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 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924029376609 
 
JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
BOOKS BY WILLIAM E. BARTON, D.D. 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 The Story of His Life and the Scenes of His Ministry, with a chapter on The Christ of Art. 
 8vo, with 300 illustrations. Postpaid, $2.80. 
 
 THE OLD WORLD IN THE NEW CENTURY 
 
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 THE ABOVE ARE SOLD BY 
 
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2 
 
 o 
 
JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 THE STORY OF HIS LIFE 
 
 AND 
 
 THE SCENES OF HIS MINISTRY 
 
 WITH A CHAPTER ON 
 
 THE CHRIST OF ART 
 
 By WILLIAM E. BARTON, D. D. 
 
 author of the old world in the new century; the psalms and their 
 
 story;" "faith as related to health;" "consolation;" 
 
 "a. hero in homespun;" etc. 
 
 with maps by general henry b. carrington. u. s. a. 
 
 WITH THREE HUNDRED AND FIFTY ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 new yohk £be pilgrim press c HI 
 
 1903 
 
Copyright, 1003 
 By WILLIAM E. BARTON 
 
 The Henneberry Press 
 
 552-556 Wabash Ave. 
 Chicago 
 
 THE HALF-TONE CUTS, WITH \ FEW EXCEPTIONS, 
 WERE MADE BY 
 THE EITHER ENGRAVING COMPANY. 
 COLUMBUS, OHIO 
 
TO THE CHURCH AND CONGREGATION 
 
 TO WHICH I MINISTER 
 
 AND TO THOSE I HAVE SERVED IN FORMER YEARS 
 
 THIS COOK IS DEDICATED 
 
<*Hgag^yj*^*^ 
 
 OUTLINE MAP OF PALESTINE 
 BY GENERAL HENRY B. CARRINGTON, U. S. A. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 Soon after my return from Palestine in 1902, and the publication of 
 my book of travel, "The Old World in the New Century," I began the 
 preparation of what I intended should be a small book on "The Places 
 Where Jesus Lived and Worked." Books have a habit of outgrowing 
 the first intent of their authors. The little book grew until it had become 
 a Life of Christ. The undertaking from which I might have shrunk at 
 the outset came about naturally, and its accomplishment has been a glad, 
 though not an easy task. 
 
 There are many Lives of Christ, and good ones. The publication of 
 the works of Strauss and Renan, about forty years ago, was followed by 
 many controversial volumes, directly or indirectly in reply. These have 
 still great value, though most of them were written a generation ago. The 
 present book is written, not to maintain a theory, but to make the Life of 
 Jesus among men seem real. It does not attempt to displace any of the 
 great works now known and loved, or even to invite comparison with 
 them, but only to find and fill its own place as a reverent and sincere 
 attempt to interpret again the one inexhaustible Life. 
 
 The original purpose of describing the places associated with the min- 
 istry of Jesus has not been forgotten, and some special attention has been 
 given to their description, together with photographs made on the ground, 
 many of them by the author himself, or his companions in travel. The 
 camera has invaded Palestine since the well-known Lives of Christ were 
 written; and it is possible to show the appearance of the scenes of the 
 ministry of Jesus in a manner until recently impossible. Moreover, the art 
 of half-tone illustration, which was unknown when most of the standard 
 Lives of Christ were published, now makes the wealth of the greatest 
 galleries in the world available for a work like this. This single fact is a 
 sufficient justification for a new Life of Christ. 
 
 In the matter of the illustrations I am greatly indebted to two friends 
 and former parishioners. Major W. H. Williams, Special Agent of the 
 United States Treasury Department for Europe, has been unremitting in 
 his labor to secure for me in Paris and other cities the latest and most 
 notable of recent paintings. Through him I have procured the pictures 
 of that eccentric genius, Jean Beraud, whom he visited on my behalf. 
 and other paintings hitherto unpublished in America. The other friend, 
 Mr. Frank Wood, of Boston, placed at my disposal his large collection 
 of rare original prints. His Rembrandt etchings and Durer wood cuts 
 enrich the volume, with Claude Mellan's wonderful one-line portrait of 
 Christ and other original and yet more valuable prints. Among the latter 
 are the two little engravings of Finiguerra, the very oldest prints in the 
 world. These superlatively rare originals, made in 1452, are reproduced 
 in exact size expressly for this book. Two great paintings from Mr. 
 Wood's collection, the wonderful head of Christ which forms the frontis- 
 piece for the chapter on "Jesus as Art Reveals Him" and the beautiful 
 Madonna by Correggio, were photographed for the first time for this 
 volume by Mr. Baldwin Coolidge, photographer for the Museum of Fine 
 Arts in Boston, and are copyrighted by Mr. Wood. 
 
TREFACE 
 
 Mr. Frank T. Merrill, of Boston, and Mr. Corwin Knapp Linson, of 
 New York, and Miss Annie Kirkpatrick, of Dundee, Scotland, have given 
 me valued assistance. 
 
 Mr. John Powell Lenox, of Oak Park, whose collection of Christ 
 pictures embraces more than three thousand, and is said to be the best 
 in America, and unsurpassed abroad, has contributed a number of valuable 
 illustrations. 
 
 I am indebted to Miss Estelle M. Hurll, not only for information 
 gathered from her books, but especially for personal suggestions and 
 assistance. Her book, "The Life of Our Lord in Art," is one which every 
 minister may well aspire to own. 
 
 Beside the contributions of these and other friends, appear a large 
 number of photographs which I procured in Jerusalem, Cairo, Florence, 
 Paris and London, and a number imported since, including several from 
 the Hermitage collection in St. Petersburg. To these I have added some 
 interesting examples of the work of our American artists. 
 
 The maps in this book were made for it by General Henry B. Car- 
 rington of the U. S. Regular Army, retired. General Carrington's maps 
 in his "Battles of the Revolution" are standard. He has long been 
 engaged on a work on "The Battles of the Bible," and has brought to 
 these maps the results of his long Bible study, and has used the latest 
 surveys. His effort has been to eliminate every unnecessary detail, and 
 present accurately and clearly the places associated with the ministry of 
 Jesus. 
 
 It is no lack of willingness to acknowledge my obligations that 
 restrains me from giving a list of the books to which I am indebted. At 
 first the manuscript bristled with foot-notes, but I have cut them all out. 
 In a ministry of nineteen years I have been attempting every week to 
 tell the story of Jesus, gathering material from all the books I could find; 
 in bringing the results of this study together in a volume I have used 
 comparatively few books. It would be easy to give the list of the latter. 
 but the list would be meager and incomplete. I have kept at hand and 
 have used all the best known Lives of Christ in English; but I mention 
 only two — Edersheim, to whom I have referred most frequently for his 
 knowledge of Jewish customs, and Andrews, whose chronology I have 
 followed throughout. In a few places my own judgment would have 
 been different, but I have thought it belter to follow a clear and eonsistem 
 and familiar outline rather than to burden a work of this character with 
 discussions of chronology. 
 
 This book has been a growth. I had almost completed it before I 
 realized that I had begun it. Every minister, consciously or unconsciously, 
 is making, week by week, a Life of Christ. I found when I came to exam- 
 ine my accumulated material that there was not an incident or discourse 
 of Jesus on which I had not at some time preached. It was not difficult 
 to make a large volume where a small one had been intended; the diffi- 
 culty was to make one volume and not two. Hastening to finish the first 
 draft before the summer vacation, I wrote the last words on the eve of 
 rny birthday, June 28. I have given the summer to its revision, and send 
 it forth as an inadequate but sincere tribute to the Life of Him in whose 
 service I hope to spend the years of my life. 
 
 Jr<M^v.(i«j^ 
 
 The Study of the First Church, 
 Oak Park, Illinois, October 6, 1903. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 THE SONG AND THE STAR 
 Bethlehem, December, B. C. 5 
 Modern Bethlehem — The Road from Jerusalem to Bethlehem — Rachel's 
 Tomb — David's Well — A Palestine Inn — The Young Carpenter and 
 His Bride — Are We Sure of the Place of Jesus' Birth — The Church 
 of the Virgin, Oldest in the World — The Grotto of the Nativity — 
 Jerome and His Bible Translations — Modern Bethlehem the Field of 
 the Shepherds — The Birth of Christ in Son** — Kepler's Computation 
 of the Star of Bethlehem — The King of the Jews — The Two Embas- 
 sies tc the Cradle of Christ 25 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE HOLY CHILD 
 
 The Bible and Childhood — Confucius Versus Christianity — A Little Child 
 
 Shall Lead — The presentation in the Temple — Simeon and Anna — The 
 
 Nature of Christ, Truly Divine and Truly Human — The House of the 
 
 Herods — The Flight Into Egypt — The Sphinx and the Saviour 45 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 THE HOUSE OF MARY AND THE SHOP OF JOSEPH 
 May, B. C 4 to April, A. D. 8 
 Good Things out of Nazareth — The Road from the Sea Coast — The Mod- 
 ern Village — The Fountain of the Virgin — Modern Maidens of Naz- 
 areth — A Nazareth Housekeeper — A Village Artisan — Was Joseph 
 Older Than Mary — Who were the Lord's Brethren — The Home of a 
 Madonna — Influence of the Home and Shop on the Life of Jesus.... 56 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 THE LAD IN THE TEMPLE 
 April 8-15, A. D. 8 
 
 Travel in Palestine — El-Bireh, Traditional Place of Discovery of Loss of 
 the Boy Jesus — The Roman Roads — Country Byways — Hospitality in 
 the Holy Land — Inns and Camps — Apocryphal Gospels — Jesus in the 
 Temple — Influence of This Visit Upon His Life 71 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE BAPTISM OF JESUS 
 
 River Jordan, January, A. D. 27 
 
 John the Baptist — Political and Religious Situation — Place of Baptism — 
 
 The River Jordan — Reasons for Jesus' Baptism — The Descent of the 
 
 Spirit — An Epoch in the Life of Jesus 81 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE TEMPTATION OF JESUS 
 January to February, A. D. 27 
 The Wilderness of Judaea — The Temptation in Art — Reality of the Tempta- 
 tion in Art — A Reality of the Temptation — Three Temptations or 
 Four — Ambition in the Guise of Patriotism — Return Among Men... 90 
 
io CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE FIRST DISCIPLES 
 
 February, A. D. 2J 
 
 The First Followers of Christ — Fishermen on a Vacation — An Evening 
 
 with Jesus — The First Followers Seeking Others 101 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE MARRIAGE AT CANA 
 
 March, A. D. 27 
 
 The Modern Cana — An Oriental Wedding — Jesus No Ascetic — A Miracle 
 
 to Add to Human Joy 105 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 THE WHIP OF SMALL CORDS 
 April 11-17, A. D. 27 
 (John 2:12-25; 3:1-22) 
 Jesus and His Family Visit Capernaum — The First Passover in Christ's 
 Ministry — The Temple in the Time of Jesus — The Sale of Doves and 
 Oxen— The High Priest as a Dealer in Pigeons — The First Cleansing 
 of the Temple — The Visit of Nicodemus — The Spirituality of Man — The 
 Need of Regeneration m 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 JESUS AT JACOB'S WELL 
 December, A. D. 27 
 (John 4: 1-26) 
 Modern Shechem — Origin of the Samaritans — The Samaritan Pentateuch — 
 Modern Sychar — Jacob's Well — The Revelation to the Woman — The 
 First Christian Community — The Lord's Need, and the Needs of 
 Men 120 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 HE CAME TO HIS OWN 
 
 Nazareth, April, A. D. 28 
 
 The Return of Jesus to His Boyhood Home — The Change Noticed in Him 
 
 by His Neighbors — The Service in the Synagogue — The Surprise of 
 
 Jesus — His Rejection by His Townspeople 127 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 THE HEALING CHRIST 
 The Only Miracle of Healing Recorded of Christ's First Year's Ministry — 
 The Reluctance of Jesus to Begin a Career as a Healer — A Discussion 
 of Miracles as a Foundation of Faith — Religion for the Soul More 
 Than for the Body — Some Examples of Christ's Miracles — The Leper 
 — The Paralytic — The Centurian's Servant — The Daughter of Jairus — 
 The Blind Men — The Failure of the Supernatural as a Means of Con- 
 version — Faith Healing To-day 13s 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 JESUS AND THE SABBATH 
 Close of the First Year's Ministry — The Second Passover — The Healing 
 nt the Pool of Bethesda — The Legend of the Angel — How Errors 
 have Crept into the Text, and How They Are Sometimes Corrected — 
 The Occasions on which Jesus Disregarded the Jewish Traditions of 
 the Sabbath — Various Works of Healing — Rubbing out the Grain — 
 The Ground of Jesus' Defense — The World's Need of a Sabbath — The 
 Principle of Jesus Applied to Modern Life 155 
 
CONTENTS II 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 BESIDE THE SEA OF GALILEE 
 Capernaum, Summer, A. D. 2S 
 Jesus at Capernaum — Events which Happened There — Site of the Place — 
 Visit to Tell Hum and Khan Minyeh — Chorazin — Bethsaida — Mag- 
 dala — Tiberias — The Call of the Disciples — The Beauty of the Sea of 
 Galilee 163 
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 THE ORDINATION OF THE TWELVE 
 
 Horns of Hattin, Midsummer, A. D. 28 
 
 Jesus on the Mountain in Prayer — Preaching from Peter's Boat — The Call 
 
 of the Disciples, and Their Character — A Tribute to Their Fidelity. .176 
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT 
 
 Horns of Hattin, Midsummer, A. D. 28 
 
 The Mountains of Scripture— Sinai and Hattin; the Decalogue and the 
 
 Beatitudes — The Tradition of the Crusaders, and Their Battle — The 
 
 Sermon and Its Message — Fulfilling the Law and More — The Work 
 
 of Jesus Not Primarily Restorative, but Constructive 181 
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 THE DOUBT OF JOHN THE BAPTIST 
 Machserus, Summer and Autumn, A. D. 28 
 The Imprisonment of John — Jesus Feasting while John Suffered — Wisdom 
 Justified of Her Children — The New Better than the Old — A Misused 
 Text of Scripture — "The Old Time Religion" — The Heroism of John — 
 Greatest of the Old, but Least in the New 190 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 THE WOMEN FRIENDS OF JESUS 
 Summer and Autumn, A. D. 2S 
 A New Group of Followers of Jesus — Mary of Magdala and Her Com- 
 panions — A Slandered Woman — The Mother of Jesus and Her Attempt 
 to Restrain Her Son — Mary and Martha — The Woman at the Phar- 
 isee's Feast — The Woman with the Issue of Blood — The Remedies of 
 Old World Physicians — The Sufferings of Womankind— The Widow 
 of Nain — Oriental Funerals — Graves that Now Appear about Nain — 
 The Raising of the Widow's Son 204 
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 THE GREAT TEACHER AND HIS PUPILS 
 Autumn, A. D. 2S 
 A Change in the Method of Jesus' Instruction — The Material of Christ's 
 Parables; Illustrations from Common Life — The Eight Parables which 
 Introduced the New Method — The Region of Decapolis — The Stilling 
 of the Tempest — Swine in Galilee — The Healing of the Demoniac — 
 The Request to Depart — The Third Preaching Tour — Return to 
 Nazareth — Half-hearted Disciples — Imprisonment and Murder of 
 John — The Mission of the Twelve— Our Debt to Them — Their 
 Reports of the Teachings of Jesus— Have We Any Words of Jesus 
 Aside from Those in the Gospels? 222 
 
12 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 THE BOY WITH THE BASKET 
 
 Bethsaida Julias, April, A. D. 29 
 
 The Two Bethsaidas— The Multitude on the Way to Jerusalem — The 
 
 Loaves and the Fishes — The Purchasing Power of Our All — One 
 
 Basket and Twelve — Fragments 234 
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 THE CRISIS OF THE CHRIST 
 Capernaum, April, A. D. 29 
 Close of the Second Year of Christ's Ministry — The Crisis — The Tempta- 
 tion of the Kingdom Renewed — The Mischief of Miracles — The Ser- 
 mon that Made Enemies — Cold Hospitality at a Pharisee's House — 
 How Christ Met His Crisis 250 
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 THE UNCONCEALABLE CHRIST 
 Phoenicia, Summer, A. D. 29 
 The Retirement of Jesus to the Region of Tyre and Sidon — The Gentile 
 Woman's Faith — Jesus in Decapolis — The Healing of the Deaf and 
 Blind — The Feeding of the Four Thousand — The Craving for the 
 Miraculous — The Programme of Jesus — Denunciation of the Phar- 
 isees — The Christ Who Could Not Be Hid 257 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES 
 Jerusalem. October 14-18, A. D. 29 
 The Meddlesome Brothers of Jesus — Gossip at the Feast — Appearance of 
 Jesus at the Temple — The Great Day of the Feast — The Answer of 
 the Officers : "Never Man Spake Like This Man" — The Protest of 
 Nicodemus — The Adulteress — The Bondage of Abraham's Seed — A 
 Division Among the People 264 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 THE VISION OF THOSE WHO WAKE 
 Mt. Hermon, October, A. D. 29 
 The Preparation for the Tragedy — The Question of Jesus — The Answer 
 of Peter — Announcements of the Death of Christ — Peter Rebuked — 
 Bearing the Cross with Jesus — The Significance of the Transfigura- 
 tion — A Sabbath Evening on the Mountain — Hermon, and not Tabor, 
 the Probable Site — The Wonderful Shadow of Snow-Clad Hermon — 
 The Glory Beheld by the Disciples — The Three Groups in Raphael's 
 Picture 273 
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 THE DIVINE TAX-PAYER 
 Capernaum, Autumn, A. D. 25 
 The Only Miracle Wrought for the Personal Advantage of Jesus — His 
 Waning Popularity — The Taxes of Jesus in Arrears — Christ's Dis- 
 regard of Formal Law — The Miracle that Produced a Heathen Coin — 
 One Coin for the Lord and His Disciple 282 
 
CONTENTS 13 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 JESUS AND THE CHILDREN 
 
 Three Incidents in the Life of Jesus — The Dispute of the Disciples — The 
 Freedom of the Child in the House of Christ — "Of Such Is the King- 
 dom" — Offending One of These Little Ones — Moral Surgery — Children 
 of God 288 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII 
 FELLOWSHIP AND FORGIVENESS 
 Capernaum, Autumn, A. D. 29 
 Christ's Only References to the Church — The Ground of Forgiveness — 
 Forgive and Forget — Moral Surgery Again — Hells, Present, Past and 
 Future — The Gospel Not to Amputate, but to Save — The Worm and 
 the Fire — The Utilization of the Waste 295 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII 
 JESUS AND THE WORLD AT LARGE 
 Per:ea, November, A. D. 29 
 Special Features of Luke's Gospel — The Mission 01 the Seventy — The 
 Inhospitable Samaritans — The Doom of Capernaum and the Cities 
 Near the Lake — The Ten Lepers — Intimations of the Mission of Jesus 
 to the Outer World 301 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX 
 
 THE DEMOCRACY OF CHRIST'S DOCTRINE OF PRAYER 
 
 Perasa, November and December, A. D. 29 
 
 The Growing Sternness of the Teaching of Christ — The Galilseans Slain at 
 
 the Feast — The Eighteen on Whom the Tower of Siloam Fell — Christ's 
 
 Doctrine of Prayer 308 
 
 CHAPTER XXX 
 UNTIL HE FIND IT 
 Peraea, Winter, A. D. 29-30 
 Are There Few that Be Saved? — The Strait Gate — Counting the Cost — 
 Three Precious Parables, the Lost Sheep, Coin and Son — The The- 
 ology of Christ 317 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI 
 
 THE GOOD SHEPHERD 
 
 Jerusalem, December 20-27, A. D. 29 
 
 The Feast of Dedication — Solomon's Porch — The Demand of the Jews 
 
 The Use of Stones when Logic Fails — The Healing of the Man Born 
 Blind — The Pool of Siloam— The Sabbath Question Again— Light and 
 Darkness— The Good Shepherd — The Wide, Inclusive Fold 329 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII 
 
 THE RAISING OF LAZARUS 
 
 Bethany, January, A. D. 30 
 
 Beautiful Bethany— Primitive Industry— The Family of Lazarus— The Faith 
 
 of Martha— The Tomb of Lazarus Now Shown — The Silent Testimony 
 
 of Him Who Had Been Dead ^,g 
 
14 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII 
 THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN 
 Pera^a, Winter, A. D. 29-30 
 The Village of Ephraim — The Last Journey to Jerusalem — Various Ques- 
 tions Asked of Jesus — Divorce — Blessing the Children — The Rich 
 Young Ruler — An Ambitious Mother — The Chief Places in the King- 
 dom 345 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV 
 
 BARTIMAEUS AND ZACCHAEUS 
 
 Jericho, March, A. D. 30 
 
 Modern Jericho— The Visit of Jesus— The Blind Man by the Way— The 
 
 Man in the Tree — Zacchaeus, the Extortioner, and the Liberal Man. .352 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV 
 
 THE ALABASTER BOX 
 
 Bethany, April 1, A. D. 30 
 
 The Ascent from Jericho to Jerusalem — The Feast at Bethany — The Value 
 
 of Mary's Gift — The Murmuring of the Disciples — The Appreciation 
 
 of J esus - • 357 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI 
 
 AMID PALM BRANCHES 
 
 Jerusalem, Sunday, April 2, A. D. 30 
 
 The Prophecy of Zechariah — The Triumphal Entry — The New Attitude of 
 
 Christ — The Golden Gate — The Procession Through the Centuries. .362 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII 
 
 JESUS IN THE TEMPLE 
 
 Jerusalem, Monday, April 3, A. D. 30 
 
 The Early Walk to Jerusalem — The Barren Fig-Tree— The Power of 
 
 Prayer— Forgiveness as a Condition of Prayer— The Cleansing of the 
 
 Temple — The Praises of the Children oj-> 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII 
 
 JESUS IN CONTROVERSY 
 
 Tuesday, April 4, A. D. 30 
 
 The Day of Debate— Christ's Authority Challenged— Insidious Questions, 
 
 Political, Theological and Legal— Jesus Rejected by His Nation— The 
 
 Widow's Mite — The Gentiles Who Desired to See Jesus — The Prophecy 
 
 of the Destruction of the Temple — The Discourse on Olivet The 
 
 Talents, the Ten Virgins, and the Judgment Scene 378 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX 
 JESUS AMONG HIS FRIENDS 
 Wednesday and Thursday, April 5 and 6, A. D. 30 
 The Missing Day, Wednesday— Can We Supply It?— Preparation for the 
 Passover— The Upper Room— A Recent Communion Service in Jerusa- 
 lem — The New Commandment— The Lord's Supper — "Show Us the 
 Father" — One Universe or Two?— The Gift of the Spirit— Interpreting 
 Things as They Come og 7 
 
CONTENTS 15 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 JESUS AMONG HIS ENEMIES 
 Friday, April 7, A. D. 30 
 The Garden of Gethsemane as It Is To-day — The Drowsy Disciples — The 
 Seven Trials of Jesus — The Dilemma of Pilate — The Man of Sorrows — 
 The Via Dolorosa — Simon the Cyrenian — Mutual Cross Bearing — The 
 Crucifixion — The Seven Words from the Cross — "It Is Finished". . .402 
 
 CHAPTER XLI 
 EASTER 
 Sunday, April 9, A. D. 30 
 The Cross Not the End — Easter in Nature and in Religion — The Surprise 
 of the Disciples — The Journey of the Women — Reason and Faith — 
 The Empty Tomb — The Stone Rolled Away from Human Grief — The 
 Resurrection of Christianity 416 
 
 CHAPTER XLII 
 THE FORTY DAYS AND THE FUTURE 
 April 9 to May 18, A. D. 30 
 The Loneliness of the Disciples in Jerusalem — Their Return to Galilee — 
 Their Life During the Forty Days — Jesus with the Disciples at the 
 Sea — Loving Christ More than These — The Last Meeting of the 
 Disciples in Jerusalem — The Ascension — The Triple Rainbow on 
 Olivet — The Promise of His Presence 430 
 
 PART II 
 THE CFIRIST OF ART 
 
 I. Art and Literature. 
 
 Are Art and Literature Parallel in Their Development? — Mutual 
 Limitations and Advantages — Wherein Art Has Special Liberty and 
 Power — The Influence of Christ upon Architecture, Sculpture, Music, 
 Poetry, and Painting — The Revelation of the Ideal of the Painters — 
 This a Popular Ideal, Both a Record and a Contribution — The Popu- 
 larization of Art — The Chromo; the Half-Tone Cut; Three-Color- 
 Photography — Who Is the Christ Whom Art Reveals to Its Increased 
 Constituency? 445 
 
 II. Early Christian Art. 
 
 Discussions in the Early Church — Was Jesus Really Beautiful? — The 
 Fathers Who Denied It — Have We Any Pictures Embodying Their 
 Idea of Christ? — Purpose and Character of the Earliest Christian Art — 
 The Fish and Its Alleged Significance — Christ as Orpheus; as the 
 Personification of Youth ; as Isaac or Jonah — The Lazarus Pictures — 
 The Good Shepherd — The Lamb; Its Earlier and Later Significance — 
 Decree of the Council of Constantinople — The Thorn-Crowned Christ, 
 and the Christ of Judgment 456 
 
 III. Have We a Likeness of Christ? 
 
 The Tradition of Abgarus — The Portrait Painted by Luke — Luke and 
 the Madonna — Do such Portraits Exist? — The Various Pictures with 
 Apostolic Traditions Attached — Two Venerated Pictures — The Legend 
 of Veronica — The Three or More Napkins which Bear Her Name — 
 The Remarkable Drawing of Claude Mellan; the Strange Picture of 
 Gabriel Max — The Investigations of Thomas Heaphy and of Sir Wyke 
 Bayliss — Some of Their Copies Reproduced — Two Ancient Descrip- 
 tions of Jesus; that of Nicephorus, and the Alleged Letter of 
 Lentulus 465 
 
16 CONTENTS 
 
 IV. Mary and Her Child. 
 
 The Beauty of the Christian Madonna— Ancient and Modern 
 Madonnas— The Hitherto Unpublished Correggio— The Beauty of the 
 Childhood of Jesus in Art — The Mexican Madonna— A Series of Paint- 
 ings by Murillo; the Type Disclosed— Representations of the Boy- 
 hood of Jesus— A Noble Ideal 485 
 
 V. The Carpenter Who Became the Christ. 
 
 The Inadequacy of the Adult Christ, as Artists Paint Him — Two 
 Pictures by Holman Hunt — Divinity by Subtraction — The Christ of 
 Tissot— The General Type in Both Ancient and Modern Art— The 
 Frontispiece 5 01 
 
 VI. Past and Present. 
 
 The Development and Decline of Painting — The Ages when Cathe- 
 drals Were Building and Painting Made no Progress — The Renais- 
 sance — Giotto and His School — Man and Nature — Durer, Holbein, and 
 the Artists of the North — Rembrandt, Rubens and Van Dyck — Italian 
 Artists; Verrocchio, Da Vinci and Luini; Fra Angelico, the Lippis, 
 Botticelli, Titian and Raphael — The First Printing from Plates — The 
 Priceless Little Prints by Finiguerra— Our' Heritage from all Past 
 Ages — The Productions of Modern Art — Two Different Kinds of 
 Realism — The Realism of Earlier Art Compared 512 
 
 VII. The Christ of To-Day. 
 
 The Painters of Single Great Pictures, and Those of Series of Paint- 
 ings — The Christ of the Modern Series — Dore, Bida, and Overbeck — 
 The Christ of Hofmann — The Head that Has Supplanted that of Guido 
 Reni in Popular Affection — Tissot's Memorable Work — The Cumula- 
 tive Christ; the Christ of Every. Normal and Justifiable Relation — The 
 Illustrations of Linson — Fritz von Uhde, and His Democratic Christ — 
 L'H'ermitte, and His One Great Painting — Zimmcrmann, and His 
 Christ of the People — The Dramatic Paintings of Jean Beraud — Frank 
 Beard, His Cartoons — A Group of Recent Paintings — The Reverence 
 of this Unconventional Art 526 
 
 VIII. The Christ of To-Morrow. 
 
 The Lack of Idealism in Modern Art — The Opportunity for the 
 Modern Painter — The Inexhaustible Christ — Where Modern Art Has 
 Done Its Best — The Good Shepherd — Paintings Not Failures, Though 
 They Do Not Satisfy — The Value of the Second Commandment — A 
 Medication on a Modern Head of Christ — How Should We Feel 
 Toward Such a Man as the Artists Show to Us? — The Christ of Art 
 an Imperfect, but Helpful, Revelation — The Revelation of God in the 
 Face of Christ 545 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 The Adoration of the Magi (J. A. 
 Holzer) Frontispiece. 
 
 Map of Palestine (Gen- Henry B. 
 
 Carrington ) G 
 
 The Good Shepherd (Frederick 
 
 Shields) 24 
 
 The Tomb of Rachel 26 
 
 The Arrival at Bethlehem (Ol- 
 iver L. Merson, 1846—) 27 
 
 The City of Bethlehem 23 
 
 Madonna of the Grand Duke 
 
 (Raphael, 1482-1520) 29 
 
 The Journey of the Magi (A. W. 
 
 Van Deusen) 30 
 
 The Star of Bethlehem (Schon- 
 
 herr, 1*24-) 31 
 
 The Church of the Nativity at 
 
 Christmas 32 
 
 The Marketplace in Bethlehem. 34 
 
 Workers in Mother of Pearl — 
 
 Bethlehem 35 
 
 A Bethlehem Family 36 
 
 A Pair of Bethlehem Maidens. . . 37 
 
 The Vision of the Shepherds 
 
 (Plockhorst, 1825—) 38 
 
 Supposed Site of the Manger. . . 39 
 
 The Arrival of the Shepherds 
 
 vLeRolle) 41 
 
 Holy Night (Correggio, 1494- 
 
 1534) 43 
 
 The Dream of Joseph (Murillo, 
 
 1617-1682) 46 
 
 The Immaculate Conception (Mu- 
 rillo, 1617-1682) 47 
 
 Madonna and Child ( W. A. Bou- 
 gereau, 1825-) 48 
 
 Madonna del Pozzo ( Raphael, 
 
 1482-1520) 49 
 
 The Visit of the Shepherds (Mu- 
 rillo, 1617-1682) 50 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Madonna (Carlo Dolci, 1616- 
 
 1686) 51 
 
 Resting on the Way to Egypt 
 
 (S. Benz, 1*34—) 52 
 
 Coptic Church in Old Cairo 53 
 
 The Repose in Egypt (Van Dyck, 
 
 1599-1641) 54 
 
 The Repose in Egypt (Oliver L. 
 
 Merson, 1846— ) 55 
 
 A Group of Nazareth Maidens . . 57 
 Church of the Carpenter Shop of 
 
 St. Joseph 59 
 
 Madonna (Gabriel Max, 1840—) 60 
 
 Nazareth the Beautiful 61 
 
 The Betrothal of Joseph and 
 
 Mary (Raphael, 1483-1520) . . 63 
 Joseph and the Boy Jesus (Carl 
 
 Muller, 1839-1893) 65 
 
 Mount Carmel 66 
 
 The Visit of Mary to Elizabeth 
 
 (M. Albertinelli, 1474-1515) . 67 
 The Fountain of the Virgin in 
 
 Nazareth 69 
 
 On the Way to Bethlehem (J. 
 
 Portaels, 1818—) 70 
 
 The Boy Jesus ( Murillo, 1617-1682) 72 
 
 Jerusalem from Mount Scopus. . 73 
 
 The Valley of Jehoshaphat 74 
 
 Modern Teachers of the Law, 
 
 Jerusalem 75 
 
 Jesus Among the Doctors (Hof- 
 
 mann, 1824— ) 76 
 
 On the Road to Jerusalem 77 
 
 The Mosque of El Aksa on South 
 
 End of the Temple Area. ... 77 
 
 The Boy Jesus (Winterstein) ... 78 
 The Mosque of Omar on Temple 
 
 Site 79 
 
 Interior of Mosque of Omar 79 
 
 A Caravan Resting 80 
 
 The River Jordan 82 
 
 17 
 
i8 
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Russian Pilgrims at Jordan 83 
 
 The Baptism of Jesus (Guido 
 Reni, 1575-1642) 85 
 
 The Baptism of Jesus (A. Ver- 
 
 rocchio, 1435-1488) 87 
 
 The Light of the World ( W. Hol- 
 
 man Hunt, 1827—) 89 
 
 Where Elijah Hid from Jezebel . 91 
 
 The Wilderness of Judaea 93 
 
 The Temptation (Corwin Knapp 
 
 Linson, 1900) 95 
 
 The Mount of Temptation from 
 
 the Jordan Valley 97 
 
 The Mount of Temptation— near 
 
 view 99 
 
 The Temptation (Cornicelius, 
 
 1825—) 100 
 
 On Jordan's Banks 101 
 
 Jesus, Peter and John the Bap- 
 tist ( Chr. Verlat) 102 
 
 The Calling of Peter and An- 
 drew (Baroccio, 1508-1573).. 103 
 The Marriage at Cana (Paul 
 
 Veronese, 1528-1588) 106 
 
 The Spring at Cana of Galilee . . 107 
 
 The Village of Cana 109 
 
 Christ at the Door (Hofmann, 
 
 1824- ) 110 
 
 Mount Zion 112 
 
 Yemenite Jews in Jerusalem 113 
 
 The Damascus Gate, Jerusalem. 114 
 
 The Citadel of Zion 115 
 
 The Cleansing of the Temple 
 
 (Rembrandt, 1606-1669) 116 
 
 The Railway Station, Jerusalem 117 
 
 A Teacher of Israel 118 
 
 Jesus and Nicodemus (Unknown 
 
 German Artist— old) 119 
 
 Jesus at Jacob's Well (A. Car- 
 
 racci, 1560-1609) 120 
 
 Entrance to Jacob's Well 121 
 
 Christ and the Woman of Samaria 
 
 (Dore, 1832-1883) 123 
 
 The Famous Samaritan Passage 
 following the Ten Command- 
 ments 124 
 
 Jesus and the Samaritan Woman 
 
 (Rembrandt, 1606-1669) 125 
 
 Jacob's Well 126 
 
 A Peasant Family of Palestine. . 129 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Eminent Men of Palestine 131 
 
 Palestine Street Scene 133 
 
 Christ Healing the Sick (Rem- 
 brandt, 1606-1669) 137 
 
 Christ Raising the Daughter of 
 Jairus (Gustav Richter, 1823- 
 1884.) 141 
 
 A Group of Palestine Lepers 145 
 
 Jesus and the Paralytic 147 
 
 The Daughter of Jairus (Hof- 
 mann, 1824 ) 151 
 
 Ruins of the Synagogue at Tell 
 Hum 153 
 
 Get Thee Behind Me, Satan ! (Hof- 
 mann, 1824—) 154 
 
 " Wilt Thou Be Made Whole?" 
 (C. Schonherr, 1827—) 156 
 
 The Moving of the Waters(Jean 
 
 Restout, 1696-1768) 157 
 
 The Pool of Bethesda 160 
 
 The Disciples Rubbing Out the 
 Grain (Dore, 1832-1883) 161 
 
 Jerusalem from the Wall 162 
 
 The Beach of Bethsaida ('Am et 
 Tabigha) 164 
 
 Map of the Sea of Galilee (Gen. 
 Henry B. Carrington, U. S. 
 Army) 165 
 
 The Shore at Capernaum (Khan 
 
 Minyeh) 166 
 
 The Draught of Fishes (Crayer, 
 
 1582-1669) 167 
 
 Ancient Aqueduct above Khan 
 
 Minyeh 169 
 
 Tell Hum 171 
 
 The Call of Matthew (Bida, 1813- 
 1895) 172 
 
 The Calling of Matthew (Che- 
 
 mento of Empoli, 1554-1640) 173 
 
 Fisherman Washing his Net 174 
 
 Tiberias 175 
 
 Fisherman on the Shore Near 
 where the Disciples were 
 
 Called 177 
 
 Christ and the Fishermen (Zim- 
 
 mermann, 1852 — ) 178 
 
 Jesus Preaching from Peter's 
 
 Boat (Hofmann, 1824 -) 179 
 
 Modern Galilaean Fishermen 180 
 
 A City Set on a Hill 182 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 19 
 
 Sermon on the Mount (Fritz von 
 Uhde, 1846—) 183 
 
 The Sea of Galilee from Tell Hum 186 
 
 Garden of Franciscan Monks at 
 Tell Hum 187 
 
 Head of Christ (Da Vinci, 1452- 
 1519) 189 
 
 Young John the Baptist (Ra- 
 phael, 1483-1520) 191 
 
 'Ain Karim, Traditional Birth- 
 place of John the Baptist . . 193 
 
 John Rebuking Herod (G. Fat- 
 tori, 1828—) 195 
 
 Beheading of John the Baptist 
 
 (C. S. Pearce, 1881- ) 199 
 
 The Burial of Jesus (Lucio Mas- 
 sari, 1569-1633) 203 
 
 The Virgin Adoring the Child 
 
 (Correggio, 1494-1534) 205 
 
 The Madonna of the Carpenter 
 
 Shop (Dagnan-Bouveret) . . . 206 
 
 Madonna and Child ( Albrecht 
 
 Durer, 1507) 207 
 
 Christ Taking Leave of his 
 Mother (Durer, 1511) 208 
 
 So-Called House of Lazarus, 
 
 Bethany 209 
 
 Magdala 210 
 
 Jesus at Bethany (Hofmann, 
 1824- ) 211 
 
 The Reading Magdalen (Correg- 
 gio, 1494-1534) 212 
 
 Jesus, Mary and Martha (Schon- 
 herr, 1824-) 213 
 
 The Feast at the House of Simon 
 the Pharisee (Rubens, 1577- 
 1640) 214 
 
 The Women Friends of Jesus 
 (Alex. Golz) 215 
 
 Jesus among the Pharisees (Jean 
 
 Beraud).... 216 
 
 The Women at the House of 
 Simon the Pharisee (School 
 of Giotto, 1276-1336) 217 
 
 The Son of the Widow of Nain 
 
 (H. Hofmann, 1824—) 219 
 
 The Village of Nain 220 
 
 Christ at the House of Lazarus 
 
 1 Siemiradsky, 1834-) 221 
 
 Threshing Floor in Palestine 223 
 
 Jesus Teaching in the Synagogue 
 
 (C. K. Linson) 225 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Jesus Stilling the Tempest (Dore, 
 
 1833-1883) 227 
 
 The Hand to the Plow 229 
 
 A Familiar Scene in Palestine. . . 231 
 
 Egyptian Papyrus Containing 
 "Sayings" of Jesus 233 
 
 The Multiplication of the Loaves 
 (Murillo, 1617-1682) 237 
 
 Jesus the Christ (Munkacsy 
 1846-) 239 
 
 Christ the Compassionate 
 (Raphael, 1483-1520) 243 
 
 The Tower of Antonio, Jerusa- 
 lem 249 
 
 Christ and Peter (Schwartz) .... 253 
 The Man of Sorrows (Jean Ber- 
 aud) 256 
 
 The Canaanitish Woman (Palma 
 
 Vecchio, 1475-1528) 259 
 
 The New Entrance to Jerusalem 265 
 Tower of David and Hippicus, 
 
 Jerusalem 266 
 
 David Street, Jerusalem 267 
 
 Inside the Jaffa Gate 269 
 
 Christ and the Adulteress (Emile 
 
 Signol) 270 
 
 The Adulteress (Titian, 1477-1566) 271 
 Mount Tabor from the Plain of 
 
 Esdrselon 274 
 
 Mount Hermon 275 
 
 The Transfiguration (Raphael, 
 
 1483-1520) 277 
 
 The Coin in the Fish's Mouth 
 
 (Spagnoletto, 1588-1656).... 284 
 The Tribute Money (Titian, 1477- 
 
 1576) 285 
 
 A Modern Scribe 286 
 
 The Sacred Shekel 287 
 
 Christ and the Children (Hof- 
 mann, 1824-) 291 
 
 Christ Blessing Little Children 
 
 (Rembrandt, 1607-1669) 293 
 
 Suffer Little Children (Von Uhde, 
 
 1846-) 294 
 
 The Valley of Hinnom 299 
 
 Gehenna and Aceldama 300 
 
 A Samaritan Village 303 
 
 Come Unto Me ( Thorwaldsen, 
 
 1770-1844) 304 
 
 The Inn of the Good Samaritan 305 
 
20 
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Good Samaritan (Frank T. 
 
 Merrill, 1900) 306 
 
 Jesus Among Peasants (F. von 
 
 Uhde, 1846—) 309 
 
 Church of the Lord's Prayer. . . . 313 
 Feed My Sheep (Raphael, 1483- 
 
 1520) 319 
 
 A Palestine Shepherd 321 
 
 The Lost Sheep (Frank Beard) 323 
 
 The Prodigal's Repentance 
 
 (Durer, 1504) 325 
 
 The Good Shepherd (Dobson) . . . 327 
 
 The Good Shepherd of the Four 
 
 Seasons 328 
 
 The Pool of Siloam 331 
 
 The Siloam Inscription 332 
 
 Leading Forth the Sheep 333 
 
 The Shepherd of Jerusalem . 335 
 
 The Good Shepherd (Molitor). . . 337 
 
 Modern Bethany 339 
 
 A Modern Martha, of Bethany, 
 
 Spinning 340 
 
 The Raising of Lazarus (S. Del 
 
 Piombo, 1485-1547) 341 
 
 The Raising of Lazarus (Rubens, 
 
 1577-1640) 342 
 
 The Tomb of Lazarus 343 
 
 Modern Jericho 353 
 
 A Jericho Family 354 
 
 Site of Ancient Jericho 355 
 
 A Man of Distinction in Jericho. 356 
 The Apostles' Fountain— on Jeri- 
 cho Road 359 
 
 Mary with the Alabaster Box 
 
 (Carlo Dolci, 1616-1686) 360 
 
 "The Poor Ye Have Always 
 
 With You" 361 
 
 The Road from Jericho to Jerusa- 
 lem 363 
 
 Jesus Lamenting Over Jerusa- 
 lem (Eastlake) 365 
 
 The Golden Gate of Jerusalem.. 367 
 
 Golden Gate, Interior 369 
 
 The Triumphal Entry (Hofmann, 
 
 1824-) 371 
 
 Head of Christ (Vladimir Makou- 
 
 sky) 372 
 
 Street Leading to the Church of 
 
 the Holy Sepulchre 374 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Church of the Holy Sepul- 
 chre 375 
 
 The So-called Center of the 
 World 376 
 
 Jerusalem from the Mount of 
 
 Olives 377 
 
 The Holy Sepulchre 379 
 
 Tribute to Caesar (Bida, 1813- 
 1895) 381 
 
 Inscription on Stone from the 
 Temple 383 
 
 The Man of Sorrows (Eduard 
 Biedermann) 386 
 
 Christ Washing Peter's Feet 
 (Ford Maddox Brown, 1821- 
 1893) 388 
 
 Jesus Washing Peter's Feet 
 (Boccaccino, 1515-1546) 389 
 
 The Upper Room, Jerusalem . . . 393 
 
 Judas Receiving the Money (H. 
 
 Prell) 395 
 
 Alleged Tombs of Absalom, 
 Zechariah, and James, with 
 Greek Gethsemane in the 
 Distance 397 
 
 Gethsemane and the Mount of 
 Olives 399 
 
 Old Olive Tree in Gethsemane . . 400 
 On the Way to Gethsemane 
 
 (C. Schonherr, 1825- ) 401 
 
 Jesus in Gethsemane (Liska) . . . 403 
 
 The Denial of Peter (Harrach) . 404 
 
 Christ Before Pilate ( Hofmann, 
 
 1824—) 405 
 
 Christ Leaving the Prastorium 
 (Dore, 1833-1883) 406 
 
 The Sorrowful Way 407 
 
 Crucifixion (W. A. Bouguereau, 
 
 1825—) 409 
 
 The Tombs of the Kings, Jeru- 
 salem 411 
 
 The Entombment (Perugino, 1446- 
 
 1524) 412 
 
 The Stone of Anointment 413 
 
 The Tomb in the Garden at Cal- 
 vary 414 
 
 "There Is a Green Hill Far 
 Away." 415 
 
 Easter Morning ( Bouguereau, 
 
 1825—) 417 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 21 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Mary at the Sepulchre (E. Burne- 
 Jones) 418 
 
 He Is Risen! (Tojetti, 1849-). . . 419 
 Peter and John Running to the 
 
 Sepulchre (Eugene Burnaud) 420 
 
 The Walk to Emmaus (Hof- 
 
 mann, 1824—) 421 
 
 Kubebeh, the Emmaus of the 
 
 Crusaders 423 
 
 Christ at Emmaus (Paul Ver- 
 onese, 1528-1588) 425 
 
 "Lord, I Believe!" (C. Schon- 
 herr, 1825-) 427 
 
 Jesus at Emmaus (Rembrandt, 
 1607-1669) 428 
 
 "Peace Be Unto You!" (Kust- 
 hardt) 429 
 
 Service of American Pilgrims on 
 Mount Calvary 431 
 
 John and the Mother of Jesus 
 (Dobson) 433 
 
 The Church of the Ascension .... 435 
 The Summit of the Mount of 
 
 Olives from Bethphage 437 
 
 The Ascension (Biermann) 439 
 
 He is Risen ! (Ender, 1793-1854) 443 
 Jesus of Nazareth 444 
 
 The Annunciation (Murillo, 1617- 
 
 1682) 446 
 
 Madonna and Child (Murillo, 
 
 1617-1682) 447 
 
 The Flight into Egypt (Murillo, 
 
 1617-1682) 448 
 
 Resting on the Way to Egypt 
 
 (Murillo, 1617-1682) 449 
 
 The Holy Family (Murillo, 1617- 
 
 1682) 450 
 
 Joseph and the Infant Jesus 
 (Murillo, 1617-1682) 451 
 
 Joseph and the Child Jesus (Mu- 
 rillo, 1617-1682) 452 
 
 The Divine Shepherd (Murillo, 
 
 1617-1682) 453 
 
 The Holy Child (Murillo, 1617- 
 
 1682) 454 
 
 The Christ of Murillo (1617-1682) 455 
 Christ Bringing Fruit of the Tree 
 
 of Life 457 
 
 Christ as Orpheus 457 
 
 The Nativity, 343 A. D 458 
 
 The Good Shepherd (from the 
 Catacombs) 458 
 
 The Good Shepherd, with Jonah 
 
 as Prototype 458 
 
 The Raising of Lazarus (from the 
 Catacombs ) 459 
 
 Primitive Forms of the Cross . . . 459 
 The Baptism of Christ with Water 
 from Heaven 460 
 
 The Nativity, 4th Century 461 
 
 Likeness of Christ attributed to 
 
 St. Luke 466 
 
 Luke Painting the Madonna 
 (Rogier Van der Weyden, 
 1399-1464) 467 
 
 Luke's Alleged Portrait of the 
 
 Virgin 468 
 
 The Bambino in the Church in 
 
 Ara Coeli, Rome 469 
 
 The Napkin of Saint Veronica 
 in Saint Peter's, Rome 470 
 
 The Famous One-Line Portrait 
 of Christ ( Claude Mellan, 
 1598-1688) 471 
 
 Life Size Fresco from the Cata- 
 comb of Saint Calisto 472 
 
 The Napkin of Veronica (Ga- 
 briel Max, 1846—) 473 
 
 Byzantine Likeness of Christ. . . 474 
 
 Mosaic from the Baptistry of 
 Constantine 475 
 
 Miniature Mosaic from the Cata- 
 combs 476 
 
 The Madonna of the Chair (Ra- 
 phael, 1483-1520) 477 
 
 The Queen of Heaven (Pap- 
 peritz) 478 
 
 The Immaculate Conception 
 
 (Murillo, 1617-1682) 479 
 
 The Madonna of the Arbor (Dag- 
 
 nan-Bouveret) 480 
 
 Raphael Painting the Madonna 
 of the Chair (J. W. Wittmer, 
 1802-1880) 481 
 
 The Visit of the Shepherds ( Al- 
 
 brecht Durer, 1510) ..482 
 
 The Adoration of the Magi (Al- 
 
 brecht Durer, 1511) 483 
 
 The Coronation of the Madonna 
 (Botticelli, 1447-1510) 484 
 
 The Madonna ( Filippino Lippi, 
 
 1460-1505) 485 
 
22 
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 Mater Dolorosa (Guido Reni, 
 
 1575-1642) 486 
 
 The Sistine Madonna (Raphael, 
 
 1483-1520) 488 
 
 The Virgin Adoring the Child 
 (Fra Filippo Lippi, 1412-1469) 487 
 
 The Nativity (W. A. Bouguer- 
 eau, 1825—) 489 
 
 The Madonna and Child (Cor- 
 
 reggio, 1494-1534) 490 
 
 Mexican Madonna 491 
 
 Our Lady of Guadalupe 493 
 
 The Starof Bethlehem (Piglheim) 494 
 
 The Virgin and the Infant Jesus 
 (Gherardo Delle Notti, 1590- 
 1656) 495 
 
 The Visit of Mary to Elizabeth 
 
 (Titian, 1477-1576) 496 
 
 The Annunciation (Dante Gabriel 
 Rossetti, 1828-1882) 497 
 
 The Flight into Egypt (Claude 
 
 Lorraine, 1600-1682) 498 
 
 The Repose in Egypt (Le Rolle) 499 
 
 Jesus and the Children (Kirch- 
 bach) 500 
 
 The Carpenter Shop of Nazareth 
 
 (Corwin Knapp Linson) 501 
 
 The Shadow of Death (W. Hol- 
 
 man Hunt, 1827—) 502 
 
 The Resurrection of Lazarus 
 
 (Bassano, 1510-1592) 503 
 
 The Last Supper (Rubens, 1577- 
 
 1640) 504 
 
 The Crucifixion (Michael Angelo, 
 
 1475-1564) 505 
 
 The Dead Christ (Fra Bartolom- 
 
 meo, 1469-1517) 506 
 
 Jesus and Thomas (Van Dyck, 
 
 1599-1641) 507 
 
 Jesus Among the Doctors (Giot- 
 to, 1276-1336) 508 
 
 The Finding of Christ in the 
 Temple (W. Holman Hunt, 
 1827—) 509 
 
 The Adoration of the Magi (Al- 
 
 brecht Altdorfer, 1512) 510 
 
 Pilate Washing his Hands (Hans 
 
 Holbein, 1517) 511 
 
 The Visit of the Magi to the 
 Cave-Born Child (From the 
 Codex Grsecus, in Vatican, 
 1613 A. D.) 512 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Raising of Lazarus (Rem- 
 
 Brandt, 1642) 513 
 
 Christ before Caiaphas (Durer, 
 
 1512) 514 
 
 The Coronation of the Virgin 
 (Finiguerra, 1452) 515 
 
 The Adoration of the Magi (Fini- 
 guerra, 1452) 516 
 
 The Last Supper (Leonardo da 
 
 Vinci, 1452-1519) 517 
 
 The Last Supper (Fra Angelico, 
 
 1387-1455) 518 
 
 The Last Supper (Zimmermann, 
 
 1852—) 519 
 
 Christ at Emmaus (Fra Angeli- 
 co, 1387-1455) 520 
 
 Christ at Emmaus (Rembrandt, 
 
 1634) 521 
 
 Christ Healing a Child (Gabriel 
 
 Max, 1840—) 522 
 
 "Save, Lord, or I Perish" 
 
 ( Frederic Shields) 524 
 
 Christ and the Young Ruler 
 
 (Hofmann, 1S24-) 526 
 
 The Man Christ Jesus (Hofmann, 
 
 1824—) 527 
 
 Ecce Homo (Guido Reni, 1575- 
 
 1642) 528 
 
 Christ Blessing Little Children 
 
 (Hofmann, 1824—) 529 
 
 "Come, Lord Jesus, and be Our 
 
 Guest" (Fritz von Uhde, 
 
 1846-) 530 
 
 The Holy Family (Fritz von 
 
 Uhde, 1846-) 531 
 
 The Angel and the Shepherds 
 
 (Fritz von Uhde, 1846-) .... 532 
 One of Fritz Von Uhde's Cher- 
 ubs 533 
 
 Study for the Head of Christ 
 
 (Alfred Juergens, 1903) 534 
 
 The Great Physician (Gabriel 
 
 Max, 1840—) 535 
 
 The Saviour of the World (F. 
 
 Bucher) 536 
 
 Christ with Peasants (L'Her- 
 
 mitte) 537 
 
 Jesus Among Pharisees (Jean 
 
 Beraud) 538 
 
 Christ Bearing the Cross (Jean 
 
 Beraud) 539 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 2 3 
 
 The Descent from the Cross 
 (Jean Beraud) 540 
 
 The Scourging of Jesus (Jean 
 
 Beraud) 541 
 
 "If it be possible, let this cup 
 pass from me' ' ( Joseph- 
 Aubert, 1898) 542 
 
 "Why Have Ye Done This?" 
 
 (Debat-Ponsanj 543 
 
 "Behold I Stand at the Door 
 and Knock" (Frank Beard, 
 1902) 544 
 
 The Last Communion (Joseph- 
 
 Aubert, 1900) 545 
 
 The Betrayal (Hebert) 546 
 
 The Mission of the Apostles 
 
 (Joseph- Aubert, 1899) 547 
 
 Jesus Bearing the Cross (W. A. 
 
 Bouguerau) 548 
 
 The Crucifixion (Joseph- Aubert, 
 
 1903) 549 
 
 The Return from Calvary ( Joseph- 
 Aubert, 1903) 550 
 
 On the Way to Emmaus (Girar- 
 
 det, 1903) 551 
 
 The Head of Christ (Wolter- 
 
 Sigora) 552 
 
 Christ and the Adulteress (A. A. 
 
 Anderson) 553 
 
 The Widow's Mite (Hugo Mieth, 
 
 1899) 554 
 
 "Suffer Little Children to Come 
 to Me." (Ruederstein,1893).. 555 
 
 "Behold, I Send You Forth" (J. 
 R. Wehle, 1900) 556 
 
 The Good Shepherd (Plockhorst, 
 
 1825—) 557 
 
 The Good Shepherd of the Cata- 
 combs 558 
 
THE GOOD S 
 
 HEPHERD — (FREDERIC SHIELDS) 
 
JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE SONG AND THE STAR 
 
 The modern tourist visiting Bethlehem makes his way from 
 Jerusalem over an excellent road, on horseback or in a com- 
 fortable carriage, and may easily accomplish the half-dozen 
 miles of his pilgrimage in an hour. More slowly, and often 
 with weary feet, the caravans of antiquity toiled over this same 
 highway. We are following, when we make this journey, at 
 the end of a procession many centuries in length. Through 
 these same fertile valleys, over this same thoroughfare, patri- 
 archs and merchantmen of antiquity plodded their way from 
 the populous centers of Assyria and Babylon to the markets 
 of Egypt. Glad were they and their overladen beasts of the 
 comparative level of this stretch of road after the toil and 
 danger of the hill-country to the north, and glad were they 
 returning of the fertility of the fields and the occasional shade 
 by the way, after the heat and sand of the desert. The lime- 
 stone of this thoroughfare has been ground to dust by feet 
 that themselves returned to dust thousands of years ago. The 
 foot of the modern tourist wakes echoes of footfalls that died 
 out in silence ages ago. 
 
 But among all who journeyed southward over this road in 
 past centuries, one group rises from the silence and takes form 
 in the imagination — an anxious man, leading a small Syrian 
 donkey, on which rides a young and beautiful woman. They 
 proceed slowly and with frequent halts; and many are the 
 travelers that go past them on the way. A throng of people 
 is making its way to Bethlehem, for the word of Caesar has 
 commanded a census as the basis of a new tax levy, and the 
 people go for enrolment to their ancestral homes. This law 
 
 25 
 
26 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 has brought the young carpenter and his bride a weary jour- 
 ney of a hundred miles from Nazareth, and at what seems a 
 most inopportune time. 
 
 We see this young couple before us all the way; we pass 
 them again and again as we journey, for their pace is painfully 
 slow, and it will be night ere they arrive in the home of their 
 forefathers, and a cold welcome, alas, awaits them there. 
 
 Before we reach Bethlehem we are reminded that the place 
 had its own historic associations before the time of Christ. 
 Close beside the roadway on the right is seen a conspicuous 
 
 THE TOME OF RACHEL 
 
 sepulchre. Mary must have noticed it, and, if she had never 
 seen it before, she can hardly have failed to ask Joseph what 
 it was. We can imagine that Joseph told her with some reluc- 
 tance, and that the information brought to Mary a momen- 
 tary foreboding. This is the tomb of Rachel. Jacob and his 
 family were in the midst of one of their journeys southward 
 from Bethel when Rachel here gave birth to Benjamin, the 
 son of her sorrow. 
 
 ''And Rachel died, and was buried in the way to Ephrath 
 (the same is Bethlehem). And Jacob set up a pillar upon her 
 
THE SONG AND THE STAR 
 
 27 
 
 grave: the same is the Pillar of Rachel's grave unto this clay" 
 (Gen. 35: 19, 20). 
 
 Mary knew the story well, but the place itself must have 
 brought it all back to her and with new and ominous signifi- 
 cance. We see her and Joseph making what haste they may 
 
 THE ARRIVAL AT BETHLEHEM 
 (OLIVER L. MERSON, 1846 ) 
 
 toward Bethlehem, while we tarry for a while at Rachel's 
 grave — one of the oldest and best authenticated of the memo- 
 rials of the patriarchs. 
 
 Jacob's own pillar may not have remained long in place, but 
 there was every motive for the renewal of a monument of 
 
28 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 such historic and pathetic interest. Situated as it was by the 
 highroad, it soon became a recognized waymark. In Sam- 
 uel's time the place of the grave was well known (I. Samuel 
 10: 2), and it is believed that knowledge of the spot has never 
 disappeared from popular interest so as to have required the 
 invention of a myth to identify it. The spot is held in sacred 
 affection by Jew. Mohammedan and Christian. The tomb has 
 often been restored and its external form changed. The pres- 
 ent structure is entirely modern, and very similar to the other 
 tombs of the more pretentious sort of which one finds num- 
 
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 jfrg3 > ~ '*P*fr l i **'?££' 
 
 
 
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 THE CITV OF BETHLEHEM 
 
 bers throughout Syria; but the grave itself is quite possibly 
 undisturbed. Here, every Thursday, come scores of Moham- 
 medan women for a day of mourning. The weeping of Rachel 
 for her children finds loud and vehement echoes in the lamen- 
 tations of these Moslem women for Rachel herself. Here, of all 
 places in Palestine, a Moslem woman desires to be buried. 
 Thousands of graves, not all of them graves of women, sur- 
 round the tomb of the beloved wife of Jacob. 
 
 Bethlehem is in plain sight, a mile ahead. Its situation 
 instantly reminds one of that of Jerusalem. It is built upon 
 
THE SONG AND THE STAR 
 
 29 
 
 a double hill with a low valley or saddle near the middle, and, 
 while much smaller, it stands up from its surrounding valleys, 
 square-built and solid, and appears almost as impressive and 
 picturesque as the Holy City itself. The hill is of gray lime- 
 stone and the slopes and surrounding valleys are green with 
 
 MADONNA OF THE GRAND DUKE 
 (RAPHAEL, 1482-1520) 
 
 fig-trees and olive-trees, and cultivated fields and pastures. 
 Just before we come to the town the road makes a turn, while 
 a path, keeping straight ahead, leads to a well which has been 
 identified for six hundred years as the well of David. Here 
 this comparatively modern tradition places the scene of the 
 story in IT. Sam. 23: 14-17: 
 
3° 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 "And David was then in the hold, and the garrison of the 
 Philistines was then in Bethlehem. And David longed and 
 said, Oh that one would give me water to drink of the well 
 of Bethlehem, which is by the gate! And the three mighty 
 men brake through the host of the Philistines, and drew water 
 
 THE JOURNEY OF THE MAGI (a. W. VAN DEUSEN) 
 
 out of the well of Bethlehem, that was by the gate, and took it, 
 and brought it to David: but he would not drink thereof, but 
 poured it out unto the Lord. And he said, Be it far from me, 
 O Lord, that I should do this: shall I drink the blood of the 
 men that went in jeopardy of their lives? therefore he would 
 not drink it. These things did the three mighty men." 
 
THE SONG AND THE STAR 
 
 3 1 
 
 It is little wonder that a nature so warm-hearted and gen- 
 erous as that of David was capable of calling forth such enthu- 
 siastic loyalty and devotion, and it also is not strange that a 
 man of feelings so fine as those expressed in the pouring out of 
 the water brought to him at such peril, should have impressed 
 the men of his own generation as worthy to be king. It was 
 
 THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM — (SCHONHERR, 1824 — ) 
 
 the life of this man that made Bethlehem famous, and it bears 
 his name, the City of David. 
 
 But a story more beautiful than any recorded of David is 
 that with which the Gospels open, the birth of Jesus the 
 Saviour. Beautiful it is, but pathetic, also. The young car- 
 penter arrived late in Bethlehem, and, in spite of the prover- 
 
32 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 bial hospitality of Palestine, was unable to obtain a lodging. 
 The khan was full, and the cavern which served it as a stable 
 — and the khan itself was little more than a stable — alone 
 afforded them a shelter. 
 
 We are not left to conjecture the general character of an 
 inn or khan of the time of Christ. Such caravansaries still 
 exist in Palestine. A typical building of this kind at Jenin is 
 a stone structure about fifty feet long and twenty-five wide, 
 divided in the middle by a wall five feet high; one side being 
 
 THE CHURCH OF THE NATIVITY AT CHRISTMAS 
 
 for horses and the other for the people. Around the wall of 
 this latter room extends a bench of masonry five feet wide and 
 two feet high, known as the leewan, on which people store 
 their baggage and make their beds for the night. Each 
 caravan, on its arrival, passes through this room and stops 
 while the horses and donkeys are unloaded. The animals are 
 then turned loose into the other apartment and fenced out by 
 a single pole. Sleepers on the leewans around the walls are 
 frequently disturbed by the arrival of other caravans, or by 
 the stamping of horses already within the enclosure. There is 
 
THE SONG AND THE STAR 33 
 
 no privacy; travelers arriving after the leewans are full must 
 make the best of the floor: and if this too is occupied the last 
 resort is the other apartment with the horses. Some of these 
 khans were doubtless larger than the one described, and some 
 had stone mangers for the horses. Some, too, had more apart- 
 ments or recessed leewans opening around a central court. 
 The town of Bethlehem being upon an ancient highroad, 
 would probably have possessed a khan larger than the average, 
 and its stables and adjacent yards would have covered more 
 space than the modern one at Jenin. Still, the general type 
 has doubtless been altered little, and the caravansaries in 
 Palestine today will illustrate, quite graphically, the rude sur- 
 roundings of the birth of Jesus. 
 
 It was no parsimony on the part of the young carpenter 
 that brought him and his bride to this unpromising place. 
 Vainly Joseph sought a lodging elsewhere, but the inner 
 leewans were full, and the little town had no home that opened 
 its door, at that time when the village was crowded, to Mary 
 and her husband. So, in the stable of the village khan, Jesus 
 was born. 
 
 Can we be at all sure that we have found the place where 
 Jesus was born? There are many things of interest in Pales- 
 tine which we must read about with doubt or misgiving; but 
 we are glad to be assured that the place where this occurred is 
 known beyond serious doubt. The great church of Saint 
 Mary, erected by Constantine early in the fourth century, was 
 located upon a tradition that reached at least two hundred 
 years farther back. The very church is still standing, though 
 Jerusalem has been destroyed again and again; and the tradi- 
 tion which the building perpetuates has come down to us like 
 the church itself, from the earliest Christian centuries. But 
 the inn and grotto, thus marked by the church, had been kept 
 well in mind since the time of Justin Martyr, in whose day this 
 was well accepted as the veritable spot of Christ's birth. The 
 testimony of Justin Martyr, who lived less than a century after 
 Christ, is the more convincing because he was born in Pales- 
 tine, at Shechem, and knew the country, and was well able to 
 
34 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 pass upon the reasonableness of current traditions. This does 
 not give us certainty, but a reasonable probability, which a 
 visit to the place seems to confirm. The place answers all the 
 necessities of the case, makes the story more real, and satis- 
 fies at once one's reason and his sense of fitness. 
 
 The church is occupied by Greeks, Latins and Armenians. 
 These sects show none too much of the Christian spirit in 
 their love of each other, but after a fashion they dwell together 
 
 THE MARKET PLACE IN BETHLEHEM 
 
 in unity. This is the oldest Christian church in Palestine, and 
 probably the oldest in the world. It is cruciform in shape, and 
 the choir, which occupies the top and arms of the cross, is 
 separated from the nave by a partition. A double row of col- 
 umns, on either side of the nave, are crowned with Corinthian 
 capitals with a cross carved on each. The clearstory rises 
 high above these columns. This part of the church, common 
 to all the denominations who hold it, is bare and faded, and 
 the separate quarters of the three sects have a shabby look; 
 
THE SONG AND THE STAR 
 
 35 
 
 but the Greek cathedral, above the grotto, is handsomely dec- 
 orated, and the Grotto of the Nativity is jealously guarded. 
 Here are fifteen lamps, kept constantly burning; six of them 
 by the Greeks, five of them by the Armenians, and four by 
 the Latins. The exact place of the Saviour's birth, as the tra- 
 dition holds it, is indicated by a star in the floor, with the 
 words in Latin, "Here Christ was born of the Virgin Mary." 
 Daily services are held here by the different sects, and the 
 Christmas celebrations are particularly imposing. 
 
 WORKERS IN MOTHER-OF-PEARL — BETHLEHEM 
 
 In this cave dwelt Jerome, the greatest Biblical critic of the 
 earliest Christian centuries. Here he learned the Hebrew 
 language and made his translation of the Vulgate. The grotto 
 where he is believed to have wrought is pointed out, as well as 
 his tomb and the graves of the two women, mother and daugh- 
 ter, who devoted themselves to him during his long continued 
 effort. Jerome was subject to the most severe criticism for 
 presuming to make a new translation of the Bible, and his 
 righteous soul was vexed beyond the narrow limits of absolute 
 saintliness by attacks made, not only upon his orthodoxy, but 
 
36 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 upon his moral character as well. But he had faith in the great 
 work he had undertaken, and so also had some of his friends, 
 and he persisted until his translation of the Bible was complete. 
 He applied to his critics some names which were the reverse 
 of gentle. He called them "fools," ''stupids" and "biped 
 asses." The critics were in the majority while he lived, but 
 after his death the value of his work was recognized, and he 
 
 
 A BETHLEHEM FAMILY 
 
 was declared a saint. The Latin church still uses his transla- 
 tion, which, spite of its limitations, has proved one of the 
 greatest blessings of the Christian church. 
 
 The modern Bethlehem contains about five thousand inhab- 
 itants, almost wholly Christian. It is an enterprising little city, 
 and a marked contrast with Hebron, its Mohammedan neigh- 
 bor. One is full of energy, progress and hope; the other is 
 stagnant and void of ambition. One worships by the tombs 
 
THE SONG AND THE STAR 
 
 37 
 
 of a great past; the other rejoices in a Christ whose life, new- 
 born in every man and community that receives him, forever 
 begins anew, and forever expects a glorious future. 
 
 My own visit to Bethlehem was made in March, 1902, after 
 a weary, but fascinating, horseback ride through Galilee and 
 Samaria to Jerusalem, over rough and rocky roads. The car- 
 riage drive to Bethlehem seemed very restful by comparison 
 
 A PAIR OF BETHLEHEM MAIDENS 
 
 and the journey both short and delightful. The streets of the 
 little city were full of enterprising men selling articles made 
 from mother-of-pearl, many of them of exquisite workman- 
 ship, or of olive-wood and cedar. Women, too, were upon the 
 streets in large numbers, in their picturesque attire and un- 
 veiled faces. They are sturdy, wholesome looking women, and 
 their costumes are more brilliant and striking in color than 
 
38 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 those of any other city in Palestine. The town lacks water, 
 as Jerusalem does, and depends upon its cisterns dug in the 
 limestone rock, twenty-five hundred feet above the level of the 
 sea. But the surrounding country is fertile, and the people 
 are well nourished and show evidence of intelligence and skill. 
 
 THE VISION OF THE SHEPHERDS — (PLOCKHORST, 1825 — ) 
 
 It is a city that evokes one's enthusiasm, and sends him back 
 with joy in his heart. The song of the angels is still heard in 
 the hearts of men, and one hears it with sweeter and deeper 
 meanings when he has visited the spot where first it woke the 
 wondering shepherds to thanksgiving and praise. 
 
THE SONG AND THE STAR 
 
 39 
 
 The angels sang above the place, and well they might, for 
 nowhere has been struck a chord that echoes so loud and clear 
 in the songs of the centuries that followed. To the west of 
 the village, one is shown the field where the angels sang. It is 
 needless to say that no one knows in just what field the shep- 
 herds were keeping their sheep. It is enough to know that 
 this may have been the held. A similar field is assigned by 
 tradition to Boaz and Ruth. It is pleasant to be reminded 
 
 SUPPOSED SITE OF THE MANGER 
 
 of this old-time love story in this home of David and the tem- 
 porary abiding place of Joseph and Mary. 
 
 It was appropriate that the Christ-child should have come 
 with a burst of song. When the earth began, which was to 
 be the scene of his redemption, "the morning stars sang 
 together." For ages inspired poets sang in anticipation of his 
 birth. The last thing that Jesus and his disciples did together 
 was to sing a song before going out from the upper chamber 
 where they celebrated the last supper. Wherever the Gospel 
 has gone, it has been wafted on the wings of song. In com- 
 
4 o JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 memoration of all the melody which had preceded it, and in 
 anticipation of all the song that was to spring from it, what 
 wonder that the angels sang when Jesus was born! 
 
 "Glory to God in the highest!" Was not God already glori- 
 fied there? All God's worlds are one in their interests and 
 hopes. There is always an increment of joy and a new burst 
 of praise in heaven over any good thing on earth. The birth- 
 cry of the Babe in the manger was echoed by the gladdest 
 shout of praise that ever reverberated through the vault of 
 heaven. 
 
 "Peace on earth, good will toward men!" In olden times, 
 kings loaned their children as hostages to nations with which 
 they had been at war. Jesus was the pledge of God's good 
 will toward men. But he was also the example and exponent 
 of men's good will toward one another. Strife and cruelty had 
 marked the ascent of the race. History had run red, and the 
 ages had echoed with sobs caused by man's inhumanity to man. 
 Jesus came that good will might abound between man and 
 man, and between man and his God. 
 
 The Gospel of Luke opens with a rich quartette. Zacharias 
 sings his Benedictus and Simeon his Nunc Dimittis, while the 
 voices of Elizabeth and Mary rise, the one in her Beatitude 
 and the other in her Magnificat. What a wonderful overture 
 is this for the great drama of redemption! But above, in the 
 starry heavens the angels sing their Gloria whose echoes make 
 the centuries melodious. 
 
 I heard a song in Bethlehem, and in the Grotto of the Nativ- 
 ity. A service was in progress, conducted by the Armenians. 
 It was a children's service. The little chapel was thronged 
 with children, dark eyed, straight haired little fellows, chant- 
 ing their quaint hymns of praise. It was music unlike that of 
 the home-land, but it was music in praise of the Christ-child, 
 and the voices of the children gave it sweetness and spon- 
 taneity. I have tried vainly to recall the melody, the move- 
 ment was unfamiliar, and the notes will not repeat themselves 
 in my memory. But the scene comes up again in mv recollec- 
 tion, and with the picture a suggestion of sweet harmonies 
 befitting the place and its memories. 
 
THE SONG AND THE STAR 
 
 41 
 
 Another group beside the shepherds came to the cradle of 
 Jesus. These were the Magi from the East. ''Where is he that 
 is born King of the Jews?" they asked. They had followed 
 "his star." How did they know it to be "his star"? Men 
 studied the heavens in those days. Astrology was a curious 
 art, and to us is a vain and obsolete one, but these men saw 
 
 THE ARRIVAL OF THE SHEPHERDS — (LE ROLLE) 
 
 signs in the heavens, and who shall say that God did not speak 
 to them through such signs as they understood? 
 
 Kepler computed the position of the planets, and found that 
 for some months before the birth of Christ they had been such 
 as to awaken the attention of throughtful observers. The Jews 
 regarded the sign Pisces as of especial significance to them. In 
 the year 747 of Rome, Jupiter and Saturn were three times 
 in conjunction — on May 29, October 1 and December 5 — and 
 all in that sign. The next spring the same stars were in con- 
 
4 2 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 junction, and Mars with them. These signs may have set the 
 Magi to investigating, but we shall probably search in vain in 
 the record of conjunctions for the star they followed. Herod 
 died in 750 A. U. C. The birth of Christ was earlier than this, 
 and after the conjunctions above referred to, probably in 749, 
 or at the end of B. C. 5. Some vision in the heavens the Magi 
 saw, and they obeyed it, and came seeking "the King of the 
 ews. 
 The Jews had almost ceased to expect a king. When the 
 last degenerate representative of the Davidic line looked for 
 the last time on earth on the emblems of his power, as the 
 smoke of the fire that was consuming the temple rose skyward, 
 and then, bound and blinded and broken-hearted, took up his 
 weary march with lamenting captives to the land of Babylon, 
 there settled down over the Jewish people a cloud of melan- 
 choly that deepened into despair. The long procession of fet- 
 tered and footsore captives, looking back at the burning city 
 of Jerusalem, recalling all the horrors of the siege and the 
 sacking of the city, remembering with the keenest anguish 
 the loss of friends and the valiant men fallen among the slain 
 of battle, and anticipating the sufferings that were before them 
 in a heathen land, suffered awhile in silence and then broke 
 forth in the saddest of the Psalms. Looking back through 
 the smoke and blinding tears and seeing their beloved city 
 dishonored, their own homes destroyed, their very temple 
 burning, while their enemies exulted over them and their 
 heathen neighbors urged on the work of demolition and 
 taunted them and blasphemed the name of their God, the Jews 
 suffered an anguish of despair such as never a nation had 
 known. We hear the clanking of their chains mingling with 
 their lamentations all along their weary way. We hear the 
 despair that uttered itself in every prayer or complaint. They 
 had been a happy people, a music loving people, a trustful, 
 festive people. But they were filled with unutterable sorrows 
 now. They hung their harps on the willows, and their hearts, 
 sank. 
 
 But deliverance came, and a company returned to their own 
 
THE SONG AND THE STAR 
 
 43 
 
 land, rebuilt the temple and restored the worship of Jehovah. 
 We have their songs of almost hysterical joy when they 
 returned.* 
 
 But they had no king. Thev were tributary in turn to Baby- 
 lon, to Persia, to Greece, to Egypt, to Syria, and now to Rome. 
 
 HOLY NIGHT — (C0RREGGI0, I494-I534) 
 
 All the while their hearts burned for independence. They felt 
 that God was dishonored in their subjection. The hand of the 
 tax-gatherer was heavy upon them, and the reproach of the 
 Gentile conquerors was hard to bear. Where was their king? 
 One of their prophets, Micah, had designated Bethlehem as a 
 
 *Chapters on The Psalms of the Exile, and the Restoration, in my 
 "The Psalms and their Storv." 
 
44 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 place of coming honor, and some of the interpreters of the Law 
 believed themselves to have calculated the time, and that it 
 was near, when God was to visit his people. Strangely enough 
 there was widespread conviction in neighboring and more 
 remote nations that the Jews were right in this, and that some 
 great event was about to happen to them. Just about this 
 time came the Magi, worshippers of one God, but seeking a 
 nobler faith than they had known, and an earthly prince who 
 should fulfil their heavenly hopes. And they came to the 
 place where the young child lay. 
 
 Thus two very different groups of men came to the cradle 
 of the Christ. One company heard the song, and the other 
 followed the star. One represented the humble laborers, and 
 the other the learned scholars, of the time. One group was 
 from the Jewish nation, and the other from the Gentile world. 
 One group by the swaddling clothes recognized the child as 
 of their own nation; the other by the star knew him to belong 
 to the world. He was born King of the Jews; but he has 
 become the Prince of peace to all the earth. 
 
 We do not know that Jesus ever returned to Bethlehem. 
 The associations of his later years were with other cities, 
 many of them remote from the village of his birth; but around 
 the place where he was born the most sacred memories cluster. 
 To the Christian tourist from any country in the world it is 
 among the most sacred of all places to be visited; and to the 
 student and disciple of Jesus the story of the city of his birth 
 teems with perennial interest. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE HOLY CHILD 
 
 The Bible is unique amid contemporary literature in the 
 space it gives to childhood. Homer, for instance, has almost 
 nothing of childhood. There is but one child in the Iliad, 
 and there is none in the Odyssey. Virgil sings of "arms and 
 the man/' but the sweetest songs of the Bible are sung above 
 a cradle. The motto, "Children should be seen and not heard," 
 was carried to extremes in the old days; children were nowhere 
 seen in the writings of most of the early nations. But the 
 Bible abounds in stories of beautiful childhood, in which 
 motherhood attains new glory, and manhood new dignity. 
 
 Mr. Wu Ting Fang, who ably represented China at Wash- 
 ington and charmed America with his versatility, contrasted 
 Christianity and Confucianism by saying that Confucius 
 taught men to respect age, while Christianity inculcates rev- 
 erence for childhood. Doubtless we respect age too little and 
 permit childhood too much of prominence and self-advertis- 
 ing. But it may be said without unkindness that too great 
 respect for the past is the trouble in China, while the charac- 
 teristic of American life is its faith in childhood as a pledge 
 of the future. "A little child shall lead," and does lead in civili- 
 zation. The world discovered the beauty and hope of child- 
 hood in the face of the Babe of Bethlehem. 
 
 Joseph and Mary tarried at Bethlehem forty days, and then, 
 perhaps in February, B. C. 4, presented him in the temple. 
 There were two ceremonies to be observed in this case. The 
 first was the purification of Mary according to the rite pre- 
 scribed in Leviticus 12. For this, two offerings were required: 
 a lamb as a burnt offering, and a dove as a sin offering. But, 
 if a family was poor, the lamb, which cost about five days' 
 labor, might be dispensed with and another dove substituted. 
 
 45 
 
4 6 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 Joseph and Mary were no paupers, but they were in humble 
 circumstances, and they brought two doves which cost from 
 two to eight cents each. So Jesus first appeared publicly 
 among men as a representative of God's poor. The other 
 ceremony was the redemption of the child from temple service 
 by the payment of five shekels, according to the law in Num- 
 bers 18: 15, 16. This tax was due because Jesus was an eldest 
 
 THE DREAM OF JOSEPH — ( MURILLO, 1617-1682) 
 
 son. While there in the temple, an aged saint, Simeon, who 
 
 had been waiting in hope for the blessing of his nation, took 
 
 the child in his arms, and broke forth in the song: 
 
 Now lettest thou thy servant depart, O Lord, 
 
 According to thy word, in peace; 
 
 For mine eyes have seen thy salvation 
 
 Which thou hast prepared before the face of all peoples; 
 
 A light for revelation to the Gentiles, 
 
 And the glory of thy people Israel. 
 
 — (Luke 2 : 29-32.) 
 
THE HOLY CHILD 47 
 
 An aged prophetess also, Anna by name, came up, and 
 "gave thanks unto God, and spake of him to all them that 
 were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem/' 
 
 Joseph and Mary returned to Bethlehem in wonder. Oth- 
 ers beside themselves and the shepherds — the visit of the Magi 
 probably occurred a little later — recognized this wonderful 
 
 THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION — (MURILLO, 1617-1682) 
 
 child. What questions and anticipations and conjectures must 
 have occupied them as they returned from the temple! 
 
 However much or little Joseph and Mary understood of the 
 nature of Jesus, the things which the gospel teaches concern- 
 ing him are made reasonably plain to us. That which was 
 divine in Christ was born of the Holy Ghost, and by that 
 
4 8 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 power the worlds were made. But that which was human in 
 Jesus, his blood, his brain, his forms of thought, his mode of 
 speech, his language, his race instincts and customs and hab- 
 its of life, came to him normally as a child and man, subject to 
 the normal influences of heredity and youthful training. He 
 probably resembled Mary, not merely in features but in tem- 
 perament, as much as any other normal child resembles his 
 mother. He doubtless resembled his countrymen as much as 
 the ordinary Jew, so that a Samaritan woman instantly recog- 
 
 MADONNA ANT) CHILD 
 (W. A. BOUGEREAU, 1825 — ) 
 
 nized him as a Jew. But he was more than the son of Mary 
 or the son of Abraham. He was the son of the race, its high- 
 est representative, and the Son of God the Father. 
 
 The genealogies of Christ as given by Matthew and by 
 Luke present many, and at present insuperable, difficulties. 
 We are not sure that we know the reason for their tracing 
 the descent of Jesus through Joseph; we are not sure that we 
 are able to harmonize their data with that given in other parts 
 of the Scriptures; we are not sure that we are able to account 
 for their differences one from the other. There are one or two 
 
THE HOLY CHILD 
 
 49 
 
 things, however, of which we are practically certain, one of 
 which is that the public registers of the time of Christ made 
 him legally the descendant of David, and thus to the Jews a 
 possible fulfiller of the promises concerning the Messiah. 
 Another thing that is significant in the genealogy of Luke, is 
 that the evangelist who dwells most at length on the prenatal 
 
 MADONNA 
 
 DEL POZZO — (RAPHAEL, I482-I52O) 
 
 announcements of Christ's divine advent, who gives the songs 
 of the angels and the story of the wonderful birth, traces his 
 divine descent, and his consequent right to become the Saviour 
 of the world, through Adam. 
 
 Humanity did not lose its capacity for divinity by the 
 Adamic fall. Down the long line of patriarchs and kings and 
 
5° 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 prophets and judges, and men good and bad, from generation 
 to generation runs the royal line, and at each end of it 
 is God. Christ was divine because he was born of the Holy 
 Ghost. It was possible for him thus to be divine because 
 he was born of the seed of Adam. He was the Son of God 
 because the Holy Spirit descended upon Mary his mother. 
 He possessed capacity for divineness because the divine image 
 had not yet disappeared from the sons of Adam. He was 
 divine because he was the Son of God; he was divine notwith- 
 standing the fact, and perhaps we might say, if we knew more, 
 
 
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 THE VISIT OF THE SHEPHERDS — (MURILLO, 1617-1682) 
 
 because of the fact, that he was the grandson of Heli, who was 
 the son of Adam who was the son of God. We assent rather 
 grudgingly to the humanity of Jesus, hedging lest we imply 
 some lack of faith in his divinity, but Jesus rejoiced to be 
 known as the Son of man. As the Son of man he claimed 
 lordship over the Sabbath; as the Son of man he claimed the 
 power to forgive sins; as the Son of man he promised to ascend 
 to the right hand of the Father. In him humanity is trans- 
 figured. Because Jesus was the Son of God he had power to 
 impart new life; because he was the Son of Adam he became 
 the Saviour of men. 
 
THE HOLY CHILD 
 
 51 
 
 This royal child, coming to his own nation, found the throne 
 of David in ruins, and upon those ruins stood the government 
 of the Herods, with which he soon had a perilous encounter. 
 The house of Herod was founded by Antipater, an Idumaean 
 governor, who by the growing fortunes of Rome found his 
 dominion increased till he became, under Rome, the head of 
 a new local dynasty. He was murdered by poisoning, and 
 followed by his son Herod the Great, who extended his father's 
 
 THE MADONNA — (CARLO DCLCI, l6l6-l686) 
 
 dominion beyond the Jordan, and by the grace of his power 
 from Rome became known as "Herod the king of the Jews." 
 Herod himself was no Jew, "but more than half a heathen 
 alike in his state mdifferentism and his cosmopolitan vices," 
 but he married a beautiful Asmonaean princess by name 
 Mariamne. heiress of the house of the Maccabees. So, from 
 the position of a frontier governor he rose to something like 
 regal dignity, and every step of his ascent to the throne was 
 stained with blood. Once recognized as king, he endeavored 
 
5^ 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 to make himself secure from all rivals, chiefly from those of 
 the Maccabaean family, and mercilessly murdered not only his 
 wife's relatives, but his wife and his own two sons. He had a 
 long; series of conflicts and tumults with zealots representing 
 the old Maccabaean pretensions, but one by one he put them 
 to death, and for many years reigned in freedom from 
 aspirants to the throne. Then, when all the Maccabaean rivals 
 or possible rivals were dead, and Herod's own end drew near, 
 a singular thing occurred. 
 
 RESTING ON THE WAY TO EGYPT — (s. BENZ, 1834) 
 
 From a foreign land came wise men seeking the new-born 
 King of the Jews. He was no descendant of the Maccabees, 
 but of David. Herod had never concerned himself with 
 David's right to the throne. The statute of limitations seemed 
 to have set all that at rest. Not for four hundred vears had 
 any one concerned himself with the question of the right to 
 rule because of descent from David. Herod met the issue 
 with characteristic vigor and cruelty. He put to death all the 
 male children in and about Bethlehem from two vears old and 
 
THE HOLY CHILD 
 
 53 
 
 under. He had put many people to death by strangulation, 
 burning, cleaving asunder and secret assassination, and ever}' 
 gross and brutal element in his character had found free rein 
 during his life. But this was his last massacre. On the first 
 of April, in the year 4 B. C, he died. Fearful that none would 
 mourn over his departure, as he was dying at Jericho, he 
 
 COPTIC CHURCH IN OLD CAIRO 
 
 caused a number of the chief men of the Jews to be assembled 
 there that they might be put to death when he died, that their 
 relatives and friends at least might mourn. So far as is 
 recorded none others wept when Herod died; and happily the 
 mourning for these men was turned to joy, for they were 
 released by Salome after the death of Herod. 
 
54 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 The bloodthirsty plot against the infant Jesus did not suc- 
 ceed. Joseph and Alary had taken the child and fled with 
 him to Egypt. The reign of the Ptolemies had been favorable 
 to the immigration of the Jews, of whom many thousands at 
 this time were in Egypt. They comprised nearly half of the 
 city of Alexandria, and had many colonies on the land of the 
 Nile. Somewhere among these people of their own land 
 Joseph and Mary could find friends. 
 
 / i 
 
 THE REPOSE IN EGYPT — (VAN DYCK, 1599-1641) 
 
 Tt was three hundred miles from Bethlehem to Egypt, but 
 the Roman roads were good, and Egypt was the best of all 
 places of refuge for Joseph and Mary. It took them directly 
 away from their own home and from Jerusalem, and brought 
 them out of Herod's jurisdiction to a land where their country- 
 men were free citizens and they could dwell securely. 
 
 There is a little Coptic church in Cairo, very old and quaint, 
 beneath whose altar is a grotto declared by tradition to have 
 been that where Mary and her child reposed. We do not need 
 to trust the tradition, which is far more likely to be false than 
 
THE HOLY CHILD 
 
 DO 
 
 true, but it is interesting to know that for a good many centu- 
 ries a spot has been marked near the apex of the Delta as 
 that where Joseph and Mary made their temporary home. 
 
 A modern French artist has made a painting called "The 
 Repose in Egypt," which, while open to some criticism, is still 
 strikingly impressive. It shows the Sphinx standing on the 
 edge of the desert looking out over the solemn waste, patiently 
 expectant and serene. The night is dark above and only the 
 stars give light, which represents tradition and philosophy 
 shedding their faint gleam upon the silent world below. But 
 
 THE REPOSE IN EGYPT — ( OLIVER L. MERSON, 1846 — ) 
 
 between the great paws of the Sphinx and near to its heart, 
 rest Mary and her child, and a faint but prophetic light 
 streams from the little one. At the base of the Sphinx lies 
 Joseph sleeping, but guarding his wife and her baby, and close 
 at hand the patient ass grazes on the little vegetation he can 
 find for the morrow's journey. Meantime the stars shine on, 
 and the light that streams from the child has new hope for 
 men; for "There was the true light, even the light which 
 lighteth every man, coming into the world." 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE HOUSE OF MARY AND THE SHOP OF JOSEPH 
 
 The world's best things have come out of its Nazareths. As 
 an army needs continual reinforcement from its own rear, so 
 the life of the cities is constantly rejuvenated by the fresh blood 
 of the villages and farms. Civilization marks its progress by 
 the life of its cities, but the city depends upon the village and 
 the country, not merely for its sustenance, but for its life. 
 After Bethlehem, no village in Palestine so teems with interest 
 as Nazareth. Yet Nazareth was not a noted village, even in 
 its best days. The caravans from Damascus to the Mediter- 
 ranean passed near it, and never suspected its existence. The 
 long, laden lines of camels journeying northward from Egypt 
 and southward from Babylonia, passed close by it, but rarely 
 heard or thought of it. But if the caravans knew little of 
 Nazareth, the village knew much about the caravans, and its 
 own life was kept in touch with that of the outer world by 
 the intelligence which it received and the commerce which it 
 established by the passing flow of life and traffic. A little 
 island in the midst of the sea of contemporary life, it was 
 washed on every side by these tides of commercial and political 
 -activity that rose and fell unconscious of its presence. 
 
 We do not read of Nazareth in the Old Testament. If it 
 existed in those days, the fact is concealed from our knowledge. 
 Indeed, it would have remained unknown through New Testa- 
 ment times as well, but for the life of one family within it. 
 The question of Nathansel, "Can any good thing come out of 
 Nazareth?" (John i: 46) is an instructive commentary on the 
 obscurity of the village, and has wrongly been used to sug- 
 gest that Nazareth was also in some way disreputable. 
 Matthew in telling us that Jesus made his boyhood residence 
 there, sought to find in prophecy some prediction of the fact 
 
 56 
 
THE HOUSE OF MARY AND THE SHOP OF JOSEPH 57 
 
 and place, and quoted, "He should be called a Nazarene" (Matt. 
 2: 23). We do not know of any such prediction, however; the 
 nearest we can come to finding such a word is in Judges 13: 5, 
 where it is said of Samson, "The child shall be a Nazirite." 
 But Samson was not Jesus, and a Nazarene is not, of necessity, 
 
 A GROUP OF NAZARETH MAIDENS 
 
 a Nazirite. The words have their entirely separate signifi- 
 cance. We are tolerably familiar with the exegesis of New 
 Testament times, and need not be at all surprised to discover 
 only a verbal resemblance as the probable basis of this sup- 
 posed fulfilment of prophecy. The name Nazareth is thought 
 to have been derived from the word "white," and to refer to 
 the color of the limestone cliffs about it. It is sometimes 
 
5 8 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 believed to have been derived from the word "watch-tower"; 
 and this, also, would have been a most appropriate derivation, 
 for Nazareth was indeed a watch-tower, looking out upon the 
 passing procession of the ages. But the early fathers delighted 
 in the belief that the name means "flower/' and this, too, 
 would be an appropriate derivation, for the country about it is 
 golden with chrysanthemums, and scarlet with madder and 
 poppy and anemone. Whatever the meaning of the name, it 
 has no connection with the sect of the Nazirites, and jesus 
 was not a Nazirite. The watch-tower village of Galilee, 
 sheltered by its hills of white and enshrined in its floral fields — 
 such was the Nazareth of our Lord's day. The modern Naza- 
 reth, too, is a beautiful and attractive village. 
 
 The company with which I visited Palestine came to 
 Nazareth by carriage from the seacoast. A good road, 
 repaired for the German emperor, and unlikely to be repaired 
 again until some other king visits Palestine, leads from Haifa 
 to the city of our Lord's boyhood. Skirting the edge of Mount 
 Carmel, it follows the grade of the projected railroad from 
 the Mediterranean to Damascus, which road the sultan had 
 interdicted lest it should defeat his own hope of a railroad to 
 Mecca, and only recently is said to have consented to its com- 
 pletion. Crossing the Kishon, where Elijah slew the prophets 
 of Baal, and tarrying for lunch at Harosheth of the Gentiles, 
 where Jael slew Sisera with a tent-pin, a deed which Deborah 
 immortalized in song (Judges 5: 24-31), we emerged into the 
 fertile plain of Esdraelon. Gradually we left Carmel behind us, 
 a long, low-lying ridge with its leonine headland jutting out 
 into the sea. Ahead, and to the right, rose the rounded 
 summit of Mount Tabor, the traditional, but improbable, scene 
 of the Transfiguration. Mount Gilboa, where Saul and 
 Jonathan met defeat and death, stood between us and the 
 Jordan valley. To the north and east rose range after range 
 of hills, with Mount Hermon, snow-crowned and brilliant, 
 above them all. The valley, now green with wheat, had been 
 red with many a battle. The hills about were eloquent with 
 memories of Israel's history. Scene after scene from the Old 
 
THE HOUSE OF MARY AND THE SHOP OF JOSEPH 
 
 59 
 
 Testament and the New took shape in our imagination, as one 
 spot after another was identified. It seemed as though the 
 half of Bible history must have been associated with the places 
 in range of our vision. With all this brought vividly before 
 the mind's eye, we rose among the hills, and suddenly, in a basin 
 of the surrounding mountains, Nazareth burst upon our view. 
 We might easily have gone by it without knowing it was 
 there, but we could not have gone by without being discov- 
 ered, if any one in Nazareth had cared to discover us. 
 
 CHURCH OF THE CARPENTER SHOP OF JOSEPH 
 
 This single fact of its situation brought to the mind at once 
 the advantage of Nazareth as a place for the boyhood of Jesus. 
 A town unspoiled by the outer world, yet aware of all its char- 
 acteristic movements; situated in the midst of historic scenes 
 and fertile fields; inspired by memories of the past and impelled 
 by the life of its own generation, such is Nazareth. 
 
 Nazareth is now a town of about ten thousand inhabitants, 
 predominantly Christian. The people are energetic and 
 vivacious. The women are unveiled, and dress in picturesque 
 
6o 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 costumes, which, by comparison with those of the Moslem 
 villages, may be called brilliant. The women commonly wear 
 a simple blue frock, loosely gathered with a sash at the waist, 
 and a kerchief tied over the head. They are fond of orna- 
 ments, and generally wear necklaces. One does not so often 
 see here the strings of coins that so characterize the women 
 of Bethlehem. In their holiday costumes, the women affect 
 more bright and contrasting colors. While not particularly 
 handsome of face, they exhibit regularity of feature and an 
 erect and graceful carriage. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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 £/'<L 
 
 Kg 
 
 fei^o 
 
 MADONNA — (GABRIEL MAX, 1S4O — ) 
 
 Nazareth has but one spring, known as the Fountain of 
 the Virgin. On the way to this well the women may be seen 
 passing and repassing, all day long, the empty water-pots 
 lying flat upon their heads, and the full ones tilted at a graceful 
 angle. Seldom does a girl raise her hand to steady a water-pot, 
 whether full or empty, and she seems to be even less conscious 
 of it when walking than standing still. This spring is the one 
 incontestable genuine place in the village, for the town has 
 more than once been destroyed, and its present location, as 
 the tombs and ruins attest, is a little farther down the hill 
 
THE HOUSE OF MARY AND THE SHOP OF JOSEPH 6l 
 
 than in former centuries. The spring must always have been 
 the center of social life, and with a very little conjuring of the 
 imagination one may discern in these Nazareth maidens a 
 more than fanciful resemblance to Mary the maiden of 
 Nazareth. To this same spring and along these same narrow 
 highways, fenced in by walls of this same limestone, she made 
 her daily pilgrimage to the spring and back, carrying her 
 water-pot. 
 
 Voluble guides stand in readiness to show one many things 
 in Nazareth associated with the boyhood life of Christ. The 
 Church of the Annunciation undertakes to point out the 
 
 NAZARETH THE BEAUTIFUL 
 
 precise spot where Mary stood when the angel came to her, 
 and there is an underground series of chambers showing the 
 Virgin's kitchen and the chamber of Joseph, and much more 
 that is of interest to the credulous, but which spoils the story 
 more or less for those who merely desire to make real in their 
 thought the simple events of the gospel narrative, by visiting 
 the scenes where they occurred. A church covers the alleged 
 foundation of the carpenter shop of Joseph, and he who is 
 interested may find there an ancient foundation surmounted 
 by a modern church edifice, wherein abide reverence, credulity 
 and cupidity, in a proportion which I will not undertake to 
 
62 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 determine. But a better thing may be found in the genuine 
 carpenter shops of Nazareth, wherein, with crude tools, men 
 labor as they labored in Joseph's day, in the making of the 
 simple farming implements, whose manufacture and repair 
 form the principal labor of the carpenter. There are few things 
 in modern Nazareth more inspiring than these carpenter shops 
 where one may reconstruct in imagination the boyhood and 
 youth of Jesus, under the wholesome discipline of Joseph. 
 
 Joseph was a carpenter, but that does not mean that he 
 was a man to be despised. The Scripture references to him 
 are not numerous, but they show him to have been a knightly, 
 princely gentleman, without fear and without reproach. He 
 was a man of resolution, and of resources. He could plan a 
 long journey; could provide for earning his living in a strange 
 land; he was willing to leave his labor and make all necessary 
 sacrifice to promote the well-being. of the young child. With 
 the unerring instinct of a true gentleman, Joseph stood by a 
 pure, sweet woman in distress, and covered what would have 
 been considered her shame, but was her glory, with the ample 
 mantle of his own honest name. Through him her honor 
 remained unsullied. 
 
 This carpenter, whom you see at the bench with his sleeves 
 rolled up, pushing his plane, is a very Saul among men. Nay, 
 look again, and the bench is a throne. The blood of the 
 Davidic kings which flows in his veins has become purified by 
 generations of honest labor. This man, Joseph, is a man of 
 regal dignity. 
 
 Joseph was Jesus' tutor. He taught him his trade. He 
 borrowed books for him from the synagogue. He helped him 
 into manhood, and sought him with much solicitude, when he 
 tarried at the temple. For years he cared for Jesus; protecting 
 him, teaching him, establishing him in business, doing a 
 father's duty by him. Never once does the record give evi- 
 dence of his failing in any task, difficult as was his position. 
 He needs no halo to add to the simple dignity of his man- 
 hood — Joseph the honest, courteous, knightly man, the car- 
 penter of Nazareth. 
 
THE HOUSE OF MARY AND THE SHOP OF JOSEPH 63 
 
 We may be too ready to assume that to be the husband of 
 a madonna is to enjoy heaven on earth. At first sight it seems 
 unaccountable that the husbands of the best wives in the world 
 do not always secure unalloyed satisfaction out of the relation. 
 It affords a man but moderate gratification to have his wife 
 uncomfortably better or wiser than himself. I am not sure 
 
 BETROTHAL OF TOSEPH AND MARY 
 (RAFHAEL, H83-I520) 
 
 that Joseph's position was always one of pleasure. To have 
 to give up one's business and hasten into Egypt, and there 
 remain perhaps for a period of years; to come back to 
 Nazareth and start over again, and establish a new trade in the 
 face of competition, may not have been wholly to his liking. 
 He did not understand all that Mary was pondering in her 
 
64 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 heart; but he understood his simple duty, and to the end he 
 performed it. 
 
 It was Joseph who taught the youthful Christ his trade, and 
 showed him how to saw to the line and plane to an even sur- 
 face. It was he who sent the lad to the village school in the 
 synagogue, and sometimes in the evening taught him further 
 in the lore of his nation, fulfilling the commands of Moses 
 for fathers to teach their children. The childish fingers of 
 Jesus followed Joseph's thick and calloused hand and traced 
 from right to left the lines of the great square Hebrew letters 
 on the parchment rolls which he borrowed from the synagogue, 
 or bought from his earnings, that Joseph himself might better 
 know the law, whose rudiments he must teach to Jesus. It was 
 Joseph who was known as his father, and who did a father's 
 duties for him for thirty years, till he was a master carpenter, 
 and had become of age, and was ready to enter life. Aye, there 
 was the sorrow and the mystery and the hope, for it was not 
 as a carpenter that he went forth. Joseph had trained him for 
 something that took him forever from the bench, and made 
 him, Joseph knew not what. 
 
 It is written that when the visitors came and found the 
 Christ-child, "they worshiped him" — not Mary. Doubtless, 
 she was well content to have it so. A mother's constant 
 surprise is that she can possibly be the mother of so wonderful 
 a child. When people bow down before the baby and forget 
 her, they do only what she herself has done and is doing. But 
 once in a long time there enters her heart a little feeling of 
 wonder why it is so, and of craving for some of the affection 
 which is so lavished upon the little one, and she deserves it. 
 
 Mary of Nazareth was sincere, calm, devoted, affectionate and 
 pure.* And her woman's heart was all a-flutter with her first 
 love that lifted her out of her girlhood and made her a woman; 
 and that heart was deep and true and pure enough to enable 
 the angel of God to whisper in her ear the most glorious and 
 solemn secret which is ever told on earth, and that never to 
 a man. 
 
 *I quote, with some slight changes, in this chapter, from my little book 
 'The Home of a Madonna." 
 
THE HOUSE OF MARY AND THE SHOP OF JOSEPH 65 
 
 "Blessed art thou among women." The angel said so, and 
 Mary believed him. But a sword pierced her own heart ere 
 her blessing realized itself. It was not wholly because her 
 experience was unique; it was largely so in its universal char- 
 acter. All mothers know something of her alternating high 
 
 joseph and the boy jesus 
 (carl muller, 1839-1893) 
 
 hope and her sinking of heart. She was a village maiden 
 yesterday, and life was sweet and full of hope; a larger hope 
 has come to her than that she dreamed of, and because of it; 
 but her girlhood has gone, and a new and measureless respon- 
 sibility was impending. 
 
 She kept no "help." She was a quiet, domestic woman. 
 But she was not simply a household drudge. She knew the 
 
66 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 writings of the great poets of her nation. She had a fine mind, 
 with a love of beauty, a soul that had learned and lingered 
 over the great literary masterpieces of Israel, and had given 
 poetic form to high thoughts that rose in her own heart. She 
 was no stupid or silly or shallow girl; even as a maiden she 
 was thoughtful and earnest. 
 
 Who can know, save a mother, all that is in a woman's 
 heart when the angel says to her, 'The Holy Ghost shall come 
 upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow 
 thee: wherefore that which is to he born shall be called a child 
 of God' 1 ? There are some accents of the angel's message 
 
 MOUNT CARMEL 
 
 that are repeated in the ear of all sweet and expectant mother- 
 hood; there are some strains from the Magnificat which should 
 be sung above every cradle; there are some of Mary's joys and 
 sorrows, some of her wonderings and hopes that all true 
 mothers realize. 
 
 Well may the brush of the artist seek the purest, sweetest 
 faces of young mothers, and transfer them to canvas. Thev 
 cannot too reverently or too beautifully set forth the ideal face 
 of Mary the mother of Jesus. 
 
 Mary had her trials. To see her baby grow up is the sad 
 joy of a mother. To have him no longer her baby, but the 
 Saviour of the world, was a joy to Mary that had in it a 
 distinct sense of loss. To have him growing up so thoughtful, 
 so wise, so given to asking questions which she could not 
 
THE HOUSE OF MARY AND THE SHOP OF JOSEPH 67 
 
 answer, to find herself wishing a dozen times a day that she 
 were wiser for her child's sake, this, as everv mother knows, 
 was not to Mary an unmitigated joy. 
 
 >«2* 
 
 the visit of mary to elizabeth 
 (m. albertinelli, 1474-1515) 
 
 And oh, the time was to come when she would feel that he 
 had outgrown her! His ideals and hers were no longer akin. 
 He would gently rebuke her chiding with his "Wist yt not that 
 I must be about my Father's business?" and restrain her too 
 eager ambition for her son by asking, "What have I to do 
 with thee?" What had she to do with him? Why, she was 
 
68 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 his mother. How could she know, how could she be expected 
 to understand, that he that did the will of God, the same was 
 his mother, his brother or his sister? Of all the keenest 
 sorrows of motherhood is there one greater than that which 
 the mother feels when she realizes that her baby is no longer 
 hers alone; that the very realization of her hopes has taken 
 him away from her? 
 
 There is a tradition that Joseph was much older than Mary, 
 and thus many of the artists represent him. The tradition has 
 no historic foundation. It grows out of the fact that the New 
 Testament speaks of Jesus as having brothers and sisters. 
 Reluctance to believe that Mary had other children has led 
 to the invention of a previous marriage on the part of Joseph. 
 There is no ground for such a belief, nor any need of it. So 
 far as the Bible hints, "'the Lord's brethren," who were three 
 or more in number, and his sisters, of whom there were at 
 least two and probably not less than three, were children of 
 Joseph and Mary. It was a family of probably nine or more, 
 and of the seven or more children, Jesus was the oldest. Jesus 
 grew up among the other children with whom he had to share 
 the privileges of the humble home, and to whom he was sim- 
 ply, but splendidly, a brother, and in learning to be their elder 
 brother, he became the elder brother of all men. 
 
 Reverently, in our imagination, we may reconstruct that 
 home, the only home that Jesus remembered, and make real to 
 ourselves as we may, the conditions of its daily life. We may 
 be misled as to the details, but of the essential facts we have 
 little doubt. Jesus grew in wisdom and in stature and in favor 
 with God and man. Among the influences which prepared 
 him for his life-work were the home of Mary and the shop of 
 Joseph. 
 
 The early Church was not content with the silence of the 
 gospel concerning the boyhood of Jesus, and set itself to 
 supplying the missing information from an imagination that 
 gloated over the marvelous. Jesus when a child made clav 
 sparrows on the Sabbath, and when reproved for such a dese- 
 cration of the day caused the birds to fly. Joseph was an 
 
THE HOUSE OF MARY AND THE SHOP OF JOSEPH 69 
 
 inferior carpenter, and his shop turned out bad work, but he 
 would take hold of one side and Jesus of the other side of a 
 badly-made article, and pull it into shape. Jesus went to 
 
 THE FOUNTAIN" OF THE VIRGIN IN NAZARETH 
 
 school, and knew more than his teacher. Jesus behaved him- 
 self in an overbearing manner toward his playmates, and when 
 they disliked him, used his divine power for their confusion, so 
 that Joseph was nearly driven from Nazareth by reason of the 
 
7° 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 hostility which the work of Jesus produced. Such stories 
 present an unlovely character, and we wonder how they could 
 even have seemed worth inventing, or, being invented, how 
 they could have been believed. 
 
 Happily we have no such accounts as these in the Gospels, 
 and we may be certain that they are wide of the truth. When 
 Jesus returned in manhood to his boyhood home he faced no 
 such record of youthful arrogance and precocity. People were 
 unprepared for any remarkable claim on his part, which shows 
 that his youth had been the youth of a normal Jewish boy. 
 The testimony of John, "I have need to be baptized of thee," 
 though John did not know him to be the Messiah, is clear 
 proof that John had knowledge of his virtuous and noble 
 youth, but this is the only claim John was justified in making 
 for his boyhood. John certainly had no knowledge of his 
 divine nature at this time. He increased in wisdom by improv- 
 ing his opportunities, and increased in stature by hard 
 physical labor; he increased in favor with God and -man 
 through no freakish manifestation of superhuman power, but 
 by the persuasive and undeniable excellence of a worthy and 
 inconspicuous life. 
 
 ON THE WAV TO BETHLEHEM — (j. PORTAELS, lSl8 — ) 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE LAD IN THE TEMPLE 
 
 A half dozen miles north of Jerusalem is a village called 
 El-Bireh, near which is an excellent spring- with the remains 
 of an ancient reservoir, and not far from these are the ruins 
 of an ancient khan. A Christian church was established here 
 by the Templars in 1146, and a little of it is now standing. 
 About a thousand people dwell now in El-Bireh. The place is 
 of no particular historic importance, save through its associa- 
 tion with a tradition which though not a very old one, is still of 
 interest. Erom the 14th century this place has been displayed 
 to pilgrims as the camping place of Joseph and Mary on their 
 return journey from Jerusalem. There is nothing improbable 
 in the tradition; the presence of the spring and the fact that 
 pilgrims and caravans found it a convenient camping place, 
 gave rise to the conjecture that this might have been the place 
 where the absence of Jesus from the caravan was discovered. 
 The parents of Jesus had gone "a day's journev from Jerusa- 
 lem." It was the custom of Jews in making long journeys to 
 go a short distance on the first day, largely for the reason 
 that anything left behind might the more readily be sent for. 
 As the modern pilgrim journeys northward from Jerusalem, 
 the objects of interest near the city commonly consume what 
 is left of the day after starting; and so El-Bireh with its spring 
 is still a favorite camping place. 
 
 In my own journey from Galilee we paused here for 
 luncheon, and from this spot took our last happy and expectant 
 stage of the pilgrimage toward the Holv City. 
 
 Much of the ministry of Jesus was spent in traveling. The 
 Jerusalem feasts called every man to present himself three 
 times a year at the temple. A number of these feasts Jesus 
 personally attended, and besides this he made frequent pil- 
 
 71 
 
JF.SUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 grimages that covered nearly all of Galilee, much of Judaea 
 and a portion of Samaria and the region beyond Jordan. 
 
 Facilities for travel were none of the best, but had been 
 greatly improved by the system of Roman roads. The main 
 highways were kept in a state of reasonable repair for govern- 
 mental purposes. One of these great arteries of national life 
 
 THE BOY JESUS — (mURILLO. 1617-1682) 
 
 Joseph and his family would have struck near Shechem, if thev 
 came through Samaria, and had followed it from there to 
 Jerusalem. The country roads which led into this thorough- 
 fare were generally mere rocky bridle-paths. The same con- 
 dition of roads exists very largely at the present day in 
 Palestine. 
 
 Most of the pilgrims on these great journeys went on foot. 
 Where animals were employed, they were principally donkeys. 
 
THE LAD IN THE TEMPLE 
 
 73 
 
 It is quite unlikely that many camels were used in these festal 
 processions. The donkeys were less frequently ridden than 
 used for the transportation of camp equipage. 
 
 In these journeys it is probable that many of the tourists 
 stopped by the way in homes where they had acquaintances. 
 The injunction "Forget not to shew love unto strangers" had 
 a standing and special meaning in such a country as Palestine. 
 Not only the Bible but the rabbis exhorted the people to hos- 
 pitality. We find in ancient writings words such as these: 
 
 JERUSALEM FROM MOUNT SCOPUS 
 
 "Let thy house be wide open, and let the poor be the children 
 of thy house." Bethphage and Bethany were especially noted 
 for their hospitality; and in Jerusalem at the time of the feasts 
 it was customary for private houses to hang out curtains to 
 indicate that there still was room. 
 
 In spite of these liberal provisions for the entertainment of 
 strangers, however, a majority of the pilgrims to the passover 
 would need to make their own arrangements for comfort on 
 their journeys. We cannot forget that at the time of the 
 enrolment Bethlehem was so overcrowded that Joseph could 
 not procure a lodging place for himself and Mary, even in their 
 
74 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 great necessity. Many people found shelter in khans. In 
 these no charge was commonly made for shelter, but some one 
 attached to the khan, who was usually a foreigner, was 
 ready to provide, for payment, such things as were necessary. 
 The good Samaritan cared for the man who had fallen among 
 thieves until the time of his own leaving, but paid for his 
 entertainment and care after that time. In these places were 
 kept for sale such food as locusts, pickled or fried in honey or 
 
 
 THE VALLEY OF JEHOSHAFHAT 
 
 flour, and also flour or bread, though these were frequently 
 taken by the pilgrims themselves. Babylonian beer and 
 home-made wine or cider were also for sale in these places. 
 In a journey such as Joseph and Mary may often have made 
 to Jerusalem it is easily possible that they would have spent 
 one night in the home of a friend along the wav, and another 
 in a khan, and perhaps a third in a tent near some well-known 
 spring. All these methods of entertainment were common in 
 that day, and Jesus doubtless availed himself of all of these 
 at one time or another. After his ministry began he commonly 
 accepted the hospitality of some one among his hearers. In 
 
THE LAD IN THE TEMPLE 
 
 75 
 
 the journey to Jerusalem during his boyhood we shall not be 
 far wrong if we imagine the great caravan returning from the 
 feast as camping out-of-doors on the first night. So large a 
 company would have overflowed all the homes and khans, and 
 the season was one in which camp life is most healthful and 
 pleasant. 
 
 MODERN TEACHERS OF THE LAW — JERUSALEM 
 
 Probably Jesus, except when an infant, had never been to 
 Jerusalem before the age of twelve. He doubtless went at 
 this time to become a "son of the law," a ceremony that may 
 be compared to confirmation or reception into church mem- 
 bership. It commonly occurred about the age of fourteen, 
 and was an important event in the life of a Jewish boy. The 
 Gospels indicate that it was the custom of Joseph to attend 
 the Jewish feasts, and that Mary, sometimes at least, accom- 
 panied him. The wife was not bound by the law to attend 
 
7 6 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 these feasts, but many women did attend them and Mary 
 at least on one occasion, was among them. Such a journey 
 must have been a most acceptable break in the somewhat 
 restricted life of an Oriental woman. 
 
 But if the occasion was one of great interest to Mary, 
 it was much more so to her Son! The sight of Jerusalem is 
 still a beautiful and welcome one to the pilgrim who comes 
 southward from Galilee across the Samaritan hills. It bursts 
 
 JESUS AMONG THE DOCTORS — (HOFMANN, 1S24 — ) 
 
 upon his vision like a dream of beauty, and grows more distinct 
 as each turn in the road and each hilltop on the highway 
 brings it nearer to the weary yet eager pilgrim. But what 
 must it have been to an eager, reverent Jewish lad, already for 
 his years a thoughtful student of the law, and a lover of his 
 country. He had seen no other great city, and to him 
 Jerusalem was the embodiment of all sacred traditions, and 
 the visible exponent of all national hopes. Certainly the days 
 of the feast must have been great days for the boy Jesus. 
 Edersheim thinks it quite certain that the returning caravan 
 
THE LAD IN THE TEMPLE 
 
 77 
 
 to which Joseph belonged did not remain through the entire 
 feast, and that the conference of Jesus with the teachers of 
 
 ON THE ROAD TO JERUSALEM 
 
 the law occurred in one of their formal gatherings on one of 
 the porches of the temple in which the doctors conversed 
 
 THE MOSQUE OF EL AKSA, ON SOUTH END OF THE TEMPLE AREA 
 
 freely with all who cared to listen and to question, and in 
 which the inquiries of an earnest and intelligent boy would 
 have received attention and excited interest. 
 
 We are not to suppose that the doctors sat at his feet to 
 
7* 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 learn, or that they thought of him as a supernatural prodigy. 
 It was he who was there as the learner, still increasing in 
 wisdom and stature. There is no suggestion in the Gospel 
 narrative that the boy attempted to usurp prerogatives of the 
 teachers, but only that he showed a sincere interest and intelli- 
 gent appreciation of spiritual truths that excited the wonder 
 and called forth the admiration of the doctors of the law. 
 
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 THE BOY JESUS — ( WINTERSTEIN ) 
 
 If Edersheim is right, and Joseph and Mary did not remain 
 through the entire feast, this fact may account for the delay 
 of Jesus through some misunderstanding as to the time of 
 their return. The feast seems still to have been in progress 
 when they arrived at Jerusalem next clay and found him after 
 anxious search. So carried away was the young lad with 
 the new and strange experiences of this wonderful week, that 
 Galilee and the carpenter shop were forgotten, and even Joseph 
 and Mary seem to have faded from his thought. He must 
 be in his Father's house, and he wondered that he had not 
 been there before, and that they did not understand that this 
 was his place. But he readily accepted the situation as they 
 
THE LAD IN THE TEMPLE 
 
 79 
 
 INTERIOR OF MOSQUE OF OMAR 
 
 THE MOSQUE OF OMAR ON TEMPLE SITE 
 
8o 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 made it plain to him, and went back with them to Nazareth, 
 and for the next eighteen years lived quietly as the carpenter's 
 apprentice, and, at length, as the carpenter. 
 
 It would be a wonderful revelation if we could look into the 
 soul of that fine, bright boy on his way back from Jerusalem 
 to Galilee, and know what emotions filled his heart as the 
 result of that new vision of life. That it influenced him pro- 
 foundly there can be no doubt. Such incidents in boyhood 
 
 A CARAVAN RESTING 
 
 are pregnant with destiny, and the writers of the Gospels look 
 back with interest and perhaps with wonder to that journey 
 as one that conspicuously marked the quality of his youth. It 
 is well that we posses it; it is well, too, that we know it to be 
 quite exceptional. For a single day it brings the boy Jesus 
 into the light of our knowledge and then again sends him 
 back to his humble duty as the carpenter and a son of the law. 
 He has returned, cherishing his patient ambition, and more 
 and more wondering what is to be his work in life. He is still 
 subject to Joseph and Mary. But the boy Jesus has grown in 
 a single week into a new stage of spiritual activity and 
 anticipation. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE BAPTISM OF JESUS 
 
 The years at Nazareth sped silently, swiftly and unrecorded, 
 and Jesus became a man. He was now less frequently referred 
 to as "the carpenter's son" than as "the carpenter." He was 
 to be more than a carpenter, but his entrance upon life was 
 as yet a thing unrevealed to men, and probably known to him- 
 self only in wonderings and inward strivings. Patiently he 
 worked at his bench, and waited God's time. 
 
 At length when the country was stirred by the preaching 
 of a young prophet, John, Jesus went away upon a journey, 
 far to the south and east, and was gone from Nazareth nearly 
 two months. Forty days of that time he was alone in the 
 wilderness, but before he entered the solitude he received 
 baptism from John. 
 
 Six months before the birth of Jesus this cousin, John, was 
 born in "the hill country of Judaea," as the Gospel informs us, 
 and, as tradition declares, at the old patriarchal city of Hebron. 
 Others locate his birth at Ain Karim. He was the son of 
 Elizabeth, Mary's cousin, and of Zacharias, a priest. 
 
 When about thirty years of age he began to preach. His 
 gospel was the gospel of repentance, and to it his own frugal 
 life and shaggy garb lent interest and power. We shall look 
 at his character when we come to Jesus' own words about it. 
 We may now consider the conditions of the times in which his 
 preaching began, the place of baptism as it now appears, and 
 the meeting of Jesus and John. 
 
 We can understand John and his message the better when 
 we remember the conditions of life, both civil and religious, 
 during the times of his boyhood and youth. 
 
 Politically, affairs had suffered a sad change for the worse. 
 Tiberius was on the throne in Rome, and his reign was one 
 
 81 
 
82 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 of merciless severity in Palestine. During the reign of 
 Augustus, when Jesus and John were born, the Jews, though 
 taxed and under restraint, were protected; but Tiberius was 
 bitterly opposed to the Jews, and cared little if at all for the 
 wrongs they suffered. As to governors near at hand, "Herod 
 the King," died in April, B. C. 4. The slaughter of the infants 
 at Bethlehem was perhaps his last bloody deed. His sons 
 divided his domain under the power of Rome. Archelaus was 
 
 THE RIVER JORDAN 
 
 ethnarch of Judaea, Samaria and Idumasa, and reigned in wick- 
 edness and sensuality from 4 B. C. to 6 A. D., when he was 
 banished from his capital at Jericho to Vienna in Gallia; and 
 few mourned his departure, as few had mourned his father's 
 death. But with him ceased the tetrarchy. Judaea thence- 
 forth was attached to Syria, and was governed by Roman 
 procurators, who were in turn subject to the Roman governor 
 of Syria. There were seven of these in the first half-century 
 following the birth of Christ, and of them one has attained 
 an immortality of infamy in the oldest Christian creed — "He 
 suffered under Pontius Pilate." 
 
 To the north the family of the Herods still reigned — Philip 
 
THE BAPTISM OF JESUS 
 
 83 
 
 as tetrarch of the provinces north and east of the Jordan, and 
 Antipas as tetrarch of Galilee and Percea. John was soon to 
 meet Antipas face to face, and rebuke him for his immorality, 
 and Jesus was to meet both Herod and Pilate on the day of his 
 crucifixion. These were the two men who exercised political 
 control over Palestine at the beginning of the ministry of the 
 Baptist — Herod, the murderer of John, and Pilate, the 
 murderer of Jesus. 
 
 RUSSIAN PILGRIMS AT JORDAN 
 
 Religiously, the nation was in a sad state. The high-priest- 
 hood was in disrepute. The temple at Jerusalem was the scene 
 of a formal worship, into which had crept many and grave 
 abuses. The leaders were divided into three classes, the 
 Pharisees, the representatives of that severe and formal type 
 of religion which Nehemiah established after the exile, but 
 which was now more concerned with refinements of doctrine 
 than with spiritual realities; the Sadducees, who were less 
 numerous, skeptical and proud, among whom was the high 
 priest Caiaphas; and the Essenes, an ascetic order, numbering 
 about four thousand, living simple and severe lives, and seeking 
 holiness by withdrawal from the world. No one of these had 
 
84 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 power to bring about "the king-dom of God," for which men 
 were looking and praying. 
 
 In such a time John came to manhood. A Judaean by birth, 
 and a priest by inheritance, he early learned the inadequacy of 
 existing forces to meet the needs of the time. Living an 
 austere and ascetic life, brooding over the evils of the age in 
 which he lived, John felt in his heart the necessity of a new 
 order and the conviction that the time was at hand for the 
 coming of the kingdom of heaven. He was sure that the King 
 had already come, but he did not know him as such. John 
 knew himself incapable of bringing in that new social and 
 religious order which the prophets had called "the kingdom 
 of God," but he undertook to be its herald, and to discover 
 and introduce its King. 
 
 John's own message was simple, "Repent ye; for the king- 
 dom of heaven is at hand." When men asked him what thev 
 were to do, he told them to be just, sympathetic, compas- 
 sionate; to cease to rely on their descent from Abraham, and 
 to look for the coming of the kingdom. 
 
 Throughout all Palestine spread the news of the preaching 
 of John. New hopes stirred in the hearts of men when they 
 heard his message. Eagerly men, especially young men, 
 flocked to hear him. Among the rest came Jesus, probably 
 with other young men from Galilee. Did he know that he 
 was coming forth to his ordination? What strivings of spirit, 
 as he worked at the bench, lay behind the decision to go to 
 Jordan and attend the preaching of John! And what new 
 power of conviction may have come to him as he listened! 
 We have no reason to assume that he had ceased to grow in 
 knowledge and in the favor of God. Some growth of knowl- 
 edge, some progress in divine favor, surely preceded and 
 accompanied the act of his public consecration. Some new 
 meaning of his own mission to men became clear to him, and 
 he enrolled himself as a companion of John the Baptist, and 
 was baptized by him in Jordan. 
 
 The River Jordan is unlike any other stream on earth. 
 From the Sea of Galilee to the Dead Sea it lies far below the 
 
THE BAPTISM OF JESUS 85 
 
 level of the ocean. Its great rapidity unfits it for navigation; 
 it thus divides and does not unite. It is insignificant in breadth 
 and easily fordable at a number of places, and is also spanned 
 by a few bridges. It emerges from the Sea of Galilee clear 
 and blue; but its swift descent brings it to the Dead Sea turbid 
 
 THE BAPTISM OF JESUS — fGUIDO RENT. I575-1642) 
 
 and yellow. In popular thought Jordan is a stream of dignity 
 and power; and so most tourists are disappointed when they 
 discover a mere muddy creek. They have hardly seen the real 
 Jordan; the stream above is more impressive. The part of the 
 Jordan which tourists see, however, is the part most intimately 
 associated with gospel history, and while the river is not a 
 
86 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 formidable boundary, its swiftness and general depth have 
 made it in all generations a river of unique importance. While 
 popular imagination gives to it a dignity which the actual 
 stream dispels, the real importance of the river has not been 
 exaggerated in the common mind. 
 
 The valley of the Jordan grows insufferably hot, and is quite 
 unhealthy for people who are not acclimated, and the vegeta- 
 tion is almost tropical. The contrast between it and the 
 wilderness of Judaea is as great as could well be imagined. 
 Palms, oranges and lemons abound here, and the scene 
 delights the eye, but the sterile plain toward the Dead Sea, 
 which irrigation would render wonderfully fertile, sends up 
 great clouds of dust in the dry season, and the great heat 
 makes the journey to the scene of Christ's baptism uncom- 
 fortable. Uncomfortable as it is, and somewhat disappointing 
 when accomplished, it is a journey which pilgrims from all over 
 the world remember with satisfaction; and princes are proud 
 to have been christened in water brought from the scene of 
 Christ's baptism. 
 
 At some unknown place called Bethany, and wrongly trans- 
 lated Bethabara, on the east side of the Jordan and opposite 
 the wilderness of Judaea, John gathered his crowds and bap- 
 tized at the river (John 1:28 s ). Various attempts have been 
 made to locate this Bethany, which of course is wholly distinct 
 from the Bethany where Lazarus lived. Its name is thought 
 to mean "house of ships," or possibly "ferry boat" or "house 
 of fords." We do not know the precise spot, but can make the 
 scene sufficiently real to ourselves when we stand in imagina- 
 tion at that spot which for centuries has been accepted as the 
 place where Jesus was baptized. The traditional spot answers 
 all the necessities of the case. It is a ford nearly opposite 
 Jericho, and noted also as that said to have been used by the 
 children of Israel in their crossing to capture that city. Here 
 the river is swift and muddy, but thousands of tourists every 
 year come to bathe in its waters, and to carry away flasks of 
 the water of the stream where Jesus submitted to baptism that 
 thus he might fulfil all righteousness. 
 
THE BAPTISM OF JESUS 
 
 87 
 
 John and Jesus met, instantly recognized eacli other, and 
 then parted. Each bore his loyal testimony to the other; but 
 their work was done apart. The holy life of which John knew, 
 and the dove-like halo which he saw above the head of his 
 carpenter-cousin, convinced him that Jesus was "He that 
 should come;" and he prepared to decrease that Jesus might 
 
 THE BAPTISM OF JESUS — (a. VERROCCHIO, I435-I488) 
 
 increase. Jesus, too, knew John; discerned in him that fear- 
 less integrity, that loyalty to God and duty, that unselfish 
 nobility which characterized him, and bore his fervent testi- 
 mony to the man than whom greater had not been born. But 
 much as they had in common, their work was unlike. John's 
 mission was to complete the old dispensation, while that of 
 Jesus was to begin, and only to begin, the new. 
 
 It has often been asked why Jesus, who knew no sin, con- 
 
88 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 sented to be baptized with a baptism for the remission of sins. 
 It is probable that the simplest answer is the truest, namely, 
 that he had no deep, obscure motive, but wished simply to 
 enroll himself among those who were the companions of John. 
 His relation to John was of great value to him throughout 
 his whole ministry. It was John's testimony that brought 
 him his first disciples and secured for him his first public 
 recognition. The name of John was a protection to him until 
 very near the end of his ministry. Publicly to acknowledge 
 the worth of John was not beneath him. It need not trouble 
 us that our Lord, who entered so fully into our human life, 
 accepted this symbol at the entrance of his own public ministry. 
 We may not be sure of all his reasons, but the record of the 
 fact is indisputable. 
 
 It would be a mistake to think of the baptism of Jesus as 
 of no value to himself. It marked an epoch in his life. It 
 opened for him a new experience. It identified him anew with 
 the race in his submission to the conditions of righteousness 
 in human life. It made more real to him the presence and 
 power of the Spirit. With a new richness, the Spirit was now 
 his; its descent at his baptism was his ordination for his life- 
 work, and sent him forth confident, earnest and relying upon 
 God. The event drew a wide line of demarkation between his 
 past and future. The neighbors, who of late had thought him 
 restless, ambitious, erratic, perhaps, would know him no more 
 at the carpenter's bench. When he returned into Galilee it 
 would be "in the power of the Spirit,'' and, reading the words 
 of the prophet of old, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, 
 because he anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor," 
 he would be able to add, "To-day hath this scripture been 
 fulfilled in your ears." 
 
 We need not doubt that he later received more of the same 
 Spirit as his work developed, and his deeds grew more vari- 
 ously illustrative of the power of God. Angels came down 
 and ministered to him in his need, and if these spirits of light, 
 then surely also the Spirit of God, of which he was born, and 
 which anew had come upon him at baptism, came more and 
 
THE BAPTISM OF JESUS 
 
 8 9 
 
 more into his life till God gave not the Spirit to him by 
 measure, but of the divine fullness poured into that human life 
 all that humanity could contain and reveal of the nature of 
 God himself. 
 
 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 
 (W. HOLMAN HUNT, 1827 — ) 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE TEMPTATION OF JESUS 
 
 The traveler from Jerusalem to the Jordan leaves trees and 
 fertile fields behind him at Bethany, and almost at once enters 
 a sterile and broken country. Passing the Apostles' Spring, 
 and later the Inn of the Good Samaritan, water and human 
 habitations alike are forgotten, or remembered as things 
 belonging to a world long out of sight. The road follows the 
 edge of a deep ravine, on whose further side appears a curious 
 monastery, built on the side of the cliff. 
 
 Here, where Elijah is said to have been nourished by 
 the ravens, Greek monks maintain their place of residence 
 and of prayer in the midst of the deep solitude. Nearly six 
 hundred feet from the top of their dwelling the dry wady of 
 the Kidron yawns below them. Above are the blue heavens, 
 and all around is sterility and silence. A habitation such as 
 this in the midst of desolation accentuates the loneliness of 
 the situation, and causes one to feel even more than if there 
 were no life there at all, the everlasting silence and mysterv 
 and awe of the situation. A few miles down the valley, at its 
 junction with the wide plain of the Jordan, and a little farther 
 up the river, rises the Mount of Ouarantania, the traditional 
 scene of the temptation of Jesus. The sides of the hill contain 
 many cliffs where anchorites have dwelt, many of them 
 prolonging to as many years the forty days of Christ's solitude 
 and meditation. This is the traditional "exceeding high moun- 
 tain" from which the tempter showed the Lord all the king- 
 doms of the world. It presents to the plain a perpendicular 
 wall of rock which Robinson estimates as twelve to fifteen 
 hundred feet above the river, and of which Thomson says, 
 "The side facing the plain is as perpendicular and apparently 
 as high as the rock of Gibraltar, and upon the summit are still 
 visible the ruins of an ancient convent." It is probable that 
 
 90 
 
THE TEMPTATION OF JESUS 
 
 9* 
 
 the name Quarantania, which refers to the forty days, and the 
 tradition which the name commemorates, are not older than 
 the Crusades, but the situation readily lends itself to the 
 incident. 
 
 WHERE ELIJAH HID FROM JEZEBEL 
 
 Somewhere in this vast wilderness Jesus met and decided 
 the fundamental questions of his life-work. He had become 
 conscious of his power, and that fact in itself constituted an 
 element of temptation. The question what to do with his 
 new and supreme strength now came to him for decision. He 
 was no longer a carpenter; he had turned his back forever 
 
g 2 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 upon the associations of his childhood and young manhood. 
 He was to follow the example of John in undertaking a public 
 ministry. But his call to preach implied more of power and 
 a wider ministry than John's; in what spirit and for what 
 ends were this power and ministry to be exercised? 
 
 The older views of the temptation were generally gross 
 and materialistic. A dark and mighty Satan dealing with a 
 weak and puny Christ has been the general conception of art. 
 It should be remembered as against this view, with what 
 courage and strength Jesus met and mastered his temptations. 
 He was no weakling, lifted passive and helpless by a dark and 
 almost omnipotent Satan. Jesus was master of the situation 
 throughout. 
 
 The temptation of Jesus was real and strong. It is no 
 ideal picture which is given here, but the genuine description 
 of the heart-struggle of a pure soul with its own various and 
 human impulses and ambitions when it stands on the thresh- 
 old of its career. The temptations may have been subjective 
 and not objective — I incline to believe them to have been 
 subjective. I do not know in what language God might 
 choose to set forth the account of a subjective struggle if not 
 in such as this; but subjective or objective, it was a genuine 
 and powerful one. Jesus was not posing, but suffering. 
 
 If it be objected that temptability is incompatible with 
 sinless character, it may be answered that so far as we know 
 human beings, character, good or bad, sinful or sinless, 
 becomes possible only in the presence of temptation. Nor 
 need this be so far beyond our comprehension that temptation 
 may be without sin; for do we not all know something of a 
 sinless temptation? Sinful as we are, have we not all at times 
 resisted, and successfully? Have we not sometimes come out 
 of the furnace without the smell of fire upon our garments 
 and with a holy and confident triumph? Such experiences as 
 we have all had, such even as the worst man may have known, 
 may make it possible for us to understand that Christ could 
 be tempted and yet sinless. On the other hand, the memories 
 of our frequent falls stand in complete contrast with his heroic 
 and successful resistance. 
 
THE TEMPTATION OF JESUS 
 
 93 
 
 Upon the face of the narrative there are three temptations. 
 But I am not sure that we ought not to count a fourth, which 
 entered into all of the others, and was twice suggested in 
 words by the tempter, "If thou be the Son of God." There 
 was a suggested doubt. And no wonder. What a mission 
 was this upon which Jesus was to enter! What infinite possi- 
 bilities of humiliation and of failure lay before him! Well 
 may he have asked, "Am I, the son of Mary, also the Son of 
 
 THE WILDERNESS OF JUDAEA 
 
 God? Is the carpenter's bench in very truth a thing of the 
 past? Is there to come into my life a sudden and a mighty 
 change? What did the descent of the dove mean? What is 
 it to be the Son of God? How am I sure of this? In what 
 have I become different from what I was yesterday? Can it be 
 that I am the Son of God? And even if I were sure of it, can 
 I make any one else believe it?" 
 
 All great souls feel something of this when they enter upon 
 their life-work. These are the wrestlings with the angel 
 whose name we know not. Sometimes in the struggle with 
 
9 4 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 the unknown we cry, "Get thee behind me, Satan," and then 
 again we wrestle on in the uncertainty until we feel that we 
 have prevailed with God. So we struggle and question until 
 the day breaks. It is this element of uncertainty, this lack 
 of objective demonstration, that gives a tragic element to the 
 dawn of the Christian life. Good people meet it all through 
 life at every important question and issue. Paul had this 
 struggle when he took the bold step of crossing from Asia into 
 Europe, following the vision, which did not materialize, of 
 the man of Macedonia asking for help. His flesh had no rest. 
 Without were fightings; within were fears. He had followed 
 the vision obedient to the will of God; but how did he know 
 it was God's will? Many brave souls, having burned their 
 boats behind them, start upon the work to which their choice 
 commits them with momentary sinking of heart. They must 
 conquer now, or die. But what if they have wrongly estimated 
 their powers? What if it is all a delusion? 
 
 This is the temptation implied in the challenge, "If thou be 
 the Son of God." As yet he had wrought no miracles. The 
 consciousness of his power was purely subjective and theoret- 
 ical. How could he assure himself that his hardened hand 
 could heal the sick? How could he convince himself, much 
 less others, that he had power to forgive sins? He was sure 
 of it, perhaps, but what if he ventured on this assurance and 
 then failed? Ah, the doubt of it: "If thou be the Son of 
 God!" Here is the opportunity to test it apart from the 
 curious crowds. Here is a chance to assure himself, and at 
 the same time make his power serve himself. And if, forsooth, 
 he can make stones bread, can he not, Midas-like, turn all 
 he touches to gold? 
 
 In like manner we are tempted to use what God has given 
 us for merely physical ends. So was Adam tempted to put the 
 physical above the material. This is the lowest form of direct 
 temptation, and is where the whole race falls, not as individ- 
 uals only, but as a race. We point to our great country, its 
 millions of acres, its spreading fields, its mighty reapers and 
 threshers, its powerful and productive mills, its railroads, its 
 
THE TEMPTATION OF JESUS 
 
 95 
 
 wholesale stores, and its mammoth bakeries. How great a 
 thing is civilization! So it is, and it is God's gift. The man 
 who makes wheat to grow from the earth constantly makes 
 bread from stones. It is not sinful, but divine. But he who 
 sees in the power which God has given to modern life only 
 
 ^^MLs^^ 
 
 THE TEMPTATION — (CORWIN KNAPP LINSON) 
 (COURTESY OF S. S. M'CLURE CO. COPYRIGHT) 
 
 the opportunity of feeding more men or feeding them better, 
 fails to find God's most characteristic work in modern life. 
 Men may coin their acres into bread and yet starve in theif 
 spiritual needs. 
 
 We must not forget that even the temptation to make 
 
9 6 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 bread the end and aim of his mission was a real one to a man 
 who had been a breadwinner, earning his food by his own 
 labor. Not only his own bread but the bread of those who 
 might be associated with him could be provided by his power, 
 if he chose to use it so. The temptation to make commerce 
 out of divine power and to traffic with the inheritance of God, 
 is as old as Esau and as modern as the twentieth century. 
 The first temptation decided that the chief ambition of Jesus 
 was not to be the mere quest of bread. Yet Jesus ate bread 
 all his life and never despised the struggle for it, nor under- 
 valued the importance of man's having food and enough of 
 it. But the Scripture is eternally true, that "Man shall not 
 live by bread alone." 
 
 The next temptation raised the struggle to a higher plane. 
 Why not use his power to gratify the curious, to excite 
 admiration, and to minister to his own spiritual pride? Thus 
 he could prove his power, and by it enforce his teaching. It 
 is a subtle form of temptation, and the more insidious because 
 only those experience it who have made some progress in 
 goodness. Christ recognized the full import of this invitation 
 of Satan and successfully resisted it. It came to him again 
 and again in the course of his ministry in the demands of the 
 curious crowds that he work miracles for their satisfaction. The 
 precise point at which the working of miracles ceased to be 
 a means of spiritual good and became the occasion of pride and 
 pretense, Jesus infallibly detected, and the more so because he 
 so swiftly and so faithfully met the issue at the outset. 
 
 Let us realize how thoroughly Jesus conquered the tempta- 
 tion to use his power to draw crowds and excite admiration. 
 Again and again he concealed his mighty works. Again and 
 again he withdrew from men, though the need of some of them 
 was sore, lest the mere working of miracles should make his 
 mission one of legerdemain. He had little reliance upon the 
 supernatural as a means of grace. He taught his disciples to 
 believe in him, if possible, because of his revelation of the 
 Father, and if not, then, and alas, to believe for the very 
 works' sake. 
 
THE TEMPTATION OF JESUS 
 
 97 
 
 Jesus did not make his appeal to men as the Christ, but as 
 the Son of man. Not till late in his ministry did he permit 
 men to know that he was the Christ, and those who earlier 
 discovered it were commanded to keep it secret. The work 
 of Christ was not a campaign of self-advertising. He came to 
 reveal, not himself, but the Father. From beginning to end 
 he refused to cast himself down from pinnacles to make the 
 multitude gape, or to trust in the power of angels to sustain 
 
 
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 THE MOUNT OF TEMPTATION FROM THE JORDAN VALLEY 
 
 him. At the end he might have had ten legions of angels to 
 defend him, but he faced the court of Pilate and the world in 
 the simple majesty of his manhood. So completely did he 
 resist the tempter, and prevail. 
 
 Then came the last and keenest temptation. If there be 
 any pure ambition it is that for fame and glory. To be the 
 Son of God that he might eat, would be contemptible. To be 
 the Son of God that he might make the curious wonder, 
 would be beneath him. But to be the Son of God and a king — 
 and such a king — this would be different. To rule the earth, 
 and to make it such an earth as he could have made it — this 
 
y S JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 must have appealed to him, We have no reason to believe 
 that Christ was tempted to be a wicked ruler but only a 
 selfish one. The world was groaning under the Roman yoke. 
 From the remotest provinces of Rome came to Judaea and 
 Galilee frequent rumors of the rottenness of the empire, and 
 of its readiness to totter. What would now happen if a leader 
 such as Jesus, with his power of hand and brain, with his 
 power over nature and over men, should rise in this remote 
 province, surrounded by ardent followers? Other provinces 
 would rise in rebellion; the empire would be in confusion. 
 His cause had more than a fis'hting chance. He could repeat 
 the large success of Herod; he could perhaps do more, and 
 rule the world. This was the very tangible temptation which 
 came to him. Over and over he had to fight against it when 
 the people would take him and make him king by force. He 
 might possibly have been the successor of Caesar. He might 
 have reigned in Rome. But to do it would leave the world 
 unsaved. To his eternal glory and ours, he did not do it. He 
 had as good right to do this as any man has to seek first his 
 own pleasure or power, but not even to the Son of God would 
 selfishness have been otherwise than a worship of Satan. 
 
 I do not agree with those who affirm that Satan lied in 
 promising to Jesus a kingdom. By such tactics as he proposed, 
 kingdoms have often been established. Jesus could well esti- 
 mate the ability of Satan to deliver a kingdom, and there 
 would have been no temptation if he had not known the king- 
 dom as a possibility. 
 
 The Bible puts in plain, blunt English, what I suppose is 
 a paraphrase of Satan's actual words. I have no idea that 
 Satan said in so many words, "Fall down and worship me." 
 That would have been a most undiplomatic wav of putting the 
 case. What Satan actually said was probably more like this: 
 "Be a patiot. Free your country. Do not waste your splendid 
 talents on simple minded fishermen. Be great — not bad, of 
 course, but be not righteous overmuch. It does not pay. Be 
 first of all as great as you can, and incidentally be as good 
 as selfish greatness will let you be. The world owes vou a 
 
THE TEMPTATION OF JESUS 
 
 99 
 
 living. What are stones good for but bread? Pinnacles are 
 for your exhibition of God's presence with you. Kingdoms 
 are for those who can rule them — get one while you can. 
 Trust God uid go ahead, and it will be to your advantage." 
 This temptation was the more real to a Jew because the 
 
 THE MOUNT OF TEMPTATION — NEAR VIEW 
 
 kingdom that then existed was so oppressive that in resisting 
 it he might almost hide from himself the ambition under the 
 name of religion and patriotism. To choose for himself a 
 career of fame and glory; to get renown as the deliverer of his 
 people from the burden of the Roman yoke, and at the same 
 time to escape the cross and the shame; to make the kingdoms 
 of the world his own — but by the failure to do his duty as the 
 
IOO 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 son of God; this was what Satan offered; but Jesus never for 
 a moment swerved from his decision through all the anxieties 
 and burdens of the next three years. Though crucified as an 
 insurgent against Caesar, his kingdom was not of this world. 
 When Jesus returned again to mingle among men, he re- 
 entered the Jordan valley. It is impossible to imagine a more 
 cheerful or exhilarating contrast to the wilderness of "Judaea. 
 
 
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 THE TEMPTATION — (CORNICELIUS, 1825 — ) 
 
 To emerge from the barrenness and loneliness of that wilder- 
 ness into the life and verdure of the valley is to feel a sudden 
 uplift, refreshing alike to body and mind. The tourist of 
 to-day, after a ride of five or six hours through the same wilder- 
 ness, comes forth with feelings of exhilaration. This and more 
 Jesus felt. He felt, we may believe, a new strength within 
 himself, a new power to deal with the problems of the world. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE FIRST DISCIPLES 
 
 Immediately on his return from the wilderness, our Lord 
 began to gather a band of disciples. His first followers came 
 before his first sermon. It was not his invitation that secured 
 their confession of faith in him, but the testimony of John, 
 
 ON JORDAN S BANKS 
 
 "Behold the Lamb of God." It was John, later known as the 
 evangelist, and Andrew, to whom John spoke, and these two 
 left John, the heroic, the self-effacing, and followed Jesus. 
 
 "Where dwellest thou?" they asked him; they themselves 
 were not at home, and had no place to invite him. "Come 
 and see," said Jesus. We do not know what was his lodging 
 beside the Jordan. He had come out of the wilderness after 
 a solitude of six weeks; we should like to know what habita- 
 tion first constituted his home on his return among men. But 
 the disciples do not tell us about the place in which they found 
 
102 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 him established for his brief sojourn. Perhaps they did not 
 notice. It was four o'clock in the afternoon when they went 
 with him, and they sat with him while the short February day 
 drew to its close, and the sun went down. They probably spent 
 the evening, the day was so nearly gone, and the questions 
 
 
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 JESUS, TETER AND JOHN THE BAPTIST 
 (CHR. VERLAT) 
 
 burning their hearts were so great, and that evening, or a 
 part of it, was shared also with a third companion. The first 
 two were John and Andrew, and the third, whom Andrew 
 found with an eager, breathless message, was Peter. "We 
 have found the Christ," he cried, and it was not a difficult 
 thing which he accomplished when "he brought him to Jesus." 
 There they sat, the three of them, and in his presence, in that 
 February twilight, three fishermen away on a vacation, their 
 
THE FIRST DISCIPLES 103 
 
 mental horizon suddenly enlarged with the vision of their 
 nation's hope. "We have found the Christ!" The conviction 
 grew strong in the hearts of these three men, and thev forth- 
 with became his disciples. 
 
 the calling of peter and andrew 
 (baroccio, i 508-1573) 
 
 It was well they went at once to the Master's temporary 
 home by the Jordan, for he left .next day. Yet, next morning 
 before leaving he had called another disciple, Philip, and 
 Philip, with an eagerness like Andrew's, had found his own 
 brother Nathanael and brought him to Jesus. So between 
 four o'clock of one day and noon of the next our Lord's first 
 five disciples had been secured. 
 
104 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 Not much was required of them at the outset. Such a 
 thing as leaving their homes to be with him was not so much 
 as hinted at. They simply confessed to the great hope which 
 their nation had cherished for centuries, and which they now 
 believed was to be realized in him. 
 
 With this hope mounting high in their hearts they went 
 back to their homes and their fishing. Yet as they cast their 
 nets they talked of him whom they had seen and conversed 
 with beside the Jordan, and whom John proclaimed, and they 
 believed, to be the Lamb of God. They never forgot that first 
 meeting. Sixty years afterward, one of them, writing about 
 it, could tell the very hour of the day and the very words of 
 their first dialogue. They were following him after they heard 
 John speak, and he turned and asked them, "What seek ye?' 1 
 They asked him, "Master, where dwellest thou?" He answered, 
 "Come and see." The rest of it was less distinct. Probably 
 they said little, and soon forgot their own questions; but him 
 and his gracious, constraining power they never forgot from 
 that hour to the ends of their lives. 
 
 Thus, without making bread from stones, or working mir- 
 acles or announcing a programme attractive to ambition, Jesus 
 manifested his mastery over men. The testimony of John was 
 unsolicited; the winning of the first disciples was without con- 
 straint. Easily, naturally, and without resistance, these dis- 
 ciples came to Jesus, and Jesus received them and held their 
 devotion to the end. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE MARRIAGE AT CAN A 
 
 The traveler from Nazareth to the Sea of Galilee stops by 
 the way to permit his horse to drink from an old stone sar- 
 cophagus beside the public spring of Kefr Ketina. Around 
 the spring gather the usual group of village maidens with their 
 water-pots, chatting and gossiping and shrinking in mock 
 modesty from his camera. They speak no English, but under- 
 stand his question concerning the name of the village and 
 answer, "Kahnah of Galilee." Between spreading orchards of 
 olive-trees, walled in by cactus hedges, the tourist rides up 
 the low hill into a dirty city, and finds himself between a 
 Greek church on the left and the Latin convent on the right. 
 Here he dismounts and is welcomed at the door of the church 
 by the Greek priest, who shows him the simple interior of the 
 small house of worship. It is cool and restful after the hot sun, 
 and the priest extends a pleasant greeting and shows the few 
 minor articles of interest, and the one chief attraction of the 
 place, a huge water-pot, which tradition declares to have been 
 one of those employed by Jesus in his first miracle. The 
 spring at which the tourist's horse has been drinking is sup- 
 posed by the Greeks to have been that at which the water-pots 
 were filled. The church is believed to occupy the site of the 
 house in which the marriage took place. The tourist may 
 question the accuracy of the tradition, and be more than sus- 
 picious of the preservation of the water-pot, but the exhibition 
 of these tangible things serves to give a semblance of reality 
 to the story. Here, if tradition may be believed, "The con- 
 scious water saw its Lord and blushed. 1 ' 
 
 Across the street near at hand is the Latin monastery. The 
 father at its head is intelligent and interested in archaeology. 
 He has personally conducted excavations on the convent prop- 
 
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io6 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 erty, and believes that the monastery covers the foundation of 
 the original house, and also that he has discovered the cistern 
 from which the water was drawn. Here, too, is another water- 
 pot of antique mold. The tourist must accustom himself to 
 the duplication of sacred relics in Palestine. Each sacred spot 
 has its Greek and its Latin shrine, and each its own collection 
 of relics. The tourist must see both collections if he would 
 be sure of having seen the genuine one, and he is fortunate 
 if, even then, he can feel certain. For myself, I more than 
 questioned the genuineness of any of these recently discov- 
 ered mementos. It is quite enough to say of them that they 
 
 THE MARRIAGE AT CANA 
 (PAUL VERONESE, I528-I588) 
 
 are undoubtedly old, and may be of the kind used in the New 
 Testament days. This is quite sufficient, too; for relics such 
 as these give us a visible link between the present and the 
 past. The Latins, like the Greek priest, treated us with hos- 
 pitality, and offered us wine of the kind said to have been pro- 
 duced by the miracle. Across the interesecting street in a little 
 schoolhouse used by the Greek church, the women made for 
 us lemonade from native lemons and a great loaf of granulated 
 sugar from which they broke small portions for our refreshing 
 drink. I am no judge of wine and never drink it, but the 
 lemonade was good. 
 
THE MARRIAGE AT CANA 
 
 107 
 
 The modern Cana contains six hundred inhabitants, half of 
 them Mohammedans and the majority of the remainder 
 There are a few Latins and a still smaller number of Protest- 
 ants. 
 
 No description is given in the New Testament which enables 
 us to see how widely the Cana of to-day differs from that of 
 nineteen hundred years ago. The modern Cana is a typical 
 Galilasan village, and that is probably true of the ancient 
 
 
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 THE SPRING AT CANA OF GALILEE 
 
 Cana. The people are more hospitable than in many of the 
 Palestine villages, and the treatment which our party received 
 both from the officials and the villagers was all that could be 
 desired. Here we found industries in progress of the sort 
 mentioned in the Bible; the girls gathering the grass in the 
 field and the thorn-plant from the hills for fuel for the ovens; 
 the women grinding at the mill, and all the activities of life 
 progressing much as in Bible times. It may be that the vil- 
 lage is not very unlike that where Jesus performed the miracle. 
 
108 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 It would be worth much to witness a wedding in Cana, but 
 this was not our privilege. 
 
 We know, however, the marriage customs of that day. There 
 were two ceremonies, the betrothal and the wedding. In Judaea 
 much was made of the former, but habits were simpler in Gali- 
 lee, and the engagement service was attended with less cere- 
 mony. At this preliminary service the bridegroom handed the 
 bride a coin or a letter as a token of espousal. From that time 
 the two were regarded in law and in society as married, save 
 that as yet they lived apart. 
 
 The actual marriage was celebrated in the evening, and 
 began with a procession, headed with music, and accompanied 
 by the distribution of oil, wine and nuts. Then came the 
 bride, veiled and accompanied by bearers of torches and flow- 
 ers. When she arrived at her new home, accompanied by "the 
 children of the bride-chamber," she was presented to the bride- 
 groom with the formula, "Take her according to the Law of 
 Moses and of Israel." Bride and groom were then crowned with 
 wreaths of flowers. Then the document was signed which pro- 
 vided for the dowry and support. Then, after ceremonial 
 washings, followed the marriage feast, which often lasted a 
 day or more; and then, "the friends of the bridegroom" con- 
 ducted the young couple to their own chamber. 
 
 Here our Lord came with his disciples just after his tempta- 
 tion and his unalterable decision to overcome the world. Into 
 the world with all its life and daily need he merged from the 
 baptism and temptation. It was no ascetic who came back 
 among men from the temptation and the triumph, but one 
 who was still in sympathy with every rational and justifiable 
 interest in life. It was no pressing case of need, no desperate 
 sorrow that first called forth his divine assistance, but the gen- 
 erous and beautiful desire to add to the sum of human joy. 
 Life is real and earnest, and its deep concerns are serious and 
 even strenuous, but Jesus at the outset of his ministry showed 
 his abiding sympathy with that which is joyous and festal. 
 
 God's good gifts to us are not measured by our absolute 
 necessities. It is his delight to give to his children more than 
 
THE MARRIAGE AT CANA Iog 
 
 they need. A score of blossoms shed their beauty and fra- 
 grance upon earth for every one that is necessary for fruit, and 
 the fruit is more abundant than the necessity of seed. Com- 
 mentators interpret Scripture in the light of a "law of parsi- 
 mony" by which it is assumed that God employs no needlessly 
 great cause for a given effect; and that the supernatural is not 
 to be assumed where the facts can be explained by the nat- 
 ural. It is a good and wise law; but it must not be applied too 
 narrowly. God rejoices to exceed our necessities with the 
 
 THE VILLAGE OF CANA 
 
 plenitude of his own goodness and love. I have often thought 
 that this first miracle of Jesus might be, among all he wrought, 
 most truly indicative of the spirit in which he came. Into a 
 company not oppressed by poverty or disease or sin, he 
 entered, sharing their rejoicings; and the majesty of his power 
 was displayed that the joy of men might grow from more to 
 more. 
 
 It is with pathetic interest that we remember how Jesus 
 spoke of himself as the bridegroom come to bring joy to his 
 companions who could not fast while he was with them. We 
 
I IO 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 remember sadly that he came to his own and his own received 
 him not, but it probably would be a mistake to think of Jesus 
 as habitually sorrowful. Deep were the sorrows of his life and 
 deep were the sorrows of the world which he continually faced, 
 but he endured the cross and despised the shame for the joy 
 that was set before him, and he taught his disciples to love and 
 labor that his joy might abide in them and that their joy might 
 be full. So much of sorrow waited on his later ministry, that 
 we shall do well to cherish the memory of every blessed joy 
 which came to him during its progress. 
 
 CHRIST AT THE DOOR — (HOFMANN, 1824 — ) 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE WHIP OF SMALL CORDS 
 
 Soon after the wedding in Cana Jesus and his mother and 
 the family visited Capernaum, where some of his disciples 
 lived (John 2: 12), and there evidently did some teaching- and 
 performed some works of power, as these are later referred to 
 in Nazareth as well known there (Luke 4: 23). But the visit 
 to Capernaum was a short one, and from here, probably with- 
 out returning to Nazareth, Jesus went to Jerusalem. It is the 
 first recorded visit to the Holy City since he was twelve years 
 of age. Meantime he had become a man, and a man with a 
 mission. With what emotions did he now approach the sacred 
 temple, the scene of his boyhood inspiration, and of his future 
 activity! 
 
 Jerusalem presents a beautiful sight to the visitor from Gali- 
 lee. Enshrined in mountains, flanked by deep valleys, the hill 
 of Zion rises picturesque, and visible afar. The high walls and 
 massive gates make it appear impregnable, and the domes and 
 turrets that lift themselves above the walls and outline their 
 glittering shapes against the hills and the sky, show a city 
 whose beauty can but exalt the imagination and quicken the 
 weary step. 
 
 According to the scheme of chronology which we are fol- 
 lowing, the date of the passover which John mentions was 
 April 11-17, A. D. 27. It is the official beginning of Christian- 
 ity. It is marked by one public event of importance, the 
 cleansing of the temple, and is notable as the occasion of 
 Jesus* visit with Nicodemus. 
 
 We do not know the thoughts of Jesus as he approached 
 Jerusalem, after the interval of eighteen years. He remem- 
 bered it as it had seemed in his boyhood. He remembered 
 the wisdom and solemnity of the doctors, the impressive 
 
 in 
 
112 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 apparel of the priests, the dignity and grandeur of the temple 
 service. The real Jerusalem possessed all this, and much beside 
 that was less pleasant to contemplate. It is more than once 
 recorded that Jesus was astonished at conditions which con- 
 fronted him in his ministry. It may well be that another 
 instance of his astonishment meets us in this incident. With 
 swift indignation, as though the awful sacrilege now first 
 became fully apparent to him, Jesus beheld the desecration of 
 his Father's house. 
 
 MOUNT ZION 
 
 He who approaches the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in 
 Jerusalem, finds the court in front thronged with peddlers of 
 pearl crosses and rosaries, olive-wood souvenirs and cotton 
 winding-sheets, the latter printed over with religious inscrip- 
 tions, and carried in by the purchasers to fold against the 
 Stone of Anointment, and be laid away for the purchaser's own 
 entombment. It suggests at once, but does not equal, the 
 scene in the outer courts of the temple in Jesus' day. Animals 
 were there for sale to be offered in sacrifice, as people coming 
 from distant parts had occasion to buy their cattle and sheep. 
 The rental on the pens for these animals went to the priests. 
 Doves were in great demand; the high priest Annas had a 
 
THE WHIP OF SMALL CORDS 
 
 113 
 
 large dove farm on the Mount of Olives, and himself dealt 
 largely, through agents or employees, in this traffic. Then 
 there were the money-changers. A man's gift might be more 
 or less, but the temple tax was payable in the sacred shekel. 
 
 YEMENITE JEWS IN JERUSALEM 
 
 Jesus himself paid this tax in the Roman drachma, having no 
 patience with the letter of a law that destroyed its spirit (Matt. 
 17:24-27). But legally, the tax was payable in the sacred 
 coin, now rare, the shekel, or half-shekel, believed to have 
 been coined by Simon the Maccabee. To change the various 
 Roman or provincial coins for shekels was the business of the 
 money-changers, whose stalls paid temple rentals. All this 
 made the outer courts a noisy and profane place, where the 
 
H4 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 bleating of sheep, the lowing of cattle, and the bargaining of 
 customers and venders mingled boisterously; and worst of all 
 was the spirit of greed cloaking itself under the form of 
 religion. 
 
 Jesus viewed all this with righteous indignation. Then he 
 hastily gathered some cords from the floor, braided them into 
 a whip, and drove the oxen and their masters before him, 
 freed the doves, and overturned the tables of the money- 
 changers. It was a bold thing to do, and safe because bold. 
 
 THE DAMASCUS GATE, JERUSALEM 
 
 The consciences of the evil-doers proved his allies, and the 
 temple, for a brief period, was unpolluted by trade. Jesus had 
 had his first battle with the forces of evil, and had prevailed. 
 
 At this first passover in his ministry, Jesus attracted the 
 attention and profound interest of one great man, by name 
 Nicodemus, one of the chief teachers of Jerusalem. He came 
 to Jesus by night, whether through fear or for the sake of 
 quiet and uninterrupted converse we do not know, and con- 
 fessed at the outset his belief that Jesus had come from God. 
 
 Jesus answered, "Ye must be born from above." 
 
THE WHIP OF SMALL CORDS 
 
 US 
 
 The Jews had a doctrine of regeneration, but it was essen- 
 tially that of naturalization. A Gentile, coming as a proselyte, 
 must be born anew. It implied that the proselyte had become 
 dead to his former relationships, and had entered into new 
 ones; his brother, his father, were no longer his next of kin, 
 but his new brethren in the Jewish commonwealth. He had 
 entered a "kingdom," and the relations of that "kingdom" 
 were not merely political but personal and social. The term 
 
 THE CITADEL OF ZION 
 
 which Jesus so commonly used, "the kingdom of heaven" or 
 "the kingdom of God," was not invented by him, but was in 
 current use. Jesus and Nicodemus were both talking about 
 "the kingdom of God;" they used the same language, but 
 with very different meanings. So, too, they were both talk- 
 ing of a new birth, and the language employed by Jesus was 
 familiar to Nicodemus; yet he stumbled at the outset in his 
 attempt to grasp the spiritual meaning of Jesus. It would not 
 have surprised Nicodemus had Jesus told him that other men 
 
no 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 must be born anew. Nicodemus could have had no thought 
 that he had need of such regeneration. But Jesus applied 
 the truth to Nicodemus, to the great bewilderment of the 
 learned teacher. In the midst of a discourse, at once profound 
 and simple, he announced the origin and purpose of his own 
 mission in the world, in words that are in themselves an 
 evangel: 
 
 THE CLEANSING OF THE TEMPLE 
 (REMBRANDT. l6c6-l66g) (FROM ORIGINAL ETCHING, 1635) 
 
 "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten 
 Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but 
 have eternal life" (John 3: 16). 
 
 The need of regeneration is inherent in our complex nature. 
 The child is born with rich spiritual capabilities, but they are 
 all latent. Nothing is developed at the outset, save necessary 
 bodily functions, and a few weak animal instincts. The little 
 one, born of the flesh, and with mind enough to enable the flesh 
 
THE WHIP OF SMALL CORDS 
 
 117 
 
 to provide for its first simple and reasonable wants, must be 
 born from above. 
 
 One by one the higher qualities appear; each is a new birth. 
 The love of beauty, the enjoyment of music, the response to 
 parental affection — each is a new birth. 
 
 We hear much misleading talk about our "sinful nature." 
 The word 'nature" as thus applied is most ambiguous. It is 
 natural for a child to creep; it is just as natural for a man, 
 having learned, to walk. But the ability to walk, to defy 
 
 THE RAILWAY STATION, JERUSALEM 
 
 gravitation and stand erect, is a birth from above. Scientists 
 tell us that our erect position causes us many diseases of the 
 heart, which is crowded to one side, and of the digestive 
 organs, which are cramped and loaded with undue weight by 
 our walking on two feet — in a word, that going on all-fours is 
 natural to man. It may have been our nature once; it cer- 
 tainly has been the nature of every child among us, but he who 
 should now go on all-fours in manhood, merely because it is 
 "natural/' would abase himself. Much more do those abase 
 themselves who apologize for slavery to passion because it is 
 
n8 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 ''natural." There is a higher, even though an unborn, nature. 
 When a little child 1 learned Dr. Watts' poem: 
 
 Let dogs delight to bark and bite 
 
 For God hath made them so; 
 Let bears and lions growl and fight, 
 
 For 'tis their nature to. 
 
 But children, you should never let 
 
 Your angry passions rise; 
 Your little hands were never made 
 
 To tear each other's eyes. 
 
 A TEACHER OF ISRAEL 
 
 Here is an argument based on the inherent spirituality of the 
 child. The little one might say, "Why should 'bears and lions 
 growl and fight,' and not I? It is my nature to, as well as 
 theirs." Yes, and it is his nature not to. He has another, a 
 higher, nature. And if the child should say, "My little hands 
 are well adapted to the tearing of eves — I have tried it and 
 
THE WHIP OF SMALL CORDS 
 
 119 
 
 know/' he may be answered in the rebuke of his own con- 
 science, which is as real as his finger nails. 
 
 The need of regeneration is inherent, and universal. Sin 
 emphasizes the need, but did not create it. Every man has 
 need to be born from above. First is the natural, then the 
 spiritual. The spiritual self is as real as the physical self. But 
 
 JESUS AND NICODEMUS — (UNKNOWN GERMAN ARTIST — OLD) 
 
 as the physical body might have died unborn, so may also the 
 spiritual life, and sometimes, alas, it does so. 
 
 Jesus believed in the spirituality of man. The spiritual 
 nature which man already has, is the unfertilized germ of the 
 spiritual life to be. Quickened by the Spirit of God, made 
 alive to its own powers and the world's true needs, the real 
 man is born and from above. 
 

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 CHAPTER X 
 
 JESUS AT JACOB'S WELL 
 
 The range of hills which forms the backbone of Palestine 
 contains one remarkable gap, visible even from the .Mediter- 
 ranean. Seen from the valley, Mounts Ebal and Gerizim 
 appear like rounded cones, but they are really ridges, between 
 which lies the valley of Shechem. No other spot in all Pales- 
 tine is so fertile, well watered, or desirable for habitation. 
 The two mountains run nearly east and west, and the valley 
 at the narrowest point is hardly more than five hundred yards 
 in width. Between the two mountains stands Nablous, whose 
 name is corrupted from Neapolis, "the new city," and is the 
 modern representative of Shechem. 
 
 Shechem is thirty miles from Jerusalem on the south and 
 the same distance from C?esarea on the north. It is sixteen 
 miles from the Jordan and about the same distance from the 
 sea. The low gap between the mountains is really the water 
 shed, and from it in either direction flow the streams from its 
 multitudinous springs, eastward to the Jordan and westward to 
 the Mediterranean. The inhabitants of Nablous say that there 
 are eighty springs within and around the city. The atmos- 
 phere of the vallev is humid as compared with the rest of 
 Palestine, and the air acquires that quality lacking elsewhere 
 in the Holy Land, in which distant objects assume soft out- 
 lines and delicate tints. 
 
JESUS AT JACOB'S WELL 
 
 121 
 
 To this great gap in the hills Abraham had directed his steps 
 and here camped by the oak of Moreh (Gen. 12:6, 7), and 
 built an altar unto the Lord. Jacob pitched his tent to the 
 east of the city and later purchased the ground from Hamor, 
 ruler of the Hivites. Here he dug a well, and near it his son 
 Joseph was buried. (Gen. 33: 18-20; Josh. 24:32; John 4:5, 
 6, 12; Acts 7: 16.) 
 
 In the fifth century before Christ occurred that break 
 between the Jews and Samaritans which has lasted to the 
 
 ENTRANCE TO JACOB S WELL 
 
 present day. A young Jewish priest, Manasseh, had married the 
 daughter of Sanballat, the Samaritan governor, and refused 
 to leave her at the command of Nehemiah. Returning with 
 his wife to Shechem he was received by his father-in-law and 
 installed as the high-priest of a national worship in which 
 Jehovah was the only God and the five books of Moses the 
 only law. A temple was built on the top of Mount Gerizim, 
 already sacred with its associations, and there the Samaritan, 
 people gathered annually and still gather to celebrate the 
 feasts of the passover. Their Pentateuch contained at the 
 end of the Ten Commandments a passage commanding wor- 
 
122 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 ship on Gerizim, and both they and the Jews contended earn- 
 estly for their respective forms of worship each charging the 
 other with corrupting the sacred text. The controversy was 
 yet warm when Jesus sat on the well, and it is no nearer set- 
 tlement to-day, though the number of the Samaritans has 
 diminished to a community of about one hundred and sixty-five. 
 They still worship God on their holy mountain and keep up 
 their succession of high-priests, the present high-priests count- 
 ing himself successor and signing himself as the son of Aaron.* 
 
 The two great mountains define the valley and make plain 
 the most immediate locations to it. It is thus that we are able 
 to identify so closely the scenes of this journey of our Lord. 
 Joseph's tomb is pointed out with a strong probability of gen- 
 uineness, and Jacob's well is still there identified beyond a 
 reasonable doubt. It is a deep circular well whose depth has 
 varied at different times as it has been partly filled up, but it 
 is probably not far from seventy-five feet deep. The curbstone 
 is worn to grooves by the ropes that for ages have drawn water 
 from the depths below. With a candle one may look down the 
 whole distance to the water, and with a rope and water-jar 
 one may still draw water as in the early days. The water is 
 cool and fresh. I drank from it and found it good, and the 
 traveler of to-day sitting for a little time where Jesus sat and 
 drinking of the water that he drank, goes on with the words of 
 the Saviour ringing in his memory: 
 
 "Every one that drinketh of this water shall thirst again: but 
 whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall 
 never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall become 
 in him a well of water springing up unto eternal life" (John 
 
 4: 13, 14)- 
 
 It was in the winter of the year 28 that our Lord passed 
 through Samaria. The month was probably December, for it 
 lacked four months of harvest. His disciples went into the 
 village close at hand, the village of Sychar, nearer to the 
 well than Shecfiem, and now identified as El-'Askar. It was 
 
 *A discussion of the questions of the value of the Samaritan Pentateuch 
 is contained in an extended article by the author in the Bibliotheca Sacra 
 for October, 1903. 
 
JESUS AT JACOB'S WELL 
 
 123 
 
 a small village then as compared with the somewhat populous 
 city of Shechem, as it now is in comparison with Nablous. 
 While Jesus sat on the well, weary and thirsty, a Samaritan 
 woman came to draw water. Not many people came to the 
 well in the middle of the day, for though it was winter, the 
 
 CHRIST AND THE WOMAN" OF SAMARIA — (DORE, 1832-1883) 
 
 sun was hot and burdens were carried, when possible, earlier or 
 later in the day. There, however, the woman came, and Jesus 
 talked with her. A request for water is the most common of 
 all pleas for assistance in the East, and he would be counted 
 most inhospitable who refused it even to an enemy, but so 
 bitter was the feud between the Jews and Samaritans that the 
 woman wondered at his asking for a drink. But the woman's 
 readiness to help a stranger became the occasion of her receiv- 
 ing a blessing for herself and her country. 
 
124 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 It is interesting to find that through the woman's wonder- 
 ing testimony the whole village became interested in Jesus, 
 and extended to him its hospitality. Perhaps the first group 
 of converts abiding in a single place and sustaining communal 
 relations to each other was in that Samaritan town. 
 
 Here to this woman, and she a Samaritan and sinner, Jesus 
 confided the truth of his Messianic authority, which even his 
 
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 apostles were to learn much later. Here under the shadow of 
 the temple of a heretical religion he uttered profounder truths 
 than yet the temple at Jerusalem had heard. Here, where 
 Abraham first camped on his way from Ur of the Chaldees, 
 and built his first altar, and offered his first sacrifice, Jesus 
 revealed the fact that he was the gift of God, and the final 
 sacrifice for the world. Here, where the body of Joseph was 
 buried, he proclaimed himself as greater than the fathers, even 
 the one of whom it had been written that his soul should not 
 
JESUS AT JACOB'S WELL 
 
 125 
 
 be left in the realm of the dead nor his flesh see corruption. 
 Here, where the blessings and cursings had been read in that 
 scene of unrivaled picturesqueness and solemnity, he came 
 with the new Law whose blessings were for the salvation of all 
 men. Here, where Jacob had dug his well, he discoursed on 
 the water of life. Here, where stood the monument of the 
 unhappy division between the Jews and their nearest neigh- 
 bors and kinsmen, he uttered the prophecy of the universal 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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 and spiritual worship of God. Here, where Samaritan worship 
 was most strongly entrenched and prejudice deepest, he began 
 his foreign missionary work with hopeful results and a promise 
 of larger things. 
 
 The revelation to the woman at the well grew first out of a 
 real need on the part of Jesus. His request, "Give me to 
 drink," was the expression of his own genuine thirst. It gives 
 dignity to human life when we realize that God really needs 
 us; that we are invited "to come up to the help of the Lord." 
 
126 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 But a deeper reason was the woman's need. Her response 
 to the need of Christ was the condition, though unrealized, 
 of her receiving the water of life. It is ever thus, and our 
 willingness to serve becomes the reason of the blessings 
 bestowed. Jesus needed the water; the Samaritans needed the 
 water of life; and Jesus "must needs go through Samaria" 
 that he might open a new and living fountain there. 
 
 JACOB S WELL 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 HE CAME TO HIS OWN 
 
 Among" the saddest words written about our Lord are those 
 of John, "He came unto his own, and they that were his own 
 received him not." The world was God's already. Jesus had 
 valid claims upon the love and service of men. It was not an 
 unnatural thing that he should have asked their affection in 
 return for that love which he lavished upon mankind, or their 
 service when he who was Lord of all lived among" men as he 
 that serveth. If mankind had been of the devil, and the process 
 of salvation had been a violent wresting of men away from the 
 original intent of their being, it would have been less strange. 
 It would not then be a wholly surprising thing to know that 
 he came to those who were Satan's and that they remained 
 loyal to Satan. But the world was God's from the hour when 
 God in loving self-abnegation poured his own life into the 
 world; and men were Christ's own in the thought of God from 
 the dawn of creation. 
 
 We are intensely interested in this return of Jesus to his 
 early home. This had been his first long absence from it, we 
 may believe, since his early childhood. There are times when 
 one truly comes to man's estate only by leaving home for a 
 season. Many a man can remember the day on which he con- 
 sciously grew out of boyhood, and it has been oftener than 
 otherwise the day of his arrival among a new company of asso- 
 ciates. Yesterday he was a lad at home among the people 
 who had known him from his cradle. To his father he was still 
 a little boy, and his mother still half thought of him as her 
 baby. To the neighbors he was one of a group of lads, grow- 
 ing fast, to be sure, but still a lad. To-day all this is changed. 
 Away at school, in business, on a visit, he is thrown among a 
 group of self-reliant young men, thinking for themselves, act- 
 
 127 
 
128 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 ing without asking permission, and he comes into their privi- 
 leges and methods as a matter of course, and the boy of yes- 
 terday is the young man of to-day. 
 
 This is not all. He has a new scale of measurement. He 
 has a new gauge for his ambition. He is more of a man not 
 only in the estimation of his fellows, but also in his own self- 
 consciousness. His home-going is a very different thing from 
 his departure. He left his home a lad; he returns a few months 
 or even weeks later, and is more changed than those who see 
 him realize. Of the quality and effect of that change, his 
 home-going is the test. 
 
 Who that thinks at all has failed to wonder that any young 
 man ever aspires to be better or greater than the surroundings 
 of his birth? What is that spirit which says in the soul of a 
 young man who has never healed a disease, "I am a physician," 
 or in one who has never preached a sermon, "I am called to 
 the work of the ministry," or to one who has never pleaded a 
 case, "I will be a lawyer?" Their fathers were farmers or vil- 
 lage shopkeepers; how should their sons proclaim themselves 
 professional men? How can they face their old neighbors with 
 such preposterous claims? No wonder they go away from home 
 to obtain their start in life; and, when they return with their 
 professional titles, no wonder that the community waits, more 
 than half skeptical, to see what, if anything, is to come of it all. 
 
 It was in the power of the Spirit that Jesus returned. The 
 Spirit's presence was no new experience to him, but the scope 
 of the Spirit's power was enlarged by the enlargement of his 
 own horizon. We are perhaps never quite sure of our ground 
 when we attempt to interpret those spiritual experiences of 
 our Lord that partly accord with our own and partly trans- 
 cend them. But this we know, that the descent of the Spirit 
 upon him at his baptism was not an objective fact alone, but 
 that it made visible a real inward experience. And when, led 
 of the Spirit, and sustained by the Spirit, he went into the 
 wilderness, and there met temptation at short range and con- 
 quered it, we may be sure that epoch marked in his own 
 thought a real spiritual advance. We may not know how to 
 
HE CAME TO HIS OWN 
 
 129 
 
 interpret it; we may lack words to make it real to ourselves; 
 but we ought to assure ourselves that the Jesus who returned 
 to Nazareth was in his own consciousness a man of wider and 
 deeper spiritual life than the Jesus who had left Nazareth to 
 begin his ministry as a companion of John the Baptist and thus 
 
 
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 A PEASANT FAMILY OF PALESTINE 
 
 to fulfil all righteousness. Returning, the significant change 
 in his own relation to the world lay, as Jesus himself expressed 
 it, in his larger possession of the Spirit. It was the truth 
 which registered itself in his own consciousness; it is the theme 
 of his address to his own people; it is the affirmation which the 
 evangelist records. This was the thought of the Scripture 
 passage read by him that morning from Isaiah, and it was the 
 fulfilling of that Scripture promise that constituted his theme. 
 
I3 o JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 It might help us to understand the Christ if we recalled 
 oftener the Scripture statements of his possession of the Spirit. 
 It was of the Spirit that he was begotten; in his growth from 
 childhood, increasing in wisdom and in stature, the Spirit was 
 his, and the grace of God was upon him; with that Spirit he 
 was baptized, and the dove-like descent was the token of 
 inward grace; in the progress of his ministry it became appar- 
 ent that God gave not the Spirit to him by measure; and the 
 Old Testament passages which pre-eminently he fulfilled are 
 those which define his glory as that derived from the trans- 
 cendent possession of the Spirit of God. 
 
 It is thus necessary to suppose that Jesus' own apprehension 
 of the nature of his work among men had developed during 
 this absence. Certainly he seemed changed to his neighbors. 
 He had sat in the synagogue all through his boyhood, had 
 attended school there, no doubt, and there had heard on Sab- 
 bath days and there had learned to read on other days, the 
 words of the law to which this day he listened as another read. 
 When the reading of the prophets was due, he no longer sat, 
 but rose and offered to conduct that portion of the service, 
 and afterward to speak. It was a new thing for him to do, and 
 it did not pass unnoticed. 
 
 But it was no new thing for him to be at the service of God's 
 house. He went to the synagogue "as his custom was." Even 
 to the Saviour there was power in godly habit. Few rela- 
 tively of our acts are undertaken with a process of conscious 
 and independent reasoning. Much of what we do is done 
 under the momentum of habit. Blessed is he whose habits 
 are those which conduce to worship and to instruction m 
 righteousness. 
 
 At least seven persons, as a rule, participated in the succes- 
 sive reading of portions of the Scriptures in the services of the 
 Jewish synagogue. Frequently strangers were invited to 
 speak. * Any man of good standing in the community and 
 of good repute for learning and piety might be called upon or 
 might volunteer to address the congregation. Whether the 
 
 *As in Acts 13: 15. 
 
HE CAME TO HIS OWN 
 
 I3 1 
 
 Scripture for this clay was one assigned, or whether Jesus 
 selected the passage which he desired, is a question about 
 which scholars have different opinions. But it was a singu- 
 larly felicitous passage, a word from the second group of 
 prophecies included under the name Isaiah, the great, hopeful, 
 illuminating book which prepared the expatriated nation for a 
 return to its own land. It was to proclaim the set time of 
 
 EMINENT MEN OF TALESTINE 
 
 God's deliverance that the words had been spoken and 
 recorded; and it was a larger fulfilment of the hope of deliv- 
 erance which Jesus taught. 
 
 All such prophecies had their nearer fulfilment. All of them 
 had initial reference to some event in the prophet's own life- 
 time or a time not then remote. But the grandest of Old 
 Testament prophecies overflow the narrow banks of local ful- 
 filment, and move on, deep and wide and majestic — so deep 
 and wide that at times the narrow bed of the original mean- 
 ing is utterly lost to sight — over the broad flood-plain of their 
 larger Messianic hope to meet the incoming tidal revelation 
 
132 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 of God's redemptive love in Jesus Christ. It is always a help 
 when we are able to discern the breadth and direction of the 
 prophet's initial meaning; but it is a sad limitation of our priv- 
 ilege in Christ if we confine our exploration to the tortuous 
 channel of the prophet's personal vision, and fail to make our 
 own the swelling stream of the gospel's majestic overflow 
 where floats securely the ark of God with the rainbow of eter- 
 nal hope above it. 
 
 Jesus did not wait for the challenge that was sure to come. 
 His old friends were there, full of curiosity, which varied from 
 a languid interest in the message itself to a skeptical and hos- 
 tile cynicism. He uttered for his hearers the stinging proverb 
 with which they were ready to taunt him. Already he saw 
 their rising opposition. It was another temptation to turn 
 stones to bread, and to use his power to secure the favor of his 
 old friends. Above that temptation, though his own brethren 
 and late employers were the tempters, Jesus rose with dignity 
 and decision. And the refusal unmasked in an instant the bit- 
 terness and scorn which curiosity had dissembled. 
 
 The effect was instantaneous. They no longer wondered at 
 the gracious words that proceeded out of his mouth. They 
 no longer judged the Messenger by his message, or gave pre- 
 tense of a courteous hearing to a new gospel. He had done a 
 few mighty works in Nazareth; he had laid his hand on a few 
 sick folk and they had been healed. But he could do little — 
 here is the inability of omnipotence — because of their lack of 
 faith. He was not even a carpenter to his neighbors now. He 
 was the disappointed promise of a free entertainment, and 
 they scorned him. So Jesus was rejected because he refused to 
 use his divine power for purposes of entertainment, and to 
 satisfy a morbid curiosity. 
 
 The Greeks stumbled through their philosophy, but not 
 more so than the Jews through their seeking of a sign. The 
 supernatural has its dangers to faith. No part of the life of 
 Jesus bears more eloquent testimony to his divinity than the 
 restraint which he put upon it in the manifestation of the 
 supernatural. The times have not yet passed when people 
 
HE CAME TO HIS OWN 
 
 *33 
 
 turn their backs upon the church in quest of a gospel which, 
 denying matter, uses its quasi philosophy for ends distinctly 
 material; nor are Christians above temptation to make perfect 
 in the flesh that which is begun in the Spirit. 
 
 What a message it was to which Nazareth stopped its ears 
 that day! It was a message that had in it no promise of loaves 
 and fishes, no offer of free miracles on demand, no present 
 
 PALESTINE STREET SCENE 
 
 relief from the sickness and care of earthly life. Signs of his 
 supernatural power would have come with faith, but ihey 
 were distinctly not promised as a result of it. But it was a 
 message of good news for the poor, healing for the broken- 
 hearted, liberty for those in bondage to sin, vision for the spir- 
 itually blind, help for the bruised, comfort for the sorrowing, 
 2iv\ the assurance that God's good time was at hand. And 
 Nazareth rejected that gospel and its Messenger, because the 
 Lord of glory refused to work miracles for free entertainment 
 and for local self-°ratulation. 
 
134 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 Jesus wondered at it. Let us not in our timidity explain 
 away the precious truths of our Lord's humanity. The Scrip- 
 tures assure us that it was a sad surprise to him. He had 
 started back home with enthusiasm. He knew the personal 
 needs of the men to whom he was going. He went with love 
 and expectancy. But the day or days that intervened between 
 his return and this Sabbath had chilled his hope and rendered 
 impotent the divine effort for their relief. It was Jesus' first 
 bitter disappointment, and it drove him out, homeless and dis- 
 owned, a man without earthly kindred or an earthly home. It 
 was a part of his bitter cup to know the keenness of disap- 
 pointment. He, with all earth's benefactors, knew the mean- 
 ing of Kipling's lines: 
 
 And when your goal is nearest, 
 
 The end for others sought. 
 Watch sloth and heathen folly 
 
 Bring all your hopes to naught! 
 
 Sadly, indignantly, pitifully, the homeless Saviour turned 
 away from his own people, marveling at their unbelief, and 
 learning the lesson of disappointment which had its part in 
 making the Captain of our Salvation perfect through suffering. 
 
 It would not be so bad if all this were a bit of ancient his- 
 tory. But, alas! to this day the sinless and sin-forgiving 
 Saviour comes to his own, and they that are his own receive 
 him not. This day, more than in that day when Jesus preached 
 at Nazareth, is fulfilled in our ears every gracious Scripture 
 which tells of the benefits of his salvation. The poor, the 
 broken-hearted, the captive, the blind and the bondman, 
 rejoicing still in his salvation, testify to his comfort and 
 vision and freedom and hope. Alas for the man who is Christ's 
 own — his kinsman, his brother, a child of his own Father, yet 
 a strange and unfilial child, who turns him away. For, to as 
 many as receive him, to them gives he the right to be called, 
 in a new and more blessed sense, the children of God, even to 
 those that believe on his name. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE HEALING CHRIST 
 
 Though rejected at Nazareth, and living for a time in 
 obscurity, Jesus was welcomed by many of his country- 
 men who had been much impressed with his teaching and his 
 unrecorded works at Jerusalem (John 4:43-45). Jesus now 
 remained in Galilee from about the first of January until near 
 the end of March. Of these three months we have hardly any 
 clear information. It is possible that he lived unobtrusively 
 in Nazareth, attracting no particular attention. The only time 
 we hear of him, however, he is at Cana (John 4: 47), and it is 
 not certain that Mary and her family were not residing there, 
 and Jesus with them. 
 
 We come thus to the close of the first year of Jesus' public 
 ministry. It began with his baptism in January, 27, and his 
 public introduction to his work in Jerusalem in the March fol- 
 lowing. We know almost nothing of his Judsean ministry from 
 March to December, and practically nothing of his Galilasan 
 ministry from January to March, save one incident which we 
 are about to consider. This was the year of obscurity in the 
 public life of Jesus, and but for the Gospel of John we should 
 know as little of it as of the hidden years in Nazareth. 
 
 This first year of teaching closed with a miracle of healing. 
 A nobleman from Capernaum sent word to Jesus that his son 
 was sick. With great reluctance Jesus entered upon that 
 course which was certain to make his ministry conspicuously 
 one of miracle working. He knew that once begun there was 
 no stopping, and that the demand for miracles would increase 
 until it ceased to be the cry of need and became the demand 
 of irreverent curiosity. "Except ye see signs and wonders, ye 
 will in no wise believe/' said Jesus; but the nobleman cried, 
 "Sir, come down ere my child die." The tender heart of Jesus 
 
 i35 
 
^6 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 was melted by the father's entreaty. "Go thy way," said he, 
 "thy son liveth" (John 4: 46-54). 
 
 We are told that this was Jesus 1 second miracle at Cana. It 
 was very different from the first one. It was a type, however, 
 of the miracles that followed. From this time on Jesus became 
 not only the teacher, but the healer of men. The prominence 
 given thenceforward to miracles of healing justifies our paus- 
 ing at the outset to consider the work of Christ in its relation 
 to health both then and now. 
 
 Jesus had no fondness for being known merely as a worker 
 of miracles." He preferred to attest his power and truth by 
 moral and spiritual evidences rather than by those which bred 
 in the people a desire for the unusual. That such a desire 
 speedily grows abnormal, he well knew, and to that fact his 
 experience adds new evidence. More than once he manifested 
 great reluctance to work miracles, and repeatedly he forbade 
 the knowledge that he had done so to be published. The 
 supernatural was the resort of every charlatan and fraud; Jesus 
 made his appeal to the heart and conscience. Jesus was reluc- 
 tant to have men think it their duty to believe because of his 
 power to reward or punish them; he would have them believe 
 because of their love of truth and goodness. He shrank from 
 seeming to bribe them to be good by means of his miracles, 
 and preferred that men should hear his truth, and see his life, 
 and believe in God who had sent him. 
 
 The final test of truth can never be the apparent attestation 
 of what appears to be the supernatural. The last appeal is 
 ever to the reason and the conscience of men. Far back in the 
 Old Testament times men were warned against following a 
 new religion simply because it was accompanied by signs and 
 wonders: 
 
 "If there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, 
 and he give thee a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the won- 
 der come to pass, whereof he spake unto thee, saying, Let us 
 go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us 
 serve them; thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that 
 
 *A portion of this chapter is condensed from my book "Faith as Re- 
 lated to Health." 
 
THE HEALING CHRIST 
 
 13? 
 
 prophet, or that dreamer of dreams; for the Lord your God 
 proveth you, to know whether ye love the Lord your God 
 with all your heart and with all your soul. Ye shall walk after 
 the Lord your God, and fear him, and keep his command- 
 ments, and obey his voice, and ye shall serve him, and cleave 
 unto him" (Dent. 13: 1-4). 
 
 If we were forever committing our faith to that which comes 
 to us with an air of mystery, we should have before us a per- 
 
 CHRIST HEALING THE SICK 
 (REMBRANDT, l6o6-l66p) 
 
 (from THE FAMOUS "hundred GUILDER etching") 
 
 petual phantom chase. Even though signs and wonders be 
 shown, even though prophecies are made and fulfilled, the 
 final test is the value of the revelation to the lives of men. 
 If a man is tied with ropes and shut into a cabinet and the 
 lights are turned down, and strange things occur, the final 
 question is not whether I can explain his loosening of the 
 knots, but whether the revelation made in the dark is of real 
 value to the assembled audience. If a pencil is put within a 
 folded slate, and later writing is found within, the final ques- 
 tion is not whether I can explain the means by which the writ- 
 
I3 S JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 ing has been accomplished, but whether the alleged revelation 
 has really added to the sum of human knowledge. If a man 
 establishes a new religion and works cures, it is not necessary 
 to prove that all who are alleged to have been helped by him 
 grow sick again, but only to inquire whether any new principle 
 has been discovered which makes for the permanent advan- 
 tage of men and women. Between the false and the true, the 
 pretender and the real bearer of a message from God, we must 
 discern, not by a comparison of wonders which make the curi- 
 ous gaze, but by evidences of sincerity, unselfishness and good- 
 ness. The working of cures can never attest as divine an 
 alleged revelation accompanied by vulgarity, cupidity and 
 pretense. 
 
 Besides being a most uncertain proof of the divinity of the 
 faith which it proclaims, the supernatural, so called, has other 
 serious disadvantages. It tends to disturb faith in the good- 
 ness of the established order of things. It sets us to looking 
 for God in his unusual manifestations, and to ignoring an 
 "earth crammed with heaven, and every common bush afire 
 with God." It discounts God's habitual methods, and 
 enhances unduly those which are exceptional. It tends to 
 divert men's minds from the real essence of the divine revela- 
 tion, and to fix their attention upon the accessories thereof. 
 It creates a morbid craving for more of the mysterious, and so 
 forever stimulates what it cannot satisfy, an appetite for the 
 marvelous and the abnormal. It creates new and false tests 
 of truth, and refuses to accept truth except as it becomes 
 more or less mysterious and unnatural. It sets a wicked and 
 adulterous generation to seeking signs and wonders, whi;h 
 seeking they substitute for a search after righteousness. 
 
 "Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe," said 
 Jesus reproachfully. What was even worse, they would not 
 believe after they had seen them, as he himself knew. "If they 
 believe not Moses and the prophets, neither will they believe 
 though one rose from the dead." The miraculous as a means 
 of conversion was a conspicuous failure in Christ's day. He 
 did not rely upon it. He rebuked the craving for it. He 
 
THE HEALING CHRIST 
 
 139 
 
 taught men to believe in truth and goodness, and not to 
 demand those exhibitions which in false teachers so readily 
 become mere feats of fortune-telling and legerdemain. It is 
 better for a man to believe through a miracle than not to 
 believe at all; but "Blessed are those who have not seen, and 
 yet have believed." Blessed are those to whom God is real, 
 not in the unusual only, but in all the normal exhibitions of 
 his righteous and inviolable laws. 
 
 I have great patience with men who find it difficult to believe 
 in miracles. In so far as Christianity has miracles, they are a 
 means to an end, which end is faith in Christ. If that end be 
 attained without them, the miracles need impose no added 
 burden. The moment they impede faith, they may be allowed 
 to stand aside for the help of those to whom they are of real 
 assistance, while those souls that do not find help in them, 
 find God through such agencies as he uses for their assist- 
 ance and enlightenment. The man who derives no help 
 from miracles will not, if he is wise, deny them; to other souls 
 they have their meaning. But he need not wait to find God 
 through the means which Christ counted of lesser importance, 
 if God has made himself plain through means that appeal to 
 him as more truly spiritual. 
 
 Miracles have still their evidential value to us, and to the 
 greatest of them, the resurrection of Christ, Christianity itself 
 affords nineteen centuries of unbroken testimony. This is the 
 only miracle which the modern Christian need trouble himself 
 to prove. So far as the others are important, they follow read- 
 ily from this. Some miracles were less important than others 
 when they were wrought, and some had a greater impressive- 
 ness and value to their own age than they can possibly have 
 to a later time. He who believes that Jesus Christ rose again 
 from the dead, and that he lives still in the life of heaven and 
 of the world, need not trouble himself because some of the 
 other miracles give him difficulty. Nevertheless, one has only 
 to compare the miracles recorded of Christ with the apocry- 
 phal miracles and the alleged miracles of other religions, to be 
 struck at once with the contrast. The miracles of Christ form 
 
1 4 o JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 a cycle attesting- his power over natural and spiritual forces. 
 They are full of dignity and majesty and strength. They 
 appeal not to men's love of the marvelous, but to their spirit- 
 ual nature. They exhibit a sympathy and a self-control which 
 are the perfection of the human and the divine. They are free 
 from all ostentation and pretense. They are free from all tim- 
 idity on the one hand, and from all striving after effect on the 
 other. They are free from all appeal to superstition and from 
 self-advertising. They are free from all grotesqueness and 
 from all pandering to vulgar curiosity. They are full of a 
 grace which belongs to no other prophet or religious teacher. 
 They are full of a conscious power which never shrank from 
 the extremity of human need, and never exceeded by any 
 effort at display the occasion which evoked them. They are 
 simple, beautiful and convincing. They were done in the day- 
 light. Their motive was transparent, and their result was 
 immediate and easily tangible to the senses. They are ever for 
 moral or spiritual ends, and exhibit beautifully and helpfully 
 the power of God in its various moral relations. They are 
 appropriate, masterful, and worthy of the Son of God. 
 
 It is the regular method of the imposter to make his claim 
 at the outset, and work his wonders to prove it. Christ 
 wrought very differently. He began by preaching the good 
 tidings of the approach of the kingdom of God, veiling his 
 power, keeping it in the background, using it sparingly, often 
 reluctantly, and only when there was special occasion. 
 
 Still, he who claimed to be the Son of God must give reason- 
 able evidence, not only of goodness, but of power, and of that 
 power manifest for moral ends. So Jesus wrought from time 
 to time such works as were necessary to impress his own age 
 with a conviction that he had come from God. He proved 
 that he had power over nature, power over sickness and sin 
 and all the forces of evil, and power over the hearts and lives 
 of men. Largely his miracles were works of healing", for of 
 such there was pressing need. Tt may be that a mere arithmet- 
 ical comparison does not give us in right proportion his own 
 thought of the legitimate objects for display of divine power. 
 
TH E HEA LING CH RIST 
 
 141 
 
 It may be that he would have preferred a larger proportion of 
 other manifestations of the divine nature. He could not escape 
 from men's infirmities, and so he healed and comforted. But 
 his first miracle was wrought to add to human pleasure (John 
 2: 1-11); the one miracle recorded by all four evangelists was 
 
 christ raising the daughter of jairus 
 (gustav richter, 1823-1884) 
 
 not of healing but of feeding (Matt. 14: 19, 20; Mark 6:35- 
 44; Luke 9:12-17; John 6:5-13); the miracle by which he 
 brought his disciples to him, and by which he defined their 
 future work as his followers, was to profit them in their regular 
 method of getting a living (Luke 5: 1-11); and the only one by 
 which in part he sought to help himself, was wrought to pay 
 the tax collector (Matt. 17:24-27). God's power is for life's 
 
142 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 normal functions, and not wholly for its remedial necessities. 
 It is entirely possible, therefore, that our study of Christ's 
 miracles has led us to think too much, relatively, of those of 
 healing, because of their numerical preponderance. We may 
 err in supposing God's work to be remedial rather than con- 
 structive. It may be that in God's thought the remedial is the 
 incidental, and the constructive is the essential in the mission 
 of Christ. It may well be that the mission of Christ to men con- 
 cerns, more definitely than we sometimes think, their accus- 
 tomed vocations, their daily problems, and even their normal 
 recreations and pleasures. 
 
 But Christ was constantly pressed upon by the world's neces- 
 sities. The unending groan of pain, that from the dawn of 
 history has been wrung from the heart of this sad earth, 
 smote ever on his sympathetic ear. What works he might 
 have wrought in a world with less stern necessities, we may 
 perhaps debate, but it was a world of pain and sorrow, a world 
 with little skill in healing, a world with great ignorance of the 
 laws of health, into which he came. He went about doing 
 good, and he did the good that was most needed, whether its 
 specific form best represented his mission or not. When the 
 leper cried, "Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean," 
 he did not stop to ask whether he was healing lepers out of 
 proportion to their number — he healed the man before him. 
 So, teaching and healing, he lived his wonderful life. Men's 
 bodily needs and men's spiritual needs, he met them both. 
 Upon his own loving, generous heart he took the burden of 
 the world's sickness and sin. "Himself took our infirmities, 
 and bare our sicknesses." 
 
 The question may be asked by some reader whether God 
 still works cures in answer to prayer; and if so, how, among 
 many systems claiming to work cures, we may know which 
 is truly from God. In another book I have attempted to answer 
 this question more fully than is possible here. But I may say 
 that I believe God still hears and answers prayer, for our 
 bodies and for our souls. 
 
 But, if by answering our prayers God intended to do what- 
 
THE HEALING CHRIST I43 
 
 ever we think we want, we should never dare to pray. These 
 bodies of ours are not constructed for immortality, nor is this 
 world God's best. Every man and woman of us, save the few 
 who are to live till life becomes a burden, and those to be 
 overtaken by sudden death, will one day face death with long- 
 ings for life, and prayers that God will raise us up. We ought 
 so to pray. We have no right to want to die while we are able 
 to live and help the world. We shall pray to live, and in so 
 praying we shall do our duty. But in God's good time, he will 
 hear that prayer, and will answer it by taking us to the life 
 everlasting and to larger service. 
 
 There is more divine healing than at first we recognize as 
 such. All healing is divine. We wrongly restrict the mean- 
 ing when we apply it only to those cures which proceed from 
 immediate religious influence. Every cure is an answer to 
 prayer, prayer that in many cases has been wrung from the 
 heart of sobbing centuries, and whose answer is revealed in 
 some new method of saving life. 
 
 Let me suppose two cases of men equally sick, and both 
 beyond present human help. In the one case Christian men, 
 uniting their prayers and faith, surround the bed, and pray for 
 recovery, and recovery comes. They do not see that human 
 means have availed, save those consequent upon prayer. Let 
 them be thankful, and believe that their prayer has been 
 answered. Still the case remains an isolated one, remarkable 
 and accounted divine just because it is unusual. In the other 
 case, after centuries of effort and pain, and the unwearied toil 
 of generations of physicians, some of whom prayed and some 
 of whom did not, a remedy is found, which saves that man's 
 life not only, but remains a permanent addition to human 
 knowledge, a truth whose benefits are to accrue to all genera- 
 tions. Perhaps the last man who made the discovery did not 
 pray at all; perhaps the first man saved had no faith in prayer. 
 Nevertheless, I say that if one and only one of those cases is 
 to be accounted divine healing, the one better deserves the 
 name which represents the discoverv of a permanent divine 
 truth. I do not choose between them. I count them both 
 
I 4 4 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 divine, but if I had to choose the one or the other, I should 
 choose the one which stands for the larger human gain, 
 the one which has come as the result of both prayer and effort, 
 and which abides as the answer to a thousand prayers yet to be 
 offered. 
 
 We cannot afford from our discovery or half-discovery of 
 natural laws, to deduct a false philosophy that rules out God. 
 God lives and reigns, and generation by generation men are 
 learning better by what methods to become workers with him. 
 
 Through the skill and the blunders of the physicians, 
 through the prayers and the toil of friends, through the heart- 
 breaking disappointments and the glad rejoicings, we are 
 learning better God's ways of restoring health. This is from 
 God. 
 
 Through much pain and great needless suffering, we are 
 coming to a better knowledge of the laws by which health may 
 be maintained. Cures are from God, much more so that 
 soundness of health, that wholeness of body, which needs no 
 healing. 
 
 The average of human life grows steadily. The thoughts 
 and purposes of men grow large. So moves the world toward 
 its larger and better future, and God lives more in the life of 
 men. This is the source of health, of wholeness, of holiness, 
 and these all are from the same root. Trusting in him, we 
 shall find strength for life's inevitable sorrows. Trusting in 
 him we shall find strength sufficient for sickness and for health, 
 for life and for death, for earth and for heaven; and through 
 that trust we shall find health and wholeness for our bodies 
 and our spirits which are his. 
 
 Jesus was right in judging that the working of such a mir- 
 acle as the healing of the nobleman's son would advertise 
 widely his power as a healer. In his first circuit of Galilee, he 
 healed a leper (Matt. 8: 2; Mark 1: 40; Luke 5: 13). The 
 leper had heard of him and believed in his power. "Lord, if 
 thou wilt, thou canst make me clean." How could Jesus resist 
 such an appeal? 
 
 Pitiable indeed, was the condition of the victim of this ter- 
 
THE HEALING CHRIST 
 
 H5 
 
 rible disease. Doomed to banishment from home, to weary 
 wandering's, to be shunned of all men, and finally to die, alone 
 and unwept — no fate could possibly be more sad than this. 
 The leper had heard of Jesus in some way; had probably 
 learned of the healing of the nobleman's son, and had come 
 to believe that he who could free the spirit of man from the 
 power of evil spirits, could free the body from the most ter- 
 rible disease. At first the thought may have been a mere ques- 
 tion, growing into a conjecture, and this into a belief, at length 
 intensified into a living faith in the power of Christ. 
 
 A GROUP OF PALESTINE LEPERS 
 
 So far as we know, this was the first human acknowledgment 
 of the divine power of Jesus, excepting the testimony of John 
 the Baptist "Behold, the Lamb of God, which taketh away the 
 sin of the world;" and the confession of Nicodemus, "Rabbi, 
 we know that thou art a teacher come from God." But one of 
 these men was the appointed forerunner of Christ, and the 
 other was "the teacher of Israel," and this man who professed 
 equal faith, was a leper and an outcast. 
 
 "If thou wilt," said the leper. How improbable it seemed 
 
 ' that the great high-priest would come near one so vile. Well 
 
 the leper remembered the last time he had seen a priest of 
 
146 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 God. There had begun to be a suspicion among his neighbors 
 that he showed the signs of incipient leprosy; he denied the 
 imputation at first, indignantly, then less confidently, and at 
 length fearfully, desperately, as the evidence of the disease 
 grew more terribly strong. At last, he was openly charged 
 with leprosy and brought before the priest. Shut up for seven 
 days, he emerged from his prison with the fatal scab more 
 extended, and was officially pronounced unclean, and sen- 
 tenced from that time forth, so long as he should live, by one 
 who was at once the legal magistrate and the divine oracle, 
 to rend his garment, and with bare head and covered lips, to 
 dwell without the city, crying to all who might pass his way, 
 "Unclean! unclean! unclean!" From that day, he had gone 
 forth a wanderer upon the earth, branded as indubitably as 
 Cain with what was supposed to be the mark of his sin; 
 shunned of all men, and especially of good men. Would Jesus 
 look at him? The more he heard of the pbwer of Jesus, the 
 more certain it seemed that he had come from God. The 
 more terrible his own condition became, the greater seemed 
 the distance between Christ and himself. How should he 
 approach him? It was against the law for him to salute any 
 man by the way. What could he say to Christ which would 
 make him pity his deplorable condition, and not turn away 
 in disgust from his loathsomeness? These were hard questions. 
 The risk, however, was not great, for life admitted no possibil- 
 ity much worse than he was experiencing. Though the 
 attempt was illegal, and success very uncertain, he came kneel- 
 ing, beseeching, and professing his faith. "If thou wilt, thou 
 canst," he said. "I will," replied the kind voice of the Master, 
 "Be thou made clean." Christ's willingness was established and 
 so was his power. Many lepers afterward came to him, and all 
 were cleansed; singly, in pairs, in groups of ten he healed them. 
 This man he not only healed, but touched. How gracious was 
 the touch, and how full of power! 
 
 Soon after his removal to Capernaum, another notable case 
 of healing occurred. A paralytic, carried by four friends, was 
 brought to the house where he was preaching, and when the 
 
THE HEALING CHRIST 
 
 147 
 
 crowd prevented their coming to him, they ascended the flat 
 roof, and removing some of the tiles, let the sick man down 
 at his feet (Matt. 9: 1-8; Mark 2: 1-12; Luke 5: 17-26). "And 
 Jesus seeing their faith saith unto the sick of the palsy, Son, 
 thy sins are forgiven thee." 
 
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 JESUS AND THE PARALYTIC 
 
 the man, and that was what brought him to Jesus. The scribes 
 and Pharisees thought it presumptuous for Jesus to talk about 
 forgiving sins, and the sick man's friends may well have con- 
 fessed to a feeling of disappointment. He had sins, of course, 
 but these were not what had given his friends concern. If they 
 could only get him so that he could work for his living, he 
 might consider his sins later, and repent of them when times 
 
148 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 were better, or after he had had opportunity to think about 
 something beside his physical ills. This may have been what 
 his friends thought about it, and the man himself may have 
 had some such feelings. Certainly a feeling akin to this under- 
 lies a good deal of the philosophy of a certain type of modem 
 benevolence. It says, "Do not preach to men who are hun- 
 gry; give them something to eat. Do not trouble men with 
 theology, but work for the eight-hour law. One world at a 
 time is enough; leave God and heaven until we know more 
 about them, and give your energies to solving the bread-and- 
 butter problem, and the needs which press upon men and 
 women with long hours and small wages. It is their sickness 
 and their hunger which should concern you. They have sins 
 enough in all conscience, but it will be time enough to talk 
 about them when men are better fed and clothed and housed." 
 
 The Church is not to any great extent an employer of 
 labor, or a producer of material wealth. It possesses few 
 opportunities of securing employment for men, or of raising 
 their wages, or of assisting them to market their commodities. 
 Its kingdom is not of this world. Wherefore, there are many 
 who say: "What is the Church good for, and why should we 
 go to church at all?" There are thousands of men who are 
 perfectly willing to go to church if the church will distribute 
 soup tickets, but who will pass its doors in open and avowed 
 contempt if the church have nothing to offer them but the 
 forgiveness of sins and joys of honest living. There are people 
 to-day who want bodily healing, but who care little for spiritual 
 grace; who are very willing to be fed, but who do not hunger 
 and thirst after righteousness. 
 
 Let us not judge these men too harshly. There are many 
 of them who bear heavy burdens in life, and who seek for some 
 sort of sympathy and help in the midst of life's troubles and 
 cares. Though they seek never so selfishly and unwisely, how 
 shall the Church of Christ deny them the comfort of genuine 
 sympathy that surely is their right and our duty? Jesus did 
 little to ameliorate the conditions of his own day and time. It 
 was a poverty-stricken country to which he came, and he left 
 
THE HEALING CHRIST 
 
 149 
 
 it still groaning because of the sterility of the soil and the 
 meagerness of the harvest, the burden of excessive and unjust 
 taxation, and the three-fold curse of poverty and disease and 
 dirt. He inaugurated no movement to raise men's wages or 
 shorten their hours, and he left no infallible cure for human 
 disease and suffering, but he never withheld from men a genu- 
 ine sympathy that seemed so full of hope. The sisters of Laz- 
 arus rejoiced at his coming even when they looked for no resur- 
 rection of their brother. His presence meant good to them. 
 His sympathy would not fail them. Of this, his companion- 
 ship and his help, they were always sure. 
 
 But these were not the best of the blessings that Christ 
 brought to men. Ah, poor sufferer, weighed down with the 
 infirmities of years, there is one thing you need more than 
 bodily healing. Ah, friends, who have borne your companion 
 to the housetop, and let him down at the feet of Christ, it is 
 not his body that needs first aid! The restoring he needs and 
 shall also have, and the words of the Saviour shall not fail com- 
 manding him to take up his bed and walk, but the greater 
 blessing is that first bestowed of pardoned sins, and of a con- 
 science at peace with God! 
 
 The men had faith; both the paralytic and the four who 
 brought him. It was not a faith that the man would be for- 
 given, but faith that Jesus would do something to help him; 
 faith that he would go home the better for his coming; in that 
 they were not disappointed. It was a fragmentary faith; an 
 imperfect faith which fell far short of reaching the full willing- 
 ness of Christ to help. It was a faith that had a reward in 
 excess of what it was seeking. It is often so. Not wholly 
 is God restricted by the limitations of our own faith. Faith in 
 Christ is not confined to faith that he is about to do a specific 
 thing for us. There is a power in him, and grace with him 
 for an excessive reward to those who trust him. 
 
 Not always does a man get what he goes out after. Men 
 who have succeeded in that which they have most desired, 
 sometimes tell us that a man can accomplish anything which 
 he really sets his heart upon; but life is full of examples to illus- 
 
150 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 trate the truth that some things most earnestly sought are 
 never attained. Many a man struggles on with his bodily 
 infirmity and the limitations of his environment, to whom, 
 nevertheless, is offered the larger gift. It is a mistake to 
 assume that Jesus will always say, "Rise up and walk,'' but he 
 will always say to the penitent believer, "Thy sins are for- 
 given." Many a Christian carries through life, as Paul did, 
 a bodv weakened by incurable disease. 
 
 It is something that religion makes people agreeable 
 and good neighbors; and a religion which does this and noth- 
 ing more, is not to be despised. If Christianity did no other 
 thing than to establish a day in the week on which by com- 
 mon consent those who profess it should put on clean linen, 
 it would be sufficient to justify the Christian faith; but no man 
 has received all that God has ready for him who has only come 
 to realize the benefits of an occasional change of raiment. 
 Deeper than this must the real change be, if God does his best 
 work for men. Faith in Christ still has its excessive reward. 
 
 Later in the summer Jesus found and rewarded another 
 instance of faith, that of the centurion, whose faith he declared 
 greater than he had found in Israel. 
 
 Thus early in the ministry of Jesus did he give to the world 
 a token of his regard for all nations, and a promise of the 
 extension of his kingdom among all men. Returning from 
 the mount on which he had preached his great sermon, Jesus 
 was met by a deputation of the leading men of Capernaum, 
 beseeching him for the relief of this centurion's servant. Jesus 
 had healed Jews; would he heal a Gentile? Those who came 
 to Jesus evidently believed that their faith was or might be 
 necessary to make up for the lack of the faith of the centurion. 
 They took pains to assure Jesus that he was personally worthy, 
 but the very need of the explanation as they made it showed 
 that there was a doubt in their minds as to his being up to the 
 standard of faith as required by Jesus. But as Jesus was going, 
 the centurion sent, saying, "Speak the word, and my servant 
 shall be healed." 
 
 It was an eminently practical, business-like, soldierly sug- 
 
THE HEALING CHRIST 
 
 151 
 
 gestion. It was so practical that it must have shocked those 
 who heard it a little. Jesus marveled at the centurion's faith. 
 He had not always when present been able to do mighty works 
 among the Jews because of their unbelief. Here was a heathen 
 who had so much more faith that he could bless him at a dis- 
 tance. It was greater faith than he had ever found in Israel. 
 
 THE DAUGHTER OF JAIRUS 
 — ( HOFM A N N , 1 824 — ) 
 
 The true followers of Jesus were not limited to those who 
 accompanied him in his journeyings. There must have been 
 a considerable number who remained at home and quietly bore 
 their testimony for him. The healed demoniac was not allowed 
 to follow him, but was sent to his own home to tell what great 
 things the Lord had done for him. Zacchaeus in Jericho. Laz- 
 arus in Bethany, and many more into whose homes he had 
 
152 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 come, must have remained loyal to him. The owner of the 
 ass on which he rode to Jerusalem, the host in whose upper 
 room they ate the passover, like Nicodemus and Joseph of 
 Arimathaea, were among - his sincere disciples. Besides these 
 there must have been many who clung to their old forms of 
 worship, for as yet there had been no break between Christian- 
 ity and Judaism, but sincerely believed on him, and a number 
 not smaller, who were somewhat perplexed by conflicting opin- 
 ions, and bewildered by their previous expectations of the 
 Messiah, who had, nevertheless, heard him gladly, and needed 
 only further instruction to bring them to Christ. The Church 
 visible has never been conterminous with the Church invisible. 
 In every nation he that feareth God and worketh righteous- 
 ness, however perplexed with distracting doubts, or confused 
 by erroneous teaching, has been and is accepted with him. 
 
 This centurion laid no claim to faith. He was not a Jew; he 
 had never received the rite of circumcision; he did not keep 
 the ceremonial law; he was a heathen. He had, however, dis- 
 tinguished himself by his favorable attitude toward the Jews. 
 Stationed with his company of troops near Capernaum, he had 
 noted the favorable contrast between Judaism and heathenism, 
 and while not professing conversion to Judaism, had been the 
 largest contributor to, if not the sole donor of, the chief syna- 
 gogue of the place — a structure whose ruins, if they could be 
 identified with those of Tell Hum, would show that the gift 
 was by no means a small one. The ruins may serve the same 
 purpose, however, for it is quite unlikely that Capernaum's 
 synagogue, erected by such a patron, was at all inferior to 
 those of the neighboring towns. 
 
 It is significant that of centurions, of whom the Jews could 
 not think even such an one worthy except by stress of need 
 to receive a blessing from the Jewish Messiah, no less than 
 three are conspicuous for their connection with the early 
 Church — this centurion of Capernaum, the centurion of the 
 crucifixion, and Cornelius of Cresarea. And Jesus prophesied 
 that many should come from unexpected quarters to sit down 
 with the Jewish patriarchs in the kingdom of God. 
 
THE HEALING CHRIST 
 
 J 53 
 
 Another notable work was wrought by Jesus that summer 
 in the raising of the daughter of Jairus, the ruler of the syna- 
 gogue (Matt. 9: 18-26; Mark 5: 21-43; Luke 8: 41-56). On 
 the way to the house of Jairus he healed the poor woman who 
 touched the hem of his garment. Jesus was always doing good 
 by the way, and amid the throng and press of that day he 
 
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 RUINS OF THE SYNAGOGUE AT TELL HUM 
 
 noticed the woman who found healing in the furtive touch of 
 faith. Passing on, Jesus brought joy to the house of Jairus. 
 I never recall that scene, or look at Hofmann's picture without 
 emotion, remembering one dark day when by accident I 
 opened to it in a child's book of Bible stories with the words 
 underneath, that were the echo of my own heart's cry, "My 
 little daughter is at the point of death: I pray thee, that thou 
 come and lay thy hands on her, that she may be made whole, 
 and live." Tt was an unspeakable comfort to remember that 
 
154 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 he came. So, also, he came to us in our need, and still comes 
 to many an anxious bedside. 
 
 At the same time, and apparently on the same day, Jesus 
 healed two blind men, and afterward a dumb demoniac. So 
 full and busy were the days of his life in Capernaum. 
 
 The cures brought blessings to those who were healed, but 
 they failed to convince the doubters. Those who could not 
 deny the miracles ascribed them to Satan (Matt. 9:34), and 
 the rest continued demanding signs (Matt. 12: 38-45; Luke 
 11: 29-36). The supernatural has failed as a means of conver- 
 sion. The showing of signs led to the growing demand for 
 signs, till the heart of Jesus was heavy; for men sought him to 
 be caused to marvel, and not to hear his words or do his will. 
 So the works of healing were not an unqualified blessing, and it 
 is more than doubtful whether they would serve better ends 
 to-day. 
 
 GET THEE BEHIND ME. SATAN! 
 (HOFMANN, T82d — ) 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 JESUS AND THE SABBATH 
 
 Jesus attended a second feast at Jerusalem, as John tells us 
 (5: 1) and it is commonly believed to have been a passover. 
 In any event it is manifestly distinct from the passover already 
 referred to (John 2: 13). This feast marks the close of the 
 first year's ministry. It had been a year of small beginnings 
 but of growing power. Jesus had now been in retirement for 
 some time, and was greeted with interest at Jerusalem. The 
 most notable public event of this visit was the work of healing 
 at the Pool of Bethesda. The place is believed by many to 
 have been identified, and one clambers down to the pool 
 through the remains of three churches, that have been built, 
 one over the ruins of the other, to mark the spot. 
 
 Here Jesus found a man who had had an infirmity thirty- 
 eight years. There was a superstition that the pool had healing 
 power for the first man who entered it after the occasional 
 "troubling' 1 of the waters by an angel. The myth of the angel, 
 which worked its way into the Bible narrative, has now been 
 relegated to the margin. 
 
 This incident affords us one of our best illustrations of the 
 occasional inaccuracies of the text of Scripture. The oldest 
 manuscripts omit the words, "waiting for the moving of the 
 water" and the story of the angel troubling the pool. The 
 spring was an intermittent one, and the medicinal value of the 
 waters — if they had such value — may have been greater in the 
 beginning of its periods of activity. Whether this was true, 
 or was only believed to be true, need not concern us. Some 
 scribe who knew the local superstition that this "troubling" of 
 the water was occasioned by the visit of an angel, and the 
 popular belief that only the first man who entered the pool 
 
 155 
 
156 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 could be healed, inserted in the margin of his copy the story 
 as it is found in the version of King James. In time the added 
 words found their way into the text itself; but the oldest 
 copies show us that they do not belong there. We have to 
 deal with the impotent man, who, doubtless believing this 
 superstition, was there and had been there for a long time. We 
 are not concerned with the legend of the angel. 
 
 WILT THOU BE MADE WHOLE? — (C. SCHONHERR, 1827 — ) 
 
 Jesus asked this man, "Wilt thou be made whole?" It was 
 no needless question. The man had become fond of his infirm- 
 ity. He had told his story a thousand times a year for nearly 
 forty years, and it had grown larger and more delightfully sad 
 each year. What a series of disappointments he could relate, 
 until now, if by any chance he had gotten in first, and been 
 healed, his occupation would have been gone! There are peo- 
 ple, not a few, who need, not medicine, but faith and resolu- 
 tion, a forgetting of their disappointments and infirmities, and 
 some wholesome exercise in making beds. 
 
JESUS AND THE SABBATH 
 
 157 
 
 But the healing of this man, while it added to the popular 
 fame of Christ, brought about a clash with the sticklers for 
 the letter of the Jewish law on the observance of the Sabbath. 
 Jesus laid down the fundamental law, "The Sabbath was made 
 for man." It seems to us a commonplace, but it was a strange 
 doctrine then. Just so far as they could, the Jews had made 
 
 THE MOVING OF THE WATERS — (JEAN RESTOUT, 1696-I768) 
 
 man over to fit the Sabbath. On just this point Jesus came into 
 sharp collision with the doctors of his nation, and had, in con- 
 sequence, a series of discussions with them, growing out of 
 various incidents in which he deliberately set at naught estab- 
 lished custom with reference to the Sabbath. 
 
 It will be well for us to consider the principal occasions on 
 which Jesus was criticised for disregarding the Sabbath. We 
 cannot count in this list the healing of the demoniac in the 
 synagogue in Capernaum (Luke 4: 31-36), for this occasioned 
 no recorded criticism, and the same is true of the cure of 
 
158 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 Simon's mother-in-law (Luke 4: 37-39). In both cases the 
 need was so urgent that the cures were unchallenged. Pos- 
 sibly, also, there were no scribes present in Capernaum. Nor 
 yet may we consider the other cures wrought on that same 
 day, for these were delayed by the people themselves until 
 sunset (Matt. 8: 16; Mark 1: 32; Luke 4: 40), when the Sab- 
 bath was at an end. 
 
 The first occasion that gave rise to controversy was this 
 healing of the man at Bethescla (John 5: 1-47). The next was 
 the incident of rubbing out of the grain (Matt. 12: 1-8). The 
 next was the healing of the man with the withered hand (Matt. 
 12: 9-14). These were the occasions of scandal in the first half 
 of Jesus' ministry. Later occurred the healing of the man born 
 blind, which cure occurred at Jerusalem, in the last winter 
 (John 9); and soon afterward, in Persea, the healing of the 
 infirm woman in the synagogue (Luke 13: 10-12) and that of 
 the man with the dropsy, in the house of a Pharisee (Luke 
 
 H' r "5)- 
 
 We must not fail to notice that all of these controversies 
 might have been avoided. The cures could have been post- 
 poned until the next day; or Jesus might have taken the 
 patients aside, as in other cases, and healed them privately. In 
 the case of the rubbing of grain by the disciples, Jesus might 
 have cautioned them to take bread, or to restrain their hunger 
 lest they cause others to stumble. The offense was needless; 
 Jesus deliberately courted opposition on this point. 
 
 We must note also his defense. The Jews supposed that he 
 assumed the right to abrogate the Sabbath through a claim of 
 equality with God. But Jesus denied this as the ground of his 
 conduct. He could do nothing apart from God. "The Son can 
 do nothing of himself, but what he secth the Father doing." 
 Whatever claims he makes for his divinity, he makes this one 
 as the representative of men, for whom the Sabbath was made. 
 
 Jesus declared himself Lord of the Sabbath, by right of his 
 manhood and not alone of his divinity, which up to this time 
 he did not permit to be known. "I say unto you that a greater 
 thing than the temple is here." 
 
JESUS AND THE SABBATH 
 
 159 
 
 He defended himself by an appeal to an instance of mere 
 human need. At a time in David's career, least reputable, a 
 time when he was telling' lies and becoming the companion of 
 outlaws, his need justified the priest in breaking over a cere- 
 monial law for the sake of a hungry man, insincere though he 
 was. "How much is a man better than a sheep;" therefore, "It 
 is lawful to do good on the Sabbath day." "I desire mercy, 
 and not sacrifice." 
 
 We have no reason to doubt that Jesus esteemed highly the 
 Jewish Sabbath as a day of rest and worship. Yet from the 
 beginning of his ministry he deliberately and with purpose 
 aforethought went out of his way to engender controversv as 
 to the method of its observance. The immediate gain of his 
 departures from established customs was insignificant, and the 
 loss was great, so great that it involved bitter and acrimonious 
 debates, alienation of disciples, and a hostility on the part of 
 the priests that at length proved the occasion of his death. 
 
 The principle of Jesus, as gathered from his own words, is 
 that religion is adapted to the nature of man, and is to be 
 interpreted in the light of man's need. This principle, far from 
 doing away with the Sabbath, grounds it in the eternal purpose 
 of God to promote the welfare of men, and makes the Sabbath 
 an abiding necessity. The principle on which the Jews ba^ed 
 the Sabbath would in time make it superfluous. To set forth 
 the real nature of the Sabbath was consonant with the whole 
 plan of Christ's work; and in it we may see in epitome the 
 spirit of his whole mission. 
 
 Thus interpreted, the Sabbath, and every institution of God 
 on earth, becomes not an arbitrary requirement, but a divine 
 benefaction; not the imposition of a grievous obligation, but 
 the conferring of a priceless boon; not the result of a divine 
 mandate for which no reason is to be asked or given, but an 
 evidence of the reasonableness of God's gracious command- 
 ment, ordained for the physical and mental and spiritual wel- 
 fare of his children. To ground religion upon that basis Avas 
 worth the cost of opposition. The work of Christ, so far as 
 it related to organic religion and to religious institutions, was 
 
i6o 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 a most instructive and persuasive commentary upon the words 
 of Moses: "For this commandment which I command thee 
 this day, it is not too hard for thee, neither is it far off. It is 
 not in heaven, that thou should say, Who shall go up for us 
 to heaven, and bring it unto us, and make us to hear it, that 
 we mav do it? Neither is it beyond the sea, that thou shouldest 
 
 THE POOL OF BETHESDA 
 
 say, Who shall go over the sea for us, and bring it unto us, 
 and make us to hear it that we may do it? But the word is 
 very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart, that thou 
 mayest do it." (Deut. 30: H-14.) 
 
 God has not made an arbitrary standard to which human 
 life is required to conform; he has been governed in the crea- 
 tion of that standard by the nature of human life, which is 
 a reflection of his own nature. The law of the Sabbath, then, 
 
JESUS AND THE SABBATH 
 
 161 
 
 is to be interpreted in the light of the physical, social, and 
 spiritual needs of men. 
 
 The world never needed a day of rest more than in this 
 busy, rushing age, in which men are breaking down from ex- 
 cess of care and prolonged effort. It never needed a day of 
 
 THE DISCIPLES RUBBING OUT THE GRAIN— (DORE, 1832-18S3) 
 
 spiritual uplift more than in the midst of our present commer- 
 cialism and haste to be rich. A day of mere recreation is not 
 enough. It sends the wearied man back to work more weary, 
 as employers of labor testify. The world needs rest and uplift 
 and spiritual impulse, and should find it in the Sabbath, which 
 was made for man. If we are wise and seek the best interests 
 of men, we shall not seek in the name of an imaginary "free- 
 
1 62 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 dom" or protest against so-called "Blue-Laws" to break down 
 the too few restraints upon the weekly day of rest. Rather we 
 shall seek, without limitation of personal liberty, save as it 
 hinders the liberty of others, a growing reverence and love for 
 the Lord's day. 
 
 Greek mythology had among its heroes Antaeus, a gigantic 
 wrestler. Born of the earth, he renewed his strength whenever 
 he touched it, and was only conquered by Hercules when the 
 latter lifted him into the air and there squeezed him to death. 
 There is truth in the legend, as seen in the fact that our bodies 
 are renewed by contact with the soil. But our souls are 
 heaven-born, and renew themselves only by touching heaven. 
 Our danger is that the great god Mammon, finding us with 
 strength of soul depleted, will squeeze out our spiritual life in 
 the pressure and grind of common things. Once a week — and 
 it is not too often — let us rise to touch heaven. 
 
 JERUSALEM FROM THE WALL 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 BESIDE THE SEA OF GALILEE 
 
 The last two chapters, in their grouping of similar incidents, 
 have anticipated the orderly chronological progress of the nar- 
 rative. We return to Galilee and find Jesus in a new home. 
 He has now established himself in Capernaum by the Sea of 
 Galilee, which from this time becomes the central spot in his 
 ministry. 
 
 Jesus first visited Capernaum (John 2: 12) in March, or 
 April, A. D. 27. It was a brief visit, and he was accompanied 
 by his mother, the family, and the first five disciples. In April, 
 28, when Jesus had been rejected at Nazareth he removed to 
 Capernaum and made this place his headquarters until his final 
 withdrawal from Galilee in the autumn of 29. (Matt. 19: 1, 2; 
 Mark 10: 1 ; Luke 9: 51.) In this interval of a year and a half 
 Jesus seems to have made at least nine departures from and 
 returns to Capernaum. Three of them were extensive tours 
 and the others were more limited visits to near-by towns. 
 
 There is nothing in the New Testament to indicate the site 
 of Capernaum beyond the fact that it was on the shore of the 
 Sea of Galilee and across from Decapolis, being on or near the 
 plain of Gennesaret (Matt. 4: 13; 14: 34; John 6: 17-21; 
 Mark 6: 53). It is twice mentioned by Josephus ("Vita. 72, 
 B. J. II, X. 8), who, when injured upon the Jordan, was car- 
 ried thither, and his testimony adds the fact that there was a 
 fountain there. 
 
 Capernaum derives its interest solely from its relation to 
 Jesus. After his rejection in Nazareth he made his home in 
 Capernaum, first as the guest of Peter, whose mother-in-law 
 he healed (Mark 1: 31), and later apparently as the proprietor 
 of a house probably rented for himself and disciples, as we 
 
 163 
 
164 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 are told that he was "at home" (Mark 2: 1). Here he paid 
 taxes (Matt. 17: 24-27), and it was called "his own city" 
 (Matt. 9: 1). 
 
 Capernaum was a "city" of some importance, the center of 
 a collecting district, and the permanent station of a body of 
 troops whose captain had built the synagogue (Matt. 8: 5, 
 etc.). Here Jesus taught in the synagogue (John 6: 59), and 
 wrought many miracles. Here he taught his disciples the 
 
 THE BEACH OF BETHSAIDA 
 
 ('ain ET tabigha) 
 
 lesson of humility from a little child who ran in at the door 
 when it was known Jesus was "at home" (Matt. 18: 2; Mark 
 
 9- 33* 36). 
 
 To this city, the home of Peter and of Andrew, wdiose native 
 city was Bethsaida, but who had come to live in Capernaum 
 (Mark 1: 29; John 1: 44), the disciples to the number of seven 
 gathered after the resurrection and remained till Jesus 
 appeared to them by the sea in the morning (John 21). Very 
 
BESIDE THE SEA OF GALILEE 
 
 165 
 
 few places are so intimately associated with the most interest- 
 ing incidents of gospel history. 
 
 Two sites are pointed out on the Sea of Galilee as those 
 which may be what little is left of Capernaum. One of these 
 
 MAP OF THE SEA OF GALILEE — (BY GENERAL HENRY B. CARRINGTON. U. S. ARMY) 
 
 is Tell Hum, at the northern end of the lake, and the other 
 is Khan Minyeh, about three miles to the west, near its north- 
 western extremity. Readers interested in the arguments pro 
 and con can find them in extended works on this subject. It 
 will answer the purpose of the present volume to give the 
 
1 66 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 author's conviction that Khan Minyeh rather than Tell Hum 
 answers the general requirements of the Biblical narrative. 
 It is a place of springs, which are distinctly mentioned bv 
 Josephus, and these are lacking at Tell Hum. The ruins at 
 Tell Hum, however, are more extensive than at Khan Minyeh, 
 and the fact that among them are the remains of a synagogue 
 leads one strongly to desire to identify it as the one in which 
 
 the shore of capernaum 
 (khan minyeh) 
 
 Jesus taught. In any event it is practically certain that he 
 preached in this synagogue, as the villages at the northern end 
 of the lake received his special attention. Tell Hum has been 
 thought by some to be Bethsaida or possibly Chorazin, but 
 Chorazin is probably identical with a ruin north of Tell Hum. 
 Chorazin is referred to only in Matt, n: 21; Luke 10: 13, and 
 is located west of the Sea of Galilee and of the Jordan. Jerome 
 locates it two miles from Capernaum, but says it was deserted 
 in his day. It was praised in ancient days for its wheat. 
 
BESIDE THE SEA OF GALILEE 
 
 167 
 
 Thomson, in 1857, identified it at the ruin called Kerazeh, 
 which is generally received as correct, but the identification, 
 while probable, is uncertain. This site is off the lake, and 
 nearly north of Tell Hum. We do not know what incidents 
 occurred there, but the place is referred to by Jesus as one 
 of the three that had had the largest opportunity to see and 
 know liim. It is a striking fact that the cities which Jesus 
 denounced for their unbelief have all disappeared, past the 
 
 THE DRAUGHT OF FISHES — (CRAYER, I582-1669) 
 
 possibility of certain indentification. If Capernaum was at Khan 
 Minyeh, Bethsaida was probably located at 'Ain et Tabigha 
 (Heptaregon) — a little vale, bordering a beautiful curve in the 
 beach east of the rocky promontory of Tell 'Ariemeh — the 
 monkish "Mensa Christi". There was also another Bethsaida, 
 on the other side of the lake, where the five thousand were fed. 
 We shall have occasion, in considering that miracle, to men- 
 tion this Bethsaida and the question of its site or sites. 
 
 There is only one other city on the Galilee side of the lake 
 that has interest for us in connection with the work of Jesus, 
 
1 68 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 and we have no specific mention of his visiting there. Magdala, 
 identical with the modern El-Medjel, is identified beyond 
 reasonable doubt, and lies south of all the above villages. It 
 is now a poor and miserable town, situated in a fertile region, 
 well watered but very poorly cultivated. It is a striking fact 
 that it alone of the cities associated with Christ's ministry 
 here, should be certainly identified. It brings to our memorv 
 the fidelity of the woman who, healed by Jesus from her 
 insanity, was faithful to him to the end; "last at the cross and 
 earliest at the grave." 
 
 The city of Tiberias, which lies farther south on the same 
 side of the lake, was begun in Christ's youth, and completed 
 during the early part of his ministry, but we have no record 
 that he ever visited it. It is to-day the principal city on the 
 lake, and the point of departure for excursions upon its waters. 
 
 It is of little consequence that we are unable to identify 
 the sites of the cities that adorned the Sea of Galilee in Christ's 
 day. One of them does as well as another for the purpose of 
 illustration or as a point of departure. It is the lake itself that 
 chiefly holds our interest. No tourist who has ever made the 
 journey will recall without a thrill of satisfaction the experience 
 of a sail upon this deep, blue body of water so intimately asso- 
 ciated with the most striking scenes of our Lord's ministry. 
 
 The event which brought Jesus back from Judaea into Gali- 
 lee was the imprisonment of John the Baptist, for the sake 
 of whose disciples Jesus had once before withdrawn from the 
 neighborhood of Jerusalem (John 4: I, 2; Matt. 4: 12; Mark 
 1: 14; Luke 4: 14, 15). Returning first to his own home, 
 Nazareth, and finding no welcome there, he had come to Caper- 
 naum, where, on the first Sabbath, he taught in the synagogue, 
 healed the mother-in-law of Peter, and wrought many cures 
 (Matt. 8: 14-17; Mark 1: 21-34; Luke 4: 31-41). 
 
 Then came a memorable day on the Sea of Galilee. Peter 
 had been fishing all night, and with poor success, but tired 
 as he was he would not go home/ 1 ' His nets needed washing, 
 
 *I quote a few paragraphs from my book "I Go A Fishing." 
 
BESIDE THE SEA OF GALILEE ^9 
 
 and a crowd was gathering on the beach. Peter had been, 
 since the Sabbath, a noted man in the village, for he was 
 entertaining the new Rabbi. Peter for more than a year had 
 been an avowed disciple of Jesus. 
 
 Soon the crowd parted, and Jesus passed through to the 
 water's edge. The people pressed upon him so that he could 
 
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 ANCIENT AQUEDUCT ABOVE KHAN MINYEH 
 
 not see over their heads, and he looked about for a pulpit. 
 There were boats at hand, and he knew Peter's from the rest, 
 and, stepping into it, asked Peter to push out a few yards, and 
 hold the boat where he could make himself heard. 
 
 We have no record of the sermon or its results. The Master 
 uttered his message, and the seed fell, some by the wayside, 
 some on the rock, some in the thorns and some on good 
 
I7 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 ground. It is a mistake to expect a pentecost after every 
 sermon, or even that every sermon shall be remembered. 
 
 The sermon was finished, and Peter took Jesus for a sail. 
 and the Master showed Peter where to fkh with good success. 
 The net came up full and overloaded. It was a large recom- 
 pense for the use of Peter's boat, but Peter found in the 
 miraculous draught of fishes other suggestions. In some wa- 
 that miracle was a call to a new and more intimate disciplesliip. 
 
 It was their divinely given success that brought those first 
 avowed disciples to a point where they were ready to leave all 
 with him. They left the fishing business with a record of 
 success, and not because business had failed. Harry More- 
 house, the English evangelist who so quickened Moody, used 
 to say of this miracle, "It takes faith to leave fish." Such 
 faith as was requisite the disciples did not lack. 
 
 Four disciples were present when Jesus uttered this second 
 call to service. John was one of these, as he had been one 
 of the first, and with him now is his brother James. Andrew 
 and Peter are there, also. The group has not grown smaller. 
 Nathanael and Philip may have been at Cana for a time, as 
 they seem to have had interests both there and at Bethsaida. 
 At any rate they have not dropped out of the circle. The 
 number has not diminished to four; it has grown to six. This 
 half dozen, all fishermen, now leave their work and accompany 
 Jesus on his first preaching tour through Galilee. 
 
 The tour was not a long one. It extended into "the next 
 towns," which were probably Bethsaida, Chorazin, and the 
 other lake villages. He healed a leper in one of these places, 
 and cast out demons, "And Simon and they that were with 
 him followed after him." 
 
 It is by no means certain that they never fished again. They 
 were soon back in Capernaum, in which town Jesus seems to 
 have made nine different sojourns between his missionary 
 tours. On these he was accompanied by his band of disciples, 
 who, during the earlier portion of his ministry, may have 
 resumed, when at home, their former occupation. But there 
 was a distinct advance in their conception of disciplesliip. To 
 
BESIDE THE SEA OF GALILEE 
 
 171 
 
 follow Jesus now meant far more than it had clone fourteen 
 months before. They were still fishermen, but they were 
 called to be with their Lord, and to that call they had responded 
 gladly, nobly. 
 
 After his first tour of Galilee, Jesus returned to Capernaum, 
 and there, in early summer, he healed the paralytic, and was 
 charged with blasphemy for claiming power to forgive sins 
 (Matt. 9: 2-8; Mark 2: 3-12; Luke 5: 18-26). He had another 
 controversy, also, occasioned by his disciples rubbing out 
 
 TELL HUM 
 
 grain on the Sabbath, to which reference has already been 
 made. 
 
 At this time, too, Jesus added another to the number of 
 his disciples, Matthew, or Levi, the tax-collector (Matt. 9: 9; 
 Mark 2: 14; Luke 5: 27-28), whom he called from his place of 
 business, and who followed him. 
 
 The spring passed by, and the summer came on. Jesus 
 sometimes left the hot homes of men, and taught by the sea- 
 side (Mark 2: 13), and sometimes he preached from a boat, and 
 afterward went for a sail. 
 
172 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 I do not wonder that Jesus loved the blue lake of Galilee, 
 "the most sacred sheet of water which the earth contains." 
 The rabbis declared that of the seven seas created by Jehovah, 
 this was his delight. Josephus grew rapturous over it, saying 
 that it might be called u 'the ambition of nature," and that "the 
 
 THE CALL OF MATTHEW — ( EIDA, 1813-1S95) 
 
 seasons seemed to vie for its possession." But to its natural- 
 beauty is added this unspeakable charm, that its shores have 
 been trod and its waters sailed by Jesus, the Christ. The 
 pilgrim from the new world recalls its every memory with a 
 thrill of delight, and sings in his heart, 
 
 O Galilee, sweet Galilee, where Jesus loved so much to be! 
 O Galilee, blue Galilee, come sing thy song again to me! 
 
RESIDE THE SEA OF GALILEE 
 
 173 
 
 I shall never live to be old enough to forget my own sail 
 on the Sea of Galilee. The day was bright with sunshine. The 
 waters rippled into song about the boat. The shores were 
 brilliant with flowers. The whole scene was one of beauty. 
 The southern end of the lake, shut in by hills, was calm, and 
 
 
 
 
 
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 THE CALLING OF MATTHEW 
 (CHEMENTO OF EMPOLI, I554-1640) 
 
 our progress was made by "toiling in rowing"; hut at the 
 northern end there sprang up a brisk breeze which caused us 
 to speed rapidly on our course with all on board sitting to 
 windward on the gunwale. Other boats filled with members 
 of our party were near at hand and sailing over the same 
 course, and competition between the boatmen was keen for the 
 
i/4 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 first arrival. The race added its own zest to the occasion. 
 There was no memory of fatigue from the long' ride over the 
 Galilaean hills; all sense of weariness vanished. The spray 
 dashed over our bow and the boatmen sang merrily as we 
 passed one after another of our competitors. But the race 
 was not the only thing that thrilled us, for again and again 
 we remembered how the disciples had sailed that same little 
 
 ■ftjITT 
 
 FISHERMAN WASHING HIS NET 
 
 sea, and our Lord himself had been with them repeatedly as 
 they loosed from this same shore and launched out across its 
 blue waters. In his day the lake was alive with boats. The 
 highways on the shore were thronged with caravans. The 
 fertile hillsides clothed with wheat and barley sloped down to 
 the water, and the valleys crimson with flowers were beautiful 
 in the sunshine. In all Palestine there is no other spot so 
 
BESIDE THE SEA OF GALILEE 
 
 175 
 
 sacred, so free from mercenary or superstitious associations, 
 so unspoiled by modern innovations; nor is there in all the 
 world another place where the imagination is so free to make 
 real to itself the scenes in the life of Christ. 
 
 The Sea of Galilee is 627 feet below the level of the Mediter- 
 ranean. The hills around it rise to a height of 1,200 to 2,000 
 feet. The greatest depth of the water is 156 feet. The ex- 
 treme length of the lake is twelve and one-fourth miles, and 
 its greatest width six and three-fourths. Fish still abound in 
 it and are good to eat. They furnished us an excellent supper, 
 and along the shores the fishermen were washing their nets 
 as in the days of Jesus. I caught a photograph of one of these 
 fishermen as we sailed by; it is not very distinct, but it is 
 worth reproducing because thoroughly characteristic. 
 
 Amid scenes such as this we spent a memorable day, and 
 when we tied our tent flaps down at night and went to sleep 
 beside the lake which Jesus loved, it was with a new sense 
 of the reality of the life and labor of the Son of man, who trod 
 these shores and sailed this sea and there wrought his lasting 
 work on the lives of his disciples and the world. 
 
 TIBERIAS. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 THE ORDINATION OF THE TWELVE 
 
 One night in midsummer, A. D. 28, Jesus withdrew from 
 his disciples and remained alone on a mountain near the Sea 
 of Galilee (Luke 6: 12). It was one of his many nights alone 
 in prayer. In the morning he came down to the seaside, and 
 again preached from Peter's boat. The multitude now throng- 
 ing him was great, and the best way to secure a little space, 
 that more might hear, was by putting a narrow stretch of water 
 between him and his audience. 
 
 After a time he came ashore, and climbed the mountain 
 again, and took with him twelve men, whom from this time 
 he called his apostles. Six of them are already known to us; 
 Matthew has lately joined the group, and the other five have 
 been his disciples from the beginning. They are Peter and 
 Andrew, Philip and Nathamel or Bartholomew, and John. 
 James, the brother of John, had also come into the group, and 
 there was another James, the son of Alphaeus, The other four 
 are Thomas, "the twin," and Simon, the revolutionist, and 
 Judas, also called Lebbaeus, and Thaddceus, and Judas the 
 traitor. 
 
 There were three pairs of brothers among the apostles. 
 Several of them had been associated as relatives or as partners 
 in business. All were from Galilee. It was a small, and not 
 very inclusive group, yet it was more representative than we 
 might suppose, and quite as heterogeneous as was consistent 
 with harmony. 
 
 There is a book in the New Testament called popularly "The 
 Acts of the Apostles." The title is noteworthy, because the 
 acts of so few of the apostles are recorded. For the most part 
 we do not know by what specific deeds the most of these men 
 
 176 
 
THE ORDINATION OF THE TWELVE 
 
 177 
 
 approved themselves as apostles of the Lord. It is enough 
 to know that the Lord knoweth them that are his. Not even 
 the apostles can be sure of widely advertised achievements as 
 the token of sure discipleship, but the humblest disciple may 
 rejoice in opportunities of service such as made up the obscure 
 and worthy labor of a majority of the apostles. 
 
 FISHERMEN ON THE SHORE NEAR WHERE THE DISCIPLES WERE CALLED 
 
 Matthew was a tax-collector, and Simon Zelotes was a tax- 
 hater and an insurrectionist, and some of the rest we do not 
 know about.* But more than half of them were fishermen, 
 and it was this occupation which supplied the figure of speech 
 which to this day describes their official work. They were 
 fishers of men. They were disciples already, but the time had 
 come for them to assume a still more intimate relationship to 
 Jesus. 
 
 *See "I Go A Fishing." 
 
i 7 8 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 "Ye are the light of the world," he said; "Ye are the 
 salt of the earth." These were strange words for him to say 
 to a company of fishermen, even with the world as small as 
 it then was, but he spoke truly. For the Galilaean fishermen 
 had been chosen apostles, and were now set apart to preach the 
 good tidings to all the earth. 
 
 This was the end of their fishing for fish. Peter, to be sure, 
 once cast a line in an emergency, and caught a fish, and thus 
 
 CHRIST AND THE FISHERMEN — (ziMMERMANN, 1852 — ) 
 
 made his former vocation supply his Lord's need and his own. 
 But to all intents and purposes the second preaching of Jesus 
 from the boat was the closing of the fishing industry for the 
 men whose boat it was. For perhaps two months they had 
 been attending him almost constantly; now, they were 
 formally set apart for life-long service, and for nearly two years 
 they remained with him. It is not our present purpose to 
 follow them in the experiences of those two years. It is 
 
THE ORDINATION OF THE TWELVE 
 
 179 
 
 enough for us to know that they followed Jesus. Sometimes 
 there were crowds to hear him, and sometimes he was deserted, 
 but they followed him. Sometimes they thought that they 
 saw his throne ahead, and later they knew that they saw his 
 cross, but they followed him. They were ignorant and narrow 
 and ambitious, but they were faithful. "Let us go with him 
 that we may die with him," said Thomas, whom we cruelly 
 remember as the doubter. They all followed him — afar off, 
 sometimes — but there are few more beautiful things in history 
 
 JESUS PREACHING FROM PETER'S BOAT — ( HOI-MANN, 1824 — ) 
 
 than the devotion of that little band that saw the multitude 
 dwindle, and heard the cheers change to hoarse cries for blood, 
 and listened to the taunts of the Pharisees, and saw the 
 machinations of the priests increasing to succes, but still fol- 
 lowed him. 
 
 I cannot refrain from reproducing here one of my own snap- 
 shot photographs, taken on the wharf of Tell Hum, with my 
 own boat and boatmen rather dimly shown. The photograph 
 is none too clear; but very distinct in my own memory is the 
 impression made upon me during the sail, that it was just 
 
i8o 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 such sturdy, warm-hearted, but untaught men whom y-^as 
 called, and whose story, imparted by himself, has transformed 
 the world. No single impression of my journey in Palestine 
 stands out more clear-cut in my memory than that suggested 
 by the men in this dim photograph. It was not men like these 
 that changed the course of history, but the Lord whom they 
 followed and who transformed them. 
 
 MODERN GALLEAN FISHERMEN. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT 
 
 Much of Bible history gathers itself about its mountains. 
 The Hebrew lifted up his eyes to the hills, and rejoiced in the 
 presence of God which he found symbolized in the mountains 
 round about Jerusalem. The hills of the Holy Land are full 
 of pleasant suggestions. When landing at Haifa, one sees 
 above him the rugged ridge of Carmel, and soon before him the 
 rounded cone of Tabor. There is Lebanon to the north, with 
 Hermon just over the Mizpeh valley. David saw the storm 
 sweep over Lebanon, breaking its cedars, and heard in its 
 thunders the voice of God. John saw the snowy summit of 
 Hermon with the clouds and sunlight playing over it, and it 
 became to him suggestive of the great white throne, with the 
 rainbow round about the throne of God. As Hermon and 
 Lebanon range themselves over against each other, so in 
 reality and in association do Ebal and Gerizim, where the law 
 was read with its blessings from one, and its cursings from 
 the other. Then, there are mounts Hor, where Aaron died, 
 and Nebo, where Moses looked, first across the Jordan into 
 the land of promise, and then across a narrower stream into 
 heaven. There are Carmel, where the fire descended in answer 
 to Elijah's prayer, and Horeb where the tempest and earth- 
 quake and fire were followed by the still small voice. 
 
 The life of Christ is closely related to the hills of Palestine. 
 More than once he went apart into a mountain to pray. It 
 was from a mountain crest that, beholding the beauties of 
 Jerusalem, suddenly revealed to his vision, he wept over the 
 city. There are the mount with the garden of Gethsemane at 
 its base, and the mount on which he was transfigured. There 
 
182 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 are Calvary with its cross and Olivet where his feet last pressed 
 the earth before he ascended into heaven. 
 
 Among all these sacred hills room must be made for an- 
 other — the mount of his great sermon. A little apart from 
 the multitude, but with the throng in full sight below, Jesus 
 took his disciples to the top of one of the two low horns which 
 
 A CITY SET IN A HILL 
 
 crown the summit of the plateau of Hattin, and there preached 
 his sermon on the mount. 
 
 The hills of Scripture fall somewhat naturally into pairs, and 
 this mount inevitably suggests comparison with Sinai, where 
 the law was given. The author of Hebrews contrasted, not 
 this particular hill, but the whole system of Christianity, with 
 Sinaitic Judaism, in his lofty words: "For ye are not come 
 unto a mount that might be touched, and that burned with 
 
THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT 
 
 183 
 
 fire, and unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest, and the 
 sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words; which voice they 
 that heard entreated that no word more should be spoken unto 
 them: for they could not endure that which was enjoined, If 
 
 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT — ( FRITZ VON UHDE, 1846 — ) 
 
 even a beast touch the mountain, it shall be stoned; and so 
 fearful was the appearance, that Moses said, I exceedingly 
 fear and quake: but ye are come unto mount Zion, and unto 
 the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to 
 innumerable hosts of angels, to the general assembly and 
 church of the first-born who are enrolled in heaven, and to God 
 the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, 
 
!8 4 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 and to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the blood 
 of sprinkling that speaketh better than that of Abel." 
 (Hebrews 12: 18-25.) 
 
 It is natural for us to make this contrast somewhat more 
 specific, to set the gospels over against the law, the beatitudes 
 opposite the commandments, and to contrast the system of 
 negation and command of the Old Testament with that of love 
 and inspiration in the New. Thus does Sinai find its full com- 
 plement as well as its antithesis in the mount of Christ's 
 discourse. Sinai is bleak, barren and inaccessible; but Hattin 
 is fertile, and covered with flowers and grain; the command- 
 ments are negative and prohibitory; the beatitudes overflow 
 with the blessings of positive righteousness. 
 
 The traveler from Nazareth or the Mediterranean coast to 
 the Sea of Galilee, following the road that winds among low 
 hills on the elevated table land, sees at length before him and 
 to the left, a double-turreted hill, and knows it at once as 
 Mount Hattin — the "Horns of Hattin." A detour of a mile 
 or more will bring him to its summit, and may introduce him 
 to a group of dark and threatening-looking Arabs, who rise 
 up out of the ground and demand bakshish for his damage to 
 their wheat fields. Whether they own the fields, or he has 
 done them any damage, need not long be considered, nor is 
 it necessary to inquire too closely into their intentions. A 
 few small coins, produced without taking out his purse, may 
 well be given them, and the tourist will do well to rejoin his 
 company on the road below as speedily as is consistent with 
 a dignified retreat. No tourist should ride to Hattin alone, 
 and he who does so will probably be left somewhat uncertain 
 as to whether the Arabs really intended to rob him or not. 
 This, at least, was the experience of some men of my own 
 party, who became separated from the main body by their 
 interest in the Horns of Hattin. 
 
 It was the tradition of the Crusaders that fixed upon Hattin 
 as the scene of the Sermon on the Mount. Dean Stanley 
 adopted the tradition, and gave it general currency. Our first 
 thought would be that a mountain nearer Capernaum would 
 
THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT 185 
 
 more probably have been chosen; but this objection grows 
 less if Capernaum was at Khan Minyeh and not at Tell Hum. 
 
 The "mountain" is only sixty feet above the table-land; but 
 the plateau itself stands high above the plain of the lake. It is 
 thus conspicuous from the lake, and would easily have been 
 the goal of a company ascending from the water's edge to 
 hear a sermon from Jesus. We cannot, of course, be sure that 
 this is the hill where Jesus sat and preached, but there is 
 nothing in its situation to render the tradition improbable. 
 
 The Crusaders gave the hill its present name: and they had 
 sad reason to remember it; for here, where Jesus blessed the 
 peace-makers, occurred a bloody battle. On July 5, 1187, 
 under a blazing sun, thirsty and faint and overburdened with 
 their armor, the Christians fell before the furious charge of 
 Saladin. Their dead bodies lay on this sacred slope; their 
 blood reddened once more the bloody plain of Esdnelon; and 
 the Saracen was left in possession of the land where Jesus lived 
 and taught. Here was lost the true cross, as the Crusaders 
 esteemed it, and the crescent flamed over the Mount of 
 Beatitudes. 
 
 Of the public discourses of Jesus, the Sermon on the Mount 
 is the one most fully reported. We have as much as he proba- 
 bly spoke in fifteen minutes, and that appears less a report 
 of a single discourse than a collection of utterances, some of 
 them used in other connections. 
 
 Scholars have found it impossible to agree upon an analysis 
 of this address which makes it correspond to our modern idea 
 of a sermon, that is, a connected discourse, with a definite 
 proposition and with logical progress of thought from one 
 division to the next. In our modern sense it was not a sermon 
 at all. It is not easy to state its central thought in a single 
 proposition, as a sermon is supposed to do, but the teachings 
 of the sermon gather about the general idea of the righteous- 
 ness of the kingdom of God. It discusses many things— the 
 blessedness of doing good; the character of the disciples in their 
 relation to the world; the relation of Christ's teaching to the 
 Law; the duty and the form of prayer; the importance of 
 
1 86 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 discrimination; the sin of judging harshly; and the stability of 
 character of those who hear and heed the sayings of Christ 
 as opposed to the sandy foundation under the lives of those 
 without faith in him. These general ideas and the disconnected 
 precepts enjoining these duties, have these co-ordinating prin- 
 ciples: trust in God, who cares for the lily and the sparrow; 
 fidelity to our fellow-men in the spirit of the Golden Rule; and 
 the essential unity of all spiritual interests in the kingdom of 
 God. Trust in God, as herein taught, is enjoined with this 
 
 
 THE SEA OF GALILEE FROM TELL HUM 
 
 promise, "Seek ye first his kingdom and his righteousness, 
 and all these things shall be added unto you." 
 
 It is not the purpose of this book to give expositions of any 
 of the extended discussions of Jesus. Books abound in which 
 this is done, and well done. Tt is enough for our present pur- 
 pose to note in this discourse the relation of the work of 
 Christ to the Old Testament law. Jesus declared that he 
 came not to destroy but to fulfil the law. He destroyed only 
 as the flower is destroyed which becomes fruit; for he said of 
 the old law, "Ye have heard that it was said, . . . but I say 
 unto you." He fulfilled till the old law overflowed. 
 
THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT 
 
 l8 7 
 
 There are two wrong notions of Christianity, one that it is 
 a sort of revision of the Jewish law; the other, that it is 
 primarily the declaration of a system of philosophy. Chris- 
 tianity is not a system of legislation. Christ came not to give 
 law, but life. "Which is the great commandment?" The 
 
 GARDEN OF THE FRANCISCAN MONKS AT TELL HUM 
 
 question had little interest for Jesus, but he had an answer. 
 There is one commandment which includes them all — love for 
 God and man. But this is the very point; love cannot be 
 compelled; hence love is above law. Love and legislation are 
 two different matters. Wherefore, he who sees in Christ's 
 "new commandment" only a summary of the Mosaic code 
 misses the whole spirit of Christianity. 
 
1 88 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 Some good people have this idea of law so inwrought into 
 their minds that they cannot help thinking that God must be 
 the victim of his own laws, must inflict their penalties whether 
 he will or no. And they say, "God would willingly forgive the 
 penitent sinner, but the penalty of law must be enforced. 
 Christ paid that penalty, and we are free from the law." 
 
 But he who thus speaks has not gotten to the bottom of the 
 problem. To him may be said, "Thou hast nothing to draw 
 with, and the well is deep. Whence shalt thou bring up living 
 water?" The infliction of penalty was the least of God's 
 troubles. What God desired was to make penalty unnecessary. 
 Christ came to conquer the evil that has its root in flesh, and 
 give righteouness, not of mere legality, but of sonship. 
 
 We are told that "What the law could not do," God accom- 
 plished in Christ. The law could do some things, and did. It 
 was not superfluous, but it was temporary. It was not the 
 divine ideal. It taught men the power of God. It gave to 
 them a high conception of their obligation to him. It forced 
 them to think of duty, and enhanced their idea of the sinfulness 
 of sin by making it expensive, and by the shedding of blood. 
 It emphasized the elements necessary to national duty. It 
 kept the Jewish people separate, an integral nation, during the 
 long time needed for the development of God's purpose. All 
 this and more the law did. But perfect obedience is not thus 
 secured. The law was weak because it gave no permanent 
 leverage on character. A man might keep the law outwardly 
 and still be but a whited sepulchre. It imposed burdens that 
 were irksome. It tended to promote formal observance with- 
 out the spirit of obedience. It had the necessary defects of 
 its virtues. It was a good thing for the time being. It was 
 no failure, except as it failed to do what it was never expected 
 to do. It accomplished what God intended, and God is patient 
 and can wait for a new day and another method. God is fer- 
 tile in resources, and his successes are largest toward the last. 
 The earlier methods are successful in proportion to their rela- 
 tion to these. 
 
THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT 
 
 189 
 
 How many of God's efforts seem abortive! The first man 
 born to humanity was a murderer. The first attempt to make 
 saints of his parents ended in their expulsion from Paradise. 
 The first settlement of the then known world was so unsatis- 
 factory that the flood was called into requisition. The first 
 son of Abraham, through whom the patriarch hoped for the 
 promise, was a warrior with his hand against every man's hand. 
 The first king of the Jewish nation was a disappointment, and 
 a new dynasty came on. And the author of Hebrews would 
 have us believe that the whole old covenant was in some sort 
 a failure, and passed away for its weakness and unprofitableness 
 (Heb. 7: 18). 
 
 Jesus came, not to restore the law, but to establish a republic 
 of God; in whose realm God should rule by consent and co- 
 operation of the governed. God could rule unchallenged in 
 the stellar spaces, but in the heart of man he sought and still 
 seeks not law, but grace. "The law was given by Moses, but 
 grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." 
 
 HEAD OF CHRIST 
 (DA VINCI, I452-I5I9) 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 THE DOUBT OF JOHN THE BAPTIST 
 
 One day in the summer of A. D. 28, two or three men 
 clambered down the high walls that shut in the Dead Sea, and 
 began a long walk up the Jordan valley. They were earnest 
 men, but we do not know their names. They were from the 
 remnant of a little band that had remained with John, not 
 forsaking him for Jesus. We may not approve their judgment, 
 but we must admire their loyalty. 
 
 These men had seen, with jealousy for their heroic teacher, 
 the crowds deserting him and going to Tesus. They did not 
 understand it, and they did not like it. Who was Jesus but 
 a disciple of John, like themselves? Had not John baptized 
 him? On what ground but one could he rise above John — 
 that of being the Messiah? And if he were the Messiah, whv 
 did he not say so, and prove it by releasing John? They had 
 always complained, as they prayed and kept their fasts, that 
 Jesus did not fast; and John was now in prison in the dark 
 fortress of Machasrus, while Jesus was attending feasts in 
 Pharisees* houses, or eating with Matthew and the like. Whv 
 did he not stop his feasting and release John? They pro- 
 pounded these question to John: and John, heroic doubter, at 
 length charged them to go ^o Jesus and demand an answer to 
 this question: "Art thou he that should come, or look we for 
 another?" Jesus did not answer the question directly which 
 these stern men propounded to him, but said to John's 
 disciples, "Go and shew John again these things which ye do 
 hear and see: The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, 
 the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, 
 and the poor have the gospel preached to them. And blessed is 
 he, whosoever shall not be offended in me" (Matt. 11: 4-6). 
 
 IQO 
 
THE DOUBT OF JOHN THE BAPTIST 
 
 191 
 
 He knew that he could trust John to make the deduction. 
 John might doubt, but he would not desert. Jesus hastened, 
 too, to tell his own disciples not to think ill of John for his 
 doubt; John was no reed shaken by the wind, but a man, every 
 inch a man. Another point Jesus wished made clear; the right 
 of John and himself to live differently, and to teach in different 
 ways, and yet both to speak God's truth and live godly lives. 
 
 YOUNG JOHN THE BAPTIST — (.RAPHAEL, I4S3-I520) 
 
 John lived the ascetic life; Jesus lived a free life among men. 
 He did not say that his or John's was the better way, but that 
 wisdom was justified of both her children, and that people 
 who wished to do right might choose in all earnestness the 
 one or the other course for the sake of God and the world. 
 But he complained that people criticised both, and followed 
 neither. 
 
ig 2 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 Jesus was no bigot. He was tolerant, broad, appreciative. 
 The principles which he laid down concerning himself and 
 John were wise, just and right. Not uniformity of outward life, 
 but unity in the inward spirit; not unity of creed, but unity of 
 faith — this is the unity of the gospel. 
 
 It was the question of John's disciples in regard to fasting, 
 however, that brought forth that statement of Jesus of the 
 superiority of the new to the old. And this, in effect, did 
 pronounce his way superior to that of John. In unmistakable 
 terms he declared that the new way was better than the old; 
 that he had not come to patch an old system, but to establish 
 a new and better one. 
 
 "And he spake also a parable unto them; No man rendeth 
 a piece from a new garment and putteth it upon an old gar- 
 ment; else he will rend the new, and also the piece from the 
 new will not agree with the old. And no man putteth new 
 wine into old wine-skins; else the new wine will burst the skins, 
 and itself will be spilled, and the skins will perish. But new 
 wine must be put into fresh wine-skins. And no man having 
 drunk old wine desireth new: for he saith, The old is good" 
 (Luke 5: 36-39)- 
 
 All this is plain but the last verse, which, singularly, is often 
 used to prove the very opposite of what Jesus intended. It 
 is one of the misused texts of Scripture. It is taken as Christ's 
 endorsement of old ways and old forms of faith. But Jesus 
 was telling why his system must be a new one — because the 
 old one was not worth patching. He had new wine which 
 must be put into new bottles. Neither was the old wine good 
 enough nor were the old bottles good enough. The contrast 
 is not between wine which was good because old, and other 
 wine which was poor because new. The point is that some 
 men have drunk of the old until thev assume that onlv old can 
 be good. 
 
 Old wine is not always good, neither is new wine necessarily 
 bad. Old wine may be better than wine of the same quality 
 less old, but the process of aging has its perils. Old wine 
 becomes musty- Old wine deposits dregs. The old prophets 
 
THE DOUBT OF JOHN THE BAPTIST 
 
 m 
 
 cried out against the people of their day that they had "settled 
 upon their lees" (Jer. 48: 11; Zeph. 1: 12). That is one ol the 
 perils of old wine. That was the trouble in Jesus' day. The 
 wine was so old that it was near the bottom of the cask; stale, 
 full of sediment, and unwholesome. People said, '"The old is 
 good enough," and kept drinking it, and the longer they drank 
 it, the worse it became. Even this is not the greatest peril in 
 old wine. It generates increased intoxicating power. It 
 
 'AIN KARIM, TRADITIONAL BIRTHPLACE OF JOHN THE BAPTIST 
 
 blinds men to the way in which they walk. It makes men be- 
 lieve that all safety is in the past. It renders them careless of 
 the duties and perils of the present. If old salt can lose its 
 savor and become worthless, old wine may lose its virtue and 
 acquire positive poison. 
 
 New wine lacks much which connoisseurs eniov. It lacks 
 the flavor and poetry, and I know not how much more. But 
 it has life. It has power to ferment and work off its own 
 impurities, to clarify itself, all of which the old wine lacks. If 
 
194 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 the fermentation be unpleasant while in progress, it is at least 
 better than eternal deadness. The new is raw and crude and 
 insipid, or at least it has the credit of being all these, but it 
 has in it the power to work out a future. It has not settled 
 into hopeless content and an inert conservatism. 
 
 There is no temper of mind, except a shallow, curious skepti- 
 cism, so fatal to truth as a dead orthodoxy. And the two are 
 not incompatible. They often co-exist in the same community, 
 and sometimes in the same individual. The stationary nether 
 millstone of conservatism and the upper stone of skeptical 
 curiosity, which asks, "What is truth?" and does not wait for 
 an answer, between them grind truth to a powder. The 
 temper of both is in the bad sense of the word, conservative, 
 yet in the true sense of the term both are destructive. 
 
 Jesus was the advocate of the new. He came as the bringer 
 of a new and better covenant. He taught a new birth. He 
 revealed a new hope for humanity. His new cloth was too 
 good to be used to patch an old garment. He used it to make 
 a new and better spiritual robe than the fig-leaf invention of 
 the old. He taught his disciples to bring out of their treasures 
 things new as well as old, and the things he taught them were 
 to them surprisingly new. Men w T ere continually saying that 
 this was new to them, that they had never seen it on this wise 
 before. He came to fulfil the prophet's promise that men 
 should receive a new heart. He came to reveal a new salvation. 
 He taught a new code of ethics. He revealed a new purpose 
 of God. In this illustration of the old wine and the new, the 
 old bottles and the new, his sympathies were with the new, 
 and his promise to his disciples was to drink with them the 
 fruit of the vine, new in the kingdom of God. And when the 
 rapt young Son of Thunder saw him in his final glory, it was 
 in a new heaven and reigning over a new earth. 
 
 We talk of the "old, old story," but the gospel is "good 
 news." We trace the same plan through the ages, but to each 
 age it is a new revelation, with transitions most abrupt. No 
 age has been able fully to adjust itself to the new features of 
 God's plan. It is a defect of our Christian poetry and hymnody 
 
THE DOUBT OF JOHN THE BAPTIST 
 
 195 
 
 that we have few songs fitly setting forth the newness and 
 freshness of the divine life in the believing soul. We have 
 even dropped from our hymn-books that first of the hymns 
 of Watts, 
 
 Behold the glories of the Lamb 
 
 Upon his Father's throne; 
 Prepare new honors for his name, 
 
 And songs before unknown. 
 
 We have songs that are new, but in too large proportion 
 they are songs about the "old, old story." The Bible is full 
 
 JOHN REBUKING HEROD — (G. 
 
 FATTORI. 1828 — ) 
 
 of the shout, "Oh, sing unto the Lord a new song/' and the 
 promise of heaven is that the songs shall be new. With God 
 is perpetual spring-time of righteousness: the Christian life 
 is a fountain of everlasting youth. Experience and the song 
 of the Christian should be more of the newness of the hope 
 
196 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 which has come to men in Christ. We are all familiar with 
 the camp-meeting song — 
 
 It's the old-time religion, 
 And it's good enough for me. 
 
 Its successive stanzas tell that it was "good enough for 
 Moses/' and "good enough for David," and so on. The tune 
 has the swing and tread of conviction, and the theme gathers 
 power as the song goes on. But the religion that was good 
 enough for Moses was the best religion that Moses could 
 obtain; "the old-time religion" was not good enough for him. 
 The relieion that was srood enough for David, was David's 
 best possible and somewhat better than that of Moses. John's 
 religion was good, but not good enough for Jesus. The new 
 was better. 
 
 We have had glimpses of the character of John and we are 
 soon to lose sight of him altogether. Before the sword falls, 
 let us pause for a more intimate acquaintance of the man who 
 sits in his chains awaiting — and with what emotion — the 
 return of his messengers from their visit to Jesus. 
 
 With John we stand upon the watershed, between the Old 
 and the New dispensations. He belonged to the Old, and 
 hence the least in the kingdom of heaven had privileges denied 
 him; but his heart and life belonged to the New, and among 
 earth's unselfish heroes his is a foremost place. 
 
 Let us notice first his modesty and unselfishness. The 
 people were eager to claim him as the Christ. Popular senti- 
 ment was all in his favor. Even after he was dead, his name 
 was a name to conjure with, and was well used by Jesus for 
 his own protection. The Jews could not answer his question 
 concerning John, for they feared the people, for all men 
 acknowledged John as a prophet. This speaks more even 
 than the burst of intense enthusiasm which his life kindled 
 for the depth of his influence upon the nation. Had he 
 assumed to be the Messiah, he could have gathered about him 
 a band as devoted and loyal as that which went out into the 
 wilderness to Mattathias, the Maccabee, and his sons. "But he 
 confessed, and denied not; but confessed, I am not the Christ." 
 
THE DOUBT OF JOHN THE BAPTIST 197 
 
 He denied even being the prophet whom they were expecting. 
 He bore the office of Elijah, but refused Elijah's honors. Even 
 the honors due himself he declined in his almost supersensitive 
 fear that he might attach the popular affection so strongly to 
 him that it might not easily transfer itself to the One who was 
 to come. Who this One was, he did not know. He was per- 
 sonally acquainted with Jesus, but knew him only as an upright 
 man. "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." To behold this descent of 
 the Spirit, John watched eagerly. He seems to have thought 
 of the coming One as possibly present among any of his audi- 
 ences, and perhaps eagerly scanned the faces before him him- 
 self to discover, if he might, the expected King, as he said: 
 'There standeth one among you, whom ye know not; he it 
 is, who coming after me is preferred before me, whose shoe's 
 latchet I am not worthy to unloose." 
 
 If to any one it seem an easy thing for such a man as John 
 to lay down his honors at the feet of Jesus, let him but reflect 
 how earnestly he himself is tempted to contend for such petty 
 honors as may come to him, and how hard a thing it is to lay 
 them aside for duty's sake; and then put himself, with all a 
 man's pride of leadership, with all a man's aspirations, with all 
 a man's love of accomplishing in the sight of men what he 
 feels himself able to accomplish, with all a man's fondness for 
 recognition, and natural inclination to protest against neglect, 
 in John's place, and try to imagine himself doing what John did. 
 
 To be sure, John did but his duty; but if a man be not 
 praised for doing his duty, for what shall he be praised? And 
 if he himself, by stern determination to make that duty appear 
 easy, covers from the world the struggle, the disappointment, 
 the humiliation which it involves, shall we not the more cer- 
 tainly give honor to whom honor is due? "He was not that 
 Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light," says the 
 other John of him; but Christ is unwilling that we should 
 think because John was not that light, he was no light at all. 
 
198 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 "He was a burning and a shining light, 1 ' says Jesus. But "form 
 himself did not call himself even a light. He was not the 
 Christ, not Elijah, not that other prophet, nothing at all — but 
 a voice. He was simply his message; as to his personality, he 
 was not. John was like that unknown prophet of the exile, 
 who either found an unrecognized book of Isaiah — which for a 
 hundred or more years had lain without influencing current 
 literature or thought, so far as we can learn — or himself gave 
 to the captive Jews the latter part of the book now known by 
 the name of Isaiah (and whichever of these hypotheses is true, 
 lie must have been a man of rare faith and inspiration). Like 
 that exile prophet who took up the broken strands of earlier 
 prophecy and connected them with his own time and cast 
 to the sinking nation a strong rope of hope — but who is him- 
 self known to us, not even by name, but only as an echo of 
 Isaiah — John wished to be simply "a voice." He answered 
 inquiries concerning himself by quoting those earlier words and 
 saying, "I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare 
 ye the way of the Lord." It is not easy to eliminate one's 
 personality and be but a voice. When children, we were told 
 by our elders, and we learned the lesson with difficulty, that 
 we should "be seen and not heard.'' To learn later in life to 
 be heard, if need be, but not seen, is not an easier lesson. It is 
 easier to give alms when a trumpet is sounded before us, but 
 greater charity is sometimes seen only by him who seeth in 
 secret. 
 
 We must note also the character of his preaching. It was 
 preparatory, but it was thorough. His was foundation work 
 which was to be covered by that built upon it, even his baptism 
 not counting as Christian baptism, but it was no half-way 
 preaching which he did. The ax was laid to the root of the 
 tree. He preached repentance and the approach of the king- 
 dom of God. The great themes of the gospel — faith, hope, 
 love — were treated by those who followed, but John's themes 
 are by no means out of date. Grant that John was an ascetic, 
 that his hard and inflexible doctrine of righteousness is inferior 
 to the liberty with which Christ has made us free, the time has 
 
THE DOUBT OF JOHN THE BAPTIST 199 
 
 not come as yet to pass lightly over the need of deep con- 
 trition for sin, and the even greater need of brineiner forth 
 
 THE BEHEADING OF JOHN THE BAPTIST — (c. S. PEARCE, l88l — ) 
 
 fruits meet for repentance. John's preaching was also prac- 
 tical. It took hold of the live issues of the day, the labor 
 
200 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 troubles, and the social discontent of his time. It was strong, 
 earnest, every-day gospel, good for all times. 
 
 Note also John's courage. When, since Nathan stood before 
 David and rebuked him for his great sin, had a prophet done 
 a more courageous, manly thing than John did when he 
 rebuked Herod? It was no reed shaken by the wind which 
 Herod saw before him. As John was the Elijah of the New 
 Testament, so Herod was its Ahab, and Herodias its Jezebel; 
 and Elijah's mission to that weak and wicked king was not 
 more perilous or courageous than that of John to the other, 
 no less wicked and vacillating. Whether Herod's vain 
 curiosity, which afterward made him desire to see Jesus, caused 
 him to send for John, or whether John strode into his court 
 with the abruptness of his prototype, we do not know, but it 
 is recorded that "when Herod heard him he was much per- 
 plexed, and heard him gladly." It is dangerous to be a hearer 
 of the word and not a doer. There sometimes comes with the 
 hearing and the acquiescence of conscience to the truth, so 
 virtuous a feeling in view of the perception of the truth, that 
 it almost passes for the performance of it. Meantime Herodias 
 nurses her wrath, and her daughter dances. 
 
 So, as Elijah had his juniper tree, John had his Doubting 
 Castle. Do not try to explain away the doubt. It was real 
 and intense. Great natures like his are capable of being rocked 
 between tumultuous emotions. John, who had nerved himself 
 for whatever might come, who expected to see his own popu- 
 larity wane, and was willing to be unnoticed or forgotten, 
 could not bear unmoved the enforced inactivity, the prolonged 
 uncertainty, the alternating hope and fear which his incarcera- 
 tion in the castle of Machaerus involved, while a sword keener 
 and more finely hung than that of Damocles was suspended 
 above him; and the new Messiah seemed either to have for- 
 gotten the forerunner to whom he owed in such large measure 
 his favorable reception, or else to be unable to help him. It 
 was not simply for his disciples' sake that John sent to Jesus 
 to ask, "Art thou he that should come, or do we look for 
 another?" John himself needed the assurance of Jesus' answer. 
 
THE DOUBT OF JOHN THE BAPTIST 201 
 
 And probably he then died, disappointed but trusting. There 
 must have come to him at times grave doubts, awful misgiv- 
 ings, feelings of unutterable despondency, when it seemed that 
 his whole mission had failed. Yet, there was the memory 
 of Jesus' holy life and the descent of the Spirit and the preach- 
 ing of the gospel to the poor; he must trust. So John held 
 on in the darkness till God reached down and took the hand 
 that was almost numb with long clinging in the storm and 
 cold, and took him home. 
 
 Luke changes the order of events in this narrative that we 
 may have as the closing scene in this connection, not the doubt 
 and death of John, but the baptism of Jesus, as the fitting 
 close of John's ministry. So he tells us between the acts of 
 John's imprisonment, and then brings the ministry of John to 
 a dramatic close when he baptized Jesus, and witnessed the 
 descent of the Spirit. It was the sign for which John had been 
 waiting. His acquaintance with Jesus and his confession of 
 his own unworthiness to baptize him, made it easy to believe 
 that it was he whom God had called; and when the Spirit 
 descended upon him, John saw it, and heard the voice and 
 believed. Then he pointed his disciples to him as the Lamb 
 of God that taketh away the sin of the world. Day by day, 
 without regret, he saw his audiences growing smaller and 
 those of Jesus growing larger. Though Jesus was most con- 
 siderate of his feelings, it must have been hard for John cheer- 
 fully to live up to his own ideal, and be content to decrease that 
 Jesus might increase — yet nobly he did it. He was not the 
 bridegroom, but his friend; and the friend of the bridegroom 
 rejoiced. Noble man! Among those that have been born of 
 women his superior hath not been seen for courage, for devo- 
 tion, for unostentatious fidelity. He was a burning and a 
 shining light, and he went out, but not as a torch, in smoke 
 and darkness; his was the light of the morning star, which 
 shines on somewhere, though to us its light is lost in the 
 greater effulgence of the Sun of whose rising it is the harbinger. 
 
 God raises up special men for special times. There is ever 
 a man sent from God, whose name redeems historv just when 
 
202 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 all seems lost. No good work fails. A man's methods may 
 be outgrown, and the ends for which he labors drop from popu- 
 lar view, yet the man's cause may gloriously succeed. The 
 ship is sometimes as truly making toward port, and utilizing 
 every league that it has gained, when sailing on an entirely 
 different tack. A man's cause may seem to die with him, yet 
 he, being dead, still speak. Fidelity is true success. Faith, 
 hope, love, courage, sincerity, can never really fail. A man 
 is not always the best judge of his own success. More than 
 one man sent from God has died saying, "I am not the light, 
 but only a witness," of whom God says, "He was a bright and 
 shining light." God bless all who do the work of John in the 
 world — and their name is legion — mothers whose unseen toil 
 will bear fruit in the service their children render to the world; 
 wives who stay by the stuff, but whose husbands' success in 
 life is in large part due to their fidelity and love, and all who 
 labor casting bread upon the waters and who never see it 
 return, and know not that on distant shores it feeds some ship- 
 wrecked soul! Let us remember how full the world is of 
 service devoted and unselfish and true, and thank God and take 
 courage. 
 
 It is characteristic of Christianity that its face is ever to the 
 future. It has a splendid history, but it does not rely upon 
 that history for its present power, nor is it as a deposit of 
 historic truth that chiefly it is to be studied. It has a glorious 
 past, but the past is not the sphere of its greatest glory. It 
 points backward indeed to Eden and Sinai and Golgotha and 
 Olivet, but only that it may beckon men forward to the 
 redeemed society of earth and the transformed and glorified 
 multitude of heaven. There is no limit set to the possibility 
 of the future glory of the Christian life. Eye hath not seen it 
 ear hath not heard it; it hath not entered into the mind of the 
 past. John, great and noble as he is, is not the prophet of the 
 future. Not "Back to John," nor "Back to the Fathers," nor 
 "Back to the Old Testament," nor even "Back to Christ," 
 should be our motto, but Forward with Christ. 
 
THE DOUBT OF JOHN THE BAPTIST 
 
 203 
 
 Nearly a year passed with John in prison. John had brougnt 
 down on himself the wrath of Herod for his fidelity to truth 
 and righteousness. A merry dancer pleased the king, and he 
 gave her John the Baptist's head. But John rose from the 
 dead before the troubled conscience of Herod, who heard of 
 the work of Jesus and remembered his sin — but did not 
 forsake it. 
 
 THE BURIAL OF JESUS — (LUCIO MASSARI, I569-1633) 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 THE WOMEN FRIENDS OF JESUS 
 
 From the middle of the summer of the year A. D. 28, we find 
 a new group among the followers of Jesus. They accompanied 
 him on his second preaching tour, and "ministered to him of 
 their substance" (Luke 8: 1-3). These are said to have been 
 healed by him, and they followed him in gratitude, and with 
 loyalty, that, in the case of some of them, ceased not to the 
 end. Three are mentioned at the outset, Susanna, and Joanna, 
 the wife of Chuza, Herod's steward, which shows how near 
 already Christianity had come to the palaces of the realm, and 
 foremost of all, Mary of Magdala, the most slandered woman 
 of history. She had been insane, and Jesus had healed her. 
 There is not the slightest reason to believe that she had ever 
 been a harlot, and the chapter heading of Luke 7 is an illus- 
 tration of wisdom beyond what is written. All we know of 
 her past is that she had suffered this terrible malady, and had 
 been healed by Jesus. This is insufficient ground for assuming 
 that she had led a wanton life. She disappears from sight after 
 this first reference till near the end, but she appears at the 
 crucifixion as one who had been present much of the time in 
 the interval, devotedly following Jesus, with a faithful com- 
 pany of her friends (Matt. 27: 55-61; 28: 1). 
 
 Mary, the mother of Jesus, appears in the narrative during 
 this same summer. She had come over from Nazareth with 
 her other children, full of solicitude for her Son, whom rumor 
 declared to have gone mad. Joseph was doubtless dead, for 
 Mary and her children had come alone. It was a ten hours' 
 walk from Nazareth to Capernaum, and the family was late 
 in arriving. The crowd was so large that they could not gain 
 entrance to the house. They sent in a request that he would 
 
 204 
 
THE WOMEN FRIENDS OF JESUS 
 
 205 
 
 come to them. But Jesus had outgrown home restraint. He 
 could not now submit to the restriction of those who misun- 
 derstood him. His relations were with the world at large. 
 "Whosoever shall do the will of my Father in heaven, he is 
 my brother, and sister, and mother," lie said. It was essen- 
 tially the same answer he had made when a woman in the 
 
 THE VIRGIN ADORING THE CHILD — (CORREGGIO, I494-I534) 
 
 crowd cried out her expression of the supreme honor that must 
 belong to her who had borne and nursed him, and he replied, 
 "Yea, rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God and 
 keep it." This apparent disowning of his kindred must have 
 seemed hard to them, and it is not easy for us to interpret 
 otherwise, but we may be sure that it was the expression of 
 sincere affection, though of a broader and more inclusive kind 
 
206 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 than his relatives understood. "Neither did his brethren be- 
 lieve in him" at the outset, but he won them to himself and 
 his cause, and the "brethren of the Lord" were among his 
 truest followers afterward (John 7: 3, 6; I. Cor. 9: 5; Gal. 1: 19; 
 Acts 1: 14). Mary, too, his mother, who had kept and pon- 
 dered many things in her heart, left her home in Nazareth 
 and followed him to the end. His dying care was to provide 
 
 THE MADONNA OF THE CARPENTER SHOP — ( DAGNAN-BOUVRET) 
 
 for her as he hung on the cross, near which she stood with 
 her sister, and with Alary Magdalene (John 19: 25-27). Faith- 
 ful to the end, she trusted even after the crucifixion, and was 
 with the company in the upper room during the forty days 
 (Acts 1: 14), among the women friends of Jesus. Earliest, 
 dearest, most loving and best loved of these friends, was Mary, 
 his mother. 
 
THE WOMEN FRIENDS OF JESUS 
 
 207 
 
 Mention of these three Marys, his mother, his aunt, and 
 she of Magdala, reminds us at once of Mary of Bethany. We 
 do not know whether she and Martha were numbered as yet 
 among his friends. The incident recorded by Luke in which 
 
 MADONNA AND CHILD — (ALBRECHT DURER, I5O7) 
 
 Martha fretted because Mary was not helping her (Luke 10: 
 38-42), is not very definitely fixed in its chronology, but would 
 seem to belong in the visit of Jesus to Jerusalem the following 
 December. Even so, it is by no means certain that Jesus had 
 
JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 not already been their guest. There had been abundant oppor- 
 tunity for visits to Bethany in his early Judaaan ministry, and 
 on the occasion of his more recent week in Jerusalem at the 
 passover. The sisters lived at Bethany, and so we do not see 
 them with the Galilaean group of women, but we cannot forget 
 them. 
 
 CHRIST TAKING LEAVE OF HIS MOTHER— (DURER, I5Il) 
 
 No doubt Mary and Martha represent different types of 
 Christian life. Mary appears the more intellectual, Martha the 
 more practical; Mary has been counted the more spiritual, but 
 I am not certain that this judgment is correct. Both lacked 
 perspective for their faith. Each was limited in her sphere of 
 vision, Mary by the opportunity to learn of Jesus — she saw 
 him so seldom and there was so much to learn — and Martha 
 by the necessity of caring properly for him, and perhaps also 
 
THE WOMEN FRIENDS OF JESUS 
 
 209 
 
 by her temperament. Martha was sensitive; she was shut out 
 of the world of intellectual realities and higher companionships, 
 which world was very real to Alary. Not more did she fret, I 
 imagine, about doing more than her share of the work, than 
 because her practical mind and the daily round of domestic care 
 had left her little opportunity of sharing what Mary so en- 
 joyed. Martha has been used for a foil for Mary for something 
 
 
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 SO-CALLED HOUSE OF LAZARUS, BETHANY 
 
 more than eighteen centuries. It is time to appeal from judg- 
 ment that has been rashly made. Martha, too, had a deep 
 spiritual nature, as we shall yet learn. It is quite too much to 
 censure her because once she fretted over too much house- 
 work. It is not easy to be a Christian over a hot stove. If 
 every woman missed heaven who at some time has grown 
 impatient over the vexations of having to be both cook and 
 
2IO 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 hostess, heaven would be a lonely place. I admire the intellect- 
 ual ardor of the modern Mary, who will have knowledge 
 though the heavens fall and the cookies burn; but my heart 
 goes out to Martha in the kitchen, flurried and fluttered lest 
 all may not go well, but broiling the steak to a turn. Martha's 
 theology may be defective, but three times a day I prefer her 
 to Mary. And I maintain that spirituality is consistent with 
 the ability to make bread. The Lord's words to Martha were 
 a rebuke but a kind one. They appear to have meant some- 
 
 MAGDALA 
 
 thing like this: "Martha, you embarrass me and tire yourself 
 with your excess of kindness. Do not worry. And let Mary 
 learn her lesson — both yon and she will need it for your com- 
 fort. The supreme thing in life is not bread, but food for the 
 soul, and that Alary is seeking." 
 
 Blessed be Mary! She is active and numerous in the modern 
 church, and the church is blessed by her activity. She teaches 
 in the Sunday-school; she is a member of the Missionary 
 Society; she writes papers on the work in Japan and darkest 
 Africa; we need her and love her and believe in her. But 
 
THE WOMEN FRIENDS OF JESUS 
 
 211 
 
 blessed also be Martha, who looketh well to the ways of her 
 household and eateth not of the bread of idleness. Jesus loved 
 them both, and they were both honorable and useful. 
 
 We have called thus to mind a. few of the women friends of 
 Jesus, and they are a noble company. Very different women 
 they were, with different causes for affection, but loyal, 
 devoted, thankful — the sisters and forerunners of that splendid 
 
 JESUS AT BETHANY— f HOFM ANN, 1824 — ) 
 
 company of women that for nineteen centuries has blessed the 
 Church and the world. But there are others, less intimately 
 associated with Jesus, who profited by his friendship. 
 Among them is the woman, supposed without reason to have 
 been Mary Magdalene, who came in uninvited at the feast of 
 Simon the Pharisee, and annointed Jesus' feet, washing them 
 with her tears and wiping them with her hair (Luke 7: 36-50). 
 The Pharisee host knew her reputation, but not her penitence; 
 
2i: 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 her shame was public, but not her sorrow. The woman, whom 
 good men had spurned and bad men had trampled lower, went 
 forth from the presence of Jesus, forgiven and blessed. 
 
 There was another woman who came to Jesus in that sum- 
 mer at Capernaum — she who touched the hem of Christ's gar- 
 ment. This woman had spent her all upon physicians, and was 
 nothing better but rather worse. I believe it. From contem- 
 porary documents we know what physicians were accustomed 
 to prescribe for that trouble, and it reminds us of the suffering 
 
 THE READING MAGDALEN — (CORREGGIO) 
 
 of women through the ages with their own pains and those 
 of coming generations, while the help of men is often little 
 better than a mockery. 
 
 No wonder the poor woman was worse rather than better. 
 No wonder the Jews had a proverb, "Live not in a city whose 
 chief is a medical man," and another "The best among doctors 
 deserves Gehenna " Physicians had their value even then. 
 Their knowledge and skill were quite abreast of the age. But 
 alas for the poor woman! The only comforting fact for her was 
 that, having no more money, she was through with them. 
 
THE WOMEN FRIENDS OF JESUS 213 
 
 This poor woman came to Jesus ceremonially unclean, empty 
 of purse, and ashamed to describe her trouble. She crept up 
 in the crowd and touched the hem of his garment. Every 
 pious Jew obeyed the injunction in Numbers 15: 38, 39, and 
 wore upon his garment a fringe and cord of blue. She touched 
 
 JESUS, MARY AND MARTHA — (SCHONHERR, 1824 — ) 
 
 this; it was a mere superstition, if we please to call it so, for 
 the cloth had no merit; or it was a beautiful act of faith, if we 
 are able to see things as Jesus did. Jesus called her "Daugh- 
 ter, " though she probably was old enough to have been his 
 mother. No woman likes to be considered old. Jesus was a 
 gentleman. The healing and the gracious words alike wrought 
 
214 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 lasting blessing to the poor woman, to whom some men in her 
 own generation, and certainly the social custom of the time, 
 exhibited scant courtesy, and perhaps even less real sympathy. 
 
 She only touched the hem of his garment 
 
 As to his side she stole. 
 Amid the crowd that gathered around him, 
 
 And straightway she was whole. 
 
 He turned with ''Daughter, be of good comfort, 
 
 Thy faith hath made thee whole," 
 And peace that passeth all understanding 
 
 With gladness filled her soul. 
 
 THE FEAST AT THE HOUSE OF SIMON THE PHARISEE — (RUBENS) 
 
 The disciples wondered that the Master should be conscious 
 of a touch amid the pressure of the crowd on every side, but 
 this was not really so wonderful as it seemed to them. The 
 wonder is not the Master's perception, but the woman's faith. 
 It would have been amazing if he had not recognized the timid 
 yet hopeful touch of the hem of his Jewish robe. If any reader 
 of this chapter has ever passed through the streets of a great 
 city in the midst of a Christmas crowd, leading a little child, 
 his own child, pressing close upon him and attempting to fol- 
 
THE WOMEN FRIENDS OF JESUS 
 
 215 
 
 low his lead, he has recognized the vast difference between the 
 little one's attempt to arrest his attention and the purposeless 
 surging of the multitude. It may be a very little touch, a tug 
 at the coat, a chubby hand clasping a single finger, in fear lest 
 the father may get too far ahead, or an effort to turn him aside 
 for a moment to gaze into a window; but amid all the pushing 
 and thronging the father recognizes the touch of the hand 
 that belongs to his own little one. 
 
 There were thousands of people who thronged Christ in the 
 
 THE WOMEN FRIENDS OF JESUS — (ALEX. GOLZ) 
 
 multitude, but not many who touched him. The woman was 
 probably not the only sick person in the crowd, but she was 
 the one that found healing through her faith. We sometimes 
 get and give wrong impressions as to Christ's success with 
 men. We note, with genuine satisfaction, how he discovered 
 the hidden goodness in men and women and brought it to the 
 surface. Men who sometimes were thought unworthy and 
 hardly worth saving were found by him in all their possession 
 of latent better qualities. Jesus was the discoverer of the bet- 
 ter nature of men. Matthew never knew himself to be capable 
 
>i6 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 of anything but the business of a publican until Christ found 
 him and enabled him to write a gospel. Simon Peter sup- 
 posed himself a fisherman for life until Jesus discovered the 
 real greatness of his character. Zacchseus was considered a 
 disreputable citizen, and had a rather grim determination to 
 earn his reputation, until Jesus discovered in him the elements 
 of a noble and benevolent man. All this we are glad to re- 
 member about our Lord and the men for whom he labored, for 
 
 
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 JESUS AMONG THE PHARISEES — (jEAN BERAUD ) 
 
 the remembering of such truths as these reflects honor not 
 only to him but on the people among whom he lived. 
 
 And yet this is only half the truth. Large numbers of men 
 knew Jesus and despised him because he was a carpenter. They 
 heard him speak and turned away when they saw some Phari- 
 see sneer; they felt their hearts burn within them, but delayed 
 their invitation and he was gone. Multitudes jostled him in 
 the crowd here and there, few touched him. 
 
 The case is not wholly different to-day. We are brought, all 
 of us, into possible personal relations with Jesus; indeed we 
 
THE WOMEN FRIENDS OF JESUS 2 \J 
 
 can hardly escape him. Where shall a man go in Christendom 
 and be away from Christ? To what pursuit shall he give him- 
 self and wholly forget the Man of Nazareth? Shall he plunge 
 into law, business or politics? The words of Christ have be- 
 come axioms in these professions. Shall he go into music, 
 architecture or art? The great canvases are eloquent concern- 
 
 THE WOMAN AT THE HOUSE OF SIMON THE PHARISEE 
 (SCHOOL OF GIOTTO, I2/6-I33C) 
 
 ing him; the noblest anthems peal forth his praise; the most 
 superb architectural achievements rear their arches and lift 
 their towering spires to heaven in his name. If he would o-o 
 to literature his case would be no better, for what great book 
 does he read that does not by its contents or contrast suggest 
 the Christ? 
 
 But these things after all may make only a jostling crowd 
 in which one ever is near to Christ but never touches him. 
 
2l8 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 The man who feels in his heart the need he has of healing may 
 content himself with the mere feeling, and, having received 
 of the effects of the religion of Christ, may fail of that real pos- 
 session of his spirit, without which there is no vital Christian- 
 ity. In one case there is the mere- surging of the crowd, and 
 in the other, if we will have it so, there is the striving and the 
 seeking which bring with them the healing and the blessing. 
 With those who lived a long time ago, close personal con- 
 tact is impossible. How little we know of Jesus! We have a 
 fifteen minutes' report of one sermon, and as long a talk with 
 his disciples, and a good many incidents, brief and more or 
 less incomplete. The Bible does not pretend to give us his biog- 
 raphy. We have no picture of him. We have no trustworthy 
 description of his appearance. He lived in a time which has 
 to be interpreted to us. We need to have explained to us the 
 customs of home life and business, of weddings and funerals 
 and feasts, to understand the incidents and parables which are 
 given us. We know but a few facts of his earthly life, and 
 come at these indirectly, and have to translate them into our 
 modern language and forms of thought. We touch but the 
 hem of his garment, yet the world is healed with the touch. 
 It is true to-day as Whittier wrote: 
 
 The healing of the seamless dress 
 
 Is by our beds of pain; 
 We touch him in life's throng and press, 
 
 And we are whole again. 
 
 There was another woman whom we should remember if not 
 as a friend of Jesus at least as one who counted him her 
 friend — the mother of the young man whom the Lord restored 
 to life during this same summer. 
 
 On the northwestern edge of "Little Hermon," where it 
 slopes down into the Plain of Esdrselon, stands the little vil- 
 lage of Nain, composed of a pitiful collection of mud hovels. 
 While it does not appear ever to have been a walled city, it 
 was once larger than it is now, and a place of more importance, 
 as its rubbish heaps witness. The village is approached by a 
 rough and steep path, which appears to have been unchanged 
 
THE WOMEN FRIENDS OF JESUS 
 
 219 
 
 since the days of Jesus; and in the midst of the village stands a 
 rude little mosque, apparently occupying the site of an earlier 
 Christian church, and called "The place of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ." 
 
 To the west of the village of Nain, and on the left as one 
 approaches it from Capernaum, are rock-hewn tombs, many of 
 
 THE SON OF THE WIDOW OF NAIN — (h. HOFMANN, 1824 — ) 
 
 them ancient. The traveler entering the village from the 
 north has the whole scene brought vividly to his imagination — 
 the bier and funeral procession wending its slow and sad way 
 down this rocky path; the Lord meeting it at the entrance to 
 the narrow street, and halting the procession to recall to life 
 the widow's son. 
 
22Q 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 In Palestine the dead were buried as quickly as possible, and 
 the whole neighborhood joined in the burial service. The 
 graves were outside the cities, and were treated with respect. 
 The body was carried on a bier or in an open coffin, and borne 
 by neighbors who changed frequently to afford opportunity to 
 a larger number to participate. In Judaea the musicians and 
 hired mourners would have preceded the body, but in Galilee 
 they followed, as here described. The women came immedi- 
 ately behind the bier, since according to an old Jewish saying. 
 
 THE VILLAGE OF NAIN 
 
 woman brought death into the world, and thus should lead in 
 the procession to the grave. On the way to the grave the 
 procession frequently halted to listen to brief addresses, and at 
 the grave there was often a funeral oration. Along the way 
 the hired mourners rent the air with their cries. 
 
 Whoever met a funeral procession was expected to turn and 
 join it. Instead, our Lord halted it. Among the dishevelled 
 women with their mercenary grief, he recoenized instantly her 
 whose sorrow was real, and addressed her with the sympathetic 
 words, "Weep not." No voice that ever fell on human ears 
 
THE WOMEN FRIENDS OF JESUS 
 
 221 
 
 was so potent to dry tears; but how could she cease to weep? 
 for the dead was her only son, and she a widow. It is impos- 
 sible to tell the story in words as simple, picturesque and beau- 
 tiful as those of the Gospel narrative. 
 
 "And he came and touched the bier; and the bearers stood 
 still. And he said, Young man, I say unto thee, arise. And 
 he that was dead sat up, and began to speak. And he gave 
 him to his mother" (Luke 7: 14-16). 
 
 Only once in Scripture is Nain mentioned, and that in this 
 passage. It is quite distinct from the Nain mentioned by 
 
 CHRIST AT THE HOUSE OF LAZARUS — ( SIEMIRADSKY, 1834 — ) 
 
 Josephus (B. J. IV. ix:4), which was on the other side of the 
 Jordan. The recorded visit of Jesus occurred in the summer of 
 A. D. 28, on the day after the healing of the nobleman's son 
 in Capernaum. Jesus probably passed through the village on 
 some of his journeys, but we have no record of the fact. 
 
 This single incident gives Nain a beauty that even its pres- 
 ent squalor and filth cannot wholly destroy. Here our Lord 
 brought comfort from sorrows, and life from death. The com- 
 fort that came to the heart of the widow of Nain has come with 
 his g-ospel down the ages and flooded the sorrowing world 
 with hope. 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 THE GREAT TEACHER AND HIS PUPILS 
 
 Early in the second autumn of his ministry, Jesus began a 
 new system of instruction. At the outset he had taken John's 
 text, "The kingdom of heaven is at hand," and his preaching 
 had been propositional and didactic, as is shown by the sermon 
 on the mount. Now it became illustrative and suggestive. 
 The parable became his customary method of teaching. On 
 the first day on which he is declared to have spoken parables 
 he seems to have delivered seven or eight of those that are 
 preserved in the gospels. 
 
 No teacher ever employed the parable so naturally, so forci- 
 bly, or so effectively as Jesus. He used the things of common 
 life to illustrate its deepest spiritual truths. As he spoke, the 
 material for his illustrations was all about him. The fields 
 close at hand illustrated the four kinds of soil of the sower, and 
 showed where tares as well as wheat had grown. Mustard 
 seed, sown in the spring had grown into great herbs with birds 
 singing within hearing while he spoke. Merchants in the little 
 city close at hand were buying or selling their wares; and fish- 
 ermen near by were casting their nets, or sorting their fish. 
 Jesus did not go far away for his material, and from this time 
 on ''without a parable spake he not unto them" (Mark 4: 34). 
 
 The effect of these parables was as various as that of the 
 seed in the parable of the sower. Some heard the parables with 
 delight but obtained no spiritual benefit therefrom; some 
 thought them obscure, and heard with their ears but did not 
 understand with their hearts; some felt the rebuke of. them, but 
 were too sinful or full of prejudice to heed their truth; and 
 some eagerly grasped the truth, and were new men and women 
 from that day on. 
 
THE GREAT TEACHER AND HIS PUPILS 
 
 223 
 
 The eight parables grouped in this one report are, first, the 
 sower, illustrating the various effects of the preaching of the 
 Gospel; then that of the wheat and the tares, showing the 
 admixture of the good and the evil in the world as Jesus found 
 it; then the seed that grew day and night, illustrating the pro- 
 gressive stages of the spiritual life, the blade, the ear and the 
 full corn in the ear; then the mustard seed, illustrating- the 
 
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 THRESHING FLOOR IN PALESTINE 
 
 growth of the kingdom from little to great; then the leaven, 
 illustrating the method and principle of that growth in the 
 individual heart and in the world; then the treasure hid in the 
 field, and the pearl of great price, illustrating the supreme 
 value of the kingdom of God; and finally, the drag-net, illus- 
 trating the inevitable division among those who hear and seem 
 to heed the word, but not all of whom prove faithful. There 
 were parables of fact and of method — parables of encourage- 
 
224 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 merit and of warning — parables of promise of the coming of 
 the kingdom, which show his marvelous confidence that the 
 seed sown in the rocky soil of Galilee would overshadow the 
 nations, and that the leaven in the hearts of the little com- 
 pany of his followers, would yet leaven the whole lump. This 
 was a wonderful series of lessons, and when it was finished the 
 congregation was astonished at his doctrine, and he was weary 
 in body and in brain. 
 
 From this time till the end of his ministry the teaching of 
 Jesus was chiefly by parable. The propositional form of instruc- 
 tion was chieflv employed thenceforth for the answering of 
 questions. The parable, simple, illustrative, and yielding hid 
 treasure to the seeker, was so constantly employed that "with- 
 out a parable spake he not unto them." 
 
 On the afternoon of the same busy day on which he uttered 
 his first recorded parables, Jesus crossed the lake and was over- 
 taken by a storm on the way, and the tempest ceased at his 
 command. In the morning they came "to the other side, into 
 the country of the Gergesenes." Here two demoniacs were 
 healed, and the herd of swine ran down into the sea. The 
 people, fearful lest his visit should bring them harm, requested 
 him il to depart out of their coasts," and he withdrew (Matt. 
 8: 23-34; Mark 5: 1-20; Luke 8: 26-39). This occurred "in the 
 county of the Gadarenes," or "Gerasenes," in the region oppo- 
 site Capernaum, known as Decapolis. Jesus repeatedly crossed 
 the sea to this region, and here early had disciples. His actual 
 ministry, however, was limited by the opposition of the people 
 awakened by the loss of the swine. 
 
 Decapolis was a region named from its ten cities, which 
 Pliny tells us were Scythopolis, Hippos, Gardara, Pella, Phila- 
 delphia, Gerasa, Dion, Canatha, Damascus, and Raphana. The 
 region included all Bashan and Gilead. The ten cities were 
 allied for purposes of defense and trade, as w~re many similar 
 groups in the Roman Empire. It is probable that Greeks 
 made up a considerable part of the population of the colony, 
 as the presence of swine would indicate. Swine are compara- 
 tively uncommon in Palestine to-day, but T saw a few on the 
 
THE GREAT TEACHER AND HIS PUPILS 
 
 225 
 
 shore of the Sea of Galilee, not far from the place where the 
 herd ran down, and their presence at once suggested the nar- 
 rative. Few travelers go far into Decapolis, and those who do 
 
 JESUS TEACHING IN THE SYNAGOGUE 
 
 (CORWIN KNAPP LINSON) 
 
 (.COURTESY OF S. S. m'CLURE CO.) 
 
 soon leave behind religious associations. There are abundant 
 reminders of early Roman power. Among the ruins of ancient 
 cities the inhabitants, many of them Circassian colonists, dig 
 
226 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 for coins, pottery and glass, and build into the walls of their 
 huts carved stones and mosaics of two thousand years ago. 
 
 The scenes of Biblical interest, however, lie near the lake 
 shore, in a region whose hills look barren and uninviting com- 
 pared to those of the Galilee side, and where the swine could 
 have choice of several excellent places for their descent. 
 
 In the winter of A. D. 28-9, Jesus went about on his third 
 preaching tour (Matt. 9:35; Mark 6:6). It is probable that 
 this tour brought him again to Nazareth, and that, while not 
 threatened with personal violence as before, he met indiffer- 
 ence and contempt. His mighty works aroused some wonder, 
 but little real faith (Matt. 13 :S4-S8; Mark 6: 1-6). 
 
 Jesus understood well by this time the certain opposition 
 that awaited him, and the feeble assistance that he could 
 expect from many of his professed followers. He talked sternly 
 to several half-hearted disciples, who, on one pretext or 
 another, sought delay or excuse (Matt. 8: 18-22; Luke 9: 51- 
 60). Because of the urgency of his work now, and also its 
 inevitable limitations, he could attempt nothing more than a 
 mission to "the lost sheep of the house of Israel," and this 
 would call for the utmost efforts of himself and his disciples. 
 The harvest was great and the laborers were few. 
 
 Few indeed they were. John, the heroic herald, was near 
 the end of his life, still in prison, and soon to die. Jesus him- 
 self would not have long to work. He had few friends whom 
 he could depend upon; but he called the twelve whom he had 
 chosen four or five months before, and sent them out in pairs 
 on independent preaching tours. They must soon be left to 
 work in the world, and it was none too soon for them to be 
 learning how; so he sent them forth (Mat. 9:36; n: 1; Mark 
 6: 7-13; Luke 9: 1-6). 
 
 All the disciples had now been for six months, and several 
 of them for a much longer period, under the instruction of 
 Jesus. They were now to go forth and teach others what they 
 had learned. It was a double advantage for them to do this, 
 for in teaching they learned while they were imparting. He 
 is a poor teacher who does not learn more than any of his 
 
THE GREAT TEACHER AND HIS PUPILS 
 
 22J 
 
 pupils. The apostles were learning how to teach the world — 
 and they learned. 
 
 It is well, doubtless, for us to drop the title "Saint," without 
 which many good people do not speak or write the names of 
 the apostles or evangelists, and speak of them familiarly as 
 "Peter," Matthew," "James" and "John." But they were 
 
 JESUS STILLING THE TEMPEST — (dORE, 1833-1883) 
 
 saints, nevertheless, albeit very human and imperfect saints. 
 How great is our debt to them! Had they failed to remember 
 and repeat the words of Jesus, we should hardly have heard of 
 him; had they forsaken him when the multitudes left him, we 
 could hardlv have believed in him. There is a real apostolic 
 succession, that of the spirit; for we are built on the founda- 
 
228 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 tion of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being 
 the chief corner-stone. These men treasured the words of Jesus 
 even when it is evident that they did not understand them. 
 Some of these utterances are so terse and epigrammatic that 
 once heard they are ever remembered; the apostles thus 
 remembered and recorded them. Some are of such profound 
 wisdom that no man could have invented them; the apostles 
 wrote them and the world is enriched. Some are so astounding 
 that no one but Jesus would have dared to utter them; the 
 apostles recorded them, and history has verified the words. 
 
 John tells us that, though his Gospel was added as a supple- 
 ment to the others, it is far from completing the account of the 
 life of Christ. He tells us that there are many other things 
 which Jesus did, and doubtless said, not recorded in the Gos- 
 pels. The question has often been asked whether we have any of 
 these words of Jesus, unrecorded by the evangelists. Certainly 
 we have one of them, Paul tells us to "Remember the words of 
 the Lord Jesus, how he saith, It is more blessed to give than 
 to receive." These words are not found in the Gospels. They 
 were doubtless familiar to the disciples, however, for Paul's 
 use of them implies previous knowledge. Either they were 
 treasured in memory and transmitted orally, or they existed 
 in some collection of detached "Logia" or "sayings," of Jesus. 
 There is a good deal of reason to believe that such a coliectiDn 
 of "sayings" existed. A few years ago a papyrus leaf, discov- 
 ered at Oxyrhynchus in Egypt, and. dating from the earliest 
 Christian centuries, seemed to bring down to us a scrap of such 
 a collection. Besides this, the early Church fathers preserved 
 several alleged "sayings" of Jesus. 
 
 There is no inherent improbability in the genuineness of 
 these sayings. They are as likely to be authentic as sayings of 
 Socrates or Caesar similarly preserved. The sources from which 
 they come to us arc not uniformly trustworthy, and the "say- 
 ings" vary in value. Many of them are mere varieties or en- 
 largements of words from the Gospels. The whole collection 
 shows us how poor and incomplete would be our knowledge 
 of the words of Jesus if we had to trust to these extra Biblical 
 sources. 
 
THE GREAT TEACHER AND HIS PUPILS 
 
 22Q 
 
 From about sixty such "sayings" that have been culled out 
 of early writings by modern scholars, I have selected the fol- 
 lowing list, containing the best of these sayings, and those 
 that rest on the best evidence. 
 
 i. Remember the words (logon) of the Lord Jesus, how he 
 saith. It is more blessed to give than to receive. — Acts 20: 35. 
 
 
 
 
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 r 
 
 
 - 
 
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 •:■-.■■-■■.'■-■ 
 
 ■ & ■ : ~- . '"" ■". '• ■ -. 
 
 -• 
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 - v * 
 
 • - \- 
 
 - f 
 
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 THE HAND TO THE PLOW 
 
 2. Behold I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth 
 and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his 
 shame. — Rev. 16: 15. 
 
 3. On the same day, having seen one working on the Sab- 
 bath, he said to him, O man, if indeed thou knowest what thou 
 doest, thou art blessed; but if thou knowest not, thou art 
 cursed, and art a transgressor of the law. — A remarkable addi- 
 tion to Luke 4: 4 found in one ancient MS., the Codex Bezse. 
 
230 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 called Codex D, which dates from about 500 A. D. The quota- 
 tion appears to be still more ancient than the manuscript. 
 
 4. In whatsoever state I find you, in that will I also judge 
 you. — Justin Martyr, who died about 166. 
 
 5. Ask for that which is great, and that which is little shall 
 be added unto you. — Clement of Alexandria, about 200 A. D. 
 
 6. Prove yourselves tried money changers. — Clement of 
 Alexandria and others. 
 
 7. The Son of God saith, Let us resist all iniquity, and hold 
 it in hatred. 
 
 8. Thus he saith, Those who wish to see me and lay hold 
 on my kingdom must receive me by affliction and suffering. — 
 Barnabas. 
 
 9. But ye seek to increase from little, and from greater to 
 be less. — Codex Bezae, called Codex D., after Matt. 20: 28; 
 also the Latin and Syriac versions. 
 
 10. Woe to him who has saddened his brother's spirit. — 
 Gospel of the Hebrews, now lost but once highly valued in the 
 Church; this fragment is quoted by Jerome who died 420. 
 
 n. Never be joyful save when you look upon your brother 
 in love. — Gospel of Hebrews, quoted by Jerome. 
 
 12. He that wonders shall reign, and he that reigns shall 
 rest. Look with wonder at that which is before you. — Clement 
 of Alexandria. 
 
 13. I came to put an end to sacrifices, and unless ye cease 
 from sacrificing, God's anger will not cease from you. — Gospel 
 of the Ebionites, supposed to have been a variation of Mat- 
 thew. The sect disappeared in the fourth century. This pas- 
 sage is quoted by Epiphanius, about 367, A. D. He died 403. 
 
 14. Jesus saith to his disciples, Ask great things and the 
 small shall be added unto you; and ask heavenly things and 
 the earthly shall be added unto you. — Origen, who died 253. 
 
 15. The Saviour himself saith, He who is near me is near 
 the fire; and he who is far from me is far from the kingdom. 
 — Origen. 
 
 16. The Lord says, Keep the flesh pure, and the seal 
 unspotted, that ye may receive eternal life. — Clement of Rome, 
 
THE GREAT TEACHER AND HIS PUPILS 
 
 231 
 
 supposed to have been mentioned by Paul in Phil. 4: 3; wrote 
 his epistle about 97. 
 
 17. Jesus saith, For those that are sick I was sick, and for 
 those that hunger I suffered hunger, and for those that thirst 
 I suffered thirst. — Origen. 
 
 18. It was not through unwillingness to impart his bless- 
 ings that the Lord announced in some Gospel or other: My 
 mystery is for me and the sons of my house. We remember 
 
 A FAMILIAR SCENE IN PALESTINE 
 
 our Lord and Master how he said to us: Keep my mysteries 
 for me and the sons of my house. — Clement of Alexandria. 
 
 19. I will select to myself those things: Very, very excel- 
 lent are those whom my Father in heaven has given to me. — 
 Quoted from Eusebius, about 325, from "The Gospel existing 
 among the Jews in the Hebrew Tongue." 
 
 20. Peter says that the Lord said to his apostles: Should 
 then any one of Israel be willing to repent, so as to believe 
 
232 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 upon God through my name, his sins shall be forgiven him. 
 After twelve years go ye out into the world, lest anyone say, 
 "We did not hear." — Clement of Alexandria. 
 
 21. There are also a number of ancient additions to inci- 
 dents in the Gospels, with amplifications of the words of Jesus 
 as there recorded. Such additions are most easily accounted 
 for of all textual variations, and are generally to be distrusted, 
 the rule of textual critics being to prefer the shorter reading. 
 One of the most ancient and least improbable of these is found 
 in Clement of Rome, where Peter answers Jesus, saying: "Ye 
 shall be as lambs in the midst of wolves," with the question, 
 "But what if the wolves tear the lambs?" and Jesus answers, 
 "Let the lambs not fear that the wolves can hurt them after 
 they are dead; and do not fear those that kill you and can do 
 no more to you, but fear him who, after you are dead, hath 
 power over soul and body to cast them into hell." 
 
 22. The only similar addition that seems worth quoting is 
 an insertion in the story of the rich young man. "The Lord 
 saith to him: How sayest thou, I have kept the law and the 
 prophets, for it is written in the law, Thou shalt love thy neigh- 
 bor as thyself, and lo, there are many brothers of thine, sons 
 of Abraham, covered with dung and dying with hunger, and 
 thy house full of many good things, and yet not one goes out 
 from it to them. — Gospel to the Hebrews, as quoted by 
 Origen. 
 
 23. To this interesting list may be added, with strong pos- 
 sibility that they are among the "many other things" that 
 Tesus said, the "sayings" recorded on the ancient papyrus leaf 
 discovered in 1897 in the ruins of Oxyrhynchus in Egypt: 
 
 a. The first is a part of the saying found in Matthew 7:5: 
 "And then thou shalt see clearly to cast out the mote that is 
 in thy brother's eye." 
 
 b. "Jesus saith, Except ye fast to the world, ye shall in 
 no wise find the kingdom of God; and except ye keep the Sab- 
 bath, ye shall not see the Father." 
 
 c. "Tesus saith, T stood in the midst of the world, and in 
 the flesh was T seen of them, and I found all men drunken, and 
 
THE GREAT TEACHER AND HIS PUPILS 
 
 233 
 
 none have I found athirst among them; and my soul grieveth 
 over the sons of men because they are blind in their heart/' 
 
 d. 4 ' * * :|: * p o v e r t y * * * * ' ' 
 
 e. "Jesus saith, Wherever they are * * and there is one 
 * * alone, I am with him. Raise the stone, and thou shalt 
 find me. Cleave the wood, and there am L" 
 
 EGYPTIAN PAPYRUS CONTAINING SAYINGS OF JESUS 
 DISCOVERED AT OXYRHYNCHUS, l8g7 
 
 f. "Jesus saith, A prophet is not acceptable in his own 
 country, neither doth a physician work cures upon them that 
 know him." 
 
 g. "Jesus saith, A city built on the top of a high hill and 
 established can neither fall nor be hid." 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 
 THE BOY WITH THE BASKET 
 
 The winter passed, and spring came again, and with it came 
 a new period of popularity for Jesus, a period brief, but almost 
 overwhelming. The twelve apostles on their missionary tours 
 had advertised him widely. When passover time drew near, 
 multitudes of pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem, crowded 
 upon him, eager to see and hear him, and curious to witness 
 some mighty work. Jesus and his disciples endured the 
 throngs till they were crowded out of house and home, having 
 no place or time even to eat; and then they retreated to the 
 other side of the lake, to the region of Bethsaida. Here the 
 multitudes followed them, and Jesus wrought the only miracle 
 recorded in all four of the Gospels, the feeding of the five 
 thousand. 
 
 We have seen that there probably was a Bethsaida near 
 Capernaum. There was certainly another Bethsaida, the "Beth- 
 saida Julias/' east of the Jordan, referred to by Josephus (Ant. 
 XVIII. 2:1; 4:6; B. J. II. 9:1; III. 10:7; Life 71, 72, 73), 
 and Jerome (Commentary on Matthew 16: 13). This is the 
 Bethsaida of Luke 9: 10, near the "desert place'* mentioned in 
 Matt. 14:13 and Mark 6:31, where the five thousand were 
 fed. George Adam Smith supposes a single town divided 
 by the Jordan, but this hardly fills the necessities of the descrip- 
 tion. Some of the incidents seem to require a Bethsaida near 
 Capernaum on the western side of the Sea of Galilee. The 
 feeding of the five thousand occurred on the eastern side, and 
 as Luke 19: 10 tells us near to Bethsaida. The site of the city 
 is discernible on the slope of the hills near the mouth of the 
 Jordan and above it on the table land. It is a "desert place, " 
 that is, uncultivated, which at this season of the year would 
 
 234 
 
THE BOY WITH THE BASKET 235 
 
 be green with spring grass. Thus it was when I saw it in 
 March, and a beautiful place for a large gathering. Later in 
 the season the grass would be dried by the sun, and the place 
 hot and bare. Near here, probably, also the four thousand 
 were fed, and from here Jesus sailed "to the parts of Dalmanu- 
 tha" in the borders of Magdala, returning "to the other side'* 
 to Bethsaida (Matt. 15:32-39; Mark 8: 1-22). Here he healed 
 the blind man (Mark 8: 22), first, however, leading him out of 
 the village, and commanding him not to re-enter it, as he 
 desired to avoid the publicity of a miracle. 
 
 "Come ye yourselves apart unto a desert place, and rest 
 awhile." So said the Master to his disciples; and both he and 
 they needed a vacation. 
 
 The Gospels suggest three reasons for this rest-time. 
 
 The first is that Jesus had heard of the death of John the 
 Baptist (Matt. 14: 13). In that event he doubtless recognized 
 a possible danger to himself, and he was moved with a peculiar 
 sorrow over the murder of his kinsman and friend. 
 
 The second is that the apostles had returned from their 
 preaching expeditions (Mark 6: 30), and doubtless needed rest, 
 as well as opportunity to report to him undisturbed, and to 
 receive from him instructions for future labor. 
 
 The third is that "There were many coming and going, and 
 they had no leisure so much as to eat" (Mark 6: 31). 
 
 The presence of the crowd is explained by John, who tells 
 us that the passover was at hand (John 6: 4). Jesus and his 
 disciples did not attend it (John 7: 1), but took that time, when 
 the religious life of the nation was most intense, but when their 
 own work was at a momentary halt, for needed rest. 
 
 That our Lord did not obtain the rest he sought is no argu- 
 ment against vacations. Several times during his ministry he 
 withdrew himself for quiet, and the rest needed at this time 
 was probably secured a few days later, when the crowds had 
 passed through Galilee and were at Jerusalem. 
 
 But vacations have their duties. The disciples did not rest 
 undisturbed by obligation. There is no place on earth where 
 we may escape from man's needs; no desert that is void of duty. 
 
236 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 The disciples soon were busy. God has no heaven in which we 
 shall be perpetually idle; both there and here are rest and ser- 
 vice. And there is no surer test of Christian character than 
 that afforded by a period of rest. 
 
 It is only in blessed activity that the soul finds rest. ''Come 
 unto me, and I will give you rest," says our Lord. The relig- 
 ion of Christ has little in it that can comfort a lazy Christian. 
 
 The crowd came around the head of the lake, curious and 
 exacting. It was to escape this crowd he had gone away, but 
 he was moved with compassion toward the multitude (Mark 
 6: 34). He was hungry himself; but it was not of his own 
 hunger that he thought. He was suffering great sorrow for 
 the death of a friend; but it was the sorrows of others that 
 moved him. He was weary, and in need of rest; yet with 
 unresting toil he gave rest to those who were weary and had 
 come unto him. 
 
 Who were this rabble, anyway? Thev were ready to crown 
 him, or would be if he would feed them; but this very incident 
 became the occasion of his teaching them truth so plain that 
 they shrank from the sacrifice which his service might involve. 
 "From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked 
 no more with him" (John 6:66). "From that time," of all 
 times in his life! This fickle, unstable crowd, intruding upon 
 his quiet, this reckless, improvident horde of curious people — 
 he was moved with compassion for them! It was just a year 
 before his crucifixion. Some of this same crowd of Galilean 
 pilgrims were doubtless of those that would shout, "Hosanna" 
 a year hence, and, "Crucify him!" before the week was over; 
 vet he had compassion upon them. 
 
 It was the crisis of his ministry. The "year of obscurity" was 
 over; the "year of popularity" was closing; the scribes and 
 priests at Jerusalem were already bitterly hostile; but one thing 
 could save him from their machinations, and that was a strong, 
 popular following, so constant that the officials dared not 
 brook it. Jesus looked upon this throng. Here were "the 
 people" whom the officials feared. Could he be sure of them? 
 Would thev stand bv him? Thev were eager to make him 
 
THE BOY WITH THE BASKET 
 
 237 
 
 king-; but would they support him in the crises of his real mis- 
 sion? He had never needed the support of a multitude so 
 much as now. By their thronging him they were endangering 
 his life unless they were ready to support him. He knew that 
 they were fickle, unreliable, vet they were as sheep without a 
 shepherd, and he, the Good Shepherd, taught them, weary as 
 he was. He bore their sorrows, sorrowing, as lie was. He 
 healed their sickness, heartsick as he was. He fed them, 
 hungry as he was. He had, he has, compassion on the shep- 
 herdless multitude, and seeks the lost sheep "until lie finds it." 
 
 THE MULTIPLICATION CF THE U IAVES— ( M UKILLO, l6l/-l68.2j 
 
 It were an easy duty to be kind to the grateful, to help the 
 appreciative; to heal the useful, and to save the promising. 
 But the Christian must be kind to the unthankful; the soul 
 winner must labor for the hopeless; the physician must save 
 the life that can never be a strong life or, so far as he can 
 see, a useful one. The duty of compassion is not fulfilled by 
 an easy-going sympathy that mildly wishes well; a feeling of 
 compassion is needed that can move one to loving service for 
 Christ's sake. Dominic the monk, moved with compassion 
 for a woman whose husband was enslaved by the Moors, would 
 have sold himself to redeem the prisoner. A compassion that 
 bears the grief and sin of others — this is the kind that saves. 
 
238 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 To trust the people, to love the world, to have faith in man 
 as man; all this might have seemed perilous. Yet the kingdom 
 of God is also a democracy, and Jesus awaits for his ultimate 
 coronation not only the will of heaven but the voluntary choice 
 of men. Nor shall it fail. Fickle, unstable as men are, his love 
 will win, in winning, has won them. His compassion on the 
 multitude has justified itself already. And at length in the 
 midst of a great multitude whom no man can number, saved 
 by his compassion, we shall more than fulfil the dream of the 
 Galilsean throng. By unanimous suffrage of redeemed human- 
 ity we shall crown him King of kings. 
 
 Dr. Horace Bushnell had a great sermon on the text "Give 
 ye them to eat." He showed, or tried to show, that our obli- 
 gation is not limited by our ability. The disciples had not the 
 ability to feed the crowd, yet Christ commanded them to do 
 so. Here, clearly. Dr. Bushnell affirmed, the requirement was 
 greater than the power of the disciples to perform. He went 
 on to show how power grows by the exercise of power, and 
 how sudden strength comes with the emergency — strength 
 in excess of that which we have previously possessed. Alas, 
 how many people fail to undertake what they really could do if 
 they thought they could! According to your faith, be it unto 
 you. 
 
 We will not dispute with Dr. Bushnell over the meaning of 
 words — he himself maintained that word meanings are very 
 flexible. Probably in strict use of language the contention 
 would not hold. Strictly speaking, obligation is always meas- 
 ured by ability. 
 
 And the fact that God imposes a duty is assurance that God 
 will furnish the strength to perform it. Blessed is he who 
 believes in God and attempts the impossible! Such have been 
 the men whom the world honors. Such are her discoverers, 
 her inventors, her prophets. It is easy enough to show that 
 the thing that ought to be done is impossible; blessed is the 
 man who hears the command of God, and knows that the 
 thing that ought to be can be. 
 
 A wise man was proving to other wise men that no steamer 
 
THE BOY WITH THE BASKET 
 
 239 
 
 could cross the ocean, when the news came that the first 
 steamer was across. A certain noted general was in the very 
 act of explaining to a Congressional committee why a certain 
 fort which he had been sent to attack could not be taken by the 
 force at his command, when the newsboys outside began to 
 shout the news of a Union victory in the fall of the very fort 
 
 JESUS THE CHRIST — (MUNKACSY, 1846 — ) 
 
 which he counted impregnable. Impossible the duty laid upon 
 us? Then let us go and perform it. 
 
 Already, apparently, Jesus had raised the question to Philip, 
 "Where shall we buy bread?" (John 6: 5.) Apparently it was 
 not an unheard-of thing for our Lord and his disciples to pro- 
 
240 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 vide entertainment for those who came from afar. They seem 
 to have been prepared for reasonable expenditure necessitated 
 by a generous hospitality. 
 
 "Two hundred pennyworth of bread is not sufficient for 
 them, that every one of them may take a little," said Philip. 
 It is one of the few hints we have of the financial condition of 
 the apostolic company. Two hundred denarii, this was Philip's 
 ready calculation, about thirty dollars, but having the purchas- 
 ing power of perhaps two hundred dollars. A denarius was a 
 day's wages. We have no reason to suppose that our Lord 
 and his apostles were living in poverty. Some of them had 
 been men of some means, owning their boats and doing a good 
 business. Besides, this was the time of our Lord's popularity, 
 and his friends had doubtless contributed money from time to 
 time. Two hundred dollars was not an excessive amount to 
 have on hand for a family of thirteen in travel, but it was a 
 comfortable sum. "If we should give all we have/' Philip 
 would seem to say, "it would give each man a morsel." The 
 problem is to furnish a dinner at about four cents a plate. 
 Philip was right. Yet let not the disciples withhold because 
 it will take all they have. Duty sometimes requires just that, 
 even though the multitude still are but partly fed. 
 
 Sometimes, we need to remember, the Lord calls on his dis- 
 ciples for the two hundred pence. He does not always work 
 a miracle. We do well to figure, as Philip did, how much can 
 be accomplished if we give our utmost. Yet we are never 
 safe in assuming that our all is God's only resource. These 
 three things avail for the feeding of the souls of men; human- 
 ity's hoard of common good; the power and grace of God; and 
 the contents of the individual life. 
 
 When we have given our all, we may be sure that God will 
 find a way to use us. A rich man's son offered his life to his 
 country in the time of the Spanish war. He was kept at 
 Chickamauga all through the war, shoeing horses. It was his 
 place of service, and he gave his effort just as faithfully, just 
 as heroically, as if on the battle field, and perhaps more so. 
 Perhaps more so? Yes, T rather think so. It is easier for us 
 
THE BOY WITH THE BASKET 241 
 
 sometimes to fight than to shoe horses. It takes less grace, 
 sometimes, to count out our two hundred pence and see it 
 acknowledged in the Missionary Herald, than to see the Mas- 
 ter select for signal honor the man who has no pence at all, 
 but only the basket of loaves and fishes. 
 
 To give to our Master our best, our all, and then to serve in 
 the way he shows us — this is sacrifice perfected. The disciples 
 were not called upon at this time to do this, but the call came 
 both before and after to forsake all for his sake. On this occa- 
 sion the call to give his all came to one person only — the boy 
 with the basket. He gave his all — we shall see what came of it. 
 
 "There is a lad here!" Then the case is not altogether hope- 
 less! There are always wonderful possibilities in a boy. How 
 often his friends talk of him as a bother, but in emergencies 
 they turn to him. 
 
 His occasional absence when needed ought to emphasize 
 his convenience at other times, for no boy is always at hand, 
 except be lie a cripple, poor fellow! A normal, healthy boy 
 must find many places to be in, and even he cannot be in many 
 at once. But considering the number of the places where he 
 must be, and the variety of interests which he must care for, 
 it is rather surprising that he is so often at hand. 
 
 And, oh, the errands he runs, and the wood and water he 
 carries, and the potatoes he digs when the supply is short and 
 dinner likely to be late — even now manv a household would 
 go hungry if no boy were at hand to supplement a scant meal 
 by a mission to the garden or the grocery. Blessings on the 
 boy, the meddlesome, noisy, thoughtless, impulsive, affection- 
 ate, generous, ever-ready, indispensable boy! 
 
 Blessed be Andrew, the discoverer of the lad with the bas- 
 ket ! He did not know that the boy could aid them, but no 
 one knows that a boy cannot help in any given emergency. A 
 boy is a creature of wonderful versatility. 
 
 We face the problems of the future sometimes with anx- 
 iety. Great and many are they, and the men on whom we have 
 leaned grow old and die. But the case is not yet hopeless. 
 There is a lad here, and tomorrow he will be a man! Bless 
 
242 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 you, my boy! All our hopes center in you! Come, let us see 
 what is in your basket! 
 
 We read of the flood in Grand Rapids a few summers since, 
 and wondered why the breaking of a reservoir just at dawn, 
 and the pouring of a torrent down a valley filled with houses, 
 should have resulted in so little loss of life. There was a lad 
 there! The newsboy, delivering his early papers and detecting 
 the leak that soon was to be a yawning chasm in the wall of 
 the reservoir, with a whirling flood rushing through amain, 
 roused the people as he went, and saved, God only knows how 
 manv lives. There was a lad there, and so ten thousand peo- 
 ple escaped with their lives. There was a lad there of old, and 
 so five thousand people were fed. God bless the boy! 
 
 That boy sitting beside the fire and watching the kettle 
 cover as the steam lifts it, will yet invent a steam engine. That 
 boy in a log cabin, defending the weak with his great strength, 
 and pitying with his large heart the needy and the suffering, 
 whether man or beast, shall yet free four millions of bondmen. 
 And yonder boy — who knows what good he yet may do? God 
 bless the boy! 
 
 The boy as well as the disciples must have asked the ques- 
 tion, "What are they among so many?" Unless, indeed, he 
 never thought of the crowd. He had only enough for one, 
 and what one in all the company had a better right to it? Who 
 has so good a right to the boy's basket as the boy himself? 
 The world has the larger claim upon your basket, my boy, and 
 it is none too soon for you to learn it! 
 
 Thank God for the basket! It is not wholly the boy's own, 
 anyway. The prudence of the good mother at home pro- 
 vided the loaves and the fishes. Teachers and parents and 
 friends and all past ages have been filling the basket against 
 the world's need. Our life is a basket and the Master needs it. 
 
 I do not know how much that boy knew about the Master. 
 I presume that he thought his basket was to provide a dinner 
 for Jesus. Now, no healthy boy gives up his dinner for any- 
 body without a struggle. To provide a dinner even for Jesus 
 by giving of his own — and all the boys must have liked him — 
 
THE BOY WITH THE BASKET 
 
 243 
 
 involved a sacrifice. I am glad that it was a boy that did it. 
 It was just like him. He was hungry, as boys are, but gen- 
 erous, as boys are; and he loved the Master as manly boys do 
 when they know and understand him. Not every boy would 
 
 CHRIST THE COMPASSIONATE— (RAPHAEL. I483-I520) 
 
 have done it, but no one would have been more likely to do 
 it than a boy. 
 
 "What are they among so many?" The boy does not know. 
 He has done one boy's duty, and is content. Here he comes, 
 blushing and eager, hungry yet happy, and Andrew leads him, 
 basket and all, to the Master! A proud moment for you, my 
 hungry little fellow, when the Master smiles on you! He who 
 
244 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 has gone hungry for the Master's sake, or that the multitude 
 may be fed, begins to know the spirit of him who came to be 
 the Bread of Life; and the Master's approval — oh, that the 
 world could believe it is better than the bread that perishes! 
 
 "What are they among so many?" What are Moffat's loaves 
 among the degraded multitudes of Africa? Yet he breaks 
 them, and thousands eat, and are filled. What are Robert 
 Morrison's loaves among the millions of China? Yet multi- 
 tudes hear the gospel through his efforts. Behold the teeming 
 hordes of India; yonder is an unlettered shoemaker, William 
 Carey. What has he in his basket for the many who hunger 
 there? Be patient till the Master breaks the loaves. Now 
 behold in the unlearned man, the translator of books, the 
 founder of schools, the originator of industries, the creator of 
 a new order of society! Unlearned, did you say? Before he 
 died he was a professor of Sanskrit, Bengali, and Marathi, a 
 writer of scientific articles for wise and dignified quarterlies, a 
 member of learned societies in London, and much more. And 
 into twenty-four languages and dialects of India he translated 
 the Word of God. The Bible miracle grows small by compari- 
 son. The miracles of the multiplication of the Bread of life 
 are greater. 
 
 The law of supply and demand holds in the spiritual life. 
 Jesus gave the people bread because they needed it and wanted 
 it. He did not give them spiritual grace, though they needed 
 it, because they did not demand it. Emerson quotes God as 
 saying. "What do you want? Pay for it and take it." God has 
 both kinds of bread. It is a question which the people want. 
 
 Our excessive care for the body is pathetic. Many of our 
 systems of healing, whether by prayer or patent medicine, rise 
 but little above the inherent vulgarity of the Egyptians' em- 
 balming of the spiritless body. Bread and the circus was the 
 sum of the demand of the Roman populace; the people got 
 both, and Rome went down. 
 
 "And they did eat, and were all filled." They all ate fish and 
 bread — the same food that was in the basket; but more of it. 
 The miracle did not change the quality. Doubtless, variety 
 
THE BOY WITH THE BASKET 
 
 ^4S 
 
 would have been pleasant, and would have seemed easy. But 
 he who taught men to pray for daily bread was content to 
 provide life's necessities. It was not that he grudged the lux- 
 uries — he could make wine, on occasion, and wine, whatever 
 its quality, is no necessity. But the necessities of life are the 
 real needs, and should call for the deepest gratitude. 
 
 Butter costs more than bread, and sauce more than butter. 
 The luxuries increase in cost in proportion to their superfluity. 
 Provisions for the real needs of men are the most abundant 
 and the cheapest. 
 
 Yet how many of us, having bread and fish, have thanked 
 God with sweet content? How often we have teased him for 
 superfluous things, having already abundance for life's necessi- 
 ties! The people, fed by Jesus, are quite ready to quote Moses, 
 and to covet manna; and no people ever grew more rebellious 
 over the monotony of their food than those to whom Moses 
 gave bread from heaven. 
 
 Jesus gave them nothing better; because, first, he gave what 
 was brought him; secondly, he gave what the people needed 
 most; and thirdly, it was all that it was safe to give them lest 
 their well-fed patriotism should cause them to rush into insur- 
 rection for a King who could give cake as well as bread. 
 
 And thev were filled — until tomorrow! 
 
 But still they were empty of the righteousness for which 
 thev did not even hunger and thirst, yet for which their souls 
 were starving! 
 
 The ancient Greeks lived on acorns, but when they learned 
 the arts of wheat culture and bread-making, they discarded 
 their former food, and lived on the better and more nutritious 
 bread which thev had now discovered. YVe have no occasion 
 to despise God's temporal gifts, but every reason to be grateful 
 for them. But alas for him whose hunger for the acorn is such 
 that he never discovers the wheat, and a thousand times more, 
 alas, for the man who fills his life with the bread of earth and 
 hungers not for the Bread of heaven. 
 
 Bread can never satisfy. A young man in Chicago cornered 
 the whea 1 : market, and owned more breadstuffs than any man 
 
246 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 since creation. He was not made happy thereby. The market 
 turned and left him a poorer and a wiser man. But he who 
 seeks the Bread of life, finds it. There are men who are starv- 
 ing, and are in a delusion, "as when a hungry man dreameth, 
 and behold he eateth; but he awaketh, and his soul is 
 empty." But the spiritual gifts of God fail not to those who 
 hunger for them. 
 
 Whose were the baskets that were filled? We do not know. 
 Tt is well that the miracle was unexpected, else doubtless the 
 people least likely to have contributed anything to the feast 
 had been there with empty baskets. It was probably those 
 who had been provident and also generous who had baskets for 
 the gathered bread. There was one basket at hand of which 
 we know, and that, we may be sure, was filled among the rest. 
 It was nearest to the place where the Master sat, for from it 
 had come forth the loaves and the fishes; and it requires but 
 little wisdom beyond what is written to feel sure that it was 
 the first one filled. 
 
 Ah lad, who didst give with thought of sacrifice, not hoping 
 to receive again, thine now is this almost superfluous joyf 
 Great had been thy pleasure, even hadst thou given and re- 
 ceived not, for all thy life thou shouldst have remembered that 
 thou, with the Saviour, didst feed the hungry! But this is now 
 thine added joy, that more than thou gavest has come back to 
 thee! 
 
 We have read the poem of Sir Ralph the Rover and the 
 Inchcape Rock; how the cruel pirate cut off the bell that had 
 been a warning to seamen, and sailed back in after years and 
 was wrecked on that same rock. We have read in a good old 
 Book of men falling into the pit which they dug for the feet 
 of others. We have heard the proverb that "Curses, like 
 chickens, come home to roost." Poems and proverbs grow out 
 of long observation, and a consensus of experience. 
 
 On the other hand, we have heard of the rich, benevolent 
 woman who founded a home for worthy old women, and 
 through the subsequent loss of her property found a home 
 there. Had she sought an investment to provide for the vicis- 
 
THE BOY WITH THE BASKET 247 
 
 situdes of her own life she could not have found a better one. 
 And examples such as this are not few to illustrate God's 
 method of blessing him who makes himself a blessing. 
 
 God makes goodness almost dangerously profitable. That 
 the bread cast on the waters will come back is as certain as is 
 consistent with true benevolence in giving it. 
 
 It is well that a prompt return with compound interest does 
 not always attend one's earthly giving, else would generosity 
 become the world's most chronic vice, and the inevitable symp- 
 tom of covetousness. It is more blessed to give than to 
 receive, and there is no real giving that gives to receive again. 
 So he never gives who gives only what he possesses — he must 
 give himself. 
 
 Not. what we give, but what we share. 
 For the gift without the giver is bare. 
 
 But as one candle lights another and finds its own light 
 undimmed, so may one soul impart to another soul, love, gen- 
 tleness, kindness, instruction, encouragement, comfort — every 
 spiritual gift, and be the richer for the giving. "There is that 
 scattereth, and yet increaseth; there is that withholdeth more 
 than is meet, and it tendeth to poverty." 
 
 The boy with the basket might have hidden and eaten his 
 five crackers and two dried fish alone. So would he have 
 starved his soul and his fellowmen's bodies. But he made him- 
 self immortal, and heaped his own basket to overflowing by 
 an act of unsparing generosity in the Lord's sendee. 
 
 Miracles must not tend to wastefulness.' The miraculous is 
 not to be depended upon as a constant source of supply. 
 To-day it avails — thank God and make the most of it. But 
 for to-morrow we must have recourse to the ordinary channels 
 of provision. Let down your nets, and start the mill and fire 
 up the oven; for God will see you starve ere he makes you a 
 pauper by miracle. 
 
 God uses the miraculous sparingly, and then with admoni- 
 tions of caution. It were easy for the supernatural to prove 
 a snare to us, teaching us to disregard the divine sequence of 
 cause and effect, and encouraging us in idleness and improvi- 
 
248 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 dence. It is not miracles we need so much as the utilization of 
 the good we now despise because it is in fragments. The frag- 
 ments are capable of filling to overflowing all the baskets 
 which we can provide. Fragments of knowledge — gather 
 them up into a storehouse of truth, bringing out of this treas- 
 ure things new and old. Fragments of time — do not waste 
 them; they are little fractions of eternity. Fragments of joy. 
 never quite enough to satisfy the longings of the heart and 
 sometimes mocking the perfect bliss for which we sigh — 
 gather them up and make of them a mosaic of happiness for 
 your own life and the lives of others. Fragments of Scripture 
 verses learned in childhood from sainted parents, or gathered 
 in maturer years of reading and meditation — gather them up, 
 and make them a strength and a solace in the hours when you 
 shall need a word from on high to hold fast your soul in temp- 
 tation or affliction. Fragments of opportunity — no chance 
 often to follow up the good we do, and see what comes of it; 
 opportunitv only for a passing word, a kindness bestowed b v 
 the way, and the two souls part; one day shall all these frag- 
 ments of kindness be gathered into one record of goodness 
 complete, and the Master himself shall say, "I was an hun- 
 gered, and ye gave me meat; thirsty, and ye gave me drink; I 
 was a stranger, and ye took me in; naked, and ye clothed me; 
 I was sick, and ve visited me; I was in prison, and ye came 
 unto me." Then shall the righteous, conscious of their frag- 
 mentary goodness, and self-reproachful because it was incom- 
 plete, learn the truth that unifies all righteous effort into com- 
 pleteness into the ministry of love in his name. 
 
 Out of fragments of old pottery wise men have recon- 
 structed past civilizations. Out of the fragments of the broken 
 Moabite stone have come down through nearly thirty cen- 
 turies confirmations of the truth of the Bible. By means of 
 fragments of rock the story of the formation of the earth's 
 crust is told to us. By little fragments of clothing, torn off 
 and stuck upon the bushes by the captives, the settlers of earlv 
 days followed the Indians and rescued their loved ones from 
 the tomahawk and the stake. Fragments? Our art galleries 
 
THE BOY WITH THE BASKET 
 
 249 
 
 abound in fragments, great even in their ruins, of what were 
 once gems of art, and even now reveal the grace and power 
 of the sculptor in their battered lines, and preserve and trans- 
 mit the skill that thus we make our own. Great is the good 
 that is preserved to the world in fragments, and blessed are 
 those who gather them up and make the most of them. 
 
 THE TOWER OP ANTONIO, JERUSALEM 
 
CHAPTER XXI 
 
 THE CRISIS OF THE CHRIST 
 
 We come now to the close of the second year of the minis- 
 try of Jesus. As before, the dividing event is the passover. 
 Jesus did not attend this passover, but the crowds going to it 
 and eating of the bread in the wilderness forced upon him a 
 crisis. He had now to face the question whether he would 
 yield to the popular demand, and become a king. All the 
 three-fold temptations in the wilderness came back with 
 greater power, for the tempter now was an enthusiastic multi- 
 tude of Jesus' own countrymen urging him to head a popular 
 uprising for the restoration of their hereditary rights as a 
 nation. Why should he not make bread from stones, when 
 they were so hungry, so poor, so ground down by con- 
 tinuous oppression? Why should he not cast himself down 
 from a pinnacle of the temple, and with wrath as righteous 
 as when he had driven out the money-changers, drive away 
 the Roman guard that kept the Tower of Antonia, almost 
 within the sacred precincts of the temple? Why should he not 
 have a kingdom when the people, his own people, the lost, 
 sheared, scattered, shepherdless sheep of the house of Israel, 
 were ruled only to be plundered, persecuted, and misgoverned? 
 
 A recent book is entitled "The Crisis of the Christ." It 
 treats of seven incidents in the life of Jesus among which this is 
 not included. But this was the real crisis of the Christ. Jesus 
 had endeavored to avert it. He had wrought miracles sparingly, 
 reluctantly, and when pressed by the urgent demands of need. 
 Not after the first time did he do a mighty work merely to 
 add to the joy of life; he had more than he could do to hush 
 the cry of pain. He had done this quietly; had taken those 
 whom he had healed apart; had charged them not to tell of it. 
 
 2 SO 
 
THE CRISIS OF THE CHRIST 251 
 
 But his fame had spread till now the multitude were vociferous 
 in their demands that he should be king. 
 
 Some things had been settled already. Jesus was the 
 Messiah. But what kind of a Messiah was he to be? Within 
 the limits of his Messianic mission some liberty of choice was 
 permitted him. The people evidently were persuaded of the 
 truth of his Messianic character: thus far they were led of 
 God: flesh and blood had not revealed it unto them, but their 
 Father in heaven. Could not Jesus trust the people also to 
 determine the manner of his Messianic work? Should he 
 accept their interpretation of his office as the will of God? 
 
 And, again, why not? If the world, being foolish, must have 
 kings, why not be one of them? There was no reason why a 
 king should not also be a good man. Good kings had been; 
 why not be one of them? Tf not, there remained the sad 
 alternative — the people would forsake him; the opposition of 
 scribes and priests would grow more bitter; for him there 
 would be humiliation and defeat. What would happen he 
 knew only too well; it had just happened to John. Why not 
 escape all this, and use his opportunities while he had them? 
 
 These were the questions that crowded upon Jesus that even- 
 ing after he had sent the multitude away. They would not go 
 far; bread was too abundant. They would return. Before he 
 met them again, Jesus must face and settle the question of his 
 life. 
 
 Alone, on the mountain top lie wrestled over his life decis- 
 ion. On the one side was the eager admiring, needy multi- 
 tude; on the other was conscience. On one side were the 
 expectations of his friends; on the other was the pleasure of 
 his Father. On the one side was the kingdom; on the other 
 the cross. Alone in the dark and storm, the Christ met his 
 crisis. 
 
 But while he faced the storm within, his disciples were bat- 
 tling with the wind that had swept down upon the lake. They 
 were "toiling in rowing, for the wind was contrary." It was 
 after three o'clock in the morning when he came to them, and 
 brought cheer and assurance, and with his coming came the 
 dawn and the end of the storm. 
 
252 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 The scene was a picture of the tragedy of life. Humanitv 
 was in that boat, tossed by passion and the storms of life. 
 Dark were the waves beneath; dark the heavens where God 
 remained silent. But God had not remained apart on a moun- 
 tain top, thinking of his kingdom, and exulting in the thought- 
 less praise of men; God had come to men in the midst of the 
 storm, to bring calm and light to their souls. Who knows but 
 the vision of the disciples in the boat below, visible to the Mas- 
 ter while he prayed, may have strengthened his purpose to 
 cast himself upon the wave, to enter for better or for worse the 
 boat with humanity, and, though the sea of fickle favor rose 
 in a mighty wave to overthrow him, to bring, safe to its 
 haven, 
 
 Humanity with all its fears, 
 
 With all its hopes for coming years? 
 
 And what a comfort to the toiling millions at the oars, 
 straining their eyes and seeing only blackness, to know, that, 
 somewhere, out of sight, but not too far away to help, Jesus 
 sees it all! 
 
 The crowd met Jesus at the landing; they were ready for 
 breakfast. They wondered too, how he had gotten across, 
 while they had to walk around. Jesus met them sternly. He 
 would not cast himself down from any pinnacles for their curi- 
 ous conjectures. "Ye seek me, because ye ate of the loaves 
 and are filled," said he. They were interested and asked, 
 "What must we do to work the work of God?" 
 
 But when Jesus told them to believe in him, they returned 
 to the theme of the loaves, and, none too delicately, reminded 
 him that their fathers had eaten manna in the wilderness. The 
 miracles of Moses were working mischief a dozen centuries 
 after Moses' death. 
 
 Then Jesus told them as he had told Satan, that men do not 
 live by bread alone, and that he had come from heaven to feed 
 men with spiritual bread. When he said these thines to them, 
 the crowd at once began to murmur, and they said: "Is not 
 this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we 
 know? how is it then that he sayeth, I came down from 
 heaven?" 
 
THE CRISIS OF THE CHRIST 
 
 2 53 
 
 The crowd went away and got breakfast as best it could, 
 and did not return again. The people, finding that there was 
 no more free board to be had in Capernaum, started on again to 
 Jerusalem, complaining as they went. So closed the second 
 year of the ministry of Jesus. Jesus had met his crisis. He 
 would not make bread from stones, nor forsake the world for a 
 
 CHRIST AND PETER — (SCHWARTZ) 
 
 kingdom. The result was as he expected. "From that time, 
 many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him." 
 The break between Jesus and the unfed crowd was accent- 
 uated by a break between him and the leaders. These, indeed, 
 had for some time been cynical, and at times hostile. They had 
 
254 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 complained of his violation of the Sabbath, of his being "a 
 gluttonous man and a wine-bibber," and of his claiming power 
 to forgive sins. On the day of his return to Capernaum after 
 the feeding of the five thousand, he talked to the multitude on 
 the shore, and later preached his gospel in the synagogue. 
 There, apparently, he was invited to dine with a Pharisee. So 
 Jesus, that day, instead of feeding others, was himself fed. 
 We do not know who the Pharisee was, or how he came to 
 give the invitation, but one thing is evident, it was given in 
 no spirit of genuine hospitality. As soon as Jesus was seated 
 a pointed criticism was made that he ate with unwashed hands. 
 Then Jesus turned upon the Pharisees, and accused them of 
 caring so much for form and display that they had neglected 
 the spirit of religion, and had become hypocrites. "The things 
 without, do not defile," he said, "but the evil thoughts within." 
 
 It was an unwelcome truth and unkindly received. Invita- 
 tions to dine with Pharisees in Capernaum came rarely to 
 Jesus after that; and when he ate with Matthew and his com- 
 pany, there was a new accusation, that he was the friend of 
 publicans and sinners. Alas, from that time he had few other 
 friends than these. 
 
 We must not assume, because it seems plain enough to us 
 that the things from within defile rather than those without, 
 that Jesus expected the truth to be favorably received. He 
 deliberately attacked the traditions of the Pharisees, who 
 counted ceremonial washing so important that to neglect it 
 was to be guilty of gross ceremonial defilement. The word 
 wash, as used in the passage, means to wash vigorously, or 
 with the fist of one hand scrubbing the other. It was held, 
 too, that the water must trickle back to the wrist. It is by no 
 means certain that washing in Christ's day was all of this hon- 
 est straightforward sort. The Jews of Jerusalem still require 
 ceremonial washing before entering their synagogues for wor- 
 ship. I inspected the provision for ablutions at the door of one 
 of their largest synagogues there. It is a tiny faucet, opened 
 by being struck from below by the finger, and in such sort that 
 continuous pressure for the sake of the running of a stream is 
 
THE CRISIS OF THE CHRIST 255 
 
 meant to be impossible. The linger presses up the valve and 
 is withdrawn a little to receive the water, which barely moist- 
 ens the tip of the thumb and ringer. This stands for a bath, 
 ceremonially. 
 
 Even such a symbol might do good if men were to say, "It 
 is but a symbol, and has value only as it typifies purity of soul," 
 but the Jews of Christ's time exalted the symbol and forgot 
 its meaning, substituting their cleanliness of body, which may 
 or may not have been thorough, for purity of heart. Jesus 
 attacked this tradition both by example and precept, ignoring 
 the form, visibly and publicly defying it, that he might expose 
 the shame beneath it. 
 
 From this, Jesus went on to attack the tradition concern- 
 ing Corban. A man who intended to make a gift to God 
 might see his parents in dire need, but say, "Corban," that is, 
 "I have dedicated this property to God." This would not 
 imply that he had already parted with it, or intended to do so 
 at once; he might keep it indefinitely, but it was sacred from 
 all demands for relief of suffering, even the suffering of his 
 parents. 
 
 To Jesus no tradition that professed to honor God had 
 sacredness as against the needs of men. God's glory is in the 
 welfare of his children. The commandments of God are rea- 
 sonable and are visibly related to human welfare. To please 
 God by the neglect of parents, was to Jesus blasphemy. So 
 he attacked the tradition, saying: 
 
 "Thus have ye made the commandment of God of none 
 effect by your tradition. Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias 
 prophesy of you, saying, This people draweth nigh unto me 
 with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their 
 heart is far from me. But in vain do they worship me, teaclv 
 ing for doctrines the commandments of men" (Matt. 15: 6-9). 
 
 This touched the whole question of ceremonial righteous- 
 ness at its tenderest point. It was just in those matters of 
 tradition that the Pharisees prided themselves that they were 
 righteous. Between them and Jesus henceforth there could 
 be no sympathy. They knew where he stood, and they knew 
 his opinion of them. 
 
256 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 The clanger of being taken by force and made a king was 
 now well past. The Pharisees, certainly, wanted no king who 
 would thus wound their vanity; and as for the multitudes 
 whom he feci yesterday, they were on their way toward Jerusa- 
 lem, grumbling because they had no cakes and ale for that 
 day. 
 
 Thus did Jesus meet his life's crisis. But it cost him all 
 that men hold dear, save fidelity to duty. 
 
 THE MAN OF SORROWS — (jEAN BERAUD) 
 
CHAPTER XXII 
 
 THE UNCONCEALABLE CHRIST 
 
 Jesus now began the third and last year of his ministry by 
 withdrawing from Galilee into the borders of Tyre and Sidon. 
 The reasons for his withdrawal are apparent in the crisis at 
 Capernaum, the disappointment of the people in the discourse 
 about the Bread of life, and his break with the Pharisees in 
 the matter of eating with unwashed hands. To escape the 
 crowd, gospel-hardened and unspiritual, and from the Phari- 
 sees, always cold and critical and now openlv hostile, was his 
 purpose. 
 
 We do not know just where Jesus went; it is unlikely that 
 he visited large cities. "He entered into a house and would 
 have no man know he was there, but he could not be hid." A 
 Gentile woman sought his help for her little daughter. Jesus 
 was unwilling to work more miracles. Had he not seen the 
 inevitable mischief resulting from them? His miracles had 
 expatriated him. He had come here to escape from the mob 
 that ever hung upon the miracle. But his heart was touched 
 with the mother's need. He would test her faith. 
 
 "It is not meet to take the children's bread and cast it to the 
 dogs," he said. 
 
 It was a harsh saving, Pharisaical and cold in form ; we can- 
 not believe that it disclosed his heart. 
 
 But the mother was too intent on the daughter's healing to 
 resent the insult. Quick was her wit, and ready her reply. It 
 was only a crumb that she wanted, one that, falling from the 
 plate of the child at the table, might be eaten even by the dog 
 beneath it. Again the Lord marvelled at faith such as he had 
 not found in Israel. "O woman," he exclaimed, "Great is thy 
 faith. Be it unto thee even as thou wilt!" 
 
 257 
 
258 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 The healing of the little girl probably shortened the visit of 
 Jesus to the region of Tyre and Sidon. He had come to 
 escape publicity, but it was thrust upon him. We may believe 
 that he healed the diseases of those who came to him, taught 
 some needed lesson to the crowd that gathered round, and 
 then moved on seeking some quiet place. He did not find it. 
 
 Jesus did not immediately return to Capernaum, but, turn- 
 ing eastward among the foothills south of the Lebanon moun- 
 tains, crossed the Jordan above the Sea of Galilee, and came 
 to Decapolis, where he had once made a brief visit and had 
 been rejected because of the loss of the swine (Matt. 28:34; 
 Mark 5: 1-20; Luke 8:26-39). Here again he did not escape 
 the crowd. A deaf man came to him; Jesus took him aside and 
 healed him (Mark 7: 32-37), and charged the man not to tell 
 of his healing; but the loosed tongue refused to be silent, and 
 the fame of Jesus spread throughout the region. Then the 
 multitude came again, bringing their sick, and Jesus repeated 
 the experiences which had preceded his departure from the 
 region of the lake (Matt. 15; 29-38; Mark 8: 1*9), even to the 
 feeding of four thousand improvident and hungry people. 
 
 In this same summer, and not long after this event, Jesus 
 healed a blind man at Bethsaida (Mark 8: 22-26), charging 
 him, as was his custom, to tell no man. But these admoni- 
 tions were unavailing. The news spread. Jesus now recrossed 
 the lake to "the borders of Magdala" (Matt. 15: 39) "into the 
 parts of Dalmanutha" (Mark 8: 10). This was a region north 
 of the city of Tiberias and south of Capernaum. We are not 
 sure whether he returned to Capernaum, but he was met by 
 the Pharisees with a new demand for a sign (Matt. 16: 1-4; 
 Mark 8: 11-13), and so the clamor for the miraculous grew in 
 proportion as it was fed. 
 
 It is not to be wondered at that these people demanded a 
 sign. In the thought of many good people to-day the 
 programme of Christ was essentially this: An advent into the 
 world, with a claim to be the Son of God; the working of 
 miracles to establish that claim; the condemnation of men 
 because they did not accept the testimony of the miracles in 
 their witness to the divine Sonship of Jesus. 
 
THE UNCONCEALABLE CHRIST 
 
 2 59 
 
 The real programme of Jesus was very different. He never 
 referred in any recorded passage to his miraculous birth; he 
 was late in making any claim of his divine Sonship; he was 
 reluctant to work miracles; he went about doing good, teach- 
 ing, helping, forgiving, inspiring men, and saying, "Ye shall 
 know the truth and the truth shall make you free." Mighty 
 works had their evidential value, but they rarely convinced 
 men. It is well for us to remember this lest we suppose our- 
 selves at a serious disadvantage in our remoteness from the 
 actual work of Jesus. Jesus himself would not have counted 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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 it so. We have the truth, which he counted the main thing, 
 and we have the witness of nineteen centuries of enlighten- 
 ment, purity and progress to the divine authority of the 
 gospel. This is a far greater work than the first disciples saw, 
 and is trustworthy. 
 
 We should not, then, follow the mistake of other days and 
 seek for an evidence of Christianity in signs and wonders. The 
 true sign of the gospel is a changed life; the real wonder is 
 that of the life of Christ reproduced in the lives of sinful men. 
 
260 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 Neither the darkened cabinet of the spiritualist medium with 
 wonders that happen after the lights are out, nor the widely 
 heralded achievement of the "healer" for revenue only, bear 
 the true mark of the work of Christ. These are the works 
 of those whose constituency seeks for a sign. 
 
 Jesus now took occasion to warn his disciples against the 
 Pharisees (Matt. 16: 5-12; Mark 8: 14-21). To these men the 
 disciples naturally looked up. But Jesus let them understand 
 that the difference between himself and these teachers was 
 fundamental It was a strange lesson to the disciples, but they 
 learned it at last, to their sorrow. It is interesting to find that 
 even in his own lifetime, and during the period of his brief 
 ministry, the fame of Jesus had spread beyond the narrow 
 limits of his own country. His work had been a restricted 
 work, national and almost local in its character, yet it had 
 grown to such dimensions that in no part of his own little land 
 was he unknown, and his experience proved that he had already 
 been talked about, and to some extent was trusted, in some 
 if not all the regions adjacent to his own Palestine. 
 
 "He could not be hid." No character in history had a better 
 chance of concealment. He was born at a time when the 
 consolidation of national life into one power in Rome turned 
 all eyes toward that capital, and made the rest of the world 
 insignificant. He was born in a remote province, far from the 
 great centers of population and of power. Only an occasional 
 political outbreak brought any one in Palestine to the knowl- 
 edge of Rome. Palestine was all but ignored in the empire of 
 which it formed a part. The country in which Christ was 
 born, with its whole population, was counted insignificant in 
 the great Roman world. Hardly another Galilsean of that 
 generation is known to us, even by name, save as his name is 
 associated with that of Jesus. He was nurtured and made his 
 home in a village until that time unknown in literature, and 
 which, but for himself, would have disappeared from human 
 knowledge, and in a province of his own small country which 
 had always been treated with contempt. "Search, and see that 
 out of Ga.lilee ariseth no prophet" (John 7: 52), was the word 
 
THE UNCONCEALABLE CHRIST 2 6l 
 
 of a member of the Sanhedrim His first disciples, who were 
 Galilaeans, asked wonderingly, "Can any good thing come out 
 of Nazareth?" His country was ignored in the world of that 
 age; his province was ignored in the country of which it was 
 a part; his village was ignored in the province in which it was 
 located; and he was ignored in his own village. 
 
 Some men, by their political power, succeeded in impressing 
 that age and in leaving their mark upon the generations fol- 
 lowing. So Augustus and Tiberius and Nero became known 
 to fame or to infamy; but Jesus turned his back upon this 
 opportunity of achieving popularity. "My kingdom is not of 
 this world," said he. He declined a place among the monarchs 
 of the earth. Again, as leader of an army, there was oppor- 
 tunity for a man to make himself famous, and we know the 
 names of generals of those days — Antony, Pompey, Otho, 
 Vitellius, Titus and the rest, some of whom rose from military 
 to civil fame. But none of these did Jesus imitate; and though 
 ten thousand legions of angels might have been his, he passed 
 through life unattended save by a few practically unarmed 
 disciples. It was an age of thought and literature, as well as 
 of military glory and civic power, and we know the names of 
 writers of that day. Horace and Virgil and Ovid, Livy and 
 Strabo, Cicero and Pliny were practically his contemporaries. 
 We know that Jesus was not illiterate, but no written word 
 of his survives to tell the story of his life or the ends for 
 which he wrought. It was an age of art, but his was a nation 
 that never gave birth to a Phidias or Praxiteles; and he whose 
 love of beauty was beyond compare left no tangible form of 
 art to perpetuate his memory, neither statue nor temple nor 
 likeness of himself, nor any creation of his hand and skill. He 
 was an artisan, not an artist; a teacher, not an orator; a 
 revealer of God, not a politician; a Saviour, and not a states- 
 man. Jesus turned his back upon all forms of labor and 
 industry by which the men of his generation were seeking to 
 achieve fame. He repeatedly disappointed his friends by his 
 failure to use his manifest powers for the purposes of publicity. 
 His grace was so utterly at variance with the methods of the 
 
262 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 times that his own brethren repeatedly reproached him with 
 a probable desire to be known, while he himself remained in 
 secret (John 7: 3, 4). In all these things it would seem as 
 though obscurity would have been the logical result of Christ's 
 method. Yet no monarch or millionaire of that or any genera- 
 tion, no soldier or stateman of that or any other century, no 
 author or artist or philosopher since the world began, became 
 or is so widely known as he. 
 
 "He could not be hid," because the divine nature within 
 him shone forth through the humanity that enshrined it. A 
 light such as his could not be hidden under a bushel. The sun 
 could not be shut in a closet, neither could the life of God. 
 which he manifested, be obscured by the conditions of his 
 humanity. 
 
 Whatever theology we have, or whether we have any, about 
 the person of Christ, we must never forget that Jesus Christ 
 was avowedly and honestly human, but we must not fail to 
 remember that through this human life there shone in its ful- 
 ness and majesty the essence of the divine nature. He was 
 the Word made flesh; actual, honest, unfeigned flesh, but still 
 the Word made flesh. Literature has many a romantic story 
 of the child of royal birth, brought up in obscure surroundings, 
 and manifesting when he came to years the dignity of regal 
 birth. So Cyrus, among the shepherds, exhibited the daring 
 and dignity which soon marked him as a prince. So Alfred, 
 hiding in the cowherd's hut, was still a king. But literature 
 has no story more romantic, more beautiful, more inherently 
 truthful, than that related of the Son of God, who was born 
 among men and lived the life of a carpenter, unobtrusively and 
 without self-advertisement, until men beheld in him the glory 
 of the only begotten Son of the Father, full of truth and grace. 
 
 And Jesus could not be hid because humanity's need was 
 sore, and he alone could meet it. He came to seek and to save 
 the lost, and when he came, he found the lost blindly seeking 
 him. The inarticulate cry of the suffering, the despairing 
 moan of the outcast, the heart-broken sob of the penitent, all 
 these he interpreted as addressed to himself, and he could not 
 remain in hiding where the need for him was so great. 
 
THE UNCONCEALABLE CHRIST 263 
 
 And so, in the gospel the account of the beginning of 
 Christ's ministry is followed by the record of the deeds done 
 among suffering men, so many and so marvelous that the inert 
 world into which he came was shaken from its lethargy enough 
 to wonder at his power, to be convinced of his goodness, and 
 almost to accept his saving love. 
 
 Almost, but not quite. "He suffered under Pontius Pilate; 
 was crucified, died and was buried." But he could not be hid. 
 The cross, though it brought him a death of ignominy, only 
 lifted him up where all men could see and come unto him. 
 The grave could not hide him, but became the gateway of 
 eternal life to all who trust in him. Out from the narrow con- 
 fines of his age, his nation, his ignominious death and his 
 indisputable burial, pressed forth his new life for all nations. 
 
 He cannot be hid. If all the world should try by unani- 
 mous consent to forget him, it could not succeed. If all the 
 Bibles in all the ends of the world were burned, it would not 
 obliterate his memory. If all the churches in all Christian lands 
 were destroyed, it would not cause him to be forgotten. It 
 would be perfectly safe to predict that the future will weed 
 from its lists of names counted great, many which the world 
 honors but will not care to remember, and many more, which 
 spite of industrious effort to remember, it must inevitably 
 forget. But his name will be remembered and loved and 
 honored, so long as there is intelligence and faith and moral 
 and spiritual life among men. 
 
 He cannot be hid because his life is resident in the life of his 
 people, and he is with them according to his promise. The 
 conditions which once shut in and localized his life are now 
 forever past. Wherever there is a Christian there is the Christ. 
 And when heaven and earth are passed away, and all things 
 hidden are revealed, and all things secret are made known, 
 then shall he stand forth with a glory which the brilliancy of 
 heaven can only the more perfectly disclose; then he shall 
 appear at the right hand of God the Father, amid the praises 
 of heaven and the glories of a redeemed humanity. Thus, to 
 all eternity shall he abide, the Unconcealable Christ. 
 
CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES 
 
 The summer passed and the autumn brought with it one of 
 the great annual festivals of the Jews, the feast of tabernacles. 
 It was the annual commemoration of the journey through the 
 wilderness, which, from the time of Nehemiah had been 
 observed by dwelling in tents (Neh. 8: 17). We have no record 
 that Jesus had previously attended this feast. He had not 
 been at the passover in the spring preceding, and his policy 
 of retirement was confusing to his friends, as well as to those 
 who did not believe in him. 
 
 And now we meet again the brothers of Christ, who are still 
 unconverted, and who are disposed to be meddlesome. There 
 were four at least of the brothers, James, Joseph, Simon and 
 Judas (Mark 6: 3), and there were two or more sisters whose 
 names we do not know. The Bible never calls them cousins 
 or relatives, but always brothers, and we have no reason to 
 call them anything else. These later became his disciples, but 
 at this time they were concerned with demanding why Jesus, 
 whom they assumed to be desirous of advertising himself, 
 preferred to remain in seclusion. But Jesus gave them no 
 intimation of his plans. 
 
 There was much gossip about Jesus at the feast, and many 
 wondered whether he would appear. The Pharisees and priests 
 were openly hostile, the people were divided. It was under- 
 stood that Jesus was in hiding. 
 
 But while the feast was at its height, about the middle of 
 the week, Jesus appeared, teaching openly in the temple. We 
 do not know the nature of his discourse, but we are told that 
 the Tews who heard him were astonished at his learning. 
 "How knoweth this man literature?" they asked. To them 
 
 264 
 
THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES 
 
 265 
 
 learning meant knowledge of the law, and the place to attain 
 it was in the schools of the rabbins. Jesus impressed people 
 who heard him as a man with a liberal education. The 
 common people heard him gladly, but the scholars, as well, 
 wondered at his teaching. 
 
 Jesus at once turned to the miracle which even yet was the 
 theme of much discussion in Jerusalem — the healing of the 
 impotent man at Bethsaida, a year and a half before (John 5: 
 1-16). The rulers were still plotting against him because that 
 
 THE NEW ENTRANCE TO JERUSALEM 
 (MADE ON THE OCCASION OF THE VISIT OF THE GERMAN EMPEROR) 
 
 work had been performed on the Sabbath. Jesus at once 
 exposed the plot, and when the people demanded, "Who goeth 
 about to kill thee?" he proceeded to defend his act of healing 
 a man on the Sabbath. If a baby boy was born on the Sabbath 
 the father caused him to be circumcised a week later, notwith- 
 standing the preparation and labor that accompanied the act. 
 If it was lawful to perform such an act on the Sabbath because 
 the letter of the law might seem to require it, was it less right 
 to heal a man, when the whole intent and spirit of the law. 
 made for men's welfare, demanded his healing? 
 
266 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 Not only did the argument carry weight, but the bearing of 
 Jesus, standing forth fearlessly, and preaching thus, caused 
 the favorable sentiment toward him to gain ground. There 
 were many who were ready to say at once, "Do the rulers 
 indeed know that this is the Christ?" 
 
 But others objected that Jesus had given no satisfactory 
 account of himself, and that what they knew of his antecedents 
 was not such as they expected in the Christ. Jesus met this 
 
 TOWER OF DAVID AND HIPPICUS, JERUSALEM 
 
 objection, saying, "He that sent me is true; I am not come 
 of myself." 
 
 The people were more and more inclined to believe in him 
 as day by day he taught in the temple. And while the priests 
 would gladly have arrested him, they could not do so without 
 too great a demonstration. So the feast passed by, and the 
 last day came. 
 
 The feast of tabernacles had a notable ceremony, that of the 
 libation of water, brought by the priests in glad procession 
 from the fountain of Siloam in the valley of the Kedron. As 
 the procession re-entered the temple court, Jesus, standing 
 
THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES 
 
 26/ 
 
 in a conspicuous place, cried out to the thirsty throng about 
 him, "If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink; he 
 that believeth on me, as the Scripture hath said, from within 
 him shall flow rivers of living water." The disciple was to be 
 himself a fountain, supplied from the fountain-head of grace. 
 
 DAVID STREET, JERUSALEM 
 (THE FLAG SHOWS THE AMERICAN CONSULATE) 
 
 What more he said we do not know, but an increased number 
 of the people were ready to accept him, while others asked, 
 "Shall Christ come out of Galilee?" 
 
 The priests saw their authority in danger. The people were 
 gradually being won over to Jesus. The leaders determined 
 to arrest him, and sent officers for that purpose. The officers 
 returned without him. There had been no resistance, no 
 flight. But as the officers were struggling through the crowd, 
 
268 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 they heard the words of Jesus, and were themselves convinced 
 that he was beyond their jurisdiction. 
 
 I know of no scene in the life of Christ that is more eloquent 
 in its testimony of the power of Jesus over men. I suppose 
 that those officers were made of the stuff that constitutes good 
 constables. They were none too tender-hearted; they were 
 accustomed to hard scenes. They knew that they were not to 
 judge him, that they were only to arrest him and let others 
 try him. But they faced the priests who sent them — they 
 would not face Christ — and said, "Never man spake like this 
 man." 
 
 It was a straightforward judgment, made by unsentimental 
 men; and the world approves it. Never man spake so 
 tenderly, so lovingly, so authoritatively. Never man spake 
 words that live as his words live, in the heart and aspiration 
 of the world. 
 
 The return of the officers resulted in a heated discussion 
 among the Pharisees, Nicodemus defending Jesus, and others 
 opposing him. The result was a division of sentiment that set 
 aside, for the time, the plan to arrest him. 
 
 The evening of "the great day of the feast" Jesus went to 
 the Mount of Olives. It is quite unnecessary to suppose that 
 he went out to spend the night in prayer. Undoubtedly he 
 prayed; but he probably spent a while in the cool of the Garden 
 of Gethsemane, doubtless already a favorite haunt with him, 
 and then passed the night with his friends in Bethany. 
 
 The next morning he was back in the temple, and still 
 master of the situation. But a trap was set for him. A woman 
 had been taken in adultery, and was brought to the scribes 
 and Pharisees. It afforded them a fine opportunity to ensnare 
 Jesus. The law in Leviticus (20: 10) and Deuteronomy 
 (22: 22) commanded that such should be put to death. The 
 law included the man as well, but the man, as too often hap- 
 pens, had escaped. The law, of course, was a dead letter. Not 
 for centuries had it been in force in Jerusalem; still, it was 
 suspended theoretically because the Jews no longer had the 
 power of inflicting a death sentence. Jesus, they thought, 
 
THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES 
 
 269 
 
 would not dare to say that the law should be enforced, neither 
 would he dare abrogate it. 
 
 It was a fine opportunity the devil had made ready to their 
 hand; and the shameless men pulled the shamefaced woman 
 through the crowd to Jesus. Among them all there was no 
 father or brother or husband that for daughter's sake or sister's 
 
 INSIDE THE JAFFA GATE 
 
 or wife's, raised hand to strike off the clutch of those men 
 upon her as they dragged her into Jesus' presence. 
 
 Jesus seemed preoccupied while they were stating their 
 case. Stooping he wrote on the ground; it is the only time 
 we are told of his writing, and what he wrote we do not know. 
 They pressed him for an answer to their dilemma; "they con- 
 tinued asking him." Then he lifted himself to the height of 
 his majestic manhood, and they quailed before his look. "He 
 
270 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 et him first cast a stone at 
 
 that is without sin anions: vou, 
 her," said he. 
 
 It is impossible to add words to the story as it is told in the 
 Scripture: "And again he stooped down, and with his finger 
 wrote on the ground. And they, when they heard it, went 
 out one by one, beginning from the eldest, even unto the last: 
 
 CHRIST AND THE ADULTERESS — (eMILE SICNOl) 
 
 and Jesus was left alone, and the woman, where she was, in 
 the midst. And Jesus lifted up himself, and said unto her, 
 Woman, where are they? did no man condemn thee? And 
 she said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said. Neither do I con- 
 demn thee: go thy way; from henceforth sin no more (John 
 8: 8-u). 
 
THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES 
 
 271 
 
 So miserably failed the attempt to entangle Jesus in the 
 trap of judgment against a poor woman. 
 
 That day he continued his discussion in the temple. His 
 place of teaching was "the treasury/' or court of the women, 
 called by the latter name not because it was exclusively or even 
 chiefly for women, but because women were permitted to go 
 no further. The Jews were loud in their demands that Jesus 
 should declare himself. Why did he leave them to conjecture? 
 
 THE ADULTERESS — (TITIAN, I477-I566) 
 
 Who was he? Jesus told them that the man who willed to 
 do God's will should know whether his teaching was from 
 God or from himself. 
 
 Without declaring whether he was the Messiah, he made at 
 this feast some most astounding claims. "If any man thirst, 
 let him come unto me and drink"; "I am the light of the 
 world"; "I am not alone"; "I and the Father that sent me"; 
 "I do always the things that are pleasing to him"; "Which of 
 you convinceth me of sin?"; "If a man keep my word, he shall 
 
272 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 never see death." It is no wonder that these words provoked 
 the Jews to wrath. But the words which angered them most 
 were two utterances about Abraham. 
 
 Jesus said, "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall 
 make you free." They answered, "We are Abraham's seed, 
 and were never in bondage to any man." It was an idle boast. 
 Abraham's seed had often been in bondage. Who are these 
 millions in Egypt making bricks without straw? Abraham's 
 seed. Who are these whose kings appear with monotonous 
 regularity on the Assyrian monuments, bearing each his annual 
 tribute to a foreign conqueror? Abraham's seed. Who are 
 these who sadly march in chains to Babylon, and there hang 
 their harps on the willows for three score years and ten? 
 Abraham's seed. To what nation has not Abraham's seed paid 
 tribute? Abraham's seed has bowed under the yoke of Egypt, 
 Assyria, Moab, Syria, Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome — to 
 answer is merely to call the roll of the great powers of 
 antiquity. And whose were these soldiers present to keep 
 order at this very feast, these tax-gatherers eager for their 
 money? These were Romans, attending to the seed of Abra- 
 ham — still in bondage not only to Rome, but to sin, to tradi- 
 tion, to empty form. From this Jesus would gladly deliver 
 them by his truth; but they were ready to cry out with their 
 fathers of old, "Let us alone that we may serve the Egyptians." 
 
 The other reference to Abraham was, "Your father Abraham 
 saw my day, and was glad." He meant that Abraham saw 
 coming an era of better things for his descendants, and in 
 faith trusted God and waited for the day whose harbinger and 
 whose realization was Christ. But the Jews were not content 
 with such an interpretation, and demanded to know how he, 
 being still a young man, certainly under fifty, could have seen 
 Abraham. Jesus was not wont to give easy answers to such 
 challenges. "Before Abraham was, I am," said he. 
 
 This was quite too much for their patience. Stones are 
 abundant in Palestine, and the Jews found a quantity and pre- 
 pared to cast them at him; but in the confusion Jesus escaped, 
 and the discussions of the feast came abruptly to an end. 
 
CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 THE VISION OF THOSE WHO WAKE 
 
 Jesus returned from the feast of tabernacles, but not, appar- 
 ently, to Capernaum. Instead, he withdrew into the region 
 of Csesarea Philippi. Here, alone with his disciples, he pre- 
 pared them for the coming tragedy and for independent labor 
 after he should be taken from them. In anticipation of this 
 he asked them, "Who do men say that I am?" 
 
 The disciples reported to him the conjectures they had 
 heard. Some said he was John the Baptist; others, Elijah; still 
 others Jeremiah; and others, simply "one of the prophets/' 
 
 The time had come for the Twelve to express their own 
 faith, and Jesus asked them pointedly the question, "But who 
 say ye that I am?" 
 
 It was a great question. They might have answered more 
 readily some months earlier. They had listened eagerly when 
 people asked Jesus who he was, and he had not answered, 
 How should they now answer him? But their faith had not 
 left them. There was but one thing any of them could answer, 
 and yet to say it plainly when he had not said it, to commit 
 themselves on a point on which he had been so reticent, to 
 declare what he had so steadfastly refused to declare — is it any 
 wonder they did not shout the answer in concert? 
 
 But Peter spoke. Sometimes he spoke too soon, but not 
 this time. "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." 
 
 Then Jesus blessed him, for Peter had learned what Jesus 
 wanted men to be sure of without his asserting it. The truth 
 of his divinity was not a dogma to be forced upon men, but a 
 vital truth to be spiritually discerned. Flesh and blood had 
 not revealed it to Peter. Jesus had not told him. Peter had 
 learned it in the way that Jesus desired, and it came as a 
 
 273 
 
274 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 gracious revelation from God. "From that time began Jesus 
 to shew unto his disciples, how that he must go unto Jerusa- 
 lem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and 
 scribes, and be killed, and the third day be raised up" (Matt. 
 16-21). 
 
 From that time, when he had just disclosed to them the 
 truth for which they had been yearning! From that time, 
 when their hopes began to rise again! Yet it was the right 
 time for them to learn it. Jesus had waited long for the time 
 that now had come. 
 
 MOUNT TABOR FROM THE PLAIN OF ESDRAELON" 
 
 When Peter rebuked him, Jesus sternly reproved Peter that 
 his faith should now fall so far below his recent confession. 
 Jesus did not attempt to soften down the truth. He told 
 them, on the contrary, that they, too, were to take up the cross 
 and follow him. But that truth had in it some comfort. It 
 was better for them to share with him, at all events, in his 
 sacrifice, if not in his glory. But they did not understand his 
 words, and they continued to wonder and question to the end. 
 
 While Jesus and his disciples were yet in the north country, 
 another event occurred, the most significant thus far in his 
 
THE VISION OF THOSE WHO WAKE 
 
 275 
 
 whole ministry, the transfiguration. It was in the autumn 
 preceding the spring of his crucifixion — the autumn, when 
 Palestine dries up, and the verdure of its spring withers; even 
 so had the prospects and hopes of the disciples shriveled since 
 the passover, when multitudes had been thronging him. It 
 was the autumn, and ahead lay the winter of discontent and 
 desertion and betrayal and humiliation, to be followed by the 
 new life of the resurrection and the outpouring of the Spirit. 
 It appears to have been on a Sabbath evening, just a week 
 after Peter's confession, that the Lord ascended the moun- 
 
 MOUNT KERMON 
 
 tain, probably Hermon, in the region of Caesarea Philippi, 
 where we are told that Peter's confession occurred. On one 
 of the spurs of this mountain they spent the night, and in the 
 morning they descended to find the demoniac boy in need of 
 healing, and then took their way back to Capernaum, where 
 the tax-gatherer was ready with his demand for the Lord's 
 annual payment. To such conditions of human life they were 
 soon to ascend, and from such conditions thev had ascended; 
 but while they were upon the mountain they beheld the 
 transfiguration. 
 
2jf) JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 The whole northern end of Palestine is dominated by the 
 snow-clad summit of Mount Hermon, its triple top rising 
 above the intervening hills from every elevation. From its 
 slope the view is most beautiful. A sunset from one of its 
 summits, or from any of its slopes above the level of the foot- 
 hills, is a sight of solemn grandeur. The Lord and the disci- 
 ples watched it that Sabbath evening, no doubt, looking down 
 the while upon the Sea of Galilee and the region of Christ's 
 ministry, with mingled emotions, as they recalled the incidents 
 that had occurred in this and that and the other village, clearlv 
 in sight from where they sat, but growing dim in the shadows. 
 So far as we know, the Lord never before had climbed so 
 high, or looked down on such a panorama. To the eastward, 
 toward Damascus and beyond, the shadow of the mountain 
 itself was cast, a shadow said to be one of the most wonderful 
 on earth, extending seventy miles across the desert; while to 
 the north and south of this darkening wedge cast bv the white 
 mountain top, the lingering light shone on hill-tops here and 
 there, and across the level plain, till at last the sun went down, 
 a ball of fire, into the great sea to the west, and one by one the 
 stars pricked their way through the short Syrian twilight, and 
 measured the depth of the black vault of the sky. 
 
 Up from the hot, close air of the valley and the village, Jesus 
 and the three disciples had come for a night of rest and prayer. 
 Not to the very summit, surely, for there the weather would 
 have been freezing, but high enough to find the coolness and 
 breeze and to overlook the land below, and low enough clown 
 to see the hoary summit rising in silent grandeur above. 
 
 This, and not the rounded top of Tabor, was the fit place 
 for the transfiguration. In the beauty of the dawn of the 
 Sunday morning that followed, in the mystery and gentleness 
 of the swiftly formed and quickly dissipated cloud, there was 
 present every natural condition of sublimity and awe that 
 combined into a fitting back-ground for this event. I once 
 saw Pike's Peak in the glory of a summer dawn, while all the 
 valley was dark below, and wc, groping in the gloom, lifted our 
 eyes to the sun-lit peak. I saw this, and it thrilled me; but 
 
THE VISION OF THOSE WHO WAKE 
 
 277 
 
 morning after morning, at Nazareth, at Tiberias, and from the 
 hills of Galilee, I saw Mount Hermon light up before the sun 
 had risen upon us, and I almost beheld the transfiguration 
 repeated on its slope. When, in the Vatican, I saw that 
 greatest of the masterpieces of Raphael, the human Christ 
 
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 THE TRANSFIGURATION— (.RAPHAEL, I483-I520) 
 
 radiant with a divine and resident glory, a glory from within 
 and above, I felt as if I had seen before the incident which the 
 artist with such power had transcribed upon his canvas. 
 
 "And when they were fully awake, they beheld his glory." 
 It was no glorious dream. Some suggestions of truth come 
 
278 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 to men in dreams and visions of the night. In olden times men 
 thus received spiritual impressions which they counted of great 
 worth. But these became of worth to the world when those 
 who beheld the vision translated it into the terms of life. The 
 good that came to individuals in dreams, came to the world 
 when the dreamers awoke. But the noblest visions are not 
 reserved for the sleeping hours of earth. It is when men are 
 awake that they behold things in their true perspective. It 
 was not the disciples who were asleep in the valley who saw 
 the glorified Christ, but those awake in the clear light of the 
 morning. 
 
 It is ever so. There were many wise men in the East; there 
 had been no lack there of sages and of seers, and some had 
 dreamed great hopes for men; but it was those who were awake 
 who followed the star to Bethlehem. There were shepherds 
 not a few about Bethlehem, dreaming of the times when David 
 had lived there, and had kept his sheep and had played his 
 harp, but only those who were awakened heard the music of the 
 angels; they only, and not those who calmly slumbered, found 
 the Christ-child. 
 
 The glory which Christ received from the Father while on 
 earth was the glory of attestation. It was the glory of assur- 
 ance given to men that Jesus was what he declared, and that 
 his work was the real and true work of God. There was need 
 that this attestation should be given. There was a practical 
 necessity that men should know, in certain great crises of his 
 career, that Jesus spoke not merely with the power and wisdom 
 of man, but also with the authority of God. There was need 
 that the disciples should know it now, when they had staked 
 all on their great confession of him, and seemed to have lost 
 it in his declaration that he was soon to die. 
 
 The glorv of Christ was the glory of the Cross. This was 
 shown in all the references to his approaching glory which 
 form the climax of the Gospel of John. The cross was Christ's 
 way of showing God's glory through self-denial. Men did not 
 know that God could suffer; they had not conceived it as 
 within the power of God to deny himself. They had made 
 
THE VISION OF THOSE WHO WAKE 279 
 
 in their imagination a sort of glory which was a celestial shrine 
 of divine selfishness, in whose Holy of holies God lived in 
 serene self-contemplation. Christ showed us in the cross that 
 sacrifice is God's glory. He taught us that by service God 
 manifests his inner life. Christ expelled from the universe the 
 absentee God whose concern for men was his rentals. He 
 taught men that this God, whom some of them had worshiped 
 through fear and some defied through bitterness, and all 
 secretly distrusted and inwardly hated, was the product of 
 imaginations perverted by centuries of idolatry. He lived 
 among men a life of service, and prepared to offer up his life 
 for those who as yet did not love him. But, lest men should 
 think of his life as the perfection of humanity alone, he went 
 up where the sounds and sights of human life were left below, 
 and there his human face grew radiant with the light of heaven, 
 and about that wondrous form of him who was born of Marv 
 there shone the light of God's own effulgence. Then out of 
 the cloud came the voice from God, affirming that the good- 
 ness and the love of Christ were not only his as man, but were 
 also his because these attributes and he were of God; and that 
 being God's they were not for heaven alone, but for the earth 
 as well. 
 
 Christ was born to a life of obscure and humble duty. Most 
 of his years are unrecorded. They lie in the shadows, the un- 
 painted ravines of his career. They are none the less glorious 
 for that, and they encourage us when we remember that the 
 obscure and unrecognized is of worth, and that God does not 
 fail to notice. We cannot spare the unrecorded years. 
 
 But it would shock our sense of the fitness of things to 
 know that Christ's life had been all obscurity, and his death 
 an unrelieved tragedy. We should ask, "Where was God all 
 this time?'' We need the transfiguration, the voice, the 
 declaration of God that this was his Son; we need these high- 
 lights in the picture, else the life of Christ would have been 
 our assurance that God is unheeding, if not malignant. It 
 would almost make us atheists to know that God exhibited no 
 concern when Jesus told his disciples first that they were right 
 
280 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 in believing him Christ, and, secondly, that he was about to 
 be crucified. Perhaps in God's sight the real glory of Christ's 
 life was the healing in the valley; but for us, whose lives are 
 spent in the valley, there is need of the vision of the trans- 
 figuration on the mountain. 
 
 We have ceased to suppose, if indeed any one ever did really 
 suppose, that men are saved by assenting to a dogmatic propo- 
 sition. He who trusts to any intellectual conviction to save 
 him trusts in a refuge of lies, even though the conviction itself 
 is true. There is no saving power in mere factuality. Men 
 are saved by committing themselves loyally to the truth that 
 God loves them and that he is able to help them live a life of 
 love. This is what transfigures life, and saves men. It is not 
 mere doing good that saves; it is the spirit that underlies the 
 good done, and proves the motive toward the good. A man 
 can lose his soul in mere slavery of soul-torture for Christ's 
 sake. He may bury the roots of his religion so deep in the 
 mere doing of the law that there is no growth upward, no 
 flower of the beauty of life, no fruit of a large, lovable man- 
 hood. This is what spoils some people's religion, and repels 
 their neighbors from the religious life. Christ transfigured the 
 doing of duty with love, and made it glorious with the luster 
 of his own life. Henceforth duty is not drudgery, but the joy 
 of service. 
 
 I slept and dreamed that life was Beauty; 
 I woke and found that life was Duty. 
 Was my dream, then, a shadowy lie? 
 
 Nay, for the doing of duty in the spirit of Christ transfigures 
 the hard outlines of obligation with the generous and delicate 
 traceries of faith, hope and love; so that the real seer of the 
 vision of beauty is not the dreamer but the worker, the dis- 
 coverer of the beauty of holiness. 
 
 Even in this blessed experience Jesus was not alone. It was 
 not an experience too blessed to share with redeemed souls 
 and with his disciples. 
 
 Peter proposed to stay there with Jesus and Moses and 
 Elias, "for he knew not what to say." Perhaps he might better 
 
THE VISION OF THOSE WHO WAKE 281 
 
 not have said anything, but what lie said is what we all some- 
 times instinctively feel. Moses was alone in his transfiguration. 
 Moses talked with God alone, but Christ takes us up into the 
 mountain with him. Why not leave the world, and abide with 
 him alone? But we cannot abide in the mount. Our life is in 
 the plain. At times we may ascend to those blessed heights, 
 but they are not for our present habitation. But we still have 
 Jesus, not always transfigured, but the same divine Saviour, 
 going about doing good, casting out demons, and laying down 
 his life for men. 
 
 It was Christ's approaching death that occasioned the trans- 
 figuration. The mount of transfiguration and the mount of 
 crucifi-xion; what a contrast thev afforded to the disciples! 
 But they were not inconsistent as God saw it. Jesus had told 
 them onlv a week before about his approaching death, and 
 Peter had rebuked him. Now came this scene which set his 
 approaching death before them in a new light. They did not 
 vet understand it. It was still a dread and terrible mystery 
 to them. But some things began to be plain. The cross was 
 in some way connected with a heavenly glory. It was under- 
 stood by the souls of the redeemed. It was a part of the 
 glorious work of God. These things Jesus wished to have 
 understood in connection with his death. Something of these 
 truths must have come to the disciples in connection with this 
 event; but however little thev understood it at the time, it 
 was an unspeakable comfort afterward. 
 
CHAPTER XXV 
 
 THE DIVINE TAX-PAYER 
 
 Jesus descended from the Mount of Transfiguration and 
 healed the demoniac boy. Then he returned with his disciples 
 to Galilee, when he again told them that he was to be put to 
 death. They had been gone some time from Capernaum, and 
 had been missed by the tax-collector. The story was as 
 follows: 
 
 "And when they were come to Capernaum, they that 
 received the half-shekel came to Peter, and said, Doth not your 
 master pay the half-shekel? He saith, Yea. And when he 
 came into the house, Jesus spake first to him, saying, What 
 thinkest thou, Simon? the kings of the earth, from whom do 
 they receive toll or tribute? from their sons, or from strangers? 
 And when he said. From strangers, Jesus said unto him, There- 
 fore the sons are free. But, lest we cause them to stumble, 
 go thou to the sea, and cast a hook, and take up the fish that 
 first cometh up; and when thou hast opened his mouth, thou 
 shalt find a shekel: that take, and give unto them for me and 
 thee" (Matt. 17: 24-27). 
 
 The miracle of the stater in the fish's mouth is the most 
 perplexing of all the miracles wrought by Jesus. The narrative 
 is contained in Matthew only, and breaks off so abruptly, with- 
 out saying definitely that the miracle was wrought, that we 
 can hardly help wondering whether some important feature 
 of the incident has not failed to come down to us. It might 
 be a relief if we were to accept the theory that the finding of 
 the coin in the fish's mouth was a later gloss, and that what 
 the manuscript originally contained was the fact that Peter 
 fished and sold his catch for a sum sufficient to pay the tax 
 for Jesus and himself. As no other gospel contains a parallel 
 
 282 
 
THE DIVINE TAX-PAYER 283 
 
 account with which to supplement this, which manifestly closes 
 leaving the story incomplete, we would be justified in a query 
 as to the real meaning of the incident, if. indeed, there existed 
 sources of information available to answer our questions. In 
 the absence of these, we are safest in taking the narrative in 
 its apparent meaning, and treating this as the one miracle 
 which Jesus wrought for himself. 
 
 The first difficulty that meets us is the fact that Jesus was 
 at least six months in arrears in his payment. Various explana- 
 tions of this fact have been attempted. The truth, it seems to 
 me, is not far to seek if we do not try too hard to see it. While 
 every Jew was liable to this tax, and no exceptions appear to 
 have been provided for, it is likely that when Jesus was at 
 the height of his popularity there was no demand for the tax. 
 and Jesus accepted the waiving of the demand as a courtesy. 
 It is not improbable that prophets and rabbis were exempt by 
 unanimous consent. He had undoubtedly paid the temple tax 
 during the ten years he lived in Nazareth between his twentieth 
 and thirtieth years. Then he began to preach and teach and 
 heal, and no demand was made. Through a general recognition 
 of the propriety of an exemption, he accepted the situation. 
 The reason he had not paid it when it was due was that he did 
 not intend to pay it unless, as it came to pass, the grudging, 
 inhospitable spirit of the place compelled it. According to the 
 law he owed it; yet, if according to the higher law of courtesy 
 and affection it was not demanded, he would not pay it. What- 
 ever favors came to him as a rabbi, he accepted with easy 
 grace. He even noticed it and spoke of it when courtesies 
 were given condescendingly and in a stinted manner, as in the 
 case of Simon the Pharisee, and he appreciated what seemed 
 to others excessive display of affection as in the case of the 
 alabaster box of ointment. 
 
 It is a sign of his waning popularity that now, returning to 
 Capernaum, no crowds meet him, and instead of the cordial 
 enthusiasm of former returns, he meets a dun for his temple 
 tax. The demand came when he was least able to pay it. He 
 and the disciples had had long journeys into distant parts. 
 
284 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 where he had few if any friends to minister to him. They had 
 been away to the coasts of Tyre and Sidon, and later to 
 Ccesarea Philippi. These journeys had cost money, and had 
 brought in little to the treasury. Now the demand came, and 
 perhaps in the spirit of criticism, to make a test case. There 
 were a few Jews who had refused to pay the tax so long as 
 
 THE COIN IN THE FISH'S MOUTH— ( SPAGNOLETTO. 1588-1656) 
 
 Jerusalem was in the hands of the Romans. Would Jesus 
 claim fellowship with them? Or would one making so great 
 claims as he was understood to make submit to taxation? It 
 was, to cavilers, an interesting question. 
 
 Peter had answered at once, perhaps from his knowledge 
 of Jesus' former payments, perhaps on general principles, per- 
 
THE DIVINE TAX-PAVER 
 
 285 
 
 haps impulsively and without good reason, perhaps from a 
 desire to avoid all possible trouble with the Jews. When he 
 went to Jesus about it, Jesus anticipated him, and asked, "Do 
 the kings of the earth exact tribute of their own children or 
 the children of their subjects?" Peter answered, "Of their 
 
 THE TRIBUTE MONEY— { TITIAN, I477-I576) 
 
 subjects." "Then," Jesus might have said, "the princes of the 
 royal household are free. You have acknowledged me as the 
 Son of God. But the Son of God is not tributary to the temple 
 of God. I am greater than the temple." For the tax was for 
 the temple. He might have said, "Shall I, the Redeemer, pay 
 for the redemption of my soul: 3 Shall T. the real Shekinah, 
 
286 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 pay for this degenerate temple, now forsaken by the visible 
 presence of God? Shall I, the great Sacrifice, pay to support 
 obsolete rites? The destruction of this temple is at hand; and 
 this treasure will be used by the Romans to erect a temple to 
 Jupiter — can I contribute toward this idolatry? A thousand 
 times, No!" 
 
 So we might reason. On such hair-splitting many a theo- 
 logical system is built. But Jesus says, "The Son is free, and 
 he whom the Son makes free is free also; nevertheless, we will 
 not strain at gnats. Lest we should cause any to stumble, 
 pay it." 
 
 A MODERN SCRIBE 
 
 Free Jesus was as the Son of God, yet subject to the tax 
 as the Son of man, and it was as the Son of man that he chose 
 to live. We are afraid of inconsistency. Jesus did the most 
 inconsistent things, as they might be interpreted, with no fear 
 of inconsistency. Had he said what he did and refused to 
 pay the money, we should have had no trouble in expounding 
 the lessons of the incident; or had he said nothing and paid the 
 tax, we could have interpreted the lesson. Jesus knew the 
 higher consistency. We should say, "Jesus having announced 
 his divinity, could not consistently pay the tax. He must 
 adhere to his announcement. " Jesus cared less to save his 
 consistency than to save men. 
 
THE DIVINE TAX-PAVER 287 
 
 We are disposed to think about our rights. We have rights, 
 and ought sometimes to maintain them. But Jesus, while he 
 asserted his rights and demanded their recognition, immedi- 
 ately ignored them. He received the descending Spirit and 
 accepted its meaning, and then went to be tempted of the 
 devil. He heard the voice from heaven promising that the 
 Father would glorify his name, and then went to Gethsemane. 
 He announced to Pilate that he could have twelve legions 
 of angels, and was to sit on the clouds as judge of all men, 
 and then took up his cross and carried it until he tottered and 
 fell. He asserted that the tax was not justly due from him, 
 and then he paid it. 
 
 Plow completely Jesus identified himself with humanity! 
 The same coin paid for himself and Peter. He might easily 
 have emphasized the difference between Peter and himself by 
 saying, "You will find a drachma in the fish's mouth; for me 
 you may pay with that; then sell the fish and pay your own, 
 and learn that mine is provided by divine power, while thine 
 must be supplied by human effort." Doubtless he intended 
 thus more fully to identify himself with men. Finally, we 
 must notice that the coin was not the sacred shekel, but the 
 Roman didrachma. The letter of the law commanded pay- 
 ment in the holy coin of Israel: Jesus, even when procuring 
 the coin by such means, was content with the secular equiva- 
 lent. To provide the sacred coin the money-changers had 
 their booths in the temple; but Jesus, with all power at his 
 command, ignored the letter of the law, and paid the temple 
 tax of the Son of God — and Peter's with it — in the coin of 
 Caesar. 
 
 Obverse Reverse 
 
 THE SACRED SHEKEL — SIZE OF THE ORIGINAL 
 
CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 JESUS AND THE CHILDREN 
 
 The Bible exhibits us the childhood of many of its most 
 eminent characters. Joseph and David meet us first in their 
 early boyhood. Moses and Samuel are known to us from their 
 birth. We stand beside the cradle of John the Baptist and ask 
 with others of the company, "What manner of child shall 
 this be?" We meet Timothy in his youth, and are carried back 
 still farther by Paul's reminiscence to his childhood in the 
 home of his mother and grandmother. Jesus came into the 
 world as a little child. His advent has given to childhood a 
 new significance and a new place in literature. The babe in 
 the manger, the child increasing in wisdom and stature, the 
 boy in the temple, are all subjects which enlist our ready 
 interest and enhance our estimate of the beauty and promise 
 of holy childhood. 
 
 Three incidents in the life of Jesus afford our chief source 
 of information concerning his estimate of childhood. One of 
 these forms the theme of his discourse in answer to the ques- 
 tion of the disciples, "Who is greatest in the kingdom of 
 heaven?" (Matt. 18: 1-14.) Another is his blessing the children 
 brought him by their parents, with the words that have glad- 
 dened the hearts of parents then and ever since, "Suffer little 
 children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such 
 is the kingdom of heaven." The third is his refusal to silence 
 the children who sang his praises in the temple, and his inter- 
 pretation of the words of the Psalmist (Matt. 19: 13-15), "Out 
 of the mouths of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected 
 praise." The last echo of the popular joy that greeted him as 
 Messiah and escorted in triumph to the city and the temple 
 
 28a 
 
JESUS AND THE CHILDREN 289 
 
 comes to us from the voices of the children singing. "Hosanna 
 to the Son of David" (Matt. 21: 1-16). 
 
 The first incident recorded occurred through a dispute 
 among the disciples concerning the greatest in the kingdom 
 of heaven. They were not interested in the abstract question, 
 as we might infer from Matthew's account taken by itself. 
 Mark tells us (9: 33, 34) that while on their way to Capernaum 
 that day they disputed among themselves which of their 
 number should be greatest. Jesus allowed the discussion to 
 take its own course, and when they arrived at Capernaum the 
 question was as remote as ever from settlement. 
 
 Peter might have maintained that he was the greatest, since 
 Jesus had helped pay Peter's tax and left the others to shift 
 for themselves. It is significant that he entered no such claim, 
 or if he did the others did not concede it. Nor did Peter ever 
 claim, or the others concede, pre-eminence because of the 
 words of Jesus, "Upon this rock I will build my church." The 
 question of relative greatness, which recurred to the close of 
 Christ's ministry, shows that the apostles had no such idea 
 of Peter's authority as has sometimes been assumed. 
 
 It was an unhappy company that returned, wearied and un- 
 welcomed, to Capernaum. Each was displeased with the 
 others and ashamed of himself; and there was no little justice 
 in both feelings. After they were seated in the house and 
 alone, and very likely after supper, Jesus asked them, "What 
 was it that ye disputed among yourselves by the way?" But 
 they held their peace; and when at last they must say some- 
 thing, instead of giving a direct answer they proposed to Jesus 
 the question of the day. "And he sat down and called the 
 twelve, and saith unto them, If any man desire to be first, the 
 same shall be last of all, and servant of all." That was his 
 introduction, and also his application. It did not answer their 
 question, but it gave the truth co-ordinate with the answer. 
 It told them that they were in clanger of becoming least in 
 the kingdom, and were indeed lessening their hold upon it in 
 exact ratio to their strife for greatness. It was a restatement 
 of the paradox so often reiterated in the teachings of Jesus, 
 
290 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 and never so plainly taught as by his life, that he who would 
 save his life shall lose it, and he who loses it saves it. 
 
 At this point Jesus gave the twelve an object lesson. A 
 child or group of children from a neighboring home, with 
 innocent curiosity, stood near the door. Capernaum at this 
 time was Jesus' home, and the child doubtless knew him. It 
 is likely that Jesus' former kindness to the little ones of the 
 village assured the child in advance of a welcome. It is not 
 unlikely that he had been there before and had been caressed 
 by the Saviour. At any rate, when Jesus spoke to him he 
 came readily at his call and took without reluctance the seat 
 offered him. We can picture to ourselves the scene as Jesus 
 sat, his hand gently stroking the child's hair, while his disciples, 
 self-condemned and marveling, and the child, half understand- 
 ing the words, but yielding unresisting to the caress, listened 
 to the discourse that followed. 
 
 ''Except ye turn, and become as little children, ye shall in 
 no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven." The question of 
 entering precedes that of relative greatness. Their spirit was 
 opposed even to entrance. By the kingdom of heaven is not 
 meant heaven itself. To think of it as existing only in worlds 
 to corrre is an unauthorized limitation of our thought. The 
 kingdom is already established in heaven; our prayer is that 
 even as it is there, so may it come upon earth, where already it 
 has begun. 
 
 By becoming as little children is meant that we shall become 
 childlike, not childish, in our relations to God. We need not 
 sigh for the immaturity of childhood or its irresponsibility. 
 The true child of God will not wish to be one whit less a man. 
 and will by reason of his childlikeness be the more manly. 
 
 The margin of the Revised Version makes an interesting 
 correction in verse 4, "Whosoever therefore shall humble 
 himself as this little child, the same is greater in the kingdom 
 of heaven." Greater than whom? Greater than his former 
 self. The word greatest inevitably suggests a comparison with 
 others; the word greater suggests a constant out-growing of 
 self. Tt is still true that he who most fully does this is greatest; 
 
JESUS AND THE CHILDREN 
 
 291 
 
 but this is not the thought. Just so soon as, measuring our- 
 selves against our neighbor, we take note of our growth in 
 childlikeness as more manifest than his, we lose the spirit and 
 our gain in stature. But we become greater by rising "on 
 stepping-stones of our dead selves to higher things." John 
 the Baptist decreased, that Jesus might increase; and when his 
 
 CHRIST AND THE CHILDREN — ( HOFMANN, 1824 — ) 
 
 decline was most complete, when he was deserted and in 
 danger and in doubt, just at the time of awful blackness, when 
 he even questioned whether he had not diminished out of God's 
 sight, Jesus said of him that among those born of women no 
 greater had ever lived. 
 
 But how shall a man become great by becoming small? 
 Faith balanced upon a paradox seems to have a precarious 
 
292 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 footing. How shall a man maintain it? Will he not stumble 
 and cause others to stumble? Woe to him if he does! What 
 seems an uncertain poise is indeed the one stable equilibrium 
 in the universe. To Jesus the thought of increased greatness 
 by the outgrowth of self was no paradox at all. He beggared 
 himself that of his increased wealth he might enrich us. He 
 humbled himself that by his higher exaltation he might exalt 
 us. He emptied himself that of his increased fulness we might 
 all receive. Only the heedless and the half-hearted will stum! ' 
 in the path the Saviour trod. 
 
 But what about cutting off the hand that offends? for Jesus 
 spoke of this in the same connection. We shall answer more 
 at length in the next chapter. These terrible verses must be 
 interpreted according to the laws of rhetoric. No man has a 
 right to mutilate himself, for no man has a right to decrease 
 his power for good. It would be better for a man to part with 
 a hand or foot than to lose his life, and ten thousand times has 
 the wounded man chosen to do so. But in the moral sphere 
 the amputation is moral also, and not physical. The organ tha^ 
 sins is sinless, for sin is of the soul; to cut off the hand or pluck 
 out the eye would leave the soul still corrupt. Wherefore, 
 spare the hand and eye for the service of God, and amputate 
 sin in the soul itself. He who, for the love of a cherished sin 
 refuses to become a little child, need not think he forfeits some 
 part only of his honor in the kingdom of heaven. He who 
 causes another to stumble need desire no comfort from the 
 old heresy of Cain. Better than that he stumble himself and 
 be consumed in the hell of his own passion would it be to 
 enter into life maimed; better than that he cause a child to 
 stumble that he should be drowned. It is terrible to stumble 
 one's self; it is doubly so to cause another to stumble. 
 
 Jesus was childlike but never childish. He held in stable 
 equilibrium the antithetic truth of self-renunciation and self- 
 assertion. To be a child of God and a king among men 
 involved no self-contradiction to him, but each was possible 
 because of the perfection of the other. 
 
 Jesus had passed from the theme of mere childhood to the 
 consideration of the broader theme; yet the thought of the 
 
JESUS AiND THE CHILDREN 
 
 ^93 
 
 child all the time had been present in his speech, and now he 
 returned again to it, but with the enlarged meaning given by 
 the second part of his discourse. Have these words been terri- 
 ble? It is only because the soul is of so great value that the 
 most terrible measures are justified in saving it. Every pain 
 caused by the surgeon's knife is a tribute to the value of human 
 
 CHRIST BLESSING LITTLE CHILDREN — (REMBRANDT, 1607-1669.) 
 
 life. But God is more than the good surgeon who will sacri- 
 fice his patient's arm in order to save his life; he himself endures 
 sacrifice for the patient's sake. 
 
 Here our Saviour's words melt from the sternest to the 
 tenderest. God is not only the surgeon but the shepherd. The 
 Revised Version omits verse u, which appears to have been 
 
294 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 added irom Luke 19: 10, "For the Son of man is come to seek 
 and to save that which was lost." Be it so: the thought is 
 still there. To choose between two losses for another may 
 seem easy, but God chooses rather to sacrifice himself than lose 
 his child. The one sheep gone from a hundred seems to an 
 outsider a small loss — what shepherd would not gladly be 
 assured of a maximum loss of one per cent? — but with care 
 and love out of all proportion to what seems his relative value, 
 God seeks the individual sheep that he may save him. "And 
 if it so be that he find it, he rejoiceth," with a joy incompre- 
 hensible except as viewed from God's own desire that not one 
 of these little ones should perish. 
 
 All the time the child sits in wonder, as well he may. Dimly 
 he realizes the Saviour's meaning, as do we all, but in its 
 breadth and length and depth and height it passeth knowledge. 
 As we study these verses and ponder the nature of childlike- 
 ness, its purity, its trustfulness, its reliance on the love of the 
 Father, and think again of the kingdom of heaven into which 
 chikllikeness gives entrance, we may rejoice anew in the words: 
 "Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon 
 us that we should be called children of God; and such we are. 
 Beloved, now are we children of God." 
 
 SUFFER LITTI. 
 
 ,E CHILDREN — ( VON UHDE, 1846 — ) 
 
CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 FELLOWSHIP AND FORGIVENESS 
 
 In connection with his lesson illustrated with the little child. 
 Jesus for the second, and so far as is recorded the last time, 
 definitely spoke of the Church. The promise of authority 
 made to Peter at Caesarea Philippi is now repeated to them 
 all, and bestowed likewise on "two or three" who in coming" 
 time shall unite together in his name in the organized fellow- 
 ship of the Church. In case of disagreement, the final appeal 
 is not to Peter, but to the Church. 
 
 The question of the Church came up incidentally. The 
 lesson had been on the childlike spirit, and was a gentle rebuke 
 of the strife and self-seeking of the twelve. They were to seek 
 each other's welfare, and forgive each other's faults. If an 
 erring brother can be forgiven and restored, the one injured 
 has not lost his self-respect in the forgiveness, but has gained 
 his brother — and himself. Such a doctrine naturally aroused 
 questions. How many times shall a man forgive? Peter set 
 the limit interrogatively at seven times. But Jesus moved the 
 bounds, and indefinitely — "until seventy times seven." 
 
 Forgiveness is the doctrine most preached and least be- 
 lieved. Science knows no forgiveness of sin, and theology has 
 been busy hedging it about with qualifications; but it is com- 
 mon, thank God, in real life among men, and this helps us to 
 understand the gospel. It is an unfortunate rendering which 
 the old version gives us of the noble words of Paul, "Forgiving 
 one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven von" 
 (Eph. 4: 32). God forgives us for our own sakes, and for his 
 own sake. Jesus said, "I say not that I will pray the Father 
 for you; for the Father himself loveth you" (John 16: 26, 2j). 
 What Paul says in the badly translated verse is, "Even as God 
 
 205 
 
296 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 also in Christ forgave you." It is our duty and privilege to 
 forgive as God forgives — forgive and forget. The forgetting 
 is as important as the forgiveness, and completes it. 
 
 We ought to forget our own failures and our own forgiven 
 sins. Much more ought we to forget the faults and forgiven 
 sins of others. There is a possible use to us in remembering 
 our own faults as a matter of discipline and prudence; there 
 is a sense in which we ought not wholly to forget them, but 
 the reasons why we may not quite ignore our own outgrown 
 faults and our own forgiven sins do not apply to our forgetting 
 the frailties of others. 
 
 "But," some men say, "that is just what I cannot do. I can 
 forgive, but I cannot forget/' 
 
 I have not much faith in forgiveness that does not include 
 forgetting. A person who forgives must let the offense drop 
 out of mind, put it away by strength of will in the first instance; 
 and then quietly ignore it till it ceases to be remembered. To 
 cease to think about it is the crowning mental triumph of 
 forgiveness, and it prepares the way for that later spiritual 
 triumph of restored fellowship. Can we forgive, but not 
 forget? Then the forgiveness is incomplete. So long as the 
 offense is cherished, brooded over, it is unforgiven. 
 
 God forgets our sins. That is, he ceases to cherish them 
 in his mind, half unforgiven, as we do when we say we forgive 
 but cannot forget. God forgives and forgets. "I will forgive 
 their iniquity, and their sin will I remember no more" (Jer. 
 31: 34). By giving, when our left hand does not know what 
 our right hand does, and forgiving and forgetting we become 
 like God. When we say, "I will forgive but not forget," we 
 really mean, "I am not ready to forgive." Let no man think 
 that he has forgiven while he says, 'T cannot forget." When 
 he has ceased to think of it with bitterness he will have for- 
 given. 
 
 "But," asks someone, "must I forgive before forgiveness is 
 asked? Surely you do not expect this of me?" 
 
 Tt is behind this excuse that many a man harbors an un- 
 christian spirit. He will not forgive until he is asked to forgive, 
 
FELLOWSHIP AND FORGIVENESS 297 
 
 nor forget till he has forgiven. Let me relate an incident that 
 illustrates what I want to teach upon this point, 
 
 John Wesley once had a disagreement with his traveling 
 companion of many years, and he and Joseph Bradford agreed 
 to part. They retired for the night, each firm in his position, 
 and each doubtless deploring in his heart the separation soon 
 to follow between two friends so devoted and mutually help- 
 ful. In the morning Wesley asked Bradford if he had consid- 
 ered during the night their agreement to part. 
 
 "Yes, sir," said Bradford. 
 
 "And must we part?" inquired Wesley. 
 
 "Please yourself, sir," said Bradford, grimly. 
 
 "But will you ask my pardon?" demanded Wesley. 
 
 "No, sir."' 
 
 "You won't?" 
 
 "No, sir." 
 
 "In that case," said Wesley, "I must ask yours." 
 
 It was not the ending which Bradford anticipated. A 
 moment he hesitated, and then, breaking into tears, he followed 
 Wesley's example, and forgave and was forgiven. 
 
 It might almost be laid down as a safe rule where there has 
 been a quarrel, "If the other man will not ask your forgive- 
 ness, ask his." It is astonishing often to find that the other 
 man also has a grievance, real or imaginary; and it is beautiful 
 to see how often he will forget it if the first concession is made 
 to him. 
 
 We pray, "Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors." 
 God forgives, freely, fully. Many a man remains unforgiven 
 because unforgiving. Life is too short and our friends are too 
 few to justify us in cherishing hatred and needless anger. Even 
 if to us the wrong appears wholly on the other side there is 
 something that can be conceded for love's sake. 
 
 Jesus taught that the man who brings his offering to God 
 and remembers that his brother hath aught against him should 
 leave his gift before the altar, and go and be reconciled to his 
 brother, and then offer his gift. The worship of God is so 
 joined to fidelity toward men that the forgiving man is sure 
 
298 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 to be the forgiven man. If your enemy will not ask your 
 forgiveness, ask his; and if he will not forgive you, then forgive 
 him, whether or no. And having forgiven, forget. 
 
 At this time John told Jesus how they had found one cast- 
 ing out demons in his name, but had forbidden him because 
 he followed not them. Fit type of the sectarian spirit that 
 surely was, and as commendable for its zeal as it was lacking 
 in good sense and charity. But Jesus answered. "Forbid him 
 not; for there is no man which shall do a mighty work in my 
 name, and be able quickly to speak evil of me. For he that 
 is not against us is for us" (Mark 9: 39, 40). 
 
 At this same time Jesus repeated, and with more emphasis, 
 those terrible words about self-mutilation, which have been 
 so variously, and sometimes literally interpreted: 
 
 "And if thy hand cause thee to stumble, cut it off: it is good 
 for thee to enter into life maimed, rather than having thy two 
 hands to go into hell, into the unquenchable fire. And if thy 
 foot cause thee to stumble, cut it off: it is good for thee to 
 enter into life halt, rather than having thy two feet to be cast 
 into hell. And if thine eye cause thee to stumble, cast it out: 
 it is good for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one 
 eye, rather than having two eyes, to be cast into hell; where 
 their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. For every 
 one shall be salted with fire. Salt is good: but if the salt have 
 lost its saltness, wherewith will ye season it? Have salt in 
 yourselves, and be at peace one with another" (Mark 9: 43-50). 
 
 Gehenna was Jerusalem's offal heap, the valley where were 
 burned the carcasses from the city. We are told to cut off 
 the right hand and pluck out the right eye rather than be 
 cast, soul and body, to creation's ash-heap. This is sometimes 
 preached as if it were the whole gospel, and as though God's 
 ideal were a church of maimed men and women, who had made 
 the fearful choice between death and mutilation, and who live, 
 saved by moral surgery. But the surgeon does not count his 
 successes by his amputations, but rather by the limbs which 
 he has been able to save from amputation. The Son of man 
 came not to amputate but to save, not to condemn, but to 
 
FELLOWSHIP AND FORGIVENESS 
 
 299 
 
 restore, not to destroy but to fulfil. Paul tells us that if 
 we judge ourselves, we shall not be judged. The salt is for 
 preserving, not for desolation; the hre is for refining, not for 
 destruction; the surgeon is for restoring, and not until every 
 other resource has failed, for amputation, and even when he 
 amputates it is still to save. The Son of God is sent to save 
 the world and not condemn the world. 
 
 The undying worm and unquenchable fire are the symbols, 
 not of torture, but of destruction. The worm is not the 
 
 THE VALLEY OF HINNOM 
 
 product of the fire, but of the decomposition for which the 
 fire is the remedy. The fire is as fatal to the worm as to the 
 carcass. Yet even the worm and the vulture have their place 
 in removing decay when neither salt preserves nor fire con- 
 sumes; so the tendency of evil to self-destructiveness is a fact 
 of some moral significance. There still is waste in the moral 
 world, and waste in the life of man. Every city has its 
 gehenna where the fire of the dump is never quenched. But 
 the city, wasteful as it is, has provided some economies in its 
 wastes. The rag-picker and the junk-dealer grow rich out of 
 the cast-ofT and waste products of civilized life, and the garbage 
 
300 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 is fed to swine and the offal fertilizes the field of the husband- 
 man. Dickens' "Golden Dustman" illustrates the wealth that 
 men find in the wastes of life. We are already past the undying 
 worm in the utilization of municipal waste, and we build the 
 unquenched fire where its ashes may fill waste spaces and 
 prepare for future homes. So, we may hope, God's wastes are 
 apparent rather than real. 
 
 GEHENNA AND ACELDAMA 
 
 We are at liberty to hope that creation will have no final 
 dumping ground, and that nothing shall be thrown to the void 
 when God hath made the pile complete. But we cannot forget 
 that men now live in hell. Unsalted by self-restraint, they 
 have reached the salt plain of desolation which is Sodom. Not 
 purified by the fire of a discerning conscience, they are burned 
 in the fire of passion till their souls are in the consuming 
 flames. Whatever hells there are and are to be, some men are 
 choosing destruction for themselves, now, and so far as they 
 can, forever. The Son of man has come, not to add to their 
 destruction which is suicidal, but to save them from themselves. 
 
CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 JESUS AND THE WORLD AT LARGE 
 
 Up to this time we have usually had three parallel accounts 
 of the life of Christ — Matthew, Mark and Luke having so 
 much in common that they are known as the Synoptics, "those 
 who see together." Where John relates an incident, it is com- 
 monly something not found in any of the other gospels, 
 though there are some exceptions, as that of the feeding of 
 the five thousand, which is the only miracle, except the resur- 
 rection of Christ, that is recorded in all the gospels. We now 
 approach a new epoch in the life of Christ, a period of four or 
 five months on which Matthew and Mark are silent. Luke 
 alone gives us an account of the Peraan ministry, which began 
 in November and ended in March, and John interjects the 
 account of the Feast of the Dedication in December, and the 
 raising of Lazarus, apparently in January. It is Luke who 
 gives us most of the few glimpses which Ave get of the broader 
 attitude of Jesus toward the world outside Judaism. The inci- 
 dents are few, for his personal work was mainly for "the lost 
 sheep of the house of Israel/' but the few that we have are 
 illuminating. 
 
 Several incidents near the beginning of the second half of 
 the last year of his life shed light on the larger aspects of the 
 ministry of Jesus. One of these is the, mission of the seventy. 
 As the number of the twelve apostles had its symbolic refer- 
 ence to Israel, so the number of the seventy now sent forth 
 had its reference to "the seventy nations" whom the Jews 
 reckoned as constituting the rest of the world. The seventy 
 constituted no permanent body like that of the apostles. It 
 was a large company of evangelists sent for preparatory work 
 into the places where he himself would come. We have no 
 
 30T 
 
302 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 reason to assume that none of them went farther than Jesus 
 actually journeyed, but only that his intended journey assigned 
 the general limit of their pilgrimages. The restriction given to 
 the twelve is not here repeated, forbidding them to enter the 
 cities of the Samaritans; indeed, Jesus himself soon after thi 
 attempted to visit a Samaritan city. That city did not receive 
 him. but he refused to call down fire upon it, as the disciples 
 wished. They knew not what manner of spirit they were of. 
 nor did they know his larger love. 
 
 If there were any cities on which at this time Jesus would 
 have called down fire, they were those that he had loved most, 
 and had done most to bless. Jesus was more than the meek 
 and lowly Saviour, bearing uncomplainingly the sufferings 
 inflicted upon him for human salvation. He was more than 
 the self-denving and self-renouncing Lamb of God; he was 
 the stern and uncompromising enemy of wickedness. He was 
 the regal, authoritative representative of divine justice, as well 
 as the hostage of divine grace. He had self-assertion as well 
 as self-abnegation. The voice that uttered the beatitudes 
 hurled words that were like stinging scorpions at the Phari- 
 sees. The hand that was laid in healing upon the sick, held 
 the scourge of small cords. As he was leaving Galilee he 
 exhibited both severity and tenderness in the same discourse; 
 we hear at once some of the most terrible warnings and the 
 most gracious invitations that ever fell from his lips, "Woe 
 unto thee Chorazin!" "Come unto me, and I will give you 
 rest/' 
 
 Theologians used to discuss the question whether divine 
 grace were irresistible, and whether human accord with the 
 divine will was always in proportion to the divine effort. Thi r 
 passage would seem to afford a clear answer to the latter 
 question. God wasted, so it would seem, on Capernaum and 
 Chorazin, effort which would have resulted in the conversion 
 of Tyre and Siclon. It is a sad fact that much of God's effort 
 seems thus to waste itself. Probably it is not wasted. He 
 who causes it to rain in the wilderness where no man is, has 
 larger thoughts of economy and waste than those to which 
 
JESUS AND THE WORLD AT LARGE 
 
 303 
 
 we accustom ourselves. It is significant that the warning is 
 against the misuse of exceptional opportunities. Capernaum 
 was not the center of hostility against him. He did not expect 
 to be crucified in Chorazin. The Sanhedrin did not hold in 
 Bethsaida the court that was to condemn him. These cities 
 were not bitterly hostile to Jesus. Probably, in a way, they 
 were proud of the distinction which his residence had con- 
 ferred on them. Many of his followers came from there. His 
 
 A SAMARITAN VILLAGE 
 
 best friends were residents of those places. These cities had 
 once sent out eager throngs, running after Christ, around the 
 lake and from shore to shore. Boats were at a premium when 
 he came there, and those who could not obtain boats walked 
 around the little sea. This eagerness had worn off. He was 
 heard now with a languid interest. Truths which once seemed 
 vital had now grown commonplace, and men who had once been 
 eager had grown indifferent. The cities that had received the 
 
3°4 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 most had failed to respond in proportion to their blessings. 
 This was the ground of their condemnation. 
 
 But Jesus did not stop with condemnation. He closed his 
 denunciation with a most tender entreaty. Some things in the 
 Bible are true and would be true, no matter who spoke them. 
 The multiplication table is true, though the whole universe 
 
 COME UNTO ME — (THORWALDSEN ) 
 
 should deny it. It is right to love the good and hate the 
 bad, no matter who teaches the one or defends the other. If 
 Pythagoras first declared that the square on the hypothenuse 
 of a right angled triangle is equal to the sum of the squares 
 upon the other two sides, the fact that Pythagoras said so has 
 historic interest, but adds nothing to the truth of the proposi- 
 tion. The same is true of much that is in the Bible. But there 
 
JESUS AND THE WORLD AT LARGE 
 
 305 
 
 are some things in the Bible which depend for their supreme 
 authority and power over the human heart upon the person- 
 ality of him who uttered them. The invitation and promise, 
 "Come unto me and I will give you rest," is one of these utter- 
 ances. It makes much difference to us who it is that gives this 
 invitation, and couples it with this promise. For here is what 
 no other master has commanded; what no other teacher can 
 impart. Here is a promise which no other friend can fulfil 
 than Jesus. "Come unto me, and I will give you rest." It is 
 a command of supreme authority. It is an invitation of unpar- 
 
 THE INN OF THE GOOD SAMARITAN 
 
 alleled tenderness. It is a promise of unapproachable richness, 
 and a million times in the ages since the promise has been ful- 
 filled. 
 
 Soon after the beginning of this winter journey, Jesus was 
 challenged by a lawyer who asked him the conditions of eternal 
 life, and being told to love God and his neighbor, asked, "And 
 who is my neighbor?" Jesus answered in the parable of the good 
 Samaritan. The road from Jerusalem to Jericho was famous 
 for brigands in that day, and is not much more respectable 
 now. Upon this road Jesm located the scene of his sermon 
 
3o6 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 story. It was a vivid story, true to life in every detail. A man, 
 presumably a Jew, passing along this road, was robbed, 
 stripped, and wounded. A priest and a Levite saw the man and 
 passed by, but a Samaritan saw and helped him. Which of the 
 men by his conduct had shown a recognition of the principle 
 underlying God's commandment of love to men? But one 
 
 THE GOOD SAMARITAN- 
 
 (FRANK T. MERRILL) 
 
 answer was possible. "He that showed mercy," heretic though 
 he was. The application of Jesus was simple and direct: "Go 
 thou and do likewise." So Jesus, who had rebuked his own 
 cities in a contrast with Tyre and Sidon, sent the Jewish law- 
 yer for his lesson of love to the Samaritan whose theology was 
 wrong but whose heart was right. 
 
JESUS AND THE WORLD AT LARGE 307 
 
 Not long after this Jesus had opportunity to test the relative 
 gratitude of Jew and Samaritan in the healing of the ten lepers. 
 The ingratitude of the nine did not reinfect them with leprosy 
 or prevent their receiving the certificate of the priest that they 
 were healed. Nor was it wholly strange that they were in haste 
 to receive that certificate. Home, friends, business, all that 
 was good in life was waiting for them, and grew unspeakably 
 dear in their unexpected freedom. With the first leap of pure 
 blood their pulses tingled with hopes that had long been dead 
 within them. They started, they walked, they ran, they raced 
 wildly toward that far distant temple, where the priest, who was 
 also health officer, could restore them to their families. Who- 
 ever has had a scarlet fever card on his house for months will 
 know the eagerness of men to be certified as healed and safe 
 members of the community. We need not blame them for 
 being in a hurry; but their haste caused them to forget their 
 gratitude, and they have come down to history as men who 
 forgot to be thankful. All but one, and he the least likely, so 
 it would have seemed, to engage the Master's attention or to 
 appreciate his benefits. 
 
 It is significant that our Lord found a Samaritan the one 
 grateful man. Christ's own nation had come to receive bless- 
 ings as a matter of course, and even to despise them. The 
 gospel was soon to be preached to all the world; and it was 
 well that these beginnings showed the disciples a little of the 
 largeness of that world. In his discourse at Jerusalem on the 
 Good Shepherd, Jesus declared himself to have other sheep 
 not of the Jewish fold. Already he was finding a few of them, 
 and bringing them to the fold and care of the Good Shepherd. 
 
CHAPTER XXIX 
 
 THE DEMOCRACY OF CHRIST'S DOCTRINE OF 
 
 PRAYER 
 
 Jesus departed from Galilee for the last time before his 
 crucifixion, in November, A. D. 29 (Matt. 19: 1, 2; Mark 10: 1; 
 Luke 8: 51). He was rejected by the Samaritans (Luke 9: 
 52-56), to whom he applied for entertainment, and crossing 
 the Jordan below the Sea of Galilee, went into Peroea. 
 He visited Jerusalem at the Feast of the Dedication, Decem- 
 ber 20 to 27, A. D. 29, and returned to Peraea. He went to 
 Bethany in January A. D. 30, on the occasion of the death of 
 Lazarus (John 11). As this return to publicity raised new 
 plots against his life, he went to "a city called Ephraim." in 
 "the country near the wilderness" (John 11: 54). He returned 
 again to Peraea, and from it took up his last journey to Jerusa- 
 lem by way of Jericho. 
 
 The name Persea is that given by Josephus to what in the 
 Bible is called "beyond Jordan." Josephus said of it in his 
 day that it was larger than Galilee and less fertile. It is a high 
 table-land, broken by deep and picturesque ravines. The 
 Mishna constantly refers to Peraea as one of the provinces of 
 the land of Israel, the other two being Judaea and Galilee. 
 Samaria, of course, was omitted. Peraea connected the other 
 two. By crossing the Jordan below Gennesaret and recrossing 
 at Jericho, a traveler from Galilee could attend the feasts at 
 Jerusalem without passing through Samaria. 
 
 Some time in the autumn of his last year's ministry the 
 Pharisees warned Jesus that Herod would kill him, and advised 
 him to depart from Galilee. But he answered that he had no 
 fear of "that fox" Herod; that there was only one place where 
 a prophet could die, and that was Jerusalem. This was a 
 
 30S 
 
CHRISTS DOCTRINE OF PRAYER 
 
 309 
 
 strange rejoinder, and must have surprised the Pharisees. But 
 it was no mere taunt, and Jesus followed his prediction with 
 the pathetic lament. "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which killeth 
 the prophets, and stoneth them that are sent unto her! how 
 often would I have gathered thy children together, even as r 
 hen gathereth her own brood under her wings, and ye would 
 not! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate; and I say 
 unto you, Ye shall not see me, until ye shall say, Blessed is he 
 that cometh in the name of the Lord." (Luke 13:34-35.) 
 
 JESUS AMONG PEASANTS — (FRITZ VON UHDE, 1846 — ) 
 
 He departed, however, from the jurisdiction of Herod, but 
 journeyed toward Jerusalem, by way of Peraa. 
 
 The ministry of Jesus in Peraea is a sort of brief epitome of 
 his ministry in Galilee, repeated here. There were crowds for 
 a time, and works of healing, notably that of a demoniac; and 
 there was a woman healed on the Sabbath greatly to the scan- 
 dal of the ruler of the synagogue. One of the chief Pharisees 
 invited him to a feast on the Sabbath, and he attended, rebuk- 
 
310 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 ing the self-seeking which he saw there, and speaking the par- 
 able of the supper and the guests that would not come. He 
 offended the Pharisees as he had done in Galilee, and warned 
 the people as he had already warned the disciples, against 
 them. He rebuked a man who asked him to settle a dispute 
 between him and his brother about property, and taught a 
 lesson against covetousness in the parable of the rich fool. He 
 prophesied that the kingdom of heaven was surely to grow as 
 the mustard seed and the leaven; but he declared that in it 
 many of the first should be last, and the last first. 
 
 But as the teaching of Jesus grew wider in the scope of 
 those included in its benefits, it grew more stern toward those 
 who had had and despised those benefits. When he was asked, 
 "Lord, are there few that be saved?" he did not answer directly, 
 but declared that many who were confident of their salvation 
 were mistaken: 
 
 "When once the master of the house is risen up, and hath 
 shut to the door, and ye begin to stand without, and to knock 
 at the door, saying, Lord, open to us; and he shall answer and 
 say to you, I know you not whence ye are; then shall ye begin 
 to say, We did eat and drink in thy presence, and thou didst 
 teach in our streets; and he shall say, I tell you, I know not 
 whence ye are ; depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity. 
 There shall be the weeping and gnashing of teeth, when ye 
 shall see Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets, 
 in the kingdom of God, and yourselves cast forth without. 
 And they shall come from the east and west, and from the 
 north and south, and shall sit down in the kingdom of God. 
 And behold, there are last which shall be first, and there are 
 first which shall be last" (Luke 13: 25-29). 
 
 At this time the news arrived that there had been a 
 slaughter at Jerusalem. Certain Galilseans had been slain by 
 Pilate. We know not what had been their crime, but they 
 died as criminals. Besides these, eighteen men had lost their 
 lives in the fall of a structure at Siloam, a little village note- 
 worthy for its reservoir. 
 
 To the Romans the death of the Galileans was just retribu- 
 tion for their wicked rebellion; to the Jews, the death of the 
 
CHRIST'S DOCTRINE OF PRAYER 311 
 
 men engaged in putting up a structure with money which 
 Pilate had taken from the treasury where it had been conse- 
 crated to God, would be considered a divine judgment. The 
 contrast is apparently Christ's reason for speaking of both 
 companies at once. The Jews thought one company, and the 
 Romans the other, to have been greater sinners than others. 
 Jesus refutes both errors at once, and calls upon his hearers 
 for immediate repentance lest they, too. fall under divine con- 
 demnation. They were all sinners, and all, the Pharisees 
 included, had need of repentance and forgiveness. 
 
 We need not wonder that such teaching enraged the Phari- 
 sees. From this time Jesus endeavored to do less public work, 
 and to teach his disciples the most important lessons before 
 his crucifixion. Among these lessons was one on prayer. 
 
 A helpful little volume is entitled, "With Christ in the 
 School of Prayer." The title is a misnomer. It was John, the 
 forerunner who kept the school of prayer. Long before this 
 the Pharisees had complained that Jesus feasted while John 
 and his disciples fasted and made prayers. The disciples of 
 John had echoed the complaint. Now, near the end of his 
 ministry, the disciples of Jesus came to him, saying, "Lord, 
 teach us to pray; as John also taught his disciples." The dis- 
 ciples felt neglected, in comparison with the disciples of John. 
 But if Jesus taught little about prayer, he certainly prayed, and 
 his own prayer furnished the occasion of the request. Much 
 as he prayed himself, he had taught them but one short prayer, 
 and that more than a year before. 
 
 I am not disposed to lay emphasis on verbal differences be- 
 tween the gospels; but I cannot fail to note that Jesus now 
 taught them the same prayer, but in shorter form. The 
 extended form of the prayer as given in the prayer-book from 
 Matthew contains sixty-nine words; in the revised version of 
 Luke there are only thirty-nine. Thirty-nine words in the 
 great universal prayer; and our creeds extend to thirty-nine 
 articles! 
 
 In this shorter form Jesus does not say "Our Father," but 
 only "Father;" by this time they ought to have learned the 
 
312 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 lesson of brotherhood taught in the pronoun. He does not 
 sav "Who art in heaven;" he himself had been revealing God 
 as our Father also on earth, to make our heaven for us. "Thy 
 kingdom come" has not again set over against it the more pas- 
 sive "Thy will be done," and "Bring us not into temptation" 
 has no subjoined petition for deliverance from evil. 
 
 As has been said, I do not emphasize these differences. I 
 merely note that, if Jesus taught the Lord's prayer twice, with 
 an interval of more than a year between, the later form was 
 the shorter. Prayer being communion of the soul with its God, 
 cannot wholly be taught. It arises out of kinship of God and 
 his child. 
 
 The Mohammedan knows just how often he must pray and 
 what his attitude must be, and which way he should face, and 
 what words he should say, but the Christian has no such pre- 
 cise rules to guide him. The heathen's prayer assumes the 
 indifference or hostility of his god; but the Christian's prayer 
 is based on his sonship. 
 
 Jesus here taught the parable of the grudging friend who, 
 because of importunity, would rise at midnight to assist a 
 neighbor. If importunity could thus triumph over unkind- 
 ness. much more would it avail with a willing Father. 
 
 Jesus taught that prayer is not to remove God's unwilling- 
 ness, because God wills the good of his children. 
 
 "And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, 
 and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. For 
 every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; 
 and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. And of which 
 of you that is a father shall his son ask a loaf, and he give him 
 a stone? or a fish, and he for a fish give him a serpent? Or if 
 he shall ask an egg, will he give him a scorpion? If ye then, 
 being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, 
 how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy 
 Spirit to them that ask him?" (Luke 11:9-13.) 
 
 In the light of this teaching, let us return a moment to the 
 account of the Lord's prayer as given in Matthew, and con- 
 sider the democracy of Christ's doctrine of prayer. God is 
 
CHRIST'S DOCTRINE OF PRAYER 
 
 3*3 
 
 our Father; all men in him may rise to a common level of 
 approach. Therefore, said Jesus, "When thou prayest, enter 
 into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy 
 Father which is in secret" (Matt. 6: 6). 
 
 We have done well to adopt the phraseology of Jesus, which 
 he himself adopted from the current language of his time, of 
 a "kingdom of God." It emphasizes the solidaritv of interest 
 
 THE CHURCH OF THE LORD S PRAYER ON MOUNT OF OLIVES 
 WITH TABLETS CONTAINING THE PRAYER IN $2 LANGUAGES 
 
 which men have in the government of God, and the sociality 
 of their effort which centralizes all righteous endeavor, and all 
 normal relationship. But we mistake if from our thought of 
 a kingdom we eliminate that democratic element which is so 
 strongly characteristic of the teaching of Jesus concerning the 
 method of God's government. 'Thou when thou prayest. 
 enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray 
 to thy Father." Thou, when thou hast a message for the 
 King, go direct to the King! Our fathers fought for the right 
 
314 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 of petition, and gained that right in human government; it 
 was theirs already in the divine government. They were con- 
 tent if they might elect representatives who should speak to 
 the kings of earth on their behalf; but the King of kings 
 receives his humblest subject into his presence. The United 
 States ambassador at the court of Saint James has lying on his 
 desk a thick and much used book on whose cover is inscribed 
 "Presentations at Court." A considerable part of his business 
 is in securing for American citizens the right to appear for a 
 single moment before the king of England; but the King of 
 earth and heaven welcomes every man who will come to the 
 throne of grace. 
 
 It is no mere sentimental value which these words of Jesus 
 give to human life. Henceforth priestcraft becomes an open 
 delusion. There is room still for any man according to his 
 ability, learning or piety, to instruct, guide, and help his neigh- 
 bor; there is room for the special student and the interpreter; 
 there is room for the herald and the evangelist; but there is 
 no room for any man who pretends to a monopoly of divine 
 grace. Through Jesus Christ we come to God direct. He is 
 the Way; he is not in the way. God and the soul stand face to 
 face with no man between. Thou, when thou prayest, enter 
 the church? Yes, and let the worship of others inspire thine 
 own. Thou, when thou prayest, buy a prayer-book? Yes, and 
 let the noble utterances of past ages give form to thine own 
 crude aspirations. Thou, when thou prayest, go listen to a 
 sermon? Yes, so shall the sermon, born of prayer, beget a 
 spirit of prayer in thee. But the right to pray is thine own, and 
 is not conferred by the Church, nor limited by the prayer-book, 
 nor bestowed by the minister or priest. In the kingdom of God 
 each man is peer of the realm, with his own coat of arms, his 
 own name and standing, his own right to be heard in the 
 Spirit of Christ. 
 
 This is the charter of our liberties; this is the soul's declara- 
 tion of independence; this is the inestimable boon conferred by 
 Jesus on all who come to God in a spirit of loving obedience. 
 In so far as liberty exists among men it is the outgrowth of 
 
CHRIST'S DOCTRINE OF PRAYER 315 
 
 this principle; for how shall any man call his brother a ser- 
 vant, when they are peers before God? This is fundamental 
 democracy. 
 
 Jesus had occasion to speak again of prayer near the end of 
 his ministry in Peraea (Luke 18: 1-14). He spoke two parables 
 illustrating the doctrine of prayer. The first was of the unjust 
 judge, who through very weariness because of her importu- 
 nity, did justice to a poor widow. The lesson was, that if perse- 
 verance would accomplish such things even with an unjust 
 judge, patient and continued prayer would surely avail with 
 God, even though the answer was delayed. The other parable 
 was of the two men who went to the temple together. One 
 addressed God in a speech of self-praise, void of the spirit of 
 prayer. The other, who felt too wicked to look up to heaven, 
 merely said, "God be merciful to me a sinner," and went away 
 forgiven. 
 
 It is this doctrine of prayer, this doctrine of the essential 
 oneness of our interests with those of God, that enables us to 
 affirm that God's will is the same for all worlds, and to be con- 
 fident that he who comes into the righteousness of Christ is on 
 a foundation that is sure, and endures to all eternity. The life 
 of prayer is eternal life. He that believeth hath eternal life. 
 His life is one with that life of God whose righteous princi- 
 ples vary not in any age or in any world. There are some 
 things which change often, and change even while we attempt 
 to study and classify them; there are some that change none 
 too rapidly, and some that do not change fast enough. There 
 are some things that might be otherwise than they are, and it 
 would be well; and some that might be otherwise and be no 
 better or worse. But there are some things that must ever 
 abide, unchanged to all eternity, and these are those things 
 that are discovered in a life of prayer. 
 
 Men once were in doubt whether to prav to one God or 
 many. This is no longer our perplexity. Modern science 
 has driven us to a more certain and a more uncompromising 
 monotheism. Diminished room is left in the universe for a 
 devil, and none for other gods than One. We cannot say that 
 
316 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 the sunshine is from God, and the storm is from the devil, for 
 the sun creates the storm. The only God that now is possi- 
 ble is the God of the pleasant sunshine and of the withering 
 heat; the God of the cooling breeze and of the tornado. Our 
 present problem is the question whether the one God hears 
 prayer. Jesus anticipated the present needs of men. Never 
 in the history of the world was it more important than now 
 that men should know that God may be prayed to as Father, 
 and that he hears and answers prayer. 
 
 We think of prayer as a privilege or problem, a desire or a 
 duty, according to our temperament or mood or training. We 
 recognize in our lives a need of prayer, and we come to the 
 act of prayer halting as we query whether natural law leaves 
 room for prayer. But we shall continue to pray. We shall 
 rise above our doubts in response to our soul's needs, and find 
 God in our dangers, our temptations, and our aspirations. The 
 best answer to our doubts about prayer is the fact and the 
 need of prayer. 
 
 But the doctrine of prayer as we have it from Christ is more 
 than mere command or permission to pray; it is a philosophy 
 of our relations to God, which relations find expression in a 
 mutual communication. We pray and God encourages out 
 prayer because our souls are akin to his eternal Spirit. There 
 is a possible ground for prayer in the assumed insignificance 
 of the petitioner, who prays only that lie may avert divine 
 wrath; but Christ's doctrine of prayer is that our Father 
 knows our needs, and desires that wc shall speak to him and 
 hear his answer. It is this doctrine that gives dignity to life, 
 and power to united or individual effort in the spirit of Christ. 
 
CHAPTER XXX 
 
 UNTIL HE FIND IT 
 
 One day as Jesus was making his journey through Persea, 
 a man prompted more perhaps by curiosity than earnestness, 
 asked, "Lord, are there few that be saved?" (Luke 13:23.) 
 
 Surely this was a question that deserved an answer. It is 
 one that has arisen in every thoughtful mind. Yet the kind 
 of answer which it deserved depended less on the form of the 
 question than on the point of view of the questioner. It 
 would seem as if this man asked not by reason of concern for 
 himself, nor yet pity for others, but from something hardly 
 more than idle curiosity. There are thousands of people like 
 him. There are men who never had interest enough in astron- 
 omy to pay a dollar for a book that would teach them its first 
 principles, but who weary an astronomer whom the)' chance to 
 meet with senseless questions about communications from 
 Mars and the inhabitants of the sun. There are people who 
 have never given an hour's serious study to any single flower 
 who in the presence of a botanist spring up with interrogation 
 points as a wooded swamp springs thick with Indian pipes, 
 and as these nature's interrogation points are degenerate flow- 
 ers, so often, heedless questions denote neither depth of moral 
 earth nor fertility of purpose, but rather the morbid impulse 
 of a damp and shallow soul. 
 
 Christ gave a serious answer to an idle question. It was a 
 question that conveyed an implied censure of God, for it 
 looked in that day as though few would find the way of life, 
 and it was an easy thing for the thoughtless observer to cen- 
 sure God for that condition of affairs. 
 
 Many people have pronounced views on eternal punishment 
 who are making no adequate effort to escape it. Thev have 
 
 3*7 
 
318 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 some reason to be interested. But it would be more profitable 
 if their interest expressed itself otherwise. A man's fitness for 
 heaven is not to be tested by his opinion of hell, nor is his 
 character dependent on his thought of the precise condition 
 of things in the other world. "Lord are there few that be 
 saved?" is a question that does not of necessity imply an 
 earnest desire for salvation. It is asked curiously ten times 
 where it is asked once in downright earnestness. Around the 
 question have raged unprofitable controversies. In them Jesus 
 refused to bear a share. He told the man to strive earnestly 
 to be among the saved, which was good advice, whether the 
 saved are to be many or few. It may be doubted whether 
 any man is very much in earnest who professes interest in the 
 proportion of the saved and lost, who does not himself seek to 
 be among the former. 
 
 Jesus' answer did, however, convey some information on the 
 condition of affairs then. He said that the multitudes were 
 pressing into the broad way, and that few were seeking the 
 narrow way. It need not be inferred that he meant that it 
 always would be so. It is a fair question, to be answered by 
 what men are doing to-day, whether this has continued to be 
 true. 
 
 We have been told a hundred times that Jesus answered, 
 "Agonize to enter in at the strait gate." He did not say it. 
 He used the Greek word from which we derive the word agon- 
 ize, but that Greek word meant strive. It is unfair to take our 
 derived meanings and impute them back to Christ. It is earn- 
 estness, not agony, that takes men to heaven. Agony is sin, 
 or comes by reason of it. It sometimes costs agony to get 
 into heaven, but that is not God's preferred way. The way 
 to heaven should be a way of joy, though a way of honest 
 struggle. 
 
 There is always a strait gate that leads to success, and few 
 in proportion find it. Not all the men in Chicago who started 
 out to become rich a generation ago own department stores 
 on State street. For every merchant prince within the ele- 
 vated loop there are a thousand who have small shops on 
 
UNTIL HE FIND IT 
 
 319 
 
 obscure streets or in country towns. These need not be counted 
 failures, though they are not the kinds of success for which 
 their possessors strove. But the real failures are not lacking-. 
 We are deceived sometimes by our generalities. It is theo- 
 retically possible for any American boy to become president; 
 but it is mathematically impossible for every American boy to 
 do so. Not every private can become a general, though any 
 private may, so far as army regulations go. Not every tar in 
 the forecastle becomes an admiral. The way to the highest 
 
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 FEED MY SHEEP — (RAPHAEL, I483-I52O) 
 
 forms of success in every department of life is straight and 
 narrow. It is open to any one, but it is not entered by every 
 one. 
 
 This is where men talk nonsense about salvation. Salvation 
 means more or less. We are all saved from something. Hap- 
 pily, there are some forms of degradation which have become 
 impossible to us. Manhood is salvation; civilization is salva- 
 tion; good society is salvation — from some things. But none 
 of these will assuredly save a soul from being the slave of 
 desire, however that desire be lifted above mere brutality by 
 external conditions that shape the tastes without forming the 
 
320 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 character. To be saved as Christ understood it, is to be master 
 over one's own life, through the strength of God. It is thus 
 to be master also over the world. It is not to reverse gravita- 
 tion, but to control passion within and temptation without. 
 
 There are many men favorably disposed to religion, but not 
 so many strongly in earnest about it. There are many men 
 who are glad to have their children in Sunday school, and who 
 count that fact sufficiently virtuous to justify themselves in 
 Sunday golf. The gate still is too strait for some men, not 
 for their ability, but for their earnestness. It is not a question 
 that should first concern a man whether the proportion of the 
 saved is large or small, but whether he himself is willing to 
 enter the gate of earnestness, the gate of sacrifice, the gate of 
 joyous but strenuous endeavor, beyond which lies his own and 
 humanity's highest good. 
 
 The harsh words of Jesus concerning the Pharisees, repeated 
 here as in Galilee, left him few r friends among them. Jesus 
 denounced them because they were unwilling to accept him, 
 but warned them of the great cost that would be involved. 
 He told them that a king about to make war always counted 
 the army against him and his own as well, but he warned them 
 in the parable of the unjust steward, that what w r as theirs then 
 would not be theirs forever, and that they would do well to 
 make wise use of their opportunities. With direct aim at those 
 for whom much had been done, and who had been selfish in 
 their blessings, he spoke the parable of Dives and Lazarus. 
 
 This was a period of parables with Jesus. "Without a par- 
 able spake he not unto them. 1 ' Among all the parables uttered 
 by Jesus none has touched so many hearts, none has given to 
 the world so clear a view of the Fatherhood of God as that of 
 The Lost Son. It is the center and heart of a cluster of five 
 parables, apparently spoken at or about the same time, and 
 is the climax of that group of three which have always been 
 especially dear to the children of God — The Lost Coin, The 
 Lost Sheep, The Lost Son. As the time of Jesus' crucifixion 
 drew near, and the opposition of the priests and Prarisees was 
 culminating in plots against his life, Jesus began to define 
 
UNTIL HE FIND IT 
 
 321 
 
 more closely the conditions of entrance into his kingdom, to 
 show how little it depended upon descent from Abraham, upon 
 external conformity to the law, or upon formal orthodoxy. 
 His sympathetic auditors became more exclusively publicans 
 and sinners, with whom, on more than one occasion, he ate, 
 greatly to the scandal of his critics. "This man receiveth sin- 
 ners, and eateth with them!' 1 was their horrified exclamation. 
 The reply of Jesus, in substance, is, "If a man has a hundred 
 sheep and lose one, will he receive it if it return? — nay, will he 
 not seek it, even to the extent of seeming to neglect the rest 
 
 A PALESTINE SHEPHERD 
 
 of his flock? If a woman lose a tenth of her dowry, will she 
 receive it if some one find it and hand it to her? — nay, will 
 she not search for it with all diligence, and celebrate with joy 
 the rinding of it? If a man have two sons and lose one, will 
 he receive him when he returns to his father? — nay, will he 
 not watch for him and run to meet him with joy?" 
 
 We need not take up in detail the incidents of this most per- 
 fect story. It is most comprehensive of all parables. It treats 
 of a soul prior to its alienation from God, of its deflection, its 
 depth of sin, its repentance, its return, and its forgiveness. 
 
322 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 There is material here for a treatise on systematic theology. 
 We can only touch on a few of its salient points. 
 
 First, let us notice that the sinful son was still a son. The 
 sheep which the shepherd sought was not a goat or a wolf; 
 it was lost, but it still belonged to the shepherd, and he sought 
 it because it was his own. The coin which the woman lost was 
 not at once repudiated as a counterfeit; it was still a coin bear- 
 ing the image of the king, and, though lost, belonged to the 
 woman who sought it; and she sought it because it was her 
 own. The prodigal was not an alien, born outside the father's 
 house and rescued and adopted; he was a son before he left 
 the father s house, and to the father he still remained "my 
 son." "All souls are mine, saith the Lord." The sinner is 
 God's. He is not his own; he is God's by creation, by redemp- 
 tion, by every possible right. The sinner is not a child of the 
 devil whom God is endeavoring to lure away from his own 
 paternity and give to him a fictitious relation to himself. In 
 the image of God man was created, and whether he lives or 
 dies, lives righteously or sins, his life belongs to God. 
 
 Here was the son's initial error. What he had was his own, 
 so he thought. It rightly fell to him. He may have flattered 
 himself on the just division which he demanded, and even have 
 prided himself that in demanding only a third, the portion of a 
 younger son, when by higher right he might have thought 
 himself entitled to a half, he was not only just to the father, 
 but generous toward his brother. The more carefully we 
 analyze the young man's character and study his possible 
 motives, the more clearly wc see how it may furnish a parallel 
 for every defense which sin can make for itself. What we call 
 becoming a Christian is not the origin of obligation. To him 
 that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is sin, no 
 matter what he professes. The demand "Give me the portion 
 of goods that falleth to me," while apparently a just one, is 
 fundamentally wrong, for the restless son is still a son, and 
 subject to his father. 
 
 The story of the young man's downward career is quickly 
 told. We are mercifully spared its details, but the harsh words 
 
UNTIL HE FIND IT 
 
 3 2 3 
 
 of the elder son supplement the narrative from the lips of the 
 Lord. The departure, the far country, the waste, the riotous 
 living- — in quick succession these scenes come before us. He 
 was received, no doubt, as a jolly good fellow while his money 
 lasted, but he could have placed all his friends in his pocket- 
 
 THE LOST SHEEP — (CARTOON BY FRANK BEARD J 
 
 book after it became empty. The friendships formed in 
 iniquity are selfish and unsatisfying. The prodigal was soon 
 in want and alone and in a land far from his home. And then 
 came the famine. It always comes. Man cannot live on bread 
 alone. The soul hungers for the food of the Father's house, 
 and starves without it. 
 
324 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 No phrase could to a Jew describe the terrible depth of 
 his fall so fitly as that the citizen to whom he joined himself, 
 sent him, hungry and unpaid, to feed swine. Behold this child 
 of Abraham, at the sty, coveting the contents of the trough ! 
 Yet the picture is not overdrawn. Durer, the quaint old Ger- 
 man artist, drew the picture of the prodigal among the swine — 
 and the face of the prodigal was the artist's own portrait. It 
 was a confession such as many a man might make if equally 
 honest. How many a young man has been brought to the gut- 
 ter and to a condition that is positively swinish, beastly, 
 through a course of dissipation short and swift as the prod- 
 igal's! 
 
 Repentance is not sorrow for sin. Sin and sorrow are very 
 intimately related. To be sorry for sin is often a long way 
 from repentance. "A godly sorrow worketh repentance, but 
 the sorrow of the world worketh death." Sorrow for sin may 
 be of either kind. That a man is sorry for his sin is hopeful, 
 but it is not enough. Wishing one were back in the father's 
 house does not change the trough to a laden table. The son 
 may contrast his condition with that of his father's servants, 
 and yet never again become a son. Repentance embraces 
 three stages — a perception of the guilt of sin, a feeling of 
 remorse, and a turning to God. The test of the first two is 
 the third. Repentance is a turning again to God, and is the 
 only condition on which the sinner can be recognized again 
 as a son. 
 
 The prodigal's repentance was genuine, but his theology 
 was defective. He reasoned it all out; how he had forfeited all 
 his rights in the household, how he could never be a son after 
 having repudiated the relation, how even his father could do 
 no more for him in the way of inheritance, but how it might 
 be possible to become a servant. His system of theology was 
 fully as Biblical as some that have been taught in our schools, 
 and, like them, it answered very well while it lasted. Even 
 defective systems have their mission and their day. The son 
 might have had less courage to come back had he anticipated 
 the extent of the father's ability to receive him. The teachings 
 
UNTIL HE FIND IT 
 
 325 
 
 of other days, in which men came to God with less easy-going- 
 assurance that God could easily overlook sin, was not without 
 its advantages. Our view of the case is more nearly correct, 
 no doubt, but one could sometimes wish that men would come 
 to God more as the prodigal came back and less as he came 
 the first time to his father, expecting God's bounty as a right 
 assured. 
 
 THE PRODIGAL'S REPENTANCE — (DURER, I5O4) 
 
 So the son trudges back, all the long, weary way, rehearsing 
 as he goes his little speech to be made to his father. He will 
 not go to the front door and ring; he will go, as he remembers 
 that in his youth the tramps came, to the kitchen door. He 
 will not be refused a crust there, he well knows. He will ask 
 to see his father, who will come out to learn what a tramp can 
 want with him. He will anticipate his father's stern rebuke and 
 
326 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 forestall his possible rejection. It is not as a son, but as a 
 servant, that he wishes to return. He will hasten to tell his 
 father so. 
 
 How different from his anticipation was his reception! With 
 increasing years and growing infirmities, the father daily sits 
 where he can look down the road where years ago, beyond the 
 hill, he lost sight of his wayward bov. The father has never 
 ceased to look for him, though all others speak his name only 
 with reproach. There can have been no mother in that home. 
 All fatherly, all motherly love are in the bosom of our Heavenly 
 Father. 
 
 The son draws nearer to his home. He is footsore and 
 weary and ragged and travel-stained. No one, he reflects bit- 
 terlv, will know him. He passes houses where he once played; 
 he sees old companions in their doors and in their fields; he 
 knows them and shrinks to the other side of the road as he 
 passes, but his precaution is needless — to them he is but a 
 tramp. The home is in sight; his heart almost fails him; he 
 is half tempted now to turn back. What if his father should 
 be unforgiving? What, ah! what if he should be dead — dead, 
 perhaps by reason of a broken heart? He has hardly strength 
 to go farther. He cannot go on, yet he must. Again he calls 
 to his mind the words he means to speak, and plods onward, 
 the words choking him as he speaks them. But who is that 
 that sits in the door? It cannot be, and yet it must be — so 
 much older, so much feebler, yet the same form — it is, ic is his 
 father. He is rising from his seat; he leans upon his staff; 
 he is not so erect or strong as he once was. He is looking 
 this way. He shades his eyes and looks again. A moment 
 of hesitation, and the strength of years comes to the father 
 with that glad recognition! The son was expecting to have 
 to introduce himself, "But when he was yet a great way off, 
 his father saw him," and knew him. 
 
 The son's little address was only half delivered. The father 
 had no time to hear it. Tt was enough that the son had 
 returned. The suffering of years was at an end, and he who 
 came with half-hearted hopes of becoming a servant, found 
 himself through the abounding love of the father, a son again. 
 
UNTIL HE FIND IT 
 
 327 
 
 Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon 
 us, that we who have been prodigals should be called again 
 the sons of God! Having forsaken God, he has never forsaken 
 us, and through his unbroken paternity we receive the spirit 
 of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father, the Spirit bearing 
 
 THE GOOD SHEPHERD — ( DOBSON ) 
 
 witness with our spirits that we are the sons of God. Beloved, 
 even now, after our sin, and before our complete sanctifiea- 
 tion, are we the sons of God. It is no mere hard and fast law, 
 no quid pro quo, no bargain of so much morality for so much 
 salvation, by virtue of which we come back to our Father's 
 
328 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 house. We are free from the law. We are not servants but 
 sons. We sometimes wish that the conditions of salvation 
 were more definite, that we might tell men just what good 
 thing they must do to be saved. God has left them as they are 
 with intent. We have not received the spirit of bondage again 
 to fear, but the Spirit whereby we cry Father, and God says, 
 "This my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and 
 is found." 
 
 Here our expositions commonly stop. But it was for the 
 elder son that Jesus spoke the parable. These Pharisees, com- 
 placent in their years of legal service and expecting a gener- 
 ous reward from heaven, these were the elder sons, unbrotherly 
 and unfilial! How the parable must have rebuked them! But 
 to the publicans and to poor prodigals since, it has been a 
 never-failing inspiration and blessing. 
 
 THE GOOD SHEPHERD OF THE FOUR SEASONS 
 (FROM THE CATACOMB OF SAINT CALIXTUS) 
 
CHAPTER XXXI 
 
 THE GOOD SHEPHERD 
 
 The Feast of the Dedication was not a Biblical feast. It was 
 established by Judas Maccabreus in 164 B. C, when Jerusalem 
 was recaptured from Antiochus Epiphanes, and the temple 
 which he had desecrated was purified and rededicated. It was 
 a festival of light, being often called "The feast of lights," and 
 was celebrated with joy. John alone tells us of Jesus' attend- 
 ance, and that the place of his teaching was Solomon's porch. 
 This porch was the long covered corridor running the 
 length of the temple area on the side overlooking the Kedron 
 valley and the Mount of Olives. There, a little sheltered from 
 the wind, but approachable by a great throng, Jesus met the 
 people, who demanded, "Plow long dost thou hold us in sus- 
 pense? If thou art the Christ, tell us plainly." Jesus answered 
 them, "I told you, and ye believe not: the works that I do in 
 my Father's name, these bear witness of me. But ye believe 
 not, because ye are not of my sheep" (John 10: 24-27). 
 
 Again, as at the autumn feast, the Jews took up stones to 
 stone him, but Jesus did not at once seek to escape as before. 
 Instead, he faced them and demanded a reason for their act 
 of violence. He said: "Many good works have I shewed you 
 from the Father; for which of these works do ye stone me?" 
 They answered they were about to stone him for making him- 
 self equal with God. Jesus met them with a quotation from 
 one of the Psalms, "I said, ye are gods" (Ps. 82: 6). The 
 Psalmist was talking about men, and not verv good men at 
 that: yet he called them gods, because, in their official state 
 they represented a measure of divine authority. Jesus had not 
 said, "I am God." He had claimed less than possibly might 
 have been deduced from the Old Testament quotation as to 
 
 3 2 9 
 
330 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 these men who were horn to die. Therefore, he said, "If 
 he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came (and 
 the scripture cannot be broken), say ye of him, whom the 
 Father sanctified and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest ; 
 because I said, I am the Son of God? If I do not the works 
 of my Father, believe me not. But if I do them, though ye 
 believe not me, believe the works; that ye may know and 
 understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father" (John 
 10:35-38). 
 
 The people were argued down, but unconvinced, and they 
 resorted to stones. A stone is a great convenience when logic 
 fails. So Jesus escaped again as best he could, and returned 
 to Perrea. 
 
 While on this winter visit to Jerusalem Jesus appears to 
 have been entertained by Mary and Martha and Lazarus, and 
 this may have been the time that Martha worried over the 
 housework. 
 
 We are not sure that we know any other facts relating to 
 this visit of Christ to Jerusalem. One discourse, that on the 
 Good Shepherd and one incident, the healing on the Sabbath 
 day of the man born blind, stand in John's account after the 
 Feast of Tabernacles and before the Feast of the Dedication. 
 They evidently occurred at Jerusalem at one of these two 
 feasts. The discourse on the Good Shepherd appears the nat- 
 ural introduction to the discourse of Jesus delivered in Solo- 
 mon's porch, and the controversy about the Sabbath seems 
 more naturally to have occurred at the later feast. At all 
 events, we consider them briefly here. 
 
 The story of the man born blind is told in John 9: I-II. 
 "And as he passed by, he saw a man blind from his birth. And 
 his disciples asked him, saying, Rabbi, who did sin, this man, 
 or his parents, that he should be born blind? Jesus answered. 
 Neither did this man sin, nor his parents: but that the works 
 of God should be made manifest in him. We must work the 
 works of him that sent me, while it is clay: the night cometh, 
 when no man can work. When I am in the world, I am the 
 light of the world. When he had thus spoken, he spat on the 
 
THE GOOD SHEPHERD 
 
 33 1 
 
 ground, and made clay of the spittle, and anointed his eyes 
 with the clay, and said unto him, Go, wash in the pool of 
 Siloam (which is by interpretation, Sent). He went away 
 therefore, and washed, and came seeing - . The neighbors there- 
 fore, and they which saw him aforetime, that he was a beggar, 
 said, Is not this he that sat and begged? Others said, It is he: 
 others said. No, but he is like him. He said, I am he. They 
 
 THE POOL OF SILOAM 
 
 said therefore unto him, How then were thine eyes opened? He 
 answered, The man that is called Jesus made clay, and anointed 
 mine eyes, and said unto me. Go to Siloam, and wash: so I 
 went away and washed, and I received sight." 
 
 The pool of Siloam is still in existence. It is fifty-two feet 
 long and eighteen wide. The water in it is dirty now, but it 
 was probably not so in Christ's day. Josephus describes it a? 
 
332 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 sweet and abundant. The water Hows into it from the "Foun- 
 tain of the Virgin" as it is called, the only spring in Jerusalem, 
 through a canal five hundred and eighty-six yards long. In 
 1880, a small boy, bathing in the pool, discovered an inscrip- 
 tion which proved to be the oldest known specimen of Hebrew, 
 dating from about 700 B. C. It is now in the national museum 
 in Constantinople, where I saw it in 1902. It relates that the 
 channel was begun from both ends, and that the workmen, as 
 they neared each other, heard the sound of each other's tools, 
 and found themselves only half a cubit out of line at the meet- 
 ing point. The channel has since been examined, and this 
 was found to be true. 
 
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 THE SILOAM INSCRIPTION 
 
 To this pool the man went and washed, and came seeing. A 
 great controversy arose, because the work of healing had been 
 done on the Sabbath. 
 
 We are impressed again with the pains which Jesus took to 
 disregard current ideas of the proper method of Sabbath 
 observance. It was not necessary to heal the blind man on 
 that particular day. Jesus would be in Jerusalem the next day 
 and so would the man. The man was not expecting to be 
 healed, and had been so long blind that a day of blindness more 
 or less was inconsiderable to him. Had Jesus counted it worth 
 while to carry Paul's principle of not eating meat because of 
 the weak brother's prejudice to such a length as might easilv 
 
THE GOOD SHEPHERD 
 
 333 
 
 be imagined, he would have charged the man to meet him — 
 and the man would have gone far to meet him — on the 
 morrow. 
 
 Moreover, Jesus made unusual and unnecessary appearance 
 of labor in this very cure. It was not his custom on week days 
 to make clay and anoint the eyes of blind men, or to send 
 them far to wash. The labor on his own part and on the part 
 of the man was made especially prominent in this Sabbath 
 cure. 
 
 LEADING FORTH THE SHEEP 
 
 Christ's works of mercy had ever respect to something more 
 than institutional religion. Here was a real ministration to 
 real human need. There were many blind men in Israel, and 
 more in the world, whom he did not meet and did not heal. 
 But Jesus never found in the physical impossibility of minister- 
 ing to all the needy, an excuse for passing the individual within 
 reach. It was genuine pity, a pity born of divine sorrow and 
 sympathy, a pity resident in a heart that could know by experi- 
 ence the keenness of human sorrow and the intensity of human 
 pain, that manifested itself in Christ's works of healino-. He 
 
334 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 always healed the man at hand. There were blind men in 
 plenty, and had been for unnumbered generations, who knew 
 not that earth rejoiced at the footstep upon it of one who 
 opened the eyes of men born blind. There are blind men now, 
 living in lands hopelessly beyond the reach of our dispensaries 
 and hospitals, whom modern skill might cure. But the man 
 who has the love of Christ will never fail to do the thing he 
 may do, because he cannot do all. Just here is our temptation. 
 We know so well the world's need. The morning paper lays 
 at our doors the sufferers from a railroad wreck here, a tor- 
 nado there, a flood yonder, an epidemic somewhere else, a 
 strike in a factory a thousand miles away, a shut-down in a 
 coal mine still farther, and farthest of all, perhaps, a sweat- 
 shop within rifle shot of our own homes. And we cannot help 
 all. We run a gauntlet of appeals for objects which we have 
 not time to investigate. "Give to every one that asketh of 
 thee," said the Lord. "Give to no one," says the official in 
 charge, "send them to the associated charities, and draw your 
 annual check in favor of its treasury." Yes; and yet, let no 
 Christian fail to have some little share in personal relief of suf- 
 fering. It is better to be imposed upon sometimes than to 
 harden one's heart all the time. It is better that we shall not 
 fail to do the good we may, because we cannot do it all. 
 
 Light and darkness, sight and blindness, are used so fre- 
 quently and so helpfully as analogies of righteousness and sin, 
 that we always think, and rightly, of those other cases of heal- 
 ing which Jesus performed and still performs, in giving sight 
 to those who are blinded by sin. For such analogies we have 
 the best of authority in Christ's own words. "I am the light 
 of the world." 
 
 The whole world was lost in the darkness of sin, 
 
 The Hght of the world is Jesus; 
 Like sunshine at noonday his glory shone in, 
 
 The light of the world is Jesus. 
 
 However limited was, and still must be, the work of healing 
 physical ills, no soul turns to Jesus a spiritual vision clouded 
 bv sin, with a prayer for healing and spiritual sight, but 
 
THE GOOD SHEPHERD 
 
 335 
 
 becomes able to testify with this man born blind, "One thing 
 I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see." This is the 
 testimony which is bringing the world to Christ. The healed 
 man may or may not be a logician; he may or may not be able 
 to argue with the priests; but one thing the convert is able 
 to testify, and his testimony, supported by a holy life, the 
 world is ready to believe; and it can never wholly convince 
 
 THE SHEPHERD OF JERUSALEM 
 
 itself that the Saviour is not from Heaven who brines lieht 
 to darkened souls. 
 
 The man born blind was cast out of the temple for his faith 
 in Jesus, but Jesus escaped the wrath of the priests. To him 
 Jesus declared his divine Sonship, and the man's spiritual eyes 
 were opened to receive him as the Christ. 
 
 Jesus appears to have followed the miracle with the discourse 
 on the Good Shepherd. This name, which he gave to himself, 
 
336 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 was so beautiful in its symbolism and so in harmony with the 
 words of the prophets and with one of Christ's own most 
 precious parables, that it has become one of the dearest of all 
 the names by which the Saviour is known to the hearts of his 
 followers. In riding through Palestine I repeatedly saw shep- 
 herds whose care of their flocks reminded me of the descrip- 
 tions. The shepherd goes before his flock and the sheep fol- 
 low; the shepherd calls the sheep, and they respond to no 
 other voice. All this we saw as we journeyed through Galilee 
 and Samaria and Judaea. Repeatedly I saw shepherds carrying 
 lambs in their arms, and once I saw one carrying two little 
 kids in his bosom. One Sunday we held a memorable service 
 in Jerusalem, on Calvary, and as we finished a shepherd came 
 over the hill, leading his sheep. The sheep were somewhat 
 disconcerted by the tourists, and he had difficulty in keeping 
 them together, but he did it. I caught a very imperfect pho- 
 tograph of him. I could wish the picture itself much better, 
 but imperfect as it is I count it worth reproducing, as the 
 picture of a modern Jerusalem shepherd leading his flock over 
 the place where the Good Shepherd laid down his life for the 
 sheep. 
 
 Jesus announced to those bigoted Jews that he had other 
 sheep, not of that fold, and that these were to be brought into 
 the flock of the one Shepherd. It was strange doctrine to 
 them, but is the essence of the gospel to us. 
 
 One of the greatest and most characteristic contrasts be- 
 tween Judaism and Christianity, and one of the hardest for the 
 apostles who had been Jews to adjust themselves to, was found 
 in this element of inclusiveness in the new religion. Here was 
 the glory of the apostle Paul, who would not test his apos- 
 tolic mission nor the rights of his converts by any of the con- 
 ventions of Judaism. Himself a Jew, he was willing to become 
 as without the law, that he might save them without law. It 
 was precisely over this point that the life and death struggle 
 occurred between Jewish and Gentile Christianity. 
 
 As God had other sheep than the Jews, so he now has other 
 sheep than those who profess to be his. Some of them are 
 
THE GOOD SHEPHERD 
 
 337 
 
 not known as his by any save the Shepherd himself. It is hard 
 to tell by what mark they could be known as his. For what 
 is so unclean as a soiled sheep? And what so helpless as a lost 
 sheep? We need not forget that the sinner is still a child of 
 God, but what is so unfilial as a disobedient child? Sin is 
 hideous, deliberate, loathsome. It is not simply brutal; it is 
 often worse, because intelligence which should have prevented 
 it, adds to it a refinement of shamefulness which mocks the 
 word brutality. But even the sheep that is most drabbled and 
 fouled by sin, God is seeking, that there may be one flock and 
 one Shepherd. 
 
 There is no principle of unity that can unite, save that which 
 holds men to a common center. The planets are not all alike. 
 They have different orbits, different lengths of year, different 
 lengths of day and kinds of day, and varieties of atmosphere 
 and of season and of life. But they form together a harmonious 
 unit because they are held to a common sun. So the way in 
 which we are to have one flock, is in the possession of one 
 Shepherd. 
 
 THE GOOD SHEPHERD — (MOLITOR) 
 
CHAPTER XXXII 
 
 THE RAISING OF LAZARUS 
 
 Sacred are the memories that cluster around the little town 
 of Bethany. He who stands on the Mount of Olives and looks 
 about him locates the village at once, situated on its shoulder, 
 and around the summit from Jerusalem. Here, he who had 
 not where to lay his head, had always a warm welcome in the 
 home of his friends. 
 
 The first recorded visit of Jesus to Bethany appears to have 
 been at the time of Jesus' winter visit to Jerusalem at the 
 Feast of the Dedication, December 20-27, A. D. 29 (Luke 
 10: 38-42), but the narrative seems to imply a longer and more 
 intimate acquaintance. Jesus returned a month later at the 
 call, ''Lord, he whom thou lovest is sick," and brought joy to 
 the household that loved him (John 11: 1-46). Two months 
 later, arriving in Bethany on the day before the Sabbath, 
 he was anointed by Mary (John 12:2-11). From Bethany he 
 entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, and returned at night to 
 the home of his friends. Monday and Tuesday he did the 
 same. Wednesday he spent in retirement, apparently in 
 Bethany. Thursday he left the village that was dear to him 
 to celebrate the passover in the city with his disciples. He 
 did not return until after his resurrection, when, "He led them 
 out as far as Bethany; and he lifted up his hands and blessed 
 them. And it came to pass, while he blessed them, he was 
 parted from them, and carried up into heaven" (Luke 24: 
 
 50, 50- 
 
 All these memories endear Bethany to the pilgrim of to-day. 
 
 Twice I visited Bethany. It is full of a crowd of insistent 
 beggars, and is far more picturesque when seen from without. 
 But there is a wonderful fascination about the place, notwith- 
 
 33% 
 
THE RAISING OF LAZARUS 
 
 339 
 
 standing. Life there is as primitive as in the time of Jesus. I 
 found a woman spinning with a distaff as simple as Mary or 
 Martha ever used. I give her picture as she sat by the wall, 
 twirling her stick with a routid small balance wheel at the top, 
 and winding her coarse yarn on the spindle below. T bought 
 the simple contrivance, and see it before me as I write, and it 
 brings back the life of that home that Jesus enjoyed so well. 
 The Bethany home was not a home of poverty. The family 
 could entertain, could give a feast, owned a garden, and had 
 three hundred days' wages ready to invest in a rich gift to 
 
 MODERN BETHANY 
 
 Jesus. Neither was it a home of ostentatious wealth. It was 
 a home cared for by the sisters themselves, but one where 
 hospitality was no burden, and love made large things pos- 
 sible. 
 
 To this home Jesus was recalled from Peraea by the message 
 that Lazarus was sick. The family knew where to find him; 
 they were among .his confidants. Strangely, Jesus did not go 
 at once, but announced that the sickness was not unto death. 
 But Lazarus died, and had been buried four davs when Jesus 
 arrived. 
 
340 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 It was Martha who met him on the road, outside the vil- 
 lage. "Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not 
 died," said she. This was the first word of Mary, too. The sis- 
 ters had said it over and over to each other these last four 
 days. But Martha added that she knew that even now what- 
 ever he asked of God, God would do. She was not expecting 
 Lazarus to rise; she only knew that in some way the comine 
 
 
 A MODERN MARTHA OF BETHANY SPINNING 
 
 of Jesus was to be a source of comfort. Jesus said: "Thy 
 brother shall rise again. Martha saith unto him, I know that 
 he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day. Jesus 
 said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that 
 believeth on me, though he die, yet shall he live: and whoso- 
 ever liveth and believeth on me shall never die (John u: 
 23-26). 
 
THE RAISING OF LAZARUS 
 
 341 
 
 Martha did not know what to answer. She did not fully 
 understand him; neither do we. She thought Alary might 
 know what to say. She did not wait for Jesus to ask for Mary 
 but hastened to call her, saying, "The' Master is come, and 
 calleth for thee." But before she went she put herself on rec- 
 
 THE RAISING OF LAZARUS 
 (SEBASTIAN DEL PIOMCO, I485-I547) 
 
 ord as to faith in Christ. "She saith unto him. Yea, Lord: I 
 have believed that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, even 
 he that cometh into the world" (John n: 27). 
 
 She did not directly answer Christ's question as to the resur- 
 rection, but expressed her faith in him. It was not faith in 
 
3-P 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 a fact, but faith in Jesus himself. It was quite as good faith 
 as inspired Peter's great confession, and it forever redeems 
 domestic Martha from the charge of being unspiritual. 
 
 They show a tomb in Bethany which they call the tomb of 
 Lazarus. It may or may not be authentic. One climbs down 
 
 THE RAISING OF LAZARUS — (RUBENS, I577-I64O) 
 
 dark stairs by candle-light and stands in the vault below with 
 a sense of awe and wonder. In some such tomb Lazarus lay, 
 perhaps in this very one. Here Death heard and obeyed the 
 voice of Jesus, and gave back its prey. One climbs back to 
 the light with a wholly different sensation than that with 
 which he descended into the cave. The light of day is in his 
 
THE RAISING OF LAZARUS 
 
 343 
 
 face, and the words of Jesus are in his ears, "I am the resurrec- 
 tion and the life." 
 
 The resurrection of Lazarus became a new incentive to hos- 
 tility on the part of the Jews. They determined to put both 
 Jesus and Lazarus to death. But the miracle furnished a new 
 witness for Jesus. When the feast was served in the home of 
 Martha and Mary, the Jews came not only to see Jesus, but 
 
 THE TOME OF LAZARUS 
 
 Lazarus. The living Lazarus seated by the side of Jesus 
 became a mighty witness of his power. From the beginning 
 to the end of the gospel narrative, the words which we so 
 gladly would hear from the lips of one with his experience 
 remain unspoken, nor is there any specific act of Lazarus 
 which we can count as a direct testimony for Jesus. It is the 
 silent witness of his presence, the presence of one who has 
 
344 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 been raised from the dead at the voice of Jesus. It was this 
 that brought the Jews to see him; it was he who made the 
 power of Christ incontestable. On that occasion when the 
 Jews were stopping at nothing which might promote their 
 ends, it was not the divine power of Christ directly exerted for 
 his own salvation, that prevented their success. It was rather 
 the testimony of two men, one dead and the other living; the 
 one was John the Baptist, whose name Christ invoked in such 
 a way that the Jewish leaders never rallied from the dilemma 
 in which he placed them, and the other was Lazarus. He was 
 one of the living evidences of Christianity; he was an indisput- 
 able proof of the power of Christ; he was an incontestable argu- 
 ment in favor of the divinity of Jesus. 
 
 There are some kinds of Christian testimony which depend 
 on ability, scholarship and external opportunity. There is one 
 which is relatively independent of these things; so far as we 
 know Lazarus spoke no word which confuted the adversaries 
 of Christ. He did not become a logician; we have no dog- 
 matic treatise of his upon Christian evidences or systematic 
 theology. That which proved his potent witness was the sim- 
 ple truth that Jesus had raised him from the dead. The incon- 
 testable evidence that a man is walking with Christ in newness 
 of life, makes him a witness of the same sort to prove and 
 illustrate and amplify the gospel. 
 
CHAPTER XXXIII 
 
 THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN 
 
 After the raising of Larazus, Jesus retired to a village called 
 Ephraim, "in the country near the wilderness" (John 11:54). 
 This town is not mentioned in Scripture, but is believed by 
 Robinson and others to be identical with the Ophrah of I. 
 Sam. 13: 17 and Josh. 18: 23, and with the modern et-Taiybeh 
 (Robinson 1 : 447). 
 
 The route of the last journey to Jerusalem led him from 
 Ephraim through the borders of Samaria and Galilee and 
 again through Peraa. Journeying onward he was asked by 
 the Pharisees when the kingdom of God was to come. It was 
 a question that seemed timely. Jesus had been preaching about 
 the kingdom of heaven for a long time. When was it to come? 
 Jesus answered, "The kingdom of God cometh not with obser- 
 vation: neither shall they say, Lo, here! or, there! for lo, the 
 kingdom of God is within you" (Luke 17: 20-21). 
 
 It was a definite reply to the carnal hopes of the Jews. The 
 kingdom was not of this world. Its glories were spiritual, and 
 through spiritual ends it was to transform the world. The 
 very face of nature has been changed by man. Its fertile fields, 
 its noble landscapes, its cultivated plants and grains and trees, 
 have been wrought of God through man. God's kingdom is 
 over all this, and all is included in the redemption of Christ. 
 There is a cosmic redemption. There is a political redemp- 
 tion. But it is first of all a redemption personal and social, 
 widening its sphere in concentric circles like the ripples that 
 increase from the dropping of a stone till they reach the shores 
 of the lake on every side. Jesus was doing his best to let men 
 understand, what still many fail to realize, that the kingdom 
 is a kingdom of the soul. Its endeavor is to crown Christ king 
 
 345 
 
346 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 in society and literature, in art and business and politics, and 
 in the relations of the nations. 
 
 Jesus was asked all kinds of questions — and among the rest, 
 one as to the right of a man to divorce his wife. Jesus did 
 not undertake to settle, as has often been assumed, the whole 
 problem of divorce. But he answered the inquiry concerning 
 that single phase of the question, the right of a man to put away 
 his wife for a minor cause. He declared that he who does so 
 is an adulterer. Thus plainly Jesus established purity of life 
 and the stability of the home as essential qualities of the king- 
 dom of God. 
 
 Then ensued one of the tenderest and most beautiful seem s 
 in the Gospels, to which reference has been made in the chap- 
 ter on Jesus and the children — that of the blessing of the chil- 
 dren. The disciples forbade the fond mothers, but Jesus 
 encouraged them to come to him. He did more than bless the 
 children; he declared the childlike spirit to be the fundamental 
 condition of entrance to the kingdom (Luke r8: 16, 17). 
 
 Just after this incident a rich young ruler, moral, upright, 
 earnest, came seeking what he had not yet found in his spirit- 
 ual life. Jesus loved him, for he had kept the moral law from 
 his youth, and now stood before him, clean, ardent, sincere. 
 But he was purse-proud and selfish, nevertheless; and Jesus 
 said to him, "One thing thou lackest: go, sell whatsoever thou 
 hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in 
 heaven: and come, follow me. But his countenance fell at the 
 saying, and he went away sorrowful; for he was one that had 
 great possessions" (Mark 10: 21, 22). 
 
 Jesus sadly saw him go away, and turning to his disciples 
 said, "How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the 
 kingdom of God!" 
 
 They were surprised; for many of the seemingly and some 
 of the truly good men were rich. "Who can be saved?" asked 
 the apostles, for those who were not rich were trying hard to 
 be so. Jesus answered that God could make this hard thing 
 possible; that a man living in the world where money is needed 
 and the struggle for it is full of temptations, might still so 
 
THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN 347 
 
 conquer covetousness as to inherit the kingdom of God. 
 This young man was good, in a way. The mere law of pro- 
 hibition had done much for him. His profession, "All these 
 have I kept," was not necessarily a boast; it may have been 
 true, but he lacked love and sacrifice. A man may do all and 
 have not love and profit nothing. Not that this man had abso- 
 lutely no love — he had not enough or of the right kind. To be 
 poor for Christ's sake and to give till the giving hurt, this was 
 what he could not do. The man who will attain eternal life 
 must be he who will for that willingly give all else. The man 
 whose treasure was his ruin was one whom Jesus loved. 
 
 Giving to the poor is still a test of discipleship. yet I am 
 confident that Christ does not want every man to sell all and 
 give to the poor. Giving to the poor to-day is often to make 
 poverty self-perpetuating. Shall every prosperous man retire 
 from business and give away his capital? Shall the capital of 
 the world, the industry, the ability to establish and endow 
 industrial and philanthropic enterprises pass wholly into the 
 hands of the godless? Christ did not mean this. Rather he 
 would have us give the poor a chance to be a man; give where 
 it will lift the poor above povertv. 
 
 Tt was this incident that gave rise to the institution of 
 monasticism; at least, this was the lesson that determined St. 
 Anthony, the father of asceticism in the Church, to his course. 
 It seems to us plain enough that this was not Christ's mean- 
 ing. Asceticism has been weighed in the balance and found 
 wanting. By its fruits we know it. God is rich and wishes 
 us to be so. It would not be to the credit of Christianity that 
 its followers live in poorer homes, have less to wear and eat 
 than votaries of other religions. We believe in Christianitv 
 because its followers are better provided for than those of 
 other faiths. By its fruits we know it. It has a cash value. 
 But this is not its chief value. That giving is the best which 
 most truly helps men onward in manhood; such giving blesses 
 not only him who receives, but doubly so him who gives. 
 
 This young man believed eternal life worth getting, and 
 worth all it cost, yet deliberately gave it up, and so the Mas- 
 ter's love for a young man of promise ended in sorrow for his 
 
348 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 incapacity for self-sacrifice. Dante, in his vision of the future, 
 saw this young; man who made "the great refusal" vainly 
 searching eternity for his lost opportunity. 
 
 Then Peter said something that had been on his mind for 
 a long time. "Lo, we have left all, and have followed thee." 
 A question was implied, "What is to be our recompense?" It 
 was a fair question, and one long delayed. The fidelity of the 
 disciples deserved a reward, and thev needed just now its 
 incentive. Jesus answered, "Verily I say unto you, There is 
 no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or mother, 
 or father, or children, or lands, for my sake, and for the gos- 
 pel's sake, but he shall receive a hundred-fold now in this time, 
 houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, 
 and lands, with persecutions; and in the world to come eternal 
 life." 
 
 But Jesus desired to prevent any mistakes growing out of 
 his promise that the disciples were to receive "manifold more." 
 He proceeded at once to tell them where they were going and 
 what it involved. "Behold, we go up to Jerusalem; and the 
 Son of man shall be delivered unto the chief priests and scribes; 
 and they shall condemn him to death, and shall deliver him 
 unto the Gentiles to mock, and to scourge, and to crucify: and 
 the third day he shall be raised up." 
 
 The warning about his crucifixion did not prevent the dis- 
 ciples from cherishing renewed ambitions. "The mother of 
 Zebedee's children," came to Jesus with her two sons James 
 and John, asking that they might have places on his right hand 
 and on his left in his kingdom. The name of Zebedee's wife 
 was Salome. Many scholars believe her to have been a sister 
 of Mary, the mother of Jesus (Matt. 27: 56; Mark 15: 40). 
 
 We wonder where Zebedee was all this time. He had been 
 present when his sons left their nets to follow Jesus. Was he 
 too old or too busy to be a follower of Jesus? He was a prom- 
 inent man in the fishing business, and had partners and ser- 
 vants — was probably the head of the syndicate; perhaps he 
 was too busy to give personal attention to religion, but was 
 glad to have his wife follow Jesus, and willing that his sons 
 
THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN 349 
 
 should be disciples. He might have done far worse. But alas 
 for Zebedee if he supposes that the mother of his children is 
 the only one responsible for their finding places in the king- 
 dom! 
 
 We are more than ready to forgive this request of an ambi- 
 tious mother for her sons. It was an ambition for others, and 
 for those others who represented to a Hebrew mother the 
 acme of hope. It was the outgrowth of faith in Christ, a crude, 
 materialistic faith, but one that carried with it her heart's, 
 devotion, so that she was among the last at his cross and most 
 constant in ministration in life and death. She had earned 
 some rights, and she did not seek them for herself. 
 
 Yet it was an ambition which needed a chastening, and was 
 soon to receive it. Jesus had told his disciples plainly that he 
 was the Christ. That they understood, or thought they did. 
 He had told them twice, and now told them a third time and 
 more plainly, that he was to go to Jerusalem and suffer. That 
 they did not understand, and could not in the lisrht of the 
 other revelation. For the Messiah to go to his own was not 
 to be crucified, that they thought plain, but to enter his king- 
 dom. And they longed to be counted great in that kingdom. 
 There is a glory, at least Christ does not deny that there is, 
 and he seems to encourage the hope that there is, consisting 
 in especial nearness to him in his kingdom, and he says that 
 these positions are not in his gift. They are for those for 
 whom they are prepared. Who are these? 
 
 The positions at his right and his left hand a few days later, 
 were occupied by two malefactors, the one penitent, the other 
 impious. And that was when the Son of man was coming 
 into his kingdom! "Lord, remember me when thou comest 
 into thy kingdom!" In that hour of awful agony, there was a 
 man who could count even the pain of crucifixion worth while 
 if it brought him to the right hand of Christ. Which of the 
 disciples could have believed it? In the hour of the consum- 
 ■ mation of the Lord's work — the hour which, spite its eternal 
 horror, was the hour of his coronation — those on his right hand 
 and his left were neither lames nor Tohn nor Peter nor 
 
350 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 Thomas, but two criminals, suffering like himself, for alleged 
 revolt against the government of Rome. 
 
 The disciples were indignant at James and John. But Jesus 
 speaks kindly to them all of the spirit of his kingdom. Not 
 the glory of ambition, but the glory of sacrifice, is that for 
 which he is preparing himself and them. 
 
 Two great truths concerning his ministry Jesus reserved 
 till its very close before revealing their full import to his dis- 
 ciples. The first was that he was to be offered a sacrifice for 
 sins. He had vaguely hinted it before, but now he told it fully. 
 The second was that they were to share that sacrifice. Twice 
 he conjoined these two great truths; once when Peter rebuked 
 him for his own impending doom as he had foretold it, and 
 here again when the disciples are wondering who shall be 
 greatest in his kingdom; and two of them through their 
 mother are asking for the chief place. Jesus teaches them the 
 lesson of service. Whoever will be great, shall minister; he 
 who will be greatest, shall serve. The words might bear even 
 a stronger translation, as "Whoever will be great let him 
 serve, and whoever will be greatest let him become a slave." 
 
 All this was very startling to the disciples, but it was less 
 so than what followed, "Even as the Son of man came," and 
 they were beginning to know why he had come. As he came 
 to serve they were to serve. As he was to give his life for a 
 ransom, they were to give their lives to the same end. The 
 emphatic words are "even as." Christ's own service is the 
 only measure of ours. 
 
 There were four progressive lessons on the cross which the 
 Lord gave his disciples. The first was at Qesarea Philippi 
 (Matt. 1 6: 13 et seq.) where Peter confessed him. "From that 
 time began Jesus to show his disciples how he must go to Jeru- 
 salem, and suffer." This is definitely recorded as the beginning 
 of Christ's teaching on this subject, and the time appears to 
 have been less than six months before his crucifixion. The 
 second was this incident when Salome came and asked for her 
 sons an advantage over the other disciples. Christ used the 
 indignation of the disciples resulting from this incident for the 
 
THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN 351 
 
 second lesson on the cross. The third lesson was the anointing 
 at Bethany, where it was declared that Mary had come to do 
 this against his burial. The fourth was the Lord's Supper. 
 
 In three of these, certainly, the two lessons are joined. 
 When the Lord tells Peter that he is to be crucified, he adds, 
 "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take 
 up his cross and follow me." When he tells them that his life 
 is to be given as a ransom, lie tells them that their lives are 
 to be "even as" his. When Mary anoints his feet, he tells 
 them that this outpouring of human love shall be told of "as 
 memorial of her" wherever the Gospel of his cross is preached. 
 And in the last supper he lays upon his disciples the obliga- 
 tion of an ordinance wherein they shall perpetually remind 
 themselves of their fellowship with one another in the bond 
 of their communion in his death. So the doctrine of the cross 
 includes the sacrifice and glory of the disciples with their Lord. 
 
 Paul understood the spirit of these teachings. He was 
 crucified with Christ; he lived, yet not he but Christ. He was 
 a partaker in Christ's sufferings, and expected to be a partaker 
 in his glory. Likewise the other apostles understood, in part, 
 at least, the meaning of these words of Jesus. These teachings 
 set forth the essential truth that Christ's work and ours are 
 not to be divorced. Nor is his death to be rudely severed 
 from his life. His death fitly culminated his life of ministry. 
 The two belong together. 
 
 The doctrine of the kingdom as Jesus preached it in his last 
 journey to Jerusalem, was the glory and the fellowship of 
 sacrifice "even as" the Son of man, who came not to be min- 
 istered to but to minister, and to give his life, while living and 
 while dying, as he still is giving it, in the fullness of his redemp- 
 tive work, for the redemption of many. 
 
CHAPTER XXXIV 
 
 BARTIMAEUS AND ZACCHAEUS 
 
 Modern Jericho is a squalid town. The men have a bad 
 reputation as robbers; the virtue of the women is more than 
 questioned, and the children are as vicious a set of little beg- 
 gars as one may find between Jordan and the Mediterranean. 
 It is situated in a region of great fertility, which presents a 
 most pleasing contrast to the bleak and desolate wilderness of 
 Judaea. Situated far below the level of the sea, in a region of 
 infrequent rains, it is hot and dusty; but its springs are a 
 source of life and verdure, and the swift-flowing Jordan is 
 fringed with a tangle of trees, in whose solitudes the hyenas 
 and jackals hide and howl. In the time of Christ, Jericho was 
 a populous city. Herod had a palace there, and it was a place 
 of political importance. At the time of the visit of Jesus it 
 was doubtless thronged with pilgrims on the way to Jerusa- 
 lem. This was in the last days of March, A. D. 30. He healed 
 blind Bartimaeus (Matt. 20: 29-34), visited Zacchaeus (Luke 
 19: 9-10), and delivered the parable of the pounds (Luke 19: 
 11-28). He went on to Jerusalem, leaving Jericho apparently 
 on Friday, March 31, and arriving at Bethany that night. The 
 incidents which claim our attention are those relating to the 
 blind men and the publican. 
 
 As Jesus entered Jericho two blind men sat begging. Pales- 
 tine is full of people who are blind or nearly so. The visitor is 
 distressed bv the number of people with diseases of the eyes. 
 Commentators, noticing that Matthew speaks of two men and 
 Mark and Luke of only one, and that Mark and Luke speak 
 of the healing as occurring when Jesus entered Jericho, and 
 Matthew as he was leaving, are at pains to decide whether 
 there were two or only one. For my own part, I have no 
 
 352 
 
BARTIMAEUS AND ZACCHAEUS 
 
 353 
 
 doubt there were at least two; and if he healed Bartimseus on 
 entering, and did not find some others waiting for him as he 
 left, thines have greatly changed in Palestine. The maimed 
 and halt and blind are all there now, and it fills one's heart 
 with pity. 
 
 It was a great opportunity for Bartimaeus. None such had 
 ever come to him. It was his only opportunity, though he did 
 not know it. With all his power he shouted, "Jesus, thou son 
 of David, have mercy on me!' 1 The crowd ordered him to be 
 
 MODERN JERICHO 
 
 silent, but he shouted the more, till Jesus heard and healed 
 him. 
 
 As Jesus entered Jericho he discovered another man who 
 needed him — a publican named Zacchseus. Everybody in 
 Jericho knew Zaccha?us, and could have described him with 
 striking unanimity. He was little, he was rich, he was a pub- 
 lican. That was the whole story so far as Jericho knew. 
 Jesus alone knew that Zacchaeus had a capacity for justice and 
 generosity and spirituality. 
 
 Zacchaeus came to look on. That was his only interest in 
 the matter. It was the only interest any one wanted him to 
 
354 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 assume. The public street was his, and no one could forbid 
 the man a right to climb who was first at a tree in the high- 
 way. It is better for a man to be curious than indifferent. 
 There is a blessing to the inquiring mind. A part of the mis- 
 sion of Jesus was to provoke curiosity. God is to be found 
 by those who seek him. Great truths are not discovered 
 loose on the surface of things; they are found, like gold, by 
 industrious digging. 
 
 
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 A JERICHO FAMILY 
 
 But mere curiosity will never take a man to heaven. A man 
 may long wonder what Jesus is like, and never see him; or 
 even go forth with the thoughtless throng, and be lost in the 
 crowd. The vision of Jesus is worth the effort to climb. 
 
 Men are not wholly what other men suppose them. Some 
 of his own contemporaries knew Lincoln the joker; the world 
 now knows Lincoln the sad-hearted, brooding, compassionate 
 soul. His own law partner says he was cold, that principles 
 meant much to him and men little; the world knows that prin- 
 ciples meant so much to him because he so deeply sympathized 
 
BARTIMAEUS AND ZACCHAEUS 
 
 355 
 
 with men. I sometimes think that no man is understood very 
 well by any other man. And — I may sometimes change this 
 optimistic delusion if so it is — I like to believe that most men 
 are somewhat better than they are commonly thought to be. 
 That is not wholly the popular impression. It is the office 
 of much recent literature to show the hypocrite and scoundrel 
 that exist in many apparently good men. Now and then 
 shocking revelations of private life disclose what makes our 
 hearts ache for men who appear good but are not so. Whether 
 it be that another good man lias gone wrong or that another 
 
 
 
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 bil|b»iS^UaK 
 
 * -■ v-^E^P B ^.iWi-lSmHHr r 1 
 
 
 ■E**3 
 
 
 SITE OF ANCIENT JERICHO 
 
 bad man has been found out, the discovery is painful. But, 
 all this to the contrary notwithstanding, I like to believe that 
 the average man shows to the world a side which, while not 
 his worst, is commonly not quite his best. He may be show- 
 ing the side that he wants to show. He may derive satisfac- 
 tion from the world's wrong estimate. But he does not always 
 estimate himself aright, and the world seldom knows him as 
 he is in his heart, and as God knows him. Jesus knew men as 
 they were; and thank God, he knew them as they might 
 become. 
 
35 ( > 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 The visit of Jesus to Jericho reminds us that blessings come 
 not only to the man who sits waiting, but to him who acts 
 when the time comes; not only to the man who climbs a tree 
 to see Jesus, but to him who makes haste to come down and 
 receive him. 
 
 There is such a thing as looking on in the religious life that 
 has in it a peril and the need of a warning. Curiosity soon 
 spends itself, and indifference follows. Meantime Jesus has 
 passed on, the crowd has disappeared, and there is nothing but 
 to climb down and go home and await the next sensation. 
 Zacchseus came down when Jesus requested, and gladly 
 received his Lord. It had been worth the Master's while to 
 come by way of Jericho, for lie had given to Bartimceus the 
 ability to discover the beauty of the world; and he gave to the 
 world the ability to discover the good in such men as Zac- 
 chseus. 
 
 rwj 
 
 A MAN OF DISTINCTION IN JERICHO 
 
CHAPTER XXXV 
 
 THE ALABASTER BOX 
 
 Jesus probably spent Thursday night in the home of 
 Zacchaeus, healing blind Bartimieus either as he entered or left 
 the city, and on Friday continued his journey, a six hours' 
 up-hill walk to Jerusalem. There are few more pathetic pic- 
 tures in the gospel history than this of Jesus going before his 
 disciples toward Jerusalem. On his way from Jericho he 
 repeated the parable of the pounds, and "went on before, going 
 up to Jerusalem." The way was full of pilgrims from Peraa 
 and the region about Jordan going up to the feast of the pass- 
 over. The procession grew larger and longer, and ever at its 
 head we see that sad, courageous figure, with weary but firm 
 step ascending the ragged road toward Jerusalem to meet his 
 crucifixion. 
 
 For two months Jesus had hidden from the spite of the 
 hierarchy in the little town of Ephraim. Again he approaches 
 Bethany, where a few weeks before he raised Lazarus from 
 the dead. Then it was nearing the end of January or the first 
 of February, and winter reigned. Now as he approached 
 Olivet from the Jordan valley, it was clothed in the verdure 
 of spring. The groves about Bethany were all green, and the 
 world never looked brighter to him than on that evening 
 when the sun was setting on Jerusalem, and the sunset of his 
 life was drawing near. 
 
 There was a feast at Bethany that evening — such a feast 
 as Jesus rarely attended. No cynical Pharisee prepared it, but 
 love and gratitude made it rich and sweet. Martha served; 
 Lazarus sat beside Jesus; and Mary came and broke her 
 alabaster box of ointment on Jesus* head. 
 
 The American Revision changes "pence" to "shillings," 
 explaining in the margin that the coin was worth about seven- 
 
 357 
 
358 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 teen cents. I would have preferred that they should have 
 changed it to "dollars, " for the coin had a purchasing power 
 in labor more than equal to that of a dollar now. The value 
 of the alabaster box was that of a year's wages for a working 
 man. Tt would be fair to reckon it as the equivalent of three 
 hundred dollars, or perhaps five hundred dollars. Surely it 
 was a large sum to expend on a momentary gratification. 
 Why should Jesus permit the expenditure of so much money 
 upon himself? He was a poor man like the rest of them. He 
 was as unused to luxury as the others of the company. Judas 
 was not the only one that complained. I wonder if there were 
 any that did not! Three hundred dollars' worth of ointment 
 gone in five minutes, and who was the better for it? You 
 could have bought Peter's boat and all his fishing apparatus 
 for three hundred dollars. They needed money now; their 
 friends were few and their future was dark. The city which 
 they were to enter on the morrow would have beggars at 
 every corner, and, oh, such beggars, and so many of them! 
 Why was the money wasted in ointment? 
 
 But the poor have not suffered because of Mary's box of 
 ointment. The gift she made then to the Master has over- 
 flowed in fragrant blessings upon God's poor, and thousands 
 of generous givers have heard the Master's word, "Inasmuch 
 as ye did it unto one of these my brethren, .... ye did 
 it unto me." 
 
 She did what she could, and it was much. We can do no 
 more than we are accustomed to think. It is love that makes 
 us capable of the impossible. Mere conventional gratitude 
 would have been content with conventional thanks. Love is 
 original and inventive. Mere friendship, as the term is com- 
 monly used, is always asking, "What can I give?" for its 
 imagination is hampered by conventional ideals. This is whv 
 Christmas gifts are so great a burden, not by reason of their 
 cost, but because of their strain on the imagination. This is 
 why wedding gifts abound in duplicates. Love can do unique 
 things. Tt can fashion gifts that are original. Maty had this 
 affection for Jesus, that was fruitful in invention and gifted 
 
THE ALABASTER BOX 
 
 359 
 
 with prophetic instinct. She did it for his burial, not knowing 
 that he -was about to die, but as divining by love's intuition 
 that the gift would better be made now, while there was oppor- 
 tunity, and while the friends were gathered who knew the 
 reason for her gratitude. Some who saw this act thought it 
 bold, and others thought it extravagant. Jesus appreciated it, 
 for he knew better than any one else out of what pure devotion 
 it sprang. His words were an illustration of that quality of 
 appreciativeness which ever characterized his work. 
 
 -■■■■- ".. ^ n- 
 
 THE APOSTLES FOUNTAIN — ON JERICHO ROAD 
 
 The world yearns for sympathy and appreciation. The artist 
 gains courage to toil on in the attic in the hope that sometime 
 the world will discover and applaud his genius. The man who 
 struggles against odds for success, wants it not only for him- 
 self, but to vindicate himself before the world. The world 
 rushes to see the picture after some one with insight has 
 discovered it. It hastens to give receptions and dinners to 
 the man whose success some one else has disclosed. The 
 world itself is not very discerning, and its geniuses commonly 
 
3 6o 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 become hungry before they are found. Now and then is given 
 to some rare man the gift of discernment, and we applaud him 
 as the discoverer of genius. 
 
 Jesus said of Mary, "Verily I say unto you, Wheresoever this 
 gospel shall be preached in the whole world, that also which 
 this woman hath done shall be spoken of for a memorial of 
 
 mary with the alabaster box 
 (carlo dolci, t6i6-i686) 
 
 her" (Matt. 26: 13). Why should Mary's story be told with 
 the story of the gospel? Because it was a love which like 
 Christ's did not measure the means which it employed to 
 express itself. Over against the utilitarian fidelity of those 
 who complained of the waste, we place her unstinted devotion. 
 Jesus commended the latter. God is lavish of his affection. 
 
THE ALABASTER BOX 
 
 361 
 
 Pollen pours itself in showers over the meagerly receptive 
 pistil. God's gifts are ever larger than we appropriate. 
 
 The story deserves immortality because the good deed which 
 would not have been too good after his death, Mary bestowed 
 with prophetic faith on the living Saviour. Blessed is the 
 instinct which leads us to say and do good things of the dead. 
 
 ' THE POOR YE HAVE ALWAYS WITH YOU 
 
 Sad it is that we so often postpone them until death. Mary 
 gave to Jesus the best she had. God gives to us his best. 
 Mary and Martha had received too good a blessing to mani- 
 fest their thankfulness in the gift of a copper coin. Jesus 
 appreciates the love that appreciates the love of God, and 
 returns it in kind. The rich gift, the gift that represents a 
 life's devotion — this God gives, and this we may give. 
 
CHAPTER XXXVI 
 
 AMID PALM BRANCHES 
 
 Five centuries before the birth of Jesus a young prophet 
 whose fervent exhortations and rapt visions had helped to 
 bring about the rebuilding of the temple, looked forward to 
 the coming of a king to that same temple, and cried, "Rejoice 
 greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: 
 behold, thy king comet h unto thee: he is just, and having 
 salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, even upon a colt the 
 foal of an ass" (Zech. 9: 9). 
 
 I do not know what thoughts of glory were in the mind of 
 the prophet, nor when he expected the king who was to 
 gladden Jerusalem. I only know that nothing occurred in 
 the history of the nation that could be counted a fulfilment 
 of that inspired hope for five weary centuries. Cyrus had 
 been God's messiah for the restoration of Israel to its own 
 land, but now that Israel had returned and had a house for 
 God's worship, it needed Israel's own king. 
 
 It is a significant fact that these prophecies of Zechariah, 
 alone of post-exilic prophecies, treat of the triumph of the 
 king that was expected. The suffering servant of God, who 
 redeems by sacrifice, had taken the place in prophecy of the 
 exalted Messianic ideal of the age of Hezekiah. Here appears 
 the vision of a king who is a conqueror, and here it is a peace- 
 ful conquest. Christ appeared in Jerusalem in early spring five 
 centuries later, meek, yet a conqueror; exulting, yet with tears 
 on his face. 
 
 We are interested in the simple preparations for the entry 
 into the city. Only in their spiritual significance can they 
 seem otherwise than meager and poor. In the old days of 
 Davidic simplicity, the king and his sons rode upon asses or 
 
 362 
 
AMID PALM BRANCHES 
 
 363 
 
 mules, but since the time of Solomon the horse had been the 
 fitting beast for royalty. But Jesus definitely chose the hum- 
 bler, but in Jiukea the more useful, animal. To the disciples 
 every detail in the preparation was most eagerly obeyed. 
 
 THE ROAD FROM JERICHO TO JERUSALEM 
 
 They understood that now Jesus was about to declare himself 
 the Christ to the people as he had to themselves, and to accept 
 the allegiance which all along the multitude had gladly offered 
 him if he would come as King. 
 
364 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 We cannot help sharing in the joy of the disciples as they 
 completed the simple preparations commanded by Jesus for 
 his entry into Jerusalem. Now, we say to ourselves, is coming 
 his real glory. We cannot understand why he has so per- 
 sistently hidden himself when he was famous, and appeared 
 when he was in danger. Now preparations begin which we can 
 understand. Walking is for peasants or for teachers in humble 
 life; to ride is regal. He who came before us going up to 
 Jerusalem and pressing forward eagerly until his arrival, while 
 we followed slowly with heavy hearts, ready indeed, to die 
 with him, yet sorely disappointed and perplexed, begin now 
 to understand it. The Lord did not come to die, after all. 
 He has resources which hitherto he has not exhibited. We 
 have seen nothing like his present demeanor. For him to 
 ride is a new thing, and it means a new attitude toward the 
 question of his Messianic mission. We are partly right. Jesus 
 is taking a new step. He who has refused to tell men who 
 he was, and charged his disciples to tell no man, is proclaiming 
 on the housetops what hitherto he has told in the ear. His 
 triumphal entry is a proclamation of his sovereignty. 
 
 The disciples read the change of purpose in his confident, 
 authoritative tones. Even as they go for the ass, which he 
 does not ask for, but impresses as a general might do, they 
 recall the words of the prophet that so the King shall come, 
 riding upon the colt of an ass. And now they have the beast, 
 and now the Lord is mounted upon him. The disciples gather 
 about him as he mounts. They watch him as he begins the 
 ascent. How regal he looks! There is something imperial in 
 his bearing, as he rides in conscious state. And now, as the 
 crest of Olivet is almost reached, over the top swarm the 
 crowds from the city, coming out to meet him, and the two 
 processions meet. It is a moment of thrilling joy. Each 
 company is surprised by the presence of the other crowd, and 
 the enthusiasm of each mounts higher as it catches new flame 
 from the spirit of the other. The Master does not restrain 
 them. He seems to yield himself to their joy, which now is 
 past all bounds. They tear banners from the fresh-leaved 
 
AMID PALM BRANCHES 
 
 365 
 
 trees. They rend off the palms along- the way. They carpet 
 the rough road with their garments, and cry, "Blessed is the 
 king of Israel that cometh in the name of the Lord!" 
 
 A few steps farther, and the caravan rounded the crest of 
 the hill, and there the procession halted. The road below was 
 still thronged with singing pilgrims from the city. The whole 
 hillside seemed alive with them. The scene was one to kindle 
 the enthusiasm and to fire the imagination. Below lay the city 
 like a dream of heaven. Nearest to the Mount of Olives stood 
 
 JESUS LAMENTING OVER JERUSALEM— (EASTLAKE) 
 
 the temple, radiant in its gold and marble. The whole land- 
 scape was beautiful in the sunlight of that Syrian April. It 
 was an early spring, with the rig-trees already in leaves and 
 fruit. The drought had not yet come to dry up the water- 
 courses, and Kedron lay below fertile and cool. The light fell 
 rich on palm and olive and new-born grass, in their various 
 tints of green. In the midst of a setting of emerald hills lav 
 Jerusalem, like a glistening, iridescent gem. 
 
 Then the joy departed from the face of Jesus, and he wept. 
 All the evangelists tell of the triumphal entry, but only one 
 
366 J E S U S O F N A Z A R ET H 
 
 tells of this strange incident which accompanied it. To all of 
 them it must have been incomprehensible. They had seen 
 Christ weep before, at the grave of Lazarus. They had heard 
 his sigh of sorrow for the sufferers whom he healed. It had 
 always seemed strange that Christ wept when about to dry 
 the tears on the faces of others. But it was passing strange 
 that he should weep now. For this was the hour of his triumph. 
 But what a triumph it was! Humble was the beast on which 
 Jesus rode, and it was not his own. The banners waved in 
 his honor were neither of silk nor cloth of gold, but only 
 extemporized flags torn from the trees. No carpet was spread 
 for him, save the garments of his followers, courteous in their 
 rude kindness as England's most flattering courtier to Queen 
 Elizabeth; it was their best. But what a contrast was this 
 procession and one that would leave Jerusalem before the week 
 was over! 
 
 The triumphal entry was a forcing of the issue between 
 Christ and the hierarchy. It was not a declaration of hostili- 
 ties, but it was a diplomatic ultimatum. By it Christ meant 
 to force the hand of his opponents. It was his public procla- 
 mation of royalty. It was meant to compel his opponents 
 either to acknowledge him or to put him to death. While 
 Christ did not employ, and did not threaten to employ, force, 
 still the terror of a popular uprising was the real force that was 
 to bring about his end. This event forever placed Christ's 
 attitude above that of supine non-resistance. It was a war 
 measure, and was so understood. He distinctly informed his 
 disciples that the time had come for them to buy swords, and 
 to take prudent means for their own defense. He distinctly 
 set his former course over against his present policy, calling 
 that to their minds, together with the fact that it had suc- 
 ceeded; yet, even as he acknowledged, the success of his 
 former pacific attitude toward his enemies now called for a 
 change that made his work aggressive. For the time it 
 seemed as though the new plan had succeeded. 
 
 Both the disciples and the enemies of Jesus overestimated 
 the immediate importance of this extraordinary event. The 
 
AMID PALM BRANCHES 
 
 &7 
 
 disciples felt that now the world was about to follow Jesus, 
 and the priests declared that they had staked all and lost. They 
 had prevailed nothing; the world had gone after him. But 
 the movement was certain to bring a reaction unless Jesus 
 followed his advantage, and that day he simply looked about 
 the temple and returned to Bethany. So closed the first day 
 of this eventful week. 
 
 ^s 
 
 
 ' &*:: /i 
 
 THE GOLDEN GATE OF JERUSALEM 
 NOW WALLED UP 
 
 The Golden Gate of Jerusalem is the traditional gate of the 
 triumphal entry. It has long been walled up, and it is popu- 
 larly said that it will not be reopened till Christ comes again 
 to enter it. The walls of Jerusalem, and with them the gates, 
 are all modern; and the Golden Gate was not there when Jesus 
 entered, though it may occupy nearly the original site. Not 
 
368 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 through that gate, but through the door of the hearts of men 
 he waits to enter in more enduring triumph. 
 
 But the triumphal procession did not end at the Golden 
 Gate of the Holy City. Looking backward across the centu- 
 ries we see it wending its way from the gates of Jerusalem 
 down to the present time. We see it forming before the gates 
 of Rome as it formed before the gates of Jerusalem. Nero 
 is upon his bloody throne, and those who come to announce 
 the coming of the King are scornfully put to death, but they 
 keep coming. Peter is crucified, Paul is beheaded, but the 
 faith lives. The procession lengthens. The palm-bearing: 
 throng multiply. They are thrust into the arena and the 
 beasts turned loose among them, but they come. Heralds in 
 such numbers no king ever had before or since. They throng 
 Rome. They are in Nero's palace. By the lurid glow of the 
 city in flames they stand confessed by thousands. They mul- 
 tiply in the dread light of the conflagration and of the more 
 bitter persecution which follows. Above the throne of Nero 
 rises more and more clearly into vision the throne of God and 
 Christ, and in less than three centuries the religion of Jesus is 
 the official religion of the Roman empire. 
 
 The procession turns northward, and knocks at the gates 
 of ice and snow where dwell the rugged barbarians that have 
 already in their callous grip the scepter of the Roman state. 
 Out in the forests of Germany it finds them, and far north in 
 the snows of Scandinavia, rugged and fierce, but with brain 
 and brawn for the making of nations of giants. The forests 
 divide and leave a way for the procession to enter. The ice 
 gates melt at the King's approach. Old heathen customs are 
 reclaimed, and endowed with Christian significance. The 
 winter solstice becomes the anniversary of the birth of Christ, 
 and the vernal equinox the anniversary of his resurrection. 
 The death of winter and the new life of spring which for ages 
 has been a central feature of their religious joy, become trans- 
 figured with the thought of the new life which the Christ 
 brings to all the world, and of the death of the last enemy, 
 which is death. Heathenism stands before the procession like 
 
AMID PALM BRANCHES 
 
 369 
 
 a blank wall, but as Christ approaches the gates are opened. 
 The Saviour enters, and the hammer of Thor goes down before 
 the cross of Christ. 
 
 We look across the channel to the isles of the North Sea, 
 waiting to see if the procession can cross. One clay Pope 
 Hildebrand, a mighty reformer and missionary superintendent, 
 sees some fair-skinned and blue-eyed slaves for sale in the 
 markets of Rome. "Who are you?" he asks. "We are 
 Angles," they say. "Angles?" said the pope; "you shall be 
 
 THE GOLDEN GATE — INTERIOR 
 
 angels," and forthwith the missionaries are sent to tell the 
 Angles and Saxons that a new King is at the door. The old 
 kins: Ethelbert likes it little that a new king should ask for 
 entrance, but asks his wife Bertha. It is a woman's hand that 
 opens the gates of Great Britain to the preaching of the 
 gospel. About thirteen centuries ago, in 597, the old king 
 hears the gospel and believes. Pentecost is a drop in the 
 bucket to this. Ten thousand in a single day are baptized in 
 the name of the Christ, and Great Britain with all the future 
 
370 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 glory of Anglo-Saxon civilization acknowledges as King him 
 who rode humbly into Jerusalem. 
 
 We strain our eyes and dimly discern to the westward a 
 new and nameless continent, but the ocean is wide and deep, 
 and the humble beast that was ridden by the Christ may not 
 cross thither. For ages it lies waste. But look yonder at 
 those white-winged ships that are flying low across the waters. 
 Whose are these, and who is it stands at the helm? Columbus? 
 Yes; but Who with him is eagerly crossing to this land of 
 promise? For see, the vessels have come to anchor, and now 
 a procession forms and marches up the shore, and who is in 
 the van? What is it before which those Spanish sailors kneel 
 and kiss the dust of the new land? Columbus? Nay, it is the 
 cross! And the new world has flung open wide her gates 
 that the King of glory may come in. 
 
 When William Penn comes into Pennsylvania to teach his 
 message of peace to warlike savages, the Christ is there before 
 him. When the Mayflower drops anchor in Plymouth harbor, 
 and the little procession forms to march up the bleak hill to 
 the cannon-crested meeting-house on its top, it is neither 
 Elder Brewster nor Governor Bradford, nor yet Miles Standish 
 we see at its head. The Christ that rode in triumph into 
 Jerusalem is leading them now up the hill that is to be conse- 
 crated by their prayers and enriched by their sacred dust. 
 
 The centuries go by, and in the clouds and thunder of battle 
 we see him again coming in peace to a new-born nation, in 
 which all men are born free and equal. Yet not all, for again 
 he cometh in storm-clouds of war, and the gates of the slave 
 market go down before him and crumble into dust. In the 
 tumult of the nations with the clashing of steel on steel, with 
 the pounding of iron balls on the sides of iron vessels, there is 
 heard again the Voice that spoke in the storm on Galilee, and 
 there is seen the form of Him who rode in triumph into 
 Jerusalem. 
 
 Still Jesus rides on in power. Mighty nations open their 
 gates at his approach. Jungles and forests make a highway 
 for his coming. Valleys are exalted, mountains and hills are 
 laid low. The crooked is made straight and the rough places 
 
AMID PALM BRANCHES 
 
 371 
 
 plain, and the glory of the Lord is revealed, and all flesh sees 
 it together, for it is the mouth of the Lord that speaks when 
 the voice of the herald cries in the wilderness. 
 
 Yet doth he weep as he looks down upon the cities that 
 receive him, for not yet is his will done on earth as it is done 
 in heaven. Every triumph thus far is mingled with sadness, 
 for men's hearts are hard, and their eyes are holden. Men 
 there still are who crucify him in their hearts, and reject the 
 Lord that comes to save them. 
 
 
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 THE TRIUMPHAL ENTRY— ( HOFM ANN, 1824 — ) 
 
 Yet in majesty he rides onward through the centuries. Our 
 learning is his. Our literature is his. Our highest art is his. 
 Our noblest music is his. Our loftiest spires lift up his cross 
 to heaven. Our sweetest humanities are his. His are our 
 charities, our infirmaries, our reformatories, our hospitals, our 
 libraries, our colleges. Japan opens its doors to the new Occi- 
 dental learning, and receives with it the Christ. China wel- 
 comes the medical missionary, and with him the Great 
 Physician steps in. African solitudes are penetrated by the 
 
372 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 feet of the explorer, and in every track of his is set the foot 
 that was pierced with the nail. 
 
 So the triumphal procession wends its way down the long- 
 vista and is lost to our sight in the glory of the future. It doth 
 not yet appear what shall be its culmination, save this, that his 
 will shall be done on earth as in heaven; that he that was once 
 with us is now in us; that he will be with us always; that the 
 earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the 
 waters cover the sea; and that every knee shall bow and every 
 tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God 
 the Father. 
 
 
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 THE HEAD OF CHRIST (MAKOUSKY) 
 
CHAPTER XXXVII 
 
 JESUS IN THE TEMPLE 
 
 We are able to follow with practical certainty the program 
 of Jesus in the last week of his earthly life. On Sunday, Mark 
 tells us, "He entered into Jerusalem, into the temple; and 
 when he had looked round about upon all things, it being now 
 eventide, he went out unto Bethany with the twelve" (Mark 
 n: n). On Monday morning, as recorded by Mark, "they 
 were come out from Bethany," and came "to Jerusalem," "and 
 every evening he went forth out of the city." Luke tells us 
 that, "Every day he was teaching in the temple; and every 
 night he went out, and lodged in the mount that is called 
 the mount of Olives" (Luke 21: 37). 
 
 By piecing together the accounts of the evangelists we 
 know very nearly what happened on each day of the week. 
 
 On Monday Jesus rose early, the glow of the previous day's 
 enthusiasm still upon him, and hastened to the city before 
 breakfast. We may be sure it was his own determination to 
 go early, and no failure in Martha's hospitality that sent him to 
 the city before breakfast. He saw a fig-tree on the way, whose 
 rich display of leaves promised green fruit. On March 9, 1902, 
 I ate a green fig in Palestine, grown as large as a small plum, 
 while yet the leaves were forming. The fig was not good, but 
 fit to stay one's hunger in an emergency, and so used by the 
 natives. It was not unreasonable to expect that a tree with 
 such a rich profusion of leaves would have fruit. 
 
 The cursed fig-tree was, of course, his own nation. It had 
 been professing much and producing little fruit. To it he 
 had come in the full time, and found it zealous for form, but 
 indifferent to fruitage, and its doom was near. Jesus had little 
 pleasure in cursing anything, even a barren tree; and in the 
 
 37.3 
 
372 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 feet of the explorer, and in every track of his is set the foot 
 that was pierced with the nail. 
 
 So the triumphal procession wends its way down the long 
 vista and is lost to our sight in the glory of the future. It doth 
 not yet appear what shall be its culmination, save this, that his 
 will shall be done on earth as in heaven; that he that was once 
 with us is now in us; that he will be with us always; that the 
 earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the 
 waters cover the sea; and that every knee shall bow and every 
 tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God 
 the Father. 
 
 
 
 
 
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 THE HEAD OF CHRIST — (mAKOUSKY) 
 
CHAPTER XXXVII 
 
 JESUS IN THE TEMPLE 
 
 We are able to follow with practical certainty the program 
 of Jesus in the last week of his earthly life. On Sunday, Mark 
 tells us, "He entered into Jerusalem, into the temple; and 
 when he had looked round about upon all things, it being now 
 eventide, he went out unto Bethany with the twelve" (Mark 
 ii : u). On Monday morning, as recorded by Mark, "they 
 were come out from Bethany," and came "to Jerusalem/' "and 
 every evening he went forth out of the city." Luke tells us 
 that, "Every day he was teaching in the temple; and every 
 night he went out, and lodged in the mount that is called 
 the mount of Olives" (Luke 21: 37). 
 
 By piecing together the accounts of the evangelists we 
 know very nearly what happened on each day of the week. 
 
 On Monday Jesus rose early, the glow of the previous clay's 
 enthusiasm still upon him, and hastened to the city before 
 breakfast. We may be sure it was his own determination to 
 go early, and no failure in Martha's hospitality that sent him to 
 the city before breakfast. He saw a fig-tree on the way, whose 
 rich display of leaves promised green fruit. On March 9, 1902, 
 I ate a green fig in Palestine, grown as large as a small plum, 
 while yet the leaves were forming. The hg was not good, but 
 fit to stay one's hunger in an emergency, and so used by the 
 natives. It was not unreasonable to expect that a tree with 
 such a rich profusion of leaves would have fruit. 
 
 The cursed fig-tree was, of course, his own nation. It had 
 been professing much and producing little fruit. To it he 
 had come in the full time, and found it zealous for form, but 
 indifferent to fruitage, and its doom was near. Jesus had little 
 pleasure in cursing anything, even a barren tree; and in the 
 
 .37.3 
 
374 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 parable he represents himself as the gardener pleading for 
 another opportunity to bring such a tree tc fruifcfulness (Luke 
 r 3 : 7"9)- Such an opportunity he was this day to give to 
 Jerusalem. The curse is less notable than the extension of 
 opportunity. Fruitless Jerusalem has one more chance. 
 
 The disciples were more impressed by the miracle of the 
 withering of the fig-tree than by the lesson from it. Christ 
 
 STREET LEADING TO THE CHURCH 
 OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE 
 
 did not recur to the real lesson of the cursing of the tree — the 
 penalty of fruitlessness. There were many uncompleted lessons 
 whose meanings came later to them. It was quite unnecessary 
 to tell the disciples more plainly that his mission to his own 
 nation was to fail of bringing them to fruitage. Instead, he 
 gave them the lesson of faith in prayer. I think we are quite 
 justified in saying it was wholly incidental to the one he reallv 
 
JESUS IN THE TEMPLE 
 
 375 
 
 meant to teach. And, lest the fig-tree might suggest the use 
 of malevolence in prayer, lie taught them that prayer and 
 kindness go hand in hand, and that he who prays must forgive. 
 Thus the final effect of the lesson of the withered tree is not 
 that of retribution; it is that of kindness and forgiveness. 
 
 THE CHURCH OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE 
 
 Jesus had cleansed the temple at the beginning of his 
 ministry, but the old abuses had returned. Now at the close 
 he repeated the driving out of the merchants. Monday was 
 the day of Christ's authority. The spell of his influence over 
 the multitude still held; and the Pharisees and priests kept 
 their distance. It was an indignant hand that held the scourge 
 
37& 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 and used it well. There was behind it muscle that was capable 
 of earning a day's wages at manual labor. Jesus was a non- 
 conformist. He had no love for the merely formal in worship. 
 He could easily bring himself to prophesy the overthrow of 
 the temple, and to proclaim himself greater than the temple. 
 Yet the temple was God's house to him. 
 
 Out went the money-changers, and in came another throng, 
 not more desirable in appearance — the lame, the blind and 
 
 THE SO-CALLED CENTER OF THE WORLD — GREEK CATHEDRAL 
 IN THE CHURCH OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE 
 
 the sick. These, the needy, were with him after the others 
 withdrew with their wealth. Need brings many a man to 
 Jesus, while he who has enough without, goes away with that 
 for which he has bartered his life. 
 
 But the needy, whose coming is often open to a possible 
 suspicion, were not the only ones. The children continued the 
 praises of yesterday. First of those who caught up the glad 
 shout that greeted him, they were the last to desist. There is 
 
JESUS IN THE TEMPLE 
 
 377 
 
 less patience in the Orient than here with insubordination of 
 children, and the effort to stop the disturbance was resolute 
 but ineffective. At last it was necessary to appeal to Jesus to 
 forbid the children to disturb the sanctuary with their shouts, 
 but Jesus refused. Quoting a verse from the Psalms, he 
 reminded them that God receives perfect praises from the lips 
 of children. It was a glad sound to him who had ever been a 
 lover of children, and it formed a fitting close for the Monday 
 of passion week. It is good for us to remember it, and to close 
 our thought of this triumphant day with the memory of the 
 songs of these happy little ones singing praises to Jesus. 
 
 JERUSALEM FROM THE MOUNT OF OLIVES 
 
CHAPTER XXXVIII 
 
 JESUS IN CONTROVERSY 
 
 When Jesus returned to the temple on Tuesday morning he 
 found his opponents ready for him. They had been put to rout 
 by the triumphal entry on Sunday, and were appalled by the 
 courage and vigor of his onset on Monday when he cleansed 
 the temple. But forty-eight hours had gone by, and the 
 opponents of Jesus saw the reaction setting in. Jesus had had 
 his own way quite long enough. The populace does not enjoy 
 seeing things go the same way too long at a time. The time 
 had come when popular interest would at least sustain a 
 challenge, and back of the challenge there was organized 
 opposition such as never before had met Christ. Politics 
 makes strange bedfellows. On this day Sadducees and Phari- 
 sees forgot their mutual hatreds, and combined forces against 
 him. So they met him on his arrival on the temple area with 
 the demand, "By what authority doest thou these things? 1 ' 
 
 But the first challenge failed at once. Jesus met their 
 question with another, a shrewd question, one that put them 
 immediately in a dilemma. Was the teaching of John from 
 heaven, or of men? The lawyers dared not answer. There still 
 was reason to fear the people, who, now that John was dead, 
 more than ever believed him a prophet. It is interesting to 
 find that to this last week of his life Jesus found a measure of 
 protection, as at the outset he found his opening for his 
 ministry, in the name and fame of John. 
 
 Jesus followed the challenge of his authority with three 
 parables of warning. The first was that of the two sons whom 
 the father commanded to work in his vineyard, one said, "I 
 go, sir," but went not; the other said, "I will not," but after- 
 ward went. It was a direct charge that the religious leaders 
 
 378 
 
JESUS IN CONTROVERSY 
 
 379 
 
 of the Jewish people had failed to fulfil their promise, and that 
 "the publicans and the harlots" would go before them into the 
 kingdom of God. 
 
 The second parable was that of the wicked husbandman. 
 The owner of the vineyard sent repeatedly for his rental, but 
 they beat and even killed the messengers. Finally he sent his 
 
 THE HOLY SEPULCHRE 
 
 son. But they killed the son in their hatred and greed. Jesus 
 asked his hearers, "When therefore the lord of the vineyard 
 shall come, what will he do unto those husbandmen?" 
 
 Some were candid enough to answer, "He will miserably 
 destroy those miserable men, and will let out the vineyard 
 unto other husbandmen, which shall render him the fruits in 
 their seasons." 
 
380 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 Then Jesus told them that the kingdom of God was forfeited 
 by them, and would be given to others. 
 
 The third parable was that of the marriage of the king's 
 son. Invitations do not commonly go begging at such times, 
 but Jesus supposed such a case; those invited not only refused 
 the great honor, but maltreated the king's ambassadors. But 
 the marriage did not wait, and the guests were found. The 
 unwillingness of those first invited brought sorrow upon them- 
 selves, but did not frustrate the design of the king. The lessons 
 of these three parables did not fail to be perceived by those 
 to whom they were addressed. The Jews had neglected God's 
 invitation, scorned his ambassadors, and were cherishing mur- 
 derous hatred against his son. They would be rejected, and 
 the privileges of the gospel bestowed on others. 
 
 But the Pharisees had a trap for Jesus. They came to him 
 with honeyed words of praise, and followed them with a ques- 
 tion, certain, as they thought, to entrap him: "Master, we 
 know that thou art true, and teachest the way of God in truth, 
 and carest not for any one: for thou regardest not the person 
 of men. Tell us therefore, What thinkest thou? Is it lawful 
 to give tribute unto Caesar, or not?" It was a shrewd question. 
 If he advised the payment he could not claim to be king; if 
 he forbade it, he made himself a rebel against Rome. But 
 Jesus said, "Why tempt ye me, ye hypocrites? Shew me the 
 tribute money." And they brought him a denarius. Jesus 
 asked them, "Whose is this image and superscription?" They 
 answered "Caesar's." Then said he to them, "Render therefore 
 unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's; and unto God the 
 things that are God's." 
 
 Then came the Sadducees and proposed a hypothetical case, 
 that of a woman who had been seven times married; whose 
 wife should she be in the resurrection? Jesus answered that 
 in heaven the physical relationships of earthly marriage have 
 no reason to exist, and that its people are as the angels of 
 God. I do not understand him to have said that in heaven no 
 account is taken of married life on earth, or that relationship 
 of years established here are there to count for nothing; but 
 
JESUS IN CONTROVERSY 
 
 38l 
 
 rather that the inherent spirituality of heaven makes marriage, 
 as it has need to be on earth, impossible by reason of its spirit- 
 ual companionship. 
 
 Then the Pharisees, hearing that he had silenced the Sad- 
 ducees, rallied their forces and came with another question, 
 "Which is the greatest commandment of the law?" The 
 rabbins taught that there were two hundred and forty-eight 
 affirmative precepts, as man}' as the members of the human 
 body, and three hundred and sixty-live negative commands, 
 
 TRIBUTE TO CAESAR — (EIDA, 1813-1895) 
 
 as many as the arteries and veins. The total, six hundred and 
 thirteen, was the number of letters in the decalogue. Which 
 of these six hundred and thirteen commands was the greatest? 
 Jesus replied that God's commands are a unit — love, which 
 applied alike to God and man, and embraced the whole law. 
 The questioner could not fail to see the wisdom of the answer. 
 His approval of the answer of Christ was immediate and 
 hearty. Jesus said to him, "Thou art not far from the kingdom 
 of God." Let us hope that he did not fail to enter it. 
 
382 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 These three questions, one political, one theological, one 
 legal, had exhausted the opponents of Christ. Every time 
 the question turned upon him who asked it. Jesus had met 
 his challengers with great skill and wisdom and courtesy, and 
 they had retreated baffled. Then Jesus asked a question, 
 "What think ye of the Christ? whose son is he?" They 
 answered him, "The son of David." He then asked them, 
 " How then doth David in the Spirit call him Lord, saying, 
 
 The Lord said unto my Lord, 
 
 Sit thou on my right hand, 
 
 Till I put thine enemies underneath thy feet? 
 If David then calleth him Lord, how is he his son?" (Matt. 22\ 
 42-45.) In that day men were not accustomed to call their 
 sons Lord. How was the Messiah to be both David's son and 
 his Lord? God was sending a greater Christ than the people 
 were expecting to receive. No one could answer the question, 
 and it ended the attempt to compel Jesus to commit himself 
 on matters that would afford ground for his condemnation. 
 But as he confuted the Pharisees, the common people heard 
 him gladly. 
 
 Then Jesus delivered his long and bitter invective against 
 the religious rulers of the Jews (Matt. 23: 2, 3). From warn- 
 ing his disciples against them, he turned and addressed the 
 scribes and Pharisees, charging them with hypocrisy, with 
 excess of ceremonial and neglect of moral life, and with wash- 
 ing the outside of the dish, and leaving it unclean within. 
 These were stern words, and the Pharisees must have writhed 
 under them. But the discourse ended with a tearful invitation 
 and lament that showed the tender-breaking heart of the 
 Master. 
 
 Jesus, wearied, now sat down for a brief time in the court of 
 the women, opposite the treasury. There were thirteen trum- 
 pet-shaped openings into which people were casting their gifts. 
 Many people who had come far to the feast brought consid- 
 erable sums. But there was one poor widow who dropped in 
 two of the smallest and least valuable coins. It was not lawful 
 for any person, no matter how poor, to offer only one of these 
 
JESUS IN CONTROVERSY 
 
 3%3 
 
 petty coins; hers was the minimum gift. But Jesus saw it 
 and commended it as the largest of all the contributions. It 
 was so. The aggregate of gifts inspired by that contribution 
 makes its total the greatest of all donations of money since the 
 world began; but Jesus measured the gift by the sacrifice 
 which it represented. The cash value of the first gift was one 
 ninety-sixth of a denarius — a little less than two mills — but it 
 has inspired gifts which have aggregated millions, and has 
 taught the world the spirit of Christ in giving. 
 
 
 INSCRIPTION ON THE STONE FROM THE TEMPLE 
 
 Jesus now rose and passed down the fourteen steps below 
 the Beautiful Gate, into the court of the Gentiles. This was 
 a great paved inclosure, seven hundred and fifty feet square, 
 open to men and women, Jews and Gentiles, so long as they 
 observed due decorum. Here, also, until the preceding day, 
 had been the cattle and dove dealers and money-changers. 
 Near the entrance was a marble screen four and a half feet 
 high, having an inscription in Greek, warning Gentiles to go 
 no farther on pain of death. Singularly, of all the stones of 
 the temple, this one, still bearing its battered inscription, is 
 the only one known to be preserved. As I traced its letters 
 in the government museum at Constantinople, I reflected that 
 
384 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 while not a stone had been left upon another, this had served 
 to remind us that God had broken down "the middle wall of 
 partition" erected by the exclusiveness of men, that so all men 
 mav enter the most holy place. 
 
 Outside this stone a little group of Gentiles waited. They 
 were probably proselytes of the Jewish religion and had come 
 to the temple to worship. "We would see Jesus," they said to 
 Philip. Philip hesitated; Jesus was wearied with the contro- 
 versy; he had come to the lost sheep of the house of Israel; 
 would he see these men? Philip asked Andrew, and the two 
 met Jesus as he was about to depart from the treasury, and 
 presented the request. Jesus heard it and rejoiced. 
 
 It was like a new beam from the star of Bethlehem, guiding 
 men from afar to the Christ. Then wise men from the East 
 came to his cradle; now humble souls from the West came near 
 to his cross; both were representatives of the great unconverted 
 world without, turning from its vain quest of the good in other 
 religions, and finding at last, Jesus. Beautiful was this light 
 from heaven, shining into the hearts of these two companies 
 of men, and lighting with reflected glory the dawn and the 
 twilight of the earthly life of Jesus. 
 
 An ancient and unfounded tradition asserts that these 
 Greeks were ambassadors from Abgarus, king of Edessa, who, 
 hearing that Jesus was in danger, sent an invitation to him to 
 come to his kingdom for safety. Abgarus was healed by a 
 disciple, probably Luke, whom Jesus sent to him; and further 
 legend asserts that Luke painted for Abgarus a portrait of 
 Jesus. These are interesting myths. All that we know is, that 
 as Jesus was rejected by his own nation a little group of repre- 
 sentatives of the great Gentile world waited for him, and that 
 Jesus rejoiced in spirit, saying, "If I be lifted up from the earth, 
 I will draw all men unto myself." 
 
 As Jesus was departing from the temple, his disciples called 
 his attention to the immense size of the stones and the mag- 
 nificence of the building, and Jesus said what too soon came 
 true, "See ye not all these things? verily I say unto you, There 
 shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not 
 be thrown down" (Matt. 24: 2). 
 
JESUS IN CONTROVERSY 385 
 
 They went out from the temple to the Mount of Olives, 
 where they sat and looked back at Jerusalem, beautiful in the 
 setting sun. There the disciples asked him, "Tell us, when 
 shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy com- 
 ing, and of the consummation of the age?" 
 
 The three things, the destruction of Jerusalem, the sign of 
 his presence, and the end of that age were grouped together 
 in their thoughts, and Jesus answered that the then present 
 generation should not pass till all these things were fulfilled. 
 It was the promise made (Matt. 16: 28) before that some 
 standing there should not see death till they saw the coming 
 of the kingdom. These declarations he later seemed to make 
 more specific in the implied promise that while Peter was to 
 glorify God by his death, John was to "tarry till I come." The 
 destruction of the temple, which made the Christian religion 
 universal, and the gift of the Spirit at Pentecost, were the 
 signs of the promised presence of Christ, a presence, as Jesus 
 told his disciples, manifest to them but not to the world. 
 Jesus declared that he who was then with them, should be in 
 them. Whatever special revelations of that presence God 
 has yet to reveal, this spiritual residence in and among men 
 is the real coming of Christ. 
 
 The lessons on Olivet ended with the parable of the Ten 
 Virgins, which was given to teach watchfulness; the parable 
 of the talents, whose lesson was fidelity, and the judgment 
 scene. The tests at the judgment scene are all practical. 
 Those who render service to his brethren, render it to Christ, 
 and find Christ in their fellow men, and heaven in his service. 
 
 Heaven is reached by the road of self-forgetfulness. Those 
 who strive to be good in order that they may go to heaven 
 may not wholly fail to get there, but they will come far behind 
 those who simply seek to do good, and in so doing become 
 good. Even the Son of God turned his back on heaven for 
 our sakes; wherefore God highly exalted him and gave him the 
 name that is above every name, both in earth and heaven. 
 Those who strive for heaven often fall short, by reason of the 
 selfishness of their effort; but a multitude of those on the right 
 
386 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 hand of the king are there by reason of the good deeds done 
 and forgotten. "Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, and 
 fed thee?" they ask. They enter with glad wonder and sur- 
 prise; for they have been so busy giving cups of cold water 
 in the spirit of Christ, that they almost forgot to seek heaven 
 for themselves. Nevertheless the Lord knoweth them that are 
 his. Wherefore take courage; forget thyself; help thy brother 
 in the name and spirit of the Christ; and lo, heaven for thee is 
 hardly out of sight. 
 
 Courtesy of the Open Court. 
 
 THE MAN OF SORROWS ( EDUARD BfEDERMANNJ. 
 
CHAPTER XXXIX 
 
 JESUS AMONG HIS FRIENDS 
 
 We have no record of Wednesday, and we need none. Jesus 
 was in retirement in Bethany, and the priests were plotting" in 
 Jerusalem. Alone of Jesus' disciples, Judas went to the city, 
 and agreed upon a plot whereby Jesus might be betrayed with- 
 out the making of a tumult. Alas for Judas, who, disappointed 
 in the delay of the coming of the kingdom, gave covetousness 
 free rein, and became the most hated of all traitors since the 
 world began! 
 
 We can easily imagine that Wednesday in the home at Beth- 
 any. Part of the clay Jesus doubtless spent in rest after the busy 
 and exciting scenes of the previous days; part of it he must 
 have spent in prayer, and we can gather the burden of the 
 prayer from that which he offered for his disciples the next 
 night in Gethsemane (John 17); and part of it he doubtless 
 spent in instructing his disciples. The beautiful lesson of the 
 vine and the branches might well have been spoken at the 
 paschal supper, but it fits somewhat loosely into its setting, 
 and it has been thought possible by some scholars that Jesus 
 spoke it. or portions of it, in the vineyards of beautiful, shady 
 Bethany on this unrecorded Wednesday. The spirit of it 
 certainly was the spirit of that day. 
 
 Thursday was the day for the preparation of the passover 
 supper, and Jesus withdrew from the home of Martha and 
 Mary and Lazarus to a house in the city where lie was well 
 known and had a friend. There was a large upper room vacant 
 there, where he and his disciples could celebrate together the 
 anniversary of the exodus according to the time-honored cus- 
 tom of the nation. A room in Jerusalem is still shown as that 
 in which Christ ate the supper with his disciples. If we could 
 
 387 
 
3 88 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 be at all sure of its genuineness it would be the most sacred 
 room in the world, not only because of that night, but also 
 because of the days following the resurrection and ascension, 
 until at Pentecost the Church was born. There is no proba- 
 bility that the room is authentic. I attended a service in 
 Jerusalem, an evening communion service in an upper room, 
 filled with tourists from all over America, with reverent wor- 
 shipers of Jerusalem and missionaries from other parts of Syria. 
 
 christ washing peter s feet 
 (ford maddox erowk, 1821-1893) 
 
 It was a service whose memories can never lie lost while life 
 lasts. But the essential spirit of such a service is not limited to 
 Jerusalem; it belongs to all those everywhere who meet in the 
 fellowship of Christ's spirit. 
 
 After the passover and before the Lord's Supper, Judas 
 went out. The disciples did not realize that he had gone 
 otherwise than on an errand, but Judas knew that lie was 
 expelled from that company. His plot had reached its 
 
JESUS AMONG HIS FRIENDS 
 
 389 
 
 culmination, and the Lord was ready. When he had gone out, 
 Jesus spoke freely to his disciples, and broke bread with them 
 in a new sacrament. 
 
 "A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one 
 another; even as I have loved you, that ye also love one 
 another." 
 
 JESUS WASHING PETER S FEET 
 
 (eoccaccino, 15x5-1546) 
 
 So said our Lord at the table. There was nothing new in 
 the commandment which Christ gave to his disciples, save the 
 measure of the duty enjoined. There were ten ancient and 
 honored commandments, and this did not add an eleventh. It 
 comprehended and enveloped the ten. Love is the fulfilling 
 of the law, and he that loveth is born of God. Whatever there 
 was new about it was first in the comprehensiveness of the 
 
390 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 statement, and secondly in the measure given by which love 
 is to be gauged. 
 
 That it is our duty to love one another is a commonplace. 
 If we have not learned it long" ago, we shall not learn it now. 
 Nor could those twelve short-sighted men in their unseemly 
 strife for the best seats at the table learn in a single lesson 
 what they had not learned in years of tuition under the divine 
 Teacher. But there is a standard given us which we may 
 impress a little more clearly upon our minds, however we fall 
 below it in actual attainment. 
 
 "Even as I have loved you." There is the emphasis. A 
 measure of love is relatively easy, the love that goes out toward 
 the agreeable, the pleasant, the harmonious. Christ loved the 
 unlovely and unlovable, and made them loving. The very 
 disciple that leaned upon his breast was a raw, quarrelsome, 
 rude young son of thunder, ready to assert his claim to the 
 place of honor, ready to call down fire and brimstone on the 
 Lord's enemies or his own, ready to empty the vials of apoca- 
 lyptic wrath where indeed they deserved to be emptied, upon 
 the wicked and the enemies of the truth. The love of Christ 
 remade him, and he became the apostle of love. Even as they 
 sat together at the table some of the love that beat in the 
 heart of Christ gave rhythm to the pulse-beat of John, and as 
 he remembered afterward the events of that night, he alone 
 of the evangelists recalled and recorded the words, "Abide 
 in me; be one as I and my Father are one." 
 
 A part of the mission of the Lord's Supper was to emphasize 
 the common source of spiritual life. Eating of one loaf, drink- 
 ing from one common cup, the physical life of all present was 
 received from one common source of energy. Seated around 
 one common board, shut in from the world by a common experi- 
 ence and privilege, they shared together the dangers, labors, 
 perils and joys of their relation to Jesus. United to him in a com- 
 mon bond of love to God and man, they had fellowship in their 
 highest spiritual experiences one with another. It is almost 
 bewildering the way in which John mixes our relation to Christ 
 as a basis of fellowship, and our fellowship as a basis for our 
 
JESUS AMONG HIS FRIENDS 391 
 
 relations with Christ. Hear him: "If we walk in the light, as 
 he is in the light, we have fellowship" — with him, we might 
 expect John to say, but not yet — "we have fellowship one with 
 another;" and note the outcome of this friendship: l 'and the 
 blood of Jesus his Son cleanseth us from all sin." 
 
 No man has ever affected the race powerfully till he has 
 come to feel the truth that his life belongs to the race. No 
 man is truly a Christian who has not come to feel something 
 of the passion for men which animated Christ. An unsocial 
 gospel is a contradiction in terms. Christian fellowship is 
 essential to Christianity itself. It ever drapes itself in new 
 garments. It ever expresses itself in new and lovely forms 
 of service. Now it breaks the alabaster box in an ingenuity 
 which shows how inventive is affection, and how unstinted it 
 may become; now it washes the feet of Christ or one of the 
 least of his little ones, with tears which show more of love 
 than the Pharisee's expensive but heartless hospitality. Now 
 it waves the palm branch before his oncoming kingdom, pre- 
 paring the way of the Lord, and now it tenderly and sorrow- 
 fully anoints the dead hope which it lays away that a better 
 one may rise; but ever and always is love beautiful and holy, 
 unselfish and inventive; ever and always it is born of God. 
 The love that makes a man at one with his neighbor is one 
 with the love which makes him at one with God. 
 
 "A new commandment I give unto you." Yet it is the verv 
 same of which John said, ''No new commandment write I unto 
 you, but an old commandment which ye had from the begin- 
 ning." Love is ever new. It has to be new. It will no more 
 keep than manna. Daily it must be gathered, and daily it falls 
 anew from heaven. There is ever a supply. Prophecies, 
 tongues, knowledge fail; but love, the reservoir of love from 
 which we may draw, never faileth. 
 
 It may have been to Jesus an inspiring thought that the 
 simple meal which he shared with his disciples on that night 
 would be imitated in symbol by millions for unnumbered 
 generations, in obedience to his simple word, "This do in 
 remembrance of me." But of this we may believe that he 
 
392 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 would think less than of the other fact that, inspired by 
 that symbol, and the common source of life and love which it 
 depicts, men would love one another in the spirit of the Christ 
 ideal. His spirit has given the name to the highest and noblest 
 type of love: 
 
 Blest be the tie that binds, 
 Our hearts in Christian love. 
 
 The love that is patient, that can be brave, that redeems by 
 the giving of itself, the love that was in Christ for his disciples, 
 and in them for him, and in them for each other, is the love 
 that the Lord's Supper sets forth. It sets the world of the 
 faithful about one common board. It brings the noble spirits 
 of all ages to one common feast. It sends out its swift heralds 
 to proclaim to the world, "The feast is ready; come." It 
 takes hold on the life which is in the vine of Christ's love, and 
 is rooted deep in the ineffable nature of God. Its tendrils hold 
 fast to his eternal promises, by which it bears its fruit higher 
 and higher in each successive season; and its topmost cluster 
 of love that once was of earth, and is now just beyond our 
 reach, furnishes the new wine of that purer affection which he 
 drinks with his disciples in the kingdom of his Father. 
 
 The Lord's Supper in its origin is closely associated with 
 the observance of the Jewish passover, but it is in no proper 
 sense a perpetuation of that celebration. It was a new thing 
 which Jesus instituted among his disciples on the night in 
 which he was betrayed, and from that day to this without 
 interruption it has been observed by them. 
 
 "This do, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me." 
 It is entirely possible that our Lord meant more by this than 
 a reference to the supper itself. He may have meant that all 
 food is to be thus eaten, with thanksgiving and memory of 
 him who is the Bread of life. His was the custom of giving 
 thanks to God for his food, and as he taught his disciples to 
 pray for daily bread, so also he taught them the lesson of 
 thankfulness, and would associate all God's gifts with the 
 thought of his supreme Gift. His disciples recognized him at 
 Emmaus as with simple dignity he, the guest, took the place 
 
JESUS AMONG HIS FRIENDS 
 
 393 
 
 of the host at the table and gave thanks, and was made known 
 in the breaking of bread. But if every household meal in a 
 Christian home is fitted to be a memorial of Christ, much more 
 so may be that breaking of bread in his own household of faith, 
 where his followers have assembled in his name for his worship 
 and work. 
 
 The Lord's Supper, both as instituted and as now observed, 
 is a rich illustration of the subordination of the spirit to the 
 
 THE UPPER ROOM — JERUSALEM 
 
 letter. Jesus observed the passover on that night, not with 
 girt sandals, nor standing, nor with a staff in hand, nor in 
 haste, nor with any apparent concern for a strict conformity 
 to the letter of the command. In like manner the Lord's 
 Supper as now observed departs widely in its form from the 
 supper which he instituted, and the form varies widely in dif- 
 ferent branches of the Church. Yet the spirit is better 
 observed because of these changes in the letter. To Christ, 
 form had value only so far as it preserved the spirit of a rite. 
 
394 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 The Lord's Supper should not be a mournful service. Sol- 
 emn it is, but for the Christian not sad. It was not the meat of 
 the paschal lamb that was taken, but the bloodless bread of the 
 table, the common staff of life. Tt is a feast and not a funeral 
 to which Christians gather. The passover was a festival of 
 solemnity but a festival still and a festival of rejoicing*. Christ 
 our passover is sacrificed for us, and our grief for the slain 
 Lamb does not prevent rejoicing that our God has passed over 
 his people, and led them forth into a large place. 
 
 We still cannot forget the guilt of sin. I doubt if we shall 
 wholly cease to regret it, even in heaven. But already we can 
 sing with joy the worthiness of the Lamb that was slain, to 
 receive power, and riches and wisdom and strength, and honor, 
 and glory, and blessing. 
 
 Finally, the Lord's Supper gives us objective reality. For 
 this we often seek almost disheartened. We know our own 
 hearts too well to hinge our hope of salvation wholly upon 
 our own good purposes, and God seems far off. If we had 
 something objective and tangible to which to moor our faith, 
 it would often be a help. Protestantism must not err in being 
 wholly subjective. For God has given to his Church author- 
 ity to bind and loose. There are times when souls in need can 
 be satisfied with no message that does not voice conscious 
 authority. In the Lord's Supper God speaks, saying through 
 his Church, "Just so surely as you receive this bread, so surely 
 you, being penitent, are forgiven. Just so surely as this bread 
 becomes a part of your physical life, and related to your effort 
 and labor and thought, just so surely, you being receptive of 
 the Spirit of Christ, does his life now enter into yours." Here 
 is the divine communication of the life of God. And here is 
 the hope of his coming, for his kingdom is within us. Eating 
 this bread and drinking this cup we do show forth his death 
 until his perfect coming, when, seeing him and being like him, 
 all life shall be communion with him, and we shall drink with 
 him of the new wine in the kingdom of God. 
 
 It was a sad night for the disciples. The Twelve had come 
 up to Jerusalem with Jesus that they might die with him, thus 
 
JESUS AMONG HIS FRIENDS 
 
 395 
 
 at the grave of their hope in him as the promised Messiah, 
 maintaining the vigor of their faith in him as their Master and 
 Teacher and Friend. It was not idle talk with Thomas when 
 he said (John n: 16), "Let us also go, that we may die with 
 him." He meant every word of it, and showed it as did the 
 other disciples by going with him. It was not an idle boast 
 with Peter when he said to Christ, "I will follow thee to prison 
 and to death." He stood as long as he was allowed to fight, 
 and sincerely meant to stand till he died. The apostles were as 
 
 JUDAS RECEIVING THE MONEY — (h. PRELL) 
 
 true and reliable as men who trust in themselves ever are. Let 
 us not underestimate their devotion or their courage. 
 
 Little wonder that during the last week their faith began to 
 waver. Plots were deepening about their Lord, plots which 
 he himself had told them were ultimately to succeed. They 
 had seen his power and trusted in him. They had heard his 
 voice, and leaving all had followed him. When he told them 
 of his coming death, they could not believe; not because they 
 were disposed to doubt him, but because they so implicitly 
 
396 JESUS OF N AZ A R ET H 
 
 trusted him. When Peter rebuked him, and said, "Be it far 
 free thee, Lord: this shall never be unto thee" (Matt. 16: 22), 
 it was because he believed so profoundly in the mission of his 
 Lord that he could not doubt it; and his smiting off of Mal- 
 chus' ear was his impetuous and unwise way of showing the 
 same confidence in Christ which had caused him to leave his 
 boat and follow, through good and evil report, him who had 
 not where to lay his head. 
 
 All their devotion to Christ was built upon their confidence 
 in his Messianic mission and its success; and all this was swept 
 away, not by their own disposition to doubt, not by the slander 
 of enemies but by the words of Christ himself. How touch- 
 ing is the picture of their devotion; following him no longer 
 for the hope of a share in his glory, but from sheer momentum 
 of their past hope, and from simple trust in their Lord, no 
 longer the coming Messiah, but only their loved, honored 
 Master, now stripped of all that had given him power over 
 them, but still loved, honored and followed! They had fol- 
 lowed him in hope; now they followed in despair. They could 
 not leave him, "Lord, to whom shall we go?" (John 6: 68.) 
 
 But even now their old hope asserted itself, and they began 
 to question who should be the greatest in his kingdom, when 
 Jesus swept away this last segment of a hope with words which 
 they could not fail to understand. So prostrated by grief that 
 they could not keep awake when asked by Jesus to watch with 
 him, so utterly cast clown from the lofty pinnacle of their 
 hopes, is it any wonder that they doubted? Despair and hope 
 are equally good incentives to nerve men to fight; but hope 
 alternating with despair is debilitating and unsettling in its 
 tendencies. Their doubt was not willingly forged. It was 
 trodden out of the wine-press of their affliction. It was the 
 doubt of an anchor torn from its hold, and grappling for 
 another place to catch its fluke. 
 
 "Let not your heart be troubled," Jesus had said. How 
 could the disciples help being troubled? They listened to his 
 words of comfort. He was pointing them to the Father. 
 Philip caught at the sound; "Lord, show us the Father." Jesus 
 
JESUS AMONG HIS FRIENDS 
 
 397 
 
 had marveled at their unbelief, and rebuked them for it. He 
 rebuked Philip now, but it was a kind rebuke, and a very sad 
 one. "Have I been so long time with you, and dost thou 
 not know me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the 
 Father." Christ's whole life had been an answer to Philip's 
 prayer. Yet amid the answer Philip was still praying. The 
 mission of Christ upon earth had been to show men the Father, 
 and who had believed his report? Men had in all ages been 
 
 THE ALLEGED TOMBS OF ABSALOM, ZECHARIAH AND JAMES, 
 WITH GREEK GETHSEMANE IN THE DISTANCE 
 
 feeling after God, if haply they might feel after him and find 
 him; Christ came to show that he was not far from every one 
 of them. No man had seen God at any time, but the only 
 begotten Son who was in the bosom of the Father, came to 
 declare him, and show the Father to the children. 
 
 It is a simple theology which cleaves the universe into two 
 equal kingdoms of good and evil, and says of each good thing, 
 "It is from God," and of each bad one, "It is of the devil." It 
 is much the same when for the devil we substitute inexorable 
 law. The progress of our thought leaves diminished space in 
 
398 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 the world for dualism. Only one God is possible to modern 
 thought. There is one God. But who, and what, is the God 
 of modern thought? 
 
 Science gives us a more absolute monotheism; it makes 
 the worship of many gods impossible, but it raises anew the 
 question of the character of the one God. We cannot pray 
 to a God of mixed motives or vacillating purposes or variable 
 whims. We cannot hold spiritual communion with inexorable 
 fate. The revelation of Jesus was never so indispensable as just 
 now. "Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth us." 
 
 "It sufficeth us." Yes, and no. It might not suffice us to 
 know God as Father; it does suffice as Christ has shown him. 
 The Athenian notion of God's fatherhood did not suffice. "We 
 are also his offspring" is a noble but incomplete sentiment. 
 We must know such fatherhood as Jesus revealed, and such 
 fellowship as he established, and such assurance as he made 
 real, and this sufficeth us. 
 
 Then Jesus told them more of his impending departure. He 
 was, indeed, to go from them, but was still to be with them, 
 and they were to have him ever present, in the continued 
 guidance of the Spirit,, perpetuating and widening his own 
 presence. Of the Spirit he promised, "He shall declare unto 
 you the things that are to come." 
 
 The promise that the Spirit shall show us things to come is 
 not a promise of ability to foretell the future. Rather it 
 means, "He shall interpret to you things as they come." If 
 our Lord's promise were simplv that things were to be 
 revealed in advance, it is easy to imagine that he himself might 
 have told them in advance instead of reserving them, as he 
 expressly did, saying, "I have many things to say unto you." 
 If foretelling were the Spirit's one office, then the many things 
 which Jesus had to say he might conceivably have said, even 
 though the disciples doubtless were not able to bear them, 
 waiting till such time as they were ready, and establishing 
 meantime a new proof of the fulfilment of prophecy. Mani- 
 festly, the progress of events and the leadings of the Spirit 
 were to be interpretative, and this was the special office of the 
 Soirit. 
 
JESUS AMONG HIS FRIENDS 
 
 399 
 
 The need of prescience, in the technical sense of the term, is 
 limited and occasional. The need of insight which is truly 
 prophetic is constant and universal. Once in a long time God 
 may tell a man and commission him to tell his fellow men of 
 the coming destruction of a city. In this way God told Abra- 
 ham of the coming doom of Sodom, Isaiah of the destruction 
 of Tyre, and Jeremiah of the impending desolation of Jerusa- 
 lem. But there is daily need that cities shall be preserved from 
 
 GETHSEMANE AND THE MOUNT OF OLIVES 
 
 the doom of anarchy, bad government, worldliness and shame, 
 through the ability of living men to interpret the message of 
 the Spirit of God to the world and Church of to-day. Again 
 there rings forth the sevenfold cry of the Apocalypse, "He 
 that hath ears to hear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto 
 the Churches." 
 
 If inspired men of old could have foreseen, their foresight 
 would often have prevented the realization of their predictions. 
 
400 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 The hazard, the uncertainty, has at every step been an impor- 
 tant element in determining the event. Among all our bless- 
 ings, one of the greatest is that we do not know what is to 
 come, and another is that the Spirit interprets the true signifi- 
 cance of "things as they come." 
 
 We are too readily content with the discovery of an origin. 
 There where our inquiry too commonly ends, it should begin. 
 
 OLD OLIVE TREE IN GETH3EMANE 
 
 We seem to say that if we may but prove that God in the 
 beginning made the world, we may acquit him of responsibility 
 for it thereafter. But in truth, if the world has no present 
 need of God, the history of its past need is not of any very vital 
 importance. If the original inspiration of the Scriptures made 
 subsequent inspiration superfluous, and they may be utilized 
 without present aid of the Spirit, then it were a fair question 
 
JESUS AMONG HIS FRIENDS 
 
 401 
 
 whether such inspiration were not, in the long run, a detri- 
 ment. But the Bible plainly sets forth that creation is con- 
 tinuous, that inspiration is continuous. If we deny these 
 truths in order that we may exalt a past inspiration or glory 
 in a completed creation, we add nothing to God's glory, but 
 rather deny him the glory of a creative work even now but 
 begun, and a revelation by his Spirit which can never be com- 
 plete till the last redeemed soul has learned its final lesson in 
 
 ON THE WAY TO GETHSEMANE — (C. SCHONHERIt) 
 
 a world beyond. We still are guided by the Spirit interpreting 
 to us things as they come. 
 
 Jesus talked long with the disciples in the upper room. He 
 prayed with them, too, and earnestly. And then, when the 
 night was at the midnight hour, and the full paschal moon 
 shone down from the meridian, he and the disciples passed out 
 into the silent streets, and into the garden, hitherto the scene 
 of his rest and prayer, and now to be the scene of his agony 
 and betrayal. 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 
 JESUS AMONG HIS ENEMIES 
 
 The Greeks and Latins point to different gardens as that of 
 Gethsemane, but the original garden must have been larger 
 than either, and may have included both. The Latin Geth- 
 semane is that most commonly visited by American tourists. 
 It is more of a garden and would be a sadly inspiring place 
 but for the tawdry shrines, the manifest imposition, and the 
 coarse attempt to localize each incident of the agony. There 
 are eight old olive trees whose antiquity needs no certificate, 
 but which cannot be nineteen hundred years old, though they 
 are possibly half that age. Here, or in some garden close at 
 hand, near the road to Bethany over the Mount of Olives, 
 Jesus suffered and was betrayed. 
 
 Wearied and overborne with sorrow, the disciples slept, but 
 Jesus struggled with the question whether it might be possible 
 for God in some other way to accomplish the world's salvation. 
 Through the night came the soldiers, their torches flashing 
 amid the trees. They went not far into the garden; he who 
 was in hiding there came forth to meet them. Then Peter 
 struck his blow, and, bewildered at Christ's rebuke, ran with 
 the rest; and Judas, having done his devilish work, slunk off 
 in the night, leaving Jesus alone among his enemies. 
 
 Jesus endured a sevenfold trial. First, he was taken to 
 Annas, father-in-law of the high-priest, and owner of the dove 
 hatcheries whose sales to the temple Jesus had twice 
 obstructed. He had been leader in this dastardly scheme, and 
 to his house, by preconcerted arrangement, the officers took 
 Jesus. Peter followed, and so did John; and as John had 
 acquaintances in the family, he obtained admission, and later, 
 seeing Peter at the door, went out and brought him in. Jesus 
 
 402 
 
JESUS AMONG HIS ENEMIES 403 
 
 had his informal examination before Annas, and then they led 
 him across the court to Caiaphas, the high-priest, and passing 
 Peter on the way, just as Peter — alas, poor Peter! — was deny- 
 ing him. What a look of sorrow was that which Jesus gave 
 him, as, bound and insulted, he was led by, and Peter, the 
 brave, the resolute, the boastful, lifted up his voice only to 
 
 JESUS IN GETHSEMANE — (LISKA) 
 
 deny him! Is it any wonder that Peter went out and wept bit- 
 terly? The arraignment was soon over, and Jesus was held to 
 appear before the Sanhedrin, which was hastily convened in 
 illegal session before daylight. Meantime his enemies hur- 
 riedly gathered evidence against him. They nearly failed of 
 this; they had conducted their plan of capture with so much 
 
404 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 of secrecy that they had not fortified themselves with evi- 
 dence for the trial, and their witnesses did not agree. But by 
 diligent effort they were able to procure witnesses who testi- 
 fied that Jesus had threatened to destroy the temple and 
 rebuild it in three days. Even this was less than they wished, 
 and the high-priest demanded of Jesus, "Answerest thou noth- 
 ing? what is it which these witness against thee? But he 
 held his peace, and answered nothing. Again the high priest 
 
 THE DENIAL OF PETER — (hARRACH) 
 
 asked him, and saith unto him, Art thou the Christ, the Son 
 of the Blessed? And Jesus said, I am: and ye shall see the 
 Son of man sitting at the right hand of power, and coming 
 with the clouds of heaven. And the high priest rent his 
 clothes, and saith, What further need have we of witnesses? 
 Ye have heard the blasphemy: what think ye? And they all 
 condemned him to be worthy of death" (Mark 14: 60-64). 
 When daylight came they convened in formal session and rati- 
 fied the action already determined. 
 
JESUS AMONG HIS ENEMIES 
 
 405 
 
 But the Jews could not execute a death sentence, so they 
 sent Jesus to Pilate. The charge of blasphemy, on which they 
 had condemned him, was not one to which Pilate would give 
 attention, so they at first demanded that their verdict should 
 be approved without a review of the evidence. When Pilate 
 
 CHRIST BEFORE PILATE — (hOFMANN, 1S24 — ) 
 
 insisted on the accusation, they charged him with stirring up 
 an insurrection. Pilate was not convinced, and finding that 
 Jesus was from Galilee, he endeavored to evade responsibility 7 
 and at the same time to show courtesy to Herod, with whom 
 he had been on bad terms, by giving Jesus a change of venue; 
 so he waived jurisdiction and sent him to Herod. 
 
406 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 Herod was pleased to see Jesus, and at once invited him to 
 perform a miracle for his amusement. In this he was dis- 
 appointed, for Jesus stood silent before him, and Herod re- 
 manded him to Pilate for formal trial. 
 
 Pilate was at his wits' end. He did not want to crucify 
 Jesus; he did not believe him guilty. He attempted to dis- 
 charge him by resort to an old custom by which a single crim- 
 inal was set at liberty at the time of the passover. But the 
 
 CHRIST LEAVING THE PRAETORIUM — ( DORE, 1833-18S3) 
 
 people, urged by the priests, demanded the release of Barab- 
 bas, a well known insurrectionist, instead. Pilate was tempted 
 to defy the priests and people and set Jesus at liberty, but the 
 priests threatened to do, what later they did, report him to 
 Rome and secure his removal; and they had a plausible charge, 
 "If thou release this man, thou art not Cesar's friend: every 
 one that maketh himself a king speaketh against Caesar" (John 
 19: 12). This was the threat that Pilate could not bear. He 
 declared that the responsibility was theirs, not his, and he sen- 
 tenced Jesus to be crucified. 
 
JESUS AMONG HIS ENEMIES 
 
 407 
 
 After the trial and condemnation, according to the custom 
 of the time, they laid the cross on Jesus to bear it to the 
 place of execution. Upon the back where the cruel scourge 
 had done its wicked work, was laid the rough and heavy beam. 
 Jesus had passed a sleepless night, without food, amid scenes 
 and experiences most harrowing to the feelings, and follow- 
 ing, as it did, a week of the most intense excitement and 
 
 THE SORROWFUL WAY 
 
 fatigue. He now came to the dread hour with strength 
 exhausted, though with faith triumphant. See him as he goes 
 forth from Pilate's judgment hall bearing the cruel cross. Heavy 
 is the load, yet he bears it uncomplainingly. But he bears it 
 with failing human strength. No smallest particle of his 
 divine power avails to lighten in the remotest degree that 
 crushing load. That power, so ready to relieve the suffering 
 
4 o8 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 or even to add to the pleasure of others, is impotent in his own 
 behalf. He saved others; himself he cannot save. Alone he 
 treads the wine-press; alone he bears on his heart the sorrows 
 and sins of the world. 
 
 As the sad procession slowly wends its way out of the city, 
 and ere it yet has passed the gates, the step grows more feeble, 
 the form bends lower, the strength ebbs away. He falls behind 
 the malefactors as they are hurried along. The crowd hoots 
 in derision; the soldiers command him to move on and keep 
 up with the others. He makes the effort; he staggers ahead: 
 he reels; he falls in the street, and still relentlessly there lies 
 on his prostrate form the weight of that accursed burden. Will 
 not God lift it? Has divine pity no compassion now? Will 
 no one remove it? Are human and divine sympathies alike 
 dead? The women of Jerusalem have for years provided by 
 subscription for the purchase of wine and myrrh for all who 
 are crucified, that by partial stupefaction they may be relieved 
 of some part of the anguish of the crucifixion. Some of these 
 now drop tears of sympathy as they see him sink beneath the 
 cross. But has the heart of man no sympathy, that there is 
 none with strong arms as well as tender heart to lift the cross 
 and bear it for him to Calvary? 
 
 Yet, if pity did not lighten Jesus' burden, impatience at the 
 delay did. The soldiers were in a hurry. The Jews were anx- 
 ious to get back to the feast. Clearly the strength of Jesus 
 was unequal to the load; some one must be found to bear his 
 burden. Here came a foreigner. Neither by the jews nor 
 Romans were the foreigners held in high esteem. Let him 
 bear it. And bear it he did. 
 
 In what spirit did Simon bear the cross? He was indignant, 
 no doubt, at the disgrace. He had a right to be. He smarted 
 under a sense of injustice. What had he done, a peaceable 
 visitor to Jerusalem, that he should be treated as the com- 
 panion of a criminal? The reproaches of the Lord came on 
 him with the burden, and now and again he was struck by the 
 flying missiles that passed over the bent form of Christ. Ah, 
 Simon, didst thou but know it, the highest archangel in 
 
JESUS AMONG HIS ENEMIES 
 
 409 
 
 heaven would count it eternal honor to descend to earth and 
 take thy burden on his back! Yet it is reserved for thee to 
 be remembered forever as the man who in the hour of his 
 dire extremity lightened the Saviour's load! No apostle, no 
 future leader of the Church has thy privilege to-day. Not 
 
 CRUCIFIXION — (BOUGUEREAU, 1 825 — ) 
 
 Simon Peter but the Cyrenian, a foreigner and a heathen, is 
 honored with that sad but glorious privilege. O Simon, do not 
 underestimate the honor of this hour! It is thine to minister to 
 One who needs, oh, how sadly, human companionship! He 
 longed for it last night when he found his disciples sleeping. He 
 longed for it as amid the indignities of the trial and the guard- 
 
410 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 room, looking from face to face to find one that showed sym- 
 pathy. He looks to heaven for it, and the crowd cries, "Let be; 
 let us see whether Elijah will come unto him." God will not 
 send Elijah, though Elijah would gladly come, but he has sent 
 Simon. Be careful, Simon, lest thou esteem as a disgrace the 
 crowning honor of thy life! That which at this moment is thy 
 shame shall be thy name's patent to immortality! 
 
 There is some reason to think that Simon was impressed 
 with the sense of his real service. Whether by the mien of 
 the Man of sorrows, his heart was touched like that of the 
 penitent seditionist on the cross, or whether he later learned 
 for whom he had borne the cross, there is a distinct tradition 
 by no means improbable, that Simon became an early convert 
 to Christianity. The fact that the evangelists knew him, and 
 not only him but his sons, and assumed that their readers, or 
 some of them, would know his sons and be interested in the 
 fact that it was the father of Rufus and x\lexander who bore 
 the cross, lends no little support to this tradition. Let us 
 gladly believe, and we may believe, that Simon did not despise 
 his privilege, but counted it an honor that he had borne the 
 cross for Jesus. 
 
 Seven times during the six hours of crucifixion, Jesus spoke. 
 
 The first word was at nine o'clock when he prayed for the 
 soldiers who nailed him to the tree, "Father, forgive them; 
 for they know not what they do" (Luke 23:34). 
 
 The second word from the cross was the answer to the peni- 
 tent robber, "Verily I say unto thee, To-day thou shalt be with 
 me in Paradise" (Luke 23:43). 
 
 The third word, as darkness settled over the city, was that 
 of tender care for his mother, "When Jesus therefore saw his 
 mother, and the disciple standing by, whom he loved, he saith 
 unto his mother, Woman, behold, thy son! Then saith he to 
 the disciple, Behold, thy mother!" (John 19: 26, 27.) 
 
 The fourth utterance of Jesus was the cry of agony and 
 human suffering, the cry, possibly, of temporary uncertainty 
 and doubt, yet of heroic faitli in God. "And about the ninth 
 hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama 
 
JESUS AMONG HIS ENEMIES 
 
 4 II 
 
 sabachthani? that is, My God, my God, why hast thou for- 
 saken me?" (Matt. 27: 46.) 
 
 The fifth word from the cross was caused by the fever and 
 loss of blood. "I thirst" (John 19: 28). 
 
 The sixth word of Jesus just before he died, was, "It is fin- 
 ished" (John 19: 30). 
 
 The seventh and last word of the Saviour on the cross was, 
 "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit" (Luke 23: 46). 
 
 So dragged the leaden hours from nine till three, and Jesus 
 
 THE TOMBS OF THE KINGS — JERUSALEM 
 
 was dead. The priests had their way; the mob triumphed; 
 Jesus died upon the cross. But from that day the cross 
 became the scepter in the hand of God for the ruling of the 
 world by love — the love of God in Christ. 
 
 Jesus had not lacked a voice raised in his behalf. Nico- 
 demus had protested — had done his utmost to prevent the 
 murderous deed. Now Nicodemus came with Joseph of Ari- 
 mathaea, and the precious body of the Son of God, wrapped 
 in clean linen, and embalmed in a hundred weight of spices, 
 is laid in a new tomb in the garden. 
 
412 
 
 jesu: 
 
 OF NAZARETH 
 
 The Church of tli? Holy Sepu'chrs has long been supposed 
 to cover the spot of the crucifixion and the tomb of Christ. 
 The surroundings are most unsuitable, and the evidence is 
 thoroughly unsatisfactory. There is the best of reason to 
 believe, and modern discoveries have made it all but certain, 
 that the site of the present Church of the Holy Sepulchre at 
 the time of the crucifixion was within the walls of Jerusalem. 
 
 THE ENTOMBMENT — ( PERUGINO, I446-I524) 
 
 The evidence is far more favorable to the "New Calvary," 
 sometimes, and, most unhappily, known as "Gordon's Cal- 
 vary," just north of the Damascus gate. Here at the time 
 of my own visit, we held a service one Sunday morning in 
 spring, when nature had reproduced the external conditions 
 of the time of the crucifixion. It is of this spot, and not that 
 covered by the church within the walls, and more deeply cov- 
 
JESUS AMONG HIS ENEMIES 
 
 413 
 
 ered under superstitions, strifes and unhallowed memories — 
 that we shall think as we sing. 
 
 There is a green hill far away, 
 
 Without a city wall; 
 Where the clear Lord was crucified. 
 
 Who died to save us all. 
 
 
 THE STONE OF ANOINTMENT 
 IN THE CHURCH OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE 
 
 Jesus was dead. The long ripening hostility of the Jews 
 had had its triumph in his complete destruction. His follow- 
 ers were reduced in number from the noisy, ignorant band who 
 cheered his entry into the city, to a handful of Galilaean fisher- 
 men, and these had fled dismayed to some corner of Jerusalem 
 where they hid in terror, and sat in stupid inability to realize 
 what had befallen their hopes. With a joy that was too guilty 
 
414 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 to remain satisfied, and that contained within it the unde- 
 fined feeling that in some way their triumph might not last, 
 the Jews made fast the door of the sepulchre. "Make it as 
 sure as ye can," said Pilate, and they made it fast. The seal 
 of Pilate made it secure, and a specially delegated band of sol- 
 diery watched through the Sabbath and the night following. 
 Well might it be asked, Who shall roll away the stone? 
 
 THE TOMB IN THE GARDEN AT CALVARY 
 
 Who could do it? Who dared do it? The dangerous man who 
 for three years had disturbed the peace of Jerusalem was 
 behind that stone, dead, and his cause was dead with him. 
 
 It is written in the second Psalm that after wicked men have 
 done their worst against God, "He that sitteth in the heavens 
 shall laugh." God held in derision all these precautions. 
 There is no tomb that can imprison the life of God. 
 
JESUS AMONG HIS ENEMIES 
 
 415 
 
 Under the brow of the New Calvary toward Jerusalem is 
 a garden, and in the garden a tomb. I visited it early on a 
 Sunday morning in springtime. Yonder lay the city, its high 
 wall standing cold and gray and casting its shadow toward 
 us; above rose the green and solemn summit of Calvary; and 
 around us the flowers were blooming in beauty. Sudden and 
 irresistible was the question that presented itself to our minds, 
 Is this the very tomb of Jesus? We do not know the answer; 
 it is better that we clo not. But the contrast is marked 
 
 THERE IS A GREEK HILL FAR AWAY 
 
 between this and the tomb within the city. There is no super- 
 stition here, no unseemly strife, no invention of priests. It 
 is a tomb, cold and dark and solemn, and with no tradition 
 to give it spurious sanctity. With reverent feet we walked 
 away, leaving the hush of the Sunday calm unbroken. But 
 the garden and its tomb and the flowers and the sun all com- 
 bined to interpret anew the story of the entombment in the 
 garden. It is better that no tradition marks the spot, and 
 no shrine rises above it: the worshiper may look within the 
 tomb and sav, "He is not here, but is risen as he saith." 
 
CHAPTER XLI 
 
 EASTER 
 
 If the gospel story had ended with the crucifixion, the Bible 
 would have been the saddest of books. We could not say even 
 then that Christ's life had been a failure; no good life wholly 
 fails. But we should be left to feel the awful fact that men had 
 killed the best friend of humanity, and no act of God restrained 
 them or undid their work. The constructive plan of the cen- 
 turies would have met destruction in a day. The fearful crime 
 of a mob in one brief hour would have stood as the deliberate 
 choice of humanity for all the ages, crucifying its King. But 
 God knew that that mad act did not represent the world's final 
 verdict. Jesus, risen from the dead and manifest to the world, 
 shall yet be hailed as King of kings, and Lord of lords. 
 
 The sun emerged that Sunday morning in April from the 
 blackest cloud that ever hid the face of heaven. The earth 
 had risen from the death of winter, and, clad in its resurrec- 
 tion robe of green, greeted the resurrection morning. New 
 life, new hope, throbbed in earth and sky, thrilling every bud 
 and blade and blossom with the tidings of the resurrection, 
 giving tune to the song of every bird as it caroled of God's 
 new life for men. Through all this chorus of beauty, this 
 vision of heaven on earth, the women walked sadly to the 
 tomb, wondering who would roll away the stone. They were 
 seeking the body of the dead Christ. But, O Mary of Mag- 
 dala, groping thy way to the sepulchre in the shadows of a 
 strange city, bearing spices to anoint the Lord's body, the 
 other Mary who anointed him while living, has done thy work 
 for thee; and God will anoint him this morning with the oil of 
 coronation, declaring him to be the Son of God with power 
 by the resurrection of the dead! O ye devoted women, the 
 
 416 
 
EASTER 
 
 417 
 
 last to leave his pierced body, and the first to seek it, take 
 back your spices and balm; for God has this day a balm for 
 heavy hearts in all ages to come. Nor ask wonderingly who 
 shall roll away the stone, nor regret too late that ye did not 
 waken Peter from his heavy slumber; a message more glad 
 
 EASTER MORNING — ( BOUGL'EREAU, 1825 — ) 
 
 shall waken him and the world, and a heavy stone shall be 
 rolled this day from the tomb of sorrow and despair! Hasten, 
 O ye faithful women, for the sun is about to rise! Be there ere 
 the day break and the shadows flee away; yet before you arrive 
 at the tomb, the Sun of righteousness will have risen on the 
 hearts of men with healing in his wings. Here is the garden, 
 
4iS 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 and yonder is the tomb; but the stone is rolled away, and light 
 breaks from the dark recesses of the cave. Hasten, and tell 
 his disciples and the world! Run, for never messengers bore 
 to men such tidings! Wake and hear it, ye sorrowing disciples; 
 wake and answer it with your flowers and songs, O earth of 
 the Easter sunrise! He is risen! He is risen! 
 
 The resurrection story was no forethought of the disciples. 
 They were not anticipating it. It was no clever ruse on their 
 part, nor was it a delusion born of their hope. Thev had no 
 hope to give birth to such a dream; no courage to proclaim 
 
 MARY AT THE SEPULCHRE— ( E. BURNE-JONES ) 
 
 it; no motive to originate a fraud for the sake of dying for it. 
 
 Nor was the resurrection story an afterthought of the disci- 
 ples. The story did not originate years afterward in another 
 place. It sprang into being at the mouth of that empty sepul- 
 chre whose door stood removed, allowing all in search of evi- 
 dence to peer into the dark void beyond. The resurrection 
 srtory is no myth. The stone was rolled away — the women did 
 not move it. If they could have moved the stone they could 
 not have moved the world as the risen Christ has done. 
 
 There are times when love is a safer guide than cold intellect. 
 There are things that are hetter understood by the heart of 
 
EASTER 
 
 419 
 
 affection than the brain of reason. True, every proposition of 
 revelation must be tested by reason. Reach out thy finger, 
 Reason, and put it into the nail prints in the hand of historic 
 Truth. Stretch forth thy hand, Reason, and place it in the side 
 of revealed Verity. But there are chasms which Reason can- 
 not leap, on the other side of which Faith stands with sure 
 footing. For He who made our hearts with these hopes, has 
 appointed also our destiny, whatever it may be, and if he be 
 
 he is risen! — Ctotetti, 1849 — ) 
 
 good, he has not made our hopes to mock us. Human faith 
 in immortality is too serious a matter for even God to trifle 
 with. The human soul lias rights not of its own choosing, but 
 rights that belong to its very being. Reverentlv let us say 
 that the soul has rights which even its Creator is bound by 
 the laws of his own being, by his obligation to his own virtue, 
 to respect. Reason tells us this. But reason has for its data 
 facts other than those which inhere in reason. It has our 
 
420 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 hopes, our affections. Peter and James and John reason the 
 matter out, and so far as they are able to reach a conclusion, 
 see no ground for hope. Neither does Alary see ground for 
 hope, but the love that brings her to the tomb to weep and to 
 anoint her Lord's body, proves a safer guide than the mere 
 reason that sits in the shadow of its sorrow and waits in stupid 
 silence. Reason thinks of the mob, the whip, the cross, and 
 sees the stone at the door. Faith sees behind the stone an 
 opportunity for love still further to manifest itself, and going 
 to the tomb it meets the Lord in the garden. The man who 
 
 PETER AND JOHN RUNNING TO THE SEPULCHRE— C EUGENE EURNAUD) 
 
 smiles complacently at the faith of his wife, the affection which 
 seems so inferior to his clear syllogisms, may not himself have 
 so safe a guide. 
 
 I do not decry reason. God's appeal is to the reason of men. 
 Tf ancient history has any fact better proved by testimony 
 than the resurrection of Christ, let Reason speak. Here 
 Faith challenges Reason to do its best or worst. We can af- 
 ford to feel her cold finger probing the tender flesh where the 
 nails made their awful rent, but we cannot afford to be 
 deceived about it. But we need more than reason. Even rea- 
 
EASTER 
 
 4 2l 
 
 son has its limitations. Reason cannot prove as a universal 
 truth that a straight line is the shortest possible distance 
 between two points. No process of reasoning will prove that 
 forever and ever two and two must be four. The things that 
 we most certainly know are the things that we cannot prove. 
 We cannot prove our own existence. We cannot prove that 
 the world was created before yesterday. We cannot prove that 
 
 THE WALK TO EMMAUS — (HOFMANN, 1824 — ) 
 
 the whole is greater than any of its parts. But these things, 
 which reason cannot prove, reason accepts as fundamental 
 truths. In all reasoning concerning God and our relations to 
 him, the affections and hopes of men are material for sound 
 logic. Reason must not exclude such evidence. Why did God 
 give us these hopes, he being good, if not to ratify them? why 
 this affection which death does not end, if death must at last 
 end all? 
 
422 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 He who trusts in God and believes in the gospel of the risen 
 Christ, has a firm footing for his faith. He stands on historic 
 truth. He stands on the supreme manifestation of the power 
 of God exhibited for human redemption. He stands secure 
 on the rock of firm reason. He stands on the hopes that are 
 God-given and universal. He who suffered under Pontius 
 Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried, rose from the dead the 
 third day and sitteth at the right hand of God the Father 
 Almighty. Faith can have no surer footing than this central, 
 sublime truth. 
 
 The news of the resurrection spread, but found the disciples 
 everywhere incredulous. Peter and John ran quickly to the 
 sepulchre, and found it empty. 
 
 That afternoon two of the disciples were walking to 
 Emmaus when Jesus appeared, and walked with them. What 
 would we not give for a full record of that conversation that 
 caused their hearts to burn within them! They came to their 
 stopping-place and invited him in. They sat at meat and the 
 guest became host, and as he lifted his eyes to heaven to bless 
 the humble meal, they knew their Lord. 
 
 We are not certain of the site of Emmaus. The name is 
 preserved in Amwas, a village twenty miles from Jerusalem 
 toward Jaffa. The village of Kulonia, which is commonly 
 shown as Emmaus, is as much too near as Amwas is too far 
 removed. The village of Kubebeh is about the right distance, 
 which Luke gives as three-score furlongs, or seven and a half 
 miles, but the tradition in its favor goes back only to the 
 fifteenth century. All these are west or northwest of Jeru- 
 salem, in which direction Emmaus has been assumed to lie. 
 Luke says nothing about the direction; and unless we accept 
 the reading in the Sinaitic manuscript, of 160 stadia instead of 
 60, in which case Amwas would be the place, we must abandon 
 all of these. Twenty miles would have been a long walk to 
 begin in the afternoon, and the two disciples, starting back 
 at sunset, would hardly have expected to find the disciples in 
 Jerusalem assembled on their return. The explorations of 
 Colonel Conder resulted in the discovery of a more probable 
 
EASTER 4 27, 
 
 site, southwest, and in the general region of Bethlehem. The 
 modern name is Khamasa, which is a possible corruption of 
 Emmaus. It would be interesting to know that Jesus on this 
 day of his resurrection walked, with feet wounded, but no 
 longer weary, over the same road along which Mary carried 
 him in her arms as a little child. Risen from the dead, he left 
 the bloody city behind him, and walked in the afternoon of 
 that spring Sunday toward the place of his birth. So far as 
 we know, Jesus had never trodden the road in all the more 
 than thirty years since then. Somewhere on the way back the 
 
 KUBEBEH, THE EMMAUS OF THE CRUSADERS 
 
 disciples passed Jesus, for he left Emmaus before them, and 
 arrived in Jerusalem after them. It is no wonder that they 
 did not see him, for they were in haste, and it was getting 
 dark, and Jesus wished to be hidden from them. Somewhere 
 on the way he paused and let them go by. I wonder if he 
 withdrew a little from the road at its fork near Rachel's tomb, 
 and while they hurried by, intent on telling what they had 
 just seen and heard, he rested and meditated by the way. The 
 lights were appearing in Bethlehem, in plain sight yonder 
 on the hill; and the lights were appearing in heaven above it. 
 
424 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 I wonder if he did not sit for a half hour and think of the time 
 when the bright star stood at rest above his cradle there, and 
 of the many wonderful things that had happened in the more 
 than thirty intervening years. Then he had come, a helpless 
 infant, through the gates of birth, into the humble life of a 
 peasant home; now he had emerged in glory through the 
 broken gates of death, and walked among men in deathless 
 power. With the two disciples he walked this road to where 
 it forked and led to the right at Rachel's tomb, but the con- 
 versation on the way was with the disciples, whose hearts were 
 burning within them, and he was absorbed in their eager quest 
 of truth as he gave it to them. But when he returned to 
 Jerusalem, alone, and in the later hours of the same night, did 
 he not pause in sight of Bethlehem, all silent under the 
 heavens, and think of the night when the star of Bethlehem 
 rained down its light upon the manger where he was born? 
 The years had not been many, but within that third of a cen- 
 tury a work had been accomplished which all the centuries to 
 come can only make the more wonderful and full of glory. 
 
 The two disciples did not stop to look at Bethlehem, or at 
 anything else. They rose up "that same hour" and returned 
 to Jerusalem. Evidently they had left the city quite early in 
 the afternoon, before the news of the resurrection had been 
 supplemented by the personal testimony of those who had seen 
 Jesus. All that they had heard was that the women had seen 
 a vision of angels saying that Jesus was alive, and that the 
 men who had visited the tomb had found it emptv, "but him 
 they saw not." So far as they knew, they themselves were 
 the only ones who had really seen Jesus; and their visit with 
 him confirmed the reports of the morning, which had rather 
 bewildered than comforted them. They forgot the fatigue 
 of their outward walk and the lateness of the hour, though 
 still it was only "toward evening, and the day far spent." The 
 joy of the message they were bearing gave swiftness to their 
 feet. In breathless haste and with bounding hearts they made 
 their way to the city, where they found the disciples assem- 
 bled. But their message was met with one no less eagerly 
 
EASTER 
 
 4^5 
 
 told, and no less glad; the Lord had risen, indeed, and had 
 appeared to Simon. So they gladdened each others' hearts 
 with the double assurance that the Lord had really been seen 
 alive, and when their gladness seemed almost complete, yet 
 shrouded in wonder and chastened by the memory of their 
 great sorrow, Jesus himself came among them, and spoke his 
 word of peace. 
 
 A week later he came again, and Thomas, who had 
 been absent the first time, was there. I have always been glad 
 
 CHRIST AT EMMAUS — (PAUL VERONESE. I528-I588) 
 
 that Thomas doubted; it saves the necessity of our doubting. 
 Thomas was there as the representative of modern critical 
 thought; he would be no party to the publication of a story 
 that might be unfounded; he would know the veritable truth. 
 He carried his doubt too far for his own good, but not too 
 far for ours. And when he knew the truth, he believed and 
 was steadfast. 
 
 One mighty and all-inclusive truth inspired the early Church 
 with unflagging courage and unwavering" faith in its appar- 
 ently hopeless task of conquering the world. Upon it hung 
 
426 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 the apostles' hope of success in this life and of reward in the 
 life to come. Upon it hung their faith in the divinity of Christ. 
 They believed in the miraculous birth of Christ, but they hung 
 no argument upon it, and we never find Jesus referring to it. 
 When he was asked to give a sign of his divinity, he gave the 
 restoration of the temple of his body after a three days' 
 destruction. The apostles, likewise, when giving their view 
 of the divinity of Christ, tell us that he was declared to be the 
 Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead. 
 It was Christ risen that raised from the dead the hope of the 
 disciples. It was Christ risen that convinced Thomas. It was 
 Christ risen that conquered Paul, and transformed the malig- 
 nant persecutor into the serene martyr. It was Christ risen 
 that dismayed the watch at the sepulchre. It was Christ risen 
 that smote the conscience of Jerusalem and brought about the 
 revival at Pentecost. It was the risen Christ that was preached 
 by the early missionaries. It was the vision of the risen Christ 
 at the right hand of God that cheered the dying Stephen. It 
 is the presence of the risen Christ that makes intelligible what 
 else would be the mystery of the conduct of the unlearned and 
 none too courageous disciples when their behavior following 
 the resurrection is contrasted with that which preceded that 
 event. Thev had seen their Lord alive, and knew of his resur- 
 rection, and this gave new significance to all his previous life. 
 We, like them, rest our faith upon the resurrection of Jesus 
 from the dead, and the work of his Spirit since manifest in the 
 world. 
 
 The resurrection of Christ is a great historic fact; and it is 
 not an isolated fact. From it as from a fountain have sprung 
 streams of influence which did not break from the earth 
 uncaused. When, a few days after the Jews had put Jesus to 
 death, his disciples appeared, not in Galilee to start a rumor 
 among the ignorant fisherfolk about the Sea of Tiberias, but 
 in Jerusalem, and confronting the very men who had slain 
 Jesus, accused them of crucifying the Son of God, and at the 
 same time affirmed that Jesus had risen from the dead, there 
 was a very simple way of answering them, if Jesus was still 
 
EASTER 427 
 
 in the grave; it was simply to open the sepulchre in the sight 
 of all Jerusalem and the disciples, and exhibit the decaying 
 body that had been laid there a few days before. There would 
 have been no difficulty about identifying it and the exhibition 
 would have been conclusive evidence that he had been unable to 
 fulfil his prophecy of rising from the dead, and that the disciples 
 
 LORD, i believe: help thou mine unbelief! 
 (c. schonherr) 
 
 were imposing upon the people a falsehood when they asserted 
 that he was alive. When Peter arose and quoted the words of 
 the Psalm, "Thou wilt not leave my soul in the grave, neither 
 wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption/' he asked, 
 "Was this spoken of David?" and answered. "Surely not. for 
 
JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 David's seculphre is with us to this day." Why did they not 
 say, "So is the sepulchre of Jesus?" Why did they tremble 
 when Peter talked of that empty tomb? Why did they, among 
 them large numbers of priests and prominent men of Jerusa- 
 lem, unite with the Church by thousands? If the grave was 
 
 JESUS AT EMMAUS — ( REMBRANDT, 1607-1669) 
 
 not really empty, then the conduct of those men, Jews as well 
 as Christians, conforms to no such laws governing human con- 
 duct as those with which we are familiar. If we are able to 
 explain human conduct, we make the history of those days, 
 and of all days since, an enigma, except as we understand the 
 
EASTER 
 
 429 
 
 meaning of that empty tomb. We may accept, if we are will- 
 ing to rest upon a superficial explanation, the suggestion of 
 Renan that Mary Magdalene's half-crazecl brain evoked the 
 vision of the risen Christ. But what about Peter? And what 
 about Thomas? And what about Paul? And what about the 
 five hundred others? And what about Jerusalem, which when 
 
 'peace be unto you — (kusti-iardt) 
 
 confronted by the empty tomb held its peace for want of 
 explanation? 
 
 The supreme proof of the resurrection of Jesus is the resur- 
 rection of Christianity. The hope of the world lay dead in 
 that tomb. It came to new life in him, and lives immortal in 
 the life of the world and the hope of heaven. 
 
CHAPTER XLII 
 
 THE FORTY DAYS AND THE FUTURE 
 
 The Lord had risen, and the disciples had seen him, some 
 of them in the garden in the morning, two of them as they 
 walked to Emmaus in the twilight, and ten of them as they sat 
 in the upper room. The next Sunday evening he appeared to 
 them again, and Thomas was with them then, and thank God, 
 thenceforth. Then certain days went by, either there or in 
 Galilee, and the Lord came not. How long they waited we 
 do not know, but it was probably near the end of the forty 
 days when he appeared to them beside the Sea of Galilee. 
 There is an interval of some three weeks, apparently, between 
 the Jerusalem appearances and the two in Galilee. What were 
 the disciples doing and thinking? At some time in the inter- 
 val they left Jerusalem. The city became intolerable. They 
 were strangers there, countrymen, oppressed by the crowds, 
 as the lonely man in a crowd. 
 
 Jerusalem! The city where the Lord was crucified! The 
 city of an apostate religion, of a corrupt hierarchy, of a sub- 
 orned high court, of a justice maladministered — the very 
 name grew to be hateful to them. John got to calling it 
 "Sodom," and sometimes modified it to "Egypt." What 
 Peter called it, we are not told, unless indeed his much dis- 
 puted "Babylon" may have been an allusion to it. Jerusalem! 
 The city where they stared you out of countenance, and lis- 
 tened to your speech to hear if you were from Galilee, and 
 counted themselves the chosen of the Lord because of the 
 temple whose courts they desecrated with their hypocrisy — let 
 
 *This chapter contains matter abridged from my little book "I Go 
 A-Fishing." 
 
 4.10 
 
THE FORTY DAYS AND THE FUTURE 
 
 43 1 
 
 us away from it, to where we can breathe! So they may have 
 said, or felt. 
 
 And so they went back to Galilee. Our Lord had told them 
 to go, and that he would meet them there. Did they go 
 because of his command, and were they expecting to meet 
 him? Perhaps so, but three weeks seems long to wait, and 
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 him. But Capernaum cannot have been a comfortable place 
 for the disciples. Everybody knew everybody's business there 
 and felt free to ask questions. In Jerusalem they had at least 
 the grace of minding their own business; but in Caper- 
 naum every one was full of curious inquiries. What had 
 become of Jesus? What did they think of him now? Did they 
 really credit those silly stories about his resurrection? If he 
 
432 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 had risen, where was he? What did they intend to do now? 
 Such questions must have met them on every hand in the 
 little fishing - town. Bethsaida was no better, as John and 
 James soon learned; Nathanael found his own Cana intoler- 
 able; and so they got together, seven of them — and Thomas 
 was among them! — resolved to remain together. 
 
 The weary days dragged by. There was nothing; stirring 
 save the sailing of the little fleet each day, and its looked-for 
 return at night or morning afterward, and the gossip about 
 the size of this or that man's catch and the conjectures about 
 the weather, and the everlasting meddlesome village chit-chat 
 that spared no man's character and stopped at no woman's 
 threshold. 
 
 The return of the disciples was a nine days' wxmder, no 
 doubt, but even that subject wore out after a while, and the 
 seven lonely, inactive men were left to themselves. There 
 came a time when e\ r en an impertinent question would have 
 been a relief, and even a curious stare would have been better 
 than indifference. And all within three weeks! 
 
 The place was all so strange to the disciples, yet so familiar, 
 too. Astonishingly familiar, and so little changed! They had 
 lived so much in the last two years, a century could hardlv 
 have measured the distance they had gone from their old lives, 
 and yet it was not so far! 
 
 They wondered that their old friends had not grown older — 
 they did not seem changed. Xo one had changed but them- 
 selves. Why, a month ago it had seemed impossible for the 
 sun to rise again after the awful cloud hid it on Calvary; but 
 it had risen, and life had gone on, and even that midday dark- 
 ness was half forgotten already. These events that had burned 
 their image into their own souls — what had these been to 
 other men? Aye, were they not growing a little dim in their 
 own souls? Could they have been mistaken about it? What if 
 the Lord should not come again? What if they had come on 
 a fool's errand, and were waiting for something that was not 
 to come? What if — did they sometimes ask it? — what if they 
 had been mistaken in thinking that it was the Lord they saw? 
 
THE FORTY DAYS AND THE FUTURE 
 
 433 
 
 And here they were back in Capernaum, and the three weeks 
 seemed to draw a veil over it all. It seemed so remote — and 
 fishing grew more real. 
 
 I wonder how it came about — how they had been spending 
 the intervening Sabbaths and Sundays. The Sabbaths, no 
 
 JOHN AND THE MOTHER OF JESUS — (DOBSON) 
 
 doubt, they had spent in the little synagogue with the village 
 worshipers, but no one else felt what they felt of yearning and 
 soul hunger in that place where the Lord had spoken and 
 wrought his blessed works. Still, they had something in com- 
 mon there with the life of other Jews, and the Sabbaths were 
 
4 54 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 not the hardest days. The hardest days may have been the 
 Sundays. For each Sabbath they were saying, "To-morrow 
 our Lord may come to us again," and they shut themselves 
 up in Peter's house where the Lord had been with them so 
 often, and waited and prayed. The day drew to a close — 
 lie did not come. "But," they said, "it was evening when he 
 came before," so they waited far into the night till they grew 
 weary with watching and the lamp burned low, and one by 
 one they went to sleep. 
 
 Thus passed one Sunday, and the next, and still another. 
 Three Sabbaths of quickened anticipation, three Sundays of 
 watching and prayer, three nights of weary waiting, three 
 weeks of disappointment. Perhaps it came about just after 
 one of those Sundays. The rest of the village had worked, 
 of course, that day, having rested on the Sabbath, like honest 
 Jews. They had washed their nets on Sunday morning, and 
 put off that evening just as the sun went down, and now were 
 coming in, perhaps, with boat-loads of fish, as the disciples, red- 
 eyed and haggard, came forth from their vigil and bathed their 
 weary faces in the cool waters of the lake. In came Peter's 
 boat with the rest and the man to whom Peter had loaned it 
 brought it in shore and gathered his catch and carried it to 
 market. Peter felt his soul rising within him, and he walked 
 quickly up to his old friend and said, "Til use that boat myself 
 to-night, if you please," and the man gave it up with reluctance 
 and surprise; he had come to think he owned it. Then Peter 
 walked home with a brisk step and reported. "I go a-fishing!" 
 he exclaimed, and with eager voice they cried, "We also go 
 with thee." 
 
 They needed the change, poor fellows, and they needed the 
 exercise. Such souls were not made for inactivity. Moreover, 
 they needed the money. Judas had kept the bag and its con- 
 tents, and they had been living in the city, and Capernaum 
 was not minded to board seven strong fellows for nothing. 
 Yes, it was time for them to do something. It was well for 
 them to go a-fishing. That day new impulse came into their 
 lives, a healthy, normal reaction from enforced idleness. But 
 reactions have their perils. 
 
THE FORTY DAYS AND THE FUTURE 
 
 435 
 
 Oh, the joy of that voyage, with sails all set, and every reef 
 shaken out! How Peter's eye brightened as he headed a point 
 nearer the wind, and found that his strong right hand on the 
 tiller had not lost its cunning! How they almost shouted for 
 joy as the white spray flew over the bow and smote them with 
 saucy hilarity in the face! Oh, the blue of the sky above, and 
 
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 THE CHURCH OF THE ASCENSION 
 
 the blue of the wave beneath! and the glory of the sunset, 
 and the solemn quiet of the twilight, when heaven draws 
 nearer the hearts of men than during the busy day! 
 
 And Peter rejoiced. Out from the din and strife of the city, 
 out from the gossip and impertinence of the village, out under 
 the dome of the blue sky, and on the exultant breast of the 
 blue lake. O Peter, I rejoice with you, and tremble for you! 
 
436 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 There was much to remind Peter of other experiences in 
 that vessel. In the bow of that same boat the Lord had sat 
 and preached to the multitude on the shore. Here in the stern 
 he had lain asleep in the storm, and there on {.lie narrow deck 
 he had stood and rebuked the wind. What manner of man 
 was this, that even the wind and the sea obeyed him? Men 
 differed in their opinions; Peter had spoken his own fearlessly, 
 heartily, but this was oh, so long ago, and so much had hap- 
 pened since then! 
 
 Then they set to work at the fishing, and at first they 
 worked so eagerly, so nervously, they had no luck. It would 
 go better soon, perhaps, they said, and what were Peter's 
 visions of a great catch, a re-established business, an announce- 
 ment through such trade channels as Capernaum boasted, that 
 he was to be found at the old stand, and six hale, able fellows 
 with him in the syndicate! 
 
 Peter was his own master to-day. It was such a change 
 from yesterday and last year! Oh, the joy of freedom! Oh, 
 the pleasure of getting away from men! After all, why had 
 they ever deluded themselves? What was all this thought of 
 a kingdom in which they should hold high place? The king- 
 dom had not come; it was not coming. Down deep in his soul 
 did Peter half say this? I sometimes fear that if Peter and his 
 friends had met success when they first began to fish that 
 night, had sailed home in the early dusk, had marketed their 
 wares, had made their eager plans for the next night, and gone 
 to sleep, had slept as men sleep who have fished and caught 
 and hope to fish again, they might not have seen the Lord. 
 
 Along the shore in the early morning wandered a solitary 
 figure. Slowly he walked and with something of sadness, yet 
 there was in the virile step something of the stride of the con- 
 queror. Now he looked out over the black waters where no 
 other eye could discern an object, and seemed to rest his gaze 
 on something far out on the wave. Then he turned to the 
 shore and looked from one to another of the few little fishing 
 cabins in sight, till he found one that had a light. It still 
 lacked something of early dawn, but a fisher's wife had risen. 
 
THE FORTY DAYS AND THE FUTURE 
 
 437 
 
 and was preparing her husband's breakfast against his setting 
 out for early fishing, or his return from a night's labor. 
 Thither, perhaps, the wanderer bent his steps, and stood at 
 the door and knocked. An early knock with a request for fire 
 was nothing unusual, and this was what he asked — a brand, 
 and it was given, no doubt willingly. We need not force into 
 the narrative any greater miracle than that of the world-wide 
 humanity, from which springs a readiness to bestow, whenever 
 asked, the common needs that cost least and count for most. 
 
 THE SUMMIT OF THE MOUNT OF OLIVES FROM EETHPHAGE 
 
 A loaf and a fish were not great things to ask or receive, and 
 these he either obtained for the asking or had brought with 
 him from some other home. Perhaps some fisher and his wife 
 that morning ate their own morsel with greater content 
 because they had shared it with a stranger; perhaps the fire on 
 their own hearth gleamed the brighter because they had given 
 him a coal. 
 
 Down by the shore the Master stood, and swung his brand 
 till the end grew red. Then he gathered driftwood from the 
 
433 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 shore and laid across, the slivers first and then the sticks, and 
 blew the coal into flame. With the same breath he had fanned 
 into feeble flame the faith of the disciples in the upper room, 
 saying, "Receive ye the Holy Ghost." In all the record of the 
 gospels there is no more beautiful, touching, impressive pic- 
 ture than that of the risen Lord sheltering that flame with 
 the hands that had been nailed to the cross. In the glory of 
 the complete sacrifice he who had tasted death for every 
 man, still ministering and not ministered unto, counted it not 
 beneath him to stoop above the fire and cook his disciples' 
 breakfast. 
 
 "The disciples knew not that it was Jesus," but they saw 
 the light, and made slowly for it. Even so, I sometimes dare 
 to hope, steer many men to-day, toward a light they cannot 
 choose but see, on a shore toward which they would but sail, 
 but alas, they are so busy with their fishing! O fishers of 
 fish, of dry goods, of merchandise, of stocks and bonds, watch 
 the shore as well as the sea! Yonder stands the Master! O 
 ve fishers of fish, of bank accounts and worldly honor, ye men 
 of business and of care, pass not too heedlessly the light and 
 the voice on the shore! It is your risen Lord who calls to you! 
 
 There is no fact harder to understand as we read the stories 
 of the resurrection than the repeated instances in which the 
 disciples failed to recognize the Lord. We might think that 
 the failure to identify him resulted from some change in him- 
 self; but we are quite familiar with analogous experiences. 
 Certainly, for that night, they had forgotten to look for him. 
 Was it because hitherto he had come to them on Sunday? 
 Did they think it out of character for him to come to them 
 while fishing? If so their error has its modern representatives. 
 There are quite too many people who look for the Lord on 
 Sunday only, and in worship to the exclusion of work. In one 
 of the newly discovered "Sayings of our Lord," is one at least 
 whose genuineness I should like to see established, "Raise the 
 stone, and thnu shalt find me: cleave the wood, and there am 
 
THE FORTY DAYS AND THE FUTURE 
 
 439 
 
 I." ''Where two or three are met together" in worship or in 
 work in his Spirit, there is he. 
 
 If thou hast wanderings in the wilderness 
 And find'st not Sinai, 'tis thy soul is poor. 
 
 The disciples who had waited in vain all the long Sabbath 
 for him discovered him while fishing. 
 
 THE ASCENSION — (WERMANN) 
 
 When Peter knew the Lord, he leaped in and swam ashore, 
 and the rest followed more slowly. Then Peter turned back 
 and pulled the net ashore, and began to count the fish. There 
 was a little delay, for, while the Lord had breakfast ready, there 
 was not enough for eight, and they had to prepare some of the 
 newly caught fish. Then they had breakfast; but Peter, who 
 had been so ea^er to get ashore, was constrained and ill at ease 
 
^o JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 with the rest, and sat in his wet clothes counting the fish. 
 John kept tally on the count. There were a hundred and fifty- 
 three. It was a famous catch. But Jesus interrupted Peter's 
 count by asking, "Simon, son of John, lovest thou me more 
 than these?" There are learned discussions about the two 
 words used for love, and others about the comparison "more 
 than these." More than what? 
 
 I think — and a few people agree with this interpretation — 
 that what our Lord meant was, "Lovest thou me more than 
 thou lovest these fish?" 
 
 The ready objection to this view is, that it cheapens the 
 whole conversation to compare the love of Peter for Christ 
 to his love for a boat-load of fish. Fish seem very paltry to 
 us after several centuries. It is easy for us to set a low valua- 
 tion upon Peter's fish. 
 
 But those fish were Peter's stock in trade. They represented 
 his cash investment in his new enterprise, his hopes of a liveli- 
 hood, his love of freedom — all these. If he remained a fisher- 
 man he might gird himself and go where he liked; if he loved 
 Christ "more than these," another would gird him and lead 
 him whither he would not. 
 
 Once Peter could have answered the question instantly and 
 without reservation, but he knew better now what "more than 
 these" meant. Lie had learned the lesson of the cross. To 
 leave all and follow Christ meant no kingdom, no seat at the 
 right hand of an earthly prince — all the visions had faded which 
 possessed his mind when he first left all to follow Christ. Back 
 of the question waited an ominous hint that by his death he 
 was to glorify God. This was very different from Peter's 
 thought when he first became a follower of the Master, and 
 he thought of the fish again and yet again before his answer 
 implied all that Jesus meant in the question. 
 
 Ah, those fish — a hundred and fifty-three fine speckled beau- 
 ties! Peter had already roughly calculated their value in 
 Capernaum. He could hardly keep his eyes off them while the 
 Lord was talking. 
 
THE FORTY DAYS AND THE FUTURE 
 
 441 
 
 Peter loved Jesus, and said so, but he did not say, "more 
 than these." The second time Jesus dropped the comparison, 
 and the third time he used Peter's word for love. The two 
 found common ground at length in Peter's understanding that 
 truly to love Christ at all, and love him as Christ, he must 
 love him more than all else. Peter was grieved because the 
 Lord asked him three times; the Lord was grieved, perhaps, 
 because it was necessary to ask him so often. 
 
 It is not necessary to prove that the fish were stale. It is 
 not necessary to prove all things evil per se which we must 
 give up for Christ's sake. The fish were doubtless very good 
 fish, but they were only fish, and our fish are small and poor 
 in comparison of what should be our love for him. Lovest 
 thou thy Lord more than these? 
 
 Peter realized at last that to love Jesus more than he loved 
 his business and his plans in life precluded his ever being a 
 fisherman again. Not even to be a fisher of men was he now 
 called, but to shepherd the Lord's lambs and tend his sheep. 
 
 Again Jesus turned to Peter and said, "Follow me." He had 
 said it before, but it meant far more now. Peter was not 
 happy in his distinction. To follow Christ meant the cross, 
 perhaps, a cross certainly. Was he the only one to bear a 
 cross? He turned to John and asked, "What shall this man 
 do?" and Jesus seemed to all who heard to say that John, 
 unlike Peter, was to "tarry till I come." Not to live forever, 
 as John explains, but to "tarry till I come." This is not the 
 place to discuss the question whether John lived to see any 
 "coming of the Lord" which Peter's earlier death prevented. 
 Certainly it must have meant something by a distinction which 
 must inevitably be misunderstood unless by it he intended a 
 promise. It is next to impossible that he chose a method so 
 cumbrous and so liable, so certain, to be misunderstood, if all 
 he meant was that Peter was to attend to his own business. 
 The disciples understod it as a promise to John, and a warn- 
 ing to Peter, and Peter lived in anticipation of glorifying God 
 by his death. There in the sunrise of that May morning by 
 the lake, Peter discovered in the face of the risen Christ the 
 
44 2 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 true glory of a life of service. John lived to serve him long 
 after Peter was dead; but Peter followed Christ, as of old he 
 had promised, "to prison and to death." 
 
 A few days later our Lord met his disciples in Jerusalem. 
 What he said is not recorded; but his message can hardly have 
 been other than the last words given them in Galilee, "Go 
 ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name 
 of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; teaching" 
 them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you; 
 and lo, I am with you ahvay, even unto the end of the world" 
 (Matt. 28: 19, 20). That promise he has fulfilled in his abiding 
 presence in the life of men — and he abides the greatest living 
 power for good in human life. 
 
 Having given his last message to his disciples, our Lord led 
 them out again away from Jerusalem, past Calvary, past Geth- 
 semane, and up on the top of the Mount of Olives until Beth- 
 any lay below them and Jerusalem was in the distance. Then 
 he lifted his hands and blessed them, and while he blessed 
 them, he was carried into heaven. 
 
 I saw a beautiful sight one day as I journeyed from Jeru- 
 salem to the Jordan. It was raining in Jerusalem and west- 
 ward over the sea, but the sun was shining in the wilderness 
 and far beyond Jordan. As we passed Bethany the rain grew 
 lighter, and after a mile or two we traveled over dry roads, 
 the sun shining clear before us, while the dense clouds black- 
 ened the west. 
 
 Soon the rainbow became visible — there is always a rainbow 
 at the edge of the storm — and grew brighter as we came more 
 into the sunshine. Our road wound down the mountain, mak- 
 ing curve below curve, each time taking us into the shadow, 
 each time bringing us into brighter sunshine, and the 
 bow above brightened and doubled and trebled. There 
 it was, a clear, triple rainbow, and it hung above the Mount 
 of Olives, encircling the spot where Jesus last stood before 
 lie ascended to the Father, the more really to be with us 
 always. A score of others saw it, my companions in the 
 journey, and to each one it was the symbol of glorious hope. 
 
THE FORTY DAYS AND THE FUTURE 443 
 
 Not Olivet only, where last his feet pressed the soil of earth, 
 but the whole world is under that triple arch of faith, hope 
 and love. Above the world, forever glorified by the human 
 footsteps of Jesus of Nazareth, rises in triple splendor that 
 arch whose keystone is in heaven, and whose pillars are the 
 sure promises of God. 
 
 he is risen! — (ender. 1793-1854) 
 

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 HBt ; ' '■ .'ilk' - ^H Wtlk. 
 
 
 
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 Copyright 1903 by Frank Wood 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
PART I J 
 
 THE CHRIST OF ART 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH AS ART REVEALS HIM 
 
 I— ART AND LITERATURE 
 
 In some of their aspects the treatment of religious themes 
 in art and in literature is fairly parallel; and so far forth the 
 paintings of any period in church history have their best inter- 
 pretation in the literature of the time. But there have been 
 ages in which the brush was active and the pen was idle, save 
 as it made a few copies of old parchments; the houses of the 
 people were bare of books, but the walls of the churches were 
 hung high with paintings, and decorated with religious fres- 
 coes. On the other hand, the Puritan movement affords an 
 illustration of an epoch rich in literature, but until the present 
 almost barren of art. 
 
 Literature is more diversified than painting. It embrace- 
 philosophy and poetry, science and speculation, archaeology 
 and metaphysics. Whatever of conviction or emotion, of 
 logical certainty or of vague wonder, can be expressed in words 
 can also be reduced to writing, and thus become literature. 
 Art, however, is compassed about by limitations. It can 
 express only so much as it can embody in some rigid form, 
 paint on a flat surface, or carve out of stone. It has neither 
 speech nor motion. As compared with literature it is in fetters. 
 As between art and literature, literature is incomparably the 
 greater. The Bible is literature, and, excepting the poetry of 
 the Psalms and the prophets, is literature whose charm and 
 convincing power are chieflv in the artlessness and simplicity 
 of the narrative. There were ages in which the Bible of the 
 people was largely the pictures on the walls of the churches; 
 
 i 
 
446 
 
 TESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 and those ages illustrate the sad limitations of art. The record 
 of the life on earth of the Son of God is preserved for us in a 
 book, and a book without contemporary illustrations. 
 
 Art has some advantages over literature, as well as limita- 
 tions. Some of the limitations are themselves advantages. 
 Art may be reverently wise above what is written. It repro- 
 
 THE ANNUNCIATION — (MURILLO, 1617-I682) 
 
 duces the carpenter shop of Joseph, and creates a form which 
 takes its place in the imagination of the Church as his; it enters 
 the chamber of the Virgin, and stands alone with her and the 
 angel at the annunciation; it halts not because the creeds of 
 the Church have no consistent doctrine of angels, but paints 
 a sky full of them, singing above the manger of Bethlehem; it 
 gathers out of oblivion the unrecorded details of the flight 
 
AS ART REVEALS HIM 447 
 
 into Egypt; it fasts with Christ in the wilderness; it watches 
 with him in the garden while the disciples sleep; it enters the 
 tomb with him; it is with him in the resurrection; it parts the 
 very clouds for him to ascend into heaven. 
 
 All this art does reverently, beautifully, helpfully; much of 
 this literature can do clumsily, if at all. Literature ever insists 
 
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 MADONNA AND CHILD — (mUIUU.O. l6l"-l682) 
 
 on thrusting its pen, if not its finger, into the historic nail 
 prints; but Art says, "Come, see the place where the Lord lay," 
 and we forget to begin our awe-struck and reverent inspection 
 with a "Credo." Therein is art the freer, and so far forth the 
 truer, interpreter of popular thought. 
 
 Art has another advantage, and this in its limitation. It 
 can never make its hero an abstraction. Literature is able to 
 
448 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 dwell upon a given attribute till its character ceases to be a 
 living man, and becomes a quality- But art cannot do so, and 
 if it could it dare not. If it paints Christ at all, it must make 
 him more than an elusive dogma. It must put him into the 
 picture, bodily and visibly; it cannot conceal him, but must 
 
 THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT 
 (MURILLO, l6l7-l682) 
 
 reveal him, face and figure. It dare not put him into the back- 
 ground, nor hide him in the shadows of theological specula- 
 tion. It may not be able to tell the whole story about him, 
 but it must try; it can never paint a radiant glow between the 
 overshadowing cherubim, and say, "This is the Christ." The 
 Christ of art is the Word made flesh; and the flesh must be 
 
AS ART REVEALS HIM 
 
 449 
 
 real and human, whatever the mystery of the soul within. If 
 art uses symbols, it must be as symbols, and not as syllogisms. 
 The influence of Christ upon art has been profound. It has 
 touched all the arts, and given new life to some of them. 
 Architecture, perfected in the heathen temples of antiquity, 
 but decadent in the nations of Mediaeval Europe, revived and 
 found fresh life in the cathedrals and churches of Christendom. 
 The almost simultaneous appearance of the Gothic in all the 
 
 resting on the way to egypt 
 (murillo, 1617-1682) 
 
 Christianized nations of Europe, gave to architecture a new 
 birth, and dedicated the art which had ever been a religious 
 one, to the service of the Church. Sculpture, too, has received 
 its impulse from Christianity. If Protestantism feels the influ- 
 ence of sculpture but little in the religious life of the people, 
 it is still a power in the Roman Catholic world, where shrines 
 abound along the wayside and statues inhabit the recesses of 
 cathedrals. Music and poetry belong pre-eminently to the 
 Church. Hers are the psalm and the hymn, the anthem and 
 
 5 
 
450 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 the oratorio; hers are the organ and the choir and the swelling 
 volume of praise from the great congregation. All these arts, 
 architecture, sculpture, music, and poetry, have received 
 strong impulse from the Church. 
 
 In painting, however, we rind pre-eminently the material 
 for a revelation of popular thought of the person of Christ. 
 
 the holy family 
 (murillo, 1617-1682) 
 
 Here are form and color, repose and action, historical or 
 geographical background, and surroundings of contemporary 
 life. 
 
 Painting has been profoundly influenced by Christianity; and, 
 as in all the arts, the influence has been mutual, for art has 
 effected a reciprocal influence upon popular Christianity. 
 
 6 
 
AS ART REVEALS HIM 
 
 451 
 
 Painting gives us a revelation of the popular thought of the 
 Christ; it also gives to popular thought a formative tendency, 
 and shapes the current feeling which the painter, usually sensi- 
 tive to the influences of his environment, and often prophetic, 
 reduces to canvas in a glorified form. He does more than add 
 to the face or figure of the Master a background of contem- 
 
 JOSEPH AND THE INFANT TESUS 
 { MURILLO, IOT7-T682) 
 
 porary or ancient life; he interprets more or less accurately 
 the Christ who lives in the imagination and the spiritual con- 
 sciousness of his contemporaries. A popular painting is there- 
 fore both an interpretation and a record. 
 
 The present generation has witnessed, to a surprising 
 degree, the popularization of art. Art, which was once for the 
 few, has become the possession of the many. The average 
 
 7 
 
452 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 home of to-day has not merely more pictures than the home of 
 forty years ago, but pictures of vastly better quality. 
 
 The new movement began with the now despised chromo. 
 Paintings that appealed to popular fancy were reproduced by 
 lithography, and sold from door to door, or given as premiums 
 
 
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 (murillo, i6i 7-1682) 
 
 for subscriptions to newspapers. We can hardly be grateful 
 enough to those periodicals which employed this method of 
 increasing their circulation and of brightening the homes of 
 their constituency. But a greater thing than the chromo was 
 to come, in the invention of the half-tone cut. By it any 
 
AS ART REVEALS HIM 
 
 453 
 
 painting, photographed through a screen upon a sensitized 
 copper plate, can be reproduced in black and white and in any 
 desired size, by the printing-press. 
 
 And now conies three-color printing; by means of which a 
 painting may be thrice photographed through screens that in 
 succession permit the passage only of red, yellow, and blue 
 rays, and then reproduced by the printing-press on paper 
 printed successively from plates made by these exposures in 
 
 the divine shepherd 
 (murillo, 1617-1682) 
 
 the original three colors in all their combinations. We are 
 yet to see wonderful results from this discovery. But for our 
 present purpose we stop with the half-tone cut. 
 
 This new art has done more to popularize art than any dis- 
 covery since the invention of printing. Famous pictures repro- 
 duced in excellent style, are sold for a cent, and are by no 
 means to be despised. They are giving our children an edu- 
 cation in art which their parents never could have obtained. 
 
 9 
 
454 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 They are filling the humblest homes with pictures, often given 
 away in Sunday-school, which would have made the old mas- 
 ters exclaim with delight. 
 
 This popularization of art has made the face of Jesus, in all 
 ages from infancy to the ascension, so familiar to the whole 
 world, that it may be counted a new revelation of the Christ. 
 
 THE HOLY CHILD 
 ( MURILLO, l6l7-l682) 
 
 The artists have been toiling through the centuries, laboring 
 each for the few who could come and look upon the single 
 picture; now in a single day the picture appears upon the walls 
 of a million homes, and the old master and the painter of the 
 day hang their faces of the Christ side by side in homes all 
 over the world. 
 
 TO 
 
AS ART REVEALS HIM 
 
 455 
 
 What kind of Christ do the artists reveal? Is there any 
 authorized conception of Christ upon which they base their 
 work? Is there any generally accepted ideal to which these 
 pictures appeal? What is the Christ who has emerged from 
 the studio, and now appears anew among men? 
 
 The conception of Jesus which is current in any given age 
 may be judged, not simply by its own new productions, but 
 
 
 
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 THE CHRIST OF MURIIXO (1617-1682) 
 
 also by those which it has inherited from the past and which 
 it still loves. The Christ of popular thought is a composite 
 photograph of all these. If we know what pictures of Jesus 
 are truly loved, we shall know how people think of Jesus. 
 The question is not mainly that of the artist's personal theol- 
 ogy or ideal, but of the sentiment to which his picture appeals. 
 
456 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 We have, besides modern works of art, the inherited and 
 successive attempts of Christian artists, each of which has 
 value as a- theological interpretation of its own time, and 
 somewhat also of value as indicating the taste and ideals of 
 subsequent ages that have preserved and admired them. It 
 is not the purpose of this essay to inquire what various views 
 of the nature and character of Jesus are suggested by the 
 paintings of different ages. Our concern is with the net result. 
 What of the paintings that survive, and that are loved, not 
 as works of art alone, but as faithful records of what people 
 believe and feel about Jesus? What kind of being is it whom 
 the people of to-day believe in, as judged by the paintings that 
 we love? Several different answers might be given, not only 
 as judged by different sorts of popularity, but also as judged 
 by the groups of paintings of the childhood, the youth, and 
 the manhood of Jesus. Our field of inquiry is not so much 
 among those paintings that are counted technically great, as 
 among those that are truly, and in the best sense, popular. 
 Painting, then, affords us our field for inquiry as to the face 
 and figure that has emerged from the thought of the artists, 
 and taken its place, not merely on canvas, but in popular 
 thought, as the person of Jesus of Nazareth. 
 
 II— EARLY CHRISTIAN ART 
 
 The question of the personal appearance of Jesus was dis- 
 cussed at times in the early church, but not with an attempt 
 accurately to describe his looks or bearing. The question 
 rather was whether his general appearance was prepossessing 
 or the reverse. The arguments did not pretend to be based 
 upon personal sight or knowledge, but rather on the interpre- 
 tation of prophetic passages, as that which speaks of one who 
 is "chief among ten thousand, and altogether lovely." 
 
 It is notable that the view founded on this and like passages 
 differs diametrically from what is said to have been at one time 
 the dominant conception of the Christ. Not only did the 
 heathen Celsus argue a probable deformity as a reason for 
 the Tews' rejection of Christ as their Messiah, but many of 
 
 12 
 
AS ART REVEALS HIM 
 
 457 
 
 the Fathers, assuming that the prophet's words referred to 
 Christ's personal appearance, "He hath no form nor come- 
 
 CHRIST BRINGING THE FRUIT OF THE TREE OF LIFE 
 
 Glass ornament suspended from the neck of a Christian 
 woman, aged 22, and called by her husband in a cata- 
 comb inscription, "Sweetest of Wives" — Very early 
 
 liness, and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we 
 should desire him," describe his appearance as base. Clement 
 of Alexandria, Justin Martyr, Origen, and Tertullian all agree 
 
 CHRIST AS ORPHEUS 
 (FROM THE CATACOMBS) 
 
 in this, and there was a tradition based on the Vulgate of Isaiah 
 53:4, that he was a leper. 
 
 13 
 
45S 
 
 JESU5 OF NAZARETH 
 
 It is worth while to notice, and gratefully, that no one of 
 the Fathers who held this unhappy view of the person of 
 Christ seems to have committed that conception to canvas. 
 Indeed, there was a strong prejudice against any attempt to 
 
 ^PLACIDOETROM VLOCO 
 
 6 
 
 the good shepherd 
 
 surrounded by christian emblems 
 
 (from the catacombs) 
 
 THE NATIVITY 
 
 FROM A SARCOPHAGUS. 343 A. D. 
 
 depict his person. In what was probably the earliest art his 
 personality is suggested in symbol, analogy, or type. 
 
 The first representatives of Christ were not designed to 
 gratify the love of art, but were attempts at religious instruc- 
 
 (I 
 
 THE GOOD SHEPHERD. WITH JONAH AS A PROTOTYPE, AND AGAPE BELOW 
 
 tion and consolation. They were in large measure crude, mor- 
 tuary emblems, buried with the dead or rudely inscribed above 
 them. First there were symbols of the resurrection, or of faith 
 in Christ. Sometimes the emblems had a mystic significance, 
 
 14 
 
AS ART REVEALS HIM 
 
 459 
 
 as the sign of the fish, of which much has been conjectured, 
 and which was an early symbol of Christian faith. It is said, 
 though perhaps not on good authority, that a political party 
 
 THE RAISING OF LAZARUS 
 
 Wrought in gold figures on the bottom of 
 
 a glass cup in the Catacombs — Very early 
 
 in America created its name from the initials of a motto — "We 
 Hope In God" — Whig. The ancients were far more attentive 
 than we to acrostics; and it is said that the sign of the fish 
 
 THE CHRISMA 
 
 MONOGRAM 
 
 THE LABARIUM 
 OF CONSTANTIXE 
 
 THE EGYPTIAN 
 CRUX ANSATA 
 
 PRIMITIVE FORMS OF THE CROSS. 
 
 was derived from the Greek word for fish, Ichthus, whose five 
 letters in the Greek form the initials of the words "Jesus 
 Christ, God's Son, Saviour." At all events, the fish was widely 
 used in the earlv Church. 
 
 J 5 
 
460 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 The emblematic representations of Christ were not the only 
 ones, however. He was often represented in type, as by the 
 prophet Jonah; and, when the sacrifice of Christ grew in em- 
 phasis, he was represented under the type of the offering of 
 Isaac by his father Abraham. 
 
 From these Old Testament representations it was an easy 
 step to the New, where the miracles furnished a fruitful field 
 for the crude art of the early church. But even in the illustra- 
 tions of Christ's miracles the person of Jesus is drawn without 
 much individuality. It is simply a conventional figure, who 
 
 ONTISPOQVEM. 
 
 ^ELECITDOM'SPAVSA^ 
 INP-4/-^ fe^-j) %: -^ACE 
 
 the baptism of christ with water from heaven 
 (early fresco) 
 
 evokes from the tomb the swathed and mummied Lazarus; it is 
 the miracle that is recalled, rather than the personality of Jesus. 
 There is one notable fact, however, about these first 
 attempts to portray the Christ as a man, which is that they 
 uniformly represent him as a young man — the ideal of youth. 
 Eminent authorities declare that it was centuries before he was 
 represented with a beard. The face is fair and serene. 
 Jesus is the personification of buoyant, hopeful, young life. 
 As a young man he appears in scenes like the raising of Laz- 
 arus. The entire absence of attempt to produce a likeness 
 shows that the artists associate the conception of Christ with 
 
 16 
 
AS ART REVEALS HIM 
 
 461 
 
 the ideal of youth, and so pictures do not pretend to be por- 
 traits — the Christ in them is in the personification of joyous 
 strength, with perhaps a suggestion of immortal youth. 
 
 Among all the typical representations of Christ, none was so 
 popular or so frequently used as that of the Good Shepherd. 
 There is still no attempt at portraiture — it is the same figure 
 of youth that confronts us; but it is a youth who is tall, alert 
 and strong, bearing on his shoulders a lamb. If Archdeacon 
 Farrar and Dean Stanley are right, the conception of Christ 
 as the Good Shepherd was the dominant one in the early 
 Church. It was the favorite figure in the catacombs, and as 
 
 the nativity 
 
 (from a sarcophagus of the fourth century) 
 
 common as later pictures of the passion became. Farrar 
 affirms that for four hundred years we have no single represen- 
 tation of the Christ as a worn and weary sufferer; but there 
 are many which represent him as leading his flock as in John 
 10, or as bringing home the lost sheep, as in Luke 15. So 
 large was the thought of the divine compassion, as expressed 
 in these pictures, that sometimes the rescued animal is not a 
 sheep but a kid, tenderly carried while the sheep walk beside 
 the shepherd. 
 
 The foregoing stages of art are assumed by some authors 
 to have been successive, and to have occupied several centuries 
 before the production of actual attempts at A r erisimilitude; but 
 
 17 
 
462 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 other authorities deny that we can thus classify the art of the 
 church chronologically, and affirm that several of these forms 
 were contemporary, and that the earliest portraits are of great 
 antiquity. 
 
 When the attempts at actual portraiture became common, 
 there came with them also a development of the use of sym- 
 bols. The lamb now ceases to be the symbol of the rescued 
 sinner, and becomes the type of the crucified Saviour. The 
 joyousness of the early religion faded out, and the sadder ele- 
 ments became prominent with the growth of monasticism. In 
 691 the Council of Constantinople, directly opposing the canon 
 of the Council of Elvira which had forbidden the use of pic- 
 tures in churches, decreed "that henceforth Christ is to be 
 publicly exhibited in the figure of a man, not a lamb, that we 
 may be led to remember Christ's conversation in the flesh, and 
 his passion and saving death, and the redemption which he 
 wrought for the world." 
 
 Thenceforth pictures of the Christ became numerous, and, 
 in accordance with the suggestion of the canon, and the grow- 
 ing spirit of the Church that substituted the Dies Irae for 
 Clement's sweet hymn, "Shepherd of tender youth," the suf- 
 ferings of Christ became a favorite theme. With this, and the 
 various scenes of the passion, came visions of judgment; and 
 the Christ appeared alternately as a helpless sufferer in the 
 hands of sinners, and as a wrathful judge passing condemna- 
 tion upon sinners. 
 
 The happier, gentler aspects did not wholly fail, however, 
 for there was necessity for historic variety and the compassing 
 of representative scenes in his whole life. There was fre- 
 quently a series of scenes, including three or four of the fol- 
 lowing, as tabulated by Miss Hurll in her excellent book on 
 "The Life of our Lord in Art": The Adoration of the Kings; 
 The Raising of Lazarus; the Multiplication of the Loaves; the 
 Turning of Water into Wine; the Healing of the Lame Man; 
 the Healing of the Blind Man; the Woman Kneeling at 
 Christ's Feet, the Woman of Samaria, the Entry Into Jeru- 
 salem, Christ Before Pilate. To these were sometimes added: 
 
 18 
 
AS ART REVEALS HIM 463 
 
 The Nativity; the Baptism; Christ Washing Peter's Feet, and 
 The Cross-bearing. These were used in frescoes, some of them 
 in the catacombs, in mosaic decorations of churches, and in 
 bas-relief ornamentation of sarcophagi. 
 
 We have noted the use of symbols in the early Church, ante- 
 dating the general use of attempts at actual representations of 
 Christ. Such symbols did not cease when it became common 
 to paint the face and form of Jesus, but some of the old symbols 
 disappeared, and another came into sudden and growing popu- 
 larity. When Constantine saw his vision with the legend 
 "By this sign you shall conquer," the symbol which he saw 
 emblazoned on the sky was not the fish, but the cross. It was 
 a daring choice of emblems, even for a monarch; for the cross 
 had only the most grewsome and terrible associations, such as 
 with us are associated with the gallows. 
 
 With the vision of Constantine the Cross became the emblem 
 of the Church. It was not, however, the Latin cross, but the 
 Chrisma symbol, the Greek letters X P, wrought into a mono- 
 gram, and representing the letters Chr, the initials of Christ. 
 The early form of the cross, the Labarium of Constantine, the 
 handled cross with the ring of the P at the top, made easier 
 another adaptation, and a beautiful one. Christianity grew 
 strong in Egypt. One of its chief centers was at Alexandria. 
 Christian schools and churches dotted the banks of the Nile 
 for hundreds of miles. Egypt had its cross. It was not 
 the cross of punishment but the key of life. For millenniums 
 the Egvptians had inscribed all over their monuments this 
 crux ansata, the cross with a round handle at the top. As the 
 key of life it appears in the hands of the innumerable deities 
 of Egypt, and as a confession of faith in immortality it is 
 inscribed on papyrus and sarcophagus. In Egvpt this symbol 
 was adapted to the uses of the Church. Sometimes the crux 
 ansaia was borrowed without change; sometimes it appeared 
 alternately with the Christian cross; and, when it became 
 common to represent the Christ upon the cross, the round 
 loop at the top was sometimes filled in with a head of Christ, 
 and the key of life became the crucifix. The use of this symbol 
 
 19 
 
464 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 was not wholly confined to Egypt, but found its way to Rome, 
 and appeared sometimes on the tombs of martyrs with the 
 handle of the key transformed to a wreath of immortality. 
 
 Contrary to popular impression, therefore, the cross is not 
 the most ancient of Christian symbols. It finds no place 
 among the earliest emblems of the Church. The resurrection, 
 not the crucifixion, was the great doctrine of the early Church. 
 Christ living was the truth that found abundant expression 
 on the tombs of the catacombs. We are not sure that we find 
 any examples of the cross as such before the fourth century; 
 and as for the Christ upon the cross, nothing could more have 
 horrified the Church of the early centuries than the fearful 
 representations of physical suffering which became so hideously 
 frequent in the middle ages. After the time of Constantine 
 the cross became common, and after a time the face or bust 
 of Christ was occasionally drawn above it. When first Christ 
 was depicted upon the cross, perhaps in the eighth century, 
 it was without wounds or expressions of pain; a living Christ, 
 with the cross behind him, looking down and giving life and 
 light to men. Not a single scene of our Lord's suffering, not 
 a single picture of a haggard or tortured Saviour appears, so 
 far as known, in early Christian art. In 586 we have the first 
 assured picture of the crucifixion in the Syriac Gospel in the 
 Laurentian Library of Florence, but this was quite exceptional. 
 Not till ion are we sure that we have an example of the dead 
 Christ upon the cross. The passion as a theme in Christian 
 art dates from the Council of Constantinople, 692, and from 
 that time on the imagination of the painters was tortured to 
 devise new horrors for their sanguinary canvases. 
 
 We cannot contemplate without a shudder the art of those 
 ages which subjected the likeness of Christ to all imaginable 
 tortures. That men were moved by these pictures we know 
 from such incidents as that of Count Zinzendorf, the change in 
 whose life dated from the sight of a picture of the Crucifixion 
 with the words beneath, "This T did for thee: what hast thou 
 done for me?" But it is a mistake to suppose that real and 
 deep piety can be produced by the mere contemplation of 
 
AS ART REVEALS HIM 465 
 
 physical agony. It was the age of the Inquisition, with its 
 thumb-screws and its racks, its flaming stakes and its bloody 
 gibbets, that produced its acres of canvas with crucified Christs 
 dripping blood, and dead Christs horribly wounded. It is a 
 comfort to know that in protesting against the monotony and 
 the sacrilege and the brutality of these representations, we are 
 attacking no cherished institution of the ancient Church, but 
 a more than questionable device of Mediaeval art, an art that 
 was gifted but lacking in compassion, and that knew Christ 
 as the Virgin's Child or the sacrifice for sin, but had not 
 learned, as it should have learned, of the strength and sweet- 
 ness of his abiding life. 
 
 Ill— HAVE WE A LIKENESS OF CHRIST!* 
 
 Have the early attempts to depict the face of Christ any 
 real historic value? This is certainly an interesting, even if an 
 unimportant, question. The answer involves some historic 
 research. Where did the earliest Christian artists who 
 attempted to make the face of Christ real, obtain their ideal? 
 
 There is a tradition to the effect that Luke painted a por- 
 trait of Jesus, for Abgarus, king of Edessa. Eusebius, in the 
 fourth century, gives the tradition that the Greeks at the last 
 passover who expressed the desire to see Jesus, were an 
 embassy from Abgarus, inviting Jesus to his dominion. Tra- 
 dition grew concerning Abgarus. He was sick, and Jesus 
 could not go to heal him, but sent Luke, who healed the king 
 in the name of the Lord. Abgarus desired to know how Jesus 
 looked, and Luke made a painting of the face of Jesus. 
 
 About 1895 a picture of apparent antiquity was exhibited in 
 Boston as possibly that which Luke had painted. One or tw^o 
 prominent men in the Roman Catholic Church gave its appar- 
 ent genuineness the sanction of their names, and ecclesiastical 
 testimony w^as not lacking. A plausible story was told, too. 
 of the way in which the picture had come to light. In a more 
 credulous age or communitv it might have been accepted as 
 genuine. I saw the painting which was exhibited by intelli- 
 gent and apparently honest people, and while wholly disre- 
 
466 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 garding the story about it, was much impressed by the pic- 
 ture itself, which had far more of individuality and strength 
 than an} r picture I have seen for which similar claims are made. 
 The eyes were light, clear blue, and the hair was red. The face 
 was not in the least idealized, and it haunted the memory 
 afterward. What became of it I do not know. 
 
 The most notable of the portraits alleged to have been 
 
 LIKENESS OF CHRIST ATTRIBUTED TO ST. LUKE 
 (FROM TFIE DRAWING OF THOMAS HEAPHY) 
 
 painted by Luke is that in the Bibliotheca of the Vatican, 
 where it is framed in gold, and embellished with gems. I give 
 a picture of it from Heaphy's notable reproduction in the Brit- 
 ish Museum. 
 
 Tradition also asserted that Luke made a portrait of the 
 Virgin; and this tradition grew till it included the infant Jesus. 
 The improbability of such a relation extending back over 
 thirtv vears from the time of the Abgarus incident, and half a 
 
AS ART REVEALS HIM 
 
 467 
 
 century from the first record in acts of Luke himself, never 
 troubled the artists of the middle ages. The Boston Museum 
 of Fine Arts has an excellent painting by Rogier van der 
 
 luke painting the madonna 
 (rogier van der weyden. 1399-1464) 
 
 Weyden (1399-1464) of Luke, making his portrait of the 
 Madonna and child. In St. Mark's, in Venice, one may see, 
 if he has good fortune, a picture said to have been Luke's por- 
 trait of Mary. 
 
 23 
 
468 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 I give herewith a reproduction, from a lithographed card 
 which I bought in Saint Mark's, in Venice, of the Madonna 
 there which Luke is said to have painted. The back of the 
 
 LUKE S ALLEGED PORTRAIT OF THE VIRGIN 
 
 card contains a prayer to the Virgin, and a multitude of 
 miracles is alleged to have been wrought by means of this holy 
 portrait. I also give a reproduction of the authorized likeness 
 of the Bambino in the Church of the Friars Minor in Ara 
 Coeli in Rome. This is not a painting, but an image in olive- 
 
 24 
 
AS ART REVEALS HIM 
 
 469 
 
 wood, said to have been wrought by a Franciscan monk in 
 the fifteenth century in wood from the Garden of Gethsemane. 
 It is by means of these lithographed cards, the size of the 
 reproduction, that the likeness of the image is given wide 
 circulation. This image, to quote from the card, "is known, 
 
 THE BAMBINO IN THE CHURCH IN 
 ARA COELI, ROME 
 
 visited, and honored by the whole Catholic world, owing to 
 the innumerable favors which the Divine Infant bestows on 
 those who venerate it." This card also bears a prayer which 
 carries "one hundred days' indulgence once a day applicable 
 to the souls in Purgatory." The image is credited with 
 wonderful cures of children, and is surrounded by votive 
 
 25 
 
470 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 offerings from grateful parents. The image itself was solemnly 
 crowned by the Vatican Chapter on May 2, 1897, having 
 already received official recognition of Pope Leo XIII. , Janu- 
 ary 18, 1894. It is covered with jewels, whose number con- 
 stantly increases. The little lithographs, sold at the church, 
 
 THE NAPKIN OF SAINT VERONICA 
 IN THE SACRISTY OF SAINT TETERS, ROME 
 (FROM THE DRAWING OF THOMAS HEAPHY) 
 
 are eagerly purchased by thousands, and treasured almost 
 beyond price. If a confessedly modern work of art can win 
 such a high place in the affection of the people, it is little 
 wonder that those should be popular which are believed to 
 have been wrought by the apostles. 
 
 26 
 
AS ART REVEALS HIM 
 
 471 
 
 In the fifteenth century the legend of Veronica became cur- 
 rent. According to this tradition, Jesus was passing the home of 
 this noble woman of Jerusalem, bearing his cross, his face drip- 
 ping with blood from the crown of thorns. She wiped his face 
 with a napkin, and received it back with his features miracu- 
 lously printed upon it. This legend grew in detail. Veronica 
 
 THE FAMOUS ONE-LINE PORTRAIT OF CHRIST 
 (CLAUDE MELLAN, 1598-1688) 
 
 was the woman who had touched the hem of Christ's garment. 
 She became so constant a feature in representations of the 
 crucifixion that she sometimes accompanied and again ex- 
 cluded the Virgin herself; and she still is present in works 
 down to Tissot, and her house is confidently shown in Jeru- 
 salem. The incident is celebrated as one of "the stations of the 
 cross 1 ' by Romanists since 1477. 
 
 27 
 
472 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 The napkin of Veronica was produced almost as soon as the 
 legend, and as is usual in such cases, it was preserved in 
 triplicate. It may still be seen, once a year, in Rome — two 
 places — and also in Genoa and Constantinople. The most 
 noted of these napkins, that in the sacristy in Saint Peter's, 
 Rome, is probably a face-cloth, laid over the countenance of 
 a corpse, and stained by its decomposition. Those in the 
 church of Saint Silvestro in Rome and that of Saint Bartol- 
 ommeo in Genoa are declared by Mrs. Jameson to be crude 
 middle-aee forgeries. 
 
 life-size fresco from the catacomb of st. calisto 
 
 (second century) 
 
 Probably the earliest extant representation of Christ 
 
 with beard and parted hair. 
 
 The story of Veronica has had a strange fascination for 
 artists. One of the most unique attempts to utilize it is that 
 of Claude Mellan (1598-1G88), who drew the face of Christ, 
 tear-stained and thorn-crowned, in a single line. From one 
 of his original prints I am able to give the reproduction in 
 this volume. The modern artist, Gabriel Max, has utilized the 
 tradition in his portrait of Christ, in a face of fascinating 
 sorrow and mystery, whose deep, closed eyes, when long and 
 intently regarded, seem to open in a look of calm but unutter- 
 able crrief. 
 
AS ART REVEALS HIM 
 
 473 
 
 Many good people are wholly unwilling to believe that these 
 portraits which bear the names of Luke and Veronica are 
 forgeries. Some of them contend that even if the paintings 
 
 THE NAPKIN OF 
 
 VERONICA — (GABRIEL MAX, 1846 ) 
 
 were not made as described in the legends, they were made 
 in good faith, at a very early date and are to be regarded as 
 embodying an ancient, and probably reliable, tradition of the 
 appearance of Jesus. 
 
 29 
 
474 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 Among those who defended this view was Mr. Thomas 
 Heaphy, an English artist and an enthusiastic believer in the 
 antiquity of the likeness of Christ. He made repeated journeys 
 to Rome, and obtained drawings from the catacombs and 
 churches to prove his conviction. His drawings are now in 
 the British Museum, and were reproduced in a volume issued 
 after his death, entitled "The Likeness of Christ/' a book of 
 
 BYZANTINE LIKENESS OF CHRIST, ENGRAVED ON GOLD 
 (SIZE OF ILLUSTRATION) 
 
 To be worn under clothing. 
 Probably the earliest extant specimen. 
 
 which only two hundred and fifty copies were printed, and 
 these were soon exhausted. The Society for Promoting 
 Biblical Knowledge then issued a cheaper reprint, disclaiming 
 responsibility, however, for Mr. Heaphy's dates. This edition, 
 too, is out of print. Whatever the reliability of Mr. Heaphy's 
 conclusions — and they are those of the artist rather than the 
 logician — his drawings have great value, and I have reproduced 
 several of them in this volume. While this work was in prep- 
 
 30 
 
AS ART REVEALS HIM 
 
 475 
 
 aration, and this portion of it nearly complete, I had the good 
 fortune to obtain a copy of the sumptuous first edition, with 
 plates colored by hand, by Sir Wyke Bayliss, his collaborator 
 and editor. 
 
 Continuing alone the work begun by Mr. Heaphy, Sir Wyke 
 Bayliss published the results of his own researches in a volume 
 
 MOSAIC FROM THE BAPTISTRY OF CONSTANTINE, 
 
 FOURTH CENTURY 
 
 (FROM HEAPHY's "lIKENESS OF CHRIST") 
 
 entitled "Rex Regum," recently entered upon a second edition. 
 He is president of the Royal Society of British Artists, and this 
 work, in its first edition, was dedicated "by command" to 
 Queen Victoria shortly before her death. The book devotes 
 itself to proving that there has come down from the earliest 
 
 31 
 
476 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 Christian centuries a consistent type, everywhere received as 
 the face of Jesus Christ. He contends that "The likeness of 
 Christ with which the contemporaries of the Apostles adorned 
 the catacombs was the same that survived through the second 
 and third centuries, and was in the fourth transferred to the 
 mosaics of the basilicas." Of the fresco in the catacomb of Saint 
 Callisto, lie says, "I believe it to have been the work of a 
 
 MINIATURE MOSAIC FROM THE CATACOMBS, 
 
 NOW IN THE MUSEUM OF THE VATICAN (VERY EARLY) 
 
 (FROM HEAPHY's "LIKENESS OF CHRIST") 
 
 Roman artist, a portrait painter, who had himself seen Christ, 
 and the profile from the catacomb of Saints Achilli e Nereo 
 cannot be anything else than a portrait. It was done by a 
 Roman, for Romans who expected a portrait to be a likeness/' 
 Heaphy records the tradition which he learned in Rome, 
 that this was the work of a heathen artist, employed by the 
 Christians, who, however, recorded their opinion that it looked 
 too much like a heathen philosopher. 
 
 32 
 
AS ART REVEALS HIM 
 
 477 
 
 Mrs. Jameson long ago said of these catacomb frescoes and 
 mosaics, "Little can be gathered from heads uncertain in 
 intention, vague in date, opposite in character, and, above all, 
 in the ruined state to which time and injury have reduced 
 them." 
 
 THE MADONNA OF THE CHAIR 
 (RAPHAEL, I483-I520) 
 
 A book such as this undertakes to be is no place for the 
 discussion of questions such as the date of disputed frescoes 
 and mosaics, and I am entirely willing to leave them to those 
 whose special knowledge fits them for the undertaking; but I 
 have felt in reading recently the writings of these two artists 
 that, while the argument falls far short of their assumed demon- 
 
 33 
 
478 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 stration, there is more to be said upon their side than I had 
 supposed; and I see no reason why the likeness of Jesus may 
 not have a greater antiquity than the more conservative 
 scholars have been accustomed to admit. 
 
 THE QUEEN OF HEAVEN — (PAPPERITZ) 
 
 Beside the alleged portraits, whatever their date may be, 
 there are certain oral descriptions of the person of Jesus which 
 are often referred to. In the middle ages two accounts became 
 current, which, while of little historic value, are of great worth 
 as a record of the concept of Christ in popular consciousness. 
 That these two descriptions had much in common is less 
 
 34 
 
AS ART REVEALS HIM 
 
 479 
 
 remarkable when we remember that the Church had never 
 conceded the right of the artist to invent his conception of 
 the Christ. In 787 the second Nicene Council declared that 
 
 IMMACULATE CONCEPTION — (mURILLO, 1617-1682) 
 
 "It is not the invention of the painter that creates the picture, 
 but an inviolable law, a tradition of the Catholic Church. It 
 is not the painters, but the holy fathers who have to invent and 
 to dictate. To them manifestly belongs the composition; to 
 the painter only the execution." 
 
 3.S 
 
480 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 It is interesting and profitable to record the two pen pictures 
 of Jesus to which painters, thus admonished, conformed their 
 representations of Jesus. In the fifteenth century the historian 
 Nicephorus records this description of the Christ, which he 
 says has come down from antiquity: 
 
 THE MADONNA OF THE ARBOR — (DAGNAN-BOUVRET) 
 
 "He was very beautiful. His height was fully seven spans; 
 his hair bright auburn, and not too thick, and was inclined to 
 wave in soft curls. His eyebrows were black and arched, and 
 his eyes seemed to shed from them a gentle golden light. 
 They were very beautiful. His nose was prominent; his beard 
 lovely, but not too long. He wore his hair, on the contrary, 
 
 36 
 
AS ART REVEALS HIM 
 
 481 
 
 very long, for no scissors had ever touched it, nor any human 
 hand except that of his mother, when she had played with it 
 
 RAPHAEL PAINTING THE MADONNA OF THE CHAIR 
 (j. W. WITTMER, l802-l88o") 
 
 in his childhood. He stooped a little, but his body was well 
 formed. His complexion was like that of the ripe brown 
 wheat, and his face, like his mother's, rather oval than round, 
 
4 8 2 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 with only a little red in it, but through it there shone dignity, 
 intelligence of soul, gentleness, and a calmness of spirit never 
 disturbed." 
 
 THE VISIT OF THE SHEPHERDS — (ALBRECHT DURER, 1510) 
 
 In the Western Church a similar legend current in the fif- 
 teenth century did service, purporting to be a letter of 
 Lentulus to the Roman Senate: 
 
 "There has appeared, and still lives, a man of great virtue, 
 called Jesus Christ, and by his disciples, the Son of God. He 
 raises the dead, and heals the sick. He is a man tall in stature, 
 noble in appearance, with a reverend countenance which at 
 
 38 
 
AS ART REVEALS HIM 
 
 483 
 
 once attracts and keeps at a distance those beholding it. His 
 hair is waving and curly; a little darker and of richer bright- 
 ness where it flows down from the shoulders. It is divided in 
 
 THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI — (ALBRECHT DURER, I5II ) 
 
 the middle after the manner of the Nazirites. His brow is 
 smooth, and wonderfully serene, and his features have no 
 wrinkles, nor any blemish, while a red glow makes his cheeks 
 beautiful. His nose and mouth are perfect. He has a full, 
 ruddy beard, the color of his hair, not long, but divided into 
 two. His eyes are bright, and seem of different colors at 
 different times." 
 
 39 
 
484 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 These descriptions present an ideal which has not greatly 
 changed. Most of the great masterpieces that we know and 
 love exhibit essentially the characteristics upon which these 
 two traditions agree. They may be quite worthless as history; 
 
 THE CORONATION OF THE MADONNA- ( BOTTICELLI, 1447-1510) 
 
 but they certainly are of value as showing a conception of 
 Christ in popular thought whose main features have been per- 
 sistent for five hundred years at least, and whose outlines in 
 the imagination of the Church are possibly centuries older. 
 
 40 
 
AS ART REVEALS HIM 
 
 485 
 
 IV— MARY AND HER CHILD 
 
 If Christian art has given to the world but one new thing, 
 that one thing is the conception of the value of child life and 
 the beautv of motherhood, as set forth in the Madonna and 
 
 THE MADONNA — (fILTPPINO LIPPI, I46O-I5O5) 
 
 her Son. True, the Italian artist's Madonna is an Italian, and 
 the Holland artist's is Dutch. Each nation gives its own 
 shape to the ideal, and this adaptation but adds to the glory 
 of it. The beautiful truth is one that every Christian nation 
 may drape in its own costume. It is the apotheosis of mother- 
 
 41 
 
4 86 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 hood, the crown and glory of childhood. It makes every 
 Christian mother a sharer in the rich glory of the Magnificat, 
 and enshrines every cradle with a halo from the star of Bethle- 
 hem. Into a world that thought of woman with little of honor, 
 came the Christ-child to dignify at once both motherhood and 
 childhood. Scenes so picturesque as those attending the 
 
 MATER DOLOROSA — (GUIDO RENI, I575-1642) 
 
 Incarnation could but inspire the artist. While the theologian 
 is formulating his dogma of the incarnate Logos, the artist is 
 compelling faith in the new glory of childhood and of mother- 
 hood with his pictures of the Annunciation, the Nativity, the 
 Song of the Angels and the adoration of the Magi. If Chris- 
 tian art had failed everywhere else, the triumph here would 
 have been superlative. However well or ill the artists have 
 
 42 
 
AS ART REVEALS HIM 
 
 487 
 
 painted the face of the man Jesus of Nazareth, they have given 
 to the Babe of Bethlehem the perfection of childish grace and 
 beauty. This both registers and defines, if in part it does not 
 create, a popular ideal, and the result is one which we must 
 view with gratitude. 
 
 The Madonna of the modern artist is of another sort than 
 she of the middle ages. She wears no halo; she is not sur- 
 
 the virgin adoring the child 
 (fra filippo lippi, 1412-1469) 
 
 rounded by angels. She is just a beautiful young mother, with 
 a sweet baby. The "Madonna of the Arbor," by Dagnan- 
 Bouveret, is beautiful in her pure robes of white, and her 
 swaddled baby takes us back to Palestine; but why is she less 
 devotional than the portrait of the cooper's wife, drawn by 
 Raphael upon a barrel-head in his "Madonna of the Chair"? Is 
 the difference in the spirit of the paintings, or in our own 
 
 43 
 
488 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 imagination, or in our adoration of the past? Even when a 
 modern artist attempts idealization, as Papperitz in his "Queen 
 of Heaven," it is a very different figure from Murillo's immortal 
 "Immaculate Conception," in which the Virgin is the woman 
 of the Apocalypse standing on the moon. There is no attempt 
 
 THE SISTINE MADONNA — (RAPHAEL) 
 
 to conform her to the requirements of a dogma. She is just 
 a sweet human mother, caught up into the heavens by love — 
 love for her baby, and, let us hope, love for God who gave him. 
 The Madonna of to-day is not a crowned goddess, as Botticelli 
 painted her, nor is she the Mater Dolorosa of Guido Reni. 
 
 44 
 
AS ART REVEALS HIM 
 
 489 
 
 Even the angels are sometimes humanized in these latter- 
 day paintings. If full grown, they are pure young women, 
 unmistakably modern, and if cherubs they are twentieth- 
 century babies; and he would be a rash man who could call 
 
 THE NATIVITY- 
 
 -<W. 
 
 BOUGUEREAU, 1825 — ) 
 
 the former inferior to the angels of Fra Angelico, or the latter 
 less angelic than Raphael's cherubs. 
 
 Among the paintings which beautifully portray both mother- 
 hood and childhood, the Madonna of Correggio (1494-1534), 
 
 45 
 
Copyright 1903 by Frank Wood. 
 THE MADONNA AND CHILD — (CORREGGIO. 1494-1534) 
 
 46 
 
AS ART REVEALS HIM 
 
 491 
 
 deserves mention. Stolen a century ago, and hidden away 
 in what proved to be a valuable collection of old masters, it 
 
 IMOGEN PE Kras.ra. AcLaSekdoul «k Oa^ica? v 
 
 Courtesy of Mr. Willis Bradford Jones 
 
 mexican madonna 
 (slightly reduced from the original painting, on silk) 
 
 was discovered not many years since, and competent critics 
 have pronounced it certainly genuine. It needs no great name, 
 
 47 
 
492 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 however, to assure its beauty. In it both mother and child 
 appear in the full glory of their purity and sweetness. 
 
 The Madonna of Mexico is interesting, and comparatively 
 unfamiliar. A friend whose extensive business interests take 
 him on extended visits to Mexico has procured a number of 
 early examples. One of these, a quaint old miniature on silk, 
 I reproduce, only a trifle reduced from the size of the original. 
 It represents the Virgin, richly robed and crowned, sur- 
 rounded by emblems of the crucifixion. The head of Christ 
 and those of the thieves are there, with the Sacred Heart of 
 Jesus, and the pierced hands and feet. Beside these are Peter's 
 sword and the cock, the lantern of the mob, and the purse 
 of Judas marked with the value of its contents, the scourge, 
 the rope, the spear and hammer, and even the dice with which 
 the soldiers cast lots. It would be hard for art to go farther 
 in the way of symbolic realism; but the Virgin herself almost 
 redeems the picture with her sweetness and dignity. 
 
 But more famous is Our Lady of Guadalupe, whose portrait, 
 miraculously painted on the tilma, the rough outer garment 
 of an Indian convert, on December 12, 1 5 3 1 , adorns the high 
 altar of the church at Guadalupe. The garment had been 
 filled with roses, gathered by the Indian in a sterile place, to 
 prove the truth of his message that the Virgin commanded 
 the building of a church there, and when the roses were 
 emptied at the feet of the bishop to whom the message was 
 sent, the portrait was discovered on the cloth of the tilma. 
 Popes have recognized this miracle since 1663, and confirmed 
 it by the bull of May 25, 1754. In almost every house in 
 Mexico the Guadalupe is to be found, and is the object of 
 most devout adoration. Standing in the crescent moon, em- 
 bowered in roses, and winged onward by an upholding seraph, 
 the Madonna stands, erect and serene. Few pictures have 
 such interest as this. A copy of it in 1810 constituted the 
 banner of the Revolution, led by the political priest Hidalgo. 
 The most famous of the Madonnas of the Old World, the 
 Sistine, was painted to be used as a labarium, or banner. So 
 this most famous of the Madonnas of the New World, by its 
 
Courtesy of Miss Grace E. Shoemaker 
 
 OUR LADY OF GUADALUPE 
 (FROM AN EARLY COPY ON COPPER) 
 
 49 
 
494 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 most noted copy, has clone service as a flag. Round it rallied 
 the hosts of Mexico, relying on her protection, while they 
 fought for the liberties of their country. Nor did her help 
 fail them, if the issue may be counted proof; for, though the 
 revolutionists lost, and their leader was sentenced to death, 
 the spirit of the revolution revived again, and in time the yoke 
 of Spain was cast off. The first president of the new republic, 
 
 THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM — (prCLHEIM.) 
 
 Felix Ferandez, in recognition of her signal favors, changed 
 his name to Guadalupe Victoria, and the Lady of Guadalupe 
 became the patron saint, not only of the Mexican church, but 
 of the new nation. A very early copy of the Guadalupe has 
 been loaned me for this book. It is a painting in oil, on a 
 sheet of beaten copper, and is a very faithful copy of the 
 original, with some additional roses in the margin. 
 
 50 
 
AS ART REVEALS HIM 
 
 495 
 
 He who will trace the growth of Jesus from infancy to 
 youth through the paintings of a single great artist, will find 
 his ideal of beautiful motherhood and perfect childhood almost 
 satisfied. The paintings of Murillo afford an example which 
 may be begun even further back. Let Alary first appear in the 
 Immaculate Conception, her pure soul radiant through her 
 sweet face; and then let the same face be seen in his Madonna, 
 the mother holding the child upon her knee, and the face 
 
 
 
 
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 the virgin and the infant jesus 
 (gherardo delle notti, 1590-1656) 
 
 appears yet again in the child. Still let the face be followed 
 in paintings of the Flight, and the Repose in Egypt, and still 
 further as Mary gradually recedes in pictures of the Holy 
 Family, and the child is seen at length alone with his foster- 
 father Joseph. The child shows nothing of the face of Joseph; 
 no human heredity appears save that from Mary; but it is no 
 longer the mother's face that we see in the picture; it has an 
 individuality of its own. Now Joseph disappears, and the 
 
 5 1 
 
THE VISIT OF MARY TO ELIZABETH 
 (TITIAN, I477-I576) 
 
 52 
 
THE ANNUNCIATION 
 (DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI, 1828-1882) 
 
 53 
 
498 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 child appears shepherding a lamb — childishly prophetic of the 
 coming work of the Good Shepherd; and the face is that of 
 a boy, but a wonderful boy. At length we detach the face of 
 
 THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT 
 ( CLAUDE LORRAINE. 160O-1682) 
 
 the child from all others, and behold it alone. The deep, pure, 
 soulful eyes are there, as we first saw them in Mary; but the 
 child is increasing in wisdom and in stature, waxing strong in 
 spirit, and the grace of God is upon him. In whatever else 
 
 54 
 
AS ART REVEALS HIM 
 
 499 
 
 the artists have failed, they have succeeded here. The pictures 
 of the boyhood of Jesus present a strong and beautiful ideal. 
 
 We have but one incident of the youth of Jesus recorded 
 in the gospels, together with the general statements that this 
 was exceptional, that he was subject to his parents, that he 
 increased in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and 
 man, and that he was known as a carpenter. But this is 
 enough, and the artists have done well with this material, nor 
 
 THE REPOSE IN EGYPT — (LEROLLE) 
 
 have they in general overworked it. If the mysticism and 
 mannerism of the English Pre-Raphaelite are sometimes 
 excessive, there is no denying the rare beauty and power of 
 Holman Hunt's painting, 'The Finding of Christ in the 
 Temple." If we miss anything from the face of the adult 
 Christ in the pictures of Hofmann, we can but admire the 
 eager, intelligent, self-possessed and high-minded boy in his 
 "Christ and the Doctors." If Tissot gives to us grim and 
 unsatisfactory representations of the Man of Sorrows, the lad 
 
 55 
 
500 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 at the fountain with his mother is delicate, and full of soul; 
 and his carpenter boy in "The Youth of Jesus' 1 is not only a 
 vigorous and wholesome apprentice, but a fine, thoughtful 
 lad as well, in whose pure, deep soul there is the pondering- of 
 
 JESUS AND THE CHILDREN 
 
 mysteries and conquest of self for the sake of the future as 
 yet unknown. So far as these record accurately the popular 
 conception of the youth of Jesus, they stand for high ideals, 
 and they follow the data afforded by the Gospels too faithfully 
 to be wide of the historic facts. 
 
 56 
 
AS ART REVEALS HIM 
 
 50I 
 
 Copyright— Courtesy of S. S. McClure Co. 
 
 THE CARPENTER SHOP AT NAZARETH 
 (CORWTN KNAPP LINSON) 
 
 V— THE CARPENTER WHO BECAME THE CHRIST 
 
 Dr. Farrar calls attention to the fact that Holman Hunt's 
 "The Shadow of Death" is almost the only notable picture of 
 the adult Jesus, in the period when he was still a carpenter. 
 The time is sunset, and Jesus is wearied with the day's labor. 
 He rises and stretches himself in an attitude at once of weari- 
 ness and of prayer. Back a little in the shop Mary kneels 
 beside the treasures given her by the magi twenty-five or 
 thirty years before. What did these gifts prefigure? Some- 
 thing causes her to look up, and she sees the shadow of his 
 outstretched form cast by the level sun upon the rear wall 
 of the shop, where the rack and tools form a cross. It is a 
 great picture; but in it Jesus is still the carpenter: he is not 
 yet the Christ. 
 
 We have the same artist's adult Christ in "The Light of the 
 World/' which is said to be the most popular picture in Eng- 
 land. Tt is reverent, beautiful and inspiring; but it does not 
 quite satisfy. We leave behind our feelings of complete satis- 
 
 57 
 
5 02 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 faction when we pass from the paintings of Jesus' childhood 
 and youth to those of his ministry and fully realized divinity. 
 It is not surprising that it should be so. No artist can paint 
 far above his own head, or put upon canvas what was not 
 first latent in his own soul; and what man is not confessedly 
 beyond his ability when he essays the face of the Son of man? 
 
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 THE SHADOW OF DEATH — (\V- HOLMAN HUNT, 1827 — ) 
 
 Nevertheless, it is the adult Christ, and not the babe of 
 Bethlehem nor yet the boy of Nazareth, that must answer our 
 inquiries concerning the ideal of Jesus as reflected in art. 
 
 The artists have shown their limitations in this, and it meets 
 us at once in adult pictures of Jesus, that, unable to add to 
 a human face a grace which they have not known, at least 
 
 53 
 
AS ART REVEALS HIM 
 
 503 
 
 in some degree, in human life, they have made divinity by 
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 THE RESURRECTION OF LAZARUS — (BASSANO, I5IO-I592) 
 
 afford, they have sought it in that other antithesis which is 
 feminine. When the Church in the middle ages froze all pitv 
 from the heart of the Christ of its creeds, men found the 
 incarnation of human gentleness and beauty in Mary. And 
 
 59 
 
504 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 still it is often a womanly sweetness that shows in the face 
 of the Christ of art. "The masculine," so the painters have 
 seemed to say, "is the gross, the sensual, the aggressive, the 
 belligerent. We will make our Christ with a woman's face, 
 and add a beard." Popular thought is in accord with this 
 conception. The newspapers have a standing word of reproach 
 
 
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 THE LAST SUPPER — ( RUBENS, I577-1640) 
 
 for any form of masculine or aggressive effort professedly 
 Christian, and which they do not like; they speak of the alleged 
 offender with reproach or sarcasm as a professed disciple of 
 "the meek and lowly Jesus." They forget that Jesus was not 
 meek in all aspects of his character. The astounding claims 
 which he made concerning himself, the bitter controversies in 
 which he engaged, the fierce denunciations which he hurled. 
 
 60 
 
AS ART REVEALS HIM 
 
 505 
 
 the vigor with which he used the whip of cords, all these are 
 foreign to the popular thought of him as expressed in art and 
 literature. 
 
 Where the Christ is not represented as effeminate, he is 
 often not virile. The picture which proved the turning point 
 
 THE CRUCIFIXION — (MICHAEL ANGELO, I475-I564) 
 
 in the career of Tissot is that of a ruined structure, in which 
 sit a peasant and his wife, he stolid in his grief, she incon- 
 solable; and beside them sits the Christ, in greater agony, 
 bleeding, helpless, and leans his thorn-crowned head on the 
 
 61 
 
506 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 shoulder of the man. It might well be that such a vision of 
 the Christ who suffered with men would affect powerfully a 
 self-indulgent worldling" such as Tissot had been; and it would 
 ill become any one to speak disparagingly of a painting" which 
 has so appealed to any thoughtful man. But it is not satis- 
 factory. It is an impotent Christ that meets us there. There 
 is no power in that wan, weak figure. Those pierced hands 
 can neither beckon, nor invite, nor caress, nor uphold; they 
 
 
 
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 THE DEAD CHRIST — ( FRA BARTOLOMMEO, I469-I517) 
 
 cannot lift up the man, nor sustain the woman, nor rebuild the 
 ruined structure. The stolid man is manly by comparison. 
 He has no wisdom about the reason of it all, and he has little 
 piety, but as Tissot says, he strives "to sit upright, and to play 
 the man, even in misfortune." So far as the picture shows, 
 whatever of resource remains of courage, strength, or hope, is 
 in the man; the woman and the Christ are helpless. 
 
 This is not the Christ as the gospels show him. He could 
 save from the cross; he could encourage and give strength 
 
 62 
 
AS ART REVEALS HIM 507 
 
 to his disciples when he had risen from the dead. His was 
 the strength and not theirs, in which they went out to preach 
 and to rebuild a ruin. We never shall have a true picture of 
 the Christ, nor a correct mental image of him, till we add 
 power to his gentleness and majesty to his sufferings. 
 
 JESUS AND THOMAS — (VAN DYCK, 1599-1641) 
 
 To take another example from Tissot, and this time from 
 "The Temptation;" it is a passive and puny Christ whom he 
 represents, caught up to the mountain top by the mighty 
 power of a Satan whose gigantic figure is athwart the sky. 
 A suggestion of this same Miltonic greatness in Satan, and 
 
 63 
 
5 o8 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 little more than sentimental strength in Jesus, is in Ary 
 Scheffer's familiar picture of "The Temptation." On the other 
 hand, Linson's fine water colors, which illustrate Dr. John 
 Watson's new Life of the Master, more truly represent the 
 temptation as spiritual, agreeing in this with the great painting 
 of Cornicelius, and in each the Christ has at least spiritual 
 strength capable of resistance. 
 
 JESUS AMONG THE DOCTORS — ( GIOTTO, 12/6-1^6) 
 
 But if the pictures lack masculinity, they do not all lack 
 majesty. There is a kingliness about Dore's "Triumphal 
 Entry," and his "Christ leaving the Pnetorium," whatever 
 some of his other pictures may lack of devotional simplicity. 
 There is self-contained authority in Bida's "The Calling of 
 Matthew"; there is erect dignity and noble serenity in 
 Shields' "Christ and Saint Peter." If Munkacsy's "Christ 
 
 64 
 
AS ART REVEALS H J M 
 
 509 
 
 before Pilate" shows us the face of a weary fanatic, it is at 
 least a well-poised and perfectly erect figure that supports that 
 face, and his "Ecce Homo" has a calm majesty and a certain 
 heroic power in its suffering. If Da Vinci gives us a face too 
 weak to satisfy our thoughts of the Christ, he also imparts a 
 sublime dignity to the central figure in his "Last Supper" that 
 has inspired reverence for centuries. If Raphael's "Draught 
 of Fishes," with its cramped action and its impossible surround- 
 ings, does not command the interest inspired by his madonnas, 
 
 THE FINDING OF CHRIST IN THE TEMPLE — (w. HOLMAN HUNT, 1827 ) 
 
 his "Transfiguration" at least is full of a glory which is not 
 that of Moses or Elijah, but of the glorified Christ. 
 
 It is legitimate thus to group together in a single paragraph 
 names of artists living and others long dead: for the present 
 conception of Christ is formed, not alone by the paintings of 
 living artists, but also by the living paintings of dead artists. 
 The past, so far as it has survived, has done so because it has 
 reflected popular thought: generally speaking, it continues 
 to survive, except, as it survives in technical treatises, only to 
 the extent that it still reflects the ideals of men. The extant 
 past, no less than the evolving present, is ours. Still, it is 
 
 65 
 
Sio 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 interesting and profitable to compare the general movements 
 of the past with those which may be traced in contemporary 
 art. 
 
 Before turning aside for a brief comparison of present and 
 former art, I take occasion to mention the head of Christ 
 which is used as the frontispiece of this essay, and which I 
 
 the adoration of the magi 
 (albrecht altdorfer, 1512) 
 
 can but count among the most successful attempts to portray 
 the face of Jesus. It is by an unknown artist, probably of the 
 sixteenth century, and has never before been photographed. 
 
 This painting, very much begrimed and defaced, came into 
 this country some years ago with other paintings. An artist 
 worked for months upon it before the full beauty of the draw- 
 
 66 
 
AS ART REVEALS HIM 
 
 5" 
 
 ing and the harmony of the color appeared. In color and in 
 outline it at once suggests Titian, and is worthy of the best 
 period of that artist's work. It has all the strength of Titian's 
 Christ in "The Tribute Money/' but has a grace and winsome- 
 ness which are lacking in that great painting. Whoever 
 painted it, he was a master. The picture is of a face that 
 inspires affection and confidence, and is the product not only 
 of high art but of sincere religious feeling. 
 
 PILATE WASHING HIS HANDS — (HANS HOLBEIN, 1517) 
 
 67 
 
5i- 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 THE VISIT OF THE MAGI TO THE CAVE-BORN CHILD 
 (FROM THE CODEX GRAECUS, IN VATICAN, l6l3 A. D. ) 
 
 VI— PAST AND PRESENT 
 
 The art of the Church has not followed one continuous line 
 of development. There have been long periods in which it 
 has remained stationary, and others in which it has declined. 
 Sometimes the Church, which had nourished and fostered art, 
 so wrapped it about with swaddling bands of tradition that 
 its life was strangled. Throughout the middle ages archi- 
 tecture was deemed far more important than painting or 
 sculpture. Following the Crusades came a great era of cathe- 
 dral building. Painting made little advance while the nations 
 of Christian Europe were erecting their great Gothic churches; 
 and, when artists wrought at all, as in copying venerable 
 manuscripts with illuminated initials and illustrations wrought 
 into the text, they slavishly followed the lines of old Byzantine 
 art. As early as the ninth century there Avas some attempt at 
 painting on church walls, but there was no originality and little 
 beauty. Architecture, the most stable of the arts, went for- 
 ward, but painting, most mobile of them, stood still or went 
 
 6S 
 
AS ART REVEALS HIM 
 
 513 
 
 back. There was increased rigidity of line, and greater coarse- 
 ness of coloring. 
 
 To Giotto, more than to any other one man, belongs credit 
 for the beginnings of better things. Working with water 
 colors on fresh plaster, he brought mural painting to recogni- 
 tion. Glass painting, which had prevailed in the North, and 
 
 THE RAISING OF LAZARUS — ( REMBRANDT, 1642) 
 
 mosaic work, which Italy had inherited from Constantinople, 
 gave place to wall painting as the principal field for pictorial 
 representation. There was no striking individuality in the 
 faces of Giotto's characters; they were practically all alike, 
 and his draperies were scant, and his perspective showed no 
 great depth or distance. His animals were little, under-sized, 
 
 69 
 
5H 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 wooden things, and his houses were frail and cramped, and his 
 trees and rocks, monotonously alike, looked as if cut from 
 cardboard. But his principal characters always told the story 
 of the pictures with directness and effectiveness, and the pic- 
 
 CHRIST BEFORE CAIAPHAS — (DURER, 1512) 
 
 tures, crude enough in many ways, were characterized by 
 taste, discrimination, and, what was most important of all, 
 originality. Giotto died in 1337, and a new school began with 
 him; but for another century art was hampered by tradition. 
 
 70 
 
AS ART REVEALS HIM 
 
 515 
 
 In the fifteenth century occurred the Renaissance, a period 
 <of revolution and of new birth. Man and nature had long been 
 
 THE CORONATION OF THE VIRGIN — (FINIGUERRA, 1452) 
 
 strangers to each other in the world of art. Painters had asked, 
 not how things looked, but how things had been represented. 
 Nature had been counted sinful, and religion a more or less 
 
 7i 
 
5i6 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 artificial expedient to save man from nature. Artists had 
 taken their ideals from tradition, not life. The new birth of 
 art from this death-like thralldom of conventionality reached 
 every nation of Europe. In the North, where there were fewer 
 theoretical ideals of structure, came a new realism, blunt and 
 
 THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI— ( FINIGUERRA, I45-) 
 
 coarse sometimes, but sincere. It developed into the strong- 
 lined work of Holbein with his very human German figures 
 full of life and action. It displayed itself in the pictures of 
 Altdorfer, white-lined against dark backgrounds, with the full 
 intent of the painter revealed in clean-cut contrast. It found 
 
 72 
 
AS ART REVEALS HIM 
 
 517 
 
 expression in the wood-cuts and etchings of Durer, with no 
 blurred or obscure or conventional devices, but every line, 
 sharp and distinct, telling its story with originality and power. 
 It approached perfection in the etchings of Rembrandt, with 
 lightly drawn lines but strong figures, and truth in them all. 
 It developed eccentricity in the use of lines, as in the work of 
 Claude Mellan, who discarded cross-lines, and made all his 
 shading by the thickening of parallel lines, and who illustrated 
 the mechanical perfection of his work in his one-line portrait 
 of Christ. 
 
 LAST SUPPER — (LEONARDO DA VINCI, I452-I519) 
 
 The painting of the North, too, took on new character. 
 Living men and women, not mere lay-figures, took place in 
 flesh that was almost warm to the touch, in the work of 
 Rubens, and his art reached a higher level of taste and skill 
 in his pupil Van Dyck; while Rembrandt, the great painter of 
 Protestantism, as well in his paintings as in his etchings, 
 wrought forms of enduring strength. 
 
 In Italy the whole atmosphere was charged with the new 
 life of art. There was less discarding of old ideals, but the 
 new wine overflowed the old bottles, and new art forms were 
 
 73 
 
5i8 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 created. Man now rediscovered the world of nature. Not till 
 much later did Claude Lorraine, in France, make paintings of 
 scenery popular, with foliage perfectly drawn, but with the 
 figures so overwhelmed by the landscape that he was accus- 
 tomed to say he made no extra charge for the people in his 
 paintings; the real discovery of nature was the discovery of 
 man. The artists now wrought with new strength, and 
 imparted to their work an individuality till then unknown. It 
 
 THE LAST SUPPER — (FRA ANGELICO, I387-I455) 
 
 displayed itself in the one strong painting of Verrocchio, "The 
 Baptism of Jesus," whose foremost angel is said to have been 
 painted by the artist's pupil, Leonardo da Vinci; and in da 
 Vinci's great painting of the "Last Supper"; and in the few 
 extant paintings of his pupil Luini. It took ornate form in 
 the work of the Lippis, father and son, and in Botticelli. Fra 
 Angelico gave it grace and delicacy born of fasting and prayer, 
 and Raphael imparted to it strength and enduring beauty. 
 Art was born again, and in a good time; for the invention of 
 
 74 
 
AS ART REVEALS HIM 
 
 519 
 
 printing, the discovery of the New World, and the Reforma- 
 tion were parallel movements outward of the mind of man. 
 The Renaissance belonged with all these, for it was a breaking 
 of old and hampering traditions, and a self-assertion of free- 
 dom and sincerity. It was expressed in many and varying 
 forms — in Durer's bold and expressive lines and in Titian's 
 kneading over his thick paint with his fingers till models stood 
 transferred to canvas in the warmth and color of veritable 
 flesh. 
 
 
 
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 THE LAST SUPPER — (ziMMEEMANN, 1852 — ) 
 
 Into this new world of art the Christ entered, and his 
 entrance gave new life to art. It was a Christ more human, 
 sharing more the life of men, whom the artists painted. The 
 atmosphere of the Church was all-pervading and not always 
 favorable to freedom; but the great paintings of the world 
 were then wrought by men of skill and earnestness. 
 
 It is interesting to remind ourselves again that the likeness 
 of Christ is now widely disseminated not alone by single paint- 
 ings, but by the multiplying power of the printing press. The 
 story of the beginnings of plate engraving for the purpose of 
 
 75 
 
520 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 printing may not be familiar to all who read this chapter. It 
 came about almost by accident. 
 
 In the Roman churches of the middle ages, great skill was 
 developed by the goldsmiths in the engraving of the "pax," 
 a little silver plate on which the host was to be elevated in 
 the service of the mass. The design was cut out of the flat 
 plate of silver, and the lines were filled with a black composi- 
 tion to bring out the design. The plate thus completed was 
 called a niello. Maso di Finiguerra, a goldsmith, about 1452, 
 was experimenting with a nearly finished pax, by pouring 
 
 CHRIST AT EMMAUS — (FRA ANGELICO, I387-I455) 
 
 melted sulphur over it, the better to test his workmanship. 
 He found that he could obtain better results by filling the lines 
 with ink and rubbing it against dampened paper. A roller 
 soon was added, and a smooth impression obtained; and a new 
 art was given to the world. The verv first plate ever so 
 employed in printing, as books on this subject declare, was 
 "The Coronation of the Virgin," in 1452, or as some authors 
 state, in 1460. Prints from this first plate are, of course, 
 superlatively rare; but one of these priceless little sheets has 
 been loaned me for this volume, with another, "The Nativity," 
 equally precious and more perfect in execution by the same 
 
 76 
 
AS ART REVEALS HIM 
 
 5^1 
 
 engraver. They are here reproduced in the exact size of the 
 originals. 
 
 The reproduction of these first two prints in this latest 
 volume illustrates the extent to which the art of the past has 
 been perpetuated by the press. It is a far cry from this begin- 
 ning until now, when almost every great painting of merit is 
 
 CHRIST AT EMMAUS — (REMBRANDT, 1634) 
 
 photographed, and the results are brought together in startling 
 juxtaposition. The art of all the intervening generations is 
 now ours, with the art of the present as well. 
 
 If one w T ere seeking absolute justice in dealing with periods 
 of art, he would compare only those that are completed. He 
 would not compare current art with the art of the past, for 
 
 77 
 
5 22 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 the art of the present is good, bad, and indifferent, and the 
 art of the past that has survived is winnowed out of many ages, 
 and the best of those ages as judged by themselves and the 
 generations following. The most enthusiastic devotee of 
 modern art would not pretend that any one generation is 
 producing as many masterpieces as all past generations. A 
 
 CHRIST HEALING A CHILD — (GABRIEL MAX, 184O — ) 
 
 comparison, if made at all, must be within limits, and must 
 consider the art of the present time in its general ideals and 
 movements, as compared with the general trend of that from 
 which it diverges. 
 
 A modern artist can hardly place himself, religiously and 
 intellectually, on a common level with the artist of the six- 
 
 78 
 
AS ART REVEALS HIM 523 
 
 teenth century. His thought of God, the world, revelation, 
 and the mission of Christ all are, or ought to be, wider. A 
 Fra Angelico Christ would be an affectation in a modern artist. 
 A Fra Filippo Lippi Madonna would be impossible to an artist 
 living among modern men and women. To what shall he 
 aspire? 
 
 He may imitate the ideals and lives of the old artists, but 
 his work will lack originality and strength. The old masters 
 did better, in their way, than he can do. He may attempt 
 an idealism like that of the English Pre-Raphaelites, but his 
 work, however rich and interesting, will lack simplicity, and 
 will be in danger of lacking sincerity. Some modern artists 
 have painted in each of these ways, and their work does not 
 lack interest. But the work that lays hold on men's hearts is 
 that which makes real either the Christ who lived in Galilee, 
 or the Christ who now lives among men. 
 
 In two very different ways modern art manifests its tendency 
 to realism. One group of artists, of whom the best known 
 recent representative is Tissot, seeks to reproduce the historic 
 situation, to photograph the local surroundings, and to secure 
 in the drapery and background all that modern Palestine can 
 disclose of actual conditions as they were in the time of our 
 Lord. 
 
 The other school is represented by Beraud, L'llerrritte and 
 Von Uhde. It leaves Palestine and its ways and people 
 entirely out of account, and finds its backgrounds in the paint- 
 er's own vicinity. Zimmerman's "Last Supper" dresses the 
 disciples in the garb of men of today. It is very different from 
 Da Vinci's or Fra Angelico's, but neither of these is at all true 
 to Palestine life. 
 
 But when have painters stopped for anachronism, or by what 
 law of art are they enjoined from it? The older painters in 
 their naivete painted a Christ of their own nation; or if they 
 attempted to draw him as he was, they succeeded merely in 
 making him foreign to their own time, in a forced solemnity 
 that consisted largely in strangeness. If Durer had painted 
 other than a German Christ, it would not have been the Christ 
 
 79 
 
5^4 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 of Tissot's close study of the land and its people. The Christ 
 he painted was German because the artist knew no other. But 
 
 "SAVE, LORD, OR I PERISH!" — (FREDERIC SHIELDS) 
 
 Luther's great ambition in his translation of the New Testa- 
 ment was "to make the apostles speak German," and if the 
 
 80 
 
AS ART REVEALS HIM 525 
 
 translator may attempt this with intent, why may not the 
 painter? 
 
 In the convent of San Marco in Florence, trebly honored 
 by the names of Savonarola, Fra Bartolommeo and Fra 
 AngeKco, one finds the apostles represented in the garb of 
 the convent. The last supper is a sacrament administered by 
 the Lord to these brethren. Sweetest and simplest of these 
 adaptations, the two disciples at Emmaus are two brothers of 
 the order, welcoming Jesus to the convent. It is a picture 
 of Christian hospitality as beautiful and devout as, in its 
 setting, it is natural and appropriate. But the modern paint- 
 ing of L'Hermitte with the disciples as hard-toiling peasants, 
 exhibits the same principle differently applied. What the pic- 
 ture lacks in historic accuracy — which is totally disregarded — 
 it gains in naturalness and impressiveness. 
 
 As compared with ancient paintings, it might be affirmed 
 that modern religious art is more learned and less reverent. 
 
 But it is difficult to determine just how reverent the ancient 
 artists were. Raphael could paint "The Fornarina" with as 
 good grace as "The Madonna/' and Rubens was quite as intent 
 on displaying the charms of the Flemish beauties who furnished 
 his Scripture models as of interpreting real Bible scenes. Nor 
 are we safe in affirming that modern art lacks reverence be- 
 cause it savors less of the cloister and more of the life of the 
 day. Jesus himself lived among men, and the pictures that 
 reproduce the atmosphere of a given age may most truly inter- 
 pret to that age the fitting background for a portrait of the 
 Christ. 
 
 Some of the modern paintings are weakly sentimental. They 
 appeal only to a passing fancy. If they are other than imita- 
 tions they depend upon eccentricity rather than religious feel- 
 ing and sincerity. They proceed from a wish to make a pretty 
 picture rather than a passionate desire to reveal the Christ to 
 men. But not all modern paintings are of this character; nor 
 were all the old masters free from the faults of modern artists. 
 
 Si 
 
5^6 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 VII— THE CHRIST OF TO-DAY 
 
 This essay, it can hardly need to be said, attempts no cata- 
 logue of painters, ancient or modern, and does not undertake 
 in any way to be exhaustive. The most that it can hope is 
 to sketch very briefly a few of the things that are representa- 
 tive. I wish to mention a very few modern artists, and to 
 characterize the Christ whom they are revealing to the people 
 of to-day. Some of them rest their reputations as painters 
 
 CHRIST AND THE YOUNG RULER — (hOFMANN. 1824 — ) 
 
 of the Christ upon a single great picture, as Burne-Jones in 
 his "Mary at the Sepulchre," and L'Hermitte, in the painting 
 already referred to. Munkacsy, also, is known almost wholly 
 by his "Christ before Pilate," though the thin-faced enthusiast 
 in this picture, dignified only by his calmness, meekness and 
 erect poise, lacks the heroic power of his "Ecce Homo." 
 
 But most of the modern painters who have made a distinct 
 impression have done so in series of illustrations cov- 
 
 82 
 
AS ART REVEALS HIM 
 
 5^7 
 
 ering practically the whole of the life of Christ. Of these 
 are Dore, whose works are careless in execution, and weari- 
 some with their long' perpendicular lines, but not lacking" in 
 dignity and a certain inflexible grace. Overbeck's series is dis- 
 tinctly conventional and academic, but reverent and sincere. 
 Bida, too, in his illustrated Bible series, gives us a Christ who 
 moves through the whole series of incidents of the gospels. 
 And, whether Jesus sits passive and meditative by the sea, or 
 
 THE MAN CHRIST JESUS — (flOFMANN, 1824— ) 
 
 stands before the booth of Matthew, and, erect and calm, calls 
 this man of affairs from his business with assurance and self- 
 control, the Christ is lovable and impressive. 
 
 Among all the modern artists, none holds a place so dear 
 among the people as Hofmann. If his Christ lacks masculinity, 
 he does not lack lovableness. The two heads of Christ most 
 popular in the art stores are from details of his pictures — the 
 boy Jesus in the temple, and the man Jesus looking upon the 
 clean, upright young ruler with love and invitation in his face. 
 
 83 
 
528 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 It is not too much to say that this picture of the face of Christ 
 has supplanted in popular affection the thorn-crowned "Ecce 
 Homo" of Guido Reni, and is, next to Da Vinci's great paint- 
 ing, the best loved head of Christ. 
 
 Tissot, too, presents his Christ, not in a single scene, but 
 in a series covering the whole extent of the land in which he 
 lived. In every valley between the Jordan and the sea he has 
 portrayed him; on every hill top from Nazareth to Bethlehem 
 
 ECCE HOMO — (GUIDO RENI, 1575-1642) 
 
 he has painted him, walking over the rocky hills, resting or 
 teaching by the wayside, or in the home or on the boat, and 
 the Christ who appears in all dignifies and beautifies every 
 scene and leaves his own image, clear and noble, after the last 
 landscape has faded away. 
 
 In these paintings the effect is cumulative. The Christ is 
 seen, not in a single incident which might not fitly represent 
 his life, but in the whole round of his blessed activity, con- 
 
 84 
 
AS ART REVEALS HIM 
 
 5 2 9 
 
 sistent and abiding — the Christ of the whole of human life. 
 And when, from one of these series, the head is presented in 
 detail, the beholder mentally places that lovable face and 
 
 CHRIST BLESSING LITTLE CHILDREN — (HOFMANN, 1824 — ) 
 
 figure, not simply back in the paintings from one of which it 
 has been taken, nor yet alone in the scenes of his earthly 
 ministry, but into every normal and justifiable relation of life; 
 and seeing him there, cries with new and reverent meaning — 
 
 S5 
 
530 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 "Behold the Man." The Ecce Homo of to-day is the ever- 
 living Christ. 
 
 Notable among American achievements in religions art, and 
 thoroughly characteristic as well, are the water colors of Mr. 
 Corwin Knapp Linson. His pictures are based upon actual 
 study in the Holy Land; and though the study was neither so 
 long nor so arduous as that of Tissot, he has caught the local 
 color admirably. His pictures are used to illustrate Dr. John 
 
 "COME, LORD JESUS, AND BE OUR GUEST*' — ( FRITZ VON UHDE, 1846 — ) 
 
 Watson's "Life of the Master/' and are one of the best adapta- 
 tions of the new three-color work to serious book-making. 
 Since my own visit to Palestine I have turned to Linson's 
 pictures with satisfaction, and I count them the best example 
 of American art dealing with the life of Christ in its touch 
 with the soil of Palestine. 
 
 Among American illustrators Frank Beard holds a somewhat 
 unique place in his use of caricature in religious journalism. 
 As his pictures are designed to be sermons, they occasionally 
 
AS ART REVEALS HIM 
 
 531 
 
 introduce the person of Christ, rebuking hypocrisy or rescuing 
 the abandoned. Hastily made, and with all the limitations that 
 accompany the cartoon of the popular newspaper, they are 
 always reverent, and in thorough earnest. While Mr. Beard 
 
 THE HOLY FAMILY — ( FRITZ VON UHDE, 1846 — ) 
 
 is fearless in introducing the Christ into his every-day cartoons, 
 he draws the figure with reserve. The cartoon entitled "The 
 Lost Sheep" is one of the few in which he has drawn the face 
 of the Christ, a more frequent attitude being that in "Behold, 
 
 87 
 
53 2 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 I stand at the door and knock," which Air. Beard counts his 
 best cartoon introducing the person of the Saviour. 
 
 Among American artists who are seeking to interpret the 
 Christ in the free life among men, and in the clear light of 
 the wide out-of-doors, is Air. Alfred Juergens. Strong, orig- 
 inal, and free, his paintings are full of life and power. He is 
 
 THE ANGEL AND THE SHEPHERDS — (fRITZ VON UHDE, 1846 ) 
 
 now engaged in painting two very large mural paintings for 
 a church in Chicago. I am able to reproduce his study for the 
 head of Christ as it is to be used in one of these — the bless- 
 ing of the children. 
 
 I have already mentioned the best known painter of the 
 peasant Christ, Fritz von Uhde of Munich. At a glance one 
 
AS ART REVEALS HIM 
 
 533 
 
 sees his method, which is to place the Christ among German 
 peasants of to-day, and to have him seem at home among- them. 
 His "Come, Lord Jesus, and be our Guest," is an invitation 
 offered by a German rustic in heavy wooden shoes, and sec- 
 onded by his sturdy but reverent wife. The old man in the 
 corner — a common old German grandsire — comes forward with 
 bent form to add his humble welcome, and the children, 
 chubby, German children with good appetites, stand behind 
 their chairs till he is seated. The sermon on the mount is 
 
 ONE OF FRITZ VON UHDE S CHERUES 
 
 preached to peasant mothers and their children, and farmers 
 with rakes over their shoulders, fresh from the hay-field. The 
 angel who wakes the German shepherds on Christmas eve is 
 a sixteen-year-old German 'girl with wings. The sermon from 
 the boat is preached to just such girls who forget, while listen- 
 ing to Jesus, to plash their bare feet in the water, and to the 
 fathers and brothers and mothers of these same srirls. The 
 Holy Family is equipped with an inexpensive baby-basket, and 
 Mary is the most lovable little German mother, bending over 
 
 s 9 
 
534 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 the basket, while in the distance the German Joseph saws wood. 
 L'Hermitte has given us but a single well-known painting 
 of the Christ of the peasants, and Zimmermann but two or three. 
 Uhde, on the contrary, has painted many, and is painting 
 more, and the seriousness of his purpose grows more evident, 
 and marks him as the best exponent of this type of modern art. 
 
 STUDY FOR THE HEAD OF CHRIST — (ALFRED JUERGENS, I903) 
 
 Uhde's pictures branded him as a heretic. Artists denounced 
 him for breaking away from their traditions. Theologians 
 stood astounded at his heterodoxy. The emperor made no 
 secret of his displeasure. But still people looked at the 
 pictures. They could be denounced, but not despised. They 
 were unconventional, but unmistakably reverent. They 
 revealed the democratic Christ, independent of ecclesiastics 
 
 90 
 
AS ART REVEALS HIM 
 
 535 
 
 and of traditions, coming close to the every-day life of men. 
 And men saw the Saviour anew in them, and the artist's fame 
 grew. To the emperor's disgust he became professor in the 
 Royal Academy, and both artists and ministers of the gospel 
 see in his work a revelation of the nearness of Christ to men. 
 Some recent painters have become unconscious theologians 
 and politicians in their portrayal of the democratic Christ. 
 These simple peasants in the paintings of Von Uhde — they are 
 no candidates for ordination; neither are they henceforth to 
 
 THE GREAT PHYSICIAN — (GABRIEL MAX, 184O — ) 
 
 be spiritually subject to the orders of others. Others wiser 
 may teach them; others holier may guide them; but the Christ 
 himself is near them, and who shall stand between? 
 
 The difference between Uhde in grouping common people 
 about the person of Jesus, and the painters of the middle ages, 
 is less than might be supposed. These, also, filled up their 
 "holy families" from people about them. But Holbein put 
 German nobility and Raphael painted prosperous Italians into 
 their paintings — people who could afford to buy the paintings 
 
 91 
 
536 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 afterward. While Uhde's models know little of art, they may 
 know something of their Lord. At any rate, the apparent 
 motive of these older artists is hardly possible to the man 
 who seeks the faces of the poor to fill in the background of 
 his paintings of the Christ. However faulty they may be as 
 works of art, they are not open to the suspicion of being 
 
 THE SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD — (f. EUCHER) 
 
 mercenary, and if they strain somewhat after novelty they 
 exhibit a devout spirit which even the most severe critic must 
 recognize. 
 
 The methods of modern painters have unquestionably made 
 Jesus more human, more a man among men; and, in this art 
 reflects the spirit of the age. Yet just here he appears 
 
 92 
 
AS ART REVEALS HIM 
 
 537 
 
 the more transcendent, not by reason of a halo or by arbi- 
 trary position upon the canvas, but by right of his inherent 
 dignity and power. Indeed, we meet a notable discovery, 
 namely, that the Christ ideal will bear transportation out of 
 the conventions of recognized art, and of the environments 
 of actual history, and still retain its power. Next to Von 
 Uhde's paintings should be placed L'Hermitte's "Supper at 
 Emmaus," in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, which shows 
 
 CHRIST WITH PEASANTS— (l'hERMITTE) 
 
 us a peasant Christ, among peasant disciples. The solemnity 
 and reverence of the painting are as unquestionable as its 
 spiritual power. It dignifies not only peasant life in Galilee, 
 but the common life of all humble followers. 
 
 Modern art has shown some even more daring innovations, 
 and they are not wholly without value as interpretations. The 
 paintings of Jean Beraud are an excellent example and an 
 extreme one as well. Making his earlier paintings of modern 
 life from the window of a cab in the streets of Paris, or from 
 
 93 
 
538 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 a house boat on the Seine, he has introduced the identical 
 types, costumes and all, into his scenes from the life of Christ. 
 Mary Magdalene lies at his feet in her Parisian ball dress in 
 a well-appointed Paris dining-room, while Simon the Pharisee 
 stands by, well dressed, but not over dressed, well bred as the 
 world counts breeding, a well-fed, prosperous Parisian gentle- 
 man with moustache turning gray, courteous but cynical, and 
 his guests sit forward in their chairs with languid curiosity, or 
 
 JESUS AMONG PHARISEES — (jEAN BERAUD) 
 
 mild suprise, or stand and look at her with supercilious pity or 
 easy-going scorn, or in the background pass joking remarks 
 about the intruder and her near approach to Jesus. Prominent 
 living men of Paris sat — unconsciously and unwillingly — for 
 their portraits in this painting, which transports the life of 
 Jesus into present-day society, where he finds well-bred cyni- 
 cism and lack of sympathy. As of old the proud have 
 rejected him, while still, as then, poor, penitent souls are for- 
 given and blessed. And the Master sits in the midst of those 
 
 94 
 
AS ART REVEALS HIM 
 
 539 
 
 representatives of cultured but godless society, a rebuke to 
 the hypocrisy and veneered goodness of modern respectability. 
 This picture is now interdicted in Paris because of its person- 
 ality. My friend obtained a copy with considerable difficulty. 
 In another painting by the same artist, the Master is on the 
 way to Calvary. Modern faces view his passion with emotions 
 varying from heart-felt grief to undisturbed composure; your 
 
 CHRIST BEARING THE CROSS — ( JEAN BERAUD) 
 
 man of the world is there, not much disturbed if this has no 
 effect on trade; your well dressed blasphemer raises his well 
 trained voice; and yonder a misguided workman, hating the 
 good with the sham that he has seen and suffered, stoops for 
 a stone to fling at him. In still another picture the Crucified 
 is taken from the cross, and there is modern grief and modern 
 pity and modern loyalty that will be faithful unto death; but 
 
 95 
 
540 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH' 
 
 it is the background that is notable in this picture; for the 
 cross stands not on Calvary, but on Montmartre, and yonder 
 is the city, not Jerusalem, but Paris, sleeping, smoking, sin- 
 ning Paris, all unconscious of the cloud that gathers above 
 the cross in sight, all heedless of the tragedies enacted within 
 her over which the heavens grow dark, and oblivious in her 
 pleasure-seeking of the low-browed anarchist standing on the 
 
 Copyrtg-ht by Braun Clement etrfe. 
 
 THE DESCENT FROM THE CROSS — (jEAN BERAUD ) 
 
 slope and pouring out the curses of the oppressed and tyran- 
 nized against the city where Christ is crucified in the wrongs 
 his brethren suffer. All this is anachronism of the most daring 
 kind, and if at first thought it seems irreverent, it certainly is 
 not so intended, and there is a sermon in it. 
 
 The French pictures commonly lack the depth and tender- 
 ness of the best of the German; but there is often a keen dis- 
 
 96 
 
AS ART REVEALS HIM 
 
 541 
 
 cernment and a trenchant satire that is most effective. One 
 of these by Debat-Possan takes a powerful hold on the imag- 
 ination. It represents the horrors of modern war, the slaughter 
 of men, the massacre of women, the wanton destruction of 
 homes, and it draws both victims and victors from portraits 
 
 
 
 i ; %^«M ' 
 
 
 
 
 Copyright, 1901, by Braun Clement et cie. 
 THE SCOURGING OF JESUS — (JEAN EERAUD) 
 
 of historic characters. There stand Francis I, Conde, "le 
 grande" Louis XIV, Coligny, and other heroes of the bloody 
 field, regarding their devilish work with complacency, while 
 above them, on a little elevation, appears the Christ, saying, 
 "Why have ye done this?" It is a picture as full of pathos as 
 of satire, and is an effective sermon in favor of peace. 
 
 97 
 
Copyright by Braun Clement etcie. 
 
 "if it be possible, let this cup pass from me" — (joseph-aubert) 
 
AS ART REVEALS HIM 
 
 543 
 
 Among the most sympathetic and spiritual of contemporary 
 European artists is Joseph-Aubert, five of whose recent pic- 
 tures are included in this volume. They are as tender in their 
 religious feelings as they are faithful in technique, and, like 
 Hebert's "Betrayal," they appeal at once to the heart of the 
 beholder. 
 
 Among young English painters, none better deserves men- 
 tion than Frederic Shields. His "Good Shepherd" is gentle 
 
 WHY HAVE YE PONE THIS: 
 
 -f debat-ponsan) 
 
 and sincere; and his "Christ and Peter" is full of religious 
 feeling. It is said that one poor, sinful man, looking at this 
 picture, and feeling himself sinking in his shameful life, sobbed, 
 "He can save me, too," and echoed Peter's prayer, and heard 
 in his renewed soul the answer. 
 
 It would be pleasant to say a word of each of the newer 
 paintings which are here presented, but they tell their own 
 story. Whether we view the Christ in Ruederstein's "Suffer 
 
 99 
 
544 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 little children," or in the faithful painting's of Kirchbach, or 
 in Anderson's three scenes of the Lord and the Adulteress, 
 or in Hugo Mieth's "The Widow's Mite," the Christ whom 
 we behold is one to love and honor and follow. In Girardet's 
 "On the Way to Emmaus," just from the easel, the face of 
 
 "BEHOLD, I STAND AT THE DOOR AND KNOCK! — (FRANK BEARD, I902) 
 
 the Saviour is dim, and our eyes are holden, but our hearts 
 burn within us as we walk with him by the way. In Wehle's 
 "Behold, I send you forth," we walk with him again, this time 
 through the fields. It is not that we may pluck the ripening- 
 grain, and rub it in our hands. It is the harvest of the world, 
 and the master is calling his disciples to him, one by one, giv- 
 
AS ART REVEALS HIM 
 
 545 
 
 ing eacli his mission, and telling each to be faithful to the 
 end. We need not ask whether such pictures are to live; it 
 is enough that they now live, and that they faithfully interpret 
 the Christ to men. 
 
 VIII— THE CHRIST OF TO-MORROW 
 
 I have noted the double tendency to realism, and have com- 
 mended it. It would be pleasant to say that modern religious 
 
 THE LAST COMMUNION — ( TOSEPH-AUBERT, IQOO) 
 
 art has also a tendency to idealism; but if this is true I do not 
 know where to look for it. Our artists are painting land- 
 scapes or portraits, or illustrating for the magazines. For 
 these are the things that buy bread and butter, of which artists 
 get, on an average, all too little. But the time is ripe for 
 another movement such as the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood 
 started to give to the world, till it lost its impetus in affectation 
 and conspicuous lack of that very simplicity which was its 
 original end and aim. If the American painters of to-day can 
 forget for a time their necessary pot-boilers, and paint for us 
 
 IOI 
 
THE BETRAYAL — (HEBERT) 
 
 102 
 
AS ART REVEALS HIM 547 
 
 new and strong pictures of the ideal Christ, they will not lack 
 an audience, and I believe they will also find purchasers. 
 
 There still is room for the artist who would paint the Christ. 
 Among all the thousands of paintings of him, the seeker feels 
 a singular lack. There is lack, certainly, of proportion. There 
 are Nativities enough, and Crucifixions more than enough; and 
 it is hard to say what incident in the life of Christ may not be 
 illustrated with a great painting. Yet there is a real lack of 
 pictures that illustrate the mature life and ministry of Jesus in 
 
 Copyright, 18991 by Eraun Clement et cie. 
 THE MISSION OF THE APOSTLES — ( J0SEPH-AUT1EKT, 1899) 
 
 a way that appeals to the imagination of to-day. The world is 
 ready for more great paintings, and even for paintings not 
 technically great, if sympathetic, strong, and religious in feel- 
 ing-, which show the Christ who lived anions; men, teaching 
 healing, helping, inspiring, and creating in them new hopes, 
 aspirations and ideals. 
 
 We have been noting some differences between ancient and 
 modern art. These concern themselves chiefly with the 
 aspects in which Christ is presented and the scenes in which 
 he is made to appear. It is most surprising that the paintings 
 
 103 
 
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 JESUS BEARING THE CROSS — (w. A. BOUGUEREAU) 
 
 104 
 
AS ART REVEALS HIM 
 
 549 
 
 of different countries and ages exhibit so much that is common 
 in their likeness of Christ. Spite of all their wide variety, there 
 (s enough common to them all so that one is never in doubt 
 for a moment as to the person intended to represent the Christ. 
 And, however inadequately he is painted, it is seldom that the 
 artist has not attempted his best. The Christ of art is never 
 adequate; but he seldom lacks attractiveness or some element 
 of grace. 
 
 Copyright, 1903, by Braun Clement et cie. 
 THE CRUCIFIXION — ( JOSEPH-AUBERT, ICJO3) 
 
 In all great paintings that portray him, the Christ is the 
 principal, though not always the central figure. Even in the 
 crowded canvases of Paul Veronese, there is no mistaking the 
 chief character. Nor has modern art been at all disposed to 
 assign him any less conspicuous position. The light that 
 emanates from the Babe in Correggio's "Holy Night," and 
 irradiates the face of the mother and the interior of the stable, 
 is the same that in Merson's "Repose of Egypt" emanates 
 
 105 
 
55° 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETK 
 
 from the sleeping infant, and that in Holman Hunt's ''Light 
 of the World" streams from the person of the Saviour of men. 
 Even in the most daring of modern paintings the Christ is 
 almost if not wholly unchanged. Very seldom does an artist 
 put him into modern garb, or make him other than men have 
 supposed him. Men change, and their costumes change, but 
 the unchanging Christ stands among them, is loved or scorned, 
 accepted or rejected, honored or crucified by men and women 
 
 THE RETURN FROM CALVARY- 
 
 Copyright, 1903, by Braun Clement et cie. 
 -( JOSEPH- AUBERT) 
 
 of to-day. Even so radical and modern a painter as Beraud has 
 not had courage, if indeed he so desired, to create a new ideal 
 of the Christ; so far as his brush bears testimony, it is to the 
 unchanging Christ, the same yesterday, to-day and forever. 
 
 With such an ideal fixed in the mind of artists and of the 
 people, the Christ of art cannot well become degraded, nor 
 cease to display spirituality and sympathy, whatever the figure 
 may lack in strength and in the technique of art itself. We 
 
 106 
 
AS ART REVEALS HIM 
 
 551 
 
 have in art and in literature what we may assume is a tolerably 
 fixed ideal. 
 
 Modern painters have not lowered this conception of him. 
 The works of Hofmann and Plockhorst, of Munkacsy and 
 Gabriel Max, whatever may be said of their enduring quality, 
 do not fail in setting forth a gracious, dignified and adorable 
 character. Whatever their failings, we may well be devoutly 
 thankful for the sweet tenderness of Plockhorst's "Good Shep- 
 herd/' and the pathos and benevolence of Gabriel Max's 
 
 Copyright, 1903, Braun Clement etcie. 
 ON THE WAY TO EMMAUS — (dRARDET, IOO3) 
 
 "Great Physician." It is in such themes as these that modern 
 art has done its best. Of Gethsemanes and of Crucifixions 
 there have been no lack in mediaeval art, but if the temper of 
 the present age may be estimated by the modern paintings that 
 may be called truly popular, it is distinctly humanitarian, for 
 we shall find those paintings to be in larger proportion than 
 those that exhibit him in his teaching, feeding, shepherding 
 healing and helping, rather than in those that appeal more to 
 the love of the mystical, or to the contemplation of his phys- 
 ical sufferings. It cannot be denied that in all this, art has 
 
 107 
 
HEAD OF CHRIST— ( WOLTER-SIGORa) 
 
 1 08 
 
AS ART REVEALS HIM 
 
 553 
 
 been in close accord with the progress of modern theology. 
 
 In all this, modern art has exhibited no lack of fidelity to 
 the truth as it is in Christ, and there is a distinct return toward 
 the dominant conception of the early Church. In answer to 
 the question what pictures of Christ are most called for, the 
 manager of a house that deals in one-cent half-tone reproduc- 
 tions answered, that, as a series, those of Hofmann are most 
 in demand, with "The Boy Christ in the Temple" the most 
 
 Copyright, i8q~,, by Braun Clement, ot l 
 CHRIST AND THE ADULTERESS — (A. A. ANDERSON.) 
 
 popular; and that among- pictures of the adult Christ the one 
 sold in largest numbers is Plockhorst's "Good Shepherd." 
 This is a notable change since the day when Guido Reni sent 
 forth his sorrowful and thorn-crowned "Ecce Homos" by the 
 score. It reminds us at once of Stanley's declaration that the 
 religion of the early Church "was in one word, the religion of 
 the Good Shepherd. The kindness, the courage, the beauty, 
 the grace, of the Good Shepherd, was to them, if we may say 
 so, prayer book and articles, creed and canons, all in one. 
 
 109 
 
554 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 They looked on that figure, and it conveyed to them all they 
 wanted." 
 
 What wonder that the face of the Christ should be the per- 
 petual challenge and the despair of artists? What wonder that 
 they should have failed to express all the glory of him in whom 
 men saw the life of the Father? It could not be otherwise. If 
 the artist's best work gives expression to one phase of the 
 
 THE WIDOW'S MITE — (HUGO MIETH, 1S99) 
 
 beauty of his life, but ever suggests the lack of something 
 which no human brush can paint, it is but what we might 
 expect. We should need to add together all the elements of 
 dignity and beauty and sweetness and strength of all the artists, 
 and still we should lack a complete picture of him. The face 
 and character of the Christ stand as a perpetual exhortation. 
 The likeness of Christ ennobles our daily tasks and exalts our 
 ideal of the good and true and beautiful in human life. 
 
AS ART REVEALS HIM 
 
 555 
 
 We set out to explore briefly the world of art in an effort 
 to answer the question, Who is the Christ whom the artists 
 have found in popular thought and given back again in their 
 paintings? Hastily we have looked at representative paintings 
 of the past and the present, of our own nation and of other 
 nations. We have not been satisfied; we are still seeking the 
 
 "suffer little children to come to me" — (ruederstein, 1893) 
 
 face which we have almost discovered. But we have found a 
 surprising consistency, a high ideal, and a face and figure 
 which, however disappointing, are never vulgar or uncouth, 
 never base or suggestive of evil, but always reverent, sincere 
 and noble. 
 
 I had finished the manuscript of this book and laid it away 
 to be sent to the printer on the following Monday. When I 
 
556 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 went to preach on the intervening Sunday, in another pulpit 
 than my own, I found in the study of the church which I visited 
 a copy of Hofmann's Christ, and it impressed me anew with its 
 lifelikeness and its lovableness. I could not help asking myself, 
 How should I feel toward such a man if I were to meet him 
 face to face? 5 What qualities might I expect to find in the soul 
 behind such a face? 
 
 If we should meet in real life the Man whom the painters have 
 seen and shown to us, with form erect and imperial, but manner 
 
 "EEHOLD, I SEND YOU FORTH !" — (j. K. WEIILE, IQOO) 
 
 and bearing gracious and kindly, with face compassionate, 
 sensitive, pure and sympathetic, with eyes tender, penetrating 
 and affectionate, we should instantly be attracted to him. We 
 would welcome acquaintance with him. We would give him 
 our confidence. We should be sure that we could trust him. 
 We could not think of doubting his sincerity, his purity of 
 soul, or the earnestness of his life. And if we were to know 
 him in such various relations as the painters show him, in 
 scenes of festivity and of mourning, among the multitude and 
 alone, among close companions and in the hands of his 
 
 112 
 
AS ART REVEALS HIM 
 
 OD/ 
 
 enemies, and always found him, as the painters show him, calm, 
 gentle, and full of all human grace and loveliness, we could not 
 
 THE GOOD SHEPHERD — (PLOCKHORST, 1825 — ) 
 
 help but love him. How thankful, then, ought we to be, for 
 pictures that so impress him, in every age from infancy to the 
 grave, upon the imagination of little children and of men and 
 
 "3 
 
558 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 women. To these the Christ of art is a veritable, even though 
 a partial, revelation, of God's love and grace disclosed in the 
 life of Jesus of Nazareth. 
 
 Nor can we count the paintings as failures that fall below our 
 ideal. They enlarge and exalt the imagination even when they 
 impose limits upon it. Happily we still have the second com- 
 mandment, and are forbidden to count any work of art a 
 finality. We are at liberty to love the paintings that help us 
 and to outgrow them when they fetter us, and ever to seek 
 for that which exalts our conception of Jesus. The ear is not 
 the only avenue to the soul; the eye, too, has its revelation. 
 The good spirit of God, by whom the Word of life was revealed, 
 still accompanies the preaching of that Word; and the same 
 Spirit that gives wisdom to him who preaches gives grace to 
 him who paints in an honest endeavor to make real the Christ 
 to men. Increasingly may men labor to disclose and to dis- 
 cern "the light of the knowledge of the glory of God, in the 
 face of Jesus Christ." 
 
 114 
 

 i'ii 
 
 ^m