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The Primitive Gospel and 
 
 its "Life of Jesus" 
 
 An Essay read before the 
 Ministers' Institute, October, 1890 
 
The Primitive Gospel 
 
 AND ITS "LIFE OF JESUS" 
 
 Read before the Ministers' Institute, October, 1890 
 
 BY 
 
 S. R. CALTHROP 
 
 BOSTON <^^ 
 
 Geo. H. Ellis, i4i Franklin Strf.e-? 
 1892 v 
 
COPYRIGHT 
 
 By S. R, Calthrop 
 
THE PRIMITIVE GOSPEL 
 
 New Testament Criticism has been haunted with 
 the ghost of a Primitive Gospel, the original source 
 whence the later Gospels derived their most authentic 
 materials. It has been wholly lost. Not a quotation 
 from it can be found in a single ancient Father. Not 
 a page of its precious manuscript has been discovered. 
 " What would we give, " earnest students have thought, 
 "to have it before us now! What would we give if 
 we could even recover some notion of its language, its 
 incidents, or the order of its narrative! " Hundreds 
 of volumes of learned commentary have been written 
 in many tongues, and still the question has not been 
 settled.' "Will it ever be?" you say. I think that 
 you and I can settle it now, if we apply to it the true 
 weapon of exact inquiry, the only one that has never 
 been used in this matter, — the weapon of mathe- 
 matics. 
 
 There is a mathematic side to everything. There 
 is a mathematic side not only to space and time, to 
 stars and earths, to light and heat, to electricity and 
 sound, to matter and force, but to growth in plant and 
 animal, to beat of heart and thrill of brain. There 
 is a mathematic side to all the feelings, hopes, and 
 
aspirations of Man, to the thoughts he thinks, and the 
 words he uses to express those thoughts. There is a 
 mathematic side even to this: "Suffer little children 
 to come to me, and forbid them not ; for of such is the 
 kingdom of God. And he took them up in his arms, 
 and laid his hands upon them and blessed them." 
 
 There is, then, a mathematic side to the question 
 of the Primitive Gospel. 
 
 I. Let us see if the mathematics will do anything 
 for us in our attempt to discover, first, the order of 
 incidents in the Primitive Gospel. Not long ago, in 
 my preparation for the important event of taking a 
 large adult class through the New Testament, I took 
 a Revised New Testament and numbered all the para- 
 graphs in Mark, omitting two, as, however interest- 
 ing, too small for paragraphs. (The first is touching. 
 Mark vi. 6: "And he went round about the villages, 
 teaching." Mark xi. 19: "And every evening he 
 went forth out of the city.") Including the first 
 short paragraph, I found that there were exactly 
 ninety-seven. I then proceeded to number back- 
 wards the corresponding passages in Matthew. To 
 my astonishment, I found that from 97 to 34 the 
 order was exactly the same! Four paragraphs were 
 omitted, and two (the barren fig-tree) were united into 
 one; but 59 out of 64 paragraphs of Mark were found 
 exactly in the same order in Matthew. Narratives, 
 parables, discourses, sometimes whole chapters, were 
 inserted between; but always 96 would come be- 
 tween 95 and 97, 54 between 53 and 55, and so on. 
 Now, if these 64 paragraphs could be represented by 
 
numbered balls in a bag, the chance against drawing 
 59 of those balls in their correct order would be fairly 
 represented by the continual product of the numbers 
 6X7X8X9- • • 57 X 58 X 59 to I. That is, 
 the chances would be almost infinite against it. Now, 
 in a biography there are certain necessary sequences 
 to be deducted. Birth comes first, death last. Trial 
 must come before crucifixion. But, after all this has 
 been allowed for, the Calculus of Probabilities makes 
 it practically certain that there is a physical connec- 
 tion between the order of Mark and the order of 
 Matthew. On numbering the corresponding para- 
 graphs in Luke, the same phenomena appeared in a 
 degree only less perfect than that of Matthew. It is 
 practically certain, then, that here, too, is a physical 
 connection. 
 
 Now, that physical connection may be, first, that 
 all three Gospels copied the order of incidents of the 
 supposed Lost Primitive Gospel ; but it may also be 
 that any two adopted the order of the third. Luke 
 and Mark may have copied Matthew's order; Matthew 
 and Mark, Luke's; or, lastly, Matthew and Luke may 
 have copied Mark's. What has the Calculus of Prob- 
 abilities to say to this? 
 
 Passing over minor differences, there are exactly 
 seven places where Matthew distinctly quits Mark's 
 order: there are also exactly seven places where Luke 
 distinctly quits that order. But — and this is the 
 astonishing fact — in every case where Matthew quits 
 Mark's order Luke keeps it, and in every case where 
 Luke quits Mark's order Matthew keeps it. That 
 
is, there are always two witnesses to one in favor of 
 Mark's being the original order. But this occurs 
 fourteen times in all. 
 
 * Matthew distinctly quits Mark's order seven times; 
 in paragraphs ii, i8, 23, group 27-28, group 29-30- 
 31, 33, and 74 (in part), which are: i. The Leper. 
 2. Call of the Twelve. 3. The Lamp under the 
 Bushel. 4. The Madman and the Gadarenes. 5. Jai- 
 rus's Daughter. 6. The First Mission of the Twelve. 
 7. The Final Warning to them of Death and the Hate 
 of All Men. (In Matthew's manner, he puts the 
 call, the mission, and the final warning together.) 
 
 Luke distinctly quits Mark's order in paragraphs 6, 
 19, 20, 25, 32, 57, 79, or in (i) Simon's call, 
 (2) Beelzebub, (3) mother and brethren, (4) the 
 mustard-seed, (5) Nazareth, (6) the greatest is the 
 servant of all, and (7) the anointing in Simon's 
 house. 
 
 We have, therefore, here a very simple problem 
 in the Calculus of Probabilities. There are three 
 marked balls in a bag. What is the chance of draw- 
 ing ball No. I fourteen times running, if you are 
 allowed to draw two balls out of the three each time? 
 
 If you draw only once, the chance in your favor is 
 two-thirds of certainty. There are only three balls to 
 draw, and therefore it is 2 to i in favor of your draw- 
 ing the given ball. 
 
 *The passages in Mark are for Matthew: i, Mark i. 40; 2, iii. 14; 3, iv. 21; 
 4» iv. 35 ; 5, V. 21 ; 6, vi. 7 ; 7, xiii. 9. For Luke : i, Mark i. 16 ; 2, iii. 20 ; 3, iii. 31 ; 
 4. iv. 30 ; 5, vi. I ; 6, X, 35 ; 7, xiv. 3. To students I strongly recommend taking the 
 revised edition of the English Bibles numbering first Mark, and then from that Matthew 
 and Luke. 
 
If you draw twice, the chance of drawing ball i 
 twice running is f X I? or f. There are now 9 
 chances, only 4 of which are in your favor. There- 
 fore, it is S to 4 against your doing it. If you draw 
 three times, the chance is f X f X I5 or 3^. There 
 are now 27 chances, only 8 of which are in your favor. 
 It is, therefore, 19 to 8 against your drawing the given 
 ball three times running. 
 
 The chance of drawing the given ball fourteen 
 times running is (§)'■», or ?:,V%|,%%^, or ji^ nearly. 
 That is to say, it is 292 to i against your doing it. 
 
 Applying this to our Gospels, it means that this 
 consideration alone makes it 292 to i in favor of 
 Mark's having the primitive original order, and that 
 the others copied that order from Mark. This is of 
 such prime importance that we must investigate it a 
 little. I. Luke puts paragraph 32, the preaching at 
 Nazareth, as the very first detailed event after the 
 temptation; but in it he takes for granted a whole 
 series of wonders done at Capernaum, and elsewhere. 
 It is plain, then, that here not only does Luke differ 
 from Mark, but that Luke's order is wrong and Mark's 
 order right. 2. Luke puts 6 (the call of Peter) be- 
 tween 10 and II. The consequence is that, as he 
 puts 8 (the healing of Simon's mother-in-law) in its 
 right place after 7 (the preaching in the synagogue 
 at Capernaum), we are suddenly introduced to "the 
 house of Simon," without knowing in the least who 
 "Simon" is. Once more, Luke's order is wrong, 
 and Mark's right, iii. 20 ("His mother and breth- 
 ren could not reach him for the press ") is put as an 
 
isolated incident, so that Jesus' rebuke to his mother 
 seems uncalled for. In Mark it is put in due se- 
 quence. As the excitement about Jesus keeps on 
 increasing, his kinsmen begin to be alarmed for 
 themselves as well as for him, and try to seize and 
 confine him. Meantime the Pharisees say that he 
 has "a devil." While he is arguing with them in 
 the midst of the crowd, his mother and brothers, 
 alarmed for themselves and for him, try to get him 
 away. Here is a plain instance of direct interference 
 with what, to Jesus, was a plain and paramount duty. 
 The rebuke he gives, then, is deserved. Once more, 
 Mark is right, and Luke wrong. Luke also puts 19, 
 which is a part of this series, as an isolated incident, 
 far away from its context. 
 
 Once more, 57, the strife which should be the 
 greatest, is put by Luke just before 84. He places 
 the strife of the disciples as to superiority just after 
 the touching and tender appeal of the Last Supper, 
 and immediately following the word of Jesus saying 
 that "the hand of him that betrays me is on the 
 table." Surely, a more unlikely moment for such a 
 dispute could not be found. Mark, on the other hand, 
 puts it just on the way to Jerusalem, where the ardent 
 disciples were expecting a magnificent reception and 
 glad recognition of Jesus as Messiah in Jerusalem. 
 Once more, then, Mark's order is right, and Luke's is 
 wrong. When Luke quits Mark's order, he quits 
 touch of the facts. 
 
 Now, compared with Mark, Luke is a polished and 
 a practised writer. Mark, indeed, may be truly styled 
 
"the peasant Gospel." Its grammar is often bad, its 
 sentences uncouth or needlessly redundant, and some 
 of its words are distinctly vulgar. Why, then, is 
 Mark's order so much better than that of Luke? 
 Simply because Mark's is the order of the Primitive 
 Gospel, and that Gospel was close to the facts. 
 Things really happened in that way, and the most 
 practised writer will become confused when he alters 
 the order of the facts. But what a witness this is to 
 the veracity and dependableness of Mark ! This sim- 
 ple peasant witness cannot be browbeaten by the 
 most learned cross-examination, simply because he 
 sticks to the facts. 
 
 One instance of Matthew's quitting Mark's order 
 must suffice. Matthew puts the bulk of 74 — Mark 
 xiii. 9-13 (part of the eschatological discourse) — in 
 the speech of Jesus to the twelve when they go out on 
 their first little mission of preaching. They preach 
 their first sermons in the little villages around, and 
 come back glad in their first success, to tell Jesus all 
 about it. Imagine Jesus really preparing them for 
 their little village experience by telling them, as Mat- 
 thew makes it : " Ye shall be brought before kings and 
 rulers, for my sake. Brother shall betray brother to 
 death, and the father the son; and children shall rise 
 up against their parents, and cause them to be put to 
 death. And ye shall be hated of all men for my 
 sake! " Appropriate as this is to a last solemn fare- 
 well, it becomes absurdly inappropriate where Mat- 
 thew places it. Remember, too, that Matthew puts 
 the rest of 74 in place. To sum up, in all these 
 
lO 
 
 fourteen deviations from Mark's order, nearly all 
 result either in inconsequence or confusion, and not 
 one is, in any sense, an improvement. The simple 
 reason is that Mark is close to the facts, while Mat- 
 thew and Luke are not. 
 
 II. The order, then, of the incidents of the Primi- 
 tive Gospel is preserved in Mark. We now proceed to 
 apply the mathematical test to the language. 
 
 The test must be applied incident by incident. 
 The exact data for using the Calculus of Probabilities 
 in the case of the use of common language to describe 
 the same event would be difficult to gather, but the 
 general method is quite simple. A large number of 
 passages in various authors who describe the same 
 series of events quite independently must be care- 
 fully compared; and the average chance of using a 
 given percentage of identical words in a given cor- 
 responding sentence must be ascertained. 
 
 In the passages of the Gospels compared, the num- 
 ber of words common to Matthew and Luke alone 
 would probably be above the average, as we know 
 there is a physical connection in many other pas- 
 sages between them. We should, probably, scarcely 
 ever be below the average with this standard. Tak- 
 ing this, the next step will be to ascertain the 
 amount of increase of probability which each new 
 exact coincidence gives. That that increase is very 
 rapid indeed, can be seen at once by a few examples : 
 "O Lord, our God, arise," may very likely be a quo- 
 tation from " God save the Queen, " but it may not ; 
 but if seven words — "scatter her enemies, and make 
 
II 
 
 them fall" — are added, then we become perfectly 
 sure it is, and a proper use ot the Calculus of Proba- 
 bilities would probably make the chances against it to 
 be only one in many millions. 
 
 "Oh, say, do you see," may very likely be a quota- 
 tion from the "Star-spangled Banner," but it may 
 not. But if the words, "in the dawn's early light," 
 are added, we are sure it is; and the additional five 
 words bring up the chance from a very fair probability 
 to millions to one. 
 
 It is evident by these examples that the chances 
 increase by a heavy geometrical ratio. It is also 
 plain that very striking or peculiar words or phrases 
 increase the probability immensely; while such words 
 as "he said," "but," "and," etc., have much less 
 force. For instance, when in the story of the woman 
 with the alabaster box the Fourth Gospel uses the 
 word "pistic" nard,— a word only found in all litera- 
 ture in this and the corresponding place in Mark, — 
 we feel fairly sure that the author of the Fourth Gos- 
 pel had the second in his hands; and, when he says, 
 "She wiped his feet with the hair of her head," we 
 consider that he also used Luke, where the same 
 words occur. 
 
 With these considerations in mind, we will now 
 proceed to investigate paragraph by paragraph the 
 words used by the three Gospels in narrating their 
 incidents. I will give statistics of the exact number 
 of complete words common to all three or common to 
 any two. 
 
 Let it be understood that, when I say complete 
 
12 
 
 words used in common, I mean used in the same 
 clause, in the same signification. Also, for the sake 
 of simplicity of verification, I omit all calculation of 
 parts of words, however important they may be. The 
 general resemblance, of course, is still greater than 
 the figures given. The result, however, is suffi- 
 ciently conclusive, even if all parts of words are 
 omitted entirely.* 
 
 The commencement of the ministry of Jesus is the 
 calling of Peter and Andrew, James and John. As 
 before stated, Luke gives this out of order, and he 
 alters it greatly. It is, therefore, unfit for a triple 
 comparison. I will merely say that Mark i. 16-19 
 has just 67 words in it. Of these Matthew uses 57. 
 The first miracle is of the madman in the synagogue 
 at Capernaum (Mark i. 23-27). Matthew omits this, 
 but Luke (ii. 33-36) uses to describe it just 82 words, 
 56 of which are Mark's. I pass on to Mark i. 29- 
 34, the healing of Peter's wife's mother, etc. Here 
 we find 1 1 complete words common to all three, 
 showing a common origin. But, besides these, 12 
 complete words are common to Mark and Matthew 
 alone, and 20 other complete words are common to 
 Mark and Luke alone, showing a second physical con- 
 nection between Mark and Matthew, and a similar 
 connection between Mark and Luke: whereas Mat- 
 thew and Luke have one complete word alone in 
 common, differing by a single letter from the corre- 
 
 * For purposes of verification, students will find Rushbrooke's " Synopticon ** will 
 save them a great deal of labor. The kindness of a friend abridged greatly the latter part 
 of my labor by the gift of this noble book. 
 
13 
 
 spending word in Mark, — "hers" instead of "her," 
 — avTTji instead of airrjv. Here, then, it is certain 
 that neither Matthew copied Luke nor Luke Matthew; 
 but it is practically certain that, if they both copied 
 the Primitive Gospel, that Gospel in this case is 
 Mark, as they both follow the order of incidents and 
 the language of Mark. 
 
 The Calculus of Probabilities is perfectly compe- 
 tent to deal with this question. If, for instance, 
 the average is struck here by Matthew and Luke, — 
 namely, one word exclusively in common, — then the 
 chance that Luke copied Mark in this passage is 
 many tens of thousands to one; and that Matthew 
 copied him is many thousands. Next take para- 
 graph 14, Mark ii. 18-22, the fasting Pharisees, 
 the children of the bridegroom, the new wine in 
 new bottles, etc. There are 49 complete words 
 common to all three; but Matthew has also 26 other 
 complete words common to him and Mark alone, and 
 Luke has 22 common to him and Mark alone, while 
 Matthew and Luke have 2 words in common. Here, 
 again, the chances are immense, many ten thousands 
 to one, that the paragraph of the Primitive Gospel 
 which Matthew and Luke copied was the paragraph of 
 Mark. The argument is very simple, as well as per- 
 fectly conclusive. If all three copied a Primitive 
 Gospel, then it would be perfectly natural that Mat- 
 thew and Luke, using their own words for the re- 
 maining part of the narrative, should have few or no 
 words in common besides (in this case 2); but it is 
 quite impossible, as we say in common speech, — as 
 
H 
 
 the Calculus of Probabilities says, immensely improb- 
 able, — that in that case Matthew should accidentally 
 have 26 complete words in one short passage of 5 
 verses absolutely identical with Mark as well as with 
 the Primitive Gospel, and that Luke should have 22 
 other words. In other words, the Primitive Gospel 
 in this passage must be Mark. 
 
 Next take paragraph 15, Mark ii. 23-28, the disci- 
 ples gathering the ears of corn. Here are 40 com- 
 plete words common to all three, while Mark has 1 1 
 other complete words common to him and Matthew 
 alone, and 24 common to him and Luke alone. Mat- 
 thew and Luke have 5 words, 4 of which are "and," 
 "but," "he said," "they said." Here it is thou- 
 sands to one that Matthew copied the whole paragraph 
 from Mark, many ten thousands to one that Luke did, 
 while there is a slight chance in favor of either Mat- 
 thew or Luke having the other also before him. 
 
 Next take paragraph 16, Mark iii. 1-6, the man 
 with the withered hand. Here there are 1 5 complete 
 words common to all three, 24 common to Mark and 
 Matthew alone, and 25 common to Mark and Luke 
 alone; while there are 3 words common to Matthew 
 and Luke alone, the article "the," "but," and "he 
 said." Here the probability that the paragraph of the 
 Primitive Gospel that both Matthew and Luke copied 
 was the paragraph which we actually have intact in 
 Mark certainly mounts up to millions to one. Here, 
 again, if all three copied a Lost Primitive Gospel, 
 it would be perfectly natural that Matthew, Mark, 
 and Luke should have 15 complete words in com- 
 
15 
 
 mon, and it is also perfectly natural that Matthew 
 and Luke, when left to their own diction, should 
 happen to use only 3 other insignificant words in 
 common ("the," "but," and "he said"); but it is 
 out of the question, as we say, — immensely improb- 
 able, as the • Calculus of Probabilities says, — -that 
 Matthew should use in 6 verses 24 other complete 
 words exactly the same, and in the same position, 
 as those used in Mark, and that Luke should use 25 
 other complete words, and those entirely different ones. 
 The improbability is millions to one! 
 
 Take again paragraph 28, Mark v. 1-20, the de- 
 moniac and the swine. Matthew is much shorter than 
 the other two, and has two demoniacs instead of one. 
 So, while 47 complete words are common to all three, 
 Matthew has but 14 common to him and Mark alone, 
 while Luke has 84 common to him and Mark alone : 
 Matthew and Luke have 2, "and," "and." 
 
 Next take paragraphs 29-31, the raising of Jairus's 
 daughter and the woman with the issue of blood. 
 There are 34 complete words common to all three. 
 Matthew is much abbreviated again, and has only 19 
 complete words common to him and Mark alone, while 
 Luke has 83. Matthew and Luke have 9, among 
 which is the important one Kpa(TireSov, here making 
 it quite possible that either Luke, while using Mark 
 as the ancient authority, was aware of Matthew or 
 Matthew of Luke. 
 
 Next take paragraph 53, Mark x. 13-16, "Suffer 
 little children," etc. I said before that this has its 
 mathematic side. We have no calculus to enumerate 
 
i6 
 
 the millions of souls that this paragraph has blessed, 
 but we can calculate the original source. " And they 
 brought young children to him, that he might touch 
 them; but the disciples rebuked them. But Jesus, 
 when he saw it, was much displeased, and said to 
 them. Let the children come to me, do not forbid 
 them; for of such is the kingdom of God. I tell 
 you that whoever will not receive the kingdom of 
 God like a little child shall not enter into it. And 
 he took them up in his arms, and laid his hands upon 
 them and blessed them." 
 
 That is the Primitive Gospel. Matthew and Luke 
 alike overlook the tender and beautiful touch in the 
 last verse. Jesus was the sort of person that, when 
 he saw little children near him, he could not help 
 taking them up in his arms. Here there are 23 com- 
 plete words common to all three, 6 common to Mat- 
 thew and Mark alone, 23 common to Luke and Mark 
 alone, and i (koi, " and " !) common to Matthew and 
 Luke alone. 
 
 Once more, Mark's language is that of the Primi- 
 tive Gospel, and Matthew and Luke copy Mark. The 
 chances that Luke uses Mark here probably rise into 
 millions to one, as from "Suffer little children" to 
 the end there are 36 consecutive words exactly alike, 
 and exactly in the same position. Matthew omits one 
 verse which he inserts elsewhci-e. Luke omits the 
 last verse. 
 
 Paragraph 54, Mark x. 17-22, the rich young man, 
 has 43 complete words in common. Matthew and 
 Mark have 11 others, Mark and Luke 29 others. 
 
17 
 
 while Matthew and Luke have 3. Once more, Mark's 
 is the primitive paragraph which the others copy. 
 
 Paragraph 58, Mark x. 46-52, the blind man at 
 Jericho, has 19 complete words in common. Matthew 
 and Mark have 8 others, while Luke and Mark have 
 36, Matthew and Luke have i. Matthew has two 
 blind men, so the parts of words here are very numer- 
 ous, and the general similarity is much greater than 
 appears from the count. 
 
 Paragraph 65, Mark xii. 1-12, the husbandmen 
 and the vineyard. All three have 59 complete words 
 in common. Mark and Matthew, 25; Mark and 
 Luke, 24; Matthew and Luke, 6, — a long passage. 
 
 Paragraph 66, Mark xii. 13-17, "Render to Caesar," 
 has 36 complete words common to all three, 29 more 
 common to Mark and Matthew alone, 1 1 more common 
 to Mark and Luke alone, and i (xat, " and ") common 
 to Matthew and Luke. Here the chances that Mark's 
 is the Primitive Gospel account mount into millions. 
 
 Paragraph 6y, Mark xii. 18-27, the Sadducees and 
 the woman with seven husbands. In this long pas- 
 sage there are 66 complete words common to all, 28 
 more common to Mark and Matthew alone, 23 more 
 common to Mark and Luke alone, and 6 common to 
 Matthew and Luke alone. 
 
 Here I must pause for sheer lack of time. If you 
 say: "How strange it is that a method so simple 
 has never been used before! The phenomena have 
 been known in a general way so long ! Why has no 
 strict analysis been made?" * I answer, "Why did I 
 
 * Since this essay was written (1889-go) I have been informed by a scholarly friend 
 that a German author is beginning to follow this clew. 
 
i8 
 
 never think of doing it myself before?" For, I will 
 boldly say, this method of dealing with the subject 
 entirely settles the question in a very large number 
 of the paragraphs of Mark, so that with regard to 
 them there is really no more to be said. The work 
 once done renders it quite unnecessary that it should 
 be done again, or that any more questions as to Primi- 
 tive Gospel or Triple Tradition should be asked. In 
 a word, the reason why the tradition is triple is 
 simply that two writers used the third!* 
 
 When Luke quits Mark's order, he also quits his 
 words. He quits Mark's order in (6) Mark i. 17 (the 
 call of Peter, James, and John); and, while Matthew 
 uses 67 words, 57 of which are Mark's, Luke has 
 only 4 of Mark's, besides the 15 common to all three. 
 He quits Mark's order in (20) Mark iii. 30 (his 
 mother and brethren standing without). Here are 22 
 words common to all three, 25 more common to Mark 
 and Matthew, while Mark and Luke have only 3, and 
 Matthew and Luke 4. He quits Mark's order in (19) 
 Mark iii. 20 (Beelzebub, prince of the devils). 
 Here Luke has two whole verses practically identical 
 with Matthew, which Mark has not, so that there 
 are 21 words common to all, 25 others common to 
 Matthew and Mark, 62 others common to Matthew and 
 Luke, and only 3 others common to Mark and Luke. 
 He quits Mark's order in (25) Mark iv. 30 (the grain 
 of mustard-seed). Here 7 complete words are com- 
 mon to all, 1 1 more common to Mark and Matthew, 
 
 *This is my sole criticism on the masterly article, " Gospels," in the Encyclopedia 
 Britannica. 
 
19 
 
 and only 7 more common to Mark and Luke, while 1 1 
 more quite significant ones are common to Matthew 
 and Luke. 
 
 These two last instances are quite important, as 
 Matthew's context also is followed by Luke in both 
 cases. The Beelzebub episode begins in both with 
 "he was casting out a demon" and "it was dumb," 
 of which Mark has nothing. The grain of mustard- 
 seed is followed in both by the parable of the 
 leaven, which Mark does not give. The most sim- . 
 pie hypothesis, perhaps, is that Matthew took Mark, 
 and added other matter of his own or from other 
 sources, and that Luke copied Matthew.* 
 
 Luke quits Mark's order in (57) he that would be 
 great must be servant. Here 15 complete words are 
 common to all. Mark x. 42-45 : Mark and Matthew 
 have each only two other insignificant words in com- 
 mon with Luke, while out of 64 words in Matthew 60 
 are Mark's. 
 
 Luke also quits Mark's order in (32) the visit to 
 Nazareth and (79) the anointing. In both cases, the 
 agreement with either Matthew or Mark is insignifi- 
 cant. The negative evidence here supplements the 
 positive. It shows that, when Luke cuts loose from 
 Mark, the astonishing verbal coincidences cease at 
 once. 
 
 When Luke approaches the well-known scenes of 
 the betrayal, trial, and crucifixion, it seems as if he 
 wished to tell the pathetic story more in his own 
 
 *The vexed question of the connection between Matthew and Luke can only be just 
 touched upon here. 
 
20 
 
 words. Here, then, it is Luke that fixes the mini- 
 mum number of words common to all three. Where 
 Matthew has hundreds of words identical with those 
 of Mark, Luke here has barely tens. 
 
 Lastly, Luke omits 9 consecutive paragraphs in 
 Mark, 36-44. Mark vi. 45 to viii. 26. 40 and 44 are 
 two miracles, which took time and effort, which Mat- 
 thew also significantly omits; 36 is the walking on 
 the water; 37 is a general statement; 38 is the long 
 discussion following the unwashed hands, which 
 would not be interesting to Gentiles; 39 is the 
 Syrophoenician woman, where the passage, "It is not 
 meet to take the children's bread and cast it to the 
 dogs," would be to the last degree distasteful to the 
 Gentiles; while 41, 43, the feeding of the four thou- 
 sand and the discussion following, is to me the most 
 suspicious place in all of Mark's acknowledged text; 
 42, Mark viii. 11, 12, is parallel to Luke xi. 29, but 
 this passage of Luke should not be given as a quit- 
 ting of Mark's order, as it is a direct quotation word 
 for word from Matt. xii. 39.* The context is also 
 the same in both Matthew and Luke. Matthew has 
 also 42 in its due order. 
 
 Now we know beyond a peradventure that Luke 
 used Mark, it is interesting to study how he used him. 
 Sometimes he simply corrects his grammar, some- 
 times he epitomizes, sometimes he corrects his tau- 
 tology, sometimes he substitutes a more refined word 
 or expression for one less so. One instance of the 
 first must suffice. Luke corrects Mark's grammar. A 
 
 *Pr, vice versa. 
 
21 
 
 typical place is Mark xii. 38-40, because it is a say- 
 ing of Jesus; and Luke is careful to give these as 
 nearly as possible in Mark's words. "Look away 
 from the scribes wishing to walk in long robes, and 
 greetings in the market-place ! " says Mark. " Be- 
 ware of the scribes wishing to walk in long robes, 
 and /i!;^?^!^ greetings in the market-place," says Luke; 
 "and the first seats in the synagogues, and the first 
 couches at the feasts," say both. No alteration is 
 here needed. " Devouring the houses of the widows, 
 and for a pretence making long prayers," says Mark, 
 making two nominative participles, "devouring" and 
 "making," agree with the genitive "scribes." "Who 
 devour the houses of the widows, and for a pretence 
 make long prayers," says Luke, thus quietly correct- 
 ing the grammar. "These shall receive a more abun- 
 dant condemnation," is the same in both, as it needs 
 no correction. Do you not see that it is actually 
 more certain that Luke followed Mark because these 
 corrections, and just these, are made, than if no 
 corrections were made at all? 
 
 Who, then, is the first witness for and quoter of 
 Mark? Not Patiias or Ignatius or Justin, but the 
 compiler of Matthew. Who is the second? Luke, or 
 vice versa, if you please. 
 
 I add one thing more. 
 
 The Calculus of Probabilities is completely compe- 
 tent to deal with all such questions, where three 
 writers are concerned. There is another very impor- 
 tant set of phenomena where it fails us. Matthew 
 and Luke have a great number of most important pas- 
 
22 
 
 sages in common. Here only two writers are con- 
 cerned. To the Question, Did Luke copy Matthew, 
 or Matthew Luke, or did both use a third, — say a 
 record of the sayings of Jesus? the Calculus of Prob- 
 abilities has nothing to say. It merely says that one 
 of these three hypotheses must be true, as there is a 
 physical connection between Matthew and Luke, and 
 these three hypotheses cover the whole ground of 
 possibility. When, however, the Calculus of Proba- 
 bilities has proved again and again that Mark's para- 
 graphs are the origin of those of Matthew and Luke, 
 the probability that when one of them misses a para- 
 graph, and the other has it, that other in this case 
 also has copied Mark, becomes so large that we shall 
 probably take it for granted. 
 
 We now come to a consideration of the first im- 
 portance. The narrative of Matthew rests mainly 
 on Mark, — the teachmg of Jesus, which makes Mat- 
 thew's Gospel so priceless, Matthew and Luke draw 
 from the same source, which tradition gives as the 
 "sayings" (Xo'yia) of Jesus, written in Hebrew by 
 the Apostle Matthew. 
 
 If any foolish prejudice against Matthew and Luke 
 blocks the way for you, then read the words of life 
 in Clement of Rome or Justin the Martyr, or in the 
 newly discovered teaching of the Twelve Apostles, 
 the heart of which is the new Law of Conduct which 
 Jesus gave. That Law and that Life changed .the 
 world. It will change you also. The water of 
 life will quench your thirst, from whatever cup you 
 drink it. The one great service which the author 
 
23 
 
 of "Supernatural Religion" has, all unwittingly, 
 done to English-speaking people is to bring together 
 a new Sermon on the Mount from Justin's pen. His 
 intention is to belittle Matthew : the effect is to show 
 that the Laws of the Blessed Life had been so scat- 
 tered over the wide world that, if Matthew and Luke 
 were sunk under the sea, they could even now be re- 
 covered from other sources. We have, then, in Mat- 
 thew and Luke the teaching, in Mark the life. Mark 
 seems to take for granted that his readers know the 
 sayings. He simply says, "He preached the gospel," 
 and expects you to know enough to take that for 
 granted. He simply tells you what happened. The 
 universal tradition is that the Apostle Matthew wrote 
 "the sayings" in Hebrew, and that, as Papias says, 
 each one translated them as best he could. This 
 must have been done very early, as they so soon went 
 round the world. In that case, Luke and Matthew 
 certainly used the same translation. 
 
 All the most salient phenomena of Mark seem to 
 point to Peter's talk of what happened. None but 
 an eye-witness could have told the story so straight 
 that you cannot pick a hole in it. Mark, his friend 
 and follower, took it down from his lips. The sense 
 of the nearness of Mark to the facts grows steadily 
 upon you as you read. What it does not say is as 
 suggestive as what it does say. It is not too much to 
 say that, while Peter was alive, such introductions to 
 the Gospel as Matthew's and Luke's first two chap- 
 ters were simply impossible. To our surprise, then, 
 we have discovered the Primitive Gospel, and found 
 
24 
 
 that we had it in our hands all the time without know- 
 ing it. It is Mark, — Mark stripped of its spurious 
 ending, stripped of its interpolated Sodoms and Go- 
 morrahs, etc., with a few passages marked with a ques- 
 tion mark. What shall we do with it? is the next 
 question. 
 
 First, notice carefully what it does not say. 
 
 In the Primitive Gospel we find no miraculous 
 birth; no resurrection of flesh and bones after death; 
 no bitter denunciations of the poor little Galilean 
 towns which furnished to Jesus his helpers, lovers, 
 and disciples, whose people had been roused to wild 
 enthusiasm by his words and deeds, each one of which 
 added its throng to the eager and exulting crowd that 
 entered with their Messiah in triumph into Jerusalem, 
 only to share the heart-break of his defeat and death; 
 no egotistical comparisons of himself with other teach- 
 ers; and, above all, no long discourses, the ever-recur- 
 ring theme of which is Belief in Himself as the 
 centre. 
 
 What we do have is the life-story of a modest 
 Galilean mechanic, who, having toiled through man- 
 hood's early years at his carpenter's trade, nourishing 
 his soul meanwhile on the inspired utterances of the 
 prophets of his people, suddenly came to a great spir- 
 itual experience, when, sharing the hope and enthu- 
 siasm of multitudes, he was baptized by the great 
 preacher of repentance. At that supreme moment 
 he felt the spirit of the Eternal Father demanding 
 the uttermost allegiance, power, and passion of his 
 earthly child. 
 
25 
 
 But here comes one note of warning. There are 
 two classes of persons who cannot possibly read 
 the Primitive Gospel with much profit: i. Those 
 who dare not think independently at all; 2. Those 
 who come to the Gospels with a fixed idea that 
 "miracles do not happen." Millions of lovely souls 
 are in the first class; and doubtless the great major- 
 ity of them have wisely measured their own powers, 
 and instinctively feel that their minds are not capable 
 of that prolonged effort which is absolutely essential 
 to the complete grasping of new conceptions, and that 
 anything short of this would merely bring mental 
 chaos and confusion, and a distinct loss of power in 
 dealing with the actual issues of life. (It is a grave 
 responsibility to try to force such minds to undertake 
 such studies.) 
 
 There is a certain minority of the second class 
 who are so fixed in their set of opinions that they 
 would smile superior at any attempt to enlighten and 
 enlarge their mental conceptions. Why, (Aej are the 
 enlightened. TAey are the people, and wisdom has 
 begun with them. True, if you ask them to explain 
 to you what happened in Judea eighteen centuries and 
 odd ago, what was the true sequence of events, much 
 less what were the underlying causes which produced 
 that mighty upheaval of human thought and emotion 
 which has altered the whole course of the world's his- 
 tory, they have no word to say except "miracles 
 do not happen." They have neither studied nor 
 cared to study the matter at all. The large majority 
 of this class consists of those who have been so influ- 
 
26 
 
 enced by modern scientific thought that the nega- 
 tions as well as the affirmations of some of its 
 leaders are supposed by them to be final. 
 
 To such persons I simply say that true science 
 never has said and never will say that marvels of help 
 and healing never have happened, and never can. 
 
 The true question is, Can a strong and loving soul 
 on fire with faith in the ever-present, eternal Force 
 of Good, filled with passionate love for man, and 
 yearning with a desire to help to bear the pain and 
 sorrow that weigh down the world, do anything to 
 help poor, pain-stricken, distracted, weak, and weary 
 men and women, or must such soul yield in potency 
 to pills and draughts, to calomel and magnesia? 
 Only those who believe that such soul has such power 
 can read the Primitive Gospel in its completeness 
 with ever-increasing joy. 
 
 The first and central fact we learn from the Primi- 
 tive Gospel is that Jesus was a carpenter. This is 
 placed at one remove by Matthew, "Carpenter's 
 son." Luke says, "the son of Joseph"; while the 
 Fourth Gospel makes "the Word made flesh" enter 
 with a monarch's tread into the world he himself 
 had made. But the simple fact is that Jesus was 
 a Galilean mechanic; that he worked for his day's 
 wage, like tens of millions of honest toilers before 
 and since; that he made shelves and boxes, and 
 plough-handles and ox-yokes; and that his hands were 
 hard with handling saw and axe. Well could he 
 sympathize with the sons and daughters of toil, for he 
 was a toiler himself. He knew well the true pleas- 
 
2; 
 
 ure of an honest piece of work, could enjoy, like 
 Adam Bade, the beauty of the fine grain of wood, and 
 before Adam Bede knew well that good carpentry was 
 God's will. But when the quiet evening came, and 
 the day's work was done, then he would unfold the 
 prophetic rolls, and read the great words God had 
 spoken to his people by his prophets. They, too, had 
 felt the burden of the world, and their hearts, like 
 his, had swelled with the hope that the better day 
 was coming, that man's pain and ignorance and shame 
 would not last forever, but that the kingdom of God 
 would one day descend from heaven to earth. Just 
 now it was the dark hour before the dawn. 
 
 But when John began to preach Repentance and 
 Reform as the first essential preparation for the com- 
 ing day, and when awakened multitudes flocked to 
 hear him, Jesus, too, left his work, and went to hear 
 the great preacher of righteousness. And there a 
 great thing befell him. He, too, loved the word he 
 heard, and went to be baptized along with the rest. 
 "As he came up out of the water," he heard the voice 
 of the great Father-Soul call to him as to a beloved 
 son, and claim him as his own.* That was his call 
 to the preacher's office. That voice which summoned 
 Amos as he was gathering his figs, and took him from 
 his plough, takes Jesus from the carpenter's bench. 
 Henceforth there is other work to do. Henceforth 
 the fire burns; and at last he, too, must speak. Never- 
 
 * Matthew, instead of Sii el, a spiritual experience in the soul of Jesus himself, 
 substitutes Ovrdg hartv, making it a verbal proclamation to the surrounding mul- 
 titude. 
 
28 
 
 theless, he seems for a while to have gone back to the 
 old life, as if his native modesty was fighting against 
 the call. 
 
 But when John was thrown into prison for speaking 
 the truth to a king (to try to make him see what was 
 clean and decent in the marriage relation), then it 
 would be no longer modesty, but cowardice, to keep 
 silence. When speech may mean prison or death, 
 then a brave man has no choice left. Speak he must, 
 or forfeit his manhood. So Jesus speaks at last, and 
 soon finds that the field is too large for one pair of 
 hands, however willing. So, as he was walking by 
 the lake shore, he saw at their work four fishermen, 
 whose longing for better things he doubtless knew, 
 and said, "Leave your fish, and come with me, and 
 catch men!" The insight of Jesus in choosing just 
 these men is vindicated by their later history. Peter, 
 James, and John were "pillar" apostles. Herod 
 singled out James as a foremost figure when he struck 
 a blow against the infant Church; while Peter and 
 John have left their mark on world-history. The one 
 instance of that insight being mistaken is that of 
 Judas.* 
 
 The gentle humor of Jesus comes out in the names 
 he gave them. Simon he called "The Rock." It 
 was just the name for the big, strong, earnest, faithful 
 fellow. He was just the sort of person to lean upon. 
 James and John were the "Sons of Thunder." They 
 were always for sweeping measures and for the gran- 
 
 •The Fourth Gospel finds here no difflculty. Jesus, foreknowing and providing for 
 everything, selects Judas for the purpose of betraying him. 
 
29 
 
 diose style, such as is found in the Book of Revela- 
 tion, perhaps. 
 
 The five friends, then, the carpenter and the four 
 fishermen, set forth, like the knights-errant of after- 
 times, on their crusade against all wrong. They enter 
 the synagogue of Capernaum, he to speak, they to 
 "stand and mark." If five workmen announced that 
 they were going to give a talk on the times to a coun- 
 try town to-day, we all anticipate what the talk 
 would be, — the rights of labor, etc. We should be 
 greatly surprised if the spokesman of the five should 
 get up and speak of the duties of all men, rich and 
 poor alike, of a kingdom of kindness, where amount 
 of service was the test of rank, and the one who 
 loved man most was the first of many brethren. 
 Jesus, then, announced that the kingdom of God was 
 at hand ; that God was ready to reign in the hearts of 
 his children and be their God, indeed, by helping 
 them to transform themselves into the likeness of his 
 love; that the Father sought to see himself again in 
 them. His children were to be kind, for he is kind; 
 forgiving, for he forgives; to love those that hate 
 them, for they are the children of him who makes 
 his sun to shine on the evil and on the good, and 
 sends his rain on the just and unjust alike. Be ye 
 therefore perfect, for your Father in heaven is per- 
 fect. 
 
 In the midst of his speech a strange interruption 
 occurred. A madman suddenly began to shout out a 
 wild appeal to him. Jesus sternly bade him hold his 
 peace; and the mad voice was silent, while an awe 
 
30 
 
 fell on all that saw. When the meeting was over, 
 the friends went together to Simon's house. There 
 Simon's wife's mother lay sick of a fever; and, when 
 they told Jesus of it, he went to her bedside and took 
 her by the hand, and raised her up, and the fever left 
 her. Thus simply began his experience as a healer 
 of men's bodies as well as a helper of men's souls. 
 
 But by evening the events of the morning and the 
 cure in the house became known to all the town; and 
 when it was growing late, and the sun was setting, 
 people brought their sick ones to the door of the 
 house, and begged him to help them. He came out, 
 and healed many of them, says Mark ; all of them, says 
 Matthew; each and every one, says Luke. Things 
 grow in the telling.* 
 
 After this most exciting day Jesus retired to rest; 
 but he arose a great while before day, went out of the 
 house, and found a deserted spot, where he could be 
 alone and pray. Things had turned out so differently 
 from what he had expected. He had gone forth to 
 preach the kingdom of God, to invite all willing and 
 waiting hearts to enter it at once. But this one ex- 
 perience showed that a power he had never dreamed of 
 was in him, and now by prayer and lonely thought he 
 sought to discover where his duty lay. He saw at 
 once that, if these healings continued, he would be 
 followed by crowds, eager merely to see the next won- 
 derful thing that should be done, and that again and 
 again the one thing needful, the Word of Life, the 
 
 * I invite a careful coitiparison between Mark's simple and straightforward account 
 of these first incidents, and the accounts of Matthew and Luke. 
 
31 
 
 law of the soul's direction, would be either forgotten 
 or put into the second place. What was he to do? 
 It must have been a keen joy to his kind heart to 
 think that he had it in his power to help even the 
 insane, whose lot even now is bitter enough, but 
 whose condition then was beyond all telling miser- 
 able, wandering, as this one did, in mad excitement, 
 uncared for, through the land. Again, he must have 
 deeply felt that sickness and pain and weakness were 
 part and parcel of those human miseries which the 
 kingdom of God was bound to fight against. When 
 Simon had found at last where his dear friend had 
 gone, he urged him to return; for "all men" were 
 seeking him. But Jesus has decided on his course. 
 So he answers, "Let us go away into the neighbor- 
 ing villages, and teach there." In this way the ex- 
 citement could be avoided, and the Word of Life 
 could get a hearing. This was the plan of Jesus 
 throughout. He tries in every way to calm down 
 the excitement either by inducing those healed to say 
 nothing about it, or by going from place to place, 
 and so escaping the mere curiosity of gaping crowds. 
 And so he goes about the villages, teaching. It is 
 touching to remember that Jesus had no experience of 
 cities. A simple village crowd was all his audience. 
 But man's heart is everywhere the same. Every- 
 where he finds men and women waiting for the con- 
 solation. The kingdom of God claims all souls 
 alike. Everywhere, too, he finds poor diseased 
 bodies to touch and heal. Now it is a paralytic let 
 down by four kind neighbors through the roof. 
 
32 
 
 Now it is a leper that he touches, caring nothing 
 for defilement; for is he not his brother? Now it 
 is the blind or dumb or madman that he helps. 
 
 It was a joyous time. It seemed as if the kingdom 
 of God was coming with happy ease. Why not? 
 How near heaven is! Why, you can touch it with 
 your hands. The Pharisees and John's disciples were 
 fasting, and wondered why the disciples of Jesus did 
 not join them. As well ask the children of the 
 bride-chamber to fast while the bridegroom is with 
 them. Why, the joy of the kingdom of God was bub- 
 bling up in all their veins. The old earth was young 
 again, and the trees of the field were clapping their 
 hands. When defeat and sorrow and bereavement 
 come, then they may fast, indeed. 
 
 At last the climax is reached. There came to him 
 a ruler of the synagogue, Jairus by name ; and he said : 
 "My little daughter is dying. Come and help her 
 and us ! " And Jesus went with him. There are 
 moments when the greatness of great souls shines out 
 so that all can see; when, if you can but touch the 
 hem of their garments, you are made whole, and your 
 poor, mean, weak self drops away from you. One poor 
 woman in that crowd found it so. He healed her as 
 he passed. 
 
 But his errand is urgent. Life and death are in the 
 balance. A message stops them. "Thy daughter is 
 dead." "Fear not, but only believe. She is not 
 dead: she only sleeps." How he knew it, perhaps he 
 himself could not have told, but across that distance 
 he heard a child's soul calling to him for help. 
 
33 
 
 All the force that is in him, all the sympathy of 
 his loved friends and the agonized prayer of father 
 and mother are needed around him, to mingle with 
 the faith that the instinct of help which he felt with 
 such power was the hand of God guiding him ; but no 
 foolish or unfriendly eye or voice must be near him 
 at the supreme moment. He is in the room, the 
 child's still form is on the bed, the thread of life 
 seems cut, but the child-spirit can yet be called back 
 by a strong and loving voice. He takes her by the 
 hand. "My little lamb, arise," he says. She wakes 
 to life again. He lifts her up, and gives her back to 
 father's and mother's arms. The crisis is over, the 
 awful strain is past; and now he tells them, very sim- 
 ply, with wise, practical good sense, to give her some- 
 thing to eat, lest exhaustion set in again. 
 
 It was just after this that he resolved to visit his 
 native village. It had been a rough experience to 
 find that it was his own kinsfolk who wanted to con- 
 fine him as a madman. But many things have hap- 
 pened since then. All Galilee is ready to hear him 
 now. 
 
 In the midst of the triumph of successful preaching, 
 when a large harvest of souls is being gathered into 
 the new kingdom of gentleness and help, Jesus yearns 
 after his old home. Surely, he thinks, the time 
 is come when they, too, will hear him gladly; for he 
 is becoming so widely known. They will welcome 
 their old townsman back, and the word of salvation by 
 kindness will get a hearing among the folk among 
 whom his early days were passed. But every little 
 
34 
 
 village has its aristocracy. Why, they had hired 
 him, time and again, to work for them. He had put 
 up a barn for this man and had mended the doors of 
 that. What a piece of presumption it was that he 
 should come and lecture them! Why, his poor old 
 mother lives in yonder cottage, with a big family of 
 brothers and sisters. She knows her place, and they do, 
 too. This upstart son of hers will be getting her and 
 them into trouble some fine day if they can't stop him. 
 
 There was a good deal of human nature in Nazareth 
 town. What wonder that Jesus is stung into saying, 
 "A prophet is not without honor except in his own 
 country, among his own relations, and in his own 
 house " ! " He was not able to do any mighty work 
 there because of their unbelief." 
 
 It is still the test question to-day. If you cannot 
 bring yourself to believe that a simple mechanic 
 found in his heart the word that makes Man one, if 
 you must have the archangel Gabriel to indorse him, 
 and if you feel an added surety to " Blessed are the 
 merciful " because you know the very name of the angel 
 that announced the birth of him that said it, then you 
 are still of the old, old, and as yet know nothing of 
 the stern, strong joy that is coming into the hearts of 
 those who know that Jesus was one of the many, one 
 of themselves ; who know that, when their brother, the 
 carpenter, came out of his workshop with his axe in 
 his hand, the sunlight and the purple hills had met 
 their match; who insist that he belongs to them as 
 their own hands and heart belong, bone of their bone 
 and flesh of their flesh ! 
 
35 
 
 You are of the few who believe what your brother 
 said simply because it is true, because his words 
 open the fountain of life within you, because his deep 
 sense of the bitter pain of man's sorrow has become 
 your own; because his dream of the better day is your 
 own dream of good, and you " mingle all the world 
 with " him ; because you see, as he saw, that, when the 
 great Father-Soul enters with power into the heart of 
 any man, the mighty sense of brotherhood enters with 
 it. This is the test: that henceforth man's welfare 
 is your welfare, man's sorrow your sorrow, man's sal- 
 vation yours. You have ceased to ask anything for 
 yourself: you have begun to demand immeasurable 
 blessings for mankind. 
 
 When simple friendliness rises high, when all 
 natural human relations appear beautiful to you, when 
 a desire for a noble way of living together the com- 
 mon life strengthens into passion, when a great ten- 
 derness toward human weakness and error fills your 
 heart, when compassion for human suffering becomes 
 in you a force for help, then know that the new law 
 has taken possession of you. The Galilean carpen- 
 ter's thought has become your own, and he and you 
 are one in the cause. 
 
 Just after this he sends out the twelve, two by two; 
 for now they know enough of the message of love 
 and help to tell it to others. They now go by them- 
 selves, and preach their first little sermons, and come 
 back to Jesus to tell their first little triumphs. But 
 there were so many coming and going that they had 
 not leisure even to eat. So he said to them, " Come 
 
36 
 
 with me apart into a desert place to rest awhile." 
 But the people saw them going in their boat, and ran 
 by the lake shore and met them as they landed. And 
 Jesus felt how pitiful all this was. They were just 
 like sheep that have no shepherd. And so he taught 
 them about the kingdom of God. 
 
 I picture it thus : Jesus has been preaching to the 
 multitude the laws of the blessed life, telling them 
 that the world is to be saved by kindness. Mutual 
 help, mutual forbearance, mutual love, — these are the 
 keys of the kingdom of heaven. All men are children 
 of the common Father. All men, therefore, are 
 brethren. Love as brethren, and the hard old world 
 becomes God's heaven. Old things are passed away. 
 All things are become new. 
 
 But now the falling sun warns them that night is 
 not far off, and the disciples tell him that the people 
 must go home. But they must not go away hungry, 
 for they would faint by the way. How many loaves 
 have we? Five, and just two fishes besides. Well, 
 that is our contribution to the common meal. That 
 sets a brave example; and in that moment of relig- 
 ious enthusiasm those of the crowd who had brought 
 food with them contribute what they have to the 
 little stock. Altogether, it is but little; but, with 
 God's blessing on it, it may go far. It is a sacra- 
 mental meal. The common table, this time God's 
 earth itself, the green grass its cover, has become a 
 communion table, the meal together a divine ser- 
 vice. Those who had little contribute to those who 
 had none. All share alike, but with special care 
 
37 
 
 that the weak and the weary be served first. The 
 service begins. Jesus stands up, and, looking up to 
 heaven, he' gives thanks for the common meal. May 
 it be multiplied by the Father's blessing, to sustain 
 the wanderers till they reach their homes! And may 
 the meal together be a sacred tie between them all, 
 sitting down together as they do at the table of God! 
 It is a crisis hour in the life of Jesus when, after 
 all these varied and wonderful experiences, he asks 
 his disciples who they think he is. When Peter an- 
 swers, "You are the Messiah," it seems as if this 
 gave the last touch to the conviction which had been 
 slowly rising in the heart of Jesus himself. He was 
 sure that the kingdom of righteousness, of which the 
 prophets had spoken, was the same kingdom of God 
 that he preached. He knew that he had given utter- 
 ance to the sacred laws of that kingdom; that there 
 was, and could be, no other kingdom of God than the 
 kingdom of truth and right and love. He had seen, 
 he could not help seeing, the influence, sometimes 
 the swift and sudden influence, for good which he 
 exercised over the souls and bodies of men; and 
 now the central question had to be faced. Was it 
 or was it not his duty to call Israel as a whole, as 
 he had called Galilee, to come in at once into that 
 kingdom? If this duty, this office, was his, then he 
 was indeed that Messiah, that messenger of God, sent 
 to bring his people back to himself. But, if this was 
 indeed so, then he had not read the great prophets of 
 his people for nothing. " If this is so, Peter, — if it 
 is the voice of God that through you calls me to this 
 
38 
 
 great task, — do you know what that means? It 
 means that, if I go up to Jerusalem at our nation's 
 great festival to take this stand, I go to my death. 
 For is it not written that the servant of God ap- 
 pointed to do this great thing is to be bruised, and 
 stricken, and cut off for the transgression of the peo- 
 ple? It is only by his stripes, his shame, his death, 
 that his brothers are to be healed. Up, then, let us 
 be going. If God is calling, let us not turn back." 
 "No, no," answered Peter, "you are going to the 
 great triumph. For the Messiah is a crowned king 
 of the people, and he is to bring deliverance right 
 royally." "Nay," answered Jesus, "it is indeed 
 death we go to. But what of that? He that would 
 save his life shall lose it. Only he that throws his 
 life away for God's cause and for man's shall find it 
 again. Rise, let us be going." 
 
 And now they move southward to Jerusalem, Jesus 
 full of foreboding, but with his face resolutely set 
 toward the city of his doom; the disciples sometimes 
 trembling with fear lest their Master be indeed right, 
 but mainly in the mood of triumphant anticipation, 
 for the habitual mood of mind cannot be suddenly 
 changed; James and John, his "Sons of Thunder," 
 even demanding for themselves the first two places in 
 the coming kingdom, much to the indignation of the 
 rest, while Jesus tells them all that the kingdom of 
 God is in this the exact opposite of an earthly king- 
 dom. " If any would be great among you, let him be 
 your servant ; and he that would be first among you, 
 let him be your slave ! " 
 
39 
 
 On his way he is not too pressed to take the little 
 children up in his arms and bless them. He is never 
 too hurried to do that. 
 
 But at last they are outside the gates ; and now the 
 crowd has grown thick with the hundreds and thou- 
 sands of Galileans who have come up to the great 
 feast to share their prophet's triumph. The whole 
 multitude cut down branches of trees and strewed 
 them in the way, and cast down their clothes for their 
 prophet's ass to tread upon; and all sing: "Hosanna, 
 Hosannal Blessed be the kingdom of our father 
 David ! Blessed be he that comes in the name of the 
 Lord!" Alas! they little knew that their song was 
 the swan-song of his death, that it gave the first pre- 
 text to the lying accusation of rebellion against 
 Rome. 
 
 He enters the city, walks to the temple, which was 
 already a mighty market place in preparation for the 
 Passover. Sheep and oxen and doves and money- 
 changers, clang and noise and chaffering and bargain- 
 ing everywhere. Heavens! "The house of prayer!" 
 It is a den of thieves rather, and will soon be a 
 slaughter-house, its gutters running red with blood. 
 The horror, the farce of it all, strikes Jesus with a 
 sudden burst of anger, and he drives the hucksters 
 out. The second and the final blow is given. In 
 this high-handed act, he has struck a blow at the 
 whole Mosaic ritual. Well might the priests say: 
 "Can you bring up lambs from Galilee, and carry a 
 lot of doves ? They must be here, and they must be 
 bought and sold. Do you expect to steal them, or do 
 
40 
 
 you expect them to be given away ? " From their 
 standpoint they were right, and were right in asking 
 with indignation : " By what authority dost thou do 
 these things? Who gave thee this authority?" But 
 they dare not do more than question him ; for there is 
 a multitude of rough-looking Galileans ready to stand 
 by him, and give an ill time to those that go against 
 him. They must wait and watch. 
 
 We have already become familiar with the great 
 sayings of Jesus, — those short, sharp words which are 
 so many keys, so light that the workingman can carry 
 them in his pocket, but so strong that they can unlock 
 the gates of heaven. We are hardly prepared for his 
 quick mother wit, which now strikes fire when it hits 
 the hardness of Pharisee and Sadducee. One of these 
 replies is of world-wide significance. The Sadducees, 
 "who believe there is no resurrection," yet reverenced 
 as infallible the five books of Moses. Well, in the 
 very heart and centre of the grand narrative is found : 
 "I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob." "God 
 is not the God of the dead, but of the living." If 
 Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are now simply dust, then 
 it is just a cruel farce to say that God is their God. 
 If there were no God at all, what possible difference 
 could it make to them? They would have vanished 
 effectually and completely in either case. Dust, and 
 dust alone, would remain, God or no God. It is just 
 the argument of Paul in Corinthians, put into a nut- 
 shell. "If Jesus has not risen," says he, "then man 
 does not rise ; and, if man does not rise, the difference to 
 the dead between God and no God is less than a hair." 
 
41 
 
 But meantime there is one person at least who is by 
 this time getting into a dangerous mood. The priests 
 are as one man in their resolve to strike him down, if 
 they can. But how can they catch him alone, away 
 from his fierce and watchful crowd of followers? 
 
 At last they find their man. I suppose that Judas 
 was as eager as any to get to Jerusalem, and to see and 
 share the triumph. It was with victory in his heart 
 that he joined in the Hosannas, blessed be the king- 
 dom of our father David! Yes! it was coming. The 
 cruel yoke would be off the neck of every Jew within 
 a day. Once within the walls, the Master would give 
 the word, and Pilate and his Romans would vanish. 
 Priests and people would rejoice together; and they, 
 his friends, his intimates, would be first among their 
 brethren. He enters with the swelling crowd, his 
 voice the loudest of them all. When Jesus enters the 
 temple like one in authority, it is still all well; but, 
 when he spends his time in arguing with Pharisee and 
 Sadducee, what is first bewilderment becomes quickly 
 disgust, and finally fierce wrath, revolt, and revenge. 
 " Heavens! had man ever such a chance before? Why, 
 the whole people were with him. It only wanted a 
 word, and they were at the throats of the Roman guard 
 in a moment. Why, tens of thousands were ready, 
 were eager, were expectant. And then he fritters 
 away his time, his opportunity, in talking parables, in 
 debating about the resurrection. Why, it was action, 
 not words, that the times demanded! And every mo- 
 ment the chances were less and less in his favor, then 
 were against him, and now it is just hopeless. The 
 
42 
 
 authorities are all against him now. Bah I I am sick 
 of this! I hate him! He has betrayed us, each and 
 all ! Let him look to it, if I be not beforehand with 
 him!" 
 
 And now events came crowding on each other thick 
 and fast. The Passover night has come, and Jesus 
 sits with his beloved friends at the social meal for the 
 last time. "One of you will betray me," bursts from 
 his full heart. " One of you, you who have shared my 
 best life, my thought, my hopes, my prayers! This, 
 beloved friends, is our last supper. Take this bread, 
 and, when you eat it in after days, think of me, who 
 loved you. Drink this cup with me, the cup of bless- 
 ing, and, drinking it in after days, remember me, and 
 how I loved you to the end. Remember our work 
 together for the kingdom of God. Remember, and 
 continue that work when I am gone ! " 
 
 When I was about to attend my first communion, I 
 somehow thought that some great change was going 
 to happen to me; but the actual fact was that I saw all 
 the people about me feeling solemn, and I felt solemn, 
 too, and kept on feeling solemn all the time. That 
 was really the net result. In reality, neither I nor 
 they had the most distant idea of what communion 
 really was. It was partly the fault of the English 
 ritual itself. "The body of our Lord Jesus Christ, 
 which was given for thee, preserve thy body and soul 
 unto everlasting life. Eat this in remembrance that 
 Christ died for thee. Feed on him in thine heart by 
 faith with thanksgiving. The blood of our Lord 
 Jesus Christ, which was shed for thee, preserve thy 
 
43 
 
 body and soul to everlasting life. Drink this in re- 
 membrance that Christ's blood was shed for thee, 
 and be thankful." 
 
 Yes! Gratitude to Jesus is rightfully there, and 
 touchingly stated. But what avast hiatus! Should 
 it not go on to say: "Eat this, and die thyself to all 
 aims but his. Thy body, too, is God's and thy 
 brother*s. Give it, as he gave. Die with him to all 
 meaner aims, and rise with him into that heaven 
 whose eternal joy is the steady uplifting of man " ? 
 
 To win from heaven the love eternal, to transmute 
 that love into the love of man for man, that was the 
 master passion in the heart of Jesus; and communion 
 means sharing the Father heart and the million mill- 
 ion brother hearts with him. When his master pas- 
 sion has become yours, then at last you know the 
 glory, the wonder, the mystery, of communion. For 
 then, to your amazement, you leap across the cen- 
 turies and clasp hands with him. He is yours, and 
 you are his; and you see around you, yours also, the 
 mighty company of "loyal hearts, and true," who 
 stand forever in this light, which is the light of God. 
 
 I blame the English ritual for its perpetual harping 
 on a single string. I need not go so far. For my 
 sins, I am condemned to search every Sunday for a 
 hymn in that wonderful monument of the religious 
 genius of our body, the first edition of our denomina- 
 tional Hymn Book. For a sermon in this key, I may 
 look from cover to cover in vain, when my people 
 have got tired of hearing one or two of the really noble 
 ones. "Rock of Ages" fits the English ritual ad- 
 
44 
 
 mirably. It is the poetry of which that is the prose. 
 But where shall I find in that estimably mediocre col- 
 lection a battle hymn for the army of the right ? Our 
 great leader has gone to the front. Are we going to 
 leave him to fight and die alone? Are we not going 
 to march forward, shoulder to shoulder, right over the 
 parapets of the great fortress of wrong, where so many 
 of our brothers are imprisoned, we also saviors and 
 rescuers, to open the prison-house doors to those that 
 are bound? Think of having to go to Swinburne's 
 "Songs before Sunrise" for a fitting strain! The best 
 hymn-book in existence is fearfully lacking here yet. 
 What is the use of hymns that no longer sing them- 
 selves? Is it wonder if some men get tired of a wor- 
 ship that is not heroic, of hymns that never kindle in 
 their breasts the master passion of the love of human- 
 ity, the sense of mankind as a mighty whole, a tre- 
 mendous life, whose heart -beats are so forceful that 
 sometimes they seem so strong that they must tear 
 our breasts open? Why, it is not gratitude, but com- 
 radeship, that Jesus a:sks. As he was, so he longs that 
 we should be, — helpers, guides, lifters-up, bringers-in 
 of the kingdom of good. Then, and then only, can we 
 taste the full joy of communion, which is communion 
 with his heart of hearts, with the love eternal, with 
 every brother man that has lived, lives now, and ever 
 shall live. 
 
 Well, the communion is over. They sing a hymn, 
 and go to the Mount of Olives. There, in the garden 
 of Gethsemane, a new and unlooked for side in the 
 character of Jesus is seen. Hitherto it has always 
 
45 
 
 been the helper, the healer, the cheerer, the teacher 
 of others: now at last he needs help himself. His 
 prescient arid sensitive soul already feels the trea- 
 son of Judas and the hate of the priests gathering 
 around him like a black cloud. "My soul is exceed- 
 ing sorrowful, even unto death. Tarry ye here, and 
 watch with me. Abba, Father, all things are pos- 
 sible to thee! Take this cup from me. Neverthe- 
 less, not as I will, but as thou!" But here comes 
 Judas, with his crowd, his swords, his staves, and 
 his kiss. The handful of disciples, surprised and 
 panic-stricken, forsake their friend, and flee. Peter 
 alone follows at a distance, and creeps into the ser- 
 vants' hall while the trial is going on. Here is one 
 of these fellows, the servants say. Now is the time 
 for Peter's boldness. "Though I should die with 
 thee, yet would I not deny thee ! " But the pomp of 
 power, seen for the first time, has eaten up all his 
 courage. "Thou wert one of them. Thou art a Gali- 
 lean, and thy tongue betrays thee." Terror-stricken, 
 he began to curse, and to swear, "I know not the 
 man." And the cock crew. And Peter remembered 
 all at last, and went out, and wept. Why, it was 
 sickening! Desert the best, the truest, tenderest 
 friend that ever man had ! I love to think that Peter 
 insisted that every damning word of his treason should 
 go on record. That was his penance, the only way in 
 which he could ever taste a moment's peace again. 
 
 Yonder in the court -room the trial goes on. The 
 prisoner is condemned by the authorities of his nation; 
 and now they carry him to Pilate, and insist that he 
 
46 
 
 shall pass sentence of death on him. He declared, and 
 he cannot deny that he claimed to be king of the 
 Jews. That is treason, — treason pure and simple. 
 Pilate's hands, alas! are not too clean. So he dares 
 not refuse to do this dastard act at their bidding; for 
 word might be sent to that ugly Tiberius, he fears. 
 One last chance he has. " I will release him, as the 
 custom of the feast is." " Not this man, but Barabbas, 
 Barabbas ! " In those days execution followed hard on 
 conviction. First the soldiers claimed their rights. 
 They took him into the soldiers' hall, and clothed 
 him in a purple robe, and put a reed in his hand and 
 a crown of thorns on his head, and saluted him, " Hail, 
 king of the Jews ! " And then they struck him on 
 the head with a reed and spit upon him, and then 
 knelt down and made obeisance to him; and, when 
 they were tired of striking him, they took off the pur- 
 ple robe and put on him his own clothes, and led him 
 away to be crucified. 
 
 "And they crucified two thieves with him, one on 
 his right hand, and the other on his left." And those 
 that passed by wagged their heads at him. And 
 the priests and scribes joked with each other. "He 
 saved others. Why cannot he save himself? Ho! 
 you Christ, you king of Israel you, come down from 
 the cross, that we may see and believe! " And those 
 who were crucified with him reviled him. 
 
 It was like a hellish dream. And yet it was impos- 
 sible that he should be mistaken. The kingdom of 
 love and help was indeed the kingdom of God. This 
 he had preached, for this he had labored, and for this 
 
47 
 
 he hung here. Here amid the jeers, the scoffs, the 
 hate! This the coming of the kingdom! It seemed 
 like a bitter, a devilish jest. "My God! my God! 
 why hast thou forsaken me ? " Was it the cry of a 
 breaking heart? But the sorely taxed life is failing, 
 failing. One more wild cry, and the friend of man is 
 gone. 
 
 It is finished. The priests have won, and Jesus has 
 lost. Ceremony and routine are up, and life and love 
 are down. The crowd disperse, the disciples slink 
 away, and only one man is brave enough to go boldly 
 to Pilate, and ask for that dead body, so sacred be- 
 cause of the royal life that has left it behind. Well 
 done, brave Joseph of Arimathaea! For this one deed 
 of thine our hearts shall hold thee in perpetual re- 
 membrance. We are all thy debtors yet. 
 
 It is the hour of darkness and defeat, and loss and 
 fear. What heart-break comes upon those that loved 
 him, and hoped unutterable things from him! The 
 Galilean crowd creeps home, stunned and bewildered; 
 and his nearest and dearest, stupefied with grief and 
 loss, pass the weariest, darkest Sabbath of their lives, 
 sitting in the shadow of death. But in the morning, 
 just at sunrise, the women that saw him die go to the 
 tomb, to pay the last sad offices to the dead. There 
 in the tomb, whose stone is rolled away, they see a 
 young man sitting on the right, clothed in a white 
 garment. Who that young man was we can never 
 know, but his ringing words have gone round the 
 world. 
 
 And the young man said to them : " Ye seek Jesus 
 
48 
 
 of Nazareth. He is risen, he is not here ! He goes 
 before you into Galilee." Yes: go back to the old 
 home. Live and work for the new gospel. Then, 
 slowly, slowly, the words he spoke and the life he 
 lived shall come back to you and become your own; 
 and you shall see at last that your Jesus is not down 
 in the dark, but up in the light, not down in the weak 
 shadow land, where foolish ghosts flit aimlessly 
 around, but up in the strong bright heaven of God, 
 where life and love and purpose dwell, where the lost 
 are found, and where God and his children are one 
 forever. 
 
 "I am with you always to the end of the world," 
 says the risen Jesus. "Wherever any brave blow is, 
 struck for man's freedom and enlargement, wherever 
 sweet human pity seeks to lighten the pain of man, 
 wherever the lost and erring are sought and found, 
 wherever the wanderers in the wilderness of self and 
 sin are brought home, wherever men and women band 
 together for larger and nobler aims, wherever man 
 forgives and teaches and helps his brother, there am 
 I in the midst." How can these things be? Because 
 the family in Heaven and Earth is one, because deep 
 calls to deep in the midst of the Ever-Present, whose 
 Spirit it is that conveys the message of truth and love 
 and cheer and sympathy from heart to heart. 
 
 Be sure that whatsoever help he can give us from 
 that inner life that so closely touches ours, he is giv- 
 ing, and will give. And when heaven seems near, 
 and duty not hard to be done, and the cause of man 
 seems glorious, and we count all things but loss in 
 
49 
 
 comparison with that, when the love of God and 
 man is shed abroad in our hearts, and all things, life, 
 death, things present and things to come, seem ours, 
 then greatly believe that he, our star of promise, our 
 chief among ten thousand, is with us, too, part of that 
 heaven, that glory, that light, and that love.