Mmpa R^i!SSSS^^SiR^SSS!Sig^iiS:Si^ SS "^^^W?^^^^^ LIBRARY OF THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY PRINCETON, N. J. Presented by Division:^?. ::^..,.. Section..:.:::?..! IJ L nrty. /T/O 1 Q ^i^yaAj^q (X^^^''-'^- I THE LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST BY REV. JAMES ^STALKER. M.A ■WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY REV. GEORGE G. LORIMER, D.D., HiMn(ipkS.-(oY-'P»!ple. (ll(^SS^S, FLEMING K. REVELL, CHICAGO: I NEW YORK: 148 and 150 Madison Street. | 12 Bible House, Astor Place. Publisher of Evangelical Literature. COPTRIGHT, HENRY A. SUMNER AND COMPANY, 18 80. INTRODUCTION. The life of Christ is an exhaustless theme. It reveals a character of greater massiveness than the hills, of serener beauty than the stars, of sweeter fragrance than the flowers; higher than the heavens in sublimity and deeper than the seas in mystery. As good Jean Paul has elo- quently said, " It concerns Him who, being the holiest among the mighty, and the mightiest among the holy, lift- ed with His pierced hands empires off their hinges, turned the stream of centuries out of its channels, and still gov- erns the ages." Christ in history is undoubtedly more marvellous than Christ in Galilee; but to understand His relation to all subsequent time, and to the course of human events. His brief earthly career, and briefer ministry must be carefully studied and thoroughly mastered. Since His visible pres- ence faded from human sight he has swayed a world-wide scepter, and has wrought more stupendous miracles than He performed in Syria. There and then He merely opened the eyes of a few blind men, restored to health some who were sick, fed occasionally a hungry crowd, and raised from among the dead an inconsiderable number to life; but since His ascension He has removed from nations the veil of mental darkness, has imparted moral health to entire com- munities, has satisfied the longings of millions for the imperishable bread, and has rescued tribes, races, and peoples from the dreariness of spiritual death. For some nineteen centuries He has been the real leader of the 3 4 INTRODUCTION. world's progress. Its majestic movements, surprising revolutions, startling reformations, upheavals, convulsions, and transformations, are traceable to His influence. His name and the power of His name, are written in the learn- ing, art, science, government of all these ages, and they blaze conspicuously on the fair brow of modern civiliza- tion. How intensely interesting, and how immensely important then must be the biography that explains the secret of such measureless potency, and that lays bare the cause of such gigantic and practically boundless sover- eignty. Only in the faithful record of the life, in the narrative of its origin, surroundings, vicissitudes, peculiari- ties and consummation can the true solution of the problem involved be discovered; and it is this conviction that leads so many thoughtful students to lavish the wealth of their learning on biographies of Jesus, and that constrains so many more earnest inquirers to ponder unweariedly the results of their labors. They alike delve among the roots that they may understand the flower; they dive into the spring that they may comprehend the stream; they uncover the footprints that they may measure the feet, and they lift once more the dead hand into life that they may ascer- tain how it sways so mighty a scepter. « The author of the following pages has made a fresh efi'ort in this direction, especially adapted to the young. Its claims on their attention will be more fully appreciated by its perusal than by a preparatory review; and yet it may be said on its behalf that -in addition to its modesty and simplicity, and apart from its incidental, but effective, treatment of the question of questions, to which allusion has been made, it suggests to the youthful reader some highly important thoughts that can not fail to prove of last- .ing benefit. The first of these is, that history can not be explained INTRODUCTION. 0 on the materialistic principles of Buckle and Draper. It is neither a science of averages nor a philosophy of fatal- ity. The sources of its movements, and the order of their occurrence are spiritual and intellectual. They are to be traced to mind, to thought, to free mental agency, not to a physical necessity, at once both unchanging and irrevoca- ble. Christ entered the world, and His ministry arrested the course of human development and progress. He was^ Q not the outgrowth of His times, but their antithesis. He ' was not born of their spirit, but was rather its antagonist. And He changed their character, and laid the foundations of a new history, a history as different from the past as cosmos is from chaos. What is true of Him, is, in a less degree, true of others. Confucius created China, Buddha fashioned India, and to them may be traced the course of events which make up the annals of these vast empires. So inventors, philosophers, reformers, of various ages and of various countries, are forces that modify and mold so- ciety, and that are constantly diverting the stream of advancement into new channels. They are the real factors of history; and the recognition of this fact imparts to humanity its true importance, and reveals the vastness of individual power and the awfulness of individual responsi- bility. It is also suggested by this study of Christ's life, that of all the forces that govern in history, the spiritual are the most mighty and irresistible. Jesus was not a soldier, not a temporal sovereign, not a merchant-prince, nor indeed, anything very great as this world counts greatness. He was a teacher, a moralist, prophet, preacher, a representa- tive of the classes who are distinguished by ideas, not by swords, or wealth, or scepters. By the Apostle John He is called the Word, the symbol of thought, the Word that was with God, and hence a Word saturated through and INTEODUCTION. through with spiritual thought, with thought of the Eternal and Invisible One, and of man's relation and duty to Him. And it was this that paralyzed the Roman empire, that up- turned its institutions, and introduced a new civilization. In the progress of art, in the revolutions of various lands, and in the improvement of government, similar forces are discernable. They are all rooted in spiritual ideas, and all grow from spiritual germs. Not only sprang the Refor- mation, with all of its attendant blessings, from this source, but to it may be traced the rise of liberty and the triumph of philanthropy. From all of which the young may learn that the measure of their influence on the affe, and on future ages, will simply be the measure of their spirituality in thought and life. But there is a final impression which the perusal of these pages ought to make upon the reader. It is that man is greater than his surroundings, and that even the most ad- verse circumstances are no excuse for weakness of charac- ter. It is possible to conquer difficulties, and in so doing to generate or acquire spiritual force. This is abundantly illustrated in the life of Christ. From poverty, from an obscure and ill-reputed village, and from an atmosphere of superstition and ignorance. He emerged strong in right- eousness and stainless in purity. His after trials, His strug- gles with hunger and weariness, and His conflicts with wickedness and worldliness dimmed not, nor weakened His moral excellence, but rather increased its brightness and its strength. Others, like Jesus, have withstood the shock of temptation and tribulation, their integrity and piety taking deeper root on account of the tempests which have burst upon them and that have threatened them with destruction. Shall we doubt that this is still possible? Shall we form the wretched habit of attributing our failures to unfavorable environments, when not only the lives of INTRODUCTION. 7 saints, but of poets, artists, and statesmen teach that an earnest purpose and energetic will are more than able to surmount and overcome them? No graver error can be committed by the young. Its evil results are incalculable. Indolence, supineness, listlessness attend it; and morose- ness, melancholy, and discontent are its sure and bitter fruits. It dooms its victims to uselessness and unhappiness; to dissatisfaction with the present and to dread of the future. Lord Bacon, referring to the philosopher, who when contemplating the heavens fell into the stream, says : " If he had looked down he might have seen the stars in the/ ^ water, but looking aloft he could not see the water in the' stars." And there are writers so exclusively and anxiously concerned about the supernatural in Christ, that they over- look the real value of His life in the flesh, and drown their influence for good in vague and fathomless speculations. They should rather permit the earthly to reflect the heav- enly. This our author does; and in so doing, he not only saves himself and others from profitless speculations, but in embosoming the Divine in the human, suggests these practical reflections, which, if applied, must elevate his readers and bring: enduring; satisfaction to his own heart. Chicago, October, 1880. G. C. L. PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. The changes introduced into this new edition are few and slight. But 1 am glad to have this opportunity of pointing out, more distinctly than is done in the text, that the names given to the different years of our Lord's public ministry are descriptive only of their most prominent characteristics, and especially that in what I have called the Year of Public Favor, although the disposition of the general mind toward Him was such as fully to justify the designation. He was already assailed by the authorities with much of the kind of opposition which is described in the fifth chapter. The kind reception accorded to the first edition of this little Handbook seems to show that, notwithstanding the number of works on the same subject which have recently issued from the press, there was need of a book which, by exhibiting in the briefest possible space the main features and the general course of our Lord's life, should cause the well-known details to flow together in the reader's mind and shape themselves into an easily comprehended whole. Kirkcaldy, March 1, 1880. CONTENTS. PAGE CHAP. I. — THE BFRTH, INFANCY AND YOUTH OP JESUS, . 10 CHAP. II. — THE NATION AND THE TIME, 28 DIVISIONS OF HIS PUBLIC MINISTRY, ,48 CHAP. III. — THE YEAR OF OBSCURITY, 50 CHAP. IV. — THE YEAR OF PUBLIC FAVOR, 56 CHAP. V. — THE YEAR OF OPPOSITION, 92 CHAP. VI. — THE END, 112 CONCLUSION, 151 HINTS FOR TEACHERS AND QUESTIONS FOR PUPILS, . . . 153 CHAPTER I. THE BIRTH, INFANCY AND YOUTH OF JESUS. Paragraphs 1-5. The Nativity. 6-10. The Group round the Infant. 7. The Shepherds ; 8. Simeon and Anna; 9. The Wise Men ; 10. Herod. 11-24. The Silent Years at Nazareth. 11, 13. Lack of Trustworthy Records. 15, 16. His Home. 17-24. Educational Influences — 18. The Old Testament; 19. Human Nature; 20. Scenery of Nazareth; 21-23. Visits to Jerusalem. 10 CHAPTER I. THE BIRTH, INFANCY, AND YOUTH OF JESUS. /. The Nativiiy. — Augustus was sitting on the throne of the Roman empire, and the touch of his finger could set the machinery of government in motion over well-nigh the whole of the civilized world. He was proud of his power and wealth, and it was one of his favorite occupa- tions to compile a register of the populations and revenues of his vast dominions. So he issued an edict, as the Evan- gelist Luke says, " that all the world should be taxed," or to express accurately what the words probably mean, that a census, to serve as a basis for future taxation, should be taken of all his subjects. One of the countries affected by this decree was Palestine, whose king, Herod the Great, was a vassal of Augustus. It set the whole land in mo- tion; for, in accordance with ancient Jewish custom, the census was taken, not at the places where the inhabitants were at the time residing, but at the places to which they belonged as members of the original twelve tribes. 2. Amonor those whom the edict of Augcustus thus from afar drove forth to the highways were a humble pair in the Galilean village of Nazareth— (J^oseph, the carpenter of the village, and Mary, his espoused wife. They had to go a journey of nearly a hundred miles in order to inscribe themselves in the proper register; for, though peasants, they had the blood of kings in their veins, and belonged to the ancient and royal town of Bethlehem, in the far south of the country. Day by day the emperor's will, like an in- 11 12 THE LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. visible hand, forced them southward along the weary road, till at last they climbed the rocky ascent that led to the gate of the town, — he terrified with anxiety, and she well-nigh dead with fatigue. They reached the inn, but found it crowded with strangers, who, bent on the same errand as themselves, had arrived before them. No friendly house opened its door to receive them, and they were fain to clear for their lodging a corner of the inn-yard, else occu- pied by the beasts of the numerous travelers. There, that very night, she brought forth her first-born Son; and be- cause there was neither womanly hand to assist her, nor couch to receive Him, she wrapped Him in swaddling- clothes and laid Him in a manger. . 3. Such was the manner of the birth of Jesus. I never felt the full pathos of the scene, till, standing one day in a room of an old inn in the market-town of Eisleben, 'in Central Germany, I was told that on that very spot, four centuries ago, amidst the noise of a market-day and the bustle of a public-house, the wife of the poor miner, Hans Luther, who happened to be there on business, being sur- prised like Mary with sudden distress, brought forth in sorrow and poverty the child who was to become Martin Luther, the hero of the Reformation and the maker of modern Europe. 4. Next morning the noise and bustle broke out again in the inn and inn-yard; the citizens of Bethlehem went about their work ; the registration proceeded ; and in the meantime the greatest event in the history of the world had taken place. We never know where a great begin- ning may be happening. Every arrival of a new soul in the world is a mystery and a shut casket of possibilities. Joseph and Mary alone knew the tremendous secret — that on her, the peasant maiden and carpenter's bride, had been BIRTH, INFANCY AND YOUTH. 13 conferred the honor of being the mother of Him who was the Messiah of her race, the Savior of the world, and the Son of God. 5. It had been foretold in ancient prophecy that He should be born on this very spot : " But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall He come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel." The proud emperor's decree drove southward the anxious couple. Yes ; but another hand was leading them on — the hand of Him who overrules the purposes of emperors and kings, of statesmen and parlia- ments, for the accomplishment of His designs, though they know them not ; who hardened the heart of Pharaoh, called Cyrus like a slave to His foot, made the mighty Nebuchad- nezzar His servant, and in the same way could overrule for His own far-reaching purpose the pride and ambition of Augustus. 6. The Group around the Infant — Although Jesus made his entry on the stage of life so humbly and silently ; al- though the citizens of Bethlehem dreamed not what had happened in their midst ; although the emperor of Rome knew not that his decree had influenced the nativity of a king who was yet to bear rule, not only over the Roman world, but over many a land where Rome's eagles never flew ; although the history of mankind went thundering forward next morning in the channels of its ordinary in- terests, quite unconscious of the event which had happened, yet it did not altogether escape notice. As the babe leaped in the womb of the ag^ed Elizabeth when the mother of her Lord approached her, so, when He who brought the new world with Him appeared, there sprang up anticipations and forebodings of the truth in various representatives of the old world that was passing away. There went 14 THE LII^E OF JESUS CHRIST. through sensitive and waiting souls, here and there, a dim and half-conscious thrill, which drew them round the In- fant's cradle. Look at the group which gathered to gaze on Him ! It represented in miniature the whole of His future history. 7. First came the Shepherds from the neighboring fields. That which was unnoticed by the kings and great jOnes of this world, was so absorbing a theme to the princes of heaven, that they burst the bonds of the invisibility in which they shroud themselves, in order to express their joy and explain the significance of the great event. And seeking the most worthy hearts to which they might com- municate it, they found them in these simple shepherds, living the life of contemplation and prayer in the sugges- tive fields where Jacob had kept his flocks, where Boaz and Ruth had been wedded, and David, the great Old Testament type, had spent his youth, and there, by the study of the secrets and needs of their own hearts, learn- ing far more of the nature of the Savior who was to come than the Pharisee amidst the religious pomp of the temple, or the scribe burrowing without the seeing eye among the prophecies of the Old Testament. The angel directed them where the Savior was, and they hastened to the town to find Him. They were the representatives of the peasant people, with the " honest and good heart," who , afterwards formed the bulk of His disciples. . 8. Next to them came Simeon and Anna, the represent- I atives of the devout and intelligent students of the Scrip- tures, who at that time were expecting the appearance of the Messiah, and afterwards contributed some of His most faithful followers. On the eighth day after His birth, the Child was circumcised, thus being " made under the law," entering into the covenant, and inscribing His name in His own blood in the roll of the nation. Soon thereafter, BIRTH, INFANCY AND YOUTH. 15 when the days of Mary's purification were ended, they carried Him from Bethlehem to Jerusalem to present Him to the Lord in the temple. It was " the Lord of the temple entering the temple of the Lord;" but few visitors to the spot could have been less noticed by the priests, for Mary, instead of offering the sacrifice usual in such cases, could only afford two turtle doves, the offering of the poor. Yet there were eyes looking on, undazzled by the shows and glitter of the world, from which His poverty could not conceal Him. Simeon, an aged saint, who in answer to many prayers had received a secret promise that he should not die till he had seen the Messiah, met the parents and the child, when suddenly it shot through him like a flash of lightning that this at last was He, and, taking Him up in his arms, he praised God for the advent of the Lio-ht to lighten the Gentiles and the Glory of His people Israel. While he was still speaking, another witness joined the group. It was Anna, a saintly widow, who literally dwelt in the courts of the Lord, and had purified the eye of her spirit with the euphrasy and rue of prayer and fasting till it could pierce with prophetic glance the veils of sense. She united her testimony to the old man's, praising God and confirming the mighty secret to the other expectant souls who were looking for redemption in Israel. 9. The shepherds and these aged saints were near the spot where the new force entered the world. But it thrilled susceptible souls at a much greater distance. It was probably after the presentation in the temple and after the parents had carried back their child to Bethlehem, where it was their intention to reside instead of returninor to Nazareth, that He was visited by the Wise Men of the East. These were members of the learned class of the Magians, the repositaries of science, philosophy, medical skill, and religious mysteries in the countries beyond the 16 THE LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. Euphrates. Tacitus, Suetonius, and Josephus tell us that *x in the regions from whence they came, there then pre- / vailed an expectation that a great king was to arise in Judasa. We know also from the calculations of the great astronomer Kepler, that at this very time there was visible I in the heavens a brilliant temporary star. Now the Magi were ardent students of astrology, and believed that any unusual phenomenon in the heavens was the sign of some remarkable event on earth; and it is possible that, connect- ing this star, to which their attention would undoubtedly be eagerly directed, with the expectation mentioned by the ancient historians, they were led westward to see if it had been fulfilled. But there must also have been awakened in them a deeper want, to which God responded. If their search began in scientific curiosity and speculation, God led it on to the perfect truth. That is His way always. Instead of making tirades against the imperfect. He speaks to us in the language we understand, even if it express His meaning very imperfectly, and guides us thereby to the perfect truth. Just as He used astrology to lead the world to astronomy, and alchemy to conduct it to chem- istry, and as the Revival of Learning preceded the Reform- ation, so He used the knowledge of these men, which was half falsehood and superstition, to lead them to the Light of the world. Their visit was a prophecy of how in future . the Gentile world would hail His doctrine and salvation, and bring its wealth and talents, its science and philosophy, I to offer at His feet. 10. All these gathered round His cradle to worship the Holy Child, — the shepherds with their simple wonder, Simeon and Anna with a reverence enriched by the trea- sured wisdom and piety of centuries, and the Magi with the lavish gifts of the Orient and the open brow of Gentile knowledge. But while these worthy worshippers were BIRTH, INFANCY AND YOUTH. 17 gazing down or Him, there came and looked over their shoulders a sinister and murderous face. It was the face of Herod. This prince then occupied the throne of the coun- try— the throne of David and the Maccabees. But he wag an alien and low-born usurper. His subjects hated him, and it was only by Roman favor that he was maintained in his seat. He was able, ambitious, and magnificent. Yet he had such a cruel, crafty, gloomy, and filthy mind as you must go among Oriental tyrants to meet with. He had been guilty of every crime. He had made his very palace swim in blood, having murdered his own favorite wife, three of his sons, and many others of his relatives. He was now old and tortured with disease, remorse, the sense of unpopularity, and a cruel terror of every possible aspi- rant to the throne which he had usurped. The Magi had naturally turned their steps to the capital, to inquire where He was to be born whose sign they had seen in the East. The suggestion touched Herod in his sorest place; but with diabolical hypocrisy he concealed his suspicions. Having learned from the priests that the Messiah was to be born in Bethlehem, he directed the strangers thither, but arranged thai they should return and tell him the very house where the new King was. He hoped to cut Him off at a single blow. But he was foiled; for, being warned by God, they did not come back to tell him, but returned to their own country another way. Then his fury burst forth like a storm, and he sent his soldiers to murder every babe under two years of age in Bethlehem. As well might he have attempted to cut a mountain of adamant asunder as cut the chain of the divine purposes. " He thrust his sword into the nest, but the bird was flown." Joseph fled with the Child to Egypt, and remained there till Herod died, when he returned and dwelt at Nazareth; being warned from Bethlehem, because there he would have been B I* 9 18 THE LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. in the kingdom of Archelaus, the like-minded son of his blood-thirsty father. , Herod's murderous face, glaring down on the Infant, was a sad prophecy of how the powers of the world would persecute Him and cut off His life from the earth. //. The Silent Years at Nazareth. — The records which we possess up to this point are, as we have seen, compara- tively full. But with the settlement at Nazareth, after the return from Egypt, our information comes to a sudden stop, and over the rest of the life of Jesus, till His public ministry begins, a thick covering is drawn, which is only lifted once. We should have wished the narrative to con- tinue with the same fulness through the years of His boy- hood and youth. In modern biographies there are few parts more interesting than the anecdotes which they fur- nish of the childhood of their subjects, for m these we can often see in miniature and in charming simphcity the char- acter and the plan of the future life. What would we not give to know the habits, the friendships, the thoughts, the words, and the actions of Jesus during so many years? Only one flower of anecdote has been* thrown over the wall of the hidden garden, and it is so exquisite as to fill us with intense longing to see the garden itself. But it has pleased God, whose silence is no less wonderful than His words, to keep it shut. 12. It was natural that, where God was silent and curiosity was strong, the fancy of man should attempt to fill up the blank. Accordingly, in the early Church there appeared Apocryphal Gospels, pretending to give full de- tails where the inspired Gospels were silent. They are particularly full of the sayings and doings of the childhood of Jesus. But they only show how unequal the human imagination was to such a theme, and bring out by the BIRTH, INFANCY AND YOUTH. 19 contrast of glitter and caricature the solidity and truthful- . iiess of the Scripture narrative. They make him a worker of frivolous and useless marvels, who moulded birds of clay and made them fly, changed his playmates into kids, and so forth. In short, they are compilations of worthless and often blasphemous fables. 13. These grotesque failures warn us not to intrude with the suggestions of fancy into the hallowed enclosure. It is enough to know that He grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man. ^ He was a real child and youth, and passed through all the stages of a natural de- velopment. Body and mind grew together, the one ex- panding to manly vigor, and the other acquiring more and more knowledge and power. His opening character ex- hibited a grace that made every one who saw it wonder and love its goodness and purity.^ 14. But though we are forbidden to let the fancy loose here, we are not prohibited, but, on the contrary, it is our duty, to make use of such authentic materials as are sup- plied by the manners and customs of the time, or by inci- dents of His later life which refer back to His earlier years, in order to connect the infancy with the period when the narrative of the Gospels again takes up tlie thread of biography. It is possible in this way to gain, at least in some degree, a true conception of what He was as a boy and a young man, and what were the influences amidst which His development proceeded through so many silent years. 15. We know amidst what kind of home influences He was brought up. His home was one of those which were the glory of His country, as they are of our own — the abodes of the godly and intelligent working class, f Joseph, its head, was a man saintly and wise; but the fact that he 20 THE LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. is not mentioned in Christ's afterlife has generally been believed to indicate that he died during the youth of Jesus,) perhaps leaving the care of the household on His shoulders.;^ His mother probably exercised the most decisive of all ex- ternal influences on His development. What she was may be inferred from the fact that she was chosen from all the women of the world to be crowned with the supreme honor of womanhood. The song which she poured forth on tho subject of her own great destiny shows her to have been a woman religious, fervently poetical, and patriotic; a stu' dent of scripture, and especially of its great women, for it is saturated with Old Testament ideas, and moulded on Hannah's song; a spirit exquisitely humble, yet capable of thoroughly appreciating the honor conferred upon her. She was no miraculous queen of heaven, as superstition has caricatured her, but a woman exquisitely pure, saintly, loving, and high-souled. This is aureole enough. Jesus grew up in her love and passionately returned it. 16. There were other inmates of the household. He had brothers and sisters. From two of them, James and Jude, we have epistles in Holy Scripture, in which we may read what their character was. Perhaps it is not irreverent to infer from the severe tone of their epistles, that, in their unbelieving state, they must have been somewhat harsh and unsympathetic men. At all events, they never believed on Him during His lifetime, and it is not likely that they were close companions to Him in Nazareth. He was probably much alone; and the pathos of His saying, that a prophet is not without honor save in his own country and in his own house, probably reached back into the years before His ministry began. 17. He received His education at home, or from a scribe attached to the village synagogue. It was only, however, a poor man's education. ( As the scribes con- BIRTH, INFANCY AND YOUTH. 21 temptuously said, He had never learned, or, as we should say, He was not college-bred. No; but the love of knowl- edge was early awake within Him. He daily knew the joy of deep and happy thought; He had the best of all keys to knowledge — the open mind and the loving heart; \and the three great books lay ever open before Him — the Bible, Man, and Nature. ) 18. It is easy to understand with what fervent enthusi- asm He would devote Himself to the Old Testament; and His sayings, which are full of quotations from it, afford abundant proof of how constantly it formed the food of His mind and the comfort of His soul. His youthful study of it was the secret of the marvellous facility with which He made use of it afterwards in order to enrich His preach- ing and enforce His doctrine, to repel the assaults of oppo- nents and overcome the temptations of the Evil One. His quotations also show that He read it in the original He- brew, and not in the Greek translation, which was then in general use. The Hebrew was a dead language even in Palestine, just as Latin now is in Italy; but He would naturally long to read it in the very words in which it was written. Those who have not enjoyed a liberal education, but amidst many difficulties have mastered Greek in order to read their New Testament in the original, will perhaps best understand how, in a country village, He made Him- self master of the ancient tongue, and with what delight He was wont, in the rolls of the synagogue, or in such manuscripts as He may have Himself possessed, to pore over the sacred page. The language in which He thought and spoke familiarly was Aramaic, a branch of the same stem to which the Hebrew belongs. We have fragments of it in some recorded sayings of His, such as " Talitha, cumi," and " Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani." He would have the same chance of learning Greek as a boy born in 22 THE Lli'E OF JESXTS CHRIST. the Scottish Highlands has of learning English, " Galilee of the Gentiles " being then full of Greek-speaking in- habitants. Thus He was probably master of three lan- guages— one of them the grand religious language of the world, in whose literature He was deeply versed; another, . the most perfect means of expressing secular thought which has ever existed, although there is no evidence that He had any acquaintance with the masterpieces of Greek literature; and the third, the language of the common peo- ple, to whom His preaching was to be specially addressed. 19. There are few places where human nature can be better studied than in a country village; for there one sees the whole of each individual life and knows all one's neigh- bors thoroughly. In a city far more people are seen, but far fewer known; it is only the outside of life that is visi- ble. In a village the view outwards is circumscribed; but the view downwards is deep, and the view upwards unim- peded. Nazareth was a notoriously wicked town, as we learn from the proverbial question. Can any good thing come out of Nazareth? Jesus had no acquaintance with sin in His own soul, but in the town He had a full exhibi- tion of the awful problem with which it was to be His life- work to deal. He was still further brought into contact with human nature by His trade. That He worked as a carpenter in Joseph's shop there can be no doubt. Who could know better than His own townsmen, who asked, in their astonishment at His preaching. Is not this the car- penter? It would be difficult to exhaust the significance of the fact that God chose for His Son, when He dwelt among men, out of all the possible positions in which He might have placed Him, the lot of a working man. It stamped men's common toils with everlasting honor. It acquainted Jesus with the feelings of the multitude, and helped Him to know what was in man. It was afterwards said that He filRTH, TNFAI^CY AND YOUTU. 23 knew this so well that He needed not that any man should teach Him. 20. (Travelers tell us that the spot where He grew up is one of the most beautiful on the face of the earth. Naza- reth is situated in a secluded, cup-like valley amid the mountains of Zebulon, just where they dip down into the plain of Esdraelon, with which it is connected by a steep and rocky path. Its white houses, with vines clinging to their walls, are embowered amidst gardens and groves of olive, fig, orange, and pomegranate trees. The fields are divided by hedges of cactus, and enamelled with innumer- able flowers of every hue. Behind the village rises a hill five hundred feet in height, from whose summit there is seen one of the most wonderful views in the world — the mountains of Galilee, with snowy Hermon towering above them, to the north; the ridge of Carmel, the coast of Tyre, and the sparkling waters of the Mediterranean, to the west; a few miles to the east, the wooded, cone-like bulk of Tabor; and to the south, the plain of Esdraelon, with the mountains of Ephraim beyond. The preaching of Jesus shows how deeply He had drunk into the essence of nat- ural beauty and revelled in the changing aspects of the seasons. It was when wanderino^ as a lad in these fields that He gathered the images of beauty which he poured out in His parables and addresses. It was on that hill that He acquired the habit of His after-life of retreating to the mountain-tops to spend the night in solitary prayer. The doctrines of His jSreaching were not thought out on the spur of the moment. They were poured out in a living stream when the occasion came, but the water had been gathered into the hidden well for many years before. In the fields and on the mountain-side he had thought them out during the years of happy and undisturbed meditation and prayer. ) 24 THE LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. 21. There is still one important educational influence to be mentioned. Every year, after He was twelve years old, He went with His parents to the Passover at Jerusalem. Fortunately we have preserved to us an account of the first of these visits. It is the only occasion on which the veil is lifted during thirty years. Every one who can remember his own first journey from a village homer to the capital of his country will understand the joy and excitement with which Jesus set out. He traveled over eighty miles of a country where nearly every mile teemed with historical and inspiring memories. He mingled with the constantly growing caravan of pilgrims, who were filled with the reli- gious enthusiasm of the great ecclesiastical event of the year. His destination was a city which was loved by every Jewish heart with a strength of affection that has never been given to any other capital — a city full of objects and memories fitted to touch the deepest springs of interest and emotion in his breast. It was swarming at the Pass- over-time with strangers from half-a-hundred countries, speaking as many languages and wearing as many different costumes. He went to take part for the first time in an ancient solemnity suggestive of countless patriotic and sacred memories. It was no wonder that, when the day came to return home, He was so excited with the new ob- jects of interest, that He failed to join His party at the appointed place and time. One spot above all fascinated His interest. It was the temple, and especially the school there in which the masters of wisdom taug-ht. His mind was teeming with questions which these doctors might be asked to answer. His thirst for knowledge had an oppor- tunity for the first time to drink its fill. So it was there His anxious parents, who, missing Him after a day's journey northward, returned in anxiety to seek Him, found Him, listening with excited looks to the oracles of the wisdom BIRTH, INFANCY AND YOUTH. 25 of the day. His answer to the reproachful question of His mother lays bare His childhood's mind, and for a moment affords a wide glance over the thoughts which used to en- gross Him in the fields of Nazareth. It shows that already, though so young. He had risen above the great mass of men, who drift on through life without once inquiring what may be its meaning and its end. He was aware that He had a God-appointed life-work to do, which it was the one business of His existence to accomplish. It was the pas- sionate thought of all His after-life. It ought to be the first and last thought of every life. It recurred again and again in His later sayings, and pealed itself finally forth in the word with which He closed His career, — It is finished! 22.1 It has often been asked whether Jesus knew all along that He was the Messiah, and, if not, when and how the knowledge dawned upon Him; whether it was sug- gested by hearing from His mother the story of His birth, or announced to Him from within. Did it dawn upon Him all at once, or gradually? When did the plan of His ca- reer, which He carried out so unhesitatingly from the be- ginning of His ministry, shape itself in His mind? Was it the slow result of years of reflection, or did it come to Him at once? These questions have occupied the greatest Christian minds and received very various answers. I will not venture to answer them, and especially with His reply to His mother before me, I can not trust myself even to think of a time when He did not know what His work in this world was to be. 23. His subsequent visits to Jerusalem must have greatly influenced the development of His mind. If He often went back to hear and question the rabbis in the temple schools, He must soon have discovered how shallow was their far- famed learning. It was probably on these annual visits that He discovered the utter corruption of tiae religion of 2 26 THE LIFE OP JESUS CHRIST. the day and the need of a radical reform of both doctrine and practice, and marked the practices and the persons that He was by and by to assail with the vehemence of His holy indignation. 24. Such were the external conditions amidst which the manhood of Jesus waxed towards maturity. It would be easy to exaggerate the influence which they may be sup- posed to have exerted on his development. The greater and more original a character is, the less dependent is it on the peculiarities of its environment. It is fed from deep well-springs within itself, and in its germ there is a type enclosed which expands in obedience to its own laws and bids defiance to circumstances. In any other circumstan- ces, Jesus would have grown to be in every important respect the very same person as He became in Nazareth. CHAPTER II. THE NATION AND TEE TIME, Paragraphs 25-53. 26-39. The Theater of His Life. 27. The Political Condition of the Country. 28-38. Its Religious and Social Condition— 28,29. External Religiosity but Inner Decline; 30. Pharisees; 31. Scribes; 32. Sadducees and Herodians; 33. Different Classes of Society; 35-38. Messianic Hopes. 40-53. The Two Final Stages op His Preparation. 44-49. His Baptism — 45. The Baptist; 46-48. Jesus Baptized ; 49. Th* Descent of the Holy Ghost. 50-53. The Temptation. 38 CHAPTER II. THE NATION AND THE TIME. 25. We now approach the time when, after thirty years of silence and obscurity in Nazareth, Jesus was to step forth on the public stage. This is therefore the place at which to take a survey of the circumstances of the nation in whose midst His work was to be done, and also to form a clear conception of His character and aims. Every great biography is the record of the entrance into the world of a new force, bringing with it something different from all that was there before, and of the way in which it gradually gets itself incorporated with the old, so as to become a part of the future. Obviously, therefore, two things are needed by those who wish ta understand it — first, a clear compre- hension of the nature of the new force itself; and secondly, a view of the world with which it is to be incorporated. Without the latter the specific difference of the former can not be understood, nor can the manner of its reception be appreciated — the welcome with which it is received, or the opposition with which it has to struggle. Jesus brought with Him into the world more that was orio^inal and des- tined to modify the future history of mankind than any one else who has ever entered it. But we can neither un- derstand Him nor the fortunes which He encountered in seeking to incorporate with history the gift He brought, without a clear view of the condition of the sphere within which His life was to be passed. 29 30 THE LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. 26. The Theater of His Life. — When, having finished the last chapter of the Old Testament, we turn over the leaf and see the first chapter of the New, we are very apt to think that in Matthew we are still among the same peo- ple and the same state of things as we have left in Malachi. But no idea could be more erroneous. Four centuries elapsed between Malachi and Matthew, and wrought as total a change in Palestine as a period of the same length has almost ever wrought in any country. The very lan- guage of the people had been changed, and customs, ideas, parties, and institutions had come into existence which would almost have prevented Malachi, if he had risen from the dead, from recognizing his country. 27. Politically, the nation had passed through extra- ordinary vicissitudes. After the Exile, it had been or- ganized as a kind of sacred State under its high priests; but conqueror after conqueror had since marched over it, changing everything; the old hereditary monarchy had been restored for a time by the brave Maccabees; the battle of freedom had many times been won and lost; a usurper had sat on the throne of David; and now at last the country was completely under the mighty Roman power, which had extended its sway over the whole civil- ized world. It was divided into several small portions, which the foreigner held under different tenures, as the English at present hold India. Galilee and Persea were ruled by petty kings, sons of that Herod under whom .lesus was born, who occupied a relation to the Roman emperor similar to that which the subject Indian kings hold to our Queen; and Judiea was under the charge of a Roman offi- cial, a subordinate of the governor of the Roman province of Syria, who held a relation to that functionary similar to that which the Governor of Bombay holds to the Governor- General at Calcutta. Roman soldiers paraded the streets THE NATION AND THE TIME. 31 of Jerusalem; Roman standards waved over the fastnesses of the country; Roman tax-gatherers sat at the gate of every town. To the Sanhedrim, the supreme Jewish organ of government, only a shadow of power was still conceded, its presidents, the high priests, being mere puppets of Rome, set up and put down with the utmost caprice. So low had the proud nation fallen whose ideal it had ever been to rule the world, and whose patriotism was a re- ligious and national passion as intense and unquenchable as ever burned in any country. 28. In religion the changes had been equally great, and the fall equally low. In external appearance, indeed, it might have seemed as if progress had been made instead of retrogression. The nation was far more orthodox than it had been at many earlier periods of its history. Once its chief danger had been idolatry; but the chastisement of the Exile had corrected that tendency for ever, and thenceforward the Jews, wherever they might be living, were uncompromising monotheists. The priestly orders and offices had been thoroughly reorganized after the return from Babylon, and the temple services and annual feasts continued to be observed at Jerusalem with strict regular- ity. Besides, a new and most important religious institu- tion had arisen, which almost threw the temple with its priesthood into the background. This was the synagogue with its rabbis. It does not seem to have existed in ancient times at all, but was called into existence after the Exile by reverence for the written Word. Synagogues were multiplied wherever Jews lived; every Sabbath they were filled with praying congregations; exhortations were deliv- ered by the rabbis — a new order created by the need of expounders to translate from the Hebrew, which had become a dead language; and nearly the whole Old Testament was read over once a year in the hearing of the people. Schools 32 THE LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. of theology, similar to our divinity halls, had sprung up, in which the rabbis were trained and the sacred books inter- preted. 29. But, in spite of all this religiosity, religion had sadly declined. The externals had been multiplied, but the inner spirit had disappeared. However rude and sinful the old nation had sometimes been, it was capable in its worst periods of producing majestic religious figures, who kept high the ideal of life and preserved the connection of the nation with Heaven; and the inspired voices of the prophets kept the stream of truth running fresh and clean. But during four hundred years no prophet's voice had been heard. The records of the old prophetic utterances were still preserved with almost idolatrous reverence, but there were not men with even the necessary amount of the Spirit's inspiration to understand what He had formerly written. 30. The representative religious men of the time were the Pharisees. As their name indicates, they originally arose as champions of the separateness of the Jews from other nations. This was a noble idea, so long as the dis- tinction emphasized was holiness. But it is far more diffi- cult to maintain this distinction than such external diflfer- ences as peculiarities of dress, food, language, etc. These were in course of time substituted for it. The Pharisees were ardent patriots, ever willing to lay down their lives for the independence of their country, and hating the for- eign yoke with impassioned bitterness. They despised and hated other races, and clung with undying faith to the hope of a glorious future for their nation. But they had so long harped on this idea, that they had come to believe them- selves the special favorites of Heaven, simply because they were descendants of Abraham, and to lose sight of the importance of personal character. They multiplied their THE NATION AND THE TIME. 33 • Jtiwish peculiarities, but substituted external observances, such as fasts, prayers, tithes, washings, sacrifices, and so forth, for the grand distinctions of love to God and love to man. 31. To the Pharisaic party belonged most of the scribes. They were so called because they were both the interpret- ers and copyists of the Scriptures and the lawyers of the people; for, the Jewish legal code being incorporated in the Holy Scriptures, jurisprudence became a branch of theology. They were the chief interpreters in the syna- gogues, although any male worshipper was permitted to speak if he chose. They professed unbounded reverence for the Scriptures, counting every word and letter in them. They had a splendid opportunity of diffusing the religious principles of the Old Testament among the people, exhib- iting the glorious examples of its heroes and sowing abroad the words of the prophets; for the synagogue was one of the most potent engines of instruction ever devised by any people. But they entirely missed their opportunity. They became a dry ecclesiastical and scholastic class, using their position for selfish aggrandisement, and scorning those to whom they gave stones for bread as a vulgar and unlettered canaille. Whatever was most spiritual, living, human, and grand in the Scriptures they passed by. Generation after generation the commentaries of their famous men multi- plied, and the pupils studied the commentaries instead of the text. Moreover, it was a rule with them that the cor- rect interpretation of a passage was as authoritative as the text itself; and, the interpretations of the famous masters being as a matter of course believed to be correct, the mass of opinions which were held to be as precious as the Bible itself grew to enormous proportions. These were "the traditions of the elders." By degrees an arbitrary system of exegesis came into vogue, by which almost any C 34 THE LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. « opinion whatever could be thus connected with some text and stamped with divine authority. Every new invention of Pharisaic peculiarities was sanctioned in this wa3^ These were multiplied until they regulated every detail of life, personal, domestic, social, and public. They became so numerous, that it required a lifetime to learn them all; and the learning of a scribe consisted in acquaintance with them, and with the dicta of the great rabbis and the forms of exeo-esis by which they were sanctioned. This was the chaff with which they fed the people in the synagogues. The conscience was burdened with innumerable details, everv one of which was represented to be as divinely sanc- tioned as any of the ten commandments. This was the intolerable burden which Peter said neither he nor his fathers had been able to bear. This was the horrible night- mare which sat so long on Paul's conscience. But worse consequences flowed from it. It is a well-known principle in history, that, whenever the ceremonial is elevated to the same rank with the moral, the latter will soon be lost sight of. The scribes and Pharisees had learned how by arbi- trary exegesis and casuistical discussion to explain away the weightiest moral obligations, and make up for the neg- lect of them by increasing their ritual observances. Thus men were able to flaunt in the pride of sanctity while in- dulging their selfishness and vile passions. Society was rotten with vice within, and veneered over with a self-de- ceptive religiosity without. 32. There was a party of protest. The Sadducees im- pugned the authority attached to the traditions of the fathers, demanding a return to the Bible and nothing but the Bible, and cried out for morality in place of ritual. But their protest was prompted merely by the spirit of de- nial, and not by a warm opposite principle of religion. They were sceptical, cold-hearted, worldly men. Though THE NATION AND THE TIME. 35 they praised morality, it was a morality unwarmed and un- illuminated by any contact with that upper region of divine forces from which the inspiration of the highest morality must always come. They refused to burden their conscien- ces with the painful punctilios of the Pharisees; but it was because they wished to live the life of comfort and self- indulgence. They ridiculed the Pharisaic exclusiveness, but had let go what was most peculiar in the character, the faith, and the hopes of the nation. They mingled freely with the Gentiles, affected Greek culture, enjoyed foreign amusements, and thought it useless to fight for the freedom of their country. An extreme section of them were the Herodians, Tvho had given in to the usurpation of Herod, and with courtly flattery attached themselves to the favor of his sons. 33. The Sadducees belonged chiefly to the upper and wealthy classes. 'The Pharisees and scribes formed what we should call the middle class, although also deriving many members from the higher ranks of life. ] The lower classes and the country people were separated by a great gulf from their wealthy neighbors, but attached themselves by admiration to the Pharisees, as the uneducated always do to the party of warmth. Down below all these was a large class of those who had lost all connection with religion and well-ordered social life — the publicans, harlots, and sinners, for whose souls no man cared. 34. Such were the pitiable features of the society on which Jesus was about to discharge His influence — a na- tion enslaved; the upper classes devoting themselves to selfishness, courtiership, and scepticism; the teachers and chief professors of religion lost in mere shows of ceremo- nialism, and boasting themselves the favorites of God, while their souls were honeycombed with self-deception and vice; the body of the people misled by false ideals; 36 THE LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. and seething at the bottom of society, a neglected mass of unblushing and unrestrained sin. 35. And this was the people of God! Yes; in spite of their awful degradation, these were the children of Abra- ham, Isaac and Jacob, and the heirs of the covenant and the promises. Away back beyond the centuries of degra- dation towered the figures of the patriarchs, the kings after God's own heart, the psalmists, the prophets, the genera- tions of faith and hope. Ay, and in front there was great- ness too! The word of God, once sent forth from heaven and uttered by the mouths of His prophets, could not re- turn to Him void. He had said that to this nation was to be given the perfect revelation of Himself, that in it was to appear the perfect ideal of manhood, and that from it was to issue forth the rea-eneration of all mankind. There- fore a wonderful future still belonged to it. The river of Jewish history was for the time choked and lost in the sands of the desert, but it was destined to reappear again and flow forward on its God-appointed course. The time of fulfilment was at hand, much as the signs of the times might seem to forbid the hope. Had not all the prophets from Moses onward spoken of a great One to come, who, appearing just when the darkness was blackest and the degradation deepest, was to bring back the lost glory of the past? 36. So not a few faithful souls asked themselves in the weary and degraded time. There are good men in the worst of periods. There were good men even in the selfish and corrupt Jewish parties. But especially does piety linger in such epochs in the lowly homes of the people; and, just as we are permitted to hope that in the Romish Church at the present time there may be those who, through all the ceremonies put between the soul and Christ, THE NATION AND THE TIME. 37 reach forth to Him, and by the selection of a spiritual in- stinct seize the truth and pass the falsehood by, so among the common people of Palestine there were those who, hearing the Scriptures read in the synagogues and reading them in their homes, instinctively neglected the cumbrous and endless comments of their teachers, and saw the glory of the past, of holiness and of God, which the scribes failed to see. 37. It was especially to the promises of a Deliverer that such spirits attached their interest. Feeling bitterly the shame of national slavery, the hollowness of the times, and the awful wickedness which rotted under the surface of society, they longed and prayed for the advent of the coming One and the restoration of the national character and glory. 38. The scribes also busied themselves with this ele- ment in the Scriptures; and the cherishing of Messianic hopes was one of the chief distinctions of the Pharisees. But they had caricatured the prophetic utterances on the subject by their arbitrary interpretations, and painted the future in colors borrowed from their own carnal imagina- tions. They spoke of the advent as the coming of the kingdom of God, and of the Messiah as the Son of God. But what they chiefly expected Him to do was, by the working of marvels and by irresistible force, to free the nation from servitude and raise it to the utmost worldly grandeur. They entertained no doubt that, simply because they were members of the chosen nation, they would be allotted high places in the kingdom, and never suspected that any change was needed in themselves to meet Him. The spiritual elements of the better time, holiness and love, were lost in their minds behind the dazzling forms of material glory.* * I have not thought it necessary to describe the state of the world beyond Pal- estine; for although the gifts Jesus brouglit were for all mankind, yet His own 38 THE LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. 39. Such was the aspect of Jewish history at the time when the hour of realizing the national destiny was about to strike. It imparted to the work which lay before the Messiah a peculiar complexity. It might have been ex- pected that He would find a nation saturated with the ideas and inspired with the visions of His predecessors, the pro- phets, at Avhose head He might place Himself, and from which He mio-ht receive an enthusiastic and effective co- operation. But it was not so. He appeared at a time when the nation had lapsed from its ideals and caricatured their sublimest features. Instead of meeting a nation ma- ture in holiness and consecrated to the heaven-ordained task of blessing all other peoples, which he might easily lead up to its own final development, and then lead forth to the spiritual conquest of the world. He found that the first work which lay before Him was to proclaim a re- formation in His own country, and encounter the opjjosi- tion of prejudices that had accumulated there through centuries of degradation. 40. The Final Stages of His Preparation. — Meanwhile He, whom so many in their own ways were hoping for, was in the midst of them, though they suspected it not. Little could they think that He about whom they were specula- ting and praying was growing up in a carpenter's home activity was confined almost entirely to the house of Israel within its original home. In a history of Early Christianity, or even a life of the Apostle Paul, it would be necessary to extend our view over the whole disc of civilization which surrounded the Mediterranean, and in which the world's center, which has since shifted to other latitudes, was then to be found; and to show how marvellously, by the dispersion of the Jews through all civilized countries, the elementary concep- tions of God which were necessary for the reception of Christianity had been dif- fused beforehand far and wide; how the conquests of Alexander had. ()y making the Greek language universally understood, prepared a vehicle by which the gospel might be carried to all nations: how a pathway for it had been provided by the Roman power, whose m 11 itarj^ system had made all lands accessible; and, above all, how the decay of the ancient religions and philosophies, the M'earing out every- where of the old Ideals of life, and the prevalence of heart-sickening sin, had made the world ready for Him who was the Desire of all nations. THE NATION AND THE TIME. 39 away in despised Nazareth. Yet so it was. There He was preparing Himself for His career. His mind was busy- grasping the vast proportions of the task before Him, as the prophesies of the past and the facts of the case deter- mined it; His eyes were looking forth on the country, and His heart smartinsr with the sense of its sin and shame. In Himself He felt moving the gigantic powers necessary to cope with the vast design; and the desire was gradually growing to an irresistible passion, to go forth and utter the thought within Him, and do the work which had been given Him to do. 41. Jesus had only three years to accomplish His life- work. If we remember how quickly three years in an ordinary life pass away, and how little at their close there usually is to show for them, we shall see what must have been the size and quality of that character, and what the unity and intensity of design in that life, which in so mar- vellously short a time made such a deep and ineffaceable impression on the world, and left to mankind such a heri- tag-e of truth and influence. 42. It is generally allowed that Jesus appeared as a public man with a mind whose ideas were completely de- veloped and arranged, with a character sharpened over its whole surface into perfect definiteness, and with designs that marched forward to their ends without hesitation. No deflection took place during the three years from the lines on which at the beginning of them He was moving. The reason of this must have been, that during the thirtr years before His public work began. His ideas, His char- acter and designs went through all the stages of a thorough development. Unpretentious as the external aspects of His life at Nazareth were, it was, below the surface, a life of intensity, variety and grandeur. Beneath its silence and obscurity there went on all the processes of growth 40 THE LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. which issued in the magnificent flower and fruit to which all ages now look back with wonder. His preparation lasted long. For one with His powers at command, thirty years of complete reticence and reserve were a long time. Nothing was greater in Him afterwards than the majestic reserve in both speech and action which characterized Him. This, too, was learned in Nazareth. There He waited till the hour of the completion of His preparation struck. Nothing could tempt Him forth before the time — not the burning desire to interfere with indignant protest amidst the crying corruptions and mistakes of the age, not even the swellings of the passion to do His fellow-men good. 43. At last, however, He threw down the carpenter's tools, laid aside the workman's dress, and bade His home and the beloved valley of Nazareth farewell. Still, how- ever, all was not ready. His manhood, though it had waxed in secret to such noble proportions, still required a peculiar endowment for the work He had to do; and His ideas and designs, mature as they were, required to be hardened in the fire of a momentous trial. The two final incidents of His preparation — the Baptism and the Temptation — had still to take place. 44. Jesus did not descend on the nation from the obscu- rity of Nazareth without note of warning. His work may be said to have been begun before He Himself put His hand to it. 45. Once more, before hearing the voice of its Messiah, the nation was to hear the long-silent voice of prophecy. The news went through all the country that in the desert of Jud^a a preacher had appeared, — not like the numbers of dead men's ideas who spoke in the synagogues, or the courtier-like, smooth-tongued teachers of Jerusalem but a THE NATION AND THE TIME. 41 rude, strong man, speaking from the heart to the heart,' with the authority of one who was sure of his inspiration. He had been a Nazarite from the womb; he had lived for years in the desert, wandering, in communion with his own heart, beside the lonely shores of the Dead Sea; he was clad in the hair cloak and leather girdle of the old prophets; and his ascetic rigor sought no finer fare than locusts and the wild honey which he found in the wilder- ness. Yet he knew life well; he was acquainted with all the evils of the time, the hypocrisy of the religious parties, and the corruption of the masses: he had a wonderful power of searching the heart and shaking the conscience, and without fear laid bare the darling sins of every class. But that which most of all attracted attention to him and thrilled every Jewish heart from one end of the land to the other, was the message which he bore. It was nothing less than that the Messiah was just at hand, and about to set up the kingdom of God. All Jerusalem poured out to him ; the Pharisees were eager to hear the Messianic news; and even the Sadducees were stirred for a moment from their leth- argy. The provinces sent forth their thousands to his preaching, and the scattered and hidden ones who longed and prayed for the redemption of Israel flocked to welcome the heart-stirring promise. But along with it John had another message, which excited very diff'erent feelings in different minds. He had to tell his hearers that the nation as a whole was utterly unprepared for the Messiah; that the mere fact of their descent from Abraham would not be a sufficient token of admission to His kingdom; it was to be a kingdom of righteousness and holiness, and Christ's very first work would be to reject all who were not marked with these qualities, as the farmer winnows away the clialF with his fan, and the master of the vineyard hews down every tree that brings forth no fruit. Therefore he called 2* 42 THE LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. ► the nation at large — every class and every individual — to repentance, so long as there still was time, as an indispen- sable preparation for enjoying the blessings of the new epoch; and, as an outward symbol of this inward change, he baptized in the Jordan all who received his message with faith. Many were stirred with fear and hope and submit- ted to the rite, but many more were irritated by the expo- sure of their sins and turned away in anger and unbelief. Among these were the Pharisees, upon whom he was spec- ially severe, and who were deeply offended because he had treated so li2:htlv their descent from Abraham, on which they laid so much stress. 46. One day there appeared among the Baptist's hearers One who particularly attracted his attention, and made his voice, which had never faltered when accusing in the most vigorous language of reproof even the highest teachers and priests of the nation, tremble with self-distrust. And when He presented Himself, after the discourse was done, among the candidates for baptism, John drew back, feeling that This was no subject for the bath of repentance, which without hesitation he had administered to all others, and that he himself had no right to baptize Him. There were in His face a majesty, a purity, and a peace which smote the man of rock with the sense of un worthiness and sin. It was Jesus, who had come straight hither from the work- shop of Nazareth. John and Jesus appear never to have met before, though their families were related and the con- nection of their careers had been predicted before their birth. This may have been due to the distance of their homes in Galilee and Judsea, and still more to the Baptist's peculiar habits. But when, in obedience to the injunction of Jesus, John proceeded to administer the rite, he learned the meaning of the overpowering impression which the Stranger had made on him; for the sign was given by THE NATION AND THE TIME. 43 which, as God had instructed him, he was to recognize the Messiah, whose forerunner he was. The Holy Ghost de- scended on Jesus, as He emerged from the water in the attitude of prayer, and the voice of God pronounced Him in thunder His beloved Son. 47. The impression made on John by the very look of Jesus reveals far better than many words could do His aspect when He was about to begin His work, and the qualities of the character which in Nazareth had been slowly ripening to full maturity. 48. The baptism itself had an important significance for Jesus. To the other candidates who underwent the rite it had a double meaning; it signified the abandonment of their old sins, and their entrance into the new Messianic era. To Jesus it could not have the former meaning, ex- cept in so far as He may have identified Himself with His nation, and taken this way of expressing His sense of its need of cleansino^. But it meant that He too was now entering through this door into the new epoch, of which He was Himself to be the Author. It expressed His sense that the time had come to leave behind the employments of Nazareth and devote himself to His peculiar work. 49. But still more important was the descent upon Him of the Holy Ghost. This was neither a meaningless dis- play nor merely a signal to the Baptist. It was the s\nnbol of a special gift then given to qualify Him for His work, and crown the long development of His peculiar powers. It is a forgotten truth that the manhood of Jesus was from first to last dependent on the Holy Ghost. We are apt to imagine that its connection with His divine nature rendered this unnecessary. On the contrary, it made it far more necessary, for in order to be the organ of His divine nature. His human nature had both to be endowed with the highest gifts and constantly sustained in their exercise. We are 44 THE LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. in the habit of attributing the wisdom and grace of His words, His supernatural knowledge of even the thoughts of men, and the miracles He performed, to His divine nature. But in the Gospels they are constantly attributed to the Holy Ghost. This does not mean that they were independent of His divine nature, but that in them His human nature was enabled to be the organ of His divine nature by a peculiar gift of the Holy Ghost. This gift was given Him at His baptism. It was analogous to the pos- session of prophets, like Isaiah and Jeremiah, with the Spirit of inspiration on those occasions, of which they have left accounts, when they were called to begin their public life, and to the special outpouring of the same influence still sometimes given at their ordination to those who are about to begin the work of the ministry. But to Him it was given without measure, while to others it has always been given only in measure ; and it comprised especially the gift of miraculous powers. 50. An immediate effect of this new endowment appears to have been one often experienced, in less degree, by others who, in their small measure, have received this same gift of the Spirit for work. His whole being was excited about His work, His desires to be eng:aored in it were raised to the highest pitch, and His thoughts were intensely occu- pied about the means of its accomplishment. Although His preparation for it had been going on for many years, although His whole heart had long been fixed on it, and His plan had been clearly settled, it was natural that, when the divine signal had been given that it was forthwith to commence, and He felt Himself suddenly put in possession of the supernatural powers necessary for carrying it out. His mind should be in a tumult of crowding thoughts and feelings, and He should seek a place of solitude to revolve THE NATION AND THE TIME. 45 t once more the whole situation. Accordingly, He hastily retreated from the bank of the Jordan, driven, we are told, by the Spirit, which had just been given Him, into the wil- derness, where, for forty days. He wandered among the sandy dunes and wild mountains. His mind being so highly strung with the emotions and ideas which crowded on Him, that He forgot even to eat. 51. But it is with surprise and awe we learn that His soul was, during those days, the scene of a frightful strug- gle. He was tempted of Satan, we are told. What could He be tempted with at a time so sacred? To understand this we must recall what has been said of the state of the Jewish nation, and especially the nature of the Messianic hopes which they were indulging. They expected a Mes- siah who would work dazzling wonders and establish a world-wide empire with Jerusalem as its center, and they had postponed the ideas of righteousness and holiness to these. They completely inverted the divine conception of the kingdom, which could not but give the spiritual and moral elements precedence of material and political con- siderations. Now what Jesus was tempted to do was, in carrying out the great work which His Father had com- mitted to Him, to yield in some measure to these expecta- tions. He must have foreseen that, unless He did so, the nation would be disappointed and probably turn away from Him in unbelief and anger. The different temptations were only various modifications of this on^ thought. The suggestion that He should turn stones into bread to satisfy His hunger was a temptation to use the power of working miracles, with which He had just been endowed, for a pur- pose inferior to those for which alone it had been given, and was the precurser of such temptations in His after-life as the demand of the multitude to show them a sign, or that He should come down from the cross, that they might 46 THE LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. believe Him. The suggestion that He should leap from the pinnacle of the temple was probably also a temptation to gratify the vulgar desire for wonders, because it was a part of the popular belief that the Messiah should appear suddenly, and in some marvellous way; as, for instance, by a leap from the temple roof into the midst of the crowds assembled below. The third and greatest temptation, to win the empire of all the kingdoms of the world by an act of worship to the Evil One, was manifestly only a symbol of obedience to the universal Jewish conception of the comina: kingdom as a vast structure of material force. It was a temptation which every worker for God, weary with the slow progress of goodness, must often feel, and to which even good and earnest men have sometimes given way — to begin at the outside instead of within, to get first a great shell of external conformity to religion, and afterwards fill it with the reality. It was the temptation to which Mahomet yielded when he used the sword to sub- due those whom he was afterwards to make religious, and to which the Jesuits yielded when they baptized the heathen first and evangelized them afterwards. 52. It is with awe we think of these suggestions pre- sentins: themselves to the holy soul of Jesus. Could He be tempted to distrust God, and even to worship the Evil One? No doubt the temptations were flung from Him, as the impotent billows retire broken from the breast of the rock on which, they have dashed themselves. But these temptations pressed in on Him, not only at this time, but often before in the valley of Nazareth, and often after- wards, in the heats and crises of His life. We must re- member that it is no sin to be tempted, it is only sin to yield to temptation. And, indeed, the more absolutely pure a soul is, the more painful will be the point of the temptation, as it presses for admission into his breast. THE NATION AND THE TIME. 47 53. Although the tempter only departed from Jesus for a season, this was a decisive struggle; he was thoroughly beaten back, and his power broken at its heart. Milton has indicated this by finishing his Paradise Megainecl at this point. Jesus emerged from the wilderness with the plan of His life, which, no doul^t, had been formed long before, hardened in the fire of trial. Notliing is more con- spicuous in His after-life than the resolution with which He carried it out. Other men, even those who have ac- complished the greatest tasks, have sometimes had no defi- nite plan, but only seen by degrees in the evolution of cir- cumstances the path to pursue; their purposes have been modified by events and the advice of others. But Jesus started with His plan perfected, and never deviated from it by a hair's-breadth. He resented the interference of His mother or His chief disciple with it as steadfastly as He bore it through the fiery opposition of open enemies. And His plan was to establish the kingdom of God in the hearts of individuals, and rely not on the weapons of polit- ical and material strength, but only on the power of love and the force of truth. 48 THE LIFE OF JESUS CHFvIST. THE DIVISIONS OF HIS PUBLIC MINISTRY. 54. The public ministry of Jesus is generally reckoned to have lasted three years. Each of them had peculiar features of its own. The first may be called the Year of Obscurity, both because the records of it which we possess are very scanty, and because He seems during it to have been only slowly emerging into public notice. It was spent for the most part in Judsea. The second was the Year of Public Favor, during which the country had be- come thoroughly aware of Him, His activity was incessant, and His fame rang through the length and breadth of the land. It was almost wholly passed in Galilee. The third was the Year of Opposition, when the public favor ebbed away, His enemies multiplied and assailed Him with more and more pertinacity, and at last He fell a victim to their hatred. The first six months of this final year were passed in Galilee, and the last six in other parts of the land. 55. Thus the life of the Savior in its external outline resembled that of many a reformer and benefactor of man- kind. Such a life often begins with a period during which tlie public is gradually made aware of the new man in its midst, then passes into a period when his doctrine or reform is borne aloft on the shoulders of popularity, and ends with a reaction, when the old prejudices and interests which have been assailed by him rally from his attack, and, gain- ing to themselves the passions of the crowd, crush him in their rao;e. CHAPTER III. THE YEAR OF OBSCURITY. Paragraphs 56-65. 57. The First Disciples; 58. The First Miracle; 59 The Cleansing of the Temple; 60. Nicodemus. 61-65. Reasons for the meagerness of the Records of this Year. 50 CHAPTER III. THE YEAR OF OBSCURITY. 56. The records of this year which we possess are ex- tremely meager, comprising only two or three incidents, which may be here enumerated, especially as they form a kind of programme of His future work. 57. When He emerged from the wilderness after the forty days of temptation, with His grasp of His future plan tightened by that awful struggle and with the inspira- tion of His baptism still swelling His heart. He appeared once more on the bank of the Jordan, and John pointed Him out as the great Successor to himself of whom he had often spoken. He especially introduced Him to some of the choicest of His own disciples, who immediately became His followers. Probably the very first of these to whom He spoke was the man who was afterwards to be His favor- ite disciple, and to give to the world the divinest portrait of His character and life. ; John the Evangelist r- for he it was — has left an account of this first meetino- and the in- terview that followed it, which retains in all its freshness the impression which Christ's majesty and purity made on his receptive mind. The other young men who attached themselves to Him at the same time were Andrew, Peter, Philip, and Nathanael. They had been prepared. for their new Master by their intercourse with the Baptist, and although they did not at once give up their employments and follow Him in the same way as they did at a later period, they received impressions at their very first meet- 51 52 THE LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. ing which decided their whole after-career. The Baptist's disciples do not seem to have at once gone over in a body to Christ. But the best of them did so. Some mischief- makers endeavored to excite envy in his mind by pointing out how his influence was passing away to Another. But they little understood that great man, whose chief great- ness was his humility. He answered them that it was his joy to decrease, while Christ increased, for it was Christ who as the Bridegroom was to lead home the bride, while he was only the Bridegroom's friend, whose happiness con- sisted in seeing the crown of festal joy placed on the head of another. 58. With His newly attached followers Jesus departed from the scene of John's ministry, and went north to Cana in Galilee, to attend a marriage to which He had been invited. Here He made the first display of the miraculous powers with which He had been recently endowed, by turning water into wine. It was a manifestation of His glory intended specially for his new discijDles, who, we are told, thenceforward believed on Him, which means, no doubt, that they were fully convinced that He was the Messiah. It was intended also to strike the key-note of His ministry as altogether different from the Baptist's John was an ascetic hermit, who fled from the abodes of men and called his hearers out into the wilderness. But Jesus had glad tidings to bring to men's hearths; He waa to mingle in their common life, and produce a happy revo- lution in their circumstances, which would be like the turn- ing of the water of their life into wine. 59. Soon after this miracle He returned again to Judrea to attend the Passover, and gave a still more striking proof of the joyful and enthusiastic mood in which He was then living, by purging the temple of the sellers of animals and the money-changers, who had introduced their traffic into THE YEAR OF OBSCURITY. 53 its courts. These persons were allowed to carry on their sacrilegious trade under the pretence of accommodating strangers who came to worship at Jerusalem, by selling them the victims which they could not bring from foreign countries, and supplying, in exchange for foreign money, the Jewish coins in which alone they could pay their tem- ple dues. But what had been begun under the veil of a pious pretext had ended in gross disturbance of the worship, and in elbowing the Gentile proselytes from the place which God had allowed them in His house. Jesus had probably often witnessed the disgraceful scene with indig- nation during His visits to Jerusalem, and now, with the prophetic zeal of His baptism upon Him, He broke out against it. The same look of irresistible purity and majesty which had appalled John, when He sought baptism, prevented any resistance on the part of the ignoble crew, and made the onlookers recoo-nize the lineaments of the prophets of ancient days, before whom kings and crowds alike were wont to quail. It was the beginning of His reformatory work against the religious abuses of the time. 60. He wrought other miracles during the feast, which must have excited much talk among the pilgrims from every land who crowded the city. One result of them was to brino- to His lodo-ino* one nio-ht the venerable and anxious inquirer to whom He delivered the marvellous dis- course on the nature of the new kingdom He had come to found, and the grounds of admission to it, which has been preserved to us in the third chapter of John. It seemed a hopeful sign that one of the heads of the nation should approach Him in a spirit so humble; but Nicodemus was the only one of them on whose mind the first display of the Messiah's power in the capital produced a deep and favor- able impression. 54 THE LIFE O^ JESUS CHRIST. 61. Thus far we follow clearly the first steps of Jesus. But at this point our information in regard to the first year of His ministry, after commencing- with such fulness, comes to a sudden stop, and for the next eight months we learn nothing more about Him but that He was baptizing in Judsea — " though Jesus Himself baptized not, but His dis- ciples"— and that He "made and baptized more disciples than John." 62. What can be the meaning of such a blank? It is to be noted, too, that it is only in the Fourth Gospel that we receive even the details given above. The Synoptists omit the first year of the ministry altogether, beginning their narrative with the ministry in Galilee, and merely indicating in the most cursory way that there was a min- istry in Judaga before. 63. It is very difficult to explain all this. The most natural explanation would perhaps be, that the incidents of this year were imperfectly known at the time when the Gospels were composed. It would be quite natural that the details of the period when Jesus had not attracted much public attention should be much less accurately re- membered than those of the period when He was by far the best known personage in the country. But, indeed, the Synoptists all. through take little notice of what hap^ pened in Judaea, till the close of His life draws nigh. It is, to John we are indebted for the connected narrative of Hii various visits to the south. 64. But John, at least, could scarcely have been igno^ rant of the incidents of eight months. We shall perhaps* be conducted to the explanation by attending to the little- noticed fact, which John communicates, that for a time Jesus took up the work of the Baptist. He baptized by the hands of His disciples, and drew even larger crowds than John. Must not this mean that He was convinced, by THE YEAR OF OBSCURITY. 55 the small impression which His manifestation of Himself at the Passover had made, that the nation was utterly un- prepared for receiving Him yet as the Messiah, and that what was needed was the extension of the preparatory work of repentance and baptism, and accordingly, keeping in the background His higher character, became for the time the colleague of John? This view is confirmed by the fact, that it was upon John's imprisonment at this year's end that he opened fully His Messianic career in Galilee. 65. A still deeper explanation of the silence of the Synoptists over this period, and their scant notice of Christ's subsequent visits to Jerusalem, has been suggested. Jesus came primarily to the Jewish nation, whose authori- tative representatives were to be found at Jerusalem. He was the Messiah promised to their fathers, the Fulfiller of the nation's history. He had indeed a far wider mission to the whole world, but He was to begin with the Jews, and at Jerusalem. The nation, however, in its heads at Jerusalem, rejected Him, and so He was compelled to found His world-wide community from a different center. This having become evident by the time the Gospels were written, the Synoptists passed His activity at the headquarters of the nation, as a work with merely negative results, in great measure by, and concentrated attention on the period of His ministry when He was gathering the company of believing souls that was to form the nucleus of the Christian Church. However this may be, certainly at the close of the first year of the ministry of Jesus there fell already over Judaea and Jerusalem the shadow of an awful coming event — the shadow of that most frightful of all national crimes which the world has ever witnessed, the rejection and crucifixion by the Jews of their Messiah. CHAPTER IV. THE YEAR OF PUBLIC FAVOR. Paragraphs 66-73. Galilee, the Scene of this Year's Work. 67, 68. Its Size and Population, the Sea of Galilee ; 69. Return of Jesus from the South ; 70. Visit to Nazareth; 71. Removal of His Home to Caper- naum ; 72. Manner of His Life ; 73. His Popu- larity. 74-113. The Means He employed. 76-83. Miracles 77. Different Kinds of them; 78-83. Reasons why He wrought them. 84-104. PreacMng. 86-89. The form of His Preaching. 90-95. The Qualities of the Preacher — 91. Author- ity; 92. Boldness; 93. Power; 94. Gracious- ness; 95. Human Breadth. 96-102. The matter of His Teaching— 97-100. The Kingdom of God; 101. Himself; 102. Im- portant Themes which He only slightly touched. 103-104. His Audiences. 105-113. The Apostolate. 105-108. Call and Training of the Twelve. 109-113. His Human Character — 109. Purposeful- ness; 110. Faith; 111. Originality; 112. Love to Men; 113. Love to God; 114. Sin- lessuess. 115. The Deity of Christ. 56 CHAPTER IV. THE YEAR OF PUBLIC FAVOR. 66. After the year spent in the south, Jesus shifted the sphere of His activity to the north of the country. In Gali- lee He would be able to address Himself to minds that were unsophisticated with the prejudices and supercilious pride of Judjea, where the sacerdotal and learned classes had their headquarters; and He might hope that, if His doctrine and influence took a deep hold of one part of the country, even though it was remote from the center of authority. He might return to the south backed with an irresistible national acknowledgement, and carry by storm even the citadel of prejudice itself. 67. Galilee, — The area of His activity for the next eighteen months was very limited. Even the whole of Palestine was a very limited country. Its length was a hundred miles less than that of Scotland, and its breadth considerably less than the average breadth of Scotland. It is important to remember this, because it renders intellio-i- ble the rapidity with which the movement of Jesus spread over the land, and all parts of the country flocked to His ministry; and it is interesting to remember it as an illus- tration of the fact, that the nations which have contributed most to the civilization of the world have, durino- the period of their true greatness, been confined to very small territories. Rome was but a single city, and Greece a very small country. 57 58 THE LIFE OP JESUS CHRIST. 68. Galilee was the most northerly of the four provinces into which Palestine was divided. It was sixty miles long by thirty broad; that is to say, it was less than some of our Scottish counties. It was about the size of Aberdeen- shire. It consisted for the most part of an elevated plateau, whose surface was varied by irregular mountain masses. Near its eastern boundary it suddenly dropped down into a great gulf, through which flowed the Jordan, and in the midst of which, at a depth of five hundred feet below the Mediterranean, lay the lovely, harp-shaped Sea of Galilee. Thewhole province was very fertile, and its sur- face thickly covered with large villages and towns. The population was perhaps as dense as that of Lancashire or the West Riding of Yorkshire. But the center of activity was the basin of the lake, a sheet of water thirteen miles long by six broad. Above its eastern shore, round which ran a fringe of green a quarter of a mile broad, there tow- ered high, bare hills, cloven with the channels of torrents. On the western side, the mountains were gently sloped and their sides richly cultivated, bearing splendid crops of every description; while at their feet the shore was verdant with luxuriant groves of olives, oranges, figs, and every product of an almost tropical climate. At the northern end of the lake the space between the water and the mountains was broadened by the delta of the river, and watered with many streams from the hills, so that it was a perfect paradise of fertility and beauty. It was called the plain of Gennesa- reth, and even at this day, when the whole basin of the lake is little better than a torrid solitude, is still covered with magnificent corn-fields, wherever the hand of cultiva- tion touches it; and, where idleness leaves it untended, is overspread with thick jungles of thorn and oleander. In our Lord's time, it contained the chief cities on the lake, such as Capernaum, Bethsaida, and Chorazin. But the THE YEAR OF PUBLIC FAVOR. 69 whole shore was studded with towns and villag-es, and formed a perfect beehive of swarming human life. The means of existence were abundant in the crops and fruits of every description which the fields yielded so richly; and the waters of the lake teemed with fish, affording employ- ment to thousands of fishermen. Besides, the grreat hio-h- ways from Egypt to Damascus, and from Phoenicia to the Euphrates, passed here, and made this a vast center of traffic. Thousands of boats for fishing, transport, and pleasure moved to and fro on the surface of the lake, so that the whole region was a focus of energy and prosperity. 69. The report of the miracles which Jesus had wrought at Jerusalem, eight months before, had been brought home to Galilee by the pilgrims who had been south at the feast, and doubtless also the news of His preaching and baptism in Judaea had created talk and excitement before He ar- rived. Accordingly, the Galileans were in some measure prepared to receive Him when He returned to their midst. 70. One of the first places He visited was Nazareth, the home of His childhood and youth. He appeared there one Sabbath in the synagogue, and, being now known as a preacher, was invited to read the Scriptures and address the congregation. He read a passage in Isaiah, in which a glowing description is given of the coming and work of the Messiah; "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, becadse He has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; He hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance 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." As He commented on this text, picturing the features of the Messianic time, — the emancipation of the slave, the enriching of the poor, the 60 THE LIFE OP JESUS CHRIST. healing of the diseased, — their curiosity at hearing for the first time a young preacher who had been brought up ^mong themselves passed into spell-bound wonder, and they burst into the applause which used to be allowed in the Jewish synagogues. But soon the reaction came. They began to whisper : Was not this the carpenter who had worked among them? Had not His father and mother been their neighbors? Were not His sisters married in the town? Their envy was excited. And when He pro- ceeded to tell them that the prophecy which He had read was fulfilled in Himself, they broke out into angry scorn. They demanded of Him a sign, such as it was reported He had given in Jerusalem; and when He informed them that He could do no miracle among the unbelieving, they rushed on Him in a storm of jealousy and wrath, and hurry- inc Him out of the svnao;oo:ue to a eras- behind the town, would, if He had not miraculously taken Himself away from them, have flung Him over, and crowned their pro- verbial wickedness with a deed which would have robbed Jerusalem of her bad eminence of being the murderess of the Messiah. 71. From that day Nazareth was His home no more. Once again, indeed, in His yearning love for His old neigh- bors. He visited it, but with no better result. Hencefor- ward He made His home in Capernaum, on the northwest- ern shore of the Sea of Galilee. This town has completely vanished out of existence; its very site can not now be discovered with any certainty. This may be one reason why it is not connected in the Christian mind with the life of Jesus in the same prominent way as Bethlehem, where He was born, Nazareth, where He was brought up, and Jerusalem, where He died. But we ought to fix it in our memories side by side with these, for it was His home for eighteen of the most important months X)f His life. It THE YEAR OF PUBLIC FAVOR. 61 is called His .own city, and He was asked for tribute in it as a citizen of the place. It was thoroughly well adapted to be the center of His labors in Galilee, for it was the focus of the busy life in the basin of the lake, and was conveniently situated for excursions to all parts of the province. Whatever happened there was quickly heard of in all the regions round about. 72. In Capernaum, then. He began His Galilean work; and for many months the method of His life was, to be frequently there as in His headquarters, and from this cen- ter to make tours in all directions, visiting the towns and villages of Galilee. Sometimes His journey would be in- land, away to the west. At other times it would be a tour of the villages on the lake, or a visit to the country on its eastern side. He had a boat that waited on Him, to con- vey Him wherever He might wish to go. He would come back to Capernaum, perhaps only for a day, perhaps for a week or two at a time. 73. In a few weeks the whole province was ringing with His name; He was the subject of conversation in every boat on the lake and every house in the whole re- gion; men's minds were stirred with the profoundest ex- citement, and everyone desired to see Him. Crowds be- gan to gather about Him. They grew larger and larger. They multiplied to thousands and tens of thousands. They followed Him wherever He went. The news spread far and wide beyond Galilee, and brought hosts from Jerusa- lem, Judaea, and Pernea, and even from Idumrea in the far south, and Tyre and Sidon in the far north. Sometimes He could not stay in any town, because the crowds blocked up the streets and trode one on another. He had to take them out to the* fields and deserts. The country was stirred from end to ejid, and Galilee was all on fire with excite- ment about Him. 62 THE LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. 74. How was it that He produced so great and wide- spread a movement? It was not by declaring Himself the Messiah. That would indeed have caused to pass through every Jewish breast the deepest thrill which it could ex- perience. But although Jesus now and then, as at Naza- reth, revealed Himself, in general He rather concealed His true character. No doubt the reason of this was, that among the excitable crowds of rude Galilee, with their grossly materialistic hopes, the declaration would have ex- cited a revolutionary rising against the Roman Government, which would have withdrawn men's minds from His true aims and brought down on His head the Roman sword, just as in Judaea it would have precipitated a murderous attack on His life by the Jewish authorities. To avert either kind of interruption. He kept the full revelation of Himself in reserve, endeavoring to prepare the public mind to receive it in its true inward and spiritual meaning, when the right moment for divulging it should come, and in the meantime leaving it to be inferred from His character and work who He was. 75. The two great means which Jesus used in His work, and which created such attention and enthusiasm, were His Miracles and His Preaching. 76. The Miracle-Worker. — Perhaps His miracles ex- cited the widest attention. We are told how the news of the first one which He wrought in Capernaum spread like wildfire through the town, and brought crowds about the house where He was; and whenever He performed a new one of extraordinary character, the excitement grew in- tense and the rumor of it spread on every hand. When, for instance. He first cured leprosy, the most malignant form of bodily disease in Palestine, the amazement of the people knew no bounds. It was the same when He first THE YEAR OF PUBLIC FAVOR. 63 overcame a case of possession; and when he raised to life the widow's son at Nain, there ensued a sort of stupor of fear, followed by delighted wonder and the talk of thous- ands of tonsrues. All Galilee was for a time in motion with the crowding of the diseased of every description who could walk or totter to be near Him, and with com- panies of anxious friends carrying on beds and couches those who could not come themselves. The streets of the villages and towns were lined with the victims of disease as His benignant figure passed by. Sometimes He had so many to attend to that he could not find time even to eat; and at one period He was so absorbed in His benevolent labors, and so carried along with the holy excitement whicli they caused, that His relatives, with indecorous rashness, endeavored to interfere, saying to each other that He was beside Himself. 77. The miracles of Jesus, taken altogether, were of two classes — those wrought on man, and those wrought in the sphere of external nature, such as the turning of water into wine, stilling the tempest, and multiplying the loaves. The former were by far the more numerous. They con- sisted chiefly of cures of diseases less or more malignant, such as lameness, blindness, deafness, palsy, leprosy, and so forth. He appears to have varied very much His mode of acting, for reasons which we can scarcely explain. Sometimes He used means, such as a touch, or the laying of moistened clay on the part, or ordering the patient to wash in water. At other times He healed without any means, and occasionally even at a distance. Besides these bodily cures, He dealt with the diseases of the mind. These seem to have been peculiarly prevalent in Palestine at the time, and to have excited the utmost terror. They were believed to be accompanied by the entrance of de- mons into the jx)or imbecile or raving victims, and this 64 THE LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. idea was only too true. The man whom Jesus cured among the tombs in the country of the Gadarenes was a frightful example of this class of disease; and the picture of him sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind, shows what an effect His kind, soothing, and authori- tative presence had on minds so distracted. But the most extraordinary of the miracles of Jesus upon man were the instances in which He raised the dead to life. They were not frequent, but naturally produced an overwhelmning impression whenever they occurred. The miracles of the other class — those on external nature — were of the same inexplicable description. Some of His cures of mental disease, if standing by themselves, might be accounted for by the influence of a powerful nature on a troubled mind; and in the same way some of His bodily cures might be accounted for by His influencing the body through the mind. But such a miracle as walking on the tempestuous sea is utterly beyond the reach of natural explanation. 78. Why did Jesus employ this means of working? Several answers may be given to this question. 79. First, He wrought miracles because His Father gave Him these signs as proofs that He had sent Him. Many of the Old Testament prophets had received the same authentication of their mission, and although John, who revived the prophetic function, worked no miracles, as the Gospels inform us with the most simple veracity, it was to be expected that He who was a far greater prophet than the greatest who went before Him, should show even greater signs than any of them of His divine mission. It was a stupendous claim which He made on the faith of men when He announced Himself as the Messiah, and it would have been unreasonable to expect it to be conceded by a nation accustomed to miracles as the signs of a divine mission, if He had wrouo-ht none. THE YEAR OF PUBLIC FAVOR. 65 80. Secoii(lly, tlio miracles of Christ were the natural outflow of the divine fulness which dwelt in Him. God was in Him, and His human nature was endowed with the Holy Ghost without measure. It was natural, when such a Being was in the world, that mighty works should mani- fest themselves in Him. He was Himself the ffreat mir- acle, of which His particular miracles were merely sparks or emanations. He was the great interruption of the order of nature, or rather a new element which had entered into the order of nature to enrich and ennoble it, and His miracles entered with Him, not to disturb, but to repair its harmony. Therefore all His miracles bore the stamp of His character. They were not mere exhibitions of power, but also of holiness, wisdom, and love. The Jews often sought from Him mere gigantesque prodigies, to gratify their mania for marvels. But He always refused them, working only such miracles as were helps to faith. He de- manded faith in all those whom He cured, and never re- sponded either to curiosity or unbelieving challenges to ex- hibit marvels. This distinguishes His miracles from those fabled of ancient wonder-workers and mediasval saints. They were marked by unvarying sobriety and benevolence, because they w^ere the expressions of His character as a whole. 81. Thirdly, His miracles were symbols of His spiritual and saving work. You have only to consider them for a moment to see that they \vere, as a whole, triumphs over the misery of the world. Mankind is the prey of a thous- and e.vils, and even the frame of external nature bears the mark of some past catastrophe: "The whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain." This huge mass of phy- sical evil in the lot of mankind is the effect of sin. Not that every disease and misfortune can be traced to special sin, although some of them can. The consequences of E 3* 66 THE LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. past sin are distributed in detail over tlie whole race. But yet the misery of the world is the shadow of its sin. Ma- terial and moral evil, being thus intimately related, mutually illustrate each other. "When He healed bodily blindness, it was a type of the healing of the inner eye; when He raised the dead. He meant to suggest that He was the Resurrection and the Life in the spiritual world as well; when He cleansed the leper, His triumph spoke of another over the leprosy of sin; when He multiplied the loaves. He followed the miracle with a discourse on tlie bread of life; when He stilled the storm, it was an assurance that He could speak peace to the troubled conscience. 82. Thus His miracles were a natural and essential part of His Messianic work. They were an excellent means of making Him known to the nation. They bound those whom He cured to Him with strong ties of gratitude; and without doubt, in many cases, the faith in Him as a miracle- w^orker led on to a higher faith. So it was in the case of His devoted follower Mary Magdalene, out of whom He cast seven devils. 83. To Himself this work must have brought both great pain and great joy. To His tender and exquisitely sym- pathetic heart, that never grew callous in the least degree, it must often have been harrowing to mingle with so much disease, and see the awful effects of sin. But He was in the right place; it suited His great love to be where help was needed. And what a joy it must have been to Him to distribute blessings on every hand and erase tlie traces of sin; to see health returning beneath his touch; to meet tlie joyous and grateful glances of the opening eyes; to hear the blessings of mothers and sisters, as He restored their loved ones to their arms; and to see the light of love and welcome in the faces of the poor, as He entered their towns and villages. He drank deeply of the well at which He THE YEAR OF PUBLIC FAVOR. 67 would have his followers to be ever drinking — the bliss of doing: ofood. ' 84. The Teacher. — The other great instrument with which .Jesus did His work was His teaching. It was by far the more important of the two. His miracles were only the bell tolled to bring the people to hear His words. They impressed those who might not yet be susceptible to the subtler influence, and brought them within its range. 85. The miracles probably made most noise, but His preaching also spread His fame far and wide. There is no power whose attraction is more unfailing than that of the eloquent word. Barbarians, listening to their bards and story-tellers; Greeks, listening to the restrained pas- sion of their orators, and matter-of-fact nations like the Roman, have alike acknowledged its power to be irre- sistible. The Jews prized it above almost every other at- traction, and among the figures of their mighty dead re- vered none more highly than the prophets — those eloquent utterers of the truth, whom Heaven had sent them from age to age. Though the Baptist did no miracles, multi- tudes flocked to Him, because in his accents they recog- nized the thunder of this power, which for so many gene- rations no Jewish ear had listened to. Jesus also was re- cognized as a prophet, and accordingly, His preaching created wide-spread excitement. " He spake in their syn- agogues, being glorified of all." His words were heard with wonder and amazement. Sometimes the multitude on the beach of the lake so pressed upon Him to hear, that He had to enter into a ship and address them from the deck, as they spread themselves out in a semicircle on the ascending shore. His enemies themselves bore witness that "never man spake like this man;" and meager as- are the remains of His preaching which we possess, they are 68 THE LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. amply sufficient to make us echo the sentiment and under- stand the impression which He produced. All His words together which have been, preserved to us would not oc- cupy more space in print than half-a-dozen ordinary ser- mons; yet it is not too much to say, that they are the most precious literary heritage of the human race. His" words, like His miracles, were expressions of Himself, and every one of them has in it something of the grandeur of His character. 86. The form of the preaching of Jesus was essentially Jewish. The Oriental mind does not work in the same way as the mind of the AVest. Our thinking and speaking, when at their best, are fluent, expansive, closely reasoned. The kind of discourse which we admire is one which takes up an important subject, divides it out into different branches, treats it fully under each of the heads, closely articulates part to part, and closes with a moving appeal to the feelings, so as to sway the will to some practical result. The Oriental mind, on the contrary, loves to brood long on a single point, to turn it round and round, to gather up all the truth about it in a focus, and pour it forth in a few pointed and memorable words. It is concise, epigrammatic, oracular. A Western speaker's discourse is a systematic structure, or like a chain in which link is firmly knit to link; an Oriental's is like the sky at night, full of innu- merable burning points shining forth from a dark back- ground. 87. Such was the form of the teaching of Jesus. It consisted of numerous sayings, every one of which con- tained the greatest possible amount of truth in the smallest possible compass, and was expressed in language so concise and pointed as to stick in the memory like an arrow. Read them, and you will find that every one of them, as you ponder it, sucks the mind in and in like a THE YEAR OF PUBLIC FAVOR. 69 whirlpool, till it is lost in the depths. You will find, too, that there are very few of them which you do not know by heart. They have found their way into the memory of Christendom as no other words have done. Even before the meaning has been apprehended, the perfect, proverb-like expression lodges itself fast in the mind. 88. But there was another characteristic of the form of Jesus' teaching. It was full of figures of speech. He thought in images. He had ever been a loving and accu- rate observer of nature around Him — of the colors of the flowers, the ways of the birds, the growth of the trees, the vicissitudes of the seasons — and an equally keen observer of the ways of men in all parts of life — in religion, in business, in the home. The result was that He could neither think nor speak without His thought running into the mould of some natural image. His preaching was alive with such references, and therefore full of color, movement, and changing forms. There were no abstract statements in it; they were all changed into pictures. Thus, in His sayings, we can still see the aspects of the country and the life of the time as iii a panorama — the lilies, whose gorgeous beauty His eyes feasted on, waving in the fields; the sheep following the shepherd; the broad and narrow city gates; the virgins with their lamps await- ing in the darkness the bridal procession; the Pharisee with his broad phylacteries and the publican with bent head at prayer together in the temple; the rich man seated in his palace at a feast, and the beggar lying at his gate with the dogs licking his sores; and a hundred other pic- tures that lay bare the inner and minute life of the time, over which history in general sweeps heedlessly with ma- jestic stride. 89. But the most characteristic form of speech He 70 THE LIFE OE JESUS CHRIST. made use of was the parable. It was a combination of the two qualities already mentioned — concise, memorable expression, and a figurative style. It used an incident, taken from common life and rounded into a gem-like pic- ture, to set forth some corresponding truth in the higher and spiritual region. It was a favorite Jewish mode of putting truth, but Jesus imparted to it by far the richest and most perfect development. About one-third of all His sayings which have been preserved to us consists of parables. This shows how they stuck in the memory. In the same way the hearers of the sermons of any preacher will probably, after a few years, remember the illustrations they have contained far better than anything else in them. How these parables have remained in the memory of all generations since! The Prodigal Son, the Sower, the Ten Virgins, the Good Samaritan, — these and many others are pictures hung up in millions of minds. What passages in the greatest masters of expression — in Homer, in Virgil, in Dante, in Shakspeare — have secured for themselves so universal a hold on men, or been felt to be so fadelessly fresh and true? He never went far for His illustrations. As a master of painting will make you, with a morsel of chalk or a burnt stick, a face at which you must laugh, or weep, or wonder, so Jesus took the commonest objects and incidents around Him, — the sewing of a piece of cloth on an old garment, the bursting of an old bottle, the children playing in the market-plaae at weddings and funerals, or the tumbling of a hut in a storm, — to change them into perfect pictures, and to make them the vehicles for convey- ing to the world immortal truth. No wonder the crowds followed Him! Even the simplest could delight in such pictures and carry away as a life-long possession the expression at least of His ideas, though it might require the thought of centuries to pierce their crystalline depths. THE YEAR OF TUBLIC P.VVOU. 71 There never was speaking so simple yet so profound, so pictorial yet so absolutely true. 90. Such were the qualities of His style. The qualities of the Preacher Himself have been preserved to us in the criticism of His hearers, and are manifest in the remains of His addresses which the Gospels contain. 91. The most prominent of them seems to have been Authority: " The people were astonished at His doctrine, for He tauffht them as one havino; authoritv, and not as the scribes." The first thino- His hearers were struck with was the contrast between His words and the preaching which they were wont to hear from the scribes in the synagogues. These were the exponents of the deadest and driest sys- tem of theology that has ever passed in any age for religion. Instead of expounding the Scriptures, which were in their hands, and would have lent living power to their words, they retailed the opinions of commentators, and were afraid to advance anv statement, unless it was backed by the authority of some master. Instead of dwelling: on the irreat themes of iustice and mercv, love and God, they tortured the sacred text into a ceremonial manual, and preached on the proper breadth of phylac- teries, the proper postures for prayer, the proper length of fasts, the distance which might be walked on the Sabbath, and so forth; for in these things the religion of the time consisted. In order to see anything in modern times at all like the preaching which then prevailed, we must go back to the Reformation period, when, as the historian of Knox tells us, the harangues delivered by the monks were empty, ridiculous, and wretched in the extreme. " Legendary tales concerning the founder of some religious order, the miracles he performed, his combats with the devil, his watchings, fastings, flagellations; the virtues of holy water, 73 THE LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. chrism, crossing, and exorcism; the horrors of purgatory, and the numbers released from it by the intercessions of some powerful saint, — these, with low jests, table-talk, and fireside scandal, formed the favorite topics of the preachers, and were served up to the people instead of the pure, salutary, and sublime doctrines of the Bible." Per- haps the contrast which the Scottish people three and a half centuries ag-o felt between such harangues and the noble words of Wishart and Knox, may convey to our mind as orood an idea as can be g-ot of the effect of the preacliing of Jesus on His contemporaries. He knew nothino; of the authoritv of masters and schools of inter- pretation, but spoke as One whose own eyes had gazed on the objects of the eternal world. He needed none to tell Him of God or of man, for He knew both perfectly. He was possessed with the sense of a mission, which drove Him on and imparted earnestness to every word and ges- ture. He knew Himself sent from God, and the words He spoke to be not His own, but God's. He did not hesitate to tell those who neglected His words that in the judg- ment they would be condemned by the Ninevites and the Queen of Sheba, who had listened to Jonah and Solomon, for they were hearing One greater than any prophet or king of the olden time. He warned them that on their acceptance or rejection of the message He bore would depend their future weal or woe. This was the tone of earnestness, of majesty and authority that smote His hear- ers with awe. *92. Another quality which the people remarked in Him was Boldness : " Lo, He speaketh boldly." This appeared the more wonderful because He was an unlettered man, who had not passed through the schools of Jerusalem or received the imprimatur of any earthly authority. But this quality came from the same source as Hi« ^.uthoritJfc- THK YEAR OP PUBLIC FAVOR. 73 tiveness. Timidity usually springs from self-consciousness. The preacher who is afraid of his audience, and respects the persons of the learned and the great, is thinking of himself and of what will be said of his performance. But he who feels himself driven on by a divine mission forgets himself. All audiences are alike to him, be they gentle or simple; he is thinking only of the message he has to de- liver. Jesus was ever looking the spiritual and eternal realities in the face; the spell of their greatness held Him, and all human distinctions disappeared in their presence; men of every class were only men to Him. He was borne along on the torrent of His mission, and what might happen to Himself could not make Him stop to question or quail. He discovered His boldness chiefly in attacking the abuses and ideals of the time. It would be a complete mistake to think of Him as all mildness and meekness. There is scarcely any element more conspicuous in His words than a strain of fierce indignation. It was an age of shams above almost any that have ever been. They occupied all high places. They paraded themselves in social life, occu- pied the chairs of learning, and above all debased every part of religion. Hypocrisy had become so universal that it had ceased even to doubt itself. The ideals of the peo- ple were utterly mean and mistaken. One can feel throb- bing through His words, from first to last, an indignation against all this, which had begun with His earliest obser- vation in Nazareth and ripened with His increasing knowl- edge of the times. The things which were highly esteemed among men, He broadly asserted, were abomination in the sight of God. There never was in the history of speech a polemic so scathing, so annihilating, as His against the figures to which the reverence of the multitude had been paid before His withering words fell on them — the scribe, the Pharisee, the priest, and the Levite. 4 74 THE LIFE OP JEStJS CHRIST. 93. A third quality which His hearers remarked was Power : " His word was with power." This was the result of that unction of the Holy One, without which even the most solemn truths fall on the ear without effect. He was filled with the Spirit without measure. Therefore the truth possessed Him. It burned and swelled in His own bosom, and He spoke it forth from heart to heart. He had the Spirit not only in such degree as to fill Himself, but so as to be able to impart it to others. It overflowed with His words and seized the souls of His hearers, filling with enthusiasm the mind and the heart. 94. A fourth quality which was observed in His preach- ing, and was surely a very prominent one, was Gracious- ness : " They wondered at the gracious words which pro- ceeded out of His mouth." In spite of His tone of au- thority and His fearless and scathing attacks on the times, there was diffused over all He said a glow of grace and love. Here especially His character spoke. How could He who was the incarnation of love help letting the glow and warmth of the heavenly fire that dwelt in Him spread over His words? The scribes of the time were hard, proud, and loveless. They flattered the rich and honored the learned, but of the great mass of their hearers they said, *'This people, which knoweth not the law, is cursed." But to Jesus every soul was infinitely precious. It mat- tered not under what humble dress or social deformity the pearl was hidden ; it mattered not even beneath what rub- bish and filth of sin it was buried; He never missed it for a moment. Therefore He spoke to His hearers of every grade with the same respect. Surely it was the divine love itself, uttering itself from the innermost recess of the divine being, that spoke in the parables of the fifteenth of Luke. 95. Such were some of the qualities of the Preacher. THE YEAR OP PUBLIC FAVOR. 75 And one more may be mentioned, which may be said to embrace all the rest, and is perhaps the highest quality of public speech. He addressed men as men, not as mem- bers of any class or possessors of any peculiar culture. The differences which divide men, such as wealth, rank, and education, are on the surface. The elements in which they are all alike — the broad sense of the understanding, the great passions of the heart, the primary instincts of the conscience — are profound. Not that these are the same in all men. In some they are deeper, in others shallower; but in all they are far deeper than aught else. He who addresses them appeals to the deepest thing in His hearers. He will be equally intelligible to all. Every hearer will receive his own portion from Him; the small and shallow mind will get as much as it can take, and the largest and deepest will get its fill at the same feast. This is why the words of Jesus are perennial in their freshness. They are for all generations, and equally for all. They appeal to the deepest elements in human nature to-day in England or China as much as they did in Palestine when they were spoken. / 96. When we come to inquire what the matter of Jesus' preaching consisted of, we perhaps naturally expect to find Him expounding the system of doctrine which we are our- selves acquainted with, in the forms, say, of the Catechism or the Confession of Faith. But what we find is very dif- ferent. He did not make use of any system of doctrine. We can scarcely doubt, indeed, that all the numerous and varied ideas of His preaching, as well as those which He never expressed, co existed in His mind as one world of rounded truth. But they did not so co-exist in His teach- ing. He did not use theological phraseology, speaking of the Trinity, of predestination, of effectual calling, although 76 THE LIFE OP JESUS CHRIST. the ideas which these terms cover underlay His words, and it is the undoubted task of science to bring them forth. But He spoke in the language of life, and concentrated His preaching on a few burning points, that touched the heart, the conscience, and the time. 97. The central idea and the commonest phrase of His preaching was "the kingdom of God." It will be remem- bered how many of His parables begin with " The king- dom of Heaven is like," so and so. He said, " I must preach the kingdom of God to other cities also," thereby characterizing the matter of His preaching; and in the same way He is said to have sent forth the apostles " to preach the kingdom of God." He did not invent the phrase. It was a historical one handed down from the past, and was common in the mouths of His contempora- ries. The Baptist had made large use of it, the burden of his messa2:e beino-, " The king^dom of God is at hand." 98. What did it signify? It meant the new era, which the prophets had predicted and the saints had looked for. Jesus announced that it had come, and that He had brought it. The time of waiting was fulfilled. Many prophets and righteous men, He told His contemporaries, had desired tf see the things which they -saw, but had not seen them. He declared that so great were the privileges and glories of the new time, that the least partaker of them was greater than the Baptist, though he had been the greatest repre- sentative of the old time. 99. All this was no more than His contemporaries would have expected to hear, if they had recognized that the kingdom of God was really come. But they looked round, and asked where the new era was which Jesus said He had brought. Here He and they were at complete variance. They emphasized the first part of the phrase, " the king- dom," He the second, " of God." They expected the new THE YEAR OF PUBLIC FAVOR. 77 era to appear in magnificent material forms, — in a kingdom of which God indeed was to be the Ruler, but which was to show itself in worldly splendor, in force of arms, in a universal empire. Jesus saw the new era in an empire of God over the loving heart and the obedient will. They looked for it outside. He said, "It is within you." They looked for a period of external glory and happiness. He placed the glory and blessedness of the new time in char- acter. So He began His Sermon on the Mount, that great manifesto of the new era, with a series of " Blesseds." But the blessedness was entirely that of character. And it was a character totally different from that which was then looked up to as imparting glory and happiness to its possessor — that of the proud Pharisee, the wealthy Sad- ducee, or the learned scribe. Blessed, said He, are the poor in spirit, they that mourn, the meek, they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake. 100. The main drift of His preaching was to set forth this conception of the kingdom of God, the character of its members, their blessedness in the love and communion of their Father in heaven, and their prospects in the glory of the future world. He exhibited the contrast between it and the formal religion of the time, with its lack of spiritu- ality and its substitution of ceremonial observances for char- acter. He invited all classes into the kino-dom, — the rich by showing, as in 'the parable of the Rich Man and Laza- rus, the vanity and danger of seeking their blessedness in wealth; and the poor by penetrating them with the sense of their dignity, persuading them with the most overflow- ing affection and winning words that the only true wealth was in character, and assurino: them that, if thev souorht first the kingdom of God, their heavenly Father, who fed 78 THE LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. the ravens and clothed the lilies, would not suffer them to want. 101. But the center and soul of His preaching was Himself. He contained within Himself the new era. He not only announced it, but created it. The new character which made men subjects of the kingdom and sharers of its privileges was to be got from Him alone. Therefore the practical issue of every address of Christ was the command to come to Him, to learn of Him, to follow Him. " Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden," was the key-note, the deepest and final word of all His discourses. 102. It is impossible to read the discourses of Jesus without remarking that, wonderful as they are, yet some of the most characteristic doctrines of Christianity, as it is set forth in the epistles of Paul and now cherished in the minds of the most devoted and enlightened Chris- tians, hold a very inconsiderable place in them. Espe- cially is this the case in regard to the great doctrines of the gospel as to how a sinner is reconciled to God, and how, in a pardoned soul, the character- is gradually pro- duced which makes it like Christ and pleasing to the Father. The lack of reference to such doctrines may indeed be much exaggerated, the fact being that there is not one prominent doctrine of the great apostle the germs of which are not to be found in the teaching of Christ Himself. Yet the contrast is marked enough to have given some color for denying that the distinctive doctrines of Paul are genuine elements of Christianity. But the true explanation of the phenomenon is very different. Jesus was not a mere teacher. His character was greater than His words, and so was His work. The chief part of that work was to atone for the sins of the world by His death on the cross. But His nearest followers never would THE YEAR OF PUBLIC FAVOR. 79 believe that He was to die, and, until His death happened, it was impossible to explain its far-reaching significance. Paul's most distinctive doctrines are merely expositions of the meaning of two great facts, — the death of Christ, and the mission of the Spirit by tPie glorified Redeemer. It is obvious that these facts could not be fully explained in the words of Jesus Himself, w^hen they had not yet taken place; but to suppress the inspired explanation of them would be to extinguish the light of the gospel and rob Christ of His crowning glory. 103. The audience of Jesus varied exceedingly both in size and character on different occasions. Very frequently it was the great multitude. He addressed them every- where— on the mountain, on the sea-shore, on the highway, in the synagogues, in the temple courts. But He was quite as willing to speak with a single individual, however humble. He seized every opportunity of doing so. x\l- though He was worn-out with fatigue, He talked to the woman at the well; He received Nicodemus alone; He taught Mary in her home. There are said to be nineteen such private interviews mentioned in the Gospels. They leave to His followers a memorable example. This is per- haps the most effective of all forms of instruction, as it is certainly the best test of earnestness. A man who preaches to thousands with enthusiasm may be a mere orator, but the man who seeks the opportunity of speaking closely of the" welfare of their souls to individuals must have a real fire from heaven burnino- in his heart. 104. Often His audience consisted of the circle of His disciples. His preaching divided His hearers. He has Himself, in such parables as the Sower, the Tares and the Wheat, the Wedding Feast, and so forth, described with unequalled vividness its effects on different classes. Some 80 THE LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. it utterly repelled; others heard it with wonder, without being touched in the heart; others were affected for a time, but soon returned to their old interests. It is terrible to think how few there were, even when the Son of God was preaching-, who heard unto salvation. Those who did so, gradually formed round Him a bod}^ of disciples. They followed Him about, hearing all his discourses, and often He spoke to them alone. Such were the five hundred to whom He appeared in Galilee after His resurrection. Some of them were women, such as Mary Magdalene, Susanna, and Joanna the wife of Herod's steward, who, being wealthy, gladly supplied His few simple wants. To these disciples He gave a more thorough instruction than to the crowd. He explained to them in private whatever was ob- scure in His public teaching. More than once He made the strange statement that He spake in parables to the multitudes in order that, though hearing, they might not understand. This could only mean, that those who had no real interest in the truth were sent away with the mere beautiful shell, but that the obscurity was intended to pro- voke to further inquiry, as a veil half-drawn over a beau- tiful face intensifies the desire to see it; and to those who had a spiritual craving for more He gladly communicated the hidden secret. These, when the nation as a whole de- clared itself unworthy of being the medium of the Mes- siah's world-wide influence, became the nucleus of that spiritual society, elevated above all local limitations and distinctions of rank and nationality, in which the spirit and doctrine of Christ were to be spread and perpetuated in the world. 105. The Apostolate. — Perhaps the formation of the Apostolate ought to be placed side by side with miracles and preaching as a third means by which He did His work. THE YEAR OF PUBLIC FAVOR. 8l The men who became the twelve apostles were at first only ordinary disciples like many others. This, at least, was the position of such of them as were already His followers during the first year of His ministry. At the opening of His Galilean activity, their attachment to Him entered on a second stage; He called them to give up their ordinary employments and be with Him constantly. And probably not many weeks afterwards, He promoted them to the third and fiiicil stage of nearness to Himself, by ordaining them to be apostles. 106. It was when His work grew so extensive and pressing that it was quite impossible for Him to overtake it all, that He multiplied Himself, so to speak, by appoint- ing them His assistants. He commissioned them to teach the simpler elements of His doctrine, and conferred on them miraculous powers similar to His own. In this way many towns were evangelized which He had not time to visit, and many persons cured who could not have been brou2:ht into contact with Himself. But, as future events .... • proved. His aims in their appointment were much more far-reaching. His work was for all time and for the whole world. It could not be accomplished in a single lifetime. He foresaw this, and made provision for it by the early choice of agents who might take up His plans after He was gone, and in whom He might still extend His influence over mankind. He Himself wrote nothing. It may be thought that writing would have been the best way of per- petuating His influence, and giving the world a perfect image of Himself; and we can not help imagining with a glow of strong desire what a volume penned by His hand would have been. But for wise reasons He abstained from this kind of work and resolved to live after death in the lives of chosen men. 107. It is surprising to see what sort of persons He F 82 THE LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. selected for so ^rand a destiny. They did not belong to the influential and learned classes. No doubt the heads and leaders of the nation ought to have been the organs of their Messiah, but they proved themselves totally unworthy of the great vocation. He was able to do with- out thern; He needed not the influence of carnal power and wisdom. Ever wont to work with the elements of character that are not bound to any station of life or grade of culture, He did not scruple to commit His cause to twelve simple men, destitute of learning and belonging to the common people. He made the selection after a night spent in prayer, and doubtless after many days of delibera- tion. The event showed with what insio-ht into character He had acted. They turned out to be instrujnents thor- oughly fitted for the great design; two at least, John and Peter, were men of supreme gifts; and, though one turned out a traitor, and the choice of him will probably, after all explanations, ever remain a very partially explained mys- tery, yet the selection of agents who were at first so unlikely, but in the end proved so successful, will always be one of the chief monuments of the incomparable originality of Jesus. 108. It would, however, be a very inadequate account of His relation to the Twelve merely to point out the insight with w^hich He discerned in them the germs of fit- ness for their grand future. They became very great men, and in the founding of the Christian Church achieved a work of immeasurable importance. They may be said, in a sense they little dreamed of, to sit on thrones ruling tlm modern world. They stand like a row of noble pillars towering far across the flats of time. But the sunlight that shines on them, and makes them visible, comes entirely from Him. He gave them all their greatness; and theirs is one of the most strikins: evidences of His. What must THE YEAR OP PUBLIC FAVOR. 83 He have been whose infiuence imparted to them such mag- nitude of character, and made them fit for so gigantic a task! At first they were rude and carnal in the extreme. What hope was there that they would ever be able to appreciate the designs of a mind like His, to inherit His work, to possess in any degree a spirit so exquisite, and transmit to future generations a faithful image of His character? But He educated them with the most affec- tionate patience, bearing with their vulgar hopes and their clumsy misunderstandings of His meaning. Never forget- ting for a moment the part they were to play in the future. He made their training His most constant work. They were much more constantly in His company than even the general body of His disciples, seeing all He did in public and hearing all He said. They were often His only audi- ence, and then He unveiled to them the glories and mys- teries of His doctrine, sowing in their minds the seeds of truth, which time and experience were by and by to fructi- fy. But the most important part of their training was one which was perhaps at the time little noticed, though it was producing splendid results, — the silent and constant influ- ence of His character on theirs. He drew them to Him- self and stamped His own image on them. It was this which made them the men they became. For this, more than all else, the generations of those w4io love Him look back to them with envy. We admire and adore at a dis- tance the qualities of His character; but what must it have been to see them in the unity of life, and for years to feel their moulding pressure! Can we recall with any fulness the features of this character whose glory they beheld and under whose power they lived? 109. The Human Character of Jesus. — Perhaps the most obvious feature which they would remark in Him 84 THE LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. was Purposefulness. This certainly is the ground-tone which sounds in all His sayings which have been preserved to us, and the pulse which we feel beating in all His re- corded actions. He was possessed with a purpose which guided and drove Him on. Most lives aim at nothing in particular, but drift along, under the influence of varying moods and instincts or on the currents of society, and achieve nothing. But Jesus evidently had a definite ob- ject before Him, which absorbed His thoughts and drew out His energies. He would often give as a reason for not doing something, " Mine hour is not yet come," as if His design absorbed every moment, and every hour had its own allotted part of the task. This imparted an earnest- ness and rapidity of execution to His life which most lives altogether lack. It saved Him, too, from that dispersion of energy on details, and carefulness about little things, on which those who obey no definite call throw themselves away, and made His life, various as were its activities, an unbroken unity. 110. Very closely connected with this quality was an- other prominent one, which may be called Faith, and by which is meant His astonishing confidence in the accom- plishment of His purpose, and apparent disregard both of means and opposition. If it be considered in the mgst general way how vast His aim was — to reform His nation and begin an everlasting and world-wide religious move- ment; if the opposition which He encountered, and fore- saw His cause would have to meet at every stage of its progress, be considered; and if it be remembered what, as a man, He was — an unlettered Galilean peasant — His quiet and unwavering confidence in His success will appear only less remarkable than His success itself. After read- ing the Gospels through, one asks in wonder what He did to produce so mighty an impression on the world. He THE YEAR OP PUBLIC FAVOR. 85 constructed no elaborate machinery to ensure the effect. He did not lay hold of the centers of influence — learnin^r, wealth, government, etc. It is true He instituted the Church. But He left no detailed explanations of its nature or rules for its constitution. This was the simplicity of faith, which does not contrive and prepare, but simply goes onward and does the work. It was the quality which He said could remove mountains, and which He chiefly desid- erated in His followers. This was the foolishness of the gospel, of which Paul boasted, as it was going forth, in the recklessness of power, but with laughable meagerness of equipment, to overcome the Greek and Roman world. 111. A third prominent feature of His character was Originality. Most lives are easily explained. They are mere products of circumstances, and copies of thousands like them which surround or have preceded them. The habits and customs of the country to which we belong, the fashion and tastes of our generation, the traditions of our education, the prejudices of our class, the opinions of our school or sect, — these form us.- We do work determined for us by a fortuitous concourse of circumstances; our con- victions are fixed on us by authority from without, instead of waxing naturally from within; our opinions are blown to us in fragments on every wind. But what circumstan- ces made the Man Christ Jesus? There never was an age more dry and barren than that in which He was- born. He was like a tall, fresh palm springing out of a desert. What was there in the petty life of Nazareth to produce so gigan- tic a character? How could the notoriously wicked village send forth such breathing purity? It may have been that a scribe taught Him the vocables and grammar of knowl- edge, but His doctrine was a complete contradiction of all that the scribes taught. The fashions of the sects never laid hold of His free spirit. How clearly, amidst the 86 THE LIFE OF JEStTS CHRIST. sounds which filled the ears of His time, He heard the neglected voice of truth, which was quite different from them! How clearly, behind all the pretentious and ac- cepted forms of piety, He saw the lovely and neglected figure of real godliness! He can not be explained by any- thing which was in the world and might have produced Him. He grew from within. He directed His eyes straight on the facts of nature and life and believed what He saw, instead of allowing His vision to be tutored by what others had said they saw. He was equally loyal to the truth in His words. He went forth and spoke out without hesi- tation what He believed, though it shook to their founda- tions the institutions, the creeds, and customs of His coun- try, and loosened the opinions of the populace in a hun- dred points in which they had been educated. It may, in- deed, be said that, though the Jewish nation of His own time was an utterly dry ground, out of which no green and great thing could be expected to grow, He reverted to the earlier history of His nation and nourished His mind on the ideas of Moses and the prophets. There is some truth in this. But affectionate and constant as was His familiarity with them, He handled them with a free and fearless hand. He redeemed them from themselves and exhibited in perfection the ideas which they taught only in germ. What a contrast between the covenant God of Israel and the Father in heaven whom He revealed; be- tween the temple, with its priests and bloody sacrifices, and the worship in spirit and in truth ; between the national and ceremonial morality of the Law and the morality of the conscience and the heart ! Even in comparison with the figures of Moses, Elijah, and Isaiah, He towers aloft in lonely originality. 112. A fourth and very glorious feature of His charac* ter was Love to Men. It has been already said that He THE YEAR OF PUBLIC FAVOR. 87 was possessed with an overmastering purpose. But be- neath a great life-purpose there must be a great passion, which shapes and sustains it. Love to men was the passion which directed and inspired Him. How it sprang up and grew in the seclusion of Nazareth, and on what materials it fed, we have not been informed with any detail. We only know that, when He appeared in public, it was a master-passion, which completely swallowed up self-love, filled Him with boundless pity for human misery, and enabled Him to go forward without once looking back in the undertaking to which He devoted Himself. We know only in general that it drew its support from the concep- tion He had of the infinite value of the human soul. It overleapt all the limits which other men have put to their benevolence. Differences of class and nationality usually cool men's interest in each other; in nearly all countries it has been considered a virtue to hate enemies; and it is generally agreed to loathe and avoid those who have out- raged the laws of respectability. But He paid no heed to these conventions; the overpowering sense of the precious- ness which He perceived in enemy, foreigner, and outcast alike, forbidding Him. This marvellous love shaped the purpose of His life. It gave Him the most tender and in- tense sympathy with every form of pain and misery. It was His deepest reason for adopting the calling of a healer. Wherever help was most needed, thither His merciful heart drew Him. But it was especially to save the soul that His love impelled Him. He knew this was the real jewel, which everything should be done to rescue, and that its miseries and perils were the most dangerous of all. There has sometimes been love to others without this vital aim. But His love was directed by wisdom to the truest weal of those He] loved. He knew He was doing His very best for them when He was savins: them from their sins. 88 THE LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. 113. But the crowning attribute of His human charac- ter was Love to God. It is the supreme honor and attain- ment of man to be one with God in feeling, thought, and purpose. Jesus had this in perfection. To us it is very- difficult to realize God. The mass of men scarcely think about Him at all; and even the godliest confess that it costs them severe effort to discipline their minds into the habit of constantly realizing Him. When we do think of Him, it is with a painful sense of a disharmony between what is in us and what is in Him. We can not remain, even for a few minutes, in His presence without the sense in greater or less degree, that His thoughts are not our thoughts, nor His ways our ways. With Jesus it was not. so. He real- ized God always. He never spent an hour, He never did an action, without direct reference to Him. God was about Him like the atmosphere He breathed, or the sun- light in which He walked. His thoughts were God's thoughts; His desires were never in the least different from God's; His purpose. He was perfectly sure, was God's purpose for Him. How did He attain this absolute har- mony with God? To a large extent it must be attributed to the perfect harmony of His nature within itself, yet in some measure He got it by the same means by which we laboriously seek it, — by the study of God's thoughts and purposes in His Word, which, from His childhood, was His constant delight; by cultivating all His life long the habit of prayer, for which He found time even when He had not time to eat; and by patiently resisting temptations to en- tertain thoughts and purposes of His own different from God's. This it was given which gave Him such faith and fearlessness in His work; He knew that the call to do it had come from God, and that He was immortal till it was done. This was what made Him, with all His self-con- THE YEAR OF PUBLIC FAVOR. 89 sciousness and originality, the pattern of meekness and submission; for He was for ever bringing every thought and wish into obedience to His Father's will. This was the secret of the peace and majestic calmness which im- parted such a grandeur to His demeanor in the most trying hours of life. He knew that the worst that could happen to Him was His Father's will for Him; and this was enouo-h. He had ever at hand a retreat of perfect rest, silence, and sunshine, into which He could retire from the clamor and confusion around Him. This was the great secret He be- queathed to His followers, when He said to them at part- ing, " Peace I leave with you; My peace I give unto you." 114. The Sinlessness of Jesus has been often dwelt on as the crowning attribute of His character. The Scrip- tures, which so frankly record the errors of their very greatest heroes, such as Abraham and Moses, have no sins of His to record. There is no more prominent character- istic of the saints of antiquity than their penitence: the more supremely saintly they were, the more abundant and bitter were their tears and lamentations over their sinful- ness. But although it is acknowledged by all that Jesus was the supreme religious figure of history. He never ex- hibited this characteristic of saintliness; He confessed no sin. Must it not have been because He had no sin to con- fess? Yet the idea of sinlessness is too negative to express the perfection of His character. He was sinless; but He was so because He was absolutely full of love. Sin against God is merely the expression of lack of love to God, and sin against man of lack of love to man. A being quite full of love to both God and man can not possibly sin against either. This fulness of love to His Father and His fellow-men, ruling every expression of His being, consti- tuted the perfection of His character. . 4* 90 TU^ LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. 115. To the impression produced on them by their long- continued contact with their Master the Twelve owed all they became. We can not trace with any fulness at what time they began to realize the central truth of the Chris- tianity they were afterwards to publisn to the world, that behind the tenderness and majesty of this human character there was in Him something still more august, or by what stages their impressions ripened to the full conviction that in Him perfect manhood was in union with perfect Deity. This was the groal of all the revelations of Himself which He made to them. But the breakdown of their faith at His death shows how immature up till that time must have been their convictions in regard to His personality, how- ever worthily they were able, in certain happy hours, to express their faith in Him. It was the experience of the Resurrection and Ascension which gave to the fluid impres- sions, which had long been accumulating in their minds, the touch by which they were made to crystallize into the immovable conviction, that in Him with whom it had been vouchsafed to them to associate so intimatelv, God was manifest in the flesh. CHAPTER V. THE YEAR OF OPPOSITION. Paragraphs 116-118. The Change of Sentiment towards Him. 119-131. The Causes of Opposition. 119-131. Opposition of the influential Classes. 119. Tlie Saddiicees. 120-130. The Pharisees' Reasons for opposing Him. 122, 123. Their Preconceptions ; 124. His Lowly Origin; 125. His Followers; 126. His Dis- regard of Traditions; 127. The Sabbath; 128, 129. Imputations of Blasphemy and Alliance with the Evil One; 130. Progress of their Opposition. 131. Herod. 132-135. Alienation of the Common People. 132. Popular Opinions of Him; 133. Efi"ect of the Feeding of the Five Thousand; 134. Refusal of Jesus to be their King. 136-143. The Changed Aspect of His Ministry. 136-138. The Sifting of the Disciples. 137. Wanderings with them in Remote Paris, their Great Confession ; 138. Prediction of His Suiferings, their Blindness. 139-142. His Own Thoughts and Feelings at this Period. 140. Prayerfulness ; 141. The Transfiguration; 142. Departure from Galilee and Journey to Jerusalem. 143. The Sanhedrim resolves on His Death. 93 i CHAPTER V. THE YEAR OF OPPOSITION. 116. For a whole year Jesus pursued His work in Gali- lee with incessant energy, moving among the pitiable crowds that solicited His miraculous help, and seizing every opportunity of pouring His words of grace and truth into the ears of the multitude or of the solitary anxious inquirer. In hundreds of homes, to whose inmates He had restored health and joy. His name must have become a household word; in thousands of minds, whose depths His preaching had stirred. He must have been cherished with gratitude and love. Wider and wider rang the echoes of His fame. For a time it seemed as if all Galilee were to become His disciples, and as if the movement so set ago- ing might easily roll southward, overbearing all opposition, and enveloping the whole land in an enthusiasm of love for the Healer and of obedience to the Teacher. 117. But the twelve months had scarcely passed when it became sadly evident that this was not to be. The Gal- "lean mind turned out to be stony ground, where the seed of the kingdom rushed quickly up, but just as quickly withered away. The change was sudden and complete, and' at once altered all the features of the life of Jesus. He lingered in Galilee for six months longer; but these months were very unlike the first twelve. The voices that rose around Him were no longer the ringing shouts of gratitude and applause, but voices of opposition, bitter and blasphemous. He was no longer to be seen moving from 94: THE LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. one populous place to another in the heart of the country, welcomed everywhere by those who waited to experience or to see His miracles, and followed by thousands eager not to lose a word of His discourses. He was a fugitive, seek- ing the most distant and outlandish places, and accom- panied only by a handful of followers. At the six months' end He left Galilee for ever, but not, as might at one time have been anticipated, borne aloft on the wave of public acknowledgment, to make an easy conquest of the hearts of the southern part of the country, and take victorious possession of a Jerusalem unable to resist the unanimous voice of the people. He did indeed labor for six months more in the southern part of the land — in Judsea and Per^a; nor were there awanting, where His miracles were seen for the first time, the same signs of public enthusiasm as had greeted Him in the first months of joy in Galilee; but the most which He eflfected was to add a few to the company of His faitljful disciples. He did indeed, from the day He left Galilee, set His face steadfastly towards Jerusalem; and the six months He spent in Persea and Jud^a may be regarded as occupied with a slow journev thither; but the journey was begun in the full assurance, which He openly expressed to the disciples, that in the capital He was to receive no triumph over enthusiastic hearts and minds convinced, but meet with a final national rejection, and be killed instead of crowned. 118. We must trace the causes and the progress of this change in the sentiment of the Galileans, and this sad turn in the career of Jesus. 119. From the very first the learned and influential classes had taken up an attitude of opposition to Him. The more worldly sections of them, indeed— the Sadducees and Herodians — for a long time paid little attention to THE YEAR OF OPPOSITION. 95 Him. They had their own affairs to mind — their wealth, their court influence, their amusements. They cared little for a relig-ious movement ffoino^ on among- the lower orders. The public rumor that one professing to be the Messiah had appeared did not excite their interest, for they did not share the popular expectations on the subject. They said to each other that this was only one more of the pretenders whom the peculiar ideas of the populace were sure to raise up from time to time. It was only when the movement seemed to them to be threatening to lead to a political re- volt, which would bring down the iron hand of the Roman masters on the country, afford the Procurator an excuse for new extortions, and imperil their property and comforts, that they roused themselves to pay any attention to Him. 120. Very different was it, however, with the more religious sections of the upper class — the Pharisees and scribes. They took the deepest interest in all ecclesiastical and religious phenomena. A movement of a religious kind among the populace excited their eager attention, for they themselves aimed at popular influence. A new voice with the ring of prophecy in it, or the promulgation of any new doctrine or tenet, caught their ear at once. But, above all, any one putting himself forward as the MeSsiah pro- duced the utmost ferment among them; for they ardently cherished Messianic hopes, and were at the time smarting keenly under the foreign domination. In relation to the rest of the community, they corresponded to our clergy and leading religious laymen, and probably formed about the same proportion of the population, and exercised at least as great an influence as these do among us. It has been estimated that they may have numbered about six thousand. They passed fortiie best persons in the country, the conservators of respectability and orthodoxy; and the 96 THE LIFE OF JESUS CHKIST. masses looked up to them as those who had the right to judge and determine in all religious matters. 121. They can not be accused of having neglected Jesus. They turned their earnest attention to Him from the first. They followed Him step by step. They discussed His doctrines and His claims, and made up their minds. Their decision was adverse, and they followed it up with acts, never becoming remiss in their activity for an hour. 122. This is perhaps the most solemn and appalling circumstance in the whole tragedy of the life of Christ, that the men who rejected, hunted down, and murdered Him, were those reputed the best in the nation, its teachers and examples, the zealous conservators of the Bible and the. traditions of the past, — men who were eagerly waiting for the Messiah, who judged Jesus, as they believed, accord- ing to the Scriptures, and thought they were obeying the dictates of conscience and doing God service when they treated Him as they did. There can not fail sometimes to sweep across the mind of a reader of the Gospels a strong feeling of pity for them, and a kind of sympathy with them. Jesus was so unlike the Messiah whom they were looking for and their fathers had taught them to expect! He so completely traversed their prejudices and maxims, and dishonored so many things which they had been taught to regard as sacred! They may surely be pitied; there never was a crime like their crime, and there was never punishment like their punishment. There is the same sad- ness about the fate of those who are thrown' upon any great crisis of the world's history, and, not understanding the signs of the times, make fatal mistakes; as those did, for example, who at the Reformation were unable to go forth and join the march of Providence. 123. Yet, at bottom, what was their case ? It was just this, that they were so blinded with sin that they could not THE YEAR OF OPPOSITION. 97 discern the lio-ht. Tlieir views of the Messiah had been distorted by centuries of worldliness and uiispirituality, of which they were the like-minded heirs. They thought Jesus a sinner, because He did not conform to ordinances which they and their fathers had profanely added to those of God's Word, and because their conception of a good man, to whom He did not answer, was utterly false. Jesus supplied them with evidence enough, but He could not give them eyes to see it. There is a something at the bot- tom of hearts that are honest and true, which, however long and deeply it may have been buried under prejudice and sin, leaps up with joy and desire to embrace what is true, what is reverend, what is pure and great, when it draws near. But nothing of the kind was found in them; their hearts were seared, hardened, and dead. They brought their stock rules and arbitrary standards to judge Him by, and were never shaken by His greatness from the fatal attitude of criticism. He brought truth near them, but they had not the truth-loving ear to recognize the enchanting sound. He brought the whitest purity, such as archangels would have veiled their faces at, near them, but the}'' were not overawed. He brought near them the very face of mercy and heavenly love, but their dim eyes made no response. We may indeed pity the conduct of such men as an appalling misfortune, but it is better to fear and tremble at it as appalling guilt. The more utterly wicked men become, the more inevitable it is that they should sin; the vaster the mass of a nation's sin becomes, as it rolls down through the centuries, the more inevitable does some awful national crime become. But when the inevitable takes place, it is an object not tor pity ofily, but also for holy and jealous wrath. 124. One thing about Jesus which from the first excited their opposition to Him was the hitmbleness of His origin. G 5 98 THE LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. Their eyes were dazzled with the ordinary prejudices of the rich and the learned, and could not discern the grandeur of the soul apart from the accidents of position and culture. He was a son of the people; He had been a carpenter; they believed He had been born in rude and wicked Gali- lee; He had not passed through the schools of Jerusalem or drunk at the acknowledged wells of wisdom there. They thought that a prophet, and above all the Messiah, should have been born in Judasa, reared at Jerusalem in the center of culture and religion, and allied with all that was dis- tino;uished and influential in the nation. 125. For the same reason they were offended with the followers He chose and the company He kept. His chosen organs were not selected from amono- themselves, the wise and high-born, but were uneducated laymen, poor fisher- men. Nay, one of them was a publican. Nothing that Jesus did, perhaps, gave greater offence than the choice of Matthew, the tax-gatherer, to be an apostle. The tax- gatherers, as servants of the alien power, were hated by all who were patriotic and respectable, at once for their trade, their extortions, and their character. How could .Jesus hope that respectable and learned men should enter a circle such as that which He had formed about Himself? Besides, He mingled freely with the lowest class of the population — with publicans, harlots, and sinners. In Christian times we have learned to love Him for this more than anything else. We easily see that, if He really was the Savior from sin. He could not have been found in more suitable com- pany than among those who needed salvation most. We know now how He could believe that many of the lost were more the Victims of circumstances than sinners by choice, and that, if He drew the magnet across the top of the rubbish, it would attract to itself many a 23iece of precious metal. The purest-minded and highest-born have THE YEAR OF OPPOSITION. 99 since learned to follow His footsteps down into the purlieus of squalor and vice to seek and save the lost. But no such sentiment had up till His time l)een born into the world. The mass of sinners outside the pale of respecta- bility wei'e despised and hated as the enemies of society, and no efforts were made to save them. On the contrary, all who aimed at religious distinction avoided their very touch as a defilement. Simon the Pharisee, when he was entertaining Jesus, never doubted that, if He had been a prophet and known who the woman was who was touchino- Him, He would have driven her off. Such was the senti- ment of the time. Yet when Jesus brought into the world the new sentiment, and showed them the divine face of mercy, they ought to have recognized it. If their hearts had not been utterly hard and cruel, they would have leapt up to welcome this revelation of a diviner humanity. The sight of sinners forsaking their evil ways, of wicked women sobbing for their lost lives, and extortioners like Zaccheus becoming earnest and generous, ought to have delighted them. But it did not, and they only hated Jesus for His compassion, calling Him a friend of publicans and sinners. 126. A third and very serious ground of their opposi- tion was, that He did not Himself practice, nor encourage His disciples to practice, many ritual observances, such as fasts, punctilious washing of the hands before meals, and so forth, which were then considered the marks of a saintly man. It has been already explained how these practices arose. They had been invented in an earnest but mechan- ical age in order to emphasize the peculiarities of Jewish character, and keep up the separation of the Jews from other nations. The original intention was good, but t'he result was deplorable. It was soon forgotten that they were merely human inventions; they were supposed to be binding by divine action; and they were multiplied, till 100 THE LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. they regulated every hour of the day and every action of life. They were made the substitutes for real piety and morality by the majority; and to tender consciences they were an intolerable burden, for it was scarcely possible to move a step or lift a finger without the danger of sinning against one or other of them. But no one doubted their authority, and the careful observance of them was reputed the badge of a godly life. Jesus regarded them as the great evil of the time. He therefore neglected them, and encouraged others to do so; not, however, without at the same time leading them back to the great principles of judgment, mercy, and faith, and making them feel the majesty of the conscience and the depth and spirituality of the law. But the result was, that He was looked upon as both an ungodly man Himself, and a deceiver of the people, 127. It was especially in regard to the Sabbath that this difference between Him and the religious teachers came out. In this field their inventions of restrictions and arbitrary rules had run into the most portentous extrava- gance, till they had changed the day of rest, joy, and bles- sing into an intolerable burden. He was in the habit of performing His cures on the Sabbath. They thought such work a breach of the command. He exposed the wrong- ness of their objections again and again, by explaining the nature of the institution itself as " made for man," by re- ference to the practice of ancient saints, and even by the analogy of some of their own practices on the holy day. But they were not convinced; and, as He continued His practice in spite of their objections, this remained a stand- ing and bitter ground of their hate. 128. It will be easily understood that, having arrived at these conclusions on such low grounds, they were utterly disinclined to listen to Him when He put forward His THE YEAR OP OPPOSITION. lOl hiorher claims — when He announced Himself as the Mes- siah, professed to forgive sins, and threw out intimations of His hio-h relation to God. Havino^ concluded that He was an impostor and deceiver, they regarded such assertions as hideous blasphemies, and could not help wishing to stop the mouth which uttered them. 129. It may be wondered at, that they were not con- vinced by His miracles. If He really performed the nu- merous and stupendous miracles which are recorded of Him, how could they resist such evidence of His divine mission? The debate held with the authorities by the tough reasoner whom Jesus cured of blindness, and whose case is recorded in the ninth chapter of John, shows how sorely they may sometimes have been pressed with such reasoninof But thev had satisfied themselves with an au- dacious reply to it. It is to be remembered that among the .lews miracles had never been looked upon as conclusive proofs of a divine mission. They might be wrought by false as well as true prophets. They might be traceable to diabolical instead of divine agency. Whether they were so or not, was to»be determined on other grounds. On these other grounds they had come to the conclusion that He had not been sent from God; and so they attributed His miracles to an alliance with the powers of darkness. Jesus met this blasphemous construction with the utmost force of holy indignation and conclusive argument; but it is easy to see that it was a position in which minds like those of His opponents might entrench themselves with the sense of much security. 130. Very early they had formed their adverse judg- ment of Him, and they never changed it. Even during His first year in Judasa they had pretty well decided against Him. When the news of His success in Galilee 102 THE LIFE OP JESUS CHRIST. spread, it filled them with consternation, and they sent deputations from Jerusalem to act in concert with their local adherents in opposing Him. Even during His year of joy He clashed with them again and again. At first He treated them with consideration and appealed to their reason and heart. But He soon saw that this was hopeless and accepted their opposition as inevitable. He exposed the hollowness of their pretensions to His audiences and warned His disciples against them. Meanwhile they did everything to poison the public mind against Him. They succeeded only too well. When, at the year's end, the tide of His popularity began to recede, they pressed their advantage, assailing Him more and more boldly. 131. They even succeeded thus early in arousing the cold minds of the Sadducees and Herodians against Him, no doubt by persuading them that He was fomenting a popular revolt, which would endanger the throne of their master Herod, who reigned over Galilee. That mean and characterless prince himself also became His persecutor. He had other reasons to dread Him besides those suggested by his courtiers. About this very time* he had murdered John the Baptist. It was one of the meanest and foulest crimes recorded in history, an awful instance of the way in which sin leads to sin, and of the malicious perseverance with which a wicked woman will compass her revenge. Soon after it was committed, his courtiers came to tell him of the supposed political designs of Jesus. But when he heard of the new prophet, an awful thought thrilled through his guilty conscience. "It is John the Baptist," he cried, "whom I beheaded; he is risen from the dead." Yet he desired to see Him, his curiosity getting the better of his terror. It was the desire of the lion to see the lamb. Jesus never responded to his invitation. But just on that account Herod mav have been the more willino- to listen to tHE YEAR OF OPPOSITION'. 103 the suggestions of his courtiers that he should arrest Him as a dangerous person. It was not long before he was seeking to kill Him. Jesus had to keep out of his way, and no doubt this helped along with more important things to chancre the character of His life in Galilee durino- the last six months of His stay there. 132„ It had seemed for a time as if His hold on the mind and the heart of the common people might become so strong as to carry irresistibly a national recognition. Many a movement, frowned upon at first by authorities and dignitaries, has, by committing itself to the lower classes and securing their enthusiastic acknowledgment, risen to take possession of the upper classes and carry the centers of influence. There is a certain point of national consent at which any movement which reaches it becomes like a flood, which no amount of prejudice or official dislike can successfully oppose. Jesus gave Himself to the common people of Galilee, and they gave Him in return their love and admiration. Instead of hating Him like the Pharisees and scribes, and calling Him a glutton and a wine-bibber, they believed Him a prophet; they compared Him with the very greatest figures of the past, and many, according as they were more struck with the sublime or with the melt- ing side of His teaching, said He was Isaiah or Jeremiah risen from the dead. It was a common idea of the time that the coming of the Messiah was to be preceded by the rising again of some prophet. The one most commonly thought of was Elijah. Accordingly some took Jesus for Elijah. But it was only a precursor of the Messiah they supposed Him to be, not the Messiah Himself. He was not at all like their conception of the coming Deliverer, which was of the most grossly material kind. Now and then, indeed, after "Me h^d wrought some unusually striking 104 THE LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. miracle, there might be raised a single voice or a few voices, suggesting. Is this not He? But, wonderful as were His deeds and His words, yet the whole aspect of His life was so unlike their preconceptions, that the truth failed to suggest itself forcibly and universally to their minds. 133. At last, however, the decisive hour seemed to have arrived. It was just at that great turning-point to which allusion has frequently been made — the end of the twelve months in Galilee. Jesus had heard of the Baptist's death, and immediately hurried away into a desert place with His disciples, to brood and talk over the tragic event. He sailed to the eastern side of the lake, and, lafiding on the grassy plain of Bethsaida, went up to a hill with the Twelve. But soon at its feet there gcathered an immense multitude to hear and see Him. They had found out where He was, and gathered to Him from every quarter. Ever ready to sacrifice Himself for others. He descended to address and heal them. The evening came on, as His discourse prolonged itself, when, moved with a great access of com- passion for the helpless multitude, He wrought the stupen- dous miracle of feedino- the five thousand. Its effect was overwhelming. They became instantaneously convinced that this was none other than the Messiah, and, having only one conception of what this meant, they endeavored to take Him by force and make Him a king; that is, to force Him to become the leader of a Messianic revolt, by which they might wrest the throne from Cagsar and the princelings he had set up over the different provinces. 134. It seemed the crowning- hour of success. But to Jesus Himself it was an hour of sad and bitter shame. This was all that His year's work had come to! This was the conception they yet had of Him! And they were to determine the course of His future action, instead of hum- bly asking what He would have them to do! He accepted THE YEAR OF OPPOSITION. 105 it as the decisive indication of the effect of His work in Galilee. He saw how shallow were its results. Galilee had judged itself unworthy of being the center from which His kino-doin mig-ht extend itself to the rest of the land. He fled from their carnal desires, and the very next day, meeting them again at Capernaum, He told them how much they had been mistaken in Him; they were looking for a Bread-king, who would give them idleness and plenty, mountains of loaves, rivers of milk, every comfort without labor. What He had to give was the bread of eternal life. 135. His discourse was like a stream of cold water directed upon the fiery enthusiasm of the crowd. From that hour His cause in Galilee was doomed; "many of His disciples went back and walked no more with Him." It was what He intended. It was Himself who struck the fatal blow at His popularity. He resolved to devote Him- self thenceforward to the few who really understood Him and were capable of being the adherents of a spiritual enterprise. 136. The Changed Aspect of His Ministry.— Y^t^ although the people of Galilee at large had shown themselves unworthy of Him, there was a considerable remnant that proved true. At the center of it were the apostles; but there were also others, to the number probably of several hundreds. These now became the objects of His special care. He had saved them as brands plucked from the burning, when Galilee as a whole deserted Him. For them it must have been a time of crucial trial. Their views were to a large extent those of the populace. They also expected a Messiah of worldly splendor. They had indeed learned to include deeper and more spiritual ele- ments in their conception, but, along with these, it still 106 THE LII'E OF JESUS CHRIST. contained the traditional and material ones. It must have been a painful mystery to them that Jesus should so long delay the assumption of the crown. So painful had this been to the Baptist in his lonely prison, that he began to doubt whether the vision he had seen on the bank of the Jordan and the great convictions of his life had not been delusions, and sent to ask Jesus if He really was the Christ. The Baptist's death must have been an awful shock to them. If Jesus was the Mighty One they thought Him, how could He alllow His friend to come to such an end? Still they held on to Him. They showed what it was which kept them by their answer to Him, when, after the disper- sion which followed the discourse at Capernaum, He put to them the sad question, " Will ye also go away?" They replied, " liOrd, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life." Their opinions were not clear; they were in a mist of perplexities; but they knew that from Him they were getting eternal life. This held them close to Him, and made them willing to wait till He should make things clear. 137. During the last six months He spent in Galilee, He abandoned to a large extent His old work of preaching and miracle-working, and devoted Himself to the instruc- tion of these adherents. He made long circuits with them in the most distant parts of the province, avoiding publicity as much as possible. Thus we find Him at Tyre and Sidon, far to the north-west; at Ctesarea-Philippi, on the far north- east; and in Decapolis, to the south and east of the lake. These journeys, or rather flights, were due partly to the bitter opposition of the Pharisees, partly to fear of Herod, but chiefly to the desire to be alone with His disciples. The precious result of them was seen in an incident which happened at C?esarea-Philippi. Jesus began to ask His disciples what were the popular views about Himself, and THE YEAR OP OPPOSITION. 107 they told Him the various conjectures whi^*/ were flying about, — that He was a prophet, that He was Elias, that He was John the Baptist, and so on. " But whom say ye that I am?" He asked; and Peter answered for them all, " Thou art tlie Christ, the Son of the living God." This was the deliberate and decisive conviction by which they were determined to abide, whatever might come. Jesus received the confession with great joy, and at once recognized in those who had made it the nucleus of the future Church, which was to be built on the truth to which they had given expression. 138. But this attainment only prepared them for a new trial of faith. From that time, we are told. He began to inform them of His approaching sufferings and death. These now stood out clearly before His own mind as the only issue of His career to be looked for. He had hinted as much to them before, but, with that delicate and loving consideration which alwavs graduated His teachino- to their capacity,. He did not refer to it often. But now they were in some degree able to bear it; and, as it was inevitable and near at hand. He kept insisting on it constantly. But they themselves tell us they did not in the least understand Him. In common with all their countrymen, they expected a Messiah who should sit on the throne of David, and of whose reign there should be no end. They believed Jesus was this Messiah; and it was to them utterly incomprehen- sible that, instead of reigning. He should be killed on His arrival in Jerusalem. They listened to Him, they discussed His words among themselves, but they regarded their apparent meaning as a wild impossibility. They thought He was only using one of the parabolic sayings of which He was so fond. His real meaning being that the present lowly form of His work was to die and disappear, and His cause rise, as it were, out of the grave in a glorious and 108 THE LIFE OP JESUS CHRIST. triumphant shape. He endeavored to undeceive them, going more and more minutely into the details of His approaching sufferings. But their minds could not take the truth in. How completely even the best of them failed to do so is shown by the frequent wranglings among them at this period as to which of them should in the approaching kingdom be the greatest, and by the request of Salome for her sons, that they should sit the one on the right and the other on the left hand in His kingdom. W.hen they left Galilee and went up towards Jerusalem, it was with the conviction that " the kingdom of God should immediately appear," — that is, that Jesus, on arriving in the capital, would throw off the guise of humiliation He had hitherto worn, and, overcoming all opposition by some forthputting of His concealed glory, take His place on the throne of His fathers. 139. What were the thoughts and feelings of Jesus Himself during this year? To Him also it was a year of sore trial. Now for the first time the deep lines of care and pain were traced upon His face. During the tw^elve- month of successful work in Galilee, He was borne up with the joy of sustained achievement. But now He be- came, in the truest sense, the Man of Sorrows. Behind Him was His rejection by Galilee. The sorrow which He felt at seeing the ground on which He had bestowed so much labor turning out barren, is to be measured only by the greatness of His love to the souls He sought to save, and the depth of His devotion to His work. In front of Him was His rejection at Jerusalem. That was now cer- tain; it rose up and stood out constantly and unmistakably, meeting His eyes as often as He turned them to the future. It absorbed His thoughts. It was a terrible prospect; and, THE YEAR OF OPPOSITION. 100 now that it drew nigh, it sometimes shook His soul with a conflict of feelings which we scarcely dare to picture to ourselves. 140. He was very much in prayer. This had all along been His delight and resource. In His busiest period, when He was often so tired with the labors of the day that at the approach of evening He was ready to fling Himself down in utter fatigue. He would nevertheless escape away from the crowds and His disciples to the mountain-top, and spend the whole night in lonely communion with His Father. He never took any important step without such a night. But now He was far oftener alone than ever before, setting forth His case to His God with strong crying and tears. 141. His prayers received a splendid answer in the Transfiguration. That glorious scene took place in the middle of the year of opposition, just before He quitted Galilee and set forth on the journey of doom. It was in- tended partly for the sake of the three disciples who accom- panied Him to the mountain-top, to strengthen their faith and make them fit to strengthen their brethren. But it was chiefly intended for Himself. It was a great gift of His Father, an acknowledgment of His faithfulness up to this point, and a preparation for what lay before Him. It was about the decease He was to accomplish at Jerusalem He conversed wuth His great predecessors, Moses and EliaSf who could thoroughly sympathize with Him, and whose work His death was to fulfill. 142. Immediately after this event He left Galilee and went south. He spent six months on His way to Jerusalem. It was part of His mission to preach tlie kingdom over the whole land, and He did so. He sent seventy of His disci- ples on before Him to prepare the villages and towns to 110 THE LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. receive Him. Again in this new field the same manifesta- tions as Galilee had witnessed during the first months of His labors there showed themselves, — the multitudes following Him, the wonderful cures, and so forth. We have not records of this period sufficient to enable us to follow Him step by step. We find Him on the borders of Samaria, in Per^ea, on the banks of the Jordan, in Beth- any, in the village of Ephraim. But Jerusalem was His goal. His face was set like a flint for it. Sometimes He was so absorbed in the anticipation of what was to befall Him there, that His disciples, following His swift, mute figure along the highway, were amazed and afraid. Now and then, indeed. He would relax for a little, as when He was blessino- the little children or visitinor the home of His friends at Bethany. But His mood at this period was more stern, absorbed, and highly strung than ever before. His contests with His enemies were sharper, the conditions which He imposed on those who off"ered to be His disciples more stringent. Everything denoted that the end was drawing near. He was in the grip of His grand purpose of atoning for the sins of the world, and His soul was straitened till it should be accomplis^ied. 143. The catastrophe drew nigh apace. He paid two brief visits to Jerusalem, before the final one, during His last six months. On both occasions the opposition of the authorities assumed the most menacing form. They en- deavored to arrest Him on the first occasion, and took up stones to stone Him on the second. They had already issued a decree that any one acknowledging Him to be the Messiah should be excommunicated. But it was the ex- citement produced in the popular mind by the raising of Lazarus at the verv o-ates of the ecclesiastical citadel which finally convinced the authorities that they could not satisfy THE YEAR OF OPPOSITION. Ill themselves with anything short of His death. So they re- solved in council. This took place only a month or two before the end came, and it drove Him for the time from the neighborhood of Jerusalem. But He retired only until the hour which His Father had appointed Him should strike. CHAPTER VI. THE END. Paragraphs 144-205. 144. The Passover. 145-152. The Final Breach with the Nation. 145. His Arrival in Bethany ; 146-149. The Tri- umphal Entry into Jerusalem ; 150. The Great Day of Controversy ; 151,152. Judas Iscariot. 153-162. Jesus in Presence of Death. 153, 154. Multitude of His Thoughts ; 155. Pros- pect of Death, Visit of Greeks; 156. Com- passion for His Country; 157, 158. Loneliness; 159. The Consolation of Prayer; 360. In the Upper Room; 161, 162. Gethsemane. 163-189. The Trial. 164, 165. Double Trial ; Reason of This. 166-173. Ecclesiastical Trial— 166. Before Annas; 167-171. Before Caiaphas, Condemnation for Blasphemy; 172. Irregu- larity; 173. Mockery of Jesus. 174-189. Civil Trial— 174-180. Before Pilate for the First Time— 174-176. Procession to the Palace ; 177. The Case must be pled; 178. Civil Charges; 179. " What is Truth ?" 180. He is pronounced innocent. 181. Before Herod. 182-189. Before Pilate again— 182. Pilate's Diplomacy ; 183. Barabbas; 184. Scourginic ; 185. " Ecce Homo ; " 186. Pilate's Religious Dread ; 187. Threat to complain to the Emperor; 188. Pilate gives way; 189. The Jews surrender their History. 190-198. The Crucifixion. 191. The Crowd; 192. Calvary; 193. Horrors of this Form of Death; 194. His Triumph over them; 195. His Mental Sufferings ; 196. Bear- ing the Sin of the World ; 197. Darkness ; 198. Last Words. 199-205. The Resurrection and Ascension. 199. Christianity Dead; 201, 202. Breakdown of Disciples; 203. Resurrection of Christianity; 204. The Risen One ; 205. The Ascension. CHAPTER VI. THE END. 144. At length the third year of His ministry verged towards its close, and the revolving seasons brought round the great annual feast of the Passover. It is said that as many as two or three millions of strangers were gathered in Jerusalem on such an occasion. They not only flocked from every part of Palestine, but came over sea and land from all the countries in which the seed of Abraham were dispersed, in order to celebrate the event in which their national history began. They were brought together by very various motives. Some came with the solemn thoughts and deep religious joy of minds responsive to the memor- ies of the venerable occasion. Some looked forward chiefly to reunion with relatives and friends who had been long parted from them by residence in distant places. Not a few of the baser sort brought with them the darling pas- sions of their race, and were chiefly intent on achieving in so great a concourse some important stroke of business. But this year the minds of tens of thousands were full of an unusual excitement, and they came up to the capital ex- pecting to see something more remarkable than they had ever witnessed there before. They hoped to see Jesus at the feast, and entertained many vague forebodings as to what might happen in connection with Him. His name was the word often est passing from mouth to mouth among the pilgrim bands that crowded along the highways, and among the Jewish groups that talked together on the decks n 5* 113 114 THE LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. of the ships coming from Asia Minor and Egypt. Nearly all His own disciples no doubt were there, and were ar- dently cherishing the hope that at last in this concourse of the nation He would throw off the guise of humility which concealed His glory, and in some irresistible way demon- strate His Messiahship. There must have been thousands from the southern portions of the country, in which He had recently been spending His time, who came full of the same enthusiastic views about Him as were entertained in Galilee at the close of His first year there; and no doubt there were multitudes of the Galileans themselves who were favorably disposed towards Him and ready to take the deepest interest in any new development of His affairs. Tens of thousands from more distant parts, who had heard of Him, but never seen Him, arrived in the capital in the hope that He might be there, and that they might enjoy the opportunity of seeing a miracle or listening to the words of the new prophet. The authorities in Jerusalem, too, awaited His coming with very mingled feelings. They hoped that some turn of events might give them the chance of at last suppressing Him; but they could not help fear- ing that He might appear at the head of a provincial fol- lowing which would place them at His mercy. 145. The Final Breach with the Nation. — Six days be- fore the Passover began. He arrived in Bethany, the village of His friends Martha, Mary, and Lazarus, which lay half- an-hour from the city on the other side of the summit of the Mount of Olives. It was a convenient place to lodge during the feast, and He took up His quarters with His friends. The solemnities were to begin on a Thursday, so that it was on the previous Friday He arrived there. He had been accompanied the last twenty miles of His journey by an immense multitude of the pilgrims, to whom He was THE END. 115 the center of interest. They had seen Him healing blind Bartim.'eus at Jericho, and the miracle had produced among them extraordinary excitement. When they reached Beth- any, the village was ringing with the recent resurrection of Lazarus, and they carried on the news to the crowds who had already arrived from all quarters in Jerusalem, that Jesus had come. 146. Accordingl}^, when,' after resting over the Sabbath in Bethany, He came forth on the Sunday morning to pro- ceed to the city. He found the streets of the village and the neighboring roads thronged with a vast crowd, consist- ing partly of those who had accompanied Him on the Friday, partly of other companies who had come up behind Him from .Tericho and heard of the miracles as they came along, and partly of those who, having heard that He was at hand, had flocked out from Jerusalem to see Him. They welcomed Him with enthusiasm, and began to shout "Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is He that com- eth in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest !" It was a Messianic demonstration such as He had formerly avoided. But now He yielded to it. Probably He was satisfied with the sincerity of the homage paid to Him; and the hour had come when no considerations could per- mit Him any longer to conceal from the nation the charac- ter in which He presented Himself and the claim He made on its faith. But, in yielding to the desires of the multi- tude that He should assume the style of a king. He made it unmistakable in what sense He accepted the honor. He sent for an ass-colt, and. His disciples having spread their garments on it, rode at the head of the crowd. Not armed to the teeth or bestriding a war-horse did He come, but as the King of simplicity and peace. The procession swept over the brow of Olivet and down the mountain-side; it crossed tiie Kcdron, and, mounting the slope which led to 116 THE LIFE OP JESUS CHRIST. the gate of the city, passed on through the streets to the temple. It swelled as it went, great numbers hurrying from every quarter to join it; the shouts rang louder and more loud; the processionists broke off twigs from the palms and olives, as they passed, and waved them in tri- umph. The citizens of Jerusalem ran to their doors and bent over their balconies to look, and asked, " Who is this?" to which the processionists replied with provincial pride, "This is Jesus, the prophet of Nazareth." It was, in fact an entirely provincial demonstration. The Jerusalemites took no part in it, but held coldly aloof. The authorities knew only too well what it meant, and beheld it with rage and dread. They came to Jesus, and ordered Him to bid His followers hold their peace, hinting no doubt that, if He did not do so, the Roman garrison, which was stationed in the immediate vicinity, would pounce on Him and them, and punish the city for an act of treason to Caesar. 147. There is no point in the life of Jesus at which we are more urged to ask. What would have happened if His claim had been conceded — if the citizens of Jerusalem had been carried away with the enthusiasm of the provin- cials, and the prejudices of priests and scribes had been borne down before the torrent of public approval? Would Jesus have put Himself at the head of the nation and in- augurated an era of the world's history totally different from that which followed? These questions very soon carry us beyond our de23th, yet no intelligent reader of the Gos- pels can help asking them. 148. Jesus had formally made offer of Himself to the capital and the authorities of the nation, but met with no response. The provincial recognition of His claims was insufficient to carry a national assent. He accepted the decision as final. The multitude expected a signal from Him, and in their excited mood would have obeyed it, what- ever it might have been. But He gave them none, and, after looking round about Him for a little in the temple, left them and returned to Bethan^^ 149. Doubtless the disappointment of the multitude was extreme, and an opportunity was offered to the authorities which they did not fail to make use of. The Pharisees needed no stimulus; but even the Sadducees, those cold and haughty friends of order, espied danger to the public peace in the state of the popular mind, and leagued themselves with their bitter enemies in the resolution to suppress Him. 150. On Monday and Tuesday He appeared again in the city and engaged in His old work of healing and teach- ing. But on the second of these days the authorities inter- posed. Pharisees, Sadducees, and Herodians, high priests, priests, and scribes were for once combined in a common cause. They came to Him, as He taught in the temple, and demanded by what authority He did such things. In all the pomp of official costume, of social pride and popu- lar renown, they set themselves against the simple Galilean, while the multitudes looked on. They entered into a keen and prolonged controversy with Him on points selected beforehand, putting forward their champions of debate to ertangle Him in His talk, their distinct object ^eing, either to discredit Him with the audience or to elicit something from His lips in the heat of argument which might form a groundof accusation against Him before the civil authority. Thus, for example, they asked Him if it was lawful to give tribute to Cassar. If He answered Yes, they knew that His popularity would perish on the instant, for it would be a complete contradiction of the popular Messianic ideas. If, on the contrary. He answered No, they would accuse Him of treason before the Roman governor. But Jesus was far more than a match for them. Hour by hour He steadfastly met the attack. His straightforwardness put 118 THE LIFE OE JEStJS CHRIST. their duplicity to shame, and His skill in argument turned every spear which they directed at Him round to their own breasts. At last He carried the war into their own terri- tory, and convicted them of such is^norance or lack of can- dor as completely put them to shame before the onlookers. Then, when He had silenced them. He let loose the storm of His indignation, and delivered against them the philip- pic which is recorded in the twenty-third chapter of Mat- thew. Giving unrestrained expression to the pent-up criti- cism of a lifetime. He exposed their hypocritical practices in sentences that fell like strokes of lightning and made them a scorn and laughing-stock, not only to the hearers then, but to all the world since. 151. It was the final breach between Him and them. They had been utterly humiliated before the whole people, over whom they were set in authority and honor. They felt it to be intolerable, and resolved not to lose an hour in seeking their revenge. That very evening the Sanhe- drim met in passionate mood to devise a plan for making away with Him. Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea may have raised a solitary protest against their precipitate proceedings; but they indignantly silenced them, and were unanimously of opinion that He should forthwith be put to death. But circumstances checked their cruel haste. At least the forms of justice would have to be gone through; and besides, 'Jesus evidently enjoyed an immense popular- ity among the strangers who filled the city. What might not the idle crowd do if He were arrested before their eyes? It was necessary to wait till the mass of the pil- grims had left the city. They had just, with great reluc- tance, arrived at this conclusion, when they received a most unexpected and gratifying surprise. One of His own disciples appeared, and offered to betray Him for a price. 152. Judas Iscariot is the byword of the human race. THE END. 119 In his Vision of Hell ^ Dante has placed him in the lowest of the circles of the damned, as the sole sharer with Satan himself of the very uttermost punishment; and the poet's verdict is that of mankind. Yet he was not such a mon- ster of iniquity as to be utterly beyond comprehension or even sympathy. The history of his base and appalling lapse is perfectly intelligible. He had joined the disciple- ship of Jesus, as the other apostles did, in the hope of taking part in a political revolution and occupying a distin- guished place in an earthly kingdom. It is inconceivable that Jesus would have made him an apostle if there had not at one time been some noble enthusiasm in him, and some attachment to Himself. That he was a man of supe- rior energy and administrative ability may be inferred from the fact that he was made the purse-bearer of the apostolic company. But there was a canker at the root of his char- acter, which gradually absorbed all that was excellent in him, and became a tyrannical passion. It was the love of money. He fed it by the petty peculations which he prac- tised on the small sums which Jesus received from His friends for the necessities of His company and for distribu- tion among the poor with whom He was daily mingling. He hoped to give it unrestrained gratification when He became chancellor of the exchequer in the new kingdom. The vi,ews of the other apostles were perhaps as worldly to begin with as his. But the history of their intercourse with their Master was totally different. They became ever more spiritual, he ever more worldly. They never, indeed, as long as Jesus lived, rose to the idea of a spiritual king- dom apart from an earthly one; but the spiritual elements which their Master had taught them to add to their material conception grew more and more prominent, till the earthly heart was eaten out of it, and merely the empty shell was left, to be in due time crushed and blown away. But 120 THE LIFE OP JESUS CHRIST. Judas' eathly views became more and more engrossing, and were more and more divested of every spiritual adjunct. He grew impatient for their realization. Preaching and healing seemed to him waste of time; the purity and un- worldliness of Jesus irritated him; why did He not brino- on the kingdom at once, and then preach as much as He chose afterwards ! At last he began to suspect that there was to be no kingdom such as he had hoped for at all. He felt that he had been deceived, and began not only to des- pise but even hate his Master. The failure of Jesus to take advantage of the disposition of the people on Palm Sunday finally convinced him that it was useless to hold on to the cause any longer. He saw that the ship was sinking and resolved to get out of it. He carried out his resolu- tion in such a way as both to gratify his master-passion and secure the favor of the authorities. His oflFer came to them just at the right moment. They closed with it greedily, and, having arranged the price with the misera- ble man, sent him away to find a convenient opportunity for the betrayal. He found it sooner than they expected — on the next night but one after the dastardly bargain had been concluded. 153. Jesus in the Prospect of Death. — Christianity has no more precious possession than the memory of Jesus during the week when He stood face to face with death. Unspeakably great as He always was, it may be rever- ently said that He was never so great as during those days of direst calamity. All that was grandest and all that was most tender, the most human and the most divine aspects of His character, were brought out as they had never been before. 154. He came to Jerusalem well aware that He was about to die. For a whole year the fact had been staring THE END. 121 Him constantly in the face, and the long-looked- fcr had come at last. He knew it was His Father's will, and, when the hour arrived. He bent His steps with sublime fortitude to the fatal spot. It was not, however, without a terrible conflict of feelinofs; the ebb and flow of the most diverse emotions — anguish and ecstasy, the most prolonged and crushing depression, the most triumphant joy and the most majestic peace — swayed hither and thither within Him like the moods of a vast ocean. 155. Some have hesitated to attribute to Him aught of that shrinkinfr from death which is natural to man; but surely without good reason. It is an instinct perfectly in- nocent; and perhaps the very fact that His bodily organ- ism was pure and perfect may have made it stronger in Him than it is in us. Remember how young He was — only three-and-thirty; the currents of life were powerful in Him; He was full of the instincts of action. To have these strong currents rolled back and the light and warmth of life quenched in the cold waters of death must have been utterly repugnant to Him. An incident which hap- pened on the Monday caused Him a great shock of this in- stinctive pain. Some Greeks who had come to the feast expressed through two of the apostles their desire for an interview with Him. There were many heathens in differ- ent parts of the Greek-speaking world who at this period had found refuge from the atheism and disgusting immor- ality of the times in the religion of the Jews settled in their midst, and had accordingly become proselytes of the worship of Jehovah. To this class these inquirers be- longed. But their application shook Him with thoughts which they little dreamt of. Only two or three times in the course of His ministry does He seem to have been brought into contact with representatives of the world lying outside the limits of His own people, His mission 6 122 THE LIFE OP JESUS CHRIST. being exclusively to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. But on every such occasion He met with a faith, a courtesy and nobility, which He Himself contrasted with the unbe- lief, rudeness, and pettiness of the Jews. How could He help longing to pass beyond the narrow bounds of Pales- tine and visit nations of such simple and generous disposi- tion? He must often have seen visions of a career like that afterwards achieved by Paul, when He bore the glad tidings from land to land, and evangelized Athens, Rome, and the other great centers of the West. What joy such a career would have been to Jesus, who felt within Himself the energy and overflowing benevolence which it would have exactly suited! But death v/as at hand to extinguish all. The visit of the Greeks caused a great wave of such thoughts to break over Him. Instead of responding to their request. He became abstracted. His face darkened, and His frame was shaken with the tremor of an inward conflict. But He soon recovered Himself, and gave expression to the thoughts on which in those days He was steadying up His soul: " Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, w4Il draw all men unto Me." He could see beyond death, terrible and ab- sorbing as the prospect of it was, and assure Himself that the eff"ect of His self-sacrifice would be infinitely grander and more extensive than that of a personal mission to the heathen world could ever have been. Besides, death was what His Father had appointed for Him. This was the last and deepest consolation with which He soothed His hum- ble and trustful soul on this as on every similar occasion: "Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour. Father, glory Thyself." 156. Death approached Him with every terrible accom- THE END. 123 paniment. He was to fall a victim to the treachery of a follower of His own, whom He had cliosen and loved. His life was to be taken by the hands of His own nation, in the city of His heart. He had come to exalt His nation to heaven, and had loved her with a devotion nourished by the most intelligent and sympathetic acquaintance with her past history and with the great men who had loved her be- fore Him, as well as by the sense of all which He Himself was able to do for her. But His death would bring down the blight of a thousand curses on Palestine and Jerusalem. How clearly He foresaw what was coming was shown by the memorable prophetic discourse of the twenty-fourth of Matthew, which He spoke on Tuesday afternoon to His dis- ciples, sitting on the side of Mount Olivet, with the doomed city at His feet. How bitter was the anguish it caused Him was shown on the Sunday, when, even in His hour of triumph, as the joyful multitude bore Him down the mountain road. He stopped at the point where the city burst upon the view, and with tears and lamentations pre- dicted its fate. It ouo-ht to have been the fair citv's bridal day, when she should have been married to the Son of God; but the pallor of death was on her face. He who would have taken her to His heart, as the hen gathers her chick- ens under her wings, saw the eagles already in the air, fly- ing fast to rend her in pieces. 157. In the evenings of this week He went out to Bethany; but in all probability He spent most of the nights alone in the open air. He wandered about in the solitude of the hill-top and among the olive-groves and gardens with which the sides of the mount were covered; many a time, perhaps, going along the same road down which the procession had passed, and, as He looked across the valley, from the point where He had stopped before, at the city sleeping in the moonlight, startling the night with 134 THE LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST cries more bitter than the lamentation which overawed the multitude; many a time repeating to His lonely heart the great truths He had uttered in the presence of the Greeks. 158. He was terribly alone. The whole world was against Him, — Jerusalem panting for His life with passion- ate hate, the tens of thousands from the provinces turned from Him in disappointment. Not one even of His apos- tles, not even John, was in the least aware of the real situation, or able to be the confidant of His thoug-hts. This was one of the bitterest drops in His cup. He felt, as no other person has ever felt, the necessity of living on in the world after death. The cause He had inaugurated must not die. It was for the whole world, and was to endure through all generations and visit every part of the globe. But after His departure it would be left in the hands of His apostles, who were now showing themselves so weak, unsympathetic, and ignorant. Were they fit for the task? Had not one of them turned out a traitor? Would not the cause, when He was gone, — so perhaps the tempter whispered, — go to wreck, and all His far-reaching plans for the regeneration of the world vanish like the baseless fabric of a vision? 159. Yet He was not alone. Among the deep shadows of the gardens and upon the summits of Olivet, He sought the unfailing resource of other and less troubled days, and found it still in His dire need. His Father was with Him; and, pouring out supplications with strong crying and tears. He was heard in that He feared. He hushed His spirit with the sense that His Father's perfect love and wisdom were appointing all that was happening to Him, and that He was glorifying His Father and fulfilling the work given Him to do. This could banish every fear, and fill Him with a joy unspeakable and full of glory. 160. At last the end drew very near. The Thursday THE END 125 evening arrived, when in every house in Jerusalem the Passover was eaten. Jesus also with the Twelve sat down to eat it. He knew that it was His last night on earth, and that this was His farewell meetino- with His own. Ha])pily there has been preserved to us a full account of it, with which every Christian mind is familiar. It was the greatest evening in His life. His soul overflowed in indescribable tenderness and grandeur. Some shadows indeed fell across His spirit in the earlier hours of the evening. But they soon passed; and throughout the scenes of the washing of the disciples' feet, the eating of the Passover, the institution of the Lord's Supper, the farewell address, and the great high-priestly prayer, the whole glory of His character shone out. He completely resigned Himself to the genial impulses of friendship, His love to His own flowing forth without limit; and, as if He had forgotten all their imperfections. He rejoiced in the • anticipation of their future successes and the triumph of His cause. Not a shadow intercepted His view of the face of His Father or dimmed the satisfaction with which He looked on His own work just about to be completed. It was as if the Passion were already past, and the glory of His Exaltation were already breaking around Him. 161. But the reaction came very soon. Rising from the table at midnight, they passed through the streets and out of the town by the eastern gate of the city, and, cross- ing the Kedron, reached a well-known haunt of His at the foot of Olivet, the garden of Gethsemane. Here ensued the awful and memorable Agony. ]t was the final access of the mood of depression which had been struggling all the week with the mood of joy and trust whose culmination had been reached at the supper table. It was the final onset of temptation, from which His life had never been free. But we fear to analyze the elements of the scene. 126 THE LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. We know that any conception of ours must be utterly unable to exhaust its meaning". How, above all, can we estimate in the faintest degree the chief element in it, — the crushing, scorching pressure of the sin of the world, which He was then expiating? 162. But the struggle ended in a complete victory. While the poor disciples were sleeping away the hours of preparation for the crisis which was at hand. He had thor- oughly equipped Himself for it; He had fought down the last remnants of temptation; the bitterness of death was past; and He was able to go through the scenes which fol- lowed with a calmness which nothing could ruffle, and a majesty which converted His trial and crucifixion into the pride and glory of humanity. 163. The Trial. — He had just overcome in this struggle , when through the branches of the olives He saw, moving in the moonlight down the opposite slope, the mass of His enemies comino- to arrest Him. The traitor was at their head. He was well acquainted with his Master's haunt and probably hoped to find Him there asleep. For this reason he had chosen the midnight hour for his dark deed. It suited his employers well too, for they were afraid to lay hands on Jesus in the day-time, dreading the temper of the Galilean strangers who filled the city. But they knew how it would overawe His friends, if, getting His trial over during the night, they could show Him in the morning, when the populace awoke, already a condemned criminal in the hands of the executors of the law. They had brought lanterns and torches with them, thinking they might find their victim crouching in some cave, or that they might have to pursue Him through the wood. But He came forth to meet them at the entrance to the garden, and they quailed like cravens before His majestic looks and wither- THE END. 127 ing words. He freely surrendered Himself into their hands, and they led Him back to the city. It was probably about midnio'ht; and the remaining: hours of the nio-ht and the early hours of the morning were occupied with the legal proceedings which had to be gone through, before they could gratify their thirst for His life. 164. There were two trials, an ecclesiastical one and a civil one, in each of which there were three stages. The former took place, first before Annas, then before Caiaphas and an informal committee of the Sanhedrim, and, lastly, before a reg-ular meetino- of this court: the latter took place, first before Pilate, then before Herod, and, lastly, before Pilate again. 165. The reason of this double legal process was the political situation of the country. Judgea, as has been already explained, was directly subject to the Roman em- pire, forming a part of the province of Syria, and being governed by a Roman officer, who resided at Csesarea. But it was not the practice of Rome to strip those countries which she had subdued of* all the forms of native govern- ment. Though she ruled with an iron hand, collecting her taxes with severity, suppressing every sign of rebellion with promptitude, and asserting her paramount authority on great occasions, yet she conceded to the conquered as many of the insignia as possible of their ancient power. She was especially tolerant in matters of religion. Thus the Sanhedrim, the supreme ecclesiastical court of the Jews, was still permitted to try all religious causes. Only, if the sentence passed was a capital one, its execution could not take place without the case being tried over again be- fore the governor. So that, when a prisoner was convicted by the Jewish ecclesiastical tribunal of a capital crime, he had to be sent down to Caesarea and prosecuted before the civil court, unless the governor happened to be at the time 128 THE LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. in Jerusalem. The crime of which Jesus was accusv^d was one which naturally came before the ecclesiastical court. This court passed on Him a death sentence. But it had not the power to carry it out. It had to hand Him on to the tribunal of the governor, who happened at the time to be in the capital, which he generally visited at the Passover. 166. Jesus was conducted first to the palace of Annas. He was an old man of seventy, who had been high priest a score of years before, and still retained the title, as did also five of his sons who had succeeded him, thouo^h his son-in-law Caiaphas was the actual high-priest. His age, ability, and family influence gave him immense social weight, and he was the virtual, though not formal, head of the Sanhedrim. He did not try Jesus, but merely wished to see Him and ask a few questions; so that He was very soon led away from the palace of Annas to that of Caia- phas, which probably formed part of the same group of official buildings 167. Caiaphas, as ruling high-priest, was president of the Sanhedrim, before which Jesus was tried. A legal meeting of this court could not be held before sunrise, per- haps about six o'clock. But there were many of its mem- bers already on the spot, who had been drawn toget-her by their interest in the case. They were eager to get to work, both to gratify their own dislike to Him and to prevent the interference of the populace with their proceedings. Ac- cordingly they resolved to hold an informal meeting at once, at which the accusation, evidence and so forth might be put into shape, so that, when the legal hour for opening their doors arrived, there might be nothing to do but to repeat the necessary formalities and carry Him ofl" to the governor. This was done; and, while Jerusalem slept, these eager judges hurried forward their dark designs. THE END. 129 168. They did not begin, as might have been expected, witii a clear statement of the 'crime with which He was cliarged.. Indeed, it woidd have been difficult for them to do so, for they were divided among themselves. Many thino^s in His life which the Pharisees regarded as criminal were treated by the Sadducees with indifference; and other acts of His, like the cleansing of the temple, which had enraged the Sadducees, afforded gratification to the Phari- sees. 169. The high-priest began with questioning Him as to His disciples and doctrine, evidently with the view of dis- covering whether He had taught any revolutionary tenets, which might form a ground of accusation .before the gov- ernor. But Jesus repelled the insinuation, indignantly as- serting that He had ever spoken openly before the world, and demanded a statement and proof of any evil He had done. This unusual reply induced one of the minions of the court to smite Him on the mouth with His fist — an act which the court apparently did not rebuke, and which showed what amount of justice He had to expect at the hands of His judges. An attempt was then made to bring proof against Him, a number of witnesses repeating va- rious statements they had heard Him make, out of which it was hoped an accusation might be constructed. But it turned out a total failure. The witnesses could not ao-ree among themselves; and when at last two were got to unite in a distorted report of a saying of His early ministry, which appeared to have some color of criminality, it turned out to be a thing so paltry that it would have been absurd to appear with it before the governor as the ground of a serious charg-e. 170. They were resolved on His death, but the prey seemed slipping out of their hands. Jesus looked on in absolute silence, while contradictory testimonies of the I 130 THE LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. witnesses demolished each other. He quietly took His natural position far above His judges. They felt it; and at last the president, in a transport of rage and irritation, started up and commanded Him to speak. Why was He so loud and shrill? The humiliating spectacle going on in the witness-box and the silent dignity of Jesus were be- ginning to trouble even these consciences, assembled in the dead of night. 171. The case had completely broken down, when Caia- phas rose from his seat, and, with theatrical solemnity, asked the question: "I adjure Thee by the living God, that Thou tell us whether Thou be the Christ the Son of God." It was a question asked merely in order to induce Jesus to criminate Himself. Yet He who had kept silence when He mig^ht have spoken now spoke when He might have been silent. With great solemnity He answered in the affirmative, that He was the Messiah and the Son of God. Nothing more was needed by His judges. They unani- mously pronounced Him guilty of blasphemy and worthy of death. 172. The whole trial had been conducted with precipi- tancy and total disregard of the formalities proper to a court of law. Everything was dictated by the desire to arrive at guilt, not justice. The same persons were both prosecutors and judges. No witnesses for the defence were thought of. Though the judges were doubtless per- fectly conscientious in their sentence, it was the decision of minds long ago shut against the truth and possessed with the most bitter and revengeful passions. 173. The trial was now looked upon as past, the legal proceedings after sunrise being a mere formality, which would be got over in a few minutes. Accordingly, Jesus was given up as a condemned man to the cruelty of the jailors and the mob. Then ensued a scene over which one THE END. ]31 would gladly draw a veil. There broke forth on Him an Oriental brutality of abuse which makes the blood run cold. Apparently the Sanhedrists themselves took part in it. This Man, who had baffled them, impaired their authority and exposed their hypocrisy, was very hateful to them. Sadducean coldness could boil up into heat enough when it was really roused. Pharisaic fanaticism was inventive in its cruelty. They smote Him with their fists, they spat on Him, they blindfolded Him, and, in derision of His prophetic claims, bade Him prophesy who struck Him, as they took their turn of smiting Him. But we will not dwell on a scene so disgraceful to human nature. 174. It was probably between six and seven in the morning when they conducted Jesus, bound with chains, to the residence of the governor. What a spectacle that was! The priests, teachers, and judges of the Je\^ish nation leading their Messiah to ask the Gentile to put Him to death! It was the hour of the nation's suicide. This was all that had come of God's choosing them, bearing them on eagles' wings and carrying them all the days of old, sending them His prophets and deliverers, redeeming them from Egypt and Babylon, and causing His glory for so many centuries to pass before their eyes! Surely it was the very mockery of Providence. Yet God was not mocked. His designs march down through history with resistless tread, waiting not on the will of man; and even this tragic hour, when the Jewish nation was turning His dealings into derision, was destined to demonstrate the depths of His wisdom and love. 175. The man before whose judgment-seat Jesus was about to appear was Pontius Pilate, who had been governor of Judaea for six years. 'He was a typical Roman, not of the antique, simple stamp, but of the imperial period; a lo2 THE LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. man not without some remains of the ancient Roman jus- tice in his soul, yet pleasure-loving, imperious, and corrupt. He hated the Jews whom he ruled, and, in times of irrita- tion, freely shed their blood. They returned his hatred with cordialit}'-, and accused him of every crime, malad- ministration, cruelty, and robbery. He visited Jerusalem as seldom as possible; for, indeed, to one accustomed to the pleasures of Rome, with its theaters, baths, games, and gay society, Jerusalem, with its religiousness and ever- smoldering revolt, was a dreary residence. When he did visit it, he stayed in the magnificent palace of Herod the Great; it being common for the officers sent by Rome into conquered countries to occupy the palaces of the displaced sovereig-ns. 176. Up the broad avenue, which led through a fine park, laid out with walks, ponds, and trees of various kinds, to the front of the building, the Sanhedrists and the crowd which had joined the procession, as it moved on through the streets, conducted Jesus. The court was held in the open air, on a mosaic pavement in front of that portion of the palace which united its two colossal wings. 177. The Jewish authorities had hoped that Pilate would accept their decision as his own, and without going into the merits of the case, pass the sentence they desired. This was frequently done by provincial governors, espe- cially in matters of religion, "which, as foreigners, they could not be expected to understand. Accordingly, when he asked what the crime of Jesus was, they replied, " If He were not a malefactor, we would not have delivered Him up unto thee." But he was not in the mood of concession, and told them that, if he was not to try the culprit, they must be content with such a punishment as the law per- mitted them to inflict. He seems to have known something of Jesus. "He knew that for envy they had delivered THE END. 133 Him." The triumphal procession of Sunday was sure to be reported to him; and the neglect of Jesus to make use of that demonstration for any political end may have con- vinced him that He was politically harmless. His wife's dream may imply that He had been the subject of conver- sation in the palace; and perhaps the polite man of the world and his lady had felt the ennui of their visit to Jeru- salem relieved by the story of the young peasant enthu- siast who was bearding the fanatic priests. 178. Forced against their hopes to bring forward formal charges, the Jewish authorities poured out a volley of accusations, out of which these three clearly emerged, — that He had perverted the nation, that He forbade to pay the Roman tribute, and that He set Himself up as a king. In the Sanhedrim they had condemned Him for blasphemy ; but such a charge would have been treated by Pilate, as they well knew, in the same way as it w^as afterwards treated by the Roman governor Gallio, when preferred against Paul by the Jews of Corinth. They had therefore to invent new charges, which might represent Jesus as formidable to the government. It is humiliating to think that, in doing so, they resorted not only to gross hypocrisy, but even to deliberate falsehood; for how else can we characterize the second charge, when we remember the answer He gave to their question on the same subject on the previous Tuesday? 179. Pilate understood their pretended zeal for the Roman authority. He knew the value of this vehement anxiety that Rome's tribute should be paid. Rising from his seat to escape the fanatical cries of the mob, he took Jesus inside the palace to examine Him. It was a solemn moment for himself, though he knew it not. What a terri- ble fate it was which brought him to this spot at this time! There were hundreds of Roman officials scattered over the 134 THE LIFE OP JESirS CHRIST. empire, conducting their lives on the same principles as his was guided by; why did it fall to him to bring them to bear on this case? He had no idea of the issues he was deciding. The culprit may have seemed to him a little more interesting and perplexing than others; but He was only one of hundreds constantly passing through his hands. It could not occur to him that, though he appeared to be the judge, yet both he and the system he represented were on their trial before One whose perfection judged and exposed every man and every system which approached Him. He questioned Him in regard to the accusations brought against Him, asking especially if He pretended to be a king. Jesus replied that He made no such claim in the political sense, but only in a spiritual sense, as King of the Truth. This reply would have arrested any of the nobler spirits of heathendom, who spent their lives in the search for truth, and was perhaps framed in order to find out whether there was any response in Pilate's mind to such a suggestion. But he had no such cravings and dis- missed it with a laugh. However, he was convinced that, as he had supposed, there lurked nothing of the demagogue or Messianic revolutionist behind this pure, peaceful, and melancholy face ; and, returning to the tribunal, he announced to His accusers that he had acquitted Him. 180. The announcement was received with shrieks of disappointed rage and the loud reiteration of the charges against Him. It was a thoroughly Jewish spectacle. Many a time had this fanatical mob overcome the wishes and decisions of their foreign masters by the sheer force of clamor and pertinacity. Pilate ought at once to have released and protected Him. But he was a true son of the system in which he had been brought up — the statecraft of compromise and manoeuvre. Amidst the cries with which they assailed his ears he was glad to hear one which offered THE END. 135 him an excuse for getting rid of the whole business. They were shouting that Jesus had excited the populace " through- out all Jewry, beginning from Galilee unto this place." It occurred to him that Herod, the ruler of Galilee, was in town, and that he might get rid of the troublesome ajffair by handing it over to him; for it was a common procedure in Roman law to transfer a culprit from the tribunal of the territory in which he was arrested to that of the territory in which he was domiciled. Accordingly, he sent Him away in the hands of his body-guard, and accompanied by His indefatigable accusers, to the palace of Herod. 181. They found this princeling, who had come to Jerusalem to attend the feast, in the midst of his petty court of flatterers and boon companions, and surrounded by the bodyguard which he maintained in imitation of his foreign masters. He was delighted ,to see Jesus, whose fame had so long been ringing through the territory over which he ruled. He was a typical Oriental prince, who had only one thought in life — his own pleasure and amuse- ment. He came up to the Passover merely for the sake of the excitement. The appearance of Jesus seemed to prom- ise a new sensation, of which he and his court were often sorely in want; for he hoped to see Him work a miracle. He was a man utterly incapable of taking a serious view of anything, and even overlooked the business about which the Jews were so eager, for he began to pour out a flood of rambling questions and remarks, without pausing for any reply. At last, however, he exhausted himself, and waited for the response of Jesus. But he waited in vain, for Jesus did not vouchsafe him one word of any kind. Herod had forgotten the murder of the Baptist, every impression being written as if on water in his characterless mind; but Jesus had not forsfotten it. He felt tliat Herod should have been ashamed to look the Baptist's friend in the face; 136 THE LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. He would not stoop even to speak to a man who could treat Him as a mere wonder-worker, who might purchase his judge's favor by exhibiting his skill; He looked with sad shame on one who had abused himself till there was no conscience or manliness left in him. But Herod was utterly incapable of feeling the annihilating force of such silent disdain. He and his men of war set Jesus at naught, and, throwing over His shoulders a white robe, in imitation of that worn at Rome by candidates who were canvassing for office, to indicate that He was a candidate for the Jewish throne, but one so ridiculous that it would be useless to treat Him with anything but contempt, sent Him back to Pilate. In this guise He retraced His weary steps to the tribunal of the Roman. 182. Then ensued a course of procedure on the part of Pilate by which he made himself an image of the time- server, to be exhibited to the centuries in the light falling on him from Christ. It was evidently his duty, when Jesus returned from Herod, to pronounce at once the sentence of acquittal. But, instead of doing so, he resorted to expedi- ency, and, being hurried on from one false step to another, was finally hurled down the slope of complete treachery to principle. He proposed to the Jews that, as both he and Herod had found Him innocent, he should scourge and then release Him; the scourging being a sop to their rage, and the release a tribute to justice. 183. The carrying out of this monstrous proposal was, however, interrupted by an incident which seemed to offer to Pilate once more a way of escape from his difficulty. It was the custom of the Roman governor on Passover morn- ing to release to the people any single prisoner they might desire. It was a privilege highly prized by the populace of Jerusalem, for there were always in jail plenty of pris- oners who, by rebellion against the detested foreign yoke. THE END. 137 had made themselves the heroes of the multitude. At this stage of the trial of Jesus, the mob of the city, pouring from street and alley in the excited Oriental fashion, came streaming up the avenue to the front of the palace, shout- ing for this annual gift. The cry was for once welcome to Pilate, for he saw in it a loophole of escape from his dis- agreeable position. It turned out, however, to be a noose through which he was slipping his ileck. He offered the life of Jesus to the mob. For a moment they hesitated. * But they had a favorite of their own, a noted leader of revolt against the Roman domination; and besides, voices instantly began to whisper busily in their ears, putting every art of persuasion into exercise in order to induce them not to accept Jesus. The Sanhedrists, in spite of the zeal they had manifested the hour before for law and order, did not scruple thus to take the side of the champion of sedition; and they succeeded only too well in poisoning the minds of the populace, who began to shout for their own hero, Barabbas. " What, then, shall I do with Jesus?" asked Pilate, expecting them to answer, "Give us Him too." But he w^as mistaken; the authorities had done their work successfully; the cry came from ten thousand throats, " Let Him be crucified!" Like priests, like people; it was the ratification by the nation of the decision of its heads. Pilate, completely baffled, angrily asked, " Why, what evil hath He done?" But he had put the decision into their power; they were now thoroughly fanaticized, and yelled forth, " Away with Him; crucify Him, crucify Him!" 184. Pilate did not yet mean to sacrifice justice utterly. He had still a move in reserve; but in the meantime He sent away Jesus to be scourged — the usual preliminary to crucifixion. The soldiers took Him to a room in their liar- racks, and feasted their cruel instincts on His sufferings. We will not describe the sliatne and pain of this revolting 6* 138 THE LIFE OP JESUS CHRIST. punishment. What must it have been to Him, with His honor and love for human nature, to be handled by those coarse men, and to look so closely at human nature's utter- most brutality ! The soldiers enjoyed their v^ork and heaped insult upon cruelty. When the* scourging was over, they set Him down on a seat, and, fetching an old cast-off cloak, flung it, in derisive imitation of the royal purple, on His shoulders; they' thrust a reed into His hands for a scepter; they stripped some thorn-twigs from a neighbor- ing bush, and, twining them into the rough semblance of a crown, crushed down their rending spikes upon His brow. Then, passing in front of Him, each of them in turn bent the knee, while, at the same time, he spat in His face, and plucking the read from His hand, smote Him with it over the head and face. 185. At last, having glutted their cruelty, they led Him back to the^lrtbunal, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. The crowds raised shouts of mad laughter at the soldiers' joke; and, with a sneer on his face, Pilate thrust Him forward, so as to meet the gaze of all, and cried, " Behold the man!" He meant that surely there was no use of doing any more to Him; He was not worth their while; could one so broken and wretched do any harm? How little he understood his own words! That *' Ecce Homo " of his sounds over the world and draws the eyes of all generations to that marred visage. And lo, as we look, the shame is gone; it has lifted off Him and fallen on Pilate himself, on the soldiery, the priests, and the mob. His outflashing glory has scorched away every speck of disgrace, and tipped the crown of thorns with a hundred points of flaming brightness. But just as little did Pilate understand the temper of the people he ruled, when he supposed that the sight of the misery and helplessness of Jesus would satisfy their thirst for vengeance. Their ob- THE END. 139 jection to Him all along had been that one so poor and un ambitious should claim to be their Messiah; and the sight of Him now, scourged and scorned b\' the alien soldiery, yet still claiming to be their King, raised their hate to mad' ness, so that they cried louder than ever, " Crucify .Him, crucify Him." 186. Now at last, too, thev srave vent to the real charo^e against Him, which had all along been burning at the bot- tom of their hearts, and which they could no longer sup- press: "We have a law," they cried, "and by that law He ought to die, because He made Himself the Son of God." But these words struck a chord in Pilate's mind which they had not thought of. In the ancient traditions of his native land there were many legends of sons of the gods, who in the days of old had walked the earth in hum- ble guise, so that they were indistinguishable from common men. It was dangerous to meet them, for an injury done them mio;ht brinor" down on the offender the wrath of the gods, their sires. Faith in these antique myths had long died out, because no men were seen on earth so different from their neighbors as to require such an explanation. But in Jesus Pilate had discerned an inexplicable some- thino- which affected him with a vao^ue terror. And now the words of the mob, " He made Himself the Son of God," came like a flash of lightning. They brought back out of the recesses of his memory the old, forgotten stories of his childhood, and revived the heathen terror, which forms the theme of some of the greatest Greek dramas, of committino; unawares a crime which misrht evoke the dire vengeance of Heaven. Might not Jesus be the Son of the Hebrew Jehovah — so his heathen mind reasoned — as Cas- tor and Pollux were the sons of Jupiter? He hastily look Him inside the palace again, and, looking at Him with new awe and curiosity, asked, "Whence art Thou?" But 140 THE LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. Jesus answered him not one word. Pilate had not listened to Him when He wished to explain everything to him; he had outraged his own sense of justice by scourging Him; and if a man turns his back on Christ when He speaks, the hour, will come when he will ask and receive no answer. The proud governor was both surprised and irritated, and demanded, " Speakest Thou not to mo? Knowest Thou not that I have power to crucify Thee, and have power to re- lease Thee?" to which Jesus answered with the indescri- bable dignity of which the brutal shame of His torture had in no way robbed Him, " Thou couldst have no power at all against Me, except it were given thee from above." 187. Pilate had boasted of his power to do w^hat he chose with the prisoner; but he was in reality very weak. He came forth from his private interview determined at once to release Him. The Jews saw it in His face; and it made them bring out their last weapon, which they had all along been keeping in reserve: they threatened to com- plain against him to the emperor. This was the meaning of the cry with which they interrupted his first words, " If thou let this man go, thou art not Caesar's friend." This had been in both their minds and his all through the trial. It was this which made him so irresolute. There was no- thing a Roman governor dreaded so much as a complaint against him sent by his subjects to the emperor. At this time it was specially perilous; for the imperial throne was occupied by a morbid and suspicious tyrant, who delighted in disgracing his own servants, and would kindle in a mo- ment at the whisper of any of his subordinates favoring a pretender to royal power. Pilate knew too well that, his administration could not bear inspection, for it had been cruel and corrupt in the extreme. Nothing is able so per- ■ emptorily to forbid a man to do the good he would do as the evil of his past life. This was the blast of temptation THE END. 141 which finally swept Pilate off his feet, just when he had made up his mind to obey his conscience. He was no hero, who would obey his convictions at any cost. He was a thorough man of the world, and saw at once that he must surrender Jesus to their will. 188. However, he was full not only of rage at being so completely foiled, but also of an overpowering religious dread. Calling for water, he washed his hands in the presence of the multitude, and cried, " T am innocent of the blood of this just Person." He washed his hands when he should have exerted them. Blood is not so easily washed off. But the mob, now completely triumphant, de- rided his scruples, rending the air with the cry, " His blood be upon us and on our children! " 189. Pilate felt the insult keenly, and, turning on them in his anger, determined that he, too, should have his tri- umph. Thrusting Jesus forward more prominently into view, he began to mock them by pretending to regard Him as really their king, and asking, " Shall I crucify your king?" It was now their turn to feel the sting of mockery; and they cried out, " We have no king but Cagsar." What a confession from Jewish lips! It was the surrender of the freedom and the history of the nation, Pilate took them at their word, and forthwith handed Jesus over to be cruci- fied. 190. The Crucifixion. — They had succeeded in wresting their victim from Pilate's unwilling hands, "and they took Jesus and led Him away." At length they were able to gratify their hatred to the uttermost, and they hurried Him off to the place of execution with every demonstration of inhuman triumph. The actual executioners were the sol- diers of the governer's guarc^; but in moral significance the deed belonged entirely to the Jewish authorities. They 143 THE LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. could not leave it in charge of the minions of the law to whom it belonged, but with undignified eagerness headed the procession themselves, in order to feast their vindic- tiveness on the sio-ht of His sufferings. 191. It must by this time have been about ten o'clock in the morning. The crowd at the palace had been grad- ually swelling. As the fatal jjrocession, headed by the Sanhedrists, passed on through the streets, it attracted great multitudes. It happened to be a Passover holiday, so that there w^ere thousands of idlers, prepared for any excitement. All those especiall}'^ who had been inoculated with the fanaticism of the authorities poured forth to wit- ness the execution. It was therefore throuo-h the midst of myriads of cruel and unsympathizing onlookers that Jesus went to His death. 192. The spot where He suffered can not now be iden- tified. It was outside the arates of the citv, and was doubt- less the common place of execution. It is usually called Mount Calvary, but there is nothing in the Gospels to jus- tify such a name, nor does there seem to be any hill in the neighborhood on which it could have taken place. The name Golgotha, "place of a skull," may signify a skull-like knoll, but more probably refers to the ghastly relics of the tragedies happening there that might be lying about. It was probably a wide, open space, in which a multitude of spectators might assemble; and it appears to have been on the side of a much frequented thoroughfare, for, besides the stationary spectators, there were others passing to and fro who joined in mocking the Sufferer. 193. Crucifixion was an unspeakably horrible death. As Cicero, who was well acquainted with it, says, it was the most cruel and shameful of all punishments. " Let it never," he adds, "come near the body of a Roman citizen; nay, not even near his thoughts, or eyes, or ears." It was THE END. 143 reserved for slaves and revolutionaries whose end was meant to be marked with special infamy. Nothing could be more unnatural and revolting than to suspend a living man in such a position. The idea of it seems to have been suggested by the practice of nailing up vermin in a kind of revengeful merriment on some exposed place. Had the end come with the first strokes in the wounds, it would still have been an awful death. But the victim usually lingered two or three days, with the burning pain of the nails in his hands and feet, the torture of overcharged veins, and, worst of all, his intolerable thirst, constantly increasing. It was impossible to help moving the body so as to get re- lief from each new attitude of pain; yet every movement brought new and excruciating agony. 194. But we gladly turn away from the awful sight, to think how by His strength of soul. His resignation, and His love, Jesus triumphed over the shame, the cruelty, and horror of it; and how, as the sunset with its crimson glory makes even the putrid pool burn like a shield of gold and drenches with brilliance the vilest object held up against its beams, He converted the symbol of slavery and wicked- ness into a symbol for whatever is most pure and glorious in the world. The head hung free in crucifixion, so that He was able not only to see what was going on beneath Him, but also to speak. He uttered seven sentences at in- tervals, which have been preserved to us. They are seven windows by which we can still look into His very mind and heart, and learn the impressions made on Him by what was happening. They show that He retained unimpaired the serenity and majesty which had characterized Him through- out His trial, and exhibited in their fullest exercise all the qualities which had already made His character illustrious. He triumphed over His suff"erings not by the cold severity of a Stoic, but by self- forgetting* love. When He was 144 THE LIFE OP JESUS CHRIST. fainting beneath the burden of the cross in the Via Dolo- rosa, He forgot His fatigue in His anxiety for the daughters of Jerusalem and their children. When they were nailing Him to the tree, He was absorbed in a prayer for His mur- derers. He quenched the pain of the first hours of cruci- fixion by His interest in the penitent thief and His care to provide a new home for His mother. He never was more completely Himself — the absolutely unselfish Worker for others. 195. It was, indeed, only through His love that He could be deeply wounded. His physical sufferings, though intense and prolonged, were not greater than have been borne by many other sufferers, unless the exquisiteness of His bodily organism may have heightened them to a degree which to other men is inconceivable. He did not linger more than five hours — a space of time so much briefer than usual, that the soldiers, who were about to break His legs, were surprised to find Him already dead. His worst sufferings were those of the mind. He whose very life was love, who thirsted for love as the hart pants for the water-brooks, was encircled with a sea of hatred and of dark, bitter, hellish passion, that surged round Him and flung up its waves about His cross. His soul was spotlessly pure; holiness was its very life; but sin pressed itself against it, endeavoring to force upon it its loathsome con- tact, from which it shrank through every fiber. The mem- bers of the Sanhedrim took the lead in venting on Him every possible expression of contempt and malicious hate, and the populace faithfully followed their example. These were the men He had loved and still loved with an unquench- able passion; and they insulted, crushed, and trampled on His love. Through their lips the Evil One reiterated again and again the temptation by which He had been all His life assaulted, to save Himself and win the faith of the THE END. 145 nation by some display of supernatural power made for His own advantage. That seething mass of human beings, whose faces, distorted with passion, glared upon Him, was an epitome of the wickedness of the human race. His eyes had to look down on it, and its coarseness, its sadness, its dishonor of God, its exhibition of the shame of human nature were like a sheaf of spears gathered in His breast. 196. There was a still more mysterious woe. Not only did the world's sin thus press itself on His lovnng and holy soul in those near Him; it came from afar, — from the past, the distant, and the future, — and met on Him. He was bearing the sin of the world; and the consuming fire of God's nature, which is the reverse side of the light of His holiness and love, flamed forth against Him, to scorch it away. So it pleased the Lord to put Him to grief, when He who knew no sin was made sin for us. 197. These were the sufferings which made the cross appalling. After some two hours. He withdrew Himself completely from the outer world and turned His face to- wards the eternal world. At the same time a strange dark- ness overspread the land, and Jerusalem trembled beneath a cloud whose murky shadows looked like a gathering doom. Golgotha was well-nigh deserted. He hung long silent amidst the darkness without and the darkness within, till at length, out of the depths of an anguish which human thought will never fathom, there issued the cry, " My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken Me? " It was the moment when the soul of the Suff'erer touched the very bottom of His misery. 198. But the darkness passed from the landscape and the sun shone forth again. The spirit of Christ, too, emerged from its eclipse. With the strength of victory won in the final struggle. He cried, "It is finished!" and then, with perfect serenity, breathed out His life on a verse K 7 146 THE LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. of a favorite psalm: "Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit." 199. The Resurrection and Ascension — There never was an enterprise in the world which seemed more com- pletely at an end than did that of Jesus on the last Old Testament Sabbath. Christianity died with Christ, and was laid with Him in the sepulcher. It is true that when, looking back at this distance, we see the stone rolled to the mouth of the tomb, we experience little emotion; for we are in the secret of Providence and know what is going to happen. But when He w-as buried, there was not a single human being that believed He would ever rise again before the day of the world's doom. 200. The Jewish authorities were thoroughly satisfied of this. Death ends all controversies, and it had settled the one between Him and them triumphantly in their favor. He had put Himself forward as their Messiah, but had scarcely any of the marks which they looked for in one with such claims. He had never received any important national recoirnition. His followers were few and uninflu- ential. His career had been short. He was in the grave. Nothing more was to be thought of Him. 201. The breakdown of the disciples had been complete. When He was arrested, " they all forsook Him and fled." Peter, indeed, followed Him to the high-priest's palace, but only to fall more ignominiously than the rest. John fol- lowed even to Golgotha, and may have hoped against hope that, at the very last moment. He might descend from the cross to ascend the Messianic throne. But even the last moment went by with nothing done. What remained for them but to return to their homes and their fishing as dis- appointed men, who would be twitted during the rest of their lives with the folly of following a pretender, and THE END. 147 asked where the thrones were which He had promised to seat them on ? 202. Jesus had, indeed, foretold His sufferings, death, and resurrection. But they never understood these say- ings; they forgot them or gave them an allegorical turn; and, when He was actually dead, these yielded them no comfort whatever. The women came to the sepulcher on the first Christian Sabbath, not to see it empty, but to em- balm His body for its long sleep. Mary ran to tell the dis- ciples, not that He was risen, but that the body had been taken away and laid she knew not where. When the women told the other disciples how He had met .them, "their words seemed to them as idle tales and they be- lieved them not." Peter and .John, as John himself informs us, " knew not the Scripture, that He should rise from the dead." Could anything be more pathetic than the words of the two travelers to Emmaus, " We trusted that it had been He which should have redeemed Israel?" When the disciples were met together, " they mourned and wept." There never were men more utterly disappointed and dispirited. 203. But we can now be glad that they were so sad. They doubted that we might believe. For how is it to be accounted for, that in a few days afterwards these very men were full of confidence and joy, their faith in Jesus had revived, and the enterprise of Christianity was again in motion with a far vaster vitality than it had ever before possessed? They say the reason of this was that Jesus had risen, and they had seen Him. They tell us about their visits to the empty tomb, and how He appeared to Mary Magdalene, to the other women, to Peter, to the two on the way to Emmaus, to ten of them at once, to eleven of them at on€e, to James, to the five hundred, and so forth. Are these stories credible? They might not be, if they stood 148 THE LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. alone. But the alleged resurrection of Christ was accom- panied by the indisputable resurrection of Christianity. And how is the latter to be accounted for except by the former? It might, indeed, be said that Jesus had filled their minds with imperial dreams, which He failed to real- ize; and that, having once caught sight of so magnificent a career, they were unable to return to their fishing-nets, and so invented this story, in order to carry on the scheme on their own' account. Or it might be said that they only fancied they saw what they tell about the Risen One. But the remarkable thing is that, when they resumed their faith in Him, they were found to be no longer pursuing worldly ends, but intensely spiritual ones; they were no longer ex- pecting thrones, but persecution and death; yet they ad- dressed 'themselves to their new work with a breadth of intelligence, an ardor of devotion, and a faith in results which they had never shown before. As Christ rose from the dead in a transfigured body, so did Christianity. It had put off" its carnality. What effected this change? They say it was the resurrection and the sight of the risen Christ. But their testimony is not the proof that He rose. The incontestable proof is the change itself, — the fact that suddenly they had become courageous, hopeful, believing, wise, possessed with noble and reasonable views of the world's future, and equipped with resources sufficient to found the Church, convert the world, and establish Chris- tianity in its purity among men. Between the last Old Testament Sabbath and the time, a few weeks afterwards, when this stupendous change had undeniably taken place, some event must have intervened which can be regarded as a sufficient cause for so great an efi'ect. The resurrec- tion alone answers the exigencies of the problem, and is therefore proved by a demonstration far more cogent than perhaps any testimony could be. It is a happy thing that THE END. 149 this event is capable of such a proof; for, if Christ be not risen, our faith is vain; but if He be risen, then the whole of His miraculous life becomes credible, for this was the greatest of all the miracles; His divine mission is demon- strated, for it must have been God who raised Him up; and the most assuring glance which history affords is given into the realities of the eternal world. 204. The risen Christ lingered on earth long enough fully to satisfy His adherents of the truth of His resurrec- tion. They were not easily convinced. The apostles treated the reports of the holy women with scornful incredulity; Thomas doubted the testimony of the other apostles; and some of the five hundred to whom He appeared on a Galilean mountain doubted their own eyesight, and only believed when they heard His voice. The loving patience with which He treated these doubters showed that, though *His bodily appearance was somewhat changed. He was still the same in heart as ever. This was pathetic- ally shown too by the places w^hich He visited in His glori- fied form. They were the old haunts where He had prayed and preached, labored and suffered, — the Galilean moun- tain, the well-beloved lake, the Mount of Olives, the village of Bethany, and, above all, Jerusalem, the fatal city which had murdered her own Son, but which He could not cease to love. 205. Yet there were obvious indications that He be- longed no more to this lower world. There was a new reserve about His risen humanity. He forbade Mary to touch Him, when she would have kissed His feet. He appeared in the midst of His own with mysterious sudden- ness, and just as suddenly vanished out of sight. He was only now and then in their company, no longer according them the constant and familiar intercourse of former days. At length, at the end of forty days, when the purpose for 150 THE LIFE OP JESUS CHRIST. which He had lingered on earth was fully, accomplished and the apostles were ready in the power of their new joy to bear to all nations the tidings of His life and work, His glorified humanity was received up into that world to which it rightfully belonged.* No life ends even for this world when the body by which it has for a little been made visible disappears from the face of the earth. It enters into the stream of the ever- swelling life of mankind, and continues to act there with its whole force for evermore. Indeed, the true magnitude of a human being can often only be measured by what this after-life shows him to have been. So it was with Christ. The modest narrative of the Gospels scarcely prepares us for the outburst of creative force which issued from His life when it appeared to have ended. His influence on the modern world is the evidence of how great He was; for there must have been in the cause as much as there is in the effect. It has overspread the life of man and caused it to blossom with the vigor of a spiritual spring. It has absorbed into itself all other influences, as a mighty river, pouring along the center of a continent, receives tributa- ries from a hundred hills. And its quality has been even more exceptional than its quantity. But the most important evidence of what He was, is to be found neither in the general history of modern civiliza- tion nor in the public history of the visible Church, but in the experiences of the succession of genuine believers, who with linked hands stretch back to touch Him through the Christian generations. The experience of myriads of souls, redeemed by Him from themselves and from the world, proves that history was cut in twain by the appear- ance of a Regenerator, who was not a mere link in the chain of common men, but One whom the race could not from its own resources have produced — the perfect Type, the Man of men. The experience of myriads of conscien- 161 152 THE LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. ces, the most sensitive to both the holiness of the Divine Being and their own sinfulness that the world has ever seen yet able to rejoice in a peace with God which has been found the most potent motive of a holy life, proves that in the midst of the ages there was wrought out an act of rec- onciliation by which sinful men may be made one with a holy God. The experience of myriads of minds, rendered blessed by the vision of a God who to the eye purified by the Word of Christ is so completely Light that in Him there is no darkness at all, proves that the final revelation of the Eternal to the world has been made by One who knew Him so well that He could not Himself have been less than Divine. The life of Christ in history can not cease. His in- fluence waxes more and more; the dead nations are waiting till it reach them, and it is the hope of the earnest spirits that are brino^inor in the new earth. All discoveries of the modern world, every development of juster ideas, of higher powers, of more exquisite feelings in mankind, are only new helps to interpret Him; and the lifting-up of life to the level of His ideas and character is the programme of the human race. HINTS FOR TEACHERS AND QUESTIONS FOR PUPILS. It will be observed that what has been attempted in the foregoing pages has been to throw into prominence the great masses of our Lord's life, and point clearly out its hinge-events, details being as much as possible curtailed. These details are more popularly known than any other part of human knowledge; what most readers of the Gos- pels need is a scheme let down on the details, in whose divisions they will naturally arrange themselves, so that the life may present itself to the eye as a whole; and an en- deavor has here been made to supply this want. But in a Bible-class course extending beyond twelve or fifteen les- sons, more of the details might be introduced with advan- tage. There is therefore subjoined the outline of a more extended course, along with a few questions on the text intended to stimulate pupils to further thought and inquiry.* Preliminary. /. Character/stfcs of the Four Gospels. — Matthev) — Hebrew thought and diction; well acquainted with Old Testament in the original; frequent quotations, "That it might be fulfilled; " aim to prove that Jesus was the Mes- *As a teacher's apparatus I would recommend— (1) Andrews' Bible StudenVs Life of our'Lord, an unpretentious but excellent book, in which the apologetic diffi- culties in the details of the life are treated with much candor and success; (2) Ne- ander's Lt/e 0/ C?irist (Bohn series), the best life, in my opinion, yet published, though sadly marred by too great concessions to the spirit of denial, which had reached its climax in Germany at the time when it was written; and (3) Farrar's well-known Life, which will lend vividness to the teacher's remarks. These books, along with a good Commentary on the Gospels, a Harmony of the Gospels, and a Handliook of Bible Geography, are sufficient. Eugene Stock's Lessons on the Life of mir Lord are familiar to Sabbath-school teachers. 153 154 THE LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. siah; "the kingdom " very prominent; methodical group- ings and combinations ; group of parables, chaps, xiii., xxiv., XXV.; of miracles, chaps, viii., ix. Mark — Graphic and epic; supposed to be pupil of Peter, whose fiery spirit pervades his book; poetic objectivity and minuteness; de- tails as to the looks and gestures of Jesus, the amazement He created, etc.; aim to show how He proved Himself to be the Messianic King by a succession of astonishing deeds ; stormful haste, " forthwith," " immediately," and the like, very frequent. Luke — More of the trained his- torian than the other Evangelists; Hellenic grace of style; series of cameos; gives reasons of events ; philosophic ; psychological comments; Pauline spirit and universality; Christ not only for the Jews but for mankind; genealogy of Jesus traced back beyond Abraham. John — Supplies what the other Evangelists omitted; dwells specially on the work of Jesus in Judaea; His private interviews; His interior life; His most profound and mysterious sayings; lyric fervor, profundity, and sublimity of farewell dis- courses. (See Lange, Life of Christy i. 243-285, and arti- cle by Professor Bruce in Catholic Presbyterian for July, 1879.) 2. When were our Gospels Written ? — See Tischendorf's little pamphlet of this name (translation published by Lon- don Tract Society); Lange, vol. i.; Westcott on The Study of the Gospels. It would probably be out of place in a Bible-class course to go at any length into this vexed and vast question. The most important point is the date of John's Gospel; see Luthardt, yiS^. Loh7i the Author of the Fourth Gospel (Clark). " The man who hides from him- self what Christianity and the Christian revelation are takes the parts of it to pieces, and persuades himself that with- out divine interposition he can account for all the pieces. HINTS AND QUESTIONS. 155 Here is something from the Jews and something from the Greeks. Here are miracles that may be partly odd natural events, partly nervous impressions, and partly gradually growing legends. Here are books, of which we may say that this element was contributed by this party, and the other by that, and the general coloring by people who held partly of both. In such ways as these Christianity is taken down and spread over several centuries. But when your operation is done, the living whole draws itself together again, looks you in the face, refuses to be conceived in that manner, reclaims its scattered members from the other cen- turies back to the first, and re-asserts itself to be a great burst of coherent life and light, centering in Christ. Just so you might take to pieces a living tissue, and say there is here only so much nitrogen, carbon, lime, and so forth; but the energetic peculiarities of life going on before your eyes would refute you by the palpable presence of a mys- tery unaccounted for." (Principal Rainy, New College Inaugural Address, 1874.) 3. Other Sources of the Life of Jesus. — References in Josephus, Tacitus, etc., of little moment except to show how small insight these observers had into the most im- portant event of their times. Jewish history and antiqui- ties explain the period. Ancient history exhibits "the full- ness of time." Geography of Palestine. 4. The Annunciation. Prophecy of Baptist's birth. Visit of Mary to Elizabeth. Events connected with John's birth. 1. For what reasons may the Life of Christ he regarded as the most interesting subject of human thought ? 3. Why are tlie first three Emngelists called the Synoptistsf 3. What is the meaning of tJie saying tlmt the scenery of Palestine is the fifth Gospel? 156 THE LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. Chapter I. Par. 1. On the exact date of the birth of Jesus, see the essays at the beginning of Andrews' Life. Luke's state- ment that the taxing took place "when Cyrenius was gov- ernor of Syria " used to be pointed to as a mistake, Cyre- nius having been governor ten years later; but the discov- ery that Cyrenius was twice governor (see Andrews, 3-6, 70-73) is a remarkable instance of how alleged mistakes in the Gospels are often made to disappear by further inquiry. 2. On the genealogies in Matthew and Luke, see An- drews, in loc. 3. On Bethlehem, see Stanley, Sinai and Palestine. 4. It has often been attempted to throw discredit on the story of our Lord's supernatural origin by comparing it to the heathen stories of how sons of the gods were born of mortal mothers; but, first, such an idea was utterly re- pugnant to the Jewish conception of God, and could not spring up on Jewish soil; and, secondly, even these stories, poured forth from the heathen mind, were indications of a deep sense in humanity of the need of the Incarnation. 9. On the star, see Andrews and Pressense, in loc. 10. The Herods of the New Testament — 1. Herod the Great, in whose reign Jesus was born, reigned over the whole of Palestine; died very soon after Jesus' birth; his kingdom was divided at his death among his sons. 2. Herod Antipas, son of the former, was at his father's death made tetrarch of Galilee and Peraea; the murderer of the Baptist; Jesus was sent to him by Pilate. 3. Herod Agrippa I., grandson of Herod the Great, had as great dominions as he; put to death James, and imprisoned Peter; HINTS AND QUESTIONS. 157 died miserably, as is related in Acts xii. 4. Herod Agrip- pa II., son of Agrippa I. ; Paul appeared before him, Acts xxv. 10. Archelaus was soon deposed from the throne of Judeea, which became a part of the Roman province of Syria. //. Farrar's chapter on the Youth of Jesus is particularly good. 16. There are three opinions as to the brothers and sisters of Jesus: first, that they were His full brothers and sisters; secondly, that they were the children of Joseph by a former marriage; thirdly, that they were His cousins. The Greek word for " brethren " is used with such latitude as to cover all these meanings. See the note in Plumptre's Introduction to the Epistle of James. 9. To wTmt extent must this star have been supernatural ? 18. What portions of Scripture were most quoted by Jesus ? What is the Septuagint ? What indications are there tJiat Jesus did not generally speak on the spur of the moment, hut thought His discourses carefully out beforehand ? 22. What views has Milton expressed on this subject in '■'■Paradise Regained,^'' and what is their value? Chapter II. On the subjects treated in the first half of this chapter, the first 100 pages of Reuss' Christian Theology in the A2yostolic Age will be found full of light. 27. It would be useful here to give a sketch of the history of the interval between the Old and New Testament histories, of which so little is popularly known. See Ewald's History of Israel^ vol. v., or Stanley's Jeioish Churchy vol. iii. On the various modes in which Rome 158 THE LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. ruled subject territories, see Ramsay's Roman Antiquities^ pp. 131 ff. 22. Synagogue arrangements, Farrar, i. 221 ff. The ritual of Presbyterian churches is a close imitation of that of the synagogue, whereas Catholic ritual imitates that of the temple. See Dods' Presbyterianism older than Chris- tianity. 30, 31. On the Pharisees, see Mozley's remarkable dis- course in his University Sermoiis. Farrar, i., chap, xxxi., will supply useful illustration of what is said in the text in regard to the Scribes. A fund of information on these paragraphs in Hausrath's N'ew Testament Times, 35. A somewhat lengthened lesson might here be intro- duced on the old Testament prophecies and types. See Fairbairn's Prophecy and Typology. 45. John the Baptist, excellent subject for class essay. 49. Owen has a remarkable chapter on this subject in his work on the Holy Spirit (Book II. chap, iv.) 50. Potuit nan peccare.^ or JSfon potuit peccare f UU- man, Sinlessness of tTesus, and Christiaii Instructor for .1830, pp. 1-96, and 118-224. 51. The official significance of the Temptation is ex- plained in the text; but it would be well to give also its personal significance for the character of Jesus and His relation to His Father. Temptation to unbelief, presump- tion, and pride. Trench, Gospel Studies. 53. On the plan of Jesus, see Neander, in loc. 26. What are the Apocrypha ? 31, 32. Give parallels from the Jiistory of Christianity. 33. Compare the aspects of society in our country at present with those of Palestine in the time of Christ. 36. Give the names of persons wlio are said to have been waiting for the Messiah, and compile from tlie Song of Mary and else- where an outline of ichat tlieir expectatians were. HINTS AND QUESTIONS. 159 38. Compile from scattered references in the Gospels an outline of the conception which the scribes and tJie populace ent&i'tained of the Messiah and His era. 41. Give instances of m£n who have achieved a great life-work in a short time and died young. 42. It Juis been maintained that Jesus changed His plan^ because He first addressed Himself to the Jewish nation as a whole, but aftericards organized the Christian Church from the nucleus of a few disciples. WJiat would you say in answer to such a view ? 45. Wlmt was the difference between John's baptism and Christian baptism ? 46. Some think that Jesus and John had met before : is it likely ? On 'wlmt grounds may it be supposed that the dove and the voice from lieaven were perceived only by Jesus and the Bap- tist f 49. Collect the texts ichich speak of tlie influence of the Holy Ghost on the human nature of Jesus. 53. Narrate Milton's account of the Temptation in "-Paradise Re- gained.'''' J)ivisi07is of the Ministry. What Andrews says an this subject, p. 109, is very good and clear, and so are his characterizations' of the dif- ferent periods, pp. 120, 167-173, 259, 296-301. 54. Sketch of the Geography of Palestine. See Stanley, Sinai and Palestine j Thompson, The Land and the Book j brief sketch in Farrar, p. 52 ff. Chapter III. 59. There were two cleansings of the temple, the one at the beginning and the other at the close of the ministry. Such doable accounts of similar events in the Gospels have been seized upon as examples of the tendency in 160 THE LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. speech to multiply one event into two. But it is forgotten that this is a tendency not only of speech but of action, and that when a person has done anything once, there is a likelihood that he will do it again. The Great Feasts. — 1. The Passover, held in April, just before the harvest began. 2. Pentecost, held fifty days after the Passover, at the conclusion of the corn harvest and before the vintage. 3. The Feast of Tabernacles, held in autumn after all the fruits had been gathered in. 4- The feast of Dedication, which Jesus once attended, took place in December. 57. Collect the sayings of John about Jesus, and of Jesus about John. Chapter IV. On Galilee, see Farrar, i. chap. xii. Neander's account of the means of Jesus is very valuable. For the convenience of teachers who may wish to follow out in detail the inci- dents of each period, the following list of the events of this year may be given (see Andrews, pp. 198 flf. and 536): Second call of Peter, Andrew, James, and John. Busy Sabbath: preaches in synagogue of Capernaum and cures demoniac; heals Peter's mother-in-law, and cures many after sunset. Next morning goes to mountain to pray, then sets out on preaching tour in the neighboring towns, in one of which He cures a leper. Returns to Capernaum ; heals man " borne of four," forgiving his sins; accused of blasphemy; walks by seaside and teaches; calls Matthew; accused as Sabbath-breaker for HINTS AND QUESTIONS. 161 allowing His disciples to pluck ears of corn and for heal- ing wilhered hand on Sabbath. Retires to a mountain ; calls the Twelve ; delivers the Sermon on the Mount. Again in Capernaum ; heals centurion's servant. Another preaching tour; raises widow's son at Nain; receives message from Baptist and delivers panegyric on him; dines with Simon the Pharisee, and is anointed by the woman who was a sinner ; parable of Two Debtors. In Capernaum again ; casts out dumb devil ; visited by His mother and brethren ; teaches from ship. Crossing the lake, He stills a tempest; cures demoniacs in country of Gadarenes. Back in Capernaum ; Matthew's feast ; raises Jairus' daughter and cures woman with issue of blood. On another tour of the Galilean towns He revisits Nazareth ; sends forth the Twelve ; hears of Baptist's murder. 76. Some of the many questions in reference to the possibility and the proof of miracles would naturally, in an extended course, be treated here; see Mozley on Miracles. There can not, I think, be reasonable doubt that our Lord gave His sanction to the view that the demoniacs were actually possessed by evil spirits. 80. Connection of the work of Christ with the fate of nature. 84. On the teaching of Jesus many good remarks will be found in Harris' Great Teacher. On its parabolic form. Trench's introductory chapters in his Parables are good. A much fuller account of what Jesus taught than is given in the text would be very desirable in an extended course, and might be gathered from the relative portions of any of the handbooks of New Testament Theology (Weiss, Reuss, van Oosterzee, Schmidt). 92, 94, 100, 109-113. It would be a useful exercise for the members of a class to illustrate these paragraphs by abundant quotations from the Gospels. L 7* 162 THE LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. 103. Christ's method of dealing with inquirers. 105. On the apostolate, see Bruce, Training of the Twelve. 107. Sketches of the leading apostles. The difficulty about the choice of Judas is only a fragment of the larger difficulty of reconciling the foreknowledge of God and man's free will. 109. For some of the remarks on the character of Jesus I am indebted to Keim, Geschichte Jesu. 114. Ullm aim's Sinlessness of Jesus. 115. Here the two names by which Jesus called Him- self— Son of man and Son of God — should be explained. 76. Mention as many great and good men as you can w7w ha/oe been called mad. 77. W?iat reasons may he suggested why Jesus sometimes used means and sometimes dispensed with them ? 79. What proof of the credibility of the gospel account of the mira- cles of Christ is afforded hy the confession that John worked Twne? 80. Is it correct to speak of the miracles of Jesus as interruptions of the order of nature ? 81. What form of missionary effort seeks to imitate both the preach- ing and healing activity of Christ ? 82. Can the popular notions about the wicked life of Mary Magda- lene be proved from the Gospels to be incorrect? 83. With what evidence would you support the statement that Jesus, though the Man of Sorrows, was yet the most joyful of men f 86. What portions of the Old Testament specially justify this des- ' cription of the Oriental mind ? 89. Enumerate the parables of Jesus, and make a list of His other most remarkable figures of speech. 96. How would you account for the great difference between the circle of Christ's ideas recorded by the Synoptists, and the circle of His ideas which we find in John? 97. Which of the Evangelists uses the phrase, " t?^e kingdom of hea/oen,'''' and what does it mean? 103. Enumerate the private interviews of Jesus. HINTS AND QUESTIONS. 163 108. What proof of their Master's supernatural greatness is afforded by the character and achievements of the Twelve ? 114. What conclusions can you draw from the fact that Jesus was sinless f 115. Prove tlie divinity of Christ as fully as possible from the first three Evangelists, and sJimo that it is a complete mistake to allege iJmt it is taught only by the fourth of tlie Evangelists. Chapter V. The events of this year were the following : — Leaving Capernaum, He crosses the lake ; feeds five thousand ; walks on the sea; rescues sinking Peter. Again in Capernaum ; discourse on bread of life ; many dis- ciples forsake Him ; He says that Judas has a devil ; dis- cussion about eating bread with unwashen hands. Long journey to Tyre and Sidon, where He cures Syro-Phoeni- cian woman's daughter; then to Decapolis, where He heals a deaf man and feeds four thousand; returns to Capernaum. Leaves it again ; cures blind man at Bethsaida ; visits Caesarea Philippi ; the great confession ; the Transfiguration ; cures demoniac boy; announces His death. Again in Capernaum ; pays tribute. Visit to Jerusalem at Feast of Tabernacles ; teaches in temple ; attempt to arrest Him ; Nicodemus seeks justice for Him ; adulteress brought to Him ; heals blind man, who argues with rulers ; parable of Good Shepherd. Final departure from Galilee. Journey towards Jerusalem ; John and James wish to rain fire on a Samaritan village; the Seventy sent out; journey through Peraea; parable of the Good Samaritan; the Lord's Prayer; dumb demoniac healed; encounters with Pharisees; parable of Kich Fool; "signs of the times;" heals infirm woman; warned against Herod. At Feast of Dedication in Jerusalem ; visit to Bethany ; nearly stoned in the city. 164 THE LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. Retires to Betliabara; while at a feast in a Pharisee's house on the Sabbath, heals dropsical man, and speaks parable of Great Supper; several parables directed against Phari- sees. Raising of Lazarus. Retires to Ephraim ; heals ten lepers ; more parables against the Pharisees ; blesses children ; the rich young man ; Salome's request ; Jericho — Bartimaeus, Zaccheus ; thence to Bethany. Luke gives by far the fullest account of the events of the period between the final departure from Galilee and the final arrival at Bethany, chaps, ix.-xix. 124-128. It would be a good exercise for the pupils to collect texts from the Gospels illustrating these paragraphs. 136. The effect of the Baptist's death on the adherents of Jesus is put in a very striking, perhaps exaggerated way in Philochristus. 143. At Feast of Tabernacles and Feast of Dedication. • 122. HoiD far does conscientiousness justify conduct? Illustrate your answer l>y historical parallels to the conduct of the Pharisees. 129. Can you show from the Old Testament that mirades were not necessarily evidences of a divine mission ? Chapter Vlo Details not referred to in the text : — Supper at Bethany and anointing of Jesus by Mary ; barren fig-tree cursed; second purging of temple; widow's mites ; several parables ; details of parting meeting with the apostles ; the portents that accompanied His death ; details of His burial ; restoration of Peter. HINTS AND QUESTIONS. 165 145. The Passover took place this year on April 6th. 146. The anachronism of using the days of the Chris- tian week will be condoned for the sake of clearness. 152. I can not adopt the theory of Judas' career ex- pounded in De Quincey's well-known and brilliant essay — that he thought Jesus too unworldly and hesitating, and precipitated Him into a position in which He would be compelled to exhibit His divine glory, but with no thought that He would suffer Himself to be executed. Its strong point is the suicide of Judas, which is held to have shown a kind of nobility in his nature. But it is inconsistent, I think, with his peculation and his kiss, and especially with the tone in which Scripture speaks of him. 156. Here an account might be given of the destruc- tion of Jerusalem, to be got from Josephus. 160. On the difficult question whether it was the Pas- chal supper which Jesus ate with the apostles, and whether John places the crucifixion on the same day as the other Evangelists, see Andrews, 368 ff., and Farrar, Excursus x.; also an article by Rev. G. Brown in the British and For- eign Evangelical Review for October, 1879. 169. The silence of Jesus. 172. On the legal aspects of the trial, see articles by A. Taylor Innes, Advocate, in Contemporary Revieio, August and October, 1877. 180. Herod was ultimately banished by Gaul, 189. Pilate was also ultimately deprived of his position, and is said by Eusebius to have at length killed himself, " wearied with misfortunes." His wife, under the name of Claudia Procula, is included among* the Catholic saints. 193. The cross was probably of the form in which it is familiarly represented, though sometimes it was like the letter T or the letter X. It only raised the victim a foot or 166 THE LIFE OF JESUS CHKIST. two above the ground. The soldier was able to reach the lips of Jesus with a hyssop-stalk. 195. The circumstance that blood and water flowed from His pierced side has been held by eminent medical authori- ties to prove that Jesus died literally of a broken heart — broken with sorrow. See the opinions of Sir J. Y. Simp- son and others in the Appendix to Hanna's Last Day of our Lord^s Passion. 199. With the argument of this section compare Paley, Evidences of Christianity^ Part i. 201. Details of Peter's fall. It was when passing from the committee-room, where He had been informally tried, to a barrack-room, where He was detained till the legal hour for opening the court arrived, that " Jesus turned and looked upon Peter." 144. Quote a passage from Acts to sTww from Turn many different countries the scattered Jews gathered to the annual feast. 147. The meaning of Hosanna and of Hallelujah ? 155. Wlio were the persons not. of AbraJiam^s seed with whom Jesus came in contact in tJie course of His ministry ? 163. Collect the texts in which tlie majesty of our Lord's appearance is mentioned. 181. In wJiat points was tJie trial of Paul which resulted in his be- ing sent to Rome similar to that of Jesus ? 194. What were the seven last sentences of Jesus ? 203. WJiat is the meaning of the remark., that the Christian Church is the best biography of Christ ? ^'^^•^■■- '"■ ■ , ' v. A^r (y^