vimt mAXims \ov6usvov irpds ayvciav." HIS RELATION TO THE JEWISH PEOPLE. 49 and there, becoming teachers of Divine wisdom, collected disciples around them. Such a one was John. Consecrated from his birth, by a sign from heaven, to his Divine calling, he led a rigid and ascetic life from his very childhood. Had we nothing but Josephus's* account to guide us, we might suppose that John only differed from the other teachers of the desert in the fact that the spirit of his teaching was more practical, and tended to carry him out into a wider field of action. While they only revealed the truths of a higher life to such as sought them in their solitude, he felt constrained to go forth and raise his re proving voice aloud among the multitude, to condemn the Jews for their vices and their hypocrisy, and to call them, abandoning their false security and their debasing trust in outward works, to seek the genuine piety which comes from the heart. This part of John's ministry, viz., his work as a reformer, Josephus has brought out prominently ; while he has entirely failed to notice the indelible stamp of the Baptist's la bours left upon the history ofthe Theocracy. . John had retired to the desert region west of the Dead Sea, and there lived a life of abstinence and austerity, harmonizing well with his inward grief for the corruptions of his people. Like his type, Elias, he wore coarse garments, and, satisfied his wants with a nourish ment which nature offered in a species of locusts, sometimes used as food, and wild honey .t § 35. John as Baptist and Preacher of Repentance. While John was thus sighing in solitude over the sins of a degener ate people, and praying that God would soon send the promised Deliverer, the assurance was vouchsafed to him from above that the Messiah should soon be revealed to him. He felt himself called to declare this assurance to the people, and to exhort them to prepare their souls for the approaching epoch. He abandoned the solitude of the desert for the banks of the Jordan,| gathered the people in hosts about him, and announced to them the coming appearance of both the Messiah and his kingdom, which ideas he never separated. He pro claimed to them that God would sift his people, and that the unworthy should be condemned and excluded from the Theocracy. He de nounced as false and treacherous the prevailing idea that theocratic descent and the observance of outward ceremonies were the only * Archseol., xviii., v. 2. t In the Ebionitish recension of Matthew, we find the food of John described as i*c\t Syptov, ov t\ yeVais 7/v tou pdvva, iis lyKpls iv eXaiui (" it had the taste of manna, as a cake baked in oil." — Num., xi., 8). The simple statement of Matthew is here misrepresented, and even falsified. The aKpilcs (locusts) seemed to this writer food unworthy for John, and he makes lyKpiieS (cakes) out of them, and thus gets a chance of comparing John's food with manna. X We follow the statement of Luke (iii., 2), which "has the advantage in distinguishing from each other the periods in John's manifestation. D 50 JOHN THE BAPTIST. requisites for admittance into Messiah's kingdom, and exhorted all to true repentance as the one essential preparation. He made use of baptism as a symbol of preparatory consecration to the Messiah's kingdom, a course to which he might have been led by the lustrations common among the Jews, and by the intimations of prophecy, such as Mai., iii.; Zach., xiii.; Ezek., xxxvi., 25, even if the baptism of prose lytes was not then extant among the Jews. Doubtless the Baptist stood in a special relation to those that flocked about him as followers ; although, as preacher of repentance, as the voice of one crying in the wilderness (Isai., xl., 3), whose duty it was to prepare the way for the Messiah amid a people estranged from God, he held a general and common relation to all. § 36. Relations ofthe Pharisees and Sadducees to ihe Baptist. We are naturally led here to inquire into the relations which John sustained to the different classes of the Jewish people. Was he, as preacher of repentance, only a man of the people, and did the Phari sees, the hierarchical party, manifest their jealous opposition from the very first, or did it arise by degrees at a later period ? Of one thing we may be sure, from Matt., iii., 7, viz., that many Pharisees were to be found among the number that crowded about John and submitted to his baptism. Yet Christ, in one of his last discourses at Jerusalem (Matt., xxi.,- 32), drew a striking contrast between the publicans who believed in John's prophetic calling, and were led by him to repent ance, and the Pharisees, who persevered in their self-sufficiency and unbelief. The words of Matt., xi., 16, seem also to indicate that the general spirit of the people was as hostile to John as it subsequently showed itself to Christ,* and that only a few, open to the lessons of heavenly wisdom, admitted the Divine mission of the Baptist. So, also, in Luke, vii., 29, 30, the course of the people and the publicans, in following John and submitting to his baptism, is contrasted with the very opposite conduct of the Pharisees and lawyers, who " rejected the counsel of God against themselves." Still, Matthew (iii., 7) states expressly, that "many Pharisees and Sad ducees came to John's baptism," and the form of the statement distin guishes these from the ordinary throng. It seems somewhat unhistor ical that these sects, so opposite to each other, should be named to gether here, as well as in some other places in the Gospels ; but an explanation is perhaps to be found in the fact that it was customary to name them together on the ground of their common hatred to Chris tianity. It appears improbable that men of the peculiar religious opin ions of the Sadducees should have been attracted by the preacher of repentance, the forerunner of the Messiah ; nor does John, in his severe sermon, make any special reference to that sect, an omission HIS RELATION TO THE PHARISEES. 5] wtrich could hardly have occurred had any of the sect so far departec from their ordinary habits as to listen to his preaching* It does not follow, however, that the mention of the Pharisees is in the same pre dicament; on the contrary, the historical citation of the latter may have given rise to the unhistorical mention of the Sadducees. Noi does the fact that the Pharisees, at a later period, maintained an attitude of hostility towards John prov« that they had Opposed him from the beginning. His rigid asceticism and zeal fbr the Messiah were in en tire harmony with the spirit of their sect; and they could listen with approval to his energetic reproofs and calls to repentance, so long as they were aimed only at the people and the publicans. So, in the Christian Church, ardent reformers and witnesses to the truth have been favoured even by the heads of the hierarchy, so long as they attacked only the common faults and vices of men. But the first assault upon the hierarchy itself roused all its hatred and its vengeance. In the earlier period of John's preaching, then, there may have been nothing to excite the jealousy of the . Pharisees. Moreover, it is not likely that all who bore the name of Pharisees were fully imbued with the spirit ofthe sect. Although the majority of them, intent only upon selfish and party aims, may have regarded John's ministry with an eye of suspicion, there were probably among them some earnest, upright men, upon whom his preaching could not fail to make an impression. These two thoughts may serve to reconcile Matt., iii., 7, with the other passages quoted, in which, the hostility of the Pharisees is mentioned. Again, the expression of Christ in John, v;, 35, seems to imply that the Pharisees received and approved John's prophecy ofthe coming Mes siah, but did not allow his words to sink deep into their hearts or to operate upon their thoughts and inclinations. The seyere sermonf re ported by the Evangelists was certainly not adapted to such as came to John, penitent and broken-hearted, to obtain consolation and guidance ; but rather to the haughty and arrogant Pharisee, who felt sure' of his share in the Messiah's kingdom, appear when it might, without either repentance or forgiveness. It was these that he stigmatized as a " brood of vipers," and no sons of Abraham. It was these to whom he said, in tones of warning and reproof, " Who has told you that by simple baptism you shall escape God's coming judgment 1 Would you really escape it 1 Then repent, and do works meet for repentance. Trust not to your saying ' Abraham is our father ;' for I tell you that * We cannot support the expression of Matthew hy the statement of Josephus (xviii., I., 4), that the Sadducees were accustomed to accommodate their own convictions to the principles of the Pharisees, on account of the strong hold which the latter had upon tbe people. In this case, at least, no such accommodation was required, from the repute in which John was held among the Pharisees. t Luke, iii., 7; Matt., iii., 7. Luke reports it as addressed to the people; Matthew to the Pharisees and Sadducees. 52 JOHN THE BAPTIST. the developement of the kingdom is not confined to the race of Abra ham ; nay, from these very stones that lie upon the river bank, God can raise up his children." In these last words he meant to tell them that if the Jews disgraced their Theocratic descent, God would remove his kingdom from them and impart it unto strangers. He ends by proclaiming that the Mes siah would sift his people thoroughly, and exclude all that should be found unworthy. Such preaching must have been enough to imbitter and alienate the Pharisees, even if'vthey had been before disposed to approve and favour the preacher. § 37. Relations of John to the People, and to the narrower circle of his own Disciples. True penitents who came to the Baptist inquiring the way of Hfe found in the severe ascetie a kind and condescending teacher. He gave them no vague and high-sounding words, l>ut adapted his instruc tions with minute care to their special condition and circumstances. John resembled the austere preachers of repentance who sprung up in the Middle Ages in more than one respect ; but especially in the two fold relation which he sustained, to the people generally, and to his dis ciples in particular. While the latter imitated his own ascetic piety in order to fit themselves for preachers of repentance, he did not demand of the former to abandon their ordinary line. of life, even when it was one obnoxious to the prejudices of the Jews ; the soldier was not re quired to leave the ranks, nor the tax-gatherer his office, but only to fulfil their respective duties with honesty and fidelity. All alike were commanded to do good ; but only those whose occupations were sinful had to abandon them, and at his command many did so* ^ 38. John's Demands upon the People compared with those of Christ. — His humble Opinion of his own Calling. But how very moderate do John's requirements appear in compari son with those of Christ, who demanded at the very outset an absolute sacrifice of the will and the affections ! This difference arose natural ly, however, from the different positions which they occupied. John was fully conscious that the moral regeneration which was indispensa ble to admittance into the Messiah's kingdom could only be accom plished by a Divine principle of life ; and, knowing that to impart this was beyond his power, he confined himself to a preparatory purifica tion of the morals of the people. The great, the God-like feature ot his character was his thorough understanding of himself and his calling. Filled as he was with enthusiasm, he yet felt that he was but the hum ble instrument of the Divine Spirit, called, not to found the new crea- * Matt., xxiv, 32. HIS RELATION TO MESSIAH. 53 tion, but only to proclaim it ; nor did the thronging of eager thousands to hang upon his lips, nor the enthusiastic love of his own immediate followers, ever ready to glorify their master, in the least degree blind his perceptions of duty, or raise him above his calling. Convinced that he was inspired of God to prepare, and not to create, he never pre tended to work miracles, nor did his disciples, strongly as he impressed them, ever attribute miraculous powers to him. CHAPTER II. RELATION OF THE BAPTIST TO MESSIAH. § 39. John's Explanation of his Relation to the Messiah. Tlie Bap tism by Water and by Fire. GAREPULLY, however, as John avoided exciting false expecta tions, they could hardly fail to arise at a period so full of fore boding and hope for the coming of Messiah, after time enough had elapsed for him to make a powerful impression upon the public mind as a preacher of repentance andproclaimer of a better future.* Many ->i those whom his preaching had so deeply moved became uneasy to ascertain his true relation to the Messiah ; and as his language on the subject was always concise, and rather suggestive than explanatory, they were inclined to think that his real character was only kept in the back ground for the time, and would afterward be gradually unfolded. But when the Baptist saw that men mused in their hearts whether he were the Christ or no,\ he resolved to define his relation to the Mes siah explicitly and unmistakeably. His mission, he told them, was to baptize by water, as a symbol ofthe preparatory repentance which had to open the way for that renewal and purification of the nation by Di vine power which was to be expected in the Messiah ; the lofty one that was to follow, raised so far above himself, that he should be digni fied by performing for him the most menial services. He it was that should baptize them with the Holy Ghost and with fire ; that is to say, that as his (John's) followers were entirely immersed in the water, so the Messiah would immerse the souls of believers in the Holy Ghost, imparted by himself; so that it should thoroughly penetrate their being, and form within them a new principle of life. And this Spirit- baptism was to be accompanied by a baptism offire.\ Those who re- • Paul's words (Acts, xiii., 25) lead us to infer that this took place first towards the end of John's career. t Luke, iii., 15. t Some think the " fire" is used as a symbol of the Holy Ghost, inasmuch as it is em ployed in other places in Scripture to denote Divine influences. In this view of the pas- 64 JOHN THE BAPTIST. fused to be penetrated by the Spirit of the Divine life should be de stroyed by the fire of the Divine judgments. The "sifting" by fire ever goes along with the advance of the Spirit, and consumes all who will not appropriate the latter. So John represents the Messiah as ap pearing with his " fan" in his hands, to purify the '< threshing-floor" of his kingdom, to gather the worthy into the glorified congregation of God, and to cast out the unworthy and deliver them over to the Di vine judgments. § 40. John's Conception of Messiah's Kingdom. Let us inquire now upon what view of the calling and work of the Messiah, and of the nature of his kingdom, these expressions of the Baptist were founded. He contradicts the notion, so prevalent among the Jews, that all the descendants of Abraham who outwardly observed the religion of their fathers would be taken into the Messiah's king dom, while his heavy judgments would fall upon the pagans alone. On the contrary, he maintains the necessity, for all who would enter that kingdom, of a moral new birth, which he sets forth to them by the Spirit-baptism ; and proclaims, as a necessary preparation for this new birth, a consciousness of sin and longing to be free from it ; all which is implied in the word jxejavoia, when stated as the necessary condi tion of obtaining the promised baptism of the Spirit. He expects this kingdom to be visible ; but yet conceives it as purely spiritual, as a community filled and inspired by the Spirit of God, and existing, in communion of the Divine life, with the Messiah as its visible King ; so that, what had not been the case before, the idea of the Theocracy and its manifestation should precisely correspond to each other. He has already a presentiment that the willing among the pagans will be incorporated into the kingdom in place of the unworthy Jews who shall be excluded. The appearance of Messiah will cause a sifting of the Theocratic people. This presupposes that he will not overturn all enemies and set up his kingdom at once by the miraculous power of God, but will manifest himself in such a form that those whose hearts are prepared for his coming will recognize him as Messiah, while those of ungodly minds will deny and oppose him. On the one hand, a com munity of the righteous will gather around him of their own accord ; and, on the other, the enmity of the corrupt multitude will be called forth and organized. The Messiah must do battle with the universal corruption ; and, after the strife has separated the wicked members of sage, as the baptism by water symbolizes preparatory repentance, so that by fire symbol izes the transfiguring and purifying power of the Holy Spirit. Our own opinion is, howev er, that as judgment by fire is spoken of but a few verses after (Luke, iii., 17), it must be taken in the same sense here ; and the baptism by fire referred to the sifting process im mediately mentioned. Thus the fire is the symbol of the power which consumes every thing impure, in the same sense in which God is said to be " a consuming fire." HIS RECOGNITION OF CHRIST'S MESSIAHSHIP. 55 the Theocratic nation from the good, will come forth victorious, and glorify the purified people of God under his own reign. § 41. John's Recognition of Jesus as the Messiah. (1.) Import of his Baptism of Jesus. — (2.) The Continuance of his Ministry. — (3.) Possible Wavering in his Conviction of Christ's Messiahship. — (4.) His Message from Prison. — (5.) Conduct of his Disciples towards Jesus. As John's conception of the Messiah included his office in freeing the people of God from the power of evil, and imparting to them a new life in the life of God, it appears that he presupposed also the fulness of the Holy Ghost dwelling in him in such a way as that he could be stow it upon others. From the first germ of the idea of Messiah in the Prophets down to the time of Christianity itself, we find ever that a just and profound conception of his office involves in it a higher idea of his person. So, perhaps, John, although his expectation of a visible realization of the Theocracy shows him as yet upon Old Testament ground, may have at least touched upon the stand-point of Christianity. His position was very like that held by Simeon, and indeed, in general, by all those Jews who, in advance ofthe sentiments ofthe times, were inspired with earnest longings for the appearance of the Messiah, and thus stood upon the border-land between the two stages of the kingdom of God. And in John's representation of his own inferiority to him " that should come," and in his clear apprehension of the limits of his mission and his power — an apprehension that distinguished him from all other founders of preparatory epochs — we have an assurance that he will never imagine his preparatory stand-point to be a permanent one ; and that, as he feels himself unworthy " to unloose the shoe strings" of the lofty One that is to appear, so he will bow himself in the same humble reverence when He, whom his spiritual sense shall recognize as the expected one, shall appear in person before him. We are fully aware of the objections that may be raised against these conclusions. It may be said, and truly, that one may do homage to an idea, whose general outlines are present to his intuition, but may be unfit to recognize the realization of the idea when presented before his eyes in all its features. The prejudices of his time and circum stances are sure to start up and hinder him from the recognition. But surely, in the case of John, the lowliness of mind and sobriety of judgment to which we have just referred give us ground to expect that he, at least, would so far surmount his peculiar prejudices as to recognize the admission of a higher element into the course of events — to recognize a stand-point even essentially different from his own ; especially as he had himself pointed out beforehand the characteristics of such a difference. Yet we do not wish to deny that doubts may arise, in regard to the fact of John's recognition of Jesus as Messiah. ¦"V' 56 JOHN THE BAPTIST. in the minds of those who do not presuppose the unconditional credi bility of the Gospels. Perhaps the remark above made, in reference to a possible commingling of the subjective and the objective in the Gospel accounts, may be applicable here. But before we proceed with our connected historical recital, we must seek sure historical foot ing, by inquiring into the grounds of the doubts referred to. The following questions, perhaps, express these grounds: If John was really convinced of Christ's Messiahship, why did he continue his independent ministry, and not rather submit himself and all his follow ers as disciples to Christ 1 Why did he wait until after his imprison ment before sending to inquire of Jesus whether he were the Messiah, or men should look for another 1 Why, even after the Baptist's death, did his disciples preserve their separate existence as a sect? How happened it that, in a public proclamation of the Gospel (Acts, x., 37 ; xiii., 25), no stress is laid upon John's divinely inspired testimony con cerning Christ — nay, it is not even quoted — while his exhortations to repentance and his announcement of the coming Messiah are dwelt upon as the preparation for Christ's public ministry ] Do not these difficulties make it doubtful whether John really did, before the time of his imprisonment, recognize Christ's Messiahship 1 Or, is it not probable that the Christian view, which sees in Christ the epxofievoc announced by John, was involuntarily attributed to the Baptist, and so the tradition grew up that he had personally recognized the Messiah- ship of Jesus, and introduced him into his public labours ] In this case we should have to admit that he was first induced, while in prison, by what he heard of Christ, to recognize his calling — and that not only had this fact been transferred to an earlier period in his history, but too much made of it altogether. Now it would be easy to overthrow this whole structure at once, by assuming the genuineness and authority of John's Gospel.* It is true, as has been before said, the disciple, after going beyond his Master, might have seen more in the previously uttered words of the latter than he himself had intended ; but, at any rate, those words must at least have afforded some ground for the disciple's representation. If the above-mentioned doubts are well grounded, John's misrepresenta tion of what occurred between the Baptist and Christ is nothing short of wilful falsehood. The later Christian traditions, indeed, might have admitted such a transposition without the intent to deceive ; but John was an eye-witness. We do not intend, however, to appeal to John's authority, but shall examine the matter on internal evidence, grounded on the nature of the case. * John, i., 7, 15 ; iii., 32 ; v., 33. HIS RELATION TO CHRIST. 57 (1.) Import of the Baptism of Jesus by John. We first consider the baptism of Jesus by John. Those who carry their doubts of John's testimony farthest, dispute even the fact of this baptism. But this is absolutely groundless skepticism ; for all the New Testament accounts, however else they may differ, presuppose the event as a fact. It would be impossible to account even for the origin of such a tradition, if the event itself did not originate it; the very ap plication of John's baptism to the sinless Jesus must have caused diffi culties to the Christian mind, which a peculiar line of thought alone could remove. But, admitting the fact, it cannot be supposed that Christ submitted to the baptism in the same sense, and for the same purpose, as others did ; for we can find no possible connecting link between the sense of sin and the desire for purification and redemption felt by all ordinary applicants for the ordinance, and the consciousness of the sinless Redeemer. It was with this latter, unoriginated con sciousness, however, that Jesus presented himself for baptism. But we cannot suppose that he did it in silence ; such a course might have led the Baptist, if not otherwise enlightened, to suppose that he came forward in the same relation to the ordinance as other men. Its prob ability is diminished, too, in proportion to our idea of John's suscepti bility for the disclosures which Christ might have made to him. We are led, therefore, by the internal necessity of the case, to suppose that, in administering the baptism, he received a higher light in regard to the relation which he himself sustained to Christ. (2.) The Baptist's continuance in his Ministry of Preparation. We must conclude, however, that if John did recognize Jesus as Messiah, he applied to him all his Old-Testament ideas of Messiah as the founder of a visible kingdom. With these views he would expect that Christ would bring about the public recognition of his office by his own Messianic labours, without the aid of his testimony. This ex pectation would naturally cause him to forbear any public testimony to Christ, and to content himself with directing only a few of the most susceptible of his disciples to the Saviour ; but this would have been a merely private affair, forming no part of his open mission to the world. That mission remained always the same, viz., to prepare the way for the Messiah's kingdom, and to point to Him who was soon to reveal himself; not to anticipate his self-revelation, and to declare him to the people by name as the Messiah. This preparatory position of John had to continue until the time when the entrance of Jesus as Theocratic King, upon the establishment of his kingdom, gave the sig nal for all to range themselves under his banners. The Baptist, true to the position that bad been assignpd to him in the Theocratic devel 58 JOHN THE BAPTIST. opement, had to continue his labours until their termination, a termina tion which external circumstances were soon to bring about.* As, therefore, John's testimony was merely private, and never openly laid before the people ; and,«noreover, as its value depended entirely upon the recognition of John's own prophetic calling (a recognition by no means universal among the Jews), there- is no difficulty in accounting for the fact that so little use was made of his testimony in the citation of proofs for Jesus's Messiahship by Peter and Paul, in the passages above referred to.t (3.) Possible Wavering in John's Conviction ofthe Messiahship of Jesus. Suppose, now, that John's faith did waver in his prison — that, in an unhappy hour, be was seized with doubts of Christ's Messiahship — would it follow that he had not before enjoyed and expressed with Di vine confidence his conviction of the truth ? Would the later doubt suffice to do away with the earlier and out-spoken certainty? Can the man who makes such an assertion have any idea of the nature and de velopement of religious conviction and knowledge — of the relation be tween the Divine, the supernatural, and the natural ? It is true that scientific knowledge and conviction, logiftally obtained, can never be lost so long as the intellect remains unimpaired ; but it is quite another thing with religious truths. These do not grow out of logic ; but, pre supposing certain spiritual tendencies and affections, they arise from an immediate contact of the soul with God, from a beam of God's light, penetrating the mind that is allied to him. The knowledge and the convictions which are drawn neither from natural reason nor from the knowledge of the world, but are always rebelled against by the latter until the whole spirit is penetrated by the Divine, can retain their vi tality only by the same going forth of the higher life which gave them * I am gratified to find that Winer, one of the most eminent investigators of Biblical literature, has given an intimation of the view which I have here fully carried out. See his " Biblisches Realworterbuch," i., 692, 2d ed. t Acts, x., 37 ; xiii., 25. Paul had much more occasion to quote John's testimony when preaching to his disciples at Ephesus (Acts, xix., 1-5). There is no ground for asserting positively that he did not quote it, although the passage does not state expressly that he did ; for it remains doubtful whether the words toot' ionv, of verse 4, are applied by Paul to the tp\h\iivos announced by John, or were intended by him to be attributed to the Baptist. What is said of Apollos (Acts, xviii., 25 : he was instructed in the may ofthe Lord, knowing only the baptism, nf John) cannot be understood nakedly of the pure, spiritual Messiahship. This could only be the case if ohs rov icvptov (v. 25) were equivalent to 6to5 Mov (v. 26), and signified merely tlie way revealed by God, the right way of worshipping God. But this cannot be. The word Kvpios must be taken in its specific, Christian sense, as applicable to Christ; an interpretation confirmed by what follows, viz. : he taught diligently the things of the Lord, which cannot refer to the doctrine of God, but to the proclamation of Jesus as Messiah. But if it could be fully proved that all these disciples of John knew as yet no thing of Jesus as .the cpxoucvos announced by the Baptist, it would not affect our assertion at all ; for we have already admitted that the latter only partially directed his followers to Christ as Messiah. HIS RELATION TO CHRIST. 59 Dirth ; only so far as the soul can maintain itself in the same atmo sphere, and in the same tendency to the supernatural and the Divine. So one may, when in the full enjoyment of the higher life, when no vapours of earth dim his spiritual vision, have clear conception and con viction of religious truths, which may perplex him with obscurities at times when the earthly tendencies prevail. And thus we may explain the fluctuations and transitions in the developement of religious life, convictions and knowledge, of which the experience of Christians in all ages affords, instances. It may be said that, although this explanation holds good of religious life in general, it cannot apply to an inspired prophet like John, or to the truths which he obtained from the light of a supernatural revelation. This objection would imply that a single objective revelation is the only source of Christian truth, which is not the case. The apprehension of such truths in every individual mind rests not merely upon this single objective ground, but also upon a repetition of the Divine manifestation to the mind itself. The differ ence between the inspired prophet and the ordinary Christian believer, in regard to the reception of God's truth, is not a difference in kind, but in degree. Christ declared that the least of Christians was greater than John ; words that ill entitle us to draw such a line of distinction between the Baptist and living Christians of all ages as to apply another standard and another law to his religious life. It is true, there is a life less supematuralism which views all Divine communications rather as overlying the mind than incorporating themselves with its natural psy chological developement ; and the opponents of revealed religion cari cature this view to serve their purpose of subverting the doctrines they so bitterly hate. But notwithstanding, the doctrine of such Divine com munication is perfectly in accordance with the facts of the Divine life as they are stated in the Scriptures ; and we are compelled thereby to connect these manifestations with the natural growth of the mind in its receptive powers and spontaneous activity ; to apply the general laws of the mind to the developement of whatever is communicated to it by a higher light. As we have before remarked, John stood between two different stages of the developement of the Theocracy. It is, therefore, not un likely that in times of the fullest religious inspiration, caused in his soul by Christ's revelations to him, he obtained views of the coming kingdom which he could not always hold fast, and his old ideas some times revived and even gained the ascendency. Although he had just conceptions of Messiah's kingdom in regard to its moral and religious ends, he was always inclined to connect worldly ideas with it. But the object of his hopes was not realized. He heard, indeed, a great deal about the miracles of Jesus, but saw him not at the head of his visible kingdom. The signal so long waited for was never given. Is it, there- 60 JOHN THE BAPTIST. fore, matter of wonder if, in some hour' of despondency, the worldly element in the Baptist's views became too strong, and perplexity and doubt arose within him ] (4.) The Message-from Prison. The inquiry which John sent to the Saviour from prison* , shows that his doubts did not refer at all to the superiority of Christ, but to the question whether the mission of the latter was the Messiahship itself, or only a preparation for it. So great was his respect for the author ity of Christ, that he expected the decisive answer to the question from his own lips. Neither the form of the question nor the Saviour's reply favour the supposition that John was led, simply by the reports of Christ's labours which had reached him in prison, to the thought that he might be the ipxpfievoc;. Had this been the case, Christ would have answered him as he did others in similar circumstances ; he would not have warned him not to be perplexed or offended beeause his ground less expectations in regard to the Messiah were not fully realized in Christ's ministry, but, on the contrary, would have cherished a faith which could grow up in one who was languishing in prison, and unable to see with his own eyes the mighty works that were done, and would have encouraged him to yield himself fully up to the dawning convic tion. The warning against OKavdaXLfroQai was precisely applicable to one who had once believed, but whose faith had wavered because his hopes were not fully fulfilled. The answer of Jesus, moreover, shows plainly in what expectations John was disappointed : they were, as we shall have occasion to show hereafter, such as grew out of his Old Testament stand-point, and attributed an outward character to the kingdom of God. (5.) Conduct of John's Disciples towards Jesus. It does not militate at all against our position, in regard to the Bap tist's recognition of Christ, that many of his disciples did not join the Saviour at a later period ; and even that a sect was formed from them hostile to Christianity. We have already seen that it was necessary for John to maintain his independent sphere of labour, and that his position naturally led him to direct only the more susceptible of his disciples to Jesus, and that too by degrees. These latter were probably such as had imbibed more of John's longing desire for " him that was to come," than of the austere and ascetic spirit of the sect. As to the rest, we have only to say that we have no right to judge the master by his scholars, or the scholars by their master. Men who hold a position preparatory and conducive to a higher one, often retain the peculiar and one-sided views of their old ground, and are even driven into an * Matt., xi., 2, 3. *\, HIS RELATION TO CHRIST. 61 attitude of opposition to the new and the better. This seems to have been the case with John's disciples in relation to Christianity. From this full investigation of the question, we cannot but conclude that there is no reason to doubt the historical veracity of the narrative. It is matter of fact, that John openly recognized Jesus as the Messiah when he baptized him. Having secured this firm historical basis, we proceed now, with the greater confidence, to inquire, into the peculiar import of the baptism itself. § 42. The Phenomena at the Baptism, and their Import. (1.) No Ecstatic Vision.— (2.) The EbionitiBh View and its Opposite. — (3.) Devel opement of the Notion of Baptism in New Testament. — {4.) The Baptism of Christ not a Rite of Purification. — (5.) But of Consecration to his Theocratic Keign. — (6.) John's previous Acquaintance with Christ. — (7.) Explanation of John, i., 31. — (8.) The Vision and the Voice ; intended exclusively for the Baptist. Two questions present themselves here : the bearing of the baptism upon John, and its bearing upon Christ. The first can easily be gath ered from what has been said already, and from the concurrent ac counts of the Evangelists. It is clear that John was to be enlightened, by a sign from heaven, in regard to the person who was to be the epxtyevoc- whom he himself had unconsciously foretold. The second, however, is not so easy to answer. The accounts do not harmonize so well with each other on this point, nor are all men agreed in their opinions of the person of Christ ; and these causes have given rise to several different solutions of the question. The point to be settled is this : Was the Divine revelation made on this occasion intended, though in different relations, for both John and Christ ; not merely to give the former bertainty as to the person of Messiah, but to impart a firm consciousness of Messiahship to the lat ter 1 And did Jesus, thus for the first time obtaining this full con sciousness, at the same moment receive the powers essential to his Messianic mission 1 Did what John's eyes beheld take place really and objectively, and the fulness of the Holy Ghost descend upon Je- bus to fit him for his mighty work 1 (1.) No Ecstatic Vision to be supposed in the case of Christ. If we adopt this latter view, we must look at all the phenomena con nected with the baptism, not as merely subjective conceptions, but as objective supernatural_/ae&. It is true, we may imagine a symbolical vision to have been the medium of a Divine revelation common to Christ and John ; but we must certainly be permitted to doubt the ap plication of such a mode of revelation to Christ. It may be. granted that the Prophets were sometimes, in ecstatic vision, carried beyond 62 JOHN THE BAPTIST. themselves and overwhelmed by a higher power : but in these instances there is an abrupt suddenness, an opposition of the human and the Divine ; a leap, so to speak, in the developement of consciousness, which we could hardly imagine in connexion with the specific and dis tinctive nature ofthe person of Christ. Nor, in fact, is there a hint at such a possibility in the Gospel narratives. (2.) Ebionitish Views of the Miracle at the Baptism; and its Opposite. There are two opposite stand-points which agree in ascribing to the events ofthe baptism the greatest importance in reference to Christ's Messiahship. The first is that of the Ebionites, who deny Christ's spe cific Divinity. It is, that he not only received from without, at a definite period of his life, the consciousness of his Divine mission, but also the powers necessary to its accomplishment. The other view (proceeding, however, from firm believers in the divinity of Christ) supposes that the Divine Logos, in assuming the form of humanity, submitted, by this act of self-renunciation, to all the laws of human developement; and further, that when Christ passed from the sphere of private life to that of his public ministry, he was set apart and prepared for it as the proph ets were ; with this single element of superiority, viz., that he was endowed with the fulness of the Holy Ghost. As for the first view, it is not only at variance with the whole char acter of Christ's manifestation, but also with all his own testimonies of himself. In all these there is manifested the consciousness of his own greatness, not as something acquired, but as unoriginated, and in separable from his being. He does not speak like one who has be come what he is by some sudden revolution. In short, this whole mode of thinking springs from an outward supernaturalism, which represents the Divine as antagonist to the human, and imposes it upon Christ from without ; instead of considering his entire manifestation from the be ginning as Divine and supernatural, of deriving every thing from this fundamental ground, and recognizing in it the aim of all the special revelations of the old dispensation. This is a continuation of the old Jewish view of the progress of the Theocracy: all is formed from without, instead of developing itself organically from within ; the Di vine is an abrupt exhibition of the supernatural. How opposite to this is the view which sees in the human, the form of manifestation under which the Divine nature has revealed itself from the beginning, and perceives, in this original and thorough interpenetration of the Divine and the human, the aim and the culmination of all miracles. The second view above mentioned will appear the most simple and natural, if, instead of considering a Divine communication from with- THE BAPTISM OF CHRIST. 63 put to have been made necessary by the self-renunciation ofthe Logos in assuming human form, we admit a gradual revelation (in accordance with the laws of human developement) of the Divine hature, potentially present, as the ground of the incarnate being, from the very first, and trace all that appears in the outward manifestation to the process of developement from within. In the lives of all other reformers, or founders of religions, whose call seems to have dated from a certain period of life, the birth-time, as it were, of their activity, it is impossi ble not to trace, in their later labours and in their own personal state ments, some references to the earlier period when their call was. un- felt* In the discourses of Christ, however there is not the most dis tant approach to such an allusion. (3.) Different Steps in the New Testament Notion of the Baptism, up to that of John the Evangelist. In the revelations of the New Testament, and in the process of the developement of Christianity which those revelations unfold, we can dis tinguish various steps, or stages, of progress from the Old Testament ideas to the New. Especially is this the case in regard to the person of Christ. The conception of Christ, as anointed with the fullness of the Holy Spirit, and superior to all other prophets, is akin to Old Tes tament ideas, and forms the point of transition to the New, which rest upon the manifestation of Christ. But it required a completely devel oped Christian consciousness to recognize, in his appearance on earth, the Divine glory as inherent in him from the beginning,' and progres sive only so far as its outward manifestation was concerned. These two views, however, by no means exclude each other ; the one is rather the complement of the other, while both, at a different stage of devel opement, tend to one and the same definite aim. And the latter, or highest stage of Christian consciousness, we are naturally to look for in that beloved apostle who enjoyed the closest degree of intimacy with Christ, and was, on that account, best of all able to understand profoundly both his manifestation and his discourses. From John, too, we must expect the highest Christian view of the person of Christ. [The account of the principal event of the baptism is thus given in John's Gospel: "And John bare record, saying, I saw the Spirit de scending from" heaven like a dove, and it abode upon him. And I knew him not ; but he that sent me to baptize with water, the same said unto me, Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending, and remaining on him, the same is he which baptizeth w'ith the Holy Ghost. And I saw and bare record that this is the Son o/"GoD."t] Now the fact thus stated, if in- * As in Luther we see frequent references to the light which first broke upon his mind during his monastic life at Erfurth, an epoch ofthe utmost moment to his after career as a i-cformer. fi' '. ' t John, i., 32-34. 64 JOHN THE BAPTIST. terpreted in an outward and material sense, and combined with the view of Christ which we mentioned a while ago as akin to the Jewish ideas, might easily give rise to the doctrine that Christ obtained at the baptism something which he had not possessed before. Our conclusion is, that Christ was already sure of his Divine call to the Messiahship, and submitted himself, in the course of the Theocratic developement, to baptism, as a preparative and inaugural rite, from the hands ofthe man who was destined to conduct' prophecy to its fulfil ment, and to be the first to recognize, by light from heaven, the mani fested Messiah. (4.) The Baptism not a Eite of Purification. The idea that Christ was baptized with u view to purification is ab solutely untenable, no matter how the notion of purification may be modified. Akin to this idea, certainly, is the view held by some,* that he submitted to this act of self-humiliation in the same sense in which he humbled himself before God, as the One alone to be called good.f This view would suppose him conscious, not of actual sin, but of a dor mant possibility of sin, inherent in his finite nature and his human or ganism, always restrained, however,- by the steadfast firmness of his will, from passing into action. But if we suppose in Christ the abstract possibility to sinj which is inseparable from a created will, pure but n.ot yet immutable — such a capability as we attribute to the first man before the fall — even this would not necessarily connect with itself a dormant, hidden sinfulness, involving in him a conscious need of purifi cation in any sense whatever. Such a consciousness can grow only out of a sense of inherent moral defilement, by no means originally belong ing to the conception of a created being, or of human nature. We cannot admit a dormant principle of sin as an essential element of the moral developement of man's original being. Sin is an act of free will, and cannot be derived from any other source, or explained in any other way.§ There is, then, in Christ's humbling himself, in his human capaci ty, before God, the only Good, no trace of that sense of need and want with which the sinner, conscious of guilt, bows himself before the Holy One. The act manifested only a sense, deeply grounded in his holy, sinless nature, of absolute dependence upon the Source of all good. * De Wette, on Matt., iii., 16. Conf. his Sittenlehre, } 49, 50 ; and Strauss, too, after he had seen that the view formerly expressed by him was untenable (1. v., 432, 433). t Matt., xix., 17. X This is not the place to examine the old controversy whether Christ's sinlessness is to be regarded as a posse non peccare or a non posse peccare. § We cannot enter further into this subject here, but take pleasure in referring our read ers to the late excellent work of J. Miiller, viz., "Die Lehre von der Siinde," in which the subject is treated with remarkable' depth and clearness. Tbe new elucidations in the 2d edition, especially, evince a soundness of mind that is not more rare than excellent THE BAPTISM OF CHRIST. Cb (5.) The Baptism of Christ a Rite of Consecration to bia Theocratic Reign. All difiiculties are cleared away by considering John's baptism as a rite of preparation and consecration, first in its application to the mem bers of the Theocratic kingdom, and secondly to its Founder and Sov ereign. The repentance and the sense of sin which were essential preliminaries to the baptism of the former, could in no way belong to Him who, at the very moment when the rite, was administered, reveal ed himself to the Baptist as the Messiah, the deliverer from sin. But while the import of the rite thus varied with the subjects to whom it was administered, therewas, at bottom, a substantial element which they shared in common. In both it marked the commencement of a new course of life ; but, in the members, this new life was to be re ceived from without through communications from on high : while in Christ it was to consist of a gradual unfolding from within ; in the for mer it was to be receptive ; in the latter productive. In a word, the baptism of the members prepared them to receive pardon and salvation ; that of Christ was his consecration to the work of bestowing those precious gifts. (6.) Had John«a previous Acquaintance with Christ? If the Baptist had an earlier acquaintance with Jesus, he could not have failed, with his susceptible feelings, to receive a deeper impression of his divinity than other men. We cannot but infer, from Luke's* statement (chap, i.) of the relationsbipt between the two families, that * The Apocryphal Gospels contain many fables in regard to Mary's descent from a priestly lineage, arising, perhaps, from the fact that the Messiah was to be both high-priest and king. (So in the second Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, the Testament of Simeon, § 7 : avacTficu Kvpios Ik twv Aevl apxupka Kat U ruiv 'lotiia [iaaiXia, both in the person of the Mes siah.) There is nothing akin to these in Luke's account of the relationship between Mary and Elizabeth, the latter being of priestly lineage, which is only given en passant ; the stress is laid upon the descent from David's line. t Matthew's omission to mention this relationship and to give- any reason for John's re luctance to baptize Christ, only proves his narrative to be more artless, and therefore more credible. The Ebionitish Gospel to the Hebrews shows far greater marks of design, and, indeed, of an alteration for a set purpose. It represents the miraculous appearances as preceding and causing John's conduct. — When John hears the voice from heaven, and sees the miraculous light, he inquires, Who art thou ? A second voice is heard to reply, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. John is thereby led to fall at his feet and cry, Baptize thou me. Christ, refusing him, says, Suffer it. — Here not only are the phe nomena exaggerated, but the facts are remodelled to suit Ebionitish views, which denied the miraculous events at Christ's birth, and demanded that the sudden change by which he was called and fitted for the Messiahship at the moment of baptism should be made prom inent by contrast with all that had gone before. They conceived, accordingly, that he first received the Holy Ghost when it descended npon him in tbe form of a dove, and that at that period he was endowed with a new dignity, and must offer new manifestations. Hifl divine character was thus obtained in a sudden, magical way ; and the two periods of his life, before and after that event, were brought into clear and sharp contrast: every thing that occurred at the baptism was deemed miraculous, while all the wonders of his previous E 66 JOHN THE BAPTIST. he had heard of the extraordinary circumstances attending the birth of Jesus. The Saviour " prayed" at the baptism (Luke, iii., 21). If we figure to ourselves his countenance, full of holy devotion and heavenly repose, as he stood in prayer, and its sudden association, in the mind of the Baptist, with all his recollections of the early history of Jesus, we cannot wonder that the humble man of God — all aware as he was that the Messiah was to be consecrated by his baptism — should have been overwhelmed, in that hour so pregnant with mighty interests, with a sense of his own comparative unworthiness, and cried, " I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to me ?" (J.) Explanation of John, i., 31. One of two things must be true : either John baptized Christ witn sole and special reference to his Messianic mission, or with the same end in view as in his ordinary administration of the rite, involving in its subjects a consciousness of sin and need of repentance. Now it is clear that he did not take upon himself to decide to what individual the Messianic baptism was to be administered, nor was he willing to rest it upon any human testimony, but waited for the promised sign fron, heaven ; and as for Jesus' receiving the rite in the second sense at his hands, his own religious sense must have rebelled against it. Nor is this contradicted by his words recorded in John, i., 31, " And I knew him not ; but that he should be made manifest to Israel, therefore am I come baptizing with water." John's refusal to baptize Christ did not life were rejected; in short, his Divine and human nature were rudely torn asunder. We see in all this the effect of a one-sided theory in obscuring history, and detect in it also the germ of a tendency which led the way from Judaism to Gnosticism. So it was with the doctrines of Cerinthus and Basilides on the person of Christ, according to which Christ possessed, as man, the anaprriTtKdv of human nature (although it never became actual sin in him) ; and the Redeemer was not Christ, but the heavenly Spirit that descended upon bim. Another instance of the way in which the general object of John's baptism (viz., purification and forgiveness) was brought to bear upon the doctrine of the person of Christ may he seen in the Gospel of the Nazarenes, translated by Jerome, in which the account runs, that when Christ was asked by his mother and brothers to go with them to John, in order to be baptized for the remission of sins, he replied, quid peccavi, ut vadam et bapti- zer ab eo, nisi forte hoc ipsum quod dixi ignorantia est ("unless I, who have not sinned, carry the germ of sin unconsciously within me"). (Hieron., b. iii., Dialog, adv. Pelag., ad init.). It is seen more strongly still in the Kijpvyiia Tlhpov, according to which Christ made his confession of sin before the baptism, but was glorified after it. Thus we see two op posite tendencies conspiring to falsify history in the life of Christ. The one sought falsely to glorify his early life, and embellished his childhood with tales of marvel ; the other sought to degrade his prior life as much as possible, in order to derive all that he after ward became from his Messianic inauguration. The relation of our Gospels to both these false and one-sided tendencies is a proof of their originality. I cannot suppose, with Dr. Schneckenburger (Studien der Evang. Geistlichkeit Wurtemburgs, Bd. iv., s. 122), that Matthew's simple account of Christ's baptism was abridged from the Ebionitish narrative, which, as we have seen, gives evidence of a designedly false colouring. Nor can I agree with Usteri and Bleek (Stud. u. Krit., Bd. ii., s. 446, and 1833, ». 436), that the dialogue be tween John and Christ, which, according to the Ebionitish version, took place during the baptism, is inaccurately placed by Matthew before it. THE BAPTISM OF CHRIST, 67 necessarily involve (as- we have already said) a knowledge of his Mes sianic dignity ; and- the words just quoted refer only to that dignity. He means to say with emphasis that his conviction of Christ's Messiah- ship is not of human, but of Divine origin. His previous expectations, founded upon his knowledge of the circumstances of Christ's birth, were held as nothing in comparison with the Divine testimony imme diately vouchsafed to him.* (8.) The Vision at the Baptism, and the Voice, intended exclusively for the Baptist. When the Baptist thus drew back in reverence and awe, Christ en couraged him, saying, " For the present,\ suffer it ; for thus it becomes us (each from his own stand-point) to fulfil all that belongs to the order of God's kingdom." While Jesus prayed and was baptized, the reverence with which John gazed upon him was heightened into pro phetic inspiration ; and in this state he received the revelation of the Divine Spirit in the form of a symbolical vision ; the heavens opened, and he saw a dove descend and hover over the head of Christ. In this he saw a sign of the permanent abode of the Holy Spirit in Jesus ; not merely as a distinction from the inspired seers of the old dispensation, but also as the necessary condition to his bestowing the Divine life upon others. It indicated that the power of the Spirit in him was not a sudden and abrupt manifestation, as it was in the prophets, who felt its inspiration at certain times and by transitory impulses ; but a con tinuous and unbroken operation of the Holy Ghost, the infinite fulness of the Divine life in human form. The quiet flight and the resting dove betokened no rushing torrent of inspiration, no sudden seizure of the Spirit, but a uniform unfolding of the life of God, the loftiness, yet the calm repose of a nature itself Divine, the indwelling ofthe Spirit so that * It was the main object of John the Evangelist to bring out prominently the Divine tes timony given to John the Baptist (as the latter pointed the former originally to Christ); the knowledge which the latter had derived from human sources was comparatively unim portant. In fact, he seems not to have thought any thing about it, and hence his words may imply that the Baptist had no previous acquaintaince at all with Christ ; but such an inter pretation of them is not necessary, considering the definite end which he had in view. Let an event be described by different eye-witnesses, and their accounts will present vari eties and even contrasts, simply because each of them seizes strongly upon some one point, and leaves the rest comparatively in the back-ground. True, there are degrees in historical accuracy, and we must distinguish them. In this case, the one certain fact, involved in all the narratives, however they may differ in other respects, is, that the Baptist was led, by a revelation made to him at the time, to consecrate Jesus to the Messiahship by baptism. This fact must remain, even if the other discrepancies were irreconcilable. "W e always consider a thing stated in common by several variant historical narratives, to be more prob ably historically true. t Showing that this relation between him and the Baptist was to be but momentary, and soon to be followed by a very different one. De Wette's remarks (Comm., 2d ed.) seem to me not very cogent. " Christ describes his baptism as npi-nov, and hence this view cannot be correct." But what made it nphov was the fact that it was but transitory and prepara tory to the revelation of Christ in all his glory. ' The remark of Christ applied to the now, and only to the now. The ipn implies the contrast, which is not expressed. 68 JOHN THE BAPTIST. he could impart it to others and fill them completely with it, not as a prophet, but as a Creator. The higher and essential unity of the Divine and human,* as ori ginal and permanent in Christ, which formed the substance symbolized by the vision, was further and more distinctly indicated to John by the voice from heaven.t saying, " This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." Words that cannot possibly be applicable, in their full meaning, to any mere man, but to Him alone in whom the perfect union of God and man was exhibited, and the idea of humanity com pletely realized. It was this union that made it possible for a holy God to be well pleased in man. John's Gospel, it is true, makes no mention of this voice ; but it will be recollected that this evangelist does not relate the baptism (John, i., 29, 33), but cites John Baptist as referring to it at some later period. The subsequent testimony of the Baptist, thus recorded (" I saw and bare record that this is the Son of God," v. 34), presupposes the heavenly voice which pointed out that Sonship. At all events, the voice expressed nothing different from the import of the vision ; it was the expression of the idea which the vision itself involved. We consider, then, that the vision and the voice contained a subject ive revelation of the Holy Spirit, intended exclusively for the Baptist,}; * We do not intend to say, by any means, that John comprehended this in the full sense which we, from the Christian stand-point, are able to give to it. t Although the words of the voice, as given in our Gospels, contain at most only an al lusion to Psalm ii., 7, we find that passage fully quoted in the Ebionitish Evang. ad He- brceos. The words are still better put together in the Nazarean Gospel of the Hebrews, used by Jerome; Factum est autem quum ascendisset Dominus de aqua, descendit fons omnis Spiritus Sancti et requievit super eum, et dixit illi ; Fili mi, in omnibus prophetis expectabam te, ut venires et requiescerem in te. Tu es enim requies mea, tu es filius meus primogenitus, qui regnas in sempiternum (Hieron., 1. iv., in Esaiam, c. xi., ed. Val- larsi, t. iv., p. 1, f. 156). Here a profound Christian sense is expressed: Christ is the aim of the whole Theocratic developement, and the partial revelations of the Old Testament were directed to him as the concentration of all Divinity ; in him the Holy Ghost finds a permanent abode in humanity, a resting-place for which it strove in all its wanderings through these isolated, fragmentary revelations ; he is the Son of the Holy Ghost, in so far as the fulness of the Holy Ghost is concentrated in him. But although a Christian sense is given, the historical facts are obviously coloured. X We follow here especially the account of John, according to whom the Baptist testi fied only of what he had seen and heard. If this statement be presupposed as the original one, the rest could easily be derived from it. What the Baptist stated as a real fact for himself would readily assume an objective form when related by others. This original ap prehension of the matter seems to appear also in Matthew (iii., 16), both from the heavenly voice being mentioned in indirect narration, and from the relation of tiis. to airiv ; although the expression is not perfectly clear (conf. Bleek, Stud. u. Krit., 1833, s. 433, and De Wette, in loc). A confirmation of the originality of Matthew's account may be obtained by com paring it with that in the Ebionitish Gospel. In this, first, the words are directly address ed to Christ, and Psalm ii., 7, fully quoted ; then a sudden light illuminates the place, and the voice repeats anew, in an altogether objective way, the words that had been directed to Christ. In comparing our Evangelists with each other, and with the Ebionitish Gospel, we see how the simple historical statement passed, by various interpolations into the Ebionitish form ; and how a material alteration of the facts arose from a change of form, THE BAPTISM OF CHRIST. 69 to convince him thoroughly that He whose coming he had proclaimed, and whose way he had prepared, had really appeared. He was alone with Jesus ; the latter neefled no such revelation. What was granted to John was enough ; he recognized, infallibly, the voice from heaven, and the revelation of the Spirit, by his inward sense ; no outward sen sible impression could give him more. For others the vision was not intended ; it could benefit them only mediately through him, and in case they regarded him as a prophet. After Jesus had thus, alone with John, submitted to his baptism, and received in it the sign for the commencement of his public Messianic ministry, he withdrew into solitude in order to prepare himself, by prayer and meditation,* for the work on which he was about to enter. This brings us to inquire more closely into Christ's subjective prepara tion for his public labours. through the addition of an imaginary and foreign dogmatic element. These accounts form the basis, also, of the view held by the sect called Mandceans (Zabii, disciples of John), who combined the elements of a sect of John's disciples opposed to Christianity, with Gnostic elements.. But as their object was to glorify the Baptist rather than Christ, they further distorted and disfigured the original with new inventions. " The Spirit, called the Messen ger of Life, in whose name John baptized, appears., from a higher region, manifests still more extraordinary phenomena, submits to be baptized by John, and then transfigures him with celestial radiance. Jesus afterward comes hypocritically to be , baptized by John, in order to draw away the people and corrupt his doctrine and baptism." (See Norberg's Religionsbuch of this sect.) * The chronology of the Gospels by no means excludes such a time of preparation, al though we cannot decide whether the " forty days" are to be taken literally, or only as a round number. John's GospeL as we have said, does not relate' the baptism in its chrono logical connexion (John, i., 19, presupposes the occurrence of the baptism) ; so that there is no difficulty in supposing a lapse of several weeks between the baptism and the first pub lic appearance of Christ. The words in John, i., 29, may have been the greeting of the Bap tist on first meeting Christ upon his reappearance. Nor does the retirement of Christ throw a shade upon the credibility of the narrative as matter of fact. It is entirely op posed to the mythical theory ; for we do not see in it (as we should, were it a mythus) any of the ideas of the people among whom Christianity originated ; on the Contrary, it displays a wisdom and circumspection in direct antagonism to the prevailing tendencies of the time. As St John's object was only to state those facts in Christ's life of which he had himself been eye-witness, his silence on the subject is easily accounted for. PART II. SUBJECTIVE PREPARATION. THE TEMPTATION. CHAPTER I. IMPORT OF THE INDIVIDUAL TEMPTATIONS. WHILE, on the one hand, we do not conceive that the individual features of the account of the Temptation are to be literally ta ken, the principles which triumph so gloriously in its course bear the evident stamp of that wisdom which every where shines forth from the life of Christ. Its veracity is undeniably confirmed by the period which it occupies between the baptism of Christ and his entrance on his public ministry ; the silent, solitary preparation was a natural tran sition from the one to the other. We conclude, from both these con siderations together, that the account contains not only an ideal, but also a historical truth, conveyed, however, under a symbolical form.* The easiest part of our task is to ascertain the import of the several parts of the Temptation, and to this we now address ourselves. We shall find in them the principles which guided Jesus through his whole Messianic calling — principles directly opposed to the notions prevalent among the Jews in regard to the Messiah. § 43. The Hunger. The first temptation was as follows :t After Jesus had fasted for a long time, he suffered the pangs of hunger. As no food was to be had in the desert, the suggestion was made to him, " If thou art really the Messiah, the Son of God, this need cannot embarrass thee. Thou canst help thyself readily by a miracle ; thou canst change the stones of the desert into bread." Jesus rejected this challenge with the words, * If we assign a symbolical character to the Temptation, it may be asked whether the fasting, which formed a ground-work for it, was not symbolical also. But the fasting is immediately connected with the obviously historical fact of Christ's retirement. We con ceive it thus : Christ, musing upon the great work of his life, forgot the wants of the body. (Cf. John, iv., 34.) The mastery (and this we must presuppose) which his spirit had over the body prevented those wants from asserting their power for a long time ; but when they did, it was only the more powerfully. It formed part of the trial and self-denial of Christ through his whole life, that, together with the consciousness that he was the Son of God, he combined the weakness and dependence of humanity. These affected the lesser pow ers of his soul, although they could never move his unchangingly holy will, and turn him to any selfish strivings. t Matt., iv., 2-4. THE PINNACLE OF THE TEMPLE. 71 " Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out ofthe mouth of God" (what is produced by God's creative word). To apprehend these words rightly, we must recall their original con nexion in Deuteronomy (viii., 3), viz., that the, Jews were fed in the wilderness with manna, in order to learn that the power of God could sustain human life by other means than ordinary food. They longed for the bread and flesh of Egypt, but were to be taught submission to the will of God, who was pleased to supply their wants with a differ ent food. Applying this thought to Christ's circumstances, we interpret his reply to the tempter as follows : " Far be it from me to prescribe to God the mode in which he shall provide me sustenance. Rather will I trust his omnipotent creative power, which can find means to satisfy my hunger, even in the desert, though it may not be with man's usual food." The principle involved in the reply was, that he had no wish to free himself from the sense of human weakness and dependence ; that he would work no miracle for that purpose. He would work no mir acle to satisfy his own will ; no miracle where the momentary want might be supplied, though by natural means such as might offend the sensual appetite. In self-denial he would follow God, submitting to His will, and trusting that His mighty power would help in the time of need, in the way that His wisdom might see fit. On this same prin ciple Christ acted when he suffered his apostles to satisfy their hunger with the corn which they had plucked, rather than do a miracle to pro vide them better food. On this same principle he acted when he gave himself to the Jewish officers sent to apprehend him,* rather than seek deliverance by a Divine interposition. Of the same kind, too, was his trial when he hung upon the cross, and they that passed by said, " If he be the King of Israel, let Mm now come down from the cross, and we will believe him."j §44. The Pinnacle of the Temple. He was then taken to the pinnacle of the Temple, and the tempter said to him, " If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down ; thou art sure of aid by a miracle from God ;" and quoted, literally, in applica tion, the words of Psa. xci., 11, 12, " The angels shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone." But Christ arrays against him another passage, which defines the right application of the former : " Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God." (Deut., vi., 16.) As if he had said, " Thou must undertake nothing with a view to test God's omnipotence, as if to try whether he will work a miracle to save thee from a peril that might be avoided by natural means" (i. e., by coining down from the battlement in the usual way). * Matt., xxvi., 53. t lb., xxvii., 42. 72 THE TEMPTATION. These words of Christ imply that the pious man can look for Divine aid at all times, provided he uses rightly the means which God affords him, and walks in the way which has been Divinely marked out for him by his calling and his circumstances : the Messiah was not, in gratui tous confidence of Divine assistance, to cast himself into a danger which common prudence might avoid. They involve the principle, that a mir acle may not be wrought except for wise ends and with adequate mo tives ; never, with no other aim than to display the power of working wonders, and to make a momentary, sensible impression, which, how ever powerful, could leave no religious effect, and, not penetrating be yond the region of the senses, must be but transient there. And on this principle Christ acted always, in not voluntarily exposing himself to peril ; in employing wise and prudent means to escape the snares of his enemies ; and going forth, with trust in God and submission to his will, to meet such dangers only as his Divine mission made necessary, and as he could not avoid without unfaithfulness to his calling. On this principle he acted when the Pharisees and the fleshly-minded multi tude came to him and asked a miracle, and he refused them with, [" there shall no sign be given to this wicked and adulterous generation but the sign of the Prophet Jonah."]* § 45. Dominion. We do not take the third temptation as implying literally that Satan proposed to Christ to fall down and do him homage, as the price of a transfer of dominion over all the kingdoms of the world : no extraor dinary degree of piety would have been necessary to rebuke such a proposal as this. We consider it as involving the two following points, which must be taken together, viz., (1) the establishment of Messiah's dominion as an outward kingdom, with worldly splendours ; and (2) the worship of Satan in connexion with it, which, though not fully ex pressed, is implied in the act which he demands, and which Christ treats as equivalent to worshipping him. Herein was the temptation, that the Messiah should not develope his kingdom gradually, and in its pure spirituality from within, but should establish it at once, as an out ward dominion ; and that, although this could not be accomplished with out the use of an evil agency, the end would sanctify the means. We find here the principle, that to try to establish Messiah's king dom as an outward, worldly dominion, is to wish to turn the kingdom of God into the kingdom of the devil ; and to employ that fallen Intel ligence which pervades all human sovereignties, only in a different form, to found the reign of Christ. And in rejecting the temptation, Christ condemned every mode of secularizing his kingdom, as well as all the devil-worship which must result from attempting that kingdom in a * Matt., xii., 39. THE TEMPTATION NOT INWARD. 73 worldly form. We find here the principle, that God's work is to be accomplished purely as His work and by His power, without foreign aid ; so that it shall all be only a share of the worship rendered to Him alone. And Christ's whole life illustrates this principle. How often was he urged, by the impatient longings and the worldly spirit of the people, to gratify their intense, long-cherished hopes, and establish his kingdom in a worldly form, before the last demand of the kind was made upon him, as he entered, in the midst of an enthusiastic host, the capital city of God's earthly reign ; before his last refusal, expressed in his sub mission to those sufferings which resulted in the triumph of God's pure spiritual kingdom ! CHAPTER II. IMPORT OF THE TEMPTATION AS A WHOLE. § 46. Fundamental Idea. THE whole temptation taken together presents us one idea ; a con trast, namely, between the founding of God's kingdom as pure, spiritual, and tried by many forms of self-denial in the slow develope ment ordained for it by its head ; and the sudden establishment of that kingdom before men, as visible and earthly. This contrast forms the central point of the whole. All the temptations have regard to the created will as such ; the victory presupposes that self-sacrifice of a will given up to God which determines the whole life. And as this self-sacrifice of the created will in Christ had to be tested in his life long struggles with the Spirit of the world, which ever strove to obscure the idea of the kingdom of God and bring it down to its own level ; so the free and conscious decision manifested in these three temptations, fully contrasting, as they did, the true and the false Messiahship, the un worldly and the secularized Theocracy, was made before his public min istry, which itself was but a continuation of the strife and the triumph. § 47. The Temptation rot an inward one, but the Work of Satan. We find, then, in the facts of the temptation the expression of that period that intervened between Christ's private life and his public min istry. These inward spiritual exercises bring out the self-determination which stamps itself upon all his subsequent outward actions. Yet we dare not suppose in him a choice, which, presupposing within him a point of tangency for evil, would involve the necessity of his comparing the evil with the good, and deciding between them. In the steadfast ten dency of his inner life, rooted in submission to God, lay a decision 74 THE TEMPTATION, which admitted of no such struggle. He had in common with human ity that natural weakness which may exist without selfishness, and the created will, mutable in its own nature ; and only on this side was the struggle possible — such a struggle as man may have been liable to, be fore he gave seduction the power of temptation by his own actual sin. In all other respects, the outward seductions remained outward ; they found no selfishness in him, as in other men, on which to seize, and thus become internal temptations, but, on the contrary, only aided in reveal ing the complete unity of the Divine and human, which formed the es sence of his inner life. Nor is it possible for us to imagine that these temptations originated within ; to imagine that Christ, in contemplating the course of his fu ture ministry, had an internal struggle to decide whether he should act according to his own will, or in self-denial and submission to the will of God. We have seen from the third temptation that,. from the very be ginning, he regarded the establishment of a worldly kingdom as insep arable from the worship ofthe devil; he could, therefore, have had no struggle to choose between such a kingdom, outward and worldly, and the true Messiah-kingdom, spiritual, and developed from within. Even the purest man wl}o has a great work to do for any age, must be affected more or less by the prevailing ideas and tendencies of that age. Unless he struggle against it, the spirit of the age will penetrate his own ; his spiritual life and its products will be corrupted by the base admixture. Now the whole spirit of the age of Christ held that Mes siah's kingdom was to be of this world, and even John Baptist could not free himself from this conception. There was nothing within Christ on which the sinful spirit of the age could seize ; the Divine life within him had brought every thing temporal into harmony with itself; and, therefore, this tendency of the times to secularize the Theocratic idea could take no hold of him. But it was to press upon him from with out; from the beginning this tendency threatened to corrupt the idea and the developemenUaf the kingdom of God, and Christ's work had to be kept free from it ; moreover, the nature of his own Messianic ministry could only be fully illustrated by contrast with this possible objective mode of action ; to which, foreign as it was to his own spiritual tenden cies, he was so frequently to be urged afterward by the prevailing spirit of the times. But if, according to the doctrine of Christ,* the rebellion of a higher * We must hereafter inquire whether this is Christ's doctrine, and only make here a preliminary remark or two. The arguments of the rationalists against the doctrine which teaches the existence of Satan are either directed against a false and arbitrary conception of that doctrine, or else go upon the presupposition that evil could only have originated un der conditions such as those under which human existence has developed itself; that it has its ground in the organism of human nature, e. g., in the opposition between reason and the AS THE WORK OF SATAN. 75 intelligence against God preceded the whole present history of the uni verse, in which Evil is one of the cooperating factors, and of which man's history is only a part ; if that doctrine makes Satan the repre sentative of the Evil which he first brought into reality ; if, further, it lays down a connexion, concealed from the eye of man, between him and all evil; then, from this point of view, Christ's contest with the spirit of the world must appear to us a contest with Satan — the tempta tion, a temptation from Satan — continued afterward through his whole life, and renewed in every form of assault, until the final triumph was announced, "It is finished." As the temptation could not have origi nated in Christ, he could only attribute it to that Spirit to which all opposition to God's kingdom, and every attempt to corrupt its pure de velopement, can finally be traced back. On the working out of Christ's plan depended the issue of the battle between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of the Evil One ; and we cannot wonder, therefore, that this Spirit, ever so restlessly plotting against the Divine order, should have been active and alert at a time when, as in the case of the first man, an opening for temptation to the mutable created will was afford ed to him. Christ left to his disciples and the Church only a partial and symbol ical account* ofthe facts of his inner life in this preparatory epoch ; an account, however, adapted to their practical necessities, and serving to guard them against those seductions of the spirit of the world to which even the productions of the Divine spirit must yield, if they are ever allowed to become worldly. propensities ; that human developement must necessarily pass through it ; but that we can not conceive of a steadfast tendency to evil in an intelligence endowed with the higher spir itual powers. Now it is precisely this view of evil wbich we most emphatically oppose, as directly contradictory to the essence of the Gospel and of a theistico-ethical view of the world; and, on the contrary, we hold fast, as the only doctrine which meets man's moral and religious interests, that doctrine which is the ground of the conception of Satan, and according to which evil is represented as the rebellion of a created will against the Divine law, as an act of free-will not otherwise to be explained, and the intelligence as determined by the will. I am pleased to find my convictions expressed in few words by an eminent divine of our own time, Dr. Nitzsch, in his excellent System der Christlichen Lehre, 2d ed., p. 152. They are further developed by Twesten, in his Dogmatik. The same fundamental idea is given in the work of Julius Mnller, already mentioned (Lehre von der Siinde). * We can apply here Dr. Nitzsch's remark in reference to the Biblical account of the Fall (Christi. Lehre, J 106, s. 144, anm. 1, 2'»- Aufl.) : " The history of the temptation, in this form, is not a real, but a true history." BOOK IV. THE PUBLIC MINISTRY OF CHRIST IN ITS REAL CONNEXION. PART I. THE PLAN OF CHRIST. PART II. THE MEANS AND INSTRUMENTS OF CHRIST. BOOK IV. THE PUBLIC MINISTRY OF CHRIST IN ITS REAL CONNEXION: PART I. THE PLAN OF CHRIST. CHAPTER I. A. THE PLAN OF CHRIST'S MINISTRY IN GENERAL. § 48. Had Christ a conscious Plan ? IT is most natural for us, in treating of Christ's public ministry, to speak first of the plan which lay at the foundation of it. First of all, however, the question comes up, whether he had any such plan at all.t The greatest achievements of great men in behalf of humanity have not been accomplished by plans previously arranged and digested ; on the contrary, such men have generally been unconscious instruments, working out God's purposes, at least in the beginning, before the fruits of their labours have become obvious to their own eyes. They served the plan of God's providence for the progress of his kingdom among men, by giving themselves up enthusiastically to the ideas which the Spirit of God had imparted to them. Not unfrequently has a false historical view ascribed to such labours, after their results became known, a plan which had nothing to do with their developement. Nay, these mighty men were able to do their great deeds precisely because a higher than human wisdom formed the plan of their labours and pre pared the way for them. The work was greater than the workmen ; they had no presentiments of the results that were to follow from the toils to which they felt themselves impelled. So was it with Luther, * To promote unity of view, I deem it best, especially as much of the chronological order must remain uncertain, to treat and divide Christ's public ministry, first, according to its substantial connexion, and, secondly, according to its chronological connexion. t We use the phrase " plan of Jesus," inasmuch as we compare his mode of action with that of other world-historical men, in order to bring out the characteristic features which distinguish him. The exposition which follows will show that I agree with the apt remarks of my worthy friend, Dr. Ullmann, made in his beautiful treatise on the " SUnden- losigkeit Jesu" (Sinlessness of Jesus), p. 71, and that his censures there of those who use tbe above-mentioned phrase do not apply to me. [See Ullmann's Treatise, translated by Edwards and Park, in the " Selections from German Literature."] 80 THE PLAN OF CHRIST. when he kindled the spark which set half Europe in a blaze, and com menced the sacred flame which refined the Christian Church. Were we at liberty to compare the work of Christ with these cre ations wrought through human agencies, we should need to guard our selves against determining the plan of his ministry from its results. We might -then suppose that he was inspired with enthusiasm for an idea, whose compass and consequences the limits of his circumstances and his times prevented him from fully apprehending. We might also distinguish between the idea, as made the guide and the aim of his ac tions by himself, and the more comprehensive Divine plan, to which, by his voluntary and thorough devotion to God, he served as the organ. And it would rather glorify than disparage him to show, by thus com paring him with other men who had wrought as God's instruments to accomplish His vast designs, that God had accomplished through him even greater things than he had himself intended. But we are allowed to make no such comparison. The life of Christ presented a realized ideal of human culture such as man's nature can never attain unto, let his developement reach what point it may. He described the future effects of the truth which he revealed in a way that no man could comprehend at the time, and which centuries of his tory have only been contributing to illustrate. Nor was the progress of ihe future more clear to his vision than the s.teps in the history of the past, as is shown by his own statements of the relation which he sustained to the old dispensation. Facts, which it required the course of ages to make clear, lay open to his eye ; and history has both ex plained and verified the laws which he pointed out for the progress of his kingdom. He could not, therefore, have held the same relation to the plan for whose accomplishment his labours were directed, as men who were mere instruments of God, however great. He resembled them, it is true, in the fact that his labours were ordered according to no plan of human contrivance, but to one laid down by God for the developement of humanity ; but he differed from them in this, that He understood the full compass of God's plan, and had freely made it his own ; that it was the plan of his own mind, clearly standing forth in his consciousness when he commenced his labours. The account of his temptation, rightly understood, shows all this. With this, also, are rebutted those views which consider Christ as having recognized the idea of his ministry only through the cloudy at mosphere of Judaism ; and those which represent his plan as having been essentially altered from time to time, as circumstances contradict ed his first expectations and gave him clearer notions. They are fur ther refuted by the entire harmony which subsists between Christ's own expressions in regard to his plan, as uttered in the two different epochs of his history. HIS CONSCIOUSNESS OF MESSIAHSHIP. 81 § 49. Connexion with the Old Testament Theocracy. The object of Christ was, as he himself often describes it, tc estab lish the kingdom of God among men ; not, as we have shown, after a plan of man's devising, but after one laid down by God, not only in the general developement of the human race, but also, and specially, in the developement ofthe Jewish nation, and in the revelations ofthe old dispensation. We must, therefore, look back upon the Old Testa ment foundations of the kingdom of God, before we .can correctly un derstand the plan of Christ as set forth in his acts and words. The one prepared the way for the other. In the former it was outward and confined to the narrow community of the Jewish people, in the form of a state founded and governed by , Divine authority ; in the latter it was to be universal, all-embracing, a communion, springing out of the consciousness of God, intended to be the principle of life and, union for all mankind. In the former, the Divine law, ordering from without all the relations of state and people, governed the nation through or gans appointed by God and inspired by his Spirit, viz., priests, kings, and prophets. But this idea could not be realized ; the kingdom of God could not be founded from- without. It needed first a proper mate rial; and this could not be found in human nature, estranged from God by sin. The history of the Jewish nation was designed to bring this contradiction out into clear consciousness ; and to awaken a more and more vivid anxiety for its removal, and for the re-establishment and glorification of the Theocracy. So the revelations of God pointed more and more directly to Him, the Messiah, under whose dominion the Divine kingdom was to be exalted, and the worship of Jehovah to be acknowledged and to triumph even among the nations so long es tranged from him. § 50. Christ's Steadfast Consciousness of his Messiahship. And Jesus knew and testified to his Messiahship from the beginning, from his first public appearance until his last declaration, made before the high-priests in the very face of death ; although he did not always proclaim it with equal openness, especially when there was risk of popular commotions from false and temporal conceptions of the Mes siah on the part of the people ; but rather gradually led them, from the acknowledgment of his prophetic character (by which, indeed, they were bound to believe in his words), to recognize him as the Messiah, a Prophet also, but in the highest sense. In this respect there is no contradiction whatever between the Synop tical Gospels* and John. They all agree in stating that Jesus spoke and acted from the beginning in consciousness of his Messiahship ; and * Matthew, Mark, and Luke. F 62 THE PLAN OF CHRIST also that, as circumstances demanded, he was sometimes more and sometimes less explicit* in regard to it. Nor, is John silentt about the fluctuations and divisions of opinion (easily explained on psychological grounds), even among the more favourably disposed portions of the multitude : nay, he tells us that some of the Apostles were slow to be lieve, and wavered in their faith. All this, however, does nothing to prove similar fluctuations in Christ's conviction of his Messiahship. According to Matthew, Jesus commenced his ministry, like John the Baptist, by summoning men to repentance, as a preparation for the coming kingdom of God. But this by no means implies that his in tention and his announcement, at the beginning, were the same as those of the Baptist. It was necessary for him to take this starting- point, as he joined his ministry upon John's, proclamation, and upon the desire for the manifestation of the kingdom of God which it had awakened, in order to purify this desire and direct it to its object, the real founder of the kingdom. It was essential to awaken and preserve in the minds of the people a sense of the necessity of repentance as a condition of participation in the kingdom, and the first starting-point for a clear idea of its nature. After this general summons had gone be fore, Jesus could prove, by the impression of his own works, that the kingdom had really been manifested through him (Matt., xii., 28 ; Luke, xvii., 21). The proclamation of the approaching kingdom and the an nouncement of Jesus as its founder and central-point, were closely connected together; but sometimes the one was announced more prom inently, and sometimes the other, as circumstances might demand. Compare the Sermon on the Mount with the discourses of Christ as recorded in John's Gospel. § 51. No alterations of Christ's Plan. It may be imagined, however, that although Christ was conscious, from the beginning, of his calling to realize the idea of the kingdom of God, the plan of his work may have been modified from time to time according to the varying results which depended upon the vacillating temper ofthe public mind; that at first, perhaps, he hoped to find the greater part of the Jewish nation ready to receive him ; and designed, under this supposition, to separate the incorrigible from the better part, and collect the latter into a Theocratic community under his govern ment; and that he expected that the kingdom of God, once seated firmly in this way, would, by the might of its prevailing spirit of Divine life, by degrees transform all other nations into the same kingdom. In » John, viii., 25 ; x., 24. ' t John, vii., 40 ; Matt., xvi., 14 ; John, vii., 12. The less hostile portion of the people agreed, at first, only in believing that Christ had good intentions and was no seducer of tha people. UNCHANGED. 83 fact, what an incalculable influence might a nation, thoroughly imbued with che spirit of Christianity and illustrating Christianity in all its re lations, exert toward the moral regeneration of the rest of mankind ! A light indeed would it be, not hid under a bushel, but throwing its beams on all sides into the surrounding darkness : the salt and the leaven, truly, of all mankind. And some* in fact, assert that Christ cherished these hopes when he first appeared in public. Hence, say they, the joyous feeling with which he announced the "acceptable year" in the synagogue at Nazareth ;t hence his purpose, manifested in the Sermon on the Mount, to give to the people new Theocratic statutes in accordance with his higher stand-point ; hence his promise to the apostles that they should govern, under him, the new Theocratic com munity ;| hence, too, his last lamentation over Jerusalem, that he had so often tried to save the nation whjch ought to have submitted to his guidance. All which, they say, presupposes a belief on his part that the results might have been different had the people listened to his voice, and that he expected more of them to listen to him ; that the aim of his ministry was altered when he found the resistance more stubborn and general than he had supposed; and that, from the course of events themselves, he learned, in the light of the Divine Spirit, that the plan for the establishment of the kingdom of God which the Divine counsels had formed, was such, that he himself must submit to the' power of his enemies, and rise victorious from his sufferings ; while the kingdom it self was only to advance by slow degrees, and after many combats, to its final triumph. Yet, after all, these reasonings are only specious, not solid. Even the most important of them rather opposes than sustains the theory they are adduced to support. It is true, there is such a thing as a holy enthusiasm for a Divine idea, which is blind to all difficulties, or deems that it can gain an .easy victory. Such, however, was not the enthusi asm of Christ for his Divine work; on the contrary, he combined with it a discretion which fully comprehended the opposition he must en counter from the prevailing opinions and feelings of the times. He was far from trusting to the momentary impulses under which the people, excited by his words and actions, sought to join themselves to him. He readily distinguished, with that searching glance that pierced the depths of men's hearts, the few who came to him, drawn of the Father and following an inward consciousness of God, from those who sought him with carnal feelings, to obtain that which he came not to bestow. How did he check the ardour of his disciples, when he rebuked the false self-confidence inspired by a transient enthusiasm, and reminded them of their weakness ! There was no extravagance in his demands upon * De Wette and Hase. Paulus also, with some modifications. t Luke, iv., 17, seq. X Matt., xix., 28. 64 THE PLAN OF CHRIST men; nothing exaggef ated- in his hopes of the future. Every whet e we see not only a conscious possession of the Divine power to over come the world, which he was to impart to humanity, but also of the obstacles it should meet with from the old nature in which the princi ple of sin was yet active. This was the spirit which passed over from him to the Apostles, and which constituted the peculiar essence of Christian ethics. Christ, while as yet surrounded only by a handful of faithful followers, describes the renewing power which the seed that he had sown would exert on the life of humanity ; yet, brilliant as the prospect is, his eyes are not dazzled by it ; he sees, at the same time, how impurity will mix itself with the work of God, and how clouds will obscure it. Could He whose quick glance thus saw the depths of men's hearts, and took in at once the present and the future, who knew so well the corrupt carnality ofthe Jewish nation before he entered on his public ministry, so far deceive himself as to suppose that he could suddenly transform the larger part of such a nation into a true people of God 1 He that searched men's hearts and knew what was in man could not be ignorant that his severest battles were to be fought with the prevalent depravity of men ; and in connexion with these struggles, how natural was it for him to look forward to the death which he should suffer in the faithful performance of his calling ! Even at an early date he intimated the violent death by which he was to be torn from the happy fellowship of his disciples, leaving them behind him in tears and sorrow.* His temptation, the historical truth and import of which we have shown, makes it clear that he had decided, before he commenced his pub lic labours, not to establish the kingdom of God in a mere outward way by miraculous power. And this is further shown by his assigning, in the first epoch of his ministry, to John the Baptist, whom he called the first among the prophets, a subordinate place in relation to the new era of religion ; for this could only have been done in view of John's in ability fully to comprehend the essential feature of this new era, viz., the spiritual developement of the kingdom of God from within. And * Matt., ix., 15. Hase says, indeed, that these words do not imply necessarily an approach ing violent death, but might be uttered in view of the common lot of mortals. But, in the first place, Jesus, if he applied to himself the Old Testament idea of the Messiah, could not believe that he would be torn by natural death from the Theocratic commuuity which he should found among the Jews, and thus leave it to the direction of others; but must expect (if he hoped to found an external Theocracy) always to remain present as Theocratic king. (This applies, also, to what Hase says (2d edit, of his Leben Jesu, p. 89), in opposition to his pre viously expressed views.) Again, it would be strange indeed for a man of thirty to ex press ,himself to older men, in reference to the common end of mortals, in such language as the following: "Now is your time for festal joy; for when your friend shall be removed, it will be time for fasting and sorrow." The whole connexion ofthe passage shows that Je sus did not expect to part from them under happy circumstances, but amid many conflicts and sufferings. UNCHANGED. 85 again, in reference to John he said, " Blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me;" evidently presupposing that John's Old Testament views would be offended at the new era ; a presupposition which re fers to the new spiritual growth of the Divine kingdom. It is, there fore, undeniable that from the beginning Christ aimed at this new de velopement of that kingdom; We find further proof of this in all the parables which treat of the progress of his kingdom, and the effects of his truth upon, human nature, viz., the parables of the mustard seed,, of the leaven, of the fire which he had come to kindle upon earth, all which were designed to illus trate the distinction between the Old Testament form of the Theocracy and that of Christ ; to illustrate a developement which was not at once to exhibit an external stately fabric ; but to commence with apparently small beginnings, and yet ever to propagate itself by a mighty power working outwardly from within ; and to regenerate all things, and thus appropriate them to itself. All these parables presuppose the renewal of human nature by a new and pervading principle of spiritual life ; and imply that the kingdom of God cannot be visibly realized among men until they become subjects of this renewal. Ta the same effect was Christ's saying (which we shall further examine hereafter), " nei ther do men put new wine into old skins, else the skins break and the wine runneth out'' He who uttered such truths, involving a steadfast and connected system of thought, could not have set out with the purpose of establishing an outward kingdom, and have afterward been induced by circumstances to change his plan in so short a time. What an im mense revolution in his mental habits and course of thinking must a few months have produced, on such a supposition ! It would be, in deed, a gross misapprehension of the precepts given in the Sermon on the Mount to interpret them literally as laws laid down for an outward The ocratic kingdom. Such an interpretation would involve the possibility of a struggle between Good and Evil in the kingdom of God; such as can never take place in Messiah's reign, if it be realized according to its idea. The form of a state cannot be thought of in connexion with this kingdom ; a state presupposes a relation to transgression ; an out ward law, the forms of judicature, the administration of justice are es sential to its organization. But all these can have no place in the per fect kingdom of Christ ; a community whose whole principle of life is love. Laws intended for the free mind lose their import when theii observance is compelled by external penalties of any kind whatever. More of this view hereafter, when we come to treat especially of the Sermon on the Mount. Nor is a change in Christ's feelings to be in any wise admitted. The year of joy [the acceptable year, Luke, iv., 19] did not refer to the happy results which he hoped to attain, but to the blessed contents o* 86 THE PLAN OF CHRIST. the announcement with which he commenced his labours ; the substauce ofthe message itself was joyful, whether the dispositions ofthe people would make it a source of joy to them, or not. And even on his first proclamation at Nazareth, the hostility of the carnally-minded multi tude could have enabled him to prognosticate the general temper With which the whole people would receive him. It follows by no means, from the wo which he uttered over his loved Jerusalem (Luke, xiii., 34, 35), that he had hoped at first to find acceptance with the entire nation, and to make Jerusalem the real seat of his Theocratic government. Yet, although he could not save the nation as a whole, he offered his warn ings to the whole, leaving it to the issue to decide who were willing to hear his voice. § 52. Twofold bearing of ihe Kingdom of God — an inward, spiritual Power, and a world-renewing Power. There are two sides to the conception of the kingdom of God, as Christ viewed it ; in reference to its ideal and its real elements, which must be contemplated in their connexion with each other. The dis courses of Christ will be found every where to contradict a one-sided view of either of these elements. The kingdom of God was indeed first to be exhibited as a commun ion of men bound together by the same spirit, inspired by the same consciousness of God ; and this communion was to find its central point in Christ, its Redeemer and King. As he himself ordered and directed all things in the first congregation of his disciples, so he was subsequently to inspire, rule, and cultivate this community of men by his law and by his Spirit. The revelation of the Spirit, shared by all its members, was all that was to distinguish it from the world, so called in the New Testament, that is, the common mass of mankind, as alien ated from God. But as this community was gradually to prevail even over the mass of mankind through the power of the indwelling Spirit, it was not always to remain entirely inward and hidden, but to send forth, contin ually more and more, a renewing influence ; to be the salt, the leaven of humanity, the city set upon a hill, the candle which, once lighted, should never be extinguished. And Christ was gradually, through this community, his organ and his royal dwelling-place, to establish his kingdom as a real one, more and more widely among men, and subdue the world to his dominion. In this sense were those who shared in his communion to obtain and exercise, even upon earth, a real world-dominion. It is the aim and end of history, that Christianily shall more and more become the world-governing principle. In fine, the end of this developement appears to be (though not, indeed, simply as its natural result) a complete realization of the Divine kingdom AIMS OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD. 87 which Christ established in its outward manifestation, fully answering to its idea ; a perfect world-dominion of Christ and of his organs ; a world purified and transformed, to become the seat of Hjs universal empire. So did Christ intend, in a true sense, and in various relations, to describe himself as King, and his organs as partakers in his dominion of the worlds It was, indeed, in a real sense that, he spoke of his KiNGpoM, to be manifested on earth. And as he was to build up this kingdom on the foundations laid down in the Gld Testament, and to realize the plan of God therein prefigured, he could rightfully apply to himself the figures of the Old Testament in regard to the progress of the Theocracy, in order to bring the truths which they veiled clearly out before the consciousness of men.* Although his disciples at first took these figures in the letter, still, under the influence of Christ's in tercourse and teaching, they could not long stop there. And not only his direct instructions, but the manner in which he opposed the idea of his spiritual and inward kingdom to the carnal notions of the Jews, contributed to give his followers the key to the right interpretation of these types and shadows. In thus comparing Christ's discourses with each other, and in the unity of purpose which a contemplation of his whole life makes manifest, we find a guard* for all after ages, against carnal misconceptions of his individual discourses, or of separate features of his life.t In general, when we find in the accounts of any world-historical man such a unity of the creative mind, we are willing, if individual features come up in apparent contradiction to the general tenor, to believe that he was mis understood by incapable contemporaries ; or, if this cannot be safely asserted, because the contradictory features are inseparable from others that bear his unmistakable impress, we endeavour, by comparing his manifestations, to find that higher unity in which even the unmanage able points may find their rightful place. Utterly unhistorical, indeed, is that perverted principle of historical exegesis which teaches that an original, creative mind, a spirit far above his times, is to be compre hended from the prevailing opinions of his age and nation ; and which presupposes, in fact, that all these opinions are his own.J * Some suppose that every thing in Christ's discourses, as reported by Matthew and Luke, in reference to this real Theocratic element, is to be ascribed to the Jewish views that obscured the truth as uttered by. Christ, and caused it to be reported incorrectly That this is not tbe case is obvious from Paul's plain references to such expressions of Christ's, e.g.,1 Cor., vi., 2. t We shall speak more particularly of this when we come to treat of the mode in which Chiist trained his apostles. X Conf. what Schleiermacher says (Hermenentik, s. 20) of "historical interpretation," and also (s. 82) ofthe "Analogy of Faith." 88 THE PLAN OF CHRIST CHAPTER II. THE PLAN OF CHRIST IN ITS RELATION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT IDEA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD. The question now arises, in what relation the new form ofthe king dom of God, according to Christ's plan, stood to the Old Testament form thereof; a question which we shall have to answer from the inti mations afforded by Christ himself. Indeed, it has already been an swered by our remarks upon his idea of the kingdom as' developing itself from within; but as the subject has its difficulties, and especially as some have tried to prove that Christ spoke and acted at different times from opposite points of view, we must examine it more closely. r § 53. Christ's Observance of the Jewish Worship and Law. No question can arise as to Christ's intention to extend his kingdom abroad among the pagan nations ; the Messianic predictions of the Old Testament had already intimated the general diffusion of the worship of Jehovah ; and John the Baptist had hinted at the possible transfer of the kingdom of God from the Jews to the heathen, in case the for mer should prove to be unworthy of it. And what was afterward novel to the apostles was, not that the pagans should be converted and received into the fellowship ofthe Messiah, but that they should be re ceived without accepting the Mosaic law. It was against the latter view, and not the former, that even the strictest Judaizers objected. It was to refute this that the Ebionites appealed to Christ's strict ob servance of the law, and to his saying, in the Sermon on the Mount, that he " came not to destroy, but to fulfil the law," and that " not one jot or tittle of the law should pass away." We must not oppose this doctrine by quoting Christ's declarations that the essence of religion must be found in the soul, and that outward things could neither cleanse nor sanctify mankind ;* for even in the light of the Old Testament it was known that piety of heart was indispensa ble to a true fulfilment of the law. Christ himself appealed to a pas sage in the Old Testament (Hos., vi., 6) in proof of this; and even the well-disposed scribe (Mark, xii., 33) admitted it. Still, the necessity of an outward observance of the law might be maintained by those who deemed inward purity essential to its value.t Viewing the relation of Christ's doctrine to the legal stand-point only * Such as Matt., xv., 11; Mark, vii., 15. \ Even Philo, from the stand-point of his religious idealism, held the necessity of a striot observance of the ritual law, believing that it facilitated the understanding of the spiritual sense of the law. He asserted this against the idealists, who adhered absolutely to the letter, in his treatise "De Migratione Abraami." IN ITS RELATIONS TO THE OLD TESTAMENT. 89 on this side, we might conceive it to have stood as follows : Direct ing his attention only to the necessity of proper dispositions in order to piety, he held, as of fundamental importance, that nothing in religion not springing from genuinely pious feelings could be of any avail ; and, holding fast to this, did not investigate further the question of the con tinued authority of the ceremonial law. Satisfied with saving what was most essential, he permitted the other to stand as inviolable in its Divine authority.- Such a course would have been eminently proper in Christ, if we regard him as nothing more than a genuine reformer. Every attempt at true reformation must have, not a negative, but a pos itive point of departure ; must start with some truth which it fully and necessarily recognizes. The view which we have just set forth is not invalidated by Christ's denunciations of the Pharisees for their arbitrary statutes and burden some additions to the law.* In all these he contrasted the law, right ly and spiritually understood, with their false traditions and interpreta tions. As for actual violation of the law, he could never be justly ac cused of it ; even Paul, who so strenuously resisted the continued ob ligation of the law, declares that Christ submitted to it.t § 54. His Manifestation greater than the " Temple." But a comparison of Matt., xii., 6-8, with Mark, ii., 28, will suggest to us something more than a mere assault upon the statutes ofthe Phar isees. In the first passage he begins with his opponents ujjon their own ground. " You yourselves admit that the priests vwho serve the Tem ple on the Sabbath must break the literal Sabbatical law in view of the higher duties of the Temple service." Then he continues, " But I say unto you, there is something here greater than the Temple."\ In these, as in many of Christ's words, there is more than meets the ear.§ When we remember the sanctity of the Temple in Jewish eyes, as the seat of the Shekinah, as the only place where God could ever be worship ped, we can conceive the weight of Christ's declaration that his mani festation was something greater than the Temple, and was to introduce * Matt, xxiii. t Gal., iv., 4. t I prefer Lachmann's reading (ittKpv) both on internal and external grounds. I cannot, however, believe, with De Wette, that the passage refers to Christ's Messianic calling alone ; but rather to his whole manifestation, of which his ministry as Messiah formed part. Sim ilar expressions of Christ refer to his whole appearance, e. g., Matt, xii., 8, speaks of his person. Conf. Luke, xi., 30. § Justly says Dr. von Colin (Ideen ub. d. inneren Zusammenhang der Glaubenseinigung und Giaubensreinigung in der evangel. Kirche, Leips., 1824, s. 10) : " Every religious stu dent of the Scriptures, however he may be satisfied with the sense that he has obtained from them by the aids of philosophy and history, must be constrained to acknowledge that tne simplest words of the Saviour contain a depth and fulness of meaning which he can never boast of having mastered." These holy words, containing the germ of an unending developement, could only be understood in the Spirit (as by tbe Apostles) ; and they who had not received this Spirit, like the Judaizers, who adhered to the letter, could not but misunderstand them. tt 90 THE PLAN OF CHRIST a revelation of the glory of God, and a mode of Divine worship to which the Temple-service was entirely subordinate. We may infer Christ's conclusion to have been, " If the priests have been freed from the literal observance of the Sabbath law because of their relation to the Temple, heretofore the highest seat of worship, how much more must my disciples be freed from the letter of that law by their relation. to that which is greater than the Temple ! (Their intercourse with Him was something greater than Temple-worship.) They have pluck ed the corn on the Sabbath, it is true, but they have done it that they might not be disturbed in their communion with the Son of Man, and in reliance upon his authority. They are free from guilt, then, for the Son of Man is Lord even ofthe Sabbath." He thus laid the founda tion for that true, spiritual worship to which the Temple-seryice was to give way. Of the same character were those words of Jesus which taught a Stephen that Christ would destroy the Temple and remove its ritual- worship. (Acts, vi., 14.) Whether he learned this from the words re corded in John, ii., 19, or from some others, we leave for the present undecided. The doctrine of Paul in regard to the relation between the Law and the Gospel was only an extension of the truth first uttered by Stephen. . This doctrine could not have originated in Paul, without a point of departure for it in the instructions of Christ himself; still less, if those instructions had been in direct contradiction to it. Christ's declaration, "My yoke is easy and my burden light" (Matt., xi., 30), was designed, indeed, primarily, to contrast his manner of teach ing and leading men with that of the Pharisees ; but it certainly meant far more. It contrasted his plan of salvation with legalism generally, of which Pharisaism was only the apex. Paul's doctrine on the sub ject is nothing but a developement of the intimation contained in these § 55. The Conversation with the Samaritan Woman. We have thus far confined ourselves to Christ's declarations as given * Schleiermacher (in his Hermeneutik, ». 82) very aptly applies the oft-abused compari son between Christ and Socrates to illustrate the relation between the apostolic doctrines, especially those of Paul, and the immediate teachings of Christ. He justly remarks, that while there was a similarity in the fact that the teachings of Socrates were not written down by himself, but transmitted through his disciples, who marked them with their own individuality without at all obliterating the Socratic ground-colours, the substantial differ ence lay in this, that the affinity of the Apostles was closer than that of the followers of Soc rates, " because the power of unity which emanated from Christ was in itself greater, and acted so powerfully upon those Apostles who, like Paul, had marked individual peculiari ties, that they appealed, in their teachings, exclusively to Christ. Although Paul first brought out the idea of the conversion of the heathen into perfect clearness before the Apostles, yet he advocated it in no other power than that of Christ. Had not the idea been contained in Christ's teaching, the other Apostles would not have recognized Paul as a Chris. tian, much less an Apostle." The same remark may be applied to many other important doctrines. FULFILLING THE LAW. 91 by Matthew, Mark, and Luke, avoiding John, because the credibility of his reports of Christ's discourses has been more disputed. But, hav ing shown the tendency of Christ's doctrine of the Law from the first Gospels alone, we are surely now entitled to appeal to his conversation with the woman of Samaria (John, iv., 7-30), in which he set forth the Christian view, that religion was no more to be confined to any one place. In fact, the discourse involves no doGtrine which cannot be found in Christ's declarations elsewhere recorded. Perfectly accord ant with his declaration to the hostile Pharisees who clamoured so loudly for the ritual law — "> the manifestation of the Son of Man is greater than the Temple; and he is Lord ofthe Sabbath" — was his an swer to a woman (ignorant, to be sure, and destitute of a spiritual sense of the Divine, but yet free from prejudice, and susceptible of receiving instruction from him, because she believed him to be a prophet), when 6he inquired as to the right place to worship God : " The time is com ing when the worship of God will be confined to no visible temple ; for the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship ihe Father in spirit and in truth'' This declaration could only have been founded on the fact that something greater than the Temple had appeared among men. § 56. The "Destroying" and "Fulfilling''' of the Law. But although we infer that Paul's doctrine of the disjunction of Chris tianity from the Mosaic law was derived, mediately at least, from Christ's own words, we must admit that the Judaizing Christians, unfit as they were, from their Jewish stand-point, fully to apprehend his teaching, might have found some support for their peculiar opinions both in his words and in his actions. Take, for instance, the passage, " Think not that I am come to destroy the Law and the Prophets ; I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil."* Their Jewish views might interpret this to mean that he did not intend to abrogate the ceremonial part of the law, but to bring about a strict observance of it. Nor shall we apply here the distinction between the moral and the ritual law ; neither the connexion of the passage nor the stand-point of the Old Testament would justify this. Certainly, as he used the terms Law and Prophets to denote the two great divisions of the Old Testament, and declared he would not destroy either, he must have had in view the entire law; it was the law, as a whole, that he came not to destroy, but to fulfil. We need only to understand correctly what kind of "destroying" it is which Christ disclaims. It is a " destroying" which excludes " ful filling ;" a destroying which is not at the same time a fulfilling. The general positive clause, "lam come to fulfil' is used as proof of the special and negative clause, " I am not come to destroy the Law and the Prophets ;" nor are we to make the former a special one, by seeking * Matt., »., 17. 92 THE PLAN OF CHRIST. an object for it in the preceding words. On the contrary, the general proposition, " I am come to fulfil," which, holds good of Christ's entire labours, is, in this case, specially applied, to his relation to the Old Tes tament. Christ's activity is in no sense a destroying and negative, but in every respect a fulfilling and creative agency. For instance, by that agency human nature is to lose none of its essential features ; but only to be freed from the bonds and defects which sin has imposed upon it, so that its ideal, as originally designed by the Creator, may become the real. This is fulfilling ; but yet it must be accompanied by the destroy ing of whatever opposes it. We apply the same principle to Christ's relation to the Mosaic law. The Mosaic Institute, as the fundamental law ofthe special Theocracy exhibited in the Jewish nation, was a veil, a limited form, in which the will of God, the eternal law of the Theoc racy, was appropriately impressed upon the men of that time. But the general and eternal Theocratic law could not find its free developement and fulfilment in the form of an outward State law. The law (in its whole extent I mean, including what is called in a narrower sense the moral, as well as the ritual law) aimed to realize the will of God, to present the true ducaioovvrj under the relations above defined. But what the law, in its whole extent, aimed at, is accomplis7ied through Christ ; the veil is rent, the bonds are loosed by the liberating Spirit, and the law reaches its before unattainable fulfilment. This fulfilment, indeed, involves the removal of all obstructions ; but this destroying process cannot be called destroying, as it is an essential condition, and a negative element, of the fulfilment itself. So the fulfilment of proph ecy in the manifestation and labours of Christ necessarily involved the destruction of the prophetic veil and covering of the Messianic idea* The Ebionites, adhering only to the letter, misunderstood Christ's declarations on this subject ; but Paul, viewing them in their true spirit and universal bearing, obtained those views on the relation of the Law and the Gospel which he presents in such passages as Rom., iii., 31 : viii., 3, 4. $ 57. The Interpolation in Luke, vi., 4. (Cod. Cant.) There is a traditional account of another remarkable saying of Christ in regard to the observance of the Sabbath,f viz., that on a certain oc casion, seeing a man at work on the Sabbath, he said to him, "Happy art thou if thou knowest what thou art doing ; but if thou dost not know, thou art accursed, and a transgressor of ihe law." We must not leave this unnoticed, for as other words of Christ which did not find place in * We shall see hereafter how this interpretation of Christ's words is verified in the whole train of thoaght in the Sermon on the Mount. t In the Cod. Cant. (Cod. Bezse), this passage immediately follows Luke, vi., 4: "rjj aiiTxi h^lpa §iaa&iitv6s Jiva lpyaX,6y.Evov tw caS6aT