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DIVINITY SCHOOL
TROWBRIDGE LIBRARY

GIFT OF
BIBLICAL LITERATURE LIBRARY
Professor 0. F. Kent.

JESUS
ACCORDING TO S. MARK

JESUS
ACCORDING TO S. MARK

BY
J. M. THOMPSON
0s
FELLOW AND DEAN OF DIVINITY, S. MARY MAGDALEN COLLEGE, OXFORD
EXAMINING CHAPLAIN TO THE BISHOP OF GLOUCESTER

SECOND EDITION

NEW YORK
E. P. DUTTON AND COMPANY
31 WEST TWENTY-THIRD STREET
1910

CONTENTS

PAGE

I. Introductory  i
II. Jesus' Family and Friends - - - 16
III. Jesus' Way of Life  41
IV. Jesus' Mind  72
V. Jesus' Social Outlook - - - - 109
VI. Jesus' Morality  140
VII. Jesus' Religion  164
VIII. Jesus Himself  198
IX. Conclusion  274
Indexes  281

JESUS ACCORDING TO
S. MARK
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY I
IT would be difficult to find a better starting-
point for the present inquiry than the words
which stand at the head of the canonical accounts
of the life of Jesus. " The Gospel according to
S. Mark " suggests clearly enough the nature
of the facts and the method of their investi
gation. It implies that there is one Gospel,
and that it is presented in more than one form.
It sanctions a distinction between the essential
facts and interpretation of facts upon which
Christian belief depends, and the partial and more
or less accidental presentation of them which
survives in the written records of the evangelists.
There is a Gospel behind the Gospels : but it is

2 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
through the Gospels that the Gospel is to be
known. It is therefore not merely a possible and in
teresting thing to examine the figure of Jesus
as it is presented in a particular Gospel : rather
Ut is the natural and proper method of study
marked out by the Church's own tradition. Jesus
whom the Church confesses and worships is a
single person : but his historical figure is the
result of a large number of converging experi
ences : and, from among these, four have been
picked out by common instinct and the sanction
of use as the most representative, the most true.
They were not selected because they corrobor
ated or supplemented one another as parts of an
organic whole, but because each one embodied
— it might be with apostolic authority — what
Christians remembered or believed about their
Master. They were based not on official bio
graphies, but on personal memoirs ; and they
were the productions of men who worked from
very different points of view. It follows that
much of the originality and force of these early
memoirs will be lost if they are habitually read
together as one book. Such a method is psy
chologically and historically false. They should
be read as they were written, each as the in-

INTRODUCTORY 3
dividual presentation of a common Gospel :
and then everything that can be discovered as
to their particular standpoints or mutual relations
will become a help and not a hindrance to the
proper understanding of them.
II
Christianity claims to be a " historical re
ligion " in a special sense. It believes itself to
be, from beginning to end, a continuous and con
sistent whole. No facts could be simpler, at
first sight, than those in which it takes its rise ;
no organisation more complex, no growth of
creed and ritual more luxuriant, than that in which
it ends. But the beginning is held to include
the end, as the seed includes the flower ; and
the end is held to be valid because, and so
far as, it follows from the beginning. Jesus the
centre of Catholic worship is Jesus "the prophet
from Nazareth of Galilee ". No thought may
be held or spoken of him now which might not
have been held or spoken of him then. No
theory of Church or Sacrament is true which is
not faithful to its charter of historical facts. Con
versely, no doubt, if Christian faith is meaningless
without the Christian facts, so are the Christian
facts without Christian faith. But just as Jesus

4 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
whom the Church confesses must be known
chiefly by the faith that worships, so Jesus of
Galilee must be known chiefly by the science that
investigates. In a word, Jesus of the whole ex
perience of Christian life must be one who satisfies
not only the needs of the religious sense, but also
the canons of historical criticism. This is the
specific claim of Christianity — truth of faith and
truth of fact as inextricable elements in truth of
religion. It is therefore possible and right to apply
scientific method to the investigation of the figure
of Jesus. But, when this is granted, it becomes
very necessary to point out the limits within.
which such a method is valid, and the kinds of
conclusion which may be expected to follow
from it.
Christians believe that a certain person lived
and died ; that certain events took place in rela
tion to him ; that his character and claims were
of a certain kind. But this belief has been and
is variously expressed. Its most primitive and
universal expression takes the form not of a col
lection of documents, but of a way of life.1 The
Christian society, with its creeds and ministry
1 Acts ix. 2 ; xviii. 25, 26 ; xix. 9, 23 ; xxii. 4 ; xxiv. 14, 22.

INTRODUCTORY 5
and worship and life of charity, ought to be, and
for the most part has been, the truest witness to
Jesus, and the one most after his own heart.
Again, the intimate memories of this society,
the evangelical tradition which it kept alive in
the world, has for the most part passed away
into silence. It is only a small remnant of
its witness which has survived in the very
imperfect medium of written documents. The
Gospels are little more than islands from which
one can hazard a guess as to the course of moun
tain ranges below the level of sight. But a
document has a value which is all its own.
Unwritten tradition is at the mercy of a memory
which forgets, and of a will which wishes to be
lieve. Custom and ritual crystallise mistakes.
There is an easy transition from creed to myth
ology. The Christian documents have a unique
value for correction, for corroboration, for proof ;
and no work will be wasted that leads to a better
understanding of their meaning.
The first aim of scientific method, in dealing
with the Christian documents, will be to con
struct a genealdgical table of manuscripts. This
is the primary work of textual criticism ; and al
though those who have worked longest at the

6 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
problem will be the last to claim finality for the
conclusions which have been reached, we may
assume that a text trustworthy enough for all
practical purposes has now been established.1
The second aim will be to reproduce as far as
Possible the stages in the growth of the Christian
.story ; to show which parts of the record are most
original, and which have been derived ; to sift
the qualities of evidence, and to disentangle the
strands of tradition. This is more particularly
the work of literary and historical criticism. It
is more difficult than purely textual investigation ;
and its results are correspondingly tentative ; but
it at any rate gives working hypotheses for deal
ing with the documents. Ill
Putting aside the Old Testament, which de
rives a Christian interpretation through the New
Testament, the Christian documents fall under
three heads — Gospels, Acts, and Epistles. Of
these groups only the first claims to deal directly
with the life and character of Jesus ; but it will
1 For the sake of the convenience of being able to quote
a recognised English translation, the text used in this book
is the Greek Testament with the readings adopted by the
Revisers of the Authorised Version.

INTRODUCTORY 7
be advisable to indicate shortly what amount of
evidence is also available from the other groups,
in order to clear the ground for the exclusive
treatment of one gospel which is to follow.
The central group of Epistles, which is by com
mon consent both early and authentic — the group
consisting of 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians and
Romans — might well be called, " The Gospel
according to S. Paul". It embodies the one
Gospel ; and it presents it from an individual point
of view. But in so far as its tone is primarily
theological, not historical, it is a gospel of the
type of S. John rather than of S. Mark. Only
at two points does it deal deliberately with the
same subject matter as the gospels — in S. Paul's
account of the institution of the Eucharist,1 and in
his summary of the evidence for the appearances
of Jesus after the Resurrection.2 For the rest, it
must always remain something of a puzzle, that
the correspondence of a man to whom Jesus
was the source of religious inspiration and the
great reality of life should have so little to say
about Jesus' human life. It is, of course, true
that the letters are occasional, not systematic ;
that they assume a common background of facts
as well as of faith ; that the attention of Christians
1 1 Cor. xi. 23. 2xv. 3.

8 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
was fixed less upon Jesus who had once been in
the world, than upon Jesus who would soon
visit it again ; and that in the absence of written
records S. Paul may really have been ignorant of
all but the outlines of the life and death of Jesus.
At any rate, one gathers from his epistles the
main facts of the Gospel story and no more ; so
that if this were all the evidence of S. Paul's
standpoint, one might be tempted to regard him
as a ringleader of the sect of the Modernists,
whose dogmatic certainties rested upon a very
flimsy basis of facts.
That S. Paul's position was not, however,
peculiar to himself, but rather part of the attitude
of the early Church as a whole, is seen from a
consideration of the Acts. The later chapters of
this book, since they deal mainly with events in
the life of S. Paul, and are admittedly the work
of one who was his fellow-traveller, may be ex
pected to share the point of view of the Epistles,
And this, as a matter of fact, is the case. With
the exception of a solitary saying1 — the only word
of Jesus which has survived in the New Testa
ment independently of the gospels — nothing is
added to our knowledge of the Gospel story, and
only its main outlines are corroborated. The
1 Acts xx. 35.

INTRODUCTORY 9
earlier chapters, with their frequent summaries
of early Christian sermons, might be expected
to throw much light upon the subject. But,
interesting and important as they are as evi
dence corroborative of the point of view of
the earliest Gospel traditions, they cannot be
said to add any new knowledge about Jesus.
"Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God
unto you by mighty works and wonders and
signs -,"1 " His Servant Jesus . . . the Holy and
Righteous One . . . the Prince of Peace ; " 2
" Thy holy Servant Jesus, whom thou didst
anoint ; " 3 " Jesus, whom ye slew, hanging him
on a tree"4 — all such references fall within
the Gospel tradition, so far as their facts go ;
what novelty there is belongs to the language
of primitive Christian devotion. More de
tailed, and of special interest through the tradi
tional relationship between the Petrine "me
moirs " and the Gospel according to S. Mark, is
S. Peter's speech before Cornelius : "The word
which he sent unto the children of Israel, preach
ing good tidings of peace by Jesus Christ (he
is Lord of all) — that saying ye yourselves
know, which was published throughout all Judaea,
1 Acts ii. 22. 2 iii. 13, 14.
3iv. 27. 4 v. 30.

io JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
beginning from Galilee, after the baptism which
John preached ; even Jesus of Nazareth, how
that God anointed him with the Holy Ghost and
with power : who went about doing good, and
healing all that were oppressed of the devil ; for
God was with him. And we are witnesses of
all things which he did both in the country of
the Jews and in Jerusalem." r Here the Apostle
goes behind the final scenes of the gospel, which
seem generally to have absorbed the attention
of the early Church, and corroborates in a most
significant way the point of view and subject
matter of the second gospel. But, again, there
is nothing new.
Thus we are thrown back upon the gospels,
which still supply what they were no doubt
originally compiled to supply, a permanent
record of the manner of Jesus' life among men.
Strange as it may seem, this was a subject which
did not greatly interest the first generation of
Christians ; and there was some danger, then as
now, lest the plain facts of Jesus' historical In
carnation should be overlaid and obscured by
theories born of his supernatural presence in
the Church. This need of laying stress upon
the real humanity of Jesus, as the security of a
1 Acts x. 36-39.

INTRODUCTORY 1 1
true Incarnation, is a marked feature in the fourth
gospel, which in some other respects may be so
sharply contrasted with the Synoptic Gospels.
But before the memory of the facts was lost, and
while it was still possible to take an unsophis
ticated view of the manner of the Incarnation,
the earlier forms of the gospels, at any rate,
were compiled ; and it is thus possible, to a great
extent, to get behind the Christology and soteri
ology of the Church to Jesus as he lived among
men, and healed and taught them.
It will appear from what has been said about
the fourth gospel, that we cannot regard it as
historical evidence of the same kind as the other
gospels. In spite of its insistence upon the true
humanity of Jesus, and in spite of the vivid
appearance of historical detail which is so per
plexing an element in it, yet one feels that
these things are no more than the setting of some
thing which is not a biography, but a treatise in
theology ; and that its author would be almost
as ready to sacrifice historical truth where it
clashes with his dogmatic purpose as he is (ap
parently) anxious to observe it where it illus
trates his point. This does not destroy, indeed it
probably enhances, the importance of the book
from other points of view ; but it greatly lessens

12 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
its value for the purposes of such an inquiry as
the present.
The outstanding feature of the remaining
gospels is that, although each has a character of
its own, and individuality of treatment and style,
yet quite clearly, in point of subject matter, they
are not independent. There is one large element
which is common to all three gospels ; and there
is another which is common to the first and third.
If the gospels were mere compilations, no fur
ther question might arise ; we might abstract the
" triple tradition," and deny any further relation
ship. But the matter is not so simple. Textual
criticism shows that unity of editorship holds
throughout each gospel, and that the common
tradition undergoes variation accordingly. So
it becomes essential to determine the nature of
the relationship within the synoptic group. Did
X borrow the common matter from Y, and Y
from Z ? or did both X and Y derive it from Z ?
or did X, Y and Z take it independently from a
fourth original? Not very long ago it would
have been assumed that the second gospel was a
weakened and summarised edition of the first ;
but a better criticism has revolutionised the early
conclusions, and it is now generally agreed that
S. Matthew and S. Luke independently used

INTRODUCTORY 13
and edited either our S. Mark's Gospel or
something very like it. It is also admitted
that there must have been a second source
common to S. Matthew and S. Luke but un
known to S. Mark ; and this is commonly con
jectured to have been a document, called for
sake of convenience, " Q ". In addition to these
main sources of material there were many special
traditions known to one or another of the
evangelists. Thus, some passages seem to be
original parts of S. Mark, which were for various
reasons omitted by S. Matthew and S. Luke ;
others, again, seem to be genuine traditions not
known to S. Mark, but recovered by the later
evangelists ; a few, doubtless, represent later ad
ditions or interpretations of less value. Thus,
on the simplest hypothesis, which science always
prefers to the more elaborate, it ought to be pos
sible to assign the greater part of the gospels
with some certainty to one or other of these
layers of tradition, and to arrive at an adequately
scientific method of study. IV
It remains to justify the exclusive treatment
of the second gospel. From what has been said
as to the relations between the synoptic writers

14 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
it would appear that both the source of the " triple
tradition " and the hypothetical document called
" Q " must be of a very primitive nature. If the
question of their relative antiquity be raised, one
can only say that, whilst no literary dependance
can be proved between " Q " and S. Mark,
the balance of argument favours the priority
of the "triple tradition". For one will be
inclined to think that a tradition which re
cords in very simple style acts and short
sayings is more primitive than one which consists
of more elaborate and independent teaching.
In addition to the simplicity, the vividness,
and naturalness which are the obvious features
of the second gospel, there is the well-known
and very credible tradition that S. Mark was the
" interpreter " of S. Peter, and recorded in this
gospel what that Apostle remembered of the life
and death of his Master. In any case one is justi
fied in considering this document as of unique
historical value : it probably represents as a whole
an authentic account of a very early stratum of
Christian tradition about the life and character
of Jesus. More was discovered by later inquiry :
the outlines were filled up, the bare facts were
interpreted, the necessary developments of faith
and worship soon began. The latest, not the

INTRODUCTORY 15
earliest, account of Jesus should be the most
perfect, the most akin to the complex needs of
men. But without the sketch the picture would
have been impossible. And the more one studies
this early record, the more convinced one becomes
that it is a true biography, in which no essential
part of the figure has been left out, and nothing
is obviously disproportionate or out of drawing.
The Jesus of S. Mark lives and moves and has
real being : he is vivid, characteristic, complete.
As one learns more about S. Francis from the im
perfect " Speculum " of Brother Leo than from
the official biography of S. Bonaventura, so one
hopes to find in this personal account, however
unfinished it may be, a more vivid and tangible
Jesus than in the completer and more laboured
records. One last word of introduction. It is not
denied here that some beliefs, which might be
called the rudiments of the Apostles' Creed,
were in the minds of the Evangelists. But
S. Mark's gospel, at any rate, does not base
its appeal upon those beliefs. And if, whilst
written by and for Christians, it could take
up this detached position, it can be read by
Christians in the same spirit.

CHAPTER II
JESUS' FAMILY AND FRIENDS
I
THE method which we have prescribed
for ourselves exempts us from the need
of stating those a priori considerations which so
often prejudice as well as preface an a posteri
ori argument. Thus we need say nothing of the
" fulness of time," of the long preparation for, and
world-wide setting of the Incarnation. Jesus and
his contemporaries knew nothing of all this.
Even if they had been conscious of it, we should
be able to reach it best through their evidence.
Again, there is no need to state the general con
dition of Jewish society and religion under which
Jesus grew up, and which he took for granted.
We shall most profitably consider them through
his reactions upon them.
We shall not limit our inquiry, either posi
tively or negatively, by the Catholic creeds. The
16

JESUS' FAMILY AND FRIENDS 17
definitions ofthe creeds claim to be the necessary
outcome not merely of meditative but also of
scientific study. If the creeds are true, they have
•nothing to fear from the sound application of
scientific method to any matter in heaven or earth.
We shall not presuppose them, because we have
faith that they will be found waiting at the end
of the argument. To reverse this process would
be to doubt the creeds and to prejudice the
whole method of argument.
/ We shall beware of the similar error of reading
into the actual data of the Incarnation a prion
ideas as to what the Incarnation must have in
;volved. This is the cardinal mistake of the
Apocryphal Gospels, which often seem to deal
with the childhood of Jesus on a preconceived
theory of the nature of his divinity. It is the
error which in subtler forms predisposes every
one who studies the character of Jesus to distort
it in the interests of his particular social or national
prejudices. Re'nan's Jesus seems to Englishmen
intolerably French : the Jesus whom we preach
to the Chinese seems to them, far too often, a
glorified European.
It may not be possible wholly to avoid these
errors ; but we shall try to deal with the evidence
as it comes, interpreting it as simply as may be,

1 8 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
from the point of view of those by whom or for
whom it was first compiled, and endeavouring to
distinguish what is original from what is derived,
what is strongly from what is weakly witnessed,
what is solid fact from what is flimsy interpre
tation. II
"And it came to pass in those days, that
Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was
baptised of John in the Jordan" :x such, by com
mon consent of the three evangelists, was the
first emergence of Jesus into public view. S.
Matthew and S. Luke, who have prefixed long
narratives of the birth and childhood of Jesus,
make a fresh start with the preaching of the
Baptist. It is here that S. Luke introduces his
most elaborate indication of the date.2
Jesus not only comes from Nazareth ; he is of
Nazareth : no other home or birthplace is ever
hinted at by S. Mark. The unclean spirit at
Capernaum, the crowd of Jesus' followers, the
high priest's servant at Jerusalem, the young
man at the open tomb — all agree as to this title,
"Jesus of Nazareth," or "Jesus the Nazarene".8
1 Mark i. 9. 2 Matt. iii. r, Luke iii. 1.
3 Mark i. 24, x. 47, xiv. 67, xvi. 6. (The Greek word
Na£api7vo9 is the same in each case.)

JESUS' FAMILY AND FRIENDS 19
But what lies behind? Jesus is already in the
prime of life : x is the record of the thirty years
completely closed ?
To the first generation of Christians this was,
apparently, a subject of little interest. The
earliest tradition has nothing to record of the
long time before the baptism. That was the
beginning of Christian experience for the dis
ciples, as it was very possibly of Messianic
consciousness for Jesus himself. But, before
very long, interest began to be aroused. As the
hope of Jesus' second presence in the world grew
dim, the nature of his first appearance became
more important. Old stories were revived, new
evidence, perhaps, discovered : birth-narratives
and childhood-narratives were written : and from
a mass of such literature, if one may judge by
the parallel case of the gospels, two accounts
came to be accepted as orthodox and canonical —
the narratives that are prefixed to the Gospels
according to S. Matthew and S. Luke.
It is not within our scope to deal with the
controversies which circle round these stories.
But there is one line of argument which springs
1 Luke iii. 23. Cf. John viii. 57 — apparently a different
tradition.

20 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
directly from the second gospel, and which there
fore calls for consideration. It is this : What is
the evidential value of the silence of S. Mark as
to the birth and childhood of Jesus ? This is not
so simple a question as it might at first seem to
be. S. Mark's silence, were that all, might be ac
counted for on a number of grounds — ignorance
of what was not generally known at the time
when he wrote ; lack of interest in what was not
yet considered important ; a historical purpose
which limited itself to the public ministry of
Jesus ; or dependence upon the scope of S.
Peter's personal experience. But the difficulty
lies here : S. Mark is not merely silent about
Jesus' birth and childhood. Explicitly he says
nothing ; but he implies a good deal. It is
well-nigh impossible to begin a biography at the
age of thirty without throwing back some light
upon the years that have gone before. And S.
Mark's Gospel is no exception to this rule.
What, then, is the nature of S. Mark's witness to
the birth and childhood of Jesus ?
Ill
The appearance of Jesus at John's baptism,
which is marked by special signs of spiritual

JESUS' FAMILY AND FRIENDS 21
stress and fervour,1 was followed by a period of
retirement, and meditation, and struggle against
temptation. During all this time, the length of
which we cannot very well determine, one sup
poses Jesus to have stayed away from his own
country, and from his home at Nazareth. It was
not till " John was delivered up " that he " came
into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God, and
saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom
of God is at hand : repent ye, and believe in
the gospel".2 There follows that first period
of preaching in the parts of Galilee near Caper
naum, and along the lake-side, which is marked
by extraordinary popular demonstrations — by
crowds which follow and throng Jesus and his
disciples — and which culminates in an occasion,
apparently at S. Peter's house in Capernaum,
where " the multitude cometh together again, so
that they could not so much as eat bread ".3
It is at this moment that we are introduced
for the first time to Jesus' relations and friends.
The strange doings of the new prophet by the
lake-side are reported in all the hill-country
1E.g. the repeated " straightway " of Mark i. 10, 12 ; the
" driveth " of i. 12 ; and the agency of the Spirit throughout
the passage.
2 Mark i. 14, 15. 3 iii. 20.

22 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
above the lake, and before long they come to
the ears of Jesus' friends and neighbours at
Nazareth. It is an interesting, almost a critical
moment. Will the people of Nazareth be proud
of their native prophet, and welcome his popu
larity as the public recognition of merits long
known to themselves? or will they depreciate
his powers and achievements through the famili
arity which breeds contempt ? The course which
they actually take is neither of these. "And
when his friends heard it, they went out to lay
hold on him : for they said, he is beside him
self."1 The words occur only in S. Mark : but
there is little reason to doubt that they belong
to the original tradition, when one considers
how commonly statements which might be
thought unedifying or unorthodox are modified
or omitted by S. Matthew and S. Luke, and when
one finds the former process actually going on in
the reading of Codex Bezae — "And when the
scribes and the rest heard about him, they came
forth to seize him, for they said, he is driving
the people mad". There was, then, no question
as to approval or disapproval of Jesus' new
popularity : his friends simply thought that he
must be mad. And the natural inference from
xMark iii. 21. "Friends" (ot irap avrov) probably
means "relatives ".

JESUS' FAMILY AND FRIENDS 23
this is, that there had been nothing in Jesus' life
up to this point which would lead his friends to
anticipate or understand his ministry. They
had never expected anything of this kind : he
must be out of his senses to act so.
It is true that the point which chiefly offended
Jesus' friends, if one may judge from the position
of the incident in S. Mark's narrative, was the
publicity of his proceedings : but it remains a
safe inference that nothing in his thirty years of
home life had prepared them for his present
authority of word and act.1
It has also been suggested that Jesus' rela
tives were all the time at Capernaum, living in
the same house as himself, and that they only
came out of the house to restrain him when the
devotion of the crowd grew to an unusual pitch.
But probably (1) what has been said about
Jesus coming into Capernaum and lodging with
Peter holds good : his mother and brethren
would not be living away from home, or in
another man's house. (2) " He is beside him
self" in any case justifies the main point that we
are trying to make. (3) Jesus' disowning of
his family fits in with this view.
S. Mark puts in close proximity to this inci-
1 Mark i. 22, 27 ; cf. ii. 12.

24 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
dent another which is very similar to it, and
may even be a continuation of it. " And there
came his mother and his brethren ; and, stand
ing without, they sent unto him, calling him."1
This is the only direct mention of Jesus' mother
in S. Mark's Gospel : 2 she comes, apparently,
on the same errand as the friends just before —
to induce her son to return home : she is met
by what is not merely a great profession of the
spiritual kinship of all God's servants, but also a
literal renunciation of the claims of family rela
tionship.3 Yet Mary must have known the cir
cumstances of Jesus' birth ; must have antici
pated, if any one could, the time when he would
begin to do his Father's business ; must have
been able to understand the enthusiasm that
made him first an outcast from his family and
then the rejected of his nation. Unless S.
Mark is wrong in the position, and, by implica
tion, the meaning which he assigns to this in
cident, it is difficult not to infer that Jesus'
mother and brothers shared the point of view of
his friends, and had not been led by anything
in his previous life to anticipate his present
state of mind.
The third incident which must be compared
1 Mark iii. 31. 2 Cf. vi. 3. 3 iii. 34, 35.

JESUS' FAMILY AND FRIENDS 25
with these is the visit which Jesus pays to <( His
own country," when he preaches in the syna
gogue at Nazareth. It is not clear what is the
relation of this narrative to the two last : nothing
is said of his friends' or relations' attempts to
bring Jesus home : he comes of his own accord,
and moves among the villagers as though for the
first time. " And many hearing him were as
tonished, saying, Whence hath this man these
things ? and, What is the wisdom that is given
unto this man, and what mean such mighty
works wrought by his hands ? "J Jesus had per
haps preached before in the village synagogue ;
but never with this wisdom : he had passed daily
among the sick and halt and blind ; but had
done no such works as were now reported of him.
And then the village gossip becomes more per
sonal. " Is not this the carpenter, the son of
Mary, and brother of James, and Joses, and
Judas, and Simon ? and are not his sisters here
with us ? "2 Jesus acknowledges " his own kin,"
and seems to see no inconsistency between the
old life and the new. But to those who had
known at any rate tne externals of his thirty
years' life among them, his new powers and
JMark vi. 2. 2vi. 3.

26 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
claims were quite incredible, "and they were
offended in him ".1
It is not easy to estimate the exact force of
this evidence. But that it amounts to something
more than silence upon the question of Jesus'
birth, and of the nature of his early life, can
hardly be denied. The attitude of his fellow -
townsmen towards Jesus certainly excludes the
theory of the childhood which is illustrated
by the Apocryphal Gospels. It also seems
hard to reconcile with the miraculous or un
usual events surrounding the Nativity in the
stories prefixed to the first and third gospels.
But these points demand separate investigation,
such as cannot be given to them here.
There is, however, one other passage which
throws some light on the subject, and that from
the most significant point of view, namely Jesus'
own knowledge about his birth. In the course
of his teaching during the last week of his life
Jesus propounded a question with regard to the
i ioth Psalm. The common interpretation ofthe
1 This perhaps bears on the last incident in implying that
Jesus' mother and brothers have left Nazareth, whereas the
sisters are still there. But one might still suppose that they
had left in order to fetch Jesus home, and had then settled
in Capernaum.

JESUS' FAMILY AND FRIENDS 27
Psalm represented it as Messianic — its author,
David, in it addressing the Messiah, the Son of
David. Jesus urges that since David calls the
Messiah " Lord," the Messiah cannot really be his
son.1 Now he had on previous occasions accepted
the title " Son of David " in its conventional Mes
sianic sense. But he had never used it of him
self. And now it appears that he has some
reason for wishing to argue that, although not
David's son, he may yet be the Messiah. That
is to say, Jesus did not think himself to be
descended from David, as the genealogies given
by S. Matthew and S. Luke assert to have been
the case. Either, then, these genealogies are
based on a misapprehension, or Jesus was mis
taken. But if Jesus had grounds for not be
lieving himself to be descended from David,
what were they ? Did he know that Joseph
was a descendant of David, but that he was
not Joseph's son ? Or was he ignorant of
Joseph's descent, and of the enrolment at
Bethlehem by which S. Luke corroborates it?
On the whole, the former alternative, if one
must choose between the two, seems to be the
more likely : in which case we seem to obtain
1 Mark xii. 35-37.

28 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
evidence from the earliest Gospel anticipating
some such story as that of the Virgin birth.
There is, however, a third alternative. Since
those who called Jesus " Son of David " used
the words in the conventional Messianic sense,
and not from any special knowledge of his
actual descent — since, that is, those who might
have known it seem to have been unaware of
Joseph's Davidic genealogy — we may prefer to
think that the first and third gospels are wrong,
and that Jesus is here urging his human paren
tage as an argument against his Davidic descent.1
IV
Further evidence as to the things which lie be
hind Jesus' first public ministry might be looked
1 The description of Jesus as "the carpenter," together
with the absence of any mention of Joseph, suggests that the
latter was dead, and that Jesus, as the eldest son, had carried
on the family trade. If this were so, it would help to account
for the indignation of his brethren with one who, by becoming
a preacher, had left them to support the family. And the
phrase " Son of Mary " would perhaps be natural if Joseph
were no longej: alive, and need not have a dogmatic sense.
S. Matthew, apparently disliking the slur implied in "the
carpenter," puts "the carpenter's son," and S. Luke says
"Joseph's son" (Matt. xiii. 55, Luke iv. 22) thereby sug
gesting a new difficulty — the acceptance by the evangelists
of the villagers' idea of Jesus' paternity. Of this S. Mark
knows nothing.

JESUS' FAMILY AND FRIENDS 29
for in the attitude of his chosen friends, the
disciples. Nothing could at first sight be more
surprising than the unquestioning trust with which
the earliest companions of Jesus obeyed his call :
without a moment's hesitation, "they left the
nets, and followed him " ; or " they left their
father Zebedee in the boat with the hired ser
vants, and went after him ".1 Was this really
their first meeting ? It is almost impossible to
suppose so. S. Luke tries to meet this diffi
culty by prefixing to the call the story of the
miraculous draught of fishes,2 and the incident
ofthe healing of S. Peter's mother-in-law 3 — both
rather obvious misplacements. Assuming that
S. Mark's narrative is correct, so far as it goes,
we are driven to ask whether we can infer any
thing as to what lies behind the first definite call
ofthe apostles.
Nazareth was too far from the lake to make it
likely that Jesus was often able to go there.
But if Salome, the wife of Zebedee, and the
mother of James and John, was a sister of Mary
of Nazareth,4 it is very probable that Jesus had
1 Mark i. 18, 20. 2 Luke v. 1. 3 Luke iv. 38.
4 This is probably the true interpretation of John xix. 25 ;
and it throws some light on the incident in Mark x.
35-40.

30 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
at least this point of contact with the fishermen of
Galilee — that he had stayed with his cousins, had
helped them in their work, and had come to know
others engaged in the same pursuit. Among
these were two brothers, Simon and Andrew —
the former a married man, the latter apparently
unmarried — living with Simon's mother-in-law
in a house at Capernaum. From the way in
which Simon's house is open, not only to Jesus,
but also to James and John,1 and becomes the
only home in Jesus' wandering life,2 it is natural
to think that the formal call was the outcome
rather than the beginning of the friendship with
Simon and Andrew. One may perhaps argue
in a similar way from the ready hospitality
of Levi 3 to some degree of previous acquaint
ance ; though the evidence is weaker in this
case. And it is probable that longer experience
as well as deeper insight qualified S. Peter,
S. James and S. John to be the inner circle of
the disciples, who alone were allowed to be with
Jesus at the supreme moments of his spiritual
life. On the whole then, one may infer some pre-
1 Mark i. 29.
2ii. 1, iii. 19, ix. 33, x. 10. As to the nature of the house,
cf. ii. 4. 3ii. 15.

JESUS' FAMILY AND FRIENDS 31
vious sympathy and companionship as the back
ground of the sudden " call " of the first disciples.
But there is little or nothing to be learnt from
this source as to the nature of Jesus' pre-bap-
tismal life. The disciples accepted and trusted
him as he was, asking no questions. The deep
est friendships may exist between those who
know very little of each other's family history,
or external circumstances. In Jesus' case, too,
there was added to this the sense that by his
renunciation of his family, and baptism, and pub
lic preaching, a barrier had been fixed between
the old life and the new. Perhaps Jesus was as
unwilling to speak as the disciples were to inquire
about it. V
The one friendship which, if it could be estab
lished, would throw most light upon the early
life of Jesus, is that between himself and John
the Baptist. It is clear that the Baptist's preach
ing was the historical antecedent of Jesus'
ministry. It is very possible that Jesus' bap
tism was the occasion of his " call " — the moment
at which he first became aware of his divine
sonship, and applied to himself the Messianic
language of Isaiah.1 The discussion with the
1 Mark i. n.

32 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
disciples after the Transfiguration seems to show
that it was the realisation that the Baptist was
Elijah, the forerunner of the Messiah, which
gave Jesus the clue to the thirty years' puzzle of
his own personality.1 The vision and voice at
the baptism were the proof of the great hypoth
esis which had drawn him into the desert to
seek John. Again, the point of the retort with
which he meets the challenge of his authority is
the very same : if John's baptism is from heaven,
then a fortiori his own authority is divine : the
two stand or fall together.2
Further, Jesus seems to have regarded him
self, at any rate in the early times of his ministry,
as carrying on the work of the Baptist. It is
when John is thrown into prison that he begins
to preach : his first Gospel is stated in almost
the same terms as John's:8 and he thinks it
wise to withdraw for a time from public ministry
upon the report of the death of the Baptist.*
From the Baptist comes the rite of baptism, and
the asceticism of the first Christian "rule".8
Though by degrees the differences between
Jesus' preaching and the Baptist's became
marked, even profound, there is at any rate some
1Markix. 11-13. 2 xi. 27-33. 3i- I4i IS-
*vi. 30, 31 (taken in connection with the preceding pas
sage). 5 vi. 8, 9.

JESUS' FAMILY AND FRIENDS 33
reason for thinking that their earlier religious ideas
were not of wholly independent growth.
Whether we can go further than this, and
reconstruct a youthful friendship between Jesus
and the Baptist, is a question that must be de
cided upon other evidence than that of S. Mark.
There is no direct mention in the second Gos
pel of any previous acquaintance. But S. Luke
seems to allow, if not to indicate, something ofthe
sort, when he describes the family relationship
of Mary and Elizabeth, the friendship of the
households of Nazareth and of the "city of
Judah " in the hill country, and the prenatal sym
pathy of the two children.1 So far as S. Mark's
implications go, they point in the same direction.
VI
Where relations are incredulous and friends
silent or uninterested, one does not expect to
learn much from the attitude of the crowd.
Certainly no new evidence emerges, unless it
be the complete absence of any personal charges,
any discreditable reminiscences, such as Jesus'
enemies would have been only too willing to
bring up against him. Generally speaking, the
attitude of the crowd was that of the disciples :
xLuke i. 36, 39-41.

34 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
they were too much absorbed in his present
claims and powers to be interested in his past.
If we try to reconstruct the home circle and
the village life from which such wonderful things
have sprung, we are met at the outset by a great
difficulty. We are introduced to the family life
of Jesus, so far as the second Gospel is con
cerned, at the very moment when the claims of
religion have broken it up. The father is dead,
the mother is repudiated, the brothers have left
their home, only the sisters, married or un
married, still live in the neighbourhood.1 There
must have been an earlier stage of pious happy
family life ; but nothing of it now remains. And
to Jesus, at any rate, who renounced it, this life
must have seemed more of a hindrance than a
help to the true service of God. It had taught
him the power of prayer, and a profound know
ledge of the Scriptures : it had given him keen
sympathies, and the simplicity that comes from
country life : he had learnt to look below the social
surface, and to see the native goodness of
men's hearts — the strength of the fisherman, the
woman's love, the faith ofthe child, the humility of
the publican and the sinner. But at any moment
this life might become a barrier between the soul
1 A rather precarious inference from the language of
Mark vi. 3.

JESUS' FAMILY AND FRIENDS 35
and God : and for Jesus himself the moment had
come, and the barrier was ruthlessly broken down.
VII
The weight of the evidence which we have so
far collected is cumulative. One feels from quite
a number of aspects the significance of S. Mark's
silences, and the force of his implications. Even
if the second gospel stood alone, we should be
able to say something of value as to the earlier
parts of Jesus' life. Can we now fill up this out
line a little more from a class of evidence that
has not yet been investigated? One of the
surest sighs of a man's upbringing and way of
life is his habitual turn of mind and manner of
speech. That evidence is often the strongest
which does not know itself to be evidential. In
the instinctive forms into which they cast their
ideas men constantly bear unconscious witness
to the influences that have moulded their lives.
Jesus, indeed, seems to have overclimbed the
ordinary limitations of sympathy and language :
but his style was entirely his own ; and for
metaphor and imagery he constantly drew
upon the matter of his own experience. It
is here that he tells us about his past life, by
the unconscious witness of habitual speech.

36 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
The instances here given are all taken from
Jesus' own words as given in the second gospel,
These, and other instances like them, are com
monly taken as evidence of the keen observa
tion of S. Mark. They are much more valuable
as indications of the experiences of Jesus himself.
Some of the commonest ideas belong to the
everyday affairs of family life, and represent
memories of the home at Nazareth — the patch
ing of old clothes,1 the proper treatment of wine
skins,2 the use of a lamp,3 or of salt,4 the cup of
water given to the wayfarer,6 and the hours spent
on the housetop, or in the field.6 The measure,
the millstone, the pitcher of water 7 were all
familiar things : and there is doubtless a re
miniscence of family ailments, and of the medical
lore of the village, not only in the methods of heal
ing adopted by Jesus and his disciples, but also in
the prescription of food for one who is weak after
long illness,8 and the popular physiology which
underlies the teaching about defilement.9 Simi
larly Jesus has the insight to single out from the
"tribulation " ofthe fall of Jerusalem the troubles ol
" them that are with child and them that give suck
in those days " — particularly if it be winter time.10
1 Mark ii. 21. 2 ii. 22. 3 iv. 21. 4ix. 50.
5ix. 41. 6 xiii. 15, 16. 7iv. 24, ix. 42, xiv. 13.
sv. 43. 9vii. 18, 19. 10 xiii. 17, 18.

JESUS' FAMILY AND FRIENDS 37
Village interests and experiences seem to
underlie other parts of Jesus' imagery. The
bridegroom and the " sons ofthe bride, -chamber," J
the robber who breaks his way into a house,
pinions the owner, and steals his goods,2 the out
raged guest who shakes off the dust of his feet
outside the inhospitable door,3 the cross, the
cruel Roman method of execution,4 the young
colt tied in the village gateway,5 the dress,
salutations, and seats of the scribes,6 the porter
who guards the house when the great man is
away on his travels,7 and the robber against
whom the country-side goes out with swords and
staves, to seize him 8 — these are not second-hand
ideas, or literary " local colour," but the fruit of
real experiences — the sights and sounds of village
life, the instinctive medium of Jesus' thoughts.
Nor can one doubt Jesus' knowledge of and
sympathy with country life, when one considers
how habitually he uses the language and ideas of
the country-side. Some of his deepest spiritual
teaching is connected with the primal mys
tery of natural growth. God's word in men's
hearts is like seed in the field — its growth

1 Mark ii.

19.

2 iii. 27.

3 vi. n.

4 viii. 34.

5 xi. 2 .

6 xii. 38, 39.

7 xiii. 34.

8 xiv. 48.

38 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
dependent on the same influences of heat and
moisture and soil : x the kingdom of God springs
as suddenly from insignificant beginnings as the
mustard seed :2 or it grows gradually and unob
served, " as if a man should cast seed upon the
earth ; and should sleep and rise night and day,
and the seed should spring up and grow, he
knoweth not how. The earth beareth fruit of
herself; first the blade, then the ear, then the
full corn in the ear."8 Again, Jesus knows that,
although April is not the season for figs, a fig
tree prematurely in leaf might be expected to
have fruit upon it not too unripe to eat ; 4 and
he draws an effective parable from his know
ledge of the same tree : " when her branch is
now become tender, and putteth forth its leaves,
ye know that summer is nigh ; even so ye also,
when ye see these things coming to pass, know
that he is nigh, even at the doors".6 So, too,
his choice of Isaiah's imagery of the vineyard
for a parable of his own rejection 6 shows more
than literary plagiarism : his ideas naturally
express themselves in the symbols of the country
side. Some hints remain unclassified. Popular pro-
1 Mark iv. 3-9. 2iv. 31, 32. 8iv. 26-28.
4 xi. 12-14. s xiii. 28, 29. 6 xii. 1.

JESUS' FAMILY AND FRIENDS 39
verbs, like that of the camel and the needle's
eye,1 colour many of Jesus' sayings. And he
seems to take over the natural portents of the
prophecies of Isaiah and Daniel 2 in the spirit of
one who interprets them literally, according to
the crude astronomy and meteorology of the
village mind. VIII
Individually, these things are details, and of
varying importance. But the method of argu
ment which they are meant to illustrate is a
sound one, and the cumulative results, at least,
are significant. The Incarnation means at any
rate this, that Jesus shared naturally and un
reservedly the normal interests and ideas of the
village people of Nazareth — their tastes and
their distastes, their knowledge and their ignor
ance, their ordinary turn of mind and habitual
outlook upon life. Sufficient allowance is not
generally made for this consideration. The
human nature of Jesus, though admitted as an
abstract principle, is but grudgingly conceded in
concrete particulars. Yet such a policy im
poverishes the Incarnation. And in trying to
1 Mark x. 25. 2 xiii. 24-27.

40 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
understand the meaning of Jesus' Divinity the
only right method is not to abstract from his
humanity, but to frame some hypothesis which
will take it all into account.

CHAPTER III
JESUS' WAY OF LIFE
I
BY common consent of the three evangel
ists, two great experiences lay between
the old life of Jesus and the new. The Baptism
sealed the renunciation of home, and proved the
hypothesis of the Messiahship : the Temptation
determined the method of the Ministry.
It was the realisation that John was Elijah
the forerunner, re-incarnate, which discovered
Jesus to himself. He underwent John's bap
tism, so far as we can tell from the earliest
tradition, in the spirit in which so many others
underwent it, that is, as a rite of preparation for
the Kingdom of Heaven, signifying death to
sin, and birth to a new life.1 But he came with
a special sense of spiritual crisis, asking for an
answer to the problem of his own personality.
1 Mark i. 4, 5.
41

42 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
And at the moment of humiliation, of volun
tary identification with the sinfulness and hope
lessness of his people, the answer was given.
There could be no doubt of his " call " ; no going
back upon his renunciation ; no alternative but
to go through with the task laid upon him.
But the method was as yet undetermined.
And the temptation to which the baptismal Spirit
" drives '' Jesus " forth " is probably rightly inter
preted by S. Matthew and S. Luke, not simply
as a reaction from the spiritual intensity of the
Baptism, but as a time of self-scrutiny and self-
determination with regard to the use of the
divine powers which have been given to him.
It is true that the primitive fact underlying the
narratives — and it is one that must have
rested on Jesus' own evidence — is simply that
he was "tempted of Satan";1 that the details
of the temptation rest upon some other authority
common to S. Matthew and to S. Luke ; and that
in this form, at any rate, the experience too
much resembles a Scripture-quoting contest to
be intended or taken as literally true. But in
any case the position of the incident, and the
stress laid upon it, justifies our regarding it as
1 Mark i. 12, 13 ; Matt. iv. 1-11 ; Luke iv. 1-13.

JESUS' WAY OF LIFE 43
Jesus' own explanation of the transition from a
sudden "call" to a methodical ministry.
" Methodical " is perhaps too strong a word
for the means and limits which Jesus prescribed
to himself. His way of life, which, even more
than his words or acts, won men's allegiance,
and through the preaching and living of "the
Way" converted the ancient world, included
much that was purely spontaneous and personal.
For our present purpose it may perhaps be
divided into three parts : first, Jesus' way of
teaching ; secondly, his way of doing good ; and
thirdly, his way of living, which will include
public and, so far as they do not trench on other
divisions of our subject, private characteristics.
II
Jesus' favourite methods of teaching, so far as
one is able to judge frojn the second gospel,
were of five kinds. He would not have been
conscious of the distinction between them. They
were all spontaneous reactions to particular cir
cumstances, the expressions of one mind and
one way of speech to suit different cases. But,
with this caution, we may reasonably give them
separate consideration.

44 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
(i) The most primitive and effective kind of
teaching is that which takes the form of a com
mentary upon acts. Jesus revealed God prim
arily through certain acts and a certain way of
living : the preaching was always secondary.
He did not argue with people : he made dog
matic statements, and offered no proof of them
but personal authority, such as he manifested
in his acts. One is commonly misled on this
point by the disproportionate amount of pure
talking in the other gospels : but S. Mark (and
here the Acts entirely corroborates the second
gospel) quite properly lays most stress on the
acts of Jesus, and represents the teaching as grow
ing naturally out of these. Further, such teach
ing most easily sticks in the memory, and is
least liable to editorial alteration ; \ so that,
whether or not we have in S. Mark's Gospel the
recollections of S. Peter, we feel that in this
class of sayings we get very near to the ipsissima
verba of Jesus. Thus Jesus' claim to forgive
sins is dependent upon the healing of a
paralytic man ; 2 the statement of his mission —
" I came not to call the righteous, but sinners " —
1 As a matter of fact, it is just in such sayings as these
that the verbal identity of the three Gospels is most striking.
2 Mark ii. 3-12.

JESUS' WAY OF LIFE 45
arises out of an incident at a supper-party ; 1 and
the teaching about Sabbatarianism is the result
of an incident in the course of a country walk.2
(ii) Another way of teaching characteristic of
Jesus is that which proceeds by question and
answer. S. Mark seems to be conscious that
these sayings constitute a special class when he
brings several of them together in one of his later
chapters : he is perhaps also hinting that such
formal questionings naturally occurred only to
wards the end of the ministry, when Jesus had
become a recognised teacher, a power to be
reckoned with. Thus Jesus' only political teach
ing is in answer to a question ofthe Pharisees and
Herodians ;3 his argument for a future life is an
appendix to an answer given to the Sadducees ; 4
and it is the scribe's question, " What command
ment is the first of all ? " which introduces the
Christian summary of the Decalogue.5 Even
the long apocalyptic discourse is represented as
an answer to a private question by four disciples.6
(iii) It would be natural to expect that some
at least of Jesus' teaching should consist of ex
positions of Scripture, especially of those parts of
it which he had come to identify with the hopes
1 Mark ii. 15-17, 2 ii. 23-28. 3xii. 13-17.
4 xii. 18-27. 5 xii. 28-34. 6 xiii. 3, 4.

46 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
and ideals of his own life. On three occasions,
at any rate, he is represented as giving such
teaching : and again S. Mark groups the incidents
together. The parable of the vineyard culminates
in a Messianic interpretation of the 1 1 8th Psalm ; x
the reality of life after death is proved by a verbal
argument, which Jesus apparently gives as a dis
covery of his own, drawn from a passage in
Exodus ; 2 and an objection is urged against the
current ideas of the Messiah from the words of
Psalm ex.8
(iv) Many of the most striking sayings of Jesus
are those which are expressed in proverbial or
aphoristic forms. An aphorism is a little saying
with a great meaning ; its special force lies not
so much in what it says as in what it suggests ;
it is often one-sided, and demands correction ; or
indeterminate, and demands individual interpre
tation. An aphorism need not be, and hardly
claims to be, obviously true ; but it reveals truth
both in the speaker and in the hearer. " The
sabbath was made for man, not man for the
sabbath ; " 4 " There is nothing hid, save that it
should be manifested ; neither was anything made
secret, but that it should come to light ; " 5 " With
1 Mark xii. io, n. 2xii. 26, 27.
8xii- 35-37- * ii. 27- 6iv. 22.

JESUS' WAY OF LIFE 47
what measure ye mete, it shall be measured unto
you ; " 1 "He that hath, to him shall be given ; " 2
"He that is not against us, is for us ; " 3 " Who
soever would save his life shall lose it " 4 — these
are no more than a few of the sayings (the
gospel is full of such) which have in an incom
parable way summed up the old truth and inspired
the new.
(v) But undoubtedly the most characteristic of
all Jesus's ways of teaching, and the one that most
nearly amounts to a method, is his use of meta
phor and parable. The mere fact that such teach
ing would be more easily remembered than more
abstract discourse is not enough to account for its
actual bulk in the gospels : it is predominant there
because it was Jesus' favourite way of speech.
Jesus did not always elaborate his parables.
We have to distinguish, probably, between an
earlier stage in his teaching, and a later. In the
earlier, he was content with metaphorical sayings
that hinted at rather than expressed a parable ;
the image of the strong man whom the robber
must bind before he can spoil his house, 5 or the
comparison of the Kingdom of Heaven to the
corn growing silently from seed-time to harvest,6
xMarkiv. 24. 2iv. 25. 3ix. 40.
* viii. 35. 5 iii. 27. 6iv. 26-29.

48 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
might easily have been elaborated into fully ex
pressed parables. The latter, indeed, may have
been so treated by S. Matthew.1 In the later
stages of his ministry, or when a special audience
or occasion demanded, Jesus used this method
of teaching in the more complete form which we
generally identify with the parable proper. Only
two instances of this are given in the second
gospel — the parable of the Sower,2 and the
parable of the Vineyard ; 3 it is to S. Matthew
and S. Luke that we go for the full development
of this method.
S. Mark not merely supplies the groundwork
for the more elaborate use of parables in the other
gospels. He also records a discussion between
Jesus and his disciples as to the intention of
this method of teaching. The passage follows
the parable of the Sower, and runs thus :
" And when he was alone, they that were about
him with the twelve, asked of him the parables.
And he said unto them : Unto you is given
the mystery of the Kingdom of God : but unto
them that are without, all things are done in
parables : that seeing they may see, and not per-
1Some critics hold that Matt. xiii. 24-30 (the parable of
the Tares in the Field) is an elaboration of Mark iv. 26-29.
2 Mark iv. 2-9. 3 xii. 1-9.

JESUS' WAY OF LIFE 49
ceive ; and hearing they may hear and not under
stand ; lest haply they should turn again, and it
should be forgiven them."1 The first part of
this explanation is what we should expect. A
distinction is drawn between the plain instruction
in " the mystery of the Kingdom of God" which
is given to the disciples, and the veiled teaching
which is given to those outside that body through
parables. But the adaptation of Isaiah which
follows is remarkable. " That seeing they may
see " gives a purposive turn to the words, and
credits Jesus with the intention of confirming the
ignorant in their ignorance, the sinners in their
sin, which we can hardly believe to have been in
his mind. S. Matthew, feeling this difficulty,
alters "that" to " because" but thereby loses the
point of the quotation. Whatever the exact force
given to the words in Jesus' original use, it is
difficult not to think that they have been modified
in the second gospel to suit the actual rejection
of the Jews. Parables might be meant as a test
of spiritual capacity : they could not be intended
to hide the truth from any one with the capacity
to discover it.
That this was the true aim of Jesus' parables
is shown by S. Mark's own explanation with
*Mark iv. 10-12.
4

So JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
which the passage ends. " And with many
such parables spake he the word unto them, as
they were able to hear it : and without a parable
spake he not unto them : but privately to his
disciples he expounded all things."1 "As they
were able to hear it," exactly expresses the point :
parables were intended to teach every indivi
dual just so much as he was able to learn, and
no more. Ill
The distinction which we have just noticed
between the public and private teaching of Jesus
is clearly marked in the narrative of the second
gospel. S. Mark is generally very precise in
stating to whom each part of the teaching was
addressed. Thus, after answering a question by
a group of Pharisees and Scribes, Jesus "called
to him the multitude again," and spoke publicly
the parable on the nature of defilement. " And
when he was entered into the house from the
multitude, his disciples asked of him the par
able."2 There are here three distinct audiences,
and kinds of teaching. Or again, on the journey
1 Mark iv. 33, 34 ; for an actual instance of this method
cf. vii. 14-23.
2 vii. 5-17.

JESUS' WAY OF LIFE 51
to Caesarea Philippi Jesus first questions his
disciples as a whole, and foretells his passion.
Then, the other disciples falling behind, S. Peter
privately protests against his intention to die.
" But he, turning about, and seeing his disciples,
rebuked Peter, and saith, Get thee behind me,
Satan " — that is, Peter is to fall back among the
other disciples. And then, apparently as part of
the same incident, "he called unto him the
multitude with his disciples," and explained to
them all the self-sacrifice involved in real disciple
ship.1 There were thus some parts of his teaching,
especially those which could be thrown into the
form of parables, which Jesus deliberately pub
lished : and there were others — summarily de
scribed as " the mystery ofthe Kingdom of God,"
which he only gave in private. If we ask of
what the latter class of teachings consisted, it is
not easy to give a very definite answer. Clearly,
however, one great subject was, until quite the
end of the ministry, guarded from general know
ledge — Jesus' own claim to be the Messiah. It
was not so much that Jesus dreaded the public
enthusiasm and the political complications that
such an avowal would at first involve : even
1 Mark viii. 27-34.

52 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
more, perhaps, he felt the utter incongruity be
tween the popular Messianic idea and his own
self-consciousness, between the " Kingdom of
our father David " J and the Kingdom of God.
The Messianic conception was a hindrance to
him, rather than a help : the public announce
ment of his claims could only lead ultimately, as,
in fact, it did lead, to his rejection and death.
Consequently the first statement of Jesus'
ministry,2 the first questioning of the disciples'
faith,3 the predictions of the Passion,4 the lessons
of the Transfiguration,6 and the teaching at the
Last Supper,6 are all addressed privately to a
chosen body of followers. And most stress is
laid, if we may judge from the position which this
part of the teaching holds in the second gospel,
upon the suffering and death through which alone
the Christ can come into his Kingdom.
Another strain of the private teaching deals
with the nature of Christian discipleship. The
intimate relation between Jesus and his closest
friends was not a thing to be discussed openly :
his claim on their service, like his claim on their
belief, could only gradually be revealed. Thus
1 Mark xi. io. 2i. 38. 3 viii. 27-30.
4 viii. 31; ix. 12, 31 ; x. 33.
5ix. 9-13. 6xiv. 22-25.

JESUS' WAY OF LIFE 53
it. is to the disciples alone that Jesus explains
the "mystery of the Kingdom of God," even
when it lies no deeper than in the interpretation of
a parable j1 the first Christian " rule " is enjoined
on the twelve apostles alone, for a special piece
of work, not on all the disciples ; 2 it is to his
chosen followers that Jesus explains the special
privilege of work done in his name,8 or com
mands a charitable co-operation with those who
are not disciples,4 or blesses the complete renun
ciation of riches,6 or teaches his favourite lesson
on the virtue of humility.6 Finally, the teach
ing about the nature of discipleship merges in
sensibly into spiritual lessons of a more general
character, such as those on the true nature of
defilement,7 or on the need and power of faith.8
One can see from these instances that Jesus
avoided the mistake, which great teachers have
very commonly made, of thinking that he could
always be understood ; and that he was careful
to speak in such a way that those who were
listening to him could take what they were able
to use, and yet not feel the loss of that which
was beyond their apprehension. We do not
JMark iv. 10-13, 33, 34. 2vi. 7-13.
3ix. 36,37. 4ix. 38-41. 5x. 23-31.
6 x. 42-45. 7vii. 17-23. 8xi. 22-25.

54 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
wonder at the characteristic refrain with which the
Evangelists have closed so many of the parables,
" Who hath ears to hear, let him hear." x
IV
If it be true that Jesus revealed God primarily
by his way of living, we shall expect to learn
much from a consideration of his method of
doing good. Here, again, " method " is too
strong a word. Jesus' acts of goodness were
nothing if not spontaneous. If they seem to
illustrate a principle or to conform to a rule, it
is because they are the natural expressions of a
single character which was a law to itself. But,
with this reservation, one can profitably raise
the question, What was the aim and character
of Jesus' chief acts of goodness — his miracles
of healing?
j First, then, Jesus did not work miracles in
prder to make himself known, or to bring people
to his preaching. This is what we should al
ready expect from his attitude towards the popu*
Iar Messianic beliefs. It is entirely borne out by
the precautions which he takes to work special
miracles in private, and to secure the silence of
those whom he has cured. Thus the raising of
1 Mark iv. 9, etc.

JESUS' WAY OF LIFE 55
Jairus's daughter (the only miracle of its kind in
the second gospel) is done in the presence of
the girl's parents and three chosen disciples ; 1 in
the instance of a deaf man with an impediment
in his speech — a specially difficult case to cure —
" he took him aside from the multitude privately "
before doing anything for him ; 2 in another
similar case " he took hold of the blind man by
the hand, and brought him out of the village " ; 3
and it was not till " Jesus saw that a multitude
came running together " that he cast out the
dumb and deaf spirit from the boy at the foot of
the Mount of Transfiguration.4
To secure the silence of those whom he has
cured, Jesus frequently forbids the evil spirits
who recognise him to make him known.6 In
the case of a leper he is particularly insistent —
" he strictly charged him, and straightway sent
him out, and saith unto him, See thou say nothing
to any man ." 6 Jairus and his wife he " charged
. . . much that no man should know " of the rais
ing of their daughter.7 Of the first of the two
special cases of healing which S. Mark alone men
tions it is recorded that " he charged them that
1 Mark v. 37, 40. 2 vii. 33. 3 viii. 23.
4ix. 25. 6i. 25, 34; iii. 12.
6 i. 43.44- 7v. 43-

56 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
they should tell no man," 1 and ofthe second that
" he sent him away to his home, saying, Do not
even enter into the village ".2
The one possible exception to this general
practice is the case of the Gerasene demoniac,
whom Jesus will not allow to follow him as a
disciple, "but saith unto him, Go to thy house
unto thy friends, and tell them how great things
the Lord hath done for thee, and how he had
mercy on thee ".3 But considering that it is to
his family and friends, not to the world at large,
that the man is to bear witness, and that this
event happened in Peraea, which Jesus himself
did not intend to evangelise, and where the
ordinary reasons against publicity did not exist,
one is probably justified in regarding this incident
as " the exception which proves the rule ".
Secondly, if Jesus did not work miracles in
order to obtain publicity, neither did he do so
in order to prove his personal claims. There
is probably only one case in the second gospel
of which this might be alleged — the healing of a
paralytic man at Capernaum as a proof of the
claim to forgive sins — " But that ye may know
that the Son of man hath power on earth to for
give sins, (he saith to the sick of the palsy,) I say
1 Mark vii. 36. 2viii. 26 3v. 19.

JESUS' WAY OF LIFE 57
unto thee, Arise".1 This incident stands quite
alone in the Gospel, and cannot safely be taken
as representing Jesus' general practice. Judging
from the number of miracles that have no evi
dential purpose, it is more probable that this
instance is exceptional, and that our general
statement holds good.
1 What, then, was Jesus' general aim in work
ing miracles ? We shall hardly be wrong if we
accept provisionally the most natural explana
tion, namely that he did these good acts spon
taneously, and as part of the work of God which
he had been sent to do, without any ulterior ob
ject or conscious policy. As S. Peter put it,
he "went about doing good, and healing all
that were oppressed of the devil ; for God was
with him ".2 No theory could be more true or
more worthy than that simple statement.
Something should be added as to the nature
of the miracles, so far as it affects Jesus' method
ot 'cloing good. For instance, what amount of
truth is there in the idea that Jesus demanded
faith on the part of those whom he healed ? If
he did so, it is a point that considerably affects
his method. Certainly he was unable to do
any " mighty work " at Nazareth because of the
1 Mark ii. 10. 2 Acts x. 38.

58 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
unbelief of the people.1 It was the faith of the
palsied man's friends (and, it is implied, of the
man himself) which prompted the words of for
giveness.2 Both to the woman with the issue
of blood, and to the blind man, Bartimaeus, he
said, "thy faith hath made thee whole".3 In
the case of a boy with a dumb spirit Jesus seems
to wish for, and to aim at drawing out some ex
pression of the father's faith.4 These are cer
tainly some instances in which Jesus connects
faith with healing ; but it is never stated as
a necessary condition of it.
And, indeed, in the great majority of the
miracles described by S. Mark, nothing is said
as to the need of faith, and we are not led to
suppose that Jesus required it. The persons
chosen to receive these benefits are men casually
met in the synagogue or the country-side,6 a
sick woman in the house of a friend,6 or the in
discriminate sufferers in the village or the crowd.7
If we ask what prompted Jesus' action in such
cases, the answer again seems to be the most
natural one. He worked miracles because he
1 Mark vi. 5, 6 : it is implied that the hindrance was lack
of faith. 2ii. 5. 3v. 34 ;x. 52. Mx. 23, 24.
5i. 23; v. 2. 6i. 30. T iii- 10-11 ; vi. 56.

JESUS' WAY OF LIFE 59
was asked to do so : or he healed people be
cause he was sorry for them. Jairus's urgent
prayer for his daughter, or the request of a blind
man's friends (as on two occasions) are the only
reasons given for some of the most difficult
miracles.1 In two cases — the healing of a leper,
and the second miracle of feeding — compassion
is clearly stated as the motive for the miracle ; 2
and this seems to be implied also in the feeding
of the five thousand, and in the walking on the
lake.8 There remains one class of miraculous healing
which is of rather different kind. In the case of
the woman with an issue of blood who touched
Jesus in the crowd, the cure was worked by the
mere act of contact, and by the woman's faith.
The healing power is conceived as something al
most material : Jesus perceived "that the power
proceeding from him had gone forth," without
any will of his own.4 Nor was this an excep
tional case, if one may judge from S. Mark's
summary of the ministry of healing in Galilee —
" Wheresoever he entered, into villages, or into
cities, or into the country, they laid the sick in
the market-places, and besought him that they
*Mark v. 22, 23 ; vii. 32 ; viii. 22.
2i. 41 ; viii. 2. a vi. 37, 48. 4v. 30.

60 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
might touch if it were but the border of his
garment : and as many as touched him were
made whole." 1 Whatever may have been the
exact nature of the influence so exercised, it is
clear that at this point the idea of " method "
finally breaks down. Jesus' power to heal, at
all times liberal and spontaneous, easily called
out by pity or request — lying, as one might say,
( very near the surface of his personality — some
times passed beyond his control, so that he could
not help working miracles. Here the discussion
passes outside its present point. Enough has
been said to show that the truest account of
Jesus' way of doing good will be that which is
most natural, and that Jesus was most methodical
when he was most himself. V
The third head under which one may consider
Jesus' way of life is his method of living. The
main features of this were, no doubt, largely de
termined by influences which are rather presup
posed than expressed in the gospels — the social
standard and ideals under which Jesus had been
brought up, or the traditional way of life of the
xMark vi. 56.

JESUS' WAY OF LIFE 61
Jewish prophets, or the practical necessities of
the ministry. The strongest evidence, at any
rate in the case of the second gospel, consists of
quite incidental references to minor points and
characteristics. But before passing on to these,
attention must be called to S. Mark's general
representation of the early ministry. It is de
scribed repeatedly as a busy, hurried, crowded
life, in which almost' every hour was lived in
public, and there was no leisure from the con
stant demands for teaching or for help. S.
Mark's constant use of " straightway," by which
one incident follows upon another in breathless
hurry, is not merely a trick of style, but also a
record of fact.1 At Capernaum, where Jesus
was staying in S. Peter's house, "all the city
was gathered together at the door," and he could
only find leisure for prayer by getting up before
dawn and going into a desert place outside the
city.2 Soon afterwards, in consequence of the
healing of a leper, who (in spite of Jesus' pro
hibition) " spread abroad the matter," he " could
no more openly enter into a city, but was with
out in desert places ; and they came to him
1 e.g., Mark i. io, 12, 18, 20, 21, 23, 29, 30.
2i- 33-35-

62 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
from every quarter".1 During a later visit to
Capernaum, when Jesus was again staying, ap
parently, with S. Peter, the house was so full of
people that " there was no longer room for them,
no, not even about the door " ; and the friends
of a paralytic who wished to be healed, " when
they could not come nigh unto him for the
crowd, . . . uncovered the roof where he was :
and when they had broken it up, they let down
the bed whereon the sick of the palsy lay ".2 At
meal-times the room would be full of publicans
and sinners : " for there were many, and they
followed him " : 3 once it is recorded that " the
multitude cometh together again, so that they
could not so much as eat bread " ; 4 and once that
" there were many coming and going, and they
had no leisure so much as to eat".6 Jesus' own
relatives cannot reach him, but are forced to
send a message through the crowd :6 the multi
tude so throngs him when he goes to Jairus's
house that the disciples think it absurd to ask,
" Who touched me ? " 7 Sometimes Jesus was
forced to escape from the crowds, and to secure a
little quiet by taking boat across the lake of
1 Mark i. 45. 2 ii. 1-4. sii. 15. * iii. 20.
5vi. 31. ° iii- 3i> 32- 7 v. 31.

JESUS* WAY OF LIFE 63
Galilee.1 Later, he had to go farther afield,
but was still unsuccessful in escaping the publi
city which had come to be such a burden — " And
from thence he arose, and went away into the
borders of Tyre and Sidon. And he entered into
a house, and would have no man know it : and
he could not be hid."2 The journey "into the
villages of Caesarea Philippi" was almost cer
tainly undertaken for the same reason.3 But
even this seclusion was only possible for a time ;
and though, when he came back into Galilee,
he " passed through " as secretly as possible,
and "would not that any man should know it,"4
yet soon afterwards the " multitudes come to
gether unto him again " : 6 a " great multitude "
follows him out of Jericho,6 and crowds go before
and follow after as he enters into Jerusalem.7
Putting aside the central part of the ministry,
during which he seems almost to have been in
hiding from the enthusiasm of the people, it
would be difficult to exaggerate the crowd and
stress of Jesus' short public life. These con
ditions were forced upon him ; they were not
1 Mark iv. 35 ; vi. 45 ; viii. 10, 13 (on the first occasion
he even went by night, and in risk of stormy weather).
2 vii. 24. 3 viii. 27. 4ix. 30.
6 x. 1. 6 x. 46. 7 xi. 8, 9.

64 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
of his own choosing. The wonderful thing is
that the life and teaching in themselves bear
none of the marks of hurry or distress, but are
calm, spacious, and simple to an amazing degree.
VI
Among such scenes and circumstances Jesus
moved, leaving everywhere certain impressions
of himself, by word or act or look, upon those
with whom he dealt. His method was to be
himself. Can we recapture those impressions?
Not directly, nor in detail. But the second
Gospel is full of hints and clues from which it is
quite possible to reconstruct some of the external
characteristics, at any rate, of Jesus' personality.
He was known as one who could easily be
moved to pity. " Moved with compassion," he
healed a leper, and fed a multitude ; 1 on an
other occasion " he came forth and saw a great
multitude, and he had compassion on them, be
cause they were as sheep not having a shepherd :
and he began to teach them many things ".2
He could feel sympathy for his friends in a
time of danger,3 and love a young man at first
sight.4 He was full of little acts of friendliness,
'Mark i. 41 ; viii. 2. 2vi. 34. 3vi. 48. 4x. 21.

JESUS' WAY OF LIFE 65
calling a palsied man " Child," 1 taking a blind
man by the hand,2 and holding a child in his
arms ; 3 and once, when the people brought their
little children to him, he "took them in his
arms, and blessed them, laying his hands upon
them".4 But he was known, too, as one who could be
angry with just cause. He "looked round
about on them with anger, being grieved at the
hardening of their heart " : 6 " he sighed deeply
in his spirit " when the Pharisees asked for a
sign:6 "O faithless generation," he cries
(apparently) to the disciples, " how long shall I
be with you ? how long shall I bear with you ? " 7
witnessing to a disappointment of which he must
often have been conscious, but which he gen
erally suppressed. Once, too, he expresses
surprise,8 and once appreciation of a clever
retort.9
J These notices are not very numerous. But
(their cumulative effect is to show that Jesus was
by no means always the quiet, unemotional per
son that one sometimes imagines him to have
1 been. Rather, he gave full value to feeling as
1 Mark ii. 5 (tc'kvov). 2 viii. 23. 3ix. 36.
4x. 16. s iii- 5. 6 viii. 12.'
7ix. 19. 8vi. 6. 9vii. 28, 29,

66 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
a guide to conduct, and his emotions moved
strongly not far below the surface.
Among characteristic acts, which S. Mark
notices, the kindly treatment of blind men and
children has already been mentioned. But the
one that appears most often, and seems to have
been most vividly impressed on the memory of
S. Mark's informant, is something in Jesus' way
of looking. He would "look round about on"
those with whom he was talking, either in
anger,1 or in love,2 or in inquiry,8 or in warn
ing :4 he looked "up to heaven'' in the attitude
of prayer, at the miraculous breaking of bread,6
and at the cure of a deaf man :6 and of the
young ruler it is recorded that "Jesus looking
upon him loved him ".7 The interest of these
things is not that S. Mark's informant should
have noticed them, but that he should have been
unable not to notice them. They were almost
certainly characteristics of Jesus that inevitably
reappear in the narrative, not by design, but by
its unconscious truth to facts.
The same kind of result follows with regard
to Jesus' characteristic words. S. Mark on four
occasions records in the original Aramaic the
1 Mark iii. 5. 2 iii. 34. 3v. 32. 4x. 23.
svi. 41. « vii. 34. 7x. 21.

JESUS' WAY OF LIFE 67
ipsissima verba of which it often seems so hard
to be certain — " Talitha cumi " at the raising of
Jairus's daughter,1 " Ephphatha " at the opening
of a blind man's eyes,2 "Abba, Father" at
Gethsemane,3 and " Eloi, Eloi, lama sabach
thani " upon the cross.4 In addition, two char
acteristic refrains, at least, are recorded — " Who
hath ears to hear, let him hear,"6 and the em
phatic "Verily I say unto you".6 Even the
smallest indications of this nature help to bring
one within sight and sound of the Jesus whom
the disciples knew so well that they have not
left behind a single clear indication of his per
sonal appearance. VII
Upon one point the scattered hints that we
are considering become more coherent. Con
stantly living and travelling with Jesus, the
disciples would first come to observe and then to
take for granted the informal rules of their com
mon life. It would never occur to them to de
scribe in what order they journeyed, or at what
times and in what ways Jesus spoke to them.
1 Mark v. 41. s vii. 34. 3 xiv. 36.
4 xv. 34. *iv. 9. ° iii. 28; x. 15, 29.

68 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
Yet it is in hints of just these things that the
second gospel is, quite unconsciously, so rich.
We gather, for instance, that on a journey
various practices held. Sometimes Jesus walks
apart from the disciples — this seems to be the
most general rule — but near enough to be aware
of the nature of their conversation.1 On the
journey to Caesarea Philippi he walks with them,
questioning them and teaching them : but this is
only for a short time ; later, the disciples fall
behind, except the one who has something special
to say to him ; later again, we find him calling
"the multitude with the disciples," to give them
the final lesson arising out of the day's talk.2 If
this evidence be thought precarious, it may be
compared with the very similar case during the
journey to Jerusalem. On this occasion " Jesus
was going before " the disciples, and " they that
followed were afraid " — the followers in this case
seem to have included others besides the twelve.
Jesus then takes the twelve (probably calling
them to walk with him) and explains to them the
object of the journey. They then fall behind.
Later, two of them, James and John, catch him
up to ask a special favour of him. Rebuked,
they fall back again, and tell the other ten what
1 Mark ix. 33, 34. 2 viii. 27-34.

JESUS' WAY OF LIFE 69
has passed. Finally, Jesus calls them all to
him for the second time, and teaches the lesson
of humility to which the incident points.1 If, as
seems to be the case, this is all one scene, it
gives an unstudied but very vivid picture of
what was probably a common practice in Jesus'
relations with his disciples.
The Master's separateness from his disciples
is noticed also on other occasions. During the
storm on the lake he sleeps apart "in the stern
... on the cushion " ; 2 during a voyage by day
the disciples dispute apart :3 Jesus works his
hardest miracles away from them,4 or admits only
the chosen three : 5 and he leaves them when
he wishes to pray,6 though the three may be
with him on the Mountain of Transfiguration,7
and not far away in the Garden of Gethsemane.8
Again, when he wishes to speak to the disciples
Jesus generally calls them to him.9 Some
times he sits among them to teach them : 10 it
1 Mark x. 32-42.
2 iv. 38 (but cf. the possible literary dependence of this
passage, p. 119).
3 viii. 16, 17.
4 vii. 33 ; viii. 23 (probably to be so interpreted).
»v. 37. 6i. 35 ; vi. 46. 7ix. 2.
8 xiv. 33, 34. 9 viii. 1 ; ix. 35 ; xii. 43. 10 ix. 35, 36.

70 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
was when he " sat down over against the
treasury " that he saw the poor widow cast in
her two mites ; 1 and it was " as he sat on the
Mount of Olives over against the temple " that
four of the disciples asked the question which
introduced the apocalyptic discourse.2
Thus, though he could call them "children,"3
Jesus was not inclined to be very familiar with
the disciples. True humility was in no sense
inconsistent with " keeping his distance," and
accepting the unquestioned supremacy which
was accorded to him. VIII
One turns from the attempt to inquire into
Jesus' way of life with at any rate one strong
impression- — that he was a real person, and that
he can and should be studied as such. This
is a truism, but an important one. It is very
easy to think that we know who Jesus was
and how he lived : but our account, when we
are driven to it, is too often vague, inconsistent
and second-hand. To have made an attempt,
on however small a scale, to draw plain conclu
sions from the best evidence is to realise how
1 Mark xii. 41, 42. 2 xiii. 3. 3 x. 24.

JESUS' WAY OF LIFE 71
much remains to be learnt about the nature of
the Incarnation. The dogmatic and devotional
development of Christianity will always be
halting and unsatisfactory, unless there is corres
ponding to it a sincere and thorough attempt to
reconstruct the figure ofthe historical Jesus.

CHAPTER IV
JESUS' MIND
I
FEW questions are more difficult to under
stand or to discuss than that which now
claims consideration. Not merely the nature of
Jesus' authority as a teacher, but one whole as
pect of the Incarnation, is here under discussion.
And yet it may be held that the method which
we have laid down for our inquiry will enable
us to disregard most of the theological entangle
ments which the controversies of centuries have
raised around the essential question — What was
the nature of Jesus' mind ? For perhaps the
greater part of these controversies has been due,
not to any attempt to account for the facts as they
appear in the gospels, but to a desire to be con
sistent with certain theological or philosophical
presuppositions : whereas the sole endeavour of
the a posteriori method is to find out what are
72

JESUS' MIND 73
the facts, and to frame a hypothesis that will fit
them. Whether enough data are discoverable,
and whether an adequate hypothesis can be
built on them, remains to be seen : the attempt
is at any rate worth making, and the method a
sound one.
The subject falls naturally into two parts.
The first concerns the matter, the second the
manner of thought. We shall first try to gauge,
from the evidence of the second gospel, the
extent and the limitations of Jesus' knowledge :
we shall then try to find indications of his more
habitual ways of thinking — the nature and work
ings of his mind. II
We shall have learnt by this time that no ac
count of Jesus can be adequate which fails to
reckon with the influences of his childhood and
youth. It is true, they do not so much concern
the nature as the content of his thought ; but
with regard to the latter, at any rate, they cannot
be ignored.
1 Summarily, we should say that on most sub
jects Jesus shared the knowledge and the ignor
ance of his neighbours. The evidence for this
is inferential, and is drawn more from what

74 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
S. Mark does not, than from what he does state.
There are great tracts of human interest which
seem to be untouched by Jesus' intelligence.
History, literature, science, politics, art — he
neither cares for these things, nor is he
conscious that he might care for them. Of
course one soon learns to take this for granted, j
But the reason why one does so is not often ex- -j
plicitly stated. It is simply because Jesus was
a Jew, and a Galilean, and a carpenter. The
silence of the gospels on these big subjects is
not to be explained in any other way. It is
arbitrary to suppose that Jesus could have dealt
with these things, but had no need to ; or that
he accommodated himself to the point of view
of those among whom he lived. Again, it is
true that to him the things of God were all in
all : but we cannot suppose that he would de
liberately limit his knowledge or suppress his
reason in the interests of religion. And again,
the gospels are at best fragmentary records,
and contain only a few of Jesus' sayings : are we
justified, it may be said, in judging from
them ? The answer is that, unless the
fragments are representative, and no essential
element in Jesus' character is unrecorded
there, we shall be unable to arrive at any

JESUS' MIND 75
safe conclusions, whether in this or in other
matters. It might be necessary to adopt this
sceptical view, but the evidence, on the whole, is
against it. If, then, the gospels are represen
tative, it follows that when they leave Jesus silent
upon these big subjects it is because he was
silent : nor can any explanation of this be pre
ferred to the most natural one — that Jesus
shared the knowledge and the ignorance of his
neighbours. Ill
The normal content of Jesus' mind, then, on
ordinary subjects, was such as one would expect
in a Galilean countryman early in the first cen
tury a.d. That is the principal conclusion that
one draws from the general impression given by
the second gospel. One has yet to examine
it more in detail, and to work out the particular
data for Jesus' social, moral and religious outlook.
And one has to give weight to those other sub
jects in which Jesus' knowledge and insight was
undoubtedly quite abnormal.
The second of these points may be taken first.
There are several important respects in which,
according to evidence which one can hardly
dispute, Jesus' mind was not normal — though

76 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
those who admit this would probably differ as to
the degree of abnormality required.
The most obvious of these matters is the sure-
ness and authoritativeness of Jesus' teaching
about the essential things of religion — about the
nature of God in relation to man, and of man in
relation to God. From the very beginning of
his ministry " they were astonished at his
teaching : for he taught them as one having
authority, and not as the scribes ".1 " And they
were all amazed, insomuch that they questioned
among themselves, saying, What is this ? A
new teaching ! " 2 Again, at Nazareth, " many
hearing him were astonished, saying, Whence
hath this man these things ? and, What is the
wisdom that is given unto this man . . . ? " 3
It never seems to occur to Jesus that he may
be ignorant, or wrong, in dealing with religious
questions. There is no trace in his teaching of
S. Paul's distinction between revelation and
opinion ; we cannot imagine him saying : " Con
cerning this or that matter I have no command
ment of God ; but I give my judgment, as one
that hath obtained mercy of God to be faithful " ;
or, " This is the better course, after my judg-
1 Mark i. 22. 2 i. 27. 8 vi. 2.

JESUS' MIND 77
ment : and I think that I also have the Spirit of
God ".1 On the contrary, he speaks of God with
the simplicity of a child, the sureness of an
expert, and the insight of a saint : and he does it
without effort, or immaturity, or self-conscious
ness. All this, certainly, must be taken into ac
count in any attempt to understand the nature
of the Incarnation.
Again, Jesus has in an abnormal degree that
power of insight into men's hearts and minds
which belongs to some extent to all spiritually
minded people. Such at least seems to be im
plied when S. Mark describes him as "perceiving
in his spirit that they [the Scribes] so reasoned
within themselves,"2 or as " knowing their hypo
crisy,"8 when the Pharisees and Herodians
asked the question about the Imperial Tribute.
But certainly little is made of this in the second
gospel, compared with its much greater prom
inence in the other evangelists : in the fourth
gospel, indeed, it is raised almost to the level
of a dogma, and is constantly emphasized.
More noticeable than the last, perhaps, is
Jesus' power of prophecy or presentiment. Quite
early in his ministry he foresaw the time of
1 i Cor. vii. 25, 40. 2 Mark ii. 8.
3 xii. 15.

78 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
separation from his disciples — " the days will come,
when the bridegroom shall be taken away from
them ".1 " O faithless generation," he exclaimed
(apparently) to the disciples, " how long shall I be
with you ? how long shall I bear with you ? " 2
The apostles who wished to share his glory he
reminded of the coming Passion — " Are ye able
to drink the cup that I drink ? or to be baptized
with the baptism that I am baptized with ? " 8
Of the woman who anointed him in Simon's
house he is reported to have said : " Wheresoever
the Gospel shall be preached throughout the
whole world, that also which this woman hath
done shall be spoken of for a memorial of her ".4
And S. Peter's assertion of faithfulness was met
with the prophecy — " Verily I say unto thee,
that thou to-day, even this night, before the
cock crow twice, shalt deny me thrice ".6
The force of this evidence lies chiefly in the
unimportance of the things foretold, and the un
likelihood that such presentiments would be in
serted in the light of later events. For this
reason less certainty can be felt with regard to
the genuineness — at least in some of their details
— of the repeated prophecies of the Passion and
1 Mark ii. 20. 2ix. 19. 3x. 38.
4 xiv. 9 ; cf. xiii. 10. 5 xiv. 30.

JESUS' MIND 79
Resurrection.1 Undoubtedly Jesus did foresee
his end : but the outline of the original predic
tion has probably been filled in — as was almost
inevitable — from a knowledge of the actual
events of the Death and Resurrection. The
same criticism applies to the other great class of
Jesus' personal presentiments — those dealing
with his second coming, so far as genuinely
eschatological ideas have become modified by
contact with the actual events attending the fall
of Jerusalem. But in any case, when due al
lowance has been made for such influences, we
are faced with the fact that Jesus foretold for
himself a return " in the glory of his Father
with the holy angels," 2 and imagined himself as
" the Son of man coming in clouds with great
power and glory,"3 to set up the Kingdom of
God in the world. We shall have more to say
about these and similar passages shortly : for the
present one must notice that these, sayings of
Jesus, regarded as prophecies, and taken in the
sense in which the Church understood him to
have made them, viz., as referring to a speedy
return within the lifetime of the first disciples,
*Mark viii. 31; ix. 12, 31; x. 33,34 (the criticism
applies particularly to this last passage), cf. p. 246,
2 viii. 38. 3 xiii. 26.

80 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
never came true. Whatever be said of this, it
can hardly be regarded as anything but a serious
difficulty. Just as the whole basis of Jesus'
religious life — his faith in the presence and love
of God — seems to be challenged by the cry of
despair on the cross, so his intellectual ground
work would be threatened, if the chief hope
that filled his mind and inspired his life proved
false. The explanation is probably to be looked
for in the inadequacy of the Messianic idea (in
cluding the language of Daniel with regard to
the second coming) to express the real meaning
of Jesus' presentiment. He used the popular
language about himself, because nothing better
was available. He knew that it did not satisfy
him. And that perhaps is why, after the
narrower prediction, " This generation shall not
pass away until all these things be accomplished,"
there follows the wider and truer idea, " Heaven
and earth shall pass away : but my words shall
not pass away "-1 IV
It will be convenient at this point to illustrate
both the matter and manner of Jesus' thoughts
1 Mark xiii. 30, 31.

JESUS' MIND 8 1
by dealing more in detail with three important
questions — his treatment of Scripture, his
demonology, or attitude towards the powers
of evil, and his eschatology. It willithen only
remain to draw what inferences one may from
Jesus' methods of teaching — already in part dis
cussed — as to his methods of thinking.
(i) It would probably be difficult to exaggerate
the influence of the Old Testament Scriptures
upon Jesus' ideas and ways of thought. The
actual quotations from or references to these
Scriptures which may be traced in S. Mark's
report of his sayings hardly represent the full
extent of their influence. But they are probably,
so far as they go, representative ; and one may
safely draw from them certain conclusions as to
Jesus' use ofthe Old Testament.
Jesus' quotations from or references to the Old
Testament in the second gospel may be tabulated
thus : —

Book of O.T.
Genesis i. 27, ii. 24
,, xviii. 14
„ xix. 26
Exodus xx. 12, xxi. 17
„ xx. 12
„ iii. 6
„ xxiv. 8
Leviticus xiii. 49
„ xix. 18 .
Deuteronomy vi. 4, 5
„ xiii. 1-3
„ xxx. 4
1 Samuel xxi. 6
Job xiii. 2
Psalms cxviii. 22, 23
„ ex. 1 .
„ xxii. 1
Isaiah vi. 9, 10
„ xxix. 13

Subject of Quotation.
On the permanence of marriage
" All things are possible with God "
Returning back to take a cloke
Honouring 'father and mother
The Decalogue ....
Moses and the bush, a proof of future life
The blood of the covenant
Priest and leper .
Law of love
Summary of the Decalogue
False prophets
The gathering of the elect
David and the shew-bread
" All things are possible with God "
The stone rejected by the builders
David and the Son of David
Last words on the Cross
Reason for using parables
Hypocrisy of scribes and Pharisees

Reference.

u

x. 6-8.

x. 27.

<—i

xiii. 16.
Win
vii. 10.
m
x. 19.
life
xii. 26.
>
a
xiv. 24.
0
0
i. 44.
xii. 31.
Bt— t
xii. 29, 30.
3
0
xiii. 22.
xiii. 27.
H
O
ii. 26.
in
x. 27.
'
xii. 10, 11.
t*
xii. 36.
&
W
xv. 34.
iv. 12.
vii. 6, 7.
Book of O. T.
Isaiah Ixvi. 24
„ lvi. 7 .
„ v. i. .
„ xiii. 10, xxxiv.
Jeremiah vii. 1 1
Ezekiel xvii. 23
Daniel iv. 12, 21 .
„ ii. 28.
„ ix. 27, xii. 11
„ xii. 1 .
„ vii. 13
Joel iii. 13
Micah vii. 6 .
Zechariah viii. 6
ii. 6
„ xiii. 7 .
Malachi iv. 5

Subject of Quotation.
" Their worm dieth not "
The temple a house of prayer
Parable of the Vineyard
Eschatological language
" A den of robbers "
Mustard tree
Mustard tree
" These things must needs come to pass
" The abomination of desolation "
Tribulation ....
" The Son of man coming in clouds "
The reaping of the harvest .
" Children shall rise up against parents "
" All things are possible with God "
The gathering of the elect
" I will smite the shepherd "
The coming of Elijah .

Reference. ix. 48.
xi. 17.
xii. 1.
xiii. 24.
xi. 17.
iv. 32.
iv. 32.
xiii. 7.
xiii. 14.
xiii. 19.
xiii. 26, xiv. 62.
iv. 29.
xiii. 12.
x. 27.
xiii. 27.
xiv. 27.
ix. 12.

W
in a m

3d

00
OJ

84 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
When we consider this list in detail, several
interesting points emerge. Thus, Jesus shows a
distinct preference for the legislative, devotional,
and prophetic books, as compared with the his
torical. H e does not 1 derive moral lessons, as one
might expect him to do, from the patriarchs and
heroes of his people. He does not draw out the
analogy between himself and the great prophets,
such as Elijah. His interest in the Scriptures is
subjective, not objective, meditative, not scientific.
Again, it would not be very hazardous to con
jecture that Jesus' favourite books — those that
spoke to him most vividly of his own life and
death and hopes beyond death — were the Psalter,
Isaiah, Daniel, and perhaps Exodus. It can
not be an accident that the form of Jesus'
"call," repeated at the Baptism and the
Transfiguration, came from Isaiah, or that the
words of a Psalm were on his lips when he
died. These books were a constant source to
him both of language and of ideas : and one
may perhaps judge from the greater frequency of
such quotations in the later part of the gospel
that Jesus increasingly identified himself with
the Messianic language of the Old Testament.
1 With the exception of ii. 26.

JESUS' MIND 85
(ii) Jesus' ideas as to the authorship of the
books of the Old Testament were those usual
among his contemporaries. The Mosaic author
ship of the Pentateuch seems to be taken for
granted. It is separately assumed in the case of
Genesis,1 and of Exodus — the latter on two oc
casions.2 The Psalms as a whole are probably
attributed to David, and an important argument
is based upon the Davidic authorship of Psalm ex.8
In these cases it is arbitrary to go outside the
natural explanation, and to suppose that Jesus
accepted contemporary ideas, knowing them to be
wrong. It was simply that he shared the ignor
ance as well as the knowledge of his neighbours
in such matters.
(iii) Jesus, like his contemporaries, regarded
the appeal to Scripture as authoritative. Two
instances may be given of this attitude. The
point of his answer to the Pharisees' question
about the lawfulness of divorce is, not that he
supersedes the Law with the Gospel, but that
he goes behind the Mosaic compromise to the
original and real meaning of the Law. His in
tention is to interpret, not to legislate. And the
ground upon which he bases his reading of the
Law is the literal interpretation of certain words
1 Mark x. 3. 2 vii. io, xii, 26, 3 xii. 36.

86 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
in Genesis which are taken as an authoritative
and divine command.1
Again, the pedantic and rather frivolous ques
tion put by the Sadducees is met by Jesus with
a double answer, both parts of which rely upon
the appeal to scriptural authority. First, he says
that if the Sadducees had known " the Scriptures "
and "the power of God" they would not have
fallen into such an error as to suppose that mar
riage could have any meaning in the resurrection
life — though he does not say to what particular
Scriptures he is referring. Secondly, he points
out a proof of the reality of life after death — the
denial of which was the real ground of the Sad
ducees' difficulty — in God's words to Moses, " I
am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac,
and the God of Jacob ". 2 This, apparently, was
not a " stock argument " for the future life, but
a piece of private exegesis. >Yet its force
rests upon a literal, if not a forced interpretation
of an isolated text — a fact which throws some
light upon the manner of Jesus' use of the Old
Testament, as well as upon the authority which
he attached to it.
(iv) Jesus found the clue to the Old Testa
ment in himself. This is probably the most
lark x. 2-9. 2xii. 18-27.

xNla

JESUS' MIND 87
important point to remember under the present
head. It was the discovery that John the Bapt
ist fulfilled the scriptural forecasts of the Fore
runner which first made Jesus conscious of his
own Messiahship. From the day when his
"call" came in the words of Isaiah,1 the whole
language of the Old Testament took on a new
meaning for him. God's will — the Kingdom
of God, and God's hope — the promise of a
Messiah, seemed to be working themselves out
in him.. The Transfiguration objectifies this
idea : Moses, representing' the Law, and Elijah,
representing the Prophets, are seen " talking with
Jesus " ; 2 and S. Luke is probably supplying
the obvious inference when he says that they
" spake of the decease which he was about to
accomplish at Jerusalem ".3 This was the idea
that more and more obsessed Jesus' mind dur
ing the latter part of his ministry. Two other
instances may be given — the interpretation of the
Messianic Psalm ex. as applying to himself,4
and the similar use made of Psalm cxvii. as the
conclusion of a passage in which Jesus adapts
to his own circumstances a parable from Isaiah.5
(v) It only remains to notice Jesus' method
1 Mark i. 11 2 ix. 4. 3 Luke ix. 31.
4 Mark xii. 35-37. 6xii. 10, 11.

88 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
of interpreting the Scriptures. One example ol
this has already been touched on — the deriva
tion of an argument for the future life from a
verse in Exodus ; but at least one other good
instance may be mentioned in the exegesis of the
noth Psalm.1 Here the whole force of the
argument turns upon the assumption that the
psalm was written by David, that he was in
spired (" in the Holy Spirit ") when he wrote
it, and that it was of prophecy of the com
ing Messiah. That is to say, Jesus' use of the
psalm presupposes a particular theory of inspira
tion, and a particular authorship, which, to say
no more, are not generally accepted as right.
We conclude, then, that what was new and
unique in Jesus' treatment of Scripture was the
sureness with which he appropriated it to his
own spiritual experience ; and that what was
conventional and inadequate was the secular
knowledge and method of interpretation through
which he tried to explain that sureness. Here
again, as in other matters already mentioned,
one feels that Jesus himself — his faith and hope
and personal consciousness — were something far
greater than could be expressed by the only
1 *ii- 35-37-

JESUS' MIND 89
ideas and forms that were available for him, or
intelligible to his contemporaries. The Gospel
of the Incarnation is a Gospel of limitations.
V
In dealing with Jesus' demonology, or the
nature of his beliefs as to what are commonly
called the powers of evil, three questions seem
to need an answer. What was Jesus' belief as
to demonic "possession " ? What was the nature
of his " understanding " with evil spirits ? and
what power had he over them ?
(i) It is impossible, on any sound critical
theory, to separate the miraculous parts of
the second gospel from the non-miraculous.
And of the former so large a proportion consists
of contests between Jesus and "evil spirits," and
these are described so naively and naturally,
that one cannot doubt that such events, what
ever their exact meaning, played a large part in
the every-day life of Jesus and his disciples. The
further question must then be raised, whether
S. Mark's unquestioning acceptance ofthe theory
of "possession" represents the normal view of
Jesus and his contemporaries, or the later judg
ment of a member of a Church in which special
powers of healing were a matter of faith and

90 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
practice. Almost certainly, from the acqui
escence of the common people in Jesus'
attitude, it represents the former. Jesus was not
a clairvoyant, with a special power of visualising
the causes of disease. He moved among a people
who habitually regarded certain diseases as due
to the indwelling of personal powers of evil, and
he shared their opinion. But if, whilst sharing
it, he was able to cure the diseases, it does not
follow that the opinion was right.
Did Jesus, then, believe in the existence of a
personal power of evil ? Almost certainly he
did. On his own authority it is recorded that
" He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted
of Satan " l — though it must be noticed that it is
S. Matthew and S. Luke who add those details
which make Satan definitely a person, and that
S. Luke alone introduces the extraordinary
theory that all the world is in the power of the
Evil One.2 In the parable of the sower he
pictures Satan as a bird which comes and takes
away the seed of the Gospel from men's hearts.3
S. Peter is regarded as in some way possessed
by Satan when he tempts Jesus not to suffer and
1 Mark i. 13.
2 Matt. iv. 1- 1 1 ; Luke iv. 1-13, especially iv. 6.
3 Mark iv. 15.

JESUS' MIND 91
die ; and is therefore rebuked in very similar
words to those used (according to S. Matthew)
at the Temptation — "Get thee behind me
Satan".1 (In the same spirit S. Luke reports
that "Satan entered into Judas,"2 and makes
Jesus say to S. Peter, on a later occasion, " Satan
asked to have you ",3) Or again, " How can
Satan cast out Satan ? ... If Satan is risen up
against himself, he cannot stand : " 4 and the point
is enforced by the parable of the strong man
(Satan) whom Jesus binds and spoils.5
(ii) That Jesus believed in the reality of a per
sonal spirit of evil is rendered more likely by the
" understanding " which clearly existed between
him and the " evil spirits " which he cast out.
At the time of Jesus' first visit to the synagogue
at Capernaum, before he was yet known as a
preacher or worker of miracles, a man with an
unclean spirit cried out, saying, "What have
we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth ? art
thou come to destroy us? I know thee who
thou art, the Holy One of God".6 Similarly
of the Gerasene demoniac it is said that " when
he saw Jesus from afar, he ran and worshipped
1 Mark viii. 33 ; cf. Matt. iv. 10. 2 Luke xxii. 3.
3 Luke xxii. 31. 4 Mark iii. 23, 26.
5 iii. 27. 6i. 24.

92 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
him ; and crying out with a loud voice, he
saith, " What have I to do with thee, Jesus,
thou Son of the Most High God? I adjure
thee by God, torment me not " ; and there fol
lows an extraordinary conversation between Jesus
and the spirits, in which he shows understand
ing without sympathy, and enmity without ani
mosity — as though both sides had taken it for
granted that the good spirit must destroy the
bad, but wished to arrange the matter with as
little unpleasantness as possible.1 These are
not isolated instances, for in two summaries of
Jesus' miracles (few of which were ever re
corded in detail) a special note is made as to his
dealing with spirits. Thus " he healed many
that were sick with divers diseases, and cast out
many devils ; and he suffered not the- devils to
speak, because they knew him " : 2 and again,
" the unclean spirits, whensoever they beheld
him, fell down before him, and cried, saying,
thou art the Son of God. And he charged
them that they should not make him known." 3
(iii) Whatever the extent of his " understand
ing with the powers of evil," Jesus never doubts
that he can and must " cast out devils " when
ever he has an opportunity ; and he is sure that
*Mark v. 6-12. 2i. 34. 3 iii. 11, 12,

JESUS' MIND 93
his power to do this is good and divine. The
early miracles of Jesus — and particularly, it is im
plied, the cure of those " possessed " — having
caused much discussion, the scribes try to attri
bute them to the powers of evil themselves work
ing through Jesus: "he hath Beelzebub, and
by the prince of the devils casteth he out the
devils". Jesus' answer is negatively that Satan
cannot cast out Satan, and positively (though
this is rather implied than stated) that his own
power comes from the Holy Spirit.1 At the
same time, he does not seem to claim for him
self a different kind of power to that exercised
by some other people, but only a higher degree
of the same power. " He appointed twelve [the
apostles] to have authority to cast out devils : " 2
" he gave them authority over unclean spirits " ; 3
and it is recorded that "they cast out many
devils''.4 The failure of the disciples to work
a cure in a particularly hard case implies that
they generally succeeded.5 And one case is re
ported in which the disciples found one who was
not a follower of Jesus casting out devils in his
name. Jesus, questioned about this, acknow
ledges that some men can " do a mighty work
1 Mark iii. 22-30. 2 iii. 15. 3 vi. 7.
4 vi. 13. 6 ix. 18, 28.

94 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
in my name" without being disciples, and en
joins a charitable attitude towards them.1 In
any arguments that are based on Jesus' miracles,
this is a point that cannot be overlooked. He
did not himself regard his miracles as unique or
his powers as incommunicable.
One may now sum up certain conclusions as
to Jesus' demonology.
(i) The spirits are of various kinds — "un
clean," " dumb," and the like ; though these par
ticular symptoms do not exhaust the malignity
of the " possession ". To have a " dumb spirit "
is more than to be dumb.
(ii) The spirits are apparently silent and
powerless except when inhabiting a body.
Jesus has no dealings with spirits invisible to
others, but only with recognised cases of " pos
session". Spirits can be sent away "out of
the country " into some kind of exile ; 2 or
they can be transferred into the bodies of
animals, but with results disastrous to the
animals.3 (iii) They do violence to the bodies which
they inhabit in various ways. The demoniac of
Gerasa " had his dwelling in the tombs," and re
sisted all attempts to confine him ; " and always,
1 Mark ix. 38-40. 2 Mark v. 10. 3 v. 12, 13.

JESUS' MIND 95
night and day, in the tombs and in the mountains,
he was crying out, and cutting himself with
stones".1 Of the "dumb spirit" that possessed
a boy it is said that "Wheresoever it taketh
him, it dasheth him down ; and he foameth, and
grindeth his teeth, and pineth away ".2
(iv) They recognise Jesus, claiming (it seems)
kinship as spirits, but knowing that he is good,
they evil. His presence gives them speech, and
makes them reasonable, so that they answer
questions, make requests, or obey commands.3
Sometimes it has the opposite effect, leading to
fresh outbreaks of violence.4 In either case it
brings their activity to a head.
(v) With greater or less difficulty Jesus can
always "cast them out". He can do it either
absolutely, or by transference into another body ;
he can do it by his simple word, either close by
or at a distance ; 6 in special cases there is also a
need of prayer.6
(vi) Lastly, a considerable degree of this
power over evil spirits can be delegated by
Jesus to his disciples ; and similar miracles can
be worked in his name by some who are not
even his followers.
These points probably represent Jesus'
1 Mark v. 3-5. 2 ix. 18. 3 v. 6-12. 4 ix. 20.
8 v. 11, 12 ;cf. Matt. viii. 30. 6ix. 29.

96 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
main ideas about the powers of evil. They
are not theoretical, but experimental : they
constitute a diagnosis which may not have
been scientific, but which corresponded roughly
to the facts, and justified itself in practice.
Jesus was not peculiar in his experience.
It was shared by many others who practised
gifts of healing, and by multitudes who bene
fited by them ; it has been shared to some
extent by spiritually-minded or superstitious men
of every age ; and it is claimed by the " spiritual
healers " of the present day x- To many of these
people " obsession " is a real phenomenon, and
the power of disease and evil in the worst cases is
something personal, though alien and hostile
to the person affected. Jesus, perhaps, felt
this alien power more intensely than others,
and dealt with it more confidently and com
pletely : but in that alone lies, in this respect,
his uniqueness. VI
There is a general agreement between the
Synoptic evangelists that a considerable part of
Jesus' teaching was eschatological. All three
1 To be spiritually-minded when one might be scientific
is the essence of superstition. The modern spiritual healers
cannot claim the example of Jesus, He was as scientific as
he could be : they are not.

JESUS' MIND 97
gospels give, among the incidents of the last
week of the ministry, an eschatological discourse.
It is introduced in the same way ; and it consists,
in spite of some dislocations and additions, of
essentially the same matter. It is not certain —
indeed, it is unlikely — that Jesus really spoke all
these things on one occasion : more probably
they represent a very early compilation, which
was perhaps in circulation before even the second
gospel was written : but at any rate it is safe to
assume that Jesus did throw much of his teach
ing into this form. In this he followed a com
mon trend of Jewish thought : his originality
consisted in his vivid apprehension and personal
appropriation of the rather intangible images of
the Jewish apocalypses.
The apparent confusedness of the discourse in
the second gospel is due to the fact that it deals
with three subjects which, in Jesus' thought
perhaps, and certainly in the minds of those who
have reported him, were not kept distinct —
namely, the Fall of Jerusalem, the early Christian
persecutions, and the Second Coming of the
Messiah. Yet this confusedness may easily be
exaggerated. In its original form, which is less
concealed in S. Mark's version than in the others,
tht discourse seems to have consisted of three

98 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
sections, each dealing with one ofthe three main
subjects. But this arrangement has been spoilt by
the unskilful addition of detached sayings, whose
exact reference had been lost, or never discov
ered : hence the present disorder of the passage.1
This confusedness is to some extent natural
in such a discourse. There is very little sense
of time or space about it. It is almost a dream.
These things were very real to Jesus : but the
forms under which they came to him were quite
inadequate to express them ; and there is a sense
of distant perspectives behind the solid fore
ground of the vision which makes it very diffi
cult to keep the whole in focus. Moreover,
although Jesus himself may have kept the three
events distinct from one another, he certainly
regarded them as close to one another in point of
time ; and it is not even certain in what order he
anticipated their happening. This of course in
creases the confusion.
The chief point that emerges from this rather
difficult body of evidence is that Jesus imagined
the things which he predicted to be very near
at hand. It is true, he said in one connection
(the passage as a whole seems to refer to the
Christian persecutions), " The Gospel must first
1 Mark xiii. ; cf. Matt, xxiv., Luke xxi.

JESUS' MIND 99
be preached unto all nations " : 1 but what was
Jesus' idea of " all nations " ? how far would it
be covered by the Jews of the Dispersion who
were present at Pentecost ? or if it was a wider
conception, how long a time was contemplated ?
The saying is at any rate balanced, and probably
quite outweighed, by those others which are in
troduced by the emphatic, " Verily I say unto
you " — " This generation shall not pass away,
until all these things be accomplished,"2 and
" Verily I say unto you, there be some here of
them that stand by, which shall in no wise taste
of death, till they see the kingdom of God come
with power ".3 That is to say, the terminus ad
quem of the events that Jesus foresaw he placed
within the lifetime of his hearers. All three
events, the Fall of Jerusalem, the Christian Per
secution, and the displacement ofthe present order
of things by the coming of the Messiah and the
establishment of the kingdom of God, were to
happen within, or almost within, the first century
a.d. Jerusalem, as a matter of fact, fell in the year
70. Persecutions preceded and followed it. The
Church waited, patiently and hopefully, year
after year, for the fulfilment of the third part of
the prophecy. But it never came. " Of that
1 Mark xiii. 10. 2 xiii. 30. 3 ix. 1.

ioo JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
day or that hour," Jesus had certainly said,
"knoweth no one, not even the angels in heaven,
neither the Son, but the Father : " 1 but this ap
parently meant no more than ignorance of the
exact time of an event which was expected to
fall within certain limits, namely, the life-time of
the first generation of Christians. That was how
the disciples interpreted it. Were they wrong ?
Or was their error, with all its effects, both pass
ing and permanent, upon the form and spirit of
the Church, due to some misunderstanding on
the part of Jesus himself? Or are we thrown
back again upon the hypothesis that Jesus used
the popular Messianic language, with its expecta
tion of a speedy deliverance, because he could
use no other, and knowing it to be quite in
adequate ?
If one asks a little more in detail what were
Jesus' opinions as to the life beyond death, one
finds some such indications as the following : —
(i) Jesus did not share the ordinary opinion
that death is the end of life. Death, he thought,
is sleep.2 For himself it is the condition of
1 Mark xiii. 32.
2v. 39 (unless it be taken literally, and we suppose that
the child was really in a trance).

JESUS' MIND 101
winning the new life of the kingdom. For his
disciples the way to find life is to lose it. Hardly
any idea is more essential to Jesus' thought than
this. Yet nothing is said as to what kind of
change or transition takes place during the sleep
of death.
(ii) Jesus seems to have shared popular notions
on the subject of reincarnation. As Herod's
theory about Jesus was that " John, whom I be
headed, is risen from the dead," x and as it was
popularly supposed that he was the Baptist, or
Elijah, or one of the prophets come to life again,2
so Jesus himself was sure that the Baptist was
a reincarnation of Elijah : " I say unto you, that
Elijah is come, and they have also done unto
him whatsoever they listed ".8
(iii) The nature of the future life is expressed
in curiously materialistic language, the inade
quacy of which was perhaps more evident to
Jesus himself than to his hearers : " To sit on
my right hand or on my left hand is not mine to
give : but it is for them for whom it hath been
prepared" ;4 or again : " The Son of man . . .
cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy
angels";5 "and then shall they see the Son
1 Mark vi. 14, 16. 2 viii. 28. 3 ix. 13.
4x. 40. 5 viii. 38.

102 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
of man coming in clouds with great power and
glory. And then shall he send forth the angels,
and shall gather together his elect from the four
winds, from the uttermost part of the earth to
the uttermost part of heaven ; " 1 and lastly : " I
will no more drink of the fruit of the vine, until
that day when I drink it new in the Kingdom of
God".2 (iv) In one passage at least we have the other
side of the picture. " It is good for thee," says
Jesus, " to enter into life maimed, rather than
having thy two hands to go into hell, into the
unquenchable fire. ... It is good for thee to
enter into life halt, rather than having thy two feet
to be cast into hell. ... It is good for thee to
enter into the Kingdom of God with one eye,
rather than having two eyes to be cast into hell ;
where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not
quenched."8 The language is again figurative
and materialistic, and in part borrowed from
Isaiah. But there can be no doubt as to the
reality, in Jesus' mind, of the state which is con
trasted with " life ". The words that immediately
follow — " For every one shall be salted with fire"
— may introduce a further purgatorial idea into
*Mark xiii. 26, 27. 2xiv. 25. 3 ix. 43-47.

JESUS' MIND 103
the passage : but perhaps they are a detached
saying, put here as dealing with " fire," just as
the sayings which follow are grouped together
because they deal with " salt "-1
We come then to the same kind of conclusion
with regard to Jesus' eschatology as we reached
in dealing with his demonology and his treat
ment of Scripture. The main content and form
of his eschatology were shared by his contem
poraries : his uniqueness lay in the clearness
with which he saw what to others was
vague and misty, and the personal application
which he found in the common stock of apoca
lypses. To Jesus the present world was less
substantial than the future : all life here must
be sacrificed, if need be, for a footing there.
And the great hypothesis of his life, which only
death could verify, was always in his mind —
that in him all the prophecies of Scripture
found their fulfilment, as the long-expected
Messiah. VII
We have already dealt in some detail with
the methods of Jesus' teaching. Our present
inquiry only concerns such evidence as may be
1 Mark ix. 49, 50.

104 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
drawn from those methods as to Jesus' habitual
ways of thought.
(i) One ofthe most obvious of these is the de
pendence of Jesus' ideas upon concrete facts.
He believed supremely in the argument of acts.
Acts suggested thoughts to him, as pen and
paper do to many people. His mind was in
close contact with the common experiences of
every-day life, and built its teaching upon know
ledge of men, and men's affairs. It was always
ready to pass from concrete particulars to spiritual
principles. An obvious instance is the incident
of the widow's mites : 1 many others have been
or could be quoted.2
(ii) Jesus thought, as he spoke, in aphorisms.
He liked to conceive big definite principles.
His mind could hold both sides of a question,
but was happier in developing either side to its
full value than in balancing one against the other.
Its power lay in the quality of its thinking, the
enthusiasm of its belief, along certain rather
definite lines. After a certain point, to be wide-
minded is to be weak-minded. And so Jesus'
thoughts expressed themselves in sayings that
are not mere epigrams but have permanently
enriched and inspired the world.8
1 Mark xii. 41-44. 2 Cf. p. 44. s Cf. p. 46.

JESUS' MIND i os
(iii) Jesus did not as a rule argue with people,
or try to produce convictions of reason. He
more often made dogmatic statements, and relied
upon his personal authority to prove them.
The only form of argument generally recognised
which he used at all habitually was the argu
ment from analogy. This underlies more or
less consciously both his metaphorical sayings
and his parables. Indeed metaphor and analogy
are so habitual with him that one may reason
ably suspect their presence in sayings which in
form, at any rate, allow a literal interpretation.
Towards the end of his ministry, when he was
convicting rather than converting his hearers,
Jesus may have used directer arguments : x when
he wished to convert them he used the argu
ment for analogy.
(iv) Jesus very seldom criticised other men,
or their opinions. The only great exception to
this rule was in the case of the official religious
parties — the scribes, whose interpretation of a
psalm he questioned ; 2 the Sadducees, who were
in great error as regards the future life ; 3 and the
Pharisees, whose " tradition " was a transgression
ofthe commandment of God.4 Even in such cases
1 Mark xii. 26, 27, 35-37. 2 xii. 35-37.
3 xii. 26, 27. 4vii. 6-13.

106 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
the criticism of a wrong view generally leads
to a statement of the right one ; just as, again,
questions put by disciples or others are not merely
answered, but are turned into the teaching of
positive principles.1 Jesus came not to critic
ise, but to create.
(v) Again, he did not care for definitions, or
detailed applications of thought : and he was
thus able to keep clear of the complications which
come from a premature confusion of principle and
practice, particular and universal. His avoid
ance of moral casuistry might be illustrated by
his treatment of the rich young ruler,2 his in
dependence of political parties by his answer
about the tribute to Caesar,8 and his abstraction
from religious controversy by his conversation
with the Sadducees.4
(vi) Finally, Jesus' method of teaching is
marked on one or two occasions by that splendid
unreason of which only the strongest minds are
capable. His question to the synagogue folk,
who " watched him, whether he would heal . . .
on the Sabbath day," is a case in point. " Is it
lawful," he said, " on the Sabbath day to do good,
or to do harm ? to save a life, or to kill ? " This
1 Mark x. 35-45 ; xii. 13-17, 18-27. 2Mark x. 17-22.
3xii. 13-17. 4xii. 18-27.

JESUS' MIND 107
was, strictly speaking, nil ad rem : the question
was, Why do anything ? But it went to the root
of the matter : there could be no answer to it :
" they held their peace "} Or, again, when the
question was put, "Is it lawful to give tribute
unto Caesar, or not ? " Jesus' answer begged
the whole question, by assuming that a coinage
with Caesar's head on it was Caesar's property.2
But, like some other logical fallacies, it was true
and unanswerable. VIII
Below the surface of the Gospel, beneath the
crude and inadequate forms in which Jesus
embodied his thoughts and teaching, one
feels more and more the working of a won
derfully true and powerful mind — a mind true by
superior insight, rather than by the balancing of
"pros " and " cons "; a mind powerful, sometimes,
by its very outrage of reason ; a mind that con
vinces by its certainty and authoritativeness. Is
not this what the Incarnation, so far as Jesus'
mind is concerned, must have meant — not the
addition to a natural consciousness of some super
natural qualities, nor any incongruous mixture of
human and divine, where each element is re-
1 Mark iii. 1-4. 2xii. 13-17.

108 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
garded as independent and " ready-made," but
the successful emergence of the human mind
from within its own limitations, and the achieve
ment of the mastery that proves it divine ?
The essence of divinity, as of all life, lies not so
much in special forms of manifestation as in a
power of growth.
We ought not to hesitate to use the word
" growth " of Jesus' mind, if we can use it of his
body. It is a fallacy to suppose that the higher
faculties of man are discredited by the lowliness
of their origin, or the gradualness of their growth.
We are making the same mistake if we expect
the divine quality of Jesus' mind to be shown in
sudden superhuman achievements, or if we deny
that it can have emerged gradually from and
through lower stages of intellectual growth.

CHAPTER V
JESUS' SOCIAL OUTLOOK
I
IN our badly organised society, which is grad
ually becoming conscious of its disorder,
few questions are more debated than the rela
tion of Christianity to social problems. This large
issue we are not called upon to discuss ; but it
ought to be possible, upon our present line of
argument, to throw some light on the smaller
question, What was the attitude of Jesus towards
social problems ? To answer the latter question
is not necessarily, as we shall see, to answer the
former ; but at least the inquiry must be of the
highest interest and importance.
It will be necessary to ask, first of all, how
far Jesus was limited by nationality and class in
respect to these questions ; what, if any, were his
social presuppositions or prejudices. Secondly,
we shall wish to know what line he took as to
109

no JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
such big questions as Wealth, or the Family, or
the State. Thirdly, we should inquire what, if
any, would be his methods of social reform.
And fourthly, we must try to get a clear idea as
to what he meant by the Kingdom of God.
II
The influences of family and home must have
been exceedingly strong in Jesus' case. For
thirty years, which included the most impres
sionable periods of childhood and youth, he lived
an uneventful home life in a hill-town of Galilee.
Difficult as it may be to reconstruct the influences
of the home life at Nazareth, one cannot doubt,
working on some such lines as we have laid
down,1 that they must have had an intense effect
upon Jesus' character and ideas. The fact
that his own people rejected him, and he
them, when the claims of religion cut across the
traditions of home, shows that there was nothing
which Jesus was not ready to sacrifice to re
ligious enthusiasm : but he could not on that
account escape, nor would he wish to escape,
from the subtle but powerful influences of his
past life upon his present.
One of those influences continued to act upon
1 Cf. p. 20.

JESUS' SOCIAL OUTLOOK in
him throughout his ministry through the per
sons of his habitual friends. The poorer a
man is, the quieter his home, and the smaller his
circumstances, the less is it possible for him to
pick his own friends. Birth and neighbourhood
choose them for him. In Jesus' case there
was, no doubt, a definite call of certain men to
become disciples : but we have seen reasons for
thinking that some of these, at any rate, were
already relatives or friends : and in any case
Jesus' habitual companions are sufficiently of
one class to make one look behind the time of
the ministry for the reasons for their selection.
The class most largely represented among the
inner circle of followers was that of fishermen
on the lake of Galilee. Peter and Andrew,
James and John, certainly belonged to this pro
fession, with which, next to his own, Jesus is
likely to have had most contact during his early
life. Bartholomew and Levi were also Galileans,
perhaps old friends ; the latter was one of the
unpopular class of tax-collectors. Five if not
six of the twelve have nick-names, and may
have been on terms of special familiarity with
Jesus — James and John the " Sons of Thunder,"
Simon " the Rock," Thomas " the Twin," Simon
" the Zealot," and perhaps James " the Small ".

U2 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
Of only one of the number can we say that he
was probably not a Galilean — Judas of Kerioth
beyond Jordan.1 For none can we with any
certainty claim wealth, or position, or good birth.
They must have been chosen partly for their
piety ; but principally, perhaps, because they
were men of Jesus' own social class, whom he
could trust and lead and inspire. Jesus " loved "
the rich young ruler,2 and told the scribe that he
was " not far from the Kingdom of God " ;3 but
as disciples they would not have suited his pur
pose, any more than the poor Gerasene whom
he sent home to his house and to his friends.4
It must have been due in some degree to
his upbringing that Jesus became known as "a
friend of publicans and sinners," 6 a title justified
by at least one incident in the second gospel.
A publican was one of his earliest disciples,
and at Levi's house great scandal was caused
among the pious because " many publicans and
sinners sat down with Jesus and his disciples :
for there were many, and they followed him ".
Jesus' answer is at least in part ironical — " I
came not to call the righteous [as the pious ob-
1 Mark iii. 16-19. 2 x- 2I- 3xii- 34-
4 v. 18-19. 5 Luke vii. 34.

JESUS' SOCIAL OUTLOOK 113
jectors think themselves] but sinners " ; yet it
also represents the practical policy which was
laid down for his Ministry by social presup
positions as well as religious needs. Jesus moved
most naturally among the poor, of whom he
was one himself.1 Ill
If one turns from Jesus' friends to his
enemies, one finds that the opposition into which
he was habitually forced against the "scribes
and Pharisees," was at least in part due to social
influences. (i) In the first place, he shared to the full the
Galilean " provincial " feeling against the more
extreme claims of the Judsean priesthood ; and
that, together with the native nonconformity of
his intensely spiritual religion, made it almost
inevitable that he should be regarded as the
leader of a reform movement hostile to the hier
archy of Jerusalem. Thus the visit to Jerusalem
with which the ministry ends loses much of its
point in the second gospel unless it is the first
visit of a provincial prophet to the centre of his
religion. Jesus is described as spending his first
day sight-seeing in the Temple, as a stranger
1 Mark ii. 14-17.

1 14 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
might : 1 the cleansing of the Temple the next
day is done in indignation at a state of things
not hitherto realised:2 the Jerusalem crowd is
"astonished at his teaching," as the Galileans
had been when he first appeared at Capernaum : 3
at the betrayal, Judas has to give his followers a
sign by which they may know Jesus :4 and at
the trial the isolation of Jesus, and the credibility
of the accusation made by the false witnesses,
rests on the fact that Jesus and his disciples are
a small body of provincial enthusiasts among a
mass of hostile official opinion — 6 a view which is
borne out by the dispersion which follows Jesus'
arrest,6 the fear which drove S. Peter to denial,7
the flight to Galilee,8 and the secrecy surround
ing the evidences of the Resurrection.
(ii.) At the same time Jesus represented more
than a provincial view. Himself a member of
the "pious poor" class, he stood for a growing
feeling on the part of the really religious against
the pretensions of the officially religious party,
and his hostility to the authorities at Jerusalem
was largely the expression of popular feeling
both within and without the city. When Jesus
1 This seems to be the meaning of xi. n.
2 Mark xi. 15. But this account is perhaps not inconsistent
with Jesus' having visited Jerusalem in the days before his
ministry. 3xi. 18; cf. i. 27. 4xiv. 44. 6 xiv.
6xiv. 50-52. 7xiv. 66-72. 8 xvi. 7.

JESUS' SOCIAL OUTLOOK 115
openly attacks the administration of the Temple,
taking the law into his own hands, no steps are
taken against him, because popular feeling is on
his side.1 When he turns back upon the priests
their challenge of his authority, " they feared the
people," who took the Baptist, and therefore
Jesus also, for a prophet.2 They made no answer
to a parable obviously directed against them
selves ; for " they feared the multitude ".3 And it
is recorded that, when Jesus controverted the
scribes' interpretation of a Messianic psalm, "the
common people heard him gladly," so that he
pressed home the attack with an open denuncia
tion of the scribes.4
No doubt it was primarily on religious grounds
that Jesus found himself out of sympathy with
the official representatives of religion : but it also
appears that something which might come under
the head of social presuppositions played no small
part in his attitude.
One may add some slight indications that Jesus
shared the Jewish attitude of exclusiveness to
wards the Gentiles. It may be nothing that
Gentile methods of government are held up as
an example to be avoided by the disciples in their
1 Mark xi. 15-18. 2 xi. 27-33.
3 xii. 12. * xii. 35-40.

n6 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
own relationship : x but there is certainly some
significance in Jesus' treatment of the heathen
woman of Syro-Phcenicia. " The children," that
is, the Jews, are first to be filled: "the dogs,"
that is, the Gentiles, may have what crumbs fall
from the children's table. This was quite con
sistent with the reasons which had brought Jesus
into those parts. He wished to be free for a
time from the responsibility and fatigue of his
ministry. He had no message for the heathen.2
IV
So much for presuppositions. It seems best,
in the next place, to try to estimate the attitude
which Jesus took up with regard to the great
social relationships which depend upon wealth,
and family life, and the State. It should be
possible in each of these cases to trace some part
of the principles or theories underlying Jesus'
social dealings.
(i) One of the best-known incidents in the gos
pel bears directly upon the problem of wealth.
A man described by S. Mark as " one that had
great possessions," by S. Matthew as "a young
man," and by S. Luke as " a certain ruler," came
to Jesus, with every mark of reverence, and asked
1 Mark x. 42. 2 vii. 24-30.

JESUS' SOCIAL OUTLOOK 117
him what he should do to " inherit eternal life "
— that is, to become a subject of the Kingdom
of God. It is clear that the man was a good
man, a conscientious observer of the whole law
of righteousness. But this does not qualify him
for the Kingdom. " One thing thou lackest,"
is Jesus' answer ; " Go, sell whatsoever thou
hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have
treasure in heaven : and come, follow me."1
Jesus' main object is to show that true religion
demands more than can be given by the best
morality — viz., an enthusiasm of self-sacrifice.
In this particular case the self that needed to be
sacrificed was the man's habit of being rich.
(One need not suppose, from the man's unreadi
ness to take Jesus' advice, that he was over-fond
of his wealth : many rich people, who are not
that, would nevertheless be quite unable to do
without their money.) Wealth, as indeed ap
pears from the sequel,2 includes home, relations,
and lands, that is, all the ordinary sentiments and
indulgences of society. To sacrifice wealth is to
sacrifice social intercourse with the world. Jesus,
however, claimed this absolute surrender. He
had made it himself, and had taught the necessity
of it to his disciples. So it was not merely be-
1 Mark x. 17-22. 2 x. 29.

118 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
cause of this man's special circumstances that he
claimed it now, but because he regarded volun
tary poverty as a general condition of spiritual
growth — as a normal requirement of membership
of the Kingdom of God.
It appears, further, that Jesus did not share
the ordinary views as to the nature of wealth..
Wealth, we should say, is a power of exchange,
which may be used either well or ill, and which,
according to its use, can enormously help or
hinder spiritual development. Rightly applied,
wealth gives some of the finest faculties and op
portunities for influence, beauty, knowledge ; and,
in contrast to it, poverty becomes almost a crime.
But there is nothing of this idea in Jesus' treat
ment of the question. He regards wealth as
something inherently deceitful and obstructive ;
something which so nearly excludes its possessors
from eternal life that a material miracle were
easier than the moral one of their admission to
it.1 True wealth, on the other hand, is purely
spiritual, and is to be won only by the complete
renunciation of worldly riches.2
(ii) A second incident which bears on the
same subject is the question about the Imperial
Tribute.8 Here again Jesus shows the same
1 Mark x. 23-25. 2 x. 29-30. 3 xii. 13-17.

JESUS' SOCIAL OUTLOOK 119
misunderstanding of the nature of money on
which we remarked above. To him a coin is
not a medium of exchange, but something the
value of which lies in itself, and which is the
property of the person whose " image and super
scription " are stamped upon it. And, again, there
is the same clear distinction between the things
of God and the things of Caesar, between spiritual
and worldly wealth, which underlay his treat
ment of the rich young man. (For it is more
natural to take this as Jesus' normal point of
view than as a temporary concession to the ideas
of his audience.)
(iii) The same principles reappear in the in
cident of the widow's mites. Jesus shows his
instinctive distrust of riches by his attitude to
wards the offerings of the rich folk, and his ap
proval of voluntary poverty by his blessing on
the poor widow's deliberate self-beggary. There
is again the feeling that money is somehow in
itself bad, and that it is best to be rid of it as
soon as may be.1
(iv) Even more significant is Jesus' treat
ment of the incident of his anointing at Beth
any.2 A woman buys an expensive flask of the
1 Mark xii. 41-44. 2 xiv. 3-9.

120 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
finest ointment, and "wastes" it by pouring it
on Jesus' head, as a sign of reverence and a
symbol of his kingship. " She hath done what
she could," says Jesus ; so perhaps here too it
was "all her living".
One expects Jesus to protest. His disciples
do so, repeating the advice that he had given
to the rich young man — " This should have been
sold, and given to the poor". But Jesus sees
something behind the object of the gift, namely
the spirit of the giver : that is the supremely im
portant thing ; if that is right, the act is perfect.
The surrender of wealth is good, in any case :
but this is something more ; and the act is im
mortalised. Incidentally, it is noticeable that
Jesus definitely rejects the disciples' suggestion
of the " exchange value " of the ointment.
" Ye have the poor always with you, and
whensoever ye will ye can do them good " —
these words, in which Jesus defends the woman's
choice of the object of her charity, are descrip
tive, not legislative. They do not sanction a
state of society which involves poverty ; neither
do they prescribe philanthropy. They simply
state Jesus' conception of the world as a society
of fixed classes — the rich and the poor, or those
who give charity and those who receive it.

JESUS' SOCIAL OUTLOOK 121
This conception was a part of his heritage,
a result of his experience. He accepted society
as he found it, and did not seriously think of it
as likely to be changed.
We should say, then, of Jesus' view as a
whole, that it is a very forcible statement of one
side of the case ; and that, though the exceptional
enthusiast may become rich in spiritual things in
proportion as he becomes poor in worldly posses
sions, yet the ordinary man will only be weaker,
narrower, and worse for the surrender of the
faculties of living. The demand for voluntary
poverty is, in fact, a fanatical demand, which the
Church has not seen fit to repeat except in special
cases. It seems, indeed, that we can neither claim
the authority of Jesus for the ordinary teaching
of the Church on this subject, nor the sanction
of the Church for the ordinary teaching of Jesus.
Yet this is one of several cases in which it is
most, desirable that a clearer idea should be ar
rived at as to what Christianity really demands.
Was Jesus right, or is the Church right ?
Is the Kingdom of God to be won by the proper
use of wealth, or by the surrender of it ? If by
the latter, we must reconsider our whole attitude
as Christians towards the institution of property ;

122 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
if by the former, let us at any rate not quote
Jesus' words or example to support an attitude
which was not his own.

V
Two facts have to be borne in mind, which
probably go some way towards accounting for
Jesus' views on the subject of family life. First,
after thirty years of home life, he deliberately
renounced it all for the sake of religion. And
secondly, he was himself unmarried.
(i) The marriage law was twice a subject of
discussion between Jesus and his opponents.
On one occasion the Pharisees "tempted" him
with a question about divorce : what view did
he take about the Mosaic law, which, under
certain circumstances, permitted a husband to
divorce his wife ? Jesus, who (as a Jew) takes
monogamy for granted, regards the Mosaic law
as a concession made because of men's "hard
ness of heart," and would go back to the ideal of
indissoluble marriage which lies behind it. He
does not announce this as a new law, but restores
it as the proper interpretation of the old. But
he stands quite clearly for a higher ideal of
family life than most of his contemporaries

JESUS' SOCIAL OUTLOOK 123
thought necessary. " What God hath joined
together, let not man put asunder."1
It follows, as a corollary from this, that the
meaning of the law against adultery must be
very much enlarged. Its prohibition extends
not merely to technical breaches of the Mosaic
compromise, but also to all offences against the
higher ideal. The second gospel knows nothing
of the saving clause which has been inserted by
S. Matthew. " Whosoever," it simply says,
"shall put away his wife, and marry another,
committeth adultery against her : and if she her
self shall put away her husband, and marry
another, she committeth adultery."2
In making this interpretation of the Jewish
law of marriage and divorce Jesus was not con
sciously legislating for any society. It is unfair
to treat his words as though he were so doing.
Further, in falling back on this ideal, he is also
falling back on the authority of the Book of
Genesis, which, in common with his contempor
aries, he regarded as final. But an ideal is an
ideal, whatever its origin and form of expression.
And Jesus' ideal of family life is able to over
ride any laws which society may make to
facilitate divorce, as easily as it can, in case
1 Mark x. 2-9. 2x. n-12 ; cf. Matt. v. 32, xix. 9.

124 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
of need, ignore the traditional sanctions and
respectabilities by which society professes to
sustain the institution of marriage.
(ii) Another side of Jesus' attitude towards
marriage is shown by his discussion with the
Sadducees, arising out of a question which was
intended to throw discredit upon the reality of
the life after death. Here Jesus accepts with
out criticism the rather peculiar provisions of the
Levirate law of marriage (with its frank avowal
that marriage is primarily for the sake, of pro
creation) : but he can do so just because he
regards all marriage as a temporary expedient, a
purely worldly affair, that has no reality outside
the conditions of the present life : " When they
shall rise from the dead, they neither marry,
nor are given in marriage ; but are as angels
in heaven".1 He does not deal at all with the
difficulty of the transition from this life to that,
or with the problems that can be raised as to the
continuance of personal relationships and recog
nitions in a future life. To him the present ex
istence does not merge into the future, but is
deeply sundered from it — in his own case, by
the Passion and death which are now so imminent ;
for the Jewish nation, by the fall of Jerusalem ;
*Mark xii. 18-25.

JESUS' SOCIAL OUTLOOK 125
for his disciples, by the cup and baptism of per
secution that they will have to share ; for man
kind as a whole, by the coming catastrophe of
the end of the world.
(iii) Although the only passage in the gospel
that deals directly with a man's duty towards his
family is that which approves the complete re
nunciation of family ties for the sake of religion,1
yet there are many signs of Jesus' particular care
and reverence for children. Three children are
specially mentioned as being healed by him : 2
in doing kindness to a child, he says, one is
doing kindness to himself:8 better any offence
than that against "one of these little ones":4
the faith and simplicity of children is a pattern of
the character of true discipleship : 5 twice Jesus
is described as taking children into his arms,6
and once as laying his hand upon them and
blessing them.7 Childless men are often the most
fond of children ; and children trust a good man.
But Jesus' way with children is a sign, too, of
his high ideal of family life.
On the whole, the most remarkable thing in
1 Mark x. 29. 2 v. 42 ; vii. 25 ; ix. 24. 3 ix. 37.
4 ix. 42 (but " little ones " here might mean " disciples ").
5x. 15. aix. 36; x. 16. 7x. 16.

126 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
Jesus' attitude towards family life is his silence
upon so many questions which have seemed
of special importance to Christians. There is
no discussion, so far as the second gospel is
concerned, of the expediency or otherwise of
marriage ; nothing about the duties of family re
lationship ; nothing about the training of chil
dren. For those who remain in the world there
is the ideal of indissoluble marriage : for those
who would be disciples there is the higher ideal
of complete renunciation : in the real world —
the life of the kingdom of God — " they neither
marry nor are given in marriage ; but are as
angels in heaven ". VI
Only once in the second gospel does Jesus
deal with a political question. Either as a sign
ofthe co-operation of hostile parties against Jesus,
or in order to give colour to their request for a
decision, representatives of the pro-Roman and
anti- Roman parties wait upon him, and ask his
opinion on the political question of the day — " Is
it lawful to give tribute unto Csesar, or not?
shall we give, or shall we not give ? " x
1 Mark xii. 13-15.

JESUS' SOCIAL OUTLOOK 127
The question is prefaced with a remarkable
tribute to Jesus' independence of politics.
" Master," they say, " we know that thou art
true [that is, unbiassed], and carest not for
any one : for thou regardest not the person of
men [that is, he is known as one who is inde
pendent of parties, and takes his own line],
but of a truth teachest the way of God [re
ligion, not politics, being his main " interest "J.1
This is significant evidence as to Jesus' ordinary
attitude towards one of the most absorbing pre
occupations of his countrymen.
Jesus answers the question with an aphorism
at once so true and so irrelevant that it cannot
possibly be answered. So far as this bears on
his idea of wealth, it has already been discussed.2
As regards politics, it suggests a dualistic con
ception of Church and State, in which "the
things that are Caesar's" are sharply distin
guished from "the things that are God's" — un
less, indeed, Jesus' meaning is that the lesser
allegiance owed to the State is completely swal
lowed up in the larger duty to God.3
It would be unfair to draw very wide infer
ences from evidence as scanty and disputable as
this is. The most certain point is that Jesus
1 Mark xii. 14. iCf.p. 118. 3 xii. 15-17.

138 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
took little or no interest in political questions.
The issue of the Messiahship was to him a
purely religious one. The kingdom of God
was not to be brought about by any political
readjustments. The new world was to be won,
not by the reformation, but by the abolition of
the old. To one who lived in such ideas politi
cal questions would be of little account.
Nor can one find any interest on Jesus' part
in other " social questions ". Partly, such prob
lems did not exist then — not because there were
no social ills, but because the idea of social as
distinct from political change had hardly entered
men's minds ; partly, Jesus' preoccupation was
so entirely with religion that he ignored the
spiritual influence of social conditions in the same
kind of way as he ignored the spiritual value of
wealth. VII
If, then, it appears that, as regards social
matters, Jesus accepted the status quo, it becomes
unprofitable to inquire what were his methods of
social reform. Certainly one method of philan
thropy, which the world is apt to regard as re
formative, was never so treated by him. Charity
was, in Jesus' view, the best way of spending

JESUS' SOCIAL OUTLOOK 129
money — but never as a method of reform, always
as a step in the path towards holiness. In this,
Jesus was perhaps wiser than the present genera
tion : for it is not the giving of money, but
the idea that one can do good by giving it,
that does so much harm. At the same time,
regarding charity frankly as a part of religion,
Jesus did not encumber it with conditions
which might spoil its spontaneity, without very
much increasing its efficiency. His own charity
of good deeds and words was given ungrudg
ingly to all who asked or needed it — often (it
must have been) without " inquiry " or guarantee
of good use — for simple love of God and man.1
In the same lavish way he gives entertainment
to crowds four or five thousand strong, provid
ing (it is reported) by supernatural means the
food which he would as willingly have purchased,
if it had been possible, out of the common fund.2
To the rich young ruler he gives the advice, " sell
whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor " 3 —
advice which the disciples had learnt to echo when
they said, " This ointment might have been sold
for above three hundred pence, and given to the
poor".4 Moreover the rule of poverty which
1 Cf. p. 58. 2 vi. 35-38 ; viii. 1-5.
3x. 21. 4xiv. 5.

130 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
Jesus prescribed to his apostles, necessitating as
it did that they should beg for food and hospital
ity, not only encouraged charity in money and in
kind : it also gave the highest sanction to the re
ligious use of mendicancy, with all its attendant
influences, bad as well as good.
Jesus' charity in fact was of the "old-
fashioned" kind, which may be economically
unsound, but which is in itself genuinely reli
gious ; which regards it as a duty to spend one's
money in alms, and finds the normal way of
doing so in indiscriminate gifts to the poor.
Excluding charity, and supposing that Jesus
had been faced with the problem of social reform,
can one at all say what methods he would have
adopted? Only very tentatively can one sug
gest certain principles.
The change needed in those who are to be
come members of the Kingdom of God is re
volutionary : they are to become children again : 1
the new life in them is to spring quickly from a
very small seed to a very large growth.2 And
yet the change will come silently, gradually, un
observed — "evolutionary in method, revolution
ary in result.
xMarkx. 15. 2 iv. 31, 32. 3iv. 26-29.

JESUS' SOCIAL OUTLOOK 131
Again, the influences that affect character,
whether for good or for bad, are from within ; 1
and this would seem to go against external re
form. But, on the other hand, external causes
of offence must be rigorously destroyed,2 and it
is useless to create a new spirit and then to ex
pect it to be content with the old forms.3
And, lastly, great things can be done only by
those who are first humble and then self-sacri
ficing. This, surely, the personal element, re
mains Jesus' unique contribution to social reform.
Without it, no machinery or method can effect
reform : with it, everything becomes possible.
VIII
There remains one conception which was quite
central to Jesus' thoughts, and which must
seriously affect our answer to the question under
discussion. What did Jesus mean by the King
dom of God? The phrase was constantly on
his lips, the idea perpetually in his mind. Did
he conceive it as something primarily religious ?
or social? or ecclesiastical? Was it to be a
society, or a State, or a Church ? Was it close at
hand, or in the far future ? in this world, or in a
1 Mark vii. 20-23. 2 ix- 43-48- 8ii- 21, 22.

132 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
world yet to come ? Very various answers have
been given to these questions : but since they have
often been dictated as much by the dispositions
of their authors as by the necessities of the evi
dence, and since in dealing with a single Gospel
the amount of the evidence is not so overwhelm
ing, it will be best not to accept any a priori
decisions, but to try to. form a new judgment from
a short examination of all the passages in S. Mark
which bear seriously upon the subject.
(i) i. 15. Jesus' first message to the world
was " The time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom of
God is at hand " — that is, the Messianic King
dom, foretold by the prophets, and expected at
the end of an appointed time.
(2) iv. 11. " Unto you is given the mystery
ofthe Kingdom of God." Every Jew attached
some meaning to the Kingdom of God. But
the popular views regarded it as a national and
political, as well as a religious ideal. Jesus did
not publicly correct these false views, but in
private he taught his disciples the true nature
of the Messianic Kingdom — that it is a future
and spiritual existence, a new life that can be won
only by self-sacrifice, and suffering, and death. '
(3) iv. 26-29. Jesus compares the Kingdom

JESUS' SOCIAL OUTLOOK 133
of God to the grain which grows gradually, con
tinuously, and inexplicably from seed-time to
harvest. Or rather, the essential point of com
parison is between the harvest and the coming
of the Kingdom : the long period of growth in
each case is preparatory for a definite future event.
(4) iv. 30-32. Another parable of growth, that
of the mustard-seed, contrasts the humble begin
ning of the preaching of the Gospel with the
greatness of the event to which it leads : or, more
widely, it represents Jesus' faith that out of the
present unpromising state of religion was to come
nothing less than the Kingdom of God — though
it was only in a spiritual sense that he could
regard the former as passing on without a break
into the latter.
(5) ix. 1. " There be some here of them that
stand by, which shall in no wise taste of death,
till they see the Kingdom of God come with
power." This prediction is closely connected
with the preceding description of the second
coming of the Messiah, and clearly states that
this event, and the establishment of the Messianic
Kingdom, will take place within the life-time of
some of the bystanders — i.e., within, or almost
within, the first century A.D.1
1 Cf. p. 99-

134 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
(6) ix. 43-47. The Kingdom of God, called
" life," is opposed to another state, called " hell,"
and is described as a future existence, to be won,
if need be, at any sacrifice. Hand, foot, and eye,
— the most precious faculties, of life — are to be
cut away if they imperil a man's entry into the
Kingdom. (7) x. 15. "Whosoever shall not receive the
Kingdom of God as a little child, he shall in no
wise enter therein." The Kingdom is not for
every one, but demands a child-like faith and
simplicity of those who would become subjects
of it.
(8) x. 17-30. The rich young man who wishes
to " inherit eternal life " means by that the King
dom of God as Jesus preached it. To win
"treasure in heaven," Jesus tells him, it is not
enough to live blamelessly in this life : there
must also be a complete surrender of worldly
wealth. The Kingdom is something whose
standards and values are quite different from
those of this life. '''How hardly shall they that
have riches enter into the Kingdom of God ! . . .
It is easier for a camel to go through a needle's
eye, than for a rich man to enter into the King
dom of God." And it is clear that it is something
quite outside the present life : those who become

JESUS' SOCIAL OUTLOOK 135
true disciples shall indeed receive present riches
—of a spiritual kind ; but the chief reward of
their constancy is to be " in the world to come
eternal life ".
(9) x- 35_4°- Two of the apostles (Jesus'
cousins) ask to be allowed to sit on his right and
left hand in his glory, that is, in his Kingdom.
Jesus raises no objections to this rather material
istic view of the Kingdom, but reminds the dis
ciples of the conditions of suffering and death
through which alone the Kingdom can be won.
As to the actual places in the Kingdom — the de
tails of the future life — they are already settled,
and not by himself but (he implies) by God.
Here, again, is the same idea of the Kingdom as
a definite future existence, though under unusually
material forms : and it is interesting to get this
indirect confirmation by the disciples of Jesus'
direct teaching on the subject.
(10) xi. 10. "Blessed is the Kingdom that
cometh, the Kingdom of our father David" —
such was the acclamation of the crowd who ac
companied Jesus at the time of his entry into
Jerusalem. For the first time, Jesus seems to
have allowed this public recognition. Few, prob
ably, knew what kind of Messiahship he had come
to claim, or through what strange experiences

136 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
the Kingdom was to be won. But for them
all " the Kingdom " — once of David, now of the
Christ — expressed, in the main, a common con
ception, a national ideal.
(ii) xii. 34. To the scribe who answered
him "discreetly" Jesus said, "Thou art not far
from the Kingdom of God " : some, who were
not disciples, could be very like them in simplicity
and faith.
(12) xiii. It is remarkable that the Kingdom
of God is not actually mentioned in the eschato
logical discourse. But the coming ofthe Messiah,
which is elsewhere so closely connected with the
establishment of the Kingdom, must be held to
be introductory to it here too. This coming is
described in the figurative language of the Pro
phets : it is near at hand, though its exact time
is not known : its circumstances and setting are
of this world, but its significance is spiritual and
other-worldly. The general sense of the dis
course certainly requires a Kingdom that is " not
of this world ".
(13) xiv. 25. "I will drink no more of the
fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it
new in the Kingdom of God." The literal mean
ing of this cannot be excluded, especially when
one remembers the materialistic language used

JESUS' SOCIAL OUTLOOK 137
of the Kingdom on other occasions. But " new "
may mean " of a new kind," as well as " afresh " ;
and the saying may bear a secondary and more
spiritual meaning. In any case the main con
trast is between the present and the future states.
(14) xv. Throughout the trial of Jesus the
most prominent point is his claim to be " the King
ofthe Jews " ; the title is constantly repeated : and
he admits the claim. As a king he is mocked
by the soldiers : it is his kingship which the
chief priests deride : " Let Christ the King of
Israel now come down from the cross ". Nowhere
is the irony of Jesus' position better shown : his
kingship, in Pilate's sense and that of the priests,
is a mockery and failure ; but that is the appointed
way to the real Kingship and the real Kingdom.
(15) xv. 43. Joseph of Arimathsea is de
scribed as one " who also himself was looking for
the Kingdom of God ". There were many such,
not only among the upper classes (cf. (8) and (11)
above), but also among the " pious poor ". They
shared Jesus' ideal, but perhaps disagreed with
his personal claims, and his strange interpreta
tion of the Messiahship.
Certain conclusions seem to follow from these
passages.

138 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
(i) First, the Kingdom was not in any sense
political and social, but simply and solely re
ligious. (ii) Secondly, although some of the above
passages in isolation might reasonably be inter
preted of membership in an already existent
society, yet this was not Jesus' meaning. A
moral preparation for the Kingdom was very
necessary : but the Kingdom itself was an event
lying wholly in the future.
(iii) It was in fact, the Messianic Kingdom,
to which the old prophets looked forward,
purged of its political limitations, and put quite
outside the present order of things. This, and
nothing else, is the meaning of the Kingdom of
Heaven in the second gospel. IX
Here, then, is our answer to the question,
What was the relation of Jesus to social prob
lems ? And it is a rather startling one.
Jesus accepted the status quo of society, and
used his healing powers, as he would have used
money, indiscriminately, regarding charity as
an exercise of religion, and not as a method of
reform. He took no interest in social questions as we

JESUS' SOCIAL OUTLOOK 139
know them, and he thought that the present
world was coming to an end in a few years.
His regenerated society, the Kingdom of God,
was quite outside and alien to the present order of
things, and entirely unworldly in its methods and
constitution. It follows that Jesus' principles, and the per
sonal enthusiasm that he inspires, can be applied
to social as well as to other problems, and may
even be worked up into systems of Christian
socialism, and the like : but that any such de
velopment will be outside the limits of Jesus'
own authority and expectations.
Finally, whereas to the modern social reformer
the present state of society is the only real and
tangible one, and Utopias are the stuff of dreams,
to Jesus the future life was the true reality, and
1 the present world no more than the veil that
must be rent before one can pass into the presence
of God.

T

CHAPTER VI
JESUS' MORALITY I
HE distinction that is sometimes made be
tween religion and morality would have
been quite meaningless to Jesus. It is clear that
to him religion was everything, and that, though
one may for the sake of convenience study his mor
ality apart from it, yet the latter is, in fact, the spon
taneous expression of the former in the sphere of
conduct, and cannot really be separated from it.
It is often tacitly assumed that Jesus' morality
means the Sermon on the Mount. Certainly that
is the largest collection of ethical teachings
in the gospels, and there is nothing compar
able to it in S. Mark. But we shall expect to
find all the essential principles of Jesus' mor
ality in the scantier records of the second
gospel, if it be in any sense a true biography.
And, if these can be established, we shall be in a
140

JESUS' MORALITY 141
much stronger position for dealing with the more
detailed teachings of the other gospels.
At the same time our object is not so much to
explain Jesus' moral teaching as his morality —
that is, his own moral principles and practice.
This again, perhaps, is a distinction without a
difference. But it suggests that much may be
discovered from the less obvious sources of evi
dence : and it raises questions which are of im
mense importance with regard to Jesus' liability
to temptation, and the meaning of his " sinless
ness ". But before coming to these subjects,
something must be said as to the general nature
of Jesus' morality, and its application to several
important parts of life. II
(i) In an important passage of his public
teaching, arising out of a controversy with the
Pharisees, Jesus lays down what appears to be
the basis of all his moral principles.1 "Hear
me all of you, and understand : there is nothing
from without the man, that going into him can
defile him : but the things which proceed out of
the man are those that defile the man." Im
morality is not an act of defilement from without,
1 Mark vii. 14-23.

142 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
but a motion of impurity from within ; not an
evil deed or circumstance that may cause an im
moral thought, but an immoral thought that will,
unless destroyed, give rise to all kinds of evil deeds
and circumstances. Similarly, then, morality is
a good thought, that works itself out in every kind
of good deed.
If " evil thought " is the generic name for
the vices which Jesus enumerated,1 and "good
thought " may be inferred as his class-name for
the virtues, one naturally inquires whence these
" thoughts " spring. The answer is, " from with
in, out of the heart of man " ; 2 and this seems
to imply an identification of "the heart" with
"the spirit," — the, spirit which is sometimes
" willing " when the " flesh is weak ".3 It is a
simple psychology, as one would expect. Its
happiest definition lies in the words "from with
in " and " from without ". But it expresses vividly
enough the idea which was quite central in Jesus'
morality — that the essence of goodness lies not
in outward, but in inward conformity ; not in the
ritual of purification, but in the pure ablution of
a good conscience.
(ii) Jesus experienced and taught the reality
1 This seems to be the right interpretation of Mark vii. 21.
2 Mark vii. 21. 3 xiv. 38.

JESUS' MORALITY 143
of temptation. He knew the oppositeness of
good and bad, and the choice involved in morality.
And, whether or not he believed in a personal
power of evil fighting against God,1 at any rate,
he had no doubt that it was often difficult to
make a right choice in face of alternatives. His
whole life was such a choice, in face of dire temp
tations. Tempted forty days in the desert;2
tempted by his oldest friend as advocate of the
fear of death,8 tempted to shirk suffering, when
he would not shirk death,4 and tempted to
doubt the very presence of God5 — Jesus could
realise very well the weakness that beset his
friends,6 and drove S. Peter to deny him.7 The
"best will in the world" — his own — could not
remain untempted : his life was not a calm pro
gress from perfection to perfection, but a real and
constant struggle.
(iii) Natural feelings and emotions played a
considerable part in Jesus' morality. He was
easily moved to compassion, and so to acts of
goodness — for instance, by the needs of a leper,8
or by the sight of a great crowd that had come to
1 Cf. p. 90. 2 i. 13. 8 viii. 33.
4 xiv. 33-39 : this is probably the meaning ofthe incident.
5 xv. 34. 6 xiv. 38.
7 xiv. 30. 8i. 41.

144 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
hear him,1 or by the hunger of the multitude.2
Natural pity for a blind man,8 and affection for
children,4 prompt small acts significant of much
kindness. Peace5 and forgiveness6 — qualities
most akin to natural love and good temper — are
social virtues upon which he lays much stress.
(iv) Jesus never conceived morality merely as
duty. It might involve temptation, and the stress
of choice ; but it never went permanently
"against the grain," or involved a painful drill
and discipline of the inclinations. It was a
natural and happy self-expression. Ill
It is possible to illustrate Jesus' morality
more exactly in relation to some practical prob
lems — family life, the rights of property,
reverence for persons, and the treatment of
opinion. (i) Something has already been said as to
the attitude which Jesus adopted towards family
life.7 As one who had experienced for thirty
years the benefits of a pious hard-working home
JMark vi. 34. 2 viii. 2. 3 viii. 22, 23. 4iv. 36, x. 16.
6 ix. 50, " Be at peace one with another ".
6 xi. 25, " Forgive, if ye have aught against any one ".
7 Cf. p. 122.

JESUS' MORALITY 145
life, he was willing to sacrifice it all in a mo
ment when the special call of God came.
Himself unmarried, he held very strongly
the indissoluble nature of the marriage bond.
Regarding marriage as a temporary expedient of
a transitory world, he was yet noted for his
care and reverence for children.
There is, on the whole, a strange lack of stress
on family duties and family affections. Once,
certainly, Jesus upheld the claim of parents upon
the support of their children against the profitable
casuistry of the priests : but even then he was
more concerned with the irreligion of the Phari
sees than with the duty of family affection.1
More than once he shows special sympathy
with the parents of children whom he is asked
to cure :2 and in his forecast of the fall of Jeru
salem it is for the mothers that he feels most
pity — " Woe unto them that are with child, and
to them that give suck in those days ! " 3 But,
beyond these vague indications of Jesus' atti
tude, there is nothing. The whole question of
family life seems to have been settled, so far as
he was concerned, by his great act of renuncia
tion. With that behind, and the speedy end of
1 Mark vii. 9-13. 2v. 40; ix. 21-24. s xiii. 17.
10

146 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
the world in front, a special ethics of the family
was well-nigh impossible.
(ii) With regard to private property, Jesus
clearly teaches the advisability of its complete
surrender.1 For himself and the disciples this
implied the formation of a common fund. When
travelling alone, the disciples were told to beg their
way from place to place : 2 but when travelling
together, they seem to have taken a small stock
of provisions — commonly of bread and fish —
which, indeed, they were very willing to share
with all comers, but which they guarded most
thriftily.3 This custom was no doubt the model
of the "communistic " life of the early Church at
Jerusalem, until its growth in numbers and com
plexity made the arrangement impracticable.4
Beyond this minimum necessary for common
life, property was to be disposed of in charity.
Jesus himself did not insist so much upon the
method of disposal as the spirit of thoroughness
with which it was carried out : he might even
prefer " wasting " money to giving it to the poor.6
But he advised the latter course in at least
1Cf.p. 116. 2vi. 8.
3vi. 38, 43; viii. 5, 8, 14.
4 Acts ii. 44-45 ; iv. 32, 34-35. 5 Mark xiv. 4-5.

JESUS' MORALITY 147
one case,1 and he always expected of others the
charity which he was willing to exercise him
self — using one man's colt2 and another man's
room8 with the splendid simplicity that is
possible under Eastern laws of hospitality.
In some cases it may be thought that Jesus
showed an actual disregard for the rights of
property — though probably here too one is
prejudiced by ideas of property derived from
Western selfishness and competition.
For instance, the destruction of the swine,
which accompanied the healing of the Gerasene
demoniac, has been regarded in this light. The
exact nature of the incident is very obscure. S.
Mark evidently does not regard the destruction
of the animals as a mere coincidence, but as a
direct result — though not anticipated by Jesus —
ofthe concession made to the evil spirits. We
are left with the impression that the thing was
an accident, which Jesus could not have fore
seen, and that the destruction of property which
it involved filled the Gerasenes not with resent
ment, but with fear. The idea of damage or
wrong does not seem to occur either to Jesus
or to the bystanders.4
A similar issue seems to be raised by the
1 Mark x. 21. *xi. 3. 8 xiv. 14. 4v. 10-17.

148 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
incident ofthe cleansing ofthe Temple, which not
only shows a splendid scorn of " vested interests "
on Jesus' part, but also — if it implies more than
a temporary exclusion of the traffickers — must
have "spoilt trade" for many licensed hawkers
and others. Yet it does not seem to have been
so regarded. There is no record of any such
hostility as S. Paul roused at Ephesus1 or
Philippi.8 The explanation of this probably lies
in the fact that popular feeling was on Jesus'
side in his attack on the officials of the Temple.8
Another incident which is sometimes quoted
in this connection is the withering of the fig-tree.
But there is no reason to suppose that the tree
was private property ; so that it need not be
considered here.
On the whole, the same kind of conclusion
seems to be required by the evidence under this
head as under the last. Jesus regarded his re
ligious "call" as putting him above the ordinary
claims both of family and of property : and he
regarded both these things as temporary and
transient affairs when compared with the things
of the Kingdom of God.
1 Acts xix. 23-27. 2 Acts xvi. 19.
3 Mark xi. 15-18.

JESUS' MORALITY 149
(iii) There is one respect, and that the most
important of all, in which Jesus' morality is quite
uncompromising. It is that which concerns
offences against persons, more particularly by
the abuse of personal influence in matters of
belief. There is no parallel in the gospel to the two
judgments against this kind of sin which Jesus
pronounces. "Whosoever shall cause one of
these little ones that believe on me to stumble,
it were better for him if a great millstone were
hanged about his neck, and he were cast into
the sea." 1 Jesus is not thinking so much of the
punishment that such sins might deserve, as of
the unhappy state of the sinner : he would be
better lying already dead and harmless, than he
is, still alive, and causing offence to true believers.
Again, S. Peter the deserter earns no such re
buke as S. Peter the tempter. " Get thee be
hind me, Satan," is the answer to his attempt to
use his personal influence to dissuade Jesus from
a good purpose.2 And though the offence of
Judas was of a rather different kind, it involved
so gross an abuse of personal trust and friend
ship that Jesus could say of him : " Woe unto
that man through whom the Son of man is
1 Mark ix. 42. 2 yiii. 33.

150 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
betrayed ! Good were it for that man if he had
not been born."1
Equally stringent is Jesus' advice as to the
necessity of destroying any cause of offence in
oneself — that is, apparently, any known principle
of error, whether in belief or in conduct ; any
part of the organism whose state may endanger
that of the whole.2
To Jesus, persons are on quite a different
footing from property. Property, in its widest
sense, in which it is almost equivalent to " the
world," is transient : persons are eternal. It is
worth any sacrifice to save "life" whether in
oneself or in others. " For what doth it profit a
man, to gain the whole world, and forfeit his life ?
For what should a man give in exchange for his
life?"3 (iv) Jesus' intense respect for persons was,
however, combined with a great zeal for evan
gelisation. It was a part of his certainty in
spiritual affairs never to shrink from imposing
his opinion upon others. His work in the world
was to catch men's souls — " I will make you to
become fishers of men " is the form of his call to .
the earliest apostles ; 4 and again, " I came not to
1 Mark xiv. 21. * ix. 43-47.
8 viii. 36, 37. 4i. 17.

JESUS' MORALITY 151
call the righteous, but sinners".1 The primary
duty of a disciple is to bear witness, like a lamp
that is " brought to be put on the stand " ; 2 and
"there is nothing hid, save that it should be
manifested ; neither was anything made secret,
but that it should come to light ".8
(v) Jesus, again, was independent of party and
personal considerations to a degree that even his
enemies remarked, " We know that thou art true,
and carest not for any one : for thou regardest
not the person of men " ; 4 and he was willing to
show, in his attitude towards fellow -workers
who were not disciples, a toleration which his
followers found impossible : " There is no man
which shall do a mighty work in my name, and
be able quickly to speak evil of me. For he
that is not against us, is for us."6
IV
No attempt to describe Jesus' morality would
be at all true that made it no more than an
"attitude " or an "opinion". Its great richness
lay in positive moral principles, and in the power
of enthusiasm that inspired them. Its virtues
were frankly, almost fiercely, revolutionary. Its
1 Mark iL 17. 2iv. 21 ; cf. v. 19.
3iv. 22. * xii. 14. six. 38-40.

152 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
claims convinced the world by their unreason
ableness. There was, for instance, the demand for humil
ity. "Whosoever would become great among
you," says Jesus, " shall be your minister," x and,
" If any man would be first, he shall be last of all,
and minister of all"2 — a view which Jesus him
self admits to go against the whole custom ofthe
world. Indeed the claim amounts to this — that
men must become children again in simplicity of
innocence and faith : for " Whosoever shall not
receive the Kingdom of God as a little child, he
shall in no wise enter therein ".3 Jesus himself
had so received it.
The demand for self-sacrifice was equally
thorough. " If any man would to come after me,''
says Jesus, "let him deny himself, and take up
his cross, and follow me."4 Discipleship may
involve the mutilation of life,6 the surrender of
property and home,6 and a deep draught of the
cup of pain.7 These things, too, Jesus himself
experienced. But above all else is the only law that Jesus
laid down — the law of love. The love of God
and the love of one's neighbour are the two great
1Markx. 43. 2ix. 35. 3x. 15.
4 viii. 34. 6ix. 43-47. 6x. 29, 7x. 38.

JESUS' MORALITY 153
commandments. If a man loves God with all
his heart and soul and mind and strength, and
loves his neighbour as himself, he is, in Jesus'
opinion, " not far from the Kingdom of God ".
That is Jesus' last word in morality.1
Jesus' morality did not involve an ascetic
holiness. His disciples failed to fast, and were
contrasted in this respect with the disciples of
John and the Pharisees :2 of Jesus himself it
was said that "he eateth and drinketh with
publicans and sinners ".3 Nor did it imply a
rigid formalism : Jesus deliberately broke the
laws of Sabbath observance,4 and caused offence
by eating with unwashed hands.5 But it was an
entire and enthusiastic self-surrender, springing
naturally from a life in which God was the
one reality, and all in all. V
The quality of a man's goodness is best seen
by his treatment of sin. What did Jesus think
about sin ? and how did he treat it ?
(i) We have already dealt with what is prob
ably the most important passage of the gospel
1 Mark xii. 28-34. 2ii. 18. 3ii. 16,
4ii. 23; iii. 5. 6yii. 2,

154 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
for our present purpose — that in which Jesus lays
it down that sin is " evil thought "- — an inner de
filement of a man's heart, which issues in the
form of evil deeds.1 The actual illustrations
which he gives of this theory consist of two
groups of six kinds of sin. The first group cor
responds roughly to the second part ofthe Mosaic
decalogue — "fornications, thefts, murders, adul
teries, covetings, wickednesses ". These are all
put in the plural, as though they represented so
many wrong acts. To these are added six more
classes put in the singular, as if to represent
tendencies or principles of acting, rather than
definite acts — " deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye,
railing, pride, and foolishness ". Thus even in
this classification Jesus seems to go behind the
conventional idea that sin means certain bad
acts, and to insist on its real nature as " evil
thought". Such a view, of course, adds very
much to the seriousness of sin.
This, however, is not all. Sin, being in itself
evil thought, becomes, in the relations of men
to men, evil influence. Personal in origin, it is
personal in its effects : and herein, for one who
reverenced personality as Jesus did, lies the chief
part of its offence. At any cost such sin must
1 Mark vii. 14-23 ; cf. p. 141.

JESUS' MORALITY 155
be extirpated from one's own life ; and any fate
is preferable to that of being an "offence" to
" one of these little ones ". There are here two
principles — the first, that persons are sacrosanct ;
and the second, that personality comes to its per
fection rather by self-limitation than by compre
hension — by excluding rather than by embracing
the opportunity of evil (which is also the oppor
tunity of good). That Jesus inclined to this
latter view, rather than to its more popular al
ternative, can hardly be doubted. His own life
illustrated it. But he was able to follow the
straight way without sacrificing comprehensive
ness, or truth ; so that his life becomes a study in
the power, not in the weakness, of limitations.1
(ii) Serious, however, as is the view which
Jesus takes of sin, he never wavers from the
certainty that sin can be and generally will be
forgiven. The forgiveness of sins is to be a
normal subject of prayer, though it is not to be
hoped for unless he who prays also forgives.2
For himself he claims explicitly God's authority
(delegated to " the Son of man ... on earth ")
to forgive sins : and though he regards the
power as more honourable and more difficult of
use than the power of healing, yet he exercises
1Markix. 42-47. 2xi. 25.

156 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
it as readily and spontaneously when the case
demands.1 Only in one connection is there any mention
of a sin which is beyond forgiveness. Certain
scribes from Jerusalem had been trying to turn
the people against Jesus by accusing him of
witchcraft, and attributing his cures to the powers
of evil working through him. " Verily I say
unto you," is the answer (and the introductory
phrase marks the importance of the saying),
" All their sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of
men, and their blasphemies wherewith soever
they shall blaspheme : but whosoever shall blas
pheme against the Holy Spirit hath never for
giveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin ".2 This
sin was an extreme case of the "railing" or
slander mentioned later in Jesus' catalogue of
sins : 3 but probably it is implied that any sin
becomes unforgivable when it is maliciously and
deliberately indulged against God himself, or
against the good spirit through which he works
in the world. On Jesus' own principles, it can
not be a particular kind of act which is beyond
forgiveness, but a certain quality of evil thought.
1Markii. 1-12. 2 iii, 28, 29. 8vii. 22.

JESUS' MORALITY 157
And it is through the indulgence of this sin,
apparently, that there exists a state alternative
to the "eternal life" of the Kingdom of God —
a state called "hell," and very inadequately de
scribed in such materialistic language as "the
unquenchable fire . . . where their worm dieth
not, and the fire is not quenched ".1
VI
In considering Jesus' attitude towards sin, the
question must arise, what was his personal ex
perience in respect of sin ? The dogma of Jesus'
sinlessness is not, of course, stated in the second
gospel. If true, it will be established by an ex
amination of the evidence. At any rate such an
inquiry should go some way towards clearing up
the meaning of a very difficult conception.
(i) The baptism which John preached was a
"baptism of repentance unto remission of sins,"
and those who came to him " were baptised in
the river Jordan, confessing their sins ". Among
them "Jesus came . . . and was baptised of John
in the Jordan ". The natural inference is that
Jesus' baptism was of the ordinary kind, and that
1 Mark ix. 43-48.

158 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
he came to it because he felt the need of " re
pentance unto remission of sins ".1
Remembering in how many respects Jesus
shared the moral and religious ideas of his
contemporaries, we shall hardly be surprised at
this. The absence of penitence — an essentia*
part of the religious spirit, and one which
deepens in direct proportion to goodness —
would have been far more difficult to understand.
Moreover, the second gospel probably implies
that the new life of the Spirit, with its power to
heal, and its authority to teach, began at the time
of Jesus' baptism. Would there not be at
the same time some ending of the old life, some
inward change corresponding to the outward
renunciation of family and friends ?
There is perhaps some evidence that the pas
sage was interpreted as above, in its natural sense,
in S. Matthew's attempt to get over the difficulty
of it—" Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to the
Jordan unto John, to be baptised of him. But
John would have hindered him, saying, I have
need to be baptised of thee, and comest thou
to me? But Jesus answering said unto him,
Suffer it now : for thus it becometh us to fulfil
all righteousness. Then he suffereth him."2
1 Mark i. 9. a Matt. iii. 15-15.

JESUS' MORALITY 159
There is no support for this interpolation. It is
not mentioned, for instance, by S. Luke, though
it refers (in its contrast of the two baptisms) to
words which occur in S. Luke as well as in S.
Matthew. It reads too much like an editorial
after-thought. In any case it gives no motive
for Jesus' coming to the baptism so natural or
adequate as that suggested by S. Mark. It
seems, then, that the idea of sinlessness must
somehow include the experience of repentance.
How this is possible is perhaps hinted by the
penitence of Christian saints. But any real solu
tions of the difficulty in Jesus' case must depend
upon evidence yet to be considered.
(ii) " And as he was going forth into the way,
there ran one to him, and kneeled to him, and
asked him, Good Master, what shall I do that I
may inherit eternal life? And Jesus said unto
him, why callest thou me good ? none is good
save one, even God." The stress in the last
sentence is on "good," not on "me" : but this
hardly lessens the force of the passage. It
is not enough to suggest that the young man's
idea of goodness needed correction, and that
Jesus would point him from a wrong to a right
meaning of the word. Nor is it Jesus' intention
to deny, as man, any equality with God. The

160 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
address " Good Master " contained no such sug
gestion. Theology is out of place in this passage,
which deals with plain words in a plain way.
There is, in fact, no adequate alternative to the
natural interpretation. Jesus did not think him
self " good " in the sense in which the young man
had used the word, and in the sense in which it
would be commonly used of God.1
S. Matthew, as in the last passage, so here,
makes what can only be called a clumsy attempt
to get rid of what seemed to him to be a difficulty ;
for, in place of " Good Master, what shall I do
. . . ? " he has " Master, what good thing shall I
do . . . ? " and in place of " why callest thou me
good . . . ? " he writes, " why askest thou me
concerning that which is good ? " 2 The attempt
to rewrite the passage — if that is what has been
done — is evidence to the effect that the literal
interpretation of it is the most natural one.
In any case this would seem to follow from
the last section. If Jesus could feel that he
needed to undergo the baptism of repentance, he
could and would also disclaim divine perfection.
And this, again, agrees with the idea of the
gradual growth of Jesus' Messianic conscious
ness. If he did not at this time feel himself to
1 Mark x. 17, 18. 2Matt. xix. 16, 17.

JESUS' MORALITY 161
be good in the sense in which God is good,
neither did he think himself to be divine, in the
sense in which God is divine.
(iii) There is one other passage that may be
thought to bear on the same question. The story
of the withering of the fig-tree, as given in the
second Gospel, suggests no motive for the miracle
but the natural one of disappointment at the
failure of the fruit. Further, it gives support to
this by its definite placing of the miracle. It
occurs on the morning after the first day in Jeru
salem, when Jesus, sad and angry at the desecra
tion of the Temple, has made up his mind
to take the law into his own hands, and to drive
out the traffickers. From Jesus' hunger thus
early in the morning we are left to infer that he
had spent the night fasting, and on the open hill
side.1 The only suggested motive lies in the
weakness of the flesh.
S. Luke omits the incident altogether, though
from the form of another passage it seems likely
that he knew it.2 S. Matthew heightens the mir
acle by making the tree wither instantaneously, but
only succeeds in obscuring the motive ofthe act.3
1 Mark xi. 12-14. 2 Luke xvii. 5, 6 ; cf. xiii. 6-9 — a
parable about a fig-tree, from which, it has been suggested,
the story of the miracle may have been derived.
3 Matt. xxi. 18-22.

1 62 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
All that we can safely say is that the second
gospel seems to have handed on a true account
of an act of Jesus from an age which found no
difficulty in it to one that did. The act, what
ever its exact motive, was not inconsistent with
S. Mark's (and that implies, probably, S. Peter's)
idea of Jesus. If it is difficult for us to reconcile
it with the nature of the Incarnate, is it because
we understand him better, or worse, than they
did? The truth seems to be, that S. Mark's Gospel
reproduces the beliefs of an age which had not
yet become theological, and which was therefore
not in a position to feel the theoretical difficulty
of facts which experience and tradition recorded.
More than this — it was not merely untheological :
it had personal memory of Jesus. And just
as the inconsistencies of great men are not so
apparent to their contemporaries as to later
generations, who have lost the unifying medium
of personal experience ; so to the first generation
of Christians there not only seemed to be, but
there really was perfect consistency between the
claims and the characteristics of the Incarnate.
Can we, however, recover the ground of that
consistency, so far as the present topic is con-

JESUS' MORALITY 163
cerned? Can we say what there was in the
experience and teaching of Jesus that enabled
the Church to believe such things (as we have
been considering) of him whom it worshipped as
the Christ, the Son of God ? The experience of
repentance, the disclaiming of "goodness," the
weakness of the flesh — are not all these features in
the Incarnation to be explained by one great fact,
— Jesus' consciousness of the reality of tempta
tion ? If what we have already said on this sub
ject be true,1 — if Jesus' whole life involved a
real contest with temptation, and if he knew
that his nature included the possibility of that
"evil thought" which was the source of sin —
then some reason, at least, is given for experiences
which would otherwise be inexplicable. " For
we have not a high priest that cannot be touched
with the feeling of our infirmities ; but One that
hath been in all points tempted like as we are,
yet without sin."2
Whether this be the true interpretation or not,
the facts, if facts they be, must not be ignored,
or explained away ; on the contrary no doctrine
of the Incarnation can be considered as adequate
which is not able to include them.
1 Cf. p. 142. 2 Heb. iv. 15.

CHAPTER VII
JESUS' RELIGION I
AS no strict line can be drawn between Jesus'
morality and his religion, but the latter
is a particular expression of the former, so there
will be no real division between Jesus' religion
and Jesus himself, but his religion will be the na
tural expression of his self-consciousness. That
is to say, we are now very close to the high
est and hardest inquiry of all — What did Jesus
know of himself ? Who did he think himself to
be ? Yet, as before, it is possible, for prac
tical purposes, to isolate certain parts of the evi
dence, and to deal with them under the present
head. It is simply and solely on grounds of religion
that Jesus makes his claim upon the world.
Not as a political deliverer : he refused the
popular Messiahship, and chose the death of the
cross. Not as a social reformer : he looked not
164

JESUS' RELIGION 165
for the regeneration of the old society, but for
the inauguration of a new. Not as a moralist or
philosopher : he knew no morality or philosophy
apart from the love of God, and of man through
God. Not as a cultured man of the world : his
way was to sacrifice faculties, rather than to
sanctify them. Like a man on his death-bed,
who feels that everything is slipping away from
him but the need of God, so Jesus lives in the
world. Nothing in this life, he feels, can last,
unless it is rooted in the future life. Nothing
matters for man, except God. No study, no
motive, no standard, no value is worth con
sideration which is not simply and solely religious.
Moreover, Jesus claims to be himself the
guide and authority in religion. He accepts
quite naturally the position which the disciples
give him. His words and way of life are a true
revelation of God, a certain though " strait "
gate of the kingdom of God. The study of
his life and death ought to move all men to the
conviction that " this was the Son of God ".
II
The conditions of Jesus' early life cannot but
have had a great influence upon his religion.

1 66 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
Yet we can do no more than suggest certain
directions that this influence must have taken,
on the basis of evidence which is sometimes
negative and generally indirect.
(i) As regards influences of home, and class,
and nationality, Jesus shared the Jewish worship
of the One God, the Jewish zeal for holiness, the
Jewish patriotism. As a Galilean he was brought
up in the provincial simplicity and piety for which
the lake-country was so remarkable. As a car
penter of Nazareth, he inherited an active,
working faith, one that faced the hard facts and
cramping circumstances of life.
(ii). Jesus' " Churchmanship " was not merely
that of his contemporaries. There was, doubtless,
a genuine dislike among Galileans of the formal
ism and official pretensions of the religious sects.
But Jesus, whilst sharing, we may suppose, in
the daily observances of household piety, made
distrust and dislike of formalism a ruling prin
ciple of his religion. Attending — as seems prob
able — the village synagogue every Sabbath
day, he yet became a convinced nonconformist
with regard to some of the commonest practices
of religion. Sharing the general reverence for
Jerusalem with its Temple and its festivals, he
could never think of it except with the forebod-

JESUS' RELIGION 167
ing of its fall. The real current of his religion
flowed deep below the outward forms of Jewish
Churchmanship. (iii) Jesus' intense belief in the power of
prayer, his knowledge and treatment of the
Scriptures, his zeal for works of charity, all have
their roots in the family life and village com
panionship. The religious needs of fishermen
and carpenters, the lovable unlovely lives of
" publicans and sinners," the hypocritical right
eousness of religious officials — all came into his
early experience, and contributed something to
his religious outlook. Then came the Baptist's
preaching, and fused all this raw material of
religion into a white-hot love of God and
man. Ill
What forms did it take ? — forms, that is, de
finitely religious, not merely moral — main heads
of religious principles and practice ? Two pre
eminently — humility and faith.
(i) Jesus' humility was based, as all genuine
humility is, on a sense of the reality of sin. One
need not have sinned, to be humbled by sin : to
have been tempted is to have seen sin face to
face, and to have found oneself, apart from God,

1 68 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
powerless. So Jesus [knows that his flesh is
weak, that he is not divinely " good ".
And this experience became a way of life, in
which self-will habitually submitted to the
law of God, and to the need of man. " Not
what I will, but what thou wilt," was Jesus'
permanent attitude towards God. The obedient
service and voluntary humility of the disciples
was based upon the personal example of one
who " came not to be ministered unto, but to
minister, and to give his life a ransom for
many ".
Again, though Jesus had no hesitation in im
posing his opinion as dogma, or his morality
as law : though he never wavered in the
certainty of his faith in God, yet he seems
to have shrunk from self-expression in per
sonal affairs. His reserve in matters of re
ligion is shown by his choice of no more than
twelve apostles, to whom alone " the mystery of
the Kingdom of God " was revealed ; and in the
exclusion of all but three, even of these, from
the scenes of his most important miracles, his
moments of ecstasy, or his prayers ; whilst even
the privileged three can only pray apart from
him at the time of supreme temptation in the

JESUS' RELIGION 169
Garden of Gethsemane.1 Jesus did not care to
talk about his " religious experiences ". The
story of the baptism and temptation is the only
part of the gospel which seems to be told by
himself. The only exception to this rule of re
serve is in the repeated prophecies of the Passion
and Second Coming of the Son of man.
There is, indeed, a splendid disregard of those
subjective feelings and " attitudes " which are often
the caricature of genuine religious experience.
Religion is not a matter of opinion, a " question "
of any kind, an " interest " that may or may not
appeal. It is objective, simple, unquestionable.
It does not matter how one feels as the result of
living for God, or whether it is reasonable to die
for him : true humility is to live and die, asking
no questions.
(ii) Faith has been so variously defined that
it becomes of extreme importance to know what
Jesus meant by it. Or, more strictly, we should
ask what there was in the religion of Jesus
which the Church came to call faith.
It was, first, an entire trust in God's presence
with him and care for him. Jesus could quite
simply disregard physical dangers, or the fear of
1 Mark xiv. 32-35 ; notice the three stages of privacy —
the eight disciples, the three, Jesus himself.

170 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
death, through the power of faith. Once it is
recorded that he slept peacefully in a small boat
during a severe storm. It was faith as well as
weariness which enabled him to sleep so ; and
it was faith which made him rebuke the dis
ciples, not for doubting his ability to still the
storm, but for fearing lest the boat should sink.
To himself such an event was unthinkable.1
One remembers the very similar story related
of Julius Csesar. But what in Csesar was per
haps a pose, was in Jesus quite natural and
spontaneous. On another occasion Jesus rebuked his dis
ciples, in similar strain, for doubting his ability
to provide enough food for a journey.2 It is not
suggested that Jesus deliberately neglected the
ordinary precautions ; indeed, it is stated that a
common stock of food, however small, was gener
ally maintained ; and the miracles of feeding are
expressly recorded as exceptional. But it is im
plied that Jesus did not rely upon such provision,
and thought it as impossible that he should starve
as that he should drown. Moreover he extends
this personal faith to his apostles, when he sends
them out to preach with no provision for their
journey.3 1 Mark iv. 35-41. 2 viii. 17-21. 3 vi. 8.

JESUS' RELIGION 171
Secondly, faith is power. It is through faith
that Jesus works many of his cures : faith on
the part of the patient is sometimes, though not
generally, a necessary condition of the exercise
of the healing power.
The disciples are called a "faithless genera
tion " because they cannot cast out an evil spirit
(it is a specially severe case ; and it is implied
that their faith had been sufficient for less serious
demands). "All things," says Jesus, "are poss
ible to him that believeth ; " and though in this
case prayer is the special means of cure, yet
faith is its ground.1 Again, to those who " have
faith in God " nothing is impossible — no physical
"miracle," and (which is more wonderful) no
spiritual achievement. This faith is akin to
prayer — "All things whatsoever ye pray and
ask for, believe that ye have received them, and
ye shall have them".2 Like all faith, it is an
intense persuasion of identity of will with God :
God is with me, on my side, meets my every
need, is all in all to me : to believe that one has,
is to have ; to believe that one is, is to be. If
it be objected that such an attitude could only
lead to disillusionment, the answer is, that in
Jesus' case, at least, it did not. It seems to be
1Markix. 19, 23, 29. 2 xi. 22-24.

172 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
literally true that a faith which is strong enough
can defy disillusionment.
Jesus' faith generally asks for an answer in
those who are its beneficiaries. "If thou wilt,
thou canst make me clean " is a patient's summary
of Jesus' ordinary demand for faith in cases of
healing.1 Often (perhaps generally) the mere re
quest created in him the " will " to cure. A special
degree of faith might call out a special benefit,
such as the forgiveness of sins,2 or turn his un
willingness into willingness.3 Absence of faith
in one case at least made it impossible for him
to work cures with his usual freedom.4 In
some cases he asked for proof of faith before
doing anything.6 In others, the sufferer's faith
could make him work a cure " automatically "
— not. indeed without his knowledge, but with
out his will.6
Thirdly, Jesus' faith was not merely a grati
tude for past mercies and a trust in present
support, but also a strong hope in a future
event. He believed it impossible for himself
to drown or starve, not simply because God
was with him, but because God was keeping
him for a special work, designing his life and
1 Mark i. 40. 2 ii. 5 . 3 vii. 29.
4 vi. 5. 6 ix. 23. 6 v. 29.

JESUS' RELIGION 173
death in view of a great future end. The faith
in which he found power, and taught that
others could find it, was the partial exercise, in
this present world, of a faculty meant for the
Kingdom of God. It was in faith that he saw
the spiritual world as the real world, and the
present as a veil upon the face of the future.
Jesus' voluntary death was the crucial experi
ment designed by faith to solve the mystery of
his existence.
So Jesus' faith answers to his humility, the
certainty to the reserve, the closeness to the dis
tance of God. The inconsistency of the two
things is superficial. They are complementary
parts of the essence of Jesus' religious experi
ence. IV
Faith and humility, the essence of Jesus' re
ligion, necessarily grew up under, and adapted
themselves to a particular religious organisation.
It is impossible to study them quite apart from
Jesus' relation to the Jewish Church.
For thirty years, so far as we can ascertain,
Jesus conformed to the ordinary requirements
of his national religion. We gather that this
was so from the absence of any contrary evi-

174 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
dence with regard to the early life at Nazareth.
We infer it from the absence of any reproach on
the part of Jesus' opponents. We see clear
signs of it in his own acts in later life — in the
custom of beginning his preaching in the local
synagogues,1 in his orthodox observance of the
Passover, in his zeal for the orderly worship of
the Temple,2 and in his instructions to the
cleansed leper to carry out the requirements of
the Mosaic law.3
But this general conformity was not incon
sistent, in Jesus' mind, with definite opposition to
some specific cases of formalism, with which the
national religion had become identified, and with
which it needed a bold man to quarrel. From
an early period in his ministry Jesus gave up
the religious observance of fasting, or at least
did not require it of his disciples : and when
taxed with this he defended himself on the general
principle that a new spirit of religion cannot be
satisfied with the old forms, but demands new.
The old formalities did not require too much ;
they required too little, and must break down
under the strain of a new and more exacting
1 Mark i. 21; vi. 2. This seems to have been Jesus'
regular practice, until after the rejection at Nazareth.
2xi. 17. 3 i. 44.

JESUS' RELIGION 175
spirit.1 In the same way Jesus deliberately
broke the ordinary rules of Sabbath observance,
with the plea that God is best satisfied by the
satisfaction of human needs, and that " the Sab
bath was made for man, not man for the Sab
bath".2 Similarly with the custom of washing
before meat, where Jesus passes fr.om specific to
general denunciation,3 or with the ecclesiastical
fiction of " Corban," by which, again, a supposed
religious duty was allowed to override a plain
human need.4
Jesus' nonconformity, as we can see from
these cases, was his way of reasserting real re
ligion — that genuine love and service of God
which finds its normal expression through the
love and service of man — against a detached and
abstract worship. Religion in every age must
make some such protest against what passes for
religion. It was not so much the extreme
" formality " of Judaism as the unique sanity of
Jesus' religion, which heaped special denun
ciation upon the Pharisees and scribes.
What, however, was Jesus' relation, more
specifically, to the religious "parties" of his
time ? It is as much a mistake to think that
1 Mark ii. 18-22. 2ii. 23-28; iii. 1-4.
3 vii. 1-8. 4 vii. 9-13.

176 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
he quarrelled equally with them all, as to ignore
the fact that he found himself out of sympathy
with most of those who, on the whole, adequately
represented the purest religion of ancient times.
The condemnation and death of Jesus were
organised by " the chief priests and the scribes
and the elders ".1 But of these it is the priests
who are singled out as the leaders of the attack,
the most active and bitter opponents. It was
the chief priests who bargained with the traitor,2
who " accused " Jesus " of many things " before
Pilate,3 who "for envy delivered him up,"4
who " stirred up the multitudes " to ask for the
release of Barabbas,6 and who, with the scribes,
mocked at Jesus as he hung upon the cross.6
Yet Jesus never seems to have spoken against
them as he spoke against the scribes. He re
spected their office, if not their character : the
cleansed leper is told to " show himself to the
priest," and carry out the customary formalities
of the law : 7 and it is regarded as right that
1 This grouping of titles occurs once in Jesus' prophecies
of his passion (viii. 31), and four times in the course ofthe
last chapters of the gospel ; without the " elders," four
times more ; with " the council " twice.
2 Mark xiv. 10. 3 xv. 3. 4 xv. 10.
6 xv. 11. 6jcv. 31. 7i. 44.

JESUS' RELIGION 177
only the priests should be privileged to eat the
shewbread in the Temple.1 Probably Jesus
regarded the opposition of the priests as official
rather than personal. Certainly it was an in
evitable result of the publication of the Messianiq
claims in Jerusalem ; and Jesus expected, if
he did not intend, to rouse it, when he entered
on the last week of his ministry. The scribes,
he felt, were misleading the people as to the
character of the Messiah : the Pharisees were
obscuring the laws of God by their "tradition " :
the priests as such were not to blame for their
zealous service of a God whom they misunder
stood. It was the scribes who were Jesus' most active
enemies, and whom he most plainly condemned.
Whereas the priests' opposition was excited by
Jesus' presence in Jerusalem, the scribes "came
down from Jerusalem " to Galilee for the express
purpose of thwarting and discrediting Jesus'
mission.2 They it was who accused him of
blasphemy when he claimed to forgive sins,3
who objected to his eating " with publicans and
sinners,"4 and whom he found " questioning with
the disciples" when he came down from the
1 Mark ii. 26. 2 iii. 22.
3ii. 6, 7. 4ii. 16.
12

178 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
Transfiguration.1 They alone are charged with
the " eternal sin " which " hath never forgive
ness," because they attribute the works of the
Holy Spirit in Jesus to the agency of Beelzebub,
" the prince of the devils ".2 And so it is the
scribes who earn Jesus' most outspoken con
demnation for pride, dishonesty, and hypocrisy.
" Beware of the scribes," he says, " which desire
to walk in long robes, and to have salutations in
the marketplaces, and chief seats in the syna
gogues, and chief places at feasts : they which
devour widows' houses, and for a pretence make
long prayers ; these shall receive greater con
demnation."3 Yet even these men, in so far as
they are merely mistaken, and not malevolent,
may be argued with : Jesus twice treats them so.4
And there is one good scribe whose discreetness
and piety move Jesus to the commendation,
" Thou art not far from the Kingdom of
God".5 Between Jesus and the Pharisees one feels
that there is less open hostility, but a more com
plete absence of sympathy. Only the Pharisees
are described (and it can hardly be an acci-
1 Mark ix. 14. 2 iii. 22, 28-30.
3 xii. 38-40. 4 ix. 11-13 ; xii. 35-37.
5 xii. 28-34.

JESUS' RELIGION 179
dent) as " tempting " Jesus.1 Theirs is a subtle
influence for bad, fitly comparable to leaven.2
No good Pharisee is mentioned, and no redeem
ing feature of Pharisaism. The sect represented
the spirit of formalism which was the very an
tithesis of Jesus' religion : it was too intangible
to denounce, as the scribes were denounced : but
Jesus' whole life and teaching were a protest
against it.
The Sadducees, as a small and select party,
do not seem to have joined as such in the ordin
ary attacks upon Jesus, though many of them
did so as priests. They are only once mentioned
ih this gospel, and that in connection with a
rather ridiculous question respecting the future
life, which was always a stumbling-block to them.
From the tone of Jesus' answer it is clear that
he is more sorry than angry at their ignorance,
and would suggest to them a truer view of the
meaning of life beyond the grave.8
Jesus' attitude towards the religious sects
completely bears out the character for independ
ence and integrity that even his enemies con-
1 Mark viii. 11, x. 2 ; and the same idea seems to be im
plied by xii. 13.
2 viii. 15. 3 xii. 18-27.

1 80 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
ceded to him. " Master," they said, "we know
that thou art true, and carest not for any one :
for thou regardest not the person of men, but of
a truth teachest the way of God."1 He was
able, that is, to stand outside not only all parties,
but also all the lower motives and judgements
that go to the making of parties. His one care
being for God, and his one concern to teach
the way of God, he could judge all religious
pretensions by the highest possible standard,*
without misgiving and without pride. Indeed
his " relation " to this party or that was not an
attitude consciously taken up, but an instinctive
like or dislike for the type of character repre
sented by the particular sect.
V
Something must here be said, though not in
such a way as to prejudice the final discussion
of Jesus' self-knowledge, about the relation in
which Jesus stood to the Messianic beliefs of
his countrymen.
During his early years he doubtless shared
those beliefs, and became familiar with the lan
guage which was afterwards his natural expres
sion of them. But there is no evidence in the
1 Mark xii. 14.

JESUS' RELIGION 181
second gospel (indeed there is a considerable pre
sumption to the contrary) that at that time he
identified them in any special way with himself.
The spiritual awakening that came to him through
the Baptist's message, and the wonderful ex
perience at the moment of his baptism, are
represented as the beginning of Jesus' conscious
Messiahship. ,
From that point onwards his relation to the
Messianic beliefs seems to have passed through
three fairly well-defined stages. The first ex
tends from the time of the first preaching down
to the journey into the villages of Csesarea
Philippi. During this period Jesus was con
stantly recognised and acknowledged in Messianic
language by the victims of "possession":1 but
he always refused such homage, and did his
best to secure the silence of those who
knew him and the ignorance of those who
did not. Once only, and that in what may be a
detached saying, here misplaced, he calls him
self the " Son of man ".2 When we come across
any indication of the opinions which were held
about him, it is to find that his disciples did not
know what to think of him,3 that his relations and
1 Mark i. 24 (marginal reading), 34 ; iii. n; v. 7.
2ii. 28. 3iv. 41, "Who then is this . . .?"

182 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
friends regarded him as " the carpenter," J that
Herod supposed him to be John the Baptist
come to life again,2 and that to the common
people he was Elijah, or " one of the pro
phets ".8 He was not yet identified with the
Messiah. For himself, he preferred the title
" prophet " ; 4 and that may be taken as the best
summary of his claims during this first period.
A new stage begins with the journey to the
villages of Csesarea Philippi. Partly because
he is now free from the publicity of Galilee,
and the fear of political complications, partly be
cause the question has by this time become a
pressing one for himself, he asks the disciples
(it is implied, for the first time) what is their
opinion of him. He expects more than a
repetition of the popular superstitions. But it
is regarded as a new and perhaps dangerous
admission when S. Peter answers : " Thou art
the Christ," that is, the Messiah. This claim had
been kept, and was still to be kept, a profound
secret, discoverable only by the insight of ha
bitual companionship.5 The same privacy is
preserved in the Transfiguration, immediately
after ; and in the conversation which follows it
1 Mark vi. 3. 2vi. 14, 16. 3vi. 15.
4 vi. 4. 6 viii. 29, 30.

JESUS' RELIGION 183
the conviction that the Baptist was Elijah is also
regarded as a new one, not hitherto made known
to the disciples.1 But from this moment the use
of the title " Son of man " becomes common in
Jesus' talks with his disciples, and they are
told repeatedly of the nature of the Messiahship
— the crisis of rejection and death through which
he must pass into his spiritual Kingdom.2 At the
same time we get evidence of the way in which
the disciples understood this new teaching from
the request of S. James and S. John (two of the
three who were present at the Transfiguration)
to be allowed a special place in the Kingdom.8
At the end of this second stage occurs a say
ing which marks the transition to the third and
last period in the relationship that we are con
sidering. " The Son of man," says Jesus, using
his favourite Messianic title, " came not to be
ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his
life a ransom for many." 4 It is not only that
Jesus comes to regard his death as having a
social as well as a personal significance : it is
also that the centre of interest shifts more and
more to himself, his own passion and death,
as the supreme act of one who now openly claims
1 Mark ix. n-13. 2 viii. 31; ix. 9, 31; x. 33.
3 x. 35-40. 4x. 45.

184 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
to be the Messiah. For now Jesus, who had
refused the acknowledgments of " devils," in
vites the Hosanna s of the crowd.1 Questioned
as to his authority, he claims that it stands or
falls with that of the Baptist.2 In the parable of
the Vineyard he is God's son and heir, greater
than all the prophets.3 Though no son of David,
he may yet be the Messiah.4 He applies to
himself the eschatological and Messianic lan
guage of the book of Daniel.6 To the high
priest's question, " Art thou the Christ, the Son
of the Blessed ? " he answers simply, " I am ".6
It seems, then, that Jesus only gradually de
veloped his Messianic consciousness, and only
gradually revealed it to the disciples ; that to most
people he remained throughout " the prophet " or
" the Nazarene " ; and that his claim to be the
Messiah, although more openly stated in the last
week's preaching, seemed sufficiently novel and
outrageous to those who condemned him. Doubt
less, the underlying cause both of the reserve
with which Jesus treated his claims and of the
opposition which, when stated, they aroused, was
" the mystery of the Kingdom " — that new inter
pretation of the Messiahship which was so certain
1 Mark xi. io. 2xi. 27-33. 8xii- 1-12.
4 xii. 35-37. 6 xiii. 26. 6 xiv. 61, 62.

JESUS' RELIGION ' 185
and central in Jesus' faith, and so unintelligible
to his contemporaries. VI
Jesus was not a theologian. But there are
two respects in which it becomes necessary to
attempt some statement of his theological belief,
in any sketch of his religious position. One is
with regard to the Holy Spirit : the other is in re
spect of God.
In dealing with the doctrine of the Holy Spirit,
so far as anything can be gathered about it from
the second gospel, we shall try carefully to dis
tinguish evidence for Jesus' own beliefs from the
possible accretion of later ideas. It is difficult to
believe, for instance, that the Baptist's prophecy of
Jesus' gift of the Holy Ghost, contrasted with his
own "baptism of water," is unaffected by later
knowledge. At any rate, " John's baptism " was
undergone in later years by some who " did not
so much as hear whether the Holy Ghost was
given " : and it is not unlikely that John's mes
sage would become adapted to the experience
of the early Church.1
But there are sufficient indications, apart from
any such doubts, as to what Jesus himself be-
1 Mark i. 8 ; cf. Acts xix. 1-4.

1 86 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
lieved. Thus in the narrative of his baptism it
is stated, apparently upon his own authority (for
the vision was for himself alone) that " he saw
the heavens rent asunder, and the Spirit as a
dove descending upon him ".1 The comparison
to a dove is a conventional one in the Old Testa
ment : Jesus expressed in this form the new ex
perience which came to him at this moment —
the certainty of his " call," and of the gift of the
Spirit of God, for healing and teaching and the
" prophetic " life. So, immediately afterwards,
it is the Spirit which " driveth him forth into the
wilderness " for the temptation 2 — the testing of
the vocation which has just been given to
him. It is the good or holy Spirit in himself
which gives him power over the spirits of evil :
hence the seriousness of the sin which he calls
" blasphemy against the Holy Spirit," — when
men attribute to an evil spirit the obvious work
of the good Spirit.3 The Spirit which so works
through him is the same Spirit as that which
inspired David,4 and the prophets of old : and it
will still be given in the future, to help the dis
ciples in their witness to the world — " it is not
ye that speak, but the Holy Ghost". 6
1 Mark i. io. 2i. 12. 3 iii. 22-30.
4 xii. 36. 5 xiii . n.

JESUS' RELIGION 187
It cannot be said that in any of these passages
the Spirit is regarded as a person, in any proper
sense of the word. Yet it is described as corre
sponding, in its powers and forms of manifestation,
to the " evil spirits " : it has a special understand
ing with them, being able to recognise and be re
cognised by them : its special powers are called
out by the presence of such spirits, who " believe
and tremble " because their time of mastery is at
an end. One may almost say that religious en
thusiasm, such as that of Jesus, was a kind of
" possession " by a good spirit, in nature not
unlike those other cases of " possession," though
in results so very different. It has, for in
stance, its own physical phenomena, such as the
" power proceeding from him " which Jesus was
sometimes conscious of expending,1 and which
could work cures without his will, or by the
simple contact of his clothes.2 It is possible,
though it cannot be assumed, that Jesus regarded
his " spirit " — that part of him which was will
ing when the flesh was weak,3 and that faculty
which enabled him to read men's minds and
hearts,4 — as the seat of this indwelling Holy Spirit.
At any rate the latter was not, so to speak, an
*Mark v. 30. 2 v. 28, 29; vi. 56.
3 xiv. 38. 4 ii. 8.

1 88 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
original part of himself, but something in itself
permanent, divine, coming into men for temporal
purposes from outside ; manifesting itself almost
as a kind of stuff or nerve-force in the body, but
being in reality the good Spirit, the actual power
and inspiration of God. VII
What a man is may be judged infallibly from
what he believes about God. We are therefore
upon the edge of the most difficult and hazardous
task of all, when we raise this latter question
with respect to Jesus. And yet it is the neces
sary completion of our plan ; and if we were to
draw back here, we should condemn all that has
gone before. For if the inductive or scientific
method is at all applicable, and if we have been
right in trying to interpret the Gospel empiri
cally until we should find any point in which
that method broke down, then, in proportion to
our success hitherto, we shall hope for success
throughout, and trust the tried weapons in a larger
venture. Of the meaning of the phrase " the Kingdom
of God," which was constantly upon Jesus' lips,
we have no further need to speak in detail.

JESUS' RELIGION 189
Sufficient has already been said about it.1 We
need only recall the general fact that the King
dom, which belongs to another life and another
world, is regarded as more real and important
than the present life and the kingdoms of this
world. This of course rests upon the belief that
God, to whom the Kingdom belongs, finds his
true being, and, if we may so say, his most absorb
ing interests outside the present order of things.
To have this belief is not necessarily to disbelieve
in the constant presence of God in this world.
But it does seem commonly to carry with it
that tinge of dualism from which few re
ligious enthusiasts have been wholly free. The
mind which cannot conceive God as finding his
chief interest in the present life, and filling every
part of it with his presence, is apt to hand over
the empty spaces to the dominion of the Devil.
Such, indeed, we have seen some reason to sup
pose, was the form of Jesus' thought on this
subject.2 We therefore come to the study of
Jesus' belief about God with this general pre
supposition of a dual government of the present
life, side by side with a solitary transcendence
of God in a future life, and in a world that stands
behind the veil of present things.
1 Chap, v., § viii. 2 Chap, iv., § v.

190 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
Among the very great number of mentions
of the name or attributes of God in the second
gospel, we shall confine ourselves to those which
occur in words actually attributed to Jesus. Even
so we shall find that there are between twenty
and thirty passages which bear directly upon the
question, and cannot be ignored. Yet they fall
fairly easily into four classes, and can best be
considered in that form. Some of the sayings
in which the name of God occurs, or which refer
directly to him, may be said to embody the
conventional language of Jewish religion : some
deal with the relation of God to man : others with
the relation of God to Jesus himself: whilst a
fourth class involve direct teaching about the
nature of God.
(i) Under the head of conventional religious
language one may fairly class such phrases as
" the house of God," x " the will of God," 2 " the
commandment of God,"3 " the word of God,"4
"the power of God,"6 and "the beginning of
the creation which God created ".6 This language
was then, as it is now, the current coinage of re
ligion ; Jesus used it, we may presume, in the sense
in which other teachers used it, and in which his
1 Mark ii. 26. 2 iii. 35. 3 vii. 8, 9.
4 vii. 13. 6 xii. 24. 6 xiii. 19.

JESUS' RELIGION 191
audience would understand it. The last phrase
is indeed an echo of the words of Jewish
Scripture, and may be taken as an instance ofthe
fidelity with which S. Mark seems to have
reproduced the fashion of Jesus' ordinary
speech. Moreover, the preponderance of thought
throughout is towards the thoroughly Jewish idea
of an active, forceful, severe God, who lays down
rules and expects to see them obeyed. The
familiarity of the language should not blind us
to this habit of thought to which it most fitly
belongs, and which Jesus, as a Jew, shared with
his fellow-countrymen.
(ii) In harmony with these ideas is the sense
of those sayings which deal with the relations
between God and man. It is not the closeness
of God and man, but their separateness, which is
most emphasised. The " things of God " and
the " things of men " are two mutually exclusive
classes.1 Divine and human agency are upon
different planes,2 and what is impossible upon
the one plane is easily conceivable upon the
other.3 We have a duty to the rulers of this
world, and we have a duty to God : they are
not the same duty.4 How much weight can be
1 Mark viii. 33. 2 x. 9.
8 x. 27. 4 xii. 17 ; cf. p. 119.

192 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
attached to this last passage, is a question which
has already been discussed. But it certainly ap
pears that Jesus would have had little sympathy
either with a philosophy that emphasises the im
manence at the expense of the transcendence of
God, or with a way of thinking and speaking about
religion that claims a kind of personal intimacy be
tween God and man. This is only one instance of
many which might be suggested in which much
of the language of Christian devotion would be
inconceivable in the mouth of Christ.
(iii) We proceed to examine Jesus' sayings
about God, with a view to determining the re
lationship in which he considered himself to
stand towards God. In the first place we may
say generally that there is nothing in these say
ings, so far as they are reported (that is to say,
according to our hypothesis, adequately reported)
in the second gospel, inconsistent with the view
that Jesus' attitude towards God was in the
main that of his countrymen — an attitude in
which God's word was to be fulfilled, God's com
mandments to be kept, God's will to be done in
earth, as in heaven ; a life whose highest func
tion was to " have faith in God V
1 Mark xi. 22.

JESUS' RELIGION 193
Looking a little more closely at what was in
volved in this separateness between Jesus and
God, and isolating it for the moment from some
considerations which must afterwards be taken
into account, we find at least three respects in
which Jesus is conscious, if we may so put it, of
his distance from God. Morally, the same lan
guage cannot be used of his goodness as of
God's : x intellectually, there is knowledge in
the Father's mind which is withheld from the
Son : 2 and in practical conduct there is a duality,
if not an opposition, of wills, which involves a
conscious and genuine struggle against tempta
tion.3 These are all important points, which have
often been insisted upon. Have we anything
to set on the other side ? Under the head of
morality, it cannot be said that there is any
passage in this gospel in which Jesus draws any
special attention to his own morality, much
less puts it on a level with God's. Amongst
all the claims that he makes, this never finds a
place. He calls men to follow him, not to
admire him ; not to imitate, but to serve. His
own aim is to live for God, and to die for men.
1 Mark x. 18 ; cf. p. 159.
2 xiii. 32 ; cf. p. 100.
3 xiv. 36; cf. p. 143.
13

194 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
Intellectually, however, it may be said that
there is other evidence. Side by side with the
acknowledgment of ignorance already mentioned,
there is a claim to know God's plans in certain
respects. The privilege of sitting on Jesus' right and
left hand in his glory "is for them for whom
it hath been prepared ".1 The parable of the
Vineyard gives in figurative form an outline of
God's scheme for the redemption of the Jewish
nation.2 Of the coming days of tribulation it is
said that, " Except the Lord had shortened the
days, no flesh would have been saved : but for
the elect's sake, whom he chose, he shortened
the days ".3 These passages may fairly be taken
(together with some others, which are not strictly
in place here) to show that Jesus did speak as
though he had some special knowledge of the
counsels of God. And yet it may be doubted
whether the proper analogy to this may not be
the prophetic power which was commonly ex
perienced by early Christians. 4
Again, as regards the relationship which
one would naturally suppose to be the ground of
such knowledge, we know that Jesus regarded
1 Mark x. 40. 2 xii. 1-9. 3 xiii. 20.
ie.g. Actsxi, 28; xxi, 11 ; xxvii. 10, 22-26, 31.

JESUS' RELIGION 195
himself not merely as sent by God, but as in
some special sense God's representative : " Who
soever receiveth me, receiveth not me, but him
that sent me ".1 And the same idea is in his
mind when he bids the man whom he has
healed go home and tell his friends how great
things the Lord (that is God, not Jesus) has
done for him, and how he had mercy on him.2
To this relationship of representation is attached
in some cases the terminology of " Father " and
" Son ". But in two of the passages that might
be quoted in this sense the language is derived
from the Old Testament,8 and in a third it is
figurative ; 4 whilst the private prayer, " Abba,
Father," 6 must be taken in connection with that
other case in which the sonship is shared with
the whole body of disciples — " Whensoever ye
stand praying, forgive, if ye have aught against
any one ; that your Father also which is in
heaven may forgive you your trespasses ".6
There may be more to say about this point at
a later stage : provisionally one may point out
how little evidence there is that Jesus himself
attached special meaning to the names Father
and Son in this connection. But that God
1 Mark ix. 37. 2 v. 19. 3 viii. 38; xiv. 61, 62.
4 xii. 1-9. 6xiv. 36. exi. 25.

196 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
was very real and present to him, and that
to be shaken in the faith of God's love was the
sorest trial that could be undergone, is abund
antly proved by the last cry, a cry of despair,
from the Cross — " My God, my God, why
hast thou forsaken me ? " 1
(iv) The God in whom Jesus believes is good,
powerful, alive, and one. His goodness deter
mines the meaning of the word " good," and
monopolises the use of it.2 There is no limit to
his power — " all things are possible with God," 3
in the future life no less than in the present.4
The argument upon which Jesus relies for his
certainty of a life beyond the grave rests
upon the assumption, which was to him beyond
question, that God is a living God : 6 and he
quotes with entire acquiescence the formula of
Deuteronomy, " The Lord our God, the Lord is
one .
Looking at this evidence as a whole, may we
not say of Jesus' belief about God what we have
already found occasion to say in several other
connections — first, that, so far as the form of the
1 Mark xv. 34. 2 x. 18. 3 x. 27 ; xiv. 36.
4 xii. 24. 5 xii. 26, 27.
6 xii. 29, quoting Deut. vi. 4.

JESUS' RELIGION 197
belief goes, it is cast on conventional lines, and
would not have seemed unfamiliar to those
among whom Jesus lived and taught ; but that,
in the second place, the vividness of insight and
the force of purpose with which Jesus appropri
ated the common forms of Jewish religion raised
them to a unique value, and made it possible for
them to become the natural expression of Chris
tianity ? If this be so, it is not only an easier
but also a more remarkable conclusion than the
alternative one. Almost any sincere man may,
by announcing a sufficiently original or extrava
gant creed, found a new religious sect : it is
given to very few so to inspire an old creed with
spiritual force and meaning as to regenerate it,
and transform it into a new religion.

CHAPTER VIII
JESUS HIMSELF I
ARE we now in a position to answer the
question towards which our whole in
quiry has been moving — who was Jesus ? Have
we sufficiently reviewed all the evidence that
is supplied by the second gospel ? Are our
conclusions, under each head of the subject,
homogeneous enough to provide, at any rate, a
working hypothesis for a Christology ?
Considering Jesus in relation to his home life,
his family and his friends, we have seen no
reason to doubt the completeness with which he
shared the normal interests and ideas of the
country people among whom he was brought up.1
The study of his methods of teaching and habit
ual mode of life has brought out very strongly
1 Chap. ii.
198

JESUS HIMSELF 199
the reality of his human nature— not only the
general setting and form of his activities, which
he shared with his fellow-countrymen, but also
those special characteristics which marked him
out as a man among men.1 The deeper and
much more difficult study of Jesus' mind, that
is, of his customary ways of thinking and judg
ing, showed that the outward characteristics were
a true index of his intelligence — an intelligence
that worked along the ordinary lines of human
thought, but with quite extraordinary power and
insight.2 Again, Jesus' social outlook shared
the limitations of his age, and he escaped from
the necessity of trying to mend the present order
of things only by holding with super-prophetic
certainty to the vision of a Messianic Kingdom.3
Further, the key to the understanding of Jesus'
moral nature consists in the fact that he was
"tempted in all points like as we are," sharing
with us the experience of penitence, the attitude
of humility, and the weakness of the flesh.4 And
in the inquiry just finished we have set the seal
to all that has gone before in concluding that
the framework of Jesus' religious beliefs was the
dogma and worship of the Jewish synagogue,
1 Chap. iii. 2 Chap. iv. 3 Chap. v. 4 Chap. vi.

200 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
which, however, the power of his faith was able
to transfigure into the earliest lineaments of the
Catholic Church.1
From each of these points of view we have
gained the impression of a personality, the great
ness of which lies in its power to grow out of its
limitations, so that men have been led to say not
only " this is human," but also " this is divine ".
It would seem, then, that we are well on the
way towards a final conclusion. But there are
three classes of evidence, or perhaps it would
be more true to say three ways of reconsidering
evidence that has already been examined in part,
which must not be overlooked in any impartial
view of the whole subject. We have said some
thing, in a particular connection, about Jesus'
miracles of healing.2 We have not yet considered
his miracles as a whole, or from an evidential
point of view. That is the first of the tasks that
remain. The second is to review those passages
in which Jesus makes personal claims, and to
estimate their importance. The third and hardest
of all is to ask, with a view to deciding what we
think of Jesus, what he thought of himself —
who he supposed himself to be. If some kind
1 Chap. vii. 2Chap. iii., § 4.

JESUS HIMSELF 201
of answer can be given to these questions it
may be hoped that we shall at last be in a
position to sum up " the conclusion of the whole
matter ". II
It will be convenient to adopt the conventional
classification of miracles as miracles of healing
and miracles that affect the laws of nature —
though we shall do so without supposing that
there is any ultimate difference between the two
classes. The former class includes medical cases,
cases that might be called surgical, or semi-
surgical, and a large number of instances of
madness or epilepsy. The second class com
prises the calming of the sea (if that be properly
treated as a miracle), the walking on water,
the withering of the fig-tree, the multiplication
of food, and the raising of Jairus' daughter.
The number and nature of the miracles of
healing will be best seen if they are set out iii
tabulated form, thus : —

MIRACLES OF HEALING.

No.

Refer ence.

Subject.

Disease.

Special
Conditions.

Method of Cure.

Nature of
Cure.

Remarks.

I

i. 23

man

unclean spirit

recognition of
Jesus

word (command)

sudden

after convulsions.

2

i. 30

woman

fever

raising by hand

,1

complete cure.

3

i. 40

man

leprosy

man's faith ;
Jesus' com

touch and word

)»

ij

4

"• 3

»>

paralysis

passion
sequel to for
giveness of sin

word (indirect)

n

is

5

iii. 1

!,

withered hand

)>

»»

!»

6

v. 2

11

unclean spirit

recognition of
Jesus

word

gradual
(2 stages)

first " command " fails ;
after parley with evil
spirits, compromise
is allowed.

7

v. 25

woman

haemorrhage (chronic)

woman's faith

spontaneous " power "

sudden

complete cure, due to
faith ; Jesus conscious,
but not willing.

8

vii. 25

girl

unclean spirit

" faith " of
mother
privacy

word (indirect)

gradual?

weakness after cure ?

9

vii. 32

man

deafness and

touching ears and

sudden

complete cure : a

stammer
tongue with spittle:
prayer (?) and word
difficult case.
IO
viii. 22
>»
blindness
,»
spittle and hands
on eyes twice
gradual
(2 stages)
complete cure.
ii
ix. 17
boy
dumb (and
deaf?) spirit
faith of father
(i) word
(ii) taking by hand
gradual
(2 stages)
by prayer.
12
x. 46
man
blindness
faith of man
word (indirect)
sudden
by faith (as though
nothing more needed).
OtO
JESUS HIMSELF 203
Several interesting points emerge from a con
sideration of this list.
(i) Only twelve cases are described, and, in
the absence of further evidence, we must regard
them as typical of the cures which Jesus is said
to have been able to work to a practically un
limited extent. The twelve include four cases
of some kind of "possession," two of blindness,
one of deafness, and five of chronic ailments.
Except possibly in the first of these classes —
" possession " by evil spirits, — none of the cases
could be described as merely nervous disorders ;
so that what seems to be claimed on behalf of
the worker of these cures (if one is to suppose
that the miracles have been reported with any
evidential purpose) is something more than the
ordinary power of suggestion, or the influence
of a stronger over a weaker will. It is also
worth noticing, in this connection, that ten
out of the twelve patients are adults,' and that
eight of them are men. Indeed, there is some
evidence that the cases have been selected because
of their special difficulty : three of them (Nos. 9,
10, 11), are definitely so described ; and in each
of these cases Jesus avoids, or tries to avoid,
publicity in the working of the cure.
How far the various ailments that are here

204 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
described could or could not have been cured
by suggestion or will-power, is a purely scientific
question, with regard to which it would be more
than imprudent to anticipate the decision of
medical experience. At present we know little
more than our own ignorance on these matters.
But it is perhaps safe to say that the present
tendency is to find the miracles of healing more,
instead of less, credible, when explained along
lines of known human agency. And that is,
indeed, the sort of way in which these pheno
mena were interpreted by the much more ignor
ant people amongst whom they first occurred.
The nature of the miracles was more or less
familiar, though the ease and certainty with
which they were worked were without precedent.
Crowds followed Jesus as they had followed no
prophet or healer before, because they were sure
of his power. But it did not occur to them that
because he worked such miracles he must be
more than a man. Nor did Jesus himself, ac
cording to the second gospel, use his powers as
an argument for any such claims. Whilst,
then, we recognise that some of the miracles
of healing pass beyond the limits ordinarily
assigned to the sphere of suggestion and the like,
we shall yet expect to be able to explain them all,

JESUS HIMSELF 205
in the light of a fuller knowledge of human
powers, and a fuller appreciation of Jesus'
humanity, scientifically.
(ii) We have already had occasion to say
something about the part played by faith in the
miracles of healing.1 In half of the cases just
enumerated it is stated that some faith was
shown, either on the part of the patients (three
cases) or on the part of their relations (in the
two cases of a boy and a girl, where the parents
came to Jesus to ask that they might be healed,
and in that of the paralytic, whom his friends let
down through the roof into Jesus' presence).
But in the other six instances Jesus makes no
demand for faith, and it is not said that any was
shown. People came to be healed because they
knew as a matter of fact that others had been
healed. This lower faith, that Jesus probably
overlooked, may have won more " miracles " than
the higher faith that he commended. In one case,
that ofthe Syro- Phoenician woman (No. 8) the
name of faith seems to be given to a spiritual in
sight which is capable of making a clever retort.
Generally speaking, then, S. Mark's account of
these selected miracles goes against the idea that
they were at all generally performed with a
1 Cf. p. 57-

206 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
religious intention — that is, to call out or to inspire
faith — and rather bears out our former conclusion
that Jesus' works of healing were spontaneous acts
of charity, prompted by pity, and bestowed wher
ever there seemed to be the greatest need.1
(iii) It would be interesting, were it possible,
to find out upon what principles Jesus applied
his methods of healing. The evidence, so far
as our twelve cases are concerned, is as follows.
Cases of " possession " are always treated by
word (Nos. i, 6, and n). It may be a direct
command to the " evil spirit " to come out of
the patient's body : it may be an indirect state
ment or command by acting upon which the
patient is saved. The second part of the cure
in No. 1 1 is the exception that proves this
general rule. Jesus' word had been effective in
casting out the spirit : his touch was needed to
give new strength to the boy.
There is one case (No. 8) in which the cure
by word is apparently regarded as effected at a
distance. But possibly this is a mistake : Jesus'
words show that he knew what was the state
of the child, but do not necessarily imply that
he affected it. That is to say, it is uncertain
'Cf.p. 58,

JESUS HIMSELF 207
whether this incident should be regarded as a
work of healing at all.
But though the cure by word was the ordin
ary method of treatment in cases of possession,
it was by the method of touch that Jesus dealt
with the great majority of medical cases (Nos.
2, 3, 9, 10, and 11). The touch of the hand,
and (in cases of blindness, deafness, or dumbness)
the use of spittle, he regarded as the normal
sacrament of physical healing. Jesus did not
invent these methods. In using them he was
in all probability following the customs of other
healers among his countrymen. Here, as else
where, he took the old forms and applied them
with a new power.
There was, then, a clear distinction in Jesus'
mind between cases of " possession," and cases
of physical disease. In the former instance he
felt that he was dealing with an intangible evil
spirit, possessing, but not identical with, the
body of the patient. This spirit could not be
affected by any attempt to cure those physical
phenomena which were the signs of its pre
sence. It must be treated personally, and com
manded by the good spirit in Jesus to come out
of the body in which it dwelt. Afterwards, if the
body were weakened or almost dead, it might

208 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
be strengthened by touch (No. n). On the
other hand, where there was no question of
possession, Jesus' power of working physical
cures (whatever it may have been) was applied
through the sense of touch. There were even
cases (of which No. 7 may be taken as a type)
where cures were worked spontaneously by the
mere contact of Jesus' clothes. Here Jesus
was conscious of what had happened : but he
had not intended that it should happen. In
the case described by S. Mark there was great
faith on the part of the patient : but this cannot
always have been so : x and we must therefore
allow that although in many cases Jesus delib
erately adopted methods of healing which he
felt to be suitable to the particular ailment, yet
there were many other cases in which he
worked cures consciously (perhaps) but not de
liberately, in virtue of a power over which he
had less control than the faith of his patients.
(iv) Later writers, who were more anxious
to vindicate Jesus' power over evil and disease
than to describe the exact methods which he
used, preferred to regard all the cures as sudden
and complete. As regards the completeness of
1 Mark iii. 10 ; vi. 56.

JESUS HIMSELF 209
the cures, in most cases even the second gospel
expresses no doubt about it. But in some in
stances in which an " evil spirit " has been cast
out (and in both the cases which S. Mark men
tions, Nos. 8 and 11, the patients are children)
the patient remains in a very weak condition, and
a second remedy may be needed to complete the
cure. With regard to the suddenness of the cures,
there is clear evidence that in particularly diffi
cult cases only gradual remedies were possible.
Thus the first attempt to deal with the de
moniac of Gadara (No. 6) is a partial failure,
and the final form of the cure is represented
as a compromise between Jesus and the " evil
spirits '' who " possess " the man. In two other
cases (Nos. 8 and 1 1) the casting out of a spirit
is succeeded by a physical weakness which in
one instance, at least, nearly proves fatal. But
the clearest case of a gradual cure is that of a
blind man (No. 10) which, probably because it
lays stress on the incomplete result of the first
laying on of Jesus' hands, has been omitted from
the narrative in the other Synoptic Gospels.
We conclude that, just as different diseases
needed different remedies, so they were capable
of a more and of a less sudden cure ; that Jesus,
14

210 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
who in dealing with physical ailments adopted
the methods which he found already in use, did
not expect or claim to work cures, as a general
rule, except by the stimulation of natural and
therefore gradual processes ; and that those who
best knew the circumstances recognised this, and
have preserved a truer account of the miracles of
healing than some later writers.
But it should be added that the word
" gradual " is here used in a relative sense — dis
tinct, indeed, from " sudden," but also very dif
ferent from " gradual " in the sense in which a
modern physician would use it. We are told of
no case in which a course of treatment was
needed in order to work a cure.
So much may fairly be inferred from the evi
dence of the second gospel as to the nature of
Jesus' miracles of healing. The larger question
of their Christological significance must, how
ever, be postponed until we have dealt with the
second class of miracles, where the problem
arises in a more acute form. Ill
Those miracles which, for distinction's sake,
we have classed together as " affecting the laws
of nature," must be examined from the same
point of view as those that we have hitherto

JESUS HIMSELF 211
been considering. That is to say, we shall
try to follow the plain meaning of the narratives
given in the second gospel ; but where it
seems natural to distinguish between those
elements of the narratives which belong to
the original facts and those which belong
to the secondary interpretation of the facts, we
shall endeavour to do so. For just as it is un
deniable that Jesus cured cases of epilepsy and
the like, but disputable whether he was right
in treating them, or his biographers right in re
porting them, as instances of demonic posses
sion, so we shall not be surprised if some others
of the more startling events or moving expe
riences of the ministry are represented under
exaggerated or even mistaken forms of the
miraculous. It is indeed true that in one important sense
sound criticism cannot separate the miraculous
from the non-miraculous elements in the Gospel.
The narrative as a whole is wonderfully coher
ent. Works are a commentary upon words,
and words upon works. There is an absence
of self-consciousness, or of straining after effect,
in S. Mark's supernaturalism, which carries a con
viction of simplicity and primitiveness. And it
might be added that it is no more possible to

212 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
divide one class of miracles from another, within
this gospel, than it is to isolate the miraculous
elements as a whole. But these characteristics
are by no means inconsistent with a certain
confusedness between fact and interpretation of
fact, and an inability to estimate historical evi
dence, which commonly mark the chroniclers
of traditions.
(i) This difficulty arises in the very first case
of the so-called " nature miracles ". Certainly
once, and perhaps on two occasions in the second
gospel, the stormy lake of Galilee is said to have
been miraculously calmed. In both instances
the narrative bears all the marks of originality
and first-hand evidence, and must be founded
upon a real experience.1 Moreover, the treat
ment of inanimate objects as if they were ani
mate which is involved in Jesus' rebuke to the
wind and sea is quite in accordance with his
practice elsewhere — as for instance with regard
to the fig-tree,2 or (indirectly) the mountain.8
Indeed, the very word that is here addressed
to the sea had already been spoken (in a less
1 Mark iv. 35-39; vi. 45-52. Notice that Jesus, in ac
cordance with the context, is already in the boat ; and that he
is asleep on the " cushion " — details difficult of invention.
2 xi. 14. 3 xi. 23.

JESUS HIMSELF 213
emphatic sense) to a man possessed by an un
clean spirit.1
But if one tries to go behind the traditional
account of what happened, it appears that in the
second of the two incidents the language does
not necessarily imply a miracle at all. The
sudden falling of the wind (itself a likely enough
phenomenon) at the time when Jesus was taken
into the ship may have been no more than a coin
cidence.2 And thus one is disposed to think that
a similar explanation may apply to the earlier in
cident also. Only, there is this difference in the
earlier case : not only S. Mark's authority (we
may suppose, S. Peter) regarded it as miraculous ;
but also, unless the evidence is quite untrust
worthy, Jesus himself took the same view.
This is a possibility that has to be faced. There
may have been experiences in Jesus' life which
he took to be supernatural, but which, from our
own point of view, allow of a natural explanation.
It would be unfair to ignore the further pos
sibility that these incidents may have been in
terpreted either by those who witnessed them
or by those who edited the traditional accounts,
in the light of certain passages in the Old Testa
ment. " Thou rulest the pride ofthe sea : when
1 Mark i. 25. 2 But cf. p. 215.

214 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
the waves thereof arise, thou stillest them " x
is part of the ground of (David) the Servant's
trust in the Lord. The knowledge of such a
passage might incline Jesus or his disciples to
accept a natural coincidence as a supernatural
occurrence. And the story of Jonah — which
was in other respects, according to S. Mat
thew, taken as having prophetical application
to Jesus 2 — includes a rather close parallel to the
first of the incidents under discussion. " The
Lord sent out a great wind into the sea, and
there was a mighty tempest in the sea, so that
the ship was like to be broken. . . . But Jonah
was gone down into the innermost parts of the
ship ; and he lay, and was fast asleep. So the
shipmaster came to him, and said unto him,
What meanest thou, O sleeper ? arise, call upon
thy God, if so be that God will think upon us,
that we perish not." 8 It is, of course, obvious
that the outcome of the story, and the manner of
its treatment, is quite unlike that in the Gospel :
but the similarity of language is sufficient to make
it possible that there is some connection between
them. Of what kind or importance such a con
nection may be will depend partly upon whether
similar connections can be traced in the case of
other miraculous events in the Gospel.
1 Ps. lxxxix. 9. 2 Matt. xii. 39, 40 ; xvi. 4. 3 Jonah i. 4-6.

JESUS HIMSELF 215
(ii) Closely connected with the last two in
cidents in some respects is the story of Jesus
walking on the sea.1 This narrative, again,
bears every mark of being founded on a genuine
reminiscence. That Jesus did appear to the
disciples to be walking on the sea, it is difficult
not to believe : but one may very well suppose
that their experience has been misinterpreted
and confused in later tradition.
Thus it is significant that S. Luke, who took
great pains to arrive at a true knowledge of
the facts related in the gospels, and who was
specially acquainted with matters of navigation
in general, and with this lake in particular 2, repro
duces the previous story ofthe stilling ofthe storm,
and follows S. Mark up to the end of the feeding
of the 5,000 which immediately precedes the
present incident, but at this point becomes silent.3
True, this silence covers a large body of tra
dition against which no such difficulty can be
urged (from Mark vi. 45, to viii. 10 inclusive) :
but it is at least noteworthy that it should
begin at this point.
1 Mark vi. 45-50. 2 Cf. his technical corrections of
S. Mark in viii. 22-25, an(* his accounts of S. Paul's sea
journeys in Acts. 3 Luke ix.

216 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
Few narratives in the gospels have given
rise to such a variety of naturalistic interpreta
tions as this : but it cannot be said that any of
them are convincing. Yet probably the true
explanation lies not very far below the surface.
For the most important feature of the narrative
is the internal evidence which it affords for a
possible explanation. The essential fact of the
story — the appearance of Jesus to his friends on
the lake at night — admits quite naturally of
a telepathic interpretation. The dangerous posi
tion of the disciples ; their remembrance, in this
moment of great anxiety, of the previous occa
sion when Jesus had been with them, and had
stilled the storm ; the desire to have him with
them again, on the one hand ; on the other,
Jesus giving himself to solitary prayer, watch
ing the boat on its stormy passage across the
lake, and seeing the danger of his friends ; 1 —
these conditions, as a whole, were just such as
to give rise to psychical phenomena. The
walking on the surface of a stormy sea,2 which
is part of the narrative, and would be necessary
1 Jesus being in the " mountain," this would be possible
for some considerable part of the voyage, even at night-time.
2 This is the proper meaning of " walking on (iiri) the sea ".

JESUS HIMSELF 217
in the case of a material body, is impossible to
picture : in the case of a " phantasm " there is
no real difficulty in imagining the scene.
The curious fact, which S. Mark alone
records, that the phantasm " would have
passed by them," perhaps points to the exist
ence of an older and truer tradition in which there
was no receiving of Jesus, in material form,
into the ship. " They supposed that it was
an apparition," says the present story. Prob
ably in the original version it really was such.
But experience and interpretation seem to have
become so confused that no reconstruction can
be more than conjectural.
(iii) The story of the withering of the fig-tree
is one of the most perplexing in the Gospel.1
That it is based on a real incident can hardly
be doubted ; but there are several indications
that this incident may have been misinterpreted.
Thus, in the original version of the story, Jesus'
words to the fig-tree (which, as we noticed before,
is treated animistically) are not, strictly speaking,
a command, or a curse (as Peter thought),2 but
the expression of a wish. There is nothing
foretold about the accomplishment of the wish,
1 Mark xi. 12-14, 2o_25- 2xi- 21,

218 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
whether by the withering of the tree, or in any
other way. There is nothing to show that Jesus
intended such a result. Again, Jesus' words
are spoken privately, and to the tree : they are
overheard (it is implied, accidentally) by the
disciples.1 Thus, though Peter claims the with
ering of the tree as the result of Jesus' words,
and Jesus apparently accepts this explanation,
yet the connection between the two things as
cause and effect is not actually stated. This
may make room for possible alternative explana
tions. If it is possible that a cold night, or
some other natural cause, killed the premature
leaves of the tree, the growth of the supernatural
explanation of the story is easily accounted for.
Indeed, we can see a further embellishment of
the story in the first gospel, which represents
the tree, at the moment when Jesus' words
(now changed to a definite command) are
spoken, as immediately withering away.2
There remains a difficulty that has already oc
curred in another connection.3 The event is
(let us assume) a natural event ; but Jesus at
any rate accepts it as a miraculous fulfilment of
his wish. That Jesus himself may have mis
understood some of his own experiences, and
xMarkxi. 14. 2Matt. xxi. 19. 3 v. p. 213.

JESUS HIMSELF 219
regarded more phenomena as due to the direct
action of God than persons of smaller faith would
be disposed to do, is not a very hard hypothesis.
But there is perhaps an alternative. There
seems to be no certain connection between the
incident of the fig-tree and the teaching about
faith which accompanies it in the second gospel,1
Sayings about faith are almost " commonplaces,"
and occur in other contexts in the first and third
gospels ; 2 nor is it easy to suppose that the
present loosely connected passage gives an ade
quate account of the incident and the teaching
based upon it. Evidently S. Luke was puzzled
by the narrative. In his account the actual in
cident is omitted : but the fig-tree reappears in
a compiled saying as " this sycamore tree," and
it (not a mountain) is to be " rooted up " . . . and
planted " in the sea ".3 Yet " this " mountain,
and " this " sycamore tree, forms of speech
which persist in all versions of the saying, seem
to point to the place of its origin in the second
gospel — the slopes of the Mount of Olives, and
the solitary fig-tree. So that one is inclined to
think either that the true motive and meaning
of the incident have been lost, or that a natural
1 Mark xi. 23. 2 Matt. xvii. 20; Luke xvii. 5.
3 Luke xvii. 6.

220 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
event was taken by Jesus and the disciples as
supernatural. In any case the thing remains
incongruous and perplexing.
(iv) The two miracles of feeding — that of the
5,000 and that of the 4,000 — may be taken to
gether. In spite of some differences in detail
there seems to t>e no sufficient reason to doubt
that both narratives are based on one and the
same incident. It is at least possible that S.
Luke held this opinion, since he entirely omits
the narrative of the 4,000. But even if it were not
so, yet the two stories involve the same issues,
and may most profitably be discussed together.1
We have to notice, first, that there is no
miracle for which we ought to have better evi
dence than the first of these. It is recorded by all
four evangelists in considerable detail : it was, ex
hypothesi, worked in public, before 5,000 people,
many of whom (at least) must have realised the
miracle, and have borne witness to it in after years.
Besides, the thing was so manifestly supernatural
that there could be no room for a mistake. If the
5,000 were fed at all, they must have been fed mir
aculously. Either, then, the occurrence fell out as
described, or the whole story must be rejected as
unhistorical. This is a plainer issue than has
JMarkvi. 35 = Matt. xiv. 15= Luke ix. 12.

JESUS HIMSELF 221
hitherto been reached in dealing with these
miracles. What considerations can be urged
towards arriving at a solution ?
In the first place, the incident of the 5,000 as
it stands bears some evidence of displacement.
There is really no sufficient motive for the
miracle as described by S. Mark, who places it
on the evening of the same day as the voyage
across the lake. Of the 4,000 it is said that they
had been three days in the desert, and that some
of their homes were far away : ] the 5,000 had
not come farther than half a day's journey from
their homes, and had not spent more than a few
hours in the desert. Nor is it likely that on the
first evening of their retirement across the lake,
after a time of crowded ministry and enforced
fasting,2 the disciples would be found so ill
supplied with provisions that they have only five
loaves and two fishes, and that the twelve
baskets which they carry with them are empty,
until filled with the remnants of the miraculous
feast.3 The presence of the empty baskets sug
gests that the incident belongs to the end, not
the beginning, of a period of retirement.
1 Mark viii. 2, 3. It is, of course, possible that some
elements belonging to the account of the 5,000 have been
transferred to that of the 4,000, or vice versa.
2vi. 31. 8vi. 43 (pace viii. 14.)

222 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
Again, one cannot ignore some elements of
artificiality that seem to be present in the story.
To feed 5,000 people five loaves are required ;
in one narrative there are twelve baskets — one
for each of the twelve disciples ; in the other
there are seven baskets — one for the fragments
of each of the seven loaves. And some nu
merical significance — in connection, apparently,
with the multiplication of the food — underlies the
arrangement of the people " in ranks, by hun
dreds and by fifties ". (For no reason is given
why the crowd should be counted. ) 1
Lastly, there is a parallel to this miracle of
feeding in the story of Elisha, which cannot be
ignored, though different opinions may be held
as to the degree in which it is likely to have
affected the form, if not the substance, of the
present narrative. " There came a man," says
the chronicler, " from Baal-shalishah, and
brought the man of God bread of the first-
fruits, twenty loaves of barley, and fresh ears
of corn in his sack. And he said, Give unto
the people, that they may eat. And his ser-
1 An alternative reason for this might be found in
1 Kings xviii. 4 — " Obadiah took an hundred prophets,
and hid them by fifty in a cave, and fed them with bread
and water."

JESUS HIMSELF 223
vant said, What, should I set this before an
hundred men ? But he said, Give the people,
that they may eat ; for thus saith the Lord, They
shall eat, and shall leave thereof. So he set it
before them, and they did eat, and left thereof,
according to the word of the Lord." 1
To allow that the second gospel might con
tain an imitative legend (even though it be based
on some real event) is to admit an element
of uncertainty into our interpretation of it, such
as we have not contemplated hitherto. But it is
a possibility, and it cannot be ignored.
(v) There remains only the account of the
raising of Jairus' daughter.2 This miracle, like
the last, is fully attested. But the alterations in
troduced by S. Matthew and S. Luke do not
add anything of importance to the original nar
rative, and do not seem to be based on any new
evidence. We are really dealing with a single
tradition variously edited.
According to this tradition, there was no doubt
in the minds of any of those present that the
girl was really dead. Jesus' suggestion, " the
child is not dead, but sleepeth," is laughed to
scorn. S. Luke himself, in all probability a
physician, adds that they knew that she was
1 2 Kings iv. 42-44. 2 Mark v. 35.

224 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
dead,1 and does not suggest the possibility of a
mistake. It would be attractive to take Jesus' words
literally, and to suppose that when he came into
the room 2 he saw that the girl was not really
dead, but only in some kind of trance. But it
is more likely that Jesus was using the words in
a spiritual rather than a literal sense, and that
to him all deatn seemed to be, in some sense, a
state of sleep, from which the divine power might
rouse those who seemed to be beyond recall. It
does not follow, of course, that the girl really
was dead. The hypothesis of a fit or trance
might still be adopted. Only we should have
to hold that Jesus, believing as an act of faith
that this " death " was only " sleep," and acting
upon that belief, did not as a matter of fact raise
a dead person, but revived one who was in a
trance. The miracle would then fall under the
commoner class of works of healing, and might
admit of an explanation on lines already in
dicated. Is it possible, from this examination of the
miracles in the second gospel, to draw any safe
1 Luke viii. 53. But it is easy to exaggerate S. Luke's
" medical knowledge," which was not incompatible with a
very credulous attitude towards miracles.
2 This is probably the right order of events, Mark v. 39.

JESUS HIMSELF 225
conclusions as to the kind of powers which Jesus
manifested, and therefore as to the kind of person
that Jesus was ? At one end of the scale we
have certain works of healing, about the literal
truth of which no doubt seems to be possible.
At the other end we meet with a few detached
stories (for it will hardly be suggested that these,
like those of the miracles of healing, are casual
instances representative of many more) which
claim for Jesus powers for which there is no
precedent. It would, of course, be unscientific,
upon our present hypothesis, to reject these
latter stories simply because they are more diffi
cult to believe. We must try to judge them
from the point of view gained by our previ
ous inquiry as a whole. And more particularly,
we must consider how far the " miracles affecting
the laws of nature " can be explained as a mere
extension of principles already recognised in the
" miracles of healing ".
As to the first point, it would be a fair sum
mary of our previous conclusions J to say that the
second gospel represents Jesus as one whose
life was, to all outward appearance, an entirely
human one, and whose divine claim rested not
upon any original freedom from the limitations of
1 Cf. p. 200.
15

226 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
that life, but upon the spiritual intensity of living
by which that life was transformed. This conclu
sion — whatever be its exact expression — gives a
standard of judgment in dealing with such a
question as the present. We shall expect to
find Jesus working " miracles " which are ex
tensions, on the same plane of experience, and
under the same general conditions, of ascertained
human achievements. We shall not expect him
to act in a way which is out of proportion to his
way of teaching, his way of thinking, and his
way of life. We cannot imagine any part of his
activities to have been out of scale, incongruous,
" unlike himself ". But that is just what some
of the alleged miracles seem to be, in the form
in which they have been reported to us. It may
be possible in some instances to trace a con
gruous substratum beneath the incongruous upper
layers of tradition. The stilling of the storm may
be a misunderstanding : the story of the walking
on the sea may be based on a genuine psychical
experience : the raising of Jairus' daughter may
be an exaggeration of a miracle of healing. But
in such cases as the withering of the fig-tree and
the feeding ofthe 5,000 it seems necessary either to
attribute to Jesus powers which there is no other
reason to suppose that he possessed — which in-

JESUS HIMSELF 227
deed are entirely unlike and underivable from
others which it is certain that he possessed — or to
regard the narrative as untrustworthy in these
particulars. The latter is by far the easier al
ternative. It is perfectly legitimate to hold that
the early tradition, as represented by the second
gospel, bears witness to the proper limits of
Jesus' powers, and sets a standard by which all
" miraculous " stories can be judged ; and at the
same time to admit that, judged by that very
standard, a few of the miracles as described even
in the early tradition must be pronounced to be
unhistorical. The standard that we wish to set up will, of
course, need corroboration from other branches
of evidence which we cannot consider here.
Thus it is obvious that some light is thrown on
the miracles in the second gospel by what is said
about Jesus' ministry in S. Peter's speeches in
the Acts — especially when one remembers the
traditional connection between S. Peter and S.
Mark. And one can argue back from the kind
of " signs " that accompanied the early preaching
of Christianity to their probable form before the
Resurrection. It must in any case be insisted
that the distinction between the canonical and
the uncanonical books of the New Testament is

228 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
not such that all miracles recorded in the former
are necessarily more credible than all recorded
in the latter. There must be an independent
standard of judgment, and that must be derived
from one's understanding of Jesus' personality
as a whole.
The position that seems generally to be taken
up by critics of the miracles is first, One would
like to believe these things, on religious grounds ;
and secondly, But one cannot, on scientific
grounds. Whereas the truer position would
seem to be, first, One would rather not believe
such things, on religious grounds ; and secondly,
One can explain what is true in them, on scientific
grounds. To put it plainly, some of the supposed mir
acles are not worthy of Jesus. They are not part
of man's best ideas about God, but of his less
educated imaginings. They are the measure of
his misunderstanding of those spiritual miracles
which are the proper proof of a spiritual revela
tion. God does not show himself to be In
carnate by working on a different plane from
man. He is most truly revealed when he is
most truly man.

JESUS HIMSELF 229
IV
It might be thought that the whole question
which we are discussing is capable of an easy
solution. The claims that Jesus made for him
self, the devotion which he directed towards
himself, might be held to determine the nature
of his own personality. But what, so far as the
second gospel is concerned, are the real facts ?
Jesus nowhere formulates his claims, never ex
plains himself in the most rudimentary terms of
a creed, never draws up any rules of membership
or prospectus of the " Kingdom of God," and
refuses (except by implication) to state his author
ity for overriding the customs of the Estab lished
Church.1 There is, however, some evidence to show in
what relation Jesus held himself to stand to his
mission, and what proportion of personal de
votion to himself he allowed or encouraged.
But it is informal and indirect, resting on
" general impressions " and implicit claims.
(i) In the first place, Jesus is always the
central figure in the gospel. And he is such
not because the writer of the gospel deliberately
made him so (there is no sign of literary crafts
manship on the part of S. Mark), but because he
1 Mark xi. 27-33.

230 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
was so in real life. Further, the impression that
one gets from the second gospel is that he was
so consciously, not unconsciously. There is per
haps a change of attitude in this respect as be
tween the earlier and later parts of the gospel.
Up to the time of the Transfiguration Jesus
generally represents himself as a prophet, a
teacher, a healer ; he is the servant of men, the
unwilling object of their enthusiasm. Afterwards
he becomes more and more the Messiah, the
Master ; his teaching is more personal, the re
ferences to his coming Passion more frequent.
And, in proportion to this development, disciple
ship comes to be regarded as a personal attitude
of belief in Jesus, rather than an abstract moral
fitness for the Kingdom of God.
This new teaching might be said to begin with
the question, " Whom do men say that I am ? " 1
It matters, Jesus implies, whether or not men
have a right idea of his personal claims. It is
necessary for a disciple to understand that his
Messiahship is different from the ordinary con
ceptions of what it should be.2 The Trans
figuration, whatever its exact significance, at any
rate implies a personal glorification of Jesus, and
is so interpreted by the disciples ; for they are
1 Mark viii. 27. 2 viii. 31.

JESUS HIMSELF 231
moved to an act of homage towards him quite un
dreamt of hitherto.1 From this time onwards
Jesus' mind is full of his coming Passion and
death. Nor are these personal forebodings put
away, or subordinated, as being of selfish inter
est ; but they are emphasised again and again,2
and regarded as essential, and made the basis of
the instruction of the disciples. Gradually the
idea of the Kingdom as a spiritual but very real
institution, whose inauguration is close at hand,3
leads up to Jesus' entry into Jerusalem, when
he seems to court the public recognition that
he had avoided hitherto.4 From this time date
the personal parables,6 the personal interpreta
tions of Scripture,6 and the prophetic claim (illus
trated by the apocalyptic discourse) — " my words
shall not pass away ".7 It is at this time that
Jesus accepts the personal homage of the woman
who anoints his head,8 that he claims special
acts of service and hospitality,9 that he pro
nounces a woe upon the man who betrays him,10
1 Markix. 5. The intention of " building a tabernacle "
for Jesus seems to be in order that they may secure his con
tinued presence, as a divine spirit.
2 viii. 31, 38; ix. 9, 31 ; x. 33, 39, etc.
3 Cf. the incident in x. 35-40. * xi. 7-10.
5 xii. 1-9. 6xii. 10, n, 35-37. 7 xiii. 31. 8xiv. 3-9.
9xi. 3; xiv. 14. 1(*xiv. 21.

232 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
and that he institutes the personal commemora
tion of the sacrifice of his body and blood.1
Jesus, then, within the limits of his lifelong
sacrifice and humility, was not self-forgetful, self-
depreciating, or indecisive : rather he was self-
assertive, self-conscious, confident. In teaching
he was noticeably dogmatic — but only in the
laying down of principles which demanded
individual application. In action he was easy,
simple, decisive. In his manner and way of
life he was always ready, never at a loss, entirely
"master of the situation ". One gets from the
gospel a very strong impression that he was
" a born leader," and that he knew it.
(ii) Secondly, discipleship, more particularly
in the later part of the gospel, means personal
devotion to Jesus. From the very beginning of
the ministry the " call " of the disciples is a call
to personal allegiance. " Come ye after me,"
says Jesus to Simon and Andrew,2 " Follow
me " to Levi the son of Alphaeus.3 He com
pares the relation of the disciples to himself with
that of the "sons of the bridechamber" to the
bridegroom.4 He is the central figure : their
duty is to help and minister to him. The apos
tolic life, to which the twelve are definitely
1 Mark xiv. 22-24. 2i- I7- 3ii. 14- 4ii. 19.

JESUS HIMSELF 233
appointed, is to " be with him " quite as much
as to go "forth to preach " :x they are to learn
by living with him. Of discipleship in general
both the motive and the manner are stated in
personal terms — " If any man would come after
me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross,
and follow me ". 2 The familiarity of this demand
makes us overlook its real meaning. Disciple
ship means the limitation or even the surrender
of a man's personal independence in order that
he may become a follower of Jesus. It is not a
demand for friendship or for allegiance, but for
service : Jesus always leads — even in the bearing
of the cross — the disciple always follows. Again,
stress is laid upon personal loyalty to Jesus, —
" Whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of my
words . . . the Son of man also shall be ashamed
of him. . . ." 3 It is suggested as an encourage
ment and sanction of charitable acts that they
become acts of kindness to Jesus himself, and
through him to God.4 It is assumed that others
besides disciples will experience the power that
comes through formal allegiance to Jesus, and
will thus be led to a deeper loyalty.6 It is good
for little children that they should come to Jesus
1 Mark iii. 14. 2 viii. 34. 3 viii. 38.
4ix. 37. 6ix. 39.

234 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
and be blessed by him,1 and good for men that
they should surrender all that is valuable in this life
for his sake and the Gospel's.2 In answering
the request of James and John, who ask that
their earthly precedence may be continued in the
Kingdom (for they, with Peter, formed the inner
group of the disciples), Jesus lays special stress
on the imitation and sharing of his own sufferings
that is entailed by discipleship.8
Indeed, it is an invariable mark of Jesus'
teaching that he attributes no value to self-sacri
fice or goodness for their own sake, but simply
because they bring men to follow him, and make
them fit to enter into the Kingdom of God. The
Ndisciples have nothing to gain, apart from him
self. The Kingdom has no certainty, except
through his suffering and death. Everything in
the last resort turns upon his own personality.
This, then, is the crucial question upon which
the whole meaning of the Gospel depends. How
did Jesus think about himself? Who did he
know himself to be ? V
In dealing with Jesus' knowledge of himself
we are not dealing with a fixed state of mind,
*Mark x. 14. 2 x. 29. 3x. 38.

JESUS HIMSELF 235
but with one which grew. This point seems to
be established by the following considerations.
First, from the evidence as to Jesus' early life
which we have already considered,1 it appears
that neither Jesus' relations nor his fellow-towns
men knew of anything superhuman in him, or in
the circumstances of his thirty years' life at
Nazareth. It does not, of course, necessarily
follow that Jesus' idea of himself was what others
supposed it to be : but it is difficult to think .
otherwise. All probability is in favour of the
view that Jesus only came to understand himself
gradually, as he " advanced in wisdom and
stature, and in favour with God and men ".2
Secondly, the outcome of our whole inquiry
has been a conviction as to the reality and fulness
of Jesus' humanity. In mind, in morals, in social
and religious outlook, the main fact is that he
shares to the full the experience of his class and
nationality. There is therefore a strong pre
sumption in favour of the normal growth of his
self-consciousness. It is unreasonable, if not im
possible, to posit a mind that is partly fixed and
partly subject to growth.
Thirdly, a careful examination of the way in
which Jesus speaks of himself shows, even within
1 Cf. Chap. ii. 2Luke ii. 52.

236 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
the short limits of the recorded ministry, quite
definite stages of growth. The Baptism, the
Transfiguration, and the entry into Jerusalem
mark the forward steps in this development.
The use of the title " Son of man " almost
exclusively in the latter part of the ministry,
and in connection with the impending Passion
and death, is only one illustration of it. It will
be our business to examine the evidence under
this head in detail. We will only remark here
how great a growth of self-consciousness would
be shown by the history of the thirty years, if
we could investigate them as carefully as we
can the thirty months that compose the historic
ministry. We are dealing, then, with a mind that grew.
And we are trying to gauge its full meaning
from a fragmentary account of a small part of
its development, much as one conjectures the
dip of unseen strata from the scanty evidence of
a quarried hillside. VI
It can hardly be doubted that S. Mark regards
the Baptism of Jesus as the first great turning-
point in his self-knowledge.1 The narrative
1 Mark i. 9-1 1.

JESUS HIMSELF 237
begins at this point, not because, as in the fourth
gospel, it was then that the early disciples
first met Jesus, J but because it really began
there in the experience of Jesus himself.
It must be remembered that the only pos
sible authority for the vision of heaven
opened at the Baptism, and for the Temp
tation which immediately followed it, was;
according to S. Mark's account, Jesus himself.
If Jesus spoke about these incidents to his
friends, but remained silent as to the thirty years
that preceded them, it was almost certainly be
cause the baptism of John was, in Jesus' own
experience, the starting-point of his new life,
and of his conscious acceptance of the divine
sonship. The thirty years had no doubt been a
time of preparation, and that none the less valu
able for being unenlightened by any full con
sciousness of Messiahship. The preaching of
the kingdom, and the baptism for remission of
sins by which John tried to inaugurate it, brought
all the previous years' growth to a climax. In
the blaze of enthusiasm that was kindled the
preceding and preparatory stages may even have
seemed dark and unimportant. At any rate,
nothing was said about them. The life of Jesus,
so far as it was generally known to the world,
1 John i. 35-42.

238 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
began with the baptism of repentance and ended
with the cry of despair on the Cross.
The words of Isaiah which Jesus appropriates
to himself at his Baptism seem clearly to con
vey the idea of his Messiahship. We must
suppose, then, that this was in some sense the
state of his self-knowledge from the beginning of
the ministry. But it also seems probable that he
did not yet hold this new idea about himself
very firmly or fully. It was only by degrees that
he came to realise its meaning. The Tempta
tion itself was an early study in the possibilities
of the Messiahship — its susceptibility to tempta
tion, and its power to conquer sin. And during
the first part of the ministry Jesus is still experi
menting, verifying, mastering his own powers
and personality.
i. 24. A man with an unclean spirit in the
synagogue at Capernaum cries out, recognising
Jesus, and calling him, " Jesus of Nazareth
(his earthly title) . . . the Holy one of God "
(his Messianic claim). Jesus commands the
man to be silent, wishing (it appears) to avoid
publicity, and disliking such recognition by an
unholy spirit. It is implied that he knows the
recognition to be right, but that he does not

JESUS HIMSELF 239
wish to claim it. This is further borne out
by- i. 34, which says of a number of similar in
cidents that " he suffered not the devils to speak,
because they knew him " (some good MSS.
add, " to be Christ "). Two other instances
occur in the same part of the ministry —
iii. 11. "The unclean spirits, whensoever
they beheld him, fell down before him, and
cried, saying, Thou art the Son of God. And
he charged them much that they should not
make him known." This, again, is a Messianic
title, which Jesus accepts, but which he does
not use of himself-
v. 7. The Gerasene demoniac: " When he
saw Jesus from afar, he ran and worshipped
him ; and crying out with a loud voice, he saith,
What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of
the Most High God ? " In this case Jesus does
not command silence, but parleys with the spirit,
probably because he is no longer in Galilee,
and there is no fear of popular enthusiasm.
Thus it appears from these instances that dur
ing the first period of his ministry Jesus was
constantly confronted with the idea of his Mes
siahship ; that he made no attempt to deny the
title ; but that he took every precaution to pre-

240 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
vent its being publicly claimed for him. This
is quite consistent with his being conscious of
his Messiahship, but being still uncertain as to
its exact meaning and use.
Is any further light thrown on this position by
other passages from the same part of the gospel ?
i. 38. After a busy evening's work in Caper
naum, Jesus leaves the town very early the next
morning, and departs into a desert place to pray.
The disciples follow and find him, and he says,
" Let us go elsewhere into the next towns, that
I may preach there also ; for to this end came I
forth ". Here the last word (igrjkOov) is some
times taken in a sense which it might bear in
the fourth gospel,1 but hardly here, as meaning
Jesus' coming into the world : either of two al
ternative interpretations is preferable — that the
word refers to Jesus' mission and ministry in
general, or (less probably) that it means simply
his coming out of Capernaum a few hours before.
ii. 10. The healing of a paralytic man becomes
a proof of the claim that " the Son of man hath
power on earth to forgive sins ". " Power "
means here authority ; and this is regarded as
delegated "on earth" to "the Son of man,''
whilst God still binds or looses in heaven. The
1 E.g., John viii. 42 ; xiii. 3.

JESUS HIMSELF 241
title " Son of man " is used argumentatively, as
though to point the contrast between man and
God. Jesus regards himself as " the typical
man " : in claiming the power of forgiveness
under that title he is not claiming something for
himself as distinct from men, but for himself as
man, and for all men through him. " Son of
man " was his favourite title in speaking of him
self (on the rare occasions when he did so in
this detached way, in the third person) ; and the
thought which it contains represents his most
permanent knowledge of his own personality.
ii. 17. "I came not to call the righteous, but
sinners." Compare a later saying — "The Son
of man came not to be ministered unto, but to
minister ".1 In both cases the word used bears
essentially the same meaning as the " came I
forth " already mentioned : 2 and since in the
second case the reference is clearly to Jesus'
mission and ministry, it is probably so in all
three cases. Jesus certainly knew that he had
been " sent," and that he had " come " or " come
forth " to do a special work for God. He may
even have spoken of himself as " coming out " of
his thirty years' retirement into the new life ofthe
ministry. But we must beware of attaching to
1 Mark x. 45. 2 i. 38, above.
16

242 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
these words the alien idea of a coming from one
world or state of existence into another.
ii. 19. Jesus pictures himself as a bridegroom,
and the disciples — his special friends — as the
" sons of the bride-chamber ". He is with them
for a time, and they have a right to enjoy his
company. But the time is coming when he will
" be taken away from them ". The imagery is
taken from a passage in the Old Testament, in
which God seems to be represented as the bride
groom, and the Jewish " remnant " as the bride,
in the Messianic kingdom.1 In using it, Jesus is
probably conscious of its Messianic meaning. H e
is also conscious, we must suppose, of his coming
death. If so, this is the earliest evidence that
we have of such knowledge, which is not ex
plicitly made known until the second period of
the ministry.
ii. 25. The ground of Jesus' appeal to the
case of David, to justify his high-handed treat
ment of the Sabbath, is probably not any an
alogy between himself and David, David's fol
lowers and his own disciples. It is better ex
plained by the use of the title " Son of man " in
the saying with which the incident ends. The
proper force of this is only brought out in the
1 Hosea ii. 19.

JESUS HIMSELF 243
second gospel.1 The title is used, as in a pre
vious connection,2 argumentatively. It is not in
being more than man, but in being typical man,
that Jesus is " lord even of the Sabbath ". If
any further claim were to have been made here,
it could have been made very forcibly by the
use of the title " Son of David ". But no such
idea was in Jesus' mind. He is merely claiming
man's right to use — not to be the slave of — his
own instruments.
iii. 28. Taken in connection with the previous
incident, this passage implies that Jesus attributes
his miracles to the working of the " Holy Spirit "
in him, and that he regards it as blasphemous
to attribute them to the powers of evil. If S.
Matthew and S. Luke are right in the saying
which they agree in adding at this place, Jesus
further distinguishes misrepresentation of himself
(under the title ofthe " Son Of man ") from misre
presentation of the " Holy Spirit " which works
through him.3 But it may be no more than a
1 Mark ii. 28 = Matt. xii. 8=Luke vi. 5. Matthew and
Luke spoil the argumentative use of the title by cutting it
off from the preceding words, and by omitting Mark's " even
of the Sabbath ".
2ii. 10, above.
3 Compare what is said of the Holy Spirit at the time of
the Baptism, Mark i. 10, 12.

244 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
variant of the earlier saying, due to a misunder
standing of the phrase " the sons of men "-1
vi. i. The incident of Jesus' visit to Nazareth
has already furnished evidence as to how Jesus
was regarded by his relations and fellow-towns
men. It is not uninstructive as regards Jesus'
idea of his own personality. In the first place,
he admits the human relationship which makes
it so difficult for the people of Nazareth to
credit his new powers. Nazareth is his " own
country," Mary, James, Joses, Judas, Simon, and
the "sisters" are "his own kin" (the word
means relationship by birth), the house in
which his sisters still live is " his own house ".2
Whatever else he may have thought about
himself, he started at any rate from this
common experience, and knew himself to be
what his fellow-townsmen said that he was.
Secondly, " he marvelled because of their un
belief ". Why should he have been surprised,
when he admitted what seems to have been the
ground of their unbelief — his previous life at
Nazareth ? Clearly he himself thought this no
bar to belief. His present claims, he held, were
not inconsistent with his past life, but sprang
directly out of it. He was not conscious of any
1 Mark iii. 28. 2 vi. 4.

JESUS HIMSELF 245
inconsistency between the old life and the new.
And thirdly, the title under which he chose to
sum up his present claims was that of " Pro
phet ". This probably capitulates, better than
any other word, Jesus' self-knowledge during
the early part ofthe ministry. He knew himself
to have a special mission from God : he heard
himself addressed, and came to think of him
self, in the Messianic terms of the Jewish Scrip
tures : but as yet he does not seem to have
understood to the full, or have been ready to
teach to others, the meaning of his Messiahship.
He prefers to speak of himself formally, when
he does so at all, as the " Son of man," and
his work is best described as that of a " Pro
phet ".
We have now to see how far our hypothesis
of the gradual growth of the Messianic con
sciousness is borne out by the evidence to be
derived from the second part of the gospel.
VII
viii. 27. It is on the journey to Caesarea
Philippi that Jesus for the first time shows an
interest in what people are saying about himself.
He questions the disciples first as to the state
of public opinion, and then as to their personal

246 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
belief. As to public opinion, there are three
theories — either that he is John the Baptist,
or that he is Elijah, or that he is " one
of the prophets ". The last suggestion seems
to come rather near to Jesus' own words spoken
on the visit to Nazareth :J yet he implicitly re
jects them all as untrue in his question to Peter :
" But who say ye that I am ? " Peter's answer,
then, must be accepted as the true one — " Thou
art the Christ ". The apostles have come to
agree with the opinion of the evil spirits.2 And,
like the latter, they are forbidden to make their
knowledge public. It is dangerous knowledge.
Its publication must lead to the dilemma — polit
ical revolution, or death. (It did in fact lead
to the latter.) This passage, then, falls into
line with others in which Jesus is conscious of
his Messiahship, but does not wish to make
it known. The new feature consists in his
being willing to share his knowledge with the
disciples. viii. 31. There follows immediately upon
this the first of those passages in which Jesus
speaks of his coming Passion. There are five
1 Mark vi. 1, above.
2 L 24 and other passages, above.

JESUS HIMSELF 247
such passages in all,1 showing how vivid and
constant at this time was the idea of Jesus'
future sufferings. And it is noticeable that in
all of them he speaks of himself as the " Son
of man," as though to show that it is as man
that he will suffer and die — to win some new
right for man, as he had under the same title
vindicated man's right to forgive sins, and to
determine his own treatment of the Sabbath.2
The exact relation of these passages to one
another is best shown if they are set out side by
side.3 It will be seen that the first and the last
are the most detailed. The last indeed, develops
so close a correspondence to the actual scenes of
the Passion as to suggest that it has been elabor
ated from a later knowledge of the events.
(Notice particularly the mention of the part
played by the Romans, which is quite absent
from the other predictions.)
viii. 38. As the prediction of Jesus' Passion,
so also the prophecy of his Parousia follows
closely on the discovery of his Messiahship by
the disciples. It too is connected with the title
the " Son of man ". " Whosoever shall be
ashamed of me and of my words in this adul-
1 Mark ix. 9, 12, 31 ; x. 33 ; besides the present passage.
2 ii. 10, 25, above. 3 Vide next page.

248 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK

viii. 31.
The Son of man
must suffer many
things,
and be rejected
by the elders,
and the chief
priests, and the scribes,

ix. 9.
the Son of man

and be killed,
and after three
days rise again

should have risen1
again from the
dead

ix. 12.
the Son of man
that he should
suffer many things
and be set at
naught

terous and sinful generation, the Son of man
also shall be ashamed of him, when he cometh
in the glory of his Father with the holy angels."
It would be difficult to attach any argumentative
meaning to the use of the title in this passage.
Probably, since the title has been used in speak
ing ofthe Passion, it is used ofthe Parousia also,
to show the essential connection that exists be
tween the two events as stages in the achieve
ment of the Kingdom of God, But the interest

JESUS HIMSELF

249

ix. 31.
The Son of man
is delivered up into
the hands of men,

and they shall kill him ;
and when he is killed,
after three days
he shall rise again

x. 33-
the Son of man
shall be delivered

unto the chief priests
and the scribes ;
and they shall condemn him to
death, and shall deliver him unto
the Gentiles: and they shall mock
him, and shall spit upon him, and
shall scourge him,
and shall kill him ;
and after three days
he shall rise again

of the passage lies rather in the fact that the
Son of man is here spoken of for the first time
in relation to his Father. The nearest parallel
to this is the statement that of the day and hour
of the Parousia " knoweth no one, not even the
angels in heaven, neither the Son, but the
Father ".1 There are only two other passages
in the second gospel which speak of the Father.
To the disciples he is once described as " your
1 Mark xiii. 32,

250 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
Father which is in heaven " ; l and in the prayer
of Gethsemane Jesus addresses him as " Abba,
Father ".2 This poverty of use is the more re
markable when we consider that in S. Matthew
God is spoken of as Father forty-five times, in
S. Luke seventeen times, and in S. John no less
than 118 times. S. Mark, then, uses the title
seldom. But he uses it significantly. It can
hardly be a coincidence that Jesus is represented
as calling God " the Father " just in those con
nections in which he calls himself " the Son of
man " — his Passion and his Parousia. They
are the essential experiences of his Messiahship,
and it is fair to conclude that he was conscious
of the fatherhood of God chiefly in those connec
tions. The meaning of the title, then, will be
primarily Messianic. And, although it would
be fair to say (e.g., in the case of the prayer at
Gethsemane) that Jesus realised in a specially
personal way the sonship of the Messiah, it
would be unjustifiable to go outside the Messianic
experience in interpreting his use of the word
Father in relation to God.8
ix. 2. The Transfiguration is the typical inci-
1 Mark xi. 25. 2xiv. 36. 3 Cf. p. 195.

JESUS HIMSELF 251
dent of the second stage of Jesus' self-know
ledge, as the Baptism is of the first. The place
and time of the event were perhaps deliber
ately chosen, in order to impress upon the three
chosen disciples the truth of Jesus' Messiah-
ship. The vision probably occurred during
prayer,1 and was not unlike some that are
narrated of mediaeval saints, e.g., S. Francis of
Assisi.2 But as to the point of greatest interest
— what the Transfiguration meant to Jesus him
self — there is hardly any indication. The dis
ciples are too much preoccupied with their own
feelings to wonder what he may be thinking.
One may infer from the fact that he is seen
to be talking with Moses and Elijah (typical
of the Law and Prophets, and the latter also
re-embodied in John the Baptist) that he is
meditating on the fulfilment of the Messianic
prophecies of the Old Testament in himself. In
particular, as S. Luke suggests, he is probably
thinking of " his decease which he was about
to accomplish at Jerusalem ".3 The fact that
the baptismal commission is repeated at this
1 Luke ix. 29 ; cf. Mark vi. 46.
2 Eg. I Fioretti del glorioso messere Santo Francesco e
de suoi Frati (ed. Passerini), capit. xvi.
3 Luke ix. 31.

252 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
•moment of Transfiguration — unless it be due
merely to assimilation — is probably significant
of the importance of the incident to Jesus him
self, as inaugurating a new stage in his ministry,
with a clearer knowledge of himself, and a more
definite foresight of his Passion. But the
content of his consciousness remains entirely
Messianic. ix. 19. " O faithless generation, how long
shall I be with you ? how long shall I bear with
you ? " may be compared with the parable of
the bridegroom in the first part of the ministry.1
In both cases Jesus is conscious of the coming
time of separation. There is a particular appro
priateness in its expression here, immediately
after the Transfiguration.
ix. ^y. " Whosoever shall receive one of such
little children in my name, receiveth me ; and
whosoever receiveth me, receiveth not me, but
him that sent me."
The word " sent " in this passage is another
way of stating the " came " or " came forth " of
two previous passages.2 It refers, like them,
to the special mission of which Jesus was
1 Mark ii. 19, above.
2 i. 38, ii. 17 ; cf. x. 45, below,

JESUS HIMSELF 253
conscious. Like them, it cannot safely be made
to mean anything more.
In any case this is the main teaching of the
passage — that Jesus represents God in the same
kind of way as the child represents Jesus. In
what kind of way is that? The clue to the
meaning of the passage seems to be given by
the word " receive ". It is used in two very
similar senses in the second Gospel — of receiving
the Kingdom of God, and of receiving those
who preach the Gospel of the Kingdom. Thus
it can only be used of the child in this case if
the child be taken as a type of the disciples— an
interpretation of the passage which S. Matthew
actually embodies in his version of it.1 And fhe
meaning will be that, in listening to the preach
ing of the disciples, men will be listening to
Jesus, and that, in listening to Jesus, they will
be listening to the teaching of God. This is
Jesus' own account of the " authority " that his
hearers had found so noticeable in his teaching
and action.2 There were many things in the
counsels of God about which he never spoke,
and some about which he admitted himself to be
unable to speak ; but wherever he undertook to
1 Matt, xviii. 3. 2 Mark i. 22, 27, etc.

254 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
speak he did it with certainty and confidence,
knowing himself to be right. Such is the claim
of the present passage.
x. 17. This important passage has already
been dealt with in another connection.1 Its
bearing upon the present inquiry lies not so
much in the meaning of that " goodness " which
Jesus declines to attribute to himself, as in the
relationship which he implies between himself
and God. The language is not Messianic.
There is no use of the titles Father or Son.
And a broad distinction is drawn — a distinction
which cannot reasonably be confined to the
single ground of " goodness " — between Jesus
and God. That this idea admits of reconcilia
tion with that (for instance) of the last passage,
cannot be doubted, though there may be some
difficulty in bringing them together. In Jesus'
self-knowledge both were true experiences. In
our account of him neither can be omitted.
x. 40. This is one of those instances in which
Jesus admits the limitation of his knowledge
and power. " To sit on my right hand and on
my left hand is not mine to give : but it is for
them for whom it hath been prepared," S.
Matthew adds the unspoken conclusion, " of my
1 Cf. p. 159.

JESUS HIMSELF 255
Father," x and brings out the essential likeness
of this passage to the last. Both explain points
of difference between Jesus and God. But
whereas that dealt with the question from the
moral point of view, this approaches it from
the side of knowledge and prerogative. It is
not merely that the formal arrangements of the
Kingdom (if we may so say) are not in Jesus'
hands. It is also implied that he does not him
self know for whom " it hath been prepared,"
and therefore would in any case be unable to
act. It is an important fact that these limita
tions are brought into direct contact with the
idea of the Kingdom, and are shown to have
formed part of the Messianic consciousness.
Thus, in the light of the present passage, it be
comes easier to interpret the last, and to com
bine the rather divergent elements that make up
Jesus' self-knowledge.
On the whole, then, there is throughout this
second period of the ministry a noticeable ad
vance in the extent and depth of the meaning of
the Messiahship, as Jesus appears to understand
it himself, and to interpret it to his disciples.
If the title Prophet is the best summary of the
earlier stages of Jesus' consciousness, that of
1 Matt. xx. 23.

256 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
Messiah seems to be best to represent the central
period. It remains to be seen what further en
richment comes during the last stage of the
ministry. VIII
x. 45. If any one saying may be taken to
mark the transition from the second to the third
stage of Jesus' Messianic consciousness, it is
this — "The Son of man came not to be min
istered unto, but to minister, and to give his life
a ransom for many ". It is clear from the con
text that the first meaning of the words is the
example of ministry which Jesus sets to his
disciples. The rule of their life is to be the
same as the rule of his own, namely humility.
This in itself is an enrichment of the idea of the
Messiahship. But it is combined with an ele
ment which is entirely new to the Gospel, and
which is expressed by a word used nowhere else
in the New Testament.1 The form that Jesus'
ministry takes is to give his life as a ransom,
l\vTpov, Mark x. 45 = Matt. xx. 28 (an exact reproduc
tion). Luke omits the saying, but keeps the corresponding
words Xvi-pcuo-is and AurpoBo-ftu in connection with the " re
demption of Israel " expected by pious Jews, and looked
forward to in the person of Jesus (i. 68, ii. 38, xxiv. 2 1).

JESUS HIMSELF 257
that is, to give it in exchange for the lives of
men. From a previous passage 1 we may infer
that the giving of life means primarily death :
but it perhaps need not exclude the interpreta
tion that Jesus' whole ministry was a ransom.
The essential element, self-sacrifice, is the same
throughout. " Ransom " is a fairly common
idea in the Old Testament, and would have
been understood by Jesus as meaning the price
paid for a life that had been forfeited,2 or as a se
curity against future forfeiture.3 It is on these
lines that we must choose between the various
theories of " ransom " that have been pro
pounded. In what respect Jesus supposed the
" many " lives to have been forfeited, or to be
in danger of forfeiture, the passage does not
state ; nor in what way he imagined that his life
could be accepted in redemption of those. The
saying stands alone, and gains no more than in
direct support from other passages in the gospel.
That it belongs to the Messianic consciousness
1 Mark viii. 35.
2 E.g. the criminally careless owner of a dangerous animal
shall be sentenced to death, but may commute his sentence
by a money payment, Exod. xxi. 28.
3 E.g. the half-shekel " atonement money," Exod. xxx.
n ; cf. Matt. xvii. 24.
17

258 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
is shown by the use of the title " Son of man " ;
as also the fact that it is as man that Jesus is
able to give his life as surety for men's lives.
But beyond this general conclusion it is difficult
to go.
x. 46. The blind man of Jericho, Bartimaeus,
addresses Jesus repeatedly as " Son of David ".
Jesus at the time makes no comment upon this,
doubtless accepting it as a popular Messianic
title. But on a later occasion he disputes the
scribes' exegesis of Psalm ex., upon which the
Messianic meaning of the title was based ; and
he does so, apparently, because he believes him
self to be the Messiah, but does not believe him
self to be descended from David.1 There is no
reason to doubt that such was his state of mind
on the present occasion too.
xi. 1. The typical act of the third period of
the ministry, corresponding to the Baptism and
the Transfiguration, is the entry into Jerusalem.
Like those events, it is marked by a pronounce
ment of Messianic language from the Old Testa
ment — " Hosanna ; Blessed is he that cometh
in the name of the Lord : " 2 to which are added
the words : " Blessed is the kingdom that cometh,
1 Mark xii. 35, below.
2 Psalm cxviii. 25.

JESUS HIMSELF 259
the kingdom of our father David : Hosanna in
the highest ". Here " Hosanna " is a prayer for
salvation, addressed to Jesus as King, and " the
kingdom of our father David " is the Messianic
Kingdom in its more material form. The words
" in the highest " seem to be a prayer that the
" Hosanna " may be answered in heaven. The
language is throughout Messianic ; and the only
special characteristic of the incident is that Jesus
for the first time not merely tolerates, but seems
to encourage the appeal to his power and the
publication of his claims. The "triumphant"
entry is premeditated. The time for conceal
ment is past. The claim is at last to be made
that can only lead to the death of the claimant.
xi. 27. When his authority is questioned, dur
ing the last week of the ministry, Jesus shows
quite clearly that it is " from heaven ". His own
authority stands or falls with that of the Baptist.
If John was Elijah the fore-runner, Jesus must
be the Messiah. The refusal to state explicitly
his authority is not a mere retort ; it is an argu
ment. Hitherto Jesus has not argued : that he
does so now shows a new urgency in his preach
ing. But the message is the same as before.
xii. 1. In the parable of the vineyard Jesus
represents himself under the image of " the

260 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
beloved son " of the lord of the vineyard, who
represents God. Further, he seems to contrast
himself with the Jewish prophets : they are
" servants," he is the Son, the heir. When we
contrast this passage with that, for instance, in
which Jesus calls himself a prophet,1 we see what
a great advance there has been in the Messianic
consciousness. As Messiah, Jesus now knows
himself to stand in a much more intimate rela
tion to God than do the prophets. They had
claimed for God the first fruits of Jewish life.
He has come to claim not merely the first fruits,
but the whole inheritance. The Messiah is heir
to the Jewish Church and nation. They belong
to him by right of his relationship to God, and
of his mission from God. He claims their sur
render. The claim is a very serious one, in
view of the position held by the prophets in
common estimation : but it is a necessary part
of the claim to the Messiahship. And it would
be unjustifiable to go outside the Messianic idea
for its explanation, especially in dealing with a
passage which is throughout metaphorical.
xii. io. The quotation from Scripture with
which the parable of the vineyard is rounded
off brings out the same claim to uniqueness in a
1 Mark vi. i, above.

JESUS HIMSELF 261
rather different way. Jesus stands in the same
relation to the Jewish nation as that nation stood
to the world — the "head of the corner," the
supreme witness to God, the culmination which
explains and unifies the whole process of develop
ment. The metaphor, and its national interpreta
tion, were so well known to Jesus' audience,
that it would have been difficult to express his
Messianic claim in a more emphatic or unmis
takable way.
xii. 35. There follows another instance of
Scriptural exegesis dealing with the Messianic
idea. The passage in question is the opening of
the iioth Psalm — "The Lord said unto my
Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, till I make
thine enemies the footstool of thy feet ".1 This
had always been interpreted Messianically.
Jesus wishes to show that, if so interpreted, it
contains an idea fatal to the conventional notion
of the Messiah. David, in the psalm, calls the
Messiah ' ' Lord " : how then can the Messiah
be, as is popularly supposed, David's son ?
There are here several points of interest, (i) In
the first place, unless the psalm is by David,
Jesus' argument from it breaks down. And
most probably it is not by David. (The argu-
1 Ps. ex. I.

262 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
ment was in any case a purely verbal one : but
it was such as would appeal both to Jesus and
to his hearers.) (ii) However, the interesting
point remains that Jesus should have wished to
use such an argument — should have been anxious
to prove that the Messiah need not be David's
son. The genealogies prefixed to the first and
third gospels assert that Jesus was descended
from David. But apparently he himself knew
nothing of this. He had indeed been acclaimed
more than once as the Son of David ; but the
title had been given, and he had accepted it,
as no more than a popular inference from his
Messiahship. And it was this wrong inference
(as he took it to be, in the light of his own non-
Davidic descent) that he now wished to dispute.
We infer, then, that Jesus had strong grounds
for thinking that he was not descended from
David. There would have been no need to
raise the question otherwise.1 (iii) But there is
another point. The present saying carries on
the argument of the last but one.2 There Jesus,
as Messiah, was shown to stand closer to God
than the prophets did. Here he claims to be,
not David's son, but his Lord. It is not merely
a personal claim. It is a new idea of the
1 Cf. p. 26. 2 Mark xii. 1, above.

JESUS HIMSELF 263
Messiahship. It recognises that the psalm is
truer than the popular interpretation of it, and
looks forward to a Messiah who is more than an
earthly king. And as we inferred from Jesus'
questioning of the ordinary interpretation that
he thought himself not to be a descendant of
David, so we may infer from his insisting on the
larger meaning of the psalm that he was con
scious of himself as being in some way greater
than David.
xiii. 1. The apocalyptic discourse in the second
gospel has already received separate treatment.1
But with reference to Jesus' self-knowledge some
points must be reconsidered here, (i) In the
first place, Jesus is quite certain that at some
future time a great event will happen which will
include the passing away of the present ma
terial heaven and earth, his own return into
the world from some other existence, " trail
ing clouds of glory," to gather his followers to
gether, and the establishment of the Kingdom
of God as a new heaven and earth, an eternal
immaterial existence. These ideas in themselves
are sufficiently perplexing. It is the more diffi
cult to arrive at their true meaning, whether for
Jesus or for the Church, when we consider the
1 Cf. Chap. iv. § vi.

264 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
numerous and diverse apocalypses which were
current in Jewish thought at this time, and the
figurative language in which they were com
monly expressed.
(ii) But secondly, there is this paradox. Side
by side with the extraordinary personal claim
which is made by the idea of the Parousia — a
claim in which Jesus places himself, as Son, above
the angels, and only a little lower than God —
appears the admission of his own ignorance as
to the time of this event of which he is so certain.
It might be said, perhaps, that the ignorance is
one of detail — as to the exact date, within a
specified period which is not unknown. But
this only brings us face to face with the real crux,
which is that as the result of Jesus' teaching (of
which the present passage is a more or less casual
reminiscence, and which we could in fact recon
struct without any such record) the disciples did
for many years expect and wait for the second
coming — and it never happened. It is, of course,
possible to suppose that the disciples as a whole
quite misunderstood Jesus' teaching on this sub
ject. Or it is possible to think that, in some
way which at present we cannot explain, Jesus
himself was mistaken. The matter is perhaps
not of such importance that we need hesitate to

JESUS HIMSELF 265
accept either of these alternatives. What is im
possible is to deny that, as the result of their in
tercourse with Jesus, the disciples expected his
speedy return, the end of the world, and the
establishment of the Kingdom of God.
The whole matter is a very difficult one. One
may guess that it is one of those problems the
full bearing of which upon the Christian concep
tion of Christ has yet to be realised. Indeed,
the discussion of the intellectual limitations in
volved in the Incarnation has hardly yet begun.
xiv. 22. We shall hardly be wrong in assum
ing that on the last evening of his life on earth
Jesus was supremely conscious of his Messiah-
ship. The Last Supper, the Prayer of Geth
semane, and the isolated words during the
Passion and Crucifixion, ought to contain what
is really essential in Jesus' self-revelation. With
regard to the first of these — an incident too full
of meaning to be more than touched on here —
two things must be said. The primary fact of
which Jesus is conscious during the Last Supper
is the nearness of his death, and of the Kingdom
that is to be won by his death. He thinks of
his betrayal as an event long foretold and pre
destined — " the Son of man goeth, even as it is
written of him " : the central act of the Supper

266 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
becomes a memorial of the death which he is
about to die — " this is my body . . . /this is my
blood " : the present gathering of friends, and
the sharing of the cup, are to be repeated, at
some time beyond death, " in the kingdom of
heaven ". Nothing could befrnore real and vivid
than Jesus' sense of the ofisis that is at hand.
But there is another>Side to this consciousness.
That sense of the meaning of his death which we
have already traced in a previous saying — " The
Son of man came . . .to give his life a ransom
for many " — reappears in its final form — " This,
is my body. . . . This is my blood of the cove
nant, which is shed for many." The metaphor is
of course not quite the same in the two passages.
In the earlier saying Jesus seems to regard his
death as an exchange for lives that have been
forfeited, or that are in danger of forfeiture. In
the words of institution his death is a ratification
of a covenant 1 made between God and man.
The general meaning of these metaphors must
be, first, that men's lives are, or will be, forfeit
through sin, and that the giving of Jesus' life
avails to cancel this forfeiture ; and secondly,
that a new law has been given by God to man,
and that Jesus' death is man's pledge that he
1 See Exod. xxiv. 8.

JESUS HIMSELF 267
will observe it. (The eating and drinking of
the body and blood correspond to Moses' sprink
ling of the people with the blood of the old
covenant. )
Side by side, then, with Jesus' growing sense
of the nearness of his passion; comes an increas
ing apprehension of its inner meaning. His
death had always seemed to him to be the price
of the Kingdom : afterwards it became also the
ransom of many lives : now at last it is the rati
fication of a new understanding between God
and man. It satisfies three great needs — the
need of a life beyond death, the need of a remedy
for sin, and the need of divine help to obey a
divine law. It is with no lower estimate of his
death that Jesus comes to die.
xiv. 32. If at the Last Supper we get Jesus'
fullest revelation of himself to his disciples, it is
in the prayer of Gethsemane that we learn most
about his relation to God. He speaks to God
as his Father — " Abba, ... all things are pos
sible unto thee " — assuming the same close re
lationship as on a previous occasion.1 But he
is quite sure of the reality and independence of
his own will — " not what I will, but what thou
wilt ". He states a duality, and annuls it in the
1 Mark viii. 38, above.

268 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
very statement ; for his own will is to conform to
God's will in everything. Jesus had no theory
of the relation of the human and divine will, as
theologians have. His words simply represent
his common experience — " God wants this ;
I want that ; but I want still more to do
what God wants". It is only from dogmatic
presuppositions that any difficulty can arise
here. xiv. 6 1. Passing by some further indications
of what has already been established — Christ's
vivid sense of his coming death — we find in
Jesus' answer to the High Priest a simple avowal
of his Messiahship, and a last prophecy of his
Parousia. The high priest's question shows
that " the Christ " was popularly regarded as
" the Son of the Blessed " : his reception of
Jesus' answer makes it clear that the blasphemy
lies in claiming to be the Messiah, not in claim
ing anything not covered by that title. The
public announcement of this claim, for the first
time, seems horrible to the high priest, blasphemy
" worthy of death ".
xv. 2. The reply to Pilate is different. The
question is a political one. Does Jesus claim to
be " the King ofthe Jews," as his enemies sug
gest ? (As a matter of fact the second gospel

JESUS HIMSELF 269
omits the steps which led up to the putting of
this question : the title occurs here for the first
time.) Jesus' answer is ambiguous. . It is the
religious claim, and that alone, with which he is
concerned. xv. 34. Jesus' life ends with a cry which, for
all that it is a quotation from a psalm, is a cry of
personal distress and despair. Was this really
his last experience — a doubt of the presence of
God who had been so near to him all his life ?
Or did his consciousness end, as the psalm ends,
in a vision of the victory of the cross, and the
coming of the Kingdom — " All the ends of the
earth shall remember and turn unto the Lord :
and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship
before thee. For the Kingdom is the Lord's :
and he is the ruler over the nations " — ? 1
IX
Certain conclusions may now be formulated,
as the result of our examination of the foregoing
evidence. (i) In the first place we may claim to have
verified, so far as it is possible, the hypothesis
of the gradual growth of Jesus' self-conscious-
1 Psalm xxii. 27.

270 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
ness with which we set out. Granted that the
boundaries of the separate stages cannot be ex
actly determined, yet it remains true in the main
that at the beginning of his ministry Jesus re
garded himself primarily as a Prophet, during
the central period as the Messiah, and during
the closing weeks as in some sense the Redeemer
of mankind. Up to the time of Peter's profes
sion of faith he knew himself, one may venture
to guess, as one consecrated and commissioned
by God for a special work in the world — the
preaching of the Kingdom of God. From the
time of the Transfiguration onward it seems
clear that his mind was more and more pre
occupied with the idea of the Messiahship, and
that he was gradually accumulating the new con
tent of that idea, in his anticipation of suffering
and death. Finally it seems to have been only
in the last weeks of his life that Jesus felt the full
meaning of his death, as the ransoming of men
from sin, and the pledge of their new relationship
to God.
(ii) Secondly, the titles into which Jesus
translated his personality, or by which his fol
lowers acclaimed him, were drawn from recog
nised Messianic sources. This shows that Jesus

JESUS HIMSELF 271
believed himself to be the Messiah, and taught
his disciples (though only in the later part of the
ministry) that he was so. But it does not ex
clude what we find to be the crux of his teaching
—a new interpretation ofthe Messiahship. This
interpretation takes three forms — (a) the King
dom is to be won by the suffering and death of
the Messiah : (b) the Messiah's death is to
ransom such lives of his followers as have been
or will be forfeit on account of sin : and (c) it
is to be a pledge of a new covenant between
God and man, in which a higher law is ordained
than that of Sinai, and a nearer presence of God
assured than in the tabernacle of the wilderness.
(iii) Thirdly, " the Son of man " is the title
which most often represents to Jesus himself the
person that he feels himself to be, and the work
that he has set himself to do. It is as typical or
representative man that he meets his greatest
spiritual experiences. But, as Messiah, he is
also " Son of God " ; and this Sonship is to him
a personal relationship, which does not, indeed,
in any way impair the independence and freedom
of his mind and will, but which involves perfect
harmony and co-operation, as between Father
and Son.
Who, then, did Jesus think himself to be ?

272 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
The formal answer is a simple one. Hej;hought
himself to be the Messiah. And what did he un
derstand by that ? He understood, first, what
his fellow-countrymen understood by it — the con
ception of the Anointed one, the Son of God,
foretold by the prophets, the fulfilment of his na
tion's hopes, the founder ofthe Kingdom of God.
And, secondly, he held this belief about himself in
a way that it had never been held before. He
thought that after death he would rise again. He
thought that after rising again he would return in
a glorified state at the end of the present world
to inaugurate a new existence. He thought that
his Passion was prevalent with God to ransom
men from the power of sin. He thought that his
Gospel was God's new law for men. He thought
that his death was a pledge of their con
version, a security for their struggle towards
holiness. All this, on the strictest treatment of the evi
dence, is contained in the earliest and most cer
tain gospel, in the recollections of Jesus' oldest
friend. If Jesus did not think of himself thus,
the gospel is utterly mistaken in its represen
tation of him — we can neither trust this, nor,
a fortiori, any other extant account of the Incar
nation. If he did thirik of himself thus, he was

JESUS HIMSELF 273
either right in doing so, or he was deluded. If
he was deluded, with however sincere and de
vout a misunderstanding, the whole character of
the Christian religion is changed. If he was
thinking truly, then his experience has been
rightly taken by the Christian Church as a fact
unique in the religious history ofthe world.

18

CHAPTER IX
CONCLUSION
I BEG AN this inquiry with no other intention
than that of gathering materials for a de
scription. But as I look back through the evi
dence I find that the description has gradually
grown into an argument. I set out to discover,
if it were possible, some first-hand testimony as
to how Jesus spoke and thought and lived among
men, expecting it to be fragmentary and inde
cisive. I find myself now, from the cumulative
force of the evidence, framing a formula for the
Incarnation. My starting-point was the hypothesis (for which
I considered myself to have sufficient grounds
in experience) that the second gospel represents
on the whole an early and authentic account of
the life and death of Jesus — not a complete ac
count, of course, but an adequate one, in which
nothing essential is omitted or misrepresented.
The canon of criticism which seemed to me
to follow from this was that one should prefer
274

CONCLUSION 275
the primary or literal meaning of the principal
document, taken in isolation, to any secondary
interpretation of it derived from comparison with
other and inferior authorities.
At first the trend of the evidence seemed to
be almost entirely in one direction. Whatever
aspect of the life of Jesus came under inquiry,
the witness always seemed to lay most stress
upon the complete humanity of his hero — upon
the thoroughness with which he shared the com
mon experiences of family life and class and
nationality ; upon his social and intellectual out
look, so intimately affected by his circumstances ;
and upon the temper of morality and religion
which marked him out a Jew.
But by degrees I found that my witness was
beginning to speak in a rather different strain.
Without in any way lessening his emphasis on
the complete humanity of Jesus, he was yet re
presenting it in an increasingly unfamiliar way.
He described to me a person who for thirty years
was so given to home life that he threw it up
in a moment to become a homeless wanderer ;
who, without any special education, spoke in
such a way that well-to-do men abandoned their
trade to become beggars for him, and crowds left
their villages to sit at his feet in the desert ; who

276 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
was able to work at will and " by the light of
nature " such changes of body and mind as
science is barely beginning to explain ; who soberly
believed himself to be the fulfilment of inspired
prophecies, and ofthe age-long expectation of his
people ; who deliberately courted a shameful
death in order to win for his friends a kingdom
not of this world ; and who held that his self-
sacrifice would redeem mankind from the power
of sin, and establish them in a new relation
ship towards God.
These things would have been sufficiently
surprising if they had been related of a wholly
miraculous and unapproachable being. That
they should be said and believed about that
Jesus whom I already knew to have lived as
man among men, supping with publicans and
sinners, disputing with scribes in the Temple,
and hanging naked on the cross, — this seemed
to make them so incredible that they must be
true. And so, I argued, it was because the disciples
knew Jesus as man that they were ready to wor
ship him as divine. They knew him as a single
person : there was no disunity between act and
act, thought and thought : all his faculties and
habits of body, mind, and will were one self.

CONCLUSION 277
They knew that he grew as a whole : bodily
form, thought, and spiritual experience alike
passed through stages from less to greater ma
turity. They knew that his humanity was real
and complete and local : that the Jewish features
and Galilean speech involved the Jewish, Gali
lean, and Nazarene " point of view " in all its
essential elements. Yet they knew that there
was more in him than this — a great power of
mind and speech, a simplicity of goodness, a
close familiarity with the ways of God : and, as
their experience of him grew, it was in these
things that they found Jesus himself : they fol
lowed him less as Messiah than as Master, they
revered him less for his public miracles than for
his private teaching, they thought less of what
he did, and wondered more at what he was.
For them, as for himself, the Resurrection inter
vened between the old life and the new. But
his new existence would have been meaningless
without the mortal life that preceded it. And
the disciples came to worship him as God, not
in spite of, but because of their experience of him
as man.
This, then, is the first conclusion towards
which I am led by the evidence of the second

278 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK
gospel — that Jesus is a single person, who as a
whole lives a human life, and as a whole can be
worshipped as divine. There is no possible or
desirable division between what is human in
him and what is divine. The human in him
is divine. When he is most truly man, then he
is most truly God.
To this I am bound to add the idea of growth,
which, if there be no distinction within the per
son of Jesus, must also apply to him, somehow,
as a whole.
And lastly-r-as to the content of this single
growing personality — I am convinced that I shall
be making a fatal mistake if I rest belief in Jesus'
divinity upon the powers which appear on the sur
face of his life rather than upon the character that
underlies them. It is a misunderstanding of the
gospels to think that it is by works of healing,
or signs of power, as such, that Jesus claims the
homage of the world. It is not by these, but by
his personal appeal — by the power of his mind and
the love of his heart, working themselves out in
friendship and self-sacrifice, limited by, and yet
always transfiguring, the forms in which they
were set. If men cannot hear this appeal, it is
idle to speak to them of lesser miracles.

CONCLUSION 279
This might be a puzzling conclusion, if I al
ready knew at all fully what I mean by "man"
and " God," and how they ought to be related in
an " Incarnation ". But it is only in the life and
death of Jesus that I come to understand the
meaning of these terms. So I am content to
say of the whole person of Jesus, " This is what
I mean by man," and again, " This is what I
mean by God". The better I know him, the
better I shall be able to understand what God is,
and what man is, and how it is possible that they
should meet in him. At present I am no more
than at the edge of the mystery.
Thus far S. Mark's gospel, as I am able to
understand it. I think that it contains the
essence of the experience and formulas of the
Church. Certainly it is necessary to apprehend
Jesus by faith as well as by reason ; and it is
only by learning to do his will that I shall
come to understand at all fully who he is. But
I believe that it was by the experience of his
humanity that the disciples came to understand
and worship his divinity. And I expect that
the same method is the truest for us all.

INDEX TO REFERENCES TO S. MARK

Ref.

Page

Ref.

Page

i. 4-5

. 41

ii. 5

58, 65, 172

8

. . . 185

6-7 •

• 177

9

. 18

8

• 77. 187

g-ii

• 236

10

• 57

IO

21, 6l, 186, 243

12

• 23

ii

31. 87

14

• 232

12

21 6l, 186, 243

14-17 .

. J13

12-13 .

. 42

15

30, 62

13

•• 90, 143

15-17 .

• 45

14

21, 32

16

• 153, 177

15

21, 32, 132

17

• 151. 241

17

. 232

18

• 153

18

29, 61

18-22 .

¦ 175

20

2g, 61

ig

37. 232, 242, 252

SI

• 6i> 174

20

. . 78

22

23, 76, 253

21

• • 36

23

58, 61

21-22 .

. 113

24 • 18,

gi, 181, 238, 246

22

• • 36

25

• 55, 213

23

• 153

27

23, 76, 114, 253

23-28 .

• 45. 175

29

3°. 61

25

• 242, 247

30

58, 61

26

84. 177. 19°

33-35 •

. 61

27

. . 46

34

55. 92, 181, 239

28

. 181

35

. . 6g

iii. 1

. 18

38

52, 240

i-4

• i°7. 175

40

. 172

5

65, 66, 153

41

• 59, 64, 143

10

. 208

43-44 •

• 55

IO-II .

. . 58

44

• i74> 176

11

• 181, 239

45

. 62

11-12 .

. 92

i. 1

. 30

12

• 55

1-4

. 62

14

• 233

1-12

. . 156

15

• 93

3-12

• 44

16-17 .

. 112

4

. 3°

19

. 3°

2i

1

282 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK

Ref.

Page

Ref.

Page
iii. 20
21, 62
v. 28-29 . . . .187
21
22
29
. 172
22
• 177. 178
3°
59, 187
22-30
• 93, 186
31
. 62
2326
. gi
32
. 66
. gi
34
58
2728
28-2928-30
¦ 37. 47, 91
35
• 223
67, 243, 244
. . 156
. 178
37
39
40
55> 69
100, 224
¦ 55, 145
31
. 24
41
. . 67
. 125
36, 55
44, 246, 260
3132
34
34-35
. 62
. 66
. 24
42
43
vi. 1
2
35
iv. 1-11
. 190
. 90
23
¦ 24
• 25, 76, 174
25, 34, 182
2-93-9
. 48
• • 38
4
5
182, 244
. 172
9 10-12
54, 67
• 49
5-66
• - 58
¦ ¦ 65
• 93,53
10-13
11
• 53
• 132
7
7-i3
J5
21
. go
36, 151
8
8-g
146, 170
• 32
• 37 93
22
46, 151
11
24
36,47
13
2526-2826-29
47,4
• 47
• 38
8, '3°, 133
H
15
16
101, 182
. 182
101, 182
30-32 .
¦ 133
30-31 .
• 32
62
31-32 .
38, 13°
31
33-34 ¦
35-39 •
35-41 •
3841
v. 2
5°,53
. 212
. 170
. 6g
. 181
¦ 58
34
35
35-38 .
37
38
41
64, 144
. 220
. I2g
¦ 59
. 146 66
3-56-12
• 95
92,95
4345
. 146
¦ 63
. 215
7 10
i8r, 239
45-5o .
¦ 94
45-52 .
. 212
10-17
11-12 .
12-13 •
18-19 •
• 147
• 95
• 94
. 112
46
4856
vii. 1-8
58, 6(
6g, 251
59,64
', 187, 208
19
56, 151, 195
2
¦ x75
• 153
• 5o
22-23 •
•
¦ 59
5-17 •
INDEX TO REFERENCES

283

Ref.

Page

Ref.

Page

vii. 6-13 . . . .105

viii. 35

47,-257

9-13 •

M5. 175
36-37 •
. 150
10
¦ 85
38 . 79, IC
1,195,231,233.
13
- T9P
247. 267
14-23 •
5
0, 141. !54
ix. 1
• 99. 133
17-23 ¦
• 53
2
. -69, 250
18-19 .
• 36
4
. 87
20-23
• 131
5
. 231
21
. 142
9
183, 231, 247
22
• 156
9:*3 •
• 52
24
¦ 63
11-13 .
32, 178
24-30 .
. 116
12
52, 79. 247
25
. 125
13
. IOI
28-29 .
• 65
14
. 178
2g
. 172
18
93. 95
31
. 221
19
65, 78, I71, 252
32
• 59
20
• 95
34
66, 67
21-24 .
- 145
36
• 56
23
¦ 171, 172
43
. 221
23-24 .
• 58
viii. 1
. 6g
24
. 125
1-5
. 129
25
• 55
2
59, 64, 144
28
• 93
2-3
. 221
29
¦ 95, 171
5
. 146
30
• 63
8
. 146
31 • 52,
79, !83, 231, 247
10
. . 63
33
. 30
11
• 179
33-34 •
68
12
• ¦ 65
35
6g, 152
13
- • 63
35-36 .
. 6g
!4
. 146
35 41 •
• 53
15
• 179
36
• . 65, 125, 144
i6tI7
• • 69
36-37 •
• 53
17-21
. 170
37 • 1
25, 195, 233, 252
22
• 59
38-40 .
• 94, x5i
22-23
• 144
39
• 233
23
• 55.65,69
40
• 47
26
- • 56
41
. 36
27
63, 230, 245
42
36, 125, 149
27-3°
¦ 52
42-47 .
• 155
27-34
51, 68
43-47 ¦
[02, 134, 150, 152
28
. IOI
43-48 •
- 131. *57
29-30
. 182
49-5° •
. 103
31
• 5A 79, 176, 183, 230,
50
• 36, 144
231, 246
x. 1
. 63
33
91, 143, 149, igi
2
• 179
34
¦
37. 152, 233
2-9
86, 123
284 JESUS ACCORDING TO S. MARK

Ref.

Page

Ref.

Page

x. 3

. . . . 85

xi. 18

.

IO

• 30

20-25

. 217

11-12

• 123

21

. 217

14

. 234

22

. 192
15
67, 125, 130, 134. 152
22-24
. 171
16
65, 125, 144
22-25
• 53
17
. 254
25
¦ 144, 155. 195. 250
17-18
. 160
27
. 259
17-22
106, 117
27-33
32, 115, 184. 229
17-30
. 134
xii. 1
38, 259, 262
18
• 193, 196
1-9
48, ig4, 195, 231
21
64, 66, 112, I2g, 147
1-12
. 184
23
. 66
10
. 260
23-25
. 118
IO-II
46, 87, 231
23-3 1
• 53
12
• "5
24
. 70
13
• 179
25
• 39
13-15
. 126
27
. igi, ig6
13-17
45, 106, 107, 118
29
67, 117, 125, 152, 234
14
127, 151, 180
29-30
. 118
15
• 77
32-42
. . . 69
15-17
. 127
33
52, 183, 231, 247
17
. igi
33-34
• 79
18-25
. 124
35-40
29, 135. 183, 231
18-27
. 45, 86, 106, I7g
35-45
. 106
24
igo, 196
38
78, 152, 234
26
• ¦ • 85
39
• 231
26-27
46, 105, 196
40
• 101, 194, 254
1 28-34
45, 153, 178
42
. 11&
29
. ig6
42-45
• 53'
34
. 112, 136
43
• 152
35
. 258, 261
45
. 183, 256
35-37
27, 46, 87, 88, 105,
46
. 63, 258
178, 184
47
. 18
35-40
. 115
52
. . . 58
36
85, 186
•d. 1
. 258
38-39
• 37
2
• 37
38-40
. 178
3
¦ 147, 231
41-42
¦ 70
7-10
- 231
41-44
104, 119
8-9
• ¦ • 63
43
. 6g
10
52, 135, 184
xiii. —
98, 136
11
. 114
1
• 263
12-14 .
38, 161, 217
3
.. 70
14
. 212, 218
3-4
• 45
15
. 114
10
78,99
15-18
. 115, 148
11
. 186
17
• 174
15-16 .
• 36
INDEX TO REFERENCES

285

Ref.

' Page

Ref.

Page

xiii. 17 .... 145

xiv. 30

• 78, 143

17-18 .

• 36
32
. 267
ig
. igo
32-35 '
. 169
. - 69
20
• 194
33-34 ¦
24-27 .
¦ 39
33-39 •
• 143
26
7
g, 102, 184
36 67, 193, 195, 190, 25°
27
. 102
38 - ¦
142, 143, IB7
28-2g
• 38
44
. 114
30
• 99
48
• 37
30-31 32
k
. 80
>o, 193, 249
50-52 .
61
. 114
. 268
xiv. —
. 114
61-62 .
¦ 184, 195
3-9
H9, 231
66-72 .
. 114
. 18
4-5
. 146
67
5
9 10
. 129
- - 78
. 176
XV. — 23
• 137
. 268
. 176
13 14
21 22
. - 36
. 147, 231
. 150, 231
. 265
10 11
3134
. 176
• 176
. 176
67, 143, 196, 269
22-24
. 232
. 43
• 137
. 18
22-25
52
xvi. 6
25
. 102
7
. H4
INDEX TO SUBJECTS

Subject

Page

Subject

Page

Acts, Account of Jesus in

8

Family life . . . 122

144

Apostles, their call

2g

Forgiveness

155

— social relations with Jesus

, 68

Future life .

100

— social status of

111

Asceticism .

153

God, Idea of

188

Authority

76

Gospels, method of study .

2

— of Old Testament .

85

— origin ....

10

Authorship of O.T. books

85

— interrelation .

12

— apocryphal . . 1;
> 26
Birth ....
ig, 26
— trustworthiness
74
Blasphemy .
156
Books, Favourite .
84
Hell 
102
Holy Spirit ....
185
Characteristic acts
66
Humility . . . 152,
167
Charity
I2g
Children, Treatment of
125
Incarnation, Meaning of 39
.70,
Christianity, a historical re
72, 107, 138, 162, 196,
228,
ligion .
3
272,
274
— nature of its witness tc
Insight ....
77
Jesus .
4
Ipsissima verba .
67
Claims, Personal
229
Creeds
15, 16
Jerusalem, Knowledge of .
113
Criticism, textual
5
Jewish Church
173
— literary and historical
6
S. John's Gospel
11
8. John the Baptist
3i
Demonology
89
Devils, Power over
92
Kingdom of God . 131,
188
Discipleship
232
Knowledge, Jesus', of himself
234
— Limitation of .
74
Emotion ... 6
4, 143
Eschatology
96
Language, of home life
36
Evangelistic zeal
150
— of village
37
Evil, Personal power of
90
— of country
37
Faith ....
169
S. Mark's Gospel
13
— its part in miracles 57, 15
'2, 205
Marriage and Divorce
123
286
INDEX TO SUBJECTS

287

Subject

Page

Subject

Page

Messianic Consciousness

180

269

Prophetic power .

• 77

Method of Inquiry

13, if'

Ministry, Early .

61
Reincarnation
IOI
Miracles of healing
201
Reserve in religion
. 168
— " of nature " .
210
Moral principles .
141
Sadducees .
Scribes
¦ 179
• 177
New Testament, its witness
Scripture
. 81
to Jesus
6
Sects, Religious .
Self-sacrifice
"3, 175
• 152
Old Testament, Jesus' use
of
81
Sin, Treatment of
Sinlessness .
• 153
• 157
Parables
47
Social Questions .
. 128
Parousia . 7g, g8,
247
264
— Reform .
. 130
Passion, Predictions of
246
S. Paul's account of Jesus .
7
Teaching, Methods of
• 43
Personal offences
149
— public and private
• 50
Pharisees
178
Temptation .
. 142
Political questions
126
Thought, ways of
. 104
Possession .
,
89
Tolerance .
• 151
Priests ....
176
Private property .
146
Wealth
. 116
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