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i^ajavetlj antr ffiapcrnaum. 
 
"ISVOFPH.X"^ 
 
 I UN e 191P 
 
 TEN LECTURES \ ^ 
 
 BEGINNING OF OUR LORD'S MINISTRY. 
 
 REV, S. BARING GOULD, M.A., 
 
 AUTHOK OF "the NATIVITY," " TUE TRIALS OF JEr^US," "THE PASSION, 
 " THE SEVEN LAST WORDS," ETC. 
 
 SKEFFINGTON AND SON, 163, PICCADILLY. 
 1886, 
 
iffontentg. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 S. Matt. iv. i. 
 
 "Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be 
 tempted of the devil." i 
 
 II. 
 
 CI)t Ctmptation. 
 
 S. Matt. iv. 3. 
 "The tempter came to Him." 8 
 
 III. 
 
 Cijt iHirack of Caua, 
 
 S. John ii. i, 2. 
 
 " And the third day tliere was a marriage in Cana of GaHlee ; and 
 the mother of Jesus was there : and both Jesus was called, and His 
 disciples, to the marriage." 19 
 
 IV. 
 
 '^\)t ^proclamation. 
 
 S. Luke iv. 21. 
 " Tiiis day is this Scripture fulfilled in yours ears." 28 
 
VI. 
 
 V. 
 
 <3tnnt<invttl). 
 
 S. Mark ii, i. pack 
 
 " He entered into Capernaum." 37 
 
 VI. 
 
 Ei)t ^ahhntf) at Capei-uaum. 
 
 S. Makk r. 21. 
 
 " Straightway on the Sabbath-day He entered into the synagogue, 
 
 and taught." 44 
 
 vn. 
 €!)c dFtrst iEt^^ionai'D Eoux, 
 
 S. Matt. iv. 23. 
 
 "And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, 
 and preaching che Gospel of the Kingdom." 54 
 
 vni. 
 
 S. Matt. ix. 6. 
 "Arise, take up thy bed, and go unto thine house." 60 
 
 IX. 
 
 CI;e pltraculou^ ©laucjljt. 
 
 S. Luke v. 4. 
 " Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a draught.'' 68 
 
 X. 
 
 C{)c Call of %tbi, 
 
 S. Matt. ix. 9. 
 
 "As Jesus passed forth from thence, He saw a man, named 
 Matthew, sitting at the receipt of custom : and He saith unto him, 
 Follow Me. And he arose and followed Him." 76 
 
^n}uvttf) aitK ©apernaum. 
 
 I. 
 
 S. Matthew iv. t. 
 
 " Then was Jesus led tip of the Spirit hi to the ijoilderness to be tempted 
 of the devil. '^ 
 
 It is certainly a fact full of significance, that the first 
 impulse of the Divine Spirit after having descended on 
 Christ should be to drive Him into seclusion. The Bap- 
 tism had been attended with marvellous signs — the opening 
 of Heaven, the visible descent of the Spirit, and the voice 
 proclaiming the Sonship of Christ. This was a manifestation 
 of Christ to the people, before He began His mission; a 
 proclamation to all those who came to Jordan to the 
 baptism of Repentance, that He was come, of Whom the 
 prophets had spoken, and to Whom John the Baptist was 
 the herald. 
 
 Then — when He had thus been declared to be the 
 
 expected of Israel — then the Spirit leads Him away from 
 
 the society of men to spend forty days and nights in prayer 
 
 and fasting in the wilderness. It was almost certainly the 
 
 * Suitable for the First Sunday in Lent. 
 
^.^larctlj auH Capernaum. 
 
 same after the conversion of S. Paul. He went into Arabia, 
 without conferring "with flesh and blood" (Gal. i. i6, 17), 
 before he began to exercise his ministry. 
 
 Surely we may learn from this that the Divine Spirit urges 
 to humility and withdrawal from the society of men — and 
 how different is this from the blustering and obtrusive 
 self-laudation which we sometimes see in those who regard 
 themselves as converted characters. The Spirit declared 
 Christ to be the Son of God, in Whom the Father was well 
 pleased, and at — once He fled to the desert and hid 
 Himself. On another occasion He performed a great 
 miracle of feeding many thousands, and that performed, 
 He retired into a mountain apart to pray. 
 
 We live in a busy time, when action alone is regarded, 
 and we lightly esteem whatever work does not make display. 
 We must advertise ourselves, proclaim our successes, puff 
 our work, and regard success as the seal of Divine favour. 
 Yet the silent forty days and nights of prayer and fasting, 
 and struggle with the tempter, produced no apparent results, 
 effected nothing positive that we can see, yet the Dord began 
 His ministry with this, as though this were essential to His 
 success. A time of retirement from business, of gathering 
 in of the thoughts from the routine of work, of abstraction 
 from vulgar cares, is necessary for all ; and without it, 
 advancement in the spiritual life, and success in the minis- 
 terial work of saving or shepherding souls is not to be 
 
CI)C fflXSimcrnc^^. 
 
 expected. The disciples of Jesus were unable to cast out 
 devils, because they had not prepared for the attempt in 
 the same way as Christ. '* This goeth not out," said our 
 Lord, " but by prayer and fasting." (S. Matt. xvii. 21.) 
 
 It has been said that Christ by His example sanctioned 
 the eremitical life, the retirement into the deserts of the 
 old hermits, to spend their lives in contemplation. To some 
 extent only is this true. Christ sanctioned retirement, but 
 He made retirement from the world preparatory to active 
 mission work in the world. Where the old hermits misread 
 His teaching was in this, that they retired to the deserts and 
 did not leave the deserts again, they made that a cul-de-sac 
 which should have been a passage. 
 
 The example of our Lord seems to us in this age of high 
 pressure to be of special importance. We look too much to 
 the amount of work done, rather than to the quality of the 
 work. This is the case in every branch of life, in every 
 industry, in every profession ; and it cannot be denied that in 
 the present day the hurry of life is so great that men have not 
 the patience to study and to appreciate good work ; so long 
 as it has a specious appearance of being good, it is sufficient. 
 But in spiritual work, we must consider that the eye of God 
 is on us, and that we are labouring for Him, not for men, 
 and, by His retirement for prayer and fasting into the 
 sohtude of the desert, Christ puts into our hands the key to 
 the door of all thorough and efficacious work in the spiritual 
 
^njarrtl) antr <£a^jcrnaum. 
 
 sphere,— it must be well considered, well prayed over, and 
 well prepared for. 
 
 Every plant has its hidden life that precedes its visible 
 and manifested life ; the seed, or bulb, or tuber spends a time 
 in accumulating to itself vital force or energy, during which 
 period it appears to be dormant. Then, when it has taken 
 the requisite time, it begins to grow, it throws up its leaves 
 and flowers. The leaves and flowers are no spontaneous 
 development out of the root, they have been long prepared 
 for in the hidden life and apparent sleep of the seed or root 
 underground. All life is initiated by a hidden period of 
 incubation. And all healthy human activity has also its 
 still, unperceived phase of existence. Christ shows us that 
 it is the same in the spiritual life. The forty days and nights 
 — I may say the whole of the hidden life at Nazareth — was 
 the seed germinating, and the three years' ministry was the 
 manifestation of the life. 
 
 The wilderness into which our Blessed Lord retired lies 
 to the east of the Dead Sea, the most barren district of 
 Palestine, where deeply cleft ravines and naked crags present 
 a picture of Nature bereft of life. The rocks are of volcanic 
 origin, black, and there are beds of lava. The lower ravine 
 of the Cedron not inappropriately bears the name of the 
 Vale of Fire. This barren waste was a figure of the world 
 into which Christ had come, bare of all the fruits of 
 righteousness, dry of all waters of comfort, destitute of green 
 
Cljc iZatltirnic^^. 
 
 pastures, possessed as an habitation by men with the passions 
 of wild beasts, haunted by evil spirits. Into this desert the 
 Scape Goat was annually driven, there, as the Jews believed, 
 to be torn to pieces by devils. Into this desert the Lamb 
 of God enters, that He may combat and break the power 
 of Satan. 
 
 The children of Israel, after having traversed the Red 
 Sea, and been baptized under Moses in that sea, as the 
 Apostle says, were disciplined in the wilderness for forty 
 years, to prepare them to take the Land of Promise into 
 possession, and now the Son of Israel, after having been 
 baptized in Jordan, retires inco the wilderness to prepare by 
 self-discipline for taking to Rimself the Kingdom. 
 
 Solitude is the mother of great thoughts and resolutions. 
 There, on the heights of Abarim, Christ could look down 
 on the Dead Sea, into which the sweet waters of Jordan 
 incessantly flowed, yet which they never sweetened. So had 
 the stream of life which God had created, full of good, and 
 health, and sweetness, run down into a Sea of Death, and 
 it seemed impossible that the corruption of life in the world 
 could be cured. But now, a new well of water, — the Water 
 of Life was to be opened, a new stream poured forth, and 
 the prophecy of Ezekiel be fulfilled, "These waters issue 
 out towards the east country, and go down into the desert, 
 and go into the sea, and the waters shall be healed. And 
 it shall come to pass, that every thing that liveth, which 
 
|l.i|arctfj antf eTa^jcrnaum. 
 
 moveth, whithersoever the rivers shall come, shall live — 
 everything shall live whither the river cometh." (Ezek. 
 xlvii. 8, 9.) 
 
 It may be doubted whether any other scene on earth 
 can surpass the desert of Engedi for rousing in the mind 
 thoughts of death and judgment. This valley, now converted 
 to a desert, was once a well-watered and populous plain, 
 in which stood five cities full of life, and happiness, and 
 activity. Lot chose this broad valley as his share, because 
 of its fertility, and now it is all desolation — ashes, dust, and 
 flinty rock. The ruin of one district, brought about by the 
 spirit of fleshly lust. The transformation of the garden into 
 a desert and a Dead Sea, is a figure of the ruin of the world ; 
 of the desolation wrought, moreover, in man by the spirit of 
 uncleanness. There Jesus sees before Him, as in a picture, 
 the then condition of the world ; the transformation, the 
 regeneration He was sent from Heaven to effect. 
 
 He begins His work with Himself. Before He goes out 
 on His mission to destroy the works of the Devil on men, 
 He proves the power ot Satan on Himself; before He shews 
 men how the flesh is to be conquered, He tests in Himself 
 the power and weakness of the flesh. 
 
 Here, then, is an important lesson to all those who would 
 do good to others. Let them first prove themselves. You 
 will remember the scorn with which S. Paul addresses those 
 w^ho rush to instruct, reprove, exhort others, without having 
 
S:i)C ESailtlcnic^^. 
 
 prepared for it by self-introspection. " Thou which teachest 
 another, teachest thou not thyself? Thou that preachest a 
 man should not steal, dost thou steal ? Thou that sayest a 
 man should not commit adultery, dost thou commit adultery ? 
 Thou that abhorrest idols, dost thou commit sacrilege ? 
 Thou that makest thy boast of the law, through breaking 
 the law dishonourest thou God?" (Rom. ii. 21-23.) 
 
 The Lord foresaw His temptation, and He prepared for 
 it. He shewed us, therefore, that we must be on our guard, 
 and watch and make ready against the Evil One. He who 
 is unprepared is likely to fall a prey to Satan, but he who 
 has prepared his soul against temptations is secure. " Watch 
 and pray lest ye enter into temptation," was our Lord's 
 command to His disciples in the Garden, but it is an 
 exhortation appropriate to all who are His disciples, and at 
 all times. The retirement of our Lord into the wilderness, 
 therefore, teaches us several precious lessons. 
 
 1. Humility when most favoured by God, when most 
 abundantly illumined and blessed by His Spirit. 
 
 2. The necessity of preparation for every work done for 
 God, if that work is to be really fruitful. 
 
 3. All missionary and ministerial work is to be begun 
 with self. 
 
 4. Preparation is necessary against the temptations of the 
 Evil One. 
 
II. 
 i!L\)t ^temptation. 
 
 S. Matthew iv. 3. 
 •' T/ie tempter came to Him.''' 
 
 "And when" Jesus " had fasted forty days and forty nights, 
 He was afterward an hungred. And when the tempter came 
 to Him, he said, If Thou be the Son of God, command 
 that these stones be made bread/' Or, as S. Luke says, 
 "Command this stone that it be made bread." "But He 
 answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread 
 alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth 
 of God." As the first Adam in the Garden of Eden was 
 tempted through his fleshly appetite, so is the second Adam 
 tempted in the desert. The first Adam was not hungry, he 
 was merely attracted by the looks of the fruit of the forbidden 
 tree, which promised to be as delicious to the palate as it 
 was pleasant to the eye. The second Adam had fasted for 
 forty days and forty nights and was famished. There was 
 something infantile in the temptation to which the first man 
 was subjected. A babe tries to put everything in its mouth. 
 A child is greedy, its ruling passion is love of sweet things 
 
 * Suitable for the First Sundav in Lent. 
 
C{)C Crmptatiou. 
 
 and fruit. Satan, in tempting our first parents, used the 
 sort of temptation which is most Hkely to prevail with 
 children. The second Adam was tried in a somewhat different 
 way. He was not assailed with the temptation to yield to 
 the love of sweet things, but to the craving after necessary 
 food ; and this shows us that Satan did not approach Him 
 with that sardonic contempt and effrontery with which he 
 encountered the first Adam. 
 
 There is nothing more beautiful than the childlike, simple 
 character, and this the first Adam possessed; he was ignorant 
 of evil, guileless. Satan, with that scoffing spirit with which 
 the great German poet has portrayed him, to show his scorn 
 of this innocent mind, tempts him with the sort of temptation 
 which even a school-boy or a little girl of six years old would 
 have the moral courage to resist. • 
 
 But in the first temptation of our Lord there is no token 
 of this sneering spirit. The devil recognises the gravity of 
 the case, and he tries Christ more seriously than he tried 
 Adam. 
 
 Jesus had been baptized. The voice from Heaven had 
 proclaimed Him to be the Son of God. Satan appeals to 
 this manifestation, " If Thou be the Son of God, command 
 that these stones be made bread." But if he addresses 
 himself somewhat differently to the task of working the fall 
 of the second Adam, he tries the same method of insinuating 
 a doubt. To our first parents he said, " Yea, hath God 
 
10 ^a|.irctl) Kilts Capernaum. 
 
 said, ye shall not eat? " and when Eve exclaimed that God 
 had said, " Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, 
 lest ye die," he rephed, "Ye shall not surely die." He 
 hinted first his doubt of God having given the command, 
 then his disbelief in God's threat being carried out. So now 
 he hints that the voice from Heaven was Vox et pi-ceterea nihih 
 
 The temptation was shrewdly contrived to meet the 
 peculiar circumstances. In my last lecture I shewed how" 
 that the desert and the Dead Sea, lying in the basin of the 
 barren hills, were a figure of the desolation brought on the 
 world by sin, and how that probably our Lord, from the 
 wilderness, looked over tliis picture of death, and saw in it a 
 figure of the scene of His moral operation. Now Satan steals 
 up to Him, holding out a dead stone, and asks Him to begin 
 His work by transforming that stone. As He is about to make 
 the desert fruitful, and the wilderness blossom as a rose, and 
 the Sea of Death become a lake of living water, let Him 
 begin His work symbolically, with a stone of this district. 
 Very probably the temptation was n«t to turn the piece of 
 black stone into white wheaten bread, but into the homely, 
 hard rye, black bread, which nourishes, but is no dainty. 
 
 On the way to Jericho, and, indeed, all around the Dead 
 Sea, are to be found in chalk beds, masses of flint, of rounded 
 shape, which the Arabs suppose to be the olives, apples, 
 melons, and other fruit of the time of Sodom and Gomorrah, 
 which, at the overthrow of the cities, were turned into stone. 
 
CIjc Ccmptattau. 11 
 
 Some of these stones have the size and shape of loaves, and 
 it is possible that Satan took one of these rounded masses 
 of flint, and, with his undercurrent of bitterness and scorn, 
 offered it to Christ, supposing Him to share the popular 
 superstition about them. If we may expand his words, they 
 ran thus : " See this loaf-like flintstone ! No doubt it was 
 once bread in one of the houses of Sodom, but God over- 
 threw the wicked city, and the bread was turned into stone. 
 Now, O Son of God — that is, if you are the Son of God — as 
 you have come to undo the work of destruction wrought by 
 sin, and to bring life into a world subject to death, shew 
 your power on this stone, and turn it back into the loaf of 
 bread which it once was." 
 
 Our Lord answered, " Man doth not live by bread alone, 
 but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of 
 God." His reply to Satan shewed that man has a double 
 nature, a spiritual as well as a material life. Satan had 
 assailed Him through His animal nature. His carnal needs. 
 Christ points out to him that man has a spiritual nature as 
 well, and spiritual needs. Moreover, He shewed Satan 
 that He was come to work miracles not for the relief of His 
 own necessity, but for the mitigation of the distresses and 
 needs of His fellow men. 
 
 Satan understands at once. He is keen of intellect; the 
 drift of our Lord's words is quite clear to his cold, cruel 
 intelligence, and instantly he changes the nature of his 
 
12 ^aiarrtl) auti dpcniaum. 
 
 temptation, and assails Christ's spiritual nature, that nature 
 which craved for and lived by the word of God. 
 
 The assaults of Satan are in three spheres — the sensual, 
 the ethical, and the spiritual. Directly that he has been 
 defeated in his attack on Christ through His physical 
 necessities, he alters his tactics, and seeks His overthrow 
 through an appeal to His higher, spiritual nature. 
 
 " Then the devil taketh Him up into the holy city, and 
 setteth Him on a pinnacle of the Temple, and saith unto 
 Him, If Thou be the Son of God, cast Thyself down : for 
 it is written, He shall give His angels charge concerning 
 Thee : and in their hands they shall bear Thee up, lest at 
 any time Thou dash Thy foot against a stone." 
 
 The holy city is, of course, Jerusalem.* The pinnacle 
 {iTTepvyiov Tov upov) is properly the wing of the Temple build- 
 ings, not of the main building {-ov vaov) itself The pinnacle 
 has been supposed to be the pediment of the three-storied 
 royal hall, which Herod had erected at the southern corner 
 of the Temple area, and which reached to the mouth of the 
 Tyropceon, and stood high above the ravine of Cedron, 
 where it turns into the Valley of Hinnom. Josephus thus 
 describes it. f " It was an astonishing work of art, the like 
 of which was nowhere else to be seen, for the valley was so 
 
 * The attribute " Kedoscha " (holy) is given to Jerusalem in Isaiah 
 xlviii. 2. Jerusalem to this day is called by the natives El Kods, the Holy, 
 t Antiq. xv. ii, 5. 
 
dTljc Ccmptatiaii. 13 
 
 deep, that when anyone standing on the top looked down 
 into it, he lost his head. Above this, Herod erected a 
 portico of four storeys of pillars, of such extraordinary height, 
 that when anyone ascended to the parapet, so as to look 
 down from the roof on the entire depth of building and 
 natural precipice, he stood a chance of becoming giddy 
 before his eye reached the bottom of the abyss." The 
 parapet here, no doubt, formed a low pediment, such as is 
 common to the gables of Grecian temples. On the top of 
 this pediment stood Jesus, with Satan by Him. 
 
 A great commotion, and, indeed, a riot was caused in 
 Jerusalem, by the erection of a golden Roman eagle, on 
 the Temple gate, as crowning the pediment, by Herod the 
 Great, about 4 b.c. The eagle was torn down and broken 
 in pieces by the rioters. It was a symbol both of Roman 
 power and of Jupiter, the king of the gods. Now — perhaps in 
 covert reference to this incident — Satan plants the Lord on 
 the apex of the pediment of Herod's great four-storied hall, 
 or, possibly on the entrance gate, on the very pedestal from 
 which the golden eagle had been thrown down. 
 
 We may again expand the temptation of Satan, to give 
 its full significance. " See ! Thou Who art — or art declared 
 to be, the Son of God, standest now on the pediment of the 
 Temple. When Herod, the builder of this splendid pile, 
 set up on it the golden image of the bird that symbolized 
 the heathen god and Roman power, the Jews pulled it down 
 
14 ^ajarctl) antr Cajpcruaum. 
 
 and it \Yas dashed to pieces. Now Thou, the promised 
 Messiah art come, Thou standest on the highest and most 
 conspicuous point of the gable ; now then, manifest Thyself 
 to the Jews for what Thou givest Thyself out to be. Throw 
 Thyself down, and let them see Thou art not man only. 
 The golden eagle was smashed when it fell, but angels will 
 bear Thee up, and this manifestation will shew Thy people 
 that Thou art the true Messiah, come to release them from 
 the yoke of the Romans." Satan's temptation was now an 
 incentive to spiritual pride. He tried to spur Christ, Who 
 had "made Himself a little lower than the angels," by His 
 incarnation, to shew Himself to be the Lord of the angels ; 
 to make Himself, as man, equal with God. The apostate 
 angels as lightning fell from Heaven, because they sought to 
 exalt themselves to be equal with God, and now Satan tries 
 on Christ the same temptation which had wrought his own 
 fall, as in the first instance he tried on Christ the temptation 
 which had effected Adam's fall. Adam fell through lust of 
 the flesh, Satan through spiritual ambition. Now Satan 
 having failed to bring Christ down by attacking His human 
 nature, attacks His spiritual nature. 
 
 It is certainly remarkable that not long after, at the 
 destruction of Jerusalem, hundreds of Jews threw themselves 
 down from the top of the Temple, in the belief that at 
 the last moment God would send the Messiah to deliver 
 them and the holy city and His Temple by a miracle. 
 
iTljc (ITrmptattau. 
 
 They sinned in the way in which Christ refused to sin. 
 
 That is mistrust in the ordinary grace of God, when man, 
 either through pride or timidity, exacts of God an extra- 
 ordinary manifestation of His power. 
 
 It is worthy of remark, that Satan quoted Scripture to 
 enforce his temptation, taking a text and breaking it away 
 from its context, " Thou shalt tread upon the hon and 
 adder," which refers to the triumph of Christ over himself. 
 We may learn from this to mistrust all fancy picking and 
 choosing in Scripture of texts and doctrines. The Catholic 
 faith is the entire circle of verities revealed by Christ to His 
 Church. Heresy, which is the work of the devil, is the 
 breaking away and exaggerating of one truth at the expense 
 of others. Our Lord answered, " It is written again, Thou 
 shalt not tempt the Lord thy God." 
 
 " Again, the devil taketh Him up into an exceeding high 
 mountain, and sheweth Him all the kingdoms of the world, 
 and the glory of them : and saith unto Him, xMl these things 
 will I give Thee if Thou wilt fall down and worship me.'"' 
 
 The high mountain is most probably Abarim, with its 
 three peaks of Pisgah, Peor and Nebo. From the western 
 point, Peor, Balaam overlooked the tents of Israel and 
 blessed them, when brought there by Balak to curse the 
 people. From the northernmost peak, Nebo, above Baal 
 Maon, a complete panorama of the Dead Sea is obtained. 
 Thence it was that the Lord God shewed Moses " All the 
 
16 ^djarctl) antf Capernaum., 
 
 land of Gilead, unto Dan, and all Naphtali, and the land of 
 Ephraim, and Manasseh, and all the land of Judah, unto 
 the utmost sea, and the south, and the plain of the valley of 
 Jericho, the city of palm trees, unto Zoar. And the Lord 
 said unto him, This is the land which I sware unto Abraham, 
 unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, saying, I will give it unto thy 
 seed : I have caused thee to see it with thine eyes, but thou 
 shalt not go over thither." (Deut. xxxiv. 1-4.) 
 
 Here once more we notice the covert sneer in Satan's 
 temptation. He takes Christ to the point where Moses 
 stood to view the Promised Land which he was not to enter. 
 Let us again expand the tempter's words, and give the 
 temptation its full force and significance. " O Thou prophet 
 of the Most High, like unto Moses, Who comest to lead the 
 people of God out of bondage into liberty, to restore again 
 the kingdom to Israel ! Thou wilt, may be, do what Thou 
 undertakest. But what will be the result to Thyself 2 Wilt 
 Thou profit in any way by it ? God gave to Moses a hard 
 forty years in the wilderness, and instead of rewarding him 
 with rest at the end, let him see the Promised Land from 
 afar, even from this spot, and let him die without allowing 
 him to set foot on it. That is how God deals with His 
 prophets, and that is how He will deal with Thee." 
 
 And as he spake, may be the eye of the Son of Man 
 rested on far-off Calvary, which is visible from this spot. 
 
 Then Satan went on with the contrast — "But I — I reward 
 
Clje Ccmptattan. 17 
 
 my servants at once. Come, bend the knee to me, and I will 
 give Thee glory, and power, and dominion in the present." 
 And there rose a mirage of the desert, and in that mirage 
 was a vision of palaces and palm trees, and glittering sheets 
 of water, on which gay barges sailed, apparently very real, but 
 it was only a phantom scene painted in the unwholesome 
 vapours that rose from the Dead Sea, and from the hot 
 bituminous desert sands and rocks. A phantom splendour 
 over desolation and death. That w^as what Satan offered. 
 And observe likewise the difference between his offers and 
 those of God, offers which he makes quite unabashed, and 
 emphasizes. God gives present pain and future glory — 
 Satan gives present satisfaction and future wretchedness. 
 Only note how he pitches on one half of each offer, and 
 contrasts only the present, saying nothing of the future. 
 God gives present sadness, Satan present satisfaction ; and 
 he utters not a word about the future. 
 
 The vision was but for a moment. Satan " shewed unto 
 Him in a moment of time all the kingdoms of the world, 
 and the glory of them " (S. Luke iv. 5, 6) ; the desert 
 mirage does not last long, but while it lasts it is thoroughly 
 deceptive. So is it with the gifts of Satan ; they are 
 but for a moment, and then they vanish away, and leave 
 dust, and ashes, and barrenness, and death behind. The 
 devil fits his temptation nicely to his purpose. Christ is 
 about to begin His mission, and to found His kingdoin, 
 
 B 
 
18 ^a^arrtlj aulf Caprrnaum. 
 
 which is to be universal, to extend throughout the world. 
 Satan shews Him how to make the kingdoms of earth 
 His own instantaneously, by doing homage to himself. 
 No need then for Calvary, no laborious preachings, no 
 persecutions, no martyrdoms, no sowing in tears, no casting 
 of the bread on the waters, and patient expectance of the 
 result after many days. The kingdoms of the world will 
 become the kingdoms of Christ at once, if He will conform 
 to the world, and acknowledge the Evil One as supreme, — 
 if He will allow the presence of evil, legislate for it, accept 
 it, and not fight against it. 
 
 But this offer of Satan is an usurpation of power. God 
 had said by the mouth of David, " Desire of Me, and I 
 will give Thee the heathen for Thine inheritance, and the 
 uttermost part of the earth for Thy possession." He arro- 
 gates to himself the power of God. "Then saith Jesus unto 
 him, Get thee hence, Satan : for it is written. Thou shalt 
 worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve." 
 And in these words Christ teaches us the impossibility of 
 compromising with evil. No man can serve God and 
 Mammon. " He that is not with Me," He said afterwards, 
 " is against Me, and he that gathereth not with Me 
 scattereth abroad." 
 
III. 
 ®i)e ittirarle of ittana,'' 
 
 S. John ir. i, 2. 
 
 "And the third day there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee ; and the 
 mother of Jesus was there : and both Jesus was called^ and His disciples^ to 
 the marriage''' 
 
 After the Temptation, our Lord re-joined His disciples, 
 of whom there were then five, by Jordan, and with them 
 started for Cana of Gahlee. His newly-acquired disciple, 
 Nathanael Bar-Tolmai, was of Cana (John xxi. 2), and it 
 is possible that His journey thither may have had some 
 connexion with Nathanael having joined himself to Him. 
 It is a three days' journey from Jordan, at ^non, where 
 John was baptizing, to Cana, which lies about four hours' 
 walk north of Nazareth. The road taken by the Lord was 
 through the Wadi Fuwar, by Ai and Bethel, to the main 
 high road leading to Damascus. Christ had with Him, as 
 already said, five disciples only — John and Andrew, Peter, 
 Philip and Nathanael. t No doubt that Jesus went first to 
 
 * Suitable for the Second Sunday after the Epiphany. 
 
 t The Babylon Talmud also says that He had five disciples, but gives 
 their names wrong, Sanh. 43, i — Matthias, Nakai, Nezor, Bonai, and 
 Thoda. Thoda is Thaddaeus. Nakai is perhaps Nathanael. 
 
20 ^a|arrtlj antJ Capernaum. 
 
 Nazareth, thence His mother had been invited to Cana to 
 the marriage, and He followed her thither. The way from 
 Nazareth leads through low hills to the high marshy plain 
 of Asochir, covered with bullrushes, abounding in tortoises 
 and frogs, and with innumerable mosquitoes. About half 
 an hour's walk from this swamp, lies the little village of Cana 
 of Gahlee, called at present, as of old, Kana el Gelil, that 
 is — in Galilee. Behind the place rises the mountain, as a 
 precipitous "wall in a wide arc* 
 
 The village can never have been of much consequence ; 
 at the present day the houses in it are small and ruinous, 
 and the place uninhabited. It lies at the watershed between 
 the sea of Gennesareth and the Mediterranean, and this is 
 the reason of the swampy nature of the soil. 
 
 Among the Jews no marriages were allowed to take place 
 at the three great festivals, and Ezra had ordered that a 
 marriage with a maiden should take place on a Wednesday, 
 one with a widow on a Thursday. The marriage took 
 place seven days after the betrothal, and for thirty days 
 after the marriage the newly-wedded woman bore the title 
 of Bride. 
 
 At the betrothal the bridegroom gave the bride a coin, 
 
 and she presented him with a stone tablet, as a token that 
 
 the marriage between man and woman was a figure of that 
 
 union between God and the Jewish Church which was sealed 
 
 " The rival claim is made by Kefr Kenna, a castle-like village on a height. 
 
Cf)C iBivKtXe al €^im. 21 
 
 on Sinai when the Tables of the Law were given. At a 
 divorce these stone tablets were broken. 
 
 On the marriage morning the bridegroom sent the bridal 
 dresses to his stepfather's house, together with ointments, 
 fruits, and other presents. The bride, on her side, sent the 
 bridegroom his winding sheet, which he was bound to put 
 on twice in the year : on New Year's Day, and on the great 
 Day of Atonement. When the bride was adorned by her 
 friends, then the bridegroom came, crowned with flowers, 
 and accompanied by his friends, to her house, whence he 
 conducted her to his own, accompanied by flute players, 
 song, and dances. Ten virgins carrying lamps formed the 
 escort of the bride (Kallah) ; and ten young men carrying 
 torches attended the bridegroom (Chathan) ; at the head of 
 these latter was the groom's man, " the friend of the bride- 
 groom," as he is termed in the Gospel. The attendants, 
 and one as bride's man, chosen from the brothers of the bride, 
 were called " Children of the Bridechamber," and their duties 
 lasted through life, they were called in when quarrels ensued, 
 to reconcile husband and wife together. At the wedding 
 they saw to the wedding feast, and to the comfort and cheer- 
 fulness of the guests. 
 
 At the feast, a goblet of wine was provided, and the 
 bridegroom and bride drank out of it, and then it was 
 dashed to pieces on the ground, and the fragments were 
 given to the guests. 
 
22 i^a^arctf) anti CHpcrnnum. 
 
 The bride was closel)' veiled, richly adorned, and crowned 
 with roses and myrtle ; as Galilee was famous for the finely- 
 woven linen made there, no doubt the bride on the occasion 
 of the marriage at which Jesus was, was arrayed in linen, 
 white, and clean, and fine. Salt was strewn as a crown on 
 the head of bride and bridegroom. During the feast, songs 
 were sung, and nuts were thrown to the children. 
 
 ** And when they wanted wine, the mother of Jesus saith 
 unto Him, They have no wine. Jesus saith unto her, Woman, 
 what have I to do with thee ? Mine hour is not yet come. 
 His mother saith unto the servants. Whatsoever He saith 
 unto you. Do it. And there were set there six waterpots of 
 stone, after the manner of the purifying of the Jews, contain- 
 ing two or three firkins apiece. Jesus saith unto them, Fill 
 the waterpots with water. And they filled them up to the 
 brim. And He saith unto them. Draw out now, and bear 
 unto the governor of the feast. And they bare it." 
 
 The strict Jews washed their hands not only before mid- 
 day meal and supper (Luke xi. 38), but also whenever they 
 ate bread (Matt. xv. 2), and were very scrupulous about the 
 washing of every vessel used for food. (Mark vii. 2 ; Matt. 
 xxiii. 25.) As knives and forks were dispensed with in eat- 
 ing, and everyone helped himself from the dish with his 
 fingers, it was absolutely necessary that the hand should be 
 scrupulously clean. 
 
 The marriage at Cana was a marriage of people in poor 
 
€\)c Miracle al €mK. 23 
 
 circumstances. The Galilceans were mostly a poor people, 
 they drank very little wine and milk. Probably the guests 
 brought their small contributions to the feast, and the ruler 
 of the feast, or groom's man, had reckoned on some of them 
 giving wine, but — all at once it was found that the poor little 
 store of the fruit of the grape was out. Mary, with the ten- 
 der, kindly, woman's heart, felt for the poor young people, 
 and the humiliation on this, the greatest day of their life, 
 of being unable to provide sufficient w^ne for all who were 
 invited. Then she comes to her Divine Son, and whispers, 
 " They have no wine." Perhaps she thought of what Elijah 
 had done for his hostess, the widow of Sarepta, whose oil 
 and meal he had multiplied, or of the blessing given by 
 Elisha to the oil vessel of the Shunammite. 
 
 But the Lord refused to have His hand forced. Satan 
 had endeavoured, a few days previously, to force Him to 
 manifest His Divine power, and now His mother appears to 
 urge Him to do the same. Yet how different are the cases ! 
 Satan would have Him change stones into bread to satisfy 
 His own bodily requirements ; stones, into a necessary of 
 life. Here He is asked to provide what is no necessary, 
 but a luxury. 
 
 His answer to His mother is, " Woman, what have I to 
 do with thee? Mine hour is not yet come." There is no 
 reproach in the title, Woman. With it He addressed her 
 from the Cross, " Woman, behold thy son." But the other 
 
24 ^ajarctb autr Capernaum. 
 
 words imply that His period of subjection to His mother was 
 at an end. Hitherto He had yielded to her will, and followed 
 her advice, now He has no more to do with her. He has 
 His mission to fulfil, the Will of His Heavenly Father to do, 
 and that alone must be His governing principle. 
 
 But Mary's faith is not shaken. She goes to the servants, 
 and bids them do whatsoever He commands. Then He 
 ordered the waterpots to be filled with water, and the fluid 
 poured forth and taken to the groom's man. *' When the 
 ruler of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine, 
 and knew not whence it was : (but the servants which drew 
 the water knew ;) the governor of the feast called the bride- 
 groom, and saith unto him, Every man at the beginning 
 doth set forth good wine ; and when men have well drunk, 
 then that which is worse : but thou hast kept the good wine 
 until now." 
 
 The best Palestinian wine is dark red, and sweet ; it is 
 held far superior to the white, which is often coloured to 
 make it pass as the red wine. This red v/ine is, however, 
 so strong, that, as a rule, it is not drunk without admixture 
 with water.* 
 
 S. John does not give an account of the Temptation. 
 The other evangelists do not give an account of the miracle 
 
 * Sabbat, f. 79 — " Raba said, That is no wine, which is not mixed with 
 three parts of water." As a rule, however, two-thirds were of water. 
 Sanhed. f. 14. 
 
Ct)c ^I'rarlr of (Cana. 
 
 of Cana ; and yet how one follows on the other and com- 
 pletes the picture. 
 
 Christ refuses to change a stone into bread to satisfy 
 Himself; He transforms water into wine to relieve the 
 anxiety of, and to gratify others. He refused to be urged to 
 work a miracle by Satan. He refuses to be forced to work 
 a miracle by His mother. 
 
 In Psalm cxxviii. a wife is likened to a fruitful vine, 
 on the walls of a house. In the Eastern Church, at the 
 betrothal, the priest, holding a glass of wine in his hand, 
 recites this psalm. 
 
 The marriage of Cana, in which water is converted into 
 wine, at the outset of Christ's ministry, is a figure of His 
 betrothal to His Church at the Last Supper, at the close of 
 His ministry, when He changed wine into His Blood. 
 
 By this miracle Christ emphatically declared that use was 
 to be made of all the good things God had created, and 
 that no fanatical narrowness must protest against any. He 
 consecrated the use of wine, and He consecrated marriage ; 
 and, as some fanatics have declared against marriage as 
 sinful, so have others declared against wine. Christ shewed 
 by His presence at Cana, and His first miracle, that no 
 institution, and no gift of God is to be absolutely rejected 
 because it is capable of abuse. In wine there lurks a danger, 
 and in all fermented liquor. Noah drank, and was drunken, 
 and heathenism deified wine, and made of drunkenness 
 
26 <?a^firctlj anti Capernaum. 
 
 divine excitation. The heathen world sanctioned polygamy, 
 and fell into abominable licence. Christ preaches in this, 
 His first miracle, the lesson of moderation ; let every man 
 have his one wife, and be faithful to her ; and let the good 
 things of this world be used, and not be abused. 
 
 I have said that this miracle follows on the Temptation, 
 and completes its lessons. It does so in another way to 
 those already mentioned. 
 
 Satan shewed Christ, in a vision, the glory of the world, 
 and promised to give it Him at present, but said nothing 
 about the future ; contrasting himself with God, Who, from 
 the same mount, shewed Moses the promised land, and 
 gave it him not, but laid on him only the burden of bringing 
 the people of Israel through the wilderness to its confines. 
 
 And now the master of the feast follows on the same 
 thought unconsciously. " Every man at the beginning doth 
 set forth good wine, and — then that which is worse, but thou 
 hast kept the good wine until now." In these words he 
 shews, without knowing it, the difference between man's and 
 Satan's dealings, and God's dealings. Satan gives present 
 delight and gladness, but after misery. God gives sorrow 
 and trial now, but after that an exceeding weight of glory. 
 Tears come first, then laughter : struggle first, then victory. 
 As Bishop Jeremy Taylor said, " First penitents, and then 
 communicants ; first waters of sorrow, and then the wine of 
 the chalice ; first the justifications of correction, and then the 
 
Cljc iHtracIc at Cana. 27 
 
 sanctifications of the Sacrament, and the effects of Divine 
 power, joy, and peace, and serenity, hopes full of confidence, 
 and confidence without shame, and boldness without pre- 
 sumption : for Jesus keeps the best wine till the last, not 
 only because of the direct reservation of the highest joys till 
 the nearer approaches of glory, but also, because our relishes 
 are higher after a long fruition than at the first essays ; such 
 being the nature of grace, that it increases in relish as it 
 does in fruition, every part of grace being new duty and 
 new reward." 
 
IV. 
 
 El)t ^roflamation 
 
 S. Luke iv. 21. 
 " T/iis day is this Scripture f^dfilled in yozir ears.'' 
 
 After the Miracle of Cana, our Lord probably returned to 
 Nazareth, but He visited Capernaum, and the shores of the 
 Lake of Gennesareth occasionally, for there Andrew, Peter, 
 and John lived, and pursued their avocation as fishers. He 
 visited them, but did not call them from their business till 
 John was cast into prison by Herod. " From that time," 
 says S. Matthew, "Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent : 
 for the kingdom of Heaven is at hand" (iv. 17). S. Luke 
 says that after the temptation, " Jesus returned in the power 
 of the Spirit into Galilee : and there went out a fame of Him 
 through all the region round about. And He taught in 
 their synagogues, being glorified of all." Then S. Luke 
 goes on to say that He came to Nazareth, and there, in the 
 synagogue, proclaimed His mission, which so incensed the 
 people of Nazareth that they sought to take His life. S. 
 John, directly after the account of the Miracle of Cana, 
 says, " After this He went down to Capernaum, He, and 
 His mother, and His brethren, and His disciples : and they 
 
Cftc |3i*oclamati0iT. 29 
 
 continued there not many days" (ii. 12). We cannot be 
 wrong in judging that this removal of the whole family 
 ensued on the proclamation of the Gospel in the synagogue 
 at Nazareth, and the consequent attempt on His life. 
 Capernaum became the home of His manhood, as Nazareth 
 had been the home of His youth. He was forced to leave 
 Nazareth, but He did not leave it till driven from it by the 
 envy and wounded pride of the men there. " He came unto 
 His own, and His own received Him not." 
 
 Probably the arrest of S. John the Baptist took place 
 shortly after Christ had been baptized. Then, at once, 
 Christ began His ministry, and He began it by announcing 
 Who He was, and what He had come to do, in the syna- 
 gogue of His own city Nazareth. That, however. He had 
 performed some marvellous works at Capernaum already, 
 perhaps when on a visit to His disciples, Andrew and Peter, 
 we learn from the words of the Jews at Nazareth. What 
 these w^orks were we do not know. The Gospels are silent 
 concerning them. 
 
 Let us now consider the formal, solemn announcement 
 with which He opened His missionary labours of three 
 years. This is given by S. Luke very fully. 
 
 " He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up : 
 and, as His custom was. He went into the synagogue on the 
 Sabbath day, and stood up to read. And there was delivered 
 unto Him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when He 
 
30 ^ajarctb antr Capernaum. 
 
 had opened the book, He found the place where it was 
 written, The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He 
 hath anointed Me to preach the Gospel to the poor ; He 
 hath sent Me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliver- 
 ance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to 
 set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable 
 year of the Lord. And He closed the book, and He gave it 
 again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all 
 them that were in the synagogue were fastened on Him. 
 And He began to say unto them, This day is this Scripture 
 fulfilled in your ears. And all bare Him witness, and 
 wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of 
 His mouth." 
 
 As our Blessed Lord came to the ]c\y first, and only when 
 the Jew rejected Him was the Gospel carried to the Gentile, 
 so, apparently, was it now. He had indeed preached 
 " Repent ye, for the kingdom of Heaven is at hand," in 
 the synagogues round, and in that of His own city, but now 
 He made His first declaration of His mission in His own 
 city to His own citizens, and only when they rejected Him, 
 did He remove elsewhere and announce the glad tidings to 
 others. If this be as I suppose, it is surely a lesson to us 
 always to begin to do good to those who are near and around 
 us, to make the sphere in which we find ourselves the sphere 
 of our proper work. We must begin at the centre of our 
 little circle and work outwards. 
 
Cfjc ^araclamatinii. 31 
 
 A synagogue generally stood on the highest piece of 
 ground in a city, or near it ; it was oblong, and the end 
 opposite to the entrance pointed towards Jerusalem. There 
 were the seats of the elders, and in the midst, at this end, 
 was the ark with a lamp always burning before it, in which 
 was preserved the roll of the Law. Before it also was an 
 eight-branched candlestick, lighted on the highest festivals. 
 A Httle way down was a raised platform, on which several 
 persons could stand at once, and in the middle rose a pulpit, 
 in which the reader stood to read those lessons which were 
 not from the books of Moses. The roll of the Law was 
 taken Avith great solemnity out of the ark, and unrolled by 
 the Rabbi, so that the congregation might not look on the 
 WTiting. The lessons from Moses were so arranged that the 
 books of the Law were read through once in three years. 
 Much less ceremony was shown about the second lesson, 
 which was taken from the prophets and historical books. 
 On week days, not less than twenty-one verses were read, on 
 the Sabbath, not more than three, five, or seven.* After 
 this lesson followed the exposition, or interpretation. 
 
 The Scriptures were read in Hebrew, but the Hebrew 
 was unintelligible to the Jews after their return from the 
 Babylonish captivity, consequently the interpreter translated 
 or expounded what he had read in the Aramaic or Syro- 
 Chaldee tongue. 
 
 * Massechat Sopherim, c. 12. 
 
32 ^ajarctl) antf Cajicrnaum. 
 
 The reader stood when reading the prophets, but was 
 allowed to sit or stand for the historical books. 
 
 Our Lord read in Hebrew, and explained in Aramaic, 
 but He also spoke Greek, and S. Mark has preserved in his 
 Gospel several of our Lord's sayings, which were clearly 
 spoken in the Greek tongue, some in the vernacular.* The 
 ten cities, Decapolis, in Galilee were Greek towns, and 
 throughout Galilee there was so large an admixture of 
 Greeks that it was necessary — or almost necessary — to know 
 both, much as in Wales, English and Welsh are spoken, or 
 in Belgium, Flemish and French. 
 
 Originally the prophets and historical books had not been 
 read in the synagogue service, but when Antiochus Epiphanes 
 forbade the reading of the Law, in the services of the Sabbath, 
 the prophets and other books had been substituted for those 
 of Moses, and when this restriction was withdrawn the Jews 
 continued reading the prophets, but read the Law as well, 
 as of old, in the place of honour. The prophets and his- 
 torical books were not kept in the ark, but in a cupboard 
 beside the pulpit. 
 
 The minister, or servant of the synagogue, took the Book 
 out of the cupboard, and handed it to the reader, and stood 
 by him to nudge him, or whisper to him when to stop, or 
 
 * iii. i8 ; v. 41 ; vii. 11, 34 ; xiv. 36 ; xv. 34 ; also S. Matt. x\i. 18 ; 
 xxvii. 46; Christ also spoke with Pilate, who almost certainly did not use 
 Aramaic, but Greek. 
 
dTIjc ^Srarlamatiaii. 33 
 
 to correct him if he mispronounced a word. Our Blessed 
 Lord then, in the synagogue, ascended the pulpit, and the 
 minister handed Him the roll. He opened the roll at 
 Isaiah, and read the lesson appointed for the Day of 
 Atonement. 
 
 As long as our Lord preached about generalities, the 
 hearers approved and wondered at the gracious words that 
 proceeded out of His mouth ; but He speedily came to 
 particulars, then they said, "Is not this Joseph's son? 
 And He said unto them, Ye will surely say unto Me this 
 proverb, Physician, heal Thyself : whatsoever we have heard 
 done in Capernaum, do also here in Thy country. And He 
 said. Verily I say unto you, No prophet is accepted in his 
 own country. But I tell you of a truth, many widows were 
 in Israel in the days of Elias, when the heaven was shut up 
 three years and six months, when great famine was through- 
 out all the land ; but unto none of them w\as Elias sent, save 
 unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon, unto a woman that was a 
 widow. And many lepers were in Israel in the time of 
 Eliseus the prophet ; and none of them was cleansed, saving 
 Naaman the Syrian. And all they in the synagogue, when 
 they heard these things, were filled with wrath, and rose up, 
 and thrust Him out of the city, and led Him unto the brow 
 of the hill whereon their city was built, that they might cast 
 Him down headlong. But He passing through the midst 
 of them went His way." (S. Luke iv. 14-30.) 
 
34 ^ajarrtlj anlf (Eapcrnaum. 
 
 When our Lord began to make personal application of 
 the passage, then the dissatisfaction of the audience broke 
 forth, and they tumultuously broke up the service, and 
 carried Him to the precipice to fling Him down. In 
 Bethlehem He had been denied a place in the inn, here in 
 Nazareth He is rejected. 
 
 Of old, under king Amaziah, had the Jews put a large 
 number of Edomites to death in the same way. 
 
 " Ten thousand left alive did the children of Judah carry 
 away captive, and brought them unto the top of the rock, 
 and cast them down from the top of the rock, that they all 
 were broken in pieces." (2 Chron. xxv. 12.) 
 
 Nazareth is called in the Talmud the " white city on a 
 mountain," because it lies on a height, and is built of the 
 white limestone of the rock. Nazareth is on one of the 
 spurs of Lebanon, just where they fall away into the plain 
 of Esdraelon. The prevalent opinion at the present day at 
 Nazareth is that Christ was dragged out of the town to a 
 rocky height about two miles off, but this is not consonant 
 with the words of S. Luke, who says that the precipice was 
 that of the rock on which the town was built, and, indeed, 
 there is a very remarkable precipice, almost perpendicular, 
 and forty or fifty feet high, close outside the walls, not far 
 from the present mean synagogue, which probably stands 
 on the site of the old one in which Christ taught ; 
 and it is almost certain that this was the identical cliff 
 
C!)C i9rnrlamatt0n. 35 
 
 over which His infuriated townsmen attempted to hurl 
 Him. 
 
 But the power was not given to these wretched men, 
 Winded with pride and passion, to hurt the Lord's anointed. 
 How He escaped them we do not know ; perhaps they 
 were bhnded hke the Syrians, who compassed the httle 
 city in which was Ehsha ; or perhaps He vanished out 
 of their sight. 
 
 What was actually the cause of the sudden upboil of these 
 men's wrath ? It was that their self-esteem was wounded. 
 Christ declared that only the humble and meek would be 
 able to receive Him. Elijah was persecuted, and received 
 only by one poor w^idow. Naaman was unworthy to be healed 
 till he humbled himself to dip in despised Jordan. The 
 men of Nazareth understood the inferences. It was not 
 flattering to their pride ; they could not be fed and healed 
 unless they became humble, and submitted to the Lord's 
 Christ. This they would not do — and they cast Him out 
 of their city. 
 
 As with Christ, so with His Church, and with His mes- 
 sengers. As long as they preach a Gospel which does not 
 touch man's pride and lower his self-esteem they wonder at 
 the graciousness of the Gospel, but the moment it bids them 
 not to be wise in their own conceits, insists on submission 
 of the entire man, body, soul, and reason to Christ, and 
 calls to a lowly walk and self-abasement, then men rise up 
 
36 ^?i|airctb antr Capernaum. 
 
 against the Church, and its minister, and — against the true 
 Gospel of Christ, and would, if they could, cast it out of 
 their city, and hurl it from their thoughts.* 
 
 * The only difficulty in arranging the sequence of events springs from 
 the passage of S. Mark vi. 1-4, where Jesus is said to have taught in the 
 synagogue, "in His own country," and to have quoted the same proverb, 
 "A prophet is not without honour but in his own country, and among his 
 own kin, and in his own house," and this S. Mark gives after the calling of 
 the Apostles on the lake, the cure of the demoniac, of S. Peter's wife's 
 mother, and the raising of Jairus' daughter. But S. Mark does not specify 
 Nazareth by name ; and after leaving Nazareth, Capernaum became His 
 "own city," and there is no reason why the same proverb should not be 
 quoted more than once. It v/as as applicable at Capernaum and elsewhere, 
 where He was known, as at Nazareth. 
 
V. 
 
 S. Mark ii. i. 
 '■'■ He entered i?ito Capernautn.^^ 
 
 After the men of Nazareth had made an attempt on the 
 Hfe of Christ, it was no longer safe for Him to remain 
 in the httle town. He therefore moved with His mother 
 and brethren to Capernaum, on the Lake of Gennesareth. 
 S. John says, " He went down " {KarkiSn), and the expression 
 is just. The Jews divided GaHlee into three parts — Higher 
 Gahlee, which was above the height to which the sycamore 
 grew, Lower GaHlee, where the wald fig trees grew, and the 
 Deep Land. Nazareth lies in Lower Galilee, about two 
 hours' journey from the capital, Tiberias, which Herod 
 Antipas called after the Emperor Tiberius. Nazareth stands 
 some 1,350 feet above the lake, and the descent from the 
 elevated table-land is by a steep road of half an hour's rapid 
 fall, to a point where the road divides, one way leading to 
 Capernaum, the other to Tiberias. The view from the high 
 table-land, before the road goes down, is wonderfully beau- 
 tiful. A sparkhng sheet of water enclosed by hills, with 
 precipitous edges, and above, to the north, the snowy 
 
38 ^a|<irrtl) anU Capcru.ium. 
 
 peak of Hermon, and away to the east the bold, barren 
 ranges of the mountains of Hauran, The Sea of Gahlee, 
 or Lake of Gennesareth, hes 700 feet below the level 
 of the ocean, and this depression makes the basin in 
 Avhich the lake lies very hot, in summer excessively so, 
 but in spring the air there is balmy and mild. Of old, it 
 was the most populous part of Palestine. No less than 
 nine cities stood on the shores of the lake, which were then 
 by no means so barren as now. Most of our Lord's public 
 life was spent in the environs of the Sea of Gennesareth, 
 and we may therefore consider a little more closely its 
 aspect and character. 
 
 The original population of the shores of. the lake was 
 Sidonian, and when Tyre and Sidon were founded on the 
 shores of the Mediterranean they moved westward, but the 
 town of Bethsidon still retained the name given it by its 
 first inhabitants. The richest part of the shores was at the 
 north-west, where is a luxuriant plain of half-moon shape, 
 walled out from the north and west winds by mountains, 
 and exposed to the sun. This was where the princes and 
 the nobles had their country residences, and the gardens 
 were filled with all kinds of flowers and fruit. The lake was 
 called by its first colonists, Cennereth, or the Harp, from its 
 shape. The Jews thought so highly of its beauty that they 
 said, " God created seven seas — but for Himself He elected 
 but one, and that the lake Gennesareth ;" and again, "It is 
 
<grmics"aiTtl). 39 
 
 the Gate of Paradise." Josephus says, " It is a district 
 where Nature seems to have constrained herself to create an 
 eternal spring, and to gather into one spot the products of 
 every zone." To the present day the date-palm, citrons, 
 pomegranate, indigo, rice, sugar-cane, grow there, cotton, 
 balsams, vines, thrive, the purple grapes are as big as 
 plums, and the bunches weigh twelve pounds. Here also 
 the fig tree yields her fruit throughout the year, ripening 
 every month. The Jews call Gennesareth the Garden Lake, 
 and if there were any place in Palestine that could recall 
 the lost Paradise, it was this fruitful, beautiful tract, watered 
 with its five streams. 
 
 At Chammath, about two miles south of Tiberias, are hot 
 springs, of old much used for baths, and half an hour's walk 
 above Tiberias a cold spring of beautiful water bursts out 
 of the mountain side, and pours down to the lake in five or 
 six streams. At Tabigha also are hot springs, that gush 
 steaming down into the blue waters of the lake. 
 
 Now the neglect and mismanagement of the Turkish 
 Government have led to the devastation of this beautiful 
 corner of the world, and many of the foreign plants once 
 introduced into it have died out, or are disappearing. We 
 can only guess what a garden of delight it must have been 
 in the time of our Lord, when the aqueducts were in working 
 order, and canals carried water to all the gardens and fields. 
 
 Capernaum — at present called Tell-Hum, was the place 
 
40 ^ajarrtf) antr (Capernaum. 
 
 where the prophet Nahum was buried. The name signifies 
 the Village of Nahum. It is now a heap of ruins of build- 
 ings erected out of basalt, black and dismal ; a contrast to 
 the bright limestone of Nazareth. 
 
 A good number of springs rise about it. Among the ruins 
 are the white marble remains of some handsome building, 
 probably a synagogue— that built by the Roman centurion 
 of whom mention is made by S. Luke (vii. 5). Near it are 
 the remains of what is believed to be an old Christian 
 church. There are no traces of the port. 
 
 Here, at Capernaum, Jesus was safe. A litde boat carried 
 Him when He willed over the sea into the tetrarchy of 
 Itursea ; if He ascended the heights to the north-west, and 
 crossed the mountain shoulder, He was in the region of 
 Tyre and Sidon. Capernaum lay, then, conveniently situated 
 for the mission Christ had to fulfil, a place whence He 
 could easily travel into three districts. What, however, 
 also, no doubt, conduced to Christ making His home 
 there was that it was the residence of Simon Peter, 
 who was the oldest of His disciples. Capernaum is not 
 mentioned in the Old Testament. It was of sufficient 
 size to be always called a "city"; had its own syna- 
 gogue, which was built by the centurion of the detachment 
 of Roman soldiers quartered in the place. Besides the 
 garrison, it had also a customs' station, where the dues 
 were gathered both by stationary and by itinerant officers. 
 
(Scnitc^arctl). 41 
 
 Capernaum is called especially Christ's " own city," and 
 S. Mark says that when He returned thither from His 
 journeys, He was "at home." (ii. i.)* It lay on the great 
 trade road from Damascus, and through it passed the wares 
 of Syria and Phoenicia ; and this "way of the sea" is that men- 
 tioned by Isaiah (ix. i). The main road here came down 
 from the high land and led south to Samaria and Jerusalem. 
 
 " And Jesus, walking by the sea of Galilee, saw two 
 brethren, Simon, called Peter, and Andrew, his brother, 
 casting a net into the sea : for they were fishers. And He 
 said unto them. Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of 
 men. And they straightway left their nets and followed 
 Him. And going on from thence. He saw other two 
 brethren, James, the son of Zebedee, and John, his brother, 
 in a ship with Zebedee, their father, mending their nets ; 
 and He called them. And they immediately left their ship 
 and their father, and followed Him." (S. Matt. iv. 18-22; 
 S. Mark i. 16-20.) 
 
 Our Lord had just come from Nazareth, and He walked 
 round the shores of the sea {TrepnrarCJv), which to the west 
 form a bay between Tiberias and Capernaum. f The road 
 from Nazareth comes steeply down the hill at Magdala, the 
 
 * Nazareth was His Mecca, Capernaum His Medina. 
 
 f From the south end of the lake to the hot springs is one hour ; thence 
 to Tiberias, 35 minutes ; thence to Magdala, i hour and 10 minutes ; to 
 Khan Minyeh (Tarichea_) one hour ; Tell-Hum, i hour and 5 minutes ; 
 Jordan, i hour and 5 minutes. 
 
42 ^a|arrtl) mits Capernaum. 
 
 birth-place of Mary Magdalen, and thence our Lord had a 
 walk of three hours and a quarter to Capernaum, along the 
 shore of the sea. He passed the little town of Tarichea. 
 Beyond this at the present day are some ruins, which some 
 travellers have supposed to be the remains of Bethsaida, 
 the birth-place of S. Peter, and here a narrow road or path 
 now runs, close to the water's edge, after having crossed a 
 height above the lake. Here it was, probably, that Christ 
 came on the boat of Peter and Andrew. We know from 
 S. John's Gospel that they had already been brought to 
 know Christ, for He had been pointed out to them by the 
 Baptist, and they had returned with Him from Jordan till 
 their roads divided at Bethshean, and He had gone west to 
 Nazareth, and they north to the lake. Now He calls them, 
 and they manifest no surprise. It was the same with the 
 the sons of Zebedee ; the only one of these who had not 
 been called, and did not know Christ, was S. James. 
 
 Since the conquest of Canaan by Joshua, all Israelites 
 were allowed to fish with the hook in the Sea of Galilee, 
 but the children of Naphtali only were allowed to use nets.* 
 The portion of Naphtali extended from the Jordan down 
 the west side of the sea to a little above the site of the 
 city Tiberias, built long after. Our Lord had the sons of 
 Alphaeus also with Him, these were James the Less, Judas 
 also called Lebb^us, Simon the Canaanite, and Joseph or 
 
 * Bava Kama, f. 8i. 
 
(SciinoSfirrtf). ^3 
 
 Joses. These were all sons of Cleopas, who is believed to 
 have been the brother of Joseph, Christ's foster-father,* and 
 are called His brethren. Their mother's name was Mary. 
 
 S. Mark also says that Levi, or Matthew, was a son of 
 Alphaeus, but hardly of the same. Alph^eus is the Greek 
 pronunciation of the name Chelphai, or Chelpha. The 
 Galilaeans pronounced the guttural letter Cheth roughly, 
 and this letter was usually omitted by the Greeks when 
 turning a Hebrew name into Greek. t Joses, the youngest 
 of these brothers, was probably not of age at the time, after- 
 wards he was proposed with Matthias to become an Apostle 
 after the fall of Judas. Both he and James bore the 
 honourable designation of " the Just." The name of Bar- 
 sabas is given to him and to Judas Thaddseus, that is, " the 
 son of the old man," that old man being Cleopas or Alphaeus. 
 
 And now if we would draw a lesson from the call of the 
 Apostles, it is not hard to fmd it. We are struck with the 
 promptness with which they forsook all and followed Christ. 
 They threw aside their nets, they left their ships, and obeyed 
 His call instantly. Whenever we know that a duty has to 
 be performed, let us not put off the doing of it to a more 
 convenient season, but do it at once. A duty postponed 
 is half neglected. 
 
 * Hegesippus, quoted by Eusebius, says so, and Hegesippus was a writer 
 of the second century. 
 
 f For instance, Chagai becomes in Greek 'Ayya'ioi, Chazael becomes 
 'AKcfn\, Chabor is 'A/Siop. 
 
VI. 
 
 Ei)t Satiatlj at fflapcvuaum. 
 
 S. Mark i. 21. 
 
 " Straightway on the Sabbath day He entered into the synagogue, and 
 taught''' 
 
 The week after the expulsion from Nazareth was probably 
 spent by our Lord at Capernaum, in finding a house, and 
 settling His mother into it, together with His cousins, the 
 sons of Alphaeus, who shared His banishment. 
 
 But when the Sabbath came, He went, as was His wont, 
 to the synagogue. This was, probably, the white marble, 
 newly-erected synagogue, built by the Roman centurion, 
 the ruins of which, with Corinthian pillars broken and 
 strewn about, remain to this day above the dingy black 
 fragments of walls of the old town. 
 
 I have already described the service of the synagogue, 
 but I will here say a few words about the organization of 
 the Jewish community for worship, because we see in that 
 the rudiments of the structure of the Christian Church. 
 
 Wherever there were 120 Jews, there a synagogue was 
 erected, and the existence of a synagogue raised a place 
 from being a village to be a city.* In the synagogue, at 
 * Sanhed. f. 17, 2. 
 
CTijc ^abbatb at Capernaum. 45 
 
 the Jerusalem end, sat the elders, in number ten, who 
 formed the council ; with these were three men who man- 
 aged the secular affairs of the community, looked after the 
 funds belonging to the synagogue, its repairs, and so forth. 
 
 Beside these was the Chazan, Bishop or Angel, who 
 offered the public prayers, watched over the correct reading 
 of the Law, and called on some of the congregation to read 
 the minor lessons, and precented the hymns. Beside the 
 Chazan, were three Parnasin, or Deacons, two of whom 
 were employed in collecting the alms for the poor, and the 
 third in distributing them. Only a Priest, or Cohen, might 
 give the blessing, and he did so by first blessing those on 
 his right, with raised right hand, then those on his left, and 
 lastly those before him. Any Rabbi present, or stranger, 
 might be called on by the Chazan, or ruler of the synagogue, 
 to explain the lesson and preach. 
 
 We see in this constitution of the synagogue the elements 
 of Church order. The elders of the synagogue were after- 
 wards represented by the presbyters, the Chazan by the 
 bishop, and the Parnasin by the deacons. 
 
 The Sabbath had come ; a day of rest after the week 
 of changing homes, the trouble and discomfort of settling 
 into a new house. Thrice, from the roof of the synagogue, 
 a trumpet blast announced the Sabbath at sunset — the first 
 blast to warn those in the fields to desist from labour, the 
 second to call those in the city to give up their work, the 
 
46 ^rcjarctl) antr Caprrn<tum. 
 
 third to call all householders to kindle the sabbatical lamp. 
 Christ went at once to the synagogue, where the community 
 had assembled. There the perpetual light was burning 
 before the ark that contained the law. 
 
 The service began w^ith hymn and prayer ; there were 
 eighteen prayers or collects, and then began the lessons. 
 The ruler of the synagogue called on Jesus to expound, 
 '•And they wxre astonished at His doctrine, for His word 
 was with power." (S. Luke iv. 32.) " He taught them as one 
 that had authority, and not as the scribes." (S. Mark i. 22.) 
 We have in the Talmud a vast collection of the teaching of 
 the Rabbis of that, of earlier, and of later time, and we know 
 pretty well what w^as its character. It consisted of a mass 
 of trivialities, word-torturings, wringing out of Scripture com- 
 mands never given, and finding in it reasons for Rabbinical 
 traditions and precepts, which are no reasons at all to 
 sane men. 
 
 What a contrast was Christ's downright, plain, pure doc- 
 trine to this ! It was like the waft of a cool breeze from the 
 snows of Hermon into the hot steamy swelter by the lake in 
 midsummer. 
 
 Suddenly — in the midst of His discourse, whilst there was 
 silence, and all hung on His lips, there came an interruption 
 of an unusual nature, different from that which had disturbed 
 His discourse on the previous Sabbath. "There was in 
 their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit ; and he cried 
 
djc ^abbatb at €apcntaum. 47 
 
 out, saying, Let us alone ; what have we to do with Thee, 
 Thou Jesus of Nazareth ? art Thou come to destroy us ? 
 I know Thee, Who Thou art ; the Holy One of God." 
 (S. Mark i. 23, 24 ; S. Luke iv. t,t„ 34.) 
 
 The Holy Spirit at Jordan had borne testimony to Christ ; 
 the inanimate element, water, had given witness to Him at 
 Cana ; and now the evil spirit is constrained to declare Him. 
 
 There is something very significant in the outcry of the 
 possessed man. This was the first miracle Christ wrought 
 after He had announced His mission, and now the devil 
 confesses that this mission of the Son of God is the expul- 
 sion of the Evil One, the destruction of the power of the 
 devil. The demoniac was typical of the whole of humanity 
 possessed with the Spirit of Evil since the Fall, a spirit 
 driving mankind into horrible uncleanness, and atrocious 
 cruelties. Christ was come to destroy the works of the 
 devil, to free mankind from his power, to expel the evil from 
 the world, and recover human nature from its bondage 
 and subjection. The evil spirit knows this, and proclaims 
 it aloud in the synagogue of Capernaum. Christ had 
 announced His mission the previous Sabbath at Nazareth, 
 and He had been expelled the city and synagogue. Now 
 the devil proclaims it, and Christ casts forth the devil. 
 
 Consider for a moment the scene. It was the Sabbath 
 eve service ; the sun had set, dusk had settled in on the 
 building, but the red light shone by the ark, and by it the 
 
48 ^a^irrt!) antr Capernaum. 
 
 faces of the congregation were dimly seen turned to the 
 preacher ; then, all at once, in the gathering darkness, from 
 a corner, come shrill cries and shrieks, and a madman bounds 
 into the middle of the congregation, foaming at the mouth, 
 brandishing his arms, then pointing to Christ, Who stands 
 on the platform, and declares that He is the Holy One of 
 God, sent to drive away evil spirits, and destroy their power 
 over men. 
 
 When the man with the unclean spirit cried out, " I know 
 Thee, Who Thou art, the Holy One of God," he used a 
 general paraphrastic expression for Jehovah. So in Daniel 
 (ix. 24), Messiah is called " the Holy of Hohes." 
 
 Was this outcry by constraint, unwilling, or was it treach- 
 erous ? That we can hardly decide. Our Lord silenced 
 the possessed ; He did not need the testimony of devils ; 
 S. Mark says, " He suffered not the devils to speak, because 
 they knew Him " (i. 34). It may have been that these foul 
 spirits by proclaiming Him sought to bring Him into dis- 
 repute, by apparently making common cause with Him, acting 
 as His witnesses, and so giving occasion to the Pharisees 
 to say as they actually did, " He casteth out devils through 
 Beelzebub, the prince of devils." (S. Matt. xii. 24.) But it 
 is more probable that the testimony was unwillingly wrung 
 from them, that impotent rage and hate carried them away, 
 and forced them to shriek forth the truth, and with it to 
 break into horrible blasphemies. 
 
The question must always present itself to us, when we 
 read of possession in the New Testament, what it was in 
 our Lord's time, and whether it still exists. Nowadays we 
 are inclined to look to physical and material causes for 
 all maladies, and to regard a suggestion that demoniacal 
 agency may be at work among men as a question of super- 
 stition. Yet, perhaps, we are exaggerating the influence of 
 physical derangement on mental aberration. Man is given 
 reason as his guide, to hold the reins of passion and guide 
 his course. If he allows reason in little matters to be 
 unseated, and gives way to caprice, then something else 
 will assume the direction. We speak of a man being full 
 of the spirit of pride, or self-conceit, or the spirit of unclean- 
 ness, or intemperance. May it not be that where he wilfully 
 allows his vanity, or his passions, to run away with him, 
 that an evil spirit may take possession of him so completely 
 that reason no longer is able to recover control ? 
 
 This man with the unclean spirit was not so bad but 
 that he was allowed to be one of the regular congregation 
 on the Sabbath. His friends knew him only as a foul- 
 minded fellow, whose talk was obscene, whose jokes were 
 not fit to listen to, who had a twist of the brain, which 
 caused him to find some disgusting suggestion in whatever 
 he heard, or saw, or read. It was no worse than that. 
 The Jews at Nazareth were also possessed but with another 
 spirit — the spirit of pride ; having long yielded to self-com- 
 
 D 
 
50 ^aj.irrtlj auir Capernaum. 
 
 placency, they had lost the faculty of seeing their own short- 
 comings, they were self-opinionated, self-righteous ; what- 
 soever things they did were right, whatsoever things they 
 said were wise, they could not suppose themselves to be in 
 the wrong, they were absolutely blind to their own ignorance 
 and unworthiness. 
 
 Are there not many nowadays possessed with this same 
 spirit ? I think we meet them continually, people with an 
 inordinate opinion of themselves. So there are men now- 
 adays who have fallen under the possession of other spirits 
 — the spirit of luicleanness, the lying spirit, the spirit 
 of intemperance, the spirit of envy, the discontented, mur- 
 muring spirit. 
 
 Where these are yielded to, they become masters, and 
 take full possession. 
 
 Our Lord expelled the spirits from the possessed, and 
 He did so to show that with Him is the power to control 
 all evil spirits, and that if any man feels an infirmity making 
 him prone to yield to this or that spirit, he must seek of 
 Christ the strength to enable his reason to sir firm, and 
 check his natural proclivities, and so discipline his will, and 
 mould his habits, that evil may not gain dominion over him. 
 
 At the baptism of every Christian the question is asked, 
 " Dost thou renounce the devil and all his works, the vain 
 pomp and glory of the world, with all covetous desires of 
 the same, and the carnal desires of the flesh, so that thou 
 
CI)C ^aljbatb at Capernaum. 51 
 
 wilt not follow, nor be led by them?" That is to say, the 
 duty is imposed on every son of God to exercise the most 
 thorough, just, and rational control over his actions. He 
 must not drift along, a prey to his animal passions, or be 
 drawn along by the seductions of the world. If he remains 
 governed by the reason, enlightened by the Divine Spirit, he 
 is living as a Cliristian ; but if he allows the world or the 
 flesh to control him, then the Evil Spirit obtains power over 
 him, and gradually enchains and displaces reason, or reason 
 is only employed as the servant of evil. 
 
 After the possessed in the synagogue had confessed 
 Christ, " Jesus rebuked him, saying, Hold thy peace, and 
 come out of him." Then the devil left the man. " When 
 the devil had thrown him in the midst, he came out of him 
 and hurt him not. And they were all amazed, and spake 
 among themselves, saying, What a word is this ! for with 
 authority and power He commandeth the unclean spirits, 
 and they come out." 
 
 After the sermon in the Sabbath service, the Chazan 
 begins again, and says the Holy, Holy, Holy, and gives 
 thanks to God, to which the people respond with " Thanks 
 be to Thee, O God," and with Amen. Then the priest 
 turns to the people and gives the blessing. 
 
 Apparently, on this occasion, the congregation broke up 
 in excitement when the demoniac was healed, without wait- 
 ing for the conclusion. 
 
52 ^njarctlj nntf Capernaum. 
 
 " And immediately His tame spread abroad throughout 
 all the region round about Gahlee. And forthwith, when 
 they were come out of the synagogue, they entered into the 
 house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John, but 
 Simon's wife's mother lay sick of a fever ; and anon they tell 
 Him of her. And He came, and took her by the hand, and 
 lifted her up ; and immediately the fever left her, and she 
 ministered unto them." 
 
 Near the water's edge, among the ruins of Capernaum, 
 are the remains of what was, apparently, an ancient Christian 
 Church, and we know that many centuries ago, before the 
 place fell to decay, the house of Peter was converted into 
 a Church. These poor remains, overgrown with grass and 
 thorns, may be the traces of the church, standing on the 
 site of the fisherman's cottage, where the miracle of healing 
 Peter's wife's mother was performed. 
 
 Peter was a native of Bethsaida ; his father, Jonas, was 
 dead, and probably he had moved into his wife's little 
 property at Capernaum, where her mother lived with them. 
 
 Whether the possessed was healed in the beginning of 
 the Sabbath, that is, after sunset on Friday, or on Saturday 
 morning, we do not know, but perhaps it w^as at the first 
 Sabbath service on the eve, then S. Peter's wife's mother 
 was restored directly after, and the rumour of the miracles 
 spread all through the neighbourhood that still Sabbath day. 
 
 " The fever left her." Christ shows Himself as the 
 
El)z ^"alibntl) at Capernaum. 53 
 
 cooling, soothing power, Who can subdue all wild pul- 
 sations of the heart. He drove out the unclean spirit, 
 and He brings the heated, fevered body to calmness. All 
 passion is a fever ; and continued yielding to passion results 
 in possession. Christ shows that He is to be had recourse 
 to in the beginning of ills, as well as when evil has taken 
 full hold. Whenever there is light temptation, when the 
 pulse throbs, and the cheek flushes, and the eye sparkles 
 with passion, it is a sort of fever ; then put the hand into the 
 hand of Christ, and the passion subsides. So shall not 
 Satan gain any dominion over you, so shall you be sure 
 of never falling under the possession of the Spirit of Evil. 
 
VII. 
 
 S. Matthew iv. 23. 
 
 " And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues^ and 
 preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom." 
 
 Our Blessed Lord had cast the devil out of the possessed 
 man on the first Sabbath of His arrival and settlement at 
 Capernaum after His expulsion from Nazareth. During 
 the rest of that day, the fame of what He had done spread 
 from mouth to mouth, so that the whole town and neigh- 
 bourhood was full of excitement and impatience, till the 
 sun set, and the trumpet blast from the synagogue roof 
 announced that the Day of Rest was over. Then, imme- 
 diately, the streets were thronged with people, all running 
 in one direction. " At even," says S. Mark, " when the 
 sun did set, they brought unto Him all that were diseased, 
 and them that were possessed with devils. And all the 
 city was gathered together at the door. And He healed 
 many that were sick of divers diseases, and cast out many 
 devils ; and suffered not the devils to speak, because they 
 knew Him " (i. 32-34). S. Luke says much the same, 
 " Now when the sun was setting, all they that had sick 
 
Cljc dfirst Mi^^iawMV Cflur. 55 
 
 with divers diseases brought them unto Him ; and He laid 
 His hands on everyone of them. And devils also came 
 out of many, crying out and saying, Thou art Christ, the 
 Son of God. And He, rebuking them, suffered them not 
 to speak ; for they knew that He was Christ " (iv. 40-1). 
 
 On the Sabbath the Jews were not suffered to carry their 
 sick, or, indeed, any burden, and not to go a journey of 
 more than two thousand paces. Consequently the people 
 of Capernaum waited for sundown before claiming the 
 aid of Christ for their sick friends and relatives. 
 
 So the night closed in. " And in the morning, rising up 
 a great while before day, He went out, and departed into 
 a solitary place, and there prayed. And Simon, and they 
 that were with him" — that is, Andrew, James, and John — 
 "followed after Him. And Avhen they had found Him, 
 they said unto Him, All men seek for Thee. i\nd He 
 said unto them, Let us go into the next town that I 
 may preach there also : for therefore came I forth." (S. 
 Mark i. 35-38-) 
 
 Behind Capernaum opens a glen, with the bed of a dry 
 rivulet in it, and above are the mountains. About an hour's 
 ride up the glen are the ruins of Chorazin.* Our Lord 
 probably, as was His wont, ascended the hill behind Caper- 
 naum, whence a beautiful view is to be had of the blue 
 
 * This agrees exactly with the distance given by Josephus : the modern 
 name preserves the old one, Keraze. 
 
56 <5(iiarctb rrnti Cnpcruaum. 
 
 lake, and the Syrian mountains beyond. There He prayed, 
 and saw the white dawn steal up the sky from behind the 
 broken outline on the east. 
 
 Chorazin was, no doubt, the first town visited by Christ 
 when He started on His first missionary journey. The 
 ruins are partly in the valley, about a spring, and on a 
 shoulder of the hill above, and are extensive. The houses 
 are fairly well preserved, are quadrangular, with the roofs 
 supported on pillars. The walls are all of black basalt. 
 About an hour further up the valley, where the steep road 
 reaches the level of the plateau, is the place where, accord- 
 ing to ancient tradition, is the well into which Joseph was 
 cast by his brethren. The nearest town of any importance 
 at present is Safed, a city lying high on a hill-top, originally 
 fortified ; and regarded as one of the holy cities of the Jews. 
 The Rabbis were wont to say that from only four cities, 
 Jerusalem, Hebron, Safed, and Tiberias, did prayers ascend 
 direct to the throne of God. Safed is about three hours' 
 journey from Capernaum, and as our Lord ascended towards 
 it, the high-perched, fortified town on the mountain was 
 before His eyes. To it, almost certainly, He referred when 
 He said, " A city set on a hill cannot be hid." (S. Matt 
 V. 14.) It is the highest situated of all the cities of Palestine. 
 From Safed, Christ probably went to TvEeron, an important 
 place, the residence of some famous Rabbis, contemporaries 
 of our Lord. ]Meron is an hour and a half west-north-west 
 
of Safed. Thence He would, in all likelihood, have gone 
 to Kadesh Naphtali, abounding in hot springs ; where were 
 shown the tombs of Barak and Deborah. Thus would be 
 fulfilled the saying of the prophet Isaiah, to which the evan- 
 gelist refers as foretelling the events of this period. " The 
 land of Zabulon, and the land of Nephthalim, by the way of 
 the sea, beyond Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles ; the people 
 which sat in darkness saw great light : and to them which 
 sat in the region and shadow of death, light is sprung up." 
 (S. Matt. iv. 14.) Our Lord had already preached in Lower 
 Galilee, at Nazareth, and Capernaum. This journey was to 
 Upper Galilee. 
 
 " And it came to pass, when He was in a certain city, 
 behold a man full of leprosy ; who, seeing Jesus, fell on his 
 face, and besought Him, saying, Lord, if Thou wilt. Thou 
 canst make me clean. And He put forth His hand, and 
 touched him, saying, I will ; be thou clean. And immedi- 
 ately the leprosy departed from him." (S. Luke v. 12-14; 
 S. Marki. 40-45.)* 
 
 Leprosy was a disease the Israelites had brought with them 
 from Egypt ; it is the result of bad food, and neglect of 
 cleanliness. It is in the blood, which loses its usual char- 
 acter and colour. Probably the bondage of Egypt, with its 
 
 * S. Mark gives this miracle as occurring during the mission journey in 
 Galilee. S. Luke gives it after the miraculous draught. S. Matthew (viii. 2-4) 
 interrupts the order of events by the insertion of the teaching of Christ (v.-vii.), 
 which was the substance of what He preached on Galilee in this journey. 
 
58 ^^iKittl) antf Capernaum. 
 
 studied degradations and privations, and especially the work 
 of the kiln under an Egyptian sun, tended to generate this 
 disorder ; hence Manetho asserts that the Egyptians drove 
 out the Israelites as infected with leprosy. 
 
 There were several hot springs near the Sea of Galilee, 
 which were regarded as healthful in cases of leprosy, one of 
 these, called Job's stove, was near Capernaum, but the most 
 famous was the Spring of Miriam, near Tiberias.* 
 
 When Christ had healed the leper, " He straitly charged 
 him, and forthwith sent him away ; and saith unto him, 
 See thou say nothing to any man : but go thy way, shew 
 thyself to the priest, and offer for thy cleansing those things 
 which Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them." 
 (S. Mark i. 43, 44.) Till the man had been pronounced 
 clean by the priest he was not re-adraitted to associate with 
 his fellow men. He had not, for this purpose, to go to 
 Jerusalem, but to shew himself to one of the priests who 
 made the circuit of the land at fixed times, whose duty it 
 was to take cognizance of the lepers and their condition. 
 The offering for his healing was three lambs, and three tenth 
 deals of flour, and a measure of oil. (Levit xiv. 10.) t 
 
 Leprosy was regarded by the Jews as a figure of sin. It 
 was a creeping disease which affected the entire man, a 
 
 * The Rabbis said that " the rock that followed " the Israelites in the 
 wilderness became fixed there, and the stream that gushed from it — hot — 
 healed lepers. 
 
 fOtho lex. rabbin, s. v. Leprosus. 
 
Crijc jftrs't iBi^^iamvv Cour. 59 
 
 disease most hard to cure. Christ shows Himself by per- 
 forming this miracle as the One Who is come to heal the 
 world of sin, to drive out the poison which is corrupting 
 the vital blood of mankind. Leprosy shut man out from 
 the society of his fellows, and sin shuts man out from the 
 society of angels. The leper was not allowed within the 
 gates of a city, and sin excludes man from the Heavenly 
 Jerusalem. There is but one source of healing for sin, 
 and that is Christ. He took our nature upon Himself, 
 to touch us, as He touched this leper, and by His contact 
 with mankind He restores man, and restores Him by 
 expelling sin from him. That is the true significance of 
 the Holy Eucharist. Christ, before He left earth, instituted 
 His great Sacrament as a means whereby He might still 
 touch man, and touching him might cleanse, and heal, 
 and strengthen, and restore him. 
 
VIIL 
 
 S. Matthew ix, 6. 
 "Arise, take up thy bed, and go unto thine house." 
 
 After that our Lord had gone through Gahlee preaching 
 the Gospel of the Kingdom, and calling to repentance, 
 " His name went throughout all Syria : and they brought 
 unto Him all sick people that were taken with divers 
 diseases and torments, and those which were possessed 
 with devils, and those which were lunatic, and those that 
 had the palsy ; and He healed them." (S. Matt. iv. 24.) 
 We have seen in our former lecture that the course our 
 Lord took in His first missionary journey was through 
 Upper Galilee, to the north-west, and then, probably, due 
 east to Kadesh Barnea, thence He would proceed to the 
 Jordan valley, where the river flows out of the marshy 
 lake, the waters of Merom, and descend to Bethsaida, thus 
 skirting Syria, and this would account for the fame of 
 Him spreading in that direction. Thus He would have 
 made a circular journey, returning by Bethsaidat to Caper- 
 
 * Suitable for the 19th Sunday after Trinity. 
 f Not the birthplace of Andrew, Peter, and Philip, which was on the 
 west side of the lake. The name means the House of the Fish —a name 
 given to any fishing village. 
 
(Tbc Strife Bf tbc iaatiSi). 61 
 
 naum. This town lay three quarters of an hour distant 
 from the lake at its upper end. It is now but a heap 
 of ruin. Here it was, later, that the five thousand were 
 fed. It was a small town, lately rebuilt by Philip the 
 Tetrarch, and re-named Julias, after the daughter of the 
 Emperor. 
 
 "And again," says S. Mark, "He entered into Caper- 
 naum after some days ; and it was noised that He was m 
 the house." S. Matthew says ttiat " Jesus entered into 
 a ship and passed over, and came into His own city." 
 Accordingly He must have come down the Syrian side 
 of the river to the Syrian coast of the lake, whence He 
 took a boat and crossed the head of the lake to Caper- 
 naum. " And straightway," says S. Mark, " many were 
 gathered together, insomuch that there was no room to 
 receive them, no, not so much as about the door : and 
 He preached the word unto them." S. Luke tells us 
 that " there were Pharisees and doctors of t.he law sitting 
 by, which were come out of every town of Galilee and 
 Judaea, and Jerusalem." 
 
 The miracles He had wrought, and the novelty of His 
 teaching had arrested the attention of the Rabbis and 
 teachers of the law throughout all Palestine , and as for- 
 merly a deputation had been sent to John the Baptist to 
 ask him his authority and teaching, so now, apparently, 
 deputations waited on Him from Jerusalem, Tiberias, and 
 
62 ^a|<irctlj antf CTajpcrnaum. 
 
 elsewhere, Pharisees and lawyers of Judaea uniting with 
 those of Galilee to hold an investigation into the conduct 
 and doctrine of Jesus. 
 
 " And, behold, men brought in a bed a man which was 
 taken wnth a palsy : and they sought means to bring him 
 in, and to lay him before Him. And when they could 
 not find by what way they might bring him in, because 
 of the multitude, they went upon the house-top, and let 
 him down through the tiling with his couch, into the midst 
 before Jesus." (S. Luke v. i8, 19.) S. Mark only adds 
 that the palsied man was " borne of four." 
 
 The roofs of the houses in Palestine were flat, with 
 a balcony round them, and admission to the roof w^as 
 obtained through a door in the roof of the upper chamber, 
 or, sometimes, by means of a staircase from the outside. 
 The houses in the town joined each other, and those who 
 carried the sick man obtained access to the roof of the 
 house where Jesus was, from the adjoining house. 
 
 In summer the people often sleep on their roofs, and 
 the floor of this flat roof is consequently solid — of concrete, 
 or of mud and straw, beaten hard. Palestinian houses 
 have no special bedrooms ; sometimes part of the roof 
 is covered \vith a tent, or thatch raised on posts. Towards 
 the street are no windows, or only tiny openings, and light 
 is obtained for the rooms from the court in the middle 
 of the house, into which the windows open. There are 
 
Cbe ^itk at tbc tanl^y. 63 
 
 two explanations of the proceedings of the men who carried 
 the paralytic — either Christ was in the room, and the men 
 broke through the roof floor — which seems improbable — or 
 He was in the court in the middle, which is far more likely 
 to have been the case, as, by this mean^j, a larger number 
 of hearers could be accommodated, and with greater comfort, 
 under the open heaven, than in a close and low chamber. 
 
 Round the roof, as a protection to those who are on it, a 
 balustrade of short tile pipes, set horizontally, was usually 
 erected. By this means a current of air passed over the 
 roof and cooled the sleepers. 
 
 Now those who bare the palsied man came on to the 
 roof from the adjoining house, and looking over into tlie 
 court-yard in the middle, saw Christ teaching there. They 
 pulled away " the tiling," that is, the balustrade of tile 
 pipes, which was breast-high, and so were able to let down 
 the sick man in the midst at the feet of Christ. 
 
 It was not uncommon to remove a corpse through the 
 roof instead of through the door.* 
 
 We read that king Ahaziah "fell down through a lattice 
 in his upper chamber," and it is probable that this upper 
 chamber was his lodging on the roof, and the lattice that 
 gave way was the balustrade that went round it. (2 Kings i. 2.) 
 
 Gemara, Moed Katon, f. 25. " When Rabbi Huna died, his body was 
 taken out of the house by the roof, because the coffin could not pass through 
 the narrow door." 
 
6i ^i|arctl) aittr C^peru.tum. 
 
 The poor palsied man was utterly prostrate. He could 
 not use his feet ; he lay on the straw mat, which in the East 
 serves as a bed, bereft of all power to move. But his faith 
 must have been great ; he must have endured much pain in 
 being carried, and let down into the court by ropes. Great 
 also was the faith of those who bare him. Probably his 
 paralysis had affected his tongue. He could not speak, 
 yet his very speechlessness was an appeal to Christ's mercy. 
 His misery was a suppliant to the God of pity, more power- 
 ful than his tongue. The desire of the heart when addressed 
 to God is at all times an effectual prayer. This was now 
 the prayer of the poor man ; hence it is not said that our 
 Blessed Lord heard, but that He saw the faith of this man, 
 and seeing it, He answered and rewarded it, though no 
 vocal petition reached His ears. 
 
 He saw also the faith of the bearers, the friends of the 
 sick man, who gave evidence of it by their acts, so that it 
 was visible to man as well as to God. 
 
 " And Jesus, seeing their faith, said unto the sick of 
 the palsy ; Son, be of good cheer ; thy sins be forgiven 
 thee." It may be that the disease under which he laboured 
 was the natural consequence of sinful indulgence, or, it 
 may be, that by means of his sickness, a sense of sinfulness 
 was aroused within the man, and that he recognized in 
 his disease the jiunishment of his sins. In most other 
 cases of healing we find our Lord first removing the bodily 
 
Cije ^tclt of tlje iSats'n. 65 
 
 infirmity, and then that of the soul. The Jews regarded 
 all sickness as the result of sin, and they even declared 
 that the forgiveness of sin was a necessary preliminary 
 to recovery of bodily health.* When Christ declared, 
 "Thy sins be forgiven thee," it was not a mere declaration, 
 like that of Nathan to David, that another had forgiven 
 his sins. It was the voice of power putting away sin by 
 His own almighty word ; and so the Pharisees who heard 
 Him understood Him. " And behold, certain of the scribes 
 said within themselves, This man blasphemeth." They 
 knew the declaration of God, " I, even I, am He that 
 blotteth out thy transgressions " (Isaiah xliii. 25) ; they knew 
 that to blot out sins was the prerogative of God, and they 
 reasoned, " This man claims to forgive sins, therefore 
 He is a blasphemer." 
 
 "And Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said, Wherefore 
 think ye evil in your hearts ? For whether is easier, to 
 say, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Arise, and 
 walk ? But that ye may know that the Son of Man hath 
 power on earth to forgive sins, (then saith He to the sick 
 of the palsy,) Arise, take up thy bed, and go unto thine 
 house. And he arose, and departed to his house. But 
 when the multitude saw it, they marvelled, and glorified 
 God, which had given such power unto men." So amazing 
 
 * Nedarim, f. 41, The Rabbi Chija, son of Abba, said, " No sick man 
 is cured of his sickness, till all his sins have been remitted." 
 
G6 ^.i^<irrtl) nun (CHpcrnaum. 
 
 was the cure wrought in the face of the assembly, that 
 the united deputations could say nothing against it, except 
 take occasion at our Lord pronouncing absolution of sins, 
 and even that they dared not utter aloud. 
 
 We can picture the wliole scene. The narrow street 
 without, between walls of basaltic black stone, crowded 
 with people, who crush in at the door, and fill it. Those 
 in the doorway look in through a short dark passage into 
 the quadrangle in the middle, where, perhaps, grows a 
 fig tree, and where the sun falls on the wall opposite. Those 
 in the street have seen the advent of the palsied man. They 
 have protested to the bearers that it is impossible for them 
 to get through the crowd. Then they have seen how these 
 men got admission next door, and went up on the roof. And 
 now — a few minutes later, through the door into the street 
 comes the paralytic, with his mat rolled up under his arm, 
 and from above, the four bearers are leaning over the 
 balustrade, calling to him, and uttering exclamations of 
 delight and astonishment. The crowd divides, full of awe, 
 and forms a lane down which the healed man walks. They 
 are silent till he has passed, and then they burst forth into 
 praise to God. There is a movement in the doorway. 
 Forth come the Rabbis, the Scribes, and Pharisees, with 
 faces clouded with annoyance, perplexed, harbouring bitter 
 thoughts, yet afraid to give them utterance. 
 
 The remembrance of the claim to forgive sins made by 
 
5rijc ^ttit of ti)c iaai^n. 
 
 Christ must have produced a strong impression on them, 
 for in the Tahiiud, the Jewish Rabbis declared that they 
 refused to receive Him because He made this claim.* 
 
 Our Blessed Lord, in forgiving the sins of the soul, and 
 in healing at the same time the body of the paralytic man, 
 teaches us that He is the Lord and Redeemer of both 
 body and soul. Paralysis is a figure of the state of the 
 sinner, powerless through sin, more especially through 
 indulgence in sensual lusts ; and the three instances in 
 which Christ is recorded to have cured this disease typify 
 three several stages in sin. He cured the servant lying 
 sick of the palsy in his own house. He healed another 
 who was lying impotent by the pool of Bethesda. And 
 here He raises one lying helpless in his bed. He recovers 
 from hidden sin at its initiation, and from sin notorious, 
 and from that which has completely taken possession of man. 
 We see the effect of sin on man — it paralyses him, it takes 
 the power out of him to will and to do according to God's 
 good pleasure, and we see also that with Christ alone is the 
 power to recover man, and enable him to begin a new 
 and healthy life.t 
 
 * Sanhed, f. 38, 2. Gloss, 
 t S. John does not give this miracle. He gives only samples of each 
 sort of miracle — the miracle at Cana, the healing of the fever of the son of 
 the Ruler, that of the crippled in the Temple, one multiplication of bread, 
 one stilling of a storm, one opening of the eyes of tl e blind, one raising 
 of the dead. 
 
IX. 
 
 S. Luke v. 4. 
 " Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a draught. " 
 
 Whilst our Blessed Lord was at Capernaum, His apostles, 
 who were fishermen, continued their customary business, 
 and so supported themselves and Him. When He called 
 them on His arrival at Capernaum, it was to accompany 
 Him on His missionary round in Upper Galilee. On His 
 return home, they went back to the work of their avocation. 
 " And it came to pass, that, as the people pressed upon 
 Him to hear the word of God, He stood by the lake of 
 Gennesaret, and saw two ships standing by the lake " — the 
 Arabic version says "anchored to the shore." ''But the 
 fishermen were gone out of them, and were washing their 
 nets ; and He entered into one of the ships, which was 
 Simon's, and prayed him that he would thrust out a little 
 from the land. And He sat down, and taught the people 
 out of the ship." 
 
 Zebedee seems to have been a well-to-do fisherman ; he 
 owned several boats. His family, and that of Alphseus, 
 
 * Suitable for the 5th Sunday after Trinity. 
 
were partners in one fishing company. Perhaps there was 
 a family connexion. These famihes of fishermen formed a 
 kindly and peaceable societ)% extending by numerous ties 
 of relationship throughout the head of the lake. Nothing 
 of that which we call civilization, in the Greek and worldly 
 sense, had reached them. 
 
 Tiberias was a heathen and Greek city, and was the 
 habitual residence of Herod Antipas. We do not hear of 
 our Lord having ever visited it, and preached there. 
 
 At the time of Christ there were 400 many-oared boats 
 on the Sea of Gennesareth, and fishing was actively prose- 
 cuted in it. The lake is between 20 and 28 fathoms deep, 
 but at the mouth of the Jordan it is only about 18 feet 
 deep. A glassy line through the lake marks the current of 
 the Jordan through it. The deepest part of the lake is 
 between Tiberias and Magdala. The fish there are not 
 so plentiful, owing to the hot springs which rise in the 
 bottom of the lake. The numerous streams, and the 
 shallows at the estuary of the Jordan invite the fish as 
 spawning places, and the crystal water is alive with them 
 at the head of the beautiful lake. They attract also multi- 
 tudes of water birds. Beautiful shells are found in the 
 streams, and the lake contains also a mussel like that which 
 made Tyre famous by the production of its purple dye. 
 Turkish misrule has devastated this beautiful land, and 
 made of what, at the time of our Saviour, was the garden 
 
TO ^n^arrtl) autr Capernaum. 
 
 of Palestine, a desolation. Now all the cities of Gennes- 
 areth are desolate, and only one small boat plies the waters 
 of the little inland sea. 
 
 The fishing was done for the most part by night ; the 
 fishermen fixed torches to the sides of their boats, or held 
 them aloft, and the fish, attracted by the light, came about 
 the boats nnd were captured in the nets. S. Peter and his 
 companions must have thought of this when they saw the 
 multitude come crowding upon Christ. He, the Light of 
 the World, sat in the boat, where at night they fixed the 
 blazing torch, and as the fishes came thick about the flame, 
 so did now multitudes from every quarter come about the 
 True Light that lighteth every one that cometh into the 
 world. Sometimes, as they sat in their boats eating, they 
 had cast crumbs into the water, and at once from the blue 
 depths thousands of eager darting forms had appeared about 
 the food strewn for them. And now the giver of the Bread 
 of Life sits there, in the boat, and strews the word of God 
 among those who are hungering for instruction. " I will 
 make you to become fishers of men," Christ had said ; and 
 the apostles saw what He meant, and how it was to be 
 fulfilled. They remembered the prophecy of Jeremiah, 
 " Behold, I will send for many fishers, saith the Lord, and 
 they shall fish them" (xvi. i6); and again, how Ezekiel had 
 said, in speaking of the restoration of Israel, that God 
 would send fishers who would gather into their nets men 
 
Clje :^iraculau^ SBraugljt. 
 
 "as the fish of the great sea, exceeding many" (xlvii. lo). 
 
 It is deserving of notice that Christ, although the Master 
 recognised by the apostles, does not speak to Peter in 
 words of command, but of courteous entreaty. " He prayed 
 him that he would thrust out a little from the land ;" surely 
 a lesson to us not to omit the litde politenesses and refine- 
 ments of life, even with those with whom we are on the 
 most familiar terms. 
 
 It has been thought that the two boats were types of the 
 Jewish and Christian Churches. The boat of Peter has 
 been taken as the image of the Jewish nation and Church, 
 and into this Christ entered, since He was Himself, accord- 
 ing to the flesh, of the tribe of Judah, and was sent specially 
 unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel, to whom salva- 
 tion was first preached and offered, and through them to 
 the Gentiles.'" 
 
 " Now when He had left speaking. He said unto Simon, 
 Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a 
 draught. And Simon, answering, said unto Him, Master, 
 we have toiled all the night, and have taken nothing : 
 nevertheless at Thy word I will let down the net. And 
 when they had this done, they inclosed a great multitude 
 of fishes : and their net brake. And they beckoned unto 
 
 * One does not see, however, why S. Peter should have represented the 
 Jewish Church, and SS. James and John the Gentile. A more plausible 
 doctrine is that the two ships represent the Western and Eastern Churches. 
 
f5ajarrtlj antf Capernaum. 
 
 their partners, which were in the other ship, that they 
 should come and help them. And the)' came, and filled 
 both the ships, so that they began to sink. When Simon 
 Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, Depart 
 from me ; for I am a sinful man, O Lord. For he was 
 astonished, and all that were with him, at the draught of 
 the fishes which they had taken : and so was also James, 
 and John, the sons of Zebedee, which were partners with 
 Simon. And Jesus said unto Simon, Fear not ; from 
 henceforth thou shalt catch men." 
 
 Simon had toiled all night and taken nothing — a figure 
 of all work done apart from Christ, much toil and no gain. 
 But when we receive Him into the vessels of our hearts, 
 then our work is blessed ; whatsoever we do, we do all in 
 His name, and in His power, and our work is fruitful. 
 
 How often, moreover, it is in the midst of that toil which 
 we have undertaken as a duty of life, and when we are 
 reduced to despondency and despair of success, that Christ 
 interposes, and gives us more than we expect. 
 
 The fishers had toiled all the night ; they took this great 
 multitude of fish in the same spot where they had been 
 toiling without success, and they took it in the daytime. 
 It is not when the times and circumstances seem to us most 
 fitted for success that the work of God's Church is most 
 prosperous, since His ways are not our ways. So may 
 many a Christian labour through the night of this world, 
 
(Tijc Ittiraculou^ ISraucjbt. 
 
 and seem to toil needlessly, but when the day of eternity 
 shall dawn, it will be seen that his labour has not been 
 in vain in the Lord. 
 
 It is deserving of observation that our Lord called these 
 fishermen thrice. First, He made them His disciples at 
 Jordan, when John the Baptist pointed Him out. Then, 
 when He left Nazareth and came to Capernaum again, He 
 called them once more, and that was to accompany Him 
 on His mission circuit in Galilee ; then to be hearers of 
 His doctrine. Now comes a third call, and this time to 
 complete renunciation of their trade. Now only did they 
 " leave all and follow Him." First He enrolled them, then 
 He partially detached them from their earthly business, now 
 He completely disengages them from it. 
 
 " The net brake." That net is the Church ; and the 
 history of the Church is, alas ! a history of the tearing of 
 its meshes, and the breaking away of its fish. Heresy and 
 schism have troubled the Church from the Apostolic period ; 
 and Christ in this miracle shewed that it would be so, lest we 
 should be discouraged, but He also shewed the remedy for 
 it — a remedy we have not sufificiently taken to heart. 
 
 When the net was torn, then Peter beckoned to his 
 partners to help to receive the draught. And by this -sve 
 are shown that the true remedy for heresy and schism 
 is unity. 
 
 Sad it is that there should be so much separation among 
 
74 ^a^arctlj una Cappruaum. 
 
 the Apostolic Churches ; that the Eastern Church, and the 
 Church which claims to be founded by S. Peter, and our 
 own English Church, should all be engaged in fishing on 
 our own several accounts, with mangled nets, from which 
 many escape, and in which only few are saved. When the 
 Churches recognize the real cause of their failure, repent of 
 their haughty and narrow isolation, and draw together, and 
 call to each other to help, then, and then only, will they be 
 filled to the bulwarks, so that they seem almost about 
 to sink. 
 
 When Simon Peter saw the miracle, he fell down at the 
 knees of our Lord, saying, " Depart from me, for I am a 
 sinful man, O Lord." He recognised in the miraculous 
 draught of fishes the exertion of a power greater than 
 human. He had already been touched by seeing the miracle 
 of healing wrought on his wife's mother, and now came this 
 second miracle, touching himself, and he at once felt a con- 
 viction of his unworthiness. So should every recognition 
 of divine power work in us a consciousness of our own 
 shortcomings. That is no true conversion when man is 
 puffed up with spiritual pride. S. Paul speaks of the effects 
 of conversion in his Second Epistle to the Corinthians 
 (vii. 9-1 1 ). " I rejoice that ye sorrowed to repentance : for 
 ye were made sorry after a godly manner. For godly sorrow 
 worketh repentance to salvation. For behold, this self- 
 same thing, that ye sorrowed after a godly sort, what 
 
Cftc :PtmruTau^ IBraiigljt. 75 
 
 carefulness it wrought in you, yea, what cleansing of 
 yourselves, yea, what indignation, yea, what fear, yea, what 
 vehement desire, yea, what zeal, yea, what revenge." 
 
 The most certain evidence of the Spirit of God having 
 touched man's heart is humility. S. Peter was crushed 
 with the sense of his sinfulness ; he was in a true state of 
 grace, for he saw the contradiction which existed between 
 his own living and the standard of holiness which (jod 
 requires. 
 
 But, though Peter was full of humility at this time, this 
 humble temper did not continue. Had it so done, he 
 would never have given the assurance to Christ three years 
 later, which called forth the warning of his Master that he 
 would deny Him thrice. Consequently we may learn from 
 S. Peter not to be content with paroxysms of penitence and 
 humility, but to give to the mind a penitential tone, and so 
 steep the soul in humility, that it may always fear its own 
 weakness, and that so the whole of life may be a period of 
 watchfulness and prayer against temptation. 
 
X. 
 
 m)t (Sail of Erlii 
 
 S. Matthfw IX. 9. 
 "As yestis passed forth from thence, Fie saiv a man, named Matthew, 
 sitting at the receipt of custom : and He saith icnto him, Follow Me. Aiid 
 he arose and followed Him. ' ' 
 
 S. Mark adds something to his account of the call of Levi, 
 given by S. Matthew. He says, " He went forth again" — 
 that is, after the restoration of the man sick of the palsy — 
 "by the seaside, and all the multitude resorted unto Him, 
 and He taught them. And as He passed by, He saw Levi, 
 the son of Alphteus, sitting at the receipt of custom." S. 
 Luke adds nothing, but he gives the call of Matthew, whom 
 he also names Levi, immediately after the miracle wrought 
 on the paralytic. 
 
 Capernaum was on the main highway from Damascus 
 to Tiberias and Jerusalem, and from Tyre and Sidon to 
 Tiberias, and from Tyre to Bosra. The main road does 
 not now reach tlie water's edge at Capernaum (Tell-Hum), 
 but further down the lake at Tarich?ea (Chan Minsch), 
 but originally, in all probability, a road led from the Jordan 
 * Suitable for S. Matthew's Day. 
 
m)t Call flf Ecfai. 
 
 valley, and the town of Julias, along the lake head, and the 
 main road which crossed the Jordan at Jacob's Bridge to 
 Joseph's Pit descended the little ravine past Chorazin to 
 Capernaum, and thence followed the sea side to Magdala. 
 A net of roads, in fact, met here, and indeed the whole of 
 the East Galilean trade passed through the place. The 
 ships which came over the lake and unladed from Syria, 
 paid dues here, as well as the goods brought by land. 
 When duty was paid, the merchant received a card with a 
 certificate from the customs house officer, without the pro- 
 duction of which he might not dispose of his goods. 
 
 The officers of the customs, called publicans, were a 
 despised race, not only in Palestine, but everywhere. The 
 Greek poet, Aristophanes, says of a tax collector, that he was 
 "an abyss, a whirlpool of plunder." Theocritus says that 
 as lions and bears haunt mountains, seeking whom they may 
 devour, so do publicans live in towns, preying on men. 
 
 In Judaea there was a poll-tax, a tything of the fruits of 
 the earth, and a house duty. Duties were levied at harbours, 
 and at the gates of cities, on all goods brought in. 
 
 The taxes were farmed out ; being put up to auction. The 
 contract sum for Judaea, Samaria, and Phoenicia, was estimated 
 at about 8,000 talents. An unscrupulous adventurer would 
 bid double that sum, and would then go down to the pro- 
 vince, and by violence and cruelty, like that of a Turkish 
 collector nowadays, squeeze out a large margin of profit for 
 
iiajarrtlj anU Capernaum. 
 
 himself. Josephus, the nephew of the High Priest Onias, 
 paid 1, 600 talents for the right to levy these taxes, and then 
 he took with him two thousand men-at-arms to Ascalon 
 which refused to pay, executed the magistrates, and wrung 
 a thousand talents out of the people. He did the same at 
 Scythopolis, and produced such a panic in the land that 
 no other city refused to pay the exorbitant sums he 
 demanded. Then he bribed the court of King Ptolemy 
 Euergetes, and succeeded in retaining the farming of the 
 taxes in his own hands for twenty-two years. 
 
 It may be well supposed that, wnth these unscrupulous 
 head farmers, the under-publicans were harsh and grasping. 
 Indeed, few men of character and self-respect would accept 
 a situation under them. The Jews regarded these collectors 
 with the abhorrence which they deserved. They were looked 
 upon as morallepers, outcasts from society, so that it was not 
 lawful for a maiden to marry one of them, and they were 
 not allowed to give evidence in the purely Jewish courts, 
 as liars and false swearers by profession.* They were 
 classed with thieves and murderers.f Jews were not 
 allowed to receive money from them, to sell anything 
 to them, as the coin that had passed through their hands 
 was considered to have contracted a taint. X If ^ Jew that 
 v.'as married became a tax collector, his wife could obtain 
 
 * Sanhed. f. 25, 2 ; H. Demai, f. 23, i, t Nedarim, c. 3, 4. 
 
 X Bava Kama, f. 113, i ; I^Iainion. Gezela, c. 5. 
 
Srijc Call of Hcbt. 
 
 a divorce from him on this ground. A tax gatherer was 
 incapacitated from making a will. 
 
 It is certainly a striking thought that the Jewish race 
 has sunk throughout the world, wherever dispersed, into 
 what it most loathed in the time of its comparative well-being. 
 Everywhere the national characteristic is that of the old 
 publican — money-grabbing, unscrupulousness, usuriousness, 
 so that the Jew has become the parasite of society, living 
 on its vices — the social shark. 
 
 Matthew, or Levi, sat by the sea-side ; he therefore took 
 toll of the boats that came from the Syrian side of the lake. 
 He is said to have been the son of Alphoeus. Alph^eus, or 
 Cleopas, was the father of James and Jude, the cousins of 
 our Lord ; but probably the father of Levi was another 
 Alphseus. If not, then we must suppose that Levi had been 
 disowned by his family for taking up the base business of a 
 publican. His call would mean also his reconciliation with his 
 family ; but we have not sufficient grounds to do more than 
 think this possible. Cleopas, or Alphseus, was not an un- 
 common name. We meet with it again among the disciples 
 of Jesus ; it was that of one of the two who lived at Emmaus. 
 xvloney exercises a powerful fascination on man ; especially 
 does it seem to appeal to the worst passions in the Jew. A 
 call to leave the lucrative business of publican was harder to 
 obey than that which summoned from the fishing boats 
 and nets. 
 
80 ^a^arctlj antf Capernaum. 
 
 The Lord came to the table where Matthew sat, and said, 
 " Follow Me." Obedience was instantaneous. Conviction is 
 sometimes sudden, and, if acted on, the life-vocation opens ; 
 grace acts on the soul. If, however, the call is put aside to 
 a more convenient season, grace no longer acts, the call is 
 not repeated. 
 
 The other evangelists, S. Mark and S. Luke, speak of the 
 apostle by his other name — Levi. He himself, however, 
 only makes use of that name by which he is known among 
 the apostles of Christ — Matthew. Either he had two names, 
 or, as is more likely, our Blessed Lord changed his name 
 from Levi to Matthew when He called him from the receipt 
 of custom, as He had before changed the name of another 
 of His apostles from Simon to Peter ; changing the name of 
 those whose mode of life He changed when He bade them 
 follow Him. S. Matthew, again, in the list which he gives 
 of the twelve apostles, speaks of himself by this name, and 
 adds that he was a publican, recording, as it would seem, in 
 humiliation, his former disreputable vocation. In this call of 
 S. Matthew we have a lively picture of God's call to us, and 
 the way in which we should obey that call. God sees us, 
 looks on us with the eye of His mercy, and by that look 
 moves us to turn our eyes to Him. Then He calls us from 
 the midst of our sins, from the occupations of the world, its 
 cares and ambitions. He does so by various means, as the 
 summons by which He called the apostles was not one, but 
 
Cljc (JTall of Ec&t. 81 
 
 various — by various means and at various times. Lastly, 
 He enables us to rise up and tear ourselves from those pur- 
 suits which hinder our obedience, and keep us from God, 
 and as we strive to obey. He gives us strength to perform 
 what we perceive to be right, and desire to do. 
 
 When Saul cliose his attendants, we read that if he 
 "saw any strong man, or any valiant man, he took him unto 
 him." (i Sam. xiv. 36.) In this he followed the practice 
 of the world, and the dictates of human prudence. But 
 when Christ chose those who should follow Him, He, 
 whose kingdom is not of this world, called not the learned 
 and powerful to follow Him, but men of little repute, and 
 of lowly callings — the publican and the fishermen. 
 
 " And Levi made Him a great feast in his own house ; 
 and there was a great company of publicans and others 
 that sat down with them." This is S. Luke's account; 
 it is deserving of notice that S. Matthew himself modestly 
 says nothing about his having entertained our Lord ; he 
 merely says, " It came to pass, as Jesus sat at meat in 
 the house, behold, many publicans and sinners came and 
 sat down with Him and His disciples." 
 
 In the fulness of his grateful heart, the newly-called dis- 
 ciple of Christ made a feast for his new Master an-l fellow- 
 disciples— a sort of homely " paying his footing " when 
 admitted into their society — and he invited to it his fellow- 
 publicans ; no others would associate with him. Lhe term 
 
 F 
 
82 ^aj.trctl) aiitr CnpcriTaum. 
 
 "publicans and sinners " in our version is not quite correct, 
 it should be "publicans, sinners," that is, "sinful pub- 
 licans." But there were others as well present, S. Luke 
 tells us, perhaps heathen. 
 
 The Jews and Egyptians, and, indeed, other peoples 
 were very scrupulous with whom they ate, much as are 
 the Hindoos to the present day. It will be remembered 
 that Joseph (Gen. xliii. 32) ate with his brethren apart, 
 and the Egyptians by themselves, for it was an abomination 
 to the latter to eat with Hebrews.* And so the old Tobias 
 (iv. 18), during the Assyrian captivity, exhorted his son not 
 to eat and drink with sinners. Christ, by sitting down to 
 table with these despised and excommunicate publicans, 
 and with heathen, broke through the caste rules, of which 
 separation at table was the most conspicuous symbol. He 
 shewed that this holding aloof from others, whether it 
 were national or individual, was contrary to the principles 
 of the Gospel, against the fundamental laws of His Church. 
 After that He had ascended, this was a tough matter for 
 His apostles to digest, and S. Peter had to be shewn the 
 vision of the great sheet let down from Heaven — a figure 
 of the Church — containing all manner of beasts, and be 
 given the monition, " Wliat God hath cleansed that call 
 not thou common," before he, and the other apostles, 
 
 * Cf. also Porpbyr, de abstin. iv. 7, " Ciborum etpotuum extra -^gyptum 
 natorum non fas est gustare," and Herod, ii. 35, 41. 
 
Cbc Call of Hcbi. 83 
 
 were prepared to extend the Church to those outside 
 the Jewish nation. When our Lord sent the Seventy 
 (S. Luke X. 7, 8) forth as forerunners of Himself, He was 
 obHged to lay upon them the obligation, " Into whatsoever 
 house ye enter, there remain, eating and drinking such 
 things as they give. And in whatsoever city ye enter, 
 and they receive you, eat such things as are set before you." 
 That is, make no distinctions about diet, as to what things 
 are common and unclean, and make no distinction of 
 persons, but eat widi all alike. This was opposed to 
 Jewish Rabbinic maxims, for they ruled, " Thieves and 
 usurers are not to be associated with, even when they have 
 turned from their evil ways ; he who receives such into his 
 house, with him wisdom dwells not.''* "Do not associate 
 with sinners, not even with good intentions of bringing them 
 to the knowledge of the Lord."t The Pharisees were not 
 allowed to touch any food prepared by a stranger, and now 
 at table sat together heathen and Jews, a Rabbi and Publi- 
 cans. Well might the Pharisees and Scribes exclaim, " This 
 man receiveth sinners and eateth with them ! " and ask 
 murmuringly of the disciples, " Why do ye eat and drink 
 with publicans and sinners ? " Then Jesus answered them, 
 " They that are whole need not a physician, but they that 
 are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to 
 repentance. Go ye, and learn what that meaneth ; I will 
 * Tanchuma, fol. 3, 2 ; Beracoth, f. 43, 2. f Mechilta, f. 37, 2. 
 
have mercy, and not sacrifice." Let all such as are weighed 
 down with a sense of sin take comfort at these words. 
 Christ came, as He declared, to call to repentance, and 
 to pardon. He calls not the self-righteous, for they are 
 so hardened by spiritual pride as not to receive His call. 
 He calls not those who consider themselves whole, for they 
 do not desire the interposition of a physician, but He says 
 to such as are conscious of sin, to such as know their in- 
 firmities, " I will have mercy and not sacrifice. I am come 
 to seek and to save such as were lost." 
 
BS2424 B25 
 
 Nazareth and Capernaum : ten lectures on 
 
 Princeton Theological Seminary-Speer Library 
 
 1 1012 00060 5537