-
oped in its separate features, and more and more freed from foreign
elements.
So it is in considering the life of any man who has materially and
beneficially affected the progi'ess of the race, especially if the results
of his labours have touched upon our own interests. We form in ad-
vance some idea of such a man, and are not disposed, from any doubt-
ful acts of his that may be laid before us, to change our preconceived
notion for an opposite one. But while this preconceived idea may be
our guide in studying the life of such a man, the study itself will con-
tribute to enlarge and rectify the individual lineaments of the picture.
But we must not lose sight of one important difference. In all other
men there is a contrast between the ideal and the phenomenal. While
in many of their traits we may discern the Divine principle which
forms their individuality, the archetype of their manifestation in time,
in others we see opposing elements, which go to make a mere cai-ica-
ture of that principle. We can obtain no clear view of the aim of the
life of such men, unless we can seize upon the higher element which
forms the individual character ; just as an artist might depict accurately
a man's organic features, and, for want of the peculiar intellectual ex-
l)ression, fiiil completely in giving the entire living physiognomy. But
without a conception of the living whole we could not detect the sep-
arate features which mar the harmony of the picture. On the other
side, again, if we contemplate the whole apart from the individual
features, we shall only form an ai'bitrary ideal, not at all corresponding
to the reality.
In Christ, however, the ideal and the phenomenal never contradict
each other. All depends upon our viewing rightly together the separate
features in their connexion with the higher unity of the whole. We
2Jrcsi/j}j}ose this view of the whole, in order to a just conception of the
j)arts, and to avoid regarding any necessary feature in the light of a
caricature. This can the more easily be done, as the phenomena
which we are here to contemplate stand alone, and can be compared
with no other. And as, even in studying the life of an eminent man,
we must commune with his spirit in order to obtain a complete view
of his being, so we must yield ourselves up to the Spirit of Christ,
whom we acknowledge and adore as exalted above us, that He him-
self may show us his Divine image in the mirror of his Life, and teach
us how to distinguish all prejudices of our own creating from the nec-
essary laws of our being.
INTRODUCTION.
CHAPTER II.
SOURCES FOR THE HISTORY OF CHRIST.
§ 4. Traditional Origin of the Synoptical Gospels.
IN using the authorities, I shall follow the general rules of historical
criticism, and seek the truth by comparing the individual accounts
with themselves and with each other. A correct judgment of the nature
of the authorities may be derived from thus examining them in detail.
The settled result of my investigations on this subject maybe stated
as follows : The historical remains, as well as the nature of the case,
show that the writing of the Gospel history did not originate in any
design to give a connected account of the life and public ministry of
Christ as a whole, but rather grew out of a series of traditional ac-
counts of separate scenes in his history. These accounts were partly
transmitted by word of mouth, and partly laid down in wi-itten memoirs.
The commission of the whole to writing naturally soon followed the
spread of Christianity among the Greeks, a people much accustomed
to writing. There can be no doubt that Paul made use of written
memoirs of the life of Christ.* The objections of Weisse against this
view are of no importance. Our first three Gospels resulted from the
compilation of such separate materials, as Luke himself states in his
introduction.! Matthew's Gospel, in its present form, was not the pro-
duction of the apostle whose name it bears, but was founded on an ac-
count written by him in the Hebrew language, chiefly (but not wholly)
for the purpose of presenting the discourses of Christ in a collective form.
§ 5. Genuineness of John's Gospel.
John's Gospel, which contains the only consecutive account of the la-
bours of Christ, arose in a very different way. It could have emanated
ft-om none other than that " beloved disciple" upon whose soul the image
of the Saviour had left its deepest impress. So far from this Gospel's hav-
ing been written by a man of the second century (as some assert), we can-
not even imagine a man existing in that century so little affected by the
contrarieties of his times and so far exalted above them. Could an ago
involved in perpetual contradictions, an age of religious materialism,
anthropomorphism, and one-sided intellectualism, have given birth to a
production like this, which bears the stamp of none of these deformities'?
• See my Aposlul. Geschickk', 3d edit., p. 131. t Luke, i.. I, 2.
INTRODUCTION. 7
How mighty must the man have been who, in that age, could produce
from his own mind such an image of Christ as thisi And this man,
too, in a period almost destitute of eminent minds, remained in total
obscurity ! Was it necessary for the master-spirit, who felt in himself
the capacity and the calling to accomplish the greatest achievement of
his day, to resort to a pitiful trick to smuggle his ideas into circula-
tion?
And then, too, while it is thought sufficient to say of the three other
Gospels that they were compiled from undesigned fables, we are told
that such a Gospel as this of John was the work of sheer invention,
as lately T>r. Baur has confessed, with praiseworthy candour. Strange
that a man, anxious for the credit of his inventions, should, in the
chronology and topography of his Life of Christ, give the lie to the
Church traditions of his time, instead of chiming in with them ; stran-
ger still, that, in spite of his bold contradiction of the opinions of his
ao-e in regard to the history, his fraud should be successful ! In short,
the more openly this criticism declares itself against the Gospel of
John, the more palpably does it manifest its own wilful disregard of
history.
. § 6. Results of Criticism.
A comparison of the representation of Christ derived from the tra-
ditions of the Apostolic Church, with that which the direct and person-
al knowledge of the beloved disciple affords to us, will not only aid our
freneral conception of his image as a whole, but will also prove the
identity of these two representations with each other, from their agree-
ment as well in the separate features as in the general picture.
It must be regarded as one of the greatest boons which the purify-
ing process of Protestant theology in Germany has conferred upon
faith as well as science, that the old, mechanical view of Inspiration
has been so generally abandoned. That doctrine, and the forced har-
monies to which it led, demanded a clerk-like accuracy in the evangel-
ical accounts, and could not admit even the slightest contradictions in
them ; but we are now no more compelled to have recourse to subtil-
ties against which our sense of truth rebels. In studying the historical
connexion of our Saviour's life and actions by the application of an un-
fettered criticism, we reach a deeper sense in many of his sayings than
the bonds of the old dogmatism would have allowed. The inquiring
reason need no longer find its free sense of truth opposed to faith ;
nor is reason bound to subjugate herself, not to faith, but to arbitrary
doo-mas and artificial hypotheses. The chasms in the Gospel history
were unavoidable in the transmission of Divine truth through such
lowly human means. The precious treasure has come to us in earth-
en vessels. But this only affords room for the exercise of our faith —
8 INTRODUCTION.
a faith whose root is to be found, not in science, not in demonstration,
but in the humble and self-denying submission of our spirits. Our sci-
entific views may be defective in many points ; our knowledge itself
may be but fragmentary ; but our religious interests will find all that
is necessary to attach them to Christ as the ground of salvation and
the archetype of holiness.
BOOK I.
BIRTH AID CHILDHOOD
JESUS.
BOOK I.
THE BIRTH AND CHILDHOOD OF JESUS.*
CHAPTER I.
PRELIMINARY REMARKS.
§ 7, Scantiness of our Information in regard to tJiis Period of Christ's
Life. — Nothing further reallij essential to the Interests of Religion.
IN writing the life of any eminent man, we should not be likely to
begin with a period when his character was fully developed and his
world-historical importance recognized. On the contrary, we should
study the growth of his being — seek for the bud which concealed the
seed, and the powers that conspired to unfold it.
We cannot fail to have the same desire in studying that Life which
far transcends every other, both in its own intrinsic excellence and in
its bearing upon the history of the human race ; but we are kept with-
in very narrow limits on this point by the paucity of our materials, con-
sisting, as they do, of fragmentary accounts, whose literal accuracy we
have no right to presuppose. To exhibit these features in the life of
Christ did not belong to the Apostolic mission, which was designed to
meet religious rather than scientific wants ; to relate the mighty acts
of Christ, from the beginning of his ministry to the time of his ascension,
rather than to show how, and under what conditions, his inner nature
gradually manifested itself. It belongs to science to give a pragmatico-
genetical developement of the history; reW^ions, faith occupies itself
only with the immediate facts themselves. V/e cannot expect this
part of the history to give so accurate a detail as that which treats of
Christ's public ministry and his redemptive acts ; nor do the wants of
faith require it.
§ 8. Fundamentally opposite Modes of apprehending the Accounts.
The problems offered to scientific inquiry at this point are, first, to
distinguish the objective reality of the events from the subjective form in
which they are apprehended in the accounts ; and, secondly, to fill up,
as far as may be, the chasms which necessarily arise in the history froni
* I do not enter into the minute researches which are necessary to fix the exact date of
Chiisfs birth.
12 OPPOSING VIEWS OF THE NARRATIVES.
its being composed of detached narratives. These problems nearly in-
volve each other ; for we must obtain a clear view of the events them-
selves,before we can solve the difficulties that arise in connecting them
together. Of these, various views may be taken, different in themselves,
yet each in harmony with the interests of religion.
But this cannot be said o£ all the different views which maybe taken
of the subject. The attempt might be made, for instance, to explain
the life of Christ just as that of any eminent man, on the natural prin-
ciples of human devclopement ; rejecting, of course, the first truth of
Christian belief in Christ as the Son of God and our Saviour. This
theory, denying the supernatural element of Christianity, necessarily
leads its advocates to consider every thing in the Gospel accounts
which contradicts it as simply mythical. Thus, even in what may be
called the ante-historical part of our work, we find arrayed against us
those views which always reject the supernatural in the events of the
life of Christ; although this is a dispute which cannot be settled em-
])irically by inquiries into the separate accounts ; for this very distinc-
tion of historical and non-historical presupposes a final decision be-
tween these opposing views made elsewhere. Thus, the Deistic and
Pantheistic theories, which, although they arise from directly opjiosite
modes of thought, agree perfectly in opposing supernaturalism, must
deny, in the outset, what the supernatural-theistic views hold to be es-
sential to the idea of a genuine world-redeeming Christ.
We must, then, in order to bring the individual features into harmo
ny with our portraiture of Chi'ist, form the latter definitely from a view
of his whole life, and of the organism of that Christian consciousness
which grows out of his impress left upon humanity, and manifests his
perpetual revelation. In relation to the individual features of the his-
tory, it only remains to prove, by naked historical inquiry, that there is
no sufficient ground, apart from the general prejudices of rationalism,
to deny their historical basis ; and to show that the origin of the ac-
counts themselves cannot be explained without the actual occurrence
of the events which they describe on the very ground where they arose.
THE MIRACULOUS CONCEPTION. 13
CHAPTER 11.
THE MIRACULOUS CONCEPTION.
§ 9. The Miraculous Conception demanded h. priori, and confirmed
a posteriori.
IF, then, we conceive the manifestation of Christ to have been a super-
natural communication of the Divine nature for the moral renewal of
man, a new beginning in the chain of human progress ; in one word, if
we conceive it as a miracle, this conception itself, apart from any his-
torical accounts, would lead us to form some notion of the beginning
of his human life that would harmonize with it.
It is true, this human life of Christ took its apj^ointed place in the
course of historical events — nay, all history was arranged with refer-
ence to its incoqooration ; yet it entered into history, not as part of its
offspring, but as a higher element. Whatever has its origin in the
natural course of humanity must bear the stamp of humanity ; must
share in the sinfulness which stains it, and take part in the strifes which
distract it. It was impossible, therefore, that the second Adam, the
Divine progenitor of a new and heavenly race, could derive his origin
from the first Adam in the ordinary course of nature, or could repre-
sent the type of the species, the people, or the family from which he
sprung, as do the common children of men. We must conceive him,
not as an individual representative of the type which descended from
our first parents, but as the creative origin of a new type. And so our
own idea of Christ compels us to admit that two factors, the one natu-
ral, the other supernatural, were coefiicient in his entrance into human
life; and this, too, although we may be unable, a priori, to state how
that entrance was accomplished.
But at this point the historical accounts come to our aid, by testifying
that what our theory of the case requires did, in fact, occur. The es-
sential part of the history is found precisely in those features in which
the idea and the reality hai-monize ; and we must not only hold fast
these essential facts which are so important to the interests of religion,
but carefully distinguish them from unimportant and accidental parts,
which might, perhaps, be involved in obscurity or contradiction.
§ 10. Mythical Vicio of tJie Miraculous Conception. — No trace of it in the
Narrative. — No such Mythus could leave originated among the Jews.
The accounts of Matthew and Luke agree in stating that the birth
of Christ was the result of a direct creative act of God, and not of the
ordinary laws of human generation. They who deny this must make
14 THE MIRACULOUS CONCEPTION.
one of two assumptions ; either that all the accounts are absolute
fables, or that some actual fact was the ground- work of the fabulous
conception.
Those who adopt the former view tell us that, after Christ had made
himself conspicuous by his great acts, men, struck with his extraordi-
nary character, formed a theory of his birth to correspond with it.
But this assumption is utterly irreconcilable with the simple and pro-
saic style in which INIatthew tells the story of Joseph's perplexity at
finding Mary pregnant before her time ;* and the supposition that this
prosaic narrative was tlie offspring of some previous mythical descrip-
tion, is out of all harmony with the character of the primitive Christian
times. As for the second assumption, those who adopt it can assign no
possible fact to explain the origin of the account, but one of so base a
nature as utterly to shock every religious feeling, and every just notion
of the overruling Providence of God, Had such an occurrence ever
been deemed possible, the fanatical enemies of Christ would very soon
have made use of it.t Both these assumptions failing, nothing remains
but to admit that the birth of Christ was a phenomenon out of the or-
dinary course of nature.^
Nor would such a viythus have been consistent with Jcuish modes
of thought. The Hindoo mind might have originated a fable of this
character, though in a different form from that in which the account
of the Evangelists is given ; but the Jewish had totally different ten-
dencies. Such a fable as the birth of the INIessiah from a virgin could
have arisen any where else easier than among the Jews ; their doctrine
of the Divine Unity, which placed an impassable gulf between God
and the world ; their high regard for the marriage relation, which led
them to abhor unwedded life ; and, above all, their full persuasion
that the INIessiah was to be an oi'dinary man, undistinguished by any
thing supernatural, and not to be endowed with Divine power before
the time of his solemn consecration to the Messiahship, all conspired to
* We cannot believe, notwithstanding what Strauss, says on this point in his 3d edition,
that a fable could originally be presented in so prosaic a garb as that of Matthew. Cases
are not wanting, liowever, in which the substance of a mythus, after it had come to be re-
ceived as history, has been given out in a prosaic form.
t They would have done so before Jewish malevolence employed the history of the
miraculous conception to invent the fable which Celsus first made use of — Grig., i., 3-'.
Had any such legends been in circulation before, we should find some trace of them m the
Evangelists, who do not conceal the accusations that were made against Cluist.
X Schlcicrmachcr, whose reverence fm- sacred things forbade him to adopt the latter of
these two suppositions, while his conscientious love of tnitli compelled him to admit the reality
of the history, says, in comjiaring the statements of Matthew and Luke (Critical Inquiries,
p. 47), " We may well V:a.\e the statement of Matthew in the judicious indefiniteness in
which it is expressed ; while the traditional basis of the poetical announcement in Luke re-
bukes those impious explanations which soil the veil they cannot lift." But, in sober tnith,
no one can admit the voracity of the histoiy, anil, at the same time, deny the miraculous
conception, without falling into the very conclusion which Schleiennachcr rejects with suolj
[lions indignation.
THE MIRACULOUS CONCEPTION. 15
render such an invention impossible among them. The accounts of
Isaac, Samson, and Samuel cannot he quoted as in point ; these cases
rather illustrate the Hebrew notion of the blessing of fruitfulness ; and
in them all the Divine pow^er was shown, not in excluding the male, but
in rendering the long-barren female fruitful, contrary to all human ex-
pectation. The conception of Christ would have been analoo-ous to
these, had Mary, after long barrenness, bonie a son, or had Joseph
been too old to expect offspring at the time.*
It was on this very account, viz., because the miraculous conception
was foreign to the prevailing Jewish modes of thought,! that one sect
of the Ebionites, who could not free themselves from their old preju-
dices, refused to admit the doctrine ; and the section which contains
the account is excluded from the Ebionitish recension of the Gospel to
the Hebrews, which arose from the same source as our Matthew. As
for the single obscure passage in Isa., vii., it could hardly have given
* E. g-., in the apocrj-phal Gospel of James, cli. ix., it is stated, that when the priest
was about to give Mary as a wife to the aged Josepli, the latter said, " I have sons and
am old, while she is yet young ; shall I not then become a mockery for the sons of Israel ?"
t Professor IVeisse, in his work, "Die Evangelische Geschichte" (The Gospel History,
critically and philosophically ti'eated, Leips., 1838), admits that the Jews could not have in-
vented this rnythus, but ascribes to it a heathen origin. How, in view of the relations that
subsisted between early Christianity and heathenism, the pagan mythus of the sons of the gods
could so soon have been transformed into a Christian one ; and how the latter could have
found its way into St. Matthew's Gospel, which unquestionably had a Jewish-Christian
origin, are among the incomprehensibilities which abound in Prof W.'s very intelligible
work. He says, p. 178, that " as Paul found himself involuntarily compelled, in addressing
the Athenians, to quote Greek poetry (For ice are also his offspring, Acts, xvii., 08), so it
is possible that the apostles to the heathen were led to adopt the pagan mythus of the sons
of tlie gods, in order to make known to them the truth, that Christ is the Son of God, in a
form suited to tlieir way of thinking, and that their figurative language, literally understood,
formed the starting-point for such a mythus." Things veiy heterogeneous are thrown to-
gether in this passage. What religious scruples need have hindered Paul from alluding to
the consciousness of the Divine origin of the human race, which the Athenians themselves
hadtfkpressed, and to the vague idea which they entertained of an unknown God ? Nor
was such an allusion likely to be misunderstood. How could a man, imbued with Jewish
feelings in regard to the heathen mythology (feelings which his conversion to Christianity
would by no means weaken), compare the birth of the Holy One — of the Messiah — with
those pagan fables, whose impurity could inspire him with nothing but disgust ? Weisse
iias transferred his own mode of contemplating the heathen myths to a people that would
have revolted from it.
It is quite another thing when Weisse adduces the comparisons in which the early Chris-
tian apologists indulged. These men, themselves of heathen origin, were accustomed to
the allegorical interpretations of the mythology, and it was natural for them to seek and oc-
cupy a position intemiediate between their earlier and later \-iews. But, so far from these
comparisons havmg given rise to the accounts of the supernatural conception, it was the
latter which caused the fomier. They wished to show to the heathen that this miraculous
event was not altogether foreign to their own religious ideas, while they cai'efully guarded
against tiie sensuous foniis of thought involved m the myths ; and, as they could pi-esuppo.se
this event, they had a right to employ the myths as they did, inasmuch as these poetical ef-
fusions of natural religion anticipated (though in sadly-distorted caricatures) the great truth
of Christianity, that the union of the Divine with the human nature was brought about by
a creative act of Omnipotence. The early apologists expressed this in their own way :
" Satan invented these fables by imitating the truth."
16 THE MIRACULOUS CONCEPTION.
rise to such a tradition among the people of Palestine, where, unques-
tionably, Matthew's Gospel originated.
§ 11. Objections to the Narrative drawn from the subsequent Disposi-
tions of Christ's Relatives, ansioered {Vjfram the nature of the case ;
(2) frovi the name Jesus.
An objection to the credibility of the nan-ative has been raised on
the ground that if such events had really preceded the birth of Christ,
his own relatives would have been better disposed to recognize him as
the Messiah. It is possible that the circumstances of his birth (ZiJ raise
their expectations to a lofty pitch ; but as for thirty years no indica-
tions corresponding with ordinary views of the Messiah manifested
themselves, their first impressions gradually wore away, only to be re-
vived, however, by the great acts which Jesus performed after the
opening of his public career. And as for Mary (in whom a doubt of
this sort would appear still more strange, as she was directly cognizant
of the miraculous features of the history), there is no proof whatever
that she ever lost the memory of her visions, or relinquished the hopes
they were so well calculated to raise. Her conduct at the marriage of
Cana proves directly the reverse. She obviously expected a miracle
from Christ immediately after the proclamation of his Messiahship by
John the Baptist. The confirmation which John's Gospel, by its re-
cital of this miracle, affords to the other evangelists is the more stri-
king, as John himself gives no account of the events accompanying the
birth of Christ.*
" (a) Julin's silence in regard to the miraculous conception is no proof that he was either
ignorant of the accounts of that event or disbelieved them. His object was to testify to
what he had himself seen and heard, and to declare how the glory of the Only begotten
liad been anveilcd to him in contemplating Christ's manifestation on earth. But that he
recognized the miraculous conception is evident from his emphatic declarations (in oppo-
sition to the ordinary Jewish idea of the Messiah), that the Divine and the human were
oriGfinally united in the person of Christ, and that the Logos itself became flesh in him ;
while at the same time ho avers that " that which is born of the flesh is flesh." No man
could hold these two ideas together without believing in the immediate agency of God in
the generation of Christ, (b) The objection that Jesus was known among the Jews as
the son of Joseph and Mary, and that this fact was adduced against his claims, has been
siiiBciently met in the text ; but it has been urged further that Christ himself, when this
objection was brought against him (Matt., xiii., 55), did not allude to the miraculous con-
ception. As to this, we need only say that it was far more likely and natural that Jesus
should call men's attention to the pi'oofs of his Divinity which were before their eyes in his
daily acts, showing, at the same time, that the causes of their disbelief lay in themselves,
rather tlian that he slwuld dwell upon the circumstances which preceded his birth, the
[)i-oof of which had to rest upon the testimony of Mai-y alone, (c) Nor is Paul's silence on
this point proof of his not aduiowledging it. It only shows that, for his religious sense,
the RuITorings and resurrection of Christ, the centre and support of the Christian system,
stood oat more prominently than the miraculous conception. In the jjassagcs in wliicli lie
speaks of Christ's origin, he had a dilforent object in view than to treat of this subject ; e. p.,
in Ilom., ix., 5, " Whose, are the fathers, and of u-iunn, as concerning the flesh, Christ came,
who IS overall, God blessed forever ;" and in ilom., i., 4, where he brings out prominently the
THE MIRACULOUS CONCEPTION. 17
The name Jesus itself affords additional proof that his parents were
led by some extraordinary circumstances to expect that he would be
the Messiah, Such names as Theodorus, Theodoret, Dorotheus, among
the Greeks, were usually bestowed because the parents had obtained
a son after long desire and expectation. As names were also given
among the Jews with reference to their significancy, and as the name
Jesus betokens " Him through whom Jehovah bestows salvation ;"
and, moreover, as the Messiah, the bearer of this salvation, was gen-
erally expected at the time, it must certainly appear probable to us
that the name was given with reference to that expectation. Not that
this conclusion necessarily follows, because the name Jesus, Joshua,
was common among the Jews ; but yet, compared with the accounts,
it certainly affords confirmatory evidence. ;
§ 12. Analogical Ideas among the Heathen.
Moreover, inferences in favour of the accounts of the miraculous
conception, as well as against them, may be obtained by comparing
them with the ancient myths of other religions. The spirit of the pa-
gan mythology could not have penetrated among the Jews, and there-
fore cannot be assigned to explain the similarity between the Chris-
tian and pagan views. We must seek that explanation rather in the
relations that subsist between mythical natural religion and historical re-
vealed religion ; between the idea, forming, from the enslaved conscious-
ness which it sways, an untrue actualization ; and the idea, grounded in
truth, and developing itself therefrom into clear and free consciousness.
The truth which the religious sense can recognize at the bottom of
these myths, is the earnest desire, inseparable from man's spirit, for
communion with God, for participation in the Divine nature as its true
life — its anxious longing to pass the gulf which separates the God-de-
rived soul from its original — its wish, even though unconscious, to se-
cure that union Avith God which alone can renew human nature, and
which Christianity shows us as a living reality. Nor can we be aston-
ished to find the facts of Christianity thus anticipated in poetic forms
(imbodying in imaginative ci'eations the innate yet indistinct cravings
of the spirit) in the mythical elements of the old religions, when we re-
two-fold manifestation of Christ, as the Son of David and as the Son of God, raised above
all human and national relationships, as he revealed himself after the resurrection. If we
could infer from such passages Paul's disbelief in the miracle, vre can draw precisely the
opposite conclusion from Gal., iv., 4 ; although, as the case is, we do not lay much stress
upon the expression, "bom of a woman." And if Paul could represent Jesus as the Son
of God from heaven, as being without sin in the flesh (aap\), in which sin before had reign-
ed, while at the same time he taught the propagation of sinfulness, from Adam down, it is
likely that the supernatural generation of Jesus was so firmly established in the connexion
of his own thoughts, that he felt the less necessity to give it individual prominence. We
shall have occasion to make a similar remark hereafter in regard to the omission of the ac-
count of Christ's ascension as an individual event.
18 THE MIRACULOUS CONCEPTION,
member that human nature itself, and all the forms of its dcvelopement,
as well as the whole course of human history, were intended by God
to find their full accomplishment in Christ. But the genius of Chris-
tianity is mistaken by those who despise the simplicity of the Gospel
history, and contrast it with the poetry of religion. The opposition,
apparently essential to the mere natural man, between poetry, trans-
cending the limits of the actual, and the prose of common reality, is
taken away by the manifestation of Christ, and will be done away
wherever Christianity passes into flesh and blood. The peculiarity of
Christian ethics is indeed founded upon this.
The characteristic difference between the religion of Theism and that
of the old mythology lies in this one point: that in the evangelical his-
tories the Divine power is represented as operating immediately, and
not by the interposition of natural causes; while, in the mythical con-
ceptions, the Divine causality is made coefficient with natural agencies ;
the Divine is brought down to the sphere of the natural, and its mani-
festation is thus physically explained.* Thus the Gospel histories, pre-
cisely as a just idea of Christ would lead us to presuppose, attribute to
the creative ardency of God alone the introduction of that new member
of humanity through which the regeneration of the race is to be ac-
complished.
CHAPTER III.
THE BIRTH OF CHRIST.
§ 13. The Birth of Christ in its Relations to the Jewish Theocracy.
AS the entrance of Christ into the course of humanity was brought
about by the co-working of supernatural with natural elements, so
both these agencies conspired in preparing the way for that great event,
the centre of all things, and the aim of all preceding history. So we
interpret the relations of the Jews and heathens to the appearance of
Christ. The natural dcvelopement of the heathen was destined, under
the Divine guidance, to prepare them for receiving the new light which
emanated from Jesus ; and the history of the Jewish people was all pre-
paratory to the appearance and ministry of Christ, who was to come
forth out of their midst. This preparation was accomplished by means
* BaumgaricTi-Crusiiis lias noticed this distinction in his Biblical Theology, p. 397 ; but
fi/rauxg denies it, and asserts that the expression viAs Qcov in Luke i., 35, is to be taken en-
tirely in a physical sense. There is no such moaning in the passage ; it predicates the
terms " the holy our," " the Son of God," of Christ, on the ground of tlie special agency
of the Holy Spirit in his birth. He who was conceived under such an agency nui^t stand
in a special relation to God. Not merely the Jewish mode of thinking on tlie subject, btit
also the fact that Jesus is designated both as the Son of David and the Son of GoD. ex-
clude the physical interpretation.
THE BIRTH OF CHRIST. 19
of a chain of separate, but organically connected revelations, all tend-
ing toward the full revelation in Him, whose whole life was itself to be
the highest manifestation of God to man.
There was peculiar fitness in Christ's being born among the Jewisli
people. His life revealed the kingdom of God, which was to be set
up over all men, and it properly commenced in a nation whose polit-
ical life, always developed in a theocratic form, was a continual typo
of that kingdom. He was the culminating point of this developement ;
in Him the kingdom of God, no longer limited to this single people,
was to show its true design, and, unfettered by physical or national re-
straints, to assert its authority over the whole human race. The par-
ticular typifies the universal; the earthly, the celestial; so David, the
monarch who had raised the political theocracy of the Jews to the pin-
nacle of glory, typified that greater monarch in whom the kingdom of
God was to display its glory. Not without reason, therefore, was it
that Christ, the summit of the theocracy, sprang from the fallen line of
royal David.*
§ 14. The Miractdous Events that accompanied the Birth of Christ.
The Divine purpose in the supernatural conception of Jesus could
not have been accomplished without some providential forewarnings
to his parents ; nor could these intimations of the certainty of the ap-
proaching birth of the theocratic King have been given by ordinary,
natural means. In the spnere of the greatest miracle of human history,
the miracle which was to raise mankind to communion with Heaven,
we do not wonder to see rays of light streaming from the invisible
world, at other times so dark.
* However the discrepancies in the two genealogies of Christ may be explained, his de-
scent from the race of David was admitted from the beginning, and the evangelists took it
for granted as indisputable. How We'me should deny this, as he does (p. 1G9), is unac-
countable. His arguments can convince no one endowed with the slightest powers of ob-
sei'vation, and need no answer. The only one wliich is at all plausible is that founded on
Mark, xii., G.'J ; and that depends upon the question whether Mark uses these words in their
original application; a question which we shall hereafter have occasion to examine. Cer-
tainly, if they admit of more than one interpretation, we shall adopt any other sooner than
that which comes into conflict with Paul, who assumed Christ's descent from David as cer-
tain. Could the apostles have embraced a notion which the Saviour himself had denounced
as an invention of the scribes ? There was nothing in Paul's turn of feeling or thought to
incline him towards it, had it not been established on other gi-ounds ; on the conti'ary, the
doctrine that Christ was not the Sou of David, but the Son of God and the Lord of David,
would have afforded him an excellent point of attack against Judaism. Although Luke's
genealogy is not directly stated as following the line of Mary, yet it may have done so, and
have only been improperly placed where it is. Justin Martyr (Dial. c. Tryph., f. 327) \v»%
acquainted with such a genealogy refening to Mary. Luke, i., 32-35, seems to show that
Mary was of David's race. Her relationship to Elizabeth, the mother of John Baptist, docs
not prove the contrai-y ; for members of the ti'ibe of Levi were not restrained from inter
marriage with other tribes; and EUzabeth, although of that tribe on the father's side, and
herself the wife of a priest, might very well have sprung from the tribe of Judah on the
mother's side. ^
20 THE BIRTH OF CHRIST.
From the very nature of the case, we can expect no full account of
those extraordinary manifestations of which, naturally enough, Mary
alone could testify* But a mere mythus, destitute of historical truth,
and only serving as the veil of an ideal truth, is a very different thing
from what we are here stating, viz., that a lofty history may be im-
parted in a form which must have more than its mere literal force ;
and that events of a lofty character necessarily impart their higher tone
to the language in which they are conveyed. In this latter case, we
may harmlessly differ in our modes of arranging the materials, and of
filling uj) the chasms of the history, so that we only hold fast the substan-
tial facts which form its basis. The course of the events described in
Matt., i., 18-25, may be arranged as follows : When Mary informed
Joseph of the remarkable communication that had been made to her,
he could not at once bring himself to believe it ; which was not at all
strange, considering its extraordinary character, and how little he was
prepared for it. A struggle ensued in his feelings, and then occurred
the night vision which brought his mind to a final decision.t
§ 15. TJie Taxing. — Birth of Christ at Bethlehem,
By a remarkable interposition of Providence, interwoven, however,
with the course of events in the world, was it brought about that the
promised King should be born in Bethlehem (as Micah the prophet
had foretold), the very place where the house of David had its origin ;
while, at the same time, the lowly circumstances of his birth were in
striking contrast with the inherent dignity and glory that were veiled
in the new-born child.
The Emperor Augustus had ordered a general census of the Roman
Empire, partly to obtain correct statistics of its resources,^ and partly
lor purposes of taxation.§ As Judea was then a dependency of the
empire, and Augustus probably intended to reduce it entirely to the
* Mary could only have been taught to expect the Saviour in a way harmonizing with
her views at the time, and with the prevailing Jewish ideas of the Messiah, viz., that the
Messiali should come of the line of David, to establish an everlasting kingdom among the
.Tews. But this was only a covering for the higher idea of the Redeemer, the founder of
the eternal kingdom of God.
t We need be the less afraid of a free, unliteral interpretation when we find a difference
in the subjective conception of these events by even the evangelists themselves, Matthew
speaking only of dreams and visions, and Luke of objective phenomena, viz., the appear-
ance of angels.
\ This was not confined to the Roman provinces, but extended also to the Socii. — Tacit.,
Ann., i., xi.
§ Cassiodor., i., iii., ep. 52: Au^nsli Icmporihus orbis Romanus affris dirisus cenfvgtie
descriplus, ut posscssio sui nuUi habcret.ur incerta, quam pro tributorum suscipcret quanti-
tatibui Kolvcnd^im. (Conf. Savif^ny's dissertation in the " Zeitschrift fiir die geschichtL
Rechtswissonschaft, Bd. vi., H. 3.) This language of the learned statesman shows that
he followed olilor accounts rather than a Christian report drawn from Luke; and the ex-
pression of Tacitus wmlinns this conclusion. There is no ground, therefore, for the doubts
etartcd by t>lrauss, 3d od., p. 257.
THE BIRTH OF CHRIST. 21
state of a Roman province, he wished to secure similar statistics of that
country, and ordered King Herod to take the census. In performing
this duty, Herod followed the Jewish usage, viz., a division by tribes.*
Joseph and Mary belonged to the tribe of David, and therefore had to
repair to Bethlehem, the seat of that tribe. On account of the throng,
they could find no shelter but a stable, and the new-born infant had to
be laid in a manger.f
§ IG. The Announcement to the Sliephcrds.
It is in accoidance with the analogy of history that great manifesta-
tions and epochs, designed to satisfy the spiritual wants of ages, should
be anticipated by the prophetic yearnings of pure and susceptible
hearts, inspired by a secret Divine consciousness. All great events
that have introduced a new developement of human history have been
preceded by unconscious or conscious prophecy. This may seem
* Luke's account of the matter is so prosaic and straightforvravd, that none but a preju-
diced mind can find a trace of the mythical iu it. Examine the Apocryphal Gospels, and
you will see the difference betv/ecn history and fable. And even if it could be shown that
the census was incorrect, and that the gatherings at Bethlehem was due to some other
cause, no suspicion would thereby be cast upon the entire narration ; the only reasonable
conclusion would be, that Luke, or the writer from whom he copied, had fallen into an
anachronism, or an erroneous combination of facts, in assigning the census as the cause of
the gathering. Such an en-or could not affect in any way the interests of religion. More-
over, what right have we to demand of Luke so exact a knowledge of the history of his
times, in things that did not materially concern his purpose ? Such anaclironisms, in things
indifferent, are common to writers of all ages. But the account itself contains no marks of
improbability. The emperor would naturally order Herod, whom he srill recognized as
king, to take the census, and Herod as naturally followed the Jewish usage in doing it.
It was the policy of the emperor, at that time, to treat the Jews with kindness, and there-
fore he would naturally make the first attempt at a census as delicately as possible. How
repugnant such a measure was to them is shown by .Josephus's account of the tumults that
arose on account of the census under Quirinus, twelve years afterward. Luke may have
gone too far in extending (as his language seems to implj') the census over the whole em-
pire ; or, perhaps, in stating the gradual census of the whole empire as a simultanemn
one. Perhaps he mistook this assessment for the census which occuired twelve years
later, and on that accomit erroneously mentioned Quirinus. Nevertheless, Cluiriuus may
have been actually present at this assessment, not, indeed, as governor of the province, but
as imperial commissioner ; for Josephus expressly says that he had held many other offices
before he was Governor of Syria, at the time of the second census. I do not agree with
any of the explanations, either ancient or modern, which attempt to make Luke's state-
ment agree exactly with history ; they all seem to me to be forced and unphilological ,
while the want of exactness iu Luke is easily explained, and is of no manner of importance
for the object which ho- had in view.
t The tiadition in Justin Martyr (Dial. c. Tryph., 304, a), that they found shelter in a
cave near the town, which had before been used for a cattle stall {" oirtjXaiu) rtvi ovicyyvi
His KiinJis), may be true, although we should not like to vouch for it. It is more likely tliat
the prophecy in Isai., xxxiii., 16 (which Justin refers to iu the Alexandrian version), was
applied to this tradition after it arose, than that the tradition arose from the prophecy. At
that time men were accustomed to find every where in the Old Testament predictions and
types of Christ, whether warranted by the connexion or not. The tradition does not speci-
fy such a cave as the passage in Isaiah would lead one to expect, nor, indeed, does the
passage seem distinctly to refer to the Messiah.
■22 THE CHILDHOOD OF CHRIST.
strange to such as ascribe to God the apatliy of the Stoics, or who be-
lieve only in the cold, iron necessity of an immanent spirit of nature ;
but to none who believe in a personal, self-conscious Deity, a God of
eternal love, who is nigh unto every man, and listens willingly to the
secret sighs of longing souls, can it appear unworthy of such a Being
to foreshadow great world-historical epochs by responding to such
longings in special revelations.
Far more probable, then, would such manifestations be, in reference
to the highest object of human longings, the greatest of all world-
historical phenomena ; and so, at the time of CuRrsT's coming, the
people of Judca, guided by the prophecies of the Old Testament,
yearned for the appearance of the Messiah with an anxiety only ren-
dered more intense by the oppressions under which they groaned.
This feeling wouhl naturally be kept alive in Bethlehem, associated as
the place was with recollections of the family of David, from which
the Messiah was to come. So, even among the shepherds, who kept
nightly watch over the flocks, were some who anxiously awaited the
appearance of the Messiah. It is true, the account does not say that
the shepherds thus longed for the Messiah. But we are justified by
Avhat followed in presupposing it as the ground for such a communica
t Ion's being especially made to them ; and it is not unlikely that these
simple souls, untaught in the traditions of the scribes, and nourished
by communion with God, amid the freedom of nature, in a solitude
(congenial to meditation and prayer, had formed a purer idea of the
Messiah, from the necessities of their own hearts, than prevailed at that
time among the Jews. A vision from Heaven conducted them on that
night, so big with interest to man's salvation, to the place where the
object of their desire was to be born.*
* Justly and beautifully sajs Sckleiermnrher, " Tlicre is something remarkable, some-
t.liing divine, in the satisfaction not seldom afforded in extraordinai-y times even to
individual longings." We agree with this great teacher in thinking that this account
lame indirectly from the shepherds themselves, as it recites so pai'ticularly what occurred
tj) themselves personally, and makes so little mention of vvhat happened to the child after
their arrival. The facts may be supposed to have been as follows: The faithful were
jinxious to preserve the minute features of the life of Jesus. (We cannot be persuaded
by the assertions of modern Idealism that this feeling had no existence. We see every
day how anxiously men look for individual traits in the childhood of .gi'eat men.) Especial-
ly would any ono who had the opportunity prosecute such researches in the remarkable
jilace where Christ was boni. Perhaps one of these inquirers there found one of the slieii-
lierds who had witnessed these events, and whose memory of them was vividly recalled
lUter his conversion to Christianity. We cannot be sure that such a man would give with
litcraJ accuracy the words that he had heard ; bnt, taking them as they stand, it is astonisli-
iiig how free they are from the materialism which always tinged Jewish expression, and
in how purely spiritual a way th(!y describe the sublime transaction of which they treat.
Whether wc follow the received version or that of the Cod. Alex., wc litid the same
thought expressed in the statement of the shoplierds, viz., that "God is glorified iirtbe
Messiah, who brings peace and joy to the uartli, and restores man agaiu to the Divine
favour."'
THE SACRIFICE OF PURIFICATION. 23
§ 17. The Sacrifice of Purification, and tJic Ransom of the First-horn ;
their Weight as Proof against the Mythical Theory.
Tlie mass of the Jewish people, whose minds were darkened by
their material and political views, entertained a totally false idea of the
Messiah ; but there were many at Jerusalem who longed for a purer
salvation, and these, also, were to receive a sign that the object of their
hopes had at last appeared.
Forty days after the birth of the infant Jesus his parents carried
him to the temple at Jerusalem, in order to offer, according to their
means, the prescribed sacrifice for the purification of Mary, and to pay
the usual ransom for their first-borii,* This appears sti-ange, in view
of the extraordinary circumstances that preceded and followed the
birth of the child, which, one might supjiose, would make it an excep-
tion to ordinary rules. The points which the Levitical law had in view'
seem not to have existed here : so remarkable a birth might have pre-
cluded the necessity of the Levitical purification. The ransom which
had to be paid for other first-born sons, in view of their original obli-
gation to the priesthood, could hardly be necessary in the case of an
infant who was one day to occupy the summit of the Theocracy. It
would be natural to suppose that Mary must have hesitated, and laid
her scruples before the priests for decision before she could make up
her mind to perform these ceremonies. But we cannot judge of such
extraordinary events by common standai'ds. Mary did not venture to
speak freely in public of these wonderful things, or to anticipate the
Divine purposes in any way; she left it to God to educate the child,
which had been announced to her as the Messiah, so as to fit him for
his calling, and, at the proper time, to authenticate his mission publicly
and conspicuously.
Now a mythus generally endeavors to ennoble its subject, and to
adapt the story to the idea.t If, then, the Gospel narrative were myth-
ical, would it have invented, or even suffered to remain, a circumstance
so foreign to the idea of the myth, and so little calculated to dignify it
as the above 1 A mythns would have introduced an angel, or, at least,
a vision, to hinder Mary fi-om submitting the child to a ceremony so un-
worthy of its dignity ; or the priests would have received an intimation
* Exod., xiii., 2, 12 ; Num., iii., 45 ; xviii., 15 ; Levit, xii., 2.
t The remarks of Strauss, 1. c, p. 326, do not at all weaken what is here said. He ad-
duces, also, the fact that Luke (iii., 21) states the baptism without mentioning John's pre-
vious refusal (Matt., iii., 14) ; but all the force of this lies in his presupposition that Luke's
narrative is also mj'thical, which I deny. As to Gal., iv., 4, we of course believe that
Christ strictly fulfilled the Mosaic law ; but this fact, on Jewish principles, is no parallel to
tlie other, viz., that Mary, under the circumstances of tlie miraculous birth, needed purifica-
tion, and that the Messiah, who was destined for the highest station in the Theocracy,
needed a ransom from the obligation to the priesthood.
24 THE CHILDHOOD OF CHRIST.
from heaven to bow before the infant, and prevent its being thus re-
duced to the level of ordinary children. Nothing of all this took place ;
but, instead of it, simply and unostentatiously, the high dignity and
destiny of the child were revealed to two faithful souls.
^18. Simcon^s Prophetic Discourse.
The aged and devout Simeon,* who had longed and prayed for the
coming of Messiah's kingdom, had received the Divine assurance that
he should not die without seeing the desire of his heart. Under a pe-
culiarly vivid impulse of this presentiment, he entered the Temple
just as the infant Jesus was brought in. The Divine glory irradiating
the child's features harmonized with the longing of his inspired soul ;
he recognized the manifested Messiah, took the infant in his arms, and
exclaimed, in a burst of inspired gratitude, " Lord, now let thy servant
depart in peace according to thy promise, for mine eyes have seen thy sal-
vation which thou hast prepared before the face of all people, a light to
enlighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israelii Then, turn-
ing to Mary, he exclaimed, ''Behold, this child is set for the fall and
rising again of many in Israel, and for a sign ivhich shall he spohcn
against ;\ and a sword shall pierce through thine own soul also, that the
thoughts of many hearts may be revealed^
Notice, now, the remarkable idea of the Messiah which these words
convey ; precisely such a one as we should expect from a longing
Jew, of deep, spiritual piety. Although it cannot be said to contain
really Christian elements, it is far above the ordinary conceptions of
the times ; and this not only confirms the truth of the narrative, but
stamps the discourse as Simeon's own, and not a speech composed in
his name.§ It is true, Simeon conceives the kingdom of Messiah as
tending to glorify the Jewish people, but yet extends its blessings also
over the heathen, and believes that the light of the knowledge of God
* We have no reason to suppose him to bo the Rabbi Simeon, the father of Gamaliel, as
no distinguishing mark of eminence is assigned to him.
t It is said in Luke, ii., 33, that "Joseph and Mary marvelled" at the words of Simeon.
Now it is strange that what he said should appear marvellous to the patents, who were
already cognizant of so many wonderful events in the history of the child. But we are to
rememhcr that the first three Gospels do not contain connected histories, but compilations
of separate memoirs ; and, again, the writer of the narrative may have been so imbued with
wonder at the extraordinary whole, as to transfer this feeling to his expression in detailing
the separate parts, again and again. The narrative would have worn a very difl'erent as-
pect had Luke designed to compose a systematic work, with the parts accurately adjust-
ed, Instead of writing, as he did, with simple and straightforward candour.
t The results of Messiah's appearance among men depend upon their own spiritual dis-
positions : salvation for the believer, destnittion for the unbeliever. Around his banner
tlie hosts of the faithful gather; but infidels reject and fight against it. Salvation and
doom are correlative ideas ; nil world-historical epochs are epochs of condemnation.
$ The accurate report of this discourse is accounted for by the supposition that the ac-
count came indirectly from Anna: not only the discourse, but the whole occurrence, must
have made a deep impression upon her mind.
THE STAR OF THE WISE MEN. 25
will illumine them also. Nor does he conceive Messiali's kingdom as
triumphing at once by displays of miraculous power, but rather as de-
veloping itself after struggles vv^ith prevailing corruptions, and after a
gradual purifying of the theocratic nation. The conflict with the cor-
rupt part of the nation was to be severe before the Messiah could lead
his faithful ones to victory. The foreboding of suffering to Mary, so
indefinitely expressed, bears no mds\i o^ post factum invention. But
the inspired idea of Messiah in the pious old man obviously connected
the sufferings which he was to endure in his strife against the conupt
people with those which were foretold of him in Isaiah, liii.
The other devout one, to whom the destiny of the infant Jesus was
revealed, was the aged Anna, who heard Simeon's words, shared in
his joyful anticipations, and united in his song of thanksgiving.*
§ 19. The Longing of the Heathen for a Saviour. — The Star of the
Wise Men.
Not only dwellers about Bethlehem, but also men from a far-distant
land, imbued with the longing desires of which we have spoken, were
led to the place where Christ was born by a sign suited to their pe-
culiar mode of life, a fact which foreshadowed that the hopes of hea-
then as well as Jews, unconscious as well as conscious longings for a
Saviour, were afterward to be gratified.t We have before remarked,
that the natural developement of the heathen mind worked in the same
direction as the movement oi revealed religion among the Jews to pre-
pare the way for Christ's appearance, which was the aim and end of
all previous human history. There is something analogous to the law
and the prophets (which, under revealed religion, led directly, and by
an organically arranged connexion, to Christ), in the sporadic and
detached revelations, which, here and there among the heathen,
arose from the Divine consciousness implanted in humanity. As,
under the Law, man's sense of its insufficiency to work out his justifi-
cation was accompanied by the promise of One who should accomplish
what the Law could never do, so, in the progress of the pagan mind
under the law of nature, there arose a sense of the necessity of a new
revelation from heaven, and a longing desire for a higher order of
* We agree with Scldeierviacher in thinking it probable that the narrative came indi-
rectly from Anna. She is far more minutely described in it than Simeon, although the
latter and his discourse constitute the most important part of the account, while her words
are not reported at all.
t If this naiTative is to be considered as mt/lhical, we must yet ascribe its origin to the
same source which produced the Hebrew Gospel, viz., the Jewish-Christian congregations
in Palestine — a likely origin, indeed, for a myth ascribing so great interest and importance
to uncircumcised heathen ! An extravagant exaggeration of the real occurrence was sub-
sequently made, probably from a fragment of one of the recensions of the Hebrew Gospel
(Ignat., Epist. ad Ephes., $ 19) : "The star sparkled briUiantly beyond all other stars -. it
was a strange and wonderful sight. The other stars, with the sun and moon, formed a choir
around it, but its blaze outshone them all."
26 THE CHILDHOOD OF CHRIST.
things. The notion of a Messiah, carried about by the Jews in their
intercourse with different nations, every where found a point of contact
with the religious sense of men ; and thus natural and revealed religion
worked into each other, as well as separately, in preparing the way
for the appearance of Christ.*
Thus it happened that a few sages in Arabia (or in some part of
the Parthian kingdom), who inquired for the course of human events
in that of the stars, became convinced that a certain constellation or
start which they beheld was a tokenf of the birth of the great King
who was expected to arise in the East. It is not necessary to suppose
that an actual miracle was wrought in this case ; the course of natural
events, under Divine guidance, was made to lead to Christ, just as the
general moral cultui-e of the heathen, though under natural forms, was
made to lead to the knowledge of the Saviour.
The Magi studied astrology, and in their study found a sign of
Christ. If it offends us to find that God has used the errors of man to
lead him to a knowledge of the great truths of salvation, as if thereby He
had lent himself to sustain the False, then must we break in pieces the
chain of human events, in which the True and the False, the Good and
the Evil, are so inseparably linked, that the latter often serves for the
point of ti'ansition to the former. Especially do we see this in the
history of the spread of Christianity, where superstition often paves
the way for faith. God condescends to the platforms of men in train-
ing them for belief in the Redeemer, and meets the aspirations of the
truth-seeking soul even in its error !§ In the case of the wise men, a
real truth, perhajjs, lay at the bottom of the error ; the truth, namely,
that the greatest of all events, which was to produce the greatest rev-
olution in humanity, is actually connected with the epochs of tlie mate-
* We do not insist upon Tacit., Hist, 5, 13, and Siieio/i., Vespasian, 4, who speak of a
niraour spread over the whole East, of the approacliing appearance of the great King, as it
is yet doubtful whether these passages are not imitated from Josephus.
t It is necessary to distinguish wliat is objectively real in the narrative from what arises
from the subjective stand-point of the author of our Matthew's Gospel, who certainly did
not receive the account from au eye-witness. Not merely philological exegesis, but also
liistorical criticism, are recjuired for this ; and if the result of such an in(iuiry be pronounced
arbitran,', because it does not either affinn or reject the objective reality of everj/ thing in
the account, then must all iiistorical criticism be pronounced arbitrary also, for it has no
other mode of pi'ocedure in testing the accuracy of a nairatlve.
X Conf Bishop Munler's treatise on the "Star of the Wise Men," and Iihicr's Chronol-
ogy, ii., 399. It is immaterial whether the sages were led to seek for the sig'n by a theory
of their own, or by a traditional one.
$ Hnmann strikingly says, " How often has God condescended, not merely to the feel-
ings and thoughts of men, but even to their failings and their prejudices! But this very
condescension iauc of the highest marks of his love to man), which is exhibited every
•where in the Bible, affords subjects of derision to those weaklings who look into the word
of God for displays of human wisdom, for the gratification of their pert luid idle curiosity, or
for the spirit of their own times or their own sect." — HWA;.«, i., 5S.
THE MASSACRE OF THE INNOCENTS. 27
rial universe, although the links of the chain may be hidden from our
view.
In the narrative before us, we need not attach the same indisputable
certainty to the details as to the general substance. That the Magians
should be led, by their astrological researches, to a presentiment of the
birth of the Saviour in Judea — that their own longings should impel
them to journey to Jerusalem and do homage to the infant in whom
lay veiled the mighty King — tlds is the lofty, the Divine element in
the transaction, which no one who believes in a guiding, eternal love
— no one who is conscious of the real import of a Redeemer — can
fail to recognize.
We cannot vouch with equal positiveness for the accuracy of Mat-
thew's statement of the means by which the sagos learned, after their
aiTival in Jerusalem, that the chosen child was to be born in Beth-
lehem ; but it matters little whether they were directed thither by
Herod, or in some other way. At any rate, in so small a place as
Bethlehem, they might easily have been guided to the exact place by
providential means not out of the common way ; for instance, by meet-
ing with some of the shepherds, or other devout persons, who had
taken part in the great event ; and they, perhaps, described the whole
as it appeared to them subjectively, when, after reaching the abode,
fhey looked up at the starry heavens.
§ 20. The Massacre of the Innocents and the Flight into Egypt.
The account of the massacre of the infants at Bethlehem cannot
appear incredible when we consider the character of the man to whom
this act of blind and senseless cruelty, worthy of an insane tyrant, is
ascribed.
It was that Herod, whose crimes, committed in violation of every
natural feeling, ever urged him on to new deeds of cruelty ; whose
path to the throne, and whose throne itself, were stained with human
blood ; whose vengeance against conspirators, not satiated with their
own destruction, demanded that of their whole families ;* whose rage
was hot, up to the very hour of his death, against his nearest kindred ;
whose wife, Mariamne, and three sons, Alexander, Aristobulus, and
Antipater, fell victims to his suspicions,- the last. just before his death;
who, in a word, certainly deserved that the Emperor Augustus should
have said of him, " IJc?-odis mallem porcus esse, quam Ji.lius.'"\ It was
that Herod, who, at the close of a blood-stained life of seventy years,
goaded by the furies of an evil conscience, racked by a painful and
incurable disease, waiting for death, but desiring life, raging against
* Joseph., Archreol., xv., viii., § 4.
t These words were appUed, in the fifth century, by an anachronism of the pagan writer
Macrobius, to the massacre of the infants at Bethlehem. — Saturnal., ii., 4.
23 THE CHILDHOOD OF CHRIST.
God and man, and maddened by the thought that the Jews, instead
of bewailing his death, would rejoice over it as the greatest of bless-
ino-s, commanded the worthies of the nation to be assembled in the
circus, and issued a secret order* that, after his death, they should all
be slain together, so that their kindred, at least, might have cause to
weep for his death !t Can we deem the crime of sacrificing a few
children to Lis rage and blind suspicion too atrocious for such a
monster 1
As we have no reason to question the narrative of the tyrant's
attempts upon the life of the wonderful child whose birth had come to
his ears, we can readily connect therewith the flight into Egypt. On
the supposition that this flight actually took place, it was natural
enough, especially with a view to obviate any objections which the
issuing of the Messiah from a profane land might suggest to Jewish
minds, for men to seek analogies between this occurrence and the
history of Moses and the theocratic people ; while, on the other hand,
it would be absurd to suppose that a legend of the flight, without any
historical basis, should have had its origin solely in the desire to find
such analogies.
Thus, in the very beginning of the life of Him who was to save the
world, we see a foreshadowing of what it was afterward to be. The
believing souls, to whom the lofty import of that life was shown by
Divine signs, saw in it the fulfilment of their longings ; the power of
the world, ever subservient to evil, raged against it, but, amid all
dangers, the hand of God guided and brought it forth victorious.|
§ 21. The Return to Nazareth.
Joseph and Mary remained but a short time with the child in Egypt.
The death of Ilerod soon recalled them to Palestine, and they returned
to their old place of abode, the little town of Nazareth,§ in Galilee.
* It was never executed.
t Josephus (Archasol., xvii., 6, 5) says of him : " MtXaira xo^h avr'av Jipa i-ji naatv ila} pia-
liovaa." Even Scliloai^cr admits (View of Ancient History and Civilization, iii., 1, p. 261
that the account of the massacre of the infants, viewed in this connexion, oft'ers no im
probability.
t Instead of seeing the expression of the idea in the facts, we midit, with the idealistic
ghost-seers, invert the order of things, and say that " the idea wrought itself into histoi-y in
the popular traditions" (whose origin, bythe-way, it would be hard to explain after what
lias been said) " of the Christians." In that case we must consider every thing remarkable,
every scintillation of Divinity in the lives of individual men, as absolutely fabulous. This
were, indeed, to deL'ra<lo and a/hrizc all liLstory and all life ; and such is the necessary
tendency of that criticism which rejects all imnicdiato Divine influence.
$ It was formerly thought that Matthew and Luke contradicted eadi other here. Luke
states that Nazareth was the home of Joseph and Mary, and that, having gone to Bethle-
hem for a special purpose (the taxing), they remained long enough to perform the necessary
BROTHERS AND SISTERS OF JESCS. 29
§ 22. Uroiliers and Sisleis of Jesus ; llie Mention of them in tlie Gospel
Narrative, Proof of its historical Character.
Various scattered statements in the Evangelists lead iis to conclude
that Christ had younger brothers and sisters.* The religious princi-
j'>les of Joseph and Mary offered no hindrance to this ; it harmonizes
well with the Christian view of the sanctity of wedlock ; nor is there
any thing at variance with it in the authentic traditions of the apostol-
ic age.
But had the miraculous conception been mythical, the idea of later-
born children would have been abhorrent to the spirit which originated
such a myth. In later times, indeed, this idea did, appear abhoiTent
to some minds ; but it Still remains a mystery why the mythical spirit
did not exercise its power in remodelling the historical elements.
It is worthy of note that Mark and John agree in stating that these
brothers of the Saviour remained unbelievers during his stay on earth,
a fact which illustrates the truthfulness of the history, since it by no
means tended to glorify either Christ or his brothers, one of whom, at
least (James), was in high repute among the Jewish Christians. It is
not to be wondered at that the prophet was without honour among those
who dwelt under the same roof, and saw him grow up under the same
laws of ordinary human nature with themselves. True, this daily con-
ceremonies after the birth of the child, and then returned home. According to Matthe\v,
Beihlchcm appears to have been their settled place of abode, and they were only induced,
by special considerations, to betake themselves to Nazareth after their retuni from Egypt.
The apparent contradiction vanishes when wc consider that the memoirs were collected
and written independently of each other.
Luke may have received the account of the journey of Christ's parents to Bethlehem,
without learning either their intention to remain there with the child, or the cause that led
them to change that intention ; vchile the author of the Greek text of Matthew may have
adhered to the separate statements that were given to him, in ignorance of the special
cause of the journey to Bethlehem. Both accounts may be equally true, and harmonize
well with each other, although those who put them imperfectly together may not perceive
the argument. Moreover, even in Matthew (xiii., 54) we find Nazareth named as Christ's
" own countrj-." There is no improbability in supposing that Joseph and Mary were in-
duced, by the remarkable events which marked the birth of the child at Bethlehem, and by
the revelation of his destiny that was vouchsafed to them, to fix their residence at the seat
of the tribe of David, in the vicinity of the Holy City; but that fear of Archelans, who emu-
lated his father's cruelty and contempt of holy things, led them to change this purpose.
This much is certain, that Matthew's statement of the apprehension which grew out of
Archelaus's accession to the government agrees precisely with the testimony of history in
regard to that prince, who, in the tenth year of his reign, was accused before Augustus of
various crimes, and exiled to Vienna.— Joseph., xvii., xiii., 2.
* The word tws, in Matt., i., 25, in connexion with the statement that Jesus was Mnry's
first-born, leads as to infer Matthew's knowledge of children subsequently born to her (conf.
De Wette on the passage), which we the more certainly conclude, as the same Evangelist
mentions brothers and sisters of Jesus especially, together with his mother. — See Matt.,
xiii, 55. This view is the most natural in such passages as name them together, e. g.,
Luke, viii., 21 ; Mark, iii., 31 ; John, ii., 12 ; vii., 3. It would be forced work indeed to sup-
pose that in all these passages iit\<poi is placed for dittpioi.
30 THE CHILDHOOD OF CHRIST.
tact afforded them many opportunities of beholding the Divinity that
streamed through the veil of his flesh, yet it required a spiritual mind
and a lively faith to recognize the revealed Son of God in the lowly
garb of humanity. The impression of humanity made upon their
senses day after day, and thus grown into a habit, could not be made to
yield to the Divine manifestations, unless in longer time than was re-
quired for others ; but when it did yield, and, after such long-continued
opposition, they acknowledged their brother as the Son of God and the
Messiah, they only became thereby the more trustworthy witnesses.
§ 23. Consciousness of Messiahshlp in the Mind of Jesus. — Jesus among
the Doctors.
The exti-aordinary circumstances of the birth of Christ not only
served as portents of the greatest event in the world's history, but also,
perhaps, furnished external occasions for the developement, in the mind
of Jesus, of the consciousness of his Messiahship. True, this develope-
ment, far from admitting of mechanical illustrations, required, above
all, an inward light in the depths of the higher self-consciousness, the
internal testimony of the Spirit ; but such a testimony by no means
precludes the agency of external impressions, acting as suggestive oc-
casions. The inward Divine light and the revelation from outward
events touch upon each other ; and this connexion between the inter-
nal and the external belongs to the essence of purely human develope-
ment.*
Of the early history of Jesus we have only a single incident ; but
that incident strikingly illustrates the manner in which the conscious-
ness of his Divine nature developed itself in the mind of the child.
Jesus had attained his twelfth year, a period which was regarded
among the Jews as the dividing line between childhood and youth,
and at which regular religious instruction and the study of the Law
were generally entei'ed upon. For that reason, his parents, who were
accustoraedf to visit Jerusalem together| annually at the time of the
Passover, took him with them then for the first time. When the feast
was over, and they were setting out on their return, they missed their
son ; this, however, does not seem to have alarmed them, and perhaps
he ^vas accustomed to remain with certain kindred families or friends ;
indeed, we arc told (Luke, ii., 41) that they expected to find him "in
• Weisae maint.ains (I cannot see on wliat grounds) tliat this view tlcgraJes tlie Divine
element in tiie inner calling of Cln-ist to a mechanical result of circumstances, p. 261.
t Luke (ii., 42) says, " lltnl they vcitt to Jerusalem every year at flic feast of the Pass-
over." This may mean either that Joseph attended yearly no other feast but this, which
would imply that it was not the general custom in Galileo to attend the three chief feasts
at Jerusalem, or that Mary used to accompany bim to this feast only. In either case, it
proves the jieculiar eminence of the Passover.
t Mary accompanied her husband, although the Jewish law did not demand it.
CHRIST AMONG THE DOCTORS. 31
the company," at the evening halt of the caravan. Disappointed in
this expectation, they returned the next morning to Jerusalem, and on
the following day found him in the synagogue of the Temple among
the priests, who had been led by his questions into a conversation on
points of faith.* His parents reproached him for the uneasiness he
had caused them, and he replied, " JVk)/ did you seek me .? Did you
not know that I must be about my Father's business .?" Now these
words of Jesus contain no explanation, beyond his tender years,t of
the relations which he sustained to the Father ; they manifest simply
the consciousness of a child, a depth, to be sure, but yet only a depth
of presentiment.
"We can draw various important inferences from this incident in the
early life "of Christ. At a tender age he studied the Old Testament,
and obtained a better knowledge of its religious value by the light that
was within him than any human instruction could have imparted. Nor
was this beaming forth of an immediate consciousness of Divine things
in tlie mind of the child, in advance of the developement of his powers
of discixrsive reason, at all alien to the character and progress of hu-
man nature, but entirely in harmony with it. Nor need we wonder
that the infinite riches of the hidden spiritual life of the child first
manifested themselves to his consciousness, as if suggested by his con-
versation v/ith the doctors, and that his direct intuitions of Divine truth,
the flashes of sj^ii'itual light that emanated from him, amazed the mas-
ters in Israel. It not unfrequently happens, in our human life, that
the questions of others are thus suggestive to great minds, and, like steel
upon the flint, draw forth their inner light, at the same time revealing
to their own souls the unknown treasures that lay in their hidden
depths. But they give more than they receive ; the outward suggestion
only excites to action their creative energy ; and men of reflective and
receptive, rather than creative minds, by inciting the latter to know and
develop their vast resources, may not only leain much from their ut-
terance, but also diffuse the streams which gush with overflowing ful-
ness fi'om these abundant well-springs. And these remarks applying
— in a sense in which they apply to no other — to that mind, lofty be-
yond all human comparison, whose creative thoughts are to fertilize
* How little of the mythical there is in this may be seen from the case of Josephns, who
states of himself, that when he was fourteen years old the priests of the city met with him
to put questions to him about the law.
t The addition of extravagant and fabulous colouring^s to historical elements may be seen
in such instances as the following from Irenasus, on the childhood of Jesus, taken out of an
apocryphal Gospel originating in Palestine : " When the teacher told the boy to pronounce
Alcph, he did so. But when he told him to say Beth, the child replied, ' Tell me the mean-
ing of Aleph, and then I will tell you v.'hat Belh is' " (an allusion to the mystical import of
the letters, according to the Kabbala). There was any number of such apocryphal Gos-
pels, as Irenceus says.
32 THE CHILDHOOD OF CHRIST.
the spiritual life of man through all ages, and whose creative power
sprang from its mysterious union with that Divine Word, which gave
birth to all things, show us that His consciousness developed itself
gi-adually, and in perfect accordance with the laws of human life, from
that mysterious union which formed its gi'ound.
And furtlier — without in the least attempting to do away with the
peculiar form of the child's spiritual life — we can recognize in this
incident a dawning sense of his Divine mission in the mind of Jesus :
a sense, however, not yet unfolded in the form in which the corrup-
tion of the world, objectively presented, alone could occasion its devel-
opemcnt. The child found congenial occupation in the things of God:
in the Temple he was at home. And, on the other hand, we see an
ojjening consciousness of the peculiar relation in which he stood to the
Father as the Son of God. We delight to find in the early lives of
eminent men some glimpses of the future, some indications of their
after greatness ; so we gladly recognize, in the pregnant words of the
child, a foreshadowing of what is afterward so fully revealed to us in
the discourses of the completely manifested Christ, especially as they
are given to us in John's Gospel.
BOOK II.
THE MENTAL CULTURE OF JESUS. HIS LIEE TO
THE TIME OF HIS PUBLIC MINISTRY.
BOOK II.
THE MENTAL CULTURE OF JESUS. UIS LIFE TO TIE TIME OF
HIS PUBLIC MINISTRY.
CHAPTER I.
JESUS NOT EDUCATED IN THE THEOLOGICAL SCHOOLS OF THE JEWS.
WE have already seen that in the early progress of the mind of
Christ every thing was original and direct, and that external oc-
casions w^ere needed only to bring out his inward self- activity. As we
must suppose that his developement was subsequently continued in the
same way, we come at once to the conclusion that His education for a
teacher was not due to any of the theological schools then existing in
Judea. But we can reach this conclusion also by comparing the
peculiar tendencies of those schools with the aims of Christ, with his
mode of life and instruction, and with the spirit which he diffused
around him.
§ 24. The Pharisees.
In the outset, how unlike Christ was the legal spirit of Pharisaism,
with its soul-crushing statutes, its dead theology of the letter, and its bar-
ren subtilties ! Some few of the sect, endowed with a more earnest reli-
gious sense, and a more sincere love of truth than their fellows, could not
resist the impression of Christ's Divine manifestation ; but they came
to him with a full knowledge of the difference between his mode of
teaching and theirs, and not as to a teacher sprung from among them-
selves. They had first to overcome their surprise at his strange and
extraordinary language, before they could enter into closer connexion
with him. They had to renounce the wisdom of their schools, to dis-
claim their legal righteousness, and to attach themselves to Christ with
the same sense of deficiency in themselves, and the same desire for
what he alone could impart, as all other men.
§ 25. The Sadducees.
The spirit of the Sadducees presents a still more rugged contrast to
the spirit of Christ. Their schools agreed in nothing but denying;
their only bond of union was opposition to the Pharisees, against
36 CULTURE OF JESUS.
whom they strove to re-establish the original Hebraism, freed from the
foreign elements which the Pharisaic statutes had mixed up with it.
But an agreement in negation can be only an ajiparent one, if the
negation rests upon an opposite positive principle. Thus certain nega-
tive doctrines, that agree with Protestantism in rejecting the authority
and traditions of the Romish Church, separate themselves further from
Protestantism than the Romish doctrine itself, by the affirmative prin-
ciple on which they rest their denial, and by carrying that denial too
far. The single positive principle of Sadduceeism was the one-sided
prominence given by them to morality, which they separated from its
necessary inward union with religion. But Christ's combat with the
Pharisees arose out of the fullest interpenetration of the moral and
religious elements. The Sadducees wished to cut off the progressive
developement of Hebraism at an arbitrary point. They refused to
recognize the growing consciousness of God, which, derived ft-om the
Mosaic institute, formed a substantial feature of Judaism, and hence
could not comprehend the higher religious element from which, as a
germ, under successive Divine revelations, the spiritual life of Juda-
ism was to be gradually developed.* Rejecting all such growth as
foreign and false, they held a subordinate and isolated point to be ab-
solute and perpetual ; adhering to the letter rather than the spirit.
To the forced allegorizing of the Pharisees in interpreting the Scrip-
ture, they opposed a slavishly literal and narrow exegesis. But Chi'ist,
on the other hand, while he rejected the Pharisaic traditions, received
into his doctrine all the riches of Divine knowledge which the progress-
ive growth of Theism, up to the time of John the Baptist, had brought
forth. His agreement, then, with the Sadducees, consisting, as it did,
solely in opposition to Pharisaism, was merely negative and apparent.
Some have detected an affinity between the moral teaching of
Christ and the Anii- Eud<^7nonism of the Sadducees, the principle,
* See below for the way in which Christ illustrated this to the Sadducees. As to the
Canon, it cannot be actually proved that the Sadducees held it differently from other
.Tews. It is true, Josephus says (Archaeol., xiii., x., 6) that they rejected everj' thing but
the Mosaic law — airrp ovk dvayiypanrat h ro'ii Mwuir/uiS vAfioti. But the Mosaic law is not here
opposed to the rest of the Canon, but to oral traditions ; and the only question was whether
the Mosaic law alone, or in connexion with oral tradition, was to be held as authority for
religious usages. The remaining books of the Old Testament were not in dispute, as no
religious usages at all were derived from them. Still, it is not unlikely that the Sadducees
went so far, in their opposition to Pharisaism, as to reject all doctrines that could not be
shown to have a Mosaic origin, and to consider the Pentateuch as the sole, or, at least, the
«-hief, source of religious truth. As we find such views of the Canon among the .Tewish-
Christian sects (Cf tlie Clementines), we may infer that they previously existed among
the .Tews. They would hanlly have denied Immortality and the ResuiTcction, if they had
held the Prophets to be law in the same sense as the Pentateuch ; although it is possible
that they interpreted such passages of the Prophets in another way. The general terras
in which Josephus speaks of the recognition of the Canon among the Jews (i., c. Apion, $
8) do not suffice to prove tliat there were no diflcrences in this respect in the different
sects.
THE ESSENES. 37
namely, that man must do good for its own sake, without the hope of
future recompense.* But here, again, Christianity agrees with Saddu-
ceeism only in what it denies, not in what it affirms. The divhie life
of Christianity has no more affinity for that selfish Eudajmonism which
seeks the good as means to an end, than for the spirit of Sadduceeism
which denies the higher aims of moral action, and makes it altogether
" of the earth, earthly." These opposite errors sprang from one com-
mon source, namely, the debasement of the spiritual life into worldli-
ness, and therefore Christianity is alike antagonistic to them both,
whether seen in the worldly admission of a future life by the Pharisees,
or in its woi'ldly rejection by the Sadducees. Yet in the doctrine of the
former, it must be admitted, lay a germ of truth which only needed to
be freed from selfish and sensual tendencies to show itself in its full
spiritual import.t , ,
§ 26. The Esscncs.
The secrecy which the sect of the Essenes affected has given rise to
many subtle and arbitrary hypotheses. Some have found in its ardent
religious spirit ground for believing in a connexion between it and
Christianity .J This argument, by proving too much, proves nothing ;
on the same principle we might show a connexion between Christian-
ity and every form under which mysticism has appeared and reappear-
ed in the history of religion. But there were other points of similarity
between Essenism and Christianity, besides this mystic element which
has its source in man's native religious tendencies. Essenism grew
out of Judaism, and was pervaded by a moral belief in God, a spirit
which was nourished and strengthened by habits of seclusion from
the stir of life, of religious communion, and of quiet prayer and medi-
tation. Other resemblances may be discovered between Essenism and
the doctrine of Christ, or the forms of the first Christian communities ;
but they may be traced, like those just mentioned, to sources common
to both, and therefore afford no proof of a real connexion between
* No reliance is to be placed in the Talmudic tradition in Pirke Aboth, i., 3, according to
which the principle thus perverted to the denial of a future life came from Antigonus Ish
Socho, or Simeon the Just. The prevalent orthodoxy was always incHncd to ascribe error
to the perversion of some orthodox doctrine.
t Dr. von Colin arrives at the conclusion that " the moral philosophy of the Sadducees
was better than that of the Pharisees, because the New Testament does not attack their
moral principles, but only their denial of the Resurrection." — (Bibl. Theol., i., 4.'J0.) We do
not admit the inference. This silence of the New Testament can be readily accounted for
on the ground that Sadduceeism had few points in common with Christianity; and while it
was necessary to guard men frequently against Pharisaic abuses of great troths (e. g., of
the truth that morality and religion are inseparable), the open contrast of Sadduceeism made
such special controversy with its teachers unnecessary.
t First alluded to in an unpublished treatise of J. G. Wachter, De Primwdiis Christi-
art/e Reli^ionis, libri d^io. Sec, especially, Reinhard's Versuch iiber den Plan .lesu
IReinhard's Plan of the Fo^tnder of Christianity/, translated by A. Kaufman, Andovcr].
38 CULTURE OF JESUS.
them. A closer examination will demonstrate that the similarities
were only apparent, while the differences were essential.
For instance, the Essenes prohibited oat/ts, and so did Christ. Here
is a resemblance. Cut the former, confounding the spirit with the
letter, made the prohibition — which grew out of their rule of absolute
veracity and mutual confidence in each other — a positive law, uncon-
ditionally binding, not only within their own community, but in the
general intercourse of life. Christ prohibited oaths, on the other hand,
not by an enactment binding only from without, but by a law develop-
ing itself outwardly from the new spiritual life which he himself
implanted in his followers. Paul knew that an asseveration, made for
right ends, and in the spirit of Christ's command, was no violation of
that command.
Again, the law of the Essenes prohibited slavery, and so was Christ's
intended to subvert it. The sect agreed with the Saviour in seeing that
all men alike bear the image of God, and that none can have the right,
by holding their fellows as property, to degrade that image into a brute
or a chattel. So far Essenism and Christianity agTce ; but see where-
in they differ. The one was a formula for a small circle of devotees ;
the other was a system for the regeneration of mankind : the one made
positive enactments, acting by pressure from without; the other im-
planted new moral principles, to work from within : the one put its
law in force at once, and declared that no slave could be held in its
communion ; the other gave no direct command upon the subject.
Yet the whole spirit of Christ's teaching tended to create in men's
minds a moral sense of the evil of a relation so utterly subvei'sive of all
that is good in humanity, and thus to effect its entire abolition.
Let us take another apparent resemblance. The Essenes devoted
themselves much to healing the sick, and so did Christ (and the gift of
healing was imparted to the first congregations) ; but the agencies which
they employed were essentially different. They made use of natural
remedies, drawn from the vegetable and mineral kingdoms, and hand-
ed down the knowledge thereof in their books ;* but the Saviour and
his apostles wrought their cures by no intermediate agents, but by the
direct operation of power from on high.t Even when Christ did make
use of physical means, the results were always out of proportion to them.
Finally, let us compare the scope of Essenism, as a whole, with the
aims of Christ's mission. Essenism, probably originating in a com-
mingling of Judaism with the old Oriental| theosophy, manifested a
* Joseph., B- J., ii., viii., 6: IvOcv (i.e., from old writings) avToli vpoi ^cpa-irda^ naOiir, ^i'^,ai
Tt aXcliTt'iptoi Kill \if)<0)' l^idrtiTci uiepcinuivTut.
t Cf. wliat is said fiirtliur on, under the liead of " The Mh-acles of Clirist."
t Some modem writers jirefer to derive Essenism from Alexaudriiui Platonism trans-
jdajited into ralcsline, but I can lind no proof that their view explains the general character
CHRIST'S TEACHING FROM WITHIN. 39
spirit at once monkish and schismatic* How strong a contrast does
such a system present to the active spirit of the Gospel, aiming only to
implant holy feelings, and so to secure holy lives, seeking every where
for needy souls, and, wherever the need appears, pouring forth its ex-
haustless treasures without stint ! Such a spirit broke away at once
the wall of separation between man and man, which the aristocratic
and exclusive spii'itual life of Essenism was ever striving to build u[).
§ 27. Supposed Influence of the Alexandrian- Jewish Doctrines.
A few words in regard to the supposed influence of the doctrines
of the Alexandrian Jews upon Christ's culture. Even admitting that
these doctrines penetrated into Palestine, it can by no means be pre-
supposed that they entered into Galilee, and especially into the nar-
row circle of the common people within which he was educated. The
grounds on which some profess to find traces of such an influence in
■ the discourses of Christ would serve as well to prove that Christianity
derived its origin from Brama or Buddhu.f
§ 28. Affinity of Christianity, as absolute Truth, for the various opposing
Religious Systems,
On the dissolution of Judaism, its elements, originally joined togeth-
er in a living unity, necessarily produced various religious tendencies,
which mutually opposed and excluded each other. In all these we
can find something akin to the new ci'eation of Christianity. And
wherever Christianity appears for the first time, or reveals itself anew
in its own glory, it must offer some points of afl[inity for the different
opposing systems. The living, perfect truth has points of tangency for
the one-sided forms of error ; though we may not be thereby enabled
to put together the perfect whole from the scattered and repellent
fragments.
§ 29. Christ's Teaching revealed from rvithin, not received from xoithout.
Had the source of Christ's mighty power been merely a doctrine, it
might have been received, or at least suggested, from abroad. But his
or the individual features of Essenism as well as that iu the text. Moreover, I remain of
the opinion that the doctrines of the Therapeuta and the Essenes were allied, but inde-
pendent i-eligious tendencies.
* 1 can give no other translation than the following to the passage in Josephus (ArchaBol.,
xviii., 1, 5) which speaks of the Essenes. It will be seen that I take the word eipy6ncvQi,
not in the passive, but in the middle sense. " They send, it is true, their offerings to tlie
temple, but they bring no sacrifices, because they so greatly prefer their own way of puri-
fying and sanctifying themselves ; and, for fear of defilement by taking part with the rest
of the people, they keep away from the common sanctuary, and make their sacrifices apart,
surrounded only by the initiated."
t Cf. my Kirchengeschichte, 2d edit., Part I., for the relation between the Alexandrian
theology and Christianity.
40 CULTURE OF JESUS.
power lay in the impression which his manifestation and life as the In-
carnate God px-oduced ; and this could never have been derived from
without.* The peculiar import of his doctrine, as such, consists in its
relation to himself as a part of his self-revelation, an image of his un-
originated and inherent life ; and this alone suffices to defy all attempts
at external explanation.
§ 30. The popular Sentiment in regard to Christ's Connexion with the
Schools.
Had Jesus been trained in the Jewish seminaries,! his opponents
would, doubtless, have reproached him with the arrogance of setting
up for master where he himself had been a pupil. But, on the contra-
ry, we find that they censured him for attempting to explain the Scrip-
tures without having enjoyed the advantages of the schools (John, vii.,
15). His first appearance as a teacher in the synagogue at Nazareth
caused even greater surprise, as he was known there, not as one learned
in the Law, but rather as a cai-penter's son, who had, perhaps, himself
worked at his father's trade.i; The general impression of his discourses
every where was, that they contained totally difierent materials from
tliose furnished by the theological schools (Matt., vii., 29).
* We recall here the profound sentiment of a prophetic German mind : " The pearl of
Christianity is a life hidden in God, a truth in Christ the Mediator, a power which consists
neither in words and forms, nor in dogmas and outward acts ; it cannot, therefore, be val-
ued by the common standards of logic or ethics." — Hamann, iv., 285.
t Dr. Paulus supposes that Christ, because he was called Rabbi, not only by his disci-
ples, but by the distinguished Rabbi Nicodemus, and even by his enemies (John, vi., 25),
obtained that title in the way usual among the Jews ; and he intimates that Christ studied
with the rabbis of the Essenes, and perhaps obtained the degree from them (Life of Christ,
i., 1, 12i). But when we remember that he stood at the head of a party which recognized
his prophetic character, we can see why others, who did not recognize it, would yet call
him their master, c. g-., Matt., xvii., 24 ; b i^tiduKa'Xos ii^iwi'. Nicodemus, however, did really
acknowledge him as a Divine teacher; nor were those who addressed him as Rabbi, in
John, vi., 2.), by any means his enemies. This style of address, therefoi-c. does not imply
his possession of a title from a Jewish tribunal, but rather arose in the circle of followers
that he gathered around him. As to the Essenes, it cannot be proved that they created
rabbis, as did the Jewish synagogues ; and if they did, such titles would hardly be recog-
nized by the prevailing party, the Pharisees.
t It cannot be decided certainly that this was the case. There was a tradition in prim-
itive Christian times to that effect; so Justin Martyr (Dialog., c. Tryph., 316) says: ravra
Tu TCKTOvtKil ifiY" iipyd^CTO iv at'Opii-rroti Siv, Kal '^vyu, iia toiitoiv Kai tu riji &iKmoorvinji oVjiSoXa iiii-
aKuv Kai iiipyt] (iiov. It may be that tliis, and the tradition, also, that Christ was destitute
of personal beauty, were rather ideal than historical conceptions, framed to confonn with
his humble condition "in the fonn of a servant." Christ was not to come fortli from a high
position, but from a lowly workshop ; as, according to the reproach of C'elsus. his first fol-
lowers were mechanics. IJutthe report may have been true, and was, if the ordinary reading
of Mark, vi., 3, be correct. Against this has been adduced the following passage in Ori^.,
cont. Ceh., vi., 36, viz. : on oviaijiov tujv iv rali iKK^tjalaii tjirponhitiiv cvii)ycXi(jjv tIktuiv avrdi b 'irf
aovi avayi-jpaiTTai. The reading in Mark, vi., 3, may have been altered before the time of
Origcn, from a false pride tliat took oflence at Clu-ist's working as a common mechanic,
and a foolish desire to conciliate the pagans, who reproached Christians witli tliis feature
CONSCIOUSNESS OF MESSIAHSHIP. 41
CHAPTER II.
COURSE OF CHRIST'S LIFE UP TO THE OPENING OF HIS PUBLIC MIN-
ISTRY.
§ 31. Growing Consciousness of His MessiahsMp in Christ.
ALTHOUGH so many years of our Saviour's life are veiled in ob-
scurity, v^^e cannot believe that the full consciousness of a Di-
vine call which he displayed in his later years was of sudden growth.
If a great man accomplishes, within a very brief period, labours of par-
amount importance to the world, and which he himself regards as the
task of his life, we must presume that the strength and energies of his
previous years were concentrated into that limited period, and that the
former only constituted a time of preparation for the latter.
Most of all must this be true of the labours of Christ, the gi-eateet
and most important that the world has known. We have the right to
presume that He who assumed as his task the salvation of the human
race made his whole previous existence to bear upon this mighty labour.
The idea of the Messiah, as Redeemer and King, streamed forth in Di-
vine light, from the course of the theocracy and the scattered intima-
tions of the Old Testarnent, in full extent and clearness, and in Divine
light he recognized this Messiahship as his own ; and this conscious-
ness of God within him harmonized with the extraordinary phenom-
ena that occurred at his birth.
But the negative side of the Messiahship, namely, its relation to sin,
he could not learn from self-contemplation. He could not learn de-
in the life of their founder. Fritzsche founds an ineffectual argument on the following in-
ternal ground, viz.: " Christ's working at a trade would not have interfered with his ap-
pearing as a public teacher. The Jews had no contempt for artisans, and even the scribes
sometimes supported themselves by mechanical toils." True, the scribes might occasion-
ally work at trades without reproach, but to be merely a mechanic (and no scribe) was
quite a different thing; so that the ensuing objection, " Hoio comes this carpenter to set up
as our teacher?" was quite in character, even among Jews. It does not follow because,
afterward, only designations of family are given in the passage, that therefore the first
designation was fixed upon him only as "the son of the carpenter;" for, certainly, the two
ideas, "he himself is only a carpenter," and "his relations live among us as ordinary peo-
ple," hang well together. They could utter, first, the most cutting contrast, "he is a car-
penter, hke the others, and he now will be a prophet," and then mention only his relations
who were yet living, but not Joseph, who was already dead.
It is perfectly in accordance with the genius of Christianity (although not necessarily flow-
ing from it), that the Highest should thus spring from an humble walk of life, and that tlie
Divine glory should manifest itself at first to men in so lowly a form. The Redeemer thus
ennobled human labour and the foi-ms of common life ; there was thenceforth to be no
^dvavaov in the relations of human society. Thus began the influence of Chi-istianity upon
the civil and social relations of men — an influence which has gone on increasing from that
day to this.
42 CONSCIOUSNESS OF MESSIAHSHIP.
pravily by expeiience ; yet, without this knowledge, although the idea
of the Messiah as theocratic king might have been fully developed in
his mind, an essential element of his relations to humanity would have
remained foreign to him. But although his personal experience could
not unfold this peculiar modification of the Messianic consciousness,
many of its essential features were continually suggested by his inter-
course with the outer world. There, in all the relations of life, he saw
human depravity and its attendant wretchedness. The sight, and the
sympathizing love which it awoke, made a profound impression upon
his soul, and formed, at least, a basis for the consciousness of his own
relation to it as Messiah.
We may assume, then, that when he reached his thirtieth year,* fully
assured of his call to the Messiahship, he waited only for a sign from
God to emerge from his obscurity and enter upon his work. This
sign was to be given him by means of the last of God's witnesses un-
der the old dispensation, whose calling it was to prepare the way for
the new developement of the kingdom of God — by John the Baptist, the
last representative of the prophetic spirit of the Old Testament, whose
relation to Christ and his office we shall now more particularly ex-
amine.!
• The age at which the Levites entered on their office. — Nuxnb., iv.
t A promising young theologian of Liibeck, L. von Rohden, has lately put forth an excel-
lent treatise on this subject, well adapted for general circulation, entitled "Johannes der
Taufer, in seinem Leben and Wirken dargestellt."
BOOK III.
PREPARATIVES TO THE PUBLIC MINISTRY OF CHRIST.
PART I. OBJECTIVE PREPARATION.— JOHN THE BAPTIST.
PART II. SUBJECTIVE PREPARATION.— THE TEMPTATION.
BOOK III.
PREPARATIVES TO THE PUBLIC MINISTRY OF CHRIST.
PART I.
OBJECTIVE PREPARATION. THE MINISTRY OF JOHN THE
BAPTIST.
CHAPTER I.
THE CALLING OF THE BAPTIST, AND HIS RELATIONS TO THE JEWS.
§ 32. Hotofar the Baptist revived the Expectation of a Messiah.
A PROCLAMATION of the approaching kingdom of God, involv-
ing the restoration of the sunken glory of the Theocracy, and the
dawning of a brighter day upon God's oppressed ones, was essentially
necessary as a preparation for Christ's public ministry.
But this was not all ; it was equally necessary to announce Hkm who
was called to the accomplishment of this great work. The expectation
of the kingdom and the king should always have gone together; but
we find that they did not actually do so. The prophecies of the gen-
eral renewal were often distinct from those which foretold the agent
chosen by God to accomplish it ; and the hope of the former often ex-
isted in minds which had lost sight of the latter. A Philo proves this.
The Greek and Alexandrian culture, and perhaps the combination of
the two in the religious Realism of Palestine, may have tended to bring
about this result. Be that as it may, it is essential for our purpose to
keep the two ideas — the announcement of the kingdom and the proc-
lamation of the Messiah — separate from each other.
Some suppose that John the Baptist was the first* to suggest the idea
of a Messiah to the Jewish mind of that day. But certainly this idea,
so thoroughly interwoven with the theocratic consciousness, could not
have fallen into oblivion ; nay, the sufferings of the people, their shame
at being slaves to those whom they believed themselves destined to
rule, and their desire for deliverance from this degrading bondage, must
have constantly tended to bring it more and more vividly before them.
It would be going too far, then, to say that this idea had been lost out of
■ So Schleiermacher (Christliche Sittenlehre, p. 19) states that John's work was " to re-
vive the forgotten idea of the Messiah."
46 JOHN THE BAPTIST.
the mind of that age, and that its revival was due to the efforts of a
single individual. Much rather should we conceive that the spirit of the
individual was stirred by an impulse from the spirit of the age. But
while the general tendency of the popular mind prepared the way for
John, his labours reacted mightily upon the spirit of the age, and form-
ed, indeed, a new epoch in the hopes of men for the appearance of the
Kingdom and of the Messiah. Christ himself makes this epoch the
transition-period between the old and the new dispensations.*
It was essential, also, to this preparation for the Messiah, that the
minds of the people should obtain a clear conception of the object to
which their hopes were directed, and the means by which it was to be
obtained, involving a more correct notion of the work and kingdom of
Messiah, and of the moral requisites for participation therein. All this
belonged to the calling of the Old-Testament order of prophets, of
which John constituted the apex. We must look for the peculiar fea-
tures of his position in the fact that he himself not only formed the
point of transition to the new era, but was allowed to recognize and
point out the Messiah, and to give the signal for the beginning of his
public ministry,
§ 33. Causes of Obscurity in the Accounts left ns of the Baptist. — Sources:
The Evangelists. Josephus.
The difficulties and obscurities that remain in the accounts of this
remarkable man seem to have arisen necessarily from the peculiar
stand-point which he occupied. In a prophet or a forerunner, we
must always distinguish between what he utters with clear self-con-
sciousness, and what lies beyond the utterance, concealed even from
himself, until a later period ; between the fundamental idea, and the
form, perhaps not wholly fitting, in which it veils itself. Opposite ele-
ments always meet each other in an epoch which constitutes the tran-
sition-point from one stage of developement to another; and we can-
not look for a logical and connected mode of thinking in the repre-
sentative of such an epoch. In some of his utterances we may find
traces of the old period ; in others, longings for the new; and in bring-
ing them together, we may find different views which cannot always
be made perfectly to harmonize.
The nature of the authorities to which we are confined makes it pe-
culiarly difficult to come at the objective truth in regard to John the
Baptist. On the one side we have the accounts of the Evangelists,
given from the Christian stand-point, and for religious ends ; and on
the other that of Josephus,] which is purely historical in its character
and aims.
* Matt, xi., 12. Wc shall have occasion to say more on this passage hereafter.
t ArcliBBol., xix., ].
AUTHORITIES. 47
As to the first, it is very probable that John could be better under-
stood in the light of Christianity than he understood himself and his
mission. The aims of a preparatory and transition-period are always
better comprehended after their accomplishment than before; so, truths
which were veiled from John's apprehension stood clearly forth be-
fore the minds of the Evangelists. But this very fact may have caused
the obscurity which we find in their accounts of the Baptist, We are
very apt, in describing a lower point of view from a higher, to attribute
to the former what belongs only to the latter. Any one who has passed
through a subordinate and preparatory stage of thought to a higher one,
will find it hard to keep the distinction between the two clearly before
his consciousness ; they blend themselves together in spite of him. So,
perhaps, it may have happened that the distinctive differences between
the stand-point of John and that of Christianity were lost sight of when
the evangelical accounts were prepared, and that the Baptist was rep-
resented as nearer to Christianity than he really was. The likelihood
of this result would be all the greater if the Christian writer had been
himself a disciple of John ; such a one, even though endowed with the
sincerest love of truth, would naturally see more in the words of his
old master than the latter himself, under his peculiar circumstances,
could possibly have intended. After a prophecy has reached its fulfil-
ment, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to reproduce the precise
consciousness under which the prediction was uttered.
If, therefore, we find, on close inquiry, that the historical statements
are somewhat obscured by subjective influences, our estimate of their
veracity need be in no wise affected thereby. Such a result would
not conflict in the least with the only tenable idea of Inspiration.
The organs which the Holy Ghost illuminated and inspired to convey
his truth to men retained their individual peculiarities, and remained
within the sphere of the psychological laws of our being. Besides,
Inspiration, both in its nature and its object, refers only to man's re-
ligious interests and to points connected with it. But practical religion
requires only a knowledge of the truth itself; it needs not to under-
stand the gradual genetic developement of the truth in the intellect, or
to distinguish the various stages of its advance to distinct and perfect
consciousness. On the other hand, these latter are precisely the aims
towards which scientific history directs itself. It follows, therefore, that
the interest of practical religion and that of scientific history may not
always run in the same channel ; and the latter must give place to the
former, especially in points so vital as the direct impression which
Christ made upon mankind. Frequent illustrations of this distinction
are afforded by the interpretations of passages from the Old Testament
given by the apostles.
In all our inquiries into the evangelical histories, we must keep in
43 JOHN THE BAPTIST.
view the fact that they were written not to satisfy scientific, but re-
ligious wants ; not to afford materials for systematic history, but to set
forth the ground of human salvation in Christ and his kingdom. There
was, indeed, one who could distinguish the different stages in the devel •
opement of revelation at a single piercing glance ; but this one was He
in whom God and man were united. He himself told his Apostles that
he had this power, and his words in regard to the stand-point of John
the Baptist illustrate it. These words alone must form our guiding light.
It might be inferred, if what we have said be true, that the account
of Josephus, which proceeds from a purely historical interest, should be
preferred to that of the Evangelists. But it must not be forgotten that
historical events can only be correctly imderstood when viewed from
the stand-point of the province to which they belong ; and so events
that fall within the sphere of religion are only intelligible from a re-
lio-ious stand-point. And as John's import to the history of the world
consists in the fact that he formed the dividing line between the two
stages of developement in the kingdom of God, it cannot be fully un-
derstood except by an intuitive religious sense, capable of appreciating
relio-ious phenomena. Of such a religious sense Josephus was desti-
tute. Now the religious sense can get along without the scientific ;
but the latter cannot do without the former, where the understanding
of relio-ious events is concerned ; and hence the living peculiarities of
John the Baptist vanished under the hands of Josephus, although he
was able to apprehend John's character and appearance in their gen-
eral features. To his religious deficiency must be added his habit of
adapting himself to the taste and culture of the Greeks, a habit which
could not but wear away his Jewish modes of thought and feeling.
He saw in John only a man of moral ai'dour, who taught the truth to
the Jews, rebuked their corruptions, and offered them, instead of their
lustrations and outward righteousness, a symbol of inward spiritual
purification in his water-baptism. With such a narrow view as this
we could neither understand John's use of baptism, nor explain his
public labours among such a people as the Jews. It is but a beggarly
abstraction from the living individual elements which the Gospel ac-
counts aflbrd.
§ 34. The Baptist'' s Mode of Life and Teaching in the Desert.
We learn from .Tosephus* that many pious and earnest men among
the .Tews, disgusted with the corruptions of the times, retired, like the
monks and hermits of Christianity at a later day, into wilderness spots,
* An example is afforded in the case of 5a7iMS, of whom Josephus, who was his disciple,
gives an account in his autobiography, § 2 : " iaOfin fiiv and iivipuiv xpuiittvov, rpoipriv 6e r^v
oiro/idroDj tlivonivriv j:poa(t>cp6ncvoi', ^uxpv 6i vSan Ti)v ijpipav koX rfiv vvktu ttoXMkH Xovdptvov irpof
ayvc'iav."
HIS RELATION TO THE JEWISH PEOPLE. 49
and there, becoming teachers of Divine wisdom, collected disciples
around them. Such a one was Jolm. Consecrated from his birth, by
a sign from heaven, to his Divine calUng, he led a rigid and ascetic
life from his very childhood. Had we nothing but Josephus's* account
to guide us, we might suppose that Jolm only diftered from the other
teachers of the desert in the fact that the spirit of his teaching was
more practical, and tended to carry him out into a wider field of action.
While they only revealed the truths of a higher life to such as sought
them in their solitude, he felt constrained to go forth and raise his re-
proving voice aloud among the multitude, to condemn the Jews fur
their vices and their hypocrisy, and to call them, abandoning their false
security and their debasing trust in outward works, to seek the genuine
piety which comes from the heart. This part of John's ministry, viz.,
his work as a reformer, Josephus has brought out prominently ; while
he has entirely failed to notice the indelible stamp of the Baptist's la-
bours left upon the history of the Theocracy.
John had retired to the desert region west of the Dead Sea, and
there lived a life of abstinence and austerity, harmonizing well with
his inwai'd grief for the corrujjtions of his people. Like his type,
Elias, he wore coarse garments, and satisfied his wants with a nourish
ment which "nature offei'ed in a species of locusts, sometimes used as
food, and wild honey.t
§ 35. John as Baptist and Preacher of Repentance.
While John was thus sighing in solitude over the sins of a degener-
ate people, and praying that God would soon send the promised
Deliverer, the assurance was vouchsafed to him from above that the
Messiah should soon be revealed to him. He felt himself called to
declare this assurance to the people, and to exhort them to prepare
their souls for the approaching epoch. He abandoned the solitude of
the desert for the banks of the Jordan,| gathered the people in hosts
about him, and announced to them the coming appearance of both the
Messiah and his kingdom, which ideas he never separated. He pro-
claimed to them that God would sift his people, and that the unworthy
should be condemned and excluded from the Theocracy. He de-
nounced as false and treacherous the prevailing idea that theocratic
descent and the observance of outward ceremonies were the only
* Archseol., xviii., v. 2.
t In the Ebioiiitish recension of Matthew, we find the food of John described as f/Af
aypiov, ov ti ycvcti ijv tov ndvva, i>s lyKp'ts iv tXui'u ("it had the taste of manna, as a cake baked
in oil." — Num., xi., 8). The simple statement of Matthew is here misrepresented, and
even falsified. The uKpiScs (locusts) seemed to this writer food unwortliy for Jolin, and be
makes iyKpiSeS (cakes) oat of them, and thus gets a chance of comparing John's food with
manna.
t We follow the statement of Luke (iii., 2), which has the advantage in distinguishing
from each other the periods in JoWs manifestation.
D
50 JOHN THE BAPTIST.
requisites for admittance into Messiah's kingdom, and exhorted all to
true repentance as the one essential preparation. He made use of
baptism as a symbol of preparatory consecration to the Messiah's
kingdom, a course to which he might have been led by the lustrations
common among the Jews, and by the intimations of prophecy, such as
Mai., iii. ; Zach., xiii. ; Ezek., xxxvi., 25, even if the baptism of prose-
lytes was not then extant among the Jews. Doubtless the Baptist
stood in a special relation to those that flocked about him as followers ;
although, as preacher of repentance, as tJie voice of one crying in tJie
wilderness (Isai., xl., 3), whose duty it was to prepare the way for the
Messiah amid a people estranged from God, he held a general and
common relation to all.
§ 36. Relations of the Pharisees and Saddtccces to the Baj)tist.
We are naturally led here to inquire into the relations which John
sustained to the different classes of the Jewish people. Was he, as
preacher of repentance, only a man of the people, and did the Phari-
sees, the hierarchical party, manifest their jealous opposition from the
very first, or did it arise by degrees at a later period ] Of one thing
we may be sure, from Matt., iii., 7, viz., that- many Pharisees were to
be found among the number that crowded about John and submitted
to his baptism. Yet Christ, in one of his last discourses at .Jerusalem
(Matt., xxi., 32), drew a striking contrast between the publicans who
believed in John's prophetic calling, and were led by him to repent-
ance, and the Pharisees, who persevered in their self-sufficiency and
unbehef. The words of Matt., xi., 16, seem also to indicate that the
general spirit of the people was as hostile to John as it subsequently
showed itself to Christ, and that only a few, open to the lessons of
heavenly wisdom, admitted the Divine mission of the Baptist. So,
also, in Luke, vii., 29, 30, the course of the people and the publicans,
in following John and submitting to his baptism, is contrasted with the
very opposite conduct of the Pharisees and lawyers, who " rejected
the counsel of God against themselves."
Still, Matthew (iii., 7) states expressly, that '■'■many Pharisees and Sad-
ducecs came to John's baptism" and the fonn of the statement distin-
guishes these from the ordinary throng. It seems somewhat unhistor-
ical that these sects, so opposite to each other, should be named to-
gether here, as well as in some other places in the Gospels ; but an
explanation is perhaps to be found in the fact that it was customary to
name them" together on the ground of their common hatred to Chris-
tianity. It appears improbable that men of the peculiar religious opin-
ions of the Sadducecs should have been attracted by the preacher of
repentance, the forerunner of the Messiah ; nor does John, in his
flevere sermon, make any special reference to that sect, an omission
HIS RELATION TO THE PHARISEES. 51
winch could hardly have occurred had any of the sect so far departec,
from their ordinary habits as to listen to his preaching.* It does not
follow, however, that the mention of the Pharisees is in the same pre-
dicament; on the contrary, the historical citation of the latter may
have giv'en rise to the unhistorical mention of the Sadducees, Noi
does the fact that the Pharisees, at a later period, maintained an attitude
of hostility towards John prove that they had opposed him from the
beginning. His rigid asceticism and zeal for the Messiah were in en-
tire harmony with the spirit of their sect ; and they could listen with
approval to his energetic reproofs and calls to repentance, so long as
they were aimed only at the people and the publicans. So, in the
Christian Church, ardent reformers and witnesses to the truth have been
favoured even by the heads of the hierarchy, so long as they attacked
only the common faults and vices of men. But the first assault upon
the hierarchy itself I'oused all its hatred and its vengeance.
In the earlier period of John's preaching, then, there may have been
nothing to excite the jealousy of the Pharisees. INIoreover, it is not
likely that all who bore the name of Pharisees were fully imbued with
the spirit of the sect. Although the majority of them, intent only upon
selfish and party aims, may have regarded John's ministry with an eye
of suspicion, there were probably among them some earnest, upright
men, upon whom his preaching could not fail to make an impression.
These two thoughts may serve to reconcile Matt., iii., 7, with the other
passages quoted, in which the hostility of the Phai'isees is mentioned.
Again, the expression of Christ in John, v., 35, seems to imply that the
Pharisees received and approved John's pi'ophecy of the coming Mes-
siah, but did not allow his words to sink deep into their hearts or to
operate upon their thoughts and inclinations. The severe sermonf re-
ported by the Evangelists was certainly not adapted to such as canje to
John, penitent and broken-hearted, to obtain consolation and guidance ;
but rather to the haughty and arrogant Pharisee, who felt sure of his
share in the Messiah's kingdom, appear when it might, without either
repentance or forgiveness. It was these that he stigmatized as a
" brood of vipers," and no sons of Abraham. It was these to whom he
said, in tones of warning and reproof, " Who has told you that by
simple baptism you shall escape God's coming judgment 1 Would
you really escape it 1 Then repent, and do works meet for repentance.
Trust not to your saying ' Ahraham is our father ;^ for I tell you that
* We cannot support the expression of Matthew by the statement of Josephus (xviii.,
I., 4), that the Sadducees were accustomed to accommodate their own convictions to the
principles of the Pharisees, on account of the strong liold which the latter had upon the
people. In this case, at least, no such accommodation was required, from the repute in
which John was held among the Pharisees.
t Luke, iii., 7 ; Matt., iii., 7. Luke reports it as addressed to the people ; Matthew to
the Pharisees and Sadducees.
52 JOHN THE BAPTIST.
the (levelopement of the kingdom is not confined to the race of Abra-
ham; nay, from these very stones that lie upon the river bank, God
can raise up his children."
In these last words he meant to tell them that if the Jews disgi-aced
theii" Theocratic descent, God would remove his kingdom from them
and impart it unto strangers. He ends by proclaiming that the Mes-
siah would sift his people thoroughly, and exclude all that should be
found unworthy. Such preaching must have been enough to imbitter
and alienate the Pharisees, even if they had been before disposed to
appi'ove and favour tlie preacher.
§ 37. Relations of John to the People, and to the narroiocr circle of his
oiim Disciples.
True penitents who came to the Baptist inquiring the way of life
found in the severe ascetic a kind and condescending teacher. He
gave them no vague and high-sounding words, but adapted his instruc-
tions with minute care to their special condition and circumstances.
John resembled the austere preachers of repentance who sprung up in
the Middle Ages in more than one respect ; but especially in the two
fold relation which he sustained, to the people generally, and to his dis
ciples in particular. While the latter imitated his own ascetic piety in
order to fit themselves for preachers of repentance, he did not demand
of the former to abandon their ordinary line of life, even when it was
one obnoxious to the prejudices of the Jews ; the soldier was not re-
quired to leave the ranks, nor the tax-gatherer his office, but only to
fulfil their respective duties with honesty and fidelity. All alike were
commanded to do good ; but only those whose occupations were sinful
had to abandon them, and at his command many did so.*
§ 38. John's Demands upon the People compared tcith those of Christ.
— His humhle Opinion of his oion Calling,
But how very moderate do John's requirements appear in compari-
son with those of Christ, who demanded at the very outset an absolute
sacrifice of the will and the affections! This difference arose natural-
ly, however, from the different positions which they occupied. John
was fully conscious that the moral regeneration which was indispensa-
ble to admittance into the Messiah's kingdom could only be accom-
jjlished by a Divine principle of life ; and, knowing that to impart this
was beyond his power, he confined himself to a prcparatorn purifica-
tion of the morals of the people. The great, the God-like feature of
his character was his thorough understanding of himself and his calling.
Filled as he was with enthusiasm, he yet felt that he was but the hum-
ble instrument of the Divine Spirit, called, not to found the new crea-
" Matt., xxi., 32.
HIS RELATION TO MESSIAH. 53
tion, but only to froclaim it ; nor did the thronging of eager thousands
to hang upon his lips, nor the enthusiastic love of his own immediate
followers, ever ready to glorify their master, in the least degree blind
his perceptions of duty, or raise him above his calling. Convinced that
he was inspired of God to prepare, and not to create, he never pre-
tended to work miracles, nor did his disciples, strongly as he impressed
them, ever attribute miraculous powers to him.
CHAPTER II.
RELATION OF THE BAPTIST TO MESSIAH.
§ 39. JoJin's Explanation of his Relation to the Messiah. The Bap-
tism hi) Water and by Fire.
CAREFULLY, however, as John avoided exciting false expecta-
tions, they could hardly fail to arise at a period so full of fore-
boding and hope for the coming of Messiah, after time enough had
elapsed for him to make a powerful impression upon the public mind
as a preacher of repentance and proclaimer of a better future.* Many
of those whom his preaching had so deeply moved became uneasy to
ascertain his true relation to the Messiah ; and as his language on the
subject was always concise, and rather suggestive than explanatoiy,
they were inclined to think that his real character was only kept in the
back ground for the time, and would afterward be gradually unfolded.
But when the Baptist saw that men imiscd in their hearts whether he
were the Christ or no,\ he resolved to define his relation to the Mes-
siah explicitly and unmistakeably. His mission, he told them, was to
baptize by water, as a symbol of the preparatory repentance which had
to open the way for that renewal and purification of the nation by Di-
vine power which was to be expected in the Messiah ; the lofty one
that was to follow, raised so far above himself, that he should be digni-
fied by performing for him the most menial services. He it was that
should baptize them roith the Holy Ghost and icithjire ; that is to say,
that as his (John's) followers were entirely immersed in the w^ater, so
the Messiah would immerse the souls of believers in the Holy Grhost,
imparted by himself; so that it should thoroughly penetrate their
being, and form within them a new principle of life. And this Spirit-
baptism was to be accompanied by a baptism ofJirc.\ Those who re-
* Paul's words (Acts, xiii., 25) lead us to infer that this took place first towards the end
of John's career. t Luke, iii., 15.
t Some think the "fire" is used as a symbol of the Holy Ghost, inasmuch as it is em-
ployed in other places in Scripture to denote Divine influences. In this view of the pas-
64 JOHN THE BAPTIST.
fused to be penetrated by the Spirit of the Divine life should be de-
stroyed by the fire of the Divine judgments. The "sifting" by fire
ever goes along with the advance of the Spirit, and consumes all who
will not appropriate the latter. So John represents the Messiah as ap-
pearing with his " fan" in his hands, to purify the "threshing-floor" of
his kingdom, to gather the Avorthy into the glorified congregation of
God, and to cast out the unworthy and deliver them over to the Di-
vine judgments.
§ 40. Julin's Concej)tion of Messiah'' s Kingdom.
Let us inquire now upon what view of the calling and work of the
Messiah, and of the nature of bis kingdom, these expressions of the
Baptist were founded. He contradicts the notion, so prevalent among
the Jews, that all the descendants of Abraham who outwardly observed
the religion of their fathers would be taken into the Messiah's king-
dom, while his heavy judgments would fall upon the pagans alone.
On the contrary, he maintains the necessity, for all who would enter
that kino-dom, of a moral new birth, which he sets forth to them by the
Spirit-baptism ; and proclaims, as a necessary preparation for this new
birth, a consciousness of sin and longing to be free from it ; all which
is implied in the word jueravota, when stated as the necessary condi-
tion of obtaining the promised baptism of the Spirit, He expects this
kingdom to be risible; but yet conceives it as purely spiritual, as a
community filled and inspired by the Spirit of God, and existing, in
communion of the Divine life, with the Messiah as its visible King ;
so that, what had not been the case before, the idea of the Theocracy
and its manifestation should precisely correspond to each other. He
has already a presentiment that the willing among the pagans will be
incorporated into the kingdom in place of the unworthy Jews who shall
be excluded. The appearance of Messiah will cause a sifting of the
Theocratic people. This presupposes that he will not overturn all
enemies arid set up his kingdom at once by the miraculous power of
God, but will manifest himself in such a form that those whose hearts
are prepared for his coming will recognize him as Messiah, while those
of ungodly minds will deny and oppose him. On the one hand, a com-
munity of the righteous will gather around him of their own accord ;
and, on the other, the enmity of the corrupt multitude will be called
forth and organized. The Messiah must do battle with the universal
corruption ; and, after the strife has separated the wicked members of
sage, as the baptism by n-aler synibulizos propnratoi-y repentaiine, so that hyjire symbol-
izes the transDgui-iug and purifying power of the Holy Spirit. Our own opinion is, liowcv-
er, that as judgment by fire is si)oken of but a few verses after (Luke, iii., 17), it must be
taken in the same sense here ; and the bap/ism by fire referred to the sifting process im-
mediately mentioned. Thus the fire is the symbol of the power which consumes every
thing imi)urc, iu the same sense in which God is snid to be " a consuming fire."
HIS RECOGNITION OF CHRIST'S MESSIAHSHTP. 55
the Theocratic nation from the good, will come forth victorious, and
glorify the purified people of God under his own reign,
§ 41. John's Recognition of Jesus as the Messiah.
(,1.) Import of his Baptism of Jesus. — (2.) The Continuance of his Ministiy. — (3.)
Possible Wavei-injj iu his Conviction of Christ's Messialiship. — (4.) His Message
from Prison. — (5.) Conduct of his Disciples towards Jesus.
As John's conception of the Messiah included his office in freeing
the people of God from the power of evil, and imparting to them a new
life in the life of God, it ap^^ears that he presupposed also the fulness
of the Holy Ghost dwelling in him in such a way as that he could be-
stow it upon others. From the first germ of the idea of Messiah in the
Prophets down to the time of Christianity itself, we find ever that a
just and profound conception of his ojice involves in it a higher idea
oihis person. So, perhaps, John, although his expectation of a visible
realization of the Theocracy shows him as yet upon Old Testament
ground, may have at least touched upon the stand-point of Christianity.
His position was very like that held by Simeon, and indeed, in general,
by all those Jews who, in advance of the sentiments of the times, were
insj^ired with earnest longings for the appearance of the Messiah, and
thus stood upon the border-land between the two stages of the kingdom
of God. And in John's representation of his own inferiority to him
" that should come," and in his clear apprehension of the limits of his
mission and his power — an apprehension that distinguished him from
all other founders of preparatory epochs — we have an assurance that
he will never imagine his preparatory stand-point to be a permanent
one ; and that, as he feels himself unworthy " to unloose the shoe-
strings" of the lofty One that is to appear, so he will bow himself iu
the same humble reverence when He, whom his spiritual sense shall
recognize as the expected one, shall appear in person before him.
We are fully aware of the objections that may be raised against
these conclusions. It may be said, and truly, that one may do homage
to an idea, whose general outlines are present to his intuition, but may
be unfit to recognize the realization of the idea when presented before
his eyes in all its features. The prejudices of his time and circum-
stances are sure to start up and hinder him from the recognition.
But surely, in the case of John, the lowliness of mind and sobriety of
judgment to which we have just referred give us ground to expect
that he, at least, would so far surmount his peculiar prejudices as to
recognize the admission of a higher element into the course of events
— to recognize a stand-point even essentially different from his own ;
especially as he had himself pointed out beforehand the characteristics
of such a difference. Yet we do not wish to deny that doubts may
arise, in regard to the^ac^ of John's recognition of Jesus as Messiah.
56 JOHN THE BAPTIST.
ill the minds of those who do not presuppose the unconditional credi-
bility of the Gospels. Perhajjs the remark above made, in reference
to a possible commingling of the subjective and the objective in the
Gospel accounts, may be applicable here. But before vve proceed
with our connected historical recital, we must seek sure historical foot-
ing, by inquiring into the grounds of tlie doubts refo«'red to.
The following questions, perhaps, express these grounds : If John
was really convinced of Christ's Messiahship, why did he contiime his
independent ministry, and not rather submit himself and all his follow-
ers as disciples to Christ ? Why did he wait until after his imprison-
ment before sending to inquire of Jesus whether he were the Messiah,
or men should look for another 1 Why, even after the Baptist's death,
did his disciples preserve their separate existence as a secti How
happened it that, in a public proclamation of the Gospel (Acts, x., 37 ;
xiii., 25), no stress is laid upon John's divinely inspired testimony con-
cerning Christ — nay, it is not even quoted — while his exhortations to
repentance and his announcement of the coming Messiah are dwelt
upon, as the preparation for Christ's public ministry ? Do not these
difficulties make it doubtful whether John really did, before the time
of his imprisonment, recognize Christ's Messiahship 1 Or, is it not
probable that the Christian view, which sees in Christ the kpxofievog
announced by John, was involuntarily attributed to the Baptist, and so
the tradition grew up that he had personally recognized the Messiah-
ship of Jesus, and introduced him into his public labours % In this case
we should have to admit that he was first induced, while in prison, by
what he heard of Christ, to recognize his calling — and that not only had
this fact been transferred to an earlier period in his history, but too
much made of it altogether.
Now it would be easy to overthrow this whole structure at once, by
assuming the genuineness and authority of John's Gospel.* It is true,
as has been before said, the disciple, after going beyond his Master,
might have seen more in the previously uttered words of the latter
than he himself had intended ; but, at any rate, those words must at
least have afforded some ground for the disciple's representation. If
the above-mentioned doubts are well grounded, John's misrepi'esenta-
tion of what occurred between the Baptist and Christ is nothing short
of wilful falsehood. The later Christian traditions, indeed, miglit have
admitted such a transposition without the intent to deceive ; but John
was an ei/e-witness. We do not intend, however, to appeal to John's
authority, but shall examine the matter on internal evidence, grounded
on the nature of the case.
* John, i., 7, 15 ; iii., 32 ; v., 33.
HIS RELATION TO CHRIST. 57
(1.) Import of the Baptism of Jesiis by John.
We first consider the baptism of Jesus by John. Those who carry
their doubts of John's testimony farthest, dispute even the fact of this
baptism. But this is absolutely groundless skepticism ; for all the New
Testament accounts, however else they may differ, presuppose the
event as a fact. It would be impossible to account even for the orirrin
of such a tradition, if the event itself did not originate it ; the very ap-
plication of John's baptism to the sinless Jesus must have caused diffi-
culties to the Christian mind, which a peculiar line of thouo-ht alone
could remove. But, admitting the fact, it cannot be supposed that
Christ submitted to the baptism in the same sense, and for the same
purpose, as others did ; for we can find no possible connectino- link
between the sense of sin and the desire for purification and redemption
felt by all ordinary applicants for the ordinance, and the consciousness
of the sinless Redeemer. It was with this latter, unoriginated con-
sciousness, however, that Jesus presented himself for baptism. But
we cannot suppose that he did it in silence ; such a course might have
led the Baptist, if not otherwise enlightened, to su2:»pose that he came
forward in the same relation to the ordinance as other men. Its prob-
ability is diminished, too, in proportion to our idea of John's suscepti-
bility for the disclosures which Christ might have made to him. We
are led, therefore, by the internal necessity of the case, to suppose that,
in administering the baptism, he received a higher light in regard to the
relation which he himself sustained to Christ.
(2.) The Baptist's continuauce in his Ministiy of Preparation.
We must conclude, however, that if John did recognize Jesus as
Messiah, he applied to him all his Old-Testament ideas of Messiah as
the founder of a visible kingdom. With these views he would expect
that Christ would bring about the public recognition of his office by
his own Messianic labours, without the aid of his testimony. This ex-
pectation would naturally cause him to forbear any public testimony
to Christ, and to content himself with directing only a few of the most
susceptible of his disciples to the Saviour ; but this would have been
a merely private affiiir, forming no part of his open mission to the
Avorld. That mission remained always the same, viz., to prepare the
way for the INIessiah's kingdom, and to point to Him who was soon to
reveal himself; tiot to anticipate his self-revelation, and to declare him
to the people hi/ name as the Messiah. This preparatory position of
.Tohn had to continue until the time when the entrance of Jesus as
Theocratic King, upon the establishment of his kingdom, gave the sig-
nal for all to range themselves under his banners. The Baptist, true
to the position that had been assigned to him in the Theocratic devel-
58 JOHN THE BAPTIST.
opement, had to continue his labours until their termination, a termina-
tion which external circumstances were soon to bring about.* As,
therefore, John's testimony was merely private, and never openly laid
before the people ; and, moreover, as its value depended entirely upon
the recognition of John's own projihetic calling (a recognition by no
means universal among the Jews), there is no difficulty in accounting
for the fact that so little use was made of his testimony in the citation
of proofs for Jesus's Messiahship by Peter and Paul, in the passages
above referred to.t
(3.) Possible Wavering in John's Conviction of the Messiahship of Jesus.
Suppose, now, that John's faith did waver in his prison — that, in an
unhappy hour, he was seized with doubts of Christ's Messiahship —
would it follow that he had not before enjoyed and expressed with Di-
vine confidence his conviction of the truth 1 Would the later doubt
suffice to do avvay with the earlier and out-spoken certainty'? Can the
man who makes such an assertion have any idea of the nature and de-
velopement of religious conviction and knowledge — of the relation be-
tween the Divine, the supernatural, and the natural? It is true that
scientific knowledge and conviction, logically obtained, can never be
lost so long as the intellect remains unimpaired ; but it is quite another
thing with religious truths. These do not grow out of logic ; but, pre-
supposing certain spiritual tendencies and affections, they arise from an
immediate contact of the soul with God, from a beam of God's liffht,
penetrating the mind that is allied to him. The knowledge and the
convictions which are drawn neither from natural reason nor from the
knowledge of the world, but are always rebelled against by the latter
until the whole spirit is penetrated by the Divine, can retain their vi-
tality only by the same going forth of the higher life which gave them
* I am gratified to find that Winer, one of the most eminent investigators of Biblical
literature, has given an intimation of the view which I have here fully carried out. Sec
his "Biblisches E,ealw6rterbiich," i., C92, 2d ed.
t Acts, X., 37 ; xiii., 25. Paul bad much more occasion to quote John's testimony when
preaching to his disciples at Ephesus (Acts, xix., 1-5). There is no ground for asserting
jiositivcly that he did not quote it, although the passage does not state expressly that he
did ; for it remains doubtful whether the words tovt' lariv, of verse 4, are applied by PanI
to the ^pxiAftTOt announced by John, or were intended by him to be attributed to tbe Baptist.
What is said of Apollos (Acts, xviii., 25 : he was instructed in the way of the Lord, knou-insc
onhj thr baptism nf John] cpnnot be understood nakedly of the pure, sjiiritual Messiahsliii).
This could only be the case if Wo; tov Kvpiov (v. 25) were equivalent to Ocoi/ o^ov (v. Hi), and
signified merely the way revealed by God, the right way of worshipping God. But this
cannot be. Tlic word nvpios mnst be taken in its specific, Cliristian sense, as ajjplicable to
Cbri.st; an interpretation ccjnfimiod by wliat follows, viz. : he taught diligently the things
oj the Ijjrd, which cannot refer to the doctrine of God, but to the proclamation of Jesus as
Messiah. But if it could be fully proved that all these disci|)les of John knew as yet no-
thing of Jesus as the ip\niievos announced by the Baptist, it would not affect our assertion
at all ; for we have already admitted that tbe latter only partially directed his followers to
Christ as Messiah.
HIS RELATION TO CHRIST. 59
birth ; only so fav as the soul can maintain itself in the same atmo-
sphere, and in the same tendency to the supernatural and the Divine.
So one may, when in the full enjoyment of the higher life, when no
vapours of earth dim his spiritual vision, have clear conception and con-
viction of religious truths, which may perplex him with obscurities at
times when the earthly tendencies prevail. And thus we may explain
the fluctuations and transitions in the developement of religious life,
convictions and knowledge, of which the experience of Christians in all
ages aff'ords instances. It may be said that, although this explanation
holds good of religious life in general, it cannot apply to an inspired
prophet like John, or to the truths which he obtained from the light of
a supernatural revelation. This objection would imply that a single
objective revelation is the only source of Christian truth, which is not
the case. The apprehension of such truths in every individual mind
rests not merely upon this single objective ground, but also upon a
repetition of the Divine manifestation to the mind itself. The differ-
ence between the inspired prophet and the ordinary Christian believer,
in regard to the reception of God's truth, is not a difference in Icind,
but in degree. Christ declared that the least of Christians was greater
than John ; words that ill entitle us to draw such a line of distinction
between the Baptist and living Christians of all ages as to apply another
standard and another law to his religious life. It is true, there is a life-
less supernaturalism which views all Divine communications rather as
overlying the mind than incorporating themselves with its natural psy-
chological developement; and the opponents of revealed religion cari-
cature this view to serve their purpose of subverting the doctrines they
so bitterly hate. But notwithstanding, the doctrine of such Divine com-
munication is perfectly in accordance with the facts of the Divine life
as they are stated in the Scriptures ; and we are compelled thereby to
connect these manifestations with the natural growth of the mind in its
receptive powers and spontaneous activity ; to apply the general laws
of the mind to the developement of whatever is communicated to it by
a higher light.
As we have before remarked, John stood between two different
stages of the developement of the Theocracy. It is, therefore, not un-
likely that in times of the fullest religious inspiration, caused in his
soul by Christ's revelations to him, he obtained views of the coming
kingdom which he could not always hold fast, and his old ideas some-
times revived and even gained the ascendency. Although he had just
conceptions of Messiah's kingdom in regard to its moral and religious
ends, he was always inclined to connect worldly ideas with it. But the
object of his hopes was not realized. He heard, indeed, a great deal
about the miracles of Jesus, but saw him not at the head of his visible
kingdom. The signal so long waited for was never given. Is it, there-
60 JOHN THE BAPTIST.
fore, matter of wonder if, in some hour of despondency, the worldly
element in the Baptist's views became too strong, and perplexity and
doubt arose within him 1
(4.) The Message from Prison.
The inquiry which John sent to the Saviour from prison* shows that
his doubts did not refer at all to the superiority of Christ, but to the
question whether the mission of the latter was the Messiahship itself,
or only a preparation for it. So great was his respect for the author-
ity of Christ, that he expected the decisive answer to the question from
his own lips. Neither the form of the question nor the Saviour's reply
favour the supposition' that John was led, simply by the reports of
Christ's labours which had reached him in prison, to the thought that
he might be the epxofievog. Had this been the case, Christ would have
answered him as he did others in similar circumstances ; he would not
have warned him not to be perplexed or offended because his ground-
less expectations in regard to the Messiah were not fully realized in
Christ's ministry, but, on the contrary, would have cherished a faith,
which could grow up in one who was languishing in prison, and unable
to see with his own eyes the mighty works that were done, and would
have encouraged him to yield himself fully up to the dawning convic-
tion. The warning against OKavdaAL(^eadat was precisely applicable to
one who had once believed, but whose faith had wavered because his
hopes were not fully fulfilled. The answer of Jesus, moreover, shows
plainly in what expectations John was disappointed : they were, as we
^all have occasion to show hereafter, such as grew out of his Old
Testament stand-point, and attributed an outward character to the
kingdom of God.
(5.) Coiuluct of Joliu's Disciples towards Jesus.
It does not militate at all against our position, in regard to the Bap-
tist's recognition of Christ, that many of his disciples did not join the
Saviour at a later period ; and even that a sect was formed from them
hostile to Christianity. We have already seen that it was necessaiy for
John to maintain his independent sphere of labour, and that his position
naturally led him to direct only the more susceptible of his disciples
to Jesus, and that too by degrees. These latter were probably such
as had imbibed more of John's longing desire for *' him that was to
come," than of the austere and ascetic spirit of the sect. As to the
rest, we have only to say that we have no right to judge the master by
his scholars, or the scholars by their master. Men who hold a position
preparatory and conducive to a higher one, often retain the peculiar
and one-sided views of their old ground, and are even driven into an
* Matt., xi., 2, 3.
HIS RELATION TO CHRIST. 61
attitude of opposition to the new and the better. This seems to have
been the case with John's disciples in relation to Christianity.
From this full investigation of the question, we cannot but conclude
that there is no reason to doubt the historical veracity of the narrative.
It is matter oi fact, that John openly recognized Jesus as the Messiah
when he baptized him. Having secured this firm historical basis, we
proceed now, with the greater confidence, to inquire into the peculiar
import of the baptism itself.
§ 42. TJie Phenomena at the Baptism, and their Import.
(1.) No Ecstatic Vision. — (2.) The Ebionitieli Vievsr and its Opposite. — (3.) Devel-
opement of the Notion of Baptism in New Testament. — (4.) The Baptism of Christ
not a Rite of rurificatiou. — (5.) But of Consecration to his Theoci-atic Reign. —
(6.) John's previous Acquaintance with Clirist. — (7.) Explanation of Jolm, i., 31. —
(8.) The "Viision and the Voice; intended exclusively for the Baptist.
Two questions present themselves here : the bearing of the baptism
upon John, and its bearing upon Christ. The first can easily be gath-
ered from what has been said already, and from the concurrent ac-
counts of the Evangelists. It is clear that John was to be enlightened,
by a sign from heaven, in regard to the person who was to be the
ipxonsvog whom he himself had unconsciously foretold. The second,
however, is not so easy to answer. The accounts do not harmonize so
well with each other on this point, nor are all men agreed in their
opinions of the person of Christ ; and these causes have given rise to
several different solutions of the question.
The point to be settled is this : Was the Divine revelation made on
this occasion intended, though in different relations, for both John and
Christ ; not merely to give the former certainty as to the person of
Messiah, but to impart a firm consciousness of INIessiahship to the lat-
ter ] And did Jesus, thus for the first time obtaining this full con-
sciousness, at the same moment receive the powers essential to his
Messianic mission ] Did what John's eyes beheld take place really
and objectively, and the fulness of the Holy Ghost descend upon Je-
sus to fit him for his mighty work 1
(1.) No Ecstatic Vision to be supposed in the case of Christ.
If we adopt this latter view, we must look at all the j^henomena con-
nected with the baptism, not as merely subjective conceptions, but as
objective su-pevnatura] /acts. It is true, we may imagine a symbolical
vision to have been the medium of a Divine revelation common to
Christ and John ; but we must certainly be permitted to doubt the ap-
plication of such a mode of revelation to Christ. It may be granted
that the Prophets were sometimes, in ecstatic vision, carried beyond
62 JOHN THE BAPTIST.
themselves and overwhelmed by a higher power: but in these instances
there is an abrupt suddenness, an opposition of the human and the
Divine ; a leap, so to speak, in the developement of consciousness,
which we could hardly imagine in connexion with the specific and dis-
tinctive nature of the person of Christ. Nor, in fact, is there a hint at
such a possibility in the Gospel narratives,
(2.) Ebiouitish Views of the Miracle at the Baptism, and its Ojiposite.
There are two opposite stand-points which agree in ascribing to the
events of the baptism the greatest importance in reference to Christ's
Messiahship. The first is that of the Ehivnites, who deny Christ's spe-
cific Divinity. It is, that he not only received from without, at a definite
period of his life, the consciousness of his Divine mission, but also the
powers necessary to its accomplishment. The other view (proceeding,
however, from firm believers in the divinity of Christ) supposes that the
Divine Logos, in assuming the form of humanity, submitted, by this
act of self-renunciation, to all the laws of human developement; and
further, that when Christ passed from the sphere of private life to that
of his public ministry, he was set apart and j^repared for it as the proph-
ets were ; with this single element of superiority, viz., that he was
endowed with i\\e fulness of tlie Holy Ghost.
As for the first view, it is not only at variance with the whole char-
acter of Christ's manifestation, but also with all his own testimonies
of himself. In all these there is manifested the consciousness of his
own greatness, not as something acquired, but as unoriginated, and in-
separable from his being. He does not sjieak like one who has be-
come what he is by some sudden revolution. In short, this whole mode
of thinking springs from an outward supernaturalism, which represents
the Divine as antagonist to the human, and imposes it upon Christ from
without; instead of considering his entire manifestation from the be-
ginning as Divine and supernatural, of deriving every thing from this
fundamental ground, and recognizing in it the aim of all the special
revelations of the old dispensation. This is a continuation of the old
.Tcwiah view of the progress of the Theocracy : all is fonned from
without, instead of developing itself organically from within ; the Di-
vine is an abrupt exhibition of the supernatural. How opposite to this
is the view which sees in the human, the form of manifestation under
which the Divine nature has revealed itself from the beginning, and
perceives, in this original and thorough inlerpenctration of the Divine
and the human, the aim and the culmination of all miracles.
The second view above mentioned will apjiear the most simple and
natural, if, instead of considering a Divine communication from with-
THE BAPTISM OF CHRIST. 63
out to have been made necessary by the self-renunciation of the Logos
in assuming human form, we admit a gradual revelation (in accordauce
with the laws of human c]^velopement) of the Divine nature, potentially
present, as the ground of the incarnate being, from the very first, and
trace all that appears in the outward manifestation to the process of
developement from within. In the lives of all other reformers, or
founders of religions, whose call seems to have dated from a certain
period of life, the biith-time, as it were, of their activity, it is impossi-
ble not to trace, in their later labours and in their own personal state-
ments, some references to the eai'lier period when their call was un-
felt,* In the discourses of Christ, however there is not the most dis-
tant approach to such an allusion.
(3.) Different Steps in the New Testament Notion of tlie Baptism, up to that of
John the Evangelist.
In the revelations of the New Testament, and in the process of the
developement of Christianity which those revelations unfold, we can dis-
tinguish various steps, or stages, of progress from the Old Testament
ideas to the New. Especially is this the case in regard to the person
of Christ. The conception of Christ, as anointed with the fullness of
the Holy Spirit, and superior to all other prophets, is akin to Old Tes-
tament ideas, and forms the point of transition to the New, which rest
upon the manifestation of Christ. But it requii'ed a completely devel-
oped Christian consciousness to recognize, in his appearance on earth,
the Divine glory as inherent in him from the beginning, and progres-
sive only so far as its outward manifestation was concerned. These
two views, however, by no means exclude each other ; the one is rather
the complement of the other, while both, at a different stage of devel-
opement, tend to one and the same definite aim. And the latter, or
highest stage of Christian consciousness, we are naturally to look for
in that beloved apostle who enjoyed the closest degree of intimacy
with Christ, and was, on that account, best of all able to understand
profoundly both his manifestation and his discourses. From John, too,
we must expect the highest Christian view of the person of Christ.
[The account of the principal event of the baptism is thus given in
John's Gospel : " And John bare record, saying, I saw the Spirit de-
scending from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon him. And I knew
him not ; but he that sent me to baptize with water, the same said unto me^
Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending, and remaining on him,
the same is he which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost. And Isaiv and bare
record that this is the Son o/'GoD."t] Now the fact thus stated, if in-
* As in Luther we see frequent references to the hght which first broke upon his mind
during his monastic life at Erfurth, an epoch of the utmost moment to his after career as a
refoi-mer. t John, 1., 32-34.
64 JOHN THE BAPTIST.
terpreted in an outward and material sense, and combined with the
view of Christ which we mentioned a while ago as akin to the Jewish
ideas, might easily give rise to the doctrine that Christ obtained at the
baptism something which he had not possessed before.
Our conclusion is, that Christ was already sure of his Divine call to
the Messiahsliip, and submitted himself, in the coui'se of the Theocratic
developement, to baptism, as a preparative and inaugural rite, from the
hands of the man who was destined to conduct prophecy to its fulfil-
ment, and to be the first to recognize, by light from heaven, the mani-
fested Messiah. • -
(4.) The Baptism not a Rite of Purification.
The idea that Christ was baptized with a view to purification is ab-
solutely untenable, no matter how the notion of purification may be
modified. Akin to this idea, certainly, is the view held by some,* that
he submitted to this act of self-humiliation in the same sense in which
he humbled himself before God, as the One alone to be called good.t
This view would suppose him conscious, not of actual sin, but of a dor-
mant possibility of sin, inherent in his finite nature and his human or-
ganism, always restrained, however, by the steadfast firmness of his
will, from passing into action. But if we suppose in Christ the abstract
possibility to sin| which is inseparable from a created will, pure but
not yet immutable — such a capability as we attribute to the first man
before the fall — even this would not necessarily connect with itself a
dormant, hidden sinfulness, involving in him a conscious need of purifi-
cation in any sense whatever. Such a consciousness can grow only out
of a sense of inherent moral defilement, by no means originally belong-
ing to the conception of a created being, or of human nature. We
cannot admit a dormant principle of sin as an essential element of the
moral developement of man's original being. Sin is an act of free will,
and cannot be derived from any other source, or explained in any other
way.§ There is, then, in Christ's humbling himself, in his human capaci-
ty, befin-e God, the only Good, no trace of that sense of need and want
with which the sinner, conscious of guilt, bows himself before the Holy
One. The act manifested only a sense, deeply grounded in his holy,
sinless nature, of absolute dependence upon the Source of all good.
* De. Welle, on Matt., iii., IC. Conf. his Sitlenlrhre, § 4!), T>0 ; and Stray as, too, aftci-lic had
Been that the view formerly expressed l»y him was untenable (1. c., 435, 433).
t Matt., xix., 17.
I This is not tlie place to examine the old controvcrsj' whether Christ's sinlcssnoss is to
be rei^arded as a posur nnn peccare or a non posse peccare.
^ We cannot enter further into this subject here, but take pleasure in refemntf our read-
ers to the late excellent work of J. Miiller, viz., "Die Lehre von der Siinde," in wliich the
subject is treated witli remarkable depth and clearness. The new elucidations in tlie 2d
edition, especially, evince a soundness of mind that is not more rare than excellent.
THE BAPTISM OF CHRIST. 65
(5.) The Baptism of Christ a Rite of Congecration to his Theocratic Reign.
All difficulties are cleared away by considering John's baptism as a
rite of prejiaration and consecration, first in its application to tlie mem-
bers of the Theocratic kingdom, and secondly to its Founder and Sov-
ereign. The repentance and the sense of sin which were essential
preliminaries to the baptism of the former, could in no way belong to
Him who, at the very moment when the rite was administered, reveal-
ed himself to the Baptist as the Messiah, the deliverer from sin. But
while the import of the rite thus varied with the subjects to whom it
was administered, there was, at bottom, a substantial element which
they shared in common. In both it marked the commencement of a
new course of life ; but, in the members, this new life was to be re-
ceived from without through communications from on high : while in
Christ it ,was to consist of a gradual unfolding from within ; in the for-
mer it was to be receptive ; in the latter productive. In a word, the
baptism of the members prepared them to rccewe pardon and salvation ;
that of Christ was his consecration to the work of bestotving those
precious gifts.
(6.) Had John a previous Acquaintance with Clirist?
If the Baptist had an earlier acquaintance with Jesus, he could not
have failed, with his susceptible feelings, to receive a deeper impression
of his divinity than other men. We cannot but infer, from Luke's*
statement (chap, i.) of the relationshipf between the two families, that
* The Apocryphal Gospels contain many fables in regard to Mary's descent from a
priestly lineage, arising, perhaps, from the fact that the Messiah was to be both high-priest
and king. (So in the second Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, the Testament of Simeon,
§ 7 : avnar^ati Kvpws cK toiv Acvi apxicpia Ka] iK Tail' 'loviu jjaaiXia, both in the person of the Mes-
siah.) There is nothing akin to these in Luke's account of the relationship between Marj'
and Elizabeth, the latter being of priestly lineage, which is only given e?t passant ; the
stress is laid upon the descent from David's line.
t Matthew's omission to mention this relationship and to give any reason for Jolm's re-
luctance to baptize Christ, only proves his narrative to he more artless, and therefore more
credible. The Ebionitish Gospel to the Hebrews shows far greater marks of design, and,
indeed, of an alteration for a set purpose. It represents the miraculous appearances as
preceding and causing John's conduct. — When John hears the voice from heaven, and sees
the miraculous light, he inquires, Wlw art thou 7 A second voice is heard to reply. This
is my hcloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. John is thereby led to fall at his feet and
cry,- Baptize thou me. Christ, refusing him, says, Svffcr it. — Here not only are the phe-
nomena exaggerated, but the facts are remodelled to suit Ebionitish views, which denied
the miraculous events at Chiist's birth, and demanded that the sudden change by which he
was called and fitted for the Messiahship at the moment of baptism should be made prom-
inent by contrast with all tliat had gone before. They conceived, accordingly, that he first
received the Holy Ghost when it descended upon him in the fonn of a dove, and that at
that period he was endowed with a new dignity, and must offer new manifestations. Hie
divine character was thus obtained in a sudden, magical way ; and the two periods of his
life, before and after that event, were brought into clear and sharp conti'ast: every thing
that occuiTcd at the baptism was deemed miraculous, while all the wonders of his pre%'ious
E
66 JOHN THE BAPTIST.
he had heard of the extraordinary cu-cumstances attending the birth of
Jesus. The Saviour "prayed" at the baptism (Luke, iii., 21). If we
figure to ourselves his countenance, foil of holy devotion and heavenly
repose, as he stood in prayer, and ita sudden association, in the mind
of the Baptist, with all his recollections of tke eaily history of Jesus, we
cannot wonder that the humble man of God^— all aware as he was that
the Messiah was to be consecrated by his baptism — should have been
overwhelmed, in that hour so pregnant with mighty interests, with
a sense of his own comparative unworthiness, ai>d cried, " / have need
to he baptized of thee, and earnest thou to me .?"
(7.) Explanation of John, i., 31.
One of two things must be true : either John baptized Christ with
sole and special reference to his Messianic mission, or with the same
end in view as in his ordinary administration of the rite, involving in its
subjects a consciousness of sin and need of repentance. Now it is clear
that he did not take upon himself to decide to lohat individual the
Messianic baptism was to be administered, nor was he willing to rest ir
upon any human testimony, but waited for the promised sign fi-or:.
heaven ; and as for Jesus' receiving the rite in the second sense at his
hands, his own religious sense must have rebelled against it. Nor is
this contradicted by his words recorded in John, i., 31, " And J knew
liim not ; hut that he should he made manifest to Israel, therefore am I
come haptizing loith tvatcrP John's refusal to baptize Christ did not
life were rejected; in short, his Divine and hninan nature were rudely torn asunder. We
see in all this the effect of a onesided theory in ohscuring historj-, and detect in it also the
germ of a tendency which led the way from Judaism to Gnosticism. So it was with the
doctrines of Cerinthus and Basilides on the person of Christ, according to which Christ
possessed, as man, the uiiaprnTtudv of human nature (although it never became actual sin
in him); and the lledeerner was not Chrhf, but the heavenly Spirit that desc^ided upon
him. Another instance of the way in which the general object of John's baptism (viz.,
purification and forgiveness) was brought to bear upon the doctrine of the person of Christ
may be seen in the Gospel of the Nazarenes, translated by Jerome, in which the account
runs, that when Christ was asked by his mother and brothers to go with them to John, in
cirder to be baptized for the remission of sins, he replied, quid pcccari, id vndmn et hapti-
zer ah eo, nisi forte hoc ipsum quod dixi ignorantia est ("unless I, who have not sinned,
carry the germ of sin unconsciously within me"). (Hieron., b. iii.. Dialog, adv. Pelag., ad
init.). It is seen more strongly still in the Ki'ipvyjia Whpov, according to which Christ made
his confession of sin before the baptism, but was glorified after it. Thus we see two op-
posite tendencies conspiring to falsify history in the life of Christ. The one sought falsely
to glorify his early life, and embellished his childhood with tales of marvel ; the other
sought to degrade his prior life as nmcli as possible, in order to derive all that he after-
ward became from bis Messianic inauguration. Tlie relation of our Gospels to both these
false and one-sideil tendencies is a proof of their originality. I cannot suppose, with Dr.
Schnechcnbnrgcr (Studicn der Evang. GoistHchkeit Wintcmbnrgs, Bd. iv., s. 122), tliat
Matthew's simple account of Christ's baptism was abridged from the Ehionitish naiTative,
which, as we have seen, gives evidence of a designedly false colouring. Nor can I agree
with Usteri and Bhxk (Stud. u. Krit., Bd. ii., s. 44G, and 1833, s. 436), tiiat the dialogue be-
tween John and Clirist, wliich, acconhug to the Ehionitish version, took place during the
baptism, is inaccurately placed by Matthew before it.
THE BAPTISM OF CHRIST. 67
necessarily involve (as v^^e have already said) a knowledge of his ]\Ies-
sianic dignity ; and the words just quoted refer only to that dignity.
He means to say with emphasis that his conviction of Christ's Messiah-
ship is not of human, but of Divine origin. His previous expectations,
founded upon his knowledge of the circumstances of Christ's birth,
were held as nothing in comparison with the Divine testimony imme-
diately vouchsafed to him.*
(8.) The Vision at the Baptism, and the Voice, iutended exckisively for the Baptist.
When the Baptist thus drew back in reverence and awe, Christ en-
couraged him, saying, " For the present,^ suffer it ; for thus it becomes
us (each from his own stand-point) to fulfil all that belongs to the order
of God's kingdom." While Jesus prayed and was baptized, the
reverence with which John gazed upon him was heightened into pro-
phetic inspiration ; and in this state he received the revelation of the
Divine Spirit in the form of a symbolical vision ; the heavens opened,
and he saw a dove descend and hover over the head of Christ. In this
he saw a sign of the pennanent abode of the Holy Spirit in Jesus ; not
merely as a distinction fi'om the inspired seers of the old dispensation,
but also as the necessary condition to his bestowing the Divine life
upon others. It indicated that the power of the Spirit in him was not
a sudden and abrupt manifestation, as it was in the prophets, who felt
its inspiration at certain times and by transitory impulses ; but a con-
tinuous and unbroken operation of the Holy Ghost, the infinite fulness
of the Divine life in human form. The quiet flight and the resting dove
betokened no rushing torrent of inspiration, no sudden seizure of the
Spirit, but a uniform vmfolding of the life of God, the loftiness, yet the
calm repose of a nature itself Divine, the indwelling of the Spirit so that
* It was the main object of John the EvangeHst to bring out prominently the Divine tes-
timony given to John the Baptist (as tlie latter pointed the former originally to Christ);
the knowledge which the latter had derived from human sources was comparatively unim-
portant. In fact, he seems not to have thought any thing about it, and hence his words may
imply that the Baptist had no previous acquaintaince at all with Christ ; but such an inter-
pretation of them is not necessary, considering the definite end which he had in view.
' Let an event be described by different eye-witnesses, and their accounts will present vari-
eties and even contrasts, simply because each of them seizes strongly upon some one point,
and leaves the rest comparatively in the back-ground. True, there are degrees in historical
accuracy, and we must distinguish them. In this case, the one certain fact, involved in all
the narratives, however they may differ in other respects, is, that the Baptist was led, by a
revelation made to him at the time, to consecrate Jesus to the Messiahship by baptism.
This fact must remain, even if the other discrepancies were irreconcilable. We always
consider a thing stated in common by several variant historical narratives, to be more prob-
ably historically true.
t Showing that this relation between him and the Baptist was to be but momentary, and
goon to be fullowed by a very different one. De Wette's remarks (Comm., 2d ed.) seem to
me not very cogent. " Christ describes his baptism as rpi-ov, and hence this view cannot
be correct." But what made it T^pi^ov was the fact that it was but transitory and prepara-
tory to the revelation of Christ in all his glory. The remark of Christ afiplied to the now,
and only to the nou:. The apri. implies the contrast, which is not expressed.
68 JOHN THE BAPTIST.
lie could impart it to others and fill them completely with it, not as a
prophet, but as a Creator.
The higher and essential unity of the Divine and human,* as ori-
ginal and permanent in Christ, which formed the substance symbolized
by the vision, was further and more distinctly indicated to John by the
voice from heaven,t saying, " This is my beloved So?i, in wJiom I am
well pleased" Words that cannot possibly be applicable, in their full
meaning, to any mei'e man, but to Him alone in whom the perfect
union of God and man was exhibited, and the idea of humanity com-
pletely realized. It was this union that made it possible for a holy
God to he well ijileased in man. John's Gospel, it is true, makes no
mention of this voice ; but it will be recollected that this evangelist
does not relate the baptism (John, i., 29, 33), but cites John Baptist as
referring to it at some later period. The subsequent testimony of the
Baptist, thus recorded (" I saiv and bare record that this is the So?i of
God," V. 34), presupposes the heavenly voice which pointed out that
Sonship. At all events, the voice expressed nothing different from the
import of the vision ; it was the expression of the idea which the vision
itself involved.
We consider, then, that the vision and the voice contained a subject-
ive revelation of the Holy Spirit, intended exclusively for the Baptist,|
* We do not intend to say, by any means, that John comprehended this in the full sense
which we, from the Christian stand-point, are able to give to it.
t Although the words of the voice, as given in our Gospels, contain at most only an al-
lusion to Psalm ii., 7, we find that passage fully quoted in the Ebionitish Evang. ad He-
braos. The words arc still better put together in the Nazarean Gospel of the Hebrews,
used by Jerome: Factum est autem quum ascendisset Dominus de aqua, descendit fons
omnis Spiritus Sancti et requievit super sum, et dixit illi ; Fill mi, in omnibus prophetis
expectabam te, ut venires et requiescerem in te. Tu es enim requies mea, tu es filius
mens primogenitus, qui regnas in sempiternum (Hieron., 1. iv., in Esaiam, c. xi., ed. V'al-
larsi, t. iv., p. 1, f. 15(3). Here a profound Christian sense is expressed: Christ is the aim
of the whole Theocratic developement, and the partial revelations of the Old Testament
were directed to him as the concentration of all Divinity ; in him the Holy Ghost finds a
permanent abode in humanity, a resting-place for which it strove in all its wanderuigs
through these isolated, fragmentary revelations ; he is the Son of the Holy Ghost, in so far
as the fulness of the Holy Ghost is concentrated in him. But although a Christian sense
is given, the historical facts are obviously coloured.
X We follow here especially the account of John, according to whom the Baptist testi-
fied only of what he had seen and heard. If this statement be presupposed as the original
one, the rest could easily be derived from it. What the Baptist stated as a real fact for
himself would readily assume an objective fonn when related by others. This original ap-
prehension of the matter seems to appear also in Matthew (iii., 10), both from the heavenly
voice being mentioned in indirect narration, and from the relation of dbc to avrbv ; although
the expression is not jjcrfectly clear (couf Blcck, Stud. u. Krit., 1833, s. 433, and De Wctle.
in loc). A confirniation of tlie originality of Matthew's account may be obtained by com-
paring it with that in the Ebionitish Gospel. In tliis, first, the words are directly address-
ed to Christ, and Psalm ii., 7, fully quoted ; then a sudden light illuminates the place, and
the voice repeats anew, in an altogether objective way, the words that had been directed
to Christ. In comparing our Evangelists with each other, and with the Ebionitish Gospel,
we see how the simple historical statement passed, by various interpolations, into the
Ebionitish form ; and how a material alteration of the facts arose from a change of form,
THE BAPTISM OF CHRIST. 69
to convince him thoroughly that He whose coming he had proclaimed,
and whose way he had prepared, had really appeared. He was alone
with Jesus ; the latter needed no such revelation. What was granted
to John was enough ; he recognized, infallibly, the voice from heaven,
and the revelation of the Spirit, by his inward sense ; no butward sen-
sible impression could give him more. For others the vision was not
intended; it could benefit them only mediately through him, and in case
they regarded him as a prophet.
After Jesus had thus, alone with John, submitted to his baptism, and
received in it the sign for the commencement of his public Messianic
ministry, he withdrew into solitude in order to prepare himself, by
prayer and meditation,* for the work on which he was about to enter.
This brings us to inquire more closely into Christ's suhjective prepara-
tion for his public labours.
through the addition of an imaginary and foreign dogmatic element. These accounts form
the basis, also, of the view held by the sect cnWeA Ma ndce.ans (Zabii, disciples of John), who
combined the elements of a sect of John's disciples opposed to Cliristianity, with Gnostic
elements. But as their object was to glorify the Baptist rather than Christ, they further
distorted and disfigured the original with new inventions. " The Spirit, called the Messen-
ger of Life, in whose name John baptized, appears from a higher region, manifests still
more extraordinary phenomena, submits to be baptized by John, and then transfigures him
with celestial radiance. Jesus afterward comes hypocritically to be baptized by John, in
order to draw away the people and corrupt his doctrine and baptism." (See Norberg's
Religionshuch of this sect.)
* The chronology of the Gcspels by no means excludes such a time of preparation, al-
though we cannot decide whether the "forty days" are to be taken literally, or only as a
round number. John's Gospel, as we have said, does not relate the baptism in its chrono-
logical connexion (John, i., 19, presupposes the occurrence of the baptism) ; so that there is
no difRculty in supposing a lapse of several weeks between the baptism and the first pub-
lic appearance of Christ. The words in John, i., 29, may have been the greeting of the Bap-
tist on first meeting Christ upon his reappearance. Nor does the retirement of Christ
throw a shade upon the credibility of the narrative as matter of fact. It is entirely op-
jtosed to the mt/thical theory; for we do not see in it (as we should were it a mytlms) any
of the ideas of the people among whom Christianity originated ; on the contrarj', it displays
a wisdom and circumspection in direct antagonism to the prevailing tendencies of the time.
As St. John's object was only to state those facts in Christ's life of which he had himself
been an eye-witness, his silence on the subject is easily accounted for.
PART II.
SUBJECTIVE PREPARATION. THE TEMPTATION.
CHAPTER I.
IMPORT OF THE INDIVIDUAL TEMPTATIONS.
WHILE, on the one hand, we do not conceive that the individual
features of the account of the Temptation are to be hterally ta-
ken, the principles which triumph so gloriously in its course bear the
evident stamp of that wisdom which every where shines forth from
the life of Christ. Its veracity is undeniably confirmed by the period
which it occupies between the baptism of Christ and his entrance on
his public ministry ; the silent, solitary preparation was a natural tran-
sition from the one to the other. We conclude, from both these con-
siderations together, that the account contains not only an ideal, but
also a historical truth, conveyed, however, under a symbolical form.*
The easiest part of our task is to ascertain the import of the several
])arts of the Temptation, and to this we now address ourselves. We
shall find in them the principles which guided Jesus through his whole
Messianic calling — principles directly opposed to the notions prevalent
among the Jews in regard to the Messiah.
§ 43. The Hunger.
The first temptation was as follows :t After Jesus had fasted for a
long time, he suffered the pangs of hunger. As no food was to be had
in the desert, the suggestion was made to him, " If thou art really the
Messiah, the Son of God, this need cannot embarrass thee. Thou
canst help thyself readily by a miracle ; thou canst change the stones
of the desert into bread." Jesus rejected this challenge with the words,
* If we assign a symbolical character to the Temptation, it may be asked whether the
fasting, which formed a ground-work for it, was not symbolical also. But tiie fasting is
immediately connected with the obviously historical fact of Christ's retirement. We con-
ceive it thus: Christ, musing upon the great work of his life, forgot the wants of the body.
(Cf. John, iv., 34.) The mastery (and this we must presuppose) which his spirit had over
the body prevented those wants from asserting their power for a long time ; but when they
did, it was only the more powerfully. It fomied part of the trial and self-denial of Christ
through his whole life, that, together with the consciousness that he was the Sou of God.
be combined the weakness and dependence of humanity. These affected the lesser pow-
ers of his soul, althoui;h they could never move his unchangingly holy will, and turn him
to any selfish strivings. t Matt., iv., 2-1.
THE PINNACLE OF THE TEMPLE. 71
" Man shall not live hxj bread alone, hut hy every tcord tliat proccedctJi
out of the mouth of Gob" (what is produced by God's creative word).
To apprehend these words rightly, we must recall their original con-
nexion in Deuteronomy (viii., 3), viz., that the Jews were fed in the
wilderness with manna, in order to learn that the power of God could
sustain human life by other means than ordinary food. They longed
for the bread and flesh of Egypt, but were to be taught submission to
the will of God, who was pleased to supply their wants with a differ-
ent food. Applying this thought to Christ's circumstances, we interpret
his reply to the tempter as follows: " Far be it from me to prescribe
to God the mode in which he shall provide me sustenance. Rather
will I trust his omnipotent creative power, which can find means to
satisfy my hunger, even in the desert, though it may not be with man's
usual food."
The principle involved in the reply was, that he had no wish to
free himself from the sense of human weakness and dependence ; that
he would work no miracle for t/tat purpose. He would work no mir-
acle to satisfy his own will ; no miracle where the momentary want
might be supplied, though by natural means such as might offend the
sensual appetite. In self-denial he would follow God, submitting to
His will, and trusting that His mighty power would help in the time
of need, in the way that His wisdom might see fit. On this same prin-
ciple Christ acted when he suffered his apostles to satisfy their hunger
with the corn which they had plucked, rather than do a miracle to pro-
vide them better food. On this same principle he acted when he gave
himself to the Jewish officers sent to apprehend him,* rather than seek
deliverance by a Divine interposition. Of the same kind, too, was his
trial when he hung upon the cross, and they that passed by said, "Ifhe
be the King of Israel, let liim noio come down from the cross, and we will
believe him."]
§ 44. The Pinnacle of the Temple.
He was then taken to the pinnacle of the Temple, and the tempter
said to him, " If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down ; thou ait
sure of aid by a miracle from God ;" and quoted, literally, in applica-
tion, the words of Psa. xci., 11, 12, " The angels shall hear thee uj) in
their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone." But Christ arrays
against him another passage, which defines the right application of the
former: " Thou shall not tempt the Lord thy God." (Deut., vi., 16.)
As ifhe had said, " Thou must undertake nothing with a view to test
God's omnipotence, as if to try whether he will work a miracle to save
thee from a peril that might be avoided by natural means" (i. e., by
coming down from the battlement in the usual way).
* Matt., xxvi., 53. t lb., xxvii., 42.
72 THE TEMPTATION.
These words of Christ imply that the pious man can look for Divine
aid at all times, provided he uses rightly the means which God affords
him, and walks in the way which has been Divinely marked out for him
by his calling and his circumstances : the Messiah was not, in gratui-
tous confidence of Divine assistance, to cast himself into a danger which
common prudence might avoid. They involve the principle, that a mir-
acle may not be wrought except for wise ends and with adequate mo-
tives ; never, with no other aim than to display the power of working
wonders, and to make a momentary, sensible impression, which, how-
ever powerful, could leave no religious effect, and, not penetrating be-
yond the region of the senses, must be but transient there. And on
this principle Christ acted always, in not voluntarily exposing himself
to peril ; in employing wise and prudent means to escape the snares of
his enemies ; and going forth, with trust in GrOD and submission to his
will, to meet such dangers only as his Divine mission made necessary,
and as he could not avoid without unfaithfulness to his calling. On this
principle he acted when the Pharisees and the fleshly-minded multi-
tude came to him and asked a miracle, and he refused them with,
[" there shall no sign he given to this wicked and adulterous generation
but the sign of the Trophet Jo7iahy\*
§ 45. Dominion.
We do not take the third temptation as implying literally that Satan
proposed to Christ to fall down and do him homage, as the price of a
transfer of dominion over all the kingdoms of the world : no extraor-
dinary degree of piety would have been necessary to rebuke such a
jiroposal as this. We consider it. as involving the two following points,
which must be taken together, viz., (1) the establishment of Messiah's
dominion as an outward kingdom, with worldly splendours; and (^2)
the worship of Satan in connexion with it, which, though not fully ex-
pressed, is implied in the act which he demands, and which Christ
treats as equivalent to worshipping him. Herein was the temptation,
that the Messiah should not developc his kingdom gradually, and in its
pure spirituality from within, but should establish it at once, as an out-
ward dominion ; and that, although this could not be accomplished with-
out the use of an evil agency, the end would sanctify the means.
We find here the principle, that to try to establish Messiah's king-
dom as an outward, worldly dominion, is to wish to turn the kingdom
of God into the kingdom of the devil; and to employ that fallen Intel-
ligence which pervades all human sovereignties, only in a different form,
to found the reign of Christ. And in rejecting the temptation, Christ
condemned every mode of secularizing his kingdom, as well as all the
devil-worship which must result from attempting that kingdom in a
* Matt., xii., 39.
THE TEMPTATION NOT INWARD. 73
worldly form. We find here the principle, that God's work is to be
accomplished purely as His work and by His power, without foreio^n
aid ; so that it shall all be only a share of the worship rendered to Him
alone.
And Christ's whole life illustrates this principle. How often was he
urged, by the impatient longings and the worldly spirit of the people,
to gratify their intense, long-cherished hopes, and establish his kingdom
in a worldly form, before the last demand of the kind was made upon
him, as he entered, in the midst of an enthusiastic host, the capital city
of God's earthly reign ; before his last refusal, expressed in his sub-
mission to those sufferings which resulted in the triumph of God's pure
spiritual kingdom !
CHAPTER 11.
IMPORT OF THE TEMPTATION AS A WHOLE.
§ 46. Fundamental Idea.
I HE whole temptation taken together presents us one idea ; a con-
trast, namely, between the founding of God's kingdom as pure,
spiritual, and tried by many forms of self-denial in the slow develope-
ment ordained for it by its head; and the sudden establislnnent of that
kingdom before men, as visible and earthly. This contrast forms the
(•entral point of the whole. All the temptations have regard to the
created will as such ; the victory presupposes that self-sacrifice of a
will given up to God which determines the whole life. And as this
self-sacrifice of the created will in Christ had to be tested in his life-
long struggles with the Spirit of the world, which ever strove to obscure
the idea of the kingdom of God and bring it down to its own level ; so
tlie free and conscious decision manifested in these three temptations,
fully contrasting, as they did, the true and the false IMessiahship, the un-
worldly and the secularized Theocracy, was made before his public min-
istry, which itself was but a continuation of the strife and the triumph.
§ 47. The Temptation rot an inward one, hut the Work of Satan.
We find, then, in the facts of the temptation the expression of that
period that intervened between Christ's private life and his public min-
istry. These inward spiritual exercises bring out the self-determination
which stamps itself upon all his subsequent outward actions. Yet we
dare not suppose in him a choice, which, presupposing within him a point
of tangency for evil, would involve the necessity of his comparing the
evil vsjith the good, and deciding between them. In the steadfast ten-
dency of his inner life, rooted in submission to God, lay a decision
74 THE TEMPTATION,
which admitted of no such struggle. He had in common with human-
ity that natural weakness which may exist without selfishness, and the
created will, mutable in its own nature ; and only on this side was the
struggle possible — such a struggle as man may have been liable to, be-
fore he gave seduction the power of temjitation by his own actual sin.
In all other respects, the outward seductions remained outward ; they
found no selfishness in him, as in other men, on which to seize, and thus
become internal temptations, but, on the contrary, only aided in reveal-
ing the complete unity of the Divine and human, which formed the es-
sence of his inner life.
Nor is it possible for us to imagine that these temptations originated
withni ; to imagine that Christ, in contemplating the course of his fu-
ture ministry, had an internal struggle to decide whether he should act
according to his own will, or in self-denial and submission to the will of
God. We have seen from the third temptation that, from the very be-
ginning, he regarded the establishment of a worldly kingdom as insep-
arable from the worship of the devil; he could, therefore, have had no
struggle to choose between such a kingdom, outward and worldly, and
the true Messiah-kingdom, spiritual, and developed from within.
Even the purest man who has a great work to do for any age, must
be affected more or less by the prevailing ideas and tendencies of that
age. Unless he struggle against it, the spirit of the age will penetrate
his own ; his spiritual life and its products will be corrupted by the base
admixture. Now the whole spirit of the age of Christ held that Mes-
siah's kingdom was to be of this world, and even John Baptist could not
free himself from this conception. There was nothing loithin Christ on
which the sinful spirit of the age could seize ; the Divine life within
him had brought every thing temporal into harmony with itself; and,
therefore, this tendency of the times to secularize the Theocratic idea
could take no hold of him. But it was to press upon him from tcith-
out; from the beginning this tendency threatened to corrupt the idea and
the developement of the kingdom of God, and Christ's work had to be
kept free from it; moreover, the nature of his own Messianic ministry
could only be fully illustrated by contrast with this possible objective
mode of action; to which, foreign as it was to his own spiritual tenden-
cies, he was so frequently to be urged afterward by the j^revailing
spirit of the times.
But if, according to the doctrine of Christ,* the rebellion of a higher
* We mast hereafter inquire whether this m Christ's doctrine, and only make here a
preliminary remark or two. The arguments of the rationalists against the doctrine which
teaches the existence of Satan are either directed as-ainst a false and arhitrary conception
of that doctrine, or else go u[)on the presupposition that evil could only have origini>tc(l un-
der conditions such as those under which human existence has developed itself; that it has
its ground in the organism of human nature, c. g-., in the oi)positiou between reason and the
AS THE WORK OF SATAN. 75
intelligence against God preceded the whole present history of the uni-
verse, in which Evil is one of the co-operating factors, and of which
man's history is only a part ; if that doctrine makes Satan the repre-
sentative of the Evil which he first brought into reality ; if, further, it
lays down a connexion, concealed from the eye of man, between him
and all evil ; then, from this point of view, Christ's contest with the
spirit of the world must appear to us a contest with Satan — the tempta-
tion, a temptation from Satan — continued afterward through his whole
life, and renewed in every form of assault, until the final triumph was
announced, "It is JinisJied." As the temptation could not have origi-
nated in Christ, he could only attribute it to that Spirit to which all
opposition to God's kingdom, and every attempt to corrupt its pure de-
velopement, can finally be traced back. On the working out of Christ's
plan depended the is^ue of the battle between the kingdom of God and
the kingdom of the Evil One ; and we cannot wonder, therefore, that
this Spirit, ever so restlessly plotting against the Divine order, should
have been active and alert at a time when, as in the case of the first
man, an opening for temptation to the mutable created will was afford-
ed to him.
Christ left to his disciples and the Church only a partial and symbol-
ical account* of the facts of his inner life in this preparatory epoch ; au
account, however, adapted to their practical necessities, and serving to
guard them against those seductions of the spirit of the world to which
even the productions of the Divine spirit must yield, if they are ever
allowed to become worldly.
propensities ; that human developement must necessai'ily pass through it ; but that we can
not conceive of a steadfast tendency to evil in au intelligence endowed with the higher spir-
itual powers. Now it is precisely this view of evil which we most emphatically oppose, as
directly contradictory to the essence of the Gospel and of a theistico-ethical view of the
world ; and, on the contrary, we hold fast, as the only doctrine which meets man's moral
and religious interests, that doctrine which is the ground of the conception of Satan, and
according to which evil is represented as the rebellion of a created will against the Divine
law, as au act of free-will not otherwise to be explained, and the intelligence as determined
by the will. I am pleased to find my convictions expressed in few words by an eminent
divine of our own time, Dr. Nitzsch, in his excellent System der Chnstlichen Lehre, 2d ed.,
p. 152. They are further developed by Twesten, in his Dogmatik. The same fundamental
idea is given in the work o( Julias Midler, already mentioned {Lehre voti der Siinde).
* We can apply here Dr. Nilzsck's remark in reference to the Biblical account of the Fall
{Chrisil. Lehre, § 106, s. 144^ anm. 1, 2'^- Aufl.) : " The history of the temptation, in this form.
is not a real, but a irue historj-."
BOOK IV.
THE PUBLIC MINISTRY OF CHRIST
IN ITS
I
REAL CONNEXION.
PART r. THE PLAN OF CHRIST.
PART H. THE MEANS AND INSTRUMENTS OF CHRIST.
BOOK IV.
THE PUBLIC MINISTRY OF CHRIST IN ITS REAL CONNEXION.
PART L
THE PLAN OF CHRIST.
CHAPTER 1.
A. THE PLAN OF CHRIST'S MINISTRY IN GENERAL.
§ 48. Had Christ a conscious Plan 1
T is most natural for us, in treating of Christ's public ministry, to
speak first of the ^^Zare which lay at the foundation of it. First of
all, however, the question comes up, whether he had any such plan at
all.t
The greatest achievements of great men in behalf of humanity have
not been accomplished by plans previously arranged and digested ; on
the contrary, such men have generally been unconscious instruments,
working out God's purposes, at least in the beginning, before the
fruits of their labours have become obvious to their own eyes. They
served the plan of God's providence for the progress of his kingdom
among men, by giving themselves up enthusiastically to the ideas which
the Spirit of God had impaited to them. Not unfrequently has a false
historical view ascribed to such labours, after their results became
known, a plan which had nothing to do with their developement. Nay,
these mighty men were able to do their gi'eat deeds precisely because
a higher than human wisdom formed the plan of their labours and pre-
pared the way for them. The work was greater than the workmen ;
they had no presentiments of the results that were to follow from the
toils to which they felt themselves impelled. So was it with Luther,
* To promote unity of view, I deem it best, especially as much of the chronolog-ical order
must remain uncertain, to treat and divide Christ's public ministry, _/?rs#, according to its
substantial connexion, and, iecondly, according to its chronological connexion.
t We use the phrase " plan of Jesus," inasmuch as we compare his mode of action
with that of other world-historical men, in order to bring out the characteristic features
which distinguish him. The exposition which follows will show that I agree with the apt
t-emarks of my worthy friend, Dr. TJllmann, made in his beautiful treatise on the " Simden-
losigkeit Jesu'' (Sinlcssness of Jesus), p. 71, and tliat his censures there of those who use
the above-mentioned phrase do not apply to me. [See Ullmann's Treatise, translated by
Edwards and Park, in the "Selections from German Literature."]
80 THE PLAN OF CHRIST.
when he kindled the spark which set half Europe in a blaze, and com-
menced the sacred flame which refined the Christian Church.
Were we at liberty to compare the work of Christ with these cre-
ations Avi'ought through human agencies, we should need to guard our-
selves against determining the plan of his ministry from its results.
We might then suppose tliat he was inspired with enthusiasm for an
idea, whose compass and consequences the limits of his circumstances
and his times prevented him from fully apprehending. We might also
distinguish between the idea, as made the guide and the aim of his ac-
tions by himself, and the more comprehensive Divine plan, to which,
by his voluntary and thorough devotion to God, he served as the organ.
And it would rather glorify than disparage him to show, by thus com-
paring him with other men who had wrought as God's instruments to
accomplish His vast designs, that God had accomplished through him
even greater things than he had himself intended.
But we ai'e allowed to make no such comparison. The life of Christ
presented a realized ideal of human culture such as man's nature can
never attain unto, let his developement reach what point it may. He
described the future effects of the truth which he revealed in a way
that no man could comprehend at the time, and which centuries of his-
tory have only been contributing to illustrate. Nor was the progress
of \he future more clear to his vision than the steps in the history of
the past, as is shown by his own statements of the relation which he
sustained to the old dispensation. Facts, which it required the course
of ages to make clear, lay open to his eye ; and history has both ex-
plained and verified the laws which he pointed out for the progress of
his kingdom. He could not, therefore, have held the same relation to
the plan for whose accomplishment his labours were directed, as men
who were mere instruments of God, however great. He resembled
them, it is true, in the fact that his labours were ordered according lo
no plan of human contrivance, but to one laid down by God for the
developement of humanity; but he differed from them in this, that Hi:
understood the full compass of God's plan, and had freely made it his
own ; that it was the plan of his own mind, clearly standing forth in
his consciousness when he commenced his labours. The account of his
temptation, rightly understood, shows all this.
With this, also, are rebutted those views which consider Clu'ist as
having recognized the idea of his ministry only through the cloudy at-
mosphere of Judaism ; and those which represent his plan as having
been essentially altered from time to time, as circumstances contradict-
ed his first expectations and gave him clearer notions. They are fur-
ther refuted by the entire harmony which subsists between Christ's
own expressions in regard to his plan, as uttered in the two different
epochs of his history.
HIS CONSCIOUSNESS OF MESSIAHSIIIP. 81
§ 49. Connexion tvlth the Old Testament Tlieocrac]).
The object of Christ was, as he himself often describes it, to estab-
lish the kingdom of God among men ; not, as we have shown, after a
plan of man's devising, but after one laid down by God, not only in
the general developement of the human race, but also, and specially,
in the developement of the Jewish nation, and in the revelations of the
old dispensation. We must, therefore, look back upon the Old Testa-
ment foundations of the kingdom of God, before we can correctly un-
derstand the plan of Christ as set forth in his acts and words. The
one prepared the way for the other. In the former it was outward and
confined to the narrow community of the Jewish people, in the form
of a state founded and governed by Divine authority ; in the latter it
was to be universal, all-embracing, a communion, springing out of the
consciousness of God, intended to be the principle of life and union
for all mankind. In the former, the Divine law, ordering from without
all the relations of state and people, governed the nation through or-
gans appointed by God and inspii-ed by his Spirit, viz., priests, kings,
and prophets. But this idea could not be realized ; the kingdom of
God could not he founded from icithout. It needed first a proper mate-
rial ; and this could not be found in human nature, estranged from
God by sin. The history of the Jewish nation was designed to bring
this contradiction out into clear consciousness ; and to awaken a more
and more vivid anxiety for its removal, and for the re-establishment and
glorification of the Theocracy. So the revelations of God pointed
more and more directly to Him, the Messiah, under whose dominion
the Divine kingdom was to be exalted, and the worship of Jehovah to
be acknowledged and to triumph even among the nations so long es-
tranged from him.
§ 50. Christ'' s Steadfast Consciousness of Ms Messia/ishij}.
And Jesus knew and testified to his Messiahship from the beginning,
from his first public appearance until his last declaration, made before
the high-priests in the very face of death ; although he did not always
proclaim it with equal openness, especially when there was risk of
popular commotions from false and temporal conceptions of the Mes-
siah on the part of the people ; but rather gradually led them, from the
acknowledgment of his prophetic character (by which, indeed, they
were bound to believe in his words), to recognize him as the Messiah,
a Prophet also, but in the highest sense.
In this respect there is no contradiction whatever between the Synop-
tical Gospels* and John. They all agree in stating that Jesus spoke
and acted from the beginning in consciousness of his Messiahship ; and
' Matthew, Mark, and Luke.
F
82 THE PLAN OF CHRIST
also that, as circumstances demanded, he was sometimes more and
sometimes less explicit* in regard to it. Nor is John silentt about the
fluctuations and divisions of opinion (easily explained on psychological
grounds), even among the more favourably disposed portions of the
multitude : nay, he tells us that some of the Apostles were slow to be-
lieve, and wavered in their faith. All this, however, does nothing to
prove similar fluctuations in Christ's conviction of his Messiahship.
According to Matthew, Jesus commenced his ministry, like John the
Baptist, by summoning men to repentance, as a preparation for the
coming kingdom of God. But this by no means implies that his in-
tention and his announcement, at the beginning, were the same as
those of the Baptist. It was necessary for him to take this starting-
point, as he joined his ministry upon John's proclamation, and upon
the desire for the manifestation of the kingdom of God which it had
awakened, in order to purify this desire and direct it to its object, the
leal founder of the kingdom. It was essential to awaken and preserve
in the minds of the people a sense of the necessity of repentance as a
condition of participation in the kingdom, and the first starting-point for
a clear idea of its nature. After this general summons had gone be-
fore, Jesus could prove, by the impression of his own works, that the
kingdom had really been manifested through him (Matt., xii., 28 ; Luke,
xvii., 21). The proclamation of the approaching kingdom and the an-
nouncement of Jesus as its founder and central-point, were closely
connected together; but sometimes the one was announced more prom-
inently, and sometimes the other, as circumstances might demand.
Compare the Sermon on the Mount with the discourses of Christ as
recoi'ded in John's Gospel.
§ 51. No alterations of Christ's Plan.
It may be imagined, however, that although Christ was conscious,
from the beginning, of his calling to realize the idea of the kingdom of
(lOD, the plan of his work may have been modified from time to time
according to the varying results which depended upon the vacillating
temper of the public mind ; that at first, perhaps, he hoped to find the
greater part of the Jewish nation ready to receive him ; and designed,
under this supposition, to separate the incorrigible from the bettor part,
and collect the latter into a Theocratic community under his govern-
ment; and that he expected that the kingdom of God, once seated
firmly in this way, would, by the might of its prevailing spirit of Divine
life, by degi-ees transform all other nations into the same kingdom. In
* John, viii., 2') ; X., Q4.
t John, vii., 40; Matt., xvi., 11 ; John, vii., 12. The less hostile portion of the people
agreed, at fiiKt, only in believing that Christ had good intentions and was no seducer of the
people.
UNCHANGED. 83
fact, what an incalculable influence might a nation, thoroughly imbued
with the spirit of Christianity and illustrating Christianity in all its re-
lations, exert toward the moral regeneration of the rest of mankind !
A light indeed would it be, not hid under a bushel, but throwing its
beams on all sides into the surrounding darkness : the salt and the
leaven, truly, of all mankind. And some,* in fact, assert that Christ
cherished these hopes when he first appeared in public. Hence, say
they, the joyous feeling with which he announced the " acceptable year"
in the synagogue at Nazareth ;t hence his purpose, manifested in the
Sermon on the Mount, to give to the people new Theocratic statutes in
accordance with his higher stand-point ; hence his promise to the
apostles that they should govern, under him, the new Theocratic com-
munity ;:j: hence, too, his last lamentation over Jerusalem, that he had
so often tried to save the nation which ought to have submitted to his
guidance. All which, they say, presupposes a belief on his part that
the results might have been different had the people listened to his
voice, and that he expected more of them to listen to him ; that the aim
of his ministry was altered when he found the resistance more stubborn
and general than he had supposed; and that, from the course of events
themselves, he learned, in the light of the Divine Spirit, that the plan
for the establishment of the kingdom of God which the Divine counsels
had formed, was such, that he himself must submit to the power of his
enemies, and rise victorious from his suffeiing? ; .while the kingdom it-
self was only to advance by slow degi-ees, and after many combats, t(»
its final triumph.
Yet, after all, these reasonings are only specious, not solid. Even
the most important of them rather opposes than sustains the theory
they are adduced to support. It is true, there is such a thing as a holy
enthusiasm for a Divine idea, which is blind to all difficulties, or deems
that it can gain an easy victory. Such, howevei', was not the enthusi-
asm of Christ for his Divine work ; on the contrary, he combined witli
it a discretion which fully comprehended the opposition he must en-
counter from the prevailing opinions and feelings of the times. He was
far from trusting to the momentary impulses under which the people,
excited by his words and actions, sought to join themselves to him. He
readily distinguished, with that searching glance that pierced the depths
of men's hearts, the few who came to him, drawn of the Father and
following an inward consciousness of G-od, from those who sought him
with carnal feelings, to obtain that which he came not to bestow. How
did he check the ardour of his disciples, when he rebuked the false
self-confidence inspired by a transient enthusiasm, and reminded them
of their weakness ! There was no extravagance in his demands upon
* De Wette and Hase. Paulus, also, with some modifications.
t Luke, iv., 17, seq. I Matt, six., 28.
84 THE TLAN OF CHRIST
men ; nothing exaggerated in his hopes of the future. Every where
we see not only a conscious possession of the Divine power to over-
come the world, which he was to impart to humanity, but also of the
obstacles it should meet with from the old nature in which the princi-
ple of sin was yet active. This was the spirit which passed over from
him to the Apostles, and which constituted the peculiar essence of
Christian ethics. Christ, while as yet surrounded only by a handful
of faithful followers, describes the renewing power which the seed that
he had sown would exert on the life of humanity ; yet, brilliant as the
prospect is, his eyes are not dazzled by it ; he sees, at the same time,
how impurity will mix itself with the work of God, and how clouds
will obscure it. Could He whose quick glance thus saw the depths of
men's hearts, and took in at once the present and the future, who knew
so well the corrupt carnality of the Jewish nation before he entered on
his public ministry, so far deceive himself as to suppose that he could
suddenly transform the larger part of such a nation into a true people
of God 1 He that searched men's hearts and knew what was in man
could not be ignorant that his severest battles were to be fought Avith
the prevalent depravity of men ; and in connexion with these struggles,
how natural was it for him to look forward to the death which he should
suffer in the faithful performance of his calling ! Even at an early date
he intimated the violent death by which he was to be torn from the
happy fellowship of his disciples, leaving them behind him in tears and
sorrow.*
His temptation, the historical truth and import of which we have
shown, makes it clear that he had decided, before he commenced his pub-
lic labours, not to establish the kingdom of God in a mere outward way
by miraculous power. And this is further shown by his assigning, in
the first epoch of his ministry, to John the Baptist, whom he called the
first among the prophets, a subordinate place in relation to the new era
of religion ; for this could only have been done in view of John's in-
ability fully to comprehend the essential feature of this new era, viz.,
the spiritual developement of the kingdom of God from within. And,
* Matt., ix., 15. Hase saj-s, indeed, that these words do not uuply necessarily an approach-
ing violent death, but might be uttered in view of the common lot ofmoitaJs. But, in the first
place, Jesus, if he applied to himself the Old Testament idea of the Messiah, could not believe
that he would be torn by natural death from the Theocratic community which he should
found among the Jews, and thus leave it to the direction of others ; but must expect (if he
liopcd to found an external Theocracy) always to remain j)resent as Theocratic king. (This
applies, also, to what Has^e says (2d edit, of his Lehen Jesn, p. 89), in opposition to his pre-
viously expressed views.) Again, it would be strange indeed for a man of thirty to ex-
jiress himself to older men, in reference to the common end of mortals, in such language as
tlie following: "Now is your time for festal joy; for when your fiiond shall be removed, it
will be time for fsLsting and sorrow." The whole connexion of the passage shows that Je-
sus did not expect to part from them under happy circumstances, but amid many conflicts
and sufferings.
UNCHANGED. e5
again, in refei-ence to John he said, " Blessed is he, whosoever sJiall not
he offended in me ;'' evidently presupposing that John's Old Testament
views would be offended at the new era ; a presupposition which re-
fers to the new spiritual growth of the Divine kingdom. It is, thei'e-
fore, undeniable that from the beginning Christ aimed at this new de-
velopement of that kingdom.
We find further proof of this in all the parables which treat of the
jjrogress of his kingdom, and the effects of his truth ujion human nature,
viz., the parables of the mustard seed, of the leaven, of the fire which
he had come to kindle upon earth, all which were designed to illus-
trate the distinction between the Old Testament form of the Theocracy
and that of Christ; to illustrate a developement which was not at once
to exhibit an external stately fabric ; but to commence with apparently
small beginnings, and yet ever to propagate itself by a mighty power
working outwardly from within ; and to regenerate all things, and thus
appropriate them to itself. All these parables presuppose the renewal
of human nature by a new and pervading princijjle of spiritual life ;
and imply that the kingdom of God cannot be visibly realized among
men until they become subjects of this renewal. To the same effect
was Christ's saying (which we shall further examine hereafter), " nei-
ther do men put new wine into old shins, else the shins breah and the wine
runneth out." He who uttered such truths, involving a steadfast and
connected system of thought, could not have set out with the purpose
of establishing an outward kingdom, and have afterward been induced
by circumstances to change his plan in so short a time. What an im-
mense revolution in his mental habits and course of thinking must a
few months have produced, on such a supposition ! It would be, in-
deed, a gross misapprehension of the precepts given in the Sermon on the
Blount to interpret them literally as laws laid down for an outward The-
ocratic kingdom. Such an interpretation would involve the possibility
of a struggle between Good and Evil in the kingdom of God ; such as
can never take place in Messiah's reign, if it be realized according to
its idea. The form of a state cannot be thought of in connexion with
this kingdom ; a state presupposes a relation to transgression ; an out-
ward law, the forms of judicature, the administration of justice are es-
sential to its organization. But all these can have no place in the^c?--
fect kingdom of Christ ; a community whose whole principle of life is
love. Laws intended for \he free mind lose their import when their
observance is compelled by external penalties of any kind whatever.
More of this view hereafter, when we come to treat especially of the
Sermon on the Mount.
Nor is a change in Christ's feelings to be in any v/ise admitted.
The year of joy [the acceptahle year, Luke, iv., 19] did not refer to the
happy results which he hoped to attain, but to the blessed contents o*'
86 THE PLAN OF CHRIST.
the announcement with which he commenced his labours ; the substance
of the message itself was joyful, whether the dispositions of the people
would make it a source of joy to them, or not. And even on his first
proclamation at Nazareth, the hostility of the canially-minded multi-
tude could have enabled him to prognosticate the general temper with
which the whole people would receive him. It follows by no means,
from the wo which he uttered over his loved Jerusalem (Luke, xiii., 34,
35), that he had hoped at first to find acceptance with the entire nation,
and to make Jerusalem the real seat of his Theocratic government. Yet,
although he could not save the nation as a whole, he offered his warn-
ings to the whole, leaving it to the issue to decide who were willing to
hear his voice.
§ 52. Two-fold bearing of the Kingdom of God — an inward^ spiritmil
Power, and a world-renewing Poiver.
There are two sides to the conception of the kingdom of God, as
Christ viewed it ; in reference to its ideal and its real elements, which
must be contemplated in their connexion with each other. The dis-
courses of Christ will be found every where to contradict a one-sided
view of either of these elements.
The kingdom of God was indeed first to be exhibited as a commun-
ion of men bound together by the same spirit, inspired by the same
consciousness of God ; and this communion was to find its central
point in Christ, its Redeemer and King. As he himself ordered and
directed all things in the first congregation of his disciples, so he was
subsequently to inspire, rule, and cultivate this community of men by
his law and by his Spirit. The revelation of the Spirit, shared by all
its members, was all that was to distinguish it from the world, so called
in the New Testament, that is, the common mass of mankind, as alien-
ated from God.
But as this community was gradually to prevail even over the mass
of mankind through the power of the indwelling Spirit, it was not
always to remain entirely inward and hidden, but to send forth, contin-
ually more and more, a renewing influence ; to be the salt, the leaven
of humanity, the citij set vpon a hill, the candle which, once lighted,
should never be extinguished. And Christ was gradually, through this
community, his organ and his royal dwelling-place, to establish his
kingdom as a real one, more and more widely among men, and subduti
the world to his dominion. In this sense were those who shared
in his communion to obtain and exercise, even upon earth, a real
world-dominion. It is the aim and end of history, that Christiani/y
shall more and more become the world-governing principle. In fine,
the end of this developcment appears to be (though not, indeed, simply
us its natural result) a complete realization of the Divine kingdom
AIMS OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD. 87
which Christ estabhshed in its outward manifestation, fully answering
to its idea ; a perfect world-dominion of Christ and of his organs ; a
world purified and transformed, to become the seat of His universal
empire.
So did Christ intend, in a true sense, and in various relations, tct
describe himself as King, and his organs as partakers in his dominion
of the world. It was, indeed, in a real sense that he spoke of his
KINGDOM, to be manifested on earth. And as he was to build up this
kingdom on the foundations laid down in the Old Testament, and to
realize the plan of God therein prefigured, he could rightfully apply to
himself the figures of the Old Testament in regard to the progress of
the Theocracy, in order to bring the truths which they veiled clearly
out before the consciousness of men.* Although his disciples at first
took these figures in the letter, still, under the influence of Christ's in-
tercourse and teaching, they could not long stop there. And not only
his direct instructions, but the manner in which he opposed the idea
of his spiritual and inward kingdom to the carnal notions of the Jews,
contributed to give his followers the key to the right interpretation of
these types and shadows.
In thus comparing Christ's discourses with each other, and in the
unity of purpose which a contemplation of his whole life makes manifest,
we find a guard for all after ages, against carnal misconceptions of hi.s
individual discourses, or of separate features of his life.t In general,
when we find in the accounts of any world-historical man such a unity
of the creative mind, we are willing, if individual features come up in
apparent contradiction to the general tenor, to believe that he was mis-
understood by incapable contemporaries ; or, if this cannot be safely
asserted, because the contradictory features are inseparable from others
that bear his unmistakable impress, we endeavour, by comparing his
manifestations, to find that higher unity in which even the unmanage-
able points may find their rightful place. Utterly unhistorical, indeed,
is that perverted principle of historical exegesis which teaches that an
original, creative mind, a spirit far above his times, is to be compre-
hended from the prevailing opinions of his age and nation; and which
presupposes, in fact, that all these opinions are his own.|
* Some suppose that evei-y tliiug in Christ's discourses, as reported by Matthew and
Luke, in reference to this real Theocratic element, is to be ascribed to the Jewish views
that obscured the truth as uttered by Christ, and caused it to be reported incon-ectly
That this is not the case is obvious from Paul's plain references to such expressions of
Christ's, e.g., 1 Cor., vi., 2.
t We shall speak more particularly of this when we come to treat of the mode in which
Christ trained his apostles.
t Conf. what Schhiermacher says (Hermeneutik, s. 20) of "historical interpretation,"
and also (s. 82) of the "Analogy of Faith."
THE PLAN OF CHRIST
CHAPTER II.
THE PLAN OF CHRIST IN ITS RELATION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT
IDEA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
The question now arises, in what relation the new form of the king-
dom of God, according to Christ's plan, stood to the Old Testament
form thereof; a question which we shall have to answer from the inti-
mations afforded by Christ himself. Indeed, it has already been an-
swered by our remarks upon his idea of the kingdom as developing
itself from within; but as the subject has its difficulties, and especially
as some have tried to pi'ove that Christ spoke and acted at different
times from opposite points of view, we must examine it more closely.
§ 53. Christ's Observance of the Jewish Worship and Law.
No question can arise as to Christ's intention to extend his kingdom
abroad among the pagan nations ; the Messianic predictions of the Old
Testament had already intimated the general diffusion of the worship
i>f Jehovah; and John the Baptist had hinted at the possible transfer
of the kingdom of God from the Jews to the heathen, in case the for-
mer should prove to be unworthy of it. And what was afterward
novel to the apostles was, not that the pagans should be converted and
received into the fellowshijj of the Messiah, but that they should be re-
ceived without accepting the Mosaic law. It was against the latter
view, and not the former, that even the strictest Judaizers objected.
It was to refute this that the Ebionites appealed to Christ's strict ob-
servance of the law, and to his saying, in the Sermon on the Mount,
that he " came 7iot to destroy, hut to fulfil the laic^' and that " not one jot
or tittle of the law should pass away."
We must not oppose this doctrine by quoting Christ's declarations
that the essence of religion must be found in the soul, and that outward
things could neither cleanse nor sanctify mankind ;* for even in the light
of the Old Testament it was known that piety of heart was indispensa-
ble to a true fulfilment of the law. Christ himself appealed to a pas-
sage in the Old Testament (Hos., vi., 6) in proof of this; and even the
well-disposed scribe (Mark, xii., 33) admitted it. Still, the necessity
of an outward observance of the law might be maintained by those who
deemed inward purity essential to its value.t
Viewing the relation of Christ's doctrine to the legal stand-point only
* Such a.s Matt., xv., 11; Mark, vii., \'^.
t Even Philo, from the standpoiut of his religious idealism, held the necessitj* of a strict
observance of the ritual law, bcliovini,' tliat it facilitated the understanding of tlie spiritual
sense of the law. He asserted this against the idealists, who adhered absolutely to the
letter, in his treatise "X>e Migrationc Abi-cMvii."
IN ITS RELATIONS TO THE OLD TESTAMENT. 69
on this side, we might conceive it to have stood as follows : Direct-
ing his attention only to the necessity of proper dispositions in order
to piety, he held, as of fundamental importance, that nothing in religion
not springing from genuinely pious feelings could be of any avail ; and,
holding fast to this, did not investigate further the question of the con-
tinued authority of the ceremonial law. Satisfied with saving what
was most essential, he permitted the other to stand as inviolable in its
Divine authority. Such a course would have been eminently proper
in Christ, if we regard him as nothing more than a genuine reformer.
Every attempt at true reformation must have, not a negative, but a pos-
itive point of departure ; must start with some truth which it fully and
necessai'ily recognizes.
The view which we have just set forth is not invalidated by Christ's
denunciations of the Phaiisees for their arbitrary statutes and burden-
some additions to the law.* In all these he contrasted the law, right-
ly and spiritually understood, with their false traditions and interpreta-
tions. As for actual violation of the law, he could never be justly ac-
cused of it ; even Paul, who so strenuously resisted the continued ob-
ligation of the law, declares that Christ submitted to it.t
§ 54. His Manifestation greater than the " Temple.'"
But a comparison of Matt., xii., 6-8, with Mark, ii., 28, will suggest
to us something more than a mere assault upon the statutes of the Phar-
isees. In the first passage he begins with his opponents upon their own
ground. " You yourselves admit that the priests who serve the Tem-
ple on the Sabbath must break the literal Sabbatical law in view of the
higher duties of the Temple service." Then he continues, " But I say
unto you, there is something here greater than the Tcmpley\ In these,
as in many of Christ's words, there is more than meets the ear.§ When
we remember the sanctity of the Temple in Jewish eyes, as the seat
of the Shekinah, as the only place where God could ever be worship-
ped, we can conceive the weight of Christ's declaration that his mani-
festation was something greater than the Temple, and was to introduce
* Matt., xxiii. t Gal., iv., 4.
X I prefer Lachmann' s reading [utisov) both on internal and external grounds. I cannot,
however, believe, with De Wette, that the passage refers to Christ's Messianic calling alone;
but rather to his whole manifestation, of which his ministry as Messiah formed part. Sim-
ilar expressions of Clirist refer to his whole appearance, e. "-., Matt., xii., 8, speaks of his
person. Conf Luke, xi., 30.
§ Justly says Dr. von Colin (Ideen ub. d. inneren Zusammenhang dcr Glaubenseinigung
und Glaubensreinigung in der evangel. Kirche, Leips., 1824, s. 10) : " Every religious stu-
dent of the Scriptures, however he may be satisfied with the sense that he has obtained
from them by the aids of philosophy and history, must be constrained to acknowledge that
the simplest words of the Saviour contain a depth and fulness of meaning which he can
never boast of having mastered." These holy words, containing the germ of an unending
developement, could only be understood in the Spirit (as by the Apostles) ; and they who
had not received this Spirit, like the Judaizers, who adhered to the letter, could not but
misunderstand them.
90 THE PLAN OF CHRIST
a revelation of the glory of God, and a mode of Divine worship to
which the Temple-service was entirely subordinate. We may infer
Christ's conclusion to have been, " If the priests have been freed from
the literal observance of the Sabbath law because of their relation to
the Temple, heretofore the highest seat of worship, how much more
must my disciples be freed from the letter of that law by their relation
to that which is greater than the Temple ! (Their intercourse with
Him was something greater than Temple-worship.) They have pluck-
ed the corn on the Sabbath, it is true, but they have done it that they
might not be disturbed in their communion with the Son of Man, and
in reliance upon his authority. They are free from guilt, then, for the
Son of Man is Lord even of the Sahbath." He thus laid the founda-
tion for that true, spiritual worship to which the Temj^le-service was to
give way.
Of the same character were those words of Jesus which taught a
Stephen that Christ would destroy the Temple and remove its ritual-
worship. (Acts, vi., 14.) Whether he learned this from the words re-
corded in John, ii., 19, or from some others, we leiave for the present
undecided. The doctrine of Paul in regard to the relation between
the Law and the Gospel was only an extension of the truth first uttered
by Stephen. This doctrine could not have originated in Paul, without
a point of departure for it in the instructions of Christ himself; still
less, if those insti-uctions had been in direct contradiction to it.
Christ's declaration, "Mi/ yolce is easy and my burden light" (Matt.,
xi., 30), was designed, indeed, primarily, to contrast his manner of teach-
ing and leading men with that of the Pharisees ; but it certainly meant
far more. It contrasted his plan of salvation with legalism generally,
of which Pharisaism was only the apex. Paul's doctrine on the sub-
ject is nothing but a developement of the intimation contained in these
words.*
§ 55. The Conversation loith the Samaritan Woman.
We have thus far confined ourselves to Christ's declarations as given
* Schlciermacher (in his Henneneutik, s. 82) very aptly applies the oft-abused compari-
son between Christ and Socrates to illustrate the relation between the apostolic doctrines,
especially those of Paul, and the immediate teachings of Christ. He justly remarks, that
while there was a similarili/ in the fact that the teachings of Socrates were not writteu
down by himself, but transmitted through his disciples, who marked them with their own
individuality without at all obliterating the Socratic ground-colours, the substantial differ-
ence lay in this, that the affinity of the Apostles was closer than tliat of the followers of Soc-
rates, "because tlie power of unity which emanated from Christ was in itself greater, and
acted so powerfully upon those Apostles who, like Paul, had marked individual jiecuhari-
ties, that tlioy appealed, in their teachings, exclusively to Ciu-ist. Although Paul first
brought out tlic idea of the conversion of the heathen into perfect clearness before the
Apostles, yet he advocated it in no other power than that of Christ. Had not the idea been
contained in Christ's teadiing, the other Apostles would not have recognized Paul as a Chris-
tian, much less an Apostle." The same remark may be applied to many other important
doctrines.
FULFILLING THE LAW. 91
by Matthew, Mark, and Luke, avoiding John, because the credibility
of his reports of Christ's discourses has been more disputed. But, hav-
ing shovv^n the tendency of Christ's doctrine of the Law from the first
Gospels alone, we are surely now entitled to appeal to his conversation
with the woman of Samaria (John, iv., 7-30), in which he set forth the
Christian view, that religion was no more to be confined to any one
place. In fact, the discourse involves no doctrine which cannot be
found in Christ's declarations elsewhere recorded. Perfectly accord-
ant witli his declaration to the hostile Pharisees who clamoured so
loudly for the ritual law — " the manifestation of the Son of Man is
greater than the Temple ; and he is Lord of the Sahhath'" — was his an-
swer to a woman (ignorant, to be sure, and destitute of a spiritual sense
of the Divine, but yet free from prejudice, and susceptible of receiving
instruction from him, because she believed him to be a prophet), when
she inquired as to the right place to worship God : " The time is com-
ing when the worship of God will be confined to no visible temple ;
for the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshij^jfers shall worship
the Father in spirit and in truth." Tliis declaration could only have
been founded on the fact that something greater than the Temple had
appeared among men.
§ 56. The ''Destroying''' and "■Fulfilling''' of the haw.
But although we infer that Paul's doctrine of the disjunction of Chris-
tianity from the Mosaic law was derived, mediately at least, from Christ's
o\XT\ words, we must admit that the Judaizing Christians, unfit as they
were, from their Jew^ish stand-point, fully to apprehend his teaching,
might have found some support for their peculiar opinions both in his
words and in his actions. Take, for instance, the passage, " Think not
that I am come to destroy the Laic and the Frophets ; 1 am not come to
destroy, hut to fulfil."* Their Jewish views might interpret this to
mean that he did not intend to abrogate the ceremonial part of the
law, but to bring about a strict observance of it. Nor shall we apply
here the distinction between the moral and the ritual law ; neither the
connexion of the passage nor the stand-point of the Old Testament
would justify this. Certainly, as he used the terms Law and Prophets
to denote the two great divisions of the Old Testament, and declared
he would not destroy either, he must have had in view the entire law ;
it was the law, as a whole, that he came not to destroy, but to fulfil.
We need only to understand correctly what kind of "destroying" it
is which Christ disclaims. It is a " destroying" which excludes " ful-
fillinf ;" a destroying which is not at the same time a fulfilling. The
general positive clause, "lam come to fulfil,^ is used as proof of the
special and negative clause, " I am not come to destroy the Law and the
Prophets ;" nor are we to make the former a special one, by seeking
* Matt., v., 17.
92 THE PLAN OF CHRIST
an object for it in tlie preceding words. On the contrary, the general
proposition, '^ I am come to fulfil^'' which holds good of Christ's entire
labours, is, in this case, specially applied to his relation to the Old Tes-
tament. Christ's activity is in no sense a destroying and negative, but
in every respect a fulfilling and ci'eative agency. For instance, by that
agency human nature is to lose none of its essential features ; but only
to be freed fi"om the bonds and defects which sin has imposed upon it,
so that its ideal, as originally designed by the Creator, may become the
real. This is Julfill ing ; but yet it must be accompanied by the destroy-
ing of whatever opposes it. We apply the same principle to Christ's
relation to the Mosaic law. The Mosaic Institute, as the fundamental
law of the sjjecial Theocracy exhibited in the Jewish nation, was a veil,
a limited form, in which the will of Gon, the eternal law of the Theoc-
racy, was appropriately impressed upon the men of that time. But the
general and eternal Theocratic law could not find its free developement
and fulfilment in the form of an outward State law. The law (in its
whole extent I mean, including what is called in a narrower sense the
moral, as well as the ritual law) aimed to realize the will of God, to
present the true diKaioovvr] under the relations above defined. But
what the law, in its whole extent, aimed at, is accomplished through
Christ ; the veil is rent, the bonds are loosed by the liberating Spirit,
and the law reaches its before unattainable fulfilment. This fulfilment,
indeed, involves the removal of all obstructions; but this destroying
process cannot be called destroying, as it is an essential condition, and
a negative element, of the fulfilment itself So the fulfilment of proph-
ecy in the manifestation and labours of Christ necessarily involved the
destruction of the prophetic veil and covering of the Messianic idea.*
The Ebionites, adhering only to the letter, misunderstood Christ's
declarations on this subject ; but Paul, viewing them in their true spirit
and universal bearing, obtained those views on the relation of the Law
and the Gospel which he presents in such passages as Rom., iii., 31 ;
viii., 3, 4.
^ 57. The Interpolation in Luhe, vi., 4. (Cod. Cant.)
There is a traditional account of another remai'kable saying of Christ
in regard to the observance of the Sabbath, t viz., that on a certain oc-
casion, seeing a man at work on the Sabbath, he said to him, '■'Happy
art thou if thou knowest what thou art doing ; hut ij" thou dost not hnoio ,
thou art accursed, and a transgressor of the lawT We must not leave
this unnoticed, for as other words of Christ which did not find place in
* We shall see hereafter how this interpretation of Christ's words is verified in the whole
train of thought in the Sermon on the Mount.
t In the Cotl. Cant. (Cod. Bezce), this passage immediately follows Luke, vi., 4: "rij
avrri 'ifipf ^caaiificvo? Ttva tpya'C.intvov no anGBiiTui iIttcv aiiTiTi- livOpi-Ove, el (ilv uiiai t'i TroitJj, naKa
fioitt' tl ii itfl olias, iTTiKau'ipaTos Kat TtapaGaTtii cl rov vd/xov.'"
NOT ALTERED. 93
the canonical Gospels were handed down by tradition,* so it is possible
that an event of the character here related may have been preserved in
some collection of evangelical traditions (e.g., an apocrvphal Gospel or
some other), and may have been afterward transferred to Luke, vi., 4,
as having an affinity with the context there. There is nothing in the
words themselves which Christ might not have uttered under certain
circumstances ; for their import is a sentiment which he always made
prominent ; viz., that all depends upon the spirit in which one acts.
The force of the passage is, " Happy is he who has arrived at the con-
viction that God must be worshipped, not at special times and places,
but in spirit and in truth; and who feels himself free from the Old
Testament Sabbatical law. But he who, while acknowledging that
law, allows himself to be induced by outward motives to labour on the
Sabbath, is a guilty man ; the law is in force for k/m, and, by violatinor
his conscience for the sake of an external good, he pronounces his own
condemnation."
It is quite a different question, however, whether this naiTative does
not bear internal marks of improbability ; whether, under the specified
circumstances, Christ would have spoken as he is reported to have
done. First, it is hardly possible to imagine that any one, at that day,
among the Jews of Palestine, would have ventured to labour on the
Sabbath. Again, it is hard to believe that Christ would have pro-
nounced such labour in any wise good, unless it were performed in the
discharge of a special duty. Such a procedure, more than any other,
would have laid him open to the reproach of contemning the law. He
looked upon the law as having been a divinely ordained part of the
developement of God's kingdom, and as, therefore, necessaiy, until the
period when the new form of that kingdom should go into operation.
Only in the progress of this new form was the abrogation of the law to
follow from the consciousness of redemption through Christ j and then,
indeed, its destruction would be one with its fulfilment ; and until that
point of progress amved, Christ himself set the example of a conscien-
tious observance of the law. He opposed the Pharisaic statutes, indeed,
but it was because they took the law in its letter, not in its spirit, and
surrounded its observance with difficulties. He made it a fundamental
point, that all true obedience must spring fi-om piety and love; but still
it was obedience to the law. He gave therefore, as we have seen, in-
timations only of that higher period in which the law was to be done
away ; intimations, moreover, which could only be understood throuo-h
his own Spirit, after his work upon earth was done. Hence he cer-
tainly could have pronounced no action good in which man's will
allowed itself to anticipate God's order, especially an action, gi-ounded
on motives understood by nobody, which might have injuriously affected
* Acts, XX., 35.
94 THE PLAN OF CHRIST.
the religious convictions of others. Paul lays down quite a contrary-
rule in 1 Cor., viii. Nor did Christ himself act in such a way in other
cases.
Thei-c is, then, very poor authority for this passage, either internal
or external. Its invention was probably suggested by the words of
Paul in Rom., xiv., 22, 23, and affords a very good illustration of the
difference between mere individual inventions and the genuine his-
torical traditions of the Evangelists.
AVe close our survey of Christ's sayings in regard to his relations to
the Old Testament with a remark directly suggested by it, from which
the weightiest consequences may be deduced.
The manner in which he contrasted the Old Testament with its ful-
filment, the New, and elevated the least of Christians above all the
prophets, shows how clearly he distinguished the kernel from its perish-
able shell, the Divine idea from its temporary veil, the truth which lay
in germ in the Old Testament, from the contracted form in which it
presented itself to Old Testament minds. Applying this general prin-
c-iple to individual cases as they arise, we may learn how to interpret,
in Christ's own sense, the figures which he employed to illustrate his
Messianic world-dominion. In this way some of the results at which
we have already arrived may find further confirmation.
CHAPTER III.
NEW FORM OF THF IDEA OF THE PERSON OF THE THEOCRATIC
KING.
§ 58. The Names Son of God and Son of Man.
kUR conception of \\\e pcrso7i of the Messiah, as Theocratic King,
is closely connected with that which we may entertain of the king-
dom of God itself, and of its process of developement. In reference
to both, .Jesus joined himself indeed to the existing Jewish conceptions,
but, at the same time, infused into them a new spirit and a higher re-
generating element.
Both of the names which he applied to himself — Son of God and
Son of Man — are to be found among the designations of the Messiah in
the Old Testament ; but he used them in a far higher sense than was
current among the .Tews. He obviously employed them antithetically :
they contain coiTclative ideas, and cannot be thoroughly understood
apart from their reciprocal relation. It is clear from Matt., xvi., 10 ;
xxvi., G3 ; John, i., 50, and from all that is known of the current thro
THE TITLE " SON OF MAN." 95
logical language of the Jews at that time, that the name " Son of GotV
was the most common designation of Messiah, as the best adapted to
denote his highest dignity, that of Theocratic King. The name " Son
of Man' involves, indeed, an allusion to the description of the Mes-
siah in Dan., vii. (further illustrated in Christ's last words before the
high-priests. Matt., xxvi., 64) ; but it is certain that this name was not
among the more usual or best known titles of Messiah. This may ex-
plain why,* when Jesus on a certain occasion had stated a fact in regard
to himself as Son of Man [viz., his approaching death] which did not
accord with prevailing ideas, that his hearers began to doubt whether
he did not mean to designate by that title some other person than the
Messiah. Tt is used by none of the apostles for that purpose; and, in-
deed, nowhere in the New Testament, except in the discourses of
Christ and in that of Stephen (Acts, vii., 56) ; and in this last case it
is probable, as Olshaiisen justly remarks, that Stephen had an immedi-
ate and vivid intuition of Jesus, as he had seen him in his human form.
§ r59. Import of the Title Son of Man, as used hy Christ himscf. —
Rejection of Alexandrian and other Analogies.
Christ must, therefore, have had special reasons for adopting, with
an obvious predilection, the less known Messianic title. Even if we
were to grant that he used it more frequently because of its less ob-
vious application, in order, at first, to lead the Jews gradually to rec-
ognize hnn as Messiah ; still we should not have a sufficient explana-
tion of his employing it so generally and so cmphatically.t We find a
better reason for it in Christ's conscious relation to the human race ; a
relation which stirred the very depths of his heart. He called himself
the " Son of Man" because he had appeared as a man ; because he be-
longed to mankind ; because he had done such great things even for
human nature (Matt., ix,, 8) ; because he was to glorify that nature ; be
cause he was himself the realized ideal of humanity .|
* John, xii., 34.
t I must differ here from Scholtcn, Lucke, Von Culii (Bibl. Dogru., ii., Ifi), and Slrauss
(Leben Jesn) ; and agree with Schleiermacher, Tholiick, Ohhausen, and K/ing' (Stud. u.
Krit, 1836, i., 137). Justly says Schleiermacher of the title "Son of Man," " Christ would
not have adopted it had he not been conscious of a complete participation in human nature.
Its application would have been pointless, however, had he not used it in a sense inappli-
cable to other men ; and it was pregnant with reference to the distinctive differences be-
tween him and them" (Dogmatik, ii., 91, 3d. ed). Certainly there is manifest, in the ofteji-
repeated expressions, sayings, and proverbs uttered by Christ, more the impression of an
original and creative mind than a mere appropriation of what might have been given to his
hand by his age and nation. It is one of the merits of the great man whoso words we
have just quoted, that he vindicated this truth in many ways in opposition to a shallow the-
ology. The unclean spirit which h^bauished is now endeavouring, with seven others
worse than himself, to take posseasioii of this age, in which endeavour, please God, he will
not succeed.
t Conf Matt., xii., 8; John, i., 52; iii., 13 ; v., 27 ; vi., 53. The force of the first passage
iu John (i., 52) is, that Christ would glorify humanity by restoring its fellowship with celes
96 THE PLAN OF CHRIST.
We certainly cannot find in Christ's use of the title any trace of the
Alexandrian Theologoumenon of the archetype of liumanity in the
Logos, of Philo's distinction between the idea of humanity and its
manifestation (or the Cabbalistic Adam Cadmon) ; notwithstanding it
was not by accident that so many ideal elements, formed from a com-
mingling of Judaism and Hellenism, were given as points of depar-
tui-e to the realism of Christianity ; although this last was grounded on
the highest fact in history.
So, too, the fundamental idea of the title " Son of Man" is, perhaps,
allied to that involved in the Jewish designation of Messiah as the " sec-
ond Adam ;" but it is clear that Christ was not led by the latter fact
to employ it. Much rather do we suppose that the name, although
used by the prophets, received its loftier and more profound signifi-
cance from Christ's own Divine and human consciousness, independent
of all other sources It would have been the height of arrogance in
any man to assume such a relation to humanity, to style himself abso-
lutely Man. But He, to whom it was natural thus to style himself, in-
dicated thereby his elevation above all other sons of men — the Son of
God in the Son of Man.
The two titles, " Son of God" and " Son of Man," therefore, bear
evidently a reciprocal relation to each other. And we conclude that
as Christ used the one to designate his human personality, so he em-
ployed the other to point out his Divine ; and that as he attached a
sense far more profound than was common to the former title, so he
ascribed a deeper meaning than was usual to the latter.
§ 60. Import of the Title Son of God.
(1.) Jobu's Sense of the Title accordant with that of the other Evangehsts.
We are indebted to John's Gospel, more than to either of the others,
tial powers. The second (iii., 13) imports that he reveals his Divine being iu human na-
ture, and lives in heaven as man. The tijird (v., 27), that as man he will judge the human
race. The fourth (vi., 53), that we must thoroughly take to ourselves and be penetrated by
the flesh and blood (i. e., the pure humanity, the form of which he assumed to reveal the
Divine) of him who can be called man in a sense that can be predicated of no other, and
who himself has incarnated the Divinity. (On the passage from Matt., see p. 89.) In
Matt., ix., 8, there is in the statement that the entire human nature is glorified in Chnst,
an intimation of what is expressed in the title " Son of Man" in Christ's sense of it.
It is remarkable, that while this emphatic title of the Son of Man appears in the dis-
courses of Christ both in the synoptical Gospels and .John, that its deeper sense, although
uot to be mistaken in some of the passages in the former, is far more vividly cxjircssed in
John. Yet if it were the case (as has been said) that .John, following tlie prevalent o[iinion,
designed to represent Jesus as the Logos appearing in humanity, and, leaving the human
nature in the back-ground, to present the Divine consi)icuously, he could not have nsed tliis
title so frequently. There is no trace of Alexanch^nism in John, nor can his preference
for the expression be attributed to his individual jWuliarities, for there is notliing of the
kind in his Epistles. The only individual i)cculiarily that we can detect in John, in this
respect, is his susceptibility to im|)rcssion from certain emi)hatic expressions, especially
Buch as relate to the person of Christ.
THE TITLE "SON OF GOD." 97
for those expressions of Christ which relate especially to the indwel-
ling within him of the Divine essence. It does not, however (as some
suppose), follow from this that John, consciously or unconsciously, re-
modelled the discourses of Christ according to the Alexandrian theol-
ogy. The fact may be explained on entirely other gi-ounds, e. g., his
more intimate connexion with Christ, and the peculiar profoundness of
his mind ; moreover, the discourses recorded by him are longer and
more consecutively didactic and controversial than those given by the
other Evangelists. The impartiality, too, with which he sets forth the
j)ure humanity of Christ is sufficient to pi'ove the groundlessness of
such a reproach.
If we can only find individual expressions in the other Evangelists
which involve the idea of the " Son of God" in John's sense, we shall
have proved satisfactorily that the latter was derived immediately fiom
Christ himself Now Matt., xi., 27, " No man knowetJi the Son but the
Father, neither knowcth any man the Father save the Son,'" is just such
a passage. It intimates precisely such a mysterious relation between
tlie Father and the Son as John more fully sets forth as imparted to
him by the revelation of Christ. So, also, the question propounded by
Christ to the Pharisees, " What think ye of the Christ? whose Son is
heV could have had no other object than to lead them to conceive
Messiah as the Son of God in a higher sense than they were accustom-
ed to. Again, the heathen centurion (Matt., viii., 5), who deemed his
roof unworthy of Christ, and begged him, without approaching his
abode, to heal the siek servant by a word, certainly considered him as
a superior being who had ministering spirits at command. He evi-
dently did not form his idea of Christ from the common Jewish concep-
tions of the Messiah ; on the contraiy, his explanation (verse 9) of the
impression which he had received (either from the accounts of others,
or from personal observation of Christ's person and labours) is perfect-
ly in keeping with his character and notions while as yet a pagan.*
But Christ (who always rejected any honours that were ascribed to him
from erroneous viewst) not only did not correct the centurion, but
held his faith up as a model.
In a word, the whole image of Christ presented in the synoptical
Gospels exhibits a majesty far transcending human nature, and utterly
irreconcilable with Ebionitish conceptions. A manifestation so extra-
ordinary presupposes an inward essence such as that which John's
Gospel fully unfolds to us.
(2.) And confirmed by Paul's.
Nor could the origin of PauVs doctrine of the person of Christ be
* The whole account Iiears the inimitable stamp of historical ti-uth.
T Luke, xi., 27 ; xviii., 19.
G
98 THE PLAN OF CHRIST.
explained, unless Christ himself had given statements corresponding to
those recorded in John's Gospel. So, too, the various theological ten-
dencies that developed themselves after the apostolic age presuppose a
turn of thought intermediate between that especially exhibited in Mat-
thew and that of Paul. Precisely such an intermediate point was oc-
cupied by John.*
* Liicke has justly remarked upon tlie difference between the classic, creative tenden-
cies of the apostolic times, and the later imitations of them. The dividing line between the
former and the latter is distinctly marked. The later developement of Christian doctrine
presupposes the difl'ercnt apostolic types of doctrine, and among them that of John. It is,
therefore, utterly mihistorical to seek the origin of such a Gospel as John's iu later Church
developements (as some attempt to do). The latter are utterly destitute of the harmouions
unity of Christian spiritual elements that distinguishes the former.
PART II.
THE MEANS AND INSTRUMENTS OF CHRIST.
CHAPTER L
A. THE MEANS OF CHRIST IN GENERAL.
§ 61. Christ a Spiritual Teacher.
AS the kingdom which Christ came to establish was a spiritual one,
Intended to develope itself outwardly from within, so the means
which he employed in its foundation were entirely of a spiritual natui'e.
In his declaration before Pilate,* after he had (1) disclaimed any pur-
pose of setting up an earthly kingdom, affirming at the same time (2)
that he was King in a certain sense, he added (3) that he came into the
icorld to testify of the truth. These three propositions, taken together,
set forth his purpose to found his kingdom, not by worldly means, but
by the testimony of the truth. But he testified of the truth by his whole
life, by his words and works, compi'ising the entire self-revelation of
Him who could say, " 1 am the Truth.''^
Inasmuch, therefore, as he himself designates the testimony of the
ti*uth as his means of founding his kingdom ; inasmuch, also, as he ap-
peared first as Prophet, in order to lead those who recognized him as
such to recofjnize him also as Messiah and Theocratic Kinjr, we must
treat of his work as Prophet, or of his exercise of the office of Divine
Teacher, as the instrument by which he laid the ground- work of his
reign among men.
§ 62. Different Theatres of Christ's Labours as Teacher.
Christ exercised his office as teacher in two distinct theatres, Galilee
and Jerusalem ; and his mode of teaching varied accordingly. That
carnal mania for miracles (directly contrasted by Pault with the Greek
pride of reason) which infected the Jews every where, whether in Gali-
lee or Jerusalem, and added presumption to their narrow-mindedness,
proved, indeed, in both places, the greatest hindrance to their recep-
tion of the words of Christ. This common Jewish feature of opposition
to the spirit of Christ justified the Apostle John, when he was reviewing
the past in its great outlines, in embracing not only the dominant Phari-
saic party at .Jerusalem, but also the hosts of Galilee, under the general
conception of '\ov6aloi.\
* John, xviii., 33-38. t 1 Cor., i., 22. \ See John's Gospel, passim.
100 THE MEANS OF CHRIST.
Yet as the people of Galilee were of a more simple turn of mind,
and were less subject to tlie influence of Pharisaism than those of Je-
rusalem, they must naturally have been more susceptible to his instruc-
tions. But a prophet is not wont to be held in honour in his own coun-
try; nor was the narrow-minded, carnal supranaturalism of the Galileans
likely to recognize in the son of the carpenter of Nazareth the man
sent of God. It was not until the displays of his power in the metrop-
olis of the Theocracy had revealed him in a higher light, that he found
a better reception on his return to the villages of Galilee.*
It was partly, then, in Jerusalem, where the Jews gathered together
from all the world at the Passover, and partly in Galilee, where he spoke
to the people, clustered in more or less numerous groups about him,
especially as he walked along the shores of Genesareth, that the scene
of his labours as a public teacher lay.
§ 63. Choice and Training of the Apostles to be suhordinate Teachers.
Those who had no ear to hear the teachings of Christ fell off one by
one, and left around him a narrow and abiding circle of susceptible
souls, who were gradually more and more attracted by him, and more
and more deeply imbued with his spirit. A closer [the closest] circle
still was formed of his constant companions, the Apostles. As the
seed which he sowed was received and developed so difierently in the
soils of different minds, and as the import of his teaching could not be
thoroughly comprehended until his work upon earth was finished, there
was danger that the confused traditions of the multitude would hand
down to posterity a ve.ry imperfect image of himself and his doctrines,
and that the necessary instrument for the foundation of the kingdom of
God, viz., the propagation of the truth, would be wanting.
It might be supposed that Christ could have best guarded against this
result by transmitting his doctrine to all after ages in a form written by
himself. And had He, in whom the Divine and the human were com-
bined in unbroken harmony, intended to do this, he could not but have
given to the Church the perfect contents of his doctrine in a perfectywrm.
Well was it, however, for the course of developement which God in-
tended for his kingdom, that what could be done was not done. The
truth of God was not to be presented in a fixed and absolute form, but
in manifold and peculiar representations, designed to complete each
other, and which, bearing the stamp at once of God's inspiration and
man's imperfection, were to be developed by the activity of free minds,
in free and lively appropriation of what God liad given by his Spirit.
This will appear yet more plainly hereafter, from the principles of
Christ's mode of instruction, as set forth by himself At present we
content ourselves with one single remark. Christ's declaration, "J/ is
* John, iv., 44, 4.'j.
HIS MODE OF TEACHING. lOl
the Spirit tliat quichcneth ; the flesh profiteth notJiing"* and liis em-
phatic rejection of an act of vvorship that, without thought of the Spirit,
deified only his outward forni,t may serve to guard all after ages against
that tendency to deify the Jhim which is so fatal a bar against all reco"-.
nition of the essence. What could have contributed more to products
such a tendency than a written document from Christ's own hand ?
Since, therefore, Christ intended to leave no such fixed rule of doc-
trine for all ages, written by himself, it was the more necessary for him
to select organs capable of transmitting to posterity a correct image of
himself and his teaching. Such organs were the apostles, and their
training constituted no unimportant part of his work as a teacher.
CHAPTER IT.
CHRIST'S MODE OF TEACHING IN REGARD TO ITS METHOD AND FORM.
A. GENERAL PRINCIPLES.
§ 64. His mode of Teaching adapted to the Sitand-point of his Hearers.
WE shall first seek, in the intimations of Christ himself, for the
principles of his mode of teaching, and the giounds on which
he adopted it.
Such an intimation may be found in Matt., xiii., 52. After he had
uttered and expounded several parables in regard to the kingdom of
God, and had been assured by the apostles that they understood him,
he continued : " From the example I have given you, in thus making
hidden truths clear by means of parables, ye may learn that every scrihc
who is instructed into the hingdovi of Heaven is like a householder, who
bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and old^ As a house-
holder shows his visitors his jewels; exhibits, in pleasing alternation,
the modern and the antique, and leads them from the common to the
rare, so must the teacher of Divine truth, in the new manifestation of
the kingdom of God, bring out of his treasures of knowledge truths old
and new, and gradually lead his hearers from the old and usual to the
new and unaccustomed. Utterly unlike the rabbins, with their obstinate
and slavish adherence to the letter, the teachers of the new epoch were
to adapt themselves fi-eely to the circumstances of their hearers, and,
in consequence, to present the truth under manifold varieties of form.
Tn a word, Christ himself, as a teacher, was the model for his disciples.
As the passage above quoted referred primarily to the paraholic
mode of teaching which Christ had just employed, we find in it an im-
* John, >-i., 63. ■* t Luke, xi., 27.
102 THE MEANS OF CHRIST.
portant reason for the frequent use which he made of figures and si-
militudes. It was, namely, in order to bring new and higher truths
vividly before the minds of his hearers, by means of illustrations drawn
from objects familiar to them in common life and nature.
But the passage can be applied also to many other features of his
mode of teaching ; for instance, to his habit of leading his hearers, step
by step, from the stand-point of the Old Testament to that of the New ;
adapting himself to the old representations and the Jewish modes of
thought and speech derived from them (especially those which referred
to Messiah's kingdom), and thus imparting the new spii'it under the
ancient and accustomed forms. All his accommodation to forms finds
its explanation here,
§ &!>. His Teaching presented Seeds and Stimttlants of Thought.
Again, he told his disciples (John, xvi., 25) that up to that time he
had veiled the truth in parables, but that the time was approaching
when he should declare plainly and openly all that he had to tell them
of his Father. He thus taught them that they would be enabled, at a
later period, by the aid of the illuminating Spirit, to develope from his
discourses the hidden truths which they enfolded. It must, tlierefore,
by no means surprise us to find that the full import of most of his words
was not comprehended by his contemporaries : such a result, indeed,
was just what we might expect. He would not have been " Son of
God" and " Son of JMan," had not his words, like his works, with all
their adaptation to the circumstances of the times, contained some
things that were inexplicable ; had they not borne concealed within
them the germ of an infinite devclopement, reserved for future ages to
unfold. It is this feature (and all the Evangelists concur in their
representations of it) which distinguishes Christ from all other teach-
ei's of men. Advance as they may, they can never reach him ; their
only task need be, by taking Him more and more into their life and
thought, to learn better how to bring forth the treasures that lie con-
cealed in him.*
The form of his expressions, whether he uttered parables, proverbs,
maxims, or apparent paradoxes, was intended to spur men's minds to
j)rofounder thought, to awaken the Divine consciousness within, and so
teach them to understand that which at first served only as a mental
stimulus. It was designed to impress indelibly upon the memory of
his hearers traths perhaps as yet not fully intelligible, but which would
gi-ow clear as the Divine life was fijrmed within them, and become an
ever-increasing source of spiritual light. His doctrine was not to be
* Schlcicrmacher says beautifully (Cliristliche Sittenlehre, p. 72), that all our progress [in
Divine knowledge] must consist solely in more correctly understanding and more complete-
ly appropriating to ourselves that which is iu Christ
HIS MODE OF TEACHING. 103
propagated as a lifeless stock of tradition, but to be received as a living
Spirit by willing minds, and brought out into full consciousness, ac-
cording to its import, by free spiritual activity. Its individual parts,
too, were only to be apprehended in their first proportions, in the com-
plete connexion of that higher consciousness which He was to call forth
in man. The form of teaching which repelled the stupid, and passed
unheeded and misunderstood by the unholy, roused susceptible minds
to deeper thought, and rewarded their inquiries by the discovery of
ever-increasing treasures.
§ 66. Its Results dependent upon the Spirit of the Hearers.
But the attainment of this end depended upon the susceptibility of
the hearers. So far as they hungered for true spiritual food, so far as
the parable stimulated them to deeper thought, and so far only, it re-
vealed new riches. Those with whom this was really the case were
accustomed to wait until the throng had left their Master, or, gathering
round him in a narrow cii'cle, in some retired spot, to seek cleaver
light on points w'hich the parable had left obscure. The scene de-
scribed in Mark, iv., 10, shows us that others besides the twelve apostles
were named among those who remained behind to ask him questions
after the crowd had dispersed. Not only did such questions afford
the Saviour an opportunity of imparting more thorough instruction, but
those who felt constrained to offer them were thereby drawn into closer
fellowship with him. He became better acquainted with the souls that
were longinor for salvation.
The greater number, however, in their stupidity, did not trouble
themselves to penetrate the shell in order to reach the kernel. _ Yet
they must at least have perceived that they had understood nothing ;
they could not learn separate phrases from Clirist (as they might from
other religious teachers) and thi7ik they comprehended them, while they
did not. And so, in proportion to the susceptibility of his hearers, the
parables of Christ revealed sacred things to some and veiled them
from others, who were destined, through their own fault, to remain in
darkness. The pearls, as he himself said, were not to be cast before
swine. Thus, like those " hard sayings"* which were to some the
"words of Life," and to others an insupportable " offence," the parables
served to sift and purge the throng of Christ's hearers.
A single example will bring this vividly before us. On a certain oc-
casion, when Christ had pronounced a parable, and the multitude had
departed, the earnest seekers after truth gathered about him to ask its
interpretation.t He expressed his gratification at their eagerness tu
* Jobn, vi., 60. t Luke, viii., 10; Mark, iv., 11.
104 THE MEANS OF CHRIST.
learn the true sense of his words, and said : " Unto you it is given* to
know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, hut to others in parables
[without the explanations that are given to susceptible minds], that
they may see with their eyes, and yet not see ; that they may hear
with their ears, and yet not hear." There is here expressed a moral
necessity, a judgment of God, that those who were destitute of the
right will (on which all depends, and without which the Divine " draw-
ing" is in vain), could understand nothing of the things of the Lord
which they saw and heard. So long as they remained as they wein?,
the whole life of Christ, according to the same general law, remained
to them an inexplicable parable. t It is worthy of remark, that "the
others, ^^ with whom Luke contrasts the inquiring disciples, are styled by
Mark (iv., 11) "those that are without." The simplest way to inter-
pret this phrase is to apply it to those who did not enter to ask a solu-
tion of what they had not understood ; it may mean those who were
outside of the narrower fellowship around Christ; but in either sense
the result is the same.|
" The mystery," in the passage above quoted, is something hidden
from men of worldly minds ; incomprehensible to them, and to all
who are excluded, by their spirit and disposition, from the kin<Tdom of
(xod. And this is the case with all truths that relate to that kingdom,
however simple and clear they may seem to those whose inner life has
made them at home in it.
After Christ had explained the parable to his disciples, he took oc-
* /. e., they followed the inward " drawing of God (John, vi., 44, 45), and thence becamt^
susceptible of Divine impressions.
t According- to Mark and Luke, the disciples asked of Christ the meanings of the para-
ble ; according to Mattliew (xiii., 10), they inquired whi/ he spoke to the multitude in para-
bles. In Luke there is only an allusion to Isai., \-i., 9 ; in Matthew the passage is cited in
full. In both respects the statement in Mark and Luke seems to be the more simple and
original. The apostles had more reason to ask the raeanhig of the parables than to find
out Christ's motive for uttering them ; yet as Christ, in reply, did state that motive, it was
perhaps implied iu the question. The full quotation of the passage in Isaiah was a natu-
ral change, and accorded with Matthew's habit. The connexion is well preserved in M:it-
thew, and the difference between his statement and the others is merely formal ; nor i.s
there the slightest ground to suppose that the author of Matthew simply worked out Mark's
account or some other which lay before him. It goes on naturally thus : in answer to the
question 7ohi/ he spoke to the multitude in parables, Chi-ist replied (v. 11), that it was not
given to them, as to the disciples, to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God ; the rid
son, founded in their moral dispositions, is stated in v. 12 ; and then, in v. 13, the Divine
sentence, that "on account of their stupidity he spoke to them only iu parables.''' There
is nothing inconsistent here, nor is any arbitrary- procedure attributed to Christ; for, in
fact, the parables served to veil as well as to reveal; and they did the one or the otlicr, ac
cording to the moral disposition of those that heard them.
t Whatever may have been the original expression of Christ in this passage, the fact
that Luke speaks of "mysteries" in the plural, and Mark of "mystery" in the singular.
contributes, at any rate, to its elucidation. We have here another proof that the germs of
Paul's teaching are to be found in the discourses of Christ : this passage contains Paul's
whole doctrine of the relation of the natural mind to the knowledge of Divine Ihinjjs; e.g..
1 Cor., ii., 14.
HIS MODE OF TEACHING. 105
casi'on, from this particular ease, to impress ujjon them the general les-
son that every thing depended on the spirit in which they received his
words. He came not (he told them) to hide his light, but to enlighten
the darkness of men. It was his calling to be the Light of the world
(Mark, iv., 21). (He spoke in order to reveal the truth, not to hide it.)
The truth which he had obscurely intimated was to unfold itself for the
instruction of all mankind (v. 22 ; cf John, xvi., 25). Yet the organs
who were destined to unfold it must have "■ hearing ears" (v. 23).
And he proceeds (v. 24), " Take heed, therefore, what ye hear (be
not like the stupid multitude, who perceive only the outward word) ;
and unto you that hear shall more he given (my revelations to you will
increase in proportion to the susceptibility with which you appropri-
ate the truths which I have intimated)." And he concludes with the
general law,* "Whosoever has — in reality has — whosoever has made
to himself a /u-m^ possession of the truths which he has heard, to him
shall more be ever given. But he that has received it only as some-
thing dead and outward, shall lose even that which he seems to have,
but really has not."t His knowledge, unspiritual and dead, will turn
out to be worthless — the shell without the kernel.
Some have supposed that these words (v. 25) were merely a prov-
erb of common life, of which Christ made a higher application. But
the proofs that have been offeredf in favour of the existence of such a
proverb are by no means to the point; and, in fact, it would be hardly
true applied to temporal possessions, for the poor man can increase
his small store by industry and prudence ; and the rich, without those
qualities, may soon lose his heaped-up treasures. The saying is fully
true only in an ethical sense ; it speaks of moral, and not material pos-
sessions. Applied, however, as a proverb, it must refer, not to mere
possession, but to property held as such, and can only mean that he
who holds property, as his oicn, will not keep it as dead capital, but
gain more with it ; while be, on the other hand, who does not know
how to use what he has, will lose it. Thus understood, the words are
not only fully applicable to the special case before us, but also to mani-
fold relations in the sphere of moral life.
The apostles had as yet, in their intercourse with their Master, re-
ceived but little; but that little was imprinted on their hearts. They
did not, like the multitude, receive the word only by the hearing of
the ear, but made it thoroughly and spiritually their own. And thus
was laid within them the foundation of Christian progress.
* Mark, iv., 25 ; Luke, viii., 18 ; Matt., xiii., 12.
t I must hold 8 ioKcl Ixuv to be the true readiug of Luke, viii., 18, in spite of what De
Wette says to the contrary. \ Conf. Wetstein on Matt., xiii., 12.
106 THE MEANS OF CHRIST.
§ 67. His Mode of Teaching corresponds to the General Law of
Developevient of the Kingdom of God.
It was, then, according to Christ's own words, a peculiar aim and
law of his teaching, to awaken a sense for Divine tilings in the hu-
man mind, and to make further communications in proportion to the de-
gree of living appropriation that might be made of what was given.
And this corresponds with the general laws established by Christ for
the developement of the kingdom of God. It is his law, that choice
must be made, by the free determination of the will, between God and
the world, before the susceptibility fur Divine things (which may exist
even in the as yet fettered soul, if it incline towards God), and the
emotions of love* for the Divine which springs from that susceptibility,
can arise in the human heart. The heart tends to the jioint from
whence it seeks its treasure (its highest good).t The sense for the
Divine, the inward light, must shine. If worldly tendencies extinguish
it, the darkness must be total. Christ's words, Christ's manifestation,
can find no entrance. The Divine light streams forth in vain if the
light-perceiving eye of the soul is darkened.^ The parable of the
sower vividly sets forth the necessity of a susceptible soil, before the
seed of the Word can germinate and bring forth fruit. And so he
constantly assured the carnal Jews that they could not understand him
in their existing state of mind. He who will not follow the Divine
" drawing" (revealed in his dawning consciousness of God) can never
attain to faith in Christ, and must feel himself repelled from his words.
The carnal mind can find nothing in him.§ The for7?i of his language
(so he told those who took offence at it||) appeared incomprehensible,
because its import, the truth of God, could not be apprehended by
souls estranged from Him. The form and the substance were alike
paradoxical to them. The uncongenial soul found his mode of speak-
ing strange and foreign ; it is foreign no more when the spirit, throucrh
its newly-roused sense for the Divine, yields itself up to the higher
Spirit. The words can be understood only by those who have a sym-
pathy for the spirit and the substance.
Thus, then, the other Evangelists agiee with John in regard to the
fundamental principles of Christ's mode of teaching.
* Pascal (Art de Persuader), " qu'il faut aimer les choses divines, pour les coniiaitre. '
Beautifully said. t Matt., vi., 21.
X Luke, xii., 34; Matt., vi., 22. $ John, vi., 44.
II John, viii., 33, 44. In v. 43, XaXia expresses the mode of speaking. The substance it
expressed by Arfyoj. See Lacke's excellent remarks on the passage.
PARABLES. 107
B. CHRIST'S USE OF PARABLES.
§ 68. Idea of the Parable. — Distinction between Parable, Fable, and
My thus.
Without doubt the form of Christ's communications was in some de-
gree determined by the mental peculiarities of the people among whom
lie laboured, viz., the Jews and Orientals. We may find in this one
reason for his use of parables; and we must esteem it asamark of his
freedom of mind and creative originality, that he so adapted to his own
purposes a form of instruction that was especially current amono- the
.Tews. But yet his whole method of teaching, as we have already set
it forth, would have led him, independently of his relations to the peo-
ple around him, to adopt this mode of communicating truth. Not in-
aptly has one of the old writers compared the parables of Christ's dis-
courses to the parabolic character of his whole manifestation, repre-
senting, as it did, the supernatural in a natural form.*
We may define the parables as representations through which the
ti'uths pertaining to the kingdom of God are vividly exhibited by means
of special relations of common life, taken either from nature or the
world of mankind. A general truth is set forth under the likeness of
a particular fact, or a continuous narrative, commonly derived from tlio
lower sphere of life ; the operations of nature, and the qualities of in-
ferior animals, or the 'acts of men in their mutual relations with each
other, being assumed as the basis of the representation. Those para-
bles which are derived entirely from the sphere of nature ai-e ground-
ed on the typical relations that existt between Nature and Spirit. So,
in the vine and its branches, Christ finds a type of the relation between
himself and those who are members of his body. He is the true Vine.
The law whose reality finds place in the spiritual life is only imaged
and typified in nature.
Even though the fable be so defined as to be incluJed in the para-
ble, as the species is comprehended in the genus, still the latter, espe-
cially as Christ employs it, has always its own distinctive character-
istics. The parable is allied to the fable, as used by ^sop, so far forth
as both differ from the Mythus (an unconscious invention), by eraploy-
ino- statements of fact, not pretended to be historical, merely as covei'-
jn«^s for the exhibition of a general truth ; the latter only being present-
ed to the mind of the hearer or reader as real. But the parable is dis-
tinguished from the fable by this, that in the latter, qualities or acts of
* Airfn Koi S Kvptos ovK S)v KoaniKoi, J){ KooittKo; eU avdpioiTovs riXOev. Strom., vi., 677.
t •' It can readily be shown that the parables, as used by Christ, had the significance of
their types. Nature, as she has disclosed herself to the mind of man, must in thorn bear
witness of Spirit." Steffcns (Religionsphilosophie, i., 146). And so Schelling, on the relation
between Nature and History, "They are to each other parable and interpretation." (Phi
los. Schriften, 1809, 457.)
108 THE MEANS OF CHRIST.
a higher class of behigs may be attributed to a lower {e.g., those of men
to brutes) ; while in the former, the lower sjjhere is kept perfectly dis-
tinct from the higher one which it serves to illustrate. The beings
and powers thus introduced always follow the law of their nature, but
their acts, according to this law, are used to figure those of a higher
race. The fable cannot be true according to its form, c. g., when
brutes are introduced thinking, speaking, and acting like men ; but
the representations of the parable always correspond to the facts of
nature, or the occurrences of civil and domestic life, and remind the
hearer of events and phenomena within his own experience. The
mere introduction of brutes, as personal agents, in the fable, is not
sufficient to distinguish it from the parable, which may make use
of the same contrivance ; as, for instance, indeed, Christ employs
the sJieej? in one of his parables. The gi-eat distinction here, also, lies
in what has already been remarked ; brutes introduced in the parable
act according to the law of their nature, and the two spheres of nature
and the kingdom of God are carefully separated from each other.
Hence the reciprocal relations of brutes to each other are not made
use of, as these could furnish no appropriate image of the relation be-
tween man and the kingdom of God. And as the lower animals are, by
an impulse of their nature, attached to man as a being of a higher or-
der, Divine, as it were, in comparison to themselves, and destined to
rule over them, the relations between man and this inferior race may
serve very well to illustrate the still higher relations of the former to
the kingdom of Gon and the Saviour. Thus, for instance, Christ em-
ploys the connexion of s/iccj? and the shepherd to give a vivid image of
the relations of human souls to their Divine guide.
There is ground for this distinction between parable and fable, both
in the J'o?-m and in the substance. In the form, because the parable in-
tends that the objects of nature and the occurrences of every-day life
shall be associated with higher truths, and thus not only illustrate them,
but preserve them constantly in the memory. In the substance, be-
cause, although single acts of domestic or social virtue might find points
of likeness in the qualities of the lower animals (not morality in gen-
eral, for this, like religion, is too lofty to be thus illustrated), the dig-
nity of the sphere of Divine hfe would be essentially lowered by transfer-
ring it to a class of beings entirely destitute of corresponding qualities.
§ 69. Order in which ihc Parables rve7-e Delivered. — Their Pofcction.—-
Mude fif In(crj)rcti?/g the in.
We find many parables placed together in Matthew, xiii. ; and the
question naturally arises whether it is probable that Christ uttered so
many at one and the same time. We can readily conceive that he
should use various parables in succession in order to present the same
PARABLES. 109
truth, or several closely related truths, in different forms ; this variety-
would tend to excite attention, to present the one truth more clearly by
such various illustration, to put the one subject before the beholder's
eye more steadily, in many points of view, and thus to imprint it indel-
ibly upon his memory. But it is not to be supposed that Christ deliv-
ered a succession of parables different both in form and matter, or, if
somewhat alike in form, different in scope and design ; for this could
only have confused the minds of his hearers, and thus frustrated the very
purpose of this mode of instruction.
It will be easy to gather What is necessary to the perfection of the
parable, from what we have said of its nature. In tlie first place, the
fact selected from the lower sphere of life should be perfectly adapted,
in its own nature, to give a vivid representation of the higher truth ;
and, secondly, the individual traits of the lower fact itself should be
clearly exhibited according to nature. Hence, in order to understand
the parables correctly, we must endeavour to seize upon the single
truth which the parabolic dress is designed to illustrate, and refer all
the rest to this. The separate features, which serve to give roundness
and distinctness to the picture of the lower fact, may aid us in obtain-
ing a more many-sided view of the one truth, the higher sphere con-e-
sponding to the lower in more respects than one (e. g., the parables of
the shepherd and the sower) ; but we must never seek the perfection
of the parables of Christ in giving significancy, apart from the projier
point of comparison, to the parts of the narrative which were merely
intended to complete it ; for this, by diverting the mind from the one
truth to a variety of particulars, can only embarrass instead of assisting
it, and must thus frustrate the very aim of the parable itself. Such a
procedure would open a wide field for arbitrary interpretation, and
could not fail to lead the hearer astray.
The separate parables will be treated in their proper connexions in
the course of the narrative.
§ 70. Christ's Teaching not confined to Parahles, hut conveyed also
in longer Discourses,
It followed, not only fi-om Christ's chosen mode of teaching, but also
from his relations to the new spiritual creation whose seeds he implant-
ed in the hearts of his disciples, that he used pithy and sententious say-
ings and aphorisms instead of lengthened exhibitions of doctrine.
They were intended to be retained in ever vivid recollection, and, not-
withstanding their separation, to contain the germs of an organically
connected system of moral and religious truth. The interpreter and
the historian find the difficulty of placing these in their proper relations
and occasions increased by the fact that the accounts of the first three
110 THE MEANS OF CHRIST.
Evangelists airange and present them in different connexions of tliouglit.
The Church, however, has lost nothing by this ; it only establishes the
doctrine that the truths uttered by Christ admit of manifold apprehen-
sion and application. Yet there is no ground for the assumption that
Christ taught only by means of parables and aphorisms. The suppo-
sition, in itself, is sufficiently improbable, that he never employed longer
and more connected forms of discourse for the instruction of the circles
of disciples who had received impressions from him and gathered them-
selves about his person ; and, besides, an example of this kind (recorded
by the first three Evangelists) is to be found in the Sermon on the Mount.
We shall hereafter inquire more closely into the system of Christian
truth contained in that discourse.
§ 71. John's Gospel contains chiefly connected and 2>rofound Dis-
courses ; and Why 1
We must here consider the difference between the form of Christ's
expositions as given by \)aQ first three Evangelists, and as recorded by
John. Some recent writers have found an irreconcilable opposition
between them both of form and substance; and have concluded there-
from either that John, in reproducing the discourses of Christ from
memory, involuntarily blended his own subjective views with them, and
thus presented doctrines which a real disciple could not at the time
have apprehended ; or that some one else at a later period, and not
John, was the author of this Gospel. They contrast the thoroughly
practical bearing of the Sermon on the Mount with (what they call) the
mystical character of the discourses recorded by John. They find ev-
ery thing in the former simple and intelligible, while the latter abounds in
paradoxes, and seems to study obscurity. Moreover, the latter is almost
destitute of parables ; a form of eloquence not only national, but also
characteristic of Christ, judging from his discourses as given in the
other Gospels.
But let any one only yield himself to the impression of the Sermon
on the Mount, and then ask himself whether it be probable that a mind
of the loftiness, depth, and power which that discourse evinces, could
have employed only one mode of teaching? A mind which swayed
not only simple and practical souls, but also so profoundly speculative
an intellect as that of Paul, could not but have scattered the elements
of such a tendency from the very first. We cannot but infer, from the
irresistible power which Christianity exerted upon minds so diversely
constituted and cultivated, that the sources of that power lay combined*
* We should believe this even if we were to admit IVWsse's view, viz., that the basis
of this Gospel was a collection of the Aoyia toC Kvpkm made by John, and afterward wrought
by another hand into the form of a historical narrative. But Wcisse's critical processes
seem to me to be entirely arbitrary. John's Gospel is altogether (with the exception of a
PARABLES. Ill
in Him whose self-revelation was the origin of Christianity itself.
Moreover, the other Gospels are not wanting in apparently paradoxical
expressions akin to the peculiar tone of John's Gospel, e. g., " Let the
dead hury their deadP* Nor will an attentive observer find in John
alone expressions of Christ intended to increase, instead of to remove,
tlie offence which carnal minds took at his doctrine. We repeat, again,
that the words and acts of the true Christ could not have been free from
paradoxes ; and from this, indeed, it may have been that the Pharisees
were led to report that he had lost his senses.
Still, it is true, that such passages are given by John much more
abundantly than the other Evangelists. But there is nothing in his Gos-
pel_purely metaphysical or unpractical ; none of the spirit of the Alex-
andrian-Jewish theology; but every where a direct bearing upon the
inner life, the Divine communion which Christ came to establish. Its
form would have been altogether different had it been composed, as
some suppose, in the second century, to sujaport the Alexandrian doc-
trine of the Logos, as will be plain to any one who takes the trouble
to compare it with the writings of that age that have come down to us.
The discourses given in the first three Gospels, mostly composed of
separate maxims, precepts, and parables, all in the popular forms of
speech, were better fitted to be handed down by tradition than the more
profound discussions which have been i-ecorded by the beloved disciple
who hung with fond affection upon the lips of Jesus, treasured his rev-
elations in a congenial mind, and poured them forth to fill up the gaps
of the popular narrative. And although it is true that the image of
Christ given to us in this Gospel is the reflection of Christ's impression
upon John's peculiar mind and feelings, it is to be remembered that
these very peculiarities were obtained by his intercourse with, and vivid
apprehension of, Christ himself. His susceptible nature appropriated
Christ's life, and incorporated it with his own.
§ 72. The Parable of the Shej^herd, in John, compared tcitJi the
Parables in the other Gospels.
Parables, as we have said, are peculiarly fitted for oral tradition. We
few passages which are suspicious both on external and internal grounds) a work of one
texture, not admitting of critical decomposition. In Matthew, not only internal signs, but
also historical traditions, when considered without prejudice, seem to distinguish the ori-
ginal and fundamental composition from the later revision of the work. On the other hand,
the author in whom we first find the tradition refen-ed to (Papias, Euseb., iii., 39) makes
mention of no such thing in regard to John's Gospel. He must have known the fact, had
it been so, living as he did in Asia Minor. Some adduce Papias's silence about John's
Gospel as a testimony against its genuineness ; but his object, most likely, was to give in-
formation in regard to those parts of the narrative whose origin was not so well known iri
that part of the country ; whereas John's Gospel was fresh in every one's memoiy there.
* Had this expression occurred in John, it might have been cited as a specimen of " Alex-
andrian mysticism."
112 THE MEANS OF CHRIST.
need not wonder, therefore, that they are more abundant in the first
three Gospels, which were composed of such traditions, than in John ;
and, moreover, the latter, presupposing them to be known, may have
had, in his peculiar turn of mind, and in the object for which he wrote
his Gospel, sufficient reasons for omitting them. Yet the discourses of
Christ, as given by him, are marked by the very peculiarity that gives
rise to the use of parables, viz., the illustration of the Spiritual and the
Divine, by images taken from common life.
But real parables ai"e not entirely wanting in John's Gospel. The
illustration of the shepherd and the sheep (ch. 10) has all the essential
features of the parable, and John himself applies that name to it (ver.
6). Here, as in other parables, we find a religious truth vividly repre-
sented by a similitude taken from the sphere of nature. As, for in-
stance, in the parable of the sowc?-, Christ is likened to the husband-
man, the Divine word to the seed, and the various degrees of suscepti-
bility for the word in men's souls to the variously productive soils in
which the seed is planted ; so, in this similitude, the relation of souls
to Christ is compared with that of sheep to the shepherd ; and the self-
seeking teacher, who ofiers himself, on his own authority and for a bad
purpose, as a guide of men, is likened to a thief who does not enter the
sheep-fold by the door, but climbs over the wall. Strauss has remark
ed that this parable differs from those of the Synoptical Gospels in this,
that it does not give a historical narrative, with beginning, middle, and
end, of a fact actually otice taking place, but makes use simply of w"hat
is commonly seen to happen. But even this feature cannot be said to
be essential to all the synoptical parables, but only to those in which a
specific occurrence in human intercourse is assumed to illustrate a spir-
itual truth ;* for in those, on the otlier hand, which are not taken from
social and civil life, but from the sphere of man's intercourse with na-
ture, the one especial fact given is nothing but a specimen of what com-
monly takes place ; and the form of the statement could be entirely
changed in this respect, without at all affecting its substance. Of this
the })arable of the sower is an example, and, indeed, those of the leaven
and the mustard seed also. So, too, John's parable of the shepherd and
the sheep might be stated in the form of a fact once occurring, without
losing a particle of its individuality.
■" Even were the name parahlfs (as a distinct form of .similitudes) restrirted tn represen-
tations of this class, such a distinction would not destroy tiie analogy between Christ's dis-
courses in John and those in the other Gospels, founded on their use, in common, of the sain9
mode of vividly exhibiting spiritual truths.
ACCOMMODATION. 113
C. CHRIST'S USE OF ACCOMMODATION'.
§ 73. Necessity of Accovimodation.
We must mention Christ's adaptation of his instruction to the capa-
city of his hearers, as one of the peculiar features of his mode of teach-
ing. Without such accommodation, indeed, there can be no such thing
as instruction. The teacher must begin upon a ground common to his
pupils, with principles presupposed as known to them, in order to ex-
tend the sphere of their knowledge to further truths. He must lower
himself to them, in order to raise them to himself. As the true and the
false are commingled in their conceptions, he must seize upon the true
as his point of departure, in order to disengage it from the encumber-
ing false. So to the child the man becomes a child, and explains the
truth in a form adapted to its age, by making use of its childish con-
ceptions as a veil for it.
In accordance with this principle, every revelation of God, having
for its object the training of tnanliind for the Divine life (and we must
never forget that this was the sole aim of Christianity, as well as of the
preparatory institutions which preceded it), has made use of this law of
accommodation, in order to present the Divine to the consciousness of
men in forms adapted to their respective stand-points. And as Christ
by no means intended, as we have before remarked, to impart a com-
plete system of doctrine as a mere dead tradition; but rather to stimu-
late men's minds to a living appropriation and developement of the
truth which he revealed, by means of the powers with which God had
endowed them ; it was the more necessary for him to adapt his instruc-
tion to the capacities of those who heard him. His teaching by para-
bles, in which the familiar affairs of every-day life were made the veil
and vehicle of unknown and higher truths, was an instance of accom-
modation. The pedagogic principle of joining the old with the new,
of making the old new and the new old, and of deriving the new from
the old, is fully illustrated in the saying of Christ before referred to,
viz., that the teacher, instructed in the kingdom of Heaven, is like " a
householder, who hringcth forth out of his treasure things new and oldT
To this principle, constantly employed by Christ in his teaching, we
must ascribe the extraordinary influence of Christianity upon human
culture from the very beginning. But, just as the "form of a servant''
hindered many eyes from seeing the Son of God in the Son of Man, so
the Divine, which adapted itself to human infirmities by veiling its
heavenly grandeur, was often concealed by the very veil which it had
assumed.
H
114 THE MEANS OF CHRIST.
§ 74. Distinction between Positive (Material) and Negative (Formal)
Accommodation ; the latter necessary, the former inadmissible.
"We must carefully separate false from true accommodation ; there is
a broad distinction between a negative accommodation of the form
and a positive one of the substance. The teacher who adopts the latter
Avill confirm his hearers in an error, in order to gain their confidence,
and to infuse into their minds, even by means of error, some important
truth. But the laws of morality do not admit that " the end sanctifies
the means;" nor can the establishment of error ever be a just means
of propagating truth. And it is as impolitic as it is immoral ; for erroj-,
as well as truth, contains within itself a fructifying germ, and no one
can predict what fruit it will produce. He who makes use of it re-
nounces at once the character of a teacher of truth ; no man will trust
him, and he can therefore exert a spiritual influence upon none.
There is no criterion for distinguishing the truth of his aims from the
falsehood of his means. Such an accommodation as this was utterly
repugnant to the holy nature of Him who called himself The Truth ;
and there is no trace of it to be found in his teachings.
It is quite a different thing with the negative and for7nal accommo-
dation. As Christ's sole calling as a teacher was to implant the
fundamental truths of the kingdom of God in the human consciousness,
he could not stop by the Avay to battle with errors utterly unconnected
with his object, and remote from the interests of religion and morality.
Thus he made use of common terms and expressions without enterino^
into an examination of all the false notions that might be attached to
them. He called diseases, for instance, by the names in common use;
but we should not be justified in concluding that he thereby stamped
with his Divine authority the ordinary notions of their origin, as implied
in the names. Nor does his citation of the books of the Old Testament
by the accustomed titles imply any sanction on his part of the prevalent
opinions in regard to their authors. We must never forget that his
■words, as he himself has told us, arc Sj)irit and Lfo; and that no scribe
of the old Ilabbinical school, no slave to the letter, can rightly com])re-
hend and apply them.
Nor did he make use of positive accommodation in seizing, as he
did, upon those religious conceptions of the times which concealed the
germ of truth under material forms. It was not his aim to preserve
the mere shell, the outward form, but to disengage the inner truth
from its covering, and bring it out into free and pure developemcnt.
This he could only effect by causing men to change their whole carnal
mode of thinking, of which the material form of representation, just
referred to, was only one of the results. These remarks apply espe-
cially to the use which he made of the common outward imao-ps of the
ACCOMMODATION. 115
Messianic world-dominion ; which he certainly would not have cm-
ployed, if they had not contained a substantive truth in regard to the
developemcnt of the kingdom of God from the Old Testament stand-
point.* To attack these material ideas directly, and present the pure,
spiritual truth as a ready-made system, would have been fruitless ; it
was only from the deeper ground in which the en'oneous tendencies
were imbedded that they could be successfully overthrown. And
Christ, taking the truth that lay in the outward form as his point of
departure, attacked the root of all the separate errors ; the selfish,
carnal mind, the longing for worldly rank and rewards ; and implanted,
on the other hand, the purely spiritual ideas of the Divine kingdom, as
seeds from which, in due time, a free reaction against the material
tendency would spontaTieously arise.
Of the same character was the use which Christ made of figurative
analogies like that In Matt., xii., 43,t et seq. In such cases the figura-
tive representation was employed, like the parable, to exhibit an idea
vividly to the minds of his hearers, while, at the same time, Its con-
nexion was such that he could not possibly be misunderstood.
§ 75. Christ's Application of Fassagcs from the Old Testament.
What we have said in regard to Christ's habit of taking up a con-
cealed truth is especially applicable to his use of quotations from the
Old Testament, which enveloped, as it were, and contained the ferm
of truths which he was fully to unfold and develope. In this j)oInt of
view, he derived, from the Old Testament, truths which, though n(jt
contained In the letter of its words, were involved in its spirit and fun-
damental Import. The higher spirit, which appeared in Its unlimited
fulness In Christ, was predominant In the Old Testament ; all the
preparatory revelations of that spirit had Christ for their aim ; the
Theocratic idea, which formed the central-point both of the Scriptures
and the Jewish nation, had found no fulfilment, but looked to the fu-
ture for Its realization. Christ was perfectly justified, therefore. In so
Interpreting the Old Testament as to bring out clearly its hidden in-
timations and germs of truth, and to unfold from the coverln"- of the
letter the profounder sense of the Spirit. We shall have occasion to
Illustrate this more fully in our exposition of Christ's didactic and po-
lemic use of the Old Testament. Paul's interpretation of the Old
Testament was of precisely the same character ; with this difference
only, that Christ was better able to distinguish the different stages of
the Theocratic developement, pointing, as they all did, to his manifest-
ation,
» See p. 86 and 87.
t We shall have occasion to speak of this passage more fully in another connexion.
116 THE MEANS OF CHKIST.
CHAPTER III.
CHRIST'S CHOICE AA'D TRAINING OF THE APOSTLES.
§ 76. Christ's Relation to the Twelve. — Significeufice of the Numhcr
Twelve. — The Name Ajwstle.
WE have before remarked, that among the most important means
employed by Christ in founding the kingdom of God was the
training of certain organs ; not only to replace his personal labours as
a teacher (which were limited to so very brief a period), but also to
propagate a true image of his person, his manifestation, his Spirit, and
his truth. Here arises the question, whether Christ intentionally
selected twelve men for this purpose, and took the individuals thus
chosen into closer communion with himself, or whether this intimate
relationship arose out of a gradual separation of the more susceptible
disciples from the mass, who formed by degrees a narrower and more
permanent circle about his person ; whether, in a word, the choice of
the twelve was made once for all, by a definite purpose, or arose simply
from the nature of the case.* Some adopt the latter notion, with a
view to answer objections against the wisdom of Christ's selection ;
such, for instance, as that he chose several insignificant inen, who accom-
plished nothing of importance, and omitted others who were afterward
signally eminent and useful ; that he must either have been deceived
in admitting Judas into the number,! or else (what is entirely out of
keeping with his character) must have made him an Apostle with a full
consciousness of his inevitable destiny, in order to lead him on to his
destruction. It is urged, moreover, against the probability of Christ
himself having conferred the name of Ajiostlcs upon these men especial-
ly, that others, {e.g., Paul), who laboured in proclaiming the Crosj)el at
a later period, received that designation.
This question would be at once decided, if we could consider the
Sermon on the Mount as an ordination discourse for the Apostles ; but
this view, as we shall hereafter show, is untenable. But there are
passages J which speak expressly of the choosing of the twelve ; and,
even without attaching undue weight to these, there are other and suf-
ficient grounds for believing that such a choice was actually made.
Christ himself tells the Apostles (John, xv., 16) that they had not
chosen him, but that he had chosen them, as his own peculiar organs;
which would not have been true if they hud first separated, of their own
* See tlie arqumoiits for this view in Srhlckrmachcr on Lnlcc, p. 88.
t CeLsus thought to (lispai-asre Clu'ist by tclliiig tliathe wiis betraye<l by one of liis ilisci-
ples. (Grig., c. Cels., ii., $ I'J.) X Luke, vi., 13 ; Mark, iii., 13, 14.
TPIE APOSTLES. 117
accord, from the rest of the multitude, and chosen him for their Master
and guide, in a narrower sense than others.
Nor is the number twelve destitute of significance. Without seeking
any sacred, mystical meaning in the number, we can well see in it a
reference to the number of the tribes of Israel. The particular, Jew-
ish Theocracy was a type of the universal and eternal kingdom of
God ; and Christ first designated himself as head of that kingdom in
the Jewish national form. The twelve were to lead the kingdom as
his organs.* Their superiority to all others, who should also act as
organs of the Holy Spirit testifying within them of the Redeemer (the
common calling of all believers), consisted in this, that they received a
direct and personal impression of the words and works of Clmst, and
could thus testify of what they had seen and heard. This personal tes-
timony of eye-witnesses is expressly distinguished by Christ (John,
XV., 27) from the objective testimony of the Holy Spirit ; which, indeed,
animated them, but could also bear witness through other organs.
Hence, when one of the twelve was lost, the Apostles deemed it ne-
cessary to replace him, and thus fill up the number oiiginally instituted
by Christ.f
The more general application of the name Ajwstle in the Apostolic
age is no proof that Christ did not originally use it in the narrower
sense. The Apostolic mind was under no such painful subserviency to
the letter as to avoid the use of a name in a sense suggested by the name
itself, simply because Christ had used it in a more contracted significa-
tion. The term aTToaroXoL (rn'^!!') denoted persons sent out by Christ
to proclaim the kingdom of God ; and it was quite natural, as all who
preached the Gospel were considered as sent out by him, that all who
laboured in proclaiming it in a wide sphere should receive the same
designation.! Although Paul used the term in its wider meaning, he
yet considered the narrower sense to be the original one,§ and justified
his application of the latter to himself only on the ground of the direct
and immediate call which he had received from Christ. ||
§ 77. Choice of the Apostles. — Of Judas Iscariot.
There are a few examples on record of Christ's drawing and attach-
ing to himself disciples who exhibited to his piercing eye the qualities
necessary for his sei"vice. Probably this procedure was the same in the
cases not recorded. The wisdom of Christ, moreover, leads us to con-
clude that the cultivation of these agents, on whose fitness so much de-
* Matt., xix., 28 ; Lnke, xxii., 30. Ye also shall sit vpon ticdve thrones, judging: the
twelve tribes of Israel. t Acts, i., 21.
t The questions whether Christ chose twelve men as his special organs, and whether lie
himself gave them the name Apostles, are entirely distinct. There is no good reason to
doubt the latter. $ 1 Cor., xv., 7. || 1 Cor., ix., 1 ; xv., 9.
118 THE MEANS OF CHRIST.
pended, was an object of his special care and attention. Although \vp
have not sufficient information to decide, in the case of each Apostlfe,
Avhy he especially was admitted into the number of the twelve, yet such
examples as Peter and John, men of most sinking character, who show
ns how the most marked features of human nature receive and tinge
Christianity, illustrate the profound wisdom of Christ, and the penetr«-l
ting glance with which he could detect the concealed plant in the inj
significant germ. Yet we are not bound, in order to vindicate Christ's
wisdom, to conclude that all the Apostles were alike men of mark, alike
capable of great achievements. It was enough for the fulfilment of
their calling that they loved him tiaily, that they followed him with
child-like confidence, and gave themselves wholly up to the guidance
of his Spirit; for thus they would be enabled to testify of him, and to
exhibit his image in truth and purity. It was enough that among the
number there were a few men of pre-eminently po\verful character, on
M'hom the rest might lean for support. It sufficed, nay, it was even ad-
vantageous, for the developement of the Church, that the Apostles, as
a whole, left their accounts of the history of Christ without the peculiar
stamp of individual character, since there was only one John among
them cajiable of giving a vivid image of the life of the Saviour in har-
monious unity. And it is, therefore, not at all wonderful that men aj)-
peared in the later period of the Apostolic Church who accomplished
greater things than even some of the Apostles.
As for Judas Iscariot, it by no means follows from the passages
which say that Christ knetv him from, the beginning, that he knew him
as an enemy and a traitor ; nor does the awful contrast between his
Apostolic calling and his final fate show that Christ was wholly deceived
in him. Judas may have at first embraced the proclamation of tliu
kingdom of God with ardent feelings, although with expectations of a
selfish and worldly stamp; which, indeed, was the case with others of
the Apostles. He may have loved Christ sincerely so long as he hoped
to find in him the fulfilment of his carnal desires. Christ may have
seen in him capacities which, animated by pui'e intentions, might have
made him a particularly useful instrument in spreading the kingdom
of CJoD. At the same time, he doubtless perceived in him, as in tlie
rest of the Apostles, the impure influence of the worldly and selfish ele-
ment, yet he may have hoped (to do for him what he certainly did for
the others, viz.) to remove it by the enlightening and purifying effects
of his personal intercourse ; a result, however, which, we freely admit,
depended upon the free self-determination of Judas, and could, there-
fore, be unerringly known to none but the Omniscient. And even
Avhen Judas, deceived in his canial and selfish hopes, felt his affection
for Christ passing into hatred, the love of the Saviour, hoping all things,
THE APOSTLES. 119
though he saw the rising root of evil, may have induced him to strive
the more earnestly to attract the wanderer to himself, in order to save
him from impending ruin.*
§ 78. The Apostles Uneducated Men.
It may appear strange that Christ should have selected, as his chosen
organs, men so untaught and unsusceptible in Divine things, and should
have laboured, in opposition to their worldly tendencies, to fit them for
their office ; especially when men of learned cultivation in Jewish the-
ology were at hand, more than one of whom had attached themselves
sincerely to him. But we are justified in presupposing that he acted
thus according to a special decision of his own wisdom, as he himself
testifies (Matt., xi., 25) : " I thank thee, O Father, because thou hast hid
these things from the wise and jtrudent, and hast revealed them unto
babes.'''' Precisely because these men, destitute of all higher learning,
attached themselves to him like children, and obeyed even his slightest
hints, were they best fitted to receive his Spirit with child-like devotion
and confidence, and to propagate the revelations which he made to
them. Every thing in them was to be the growth of the new creation
through Christ's Spirit ; and men who had received a complete culture
elsewhere would have been ill adapted for this. They were trammel-
led, it is true, by their carnal conceptions of Divine things ; but this
was counterbalanced by their anxiety to learn, and their child-like sub-
mission to Christ as Master and guide ; while, on the other hand, in-
surmountable obstacles would have been presented in the want of such
submission — in the stubborn adherence to preconceived views of men
who liad been trained and cultivated before. Moreover, this rever-
ential submission to Christ on the part of the disciples, in their daily
intercourse with him, tended surely and constantly to refine and spirit-
ualize their mode of thinking. His image, received into their inner
life, exerted a steady and overruling influence. In the mode in which
the new revelations were embraced and developed, we recognize
the general laio, according to which truths beyond the scope of human
reason are imparted to it from higher sources, to be afterward appro-
priated and elaborated as its own. They were first received and un-
folded by men who had no previous education to enable them to work
out independently that which was given them ; and only at a later pe-
riod was a Paul added to the Apostles — a man capable, from his sys-
tematic mental cultivation, of elaborating and unfolding, by his own
power of thought, yet under the guidance of the same Spirit of Christ,
the material of Divine revelation that was bestowed upon him. The
fact, too, that a people like the Jews, and not the Greeks, were first the
chosen organ for the propagation of revealed religion, is an illustration
* See, hereafter, more on the character aud fate of Judas.
120 THE MEA'NS OF CHRIST.
of the same law. Here we find tlie source of the ever-renewed strug-
gle betwen Revelation, which demands a humble reception of its gifts,
and Reason, which \vill recognize nothing that is not wrought out, or,
at least, remodelled, in its own laboratory.
Still Christ could not have deemed the period of two or three years
sufficient to prepare these untrained disciples, according to his mind,
for teachers of men. Nor could he have foretold, with such confidence,
the success of such men in propagating his truth for the salvation and
training of men, for the victorious founding of the kingdom of God in
all ages, had hfe not been conscious of powers higher than had been
granted to any other teacher among men, which justified him in making
such predictions.
§ 79. Two Stages in the Dependence of the Apostles upon Christ.
From the very beginning the Apostles stood to Christ in a relation
of complete dependence and submission, but we must distinguish in
this two different forms and periods. In the first, their dependence was
more outward and unconscious ; in the last, it was more inward, and
thoroughly understood by themselves. From the beginning, they gave
themselves up, with reverent confidence, to the will of Christ as their
supreme law, inspired by the conviction that what he commanded was
right ; yet without a clear apprehension either of his will or word, and
without the ability to harmonize their will with his by free conscious-
ness and self-determination. But, during this stage of outwaixl depend-
ence, they were to be trained to apprehend his will (or, what is the
same thing, the will of God revealed and fulfilled by him) ; to incorpo-
rate it with their own spiritual tendencies ; in a word, to make it their
own. Christ himself pointed out this two-fold relation, when he said
to them, in view of his approaching death, in reference to their dawn-
ing consciousness of the necessity of his suffering in order to establish
the Divine kingdom : " Henceforth I call you not servants ; for the ser-
vant Icnoweth not icliat his Lord doeth : hut I have called you friends ;
for all tilings that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto
ijou. Ye have not chosen vie, hut I have chosen you, and ordained you^
tliat ye should go and hring forth fruit, and that your fruit should re-
main ; that %vhatsucver ye shall ash of the Father in my iiamc^ he may
give it your* The servant follows the will of his master not as his
own, but another's, without understanding its aim; hwX, friendship is a
harmony of souls and sympathy of intentions. The ultimate aim of
all Christ's training of the Apostles was to raise them from the first
stand-point to the second.
* .lolin, XV., 15, IG. So, v. 14, " Yi', are viy friemh, if yc Jo fchafsoevrr I command you."
Their eflbits to perform his will jicrfectly proved that they had made it their own.
THE APOSTLES. 121
§ SO. Christ'' s peculiar Method of training the Apostles.
The words of Christ recorded in Luke, v., 33 ; Matt., ix., 14,* throw
a distinct light upon his peculiar method of training the Apostles.
When reproached because he imposed no strict spiritual discipline, no
fasting or outward exercises upon his disciples, but suffered them to
mingle in society freely, like other men, he justified his course by stat-
ing (in effect) that " fasting, then imposed upon them, would have been
an unnatural and foreign disturbance of the festal joy of their inter-
course with him, the object of all their longings. But when the sorrow
of separation should follow the hours of joy, fasting would be in har-
mony both with their inward feelings and their outward life. As no
good could come of patching old garments with new cloth, or putting
new wine into old skins, so it was not his purpose to impose the exer-
cises of spiritual life, fasting, and the like, by an outward law, upon his
yet untrained disciples, but rather, by a gradual change of their whole
inward nature, to make them vessels fit for the indwelling of the higher
life. When they had become such, all the essential manifestations of
that indwelling life would spontaneously reveal themselves ; no out-
ward command would then be needed."
Here we see the principle on which Christ acted in the intellectual,
as well as in the moral and religious training of the Apostles. As he
would not lay external restraints, by the letter of outward laws, upon
natures as yet undisciplined, so it was not his purpose to impart the
dead letter of a ready-made and fragmentary knowledge to minds
whose worldly modes of thought disabled them from apprehending it.
He aimed rather to implant the germ, to give the initial impulse of a
total intellectual renovation, by which men might be enabled to grasp,
with a new spirit, the new truths of the kingdom of God. In every
relation he determined not to " patch the old garment, or put new wine
into old bottles." And this principle, thus fully illustrated by Christ'sjl
training of his Apostles, is, in fact, the universal law of growth in the
genuine Christian life.
* More on tbese passages hereafter, in their proper connexion in the nan-ative.
122 THE MEANS OF CHRIST.
CHAPTER IV.
THE CHURCH AND BAPTISM.
§ 81, Founding of the ChurcJt. — lis Objects.
C1L0SELY connected with the questions just discussed is that of
J the founding of the Church ; for the Apostles were the organs
through whom the religious community which originated in Christ was
to be handed down to after ages, the connecting links that were to unite
it with its Founder. A clear conception of tlie idea of the Church, in
comparison with what we have said of the plan of Christ, will make it
obvious that he intended to establish the Church, and /^m^eT/'laid its
foundation.
By the Church we understand a union of men arising from the fel-
lowship (communion) of roHgious life; a union essentially independent
of, and different from, all other forms of human association. It was a
fundamental element of the formation of this union, that religion was
no longer to be inseparably bound up, either as principal or subordi-
nate, with the political and national relations of men, but that it should
develope itself, by its own inherent energy, as a principle of culture
and union ; superior, in its very essence, to all human powers. This
involved both the power and the duty to create an independent com-
munity, and that community is the Church.
And Christianity is proved to be the aim and object of all human
progress, not only by the craving for redemption, which no man can
deny, in human nature, but also by the very idea of such a community
as the Church, which overthrows all natural barriers, and binds man-
kind together by a union founded on the common alliance of their na-
ture to God. The spirit of humanity, feeling itself confined by the
limits which the opposing interests of nations impose upon it, demands
a communion that shall overleap these barriers, and lay its foundations
only in the consciousness, common to all men, of their relation to the
Highest — a relation transcending the world and nature. Apart from
Christianity, indeed, wc could not conceive the idea of such a commun-
ion ; but now that Christianity has freed Reason from the old-worlu
bonds that hindered its developement, and unfolded for it a higher
Hclf-consciousness, there can be no science of human nature that does
not reckon this communion as the aim of human progress, that does
not assign to the Church its proper place in the universal moral organ-
ism of humanity. Schleiermacher has done this in his " Philosophi-
cal Ethics," and has thus found, in the Church, the point of departure
for Christian morals. And so every system of ethics must do which
THE CHUKCH. 123
is not willing to fall in the rear of liiunan progress, aiitl to he guilty of
cruelly mutilating the nature of man. Nay, the minds of the sages
who sought to break through the limits of the ancient world yearned
for this idea long before its realization in Christianity. Zeno,* the
founder of the Stpa, proclaimed it as the highest of human aims, that
" men should not be separated by cities, states, and laws, but that all
should be considered fellow-citizens, and partakers of one life, and that
the whole world, like a united flock, should be governed by one com-
mon law."t Plutarch, who quotes these words, was probably right in
saying that " Zeno had some phantom of a dream before him when he
wrote ;"| for how could an idea, so far transcending the spiiit of an-
tiquity, be realized in its sphere 1 Such a communion could only be
brought about, at that time, by the destruction of the separate organi
zation of nations, to the detriment of their natural and individual prog-
ress ; and the very event in which Plutarch thought he saw its fulfil-
ment, viz., the commingling of the nations by Alexander's§ conquests,
carried the germ of self-destruction within it. A total revolution of
the ancient world necessarily had to precede the realizing of this idea.
Mankind had to be freed from the power of sin, and the disjunctive
and repulsive agency of sin, before there could be any place for this
Divine communion of life, which overleaps, without destroying, the
natural divisions of nations. And this is the realization of the idea of
the Church.
Now as this revolution could only be brought about by Him who
was at once Son of God and Son of Man, so He, when he recogfnized
himself as the Saviour and King bestowed upon mankind, was fully
conscious, also, of his power to realize this idea. It is clear, from what
we have said of the Plan of Christ, that the results which were to flow
in after ages from the indwelling power of the Word proclaimed and
sent forth by him to regenerate and unite mankind, lay fully revealed
before his all-surveying glance. He knew that it contained the ele-
ments of a spiritual community that would burst asunder the confining
forms of the Jewish Theocracy, and take all mankind into its wide em
bi'ace.
§ 82. Name of the Church. — Its Form traced back to Christ himself.
But even if it be admitted that Christ intended to found a Church,
the further (but less important) question arises, whether the name,
* In his work, wc/)! nohrclas.
t 'Iva 111] Kara n-rfXciS, /iJ;(5f Kara Stjiiovi ohZiitv, IStoti eKaaroi iuopia^icrot SiKaioti, aX)iit Trdvrai
di'(9p(i)X0t)f fiydfieOa ^rjftorai Kal TroXira?, CiS ie fiioi j5 Kai KoaixoS uxjvcp liyc^rii avvioi-WV vo^tu) Koivifi
avvTpi(ponivrii. Plut. ill Alex., i., c. vi.
X TovTO Zi'iviov ficv eypalpcv oxjvcp dvap rj eiSdiXov tvvoixtas (pi}>oa6<f)ov Kai ■no\iTiltis dvarviTUiaiifievoi-
$ To whom he applies what can only be said of Christ: <co(vdj Hixetv SeSdtv dp/ioaTfn xai
dtaWaKTrjS tCHv ^Auic vofii'^uv.
124 THE MEANS OF CHRIST.
eiciiXTjaLa, which has been stamped upon it, had its origin with him-
self. There is no ground for doubting even this (as some have done),
and thereby casting suspicion upon passages like Matt., xvi., 18, in
which he is reported to have used the term. The name corresponds
to the Hebrew ^np , in connexion with b^'^'ii[] , niri' , D'Tl^xn , whicli
expressed the old Theocratic national community ; and so was trans-
ferred to the new congregation of God, which was to emerge from the
ancient covering. This communion in itself, indeed, is nothing but the
form in which Christ has established the kingdom of God upon earth,
and in which he intends it shall develope itself until its full consum-
mation.
But it must not, therefore, be concluded that this community was ever
to realize itself in the form of a State* The name, borrowed from an
earthly Icingdom, is, on one side, entirely symbolical, and was im
mediately taken from the form in which the idea of the Divine com-
munity was represented by the Jewish nation. But the essential
difference between the Jewish and the Christian stand-point consists
in this, that in the latter the political element is wholly discarded.
Excluding all other relations that belong to the essence of a state, the
only real feature expressed by the symbolical name is the monarchical
principle ; and that, too, in a sense that cannot be applied to any tem-
poral state, without subverting its organism, and making it a horde of
slaves under the arbitrary will of a despot. The fundamental princi-
ple of the Christian community is, that there shall be no other sub-
ordination than that of its members to God and Christ, and that this
shall be absolute ; while, in regard to each other, they are to be upon
the footing of complete equality. Christ himself drew a striking con-
trast between his own community and all political organizations in this
respect.t
But even though it be admitted that Christ intended to found a
visible Church, and gave the first impulse to a movement that was
afterward to propagate itself, it does not necessarily follow that he
himself directly established such a separate community, and made the
aiTangements and preparations that naturally belonged to it.
It may be said that the outward fabric of the visible Church could
not be erected until that which constituted its true essence, viz., the
life of the invisible Church, which as yet lay only in the germ, should
be more fully unfolded — until the higher life had obtained in the dis-
ciples a more substantial and self-dependent form, a state of things
presupposed in a community whose manifold members were recipro-
* See tliis inference drawn by RotJic, m his work "Ubcr die Anfiiuge der Cl'.ristliclien
Kircbe und ihrcr Verfassung," p. 89. t Luke, xxii., 25, 26.
THE CHURCH. 125
cally to affect each other. So, too, it may be said* that one of the
specific diflerences between Christ and other founders of reUo-ions
was, that, as he did not impart a complete and sharply-defined system
of doctrines to his Apostles, but left it to their human activity, under
the guidance of the Divine Spirit, to form such a system from the ele-
ments which he bestowed, t so, also, he founded no outwardly complete
and accurately defined religious community, with a fixed form of gov-
ernment, usages, and rules of worship ; but, after implanting the Divine
germ of this community, left it also to human agency, guided by the
same Holy Spirit, to develope \hef0r7ns which it should assume under
the varying relations of human society. According to this view, only
the fructifying elements were given by Christ, and all the rest was left
to human developement proper, animated by the Divine principle of
life.
According to this view, the only defined community which Christ es-
tablished was that of the Apostles, who, as bearers and organs of his
Spirit, formed the sole prototype of the Chui'ch, which only grew up
at a later period from the seed which Christ had sown. He did not
wish to establish an exclusive school or sect, but to draw all men to
himself. In this view, further, it would be necessary to suppose that
he had, at that time, fixed no rite of initiation into his narrower fellow-
ship ; that such passages as John, iii., 22 ; Matt., xxviii., 19, arose only
from the attempts of a later period to ascribe the origin of baptism di-
rectly to Christ ; and that baptism, with confession of the name of
Christ, was introduced by the Apostles subsequently! to the forma-
tion of a separate Chi-istian congregation, as a sign of membership
therein. And the high estimate§ which was put upon the rite may be
ascribed, not to its having been instituted by Christ, but to the extraor-
dinary phenomena of inspiration which were wont to attend it.
We agree fully with the fundamental principle of the view just
recited. Christ only prepared the way for the foundation of the
Church, according to its inner essence and its outward form ; as he
gave no complete doctrinal system, so he erected no Church fabric
that was to stand through all time ; his work was rather to implant in
humanity the ncio spirit, which was to adapt to itself such outward
* As is asserted by Wcisse (p. 387, seq. ; 406, seq.), wliose views and proofs we shall ex-
amine iu another place.
+ It is not witliout good ground, therefore, that we do not devote a separate section of
this work to a systematic exposition of the doctrines of Christ, but content ourselves, both
liere and in the Apostolic age, with pointing out, in his words, the fundamental principles
which were afterward expanded bj' the Apostles.
1 Weisse thinks that the first trace of the institution is to be foimd in Acts, ii., 38.
6 The ecclesiastical imjwrt of baptism would remain untouched, even if it were granted
that the sjnnbol was first instituted by the Apostles at the time of the bestovring of the
Holy Spirit, which the rite symbolized ; for, even in that case, we must consider tliem as
Christ's organs, and acting out his will.
126 THE MEANS OF CHRIST.
forms as would meet the wants of human progress in successive ages.
But, while we cordially go thus far, we do not find ourselves wan^ant-
ed, either by history or by the idea of such a community, in granting
so wide a latitude as the theory demands to a principle so just in itself.
The gradual and natural formation of the circle of disciples about
Christ is no reason for believing that he did not found a Church. His
manifestation to men of different degrees of susceptibility caused, in-
deed, a sifting process, which soon separated the congregation of be-
lievers from the mass that rejected Christ ; but the natural way in
which this result was brought about is no argument against the estah-
hshmcnt of the Church at that time, more than against its existence at
any time ; for, in fact, in a certain sense this is always the case. The
relations of Christ to the world typified, in every respect, what were
afterward to be the relations of Chistkinity to the world. We find
the name of disciples applied with a wider signification than that of
Apostles ; and why may we not consider the bands of these, scattered
through different parts of Palestine, and especially those who, apart
from tlie Apostles, formed the constant retinue of Christ, as constitu-
ting the first nucleus of the Church ?
§ 83. Later Institution of Baptism as an Initiatory Rite.
As for Bajytisin, we certainly do not find, either in the nature of the
case or in the historical accounts, any ground for assuming that Christ
himself, during his stay upon earth, instituted it as a symbol of conse-
cration. As long as he could, in 2>crso?i, admit believers into commun-
ion with himself, no substituted symbol was necessary; and, besides,
the Holy Spirit, which constitutes the essence of Christian baptism,
and specifically distinguishes it from that of John, had not as yet been
manifested. The element o^ -jyrcjmration was sufficiently indicated by
John's baptism, and tliei'efore Christ (in the prophetic words which
have been preserved to us in Acts, i., 5) contrasted that preparatory
rite with the spiritual baptism which he himself was soon to impart to
his disciples. The Apostles, however (quite naturally, in view of the
ground which they occupied), were unwilling that John alone should
baptize, and applied the rite, as the Messianic symbol of inauguration
which Christ himself had recognized, in order to separate from the rest
such as admitted the Divine calling of .Tesus, and attached themselves
to him.* We cannot infer from this, however, that there existed at
the time a definite rule for the application of baptism. Yet, although
Christ did not command, he jpermitted it, as fitted to form a point of
transition from John's to Christian baptism.
But when he was about to withdraw his personal presence from
his disciples, it became necessary to substitute a symbol in its place.
".John, iv., 2.
MIRACLES. 127
His sufferings and resurrection, the fundamental facts from which the
new creation, through the Holy Spirit, was to spring, had necessarily
to take place before the institution of Christian baptism proper; for
that baptism implies an appropriation of the fruit of his sufferino-s, a
fellowship in his resurrection, and a participation of that life, in com-
munion with Him, whicli is above the world and death. The full im-
port of baptism could not be realized until the process which began
with Christ's death and resurrection had reached its consummation;
until the exaltation had followed the resurrection, and the glorified Re-
deemer had displayed his triumphant power in the outpourinn^ of the
Holy Ghost. The same effects which flowed to mankind in general
from these facts, and the process which rested upon them, were to be
repeated in every individual case of baptism.
CHAPTER V.
THE MIRACLES OF CHRIST.
§ 84. Connexion of Christ'' s Miracles with his Mode of Teaching.
E have before remarked that what most distinguished the Teach-
ing of Christ was, that it was his scf -revelation, and in this viev/
it embraces both his Words and Works. His Miracles, then, must
be spoken of in connexion with his mode of Teaching. Although they
are not to be sundered from their connexion with his whole self-revela-
tion, yet, as an especially prominent feature of it, they served the
highest purpose, in a certain sense, in vividly exhibiting the nature of
Christ, as Son of God and Son of Man. They have also an additional
claim to be mentioned in this connexion, as they served as a basis and
support of his labours as a teacher, as a preparatory means of leading
from sensible phenomena to Divine things, and of rendering souls, as
yet bound to the world of sense, susceptible of his higher Spiritual
influences.
In regard to the Miracles, three distinct inquiries present themselves:
(I.) What was their real objective character and relation to the uni-
verse, and the Divine government thereof? (H.) In what view, and with
what impressions, did the contemporaries of Christ receive them \ (III.)
What decision did Christ himself pronounce as to their nature, their
value, and the ends he sought to accomplish by tliem ?
(A.) THE OBJECTIVE CHARACTER OF MIRACLES.
§ 85. Negative Element of the Miracle. — Its hisnfficimcy.
We must distinguish in the Miracle a negative and a j^ositire ele-
ment. The former consists simply in this, that a certain event, cither
123 THE MEANS OF CHRIST.
in the world of nature or man, is inexplicable by any known laws or
powers. Events, however, thus simply inexplicable,* and even ac-
knowledged to be so, are not miracles, unless they bear upon religious
interests. Many will admit certain facts to be inexplicable by any
known laws, and at the same time refuse to grant them a miraculous
or supernatural character. Some are led, by an unprejudiced admis-
sion of the facts, to acknowledge, without any regard whatever to re-
ligion, that they transcend the limits of existing science, and content
themselves with that acknowledgment ; leaving it to the progress of
natural philosophy or psychology to discover the laws, as yet unknown,
that will explain the mysterious phenomena. Or, if the narrative of
facts be such as to preclude even the possibility of such subsequent
discovery and solution, they seek an explanation in ascribing chasms
and deficiencies to the account, and withhold, for the time at least, their
judgment upon the facts themselves ; while a spur is given to inquiry
and research, in order, if possible, by some process of combination or
conjecture, to fill up the existing gaps of the narrative.
Even an objective (real) deviation from ordinary phenomena may be
admitted by those who refuse to admit of miracles, in the religious
sense of the term. That is, indeed, a narrow and ignorant skepticism
which measures every thing by the stiff standard of known laws, and
passes sentence at once upon every fact, no matter how well attested,
which transcends those laws ; but a more profound and scientific phi-
losophy knows that there are powers yet undiscovered, which will ex-
plain many apparent anomalies. With such minds we can more readily
come to an understanding in regard to the histoincal truth of a narra-
tive of extraordniary events. No unprejudiced reader of history can
deny the occuiTence of inexplicable phenomena in all past ages ; and
even those of magnetism, ill-defined as they are as yet, have taught us
not to decide so promptly against every thing that goes beyond our
knowledge of the powers of nature.
Yet we must not suppose that all tliis gains any thing directly to the
cause of religion, within whose sphere alone the conception of the mir-
acle is a reality. It leaves us still in the domain of nature and of nat-
ural agencies. It is not upon this road, therefore, that we can lead
men to recognize the supernatural and the Divine ; to admit the j^ow-
ers of heaven as manifesting themselves upon earth. Miracles belong
to a region of holiness and freedom, to which neither experience, nor
observation, nor scientific discovery can lead. There is no bridge be-
tween this domain and that of natural phenomena. Only by means of
our inward affinity for this spiritual kingdom, only by hearing and
obeying, in the stillness of the soul, the voice of God within us, can we
• A prodii^ium, or ripai, but no mii'uoi', distiuijuishing these words according to their
original import.
MIRACLES. 1Q9
reach those lofty regions. If there be obstacles in our way, no science
can remove them.
In fact, the mode of thinking to which we have referred, instead of
necessarily leading to Theism (the only religious stand-point ; for reli-
gion demands something supramundane, and must enter the sphere of
another world), is perfectly consistent with the PantJieistic view of the
world, and may be used to confirm it. It is not the results of expe-
rience which fix our point of view ; but the latter, independently as-
sumed on other grounds, gives character to all our judgments of the
former. Nay, by applying natural laws to religious phenomena, one
may view new religions simply as proceeding from the laws of the de-
velopement of the universe, in order to form new epochs in the history
of the world, and thence consider the founders of such religions as or-
gans of the soul of the world, concentrating in them the hidden powers
of nature. This was the view of Pomporiatius, who thought that in
this way, while denying every thing supernatural^ he could admit many
of what others call miracles. It is true, there are some of the miracles
of the Bible which, on the face of them, admit of no such explanation,
but one who holds such views will find no great difficulty in doubting
every account of miraculous events which cannot be made to harmonize
with them ; as Pomponatius did, who could not with sincerity, after an
utter denial of the supernatural, abandon his ground simply because
some of the miracles could not be explained by it.
§ 86. Positive Element. — Tel cological Aim of Miracles.
Miracles, then, are entirely different from results oi \}c\q iioiccrs of na-
ture intensified. The question of their character cannot be decided on
the ground either of Deism or Pantheism (opposed as these theories are
to each other ; the one incorrectly separating the idea of God from that
of the world, the other as incorrectly blending the two together), but
only in regard to the Final causes of the government of God, consider-
ed as an Omniscient and Omnipotent personal Being. We might dis-
pute with these theories in reference to \%o\ksXq<S. facts , on historical and
exegetical grounds ; but the question of miracles, as such, rises into a
very different sphere, and no agi-eement on separate points would bring
us nearer to an adjustment.
The -positive element, which must be added to the negative one, al-
ready spoken of, in order to constitute any inexplicable phenomenon a
miracle, is, that the Divine power in the phenomenon itself shall reveal
it to our relio^ious consciousness as a distinctive sign of a new Divine
communication, transcending the natural progress and powers of hu-
manity, and designed to raise it to a position higher than its originally
created powers could have reached. That higher position to which
the Divine revelations, accompanied hy miracles as distinctive signs,
I
130 THE MEANS OF CHRIST.
were destined to elevate mankind, is the character originally stamped
by God upon human nature, which was lost by sin, Man violently
sundered his union with God, his true element of life, in which the Su-
pernatural and the Natural were in perfect harmony : it was necessary,
therefore, that the former should reveal itself in opposition to the lat-
ter— that Miracles should be opposed to Nature — in order that Nature
might be brought back to her original harmony with God. But mira-
cles, considered as signs of the Divinity revealed in the world of sense,
cannot, as such, be considered apart from their connexion with the
whole revelation of God. Their essential nature is to be discovered,
not by viewing them as isolated exhibitions of Divine power, but as
elements of his revelation as a whole, in the harmony of his inseparable
attributes, the Holy Love and Wisdom appearing as much as the Om-
nipotence. It is this which stamps Divinity upon such phenomena,
and attracts all souls that are allied to God. Thus the negative ele-
ment of miracles is only a finger-post to the positive ; the inexplicable
character of the event leads us to the new revelation, which it accom-
panies, of that same Almighty love which gave birth to the laws of the
visible world, and which, in ordinary times, veils its operations behind
them.
§ 87. Relation of Miracles to the Course of Nature.
Omnipotence is alicays as directly operative in nature as it was at
the creation ; but we can only detect its workings by means of the law
of cause and effect in the material world. Under this veil of natural
laws, religious faith always discovers the Divine causality, and the reli-
gious mind, although it may, indeed, contemplate natural phenomena
from different points of view, and may distinguish hetweew free and ne-
cessary causalities in nature, will always trace them back to the imme-
diate agency of Almighty love. Just so in miracles, we do not see the
Divine agency immediatehj, l)ut in a veil, as it were ; the Divine cau-
sality does not appear in them as coefficient with natural causes, and
therefore cannot be an object of external perception, but reveals itself
only to Faith. But the miracle, by displaying phenomena out of the
ordinary connexion of cause and effect, manifests the interference of a
higher power, and points out a higher connexion, in which even the
chain of phenomena in the visible world must be taken up.
Miracles, then, present themselves to us as links in that great chain
of manifestations whose object is to restore man to his lost communion
with God, and to impart to him a life, not derived from any created
causality, but immediately from (tod. As here new and higher pow-
ers enter into the sphere of humanity, there must be novel effects re-
sulting from them, which cannot be explained apart from the accom-
panying revelation, but point out to the religious consciousness their
MIRACLES. IDl
self-revealing cause. Such effects are the miracles, which, from tlic
considerations we have mentioned, lay claim, even as inexplicable
phenomena simply, to a religious interest. And although, from their
very nature, they transcend the ordinary law of cause and effect, they
do not contradict it, inasmuch as nature has been so ordered by Divine
wisdom as to admit higher and creative agencies into her sphere ; and
it is perfectly natural that such powers, once admitted, should produce
effects beyond the scope of ordinary causes.* In the Divine plan of
the universe (of whose fulfilment the connexion of causes in the visi-
ble world manifests only one side), miracles stand in relations of recip-
rocal harmony to events occurring in accordance with natural laws.
From the chain of causes involved in that gi-eat plan, indeed, no events,
natural or supernatural, are excluded ; both circles of phenomena be-
long to the realization of the Divine idea.
§ 88. Relation of the individual Miracles to the highest Miracle,
the Manifestation of Christ.
In the miracles natui'e is shown to be related, like history, to the one
highest aim of God's holy love, namely, the redemption of the human
race to the communion of the Divine life, or, what is the same thing,
the establishment of His kingdom among men. Nature was destined
to reveal and glorify God ; but it can only do this in connexion with
rational beinors, tosfether with whom it forms the world as a whole.
Now the communion of rational beings, working together with con-
scious freedom to reveal and glorify God, is nothing else but the king-
dom of God ; and as the unity which is to exhibit the world as a whole
can only be complete when nature has been fully appropriated for the
revelation of that kingdom, it follows that the realization of the latter
is the aim of the whole creation — of both nature and history.
The manifestation of Christ, the founder of the kingdom of God,
the bestower upon mankind of that Divine life which constitutes the es-
sence of the kingdom, was the highest miracle, the central-point of all
miracles, and required other and analogous phenomena to precede and
follow it. But as the re-establishment of the original harmony between
the natural and the Divine (which coincides with the completion of the
Divine kingdom) was the final aim of I'cdemption, so, when the Divine
life, the essential principle of the miracle itself, which is purely and in
its essence supernatural, was incorporated with the natural progress of
humanity by the manifestation of Christ, it followed that thencefor-
ward, in all ages, it should operate within the forms and laws of human
nature.
* The Schoolmen of the 13th centitry rightly distinguished the potcntia adiva from the
potentia passiva, in regard to the relation of the supernatural to the natural.
132 THE MEANS OF CHRIST.
§ 89. Relation of Miracles to History.
The relation of miracles to history is perhaps sufficiently obvious
from what has been said. Every theory of history that proceeds from
the stand-point of natural reason, admitting nothing superior to itself,
must, from its very point of departure, reject the idea of miracles.
It must seek to include and explain all events by one and the same
pragmatical connexion of causes, and can therefore find no place for
miracles. Even if it be desirous to examine the acts of Christ without
prejudice, it can only, from its peculiar stand-point, manifest such free-
dom by representing truthfully, according to the accounts that remain,
how Christ himself wished these phenomena to be regarded, and what
impression they made upon his contemporaries.
But this holds good of only a very limited and arbitrary idea of
history, one which barricades itself by its own prejudices against all
higher views. The conception of the miracle, as such, is in no way
repugnant to a really scientific theory of history ; and as it is the task
of the latter to study the proper character of every fact and pl>enomenon,
the import of miracles, as miracles, is one of its necessary problems.
The manifestation of Christ, indeed, can only- be rightly understood
when it is conceived as being originally Divine and supra-historical,
and as having become historical ; and Christianity can only be explain-
ed as a supernatural principle, destined to impart to history a new
tendency and direction. In this connexion the individual miracles,
pteceding, accomj^anying, and following the manifestation of Christ,
appear entirely in accordance with nature. As for history itself, when
it does not refer to Christianity and the kingdom of God as the object
of all human progi-ess, it appears but as a lawless play of forces moving
hither and thither, rising and falling, without aim and without unity.
Christianity alone shows us that it has both. But in order to compre-
liend Christianity, and, through it, History, reason must receive the
higher light of faith, without which the eye of the mind must remain
blind to the operations and revelation of the Divinity in the course of
human progress.*
(B.) THE MIRACLES OF CHRIST AS SUB.TECTIVELY VIEWED BY HIS
CONTEMPORARIES.
§ 90. Miracles deemed an essential Sign of Messiahsliip.
It is evident from many passages in the Gospel narrative that mira-
cles were essentially necessary, as signs of the Messianic calling.
Had Christ, therefore, wrought no miracles, his contemporaries could
* My view of the miracles aijrccs with what Tucslcn has said in the Introduction to liis
"Dogmatik;" and I am ijTatilied to find a similar agreement, also, in his second vohimr-,
pt. i., p. no, seq.
MIRACLES. 133
not have believed in his Messiahship ; noi- could he himself have been
thoroughly and permanently convinced of it, had he not both been con-
scious of power to perform them, and put that power into exercise.
John the Baptist was satisfied, from his own inability to achieve such
works, that he was not endowed with the Messianic fulness of the
Spirit ; and it is obvious, from his receiving Christ's miracles as a
proof of his Messiahship, that he expected such signs of the indwellin"-
fulness of Divine power in the true Messiah.
Nor can it be proved (as some suppose) that it was common among
the Jews to spread rumours of miracles wrought by men whose deeds
had made them objects of popular veneration, as was subsequently the
case in the Middle Ages, where we find miraculous powers ascribed to
such men even during their Kfetime. There is a great difference in
the relations of the two periods. The Middle Age was the period of a
neio creation, developed from the new principle of life which Christian-
ity (even alloyed as it was with Jewish elements) introduced among
the uncultivated nations. It was a period of youthful freshness, en-
thusiasm, and poetiy. The men of that time, through their lively faith
in the Divine power of Christianity, as ever present and ever active,
kept their connexion with the miracles that attended its first appear-
ance unbroken, and figured and imitated them by their youthful and
inventive power of imagination.* But while such was the relation be-
tween the Middle Age and the period of Christ's appearance, there
was no similar relation between the latter and the Old Testament age.
Christ did not manifest himself at a period of new creation through in-
fluences previously wrought into the life of the people by Judaism, but
at a time when Judaism itself was decaying and dying ; the revelations
and mighty works of Divine power lay buried in a far-distant antiquity;
and there was a vast chasm, visible to all eyes, between the lofty, holy
age of Prophecy, and that weak and lifeless time. After the voice of
prophecy was hushed, God was said to reveal himself only by occa-
sional utterances ; such, for instance, as the Bath Col,\ a miraculous
sound from heaven ; or by words of men, intei-preted as omens.
Scarcely any tales of wonder were told but such as refen-ed to the
Exorcists^ who were skilled in the deceptive arts of jugglery, and were
said to do many marvellous things. In short, it is sufficiently proved
that miracles were deemed no ordinary occurrences among the Jews,§
* The miraculous tales of the excited Middle Age may be explained from the co-working
of various influences, but this is not the place to enter into the subject.
t The Bath Col may be explained on the ground that a heavenly voice was supposed to
be heard in a period of devotion, or that words accidentally spoken by one person had a
peculiar subjective meaning for another, like the tolle hgc of Augustine.
X Joseph., Archa3ol., viii., 2, 4.
^ Josephus says, with reference to miracles, '' "" T^apaXoya Koi iJtd^io njf tXiriSos roij hfioioii
TuoTovTai Ttpdynaiiv." — Archoeol., x., 2, 1.
134 THE MEANS OF CHRIST.
by the fact that they were expected to be distinctive signs of the
Messiah, and that they were not ascribed even to John the Baptist,
notwithstanding his great deeds and the honour in which he was held
as a prophet.
(C.) CHRIST'S OWN ESTIMATE OF HIS MIRACLES.
§ 91. Apparent Discrejmncics, and Mode of Removing them.
There are apparent contradictions in the several explanations triven
by Christ of his miracles, and by following them out separately we
might arrive at different views of the estimate which he himself placed
upon them. But in order to bring perfect harmony out of these ap-
parent contradictions, it is only necessary to distinguish the different
points of view in which the miracles present themselves. It has been
already said, that miracles can be correctly understood, not when view-
ed as isolated facts, but in connexion with the whole circle of Divine
revelation. Those of Christ, especially, are intelligible only when
considered as results of his self-revelation, or, as St. John expresses it,
as ihe mdnifestation of his glory. They demand, therefore, to be so con-
ceived in connexion as to exhibit vividly his whole image in each of
these separate manifestations ; and, on the other hand, the same con-
siderations point out, as the highest aim of miracles, the revelation of
Christ's glory in the whole of his personal manifestation.
Cl.) Christ's Object in working Miracles tvvo-fokl.
In \\\e\x formal import miracles are crwida, signs, designed to point
from objects of sense to God ; powers which, by producing results in-
explicable by ordinary agencies, are intended to lead minds yet under
the bonds of sense, and unfitted for an immediate spiritual revelation, to
yearn after and acknowledge a higher power. But as they were de-
signed to show forth the icholc revealed Christ, and as the Divine attri-
butes, in the totality of which the image of God was realized in him, can-
not be isolated from each other, so no separate manifestation o? poiver
could proceed from him, not at the same time exhibiting all the other
attributes belonging to the Divine image. It is clear, therefore, that
although miracles, in relation to nature, are especially manifestations
of Power, they could not be performed except in cases where the other
attributes, the Wisdom and the holy Love, were brought into requisi-
tion. For the same reason, too, we cannot conceive Christ's miracles as
epideictic, i. e., wrought for no other purpose than to display his power
over the laws of nature. In them, as in all his other actions, the end
which he had in view is shown by the given circumstances in each case.
Accordingly, we distinguish a two-fold object of his miracles, tlie first
a material one, ?'. e., the meeting of some immediate emergency, of some
want of man's earthly life, which his love urged him to satisfy ; the
MIRACLES. 135
other and higher one, to point himself out to the persons whose earthly
necessities were thus relieved j as the One alone capable of satisfying-
their higher and essential spiritual wants ; to raise them from this sin-
gle exhibition of his glory in the individual miracle to a vivid appre-
hension of the glory of his entire nature. Nor was this last and higher
aim of the miracle confined to the persons immediately concerned ; it
was to be to all others a sign, that they might believe in Jesus as the
Son of God. •
{'2.) A Susceptibility to i-eceive Impressions from the Miracles presupposed.
But all external influences designed to produce an impression such
as we have stated demand a susceptible soil in the minds of those who
are to receive them. The revelation of Christ by his works, no more
than by his vs^ords, could produce a Divine impression without an in-
ward susceptibility of Divine influences. The consciousness of Goi>
must exist in the soul, though dormant. The Divine revelation must
find some point of contact in human nature before religious faith can
spring up ; there is no compulsory influence from without by which
the unsusceptible soul can be driven to faith by an irresistible ne-
cessity.
So, when a carnal, worldly mind is the prevailing tendency, out-
ward phenomena, however extraordinary, pass by, and make no im-
pression. The mighty power of the will cannot be subdued by any ex-
ternal force. The worldly spirit malces every thing which touches it
worldly too. Encompassed by Divine powers, it remains closed against
them, in its earthly inclinations, thoughts, and feelings. The mind,
thus perverted, cheats itself by denying all miracles, because to ac-
knowledge them would oppose its fleshly interests, and contradict the
system of delusion to which it is a slave. It calls the powers of sophis-
try to aid its self-deception, by converting every thing which could
tend to undeceive it into a means of deeper delusion ; like those Phar-
isees who, when compelled to acknowledge works beyond explanaticin
by ordinary agencies, referred them to the powers of darkness rather
than of light, in order to escape an admission which they were deter
mined to evade. So he who totally rejects the supernatural has al
ready decided upon all separate cases, and a miracle wrought before
his very eyes would not be recognized as such. He might admit the
fact as extraordinary, but would involuntarily seek some other expla-
nation. A mode of thinking that controls the mind cannot be shaken
by any power acting ^clwlhj from without. Such is the might of the
free will, which proves its freedom even by its self-created bondage.
Or if miracles do impress the fleshly mind for a moment by the flash
of gratiiication or astonishment which they afford, the impression, made
merely upon the senses, is but transitory ; for it lacks the point of con-
136 THE MEANS OF CHRIST.
tact in the soul which aloue can make it permanent. How quickly are
sensible imi3ressions,,even the strongest, forgotten when other and con-
trary ones follow them ! And here we find one of the reasons why
Christ refused the demand for miracles merely as proofs of his wonder-
working power. For those, he said, whose perverted minds could not
be roused to repentance by Moses and the prophets, would not he per-
suaded though one rose from the dead.
How grossly ignorant, then, of human nature must the Deists of the
17th century have been, who plead in opposition to the reality of
Christ's miracles, the comparatively little effect which they produced !*
We shall find, therefore, Christ's own statements in regard to his
miracles to harmonize perfectly with each other, if we properly dis-
tinguish the various classes of human character in their religious and
moral relations to miracles, and the different relations and tendencies
of the miracles themselves.
§ 92. The Sign of the Trophet Jonah.
^ Christ's declaration, in answer to a demand for a miraculous attesta-
tion of his Messiahship, that " no sign shall he given to this generation
hut the sign of the Trophet Jonah;' has been thought by some to indi-
cate either that he wrought no miracles at all, or that he did not mean
to employ them as proofs of his Divine calling. The passage prece-
ding that declaration of itself is enough to refute this ; for he*had just
appealed to the healing of a demoniac as proof of the Divine charac-
ter of his power,t and to the fact that the kingdom of God was victori-
ously introduced among men by him| as a testimony that his ministry
was Divine. But we can refute it by simply showing the only sense
which the words could have conveyed, in the connexion in which they
were used.
The works of Jesus had made a great impression, very much to the
discomfort of those whose mode of thinking and party interests made it
necessary for them to oppose him. They naturally sought to counter-
act this impression ; to dispute the evidence of the facts which con-
firmed his ministry as Divine. While the most base and hostile, com-
* Like that strange enthusiast, Dardd lluller, -who appeared in Nassau iu the ti-ausition
I)^eriod between mysticism and rationahsm, and in whom these two tendencies joined liands.
From the extreme of mystic supeniaturalism he passed over to the skeptical conclusions of
our modern critics. In his treatise against Lessinsr he says, "It is impossible that there
should have been a Christ 1700 years ago, who literally wrought such wonders as these.
Had any man, by his more word, caused tiie blind to see and the lame to walk, given health
to the leper and strength to the palsied, fed thousands with a few loaves, and even raised
t)ie dead, all men must have esteemed him Divine, all men must have followed him. Only
imagine what you yourself would have thouglit of such a man ; and human nature is the
same in all ages. And with so many followers, the scribes and Dharisecs could not have
killed him."— //^'c/t's Zeitschrifl, Wii, p. 257.
t Luke, xi., 20. J Ly],g^ ^i^ 22.
MIRACLES. 137
pelled to admit the superhuman powers of Christ, attributed them to
the kingdom of darkness, there were others who did not dare to utter
such an accusation, but asked a sign of a different character, an object-
ive testimony from God himself in favor of Christ and his ministry,
which could not deceive ; a visible celestial phenomenon, for instance,
or a voice from heaven, clearly and unequivocally authenticating him
as a messenger from God. In answer, then, to those who asked a Di-
vine sign apart from his whole manifestation, a sign for that which was
of itself' the greatest of all signs, Christ appeals to that loftiest of
signs, his own appearance as the God-Man, which included within it-
self all his miracles as separate, individual manifestations.* To this
(he told them) — viz., that " The manifestation of the Son of Man was
greater than that of Jonah or of Solomon" — belonged all those works
of his which no other could perform ; every thing was to be referred to
that manifestation as the highest in the histoi'y of humanity. Had these
words been spoken by any other, they would have convicted him of
sacrilegious self-exaltation.
§ 93. " Destroy this Temple,'' ^c.
Similar to this was Christ's reply at the Passover, which he first kept
in Jerusalem, to those who, unable to comprehend an act of holy zeal,
asked him to prove his calling as a reformer by a miracle — " Destroy
this temple^ and in three days I tvill raise it up!' Instead of working
a mii-acle, uncalled for by the circumstances, for their idle satisfaction,
he pointed them to a sign that was to come, a gi'eat, world-historical
sign, which may have been either his resurrection, that was to seal the
cimclusion of his ministry on earth, and bring about the triumph of his
kingdom, in spite of the machinations of his foes, who hoped to destroy
his work by putting him to death ; or the creation, as the end and aim
of his whole manifestation, of the new, spiritual, and eternal Temple of
his kingdom among men, after the visible Temple should have been
destroyed by their own guilt.
§ 94. Christ' s Distinction between the material Elcnie7it of Miracles
and their essential Ohjcct. — John, vi., 26.
Christ himself distinguishes the material part of the miracle, ^. e., its
effect in satisfying a momentary want, and \ts formal part, as a sign to
point from objects of sense to God, and to accredit himself as capable of
* We caunot but be surprised at the remark of Dc Wctte, Comm. on Matt., 2d ed.. p.
132: "If Jesus had wished to express this thought, he would have uttered nonsense —
No sign ahall be given to them, hut still given." Christ said that to those who were
not satisfied by liis whole manifestation, as a sign, no other separate sign would be s^iv-
en ; how could any thing be a sign for them to whom the highest sign was none? The
words, however, do wear that air of paradox which we often find in the discourses of
Christ.
138 THE MEANS OF CHRIST.
satisfying all higher spiritual wants. To those who embraced the mira-
cles in this latter sense, properly as arjiiela, he freely communicated him-
self; and, on the other hand, he must more and more have alienated
himself from those who attached themselves to him only from a mo-
mentary interest of the former kind. He, therefore, reproached those
who eagerly sought him after the feeding of the five thousand, by say-
ing that they did not seek him because they " had seen the miracles'^
{f. e., as signs to lead them to something higher), but simply because
their human wants had been satisfied — " Ye did eat of the loaves and
tcerc filled^ The light of his works (he told them) was not sufficient
to lead them to believe on him, inasmuch as they lacked — what was es-
sential to faith — a sense for the Divine. The gratification of their natu-
ral senses was all they sought. In the spirit in which they were, faith
was impossible ; their preponderating worldliness of mind, subjugating
the better tendencies of their natui'e, left room for no sense of higher
wants, and prevented them from feeling the inward '"'^ drawing of the
Father:'*
§ 95. Christ a2^pcalcd to the Miracles as Testimonies ; John, xv., 24. —
Three different Stages of Faith.
Although Christ appeals (in John's Gospel) to the miracles as testi-
monies of his works, we are not to understand him as appealing tt)
them simply as displays of power, for the grounds already stated. Yet
he does, in more than one instance, declare them to be signs, in the
world of sense, of a higher power, designed to lead minds as yet un-
susceptible of direct spiritual impressions, to acknowledge such influ-
ences. '^ If I had, not done among them the works which none other man
did, they had not had *i«."t
In viewing the miracles thus as means of awakening and strengthen-
ing faith, we must distinguish different stand-points in the developement
of faith. On the lowest stage stood those who, instead of being drawn
by an undeniable want of their spiritual nature, inspired by the power
of God working within them, had to be attracted by a feeling of phys-
ical want, and by impressions made upon their outward senses. Yet,
like his heavenly Father, whose providence leads men to spiritual
things even by means of their physical necessities, Christ condescended
to this human weakness, sighing, at the same time, that such means
should be indispensable to turn men's eyes to that which lies nearest to
their spiritual being. " Except ye see signs and rvondcrs, ye will not
Lclieve."'^
A higher stage was occupied by those who were, indeed, led to seek
the Messiah by a sense of spiritual need, but whose religious feelings
were debased by the admixture of various sensuous elements. As these
* John, vi., 36, 44. t John, xv., 24. t John, iv., 48.
MIRACLES. 139
were yet in some degree in bondage to sense, and sought the Saviour
without perfectly apprehending him as the object of tlieir searcli, they
had to be led to know him by miracles suited to their condition. Such
was the case with the Apostles generally, before their religious feeliuo^s
were purified by continued personal intercouree with Christ. He con-
descended to this condition, in order to lead men from it to a higher
stage of religious life ; but yet represented it as subordinate to that
purer stage in which they should receive the whole impression of his
person, and obtain a full intuition of the mode in which God dwelt and
wrought in Him. Jesus said unto Nathanael, " Because I said I saw
thee under the jig-tree, helievest thou 1 TJiou shalt see greater things than
these. Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascend-
ing and descending upon the Son of M.anJ''*
A far loftier stage of faith was that which, proceeding from an in-
ward living fountain, did not wait for miracles to call it forth, but went
before and expected them as natural manifestations of the already ac-
knowledged God. Such a presupposed faith, instead of being sum-
moned by the miracles, rather summoned them, as did the pagan cen-
turion whom Christ offered to the Jews as a model : " I have not found
so great faith, no, not in Israeiy\
It appears, therefore, that Christ considered that to be the highest
stage of religious developement in which faith arose, not from the sen-
sible evidence of miracles, but from an immediate Divine impression
finding a point of contact in the soul itself — from a direct experience
of that wherein alone the soul could fully satisfy its wants ; such a faith as
testifies to previous motions of the Divine life in the soul. We have an
illustration in Peter, who expressed his profound sense of the blessincrs
that had flowed to him from fellowship with Christ, in his acknowl-
edgment, " Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. AnA. Jesus
said unto him. Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood hath
not revealed it unto thee, hut my Father ivhich is in heaven."\ This ac-
knowledgment itself might have been made by Peter at an earlier pe-
riod ; but the ivay in which he made it at that critical moment, and the
feeling which inspired it, showed that he had obtained a new intuition
of Christ as the Son of God. It was for this that Christ called him
"blessed," because the drawing of the Father had led him to the Son,
and the Father had revealed himself to him in the Son. Peter made
his confession, at that time, in opposition to others, § who, although they
had a dawning consciousness of Christ's higher nature, did not yet rec
ognize him as the Son of God. The spirit in which he made it is illus-
trated by a similar confession made by him in view of the defection of
many who had been led by " the revelation of flesh and blood" to be-
* John, i., 50, 51. t Matt., viii., 10.
\ Matt., xvi., 16, 17. § Mr.tt., xvi., 14.
140 THE MEANS OF CHRIST.
lieve in Jesus, and had afterward abandoned him,* for the very reason
that their faith had so low an origin : " Lord, to whom shall we go ? Thou
hast the words of eternal life. And we believe, and we are sure that thou
art that Christ, the Son of the living God.^^\
And so, when Thomas doubted, Christ condescended to give him a
visible proof of his resurrection ;| but at the same time he declared that
that was a higher faith which needed no such support, but rested, with
undoubting confidence, upon the inward experience of Divine mani-
festations. " Blessed are they that have not sce7i and yet have helievcdy
§ 96. The Communication of tJie Divine Life the highest Miracle. —
John, xiv., 12.
Finally, the words of Christ himself assure us that the communica-
tion of the life of God to men was the gi'eatest of all miracles, the es-
sence and the aim of all; and, further, that it was to be the standing
miracle of all after ages. " He that hclieveth on me, the tvorks that I do
ahull he do also, and greater works than these shall he do, because I go
to my Father. And tvhatsoever ye shall ask in my name, tliat will I dv,
that the FatJter may be glorified in the Son.'''' The power of diffusing
the Divine life, which had been confined to him alone, was, by means
of his gloi'ification, to be extended to others, and to assume in them a
peculiar self-subsisting form — the miracle which was to be wrought
among all men, and in all time, by the preaching of the Gospel. [" He
shall send you another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever,
even the Sjnrit of Truth.'"]
CHAPTER VI.
THE MIRACLES OF CHRIST CONSIDERED IN REGARD TO SUPERNAT
URAL AGENCY.
§ 97. Transition from the Natural to the Supernatural in the Miracles.
T has been asserted in modern times, that in order to receive mira-
cles at all, we must conceive them as directly and abruptly opposed to
nature, and admit no intermediate agencies whatever. But we cannot
be confined to this alternative by men who wish to caricature the views
which we maintain. Abrupt contrasts may be set up in abstract the-
ories ; but in real life we do not find them. There are always inter-
mediate agencies and points of transition. And why should this not be
the case in the opposition between the natural and the supernatural 1
We think that we have already shown that the higher unity of the Di-
vine plan of the world embraces miracles as well as the ordinary de-
* John, vi., CG. t John, vi., 69. } Jolui, xx.. 27.
THE HEALING OF DISEASES. 141
velopement of nature. We hold ourselves justified, therefore, in dis-
tinguishing, with regard to the marvellous part of the miracles, certain
steps of transition from the natural to the supernatural. Not that we
can separate these gradations so nicely as to constitute a division of the
miracles thereby ; but we can trace an important harmonj^ with tlio
universal laws of the Divine government of the world in the fact that
here, too, there are no sudden leaps, but a gradual transition by inter-
mediate steps throughout.
Looking at all the miracles, there are some in regard to which it
may be doubted whether they belong to the class of natural or super-
natural events ; on the other side, there are some in which the creative
power is exhibited in the highest degree, and which bear no analogy
whatever to the results of natural causes. Between these extreme
classes, there are many miraculous worlis in which the supernatural
can be made vividly obvious by means of natural analogies. To these
last belong most of the miracles which Christ wrought upon linman
nature; while those wrought upon the material world, rejecting all
natural analogies, may be ranged under the second extreme class
above mentioned. The latter are very few in compai'ison with the
former, and far less intimately connected with Christ's peculiar calling.
A. CHRIST'S MIRACLES WROUGHT UPON HUMAN NATURE.
I. The Healing of Diseases.
^ 98. The Spiritual Agencies emploijed. — Faith demanded for the Cure.
Those works of redeeming love which Christ wrought upon the human
body, the healing of diseases, and the like, displayed the peculiar feature
of his whole ministry. The ailments of the body are closely connected
with those of the soul ;* and even if, in individual cases, this cannot be
proved, yet in the whole progress of human developement there is al-
ways a causal connexion between sin and evil ; between the disorgan-
ization of the spirit through sin, and all forms of bodily disorder
There was a beautiful connexion, therefore, between Christ's work in
healing the latter, and his proper calling to remove the fundamental
disease of human nature, and to restore its original harmony, disturbed
by sin.
Some of these diseases, also, arose purely from moral causes, and
could be thoroughly cured only by moral and spiritual remedies.
Little as we know of the connexion between the mind and the body,
* It is remarkable that great plai,iics often spread over the earth precisely at the same
time with general crises in the intellectual or moral world ; e. g., the plague at Athens and
the Peloponnesian war ; the plagues under the Antouines and under Decius ; the labes in-
guinaria at the end of the 6th century ; the ignis saccr in the 11th; the Mack death in the
14th, (See. That great man, Niebuhr, whose letters contain so many golden ti-uths, alluded
to tliis coincidence in ajiother coouexion. — Leben, ii., 167.
142 THE MIRACLES OF CHRIST.
we know enough to make it in some degree clear to us how an ex-
traordinary Divine impression might produce remarkable effects in the
bodily organism.
We do not mean, however, by this remark, to bring all such influ-
ences down (as some have done) into the sphere of the purely sub-
jective. It is true that a natural power, -highly intensified, might
produce effects closely resembling the supernatural ; it is true that the
imagination, strongly stimulated and exalted, often works strange
wonders ; but we have to do' here only with effects which must be at-
tributed to higher causes, which must be due to an objective Divine
agency. In the cases to which we refer (as, indeed, in all cases), the
objective and subjective factors could co-operate ; the Divine influence
of Christ upon the soul, and, through it, upon the bodily organism,
could work together with the susceptibility to impression, the reccjHwity
(so to speak), on the pait of man. Hence it was that Christ demanded
a special Faith as a necessary condition of his healing agency ; indeed,
we can find no instance of his working a miracle where a hostile tend-
ency of mind prevailed.
We can conceive of bodily cures thus wrought by means of spiritual
influences more readily than any othei'S ; and they con-espond precise-
ly with the laws which Christ's operations have never ceased to follow.
But we cannot bring all the instances of healing which he wrought
under this class ; some of them were wrought at a distance, and offer
no point of departure of this kind. And as we are compelled to ad-
mit, in some of the miracles, immediate operations upon material
nature, we are the less authorized to deny that such direct influences
were exerted upon the bodily organism.
§ 99. Vsc of Physical Agencies in the Cure of Diseases.
Christ employed his miraculous power in various modes of opera-
tion. He operated by his immediate presence, by the power of that
Divire will which exercised its influence through his word and his
whole manifestation ; and this in the very cases in which we might ad-
mit a bodily cure by the use of physical agencies. Sometimes, indeed,
there was besides a material aj)plication, e.g., the contact of the hand.
In other cases he made use of material substances, and even of such
as were thought to be possessed of healing virtues, as, in blindness, of
saliva,* watcr,t and anointing with oil.
But in these cases the means were too dis])roportionate to the results,
fjr us to imagine that they were naturally ca])able of producing them;
and as Christ did not always employ them, there is no room to sup-
pose that they were necessary as vehicles of his healing power — a stip-
position which brings the miracles too far down into the sphere of
' Plin., Hist. Natur., xxviii., 7. \ Mark, viii.; John, ix.
PUNITIVE JUSTICE. 143
merely physical agencies. We must rather presuppose that as Christ,
in his teaching, &c., took up the forms in common use among men to
work out something higher from them, so he allowed his powers of
healing to exhibit themselves in the use of these ordinary means in a
symbolical way. He may have designed thereby to bestow some
peculiar lessons of instruction.
The cures wrought at a distance do not admit of this material con-
necting link ; but the opei'ations of Christ's will could oversteji all the
barriers of space.
§ 100. The Relation hdioecn Sin and Physical Evil. — Jeicish Idea
of Punitive Justice. — Christ's Doctrine on the Suhject.
We must now examine Christ's miracles of healing in their moral
aspects, and in their connexion with his ministry as Redeemer. If it
can be shown that all those disturbances of the bodily organism, which
we call diseases, have their origin in Sin, as the source of all discord
in human nature, we may infer that there is a close connexion between
these miracles and his proper calling ; and that, in healing the diseases
produced by sin, by means of his influence upon the essential nature
of the disturbed organism, he displayed himself also as the Redeemer
from sin. In many cases, also, we may find the physical and the moral
cure reciprocally operating upon each other.
The question first occurs, In what relation does Christ himself place
disease to sin % This question is connected with the broader one, In
what relation to sin does he place physical evil in general 1 In Luke,
v., 20, and John, v., 14, he seems to assign a special connexion between
sin and certain diseases as its punishments ; but other expressions of
his appear to contradict such a connexion. To solve this difficulty, we
must not only distinguish the different aims of these several expressions,
but also discriminate between the true and the false in the modes of
thinking prevalent among the Jews.
The doctrine that sin is guilt, and that the Divine holiness reveals
itself in opposition to sin, as punitive justice, is one of the characteris-
tics of the religion of the Old Testament in its relations to the various
shapes of natural religion. Punitive justice displays itself in the es-
tablished connexion between sin and evil, in consequence of which the
sinful will that rebels in act against the Divine law must be compelled,
through suffering, actually to acknowledge that law, and to humble it-
self before its majesty. According to this view of the world, which
subordinates the natural to the moral, all evil is to be attributed to sin ;
it shows itself to the soul estranged from God as belonging to, and
connected with sin ; the consciousness that sin is opposed to the Divine
order of nature is developed by sufferings ; and thus sin appears, even
to the sinner, to be deserving of punishment. All history proves that
144 THE MIRACLES OF CHRIST.
the consequences of bad actions, as well as of good ones, operate for
generations; all history testifies that " God is a jealous God, visiting
the iniquities oj" the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth gen-
eration.^^ We can see this especially in the crises of the history of na-
tions, by tracing them to their preparatory causes. The history of the
Jewish nation, particularly, was designed to exhibit this universal law
in miniature, but with striking distinctness.
To this conception of the punitive justice of God, as displaying itself
in the progress of history and in the course of generations, a contracted
Theodicy had joined itself, which arrogantly assumed to apply the uni-
versal law to special cases.* The book of Job had already refuted
this contracted view ; and Christ himself opposed it ; taking, however,
the basis of truth which was found in the Old Testament, purifying it
from foreign admixtures of error, and giving it a fuller developement.t
The doctrine of punitive justice was in no degree impugned by the
new and lofty prominence which Christ gave to the Redeeming love of
God ; on the contrary, the latter doctrine presupposed the former, but
at the same time gave it peculiar modifications. And as Christ teaches
us that all human events are subservient to the manifestation of redeem-
ing love, the highest aim of God's moral government, it follows that the
connexion between sin and physical evil, ordained by Divine justice,
must serve the same great end. The universal evil introduced by sin
is go distributed in detail as to aid in preparing the soil of men's hearts
to receive and appropriate redemption and salvation, and in further
purifying the hearts of those who have already become partakers of
the Divine life.
There are two passages in which Christ contradicts, in the one neg-
atively and in the other positively, the contracted view of punitive jus-
tice, before referred to.
The negative contradiction is given in Luke, xiii., 2, 4 : " Suppose
ye that these Galileans were sinners above all the Galileans, because they
suffered such things 7 I tell you, nay ; but except ye repent, ye shall all
likewise perish. Or those eighteen, upon whom the toioer i?i Siloamjell,
and sleio them, thinh ye that they were sinners ahore all men that dioelt
in Jerusalem ?'" In this passage Christ teaches that the evil that befel
the individuals did not necessarily measure their individual guilt, but
that their particular sufferings were to be traced back to the general
guilt of the nation.
* The fact that this view was maintained by the carnally-disposed, and tlint the later
Jewish histoi-y often apparently reversed the connexion between sin and evil, piety and
liappiness, irave rise, subsequently, to an Ebiouitish reaction, which maintained that in
this world, belonj^-ing as it does to Satan, the wicked have possession of the g(x)ds of this
life, while [joverty ajid pain must be the lot of tlie pious; and that this state of things will
only be compensated in the Millciiniuni, or in the life to come. Christ's truth opposes both
these false views. * Luke, xiii., 4.
DEMONIACAL POSSESSION. 145
The positive contradiction is found in John, ix., 2, 3 : "Master who
did sin, this man or his parents, that he teas horn blind ? Jesus an-
swered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents ; hut that the
works of God should he made manifest in hiynT Here he rebukes tlie
presupposition that the calamity of tlie individual sufferer was to be re-
fen-ed to sins committed by his ancestors, and brings out, in stronty con-
trast with it, that Almighty love which shows itself even by so distrib-
uting physical evil as to train men for salvation.*
We interpret, in accordance with this view, the explanations which
Christ gave in several cases of a relation between disease and sin, and
between healing and the pardon of sin. He referred either to the gen-
eral connexion, through which all evil was intended to call forth the
consciousness of sin ; or to a closer connexion, in individual cases, be-
tween a given misfortune and a specific sin. The relation between the
bodily cure and the pardon of sin was still closer.t
II. Demoniacal Possession.
The connexion, of which we have spoken, between sin and evil, must
be especially predicated of those forms of disease which, view them
as we may, exhibited a moral wreck, not only of the individual suffer-
ers, but of the age in which they lived; and which admitted no means
of perfect cure except moral influences. We mean the p)sychical dis-
eases, the sufferings of the so-called Demoniacs.
§ 101. Two Theories of the Affliction: (a) Possession hy Evil Spirits ;
[h) Insanity. — Analogous Phenomena in other Times.
There are two points of view, opposed to each other, but yet, per-
haps, admitting of an intermediate ground, in which we may contem-
plate these forms of disease ; they may have originated either (o) from
internal causes in the soul itself, or {h) from causes entirely outward
and supernatural. Those who adopt the first view confine their atten-
tion to the characteristic symptoms as reported, and compare them with
the very similar- ailments, the diseases of the mind and of the nervous
system, which not only existed in that age, but have appeared at all
subsequent periods.| Those who strictly adopt the latter view adhere
closely to the letter of the naiTative, and make no attempt to distinguish
what is ohjcctive in it from what is subjective ; but see in the miserable
demoTiiacs only passive instruments of evil spirits.
If, in accordance ^vith this view, we admit no intermediate agency,
but ascribe the phenomena immediately to evil spirits, the cures must
be directly attributed to Christ's dominion over the powers of the other
* We shall examine tliis explanation again in its proper place in the nan-ative.
t Matt., ix., 2-5.
X Similar disea.ses, occun-ing in the first centuries, were explained in this way by the
physicians. — Orig., in Matt., xiii., $ G.
146 THE MIRACLES OF CHRIST.
world ; thus strikingly showing his supernatural control over a supernat-
ural cause of disease. And, on the other hand, if we class these phe-
nomena with diseases of the mind in general, and consider the sup-
posed indwelling of evil spirits only as a symptom grounded on natu-
ral causes, we shall more readily be able to conceive how a disease
arising entirely, oi-, at least, chiefly from a psychical cause, could be
cured by a purely psychical agency. Nor would this in the least degree
deny, or even detract from, the miraculous character of Christ's acts ; for
to restore a raving maniac to reason by a look or a word was surely be-
yond all natural psychological influence, and presupposed powers tran-
scending all ordinary agencies. It is true, we find analogous cases in
later times, in which great things were wrought by immediate Divine
impressions, and by devout prayer in the name of Christ.*
Not only at the time of Christ's appearance, but also in the centu-
ries immediately following,t many forms of disease like those called
demoniacal in the New Testament were spread abroad ; and we may
infer that the same cause was at work in both periods.
§ 102. Connexion of the Phenomena with the State of the Times. — Con-
ceptions of the Jews in regard to them: of the Demoniacs themselves.
The diseases of the mind in every age bear the stamp, to some de-
gree, of the prevailing tendencies and ideas of the times ; and those to
which we refer reflected the peculiar and predominant features of the
Jewish mind of that age. The wtetched demoniacs seemed to be hur-
ried onward by a strange and hostile power that subjugated their intel-
lectual and moral being, and whose chief characteristic, as displayed in
their paroxysms, was a wild and savage destructiveness. The Jews
explained these phenomena according to their own notions, and espe-
cially by the general opinion that man was surrounded on every side
by the operations of evil spirits, who were the authors of both moral
and physical evil.| And as a fierce destructiveness was considered to
* We mast not take the spirit of an age of rantorialism or rationalism as a rule forjudg-
ing of all phenomena of the ^vx'h which veils within itself the Infinite ; which is capable
of such manifold excitement; and whose vaiious powers are alternately donuant and active
— now one prevailing, and now another. An age may be destitute of certain phenomena
and experiences, because it has no organs for developing them ; and this would prove no-
thing against their reality.
Although I can hardly think it possible tliat die view given in the text, taken in connex-
ion with the general i)rinciples of this book, can be misunderstood, yet, in order to guard
against a possible misinterpretation, I deem it best to add, tliat it was far from my inten-
tion to do away with the distinction between tlie natural and the supernatural, or to ti'ace
the latter entirely to the dcvelopemcnt of i)owers inlicrent in the 4^Xn- I wished only to
point out tlic organ, the point of contact, in the ^'''X'Ji for supernatural communications and
influences; to show that it is itxelf supematwrnl in its hidden essence, which looks forward
to be unfolded hcrcnftcr in the higher world to which it is allied.
t As seen in tlie Fathers, and in Lucian's I'hilopsendcs.
i Some have attributed tlie prevalence of this opinion to an admixture of Persian reli-
DEMONIACAL POSSESSION. 147
De characteristic of these spirits, the condition of the demoniacs was
ascribed to their being possessed by one or more of them.*
The diseased persons themselves invohmtarily conceived of their own
experience according to the prevalent opinion, and their expressions,
literally taken, contributed to confirm it. Every thing irrational which
suggested itself to them appeared to their consciousness as the work
and the will of the indwelling evil spirit. They conceived themselves,
in fact, as possessed of two natures, viz., their real proper being (the
true I), and the evil spirit which subjugated the other; and thus it hap-
pened that they spoke in the person of the evil spirit, with which they
felt themselves blended into one, even in instincts and propensities ut-
terly repugnant to their true nature. The sense of inward discord
and distraction might rise to such a height as to induce the belief that
they were possessed by a number of spirits, to whom they were com-
pelled to lend their utterance.
We may find a reason for the remarkable prevalence of such phe-
nomena at that time, not only among the Jews, but also throughout the
Roman Empire, in the character of the age itself It was an age of
spiritual and physical distress, of manifold and violent disruptions ; such
as characterize those critical epochs in the history of the world at
which, from the dissolution of all existing things, a new creation is
about to unfold itself. The sway of Demonism was a sign of the ap-
proaching dissolution of the Old World.t Its phenomena — symptoms
of the universally felt discord — were among the signs of the times
which pointed to the comitig of the Redeemer, who was to change that
discord into harmony. The insatiable craving of want is always a pre'
cursor of the approaching supply.
§ 103. Accomviodation of the two extreme Theories.
If now the question be asked whether these phenomena are to be con-
sidered as wholly natural or as supernatural, we answer, that these two
extreme views may be more or less abruptly opposed to each other. On
gious doctrines ; but it had a far deeper ground in the rehgious spirit of the age. It arose
from the sense of dixcord which penetrated the whole miud of that time, and which was
reflected in the doctrine of Dualism, then so extensively prevailing.
* We agree with Strauss, that, according to the Jewish mode of thinking, the interfe.
rence of evil spirits must be really supposed, and that the views of Josephus (B. J., vii.,
fi, 3 : Ta yap KoKointva SaiftovtiiTrovrtpuiv icmv di'0/)w7ruv TvcPfxara, roii <fiiaiv zlafivoiitva) were mod*
jfied by his Greek culture. At a later period, when Oriental influences were more felt, the
idea of demons, as spirits allied to matter, or as hypostatic emanations from the 'ihi. was
common even among the educated Hellenists.
t Schelling's remark on this subject, in his "Philosophical Inquiries into the Nature of
Human Freedom," is worthy of note : " The time is coming when all this splendour will be
dissolved ; when the existing body of this fair world will fall to pieces, and chaos come
again. But before the fijial wreck, the aJl-pei-vading powers assume the nature of evil
spirits ; the very powers which in the sounder time were the protecting spirits of life, be-
come, as dissolution draws on, agents of mischief and destruction."
148 THE MIRACLES OF CHRIST.
the one hand, we may ascribe the origin of the disease to natural causes,
and judge of the symptoms accordingly, without excluding the opera-
tion of the other concealed cause ; the question whether such a cause
existed or not can be by no means decided merely by the syrajitoms.
Christ teaches that all wickedness, and all evil in its connexion with
wickedness, must be traced back to a higher cause — to a Spirit* that
fii-st rebelled against God, to an Original Sin, which gave birth to the
first germ of wickedness. As he lays down a certain connexion be-
tween the various stages of the kingdom of God, so he assigns a simi-
* If it coalJ be proved tliat Christ had only taken up the doctrine of the existence of
Satan by way oi formal accoramodatiou (p. 114), the question of the demoniacs would be
at once decided. It cannot be denied that in many of his expressions we might substitute,
for Satan, the objective notion of evil, without at all affecting the thought. We might, in-
deed, admit that he used the doctrine (boiTOwed from the circle of popular ideas) merely as
a figurative covering for ei^il, if he himself had any where intimated that he did not intend
thereby to confirm the view of the origin of evil which the popular notion involved ; just as
we showed from his own vords that, in transferring the popular figures to his Messianic
kingdom, he did distinguish between the substantial truth and its formal covering. But
this is by no means the case here. There is not a vestige of evidence in his conversations
with his disciples to show that he did 7iot intend to establish the doctrine that a higher in-
telligence, estranged from God, icas the original source of evil. Neither can we class this
question (as some do) among those which have no bearing on the interests of religion, and
which Christ's mission did not require him to interfere with ; our conception of evil will
be veiy different if we confine it to human nature, from what it would be, if we admit its
existence also in spirits of a higher order.
In John, viii., 44, Christ gives a perfectly defined conception of Satan ; he designates him
as " the Spirit alienated from truth and goodness (for, according to John's usage, aXrjOeia in-
volves both the trne and the good) ; in whom falsehood and wickedness have become a sec-
ond nature; who can fiud no abiding-place in the truth." The revelation of truth which
the spirits were to receive from communion with the Father of Spirits passes by him un-
heeded ; he cannot receive and hold it fast, because he has no organ to embrace it, no sus-
ceptibility for its impressions. Christ tells the Phaiisees that they, serving the Spirit of
Lies, and living in communion with him, showed themselves, by the spirit which their ac-
tions manifested, to be children of Satan, rather than of Abraham and God. Schleier-
macher's attempt to prove (Works, iii., § 45, p. 214) that even in this passage the idea of
a personal Satan is untenable, is by no means successful. " This passage," says he, " can-
not be interpreted throughout on the theory of the reality of the devil, without either oppo-
sing the devil to God in the Manichfean sense, or else calling Christ the Son of God in the
same extended signification in which the Pharisees ai*e called jS'otw of the Devil." The ar-
gument is unsuccessful, we say, because the proper point of comparison would be, Tiot the
sense in which Christ can be called the Son of God, but the sense in which pious men
could be so called ; and in a comparison it is not necessary that all the relations should be
adequate, but only those which are common to the point of comparison itself.
Nor can we admit that Christ, ui makhig use of the cuiTcnt doctrine as a covering for
bis own, added nothing new to it. It is true that he made no disclosures on the subject to
satisfy the speculative curiosity of science, but here, as elsewhere, made his communica-
tions only to meet practical wants. It is, however, precisely in the region of practical re-
ligion that the doctrine of the personality of Satan was newly modiKed by its connexion
with the doctrine of Jesus, as the author of salvation. As for the passages in which " evil"
mi'-rht be substiliited for "Satan," it is enough to say, that after the existence of such an
intelligence, the first rebel against God, liad been given as a fact, it was natural to em|doy
him as the representative of evil in general. We may use " Satan" as a symbol for wick-
edness in general, without implying any thing against the doctrine of his personal cxist-
eace. See p. 74.
DExAIONIACAL POSSESSION. 149
lar connexion between all the manifestations of the powers of evil. It
is thus, in perfect accordance with the teaching of Christ, that we as-
cribe those fearful disturbances of the corporeal, spiritual organism (in
which the might of the principle of sin in human nature and the moral
degeneracy of that nature are so strikingly exhibited), to the general
kingdom of the Evil One.
On the other hand, in admitting the higher and concealed cause, we
need not necessarily conceive it as operating in a magical way, without
any preparation. A preparation, a point of contact in the pyschologi-
cal developement, is by no means excluded by such an admission, but,
as is the case in all influences wi-ought upon man's inner nature, rather
presupposed. In every instance we both can and ought to distinguish
tlie symptoms of these diseases (as stated in the narrative) which arose
from the hidden cause, from those which might have originated in the
current opinions of the times, or in the peculiar psychological condition
of the sufferers themselves. In either case we shall have to ascribe
the radical cure, which Christ alone could accomplish, to the operation
of his Spirit upon the evil principle in the man himself.
§ 104. Christ^s Explanations of Demonism furely Spiritual. — His
Accommodation to the Conceptions of the Demoniacs.
It is important to inquire whether Christ assigned, in express words,
any definite view of the origin of these diseases, or established any
view by taking it as a point of departure. That he did not dispute the
current opinion, does not prove that he participated in it; this would
have been one of those errors, not affecting the interests of religion,
which his mission did not require him to correct. Apart from its moral
ground, it belongs to the domain of science, which is left to its own in-
dependent developement — to natural philosophy, psychology, or medi-
cine ; sciences entirely foreign to the sphere of Christ's immediate call-
ing as a teacher, although they might derive fruitful germs of truth from
it. It was his peculiar office only to reveal to men the moral ground
of both general and special evil, and thus to convince them that its
thorough cure could be effected only by influences wrought upon the
principle of moral corruption in which it originated. In order to
this, the doctrine that these diseases were caused by indwelling evil
spirits could be made use of as a point of departure, especially as the
truth of the idea of a kingdom of Satan, in its moral sense, was pre-
supposed.
In regard to Christ's accommodation to the conceptions which the
demoniacs themselves had of their own condition, our remarks in an-
other place (p. 114) in refei-ence to the distinction between^r/««Z and
material accommodation are not fully applicable. The law of veracity,
150 THE MIRACLES QF CHRIST.
in the intercourse of beings in possession of reason, does not hold good
where the essential conditions of rational intercourse are done away.
In such cases, language obeys its natural laws only in proportion as the
use of reason itself is re-established.
There lay a profound truth at the bottom of the demoniac's con-
sciousness that his feelings, inclinations, and woi'ds did not spring from
his rational, God-allied nature (his true I), but from a foreign power
belonging to the kingdom of the devil, which had subjugated the for-
mer. And this truth offered the necessary point of contact for the
operation of Christ's spiritual influence to aid the soul, which longed to
be delivered from its distraction and freed from its ignominious bond-
age. In the mind of the demoniac, the fundamental truth was insep-
arable from the Jbiyfi in which he conceived it ; it was, therefore, ne-
cessary to seize upon the latter, in oi'der to develope the former.
§ 105. Difference hctween Christ's Healing of the Demoniacs and
the Operations of the Jewish Exorcists.
The so-called Exorcists were at that time practising among the Jews
their pretended art of expelling demons ; an art which they affected to
derive from Solomon.* The means which they employed were cer-
tain herbs, fumigations, and forms of conjuration. They probably pos-
sessed a dexterous legerdemain, and perhaps by natural agencies, aided
by the imagination, could produce powerful effects for the moment, the
cases of obvious failure being forgotten in those of apparent success.
Had Christ produced only similar effects, their very commonness would
have made them unimpressive. The moral and spiritual influences of
Christ, proceeding from his immediate Divine power, were of a totally
different character from these juggling tricks.
An excellent illustration of this is afforded in the account of the cure
of the deaf and dumb demoniac, in Luke, xi., 14 ; Matt., xii., 22. Even
the most hostile Phai-isees could not deny that in this instance some-
thing was done which could not be explained by natural causes ; and
to obviate the impression which it made upon the multitude, and to
prevent them from acknowledging the Divinity of Christ, they accused
him, contrary to their own convictions, of being in league with the ru-
ler of evil spirits, and of working his wonders by powers derived from
that dark source. Christ points out the contradiction involved in their
assertion, and showed that such works could be wrought only by the
power of God, which alone could free the human soul from the domin-
ion of the evil 6])irit. He designates this individual case as a sign
* Joseph., Archacol., viii., i2, § 5. Joseplius appeals to a remarkable proof of this fact.
\yhich one of these exorcists had given before Vespasian in presence of i)art of the Ro-
man army. See the Greek Testament of Solomon (written at a later period) in Dr. Fleck's
" Theolofjische KeisefrucUte," iii., 113.
THE RAISING OF THE DEAD. 151
that the kingdom of God, before which the powers of darkness must
flee away, had manifested itself. He gives them to understand thai
the original source of evil in mankind and in men had first to be re
moved, before its particular effects could be subdued. And from this it
necessarily followed (he showed) that every casting out of evil spirits,
every healing of demoniacs, which was not founded upon a victory
over the original evil power, was only an apparent exorcism, and must
be followed by a worse reaction. Thus the ordinary exorcists, who ap-
parently produced the same effects as Christ, in reality did the very op-
posite. The evil was banished only to return with increased power.
He that does not work in communion vdth Christ, and by the power
of the same Spirit, will, in producing effects apparently the same, bring
about totally different results. He advances the kingdom of the devil,
and not the kingdom of God.
The case of the Gadarene* who was restored from raving madness
to a sound mind by the Divine power of Christ, and who was so drawn
to the Saviour that he wished to remain always with him, shows that
the radical cure of the demoniacs consisted in this, that they who were
freed from the evil spirit were drawn to the Spirit of God which had
delivered them. Such a condition was perhaps to many the crisis of
a higher life. In this way Mary Magdalene appears to have been
brought into the narrower circle of Christ's disciples.t
The silence of John's Gospel in regard to Christ's healing of demo-
niacs may be ascribed to the fact that the disease was more common
in Galilee than in Jei'usalem.
III. The Raising of the Dead.
§ 106. Different Views on these Miracles.
The position to be assigned to the miracle of the raising of the dead
will depend upon the view which we take of the real condition of those
said to be raised. Some suppose that they were not absolutely dead in
the physiological sense, but that there was an intermission of the pow-
ers of life, presenting symptoms resembling death ; and those who
adopt this view of the case consider the miracle to differ only in de-
gree from that of healing the sick.
But if the accounts are taken literally, and we suppose a real death,
the miracle was specificalhj different from that of healing, and, in fact,
constituted the very culminating point of supernatural agency. Yet,
even to awaken the dormant powers of life, and kindle up again the
expiring flame, would certainly have been a miracle, demanding for
its accomplishment a Divine power in Christ.
A precise account of the symptoms, and a knowledge of physiology,
* Mark, v., 1. Luke, viii., 26. t Mark, xvi., 9.
152 THE MIRACLES OF CHRIST.
would be necessary to give us the elements for a decision of this ques-
tion, in the absence of any testimony from Christ's own mouth to de-
cide it. In regard to Chi'ist's own words, it is a fair question whether
he meant to distinguish closely between apparent and real death, or
whether he made use of the term " death" only in accordance with the
popular usage.
If it be presupposed that the dead were restored to earthly life after
having entered into another form of existence — into connexion with
another world — the idea of resurrection would be dismal ; but we
have no right to form such a presupposition in our blank ignorance of
the laws under which the new form of consciousness developes itself
in the soul after separation from the body.*
B. CHRIST'S MIRACLES WROUGHT UPON MATERIAL NATURE.
§ 107. Tliese exldhit Supernatural Pmver most obviously.
We pass now to a consideration of the miracles which Christ
wrought upon material nature, in which the supernatural exhibits it-
self in the highest possible degree, as an intermediate psychical agency
is, by the veiy nature of the case, excluded.
Apart from individual cases, it is certain that a power of controlling
nature is one of the marked features of the image of Christ given to
us in the evangelical tradition. He had fully impressed men's minds
with a belief of this. And in deciding upon the individual cases them-
selves, every thing depends upon the conception of Christ's character as
a whole, with which we set out. Were such a narrative of the acts of
an ordinary man handed down to us, even though we might be unable
to separate the actual course of fact from the subjective dress given to
it in the account, we should yet be inclined to suppose that the man
had wrought some mighty influences upon the minds of his contempo-
raries, and that they had involuntarily transferred these to nature, which
is so often made the mirror of what passes in the mind of man.
But if we set out in our investigation of the Gospel narrative with
a just idea of the specific difference between Christ and any, even the
greatest, of mere men ; if we set out with a full intuition of the God-
Man, we shall find no difficulty whatever in believing that he operated
upon the most secret powers of nature as no other could have done,
and, by the might of his Divinity, controlled nature in a way which
finds no parallel among men.
* See hereafter on the resurrection of the "Widow's Sou," and of "Lazarus."
BOOK V.
THE PUBLIC MINISTRY OF CHRIST
ACCORDING TO ITS
CHRONOLOGICAL CONNEXION.
PART I. FROM THE COMMENCEMENT OF HIS MINISTRY TO THE
TRIUMPHAL ENTRY.
PART II. FROM THE TRIUMPHAL ENTRY TO THE ASCENSION.
BOOK V.
THE PUBLIC MEVISTBY OF CHRIST ACCORDING TO ITS CHRONOLOGICAL
CONNEXION.
INTRODUCTION.
ON THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE SYNOPTICAL
GOSPELS AND JOHN.
IN comparing the first three Gospels with John, we find several dis-
crepancies in regard both to the chronology of the narrative and
to the theatre of Christ's labours.
§ 108. Differences of Chronology.
Matthew, Mark, and Luke include but one feast of the Passover
within the period of Christ's public ministry, while John's naiTative
embraces three or four. It may be enough to say in regard to this,
that the former Gospels do not confine themselves to a chronological
arrangement, and therefore we are entitled to draw no conclusion from
the fact that the Passover is mentioned in them but once, and that to-
wards the close of Christ's career upon earth. The facts narrated may
have extended through several years, and yet the mention of the Pass-
over feasts may have been omitted, as other chronological marks have
been.
There is nothing in the first three Gospels to contradict the theory
that Christ's ministry lasted for several years. Even in Luke himself*
there is a passing remark which necessarily presupposes the occurrence
of one Passover in the midst of that ministry. There is nothing, then,
to invalidate John's account, which mentions the occui'rence of several
§ 109. Differences as to the Theatre of Christ's Labours.
According to the synoptical Gospels, Galilee was the chief theatre
of Christ's labours, and he only transferred them to Jerusalem when
he was going to meet his approaching death.
We must here more minutely examine he question before lightly
* Luke, vi., 1 : the aa66arov ocvTcpdirpmrov, in connexion i b the "ripe ears of com."
156 THEATRE OF CHRIST'S LABOURS.
touched upon (p. 99), Did Christ purposely confine his labours
chiefly to Galilee in hope of finding more ready access to the hearts
of its simpler-minded inhabitants, who were less in bondage to the
traditions of the Pharisees than the people of Jerusalem 1 or was it
because he was less exposed there to the " snares" of the Pharisees,
and could, therefore, hope to exercise his labours more uninterruptedly,
and for a longer period ? Did he wait until he had laid the foundation
of his work so firmly that it would endure, and propagate itself after
his death, before he determined to go and meet the perils that awaited
him at the seat of the priesthood ] Did he only make up his mind
to go, in spite of the dangers which he foresaw would environ him, in
order to avoid the re})roach of distrusting the Divinity of his own
cause, and thereby giving occasion of perplexity to his disciples 1
If these questions are answered in the affirmative, we should have
to suppose that the tradition which John followed' in his Gospel did
not give correctly the original relations of Christ's labours. It was
utterly inconsistent with a wish on his part to be recognized as Mes-
siah, for him to conceal himself so long in a corner of Galilee, and to
hold back, for so long a time, his testimony to his Divine calling before
the face of the people and the priests at Jerusalem. It would have
been a stumbling-block, indeed, for one who professed to acknowledge
the old Mosaic religious ideas in all their holiness, to refrain, durinfr
the whole course of his public labours, from visiting the Temple at
one of the chief feasts of the Jews.
§ 110. V roof that Christ frcquaithj exercised his Ministnj in
Judca and Jerusalem.
It is every way accordant, indeed, with internal probability, that Je-
sus should have expected to find easier access to the simple-minded
Galilean peasants than to the rich, the haughty, and the learned at Je-
rusalem, But it is altogether improbable to suppose that he would
subject himself to the reproach of despising the ancient and holy insti-
tutions* of the Jews, by absenting himself from the gatherings of the
devout at their chief feasts ;f and it would have been strange if he had
neglected the opportunity of extending his labours that was afforded by
* In the Talmndieal treatise " Chagigak," c. ii., none (among adults) but the deaf, tlie
sick, the insane, and the very aged, are exempted from the obhgatiou to attend the princi-
pal feasts at Jerusalem. Of course, this law could not apply to the Jews of distant coun-
tries, who were only required to send annually a deputation to the Temple, with sacrifices,
and with the money arising from the price of the first fruits. Conf. Philo, Legat. ad Ca-
jum, $§ 23. 31.
t Luke, ii., 41, shows that the devout of Galilee felt themselves bound to journey to Je-
rasalcm at least at the Passover ; the passage even speaks of the journey of a woman, on
■vrhom the law impoced no such obligation. We cannot (with Slrauss) find any proof even
in Matthew that absence from the festivals was held of no account among the Jewish-
Chri-stians.
JERUSALEM. 157
the general coming together of Jews from all countries at those festi-
vals.
And how unwise would it have been in him to defer the commence-
ment of his labours iu the Theocratic capital until the precise period
when his ministry in Galilee must have drawn upon him the hatred and
the fears of the prevailing Pharisaic party of Jerusalem, when he must
have foreseen, too, that he would be overcome by them !
As to his putting off his journey to Jerusalem until the Apostles were
sufficiently jorepared to carry on the work without bis personal pres-
ence, surely the Apostles knew as yet too little of his doctrines to ren-
der such a course consistent even with human foresight.
Moreover, the fanatical hatred of Christ which was manifested by
the Pharisaical party can only be explained upon the ground that he
had excited their opposition by a previous ministry, of some duration,
in the city of Jerusalem itself. Nor are there wanting, even in the
first three Gospels, intimations to the same effect, e. g., Matt., iv., 25 ;
XV., 1, in which the sciibes and Pharisees of Jenisalcm are spoken of
as o^atherino^ round Jesus in Galilee and asking^ him entanMinor nues-
tions. It may have been the case, either that, after his labours in Jeru-
salem had drawn their hatred upon him, they followed, and watched
him suspiciously, even in Galilee ; or that some of the events that 0T"i-
ginally happened in the city were, in the course of tradition, intermin-
gled and confused with tliose which occurred in Galilee. Again, the
earnest exclamation of Christ, recorded in Luke, xiii., 34 ; Matt., xxiii.,
37, distinctly implies that he had often endeavoured, hy 7iis personal
teacMng in Jerusalem^ to rouse the people to repentance and conver-
sion, that they might be saved from the ruin then impending over them.
The words, "children of Jerusalem^'' although they might apply to the
whole nation, must, in this exclamation, which is specifically addressed
to the " city lohich hilled tlie ^irophets^'' be taken as referring directly to
the inhabitants of that city.
The account of Christ's relations with the family of Lazarus, given
in Luke (x., 38-42), coincides in spirit with John's statement (xi., 5)
of the intimate affection with which the Saviour regarded them ; and
the intimacy must have been formed during a prolonged stay in Jeru-
salem. The fact, too, that several distinguished, men of that city {e. g.,
Josepb of Aiimathea, as we are told by the first Evangelists) had at-
tached themselves to Christ, affVirds us the same conclusion. Nor can
we fail to trace, in Luke's account (ix., 51-62) of his last journey t(5
Jerusalem, some confusion, arising from a blending together, in the nai'-
rative, of events that had occuiTed on a former journey.
And, again, can it be imagined that Christ omitted to make use of his
miraculous powers* inecisely in Jerusalem, where the best opportunities
* This difficulty, indeed, is avoided in Matthew's Gospel, for it is there stated (xxi., 14),
158 THEATRE OF CHRIST'S LABOURS.
of employing them for the relief of human suffering would have been
atfortled?" Would there not, moreover, have been some trace of this
in the mode of his reception at Jerusalem, similar, probably, to what
occurred on his first labours at Nazareth? Would not his labours
there have been very different from what the synoptical Gospels report
them, if they had been his first efforts in the city 1
Thus there are many things in the first three Gospels themselves
which indicate and presuppose the accuracy of John's narrative. The
latter is, besides, entirely consistent with itself, both in its chronology,
and in its accounts of the several journeys of Christ to the Feasts.
Finally, those who infer from the synoptical Gospels that Christ
made but one journey, must ascribe to the author of John's Gospel a
fabrication, wilfully invented, to serve his oviti purpose. But the man
who could do this could never have written such a Gospel. Moreover,
were it a fiction, still, if intended to be believed, it would have been
more accommodated to the popular tradition. No one individual could
have remodelled the entire tradition after an invented plan of his own,
contradicting all others.
But, on the other hand, by following John, we do not charge any
falsification upon the three other Evangelists : we can easily conceive
haw the separate traditions, of which those Gospels were made up,
may have been so put together, without any intention to deceive, as
apparently to represent Christ as making one Passover journey. From
the account of the appearances of Christ after the resurrection given
by Matthew, we may see how easily such obscurities crept into the
circle of Galilean traditions. Luke agrees with John in assigning
.Jerusalem as the scene of those appearances ; yet, from reading IVLit-
thew alone, we might infer that they all took place in Galilee.*
(jiiite indefinitely, however, that " he healed the lame and the blind in the Temple." It is
impossible not to see that the historical connexion is lost in this passage of MaUhew ; we
can gather it correctly only from John's Gospel.
'* A favourable light is thrown upon the genuineness and credibility of John's Gospel by
the fact that it alone contains a closely connected and chronological account of Christ's
public ministi-y.
PART I.
FROM THE COMMENCEMENT OF CHRIST'S PUBLIC MINIS-
TRY TO THE TRIUMPHAL ENTRY.
CHAPTER L
JESUS AND JOHN THE BAPTIST.— THE FIRST DISCIPLES.
"^^TE resume the thread of our historical narrative at the point
* * where it was broken off.*
On issuing from the solitude in which he had prepared himself for
his public labours, Jesus again sought the prophetic man who had given
him the Divine signal for their commencement, and had consecrated
him to his holy calling. Not, indeed, in order to form a close connex-
ion with him, for John had to remain true to his office as Forerunner,
and to continue his ministry in that capacity, until the Messiah should
lay the foundatitjn of his visible kingdom with miraculous power, and,
by securing general acknowledgment, should indicate to the Forerun-
ner, also, that he should submit himself, with all others, to the Theo-
cratic King. But in the circle of Galilean disciples that had gathered
around John, full of longing aspirations, Jesus might expect to find
some suitable to be taken into fellowship with himself and trained to
become his organs. The sphere of John's ministry was calculated to
offer the best point of transition to Christ's independent labours.
§ 111. jSIessage of the Sanhedrivi to John at Bcthahara.
Meanwhile John, with his disciples, had been traversing both shores
of the Jordan ; and just at that time he was on the east side of the
river, in Perea, at Bethany, or Bethabara.t The Jewish Sanhedrim,
the highest ecclesiastical authority, had at first quietly suffered him to
go on preaching repentance. But when his followers and influence in-
creased to such an extent that men were even inclined to look upon
him as the Messiah, that high tribunal thought it best to send a deputa-
tion! to obtain from his own lips an explanation of the calling in which
he laboured.
John did not at once give as positive a statement as was desired, but
* Page 69.
t Two different names given to the same place at different times, both having the same
meaning, " a place of ships," " a place for crossing in ships" (a fen-y). See Liicke on John,
'"■ Winers "Bil)lisches Reahvorterbuch," i., 196, 2d ed. { John, i., 19, seq.
160 JESUS AND JOHN THE BAPTIST.
satisfied himself with giving a negative to the popular idea which had
probably caused the deputation to be sent ["■ I am not the Christ^'].
But as he accompanied this denial with no further explanation in re-
gard to himself, the messengers were compelled to press him with fur-
ther questions. They naturally aslced him, then, whether he wished to
be considered as one of the great personages who were looked for as
precursors of Messiah; presupposing that only in this sense he could
assume a Divine calling to baptize. John continued to give curt re-
plies, just enough to meet each separate question. Although in a
spiritual sense he was the Elias who was to precede Messiah, he de-
nied that he was so (i. c, in the carnal sense in which they put the
question and would understand the answer). He described himself
only in general terms, not liable to perversion, as the one through whom
the voice of God called upon the nation to repent and prepare for a
new and glorious revelation that was at hand. Humbling himself, as
the bearer merely of a prefigurative baptism, he pointed to the might-
ier One who should baptize with the Spirit, who already stood, unrec-
ognized, in their midst. His remark, " ye know him not," was doubt-
less founded upon the fact (which he did not utter) that he knew him,
as he had before been revealed at his baptism.
These answers to the deputation are less clear and full than those
which the Baptist gave for the warning and instruction of individuals,
as recorded in the first Gosjiels. As the ruling powers had little fa-
vour for John, he had good reason to susjiect the intentions with which
the Sanhedrim had sent their messengers. Hence the brevity and re-
serve with which he answered them.
§ 112. John points to Jesus as the Svjfeiing Messiah, and testifies to his
Higher Dignity.
On the day after John had thus (officially, as it were) pohited Christ
out as having already appeared among the people, though unrecognized
by them, the Saviour came forth ftom his seclusion, and showed him-
self in the midst of John's disciples.* The Baptist, beholding his
approach, exclaimed, ^'Behold the Lamh of God, that tahcth away the
sin of the worlds The image of the Holy One, suffering for his peo-
ple, and bearing their sins (Isa., liii.), stood before his soul as he uttered
these words. As we have already seen, John believed that the Mes-
siah would have to go through a struggle with the corrupt pait of the
people ; andiie readily joined to this belief the idea of a Messiah sif-
fering for the sins of the people, and triumphing through suffering.
The intuition to which he gave utterance was simultaneous with the
appearance before his eyes of Christ's person, so gentle, so calm, and
' John, i., 29.
THE BAPTIST POINTS OUT CHRIST. 161
so meek;* and his conception of the idea of Messiah, in a prophetic
si)irit, reached its very acme. Yet we cannot define precisely the
meanitjg which John himself attached to the words ; for we cannot
suppose in him a doctrinal conception of their import such as a fully
Christian mind would have.f His was a prophetic intuition, bordering
indeed on Christianity, but yet, perhaps, commingled with wholly hete-
rogeneous elements.
After John had thus designated the character of Jesus, to whom he
wished to dii'ect his disciples, he repeats anew the testimony which he
had before publicly given "of him that was to follow" (although prob-
ably not given, in the first instance, with the same confidence as to the
person), and applies it, in stronger terms, to Christ — " This is he of
whom I said, After 7ne cometh a man that is preferred before me, for he
was before me."^ (" Who has taken a higher place than I, according
to his nature.")
* Hence the appropriateness of the figure of the lamb rather than of any otlicr animal
nsed in the offerings. What we say is enough to indicate the grounds on whicli we differ
from other interpretations of this passage. Conf Liicke, in loc.
t We do not suppose, therefore, that the Baptist had before his mind the full sense
which the Evangelist, from his Christian stand-point, connected with the words. It cannot
be known with certainty but that the former used the word DJ^, which the latter trans-
lated KoVfioj. From a mind like the Evangelist's we could hardly expect so fine a dis-
tinction between tiie objective and subjective to be distinctly marked in his statement of
the words of another. He perhaps involuntarily blended them. He revered the memory
of the Baptist, his spiritual guide; these words of the Baptist had greatly tended to de-
vclope his inner life, and bad led him to Christ ; it was, therefore, all the easier for him to
attribute to them a higher Christian sense than the Baptist had when he uttered them.
The interpretation which he gave to them may also thus have reacted upon the form in
which they were impressed upon his memorj'. This view does not in the least impugn die
veracity of the naiTative, or tend to show that John was not its author. The whole tone
of the Baptist's words is consistent with his character and habits. Moreover, as we have
before remarked (p. 54), the kingdom of God, as spreading among the h-eatlwri nations, had
opened partially to his view ; he may, therefore, in the passage under discussion, have had
reference to mankind, rather than to the Jewish world.
X John, i., 30. These obscurely prophetic words were the Baptist's own, and not put
into his mouth by the Evangelist. But this only makes their explanation more difficult.
According to the usage of the Greek, and of language generally, the before of place and
time may express, figuratively, precedence of dignity, and, in this usage, qimpoaBtv nov
yr/oi'cv is easily interpreted, " althovgh (in the order of timf) he comes after me, yet (in the
order of dignity) he wan before me.'' In the full certainty of prophetic intuition, the Baptist
describes this as already realized. It is hai-der to interpret -pwrdi ^ou >/v. Referring the
words "he was before me" to the pre-exi/tence of Christ, they woidd imply that his dignitj'
as Messiah was to grow out of his pre-existing Divine nature. Nor could it, in this case,
be said that the Evangelist had involuntarily modified the language of the Baptist by an
infusion of his own Clu-istian ideas ; for, in the mind of the latter, the higher conception of
the person of the Messiah, as well as of his work and kingdom, may have been developed
from a profoundly spiritual interpretation of the prophecies of the Old Testament. This
much, indeed, is implied in his paj-tial statements (recorded by the other Evangelists) in
regard to the peculiar indwelHng of the Holy Ghost in the Messiah; although it does not
follow that the Baptist was fully conscious of this. It remaiixs a question, whether it
would not be more in accordance with the simple conception of the Baptist to take r^pSiToi
as referring, not to pre existence, but to priority of nature, which interpretation I have fol-
L
162 CHRIST IN GALILEE,
§ 113. Joliii and Andrew, Disciples of John, attach themselves to Jesus. —
Gradual Attraction of others.
These words of the Baptist were listened to by two Galilean youths,
who stood in the circle of his disciples — John and Andrew. It was
about four o'clock in the afternoon, when, obeying the hint of the
Baptist, they followed Jesus ; refraining, however, in reverence, from
disturbing his meditations. The Saviour, noticing them, turned kindly
and asked what they desired. Even then they did not venture to
express their longing to be honoured with his friendship ; but only
timidly inquired where he dwelt. Anticipating their request, he kindly
invited them to visit him. The few hours that remained before evening
were spent in his society. This was their first impression of Christ ;
he left it to work in their hearts. Thus was it also with Simon (John,
i,, 42), in whom Christ discerned in a moment the yet dormant spirit
of the Wan of Rock. And those whose first impressions were thus
received pointed Christ out to their fellows; and thus arose l\\e first
circle of disciples, which accompanied him from Perasa back to Gali-
lee.*
CHAPTER II.
COMMENCEMENT OF CHRIST'S PUBLIC TEACHING.
§ 114. The Miraculous Draught of Fishes. — Effect of the Miracle
on Peter.
ON his return to Galilee Christ at once began his labours as a
teacher; not, however, in the synagogues, but in instructing the
groups that gathered around him. He betook himself first, not to Naz-
areth, his native place, where he could least hope to be received as a.
prophet (the carnal mind looks only at the outward appearance), but
to the little town of Capernaum. The young men who had accompa-
nied him from Peraea were from the neighbourhood of Capernaum
lowed in the text. This involves no tautology; the "becoming greater" is derived from
tlie '• being greater." The word >iv is used, and not lari, to indicate that the " priority of
essence" yireceded "the pi-iority of dignity," which was not obtained hy Christ, in its
manifestation, until a later period. It is an oxymoron: "he was that, which he Iras he-
come." Thus interpreted, the passage corresponds to what John says of Christ in another
form, in Matt., iji., 11. If this view be adopted, we must remember to distinguisli between
the sense in which the Baptist uttered the words and that which tlie Evangelist, from his
higher Christian consciousness, attributes to them.
* John, i., 42-47. It is apparent from John's statement alone that Christ diil not take
these young disciples, who were afterward to be his organs, immediately into close fel-
lowship, but left Uiem for a while to themselves. John gives us no furtlier account of tlie
forming of tlie Apostolic community ; he presupposes majiy things, which we mu.^t en-
deavour to fill up by comiiariiig the synoptical Gospels.
THE DRAUGHT OF FISHES. 163
and Bethsaida ; and he only waited for a suitable opportunity to take
them into closer communion. Such an opportunity was the following:
One day, as he was walking upon the western shore of the Sea of
Genesareth, an increasing throng of eager listeners collected about
him. Some fishermen who had toiled all night and brought up nothing
but empty nets, had left their vessels fastened near the shore. Jesus
asked Simon, to whom one of the fishing-boats belonged, to push it
out a little way from the shore, that he might stand on board, and thus
address the people to better advantage.* On finishing his discourse,
he turned to Peter, who doubtless was anew struck with the power of
his words, and told him to cast his net into the deep. Although lie
had toiled all night in vain, he obeyed the Master at a word. This full
confidence of Peter shows that he had already been impressed to some
extent, at least, with the Divinity of Chi'ist.t An impression of the
most powerful character, however, must have been made upon him (as
a fisherman) by the wonderful result of this once letting down of his
net, after the vain attempts of the long night before. The manifesta-
tion of the Divine power to him in the exercise of his own trade was
characteristic of the Divine operations generally in the history of
Christianity ; he was thus led from the Carnal to the Spiritual.| All
his previous impressions were revived and deepened by this sudden ex-
hibition of the power of a word from Christ, and the Saviour appeared
so exalted that he felt himself unworthy to be near him [" Depart from
me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord ./"]§ The Divine power appears
* A comparison of Luke, v., with Matt-, iv., 18, will vindicate the correctness of this rep-
resentation. Here we have two hidependent statements : that in Matthew an abbreviated
one, while Luke's is the vivid and circumstantial account of an eye-witness. The words
of Christ to Peter, as given by Matthew (iv., 19), " / ivill 7nake you Jtshers of vicii," seem
to presuppose an event such as the miraculous draught of fishes ; but Matthew presents
them as entirely isolated, while Luke gives the occasion of them verj' graphically. None
but those abstractionists who must measure all phenomena, however infinite in variety,
upon the Procrustean bed of their own logical formulas, will see in this account the stam[»
of a legendary story. It has all the freshness of life and reality about it. Whoever is
well read in the history of the diffusion of Christianity in all ages will be able to recall
many analogous cases. Schlciermacher (Comm. on Luke, in loc. or " Werke," ii., 53), in
his remarks on this case, showed with what nice tact he could distinguish history from l< -
^e.nd. Honour to the memory of that great man, whose profoundly logical mind humbled
itself, in pure love of Truth, before the power of History !
t It also confirms the account in John's Gospel. The connexion of the narrative which
I have given abundantly shows that Matthew's account is not irreconcilable with Luke's,
or both with John's, as some suppose. I do not mean to say, however, that the connexion
thus made by comparing all the accounts was present to the minds of the writers severally,
for in that case, doubtless, the form of their narratives would have been diflerent from
what it is now. Such discrepancies can surprise no man who has attempted to gather a
connected narrative of any kind from several distinct accounts.
\ Those who believe in a Divine teleological government of the world, in a Providence
which makes Nature subserve the progress of the kingdom of God, must regard this event
as one of those in which the border line between the natural and supernatural is hard to
be distinguished, and which form the point of transition from the fonner to the latter.
$ On account of this peculiar relation between Christ and Peter, we can hardly suppo.se
164 CHRIST IN GALILEE.
fearful, in its holiness, to the sinner who is conscious of his sinfulness;
it fills him with consternation ; he shrinks back from it witli trembling.
Infinite, indeed, in view of the law, must the chasm appear between
the sinner and the Divinely exalted Holy One.*
Christ seized upon this impression, and, glorifying the Physical into
the Spiritual, by his prophetic explanation of the phenomenon, said to
Peter [Fear not ; from henceforth thou shall catch mcn^ : " Shrink not
back in fear. Take confidence in me. Attach thyself henceforth
whoUy to mo. Thou shalt see greater proofs of my power than this.
In fellowship with me thou shalt achieve greater miracles. From
henceforth thy net shall catch men."
The same impression, also, caused Andrew, James, and Johnf to
join themselves from thenceforth more closely to Jesus.
§ 115. The Calling of Nathanacl.
In the case of a John, the full impression of Christ's personality,
first received, pre^iarod the depths of his youthful soul for sudden and
(although much may be said in favour of it) that this event occurred after he had known
Christ for some time, or after he had been a witness of his first public labours at Jerusalem ;
so, also, we camiot, for the same reason, place it after the wedding at Cana ; although tliis
last is more probable than the other, since we cannot say certainly what impressions the
occun-ences at Cana made, at first, upon the disciples. The view which we have followed
in the text seems to be conti^adicted by the connexion between John, i., 43, and 46 ; but
there is no real contradiction. The calling of Nathanael (John, i., 4G) and that of Philip (i..
43) are not necessarily connected in place and time. John mentions an intended return to
Galilee (v. 43), but says nothing about the journey itself; he may have been induced, bj-
the mention of Bethsaida, to place the theatre of the account in that region. (See Blcc/;,
Stud. u. Krit., 1833, ii.) The late B. Jacohi (in the same periodical, 1838, iv., 852) adduces"
against this view John's accuracy, in this passage, in mentioning time and place. It i.s
not clear, however, that John meant to give, in each case in the chapter, the time and place
exactly. His exactness extends only to the events which served to lead John's disciples
to Christ; and it is not at all evident that Nathanael belonged to that number. The way
in which Philip describes the Messiali to him, sajing nothing of the Baptist's testimony,
rather shows the contrary. Moreover, the opposite view would prove that Nathanael was
first found in Galilee.
* The truth of this individual trait, as narrated of Peter, is confirmed by the subsequent
devolopement of his character. The consciousness of his sinfulness and distance from the
perfectly Holy One must, indeed, have remained; and his .sense of the loftiness of Christ
could be diminished by no degree of intimacy with him. But there was this great differ-
ence between the two periods of his religious life, that in the latter, as he imbibed more
and more the spirit of communion with Christ, he felt himself no more repelled as a siinier
from Him in whom the source of Divine life for men was revealed, but attracted to him,
not merely by his own spiritual affinities, but by his personal experience, that He "had the
words of eternal life." The redeeming- power of tlie Divine One wfis more and more fully
revealed to him; the Divinity api)eared to him no more as a merely outward, but as an in-
ward power. The central source of all the individual rays of Divinity shone forth upon his
conscionsness, and the separate rays of themselves, therefore, appeared in a new light.
t Luke says (v. 10) that James ami Jolm, the sons of Zebedee, were " partners with Si
mon ;" they wore, therefore, eye-witnesses of that event, and received tlie same impression
from it. In Matthew's statement (iv., 21) they were with their father, in another vess.l.
" mending their nets." This agrees will enough with Luke, since he likewise mentions
two vessels, and — not, indeed, the mending, but — the washing of the much-used nets.
CALLING OF NATHANAEL. 165
separate impressions of the Divinity of Jesus, which soon brought him
to a complete decision. But the naa-row prejudices of a Nathanaei.
had to be overcome by a separate supernatural sign before he could
receive the impression of Christ's manifestation and nature as a whole.
When Philip first announced to him that Jesus of Nazareth was the
Messiah, he expressed both surprise and incredulity that any thing so
liigh should come forth from a corner like Galilee. Instead of discuss-
ing the point, Philip appeals to his own experience, and tells him to
" come and see." Nathanael's prejudice was not strong enough to
prevent his compliance, or to hinder him from being convinced by facts.
Christ sees and esteems his love of truth, and receives him with the
words, " Behold an Isj-adite indeed, in whom there is no guile''' (a true
and honest-hearted member of the Theocratic nation). The candid
youth is surprised to find himself known by a stranger. He expresses
his astonishment, and Christ increases the impression made upon his
feelings, by a more striking proof still of his supernatural knowledge,
telling him that his glance, piercing the barriers of space, had rested
on him before Philip called him as he stood " under the fig-tree" (this
probably had some reference to the thcrughts which occupied his mind
under the fig-tree). His j^rejudices are readily removed [he acknowl-
edged Christ as " Son of God and King of IsraeV^^ ; Christ admits
that he is in the first stage of faith,* but tells him that his faith must
develope itself from this beginning, and advance to a higher aim (John,
i., 50, 51). A faith thus resting on a single manifestation might easily
be perplexed by some other single one, that might not meet its expec-
tations. That is a genuine faith (according to Chr'ist) which carries it-
self to the very central-point of revelation, seizes the intuition of Di-
vinity in its immediate nature and manifestation as a whole, and ob-
tains, through immediate contact with the Divine in the Spirit, a stand-
point which doubt can never reach. Nathanael was to see " greater
things" than this isolated ray of the supernatural. He was to see the
"heavens opened upon the Son of Man,'" into whose intimacy he was
about to enter, and " Angels of God ascending and descending'''' upon
him. He was to learn Christ in his true relation to the developement
of humanity, as Him through whom liuraan nature was to bo glorified ;
through whom the locked-up heavens were again to be opened ; the
communion with heaven and earth restored ; to whom and from whom
all the powers of heaven were to flow. Such was to be his Divine
glory in xXs full manifestation; all other signs were but individual to-
kens of it.
* See p. 138.
166 CHRIST AT CANA.
CHAPTER III.
JESUS AT CANA.
§ 116. The Change of Water into Wine. — Character and Imj)ort of the
Miracle. — Little Impression i7iadc upon the People.
THREE days aftei" Christ had thus set fox'th the mode in which he
from that time should reveal himself, he displayed, at a wedding in
Cana,* the fulness of" the power of heaven" streaming forth from him-
self, which was to transfigure, as he had said, both nature and humanity.
Tlie wine ])rovided for the occasion gave out, and Mary requested her
Son to supply the lack by employing the powers that were at his com-
mand. Having recognized him as Messiah, she necessarily expected
him to work miracles, and this expectation was increased by the im-
pression which he had made in the short time that had elapsed after
his consecration to the Messianic mission. She looked impatiently for
the hour when he should reveal himself in his glory, as Messiah, before
the eyes of all men.
liut Christ, although he held all purely human feelings sacred, yet
demanded that " man should deny father and mother" when the cause
of God required it. He had now to apply this principle to his own
mother, and, conscious of his Divine character and calling, to rebuke
the request thus made to him, and the feelings which prompted it.
" What have I to do with thee ? mine hour is not yet come ;" as if he had
said, " Our wishes lie apart. My Divine powers cannot be made sub-
sernent to earthly aims and motives. My acts obey a higher plan and
loftier laws, in accordance with which each of them has its appointed
time. As yet, the moment for revealing myself in my Messianic dig-
nity, by miracles apparent to all eyes, has not arrived,"
Christ intended, as he here intimates, to come forth gradualhj from
his obscurity. He had no idea of displaying his glory, as Mary wished,
at once. Still, as she might have been accustomed to take from his
words and look more than he uttered, she pi'obably undei-stood that her
wish would be met, so far as the fact was concerned, though from a
jioint of view totally different from her own. And so it was ; the thing
was done, but in no very striking way, nor in a way calculated to re-
veal his -Messianic glory to all eyes.
As for the character of the miracle itself, we cannot place it, as some
do, among the highest of Christ's miraculous acts. We conceive it
* It is to be remarked that Natlianael \va.s " the son of Tholmai, " /'. c, Bartholomew, of
Caiia ; which fact may coiitinu our view of the order of the evculs.
THE WATER CHANGED TO WINE. 167
thus : He brought out of water, by his creative energy, a substance
(wine), which is naturally the joint product of the growth of the vine,
and of human labour, water being only one of the co-operating factors ;
and thus substituted his creative, power for various natural and artificial
processes. But we are not justified in inferring that the water was
changed into manufactured loine ; but that, by his direct agency, he
imparted to it powers capable of producing the same effects ; that he
intensified (so to speak) the powers of water into those of wine.* In-
deed, this latter view of the miracle conforms better to its spiritual im-
port than the former.t
It is not a sufficient explanation of \)ae, final cause and moral bearing!
of the miracle to say that Christ intended, by thus exhibiting his glory,
to incite and confirm a faith in his calling. We must seek its import
rather by contemplating it in reference to his moral self-revelation as
a whole ; by inquiring how the peculiar Spirit of Christ was reflected
and illustrated in this single act.
While in retirement, he had resembled, in the austerity of his life,
the ascetic preacher of repentance, John the Baptist. Now, however,
in the very beginning of his public labours, no longer in solitude, but
minjTlinfT in the social life of men, he enters into all human interests,
shares all human feelings, and thus at once presents a contrast to the
severe legalism of John. In the joyous circle of a wedding, he per-
forms his first miracle to gratify a social want. Thus he sanctifies con-
nexions, feelings, joys, that are purely human, by his personal presence,
and by unfolding his Divine powers in such a circle and on such an
occasion. In this view the miracle gives the spirit of Christian Ethics,
wh(jse task it is to apply to all human relations the image of Christ as
* I would be pleased to believe, if I conld, that tbe view here taken had as old ecclesi-
astical authority as the late Bonni;.rarlen-Crusms supposes he has found for it, in tbe ancient
hymn " De Epiphania Domini" {Daniel, Thesaurus Hjmnologious, i., p. 19j : " Vel hydriis
plenis aqua vini saporem. infuderis." But the word saporem, can hardly be made emphatic.
In the sense of the hymn, the words " vini saporem infundere'' probably mean nothinij
more than "in vLuura mutare."
t Compare, as analogies, the mineral xprings, in which, by natural processes, new
powers are given to water ; and tbe ancient accounts of springs which sent forth waters
like wine — intoxicating waters : " HoAAaxuC 6' chi K/ifnai at piv TTOTiiiwTcpat xai ohuiciaTcpai, ui;
tl -zfpi na(p\ayoriin; Tphi m "f""" '■o'f i)'X'^P^o^'i ImoTrivctv zooaiovTai." — AtheruEus, Deip., ii., § 17, 18.
Of another water says Thexrpompui, "roii TrivovToi airo /icOucKcedai, xaOa xai roii tov oivdv."
t The supposition that John's Gospel was written by some one of Alexandrian educa-
tion, with a tendency to Gnosticism, is refuted by this narrative. Such a man would never
have assigned such an object and such a scene for Christ's first miracle. Such a one
could not have invented and put into the mouth of the " ruler of the feast" the clumsy
jest which he uttered (John, ii., 9), (although we do not (as some doi lay stress upon it, and
infer that the guests were nearly drunk). Any one writing a historj' of Christ apolo-
getically, and with a view to exalt his character according to the tendency of those times,
would rather have altered and adorned a true narrative of such facts (if such existed) than
have invented a false one bearing against his object ; or, if he had some symbolical meaning
in his view, he would certainly have stated it.
168 CHRIST'S FIRST MINISTRY AT JERUSALEM.
stamped upon his self-revealed life. But it has a fuithei- and a great
symbolical import : Christ employed water, one of the commonest sup-
ports of life, as the vehicle of a higher power : so it is the peculiarity
of Christ's Spirit and labours, the peculiarity of the work of Christianity
not to destroy what is natural, but to ennoble and transfigure it ; to en-
able it, as the organ of Divine powers, to produce effects beyond its
original capacities. To energize the power of Water into that of Win .
is, indeed, in every sense, the peculiar office of Christianity.
This first stay of Christ in Galilee after his inauguration as Messiah
was attended with important results in the training of the narrower
circle of his disciples : but he does not appear, in tliat short time, to have
made any lasting impression upon the people. There were few so in-
genuous in their prepossessions as a Nathanael ; the prejudices of many
against the " son of the carpenter at Nazareth" could not be removed
until they had obtained a vivid impression of his public labours at the
feast of the Passover in the metropolis. Even in this beginning of his
labours in Galilee, he had probably found occasion to apply the Jewish
proverb, " a prophet hath no honour in his own country y*
CHAPTER IV.
FIRST JOURNEY TO JERUSALEM TO ATTEND THE FEAST OF THE
PASSOVER.
§ 117. The Purifying of the Temple.
jURING the feast of the Passover Jesus appeared at Jerusalem
in his prophetic calling, and accredited it by miracles.t On vis-
iting the Temple, he found its worship disturbed by disorders which
desecrated the holy place — a picture of the general secularization of
the Theocracy.|
■' John, iv., 44: doubtless referring to this period ; a supposition which the use of )«/' ren-
ders probable. Thus interpreted, we should have John's testimony that Christ had already
sought to appear as a teacher in Galilee.
t Although the purifying of the Temple doubtless belongs to an early period of Christ's
teachini,', it is by no means clear, from John's account, that Christ had not taught and
wrought miracles before ; indeed, the manner in which the priests addressed him ratlier
shows the contrary.
{ Here a difliculty arises: the cleansing of the Temple is placed by John at tlie legin-
nitig of Christ's ministiy, during his first stay at Jerusalem ; by tlie otlior Evangelists at
the end of his labours, during his last stay there. Unless the same event took place tirice,
and in the very same way (wliich is hardly probable), either John or the others must have
deviated from the chronological ordor. It may appear more probable that an act imidying
so great power over the priests, and the throng of buyers and sellers, was done after his
last triumphal entry, when the people were, for the moment, enthusiastic in his favour, than
PURIFYING OF THE TEMPLE. 169
For the convenience of the Jews from a distance who wished to of-
fer sacrifices, booths had been erected in the Temple-court, in which
every thing necessary for the purpose was kept for sale, and money-
changers were also allowed to take their stand there ; but, as might
have been expected from the existing corruption of the Jewish people,
many foul abuses had grown up. The merchants and brokers made
every thing subservient to their avarice, and their noisy huckstering
was a great disturbance to the worship of the Temple.
It was Christ's calling to combat the corruptions of the secularized
Theocracy, and to predict the judgments of God against them. And
as the general desecration of all that was holy was imaged in these
profane doings at the Temple, he first manifested against them his holy
anger. Threatening the traders with a scourge of small cords, he
drove them out of the Temple ; and said to those who sold doves,
" Take these things hence ; make not my Father'' s house a house of mer-
chandise."*
These words are not only applicable to the special case, but also
contain a severe reproof of that carnal tendency which debases God's
house into a merchant's exchange". The lifting up of the scourge could
not have been in token of physical force, for— apart from Christ's char-
acter— what was one man against so many] It could only be a sym-
bolical sign — a sign of the judgments of God that were so soon to fall
upon those who had corrupted the Theocracy.t
There was no miracle, in the proper sense, wrought here, but a proof
of the confident Divine power with which he influenced the minds of
men ; an example of the direct impression of Divinity, of the power
of the manifestation of the Holy One as a punisher, in rousing the
slumbering conscience. Origcn, who found many difficulties in this
narrative,! and was inclined to regard it as ideal and symbolical, thought
at the begiuuiug of his labours. On the other hand, he would have had more occasion,
after his triumphal entry, to avoid every thing that could occasion public disturbance, or
wear the appearance of employing earthly power. As for the difficulty of the thing at his
opening ministry, no one can say ii'hat influences the immediate power of God might pro-
duce upon the minds and feelings of men. It is certainly less easy to account for such an
anachronism in Julin, whoso account is all of a piece, and accurate in chronological order,
than in the other Evangelists ; the latter might naturally connect a fact like this, well
adapted to oral tradition, with the la&t entry, which was the only one mentioned in the cir-
cle of accounts which they compiled. According to Joliu (ii., 18), the Jews put the ques-
tion, " What sign showest thou us 1" &c. ; in Luke, xx., 2, the Sanhedrim ask, "By what
authority doest thou these things 1" &c. It might be supposed that tliis last question sug-
gested the statement of the event which gave rise to it, if it were certain (as, indeed, it is
not) that in the passage in Luke it has this special reference to the act, and not a reference
to Christ's teaching in general at that time.
* John, at most, alludes to Isa., Ivi., 7 ; Jer., vii., 11 : but the other Gospels give direct
citations. This is another proof of the origuiality of Jolm's narrative.
t How absurd would it be to atti-ibute the invention of such an incident as this to a man
of Alexandrian culture ! Its utter repugnance to Alexandrian views is shown by the fact
that Origen considered it one of the greatest objections to the credibility of the naiTative.
t T. ix.. in Joann.
170 CHRIST'S FIRST MINISTRY AT JERUSALEM.
that if it were to be received as history* the miracle would be greater
than the change of" water into wine, or, indeed, any other of Christ's
deeds ; as in this case he would not have had to act upon inert and life-
less matter, but upon living beings capable of resistance. But, on the
contrary, no miracle, in the proper sense, was wrought, precisely be-
cause Christ had to operate upon men, endowed, it is true, with a will
capable of resisting, but also with susceptibilities that had to yield to
the moral and religious fence of an immediate Divine impression, and
with conscience, that slumbering consciousness of God which man can
never wliolly abnegate, and which may be roused by a commanding
holy power, in a way that is not to be calculated. There are many
things in history tbat must be regarded as myths by minds that judge
only by the standard of every-day reality.
§ lis. The Saying of Christ, "■Destroy this Temj^h,'"' ^r. — Additional
Exj^osition of it given hy John.
Some of the priests asked Christ by what signs he could prove his
authority to act thus. He gave them an answer, at once reproof and
prophecy, " Destroy this temple, and in three days I ivill raise it up.'"
The most natural and apparent interpretation of tliese words, accord-
ing to the circumstances under which they were uttered, laying no par-
ticular stress upon the specification of " three days,^' would be the fol-
lowing : " ^V]le'n you, hy your ungodliness, ^chich desecrates all that is
holy, have hrovght about the destruction of the Tcmpile, then tvill I build
it up again /" alluding (according to the mode of conception every
where prevalent in the New Testament) to the relation between
Christianity and Judaism. The kingdom of God had a common basis
in both ; the new spiritual Temple which Christ is to erect among men
is, therefore, represented as the Temple at Jerusalem, rebuilt after its
destruction ; the latter being a symbol of the destruction of the entire
Jewish worship, which was identified with the Temple itself. The
Temple and the kingdom of God are identical in Judaism and iu
Christianity :t there, in a form particular and typical ; here, in a furni
corresponding to its essence, and intended for all men and all ages.
As Christ is conscious that the desecrated and ruined Temple will be
raised up by him in greater splendour, he acts upon this consciousness,
as reformer of the old Temple, in the very beginning of those labouis
which are to lay the foundation of the new and spiritual one.
But what a glance into futurity was required in him thus to foretell
* Origin, however, oxag-gcratcd the throng that Christ Iind to cxpol into thrmsaiKtst.
John, more simply than the other Evangelists, speaks only of the expulsion of the sellers ;
they, of the hiiyers also.
t Just as the " Honsc of God" (Hob., iii., 2-6) is made the same in both dispensations ; as
the later one fulfills the law of the older. I cannot see any force in Kline's objections
(Stud. u. Krit., 1836, i., K'~). The Kaitdv is alrcadj- implied in the iyelpetr.
"DESTROY THIS TEMPLE," &c. 171
not only the luiu of the Temple by the guilt of the Jews — the dissolu-
tion of their worship being necessarily identified therewith — but also
the erection of the spiritual Edifice tliat was to take its place; to pre-
dict in himself the mightiest achievement in the history of humanity,
at a time when but a few apparently insignificant men had joined him,
and even they had but a distant dawning idea of what he intended to
accomplish ! So vast a meaning was involved in those dark words —
dark, as all prophecies are dark ! An analogous meaning was con-
tained in his expression on another occasion, " Here is something
greater than the TeTnple ;^'* showing, perhaps, that he was accustomed
thus to point from the terapoiary Temple to the higher one which had
already appeared, and which would still further reveal itself in the
course of his laboui's.
Among the accusations brought against Christ by the false witnesses,
at a later period, was this, that he had said, " I am able to destroy
the Temple of God, and to build it in three days."] Some may suppose
that the editor of our Greek Matthew may have been ignorant of the
occasion and the true sense on which the words were uttered by Christ,
and therefore attributed them entirely to the invention of the witnesses.
It is likely, however, that the testimony was c^\ed false by Matthew,
because the witnesses pei'\'erted, and put a false construction on Christ's
real words ; he had not said that " he would destroy the Temple," but
(what is very different) that its destruction would be brought about by
the guilt of the Jews. The priests might very naturally have falsely
reported the words, in order to put a sense upon them that would not
bear against themselves so closely, and which, at the same time, would
appear more obnoxious to the people. In Mark, xiv., 58, the words
are still more perverted by the false witnesses : " I loill destroy this
Temple that is made ivith hands, and within three days I icill build
another^X Not that they understood Christ that he would build a
spiritual temple instead of the visible one ; but, probably, that he
could, after destroying the latter, replace it in greater glory by magic
(after the visionary representations of the Chiliasts), or cause one to
descend from heaven. Even one of the thieves on the cross malevo-
lently quoted these words against Christ. All this shows that, what-
ever amazement the words excited, they had made a great and general
irapression.§
* See above, p. 89. t Matt., xxvi., Gl.
1 Mark observes (xiv., 59) ; "But neither so did their witness agree together."
6 It is a special confirmation of John's Gospel that he alone gives the natural occasion
for the utterance of these words by Christ, and their original fomi. Strauss, however,
thinks that the original form of the expression was that put into Stephen's month by his
accusers, Acts, vi., 14 ; and that the " three days" were added subsequently, with reference
to the resuiTection. But these are not Stephen's words, nor is it even attributed to him
that he quoted Christ's, but only that he uttered a tliought of his own, perhaps derived
from them. At any rate, the mention of the " three days" would have been unsuited to
172 CHRIST'S FIRST MINISTRY AT JERUSALEM.
The faithfulness of John is strikingly shown by the way in which he
distinguishes his own interpretation of these words of Christ from the
words themselves.* Christ, in uttei'ing them (according to John's ex-
planation), pointed to his own body [refei-ring to the resurrection].
Although this does not appear to bear so directly upon the aim of
Christ at the time, and upon the question of the Jews, as the view
given above, it yet may involve the following deeper import, viz. :
" The Temple at Jerusalem is only a temporary place consecrated to
God ; but Christ, in his human nature, shall build up the everlasting
Temple of God for man. The former shall be destroyed, and not re-
built; but the body of Christ, the temple of the indwelling Divine
Nature, shall rise triumphant out of death."t
The first interpretation seems to us more simple, and to connect itself
more naturally with Christ's intention ; but the latter has the advantage
in giving a more intelligible bearing to the " three days."|
the thought ascribed to Stephen. The interpolation of the words " three days" is more im-
probable, as neither Matthew nor Mai-k explain them at all; on the contrary, it is much
more likely that the presence of the words led to their being applied subsequently to tl)e
resurrection, than that the resurrection itself led to their interpolation.
*' It may be disputed whether John's intei-pretatiou is intended to give the exact sense
in which Christ used the words [or only accommodated them to the resuiTection, as is per-
haps implied in the 22d verse, " u-hcn, therefore, he was risen from the dead, his disciples re-
membered (hat he had said this unto them''^. An instance of such accommodation, of words
uttered by Christ, in a sense different from the original one, is found in John, xviii., 9 ; al-
tliougb, in this case, John must have known that he applied them differently, and was
glad to find them admit such application. John's autliority, in regard to the sense of the
words of the Master whom he followed so devoutly, and whose sayings he preserved so
faithfully, is necessarily of great weight ; still, in tlie explanation of special expressions [as
to their original import], the natural relations and connexions might compel us to deviate
from him. Nor would tliis at all conflict with Inspiration, rightly understood, which would
only require that the explanation given by the Evangelist should be true in itself although
the words might not be applied with Christ's original meaning. He would none the less
be the proclaimer of the tchole truth made known to him by the illumination of the Holy
Ghost. The mention of the "three days" (which cannot, indeed, be easily explained, ex-
cept by the resurrection) might have led the author of this Gospel, who alwa3's dwelt with
peculiar fondness upon every thing that concerned the person of Christ, at once to think of
his resurrection. The interpretation given by the Evangelist is a further proof against the
theory that this Gospel had a later Hellenistic or Alexandrian origiu. It would have ac-
corded much better with the taste of that school to apply Christ's words, in the grand
prophetic bearing, to the building of the spiritual Temple (the >'ao5 -vtviiariKos, in place of
the vabi uiaOriTOi) than to the resuirection of his body.
t I agree with Kling's (1. c.) refutation of certain modern objections to John's explana-
tion, and also with his view of the impossibilitj' of connecting the two interpretations
together.
t Many passages have been quoted by others to prove that "three days" must necessarily
mean a time of short duration, but I am not yet convinced of it. In general, it means "a
round number," and we must learn from the context whetlier a longer or shorter period is
intended. In this case the contrast with the length of time taken to build the Temple jus-
tifies us in assuming that a short period is meant. The new spiritual Temple, the progres-
sive developement of the new spiritual kingdom of God, did in fact immediately follow the
overthrow of the old fonn of the Tlieocrac^-.
NICODEMUS. 173
§ 119. Interview of Christ with Nicodemus.
(1.) Disposition of the People and Pharisees towards Christ. — Dispositions of Nic-
odemus.
Many of the people were attracted to Christ during this his first stay
at Jerusalem. And although the prevailing Pharisaic party looked
upon him with an eye of suspicion, they could not openly oppose him,
as he had not as yet arrayed himself against- their statutes and tradi-
tions, but directed his blows against abuses which no one dared to de-
fend. And even of the Pharisees it cannot be supposed that all were
hypocrites, governed only by selfish motives ; doubtless there were
many whose piety, however debased by the errors of their entire sys-
tem, was yet sincere.* Such could not remain without Divine impres-
sions from the words and works of Christ.
A specimen of this better class was NicoDEMUs.t To him, especially,
the miracles of Jesus appeared to be works transcending all merely
human power, and undeniable signs of a Divine calling. Beyond this
general impression, however, he had no clear views of Christ's person
or mission ; and his desire to obtain more definite information was the
greater, because he had participated in the expectations awakened by
John the Baptist, in regard to the approaching reign of Messiah,
Recognizing Christ as a prophet, he determined to apjily to him per-
sonally, and came to him by night, to avoid strengthening the suspi-
cions of his colleagues in the Sanhedrim, probably already aroused
against him.
We may presuppose that he shared in the ordinary Jewish concep-
tions of the Messianic kingdom, and expected it soon to be founded in
visible and earthly glory ; although he may have had, at the same time,
* It is probable, in the nature of things, that although the Pharisees, scribes, and chief
men. as a whole, were ill-disposed to Christ, there were among them individual suscepti-
ble minds. In the first Gospels we find Joseph of Anmathea ; in Matt., ix., 18, a ruler ; in
Mark, xii., 28, a scribe, manifesting an interest in his Divine c.illing, and from these we
may infer the existence of other cases. There is no ground, therefore, for S/rauss's asser-
tion that the case of Nicodemus is improbable. Utterly uuhistorical, too, is his assertion
(i., 633) that the accounts of rich and chief men coming secretly to Christ (and so of Nico-
demus) were invented at a later period, to remove the reproach brought against the primi-
tive Christians, "that none but the poor and illiterate attached themselves to Jesus." In-
stead of being a "reproach," it was the pride and gloiy of the primitive Church that the
new creation of Christianity' began among the poor; that the wise of this world were put
to shame by the ignorant. There was no inducement, then, for such inventions. More-
over, this mode of thinking pervades the whole of John's Gospel; he that could represent
Jesus as unfolding his highest truths to a poor woman could not have been tempted to iii-
vent a conversation between him and a distinguished sciibe.
t Slrauss strains hai'd to give a symbolical and mythical meajimg to this comanon Jew-
ish name, '^'^''i'p^- There is no trace in the early Christian history of mytliical persons
thns originating from mere fancy, without any historical point of departin-e. Only at a later
period was the history of really eminent men exaggerated by (voluntary- or involuntarj'}
invention into fables ; e. g-, Simon Magus was thus made mythical.
174 CHRIST'S FIRST STAY IN JERUSALEM
some more worthy and spiiitual ideas in regard to it. He considered
himself sure, as a rigidly pious Jew and Pharisee, of a share in that
kingdom, and was only anxious to be informed as to the approaching
manifestation of Messiah.
Addressing Christ as an enlightened teacher, accredited from God
by miracles, he expected to obtain fiom his lips a further account of
his calling and of his relation to the Messianic kingdom. But instead
of entering upon this, Christ purposely gives an answer especially
adapted to the moral and religious wants of Nicodemus, and all of like
mind.* The truth which he uttered was not only new and strange to
Nicodemus, but also fundamentally opposed to his whole system :
" Excejjt a man he Lorn again,] he cannot sec the hingdom of Qod^
(•2.) The New Birth.
Uprooting the notion that any particular line of birth or descent can
entitle men to a share in God's kingdom, Christ points out an inward
condition, necessary for all men alike, a title which no man can secure
by his own power. His answer to Nicodemus presupposes that all
men are alike destitute of the Divine life. It was directed as well
against the arrogant self-righteousness of the Pharisees as against the
contracted externalizing of the kingdom of God in Jewish particular
ism. It involves also (although we are not sure, from the form of the
expression, that Christ intended precisely this) that a faith like that of
Nicodemus was insufficient ; springing, as it did, from isolated mira-
cles, and not from inward experience, or an internal awakening of the
Divine life. Certainly it hit the only point from which Nicodemus
could and must proceed in order to change his mode of conceiving the
Messianic kingdom. Even if he at first still expected it to appear as
an outward one, he must have had a higher and nobler moral concep-
tion of it. He doubtless took Christ's words " cannot sec the kingdom''
to mean " cannot share in the visible kingdom ;" while Clti-ist meant an
inward spiritual " entering into''' that kingdom which was first to be
founded, as a spiritual one, in the hearts of men.|
* An answer, too, entirely characteristic of Jesus, and which vvoiilJ not have occunrd to
one inveiUing this dialogue.
t Or "from above;" but I caiinot prefer this reading, even after I.ucke's argnmenfs.
" Born again" corresponds with " becoming tike children" (Malt, xviii., 3) ; with iruAi)') £»«-
o(a (Matt., xix., 28) ; compared with the >ovTpbv TraXiyyti'toi'aj of Paul. We infer that tliis
mode of expression belonged to the peculiar type of Christ's teaching, as it agrees, also,
with his expressions (recorded in the first three Gospels) in regard to his operations upon
hnman nature.
I The idea of a " new birth" was not unknown to the Greek and Roman mind, although
its true import is only revealed in tlie light which Christianity lends to self scnitiny. The
nan emendari, scd tronsfigurari of Seneca (Ep. ad Lucil., vi.), whicli is ratlier a rhetoric.Tl
expression any liow, applies to a gradual amendment of character by lopjiing olT scpavati-
vices, and not to a radical change of nature. As the Christian new birth is the beginning
of a jn-Qcess in hiunon nature, wliich is to go on until tlic consunmjation of the kingdom of
NICODEMUS. 175
The mere figure of a new birth, in itself, would have been notlung so
unusual or unintelligible to Nicodemus ; he could have understood it
well enough if applied, for instance, to the case of a heathen submit-
ting himself to circumcision and the observance of other Jewish
usages.* But what startled him was the altogether novel application
which Christ made of the figure; not to a change of external relations,
as in the case above supposed, but to a totally different change, of which
the learned scribe had not the glimmering of an idea. He knew not
what to think of such an answer to his question, and no wonder ; a
dead, contracted, arrogant scribe-theology is always amazed at the mys-
teries of inward, spiritual experience. This first direct impression,
perhaps, did not allow him, at the moment, to distinguish between the
figure and the thing, and he asked, " Hoiv can a man be born when he
is old r
(3.) The Birth of Water and of the Spirit.
But Christ confirms what he had said, and explains it further : " Ver-
ily, except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter
into the kingdom of God."j He thus describes, more exactly the active
principle (the creative agent) o^the new birth, the Divine Spirit, which
implants a new Divine life in those who give themselves up to it; pro-
ducing a moral change, a reversion of the universal tendency of man,
as the offspring of a race tainted by sin.
So much is clear. But what shall we say of the " water l'^^ We in-
God, the new birth in individaals preparing the way for the new birth of a glorified world ;
so the Stoic doctrine speaks of a TreptooiKl) TraAiyyti'ta/a twv '6\<iiv, avaaToiXcionriS. But this is
<»nnected with the pantheistic conception of a cycle of alternate destructions and renew-
als of the world, utterly opposed to the teleological point of view in Christianity. 'O rec
capaKOVTOVTriii liiv I'ouv o-onovovv cxri, vavra tu yfj'oi'orn! kuI ra laoncva ctipaKC Kara to hjioci&H — [Ait,-
ton. Monol.,-s.\., 1.) "He who lives only forty years and observes well, has experienced
every thing which occurs in the whole eternity of this ever-renewed process."
* Strauss thinks (p. 701) that the way in which Paul uses the expression " a neic crea-
tion" (2 Cor., v., 17 ; Gal., vi., ],^), without explahiing it, implies that it was in conunon use
in Judaism. We do not agi-ee with Ivim, but rather see in such expressions the new dia-
lect created by Christianity, which Paul's readers might be supposed to understand. If
Strauss' s view were correct, we should expect such antitheses in Paul as the following:
" Circumcision cannot develope a new creation in the heathen, but leaves all in its old con-
dition ; a new creation can only grow out from within, through faith."
t How different the words of (Christ, in their original simplicity, were from the later dress
given to them, may be seen by comparing ,Tohn. iii., 5, with the Clementines, Horn., xi., ^
26 : " iuv lit) ava) tvvndriTt viari OSin iii ovojiu TT.iTpbi, viov, ayiov -nviVfiaTOi," &c. It is immaterial
whether this passage was borrowed from John's Gospel immediately, or from some tradi-
tion.
{ It is said, by some, that the hand of a later writer is to be traced here, who plannej
this conversation, half fiction, half truth, upon the basis, perhaps, of an earlier narrative,
and added "birth by water" to "birth by spirit," in order {o give additional authority to
baptism in the Church. But this theory is contradicted by the fact that baptism is only
incidentally mentioned by John ; that he nowhere expressly ascribes its institution to Christ,
and nowhere says any thing of the baptism of the Apostles. A writer influenced by an
ecclesiastical intent, and permitting himself to remodel the history of Christ from such a
17G CHRIST'S FIRST STAY IN JERUSALEM.
fer from the fact that Christ says nothing more of " water," but pro-
ceeds to explain the operations of the " Spirit," that the former was
only a point of departure to lead to the latter. It was the baptism of
the Spirit, the " birth of the Spirit" into a new Divine life, that was
unknown to Nicodemus ; whereas John's baptism might have already
made him acquainted witli water as a symbol of inward purification,
pointing to a higher purification of soul, to be wrought by the Messiah,
and aiding in its comprehension.
After this preparation, Christ sets forth the general piinciple on
which his previous declarations to Nicodemus were founded, viz., the
total opposition between the natural life — the life of all those who con-
tinue to live according to nature simply — and the new life which God
imparts [" That toJiich is born of the JicsJt is flesh, and that which is
horn of the Sjnrit is Sjjirit"]. But as this " birth of the S^jirit" was
still strang-e to Nicodemus, Christ made use of a sensible imaEre to
bring it more vividly before him. " As none can set bounds or limits
to I he wind, as one hears and feels its blast, but can not track it to its
source or to its aim; so it is with the breath of God's Spirit in those
who have experienced the new birth. There is something in the in-
terior life not to be explained or comprehended, which reveals itself
only in its operations, and can be known only by experience ; it is a
life which no one can trace backward to its origin, or forward to its
end."
The light begins to dawn upon Nicodemus. But to his mind, yet
in bondage to a legal Judaism, prone to conceive all Divine things in
an outward sense, and to keep God and man too far apart, the fact as-
serted by Christ seems marvellous ; and he exclaims in amazement.
'•'■How can this heV Jesus seizes upon this exclamation to humble
the pride of the learned theologian, to convince him of his want of in-
sio-ht into Divine things, and to make him feel the need of further illu-
mination. " You, a teacher of Israel, and this, witliout which all reH-
gion is a dead thing, not known to you ! And if you believe me not
when I speak of a mere matter of fact, which every man upon earih
may test by his own experience,* how will you believe when I pro-
claim truths beyond the circle of man's experience and transcending
the limits of his reason; when I tell you the hidden and unfathomable
counsels of God for human salvation !"
niotive, would not have made those oraii|sions. It might even be said, with more plausi-
bility, that John had been led to connect baptism and roqenei-ation together, and had at-
tributed this ooudiination tt) Christ. We have no riglit, because of a mere difBciilty, to
charge such a thing, even though invohintaiy, upon the faithful disciple. The wliole turn
of .John's feelings, the viynf.ic element (in its good sense) that predominated in his mind,
would alone have prevented him irom maj<.ing any oiitiviird Uimg iirominent that was tuil,
made so in the original words of Christ.
* A Jewish believer could understand this, from its analogy to separate impulses of the
Divine life experienced under Judaism.
NICODEMUS. 177
(4.) Jesus intimates his own Sufferings.
This introduction prepares us to expect something totally opj^osed to
the ordinary conceptions of the Jewish scribes. It would have been
quite inappropriate if Christ had merely been about to speak of the ex-
altation of Messiah, for that idea was familiar enough ; or even if he
had been about to apply that exaltation personally to himself as Mes-
siah ; for this claim could not appear very marvellous to Nicodemus,
who was already inclined to recognize him as a prophet. But nothin<(
could have been more startling to Jewish modes of thought, or even to
the mind of Nicodemus, who was still in bondage to the outward letter,
than an intimation that Messiah was not to appear in earthly splendour,
but was to found the salvation of mankind upon the basis of his own
sufferings* This was indeed, and ever, the stumbling-block of the
Jews.
But Christ did not announce this truth, so strange to Nicodemus,
plainly and in full breadth. Employing a well-known figure from the
Old Testament, he compared the lifting up of the Son of Man with the
serpent that was raised in the wildernesst before the eyes of all the
people ; and, having thus intimated the truth to the scribe by a simile
drawn from his own familiar studies, he left it to be further developed
by his own thoughts. The brazen serpent may have appeared to the
fathers a paradoxical cure for the serpent's bite ; and such a paradox is
the salvation of the world through a suffering Messiah. The very
strangeness of the comparison must have stimulated the mind of Nico-
demus.|
w
CHAPTER V.
JESUS AT ^NON, NEAR SALIM.
E cannot fix with certainty the length of Christ's first stay in
Jerusalem after the beginning of his public ministry. But it is
" See p. 83, 84.
t Conf. the explanation of Jacohi. (Stud. u. Krit., 1825, pt. i.)
X The words of Christ end with ver. 15, we think. Nicodemus had the goad in his mind,
enough to wake him out of liis spiritual slumber, and urge him to deeper thought upon the
tnith, partly clear and partly obscure, to which he had listened. In the nature of the case,
therefore, Jesus would not be likely to add any thing further. The verses, 16-21, have al-
together the air of a commentary added by the Evangehst, from the fullness of his heart
and experience. He has seen the working of the Gospel, and tbe judgments, too, which
attend its preaching, and he records them. John's Gospel is a selection from the history of
the Gospel, made with a definite purpose ; he begins it with a reflection, and he frequently
interrupts the narrative with a course of reflection, as appears to us to be the case in the
passage under consideration. Verse 16 takes up and repeats Christ's closing words in
M
178 CHRIST AT .ENON.
certain that he went directly thence to JEnon* near Sahm (Salumias), a
part of the country which was, at that time, the theatre of John the
Baptist's labours. Here he probably spent most of the time from the
Passover to the late harvest. He may have had two objects in this,
viz., to continue the training of his disciples more uninterruptedly, and
also to make use of the connecting link which the ministry of John the
Baptist afforded. The reason for the continuance of the latter's sepa-
rate labours has already been mentioned.!
§ 120, Jealousy of John's Disc'qdes. — Final Testimony of the Bajitist.
— His Imjjrisonmejit.
The rapid growth of Christ's sphere of labour excited the jealousy
of many of John's disciples, who would hear of no other master but
their own, and who had not imbibed enough of his spirit to know that
he was to give way before the higher one. They had seen tliat Christ
obtained his first disciples by John's testimony in his favour. Having
no desire themselves to go beyond .John's teaching, they did not strive
to understand that testimony fully, and deemed it unreasonable that
Christ, who owed his first followers to the recommendation of their
i^vvn master, should exalt himself above the latter. But when they
mentioned their surprise to John, he answered them, " Do not wondei
at this ; it had to be so. No man can usurp what Heaven has not
granted him. (No man's labours can transcend the limit appointed
by God. Christ's influence pi-oclaims the Divinity of his calling. Men
would not join him, if God did not give them, in him, what I could
never bestow.)" He then calls them to witness that he had never an-
nounced himsef to them as Messiah, but always, and only, as the Fore-
runner : " I said I am not the Ch?-ist, but that I am sent before Iiim.'"
It is to be observed (and it confirms what we have said of the histor-
ical position of the Baptist) that he does not here appeal to his private
declarations as to Christ's Messiahship, made to individual susceptible
disciples, but only to his continuous public testimony. The jealous
verse 15, and explains them, as the yap obviously shows. The marlis of a cliauge in tlic
speaker seem to me very evident. It appears to be characteristic of John not to mark
such transitions very distinctly ; although, of course, he could never intend to intermix his
own words with those of the Saviour.
* I y\y, a name derived from 1'^ (" a place aboundins; iti water"), John, iii., 23. Euse-
nius {Oiwmaslikon) says that such a place was still pointed out, eight Romnn miles south of
Scythopolis, near Saliin and the Jordan. (Hicron., 0pp., c<l. Vallars, iii., 1G3 ; Ko.'Ciiinti/hr,
Handb. d. Biblisch. Altcrth., ii., 2, 13.?; RohinsoH'K Palestine, iii., 322.) This suits tl:e
place described in John, as Christ goes thence to Samaria. If it appear strange that the
Baplisl should go to Samaria, it is to be remarked that the place belonged, as a border
town, to Judca; and the Baptist may have found it necessary, in order to av(>id i)ersc<u-
tion, to betake himself to tliis out-of-the-way comer. Perhaps, also, with his more liberal
tendency of mind, he had no scruples about abiding on the borders of Samaria.
t Page 57.
JOHN THE BAPTIST. 179
spirits, therefore, may never have had, from the hps of their master,
any ^uch special direction to Christ.
But he added, " My goal is reached ; my joy is fulfilled. I have led
the Bride (the Theocratic congregation) to the Bridegroom (the Mes-
siah), to whom she belongs, who alone can fulfil her hopes. He must
increase, but I must decrease."*
In uttering these words the Baptist probably had a presentiment
that the end of his career was at hand. When he returned to the other
side of the rivei", Herod Antipas, who ruled in Peraea, succeeded in
laying hold of him. The rigid censor of morals, who had no respect
for persons where the holy law of God was concerned, had offended
the tetrarch ;t and, by order of the latter, he was conveyed as a pris-
oner to the border fortress of Machcerus.|
* John, iii., 30. Thus far the words bear the stamp of the Baptist, their me.ining being
figuratively iiitiinated rather than expressed. But those which follow (31-36) are totally
different. The Evangelist, having in his own Christian experience so rich a coininentary
upon the words of his former Master, feels bound to a[)ply it in explaining them. The re-
lation of the Baptist to Christ sets aside all that has been said, in later times, about some
imaginary person's having invented this scene and tacked it on to John's Gospel. Had
such a one, as Strauss thinks, made the fiction in order to oppose the disciples of the Bap-
tist (who kept aloof from Christianity) by the authority of their own master, he would have
i/oue much further; it would have been just as easy, and far more effective, to invent a
dialogue between Christ and the Ba()tist himself The apocryphal writings of that period,
manufkctured to favour certain religious ideas, were not wont to confine their inventions
within such narrow limits.
t Josephus differs from the Gospels (Matt., xiv., 3-5; Mark, vi., 17-20; Luke, iii., 19--20)
as to Herod's reasons for this act ; according to the latter, it was done because John had
reproved him for carrying off and marrying his brother Philip's wife ; according to the for-
mer, the teti-arch was induced by fear of political disturbances. " ^ciaas ri inl rocdvie :it-
6av&v aVTov toU aidpiiizoiS ^17 f':;( axooTuctt Tivt (pipor iravra yilp iwKcaav ovuSovXfj rfj ixeivov Trpdlovres,
TToM KpuTTOV I'lYcirai, npiv ti vcwrcpov il uiiTou ycviaOat, 7r/)«Aa6wi' aialptiv >) /.uraSo'Krji y tvojiivni dq
Ta irpdynaTa lixTreaCbv utTavoeiv." — (Arcliaeol., xviii., v., § 2.) Now the character of the Evan-
gelists, as historians, would not be affected, if we admit that they followed the popular re-
port, even though incorrect, as the matter had no comiexion with their immediate object.
But tlie difficulty is cleared up, and a better insight into the nature of tlie case obtained,
by the supposition that Josephus gave the osfcnxible, and the Evangelists the real and se-
cret reason that impelled Herod. As the Baptist did not claim to be Messiah, and exhorted
the people to fidelity in the several relations of life, Herod could have had no political
fears except such, indeed, as might arise from John's honest boldness in reproving his sins.
It is a further proof of his personal hatred to John, that he not only imprisoned, but killed
liim. History affords many instances in which faithful witnesses to the truth have falleu
victims to the craft of priests or women, and often of the two combined.
I Supposing that John appeared in public about six months before Christ, and that he
was imprisoned about the same length of time after Christ's first Passover, his whole pub-
lic ministry lasted for about a year.
180 CHRIST AND THE SAMARITAN WOMAN.
CHAPTER VI.
JESUS RETURNS THROUGH SAMARIA TO GALILEE.— THE SAMARITAN
WOMAN. (Jolai, iv.)
THE Pharisaic party became more suspicious of Jesus than they had
been of the rigid preacher of repentance, when it was found that
his ministry was beginning to attract still greater attention than John's
had done. He determined, therefore, to leave that part of the coun-
try.* Galilee offered a safe abode ; and, besides, a good spiritual soil
for his instructions would probably be found there, as deep impres-
sions had been made upon the minds of many Galileans attending the
Passover, by his public labours at Jerusalem. He took the shortest
road — three days' jouniey — to Galilee, through Samaria ; and made use
of the opportunity to scatter seeds for the future among the people of
that country, who were then longing for new revelations, and among
whom no political perversions of the Messianic idea were to be found,
as among the Jews.
§ 121. I>npressio?is viade upon the Samaritan Woman.
In the mean time the summer months, and part of autumn, had
passed away. It was in seed time, which lasted from the middle of
October to the middle of December, that Jesus arrived in the fertile
plain of SicJiem. Fatigued with travelling, he stopped to refresh him-
self about middayf at the well of Jacob. He was alone, for he had
sent his disciples into the city to buy provisions ; not without the inten-
tion, probably, to elevate them above the Jewish prejudice which re-
garded the Samaritans as unclean. While he sits by the well-side, a
poor woman from the neighbouring city comes| to draw fresh water.
He asked her for water to quench his thirst, and embraced the occa-
sion (as he always embraced every moment and opportunity to fulfil
his Divine calling) to plant in her soul the seeds of Divine truth.§
* Here is the occasion pf Matthew's statement, Matt., iv., 12. But as the first three
Gospels only speak expressly of Christ's last journey (see p. 155), no distinction is made
between his stay in Galilee before and af/er his first journey. Hence arose the mistake
as to the time of John's imprisomueut, to correct which eiTor in the tradition probably John,
iii., 24, was intended.
t That traveluii,' could be continued until twelve o'clock shows that it must have been
late in autumn. t This, too, could not have been done at that hour in summer.
§ Here is another refutation of the theory that assigned an Alexandrian origin to this
Gospel A man trained in that school would have been as little disposed as a Jewish the-
ologian of Palestine to rciiresent Jesus as conversing with a poor woman and disjilaying
to her the prospect of a new future of relicfious developement ! But it was perfectly in
Keeping with the character of Him who tliaiiked God that " what had been liidden from
THE WATER OF LIFE. 181
Adapting his mode of teaching to her condition and culture, he made
use of a natural figure, offered by the occasion [" If thou knewest the
gift of God, and ivho it is tliat saith unto thee, ' Give tne to drink,' thou
ivouldst have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water"].
The figure was admirably adapted to awaken in her as yet unspirit-
ual mind a longing for the precious possession thus intimated, before
she could apprehend the nature of the possession itself [" Whosoever
drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst : it shall
be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life''']. How
joyfully must she have heard of water, ever fresh and flowing, which
one could always carry with him, and never need thirst or be weary
with constant travelling the dusty road to draw ! And so, under this
figure, Christ pictured forth for her the Divine life which he had come
to impart, which alone can quench the thirst of the soul, and is, for all
who receive it, an endless stream of life flowing onward into eternity !
After thus exciting in her mind a desire for the mii'aculous water, of
which she could as yet form no just conception, he breaks off without
giving her further explanations of whaf, at that time, she could not be
made to understand. He turns the conversation, first, to make her
look within, as self-knowledge alone can prepare us rightly to appre-
hend Divine things ; and, secondly, to satisfy her that he was a proph-
et by showing an acquaintance with parts of her private history of
which, as a stranger, he could have known nothing.*
§ 122. Christ's Decision between the Worship of the Jews and that
of the Samaritans.
Struck with his insight of her secret history, the woman recognizea
him as a prophet. She must, in consequence, have supposed that a
higher sense lay hid in what he had uttered, enigmatical as it yet ap-
peared to her, and she laid it up in her mind. It was natural, also, for
her to question him further, as a prophet, on religious subjects, and
thus elicit from him new instruction. And what question so likely to
occur, or fraught with deeper interest to her, than that which formed
the wise had been revealed unto babes," and who had come to break down all barriers that
separated men, and to glorify human nature even in the form of woman !
* It has been made a question whether Christ, at the moment when he requested the
woman to call "her husband" (John, iv., 16), had the full and supernatural knowledge of
her real circumstances, and only spoke thus to her in order to test her disposition, and in
duce her to speak of her course of life with candour; or whether he had not that knowl-
edge at the moment, and really wished her husband to come, in order to open a communi-
catiou with the Samaritans ; so that the final turn of the conversation was different from
what he had expected. We are not acquainted with the laws under which the beams of
supernatural knowledge broke forth from the soul of Christ, nor with the relation between
external occasions and the internal developement of his higher knowledge. And therefore
we cannot say whether the woman's explanation, that " she had no husband," excited the
Btreajning forth of the Divine light within him or not.
182 CHRIST AND THE SAMARITAN WOMAN.
the bone of contention between the Jews and Samaritans, and which
was suggested to her by the very spot on which they stood, Mount
Gerizini itself towering up just at hand [" Our fathers tvorsh'rpj'cd 'm
this mountain, and ye say that in Jerusalem is the place where men
ought to ivorshi2y'].
The answer of Christ has a two-fold reference : one to the existing
stage of the Theocracy, thus answering the spirit of the woman's ques-
tion ; the other alluding to the higher stage of the Theocratic devel-
opement which he himself was about to introduce.
In regard to the first, he decides (v. 22) in favour of the Jews.
" The Samaritans are ignorant of the true worship of God, because
they reject the prophets, the several stages of revelation that have pre-
pared the way for that which is the aim of all, the manifestation of the
Redeemer ; the Jews, on the other hand, do worship God intelligently,*
since they 7iave recognized his successive revelations, and are thus fitted
to be the medium through which salvation may come forth for men ;
to lead to which salvation is the end and aim of all God's revelations.
Jerusalem, meanwhile, had to be the seat of worship, because from
Jerusalem the Redemption, which was to raise worship to a higher
sphere, was to spring up."
§ 123. The JVorshij) of God in Spirit and in Truth.
Christ thus showed that the worship at Jerusalem was only preferred
in view of the salvation that was to come forth there, and that the su-
periority would cease at the time of its coming foith. He had, then, to
describe that higher era before which the question in dispute between
Jews and Samaritans would wholly cease : " The hotir cometh, and
voic is, when the true worshij^pers shall worshij) the Father in spirit ami
in truth, for the Father seeheth such to worship him : God is Spirit, and
they who worship him must worship him in spirit and in trutliT To the
worship of God as previously conceived — the sensuous, external wor-
ship, confined to special times and a fixed place — Christ opposes a
worship limited by neither, but proceeding from the Spirit, and em-
bracing the whole being. The true worship of God, as Spirit, can
only spring from Divine affinities in the Spii'it.
And such worship can only be " Worship in the Truth ;" the two are
inseparable ; the Truth must be taken up into the life of the Spirit be-
fore it can utter spiritual worship — Truth, the Divine element of life,
the link that binds the world of spirits to God, their original. As wor-
ship in spirit is opposed to that which is confined wholly, or chiefly, to
isolated outward acts, so worship in the Truth is opposed to that which
* This, of course, is only said oljecUvcli/, witli reference to the stfind-poiiit of the Jew-
i.sh nation ; suhjeciivdy, applied to indiv-iduals, it would only be true of those who corre-
spond ill spirit to tlie definition that foUows.
THE WORSHIP IN SPIRIT. i83
adheres to sensuous types and images that only veil the truth, And
this true spiritual worship can only flow from those who are in com-
munion of life with God, as Father.
Christ used the words, "the time cometh, and is nmv," because the
true, spiritual woi'ship was realized, in its perfection, in himself; and
because he had planted seeds in the hearts of his disciples, from which
it was to develope itself in them, and through them in all mankind.
§ 124. The Spiritiml WorsJiij). — Its Bearing vpon Practical Life.
Christ uttered here no merely theoretical truth, bearing only upon
knowledge, but one eminently practical, and including in itself the whole
work which he was to accomplish in humanity. The sages of both the
East and the West had long known that all true worship must be spir-
itual ; but they believed it impossible to extend such worship beyond
the nanovV circle of thoughtful and spiritually contemplative minds ;
nor did they even know rightly how to realize it for themselves. They
sought in Knowledge what could only spring from Life, and was in
this way to become, not the privilege of a favoured few, but the com-
mon good of all men.
On the other hand, Christ not only gave the true Idea, but realized
it. As Redeemer of men, he placed them in a relation to God, through
wliich the tendency to true and spiritual worship is imparted to their
whole life. He made the Truth which he revealed the source of life
for men ; and by its means, as spirits allied to God, they worship him
in Truth. Only in proportion as men partake of the Divine life, by
appropriating Christ's revealed truth, can they succeed in worshipping
God in spirit and in truth.
The knowledge of God as Spirit was by no means communicated to
men ready made and complete. It was to develope itself in the re-
flective consciousness otily from true worship of God, rooted in the
life ; here, and hei-e only, were men to learn* the full import of the
words, " God is Spirit."t
How has the lofty truth, the world-historical import, of this saymor
of Christ been lost sight of by those who have taken it as an isolated
expression, apart from its connexion with Christian Theism and with
the whole Divine process for the developement of Christian life, by
those abstract, naked, one-sidedly intellectual Deists and Pantheists
* The history of religious opinions in the first three ceaturies affords most vivid proof
of this. E. g. : " -S.V -vwiia, d airXovaTcpov hXajiiidvontv, cuiia Tvyx<'i'oi'." (Orig. in Joann., t
Xiii., § -22.)
\ This great truth, rightly understood, was closely connected with the moral and rehgious
wants of the Samaritans, as represented by the woman. The natural order of this con-
versation, the simphcity and depth of Christ's words — so free from the dilFuseness charac-
teristic of iutoutioual imitation — is a strong proof of its originality-.
184 CHRIST AND THE SAMARITAN WOMAN.
who have dreamed that they could incorporate them into their dis-
cordant systems by their spiritual Fctichism, which substitutes the
deification of an Idea for the spiritual, truthful adoration of God as
Spirit ! The aristocracy of education, the one-sided intellcctuaUsm of
the ancient world, was uprooted by Christ when he uttered this grand
truth to an uneducated woman, who belonged to an ignorant and un-
cultivated people : For all men alike, the Highest must spring from
life [and not from culture].
§ 125. Christ's Glances at the future Trogress of his Kingdom, and at
his own Death.
After Christ had made himself known as Messiah to the Samaritan
woman, she hastened joyfully to the city to tell the strange things that
had happened to her. Her countrymen came out in throngs at her
call. In the mean time, however, the disciples had returned, and found
their Master just closing his conversation with the woman; and, although
both surprised and curious, they asked no questions about the occasion
or subject of the conversation.
But they wondered that he did not touch the provisions they had
brought. His corporeal wants are forgotten in the higher thoughts
that occupy him ; the work of his life is before him, the planting of the
seeds of Divine truth in a human soul, and through it in many others,
even beyond the limits of the Jewish people. The Samaritan woman
is an exponent of this new progress of the kingdom of God. Her
countrymen are approaching ; the seed is already germinating. He
replies, therefore, to his disciples, " I have meat to eat tvhich ye hnoio
not of. (The nourishment of the body is forgotten in that of the Sjnrit.)
My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work (to
sow the seed for the general diffusion of the kingdom of God among
men)."
He then illustrates the work of God, which he had just begun among
the Samaritans, by a similitude* from the face of Nature before them.
Glancing, on the one side, at the peasants scattered over the fertile
valley, busily sowing their seed, and, on the other, at the Samaritans,
thronging from the town in answer to the woman's call, he says to the
disciples, "Are ye not wont to say, at this season of the year, * There arc
yet four vionths, and then cometh harvest ?'t So it is, indeed, in the
natural, but not in the spiritual world. The seed is just sown, and
already the har\'cst apjiears. ' Lift up yoiir eyes' (pointing to the ap-
proaching Samaritans), ' a7id see how the fields are already ivhitening to
the harvest.^ "
" This Bimilitude is of tlie same character with Christ's parables i^ven in the first three
(lospels in general, and especially with those taken from sowing seed, iVc. ; a sign of tlie
common character that pei-vaded all his discourses.
t A proverb taien from the climate and farming of that part of the country.
THE NOBLEMAN'S SON. 185
A profound glance into the soul of Christ and the secret connexion
of his thoughts is now opened to us.* He cannot utter this prediction
of the glorious harvest that is to follow the seed which he has sown,
without the mournful, though pleasant, thought that he shall not live to
see its gathering. He must leave the earth before the harvest-home ;
nay, his death itself is to prepare the way for it. So he tells his dis-
ciples that they shall reap what he had sowed ; but that he shall rejoice
with them [" That both he that soxoeth and he that reapeth may rejoice
together. I sent you to reap that tvhereon ye bestowed no labotir"'\.\
Distant intimations like this were the only announcements of his ap-
proaching death that Christ made at this early period of his ministry.^
§ 126. Subsequent State of the Sa?naritans.
At the earnest request of the Samaritans, who were deeply impressed
with his appearance and his words, Christ remained two days with
them before continuing his journey to Galilee. We have no informa-
tion as to the immediate fi-uit of these his first labours among that peo-
ple ; perhaps it was the source of that religious awakening among
them which is recorded in the Acts (viii., 14). If this be so, the seed
sown by Christ, rich and fruitful as it was in the short time of his stay,
was not afterward carefully cultivated until the Apostles went to Sa-
maria ; many foi-eign elements had crept in, and enthusiasts and false
prophets had led the people astray. The pure manifestation of Di-
vinity was followed by a paltry caricature. The unsophisticated Sa-
maritans believed in Christ, from the Divine power of his words and his
appearance, without any miracle ; but at a later period, when their
minds had been debauched by magical arts and legerdemain, the most
striking miracles were requisite to restore them.
CHAPTER VII.
CHRIST'S FIRST GENERAL MINISTRY IN GALILEE.
§ 127. Christ heals the Nobleman^s Son. — Chooses Capernaum for his
Abode. — Healing of Peter^s Wife^s Mother.
ON his arrival in Galilee Jesus went again to Cana. (John, iv., 46.)
While there, there came to him a man belonging to the court
* A mark of trath, not of fiction.
t There is no ground wliatever to refer John, iv., 37, 38 (as Strauss does) especially to
the later ministry of the Apostles in Samaria. The prediction which they contain is just
like those in Matt., x., 26; Luke, xii., 3; and in the parables hereafter examined (p. 188-
190). Any one putting these words into Clirist's mouth, in order to point to the labours of
the Apostles in Samaria as having been preceded by Christ's, would have been less re-
served and delicate about it by far. + Luke, v., 35.
186 FIRST GENERAL MINISTRY IN GALILEE.
{liaaiALKoc;) of Herod Antipas, and begged him to go down to C;iper-
iiaura and cure his son, who was dangerously ill. Distress drove this
man to Christ ; although he might (if he had chosen), perhaps, have
received Divine impressions before. He probably was, at first, among
the number of those who verified the proverb in regard to Christ, " a
prophet is without honour in his own country." The Samaritans be-
lieved, because of their imvard wants, and of the inward power of
Divinity ; the faith of the Galileans had to be roused by visible mira-
cles and material blessings. To this must we refer the words of re-
proof uttered by Christ before he granted the man's prayer : " Exccjd
yc see signs and loonders, ye iv'dl not hclicve.'''*'
Having, by the miracle wrought in this case, produced a new and
favourable impression upon the public mind at Capernaum, he chose
that place as the seat of his ministry. Here he taught in the syna-
gogue, and healed the sick. It happened on a certain Sabbath, tliat
when he left the synagogue he went, attended by his disciples, to the
house in which Peter lived, with his motlier-in-law, who lay ill at the
time of a fever.t Jesus healed her, at once and fully, so that she was
able to attend to her household duties and detain her guests for the
Sabbath-day's diiiuer.| As Christ spent the day in the house (the ru-
mour having probably been spread that he would soon leave tlie town),
sick persons were brought in from all sides ; not, however, until after
sunset, to avoid breaking the law of the Sabbath. On the next day
the people strove to prevent his departure, but he told them, " / must
2'reach the kingdom of God to other cities also, for therefore am I sent.'''
§ 128. Christ appears in the Synagogue at Nazareth. — His Life is En-
dangercd. (Luke, iv., 16-30.)
From Capernaum Christ went to Nazareth, but the fame of his great
deeds at the former place had gone before him. All eyes were turned
upon him when he appeared in the synagogue on the Sabbath ; they
had known him as a very different person from what fame now pro-
claimed him to be. He took the scroll of the prophets that was hand-
ed to him, and. Divinely guided, opened it at Isaiah, Ixi., 1. We may
infer from the words of this passage that he proclaimed the arrival of
the prophetical Jubilee, and declared himself to be the promised one
that was to open the eyes of the blind, and to bring liberty to those
who languished in the bondage of sin and Satan.
But his hearers were unconscious of their spiritual bondage, and
longed for no deliverance ; they knew not of their blindness, and askeil
not to be healed. Engrossed in the affairs of life, they were conscious
* See p. 138. t Luke, iv., 38; Matt., viii., 14; Mark, i., 20,
X Joseph., De Vita Sua., ^ 51 : "Iktyj wpa, k<iO' ;;i' toiS odtidaaiv iipiaTovouiaOat ivinndv tartp
NAZARETH. 187
of no higher wants, and, therefore, although his words made an im-
pression, it was only upon the surface. Their astonishment that a man
whom they had known from childhood should speak such words of
power was soon followed by the doubt, " How comes it that such
a man should do such great things 1" Incapable of appreciating
the heavenly gifts which Christ offered, they wished him (in their
hearts, if not with their lips) to work wonders there, as he had done at
Capernaum.
We have seen already* that the fundamental principles on which
Christ acted forbade him to accept a challenge of this sort. He could
do nothing for those who insisted on seeing in order to believe. Slaves
to the outward seeming, and destitute of a spiritual sense, they would
have been satisfied with nothing he might do ; and he refused them
with a rebuke that pointed to the ground of their offence and unbelief:
" Ye will surely say unto mc t/iis froverh, '■Physician, heal thyself;^
whatsoever we have heard done i?i Capernaum, do also here in thy cotin-
tryP He then quoted, with special reference to Nazareth, the proverb
which he had, on another occasion, applied to the whole of Galilee,
*' A prophet is without honour in his own country ;"t and illustrated, by
examples from the Old Testament (in opposition to their contracted ai'-
rogance), the truth that the grace of God, in the distribution and ap-
plication of miraculous gifts, s.gX.s, freely ; so that they could not extort
a miracle by their challenge, if it was the will of God that none should
be wrought. He came by no means to heal all the Jewish nation.
At this rebuke the wrath of the scribes and of the rude multitude
was enkindled against him,| and the protecting hand of God alone
saved him from the death which threatened him.
This rejection of Christ at Nazareth, due mainly to the disposition
of the chief men, is worthy of note as a type of the rejection which
* See p. 136.
t The Nazarenes represent the character of the whole Jewish people. The doctrine
which Christ arrayed against them — that God's gi-ace is not imparted according to any
human standard — contains the germ of Paul's ninth chapter to the liomans, which meets
similar Jewish demands.
X Lvike's account of this is very graphic, but very brief; many other things may have occur-
red to stir up the anger of the people. But when we remember the fame that had preceded
his coming, the stinking exordium with which he opened his speech (addressed, however,
only to susceptible souls), and, finally, that, instead of complying with their request, he i-e-
fused and rebuked them at the same time, we may readily conceive why they should be
angry at the " son of the carpenter," now coming forward with the pretensions of a prophet.
Their excited selfishness now took the garb of zeal against a false prophet. According to
Luke's account, Christ wrought no miracle here, and this accords with the words he ut-
tered; the less detailed statements of the other Evangelists (Matt., xiii., .58; Mark, vi., 5)
imply that he wrought a. few. In this last case, it might be supposed that he did not leave
the town immediately after the synagogue sei-vice, and that, meanwhile, something occur-
red to excite the people. It is probable, however, that we must consider Luke's statement
the most definite, both in view of the general principles on which Clirist wrought his
mighty worlis, and also of tlie special relation in which he stood to the Nazarenes.
158 FIRST GENERAL MINISTRY IN GALILEE.
awaited him at the hands of the leaders of the whole nation from the
same cause.
5 129. TJie Parahle of the Soicer.* — Chrisi's Explanation of the Para-
ble to the smaller Circle of his Disciples.
The time inter\'ening between Christ's return to Galilee in Novem-
ber, and his journey to Jerusalem to attend the feast of the Passover
in the following Mai'ch or April, was spent in scattering the seeds of
the kingdom more widely among the people of that country. Probably
many of the events recorded by the first three Evangelists belono- to
this period.
Perhaps, also, it was during this period that he took occasion, as he
walked by the shores of Genesareth, to offer Divine truth to the
gathered crowds around him, in the form of a parable suggested by
the labours of the peasants who were sowing their fields around. He
exhibited vividly to their minds, under the figure of the seed, the object
of his proclamation, the dispositions of mind with which it must be re-
ceived in order to accomplish that object, and the hindrances with
which it is wont to meet in human nature.
It is not to be supposed that Christ uttered this parable (which refers
solely to the operations of the word proclaimed by him) as an isolated
speech ; indeed, it is distinctly intimated (Mark, iv., 2) that an exhorta-
tion or warning to his hearers preceded it.
He divides his hearers into two principal classes, (L) those in whom
the word received is unfruitful, and (H.) those in whom it brings forth
fruit. In the first class, again, he distinguishes [a) the totally unsus-
ceptible, and [b) those to whom the word, indeed, finds access, but yet
brings forth no fruit. Of these last, again, there are two subdivisions.
I. The Unfruitful Hearers.
[a.) The totally Unsusceptible.
The seed, which does not penetrate the earth at all, but remains
upon the surface, and is trodden or devoured by birds, correspontls to
the relation of the Divine word to the wholly worldly, who, utterly un-
susceptible, reject the truth without ever comprehending it at all.
(b.) The 2^(H'tialhj Suscejjtible.
(1.) The Stony-ground Hearers. — Under the figure of the stony
ground, in which the seed shoots up quickly, but withers as soon, for
want of earth and moisture, he depicts that lively but shallow suscepti-
bility of spirit which grasps the truth eagerly, but receives no deep im-
pressions, and yields as quickly to the reaction of worldly temptations
as it had yielded to the Divine word. Faith must prove itself in strife
* Matt., xiii., 1-9 ; Mark, iv., 1-9 ; Luke, viii., 4-8.
PARABLE OF THE SOWEE. 1S9
against the world without, as well as within ; but the mind just de-
scribed never appi-opriates the truth in such a way as to obtain power
to resist.
(2.) The Word CkoJced among Thorns. — The seed which germinates
and takes root, but is stifled by the thorns that shoot up with it, figures
the mind in which the impure elements of worldly desire develope
themselves along with the higher life, and at last become strong enough
to crush it, so that the received truth is utterly lost.
II. The Fruitful Hearers.
When seed is sown into good ground, it is variously productive ac-
cording to the fertility of the soil. So the fruitfulness of Divine truth,
when once appropriated, depends upon the degree in which it pene-
trates the whole interior life and all the powers of the spirit, stamping
itself upon the truth-inspired course of life.
With what perfect simplicity are the profoundest truths in regard to
the growth of religious life unfolded in this parable ! So vivid an im-
pression was made upon a woman in the throng, that she exclaimed,
"Blessed is the womh that hare thee, and the breast that gave thee suck."*
But Christ rejected this external veneration, and said, as if with pro-
phetic warning against that tendency to fix religious feeling upon the
outward, which in later times so sadly disfigured true Christianity,
"i\^o, rather ble.ised are they that hear the word of God and keep it ;"
with obvious reference to the parable, which illustrated the faithful re-
ception and use of the Divine word.
After the dispersion of the multitude, the smaller circle of disciples
gathered about Christ and asked a further explanation of the parable.t
He told them that to them it should remain no longer a parable ;| tlici/
might clearly apprehend the truth which was only offered in a veil to
the stupid multitude. After unfolding its import, he taught them that
the truth then veiled in parables was to become a light for all man-
kind ; that they were to train themselves to be his organs in diffusing it ;
but that, in order to this, they must ever grow in the knowledge of his
truth by a faithful employment of the means that he had given them. "iVb
man, when he hath lighted a candle, covcreth it with a vessel, or putteth
it under a bench ; but setteth it on a candlestick, that they which enter in
may see the light. (So, also, the truth, destined to be a light for all
mankind, must not be concealed, but diffuse its light on all that seek to
enter the kingdom of God.) For there is nothing hid that shall not be
known and come abi-oad. (And he adds wamingly to his disciples),
* Luke, xi., 27. We shall give our reasons, further on, in placing these words in this
connexion. t Matt., xiii., 18-23; Mark, iv., 10-25; Luke, viii., 9-18. X Cf. p. 105.
100 FIRST GENERAL MINISTRY IN GALILEE.
Take heed, therefore, how ye hear ; for ivhoxoever hath, to h'nn shall he
given ; and whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken even that which
he SEEMETU to have. (Every thing depends upon the spirit in which
the truth is received and put to use.)"
§ 130. Parable of the various Kinds of Fish in the Net.*- — Of the
Wheat and the Tares.j
Marvellous was the spirit-glance with which Christ surveyed not only
the process by which the higher life which he had introduced into hu-
manity was to develope itself, according to its own inherent laws, but
also the manifold corruptions and hindrances that awaited it. The par-
ables in which he illustrated the hindrances and obstacles of the truth
were also derived from the sphere of nature and of life immediately
around him — the toils of the fishermen in the Sea of Genesareth, and
of the husbandmen in the fertile fields about its shores.
He had to teach his disciples that not all who joined him were fitted
to be genuine followers, and that the spurious and the true should be
intermixed in his visible kingdom, until that final process of decision
which God had reserved to himself. To convey this truth, he com-
pares the kingdom of God, in the process of its developcment on
earth (which corresponds to the visible Church as distinguished from
the invisible), to a net cast into the sea, in which fish of all kinds, trood
and worthless, are caught, and which are only assorted after the net
has been drawn to the shore.
It was, perhaps, an expression of surprise on the part of his disri-
j)les, at the long forbearance of Christ toward some whom they deemed
unworthy — and certainly there was one such in the immediate circle of
his fi>llowers — that gave him occasion to utter the parable of the
" Wheat and the Tares." Its object was to warn them (and the lead-
ers of the Church in all ages) against arbitrarily and impatiently an-
ticipating the Divine wisdom, which guides all the threads of t!;e
(Jhurch's progress to one aim; against attempting to distinguish the
spurious from the genuine members before that final sifting of the king-
dom which God himself will make ; to teach them that men have no
means of making such decisions unerringly, and might cut oR', as false,
some who were, or might become, true subjects of the kingdom.
The chief point in the parable is, that while the genuine seed ger-
minates and brings forth fruit, the bastard seed is also sown among it,
and both shooting up together, the bastard wheat, from its likeness to
the true, cannot well be discriminated imtil harvest, when its real na-
ture is manifested. The other point of comparison is the impatience
of the servants, who wish to pull up the tares at once.
" Matt., xiii., 47. t Matt., xiii., 21.
THE STORxM SUBDUED. 191
It is a question whether the individual trait that the tares were sown
by the enemy "■ wJiile men slcpV had any special prominence. If so,
it contains an exhortation to the leaders of the Church to be watchful ;
implying that carelessness and indifference on their part may admit
false members among the true. But no such exhortation is afterward
expressed, and, moreover, the whole plan of the parable presupposes
that these spurious admixtures will nccessarlhj take place in the procu-
ress of the kingdom ; that no care or foresight can prevent them.
We must, therefore, consider this trait as belonging to the colourino'
rather than the substance of the parable.
§ 131. Christ subdues a Storm on the Sea. — Character of the Act as a
JSIiracIe. — Its moral Significance.
The disciples had many opportunities, on the Sea of Genesareth, of
contrasting their own spiritual feebleness with the calmness of the Sav-
iour's soul ; an experience that was useful, not only at the time, but
as a preparation for their own subsequent calling.
On one occasion,* sailing from the western to the eastern shore of
the sea, in a vessel with a number of his disciples and others, he sunk
into sleep, probably worn out with his previous labours in supplying
the physical as well as spiritual necessities of the jjeople. While he
was asleep, a storm arose, so violent as to threaten the destruction of
the vessel. The disciples, full of consternation, and always accustomed
to seek his aid in distress, now roused him from sleep. In a few short
words he commands the winds and the waves to " be still," and is
obeyed ; a calm is spread over the face of nature. He mildly rebukes
the disciples : " Where is your faith 1 what sort of trust in God is this,
which can so easily be shaken V
Not only the disciples, but the other persons in the ship, were deeply
impressed by this miracle. One of the strangerst (for the disciples had
seen too many of his wonders to ask such a question) exclaimed.
" What kind of man is this, that even the elements obey him."
The question has been started whether this occurrence cannot be ex-
plained from the subjective apprehension of the men themselves, e.g.,
as follows. When Jesus awoke, and spoke calmly to them, his com-
posure quieted their perturbed minds. A calm in the elements en-
sued ; and they transferred the impression made upon their minds to
Nature. Interpreting the few words uttered by Christ in this way,
they involuntarily altered them a shade in repeating them afterward.
* Luke, viii., 22-25; Matt, viii., 23-27; Mark, iv., 36-41. The connexion of this history
with that of the Gadarene in the text of the Evangelists is a proof of historical reality ;
DO causal ground of such a connexion exists.
t The expression oi ai/OpwToi, in Matt., indicates that these persons were not disciples.
192 FIRST GENERAL MINISTRY IN GALILEE.
Now, even if this theory were admitted, it would leave the Divine
image of Christ untouched in its sublimity. He that, on awaking sud-
denly from sleep, could impress men's minds with such a belief, by
a word and a glance, must have been the Son of God.
But the theory cannot be admitted. Christ must have known that
the observers looked upon his words as the cause of the calm that en-
sued, and would not have employed a deceit to confirm their faith in
his sovereignty, which, resting upon the foundations of truth, needed
no such props as this. He would rather have taken occasion, from
such a misunderstanding (had it occurred), to convey a useful lesson to
his future Apostles. He would have told them, probably, that his
work was, not to subdue the storms and waves of nature, but of men's
souls; that to souls full of his peace and joy no powers of the world
could bring terror.
In short, our interpretation of the event will depend upon the general
view of the person of Christ with which we set out. Were an achieve-
ment like this attributed to a saint, we should be entitled to give it
such an interpretation as the above ; but it is ascribed to Jesus, the Son
of God, who revealed, in the history which we have of his life, powers
adequate to such a deed.
The moral design of the miracle was, partly, to impress his sover-
eignty upon the minds of certain persons who had before seen no
exhibitions of it ; and, partly, to confirm the faith of the Apostles in his
power to subjugate nature, and make her operations tributary to the
kintrdom of God. And this sensible miracle was an image of that
higher spiritual one which Christ works in all ages, in speaking peace
to the soul amid all the tempests of life, and in bringing to obedience
all the raging powers that oppose the progi-ess of his kingdom.
§ 132. The Gadarcne Demoniac* — Chris fs Treatment of him after tiic
Cure. — Inferences from it.
Christ landed on the eastern shore, near the town of Gadara. IMnny
pagans probably resided in that vicinity, as herds of swine abounded.
A demoniac, t who could not possibly be kept chained in his raging
paroxysms, but constantly broke his fetters and eluded his guardians,
was wandering about near the landing-place. He believed himself in-
habited and hurried hither and thither by a host of evil spirits. Driven
naked from the haunts of men by the direful powers, he sought a
dreary refuge amid the grave-stones and old tombs| of the wilderness.
• Matt., viii., 28 ; Mark, v., 1-BO ; Luke, viii., 26-39. Two demoniacs are mentioned by
Matthew, perhaps because the demoniac speaks in the plural number. t Cf. p. 145.
X These are still to be found among the ruins of Ovi-Kcis, probably the ancient Gadara.
(Cf Burckhardt, i., 426; Gesenius, Anmerknngen, 538 ; Robinson, iii., 53.').) Origen mast
Lave been mistaken (t. vi., in Joann., $ 24) iii sayiog that Gadara could not be tiie spot.
THE GADARENE DEMONIAC. 193
Pi'obably attracted by the noise of the landing, the demoniac ran to
meet the passengers as they disembarked ; having probably, also, heard
of the fame of Jesus, which had spread from the western to the eastern
shore of the lake. From what we can learn, we should judge that the
man was a heathen, who had, however, dwelt much among the Jews,
and therefore confounded Jewish and pagan notions together in his dis-
turbed consciousness. So he proba'bly addressed Jesus as " the son
of the highest Cxod," rather in a pagan than Jewish sense.* The ap-
pearance of Christ (probably combined with what he had previously
heard) affected him profoundly; the warring powers within him — as
was generally the case when Christ's Divinity came in contact with
demoniacs — j^artly urged him toward the Saviour, and partly held him
back ; attracted as he was, he could not bear the presence of Jesus.
There is something in him which resists and dreads the Divine power.
Losing his proper identity in that of the evil spirits that possess him,
he personates them, and recognizing, with ten-or, the Son of God as
the future Judge, he exclaims, in anguish, " What hast thou to do with
us, thou Son of the Highest "? (What would the Heavenly, so near us 1)
Why hast thou come hither before the time (before the final doom), to
make us feel thy power, and torment us?"t
Christ's first procedure is not such as to imply that he has to do with
evil spirits. He directs his words to the man, seeks to get his atten-
tion and draw him into conversation, so as to pi-epare the way for
further influences. As a beginning, he asks the man his name. But
the demoniac, still blending his own identity with that of the evil
spirits, answers, "Legion;" it is a whole legion of evil spirits that
dwell in him. He then reiterates, in their person, the prayer that
Christ would not cast them into Hades before their time ; and per-
ceiving a hei'd of swine feeding at a distance, the unclean spirits are
associated with the unclean beasts in his perturbed thoughts. He then
beseeches Christ that, if the spirits are compelled to leave the man,
they may be permitted to enter the stoinc, under the notion that they
cannot exist except as united to material bodies.
There is a gap here in our connexion of the facts. Did Christ really
participate in the opinions of the demoniac, or was it only subsequently
inferred,| from the fact that the swine rushed down, that Christ had
because there is neither lake nor precipice near; he probably looked for the theatre of the
event in the immediate vicinity of the tovirn, which by no means follows, necessarily from
the narrative. * Cf. the words of the heathen woman, Acts, xvi 17.
t The original form of these words is probably that given by Matthew. Every thing
leads us to conclude that the demoniac, impressed by the person of Christ, addressed him
first.
i Sti-ikingly as this graphic nairative bears the marks of truth, this is still its obscure
point. Some have attempted to clear it up by the supposition that the demoniac threw
himself upon the herd after Christ spoke to him. But this is inconsistent with the facts
N
194 FIRST GENERAL MINISTRY IN GALILEE.
allowed the evil spirits to take possession of them ] It is certain, at
any rate, that they did cast themselves over the precipice into the sou,
as if diHven by an invisible power, and that many of them perished.
One thing is very clear, a man in such a state could not have been
cured by Christ's merely humouring his whims, and by a single coinci-
dence like that of the herd's throwing themselves over the precipice.
Nay, he could not have made the request that he did, nor have be-
lieved that the evil spirits had abandoned him at Christ's command, had
not Christ, by the power of his spirit, made a mighty impression upon
liim before. What followed shows, however, more clearly that Christ
used higher influences to restore his shattered soul to its pristine sound-
ness.
Although no detailed account is left of what immediately followed,
we may yet conclude, from the result, that many things occuried be-
tween Christ and the demoniac after the preparatory work above re-
lated. His heart had been made susceptible of farther spiritual influ-
ences. The presence and words of Christ produced additional effects,
as we find the man sitting clothed, and in his right mind, at the feet of
Jesus, listening to him with eager devotion. So moved is he, that ho
wishes to attach himself to Christ and follow him every where.
But Christ (who had reserved for a subsequent period the conver-
sion of the heathen) tells the restored man to '■'go home to Jiis friends.'''*
We see in this, as in many other examples, how Christ's conduct va-
ried with circumstances, and how carefully we should guard against
deducing general principles from his procedure in isolated cases.
While he calls upon some to leave home and family to follow him, he
bids this man to follow first the purely human feelings which had been
reinstated in their natural rights within him; to return, sane and calm,
to the family which he had abandoned as a maniac ; and to glorify Gon
among them, by telling them how Christ had wrought the mighty
change, and giving them a living 2)roof of it in his own person. He
tells some on whom he had wrought miracles not to say too much
about what he had done ; but this one he commands to publish every
It is not probable that a paroxysm like this could have seized him after the impression
which Clirist had made upon him. Moreover, this explanation allbrds no ijround for tlu-
notion of the demoniac that the spirits had abandoned him for the swine, but would ratln'r
convince him of the continuance of their power over him. In order to believe the fornicr.
lie must have stood as a (luiet spectator while the herd was violently driven into tlie sea
by au invisible power. The analogy of the notions of the time favours this. In the refer-
ence to Josephus. before made (p. 150), the exorcist bids the demon leave the sufferer ur.d
enter a vessel of water that stood by ; and his obedience is proved by the fall of the vessel
ui iln own accord. So the swine must have rushed down of their own accord, to allbrd nuy
proof that the devils had left the man and entered them. Finally, an attack of the swine,
on the part of the demoniac, could have been uo matter of surprise to the swineherds.
(Matt., viii., 37.) * Mai-k, v. 19.
THE ISSUE OF BLOOD. 195
where among his friends what great things God had wrought for him.
In this case it was heathens (not Jews) that were concerned.
The way in which Christ gave peace and harmony to this distracted
and lacerated soul affords an image of the whole work of redemption.
The first emotion of the uncultivated and (chiefly) heathen people
around was fear ; not the feeling then best adapted to render them
susceptible of his teaching. But the simple story of the restored man's
experience was adapted to lead them to contemplate Christ, no longer
on the side of his power, but of his love and holiness.*
§ 133. Christ Returns to the tcest side of Gencsarcth . — Healing of the
Issue of Blood.\
When Christ returned to the western shore of the lake, he found a
multitude of people awaiting his arrival. One of the I'ulers of the
synagogue, named Jairus, whose daughter of twelve years| lay so ill
that her death was hourly expected, pressed through the throng to the
Saviour, and besought him to go to his house. He arose to grant the
sorrowing father's prayer, but the crowd detained them.
A woman who had suffered with an issue for twelve years, and had
sought aid in vain from physicians, approached him through the press
from behind. She did not venture to address him directly, but having
formed the idea in her own way, she thought that a sort of magical
healing power streamed forth from his person, and that she might be
7'elieved of her malady simply by touching his garment. Her believ-
ing confidence, although blended with erroneous conceptions, was not
disappointed.
Christ felt that some one had touched his robe,§ and inquired who
it was. Peter, forward as usual, spoke for the disciples, and said
(very candidly, doubtless, as he probably did not observe the woman's
movement), " How canst thou be surprised, in the midst of such a
throng, that the people approach and touch thee !" But Christ re-
peated his question, and the woman, who had not before ventured a
word, expecting to be discovered, fell trembling at his feet, and pro-
* The narrative does not say whether this foundation of Divine knowledge was ever
built «pou among them. t Matt., ix., 18-26; Mark, v., 21; Luke, viij., 40.
I Strauss .sajs that this age of "twelve" was a mere fiction, in imitation of the twelve
years of the issue of blood. There is not a shadow of reason to suppose that Luke's state-
ments are not literally correct in both instances ; but even if they were not, if a round
number only is meant, and the one period modelled after the other, the veracity of the nar
rative would be in nowise impeached.
§ Luke's account could have been given by none but an eye-witness in such lively and
minute detail ; e. g., Christ's question, Peter's answer, the repetition of the question, etc.
Moreover, Luke makes the cure immediate upon the touching of the garment ; in Matthew
it follows the words of Christ in the usual way. Luke's eye-witness had the conception
of the mode of cure that the woman herself had, and so interpreted Ciirist's words
(viii., 46).
196 FIRST GENERAL MINISTRY IN GALILEE.
claimed before all what had happened to her. Jesus, kindly encoura-
ging the trembling heart, said to her, " Be of good cheer, tJiy faith hath
saved thee ; go in peace ."*
§ 134. Raising of Jairus's Daughter. — And of the Widow^s Son at
Nain.
In the mean time a message came from the house of Jairus that his
daughter was dead, and that, as nothing could be done, the Master need
be troubled no further.t But Christ, not hindered by the news, said
to the father, " Be not afraid ; only believe, and she shall he made
whole J"*
What right had he to hold out this hope to the parent, and in what
sense did he do it ] Did lie know, from the reported symptoms, that
the death was only apparent, and that he was going to cure a fainting-
fit by remedies in his possession ] Had this been the case, he surely
would have guarded against exciting hopes that might be disappointed ;
he would have said, in words, that his expectations were founded only
on the supposition that the girl was in a trance ; and as natural signs
alone could give no unening certainty of cure, he would, in mere
prudence, have spoken conditionally, telling the father, perhaps, to
trust in God, but yet, at the same time, to resign himself to tlie Divine
will. In a word, he could only have spoken as he did, from a Divine
confidence that he could, by the power of God within him, restore life
to the dead body.
At the door of the house the mother comes to meet them. A throng
of curious persons at the door desire to enter, but he admits only \he
parents, with three of his most intimate disciples. In the chamber of
death he finds already gathered the minstrels and mourners. " Weep
not," said he to them ; " she is not dead, hut sleepcth."
These words might have been used, it is true, if he meant (as some
suppose) to state her condition according to the symptoms, and to
make this a ground of consolation; as if he had said, "she is only in a
trance resembling sleep." But they were equally appropi-iate, if, with-
* The narrative does not decide whether the approacli of the woman was known to
dirist, and he healed her intentionally, or whether the cure was a Divine operation, inde-
pendently of him (a physical cause being laid out of tlie case), caused by the woman's faitli,
and thus serving to glorify her trust in Christ.
t The discrepancy between Luke's account (viii., 49) and Matthew's (ix., 18, seq.) has
been made a ground of objection. It has been supposed that the second message is a mere
filling up of Luke's. A similar discrepancy, as to the sending of a message, occurs in tlio
case of the centurion, Matt., viii., 5-10; Luke, vii., (i. Grant that the two cases were
entirely alike, it would not follow that there had been an intentional invention. But the
dissimilarity of the two is greater than their similarity. In both cases, indeed, the mes-
sage is, that Christ iiecd not come; but the reason assigned in the one is, that he can help
withovt cominif, and in the other, that it is too late for him to help at all. What, then, is
unlikely in either? especially as Luke's statements, derived from eye-witnesses, are full,
while those of Matthew are abridged reports.
JAIRUS'S DAUGHTER. 197
out any reference to natural symptoms and consequences, lie meant
only to say that this condition would he, for her, only sleep, as he was
able to raise her out of it. The character in which Christ acted, as
well as the whole connexion of the narrative, compel the conclusion
that he spoke with I'eference to the result rather than to the nature of
the condition in which the maiden lay ; even though the circumstances
might make it probable that this condition was a trance.
["And he put them all out'^\ In stillness must such a woi'k be
wrought !
When the noisy mourners were gone, and he was alone with the few
that had accompanied him into the chamber of death, he spoke to the
maiden the life-inspiring words. He then •* charged them to tell no
man what had been dcme." It has been said that he did this to pre-
vent their giving him the false reputation of having done a miracle in
the case ; false, because he had restored the maiden, in an entirely
natural way, from a death that was only apparent. Had this been the
case, he certainly would have explained himself more definitely. He
would have told them, "in that case, Jiow to report the matter ; not that
they should not report it at all. But he could not have wished that
the event should be otherwise regarded than as a work of Divine
power ; and the prohibition was doubtless made in view of circum-
stances, especially in view of the dispositions of the people.
To this period of Christ's ministry, probably, belongs also a miracle
akin to^he raising of Jairus's daughter, which is reported only by Luke.*
On a journey, accompanied by his disciples, and by many others who
had joined him on the road, he arrives before the little town of iVa/«,t
in the vicinity of Mount Tabor, and not far from the well-known Endor.
Near the gate he meets a funeral procession ; and in the sad line a
widow, mourning for her only son. In compassion^ to her grief, he
* Lake, vii., 11.
t Now a little village, Nein, inhabited by a few families. — RobiiiMJi, iii., 460 [Am. ed.,
iii., 218, 2-26].
t Ohhmisen thiiiks that, although Christ only made his compassion for the mother prom-
inent in this miracle, he still had regard to the salvation of the son ; for, as he well remai-ks,
the life of one human being cannot be used merely as means for another's peace or wel
fare. But, although we cannot decide that Christ had reference at the time to the manner
in which the youth's resurrection would teud to his personal welfare, he must have been
satisfied that, in the wisdom of God, it was destined to secure it. As the organ of God,
lie must have been conscious of a harmony between — not merely his whole manifestation,
but also — all his individual actions and the Divine plan for the government of the world.
A physician may save a man's life by natural means without Itnowiug, at the time, what
use the man will make of it; bat, if he is a believer, he must be satisfied that God would
not allow it, if the restoration were not for die best, in regard to his individual well-beint;.
The same relation would subsist if the means employed were supernatural.
198 FIRST GENERAL MINISTRY IN GALILEE.
exclaims, " Weep not." Had he not been conscious of power to remove
the cause of grief, by giving bade her son, he would have tried to
soothe her sorrow, instead of exciting a vain hope, only to plunge her
deeper into anguish.
§ 135. Doubts of John the Baptist in his Imprisonment* — His Message
to Chriat, and its Result. — Christ'' s Testimony concerning Hiin. — His
vleiv of the relation hetwccn the Old and New Dispensations.
John the Baptist had now languished in prison for several months in
the fortress Machosrus. He was not wholly interdicted from intercourse
with his disciples ; for the fear of political disturbance from him was, as
we have seen,t the ostensible, not the real, reason of his imprisonment.
In the testimony which he gave to Christ, just before his imprison-
ment,t he had declared his expectation that he would soon be obscured
by the public manifestation of Jesus as Messiah, and by his recognition
at the hands of the worthy members of the Theocratic nation. What
he heard in prison of Christ's mighty works only made him look more
impatiently for the founding of his visible Messianic kingdom. The
delay of this event might very naturally cause doubts to spring up in
his mind.§ But as his faith in the Divine calling of Jesus remained
unshaken, he looked for a definite decision of the question from his
own lips, and sent two of his disciples with the inquiry, " Art thou He
that should come, or do we loohfor another .?"||
In this reply Christ gives them, as proof of his Messiahship, the
miracles that he had wrought, both upon matter and spirit.^ He first
combines the two classes, applying the material as a ty2ie or image of
the spii'itual ; and then makes the spiritual especially proliinent.
" The blind receive their sight" (both physical and spiritual), " the lame
tcalk** the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised,]] the
poor have the Gospel preached unto them."W
* Matt., xi., 2-15 ; Luke, vii., 19-30. t Cf. p. 179. % Cf. p. 178. § Cf. p. 5S.
II We have before sliown that this presupposes rather thati contradicts the previous
baptism and recognition of Jesus by the Baptist. It illustrates, however, the methoii
in which the synoptical Gospels were compiled : the author of this statement, if he liad
known of that previous recognition, could hardly have failed to notice it.
IT It by no means follows, from the narrative, that Christ wrought all these miracles in
presence of John's messengers. They could hear of them any where, and see their effects.
Nor is a chronological connexion between the resun-ection of the widow's son and this
message of John's to be inferred from the juxtaposition in which Luke places them ; he
may have been led to this by Christ's mention of "the raising of the dead."
**" There is an obvious allusion here to Isa., xxxv., 5; Ixi., 1 ; yet it is not absolutely ne-
cessary 80 to consider it. Nor are we bound to square the words of Christ by tlie quota-
tion, and to infur that all which deviates from it has been added by another hand. A close
connexion is obvious in the text.
tt This is to be understood especially of spiritual death and resurrection, a sense which
joins better to the following clause, since it is precisely by the "preaching of the Gospel"
that the spiritually dead are raised.
tt The word "poor" may be taken in th.e sjiii-itual as well as the natural sense here;
JOHN THE BAPTIST. 199
Thus he presents himself as the Messiah, selecting the sphere of his
labours among the poor in goods and in spirit, displaying his relieving
and redeeming power to those who feel their need of it ; the self-re-
vealing, yet self-concealing Messiah, who does not offer himself as
Theocratic king visibly before men's senses, as the Jews expected —
an expectation which perplexed even the Baptist's own mind. And,
therefore, he closes with the pregnant words of warning, " And blessed
is he whosoever shall not be offended in me." (Happy is he who is sat-
isfied, by these signs, to admit my Messiahship, and who is not offend-
ed because it does not precisely meet his expectations.)
After the disciples of John had departed, Jesus said to the multi-
tude around him, " What went ye out into the wilderness* to see ? A
reed shaken with the wind on the shore of Jordan V To see a fickle,
changeful man, the sport of outward influences ] (He thus intends to
represent John as a prophet, faithful and true to his convictions, and
to vindicate him from any charge of instability on the ground that this
question, sent by his disciples, was in conflict with his earlier testimo-
nies.) " But perhaps ye went out to see a man in soft and splendid
garments ? Such men ye find not in deserts, but in the palaces of
kings." A striking contrast between the preacher of repentance, the
austere censor of morals, and the luxurious courtiers who wait upon
the smiles of princes.t
After these negative traits, Christ designates the stand-point of John
positively. He calls him a " prophet," and " more than a prophet,"
and points him out as the Forerunner, the preacher of repentance pre-
dicted in Malachi (iii., 1), who was to go before, in the spirit of Elias,
and prepare the way for the Messiah. He declares that none, in all
time before, had held a higher position in the developement of the
kingdom of God than John ; that none had enjoyed a higher degree of
religious illumination.^ Yet, said he, the least in the manifested king-
both, indeed, are connected, as it is among the poor in worldly goods that most of the
spiritually poor are to be found, i. e., such as feel their inward wants and crave a supply
for them.
* It is possible that these words had no higher meaning, and were only used to impress
the single thought negatively, thus : " Ye must have gone to the icilderness to seek some-
thing more than the wilderness itself could afford to you." But as all that follows refers
antithetically to John, we infer that these words also had such a reference.
t Unless the words have this meaning, they appear to have none ; with it, they imply
that John's conduct had given occasion for such comparisons ; and perhaps this may have
contributed to his imprisonment.
J We cannot, in Matt, xi., 11, supply vpv'i>l,Tt)i after nnl,i,)v ; the last clause of the verse
forbids it. It probably was not in Christ's original words ; and if it be not a gloss in Luke
(vii., 28), it is only an explanatoiy addition in the statement itself The " superiority" does
not refer to subjective moral worth, in which, certainlj', Christ could not intend to place the
"least" in the Christian Church above this man of (JoD ; but refers to advantages for ap-
prehending the nature and progress of the kingdom of God. It is in this sense that the
eoo FISRT GENERAL MINISTRY IN GALILEE.
tlom of God (/. e., in the Cluirch foundeJ by Christ as Redeemer), the
least among truly enlightened Christians is greater than John.
These words have a double importance, as they define not only
Christ's view of the stand-point of John the Baptist, but also of the Old
Dispensation in general, in regard to Christianity.
In regard to the first, we must distinguish wherein John was behind
Christianity, and wherein he towered above the prophets. He was be-
hind Christianity, because he was yet prejudiced by his conception of
the Theocracy as external ; because he did not clearly know that Mes-
siah was to found his kingdom by sufferings, and not by miraculously
triumphing over his foes ; because he did not conceive that this king-
dom was to show itself from the first, not in visible appearing, but as
a Divine power, to develope itself spiritually from within outward, and
thus gradually to overcome and take possession of the world. The
least among those who understand the nature and process of develope-
ment of the Divine kingdom, in connexion with Christ's redemption,
is in this respect greater than the Baptist, who stood upon the dividing
line of the two spiritual eras. But John was above the projDhets (and
Christ so declared), because he conceived of the Messiah and his king-
dom in a higher and more spiritual sense than they had done, and be-
cause he directly pointed men to Christ, and recognized Him as the
manifested Messiah.
In regard to the second, viz., the relation of the Old Dispensation in
general to Christianity, the fact that Christ places the Baptist ahovc
the prophets, who were the very culminatlng-point of the Old Cove-
nant, and yet so far hcloio the members of the new developement of the
kingdom, exhibits in the most striking way possible his view of the dis-
tance between the old preparatory Testament and the New. The au-
thority of Christ himself, therefore, is contradicted by those who ex-
pect to find the truth revealed by him, already developed in the Old
Testament. If in John we are to distinguish the fundamental truth
which he held, and which pointed to the New Testament, from the lim-
ited and sensuous Jonn in which he held it, much more, according to
Christ's words, are we bound to do this in the Old Testament generally,
and in its Messianic elements especially. Following this intimation,
we must, in studying the prophets, discriminate the historical from the
ideal sense, the conscious from the unconscious prophecies.
The testimony which Christ added in regard to the effects of .Tohn's
labours corresponds precisely with the above view of his stand-point.
greatest of the oUl, prcpartitory stage were less than the least of the new. Since the
prophets, who fonn the point of transition between the two dispensations, occupied tho
highest stand-point in thp religious developement of autiipiity, the sense of the passage is
the same, with or without the word -pv<pf)Trii.
THE EASY YOKE. 201
" From the days of John the Baptist until now* the kingdom of heaven
suffereth violence, and the violent take it by forced] (Tliat is, " the long-
ing for the kingdom, excited by John's preaching, has spread among
men ; they press forward, striving to secure it, and those who strive
with their wlrole souls obtain a share in it.") " And if ye will receive
it, this is Elias, ivhich was for to comeT (John is the Elias who was
to come to prepare the way for Messiah — if you will only understand
it — spiritually, not corporeally.)
§ 136. Christ shows the Relation of his Contemporaries to the Baptist
and to Himself \ — The Easy Yoke and the Light Burden. — Jewish
Legalism contrasted with Christian Liberty.
The discourse which Christ continued to the groups around him is
especially important as unfolding the relation in which he stood to the
Jews.
" They are like children sitting in the market-place, and saying. We
have piped unto you, and ye have not danced ; tve have mourned unto you,
and ye have not wept.'"' The merry music and the mournful are alike
displeasing ; they will neithf:'r dance nor be sad. So it was with John
and the Son of Man on the one hand, to the people of that time on the
other. The ascetic of the desert, preaching repentance with fasting
and austerity, was laughed at as a madman ; the Son of Man, mingling
in the intercourse of men, and sharing in their human joys, was " a
glutton and a wine-bibher.''^ Yet " Wisdom icas justified of her children^''
Was recognized by those who really belonged to her. (While the
multitude, sunk in worldly-mindedness and self-conceit, and deaf to the
voice of Divine wisdom, took offence, for opposite reasons, at both
these messengers of God, the humble and susceptible disciples of the
wisdom of God, on the other hand, could understand the different stand-
points of John and Jesus, and appreciate the reasons for their different
modes of life and action.)
* These words (Matt, xi., 12) obviously presuppose that John's labours had ceased, and,
of course, that he had lost his liberty. This is enough to refute the hypothesis of iichleier-
machcr, that he sent the message before his imprisonment. The whole tenor of the pas-
sage implies that John's era was at an end. It has also been inferred from the words
atib Tiiv l]ncpii)v 'iuidi'vov, that tlie passage was a later interpolation, improperly put into
Christ's mouth. If this were true, it would only affect the form, not the subslance of the
passage, and we should have to follow Luke, svi., 16 (where, however, the words are ob-
viously out of place). But it is not tnie.
t These words are expressly chosen to denote the eaiTiest will, the struggle, and the en-
tire devotion of soul which are requisite to enter into the kingdom of heaven. All the
powers of the spirit, its submission, its efforts, are necessary at all times, to secure the
kingdom amid the reactions of the natural man, the carnal mind, its selfishness, its world-
liness of spirit ; but at that time it was especially the worldly notions of the Messiahship
that had to be struggled against. The nature of the case shows that iii(t<^civ is to be thus
figuratively taken; the tisus loquendl does not contradict it ; and it suits the natural con-
nexion of the passage. \ Matt., xi., 17.
202 FIRST GENERAL MINISTRY IN GALILEE.
The discourse concluded with an exhortation to the gathered multi-
tude, in which Christ, with the greatest tenderness, invited the suscep-
tible souls among them (the children of Wisdom) to " come unto hun,"*
and find, in his fellowship, a supply for all their wants. He contrasts
himself, as the Redeemer oi " heavy -ladc7i" souls, with the rigid teach-
ers of the law, who, while they burdened men's consciences with their
multiplied statutes, imparted no power to perform them, and repelled,
in haughtiness, the conscience-stricken sinner, instead of affording him
peace and consolation. The contrast, perhaps, was intended to apply
not only to the Pharisees, but to the Baptist, who also occupied the
stand-point of the law.
Tlie "friend of publicans and sinners" thus invites all who feel their
wretchedness to enter his communion ; and announces himself as the
'' meek and lowly" one, repelling none because of their misery, con-
descending to the necessities of all, taking off the load from the weary
soul instead of imposing new burdens, and giving them joy and rest in
his fellowship. He makes no extravagant, impracticable demands.
Obedience, indeed (" the easy yoke"), he does require ; but an obedi-
ence which (although it embraces more than the righteousness of i\w.
law) is easy and pleasant, flowing spontaneously from the Divine lift;
within, and rondered in the spirit of love. " Come unto me (says he),
all ye that labour and are heavy laden (all that sigh under the legal
yoke and the sense of sin, like the 'poor in spirit' of the Sermon on the
Mount), and I will free you from your burdens, and give you the peace
for which you sigh. Enter the fellowship of my disciples, and you
will find me no hard master, but a kind and gentle one ; you shall ob-
tain rest for your souls, for my yoke is mild, and the burden ^vllich I
shall lay upon you, light."f
Our inference, from Christ's own words, in respect to the relation
in which he stood at that time to the Jewish people, is : That the ?na-
jority of them were dissatisfied with him, as they had before been with
the Baptist ; but that a smaller number of those who had recognized
the Divine calling of John, acknowledged also that of Christ, and
passed over, in submission to the guidance of Divine wisdom, from the
former to the latter.
It is clear that a strong opposition was already formed against Christ,
and the chief point on which it supported itself was precisely that
which distinguished the stand-point of the Saviour from that of the
* These inconiparnble words, preserved for us by Mattlicw alone (xi., 28-30), fitly con-
clude the discourse ; the interposed passasi^e (iO-27) was probably taken from some other
of Christ's addresses by the editor of our Matthew (see hereafter), and placed here be-
cause of its affinity to the context.
t Here is the gerrn of Paul's entire doctrine, not only of the contrast between laic and
Gofpcl, but also of the Gospel itself as a lo/ioj nhTtws, m'cviiaTos.
FASTING. 203
Old Testament, and also from the peculiar one of John the Baptist. It
was the spirit of liberty with which, in Christianity, the Divine life
takes hold of and appropriates to itself the relations of the world and
society, in contrast with the spirit of ascetic opposition to the world.
The Jews could see nothing of the holy prophet in a man who shared
with his disciples in the pleasures of social life, and sanctified them
by his presence ; in a man who did not hesitate to partake of the en-
tertainments of publicans and sinners. Striking, indeed, must have
been the contrast between the comparatively unrestrained mode of life
adopted by Christ's disciples, and the austere asceticism of the pupils
whom the Baptist was training to be preachers of repentance, or of the
neophytes of the Pharisaic schools. No schools of spiritual life, in-
deed, before that time, had trained their pupils as Christ did his. We
<"an easily imagine the amazement of the Pharisees !
^ 137. C/irisi's Conversation with the Pharisees in regard to the Mode
of Life indulged hy his Discij)les.* — The Morality of Fasting.
It is not strange, tlierefore, that on a certain occasion the Pharisees
came to Christ, and expressed their surprise at the free and social
mode of life in which he indulged his disciples. They did not confine
their appeal to the example of their own school, but intentionally add-
ed that of the Baptist's disciples, believing that the latter would be
the more to their purpose, as Christ had recognized John for an en-
lightened teacher.
It may be asked whether the Pharisees, in putting this question,
sought only for instruction, and wished to obtain from Christ himself
the principles on which a course so inexplicable to them was founded,
or whether they ineant to reproach him personally for sitting at the
banquets of publicans and sinners, and only made use of their ques-
tion about the disciples for a crafty blind to their attack ] The gentle
and instructive tone of Christ's reply seems (although it certainly is
not proof) to favour the first view.t Would he have said so much to
justify his conduct, without a word in reproof of their question, if he
had to deal with crafty opponents utterly unsusceptible of instruction ?|
* Matt, ix., 11-17; Mark, ii., 15-22; Luke, v., 33-39.
t The collocation of Luke, v., 33 and 34, if it be the original chronological order, opposes
this view. lu that case, after Christ had caused the question of the Pharisees to recoil
upon themselves, they retarned with it in a more concealed form. But it is probable [that
different classes of Pharisees were concerned in the two cases], and that, this distinction
being lost sight of, the occurrence in question was connected with one of the real machina-
tions of that party in general against Christ.
X We follow Luke, v., 33 ; Mark, ii., 18, which have more internal probability than
Matt., ix., 14. It is, indeed, possible that those disciples of John who adhered only one-
sidedly to the views of their master may have taken offence, and expressed it, just as the
Pharisees did. Probably, too, at a later period, there grew up a gradual opposition be-
tween the Christians and part of John's disciples ; and the Jewish sect of I'lixcpoGavTiaTui
may have been no other than these {Hegesipp. in Euseb., iv., 22. Cf. the Clementines,
204 FIRST GENERAL MINISTRY IN GALILEE.
Be that as it may, some of them came to him with the question,
" Why do the disc'qdcs of John fast often, and make prayers* and like-
wise those of the Pharisees ; hut thine eat and drink ?" Christ replies :
"Can you make the companions of the bridegi-oom fast while the
bridegroom is yet with them ] Does fasting harmonize with the festal
joy of a wedding ] The time of fasting, indeed, will come of its own
accord, when the bridegroom is gone, and the festal days are over."
So privations, suited to the time of mourning, would have been out of
keeping with the joyous life in common of the disciples and their Lord
— with those happy days when the object of their desire was yet present
in their midst. Fasting would have been as foreign to their state of
mind — as outward and as forced — as to the guests at a wedding. But as
the days of the feast are followed by others when fasting is in place ;
so, when the joy of happy intercourse with Christ shall give place to
mourning at separation from Him who is their all in all, in those sad
days, indeed, the disciples will need no outward bidding to fast. Their
mode of life will naturally change with their state of feeling ; fasting
will then be but the spontaneous token of their souls' grief.
Taken in this sense, it is clear that the words could not have been
intended to apply to the whole life of the disciples after Christ should
have been i-emoved from them. The sad feelings here desci'ibed were
not intended to bo permanent ; the transitory pain of personal separa-
tion was to be followed by a more perfect joy in the consciousness of
spiritual communion with Christ. Applying the passage, then, to this
transition period of grief, we infer from it, as the rule of Christian eth-
ics in regard to fasting, that it is neither enjoined nor recommended,
Horn., ii., 23, 'Iojum'?;? liixipoBa-nTiaTiis.) But it is by no means as probable that they joined
themselves with the Pharisees, their bitter enemies ; they could have had no tendency to
associate with men whom they could consider as having had a hand, at least, in the sacri-
fice of their master. The fact that the scribes had quoted the example of John's disciples
may easily have passed into the report that the latter had come to Christ with the same
question. This view is adopted, also, by Sckleiermackei: De WctLe's objections are suffi-
ciently refuted by what has been said.
* l)c Welte considers the mention of " prayer" (Luke, v., 33) as out of place, and argues
from it that Luke had d(«iarted from the original tradition. But certainly it was natural
enough for the Pharisees thus to characterize the (to them) strikingly worldly life of the
disciples ; for the fonner made a show of sanctity, not only by fasting, but by repeated
l)rayers ; and, moreover, John had prescribed afoi-m of prayer for his disciples (Luke, xi.,
1), which Christ as yet had not done. As the words "eating and drinking" are used in
the question to designate the profane and carnal life, so "fasting and fniyer' denote its
opposite — the strict spiritual life. Now, had the word " prayers" originally existed in the
passage, and been afterward lust in transmission, we might easily account for it : because
it might be thought that Christ's reply does not allude to " prayer," that such a depreciation
of prayer (mistakenly imagined) would be a stumbling-block, and, besides, contradictory to
Christ's own teaching in other places. But to account for its interpolation is (piite a dif-
ferent matter. As for Christ's not alludhig to prayer in his reply, he had no call to do it ;
it was the spirit of outward and ascetic piety, as a whole, that he rebukes.
NEW WINE IN NEW BOTTLES. '205
.out only justified, as tlie natural expression of certain states of feeling
analogous to those of the disciples in the time of sadness referred to ;
e. g., the sense of separation from Christ, which may precede an expe-
rience of the most blissful communion with Him. In such states of the
interior life, all outward signs of peace and joy, all participation in so-
cial intercourse and pleasure are unnatural and repugnant ; although,
when Chi'ist is present in the soul, these social joys are sanctified and
transfigured by the inward communion with Him. The interior life
and the outward expression should be in entire harmony with each
other. Another glance at this subject, however, after examining what
follows, will afford us another view of it.
§ 138. The Parable of the New Patch on the Old Garment^ and of the
New Wine in Old Bottles*
Christ added another illustration in the form of a parable. " No
man 2>utteth a piece of a new garment upon an old ; if otherwise, then
both the new maheth a rent, and the piece that was taken out of tJie neio
agrecth not with the old. And no man putteth neio wine into old bottles
(skins), else the new tvine will burst the bottles and be spilled, and the
bottles shall perish. But new ivine must be put into new bottles, and both
are preserved^
The old nature cannot be renewed by the imposition from without
of the exercises of fasting and prayer ; no outward and compulsory
asceticism can change it. Individual points of character are significant
only so far as they are connected with the tendency of the whole life :
a reformation in these, indeed, may be enforced, and the stamp and
spirit of the life remain unchanged. A fragment of the higher spirit-
ual life, thus broken off" from its living connexion (destroyed in the
fracture), and forced upon the nature of the old man, would not really
improve it ; but, on the other hand, by its utter want of adaptation,
would worsen the rent in the old nature — would tear it rudely away
from its natural course of developement. A mere renewal from with-
out is at best an artificial, hypocritical thing. The new cloth is torn,
and a patch laid upcfti the old that does not fit it. The new wine is
lost, and the old skins perish.t
* Matt., ix., 16 ; Mark, ii., 21 ; Luke, v., 36.
t We deviate from the ordinary interpretation of tins parable. Our explanation is not
only adapted to the preceding context (Luke, v., 33-35), but also fits the minute details of
the comparison, which the one commonly given does not. According to the latter, the sub-
stance of the parable is, that the outward religious exercises of Judaism are not adapted
to the liigher stage, Christianity, for which the disciples were training. But Christ admits
(verse 3-5) that fasting may be a good thing at the right time ; which, he said, had not then
come, but u-onhl come. Instead of taking up this point, and unfolding it in the parable in
another aspect, as one might expect, the common interpretation introduces a new and en-
tirely different thought, viz., that such exercises were unsuitable (not to their condition at
thai time, but) to Christianity at any time. Again, one would naturally think, from v. 34,
206 FIRST GENERAL MINISTRY IN GALILEE.
The premature imposition, therefore, of such exercises upon the
disciples, instead of developing the new life within them, would have
hindered it by mutilating and crippling what they had.* Separate
branches of the spiritual life, apart from their connexion with the
whole, cannot be grafted ujion the stem of the old nature ; that nature
must be renewed from within in order to become a vessel of the Spirit.
(In the case of the Apostles, the way was prepared for this by their
personal intercourse with the Saviour.) The ichole garment had to be
new; the wine required new bottles. The new Spirit had of itself to
create a new form of life.
Glancing back from this point to the words before spoken on fasting,
we may refer them to the pi'ivations that lay before the Apostles in
their course of duty — privations which they would joyously go to meet
under the impulse of the new Spirit that was to animate them.
But although no outward impulses (no patches upon the old gar-
ment) might be needed when the interior life should freely guide, it
might yet naturally be the case that " No man, having also drank uld
wine, straigliticay dcsireth ncio ; for, he saith, the old is lct.tcr.'"\ The
disciples had to be weaned gradually from the old life and trained for
the new — a law applicable in all ages of the Church, and which, if
faithfully observed, might have saved her from many errors in Chris-
tian life and morals.^
This example affords another illustration of the truth that individual
•T", that the " new wine"' and the " new cloth" of the parable were intended to represent
the fasting, &c., of which Christ was speaking, viz., thai fasting which the Apostles were
to practice at a later period. But the usual interpretation, on the other hand, supposes
fasting to be something defective in itself, and as belonging to that fonn of life which is rej)-
rcseuted by the " old garment." The sense thus obtained contains a thought not tnie in
itself; for, in the case of the Apostles, the new wine of Christianity wan put into the old
bottle of Judaism, and was intended to break it to pieces. If the prescribed fa.sting was
to be disregarded by the Apostles as belonging to Jewish legalism, so also, on the same
princi[)le, the whole Jewish legalism would have to be done away by them, as foreign to
the new spirit introduced by Christ.
It is remarkable that this obviously false interpretation should have kept so long in tlie
back-ground the true one developed by Chrysostom, Horn, in Matt., xxx., § 4. Independ-
ently of my exposition, Wilke has recently declared himself (in his Urcvangelisten) in favour
of the view here given. Dc Wette styles it "forced," but how the tenn can apply to an in-
terpretation so accurately fitting the details of the parable, I cannot imagine. 1 should he
very glad to see the attention of interpreters directed to the views which I have set forth.
* Siiicentm eit nisi vas, qtiodrtinque iiifuiulis, acescit.
t It is a proof of the originality and faithfulness of Luke's naiTative, that this passage,
so indubitably stamped with originality, and yet so closely connected witii the context, is
recorded by him alone.
X Pojie Innocent HI. understood and applied this passage correctly, in reference to the
establishment of a mission in Prussia : " Cum veteres uteres vix novum viuum contineant."
Epp., 1. XV., M?.
THE LORD'S PRAYER. 207
parts of Christ's teaching cannot be rightly understood apart from their
connexion with his whole system of truth.
§ 139. Forms of Prayer. — Tlic Lord's Traycr ; its Occasion and Im-
port*— Encouragements to Prayer ; God gives no Sitonefor Bread.
We take up now a subject akin to that of which we have just
treated, without implying (what, indeed, is of no importance) a chrono-
logical connexion between them.
We have seen that one thing which surprised the Pharisees was that
Christ did not lay stress upon outward prayers. He had not, like John
the Baptist, prescribed forms of prayer for his disciples. In this re-
spect, as well as others, their religious life was to develope itself from
within. From intercourse with Christ, and intuition of his life, they
were to learn how to pray. The mind which he imparted was to
make prayer indispensable to them, and to teach them how to pray
aright.
On a certain occasion, the desire arose in their hearts, from be-
holding him pray, to be able to pray as he did ; and one of them asked,
" Lord, teach us liow to fray, as John also taught his disciples.^'f
Christ replied that they were not, in their prayers, to use " many
words," and to repeat details to God, who knew all their wants before
they could be uttered. And then, in a prayer framed in the spirit of
this injunction, he gave them a vivid illustration of the nature of Chris-
tian prayer, as referring to the one thing needful, and incorporating
every thing else with that. As prayer is no isolated thing in Christi-
anity, but springs from the ground of the whole spiritual life, so t/us
prayer, w^hich forms a complete and organic whole, comprehends witli-
in itself the entire peculiar essence of Christianity.
" Our Father icho art in Heavcn.'''\ The form of the invocation
^ Luke, xi.
t We follow Luke, xi. The passage in Matt., vi.. 7-16, appears foreign to the original
organism of the Sermon on the Mount, in which prayer, fasting, &c., were treated cspt--
cially in contrast vnlh the hypocrisy of the Pharisees. As that longer discourse was made
a repertory for Christ's sayings, in which they were arranged according to their affinities,
so perhaps it was with this. We may certainly conclude that Christ would not have
sketched such a prayer for the disciples without a special occasion for it ; for the wish to
lay down forms of prayer was, as we have seen, remote from his spirit and ohject. But
we cannot think it possible [with some] that Christ uttered this prayer as appropriate for
himself, and that the disciples adopted it for that reason ; it had no fitness to his position :
he, at least, could not have prayed for the pardon of his sins. The occasion given by Luke
v/as a very appropriate one ; the form was drawn out by Christ at the request of the dis-
ciples. It was probable, moreover, from the nature of the case, that Christ, who did not
wish to prescribe standing forms of prayer, would make use of such an occasion to explain
further the nature of prayer itself [as he does in Luke, xi., 5-13]. In tlie Sermon on the
Mount, also (Matt., vii., 7), a passage similar [to Luke, xi., 9] is found; and Matt., vi., 7,
jierhaps contains the beginning of Christ's reply to his disciples' request on the subject.
} In the shorter form of the prayer given in Luke, the words hu(ov and " o tv ro'ii oif avals'
203 FIRST GENERAL MINISTRY IN GALILEE.
corresponds to the nature of the Christian stand-point ; our Father,
because Christ has made us his children. We address God thus, not
as individuals, but, in the fellowship of Christ, as members of a com-
munity which He has placed in this relation to the common Father.
Side by side with this consciousness of communion as children goes
that of our distance as creatures ; the God that dwells in his children
is the God above the roorld (so that Christianity is equally far from
Pantheism and Deism). " Our Father — in heaven''' — that the soul may
soar in prayer from earth to heaven, with the living and abiding con-
sciousness that earth and heaven are no more kept asunder. To this,
indeed, the substaiice of the whole prayer tends.
" Hallowed he thy name ; thy kingdom come ; thy will he done on
earth as it is done in heaven." While the Christian, dwelling on eaith,
where sin reigns, prays to the Father in heaven, he longs that earth may
be completely reconciled to heaven, and become wholly an organ of its
revelations. And this is nothing else but the coming of the ki.vg-
DOM OF God, to which, as the centre of all Christian life, and the ob-
ject of all Christian desire, the three positive prayers first given di-
rectly refer. The special prayer, " Thy kingdom come" is guarded
against the possibly carnal and worldly interpretation (to which the dis-
ciples were at that time inclined) by the one which precedes (" Hal-
lowed he thy name"), and the one which follows (" Thy ivill he done").
The Holy One is to be acknowledged and worshipped by all, accord-
ing to His holy nature and His holy name ;* not by a nakedly abstract
knowledge and confession thereof, but by a life allied to Him. This
" hallowing" of the name of God implies the " coming of his kingdom."
and this last is further developed in the prayer that " his will may be
realized on earth, as it is in the communion of perfect spirits." The
kinrrdom tvill have come when the will of men is made perfectly at
one with the will of God, and to accomplish this is the very aim of the
atonement. Among all rational intelligences, the one cominon essence
of the kingdom of God is the doing his will, and thus hallowing his name.
" Give us, day hy day, our daily bread." The positive prayers for
the supply of Divine wants are followed by one (and only one) for the
supply of human wants ; in regard to which, also, the disciple of Christ
must cherish an abiding consciousness of dependence on the Heavenly
Father. It is not the tendency of Christianity to stifle or suppress the
wants of our earthly nature, but to hallow them by referring them to
are omitted. It is probable tliat the oridnal form of the prayer is that piven by Matiliew.
Luke is more accurate iu giving tlie chrouological and historical connexion of Christ's dis-
courses, but Matthew gives the discourses themselves more in full.
* In Hebrew and Hellenistic usage, the name expresses the outward self-revelntion of
the tliirnj; ; the image of the thing, as such, or iu some defined relation. Where the Occi
dentalist would use the idea, the Orientalist, iii his vividly intuitive language, i)uts the
Tiame. The sense then is, " God is to be hallowed as God, the common rather."
THE LORD'S TRAYER. 209
God ; at the same time keeping them in their proper sphere of subor-
dination to the higher interests of the soul.
" And forgive us our sins, for we also forgive every one that is indcltccl
to us." The first negative prayers correspond to the first positive ones.
Conscious of a manifold sinfulness, which, so long as it remains, hin-
ders the full develoj^ement of the kingdom of God within them, the
disciples of Christ pray for forgiveness of past sins, originating in the
reaction of the old evil nature. But they cannot pray for this, with
conscious need of pardon, without a disposition, at the same time, to
forgive the wrongs which others have done to themselves ; only thus
can their prayer be sincere, only thus can they expect it to be an-
swered. The Christian's constant sense of the need of God's pardon-
ing grace for himself necessarily gives tone to his conduct towards his
fellows.
'■'And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil." The
prayer for pardon of past sins is followed by one for deliverance in the
future. The word " temptation" has a two-fold meaning in Scripture,
expressing either outward trials of Christian faith and virtue, or an in-
ward point of contact for outward incitements, caused by the strife of
the sinful principle with the life of God in the soul ; and the question
may be asked, which of the two — the objective or sulijective tempta-
tion— is referred to in the prayer. Certainly Christ could not have in-
tended that his disciples should pray for exemption from external con-
flicts and sufferings; for these are inseparable from the callino- of sol-
diers of the kingdom in this world, and essential for the confirmation
of Christian faith and virtue, and for culture in the Christian life; and
He himself told them that such trials would become the salt of their
interior life. But, on the other hand, the prayer cannot be confined
to purely subjective temptations; for Christ could not have presup-
posed that God would do any thing so contradictory to His own holi-
ness as to lead men into temptation in tJiis sense. A combination of
the two appears to be the true idea of the prayer : " Lead us not into
such situations as will form for us, in our weakness, incitements to sin ;"
thus laying it down as a rule of life for Christians not to put them-
selves, self-confidently, in such situations, but to avoid them as far as
duty will allow. But every thing depends upon deliverance from the
internal incitement to sin ; and hence, necessarily, the concluding
clause of the petition, " Deliver us from inward temptation by the
power of the Evil One." Confiding, in the struggle with evil, upon
the power of God, we need not fear such outward temptations as are
unavoidable.
Thus the prayer accurately defines the relation of the Chnstian to
God. The disciple of Christ, ever called to struggle against evil,
which finds a point of contact in his inward nature, cannot fight this
O
210 FIRST GENERAL MINISTRY IN GALILEE.
battle in his own strength, but always stands in need of the assistance
of the Holy Spirit. The prayer holds the fundamental truths of Chris-
tian faith before the religious consciousness, in their essential connex-
ion with each other — God, revealed in Christ, who redeems man,
formed after his image, yet estranged from him by sin ; who imparts
to him that Divine life which is to be led on by him to its consumma-
tion through manifold strifes against the Power of Evil.
It appears, therefore, that Christ did not intend by " the Lord's
Prayer" to pi-escribe a standing form of prayer to his disciples, but to
set vividly before their minds the peculiar nature of Christian prayer,
in opposition to heathen ; and, accordingly, he followed it up by urging
them to present their wants to their Heavenly Father with the most
undoubting confidence (Luke, xi., 5-13). By a comparison drawn
from the ordinary relations of life, he teaches that if our prayers should
not appear to be immediately answered, we must only persevere the
more earnestly (v. 5-S) ; and then impresses the thought that God can-
not deny the anxious longings of his children (9, 10).
Here, also, the internal character of Christian prayer is strongly con-
trasted with the pagan outward conception of the exercise. Even the
" seeking," the longing of the soul, that turns with a deep sense of need
to God, is prayer already ; indeed, there is no Cliristiaji prayer with-
out such a feeling. The comparison that follows (v. 11-13) glances
(like the Lord's Prayer) from the relation of child and parent on earth
to that of the children of God to their Father in heaven — a compaiison
opposed, in the highest conceivable degrees, to all Pantheistical and
Deistical notions of the relations between God and creation. " If a
son shall ash hread of any of yon tliat is a father, will he give him a
stone (in shape resembling the loaf) % or, f he ask a fish, loill he give
him a serpent ? or, fhe ask an egg, icill he offer a scorpion 1 And how
should your Heavenly Father,* of whose perfect love all human affec-
tion is but a darkened image, mock the necessities of his children by
withholding from their longing hearts the Holy Ghost, which alone can
satisfy the hunger of their spirits'?" Here, again, as in the Lord's
Prayer, the main objects of Christian prayer are shown to be spiritual ;
the giving of the Holy Ghost, the one chief good of the Christian, in-
cludes all other gifts.t
* The words " r^ar'ng h l\ uvftavoh" Luke, xi., 13, plainly point to the invocntion in the
Lord's Prayer.
t Cf. the indefinite iiyMa, in Matt., vii., 11, generalized from the idftara dyaOa in the first
clause of the verse. The " Holy Ghost" answers definitely to the point of comparison —
the nourishment of the soul, as bread is to the body.
THE MAGDALEN. 211
§ 140. Christ forgives tlie Magdalen at the House rif Simon the Phari-
see*— The reciprocal action of Love and Faith in the Forgiveness oj
Sins.
It was Christ's free mode of life with his disciples, his intercourse
with classes of people despised by the Pharisees, his seeking the so-
ciety even of the degraded, in order to save them, which first drew
upon him the assaults of that haughty and conceited sect.
On one occasion he was invited to dine with one of the Pharisees,
named Simon, a man certainly incapable of appreciating the Saviour.
Either from his natural temper, or from his peculiar disposition to-
wards Christ, he gave him but a cool reception. While the Saviour
was there, a woman came in who had previously led a notoriously vi-
cious life, but who now, convinced of sin and groaning under it, sought
consolation from Christ, from whom she had doubtless previously re-
ceived Divine impressions. She threw herself at his feet, moistened
them with her tears, wiped them with her hair, and anointed them
with ointment. With what power must He have attracted the bur-
dened soul, when a woman, goaded by conscience, could come to him
with so sui'e a hope of obtaining balm for her wounded heart !
The Pharisee was astonished that He should have any thing to do
with her. " Were this man," thought he, " possessed of the prophet's
glance, piercing the thoughts of men, he could not be so deceived."
Christ, noticing his amazement, gave an explanation of the principle on
which he acted, that must have shamed and humbled Simon ; contrast-
ing his cold hospitality with the heartfelt love which the woman, though
oppressed with grief and sin, had manifested for him. Looking at the
disposition of the heart, he prefers the woman — guilty, indeed, before,
but, even for that reason, now longing the more earnestly for salvation,
and penetrated with holy love — to the cold, haughty, self-righteous
Pharisee, who, with all his outward show of observing the law, was
destitute of quickening love, the essential principle of a genuine Di-
vine life. " Her sins," said he, " which are many, are all forgiven, for
she loved much ; hut to whom little is forgiven, he loveth little.''^
It is love, according to Jesus, which gives to religion and morality
their true import. The faith of the woman proved itself genuine, be-
cause it sprang from, and begat love ; the love from the faith, the faith
from the love. Her grief for her sins was founded in her love to the
Holy God, to whom, conscious of her estrangement, she now felt her-
self drawn. Her desire for salvation led her to Jesus ; her love aided
her in finding a Saviour in him ; with warm love she embraced him as
such, even before he pronounced the pardon of her sins. Therefore
* Luke, vii., 36, seq.
212 FIRST GENERAL MINISTRY IN GALILEE.
Christ said ofhev, " Hei* many sins are forgiven, because she has loved
much ;" and to her, " Thy faith hath saved thee, go in peace ;" thus ex-
hibiting the reciprocal relations of the two — the faith proving itself
true by the love. The Pharisee, whose feelings were ossified, bound
up in the mechanism of the outward law, was especially lacking in the
love which could lead to faith; and therefore, in speaking to him, the
woman's love, and not her faith, was made prominent by Christ.
The very vices of the woman made her conviction more profound,
her desire for salvation more ardent, her love for the Redeemer, who
pronounced her sins forgiven, more deep and heartfelt. But she had
not, even in the midst of her transgressions, been further removed from
the true, inward holiness that springs from the Divine life, than was the
Pharisee in his best estate. He separated himself from God as effec-
tually, by that unfeeling selfishness which often coexists with what is
called morality, and with a conspicuous sanctity of good works, as if he
had yielded, like the woman, to the power of evil passions. He was
none the better because his colder nature offered no salient points for
such temptations. Christ's standard of morality was different from that
which the world, deceived by appearances, is wont to apply. The
Pharisee had succeeded in avoiding these glaring sins, and in keeping
a fair show of obedience to the law ; but all this only propped up his
self-deceiving egotism, which delighted in the illusion of self-righteous-
ness. In such a man, the sense of alienation from God, the conscious-
ness of sin, as an abyss between him and the Holy One, without which
there can be no true repentance, could find no place.
Nay, the abject woman, in her course of vice, may have been nearer
to the kingdom than the haughty and self-righteous man ; even then,
there may have been a spark of love, stifled, indeed, by sensuality, but
still existing in her heart, which needed only the touch of a higher
power to kindle into flame. In her case, what was in itself bad may
have been a means of gootl ; good, however, which certahily might
have been arrived at by another road. The pangs of repentance made
her susceptible of Divine impressions, the Divine love that met her
kindled the spark in her own heart ; and she rose, by the living faith
of love, above the Pharisee, who, in his arrogant selfishness, was hard-
ened against Divine impressions, and did not recognize the love of
God, even when he saw it manifested.*
* The simplicity of tliis narrative, and the stamp of Christ's spirit which it bears, are
sufficient jiroofs of its originality and truth. Bat I find no ground for believing it to be
identical with the anointing of Christ by Mary at Bethanj', which also, according to Matt,
(xxvi., C), occurred in the house of a Simon. The resemblances are accidental ; such things
could occur again and again amid Oriental customs. That a woman, in order to show her
reverential love for the Saviour, miglit serve him like a slave, wash liis feet, not with water,
but with the costliest material in her possession, cVc. ; all this could easily have occurred
twice, and both times, loo, in the house of a uiau named Simon, which was a very common
CALLING OF MATTHEW. 213
§ 141. MattJieio tlie Publican called from the Custom-house. — Fainiliar
Intercourse of Christ with the Publicans at the Banquet. — The Phar-
isees blame the Disciples, and, Christ justifies them. — " The Sick need
the Physician.^'
What surprise and offence must the Pharisees have felt when they
saw Christ admit even a, publican into the immediate circle of his dis-
ciples.*
As he was walking one day along the shore of the lake,t he saw a
publican sitting in his toll-booth, named Matthew ; a man who had
doubtless, like Peter, received many impressions from Christ before,
and was thereby prepared to renounce the woi'ld at his bidding. Jesus,
with a voice that could not be resisted, said unto him, " Follow ?ne."
Matthew understood the call, and did not hesitate to follow, at any
cost. Him who had so powerfully attracted his heart. He left his busi-
ness, rejoicing that Christ was willing to take him into his closer fellow-
ship. This decisive event was celebrated by a great entertainment,^
intended also, perhaps, as a farewell feast to his old business associates.
name among the Jews ; although it is possible that the name may have been transferred
from the one acconnt to the other. But while the resemblances are accidental, the differ-
cnces are substantial. In the one the woman is an awakened sinner ; in the other, one who
had always led a devout life, and was, at the time, seized with additional gratitude at the
saving of a beloved brother's life. In the one, the different relations in which a self-righ-
teous Pharisee and an awakened sinner stand to Christ, who rejects no repentant sinner,
are set forth ; in the other, a heartfelt love, which knows no measure, is contrasted with
tlie common mind, incapable of comprehending such love. In the one it is Christ that is
blamed and justified ; in the other, the woman.
* There are discrepancies in the narrative of the calling of Matthew, not, however, af-
fecting the credibility of the account, which comes from several independent sources, and
bears no marks of exaggeration. In Matthew's Gospel, ix., 9, the person here spoken of
is called Malthew, and in x., 3, Matthew the publican is mentioned among the Apostles ; but
in Lake, v., 27 ; Mark, ii., 14, he is called Levi. Mark appears to be more definite than
the others, calling him the soa of Alpheus, which does not look like a fanciful designation.
The difficulty might be overcome by supposing (what was not uncommon among the Jews
that the same man was designated in the one case by the name, in the other by the sur-
name. An objection to this (though not decisive) is the fact that in the list of Apostles
given in Matt., x., 3, he is called merely Matthew the pnhlican, with no suniame, and in the
lists given by Mark and Luke, Matthew, simply, with no surname ; and, further, that an old
tradition existed, which discriminated Matthew and Levi, and named the latter, in addi-
tion, among the prominent heralds of the Gospel. (Heracleou, in Clem. Alex., Strom., 1.
iv., c. xi.) On this ground we might admit, with Siefferl, that the names of two persons,
?'. e., of the Apoxtle Mattliew, and some other who had been admitted, at least, among the
Seventy, had been confounded together. But as Matthew himself was the original source
of the materials of the Gospel which bears his name (materials aiTanged, perhaps, by an-
other hand), we cannot attribute the confusion to this Gospel. It is, at the same time, pos-
sible that the giver of the feast (Luke, v., 29), Levi, was another rich publican, a friend of
the publican Matthew, who afterward also attached himself to Jesus ; especially as no-
thing is said in Matt., ix., 10, about a gi-eat feast being given at the house of Matthew : and
that thus the name of Matthew, whose call to the ministry occasioned the feast, and that
of Levi, the host, in whose life it made an epoch, and who aftei-ward became known as a
preacher of the Gospel, were confounded together.
t Mark, ii., 13. % Luke, v., 29.
214 FIRST GENERAL MINISTRY IN GALILEE.
Christ, in whose honour the entertainment was given, did not disdain
this token of gi-ateful love, but took his place at the feast with a set of
men who were regarded as the scum of the people, but to whom his
saving influences were to be brought nigh.
Shortly after, some of the Pharisees took the disciples to task for
their free and (as they thought) unspiritual mode of life, in eating and
drinking with degraded sinners and tax-gatherers. It is evident that
the attack was intended for Christ, though they hesitated, as yet, to as-
sault him openly. He, therefore, took the matter up personally, and
justified his conduct by saying, " They that are tchole need not a phy-
sician, but they that are sick.'" Indicating that he sought, rather than
avoided, degraded sinners, because they, precisely, stood most in need
of his healing aid, and were most likely, from a sense of need, to re-
ceive it willingly.
But he certainly did not mean to say that he came to save only those
who were sunken in vice. He was far, also, from meaning, that
though all have need of him, all have not the same need of him ; that
any were excluded from the number of the " sick," who needed him
as a "physician." But he taught that as he had come as a physician
for the sick, he could help only those who, as sick persons, sought heal-
ing at his hands. He sought the tax-gatherers rather than the Phari-
sees, because the latter, deeming themselves spiritually sound, had no
<lisposition to receive that which he came to imjiart. Undoubtedly, he
did not mean to grant that they were sound, or less diseased than the
publicans.
Indeed, he pointed out their peculiar disease by saying to them,
" Go ye, and learn ichat that mcaneth, ' I to ill have mercy, and not sac-
rificed "* On the one hand, by this quotation, he pointed out the feeling
that inspired his own conduct, the love which is the fulfilling of the
law; and, on the other, he indicated their fundamental error of making
religion an outward thing, while they totally lacked the soul of genu-
ine piety. This was to convince them that they themselves were sick
and needed the physician. Dropping the figure, he gave them the
same thought in plain terms : " / cavie not to call the righteous^ hut sin-
ners to repentance."
§ 141. Christ's different Modes of Reply to those tvho questioned his Con-
duct in consorting with Sinners. — TJte Value of a Soul. — Parable of
the Prodigal Son. — Of the Pharisee ajul the Pvhlican.
There is a difference in one respect in Christ's replies at differen
times to those who found fault with his kindness to publicans and de
graded sinners. In some cases he stopped short after vividly exhibiting
t Matt., ix., 13 ; Hos., vi., 6.
THE PRODIGAL SON. 015
the mercy of God to all truly repentant sinners ; in others, he not only
justified his own conduct, but took the offensive against those who had
attacked him, and showed them their own deficiencies in true rio-h-
teousness, and their inferiority to the sincerely repentant publicans.
The former course was probably taken with those who were more sin-
cerely striving after righteousness, and who took offence at him on pur-
er grounds. It is necessary to note this distinction in order to appre-
hend Christ's words rightly, and to derive, from comparing his discours-
es together, a connected system of doctrine.
Under the first class may be placed the parables which are recorded
in the fifteenth cha^^ter of Luke. In verses 3-10 we have a vivid illus-
tration of the value which God attaches to the salvation of one soul,
shown by the great joy which the repentance of a sinner causes in a
world of spirits, allied in their sympathies to Him. This is the one
point which is to be made prominent and emphatic in interpretinf>- the
passage ; we should err in pressing the separate points of comparison
further.
To the same class, also, belongs the parable of the Prodigal Son*
The elder son, who remains at home and serves his father faithfully, rep-
resents a Phariseet of the better class, who sincerely stiives to keep the
law and is free from glaring sins, but still occupies a strictly legal
stand-point. The younger son represents one who seeks his highest
good ui the world, throws off the restraints of the law, and gives full
play to his passions. But experience shows him the emptiness of such
a life ; estranged from God, he becomes conscious of wretchedness, and
returns, sincerely penitent, to seek forgiveness in the Father's love.
Christ does not go far, in this parable, in illustrating the deficien-
cies of the Pharisee. His legal righteousness goes without specific re-
buke, but his envy (v. 28) and his want of love (" the fulfilling of the
law") show clearly the emptiness of his morality. It may have been
the Saviour's intention to lead the person here represented to discover,
of himself, his total want of the substance of religion.
The one chief point of the parable is to illustrate, under the fifure
of relations drawn from human life, the manner in which the paternal
love of God meets the vilest of sinners when he returns sincerely
penitent. How strikingly does this picture of the Father's love, ever
ready to pardon sin, rebuke not merely the Jeivish exclusiveness, but all
those limitations of God's purposes for the salvation of the human race,
* Luke, XV., 11-32.
t This must be the case, on ^he supposition that Luke, xv., 2, expresses the precise oc
casion of this parable, but we cannot positively assert this. It is possible that one of the
disciples who had not fully imbibed the spirit of Christ may have given the occasion for it.
215 FIRST GENERAL MINISTRY IN GALILEE.
whether before or after Christ, which the arbitrary creeds of men have
attributed to the Divine decrees ! The parable clearly implies that
the love of the Father contemplates the salvation of all his fallen chil-
dren, among all generations of men. Yet it by no means excludes,
although it does not expressly declare, the necessity of the mediatorial
work of Christ ; we must not expect to find the whole circle of Chris-
tian doctrine in every parable. Indeed, the mediation of Christ itself
is the precise way in which the paternal love of God goes out to meet
and welcome all his fallen children when they return in repentance.
The parable images the condition of fallen man in general, as well as
of that class of gross sinners to which, from the occasion on which Christ
uttered it, it necessarily gives special pi'orainence.
The line of distinction between the Pharisee and the publican is still
more closely drawn in the parable contained in Luke, xviii., 9-14.*
The publican humbles himself before God, deeply sensible of sin, and
only seeking forgiveness, and is therefore represented as ha\'ing the
dispositions necessary for pardon and justification. The Pharisee,
trusting in his supposed righteousness, exalts himself above the noto-
rious sinner, and is therefore destitute of the conditions of pardon,
though he needs it as much as the other. Christ himself deduces from
the example this general truth : " Eccnj one that cxalteth himself shall
be abased, and he that htcmbleth himself shall be exalted.'''' That is, he
who sets up great pretensions before God on account of his self-ac-
(juired virtue or wisdom, will be disappointed ; his arrogant assump-
tion of a worth which is nothing but vileness will exclude him from
that true dignity which the grace of God alone can bestow ; which dig-
nity will be bestowed, on the other hand, upon the sinner who truly
humbles himself before God from a conscious sense of moral unwor-
ihiness.
In this parable we find the germ of Paul's doctrine ; even of some
of his weighty expressions on this subject. The doctrine is the same
as that which Christ taught in pronouncing the " poor in spirit" blessed.
" This parable is one (cf. p. 107) in wliich a trutli relating to the king:dom of God is il-
lustrated by an assumed fact ; but the fact is one taken from the same sphere of life as that
which it intended to depict. Moreover, the relation which must exist, in all time, between
the self-righteous saint hy warks and the humbly penitent sinner is illustrated bj' an ex
ample such as once constantly occurred in real life — in Pharisees and publicans.
THE MIRACLE AT THE POOL OF BETHESDA. 217
CHAPTER Vin.
CHRIST'S SECOND JOURNEY TO JERUSALEM.*
§ 143. The Miracle at the Pool of Bethesda. — The Words of Christ in
the Temple to the Wan that teas healed. (John, v., 1-14.)
CHRIST, having spent the winter in Galilee, was called again to
Jerusalem by the feast of the Passover. His stay in the city at
that feast forms a marked period in his history ; for a cure wrought
upon a certain Sabbath in that time was the occasion, if not the cause,
of a more violent display of the opposition of the Pharisees than had
yet been made against him.
A certain spring at Jerusalem was believed by the people to possess
remarkable healing powers at particular seasons, when its waters were
moved by (what they supposed to be) a supernatural cause.t It is un-
* Joliii, v., 1. The chronology of the hfe of Christ depends a good deal upon the ques-
tion whether the feast mentioned John, v., 1, was or was not the Passover. The indefi-
niteuess of the word "feast" in this passage, and the mention of the Passover itself in
John, vi., 4, might lead us to infer that the feast of Furim was meant, which occurred a
few weeks before the Passover ; but every thing else is against this inference. The Pu-
rim feast did not require of the pious Jew avoGaifctv eis 'lepoadXvua ; had this feast, therefore,
been in question, we might expect iu John, v., 1, a statement of Christ's reason for going
up to it, instead of waiting for the Passover. The most ancient interpretation favours the
Passover (Ireu., ii , 22), which feast was attended by most of the foreign Jews, and re-
quired the avaSaiiav. The omission of the definite article in the text is not so important
as some suppose. The text says ^v topri? — "it -was feast" — further defined by ufcSti, show-
ing that the chief feast is intended. Even in German [or English] we might say, loosely,
" it was feast," omitting the article, as in the Greek. It is unlikely, too, that Christ, who
had already roused the prejudices of the Pharisees against him, should have gone to the
PuriTn feast, where he would have had to contend with them alone in Jerusalem, instead
of continuing his labours undisturbed in Galilee until Passover. John's omission to say
more of Christ's ministry up to the time of the next Passover (vi., 4) may be accounted for
on the ground that it was not his purpose to recount his labours in Galilee, which were
preserved in the circle of the ordinaiy traditions. The two first verses of chap. v. show
how summary his account is. Only in chap, vii., 1, is an occasion offered for assigning the
reason for Christ's stay in Galilee ; we can the more readily account for the surprise of the
brothers (vii., 3, seq.) if he spent the whole year and a half hi Galilee.
t Against the credibihty of this account, B retschneidcr and Strauss adduce the silence nf
Josephus and the Rabbins iu regard to such a healing spring ; but this argument — like
every argumentum e silentio, unsupported by special circumstances — -is destitute of force.
These very authorities tell us that there were many mineral springs iu Palestine. Euse-
Inus, iu his work, " nrpi tZv tottikuv ivoiJaroiv rwv iv Tjj Siia ypuiprj, (Onomasticou), says, under
the word " Btj'^aBd" — " /cai vvv iuKvVTai iv rals avrdBi \iijvati iiSvixotS, iiv iKaripa. ficv Ik rdv kcit'
eroS ieriov irXrjpouTai, ^drepa ii vapaSolmg T!i<}>oiviy'nivov (iUKwoi to vSuip, I'xi'Of, &S (paat, <j>ipovoa tuiv
■ndXat KaBaipojikvoiv Upduiv, Trap' 0 Kat npoSariKri KaXurai Siil Tti Sv/iata." (Hieron., 0pp., ed. Val-
lars., torn, iii., pt. i., p. 181.) The old ti-adition, that the waters had become " red," from the
washing of the sacrifices in them in old times, leads to the conclusion that it contained pe-
culiar components. The legend of the angel (in v. 4, which, according to the best criti-
cism, does not belong to John, but is a later gloss) could not have arisen unless the spring
and its phenomena really existed. Robinson (Palestine, ii., 137, 156) thinks that he found
218 SECOND JOURNEY TO JERUSALEM.
important whether this belief was an old one, or was called forth at a
later period by actual occurrences, of which, as was common, too
much was made. The healing-spring itself, or the covered colonnade
connected with it, was called Bcthesda* (" place of mercy").
At this fountain Christ found, on the Sabbath day, a man who had
been lame for thirty-eight years, and had long waited for the moving
of the waters in hope of relief, but had never been able to avail him-
self of it for want of a kind hand to help him into the water at the au-
spicious moment. It is probable that many pressed to the spring in
haste to catch the passing instant when its healing powers were active.
But the sick man was to find help from a far different source. \Jcsus
saith unto him. Arise, take up thy bed and walk, and. immediately the
man was made tohole^
The restored man lost sight of the Saviour in the throng, but after-
ward Christ found him in the Temple, where he had probably first
gone in order to thank God for his recovery. The favourable moment
was seized by the Saviour to direct his mind from the healing of his
body to that of his soul. His words, " Sin no more, lest a tvorse thing
come unto thee,'"' may be considered either as implying that the sick-
ness, in this particular case, was caused by sin, or as referring to the
general connexion between sin and physical evil, in virtue of which the
latter is a memorial of the former as its source. In either view they
were intended to remind him of his spiritual necessities, and to point
out the only way in which they could be relieved.
§ 144. The Pharisees accuse Christ of Salhath-hrcaking and Blas-
phemy.— His Justification. (John, v., 10, 17-19.)
This occurrence gave the Pharisees the first occasion (so far as we
know) to accuse Christ of breaking the Sabbath and of blasj)hemino-
against God. The first accusation was made in their contracted sense
of the Sabbatical law, and of its violation ; the latter arose from their
legal Monotheism, and their narrow idea of the Messianic office.
In his justification, Christ struck at the root of the first error, viz.,
the carnal notion that the sanctity of the Sabbath was founded solely
upon God's resting after the work of creation, as if his creative labours
were then commenced and ended ; and points out, on the other hand,
the ever-continuing activity of God as the ground of all being — my
Father worketh hitherto, and I tcork.* (" As He never ceases to work,
in tlie irregnlar movement of the water in the "Fountain of the Virgin" phenomena similar
to those recorded of tiio Pool of Bethesda, and contributing to explain them.
♦ TDn and 7113.
* Jolm, v., 17. Tliis is not out of place, nor boiTowed from Philo, as some suppose, nor
a more metaphysical proposition, but one belonging immediately to the reh^'ious conscious-
CHRIST'S GREATER WORKS. 219
so do I work unceasingly for the salvation of men.") He rejects the
naiTOw limits which their contracted view of the law of the Sabbath
would assign to his healing labours, which were to go on uninterrupt-
edly. Nor did he lower his tone in regard to the relations which he
sustained to his Heavenly Father because his opponents charged him
with claiming, by his words, Divine dignity and authority. On the con-
trary, he strengthened his assertions, taking care only to guard against
their being perverted into a depreciation of the Father's dignity, by
declaring that he laboured in unity with the Father, and in depend-
ence upon him. " The Son," said he, "can do nothing of himself, but
'ichat he sceth the Father do" (He would have to deny himself as the
Son of God, before he could act contrary to the will and example of
the Father.)
§ 145. The Discourse continued : Christ intimates his future greater
Works. — His Judgment, and the Resurrection. (John, v., 20-29.)
Christ proceeds to declare (v. 20) that the Father xvill shoio him
greater worJcs than these, i. e., than reviving the dead limbs of the par-
alytic. And what were these " greater works V Without doubt,
that work which Christ always describes as his gi-eatest — as the aim of
his whole life- — the awakening, namely, of Divine life in the spiritually
dead humanity ; a work which nothing but the creative efficiency of
God could accomplish. " That ye may marvel ;" for those who then
would not recognize the Son of God in the humble garb of the Son of
Man would indeed, at a later period, be amazed to see works (wrought
by one whom they believed to be dead) which must be acknowledged
to be great in their moral effects, even if their intrinsic nature could
not be understood.
He describes these greater works more exactly, and points out, at
the same time, the perfect power which he would have to do them in
the words : " For as the Father raiseth up the dead, and quicheiieth
them, even so the Son quickenetJi lohom he tvill." The raising to Ufe is
as real in the latter clause as in the former. It depends upon His
will, indeed ; but his is no arbitrary will ; and it follows that submis-
sion to his will is requisite before man can receive this Divine life.
This, like that other passage — the wind hloiveth ivhere it listcth — breaks
down the barriers within which Judaism inclosed the Theocracy and
the Messianic calling.
And because it depends upon the Son to give light to whom He
ness. It is said, moreover, that Christ's transition (in verses 17, 19, seq.) from the Sabbath
controversy to an exposition of his higher dignity is out of keeping with his clmracter and
mode of teaching, as exhibited in the first three Gospels. What would be said, then, if a
transitiou like that recorded in Matthew, xii., 6, were recorded in John's Gospel ?
1b^
2-20 SECOND JOURNEY TO JERUSALEM.
will, the whole judgment of mankind is intrusted to his hands. " For
the Father judgeth no man, hut hath committed all judgment unto the
Sony The negative is joined to the positive. The judgment is
brought about by men's bearing towards Him from whom alone they
can receive life : " That all men should honour the Son, even as also
the]) honour the Father.''' He that will not recognize the Divine mis-
sion of the Son dishonours the Father that sent him.
The truth thus enunciated in general terms, Christ presented still
more vividly, by applying it to his work then beginning, and which was
to be earned on through all ages, until the final judgment and the con-
summation of the kingdom of God. "He that heareth my word, and,
helieveth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come
into judgment, hut is jiassed from death into life (the true, everlasting,
Divine life). The hour is comi?ig, and noio is, when the (spiritually)
dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall
live ; for as the Father hath (the Source of Divine) life in himself, ^o
hath he given to the Son to have (Divine) life in himself (If the Source
of life, which is in God, had not been communicated to the human na-
ture in him, then communion with him could not communicate the
Divine life to others.) And hath given him authority to execute judg-
ment also, hecausc he is the Son of Man (as 7nan he is to judge men),"
His hearers, who saw him before their eyes in human form, were
startled, doubtless, by these declarations. They looked for Messiah to
establish a visihle kingdom, with unearthly splendours, expecting it to
be attended by an outward judgment ; and Christ's announcement of a
spiritual agency, that was to be coeval with the world's history, was
beyond their apprehension. He referred them, therefore, to the final
aim of the course which he was laying out for the human race, the final
Messianic work of the Judgment and the general ResuiTCction ; a
work in itself, indeed, more familiar to them, but which, as ascribed
to him, must have still more raised their wonder. "Marvel not at
this; for the hour is coming in which all that are i?i the graves shall
hear his voice, and shall coine forth: they that have done good, to the
resurrection of life ; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of
damnation'^
§ 14G. The Discourse continued : Christ Aj>peals to the Testimony of his
Works. (John, v., 30-37.)
Having thus unfolded his whole Messianic agency, embracing both
the present and the future, Christ returns (v. 30) to the general propo-
sition with which he had commenced (in v. 19). As he had applied
his unity of action with the Father to his whole course, so now he ap-
plies it specifically to h\a judgment, which must, therefore, be just and
THE TESTIMONY TO CHRIST. 221
true : ^'I can of mine oicn self do nothing ; as I hear, I judge, and my
judgment is just. '"
His decision against his opponents must, therefore, be just and true
also. They need not say (he told them) that his testimony was not trust-
worthy, because given of himself (v. 31). It was another that bore
witness of him, whose testimony he knew to be unimpeachable (v. 32).
He did not allude to John, whose light, which had been to them, as to
children, a source of transitory* pleasure, they had not followed to the
point whither it ought to have guided them ; he did not allude to John's,
nor, indeed, to any man's testimony, but to a greater, viz., the works
themselves, which the Father had given him to accomplish, and- which
formed the objective testimony to the Divinity of his labours : " The
same works that I do, hear loitness of me that the Father hath sent me ;
and the Father himsef which hath sent me, hath home wit?iess of tne"\
(v. 36, 37).
§ 147. The Discourse continued: Inccqmcit?/ of the Jeivs to Understand
the Testimony of God as given in the Scriptures. (John, v., 37-47.)
It was precisely through the works, Christ told them, that the Father
had testified to him. "But," continued he, in effect, " it is no wonder
that you ask another testimony of me, seeing that you are destitute of
the spiritual capacity which is necessary to perceive fJtis one. It can-
not be perceived with the senses ;| you have never heard with your
ears the voice of the Father, nor seen with your eyes his form. God
does not reveal himself to the fleshly sense ; and in you no other sense
is developed. And for this reason, too, you cannot understand the
* The words of John, v., 35, imply that the ministry of the Baptist belonged to the past,
and they may have been spoken after his death; although the only necessary inference is,
that he had ceased his public labours.
t I cannot agree with those who (like Liiclce, Coram. John, v., 37) refer the first clause of
verse 37 to the testimony of the Father, as given in the Old Testament. The connexion
demands a climax. But how could the testimony of God in the ScrliJiurex be more dii'ect
than in the Divine ageiicij of Christ itself? There could be no revelation more direct or
])0werful than this. The present tense ("the works bear witness") is vrsed in verse 36, be-
cause Christ's agency was still going on. and to continue. But because part of it was
already past, and a subject of contemplation, the perfect tense is used in verse 37 ("the
Father hath home witness"). The 37th verse looks back to the 36th, the S Tzinipag /it refer-
ring to the oTi b TTarfip fit a-niara^Ke. The climax consists in the transfer of what has been
said of the u-orhs, as testifying of God, to God himself, as testifying through the works.
Then Christ shows why the Jews do not perceive this testimony, but always demand new
proofs. They ask a testimony that can be heard and perceived by the carnal senses ; and
there is none such to be had. God reveals himself only in a spiritual way, to the indwell-
in"' Sense for the Divine. This last they have not; and the revelation of the Old Testa-
ment has always been to them a dead letter; the word of God has not peneti-ated their
inner being. To this very naturally follows verse 39, " Ye search the Scriptures, for in them
ye think ye have eternal life;" which life only Christ can impart. In opposition to the
most recent commentators, 1 must think this the true connexion of the passage.
t We may remember how the Jews were inclined to look for TheoiAcmies (visible ap-
pearances of the Deitj').
222 SECOND GENERAL MINISTRY IN GALILEE.
testimony of the Scriptures. The word of God, which you ou^ht to
have received ic'ithin you fi'om the Scriptures, dwells not in you ; it has
remained for you simply outward. Hence your ' searching of the
Scriptures' is a lifeless thing. Thinking that, in the letter of the word,
you have eternal life, you will not come unto Him who alone imparts
that life, and to whom the Scriptures were only intended to lead; your
dispositions and mine are directly contrary. I am concerned only for
the honour of God ; you for your own. With such a disposition, you
cannot possibly believe in me. If another should come, in feeling like
yourselves, and seek, in his own name, to lord it among you, 1dm you
will receive.* Moses himself, for whose honour you are zealous, but
whose law you violate whenever it clashes with your selfish interests,
will appear as your accuser. Did you truly believe Moses — not ac-
cording to the letter merely, but also to the spirit — you would also
believe in me."t
Had the Pharisees been truly sincere in observing the law, the law
would have been to them a TraicJaywyof Eiq Xpiarov (a sclioolmaster to
lead to Christ), and they would have discovered the element of prophecy
even in the Pentateuch itself. Their adherence to the letter made
thejii blind to the jNIessiah ; but their carnal mind caused their adherence
to the letter. Justly, then, could Christ say to them, " Ye strive for the
honour of Moses, yet, in fact, you seek your own honour more than his,
and, therefore, do not believe him ; how, then, can you believe my v/ords,
which must appear altogether strange and new V
From this time the ruling Pharisaic party persecuted Christ as a most
dangerous enemy, who exposed their sentiments with a power of truth
not to be controverted. " Sabbath-breaking and blasphemy" were the
pretexts on which they sought his condemnation.
CHAPTER IX.
SECOND COURSE OF EXTENDED LABOURS IN GALILEE.
SUCH was the affiHation of parties throughout Judea, that the op-
position which the Pharisees stirred up against Christ at Jerusa-
lem, soon made itself felt throughout the country. A new epoch of his
ministry therefore began.
* Cf. the predictions, in the synoptical Gospels, of false prophets that should deceive the
people.
t For Moses' highest calling was to prepare the way for Messiah. Both by the whole
stage which he occupied in the dcvelopement of the Divine kingdom, and by individual
projihetic intimations (like Deut., xviii., 15 ; Geu., iii.. 1") in their spiritual meaning), ho
had pointed out the Messiah.
SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 2C3
The charge of heresy and blasphemy having spread into Galilee,
Christ was led to unfold, in a connected discourse, the relation which
existed between the old stand-point of the law and the new era of the
kingdom of God introduced by himself. His exposition was adapted to
the capacities of his hearers at the time, and, therefore, did «ot include
the circle of truths which was afterward to be revealed, through the
Holy Spirit, in the progress of the kingdom. This discpurse was the
SERMON ON THE MOUNT.
Introduction.
§ 148. (1.) Place and Circtnnstances of the Delivery of the Sermon;
(2.) Its Sichjcct-matter, viz. : the Kingdom of God as the Aim of the
Old Dispensation ; (3.) The Tioo Editions, viz. : Matthew^s and
LuTce's ; (4.) Its Pervading Rebuke of Carnal Conceptions of the
Messiahship.
In the course of the summer, as Jesus was returning from one of his
extensive preaching-tours in Galilee, multitudes followed him, attracted
by his words and works. Toward evening they came near Capernaum,
and a few of the company hastened thither in advance, while the greater
number remained, in order to enter the city in company with the Mas-
ter. The multitude stopped at the foot of a mountain near the town ;
but Jesus, seeking solitude, went higher up the ascent. The next
morning he took his place upon the declivity of the mountain, and,
drawing his twelve disciples into a naiTower circle about him,* de-
livered the discourse. It was intended for all such as felt drawn to
follow him ; to teach them what they had to expect, and what wcnild
be expected of them, in becoming his disciples ; and to expose the
false representations that had been made upon both these points.
(2.)
The connected system of truths unfolded in the discourse was in-
tended to exhibit to the people the kingdom of God as the aim of the
Old Dispensation ; as the consummation for which that dispensation
prepared the way. The Sermon on the Mount, therefore, forms the
point of transition from the Law to the Gospel; Christianity is exhib-
ited in it as Judaism spiritualized and transfigured. The idea of tho
kingdom of God is the prominent one ; the person of the Theocratic
king is subordinate thereto. The discourse is made up of many sen-
* If Luke, vi., 13, is Lntended to recite tlie choosing of the Apostles, it is clear that it is
(lone only uicideutally, and not in chronological coimexion. Luke does not say that the
discourse was specially directed to tho Apostles, nor is there a trace of internal evidence
to that effect. The discourses of Christ that 7vere specially intended to teach the Apostles
the duties of their calling have a very different tone.
224 SECOND GENERAL MINISTRY IN GALILEE.
tentious passages, calculated, separately, to impress the memory of the
hearers, and remain as fruitful germs in their hearts ; but, on the other
hand, bound together as parts of an organic whole. This was ad-
mirably adapted to preserve the discourse, in its essential features,
uncoiTuptad in transmission.
(3.)
Accordingly, we find the two editions (Matt., v., vi., vii.; and Luke,
vi., 20-29), each giving the body of the discourse, with beginning,
middle, and end ; although they certainly originated in different tradi-
tions and from different hearers.
Comparing the two copies, we find Matthew's to be more full, as
well as more accurate in the details ; it also gives obvious indications
of its Hebrew origin. But the original document of Matthew passed
through the hands of the Greek editor, who has inserted other ex-
pressions of Christ allied to those in the organic connexion of the dis-
course, but spoken on other occasions. Assuming that what is common
to Matthew and Luke forms the body of the sermon, we have a stand-
ard for deciding what passages do, and what do not, belong to it as a
connected whole.
(4.)
There runs through the whole discourse, implied where it is not
directly expressed, a rebuke of the carnal tendency of the Jewish mind,
as displayed in its notions of the Messianic kingdom, and of the requi-
sites for participating therein ; the latter, indeed, depending entirely
upon the former. It was most important to convince men that raeet-
ness for the kingdom depended not upon alliance to the Jewish stem,
but upon alliance of the heart to God. Their mode of thinking had to
be modified accordingly. A direct attack upon the usual concojJtious
of the nature and manifestation of the kingdom would have been re-
pelled by those who were unprepared for it; but to show what dis-
positions o? heart it required, was to strike at the root of error. In his
mode of expression, indeed, Christ adhered to the Jewish forms {e.g.,
in stating the beatitudes) ; but his words were carefully adapted and
varied, so as to guard against sensuous intei-pretations. The truth was
clearly to be seen through the veil.
I. The BeatituJes.
§ 149. Moral Requisites for Entering tlie Kingdom of Gad: (L) Pov-
erty of Spirit; (2.) Meekness ; (3.) Hungering a?id Thirsting after
Highteousncss.
(1.)
Glancing at the poor, who probably comprised most of his congre-
SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 2:7
that In our life on earth we are to be prepared, by purification of heart,
for complete Divine knowledge. For the rest, this promise leads over
to those which relate to the future everlasting life (the consummation of
the kingdom).
§ 151, Moral Relations of the Members of the Kingdom to their Fellow-
men : viz.. They arc " Peace-mahers,''^ and " Persecuted."
Christ next describes certain relations in which the members of his
kingdom stand to others. Inspired by love and meekness, they seek
j?eace with all men. But as they serve a holy kingdom, and do battle
with the prevalent wickedness of men, they cannot escape persecutions.
Here, again, Christ dissipates the hopes with which the Jews, expecting
a Messiah, are wont to flatter themselves. Instead of promising to his
followers a kingdom of earthly glory and prosperity, he predicts for
them manifold persecutions, such as the prophets of old had suffered
for the cause of God.
They shall suffer " for righteousness" sake ; but he then |)asses over,
from the general Idea of the kingdom (righteousness — holiness) to his
own person : " Blessed are ye when men shall revile you, &ce.,for my
sake" Their very relations to Him were to draw upon them all man-
ner of slanders and calumnies ; thus presupposing that the prevailing
Jewish opinions would be opposed by his disciples.*
The accompanying beatitudes are also full of meaning. " Blessed are
the peace-makers, ybr they shall he called] the children of God." that is,
shall be Invested with the dignity and the rights of children of God.
This promise refers partly to the present life, and partly, in Its high-
est meaning, to the future.| " Blessed are they which are persecuted,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." ..." For great is your reward
in heaven."
The "reward" may be understood, even apart from what Christ has
said elsewhere, from the connexion of this discourse itsel£§ The first
beatitudes show that we have no claim to the kingdom but our humble
wants and susceptible hearts ; the Idea of merit, therefore, claiming a
reward as its due, is wholly out of the question. The reward is a gra- '
clous gift. But when grace has admitted us into the kingdom, our par-
* This agrees very well with the point of time to which we have refen-ed the Sermon
on the Mount, i. e.. the period when the Pharisees began to persecute Christ and his disci
pies. Moreover, his foresight at that time of the hatred lie would excite, and the persecu-
tions his followers would suffer, combined with the fact that throughout the discourse there
is not the slightest hint of a purpose to triumph over his foes by an overwhelming miracu-
lous power — nay, that the whole spirit of the discourse is opposed to such a purpose —
agrees very well with his anticipating, at the time, that be should die in fulfilling his
railing.
t The name is the outward sign of the thing — its manifestation and confirmation.
t Indicated in KXrjQiiaovrat, especially.
§ Cf. De Wetle's excellent remarks on Matt., v., 12.
223 SECOND GENERAL MINISTRY IN GALILEE.
ticipation in its " blessedness" depends upon our bearing in the strug-
gles to which our membership in the kingdom exposes us on earth.
The "reward," therefore, designates the relation between the Divine
gifts and our subjective worth ; the gifts are proportioned to the work
which the members of the kingdom, as such, have to do* It is obvi-
ous, then, that no external reward is meant — no acting with a view to
such — for these ideas are foreign to the nature of the kingdom of God
itself.
What, then, is the " reward 1" It is, that the wants of our higher
nature shall be satisfied ; that we shall enjoy perfect communion with
God, and, in consequence, perfect knowledge of him ; that we shall
have, and exercise, the perfect privilege of sons of God. It is nothing
but the perfect realization of what is implied in " the kingdom," " the
children of God," " the Divine life." In our struggles for the king-
dom, we must direct our eye to the goal of the consummation ; must
feel that we struggle for no vain ideal. The two expressions " reward
in Jieaven,'' and " inherit the earth," mutually illustrate each other; the
latter is to be a sjiiritiial, and not a carnal, Jewish, world-dominion ;
the former does not betoken a locality, but a perfected communion of
life with God, i. e., a Divine life brought to perfection.
II. Influence of the Members of the Kingdom of God in Renewing
the World.
§ 152. The Disciples of Christ the " Light'' and " Salt"" of the Earth.
Christ then points out to his disciples the regenerating influence
which the qualities before described must exert wlien exhibited to the
world. His followers are " the light of the world^' which, where it
exists, cannot be hid, but must shine forth. They are to become " tltc
salt"" of mankind. As salt preserves from deqay and corruption every
thing to which it is ajjplied, so Christians arc to incite mankind to live
according to their high destiny ; are to impart freshness to humanity,
and to preserve it from the corruption into which it naturally passes,
by the power of their higher principle of life. The course of the hu-
man race, apart from Christianity, is always downward ; all its civili-
zation ends in barbarism. It is for Christians to preserve the spiritual
life of mankind fresh and undecayed.
But if the salt lose its saltness — becomes stale and worthless — where-
with shall it be salted ? Wherewith shall the Divine life be preserved
in those to whom Christianity, the source of the reanimating, freshening
power, has been dead 1 In that case, those that should stand upon the
highest point of imman developement will sink to the lowest ; it is
good for nothing, hut to he cast out and trodden under foot of men.
* Cf. Nitzck's striking observations on the Divine Justice and Rewards, Si/stcm dor
Christiichen Lehre, p. 115, 2d ed.
SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 225
gation, Christ says, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kiiig-
dom of Jieaven. Happy are they who feel the spiritual wretchedness
of the Theoci'atlc nation ; who long after the true riches of the kingdom ;
who have not stifled the higher cravings of their souls by worldly de-
lights, by confidence in their Jewish descent, by the pride of Pharisaic
righteousness and wisdom; but are conscious of their spiritual poverty,
of their lack of the true riches of the Spirit and the kingdom."* Such
are they to whom the kingdom of God belongs; "theirs,'''' says Christ,
"/s the kingdom of heaven ;" as, in certain respects, a present possession.
(2.)
As the pride of the Phaiisee is joined with sternness, so poverty of
spirit is attended by meekness and humility. In the Sermon, " blessed
are the poor in spiriV is followed byf " Messed are the meek, for they
shall inherit the earth.^'' A remarkable contrast: Dominion is promised
to that precise disposition of heart which is most averse to it. A con-
trast, too, which serves to point out the peculiar kind of world-dominion
promised, as distinguished from the prevailing Jewish ideas on the sub-
ject. According to the latter, the sceptre of the Messianic reign over
the heathen nations was to be a sceptre of iron ; according to the former,
the "gentle-spirited"" are to obtain possession of the earth.
It is true, the expression, "shall inherit the earth," is included (like
the other beatitudes) in the more general one, " theirs is the kingdom
of heaven ;" it is doubtless true, also, that the phrase was not uncom-
mon among the Jews ; but we are not, therefore, obliged to conclude
that the thought involved in it is only the general one of " the blessed-
ness of the kingdom of God." The expression has a significance
of its own. The " inheritance of the earth" is that world-dominion
which Christians, as organs of the Spirit of Christ, are ever more and
more to obtain, as the kingdom of God shall win increasing sway over
* " Poverty of spirit" includes all that we liave here expressed. De IVetle (in HeidM.
Studien,vo\.m.,-pt. 2, in his Comment, de mnrte Jesu Chrisli cxpiutorui, in his Ckris/licke
Littetilehre, pt. i., p. 246, and in his Commentary, in loc.) has done inueh to develope the
idea genetically. He has rightly called attention to the derivation of the phrase from the
Old Testament views. " The Immhle citizen of the fallen Theocracy, deeply feehng the
misery of the Theocratic nation, bruised in spirit, and hoping only in God, is ' ponr in
spirit,' in contrast with the haughty blasphemer, who has no such feeling: U.!^, IVDN, in
contrast with Pp"^ j Isa., Lxi., 1 " Applying this spiritually, with reference to the inner life,
we naturally infer that the nTuxot rio -nvtvuaTi are "those who feel their wajit of that whicli
alone can satisfy and enrich the Spirit." and so all the rest that we have intimated. The
difference in tliese explanations — easily harmonized — consists only in the reference of the
idea to its genetic historical developement in the one, and to the objective Christian mean-
ing, which holds good for all ages. Conf Jdmts (i., 9. 10). whose epistle accords in many
points with the Sennon on the Mount, and follows its stand-point in the developement of
Christianity'.
t In the order of the Beatitudes, I follow the text of Lachmann, which gives them iu a
corLnesion not only logical, but corresponding with their aim as instruction.
P
22G SECOND GENERAL 3IINISTRY IN GALILEE.
mankind and the relations of society, until, in its final consummation,
the whole eartli shall own its dominion ; and the Power which is to
gain this world-dominion is Meeka'ess ; the quiet might of gentleness
it is with which God's kingdom is to subjugate the world.
(3.)
Christ, then, further developes the characteristics of poverty of spirit
in the beatitude : "Blessed are they that mourn (that are conscious of
inward woe), for they shall be comforted." That this mourning is not
grief for mere outward afflictions, appears from the next : "Blessed are
they which do hunger and thirst afoer righteousness, for they shall be
filled" (shall find their wants supplied in the communion of the king-
dom of God).
§ 150. MoralResultof Entering the Kingdom of Godj viz. : The "■Pure
in Heart see God.'"
The preceding beatitudes point out the moral requisites for entering
into the kingdom of God ; but it must not be inferred that they are
demanded only on entrance into it, and no longer. Rather, as our
appropriation of the kingdom can never be a finished act while we
remain on earth, must its moral requisites continue, nay, continually
grow in strength. We can discern already, in their connexion, the
peculiar essence of Christianity. The Christian is conscious of no
moral or spiritual ability of his own, needing only to be rightly ap-
plied to gain the wished-for end ; on the contrary, he feels that he
has, of himself nothing but want and weakness, insufficiency and
wretchedness. Already Christ announces redemption as his own
peculiar work.
Presupposing, then, that those who are endowed with these requi-
sites will enter his kingdom, satisfy their spiritual need, and share in
his saving power, Christ describes them, in consequence, as " j'ure in
heart" (pure, however, not according to the standard of legal piety).
And to those who possess this purity he promises that " they shall sec
God." They shall have perfect communion with Him, and that com-
plete and intuitive knowledge of his nature which, founded in sucli
communion, forms the bliss of everlasting life.
This promise refers, it is true, to that full communion with Gon
which shall be realized in eternal life, or in the consummation of the
kingdom of God only. But this by no means excludes its application
to tJiat participation in the kingdom which begins during our caithly
life; just as the preceding promises were to be gradually and progres-
sively fulfilled until their consummation. The prominent connexion of
thought is, that the knowledge of Divine things must spring from the
life, from that purity of heart which fits men for communion with God;
SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 031
tory stand-point ; it will, on the other hand, be the " destroying'''' of all
that was, in itself, only preparatory. In pointing to this consummation
of the kingdom of God as the final " fulfilling" of all, Christ at the
same time fixes the final end for the fulfilment of all the promises con-
nected with the beatitudes. Thus the connexion with the words spo-
ken before is closely preserved.*
(3.)
Passing from the Old Testament in general to the " law" in particu-
lar, and applying to it the general proposition that he had advanced,
Christ commands his disciples (v. 19, 20) to fulfil the law in a far high-
er sense than those did who were at that time considered patterns of
righteousness. In proportion as each fulfilled the law was he to have
a higher or a lower place in the developement of the kingdom (v. 19).
The principle of life which they all possessed in common (the essen-
tial requisite for fulfilling any of the demands of the sermon) by no
means precluded diffei-ences of degree ; it might penetrate one more
thoroughly than another, and display itself in a more (or less) complete
fulfilling of the law. Christ illustrates the same doctrine in the para-
ble of the Sower.
Such, then, and so superior is the fulfilling of the law which Christ
requires of all who would belong to his kingdom : Except your righ-
teousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye
shall in no case enter into the kingdom of Heaven,]
■^ 154. " FulfiUing of the Law'" in the Higher Se?ise. — Gene7-al Contrast
between the Juridical and Moral Stand-po'aits.
In verses 22-48 Christ illustrates, in a number of special examples,
the sense in which the law was, not " destroyed," but " fulfilled"
through him ; also the sense in which the members of his kingdom
were to signalize themselves by zeal in fulfilling the law ; and also (but
here subordinately) the difference between their righteousness — an-
swering to their position in the new developement of the Divine king-
dom— and the seeming righteousness 01 the Pharisees.
In these illustrations he contrasts the eternal Theocratic law with
the political Theocratic law; the absolute law with the particular law
of Moses. Although the former lay at the fijundation of the latter, it
could not, in that limited and contracted system, unfold and display it-
* By assuming this relation to the law and the prophets, Christ gave himself out as
Messiah. How untenable, then, is Strauas's assertion that at that time Jesus had not de-
cidedly presented himself as Messiah ! We have shown tliat the passage is too closely
bound up with the organism of the whole sermon to be considered an interpolation.
t The yap in verse 20 obviously introduces a coniirmation of the preceding verse ; and
this opposes Olshausen' s view of the connexion, although he has well marked the distinc-
tion between verses 19 and 20.
2Z2 SECOND GENERAL MINISTRY IN GALILEE.
self; and it could not be fully developed until the shell, the restraining
form, which had cribbed and confined the spirit, was broken and de-
stroyed* The opposition is between the law as bearing only upon the
overt act, and the law as bearing upon the heart, and fulfilled in it ; be-
tween the juridical and the moral stand-point.
We infer, then, as a rule in intei-preting the following separate pre-
cepts, that outward acts are to be taken as vivid exhibitions of a re-
quired inward disposition, and are to be understood literally only when
they are the necessary expression of such a state of heart.
§ 155. Fulfilling of the haw in the Higher Sense. — Particular Exam-
ples, viz., (1.) Murder; (2.) Adultery ; (3.) Divorce; (4.) Perjury;
(5.) Revenge; (6.) National Exclusivcness.
(1.) The law condemns the murderer to death. But the Gospel sen-
tences even him who is angry] with his brother. The passion which,
when full-blown, causes mui'der, is punished in the bud of I'evengeful
feeling, whether concealed in the heart or shown in abusive words|
(V. 22).
* I agree with the Greek and Socinian interpreters in thinking that Christ means here
not merely the Pharisaic interpretations of the law, but also the legal stand-point in gen-
eral. This follows necessarily, (1) from the connexion as we have unfolded it; (2) from
tlie fact that he quotes the commandments in their literal Old Testament form. (Even
" thou shall hate thy enemy" (v. 43), though not found literally in the commandment, is im-
plied in the preceding: positive commandment, as limited by the particular Theocratic stand-
point) ; (.3) because ippiOn toi? ip\aiots (v. 33) cannot well be interpreted otherwise than
" it has been said to the men of old'' (the fathers, hence during the Mosaic promulgation
of the law). Had Christ referred to the statutes of the elders (which would not agree so
well with the whole form of the expression either), he would have used -^pcaBvTepots, as also
7>e Wette acknowledges. Tholuck's argument, of an antithesis between apxaion and (ya
is not to the point ; the connexion does not require such an antithesis. The ojjposition is
iH)t ill the subject of the commandment, but in its conception. Christ recognized the voice
of God in the Old Testament, and Moses as sent of God ; but he wished to oppose the/u/-
liUing form of the new legislation to the narrow and deficient form of Old Testament le-
gislation, which belonged to a temporary and preparatory epoch. Had Christ had the sub-
ject of the commandment in view, rois apxaiot; would naturally have preceded ippedrj ; vrhile
the present collocation of the words indicates that the opposition is instituted between
what was said in earlier times and what teas then said by him. The prominence that he
•a.s.signs to tlie Pharisaical conception and application of the law connects very well with
this opposition to the old law in general ; for the Pharisees especially refused to admit the
."piril to pass from the old law and find its fulliknent in the new, but adhered to the leUer
in a one-sided and exclusive way. Pharisaism, in a word, was the culmination of the old
Nt.'ind-point, adhering to the letter, and estranged from the spirit.
t I must agree with those who reject ciKn (v. 22). Thus to lessen the force of the law
certainly does not harmonize with the connexion.
J It seems to me that the words " 'Ci 6' di' e'irrri rip <Wc>(/).p aVTOv ■ paku, ei'oxoS carat rio ourti'p'V"
should be taken away from this passage. Apart from these, the connexion is perfect and
obvious. Kpiaii=^iidgmeHt, condemyialion, its common meaning in the New Testament;
and so yUvva, with another word. Degrees of violation of the Theocratic law nowhere ap-
pear in this connexion ; on the contraiy, it teaches that the smallest violation, as well as the
greatest, involves a disposition of heart opposed to the khigdom of God, which demands
holiness of heart, ileviling is purposely put side by side with murder, because the dispo-
SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 229
Christ knew that the new element of life which, through him, was
given to humanity, had power to keep it ever fi'esh and living; but he
knew also the impure influences to which it would be liable. These
words of his declare the fate of Christianity, whenever" it degenerates
into dead forms and outward show. History affords the fullest and
saddest commentary upon this prophetic passage.
III. The Law of Christian Life the Fuliilment of the Old Law.
§ 153. Fulfilling of the Law and, the Prophets : (1.) General View ;
(2.) particular Exposition ; (3.) Demand for a Higher Obedience
than that (f the Pharisees. (Matt., v., 17-20.)
After commanding his disciples to become the " salt" of the earth,
and to " let their light s,o shine before men that they might see their
good works, and glorify their Father in heaven," it remained for him
to set vividly before them, by specific illustrations, the mode in which
they were to let their light shine through their actions; which would
distinguish them palpably from those who then passed for holy men
among the Jews.
This gave him occasion to refute the charge spread abroad by the
Pharisees, that he aimed to subvert the authority of the law. But,
instead of confining himself to a mere refutation, he took a course
conforming with the dignity of his character, and justified himself in a
positive way, by unfolding the relation in which his New Creation
stood to the stand-point of the Old Covenant, He incorporated this,
moreover, very closely with the practical purpose of the whole discourse
(v. 17, seq.). He characterizes the new law of life by distinct and
separ-ate traits. He proclaims the new law as the fulfilment of the old.
For since the old law proceeds from the commandment " to love Grou
above all things, and our neighbour as ourselves," it contains the
eternal law of the kingdom of God ; and only where love rules the
whole life can we secure this object, which the whole religious law of
the Old Testament aimed at, but could not realize. " On these tico
commandments (says Christ, Matt., xxii., 40) hang all the law and the
prophets," i. e., the whole Old Testament. They could not be ful-
filled from the Old Testament stand-point, because men needed, in
order to fulfil them, a new life, proceeding from the spirit of love;
and this Christ came to impart. He presupposes its existence in those
for whom he communicates the new law.
Moreover, although the everlastitig Theocratic law could be derived
from the two commandments specified, yet its spirit, tied down to the
stand-point of the political Theocracy, and cribbed in its contracted
forms could not attain its free and full developement. But Christ, by
230 SECOiND GENERAL MINISTRY IN GALILEE.
freeing it frum this bondage of forms, brought it into complete devel-
opement, not only in the consciousness, but in the practical life. In
this respect, then, he fulfilled the law ; and this was the object for
which he appeared.*
(2.)
Christ begins, therefore, by saying. Think not that I am covie to de-
stroy the law and the prophets ; I am not come to destroy, hut to fulfill
By this we are to understand the whole of the Old Testament religion ;
he came to annul neither of its chief divisions, as his general mission
Avas (last clause of v. 17|) " not to destroy, but to fulfil," He adds, in
a still stronger averment (v. 18), that not one jot or tittle of the law
should lose its validity, but that all have its fulfilment, until the con-
summation of the kingdom of God.§ This last will be the great
" fulfilment," for which all previous stages of the kingdom were but
preparatory.
Here, again, it is shown that, in this sense, "destroying" and "ful-
filling" are correlative ideas. The consummation of the kingfdom will
be the '■'■fulfilling''' of all which was contained, in germ, in the prepara-
* Cf. p. 91, 92.
t Gfrorer asserts (" Heilige Sage," ii., 84, seq.) that these words were not Christ's, but
were more likely put into his mouth by the later Judaists in their controversies with Paul;
an opinion adopted also by Dr. Roeth [Epiat. ad Hehr. non ad, Hebrceos, scd ad Chrutiancs
genere gentiles Scriptam esse, Francof., 1836, p. 214). The former writer thinks that these
striking words, had they existed, would have been used against Paul by the strenuous
advocates of the continued validity of the Mosaic law ; which, he infers, they did 7ioi do,
from the silence of Paul's epistles on the subject. We are compelled directly to contradict
this assertion; it is refuted sufficiently by the close connexion of the words with the current
of thought in the context. Paul understood their import too well to find any embarrassment
from them in his controversies with the Judaists. If they were quoted against him, hu
refuted the false use made of them by his developemeut of the whole doctrine, rather than
by separate and detailed quotation, as was his custom in controversy.
t De Welte, in explaining the 17tli verse, attempts to prove, from Matt., vii., 12, and
xxii., 40, that the " law and prophets" were conceived, also, as the source of the moral laic,
and deems that the words are here to be taken only in that sense, with no reference at all
to the prophetic element of the Old Testament. I cannot agree with him. Even the
passages which he adduces do not refer exclusively to the moral contents of the Old Testa-
ment, but to the Old Testament in its whole nature and extent. Christ designates— as tlie
end and aim to which the whole Old Testament tends — only the quintessence of the whole
Theocracy, religious as well as moral, viz.: the spirit of love ; as also the end and aim
of Redemption is to make love the ruling principle of man's nature. De Wctle argues
that "no one of his hearers could have imagined that Christ wished to be received as
Messiah in opposition to all the prophecies of the Prophets; so he speaks afterward only
of the fulfilling of the law." Now the question is, was Christ speaking against a misunder-
standing of his disciples, or against an accusation of his enemies ? If the latter, as we
suppose, he had good call to prove that his ministry was opposed neither to the "law" nor
to the " prophets," and that he would show himself to be Messiah by fullilling both. His
subsequently making one part (the law) particularly prominent is no proof that he had not
both in his mind bcfire. Moreover, even De WvtlcXwiii to admit that the prophetic element
is alluded to in v. 18. We infer, therefore, that both ''law" and " jiroijliots" are referrc.l
to from the begimiiug. § Cf. Tholuck on v. 18.
SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 235
48). And the perfect love of God does not exclude His enemies. How
perfect, indeed, must His love be, to seek the redemption even of His
enemies !
IV. True Religion contrasted with the Mock Piety of the Pharisees.
§ 156. (1.) Alms, Prayer, Fasting ; (2.) Rigid Judgment of Self , Mild
Judgment of others ; (3.) Test of Sincerity in Seeking after Righteous-
ness. (Matt., vi., 1-18; vii., 1-5.)
(1.)
After setting forth the opposition between legal and true holiness,
Christ passes on to contrast the latter with the false spiritual tendencies
at that time existing ; to contrast that piety which attaches no im-
portance either to its own works or to the show of them, with the
mock religion of the Pharisees, which did every thing for show. It is
the contrast, in a word, between being and seeming ; and no words
could express it more strikingly than " lohen thou doest thine alms, let
not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth. So far from doing
good that others may see it, thou must not even think of it as thy own
work ; do it, in childish simplicity, from thy loving spirit, as if thou
couldst not do otherwise." This principle Christ applies to three
separate acts, in which the Pharisees were specially wont to make a
pious display, viz.: Alms, prayer, and fasting* (vi., 1-18).
(2.)
The sin which is nextt condemned (vii., 1-5) springs from the same
root as the one just mentioned. The Pharisees judged others severely,
but were quite indulgent to themselves, and, indeed, never rightly exam
ined themselves. He that knows what true righteousness is, and feels
his own want of it, will be a rigid censor of his own life, but a mild
and gentle judge of others. [" And lohy heholdest thou the mote that is
in thy brother'' s eye, hut considerest not the beam that is in thine own 1
Thou hypocrite ! first cast out the beam that is in thine own eye, and
then shall thou see clearly to cast the mote out of thy brother's.^']
(3.)
The Saviour then| gives (vii., 12) a criterion to distinguish true from
* Since Christ specifies these three, in order to apply to them the general principle of
V. 1 (rfiv iiKaioavvrjv fii) ttouIv €^n;poaOev t&v avOpunrwv), we infer that it was foreign to his
purpose to give an exposition of the nature of prayer here, which coufinns our view that
the " Lord's Prayer" is not here in its proper chronological connexion.
t Matt., vii., 1, stands in a close logical connexion with vi., 18, and the preceding verses ;
and is also given by Luke, proving that it belongs to the original body of the discourse ;
but vi., 19-34 {not given by Luke in this connexion] appears as obviously not so. So of
5-11, below.
I The ovv in verse 12.. as well as the course of thought, connect it with v. 5.
236 SECOND GENERAL MINISTRY IN GALILEE.
Pharisaic righteousness. " Therefore, all things whatsoever ye would
tJiat men should do unto you, do ye also unto them ; for this is the law
and the prophets." (If you are striving sincerely after the essence of
righteousness, you will place yourself in the condition of others, and
act towards thera as you would wish thera, in such case, to have acted
towards you.)
It was certainly not Christ's purpose here to set up a rule of morals
contradictory to the whole spirit of the rest of the sermon, which places
the seat of true morality in the heart. Mere outward action, according
to this rule, might spring from diverse dispositions, e. g., the mere pru-
dence of selfishness might lead us to observe it, in order to get like for
like. But, placing it in connexion with what has gone before, and ma-
king love the mainspring of our actions, the rule affords a touchstone of
their character. And when our actions stand this test, Christ says that
"the law and the jyrophets [i. c, the life and essence of piety to which
they point) are fulfilled ;" for, as he elsewhere says, " love is the fulfil-
ling of the law."
V. Exliortations and Warnings to the Children of the Kingdom.
§ 157. Exhortation to Self-denial. — Caution against Seducers. (Matt.,
vii., 13-24.)
Christ had now pointed out the moral requisites_/or entrance into his
kingdom, and the moral qualities which must mark its members. He
now warns them (v. 13) against the delusion of expecting to secure its
blessings in any easier way than he had pointed out, or hoping to avoid
struggle and self-denial ;* and cautions them against false teachers, who
would lead them into such delusions, and draw them out of the right
way. First, be gives a warning against such as shall falsely pretend to
a Divine call as teachers and guides, inspired by self-seeking alone.
" Wolves in sheep's clothing,t their evil fruits, proofs of their evil
hearts, distinguish them from genuine prophets of God" (v. 15, 20).
This warning was strikingly applicable at that time of out-breaking
battle with the hierarchical and Pharisaic party.
The general proposition, that the state of the heart must be shown
by the " fruits," is then applied to all believers (v. 21-23). Not every
* Matt., vii., 13-14, describe tlie difficultks of the way, and join closely to what precedes.
The figure of the " gate," &c., is more aptly introduced in Luke, xiii., 24, 25, and it might be
supposed that the author of the Greek Matthew had transferred the passage to this con-
nexion from the actual one in which Christ uttered it. But so olrvious a figure as the
"gate" and the "way" may have been used repeatedly by Christ ; and in these two i)la-
ccs, moreover, there is a difference in its application. In Luke, the " gate" is to be entered
before the Master has closed it; in Matt., it is "the wide gate and the broad way, wiiich
mq.ny see; the narrow gate and the narrow way, wliicli few find." In the former the
thought is, " that few are willing to undergo the necessary labours and struggles to enter
the kingdom ;" in the latter, " the majority deceive themselves as to the dillioulties of the
task," &c. t Cf. John, x., 1-5.
SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 233
(2.) The law of the particular Theocracy condemns the adulterer.
But the law of Christ condemns the germ of evil passion in the husband,
as the source of adultery* (v. 27).
(3.) As Christ thus already considers marriage as the union, in part,
of two persons of different sexes, he takes occasion to develope still
further his opposition to the stand-point of the Mosaic law in regard to
this relation.t
The Mosaic law, intended for a rude people, who were to be culti-
vated by degrees, allowed divorce ; seeking to place some restraints,
at least, upon unlimited wilfulness. Political legislation must adapt
itself to the matei-ial on which it has to act.J But the law of Christ
sets forth the moral idea of mari'iage in its full strictness, and demands
that its communion of life shall be indissoluble. Nothing but the
actual adultery of one of the parties can dissolve the tie, and leave the
innocent one at liberty to marry.§
sition that inspires the former leads, when further expanded, to the latter; the reviler is «
murderer before that bar which looks only at the heart. A gri-adation between faKa and
fiwpoj violates both the aim and connexion of the discourse, and seems entirely unbecoming
its dignity. Moreover, we should then have to look for a gradation in the punishment,
which, again, is inconsistent with the connexion. The " Sanhedrim" brings us before the
Jewish civil jurisdiction — the politico-Theocratical stand-point — the very thing to which
Christ opposes himself throughout the discourse. And how is y'uvva, in that case, to bo
distinguislied from Kpiaii ? In what relation does the mention of the Sankedrhn stand to
Kpioii and yuvva ? Things entirely incompatible are here brought together. All attempts
to solve tlie difBcalty lead to forced and untenable interpretation. The fact that paKa means
just the same tiling as /(wpt, confirms the supposition that the clause in question was intro
duced by the Greek translator as another version of the following, and original, clause in
Matthew's Hebrew.
* Verses 23-26 are among tliose expressions of Christ which we suppose to have been
uttered elsewhei-e, and transferred to this connexion from their affinity of subject. (Of. v.
25, 26, with Luke, xii., 58, 59.) So of v. 29, 30; Christ is ti'eating of the mere legislation,
not of the element of self-discipline as such.
t Pol.vgauiy was not yet wholly forbidden among the Jews, as appears from JosepJiux.
S[ieaking in reference to the polygamy of Herod, he says : Tzarpiov -jclp cv Taino -rrXtioatii fifuv
avvoiKc'iv (ArchaeoL, xviii., 1, 2). And Justin casts up to the Jewish doctors that, even in
his time, "o'lnviS koI ixkxp^ vZv koX rcaaiipai Kai TrtiTct'xfii' Vpiui ; «i'u?/c«f eKaarov cvyX'i'Povot" (Dial.,
c. Tryph. Jud., ed. Colon., 3G3, E). Still we may infer that the Jewish schools in Christ's
time recognized monogamy as the only lawful marriage, from his saying nothing expressly
on the subject, while the precepts that he delivers presuppose it.
t The oKXtipoKapiia Toij Xaov. Matt., xix., 8.
$ I cannot agree with those who would make this law an outward one by legislation ;
the discourse aims at the heart, and its precepts can be fulfilled in the life only from the
heart. They hold good only for those who recognize Christ as their Lord from free convic-
tion, and are led by his Spirit ; and who, therefore, find in them only the outward expres-
sion of the inward Spirit. The state can no more realize these laws than it can make
Cluistians or create holiness. Its laws must be adapted to the oKXripoKapiia Toti XaoB. The
attempt to accomplish, by legislative sanction, what redemption alone can do, would create
a sort of stunted, Chinese life, but nothing better. Precisely because the Sermon on the
Mount is the Magna Charta of tlie kingdom of God, it is not fit for a state law. On the
other hand, I differ from those who suppose that Christ alluded only to the then existing
fona of Jewish divorce, which did not require legal investigation and decision. The moral
idea which Christ developed had a more than temporary bearing.
234 SECOND GENERAL MINISTRY IN GALILEE.
(4.) The Mosaic law prohibits perjury, and maintains the sanctity of
oaths. But the law of Christ demands that yes and no shall take the
place of all other confirmation. " Whatsoever is more than these* comcth
of evil^^ i. e., testifies to a want of that disposition of heart which every
member of his kingdom ought to possess ; a want of that thorough
truthfulness which makes every other affirmation superfluous, and of
the mutual confidence that depends upon it.
(5.) The Mosaic law, moreover, corresponding to the civil law, ad-
mits of retaliation, like for like. But the law of Christ so completely
shuts out the desire of revenge, that it creates in its subjects a disposi-
tion to suffer all injury rather than to return evil for evil (v. 39).
(G.) The old law ezijoined the "love of one's neighbour;" but none
were regarded as " neighbours" but members of the Theocratic com-
munity, and, therefore, the law implied " hatred" of the enemieS/of that
community as enemies of the kingdom of God. The law of Christ,. on
the contrary, enjoins love without limit ;t a love that takes into its
wide embrace enemies and persecutors, yea, even those who, as ene-
mies of the kingdom of God, persecute its members ; a love which not
only impels us to do them good, but is so absolutely exclusive of even
the germ of hatred, as to urge us to ^;raj/ for them. The children
of God are to be, like their heavenly Father, perfect in love (v. 45,
* The formulas in v. 34, 35, 36 (not properly oatlis, as they do not take God to witness)
illustrate still more forcibly Christ's purpose to banish from his kingdom every affirmation
but ^es and no. Had he not mentioned them, his hearers miglit have thought that he refer-
red only to the immediate invocation of Jehovah to vritness, which all pious Jews sought
to avoid, and instead of which these very fonnulas, which helped those that were disposeil
to gloss over a perjury, were, in fact, invented. This is enough to refute what GiJschel says
{iiber den, Eid, Berlin, 1837, p. 118, 119), in order to prove tliat Christ's precept was not
directed against oaths in general. There was no necessity that he should define the
proper sense of an oath ; every body understood it ; but it would have been by no means
so obvious to his hearers that he condemned also the common fonnulas, invented out of
reverence fbr the Divine name (P)dlo, De Special. Legib., § ] ). He condemns them especially
for the reason that it is inconsistent with the condition of dependent creatures to appeal to
the creature in confirming an averment. There remained nothing but the true oath — the
appeal to Almighty God — and this, also, he forbade ; yes aad no were to suffice. Go^chel
says (p. 116), "As Christ came not to abolish, but to fulfil the law, the law of the oath was
not to be abolished, but fulfilled." Tme ; just as the law, "Thou shaU not kill," is fulfilled
by avoiding emotions of hatred; -just as the law of the Sabbath is fulfilled in consecrating
every day to God. So yes and no are bonds as sacred for the Christian as an oath to other
men.
t The First Epistle to the Corinthians (as Riickeri has remarked) contains many passages,
the germs of which are to be found in the Sermon on the Mount. Cf iv., 8-13; vi., 7 ; vii.,
10. Paul may also have boiTowed from it these words of Christ, which were preserved for
us only by liis means, Acts, xx., 35, " // is more blessed to ^ive than to receive." This say-
ing expresses the disjwsition which, in Matt., v., 40-42, is set forth in outward acts; the
very nature of love, happy in communicating. How beautifully does this saying reveal the
whole heart of Clnist, whose whole aim was to impart to others from the fulness of his
heavenly riches !
THE DEMONIAC HEALED. 239
The centurion heard that Christ, in compliance with the request of
the elders, was approaching his house. But then the thought arose,
" Hast thou not gone too far in asking the Son of Goi), who has spirits
at his command, to come to thy house? Hast thou not lowered him,
by presuming that his corporeal presence is necessary to the healing
of thy slave ] Could he not have employed one of his hosts of minister-
ing spirits to accomplish it 1" [" Saij in a word, and my servant shall
he healed. For I, also . . . say unto one, ' Come,' and lie cometh ; and to
another, 'Go,' and he goeth."*\ Although his hesitation, doubtless,
arose in part from his unwillingness, as a heathen, to summon the
Saviour to his house, his words imply that it arose far more from his
conscious un worthiness in comparison with Christ's greatness. He
conceived Christ to be the Son of God in a sense natural to one who
had, from paganism, become a believer in Theism.
The centurion illustrates a state of heart which, in all ages of Chris-
tianity, belongs to those who are susceptible of admitting and em-
bracing Christ: the consciousness, namely, of His loftiness and our
own unworthiness. Here was the deep import of his signs of faith ;
and here the g-round of these strikinfj words of Christ addressed lo
the attendant multitudes: '•'I have not found so great faith, no, not in
Israel." He had, indeed, found access to the people ; he had, indeed,
f(jund faith, but not such faith as that of this pagan. The faith of the
Jews, prejudiced by their peculiar notions of the Messiahship, could
not, as yet, raise itself to a just intuition of the super-human greatness
of Christ. But the pagan, viewing Christ as Lord of the World of
Spirits, had reached a p(jint which the Apostles themselves were only
to attain at a later period. And here we have a sign that the true and
high intuition of the person of Christ v/as to come rather from thf
stand-point of paganism than of Judaism.
§ 16 L Healing of the Deaf and Dumb Demoniac. — The Charge of a
League with Beelzebub: a Visible Sign demanded. — rThe Charge
refuted.
The constantly increasing influence of Christ naturally heightened
frround to suspect it as au inveutioii ? As for Matthew's statement, that the centurion
himself applied to Christ, it may naturally and easily be explained on the supjiosition of nn
abbreviation of the narrative, or obliteratiou of individual features of the occuiTcnce.
* We cannot admit Dr. Strauss' s assertion that the prayer sent by the elders (Luke,
vii., 3) is inconsistent with the second messai^e (v. (i), and that, therefore, the connexion
which m Matthew is natural is umiatural in Luke. Had Luke's account been a. frtioa,
instead of makinij the centurion take back his prayer sent by the elders, it would have
iriven the prayer a different character from the beginning:. Considering it as a narrative
(S fact, it bears ytrecisely the stamp of real life: the centurion, at first, absorbed in his
anxiety, sends for Christ to come to him: afterward, when he finds the fulfilment of his
desire at hand, the sense of his unworthiness in comparison with the greatness of Christ
becomes prominent, and with it a sense of the impropriety of his request.
240 SECOND GENERAL MINISTRY IN GALILEE.
the wrath of the Pharisees. A movemfjnt which they coulrl not check
was in progress against the spirit and the interests of" their paity. But
a powerful impression, wrought by a single miracle, gave the signal for
a new and more artful attack. This occasion was the healing a man
of imbecile mind, or a melancholy idiot, who went about appearing
neither to see nor to hear any thing that passed around him.* The
people received the cure as a sign of Christ's Messianic power.
It was necessary for the Pharisees to remove this impression fi'om
their minds. But how was it to be done 1 The Jact could neither be
denied nor attributed to natural agencies. In this dilemma they had
recourse to falsehood, and accused him of employing an evil magic, a
belief in which still propagated itself among the traditionst of Jewish
fanaticism. The Prince of Evil Spirits, they said, in order to secure
favour among the people for the false prophet who was labouring for
Satan's kingdom, had given him power to exorcise inferior spirits from
men ; thus sacrificing a less object for a greater.^
Others, again, whose hostility to Christ and to truth was not so decided
(although they were not susceptible of Divine impressions), only refused
to acknowledge the miracle as a sufficient sign of Messiahship, and
demanded an immediate token from God — a voice from heaven, or a
celestial appearance. §
Christ first replied to the most decided opponents, and, to show the
absurdity of their accusation, reasoned as follows : " It is a contradic-
tion in terms to suppose that good can be directly wrought by evil;!
* Luke, xi., 14 ; Matt., xii., 22. Tliis view of the case is founded upon the fact that tl:e
man's dumbness is ascribed (which is not done in other cases) to his being possessed
with demons, and his subsequent ability to hear and speak to their expulsion. Matthew
adds blindness, which harmonizes well with our view. We infer from the impression
produced by the miracle that the case differed from ordinary possessions. It is possible,
however, that the case is confounded in Matthew with other cures of blind men ; cf Matt..
ix., 27-34. This last passage, v. 32-34, seems to be but an abridged account of the very
case under discussion. t Ce.hvs took a hint from these. t Matt., xii., 24-26.
§ How strongly expectations of this kind were cherished by the Jews is shown by the
fact that Philo's HellenicAlexaudriau culture could not free him from them, although the
expectation of a personal Messiah is not prominent in him. He believes that, when the
purification of the scattered Jews is accomplished, they will be drawn together from all
nations, by a celestial phenomenon, to one definite place : '• Itvayovntvoi vpo^ tivo; &ctorip^ts
5 Karu (pvntv utOpuiTriirjii S^cuiS, uh'/Xov fi(v tripois, pdvoii 6i Toli ava(jio\o^i.ivois ifUpavot,:" — J>e
Exea-nt., ^ 9.
II There is, indeed, a sense in which the kingdom of evil is always at war witii itself;
but in evil, as such, as opposed to good, there is always a definite relative unity. If this
unity was destroyed, if Satan were to accomplish the same good as that wrought by tlie
power of God, it would be a contradictio in adjecto ; the kingdom of evil would be ipsn
facio subverted. Evil may. and indeed must, iiidiredly subserve good ; but it cannot </.'-
redly do good so long as its nature, as evil, remains. A kingdom, or a family, may con-
tinue to exist as such, with an internal discord in its bosom that is the germ of its dissolu-
tion ; but the relatire unity must remain. This truth admitted the further application —
which Christ did not express, but left to the Pharisees to make — that ;;atan could not seek
THE LEPER HEALED. 237
one who honours Jesus as Messiah and Theocratic King, antl makes a
zealous confession thereof, is thereby fitted to share in the kingd(;m ;
the heart must be shown to accord with the confession, by a faithful
performance of the will of God* [" Not every one that saith tinto mc,
Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven ; hut he that dnelh
the will of my Father which is in heaven."]
VI. True and False Disciples Contrasted.
§ 158. Test of Discipleship. (Matt., vii., 24-27.)
Christ concludes the whole discourse with a contrast between true
and false disciples ; between those who take care to apply to their life
and practice the truths which he had laid down, and those who do not.
He thus makes prominent, in the conclusion, the great truth announced
in the beginning, and carried through the discourse, viz., that a right
disposition of heart is essential in all things. According to their riglit
application of his words his hearers were to judge themselves, and find
their destiny described (v. 24-27). [" Therefore, whosoever hcareth
these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I icill liken him unto a tcise man,
which htiilt his house upon a rock : and the rain descended, and the
floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that hoxise, and it fell
not ; for it was founded upon a rock. And every one that heareth these
sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall he likened unto a foolish man,
which huilt his house upon the sand : and the rain descended, and the
floods came, and the 7vi?ids hlew, and heat upon that house, and it fell ;
and great was the fall of zV."]
These words of wai-ning, at the end of the discourse, harmonize
well w^th its beginning.
END OF THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT.
§ 159. Healing of the Leper on the Road to Capernauni.\
After Christ had concluded his deeply impi'essive discourse, he dis-
missed the multitude and came down from the mountain with his disci
pies. Hosts of people attended him to Capernaum. A leper, who
had probably heard of his miracles, and learnpd that he would pass
that way, had planted himself by the road-side. Full of faith, he
threw himself at the Saviour's feet and said, " Lord, if thou wilt, thou
canst make me clean" After Christ had granted his petition, he bade
him (as was his wont in such cases) first to do what the law — which
He had come to "destroy" only by "fulfilling" — demanded,| viz., to
* Ch. vii., 24, connects closely with v. 21. On the relation of v. 23, 23, to the rest of the
passage, we shall speak hereafter.
t Matt., viii., 1. I follow Matthew's account, which suits the chronology, in preference
to Luke's (v. 12), which says nothing about the locality of the event. It was not custom-
ary, under the Mosaic law, for lepers to reside within the cities. Cf Joseph., c. Apion, i.,
xxxi. ; Arcbo3ol., iii., U, $ 3. % Levit., xiv,, 1.
2.38 SECOND GENERAL MINISTRY IN GALILEE.
show himself to the pi'iests and offer the prescribed sacrifice, in ordm
to readmission into the Theocratic community, from which he had
been excluded as unclean.
§ 160. Htal'mg of the Heathen Centurion's Slave at Capernaum* — The
Deputation of Elders. — Faith of the .Centurion.
As -soon as Christ an-ived at Capernaum, his aid was sought in be-
half of another sufferer. The elders of the synagogue came to him
with a petition in the name of a centurion. He was a heathen ; but,
like many other heathens of that age, unsatisfied with the old and
languishing popular religion, and impressed, by the moral and religious
spiint of the Jewish Theism, he has been led to believe in Jehovah
as the Almighty. Whether a j)'>'osclyte of the gate\ or not, he had
proved his faith by building a Jewish synagogue at his own expense.
His love and care for a faithful slave| shows how his piety had in-
fluenced his character. During Christ's absence this slave became
severely ill ; and just when he was ready to die, the centurion heard,
to his great joy, of the Saviour's return. Placing his only hopes in
Him, he hastened to ask his assistance. But he had been accustomed
to look upon the Jews alone as consecrated to the worship of the Most
High ; and Christ yet appeared to belong only to that people. He did
not venture, therefore, as a heathen, to apply to him directly, but
sought the mediation of the elders, ^^•hom he had laid under obligation.§
* Matt., viii., 5 ; Luke, vii., 2. Tlie chronological ogjeement of the accounts, derived from
Boparate sources, is proof of their veracity. W'e follow Luke's, as the more original.
t The relation iu which he appears to stand to Judaism and the Jews would make it
probable that he vas a proselyte of the gate. But, on the other hand, if he had been, the
Jewish elders would probably have mentioned it in their recommendation of him ; he
would have had the usual designation, ci.li6ixs.vos, (poCovfievos rbv Beoi/.
t The word used iu Matthew is rizij, 1^'J ', which may, indeed, mean slave, but seems
to be intended by him for " son," as he uses the article throughout the nairative (o miis).
'lliis, however, may be explained on the ground that either the centurion had but o/w slave.
or that he valued this one particularly. If "son" were intended, it might be accounted for
from the ambiguity of the word both in Hebrew and Greek ; the high degi-ee of love
which the centurion displayed, also, was more likely to be felt for a son than a slave, aiui
this may have led to the use of the word.
^ Luke's account, on its face, shows that it was taken from life; but Strauss (with whom
De Wetle agrees) tliinks it bears the marks of a later hand, working over Matthew's purer
and more original statement. According to Straus.':, the humility with which the centurion
himself addressed Christ (Matt., viii., 8) gave rise to the conclusion that a heathen wlio had
liad so low an opinion of himself could not possibly have applied to Christ except through
Jewish mediation ; and then it was necessai-y to invent such an embassy, iu order to assig.'i
a proper motive for Christ's immediate compliance with the request of the heathen. Grant,
for a moment, that it were in itself reasonable and iu hannony with the simplicity of oit
Evangelists; still, we should expect su.;h an intei-jwlation rather iu Matthew, whose narra-
tive is supposed to be derived from a Palestine Jcwish-Cliristian tradition, than in Luke.
who belonged more to the type of Paul. True, the conduct of the centurion, as stated by
Luke, is precisely suited to bis character, as shown in his words recorded by Matthew ; to
his mode of thought in regard to the person of Christ and the relation between Jews and
heathen. But must the very naturalness and probability of the statement itself be made u
THE JEWISH EXORCISTS. 241
that evil should be conquered by evil; that one should be iveedfrom
the pow^er of the Evil One Z»y the povi^er of the Evil One. Could evil
thus do the works of good, it would be no more evil," He then ap-
plies an argumentum ad liomincm to the Pharisees [If I by Beelzebub
cast out devils, by whom do your sons cast them out ? therefore shall they
be your judges^ If a charge of the sort, he tells them, were brought
against their exorcists, they would soon pronounce it untenable. It
follows, then, that this Divine act — the delivery of a human soul from
the evil spirit that had crushed its self-conscious activity — was wrought
by the power and Spirit of God alone.
" But/^ he continues, " if I cast out devils by the Sjririt of God, then
the kingdo?n of God is come unto you."" This single victory proves that
a power has come among men- which is able to conquer evil — the pow-
er, namely, of the kingdom of God, which ever propagates itself in
struggling with evil ; the negative presupposes the positive. The si-
militude that follows illustrates the same truth : " When a strong man^
armed, kcepcth his jxilace, his goods are in peace ; but when a stronger
than he shall come upon him, and overcome him, he taketh from him all
his armour wherein he trusted, and divideth his sjjoils." So, had not the
power of evil itself been subdued by a higher power, such individual
manifestations of it as the evil spirit in the demoniac could not have
been conquered.*
§ 162. The Co7ijurations of the Jewish Exorcists. (Luke, xi., 23-2'6.)
It followed, from the foregoing words of Christ in reply to the Phar-
isees, that all cures of demoniacs wrought on any other principles must
be entirely appai'ent and deceptive. t It was of no avail to remove in-
dividual symptoms while the cause, viz., the dominion of the evil prin-
ciple, remained unshaken. The very agency that removed the former
for a time would only strengthen the latter, to break forth again witli
increased power.
Therefore, although Christ, speaking Kar^ avOpomov, presupposed
that the Jewish exorcists could heal demoniacs, he could not recognize
their cures as genuine. So he says (Luke, xi., 23), " Whosoever is not
with me (works not in communion with me in the power of the Holy
Ghost) is against me (opposes in his works the kingdom of God);
and he that gathereth not with me (does not, in communion with me,
to secure access to the hearts of men for one whose whole nature and labours were op-
posed to the kingdom of evil. " Satan, casting out Satan," would be no more Satan. The
difficulties, therefore, which De Wette finds in the passage are overcome. The truth of
Christ's proposition docs not lie upon the surface.
* Christ here indicates that the so-called demoniacal possessions were nothing else but
individual phenomena of Satan's kingdom manifested amoag men.
t As a physician, who treats the symptoms of disease, but neglects the cause, strength-
ens the latter by the very medicines which palliate the former. A vivid illustration of the
pregnant truth here unfolded by Christ in reference to the cures of the demoniacs.
242 SECOND GENERAL MINISTRY IN GALILEE.
gather souls for the kingdom) scattcrcth abroad* (leads them astray, and
thus really works for the kingdom of Satan, against which he apparent-
ly contends)." The exorcists pretended, in casting out devils, to fight
against Satan ; but in fact, by their arts of deceit, were striving against
the kingdom of God. How cutting a contrast to the assertion of the
Pharisees that devils might be cast out by the aid of Satan !
The same truth is illustrated in parabolic form in verses 24-26 ; un-
less a radical cure of the demoniac is made by the redeeming power
of the Divine Spirit, his soul remains estranged from God, the appa-
rently cured disease seizes it with new force, the ungodly spirit finds
his old haunt — his former dwelling is completely prepared for his re-
ception.f
* This text is put in the same connexion in Matt, (xii., 30). But the ha touto of v. 31
does not naturally join with v. 30; there is no such causal relation as is implied by the
phrase, nor does it join any more closely with what follows ; indeed, it appears rather to
belong at tlie end of all the proofs adduced against the Pharisees. The right arrangement
is doubtless that of Luke (xii., 23-26) ; and the more profound order of the thought, as
Luke presents it, is not the work of chance, but a proof of the originality of the account.
I must differ, therefore, from Professor Elwert, who, in his ingenious dissertation (Stud,
dcr Geistl. Wurtcm., ix-, 1., 1836), denies that Luke, xi.. 23, has reference to the verses im-
mediately preceding. Understanding the parable more in the sense of Matthew (although
he admits Luke's originality also), he connects this passage with it, and considers it as direct-
ed against the indecision of the multitude, who, after moments of enthusiastic excitement
in Christ's favour, suffered themselves to be so easily led astray. But we ought not to
seek new combinations when the original connexion of a passage, lying before us, offers a
good sense. Even apart from this, however. Prof. E.'s explanation does not suit the latter
clause of V. 23 at all — " He that gathereth not with me, scattereth" — which is obviously
not directed against an inward disposition, but outward acts ; viz., acts which pretend to
be done in favour of Christ's kingdom, but in reality operate against it. Prof E. himself
admits (p. 180) that the words quoted, if taken strictly in their connexion, do not favour his
view; but thinks he is justified, by their approaching to the character of a jyroverh, in de-
parting from the sti-ict construction. There is no proof, however, that Christ made use
here of an existing proverb ; but this is immaterial to the interpretation of the passage.
On the whole, my view corresponds with that of Schleiei-macher, in loc. The relatien of
Luke, xi., 23, to ix., 50, will be examined in its place hereafter.
t Luke, xi., 24-25. In Matt., xii., 43-45, the passage is introduced in a different con-
nexion, and must be differently interpreted ; it was applied to illusti'ate the truth, viz.,
that that generation, refusing to obey the call to repentance, should therefore fall into worse
and more incurable corruption. This corresponds perfectly to the sense of the parable ;
and the thought which it contains finds a rich and manifold illustration in history, both on a
large and small scale ; in all those cases, namely, in which a temporary and apparent ref-
ormation, without a radical cure of fundamental evil, has been follovred by a sti'onger re-
action. This application of the passage implies that signs of an apparent amendment had
shown themselves in " that generation ;" and, moreover, it rerjuires that the passage itself
should be refeiTed to the impressions, great, but not permanent, which Christ's works, no^v
and again, produced upon the multitude. But it is clear that the nearer and stricter ap-
plication of the passage is that given in Luke, viz., to the apjjarent healing of the demo-
niacs. One thing is evident from Matthew's use of it, viz., that it was well understood
from the beginning tliat the passage was not to be taken literally, but figuratively, wliicli
indeed, is obvious enough from the whole form of discourse. It would have been contrary
to all analogy for the men of that time, disposed as they were to take evory thing in a
literal sense, to attach a spiritual meaning to these words, if it had not been obvious tliat
he spoke them entirely by way of parable. This is written— quite superfluously — solely
BLASPHEMY AGAINST THE HOLY GHOST. 243
§ 163. Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost and against the Son of
Man. (Matt., xii., 32.)
Christ, having thus shown to the Pharisees the emptiness of their
charge, and the absurdity of the assumption which formed its basis,
then assumed the offensive, and pointed out to them the ground of their
coming to utter such a self-refuting accusation. It was because the
disposition of their hearts ruled and swayed their decision ; what aggra-
vated their guilt was, that they suppressed the consciousness of God
and of truth, to whose strivings in their minds their very accusation
bore testimony. " Because you cannot really believe that I work with
the power of the Spirit of Evil, but, on the other hand, could readily
have satisfied yourselves that I could do such works only by the power
of the Holy Ghost, therefore, I say unto you, it is one thing with those
who stumble at the human form of my manifestation, and are unable to
recognize the Son of God in the veil of flesh, with those who, through
prejudice or ignorance, blaspheme the Son of Man because he does not
appear, as they expected the Messiah would, in earthly splendour;*
and quite another thing with you, who will not receive the revelation
of the Holy Ghost that comes towards you, who suppress the conscious
truth within you, declaring that to be the Evil Spirit's work which you
feel yourselves impelled to recognize as the work of the Holy Ghost"
(v. 31-33).
Where the root in the heart is not corrupted, where the sense of
truth is not stifled — as in the case of those who blaspheme the Son of
Man not known as such — there Christ finds a starting-point for repent-
ance, and access for forgiveness. But where the Spirit of Lies has
taken full possession, says he, there can be no room for repent-
ance, and, consequently, no forgiveness. It is not clear, however,
whether he meant to charge upon the very individuals in question this
total suppression of truth and submission to the Spirit of Lies, thus
utterly excluding them from repentance and pardon ; or whether, by
drawing this distinct line of demarcation, he wished to show them how
precarious a footing they held, far from the first class, and near tt) the
second. In fact, the Spirit of Lies, which permits no impressions of
ai,'ainst Strauss ; for the sense in wliich Clirist used the parable is plaiiity obvious IVom
the connexion.
* There were some such among the Jews, led away by prejudice and ignorance, rather
than by evil dispositions, to blaspheme what they did not understand. These were not
beyond the reach of Divine impressions and convictions, if presented at more favourable
periods. Many who then stumbled at the Sou of Man in the form of a servant were
afterward more readily led to beheve by the operations of the Spirit proceeding from the
glorified Son of Man. But what clearness and freedom of mmd, what elevation above all
personal influences, did Christ display in thus distinguishing, in the very heat of the battle,
the different classes of his enemies ! The distinction thus drawn by Christ is applicable to
the different opponents of Christianity in all ages.
214 SECOND GENERAL MINISTRY IN GALILEE.
the Good and the True, held a high degree of dominion over these
Pharisees.
Christ further told the Pharisees (in close connexion with his ex
posure of their evil disposition of heart) that, in their moral condition,
they could not speak otherwise than they had done : " O generation of
vipers ! hoio can ye, hcing evil, speak good thifigs V Their decision
upon his act bore the impress of their ungodly nature. '•'For out of
the abundance of the heart the mouth spcaketh ;'''' and therefore it is —
because the evil nature can express itself outw^ardly in words as well
as deeds — that Chiist attaches so much import to their words. The
judgment of God, which looks only at the heart, will visit words no
less than works : " / say unto you, that every idle word that men shall
speali, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment ; for by
thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words shall thou be con-
demnedr*
§ 164. Purpose of Christ'' s Relatives to confine him as a Lunatic. — He
declares who are his Relatives in the Spiritual Scfise.j
While Christ was thus exposing the machinations of the Pharisees
and the evil spirit that insjaired them, he was informed that his mother
and his brothers, who could not appi'oach on account of the throng,
were seeking him.| As the scene that was going on threatened bad
results to the Phaiisaic party by making a strong impression upon the
people, the Pharisees had sought to break it up, by persuading his
relatives that he had lost his senses.§ His severe discourses, doubtless,
appeared to many a bigoted scribe as the words of a madman (John,
X., 20), and the Pharisees probably made use of them in imposing upon
his relatives. The apparent contrarieties in Christ's discourses and
actions could only be harmonized by a complete and true intuition of
* This announcement was directly opposed to the Pharisees' doctrine, according to which
morality was judged by the standard of quantity.
t Matt., xii., 46-50; Mark, iii., 31, seq. ; Luke, viii., 19, seq.
X By li'>> (in Matthew and Mark) we are, perhaps, to understand " autfide of the throng,''
or, outside of an enclosure. It is not necessary (nor, indeed, suitable) to assume that the
assembly was gathered in a house.
§ Mark, iii., 21. Tliis does not look [as some would have it] like a wilful colouring, added
to the facts by tradition, or by Mark himself; but rather indicates, as do slight characteristic
touches in other passages given bj' Mark alone, that this Evangelist made use of authorities
peculiarly his own. Such an invention, or perversion of tradition, would have been utterlj'
inconsistent with the tone of thought and feeling generally prevalent in regard to Christ :
who, in those days, would have believed that Christ's own brothers could listen to such a
blasphemy again.st him ! It has been supposed, again, that the statement in Maj-k origi-
nated in a misinidcrstanding of the accusation brought against Ciu-ist by the Pharisees ; but
this is impossible ; who roald suppose the accusation to mean that " he cast out devils,
being himself a demoniac ?" Ou the other hand, different members of the Piinrisaic party,
or the same persons with dittbrent objects in view, might have originated both slanders ;
at one moment charging him with the Satanic league, and at another with being a de
moniac himsell
SIGN OF THE PROPHET JONAH. 245
his personality; to his brothers he was always an enigma and a para-
dox, and they could, therefore, the more easily, in an unhappy moment,
be perplexed by the crafty Pharisees.* It is difficult, however, to
imagine that Mary could have been thus deceived ; she may have
followed them from anxiety of a different kind about her son.
But Christ, surrounded by a host of anxious seekers for salvation,
Iieard the announcement undisturbed. To show, by this striking case,
that blood relationship did not imply affinity for his Spii'it, he asked,
"Who is my mother, and who are my hrolhcrsV Pointing to the
seeking souls around him, and to his nearer spiritual kindred — the
disciples — he said, "Behold my viother and my hrothcrs ! For whoso-
ever shall do the loill of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my
brother, and sister, and mother.'"^
§ 165. The Demand of a Sign from Heaven answered only by the Sign
of the Prophet Jonah. (Luke, xi., 16, 29-36.)
We stated, on p. 240, that the less violent of Christ's opponents
demanded of him " a sign from heaven." In answering these, he
showed that their ungodly disposition of heart was at once the ground
of their unbelief and the secret motive of their demand.
\^An evil and adulterous generation secheth after a sign ; and there
shall 710 sign be given to it, but the sign of the Prophet Jonah. For as
Jonah was a sign to the Ninevites, so, also, shall the Son of Man be to
this generation.^ "In vain did they ask a new sign ; such a one as they
asked they should not obtain. No other sign should they have but
that of the Prophet Jonah,| i. e., the whole manifestation of Christ,§ by
* It is worthy of note that John (vii., 5-7) mentions, precisely with reference to this same
point of time, that Christ's brothers did not believe in his Divine calling, but wislied to put
him to the proof; and that he then described them as belonging to the world.
t These words are given by Luke (viii., 21) in a different connexion; one in which, in-
deed, Christ might very well have uttered them, although the occasion for them docs not
appear so obvious as in Matthew and Mark. In connexion with the account of the healing
of the deaf and dumb demoniac given by Luke, we have a different passage (xi., 27, 28)
from tlie one now under discussion, but which yet contains something of a similar import,
viz. : a conti'ast between a mere outward love of Cliiist's person and trae reverence for
him. This affinity of meaning may have caused the two passages to change places
with each other. "We presupposed this in our use of Luke, xi., 28, on p. 189. And the
affinity of tlie two expressions may have also caused the two accounts in Matthew and
Mark to be chronologically connected together. + See above, p. 136.
§ In Matt., xii., 40, the reference is made to bear upon the resurrection of Christ, which
is quite foreign to the original sense and connexion of the passage. It was Christ's whole
manifestation, then developing itself before the eyes of them that heard him, that was in
question ; the resurrection was witnessed only by persons who were alrcadi/ believers, for
whom it was a sign to reanimate their faith. For those who persisted in unbelief, notwith-
$tanding the sign of his whole manifestation, the resurrection was a sign of reproof, a
testimony that the work of God had triumphed over all their machinations. A special
application of the type in this way would have drawn tlie attention of the hearers away
24G SECOND GENERAL MINISTRY IN GALILEE.
which the Jews were to be called to repent and escape the threatened
judgment." He was to be a sign, shining for all mankind; and this
candle, once lighted, was not to be put hi a secret j'^ace, neither under a
bushel, but on a candlestick, that all who should enter the house might
see the light (v. 33). So was He to be a light unto all men. But in
order to receive the light, the eye must be sound. And what the eye
is to the body, the inner light of Divine consciousness, originally im-
planted in our nature, is to the soul. Where this light has become
darkness ; where the Divinity in man, the consciousness of God, has
been subjugated and stifled by the world, all that is within is full of
darkness, and no light from without can illumine it. The organ where-
with to receive Divine revelations is wanting (v. 34-36).
Thus it was, because of the inner darkness of their souls, that these
men could not understand " the sign" given by Christ's whole manifes-
tation ; and for this reason it was that, in spite of all the signs that lay
before their eyes, they ever asked for more.
§ 166. Discourse j^ronoiinced at a Feast against the Hypocrisy of the
Pharisees and the Lawyers. (Luke, xi., 37-52.)
While Christ was engaged in the conversation just referred to, a cer-
tain Pharisee, who did not display his hostile disposition so openly as
the rest, but masked it under the garb of courtesy, came and invited
him to breakfast, probably with a view to catch up something in his
words or actions that might point a charge of heresy, or serve to cast
suspicion upon him at a subsequent period.
In this spirit, he found it quite a matter of offence that Christ sat
down to table without washing his hands. The Saviour took occasion
from this to expose the hypocrisy of the sect; and availed himself, for
the purpose, of illustrations drawn from the objects around him at the
feast. " You Pharisees make the cups and dishes clean outside, but
leave them full of dirt within. So you are careful to preserve an out-
ward show of purity, but inwardly you are full of avarice and wicked-
ness.* Ye fools, are not the inward and the outward, made by the
from the maiu point of comparison. For these reasons, we think the verse in question is a
commentary by a later hand.
* It is a question whether Matt., xxiii., 25, or Luke, xi., 39, contains the original fonn of
these words. In the latter, the second member of the illustration is wanting ; Christ passes
over from the illustration (the vessels) to the thing illustrated (the Pharisees). The two
members are more complete in Matthew: "Ye make clean the outside of the cups and
platters, but inwardly Ihey are full of extortion and wickedness," i. c, their contents were
obtained by avarice and oppression. But neither is this precisely apt, nor does it seem
likely that Christ would have reproached the Pharisee exactly in this form. In Luke the
laU member of the iUiislration (the cups are dirty within) and thofrst member of the ap-
plication (ye are careful for outward purity) are wanting. In the above interpretation of
Matthew we follow the reading adiKiai ■ it would not apply if we take that of the lect. re-
cepl., viz., aKpaoias ; which is not without good authority. This reading recommends itself
THE PHARISEES REBUKED. 247
same Creator, inseparable 1 From within must true morality pro-
ceed ; from the heart must the essence of piety be developed."
From this he takes occasion (v. 41-44) to expose the mock piety of
the Pharisees, displayed in their satisfying themselves, not merely in
religion, but also in morality, with outward and empty show.* They
manifested their hypocrisy (v. 42) in giving " tithes" of the most trifling
products (mint, cummin, &c.), and entirely neglecting the more essen-
tial duties of righteousness and love. Their vanity and haughtiness
were shown (v. 43) in their claiming to lord it over every body. They
were (v. 44), like tombs, so beautifully painted that no one would sup-
pose them to be graves ; but whose fair exterior concealed nothing but
putrefaction.
At this point a laivyen who was present asked Christ whether he
as the more difficult : it is easy to conceive, as De Wette remarks, bow the others could
have grown out of it.
* Luke, xi., 41, presents a difBculty. On any interpretation it seems to me that ra hovrn
corresponds to cawOtv, as contrasted with 'diaiOev, v. 39, and must therefore be applied to the
heart. This being admitted, the only question is whether the words were or were not
spoken ironically. If they were not, it must seem strange that Christ, whose design was
to aim at the disposition of the heart, should have laid down any thing so easily perverted
into opus operatum. It may be said that, in accordance with a mode of teaching which he
frequently adopted, viz., to give a specific instead of a general precept, — to command an
outward act, as a sign of the disposition, instead of enjoining the disposition itself; he
here enjoins alms-giving as proof, in act, of the possession of that love which imparts to
others. This appears to be confirmed by the verse following, in which justice and love are
mentioned as virtues wholly neglected by the Pharisees ; implying that their alms-giving,
previously mentioned, being destitute of the proper disposition, was valueless. But, ou
the other hand, where Christ employs this mode of teaching, the peculiar kind of special
injunction that he gives is always determined by the character of his hearers ; and alms-
giving would have been an inapt injunction to Pharisees, who, as we learn from the Ser-
mon on the Mount, made great show and display thereof Still, the injunction may have
been given in view of the character of the individual Pharisees before him, who may have
been known as avaricious men; and Christ may have known that to part with their money
would be a test of love which they could not stand. If it be supposed that the words are
not accurately reported, and that the special injunction is due to the writer, and not to
Christ, still the connexion sufficiently guards even the writer from the charge of setting
forth the opus operatum.
All difficulties would disappear if we could assume that Christ intended only to point
out the prevailing spirit in which the Pharisees acted, and the sophisms with which tliey
satisfied their consciences. " As to your inward parts, all you have to do is to give alms,
and lo ! all is clean for you !" (You think that alms-giving is to cleanse your life and atone
for your sins.) Although this view does not appear perfectly simple and natural, I cannot
share in the decisive sentence which modem writers, and even De Wette, have pronounced
against it. It may be connected with verse 42, as follows : " You cannot with this mock
piety satisfy the law of God, and escape his judgments; but IVoe unto you !" He then
adds another illustration — their " tithing of mint," &c., as corresponding to their kind of
alms-giving ; and contrasts both forms of hypocrisy (last clause of v. 42) with the true
righteousness and love of which they were destitute.
t There appears to have been a marked distinction between these voixiKoli and the Phari-
sees proper. They probably applied themselves more to the Scriptures than to the tra-
ditions ; not, however, wholly rejecting the authority of the latter. (Perhaps they formed
a transition sect to the later Karaites.) This might account for their expecting Christ to
express himself more favourably of them than of the Pharisees, but did not save them
248 SECOND GENERAL MINISTRY IN GALILEE.
meant to apply these censures to the class to which he belonged, also.
From this the Saviour took occasion, in the remainder of the discourse
(v. 45-52), to expose the crimes that were peculiar to the lawyers.
§ 107. Christ Warns his Disciples against the Pharisees. — The Power
of Divine Truth. (Luke, xi., 52 ; xii., 3.)
It is probable that the conversation, commenced at the breakfast-ta-
ble, was continued in the open air ;* the irritated Pharisees interroga-
ted him anew, seeking, by captious questions, to find some handle by
which to gratify their malice and secure the vengeance which they hoped
to wreak upon him, A multitude of other persons gathered ; groups
were formed around Christ ; and the Pharisees finally withdrew. The
Saviour then addressed himself to the immediate circle of his disciples,
and gave them warnings and cautions, probably occasioned by the re-
cent machinations of the Pharisees. " Beware of the leaven of the
Pharisees, tchich is hypocrisy ;^^ a leaven which impregnates all that
comes from them, and poisons all who come in contact with them.
They were to be on their guard ; to trust no appearances ; the hostile
aim was there, even when carefully concealed. All their acts alike
were poisoned by hypocrisy ; against them all it would be necessary
to watch.t
from bis reproach. They coulj derive a lifeless anj unspiritnal system from the letter of
the Scriptures as well as from traditions ; could be as severe as the Pharisees in judging
others, and as indulgent towards themselves. This distinction between the vofxiKoi and the
others confirms the originality of Luke. Strauss and De Wette think that these interlocu-
tions of other persons, giving occasion to new turns of the discourse — a sort of table-talk —
belong merely to the peculiar dress which Luke gives to the account ; but it appears to me,
on the contraiy, that their apt adaptation to the several speakers is a strong proof of the
originality of the narrative. They belong to the very character of table conversation ; and
their faithful and accurate transmission may be easily accounted for ; they were probably
again and again repeated, and finally, in aid of memory, committed to writing. Any ar-
gument against the verisimilitude of these accounts, drawn from the modem etiquette of
the table, is totally out of place, and valueless.
* We see from Luke, xi., 53, compared with xii., 1, that the conversation was con-
tinued. The transition is not managed with the art that we should look for in a. Jicti-
tious naiTative ; had Luke invented the dialogue, he would hai'dly have joined so awk-
wardly, without any connecting link, the table conversation with the discourse afterward
delivered to the multitude. But our assertion that Luke, in describing the table-talk with
what preceded and followed, has actually given us a real scene from the life of Christ, does
not imply there is nothing in the statement that belongs in another place. Things are re-
peated here which we find often in both Matthew and Luke. The case was probably as
tollows : an original body of discourse, e. g., the Sermon on the Mount, a conversation on
some special occasion, at table or elsewhei'e, was handed down and written, subsequently,
in particular memoirs. Other separate expressions, not specifically connected with theu),
were also handed down, and were incorporated in suitable places in the larger discourses,
tlie more effectually to secure their preservation and transmission. Such may have been
tlie case in the passage before us ; e. g., xi., 49, for example, which is given, in its original
form, in Christ's last anti-Pliarisaic discourse. Matt., xxiii., 3-1.
t We do not know how far the leaven of the Pharisees did succeed in poisoning the
heart of an Iscariot. The caution in the text was obviously occasioned by the pretended
friendship of the Pharisee who invited Christ to breakfast, and by the captious questions.
THE POWER OF TRUTH. 249
After this note of warning, which probably perturbed their minds, he
allowed them, for their comfort, to catch a glimpse of the coming tri-
umphs of the kingdom of God, and of the victories which his truth
should achieve. The craft of men, he told them, should not check its
progress ; it should make its way by the power of God. His truth, as
yet veiled and covered, was to be brought to the knowledge of all men.
" For there is nothing covered that shall not be revealed ; and hid, that
shall not he hiotvn. What I tell you in darkness, that speak ye in light :
and what ye hear in the ear, that 'preach ye upon the house-tops (the flat
roofs of Eastern dwellings)."* And with this promise, too, is connect-
ed an exhortation to firmness and steadfastness in their struggles for
the truth : " i?e not afraid of them that kill the body,'"] &c.
put to him under pretence of securing his opinions on important points. We do not find
the passage iu as original a form in Matt, xvi., 6 ; the Pharisees are connected (as is often
done in Matt.) with the Sadducees ; a connexion, as we have remarked before, not natural
or probable. It is difficult to conceive how Christ could have connected the doctrine of the
Pharisees with that of the Sadducees ; or how he could have warned his disciples against
the influence of the latter, to which, from their own religions stand-point, and the circle of
society iu which they moved, they certainly were not expo.sed. Schnechenhtrger (Stud.
A. Geist. Wiirtemb., vi., 1, 48), indeed, says that the doctrine of the Pharisees could not
liave been alluded to either, because Christ recommends the latter himself (Matt., xxiii.,
3). But we cannot agree with him ; Christ's object, in the passage quoted, is to contrast
the rigid precepts of the Pharisees with their practice. It was the example of their life
that the disciples were to guard against ; but as their righteousness was to exceed that of
the Pharisees, they were enjoined to live up even to the strict precepts of that sect, so
that none might be able to accuse them of violating the law. But surely there was nothing
in this inconsistent with opposition, on Christ's part, to the doctrines of the Pharisees in
other respects ; and proofs of such opposition abound in the Evangelists. It is possible,
from the connexion in Matt., that Christ may have given his warning iu view of Pharisaic
ideas of the kingdom of God and of the signs of its appearance, and that the figure of the
leaven may have been intended to apply to this ; but yet it is more natural to explain it as
alluding (in Luke's sense) to the hypocrisy of the sect, which Christ had just before con-
demned. In Mark, viii., 15, indeed, no other sense is admissible ; the disciples might be
warned against the hypocrisy of Herod Antipas, but not against his doctrine. It may, in-
deed, be said that Lukes version is the original one ; that Matthew, as was usual with hira,
added Sadducees to Pharisees ; and that Mark, finding this unsuitable, substituted Herod.
In answer to this, Christ may have employed the phrase more than once. In the case of
Herod, the caution was not uncalled for; the disciples might have been deceived by his
wish to see Jesus, although he wished it with no good intentions. Mark probably employ-
ed a diflFereut and original account ; and, in the nature of the case, the substitution of the
Sadducees for Herod was unlikely : it is not known that Herod was a Pharisee.
* In Matt., X., 26, 27, these words are incorporated into the discourse at the mission of
the Apostles, in which several other passages are out of place. Their form is probably
more accurately given in Matt, than in Luke ; in the former, it is what they hear that is to
be proclaimed ; in the latter, what they speak ; for at that time the disciples themselves
did not fully miderstand and utter the truth among themselves. It was only to become
plain to them at a later period.
t Other things are added, after Luke, xii., 5, probably out of their proper connexion ;
especially the "blasphemy against the Holy Ghost," of which we have spoken before (p.
243). I cannot adopt the interpretation of Schleiemiacher, which is adapted to the passage
as if this were its proper place.
250 SECOND GENERAL MINISTRY IN GALILEE.
§ 168. Christ Heals a Paralytic at Capernaum, and tJic Pharisees ac
cuse him of Blasjjhcmy. — The Accusation Repelled. (Matt., ix., 1
Mark, ii., 1 ; Luke, v. 17.)
The attack made upon Christ at Jerusalem involved, as we have
seen, two charges, viz., that he violated the law, and that he assumed
a power and dignity to which no man could have a right. The Phari-
sees continued their persecutions, on the same grounds, in Galilee
also, where his labours oftei-ed them many points of assault. But
against all such attacks his Divine greatness only displayed itself the
more conspicuously.
On one occasion he returned to Capernaum from one of his preach-
ing tours, and when his arrival was known many gathered around him.
Some sought him to hear the words of life from his lips ; to obtain help
for their bodies or their souls ; others, doubtless, with hostile intent, to
put captious questions, and act as spies upon his words and actions ;
and curiosity, too, had done its part ; so that the door of the house was
beset with people. The Saviour was interrupted in his teaching by a
great noise without. A man palsied in all his limbs, tormented by pain
of body and anguish of heart, had caused himself to be carried thither.
His disease may have been caused by sinful excesses ; or it may have
so awakened his sense of guilt as that he felt it to be a punishment for
his sins ; but, be this as it may, the disease of liis body and the distress
of his soul seem to have been closely connected, and to have reacted
upon each other.* Both required to be healed, in order to a radical
cure. Though the bodily ailment was a real one, and not due to a
psychical cause, still, such was the reciprocal action of spirit and body,
that the spiritual anguish had first to be remedied. And, on the other
hand, as the disease seemed to be a punishment for sin, he needed, for
the healing of his soul, a sensible pledge of the pardon of his sins ; and
such a pledge he was to find in the cure of his palsy.
Four men carried the couch on which the sick man lay ; but the
throng was so great that they could not make their way through. The
palsied man was anxious to see the Saviour, by whom he hoped to be
relieved. Entrance by the door was impossible ; but the Oriental
mode of building afforded a means of access, to which they at once
had recourse. Passing up the stairs, which led from the outside to the
flat roof of the house,t they made an opening by removing jiart of the
tiles, and let the couch down into an upjier chamber.
* Schleicrmacher concluded, from the great pains that were taken, and the anasual
means tliat were resorted to to bring the sick man to Christ, that the Saviour was about
to depart immediately from the city. But Mark's account shows that he had just returned,
and that a vast crowd had gathered about him. A momentary exacerbation of the sick
man's sufferings may have caused the haste ; but we do not luiow enough about his case
to decide this.
t The accounts of Mark and Luke bear throughout the vivid stamp of cyc-witnessea.
THE PARALYTIC HEALED. 251
Christ's first words to the sick man, addressed to his longing and
faith, were, " Son, thy sins he forgiven thee;" and this balm, pom-ed
into the wounded spirit, prepared the way for the healing of his cor-
poreal malady. ^
The Pharisees, always on the watch, seized upon this opportunity to
renew their accusations ; he had claimed a fulness of power which
belonged to God alone ; the power, namely, to forgive sins. Perceiv-
ing their irritation, he appealed to a fact which could not be denied,
as proof that he claimed no power which he could not fully exercise.
[" Whether is it easier to say, Thy sins he forgiven thee ; or to say.
Arise and walk? But that ye may knoio that the Son of Man hath
power on earth to forgive sins* {then saith he to the sick of the j^alsy).
Arise, take up thy bed, and go unto thy house. And he arose, and de-
parted to his houseP\ " It is easy to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee ;
for if these words really produce any result, it could not be perceptible
to the senses, and, for that reason, the lack of the result could not
convict an impostor ;t but he who says Arise and walk must really
possess the power which his words claim, or his untruth will be im-
mediately exposed."
And \\\e fact that the Divine power of his words revivified the dead
The unusual feature of the event is related in the simplest possible way, without a trace
of exaggeration ; and it is all in perfect keeping with Oriental life. Strauss assumes,
without the slightest ground, that these accounts are exaggerated copies of Matthew's
(ix., 1). which is much the most simple. We have far more reason to take it the other way,
and consider Matthew's as an abridged statement, the main object of which was to report
what Christ said, and not to give a full detail of the circumstances. Strauss saj-s, further,
that the words, "when he saio their faith," gave occasion for the invention of the story of
the letting down of the bier through the roof, &c. Let us look at this. If Jesus set so high
a value upon the faith of the men, he did it, either because he saw their faith by that
glance of his which searched men's hearts, or because they gave some outward sign of it.
[Strauss would not be likely to admit the first, and the second] is precisely met by the
statement of Luke. Moreover, an invention of this kind would have been utterly incon-
sistent with the spirit of early Christianity, which had too high a conception of Christ's
power to pierce the thoughts of men to suppose that he needed any outward sign of a
really existing faith. Again, if it be agreed that admittance could be had by a door in the
roof, it may be questioned whether such a door would be large enough to admit a couch
Bat, probably, no such door existed in Eastern houses. Joseph., Archseol., 1. xiv., xv., § 12,
confirms this. Herod I. had taken a village, in which there were many of the enemy's
soldiers; part of them were taken on the roofs, and then, it is said, "rovi dpofovi twv oiKiav
K a T a a K d t: T (0 v, eixT)iea ra kcitu) ti^v nrpaTiwruiv tiipa aOpduii aTTCiWrjiJiievoiv." Even those who
suppose Mark's account to be an imitation of Luke's, or of the a-nopvripovcviia which Luke
followed, must still admit that it implies an intimate acquaintance with the construction
of Eastern houses. Had there been a way of getting through the roof otherwise, he would
not have said that they broke it. As I have said before, Mark's details, in many places,
imply that he used a separate authority ; although I cannot believe, with some, that his
Gospel was the original basis of Matthew and Luke.
* God forgives the sins in heaven, but Christ, as Man, announces the Divine forgive.
ness. " Son of Man" and " in earth" are correlative conceptions.
t It was only in this sense, and not with reference to the act of power in itself, that
Christ said, "It is easier," &c.
252 SECOND GENERAL MINISTRY IN GALILEE.
limbs of the paralytic proved that he had the power, by granting for-
giveness of sins, to awaken the dead soul to a new spiritual life. In
this case the two wei'e bound together.
§ 169. The Withered Hand healed on the Sahhath. — The Ohjeetionn
of the Pharisees anticipated and refuted. (Mark, iii., 1-6 ; Luke,
vi., 6-8 ; Matt., xii., 10.)
A man with a withered hand appeared in the synagogue on a certain
Sabbath while Christ was teaching, probably at Capernaum. The
Pharisees, perhaps, had brought him there, as they stood by and
watched eagerly to see what Christ would do ; but the latter saw their
purpose, and acted with his characteristic calmness and confidence.
Taking no notice whatever of his crafty foes until he bad called the
sufferer forth into the midst of the synagogue, he then, by putting
an unavoidable dilemma to the Pharisees, anticipated all that they
could say : "/s it lawful to do good on the Sahhath days, or to do evil;
to sai'e life, or to hill V This question did not offer a choice between
doing or not doing a specific good, but between doing the good or its
opposite evil ; and even the Pharisees could not pretend to hesitate as
to the reply. It was precisely for this reason that Christ so put it.
But was he justified in this 1 Let us see. The point assumed was,
that a sin of omission is also a sin of commission. Whoever omits to do
a good act which he has the power and, therefore, the calling to do,
is responsible for all the evil that may flow from his omission ; e.g., if
he can save a neighbour's life, he ought ; and if he does not, he is
guilty of his death.* So with the case of this lame man ; there he
was ; Christ could cure him ; Christ ought to cure him ; and, if he did
not, would be responsible for the continuance of his impotency. That
it was a duty to save life on the Sabbath was taught even by the
Pharisees themselves ; and, as the spirit of the law required, Christ
extended the principle further. The exception allowed by the Pharisees
showed that the law could not, unconditionally, be literally fulfilled.
After putting his question, he looked around to see if any of them
would venture a reply. All were silent. Then, with Divine word of
power, he said to the lame man, " Stretch forth tldne hand;" and it
was done.t
* Wilke':^ objections (U rernngeliitteii, p. 191) to the word airoKTclvai are not decisive. A
sti'ong word would naturally be used by Cbrist to give emphasis to the declaration tliat, in
such a case, not to save life, \s to kill.
t It is obvious that the accounts of this event in Matthew, Mark, and Luke were written
independently of each other, from independent sources ; and this seems to confirm their
truth. Immediate orii,nnality, and the vivacity of an eye-witness, are strikingly exhibited
in Luke's account ; e. cr., before the Pharisees open their li[)s, Ciirist anticipates them both
by word and deed ; which is much more characteristic than Matthew's statement. And as
for Christ's words, as given by Luke, being due to a later revision of the original, it is the
less likely, because the striking application of which thoy admit does not lie upon the sur
THE INFIRM HEALED. 253
§ 170. Cure of the. Infirm Woman on the Sabbath ; the Pharisees dis-
concerted. (Luke, xiii., 10.) — Of the Dropsical Ma?i. (Luke, xiv.)
On another Sabbath, while Chi'ist was teaching in the synagogue,
his attention was arrested by a woman who had gone for eighteen years
bowed together and unable to erect herself. He called her to him
and laid his hands upon her ; she was healed, and thanked God.
The ruler of the synagogue, not venturing to attack Christ directly,
turned and reproached the people with, There are six days in which
men ought to work ; in them, therefor-e, come and be healed, and not on the
Sabbath day. Christ saw that the reproach was intended for himself;
and exposed to the man (who only illustrated the spirit of his whole
party) the hypocrisy of his language, and the contrast between Phari-
saic actions and a Pharisaic show of zeal for the law, by the question,
Doth not each of you, on the Sabbath, loose his ox or his ass from the
stall, and lead him away to ivatering ? And shall not this daughter rf
Abraham, lohom Satan hath hound, lo ! these eighteen years, be loosed
from this bond on the Sahhath day !*
Often the hidden aims of the Pharisees were veiled in the garb of
friendliness ; but the Saviour anticipated their attacks before they were
uttered, and tlms often prevented their utterance at all. An illustra-
tion of this is to be found in the account given by Luke (xiv.) of a meal
taken at the house of a Pharisee, by whom he had been invited on the
Sabbath. Whether by accident, or by the contrivance of the Phari-
sees, a dropsical man was there, seeking to be healed. Jesus first
turned and asked them. Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath day ? When
they made no reply, he touched the man and cured him. When he
had left the house, the Saviour saw that the Pharisees were disposed
to put an ill construction on what he had done ; and appealed, as he
had done before, to the testimony of their own conduct : Which of you
shall have an ox or an ass fallen into a pit, and loill not straighticay
jnill him 02U on the Sabbath day ?
face at all. The clause in Matt., xii., 12, liton roXi 'ZdSSuai kuXw; izoidv, gives a hint of the
thought more fully developed in Luke. As to Matt., xii., 11, it may be out of place ; and,
in that case, may be the same as Luke, xiv., 5, in a different form, the latter being sup-
posed to give the true occasion on which the words vrere uttered. But it is just as possi
ble that Christ uttered the same thought on two occasions ; or that he appended both illus-
trations to his answer to the question given iu Luke, vi., 9.
* The expression "whom Satan hath bound" may imply a demoniacal possession, a
state, perhaps, of melancholy imbecility ; and the words Ttr^vna daOcvcias appear to confirm
this. But they may also be referred to the connexion between sin and evil in general, or
in this particular case ; and so a demoniacal possession, in the full sense, need not be pre-
supposed. The terms may have been used in view of prevalent opinions, or because of
the peculiar form in which Christ wished to express himself in this case.
254 SECOND GENERAL MINISTRY IN GALILEE.
§ 17L The Strife for Precedence at Feasts. — The Poor, not the Rich, to
he invited. — Parable of the Great Supper. (Luke, xiv.)
When the time of sitting down to the meal amved, there was a strife
for precedence among the Pharisees, forming an apt display of their
vanity and pride of rank ; and illustrating, in the lower sphere of life,
the arrogant and evil disposition which they carried into the higher,
and which totally unfitted them for the kingdom of God. Christ took
the occasion to contrast this haughty spirit of theirs with spiritual
prudence, the true wisdom of the kingdom, by giving them, in a para-
bolic form, a rule of prudence for the lower sphere of life.
This rule was, that, instead of appropriating the highest seat, and
thus exposing one's self to the shame of being bidden to leave it, one
should rather seek the lowest place, and thus have the chance of being
honoured, before all the guests, by an invitation to a higher. It is ob-
vious enough, on the face of this, that Christ did not intend it merely
as a rule of social courtesy; he himself (v. 11) sets forth the promi-
nent thought illustrated, viz. : that, to be exalted by God, we must hum-
ble ourselves ; that all self-exaltation can only deprive us of that hu-
mility which constitutes true elevation.
During the repast, the Saviour turned to the host and attacked the
prevailing selfishness that ruled all the conduct of the Pharisees. He
illustrated this by contrasting that selfish hospitality which looks to a
recompense with the genuine love that does good and asks no return.
The heart that is fit for the kingdom of Heaven looks to no earthly
reward, but will receive, in their stead, the heavenly riches (v. 12-14)
of that kingdom.
One of the guests, probably wishing to turn the conversation from a
disagreeable subject, seized upon the words uttered by Christ, to al-
lude to the blessedness of the kingdom of God. " Blessed,'" said he,
" is he that shall eat bread in the Idngdom of God." He may have
borrowed the figure from the scene around him ; or, perhaps, employed
it from a tendency to Chiliastic ideas of heaven. On this, Christ took
occasion to show the Pharisees, who deemed themselves secure of
a share in the Messianic kingdom, how utterly destitute they were of
its moral requisites, and how far those whom they most despised were
superior to them in this i-espect. He demanded a disposition of heart
ready to appreciate the true nature of the kingdom of God as mani-
fested and proclaimed, and willing to forsake all things else in order
to lay hold of it.
To set this vividly before their minds, he made use of the figure of a
supper, suggested, doublless, by the circumstances around him. The
first invited — those to whom the servant is sent to say, " Come, for all
THE SABBATH. 2.55
things are now reaihf^ — are the Pharisees, who, on account of their
life-long devotion to the study of the law, and their legal piety, deemed
themselves certain of a call to share in the Divine kingdom. They are
not accused, in the parable, of decided hostility, but of indifference to .
that which ought to be their highest interest. Not knowing how to
value the invitation, they excuse themselves from accepting it under
various pretexts. The character of all persons, indeed, who are too
busy to give heed to Christ's words, is here illustrated.
When the invited guests refused to come, a call was sent forth for
" the 2^oor, the ?naij)ied, the halt, and the blind ;^'' guests uninvited, in-
deed, and not expecting such an honour. By these we understand the
despised ones, the publicans and sinners, whom Christ took to his em-
brace.
Still there is room ; the highways must be ransacked ; that is, the
heathen, strangers to the Theocratic kingdom, are to be summoned to
Christ's kingdom.
§ 172. The JPJiarisecs attack the Discijjles for j)lucJiing Corn on the Sab-
bath.— Christ defends them. (Luke, vi., 1; Matt., xii., 18.)
Daring the first or second year of Christ's labours in Galilee, he
walked, on the first Sabbath after the Passover,* through a corn-field
with his disciples. The corn was ripe ; and the disciples, urged by
hunger, plucked a few ears, rubbed them in their hands,t and ate them.
Some of the Pharisees (always on the alert) reproached them for doing
such a thing on the Sabbath day. As the charge was, in fact, meant for
Christ himself, he replied to and refuted it ; and, not content with bare
refutation, he intimated a higher truth, which could not be brought out
clearly and fully until a later period.
First, he showed to the Pharisees, on their own ground, the falsity
of their slavish adherence to the letter of the law. David, he told them,
violated their principle in satisfying his hunger with the sacred bread,
when no other could be had.| The Mosaic law itself opposed it, inas-
much as the priests were necessarily compelled, in the Temple-service,
to infringe upon the Sabbath rest ; clearly showing that not all labour
was inconsistent with that rest, so that the true aim of the law was kept
in view. But (he proceeded, intimating the higher ti'uth) if a devia-
tion from the letter of the law was justifiable in the priests, because
engaged in the Temple- service, how much more in men who were en-
gaged in the service of that which icas greater than the Temple, the
highest manifestation that had been made to mankind.§
■ ' T(i£6aTov hvTtfo-pijiTov, Luke, vi., 1. Meaning, if the reading be correct, the fu'st Sab-
hath after the second Easter-day, when the first sheaf of corn was presented in the Temple
t A customary way of appeasing hunger in those lands, even to this day ; of Rohinsun,
PaJestine, ii., 419 and 430. t 1 Sam., xxi. ^ Cf p. 89.
256 SECOND GENERAL MINISTRY IN GALILEE.
Having thus ^d^Jdicated the disciples, he opposed Hosea, vi., 6, to that
idea of-religion which rests in outward forms and lacks the inward life ;
which, in this as in other cases, was the root of error from which the
conduct of the Pharisees proceeded. Had they known that love is
greater than all ceremonial service, they would not have been so for-
ward to condemn the innocent.* For innocent the disciples were, who
had acted as they did for the sake of the Son of Man, who is greater
than the Sabbath, and who, as Lord over all things, is Lord alsot of
the Sabbath.l The Sabbath was only a means of religious develope-
ment up to a certain period. That period had arrived in the manifest-
ation of the Son of Man, the aim of all preparatory things, in whom
the original dignity of man \vas restored, the ideal of humanity realized,
and the interior life of man made independent of time and place.§
§ 173. Christ's Discourse against the merely outward Cleanliness of the
Pharisees. — He explains the Discourse to his Discij}lcs. (Matt., xv.,
1-20.)
The free mode of life pursued by Christ's disciples was always an
object of scrutiny to the Pharisees, who were constantly looking for
si,gns of heresy. It could not fail to give them opportunities of fixing
suspicion on the Master himself Once, when he was surrounded by
inquiring throngs, they put the question, involving, also, an accusation,
why his disciples so despised tlie ancient traditions as to neglect the or-
dinary ablutions before eating.
His reply was, in fact, an accusation against their whole system.
He told them, in effect, that all their piety was outward and hypocrit-
ical ; that they justified, by their own arbitrary statutes, their actual
violation of God's holy law, and thought to escape its observance by
their sophistical casuistry. Having thus repulsed the Pharisees, he
tuiTied to the multitude, and warned them against the Pharisaical teii-
dency so destructive to Jewish piety, the tendency to smother true
religion under a mass of outward forms. " Hear and understand ; not
that which gocth into the mouth defileth a man ; but that which comcth
out of the mouth, this defileth a ■man''' Here Christ displays the same
conscious, lofty superiority so often manifested in his disputes with the
Pharisees (as recorded in John, as well as in the synoptical Gospels) ;
instead of softening down the oftensive doctrine, he presents it more
and more forcibly in proportion as they take offence. The words just
quoted might be interpreted as an attack upon the Mosaical law in re-
* The yuf in Matt., xii., 8, may refer either to v. 7 or v. 6 ; iu cither case it has a con-
nexion of thought with v. G. t The Koi, in Luke, vi., 5, ag^-ees well with this.
\ Mark, ii., 527, joins well to this. The " man" of v. 27, refers to " Son of Man" iu v. 28 ;
a reference that cannot he conceived as the work of a later hand.
§ I consider myself justified in findinj,' all this in the passage, by taking the words in
their full meaning, ajtid comparing them with other expressions of Christ's.
TRIAL MISSIOxN OF THE APOSTLES. 257
spect to food, &;c., and thus could afford the Pharisees a clear oppor-
tunity to fix a charge of heresy upon him.
When the disciples called his attention to the offence which th(>
Pharisees had taken, he gave them to understand that this caused him
no uneasiness : Every plant which my heavenly Father hath not jilcmted
shall he rooted up ; let them alone ; they he blind leaders of the blind ;
both shall fall into the ditch. ("All merely human growths — every
thing not planted by God — must fall ; the whole Pharisaic system shall
come to the ground. Let not their talk trouble you ; blind are they,
and those that follow them ; both leaders and led are going on to
destruction.")
The disciples probably expected a different explanation ; they were
still too much ruled by Jewish views to apprehend correctly the full
force of Chiist's figurative language. The form of expression was
simple enough in itself; it was the strange thought which made it
difficult. It was only at a later period that even Peter could learn, and
that, too, by the illumination of the Holy Ghost, that every thing is
pure, for men, which comes pure from the Creator's hand. In the case
before us, Peter, as spokesman for the disciples, asked an explamation
of the obscure point. In reply, Christ first expressed his surprise that,
after having so long enjoyed his society and teaching, they had made
so little progi'ess in religious knowledge ; that such a saying should
awake their scruples as well as the Pharisees'. " Do ye not yet under-
stand," said he, " that what enters a man's mouth from without cannot
defile the interior life % It is the product of the heart, it is that which
comes from within that makes a man unclean.'' This truth was then
immediately applied only to the case in point, viz. : eating with un-
washed hands; the wider application of which it was capable could
not be unfoklecj to them until a much later period.*
§ 174. Trial Mission of the Apostles ifi Galilee. (Luke, ix. ; Matt., x.)
(1.) 01)jects of the Mission.— Powers of the Mis.sionaries.
The extended peiiod of time which Christ spent in Galilee was em-
ployed, also, in the education of the men who wei'e to carry on his work
upon earth. The disciples, at first, accompanied him as witnesses of
his ministry ; but, in order to accustom them to independent labours,
and to test their qualifications for the work, he sent them forth on a
trial mission. An additional object was to spread, by their agency,
throuo-h all the tow^is and villages of Galilee, the announcement that
the kingdom of God had appeai'ed. He by no means sent them to
proclaim the whole truth of salvation ; they were as yet incapable of
this ; and it was at a later period only that he promised the gift of the
* Cf. p. 88.
R
258 SECOND GENERAL MINISTRY IN GALILEE.
Spirit to qualify them for it. So long as He i-emained upon the earth,
He was the sole teacher. They were only to proclaim every where
that the kingdom of God, the olyect of all men's desire, had come ; to
point out to the people of Galilee the great grace of God in calling the
Founder of that kingdom from their midst. Their present work was
to be a type of their future one, when the great work within them
should be accomplished. As they were to become bearers of the word,
the Spirit, and the powers of Christ, so preparation was already to be
made for this, though as yet incompletely.
" Then he called his tioelve disciples together, and gave them fower
and authority over all devils, and to cure diseases. And he sent them to
proclaim the kingdom of God, and to heal the sick." We see tliat
Christ could communicate certain of the supernatural powers that dwelt
in him to those who devoted themselves to serve liim as organs. But
as these powers emanated from the source of Divine life in him, so we
conclude that the degi'ee in which they were imparted to others de-
pended upon the degree in which they had imbibed that life from him.
(2.) Instructions to the Missionaries. — Reasons for the Exclusion of the Samaritans
and Heathen. (Matt., x., 5-6 ; Luke, ix., 1, &c.)
The disciples thus sent forth were to confirm the truth of their an-
nouncement by miraculous acts, pointing to Him who gave the power
to perform them. At first, the general attention of the people was only
to be called to the great epoch that had dawned ; the developement of
the doctrine of the kingdom was to be left to Christ's own teaching, and
to the subsequent operations of his Spirit. This explains why he did
not further direct the Apostles as to what they sliould teach. Their
mission was to Galilee alone ; and the exclusion of the Samaritans and
heathen* is, therefore, not at all inconsistent with what we have said
of Christ's plan for the universal establishment of his kino-dom. All
the difficulties that have been found in tliis restriction flow from con-
sidering it apart from the proper period of Christ's life to which it
belongs. During his life on earth, His ministry was to be confined to
the Jews. Before the kingdom of God could be planted among the
heathen by the proclamation of his truth in this new form, it was neces-
sary that the knowledge of it should be fully developed in the disciples;
and this could oidy be done, after his departure, by the enlightening
power of the higher Spirit that was to be imparted to them. The links
of the chain of internal and external progress, by which this last great
event was to be brought about, were closely bound to each other ; a
• Mattlicw evidently connects many things with the instructions given to tlie Apostles in
view of their_/y".s/ journey, which, chronologically, belong later, viz. : to those given at the
mission of the Seventy, which he omits. But it is likely that Luke, ix., 1, seq., gives but
an abridgment, and we may fdl it out from Matthew.
TniAL MISSION OF THE APOSTLES. 259
premature developement would only hinder instead of hastening the
result. Before the Apostles could teach the heathen, or find access to
their hearts, they had to leam the peculiarities of the Gospel itself, as
well as its relations to the reliffion of the Old Testament. Even had
they succeeded in reaching the mind of the heathen with their defective
apprehension of Christ's doctrine, and thus making Jews of them, it
would only have been the more difficult afterward to eradicate the
laboriously-planted errors, and impart a pure form of Christianity.
But this knowledge was among the things of which Christ himself said
to his disciples, "Ye cannot hear them now ;^' it was bound up with
many truths that were as yet veiled from them. Nor could he, con-
sistently with his plan, as we have above unfolded it,* impart these
truths as separate and ready-made ; the fruit of knowledge had to grow
up in their religious consciousness from the seeds of knowledge sown
there by the Spirit of God.
The dii'ection, therefore, given to the Apostles, not to go to the
heathen in Galilee and on the border, necessarily followed from the
plan of Jesus. " But," it may be asked, " why did he not explain to
them the grounds of this restriction V It might be enough to reply to
this, that it is not likely that the full instructions, with the reasons in
detail, are preserved to us, but only an extract containing the most
essential features. But, apart from this, Christ could not at that time
have given them all his reasons ; for, in that case, he must have im-
parted to them what they could not as yet comprehend. They were
ihen unconscious organs for the execution of his commands.
But their relation to the Jews was quite a different thing. To the
latter they were to impart no entirely new doctrine ; and there was,
therefore, no fear, as in the case of the heathen, that they would
plant seeds of error which would have to be uprooted afterward.
The Apostles were to take hold of expectations already cherished
among the Jews, and to proclaim that the object of desire had come.
The errors which yet biassed their own minds were shared by the
Jews as a body ; errors from which nothing but the spirit of the Gos-
pel could free either them or the Jews. And, besides, they must
have received many seeds of the higher life from the society and teach-
ing of Christ; and, in scattering these, they could aid in preparing the
groimd for subsequent culture.
Perhaps, also, the Saviour, in pointing out " the lost sliecii of the hoitse
of IsraeV as the first objects of their toil, had in view, also, " other sheep,
not of this fold,"] belonging to those whom he had come to collect into
one flock, under one shepherd. There was sufficient ground, moreover,
for excluding Samaria from the sphere of this trial-mission, in the brief
duration to which it had to be limited ; apart from the fact that the
* Book iv., pt. i., chap. ii. t John, x., 16.
260 SECOND GENERAL MINISTRY IN GALILEE.
Apostles (lid not stand in the same relation to the Samaritans as to the
Galilean Jews. They were not prepared to adapt themselves to the
feelings of the Samaritans, nor to meet the controversies into which
they must ine^'itably be led among them ; the way in which the two
sons of Zebedee treated that people at a later period is proof of this.
There was no danger, however, that the disciples would so misunder-
stand Christ as to infer that the Samaritans were to be excluded from
the kino-dom of God ; what they had seen of his personal intercourse
with that people, and of the love which ho cherished for them, suffi-
ciently guarded against that.
And so, too, they could not but infer that the exclusion of the hea-
then must not be extended too far. Besides, the Jews themselves* ad-
mitted that the heathen were to obtain a certain shai-e in the kingdom
of God, on condition of observing the Jewish law ; and the disciples
could hardly think less would be granted by their Master, whose words
and actions breathed so very different a spirit.
(3.) The lustniotious continued; the Apostles enjoined to rely on Providence.
Christ sought to train his ministers to perform the duties of their call-
ino- without anxious care for the future. He bade them make no pro-
vision for their journey,t but to trust in God, who would not see them
want while faithfully doing their duty ; to be content with what was
offered them ; to abide in the first house that was hospitably opened to
them ; and thus, having made one family their home, to extend their
labours around it as a centre. The issue satisfied them that their Mas-
ter had predicted rightly ; they found, as he had promised, all their
wants supplied.| At that time the fame of Christ's miracles had ren-
dered the dispositions of the Galileans favourable ; they had to fight
no battles with fanatical enemies. Moreover, the substance of their
teaching was not as yet so inconsistent with the prevailing modes of
thought as to excite hatred and opposition.
§ 175. Various Opinions entertained of Jesus. (Luke, ix., 7-9.)
In the mean time Christ's fame was spreading through all the land,
and various opinions existed in regard to the character of the powers
which could not be denied. A very small minority of the people rec-
ognized him as the Messiah ; but the greater number exj)ected that
when Messiah should come, he would prove himself such by found in (^
an earthly kingdom in visible glory ; and that his power woidd be dis-
played, not in a corner of Galilee, but in the Theocratic metropolis.
But tho.se who had been impressed by the labours of John the Baptis
* Cf. p. 88, 89.
t This is the essential part of the instruction ; differences of detail are of no moment.
X Lake, xxii., 35.
FEEDING OF THE FIVE THOUSAND. 261
could hardly realize his total disappearance; and such, seeing oreater-
vvorlcs done so soon after his death, explained them thus : " He is risen
from the dead, and therefore might}] works do show forth themselves in
him'" (Matt., xiv., 2). Others said that Elias, or one of the ancient
[)rophets, had reappeared, to prepare the way for Messiah's kingdom.
It is obvious that the impression produced by Christ's works caused
him to be generally regarded as higher than John — as the highest, in-
deed, next to Messiah; but not as Messiah himsef on account of the
false expectation above mentioned. It is no matter of surprise that
there should have been inconsistent and contradictory opinions at a time
so disturbed and uneasy.
§ 176. Return of the Apostles. — Miraculous Feeding of the Five Thou-
sand. (Matt., xiv.; Mark, vi. ; Luke, ix.) — Ohjcct and Signifcancc
of the Miracle. — Its Effect upon the Multitude.
Christ had now spent a whole year in Galilee. The time of the
Passover approached, and the Apostles returned from their mission-
ary journey. Multitudes still thronged about him, seeking aid for
soul and body ; the caravans, gathering to the Passover, increased the
press. The Saviour did not wish at once to expose himself to the
dangers that threatened him at Jerusalem; moreover, he desired, for
a time, to prolong both his ministry in Galilee, and his intercoui'se with
the Apostles, whose training for the work was now his first object.
He sought a season of undisturbed society with them ; to receive the
report of their first independent labours, and to give them advice and
instruction for the future (Mark, vi., 30, 31). For this purpose, he de-
parted, with the disciples, from the neighbourhood of Capernaum, ou
the western shoi'e of Genesareth, to a mountain on the eastern shore,
at the head of the lake, near Bcthsaida Julias.* But the multitude
took care to see whither he accompanied his disciples, and immedi-
ately hastened after him.t
And here followed \l\e feeding of the fee thousand. This miracle
formed the very acme of Christ's miraculous power •,\ in it creative
* Luke, ix., 10. The tetrarch Philip, who raised the village of Bethsaida (on the east
side) to the dignity of a city, distinguished it from the village of the same name on the
west side, by adding the name Julias, from the emperor's daughter (Joseph., Archacol.,
xviii., 2, § 1). It is not strange that the name nT''!(~n*3 (moaning & place ofj/sk, a.Jish-
iiig-town), should be applied to two places on different sides of a lake aboundijig in fish. —
Robinson's Palestine, vol. iii., p. 566.
t It appears possible, from John, vi., 5, that Christ only withdrew to the east shore after
spending a great part of the day with the multitude on the west side. In this case it
would be natural for Christ to express, first, a care for their corporeal wants, when he saw
them, after spending nearly the whole day without food, follow him at a late hour. What
was done upon the two shores, therefore, may perhaps have been blended together in the
synoptical accounts. J Cf. p. 152.
26-2 SECOND GENERAL MINISTRY IN GALILEE.
egency was most strikingly prominent, although it was not purely cre-
ation out of nothing, but a multiplication of an existing substance, or a
strengthening of its ]iroperties. For this very reason, there is more
excuse in regard to this than some other of the miracles for inquiring
whether the subjective element of the account can be so separated from
the objective as to offer a different view of the nature of the act.
A theory has accordingly been constructed to do away with the mi
raculous character of the act, and explain it as a result of Christ's spir-
itual agency, brought about in a natural way. It amounts to this : the
feeding of the vast multitude with five loaves and two fishes was ac-
ccnnplished by the example and moral influence of Christ, which in-
duced the better-provided to share their food with the rest, Christ's
spirit of love bringing rich and poor to an equality, as it has often done
in later Christian times. So, then, the result was rightly judged to
have been brought about by the Spirit of Christ ; but the spiritual in-
fluence was translated into a material one ; Christ's power over men's
hearts into a power exerted by him over nature ; and the intermediate
link in the chain was thus omitted.
Now, although it is jmssihle that an account of the miracle might have
originated in some such way as this — examples of the like are not want-
ing in the Middle Ages — the details of the narrative, in all the differ-
ent versions of it, are irreconcilable with the hypothesis. Had part
of the people been supplied with provisions, the disciples must have
known it ; on the contrary, according to the narrative, they had no
such thought; nothing remained for them but to "■send the mvltitude
away into the villages to buy victuals.'" Had they supposed that the
caravans were partly supplied with food for their journey to Jerusa-
lem, it would have been most natural for them to say to Christ, " Thou
who canst so control the hearts of men, speak the word, that they may
share with the needy." But there is no plausibility in the hypothesis
that there were provisions on the ground ; the multitudes had not come
from a great distance ; and there were villages at hand where food
could be bought ; so that there was no inducement to carry it with
them. Moreover, had Christ seen such a misunderstanding of his act
arise, he would, instead of turning the self-deception of the people to
his own advantage, have taken occasion, by setting the case truly be-
fore them, to illustrate, by so striking an illustration, what the spirit
of love could do. Finally, the narrative, as given by John (vi., 15),
puts this theory wholly out of the question. So powerfully wore tin;
multitude impressed by what Christ had done, that they \vished to take
Jesus as Messiah, and make him king. The act must have been ex-
traordinary indeed that could produce such an effect as this upon a
people under the dominion of the senses, and not at all susceptible of
any immediately spirittml agency which Christ might have employed.
FEEDING OF THE FIVE THOUSAND. 263
The miracle was not wrought without reason ; the circumstances
which demanded it may be thus stated : A multitude of persons, trav-
elling to Jerusalem for the Passover, followed Christ from the western
to the eastern shore ; he had spoken the words of Life to them, and
healed the sick. They were chained the whole day to his presence,
and evening came iipon them. The sick who had just been healed
were without food ; they could not go, fasting, to the villages to obtain
it.* Here, then, was a call for his assisting love ; and, natural sus-
tenance failing, his miracle-working power must supply the lack.
The effect of the miracle illustrates for us the mode of Christ's work-
ing in all ages ; both in temporal and spiritual things, the spirit that
proceeds from him makes the greatest results possible to the smallest
means ; that which appears, as to quantity, most trifling, multiplies it-
self, by his Divine power, so as to supply the wants of thousands. The
physical miracle is for us a type of the spiritual one which the power
of his words works in the life of mankind in all time.t
* John's Gospel, however, differs from others in this point (vi., 5), in statins' that Christ
himself asked the question, " Whence shall u-e hvy bread ?" Sec, before any thing else was
done. We find, therefore, by comparison with the other Gospels, that John has omitted
part of the details. Christ would not make this the Jirst question, when a multitude stood
before him in want of spiritual as well as bodily ^relief; nor is it likely that he meant to
prepare the way for the miracle from the beginning. From John, vi., 17, also, we gather
that the event took place towards evening, leaving room for the inference [apart from the
accounts in the other Gospels] that the multitude had been about Christ some time. In this
statement, then, John plunges at once into the midst of the account, without the vividness
of detail which u.sually marks his Gospel. On the other hand (cf Matt., xv., 32), it is not
likely that Christ waited for an intimation from the disciples before manifesting his ever-
watchful love and compassion ; nor was it his custom to work a miracle suddenly, but in a
naturally-suggested and prepared way. All difficulties disappear if we adopt the view of
note t, p. 261.
t Tlie question arises, whether the miracle recorded iu Matt., xv., 32, seq., and Mark, viii.,
1-8, is different from the one of which we have just treated, or whether it is the same, dif-
ferently stated. The fact that the narratives are suhstantially alike, and differ iu matters
comparatively unimportant, may be urged in favour of the latter view ; but the relative dif-
ferences of measure (4000 instead of 5000, with sei:eii loaves instead oi five, and the multi-
tude spending three days with Christ) favour the former. The resemblances may be as-
cribed to the one account's having been modelled after the other. Matt., xvi., 9, 10, would
not prove them different ; that passage may have been modified at a later period, when
the facts were presupposed to be different, without affecting its veracity. The localities
might help to decide the question. The first miracle took place, as we have said, on the
eastern side of Geuesareth, near a mountain. The locality which we assign to the second
will depend upon our answer to a question still debated, viz., where Magdala, to which
Chri.st passed over (Matt., xvi., 39), was situated, According to the Talmudical accounts
[Lightfoot, Chorograph., c.76; Wetstcin, in loc), it was near Gadara, consequently, on the
eastern side of the sea. If this be so, the second miracle must have been wrought upon a
mountain on the u-estern shore ; thus assigning a locality to it different from that of the first.
But, on the other hand, there is shown to this day. south of Capernaum, on the road to
Tiberias, a village called el-Mejdd (Robinson), a name corresponding to the ancient Mag
dala (Burckhardi. Genn. trans., ii., 559 ; cf Roscnmuller, Handbuch der Biblischen Alter-
thumskunde, ii., 73). This agrees with the Talmudic accounts that place the site near
Tiberias ; but not so well with the one quoted above, namely, that it was near Gadara ;
but cannot the Migdal Gadar, therein mentioned, be otherwise explained ? Cf Oesenius's
264 SECOND GENERAL MINISTRY IN GALILEE.
Up to this time Christ had only impressed the multitude with the
Lelief that he was a mighty Prophet, whose appearance was prepara-
tory to the Messianic era. But this climax of his miracle-working
power produced one, also, in their opinions. " He that can do sudi a
miracle can be no other than Messiah ; we must do homage to him as
Theocratic king, and urge him to establish his kingdom among us."
Plans of this sort Christ had to evade ; and he returned alone to the
mountain.
§ 177. Christ Walks upon the Waters. (John, vi., 16 ; Matt., xiv,, 22 ;
Mark, vi., 45.)
Dismissing the disciples at evening, he commanded them to sail
across to the western shore, in the direction of Bethsaida and Caperna-
um. They departed, but sailed for a while slowly along the shore, ex-
pecting Christ to come to them after he had dismissed the multitude ; but
they waited in vain. It was now dark ; they became aware that their
expectations would not be fulfilled, and took their way for the other
shore. But the wind was against them ; they had to contend with
storm and waves. After struggling with the elements in great anxiety
for more than an hour and a half in the open sea, they strove again tG
reach the shore which they had left. While they were toiling to ac-
complish this, suddenly, between three and six in the morning, Christ
appeared to them walking on the waters, and approaching the vessel.*
remark on tlie passage cited; Burckhardt, ii., 1056; Rohiiison, iii., 529; Matt., xvi., i.
(Pharisees meeting Christ), agrees better with the supposition of the u-estern shore. If,
then, Mdgdala was on the icestern shore, the second miracle, hko the first, must have oc-
curred ou the eastern ; the direction of their subsequent passage across the lake would
agree pretty well. Then the general geographical course (indicated iu Matt., xvi., 13)
would accord very well with Matt., xv., 21 ; and all this favours the opinion that we have
two reports of one and the same miracle. There is an important difference between
Matt., XV., 39, and xiv., 22; the latter stating that Christ sent his disciples awaj- first by
ship; the former, that he went immediately himself; but this might have arisen from an
omission in the former passage ; just as we find Luke, also, s.aying nothing of it. The
probability of the miracle having been wrought twice is lessened by the view that we have
taken of it as constituting the climax of his miraculous works. We recognize in Matt., xv.,
29 ; xvi., 12, a break in the historical and local connexion ; and, iu fact, we frequently find
iu this document, although an original and evangelical one, the same expressions and events
narrated more than once ; sometimes in longer, sometimes in shorter forms.
* If it were even grammatically possible to translate Itu rtii ^aXdcar^i "along the sea,"
and iTTi nil/ SdXaaaav ''towards the sea." although the connexion be unnatural (thus supposing
that Christ had gone in a half circle to the other side of the shore, and so reached the dis-
ciples, who had slowly toiled along the shore) ; if this, I say, were grammatically possible,
such a construction is directly opposed to the tenor and intention of the nan-ative. This is
most obvious in .Tohn's account, which is the most direct and simple, and has least of tlio
miraculous about it. Suppose the disciples to have sailed 25 or 30 furlongs, not across, but
along the sea, and then, seeing Jesus on the shore, to have taken liira in ; how will this
agree with John's statement (vi., 21), " immcdiatcli/ the ship was at the land, whilher they
vent !" If they saw Jesus, then, on the shore, it must have been tlie n-estern shore ; and
what meaiiiiig could tiiere be, iu that case, in tlieir taking him into the vessel ? Cf Lncke't
•-xcellent remarks, in loc.
THE SYNAGOGUE AT CAPERNAUM. 265
Bewildered with fear, they did not recognize the Saviour amid the
storm and darkness, but thought they saw " a spirit.''''* But Christ
called to them, "It is I; be not afraid." The well-known voice
turned their fear into joy. They sought, longingly, to take him into
the vessel ; but, before they could succeed in it, they were wafted to
the shore by a favourable wind. This, too, was full of import to them;
cis soon as Christ made himself known, every thing took a joyful turn.f
§ 178. Christ in the Synagogue at Capernaum. (John, vi.)
(1.) The Carnal Mind of the Multitude rebuked.
Christ met certain of the eye-witnesses of the miraculous feeding of
the five thousand in the synagogue at Capernaum, either on the Sab-
bath, or on some other day.ij: They were surprised, and, therefore, the
more gratified, at his sudden appearance, since they had left him on
the eastern shore ; and their pleasure was shared by others whom they
had told of the miracle. Doubtless they were full of expectation that
he would work new wonders to confirm his Messiahship, and gratify
their carnal longings. But the higher their hopes of this kind were,
the deeper was their disappointment, and the greater their rage, when
lie offered them something entirely different from what they sought.
The miracle could produce no faith in those who were destitute of a
spiritual mind ; their enthusiasm, canially excited, was soon to pass
over into opposition. A process of sifting was to take place, and the
discoui'se which Christ uttered was intended to bring it on.
They questioned him ; but, instead of replying, he entered at once
upon a rebuke of their carnal temper : " Ye seek me, not because ye saw
the miracles, but because ye did eat of the loaves, and tccre filled. Labour
not for the meat lohich jjcrishetli, but for that meat which endureth unto
everlasting life, which the Son of Man shall give unto you ; for him hath
God the Father sealed." " Ye seek me, not because the sign of my
Divine working, which ye saw, has led you to me as the Son of God,
■who alone can supply your spiritual wants ; but only because I have
appeased your bodily appetite ; and so you look to me only for sensible
gifts, which I come not to bestow (^. e., such was the carnal hue of their
expectations of Messiah). Strive not for perishable, but eternal food,
imparting eternal life, which the Son of Man will bestow; God has
sealed him to this by miracles wi'ought before your eyes, in attestation
of his Divine calling."
* Not a likely thought, if Jesus was walking on t)ie shore; it could have been nothing
strange, especially towards Easter, when so many were travelling towards Jerasalem, to
see a man walking on the lake-side towards morning.
t I follow John's account, as most naturally explaining itself.
{ Part of what occun-ed w»uld have been a violation of the Sabbath ; in later times there
were assemblies in the synagogue on the second and fifth days of tlie week ( Whier, Real-
worterbuch, 2d ed., vol. ii., p. 637).
266 SECOND GENERAL MINISTRY IN GALILEE.
Upon this, the purer-minded among them asked him, " What must
we do, then, to become worthy of the Divine favour'?" They expected
him to prescribe new religious duties ; but, instead of this, he led them
back to the one work : '■'Believe on him wlioin God hath sent.'" "Witli
this faith every thing is given.
(2.) A greater Sign demamlecl. — The Answer: " Christ the Breiid of Life."'
Then others* came out ; either eye-witnesses of the miracle, who
(according to the nature of the unspiritual mind), still unsatisfied, and
seeking greater signs, were liable, from their want of faith, to be soon
Derplexed even in regard to what they had already experienced ;t or
persons who had only heard of the miracle from others, and who had
decided from the first to see for themselves before they would believe.
These demanded of Christ (v. 30) a new miraculous attestation ;| and,
as the Messiah was to be a Moses with new powers, they asked that
he should give them bread from heaven — celestial manna — angels'
food, according to their fancies of the millennial bliss.
Christ took the opportunity (v. 32-42) thus naturally offered to
lead them from the material to the spiritual and Divine, and de-
clared himself to be the true bread from heaven, at the same time
seeking to awaken in them a desire for it. But their carnal feel-
ings were susceptible of no such desire ; and, still regarding only the
earthly appearance, they took offence that the carpenter's son should
say, *' I came doionfrom heaven.'^ He did not attempt to reason them
out of their scruples, but laid bare the source of them, i. e., their dispo-
sitions of heart and mind ; of these they had first to be rid, before
they could recognize the Divinity in his human manifestation (v. 43-
47). " Murtmtr not among yourselves ; no man can come unto me, ex-
cept the Father, ivhich hath sent me, draw himS' Seek ivitldn you, not
without you, for the cause of your surprise ; it lies in this : you came
to me carnally, with no sense of spiritual need ; and, therefore, have not
^he drawing of the Father, which all must follow who would come
unto me aright." It is among the prophecies that are to be fulfilled in
the Messianic age that ''•they shall all he taught of God ;''^ and so,
* It is part of Jolui's manner not to distinguish individuals or classes closely in his nar-
rations.
t For the miracle in the miracle, the Supernatural, as such, can only be apprehended by
the Sense for the Supernatural. The reaction of the senses on the critical understandiuLr
can soon uproot a conviction growing only in the soil of the senses. One reasons awa}'
what ho thinks he has seen; "it could not have happened so."
t It is to he noted, in comparing the acaiunts of the lico instances in which the multitude
were miraculously fed, that the second is followed (Matt., xvi , 1) by a demand made upon
Christ for a sign from heaven.
§ .Tohn, vi., 4.5. This cannot be understood of the subsequent teaching of all by the be-
stowing of the Holy Ghost, or of the general teaching of Christianity ; the thing in view in
the passage was, the Divine voice in men, preceding faith, to lead them to Christ as Sav-
iour, which was not to be restrained by any human statutes.
THE SYNAGOGUE AT CAPERNAUM. 2C7
every one that follows the Father's call, comes to me. (The voice ot
God, vifhich testifies of the Redeemer in all needy souls and calls them,
will be heard every where.) But this must not be understood as if any
one could know the Father, or be united with him, except through the
Son ; the Son alone, derived from the Father, knows him perfectly,
and can impart this knowledge to others [" Not that any man hath, seen
the. Father, save he which is of God ; he hath seen the Father''''^ This
])reventing operation of the Holy Spirit was only intended to lead
them to the Son, as their Redeemer : " He that helieveth on me hath.
everlasting lifeP Again (v. 48-51) he repeats the assertion, " I am
that hread of life from heaven,'" confirmed by the proof that none could
attain a share in the Divine life, or communion with the Father,
except through him ; and describes himself as the true manna from
heaven.
He then proceeds to tell them (v. 51) that he wcfuld give them a
/)read which was to impart life to the world ; hence, that the bread
which he teas about to give was, in a certain sense, different from the
bread which he was ; different, that is, from his whole self-communi-
cation. " And the hread ivhieh I will give is viy flesh.'" This bread
was to be the self-sacrifice of his bodily life for the salvation of man-
kind.* The life-giving power, as such, was his Divine-human exist-
ence ; the life-giving power, in its special act, was his self-sacrifice.
The two are inseparable ; the latter being the essential means of reali-
zing the former ; only by his self-saci'ifice could his Divine-human life
become the bread of life for men.t
(3.) Eating Christ's Flesli and drinking his Blood. — His own Exphmation of this.
(John, vi., 53, seq.)
The Jews wilfully perverted these words of Christ (v. 52) into a
carnal meaning; and therefore he repeated and strengthened them.
" Fxcept ye cat the flesh of the Son of Man,'"' &c. (v. 53-58). " Ex-
cept ye receive my Divine-human life within you, make it as your
own flesh and blood, and become thoroughly penetrated by the Divine
principle of life, which Christ has imparted to human nature and him-
self realized in it, ye cannot partake of eternal life."
* Lachmann's text omits the words vv fyw liiatii in v. 51, a reading which is supported by
considerable authority. Omitting these words, only the general idea (the aapl to be de-
voted for the salvation of men) would be made prominent in the passage ; not, however, to
the exclusion of his self-sacriiice as the culminating-point of his life devoted to God and to
man's salvation. But the omission would make the passage harsh, and unlike John's style ;
the words may have slipped out of some of the MSS., from their similarity to the j>recediug
01' f'yw OaJffuJ.
t I am well aware of what Klinf^ says against LucJce (Stud. u. Krit., 1836, 1) in regard
to this divisiiin of the discourse, but my views remain unaffected. I cannot find in the
words of Christ the Lutheran Realism, so called.
268 SECOND GENERAL MINISTRY IN GALILEE.
To make the sense of his figurative expressions perfectly clear, he
changed the figure again to the " bread from heaven ;" as the living
Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father ; so he that eateth me*
even he shall live by me.} This is the bread that came down from heav-
en. But most of his disciples still lacked the capacity to understand
how his words mutually explained each othei". Adhering to the out-
ward and material sense, they seized upon those expressions which
were most striking, without catching their connexion, or taking the
trouble to undei'Stand his figures by comparing them with each other
and with the unfigurative expressions ; a process which could not have
been difficult even to those among them who were incapable of pro-
found thought, accustomed as they were to the figurative style of Ori-
ental language, and to Christ's peculiar manner of speaking. Fasten-
ing only upon the expression, " eating his flesh and drinking his blood,"
in this sense, they found it " a hard saying which they could not bear"
(v. 60).
And this was true not merely of the mass of hearers in the syna-
gogue, but also of many who had become his followers during his
protracted labours in Galilee, without, however, in heart and spirit,
really belonging to the circle of disciples. The foreign elements had
to be separated from the kindred ones ; and the very same impres-
sions which served to attach really kindred souls more closely to the
person of Christ were now to drive off" others, who, though previously
attracted, were not decided within themselves as to their relations to
him (v. 61-66).
When he had left the synagogue, and was standing among persi^na
who, up to that time, had been his Constant attendants, he said, in view
of the state of feeling above described, " I have spoken to you of eat-
ing my flesh; doth this offend you? What, then, will you say, when the
Son of Man will ascend into heaven ? You will then see me no more
with your bodily eyes ;| but yet it will be necessary for you to eat
my flesh and drink my blood, which then, in a carnal sense, will be
plainly impossible." It is obvious, therefore, that Christ meant no
material participation in his flesh and blood, but one which would
have its fullest import and extent at the time specified.
He then naturally passes on to explain the spiritual import of his
life-streaming words : " It is the Spirit that qiiickeneth, the flesh profiteth
nothing ; the words that I sjjcak unto you, they are sjnrit and tJiey arc
* To " eat him" and " to cat liis flesli and blood" have the same meaning.
t The way iu whioh Christ himself explains his meaning by changing his Wdrds is
(inough to show how far removed these words are from any reference to a communication
of the body of Christ in the Lord's Supper.
X The removal of Cinist's bodily presence from the earth, and Ids exaltati* n to heaven,
are united together by him. Unbelievers see only the negative side, the removal : the eye
of faitli, in seeing the one, sees the other.
THE SYNAGOGUE AT CAPERNAUM. 2C9
life. It is the Spirit that giveth life ; the flesh is nothing ; hence I couhl
not have meant a sensible eating of my flesh and blood, but the appro-
priation of my Spirit, as the life-giving principle, as this communicates
itself through my manifestation in flesh and blood. As my words are
only the medium through which the Spirit of life that gushes forth from
me is imjjarted, they can be rightly understood only so far as the Spirit
is perceived in them." But this was precisely what those who misun-
dei'stood him were deficient in ; and, " therefore,^'' said he, " I said unto
you, that no man can come unto me,, except it were given unto Mm of viij
Father. Only those that hear His call, and come with a susceptibility
for Divine things, can apprehend my words and obtain faith in me.
As I said unto you, your carnal sense is the source of your misunder-
standing and unbelief."
(4.) Sifthijj of the Disciples. — Peter's Confession.
Then followed a sifting of the disciples. \From that time many of
his disciples loent bach, and walhed no more with him?[ As this was the
natural result of his relations to thein, he rather furthered than checked
it ; it was time that the crisis that had been preparing in their hearts
should manifest itself outwardly. And the departure of the unworthy
was to test the genuine disciples, and make them conscious of the true
relation in which they stood to Christ. He wished them, therefore, in
that critical moment, to prove their own selves ; for there was one
among them already upon the point of turning away, who might yet,
by heeding Christ's injunction, have saved himself from the destruction
that awaited him.
He said to the twelve, " Will ye also go aivay V Peter, speaking,
as usual, for the rest, bore testimony to their experience in his fellow-
ship: "■Lord, to whom can toe goV and confirmed Christ's words by
his own consciousness, in whose depths he had felt the flow of their
life-giving fountain : " Thou hast the ivords of eternal life.'" And, there-
fore, he was able to confess in the name of all the rest, from a convic-
tion founded in personal knowledge and experience, that Jesus was
Messiah (v. 69). But Christ warned them that there was one among
them who did not share this conviction, although included in Peter's
confession. He had chosen them — drawn them to himself— he said,
and yet one of them had the heart of an enemy. These words, show-
ing to Judas that his inmost thoughts lay bare before Christ, might,
had he been at all open to impression, have brought him to repent and
open his heart to the Saviour, seeking forgiveness. Failing this, they
could only strengthen his enmity.
270 JOURNEY TO NORTH GALILEE.
CHAPTER X.
JESUS IN NORTH GALILEE, AND ON THE WAY TO CESAREA PHILIPl'L
§ 179. Reasons for tlie Journey.
"E have said that Christ desired to obtain an opportuuity for
private intercourse with the disciples, in order to hear the re-
port of their mission journey, and to prepare their minds for the stormy
times that were approaching. As it seemed impossible to secure this
in the neighbourhood of Tiberias, he determined to go to some distance
from that region of country, a purpose which other circumstances sonu
hastened.
Herod Antipas, who then reigned in Galilee, hearing of the fame of
Jesus, became personally desirous to see him. This wish was probably
dictated by mere curiosity, or by a desire to test Christ's power to work
miracles;* certainly it arose from no sense of spiritual need. As such
a meeting could lead to no good result, Christ must have desired
to avoid it. This formed an additional motive for withdrawing him-
self into North Galilee; and perhaps beyond, mio Paneas, or Cesarca
Philippi, the domain of the Tetrarch PhiHp.t The first stage of the
journey took him to Bethsaida Julias, on the west side of the Sea of
Genesareth.
§ 180. Cure of the Blind Man at Bethsaida. — Peter^s Second Confes-
sion.— The Pozver of the Keys. (Mark, viii. ; Matt., xvi.)
At Bethsaida a blind man was brought to Christ, who took him out
of the town to avoid public notice ; and then performed on him the
cure whose successive steps are so graphically described by Mark.
He then forbade him for the time being to tell of what had been done,
as notoriety would have been inconsistent with his purpose above men-
ti(>ne(+.|
When left alone with the disciples, he questioned them about their
travels, and concerning the opinions generally prevalent in regard to
himself. Peter renewed, in a different form, the confession which he
had before made on a similar occasion. § In contrast with those who
" Cf. Luke, xxiii., 8. In view of the character of Ilcrod, there is more interiinl prnlia-
bility in Luke, ix., 7, than Matt., xiv., 1, 2.
t We infer the direction which Christ took with his disciples from comparing Matt., xv.,
21 ; xvi., ]3 ; Mark, vii., 24 ; viii., 27 ; Luke, ix., 10-18.
I Tliis suits well with the point of time here assigned to it.
^ In all the Gospels this event is closely connected with the miraculous fcedinj:. wliidi
conlirms our view of the historical connexion of the facts. True, it is possible that Peter s
THE KEYS. 271
saw in Jesus only a Prophet, he said, " Thou art the Messiah ;" cer-
tainly implying more than was included in the ordinary Jewish sense ;
although he must have fdt more than he could unfold in definite
thought when he added, ''• llie. Sou of the living God."
Thus had Peter, on two distinct occasions, given utterance to the
same confession, drawn from the depths of his inward experience;
in the first instance, in opposition to those whose hearts were wholly
estranged from Christ; and in tlie second, to those who had obtained
only an inferior intuition of the person of Christ. The Saviour, there-
fore, thought him worthy of the following high praise : " Blessed art
thou, for Jlesli and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, hut my Father
ivhich is in heaven.'"' Peter's conviction ' was the result of no human
teaching, no sensible impression or outward authority ; but of an in-
ward revelation from God, whose drawing he had always followed —
a Divine y^ic^, which comes not to men from without ; jvhich no educa-
tion or science, how lofty soever, can either make or stand in stead of.*
In view of this conviction of Peter, thus twice confessed, in resard
to that great fact and truth which forms the unchangeable and immov-
able basis of the eternal kingdom of God, Christ called him by the
name which at an early period, with prophetic glance, he had applied
to him (John, i., 42), the man of rock, on whom he declared that he
would build his Church, that should triumph over all the powers of
deatb,t and stand to all eternity.
This promise was not made to Peter as a person, but as a faithful or-
gan of the Spirit of Christ, and his steadfast witness. Christ might
have said the same to any one, who, at such a moment, and in such a
sense, had made the same confession ; although Peter's uttering it in
the name of all the twelve accorded with his peculiar ^dpiofia, which
conditioned the post that Christ assigned to him.
In the same sense he confided to Peter the "keys of the kingduni
of Heaven," which was to be revealed and spread abroad among men
by the cfunmunity founded by him ; inasmuch as men were to gain
admittance into that kingdom by appropriating the truth to which he
had first testified, and which he was afterward to proclaim. This was
confession, as recoriled by Jolni, is the same as that recorded by Matthew, and nothing es-
sential would be lost if it were so. But we may certainly suppose that, at so critical a
period, Christ could have questioned his disciples thus closely on two different occasions in
regard to their personal convictions, which were soon to undergo so severe a trial.
* Cf. p. 139.
t The "Gales of Hades," in Matt., xvi., 18 (cf. Isa.. xxxviii., 10 ; 1 Cor., xv., 55), desig-
nate rather the kingdom of death than of Satan. In this view the passage means, that
"the Church should stand forever, and that its members, partakers of the Divine life,
should fear death no more — of course implyuig, however, that she should be victorious
over all hostile powers.
272 JOURNEY TO NORTH GALILEE.
to be the key by which the kingdom was to be opened to all men
And with it was entrusted to him the power, on earth, "to bind and
loose" for heaven ; since he was called to announce forgiveness of sin?
to all who should rightly receive the Gospel he was to proclaim, and
the announcement of pardon to such as received the offered grace had
necessarily to be accompanied by the condemnation of those who re-
jected it.*
^181. The Disciples prohibited to reveal Christ'' s Messianic Dignity. —
The Weakness of Peter rebuked. (Matt., xvi., 20-28 ; Mark, viii.,
30.)
Thus Christ confirmed the Apostles in their confession of his Mes-
sianic dignity. But he knew, at the same time, that their minds were
still tinctured wilh the ordinary ideas and expectations of a visible
kingdom to be founded by Messiah ; and he, therefore, gradually taught
them that it was by his own sufferings that the kingdom of God was lo
be established. [^Then charged he his disciples that they should tell no
man that he was Jesus the Christ, From that time he began to show to
his disciples hoio that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things, Sfc]
The prohibition was doubtless given with a view to prevent them
from diffusing the expectations of Messiah which they tJien entertained,
and thus leading the people to political undertakings, and the like, in
opposition to the objects of Christ. The words that immediately fol-
low the prohibition confirm this view of it. But Christ's declarations
that sufferings lay before him was too far opposed to the disciples' opin-
ions and wishes to find easy entrance to their minds. " Be it far from
thee, hord,^^ said Peter ; an exclamation inspired, indeed, by love, but
a love attaching itself rather to the earthly manifestation of Christ's
person, than to its higher one ; a love in which natural and human feel-
ings were not as yet made sufficiently subordinate to God and his king-
dom. And as the Saviour had just before exalted Peter so highly,
when he testified to that which had not been revealed to him by flesli
and bloo^d, but by the Father in heaven ; so now he reproved him as
severely for an utterance inspired by a love too much debased by flesh
and blood. Human considerations were more to him than the cause
of God ; he sought, by presenting them, as far as in him lay, to \)ve-
* This view of the " binding and loosing" power is sustained by Joiin, xx., 23. Tlic sani,-
thing is expressed in other words in Matt., x., 13 ; 2 Cor., ii., 15, 16. The difTcrence ho-
twccn the figure of "the Iteys" and that of " binding and loosing" need cause no difficulty;
tliey refer to dilFerent conceptions ; the former, to reception into, and exclusion from, the
kingdom of Heaven ; the latter, to the means of receptiou and exclusion, viz., the pardon
of sin and the withholding of pardon.
THE WISDOM OF SERPENTS. 073
vent Christ from offering the sacrifice which his Divine callincr Je-
manded ;* and his disposition was rebuked with holy indignation.!
Christ then turned to his disciples, and gave them a lesson directly
opposed to Peter's weak unwillingness to sacrifice every thing to the
nne holy interest. He impressed upon them a truth pre-eminently ne-
cessary to the fulfilment of their calling, viz., that none but those who
were prepared for every species of self-denial| could become his dis-
ciples, and enter into the kingdom of God, whose foundations he was
about to lay. Finally, he announced to them that many among them
would live to see the kingdom of Gtod come foith in glorious victory
over all its foes. It is true, they .were not at that time able fully to
comprehend this ; only at a later period, by the illumination of the
Holy Ghost, and by the course of events, the best commentary on proph-
ecy, were they to be brought completely to understand it.
§ 182. Monitio77S of Christ to the Aj)Ostles in regard to Prudence iu
their Ministry. — (1.) The Wisdom of Serpents and Harmlessness of
Doves. (Matt., X., 16.) — (2.) The Parable of the Unjust Steward.
(Luke, xvi., 1-13.) — (3.) " Make to yourselves friends of the Mam-
mon of Unrighteousness,^' &c.
To this period, in which Christ conversed with his disciples in re-
gard to their first missionary tour, and gave them cautions for their fu-
ture and more difficult labours, doubtless belong many advices of the
same tenor, found in different places in the Gospels. We, therefore,
join together several sayings of this kind here ; if not chronologically,
at least according to the substantial connexion.
As he sent the disciples forth like defenceless sheep among wolves,
he bade them, in the struggles through which they must pass, to com-
bine childlike innocence and purity of heart, symbolized by the harm-
less dove, with prudence and sagacity, whose symbol was the serpent.§
* The alternations in Peter's feelings, and his consequent desert of praise or blame from
tlie Master, within so short a time, are so easily explained from the stand-point yhich he
then occupied, that I cannot find any thing strange in Christ's expressing himself thus op-
positely to him, as Schleiermacher does (Werke, ii., 107). And, therefore, I see no internal
ground for believing that the passage is not properly connected with the narrative here.
t This helps to fix the right point of view for understanding Christ's previous declara-
tion and promise to Peter; and the two addresses to him, taken together, attest the fidelity
of the narrative as unconniptcd by a later ecclesiastical interest.
t It was naturally necessary for Christ to impress this truth frequently upon the disci-
ples ; Matt., xvi., 24 ; Mark, viii., 34, 35; Luke ix., 23, 24 ; and, therefore, the occurrence
of similar passages, e. g., Matt., x., 38 ; John, xii., 2.5, 26, proves nothing against the ori-
ginality of the discourses there recorded ; although it is possible that his sayings to this
effect on one occasion may have been combined with those uttered on another to the same
tenor.
§ Paul, who frequently alludes to Christ's sayings, does so several times to this one,
Rom., xvi., 19 ; 1 Cor., xiv., 20. I place the passage in this comiexion as better adapted
to it than to the fii'st Apostolical missionary jouniey.
s
274 JOURNEY TO NORTH GALILEE.
They were, indeed, to labour as organs of the Divine Spirit, and to be
furnished with Divine powers for their ministry ; but he did not wish
them, on that account, to neglect all proper human means for over-
coming the difficulties they should meet with, but rather to apply that
wisdom which knows how to use circumstances prudently. No such
rule would have been given had he expected his kingdom soon to be
established by a sudden interference of Omnipotence ; it was prescribed
in view of a gradual developement by the use of means provided in the
general course of nature.
Yet the attempt to exercise prudence for the kingdom of God might
(he taught) easily beguile them from purity and simplicity of heart.
Tlie wisdom of the serpent was, therefore, limited by the innocence of
the dove ; their prudence was to be defined by purity. They were to
use none but pure and truthful means for the advancement of the holy
objects of the kingdom. On the other hand, the combination of wis-
dom with innocence showed that the childlike simplicity of discipleship
was perfectly consistent with the culture and use of the understanding,
and with a judicious share in the manifold and diversified relations of
life ; the one thing needful was, that furihj should inspire tlieir wis-
dom. Here, as always, Christ brings into their higher unity things
which elsewhere oppose and contradict each other.
(2-)
The parable of the Unjust Steward illustrates this combination of
simplicity with prudence* We find the main point of comparison not,
as some do, in the proper management of earthly possessions, but in
the words emphasized by Christ himself: " The children of this world
are rviser in their generation than the children of light" (v. 8). The
children of the world, using more wisdom than the children of light,
often succeed in carrying out their purposes against the latter ; as, on
the other hand, the children of light fail of ends connected with the
Divine kingdom, because they lack wisdom in the choice of the means.
That wisdom, therefore, which characterizes the children of the world
is to be recommended to the children of light. This is the main thought ;
the proper use of earthly goods, subordinating every thing to the king-
dom of God, is a minor one. Keeping this in view, the difficulties of
the parable vanish; the special feature in it which forms a stumbling-
block to some will be found precisely adapted to tliis thought, and
necessary to its illustration.
The example of the unjust steward is to be imitated, not in regard to
• It is to be noted that this parable, according to Luke, xvi., 1, was addressed to the
disciples, even thongh we apply the word to the larger circle of disciples, and not siiecificaUy
to the Apostles. We need not suppose, from v. 14, that it was directed against the avarice
of the Pharisees.
THE UNJUST STEWARD. 275
the disposition that impelled him, but to his undivided attention to
every thing which could serve as a means to his ends. As the children
of the world aim steadily at their selfish objects, and, with ever-watch-
ful prudence, seize upon all the means necessary to secure them, so the
children of light are to keep constantly before their eyes the relations
of life to the Divine kingdom, and to press every thing into their ser-
vice in its behalf. It is, indeed, a difficult task to combine the single-
ness of aim and simplicity of heart which the Gospel requires with
that shrewd sagacity which can bend all earthly things to its holy pui"-
poses. Yet if the aim to serve God's kingdom be the ruling power
of one's life, and all the manifold interests 6f life are made subordinate
thereto ; if the holy decision be once made and never swerved from, it
will bring forth, as one of its necessary fruits, this true sagacity and
moral presence of mind. It is precisely this connexion of prudence
with a single, steadfast aim, though a bad one, that is illustrated in the
conduct of the unjust steward. A bad man was necessarily chosen
for the example; its very object was to show how much the children
of light might do for the kingdom of God, if they would, in this respect,
imitate the children of the world.
(3.)
The sul)ordinate point of the parable is the special application of this
prudence to the use of earthly goods. We must take care, in inter-
preting the verses which follow, not to lose sight of the parable itself.
As the unjust steward secures the favour of the debtors by gratuities,
in order to make sure of a home for himself when his office is taken
away.; so the children of light, by the right use of earthly possessions,
are to make for themselves friends who will receive them into everlast-
ing mansions when they are called away from this life.
It is plain that charities to the pious are meant here, as none can
" receive into evei-lasting habitations" unless they themselves dwell
there. But it would be inconsistent with Christ's general teaching to
suppose that he meant to say that pious souls in heaven would have the
power to receive those who hud done kindness to them on earth into a
share of their blessedness; or that, the merely outward act of alms-
giving to the pious could atone for past sins and secure eternal joy.
The persons addressed are presupposed as alrcad.y " children of light;"
and they are required to manifest their inward feelings in outward acts.
The active love of Christians is to show itself such, in the use of earthly
goods, by sharing them with fellow-Christians. " Fit yourselves, bv
your labours of love, to become fellow-inmates of the heavenly man-
sions with those whose wants you have willingly alleviated during
their earthly wayfaring." The form of expression is adapted to the
parable ; iJiere the debtors of the rich man were made friends by the
276 JOURNEY TO NORTH GALILEE.
unjust steward to secure a home on earth ; lierc the pious poor are
made friends by the Christian to secure an eternal mansion in heaven.
Christ annexes to this application of the parable certain directions
for the use of property by the children of God. He designates worldly
goods fiauncdvag -ii^ ddiKia^, adiKoq iiamioivag ; because they are usually
unjustly obtained, and employed in the service of the devil, who is,
and will be, the ruler of this world (and thus called KOGiiOKpdru)p) until
the cotisummation of the kingdom of G od. And this evil mammon is
contrasted with the true riches, which cannot be possessed except by
the children of light.* The wealth of this world belongs to the children
of this world, who devote it to the service of Evil ; it is another man's,
and not the Christian's o\\ n ; while he dwells in a world of strangers,
7ie knows of higher riches, of which the worldling is totally ignorant.f
The summary, then, of precepts annexed to the parable by Christ,
and illustrating its import, is as follows (v. 10-13): "Be faithful in
manao-ing your earthly property, that you may be found worthy to be
intrusted with the higher riches. ' He that is faithful in the least, is
faithful also in much;' the fidelity which is proved by the i-ight use of
wealth may be trusted with the riches of the kingdom. The latter will
be gi-anted in proportion to the former. ' But he that is unjust in the
least, will be unjust also in much.' Who will trust you with the true
riches, if you misapply the unrighteous mammon ? * And if ye have
not been faithful in that which is another's, who shall give you that
which is your own V Who will give you that which properly belongs
to your higher nature, if you mismanaged what was not your own, but
only intrusted to you V
The concluding thought is : " No servant can serve two masters at
once, the sei-vant, in the strictest sense, being wholly dependent upon
the master, and, in fact, his instrument; so no man can have two mas-
* The antithesis of ahKov and dX;j6urfi', in v. 11, mi^^ht lead us to interpret the first as
"what is, in itself, not good;" but the phrase naiiitwms -f/s uSiKtai, and the implied allusion
to the parable, favour the sense given in the text.
t Here is illustrated the difference betvreen the Ebionitish idea of worldly goods and the
true Christian view. According to the first, Satan is Lord and Master of this world in u
physical sense ; and the possession of property, beyond the bare necessaries, is considered
as sinful in itself, as sharing in a domain which ought to be left exclusively to the servants
of Satan. According to the latter, earthly goods are not the true riches, which the Christian
alone can possess, and shall possess forever, in greater and greater fulness ; they belong
to Satan in the same sense as the whole world belongs to him. But as the world, from a
kingdom of Satan, is to become the kingdom of God, so worldly goods are to be employed
by the children of light to advance the latter, with a wisdom (illustrated in the parable) not
to be sur]:)assed by the wLsdom of the world. It is to be remarked that Christ, instead of
presenting the principle in its abstract generality, applied it spccijicalli/ to acts of benevo-
lence ; the disciples, at that period, had no opportunity of employing their property to
further the other objects of the kingdom of God, such as liave been abundantly furnished in
the later course of its developcment. Cf. De Wette, Matt., xix., 21.
THE UNJUST STEWARD. 277
ters spiritually ; the one only who rules the whole life is ilie master."
No man's life can depend, at the same time, upon both God and Mam-
mon. To find one's true good in Mammon, and to serve God as Mas-
ter, these things are incompatible. The true child of God applies his
earthly wealth to His ser\-ice, and therein proves himself a faithful ser-
vant ; regarding it not as a good in itself^ but only in its bearing upon
the kingdom of God — the highest good.
It is clear that this passage (placed out of its connexion in Matt., vi.,
24)' stands properly here, closely joined to the parable; and, indeed,
requisite to set the idea of the parable in its proper light. The prin-
cipal scope of the latter, as we have seen, is to show the connexion
between loisdom and a steadfast aim of life ; and the passage in ques-
tion (v. 13) contains precisely the same thought; as it teaches that we
cannot rightly use our earthly goods unless we make our choice deci-
dedly between God and the world, and then, with undivided aim, refer
all things to the one Master to whom we have consecrated our whole
life.
Thus the parable illustrates the precept, "Be tcise as serpents, and
harmless as doves T It exhibits the unjust steward as a model of ser-
pent wisdom, which, imitated by Christians, becomes the wisdom of
innocence. The concluding words of Christ, above explained (v. 13),
teach that the true simplicity, i. e., singleness of aim, generates that
controlling presence of mind which is the element of wisdom. What,
at a later period, was the chief source of Paul's Apostolical wisdom
but this, that his heart was ?iot divided between God and the world ;
that he had but one aim, and served but one Master 1
^ 183. Caution against iinprudent Zeal in Preaching the Gospel.
Akin to the wisdom thus recommended to the Apostles is the rule
of preaching the truth given in Matt., vii.,^, Give not that which is holy
unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls liefore swine, lest they trample
them under their feet, and turn again and rend you. "Valuable as pearls
are to men, they would only enrage hungi'y swine, who would trample
them, and rush upon him that had so deceived their hunger." Under
this vivid illustration, Christ enjoined his disciples to guard against
hastily offering the sacred truths of the kingdom to minds carnally unfit
for them, and destitute of a sense of spiritual need; the holy pearls
would be valueless in the eyes of such. To meet them on their own
ground, and yet offer them nothing to satisfy their carnal desires, would
only rouse their evil passions, and expose valuable lives, which ought to
be preserved for the kingdom of God, without doing any good. The
witness for the truth must needs be zealous and courageous, but he
need not be imprudent or indiscreet.
278 JOURNEY TO NORTH GALILEE.
The Apostles, then, were cautioned against the error into which some
later missionaries have fallen, of offering the Gospel, under the impulse
of inconsiderate zeal, without regard to the proprieties of time and place.
Still, it by no means followed that they were not to preach under cir-
cumstances in which the Word might prove a stone of offence to some,
while it pricked others to the heart ; the Word was destined, of neces-
sity, to sift the various classes of men that should hear it. Nor was the
caution neglected by Christ himself, when he refused to allow the rage
of carnal and narrow-minded hearers to hinder him from uttering ^lis
truths boldly, and without regard to consequences, revealing a spiritual
power that defied all opposition ; or when he punished their obduracy
by ceasing to condescend to their weakness and prejudice, and by offer-
ing the truth in its sharp and naked outlines, even although it excited
the wrath of some, while it led others to reflection.
The apophthegm that we have just considered was in itself a judg-
ment and a prediction. The more immediate application of such say-
ings depended upon the circumstances under which they were uttered ;
to interpret them, it is not sufficient to have their letter only, but also
the life-giving Spirit which originally inspired them.
An ancient and wide-spread tradition ascribes to Christ the following
saying: "yiveode rpaTre^Tai doKi^oi : hecome approved money-cliangersr
This expression bears the stamp of Christ's figurative manner of speech ;
and the external and internal evidence is in favour of its genuineness.*
If this expression be deemed akin to the parable of the Talents, its sense
could be given thus : "5e like acute mone ij-cJi angers ; adding daily to
the capital intrusted to you." But the principal figure in the parable
of the talents is not the money-changer, but the person who puts money
at interest with him ; and, besides, the money-changers did not gain
money with borrowed capital, but with their own. We must, therefore,
look for an interpretation mq^-e in accordance with the business of the
broker. Ecclesiastical antiquity, which perhaps first received thest;
words of Christ in connexion with others that explained them, aflbrds
us such an interpretation. It was part of the business of the money-
changer to distinguish genuine from counterfeit coin. So Christ miglit
have given this rule, capable of manifold application in the labours of
the Apostles ; to imply a careful circumspection in order to distinguish
the true from the apparent, the genuine from the counterfeit, the pure
*See Fahricii, Cod. Apocryph. N. T., i., 330; iii., 524. Wo find tliis saying in aptH-
ryphal writin2;s, both heretical and Catholic ; and many imitations of it seem to have been
made by the ecclesiastical teachers of the first century, which could not have happened at
that time had it not been uttered by Christ or one of the Apostles. Paul (whoso writings
contained many allusions to Christ's words, and sentiments taking their hue from them)
perhaps had this saying in mind in I Thess., v., 21, as has been supposed by Huiisel, with
whose view of the apophthegm I agree. — (Stud. u. Krit., 183C, 1.)
THE SYRO-PHCENICIAN WOMAN. 279
from the alloyed ; not to condemn hastily, but, on the other hand, not
to trust lightly.
§ 1S4. The Syro-Phoenician Woman. (Matt., xv., 21 ; Mark, vii., 24.)
—(1.) Her Prayer.— {2.) Her Repulse.— {3.) Her FaUJi.—{\.) The
IZesult.
(1.)
Christ, having passed beyond the northern border of Galilee, reached
a place where he wished to remain unknown. But^the fame of his
miracles had preceded his arrival. A heathen woman of the neigh-
bourhood (a Canaanite or Phoenician), whose daughter was a demoniac,
hastened to seek help from the Saviour. As he went out with the dis-
ciples, she ran and cried to him, " Have mercy on me, O Lord ! thou
Sf))i of David ; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil."
(2.)
" But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of
the house of Israel. . . . It is not meet to take the children's bread and
to cast it to dogs." Taking this reply alone, apart from the circum-
stances under which Christ uttered it, it appears mysterious, indeed,
that he should so emphatically restrict his mission to the Jews, that he
should speak of the heathen in such a tone of contempt, and repel the
prayer of the woman with so much severity. But although we may
not be able, from the close and abridged narrative, to obtain a clear view
of the matter, we can yet remove its difficulties to a great extent by
considering it in its proper historical connexion.*
We have before said that the restriction of Christ's mission to the
lost sheep of the house of Israel was not inconsistent with his purpose
of establishing a universal kingdom. This restriction referred to his
jiersonal agency, which in fact belonged to the Jewish people ; not,
however (as he himself said), but that he had " other sheep not belong-
inor to this fold," whicli were at some time to be brought into the same
fold, and under the same shepherd, with the lost sheep of the house of
Israel. But in other cases, also (as we have seen), he afforded Yds per-
sonal assistance to individual heathens. We must, therefore, seek the
reasons of Christ's conduct in the peculiar circumstances of the case,
and of the time at which it occurred.
In the first place, it is clear that he wished, at that juncture, to re-
main hidden, and therefore to avoid public labours (Mark, vii., 24). In
" The attempt to remove these difficulties by the theory that Christ altered his plan at
different periods camiot be made to harmonize with the attendant circumstances of this
case, as related by Mark as well as Matthew ; for these circumstances (the journey into
North Galilee, &c.) prove that this case must be placed chronologically after other cases in
which Christ had assisted individual heathens.
'280 JOURNEY TO NORTH GALILEE.
rlie previous cases in which he had assisted individual pagans, no fur-
rher consequences were likely to follow ; but his agency in this case
was likely to draw multitudes around him, and to extend his ministry
among the heathen, in opposition to his general plan. His action,
therefore, was directed only to the Apostles and to the woman ; the
latter he wished to relieve after she had proved her faith and poured out
her whole heart before him ; to the former the case afforded an example
of pagan faith that might shame the Jews, and teach the Apostles that
the heathen would yet believe in him, and share, through their faith, in
tlie blessings of his kingdom. It may be a question whether this was
Chiist's intention from the beginning, or whether the woman's fervent
prayer and believing importunity overcame his first purpose to send
her away. There is nothing in the latter supposition inconsistent with
the character of Jesus, since, in his purely human being, he was dif-
ferently determined by different circumstances. .
And again, hard as the words " one ought not to cast the children'' s
bread to the dogs" may sound to us, we must remember that it was a
figurative expression, meaning nothing more than that the mercies des-
tined for the Theocratic people could not as yet be extended to a peo-
ple at that time far from the kingdom of God, and by no means ex-
cluding the expectation that this relation should be so changed as that
all should become " children,"
(3.)
The woman doubtless felt that these words, severe as they were,
came from a heart overflowing with love, and she continued her prayer
with trustful importunity, herself entering into the words of Christ and
acknf)\vledging their truth. " Yes, Lord ; yet the dogs eat of the crumbs-
which fall from their master's table"
Now if this total abasement before a man of another nation be re
garded merely as an outward and human submission for the sake of a
bodily blessing, it must a^jp^ear abject indeed; nor could Christ have
praised it and granted the favour so earnestly yet basely sought. But
it was not of such a character ; the pagan woman felt herself unworthy
of the kingdom of God, and therefore was not degraded by her sense
of inferiority to the Theocratic nation ; she humbled herself, not before
a man, but before one in whom (whatever conception she had of his
person) God revealed himself to her heart ; it was to a Divine powei%
not a human, that she gave so lowly a submission. It is precisely this
sense of unworthiness and unconditional submission to God, when re-
vealed in his omnipotence and mercy ; it is precisely Faith, in tliis pe-
culiarly Christian sense, which is made, throughout the New Testa-
ment, the condition of all manifestations of the grace of God. Tlio
act of Christ in tlie case illustrated his own saying, " He that huvibleth
THE TIIANSFIGURATION. 281
Idmself sJiall he exalted;''^ he answered the woman, commending her
as he would not commend the Jews, " O woman, great is thy faith ; he
it unto thee even as thou wilt.''' He set up the believing woman as a
pattern of that faith which was to become, among the pagans, the
ibundation of the kingdom of God.
Thus, again and again, under the most varied circumstances, did
Christ set forth the value in which he held a Spirit of humble, self-
denying devotion to God and submission to his revelation in Christ ;
this spirit, so irreconcilably opposed to the pride of natural Reason
which, in the ancient world, was held to be man's highest dignity, was
made by Christ the essential condition of participation in his kingdom.
Idle, indeed, and vain, therefore, must be all attempts- to make Chris-
tianity, in this sense, a religion of reason, or to make Christian ethics
a morality of reason.
The transaction affords another lesson, also. The Christian may
comfort himself under the hardest trials and severest struggles — nay,
even when his most ardent prayers appear to be unheard and un-
answered— with the consoling belief that behind the veil of harshness
the Father's love conceals itself:
[Behind the frowning Providence
He hides a smiling face.]
§ 185. The Transfiguration of Christ. (Luke, ix., 29-36.)
Six days* after the conversation in which Christ first unfolded to the
Apostles the sufferings and the fate that awaited him, he took Peter,
James, and John up into a mountain apart, and was transfigured before
them.
The Transfiguration may be considered either (1) as an objective
fact, a real communication with the world of spirits ; or (2) as a sub-
jective psychological phenomenon. The account of Luke bears in-
dubitable marks of originality and historical truth ; the attempts that
have been made to resolve it into a mythical narrative are absurd.
But it certainly appears to favour the second view above stated rather
than the first.
If we adopt the first view, and assume that the narrative is intended
to relate an objective fact, it affords us a partial exhibition of the inter-
course of Christ himself with the world of spirits. It could not have
been intended mei'ely for the Apostles to witness ; for, during its
* Luke says eight days; Matthew six ; involving no discrepancy, however, for it is easy
t<i show that they employed different modes of computation. Statements of time thus
agreeing in fact, but differing in fonu, are among the surest signs of veracity in historical
narratives.
282 JOURNEY TO NORTH GALILEE.
progress, lliey were " heavy with sleep,'''' and, therefore, unfit to appre-
hend it, or to transmit an account of it as matter of fact. We cannot,
however, deny the possibility of such an occurrence, and of some un-
known object for it, in the connexion of a history which is entirely out
of the ordinary course of events. Once admitting the event as such,
all that we should have to do would be to confess our ignorance,
instead of losing ourselves in arbitrary hypotheses and speculative
dreams. *
But, on the other hand, by following the indications given in Luke,
we may arri^ve at the following view of the narrative : Jesus retired in
the evening with three of his dearest disciples, apart, into a mountain,*
to pray in their presence. We may readily imagine that his prayei
referred to the subjects on which he had spoken so largely with the
disciples on the preceding days, viz., the coming developement of his
kino-dom, and the conflicts he was to enter into at Jerusalem in its
behalf They were deeply impressed by his prayer; his countenance
beamed with radiance, and he appeared to them glorified and trans-
figured with celestial light. At last, worn out with fatigue, they fell
asleep ; and the impressions of the Saviour's prayer and of their con-
versation with him were reflected in a visiont thus : Beside Him, who
was the end of the Law and the Prophets, appeai'ed Moses and Elitis
in celestial splendour ; for the glory that streamed forth from Him was
reflected back upon the Law, and the Prophets foretold the fate thai
awaited him at Jerusalem. In the mean time they awoke, and, in a
half-waking condition,^ saw and heard what followed. Viewed in this
light, the most striking feature of the event is the deep impression
which Christ's words had made upon them, and the conflict between
the new views thus received and their old ideas, showing itself thus
while they were in a state of unconsciousness.
Still the difficulty remains, that the phenomena, if simply psycho-
logical, should have appeared to all the three Apostles precisely in the
same form. It is, perhaps, not improbable, that the account came
from the lips of Peter, who is the prominent figure in the narrative.§
* We do uot know whether this was Mount Hennon, or the mountain from whicli
Cesarea Philipjii took the name Paneax. The old tradition, wiiich makes Mount Tahui
the site of ttie transfiguration, cannot be relied on.
t Cf. Matt., xvii., 9. X Cf. Luke, ix., 33, last clause.
§ We have several times remarked that too much importance is not to be attached to the
omission of any event by John that is reconled by the other Evan2;elists. Still his silence in
regard to the transfiguration is remarkable, seeing that he himself was an eye-witness, and
that the event itself, if an objective reality, was calculated to display the grandeur of
Christ in a very high degree. Two reasons may be suj)posod for this : (1.) That he did not
deem himself prepared, from the circumstances of the event, to give a distinct representa-
tion of it; or, (0.) That be did not view it as an objective reality, and, therefore, did not at
tach so much importance to it. Dr. Sckneckenhurger (Beitragen zur Einleitung in das Neue
Testament) thinks that .John omitted the transfiguration because of the Gnostics and Do-
cetics, who might have used it to support their views of the person of Christ ; but to us it
CURE OF A DEMONIAC. 283
The disciples did not, at first, dwell upon this phenomenon. The
turn of Christ's conversations with them, and the pressure of events,
withdrew their attention from it until after the resuiTection, when, as
the several traits of their later hitercourse with Christ were brought to
mind, this transfiguration was vividly recalled, and assigned to its prop-
er connexion in the epoch which preceded and prepared the way for
the sufterings of the Saviour.*
§ 186. Elias a Forerunner of Messiah. (Matt., xvii., 10-13.)
The relations of Elias to Christ at that time greatly occupied the
minds of the disciples, as is obvious from the portions of one of their
conversations with him that are preserved to us.t
As we have seen [Matt., xvi., 21], he was at this period unfolding to
his disciples his approaching appearance at Jerusalem as Messiah, and
his impending fate. They presented to him in connexion with this, as
a difficulty in their minds, the prediction taught by the scribes, and the
very one which they arrayed against the Messiahship of Jesus — that
Elias must first appear, to introduce the Messiah among the Theocrat-
ic people. He answered that the scribes were right in saying that
Elias must first come and make smooth the way for the coming of Mes-
siah ; but that they were wrong in the carnal and literal sense which
they put upon the saying, as if Elias were to appear in person. Elias,
he told them, was spiritually represented by John the Baptist ; he " is
come already, and they knew him not, but have done unto him ivhatsoevcr
they listed.\ Likewise, also, shall the Son of Man suffer of them!"
The same selfish spirit, the same adherence to the letter, which hindered
them from seeing Elias in John, and induced them to get rid of so
troublesome a witness, would prevent them from recognizing Messiah
in the Son of Man, and lead them to treat him as they had done the
Baptist.
§ 187. Christ Cures a Demoniacal Youth after the Disciples had at-
tempted it in vain. (Mark, ix., 14 ; Matt., xvii., 14 ; Luke, ix., 37.)
— He Reproves the unbelieving Multitude.
On descending from the mountain with Peter, James and John,
Christ found the rest of the disciples surrounded by a multitude of per
appears that this would have been, on the contrary, a reason why he should mention it, to
guard, by a full and clear statement, against misiutei-pretation on that side.
* Luke, ix., 36, is most simple : they kept it close, and told no tnan in those days any of
those things which they had seen. The statement in Matthew and Mark, that Clirist for-
bade it, gives a reason for this silence, in accordance more with the view that the event
was purely objective.
t We think we are justified in considering Matt., xvii., 10-13, as one of these ; the oZv
with which the question commences shows that it has a connexion elsewhere.
t These words prove that Christ attributed John's fate to the machinations of the Phari-
sees.
284 JOURNEY TO NORTH GALILEE.
sons, some well, and others ill disposed. A man in great distress on
account of a deeply-afflicted son* had gone thither, attracted by the
fame of Christ's agency in healing similar cases. The youth appears
to have been subject to epileptic fits, with a state of imbecility or mel-
ancholy, in which last condition he was incapable of utterance. He
frequently attempted to kill himself during these attacks, by throwing
himself into the fire or into the water. The unhappy father had first
met the disciples who remained at the foot of the mountain, and these
last attempted to make use, in this case, of the powers of healing con-
veyed to them by Christ. But the result satisfied them that they were
yet far from being able to act as organs for his Divine powers. They
could not cure the demoniac ; and some unfriendly scribes who were
present took advantage of the failure, and of the excitement which it
caused among the people, to question the disciples ; probably disputing
the miracles and. the calling of their Master.t
In the mean time, Christ suddenly appeared amid the throng, to their
great surprise. | Part of the multitude were full of hope that He would
do what his disciples had failed to accomplish ; others, doubtless, as
anxiously hoped that his efforts would be as impotent as theirs. In
this, as in other cases, the Saviour combined earnest reproof with con-
descending love. He reproved them because his long labours had,
not yet satisfied them ; because they still felt no higher than corporeal
wants ; because their unbelief still demanded sensible miracles. " O
faithless generation ! Jiow long shall I he with you and suffer your\
The demoniac was brought in; and, as usual in such cases, the Di-
vme manifestation appears to have produced a crisis, attraction and re-
pulsion. His convulsions came on with new power. To prepare the
mind of the father, Christ listened patiently to his history of the dis-
ease, which he closed, as if oppressed by the sight of his suflering son,
with the prayer, " ^ut if thou canst do any thing, have compassion on us
and help us.''' Fervent as the prayer was, the words, " If thou canst
do any thing," implying a distant doubt, led Christ to reprove him gently,
* Nothing could be a stronger proof of historical voracity than the three separate hut
agreeing accounts of this event, all from difterent sources. Mark's naiTative is obviously
due to an eye-witness ; it is marked by simplicity and naturalness, without a trace of the
exaggeration which Sbriuss would see in it.
t The presence of the scribes would fix the site rather at some mountain of Galilee than
at Mount Hernion or Paneas.
i iieOii)i(iii(hi, Mark, ix., 15, appears entirely natural ; any thing but e.ias^gn-crtcd, as Strausx
will have it.
§ It by no means follows tliat Christ's exclamation refers to the disciples: much niore
probably to all tliat ha<l preceded ; the spirit in which his aid iiad been sought, and his
miraculous power doubted. The word ycvui is too general for the Apostles ; nor would the
Lord, who generally bore with their weaknesses so benignantly, have so severely re-
proved them in tliis case. Nor would they, in that case, have put the iiuestion in ver. -Jb.
PRAYER AND FASTING. 285
and encourage liim to believe, not by saying, " Douht not ; / can do
all tilings'' but by pointing out to him the defect witMn himself:
" Can I do any thing % Know that if thou canst believe, all things arc
possible to him that believeth" (thou thyself canst do all things, if thou
only believest; faith can do all).* The gentle reproof had its full ef-
fect ; the father, full of feeling, cried out in tears, " Yes, Lord, I be-
lieve (yet I feel as yet that I do not believe sufficiently) ; help thou my
unbelief." Christ then spoke in tones of confident command ; and the
demoniac suffered a new and intense paroxysm, which exhausted all
his strength. He lay like a corpse ; " but Jesus took him by the hand
and lifted him up, and lie arose."
§ 188. Christ tells the Disciples the Came of their Failure. — The Poiver
of Faith.— Prayer and Fasting. (Matt., xvii., 20, 21.)
After this experience, so important in view of the coming independ-
ent labours of the disciples, they asked of Christ, " WAy could not we
cast him out ?" and thus gave him occasion to point out to them a two-
fold ground in their own selves, viz. : (1) a want of perfectly confiding
faith, and (2) a want of that complete devotion to God and renun-
ciation of the world which is imphed in prayer xmi\ fasting. The for-
mer presupposes the latter, and the latter reacts upon the former.
" Because of your unbelief ;\ for verily I say unto you. If ye have faith
as a grain of mustard seed,\ ye shall say unto this mnuniain. Remove
Jience to yonder place, and it shall remove^ and nothing shall be impossi-
ble unto you.''\\ And then he adds (probably after some intermediate
sentences not reported in this brief but substantial account) : " Such a
power of the Evil Spirit as is in this form of demoniacal disease can
only be overcome by prayer and fasting.'' That is, by that ardent
* I give a free translation of that very difScult passage, Mark, is., 23 ; snch as the con
iiexion appears to me to demand. Ei ivvacai, in v. 23, I think, refers to the words spoken
by the man, v. 22 : t6 = " that," which had been said : iticTtvaai is wanting in Cod. Vatican.,
according: to Bentley's collation, and in Cod. Ephrctem. Rescript, (see Tischendorfs re-
print) ; and I think it is a gloss. Knatchbull considers it as middle, but without ground.
t /. c, want of lively confidence in the promises they had received of Divine Power,
through Christ, to work miracles, and in their Divine calling and communion with God
through Christ ; in general, a want of religious coiwiction and confidence, as practically
displayed in subduing all doubts and difficulties ; e. g., such as Paul's.
X The same figure as in the parables of the kingdom of Gon, probably intended to illus-
trate the growth of faith, once rooted in the heart, by the power of God that dwells in it :
like the growth of the mighty tree from the diminutive seedconi.
6 In Oriental manner, Christ takes a concrete figure from the visible creation before him,
to set forth the general thought : " You will be able to remove all difficulties ; apparent im-
possibilities will become possible."
11 The right limitation of this (not to extend it to an indefinite generality) lies in its ref-
erence, in the context, to men irorking as arp;ans of the Spirit of God ; it excludes, there-
fore, all self-will, refusing to submit to the Divine order, which is, indeed, antagonistic to faith
itself.
286 JOURNEY TO NORTH GALILEE.
prayer* which is offered in humiliation before God, and abstraction from
the world, in still collectedness of soul, undisturbed by corporeal feel-
ings. Doubtless, by this whole statement, Christ intended to satisfy
the disciples that they were not spiritually prepared fully to discharge
the duties of their ministry.t
§ 189. Return to Capernaum. — Dispute among the Disciples for Pre-
cedence.— The Child a Pattern. — Acting in the Na7ne of Christ.
(Luke, ix., 46 ; Mark, ix., 33 ; Matt., xviii.)
We have seen that on a certain occasion| Christ replied to those
who asked "why his disciples did not fast," &c., that "the time had
not yet come." But a new epoch was now approaching; and he him-
self gave his disciples another rule, and taught them what they lacked
to fit them, by further abstraction from the world and earnest collected-
ness of heart, for their high calling.
Although Christ had directly discountenanced, in his conversations
after the return of the Apostles from their trial mission, the serisiious
expectations which they entertained from his Messiahship, still the ideas
on which their hopes were founded were too deeply rooted in their
hearts and minds to be readily eradicated. With these was connected,
[)a.rtly as cause and partly as effect, the self-seeking which tinged their
relations to the kingdom of God. This same feehng was manifest in
The Jews and early Christians, in times of special prayer, retired from social intercourse
and bodily enjoyments, restraining the bodily appetites ; and the mention of prayer and
fiistijig- together implies this state of entire collectedness and devotion.
t There are some discrepancies in the Evangelists as to the collocation of the passages
here refeiTed to. The two verses in Matt, (xvii., 20, 21) harmonize well with each other
and with the connexion. But in Mark, xi, 23, the sajing of Christ in regard to the poiver
cf faith is given in a connexion not homogeneous to it, especially the witiicriug of the fig-
tree, which was not adapted to illustrate the positive efficiency of faith. In Luke, xvii., 6,
a different figui'e is used, viz.. the uprooting of a sycamore; and this passage was probably
uttered in a diflereut locality; as it is most likely that the Saviour, in view of his approach-
ing separation from the disciples, took many occasions, and employed various figures, to
encourage and strengthen their believing confidence.
A more striking difference is, that in Mark's account of Christ's reply to the question of
the disciples (ix., 28, 29) the Jirst sentence (the power of faith) is left out, and the second
only (prayer and fasting) given. As this last is given by both Matthew and Mark, it is more
certain that it was spoken in that connexion. But then, again, Mark, i.x., 23. contains a state-
ment of the power of faith, addressed, not to the disciples, but to the father of the demoniac ;
in so natural a connexion, too, that it would be impossible to deny the aptness of the collo-
cation ; but in Matlhcw this is entirely wanting. This last omission, and the mistaken
interpretation put ujion yeva'i HitinToi (Matt., xvii., 17), may have given occasion for referring
iiii Tiiv umoTiav (v. 20) to that phrase in V. 17, and for here transferring the passage on
the power of faith to this place from some other. Yet it is also possible tiiat Christ ut-
tered both expressions (viz., Mark, ix., 23, and Matt., xvii., 20), and that their similarity of
thought induced each writer to retain bat one. In confirmation of this, Luke do(>8 not
mention (xvii., .5, 6) the historical connexion in which the thought was uttered ; the disci-
ples would not have asked, "Lord, increase our faith," but for an exiieriencc of their want
of it; and precisely such an experience is given in the accounts of Matthew and Mark.
» Cf. p. 203.
THE CHILD A MODEL. 287
their conversation on the way back to Capernaum from tneir northern
torn*; they disputed among themselves on the journey about their rel-
ative activity in the service of their Master, and who among them
should hold the first place in the kingdom of God.*
After their arrival at Capernaum, Christ asked them the subject on
which they had disputed by the way, intending that the very shame of
answering his question might make them conscious how unworthy of dis-
ciples such a dispute had been. This end being answered, he did not
directly reprove them further ; but in a few words, made impressive
by a vivid illustration, he set before them the worthlessness of their con-
tention, and its utter antagonism to the spirit which must rule in the king-
dom of God. Taking a little child, he placed him in their midst, and
said, " Let this child, in its unassuming ingenuousness, be your model ;
he among you that is most child-like and unassuming, that thinks least
of himself and his own worth, he shall be greatest (shall be of most im-
portance to the kingdom of God)."t Then, embracing the child, he
added, " "Whosoever shall receive one such little child in my name,
receiveth me ; and whosoever receiveth me, receiveth him that sent
me."|
The truth herein expressed, though different from the other, is yet
akin to it ; and both rebuke the strife for precedence, the disposition to
dwell upon one's own merits, and set a false value upon actions as
great or small. It is not merely what a man does that makes his action
worthy, but the spirit in which he does it. The deed in itself may be
great or small ; its worth depends upon its being done in the name
* This is not to be confounded with a later dispute of the same character; in the in-
stance before us the question referred to the prcsenl, not to the future, who is the greatest
in his personal qualities and performances? Christ's I'eply was directed to this question ;
not, as in the subsequent case (Luke, xxii., 24, &c.), to one concerning precedence in the Mes-
sianic kingdom. Matthew's accoaut, therefore (xviii., i.), seems to be less original than
those of Luke, ix., 46 ; Mark, ix., 33. The former is less homogeneous ; and, besides, in it
the disciples propose the question ; in the others Christ anticipates them ; which seems the
more likely, as they might readily feel that their dispute was foreign to Christ's spirit, and,
therefore, be ashamed to put the question. It is also easier to explain the origin of Mat-
thew's statement from this, as the original form, than that of the latter from the former. It
must always be a debatable question, so far as Luke, ix., 4G, is concerned, whether the
disciples only thought this, or expressed their thoughts to each other.
t Luke's report of the sayings of Christ upon this occasion, although more simple and ho-
mogeneous than those of Matthew and Mark, does not seem to retain the order of the two
expressions so well. This is evident, both from the yup in the last clause of v. 48, and
from John's question in v. 49, which was evidently occasioned by the words immediately
before spoken by Christ, but not by those in the last clause referred to.
t In Matt., X., 42, we find another saying to the same effect as that which has been placed
here in its connexion. "Even a drink of water given to the most insignificant person as a
disciple of Christ, and in his name, will not lose its reward." It is the disposition to act
in Christ's name which gives value to the most unimportant act. The form in which the
disposition shall reveal itself is conditioned by circumstances which are not under the con-
trol of man; but the disposition itself, which is stamped as Christian from its reference t)
the name of Christ, is independently rooted in the heart.
288 JOURNEY TO NORTH GALILEE.
of Christ and for his sake. And this spirit is pleasing to God, for
our actions can only be referred to Him by means of our relation to
Christ.
The principle thus announced by Christ struck at the root of the con-
tention among the disciples. Their false emulation could have no place,
if their actions, whether great or small, were alike in value, if alike
done in the name of Christ ; and to magnify themselves, or their claims,
would have been absurd in view of such a rule of action.
§ 190. Christ's two Sayings : " He tliat is not against you is for you,'"
and, " He that is not for me is against me."" (Mark, ix., 40.)
It is hardly probable that the disciples at once understood the pro-
found meaning of Christ's words on the occasion referred to in the pre-
ceding section ; and thus it was that John (Mai'k, ix., 38) brought for-
ward an instance which appeared to him inconsistent with the rule just
laid down.*
It appears that the miracles of Christ, and those wrought by the
Apostles by calling upon his name, had induced others, not belonging
to the immediate circle of the disciples, to call upon the name of Jesus
for the healing of demoniacs.t The disciples, displeased that one out
of their circle, and unauthorized by Christ, should try in this way to
make himself equal with them, had forbidden him to do so. Even here,
selfish motives appear to. have intruded; only those who belonged to
them were to be allowed to make use of Christ's name. In view of
what Chiist now said, however, of the value of even the smallest actions,
if done in His name, John seems to have thought within himself: "If
every thing that is done in His name be so worthy, have we not done
wrong in forbidding him who was thus working in his name V
It is true Christ's words referred to the disposition of the heart, and
a mere external calling upon his name would not necessarily involve
all that he meant. And had the disciples fully understood his mean-
ing, they would probably not have alluded to such an instance. But
the instance itself may have been allied to that which has the aim of
Christ's words ; a man who thought so highly of Christ's name as to
believe that by using it he could do such great works, even though he
enjoyed no intimate relations with the Saviour, might have been on
the way to higher attainments, and, by obtaining higher knowledge
and a purer faith, might have reached the stand-point designated by
Christ ; and so his outward calling upon the namb might have led the
* Strauss objects to Schleiermacker's view (wliicli accords in substance with mine), that
" it presuppose!? a readiness of thought in the disciples of which they were by no means
possessed." It is just the reverse ; it seems to have been precisely the want of clear ap-
prehension at the time which led John, without further thought upon the sense and bear-
ing of Christ's remarks, to seize upon the words, " In my name."
t As (though with another motive) in Acts, xix., 13.
ACTING IN THE NAME OF CHRIST. 289
way to a true acting in that name. He, therefore, reproved them ;
they should let this stand-point pass as a preparatory one : " Forbid
him not [for there is no man which can do a miracle in my name ichicli
can lightly speak evil oftne] ; for he that is not against you is for yoti.'"
The explanation (in brackets) is given by Mark, but not by Luke ; it
aids the interpretation of the latter clause, but does not exhaust its
meaning.
These words of Christ allow us to suppose that the man in question,
perhaps, only used His name by way of conjuration, and was far from
him in heart ; but they imply, also, that the veiy fact of his giving
credit to the Name for so great power might lead him to inquire who
and what Christ was, and to attach himself to him. His procedure,
also, might call the attention of others to Chiist's power, and bring
them nearer to his communion. Jesus here taught the disciples (and
the lesson was a most weighty one for their coming labours) that they
were not to requii'e a perfect faith and an immediate attachment to
their communion from men at once; that they were to recognize
preparatory and intermediate stages ; to drive back no one whose face
was turned in the right direction ; to hinder none who might wish to
confess or glorify Christ among men in any way ; in a word, to oppose
no one who, instead of offering himself, in this sense, to them, sought
the same end, and thus advanced the object of their ministry, even
though out of their own communion, and not seeking to glorify Christ
pi'ecisely in the same sense and by the same methods as themselves.
Comparing this saying of Christ with the other and opposite one, to
which we have before referred,* viz., "iJe that is not for me is against
me,'' we must, in order to harmonize them, seek the precise objects
which He had in view in the two cases. In the latter, an action was
treated of which seemed to agree perfectly with Christ in its results —
the expulsion of evil spirits — but yet not done in the Spirit of Christ at
all, but just the opposite; apparently done^or the kingdom of God,
but, in fact, against it ; outwardly like Christ's acts, but inwardly and
essentially antagonistic to them. In the former there was an act, again,
agreeing in result, and also in the mode, viz., by calling upon the name
of Christ ; not, it is true, entirely in the right way, but in a way
preparatory to the right one, and which might lead to it, if not dis-
turbed by an impatient zeal. In the former the outward coincidences
concealed an Inward and essential opposition, but in the latter an in-
ward affinity, which might possibly be ripened into full communion.
The common feature, therefore, of these two sayings is this: Every
thing depends upon the relation in which the outward act and its re-
sults stand to the spirit and the heart from which they proceed.
* Cf. p. 241.
T
290 JOURNEY TO NORTH GALILEE.
§191. The Stater i7i the Fish. (Matt., xvii., 27.)
Christ's previous visit to Capernaum probably took place at the time
set apart for collecting the Temple ti-ibute of half an ounce of silver,
i. e., the month Adar, corresponding nearly to our March. It is likely
that the great commotion which we have before described as occurring
just before his departure had prevented him at that time from paying
it. On his return, the collectors came to Peter, who was regarded as
the spokesman of the little society, and asked why his Master did not
pay the tribute. Christ and his disciples were known to perform all
duties arising from the natural relations of life faithfully;' but this
tribute belonged to the religious constitution, and implied a relation of
dependence upon the Theocracy ; and, as it became constantly more ev-
ident that he claimed to be the Messiah, they perhaps doubted whether
he would recognize its obligation. Peter, as we have seen, was at
that time full of the idea of Messiah, which he saw realized in Jesus ;
and he might, therefore, naturally conclude that the latter, as Head of
the Theocracy, was not subject to the tribute. But, on the other hand,
he had just heard from the lips of Jesus that his kingdom was not t<>
be an outward one, and that he should suffer before his dominion could
be seen ; and, in this view, he might be subject to the tax. With his
usual promptness, he answered the question in the affirmative, without
knowing where the tribute was to come from ; for, perhaps because as
they had just returned from a long journey, they were out of money.*
Christ decided to pay the tax, and showed Peter that the act formed
part of the self-abasement to which, conscious of his own dignity, he
submitted himself during his earthly life. He illustrated this by a com-
])arison dravioi from human relations. As kings do not tax their own
children, so the Messiah, the Son of G-od and Theocratic King, for
whose appearance the whole Temple discipline was but preparatory,
was not bound to pay this purely ecclesiastical tax ; his relations to
the Theocracy were against it. Had the Jews known him for what
he was, viz., the Messiah, they would not have asked him to pay it.t
But since they did not, he wished to afford them no occasion, even from
their own stand-point, to accuse him as a violator of the law. He
places himself on a footing with them, as to the duties devolving upon
* This account suits well to the historical coiinexiou in which it occurs, Matt., xvii., -li ;
but then wc cannot take the month Adar strictly. If this last cannot be allowed, we
must place the occurrence immediately after the feeding of the 5000 ; as the multitude
then wished to proclaim Jesus as Messiah, the collectors might well doubt of his payin;,'
the tax. We cannot think, with Wieselcr, that the tax was due to the Empire, for tlu;
whole import of the nan-ative turns upon its being a Temple tax, and not a political one.
+ Dc WcUc's remarks on the duty of obedience to magistrates, rcfciring to Rom., xiii., il,
are not applicable here ; the relation involved in this case was the Theocratic-political rela-
tion, which was to be abolished by Christ, with the whole fonn of that Theocracy.
PRECAUTIONS AGAINST THE SANHEDRIM. 291
Bubordinate members of the Theocracy. Nor did he work a miracle
to procure the tribute-money, but directed Peter to make use of the
means which his trade supplied. In a place where fishing was the
common trade of the people, it was not likely that the first fish cauoht
would be worth the whole sum needed ; but an unusual blessio"- of
Providence, as Christ well knew, attended the effort. The very first
fish caught was to supply the means ; a stater, which it had swallowed,
was found within it.
By his procedure in this case, Christ taught the Apostles that they
were not to claim all their rights, but to submit in all cases where re-
gard to the needs of others required it ; and, further, that they mitrht
look with confidence for the blessing of Ctod upon the means employed
by them to comply with such demands. It is worthy of note that this
lesson was given to Peter, in whose name a course of conduct precisely
opposed to that which it conveyed was often practiced in after ages.
CHAPTER XI.
CHRIST'S journey' TO JERUSALEM TO ATTEND THE FEAST OF TAB-
ERNACLES.
§ 192. His Precautions against the Persecutions of the Saukedrim.
(John, vii.)
FOR nearly eighteen months Christ had been employed in scatter-
ing the seed of the kingdom of God in Galilee, and in training
the Apostles for their calling. Durhig all this time he had kept away
from the metropolis, to which he had before been used to go at the
time of the three chief feasts.
The Feast of Tabernacles occurred during the month of October ;
and he determined to attend it, in oixler to confirm the faith of such as
had received Divine impressions from his former labours in Jerusalem,
and to avoid the imputation, likely otherwise to be cast on him, that he
feared to give public testimony to his Divine calling in presence of his
enemies and the Sanhedrim. It was his rule of conduct to avoid, by
prudent choice of time and place, all such dangers as were not neces-
sarily to be met in the course of duty ; he determined, therefore, to
appear suddenly in the city, after the body of visitors to the feast had
arrived, before the Sanhcdi'im could take measures to seize upon his
person.*
* John, vii., fi. The mention of this circumstance by John proves his veracity as an
eyewitness. A mereljttraditional or invented narrative would liave said nothing about it,
as tending to lower the estimate of Christ's divinity ainJ supernatural power.
^
292 JOURNEY TO JERUSALEM.
The minds of his own brothers Avere not fully made up as to his
cliaracter.* When they were about to set out for the feast, they could
not understand why he remained behind. They expressed their sur-
prise that he kept his ministry so concealed. If he wrought such great
woi'kst (they told him), he should not confine himself to such a corner
as Galilee, but should make his followers, gathered from different quar-
ters to the feast at Jerusalem, witnesses of his miracles, and accredit
himself as Messiah publicly, before the assembled nation. Imbued
with such sentiments, and incapable of apprehending tlie reasons of
Christ's conduct, they did not deserve his confidence, and needed to be
made conscious that they did not. He, therefore, only told them that his
relations to the world were different from theirs ; that his movements
were not to be judged by theirs ; that his motives must be unknown to
them, as tkci/ were engaged in no struggle with the world, and had no-
thing to fear at Jerusalem. He did not say, however, but that there
would be, subsequently, a proper time for himself to go : " Mi/ time is
not yet come to show myself publicly at Jerusalem ; but you need not
wait to choose the favourable moment, for your time is always ready :
you have nothing to fear; t/tc world cannot hate you, for it looks upon
you as its own ; but me it hateth, because I testify of it that the works
thereof are evil. Go ye up unto this feast ; I go not yet up, because my
time is not yet full come."
He afterward set out unnoticed, and arrived at Jerusalem about the
middle of the eight-days' feast. Great anxiety for his arrival had been
felt, and the most opposite opinions had been expressed concerning
him. We need not be surprised to find the charge of Sabbath-break-
ing still fi-esh, though eighteen months had elapsed ; for this was al-
ways the favourite starting-point of the Pharisees in their accusations
against him, both in the city and through their agents in Galilee.
§ 193. He explaifis the Nature of his Doctrine as Divine Revelation
(John, vii., 16-19.)
Anew the power of Christ's words over the hearts of the people
displayed itself. Even those who were prepossessed against him had
to wonder that one who had not been taught in the schools of the
scribes could thus expound the Scriptures ; yet they could not, from
the force of prejudice, admit that his knowledge was derived from any
higher source. Their conclusion was soon made u^ that nothing could
be true that had not been learned in the schools ; and that one not edu-
cated in them had no right to set up for a teacher. In view of this,
Christ said publicly, in the Temple, " Wonder not that I, all uneduca-
* Cf. p. 244.
t Little as .Tolin relates of Clirist's liibrmv.s in Galilee, ho implies thein iu vii., 3, 4. Tl.is
passage obviously alludes to a chasm tilled up bj- the other Evangelists.
ATTEMPTS OF THE PHARISEES. 293
ted in your schools, appear to teach you ; my teaching is not mine, hut
his that sent me ; not invented by me as a man, but revealed by God.
liut for your lack of the right will, you might be convinced of this.*
Whoever in heart desires to do the will of God, will, by means of that
disposition, be able to decide whether my teaching is Divine or human.
Such a one may see that no human self-will is mixed up with my la-
bours, but that in them all I seek only to glorify Him that sent me.
But (v. 19) that ye lack the spirit essential to this, is shown by your
deeds ; pretending to zeal for the Mosaic law, and using that pretence
to persecute one who seeks only to honour God, you care not, in real-
ity, to keep that law."
It astonished the people to find that Jesus could testify thus openly
against his opponents, and yet no hand be laid upon him ; and they
asked, " Can it be possible that the membei's of the Sanhedrim know
this man to be the Messiah?" (v. 26). But they continued, still held
in the prejudice and bondage of sense, " How can it be so, when we
know him to be the son of the Nazarene carpenter 1 while the Messiah'
is to reveal himself suddenly in all his glory, so that all must acknowl-
edge him" (v. 27). To expose the vanity of these expressions, Christ
said, " It is true, ye both know me, and ye hnoio whence I am ; and yet
ye know not; for ye know not the heavenly Father who hath sent
me, and therefore ye cannot know rae." Thus does he ever return to
the principle that " only those who know God, and belong to him in
heart (^. c., who I'eally endeavour to do his will), can be in a condition
to recognize the Son of God in his self-manifestation, and to acknowl-
edge that he is from heaven. Those who are estranged from God
and slaves to sense, think they know him, but in fact do not."
§ 194. The Pharisees attempt to arrest Christ. — He warns them that
they should seek Him, but should not find Hun. (John, vii., 30, seq.) ''•
The increasing influence of Christ's words and works naturally ex-
* John, vii., 17. With Schott and Liccke, I deviate from the old exegesis which refers
tliis passage to the testimony of inward experience, the testimonium Spirilus Sancii.
Not the will of God, as revealed by Christ, was the aim of discourse here, but the will ot
God, as far as the Pharisees themselves might have known it ; so that, " to do the will of
God"="to make the glory of God the object of one's actions," as opposed to "following
one's own will, and seeking one's own honour." When Christ had to do with such as did
not fully believe, but were on the way to faith, he could say, " Try only to follow the draw-
ing within you, to submit to my teaching and practice it, and all your doubts will be
practically solved. Your hearts will feel the Divine power of my teaching, and this ex-
perience will remove the difficulties from which j-ou cannot free yourselves." But the
persons to whom he was speaking in this instance were far removed from faith ; and to
such he had to point out objective tests by which they might judge of the Divinity of his
mission ; but, as they were destitute of the dispositions requisite to apply these tests
properly, he had to show them distinctly that they lacked the will to be convinced, the ear-
nest of which is obedience to the will of God. He was justified in making this demand
for a proper disposition universal, as without it all argument and proof must be in vain.
294 CHRIST AT JERUSALEM.
cited the fears and jealousy of the heads of the Pharisaical party ;
their domination was in danger from a spiritual power directly op-
]iosed to their spirit and statutes. He had so often, both in Jerusalem
and Galilee, overcome their machinations by the power of truth, and
frustrated their charges of heresy by his words and works, that no
course was left but to withdraw him from his sphere of labour by ac-
tual force.
They sought, therefore, to lay hold of his person ; but Christ, per-
ceiving their plans, declared in words of prophetic warning, " Yet a
Jittle ivhilc I am with you, and then will I go back unto him that sent
me. Ye shall seek vie, and shall not find, me ; and toherc I am, thither
ye cannot comey He thus warned the Jews, that if they did not use
the time that was rapidly passing, they would not be able to escape the
distress that was to come upon them by their own fault. In that time
of trouble they would long the more earnestly for the Deliverer and
Messiah — whom they might have known — but in vain ; they could
then find no Redeemer, nor obtain the fellowship of Him who would
have been raised into heaven. The Jews maliciously interpreted this
<lark saying to mean that he intended to go forth as a teacher of the
heathen (v, 35) ; a point worthy of note, from the inference it allows,
that their anxiety to make him a heretic was founded upon a dawning
presentiment that hia teaching was destined to be a universal one.
§ 195. Christ a Spring of Living Water, and the Light of the World.
(John, vii., 38, seq.) — The Validity of His Testimony of Himself
(John, viii., 13, seq.) — Heforetels the subsequent Relations of the Jews
to Hiffi. (John, viii., 21.)
It was the last chief feast of the last year of Christ's labours uptm
earth ; and he could not let it pass without, at its conclusion, giving a
•. special message to the multitudes who were soon to be scattered
through the country, and many of whom would never see him more.
Under various figures he represented himself to them as the source of
true riches and unfailing contentment, and thus stimulated their long-
ing for him.
Thus did he cry out to the congregation in the Temple (probably
alluding to the ceremony in which the priests, in great pomp, brought
water from the spring of Siloa to the altar), " Here is the true spring
of living water; if any man thirst, let him come unto 7ne and drinh.
Whosoever believeth on me, his inward life shall become a well-spring,
whence shall flow streams of living water."* And in another figure
* These words were not uttered by Christ as a prediction, but as a declaration of the
power of faith in developing the Divine life. But as it was not fidly realized until the
outpouring of the Holy Ghost, that stream of living water which flows without ccasini;
through the communion of believers in all ages. John justly aijjilied them to this (v. 39), as
illustrated in the progress of the Church before his eyes when he wrote.
THE WITxNESS OF CHRIST. 295
(viii., 12) he declared that he was to be in the spiritual world what the
sun is in the material. " I am the light of the world ; he that followcth
•me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light wliich beams
forth from life and leads to life."*
The Pharisees objected (viii., 13) that Christ s testimo7iy was worth-
less, because it was given of himself Christ, in reply, admitted that
self-witness is not generally valid, but declared that in his case it was,
because he testified of himself with the confidence and clearness of a
consciousness founded in Divinity. " ThougJi 1 bear ivitness of my-
self my testimony is true j for I know whence I came and whither I go'"
(a higher self-consciousness, transcending, in its confidence, aJl doubt
and self-deception ; tha eternal Light beaming through the human con-
sciousness). Judging merely by outward appeai-ance, and incapable
of apprehending the Divine in him, they were deceived (v. 15). But
his testimony and judgment were true, because not given by himself
as a man of himself, but by him ivith the Father (v. 19). Thus there
were two witnesses : his own subjective testimony, infallible because
of his communion with the Father; and the objective testimony of the
Father himself, given in his manifestation and ministry as a whole.
But these carnal-minded men, unsusceptible for this spiritual revela-
tion of the Father in the manifestation and works of his son, still
asked, " Where is this witness % let us hear the Father's voice, and
behold his appearance." He showed them, in turn, that the knowledge
of Him and of the Father were interdependent; that they could not
know him as he was, because they knew not the Father ; and that
they could not know the Father, because they knew not the Son in
Avhom he revealed himself.
Again, with reference to the continued persecutions of the Sanhe-
drim, Christ repeated the saying, " I go, and you loill seek me ;" add-
ing, also, the reason why they should seek in vain (v. 21), " Because
ye will not believe in the Redeemer, but die in your sins, and there-
fore be excluded from heaven ;" because (as he himself explained it, v.
23) there was an impassable gulf between those that belong to this
world and Him who did not. But the prophetic words in v. 28 were
not spoken with reference to these, but to others : *' When ye have lifted
* Cf. these words, " the light of life, the light u-hich give.th life,'' with " Ihe bread of life,"
p. 266. The "light" precedes ; as Christ enliyhtens the darkened world, and thus leads it
from death unto life. He appears first to the dark soul as the erdighteuing teacher of trath.
in order to raise it to cominuniou with liiuiself, and so to partake of the Divine Hfe. The
relation of "light" and "life" is not outward and indirect, but inward and direct. The
light and the life arc from the same Giver; sometimes the one is made more prominent,
sometimes the other, according to the bearings iu wliich he is spoken of; the life as light
(John, i., 4), or the light of lifo.
296 CHRIST AT JERUSALEM.
■up the Son of JSIan, then shall ye know that I am He, and that I do no-
thing of myself ; but as viy Father hath taught me, I speak these tilings.'^
This was spoken of such as then mistook the Son of Man in his human
appearance (who might have fallen into the pardonahle sin of blas-
phemy against the Son of Man, Matt., xii., 32), but who, still possess-
ing a dormant susceptibility kept down by prejudice, would be led to
believe, by the invisible workings of his Divine Spirit, when they should
see that work which was believed to be suppressed by his death,
spreading abroad with irresistible power.
§ 196. The Connexion between Steadfastness, Truth, and Freedom.
(John, viii., 30-32.) Freedom and Servitude ; their typleal Clean-
ing (3.3-38).
The Divine superiority with which Christ silenced his opponents
completed the impressions of his previous ministry in the minds of
many of the people : " As he spake these words, many believed on him.'"
But he did not suffer himself to be carried away by the enthusiasm of
the multitude. He says that many of them lacked true, spiritual faith,
and knew that they would easily be turned aside, if he should not, as
Messiah, satisfy their expectations. In order, therefore, to point out
the requisites of true discipleship, and to show what they might, and
what they might not, expect of him, he said (v. 31, 32), "Only by
holding fast my doctrine can ye be my disciples indeed ; and then only
(when you shall have incorporated the truth with your life) will you
know the truth (the knowledge, therefore, springing from the life), and
the power of the truth, thus rightly known, shall make you partakers
of true freedom."
Judas of Gamala and the Zelotists had incited the people to expect
in Messiah a deliverer from the temporal yoke of the Romans. In the
words above cited, Christ contrasted his own aims with such as these.
Those who were inclined to look upon him as a temporal Messiah
were to be taught that the true freedom, without which there can be
no other, is inward and spiritual ; and that this alone was the freedom
which he had come to bestow, a liberty not to be communicated from
witho4it, but to spring up from within, through the interpenetration of
His truth with the practical life. The fact that his words were per-
verted or misunderstood (v. 33), even if not by those who had attach-
ed themselves to him with some degree of susceptibility, gave him
occasion to develope their import still further.
The same 2>crsons who were wont to sigh under the Roman yoke as
a disgraceful servitude, now felt their Theocratic pride offended be-
cause Christ described them as " servants, who had to be made free,"
a disgrace for descendants of Abraham (v. 33). In view of this pride
ATTEMPTS OF THE SANHEDRIM. 297
of the Theocratic people, and the carnal confidence which they indulg-
ed in their outward dignity, a dignity unaccompanied by jiroper dis-
positions, Jesus said, " Whosoever committeih sin is the servant of sin.
The servant abidcth not in the house forever ; he may be expelled for
his faults ; but the 8on of the house abideth in it ever. And the iion
of the house may obtain liberty for the servant, and make him a free
member of the household. Think not, therefore, that ye have an inalien-
able claim to the kingdom of God ; you may, for your unfaithfulness,
like disobedient servants, be excluded from it. Only when the Son of
God, who guides the Theocracy in the name of the Father, shall make
you free, will you be free indeed ; no more as servants of the kingdom
of God, but as free members thereof, as children."
They boasted without reason, he told them, of being Abraham's
children. By attempting the life of one who was offering them the
truth, and thus acting as enemies to the truth, they showed themselves
children of Satan* rather than of Abraham ; their disposition and
actions savoured more of the Father of lies than the Father of the
faithful (v. 37-44). The cause of their unbelief, therefore, was pre-
cisely this, that their disposition of heart was the reverse of Abra-
ham's. Him, whom Abraham longed for, they sought to destroy. He
employed thus the misunderstanding of the Jews to bring anew before
them the idea of Messiah as Son of God in the higher sense, an idea
always a stumbling-blockt to those who entertained carna^^ conceptions
of Messiah. This excited their rage anew, and drew upon him the
accusation of blasphemy.|
§ 197. Vain Attempts of the Sanhedrim against Christ. (John, vii., 40-
53.) — Dispute in the Sanhedrim. — First Decision against Christ,
Christ continued his labours in Jerusalem for a time after the close
of the feast. The Sanhedrim gradually assumed a more hostile atti-
tude, and would have taken violent measures at once, had not a divis-
ion ensued between the fanatical zealots who held that any means
were justifiable, and those who, with various degrees of hostility, were
more moderate in their opinions and feelings. Even during the con-
tinuance of the feast they had sought to seize his person, but part of
* Cf. p. 148. t Cf. p. 2G6.
I As interpreters have often remarked on Jobn, viii., 57, the expression of the Jews was
not inconsistent with the fact of Christ's being just thirly years old. " Thou art not yet
fjly, and hast thou seen Abraham, who hved so many centuries ago 1" (Christ was at the
beginning of the middle period of hfe, ending vr\th ffty, in which year tlie Levites were
freed from the regular service of the Temple, Numb., iv., 3 ; viii., 26.) Nothing but wilfulness
could lead IVcisse and Gforer to conclude, in contradiction to all the accounts and to intemal
probability, that Jesus was much older tlian is generally supposed when he entered on his
public ministry. On the tradition that Jesus was nearly fifty, which arose from a misun-
derstanding of these words, cf my Geschichle den Apostol. Zeitallers, 3d. ed., vol. ii., p. 539.
298 ' CHRIST IN JERUSALEM.
the multitude were on his side ; and even the officers of the Sanhe-
drim that were sent to take him, unable to resist the impression of his
appearance and words, returned with the exclamation, " Neve?' man
spake like this jnanJ"
The dominant party sought to secure the immediate condemnation
of Jesus as a violator of the law and a blasphemer ; but there were
others who felt the power of his words and works more than they
openly confessed; as, for instance, Nicodemus, who said, "Doth our
hnv judge any man before it hear him V This had to be admitted even
by the rest ; but, as is usual in such cases, the more moderate party
incurred the suspicion of the zealots. And when the latter found that
they could not succeed in condemning Christ personally, they proposed,
to lessen his influence at least in some degree, that every one who
acknowledged him as Messiah should be excommunicated. In this
they ^presupposed that the Sanhedrim was the highest legislative and
executive authority in religious affaire ; and that no recognition but
its own, of any Divine calling, and especially of the highest, the Mes-
siahship, would be valid. The result was, that, although no decisive
judgment was pronounced against the person of Christ, it was madu
punishable for any one to recognize him apart from the authority of
the Sanhedrim. This, then, was the first decree pronounced against
Christ. (John, ix., 22.)
§ 19S. A man, horn Blind, healed on the Sahhath. — Christ''s Conversa-
tion at the Time. — Individual Sufferings not to he judged as PunisJi-
mentfor Sins. — Christ the Light of the World. (John, ix.)
If the charge of heresy brought against Christ, on account of the
pretended violation of the Sabbath, produced such striking results, he
gave a new stimulus to the rage, and, at the same time, to the jealousy,
of the hierarchical party, by a miraculous cure performed on the Sab-
bath.
As the disciples were leaving the Temple with their Master, his at-
tention was drawn, in passing, to a beggar who had been blind from
his birth. Their first thought, suggested by their contracted Jewish
ideas of the government of God,* was, how far the necessary connexion
between sin and evil might be supposed in the case: '■'Master, n'liodid
sin, this man or his parents, tJiat he was horn hlindV An untenable
theory drove them to this dilemma ; even if, as it is hardly to be sup-
posed that the pre-existcnce of souls was presupposed by the questioner,
be either had no definite idea in refemng to " this man," or did not
know certainly at the time that he was bom blind. Christ, not admit-
tin" such a precise connexion between special sins and special evils, re
" Cf. p. 143, 144.
CURE OF THE BLIND MAN. 299
plied, at first, concisely, '■'Neither hath this man sinned, nor his i)arents;*
hut that the tvorks of God should be made manifest in him ;''^ that his
suffering's might seem the higher objects of God's love both to himself
and others, and God's works of saving power and mercy be displayed
in him. And for himself, apart from others, the cure of his physical
blindness was to lead to that of his spiritual darkness ; and then his
experience was to become, also, the means of saving others. Passing
over directly to the remark that through himsef the works of God
were revealed, Christ said, "I must work the loorks of him that sent me
while it is day ;\ the night cometh, when the work of the day cannot be
done.| As long as 1 am in the icorld, I am tlie light of the toorldy^
The cure for which he thus prepared them was probably gradual
(as in the case mentioned p. 270) ; the patient, perhaps, began to see
when Christ anointed his eyes, and, after bathing in Siloam,|| was com-
pletely healed.^
* An apoci";v-pbal writer would have made Christ contradict this view more fully.
t The day, the time for lahoxir ; its fleeting hours must be improved. "I cannot let the
opportunity pass without doing what I only upon earth can do. My stay here will soon
end. Nothing, therefore, must hinder me from that which I (as the shining Sun) have now
to work upon the earth."
% The day = the time allotted to Christ's ministry on eartb ; the night, therefore, = the
Ulipraaching end of his earthly labours.
^ So long as Christ remained on earth, he must remain, according to his nature, the Sun
of the world ; so long, therefore, he must shed light around him, dispense bodily and spir-
itual blessings ; no opportunity of doing this must pass. The cure of this blind man, bodily
and spiritually, was part of his work as " light of the world." Not, indeed, that he has
ever ceased to be " the light of the world ;" but his personal and visible manifestation was
here in question; the Sun of the world, visible upon the earth itself
II Would any one have invented this, which tends to diminish, instead of magnifying tlu-
miracle ? " But it was invented for the sake of the mystical allusion to Siloam." 'Were
this so, a longer explanation than the sentence, '■ which is, hy interpret nt ion, 'sent' " (v. 7),
would have been given. If & tpunvsvtTai ar,taTa\fikvoi is genuine, and a mystical meaning
is assumed, it is needless to insist strictly upon gi-ammatical accuracy in the translator,
especially as the word HI 7^ It*, sending out, could be applied by metonymy to one of th('
canals from the spring of Siloam; and the form HjK/ (Neb., iii., 15) comes, in fact, near
to this translation. As has been said, a later writer, intending to give a mystical inter-
pretation, would have coloured it more deeply. But, on the other hajid, if we do not arbi-
trarilj" assume that the operations of the Holy Ghost rudely tore asunder peculiarities that
were rooted in the culture of the people and the times, we may readily imagine that John,
who eagerly caught at all allusions to the object of his love, would be inclined to find a
mystical and higher meaning in the .sending of the blind man to wash in the pool, and
that the more, because the act in itself was comparatively unimportant ; and that he thus
made Siloam the symbol of the heavenly uiro'aroXof, by whom the diseased man was to bw
healed.
^ John's omission to mention expressly that the cure was gradual does not militate
against our view. If it were not gradual, we should have to supply some other points
omitted by the narrative, e.g., that some one led the blind man to the pool, or, that he was
so accustomed to the way as to need no guidance. Such omissions as this are no proof that
the account was not due to an eye-witness ; especially as, on the theory that the account
was an invention, it would be impossible to account satisfactorily for the mention of the
subsidiarj' features at all. In all the rest of the narrative — the conduct of the blind man
•aid of the Pharisees— the stamp of eye-witness is indubitable; and the want of minut«
300 CHRIST IN JERUSALEM.
§ 199. Attempts of the Sanhedr'un to corriqit and alarm the restored
Blind Mail. — Christ's Conversation with him. — The Sight of' the
Blind, and the Blindjiess of the Seeing.
A great sensation must have ensued among the multitude at sight of
a man so well known as the blind beggar walking about completely
restored. John gives a graphic description (ch. ix) of the arts em-
ployed by the Sanhedrim to deny or explain away a fact which so
publicly testified to the power of Christ. Their craft was used in vain.
Nothing could be extorted from the lips of the man or of his parents
to further their designs. The beggar's incorruptible love of truth was
shown in his indignation at their attempts to explain away his own
experience and force him to a lie. Their spiritual arrogance was
wounded by his firmness, and their rage soon turned against himself.
His heart was prepared by this conflict with the foes of Christ to
receive from the latter a revelation of his character. This was given
(v. 35-37) probably at some public place where Jesus found him ;
and since he was already convinced that the man who had cured him
was endowed with Divine power, he could the more readily recognize
him as Messiah, when announced by himself as such.
The conduct of this poor man on the one hand, and the Pharisees
on the other, represented the tendencies of two opposite classes of
mankind ; and Christ set this opposition forth vividly thus : " For
judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not might see ;
and that they ivhich see might he made blind." The sjiiritual was here
figured by the corporeal ; the blind man had been made to see, while
the Pharisees, who would not see the fact before them, became blind
with their eyes open. The same thing occurred in a spiritual sense ;
the beggar, sjiiritually blinded by involuntary ignorance, but conscious
of it, humbly accepted the spiritual light that was offei'ed him, and be-
came a seeing man. The Pharisees, on tlie other hand, had knowl-
edge enough, but would not use it ; and, in their pride of knowledge,
shutting out the Divine light, they became more culpably blind.
And this judgment avails for all ages. Wherever the Spirit of Christ
operates among men, the blind are made to see, the seeing become
blind. The work of Christ, in enlightening and blessing mankind, can
not be accomplished without this "sifting;" it flows necessarily from
the opposite moral tendencies of men. The grace and the condemna-
tion go hand in hand; the offer of the one involves the infliction of the
other.
The Pharisees who stood around knew well that these words were
directed against themselves, and asked him, in offended pride, " Are
ness in the detail of tiic fiict itself was i)robably caused by the narrator's hastening from
the miracle itself to that in which he was most interested, viz., its result.
PARABLE OF THE GOOD SHEPHERD. 301
we, then, hlincl also ?" Christ bad not said that they were blind, but
that they loould become so by their own guilt ; and he replied : " If
ye were blind, ye should have no sin ; but now ye say, we see ; therefore
your sin remainethy (Ignorance would have excused them, as in the
case of the sin against the Son of Man. But their boast of knowledcfe
was a witness against themseKes. Able to see, but not willing, their
blindness was their guilt.)
§ 200. Parable of the Good Shepherd. — The Parable extended. — Christ
the Door. — Intimation of Mercy to the Heathen. (John, x.)
Christ proceeded to characterize the Pharisees, with just severity, as
false guides of the people ; doubtless having in view at the time the
conduct of the tyrannical hierarchs towards the poor blind man, and
his bearing, in turn, towards them. He first describes himself, in con-
trast with the Pharisees, as the genuine and divinely-called leader of
the people. The blind man whom he had healed was the representa-
tive of all such oppressed souls as were repelled by the selfish judges,
and drawn to Christ. It may have been the case (although the sup-
position is not necessary) that the sight of a flock of sheep at hand
suggested the parabolic* illustration that he employed.
The thief who leaps over the wall, instead of entering the fbld by
the door, represents those who become teachei's and guides of the peo-
ple of their own mere will. The Shepherd, entering in at the door,
represents Christ, who offers himself, divinely called, to guide seeking
souls to the kingdom of God. His voice harmonizes with the Divine
drawing within them ; they know it, and admit him ; he knows them
all, and all their wants. He goes before them, and leads the way to
the pasture where their w"ants can be satisfied. But the voice of the
selfish leaders is strange to them, and they flee with repugnance ;
knowing well that such guides have other aims than the salvation of
the souls of those that hear them.
To present the thought still more strikinglj', he extended the figure,
adding several new traits.t The first outline of the parable simply
contrasted a lawful with an unlawful entering into the fold ; in the ex-
tended form of it, the door assumes a new significance. He himself is
not only the good shepherd, but also the door of the fold, inasmuch as
through him alone can longing souls find entrance into the kingdom of
God. This very fact, that he is at once both shepherd and door, dis-
tinguishes him from all other shepherds ; it is the peculiar feature of
Christ's teaching, as distinct from all teachers, that he is himself the
revealer, and all his revelations refer back to himself; he can point
* Cf., on the parables of Jolin, p. 111.
t Examples of the same mode of extending a parable are to be found iu the Synoptical
Gospels.
302 CHRIST RETURNS TO GALILEE.
out no other duor to the kingdom but himself. He represents himself
as the door both for the sheep and the shepherds ; the latter more prom-
inently here. In the simple outline of the parable he had contrasted
himself, as shepherd, with the thieves ; he now further contrasts otlicr
shepherds with the thieves. All who sought to gather followers and
form parties in the Theocratic community, and, instead of turning men's
hearts to Messiah, turned them rather to themselves, were thieves and
robbers ; but such could find no access to hearts really seeking salva-
tion. But those shepherds that enter in by him as the door have no-
thing to fear ; they can go in and out, and find pasture for the sheep.
The true teacher who leads souls to Christ will not only be saved him-
self, but will be able to satisfy the wants of the souls intrusted to his
care.
In this form of the parable Christ contrasts himself (as the shepherd
who alone seeks the welfare of the sheep) not only with the thieves,
but also with the hirelings. These two classes corresponded to two dif-
ferent classes of Pharisees, viz., those who sacrificed the welfare of
the people to their wholly selfish aims ; and those who, with better
jfeelings, had not love enough, and therefore not courage enough, to risk
every thing for the good of souls. The latter, afraid of the jiower of
the former, gave the poor people up to the power of the Evil One (the:
wolf, V. 12), to scatter and divide. Standing between Christ and the
Sanhedrim, this party, with all their good intentions, had neither the
steadiness of purpose nor the self-sacrificing love which were needed
in such a position. In contrast with such, Christ declares, " / am tin-
good shepherd, and hnotv viy sheep, and am knoivn of mine (thus beto-
kening the inward sympathy between himself and those that belonged
to him by the Divine drawing vvitliin them), and I lay down my life
for the shcej).^'' ,
With this view of his coming self-sacrifice for the salvation of men
before him, his eye glances forward to the greater developement of his
work that was to follow that sacrifice, and there he sees " other sheep,
not of this foW — souls ready for the kingdom among other nations,
who were also to have their place before its consummation : " Them,
also, I must bring, and they shall hear my voice ; and there shall he one
fold and one shepherd.''^
§ 201. Divisions among the People. — Christ's return into Galilee.
The worldly-minded and fanatical portion of the people were inca-
pable of understanding these words of Christ ; instead of inspiration
they saw nothing but extravagance. But others were irresistibly at-
tracted ; words, such as no other could utter, seemed to them in perfect
harmony with works, such as no other could do. New divisions arose,
CAPERNAU3I. 303
and the power of the Sanhedrim, of course, was upon the side of
Christ's enemies.
The life of Jesus was more and more endangered every day at Je-
rusalem, and his ministry more and more disturbed. He, therefore,
withdrew from the meti'opolis and returned to Capernaum, now, in-
deed, for the last time*
CHxlPTER XIl.
CHRIST^S RETURN FROM CAPERNAUM TO JERUSALEM THROUGH
SAMARIA.
§ 202. Reasons for the Journey through Samaria. (Luke, ix., 51, seq.)
AFTER a short abode at Capernaum Christ determined to take a
final leave of that place, so long the centre of his labours. He
* From the statements of John, taken alone, we should mfer that Christ did not leave
the city immediately after the Feast of Tabernacles, but remained until that of the Dedi-
cation. It is true that John does not expressly say (x., 22) that he remained, which devi-
ation from the ordinary rule we might expect him to have mentioned ; but this omission
can be explained more readily than the omission of the journey back to Galilee. More-
over, it would be easier to trace the connexion of the history by supposing- the previous
jomniey to have been the last, than by admitting the one adopted in oar text (chap. xi.).
The course of prepai-ation for his death to which he subjected his disciples (as already re-
lated) would suit much better to this hypothesis, as taking place just before the last jonr-
ney than before the next to the last.
Thus far we agree with B. Jacohi (Dissertation on the Chronology of the Life of Jesus,
before cited). But we learn from Luke, ix., 51, that Jesus made his last journey through
Samaria ; that he travelled slowly, in order to scatter the seeds of the kingdom in the
towns and villages as he passed, and to make wholesome impressions upon the people.
Against John's testimon)/ such an authority as this woald not avail ; and it may be admitted,
too, that the accounts of tii-o journeys are blended together in it, with other foreign matter;
Cf. Luke, xiii., 22 ; xvii., 11, in which passages a beginning is made towards accounts of
ttro journeys, though thej', perhaps, refer to the same one. But it is clear, in any case,
that many things recited here must belong to a last journey; for instance, xiii., 31-33.
Now it cannot be for a moment supposed that this journey, so described, was the one that
Christ took in order to attend the Feast of Tabernacles (Jolm, viii., 2, seq.) ; for John tells
us that in that case he remained behind the rest, and, avoiding all publicity, came into the
city unexpectedly after the feast had gone on for some days ; all utterly in conflict with
Lake's account of the journey through Samaria. Nor is it internally probable that Christ
would have remained in the city after the feast at a time when his labours must have suf-
fered so many hindrances from the persecutions of the Pharisees ; the last period of his
stay on earth was to be more actively employed. Nor does this view of the case contra-
dict John's statements ; it only presupposes a blank necessary to be filled.
W'"e have tlius drawn attention to the arguments advanced on both sides ; not intending,
however, to preclude further inquii-y of our own. Cannot John's statement, that Jesus
went up to the feast " not openly, but, as it were, in, secret" (vii., 10), be explained by sup-
posing that he did not take the usual caravan road, nor journey with a caravan, but took
an unusual route through Samaria, a province that held no connexion whatever with
Judea? May not his late arrival at Jerusalem, in the middle of the feast, be explained on
the ground that he intentionally took the longer route ? Admitting this, it will be easy
(as Krabhe and Wiesclcr allow) to reconcile John's account with Lukes.
304 RETURN THROUGH S ARMARIA.
wished to visit Jerusalem asrain at the Feast of the Dedication, which
occuiTed towards the end of December. Many had believed on him
during his last stay in the city, and he had been compelled to leave
them to the arts of the hierarchy ; it was now necessary to strengthen
and confirm their faith by his personal presence. He chose to make
this journey by way of Samaria, rather than through Peraea, in order
to scatter the seed of truth as widely as possible among the towns and
villages on the road, A longer time than ordinary was, therefore, re-
quired for the journey ; and he left Capernaum sooner than was abso-
lutely necessary had he intended to go directly to Jerusalem.'
§ 203. CJioice of the Seventy. (Luke, x.) — Import of the Numhcr
" Seventy.'^
The prospect of the spread of the Gospel among all nations, after
his own sufferings should have prepared its way, lay before him as he
left Capernaum never to return ; and he said to his disciples, in view
of so vast a work, in which, as yet, there were so few labourers, "T//e
harvest, truly, is great, but the labourers are few ; pray ye, therefore, the
Lord of the harvest that he would send forth labourers into his harvest ^^
He then chose a number of his followers as his special and devoted or-
gans for proclaiming the kingdom, and sent them before to announce
and explain his coming, and prepare the minds of the people, that the
short time of his visits among them might be more successfully em-
ployed.
Some definite number of disciples had to be selected, and he chose
{as in the selection of the Twelve, p. 116) a number at that time in
common currency. The round number seventy may have had general
reference either to the seventy elders, or to the seventy members of
the Great Sanhedrim ; or it may have had special reference to the
opinion prevalent among the Jewish theologians that there were sev-
enty languages and nations upon the face of the earth. If this last
were tlie case, it was an instance oi formal accommodation. Without
confirming this opinion, Christ might have employed seventy to indi-
cate symbolically that his organs were not to reach the Jewish people
only, but all the nations of the earth.*
* TIfe fact that Luke alone mentions tlie cliuicc of the Seventy is no reason for question-
ing the accoant. We attach no importance to the narratives in re^'^anl to the Seventy
current in the first centuries (as in the account (mixed up witli legends) of the conversion
of King Abgarus, written in Syriac, and kept in the archives at Edcssa (Eus., Eccl. Hist.,
i., 13) ; and in the fifth book of the Hypotyposes of Clement of Alexandria (Eus., i., I'J),
which also contains evident falsehoods) as confiniiatory of Luke's statement. But its
perfect aptness in the historical connexion, and the entire and characteristic coherency of
every thing spoken by Christ, according to Luke, with the circumstances (so superior to the
collocation in Matthew), strengthen the argument in its favour. How appropriate is the
language of Luke, x., 2, in view of the approaching new developement of the kingdom of
God ; whereas in Matthew (ix., 37, 38) the same words are comiccted with the account
INSTRUCTIONS TO THE SEVENTY. 305
§ 204. Instructions to the Seventy on their Mission. (Luke, x.) The
Wo to the Unbelieving Cities.
The Spirit of Cln-ist, and of the communion which he founded and
mspired, demanded that his organs should not labour as isolated instru-
ments, but in union with each other, reciprocally assisting each other;
just as he promised, " Where tivo or three are gathered together in my
name, there am I in the midst of thcm.'^ Therefore, in sending out his
disciples in various directions before him, he sent them not singly, but
two and two.
The instructions given to them were similar to those which he had
previously impressed upon the Twelve;* but, as the opposition of the
Pharisees had greatly increased in violence, he foretold that they would
meet with many enemies : " I send you forth as lambs among wolves''
This may either imply that they were to go forth defenceless among
the most fierce and cruel foes ; or because the Pharisees, as selfish
leaders who sacrificed the welfare of their flocks, were loolves in sheep's
clothing, the disciples were contrasted with them as lambs in innocence
r-i heart and gentleness. Or both thoughts together may have been in-
tended. But unfavourable as was the field of their labour, he bade
them take no uneasy care for the future, and to trust confidently that
all their wants would be supplied. They were told, as the Apostles
had been (ix., 3), to "carry neither purse, nor scrip, nor shoes ;" but
with the view, in addition to the trust in Providence, which the rule
implied in both cases, to expedite their journey, as its immediate ob-
jects required haste : [" Salute no man by the way."]
of the preaching in Galilee and the choice of the Twelve Apostles. So, in Matt., x., the
continuation of Christ's discourse to the Seventy (as given in Luke, x.) is connected with
the Tiiyelve. with many passages that must have been addressed to the Apostles at a later
and more hostile'period. In Luke, the instmctions to the Seventy are distinguished from
those to the Twelve in this, that the former contain allusions to the difficulties in which
the missionaries would be involved ; but no definite references to the subsequent mission
of the disciples to the heathen. The rebukes of Chorazim, Capernaum, etc., suit exactly
to the time when Christ was taking his final leave of the neighbourhood which had been
the centre of his labours, and so Luke assigns them ; but in Matt., xi., tbey are given in
connexion with the reply to John Baptist's messengers.
It is clear that Christ called upon otJiers than the Twelve to join themselves closely to
him ; and we find that, after he left the earth, others did. belong to the nan-ower circle of
the disciples. All this indicates that such a circle was formed by liiniBelf ; for the ivhole num-
ber of disciples must have amounted not only to 120 (Acts, i., 15), but to 500 (1 Cor., xv., 6).
But it may be said [as it has been] that this story of the definite number seventy was
invented at a later period. Even if this were so, it would not discredit Luke's statemcTit,
so precisely fitting to the history, of the way in which the circle was foi-med. But there
is no reason to doubt that Christ, who was accustomed to adopt and use existing forms,
should not have appropriated such a ozie as this in forming the second narrower circle of
disciples.
* That is, indeed, an aiTogaiit and presumptuous criticism which decides that the whole
account of the mission of the Seventy is a mere imitation of that of the Twelve, simply
because the two sets of instructions are not accurately distinguished from each other
u
306 RETURN THROUGH SAMARIA.
After declaring to them (v. 5-12) that the destiny of the towns into
which they entered would be fixed by the reception they gave to tlie
preaching of the kingdom of God, Christ pronounced a wo upon tho.-o
towns of Galilee* which had been so greatly favoured by his labours,
and had (the little flock of believers excepted) given them so unworthy
a reception. " Had such miraclest been wrought in Tyre and Sidnn,
they had a long while ago repented. And thou, Capernaum, which
art exalted to heaven, shalt be cast down to Hades."J The higher one
may rise by rightly using the grace bestowed upon him, the deeper will
be his fall if he neglects it. He who was the humblest of men here
betokened himself as one whose ministry in a city could exalt it to heav-
en; and in the mouth of any other the expression would have been
the height of arrogance. Vainly, indeed, do some attempt to flatten
down this language of Chiist's into Oriental liyperhole ; an attempt, too,
which is utterly unjustifiable in regard to his language, in which the
fio-ures of the East were so imbued with the sobriety of the West as to
stamp them with fitness for all times and all countries.
§ 205. Exultation of the Disciples on their Return. — The Overthroiv
of Satan s Kingdom. — Christ warns the Disciples against Vanity.
(Luke, X., 17-20.)
When the disciples, at a later period, returned from their mission to
meet Christ, they related to him with child-like joy§ the great things
they had achieved in his name : " Ercn the devils arc subject to us in
thy name."
As Christ had previously designated the cure of demoniacs wrought
by himself as a sign that the kingdom of God had come upon tlie
earth, II so now he considered what the disciples reported as a token of
the conquering power of that kingdom, before which every evil thing
must yield: "• I beheldS\ Satan as lightnirig fall from heaven;'^ i. e.,
* Many miracles are here presupposed as wrought in Western Bethsaida and in the
neighbouring and obscure village, Chorazin, which have not been transmitted to us.
t Such sayings from Christ's own lips prove that ho lumsclf was conscious of performing
acts out of the ordinary course of the material world, by which even the dullest might have
been awakened had they possessed proper reliirious susceptibilities ; as, indeed, witlioiit
these, the stimulus of miracles could have been but transient.
\ The word v'pwOetca (v. 15) may be understood ob.iectively or subjectively. In the first
sense, it would imply that the town was exalted by the lot which had fallen to it ; certainly
not in reference to worldly wealth, although it was a prosperous place ; but to the presoncf
and the ministry of Christ which it had enjoyed. Taken subjectively, it would refer to Ihe
arrogance of the citj', as preventing it from rightly appreciating the grace which had bci ii
bestowed upon it. The connexion favours the first.
$ This does not seem to me to justify De Wclte's conclusion that Christ had not as yet
conferred on them the same powers as on the Apostles. Even in possession of this power,
they might have been surprised, conscious of what they were, to find such great thinirs
done by tliem ; just as in other cases, a man who, while conscious of his own weakness,
serves as an organ for the objectively Divine, may be surprised at what he docs, in com
parison with what he is. II Cf p. 150.
11 Beholding in the spirit is here undoubtedly meant ; Christ designates by a sjtnbolicaJ
THE KINGDOM OF GOD. 307
from the pinnacle of power which he had thus far held among men.
Before the intuitive glance of his spirit lay open the results which were
to flow from his redemptive work after his ascension into heaven ; he
saw, in spirit, the kingdom of God advancing in triumph over the kin"--
dom of Satan. He does not say " I see n6w," but " J saw.'" He smv
it before the disciples brought the report of their accomplished won-
ders. While they were doing these isolated works, he saw the one
great work — of which theirs were only particular and individual signs
— the victory over the mighty power of evil which had ruled mankind,*
completely achieved. And, therefore (v. 19), he promised, in conse-
quence of this general victory, that in their coming labours they should
do still greater things. They were to trample the power of the enemy
under foot ; they were to walk unharmed over every obstacle that op-
posed the kingdom of God.
Biit at the same time he wai-ned them against a tendency, dangerous
to their ministry, which might possibly attach to their joy at its brilliant
and extraordinary results. "Notwithstanding, in this rejoice not, that
tlie spirits are subject unto you." They, were liable to vanity, glorying
in the means, viz., the individual brilliant results of their ministry, rath-
er than in the Divine end, the triumph of the kingdom, to which all
single results were but subsidiary elements; a vanity which might de-
ceive itself, and take the appearance for the reality. And many great
and successful labourers have yielded to this temptation ; their very
works becoming the means of corrupting their inlferior life; and this
having become impure, the imparity passes over into their works also.
" But rather rejoice that your names are written in heaven." They were
to do wonderful works in the future ; but these were not to be the
source of their joy ; the kingdom of God, the aim of all their labours,
was to be the object of their rejoicing : and all else subordinate to it.
" Your great deeds are to be as nothing in comparison to the grace
given you, the pardon of your sins, and life everlasting."
§ 206. The Kingdom of God revealed to Babes. — The Blessedness of
the Disciples in beholding it. (Luke, x., 21, 24.)
Thus piercing the future, and saeing that these simple, child-like
men, who had nothing but what was given them, were to be organs of
figure what the glance of his Spirit foresaw in the progress of the future. There is no
reason to suppose here a vision hke that of the prophets, in which the truth was pre-
sented in a symbolical veil or covering. Nowhere in the history of Christ do we find an
intuition in the form of a vision ; indeed, such seem to have been precluded by the proper
indwelling of God in Him, distinguishing him from all prophets to whom a transient Di-
vine illumination is imparted ; in Him the Divine and the Human were completely one ;
in Him was shown the calmness, clearness, and steadiness of a mind bearing within itself
the source of Divine light; in His unbroken consciousness as God-Man, we dare not distin-
guish moments of light and moments of darkness. * Cf. John, xii.. 31.
308 RETURN THROUGH SAMARTA.
the poAvcr of God to renovate Immanity, that by their preaching men
were to learn what human wisdom could never have discovered, he
poured forth the holy joy of his heart before God in fervent thankful-
ness: ^'' I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth,* that thou
hast hid these things from the wise and j)rudenty and hast revealed them
unto habes :\ even so. Father ; for so it seemed good in thy sight. \ All
things are delivered to me of my Father ;\ and no man hnoweth who the
Son is\\ (the true nature of the Son) hut the Father ; and who the Fa-
ther is, but the Soti, and he to whom the Son toill reveal 7iim."*[\
After he had thus poured out his soul before God, he turned to his
disciples, and pronounced them blessed, because their eyes had beheld
that which the prophets and the pious had waited and longed for.**
The " seeing" and " hearing" are not to be taken, as Hugo h St.
Victor long ago remarked, in an outward sense, but spiritually, with
reference to the truth revealed to them, which had been veiled and, to
some extent, hidden from those who occupied even the highest place in
* The Omnipotent Creator, who manifests himself as Father in condescending to the
wants of men, and in Ivis self-revealing love.
t The hiding from the wise and the revealing unto babes are closely connected to
gether; it required child-like submission and devotion to receive the communications of the
higher source, and therefore none could receive it but such as, like children, in need of
higher light, yielded themselves up to the Divine illumination ; and for the same reason,
those whose imagined wisdom satisfied them, because they were devoid of child-like sub-
mission, could not receive the Divine communications.
X I think that t^o/joXo) ui>a( is not to be repeated after vai in v. 21 ; the latter (like qm'/' )
is a confirmation of the preceding passage, and a reason is assigned-^" so it seemed good
in thy sight;" a higher necessity, viz., the pleasure of God, made it so. These words
form the point of transition to the following vei-se, which contains the ground of the prece-
ding ; viz., that the Sou receives all by communication from God, but none can know the
Son except it be revealed to him by the Father.
6 That is, according to the connexion, all power to carry on and develope the kingdom
of God victoriously, and to give eternal life to believers (John, xvii., 2). Christ had pre-
viously said that the Divine power given to him should show itself in the efficiency of his
organs in spreading the kingdom of God.
II For this mighty power was granted to him in view of his original relations to God.
TT This entire passage, which in Luke connectg itself so naturally and closely with the
narrative, is placed by Matthew (xi., 25-27) in connexion with the woes pronounced upon
the unbelieving towns of Galilee.
** The passage in v. 23, 24, fonns au apt and fitting conclusion to what had gone before,
both in form and substance. The tar' iiiav fits with the supposition that the disciples, on their
return, found Christ surrounded by one of those groups that frefjueuth' gathered about him.
The same words stand, also, in a clear connexion in Matt, (xiii., 16, 17), but not so close as
Luke's. Even the /'.>/■/» of the words is closely adapted to the occasion and the context.
It is a question whether the words "kings" or "righteous men" (as Matt, gives it) were
the original one. The exchange may have taken place because "kings"' appeared foreign ;
or vice versa, because "righteous men" appeared too indefinite. By the word "kings,"
then, we must understand " the pious kings ;" and the instance of a David might have led
Jesus to connect "kings" with "prophets." Thus the apparently insignificant disciples
are contrasteil with men of the highest importance in the developement of the Theocracy.
There is no difficulty in supjiosing that Christ passed overfronv" proplicts" to "righteous
men," and then the adjective " many" (Matt., xiii., 17) would be the more appliuable.
SIGNS OF DISCIPLESIIIP. 309
the Old Dispensation. A conscious or unconscious longing for the fu-
ture revelation was their highest attainment.
§ 207, The Signs of' Disciples/iij?. (Matt., vii., 22.) — Requisites, viz.:
Self-Denial and Resignation (Luke, ix., 56, 62) : Taking up the
Cross. (Luke, xiv., 25-35 ; Matt., x., 38 ; xvi., 24.)
"If we were correct in our remarks upon the Sermon on the Mount,
p. 237, we must assign to this period the following words of Christ
(Matt., vii., 22 ) : '■^Many will say to vie in that day, Loi'd, Lord, have
we not prophesied in thy name .? and in thy name have cast out dev-
ils ? a?id in thy name done many wonderful works ? And then will I
profess unto them, I never knew you ; depart from me, ye that work ini-
quity."* Words referring to that period in which Chi'ist had already
imparted miraculous powers to the disciples, and had to warn them
against the danger of losing sight of the sole object of their works, in
the splendour and notoriety of the works themselves. Christ then, with
his piercing glance into the future, announces that not the doing "great
works in his name, but holy dispositions and aims alone, would be an
infallible sign of discipleship. He, who recognized as his own such as
gave a cup of cold water to the least in his name, repulsed, as aliens,
those who pretended to do great works in his name ; the disposition
shown in their lives made it manifest that, although his name was upon
their lips, it was not in their hearts. To such, also, might be applied
his saying, " He that is tiot ivith me is against me."
An attempt at a nearer definition of the relation in which such persons
and their works stood to Christ may be made as follows : They were
perhaps really, at first, in communion with him, and thus participated
in the Divine life from which these miraculous powers went forth ; but
afterward — rejoicing more that they were able to cast out devils than
that their names were written in the Book of Life — their very works be-
came a snare to destroy them, and their higher life was lost in outward
appearance. After the principle of life was gone, single and separate
impulses may yet have remained. Isolated efforts may continue after
the prime cause is destroyed ; there may be life-like convulsions when
life has departed forever. Compare what Paul says in 1 Cor., xiii.,
1-3, about such separate good deeds when uninspired by the life of
love.
It may be objected, however, that Christ betokens these as persons
whom he had never known as his own. As such, we must believe that
the new birth had never been fully realized in them; that they had
* There is ioterual proof that this passage was not (as some suppose) ascribed to Christ
as a post facliini prediction. Those who suppose this must conceive that the passage
was invented to oppose the heretics, who boasted of miraculous powers. But in that case
false doclririe would have been made more prominent than bad actions ; and even the ap-
pearance of recogiuzing their works as real miracles would have been avoided.
310 RETURN THROUGH SAMARIA.
been predominantly selfish fi-om the fii'st; that none but isolated impul-
ses of the higher life, mere exaltations of the natural feelings or imagin-
ation, had ever found place in them. We must remember well that
stimulated natural powers may do many things apparently resembling
the work of Divine power, but, in fact, very different from it.
Many persons, in the places to which Christ came, were so pow^-
fully affected by his preaching as to wish earnestly to attach them-
selves to him forever; but he did not receive all. Some, carried away
by transient emotions, felt willing to promise more than they could
perform; and he took jDains to lay before such the sufferings and strug-
gles they must undergo as his followers, the sacrifices and self-denial
which devotion to him must cost.
One of these, who probably went with him a little distance from a
village where he had stayed a short time,* said unto him, " Lord, 1
will folloio thee whithersoever thou goestT Christ bade him reflect
well before taking such a step : " Foxes have holes, and the birds of the
air have nests, hut the Son of Man hath not xvhere to lay his head ;" ex-
pressing the privations and necessities to which all who followed him
thereafter would expose themselves. Another whom he invited to fol-
low him, as he was about departing, said, " Suffer me first to go and
hicry my father.'"' Under other circumstances Christ would not have
hindered the indulgence of such a filial love ; but he made use of this
case to show, by a striking example, that those who sought to follow
him must deny natural feelings that were otherwise entirely sacred,
when the interests of the kingdom of God required it. " Let the dead
bury their dead, hut go thou and preach the kingdom of God.^^ (Let
those who are themselves dead, who know nothing of the higher inter-
ests of the kingdom of God or the Divine life, attend to the lifeless
clay. But thou, upon whom the Divine life, which conquers all death,
is opened, thou must devote thyself wholly to propagate it by preach
ing the Gospel. It is for the dead to care for the dead; the living f(*r
the living.) So in answer to another, who said, " Let me first go and
bid them farewell ichich are at home at my house^'' Christ expressed a
similar thought : " No one having put his hand to the plough, and look-
ing back, is fit for the kingdom of God"] (no one can become a prop-
er organ of the kingdom who does not give himself up to it with
undivided soul, suffering no earthly cares to distract him).
At a certain point of this journey, whole hosts of people, attracted
by Christ's appearance and preaching, followed after him (Luke, xiv.,
* If stress is to be laid upon Luke, ix., 56, 57, these little narratives, wiiicli lit so aptly
to this part of the history, stand in a much clearer chronological and pragmatical connexion
in Luke, ix., than in Matt., viii.
t Wetstcin adduces, m illustration of this passage, the beautiful Pythagorean sentimeot
of Simplicius, in liis Commentary on Epictetus: di to 'Upov i-^cp\6niiui yiii hiarpcipoxi.
SELF-DENIAL. 311
25). He took pains to impress upon the minds of this multitude the
necessary conditions of fellowship with him ; that they were not to ex-
pect the appearance of Messiah's kingdom in its glory upon the earth,
and, therefore, to look for nothing but ease and enjoyment in his com-
munion ; nay, on the other hand, said he, " Ifuny man come to me, and
hate, not Jiis father and mother, d^r., yea, and his own life also, he cannot
he my disciple.^' (The nearest and dearest earthly ties must not stand
in the way of the kingdom of God.) " And whosoever doth not bear
his cross, and come after me, caiinot he my disciple^* (As Christ, con-
demned to death upcfti the cross, must himself carry the instrument of
his sufferings and ignominy, so his true followers must be pi'epared to
undergo, of their own accord, all sufferings and shame.)
§ 208. Self Denial and Self-Sacrif.ee further illustrated. — Parable of
the building of the Tower. — Of the Warring King. (Luke, xiv.,
28-33.)— T/^e Sacrificial Salt. (Mark, ix., 49, 50.) — The Treasure
hid in the Field. — The Pearl of Great Price. (Matt., xiii., 44-46.)
Christ then made use of various comparisons to set still more clearly
before his hearers the necessity of counting the cost, of fairly contem-
plating the sacrifices and self-denial which his service required, before
entering upon it. Those who heedlessly neglected this, and are after-
ward disgraced by shrinking from the sacrifices demanded of them,
are compared to a man that sets about building a tower without calcu-
lating the expense, and is laughed at when his inability to finish it is
manifested. Or to a king, who rashly goes to war with another of su-
perior power. And then, again, he repeated the main thought : " None
of you, that forsakcth not all that he hath, can he my disciple. Salt ts
good, hut if the salt have lost its savour, ivhcrcwith shall it he seasoned V
The disciples of Christ, the salt of mankind, become lifeless — a mere
appearance — without self-sacrifice ; the salt becomes stale and worth-
less.!
Kindred to this is the passage in Mark, ix., 49, 50, which, con-
' It is involved in the very idea of following Christ, that he who does it decides to " bear
his own cross." The sense of this phrase is well illustrated in Plutarch (de Sera Naminis
Vindicta, c. ix.), who says, that " As wickedness bears its own punishment along with it, so
the wicked man bears his own cross." Ku( tcD niv aioixart tUv Kn\al,oiif.viuv cKaoToi KoKovpyiov
Ixipcpti rbv avTov araupoV n if KuKia twv KoKacTripiuv i<l>' iavrriv'iKamov i\ avTrjs rcKTaivcTai, Sciv/j ns
oZaa (iiov Sriixwvpyoi oinTpoti xnl aiiv alaxi^'JI ip66ovi re ttoAAoi'J Kai -RaOiq xiAsru koI )xiTa)iiXuai Koi
rapaxui anavarovi t'xoiTof. This passage shows that Christ might have employed the phrase
without any known reference to his death ; the foi-m of the expression is, therefore, no
proof that the passage was modified after his death upon the cross. But John tells us that
Christ did allude to his impending death upon the cross in the use of the word v'4'ovv (xii.,
32) ; and this may have been, and probably was, before his mind, in connexion with his be-
in" delivered over to the heathen, when he used the phrase in John. The passage in Mat-
thew, therefore, may be taken as affording a similar sense ; and thus John and the Synop-
tical Gospels agree in stating that Christ intimated the mode of his death.
t Cf. p. 228.
312 RETURN THROUGH SAMARIA.
sidered as an isolated saying, is quite obscure. But it probably formed
part of one of Christ's exhortations to his disciples during this latter
period of his stay with them. The thought which it contains appears
to me to be this. The persecutions, struggles, and sufferings of the dis-
ciples were to be as salt to preserve and freshen the Divine life in them ;
to make them more and more fit sacrifices to be consecrated to God.
But (v. 50) no external influences could thus operate unless the ele-
ment of the inner life, in truth, exists ; the salt must be there, the spirit
of self-sacrifice, springing from the Divine life within, before outward
trials can serve to purify the heart. The disciples were, therefore, ex-
horted to keep it within them ; and, as an aid thereto, to strengthen
each other in the Divine life by fellowship of heart. " Have salt in
yourselves, and have peace one xoitli another.^''
The same thought, viz., that his followers must be prepared to sac-
rifice every thing to the kingdom of God as their highest good, was
also illustrated by the parables of the treasure hid in the field, and the
pearl of great price.
The single aim of the first parable is to show that whoever will ob-
tain this treasure must give up all that he has in order to secure it, and
must consider all other possessions valueless in comparison with this,
his highest good. All the rest is the colouring of the picture to give
impressiveness to this one thought. The same thought is presented,
under another figure, in the parable of the costly pearl. It is probable,
however, that these varying forms of illustration were used to describe
the different ways by which men reach the kingdom of God ; the acci-
dental finder of the treasure in the field corresponding to those to
Avhom the proclamation of the kingdom comes unsought and unex-
pected ; but whom, nevertheless, it finds ready to receive it, and to
sacrifice every thing when its revealed glory rouses the slumbering
Divine consciousness within them. On the other hand, as the mei*-
chant seeks for precious pearls, and, after repeated search, finds one
of surpassing beauty and value ; so some, impelled by anxious long-
ings, pursue the kingdom of God with restless earnestness, and find
in it at last, to the joy of their hearts, that precious treasure which
transcends all others, however valuable, in a lower sense, they may
be.
§ 209. Christ refuses to interfere in Civil Disputes, (Luke, xii., 1.*^-
15.) — His Decision in the Case of the Adtdtercss.
It was natural that there should be some, among the number who
came under the powerful influence of Christ, to seek from his author-
ity the decision of questions foreign to his calling. In such cases he
refused to interfere ; his kingdom was to rule the hearts of men ; not
THE ADULTERESS. 313
to establish outward law or equity. On a certain occasion, one* of the
listening crowd asked him to decide a dispute between himself and his
brother in regard to an inheritance. The Saviour repelled him, declin-
ing to fix the limits of civil property and decide in questions of civil
right; so important did he consider it to avoid even the appearance of
intermeddling with the affairs of human law and government. And in
the light of his conduct in this case, we sec that Christianity is not di-
rectly to order the relations of civil society ; this outioard Divine au-
thority is foreign to its calling. Christ worked only in his own spliere,
the sphere of men's heai'ta ; although, indeed, by operating upon th.e
heart, he meant to operate upon every thing else ; for all human rela-
tions grow out of it. He made use of this opportunity (v. 15) to re
. buke covetousness, the source of such contentions ; to show the vanity
of earthly wealth ; and to point out the heavenly treasures as the only
object worth men's striving after.
The case which follows undoubtedly belongs, chronologically, to an
earlier period, not precisely determinable ; but we place it here be-
cause of its affinity, in a certain sense, with that just mentioned, inas-
much as it involved a question of outward law.f
At a period before the open and decided manifestation of hostility
on the part of the Pharisees, while they were seeking privately to at-
tach suspicion to Christ as the friend of publicans and sinners, they
brought to him a woman taken in adultery, and asked whether she
ought not to suffer the penalty of death prescribed by the Mosaic law.
Had he ventured to pronounce her free, as they perhaps expected from
his well-known gentleness to sinners, their object would have been
gained ; they might have involved him in a dispute with the law of Mo-
ses. As the question was foreign to his sphere, he at first paid no at-
* 1 cannot agree in Schhiermucher' s opinion tliat tliis was one of those whom Christ had
asked to follow him. Had it been so, Clirist would doubtless have replied to him, as he did
to others, that lih followers must be prepared to renounce all earthly possessions. It was
not at all wonderful that a man who recognized iu Jesus a teacher of Divine authority,
should ask him to arbitrate a dispute between himself and his brother, who may have also
admitted Christ's authority.
t [There has been much dispute about the authenticity of the account of the adulterous
woman; John, viii., 1-11.] We think, both from internal and external grounds, that it
does not belong to John's Gospel (see Liicke on the passage) ; perhaps its insertion there
was suggested by viii., 15. But iu all essential features it bears the stamp of truth and
originality. If invented at all, it must have been by the Marcionites ; but iu that case it
would have been coloured more highly with opposition to the Mosaic law ; nor could an in-
vention of theirs have found such general currency in the Catholic Church. The difficulties
consist more in the form than in the substance of the narrative ; and even these can be
readily overcome. As to the account in Evang. ad Hebricos (Eus., iii., 39) of a woman ac-
cused of many sins before tiie Saviour, we know too little about it to decide whether it
was true and original, or a mere exaggeration either of the one before us in Jolm, or of the
other account of the sinful woman who anointed the feet of Jesus (p. 211) ; or wliether
it arose from a blending of the two together.
314 RETURN THROUGH SAMARIA.
tention, but stooped and wrote upon the ground. They pressed the
point, however, and he then drew the question out of the sphere of
law into that of morality^ which was properly his own. Looking
round ujion them with all his majesty of mien, he said, "iJe that u
without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her^
It is true, that from the stand-point of law the moral character of
the judge is of no account; it is the law alone that judges. But from
the stand-point of morality, he that condemns another {i. e., the sinner,
not merely the sin) while conscious of sin himself, though of another
kind, pronounces his own condemnation (Rom., ii., 1). His own con-
science bears witness against him. In this case, therefore, Christ aj)-
pealed to the consciences of the accusers, not only to dispose them to
leniency, but also to awaken in them a common sense of sin, and need
of pardon and redemption. To the woman, who was bowed down un-
der the burden of sin, he said, " Neither do I condemn thee ;'' cautioning
her, at the same time, to guard against falling again into transgression.
§ 210. Christ's Intijnations of the Future.
The discourses of Christ in the course of this journey reveal to us
the topic on which his thoughts were chiefly occupied at this critical
period. In the spiritual results of his preaching he saw the earnest ot
that new creation which was to follow his death. Knowing all that lav
before him at Jerusalem, he went on to meet his death in conflict with
the representatives of the depraved spirit of the world at Jerusalem ;
yet contemplating with joy the progress of his kingdom, for which this
self-sacrifice was to pave the way. At the same time commenced those
vehement emotions of soul which afterward, under various and pain-
ful excitements fi-om without, grew stronger and stronger, until his final
and triumphant "^ It is finished 1''^
§ 211. Parahles of the Mustard Seed and ofi the Leaven. (Luke, xiii.
18-21.) — Points of Agreement and Differe^ice. — Compared with the
Parable of the Ripening Grain. (Mark, iv., 26.)
Christ recognized in the little circle that gathered around him tlio
germ of a community which was to embrace all nations. Piercing the
veil which obscured the future from ordinary eyes, he saw the spirit-
ual life of mankind in all its relations revolutionized by the power of
his word. A total change in the disciples' mode of thinking was in
preparation ; the truth they had received was to be freed from the manv
foreign elements that yet encumbered it. Thus the Divine word was
to work both extensively and intensively. These forms of its operation
ho illustrated by the parables of the mustard seed and the lcave7i.*
* Luke gives these parables in the connexion we have assij^ned to them. In Matthew
they are placed along with others of a very dilTerent character, only agreeing in the oua
THE FIRE TO BE KINDLED. 315
The point in which the two parables agree is, the designating of the
power with which the kingdom of God, where the truth has once been
received, developes itself outwardly from within ; the greatest results
proceeding from apparently the most insignificant beginnings. The
point in which they differ is, that the developement illustrated in the
parable of the mustard seed is more extensive, in that of the leaven
more intensive ; in the former is shown the power with which the
Church, so feeble in its beginning, spreads over all the earth; in the
latter, the principle of Divine life in Christianity renews human nature,
in all its parts and powers, after its own image, to become its own or-
gan ; thus illustrating the growth of religion not only in the race, but
also in individual men.
Here we notice, also, a pai'able* preserved to us by Mark alone (iv.,
20). " Ho is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the
ground ; and should sleep, and rise night and day, and the seed should
spring and grow up, he knoivcth not hoiv. For the earth hringeth forth
fruit of herself ; first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in
the ear. But when the grain is ripe, immediately he putfeth in the sick-
le, because the harvest is corned Christ obviously intended by this
parable to impress upon the disciples that tlicir duty was to preach the
word [not to make it fruitful] ; that where the truth was once implanted
in the heart, its growth was independent of human agency ; unfolding
itself by its own inherent Divine power, it would gradually accom-
plish the transformation of human nature into that perfection for which
God designed it [they^Z/ corn in the ear]. The preachers of truth are
instruments of a power whose effects they cannot measure. If they
only preach the word, and do nothing further to it, it will by its own
efficacy produce in men a new creation, which they must behold with
amazement (v. 27). No words could have more pointedly oj^posed the
prevalent carnal notions of the Jews in x'egard to the nature of Mes-
siah's kingdom, or have more effectually rebyked the tendency to as-
cribe too much to human agencies and too little to the substantive
power of the word itself.
§ 212. The Fire to be Kindled. — The Baptism of Sufferings. — Christ-
ianity not Peace, but a Sword. (Luke, xii., 49-53.)
" I am come to send fire upon the earth ; and what will I (more), if
point of general bearing upon the kingdom of God. On the arrangement of the parables,
cf. p. 108.
* This parable bears the undeniable stamp of originality both in its matter and fonn ; so
that we cannot coHsider it as a variation of one of the other parables of the growing seed.
It is worthy of note that, just as in the different nairatives of the same discourse given in
the first three Gospels, one Evangelist preserves one portion and another another, so in re-
"ard to these parables illustrative of the intensive operation of the kingdom of God, Mark
alone has preserved the one of the ripening corn, omitting the leaven ; while Matthew and
Luke give the latter, omitting the fonner. •
316 RETURN THROUGH SAMARIA.
it he already hindlcdV^ As he had compared the pervadinor and re-
newing power of the word of truth to the leaven, so here, as that word
sends forth a holy flame which is to seize upon human nature and burn
out all its dross and impurity — inextinguishable until it has enveloped
all mankind — he compares it to a fii-e kindled by himself, whose un-
quenchable flames he already sees bursting forth. " What will I more ?"
says he ; " the object of my ministry on earth is so far accomplished."
But after speaking thus of what had been already done, he passed
on to what remained for the fulfilment of his work, viz., the sufferings
that were awaiting him. These he betokens by a baptism which he
must undergo ; partly, perhaps, in view of the multitude of afflictions
that were to overwhelm him,* and partly in view of baptism as a re-
ligious symbol, and of the baptism of suffering as his last and perfect
consecration as Messiah and Redeemer; just as John's baptism was
the first and preparatory one. " I have yet a haptism [of suffering] to
he haptized with, and how sorely am I pained until it he accomplished "\
In this saying, also, Christ contradicted the prevailing idea that the
Messiah was to work an outward revolution. The preached word it-
self was the mighty flame which was to produce such wondei-ful effects
among mankind. He was not to end his labours by coming forward
to subdue his foes and glorify his reign by miraculous power; his vic-
tory consisted in his being overcome by suffering and death. And he
warned his disciples, in addition (v. 51, 52), not to imagine that he
would leave them to enjoy outward peace; far from it; the truth of
God was to be a separating power, to cause the sharpest strifes in na-
tions and in families. The dearest natural ties were to be sundered by
his ti'ue disciples (v. 53), for the sake of the kingdom of Gou.| The
higher unity of Christianity was to shape itself out of the midst of dis-
cords and contradictions. So clearly had Christ at that time before
* To "immerse himself in sufferings."
t The common interpretation of these two verses (which is certainly a possible one) con-
sidei's the two members as co-ordinate — n ^iXio as corresponding to tws' cv\'ixo\).rii ; and
£( yfir] diijipOri to cuii ov reXcadrj : " I am come to Send a fire on the earth, and how do I wish it
■were already kindled ! bat I have still the baptism of suffering to undergo, and how am I
pained until it be fulfilled." This places the whole iu the future. And in a certain sense,
indeed, Christ tniffht have said that the fire which he came to light among men was not as
yet kindled ; for the great crisis which Christianity was to produce in humanity had not as
yet come. In this sense of the passage, it expresses Christ's longing for this crisis ; for
the accomplishment of bis work as Saviour by the consecration of his sufferings. But wo
think, in view of the parables of the mustard seed, the leaven, and the ripening corn, that
he alli^ded in the first clause to what had been done ; the fire burned already, though hut
glimmering in secret, in the hearts of those that received his preaching as the word of
eternal life. The words ri $iXo> are thus interpreted more naturally ; though, as we have
said, the other rendering is not impossible (Matt., vii., I4, cannot decide the question, as
the reading of that passage is doubtful). The 6i: in v. 50 is adversative, acconling to our
view, which, by the way, was adopted (among the ancients) by Eiidn/ynius ZisahcnuK
The word ovvtxoiiai, thus apprehended, was Christ's first expression of his struggles of soul
in view of the approach of death. \ Cf Matt., x., 34, seq.
THE SECOND ADVENT. 317
his eyes the effects subsequently produced every where by Christianity
in the life of nations and of families.
§ 213. The Kingdom of God cometh not with Ohservation. (Luke,
xvii., 20.)
When the Pharisees demanded of him when the kingdom of Gou
should appear, he assured them, " The kingdom of God cometh not toith
outward show"" (cannot be outwardly seen by human eyes) ;* " neither
shall they say, Lo here ! or, Lo there ! for, behold, the hingdom of God
is among you."\
§ 2l\. The personal Return, of Christ to the Earth, and the Day of
Judgment. (Luke, xvii., 22-37.)
Having thus pointed out that the kingdom of God was manifested
in his own appearance, Christ turned directly to the disciples, and told
them (v. 22) that the time would come when they should look back
longingly upon the days of their personal intercourse with him, and
wish, though in vain, to have him even for one day in their midst. But
(v. 23, 24) as this longing might lay them open to deception (as, in fact,
at a later period, their anxious yearnings did lead them to expect his
personal return too soon), he warned them against this danger. " Do
not suffer yourselves to be deceived by false reports of my return ;
when it comes, it will be as the lightning that flashes suddenly from
one end of the sky to another, dazzling all men's eyes ; none need
point it out to others ; none can fail to see it, or deny its approach. "|
To obviate all carnal expectations, he then told them (v. 25) that
" He mustfrsl suffer many things, and be rejected of this generation ,•"
* Tlic autithesis is, that it reveals itself invisibly, so as to be seen only by the eye ot
faith.
t The words citos vimv may, indeed, mean " within you," as they are commonly inter-
preted ; but this would not suit the persons addressed, for they were as yet strangers to
the kingdom of God, the foundation of faith not having been laid in their hearts. The pas-
sage, thus understood, would have been applicable only to believers. Ciirist would not
have expressed himself iu a way so liable to misconstruction and perversion on the part
of the Pharisees. Had he meant to tell them that the kingdom of God muxt be prepared
within their hearts, he would have warned them, instead of looking for its outward ap
pearauce, to strive to fit themselves for it by laying the only basis of which it admitted, in
the dispositions of their hearts. Every thing is clear and natural if we take the words in
the sense that we have assigned to them : "The kingdom of God is in your midst, if you
will only recognize it. You must not seek at a distance what is already near; the king-
dom of God }ms come in luy ministry ; and all that believe on me belong to it." This
agrees also with his usual mode of treating the Pharisees ; he always pointed out to them
the true meaning of his appearance. Cf. Matt., xii., 28 ; and p. 241, seq.
t Christ here declares that his actual coming would not follow the analogy of earthly
manifestations ; and this ought to have been enough to hinder believing dogmatists from
seeking to define its character too accurately, and from adhering too closely to the letter
of some of the expressions of the Apostles, who could themselves as yet have had no ade-
ijuate iutuitiou of its precise nature.
318 RETURN THROUGH SAMARIA.
and that, when the glorified Son of Man should appear to judge a cor-
rupt world (v. 26-32), in that day of trial and sifting that was to pre-
cede the consummation of the kingdom, he would take men unawares,
and surprise sinners in their lusts. He presented the whole in one
view before them, without distinguishing the separate moments.* His
object was to guard them against both premature expectations and ar-
bitrary calculations upon the character of the final decision ; to im-
press them with the importance of being always prepared, both in
heart and in life, by that self-denial and renunciation of the world (v.
33) which he always made the necessary condition of entering into his
kingdom. He then pointed out (v. 34-36) the fanning process by which
the distinctive characters of men in the same relations of life would be
revealed ; " one shall be taken (saved and received into the kingdom)
and another left" (to the judgment of God ; not removed from it).
As this last expression (though intelligible enough from the connexion)
was somewhat obscure, the disciples asked him, " Left? where. Lord ?"
He replied, " Whcrcsoevo- the carcase is, tliithcr will the eagles he gath-
ered togethe)-''^] (condemnation will fall upon those that have deserved it).
^ 215. Exhortation to Watch for Christ's Coming (Luke, xii., 3C-
48); to Confi.dence in the Divine Justice. — The importunate 'Wiihnc.
(Luke, xviii., 1.)
On another occasion, when surrounded by a larger circle of disciples,
Christ exhorted tlie faithful to watch for the time when he would re-
turn from his glory in heaven and demand an account of their steward-
ship. How earnestly he sought to guard them against all attempts to
determine the precise time of his coming, is manifest from his decla-
ring that it was just as uncertain as the moment when a thief would
break into the house at night. It might be deferred, he told them, un-
til the night was far spent — even to the third watch.'j: Very naturiilly
Peter (conscious of his position and that of the other Apostles) liere
interrupted Jesus with the question, whether the parable was spoken
in reference to the narrower circle of disciples in jiarticular, or to all
that were present. The reply of Christ (v. 47, 48) was, in effect, that
the greater one's knowledge, the greater his guilt, if that knowledge
be not improved. On this jirinciple the Apostles could decide for them-
selves the relation in which they stood to others.
Christ exhorted his followers, in all their struggles with the sins of
mankind, to trust in the justice of their heavenly Father, who would
* Sec below, where we speak of Christ's last discourses.
t Luke, xvii., 37, gives the natural connexion of these words ; in Matt., xxiv., 0>", tboy
are placed with many other similar passages referring to this last crisis.
\ It is clear that Paul had these words of Christ in view in 1 Thess., v., 1.
THE STRAIT GATE. 519
judge between them and a persecuting world (Luke, xviii., 1, seq.) ;
and to seek support and encouragement in prayer. If a judo-e to
whom nothing is sacred does justice to the persevering widow, simply
to get rid of her importunity, how could God leave unheard the con-
tinued prayers of his chosen ones invoking his justice 1 Thouo-h His
forbearance may seem like delay, his justice will not fail ; "He toUl
avenge them speedUyr* The decision of the Divine justice between
the degenerate Theocratic nation and the new and genuine congrega-
tion of God was, indeed, to prepare its course more and more rapidly.
To long for a revelation of Divine justice before all the world, atid
for the time when He shall judge between the good and the bad, is not
at all inconsistent with prayer for the salvation of the enemies of his
kingdom, as enjoined both by Christ's teaching and example. The
combination of the two is a thoi-oughly Christian one.
The Saviour finally put the question whether, under the delays of
Divine justice, all that believed on him would hold fast their integrity ;
whether the Son of Man would find faith remaining in them all when
he should reveal himself to his Church a second time.t
^216. Call to entire Devotion. The Strait Gate and the Narrow
Way. — Heathen admitted to the Kingdom of Heaven. (Luke, xiii.,
24-28.)
The hosts that gathered about the Saviour at this period were ex-
horted to make good use of the short time remaining to them to re-
pent and believe, in order to escape the Divine judgments that were so
soon to break upon the Jewish people. Such as were not hostile, and
even rejoiced in his society, were told not to rest upon his personal
presence (v. 26), or upon their superficial interest in him. All this
would do no good (he told them) unless his word were truly received
and applied ; unless they sought earnestly, by self-denial and self-sac-
rifice, to enter the kingdom to which no road leads but this narrow
* We caunot see a clear correspondence between Luke, xviii., 1, and what follows. The
whole passage exhorts to confidence in God's justice, no matter what wrong we may see
done ; not to praying ahoayx ; for constant prayer has another aim and object. It is pre-
supposed that those who are addressed pray, like children, to their heavenly Father ; but
they are exhorted not to waver, if the answer to their prayers be delayed.
t Luke, xviii., 8. This was probably the sense of the words in this connexion; we mujt
remember the various applications of which the phrase " the coming of the Son of Man"
admits, and in the intentional indefiniteness in which it was left. It may be applied cither
to his spiritual or his personal self manifestation in the progress of human affairs and of the
Church. At all events, we Kud no ground to suppose (as some do) that the passage was
modified at a later period, when men were running to and fro in perplexity of opinion about
the second advent of Christ. The prophetic description of the last ilays given by Paul
presupposes that intimations of the same had been thrown out by Jesus. It is more
likely that the words were transferred from some other connexion in which Christ really
spoke of his second advent, than that they were thus modified at an after period.
320 RETURN THROUGH SAMARIA.
and toilsome way.* " Many ivill scch to enter in, and shall not he ahUy
Not those who seek aright ; but those who seek, without the heart or
the will, to fulfil the essential condition of entire self-denial.
Thus the one truth proclaimed by Christ presents opposite aspects
under opposite circumstances. To oppressed and weary souls, groan-
inw under the heavy burdens imposed by the Pharisees, he describes
hie yoke as mild and easy — easy to those that love — in comparison
with the yoke of the law ;t while to those who are yet in bondage t^)
the world of sense, and expect to find his service easy, he represents
it as painful and laborious. Every thing depends upon the heart and
the motives ; what is hard to one is easy to another
In further contrast with the disposition to look merely at outward re-
lations, he announced prophetically (v. 28), that while many who glori-
ed in their personal intercourse with him might be excluded from the
kingdom for want of fellowship of spirit with him, many, on the other
hand, from all quarters of the world, should be called to enter in,
§ 217. The Signs of the Times. (Luke, xii., 54.)
Others, again, were referred by Christ to the signs of the times to learn
the import of his appearance, and what awaited them if they neglected
it. As they could know from a cloud in the west that a storm was ap-
proaching, and from the blowing of the south wind that there would
be heat; so (he told them), if they would observe the signs of history
as carefully as those of nature, they could discern the approaching
judgments of God from the phenomena of the times. But this was
pi'ecisely their guilt (v. 5G), that in their heedless folly they gave no
thought to these indications of the evil that was nigh. He called them
hypocrites, either because they affected to plead ignorance while tln'
means of knowledge were within their reach, and lacked the disposi-
tion to see, not the' ability ; or because, while the present was serious,
and \he future threatening, they were utterly unconscious of the value
of intercourse with him from their folly in neglecting the signs of the
times, and now sought him under the imjmlse of a merely transient
excitement.^
"* Cf. p. 236. t Cf. p. 202.
X Cf. Mutt., xvi., 1. lu a very similar discourse the Piiarisees demanded a &v^n from
heaven to accredit his calling ; he told them severely, that if they would only consider the
sign of his u-holc manifeslalion, in connexion with the signs given by God in the events of
the times, they would make no such demand. They could foretel the weather from the
clouds and sky ; but would not see ia the events around them the signs of the coming cri-
sis, the a[iproaoh of the kingdom and judgment of God. ' This fallen generation seeks a
sign from heaven, but no sign shall be given to it but the sign of the Prophet Jonah ; the
whole appearance of Christ, which announces to them, as Jonah did to the Ninevites, the
Divine judgments over their corrupt city, calling them to repent.' His manifestation was
above all other signs of the times, and they might discern what was coming from it. He
DIVES AND LAZARUS. 321
" Yea, and why even of yourselves judge ye not what is right !*
When thou goest ivith thine adversary,'"' &c. (v. 58). (Why must an-
other point out to them what they ought to know themselves, viz., that
they should agree with the Messiah while he was yet with them on
earth ; since he would otherwise become their accuser before Goo.i
and make it impossible to escape the penalty they so justly deserved| —
an allusion to the terrible lot which the Jewish people procured for
themselves.)
§ 818. The contracted Jewish Theodicy Rejected. (Luke, xiii., 1-5.)
Certain sad events of the times were employed by Christ as type.^
and warnings of the future. It was reported to him that Pilate had
caused several Galileans to be slain while offering sacrifices in the
Temple. The details of the case are unknown to us ; whether it was
carelessly reported by persons who did not know its connexion with
the whole sad and terrible course of events into which the guilt of the
nation was hurrying it; or whether they considered, according to the
contracted notions of the Jews in regard to the avenging justice of
God, that these Galileans deserved this wretched fate.5 In answerino-
them, Christ declared that guilt was common to the whole people, and
that unless they became convinced of it and repented, they might all
expect destruction. A tower, also, had fallen upon several persons in
Jerusalem and killed them ; but this, he told them, did not prove any
marked guilt on the part of the unfortunate sufferers, but was rather a
sign of the universal wretchedness which the guilt of the whole people
was to bring upon them.
§ 219. The Parahle of Dives and Lazarus. (Luke, xvi., 19-31.)
The worldly spirit, suppressing all sense of higher interests, was the
chief cause of the unbelief or inattention of the eye-witnesses of Christ's
calls them Jiypocriles because, for want of a right spirit, they tconld not see the si^s be-
fore their eyes ; which very fact was the cause of their seeking a sign from heaven. This
is very similar to the discourse in Lulie, and Christ might very well have uttered both in
separate but similar comiexions. The connexion is entirely apt in both Evangelists, thousrh
not so obvious in Luke. To be sure, the one in Matthew follows immediately after the un-
historical second feeding of 4000, but the question in xvi., 1, afforded a very suitable occa-
sion for it; whether the occasion was the same as that mentioned on p. 2-15, or a different
one. It is veiy possible that the question and answer occuiTed twice.
* It is true that v. 57 will admit of Schleiermackcr's interpretation, viz., " That which
they might know of themselves from within in contrast to the signs of the times without."
But does not what follows presuppose that they had already learned from the signs of the
times the true import of Christ's appearance, and therefore could easily decide for them-
selves what line of conduct to pursue in order to escape the impending judgments of God.
t In so far, namely, that their guilt lay in their conduct towards him.
X The parabolic comparison in its complete form is given in Luke, xii., 58, 59, and in its
proper connexion ; but not in Matt., v., 2.5, 26. Cf p. 233. It is obvious that the passage
has no reference, as has been erroneously supposed, to the state of man after death.
§ See p. 298.
X
322 RETURN THROUGH SAMARIA.
labours. In the parable of Dives and Lazarus Christ showed that no
miracles or revelations could lead a thoroughly worldly mind to re-
pentance and faith ; that change oi nature was indispensably necessary.
Impressions made upon such minds from without could be but tran-
sient and superficial. The disposition with which a given grace is used
is the one important element ; and their bearing towai'ds Christ's reve-
lations ought to correspond to the regard which they professed to en-
tertain for those of the Old Testament.
The prominent thought in the parable is this : " He that could not
be awakened to repentance by Moses and the prophets could not be
by the reappearance of the dead."* The subordinate point is the con-
trast between the rich man and Lazarus; the former, representing
those who seek their highest good in the pleasures of rtie world, and
are thereby excluded from the kingdom of God, forming the principal
figure. Lazarus serves as a foil to the worldly rich man ; but it must
yet be remembered that the kingdom found the hearts of rich men far
less accessible than those of the humbly poor like Lazarus ; for the
very reason that their feelings and dispositions were precisely those of
the Dives of the parable.t
' There is no allusion in Luke, xvi., 31, to Christ's resurrection; a proof that it has been
transmitted pure, especially as such a bearing^ could easily have been given to it, as was
done in Matthew on the " Sigii of the Prophet Jonah." Dc Wette has remarked this. Still
the passage contains a reason for Clmst's non-appearance after his resurrection to those
who could not be brought to believe on him during the period of his public ministry on earth.
t The assertion lias been made (especially by Strauss) that this parable does not treat
at all of the dispositions of the heart, and of their consequences in another world, but only
of the opposite conditions of human life, poverty and wealth; and of the removal of such
inequalities in the next life. It is pretended that the parable is founded ou the Ebionitish
doctrine that wealth is intrinsically sinful, and poverty intrinsically meritorious ; and, ac
cordiugly, that the conditions of men in the future life wilT be inversely as their conditions .
here. In support of this view, it is remarked that the parable says nothing of the spirit
in which Lazarus bore his sufferings ; that it does not ascribe a, sinful life to the rich man ;
and that the rebuke of the latter says, not that he desei-ved to suffer for his sins, but that
it was now his turn to suffer, because he had enjoyed his good things in this life. But (1.)
Is not the description of Lazarus, sick and starving, waiting at the inch man's door for a
iiiorsel from his table, and receiving from dogs the tendance which man refused — is not this
the strongest possible indictment of Dives's selfishness and want of love / Misery lay at
his door; but instead of sympathizing with it, he sated himself with sensual enjoyments.
('2.) The sentence, " Thou in thy lifetime hadst thy good things, and now . . thou art tor-
mented," implies the cause of his torment ; he had sought his highest good in eai-thly things
and stifled all the higher wants of his soul ; and now, when tora ii-om his illusions, the sense
of want, the thirst for what alone could refresh his spirit, arose of necessity more power-
fully within him. The figures, as figures, are not accidental ; they contain the trutii in a
symbolical form, although we must not look for it in all the subordinate details of the pic-
ture ; and although it is altogether foreign to the scope of the" parable to give a clue to the
nature of the future life. (3.) The veiy expression of a desire on the part of Dives to send
Lazarus to warn his brothers by describing his sufferings to them, implies that he drew those
sufferings upon himself, and might have escaped them by a change of heart and life. Moses
and the prophets would not have taught them to throw away riches as sinful in themselves ;
the expression could only apply to tlie rich man's pursuit of pleasure, and want of love fur
his neighbour. (4.) It is true, nothing is said of Lazarus's state of heart; but then he is
HEROD. 323
§ 220. Persecutions tf Herod Antipas. (Luke, xiii., 31.)
Befoi'e Christ had passed the border of Galilee, certain Pharisees
came and advised him, with pretended anxiety for his safety, to leave
that region as quickly as possible, because the king, Herod Antipas,
had resolved to slay him. It is a question w^hether this w^ere really the
case, or whether it was a mere invention of the Pharisees to rid them-
selves of Christ's troublesome presence. The latter would have been
perfectly in keeping with their character. Herod's previous conduct
certainly afforded no substantial ground for suspicion ; at first he seems
to have been actuated by mere curiosity to see a man of whose deeds
so much was said, and to witness one of his miracles (Luke, ix., 9) ;
and at a later period, he was rejoiced at finding an opportunity of the
kind (Luke, xxiii., 8). But, on the other hand, had the Pharisees in-
vented the story, Jesus would have levelled his reproof at them, and
not against Herod. It would not have been in harmony with his char-
acter to rebuke them over Herod's shoulders by calling him a crafty
" fox," when the epithet was intended for themselves, instead of tell-
ing them directly that he knew their cunning aim to drive him out of
the country. Nor is it to be supposed that the feelings and dispositions
of a man like Herod Antipas would not fluctuate under different influ-
ences. The protracted travels of Christ in Galilee, and the striking
effects of his labours, might very naturally excite the fears and suspi-
cions of Herod, especially in view of the relation in which Christ
stood to John the Baptist. Even if he did not really intend to kill him,
he may have circulated such a report, and thus sought to gain his end
by getting him out of Galilee. This would have been characteristic
of the "fox," as Jesus styled him.
But since Herod's relations with the Pharisees were not the most
friendly, and since he must have known their hostility to Jesus, it is
not likely that they were his instruments in approaching the Saviour.
They probably acted from motives of their own ; whether they be-
longed to the less hostile party, and gave him the warning in good faith,
or whether, without inventing the report, they used it to get rid of one
who so troubled them by his reproofs, and threatened to injure their
authority with the people so seriously.
§ 221. Christ's Words of his Death.
Christ answered the Pharisees that there was no occasion for .such
only a foil to the rich man, not the chief figure. Moreover, the coutrast that is drawa be-
tween him and Dives, and the relation in which be is made to stand to Abraham, indicate
that he was intended to represent a i)ious man, suffering during his life on earth, and bear-
ing his afflictions with religious resignation. Perhaps, in the original form of the parable,
several points were more prominently brought out than they are in the account of it which
has been transmitted to us.
324 RETURN THROUGH SAMARIA.
craft and stratagem ; he should stay in Galilee a few days, but would
not leave it sooner; he had nothing to fear during the time fixed by
God for his labours there ; at Jemsalcm was his career to terminate,
and thither he should go to meet his fate. " Go tell that fox, beJiohl, I
cast out devils, and I do cures to-day and to-morrotc (i. e., but a short
time), and the third day (shortly) / shall he perfected (find the end of
my labours). Nevertheless, I must go on with my labours* to-day and to-
morrow ;^ and the day following I go away, for it cannot he that a proph-
et perish out of Jerusalemy\
The extent of this last declaration may appear strange, as John the
Baptist, whom Christ called the greatest of prophets, did perish out of
Jerusalem. But obviously he did not mean to express a general and
inevitable law, but only to characterize strikingly the persecuting spirit
of the hierarchical party in the metropolis, to which the witnesses of
the truth must always fall victims. And although Jerusalem itself was
not the seat of John's labours, still the city — i. c., the ruling party
there — was the cause of his death.§
§ 221. Journey continued through Samaria. (Luke, x\'ii., 11, seq.J —
Inhospitality of certain Sa?naritans. — Displeasure of the Disciples.
(Luke, ix., 54.) — Ingratitude of Nine Jewish Lepers that tvere Healed.
— Gratit2ide of the Samaritan Ijcper. (Luke, xvii., 15, 16.)
Christ determined, in this his last journey, to pass through Samaria, ||
as he had done on his first return from the Feast of Passover. The
seventy disciples prepared his way among the Samaritans. A few of
them met with a bad reception at a certain place ; the people refused
* To give a complete sense to v. 33, we must (with the Pcschito) insert fpydltadai, or
some like word, after avpiov. _
t This is by no means a mere repetition ; the preceding verse says what u done ; this,
what must be done : iu nt — implying a ruling Providence. " Do not think that any human
power can shorten my ministrj' ; it is the Divine will that I work here a short time, and
then go to end my earthly career at Jerusalem."
t The verses following (34, 35) are found, also, in Matt., xxiii., 37-39. The question is, to
which place do they originally belong ? Both the place and time given by Matthew ap-
pear entirely suitable, and the connexion between verses 34, 3.5 (Luke), appears to prove
that the words were spoken ai Jerusalem. It may be said that i oikos i'lxtov does not ne
cessarily designate the Temple ; and hence that Jesus might have used the words when
leaving Galilee ; but, in fact, he was not leaving that country, but said expressly that he
would remain a little time longer. On the whole, therefore, we adopt the connexion in
Matthew as the original one. The affinity between verses 33 and 34 in Luke may have
Icil to the insertion of the passage in this place. § Cf. p. 179.
y As all that is found in this part of Luke's Gospel does not refer to one journey, it is
possible that Luke, ix., 52, belongs to a separate one. We place it in this later period from
the "messengers" (v. 52), which we take to allude to the Seventy, and from the confidence
of the Apostles in the efficacy of their prayer (v. 54), which implies that tiiey were at that
time organs of miraculous power. The mention iu verse 53 of the sending out of messen-
gers, without express allusion to the Seventy, taken in connexion with the fact that this
is a fragmentary accouut, separate from the narrative of the mission of the Seventy, serves
to confirm the veracity of the latter.
THE TEN LEPERS. 325
to entertain tliem and their Master because they were going to the
Feast at Jerusalem. James and John, the sons of Zebedee, with a zeal
not yet sufficiently tempered by love — probably relying on the miracu-
lous powers intrusted to them by Christ — said to him, "-Lord, wilt thou
that we command fire from heaven and consume them,., even as Elias
did ?" But he rebuked them with the question, " Know ye not with
what temper of mind* ye ought, as representatives of my spirit, to be
actuated 1" And they went to another village.
In the case just mentioned the Samaritans were in fault, and their
conduct tended to strengthen the Jewish prejudice of the disciples
ao"ainst them.f But another soon occurred in which Samaritan grati-
tude was made use of by the Saviour to counteract that prejudice.|
On the outskirts of a village ten lepers met him, nine of whom were
Jews, and the tenth a Samaritan. Shut out in common from the. fel-
lowship of men, they forgot their national hatred in their sufferings,
and banded together. Not daring, as lepers, to approach the Saviour,
they stood afar off and called for help. They were healed, but not im-
mediately ; Christ telling them to show themselves to the priests for in-
spection. Of all the ten, only the Samaritan came back to thank Christ,
and in him God, for the grace of healing.§
The Saviour drew the attention of the disciples to the susceptible
mind of the thankful Samaritan, in conti'ast with the dulness of heart
* Namely, not to call judgments down upon the enemies of the kingdom, but to seek
their salvation; the spirit of love and mercy, sympathizing with those that err from mista-
ken zeal; as Jesus himself had distinguished the sin against the Son of Man from that
against the Holy Ghost. Cf p. 227, 243. They should have known that his miracles were
designed to bless, not to punish. Cf. p. 134.
t The absence of any allusion here to Christ's former reception among the Samaritans
proves nothing against the veracity of tlio narrative ; it only illustrates the mamier in
which the synoptical Gospels were compiled.
X Of course we do not pretend to prove that this event (Luke, xvii., 11) necessarily falls
in the chronological place in which we give it.
§ There are several obscurities in the narrative. At what point did the Samaritan turn
hack (v. 1.5) ? Schleiermacker supposes that it was not until after the lepers had been de-
t;lared to be healed by the priest, and had brought the usual sacrifices ; that the Jew's migkt
have expected to meet Christ at the feast in Jerusalem and thank him there ; but the other,
following the Samaritan sense of the Mosaic law, went to the Temple of Gerizim, and
therefore could not expect to meet him again. Had this been the case, Christ would not
have praised him to the disadvantage of the others, merely because his gratitude, without
being greater, was sooner expressed. This being inadmissible, let us suppose the case
thus : tiie Samaritan, from intercourse with Jews, had imbibed Jewish opinions, and ad-
mitted the authority of their prophets, so far, at least, as to apply the law in their sense ;
in fact, it appears from the account that all tlie ten went together. But his ardent grati-
tude could not wait for Christ's arrival at Jerusalem; and as soon as he had the priest's
ctrtificate, he hurried back to meet Jesus — who travelled slowly— on the way, and express
his thanks. But the sense which naturally flows from Luke's words is also the most prob-
alde in itself; the lepers found themselves healed soon after leaving the village, and the
Samaritan, full of gratitude, hastened back to give utterance to it.
326 CHRIST AT JERUSALEM.
shown by the Jews. This simple example was, in fact, a type of the
conduct of multitudes*
CHAPTER XIII.
CHRIST'S STAY AT JERUSALEM DURING THi: FEAST OF THE
DEDICATION.
§ 223. His Statement of the Proof of las 'Messlalisliip'. — His Oneness
with the Father. — He defends his Words from the Old Testament.
(John, X., 22-39.)
N the month of December Christ arrived at Jerusalem to attend the
Feast of the Dedication. As he had not always alike openly
declared himself to be Messiah, he was asked, while walking in Solo-
mon's Porch, by certain Jews, "How long wilt thou hold us in susi^cnse?
If thou he the Christ, tell us plainly.^'' We do not know by whom, oi-
in what spirit, this question was asked. In view of the prevalent no-
tions of the Jews in respect to the nature of Messiah's kingdom, we
may readily imagine that persons not entii'ely hostile might complain
of the uncertainty in which they were held. Probably, however,
among those who put the question were some that had no other object
than to use his answer to his disadvantage. Whoever they were, it is
clear that they had no just ideas of Christ's ministry or of his relations
to mankind ; and, therefore, no further explanation than that which
his words and deeds had already afforded could have been of use to
them.
He, therefore, replied, " I told you, and yo believed not. What use
to repeat it 1 There is no need of telling you in express terms. You
might have known it from the (objective) testimony of my works, had
you been so disposed. The works that I do in my Father's name, they
bear witness of me. But you lack faith ; and you lack it because you
are not of my sheep (your spirit excludes you from my fellowship).
M.I) sheept hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me ; and
* lu the narrative the miracle holds a subordinate place ; the prominent feature is the
couti'ast between the thankfulness of the Samaritan and the ingratitude of the Jews ; and
this fact alone testifies to its veracity in respect to the miracle itself The attempts that
have been made to impugn it, or to show that it was originally a pai'ablc, are futile ; it
bears no mark of improbability, and its position in the historical account of the journey \»
perfectly natural. A narrator of events naturally gives prominence to those points in
which his own mind is most interested, and throws others comparatively into the back
ground; so that many things may appear wanting in his statements to readers who wish
to fonn for themselves a perfect image of the transactions. But this certainly is no ground
for supposing all the rest to be mere inrcntion. This much against Hast, who expresses
himself, however, with uncertainty, and opposes Strauss.
t If this alludes to the parable of the Good Shepherd, and the words >.o0uf inav v,Civ (v.
"I AND MY FATHER ARE ONE." 327
I grant unto them eternal life ; and they shall never perish, neither
ehall any man pluck them out of my hand (/. c, ray protecting care, un-
der which they will reach, in safety, the full enjoyment of eternal life).
My Father, who gave them to me, is the Almighty ; and no power of
the world can pluck them from the hand of Omnipotence. Through
me, they are united with the Almighty Father; land the Father are
oner
"We understand by the " oneness" here spoken of the oneness of
Christ with the Father in will and works, in virtue of which his work
is the work of the Father ; but this was founded on the consciousness
of his original and essential oneness with the Father, as is clear from
his testimonies in other places as to his relations to God. In and of
itself the language of Christ contained nothing that might not have been
said from the stand-point of the Jewish idea of the Messiah. But the
hostile spirits gladly seized the occasion to accuse him of blasphemy,
and preparations were made to stone him.
The rigid, legal Monotheism of the Jews placed an infinite and im-
passable gulf between God and the creature ; and they, therefore, took
offence at Christ's words, especially at the higher sense in which he
was accustomed to call himself the Son of God. He then sought to
prove to them, on their own ground, that Messiah might call himself in
that higher sense the Son of God, and appropriate the titles founded
thereon, without the slightest prejudice to the honour of God. " If,"
said he, "in your own law (Ps. Ixxxii., 6) persons who, in specific re-
lations, represent God (<?.§-., judges and kings), are called gods (D''ri'7N) ;
how much more, and in how far higher a sense, is the highest Theo-
cratic King entitled to call himself the Son of God." The Jews had
not directly taken offence at his calling himself the Son of Gdo, but at
his saying, " I am one with the Father ;" but Christ considered the lat-
ter claim as a necessary result of the former.* He concluded by say-
2f)) are genuine, it might be inferred that this conversation took place shortly after the
other, and, therefore, that the journey to Galilee and back could not have occuired between
them. But it would not be at aU decisive to that effect; Christ may have alluded to the
parable ft-equently, and thus kept it fresh in the memorj' of his hearers.
* I cannot agree with the views of this argument which Strauss (3'<^' Aufl., i., 536) has
'adoj)ted from Kern (Tiibinger Zeitschrift, 1836, ii., 89) : "Jesus used this line of argument
to prove his right to style himself the Sou of God to persons who did not admit his Messiah-
ship, and who could not be convinced by passages in which Messiah was so called, that
hp. had a right to apply the title to himself" This is totally foreign to the connexion in
which the argument is handed down to us. The Jews were not offended because Christ
had appropriated a title to which none but Messiah had a right, but because they believed
him to claim more than any creature could. It was not his Messiahship that was in ques-
tion, but whether any human being could place himself in such relations to God without
prejudice to the Divine honour. Christ's concluding sentence (v. 36) implied that if any
one could appropriate such a title, it was much more the privilege of one hallowed by God,
and sent by him into the world, i. e., of the Messiah ; thus presupposing his own Messiah-
328- CHRIST IN PERvEA.
ing, that, if they would not believe his words, they might, from his
works, know and believe that He was in the Father, and the Father in
Him.
CHAPTER XIV.
JESUS IN PERiEA (BETHABARA).
§ 224. His Decision on the Question of Divorce. — Celibacy. (Matt.,
xix, 2-12 ; Mark, x., 3-12.)
AS Jesus could remain no longer at Jerusalem with safety, he re-
tired for a while into the vicinity of Bethabara, in Peraja,* where
he had first ajipeared pulilicly, and where he had always found, in the
results of the Baptist's labours, a point of departure for his own.
Many in that neighbourhood were prepared to recognize Jesus as high-
er than John, because the latter had done no such Divine works as the
former daily performed.
In view of his admitted authority, weighty questions in theology — at
least some which were much debated in the schools of the time — were
proposed to him for solution. These questions were put either to test
his wisdom, or because of the confidence men had already acquired in
his illumination as a prophet. One of them concerned the interpreta-
tion of the Mosaic law of divorce, and was chiefly disputed between
the schools of Hillel and of Schammai. Both schools erred in con-
founding the political and juridical with the moral elements of the
question.t The school of Hillel held that the moral law of marriage
was satisfied in the Theocratico-political law of Moses ; that of Scham-
mai understood the demands of morality better, but erred in interpret-
ing the Mosaic law, and in their idea of the stand-point from which it
was given.
When the question was presented to Christ for decision, he separa-
ted the two stand-points — the moral and the legal — which had been
confounded by the schools ; in substance, however, in the notion of
marriage itself, he agreed most with the school of Schammai. He de-
clared (as he had before done in the Sermon on the Mountf ) that mar-
ship. The argument is, therefore, rather a conclusio a ininwi ad majus than, as Kern
thinks, an apagogic one.
* John, X., 40. This brief stay in Pcrffia is intimated also in Matt., xix., 1 ; for what-
ever sense is put upon the words ch rd npia rrn 'lomViiuf, it is expressly said that Christ
went uipav roC 'lopSdvov. What is said in Mark, x., 1, i. e., that he went through Perwa to
.ludea, appears to conflict with the original account of the journey, as given in Luke. Com
paring Matt., xix., 1, seq., and Mark, x., 1, seq., we infer that wliat is here related took
jilace partly during Clirist's stay in Peraea, and partly when he had retired from Jcnisalcm
into Jndea.
t Cf Michaeli.s on the Law of Moses, ii., $ l'.JO. \ Cf p. 233.
DIVORCE. 329
riage is, according to its idea, an indissoluble union, by which man and
wife are joined into one whole, constituting but one life ['■'ihcy twain
are one flesh'"]. As it was his work evei;y where to lead back all hu-
man relations to their original intention, so he decided that the idea of
marriage represented in Genesis, as originally the basis of its institu-
tion by God, should be realized in life.
This idea of marriage is not an isolated thing, separate from the
system of life that emanated from Christ, but belongs to its organism
as a whole. As Christ has restored in human nature the image of God
in its totality, so the two-fold ground-form for its exhibition, denoted
by the opposite sexes, must be reinstated in its rights — its ideal must
be realized. It is essential to this that these two ground-forms fulfil
their destiny, and become mutually complementary to each other in a
higher unity of life, binding two personalities together ; and this is
marriage. It was by Christ, therefore, that the true import of this re-
lation had to be unfolded.
Having derived from Gen., ii., 24, the higher unity into which two
persons of different sexes should be joined by marriage, he drew the
following conclusion : " What, therefore, God (by the original institution
of marriage, by the inward relation of the two persons to each other,
and by the leadings through which he makes them conscious of it)
hath joined together, let not man put asunder J^ Upon this they asked,
" How, then, does this bear upon the Mosaic law, which admits of di-
vorce 1" He replied, " Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts
(your rude and carnal condition), snfl'ered you to put away your wives
(as state laws do not aim to realize moral ideas or to create a moral
sense, but to bring about outivard civilization, the laws being adapted
to the stand-point of the natuT-e) ; but from the beginning it was not so."
But Christianity, from its very nature, can make no such condescen-
sions. It is her problem every where to realize the ideals of the crea-
tion ; a task which the new life imparted by God makes possible to
her. In fact, Christ's decision in this particular case illustrates the en-
tire relation of Judaism to Christianity ; there, condescension to a rude
condition of the natural man, which could not be removed by outward
means ; here, the restoration of that which was in the beginning. Ju-
daism, in a word, stood midway between the original and the renewal.
(Gal., iii., 19.)
This high idea of marriage was at that time beyond the reach of the
disciples ; its indissolubility appeared so hard, and the responsibility
(if every separation were adultery) so gi-eat, that they said, in alarm,
" If the case be so, it is better not to marry at all."
Now it is not to be imagined that Christ would reply to this only by
praising those who were incapable of realizing the Christian idea of
330 CHRIST IN PER/EA.
mairiage and exalting the superiority (even though a conditional one)
of a single life. We should have expected, in accordance with his
usual mode of teaching, that he would point out the ground of their
ularm in the state of their hearts, and show that what appeared so
difficult would be made easy by the power of the Divine life. More-
over, if he intended to answer them only by recommending celibacy,
he omitted precisely that which the occasion demanded, viz., the men-
tion of celibacy arising from conscious inability to come up to the moral
standai-d of marriage. This sudden leap, from a lofty definition of the
idea of marriage to a laudation of celibacy, appears certainly unac-
countable ; we must, therefore, suppose that some intermediate part of
the conversation has been omitted. The disciples might have inferred,
from his placing marriage so high, that it was to be indispensable, under
the new covenant, to the manifestation of the kingdom of God. In
this respect, however, Christ stood directly opposed to the Jewish stand-
point, which absolutely required marriage; he was far from prescribing
an unconditional form, binding under all the manifold and diversified
circumstances of life ; the kingdom of God could be served under
various relations and conditions, and all was to bend to this object.
We must presume, therefore, either that (as is often the case in
Matthew's Gospel) the passage has been transferred from some other
comiexion to this ; or, if it really belongs here, that the intermediate
portions of the conversation have not been transmitted to us.
Christ's doctrine on celibacy here is, that, if it aim at the glory of
God, it must, like true marriage, be connected with the power of con-
trolling nature. Such celibacy, and such only, does he recognize, as
implies the sacrifice of human feelings from love to the kingdom of
Gop, and for the sake of rendering it more efficient service. Only in
this sense could he have spoken of cehbacy '•'for the kingdom of Heaven' s
.sake ;" he never used this expression to denote fitting one's self for
the kingdom by a contemplative life, &c., but always to denote a holy
activity in its service. He condemns those who bury their talents in
order to preserve them. But at a time when the outward spread of
the kingdom of God was the chief object of religious effort, celibacy,
for its sake especially, might find place.
It is to be carefully noted that Christ by no means says " Blessed
are those who abstain from marriage for the sake of the kino-dom," &:c.,
as if this, in itself, was pre-eminently excellent; but simply describes
an existing state of facts : " There are some eunuchs.,''' &c. ; distinguish-
ing such as adopt this mode of life for the sake of the kingdom from
those thq.t either have no choice in the matter, or are actuated by otlier
motives. His decision, therefore, was opposed not only to tlie old
Hebrew notion that celibacy was ^?(?/- se ignominious, but also to the
ascetic doctrine which made it j)cr se a superior condition of life ; a
THE CHILD-LIKE SPIRIT. 331
doctrine so widely diffused in later times. It involves his great prin-
ciple, that the heart and disposition must be devoted to the interests of
the kingdom of God, and for it must voluntarily modify all the relations
of life as necessity may require.
§ 22;i. The Blessing of Little Children. (Luke, xviii., 15-17; Matt.,
xix., 13-15 ; Mark, x., 13-16.)
As the Saviour was leaving a certain place in Pera^a, where he had
deeply impressed the people, they brought their little children to re-
ceive his blessing. The disciples, unwilling to have him annoyed,
turned them away. But Jesus called them back, and said, " Suffer the
little children to come unto me, and forbid them not ; for of such is the
kingdom of Heaven." He then took them up in his arms, laid his hand
upon them, and blessed them; adding, "Whosoever shall not receive
the kingdom of God as a little child, shall not enter therein.'''' These
words were opposed partly to the idea still entertained by the dis-
ciples (manifested in their deeming the approach of the children incon-
sistent with his dignity), that the glory of Messiah and his kingdom
would be outward ; and partly to the self-willed and self-seeking spii'it
which debased their religious conceptions ; a spirit strikingly exhibited
in many of their expressions during this last period of Christ's labours.
In fact, this single saying expressed the whole nature of the Gospel
proclaimed by Christ. It implied that he viewed the kingdom of Gon
as an invisible and spiritual one, to enter which a certain disposition
of heart was essential, viz., a child-like spirit, free from pride and self-
will, receiving Divine impressions in humble submission and conscious
dependence: in a word, all the qualities of the child, suffering itself tc
be guided by the developed reason of the adult, are to be illustrated
in the relations between man and God.* Without this child-like spirit
t^ere can be no religious faith, no religious life. On the one hand,
Christ rebuked that self-confidence which expects a share in the king-
dom on the ground of intellectual or moral worth ;t but on the other,
by making children a model, he recognized in them not only the unde-
veloped spirit of self, but also the undeveloped consciousness of God,
striving after its original. The whole transaction illustrates the love
with which Christ goes to meet the dawning sense of God in human
nature.
* Precisely tlie same spirit as was demandeil in the sayings of Christ alluded to on p.
225, Bei],
t The belief that reason is self-sufficient would utterly unhinge the Christian world, and
cause its Hfe to assume forms directly the reverse of those which Christian principles have
created. It would, indeed, cause a contest of life and death.
332 CHRIST IN PER^A.
§ 226. Christ's Conversation with the rich Ruler of the Synagogue
{young man ?). (Matt., xix., 16-24 ; Mark, x., 17, seq. ; Luke,
xviii., 18, seq.)
Christ was followed from the place above mentioned by a ruler* of
the synagogue whose mind had been impressed by his words, and who
came to ask what remained for him to do that he might inherit eternal
life. It is clear that he was one of the self-righteous, and had as yet
no just sense of his legal deficiencies and need of redemption. He
probably expected to hear from the lips of the great Teacher himself
that he had already done all that was requisite to secure eternal life ;
or merely that some additional exercises of piety were necessary ; he
himself being all the time perfectly content with his own moral condi-
tion. And in this spirit he asked the question, " Good Master, lohat
shall I do to inherit eternal lifeV
Cluist replied, " Why callest thou me good ?j none is good save one,
that is, God." The difficulty which appears to lie in these words, when
compared with other declarations of Christ in regard to his person, will
vanish if we keep in view the general sense in which the antithesis is
expressed. God is good in a sense which can be predicated of no
creature. He alone is the primal source and cause of all good in ra-
tional beings, who are created to be free organs of his revelations of
himself (It is the high import of true morality that the glory of God,
the only good and holy one, is revealed in it.) Christ would not have
exhibited, in his character as man, a model of perfect humility, had
he not traced back to God all the good liiat was in him. But in the
instance before us he doubtless had a special reason for answering
thus ; in any other case he might have allowed the title to be applied
* According to Luke an ap\wi', which might also rneau " a member of the Sanhedrito ;"
but as Christ was at Peraea, it was more probably " a ruler of the synagogue." Accord-
ing to Matthew, he was a " young man," which does not suit very well with his aiTogant
language "All these have I kept from my youth up." It is true, the words ck vtoTtjTos nov
are wanting in Cod. Vatic, but the authorities for retaining them preponderate ; their
omission may have been caused by the very discrepancy to which we allude. Although it
cannot be said to be entirely improbable that he was a youth, yet the whole tone of dis-
course appears to imply that he was advanced in years, and had a self-righteous couKdeuce
founded on a life blameless from his youth up.
t Lachmann reads, ti ne. ipiiirai mp\ rod dyadov : tis eauv b ayaOoi. Even if this be the true
reading, De Wctte's explanation, which seems to me to conflict with the whole teaching of
Christ, by no means follows from it. It may be thus interpreted : " Why do you ask me
about what is good ? There is one who is good, and to him thou must go to learn what is
good ; and he has, in fact, revealed it to thee." (Mailer, Lehre v. d. Suiide, p. 80, gives, as
the thought expres.sed in the passage, "that only from communion with him who alone is
good can the created spirit receive the good ;" thus making the sense about the same as
in the common reading.) '• Thou couldst then answer the question for thyself But since
thou askest me, then know," &c. But Laclmiann's reading of the reply has not the air of
originaKty ; it was, perhaps, invented because Christ's declining the epithet " good " was
a stumbling-block.
THE RICH RULER. 333
to him without incurring the charge of self-deification. Wc infer this
from the fact of the answer itself, and also from the conduct of the
questioner. The Saviour, looking into his heart, saw that he was
vainly trusting in his own morality, and was most of all lacking in hu-
mility ; and it was precisely these defects which Christ suggested to
him, by declining for himself the epithet " good."
In regard to the subsequent words of Christ two suppositions are
possible. (1.) The first would run as follows : Jesus did not at once
answer the ruler's question, but put to him another, viz., whether he
had kept the commandments, /. e., in their literal and outward sense,*
without special reference to the law of love. He could not, of course,
mean that this would secure eternal life; the Sermon on the Mount
had already demanded a higher and purer obedience. Thus far he
only described the lower stand-point — that of a justitia civilis ; with
the intention to follow it up with the declaration (contained in v. 22)
that such a fulfilment would not suffice to gain eternal life ; that one
thing higher was still lacking. (2.) The second interpretation, and
the one to which our own opinions incline, is as follows : Christ an-
swers (Matt., xix., 17), "i/' thou loilt enter into life, keep the com-
mandments ;*' implying, doubtless, a true fulfilment of the law as rep-
resenting the holiness of God, and, therefore, presupposing the ex-
istence of the all-essential love in the specific duties mentioned (v.
IS, 19). But it is clear that Christ did not presuppose that the ruler
had kept the commandments in this sense ; on the contrary, seeing his
wilful self-righteousness, he adapted his answers thereto, to make him
conscious how far he was from that true obedience which is requisite
for inheriting the kingdom. He thus gives the man occasion himself
to express his self-righteousness : ^^ All these have I kept from my youth
npy When he adds, " What lack I yet V Jesus tells him the one
thing necessary :t " Exchange thine earthly wealth for heavenly treas-
ure (the highest treasure, a share in the kingdom of God, which none
can secure but those who hold all other treasures as valueless in com-
parison with it) ; give thy goods to the poor, and come and.folloio me!"
* As quoted Luke, xviii., 20.
f It is a question wliether the form given by Luke is not that which most accurately
expresses Christ's meaning'. Matthew has it, " If thou wilt be perfect ;" but even here
could not be intended a perfection superior to the fulfilment of the law ; for. according to the
Sermon on the Mount, there can be no higher perfection ; and, moreover, the subsequent ex-
pressions of the disciples show that they understood Christ to specify a state of heart which
all must possess in order to secure eternal life. A misunderstanding of this conversation
of Christ gave rise to a distinction between the fulfilment of the law, i. e., the performance
of duty, and moral peifection ; which has been a fmitful source of error ever since the first
ages of Christianity. Clement of Alexandria understood and explained the passage more
correctly; not so much in his beautiful treatise "Qttis Dives Salv.," as in his Strom., iii.,
449. He says on Matt., xix., 21 : ^AtyX" '''iv Kax>x<iy^t.vov M r^ vdaai rd; ivro'SaS Ik vcorriroS
TiTtipriKctai, oil yap -m-rrXripuiKct to ' dyaTTi^fffif rdv nXrjalov dij lavrdv ' totc ie biri Tov Kvpiov cvvTeXcio-
Vfievof, iiildaKZTo 6i' uyuViji' licraStiovat. ,
334 CHRIST AT PETRiE.
Christ commands him to follow, just as he was, without delaying to
care for his possessions; expressing, in this particular command, the
general thought: " The one thing which thou lackest, and without which
none can enter into eternal life, is the denial of thyself and of the world,
making eveiy thing subordinate to the interests of the Divine kingdom."'
He chose the particular form, instead of the general rule, in order tt*
corr\ince the rich man of his lack the more strikingly, by jjointing out
his weakest side ; for he clung to his wealth with his whole heart ; to
teach him, from his own experience of his love of the world, how far he
was from possessing that love which is the essence of obedience to the
law.*
§ 227. The Danger of Wealth. (Matt., xix., 22, seq. ; Mark, x., 22,
seq. ; Luke, xviii., 23, seq.)
The rich man, incapable of the sacrifice demanded of him, went
away in perplexity ; and Christ said to the disciples, "By this example
you may see how hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of Heaven;"
and then he employed a figure by which, indeed, it appears to be im-
possible : "It is easier for a camel, ^^ &c. Nor is this to be interpreted
as a hyperbole; the words of v. 26, " With vicn this is iinjioisihle [i. c, to
unassisted human nature) ; but with God all tilings are possible," show
that Christ meant to say that it is impossible to the unaided powers
of man, before he has partaken of that higher life which alone can
destroy the love of self and of the world, vSome of the hearers were
amazecj at Christ's saying, and exclaimed, in alarm, "-Who, then, can
be saved?" i
If this exclamation were made by any of the Apostles, it must appear
strange ; they had no wealth to absorb their affections ; and had, in fact,
made the very sacinfice demanded. But if we suppose th^t they did
make it, they probably took Christ's words in a general sense — in which
they would be as applicable to the poor as to the rich — as implyinir
* If we compare with tliis narrative, as given in our Gospels, that form of it whah
appears in the Evaiig. ad Ilcbrmos, we can see that the latter is a later revision, from the
way in which some points arc contracted and others unhistorically dilated ; c. g., Christ,
instead of throwing out a single thought to excite the man's mind, gives him at once a full
explanation (though a correct one). "Dixit ad cvm alter divitvvi (whether several rich
men were mentioned in the original tradition, or this was a piece of invention) magister.
quid bonum faciens vivam ? Dixit ei: Homo, leges et prophctas fac (an imitation nl
Christ's saying that ' in love both the law and the prophets are fulfilled'). Respondit ad
r.um: feci. Dixit ei ■• vadc, vende omnia qine. posnides, et divide puuperilmg et vent, sequere
)ne. Capit autem dives scalpere cajmt stium (clearly enough a little colouring matter
thrown in; although such graphic features are not alwaj's a mai-k of spuriousness ; their
character will generally decide the point. In this instance the fancy is apparent). Kt
dixit ad cum Doniuus : Qiivniodo dicis : legem feci et prophctas, qtioniam scriptum est in.
lege: diiiges praximnm tuiim sicut te ipsum, et cere, multifratres tui.fUi Abrahiv, aviiciti
vml siereore, moricntes pnc fame et dvmus tua plena est multis bonis ct non egredittir
otnnino aliquid ex ea ad cos."
REIGNING WITFI CHRIST. 335
total renunciation of eaithly things. Yet Peter's question, v. 27, does
not accord very well with this supposition. It is also very possible that
the persons referred to in the passage did not belong to the number of
the Apostles.*
" The things,'" said Christ, "■which arc impossible with men are jiossi-
hle ivith God." What man cannot do by his unaided powers, he can
accomplish by the power of (tod. By enunciating this truth as the
result of his whole course of remark, he showed its point of departure
and its aim. While the rest stood, as it were, stupified, Peter ventured
to say, " Does what you have said apply to us 1 Lo, we have left all
and folloived thee."] Then uttered the Saviour those words, so full of
consoling promise : " There is no man that hatli left liouse, or farents,
or brethren, or loife, or children for the kingdoyi of God's sake, who shall
not receive manifold more in this present time, and in the world to come
life everlasting.'''' The first part of the promise (referring to this life)
was enough to show even those whose minds were filled with carnal
and Chiliastic expectations, that the whole was to be taken, not literally,
but spiritually ; Christians were to receive back all that they had sacri-
• ficed, increased and glorified, in the communion of the higher life on
earth. The second part expressed the common inheritance of believr
crs — everlasting life in heaven.
§ 228. Believers are to Reign with Christ.
Matthew mentions in this connexion (xix., 28) the promise of Christ
to his disciples, that, when the Son of Man should appear with domin-
ion corresponding to his glory in the renewed and glorified world, they
should "*/^ upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.'"
The word "judging" includes the idea of "governing," according to
its ancient acceptation. The collocation of this passage may be one of
those instances in whicli Matthew arranges his matter more according
to the connexion of thought than of time ; but there is no reason to
ijuestion its originality. The idea of a participation of believers witii
(Jhrist in the government and judgment of the future world is bound
up with the whole mode of representing the kingdom of God in the
New Testament;! our duty must be to separate the idea fi'om its
symbolical form derived from the old Theocratic mode of thought, and
to recognize the new Spirit that was to be developed from it. The
passage (like the other promises in the context) recognizes degrees in
the share of government and judgment allotted to believers. Not only
* Luke, xviii., 2G, sapports this.
t The fonn of the question of Peter given by Matthew (xix., 27) implies a looking for
reward on his part. But had this been his object iu putting it, Christ would have more
emphatically reproved it.
t Cf. p. 225. Various passages of Paul (1 Cor., vi., 2, &c.) presuppose such sayings of
Christ.
336 CHRIST IN BETHANY.
the Head, but also all the organs of the kingdom of God are to share
in its dominion ; because its dominion is to be universal. This is an
important idea for Christian ethics. There are to be "judges" and
"judged," " rulers" and " ruled" — but in an exalted sense — in the new
form of the Theocracy as well as in the old
CHAPTER XV.
JESUS IN BETHANY.
§ 229. The Family of Lazarus. — Martha and Mary ; their different
Te?idencies. (Luke, x., 38, seq.)
A PRESSING call induced Christ to leave Persea, where he found
so susceptible a soil, perhaps sooner than he would otherwise
have done.
About a mile and a half from Jerusalem, at the foot of the Mount of
Olives, lay the village of Bethany, where dwelt a family, two sisters
and a brother, with whom Christ had formed, during his repeated and
protracted visits to the city, a close and affectionate intimacy. Luk(;
has left us a description of this family agreeing perfectly (without de-
sign or concert) with that given by John* (xi., 1-5). On one occasion,
when Christ was partaking of their hospitality, one of the sisters, Mar-
tha, showed more anxiety to provide for the bodily comforts of her ex-
alted guest, and to give him a worthy reception, than to secure the
blessings for her soul which his presence so richly offered ; while her
more spiritual sister, Mary, gave herself wholly to listening to the
words of life from the lips of the Saviour. Martha, finding all the
cares of the family thrown upon her, complained to Jesus thereof; and
he made use of the occasion to impress upon her mind the general
* The passage in John probably refers to the earlier period of this intimacy. It is true,
Lake (x., 38) does not mention the name of the village ; the account transmitted to him
probably did not contain it, and here, as in other cases, he would not insert the name
merely for the sake of giving definitcuess to the narrative. The event itself, as a very sitr-
nificant one, had been faithfully kept aiid transmitted ; the locality, being unimportant to
the interest of the event, was probably forgotten. It is true, the position of the passage,
in the account of Christ's last journey to Jerusalem, might lead to the inference that the
place was at some distance from the city ; but, as wc have already said, the account itself
mingles two journeys together, as is especially evident in the single case before ns. De
Welle has remarked this. Luke simply adhered to the account he had received, which
gave him no information about tiie locality; this last we must learn from John. The prob-
abilities, in regard to time, are favourable to our supposition. The undesigned coinci-
dence, therefore, of John with Luke, in the description of the family, &c., is a strong proof
of credibility. Hlrnusx, however, adduces Luke's silence in regard to Lazarus ns invali-
dating John's credibility, but without the slightest reason ; Luke's object was to make
prominent the relation of the two sisters to Christ, and the mention of Lazarus was, there-
fore, not at all necessary.
MARY AND xMARTHA. 337
truth which he so often, and under so many diversified forms, taught to
his hearei's : "Martha, thou art careful and troubled about 7nany things,
but one thing is needful ;* and Mary hath chosen that good part (that
which is good in itself; the only worthy aim of human effort), which
shall not be taken from her (a possession that shall be everlasting, not
perishable, like these worldly things)."
It is wholly contrary to the sense of history to interpret this narra-
tive [as some do] so as to make Martha represent the practical and
Mary the contemplative tendency, and thence to infer that Christ as-
cribes superiority to the latter. The antithesis is between that turn of
mind which forgets, in a multiplicity of objects, the one fundamental
aim ; and that, on the other hand, which devotes itself solely to the one
object from which all others should proceed. Christ demands of his
followers constant activity in his service, and therefore could not have
approved an entirely contemplative spirit. What he honours in Mary
is the spirit which ought to be the centre and animating principle of
all activity. It is true, Martha is more practical and worldly ; Mary
more contemplative and spiritual ; but these manifestations do not ne-
cessarily indicate character; although in this instance (and, indeed, com-
monly) the manifestation corresponds to the character. It was not ne-
cessary that Martha's multiplied cares should distract her from the one
thing needful ; Christ blamed her, not for her cares, but for not makinn-
them subordinate : for so surrendering herself to them as to put the
greater interest in the back-ground.
§230. The Sickness of Lazarus ; Christ's Reply to the Messengers
who informed him of it. (John, xi., 1-4.)
While Christ was in Peraea, about a day's journey from Bethany,
Lazarus, the brother of Martha and Mary, was taken sick, and the
sisters sent to inform the Saviour of it, doubtless in the'hope of obtain-
ing his assistance. His reply gave this consolation, at least, to the sis-
ters— that their brother should not be separated from them by death ;
although its true import was not obvious until afterward : " This sick-
ness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God
might he glorified thereby ^
Now, as Lazarus actually died, these words appear to need explana-
tion. Did Christ, in view of the symptoms that were reported to him,
really think that Lazarus would not die % and was the object of his
message simply to console the sisters with the assurance that the mercy
* This clause is wanting in Cod. Cantab., and other Latin authorities ; but nothing would
be lost to the sense even if it were left out ; for " that good part which cannot be lost" is
the "one thing" to which life should be supremelj' devoted, in contrast with the "many
things" which waste and dissipate a divided mind.
Y
338 CHRIST IN BETHANY.
and power of God would be glorified in themselves and their brother,
by saving the latter from death ? Was the latter pait of the message,
•' That the Son might be glorified," added by the Evangelist himself,
incorporating his own explanation with Christ's words 1
Certainly we shall not assert that Christ could not but foreknow, in-
fallibly, in the exercise of his superhuman knowledge, the result of the
disease ; it maij have been the case that he described it, in view of the
symptoms at the time, as not necessarily fatal, although it afterward
took another turn. But if all this were granted, there is something
else to be considered. Christ could not, consistently with his charac-
ter, have given so positive a prediction on the deceptive evidence of
mere symptoms ; he could not have mocked his friends with baseless
hopes, so soon to be scattered. V/e must take it for granted, therefore,
that his confidence was founded on a far surer basis ; it was the Divine
nature, dwelling in him, that illuminated his human mind. To be
sure, it is jjossible that his confident conviction that Lazarus would be
saved may have been coupled with uncertainty as to whether he should
be saved from sickness, or from death; but the language of his reply,
although it might admit this construction, is not at all inconsistent witli
absolute certainty on his part that Lazarus would die. The reply was
intended to comfort the sisters, and to them it could make no difference
whether their brother was saved from apparent or real death, in case
the latter were of short duration ; and Christ may, therefore, have
wished to avoid presenting the naked idea of death in his words. And
the partial ambiguity of his language may also have been designed to
test the faith of the sisters. It is possible that with this view he ut-
tered the words " vnep TTjg do^rjq tov deov," and stopped there, the
rest being (possibly) added by the Evangelist.
§ 231. The Death of Lazarus ; Christ's Conversation with the Disci-
jjles in regard to it. (John, xi., 11, seq.)
The affliction of Lazarus determined Jesus to leave Pereea, where
his labours had been so fruitful. Still, he remained there two days (v.
6), continuing his ministry. But although his course was thiis decided
by circumstances, he very well knew that the result would produce the
happiest religious effects upon the sisters.
It was probably on the very evening of the return of the messengers
that Lazarus died. What comfort could Christ's encouraging language
now afford them! The word of promise seemed to be broken; ?iis
word, whom they had always known as the Faithful and True ; his
word, which they had never seen come to naught. What conflicting
feelino-s must have struggled for the mastery in their hearts ! Either
they sent a second messenger to the Saviour,* or the latter became
• John's.AOt mentioning a second messenger (v. 11) does not prove that none was eent.
THE DEATH OF LAZARUS. ^39
aware of the event by his own supernatural knowledge. When he an-
nounced to his disciples that Lazarus " slept," they thought at first
that he had heard it in some way, and took it as a sign of recovery.*
Thereupon he said to them in express terms, "Lazarus is dead ; and
I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, to the intent ye may
believe'' (still further). Not, however, by any means asserting that he
had purposely stayed away, that Lazarus migbt die and their faith be
confirmed by his resurrection ; but, in fact, implying that although his
delay had been caused by other reasons, he rejoiced at the means it
would afford of strengthening their faith at a time when such rude
shocks were at hand. His words imply, also, that if he had been in
Bethany, he would not have suffered the family to reach such a pitch
of anguish merely for the sake of relieving them, and displaying the
highest degree of miraculous power afterward ; in compassion to their
grief he would not have suffered the sick man to die. Just as a mer-
ciful man employs natural means to relieve suffering according to the
circumstances, so Christ made use of his .?z^/;c/--natural power ; with
this difference, however, that the aims of his Divine calling were al-
ways kept in view in the exercise of those powers. For this leason,
too, he did not cure all the sick around him.
His decision to go to Bethany astonished and alarmed the disciples
to such an extent that they lost sight of tbeir higher expectations from
hinr as Messiah, and of their higher view of his person. It was char-
acteristic of Thomas, who was more in bondage to sense than tlie
others, to give utterance to his anxiety more prominently (v. IG) ; and,
in fact, this anxiety must have appeared out of place to the disciples
had they kept in view their ordinary conceptions of Messiah.
The Saviour now set himself to dispel the clouds which their fears
had created ; to revive their higher intuition of his person and their
just sense of communion with him; and to remind them that, in the
few remaining days in which they were to enjoy his personal guidance,
they should submit to it implicitly and trustfully. They were accus-
tomed to hear him compare himself with the natural sun, shedding- its
beams upon the earth during certain fixed hours ;t and it was, perhaps,
Moreover, when .John is giving any instance of the exercise of Christ's supernatural knowl-
edge, he generally intimates it in some way ; here he gives no such intimation. When
Christ told the dLsciples that Lazanis ■' slept," they understood his words in a natural
sense ; and it appears most probable that they thought he had received a message from the
sisters. Be the case decided as it may, Jolm's language is not such as would be used by
a man who wished to give special prominence, to the supernatural.
* The disciples knew, at least, that persons believed to be dead had been restored by
Christ ; they knew, also, that " sleep" was a common image of death ; yet their misunder-
standing is by no means inexplicable, as some suppose ; nor does it throw the least shade
upon the credibility of the Evangelist.
t John, ix., 5 ; cf p. 294, 299. A similar figure, Luke, xi., 33 : The light that cannot but
chine. Cf. p. 228, 240.
340 CHRIST IN BETHANi'.
in allusion to this symbol that he now said,* " Are there not twelve
hours in the day? If any man walk In the day he stumhleth not, he-
cause he seeth the light of this world.'"' So the disciples, so long as they
had the Sun of the spiritual world to guide them with his light, were
to follow him witliont fear or care. " But fa man 2calk in the night
he stumhleth, hecause their is no liglu in him." So, in the time then
rapidly approaching, when they should lose this light, they were to
choose their way with caution, lest they should stumble. Yet, in tlu-
mean time, the higher life was to become independent within them, so
far that they should not need this sensihlc guidance ; inward commun-
ion with the Light of the World was to supply the place of his visi-
ble presence, as Christ afterward told them in his last discourses. In
this spiritual SQnse, it is always true that Christ is the Light of thf;
World.
§ 232. The Death of Lazarus. — Christ's Conversation with Martha
(John, xi., 21-28) and icith Mary (v. 33, 34). — Jesus Weeps (v. 35).
The intelligence of Christ's approach to Bethany reached Martha
sooner than her less practical sister. Mary, lost in grief, gave no heed
to the busy world about her. The former went out to meet the Sav-
iour; and when she saw him who had done so many mighty works,
and whom she believed to be Messiah, a ray of hope beamed into her
soul, but she hardly dared to cherish it. " Lord, hadst thou heen here,
my hrother had not died; but I hnoic that even now, whatsoever thou
wilt ask of God, God tvill give it thee." Jesus replied, " Thy broth-
er shall rise again ;" referring directly to her own words, and not to
the future resurrection ; for had he wished to give her tJiat consolation,
he would not have done it in such bare and naked terms. He wished
to confirm her hope, but yet did it in rather indefinite language, either
designedly, or because her impatience interrupted him. His language
was too general to satisfy her feelings ; she wished a definite assurance
that Lazarus should be raised ; and, therefore, said, " I know that he
shall rise again in the resurrection of the last day ;" intimating what she
did not venture to express, viz., her wish first mentioned, Christ made
use of her misunderstanding (as was his wont) to lead her mind to the
great central truth of religion — the ground of all the believer's hopes
— as the source of a new hope in her brother's case. He points to
himself as the true life, the source of all life, the author of all resurrec-
tion : "I a?n the resurrection and the life ; he that believeth in me, though
he were dead, yet shall he live ; and whosoever liveth and believeth in
me shall never die.'" He then asked her the direct question, " Bcliev-
est thou this?" He intended to teach her that the faith of Lazarus
had been rewarded by a life beyond the power of death ; and that He,
* The words arc enigmatical without this allusion ; with it, they are plain.
THE DEATH OF LAZARUS. 341
the author of the resurrection and of a Ufe which death could not even
interrupt, could now also call her dead brother back again to life.
Although she did not fully comprehend his words, they gave her new
hopes ; and, after expressing anew her faith in him as the Messiah —
which included for her all things else — she hastened away to call her
broken-hearted sister, who had not even yet heard of the Saviour's ap-
proach. Nothing could rouse her from her profound and passive grief
but her love for Him to whose words of life she had so often surren-
dered herself, as passively and humbly. She hastened toward Jesus.
The Jews that were condoling with her in the house, fearing that she
was going to her brother's grave to give up to an excess of sorrow, fol-
lowed after. She saw Jesus, but offered no such request as her sister
had done; falling at his feet, she only cried, " Lord, if thou liadst heen
here, my hrothcr had not died^ Tears choked her further utterance ;
nor, indeed, was it her wont to anticipate Him whom her soul so re-
vered and loved. The Jews around, sympathizing in her sorrow, could
not refrain from tears.
And Jesus wept in the depth of his compassion. It has been in-
ferred from this, that although he hoped to restore Lazarus, he was
not, as yet, sure of it ; had he been so (it is said), the consciousness that
he was soon to turn the mourning into joy would have banished all
grief from his mind. But surely the expressions of bitter lamenta-
tion, the tears and agony of all around, were enough to stir the com-
passionate heart of Him who sympathized so deeply with all human
feelings, even though he knew that he should soon remove the cause of
grief itself. A physician (though the analogy is utterly inadequate),
standing by the bedside of a patient surrounded by weeping friends,
may well be affected by their grief, though he may be sure, so far as
human skill can give surety, that he will heal the disease. And we
must bear in mind, too, that Christ was Man as well as God ; and that
the blending of the Godhead and the manhood, the Divine infallibility
with the human hesitancy, must, in the very nature of the case, offer
many enigmas for our contemplation.
The Evangelist gives a graphic description of the effects produced
upon the Jews around by the sight of the tears of Jesus. The better
disposed saw in them only a manifestation of his love for Lazarus.
Others affected to doubt the truth of his miracles; he loved Lazarus
and his family ; why did he not save him 1 " Could not this man, tvhich
opened the cijes of the blind,* have caused that even this man should not
have died?"
* St)-auf!s finds a contradiction here between John and the other Evangelists : " The
Jews quote only the curing of the blind; wliy did they not quote the raising of the dead,
^4;i CHRIST IN BETHANY.
§ 233. The Resurrection of Lazarus. — The Praijcr of Christ. (John,
xi., 38-44.)
AV hen the stone was about to be lifted from the grave, Martha,*
whoie heart fluctuated between hope and fear, gave new utterance to
her doubts: '^ Lord, hy this time he stiriketh ;l for he hath hcen dead
four days.'' Jesus said unto her, " Haid I not unto thee, that if thou
wouldst believe, thou shouldst see the glory of GodV'\ (see God glorify
liimself in the effects of his Almighty mercy).
Then looking down into the grave, and assui'ed that Lazarus would
lise, as though the miracle were already wrought, he offers first
his thanksgiving to the Father : " Father, I thank thee that thou hast
heard me ; and I knew that thou headrest me always ; hut because of the
jtcople which stand, by, I said it, that they may beliece that thou hast
sent ■me.'''' Meaning that his utterance of thanks did not imply that he
only then became conscious of power to raise up Lazarus. Prayer and
thanksgiving were not isolated fragments of Christ's life ; his whole
life was one prayer and one thanksgiving ; for he knew that the heav-
enly Father heard him in all things, and always granted the powers
needful to his calling. He made this public, individual thanksgiving,
to testify to those around that he did this, like all his other acts, as the
messenger of the Father, and considered it, as all things else, his Fa-
ther's gilt.
This prayer has led some to distinguish this miracle from others as
(me not accomplished by Christ's indwelling Divine power, but by God
for him ; to class it, in fact, among answers to prayer. But as Christ's
whole life was one prayer, in the sense just mentioned, as he always
acted in unity with God, in the form of dependence, he could have ex-
pressed himself in the same terms in regard to any of his miracles.
And although Lazarus did not rise until the voice of Jesus called him
of which the other Evaugelists give several instances V But how do we know that these
Jews at the city were acquainted with what had occurred in Galilee ? Was it not natu-
ral for them to recur to the miraculous act perfoniied by Christ in the city itself so short a
time before, and which had excited such virulent opposition against him ? If Jolui's Gos-
pel were an invenlion, the inventor must have heard other narratives of Christ's raising
the dead ; and had he wished, as must have been the case, to invent a stronger example
than any of those recorded, he would surely have alluded to them. The question, then, is
just as applicable if the narrative be fictitious as if it be true.
* The conduct of Martha and Mary is in entire harmony with their characters ; the for-
mer doubts, and expresses her doubt ; the latter looks on in silence.
t We must grant that those are right who say that this expression of Martha's is no
jrroof that corruption had commenced in the corpse.
+ The reference of the words oxpn rni' Solav ruii Seov is doubtful. Some refer them to the
replj' to the messengers, John, xi., 4. In that reply nothing is said of " beheving," but
faith is silently presupposed. Others refer them to Clirist's words addressed direclly to
Martha (v. ao), in which faith is expressly required. It is true, the words '■ oxf/u," Ac., are
not given in that verse exi)ressly, but it contains, as we have already remarked, the basis
of a promise of the kind, only not aimounced.
THE RAISING OF LAZARUS. 34:5
foi-lL, be could thank God for it as an act achieved, in his certainly of
at once accomplishing it ; and, in so doing, testify that the power to do
it was from God.*
§ 234. Mcasicrcs taken against Christ h]) the Sanhedrim. (John, xi.,
47, seq.)
The raising of Lazarus exerted an important influence in bringing
about the final catastrophe of Christ's life. On the one hand, it led
many to believe in his Divine calling, and, on the other, it decided the
ruling Pharisaic party to adopt more violent measures against him.
They were now satisfied that their sentence of excommunicationt had
not counteracted the impressions which his ministry had made upon
the minds of the people ; and feai'ed that, if they let him alone, all men
would believe on him as Messiah. In view of the threatened danger,
a council of the Sanhedrim was summoned. Men who were in the
habit of sacrificing the peace of the state to their own passions now
made it a plea for vigorous steps against Christ. " If the thing is
allowed to go on, all will believe on him. The people will pi-oclaim
him king ; and the Romans will come and take away what power and
nationality they have left us." Caiaphas, the high-priest, adopting the
view thus presented, said, " It is, at any rate, better that one should die
for all, than that the whole nation should perish." And without any
legal investigation of the criminality of Jesus, it was resolved, on pre-
text of the safety of the state, by the majority (against whose vehe-
mence a few more moderate members could do nothing), that he must
* The omission of the raising: of Lazarus in the first three Gospels has been adduced as
an arsjument against its credibility. Were it not tliat other events are omitted in the same
way, and were we not able to acfouut for it by the peculiar character, origin, and aims of
.John's Gospel, the argument might have more weight. To seek a special reason for the
omission in this case could lead to nothing but arbitrary hypotheses. But it is sufBciently
explained by the general reason, viz., that the former Gospels contain only traditions of the
ministry of Christ at Jerusalem, followed by an account of his last stay in that city. In
this outline there is no point at which the raising of Lazarus would naturally and neces-
sarily be joined. It has been said that the intention, to exaggerate is obvious in John's
Gosjiel, which always sets forth the miracles which it records as the highest possible, e.g.,
the cure of the palsy of 38 years' standing ; of the man that was Lorn blind ; the raising
(if Lazarus, &c. In reply to this, we might admit that John, having an apologetic object,
only selected, from the abundant materials furnished by the Evangelical history, a few
events illustrating in the liighest degree the io'^a of Christ ; but this admission would not
affect the veracity of his narratives in the slightest degree. But the heating of the lepers,
one of the most marked displays of miraculous power, is omitted by John ; while the feed-
ing of the Jive thousand, the very highest of them all, is given by the other Evangelists as
well as by him. A high degree of miraculous power, therefore, was not the sole gi'ound
on which John selected the miracles that he recorded ; he had regard, also, partly to their
conuexitm with Christ's discourses, and partly to their connexion with the course of the
facts in his history. This last holds good especially of the narrative in question — that of
the raising of Lazarus. It connects with the course of his life the triumphal entry into
Jerusalem, and the enthusiasm of the people in his favour; and it also explains the resolu-
tion soon taken by the Sanhedi-im to put him out of the way. And this, in tuni, confirms
the veracity' of tli-e naiTative itself t Of. p. 29S.
J44 CHRIST IN EPHRAI3I.
die. The mode of his death was to be subsequently decided on, ac-
cording to circumstances. An order was issued for the seizure of his
person, in case he should attend the Feast of the Passover at Jerusalem.
CHAPTER XVI.
JESUSINEPHRAIM.
§ 235. T?ie Necessity for Christ'' s Death.
TO avoid the snares of his enemies, and secure a short season of un-
disturbed intercourse with the disciples before the close of his
career on earth, Jesus retired into the obscure village of Ephraim,* in
the desert of Judea, several milest north of Jerusalem. He knew
that in travelling to the Passover at the city he should be overcome
by the machinations of the Pharisees, and bo put to death. The ques-
tion may be asked, Why, then, did he not keep himself concealed still
longer? He might then have carried on the still defective religious
training of his disciples, and might, also, have prepared a greater num-
ber of agents to disseminate his ti'uth.
So, indeed, it might be said if he had been a mere teacher of truth,
like other men. Even though at last he had to fall a victim to the
hierarchical party, he might thus have gained so7ne time, at least, for
the training of his followers ; a work of the highest possible importance,
as every thing, in the developement of his work, depended upon the
way in which they apprehended his doctrine. But the doctrine of
.] esus was not a system of general conceptions ; it was founded upon a
fact, viz., that in Him had been manifested the end to which all previ-
ous revelations to the Jewish people had been but preparatory ; that
He was the aim of the prophecies of the Old Testament ; that in Hivi
the kingdom of God was realized. Of this fact, to which his whole
previous ministry had borne witness, he had now to testify openly be-
fin-e the face of his enemies. Moreover, his labours in Galilee, and the
raising of Lazarus at Bethany, had raised the expectations of the peo-
ple to the highest pitch (John, xi., 50)) ; and many who had gone up to
the city before the Passover to purify themselves were anxious to know
whether he would venture to come in spite of the hostile intentions of
the Sanhedrim. To stay away then, would have been to lose the most
favourable juncture ; and to manifest both fear of his enemies and dis-
trust of his own Divine calling to the Messiahship. Now was the
time, when the rage of the Pharisees was at its highest, in the face of
their sentence and their threats, to bear witness to himself openly as
Messiah. He did not sceic death, but went to meet it in the excclition
• John, xi., 51. t According to Jerome, 20 llomau miles.
BLIND BARTIMEUS. 345
of his calling, in obedience to the Divine will, and with a love to God
and man that was ready for any sacrifice.* And he was assured that
precisely by his death was the great object, to which in holy love he
had devoted his whole life, to be fully realized.
As for the imperfect training of his disciples, it must have caused
him uneasiness had he not been able to rely (as no human teacher
could do) upon his own continued operation, and that of the Divine
iSpirit, in their hearts and minds, to complete their culture. With this
presupposition he could not but be confident that his separation from
them would further their independent developement, as he himself told
them afterward in his closinsf conversations with them.
CHAPTER XVII.
CHRIST'S LAST PASSOVER JOURNEY TO JERUSALEM.
§ 236. Journey to Jericho. — The Healing of Blind Bartimeus. (Matt.,
XX., 30, seq. ; Luke, xviii., 35, seq. ; Mark, x., 46, seq.)
CHRLST did not go directly from Ephraim to Jerusalem, but passed
first eastwardly towards the Jordan, to the vicinity of Jericho, a
small town about six hoursf distant from the metropolis. Here he
could meet the caravan coming from Galilee to the feast.| Various
reasons may be assigned for this course on the part of Christ : a wish
not to fall at once into the hands of the Sanhedrim ; or to meet the
Galilean multitudes on whom his ministry had produced such powerful
effects ; or, by means of the festal caravans, to carry out his plan of a
solemn Messianic entry into Jerusalem. And as this last might excite
false hopes in the disciples, it was the more necessary to impress upon
them anew the fact that his kingdom was to be glorified by his suffer-
ings, and not to be established in earthly and visible splendour.§
As the Saviour entered Jericho attended by the festal caravans,
honouring him as Theocratic king, there sat, not far from the gate of
* There must be a right conception of Christ's self-sacrifice as a moral act, in connexion
with his whole calling, in order to any just doctritud view of his sufferings.
t According to Josephus, 150 stadia.
% Perhaps, also, he took his way through Jericho in order to extend his ministry in Judea.
As the raising of Lazarus is not mentioned by the three first Evangehsts, so the retirement
into Ephraim, nearly connected with the fonner event, is only to be found in Jolm. Apart
from the latter, we should be led to suppose that he passed through Jericho on his direct
way from Galilee to Jerusalem.
9 The departure from Ephraim connects itself naturally with Luke, xviii., 31; why,
otherwise, should it be said there that hrfore they came to Jericho he "took his disciples
apait, and said unto them ?" &c.
346 LAST TASSOVER JOURNEY TO JERUSALEM.
tlie town, a blind bet^gar named Bartivicus* who heard the noise of
the procession, and inquiring its cause, was told that Jesus of Nazareth
was passing by. He then cried to the Messiah for mercy. The re-
bukes of many, who did not wish him to disturb the Theocratic king
with his clamour, had no effect upon him. Jesus stood, and told him
to come near. Then the people, knowing that the Saviour called
none whom he did not mean to help, said to the blind man, "Ijc of
good comfort ; he calleth tlieey He cast off his garment to run the
faster, and hastened towards Jesus. He v/as healed, and followed the
])rocession, joining in the general Hosannah !
§ 237. Christ Lodges with Zacchcus. (Luke, xix., 2, seq.)
The healing of the blind man heightened the rejoicing of the multi-
tude. But Jesus went with them no further; perhaps the caravan
wished to reach Jerusalem on the same day.t In the suburbs of Jeri-
cho lived a rich publican, named Zaccheus, who probably knew Chrit;t
by the reports of other publicans. Being of short stature, he climbed
a tree, in order to see Christ when the procession passed by. Evev
ready to welcome the dawning of better feelings in the hearts of sin-
ners, the Saviour looked up, and said, " Zaccheu.s,X make haste and
come down, for to-day Imust abide at thy house.'' The love with which
Christ met his desire affected him more deeply than any thin"- else
could have done ; his heart w^as won ; and in the fulness of his joy he
vowed to prove his repentance by dividing half of his property among
the poor, and remunerating four-fold all whom he had overreached.
It surprised many that He, who was recognized as Theocratic king,
* According to Luke, C'ljrist met tlie blind man on eidcrlng the town ; according tc
Matthew and Mark, on leaving it; and Matthew, besides, sjjeaks of tu-o blind men. It is
easy to conceive how these different representations of the same event could arise; tlie
only question is, which has the more internal probability '/ Mark not only gives the name
of the blind man, but his whole account is so gra])hic and circumstantial, that it must have
been derived from the report of an eye-witness. But in Luke the counexion of events is
60 close that we cannot drop a single link: the entry, the blind man's joining the proces-
sion, its passage through the town, its halt at the house of Zaccheus ; all hang together and
bear the evident stamp of tnitli. In this particular, then, we follow Luke. The account
used by Mark, perhaps, stated that the blind man joined, the procession at the gate and
went forth with it ; and this might naturally lead to the supposition that the event occuired
on the jiassage out. The statement of Matthew, that two were cured, is more difficult. It
may be explained either on the ground that two accounts were blended together, or that
two blind njen were cured, one at the entrance, the other at the outlet, of the town. (It
wa.^ a common thing for blind beggars to sit at the gates.) This supposition, and a subse-
quent blending of the two narratives, would account not only for Matthew's mentioning
twQ blind men, but also for the discrepancy in Mark and Luke as to the spot of the cure,
t It was hut a short distance from Jericho to .Jerusalem; and we know neither at what
point Christ joined tlio caravan, nor how far it had journeyed that day, nor what time of
the day it was.
\ Whether ho had known Zaccheus before, or was infonned of his name by the by
stand(!rs, is of no moment. The Evangelist does not intimate that he made use of bis
supernatural knowledge in calling the man by name.
THE REQUEST OF SALOIME. 347
■should go to "be guest with a man that was a sinner." With reference
to this feeling Christ said, " This day is salration* come to tJiis house,
forasvmch as he also is a son of Abraham ; for the Son of Man is come
to seek and to save that which teas lost.'"] And this was only an appli-
cation to a particular case of the general truth, that it was his mission
to I'estore again the image of God that had been defaced in humanity.
§ :2;J8. The Request of Salome. — Thc^ Ambition of the Discijjles re-
buked. (Matt., XX., 20-28 ; Mark, x., 35-45.)
The worldly views of Christ's Messiahship which had been revived
in the minds of the disciples by the reception he had met with from the
festal caravan, could hardly fail to be strengthened by what occurred
ill Jericho. His own teachings had not yet fully convinced them ; and
these impressions upon their senses wei'e stronger, for the moment,
than those which he had made upon their souls.
The sons of Salome, James and John, enjoyed Christ's closest in-
timacy; the latter, indeed, always sat at his right hand. In view of
this intimate relation, and not without the knowledge of her sons,|: she
came to Christ and prayed him, that when Messiah's kingdom should
])e outwardly realized, her two sons might sit, the one on his right
hand, the other on his left.
As usual, Christ did not combat these ideas of his kingdom directly
and at length ; he wished to destroy the root in the hearts of his fol-
lowers. He taught them anew that they were to share with him, not
places of honour, but pains and sufferings. " Ye know not what ye ask.
Can ye drink of the cup (of suffering) that I shall drink ofP' To this
they replied, probably without duly weighing the import of his words,
" TFe ai-e able.'" And he answered : "I can, indeed, impart to you
the fellowship of my sufi'erings ; but rajik in the kingdom of God de-
pends not upon my will, but upon the allotment of the Father" (it was
not to be an arbitrary allotment, but the highest necessity of Divine
wisdom and justice).
The disciples were indignant at the ambition of James and John ;
but Christ called them all about him, and showed them how inconsist-
ent such strifes were with their relations to each other and the spirit
* He had become convinced of sin, and received the bringer of salvation with repentance
and love.
t Schleiermacher thinks (ii., 174) that this occun-ed on the second day, after the affair
had become generally known. We see no sufficient ground for this supposition. It ap-
pears from the whole narrative that the murmurs of the people, and the words of Zaccheus.
arose from an immediate impression. The word aniiipov (Luke, xix., 9), and its relation to
ariitpov (v. 5), speaks in favour of our view. Schlciet-Jnacher seems to lay too much stress
on aKovovTMv (v. 11).
X According to Mark, the brothers presented the request directly to Christ ; according to
Matthew (which seems the more hkely), they did it through their mother. Christ's address
to them (Matt., xx., 22) presupposes that really they made the request.
348 LAST PASSOVER JOURNEY TO JERUSALEM.
that ought to animate them. There could not be (he told them) among
them such relations of superiority and subordination as existed in civil
communities ; the communion of the Divine kingdom could know of
none such. They were to emulate each other only in serving each
other with self-sacrificing love ; like their Lord and Master, who had
come, not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to sacrifice his
life for the ransom of many. Whosoever was greatest in this was the
greatest among them.*
§ 239. Parable of the Pounds. (Luke, xix., 11, seq.)
Christ made use of several parables during this last period of his
life, while his disciples were still expecting that he would establish a
visible kingdom, to give them purer ideas of the process by which it
was to be founded and developed. Among these is the parable of the
Pounds, which was given, according to Luke, just as they left Jericho,
expressly because " he was nigh to Jerusalem, and they thought that
the kingdom of God should immediately appear,"
There were three points on which he specially sought to fix their
attention, viz., the opposition he was to encounter at Jerusalem j his
departure from them, and return at a later period to subdue his foes
and establish his kingdom in triumph ; and, finally, their duty to labour
actively in the interval, and not to await in indolence the achievement
of victory by other means, without their co-operation. He particularly
aimed to show them that the position they should occupy in the devel-
jpement of the kingdom of God would depend upon their zeal and
activity in the use of the means intrusted to them. This he illustrated
under the figure of a capital, loaned on interest; the same amount, viz.,
one mma, is committed to each of ten servants, and in proportion to
the gain of this, whether more or less, is the station assigned to them
by their master. One only is wholly rejected — he that guards care-
fully the sum committed to him and loses nothing, but gains nothing.
The apology which he makes assists us to determine the particular
character which Christ has in view. He excuses himself on the ground
of fear; the lord is a hard master. He represents those, therefore,
whose mistaken apprehensions of the account they will have to render
keep them in inactivity, and who retire from the active labours of the
world in order to avoid contamination from its luiholy atmosphere. In
many of the disciples, indeed, the prospect of the approaching struggle
with the world may have suggested the thought of such a retirement.
* Luke does not give this iian-ative, but mentions (xxii., 24) a similar dispute for rank
among the disciples, and recites these similar expressions of our Lord. It is probably out
of place, as such a contention coidd hardly have arisen at the last meal, after the institu-
tion of the Sacrament. The collocation may have arisen from the fact that the symbolical
washing of feet, so strikinij a rebuke of this ambitious spirit, was connected with the last
meal.
THE LABOURERS IN THE VINEYARD. 349
And not without reason is the capital which the unfaithful serva-it
failed to employ appropriated to him who made the most of his. In-
deed, the key to the whole parable is given by Christ himself in that
memorable saying, repeated so often and ir^ such various connexions :*
"Unto every one that hath (i. c, hath as real and productive capital)
shall (more, and ever more) he given (and most to him that gaineth
most) ; and from han that hath not {i. c, does not tmly j>ossess what he
has, but buries it) shall he taken away even that which he hathT
In this parable, in view of the circumstances under which it was
uttered, and of the approaching catastrophe, special intimations are
given of Christ's departure from the earth, of his ascension, and re-
turn to judge the rebellious Theocratic nation and consummate his do-
minion. It describes a great man, who travels to the distant court of
the mighty emperor, to receive from him authority over his countrymen,
and to return with royal power. So Christ was not immediately rec-
ognized in his kingly office, but first had to depart from the earth and
leave his "agents to advance his kingdom, to ascend into heaven and be
appointed Theocratic King, and return again to exercise his contested
power.
§ 240. Parable of the Labourers in the Vineyard. (Matt., xx., 1-lG.j
Here, also, belongs the parable of the lahourers in. the vineyard, which
opposes all assertion of one's own merits, and all anxiety for rank and
rewards among the servants of thp kingdom of God. This parable ad-
mits of many and various applications ; but, in order to understand it
correctly, we must consider it b}^ itself, apart from the introductory and
concluding passages.!
* Cf. p. 105, 190.
t The words "The last shall be first, and the first last" (v. 16), cannot possibly denote tlie
punctum saliens of the parable ; in it the last are not preferred to the first ; the latter
simply fail to receive n:oi-e than the former, as they had expected. Nor do they complain of
receiving their wages last, but only that they do not get more than the others. It is some-
thing merely accidental, necessary only for the consistency of the representation, and aris-
ing merely from its form, that the turn of the first comes last ; they had to see the last re-
ceive equally as much as themselves before they could complain of it, and thus give occa-
sion for the utterance of the truth which it is the main object of the parable to set fortli.
In Luke, xiii., 30, the same words occur ("there are last," &c.), but in a totally different
sense. Here the " last" are those who are wholly shut out from the kingdom of God ; and
the passage teaches that many from among the nations, estranged from God, should be
called to share in his kingdom ; while, on the other hand, many should be excluded from
it who had held high places among the ancient people. Taken in this sense, these words
would be foreign to the scope of the parable. The latter clause of the verse, "many are
called, but few chosen," mean (according to Matt., xxii., 14) that many are outwardly called,
and belong by profession to the kingdom of God. Nor is this relevant to the parable ;
which draws no contrast between the few and the many, the called and the chosen ; and,
in fact, makes no mention at all of such as are entirely excluded from the kingdom. We,
therefore, cannot but suppose that tliis parable, so faithfully preserved, and bearing so in-
dubitably the stamp of Christ, is joined to the words that precede and follow by a merely
accidental link of coruiexion. (In this supposition, which, indeed, has long been a certainty
350 LAST PASSOVER JOURNEY TO JERUSALEM.
The prominent idea of the parable is, that all who faithfully obey
their call, who are truly converted, and labour diligently after their
conversion, whether it occur at an earlier or later period, whether tlie
term of their new life is long or short, are made partakers of the same
blessedness in the kingdom of God. The question is not what they
were before their conversion, but what they become after it. All who
have reached this point have the same thing in common ; for all re-
ceive the principle of the higher life, with which, where it really ex-
ists, is also presupposed the entire new moral creation that proceeds
fi'om it ; although this latter may yet be far from complete, and cati
only be fully realized in the futui'e. No one is entitled to ask more
than his fellow receives ; there being no human merit in the case, all
that is given is of God's free grace and mercy in redemption. And it
ajiplies not only to the relations of nations [c. g., the later called hea-
then, to the Jews), but also of individuals.
But how important a thing it is for us that a parable exhibiting the
doctrine of free and unmerited grace, so strongly put forth by Paul, has
been preserved to us ! Taken in connexion with that of the talents
(pounds), it forms a complete wliole (the two parables being mutually
complementary to each other) of Christ's truth ; on the one hand, that
the gifts of grace are equally bestowed, and are to be received by all
alike in humility of heart ; and, on the other, that there are various
stages of Christian progress, depending upon the use that is made of
the grace given : on the one hand, the bumble receiving of grace is
contrasted with the asserting of one's own merits ; and. on the other.
a self-active zeal is opposed to slothful inactivity
§ 241. The Passion for Rewards rebuked. (Luke, xvii., 7.)
Akin to the foregoing parable, though not chronologically connected
with it, is the following fragment of a conversation* in which Christ
rebuked the prevalent longing of his disciples for ease and j-eward.
"Which of you, having a serva7it ploughing, or feeding cattle, will sai/
unto him, xchen he is come from the f eld, Co?ne and sit down to meat'/
with nie, I agree with Strauss and De Wette.) The most elaborate efforts to harmonize
the passages in qaestion with the paraWe only result in destroying its sense, so pregnant
with characteristic Christian truth. Among these elaborate attempts must be reckoned
the inter[)rctation recently given by Wi/ke (Urevangelist, s. 372). The collocation of the
parable in Matthew' may afford a clue to its interpretation. Peter appears (xix., 27 ; al-
though we prefer Luke, xviii., 28) to have a passion for rewards, and the parable bears
upon such a disposition, which, by-the-way, prevailed at that time. In this connexion,
also, tlie words " Many that are last shall be lirst," &r., might bear against measuring by
merit, judging by appearance, &c. Christ may, perliaps, have spoken tlie words in tlri.s
sense ; though, as we have seen, he gave them another ; but they cannot bo made to tit
the parable.
* Luke, xvii., 7, shortly before tlie account of the last journey to Jerusalem. It is plain
that the 17th chapter begins with portions of unconnected conversations. We have already
Been that v. 5, 6, belong to the period now before as.
CHRIST ANOLNTED BY MARY. 351
and will not. rather say unto him. Make ready wherewith I may si/p, and
gird thyself, and serve me, till I have eaten and drunken ; and afterward
thou shall cat and drink 1 Doth he thank that servant for having done
the things that tvere commanded him ? I trow not. So likewise ye,
when ye shall have done all those things that are commanded you, say^
We are unprofitahlc servants ; we have done that which was our duty
to doy
Two thoughts are here presented : First, the disciples were not to
expect at once in the kingdom of God, for whose appearance they
were looking, a rewai'd for their efforts to do Christ's will. Their
Master was first to enter into his glory, and they were to remain upon
earth and labour for him. Then for them, too, would come the time of
rest and refreshment. Secondly, the servant who only fulfils his mas-
ter's commands has no reason to boast, and no claim to his master's
thanks ; he has only rendered the duty owed by a servant to his lord.
It is only when he goes beyond express commands, and does all that
his master's advantage demands out of jDure love, that he can look for
thanks ; he acts then, not as the servant, but as the friend. So the
Apostles, acting simply as servants to Christ, were to call themselves
unprofitable servants after they had fulfilled his express commands ;
they lacked as yet the all-prevailing love that would of itself, without
such commands, impel them to every service v/hich his cause required.
This disposition obtained, they would be no more servants, but friends ;
and all disputes for rank, all mercenary longing for rewards, would fall
away. They would then never think that they had done enough for
the Master. To this spirit, the essence of genuine Christianity, they
were to be exalted.*
% 242. Christ A?zointed by Mary in Bethany. (John, xii., 1, seq.)
After Christ had thus prepared the minds of the disciples for th«
great events that were approaching, he departed, accompanied by them
only, from Jericho on the Friday. The journey thence to Bethany
could easily be accomplished before the Sabbath, which he intended to
spend in the latter place with the family of Lazarus.
He sat at the Sabbath-meal with the man whom he had raised from
the dead. Again did the two sisters manifest their differences of char-
acter in their way of evincing their love and gratitude to the Saviour.f
» My view of the moral import of tliis passage agrees with that of my dear friend Ju-
lius Mailer (Von der Siinde, 2'«^- Aufl., i., 48), although he gives it a somewhat different
turn. I differ from him, however, in regard to the bearing of the passage ; he applies it
to the Pharisees rather than to the Apostles.
t The narrative of this remarkable incident is not only given by John, but preserved also
by Matthew and Mark, though witli variations. Luke alone says nothing about it ; but
then he mentions nothing of Christ's stay in Bethany at this interval. Even if [as some
suppose] the account which he gives (vii., 38, seq.) of the anointing at the house of Simon
352 LAST PASSOV^ER JOURNEY TO JERUSALEM.
The industrious Martha waited upon him at table ; but Mary, indulg-
ing her feelings, and laying aside all ordinary calculations, anointed the
feet of Jesus with costly balsam of spikenard, and wiped them with
the hair of her head.* The disciples knew that Jesus rather declined
than sought demonstrations of honour for his person ; and perhaps Ju-
das, who could not understand or appreciate Mary's feelings, meant to
enter into his views in this respect when he said, ''Why was not this
ointment sold for three hundred j^cnce, and given to the poor V]
(cf. p. 211, seq.) gave occasion for the omission of this, it would not follow that both ac-
counts record but one and the same fact. Matthew and Mark ditfer from John in fixiiiLr
the time at two days before Easter, instead of si-x; and in placing its scene, not in the
house of Lazarns, but of Simon the leper. But since Matthew and Mark omit entirely the
history of Lazarus, and connect the narrative directly from Jericho to Jerusalem, it is easy
to explain their placing this anointing where they do, seeing that its nature was such as to
secure its preservation, and its reference to Christ's approaching death necessarily as-
signed its chronological position. John introduces it in the connexion o{ facts. We see
in his account the occasion of the festive meal, and of Mary's demonstration of love.
Whether the transfer of the scene to the house of Simon (in Matthew and Mark) was occa-
sioned by blending this narrative with that of the other banquet that took place at Simon's
house, or by some other cause, can not be decided ; nor has it any bearing whatever upon
the veracity of their nan-ativos.
* In the other Gospels the '' washing of the head" is mentioned ; that of the feet ac-
cords more with Eastern usages. It was customary for servants to bring water to wash
the feet of the guests ; but Mary bathed them herself, not with tvater, but with a costly un-
guent. Strauss thinks it inexplicable that the 7iame should have been lost in the other
Gospels if the woman was so eminent in Gospel historj-, and especially as Christ said the
incident should be kept in memorial of her wherever his Gospel was preached (Matt., xxvi.,
13) ; and, on the other hand, he supposes that " this very saying of Christ might have oc-
casioned the ascribing of the act to a definite person." To be sure, it is as possible that
the tradition itself gave name to the unknown person at a later period, as that the name
originally ffiven should be lost. But that the one is more probable than the other cannot
be proved in any way. Omitting Lazarus's history, they had no occasion to mention Mary.
The commonness of the name (it belonged to several noted women in the New Testameriti
may have led to the omission. So in Luke, x., 38, as we have seen, the description of
Martha and Mary in their family circumstances, the place of their abode, &c., i." omitted,
although the very gist of the anecdote tunia upon their marked diflferences of chahictcr.
But the connexion of the narrative now before us, with the approaching death of Jesus,
also tended to preserve the locality. And as John mentions the name, without the promise
given by Matthew (xxvi., 13), it is the more evident that the latter did Jiot cause him to
invent the former. His graphic description is that of an eye-witness : and it would even
be easier to believe that Matt., xxvi., 13, was itself a later invention than that John wa.s
led by it to invent the name.
t None of the Evangelists but John mention the name of Jiidas. Strauss thinks that
" if Judas had really been named in the original tradition, the name would not have been
lost;" and, on tha other hand, that "his had character would easily lead to the ascription
of this bad trait to him." But care for the poor was not a likely trait to ascribe to Judas,
and John expressly assigns a motive of his own for his language (v. 6) ; and the vciy in-
aptness of this plea to Judas may have caused its transfer to others. We certainly can-
not suppose that all, or many, of the Apostles made use of it, hut the one who said it may
have expressed the thought of others ; thoutrh Christ's words do not necessarily presup-
pose this. Little as we may be surprised by various defects in their views and feelings at
that time, there are two points of view in this plea that can hardly be conceived as used by
any other than Judns : (I.) If their minds were then full of anticipations of Christ's glory,
the anointing, as a demonstration of reverence for his person, could not appear improper to
them; (2.) Or if their thoughts were turned to lii> approaching sufferings (which is not so
THE ANOINTING BY MARY. 353
But Christ, who looks only at the heart, saw in Mary's act an exhi-
bition of that overflowing love which is the spring and source of true
holiness, and rebuked the vulgar tendency that wished to measure
every thing by its own standard. " Let her alone ; against the day of
my burying hath she kept this (she has preserved it for my embalming) ;
she has shown me the last tokens of honour and affection, not to be
measured by vulgar standards ; she knows that you will soon have me
aio more among you, while the poor ye shall have always."
probable), they could still less disapprove an expression of love for him whom they were
BO Boon to lose. Neither of these remarks would apply to Judas.
z
PART 11.
FROM THE TRIUMPHAL ENTRY INTO JERUSALEM TO THE
ASCENSION.
T
CHAPTER L
FROM THE TRIUMPHAL ENTRY TO THE LAST SUPPER.
§ 243. The Entry into Jerusalem*
HE fame of Christ's acts had been diffused among the thousands
of Jews! that had gathered from all quarters for the Passover.
The resurrection of Lazarus, in particular, had created a great sensa-
tion. As soon as the Sabbath law allowed,t they flocked in crowds to
Bethany to see Jesus, and especially to convince themselves of the res-
urrection of Lazarus by ocular evidence and inquiry on the spot. Per-
haps on Sunday morning, too, before Christ went to Jerusalem, many
had gone out.§
* We must here account for the chronologj- that we adopt. We set out with the pre-
supposition (for which reasons wiO be given hereafter) that the beginning' of the Passover,
14th Nisan, occurred in that year on a Friday. Now John, xii., 1, gives a fixed mark —
Clirist's arrival at Bethany six days before the Passover ; which six days maj- include that
which forms the terminus a quo, and also the terminus ad quern. If he included the first, Christ
reached Bethany on the Sabbath ; not verj- likely, as he was wont to avoid the charge of vio-
lating the Mosaic law except in cases of urgent necessitj*. If he included both daj-s, Christ
reached Bethany on the^r*^ daj- of the week. But then the Passover caravan must have
reached Jericho on Sabbath, or on Fridaj-, remaining there on Sabbath, which is not prob-
able, from the general tenor of the separate accounts. The only supposition that avoids
these diiBculties is that John included neither of the two days, and that Christ arrived in
Bethany on Friday. (Cf note, p. 281.) B- Jacobi supposes that Christ arrived so late on
Friday that the Sabbath had begun, and John, therefore, regarded Friday as past; this sup
position would remove the difficulty without altering the chronology".
t By a census taken under Nero, 2,700,000 men gathered at Jerusalem to the Passover
Joseph., B. J., vi, 9, $ 3.
X The Sabbath-day's journey allowed by the law was 1000 paces ; but Bethany was
twice that far from Jerusalem. The habit was to walk the first 1000 on Sabbath before
sunset; the others afterward.
ij John, xLi., 9, 13. According to the other Evangelists, Jesus came on the same day witli
the multitude from Jericho. The difficulty is not wholly inexplicable ; nor does it affect the
substance of the narrative. It is possible to distinguish (as Schleiermacher and others doi
tico entries of Christ into the city ; the first being described in the first three Gospels, the
second in John. According to this view, he entered first with the caravan towards even
itig, and a great sensation was produced ; thence he went immediately to Bethany, and
on the next morning (according to our view, the second day after) returned to the city, the
fame of his works having, in the mean time, been still more widely bruited among the peo-
ple ; the second entrj-, expected and prepared for. causing much greater excitement than
the first unannounced and anexpected one. But in this case we should have to admit that
THE TRIUMPHAL ENTRY. 355
The question may arise whether the triumphal entry into Jerusalem
was part of Christ's plan, or not. It is certainly possible, from the cir-
cumstances just mentioned, that it was unsought on his part. But had
such really been the case, he would have avoided the multitude, and
entered the city quietly and privately, as he could easily have done.
Had he not had higher interests in view, he must have avoided a mode
of entry which confirmed the opinion that he claimed to be more than'
a mere teacher, and which would afford so excellent a handle to his
enemies. We do not, indeed, look upon it as brought about by any
management on his part, but as a natural result of the circumstances,
as a final and necessary link in a chain of consecutive events. We
regard it, therefore, as foreseen and embraced in his plan ; and his plan
was nothing else but the will of his Father, which he fulfilled as a free
oi-gan. He wished to yield to the enthusiasm of the people, transient
as he knew it would be in most of them, and thus to testify, in the face
of the nation and of mankind, that the kingdom of God had come, and
that he was the pi'omised Theocratic King. And this was the result
of his previous labours, brought about by the Divine guidance. If he
had not before, in the same direct and public way, proclaimed himself
Messiah, he now did it before the eyes of all, most publicly and striking-
ly. This triumphant entry was the reply to many questions ; a reply
which shut out all doubt ; it was, in a word, a world-historical event.*
the two narratives had been blended ; parts that belonged to the second, as given by John,
being transfeiTed to the first. As the other Gospels (Mark especially) relate that he ar-
rived late in the evening at the city, and went directly thence to Bethany, there appears
good ground for the supposition. The statement of the other Evangelists (his going to
Bethany) suits exactly John's account of his relations with the family of Lazarus.
But yet, if our mode of viewing the Gospels be correct, it may very well have been in-
ferred— the naiTative of the entry being separately transmitted, and the supposition natu-
rally arising that he came directly with the caravan from Jericho — that the Messianic en-
try took place immediately on his arrival.
* It may be matter of question what features of the entrj' belonged to Christ's plan, and
what were brought about entirely by the circumstances. To admit that any of them be-
longed to the latter class would not deprive them of significance ; the developement of the
circumstances themselves, apart from Christ's immediate intention, or in connexion there-
with, might adapt theni to sj^mbolize the appearance of the kingdom of God. From John,
xii., 14, we learn that Christ, finding the throng so great, seated himself upon an ass found
just, at hand, which act was subsequently referred to Zach., ix., 9, and the nairative
somewhat modified accordingly, as, indeed, is seen in Matthew (xxi., 2-7), where two beasts
are mentioned, from a misapprehension of the passage in Zachariah, following the Alex-
andrian version. It is to be carefully observed that John, xii., 16, makes a clear distinc-
tion between the view of this event taken by the disciples at the time, from that in which
they regarded it at a later period, when all had been fulfilled, and they had seen Jesus as
the glorified Messiah ; showing that what at first appeared to be only accidental after-
ward gained a higher significance. None but an eye-witness would have made such a
distinction at the time when this Gospel was written. If this should be taken as imply-
inir that the ass was accidentally there (though it by no means necessarily implies this),
the use of the animal is not thereby rendered the less significant, or a less apt fulfilment
of the Messianic prophecy. But. on the other hand, the other Gospels represent the act
as iidenlional on Christ's [)art ; not, however, as kltrauss will have it, miraculous. It is
356 THE TRIUMPHAL ENTRY.
Attended by his disciples and the host that had gathered into Beth-
any, Christ set out for Jerusalem. Many more advanced to meet him
from the city, and were hailed by those who had been with Christ
with the assurance that Lazarus had indeed been raised from the dead.
In the increasing throng, Christ mounted an ass which he found at hand,
for his own convenience, and that the people might see him. And thus
the natural course of circumstances aptly symbolized the peaceable
character of the kingdom of God, and its total rejection of worldly
pomp and display, as typified by the Prophet Zachariah (ix., 9). With
joyous songs and shoutings he was introduced into the city as Mes-
siah, while on all sides was heard the loud acclaim, " Hosanna ! Jeho-
vah prosper him ! Blessed is he that cometh in the name of Jehovah"
(Ps. cxviii., 25, 26). Some Pharisees among the multitude, who were
perhaps not fully decided in their opinions, though recognizing Jesus
as a great teacher, were displeased that he was thus proclaimed Mes-
siah on entering the city, and asked him to silence his followers. He
answered, " I tell you, if these sJiould hold their peace, the stones would
cry out."* An event had occurred, so lofty and so pregnant with the
best interests of mankind, that it might rouse even the dullest to re-
joice. In the mouth of any other, even the greatest of 7nen, these
words would have been an unjustifiable self-exaltation ; uttered by Him.,
they show the weighty import which he gave to his manifestation.
Christ's conduct in this respect, moreover, shows that such an entry
into Jerusalem formed part of his plan.
§ 244. Sadness oj" Christ at Sight of Jerusalem. (Luke, xix., 41-44.)
With what sorrow must that heart, so full of love, so overflowing
with pity for the misery of men, have been wrung as he approached
for the last time the City whose people he had so often summoned in
vain to repent, the metropolis of the earthly Theocracy — soon to be left
to deserved destruction, from which he could not save it, because His
voice was not listened to ! With tears he cried, " If thou hadst known,
even thon, at least in this thy day, the things icliic]}, belong unto thy
■peace ! hut now they are hid from thine eyes." And then he uttered a
prophecy (v. 43, 44) which the destruction of Jerusalem afterward
abundantly verified.
Although Christ, doubtless, went immediately on his entry to the
not ftt all impossible to harmonize Joha's accoant with that of the other Evan^^elists; the
word ivpt^v ill V. 14 does not of necessity define the way in which Christ obtained the ass;
and John states many points very concisely. In the mean time, it is a question which ac-
count is the most simple.
* Luke, xix., 39. If we suppose there were two entines (which this passage appears,
though not necessarily, to favour), these words wonld refer to the first ; and the Pharisees
probably accompanied the Passover caravan from Galilee.
THE FIG-TREE CURSED. 357
Temple to thank God, it does not follow that we must place here the
expulsion of the buyers and sellers.*
During the few remaining days of his ministry on earth, he made
use of the favourable temper of the people to impress their minds with
his teaching. In the moraings he taught in the Temple ; the rest of
the day was given to the disciples, with whom, in the evening, he was
wont to retire to Bethany.
§ 245. The Fig-tree Cursed. (Matt., xxi., 18 ; Mark, xi., 12.)— Para-
ble of the Fig-tree. (Luke, xiii., 6-9.)
A remarkable occurrence in this part of the history must now be ex-
amined somewhat closely. Christ, returning with his disciples in the
morning from Bethany to Jerusalem, became hungry, and saw at a dis-
tance a fig-tree in full leaf. At that season of the year such a tree
might be expected, in full foliage, to bear fruit ;t and he walked to-
wards it to pluck off the figs. Finding none, he said, " No man cat
fruit of thee hereafter forever." On the second morning,! the disciples,
coming the same way, were astonished to find the fig-tree withered.
In what light is this fact to be regarded 1 Shall we see in it the im-
mediate result of Christ's words ; in fact, a miracle, as Matthew's state-
ment appears to imply ] All his other miracles were acts of love,
acts of giving and creation ; this would be a punitive and destroying
miracle, falling, too, upon a natural object, to which no guilt could cling.
It would certainly be at variance with all other peculiar operations of
Christ, who came, in every respect, " not to destroy, but to fulfil."
Shall we conceive that the coincidence \^'ith Christ's words was merely
accidental — a view which suits Mark's statement better than Mat-
thew's 1 If so, we shall find it impossible to extract from Christ's words,
twist them as we may, a sense worthy of him.
The proper rnedium is to be found in the symbolical meaning of the
act. If the miracles generally have a symbolical import (and we have
shown that in some it is particularly pi-ominent), v/e have in this case
one that is cutirehj symbolical. The fig-tree, rich in foliage, but desti-
tute of fruit, represents the Jewish people, so abundant in outward
* According to Matt., xxi., 15, 16, the displeasure of the priests was kindled when the
children cried "Hosanna!" in the Temple. Jesus said to them, "Have j'e never read, Out
of the mouths of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained praise?'' (Ps. viii., 3). This inci-
dent might be confounded with the one before quoted from Luke ; but it has features es-
sentially different. The haughty scribes are here offended because children, rejoice, and
Christ replies, in effect, " The glory of God is revealed to children, while the chiefs of the
hierarchy, in the pride of their imagined wisdom, receive no impressions into their cold and
unsusceptible hearts."
t See article "Feige," in Winer's Realworterbuch. The remark in Mark, xi., 13,
"The time of figs was not yet," presents a difficulty ; the whole significance of the naira-
tive lies in the fact that the tree might be expected to bear fruit, but was destitute of it.
X I follow here Mark's statement, which seems to me to be the most original in this par
ticular.
358 CHRIST AT JERUSALEM.
shows of piety, but destitute of its reality. Their vital sap was squan-
dered ujion leaves. And as the fruitless tree, failing to realize the aim
of its being, was destroyed ; so the Theocratic nation, for the same
reason, was tabe overtaken, after long forbearance, by the judgments
of God, and shut out from his kingdom.
The prophets were accustomed to convey both instructions and
warnings by symbolical acts ; and the purport of this act, as both warn-
ing and pi-ediction, was pi^ecisely suited to. the time. But to under-
stand Christ's act aright, we must not conceive that he at once caused
a sound tree to wither. This would not, as we have said, be in har-
mony with the general aim of his miracles ; nor would it correspond
to the idea which he designed to set vividly before the disciples. A
sound tree, suddenly destroyed, would certainly be no fitting type of
the Jewish people. We must rather believe that the same cause which
made the tree barren had already prepared the way for its destruction,
and that Christ only hastened a crisis vi^hich had to come in the course
of nature. In this view it would correspond precisely to the great
event in the world's histoi'y which it was designed to prefigure : the
moral character of the Jewish nation had long been fitting it foi' de-
struction ; and the Divine government of the world only brought on tlie
crisis.
It is ti"ue, no explanation on the part of Christ is added in the ac-
count of the event above related, although we may readily believe that
the disciples were not so capable of apprehending his meaning, or so
inclined to do it, as to stand in need of no explanation. But we find
such an explanation in the parable of the harrcn Jig-trce (Luke, xiii.,
6-9), which evidently corresponds to the fact that we just unfolded.
As the^ac^ is wanting in Luke, and the parable in Matthew and Mark,
we have additional reason to infer such a correspondence. We can-
not conclude, with some, that the narrative of the fact was merely
framed from an embodiment of the parable ; nor that the fact itself, so
definitely i-elated, was purely ideal ; but we find in the cori-espondenc'e
of the two an intimation that idea and history go here together; and
that, according to the prevailing tendencies of the persons who trans-
mitted the accounts, the one or the other was thrown into the back-
ground.
It may be a question whether the words of Christ (Matt., xxi., 21 ;
Mark, xi., 23) on the power of faith to " remove mountains" really be-
long in this connexion. Against it is the fact that tl^e miracle proper was
really subordinate, and that the faith of the disciples was to show its pow-
er in modes very different from that illustrated by the fact. But if the
words are to be taken in this connexion, we must suppose that, after the
PLOTS OF THE PHARISEES. 359
attention of tlie disciples had been drawn to tlie subordinate feature (the
withering of tlie tree), Christ made use of their astonishment for a pur-
pose very important in this last period of his stay with them, viz., to in-
cite them to act of themselves by the power of God ; not to be so
amazed at what He wi'ought with that power, but to remember that in
communion with him they would be able to do the same, and even
greater things. The sense of his words then would be : " You need
not wonder at a result like this ; the result was the least of it ; you
shall do still greater things by the power of God, if you only possess
the great essential, Faith."
If we adopted this view, we should be disposed to consider Luke,
xvii., 6, as the original form of Christ's language with regard to the
lig-tree ; and to suppose that in Matthew and Mark different expres-
sions, conveying similar thoughts, had been blended together. Yet
it cannot be asserted that the view itself is altogether well supported.
Perhaps it may have been the case that the original form of Christ's
words in explanation of the miracle was lost ; its symbolical import,
which is really its chief import, was made subordinate to the miracle
itself; and another expression of Christ, better adapted to this concep-
tion of the fact, was brought into connexion with it.
§ 246. Mackinatio7is of the Pharisees.
The sensation created by the raising of Lazarus had, as we have
seen, quickened the resolution to which the more hasty portion of th6
Sanhedrim had long been inclined, to put Jesus out of the way. The
time and mode of its execution depended upon the fact and the man-
ner of his entering the city ; and men of all classes waited anxiously
to see whether he would dare openly to face his enemies. Before his
arrival, the Sanhedrim ordered that any one who should ascertain his
place of abode should inform them of it, that measures might be taken
for his arrest,*
The triumphant Messianic entry of Christ, amid the shouts of the
enthusiastic multitude, was an unexpected blow to the hierarchical
party. " See," said they in anger, " hoiv ye prevail nothing ! behold, the
world is gone after him !"t They now determined to make use of craft.
We cannot decide, from the brief intimations of the Evangelists,
whether they first intended to make use of the Sicarii,^ who at that lime
were employed frequently by the unprincipled heads of parties ; or
whether it was their plan from the beginning to get him into their power
by stratagem, and then have him condemned under the forms of law.
This last would be more in consonance with their usual hypocrisy.
* John, xi., 56, 57. f Ibid., xii., 19.
J Matt., xxvi., 4. It cannot be well decided whether u-roKTchav refers to assassination
or to leeal murder.
360 CHRIST AT JERUSALEM.
Doubtless the pleas and accusations to be employed were all ready ;
abundant mateiial had been gathered from Christ's labours both in
Galilee and Jerusalem, Still, they must have welcomed any new de-
veloperaents which might seiTe to justify his condemnation on the
ground of Jewish law, or to present him to the Roman authorities as a
culprit.*
§ 247. Comliination of the Pharisees and Hcrod'ians. — ChrisVs Decision
on paying Tribute to Ccesar.
Besides the Pharisaical party, there was another among the Jews at
that time, the Herodians, a political rather than religious party, whose
greatest care was to preserve the public quiet, and avoid all occasions
of offence to the Romans. These two parties now combined against
Christ ;t not the first or the last instance in history in which priests
have made use of politicians, even otherwise opposed to them, to crush
a reformer whose zeal might be inimical to both.
A question was proposed to Christ, apparently out of respect to his
authority, but really with a view to draw such an answer fi-om him as
would offend either the hierarchs or politicians : " Master, toe know
that thou art true ; for thou regardest not the person of men, hut tcachest
the way of God in truth : is it laivful to give tribute to Ccesar, or not V'\
A denial of the obligation would subject him to accusation before the
Roman authoi'ities as a man politically dangerous, and a ringleader of
rebellion. To acknowledge it, might lay him open to the charge of de-
grading the dignity of the Tiieociatic nation. Asking for a Roman
* In order to obtain an exact view of the events that preceded aod contributed to the
death of Chri:;t, we must compare the synoptical accounts with that of John. The former,
however, collecting into the space of a few days events which, according to John, occurred
at various points of time, leave many gaps and obscurities. Pliarisaical plots and schemes
that were, perhaps, going on for years, are all transferred to this period. According to the
synoptical accounts, the Sanhedrim sent a deputatioji to Christ while he taught publicly iu
the Temple, asking his authority for so doing. Christ, seeing that they only meant to en-
snare him, replied by a question that was rather dangerous for them : •' The baptism of
John, whence was it? from heaven, or of men V (Matt., xxi., :;5), Their interests would be
prejudiced by admitting it to be "from heaven ;" their fear of alienating the people, who
revered John as a prophet, forbade them to say it was "of men." Thej' therefore evaded
the question, and Christ declared himself to be thereby justified in refusing to answer
theirs. In this statement itself there is nothing improbable; the only possible doubt is as
to its chronological connexion. Could the Sanhedrim have sent such a deputation to Christ
at a time when matters had gone so far as John's account reprcseiits them ? The question
proposed cannot but remind us of that offered to Christ (John, ii., 18) at the beginning of
his ministry ; the answer reminds us, also, of Christ's appeal, at an earlier period, to the
testimony of John the Baptist. Without venturing to decide the point, we may suggest
that the chronology is at fault. And, at any rate, the obscurity in the connexion of events
in the synoptical Gospels, arising from the omission of Christ's previous labours in Jerusa-
lem, makes it neccssarj- for us to fill them uj) from John's definite historical outline. Matt.,
xxi., 4G, recalls forcibly John's statements of similar facts before occurring in the city.
t Mark, iii., 6, perhaps implies that this union was formed at an eai'lier period.
% Mark, xii., 14, 15.
PLOTS OF THE PHARISEES. 361
denarius, lie inquired, " Whose is this image and superscription ?"
"Caesar's." The very currency of the coin implied an acknowledg-
ment of the political dependence of the nation upon the Roman Em-
pire, and of the obligations that flowed from such dependence. This
conclusion he uttered in very few words : " Render unto CceSar the
things that are Ccesar^s, and to God the things that are God\s."
These words imply that it was not Christ's calling to alter the rela-
tions and duties of civil society. Had he meant to represent himself
as Messiah in the sense of Messiahship held by the Pharisees, he must
have given a different reply ; but his answer taught them that their ob-
ligations to Caesar were not inconsistent with their duties to GJ-od ; on
the contrary, that the latter constituted the basis of the former. At
the same time, it reminded them of a duty to which they were most
unfaithful, viz., to give tndy to God what is God's ; as man, hearing the
stamp of his image, belongs to him^ and should he dedicated to him.
And the " giving to God what is God's" not only affords the basis, but
also fixes the just limitations of the civil obliga,tions growing out of re-
lations brought about by Divine Providence.
§ 248. Christ's Reply to the Sadducecs about the Resurrection. (Matt.,
xxii., 23, seq. ; Mark, xii., 18; Luke, xx., 27.)
Between the spirit of Christ and that of the Sadducees there was,
as we have already seen,* nothing in common. But although that
party generally paid little heed to popular religious movements, and
had as yet hardly noticed Christ, their attention, and even their favour,
was drawn to him by the opposition of the Pharisees. His happy de-
feat of the schemes of the latter induced the Sadducees to tempt him
with a question in regard to maniage in the resurrection, which might,
perhaps, embarrass him on the ground that he occupied. But with
them, as with the Pharisees, he struck at the root, and traced their er-
rors to ignorance of the Scriptures and of the omnipotence of God.
Had they known the Scriptures, he showed them (even the law, which
they acknowledged, for he quoted out of Exodus), not only in the letter,
but the spirit, they could not fail tosee a necessary connexion between
the faith revealed there and the doctrine of an eternal, individual
life for man (v. 31, 32). Had they known the omnipotence of God,
they would not have supposed that the forms and relations of the pres-
ent life must be preserved in the future ; God could bestow the new
existence in a far different, nay, in a glorified form (v. 29, 30).
He thus refuted the Sadducees, both negatively and positively. Neg-
atively, by showing that their question went on the false hypothesis
that the forms and relations of the present sensible life would be trans-
ferred to the future spiritual one ; and positively, by showing the ea-
* Cf. p. 35.
36-2 CHRIST AT JERUSALEM.
sential import of tlie declaration in the Pentateuch, " I a77i tJie God of
Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob J ^ How could
God place himself in so near a relation to individual men, and ascribe
to them so high a dignity, if they were mere perishable appearances ;
if they had not an essence akin to his own, and destined for imm«»r-
tality ?
We must bear in mind here the emphatic sense in which Christ con-
trasts the "dead" and the "living;" a sense which is evident (apart
from John's Gospel) in the passage, " Let the dead bury their dead.''*
It is in this emphatic sense that he says, " God is not the God of the
dead, but of the living"\ (v, 32). The living God can only be conceived
as the God of the living. And this argument, derived from the The-
ocratic basis of the Old Testament, is founded upon a more general
one, viz., the connexion between the consciousness of God and that of
immortality. Man could not become conscious of God as his God, if
he were not a personal spirit, divinely allied, and destined for eternity,
an eternal object (as an individual) of God; and thereby far above all
natural and perishable beings, whose perpetuity is that of the species,
not the individual.
It is worthy of remark, that Christ does not enter further into llie
faith of immortality as defined in the belief of the resurrection; his
opponents could not appreciate the latter until they had been made to
feel the need of the former.
§ 249. Christ's Exjwsition of the First and Great Commandment. —
(Mark, xii., 28-34.)
The promptness with which Chiist silenced the Pharisees and Sad-
ducees inclined towards him many of the bettei--minded.| One of
these, who felt himself compelled to acknowledge Jesus as a witness
of truth, if not as Messiah, put a question to him in good faith, in order
to make known his agreement of sentiment with him :§ "Which is the
first commandment of all V And when Christ rei)lied that all the
commandments were implied in two " the supieme love of God, and
the love of one's neighbour as one's self," he assented with all his heait,
declaring that this was, indeed, more than " all whole burnt- ofTerings and
sacrifices." , Jesus, whose loving heart always welcomed the germs of
• Cf p. 310.
t The quibbles of the Rabbinical writers on this passage, compared with Christ's pro-
found sayinij, ilhistrate the proverb, "Duo cum dicunt idem, noii est idem."
t So, rt the ronncil of Costuitz, when John Huss, the witness for Christ and truth, was
condemned by a majority of scribes and priests, there were yet a few among the multi-
tude of better s[)irit, who were moved by the power of truth in his replies and conduct,
and manifested their sympathy.
§ We follow Mark rather than Matthevy, who represents the question as put in a hostile
spirit. Mark's description coincides with Luke, xx., 39, where certain of the scribcB are
represented as expressing their assent to the Saviour's answers.
THE GOOD SAMARITAN. 363
truth and goodness, praisod the spirit of the man's reply, saying, " Thou
art not Jar from the kingdom of God." And in this he intended no
more and no less than the words themselves conveyed. Had he con-
sidered an earnest moral striving, such as this man expressed, to he suffi-
cient, he would have acknowledged him as not only near, hut m the
kingdom of God. He tells him, however, that he is on the way to it,
because he was freed from the Pharisaic delusion of the righteousness
of works, and knew the nature of genuine piety ; and could, therefore,
more readily be convinced of what he still lacked of the spirit of the
law, which he so well understood. The conscious need of redemption,
thus awakened, would lead him to the only source whence his wants
could be supplied.
§ 250. The Parable of the Good Samaritan. (Luke, x., 25, seq.)
We here deviate a moment from chronological order, to introduce a
similitude germane to the conversation just set forth. It is remarkable
that Luke omits that conversation and gives the jjarable of the good
Samaritan* which is obviously akin to it in import, and is, in turn,
omitted by the other Evangelists. Perhaps in this, as in other cases
already mentioned,! the Evangelists divided the matter among them, in
view of this very congeniality of meaning.
The parable introduces a man asking Christ what he must do to in-
herit eternal life. We might infer from Luke's statement that his mo-
tives were bad ; but the narrative does not confirm this view, although
Christ's reply does not place him beside the man who was " near" the
kingdom of God. He was one of the vo[j,tKoi (lawyers), who, as we
have said (p. 247, note), differed from the Pharisees ip occupying them-
selves more with ihe original wi-itings of Scripture than with the tradi-
tions. In this respect they stood nearer to Christ than the Pharisees.
The Saviour does not prescribe, as the lawyer, perhaps, expected, any
new and special command, but refers him to the law itself, which he
had made his particular study: '^ What is written in the law? Hoic
readest thou V The lawyer quoted in reply (as did the scribe refeiTed
to in the last section) the all-embracing commandment to love God and
one's neighbour. "Do this," said Christ, '■'and thou shalt live;" im-
plying, what, indeed, is the doctrine of the whole New Testament, that
if a man were really capable of a life wholly pervaded by this love, he
would lack nothing to jtistify him before God.
The lawyer was probably ill-disposed to dwell upon the requisites
of this perfect law ; and Christ, therefore, sets vividly before him in the
* This parable, like that mentioned p. 216, note, i.s peculiar in this, that the truth of th«
hi^'her sphere is uot illustrated by a fact from the lower, but the general truth, by a spe-
cial case from the same sphere, which may in itself have been matter of fact.
t Cf p. 315, note, and p. 3r,8.
364 CHRIST AT JERUSALEM.
parable the nature of a genuine and practical love, shown in the Sa-
maritan, in contrast with that obedience to the law which goes no fur-
ther than the lips, illustrated by the priest and the Levite. And in
conclusion, he told him, " Go thou and do likewise, and thou shalt fulfil
the law." The contrast between true and pretended love is thus made
prominent in the parable in opposition (1) to the hypocrisy, and (2) to
the narrow exclusiveness of the Pharisees.*
§ 251. Christ's Interpretation of Psalm ex., 1. (Mark, xii., 35-37.)
We return now to the order of the narrative. We are informed by
the Evangelists that in the course of these controversies with his oppo-
nents Christ put to them the question, how it could be that Messiah
was to be the Son of David, and yet that David called him " Lord"
(Ps. ex., 1). We are not precisely told with what view he proposed
the question ; though it might, perhaps, be inferred from Matthew's
statement, that after he had so answered their captious queries as to
put them to shame, he sought in turn to embarrass them. But was it
consistent with the dignity of his character to put questions merely for
such a purpose ? Nothing like it, at all events, is to be found in his
words or actions. Nor can we well imagine that the shrewd Pharisees
could have been much embarrassed by such an interrogatory. Their
views would naturally have suggested the reply that Messiah was allu-
ded to in respect to his bodily descent, when called the " Son of Da-
vid ;" and to his Divine authority as Theocratic King when called
" Lord." In this case, then, as in a recent one, we follow in prefer-
ence the statement of Mark ; according to which, Christ put the ques-
tion while teaching in the Temple, perhaps in answer to something
said in hostility to him.t
But for what purpose of instruction did he quote the Psalm 1 Shut-
ting out every thing but what Mark says, we should have to suppose
that he used it to combat the opinion that Messiah must come of the
line of David; in order, perhaps, to make good his claim to the Mes-
siahship against those who questioned his own descent from David
(.John, vii., 42). But Paul could not have presupposed it as a settled
fact| that Christ was of the seed of David, had He ever expressed him-
self according to the supposition just given. Nor would his argu-
ment, in this case, be as striking as we commonly see in his disputes ;
for, as we have said, he might be David's Lord, in one sense, and his
* It has been supposed, since Christ's reply is not precisely an answer to tlie question
in V. 29, that the parable may have been separately transmi,tteii, and at a later period put
into this connexion, a connexion imitated from Mark, xii.. W, seq. ; the two verses of this
passage (29-31) being transferred in Luke from Christ's month to the lawyer's. But even
if we admit that the connecting link in the dialogue is not fully given in Luke, x., 29, the
historical order is so obvious, that wc arc thrown upon no such forced explanations.
t The word a-roKpiOcls favours this conclusion. J Cf. p. 17, and Heb., vii., 14.
PSALM ex., 1. 365
Son in another. Our view, then, is that Christ quoted the Psalm in or-
der to unfold the higher idea of the Messiah as the Son of God, and
to oppose, not the idea that he was to be Son of David, but a one-sided
adherence to this, at the expense of the other and higher one. Per-
haps offence had been taken at the higher titles which he assumed to
himself; and he may have been thereby led to adopt this course of ar-
gument. As he had before used Ps. Ixxxii., 6,* to convince the Jews
on their own ground that it was no blasphemy for him to claim the title
" Son of God" in the highest sense ; so now he used Ps. ex. to con-
vince them that the two elements were blended together in the Mes-
sianic idea.t Still, the passage may only have preserved to us the
head or beginning of a fuller exposition.
Even though it be proved that David was not the author of the
Psalm quoted, Christ's argument is not invalidated thereby. Its prin-
cipal point is precisely that of the Psalm ; the idea of the Theocratic
King, King and Priest at once, the one founded upon the other, raised
up to God, and looking, with calm assurance, for the end of the con-
flict with his foes, and the triumphant establishment of his kingdom.
This idea could never be realized in any man ; it was a prophecy of
Christ, and in Him it was fulfilled. This idea went forth necessarily
from the spirit of the Old Dispensation, and from the organic connexion
of events in the old Theocracy ; it was the blossom of a history and a
religion that were, in their very essence, prophetical. In this regard it
is matter of no moment whether David uttered the Psalm or not. His-
tory and interpretation, perhaps, may show that he did not. But whether
it was a conscious prediction of the royal poet, or whether some other,
in poetic but holy inspiration, seized upon this idea, the natural blos-
som and off-shoot of Judaism, and assigned it to an earthly monarch,
although in its true sense it could never take shape and form in such
a one — still it was the idea by which the Spirit, of which the inspired
seer, whoever he may have been, was but the organ, pointed to Jesus.
'I'he only difference is that between conscious and unconscious proph-
ecy. And if Christ really named David as the author of the Psalm, we
are not reduced to the alternative of detracting from his infallibility and
imconditional truthfulness, or else of admitting that David really wrote
it. The question of the authorship was immaterial to his purpose ; it
was no part of his Divine calling to enter into such investigations ; his
* Cf. p. 327.
t We see here a mark of tliat higher unity in which the lineaments of Christ's picture,
as given by the first three Gospels, harmonize with those given by John. Although at a
later period the view which conceived Christ, as to his caUing, person, and authority,
wholly or mainly as " the Sou of David," was opposed by another equally one-sided theory,
which recognized him only as " Son of God," and thrust out the "Son of David" entirely;
it would be a most arbiti-ary procedure, indeed, to infer [as some have done] that the prev
alence of the latter doctrine alone gave rise to the invention of this passage.
368 CHKIST AT JERUSALEM.
teachings and his revelation lay in a very different sphere. Here [as
often elsewhere] he doubtless employed the ordinary title of the Psalm
— the one to which his hearers were accustomed.
What we have said in another place* in regard to the place assigned
by Christ to the Old Testament and to the prophecies is enough, we
think, to show that he regarded it as a revelation not fully developed,
hut veiled ; not brought out entirely into clear consciousness, but con-
taining also a circle of unconscious prophecies. Let us be careful
that we are not again brought into bondage to a Rabbinical theology of
the letter, than which nothing can be more at variance with the spirit
t>f Christ.
§ 252. The Widoio's Mite. (Luke, xxi., 1-4; Mark, xii., 41-44.)
Christ had warned the disciples against the mock-holiness of the
Pharisees. A poor widow cast two mites, all her wealth, into the
treasury of the Temple. He made use of this incident to impress
them again with the truth, so often and so variously illustrated by him,
that it is the heart which fixes the character of pious actions ; that the
greatest gifts ai'e valueless without pure motives ; the smallest, worthy,
with them. The same principle was set forth in his saying that gi'eat
and small acts were alike in moral worth, if done in his name.]
§ 253. Christ ^^rcdicts the Divine Judgments ttpon Jerusalem. (Matt.,
xxiii.)
Before leaving the Temple, Christ delivered a discourse^ full of
severity against the heads of the hierarchy, through whom destruction
was soon to be brought upon the nation. He then announced the
judgments of God, in a series of prophecies that were afterward
fulfilled in the destruction of Jerusalem. Regarding himself as al-
ready removed from the earth, he says nothing further of what
was to befall his own person, but predicts that the agents by whose
labours his work was to be extended would be persecuted, like the
witnesses for the truth of old ; and that the Jews, thus partaking of
the wicked spirit of their fathers, would fill up the measure of their
sins, and bring upon themselves the wrath which the accumulated guilt
of ages had been gathering. Glancing with Divine confidence at the
developement of his work, he says : " Behold ! I se?id unto youinojphcts,
and loise men, and scribes ;§ and some of them ye shall scotirge in your
' Cf. p. 200. t Cf. p. 288.
t This discourse, as given iu Matt., xxiii., coutaius mauy passages uttered oii other occa-
sions.
6 The application of these Old Testament designations to Christ's organs is not strange ;
lie intended by it an analogy to the Theocratic developement. There were prophets in the
early Christian Church; and the term "scribes" is applied, in Matt., xiii., r>2. to teachers
in the "kingdom of heaven" on earth. As this last discourse, as given by Matthew, con-
THE SECOND ADVENT. 367
synagogues, and j>crsccutc them from city to city ; and some of them ye
shall kill and crucify.'" He concludes with a mournful allusion to the
catastrophe which was to be so big with interest to the kingdom of
God, to the judgment over Jerusalem, and to his second advent to
judge the earth and complete his work. " O Jerusalem, Jerusalem,
thou that Jdllcst the proj)hcts, and. stonest them which arc sent unto thee,
how often icoidd I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen
gathcreth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not* Behold !
your house is left unto you desolate ;\ for I say unto you, that ye shall
not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the
name of the LiordP He obviously, in this last clause, betokens his
second and triumphal advent as Theocratic King. Other persons,
however, are implied than those to whom the discourse was directed :
they were least likely ever to welcome him with praises, and the words
denote a willing, not a forced submission. We take them as referring
to the Jews in general, as the previous verse refers to the inhabitants
of Jerusalem in general ; the particular generation intended being left
undefined.
§ 254. Christ's Prediction of the Coming of the Kingdo7n of God, and
of his Second Advent. (Mark, xiii. ; Matt., xxiv.)
Christ had left the Temple with the disciples. They were admi-
ring the external splendour of the edifice, and he, still full of prophecy,
took advantage of it to tell them that all this magnificence should be
swept away in the general ruin of the city. These intimations kindled
an anxious curiosity in their minds, and when they were alone with
him, upon the Mount of Olives, they questioned him closely as to the
signs by which the approaching catastrophe could be known, and the
time when it should take place.
tains various passages given by Luke in tlie table-conversation (oh. xi.), so Luke inserts
there this prophetic aunounceinent, whose proper position is found in Matthew. In oppo-
sition to Dr. Schiieckenhurger (Stud. d. Evang. Geistl. Wiirtemb., vi., 1, p. 35), I must
think that the form of Christ's words given by Luke is the less original. It shows the
ti'aces of Christian language. In Luke, xi., 49. this prophecy is introduced as coming from
" the wisdom of God" (cf Wisdom of Solomon, vii., 27). The origin of this form of citation
is accounted for very naturally by my dear colleague and friend, Dr. Ticesten, on the ground
that so notable a prediction could readilj- be transmitted as a separate one ; that it was so
transmitted as an utterance of the Divine wisdom manifested in Christ ; and that Luke,
receiving it in this form, so incorporated it in his collection.
* We have already remai'ked tliat these words necessarily presuppose previous and re-
peated labours of Christ at Jerusalem. Cf p. 157, 324, note.
t He withdraws from them his blessing, saving presence, and " leaves" them, since they
viill not be saved, to the desolation and destruction they have brought upon themselves.
By the word "house" we need not necessarily understand " temple" (cf Dc Wette, in loc.) ;
but it is yet a question whether Clirist did not really mean the Temple, which he was just
leaving. If so, he calls it "their" house, not the house of God, because their depravity
lind desecrated the holy place. His leaving it was a sign that God's presence should
dwell in it no more.
368 CHRIST AT JERUSALEM.
It was certainly far from Christ's intention to give them a complete
view of the course of developement of the kingdom of God up to its
final consummation. He imparted only so much as was necessary to
guard them against deception, to stimulate their watchfulness, and con-
firm their confidence that the end would come at last. Much, indeed,
was at that time beyond their comprehension, and could only be made
clear by the enlightening influence of the Spirit, and by the progi'ess
of events. Indeed, if they had fully understood the intimations he
had previously given, they might have spared themselves many ques-
tions. It was always Christ's method to cast into their minds the seeds
of truth, that were only to spring up into full consciousness at a later
period. This was especially the case in his prophecies of the future
progress and prospects of the kingdom of God. A clear and con-
nected knowledge on that point was not essential to the preachers of
his Gospel. Many predictions had necessarily to remain obscure until
the time of their fulfilment. He himself says (Matt., xxiv., 3G ; Mark,
xiii., 32) that the day and hour of the final decision are known only to
the counsels of the Father ; and, as it would be trifling to refer this to
the precise " day and hour," rather than to the time in general, it could
not have been his purpose to give definite information on the subject.
To know the ti7ne, presupposed a knowledge of the hidden causes of
events, of the actions and reactions of free beings — a prescience which
none but the Father could have ; unless we suppose, what Christ ex-
pressly denies, that He had received it by a special Divine revelation.
Not that he could err, but that his knowledge was conscious of its lim-
its ; although he knew the progress of events, and saw the slow course
of their developement,* as no mortal could.
When, therefore, Christ speaks in this discourse of the great import
of his coming for the history of the world, of his triumphant self-mani-
festation, and of the beginning of his kingdom, he betokens thereby
partly his triumph in the destruction of the visible Theocracy, and its
results in the freer and wider diff"usion of his kingdom, and partly his
second advent for its consummation. The judgment over the degener-
ate Theocracy, and the final judgment of the world ; the first free devel-
opement of the kingdom of God, and its final and glorious consumma-
tion, correspond to each other : the former, in each case, prefiguring
the latter. And so, in general, all great epochs of the world's history,
in which God reveals himself as Judge, condemning a creation ripe
for destruction, and calling a new one into being ; all critical and cre-
ative epochs of the world's history correspond to each other, and col-
lectively prefigure the last judgment and the last creation — the con-
summation of the kingdom of God.
If Christ had been but a projihcf, we might indeed suppose that the
* Cf. p. 80, on the Plan of Jesus, and 189, seq., on the Parables of the Kingdom of God.
THE MARRIAGE FEAST. 369
image of the glorious future which unveiled itself to his seeing, glance
in moments of inspiration, was involuntarily blended in his mind with
the realities of the present ; and that events, separated by long inter-
vals of time, presented themselves as closely joined together. But we
must here distinguish between the conscious truth and the defective
forms in which it was apprehended ; between the revelation of the
Divine Spirit in itself, and the hues which it took from the narrowness
of human apprehension, and the forms of the time in which it was de-
livered. In Christ, however, we can recognize no blending of truth
with error, no alloy of the truth as it appeared to his own mind.* What
we have already said is enough to show that this could not ^coexist
with the expositions given by him of the kingdom of God. But it is
easy to explain how points of time which He kept apart, although he
presented them as countei^parts of each other, without assigning any
express duration to either, were blended together in the apprehension
of his hearers, or in their subsequent repetitions of his language.t
§ 255. Parahl§ of the Marriage Feast of the King's Son. (Matt., xxii.,
1-14.)
Matthew assigns to this period several parables in which Christ
illustrated the course of developement of the kingdom of God. Some
of them are allied to those mentioned by us before in following Luke's
account. But their affinity does not justify us in concluding, with some
modern writers, that they were originally one and the same, and that
the variations in their form are due to their more or less faithful trans-
mission. We hope to be able to show, as we have done in other cases,
that the allied parables are alike original, and were alike uttered by
Christ himself.
* Cf. p. 80.
t It was peculiar, as we liave seen, to the editor of our Greek Matthew to arrange to-
gether congenial sayings of Christ, though uttered at different times and in different rela-
tions ; and we have remarked this (p. 318, note t) in reference to the discourse in Matt.,
xxiv. We need not, therefore, wonder if wo find it impossible to draw the lines of dis-
tinction in this discourse with entire accnrac}'; nor need such a result lead us to forced in-
terpretations, inconsistent with truth and with the love of truth. It is much easier to make
such distinctions in Luke's account (ch. xxi.), though even that is not without its difficul-
ties. In comparing Matthew and Luke together, however, we can trace the origin of most
of these difficulties to the blending of difftrcnt portions together, when the discourses of
Christ were arranged in collections. It is true, Strauss and De Wette assert that the forai
of the discourses in Matthew is much more original than in Luke ; that the latter bears
marks of a date subsequent to the destruction of Jerusalem; and, therefore, that it was
remodelled after the event had given its light to the prediction, and shown the falsity of
some of the expectations entertained by the disciples. But does the character of the dis-
course confirm this hj'pothesis ? Would the narrator, in such a case, have left such passages
unaltered as xxi., 10, also 18, compared with 16 and 28? It is impossible to carry the hy-
pothesis through consistently with itself; and the natural conclusion is, that Luke has, as
UBual, given us Christ's discourses in the most faithful and original way.
Aa
370 CHRIST AT JERUSALEM.
We take up first the parable of the Marriage of the King's Son
(Matt., xxii). The kingdom of God is here represented under the
figure of a marriage feast given by the King (God) to his Son (Christ),
The o-uests invited are the members of the old Theocratic nation.
When the banquet is prepared (/. c. when the kingdom of God is to
be established upon earth), the king sends his servants out at different
times to call in the guests that were before bidden. Some follow their
business without the least regard to the invitation; corresponding to
those men who are wholly devoted to earthly things, and indifferent to
the Divine. Others, going still further, seize, abuse, and finally kill the
servant*; representing men decidedly hostile to the Gospel, and per-
secutors of its preachers. It is not strange that Christ does not in this,
as in another parable, add another point of gradation, by sending out
the son to be maltreated also ; it would not harmonize with the plan
of the parable for the king's son, in whose honour the feast was given,
to go about like a servant and invite his guests. Moreover, the para-
ble refers to Christ's agents, not to himself; as he speaks of a time
when he shall no more be present on the earth. '
When the king learns what has passed, he sends his armies, seizes
the murderers, and burns their city ; corresponding to the prophecy of
the judgment over the Jews and the destruction of Jerusalem. As the
city is destroyed, new guests cannot be invited from thence; the king
sends his servants out into the highways, frequented by many travel-
lers, with orders to invite eveiy body to the wedding; a prophetic in-
timation, obviously, that, after the destruction of Jerusalem and of the
old Theocratic nation, the doors of the kingdom would be thrown wide
open, and all the heathen nations be invited to come in. The servants,
in execution of the command, bring in all whom they meet, both good
and bad.
A second prominent feature of the parable now appears ; the sifting
of the o-uests. Those who have a just sense of the honour done them
by the invitation, and come in a wedding-garment, represent such as
fit themselves for membership of the kingdom of God by proper dis-
positions of heart ; while those who come in the garb in which the in-
vitation happens to find them correspond to such as accept the calls of
the Gospel without any change of heart. Chnst himself gives promi-
nence to this feature of the parable in the words, "Many are called,
hut few are chosen;" distinguishing the gi'eat mass of outward pro-
fessors who obey the extenial call from the few who are "chosen,"
because their hearts are right.*
* Many interpreters think the case shonld be conceived thus : The caftan, or wedding-
dress, was offered to the guests, according to Oriental custom, by the king himself, and
their disrespect was shown in refusing to accept it at his hands ; thus representing justifi-
cation by faith as the offered gift of Divine grace. This conception would help us to ex-
plain Low the guests taken upon the road might have secured the wedding-garment, had
THE WICKED VINE-DRESSERS. 371
This parable is certainly similar to that in Luke, xiv., 16-24, before
treated of;* but the new and dificrent features which it presents indi-
cate that it was uttered at a different period. In Luke's parable the
hostility of the invited guests is not so decided ; they offer excuses for
not coming. The contrast, in fact, is limited to the Jewish nation ; the
poor and despised Jewish peojilc being opposed to the Pharisees. And
as no general Jewish enmity is alluded to, so the destruction of Jeru-
salem is not mentioned at all, and the calling of the heathen only by
the way.
§ 2oQ>. Parable of the Wicked Husbandman. (Matt., xxi., .'J3-44 ;
Mark, xii., 1-12 ; Luke, xx., 9-18.)
The gradations of guilt in the conduct of the Jews towards the Di-
vine messengers, and, finally, towards the Son himself, are set forth mon?
prominently in the parable of the vineyard and the wicked vine-dressers
(Matt., xxi., 33). The enjoyment of the kingdom of God is the point
contemplated in the parable of the marriage of the king's son ; the hi-
hour done for it is that of the parable now before us. The former rej)-
resents the kingdom in its consummation in the fellowship of the re-
deemed; the latter, in its gradual developement on earth, demanding
the activity of men for its advancement. The lord of the vineyard had
done every thing necessary for its cultivation ; so had God ordained all
things wisely for the prosperity of his kingdom among the Jews ; all
that was wanting was that they should rightly use the means instituted
by him. The lord of the vineyard had a right to demand of his ten-
ants a due proportion of fruit at the vintage ; so God required of the
Jews to whom he had intrusted the Theocracy to be cultivated, the
fruits of a corresponding life. When the earlier messengers sent to
call them to repentance had been evilly entreated and slain, he sends
his Son, the destined heir of the vineyard, the King of the Theocracy.
But as they show like dishonour to him, and kill him to secure them-
selves entire independence — to turn the kingdom of God into anarchy
— his judgments break forth; the Theocratic relation is broken, and
they chosen to do so ; nor is it a sufficient objection to it to say that such a usage cannot
be proved to have prevailed in ancient times ; for the similarity of modern to ancient cus-
toms in the East is so great, that we can infer from such as exist now, or at late periods,
tliat like ones prevailed in the earliest ages. But if a thought so important to the whole
parable had been intended, Christ would not have failed to express it definitely ; he would
have expressly reprimanded the delinquent guests with, " The garment was offered as a gift,
and ye would not accept it; so much the greater your guilt." In short, if this conception
be the right one, we must infer either that the parable has not been faithfully transmitted,
or that the usage referred to was so general in the East that no particular reference to it
was necessary. At all events, the mode by which the wedding-dress could be obtained
was not important to Christ's purpose ; and the absence of any allusion to it does not justify
Strauss's conclusion that there is a foreign trait in the parable, or that it is composed of
several heterogeneous parts. * Of. p. 254.
372 CHRIST AT JERUSALEM.
the kingdom is transferred to other nations that shall bring forth fruits
corresponding to it.*
§ 257. Parable of the Talents (Matt., xxv., 14-30) compared loWi that
of the Pounds (Luke, xix., 12).
The parable of the talents (Matt., xxv.) is evidently allied to that of
the pounds] (Luke, xix., 12) ; but there are points of difference too
striking to be ascribed to alterations in transmission. In the latter,
each of the servants receives the same sura, one pound, and their posi-
tion in the kingdom is assigned according to their gains. In the for-
mer, different sums are intrusted to the servants in proportion to their
ability, and those who bring gains in the same proportion are rewarded
accordingly. The aim, therefore, of Luke's parable is to represent
different degrees of zeal in the management of one and the same thing,
granted to all alike ; of Matthew's, to show that one's acceptance does
not depend upon his powers, or the extent of his sphere of labour, but
upon faithfulness of heart, which is independent of both. If the dif-
ferent number of talents in the latter parable represents different
spheres of labour, greater or less, corresponding to different measures
of power, then the one pound in the former must represent the one com-
mon endowment of Christians — the one Divine life or the one Divine
truth received into the life in all believers — the one Divine power, prov-
ing itself by its fruits in all who partake of it — but yet admitting of
different degi-ees of fruitfulness according to the completeness with
which it is willingly received and appropriated. These points of dif-
ference in the two parables presuppose that they had different objects.
That of the talents aimed to intimate that the reward depends upon the
motives, not upon the amount of one's labours, except so far as this
might be affected by the disposition of the heai't ; and perhaps, also,
to rebuke ambition and jealousy among the disciples themselves. That
of the^^oMwJ, on the other hand, was designed to stimulate the zeal of
the Apostles in their labours for the kingdom of God, and encourage
them to a holy emulation.
In both parables the servant who makes no use of the capital in-
trusted to him is condemned. But in Matthew this servant is precisely
the one to whom only one talent is given ; representing, perhaps, those
who, with inferior powers, have insufficient confidence, and make the
smallness of their gifts and the narrowness of their sphere of labour a
plea for inactivity ; such as say, comparing their talents and opportu-
nities with those of others, " What can be expected of me, to whom so
little has been given V Here again, then, faithfulness and zeal, not the
*■ It is to be observed that the judgment of the .Jewish nation is here represented as a
"coming of the Lord ;" intimating that we are to see in that judgment a "coming" of his
in a spiritual sense. t Cf. p. 348.
FAITH AND WORKS. 373
measure of gifts, are made prominent. In the parable oi' the pomids, the
one pound is taken away from the negligent servant and given to«liim
that gained most ; in harmony with the scope of the parable, that which
the negligent one never truly possessed (because he never used it) is
transferred to him who proved himself worthy of the trust by gaining
most. It is not so in the parable of the talents ; here equality in mo-
tive and disposition is the main point, so that the quantitatice differen-
ces disappear, and he who with five talents gains other five deserves
no pre-eminence on that account. The feature, therefore, given in Matt.,
XXV., 28, is not so appropriate to his parable as to Luke's ; at all events,
it belongs only to the filling up of the picture in the former, while in
the latter it is a prominent feature.
§ 258. Parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins. (Matt., xxv., 1-13.)
The parable of the virgins was designed to set vividly before the dis-
ciples the necessity of constant preparation for the uncertain time of
Christ's second advent, without at all clearing up the uncertainty of the
time itself; thus harmonizing exactly with all his teachings on the sub-
ject. It is certainly, also, the representation (so often made by Christ)
of the idea of Christian virtue under the form of prudence ; and illus-
trates the connexion between Christian prudence and that ever-vigilant
presence of mind which springs from one constant and predominant aim
of life. But we must distinguish between the fundamental thought of
the parable and its supplementary features. It may be that one of these
latter is the fruitless application of the foolish virgins to the wise for a
supply which they might have secured for themselves by adequate care
and forethought ; yet, perhaps, Christ, piercing the recesses of the hu-
man heart, and seeing its tendency to trust in the vicarious services
and merits of others, may have intended, by this feature of the para-
ble, to warn his disciples against such a fatal error.
§ 259. Christ teaches that Faith must j^i'ove itself hy Works. (Matt.,
XXV., 31-46.)
At the close of the twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew there is given a
representation of the final judgment. There has been, and may be,
much debate as to both the form and the substance of this representa-
tion. In regard to the latter it .may be asked, " What judgment is
alluded to, and who are to be judged *?" One reply is, that the judg-
ment of unbelievers alone is meant ;* because, according to Christ's
own words (.Tohn, iii., 18), believers are freed from judgment; and
because the objects of the judgment are designated by the term IOvt]^
D'li, a term applied exclusively to that portion of mankind which does
not belong to the kingdom of God.
* Advocated particularly by Kcil (Opuscula) and Ohhausen (Commentar.).
374 CHRIST AT JERUSALEM.
It is true, the Scriptures teach (Rom., ii., 12, seq.) that even among
these nations there are degrees of moral character which will certainly
he recognized by the just judge ; but the distinctions drawn by tho
judge in the passage before us are not of this character. Further, the
theory alluded to will not explain why sympathy and assistance ren-
dered to believers are made the sole standard, and all other moral tests
thrown out. All that it can offer is one or the other of the following
.^suppositions : either that this sympathy is a general love for mankind,
and its manifestation to proclaimers of the Gospel merely an accidental
feature ; or that it springs from a direct interest in the cause of ChritJt
and the Gospel itself. But the first supposition would make the asciip-
tion of special value to these acts inconsistent with the standard set up
by Christ himself; for the acts are (according to the hypothesis) out-
ward and accidental. The second does, indeed, afford a ground for
preference in the motive, viz., love of Christ's cause ; but, then, it does
away the theory itself, for the developement of such a sentiment in the
minds of ihose who entertain it would inevitably make them Christians.
This theory, therefore, is untenable on either side. It is further re-
futed by the fact that, in the passage, Christ bestows upon those to
whom he awards his praise the very titles which belong exclusively to
believers: as the ^'•righteous;'''' the ^^ blessed of the Father, for whom
the hingdom loas prepared from the foundation of the worlds We con-
clude, thei'efore, that the judgment will include the trial and sifting of
professors of the faith themselves. As before that final decision the
faith of the Gospel will have been spread among all nations, so all na-
tions are represented as brought to the bar ; but, among these, genuine
believers will be separated from those whose fidelity has not been
proved by their lives. Indeed, we have already treated of several
parables which presuppose such a final sifting of believers ; nor is it at
all inconsistent with the conscious assurance of the faithful that they
are free from judgment through the redemption of Christ.
It is every where taught by him that brotherly love is a peculiar fruit
of faith, the very test of its genuineness ; and we cannot wonder, there-
fore, to find it made so prominent in tliis passage. The pious are
represented in it as following the Impulses of a true brotherly love,
founded upon love to Christ, and as manifesting this love in kind acts
to their brethren without respect to persons. Yet they attach no merit
to their works, and are amazed to find the Lord value them so highly
as to consider them done unto himself. But those whose faith is life-
less and loveless, and who rely upon their outward confessions of the
Lord for their acceptance, are amazed, on the other hand, at their re-
jection. Never conscious of the intimate connexion between faith and
love, or of genuine Christian feelings referring every thing to Chri.st,
and seeing him in all things, they cannot understand why he interprnfa
THE HEATHENS WITH CHRIST. 375
their lack of love for the brethren into lack of love for himself. The
mere fact that faith is not expressly mentioned in connexion with the
judgment does not affect our view ; it is taken for granted that all have
already professed the faith, and the genuine believers are to be sepa-
rated from the spurious.
On the whole, then, we are not to look upon this representation as a
picture of the final judgment. Its aim is to set forth, most vividly and
impressively, the great and fundamental truth, that no faith but that
which proves itself by. works can secure a title to the kingdom of
Heaven. We cannot fail to see in the " throne," the " right hand," the
*■ left hand," &c., a figurative drapery, attending and setting off the one
fundamental thought. Moreover, it was not Christ's usage to speak
of himself directly under the title of " King." The form of the descrip-
tion, then, we suppose to have been parabolical ; and its character in
this respect was probably still more obvious when Christ delivered it.
§ 260. The Heathens with Christ. (John, xii., 20, seq.)
Among the hosts of visiters at the feast there were not a few heathens
who had come to the knowledge of Jehovah as the true God, and
were accustomed to worship statedly at Jerusalem ; perhaps prose-
lytes of the gate.* Christ's triumphal entryt and ministry attracted
their attention, and all that they heard found a point of contact in their
awakened religious longings. Not venturing to address him person-
ally, they sought the mediation of one of his disciples.| Seeing in
these individual cases a prefiguring of the great results, in the moral
regeneration of mankind and the diffusion of the kingdom of God, that
* This may be inferred from the use of avadaiv&vTtxiv (v. 20).
t There appears to be a discrepancy between John and the other Evangelists, if the
facts related by liim in xii., 20, seq., took place after Christ's entry, on the same day, and
if Christ retired from the public immediately after his last warnintr to the Jews. On this
supposition time could not have been afforded for the transactions we have already intro-
duced in this interval from the synoptical Gospels. But it is evident from John's own nar-
rative that Christ found many followers just after his entry, and that this led even his
enemies to be cautious. It may be inferred, therefore, that Khrist made use of the great
impression produced by his appearance, and did not immediately withdraw himself The
chasm in John is well filled by the other Gospels, and with matter precisely suited to the
time. John's main object was to give (as he alone could) the last discourses of Jesus with
his disciples ; and for this reason, probably, he omitted several features of Christ's public
labours. Two hypotheses are possible: {1} Christ's conversation with the Greeks took
place several days after hia entry, and just before the end of his public labours ; thereby
leaving ample space for the transactions recorded in tlie sj'noptical Gospels ; (2) or it took
place on the dai/ of his entry, and was occasioned by the sensation produced by that event;
leaving a few days before his retirement, in which interval the events recorded in the
synoptical Gospels occurred. These John did not mention ; but, after giving a brief sam-
mary of Christ's final warning to the Jews, hastened on to his last discourses with the
disciples.
X Philip does not take at once the bold step of presenting the heathen to Christ : he tells
Andrew, and then both together tell Jesus. Thus naturally does John relate it.
376 CHRIST AT JERUSALEM.
were to flow from liis own sufferings, he said, " TJic Jiour is covie that
the Son of Man should be gloi-ificd." (The man Jesus, exalted to
glory in heaven by his sufterings ; the glorified one, who was to reveal
himself in his influences upon mankind ; especially in the invisible
workings of his Divine power for the spread of the Divine kingdom.)
The necessity of his death is next set forth. The seed-corn," abideth
alone" unless it is thrown into the earth; but when it dies, it brings
forth fruit : so the Divine life, so long as Jesus remained upon earth
in personal form, was confined to himself; but when the earthly shell
was cast off, the way was open for the diffusion of the Divine life
among all mankind. As yet the disciples themselves were wholly de-
pendent upon his personal appearance ; and, therefore, he said that He
alone, as the Son of Man, was yet in possession of this Divine life. And
as He was to be glorified through sufferings, so he told his disciples
that the happiness and glory destined for them was to be secured only
by self-denial. '■'He that loveth his life (makes the earthly life his
chief good) shall lose it (the true life) ; but he that hateth his life in this
world [i. €., deems it valueless in comparison with the interests of His
kingdom), shall kcejy it unto life eternal.'"
§ 261. Christ's Struggles of Soul, and Submission to the Divine Will.
— The Voice from Heaven. (John, xii., 27-29.)
At the same time that the great creation to proceed from his suffer-
ings was expanding before his eyes, the struggles of soul to which we
have before alluded were renewed within him. The life of God in
him did not exclude the uprising of human feelings, in view of the
sufferings and death that lay before him, but only kej^t them in their
proper limits. Not by unhurnanizing himself, but by subordinating
the human to the Divine, was he to realize the ideal of pure human
virtue ; he was to be a perfect example for men, even in the struggles
of human weakness.
" Now is 7ny soul troubled .^" But, sorely as the terrors of his dying
struggle pressed upon him, they could not shake his will, strong in
God, or disturb the steadfast calmness of his mind. He does not, in
obedience to the voice of nature, pray to be exempted from the dying
hour: "I cannot say, Father, save me from this hour; for this cause
have I been brought to this hour, not to escape, but to suffer it."* In
full consciousness he had looked forward to it from the beginning, as
essential to the fulfilment of his work. Therefore all his feelings and
wishes are concentrated upon the one central aim of his whole life,
that God may bo glorified in mankind by his sufferings : '* Father,
glorify thy name .'"
* John, xii., 27. Cf. KUng, Stud. u. Krit., 1836, iii., C76.
THE VOICE FROM HEAVEN. 377
As he uttered this fervent prayer, the very breathing of unselfish
holiness, there came a voice* from heaven, heard by the believing souls
who stood by as witnesses, saying, " I have both glorified my name in
thee, and will continue to glorify it.'^ All his previous life, in which
human nature had been made the organ of the perfect manifestation
of God in the glory of His holy law, had glorified the name of God ;
and now his sufferings, and their results, were more and more to glo-
rify that Name, in the establishment of His kingdom among men.
The Saviour himself, however, needed no assurance! that his prayer
was accepted : " This voice came not because of 7ne, but for your sakesj"
* Some interpret this account as a mythus, founded upon the Jewish idea of the Bath-
Col. But the difficulties in the account are not of a nature to justify this view, or to im-
peach tlie veracity of the narrator. On the contrary, tlie very point on whicli the mythical
theory seizes, viz., that in this case a natural phenomenon conveyed a special import to the
religious consciousness, and the very difficulty itself of defining the relation between the
subjective and the objective, tend to contirm the narrative as a statement of fact. Would
the writer have said that the multitude heard only the thunder, and not the loords, if he
meant to describe a voice sounding in majesty amid the thunder, or a voice sounding with
a noise like thunder ? Certainly he would have represented it as heard by all, and thus
have avoided the possible interpretation that the whole phenomenon was merely subject-
ive. Only on the supposition that it was a real fad, related by an eye-witness, can we
account for the clear distinction made by the writer between his own experience iu the
case and that of others, difficult as it may be for us to discover the common ground of
these diverse experiences.
It is supposed by some that the BathCol was nothing else but a subjective interpreta-
tion of the Divine voice in thunder, considered as an omen or Divine sign of answer to
prayer. Even if this theory be correct, it is clear that John did not mean to record such an
omen and interpretation ; he really heard the words, and the natural phenomenon must have
only been a connecting link for the actual apprehension in bis religious consciousness.
The matter would have to be thus conceived : The impression made upon John by Christ's
words, and the natural phenomena tliat attended them, conspired so to atiect the suscept-
ible bystanders, that the word of God within them reechoed the words of Christ. They
were assured that His prayer was answered ; receiving, in fact, the same impression as
that reported in the narrative, though in a diflereut form. And, as the natural phenomenon
coincided with the inward operation of the Divine Spirit — a word from the Omnipi-esent
God, who works alike iu nature and iu spirit^so Christ, who knew that His work was the
father's, and always recognized God's omnipresent working, both in nature and in the
hearts of men, allowed it to be interpreted as a voice from Heaven.
But the conception of the Bath-Col, on which this whole interpretation is founded, cannot
be sustained. In the Rabbinical passages collected by Menschen and Vilringa there are
no traces of it: they interpret the Bath-Col as a real voice, accompanied by thunder. In
the Old Testament, thunder often appears as a sii^n, indeed, but as a sign of God's anger
or majesty, not of his grace. Still there are difficulties in the way of supposing that in the
case before us this voice was audible simply to the senses. In every place in the New
Testament in which such a voice is mentioned, it can be traced back to an inward fact ;
and, in the case in question, the voice was heard only by a part, the susceptible minds.
The hearing, then, depended upon the spiritual condition of the hearer.
Two points are clearly obvious : (1) there was thunder, and this alone was heard by the
unsusceptible multitude; (2) there was a voice from God, beard by the susceptible; and
these last, again, lost to outward and sensible impressions, did not hear the thunder.
In my view of this event, I agree for the most part (and gladly) with my worthy friend
Klinf^ ; and I agree with him, also, that it is better to acknowledge the existence of inex-
plicable difficulties, than to twist the text and histoi-y, in order to carry out some theory
which may suit our own notions (Stud. u. Krit., loc. cit., G76, 677). t Cf. p. 342.
378 CHRIST AT JERUSALEM.
He interpreted the voice, and showed them liow God was to be glo-
rified in him : " Now is the judgment of this xcorld ; now shall the prince
of this world he cast out. And I, f I am lifted up from the earth, will
draw all men unto meP His sufferings are his triumph. He finishes
his work in them; and they form the sentence of condemnation to the
ungodly world. The baselessness of Satan's kingdom is laid bare.
The Evil One is cast down from his throne among men. And Christ's
triumph will still go forward ; the power of evil will be more and more
diminished ; and the Glorified One will not only free his followers from
that evil power, but will exalt them to communion with himself in
heaven,
§ 262. Christ closes his Public Ministry. — Final Words of warning to
the Multitude.
The public ministry of Jesus was closed with these warning words
addressed to the assembled multitude : " Yet a little while is the light
with you ; walk while ye have the light (receive it by faith, and become,
by communion with it, children of the light), lest darkness come upon
you (lest, lost in darkness, ye hasten headlong to your own destruc-
tion) ; for he that walketh in dark?icss knoweth not whither he goethT
§ 263. Machinations of ChrisCs Enemies.
The few hours that intervened between the end of Christ's public
ministry and his arrest were devoted to instructing and comforting his
disciples in view of his approaching departure, and the severe conflicts
they were to undergo. In these conversations he displayed all his
heavenly love and calmfiess of soul ; his loftiness and his humility. In
order that our contemplation of these sweet scenes may not be inter-
rupted, we shall, before entering upon them, glance at the machina-
tions of his enemies which brought about his capture and his death.
As we have seen, tl^e Sanhedrim had resolved upon his death ; all
that remained was to decide how and when it should be brought about.
The time of the feast itself would have been unpropitious for the at-
tempt ;* it must be made, therefore, either before or after. The for-
* Matt., xxvi., 5, implies that Jesus was arrested before the commencement of the Jew-
ish Passover. I do not see the justice of Weissc's (i., 444) assertion, that this view of the
passage is opposed to its natural sense. The passage certainly implies (what is most im-
portant for my purpose) that he was not apprehended on the feast -da i/ ; whether before or
after is left undecided. But this information is not sufticient to show an inaccuracy in the
chronology of the first three Gospels. For we might suppose that the Sanhedrim were led,
by the opportunity ailbrded by the treachery of Judas, to seize Jesus quietly at uighf,
obandoniiig their original design. It would therefore follow, at any rate, that they had not
decided to efi'oct their purpose during the feast ; and they may have made up their minds
to wait until its close, when the unexpected proposition of Judas led them to attempt it
during the feast. But it is not probable that they would allow Christ, unmolested, to make
use of the time of the feast to increase his followers among the multitude. We shall see
MOTIVES OF JUDAS. 379
raer was tlie safest, and therefore the favorite plan. An unexpected
and most favourable opening was afforded, by the proposition oi Judas
Iscarioi, to deliver him into their hands.*
§ 264. The Motives of Judas in betraying Jesus.
It is difficult to decide upon the motives that impelled Judas to the
outrage which he perpetrated. How could one that had daily enjoyed
the influences of Christ's Divine life, had been a witness of his mighty
works, and received so many proofs of his love, have been driven to
such a fatal step ] It cannot be supposed, as we have before remarked, t
that he originally attached himself to Jesus for the purpose of betray-
ing him ; it rather appears that his motives were at first as pure as
those of the rest of the disciples. Had not Christ seen in him capa-
cities which, with proper cultivation, might have made him an efficient
Apostle, he would not have received him into his narrower circle on the
same footing with the others, and sent him out along with them on the
first trial mission. § Nor does this view deny either that the evil germ
which, when fully developed, led him to his great crime, lay in his
heart at the time ; or that Christ saw the evil as well as the good.§
But the Saviour may have hoped to make the latter preponderate over
the former.
Among the possible motives for the crime of Judas are, (1.) His al-
leged avarice ; (2.) Jewish views of Christ's Messiahship on his part ;
and, (3.) A gradual growth of hostile feelings in his heart. These we
shall now examine in order.
hereafter that there are strong objections to the opinion that Christ was cnieified on the
first day of the feast ; and these, if valid, will confirm our supposition that he was arrested
on the day before its commencement. Cf. Gfiirer, iii, 198.
* Matt., xxvi., 14-lG ; Mark, xiv., 10, 11; Luke, xxii., 3-6. These passages agree in
showing that Judas made his bargain with the Sanhedrim before the night on which he
consummated his treacheiy. It might be infen-ed from John, xiii., 26, that he only imbibed
the Satanic thought on rising from the Last Supper; but how could he have negotiated
with the Sanhedrim so late in the night, and just before the fatal act ? John himself says
(xiii., 2) that the devil had before put it in his-heart to do it. We conclude, therefore, that
V. 26 refers to the last step — the execution of his evil purpose ; and this agrees very well
with the supposition that he had previously arranged all the preliminaries. A favourable
moment only was wanting ; and this he found during that last interview with Jesus.
t Cf. p. 118. t Cf p. 257, seq.
$ John, vi., 64, teaches that Jesus knew at once the motives of all that attached them-
selves to him. No mock faith, founded on carnal inclinations, could deceive him, and there-
fore he knew at once the spiritual character of the one that should betray him. The pas-
sage does not necessarily imply that he marked at first the person of the traitor ; but only
that he noticed in Judas, from the very beginning, the disposition of heart that finally led
him to become a traitor. But it need not appear strange to us if John, after so many
proofs of the superhuman prescience of Jesus, attributed to the indefinite intimations of
Christ, given by him to Judas in order to make him know himself, more than was really ex-
pressed by them at the time.
380 CHRIST AT JERUSALEM.
. (^-^
Was Judas impelled by avarice ?
There are certain intimations in the Evangelists that appear to fa-
vour the hypothesis that avarice was his leading motive. In John, xii.,
6, this vice is ascribed to him, and he is charged with embezzlinor
money from the common purse, committed to his charge as treasurer.
Moreover, according to the synoptical Gospels, he bargained for a
certain sum of money, as the price of his treachery. It might be in
ferred, therefore, that a love of money, which sought to gratify itself
by any means, even by the violation of a sacred trust, grew upon him
to such an extent as finally to induce the commission of his awful
crime.
But there are many and strong objections to this view of the case.
If Judas's avarice were so intense, it is difficult to conceive how Christ,
whose piercing glance penetrated the recesses of men's hearts, could
have received him into the number of the disciples. Could He, who
knew so well how to adapt the special duties which he assigned his
followers to their individual peculiarities, have allowed precisely this
most avaricious disciple to keep charge of the common purse 1 And,
had he attributed Judas's i-eproof of Mary* (John, xii., 5) to this mo-
tive, would he not have noticed it in his reply ?t It must be remem-
bered, John's explanation (v. 6) was added after Judas was known to
have bargained to betray his Master for money. Had such an accusa-
tion been made at an earlier period, he would doubtless have been re-
moved from the ti'easurership. In all Christ's allusions to the charac-
ter of Judas that have come down to us, there is not the slightest indi-
cation that He thought it necessary to warn him against this sin.
There may, indeed, have been indications in John's memory which he
believed to afford sufficient ground for such a charge ;| and, after at-
tributing the treachery of Judas in betraying Christ to avarice, he
might have been led to look for traces of the same vice in his previous
management of the common funds. "
Again, it is difficult to understand, if the crime was committed for
the sake of money alone, how so small a sum as thirty shekels^ could
* Cf. p. 353.
t Dr. Gr. Schollmcj/cr, a young but promising theologian, remarks this in his " Jesus and
.Tudas," Liincburg, 183G.
t S/rariss (iii., 432, 3''' Aufl.) thinks this is inconsistent with my fuiidnmental principle,
since I acknowledge the Apostle John as the author of this Gospel ; just as if I accused
the Apostle of a groundless slander. The black deed of Judas justified John in ascribing
this vice to him, rs many of his recollections seemed to indicate it. He certainly could
not be expected to exercise a cool impartiality towards the traitor. In the mean time, I
think I am justified in saying that John's allusions are not to be taken ynconditionally as
proof. But tlie single trait of avarice suits well the general character of Judas, in whom
eaitidy aims wore all-controlling.
$ Between 25 and 26 rix dollars. Twenty shekels = 120 denarii, and one denarius was
at that time the ordinary wages for a day's labour (Matt., xx., 2) ; so that the whole sum
THE MOTIVES OF JUDAS. 381
have satisfied the traitor* Would not the Sanhedrim, in view of the
importance of getting hold of Jesus quietly, before the feast began,
freely have given Judas more if he had asked it 1 True, that body
may have relied upon the surety of seizing him in some way, and upon
the impression, gathered from his character, that he would cause no
rescue to be attempted ; and, therefore, so far as their nfcr is con-
cerned, thirty pieces is likely enough.
On the whole, then, we conclude that to gain so small a sum of
money could not have been Judas's chief motive. And, even had the
sum been a large one, it remains almost impossible to conceive that
avarice alone could lead him to deliver Jesus over to his foes, if he
really were impressed with a sense of his Divinity and Messiahship.
It must be presupposed that he had stood for some time in a spiritual
relation to Christ different from that of the other Apostles ; and when
this is once admitted, avarice is a superfluous motive.
(2.)
Was Judas impelled by Jewish views of Christ's Messiahship'?
Did Judas foresee and intend to bring about the result which fol-
lowed Christ's arrest 1 The answer to this question will obviously go
a great way in fixing our opinion of his character and motives. It is
connected with another, viz., in what way did the traitor himself die 1
If, according to Matthew's account, he committed suicide immediately
after Christ's condemnation, we might infer that he did not intend this
result, and was thrown into despair by it.
This inference has led some to the opiniont that Judas expected
Christ's arrest only to bring about the triumph of his cause by com-
amounted to about four months' wages of a day-labourer. (Cf. Panhis on Matt., sxvi., 16.)
Thiity shekels, it is to be noticed, was the value set upon a single slave, according to
Exod., xxi., 32.
* It is questioned, with some plausibility, by Strauss and De Wette, whether the pre-
cise sum, thirty shekch, is correctly given. Their arguments are that Matthew alone men-
tions it (xxvi., 15), while in Mark and Luke only the general term ap)'t'piov is given ; and
that the tendency of Mntthew to find types of Christ's history in the Old Testament in-
duced him to fix this precise sum, in view of Zech., xi., 12 (cf Matt., xxvii., 9).
Without making any positive assertion, we must observe on this (1) that, although Mark
and Luke do not expressly mention the small sum. they would not have used the indefinite
term apyvpwv, if the sum had been known to be large ; (2) although there is a discrepancy
between Matt., xxvii., 7, and Acts, i., 18, yet this discrepancy seems to presuppose that
the money was just sufficient to purchase a field, which certainly could not have required
a larg'e sum; (3) the passage in the Old Testament alone would not have been enough to
induce the assignment of so small a sum, in the face of the probability, on the other side,
that the Sanhedrim would give a large amount to secure so important an end ; (4) it could
not have been invented to blacken the character of Judas still further: his deed must have
been black enough at any price ; (5) there is no great improbability in tlie Sanhedrim's of-
fering so small a reward : people of this stamp would give Juda& no more than the lowest
possible price for which he would do the deed ; and their fanatical hatred of Christ may
have led them to offer exactly the price of a slave, in order to degrade the character of
Jesus. t See, especially, ScJwUmei/er's Treatise, above cited.
382 CHRIST AT JERUSALEM.
pelling liim to establish his visible Messianic kingdom. If this were
the case, the traitor must have expected either (1) that the enthusiastic
multitude would rescue Christ by force and make him king; or (2)
that Christ himself, by an exertion of his miraculous power, would
overthrow his foes and establish his kingdom. But the Jirst is utterly
untenable ; little as Judas may have known of Christ's spirit, he ?nust
liave known that He would not make use of worldly power to accom-
plish his purposes; nor could he himself have supposed such power to
be needed, if (according to the hypothesis) he acknowledged Jesus as
Messiah.
The second view may be more fully stated thus : Holding the same
Messianic expectations as the other Apostles, he only gave way more
entirely to a wilful impatience ; Christ delayed too long for him ; he
planned the arrest to hasten his decision, surely expecting a display
of his miraculous power, and the establishment of his visible kingdom.
TeiTible was his consternation when he saw the Saviour, whom he
loved, condemned to death ! Not, however, that his act is in the
slightest degree justified. It was sinful wilfulness to seek to control
the actions of Him whose wise guidance, as Lord and Master, he ought
to have followed in all things. He sacrificed all other considerations
to his own arbitrarily-conceived idea, and acted upon that vile prin-
ciple which has given birth to the most destructive deeds recorded in
history — that the end sanctifies the means. Still his decision of char-
acter and energy of will, if sacrificed in obedience to Christ's spirit,
would have made him a most efficient agent in propagating the Gos-
pel, and pi'ove that Christ had good reasons for receiving him into the
number of the Apostles.
Such is the second hypothesis. But if .Tudas acted on such prin-
ciples, would Jesus have abandoned, him to his delusion, and allowed
him to rush blindly on destruction 1 The authority of Christ as Prophet
and Messiah (and, according to the hypothesis, Judas recognized him
as such) could easily have removed the scales from the eyes of the
deluded Apostle. Could the Saviour possibly have uttered a word at
the Last Supper (John, xiii., 27) that might be interpreted into an ap-
proval of his undertaking]
The hypothesis, then, must at least be modified into the view that
Judas's faith wavered because Christ was making no preparations for
u visible kingdom ; the result alone could solve his doubts ; and there-
fore he brought about the arrest, reasoning on this wise: "If Jesus is
really Messiah, no power of the world can harm him, and all opposi-
tion will only serve to glorify him ; if, on the other hand, he succumbs,
it must be taken as a judgment of God against him." His subsequent
repentance is not inconsistent with this view ; his conclusions a/}er the
result, when, perhaps, the full power of Christ's image stood before
THE MOTIVES OF JUDAS. 383
him, may have been very different from what he had expected. As a
general thing, the impressions made upon a man by the results of his
actions testify but little as to the character of his motives ; none can
tell how an evil deed, even when deliberately planned and perpetrated,
will react upon the conscience.
(3.)
Was Judas impelled by a gradually developed hostility ]
The mode of Judas's death,* as we have seen, is not sufficient to
prove that his purpose in delivering Christ to the Sanhedrim was not a
decidedly hostile one.
The final view before mentioned may be stated thus : The first feel-
ings of Judas, in attaching himself to Christ, were the same as those
of the other Apostles. He had a practical and administrative talent,
which caused him to be made treasurer ; and which may have been
usefully employed in organizing the first Christian congregations. But
the element of carnal selfishness, although it affected the other Apostles
more or less, was in him deeply rooted ; the Spirit and love of Christ
could not gain the same power over him as over the other more spirit-
ually-minded disciples. As he gradually found that his expectations
were to be disappointed, his attachment turned more and more into
aversion. When the manifestation of Christ ceased to be attractive, it
became repulsive ; and more and more so every day. The miracles
alone could not revive his faith, so long as he lacked the disposition to
perceive Divinity in them. If Christ showed striking proofs of Divine
power, so, also, ho gave evident signs of human weakness ; and the
sight of the latter could easily cause an estranged heart to doubt and
hesitate in regard to the former. A man's view even of facts depends
upon the tendencies of his mind and heart ; these necessarily give their
own hue to his interpretations even of what his eyes behold.t Nor do
* Matthew's accouut of the deatli of Judas stands in (at least) partial contradiction to
Acts, i., 18, which states that Judas bought a field with the money, and met his death by
falling from a height. Tliis may, indeed, possibly mean suicide ; but it is doubtful. The
wild and fabulous narrative of Papias (first published by Cramer, Catena in Acta S. Apost.,
Oxon., 1836, p. 12) presupposes that Judas did not die by his own hand. " Mtya fit dacScias
tiro^£()7ja iv TOVTif) tu> KoVfUj) TTcpttTTuT7]aev b 'loiiaS ' TrptjaOcis Ittitooovtov ttjv aapKa, SiiTt uribl huoQcD
&lia\a StipxcTai paiiwS ixehov fvvaadat Sie\9uv • dAXu ixr]&i avTov /xdvov tov t?iS K£0aA^s Syxov oiroii •
ra itiv ydp pXfipiipa tmv 6(fiOn}>nuiv avrov (paal tobovtov l^oiffjaat, (1>S avTuv filv Ka06\ov rd i^fhi itrj
/jXtTTfii' • TOPS AiJiOa}>iiovg ii avrov /irifi bird laTpdv iidirrpui 6<j)6rivai Svvacdai ' Toaovrov PdOoi tlxov
avb Tij? i\iii6tv i-KKpaviiai ■ to ii alSolov aiiou -narjS ncv aaxil'ooii'rji ariiiaripov Kai nuX,ov (paivcaOai '
(pipzodai 6i it' avTov tK Ttavrbi tov awnarog avppeovTai iX'^P"! ''£ Kai CKwh/Kai as 'iSpiv 6t' avrCiv ix6vov
Tuv dvayKaiiov • ixcTii iroAXas ii Paadvovi Kai Tijiwplni, iv M/u (fiaoi X'^P'-V TtXevrrjiravTa ' Kai tovto anb
T?;f bSov epriijiov Kai doiKriTOv to X'^P'Ov f fX/" ^rji vvv ytvicQai ' dW oiSi liixpi Ttji urjjitpov ivvaoQai
Tiva iKcivov rbv tottov TtaptXOuv, idv prj Tui ph'aS tqiS XcfXJiV i-KL(f>pd\r] • ToadvTrj Sid rfiS aapKuS airou
Kai cTTi yrjs Kpiati ix'^PV'^^f-" It is easy to see how the expressions in Acts could give rise
to this extravagant legend.
1 The following profound thought of Pascal, abundantly verified in history, may be ap-
plied to the scientitic treatment of the Life of Christ, and to those who boast a cold impar
384 THE LAST SUPPER.
we know how far the crafty Pharisees understood Judas and tampered
with him. It was just at the time of the sifting, before alluded to,*
among the masses that had followed Christ, that the spirit of enmity
seems to have germinated in the heait of Judas, and Christ noticed and
intimated it (John, vi., 70) ; although it could not, all at once, have
become predominant in him : there were, doubtless, inward struggles
before the fatal tendency acquired full sway.t
The life of man furnishes many analogies that may help to clear up
the enigmatical conduct of Judas. He who does not follow the im-
pulses of good which he receives from within and without, but rather
gives himself up to the selfish propensities which those impulses are
meant to counteract, becomes finally and iiTecoverably enslaved to
them ; all things that ought to work together for his good serve for his
harm ; the healing balm becomes for him a poison. This is the severe
judgment upon which our free agency is conditioned ; and to it may
we apply the saying of our Lord : " From him that hath not, shall he
taken away even- that which he hath.'"'
CHAPTER n.
THE LAST SUPPER OF .lESUS WITH THE DISCIPLES.
§ 265. Object of Christ in the Last Supjycr.
JESUS looked forward without fear, nay, with confidence, to the
fate that awaited him. We need not necessarily presuppose that
he was supernaturally informed of it ; for it may be said that his
friends in the Sanhedrim (and he had such) informed him of the nego-
tiations of Judas. He foresaw that he would have to leave his disci-
ples before the proper Passover,| and determined to give a peculiar
tiality in regard to it: "Lavolonte est un des principaux organes de la creancc, non qu'elle
forme la cr^ance, mais parce que les choses paraissent vrayes on fausses, selon la face, par
oil on les regarde. La volonte, qui se plaist h I'une plus qu'a I'autre, d^toume I'esprit. de
considerer les qualitez de celle, qu'elle n'aime pas, et ainsi I'esprit uiarchant d'uiie piece
avec la rolonte, s'arreste h regarder la face qu'elle aime, et on jugeaut parcc qu'il y voit,
11 regie insensiblement sa cr6ance suivant rinclination de la volonte." * P. 268, 269.
t 'We do not wish to be understood as attempting a full explanation of the conduct of
Judas, so enigmatical in itself, and so little explained by the accounts that are left to us.
■We have only sought to present the theory which seems to us most probable from the data
before ub.
t I presuppose, with Idder, Liicke. Sieffcrt, De Welte, and Bkek, that the Last Supper
was held, not on the 11th Nisan, the holy Passover eve, but on the 13th, and that the Fri-
day of his passion was that lioly evening, (a.) A candid interpretation of John's Gospel
confirms this supposition. 'V\''e cannot infer much from xiii., ], 2, although that passage
senms to imply that the supper occurred before the beginning of the feast. But xviii., 28,
tells us that the deputies of the Sanhedrim would not enter the Proetorium for fear of defile-
DATE OF THE SUPPER. 385
import to his last meal with them, to place it in a peculiar relation to
the Jewish Passover, as the Christian covenant-meal was to take the
ment, as they had to eat the Passover ou that evening. The words 'iva (fydywci rb iraoxa mu.it
be apphed, according; to prevailing usage, botli among Jews and Christians, to the feast of
Passover. It is objected that this care was needless, as, if a defilement were thus incurred,
it would not, on account of the DV ^^2l2, last until the evening; i. e., until the beginning
of the following day ; but this is easily answered ; many things had to be done as prepara-
toiy to the feast, which would trench upon both days. In xix., 31, the day of the cnici-
tixion is treated as an ordinary Friday. No scruples were entertained about the crucifix-
ion on that day, but only about leaving the bodies on the cross on the Sahhalh, which was
Rjixed feast-day. But how could the Friday, if it were the first day of the piincipal feast,
be treated as an ordinary Friday? All difficulties are removed bj' supposing that it icax
only a common Friday, and that the next day was at once the Sabbath and the first day of
the Passover feast. Even if the Sanhedrim were compelled to expedite the crucifixion of
Christ, and were impelled, in their fanatical hatred, to violate the sanctity of the feast by
it, yet is it hkely that they would have waited just to the hohest feast-day for the cruci-
fixion of the malefactors, or that the pardon of a condemned crimmal (granted by the Ro-
mans in honour of the feast) would have been delayed until tke feast had begun ? But the
haste and the pardon would harmonize well with the view that the crucifixion took place
before the feast, on the 13th Nisan. (b.) Liicke has called attention to two passages in 1 Cor-
inthians, though without deeming them perfectly conclusive (Gotting. Anzeig.) : (1.) The
first passage is 1 Cor., v., 7, 8, in which Paul seems to contrast the Christian with the Jew-
ish Passover as held at the same time (Christ, as the spiritual Passover, as sacrificed simul-
taneously with the Jewish Paschal lamb ; (iJ.) 1 Cor., xi., 23, speaks indefinitely of the night
of Christ's betrayal, not of his partaking of the Passover, (c.) It may, perhaps, be the
case that in Matt., xxvi., 18, the writer presupposed that Christ really partook of the Pass-
over with his disciples ; but may not the passage mean, " My time for leaving the world is
at hand ; and therefore I will celebrate the Passover to-day with my disciples, in anticipa-
tion 1" (d.) lu Luke, xxiii., 54, the day of the crucifixion is mentioned as a common Fri-
day (the day of preparation), a day ou which there could be no scruples about any kind of
business ; but would it have been so mentioned if it had been the first day of Passover,
the greatest feast-day in all the year ? (e.) The general diffusion of the belief that Christ
held a proper Passover with his disciples may be explained on the ground that Christ
really did hold his last supper with reference and allusion to the Passover supper and the
ceremonies that accompanied it ; that the first Christians, intent upon the substance, paid
little heed to chronological niceties; that the Jewish-Christians kept up the Jewish usage
of the Passover, giving it, however, a Christian import; while the purely Gentile converts
kept no such festal seasons. The interchange of the first day of unleavened bread (as- the
day of Christ's passion) 'with the first day of the Passover feast may also have contributed
to it. These grounds might suffice to explain the admission into the synoptical Gospels of
the idea that the Passion occurred on the first day of the Passover; but arc utterly incon
sistent with the hypothesis that the author of John's Gospel (whether it be admitted as
genuine or not) could have inserted and got into circulation a statement invented by him-
self, and conflicting with the general stream of tradition. John's chronology, as we have
said, is consistent throughout ; but that of the synoptical Gospels presents discrepancies
that appear irreconcilable.
Little use can be made of the ancient disputes about the Passover; from such mere
fragments we cannot decide how far the Evangelical accounts were appealed to. The ad-
vocates of the occidental usage, Apollinaris of Hierapolis, Clement of Ale.xandria, and
Hippolytus, appealed to John's Gospel (if the fragments in Chronicon paschale Alexandri-
num, ed. Niebuhr, Dindorf, i., 13, are genuine) to prove that the Last Supper was not a Pass-
over proper. Polycratcs, bishop of Ephesus (Eus., Hist. Eccl., v., 24) appealed to " the Gos-
pel" in behalf of the opposite usage; but whether he appealed, under the title "the Gospel,"
to one, or all of the Evangelists, we cannot conceive how he could reconcile the declara-
tions in John with the Passover usages of Asia Minor (cf Dr. Rettberg's Abhandl. iib. d.
Paschastreit, Ilgen's Zeitsclirift fur Histor. Theol., ii., 2, 119). What is the meaning of
386 THE LAST SUPPER.
place of that of the Old Testament. Perhaps, as the Sanhedrim had
determined to cany out their plans against him before the feast, he
spent Thursday, 13th Nisan, in Bethany, in order to employ these last
hours with the disciples undisturbed. In the morning he sent Peter
and John into the city, to make the necessary preparations for the
Passover supper. To preserve secrecy, and avoid all hazard of sur-
prise by the Sanhedrim, he designated the house at which the supper
was to be held by a sign understood by its owner, without specifying
the name of the latter,*
Two prominent acts of Christ marked this last meal with the disci-
ples, viz., the wasliing of feet and the institution of the Lord's Siij)per.\
§ 266. Christ washes the Disciples' Feet. Conversation with Peter in.
regard to it. (John, xiii., 2-16.)
In washing the disciples' feet, Christ. obviously intended to impress
vividly and permanently upon their minds, by means of a specific act,
a general truth ; and to remove those carnal expectations of a secular
kingdom, and the selfishness necessarily connected therewith, which
were not yet wholly banished from their minds.|
Such an act, on the part of the Divine Master, must doubtless have
surprised more than one of the disciples. That He, the object of their
deepest reverence and love, should do for them so lowly a service, may
well have been a surprise and a contradiction to their feelings. Yet
that same reverence prevented them from resisting his will. But the
fiery and impetuous Peter could not so command his feelings : " Lord,
the words of Polycrates, aytiv, rripdv rfiv I'liu'pavl Not, certainly, the keeinnj of the Pas-
chal supper ; nor the Jewish Passover, assisted at by Christians ; for the added words
vdvTOTC rrii' fifilpav riyayov o\ cvyytvcii iiov, orav tGjv 'loviaiijiv h Xadi iipvvi rfiv S''/"?^', would then be
sheer tautology. He must have meant, then, " the day for commemorating the passion of
Christ." If, then, it is in this sense that Polycrates says of " all the bLshops of Lesser Asia
since the time of St. John," that they -uirts irnpijcav ti'iv I'lutpav n)s TcacapiiKaiitKdTtii tou
■rtdcxa Kara to chayyiXior, he obviously means that they " all celebrated the 14th Nisan," on
which the Jewish Passover began, in commemoration of om- Lord's Passion ; and for con-
firmation of this he might very well appeal to the Gospel of John.
We must also allude to a remarkable passage in Hippolytus (in his first book upon tlie
Feast of Passover, 1. c. p. 13), there reported as coming from the lips of Christ: ovkcti (piiyo-
iiai ra irnax" (surely Luke, xxii., 16, cannot be meant) ; as if Chi-ist had predicted that he
"would no more eat of the Paschal lamb, and hence not live to see another Feast of Pass-
over."
* I cannot sec a miracle in this ; it cannot be shown that Luke (xxii., 13) means to nar-
rate it as miraculous.
t John does not describe the institution of the Eucharist: it was known and commetn-
orated in the Church regularly ; but the irashiuf^ effect, not preserved by any such com-
memoration, he g^ves in detail, as an especially marked incident.
t Cf. p. 352, on Luke, xxii., 26, 27. I cannot assert, with Gfiirer, that this passage is
unmeaning, unless interpreted in view of the symbolic act: the word Siaxorui', might apply
to his wJiolc life, as devoted to the service of others (cf. Matt., xx., 2H). But the fonn of
the passage in Luke certainly appears to imply an allusion to the symbolic act which John
records. The thought contained in it is the same as that in John, xiii., 13-16.
THE BETRAYER. 387
<3ost thou wash my feet ?" Even when Christ told him, in view of this
reluctance, that he should know the import of the act thereafter, he
was not satisfied ; until, at last, the Saviour rebuked his self-will with
the declaration, '' If I wash thee not, thou hast no part in meT And
this was to be taken literally, for this single case was a test of the state
of heart essential for union with Christ : it was necessary for Peter to
show forth a complete renunciation of his own will, and absolute sub-
jection to that of Jesus. But the sj)iritiial meaning afterward set forth
by Christ, viz., that none could enter or remain in his communion
unless spiritually purified through him, was pi'obably implied also in
these words. Peter, alarmed, cries out, "Yea, if it be so, Lord, not
my feet alone, but also my hands and viy JicadJ" To this Christ re-
plied : " That is too much : he that is washed (bathed) necdeth not save
to wash his feet, hut is clean every whit." (A figure taken from East-
ern usage : he that is already bathed, need only, on coming in from
the road, wash off the soil that may have gathered on his feet.) The
spiritual import, then, of the symbolical act, and of Christ's language
in regard to it, probably is : Whosoever, through faith in me, has re-
ceived the purifying principle of life, who is pure in heart and mo-
tives, needs only thereafter continued purification from sins cleaving to
him outwardly ; just as the Apostles, though inspired by pure love to
Christ, still stood in need of the power of this animating love, to cleanse
and purify their mode of thought.
§ 267. The Words of Christ with and concerning his Betrayer. (John,
xiii., 11, 21, seq.)
To the Apostles he said, in the sense above defined, " Ye are cleun;^*
but, as this could not be applied to Judas, he added, "yet not all.'''
Intimations of this kind he threw out more and more frequently, partly,
as he himself said (v. 19), to prepare them for the act of treachery,
that it might not take them unawares, and lead them to infer that He,
too, had been deceived ; and partly, perhaps, in order to rouse, if pos-
sible, the conscience of Judas himself. But his foresight of the awful
deed — tl^at one who had been a special object of his love should dis-
arm him and become a tool of his enemies — and of the conflict with
depravity that he must go through, even up to his last hour, moved
him most deeply; and he now spoke more plainly, "Verily I say vnto
you, that one of you shall hetray me."
The disciples, not yet able to understand him, looked upon each
other, surprised and confounded. All were anxious to know whom he
alluded to ; but Peter alone, as usual, gave expression to the wish.
Even he did not venture to ask aloud, but beckoned to John, who was
leaning upon the Saviour's breast, as they surrounded the table, that
he should put the question. In answer to John, Christ said, in a low
388 THE LAST SUPPER.
tone, that it was he whose turn it just then was to receive from his
hands the morsel of the lamb dipped in the sauce. And this was
Judas.*
This occunence could not fail either to awaken the slumbering con
science of Judas, or to make him anxious to leave such a fellowship
and take the last step of his crime. When he arose, Christ said to
him, ''■That tJtou docst (hast resolved to do), do quickly" Not imply-
ing a command to commit the deed, but rather calculated to move his
conscience, had it been still susceptible of impression. But he had
decided uj^on the act : so far as his intentions could go, it was as good
as done ; and therefore Christ asked him to hasten the crisis.t
The departure of Judas to inform the Sanhedrim how they might
most readily seize the person of Jesus, decided his death ; and, in view
of it, he said, " Noiv is the Son of Man glorified (in reference to the
sacrifice of his earthly life, because the ideal of holiness is realized in
Him under the last struggles, because human nature attains therein its
highest moral perfection), and God is glorified in him (as the moral
glorifying of human nature is the perfect glorifying of God in it ; the
perfect manifestation of God in his holiness and love). If God he glo-
rified in him, God shall also glorify him in himself \ (shall raise him to
Himself, and glorify him), and shall straightway glorify him.''''^
§ 268. The Institution of the Eucharist. (Luke, xxii., 17-20.)||
The description of the institution of the Eucharist given by Luke,
harmonizing with thut of Paul (1 Cor., xi., 23, seq.), seems to afford
* According to Mattbew, Judas also asked, " Is it I ?" and Jesus answered in the affirm-
ative. This incident would come in most naturally at this point. Judas, noticing the
alarmed countenances of the disciples, seeing Peter whisper to John, John to Jesus, and ,
Jesus replj', felt that ho was discovered, and was led to ask the question directly. This
must certainly have been done in an under tone, if Judas could have had a position near
enough.
t An allusion to the severer struggles that yet awaited Cln-ist: not expressly mentioned
by John, but related by the other Evangelists.
t The expressions h avrw and ev lavrip (John, xiii., 30) obviously correspond to each
other. As the first betokens the glorifying of God in Jesus, as the Sou of Man, so the sec-
ond denotes the glorifying of the Son of Man in God, by his being raised up unto God in
lieaven.
$ We presuppose that Jesus wished Judas to depart before he should institute the
Lord's Supper. As the words in verses 31, 32 were directly connected with the departure
of the betrayer, they too must have been uttered before the institution.
II As John does not give an account of the institution of the Eucharist, there is some diffi-
culty in deciding precisely at what point of his nairative (ch. xiii.) it should be inserted.
It was stated in the last note that v. 31, 32 were connected directly with the departure of
Judas, and it seems to us that the proper point of juncture for the account in question is
between v. 32 and 33. The words h'To\!t Katvi), commencing v. 34, connect very well, it is
true, with the objects of tlie institution ; but still, if v. 33 was uttered before the institation,
it seems strange that Peter's question (v. 36), obviously referring to v. 33, should have been
THE INSTITUTION OF THE EUCHARIST. 369
us the most clear and natural view of the transaction. It is dis-
tinguished from those of Matthew and Mark in stating definitely that
the giving of the bread was separated by a certain interval from that
of the wine ; the former occurring during the supper, the latter after it.
It is introduced by the following words of Christ : " I have hcarl'dij
desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer ; for J say unto you^
I will not any more eat thereof until it he fulfilled in the kingdom of
God'''' ii. e., until, in the consummation of the kingdom, he should cele-
brate with them the higher and true Passover Supper). After these
words of farewell, he takes the cup of red wine, blesses it, sends it
round, and reminds them that he should no more drink of the fruit of
the vine until he should partake with them of a higher wine in the
kingdom of God. After thus vividly impressing them with his de-
parture, and preparing them for the institution of a rite in its com-
memoration, he breaks one of the loaves, and divides it among them,
showing them that the broken bread was to represent his body, given
Tip for them ; and this they were to repeat in remembrance of him.
Then; after the conclusion of the meal, he sends round the cup again,
and tells them that the wine is to represent his blood, about to be shed
for them. Each of these acts, therefore — the giving of the bread and
put after the intervention of that solemn act, which must have dravs^n the attention of the .
disciples so sti-ongly. We consider, then, that v. 33 was spoken ofler the institution.
Strauss (St*"- Aafl., p. 449) objects to this collocation, as arbitrarily severing the words
eiiOis io\datt avrdv (v. 32) from hi niKpov /leO' {iftdv diii (v. 33). I cannot see the force of the
objection. The pause after v. 32 is natural ; and then follows the solemn symbolical act, in
which Christ sets before the disciples his departure from the earth, and gives them a
pledge of communion with him — a communion to endure after his ascension to his glory.
Then v. 33 opens a new beginning precisely adapted to the import of the symbolical act.
The aptness with which the account of the institution can be here fitted to .John's narra-
tive, and its admirable adaptation to the last discourses of Christ, as recorded by him,
shows that was one of the links, and a most important one, in the chain of Christ's last
acts. Gfrorer seeks to prove, however, from John's omission to mention the institution,
that although Christ may have spoken at the Last Supper the words ascribed to him, they
were words spoken by the waj', and not intended to establish such a commemorative rite
as that which was afterward founded upon them ; just as a deeper signilication was found
in other expressions of Christ after his departure than was manifest before ; and that,
therefore, John omitted them, as he did so many other things comparatively unimportant.
This hypothesis contradicts itself. Even Gfrorer must presuppose that John personally
knew and partook of the Eucharist before writing his Gospel ; and it must be presupposed
just as certainly, that it was at that time connected with these words of Christ; and that
John, who certainly was not inclined to attribute a less meaning than others to Christ'.s
sayings at the Last Supper, must have conceived the words to be so connected. On
purely psychological grounds, therefore, John's omission cannot be explained in this way.
In a word, no one having an intuition of Christ, and conceiving his solemn state of mind
at that Last Supper, can believe that he uttered those solemn words without a deeper and
more earnest meaning. As for the hypothesis, recently revived, of an influence exerted by
Essenixm upon Christian culture, it is wholly destitute of historical foundation (cf. p. 37,
seq.) ; the derivation of the Agapw from the common repasts of the Essenes is wholly au
invention of fancy. It is altogether unhistorical to seek an external origin for a usage that
can be naturally explained from internal grounds, as the origin of the celebration of the
Eucharist from an imitation of Christ's Last Supper with his disciples.
390 THE LASf SUPPER.
the giving of the wine — denotes the same thing, viz., the remembrance
of the Last Supper. Each had its signification separately; but the
repetition, during the meal and after it, served to impress the sym-
bolical meaning of the act still more deeply upon the minds of the dis-
ciples.
The giving of thanks before the distribution of the bread and wine
corresponds to a similar act on the part of the head of the family in the
Jewish Passover feast, in which thanksgiving was offered for the gifts
of nature, and also for the deliverance of the fathers out of Egypt and
the founding of the old covenant ; we may infer, therefore, that Christ's
thanksgiving had reference partly to the creation of all material things
for man (bread and wine symbolizing all God's gifts in nature) ; partly,
and indeed chiefly, to his own death, in order to deliver men from the
bondage of sin, and, by his redemptive act, to establish the neiv cove-
nant between God and man.*
As to the words used in the distribution, " This is my body;" and,
" This is my blood," it is impossible that any of the recipients at that
time could have supposed them to be literally meant ; as he was then
before them in his corporeal presence. Had he intended to present so
new and extraordinary a sense to their minds, he could not but have
stated it more definitely ; and had they so understood him, the diffi-
culty would assuredly have led them to question him further. But as
the whole transaction — the institution, at the close of a farewell sup-
per, of a visible sign of communion to endure after his departure —
had a symbolical character, they would have interpreted these tcords
also unnaturally, if they had understood them literally, and not sym-
bolically. " This is, for you, my body and blood ; i. e., represents to
you my body and blood." The breaking of the bread was a natural
symbol of the breaking of his body ; the pouring out of the red wine
(the ordinary wine of Palestine) was a natural symbol of the pouring
out of his blood. " I offer up my life for your redemption ; and when,
in remembrance thereof, you meet again to partake of this supper, be
assured that I shall then be with you as truly as now I am with you,
visibly and coi'poreally, in body and blood. The bread and wine,
which I now divide among you as symbols of my body and blood, will
then stand in stead of my corporeal presence."
It may be added, that this symbol was not an entirely new one to
the disciples : it had been used substantially, in the conversation before
referred to (p. 267, seij.) between Christ and the Jews, in the syna-
• The gifts of natare and of redemption are inseparable ; redemption alone has re-
established the original relation between man and nature- Only when man is restored to
oommunion with God is he assured that all natare exists for his good, to be asod by hira
tor the glory of God.
THE NEW COMMANDMENT. 391
gogue at Capernaum. To " eat his flesh and drink his blood" was an
understood sign of the closest spiritua:l communion with his Divine-
human nature. And therefore he said, in giving the wine, " This is
my blood, the seal of the new covenant, which is given for many for
the remission of sins."*
CHAPTER III.
CHRIST'S LAST DISCOURSES WITH HIS DISCIPLES.
§ 269. The Neiv Commandment. (John, xiii., 33-35.)
AFTER Christ, in taking leave of his own, had given them the
symbol and pledge of continued communion, he said to them, in
the familiar style of a father to his family, " Little children, yet a little
while I am with you, and, as I said unto the Jews, ' whither I go ye
cannot come,' so note I say unto you.\ A neio commandment ^give I
unto you, that ye love one another ; as I have loved you, that ye also
love one another. By this shall all men hnow that ye are my disciples,
if ye love one another." The commandment of love is here called a
new one, because it was the characteristic of the new covenant, in view
of which the Lord's Supper had just been instituted, and which he
Was then about to seal with his sufferings. It is true, the all-compre-
hending commandment, to " love God supremely, and one's neighbour
as one's self," was contained in the old covenant ; but it became a nevj
one, by its reference to the sacrifice of Christ, which expressed its es-
sence : it demanded a love, willing, after His example, to sacrifice
every thing for the brethren — the spirit of love, in a word, which was
to be the soul of the new congregation of God, proceeding, of itself,
from communion with him and intuition of his image. It was new,
* It has been disputed whether the words "for the remission of sins" were really added
by Christ. But the import of the words of consecration is fully complete without them.
The founding of the 7u:w covcnarii (which none will deny to have been embraced in the
words of consecration ; Paul gives it so, as well as Luke, and they must have received
them from ear-witnesses) covers the whole ground. The "new covenant," founded upon
the self-offering of Christ, could only refer to the new relation between man and God, se-
cured by that self-sacrifice ; viz., the pardon of sin through his sufferings, and the restora-
tion of communion with God, which the old covenant could not restore. The whole import
of Christianity, in relation to the old covenant, is clearly set forth in that of the Lord's Sup-
per, as given by Christ himself.
t In a different sense, however, from that in which it was said to the Jews : the latter
were to remain separated from him in spirit and disposition, but to the disciples he had
given a pledge of continued communion — the Supper of the new covenant. He then pro-
ceeds to give them the commandment of the new covenant, the law of love, embracing all
others, by which the inward and spiritual communion was to be outwardly manifested.
392 CHRIST'S LAST DISCOURSES.
also, with respect to the earlier stages of the disciples' association with
him : it was only when his death was at hand that he could set it vividly
before them in this sense.
§ 270. The Request of JPeter. — Christ predicts Peter's Denial of Him.
(John, xiii., 36-38.)
So strongly were the disciples wedded to their earlier ideas and
expectations, that it seemed impossible to make them realize the ap-
proaching departure of Christ. Peter, alarmed at his words, inquired,
" Lord, whither goest thou ?'" Jesus, in reply, explained the sense of
his words, at the same time intimating that Peter should be able, at a
later period, though he then was not, to follow the Master through suf-
fering : " Whither I go thou canst not follow me now, hut thou shalt fol-
low me afterward^ Peter, ever rash and self-confident, was not sat-
isfied to wait for the future : believing himself then able, he asked,
" hard, ichy can I not follow thee noio 1 I will lay down viy life for
thy sahe."
Christ then predicted his three-fold denial — the punishment of his
froward self-confidence : " Wilt thou lay down thy life for my sake ?
The colli shall not crow till thou hast denied me thrice."*
§ 271. Christ predicts the Danger of tlic Discijles in their neic Relations
to the People. (Luke, xxii., 35-38. )t
Certain fragments of Christ's conversation at the table are preserved
to us in the first three Gospels, not given by John, whose object was
to record those profound and connected discourses which so strikingly
exhibited the loftiness of his Divinity, his heavenly calmness and
serenity of soul. Among these fragments are contained intimations, in
a variety of forms, of the great change in their condition that was at
hand. Reiteration and emphasis were necessary to break away their
stubborn prejudices.
Reminding them of the first trial mission| on which he had sent them,
with express directions to provide nothing for their journey, he asked
whether they had then lacked any thing ; and they said. Nothing. In
* The agreement of three independent accounts — Matthew, Luke, and John — in stating
this remarkable incident, confirms its credibility. In John's Gospel, it is presented iu an
obvious connexion; in the other two, as an isolated fact.
t GJrorcr asserts (Heilig. Sage, i., 336) that this passage was of later origin, and sup-
ports his assertion on the ground that the connexion of thought between verses 36 and 37
is false. Not so: verse 37 contains the ground of the change in the disciples' condition,
recited in verse 36 ; the execution of Christ as a transgressor, making him an object of
aversion and disgust, was to react upon the condition of his followers. Zt is said, furtlicr,
that the passage was inserted bore because men stumbled at Peter's conduct, as recited
in verse 50. But it would be a strange way to get rid of /his difRctilty, to introduce a
greater one, viz., an advice on the part of Jesus himself to his disciples, to provide swords
above all things. t <-'f. p. 'J57, seq.
INSTRUCTION TO THE DISCIPLES. 393
that mission, they found the people of Galilee favourably disposed ; no
open hostility had been excited against Jesus ; on the contrary, the
fame of his actions inclined the people to acknowledge him, at least,
as a man endowed with Divine powers. But noiv his own fate, and
the consequent change of popular feeUng, was about to react upon the
disciples. Accordingly, he gave them— not rules for a new mode of
life and conduct, but— a striking illustration, in figurative terms, not
•mly of his own sufferings, but of the dangers that awaited them, from
the sudden reflux of the popular feeling. The figures chosen were
directly antithetical to those employed on the former occasion. " If
I formerly bade you travel without purse, or scrip, or shoes (without
provisions for the journey, as your wants would all be supplied) ; so
n.ow, on the contrary, I tell you that you shall find men differently dis-
posed towards you. He that hath a purse, let him take it, and like-
wise his scrip (all the necessaries of travel) ; and he that hath no purse*
(money), let him sell his garment and buy a sword" (or knife). As if
he had said, " You will hereafter need to care more for the safety of
your lives than of your garments ; you will need, more than all things
else, means to carry you safely through the difficulties that will sur-
round you."
The whole connexion of these words taught the disciples that they
were to be taken, not literally, but as the symbolical veil of a general
thought. And they could easily have gathered from Christ's example,
from the spirit of his whole life, and from his teaching, in the Sermon
on the Mount and elsewhere (if they were not utterly thoughtless hear-
ers), that he could not really intend to bid them furnish themselves with
swords.
From this change in the feelings of the world towards his disciples
Christ naturally passed to his own fate, which was to cause that change
itself. He told them that he was " to be reckoned among transgres-
sors" as an object of hatred and abhorrence. Then said two of the
disciples, "Behold, Lord! two of us are already provided with
swords."t Language implying an utter misunderstanding of what he
had said ; a misunderstanding hardly to be expected in men who had
so long enjoyed the Saviour's personal society. But, perhaps, in jus-
tice to'the disciples, we ought to suppose that their words were uttered
in the confusion and distress of mind which his declarations occasioned.
Perhaps Peter, the most hasty and headlong of the Apostles, who car-
ried a sword, was one of the speakers. It was well that this misun-
derstanding was expressed, to be checked and done away. '' It is
enough:' said Christ, plainly showing that he had not the slightest in-
* The antithesis is between 5 ix<^v liaUvnov and h ,ifi txuv.
t The word may be rendered "knives;" and these were iti common use among travel-
lers in those regions for a variety of purposes.
394 CHRIST'S LAST DISCOURSES.
tention to advise the use of weapons of defence, as two swords among
them would have been nothing for that purpose. Perhaps, however,
the phrase might be more correctly rendered, '■^enough of it ;'''' i. e., a
sign to drop the subject; as if a reproof of their tendency to stick to
the words and literal features of his language, rather than to its spirit
and sense.
§ 272. Christ consoles the Disciples with the Promise of his Return.
(John, xiv.)
The last connected discourses of Christ are given at length in John's
Gospel.* In these he made use of a different turn of thought from
that above referred to, to prepare the minds and hearts of the disci-
ples for the struggles that awaited them. In view of their evident dis-
tress, while yet sitting at the table, he said, " Let not your hearts be
troubled ; trust in God, and confide in Me." Even when his visible
presence should be removed, they were to trust in him as the Mediator
of their communion with God ; nor, in grief for his departure, to think
that he had left them alone in the world. There would be mansions
* It is charged by some that John could not possibly have remembered these discourses
thus amid the thousand painful and tumultuous emotions that must have immediately fol-
lowed. Little do such objectors conceive of the nature of the human soul, and of the
might of deep impressions upon it. Such impressions these discourses must have made
upon a mind and heart like John's, and what was once received thus into the depths of the
soul no concussions could cast out. Moreover, these emotions, how powerful soever they
may have been, lasted but for a few days, and wore followed by a reunion with Christ, by
a new epoch of the interior life of the disciples which developed itself more and more
gloriously. How, in these few days, could John have forgotten discourses so weighty in
themselves, and afiFecting liis own soul so powerfully ? And, when the spiritual life of the
disciples, sunken for a moment, emerged again after the resurrection of their Master, hovr
brilliantly must the image of these last discourses have shone forth from the depths of their
memories and their hearts! How precious must each word have been to them! With
what intense interest must they have turned them over and dwelt upon their import !
And how clear, in the light of their experience of the fulfilment of bis predictions, must
many things have appeared that were before obscure !
Equally futile is the objection that John wrote his Gospel at an advanced age, when
some things must have escaped his memory^ and others become blended with his own
thoughts. He must have repeated these discourses, times without number, to others ; how,
then, can it be said that he could not commit them faithfully to writing ? (we do not mean
to say verhalbn ct literatim, cf. index, sub voc. Jolin). The remark of Irenaeus with regard
to what he had heard in his youth from the lips of Polycarp will apply with vastly greater
force to John and Christ : "MaWov yiip ra rdre Siai^vijiioveuui twv tiajxos ytvoiiiviav, ai yitp ix
vaiiiov itaOi'iacti avvavlovaat t^ ^'uxWi ^vovvtm airfj." (Comp. the entire passage, Euseb., v.
20 ; it bears remarkably against human efforts to convert a historical period into a mythi-
cal one.)
John could not have been Jukn had it been possible for him to forget such discourses of
Christ.
A further proof of the originality of these discourses, as recorded by John, is the aptness
with which many passages art; joined into them which, in the other Gospels, are presented
in isolated forms, or in inapt connexions ; c. g., Luke, xii., U, 12 ; Matt., x., 17-20; Mark
xiii., 11. The passage in Jolin, xvi., 32, ia connected in Matt., xxvi., 31, Mark, xiv., 27,
with the account of Peters denial.
PHILIP AND THOMAS. 395
for all, he told them, in his Father's house. He was going before (it
was the object of his redeeming sufferings and of his ascension to heav-
en), to prepare a place for them ; just as a friend goes before his friend
to make his dwelling ready. And then he promises them, " If I go
and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto my-
self; that where I ain, there ye may be also."
This might be upderstood of Christ's second advent, were it not that
he speaks of what was to happen immediately upon his return to the
Father, and that his design was to comfort them in view of the imme-
diate pain of separation. Nor can it be applied to his Resurrection,
because his " going to the Father" was to folloio the resurrection, and
this, again, to be followed by a separation.* The only remaining inter-
pretation is to apply it to his spiritual coming, to his revealing himself
again to them, as the glorified one, in the communion of the Divine
life. Not only were they to follow Him to the heavenly " mansions,"!
where he was to " provide a place for them," but he himself was
" again to come to them," that where He was, there they might be also,
in spirit, united with him, never again to be separated. But as they
could not as yet fully apprehend this spiritual coming and communion,
it was only at a later period that these expressions, sufficiently within
their capacity to give them consolation at the time, were understood in
their full import.
§ 273. Conversation with Philip arid Thomas. — Christ the Way.
(John, xiv.)
The institution of the Eucharist also contained an allusion| to the
promise that he would be with his disciples as truly after his departure
as he had been during his coi-poreal presence. And as he knew that
tlieir minds were not yet entirely free from carnal and unspiritual
views, he gave occasion for them to express themselves freely, in
order to give them clearer ideas by means of their very misunder-
standings.
'■'■ Wliithei- I go" said he, "yc know ; and the way ye know." Still,
the death of Messiah was a hard conception for them ; a miraculous
removal from the earth would have accorded better with their feelings.
* This objection would fall away if we could believe, with L. Kinhel (Stud. u. Krit.,
1841, 3), that Christ, after leaving: the grave and appearing to Mary, ascended to heaven,
and only returned thence when lie reappeared to the disciples. But the words under con-
sideration do not justify this supposition. However we may conceive Christ's reappear-
ance after his resurrection, they could not satisfy the promises, given in these discourses, of a
new and higher spiritual connexion between him and his disciples. In view of this con-
tirtued manifestation, this uninterrupted communion, his bodily reappearance was only
preparatory and subordinate.
t Compare the analogy in the figure of the " everlasting mansions," p. 275.
t The last promise, also. Matt., xxviii., 20, presupposes such fuller explanations as those
which we find recorded by John in these discourses.
396 CHRIST-S LAST DISCOURSES.
Thomas,* who seems to have remained in bondage to sense more than
any of the others, said to him, '■'Lord, we hnoio not whither thou goest ;
and hoio can we know the way V The Saviour, in his reply, inverts
the order; if they had known the "way" they would have known the
" ivhithcr:'" " I am the way, the truth, and the life ; no man cometh unto
the Father but by me. Jf ye had hnoicn me, ye should have knoicn my
Father also." (Had they better known Hint, through whom the Father
reveals and communicates himself, they would have known better all
the rest.) The three conceptions in this passage are closely connected
together. He designates himself not merely as the guide, but as the
^Vay itself; and that because he is himself, according to his nature
and life, the Truth ; the truth springing from the Life ; because he is,
in himself, the Source of the Divine Life among men, as well as the
personal manifestation of the Divine Truth. He is, therefore, the Way,
inasmuch as mankind, by communion of Divine life with him, receive
the truth, and are brought by it into union with the Father. He that
knows him, therefore, knows the Father also. " And from henceforth
ye know him, and have seen him;" i.e., after their long intercourse
with Christ, they were now, at least, to see and recognize the Father
in him.
But Philip, still on the stand-point of sense, applied these words to
a sensible theophany, as a sign of the Messianic era : " Lord, show us
the Father, and it svjiceth us." This misunderstanding led Christ
again to impress upon their minds the same truth, that whoever ob-
tained a just spiritual intuition of Hi7n saw the Father in Him; the
Father, with whom He lived in inseparable communion, and who
manifested himself in His words and works (v. 9, 10, 11). But these
works, and the manifestation of God in them, were not to remain to
the disciples something merely external. Whoever believed on him
was, through his fellowship, to become an organ of his continued Divine
working for the renewal of the life of mankind ; the aim of his whole
manifestation was to do yet greater things than he had done :t " Verily,
verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on me, the works that I do shall
he do also ; and yet greater works than these shall lie do."\
And the source of all this power was to be, in his own words, "Be-
cause I go unto my Father ;" they were to gain it precisely by that
separation, the prospect of which then filled them with grief and sorrow.
When he should go to the Father, and remove from them the visible,
human, and, therefore, limited form of his manifestation, as a source
of dependance, then would he, as the glorified one, work invisibly from
* Thomas displays the same character here as in his subsequent doubts concerning
Christ's resuiTcction. It is wholly incredible that the author of John's Gospel, who obvi-
ously was little capable of assuming different characters, should have invented such a one.
t Cf. the excellent remarks of /v/i«5', Btud. u. Krit., lS3t), iii., 684. + Cf. p. 184, 35e.
PROMISE OF THE COMFORTER. 397
heaven in them, and among them, with Divine power. And there-
fore it was that, through communion of the Divine life witli him, they
were to " do yet greater things than these."
§ 274. Of Prayer in the Name of Christ. lie promises the Spirit of
Truth, the Comforter ; and His oicn Return. (John, xiv., 13-26.)
The disciples were to enter into new relations with Christ. He,
therefore, specially taught them to pray in his name. As they had be-
fore, during his bodily presence, expressed their wants to him person-
ally, so now, trusting in him, and conscious of the new relations in
which, through him, they stood to the Father, they were to apply to
the Father in his name. "-And. whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in
my name (i. e., through his mediation), that will I do, that the Father
may be glorified in the Son' (by what the Son should work among men
to the glory of the Father, by the spread of the kingdom of God through
him). At the same time, certain conditions were essential on their
part : ^' If ye love me, heep my commandments.'''
And this forms the transition to the promise which follows : "And I
will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he
may abide loith you forever." Through his mediation, the leather would
send them, instead of Him who had, up to that time, been their help in
all things, another Helper, who should not leave them, as He was about
to do. '■'Even the Spirit of Truth :" and he calls the Spirit so, because
it alone can unfold the meaning of his truth, and because union with
the Holy Spirit can only be obtained by appropriating that truth.
This Spirit, he told them, the world could not receive, because it was
totally foreign to the world ; but they were to know it, in the only way
in which it eould be known, by inward and personal experience : " He
dwclleth icith you, and shall be in you."
His description of the Spirit makes it, in relation to his own previous
personal presence among them, something different from himself.
This prepared them to apprehend, in a more spiritual way than before,
the announcement of his own return, which he now repeated. With
this Spirit it was that lie himself was to come to them : " I will not leave
you orphans ; I loill come to you." He speaks now of himself, just as
he had before spoken of the Spirit : " Yet a little ivhile, and the icorld
seeth me no more, but ye see me ; because I live, and ye live ; I reveal
myself, as the Living, to the living." The world, cut off from the Di-
vine life, and therefore dead, knows nothing of Christ, as the Living ;
it holds him dead ; but to those who are susceptible of Divine com-
munion of life with him, he will reveal himself as the Living one.
He then tells them that only at the period when they should reach
398 CHRIST'S LAST DISCOURSES.
this higher communion with him, would they be able fully to under-
stand his relation to the Father and to them : "At that day shall ye
know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you" Through-
out these final discourses, promises alternate with duties ; so now he
points out an essential requisite on their part — love, proved in keeping
his commandments : " He that hath (knows and presei'ves) my com-
mandments, and also kecpeth (faithfully observes) them, he it is that
lovcth me ; and he that loveth vie shall he loved of my Father, and I
will love him (including an active demonstration of love), aiid will mani-
fist myself to Jiim." One of the disciples, yet blinded by carnal ex-
pectations, said to him, "Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifist thyself
unto us, and not unto the world V This led Christ to sq,^" that this mani-
festation spoken of would be made only to those who should be spirit-
ually susceptible of it, thereby implying that it would be entirely a
spiritual manifestation (v. 23, 24).
Finally, he referred them again (v. 26) to the Holy Ghost, to be sent
through his mediation, who should teach them rightly to understand
his owii (Christ's) doctrine ; and should call back to their memories
any thing which might, through misunderstanding, become darkened in
their minds.
§ 275. Christ's Salutation of Peace ; its Import. (John, xiv., 27, seq.)
When about to rise from the table, the Saviour pronounced a bless-
ing, as was usual at salutation and leave-taking : " Peace I leave ivith
you, my peace I give unto you.''' A fitting conclusion to the promises
of comfort was this farewell word of peace. But, after all that he had
promised, he could, even in view of the approaching separation, and
the conflicts and strifes to which he was about to leave the disciples,
promise them the enjoyment of peace. And he told them that his
salutation implied another peace than that of the world : " 'Not as the
toorld giveth, give I unto you.'" This peace the world has not, and
therefore cannot give. It was peace in itself, a real peace, that he left
behind unto his own ; a peace which none but He possesses, and none
can find but in communion with him. No room in them, therefore,
for fear or disquiet : " Let not your heart he trouhled, neither let it he
afraid''
Again he recurs to his departure, and reminds them of the promise
which ought to remove all the sting of separation : " Ye have heard how
I said unto you, I go away, and 'come again unto you. If ye loved me,
ye rvould rejoice hecause I said, I go unto the Father, for the Father is
greater than I." He went ; but it was to return in greater glory.
They could not love him, if they did not rejoice at the glorious change ;
thtit he was to Icavi; llu; limits of his earthly and visible human nature,
and ascend to the Father Almighty, in order to operate, thenceforward,
THE VINE AND BRANCHES. 399
in union with Him, in the power of God, invisible and infinite.* He
had foretold to them what would happen, that their faith might not
waver in the evil hour (v. 29). He could speak but a few words more,
as the Prince of this World was coming (in his agents) ; though that
Prince had no power over him, and He could, if he chose, escape the
power of his foes (v. 30) ; but he did not choose. Voluntarily he
would go to meet death, to prove, in the face of the world, his love to
the Father, by completing the work committed to him by the Father
(v. 31).
And then he called them to arise from table, and go with him to the
final conflict.
CHAPTER IV.
DISCOURSES OF CHRIST AFTER RISING FROM TABLE AT THE LAST
SUPPER.
§ 276. Similitude of the Vine and Branches. — The Law of Lioxh.
(John, XV.)
THERE were many thoughts which his mind and heart yet laboured
to pour forth. After leaving the table he began to discourse anew,
and called their attention specially to two thoughts: (1.) That the re-
lation which had subsisted between them was to remain, with this dif-
ference only, that, instead of external dependence and connexion, they
would be internally allied to and dependent on him ; (2.) That they
must now become self-active agents for the spread of the kingdom of
God, but that they could only become such by continued communion
and fellowship with him.
To illustrate these points, he made use of the similitude of a Vine:
God, the vine-dresser ; Christ, the vine ; his followers, the branches.
The fructifying sap flows from the vine-stock through all the branches,
and without it they can produce no fruit ; so the followers of Christ
can only obtain, by inward and inseparable communion with him, the
Divine life which can fit them to be productive labourers in the king-
dom of God. The branches wither when torn from the vine, and de-
prived of its vital sap ; so, also, the disciples of Christ live and prosper
only in continuous communion with him. But as the branches show,
by bearing fruit, that they have shared in the fructifying power from the
vine-stock ; so the disciples of Christ must show their participation in
the Divine life through communion with Him, by abundant and fruitful
* As UlcIk and Kling (loc. cit.) liave remarked, this passage can only be applied ta the
relation between God, as the Almighty, and Jesus, as man, standing then before his disci
pies, in the narrow form of humanity.
400 CHRIST'S LAST DISCOURSES.
labours in the kingdom of God. The vine-dresser cuts off all useless
branches, which, like mere excrescences, consume the vital power of
the vine without beanng fruit ; so will all those who do not manifest
the Divine life in fruitful works, proving, by this deficiency, that their
communion with Christ is not real, but apparent, be cut off from the
kino-dora of God.* But even the productive branches stand in con-
stant need of the vine-dresser's care ; all exuberant growth must be
trimmed ; all excrescences hindering the course of the vital sap must
be pared away ; so, also, the disciples, even those who enjoy the Divine
life in communion with Christ, must be purified constantly fiom foreign
elements, that there may be rfo obstacles to the developement of the
Divine life within them, or of the outward activity corresponding to it.
It was only by this activity in communion with him that they could
prove themselves to be his genuine disciples (v. 8) ;f by activity in ob-
serving all his commandments ;| and again he condenses all " the com-
mandments" into love (v. 9-14). Such love they were to show to
each other as he, laying down his life, had shown to them. In thus
communicating to the disciples the whole counsel of the Father in re-
gard to the plan of salvation through their agency, and in calling upon
them to devote themselves to this service as organs of the Divine king-
dom, with clear consciousness and free self-determination, he removes
them from the stand-point of " servants" and takes them up to that of
" friends"'*(v. 15).^S
United to each other in love, they must also be hated in common by
the world ; the world must feel to them as to their Master. He pre-
dicts the persecutions that await them. He sees before him the con-
flict of Christianity with all existing institutions (v. 18-23). |1
§ 277. Promise of the Holy Ghost. — Concluding Words of Comfort to
the Disciples. (John, xvi., 7-33.)
But he further promises^ that in all their conflict^ they shall have the
Holy Ghost for a helper.** The Holy Ghost was to accomplish, through
them, all things necessary for the spread of the Divine kingdom. The
* The same thought as "He who hath, to him shall be given," &c., p. 105, 189.
t Mark the inner connexion between these discourses and those recorded in the first
three Gospels. The same demand is implied in the parables of the talents and the pound
(p. 347, 348) as in this similitude of the vine.
% Hence " the commandments" are not " the Icttci- of the law ;" where there is life, rooted
in communion with Christ, it cannot, according to its very essence, manifest itself other-
wise except in works corresponding to the law. § Cf p. 120.
II Not "peace," but a "sword," as in the synoptical Gospels; cf. p. 315.
% Cf. p. 396, 397.
•• Cf. p. 117, on the two-fold relation of the disciples, (1.) As individual witnesses of Christ's
ministry; (2.) As organs of the sjiirit, like believers in general.
THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT. 401
process he states as follows : The Holy Ghost will convince the world
of" sin, and show that unbelief is the ground of sin ; and further, will
convince the world that Christ did not die as a sinner, but, as the Holy
One, ascended to his Father in heaven, most perfectly manifesting His
righteousness in his death, and in the exaltation to God which followed
it ; indeed, all that are convinced of sin will recognize him as the Holy
One, and the source of all holiness in men. So he will gradually con-
vince the world oi judgment ; that Satan, so long ruler of the woi'ld,
has been judged ; that evil has lost its sway, and therefore can cause no
fear to such as hold communion with Christ. These, then, are the
three great elements of the process : the consciousness of sin ; of the
righteousness of Christ, the Redeemer from sin; of the impotency of
evil [judgment) in opposition to the kingdom of Goo. And to be con-
scious of sin; to know Christ as the Holy Redeemer; and the king-
dom of God as the conqueror of evil, which shall finally subdue all
things to itself: this is the whole essence of Christianity.
Christ had many things to say of his doctrine which the disciples
were not then in a condition to understand. But he was just about to
leave them ; and therefore he pointed them to the Spirit of Truth,
which was to unfold all the truth he had proclaimed. It was not to
announce any new doctrine; but to open the truth of his doctrine; to
glorify Him (v. 14) in them, by developing the full sense of what He
had taught them. Again he passes from the giving of the Holy Ghost
to his own communion with them ; repeating what he had before said :
" A little while, and ye shall not see me, and again a little while, and ye
shall sec vie, because I go to the Father'' (inasmuch as his "going to the
Father" was to be the ground of the new spiritual communion).* And,
again, some of them expressed the surprise of their contracted minds
at his words (v. 17). Jesus, seeing their uncertainty, developed the
thouoht still further. He told them they should be sori'owful for a
season, but their sorrow would be turned into permanent joy. Their
transient pains, like those of a woman in travail, would be the birth-
throes of a new creation within them, " And ye now, therefore, have
sorrow • but I vnW see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your
joy no man taketh from you."
''And in that day ye shall ask me nothing ;''' they would no more need
his sensible presence to ask of him as they had been wont. "Whatso-
ever Ve shall ask the Father in my name (in conscious communion
throuo-h Christ's mediation), he will give it you.'" (The Father would
reveal all things needful to them through Christ's mediation ; clearing
up all obscurities, and supplying the place of his corporeal presence.)
* But the promise certaiuly contains an allusion to bis resurrection, inasmuch as his re-
appearance was to the disciples the point of transition to the state of new spiritual com-
munion.
C c
402 CHRIST'S LAST DISCOURSES.
Up to that time (v. 24), not having yet obtained confidence of com-
munion with the Father through Christ, they had asked nothing of
Him ; but then they should ask, and receive, that their joy might bt3
fulh Then, too, v^rould Christ no more speak unto them in figures or
parables, but would openly unveil all he had to say to them of the
Father. " But," says he, " I say not unto you that I will pray the
Father for you ;" in their conscious communion with Him they would
be sure of the Father's love, and in His name would address them-
selves directly to the Father.
At last a ray of light beamed into the souls of the disciples. They
felt the impression of the high things which Christ, in confident Divinity,
had just announced to them. Yet, as their language shows* that they
did not fully understand him, it was rather a feeling than a clearly
developed consciousness. Christ cautioned them against trusting it too
far ; that the hour was at hand when a faith of this kind would give
way to a powerful impression of another nature ; that they should be
scattered, and leave him alone : " Yet not alone,'' said he, " hcramc the
Father is ivith me.'''
The aim of the whole discoui'se had been to impart to the minds of
the disciples a spring of Divine comfort amid their struggles with a
hostile world for the advancement of the kingdom of God. He closed
it with a few words of farewell, embracing its whole scope : " These
things have I sjwken to you, that in (communion with) me ye miglit hacc
peace.] In the tcorld ye shall have tribulations ; he of good cheer ; J
have overcome the world. "%
§ 278. Christ's Prayer as High-jjriest. (John, xvii.)
With a prayer Christ concludes this last interview with his disciples ;
with a prayer he prepares himself for the separation and the final con-
flict.
The import of the prayer is the same as that of the discourse. C<jn-
scious that his work (viz., to glorify God in man) on earth is finished,
he prays the Father to take him to himself, and glorify him with him-
self. Not, however, with a selfish aim or selfish longings ; it was to
o-lorify the Father, and, what was inseparable therefrom, to impart the
Divine life to mankind : " Glorify thy Son, that thy Son also ?nay glorfy
* It appears clear from v. 29, 30 tliat they understood the phrase, " Ye shall '^sk me
nothing," in a sense ditierent from that which he intended. It may readily be imagiucl
that John's subsequent better comprehension of Christ's meaning caused this misappre-
hen~%ion to appear remarkable, and served to impress it the more upon his memoiy.
t Inward peace ; Divine calmness amid the struggle with the world.
t The relation is two-fold : (1) The inward life in communion with Christ, who has over-
come the Power of Evil, and gives his own to share in his victory ; (2) Tlie outward life in
contact with the world, possibly harming, indeed, the outward man, but incapable of sub-
duiug, or disturbing the peace of, the inner man, rooted in Christ's fellowship.
THE PRIESTLY PRAYER. 403
thee ; as tJiou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give
eternal life to as many as thou hast given him."* But as eternal life is
only to be obtained by knowing the true God, revealed in Christ, he
prays that this knowledge may be diffused among all men, and so eter-
nal life be given to all.
Then, first, he prays for those who had already received this knowl-
edge, and were to become instruments of its diffusion among men.
As he is about to leave the world, and to leave the disciples alone in it,
he commends them to the protecting care of the Father, to whom they
are consecrated through him ; that the Divine communion of life, which
he had established, might be preserved among them. He commends
them to His care, because the world, in whose midst they are, will
hate them, since they are not of it. He does not ask their remo-
\Q\from the world ; that would subvert the very work he had assigned
rliem, the work of regenerating the world through the knowledge of
(tod in Christ ; he only prays that they may be inwardly separated
from the world and its evil powers, and sanctified through the truth he
had revealed; that his life, sanctified to God, and given up fur them,
mio-ht become the irround of their sanctification.
He then extends his prayer to all that may be brought to faith by
their preaching (v. 20). He prays that they may be united in the
communion of life with God which he had established ; that by it they
may testify of him ; that thereby they might show forth the glory of
the inner life given by him, and bear witness of that love of God (v.
:io) which they had experienced through him. (The true communion
of Christ's disciples shows forth His glory, and the glory which He
has imparted to them ; the glory, namely, of their whole relation to
Ctod as children, secured for them by Him. The outward appearance
is the reflection of the glory within.t) He then prays (v. 24) that all
those who are " given to him" (already united with him — his glory al-
ready revealed in them) may be raised up to be where He is, to com-
plete communion with him, to the beholding of his Divine glory (and
this implies a shai-e in that glory ; for intuition and life coincide in the
Divine). •
This incomparable prayer of consecration for his own, and for all
mankind, is closed with the words, " O Jioly\ Father, the world hath,
not known thee (lost in sin, it cannot know the Holy One) ; hut I have
known thee (the Holy One knows the Holy One) ; and these have known
that thou hast sent vie (they are, therefore, separated from the world of
sin, which is estranged from the Holy God) ; and I have declared unto
them thy name (have revealed unto them Thee, as the Holy One, and
* He considers those, and those only, as truly his own who follow the inward Divine
call, the " drawing" of the Father. Cf. p. 138, 360.
t In all time the spread of Christianity is most advanced by the power of the Christian
life- I I translate I'lKau, "holy;" cf xvi., 10; 1 John, ii., 29; iii., 7, 10.
404 GETHSEMANE.
not only as the Holy God, but as the Holy Father, with whom they
stand in child-like communion), and will declare it further (all that had
been revealed was but the germ, as it were, of subsequent develope-
ments) ; tliat the love wherewith thou hast loved me may he in them, and
I in them (that as they know Thee more and more through the revela-
tions of my spirit, they may, in communion with me, learn more and
more how thou lovest me and those that belong to me)."'
Thus this prayer embraces the whole work of Christ, up to its final
consummation ; his work, upon the basis laid down by himself, contin-
ually carried on, until all that submit to him shall be brought to a share
in his glory — to a complete communion of Divine life with him.
What is expressed in the " Lord's Prayer" as the object of the prayer
of believers is hei'e presented as the object of his own prayer^br be-
lievers.
CHAPTER V.
GETHSEMANE.
§ 279. Comparison of John's Gospel with the fiynopiical Gospels in re-
gard to Jesus' Covjlict of Soul. — Historical Credibilitj/ of the Synop-
tical Account.
FULL of celestial serenity, Jesus went forth with the disciples, as
was his wont, to the garden at the foot of the Mount of Olives, to
await the coming of his captors. Various alternations of feeling en-
sued in his soul ; and in regard to them there is an obvious difference
between the synoptical Gospels and John ; the former not mentioning
them at all, the latter giving a partial account of them. In modei-n
times this discrepancy has been supposed by some to be irreconcila-
ble ; so much so that one side or the other must be maintained, ac-
cording to the view which we take of the whole subject.
It is argued that we cannot imagine Christ, who had just spoken
with such Divine confidence, and had poured out his soul before God
in a prayer of heavenly calmness and assurance, as undergoing, imme-
diately after, such struggles of soul as are recorded in the synoptical
Gospels. But, laying John's Gospel out of the case, do we not find
the same contrast in the other Gospels ] Was not all this heavenly
elevation, serenity, and confidence presupposed in the institution of the
Eucharist, according to its deeper sense] Was not that act, the
pledge of his continuing communion with the Church, as recorded in
the first three CSospcls, as great "a proof of those high thoughts on which
his calmness was founded, as is contained in the final discourse and
APPARENT DISCREPANCIES. 405
prayer given by John? Nay, even in these last, can we not trace al-
ternations of feeling; subordinate, however, to the fundamental and
Divine tone ?
As for these alternations of feeling themselves, may we not con-
ceive, that as, in the life of believers, who represent (imperfectly in-
deed) the image of Christ on earth, calmness and tumult, confidence
and despondency, alternate with each other under the diverse influen-
ces of the outward world,* so too there might be similar fluctuations
(unconnected, however, with the reactions of sin, which might exist in
believerst) in the soul of Him who, with all his Divine elevation, Avas
like unto man in all things but sin, and sympathized, unutterably, with
all purely human feelings IJ
Even in Juhii's account of the raising of Lazarus we find such al-
ternations in the prominency of the Divinity and the humanity of
Christ ; would not, therefore, similar manifestations at the approach of
death be in harmony with his image, as depicted by John himself?
Moreover, both John and Luke alluded to the heginnings of this strug-
gle of soul at different times before ;§ momentary, however, and soon
followed by the accustomed confidence of Divinity. In John, xiii.,
21,11 we find Jesus " troubled in spirit" in contemplating Judas. It
would be contrary to all analogy, then, that such moments should not
occur, even with increased intensity, amid the ever-accumulating pangs
both of soul and body that he endured up to the moment of the final
and triumphant exclamation. " But," it will perhaps be said, " ac-
cording to John's account, there loas no struggle of soul at last." How,
then, coi^ld John record Christ's " trouble of soul" (xii., 27) in view of
the last hour, and his wish^ (xiii., 27) that the catastrophe might be
hastened \
The account of the agony in the garden, taken from the other Gos-
pels, can be aptly inserted in John's narrative. " But why, then, does
John not record it"?" It is enough to say, hi reply to thig, that his ob-
ject was, not to give a complete biography, but to arrange a number
of separate features of the great picture, according to a peculiar point
of view. If John, having intimated the beginnings of this struggle in
the soul of Jesus, preferred, instead of delineating all its subsequent
stages, to picture forth the Divine elevation of Christ as shown in his
* Cf. John the Baptist. t Cf. p. 79, 82.
+ Thus did that genuine disciple of Christ, John Huss, who had formed his life upon the
intuition of Christ's example, learn from the experience of his own last struggles how to
comprehend these opposite manifestations in the Saviour's life. With reference to such
alternations in his own experience, he writes : " Pro certo grave est, imperturbate gaudere,
et omnc gaudium existimare, in variis tentationibus. Leve est loqui et illud exponere, sed
gi-ave implere. Siquideni patieutissimus et fortissimus miles, sciens quod die tertia esset
resurrecturus, et per mortem suam vincens inimicos, post coenam ultimam turbatus est spi-
rita et dixit, — tristis est anima, usque ad mortem."
$ Cf. p. 314, 376. II Cf. p. 387. H Cf. p. 388.
406 GETHSEMANE.
last discourses, can we infer any thing from this, except that in his de-
lineation certain features of Christ's picture are more prominent than
others ? Throughout, it is the method of John's Gospel to present
connected chains of Christ's discourses and acts, rather than isolated
incidents, however characteristic, such as we find in the other Evangel-
ists. Moreover, as an eye-witness of this last struggle, he was not in
a state of mind to perceive, and subsequently to describe, it as a whvie.
It must not be inferred, however, from this last remark, that the disci-
ples could not have remembered, and faithfully recorded, individual
features that made a deep impression upon them.
Let us now dwell for a moment upon the credibility of the synop-
tical account. It agrees entirely with Heb., v., 7, which was founded
upon direct Apostolical ti-adition. How can it be conceived that such
a description of Christ's agony could have arisen from an invented le-
gend, intended to gloriftj him ] Nor can it be said that it was made
up by collecting and putting together the various types and prophecies
of the Old Testament that prefigured such an agony ; after the de-
scription was extant, as history, it was natural that these should be
gathered up, and doctrinal reasons assigned for the agony itself; but
hcfore, its invention would have been utterly inconsistent with the idea,
generally prevalent, of the glory of Messiah. In the representations
of the Evangelists, particularly Matthew, we can detect no aim but a
historical one ; not a trace of doctrinal motives can be discovered ;
only at a later period were such thrust upon them by that wilfulness
which can find in a narrative any thing it chooses.
It was easy, indeed, from a natural point of view, to find a contra-
diction between such expressions of human weakness on the part of
Chinst, and his miracle-working power, his conscious dignity as Mes-
siah or as the Son of God, his foreknowledge of his resurrection, &c
Nor could such a contradiction ever have naturally arisen from an
idealizing invention. It was precisely with a view to do it away as a
ground of objection, that a Docctic Christ was afterward conceived in
place of the real Christ; or, his human nature was sundered from the
Divine. The Divinity, the Divine Logos, was recognized in the mira-
cles and lofty discourses ; but it was feigned that this Logos, the true
Redeemer, withdrew from Christ during his sufferings.
Such a Christ, indeed, as the real Christ, was always a stone of
stumbling for Jewish modes of thought. How much, therefore, must
the author of the ejiistle to the Hebrews have been concerned to re-
move this rock of offence, and to prove that these very struggles be-
longed necessarily to the Messianic calling? To be sure, after the
idea of Messiah had once been modified according to'the real, histori-
cal Chx'ist, and the minds of men had thereby received a now tendency,
THE AGONY. 407
it was easy to find the higher unity for all these contradictions, and
combine them all into the one idea. But we can by no means infer
from this possibility its converse, viz., that the new idea, suddenly
arising like a Deus ex machina, could have given birth to such a his-
toiical representation of Christ.
■^ 280. The Agony in the^Gardcn. (Matt., xxvi. ; Mark, xiv. ; Luke,
xxii.)
In prayer and retirement Christ had prepared himself for the hegin-
ning of his public ministry ; in prayer and retirement he now prepared
to close his calling on earth. As then, so now, before entering upon
the outward conflict, he passed through it in the inward struggles of
his soul. Then he had in spirit gained the victory, before he appeared
openly among men a conqueror ; now the conquest of suffering was
achieved within, before the final, outward triumph.
Arrived at the garden, he took apart Peter, James, and John, his
three best-loved disciples, to be the honoured witnesses of his prayer,
and to pray with him. From the nature of the case, w^e could not have
so full an account of this as of his prayer for his disciples (John, xvii.).
In the pains of suffering that are pressing upon him he prays, " Father,
^f It he possible, let this cup jklss from me.'^ But this feeling could not
for a moment shake his submission to the Divine will. All other feel-
ings are absorbed in the fundamental longing, " Thy ivill be done.''''
The Divinity is distinguished from the Humanity ; and by this distinc-
tion their unity, in the subordination of the one to the other, was to be
made prominent. As a 7nan, he might wish to be spared the sufferings
that awaited him, even though from a higher point of view he saw their
necessity ; just as a Christian may be convinced that he ought to make
a certain sacrifice in the service of God, and yet, in darker moments,
his purely human feelings may rise against it, until his conviction, and
his will guided by his conviction, at last prevail. It was not merely that
Christ's physical nature had to struggle with death, and such a death,
but his soul had to be moved to its deptlis by sympathy with the suffer-
ino-s of mankind on account of sin.* Thus the wish might arise within
"^ By the "cup" we mast understand not only his suffering of death, but all that pre-
ceded and followed it : the treason of Judas, the raj^e of Christ's enemies, the delusion of
the multitude. It is not my object here to set forth the higher doctrinal and theological
import of the death of Christ ; yet I agi-ee heartily in tlie following, from Dettinger's beau-
tiful dissertation on Christ's agony (Tubing. Zeitschrift, 1833, i., 95, 96) : "While, on the
one hand, iu a sinful nature, the conviction that death is a judgment for sin is blunted in
proportion as the power of sin in the individual is greater, and the sense of its guilt less;
in a word, in proportion as the harmonic unity of life is disturbed by sin, so much the
more powerful, on the other hand, iu a sinless human nature, in which the unity of life's
hannony is undisturbed, must be the conviction that death is a judgment for sin, a dissolution
and separation, not originally belonging to human nature, of elements which in all stages of
the developemeut of life belong together.'' I can make this agree, also, with the view of
the conncxiou between sin and death presented in my " Apostol. Zeitalter," vol. ii.
408 GETHSEMANE.
him, as a man, to be spared that bitter cup ; only on condition, how-
ever, that the will of God could be done in some other way. But the
conviction that this could not be, immediately followed ; he knew, from
the beginning,* that, according to the plan of Divine wisdom, the king-
dom of God was to be ft)uuded tlu()U"h his self-sacrifice in the struff-
gle with the sins of the people ; and he submitted to what he knew
was the will of God and the work of his life.t
As a proof how little the higher calmness of his spirit was disturbed
by these uprisings of human feeling, we find him, a moment after the
first straggle, caring for his yet weak disciples. Finding them ovei'-
come with sleep, he roused them, saying, " Could ye not ivatch with me
one hour? Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation (that the
outward temptation become not an inward onej) ; for, though the spirit
is willing (as in their fulness of love, when danger was not pressing
ujjon them, they had declared themselves ready to suflfer all things
with him and for him), the flesh is iceak.^'' (The impressions of out-
ward danger may affect the flesh so strongly as to bear down the
spirit; there is need, therefoie, of Divine power, gained by prayer, to
strengthen the spirit amid these fearful impressions, that it may triumpli
over the weakness of the flesh.)
Again he bends in prayer. And now he does not say, " If it he pos-
sible, let — ;" but, penetrated by the conviction that the counsel of Di-
vine Wisdom demands the sacrifice, " O my Father, if this cup may not
pass away from me except I drink it. Thy will he done." And the third
lime he repeats the same words. The victory of his soul was gained;
the struggle was over, until the brief conflict of the final pang. Find-
ing the disciples still asleep, he said to them, " Sleep on now ; / wil]§
rouse you no more to watch and pray with me ; but your sleep shall be
rudely disturbed ; for behold, the hour of my suffering is at hand.
Already my captors are near."
§ ^81. The Arrest of Christ. — Peter's Haste, and its Reproof. — The
Poicer of Darkness.
Judas approached with a band of armed servitors of the Sanhedrim
and a part of a Roman cohort from the garrison, the latter as a guard
against a disturbance from the sympathy of the people. Pi-obably the
traitor alone knew who was to be apprehended ;|| as there was good
* Cf. p. 82. t Cf. p. 344. + Cf. p. 209.
$ The words t& Xonriv, in Matt., xxvi., 45, compol us to take these words as a waniing,
or reproof; otherwise tlie word kuOcvoctc might be taken as the indicative, with or without
iiiten-Qgation.
II We may the more expect dill'uronces in tlie four acrounts licre, from the state of mind
in wliich the disciples must necessarily have been. Discrepancies, even if irreconoihiblu
THE ARREST. 409
reason (supposeJ, at least) for secrecy in the procedure. Jesus did
not wait for Judas and the band to enter the garden. With majestic
calmness he went to meet them, and asked, " Whom seek ye ?" His
sudden appearance in calm majesty, associated with the impressions
of his life and the authority of his name as, at least, a prophet, so deeply
affected a part of the band (not the Roman soldiers*) that they recoiled
and fell on the ground before him. In their perplexity they then
prepared to seize the disciples, pei'haps because they made show of
defending their Master. The rash Peter hastily gave way to impulse ;
without waiting to know the Master's will, he made use of the sword.
Christ sharply rebuked his precipitancy : " All that take the sword (un-
called, as here, in resistance to authority that is to be respected as the
ordinance of God) shall perish by the sioord (as a judgiuent for re-
bellion against the order of God; a warning against the use of force to
defend his cause against the state) ; thlnkest thou that I cannot now
]iray to my Father^ and he shall presently give me more than twelve^
legions of angels? (This he could only have done had the Divine will
been so.) The cup which my Father hath given me, -^'all I not drink
it IX (not the human choice, but the higher necessity, must prevail.)"
Turning then to the band, he said to them, more than once, " I am
he whom ye seek; let these go their way." And this saying — sup-
ported by that authority which had so impressed them that they would
not have ventured to lay hands on him had he not given himself up —
this saying caused them to let the disciples go, and to take no vengeance
on Peter, exasperated as they were by his resistance.§
in points of detail, do uot impeach the veracity of the essential features of a narrative ;
but in this case they are not so irreconcilable as has been supposed. According to John,
whom vce have followed, Judas and the band remained outside, and Jesus went out and
£;ave himself up: the other Evangelists report that Judas gave the signal by a kiss. But
as John's account gives no reason at all for Judas's coming, and as it could uot have been
to show the way to the garden, we must suppose it was impelled by pure hatred, or by a
desire to see the end of the matter (this would suit the view that he did not betray Jesus
with hostile intent, and expected a miracle), or that he came to point out the person to be
seized, and this leads us directly to the statement of the other Gospels. The sign agreed
upon may have been omitted, or given at the wrong moment, in the confusion of his mind,
produced by a bad conscience and a reverence that he could not get rid of; so that the dif-
ferent accounts may entirely hannonize. In any case, John's statement is the more simple,
and we rely upon it.
* Had these cai-ed at all about the matter, they would not have served as instruments of
the Jewish authorities.
t Instead of the Twelve Apostles, who made show of defending him.
X John, xviii., 11, referring to the prayer in the garden. The preceding woi-ds, omitted by
John, are strongly characteristic of the Spirit of Christ.
$ It is mentioned by all the Evangelists that Peter cut off the ear of the high-priest's
servant. It cannot but appear surprising that this arbitrary act produced no more serious
consequences to the rash Apostle. The healing of the ear, mentioned by Luke, might
serve as an explanation; but John says nothing about it. His naixative, however, explains
all in the way given by us in the text ; and its veracity, therefore, is confirmed by com-
parison with the other Gospels.
410 THE TRIAL AND CONDEMNATION.
When tbe person of Jesus was secured, he said, further, " Are ye
come out, as against a thief, with armed bands, to take me ] When I
was daily with you in the Temple, ye stretched forth no hands against
me ; but this is your hour, and th^ power of darkness."* During his
public teaching none ventured to assail him. The power of darkness
shuns the light of day. The Sanhedrim found the night the fitting time
to execute their schemes; the policy that springs from darkness, and
serves it, must not show itself in open day. Perhaps the words also
allude to the brief duration of the power of evil.t
CHAPTER VI.
THE TRIAL AND CONDEMNATION.
§ 282. Night-Examination before Annas.
IN the mean time, the high-priest, Caiaphas, informed of what had
passed, had summoned a council of the Sanhedrim at his palace for
the trial of Jesus. As this could not be accomplished until daybreak,
Jesus was taken before Ananos, or Annas, the former high-priest,
father-in-law of Caiaphas, for a preliminary examination.^
* Christ was always fain to point from tbe sensible to tbe spiritual ; and as the time
chosen to execute tbe work of darkness here gave occasion for such a connexion, we join
tbe two together.
t In any event, this passage refers to the futile attempts before made to secure the arrest
of Christ of which John informs us ; it belongs, also, to that class of passages which can
only be clearly understood in the light of John's representation of the history (cf. p. 2^-1
204). John, xviii., 20, is certainly not so similar to the above passage as to justify the in-
.ference, which some have drawn, that the one is but a variation of the other. True, in
Luke, xxii., 52, tbe words are addressed to tbe chief piicsts, &c., which could not be liter-
ally true ; but we explain this on the ground that they were addressed through the instru-
ments to the real captors, the Sanhedrim ; and not on the ground of an interchange witii
John, xviii., 20.
J In Luke, xxii., 66, we find that some time elapsed between the arrest and the meeting
of the Council ; the latter occurring " as soon as it was day.'' This accounts for tbe arraign-
ment before Annas, mentioned only by John (xviii., 13). As for the invention of such a fact
as this, the idea is absurd; there could bo no motive for it; and John himself only relates
it by the way. The mention of such minute incidents, however, prove him to have been an
eye-witness. — (Note to ed. 4th.) Blcek's review of Ebrard has led me to re-examine this
subject. I cannot think John would have given sucb prominence to the aiTaignment bcforc
Caiapbas had be not meant to unfold this preparatory trial further; and, therefore, cannot
suppose that, in xviii., 19-23, he records the official examination before the Council. In
tbat case be certainly would bave dwelt upon it more, and made more of it. On tbe other
iiand, it is easy to understand that he omi/tcd the latter examination, because generally
known by other traditions, and gave tbe one which was least known. In fact, this is presup-
posed^ in the examination before Pilate, as recorded by him, when compared with the ac-
count of the trial before the Council in tbe other Evangelists. In xviii., 13, express men-
tion is made of Caiaplias as upxnpin "fur that year," to distinguish him from Annas, who
h(no the same title. In v. 14 he cite.s the declaration of Caiaphas (notable as coming from
the lips of the Head of Ecclesiastical atl'airs during the year in which Christ suflcrcd) in
BEFORE CAIAPHAS. 411
Annas began with questions about his followers and his doctrine.
But Christ gave no satisfactory replies. And this was fully consistent
with his dignity ; for he knew that the questions were put not to elicit
truth, but to extort something that might be used against him ; that the
decision was as good as made, and the investigation only intended to
throw over it the forms of justice. He referred Annas, therefore, to
his public discourses in the Temple and in the synagogues. One of
the servitors deemed his reply an insult to the high-priest's dignity,
and struck him in the face. The blow could not disturb his serenity
of soul; he only asserted the justice of his cause in saying, "■ If 1
liave spoken evil, hear loitness of the evil ; but if zoell, why smitest thott
mc ?"
§ 283. Morning. — Examination hefore Caiaphas.
In the examination before the Sanhedrim, over which Caiaphas pre
sided, Christ preserved the same silence as before Annas, and for sim-
ilar reasons. The conflicting evidence of the witnesses afforded no
ground for the jjondemnation on which the court had already decided.
The high-priest insisted on his defending himself against the witnesses;
but he still held his peace. Finally, he called upon Jesus, in the name
of the Living God, to declare whether or not he was " Messiah, the
Son of God." After answering in the affirmative, Christ announced
the great events then approaching, which were to testify, more strongly
than words, that He was the promised Theocratic King: ^^ Hereafter
shall ye see the Son of Man sitting o?i the right hand qfj^ower (of God),
and coming in the clouds of heaven'''* (a figurative expression, implying,
" You shall see me prove my Divine power in act, spreading my king-
dom, and subduing its foes in spite of all your machinations ;" the
actual proof of his Messianic dignity, an announcement of the impend-
ing judgment of God). Then the high-piiest rent his robes, as a sign
of horror at the blasphemy uttered by Christ, saying, " From his own
lips ye have heard it." He was then condemned to death, either as a
false prophet, and thereby incurring the punishment ordained by the
law of Moses, because he had falsely proclaimed himself Messiah ; or
as a blasphemer, because he had attributed Divine honours to himself.
rlcw of the omission of the full trial before him. In v. 24, ajler the examination, it is stated
that Annas " sent him to Caiaphas, tlie actual high-priest." Perhaps the leading out of
Christ occasioned one of Aunas's servants to put the question (v. 25) which brought out
Peter's second denial ; and perhaps, also, Luke, xxii., 61, should be joined in immediately
after. In this case we should make the fore court of the house of Annas the scene of
Peter's denials ; and might infer that, when this preparatoi-y examination before Annas
was forgotten, or laid aside as unimportant, the denial of Peter, which was preserved on
account of its intrinsic importance, was laid in the court of Caiaphas, in connexion with the
second examination.
* Christ's "coming," "coming in the clouds," &c., not only indicate his second advent
a? a far-distant period, but also his spiritual, world-historical manifestation.
412 . THE TRIAL AND CONDEMNATION.
The latter appears more probable from Matt., xxvi. 65, 66 ; and, in-
deed, they had often before accused him of blasphemy.
After the condemnation he was given up, as one expelled fi-om the
Theocratic nation, to the rude derision and mocking of the servants in
the court.
§ 284. Double Dealing of the Sanlwdrim.
It is obvious, at first sight, that the procedure of the Sanhedrim in
condemning Christ was illegal and arbitrary. It was not a regular in-
quiry after the truth ; Christ stood in the way of the hierarchy, and his
case bad been prejudged; Caiaphas himself had, in fact, announced
that his death was decided on. A wicked policy demanded the vic-
tim. Moreover, the necessity of putting him to death before the feast
caused the sentence to be hastened as rapidly as possible under the
forms of justice.
It must be borne in inind that at that time the Sanhedrim had only
subordinate authority to assign penalties for violations of the religious
law ; it could not lawfully pronounce sentence of death without the
authority of the Roman governor.* It had, therefore, to seek, in
Christ's case, some plausible grounds for condemnation that would
stand the scrutiny of that officer. No accusation of heresy, blasphemy,
or false assumption of the prophetic character would suffice. Some
political charge must, therefore, be trumped up. But in this the hie-
rarchical party had to act in direct opposition to their own convictions ;
.lesus had always refused to meddle with civil affairs. It is true, he
had been attended into the city by an enthusiastic multitude, acknowl-
edging him as Messiah ; but his withdrawal from them, and, indeed,
all his movements on that occasion, abundantly proved that he had no
intention to make use of worldly means. This is shown sufficiently by
the fact that no attempt was made by the Sanhedrim to use the tri-
umphal entry as ground for a political charge. Had it been at all
suspicious in that respect, the Roman governor would have taken it
up ; as popular movements of the kind were generally, and with o^ood
reason, looked upon with distrust.
A charge of interference with the state, then, could not be sus-
tained, even according to the judgment of his enemies. It was clear
that he had used no other influence over men's minds than the inward
power of his words and works to move their convictions ; and this was
* Joseph., Arch-TBol., xx., 9, § 1. The high-priest, Aiiaiius (Annas), lia<l taken advantage
of the absence of the govenior to inflict capital [luiiishnient ou the authority of the Sau-
hedrim. He was accused for the act before the Prefect Albinus : ""fiy oinc t'^oV i> 'Araiv
Xuipli rns iKiivov yi'uijrii KuOiaat avvci^piov;" obviously showing that the consent of the gov-
ernor was essential in such cases. The misdemeanor was deemed so grave that Ananus
was removed from ollice. The reading of S^rckellos, " iKcvviav," would give an entirely
difl'erent meaning ; but it is obviously incorrect. •
BEFORE PILATE. 413
obviously beyond the sphere of civil jurisdiction. But antiquity could
not conceive of a holy sphere of conscience and conviction beyond the
reach of human tribunals. It was first opened to the Old-World con-
sciousness by the idea of the kingdom of God as brought to light by
Christ. Before, either religion was subordinated to the state, or tht;
state to religion (the latter being the Theocracy in its political form ;
the former being state-religions). In the Jewish constitution (which,
however, did not exist in its original form under the Roman sway) the
state was subordinate to religion. It was the crime of the Sanhedrim
that it decided, arbitrarily, to retain this old stand-point, contrary to the
judgment of God, as shown in the signs of the times pointed out by
Christ; that it would not give up its selfish interests, or bow before
the higher power which had come into the world to break down the
old landmarks. Even if it could not fully admit Christ's claims, it was
bound, on its own stand-point, to investigate the proofs which he offered
in testimony of his Divine calling; and when phenomena appeared
which could iiot be explained except as the workings of the Spirit of
God, at least to leave them, as Gamaliel did afterward, to the judg-
ment of God as history* should unfold it. But the grounds of the in-
capacity of the heads of the hierarchy to admit the proofs of Christ's
Divine calling had often before been pointed out by himself; the in-
ability was a moral one, founded in their dispositions of heart, and
therefore it was guilty. \
As before remarked, the grounds on which the Sanliedrim condemned
Christ were not sufficient to induce Pilate, the Roman procurator, t(.
inflict capital punishment upon him. Another charge was needed.
To serve the purpose, recourse was had to his claim of Messiahship,
on which they had professed to found their own decision, with the
addition of a political element : " He has claimed to be a king;" and
hence " he perverts the nation (contests the Roman authority), and for-
bids to give tribute to Caesar." | An accusation of this sort could be
the more readily admitted, as the Roman authorities were well aware
that the Jews felt themselves degraded and disgraced by paying taxes
to a heathen power.
§ 285. Jesus before Pilate. — Christ's Ivingdom not " of this World."
The procurator, Pontius Pilate, a representative of the rich and cor
* To this judgment Moses refers, Deut., xviii., 20-22. t Cf. p. 29:i, 294.
J: Luke, xxiii., 3. This passage is obviously presupposed in John, xviii., 33. Jolin's ac-
count takes many things for gi-anted tliat are recorded in the other Gospels ; but the latter,
ill tarn, must often find their supplement in the foniicr, as is the case in this part of Luke.
None but an eye-witness could have given the account in so exact a connexion as John's.
The simple reply to Pilate's question, ai \iyus, as given in Luke, xxiii., 3, Matt., xxvii.,
11, needs the further explanation given by John (xviii., 36, 37), to make it fully accord witl)
the facts ; for he vyas not, and did not claim to be, " King of the Jevv's," in the Roman sense
of the plirase : nor could Pilate have pronounced him guiltless after such a declaration
414 THE TRIAL AND CONDEMNATION.
rupt Romans of that age, acted throughout the case in accorJance
witn his well-known character. An enemy to the Jews, he was glad
of an opportunity to vex and mock them. But, oh the other hand, his
administration had been marked by many acts of arbitrary injustice,
and his evil conscience feared an accusation from the Jews, such, in-
deed, as subsequently wi'ought his downfall. Care for his own security,
therefore, led him to avoid giving them any handle against him on this
occasion ; and he was by no means inclined to sacrifice his own inter-
ests to those of innocence and justice. With all his disposition to save
a man guiltless of political crimes, and whose zeal he perhaps himself
acknowledged to be well-meant, it was no part of his character to risk
personal or political objects in such a cause.
The Sanhedrim, in delivering Jesus up to Pilate as " a disturber of
the public peace," expected that he would be satisfied with their rec-
ognition of the Roman authority, and lend his power, without further
inquiry, to the execution of their decree. But Pilate, seeing no grounds
for immediate acquiescence, demanded a more particular accusation.
As he had heard of no disturbance produced by Jesus, the statement
made by the deputies of the Sanhedrim appeared by no means credi-
ble ; and, suspecting that religious disputes were at the bottom, he
wished to get rid of the whole affair, and told them " to take him, and
judge him according to their law." The deputies understood his
meaning. But to treat the case as a purely ecclesiastical one, and in-
flict only a corresponding penalty on Jesus, was not what they desired.
Their desire and wishes were distinctly expressed In their reply : " It
is not lawful for us to jmt any man to deathy
The procurator thought it necessary, therefore, to enter upon the
political accusation, although he believed it to be unfounded ; and said
to Jesus, not without mockery, "■Art thou the King of the Jews ?" To
this question Christ could give neither an express affirmative nor an
express negative : in the religious sense, the answer must be " Yes ;"
in the political, " No." He, therefore, asked Pilate, " Sayest tliou tins
thing of thyself [i. e., inquiring whether he asked the question in the
Roman sense, and thought, with reference to the rights of the state,
that Christ was liable to the accusation of claiming to be "king"), or
did others tell it thee of me V Pilate answered that he did nothing
more than repeat the accusation brought by the Jews. And Jesus an-
fiwered, " My kingdom is not of this worUV (not worldly in its nature,
its instruments, or its ponflicts). He proved its unworldly character
by the means he used in founding it : "7/" my kingdom were of this
xcorld, then would my servants fight," &;c. ; " hut note is my kingdom
not from hence^
The very words in which Christ denied that he was king in a world-
BEFORE HEROD. 415
ly sense, implied that in another sense he certainly claimed to be both
a king and the fomider of a kingdom. He then defined more exactly
the sense in which he was both : " To this end was I horn, and for this
cause came I into this zvorld, that I should bear witness unto the trtith."
It followed that He could be recognized as King, and the nature of his
kingdom be understood by those only who were susceptible of receiv-
ing the truth : " Every one that is of the truth hearcth my voiced This
was, at the same time, a summons to the conscience of Pilate himself.
]3ut the procurator — a type of the educated E/^man world, especially
of its higher classes, lost in worldly-mindedness, and conscious of no
higher wants than -those of this life — had no such sense for truth.
" What is truth ?" was his mocking question. " Trtith is an empty
name,'" he meant to say.
§ 286. Jcsns sent to Herod.
Pilate now looked upon Jesus simply as a religious enthusiast, in-
nocent of all political crimes, and told the deputies that he " could find
no fault in him at all." They then rejjlied (Luke, xxiii., 5) that his
reaching had stirred up the people every where, from Galilee to Jeru-
salem. As soon as Pilate heard that Jesus was of Galilee, it occurred
to him to lay the case before Herod Antipas, tetrarch of Galilee and
Judea, who had just then come to the feast at Jerusalem.
Herod had for long wished to see Jesus.* The fame of the mira-
cles inspired him with curiosity to see what Christ could do. But it
was no part of the Saviour's calling to satisfy an idle curiosity. To
describe his doctrine fully to a man so utterly worldly, would have
been, in his own language, to " cast pearls before swine."t He, there-
fore, answered none of Herod's questions. The disappointed king,
having arrayed the Saviour, in mockery, in a gorgeous purple robe,
and exposed him to the cruel sport' and derision of the soldiers, sent
liim back to the procurator. Doubtless the latter was confirmed in
his own views by the word which Herod sent him.
§ 287. Pilate's fruitless Efforts to save Jesus. — The Dream of Pilate's
'Wife.
In honour of the Passover, and as a privilege to the Jews, pardon
was granted every year to a criminal condemned to death. Pilate en-
deavoured to make use of this privilege in favour of Jesus ; hopint/
thus at once to admit the validity of the decree of the Sanhedrim, and
yet leave it unexecuted. In order to satisfy their hatred against Jesus
to some extent, he proposed, not to free him from all punishment, but
to mitigate it into scourging. But the multitude, always open to the
impressions of the moment — the very multitude who, a few days be-
* Cf. p. 323. t Cf. p. 277.
416 THE TRIAL AND CONDEMNATION.
fore, had welcomed Jesus, with shouts of enthusiasm, as Theocratic
King — were now, when their carnal expectations were deceived, blind
instruments of the Sanhedrim, and obedient to every fanatical impulse
of the Pharisees. They clamoured for the pardon of a murderer rather
than of the false prophet (as they held him) who had deceived their
hopes.
The procurator ordered Jesus to be scourged. It could not have cost
the feelings of a Pilate much to inflict such violent pain and deep dis-
grace upon an innocent man. He thought that Jesus, as an enthusiast,
who had already given so much trouble, deserved scourging ; and he
probably expected to appease the rage and excite the sympathy of the
multitude by the infliction, and so, perhaps, to succeed in saving his
life. With the cruel marks upon his body, the Saviour was brought
out, in the attire which the soldiers had put upon him in derision, and
set before the people ; when Pilate, having declared that he found no
guilt in him, said, " Behold the man .'" (" Can it be believed that he
would wish to make himself king ]") The sight only stimulated their
fanatical rage ; and, with unceasing clamours, they demanded his cru-
cifixion. Full of displeasure, Pilate said to them, " Take ye h'wi, and
crucify him, for I find no fault in him''' The Jews knew well how to
understand this ; and, as their political accusation had failed, they had
recourse again to the religious one : " We have a law, and hy our la^v
(confirmed by the Roman state) he ought to die, because he made him-
self the Son of God."
Unsusceptible as Pilate was of all impressions from the higher life,
unable to recognize the majesty that dwelt in that lowly form, he yet
found in Christ's demeanour under his sufferings something peculiar
and inexplicable. Moreover, his wife,* troubled by fearful dreams,
sent him a warning to " Have nothing to do with that just man.^' And
now, in addition to all this, he was told that Jesus had declared him-
self to be the "Son of God," a title which he interpreted according to
the pagan conceptions of the " Sons of the Gods."
§ 288. Liast Conversation of Jesus loith Pilate. — The Sentence.
The transition is easy from infidelity, springing from workllincss and
frivolity, to sudden emotions o^ superstition. So he who but a moment
before had mockingly asked Christ, " What is truth ?" went now, in a
sudden access of superstitious fear, and inquired, " Whence art thou ?"
As the question was prompted only by superstition and curiosity, and
" According to the Apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus (c. ii.), and later accounts (all of
which, however, probably came from the same source), she was t proselyte of the gate,
5eoae6i'ii, and was named Proda ( ThUo, Cod. Apocryph., i., 520). Judaism had found its
converts particularly among the female sex.
CALVARY. 417
as the questioner was incapable of apprehending Jesus as the Son of
God in the only sense in which he wished to be acknowledged as such,
the Saviour made no reply. Pilate, in astonishment, renewed his
questions : " Sj)eakcst tliou not unto me ? Ktioiccst thou not that I have
-power to crucify thee, and have power to release thee .?" To this Jesus
answered: ''Thou couldst have no poiver at all against me, except it
were given thee from above (if God had not brought it to pass that I
should be delivered to thee by the Sanhedrim) ; therefore is the guilt of
those by whom God hath delivered me unto thee greater than thine."
Thus did Christ declare that- no human will limited his life, but that
his death took place in consequence of a higher necessity ordained by
God, for a higher end. Pilate thereupon strove more earnestly to
save him ; but the Jews alarmed him with the cry, so terrible at that
time, of crimen majestatis : " If thou let this man go, thou art not Cae-
sar's friend ; whosoever maketh himself a king, revolts against the au-
thority of the emperor." To this storm of clamour the procurator at
last, though reluctantly, yielded : his conscience feared the charges
which the Sanhedrim might prefer against him at Rome ; and his per-
sonal security was more to him than the life of an innocent man.
§ 289. Jcstis led to Calvary. — Simon of Gyrene. — The Words of Christ
to the Weeping Women.
As was usual with condemned criminals, Jesus himself carried the
instrument of death to the place of execution. But his severe strug-
gles and sufferings, both of body and mind, had so exhausted his
sti-ength that he sunk under the burden. Even the rude soldiers, who
had so lately mocked him, were filled with compassion, and compelled
a Jew, whom they met on the way, Simon of Cyrene, to take his cross
and bear it to the place of death.*
Amid all his sufferings he was moved with compassion for the
* Thi.5 account, given in the first three Gospels?, carries the proof of its veracity in itself.
It is nothing .strange that Roman soldiers, in the puhlic service, could do, unresisted, so
high-hauded an act (cf. Hw/s instructive remarks on the narrative of Christ's passion,
Zeitschrift fur d. Geistl. d. Erzbistliunis Freiburg, 1831, v., s. 12). Mark, whose account
bears evidence in this, as in several other places, of peculiar sources of information, oral
or written, mentions (xv., 21) that this Simon was the father of two men well known in the
first Christian congregations. Notwithstanding all that Sl)-nuss says to the contrary, John's
statement, that Jesus was led bearing his own cross, is not at variance with that given by
the other sources, viz., that he was afterward relieved of the load on account of bis ex-
haustion. John passes lightly over some things in the narrative of Christ's passion, and
gives prominence to others not mentioned by the otlier Evangelists ; there is, therefore,
no ground of surprise in his omission of this particular incident. If it be supposed that the
Apostle John did not write this Gospel, can it be imagined that its author knew nothing
of this account (for a doctrinal motive to intentional silence is out of the question) ? In
what comer must he have written, to remain ignorant of an incident so closely interwoven
with the traditional accounts of the passion ? And how could a document issuing from
such a corner be passed off as the production of John, the Apostle.
Dd
418 THE CPvUCIFIXION.
blinded people, over whose heads he saw impending the judgments of
God, called down by their long-accumulated guilt, of which he had so
often warned them. Seeing the women of Jerusalem in tears,* he said
to them, " Weep not for me, but weep for yourselves and for your
children." Tlien, after predicting the woes of the siege and destruc-
tion of Jerusalem, he said, " If they do these things in a green tree, what
shall be done in the dry .?"t
CHAPTER VII.
THE CRUCIFIXION.
§ 290. Details of the Crucifixion.
WHEN Jesus reached the place of execution, he was offered, as
was usual, a spiced wine,| intended to stupify the mind and
deaden the pains of death. Oppressed with burning thirst, he tasted
f)f the wine ; but when he perceived the stupifying drug, he refused
to drink, that he might die in full consciousness. Stripped of nearly
all his clothing, § he was lifted up to the cross; bound, and then nailed
to it by his hands and feet.|| (The chief pain of this cruel death,
* Luke, xxiii., 27-31.
t " If the Holy One, entering among sinful men, is so entreated, what must happen to
those whose sufl'erings will be the just penalty of their own accumulated guilt?"
X Matt., sxvii., 34. Mark describes it exactly (xv., i!3) as oiras ianvpviantvoi. Cf. Acta
Fructuosi Tarraconensis, where it is related of the martys, " Cum mvlti ex fraterna cnri-
fate Us afferent, uti conditi permixH poculum sumercnt," &c. (c. iii., Ruinart., Acta Mar-
tyrum, Amstel., 1713, 220). The merum conditum was given by the Cliristians to the con-
fessors tnnqitam antidotum, that, by means of it, they might be less sensible of suffering
(Tertnll. de Jejnniis, c. xii.).
5 John's mention of the Xfw'' cip'paipos is confirmed by the statement of Isidore of Pohi-
sium, that such garments were peculiar to Galilee. Such a garment, though somewhat
common iu Galilee, and worn by the lower classes, might have been a novelty to the Ho-
man soldiers, and, therefore, an object of value in their eyes. Isidore says, " rij Si ayvoe'i
rflv EVTiXeiav rris iaOriTOS iKtivris, fincp oi ttt-uxo? Kixpr/VTai tSv raAAai'wi', aaO' oi); Kol fui^tcra tu
TuiovTO 0iAa yiVEtrSai ii^iuTtnv, rix^'fl tivl, iii a'l arrjOuhaplScS, uvaKpovatov V(j>aivi'/fmoi'."
II There has been much dispute on this point, and many have given it undue impor-
tance ; the result of the most candid inquiry is, that the feet were nailed as well as the
hands. The most striking confirmation is afibrdcd by the fact that the fathers, writing at
a time when crucifixion was in use, speak of the piercing cf Jesus's feet as a matter of
coarse, without laying any stress upon it as necessary to fulfil Ps. xxii., 17. We cannot
enter into the inquiry at length, but will only allude to the passage in Tertullian so impor-
tant in reference to this question (Adv. Marcion., iii., 19). After citing " fade runt maitus
mens et pedes'' from the Psalm, he undertakes to show that it was fulfilled in the crucifixion
of Christ. The words immediately following, "qufe proprie atrocitas crucis," can mean
nothing else than that it was the piercing of the hands and feet which, on the whole, made
this punishment of death so terrible. He then speaks of the apices crvcis as belonging to
the cross in general, not Christ's in particular. Further, ho says that the Psalm cannot be
applicil to any other that had died as a martyr among the Jews; no man of God cxeejjt
Christ had suiFered this mode of death, " qui solus a popnlo tarn insignitcr criicijixns esC
(who suffered so marked a death by crucifixion — one otherwise unknown in the Old Testa-
THE TWO THIEVES. 419
according to a writer who lived while it was yet known and used,
consisted in the hanging of the body while the hands and feet were
nailed.)
§ 291. Christ Prays for his Enemies. — The Two Thieves.
When he was fastened to the cross, amid the jeers and scoffs of the
carnal multitude, He did not invoke the Divine judgments upon the
heads of those who had, returning evil for good, inflicted such terrible
tortures upon him ; on the contrary, with boundless love,* he com-
mended his enemies to the mercy of God, praying, " Father, forgive
them, for they know not what they do'"' (the ignorance of delusion,
though a guilty one).
Two criminals, of widely opposite dispositions, wei"e crucified with
him. While the one, hardened in sin, joined in mocking Christ, the
other rebuked him for so doing. Perhaps the men's offences had been
different ; the one may have been a common robber, the other a crim-
inal led away by the political passions that then excited the nation —
like the Sicarii,\ the tools of the hierarchy ; but on this question we
have no light. At any rate, one of them, roused to a sense of sin and
guilt, became susceptible of higher impressions. And the deeper his
consciousness that his own punishment was justly dae to his crimes, the
more deeply must he have been affected by the sufferings of the Holy
One beside him. Who can reckon the power of a Divine impression
upon a contrite soul — a soul freed from the bonds of sense by imme-
diate sufferings ]
It is at once a proof as well of the Divine life manifested by Christ
in the very face of death, as oi the religious susceptibility of the crim-
inal himself, that he, who bad perhaps before seen none of the proofs
of Christ's majesty, shouid have anticipated the faith even of Apostles ;
and this he did in tra-npHng upon Jewish prejudices, and recognizing
the Messiah in the sufferer. "Z/or^," said he, "remember me lohen
thou comcst into thy kingdom." The ansv/er of Christl is fiill of im-
port in more respects than one. In view of the sinner's faith, founded
on genuine repentance, he promises him bliss ; and in opposition to
the expectation that His kingdom was only to be founded in the future,
he promises him immediate bliss : " Verily, I say unto thee, to-day shalt
thou he with me in Paradise,"^
ment — defiuiug him, before all others, and fixing him alone as the one to whom the worjs
of the Psahn could be applied). Cf Hu^'s Dissertation, before cited; Hase's Leben Jesu,
§ 143. * Thus illustrating practically his precepts in the Sermon on the Mount.
t As Barabbas, Luke, xxiii., 19.
X Its contradiction to ordinary Jewish notions proves its originality.
§ A symbolical name for the regions of bliss.
422 THE RESURRECTION.
of Holies in heaven is opened to all men through the finished work of
Christ ; the wall of partition between the Divine and the Human
broken down ; and a spiritual worship substituted for an outward and
sensible one.
CHAPTER VHI.
THE RESURRECTION.
§ 294. Did Christ predict his Resurrection?
BEFORE describing the Resurrection, we must examine the ques-
tion whether Christ foresaw and predicted uiat event as well as
his sufferings.
It is true, we cannot prove, a priori, that he must necessarily have
foreknown the Resurrection. If he had had only a confident certainty
that the Holy Spii-it would continue to work in his disciples, unfolding
the truth He had taught them, and completing the training He had com-
menced, he might have left behind him his work on earth with calm
assurance of the future ; He need not necessarily have concluded that
his corporeal reappearance to his followers in so short a time must form
the link of connexion between his departure and the renewal of spir-
itual communion with them. Notwithstanding all this, however, the
close connexion of Christ's resurrection with his whole work as Re-
deemer must, in the outset, make it appear altogether improbable that
he should not have foreknown it.
"But if he looked forwai'd to, his resurrection with full confidence,
how can we account for his conflicts at the apprbach of death ?" Here
is the same enigma of the union of Divinity and Humanity which per-
vade the whole life of Christ, and is especially prominent at particular*
moments. Phenomena somewhat analogous appear in the coexisting
emotions of the Divine and the natural life in believers imbued with
the Spii'it of Christ. The consciousness, in Him, that death was but a
passage to his glorification did not prevent the strivings of nature with
Bufferings ; nor could the assurance of speedy resurrection save him
from the struggle. All that we can do is to distinguish the separate
moments of his consciousness ; remembering that faith is not one with
things. In the Evang. ad Hehrteos, it is related that a beam over the Temple-door broke
in two (superliminare lempli infinittE magniludinia fractuvi esse atqni divisum. See Hie-
ron. in Matt., xxvii., T)! ; torn, vii., pt. 1, p. 336, ed. Vallars) ; which might have been caused
by the earthcjuake. Cf., also, the statement cited from the Gcmara (in Hush's Dissertation
above mentioned), that the folding-doors of the Temple, though looked, suddenly hurst open
about 40 years before the dcstnictioD of Jerusalem. All these accounts hint at some fact
lying at the bottom of them.
DID CHRIST FOREKNOW IT? 423
intuition.* The sacrifice of Christ lost as little of its moral import by
the assurance of resurrection as does the self-sacrifice of the believer
who submits to the death-struggle in faith of a blissful life beyond.
But can it be proved that Christ fredicted his resurrection to the
disciples ] May they not, at a later period, have attributed such an
import to figurative expressions of his, like those in John, which, in
reality, only referred to his sjnritual manifestations to them ; as was
done with Matt., xii., 40, and John, ii., 19 ]
Even if we grant that this may have been the case with some of
Christ's expressions of the kind, it by no means follows that all the
intimations of the resurrection were applied in this way only at a later
period. The very fact that some of his sayings really did intimate it
may have led to the attributing of this meaning to others that did not.
In John, XX., 8, 9, we see an indication that the disciples, soon after
his death, began to call to mind what he had said concerning his resur-
rection, and hope began to struggle with fear in their souls. But John
has preserved to us one of Christ's sayings which plainly points to his
lesurrection, viz., x., 17, 18. It is obvious that the declaration, " IJiave
power to lay down my life, and 1 have foiocr to tahe it up again,'^ was
meant to imply something distinctive and peculiar to Christ; it is
entirely emasculated by being applied to that immortality which is
common to all men ; nor can it be satisfied except by reference to his
resurrection. There are passages in the synoptical Gospels {e.g., Matt.,
xvi., 21 ; Luke, ix., 22) in which Chiist expressly foretells his resurrec-
tion, along with his sufferings, specifying the precise interval of three
days ; but it is marvellous that these precise declarations should neither
have been understood nor made the subject of direct inquiry, often as
they were repeated. This appears unhistorical ; indeed, it is a thing
to be looked for that tradition would give to such expressions, after
the event, when their bearing was better understood, a more precise
form than they really had at first. In John's Gospel all Christ's inti-
mations are distant and indefinite, as is usual in prophecy ; and this is
one of the proofs of its genuine Apostolic origin.
§ 295. Dejection of the Apostles immediately after Christ's Death. —
Their Joy and Activity at a later Period. — The Reappearance of
Christ necessary to explain the Change.
The death of Christ annihilated at a stroke the Messianic expecta-
tions of the Apostles. Their dejection was complete. But if, of all
that they had hoped, nothing was ever realized, this dejection could
not have passed away. It is true, we may suppose it abstractly pos-
sible that, after the first consternation was over, the deep, spiritual
* Christ is represented, Heb., xii., 2, as leading the way for believers, by himself reach-
ing his glory through a perfectly tried faith.
424 THE RESURRECTION.
impressions which Christ had made might have revived, and operated
more powerfully, and even more purely, now that they could no longer
see him with their bodily eyes. But this view could not arise except
along with the recognition of a historical Christ as the personal ground
and cause of such a new spiritual creation ; without the presupposition
of such a Christ there is no possible foundation on which to conceive
of such after- workings.
And even %cWt it, we cannot explain (not bare conceivable possibili-
ties, but) the actual state of the case, viz., the dejection of the Apostles
;\X.Jirst, and what they were and did afterward. There must be some
intermediate historical fact to explain the ti-ansition ; something must
have occurred to revive, with new power, the almost effaced impres-
sion ; to bring back the flow of their faith which had so far ebbed
away. The reappearance, then, of Christ among his disciples is a
connecting link in the chain of events which cannot possibly be spared.
It acted thus : Their sunken faith in his promises received a new im-
pulse when these promises wei'e repeated by Him, risen from the
dead ; his reappearance formed the point of contact for a new spir-
itual communion with him, never to be dissolved, nay, thenceforward
to be developed ever more and more. According to their own unvary-
ing asseverations, it wa^ the foundation of their immovable faith in
his person, and in himself as Messiah and Son of God, as well as of
their steadfast hope, in his communion, of a blissful, everlasting life,
triumphing over death. Without it they never could have had that in-
spiring assurance of faith with which they every where testified of what
they had received, and joyfully submitted to tortures and to death.
§ 296. Was the Reappeara7ice of'Christ a Vision ?
If, then, it be the task of history to connect the course of events, the
reappearance of Christ must be recognized as an essential link in the
chain which brought about the spiritual renovation of the life of human-
ity. Without it, the historical inquirer will always have an inexplica-
ble enigma to solve. But reason, which demands this connexion of
events, feels itself — until it has obtained a higher light by faith — re-
pelled by a supernatural event, not to be explained from the connexion
itself. And the inquirer who does not recognize (as we felt ourselves
compelled to do at the outset) the whole manifestation of Christ as
supernatural, must set himself to the task of finding some natural expla-
nation of his reappearance, in the connexion of cause and effect.
Those who attempt such an explanation on internal grounds sup-
pose Christ's reappearance to have been a vision. Now in any vision
(other than magical, aiid such are precluded by the hypothesis of this
inquiry, which goes upon natural and historical grounds) a psycholog-
ical starting-point is necessarily presupposed, even when the vision is
REALITY OF CHRIST'S DEATH. 425
said to be seen by one individual, much more when it is repeatedly
seen, in the same way, by different individuals. But no such startino^-
point can be found in the mental condition of the Apostles, such as it
has been described. It is precisely in order to explain the change in
that condition that we need another cause. How is it possible to de-
rive from the psychological developement itself a condition precisely its
contrary] That were indeed q. j^ctitio 2>i'incipii.
Moreover, the very nature of the Evangelical nan-atives, bearing, as
they do, the stamp of sensible reality, subverts such a hypothesis.
And to these must be added the concurrent testimony of a contempo-
rary, who himself came forward within a very few years as a witness
for the reality of Christ's resurrection, whose personality lies before
us, in his letters, in all the ti'aits of undeniable historical reality, and
whose convictions, founded on that resurrection, gave him power to
encounter cheerfully all perils, labours, and sufferings — the Apostle
Paul. And Paul bears witness that Christ appeared to more than
five hundred at one time.*
§ 297. Was Christ's a real Death ?
If the inquirer still perseveres in rejecting every thing supernatural,
he must have recourse to external grounds for the explanation of
Christ's reappearance, and deem it a revival from apparent death,
brought about by the use of natui'al means.
It may be admitted, inasmuch as crucifixion was not immediately
fatal, that one who had endured its torture for several hours might be
restored by careful medical aid ; although it certainly was not an easy
thing to do, as the examples mentioned by Josephust testify. But let
us, without inquiring for other signs of death in the case of Jesus, no-
tice the following points. Before his crucifixion, he had endured mul-
tiplied sufferings, both of soul and body ; he had been scoui-ged ; he
was so worn out on the way to Golgotha that he could not carry his
cross, and even the Roman soldiers had pity on him ; he was nailed
to the cross by his hands and feet; he had remained from noon till
towards evening| in this painful position, under the rays of a burning
* 1 Cor., XV., 6.
t In his autobiography, $ 75. He had been sent, with a troop of Roman horse, to the
village of Tekoah, four or five hours distant, to reconnoitre. Jerome, living in Bethlehem,
writes of this village, "Thecoam viculum esse in monte situm et duodecim millibus ab
Jerosolymis separatum, quotidie oculis cernimus" (t. iv., pt. i., p. 882). Returning from the
village to Jerusalem, Josephus saw several prisoners hanging on crosses, who must have
been crucified in the interim, as he had not seen them in going out. On arriving at camp,
he begged of Titus the lives of three, and had them at once taken down (after hanging,
therefore, but a few hours), and treated, medically, with the utmost care; yet but one out
of the three survived. (Cf. Brelschneider's remarks on this account, Stud., u. Krit., 1832,
iii. ; also. Hug, Freiburg. Zeit.'!chrift, No. vii., 148.)
X A close computation of the hours cannot be arrived at from the Evangelical accounts.
It is hardly to be supposed that even the disciples who were eye-witnesses were able,
under the circumstances, to note the precise time.
426 THE RESURHECTION.
sun ; he took leave of the world in the struggles of death ; his side was
pierced* by the lance of a Roman soldier ; and, after all this, he re-
mained two nights and a day in a fresh grave. Yet, without medical
aid or attendance, ilie same man walks about on a sudden among his
disciples, apparently in sound health and full of vital power ! Had
he appeared among them sick and suffering, as he must have done had
he been restored by natural means from apparent death, such a sight
could not have revived their sunken faith, or become the foundation
for all their hopes. A weak man would have reappeared, subject to
death like any other. But, on the contrary, he seemed to them so
much more like a glorified being that he had to give them sensible
proofs of his humanity. He appeared to them thenceforth as one
over whom death had no power ; and, therefore, became a pledge that
the life of man should conquer death and enjoy forever a glorified ex-
istence.
Even if all this could be made to agree with a restoration of Christ
by natural means from apparent death, we should have further to sup-
pose either that his life was subsequently prolonged for some time, or
that he died soon after in consequence of his wounds and sufferings.
The former supposition is a mere fancy ; there is no possible ground
for it in history ; the latter is contradicted by the facts of his reappear-
ance ; there was no cause of death apparent. And the very fact of
his dying would have destroyed all the moral effect of his resurrection,
which consisted solely in the conviction wrought by it that he, as Mes-
* I make the following remarks with reference to John, xix., 31, to guard against the
interpolations placed in this passage by a profane vulgarity, which reads John's Gospel as
it would a police report. The suffnngcre. crura was indeed an ignominious pauishment,
particularly used as a capital punishment for slaves ; but it certainly was not immediately
fatal. (After the hands were cut off, the legs broken, and the body maimed in various
ways, the criminals were thrust into a pit, still alive : KoXcfiuio-aiTEf ^f km cvvrpiipavTCi ru
cKih}, h-i ?u^'^Gf cpptij.ai' £^5 Tiva ra-ppov. Polyb., i., c. 80, § 13.) The death-blow was after-
ward given in some other way. Hence (Ammian. Marcellin., Hist., xiv., 9) it is expressly
added, " fractis crnribus, occidnnlur." The soldiers, having completed the effractio crv-
ruin on the two malefactors that were crucified with Jesus, either gave them the death-
blow or permitted them, after being taken down, to perish slowly from their broken limbs.
But, as no signs of life could be seen in Jesus, they saw no necessity to execute the com-
mand, which was given solely under the presuj)position that crucifixion could not kill s<)
soon. Nor was this at all strange ; all that was demaaded was that the crucifixion should
have done its work effectually. They deemed it enough, therefore, to tlinjst the lance into
his side, either to assure themselves that he was dead, or to give him the death-blow. It
would have been a bad manoeuvre, indeed, to do this as a mere pretence, with the inten
tion to save him. Although the word vvrrav may denote a slight wound, its meaning (as
denoting a severe wound) is fixed by the weapon employed; and, moreover, John uses it
as synonymous with ikkivtcXv, v. 37. The wonnd could not have been a small one, as Christ
afterward called on the disciples to thrust their hands into it. And there are other instan-
ces in which we read of the denth-blow being given by piercing the side with a lauce ;
two martyrs, Marcus and Marcellianus, had remained a day and a night tied to a stake, to
which their feet were nailed, ju.tsit pra-fcclus ambos, ubi stabant, lanccis per kitcra perfo-
ran (Acta Sauct., Juu., t. iii., f. 571).
REALITY OF CHRIST'S DEATH. 427
eiah, had conquered death, and was no more subject to its power.
Moreover, if it be true that Christ's sufferings caused his death, he is
chargeable with grossly deceiving the disciples to present his body to
them in a higher light, and thereby give an impulse to their faith which
it could not otherwise have obtained. And so that great fact which
formed the immovable basis of the disciples' faith in Christ's person
and work, and in his plan of salvation, on which rests the whole fabric
of the Christian Church, must have gained its high import from an ac-
tual deception on the part of Christ himself, or at least from an inten-
tional concealment of the truth !
Had the Jewish opponents of the Gospel made use of this hypothe-
sis to invalidate the proof of Divinity which the disciples derived from
Christ's reappearance, and circulated it freely, it would neither be mat-
ter of surprise nor ground of suspicion. But the fact that they did
not make use of any such hypothesis, but employed any and every
other means to invalidate the Christian faith, is a powerful proof that
there was nothing in the circumstances of Christ's death to favour
such an explanation. Of a totally diiferent character was the report,
so easily diflflised,* that the disciples had found means to remove the
body from the grave. The invention and circulation of such a report
was most natural ; the empty grave was a proof that must be invalida-
ted. But, on the other hand, there is not a vestige of proof that the
Jews, presupposing the accounts of Christ's reappearance to be true,
ever reported that he had been revived from a merely apparent death:
on the contrary, the truth of those accounts was the object of attack
from the very first. The opponents of Christianity declared that the
disciples either intentionally deceived others, or were themselves de-
ceived ; e. g., Celsus, who made great use of the attacks of the Jews
upon Christianity and the fables they spread abroad concerning it.
And in this connexion it was that the accusation of stealing away the
body was brought against the disciples ; they did it, it was said, to nul-
lify the evidence of the corpse against their pretence\ that Christ had
risen and reappeared to them. Paul did not find it necessary to prove
that Christ had really died ; this was taken for granted ; his task was
to show that he had risen from the dead (1 Cor., xv.).|
* Matt., xxvili., 15. We cannot mistake the ailditions of tradition to the original facts.
Dial. c. Tryph. Jud., f. 335, ed. Colon, and tlie extracts by Eif:enmeng-er, i., 192.
t L. C, Justin Mart. : " Tt'Kavuiai tovs avdpdvovi AtyovreS lyrjyipOai."
t Bat I must believe, contrary to some of tlie latest interpreters, that John (xix., 34), as
an eye-witness, meant to prove that Christ was really dead, from the nature of the blood
that flowed from the wound. Ver. 35 certainly refers to ver. 34, and not to ver. 36, 37.
Althoush John, in these last verses, referred to the Old Testament prophecy, it docs not
follow that he made it the seal of faith (v. 34), particularly /o7- his readers, who were not sucli
as to be led to faith from arguments founded in Judaism. These verses are added to show
that what had taken place was conformed to a higher necessity. It appears, then, that John
thought it necessarj' to prove that Christ had really died. It docs not follow, however, that
428 THE RESURRECTION.
§ 298. The liesiirrection intended only for Believers.
The manifestation of the risen Saviour was only designed for those
who had been brought to faith by his jjrevious ministry. It was not
one of the miracles by which unbelievers were to be convinced. Those
whose dispositions of heart had made them unsusceptible of impres-
sion from his whole ministry would have received, for the same reason,
but transient impressions from his reappearance. If the living Jesus
could not lead them to repent, neither would they have been persuaded
by one risen from the dead.*
The reappearance of the risen one, therefore, was designed to seal
and confirm the faith of such as already believed ; to form the point of
transition from their sensible communion with the visible Christ to their
spiritual fellowship with the invisible, but ever-present Saviour. And
as this was the reason why Chiist did not, in his last promises recorded
by John, make expi'ess mention of his reappearance as a preparatory
moment, so we shall find in his conversations with the disciples after
the resurrection conspicuous allusions to the promises made before.
Here, too, we find the reason why he only appeared to them occasion-
ally, and remained among them but a short time ; they were not to ac-
custom themselves anew to cleave to his visible manifestation, but to
learn that his reappearance was to mediate a higher and everlasting
union.t
§ 299. The Women, Peter, and John at the Grave.
We now proceed to a brief statement of the details of the resur-
rection.
On Sunday morning, the second day of Easter, Mary of Magdalene,
with certain other women, came to the tomb, and found the stone re-
moved. They began to fear that the body had been taken away, and
that they should see it no more. Mary, in alarm, ran to seek for John
and Peter ; the other women afterward went to other of the Apostles.
Peter and John hastened to the tomb. John, in anxious haste, antici-
pated Peter. Looking down into the tomb, and seeing the shroud de-
he had in view any definite opponents who denied that fact. As he intended to testify to
the resurreciioii, it was necessary tliat he should testify to the death, especially for readers
who were not believers ; in view of the well-knowo fact that crucifixion, endured for a few
hours, was not in itself always fatal. If he had definite opponents in view, they were
probably (con'espoudiug to John's sphere of labour) heathens, and not Jews.
* Luke, xvi., 31 ; cf p. 136, 322.
t I agree with De IVette, against Lucke, that John, xx., 30, docs not refer to other ap-
pearances of ChrLst after the resurrection not mentioned by John, but that it is intended as
a word of conclusion to his whole Gospel. This is supported by the whole form of the ex-
pression, and by the use of the words arjixtia ttoiuv, which cannot mean any thing but " to
work miracles." The phrase cviimuv rdiv liaOiinov proves nothing to the contrary ; the Apos-
tles were eyewitnesses of Christ's whole ministry ; and John wrote his Gospel as one of
these eye-witnesses.
APPEARANCES OF CHRIST. 429
cently disposed, but no corpse there, he started back in consternation.
Peter, taking courage, descended into the tomb ; John followed ; and,
now convinced that the body was not there, called to mind* the inti-
mations which Christ had givent of his resurrection, and faith began to
spring up in his soul.
§ 300. Christ appears to the Women at the Tomb; to Manj ; to the
two Disciples on the Way to Eminaus.
During the absence of the Apostles, Christ appeared first to the two
women who had gone away ; and they, filled with joy, surprise, fear,
and reverence, fell before him and embraced his feet. But he spoke
to them encouragingly : " Be not afraid.'''' All that he said was en-
couraging and cheering ; and in bidding them announce his resurrec-
tion to the Apostles, he spoke of them as " hrctlirenr\
He then appeared to Mary, who had remained at the tomb oppressed
with anxiety and grief Seeing him so unexpectedly, in the morning
twilight, she did not at first recognize him. But when he called her
by name, she knew at once the well-accustomed voice. With an
exclamation of joy she turned and (probably) stretched out her hands
towards him. But Jesus bade her not to grasp him : " Touch me not,
for I am not yet ascended to my Father ; hut go to my hrcthrcn, and
say mito thevi, ' I ascend icnto my Father and your Father, to my God
and your God.' "§ This obscure saying obviously refers to the last
discourses reported by John, and cannot be understood apart from
them. We know he had promised the disciples that, after ascending
to the Father, he would return and remain with them forever. Now
he had returned ; and they might deem this to be the return which he
had promised, and expect him to remain with them thenceforth in the
same form. He cautioned them against so misunderstanding the
promise as to cleave to him in the form in which he then appeared,
because he had not " yet ascended to the Father." After that event,
when he should manifest himself as the glorified one, were they to
embrace him wholly ; obviously not in a natural, but in a spiritual
*' The word hiarivntv (John, xx., 8) mast be refen'cd to a previous fortelling of tlie fes-
uiTection by Christ himself, in acconiance with John's usage of the idea of "belief," as
Lucke has admitted (Commentar, 'i\^ Aufl.). The sense of the passage is as follows : The
disciples needed such an outward sign to revive their faith in Christ's predictions of his
resurrection ; for they were not as yet penetrated by the conviction that Jesus, as Mes-
siah, had necessarily to rise in order to accomplish the Messianic woi-k according to the
prophecies of Scripture. Had they been, they would have needed no such external per-
ception. (Cf. Liicke's excellent remarks on the passage.) t Cf p. 423.
i Matt., xxviii., 10.
6 The word a-KTuOai (John, xx., 17) means not only a momentary' touching, but to seize,
to grasp. It can, al.so, be applied to the embracing of an object that one intends to retain
hold of; and of the beginning of a continued occupation with any subject.
430 THE RESURRECTION,
sense.* His stay in liis then form was to be but transient ; only after
his ascension could he remain permanently, and that in another form.t
Therefore, he did not commission Mary to announce his sensible com-
ing, but his ascension to the Father, and his subsequent revelation to
them ; making no mention of the intermediate and brief manifestation
that was only to prepare the way for the higher and permanent one.
The words " my brethren, my Father, my God, your God," served to
remind them of the promise in his last discourses, viz., that they,
through Him, should enter into a special relation to the Father, whom
He, in a sense peculiarly his own, could call " His Father" and " His
God ;" that they should, in communion with Him, recognize the Fa-
ther also as " their Father" and " their God," and, therefore, have full
confidence that He would come to them with the Father.
Two disciples| (not of the number of the Apostles§) were going in
the afternoon to, the village of Emmaus, about a mile from Jerusalem.
They had heard that the body was not found in the grave, and of what
the women had seen before Christ appeared to them ; but had not yet
learned that he had risen and appeared. As they walked they con-
versed, in sorrow, of what had occurred; of the expectations they had
cherished that Jesus should be the Messiah to redeem the people
of God ; of the failure of their hopes, and their uncertainty as to the
future. Absorbed in this conversation, they were joined by Jesus. He
took part in their conversation, expounded the Scriptures relating to
himself, and pointed out the errors into which they had fallen. Under
the power of his words their hearts burned within them, and new an-
ticipations dawned upon their souls. But still they did not recognize
the speaker, either because the thoughts he uttered withdrew their at-
tention from his person ; or because they could not suppose that He
should fi,rst appear to ilicm ; or, finally, because of a change in his per-
son. Not until, as they sat at meat, he pronounced the blessing, broke
the bread, and gave it to them, did they discern Him who had sat so
often with them at table. Although the lateness of their recognition
may appear strange, the time of it — just at the repetition of an accus-
tomed habit — is entirely natural. There is not even a mystical feature
about it, in itself considered ; although we may perhaps trace, in the
way in which lie made himself known, an allusion to the promise given
* If the passage only meant, "Delay not hei'e with nie, hut go," we might expect w^w
yap ava^aivia instead of ovt,us yup aviiScSriKa.
t It is dear that the i>as.sage contains no proof that Christ ascended to heaven immedi-
ately after his conversation with Mary. Even with this view (since it cannot be supposed
that he would have bnmglit from heaven a body that could be physically touched) the
iiTTiaOai, after his reappearance fi-om heaven, would have to be taken in a higher sense.
t Luke, xxiv., 13. $ And, therefore, Paul does not mention the occurrence.
APPEARANCES OF CHRIST. 431
at the Last Supper, that he would always be as truly with them in their
common meals as he was on that occasion.
§ 301. Christ appears to Peter ; and to the rest of the Apostles, except
Thomas. — The " Breathing''' upon the Apostles.
The two disciples, on returning to the city, found that Christ had
appeai'ed in the mean time to the Apostle Peter.* In the evening of
the same day, the Apostles, Thomas excepted, were assembled with
closed doorSjt when Christ suddenly appeared in their midst, with the
usual salutation, " Peace be unto you''' — a salutation which, from Jiis
lips, had a peculiar significance.! To prove that he was present in
body, he showed them the wounds in his hands, feet,§ and side. In
taking leave of them, he said, " Peace be tmto you. As my Father
hath sent me, even so send I you." Thus, while announcing to them
the peace of fellowship with him, he consecrated them as messengers
of peace to all mankind.
He then " breathed" upon them — a symbol of the inspiration they
were to receive from heaven, to fit them to preach his Gospel and pro-
claim foi'giveness of sins in his name.|| Here, again, he obviously in-
tended to impress vividly upon their minds the promises given in his
last discourses.
Christ, having thus given a sign of the bestowing of the Divine
" breath" — the Divine life proceeding from him — added, in explana-
tion, " Receive ye the Holy Ghost'' The hearts of the disciples w^ere
prepared for this by the reappearance of Christ and his words to them ;
and the symbolical act, recalling the predictions of his last discoiu'ses
in regard to the imparting of the Spirit, must have impressed them
profoundly. The higher life received from Christ had before been
covered and dormant ; now, perhaps, a new consciousness of it arose
within them. Still the full sense of the sign and of the words was far
* Lnke, xxiv., 33, 34 ; 1 Cor., xv., 5.
t Luke, xxiv., 36; 1 Cor., xv., 5. Paul says he " was seen of the twelve ; but this term
might be used even though one of the number were wanting ; the point was, Christ's ap-
pearance to the Apostles as a body. The word " twelve" was the common designation of
the Apostles ; the number was a subordinate point. Perhaps even Paul did not recur at
the time to the absence of one of the number. % John, xiv., 27. Cf. p. 398.
§ It may be the case that, in Luke's account, this scene is intermingled with that which
took place eight days later in presence of Thomas. He relates the proof of corporeitj' given
by Christ in tasting food with the disciples, which John, who does not appear to give fall
details, may have omitted, or, perhaps, mentioned in another connexion, John, xxi., 13.
Hut these are unimportant points.
II In Luke, xxiv., 47, 48, we find a fuller developement — John gives it more in a sj'mbol-
ical form. " The promise of my Father" (Luke, xxiv., 49) seems to allude to Joel, iii., 1 ;
but a comparison with Acts, i., 4, leads us to refer it to a promise given by Christ in the
Father's name ; hence to the last discourses recorded by John. VA. Luke, xii., IS ; and
p. 395.
432 THE RESURRECTION.
from being realized. Not as yet were they the mighty organs of that
Spirit for the diffusion of the kingdom of God. The act, therefore,
was in ipart prophetical.
But it was something more than a sign or symbol ; a Divine opera-
tion accompanied it. It formed a link of connexion between the prom-
ise of the Spirit and its fulfilment ; between the impressions which
Christ's personal intercourse had made upon the Apostles, and the
great fact which we designate as " the outpouring of the Holy Ghost."
The operation of the promised Spirit on the disciples must be consid-
ered, it is true, as a progressive, gradually increasing influence — a new
inspiring- principle of their whole nature, in all its powers and tenden-
cies. But we must believe, according to the analogy of all religious
historical developement, that thei'e was a moment, forming an epoch, in
which the consciousness of the common higher life, and of the new
creation of which Christ was the origin, broke forth with peculiar
power in a oreneral inspiration of the first Christian congiegations.
All great religious movements set out from such actual epoch-making
moments ; although, indeed, gradual preparatory stages must always
oe presupposed.
§ 302. Christ appears to Jive hundred Believers ; to his Brother James ;
to the Apostles, Thomas included. — His Conversation with Thomas.
Christ next appeared to more than five hundred disciples, assembled
m one place ; and then to his brother James.* And on Sunday, eight
days after his first appearance among the living, he again showed him-
self to the j^postles unawares, while they Avere assembled with closed
doors. Thomas was now among them; the same Thomas who on a
former occasion had displayed his peculiar character in an expression
* 1 Cor., XV., 7. No specific description of '• James" being triven by Paul in this pas-
sage, it was, in all probability, James the Jast. as he was called, tbe brother of our Lord.
This appearance of Christ is mentioned in the Evang. ad Hebrce/js (translated by Jerome) :
bat apparently as his first appearance ; for it goes on, " After Jesus had eiven the shrond
to tbe servant of the high-priest he went to James." Perhaps this arose partly from the
high rank assigned to James by the sect among whom this Gospel arose, and partJy from
the fabnlons circumstances that are given in the account, of the following sort : " James
had made a vow, after partaking of the bread given by Christ at the Last Supper, that he
would eat no more tmtil he had seen Jesus risen from the dead. Jesus, coming to him.
had a taVile with bread brought out. blessed the bread, and gave it to James, with the
vrords, ' Eat thy bread now, my brother, since the Son of Man has risen from the dead' "
(Hieron. de Viris Illast.. c. ii.). Mark the contrast between the objective tone of the tradi-
tions that form the base of the synoptical Gospels, and this tradition of a part}- that owed
its origin to an alloying doctrinal element, remodelling the facts to serve a subjective
purpose. Another and striking contrast is, that our Gospels (and Paul following themi
make Christ appear only to believers, for reasons explained in our text. Had they aimed
to make the testimony as strong as possible, without regard to truth, they would have
represented him as appearing also to bis opponents. The statement above cited from
Evans- ad Hebr., of his appearing to a ser\-ant of the high-priest, conflicts with the whole
import and object of his resurrection.
APPEARANCES OF CHRIST. 433
of doubt. Christ's appearance, and the way in which he reproached
the doubting Thomas, impressed the latter with so powerful and over-
whelming a sense of the Divinity that beamed forth in the manifesta-
tion of the risen Saviour, that he addressed him by a title which had
been ascribed to him, so far as we know, by none of the disciples :
" My Lord and my God^ We are not justified in ascribing to Thomas,
whose immediate impressions impelled him to this exclamation, a fully-
formed theory of doctrine ; yet how mighty a cause must have been at
work to induce a man trained in the common opinions of the Jews to
use such a title !*
Christ then said to Thomas, " 'Because thou hast seen me, thou hast
believed; Messed are they who have not seen, and yet have believed."
We must endeavour to unfold the rich import of these words. Christ'
does not refuse the title given to him by Thomas. He acknowledges his
exclamation as an expression of the true faith. The words " believed"
and " believe" cannot be confined solely to Christ's resurrection ; they
refer to his person and work in general, and to the resurrection only
as one necessary element thereof. But the words of Christ also re-
proved Thomas for needing a visible sign in order to believe. It was
implied in them that the long personal intercourse of Thomas with
Christ, and his faith in Jesus as the Son of God and as superior to death,
should have been enough to overcome his doubts — and, on this foun-
dation, he should have found the statements of Christ's reappearance,
given him by the others, any thing but incredible.t His faith should
have arisen from within, not waited for a summons from without.
And, on the other hand, Christ assigns a higher place to those who arc
led to faith, without such visible proofs, by his spiritual self-manifesta-
tion in the preacl^ng of the Gospel — a faith arising inwardly from im-
pressions made upon a wiUing mind.| His words implied that, in all
after time, faith would be impossible, if there were no other way of
passing from unbelief to belief except by sensible signs of assurance.
The passage is strikingly illustrative of the process by which faith is
developed. It contains the ground and reason why the Gospel history
had to be handed d,oion precisely in a form which could not but give oc-
casion for man fold doubts to the human understanding, when it conducts
its inqtiiries apart from the religious consciousness and religious wants.
* Or, are we to suppose that John involuntarily remodelled the words of Thomas, in ac-
cordance with his own views ? Certainly not. Nowhere, in John's accounts, do the dis-
ciples speak out of character. Least of all could he have attributed to one like Thomas
more than he uttered. On the contrarj', such an expression, coming from a Thomas, would,
for that veiy reason, impress itself more strikingly upon the minds of the disciples. It is
not difficult, therefore, to account for the precision with which John records the expression.
t Christ's reproof; perhaps, referred also to the intimations he had given of his approach-
ing resurrectioii. { Cf. p. 138, 139.
Ee
434 THE RESURRECTION.
§ 303. ClirisVs Appearances in Galilee ; to the Seven on the Sea of Ge-
nesareth. — The Draught of Fishes. — The Conversation with Peter.
We must now briefly compare the narrative of Matthew, which re-
ports Christ's appearances to the disciples in Galilee alone, with that
of the other Gospels*
As Matthew's Gospel records particularly the events of Christ's
ministry, of which Galilee was the theatre, it might be imagined that,
for that reason, the theatre of his appearances after the resurrection
was also, in that Gospel, unintentionally transferred to Galilee ; this
view would ascribe to the tradition inaccuracy as to localities, but not
as to the facts themselves. But Matthew coincides most accurately, in
this particular, with the account appended to John's Gospel (ch. xxi.) ;
in which it is stated that the disciples soon retired to Galilee, where
Christ reappeared to them. As for internal probability, it is not
likely that they remained in the city, in the midst of Christ's ene-
mies, but rather that they returned to their own land, where dwelt
most of Christ's followers and friends. Nor is there any thing impossi-
ble in Matthew's statement that Christ bade them return for a season
to Galilee, where he could have quiet and undisturbed intercourse
with them. Their return thither being once admitted as natural in it-
self, it would naturally follow that Christ should appear often in order
to prevent them from forgetting their high calling amid the cares of
life ; and, what was most important, to repeat to them the promise
(before given at Jerusalem) of the gift of the Holy Ghost, to fit them
for the duties of that calling.
Seven of the disciplest were fishing in the Sqa of Genesareth.
During the whole night they caught nothing. Early in the morning
Jesus appeared and asked them, kindly, as was his wont, " Children,
have ye any meat V When they replied in the negative, he bade them
cast the net anew on the right side of the vessel. John was the first to
recognize the voice of Jesus. The hasty Peter could not wnit until
the vessel reached the shore, but swam over.
After the repast, Christ gently reminded Peter of his promise, p,o
precipitately made, and so soon broken : " Lovest thou me more than
these ?" Peter replied, " Yea, Lord, thou hnowest that I love thee.'"'
* With regard to Paul's statements (1 Cor., xv.), it is probable that be mentioned flie
appearances of Christ to the Apostles (as more extensively known) np to a certain period,
especially his first appearances at Jerasalcm, and stopped short; it being unimportant for
bis purpose to give a complete enumeration, adding only the manifestation 'which he him-
self received. Another explanation, however, might be given.
t John, xxi. The account in this chapter was, in all probability, received from John's
own lips, and written down, after his death, by one of his disciples. There is no ground
to question its credibility as a whole.
CHRIST'S LAST APPEARANCE. 435
Then said Christ, '■^ Feed my lambs* (prove your love by acts)." On
Christ's third repetition of the question, Peter felt its force, and ex-
claimed, in grief, "Lord, thou Jcnov;est all things; thou knowest that I
love thee.^' The Saviour again repeated the injunction, " Feed my
lambs ;'' and added, as a proof of confidence in Peter's fidelity, that
at some future time he would have to sacrifice his life in the faithful
discharge of his calling.
§ 304. Christ ajypears in Galilee for the last Time. — The Commission
of the Apostles.
In his final appearance among the disciples in Galilee (Matt,, xxviii.,
18), Christ reminded them anew of their calling, viz., to preach the
Gospel to all nations ; and to admit the men of all nations, by baptism,
into his communion and discipleship. And he assured them that all
power was given to him, in heaven and in earth, to establish the king-
dom of God victoriously ; and that he would be with his own, even
until the consummation of that kingdom.!
§ 305. Christ ajjpears for the last Time near Je/usaleyn, on the Mount
of Olives.
The minds of the disciples were eagerly directed to the feast in com-
memoration of the giving of the Law of the Old Covenant (Pentecost);
the new relation established between God and man naturally connected
itself with the idea of the old. It was a reasonable expectation that at
this feast the promise of the Holy Spirit, by which they were to be
* Refen-inj cither to the preaching of the Gospel in treneral, or in particular to the
supervision of the first congregations, inasmuch as Peter, especially, had the %api(T//a
t The subsequent scruples of the disciples to go among the heathen do not prove that
they had not received this commission. These scruples turned upon the single point of
admitting the heathen without a previous conversion to Judaism. Some suppose that the
naming of " Father, Son, and Holy Ghost" in connexion with baptism (v. 19) is foreign to
the passage, and was derived from later ecclesiastical language. But that expression,
coming from the lips of Christ, was precisely fitted to betoken the peculiar nature of the
new communion and worship, with reference to his earlier teaching, and especially to his
last discourses preserved by John ; for every thing there refers to the Father, as revealed
by the Son; to the Spirit, proceeding from the Father and imparted by the Son; to com-
munion with the Father, through the Son, in the Spirit of Divine life imparted by him. It
is possible that these words were not at first considered as a formula to be adhered to
rigidly in baptism, and that the rite was performed (the essential being made prominent)
with reference to Christ's name alone; and that only at a later period it was thought that
the weirds constituted a literal and necessary fonn. It is undeniable that this account does
not bear so distinct a historical stamp as other nan-atives of Christ's reappearance ; it is
possible that several occurrences, on separate occasions, were taken together and trans-
ferred to Galilee. The fact that Matthew represents Christ as reappearing to his disciples
only in Galilee, while Luke and Paul testify to the contrary, may help us to decide upon
the synoptical accounts of Christ's ministry up to the time of his last journey to Jerusalem,
the theatre of which, also, they place in Galilee. This is another testimony in favour of
John's account.
436 THE ASCENSION.
made powerful organs of their Divine Master, would be fulfilled. They
went to Jerusalem a week before the time of the feast. As they were
walking to the Mount of Olives, just forty days after Christ's first ap-
pearance, they were joined by Christ, and he repeated the promise for
the last time.
Still cleaving to their worldly Messianic hopes, they asked the
Saviour whether he intended then to found his kingdom in its glory
(Acts, i., 6). In reply, he declared, as he had always done during his
life on earth, *' It is not for you to Icnow the times or the seasons, which
the Father hath put in his own poiccr.'" It was enough (he told them)
for them to know their own calling in reference to the kingdom of
God, and how they were to obtain power to fulfil it, viz., by receiving
the Holy Ghost. With this last reply, and this last promise, he was
removed from their eyes.
CHAPTER IX.
THE ASCENSION.
§ 306. Connexion of the Ascension toith the Resurrection.
WE come now to treat of the Ascension of Christ — a close of
Christ's ministry on earth corresponding to its beginning.
It must not be thought that the essential feature of the ascension is
vouched for only by Luke. It would rest on firm grounds, even apart
from the particular form in which it is represented in Luke ; nay, even
if there were not a word about it either in his Gospel or in the Acts.
That essential feature is, that Christ did not f ass from his earthly exist-
ence to a higher through natural death, hut in a svpernatiiral way ; i. e.,
that he was removed from this globe, and from the conditions of earthly
life, to a higher region of existence in a way not conformed to the or-
dinaiy laws of corporeal existence or to be explained by them. This
fact is as certain as his resurrection ; both must stand or fall together.
Either the resurrection itself must be denied ; or it must be considered
as a mere natural recovery from a transitory suspension of the powers
of life (both which hypotheses we have shown to be untenable) ; or
such a termination of his life on earth as we have just defined, must be
inevitably admitted.
Although obscurity rests,* to a great extent, upon the nature of the
* We deem it better to acknowledge a problem unsolved than to give attempts at so-
lution, on the one side or the other, which will not satisfy a clear thinker. Certainly we
over-estimate our knowledi^e of the laws of the creation not a little, when we deem onr-
selves authorized to deny the reality of a phenomenon, simply because we cannot explain
it satisfactorily. Tliere are more things between, heaven and earth than our philosophic
may dream of.
THE ASCENSION. 437
existence ofClirist on eaitli after his resurrection, and upon the nature
of die corporeal organism with which he rose from the dead ; still, this
much is certain, that the fundamental conception, on which all the rep-
resentations of the New Testament are founded, exhibits the resurrec-
tion only as the means of transition from the form of his earthly being,
whose close was his death, to a higher form of personal existence su-
perior to death; as the beginning of a new life which was not to be,
as the former, subject to the laws of a corporeal, earthly organism, but
was destined for an imperishable developement. When Paul declared
(Rom., vi., 9, 10) that Clu'ist, risen from the dead, should die no more,
because death had no dominion over him ; when he opposed this res-
urrection (2 Cor., xiii., 4) as the commencement of a life in Divine
power^ to his earlier life in human weakness through which he v>'as
made subject to death, he only gave utterance to a conviction that was
common to all the eye-witnesses of the resurrection. The mode of
Christ's reappearance had made the same impression upon them all.
And the resurrection had necessarily to be considered as the I'estora-
tion from death, in a higher form, of his personal existence (consisting
of the union of body and soul, not subject thereafter to death, but des-
tined for an unbroken eternity of life), in order to become the founda-
tion of belief in an eternal life of the glorified human personality, to
spring out of death ; in order to be \\\ei fact on which this faith (as a
historically-grounded belief) could be established. The restoration of
an earthly life from death, afterward to be developed according to ordi-
nary laws, and to terminate in death, would, in this respect, have been
of no value.
§ 307. The Ascension necessary for the Conviction of the Apostles.
Moreover, the resurrection of Christ, considered as a histoncal link
in the psychological developement of the Apostles (which cannot be
explained, as we have shown, unless the resurrection is taken foi^ grant-
ed), loses its true significance in this regard, if Chi'ist were removed
from the earth in any other than a supernatural way. How could his
resurrection have formed, for the disciples, the basis for belief in an
eternal life, if it had been subsequently followed by death? Their
faith, raised by his reappearance, would have sunk with his dissolution.
Their belief in his Messiahship would have been rudely shocked ; he
would have been to them again an ordinary man. And how could the
conviction of his exaltation, which we find every where outspoken in
their writings with such strength and confidence, ever have arisen?
Although, therefore, the visible fact of the ascension is only expressly
mentioned by Luke, yet all that John says of his going up to his heav-
enly Father, and all that the Apostles preached of his elevation to God,
presupposed their conviction that he had been supernaturally removed
438 THE ASCENSION.
from the earth, to the utter exclusion of the idea that he had departed
in the ordinary way of death. It was not necessary to make express
mention of the outward and visible fact, as they never entertained the
thought that Christ, in the form in which he appeared to them after
his resurrection, could be touched again by death. When he took
leave of them, and they saw him no more, they never thought of any
thing else but that he had been supernaturally removed from human
view to a higher region of existence.
If it be said now that " it does not follow, because the Apostles con-
ceived the matter so, that it really was so ; and that we must distin-
guish the fundamental yac< front their subjective conceptions," we have
the reply ready. Their subjective conception was founded in a fact
which it presupposed, viz., the way in which Christ showed himself to
them after his resurrection; in the impression which he made upon
them by his higher and celestial appearance. And further, apart from
this necessary presupposition, if Christ led the Apostles to form such
a subjective conception merely by mysteriously appearing and vanish-
ing, by keeping silence as to his abode and as to the end towards which
he advanced, he must have planned a fraud, to form the basis of their
religious conviction from that time on. As surely as we cannot attrib-
ute such a fraud to the Holy One, who called himself the " Truth,"
so certainly must we take for granted an objective Jact as the source of
the faith of the Apostles.
§ 308. Co/ifiexion of all the Supernatural Facts in Christ's Manifestation.
We make the same remark upon the Ascension of Christ as was be-
fore made upon his miraculous Conception.* In regard to neither is
prominence given to the special and actual y^/c< in the Apostolic wri-
tings ; in regard to both such a fact is presupposed in the general con-
viction of the Apostles, and in the connexion of Christian conscious-
ness. Thus the end of Christ's appearance on earth corresponds to its
beginning. No link in its chain of supernatural facts can be lost with-
out taking away its significance as a whole. Christianity rests upon
these facts ; stands or falls with them. By faith in them has the Di-
vine life been generated from the beginning ; by faith in them has that
life in all ages regenerated mankind, raised them above the limits of
earthly life, changed them from glehce adscriptis to citizens of heaven,
and formed the stage of transition from an existence chained to nature,
to a free, celestial life, far raised above it. Were this faith gone, there
niight, indeed, remain many of the effects of what Christianity had
been ; but as for Christianity in the true sense, as for a Christian Church,
there could be none.
• Cf. p. 16.
INDEX.
Accommodation, Christ's use of, page 113,
114, 149.
Adulteress, decision in case of, 313.
Adultei-y, Christian law of, 233.
Advent, second, of Christ, 317, 367.
Aenon, 177.
Agony in the garden, 407.
Alexandrian theology, had no influence, ifcc,
39, 95, 167, 169, 180.
Ambition of the disciples rebuked, 286, 347.
Annas, 410.
Apostles, subordinate teachers, 100, 116; un-
educated men, 119 ; training of, 121 ; trial
' mission of, 257 ; commission of, after the res-
uiTection, 431-5.
Ascension of Christ, 436.
B.
Baptism, as used by John, 50 ; by water and
fire, 53 ; of Christ by John, 57, 61 ; instituted
by Clirist, 126; of suflPering, 316.
Bartimeus, 346.
Bath Col, 133, 377.
Bethany, Christ at, 336.
Bethesda, miracle at, 217.
Bethsaida, miracle at, 270.
Blasphemy against Holy Ghost and Son of
Man, 243.
Body and blood of Christ, 267.
Bread of Life, 266.
C.
Caesar, rights of, 361.
Caiaphas, 343, 411.
Calvary, 417.
Cana, 166, 18.5.
Capernaum, Christ at, 162, 186, 238 (in syna-
gogue), 205, 303.
Celibacy, 330.
Census, in time of Augustus, 20.
Centurion's slave healed, 238.
Children blessed, 331.
Christ, birth of, 18 ; descent from David, 19,
364; his brothers and sisters, 29 ; among the
doctors, 31 ; education of, 35; trade of? 40 ;
plan of, 79 ; as King, 87 ; observed Jewish
law, 88 ; as Prophet, 99 ; left no written
document, 100 ; person of, 3, 68, 95, 161, 192
341, 406 ; mode of life with disciples, 203,
214 ; Light of the Worid, 293, 299, 340 ; his
struggles of soul, 314, 376, 404 : prayer as
High-priest, 402; trial of, 410; crucifixion of,
418; last appearance of, 435; ascension oj',
436.
Christian consciousness defined, 2.
Christianity, the aim of human progress, 122,
not peace, but a sword, 316 ; work of, 329 ;
relations to civil society, 233, 313, 361 ; rests
upon supernatural facts, 438.
Church, founding of the, 122; name of, 123.
Commandment, first and great, 362 ; the Tiew,
391.
Crucifixion of Christ, 418.
D.
David, Christ son of, 19, 364.
Death of Christ, intimated by himself, 323 ;
necessity for, 344, 376 ; reality of, 425.
Demoniacal possession, 145, 240, 192, 239,283.
De Wette, 204, 230, 248, 306, 332.
Disciples, sifting of 269 ; fail to heal demoniac,
283; ambition of 286, 347 ; choice of seventy,
304; warnings to, 393; consolation of, 394,
400.
Disciples of John, jealous of Christ, 178.
Discipleship, test of 237, 309.
Diseases, miraculous healing of, 141.
Dives and Lazarus, 321.
Divine life, its communication the highest mir-
acle, 140; its supports, 399.
Divine nature in Christ, 3, 68, 95, 307, 327, 338,
341, 369, 376, 406, 407, 422.
Divorce, 233, 328.
E.
Ebionites, 62, 88, 92, 97. 144, 276.
Ebionitish Gospel, 15, 49, 65, 68, 313, 334, 422,
432.
Elias, the forerunner of Christ, 283.
Emmaus, conversation on the way to, 430.
Ephraim, Christ at, 344.
Essenism, 37.
Eucharist, institution of, 388.
Evangel, ad Hebraeos. [See Ebionitish Gos-
pel]
Evil, origin of, 148. [See Sin.\
Exorcists, 133, 150, 241.
440
INDEX.
F.
Faith, presupposes the "drawing of the Fa-
ther," 106, 266 ; different stages of, 138, 165,
174, 433 ; the nccessarj- condition of aid from
Christ, 196, 266, 285; the centurion's, 239;
power of, 285, 358, 433 ; faitli and forgive
ness, 211, 279.
Fasting, 203, 235.
Father, Christ's oneness with, 327, 396.
Feet, washing of, 386.
Fig-tree cursed, 357.
Fire to be kindled, 315.
Forgiveness of sins, 211.
G.
Gadarene demoniac, 192.
GalUee, theatre of Christ's labours, 155, 180,
185 ; second ministry in, 222 ; appearances
in after resurrection, 434.
Gethsemane, 404.
(jod, as spirit, knowledge of, 183, 362 ; the
only Good, 332.
Grace, unmerited, 350, 374.
H.
Hades, 271.
Heathen, 301,319, 375.
Herod, 25; Antipas, 179, 323, 415.
Herodians, 360.
History, relation to miracles, 132 ; as com-
mentary, 183, 229.
Holy Ghost, at Christ's baptism, 67 ; agent of
new birth, 175; blasphemy against, 243;
breathed upon Apostles, 431. [See Spirit.^
Huss, John, 362.
Hypocrisy rebuked, 255. [See Sermon on
the Mount.]
Immortality, 362.
Inspiration, 7, 47, 59, 172.
Interpretation, 94, 100.
Jairus's daughter, 196.
James, the brother of Christ, 29, 432.
James and John, sons of Zebedee, 164, 347.
Jericho, Christ at, 345.
Jerusalem, Christ's ministry frequently exer-
cised there, 156; his first labours at, 168;
second journey to, 217 ; last, 345 ; triumphal
entry, 354 ; weeps over, 356 ; judgments
predicted upon, 366.
Jesus, the name, 17.
Jewish people, their relations to Christ, 202;
his ministry confined to them, why, 258,
879.
John the Baptist, calling of, 45; accounts o{,
obscure, 46 ; mode of life, 48 ; relation to
Messiah, 53 ; possible wavering in his con-
victions, 58, 198 ; his message from prison,
60, 198 ; he points out Christ, 160 ; final testi-
mony, 178 ; his position as definedl)y Christ,
199.
John the Evangelist, joins Christ, 162 ; his dis-
position and tendencies, 161, 176, 394.
John's Gospel, its credibility and genuineness,
6, 167, 171, 179, 180, 291 ; silent as to mi-
raculous conception, 16; objects of, 67, 96;
compared with sj'uoptical, 110, 155, 343, 404 ;
its omissions, 299.
Jonah the Prophet, sign of, 136, 245.
Josephus, as authority on John Baptist, 48.
Judas Iscariot, 117, 248, 269, 352, 379, 387, 408.
Judgment, intimated by Christ, 219, 317, 368 ;
in Matt., xxv., 373.
K.
Keys, power of the, 217.
Kingdom of God, longed for under old cove-
nant, 308 ; longed for in Israel at Christ's
time, 22; also by the heathen, 25 ; the ob-
ject of Christian longing, 308; way prepared
for by Baptist, 49, seq. ; its two-fold bearing,
86 ; relation of new to old form, 88, 170 ; re-
alized by Christ not as a worldly, but a spir-
itual kingdom, 72, 74, 81, seq., 208, 409, 412,
413 ; realized by him, also, for the heathen,
255, 258, 302, 320, 370 ; means employed by
Christ in founding it, 99 ; based on his self-
manifestation inu-ord, 99, seq., 415; himir-
acles, 127, seq. ; in sujerings, 83, 84, 316,
seq., 407 ; the coming of, 555 ; its law of de-
velopement, 106, 241 ; its growth and prog-
ress, 184, 190, 208, 314, seq. ; the Sei-mon on
the Mount its Magna Charta, 223 ; its tri-
umiihs, 273, 307, 368 ; its nature illustrated,
331, 370, 371, 414.
L.
Last Supper, 381.
Law, observed by Christ, 88, 229, 237, 290,
325; his "destroying and fulfilling of," PI,
230 [see Moral] ; law and gospel, 88, seq.,
201, seq., 229, seq.
Lawyers, 247, 363.
Lazarus, family of, 336 ; death of, 338 ; resur-
rection of, 342.
Legalism, Jewish, contrasted with Christian
liberty, 201, 333, 363.
Leper healed, 237; ten healed, 324.
Light of the World, Christ the, 293, 299, 340.
Logos, 62, 96.
Love, the quickening principle of Divine life,
211 ; Christian law of, 234, 391.
INDEX.
441
M.
Magians, 26.
Mammon of unrighteousness, 276.
Marriage, 379.
Martha, 336.
Mary Magdalene, 211.
Mary, sister of Lazarus, 336, 351, 429.
Mary, mother of Jesus, 14, 16, 20, 23, 166.
Mattliew, usage of, in quoting from Old Testa-
ment, 104 ; his calling, 213 ; his Gospel ori-
ginally in Hebrew, 6 ; principle on which he
an-anges his matter (connexion of fact and
thought), 108, 202, 207, 224, 258, 310, 314.
Meekness, 225.
Merit, no place in kingdom of God, 350, 374.
Messiah, Old Testament idea of, 64, 364, seq. ;
in Israel, 21, 22; Simeon's, 24; heathen
longing for, 25 ; whether only revived by
John Baptist, 45, 54, 160, 198; Nicodemus,
173; Christ tlie conscious Messiah, 30, 41,
81 ; declares himself such (from beginning]
181, 198, 219, 220, 264, 27] , 290, 326, 355, 411
carnal conceptions of Jews and disciples re-
buked, 218, seq., 224, 265, seq., 272, 286, 295,
326, 331, 347, 437 ; designations of, 94 ; Christ
recognized as, by John, 55, 66, 160.
Miracle of draught of fishes, 162 ; water chan
ed to wine, 166 ; storm subdued, 191 ; issue
of blood, 195 ; Jairus's daughter, 196 ; wid-
ow's son, 196 ; lame man, 218 ; leper, 237 ;
demoniac, 239, 283; paralytic, 250, 252; in-
firai woman, 253 ; feeding of five thousand,
261 ; walking on the water, 264; at Beth
saida, 270 ; man born blind, 298 ; ten lepers,
325; raising of Lazarus, 342; blind Barti-
meus, 346.
Miracles, connected with Christ's teaching,
127 ; their relation to the course of nature,
130; to Christ's manifestation, 131; to his
tory, 132; object of, 134,137,166,358; wit
nesses to Christ's Messialiship, 132, 138 ; in
regard to supernatural agency, 140 ; wrought
on material nature, 152.
Moral stand-pomt distinguished from Zt'g-aZ, 231
236, 328.
Moses, forerunner of Messiah, 222.
Mount, Sermon on, 223.
Miiller, Daniel, 136.
Murder, Christian law of, 232.
Mysteries of the kingdom of God, 104.
Mythical theory refuted, 13, 20, 23, 25, 29
377.
Mythology, difference from Theism, 18.
Mythus, distinguished from parable, 107.
N.
Nain, miracle at, 196.
Name of Christ, acting in the, 288 ; prayer in
the, 397, 401.
Nathanael, calling of, 164.
Nazareth, return to from Egypt, 28 ; Christ's
first preaching at, 40, 186.
Neighbour, love of, 234.
New birth, 174.
Nicodemus, interview with Christ, 173 ; in San-
hedrim, 298.
O.
Oaths, 38, 234.
Old and New Dispensations, relations of, 200.
Old Testament, use of passages from by Christ,
115, 327, ,329, 361, 364.
Olshausen, 197.
Parable, idea of, 107; use of by Christ, 102, 104.
Parables, of the kingdom of God, 85 ; order of
in New Testament, 108; not wanting in John,
111; pai-able of sower, 188; drag-net, 190;
wheat and tares, 190 ; new wine in old bot-
tles, 205; prodigal son, 214; Pharisee and
publican, 216 ; great Supper, 254 ; unjust
steward, 273 ; good Shepherd, 301 ; tower,
311; salt, 311; precious pearl, 312; mustard
seed, 314 ; Dives and Lazarus, 321 ; pounds,
348 ; labourers in vineyard, 349 ; fig-tree,
357 ; good Samaritan, 363 ; wedding-feast,
369; wicked husbajidman, 371; talents, 372 ;
ten virgins, 373.
Paradise, 419.
Passover, but one in synoptical Gospels, three
in John, 155; fii-st, 168; second, 217; last,
345.
Paul, used written memoirs of Christ's life, 6 ;
silence as to miraculous conception, 16; as-
sumes Christ's descent from David, 19, 364 ;
confinns the account of the choice of the
Apostles, 117 ; a witness of the resurrection,
425, 430 ; indirectly of the ascension, 437 ;
reports Christ's words, 90, 388 ; alludes to
them, 273 ; his position among the Apostles,
119; "wise as serpent," &c., 277; his doc-
trine of the person of Christ, 97 ; his teach-
ings presuppose Christ's, as germs, 90, 92,
104, 187, 202, 216, 28.5, 350, 372.
Peace, Christ's salutation of, 398.
Peraea, Christ at, 328.
Peter, his first meeting with Christ, 162; his
call and character, 164, 257, 272, 290, 335,
387, 392, 409, 434 ; his acknowledgments of
Christ, 139, 269, 270 ; obtains power of keys,
217.
Pharisees, 35, 157, 173, 180, 203, 212, 218, 222,
240, 244, 246, 251,253; 293, 300,319, seq., 359.
442
INDEX.
Phftrisaism, 93, 235, 363, 364.
Philip and Thomas, conversation with Christ,
395.
Pilate, 413, seq.
Plan of Christ, 79 ; not altered, 82.
Prayer, forms of, 207; Lord's Prayer, 207; not
Pharisaical, 235 ; in name of Christ, 397 ; of
Christ as High-priest, 402 ; for his enemies,
419.
Prophecy, unconscious, 22.
Providence, 2G0.
Prudence, in ministry, 273, 277 ; Christian, 373
Publicans, Christ with, 213.
Punitive justice, 143.
R.
Rabbi, title of, as applied to Christ, 40.
Raising of the dead, 151.
Reason, pride of, 281.
Reign with Christ, 335.
Relatives of Christ, 29, 244, 292.
Resurrection, intimated by Christ, 220, 340
361 ; of Christ, 422.
Revelation, stages of, 182 ; Christ's doctrine
as, 292.
Revenge, 234.
Reward in heaven, 228, 235 ; rewards, pas
sion for rebuked, 350.
R,uler, Christ's conversation with, 332.
Sabbath, 218, 253, seq.
Sabbath-breaking, Christ accused of, 218, 252
Sacraments. [See Eucharist and Baptism.]
Sacrifice of purification, 23.
Sadducees, 35, 50, 361.
Salome, 347.
Samaritan, good, parable of, 363.
Samaritan woman, conversation with, 90, 180,
Samaritans, 185 ; reasons for their exclusion
from first mission of Apostles, 258 ; leper
cured, 324.
Sanhedrim, movements of against Christ, 297,
.300, 343, 3.59, 378, 409, 412.
Satan, personality of, 74, 148, 240, seq. ; king-
dom of, 306.
Schleiermacher, 2, 14, 22, 90, 95, 122, 148, 163,
201, 250, 288, 313, 321, 325, 347.
Self-denial, 310.
Sermon on the Mount, 110, 223.
" Servants" distinguished from ''friends," 120.
Seventy disciples chosen, 304.
Shepherds, announcement to, 21.
Simeon, prophecy of, 24.
Sin and physical evil, relations of, 141, 143, 218,
298,321.
Slavery, 38. Zaccheus, 346.
Son of God, title of, as applied to Christ, 94,
96.
Son of Man, 95 ; blasphemy against, 243.
Sower, parable of, 188.
Spirit, Holy, promise of, 397, 400. [See Holy
Ghost.]
Star of the wise men, 25.
Sti-auss, 4, 14, 173, 185, 217, 231, 233, 242, 248,
251, 288, 322, 336, 341, 352,355, 369,380, 417.
SuEPerings of Chi-ist, intimated by himself, 177,
184, 376.
Synoptical Gospels, their origin, 6 ; difference
between them and Jolm, 110, 155, 404.
Syro-Phcenician woman, 279.
Tabernacles, feast of, Christ attends, 291.
Talents, parable of, 372.
Teaching, Christ's mode of, 101 ; presented
seeds of thought, 102 ; Christ's not confined
to parables, 109.
Temple, Christ's manifestation greater than,
89,255; " destroy this," &c., 137, 179; purify-
ing of the, 168.
Temptation, 209.
Temptation of Christ, 70 ; its import as a whole,
73.
Theocracy of Old Testament, connexion of
Christ's plan with it, 81, 335, 365; distin-
guished from Christ's by parables, 85 ; de-
velopement in New Testament, 229, 290.
Thomas, his doubts, 140; Christ's appearance
to, 432.
Transfiguration of Christ, 282.
Transubstantiation, 267, 389.
Tribute to Caesar, Christ's decision on, 360.
Triumphal entry, 354.
Truth, 182 ; power of, 248 ; relation to free-
dom, 296 ; spirit of, 397, 401.
U., V.
Unpardonable sin, 243.
Vanity, warning against, 307.
Vine and branches, similitude of, 399.
W.
Water and the Spirit, birth of, 175.
Water of Life, 181, 294.
Way, Christ the, 395.
Wealth, right use of, 273 ; dangers of, 334.
Wcisse, 15, 19, 110, 378.
Widow, the importunate, 318.
Widow's mite, 366.
Worship in spirit and truth, 182.
PASSAGES OF SCRIPTURE
aUOTED OR ALLUDED TO.
OLD TESTAMENT.
Genesis.
ii, 24 329
iii., 15 222
Exodus.
xiiL, 2, 12 23
xsi., 32 381
Leviticus.
xii., 2 23
XIV., 1 237
Numbers.
iii., 45 23
iv., 3 42, 297
viii., 25 297
si., 8 49
xviii 23
Deuteronomy.
vi., 16 71
viit, 3 71
xviii., 15 222
xviii., 20, 22 411
1 Samuel.
xxi 255
Nehemiah.
iii., 15 299
Psalms.
ii.,7 68
viii., 3 357
xxii 420
xxii.. 17 418
lxxxii.,6 327, 365
xci., 11, 12 71
ex., 1 364,365
cxviii., 25, 26 356
Isaiah.
vi., 9 104
vii., 14 15
xxxiii., 16 21
XXXV., 5 198
xxxviii., 10 271
jtl., 3 30
liii 25, 160
M., 7 169
Ixi., 1 198
Jere-miah.
vii., 11 169
Ezekiel.
Page
xxsvi., 25 50
Daniel.
vii 95
HOSEA.
vi., 6 88, 213
Joel.
iii., 1 431
MiCAH.
v., 1 20
Zechariah.
ix., 9 355, 356
xi., 12 381
xiii 50
Malachi.
iii 50
iii., 1 399
Wisdom of Solomon.
vii., 27 367
NEW TESTAMENT.
Mattuewt.
i., 1-17 18,19
i., 18-25 13-20
i., 25 29
ii., 1 20,21
ii., 1-23 24,28
iii., 1-12 45-53
iii., 7 50-51
iii., 11 162
iii., 13-17 53-69
iii., 14 23
iv., 1-11 70-75
iv., 12 180
iv., 13, seq 162
iv., 18, 19 163
iv., 21 1G4
iv., 25 157
v.-vii 223-237
V. 12 227
v., 13-16 83, 86
v., 17 91
v., 25, 26 32
v., 40, 42 234
vi., 1-18 235
vi., 7-15 207-210
Page
vL, 21, 22 106
vi., 24 277
vii., 1-5 235
vii., 6 223, 277
vii., 7-n ^207,210
vii., 12 230
vii., 13-24 236
vii., 14 316
vii., 21 237
vii., 22 I 309
vii., 24-27 237
vii., 29 40
viii., 1-4 237
viii., 5-13 97, 139, 238
viii., 5, 9 97
viii., 5, 10 190
viii., 10 139
viii., 14-17 186
viii., 19-22 310
viii., 22 Ill
viii., 23-27 191
viii., 28-34 192
ix., 1-8 250
ix., 2-5 145
ix., 8 95,96
is., 9-13 213
ix., 10 213
ix., 11-17 203
ix., 13 213
ix., 14 121,203
ix., 15 84,185
ix., 16 121,205-207
ix., 18 173
ix., 18-26 195-198
ix., 27-34 240
ix., 37, 38 304
X 257-260,305
X., 3 213
X., 5, 6 258
X., 13 272
X., 16 273
X., 17-20 394
X., 26 185
X., 26, 27 249
X., 34-36 315
X., 38 273, 309
X., 42 287
xi., 2-3 60
444
PASSAGES OF SCRIPTURE.
Vase
xi., 2-19 198-201
xi., 12 46, 201
xi., 16 50,51
xi., 20-24 305
xi., 20-27 202
xi., 25 119
xi., 25-27 308
xi., 27 97
xi., 28 82
xi., 28-30 202
xi., 30 90
xii., 1 71
xii., 1-8 255, 256
xii., 5-8.; 89, 95, 137, 171, 219
xii., 6 219
xii., 13 252, 253
xii., 18 255
xii., 22 150, 240
xii., 24-26 240
xii., 28 173, 217
xii., 30, 31 241
xii., 31-33 243
xii., 32 249,296
xii., 35 19
xii., 39 72, 136
xii., 40 245, 423
xii., 41-43 242
xii., 43 115
xii., 43-45 242
xii., 46-50 244
xiii 108
xiii., 1-23 188
xiii., 10 104
xiii., 11, 12, 13 104
xiii., 16, 17 308
xiii., 20-23 189
xiii., 24-30 190
xiii., 44-46 311
xiii., 4-i;-50 190
xiii., 52 101,366
xiii., 54' 29
xiii., 54-58 186,187
xiii., 55 IG, 29
xiv., 1, 2 270
xiv., 2 261
xiv., 3, 5 179
xiv., 13-21 261
xiv., 22-33 264
XV., 1 l.*)?
XV., 1-20 2.5C
XV., 11 88
XV., 21-28 279
XV., 21 204, 270
XV., 29-39 261
XV., 32 263
XV., 39 264
xvi., 1-4 320
XVI., 1 264, 266
xvi., 6 249
xvi., 9, 10 263
xvi., 13-28 270-273
xvi., 14 82, 139
xvi., 16 94
xvi., 16, 17 139
xvi., 18 124, 271
xvi., 20-23 272
xvi., 21 283, 423
xvi., 24 273, 309
xvi., 39 263
xvii., 1-21 281-286
xvii., 9 282
xvii., 24 40
xvii., 24-27 290, 291
xviii., 1-5 286, 287
xviii., 3 174
xviii., 12-14 214,215
xix., 1 328
xix., 2-12 328
xix., 8 233
xix., 13-15 331
xix., 16-24 332, seq.
xix., 17 64, 97, 333
xix., 27 335, 3.50
xix., 28 .. 83, 86,87,94, 117,
174, 3.35
XX., 1-16 349
XX., 2 380
XX., 16 349
XX., 17-19 '344
XX., 20-29 347
XX., 25, seq 125
XX., 28 386
XX., 30, seq 345
xxi., 1-22 354-359
xxi., 2-7 355
xxi., 12, 13 168
xxi., 14 157
xxi., 15, 16 357
xxi., 18 357
xxi., 21 358
xxi., 25 360
xxi.. 32 50, 52
xxi., 33-44 371
xxi., 46 360
xsii., 1-14 369
xxii., 14 ..-: 349
xxii., 15-40 300-363
xxii., 22 370
xxii., 23, seq 3.5, 361
xxii., 29-32 361
xxii., 32 362
xxii., 40 229
xxii., 41, seq 97,364
xxiii. (van). 89,246-250,366
xxiii., 3 249
xxiii., 25 246
xxiii., 34 248
xxiii., 37-30 . 83, 86, 1 57, 324
xxiv. (van). 317,318,367, 369
xxiv., 28 318
XXV 372
XXV., 1-13 373
XXV., 14-30 372
XXV., 28 373
XXV., 31-46 373
xxvi., 3-5 3.59
xxvi., 5 378
xxvi., 6 212
xxvi., 6-13 351-353
xxvi., 14-16 379, seq.
xxvi., 17-19 384, seq.
xxvi., 20-25 387
xxvi., 26-29 388, seq.
xxvi., 45 408
xxvi., 53 71
xxvi., 57 — xxvii., 26 410-418
xxvi., 61 171
xxvi., 63 94
xxvi., 64 95
xxvi., 65,. 66 412
xxvii., 5 381, 383
xxvii., 7 381
xxvii., 9 381
xxvii., 11 413
xxvii., 20 395
xxvii., 34 418
xxvii., 42 71
xxvii., 51 42 1
xxvii., 57 173
xxviii 422-436
xxviii., 19 li;5
Mark.
2-8 48-.^3
9-11 53-69
12,13 70-75
16-20 162-164
29-39 18C
11., 1-12 250
ii., 13-17 213
i., 15-22 203-207
i., 18 121
i., 20 84, 185
i., 21 205
i., 24 85
i., 23-28 255
ii., 28 89, 95
,1-6 252
,, 6 360
, 14 116
, 21-29 111,244
QUOTED OR ALLUDED TO.
445
Page
iii., 22-30 239-243
Hi., 31-35 29, 244
iv., 1-20 188, seq.
iv., 2 188
iv., 10 103
iv., 11 103, 104
iv., 10-25 189
iv., 21-25 106
iv., 22 249
iv., 26-29 315
iv., 30-32 314
iv., 31 85
iv., 35; v., 43 191-198
iv., 36-41 191
v., 1 151
v., 1-20 192
v., 19 194
v., 21 195
vi., 1-6 186, 187
vL., 3 40
vi., 7-13 257-260
vi., 14-16 260
vi., 17-20 179
vi., 30-44 261-264
vi., 45-52 264
vii., 1-23 256, 257
vii.,1 156
vii., 15 88
vii., 24 270,279
viii., 1-8 263
viii., 15 249
viii., 22-26 270
viii., 23 142
viii., 27 ; ix., 1 270-273
viii., 28 81
viii., 30 272
viii., 31 423
viii., 34,35 273
ix., 1-9 281-283
ix., 11-13 283
ix., 14-29 283-286
ix., 15 284
ix., 23 285,286
ix., 28,29 286
ix., 33-41 286-288
ix., 49 311
ix., 50 311,312
X.. I 328
X., 3-12 328-331
X., 13-36 331, seq.
X., 17, seq 332
X.,18 64,97
X., 22 334
X., 32-34 345
X., 35-45 347
X., 4G-52 345
xi., 1-11 354-357
xi., 12 357
xi., 15-19 354-359
xi., 23 286,358
xi., 27-33 360
xii., 1-12 371
xii., 13-34 360-363
xii., 14, 15 360
xii., 18 1.5,363
xii., 28-34 173-362
xii., 33 88
xii., 35-37 19,97,364
xii., 38-44 366
xiii 366-369
xiii., 11 394
xiii., 32 368
xiv.,1, 2 378
xiv., 3-9 351
xiv., 10,11 379, seq.
xiv., 12-16 384-386
xiv., 17-21 387
xiv., 22-25 388, seq.
xiv., 27 394
xiv., 32-42 407, seq.
xiv., 43-49 408, seq.
xiv., 53, seq 410, seq.
xiv., 58 171
xiv., 59 171
XV., 1-15 413-417
XV., 16-46 418-422
XV., 21 417
XV., 23 418
XV., 29 170
XV., 30 71
xvi 422, 438
xvi., 9 151
Luke.
i., 1-4 16
i., 26-38 13-18
i., 32-35 19
i., 36 65
ii., 1-20 18-22
ii., 22-38 23-28
ii., 33 24
ii., 39 28,29
ii., 41 156
ii., 41-52 30-32
ii., 44 30
iii., 1-17 48-53
iii., 2 49
iii., 7 51
iii., 15 53
iii., 17 54
iii., 19,20 179
iii., 21,22 5.3-69
iii., 23-38 19
iv.,1-13 70-75
iv., 16-30 180, seq.
iv., 17, seq 83
Page
iv., 19 85
iv., 22, seq 16
iv., 38-41 186
v., 1-11 162, seq.
v., 1 155
v., 5 163
v., 12-14 237
v., 17-26 250
v., 20 143
v., 27-32 213
v., 29 213
V, 33 121, 203
v., 33-39 203-206
v., 35 84,185
v., 37 85, 205
vi., 1-5 255, 256
vi., 1 71,155
vi., 4 92, 93
vi., 5 88, seq., 95, 256
vi., 6-11 252
vi., 9 253
vi., 13 116,223
vi., 17 157
vi., 20-49 223,237
vii., 1-10 238
vii., 2, seq 139
vii., 3 239
vii., 6 97,196, 239
vii., 9 97
vii., 11-17 197
vii., 18-35 198-201
vii., 28 59, 84, 199
vii., 29, 30 50
vii., 36-50 211
viii., 2 151
viii., 4-15 188
viii., 9-18 189
viii., 10 103
viii., 18 105
viii., 19 244
viii., 21 29,245
viii., 22-56 191-198
viii., 26 151
viii., 26-29 151
viii., 29 193
viii., 40 195
viii., 46-48 195
viii., 49 196
ix., 1-17 257-261
ix., 3 305
ix., 7 270
ix., 7-9 280
ix., 9 323
ix., 10 261
ix., 10-18 270
ix.. 18-27 270-273
ix., 19 81
ix.,22 423
•146
PASSAGES OF SCRIPTURE
Page
ix., £3, 2-1 273
ix., 28-36 281
ix., 33 .• 282
ix., 36 283
ix., 37-43 283,286
ix., 46-50 286,289
ix., 50 242
ix., 51, seq 157,303
ix., 51-56 324,325
ix., 57-C2 309
ix., 60 Ill
X., 1-24 304-309
X., 2 304
X., 3 273
X., 21 119
X., 22 97
X., 25-37 363
X., 29 364
X., 29-31 364
X., 38-42 157,336,352
xi., 1-13 207-210
xi., 1 204
xi., 9 207
xi., 14-26 239-243
xi., 14 150
xi., 16 245
xi., 20-22 136
xi., 23 242
xi., 24, seq 115
xi., 27, 28 . .. 97, 101, 189, 245
xi., 29-36 136,245
xi., 30 89
xi., 33 246,339
xi., 34 106
xi., 34-36 246
xi., 37-52 246, seq.
xi., 39 246
xi., 41-44 247
xi., 4.S-52 248
xi., 49 248,367
xi.. 50-.52 242
xii., 3 185, 248
Xii., 5 249
xii., 10 243
xii., 11, 12 394
xii., 12 431
xii., 13-15 312
xii., 34 106
xii., 36-48 318
xii., 49 85
xii., 49-53 31.^-317
xii., 54-59 320
xii., 58,59 233
xiii., 1-5 321
Xiii., 2-4 144
xiii., 6-9 357-358
xiii., 10-17 253
xiii., 18-21 314
Paje
xiii., 19 85
xiii., 21 85, 86
xiii., 22 303
xiii., 23-30 319
xiii., 24, 25 236
xiii., 28 320
xiii., 30 349
xiii., 31-33 303,323
xiii., 33 324
xiii., 34, 35 .. 83, 86, 157, 324
xiv., 1-24 253, 254
xiv., 5 253
xiv., 12-14 254
xiv., 16-24 371
xiv., 25-35 309-312
XV., 1-10 214,215
XV., 11-32 215
xvi., 1-13 274-277
xvi., 14 274
xvi., 16 201
xvi., 19-31 321
xvi., 31 136, 322, 428
xvii., 5, 6 350
xvii., 6 285,286,359
xvii., 7-10 350
xvii., 11 303
xvii., 11-19 324,325
xvii., 15 325
xvii., 20-37 317
xvii., 21 82
xvii., 26-38 318
xvii., 34-36 318
xvii., 37 318
xviii., 1-8 318,319
xviii., 9-14 216
xviii., 15-30 331-335
xviii., 19 64,97
xviii., 28 350
xviii., 31-34 345
xviii., 35-43 345
xix., 1-10 346,347
xix., 11 347
xix., 12 372
xix., 28-48 354-357
xix., 39 356
xix., 41-44 356
xix., 45-46 168
XX., 1-8 359
XX., 2 169
XX., 3-6 379
XX., 9-18 371
XX., 20-26 300
XX., 27-40 35,361,362
XX., 39 362
XX., 41-44 97, 364, 3C5
xxi 369
xxi., 1-4 366
xxi., 5, seq., ad fin. . 366-369
PajB
xxii., 3-6 379. 3S0
xxii., 7-13 384,385
xxii., 14-23 386-391
xxii., 16 386
xxii., 17-20 388
xxii., 24 287, 348
xxii., 25, seq 124
xxii., 26, 27 386
xxii., 30 117
xxii., 33, 34 392
xxii., 35 2fiO
xxii., 35-38 392-394
xxii., 39-46 407
xxii., 47-53' 408-410
xxii., .52 410
xxii., 54; xxiii., 25. 410-418
xxii., 61 411
xxii., 66 410
xxiii., 3 413
xxiii., 5 415
xxiii., 8 323
xxiii., 19 410
xxiii., 26-56 418-422
xxiii., 27-31 418
xxiii., 37-39 71
xxiii., 50 173
xxiii., 54 385
xxiv 422-438
John.
4 ...
7-15
14 ..
19 ..
295
56
16
t;3
19-45 159-102
,29 C8, 69, KiO
30 161
31 61,66
32,34 63
33, 34 68
42 1 ti-J, -^7 1
42-47 u;2
43-46 3 64
50 .Q4
50, 51 139, 164
52 95
, 1-11 166
,3-5 16
,9 107
,12 29
, 12-25 168-173
, 18 169.360
,19 90, 137, 170, 423
i., 1-15 173-177
i., 2 40
i., 6 16
i., 13 95, 96
i., 15 177
QUOTED OR ALLUDED TO.
447
iii., lC-21 177
iii., ] 8 373
iii., 22 125
iii., 22-30 177-179
iii., 23 178
iii., 24 180
iii., 30 179
iii., 31-36 179
iii., 32 56
iv., 1-42 90, 180
iv., 2 126
iv., 16 181
iv., 21-24 91,182
iv., 34 70
iv., 37,38 185
iv., 43-54 186
iv., 44, 45 100, 168
iv., 46 185
iv., 48 138
v., 1-47 217-222
v.. 1 217
v., 4 217
v., 10 218
v., 14 143
v., 17-19 218
v., 20-29 219
v., 27 96
v., 30-37 220
v., 31, 32 221
v., 35 50, 51
v., 37-47 221
vi., 1-15 261-264
vi., 4 217
vi., 5 26]
vi., 15 262
vi., 16-21 264
vi., 17 263
vi., 22-71 26^-269
vi., 25 40
\-i., 26 137
vi., 30 265
vi., 32-42 266
vi., 34 70
vi., 36-44 138
vi., 42, seq 16
vi., 43-47 fe66
vi., 44 106
vi., 44, 45 • 104
vi., 48-51 267
vi., 53 96, 267
vi., 53-58 267
vi., 60 103, 268
vi., 61 263
vi., 63 101, 113, 114
vi., 64 118,379
vi., 66 140, 268
vi., 69 140,269
vi,, 70 384
vii., 1-52; viii., 12; x.,
21 291-303
vii., 1 217
vii., 3 29,217
vii., 3, 4 292
vii., 5 16
vii., 5-7 245
vii., 8 291
vii., 10 303
vii., 12 82
vii., 15 40
vii., 16-19 292
vii., 17 293
vii., 26, 27, 30 293
vii., 35, 38 294
vii., 40 82
vii., 40-53 297
vii., 42 364
viii., 1-11 313
viii., 13, 14 294, 295
viii., 15 295, 313
viii., 19-23 295
viii., 25 82
viii., 28 295
viii., 30-38 296
viii., 33 106
viii., 39 299
viii., 43 106
viii., 44 106, 148
viii., 57 297
ix., 2, 3 145
ix., 5 339
ix., 6 142
ix.. 22 298
ix., 35-37 300
X., 1, seq 112, 236, 301
X., 16 259
X., 17,18 423
X., 20 244
X., 22 303
X., 22-39 326
X., 24 82
X., 36 327
X., 40 323
Xi 326-344
xi., 54-56 , 344
xi., 56, 57 359
xii., 1-8 351-353
xii., 1 354
xii., 5 380
xii., 6 352,380
xii., 9-18 354-357
xii., 14 355
xii., 19 359
xii., 20-36 375-378
xii., 25, 26 273
xii., 27 405
xii., 27-29 376
P.ijre
xii., 31 307
xii., 32 311
xii., 34 95
xiii., 1-32 384-388
xiii., 2 379
xiii., 2-16 386
xiii., 11-21, seq 387
xiii., 19 387
xiii., 21 387, 405
xiii., 26 379
xiii., 27 382,405
xiii., 31-36 , 388
xiii., 33-35 391
xiii., 36-38 392
xiv.-xvii 394-404
xiv., 9, 10, 11 396
xiv., 12 140
xiv., 13-26 397
xiv., 23-26 398
xiv., 27 398, 431
xiv., 29-31 339
XV 399-400
sv., 1, seq 107, 3.')9
XV., 14-16 120
XV., 16 116
XV., 18-25 400
XV., 24 138
XV., 27 317
xvi., 7-33 400
xvi., 10 403
xvi., 14-17 401
xvi., 24 402
xvi., 25 102, 105
xvi., 29,30 402
xvi., 32 394
xvii 402
xvii., 2 308
xvii., 20-24 403
xviii., 1-11 40S-410
xviii., 9 172
xviii., 11, 12 409
xviii., 13 410
xviii., 14 410
xviii., 19-23 410
xviii., 24, 25 411
xviii., 28 384
xviii., 33 413
xviii., 33-38 99
xviii., 36, 37 413
xix., 1-10 416
xix., 10-12 417
xix., 17-42 417-422
xix., 31 385
xix., 31-37 426
xix., 34, 36, 37 427
XX.. 1, seq 428
XX., 8, 9 423
XX., 17,18,19 423
418
PASSAGES
Pace
XX., 23 272
XX., 27 140
XX., 30 428
xx.,.xxi 422-436
Acts.
'•• 4 431
i- 5 126
»•- 15 305
i-, 18 : 381,383
i., 21, seq 117
ii-. 38 125
vi., 14 90, 171
vii., 5G 95
viii., 14 185
X., 37 56, 58
xiii., 25 53,56, 58
xvi., 16, seq 193
xvii., 28 15
xviii., 25, 26 58
xix., 1-5 58
xix., 13 283
XX., 35 93,334
Romans.
i-.3 19
i- 4 16
ii-. 1 314
ii., 12, seq 373
iii., 31 92
OF SCRIPTURE QUOTED, ETC.
vi.,9,10 43;|... Galatians.
viii., 3, 4 92 '"•' ^'^
ix., 5 16 i^' •* !■
xiii., 6 290 I ^''•' ^^
xiv., 22, 23 94
xvi., 19 273 1 Thessalonians.
Page
. 329
23,89
. 175
1 Corinthians.
1., 22 ...
ii., 14...
iv., 8-13
v., 7, 8 ..
99
104
.,. .. 234
385
vi., 2 87,335
^•i-, 7 234
vii., 10 234
viii 94
ix., 1 117
xi., 23 385,388
xi., 25 391
xiii., 1-3 309
xiv., 20 273
XV 427, seq.
XV., C 305, 425
XV., 7, 9 117
XV., 55 271
2 Corinthians.
ii., 15, 16 272
v., 17 175
xiii., 4 437
v., 1 .
v., 21
2 Thessalonians.
ii., 8
Titus.
iii.. 2, 6
Hebrews.
. 170
v., 7 . . .
.. 406
vii., 14
. . 364
xii., 2 ..
.. 423
1 John.
403
403
James.
i., 9, 10 225
PASSAGES FROM ANCIENT WRITERS
aUOTED OR ALLUDED TO.
Pag'
426
426
175
167
Acta Sanctorum.
Jan., iii., 571, p. 709 ,
Julius Africanus.
Fragm. (vid. G. Syncell., ed. Niebuhr, i.
610)
Ammianus Marcell.
Hist, xiv., 9
Antoninus.
Monolog., xi., 1
AthentBus.
Deipnosophist., ii., 17, 18
Cod. Cantabrig.
Fragm. (Luk., vi., 4)
Cassiodonis.
Lib. iii., ep. 52
Chagigah.
(Tract. Talmud) ii
Chronic. Pasch. Alex.
(Ed. Niebuhr) i., 13
Chrysostomus.
Horn, in Matt., xxx., 4
Clemens Alexandr.
Strom., iii., p. 449
Strom., iv., 11
Homil. Clement.
Horn., ii, 23
Horn., xi., 26
Eiayy. Kar' Efip.
(Vid. Fahricius.)
Fragm. (Ignat., ep. ad Ephes., § 19) 25
Fragm 49
Fragm ^ 65, seq
Fragm 68
Fragm 313
Fragm 334
Fragm. (Hieron.,vii., 1, 336) 422
Fragm. (Hieron. de Vir. m., ii.) 432
Etisebius.
Hist. Eccl.,i.,12 304
Hist. Eccl., i., 13 304
Hist. Eccl., iii., 39 313
Hist. Eccl., iv., 22 203
Hist. Eccl., v., 20 394
Hist. Eccl., v., 24 385
Chronic. Olymp., 202, 4
Onomast. Fragm. (Hier., iii., 163)
Onomast. Fragm. (Hier., iii., 1, 181) ....
Evang. Nazar.
Fragm. (Hier. adv. Pelag., iii.)
Fragm. (Hier., iv., 1, 156)
Evang. Nicod.
Cap. ii. (Thilo., i., 520)
Fahricius.
Cod. Apocryph. Nov. Testament, (i., 330 ;
iii., 524)
Gemara.
(Talmud)
iv., 1, 882
Hieronymus.
Hippolytus.
Ircneeus.
421
178
217
66
68
416
278
422
425
De Pasch., i., 13
Cont. Hser., ii., 22 217
Jacobus.
Protoevang., ix 15
Josephns.
C. Apion, i., 8 36
C. Apion, i., 31 237
ArchjBol., iii,, 11, §3 237
Archaeol., viii., 2, 4 133
Archaeol., viii., 2, 5 150, 194
Archfeol., x., 2, 1 133
ArchsBol., xiii., x., 6 36
Archaeol., xiv., xv., 12 251
ArchjBol., XV., viii., 4 27
Archaeol., xvii., i., 2 233
Archaeol., xvii., 6, 5 28
Archaeol, xvii., 13, 2 29
Archaeol., xviii., 1, 4 51
Archffiol., xviii., 1, 5 39
Archaeol., xviii., 2, 1 261
Archaeol., xviii., v., 2 49, 179
Archaeol., six., 1 46
Archaeol., xx., 9, 1 412
De Bell. Jud., ii., 8, 6 38
De Bell. Jud., vi., 9, 3 354
De Bell. Jud., vii., 6, 3 147
De Vita, 2 31, 48
De Vita, 75 425
450
PASSAGES FROM ANCIENT WRITERS.
Jiiatin Martyr.
Dial. c. Trj"l>li-. f- 304, a
Dial. c. Ti-3'ph., f. 316
Dial. c. Tryph., f. 327
Dial. c. Tryph., f. 335
Dial. c. Tryph., f. 363
Macrobius.
Satumal., ii.. 4
Origencs.
C. Celsnm, i., 32
C. Celsnm, ii., 12
C. Celsum, vi., 36
Tom. vi., in Joann., 24
Tom, Ix., in Joann
Tom. xiii., iu Joann., 22
Matt, xiii., 6
Papias.
Fragm. (Eus., iii., 39)
Fragni. (Crapi., Oaten., p. 12)
Kfipuyii. (Int. Oper. Cypr. de rebapt. fin.)
Philo.
De Migrat. Abraami
Legat. ad Cajum. 23, 31
De Special. Leg., 1
De Execrat., 9
De Vit. Mos., iii., 5
Pag
21
40
19
427
233
14
116
40
192
169
183
145
111
383
Page
Pirke Aboth.
(Talmud), 1., 3 "in
Plinius.
Hist. Nat, xxviii., 7 142
Plutarchus.
De Sera Num. Vind., ix 311
Poli/lius.
i., 80, 13 426
Ruinart.
Acta Martyr., 220 418
Seneca.
Ad Lucil., vi 1T4
Simplicius.
Comm. on Epict 310
Sophocles.
CEd. Tyr., 868 i
Suetonius.
Vespas., 4 26
Tacitus.
Ann., i., 11 20
Hist, v., 13 26
Testain. xii. Patr.
Test. Simeon, 7 {;:>
Tcrtullianus.
De Jejun., xii 418
Adv. Marc, iii., 19 418
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