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 Cornell University Library 
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 Hebrew-Christian Messiah: or, The. presen 
 
 olin 
 
 3 1924 029 340 779 
 
The original of tiiis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924029340779 
 
The Hebrew-Christian Messiah 
 
The Hebrew-Christian Messiah 
 
 Or The Presentation of the 
 Messiah to the yews in the 
 Gospel according to St. Matthew 
 
 Being Twelve Lectures delivered before the 
 
 Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn on 
 
 the Foundation of Bishop Warburton 
 
 in the years 1 9 1 1 - 1 9 1 5 
 
 By 
 
 A. LUKYN WILLIAMS, D.D. 
 
 Vicar ofGuilden Morden tf Hon. Canon of 
 Ely Cathedral, formerly Tyrwhitt Hebrew 
 Scholar in the University of Cambridge 
 
 IVith an Introductory Note by 
 The Bishop of Ely 
 
 SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING 
 CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE 
 LONDON: 68 HAYMARKET 
 
 1916 
 5 
 
" And I beleue also and professe, that Jesu Christe is not 
 only Jesus, and lorde to all menne that beleue in him, but also 
 that he is my Jesus, my god, and my lorde." 
 
 The Institution of a Christian man, 1537, /. 2 § 2. 
 
 ^ HE? 
 
Introductory Note 
 
 By the Bishop of Ely 
 
 DR. LUKYN WILLIAMS has asked me to 
 write a few words of preface to the Lectures 
 contained in this volume. Such a preface, I 
 confess, seems to me unnecessary; for the Lectures 
 themselves make their sufficient appeal to any one 
 who has a genuine interest in the great problems with 
 whiqh they deal. I cannot, however, refuse the re- 
 quest of a friendship which is ' hastening to fulfil ' 
 its fortieth year. 
 
 There is no subject within the whole range of 
 Christian theology which in so high a degree demands 
 for its treatment reverence, honesty, sobriety, know- 
 ledge, scholarship, as the early history of the doctrine 
 of our Lord's Person. Moreover, in the scientific 
 prosecution of this study it seems to be essential 
 that the careful investigation of each small section 
 of the whole field should prepare the way for the 
 work of generalisation. For many reasons the 
 Gospel according to St. Matthew holds a position of 
 singular significance. And this Gospel is the one 
 which Dr. Lukyn Williams has chosen as his subject. 
 Many years ago he allowed me to read the proofs 
 of a work of his dealing with part of this same Gospel. 
 I was then able to give a good deal of time to what 
 he had written. And I at once saw that he possessed 
 those qualifications which I have indicated above. In 
 particular I learned much from his wide acquaintance 
 with Jewish literature and thought both ancient and 
 
INTRODUCTORY NOTE 
 
 modern ; and since then he has been continually 
 adding to his store. 
 
 Though now with but little leisure at my disposal 
 I have read with some care what I believe to be the 
 most characteristic parts of these Lectures. And 
 of this I am sure, that the arguments and the con- 
 clusions set forth in the following pages are the 
 outcome of first-hand knowledge and of long- 
 continued thought, and are a contribution of real 
 importance to the study of a group of momentous 
 problems. 
 
 F. H. Ely. 
 St Matiliew's Day, 1916. 
 
 VI 
 
Preface 
 
 THE following Lectures are, in the first place, 
 an attempt to understand the motives with 
 which the author of the First Gospel composed 
 his book, and to interpret his words in the sense in 
 which he desired the contemporary believers of his 
 own race to apprehend them. This is not easy for 
 us who live in the twentieth century, and have been 
 brought up in Christian and non-Jewish surroundings. 
 But the attempt must be made. 
 
 Secondly, they desire to be more than only 
 academic, and, as occasion offers, to expound the 
 teaching of St. Matthew in its relation to ourselves. 
 In this there is nothing new. Almost every com- 
 mentator on the Gospel, perhaps every single one 
 before the nineteenth century, has tried to draw out 
 some of its moral and spiritual lessons for the men 
 of his own day. The only direction in which the 
 present writer can hope to have anything fresh to 
 bring forward is to be found in the light which the 
 First Gospel sheds when it is studied, so far as may 
 be possible, in the spirit, and from the point of view, 
 of its Hebrew-Christian author. 
 
 Thirdly, the writer hopes that incidentally his 
 work may be of service in the cause of presenting 
 Christ to the Jews of to-day, whether by a more 
 exact statement to them of the nature of portions 
 of Christian truth than is generally offered, or by a 
 clearer elucidation to Christians of the difficulties 
 felt by many Jews in accepting the Lord Jesus. 
 
 yii « 
 
PREFACE 
 
 It may be that to those whose studies have not 
 been directed towards Jewish thought and literature 
 a few of the details of the exposition will seem strange. 
 This is perhaps even inevitable, for that growth in 
 our knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, our blessed 
 Saviour and Redeemer, which the Holy Spirit has 
 been commissioned to unfold to us, implies that 
 earlier conceptions must be replaced by new, and 
 we are all well aware that the adjustment of old to 
 new, of past to present, which is the unfailing mark 
 of vitality in every part of creation, may bring surface 
 scars, while it developes and perfects the life. 
 
 But the writer prays that every word he has 
 uttered may tend to ' the light of the knowledge of 
 the glory of God in the face of Christ.' 
 
 P.S. — The author regrets that his Lectures were 
 completed and delivered before the publication of 
 books which would otherwise have been of much 
 assistance to him, in particular Dr. McNeile's Com- 
 mentary on the Gospel according to St. Matthew, 
 Dr. Headlam's The Miracles of the New Testament, 
 Dr. lUingworth's The Gospel Miracles, and the recent 
 volume of his friend Canon Box, The Virgin Birth 
 of Jesus : a critical examination of the Gospel-narratives 
 of the Nativity, and other New Testament and early 
 Christian evidence, and the alleged influence of heathen 
 ideas. 
 
 yui 
 
Contents 
 
 PAQE 
 
 Introductory Note by the Bishop of Ely . . v 
 Preface ........ vii 
 
 LECTURE ONE 
 
 INTRODUCTORY — THE GENEALOGY — THE 
 BIRTH TO THE MANIFESTATION IN GALI- 
 LEE—THE EVANGELIST'S USE OE SCRIPTURE 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 Hebrew-Christians after the Fall of Jerusalem needed 
 encouragement . . . . . . 3 
 
 They already possessed St. Mark and ' Q ' . . 4 
 
 Why the author wrote in Greek .... 6 
 
 The duty of modern Christians to present Christ to 
 modern Jews ....... 8 
 
 Plan of the Lectures stated . . . . .10 
 
 Materials for learning the representation of the 
 Messiah current among Jews c. 25 a.d. . . ,, 
 
 The new facts compelled a modification of such a 
 representation, the result being Christianity . . 12 
 
 I. The Genealogy — ^its form and meaning . . 14 
 
 II. The Virgin-Birth. Isa. vii. 14 considered. How 
 
 far St. Matthew regarded it as a ' proof ' . .20 
 
 III. The Place — ^Bethlehem. Micah v. 2 considered 26 
 The visit of the Magi 28 
 
 IV. The Flight to Egypt. Hosea xi. 1 . . . 30 
 
 V. The Massacre of the Innocents. Jer. xxxi. 
 
 (xxxviii.) 15 . . . . . . .31 
 
 VI. Nazareth ....... 33 
 
 VII. The Messiah and John the Baptist, the true 
 Elijah 34 
 
 ix 
 
FAQIt 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 VIII. The Baptism and the Voice .... 39 
 
 IX. The Temptation ....•• 41 
 
 X. The Manifestation in .Galilee ... 46 
 
 LECTURE TWO 
 
 THE JEWISH PARTIES IN THE TIME OF 
 THE MESSIAH, ESPECIALLY THE PHARISEES 
 
 I. The Essenes ....... 51 
 
 II. The Sadducees ...... 53 
 
 The name from the Zadok in David's time, and its 
 application connected with the claim of the High 
 Priests to be ' sons of Zadok ' . . . • „ 
 
 But including nobles as well as members of the High 
 Priestly family ....... 54 
 
 Pro-Roman in politics, and both conservative and 
 worldly in religion . . . . . .55 
 
 Described in the Assumption of Moses ... 57 
 
 Passages in this Gospel dealing with them . . 59 
 
 III. The Pharisees ...... 62 
 
 1. The Scribes ........ 
 
 Oral law a necessity when there is a code . . 63 
 
 Their origin and history ..... 64 
 
 Passages in this Gospel implying that some became 
 
 Christians ....... 67 
 
 But most were opposed to Christ ... 68 
 
 2. The Pharisees as such ..... 72 
 
 i. Their connexion with the Assidseans . . „ 
 
 ii. The ordinary members of the party, of which 
 
 the leaders were scribes . . . ■ „ 
 
 iii. The name and their history . . . . „ 
 
 X 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 IV. Two points of extreme importance ... 74 
 
 They had httle authority in the time of our Lord „ 
 
 They themselves were divided into two parties, 
 the harsher having the greater power . . „ 
 
 3. Passages in this Gospel dealing with them . . 76 
 
 i. Our Lord's indictment „ 
 
 ii. The favourable opinion of them expressed by 
 
 many modern scholars .... 80 
 
 iii. Suggested explanations of the severity of the 
 
 Gospels' 83 
 
 The probable solution 89 
 
 The verdicts of St. Paul and the Messiah hold 
 
 good to-day ...... 92 
 
 LECTURE THREE 
 
 MESSIAH, THE HEALER OF DISEASE 
 
 Twenty years ago apologists believed in 
 miracles because they first believed in Christ : 
 now they are reverting to the earlier order, 
 and the place of miracles in the evidence to 
 Christ is being recognised ..... 97 
 
 I. The Position of Miracles in St. Matthew's 
 
 Presentation of the Messiah to the Jews . 98 
 
 1. The impossibility of severing the miracles from 
 
 the history ........ 
 
 2. The Jews did not deny the fact of Christ's miracles, 
 
 but attributed them to demonic power . . 99 
 
 3. Miracles at heathen temples, and down to our 
 
 own time ....... 103 
 
 4. How far St. Matthew regarded the miracles as 
 
 evidence for the Messiahship .... 105 
 
 xi 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 II. The Position of Miracles in the Evidences 
 FOE Christianity to-day 
 1. The classification of our Lord's miracles 
 
 PAGE 
 
 113 
 114 
 
 116 
 119 
 120 
 
 121 
 122 
 
 2. The explanation of them , . . ■ 
 i. ' Functional diseases ' . 
 ii. ' Organic ' . 
 iii. The raising of the dead 
 iv. On inanimate nature .... 
 
 3. The relation of our Lord to His miracles 
 i. Non-Biblical cures examined . 
 ii. In the case of our Lord .... 
 
 a. No evidence that He claimed to perform His 
 
 miracles by His own power as God . . 123 
 
 b. He the Ideal, or Archetypal, Man doubtless 
 
 combined in Himself all powers which are 
 intrinsically human . . . . . „ 
 
 c. The explanation suggested by the Evangelist 
 
 is that they are the result of His bearing on 
 Himself sickness and its cause . . . 125 
 
 d. Christ's own explanation of miracles wrought 
 
 by His disciples is that they were performed 
 
 by God in answer to prayer . . . 126 
 
 iii. We thus have left to us three possible methods 
 by which our Lord performed His miracles, 
 and probably all three were combined . . „ 
 
 The use of His human powers. 
 
 Utter self-sacrifice for men, 
 
 Faith on His Father in heaven . . . „ 
 
 4. His miracles are evidence to Him on the predictive 
 
 side and the moral ..... 128 
 
 Appendix. A few examples of non-Biblical miracles of 
 
 healing ........ 131 
 
 xii 
 
CONTENTS 
 LECTURE FOUR 
 
 THE MESSIAH AS TEACHER— HIS ORIGINALITY 
 
 PAGB 
 
 I. Currents of Thought likely to Influence Him 143 
 
 1. Not Buddhist 144 
 
 Nor Persian (belonging to His time), nor Greek 
 directly ....... 145 
 
 2. But Hellenism as seen in the Apocrypha . . 146 
 
 and the Pseudepigraphic books, in proportion as 
 these were akin to the Old Testament . . „ 
 
 Influence of Apocalyptic teaching in the home-life 
 of our Lord ....... 147 
 
 3. The Oral Law was necessary if the Law was 
 
 treated as a code ...... 148 
 
 But the contents of the Oral Law in our Lord's day 
 cannot be defined, and it is uncritical to illustrate 
 Jewish life and thought in His time by state- 
 ments in later books . . . . .149 
 
 It is very improbable that sayings common to the 
 New Testament and the Rabbis were borrowed 
 by the latter .... ... 151 
 
 II. How far He was Affected by these Currents 152 
 
 St. Matthew says so much of Him as Teacher that 
 he may contrast Him with Jewish teachers . ,, 
 
 1. The form of His teaching had much in common 
 
 with theirs, especially externally: . . . 154 
 
 Parables. Hyperbole. Pithy sayings . . „ 
 
 The Discourses, were they spoken as they stand ? 157 
 Quotations from the Old Testament . . • „ 
 
 2. His independence, and the originality of His 
 
 treatment ....... 158 
 
 xiii 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 A fundamental difference ; He does not appeal to 
 authority ....... 158 
 
 No sign of eclecticism, or of systematisation . .159 
 
 He raises every question to a higher plane through 
 His character and personality . . .160 
 
 We have thus seen both the influence of current 
 thought upon Him, and His originality . . 161 
 
 This shown from the Lord's Prayer . . • ,, 
 
 and His great Commandment of Love . .167 
 
 LECTURE FIVE 
 
 THE MESSIAH AS TEACHER— THE PERMAN- 
 ENCE OF THE LAW 
 
 The Messiah states that the Law is permanent . 181 
 
 I. What did He mean by the ' Law ' ? . . .182 
 
 II. What Kind of Permanence did He attribute 
 
 TO It ? 183 
 
 Not the literal observance of its details, as the 
 
 Orthodox Jews insist . . . . • „ 
 
 Nor the observance only of its more important parts, 
 as the Reform Jews teach ... . . 184 
 
 Nor the observance of the written in contrast to 
 the oral Law ...... 186 
 
 But the principles and truths lying at the base of 
 the details ....... 187 
 
 Such a kind of permanence is not wholly contradictory 
 to Rabbinic teaching, though an attempt is made 
 to combine with it the literal observance . . 190 
 
 III. Did He make any Distinction between His 
 Jewish and His Gentile Followers ? . . 191 
 
 No, for during His life on earth He had, we may say, 
 
 no Gentile followers ..... 192 
 
 xiv 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 FAQE 
 
 IV. Are Jewish Christians at Liberty to Observe 
 
 THE Jewish Law Literally, either in its 
 Details or in its more Important Parts ? . 193 
 
 This appears to be contrary to the kind of permanence 
 
 attributed to the Law by Christ . . . „ 
 
 And in any case is not possible in the present landless 
 
 condition of the Jewish nation. (See Appendix.) „ 
 
 V. What Relation does the Messiah's Statement 
 
 OF THE Permanence of the Law hold to St. 
 Paul's Verdict that it was of a Temporary 
 Character ?....... 194 
 
 The true meaning of the word Tom/i . . ■ „ 
 
 St. Paul did not misinterpret it, and in any case he 
 was not writing to theologians . . . .199 
 
 He regarded its external observance, the Messiah its 
 inner depths ....... 200 
 
 VI. What Relation does Christ's Teaching as a 
 whole, the Gospel, hold to the Law ? . . 201 
 
 It is not a second Law, although the word has been 
 used of it, with a lack of exactness . . . ,) 
 
 The legal spirit has too often invaded Christianity . 202 
 
 But the subject of the New Testament is not a 
 system but a Person ..... 204 
 
 Appendix. A Hebrew-Christian Church . . . 205 
 
 LECTURE SIX 
 
 the messiah as teacher— the ethical 
 demands in the sermon on the mount 
 
 Much was already well known . . . 217 
 
 Examples. Purity, Oaths, Charity, l/ove of money „ 
 Our Lord endeavoured to impress on His hearers all 
 
 the best in what they had learned . . . 222 
 
 XV 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAOB 
 
 II. Yet Parts, it is said, seemed Impracticable 
 
 AND Undesirable ....•• 223 
 
 Examples. Marriage and Divorce, Oaths, Charity, 
 Wealth 
 
 Is the Sermon on the Mount suited only for vision- 
 aries, or at best for a very small community ? . 229 
 
 III. Certain Considerations ..... 230 
 
 1. Jewish-Christians less likely than we to misunder- 
 
 stand hyperbolic statements, or to underrate 
 the burden of the Law . . . • • » 
 
 2. We must not isolate single demands from the 
 
 Sermon as a whole ..... 231 
 
 i. Though the Sermon as a whole has been attacked, 
 e.g. for its omissions. It, however, never pre- 
 tends to be a code ..... 232 
 
 i. Its demands are said to be too high for the 
 
 average man ...... 233 
 
 But they are addressed only to sincere believers, 
 up to the highest stage of spiritual progress . 234 
 
 Dependence of the heart on God is presupposed 235 
 
 The importance of such humility before God is 
 indeed recognised in Jewish writings, but has 
 always been too much forgotten . . . 237 
 
 Our Lord's words are contrary to the conven- 
 tional religion of the ' average man ' . . 240 
 
 iii. Christ expects no blind performance of His 
 
 demands ........ 
 
 The believer draws on his fellowship with God 
 for knowledge to know how to act in details . 242 
 
 3. The demands said to be subversive of society and 
 
 the nation ....... 243 
 
 Christ rightly makes no distinction between in- 
 dividual and national ethics .... 245 
 
 But the application depends on the spiritual state 
 of individuals and of nations . . . . „ 
 
 xvi 
 
CONTENTS 
 LECTURE SEVEN 
 
 THE MESSIAH— THE SON OP DAVID 
 
 FAQB 
 
 Introductory ....... 249 
 
 I. The Belief in a coming National King . . 250 
 In the Old Testament 251 
 
 the Apocrypha 252 
 
 the Pseudepigraphic Writhigs . . . • ,, 
 
 and Rabbinic works ...... 256 
 
 The nature of it illustrated also by the false Messiahs 258 
 
 Yet St. Matthew dares to claim the meek and gentle 
 
 Jesus as the true Son of David ! . . . 259 
 
 II. Passages in the Gospel where the Title is Used 260 
 The reality of the Jewish origin of Jesus . . . 261 
 The inheritance through Joseph .... 262 
 Mary also of the Davidic line .... 264 
 Other passages, in particular xxii. 41-45 . . 266 
 The current view of the Messiah as the Son of David 
 
 v/as insufficient. Jesus moved on a higher plane 273 
 
 LECTURE EIGHT 
 
 THE MESSIAH— THE SON OF MAN 
 
 I. Pre-Christian Passages where the Phrase 
 
 Occurs. Ezekiel, Daniel, Enoch ; cf. 2 (4) Esdras 277 
 
 II. Preliminary Questions with Regard to its 
 
 Employment by our Lord .... 285 
 
 1. Why did not His hearers understand Him to refer 
 
 to the Messiah ? . . . . . • j> 
 
 Was it that the Book of Enoch was generally 
 unknown ? . . . . . . • „ 
 
 xvii 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 FAOB 
 
 Or that the contrast between the future Son of 
 man in glory and Himself seemed too great to 
 
 suggest identity ? ..... 286 
 
 2. Did our Lord Himself really employ the term ? . 287 
 
 3. What did He mean by it ? . . . .288 
 Especially in Aramaic ?..... 289 
 Probably the stress lies not on ' Son ' but on ' man ' 290 
 
 III. The Threefold Use of the Phrase in the Gospel 291 
 
 1. The Son of man suffering and dying . . . „ 
 
 2. The Son of man exercising power . . . 293 
 
 3. The Son of man coming in the future to judge . 297 
 
 IV. Impressions produced by the Consideration 
 
 OF these Passages ..... 301 
 
 1. What was the source from which our Lord derived „ 
 
 the phrase ? . 
 
 2. Why was it His favourite title ? . . . 304 
 
 3. Why did our Lord use it, and not the first person ? 306 
 
 4. He would also teach by it a wider meaning of 
 
 Messiahship than Jews had acknowledged . 307 
 
 5. It has a permanent significance for ourselves . „ 
 
 LECTURE NINE 
 
 THE MESSIAH— THE SON OF GOB 
 
 I. The Significance of the Phrase in St. Matthew 311 
 
 1. Its earlier history ...... 312 
 
 2. Its usage in St. Matthew 315 
 
 II. Reasons for Belief in the Full Divinity of 
 
 Jesus 326 
 
 1. In the case of St. Matthew ... 
 
 2. In our own case ...... 328 
 
 i. We believe ...... 
 
 a. Not because St. Matthew did 
 
 b. Nor because of the authority of the Church 
 
 xviii 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 FAQE 
 
 c. But because of the pressure of the facts re- 
 lated in the Gospel ..... 329 
 
 The irreducible minimum . . . 331 
 
 Unsatisfactory explanations of them . 332 
 The reasons that weigh with us . . „ 
 
 ii. Objections ....... 333 
 
 a. Spirit clothe itself with matter ! . . . „ 
 Answer, The objection antiquated. We 
 only know matter in connexion with spirit „ 
 h. Is it consonant with the dignity of God that 
 
 the Godhead should be in Jesus ? . . 335 
 
 If we think in terms of space, regardless of 
 man's nature and man's sin . . . „ 
 
 But Love and Holiness are greater than space. 337 
 Other attributes would be impossible in a man 
 if he is to be man ..... 338 
 
 iii. Wherein lies Jesus' personality ? Is it human 
 
 or Divine ? ....... 
 
 What is personality ? . . . . ■ ?, 
 Jesus' personality Divine, but not non-human, 
 this being the necessary self-limitation of 
 God 339 
 
 iv. The self -limitation of God Himself so far as He 
 is in contact with nature — i.e. Jesus is very 
 God of very God 342 
 
 LECTURE TEN 
 
 THE MESSIAH AND THE APOCALYPTISTS 
 
 Introduction 
 
 Catastrophe, Development, Catastrophe are the 
 law of life . . . . " • • -347 
 
 I. The Apocalyptists ...... 348 
 
 Their teaching not esoteric, but popular , . . 349 
 
 xix 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 It was rejected by the Pharisaic leaders of Judaism, 
 partly because it tended to draw men's minds 
 away from the Oral Law .... 350 
 
 Partly because Christianity had so much in common 
 
 with it . . . . . . . . 351 
 
 Its main subject the approaching change, which was 
 often connected by them with the Messiah . . 352 
 
 Illustrations . . . . . . • ,, 
 
 II. Our Lord's Attitude to this Teaching . . 358 
 While He clearly accepted it as a whole we find diffi- 
 culty in perceiving whether He expected the 
 kingdom to come in its fulness at once . . 359 
 
 The sources used by St. Matthew . . . . ,, 
 
 Sometimes our Lord implies that the kingdom has 
 come already ........ 
 
 Sometimes that it has not come, but is near at hand . 360 
 Sometimes that many years will pass before its full 
 manifestation '. . . . . . . 361 
 
 Results — while Q and St. Matthew's ' Sondergut ' 
 (Mt) presuppose that the kingdom has already 
 come, and Q and Mk expect it immediately, Mt 
 also lays special stress on the length of time that 
 will elapse ....... 362 
 
 Explanations of the threefold utterances of our Lord ,, 
 
 III. The Real Nature of the Final Consummation 368 
 Appendix on Matt. xxiv. ..... 369 
 
 LECTURE ELEVEN 
 
 THE MESSIAH AND THE CROSS 
 
 Why does the Evangelist lay so much stress on the 
 Passion ? 373 
 
 I. A Preliminary Question : Upon whom does he 
 LAY the Responsibility for the Death of 
 Christ ? .......,, 
 
 The Romans ? 374 
 
 The Sadducees ? 375 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 ekOF. 
 
 The Pharisees ? 387 
 
 The People ? 380 
 
 The Passion suggests that there is something radically 
 
 wrong with the human race .... 381 
 
 II. The Value and Effect of the Death in the 
 
 Light of the First Gospel . . . . „ 
 
 Jesus expected suffering from the very " first. His 
 
 horror of the cup at Calvary .... 383 
 
 The reasons for the self-sacrifice .... 384 
 
 To ' save His people from their sins ' . . .386 
 
 The ransom ....... 387 
 
 The blood of the covenant .... 388 
 
 'Bearing' 390 
 
 Even in His death there was hope .... 392 
 
 LECTURE TWELVE 
 
 THE MESSIAH— THE VICTOR 
 
 I. St. Matthew's Reply to Jewish Opponents . 397 
 
 The Jews have never denied that the tomb was 
 empty, but assert that human hands removed the 
 Body „ 
 
 St. Matthew's reply, and objections to it considered 398 
 
 II. The Nature of the Resurrection of the Lord's 
 
 Body 401 
 
 The mere survival of His personality insuflPicient . 402 
 St. Paul and the empty tomb .... 404 
 Events in our Lord's life preparatory to His Resurrec- 
 tion 406 
 
 Science and the Resurrection . , , , 407 
 
 ?0?j 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 III. The Lord's Interpretation of His Victory 
 
 OVER Death ....... 408 
 
 Why in Galilee ? „ 
 
 The Messiah supreme ...... 409 
 
 The admission of Gentiles to the faith . . ■ ,> 
 
 The everlasting Presence ..... 410 
 
 Summary of the Lectures and Conclusion . . „ 
 
 Indices — 
 
 I. Names and Subjects ...... 415 
 
 II. Holy Scripture and other Early Literature . 423 
 
 XXH 
 
Lecture One 
 
 INTRODUCTORY — THE GENEALOGY — THE 
 BIRTH TO THE MANIFESTATION IN 
 GALILEE — THE EVANGELIST'S USE OF 
 SCRIPTURE 
 
' The hook of the generation 
 of Jesus Christ, the son of 
 David, the son of Abraham.'' 
 —Matt. i. 1. 
 
Lecture One 
 
 INTRODUCTORY — THE GENEALOGY — THE 
 BIRTH TO THE MANIFESTATION IN 
 GALILEE — ^THE EVANGELIST'S USE OF 
 SCRIPTURE 
 
 JERUSALEM had fallen.i The long strain of 
 war was over. The ceaseless march of soldiers, 
 and the straggling parties of frightened fugitives, 
 ever bringing fresh news of disaster, were things of 
 the past. The few remaining religious leaders of the 
 Jews, notably Jochanan ben Zakkai, who had escaped 
 from Jerusalem only by allowing himself to be carried 
 out as though he were a corpse,^ were gathered at 
 Jamnia, and at Lydda,^ and were beginning to 
 discuss the best means of preserving Judaism in new 
 surroundings, in which there were neither Temple 
 nor sacrifices. For the revolt against the tyranny of 
 the heathen had failed ; the Romans had triumphed. 
 But to one body of men, gathered for the most 
 part at Pella across the Jordan, though now beginning 
 to return, even to the Holy City, the awful history 
 of the last few years had brought no surprise. They 
 were well aware that the real crisis of the nation had 
 taken place some forty years earlier, and that recent 
 events had been but the result of that. They had 
 indeed themselves lost much. Relations, friends, 
 
 ^ On the whole it is probable that the Gospel was written ' immediately 
 after' the capture of Jerusalem, 70 a.d. — Hamaok {Neue Untersuchungen, 
 1911, p. 93). 
 
 ' T. B. Qittin, 56 a.b. ; Lam. R. on i. 5 ; Aboth, d'E. Nathan, vi. (Scheohter's 
 edition, p. 10). 
 
 ' See Biichler, Die Priester und der Cultus im letzten Jahrzehnt dea 
 Jerusalemischen Tempels, 1895, p. 26. 
 
 3 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 possessions, had, in large measure, passed away from 
 them in this terrible Day of the Lord's judgment. 
 But their trust in Him, and in His Messiah, remained 
 unshaken. They, like their great teacher, who had 
 laid down his life in Rome some five or six years 
 earlier, knew Whom they had believed, and in steady 
 confidence braced themselves up for their new work, 
 luider the fresh conditions brought about by the 
 fall of Jerusalem. 
 
 Was then this to be the chief result of the appear- 
 ance of Messiah, that the beloved city should be 
 destroyed, its people, the peculiar treasure of the 
 Lord, be scattered and enslaved ? How did the 
 faith of those who believed in Jesus of Nazareth 
 consort with their position as Jews, to whom by race 
 and education they belonged ? Where could they 
 turn for comfort and encouragement ? Had they 
 no writings to guide them ? Nothing in their hands 
 to strengthen their faith and explain their present 
 difficulties ? They had indeed, like other Jews, 
 the revelation of God enshrined for them in the 
 Law, the Prophets, and the Holy Writings ; and 
 they had also some written memoirs of the life and 
 teaching of the Lord Jesus. Of these, the one which 
 was most in use is known to us to-day by the name 
 of the Gospel according to St. Mark,^ a summary of 
 the life and actions of the Lord, from the time of 
 His official entry upon His work until His resurrec- 
 tion. The outline contained in it had been used 
 as far back as the days of the very earliest preachers 
 of the Gospel,^ and it had embodied the substance 
 
 ^ After the investigations of Sir J. C. Hawkins and others the priority 
 of this may be said to be established. 
 
 ' St. Peter (Acts x. 37-41), St. Paul (Acts xiii. 24-31). 
 
I] INTRODUCTORY 
 
 of the message which St. Peter was accustomed to 
 dehver until the end of his Hfe.^ But, notwithstand- 
 ing, it was insufficient for the requirements, especially 
 the new requirements, of Jewish Christians. These, 
 for the most part, Jews observant of Jewish practices, 
 and worshippers at the Temple services while they 
 were held,^ desired more light upon the relation of 
 the Lord Jesus to the thoughts and hopes of those 
 to whom He appeared and among whom He taught. 
 They themselves had had experience of the difficulties 
 of their position. They had been compelled to listen 
 to many a bitter gibe at their beloved Master, for His 
 birth, for details of His life and words, for, above all. 
 His shameful death ; they had borne ridicule at 
 their poverty, blame for disobeying the traditional 
 law of their nation, and, as they were but hiiman, 
 they required to be strengthened in their Christian 
 faith. 
 
 True that they had heard from their teachers, 
 nay, even possessed already in some written form,^ 
 a collection of Sayings by the Lord Jesus, which 
 served to explain both His and their attitude towards 
 current Judaism, yet there was room, or, rather, an 
 earnest demand, for a permanent record, which should 
 enshrine in one short document the more important 
 parts of the history of the Lord in His relation to the 
 Jews, and present a picture — complete as far as it 
 went — of Jesus as the Messiah expected by their 
 nation, the Messiah who in reality was the completion 
 of the Divine purpose, foretold of old. 
 
 ^ So the Elder as quoted by Papias in Eusebius, Church History, iii. 39. 
 
 ' St. Paul, Acts xxi. 28 (56 a.d.), St. James the Lord's brother ; Eusebius, 
 Church History, n. 23 (about 60 a.d.). 
 
 ' Designated now by Q, which, speaking in very general terms, corresponds 
 roughly to the non-Marcan matter common to Matthew and Luke. 
 
 5 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 It is perhaps going too far to assert that that 
 Apostle was still alive, who, as it seems, had already 
 made an attempt to satisfy this demand. If he were, 
 he would be like Josephus, who, but a few years later, 
 having first written his ' War ' in Aramaic, as he 
 tells us, in order that his work might be read by the 
 people of the East, ' the Parthians, and the Baby- 
 lonians, and the remotest Arabians and those Jews 
 beyond Euphrates, with the Adiabeni,'^ then wrote 
 them over again in Greek, that his book might be of 
 use to the whole Roman Empire. But, in any case, 
 even if St. Matthew was not alive, there was one who 
 belonged to the same group of believers as he, and 
 had inherited his traditions, and held the same atti- 
 tude towards the Jews, and in particular the Jewish 
 leaders, as we can suppose the former tax-gatherer 
 once held. Whatever the Aramaic form of the First 
 Gospel contained, and at present we are almost 
 entirely ignorant of this, it was not sufficient for the 
 pressing needs of those who lived immediately after 
 the fall of Jerusalem.* 
 
 The author wrote in Greek, because he desired 
 to reach a wide audience. Aramaic would have 
 satisfied a part, perhaps the greater part, of those 
 Jewish Christians who lived in Palestine, but he 
 wished to help those many other believers belonging 
 to his own race, who had either settled there from 
 foreign countries, or were still abroad. It is probable, 
 
 » War, Preface, §§ 1, 2. 
 
 ' It will be convenient, however, for the purposes of these lectiires, to 
 speak of the author of the First Gospel briefly by the name of St. Matthew ; 
 but it must be understood that in doing so no claim is made that St. Matthew 
 himself was the actual writer of its present form. Tradition has invariably 
 assigned it to him, and it is hard to see why tradition should have assigned 
 it to so unimportant a member of the Apostolic band unless he had some 
 direct connexion with it. But we cannot say more. 
 
 6 
 
I] THE NEED OF THE HEBREW-CHRISTIANS 
 
 however, that we greatly underrate the number of 
 Greek-speaking Jews who before the war had made 
 their homes in Palestine, and also the influence that 
 the presence of many foreigners, Gentile as well as 
 Jewish, must have had upon the upper strata of the 
 people in all parts, and upon all classes in the north. ^ 
 We can understand, therefore, that now, when a 
 fresh record of the Lord's life was required, one which 
 should present it from a different point of view 
 from that hitherto chosen, and set it forth in con- 
 nexion with the more pressing difficulties of the 
 time, the Greek language was chosen as the medium 
 likely to reach most hearts. 
 
 It is evident, from what has been said, that this 
 Gospel according to St. Matthew was written for the 
 use of Jewish Christians, to build them up in the fear 
 and love of the Lord, and to lead them to understand 
 more accurately the relation, both of Himself and of 
 His teaching, to the Old Testament on the one hand, 
 and to the actual religion of the Jews on the other. 
 Hence the author would find it necessary to consider 
 not only the days of the Lord's sojourn in the flesh, 
 but also those in which he himself was writing. 
 Further, although the book was addressed strictly 
 to Christian, not to non-Christian, members of his 
 race, yet seeing that Jewish Christians would find in 
 it innumerable arguments enabling them to meet 
 objections adduced by their non- Christian neighbours, 
 we are justified in regarding it also as a presentation 
 of Messiah to the Jews. 
 
 Now to us, in our own day, this is a subject of 
 increasing importance. There was a time when, 
 
 ^ This is well brought out in the works of M. Friedlander, e.g., Die rdigiosen 
 Bewegungen, u.s.w., p. 16. 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 largely owing to our unworthy treatment of the sons 
 of Abraham, very few, if any, of them could be found 
 in our land. This is not the case now. They are 
 with us, and are deservedly taking a high place in the 
 State, and are gaining our esteem and confidence. 
 The qualities into which they have been trained by 
 centuries of persecution, and by their faithful adher- 
 ence, as a whole, to the traditional form of their 
 religion, and the study of the strange, but singularly 
 attractive, books in which it is enshrined, have made 
 them what they are — extraordinarily acute, and also 
 trustworthy. But, at the same time, Jews do not 
 shrink from criticising our Christian religion, and 
 from endeavouring, directly or indirectly, to show 
 that its fundamental doctrines are mistaken. On 
 the other hand, our own people are for the most part 
 extremely ignorant of Judaism, both past and present, 
 and, as they grow jealous of the Jew's success in 
 business, are inclined to vent their envy by employ- 
 ing methods quite unworthy of professing Christians. 
 Hence, whether we consider the defence of our own 
 faith, or the instruction of our own people, or, lastly, 
 the paramount duty resting upon us as believers in 
 the Lord Jesus, it is but right that we should try 
 to present Christ to the Jews afresh. Further, in 
 order to prepare ourselves for this task, it is well that 
 we should make the attempt to see how an early 
 Christian writer, himself of Jewish birth, and living 
 in daily intercourse with non-Christian Jews, regarded 
 Jesus of Nazareth, and so framed his description of 
 Plim as to help the other Jewish-Christians of his 
 time to meet arguments with which they were con- 
 tinually assailed. 
 
 It may be urged as an objection, that if this is the 
 
 8 
 
I] THE TRUST DEED OF THESE LECTURES 
 
 object of these Lectures, they will be controversial. 
 Yes, and No. No, for I trust that they will not be 
 controversial in any unworthy sense. Thoughtful 
 Christians of to-day do not desire to imitate the 
 methods, or entertain the feelings, of controversialists 
 of past generations. But controversial in the better 
 sense they must be, if they are to be faithful to the 
 words of the Trust Deed which governs their delivery. 
 For, according to this, the lectures are to be ' in the 
 form of a Sermon to prove the Truth of Revealed 
 Religion in General, and of the Christian in particular, 
 from the completion of those prophecies in the Old 
 and New Testament which relate to the Christian 
 Church, especially to the Apostasy of Papal Rome.' 
 I shall make no attempt to carry out the last clause, 
 nor indeed the first. The second and central clause 
 will be sufficient to occupy us throughout the course. 
 One book of the New Testament alone, continually 
 referring as it does to the Old Testament, will be 
 considered. 
 
 One other matter I must mention. These are 
 days in which attempts, and, on the whole, successful 
 attempts, are made to go behind the Gospels in their 
 present form, with a view to discover the sources, 
 documentary or oral, out of which they were composed. 
 I do not intend taking much notice of the many 
 important questions which these investigations sug- 
 gest. For, in the first place, it is agreed by most 
 critics that these sources themselves were earlier 
 than 70 a.d., the approximate date at which we put 
 the original composition of this Gospel ; and, secondly, 
 I myself feel sure that as it stands it represents the 
 truth about both the Person and the Teaching of the 
 Messiah. 
 
 9 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 The general plan of the Lectures is as follows. 
 
 The first, after making certain preliminary re- 
 marks, will consider the presentation of the Messiah 
 to the Jews, from His birth to the commencement of 
 His work, as contained in the first four chapters of 
 the Gospel. The second lecture will consider Him in 
 relation to the Jewish sects and parties of His day, 
 particularly the Pharisees. The third will deal with 
 St. Matthew's presentation of Him as the Healer of 
 disease. The fourth, fifth, and sixth Lectures will be 
 taken up with the presentation of Messiah as Teacher, 
 in particular His relation to the Law of Moses and the 
 traditional teaching of the Jewish religion. Lectures 
 seven, eight, and nine will treat of the three titles 
 which the Lord Jesus Himself accepted — ' The Son of 
 David,' ' The Son of Man,' and ' The Son of God,' 
 each bringing out one side of the complex character 
 and position of the Messiah. To these will be added 
 a lecture on the Messiah in His relation to the apoca- 
 lyptic teaching current at the time. Then will 
 follow one on Messiah the Sufferer, and, finally, 
 one on Messiah the Victor over death. Him who is 
 ' Immanael,' ' God with us.' In this way we shall 
 have gone — cursorily no doubt, but, I trust, suffi- 
 ciently for our immediate purpose — over the whole 
 of this First Gospel, and shall have learned, I hope, 
 something more of Him Who is here depicted for 
 us by one M^ho either himself had actually lived 
 with Him in the flesh, or, at the least, had received 
 his knowledge from one who had. 
 
 Before, however, we come to our subject proper, 
 we can hardly avoid asking ourselves what was the 
 representation of Messiah which was current among 
 
 10 
 
I] THE JEWISH REPRESENTATION OF MESSIAH 
 
 the Jews, in the time immediately preceding the pubHc 
 appearance of the Lord Jesus ? What were to be 
 the nature, character, position, work of the Messiah 
 according to the belief of the Jews, more particularly 
 the Jews of Palestine, in, say, the year 25 a.d. ? 
 It might have been thought that it would be fairly 
 easy to answer these questions. In reality it is not 
 so. For, in the first place, it is evident that we 
 cannot take the canonical books of the Old Testament 
 and affirm that their description of the Messiah is 
 so plain that the Jews of 25 a.d. must have accepted 
 it, for the nature of the description, if any, contained 
 in the Old Testament, both was and is a principal 
 matter of dispute between Jews and. Christians. 
 Neither, in our inquiry for information, can we turn 
 to a single non-canonical book, and say for certain 
 that it was acknowledged as authoritative, or even as 
 accurate, by the majority of Palestinian Jews at that 
 time, much less that it was composed at or about 
 that date. Neither, again, although we possess volu- 
 minous writings by Philo the Alexandrian, composed 
 from about 10 to 50 a.d.,^ and preserved to us solely 
 through the means of the Christian Church, can we 
 affirm that they correspond in any detail with the 
 opinions of Palestinian Jews contemporary with him. 
 The same difficulty, but increased in measure, meets 
 us when we attempt to use the works of Josephus, 
 composed after the fall of Jerusalem, and designed 
 to meet different needs from those existing in 25 a.d. 
 To be sure, there are the sayings of the Palestinian 
 teachers themselves in the Mishna, but the remains 
 of those who lived at this tipie are extraordinarily 
 
 ^ Philo was bom about 20 B.C., and visited Rome in 39 or 40 a.d., but 
 appears to have lived for some years longer. 
 
 11 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 scanty, and I am not aware that a single sentence 
 about the Messiah has survived which was uttered 
 by a Palestinian Rabbi as early as 25 a.d. No say- 
 ing by Hillel on this subject has come down to us,^ 
 no saying by Shammai, not even one by Gamaliel, 
 the teacher of St. Paul. No doubt there are sayings, 
 to which reference will be made as occasion serves, by 
 Rabbis who were, in fact, alive at or about that date. 
 But they were not spoken until later, and we cannot 
 be sure, to say the least, that they were not the 
 result, conscious or unconscious, of opposition to 
 Christian teaching. The evidence as to the nature 
 of the belief of the Jews in the Messiah before the 
 public appearance of our Lord is at best indirect, 
 and far from assured.^ 
 
 One thing must be borne in mind. It is the merit 
 of a recent Jewish writer upon the belief in Messiah 
 held by Jews during the first two centuries of our era,* 
 to have pointed out more plainly and emphatically 
 than has been done before, that the development of 
 Messianic beliefs has always been profoundly modified 
 
 * ' R. Hillel ' is a different person altogether. He was the son of 
 Gamaliel III, and hved in the third century a.d. 
 
 * Much information will be found scattered throughout this volume, 
 particularly in Lectures ATII-IX. Canon Charles' brief summary in his 
 Religious Development between the Old and the New Testaments, 1914, pp. 64-96, 
 may be consulted with advantage. Volz, Jiidische Eschatologie von Daniel 
 bis Ahiha, 1903, pp. 197-237, is very full. 
 
 ' Klausner, Die Messianischen Vorstellungen des judisches Volkes im 
 Zeitalter der Tannaim, 1904, p. 88 : 
 
 ' In der Regel (selbstredend hat auoh diese Kegel Ausnahmen) nicht der 
 Bibelvers (wenn er nicht klar und deuthoh auf irgend welche Thatsache hin- 
 weist) den neuen Gedanken hervorruft, sondem der schon aufgetauchte neue 
 Gedanke wird durch einen Bibelvers belegt und unterstiitzt.' 
 
 Besides, it must not be forgotten that the aim of the Gospel, and indeed 
 of all the historical books of the Bible, is not to prove by logic, but to attract 
 by presentation. It adduces facts rather than elaborate arguments. 
 
 12 
 
I] THE N.T. WRITTEN FOR BELIEVERS 
 
 by events ; that men did not take the Old Testament, 
 and by a study of it come to the conclusion that the 
 expected Messiah was to be of such and such a kind ; 
 but, on the contrary, they felt the burden of facts and 
 incidents in their own experience, and being sure that 
 the Messiah would correspond to these, turned to the 
 Old Testament to see if the confirmation of their hopes 
 was contained in it. We shall, no doubt, have occa- 
 sion to refer later on to this Jewish method of dis- 
 covering doctrines in the Old Testament, 
 
 Here it must suffice to say that the nature of the 
 Jewish belief in the expected Messiah about the year 
 25 A.D. was such, and, with possible exceptions in 
 detail, no more than such, as could be derived from 
 events known to them which had already taken place- 
 It remained for the new facts — ^the new great facts — 
 of the next few years to produce such a modification 
 and development in that belief that the result was 
 Christianity. 
 
 The experience of facts brought Christian truths 
 home to the consciousness of the devout. ' Of the 
 devout.' For they alone could be expected to under- 
 stand the revelation of the Lord, the fulness of the 
 Divine love in the Lord Jesus. No book in the New 
 Testament, it must be remeinbered, was written with 
 the aim of convincing unbelievers, whether Jewish 
 or heathen. Each had for its object the building 
 up of those who were already convinced. For the 
 believer in the Lord Jesus, and for him alone, was the 
 Gospel according to St. Matthew written, that he 
 might understand more fully how Jesus of Nazareth 
 answered to the expectations of the Jews of His time, 
 and far more than answered to them. His life, 
 teaching, death, and resurrection showed that, while 
 
 13 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 He was truly man, He was much more than man, 
 even very God, and also that everything He said, or 
 did, or bore, was strictly in accordance with the true 
 teaching of the revelation of God, contained in the 
 written word of God. 
 
 Let us now turn to the Gospel itself, and examine 
 its presentation of the Messiah until the commence- 
 ment of His public work, considering very cursorily 
 the Genealogy, the Virgin-birth (with its place and 
 time and the Visit of the Magi), the Flight to Egypt, 
 the Massacre of the Innocents, the home at Nazareth, 
 the position of John the Baptist, the Baptism (with 
 the Voice from heaven), the Temptation, and the 
 manifestation in Galilee, bearing in mind that the 
 narrative in every case was written for Jewish Chris- 
 tians, who were trying to live out their Christian 
 life among non-Christian Jews. 
 
 I. ' The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, 
 the son of David, the son of Abraham.' 
 
 It is a characteristic opening, likely to catch the 
 attention of every one of Jewish origin, especially 
 every one who was acquainted with the current Greek 
 translation of the Book of Genesis. For the phrase 
 ' the book of the generation ' is identical with the 
 Septuagint form in Genesis ii. 4 : ' The book of the 
 generation of heaven and earth,' and in v. 1 : 'The 
 book of the generation of men.' It is as though the 
 writer would carry back his readers to the beginning 
 of the creation of all things, and suggest to them that 
 here in the Lord Jesus Christ they would find One 
 with whom begins afresh the history of humanity. 
 ^Vhether indeed the writer really had this intention 
 in mind is not certain. We can but say that the 
 
 14 
 
I] THE SON OF ABRAHAM 
 
 thought of the Second Adam was known in Christian 
 circles long before the composition of this Gospel.^ 
 
 Yet St. Matthew does not dwell upon this. He is 
 concerned with other aspects of the Lord Jesus Christ, 
 who is entitled ' the son of David ' and ' the son 
 of Abraham.' To the former appellation we must 
 return in a later lecture. Here we need only remem- 
 ber that it suggests to every Jew the fulfilment of 
 the glorious promises made to David, and of the glad 
 expectation that one of his race should come to rule 
 in his spirit, and subdue the nations, bringing them 
 under the yoke of the kingdom of Jehovah, both in 
 politics and in religion. 
 
 Why, however, does the author add ' the son of 
 Abraham ' ? Is it merely a chance selection from 
 the multitude of David's ancestors ? Every Jew 
 knows better. It is nothing less than a claim, that 
 while to Abraham and his seed were the promises 
 made, the true seed was not so much the nation of 
 Israel, as He who was its finest product, its flower 
 and its fruit, Jesus Christ. But there was more 
 even than this in the expression. To the Christian, 
 as to the thoughtful Jew, Abraham was not only the 
 ancestor of the Jews, and the parent of their creed. 
 He was the first missionary to the heathen, and he 
 received from God the promise of becoming a blessing 
 to all the nations. It is not therefore by accident 
 that that very Gospel which shows the most plainly 
 of any of the four that the Lord Jesus was the Messiah 
 of the Jews, should also state more explicitly than 
 any the fact that He came also to call all nations to 
 the true knowledge of God. If the phrase ' the son 
 of David ' summoned every loyal Jew to range him- 
 
 1 On the doctrine cf. Lecture III, pp. 123 sq. 
 15 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 self under the banner of the King, the words ' the 
 son of Abraham ' bade him not be surprised that the 
 Gentiles were flocking in to worship Jesus the Christ. 
 If the Gentiles were being admitted in large numbers 
 to the Christian fold, this was only the carrying out 
 of the promise made to Abraham, and the completion 
 of the work which he began. The union of the two 
 phrases ' the son of David, the son of Abraham,' 
 proclaims Jesus as the Messiah of the Jews, and the 
 Light to lighten the Gentiles. 
 
 Then St. Matthew gives us a summary of Jewish 
 history (i. 2-17).^ It is in the form of a genealogy, 
 and as a genealogy it has for his purpose a special 
 value. But this must not make us overlook its 
 substance. The genealogy is, of course, thoroughly 
 Jewish in plan and method. St. Matthew has 
 arranged his matter by the Hebrew letters of the 
 word David.2 As David in Hebrew has three letters, 
 so in the genealogy there are three divisions. As 
 these three letters make up fourteen by numerical 
 value (for in Hebrew there are no separate numerals, 
 but to every letter a numerical value is attached), 
 so the writer arranges his matter in fourteens. Thus 
 at the end of the passage he is able to write (v. 17) : 
 ' So all the generations from Abraham unto David 
 are fourteen generations ; and from the carrying away 
 to Babylon unto the Christ fourteen generations.' 
 
 To a Jew the record of the names, for it is little 
 more, would be suflftcient. ' Abraham ' would recall 
 the summons from Ur of the Chaldees and the Goura- 
 geous venture of faith, which bade him, the first 
 
 ^ Of. Zahn, Das Evangdiwm des Matthaus, 1910, pp. 44, 50. 
 » Gfrorer, Die heilige Sage, 1838, ii. p. 9. See also Canon Box, The Virgin 
 Birth of Jesus, 1916, pp. 12 sqq. 
 
 16 
 
I] A SUMMARY OF JEWISH HISTORY 
 
 patriarch of the nation, set forth, trusting solely 
 on God's promise, not knowing whither he went. 
 ' Isaac ' would recall the obedient son, offering him- 
 self up to death, and restored, as it were, to life ; 
 ' Jacob ' the faults, the exile, then the change of heart 
 and character, with the promises attached to the 
 Israel of God ; ' Judah and his brethren ' would 
 hint at the opposition of the typical Jew to his inno- 
 cent brother, and the consequent misery in Egypt. 
 Then come names suggestive of the wild times, and 
 the low religious life, of the Judges. Only after 
 these, and that from a line not untainted with sin, 
 and even with heathenism, was born David the 
 king. 
 
 Here there is a pause. The first fourteen genera- 
 tions are completed. The author next brings before 
 us the events of the kingdom. David himself was 
 not sinless, and it was Bathsheba's second son who 
 became the famous Solomon. Rehoboam recalls 
 pusillanimity and the division of the kingdom ; the 
 names Abijah to Josiah various vicissitudes, now 
 good, now evil, in the rule of the kings, some of whom 
 were very bad, others good and adherents of the 
 worship of Jehovah, but all imperfect. The list 
 ends with Jechoniah (by which name, as it seems, 
 Jehoiakim is intended) and his brothers, with whom 
 the list of kings closes, for the nation is carried off 
 into a deserved captivity. Gone are the glories of 
 David, the kingdom has perished. 
 
 Isthere then no hope ? Shall the Lord's promises 
 prove to be of no effect ? The last fourteen genera- 
 tions supply the answer. God leaves not Himself 
 without successors to David, though they be no 
 longer in high estate. Jechoniah, Jehoiakim's son^ 
 
 17 Q 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 lived long in the captivity, but he had no son who 
 became king. His successor, whether by natural or 
 only legal succession we cannot say, but probably 
 the latter, was Shealtiel. To Shealtiel succeeded 
 Zerubbabel, who, as Jews would remember, received 
 the promise that he should be as a seal upon the 
 Lord's arm. With him the BibHcal evidence for the 
 succession came to an end, and in consequence the 
 remaining names until that of Joseph are of quite 
 unknown persons. Yet David's line did not die out. 
 It was maintained, in all probability, in many families.^ 
 But, as it seems, the direct line of heirship was 
 continued in that family of humble circumstances, 
 into which the Christ was born. God had not been 
 unfaithful to His promises. He had been preparing 
 the nation through the early years of its develop- 
 ment. He had raised up David, and allowed the 
 nation to feel both the good and the evil of earthly 
 rulers. He had brought down the nation in captivity, 
 and then had permitted a long season of humiliation 
 to follow — ^that thus, in spite of the political unim- 
 portance of the family of David, yes, perhaps even 
 because of this, it might be raised up to become the 
 recipient of the final gift of God.^ 
 
 Through many changes, by much affliction and 
 even through obscurity and neglect, God had been 
 carrying out His purpose and preparing the family 
 of David to receive the Christ. ' And Jacob begat 
 Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born 
 Jesus, who is called Christ.' ^ 
 
 ^ Down to the end of the second century of our era at least, and perhaps 
 much later. See Dalman, The Words of Jesus, 1902, pp. 321 sqq. 
 
 ' On the Davidic origin of our Lord see also Lecture VII, pp. 261 sqq. 
 
 ° It does not seem to be necessary to discuss the text of this verse (i. 16) 
 here. 
 
 18 
 
I] JEWISH SLANDERS REBUTTED 
 
 Before leaving this portion of the first chapter 
 of the Gospel, it is necessary to speak rather more 
 plainly about a subject to which allusion has already 
 been made — St. Matthew's reference to the four other 
 women besides the Virgin Mary. 
 
 It was indeed reserved for Jews of the early middle 
 ages to write out at length the filthy stories of the 
 birth and life of the Lord Jesus which are to be found 
 in the Toledoth Jeshu.^ But we are not justified in 
 supposing that these accusations had so late an 
 origin.^ On the contrary, it may be assumed that 
 unbelieving Jews made the Virgin-birth the subject 
 of ribald tales almost immediately after the fact was 
 divulged to Christians. If so, we can readily perceive 
 a reason for the strange way in which St. Matthew 
 draws attention to four of the mothers of persons 
 mentioned in the genealog5^ There would not appear 
 to have been any necessity for him to have men- 
 tioned Tamar, or Rahab, or even Ruth, or ' her that 
 had been the wife of Uriah,' at all, unless he had 
 desired to meet difficulties raised by Jews. In all 
 probability his reason for doing so was to bring 
 forward a demurrer against all such objections. 
 For they would come with a bad grace from Jews, 
 whose greatest kings — ^kings through whose line the 
 Messiah was confessedly to come — were themselves 
 descended from women, three of whom were of more 
 than doubtful reputation, and one of whom was even 
 of non-Jewish birth. The silent contrast of the 
 purity of Mary, and the irreproachableness of her 
 religion, would be felt by every Hebrew-Christian, 
 
 1 The standard edition of its different forms is in Krauss' Das Leien Jesu 
 nach judischen Qudlen, 1902. 
 
 » Cf. Zahn, op. cit. p. 66w ; Box, op^ dt. p. 14, 
 
 19 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 and would form a valuable weapon against the 
 shameless insinuations of the Jews. 
 
 II. In the next portion of the Gospel (i. 18-25) 
 St. Matthew deals speciflcallj'- with the birth of 
 Christ.^ He says that this was far otherwise than 
 Jewish slanders pretended. For the mother of Jesus 
 was absolutely pure, and Jesus was conceived of the 
 Holy Ghost, without the intervention of any human 
 fatherhood at all. Observe, first, the writer is above 
 all careful to point out that before, apparently long 
 before, the birth of Jesus His mother was legally the 
 wife of Joseph, who had already been shown to be the 
 heir to the kingdom. Secondly, stress is laid on the 
 character of Joseph, in order perhaps to suggest the 
 religious tone of the home in which Jesus was brought 
 up. But, as it seems, it is also said that the character 
 of Joseph was very different from that of the mere 
 legalist who exalted the letter of the law above its 
 spirit. For it is probable that we must read the nine- 
 teenth verse in the sense that because Joseph was a 
 man who entered into the true meaning of the law, 
 and therefore was of a kindly heart as well as strictly 
 just, he did not wish to put his wife away with 
 greater publicity than was necessary. The kindness 
 of his heart bade him put her away as privately as 
 he could. 
 
 His judgment, however, natural though it was, 
 was mistaken. She was guiltless of any wrongdoing. 
 He was convinced of this by a dream, in which an 
 angel appeared to him, and told him she was innocent. 
 
 ^ See Lecture VII, pp. 263 sqq. Hamack remarks : ' Die Verlobung gab 
 dem Maime die Reohte des Ehemanns' {Neue Vntersuchungen, 1911, p. 104). 
 See further Krauss, Talmudische Archaologie, 1911, ii. 36; Box, op. cit. pp. 
 209-214. After betrothal no further ceremony was necessary. 
 
 20 
 
I] THE ' VIRGIN ' OF ISA. VII. 14 
 
 Further, the angel himself, as it seems,^ confirms 
 this statement by an appeal to the prophet Isaiah : 
 ' Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and shall 
 bring forth a son, and they shall call his name 
 Immanuel.' The justice of this appeal has been 
 disputed by many Christians, and, much more 
 strangely, by Jews. For we as Christians sometimes 
 find it rather difficult to defend St. Matthew's use of 
 the prophet's words. Yet something may be said for 
 him even judging by the standard of modern exegesis. 
 
 We can certainly defend the use of the word 
 ' virgin,' and affirm that the Jewish translator of the 
 Septuagint made no mistake when he translated the 
 Hebrew word ^Almah by nrapdevo';. It is true indeed 
 that if we enquire only into the etymology of ''Almah 
 we find that it does not express virginity but only 
 sexual maturity, and therefore in itself the word 
 may be used for a young woman who is either single 
 or married. But in the actual usage of the Bible it 
 is limited to virgins. See, for example. Cant. vi. 8, 
 where virgins, ''alamoih, are contrasted with queens 
 and concubines. It is strange that in Hebrew 
 there is no word (I am speaking of Biblical usage 
 only, not of technical terms employed in later forms 
 of the language) which is used necessarily and ex- 
 clusively of a virgin, with the exception of 'almah. 
 Seeing that the word bethulim is used strictly of 
 ' virginity,' we should have expected that heihulah 
 would, as a matter of course, and by itself, have 
 meant ' virgin,' as indeed it generally does. But 
 
 * A comparison of xxvi. 56 (and perhaps also xxi. 4) suggests that this 
 is the utterance of the angel, although the exact mode of recording it is 
 the Evangelist's. See Ephraem's comment on the passage in Tatian's Diates- 
 saron : ' Quod si dubitas. Isaiam audi.' 
 
 21 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 this is not always the case. In Gen. xxiv. 16 a 
 further definition is required in order to ensure this 
 meaning, and in Joel i. 8 is found the simile of a 
 bethulah lamenting for the husband of her youth. 
 So far as usage is concerned — I do not say ety- 
 mology — ' almah is the only word in Hebrew that is 
 consistently employed to designate a virgin. 
 
 Isaiah then said, and intended to say, that the 
 Child was to be born of a virgin. But what child, 
 and what virgin ? Was it to be Isaiah's own child 
 by the virgin who was to become his wife ? Hardly, 
 for in viii. 8 Immanuel, the name given to the child 
 in the verse we are considering (vii. 14), is said to 
 OAvn the land of Palestine : ' Thy land, O Immanuel.' 
 Further, we can hardly distinguish the child of 
 chapters vii. and viii. from that of chapter ix., of 
 whom such glorious terms are predicated as ' Wonder- 
 ful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, 
 Prince of Peace.' Was then the child to be the son 
 of king Ahaz (to whom the prophet was speaking) 
 by, of course, a mother as yet unmarried? Ahaz, 
 an unspiritual person, unworthy to have divine 
 truth revealed to him, may have so understood the 
 words ; but, in any case, the child could not have been 
 Hezekiah, as some Jews have thought,^ for Hezekiah 
 was already nine years old when his father Ahaz 
 came to the throne.^ There is another explanation, 
 if we can trust the verdict of Pastor Jeremias, who, 
 writing out of the fulness of his knowledge, in his 
 book on the influence of Babylon on the New 
 Testament, says : ' If people had known the circle 
 
 1 So Trypho in Justin Martyr's Dialogue, § 67. See also Klausner, Die 
 Messianischen Vorstellungen, p. 69. 
 ' See Kimchi on Isa; vii. 15. 
 
 22 
 
I] ST. MATTHEW AND THE O.T. 
 
 of ideas current in the ancient East, they would 
 never have doubted that a son of a virgin was certainly 
 in the mind of the author of Isaiah vii.' ^ If this be 
 true, then we may suppose that Isaiah accepted the 
 belief of the East, and was commissioned to tell 
 Ahaz, the Deliverer shall be born of a virgin. Ahaz 
 himself, no doubt, may have been satisfied with 
 seeing in the words a promise of deliverance within 
 a year. But to Isaiah the words meant far more, 
 the fulfilment of God's promise in due course of the 
 birth of a Deliverer, the Messiah, from a virgin. 
 If this be the true explanation of the passage, 
 St. Matthew was, of course, fully justified in 
 quoting it as he did, even when judged by modern 
 Christian rules of quotation. 
 
 It must, however, be granted that we possess, so 
 far as I am aware, no pre-Christian evidence for such 
 an interpretation of the prophet's language by Jewish 
 writers, and that there is room for doubt whether 
 St. Matthew himself would have been aware of this 
 belief of Isaiah in the Virgin-birth of the Messiah, if 
 he did believe it.^ But, as a Jew of the first century 
 of our era, he would not feel compelled to quote a 
 passage of the Old Testament only in its original 
 sense. It would be sufficient for him if he found a 
 truth which he desired to affirm expressed in so many 
 words in the sacred scriptures independently of the 
 question whether these words properly meant this 
 truth or not. St. Matthew would be satisfied if he 
 found written : 'A virgin shall conceive and bear a son.' 
 
 He accepted the fact of the Virgin-birth of our 
 Lord, and gave the angel's assurance to Joseph in 
 
 ^ Bahylonisches im Neuen Testament, 1905, p. 47. 
 ^ See further Box, op. cit. pp. 162-170. 
 
 23 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 words taken from Scripture. The language of the 
 prophet was accepted by every Jew of the first century 
 as itself inspired, and for St. Matthew it was now 
 fulfilled by the marvellous fact recorded, the birth 
 of Messiah from a virgin. By ancient Jewish methods 
 of quotation at all events, if not by our methods, 
 the Evangelist was fully justified in quoting the 
 passage from Isaiah. 
 
 Passing from the question of the accuracy of St 
 Matthew's quotation, we ask : What did the fact of 
 the Virgin-birth mean to him ? What truth did it 
 seem to him to teach ? This — that now God was with 
 man, in a sense different from all human experience 
 before. To him the Virgin-birth was, as we should 
 say, a proof of the divinity of Jesus. ^ Let us not 
 misunderstand his position. He did not, so far as we 
 can see, accept the belief that Jesus was divine be- 
 cause He was born of a virgin. But, accepting the 
 divinity of Jesus on other grounds, then, when he 
 heard long afterwards from private information due 
 ultimately to Mary or Joseph, that Jesus was born 
 of no human father, he found this fully in accord- 
 ance with his previous faith in His divinity. The 
 Virgin-birth agreed with his belief that Jesus was 
 divine ; it played no part at all in producing that 
 belief. 
 
 But now, when he was presenting Jesus, the true 
 Messiah, to his fellow-Christians of Jewish race, 
 and through them to the many unbelieving Jews 
 among whom they lived, he laid stress on the 
 fact that Jesus was born of a pure Virgin, and 
 called attention to the prophecy of Isaiah, which 
 stated this in so many words. The statement of the 
 
 ' Cf. V. 23, end. 
 24 
 
I] THE VIRGIN-BIRTH ACCEPTED 
 
 fact, and the quotation of the scripture, together 
 formed a convenient summary, from which might 
 readily be deduced the argument that Jesus was 
 divine. 
 
 It is probable, indeed, that for ourselves we should 
 not be inclined to lay so much stress on the Virgin- 
 birth, if the doctrine had not been commended to 
 us by antiquity. We could not have affirmed, on a 
 priori grounds, that it was necessary for Jesus to be 
 born of a virgin if He was to be divine. At most, I 
 suppose, we could have said, I know not with how 
 much right, that it was easier for a Being to be born 
 free from Original Sin without than with human 
 fatherhood.^ But knowing what we know of the 
 Lord Jesus from other information concerning Him, 
 and accepting the truth of His divinity on quite other 
 grounds, we can see that it was fitting that even in 
 His birth He should be superior to all of us. We 
 ourselves do not, in logic and reason, believe in His 
 divinity because of His birth from a Virgin. But we 
 do see that the doctrine of His birth from a Virgin 
 fits in admirably with His life and teaching, and 
 therefore with His divinity.^ 
 
 We are not surprised, therefore, that the Virgin- 
 birth of our Lord has always been an integral part of 
 the Church's belief, and is to be found as early as the 
 creed preserved in the Apology of Aristides, written 
 about the years 140-145 a.d. If we were to give it up 
 now we should be acting not only against the evidence 
 of the New Testament (if this be judged with a due 
 regard for the privacy of such a communication in the 
 
 ^ Cf. Bishop P. Weston, Tie One Christ, 1914, pp. 239 sq. ; Illingworth, 
 The Gospel Miracles, 1915, p. 78. 
 
 ' Cf. H. R. Mackintosh, The Doctrine of the Person of Jesus Christ, 1913, 
 p. 532 sq. 
 
 25 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 earliest days of the Church) ; and not only against 
 an article in the Creed which has always been held 
 sacred, but also in such a way as to forward the 
 denial of our Lord's divinity. 
 
 III. Having spoken of the birth of our Lord, St. 
 Matthew calls attention to the place where it occurred, 
 and to its date. Messiah was born in the reign of 
 Herod the King, the last ' king ' of any independ- 
 ence. For there was no possibility that St. Matthew's 
 contemporaries would confuse him with the later 
 holders of the title.^ Herod the King could mean 
 none other than Herod the Great. His true 
 successor, St. Matthew seems to hint, w^as Jesus, the 
 Messiah. 
 
 The locality, however, looms larger in the Evange- 
 list's mind than the date. Four times does he men- 
 tion Bethlehem in the first eight verses of the second 
 chapter. But in fact the whole passage lays stress 
 on geography, bidding the reader notice the various 
 places in which the Lord Jesus spent His infancy and 
 youth. Why the writer lays so much emphasis on 
 this, and in particular on the town of His birth, is 
 not hard to guess. The sect of the Nazarenes, as 
 their enemies called the Christians, owed allegiance 
 to Jesus of Nazareth. But if He were only Jesus of 
 Nazareth how could He be the Messiah ? What 
 good thing could come out of Nazareth ? Nay, says 
 St. Matthew, He came from Bethlehem. It was at 
 Bethlehem that He was born. He did fulfil prophecy 
 
 ' Herod Antipas the Tetrach was called king by courtesy, Matt. xiv. 9 ; 
 Herod Agrippa I received the legal title of king from Caligula, 41 A.D., and 
 held it till he died in 44 A.D., Acts xii. 1 ; Herod Agrippa II also legally enjoyed 
 the title (Acts xxv. 13) from 53 a.d. till his death about 100 a.d. 
 
 26 
 
I] BETH-LEHEM 
 
 in this particular also. For Micah said, and it so 
 happened that the official body of Jewish leaders 
 stated this to Herod, that the Messiah was to come 
 from Bethlehem. 
 
 It is not necessary for us to-day to enter into the 
 many questions raised by the variant form in which 
 St. Matthew quotes the passage from Micah. It is 
 enough to say that it is sufficiently near to the original 
 to justify his use of it. 
 
 What, however, did the prophet mean by his 
 apostrophe of Bethlehem ? ' But thou, Beth-lehem 
 Ephrathah, which art little to be among the thousands 
 of Judah, out of thee shall one come forth unto me 
 that is to be ruler in Israel ; whose goings forth are 
 from of old, from everlasting.' No doubt he was 
 speaking of Messiah, but whether he intended to say 
 more than that Messiah should spring from the stock 
 of David, whose home was at Bethlehem, is not 
 certain. On the other hand, the fact that in the 
 next verse he speaks of the mother of the Messiah ^ 
 suggests that here also he expects to find something 
 strange about His birth. It should be observed, 
 further, that the terms by which Micah describes the 
 Messiah are such as to overpass the description of an 
 ordinary man. For his ' goings forth are from of old, 
 from everlasting.' Only a very jejune system of 
 interpretation can refer these words to the short 
 period of three hundred years from Micah to David, 
 and it is little better to explain them of the time 
 from the future birth of Messiah back to David, or 
 to suppose that His long existence was only in the 
 thought and purpose of God. It is not easy to get 
 
 ^ Micah V. 3 : ' Therefore will he give them up, until the time that she 
 which travaileth hath brought forth.' 
 
 27 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 over the impression that Mieah's language implies 
 the expectation of the coming of a Divine Person 
 who has existed from eternity. 
 
 St. Matthew himself, however, does not touch 
 on this. He is content to quote the passage more 
 generally, combining with it, strictly in accordance 
 with Jewish methods of quotation, the words ' who 
 shall be shepherd of my people Israel,' based upon 
 God's promise to David in 2 Sam. v. 2 : ' Thou 
 shalt feed my people Israel.' 
 
 In using this prophecy as I said, St. Matthew 
 states the occasion on which the leaders of the Jews 
 formally referred to it. They were giving an answer 
 to the enquiry of Herod. It was he who desired to 
 know where the Christ should be born. 
 
 For a strange thing had happened. Herod the 
 King knew not ; the chief priests and learned men of 
 the people of Israel, the Lord's own people, knew not ; 
 yet in Bethlehem of Judaea, the very place foretold, 
 there was already born One who was King of the 
 Jews, and Gentiles from distant lands had come to 
 worship Him. Among the Jews the political head 
 (the king), the religious leaders (the High Priests), 
 and the foremost in learning (the Scribes), all alike 
 were ignorant of the presence of their true King, 
 and yet Gentiles had come from the far East ex- 
 pressly to worship Him ! Every Jewish reader of 
 St. Matthew's narrative could see the lesson that 
 he intended to convey. Further, a star had taught 
 these strangers, and a star now guided them along 
 the road to Bethlehem, and seemed, as it lay low 
 on the horizon, to be over the very house where at 
 last they found the young Child. 
 
 The Magi saw, and worshipped, and gave. The 
 
 28 
 
i] THE MAGI 
 
 sight of Jesus brought submission, and full consecra- 
 tion of the most precious things they had. 
 
 It is not necessary for our purpose to discuss the 
 reality of the incident here described by St. Matthew, 
 but it is too improbable an event in itself to have 
 easily been invented. Certainly we hear that in 
 66 A.D. the Parthian king Tiridates came to visit 
 Nero at Rome, and, being a wise man, a Magus, 
 together with other Magi who were with him, wor- 
 shipped Nero as the sun-god Mithra, and afterwards 
 returned to his own land by a different way from 
 that by which he had come.^ But we may doubt 
 whether St. Matthew had heard of this visit. If so, 
 it may have suggested to him that he should in- 
 corporate in his Gospel this earlier incident of similar 
 import. 
 
 Some writers would have us suppose that St. 
 Matthew invented it, on the ground that it was 
 unfitting that Nero, the Antichrist, should have 
 received such homage, and Christ have received 
 none. But this is very improbable. St. Matthew 
 would have made more of the incident, and not 
 have brought it in only by the way, in order to 
 explain the reason why an official declaration was 
 given that the Christ was to be born in Bethlehem. 
 Hence he does not care to illustrate from the Old 
 Testament either the appearance of the star, though 
 he might have done so from Num. xxiv. 17, or 
 the worship of the wise men, though he might 
 have quoted Isa. Ix. 3, 6 ; xlix. 12 ; Ps. Ixxii. 9-15. 
 
 1 Dio Cassius, Ixiii. 7. Hamaok thinks it quite unnecessary to think of 
 embassies from the East to the Emperor's Court at Eome, though he can only 
 say that the idea of 'the Star of Jacob,' and the presence of Chaldean 
 astrologers in Jerusalem, might have been sufficient to produce ' the legend ' 
 [New Uniersuchungen, 1911, p. 106). See also Dudden, D,C.Q. ii. 99, 
 
 29 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 The place of Jesus' birth was the fact of primary- 
 importance to the Evangelist. The Son of David 
 was born at David's home — in accordance with 
 Scripture.^ 
 
 IV. Let us pass on to ii. 13. The Jews affirmed 
 that Jesus had been in Egypt, and they asked : 
 What had Messiah to do with Egypt ? Yes, answers 
 St. Matthew, it is true that He was in Egypt, and 
 it was but fitting that He should be. His going 
 there indeed was directly due to the hatred of Herod, 
 who endeavoured to kill the Messiah when he knew 
 where He was to be born. Joseph, however, was 
 warned beforehand in a dream by the angel of the Lord, 
 and ' took the young Child and His mother by night 
 and departed into Egypt,' Does this seem strange ? 
 Nay, to every thoughtful member of our race, the 
 Evangelist implies, it seems but right. For was 
 not Messiah to be the great representative of Israel, 
 and was it not proper that He should go through 
 the same kind of experience that our nation has 
 endured ? Is not (must we not confess it ?) Messiah 
 the true son of Jehovah, and when God says of 
 the nation in the book of Hosea : ' Out of Egypt did 
 I call my son,' should we not expect to find these 
 words true also of the Messiah ? This, at any rate, 
 is what took place. We as devout Israelites cannot 
 but see the hand of God overruling the wrath of 
 princes, and cannot but admire His words, which 
 suit first the nation, and then the Christ.^ 
 
 1 'Die Gesohichte ist Darstellung einer Idete. Soil sie darum nioht 
 Gesohiohte sein ? ' — Zahn, Matthdus, p. 105. 
 
 ' Whether this exhausts the meaning read into the quotation by the 
 Evangelist is another matter. See Lecture IX, p. 320. 
 
 30 
 
I] THE MASSACRE OF THE INNOCENTS 
 
 V. The Evangelist, however, tells his fellow-coun- 
 trymen more about Herod. In his fury against the 
 Messiah he did not scruple to put to death ' all the 
 male children that were in Bethlehem, and in all 
 the borders thereof, from two years old and under,' 
 in order to ensure, as he thought, the death of 
 Him who was born King of the Jews. Why did 
 St. Matthew tell us this ? I suppose because every 
 Jew would at once recall the circumstances of the 
 birth of Moses. Jews were ready — nay, are ready — 
 to compare Jesus with Moses, greatly to the dis- 
 advantage of the former, and we shall see in the 
 course of our studies that not once nor twice does 
 the writer bear this contention in mind, and show 
 its injustice. Here therefore it fits in admirably 
 with the general purpose of his narrative to point 
 out that even at His birth Jesus, like Moses, escaped 
 the murderous intention of the ungodly king, while 
 many of His fellow-babes perished.^ 
 
 But St. Matthew finds in the incident more than 
 this. The lamentation of the mothers in Bethlehem, 
 as they saw their infants snatched from them and 
 slain, recalls to his mind the words of Jeremiah,^ 
 describing the calamity that befell Israel when the 
 Northern tribes were conquered by the bloodthirsty 
 Assyrians, and were either slain or carried into cap- 
 tivity. Rachel, he says therefore, the ancestress of 
 Ephraim and Manasseh, as well as the mother of 
 Benjamin, is now shrieking in distress at her loss : 
 ' A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation, and bitter 
 weeping, Rachel weeping for her children ; she 
 refuseth to be comforted for her children, because 
 they are not.' The illustration was the more apt 
 
 * Cf. Box, Of. cit. pp. 20 sqq. ^ xxxi. {xxxviii.) 15, 
 
 81 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 because Rachel had died near Bethlehem (Gen. xxxv. 
 19, 20 ; xlviii. 7), and might be regarded as its 
 patron-saint. 
 
 Perhaps there was another reason for making the 
 quotation. Every reader of Talmudic and Rabbinic 
 literature is aware that if he is to understand the 
 point with which scriptural references are intro- 
 duced, he must consider not only the actual words 
 quoted, but also those which precede and follow them. 
 So here. What are the next words of Jeremiah 
 after he has described the wailing ? ' Thus saith the 
 Lord : Refrain thy voice from weeping, and thine 
 eyes from tears : for thy work shall be rewarded, 
 saith the Lord.' The sorrow is but the prelude to the 
 deliverance. The grief is not the end, it introduces 
 the joy. Again, what is foretold in the verses im- 
 mediately preceding ? What but the full restora- 
 tion of the Lord's people, with their gladness and 
 happiness ? ' I will turn their mourning into joy, and 
 will comfort them and make them rejoice from their 
 sorrow. And I will satiate the soul of the priests 
 with fatness, and my people shall be satisfied with 
 my goodness, saith the Lord.' So closely in Jere- 
 miah's mind is the thought of the lamentation of 
 Rachel connected with happiness and blessing. It 
 is not unreasonable to suppose that the same thought 
 was in the mind of the Evangelist. The massacre of 
 Rachel's children at Bethlehem was bound up with 
 the coming time of blessing. The suffering connected 
 with the infancy of the Christ was the prelude to His 
 appearance as the Deliverer. 
 
 VI. The Christ had been born at Bethlehem, and 
 there acknowledged by men of Gentile stock, but had 
 
 32 
 
I] A NAZARENE 
 
 been driven out by the then ruler of the Jews, to go 
 down to Egypt.^ 
 
 He was not, however, to stay there long. After 
 the death of those that sought the young Child's 
 life (were there then others joined with Herod whose 
 names are not recorded?), Joseph was bid return into 
 the land of Israel. At first the intention was to go 
 to Judaea, the rightful home of the Messiah, but in 
 consequence of the fact that Archelaus was now ruler 
 there, and his character was well known, God warned 
 Joseph to withdraw into the parts of Galilee. For in 
 accordance with prophecy the Messiah was not to 
 grow up recognised as such, but to be in a state of 
 humiliation, with those round Him ignorant of His 
 destiny. Hence it was but fitting that He whom 
 the prophets called the Netzer, the scion of the roots 
 of Jesse (Isa. xi. 1), should dwell at Nazareth. He 
 ' came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth : that it 
 might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, 
 that he should be called a Nazarene.' 
 
 Verbally indeed, as I have already implied, there 
 is no such utterance in the prophets. The word 
 Netzer is there, that is all. It may be that, like the 
 Talmud, the Evangelist is making a play between 
 Netzer and Nazarene,^ or perhaps that he is taking 
 the general sense of some of the prophetic utterances, 
 which speak of Messiah growing up in obscurity.^ 
 
 ^ St. Stephen appears to have seen in this the fulfilment of the typical 
 history of Joseph the son of the Patriarch ; cf. Acts vii. 9. 
 
 ' T.B., Sanhedrin, 43a, in the uncensored text. 
 
 ' i:.g. Isa. liii. 2. See further Box, op. cit. pp. 28-33. Prof. Burkitt', 
 identification of ' Nazareth ' with Chorazin is more ingenious than convincing. 
 He connects the word with ' Nazirite ' {The Syriac Forms of N.T. Propei 
 Names, 1912, pp. 15-18). Or the plural (' by the prophets ') may be due to the 
 employment by Jeremiah of a synonym, tsenmch. Branch, in a Messianio 
 sense (xxiii. 6). 
 
 33 p 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 In either case he was writing as a Hebrew-Christian 
 for other Hebrew-Christians, who would have no 
 difficulty in seeing the force of his allusion. 
 
 VII. With the third chapter of the Gospel we find 
 ourselves in a different atmosphere. The writer, 
 that is to say, has finished his prologue, derived in 
 part from private information handed down from 
 the Blessed Virgin or her husband, and partly from 
 matter which had been found useful for hortatory 
 exposition among Jewish Christians. For it is not 
 likely that St. Matthew, or rather the writer of the 
 First Gospel, was the actual originator of much 
 of these two chapters. We may rather suppose 
 that he edited materials which he already possessed 
 either in documentary or in oral form. 
 
 He now leaves these sources and takes up a new 
 one. Here, however, the source is known to us. 
 We possess it almost, if not quite, in its entirety, and 
 call it the Gospel according to St. Mark. The third 
 and fourth chapters of the First Gospel are, speaking 
 generally and neglecting details, derived directly, as 
 it seems, from the Second. 
 
 Why then did St. Matthew trouble to write it 
 over again ? Because he felt that the Gospel accord- 
 ing to St. Mark, however good it was for Christians in 
 general, did not sufficiently present that view of the 
 Messiah which he desired to bring before his fellow 
 Hebrew-Christians. He knew that he could improve 
 St. Mark's portraiture of the Lord Jesus, not only by 
 slight touches which would bring out his own picture 
 more plainly, but also by making many additions to it 
 from other quarters. It is not, however, my duty 
 to bring before you the various ways in which 
 
 34 
 
I] JOHN THE BAPTIST 
 
 St. Matthew differs from St. Mark, but rather to draw 
 out the presentation of Messiah contained in the 
 First Gospel as it lies before us, written as it was for 
 Hebrew-Christians living among unbelieving Jews. 
 
 The public proclamation of the Good News by 
 the Apostles began with their mention of the appear- 
 ance of John the Baptist.^ 
 
 There was a reason for this, apart from mere 
 historical order. The Jews expected Elijah to come 
 before Messiah. Elijah was to prepare the way, and 
 then Messiah would appear.^ 
 
 This belief in the coming of Elijah was based upon 
 the words of the prophet whom we know by the name 
 of Malachi (iv. 5, 6) : ' Behold, I will send you Elijah 
 the prophet before the great and terrible day of the 
 Lord come. And he shall turn the heart of the fathers 
 to the children, and the heart of the children to their 
 fathers ; lest I come and smite the earth with a 
 curse.' We find this accepted by so early a writer as 
 the son of Sirach, who, according to the most prob- 
 able interpretation of the verse, addresses Elijah 
 with the words : ' Thou of whom it is written. 
 Prepared for a (future) time, to pacify anger, before it 
 breaketh forth into wrath ' (Ecclus. xlviii. 10, Heb.). 
 
 St. Matthew falls in with this belief, as indeed he 
 must have done in view of the general expectation of 
 his time, but shows, indirectly here, and directly in 
 later passages (xi. 14 ; xvii. 12), that the true Elijah 
 was John the Baptist. Not of course that John was 
 Elijah himself (John i. 21), but that he came in the 
 spirit and power of Elijah. The Evangelist, however, 
 is careful to indicate that the fulfilment is different 
 
 '■ See St. Peter's message in Acts x. 37, and St. Paul's in Acts xiii. 24. 
 ' See 2 (4) Esdras vi. 26, with Canon Box's note. 
 
 35 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 from the expectation. For according to this (I refer 
 only to traits described by teachers of the first and 
 second centuries, and therefore reasonably near the 
 time when this Gospel was written ^) Elijah was to 
 come in , order to settle questions of ritual difficulty, 
 or to determine whether or not certain families had 
 legal rights. Nay, St. Matthew seems to say, the 
 coming of Elijah was emphatically to prepare the way 
 of the Lord — as Isaiah says : ' The voice of one crying 
 in the wilderness. Make ye ready the way of the Lord, 
 make his paths straight ' — by preaching the need 
 of repentance. It was thus that he would ' pacify 
 (God's) anger, before it brake forth into wrath.' 
 
 And plainly John the Baptist was faithful to his 
 task. Like the prophets of olden time in appearance 
 and austerity of life, he fearlessly reproved all comers, 
 in particular those who were Pharisees or Sadducees. 
 But the general message of the forerunner of the 
 Messiah is evident. The kingdom of heaven is at 
 hand, therefore repent. The claim, he says, to be 
 descendants of Abraham after the flesh can be of no 
 avail. Abraham's true children may be formed of 
 Gentiles, who seem to you to be like the stones that 
 lie around me. Repent ! for one is at hand, to whom 
 I am unworthy to act as the meanest slave. I bap- 
 tize with water, the mere symbol of penitence ; He 
 has power to baptize with the Holy Ghost, and to 
 burn up the ungodly with unquenchable fire, Gentiles 
 and Jews alike.^ St. Matthew, like every faithful 
 evangelist, warns his readers that before the Messiah 
 
 ^ See in particular Klausner, Messianische Vorstdlungen u.s.w., p. 58 sqq. 
 
 ' The Jews were expecting the Messiah to bring judgment on the Gentiles. 
 Yea, says the Baptist, and upon the Jews also. Cf. H. J. Holtzmann, N.T. 
 Theologie, 1911, i. p. 172. 
 
 36 
 
i] ELIJAH, PROPHET AND HIGH PRIEST 
 
 can be received there must be repentance, and a 
 change of heart. 
 
 Again, an early form of the traditional teaching 
 about Elijah tells us that he was to act as High Priest, 
 in one particular. In the wilderness of the wandering 
 of the children of Israel there was a small flask of 
 holy oil, from which were anointed the tabernacle and 
 its vessels, Aaron and his sons, and the whole line of 
 high-priests and kings during the time of the first 
 temple. Yet still the flask of oil remained undimin- 
 ished in quantity for use in the future, when the 
 Messiah was to be anointed with it, by the prophet 
 and high- priest Elijah.^ 
 
 That St. Matthew had this tradition in mind we 
 cannot affirm for certain, but if we may suppose so 
 we gain light upon the sequel to the preaching of 
 John the Baptist. For in fact when Jesus comes from 
 Galilee to the rightful place of His kingdom, Judaea, 
 unto the Jordan to John, He is anointed by means 
 of him, not indeed with oil, but with the reality for 
 which the oil stood, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. 
 Thus the traditional teaching about Elijah was more 
 than satisfied in John the Baptist. 
 
 We now expect St. Matthew to narrate the 
 story of the Baptism. But there is still a delay. 
 He has to take into account some persons with 
 whom the Hebrew-Christians of his time came into 
 contact. These were certain Jews who had been 
 baptized by John in expectation of the coming of 
 the kingdom, and had not made any further progress. 
 Perhaps in the first instance these had been baptized, 
 and had not waited to hear the preacher's later 
 
 ' Klausner, op. cit. p. 62. 
 37 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 utterances respecting Jesus. Or perhaps they, un- 
 like their master, had been altogether overcome by 
 the difficulties which even John felt with regard 
 to Jesus, when He did not work such miracles of 
 deliverance from political oppression as they had 
 expected Him to perform. At any rate, from one 
 cause or another, and at present we have not the 
 means of fully solving the riddle, many of those who 
 professed to be John's disciples refused to acknow- 
 ledge Jesus. They considered ' the austere teacher, 
 by whose instrumentality they had been brought 
 to repent of their former ways, to be superior to 
 Jesus of Nazareth. 
 
 Hence St. Matthew is careful to point out that it 
 was in no mere blindness, ignorant of what he was 
 doing, much less in any assumption of superiority, 
 that John the Baptist baptized Jesus. He did 
 not wish to do so. Prima facie the less is baptized 
 by the greater, and John felt that when Jesus pre- 
 sented Himself One was before him whose shoes' 
 latchet he was not worthy to unloose. ' I have 
 need,' he says, ' to be baptized of thee, and comest 
 thou to me ? ' 
 
 The answer of Jesus is remarkable, and the 
 meaning of it not likely to escape a Jew trained 
 in the religion of his fathers. ' Suffer it now : for 
 thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness.' 
 Jesus, that is to say, accepts the homage of John. 
 He acknowledges that He is superior to the Baptist. 
 Yet He bids him yield and baptize Him, for it was 
 fitting, morally beautiful, that He and John should 
 fulfil every demand of the will of God as made in 
 rules and ordinances, this being exhibited for the 
 occasion in the ceremony of baptism. 
 
 38 
 
I] THE MESSIAH'S ACCEPTANCE OF HIS TASK 
 
 VIII. Observe that although Jesus is superior 
 to John, He yet claims that they both ought to 
 perform the will of God as affecting them for the 
 moment. Jesus shows no sign of professing re- 
 pentance, though He does thus place Himself on 
 the level of the people, but He desires to make a 
 public acceptance of the fact that the kingdom of 
 heaven is at hand, and that He welcomes it. 
 
 We should be carried too far from our subject 
 if we were to endeavour to investigate the nature of 
 the feeling with which Jesus came to the Baptism. 
 Sufficient now to say that, judging by the light of 
 His after-life,. He must have known that it meant 
 for Him public entry into the work which He had 
 come to perform, the commencement of a life of 
 trial and opposition and even death, which, not- 
 withstanding, should prove to be the means by 
 which not only the will of God should be accom- 
 plished, but also the world should be saved. 
 
 So the Messiah was baptized, and He came up 
 from the water, not indeed to enjoy fuller life with 
 God, for that was impossible, but to receive in more 
 conscious measure (we may say) the Holy Spirit, 
 and to be assured afresh of His position and of the 
 acceptance of His self-sacrifice. 
 
 We meet next, as it seems, with the first trace 
 of that glorification of the human body of the Lord 
 Jesus of which we are told later in the Gospel. At 
 the Baptism His bodily powers were so far quickened 
 beyond the power of men in general that He saw 
 the heavens opened and God's Spirit descending, 
 as it were a dove coming upon Him. How far before 
 this our Lord was conscious of His high nature and 
 calling we cannot tell. But we cannot easily over- 
 
 89 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 estimate the effect of such a vision. He would 
 not be human if He had not felt Himself braced 
 up by it, besides, of course, receiving in Himself 
 all the imparted grace that the presence of the Holy 
 Spirit implies. Heretofore He had lived the life of 
 an ordinary man, but sinless, and in full communion 
 with God. Now He sees that He has received special 
 assistance for the special task before Him, and He 
 can enter on it with courage. 
 
 His eyes were opened, but also His ears. For 
 ' Lo, a voice out of the heavens, saying. This is my 
 Son, the Beloved, in whom I am well pleased.' Here 
 are three statements : Jesus is the Son of God ; 
 He is the Beloved ; and God was well pleased with 
 Him. The meaning of the first expression will come 
 before us in a later lecture. Sufficient here to say 
 that it sets Jesus forth in a wholly unique relation 
 to God, as more truly His ' Son ' than any other 
 person has ever been. 
 
 The second term describes Him, apparently, 
 as that Person who was designated of old as the 
 Chosen One (Isa. xlii. 1 ; see Matt. xii. 18), to 
 whom in popular language was given the title 
 once reserved for the nation of Israel (see Deut. 
 xxxii. 15, xxxiii. 5, 26, in the LXX, where it re- 
 presents the Hebrew Jeshurun). If this be so the 
 word ' Beloved ' is here used to mark Jesus as the 
 Messiah.^ 
 
 The third phrase, 'in whom I am well pleased,' 
 states that God is well pleased with the present 
 act of Jesus. He has, that is to say, lived worthily 
 of His nature, and His action in coming to Baptism, 
 
 "^ See J. A. Robinson, Ephesians, pp. 229 aqq. The sentence thus identifies 
 the Messiah with the Servant, see Lecture XI, p. 381. 
 
 40 
 
I] THE DIVINE APPROVAL 
 
 and thus openly enrolling Himself among those 
 who were expecting th^ coming of the kingdom, 
 involving as this did His submission to the known 
 will of God, won for Him the approval of His Father 
 in heaven.^ 
 
 Such was the voice, not, as Jewish fancy some- 
 times tells us, to decide in a dispute between learned 
 doctors of the Law, but to assure Messiah Himself 
 of the relation in which He stood to God by nature, 
 by office, and by His own act. Vision and word 
 alike warranted His belief that He was entering 
 upon His public ministry in the full favour of God 
 and His promised power. 
 
 IX. In iv. 1-11 St. Matthew describes an event 
 which for his purpose is the crucial part of his whole 
 narrative. For in the Temptation may be seen the 
 methods deliberately adopted by the true Messiah, 
 which form a complete contrast to the methods 
 of all false Messiahs, as well as to those of the true 
 Messiah according to Jewish expectation.^ 
 
 St. Mark indeed mentions the Temptation as 
 though it were a comparatively unimportant incident, 
 either because the author did not perceive the signifi- 
 cance of it, or because he was not acquainted with 
 its details. Therefore he only tells us : ' And straight- 
 way the Spirit driveth him forth into the wilderness. 
 And he was in the wilderness forty days tempted 
 of Satan ; and he was with the wild beasts ; and 
 the angels ministered unto him.' To St. Matthew, 
 
 ^ Perhaps this is the force of the aorist. 
 
 " ' Die alte Gemeinde hatte einen sehr unglaubwiirdigen Satz zu verfeohten, 
 wenn sie behauptete, Jesus von Nazareth sei der Messias — deim gemessen 
 an den vulgaren Messias- Begiififen fehlte ihm zum Konig-Messias nicht 
 weniger als alles ' (J. Weiss, Das Urchristentum, 1914, p. 95). 
 
 41 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 on the other hand, the Temptation expressed, perhaps 
 more clearly than any other part of the life of Jesus, 
 the manner of His victory, and the true character 
 of His Messiahship. Probably also the Evangelist 
 perceived in it a description of the best and most 
 fruitful method in Christian work for all time. 
 
 Now we all know that there have been few, if any, 
 religious heroes who did not pass through a time 
 of extreme loneliness, and spiritual trial, before 
 they were enabled to carry out their work. Such 
 a time of testing appears to be a necessary prelude 
 to success. The Messiah was no exception. For, 
 according to the presentation of Him recorded in 
 this Gospel, He was not one of those imaginary 
 persons who in the spiritual world, and with great 
 issues at stake, come and see and conquer. He, 
 being very man as well as very God, had to endure 
 a severe test of His character. His work was the 
 greatest that could be imagined, His trial corre- 
 sponded to it, not only in severity, but also in 
 nature. 
 
 Observe that the Evangelist is careful to tell 
 us the moment when Jesus the Messiah met with 
 this strange and awful experience. It was not be- 
 fore, but after, the Baptism, when He had received 
 a special outpouring of the Holy Spirit. He had 
 consecrated Himself without stint to the service 
 of God, and His offering had been accepted. He 
 had been granted the vision of the descent of the 
 Spirit of God, and had heard the sweet words of 
 assurance that He was God's Son, and His Servant, 
 and the object of God's delight. He is now there- 
 fore ready for the crucial test of His ability to stand 
 firm in the awful contest which He came to wage. 
 
 42 
 
i] THE TEMPTATION 
 
 ' Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the 
 wilderness to be tempted of the devil.' St. Matthew 
 relates a conflict higher in moral worth than the 
 great war with which Jewish thinkers credited the 
 Messiah. That was warfare between men, this be- 
 tween One who lived and fought as man, using 
 weapons available to every man, and him who was 
 at the head of the evil angels. 
 
 Observe further that the bodily frame of the 
 Messiah, and therefore, if we may trust physiologists, 
 His whole personality, was at its weakest. He was 
 to derive no advantage from merely physical well- 
 being. The devil was given every advantage. We 
 may also suppose that the weakness of the body, after 
 so long a fast, made our Lord the more susceptible 
 to such sensuous sensations as His apparent removal 
 in space to the temple's precincts, and the vivid 
 panorama of ' all the kingdoms of the world and 
 the glory of them.' 
 
 Be that as it may, for the Evangelist it was all 
 important that the Messiah displayed the character 
 of His work, and the nature of His methods in carry- 
 ing it out, by the way He endured the three tests. 
 
 First, for His own needs He would trust His Father 
 in heaven implicitly, and not exercise as God any 
 power for Himself. It was necessary for St. Matthew 
 to bring this out. For again and again Jews have 
 said, and doubtless they said as much in St. Matthew's 
 time, that if Jesus had been divine, as Christians 
 affirm, He would not have experienced human weak- 
 ness. For example, He would not have been hungry 
 when He came to the barren fig-tree ; again. He 
 would have known by His divine power that there 
 were no figs on it ; also He would not have endured 
 
 48 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect, 
 
 suffering at all, much less death ; lastly, on the cross 
 He would not have passed through the awful pain of 
 conscious separation from His Father. All such argu- 
 ments are met in the record that when He was bid 
 satisfy His hunger by the exercise of power contrary 
 to the will of God, He was content to reply : ' Man 
 shall not live by bread alone [that is to say, by the 
 means in front of him, if he chooses to take them], 
 but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth 
 of God.' It is God's will, He says,which I have come 
 to perform, not My own. I will wait His time, I 
 will not be impatient and take My own way. My 
 Father knows, and He will provide. 
 
 The second temptation represents the negative 
 side of the same truth. Jesus the Messiah was 
 subject to the ordinary laws of human nature, and 
 had no right to expect miraculous intervention. The 
 Jews perhaps had enthusiastic expectations of a 
 Messiah who should disregard natural laws, and when 
 He was breaking them be upheld by the hands of 
 ministering angels. Not so with the true Messiah. 
 He would not tempt His Father in heaven. He 
 would claim God's preservation only when taking all 
 possible care to ensure success, so far as human know- 
 ledge could ensure this beforehand. The presenta- 
 tion of Messiah is that of an eminently sane and 
 sensible Person.^ 
 
 The third temptation, on the other hand, is for 
 St. Matthew the culminating point. Messiah is 
 
 ^ In T. J. Peah, viii. 9 [8] (216), the devil quotes Scripture, and is answered 
 by another text. Canon Streeter suggests that this temptation was to teach 
 that Christ's work was slow, and that He was not to appear dramatically by 
 throwing Himself from the pinnacle 'in sight of all Jerusalem' like an 
 apocaljrptic Christ (Foundations, p. 101). But this assumes that 'all 
 Jerusalem ' was present, of which there is no hint. 
 
 44 
 
I] THE METHODS OF THE TRUE MESSIAH 
 
 offered immediate success, the submission of all the 
 world, the gratification of His highest desires in the 
 obedience of the peoples, on the condition, the trivial 
 condition, as some might say, of acknowledging that 
 He receives them at the hand of him who is in some 
 sense the ruler of this world. Providing that He 
 gives homage to Satan, the ruler ship of the world 
 is offered to Jesus. 
 
 It is easy for us to perceive the general meaning 
 of this temptation, but difficult to understand it 
 altogether. Its sense, however, seems to be that in 
 contrast to the means to be employed by the Messiah 
 according to the common expectations of the Jews, 
 the true Messiah used those that had no savour of 
 the world. Bloodthirsty wars were far from Him. 
 Political revolution He would have none of. Worldly 
 measures He dismissed from His thoughts. The 
 plane upon which He moved and carried out His 
 purposes was far other than the ordinary grounds of 
 men's actions. He made the service of God His one 
 and only method. ' Get thee hence, Satan,' thou 
 opponent of all that is good, ' for it is written. Thou 
 shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only 
 shalt thou serve.' 
 
 The devil's attempt has failed. The messengers 
 of God come and minister to Him who has not 
 hesitated to prefer God's ways to others, however 
 specious they may be. 
 
 Thus the character and methods of Messiah are 
 presented to us as widely different from those of the 
 Messiah of Judaism. He works no miracles for 
 Himself. He expects no intervention contrary to 
 nature. He uses no means unworthy of His high 
 and holy cause. 
 
 45 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 X. In five more verses (iv. 12-16) St. Matthew 
 will have completed his Introduction, before he 
 describes the actual work of Jesus the Messiah. 
 It was to be expected that the Messiah, when He 
 had been consecrated for His work, and had proved 
 His fitness to undertake it by the way in which 
 He showed Himself superior to all forms of tempta- 
 tion by the professed ruler of this world, would 
 begin His Messianic activity in Judaea, the seat 
 of typical Judaism. It seems that He did not. 
 
 The reasons St. Matthew gives us are twofold — 
 the accidental, if we may say so, and the real. The 
 former consisted of the imprisonment of John the 
 Baptist by Herod Antipas.^ How did this affect 
 our Lord ? Was He afraid that if He began to 
 preach in Judaea Herod would seize Him ? Even 
 if so it is likely that He was afraid not for Himself, 
 but for the success of His plan. It is probable that 
 if He had appeared in the centre of Judaism, as 
 a Prophet whose connexion with the Baptist must 
 have become known, the object of His coming would 
 have been frustrated by the greatness of the poli- 
 tical commotion He would have caused. If this 
 prompted the withdrawal of Jesus to Galilee, it was 
 entirely in accordance with His usual methods. 
 
 There was, however, a deeper and more vital 
 reason. It was in agreement with the teaching 
 of the prophets, not only that the Messiah should 
 grow up in the obscurity of Galilee,^ but also that 
 Galilee should have the privilege of being the focus 
 
 ^ ' Now when he heard that John was delivered up, he withdrew into 
 Galilee ' (iv. 12). 
 
 ^ Not that Galilee was far removed from the influences of the world, for 
 it was closely in touch with Roman and Greek movements, but it was dis- 
 tant from the centre of Jewish life. 
 
 46 
 
I] THE DAWN IN GALILEE 
 
 from which His light should radiate. Jesus there- 
 fore visited His home at Nazareth, and then moved, 
 permanently as it seems, to Capernaum, on the 
 borders of the Sea of Galilee, and in the districts 
 of Zebulun and Naphtali. Not indeed that Caper- 
 naum itself was in Zebulun, though Nazareth was, 
 but it was situated, generally speaking, in the terri- 
 tory covered by the two names. 
 
 This reminds the Evangelist that the prophet 
 Isaiah had described such a fact,'^ In Talmudic 
 times Galilee was proverbial among the Jews for 
 its spiritual darkness and ignorance of true religion, 
 and possibly as early as this.^ Yet there, amongst 
 the darkness, the light was to arise ! In the West 
 towards the Great Sea, the Mediterranean, and 
 in the East, on the farther side of Jordan, and in 
 the northern circle largely inhabited by heathen, 
 the people of the Lord which dwelt in darkness saw 
 a great light ; they were dwelling in the region of 
 the shadow of death, yet to them the Dawn arose ! 
 Hebrew- Christians and unbelieving Jews alike could 
 not but acknowledge that the fact of the public work 
 of the Messiah having begun in Galilee was in agree- 
 ment with the words of the prophet. 
 
 Thus far we have seen that St. Matthew has 
 dealt with great preliminary questions raised by the 
 men of his time against the Messiahship of Jesus. 
 He has not indeed answered their objections in 
 so many words. If he had done so it is improbable 
 that his book would have come down to us. For 
 it would have lacked many of the qualities that 
 
 1 Isa. ix. 1, 2. 
 
 » See Neubauer, La Giographie du Talmud, 1868, p. 183. 
 
 47 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH 
 
 have ensured its permanence. He has, on the 
 contrary, put his strength into writing a devotional 
 treatise for the use of his fellow Jewish believers. 
 His narrative is very short, little more than notes 
 from which preachers could have spoken, giving 
 by word of mouth fuller explanations of the mean- 
 ing of his sentences. But his work is unique. No 
 other record of the life and teaching of the Messiah 
 has been preserved which lays before believers of 
 the Jewish race so vivid a description of Messiah 
 as seen by Jewish eyes. May that Holy Spirit who 
 guided the author in its composition Himself be 
 with us, as, little by little, we endeavour to grasp 
 the significance of the presentation of the Messiah 
 to the Jews in the Gospel according to St. Matthew, 
 while the Evangelist portrays the Hebrew-Christian 
 Messiah, his Lord and ours. 
 
 48 
 
Lecture Two 
 
 THE JEWISH PARTIES IN THE TIME 
 OF THE MESSIAH, ESPECIALLY THE 
 PHARISEES 
 
 E 
 
' Woe unto you, scribes and 
 Pharisees, hypocrites ! '— 
 Matt, xxiii. 13. 
 
Lecture Two 
 
 THE JEWISH PARTIES IN THE TIME 
 OF THE MESSIAH, ESPECIALLY THE 
 PHARISEES 
 
 *r I ^HE Jews,' writes Josephus, ' had for a great 
 
 I while three sects of philosophy peculiar to 
 
 -^ themselves : the sect of the Essenes, and the 
 
 sect of the Sadducees, and the third sort of opinions 
 
 was that of those called Pharisees.' ^ 
 
 In the present Lecture it is proposed to examine 
 the relation in which the Messiah stood towards these 
 three bodies, according to the presentation of Him 
 contained in the Gospel according to St. Matthew. 
 
 I. The first will not give us much trouble, for, 
 strictly speaking, it does not fall within our subject 
 at all, and is included only for the sake of complete- 
 ness.^ For not only is the name of the Essenes not 
 mentioned in either this or any other of the four 
 gospels, but apparently there is not the slightest 
 allusion to any of their customs or tenets, either 
 directly or indirectly, by way of comparison or of 
 contrast.^ 
 
 It is true that some leading scholars of fifty years 
 
 1 Ana. XVIII. i. 2. The threefold division recurs in Antt. XIII. v. 9 ; 
 War, II. viii. 2 ; Life, § 2. 
 
 ' The fullest account of the Essenes given by Josephus is in War, II. viii. 
 2-13, but see also^TiW. XVIII. i. 5. The fullest modem discussions seem 
 to be those of lightfoot {Colosaians, 1875, pp. 114-179), Kohler {Jewish 
 Encyclopedia, v. 224-232), Schiirer, {0[eschichte des] j[udischm] Vlolkes], 
 4th ed. 1907, ii. 556-684), and J. MoGsitt {E.B.E. s.v. Essenes). 
 
 ' E.g. their ' tremendous oaths ' of obedience to the rules ; their celibacy. 
 
 51 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 ago ^ asserted that the Essenes had a close connexion 
 with Christianity, and supposed that if Jesus of Naza- 
 reth Himself was not originally an Essene, certainly 
 John the Baptist was. But it is rare to find any 
 one of note holding this strange opinion now.^ What 
 has John the hermit, if even we may call him that, 
 to do with the Essenes, who lived together in com- 
 munities ? What connexion has his baptism, which 
 was administered once for all, with the daily cere- 
 monial washings practised by them ? What evidence 
 is there that they insisted on repentance, even 
 though they made much of a holy life ? Much less 
 is there any reason for supposing that the Christian 
 practice of kindliness to fellow-Christians on their 
 travels is , connected with the similar duty incul- 
 cated by the Essenes ; or that the Christian disregard 
 of this world's goods was derived from the Essene 
 custom of renouncing all private possessions and 
 handing them over to the community. Every society 
 of ethically earnest persons will have some traits in 
 common, but it is quite unscholarly to attempt to 
 derive one from another upon such slight evidence. 
 It is not too much to say that, judging by the infor- 
 mation at our disposal, those Jews who had been so 
 far influenced by Greek (in particular Pythagorean), 
 and possibly also by Buddhist, customs, as to form a 
 semi-monastic community, the headquarters of which 
 were near the Dead Sea, had no influence at all, or 
 only the very slightest, upon John the Baptist, or the 
 
 ^ See note 1 on the next page. 
 
 ' Even Prof. H. S. Nash, who derives Essenism essentially from anti- 
 Hellenistic Judaism, virtually gives this up (Hastings-Selbie s.v. Essenes). 
 Dr. Kohler still maintains it of John the Baptist, and partly of our Lord and 
 His disciples {Jemsh Encyclopedia, v. 231 ; Qrundriss, 1910, pp. 318 sq.). 
 
 52 
 
II] THE SADDUCEES 
 
 Lord Jesus Christ, or even the early Christians. The 
 Essenes therefore may be left out of our consideration.^ 
 
 II. We turn now to the Sadducees.^ Curiously 
 the very meaning of their name is uncertain. It can 
 have no direct connexion with Tsaddiq, ' righteous,' 
 a singularly unfortunate description of the Sadducees, 
 but probably it has with Zadok. As the Boethusians 
 took their name from Boethus, and the Epicureans 
 from Epicurus, so the Sadducees may have taken 
 theirs from Zadok.^ If so, there is not much room for 
 doubt as to who this Zadok was. He may indeed have 
 been a person about whom no information has come 
 down to us, a teacher perhaps of the first century b.c. 
 or earlier. But such an hypothesis is unnecessary in 
 view of him whose descendants were called the ' sons 
 of Zadok ' by Ezekiel (xl. 46, and elsewhere), the line 
 of priests and High Priests who traced their lineage 
 back to the Zadok who filled the office of High Priest 
 
 ^ In spite of Gratz'a self-satisfied dictum : ' Essaische Elemente im 
 Urohristenthum sind nicht bios erweislich, sondem enoiesen, nur die Sohon- 
 farberei will sie nicht sehen ' {Oeschichte der Juden, 3rd edition, 1877, iii. 304). 
 See H. J. Holtzmann, N.T. Theologie, 1911, i. 167 sq. Bousset in his lucid 
 account of the Essenes in the Religion des Judenthums, 1906, p. 535, does 
 not speak very decidedly, but in his Jesus, 1907, pp. 16 sq., writes : ' Jesus 
 hat rein gar nichts mit der Sekte der Essener zu schafien.' Similarly, but at 
 greater length, M. Friedlander, Die rdigiosen Bewegungen innerhalb des 
 Judentums im Zeitalter Jesu, 1905, pp. 163-168. 
 
 ' I leave this as written, but the section should be supplemented by 
 Di. Oeateiley' a The Books of the Apocrypha, 1914, pp. 132-159. I cannot, 
 however, but think he has been rather hasty in accepting the conclu- 
 sions of Leszynsky (vide infra, pp. 57 sq. notes) and Lauterbaoh, and also the 
 early date of the Zadokite Fragments. 
 
 ' Geiger, Urschrifl, 1857, pp. 20 sqq. ; Holscher, Der Sadduzaismus, 1906, 
 p. 102 ; Schiirer, O.J. V. ii. 408 sq. For the double ' d ' compare the frequent 
 form ^aSSovK for Zadok in the LXX, and the name of the companion of 
 Judas of Galilee in Josephus, Antt. XVIII, 1. 1, §§ 4, 9; ef. also Burkitt, 
 Jewish and Christian Apocalypses, 1914, p.-72.- - 
 
 58 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 in the time of David, and was 'put in the room of 
 Abiathar ' by king Solomon (I Kings ii. 35). 
 
 The derivation of the name may be accepted with- 
 out hesitation.^ The doubt lies in the application of 
 the name in New Testament times. We know indeed 
 that the Sadducees were recruited only from the 
 leading classes in Jerusalem," and it has been argued 
 that as the High Priests and their immediate relations 
 belonged to these, the Sadducees were, to all intents 
 and purposes, identical with them. The High Priests, 
 using the term in its New Testament sense of the 
 priestly families out of which alone the acting High 
 Priest could be appointed,^ claimed, it is said, to be 
 the sons of Zadok, and thus they, and they only, were 
 the Zadokites, or Sadducees. 
 
 This theory, however, assumes that the High 
 Priests after the time of the Maccabseans were 
 known by the name of Zadokites, and not, as seems 
 to have been the case, by the name of Hasmonaeans,* 
 and also that the High Priestly families alone formed 
 the wealthy class in Jerusalem, whereas many other 
 families of distinction were settled there by Herod 
 the Great. It has therefore been proposed rather 
 to consider the Sadducees as containing within 
 their ranks not the High Priestly families only but 
 also others of high rank, and to regard the name 
 Sadducee as referring not so much to lineal descent 
 as to opinions. 
 
 For in the time of Antiochus Epiphanes the 
 
 ^ Dr. Cowley {Enc. Bibl. col. 4236) proposes a rather fantastic derivation 
 from the Persian Zindik, used of one who rejected the sacred Avesta and 
 followed only the commentary, and afterwards of an infidel generally. But 
 the evidence is too late. 
 
 » Josephus, Antt. XIII, x. 6, § 298 ; ibid. XVIII, i. 4, § 17. 
 
 ' Sohtirer, G.J.V. ii. pp. 222-224. • Holscher, op. cit. p. 103. 
 
 54 
 
II] THE SADDUCEES PRO-ROMAN 
 
 High Priestly family favoured Hellenism — Jason, the 
 successor of the godly Onias, and also his successor 
 Menelaus, helping the king to overthrow the Law 
 of Moses, and introducing heathen customs. Hence, 
 it is urged, when in Roman times the leading classes 
 in Jerusalem advocated nearly the same policy 
 with respect to Rome, or at any rate did not show 
 themselves the same staunch defenders of Hebrew 
 customs as the Pharisees, they were given by their 
 opponents the name Zadokites, Sadducees, as a 
 term of abuse. The word implied that they were as 
 bad as those pre-Maccabaean High Priests of old, 
 who preferred heathenism to the Law of God.^ 
 
 Whichever of these two theories is right the 
 result, for our purpose, is very nearly the same. 
 The difference is this : with the former, Sadduceeism, 
 properly so called, is limited to the High Priests and 
 the High Priestly families, with the second it is a 
 tendency, exhibiting itself, coming to a head if you 
 will, in the High Priests, but found among the 
 wealthier class of Jerusalem generally. For us it 
 makes but little difference. Sadduceeism was the 
 peculiar form of belief fashionable among the upper 
 classes of Jerusalem. It represented the opinion 
 and the mode of life of the well-to-do, among whom 
 the High Priests took a leading place. 
 
 Thus the Sadducees politically sided with the 
 Romans, and dreaded anything which should en- 
 danger their security. It is evident, therefore, that 
 they would not be likely to be in favour of any 
 Messianic movement.^ The saying of the worldly- 
 wise Frenchman, ' Above all, no enthusiasm,' might 
 well have been spoken by a typical Sadducee. 
 
 * Holsoher, op. cit. pp. 104 sq. ' Ibid., op. cit. pp. 34, 97 sqq., 110 sq. 
 
 55 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 Their theological platform, if such an expression 
 may be allowed, corresponded to the political. They 
 were on the safe side. Not for them any new-fangled 
 conceptions of the nature of the Law and their 
 religious duties ! What had been was good enough 
 for them. It is true that we cannot defend the 
 statement of Origen, Jerome, the author of the 
 Philosopheumena, and Pseudo-Tertullian,^ that they 
 rejected the Prophets and other scriptures, receiving 
 only the Law of Moses, if it means that they did 
 not regard the Prophets and Holy Writings as 
 canonical. But it may be so far true, that, like 
 most other Jews, the Sadducees attributed to the 
 Pentateuch so great a degree of inspiration as to 
 far outweigh in value the other portions of Scrip- 
 ture. These in comparison with that were merely 
 tradition.^ 
 
 Somewhat similarly, it would be wrong to imagine 
 that they altogether rejected the Oral Law. They 
 did not accept it as it was explained by the Pharisees, 
 but that is another matter. The Sadducees had 
 been accustomed to certain traditional teaching, 
 and raised no question against it. But as this be- 
 came worked out, as we shall see, by the majority 
 of the Scribes and their adherents the Pharisees, 
 it gradually overpassed the limits to which the 
 Sadducees had been accustomed, and they rejected 
 both its rules and its doctrines.^ 
 
 Further, they appear to have become very mate- 
 rialistic, if we may judge from the accounts of their 
 opponents, and we have at present no other sources 
 
 ^ These are collected in Schiirer, O.J.V. ii. 411, note 26. 
 ' E.g. Talm. Bab. Bosh ha-Shanah, la, 19a. 
 » Josephus, Antt. XIII, x. 6, § 297. 
 
 56 
 
II] THE ASSUMPTION OF MOSES 
 
 from which to derive our information.^ The Sad- 
 ducees are closely connected both in Josephus and 
 in the Rabbinic writings with the ' Epicureans,' the 
 typical unbelievers and materialists.^ 
 
 Listen also to the description of them in the 
 Assumption of Moses^ (§ vii.), a Pharisaic work, 
 written, according to Dr. Charles, between 3 B.C. 
 and 30 a.d. : ' Scornful and impious men will rule, 
 saying that they are just. And these will conceal 
 the wrath of their minds, being treacherous men, 
 self-pleasers, dissemblers in all their own affairs 
 and lovers of banquets at every hour of the day, 
 gluttons, gourmands. . . . Devourers of the goods 
 of the poor, saying that they do so on the ground of 
 their justice, but (in reality) to destroy them, com- 
 plainers, deceitful, concealing themselves lest they 
 should be recognised, impious, filled with lawlessness 
 and iniquity from sunrise to sunset ; saying, " We 
 shall have f eastings and luxury, eating and drinking, 
 yea, we shall drink our fill, we shall be as princes." 
 And though their hands and their minds touch un- 
 clean things, yet their mouths will speak great 
 things, and they will say furthermore : " Do not 
 touch me lest thou shouldst pollute me in the place 
 where I stand." ' It is not a pleasing picture that 
 
 ^ The 'provenance of the ' Zadokite ' documents published by Dr. Sohechter 
 in 1910 is still too uncertain to afford an argument to the contrary. Leszynsky 
 attributes to the Sadducees also the Book of Jubilees, the Testaments of the 
 Twelve Patriarchs, the Book of Enoch, and the Ascension of Moses ! See 
 his Die Sadduzaer, 1912. On the 'Sadducean' origin of Ecclesiasticus, 
 see Oesterley, op. cit. pp. 333-340. 
 
 ' Such at least is the probable meaning of Josephus, Antt. X. xi. 7, 
 §§ 277-281 ; see Holecher, who also quotes the Seder Olam, c. 3. 
 
 ' Dr. Biichler refers this passage to the leading members of the priesthood, 
 which comes in effect to nearly the same thing {Die Pnester und der CvMus 
 im letzen Jahrzehnt des Jerusalemischen Tempels, 18^5, pp. 77 sq.). 
 
 For quotations from the Psalms of Solomon, see below, p. 61. 
 
 57 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 the Pharisaic writer gives of his opponents. They 
 claimed by right of their position to be everything 
 that was good ; in reahty their lives and characters 
 were worldly and sinful. If so, we can understand 
 how it was that they paid little heed to the doctrine 
 of reward and punishment in a future life, and dis- 
 believed in a bodily resurrection. Neither did they 
 accept the doctrine of angels, for this implied the con- 
 tinual care of God for them by the ministry of His 
 unseen servants. It is quite consistent with such 
 traits of character and faults in doctrine that their 
 decisions in matters of the Law were harder and less 
 sympathetic than those of the Pharisees,^ and that 
 they seem to have endeavoured to apply sometimes 
 Roman law rather than Mosaic.^ No wonder that 
 they were not liked by the people generally.^ 
 
 What was the attitude of the Lord Jesus towards 
 them, according to this Gospel ? We have not a 
 great deal of information, if we strictly limit it to 
 those passages where the word Sadducee actually 
 occurs, and do not take into account those other 
 verses where the chief priests are mentioned, tempt- 
 ing though it is to do so. 
 
 ' Josephus, War, II, viii. 14, § 166. They seem to have insisted on the 
 literahiess of the precept ' eye for an eye,' &c., but the passage adduced in 
 evidence of this (Megillath Taanith, iv.) is said to be of late origin (see D. W. 
 Amram, Jewish Quarterly Review, Oct. 1911, p. 210 ; Geiger, Vrschrift, 1857, 
 pp. 120, 148). 
 
 ' Holsoher, op. oit. pp. 30-32. 
 
 ' See p. 54, note 2. Leszynsky (op. cit), chiefly on the strength of very 
 difficult and disputed sayings in the Mishna, argues that, after all, the 
 Sadducees clung solely to the written Law, and were in fact the Karaites of 
 antiquity. They succeeded so far (according to him) that they at last got 
 the upholders of tradition to refuse everything that could not be proved, some- 
 how or other, from Scripture. Experts have not said the last word on the 
 subject yet, but it is hardly likely that Leszynsky will prove to be right. 
 See also Miss Dampier's very interesting study in Church and Synagogue, 
 Oct. 1913, pp. 151-168. 
 
 58 
 
II] SADDUCEES AND THE RESURRECTION 
 
 They are mentioned by name in this Gospel only 
 in four passages ; three times in connexion with 
 Pharisees, and once alone. The last is the famous 
 section (xxii. 23-33), where they ask our Lord 
 about the resurrection, and try to show its absur- 
 dity. Christ's answer, as we all know, was twofold. 
 He reminded them that the absurdity lay with them, 
 in presupposing that if there were a resurrection the 
 conditions of earthly life would continue. We can 
 indeed sympathise with the Sadducees if they were 
 accustomed to have such representations of the future 
 life brought before them as we find described by some 
 mediaeval Jewish teachers, who said that if a man 
 had two wives on earth he would probably have only 
 the wife of his youth in the resurrection-life.^ Even 
 though the Rabbi thought that the second life would 
 be spent in a glorified earth, his statement remains 
 grossly materialistic. We can understand that those 
 Jews who had a tinge of Greek philosophy in them, 
 as we may assume the Sadducees to have had, would 
 shrink from the doctrine of the resurrection if it was 
 described under such terms. The Messiah, however, 
 is careful to point out that in reality this was to mis- 
 understand altogether the nature of the resurrection 
 and the resurrection body. But He also meets them 
 on their own ground by His appeal to the Law. 
 How far Sadducees were able to use the Pentateuch 
 in the decision of points of doctrinal difference we 
 have little or no means of judging. But our Lord's 
 appeal in this example is entirely Pharisaic in its 
 method. It is, that is to say, not so much a direct 
 quotation of a proof text as a deduction. The 
 resurrection is not stated in the passage quoted ; 
 
 * R. Beraohya Ha Nakdan (Maaref, § 13, ed. GoUanoz, p. 320). 
 
 59 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 it is only deduced from the language used. Hence we 
 may presume that the Sadducees were not the merely 
 mechanical expounders of Holy Writ which we often 
 consider them to have been, for otherwise the Messiah 
 would not have answered them by a method of 
 using Scripture which would have no value in their 
 eyes. God, He means to say, cannot have personal 
 relation with a being who lives only for a time and 
 then perishes. The sentence ' I the God of Abraham, 
 &c.,' He implies, by its very juxtaposition of 'I' 
 and ' Abraham,' with no time-mark of past, present, 
 or future, to intervene, suggests a timeless relation 
 between God and man. Those cannot cease to be 
 who are thus united to God. St. Matthew presents 
 the Messiah as giving a fresh reason for the belief in 
 the Resurrection, by His insight into the Law. The 
 sentence there. He says, was spoken to you,^ you 
 Sadducees who acknowledge the Law, and you ought 
 to have perceived the force of it.^ 
 
 In the three other passages, as I have already 
 said, the Sadducees are not named alone, but in 
 connexion with the Pharisees. 
 
 First, chap. xvi. 1-4. These are Sadducees in 
 Galilee, who either have come down from Jerusalem 
 to interview the new Teacher, or, and more probably, 
 have been living there already. They disregard the 
 ordinary miracles of our Lord, and ask for a sign out 
 of the sky, showing a strange ignorance of what the 
 true signs of the Messiah are. Their worldliness was 
 no safeguard against the demands of superstition.^ 
 
 * To prjOiv v[uv; cf. Zahn in loco. 
 
 ' When R. Gamaliel II was asked to prove the Resurrection from the 
 Bible, he referred his inqviirers to Deut. xxsd. 16, Isa. xxvi. 19, Cant. vii. 
 10, and finally convinced them from Deut. xi. 9, or iv. 4 (T.B. Sank. 906; 
 see Bacher, .Die Agada der Tannaiien, 1903, p. 82). ' Vide infra, p. 78. 
 
 60 
 
ii] THE PSALMS OF SOLOMON 
 
 Secondly, in xvi. 5-12, our Lord warns His disciples 
 against the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees 
 — ^that is, not any specific doctrines, but the general 
 tone of their life and religion, which corrupted every- 
 thing they did, making it unfit to be offered to 
 God.i 
 
 Thirdly, iii. 7-12, the Baptist's denunciation of the 
 Pharisees and Sadducees. He calls them the offspring 
 of vipers ; asks who it was that suggested to them 
 that they should flee from the wrath that was about 
 to come ; summons them to show repentance in their 
 lives ; bids them not trust to ancestral privileges. 
 With the Pharisees we have nothing to do for the 
 moment, but it is instructive to remember that the 
 authors of the Assumption of Moses, as we have 
 already seen, and of the Psalms of Solomon, speak 
 of the Sadducees in no less bitter terms. We have 
 heard the former (p. 57) ; listen now to the latter : ^ 
 ' Let God destroy them that live in hypocrisy in the 
 company of the saints, yea, destroy the life of such 
 an one, in the corruption of his flesh and in poverty. 
 Let God lay bare the deeds of men that are men- 
 pleasers, yea, the deeds of such an one in derision and 
 scorn. . . . Let ravens pick out the eyes of the men 
 that work hypocrisy' (iv. 7, 8, 22). And again : ' They 
 went up to the altar of the Lord when they were full 
 of all uncleanness ; yea, even in their separation 
 they polluted the sacrifices, eating them like profane 
 meats ' (viii. 13). If the Sadducean priests of our 
 Lord's time were like those of some eighty or 
 ninety years earlier we cannot be surprised at the 
 
 ^ Lev. ii. 11 ; vide infra, p. 79. 
 
 ' The extreme limits of the date within which these Fsabns were written 
 are stated by Ryle and James as 70 b.o. and 40 b.o. (p. xKv). 
 
 61 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect 
 
 invective of John the Baptist.^ The Sadducees held 
 the first position in the nation, and abused it. It is 
 not by accident that, although we find many Pharisees 
 acknowledging Jesus as the Messiah, among them one 
 of surpassing ability and energy, we never read that 
 a single Sadducee was converted. The lack of moral 
 earnestness prevented any attention to the warning 
 of the Baptist or the invitation of the Messiah. The 
 presentation of the Messiah in the Gospel according 
 to St. Matthew shows us His forerunner inveighing 
 against them, and the Messiah Himself refusing their 
 demand for an unnatural and unprofitable miracle, 
 warning His disciples against their teaching, re- 
 proving them for their lack of spiritual insight 
 and their ignorance of the very scriptures which they 
 professed to accept. 
 
 III. The third of Joseph us' three sects of philo- 
 sophy is that of the Pharisees. But before speaking 
 specifically of these it will conduce to clearness if 
 we consider those with whom they are often closely 
 connected in the gospels, namely the Scribes. 
 
 Briefly, the Scribes stood for those learned Jews 
 whose profession was the study of the Law of Moses, 
 especially in its application to the needs of the day. 
 They represented at once, that is to say, the guardian- 
 ship of the letter (which even as early as our Lord's 
 time appears to have been held in peculiar veneration, 
 or there is little point in His statement that not a 
 
 * Dr. Oesterley and Canon Box indeed are of opinion that ' the words of 
 rebuke addressed to them by the Baptist are not intended for them more 
 than for others,' on the strength of statements in St. Luke's account {R. W.S. 
 1911, pp. 123 sqq.). But there is no doubt as to what St. Matthew himself 
 means to say. The invective is the result of the appearance of ' many of 
 the Pharisees and Sadducees,' and it is extremely unnatural to refer tho 
 ' them ' to anyone else. 
 
 62 
 
ii] ORAL LAW A NECESSITY 
 
 jot or a tittle of the Law shall perish), and the working 
 of it out in practice. For this present audience, of 
 all congregations in the world, will understand, that 
 however carefully a written law may be framed it 
 will require explanation, and careful study, if its 
 effect is to be all that its authors intended it to 
 be. It is impossible that a written law can fit all 
 the circumstances, changing as they do from age 
 to age, unless its meaning is interpreted with due 
 regard to the alteration of the times. In laws the 
 letter often killeth, and it is only the spirit that 
 giveth life.^ 
 
 We remember this with regard to law to-day. 
 We are apt to forget that the principle was true of 
 old. Yet the more we study ancient religions, and 
 the system of daily life in ancient times, which, in 
 a large number of cases, was closely bound up with 
 religion, the more we see how impossible it was 
 that written laws could ever have sxifficed. We 
 learn that in all religions, and the cruder and more 
 elementary they are the truer is the statement, 
 there were always bodies of persons who were the 
 depositaries of traditional explanations, and the 
 directors of development of practice along the lines 
 sanctified by precedent. 
 
 Rabbinic teachers have invariably asserted that 
 this was the case with regard to the Law of Moses, 
 and have been much ridiculed for their assertion. 
 But it is hard to understand why. The more we 
 know of early law, both in its customs and in its 
 ritual, the more we see the necessity that the Bible 
 laws, summary statements of practices often already 
 ancient in the time of Moses, but hallowed then by 
 
 1 Cf. Lectures IV, p. 148 ; V, p. 186i 
 63 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 the express command of God, should be supplemented 
 by the oral explanations of their custodians. We 
 may in fact assume to-day that from the first pro- 
 mulgation of the Law by Moses, its written statutes 
 were only guides to the verbal instruction in ritual 
 and in practice, and even in doctrine, which was pre- 
 supposed to be available from qualified persons.^ 
 
 The title by which such persons were called in 
 Scripture was that of Scribes, no doubt because 
 primarily their task was to attend to the writing 
 and copying of the Law. For, as is acknowledged 
 now by all scholars, the Israelites were able to write 
 at least as early as the time of their exodus from 
 Egypt. And probably, nay certainly if we are 
 able to believe the Higher Critics, there was never 
 a time when the Scribes were only copying out the 
 Law, and not also recording, in greater or less degree, 
 the development that it was receiving under their 
 guidance. We cannot wonder therefore that Jeremiah 
 complains that some Scribes were introducing into 
 the sacred scriptures their glosses and interpreta- 
 tions in a way of which he did not approve.^ For 
 there were plainly Scribes and Scribes, and though, 
 if the Higher Critics do not misinform us, some of 
 them were guided to develop the Law aright, yet 
 
 •^ This is the truth underlying such fanciful representations as Shmoth B. 
 § 28, on Exod. xx. 1. ' " And God spake all these words, sajdng" — R. Isaac 
 said : Whatever the prophets were about to prophesy in every single genera- 
 tion, they received from Mt. Sinai. For thus says Moses to Israel (Deut. xxix. 
 14 (15) ) : " Neither with you only do I make this covenant a;nd this oath ; 
 but with him that standeth here with us this day before the Lord our God, 
 and also with him that is not here with us this day." The last clause does 
 not contain "standeth," because it means the souls that were about to be 
 created, who as yet could not be said to stand.' 
 
 ' Jer. viii. 8. See further the admirable account in Oesterley, op. cit. 
 pp. 113-129. 
 
 64 
 
II] THE SCRIBES 
 
 others introduced errors, which we may, charitably 
 hope were not permitted to survive. 
 
 The great impulse, however, to the growth of 
 professional students and teachers of the Law was 
 given by Ezra, who illustrates in his own person 
 the close connexion that existed between the priests 
 and the Scribes. The coming of ' Ezra the priest, a 
 scribe of the law of the God of heaven,' ^ set in motion 
 a more systematic study of the written word. This 
 combined closer attention to the faithful transmission 
 of it,2 with the more thorough consideration of the 
 methods of adapting it to the requirements of the 
 post-exilic community, different as these were from 
 those of their forefathers. 
 
 It was but natural that the Scribe at first was 
 always a priest. But if we may judge from the 
 language of Jesus the Son of Sirach, the profession 
 of the Scribe was regarded as distinct from any 
 other as early as the third century B.C. After speak- 
 ing of sickness, the physician and death, he turns 
 to the various occupations of life, contrasting them 
 with the work of the Scribe : ' The wisdom of the 
 scribe cometh by opportunity of leisure ; and he 
 that hath little business shall become wise.' The 
 ploughman, the artisan, the blacksmith, the potter, 
 have no time for study. " Not so he that hath 
 applied his soul, and meditateth in the law of the 
 Most High ; he will seek out the wisdom of all the 
 ancients, and will be occupied in prophecies. He 
 will keep the discourse of men of renown, and will 
 
 * Ezra vii. 12. 
 
 ' Some centiiries had to elapse before such transmission became accurate. 
 The Rabbis accused the Samaritan ' scribes ' of falsifying the sacred docu- 
 ments, in the Siphre, on Deut. xi. 30, ed. Friedmann, p. 87a. See Bacher, 
 Terminologie, i. pp. 60, 134, note 4. 
 
 65 F 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 enter in amidst the subtilties of parables. . . . He 
 shall shew forth the instruction which he hath been 
 taught, and shall glory in the law of the covenant 
 of the Lord. Many shall commend his understand- 
 ing ; and so long as the world endureth, it shall not 
 be blotted out : his memorial shall not depart, and 
 his nanie shall live from generation to generation.' ^ 
 
 In any case, from one cause or another, by New 
 Testament times the Scribes as a body appear to have 
 been laymen, who perhaps, as Schiirer suggests, were 
 moved originally by some antipathy to the Hellen- 
 istic proclivities of the pre-Maccabsean High Priests.^ 
 Yet as a whole they were not antagonistic to them, 
 for in the New Testament they are often mentioned 
 together. Some may even have belonged to the 
 party of the Sadducees,* but there is no direct evi- 
 dence for this.* They were the professional scholars 
 of the time, having, no doubt, their headquarters 
 in Jerusalem, but not dwelling there only. There 
 were some in Galilee also, perhaps in certain cases 
 acting as schoolmasters, as is expressly stated to 
 have been the case in the next century,^ but having 
 for their primary occupation the study of the Law, 
 both in itself, and in its application to the immediate 
 
 1 Eoolus. xxxviii. 24 ; xxxix. 1, 2, 8, 9. 
 » G.J.V.ii. 313. 
 
 * This is the natural deduction from Mark ii. 16, Luke v, 30, Acts xxiii. 9. 
 See Schiirer, (?. J. F.ii. 320, 
 
 * Holscher flatly denies the existence of Sadducean Scribes [opi cit, 
 1906, p. 18). Chwolson, however, writes: 'Ein grosser Theil des Syn- 
 hedrions bestand ja auch aus Priestem, die meistens Sadduoaer waren, und als 
 Mitglieder dieser hohen Behorde auch sohrif tgelehrt sein mussten ' {Bas letzte 
 Passamahl, 1908, p. 113, note). 
 
 " See Baoher, Terminologie, i. 135. Cf. Biiohler, The Political and Social 
 Leaders of the Jewish Community ofSepphoris in the Second and Third Centuries, 
 1909, passim, and Die galilaische 'Am-ha-'Ares des zweiten Jahrhunderts, 1906, 
 pp. 274 sqq. 
 
 66 
 
ii] SCRIBE— A NEUTRAL WORD 
 
 occasion. It is therefore only natural, as we shall 
 see, that the majority of them were in sympathy 
 with the Pharisees, and that therefore the conjunction 
 of the terms ' scribes and Pharisees ' expresses the 
 plain fact, and gives the key to the general relation 
 between them. 
 
 For we may assume that the great leaders of 
 the Pharisaic party, such as Hillel , and Shammai 
 (about 30 B.C. to io a.d.), and Gamaliel I (? 10-40 
 A.D.), were ' Scribes,' even though perhaps they did 
 not copy oat a line of the Scriptures, and although 
 the name ' Scribe ' does not appear to have been 
 directly applied to them. But Gamaliel is called 
 a teacher of the Law ^ in Acts v. 34, and certainly 
 all three would be included among the Sopherim 
 (Scribes) to whose authority the Mishna appeals.^ 
 
 We have seen therefore that in itself the word 
 Scribe was neutral, and had no bad connotation. 
 The Scribe as such was not necessarily opposed to 
 Christian truth. He represented, on the contrary, 
 the progressive party, which was prepared to accept 
 fresh developments in the meaning of the Scriptures, 
 if the necessity for them could be shown. 
 
 A Scribe who accepted Jesus' of Nazareth as 
 the Messiah might still continue the essential part 
 of his work, and bring out the application of the 
 Old Testament to the needs of Christian believers. 
 Thus we find our Lord giving to His preachers 
 the name of ' Scribes ' in Matt, xxiii. 34 : 'I send 
 unto you prophets and wise men [a semi -technical 
 term for scholars] and scribes.' Also in xiii. 52 our 
 Lord appears to contemplate the conversion of 
 Scribes, saying that every Scribe, if he has become 
 
 ' vo/toSiSao-KoXos. ' Schiirer, G.J.V. ii. 314. 
 
 67 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 an adherent of the Kingdom of Heaven, and has 
 been instructed in its character, is hke a householder 
 who produces out of his strong-room treasures which 
 he has recently acquired, and also such as he has 
 long had in store. 
 
 We can, however, understand that a Scribe, whose 
 ordinary task lay in study and meditation rather 
 than in active life, should shun the hardships which 
 would be his lot if he followed Christ. Hence when 
 a Scribe came up to our Lord and said : ' Teacher, 
 I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest away,' 
 His reply, free from fanaticism, and scrupulously 
 fair and open, was : ' The foxes have holes, and the 
 birds of the air shelters, but the Son of man hath 
 not where to lay his head ' (viii. 19, 20). The result 
 we are not told, but presumably that Scribe withdrew 
 from the physical difficulties in which his enthusiasm 
 had nearly entangled him. 
 
 In all the other passages in this Gospel the Scribes 
 are distinctly on the Jewish and anti- Christian side. 
 We can, for example, understand that their pro- 
 fessional keenness in religious Law would make 
 them quick in scenting out blasphemy (Matt. ix. 3). 
 For the claim to assert with authority that the sins 
 of the paralytic were forgiven appeared to some 
 of the Scribes who were standing by to mean that 
 the prerogatives of God were being infringed.^ It 
 should be observed, however, that by his express 
 mention of the fact that only ' some ' of the Scribes 
 
 ^ Blasphemy, ' profanation of the Name ' (DB'lI >1?ri), originally meant 
 only the profane use of the actual Name itself (Lev. xxiv. 11), but as early 
 as the days of Amos (ii. 7) it included words or actions which brought that 
 Name into contempt. It would be a very short step to include under it the 
 making of a false claim to be empowered by God with any of His attributes. 
 Of. Lecture IX, p. 316. 
 
 68 
 
II] INDICTMENT OF THE SCRIBES 
 
 said this within themselves, St. Matthew suggests 
 that there were others who were not so mistaken. 
 
 Again, in xvii. 10 we find that to the disciples' 
 mind the Scribes are the leaders in sound religious 
 expectation. The Lord has just spoken of His 
 death and resurrection, and the disciples ask : Why, 
 if Messiah must die, do our religious teacherr- ex- 
 pect the coming of Elijah to put all things right 
 before He comes ? If that be so, there will be no 
 need for Him to die. Christ acknowledges the 
 force of the objection, and says that the aim of the 
 coming of Elijah is indeed to restore all things to 
 their ideal unity, but adds that Elijah had come 
 already, although by the refusal of the learned 
 men of the time to recognise him he was stopped 
 in his work of restoration. In the same way as he 
 suffered, shall the Son of Man suffer at their hands. 
 The Messiah is here portrayed as bringing a heavy 
 indictment against the Scribes, precisely in their 
 position as leaders of religious opinion, because they 
 rejected John, and because they would also take up 
 a wrong attitude towards Himself. The justification 
 for this charge we shall see later.'^ 
 
 So far we have considered only those passages 
 where Scribes are mentioned alone. But there are 
 many where other classes are named with them. 
 They themselves evidently stood for the learned 
 part of the Sanhedrin. Hence they are named in 
 conjunction with the High Priests, who represented 
 the Temple officials, and with the Elders (xvi. 21) — 
 
 ^ Here perhaps we may notice that the Evangehst remarks in vii. 29 
 that the various classes of people felt the diiference between the teaching of 
 Jesus and that of their Scribes. These taught out of tradition and mere 
 learning. He as One having authority in Himself to deliver His message, and 
 to expound the Scriptures from His own knowledge of their true meaning. 
 
 69 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 men who, it appears, were respected for their ex- 
 perience and age, or even for their learning. These 
 last no doubt sometimes included persons who were 
 also Scribes. Thus we see that when Herod made 
 inquiry as to the place where the Messiah should 
 be born (ii. 4), he gathered together ' all the high 
 priests and scribes ' of the Holy People. Again, in 
 xxi. 15, when, in the precincts of the Temple, im- 
 mediately after the Cleansing, ' the high priests and 
 the scribes ' saw the miracles that He did, and the 
 children crying out there, and saying Hosanna to 
 the Son of David, they were so annoyed that they 
 asked Him if He heard what these were saying. They 
 received the calm reply : Yea, you study the 
 Scriptures, did you never read these words addressed 
 by the Psalmist to God : ' Out of the mouth of 
 children and babes thou didst lay the foundation 
 of thy defence against thy foes, of thy reputation 
 and praise among men ' ? The Messiah is represented 
 as calling the Scribes back to their own studies, and 
 bidding them see in the Psalmist's words, as they 
 might legitimately be expounded, the truth that 
 the innocence of children guarantees the accept- 
 ability to God of the praises that come from their 
 lips.^ The wise are bid become like the children 
 to whom God had revealed His truth (xi, 25). 
 
 In xvii. 12 (vide supra, p. 69) the Lord Jesus 
 said that He would suffer at the hands of the Scribes. 
 He says the same in xx. 18, where He associates the 
 High Priests with them, and in xvi. 21, where He 
 mentions the Elders as well. All three classes are to 
 be the means of His suffering and death.^ Similarly, 
 when the Messiah was hanging on the cross the High 
 
 ' Ps. viii. 2. Cf. Lect. VII, p. 269. » Cf. Leot. XI, p. 379. 
 
 70 
 
II] SCRIBES AND PHARISEES 
 
 Priests were mocking, together with the Scribes 
 and Elders.^ The Pharisees, it will be observed, 
 are not named. The Scribes, however, as we have 
 already seen in part, and shall see more clearly, were 
 closely allied to the Pharisees. 
 
 For although we have thus far considered those 
 passages of the Gospel which speak of the Scribes 
 either alone or in conjunction only with the High 
 Priests, or with the High Priests and the Elders, 
 there are several which connect them directly with 
 the Pharisees. Thus our Lord in v. 20 tells His 
 followers that their righteousness must exceed that 
 of ' the scribes and Pharisees.' Here they are re- 
 garded as one body. And rightly enough, with the 
 subject under consideration. For righteousness was 
 the special study of the Scribes, and the special aim 
 of the Pharisees, who endeavoured to carry out 
 in life the theories set before them by the Scribes. 
 The Messiah, however, demands of His followers a 
 higher grade of righteousness than that attained 
 by the Scribes and Pharisees. The most learned, 
 and the most zealous, members of the nation of 
 Israel were to be surpassed in their own province 
 by the adherents of the Messiah. St. Matthew 
 therefore makes it plain that the demands of the 
 Messiah upon His followers were extraordinarily 
 high, and yet suggests that they were not beyond 
 their powers. We shall have to return to this subject 
 in a later Lecture ; here it is enough to say that the 
 righteousness demanded by Christ was greater than 
 that of the Scribes and Pharisees, in as far as the inner 
 character surpasses the totality of separate actions.^ 
 
 ^ xxvii. 41-43. 
 
 ' Cf. Lectures IV-VI. Other passages in which Scribes and Pharisees 
 are mentioned together are xii. 38-45, xv. 1-14, and xxiii., viAt infra. 
 
 71 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 We turn now to the Pharisees as such. They 
 appear to be the direct descendants of the Assideans, 
 or Chasidim, who in the first days of the Maccabsean 
 revolt, 167 B.C., gathered to Mattathias and his 
 sons, ' mighty men of Israel, every one that offered 
 himself willingly for the law ' (1 Mace. ii. 42).^ Thus, 
 as was to be expected, they were, through all their 
 history, zealous adherents of the Law of Moses, 
 and of Jewish traditional customs, in contrast to 
 those Jews who accepted Hellenistic practices and 
 opinions, and acquiesced later in the rule of the 
 Herods or of Rome. The Scribes, generally speaking, 
 were Pharisaic, the distinction between the Pharisaic 
 Scribes and the Pharisees themselves being that the 
 former were leaders, and the latter the ordinary 
 members of the party, who, from lack of opportunity, 
 were not able to make for themselves a close study 
 of the Law and its demands, and could only put 
 the precepts of their leaders into practice.^ 
 
 The name Pharisee is characteristic of their 
 attitude towards religion and daily life. They were 
 the Separatists, answering in their tone of mind to 
 those who as far back as the days of Nehemiah 
 (444 B.C.) ' separated themselves from all strangers ' 
 (Neh. ix. 2), even as God separated light from darkness 
 (Gen. i. 4), Israel from the nations (Lev. xx. 24), 
 and the Levites from the people (Num. xvi. 9).^ 
 
 ^ Cf. Charles, Eschatology : A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future 
 Life, 1913, pp. 171 sqq. ; Montet, E.B.E., vi. 526, s.v. Hasidseans. 
 
 ' 'Die naoh Tauaenden zahlenden Pharisaer waren die Partei der nach 
 Hunderten zahlenden Sohriftgelehrten ' (Zahn, on Matt. v. 20). 
 
 ' In the Targum the Aramaic P-R-SH represents the Hebrew B-D-L in 
 these passages. See Mr. J. H. A. Hart's Ecclesiasticus, 1909, p. 275. Dr. 
 Oesterley, following Leszynsky (op. cit. pp. 25, 123), derives the name from 
 another root, P-R-SH, with the meaning ' explain,' ' expound,' in reference 
 to the Pharisees expounding Scripture in the interests of the Oral Law (The 
 
 72 
 
II] EARLY HISTORY OF PHARISEES 
 
 Perhaps the term was given them first in derision, 
 but at least it accurately expressed their attitude, 
 and was freely accepted by themselves. Apparently 
 also they formed a separate organisation ; the 
 members of which were Chaberim, Associates, in con- 
 tradistinction to rich or poor, learned or unlearned, 
 who were not Pharisees.'^ 
 
 For our purpose it is unnecessary to say more than 
 a few words about their early history. Josephus im- 
 plies that they existed by name as early as the time 
 of Jonathan, 153 B.C. (see Antt. xiii. 5. 9), but the first 
 incident recorded is the objection raised by a Pharisee 
 to the appointment of John Hyrcanus as High Priest 
 in 135 B.C., and the consequent persecution of them.^ 
 They were, in fact, generally in opposition to the 
 governing body, because while rulers consider the 
 expedient rather than the good, the latter was the 
 aim of the Pharisees. Hence, with the exception of 
 a few years in the reign of Alexandra Salome, in 
 78-69 B.c.,^ they never acquired the leading position 
 
 Books of the Apocrypha, pp. 130 sqq.). His argument that the Pharisees, so 
 far from being Separatists, were closely allied with the people, does not allow 
 enough for the effect of the principles of the ' unco' guid ' upon their own 
 minds. See also Loewe, E.B.E. vii. pp. 588 sq., s.v. Judaism. 
 
 * Schiirer, O.J. V. ii. 399-403. Canon Box writes : ' This association or 
 hdbura, which probably was already organized in the New Testament period, 
 was a league that pledged its members to the strict observance of Levitical 
 purity, to the scrupulous payment of tithes and other dues to the priest, 
 the Levite, and the poor, and to a conscientious regard for vows and for 
 other people's property' {The Churchman, Sept. 1911. 'Who were the 
 Pharisees ? ' p. 666). 
 
 Dr. Mendelsohn, however, insists that only those Pharisees were Chaberim 
 who joined a special society {Jewish Encyclopedia, vi. 121), perhaps Umited 
 to men of learning. 
 
 2 Mr. J. H. A. Hart, in his very stimulating essay on ' The Pharisaic 
 Recension of the Wisdom of Ben-Sira ' {Ecdesiaaticus, 1909, pp. 272-320), 
 appears to argue that Pharisaism existed at an earUer date in its distinctive 
 doctrines. 
 
 ^ See in particular L. Ginzberg, Jewish Encyclopedia, i. 359. 
 
 78 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 in the State. This was held by their opponents, the 
 Sadducean party. Yet, omitting for the moment 
 all consideration of Christianity, the Pharisees 
 represented the permanent element in the Jewish 
 nation. For with the fall of Jerusalem in 70 a.d. 
 the Sadducees perished,^ and the Pharisees came to 
 their own. 
 
 It was they who organised Judaism, and drew up 
 the official records of the traditional Law. Judaism, 
 as we know it to-day, is the product of Pharisaic 
 teaching and influence. Putting the case broadly 
 and generally, all Jews from 70 a.d. have been 
 Pharisees. 
 
 There are, however, two points of extreme import- 
 ance for the right understanding of the history of the 
 New Testament, which must now be mentioned. 
 
 First, it is necessary to insist on the fact already 
 noticed that in the time of our Lord the Pharisees 
 were inferior in power to the Sadducees. They had 
 no voice in the government, and had no authority 
 in the affairs of the Temple. For until the last decade 
 of the Second Temple, say until 63 a.d., its ritual and 
 its management were in the hands of the Sadducees.^ 
 It is obvious that this may prove to be of great im- 
 portance when we come to consider certain events 
 in the life of our Lord. 
 
 Secondly, and even of more importance for our 
 purpose, is the fact that the Pharisees themselves were 
 
 ■^ 7.e. technically and officially. Many of the distinctive tenets of Sad- 
 duceeism survived among individual Jews. See Lauterbach, Jtw. Quart. 
 Rev., Oct. 1915, pp. 308 sgc[., who, however, tries to prove too much. 
 
 * Buchler, Die Priester und der CuUus, 1895, pp. 118, 145, 156 ; Chwolson, 
 Das letzte Passamahl Christi, 1908, pp. 86 sq., 186. Holscher denies this, 
 but only by straining his authorities (Der Sadduzaismus, 1906, passim, e.g. 
 pp. 53, 59, 70). See Schiirer's note upon him, O.J.V. ii. 418. Vide infra, 
 p. 378, n. 1. 
 
 74 
 
II] SHAMMAITES AND HILLELITES 
 
 divided. Their great Scribes, Hillel and Shammai (see 
 p. 67), left successors, hardly known to us by name, 
 but referred to under the titles of the House of Hillel 
 and the House of Shammai. While these held the 
 same general principles of opposition to everything 
 that savoured of Gentilism, whether in the persons of 
 the Herods or in the powers of Rome, they were very 
 different in character. It is true that we have only 
 the records drawn up by the winning side, and 
 perhaps if Shammaite writings are ever found they 
 will throw new light on the two parties, but with our 
 present information the difference is clear. 
 
 The Shammaites Avere like their founder, hard and 
 unyielding, bitter and harsh in all their demands and 
 rules. They may not indeed be identified with the 
 party of the Zealots, but they had historical con- 
 nexion with them (for with Judas of Gamala was 
 joined Zaddok, a Pharisee),^ and they rejected all 
 kinds of compromise with Rome. They were the 
 extremest of the Separatists properly so called. 
 
 It was otherwise with the Hillelites. Hillel him- 
 self was typically gentle, and his followers imitated 
 him. The decrees passed by them were, so their 
 writers declare, always on the broader and kinder 
 side. But— and this is the important point for our 
 purpose — ^the Hillelites became supreme only after 
 all opposition to Rome was found to be useless. 
 Until the fall of Jerusalem the Shammaites were 
 the upper party among the Pharisees. Their power 
 may be estimated from the terrible day soon after 
 44 A.D. when at a gathering of Pharisaic Scribes 
 in the upper chamber of Hananiah, son of Hezekiah, 
 son of Garon (Mishna, Sabbath, i. 4), the Sham- 
 
 1 Josephus, Antt. XVIII, i. 1, § 9. 
 
 75 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 maites not only passed eighteen rules contrary to 
 the wishes of the Hillelites, but even used physical 
 force, and killed many of the latter.^ Hence in 
 New Testament times the typical Pharisee was more 
 likely to be a follower of Shammai than of Hillel.^ 
 Let us now consider the description of the Pharisees 
 given by the Messiah, according to the presentation 
 of Him in this Gospel. 
 
 1. First, the Pharisees are ostentatious in their 
 religion. ' They make broad their phylacteries, and 
 enlarge the borders of their garments, and love the 
 chief place at feasts, and the chief seats in the syna- 
 gogues, and the salutations in the market-places, 
 and to be called of men. Rabbi ' (xxiii. 5-7). Simi- 
 larly, ' the hypocrites ' make a display in giving 
 alms, in praying in the sight of men, in fasting (vi. 
 2-4, 5, 6, 16-18). 
 
 2. Secondly, the Pharisees insist unduly upon 
 ceremonial. They are, for example, shocked that 
 the disciples pluck the ears of corn, and, rubbing 
 them in their hands, eat them, upon the sabbath 
 day (xii. 1, 2). They are grieved that people are 
 healed by the Lord Jesus on the sabbath day (xii. 
 9-14). They are astonished that the disciples eat 
 without first washing their hands, thus transgressing 
 the tradition of the elders (xv. 1, 2). In fact, they 
 put the tradition above the written Law (xv. 3-14). 
 So also they take endless trouble to secure a prose- 
 lyte, though the result is disastrous (xxiii. 15). 
 
 * It was said that that day was as hard for Israel as the one in which the 
 Golden Calf was made. See Weiss, Dor dor w'dorshaw, 1871, i. pp. 186 sq., 
 and especially T. J., Sahh. i. 4, p. 3c. 
 
 " Vide infra, pp. %5sqq. 
 
 76 
 
II] FAULTS OF PHARISEES 
 
 3. Thirdly, with all their punctiliousness they 
 neglect those matters that are of greater importance, 
 whether in doing good or in avoiding evil. They 
 ' tithe mint and anise and cummin, and have left 
 undone the weightier matters of the law, judgment 
 and mercy, and faith.' On the other hand, they 
 strain out a gnat, and do not mind swallowing some- 
 thing that seriously pollutes them, presumably some 
 gross sin which they take no trouble to avoid (xxiii. 
 23, 24). Again, they attend to the outside of things 
 rather than the inside, the appearance more than 
 the reality. In fact, their actions and lives are typi- 
 fied by their treatment of tombs, which they whiten 
 so that men may not be contaminated by touching 
 them by accident, yet all the while the tombs them- 
 selves remain full of all corruption (xxiii. 25-27). 
 
 4. Fourthly, they make great profession of the 
 knowledge of God, yet in reality their actions and 
 modes of thought are conditioned by ignorance 
 both of Him and His Word. They are, in fact, 
 destitute of spiritual perception. Their decisions 
 about oaths, making, as the Pharisees do, wrong 
 distinctions between swearing by the temple and 
 by its gold, and, again, by the altar and by the gift 
 upon it, proceed on wrong lines, lacking the common 
 sense of the devout believer (xxiii. 16-22). They 
 are indeed blind guides (xv. 14, xxiii. 16, 17, 24; 
 c/. 19, 26). 
 
 Again, they are surprised that the Lord Jesus 
 eats with publicans and sinners ; but this is due to 
 their failure to perceive that it was fully in accord- 
 ance with the Divine character, as revealed in Scrip- 
 ture, to show mercy, rather than to insist on the 
 
 77 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 minutiae of ritual (ix. 11). Similarly, as we have 
 already seen, He reproved the High Priests and Scribes 
 for their ignorance of the will of God that the children 
 should acknowledge Him (xxi. 12-16. See p. 70). 
 It is with somewhat of the same kind of reproving 
 tone that He propounds to the Pharisees the question 
 how it is that David gives to the Messiah, his son 
 according to fleshly descent, the title of Lord (xxii. 
 41-46).^ So again He convicts them of ignorance of 
 the true meaning of Scripture, when, prompted by 
 a desire to put Him in a dilemma, they ask Him 
 whether divorce is allowable (xix. 3-12), and also of 
 ignorance of the nature of the government of God 
 when they propound to Him the other dilemma, 
 whether it is lawful to give tribute to Caesar 
 (xxii. 15-22). 
 
 5. Fifthly, when they came to Him asking for a 
 sign, no mere miracle performed on earth, but a 
 sign produced out of the sky, to satisfy themselves, 
 as it seems, before they could acknowledge His pre- 
 tensions. His replies indicate that He thought them 
 worthy representatives of an evil and adulterous 
 generation, who did not deserve that any new sign 
 should be given them. They were more unbelieving 
 than the godless men of Nineveh, less desirous of 
 truth than the heathen Queen of Sheba. It was 
 the will that was deficient in them. Their natural 
 powers which enabled them to understand the signs 
 of the weather were sufficient to interpret the mean- 
 ing of the moral events that were happening — ^if only 
 they chose to study them (xii. 38-42, xvi. 1-4).^ 
 
 1 See Lectures VII, pp. 270-272, and IX, pp. 321 sq. 
 * 0/. Lecture III, p. lll.mcZe SMpra, p. 60. Merx on xii. 38 gives an interest- 
 ing parallel from T.B., Sankedrin, 98a. R. Jose ben Qisma is asked for a sign 
 
 78 
 
II] IGNORANCE^OF PHARISEES 
 
 6. Sixthly, the Messiah bade His]disciples beware 
 of the doctrine of the Pharisees, which was so far like 
 that of the Sadducees as to resemble leaven in its 
 all-pervading power. It was unfit to be offered to 
 God, corrupt and corrupting (xvi. 5-12).^ Further, 
 we can hardly be wrong in including the Pharisees 
 among those whom the Messiah calls the wise and 
 understanding, from whom the knowledge of God was 
 hidden (xi. 25). 
 
 Again, regarding them as the professed teachers 
 of the truth to Israel, He says that they turn the 
 key of knowledge upon men lest they should enter 
 into the Kingdom, neither entering in themselves 
 nor allowing those that had already begun to enter 
 in to enter (xxiii. 14). 
 
 7. Seventhly, what wonder, then, that with this 
 ignorance they show direct opposition to all that is 
 good ! When the Messiah performs a miracle in 
 driving out demons, the Pharisees are so indifferent 
 to the sense of spiritual realities that they accuse Him 
 of doing it in the power of Beelzebub, forgetful of the 
 fact that their own followers also exorcised demons. 
 But this, as Jesus shows, is to speak against the very 
 power of the Holy Spirit in the world, and to deny 
 the root-principle of religion. For such persons there 
 can, in the nature of things, be no forgiveness (ix. 34, 
 xii. 22-32).2 
 
 8. Lastly, they are like the wicked husbandmen 
 in the parable, who do not scruple to remove those 
 
 of the coming of Messiah. He at first refuses, but afterwards says that when 
 Messiah comes the waters in the cave at Paneas (the source of the Jordan) 
 will be turned into blood. This took place at his own death. 
 1 Vide supra, p. 61. ^ Cf. Lecture VIII, p. 295. 
 
 79 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 who, as they think, stand in the way of their own 
 advancement. Indeed the Pharisees recognise that 
 Jesus spoke this parable against them, and imme- 
 diately proceed to prove the truth of the application 
 by trying to seize Him (xxi. 33-41, 45, 46 ; cf. xii. 
 14). Remembering this we cannot be surprised that 
 He should have accused the Scribes and Pharisees 
 of adorning the tombs of the prophets, and yet 
 resembling in character those who murdered them 
 (xxiii. 29-32). 
 
 For the closing sentence of the Messiah upon the 
 ' scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites ! ' is that there is 
 no escape for them : ' Ye serpents, ye offspring of 
 vipers, how shall ye escape the judgment of hell ? ' 
 (xxiii. 33). Jerusalem must perish, and all the blood 
 of the martyred prophets is to come upon them and 
 that generation (xxiii. 34-36). 
 
 To sum up, ostentation in religion, punctilious- 
 ness in details, with neglect of that which is of real 
 importance, ignorance of the spirit of Scripture and 
 the character of God, unwillingness to use the means 
 of true knowledge, together with wilful opposition 
 to spiritual work, and with cruelty towards God's 
 messengers — ^these are the marks of the inbred poison- 
 ous viciousness of the Scribes and Pharisees. It is a 
 tremendous indictment. 
 
 Such is the verdict of the Messiah upon the 
 Scribes and Pharisees, as presented in the Gospel 
 according to St. Matthew. That of modern Jewish 
 scholars is very different. 
 
 The following extracts from Dr. Kohler's article 
 in the Jewish Encyclopedia are typical : ' The object 
 of the Pharisees was to render the Sabbath " a delight " 
 
 80 
 
II] JEWISH PRAISE OF PHARISEES 
 
 (Isa. Iviii. 13), a day of social and spiritual joy and 
 elevation rather than a day of gloom. . . . The 
 Pharisees transformed the Sabbath and festivals 
 into seasons of domestic joy, bringing into increasing 
 recognition the importance and dignity of woman 
 as the builder and guardian of the home. . . . The 
 aim and object of the Law, according to Pharisaic 
 principles, are the training of man to a full realization 
 of his responsibility to God and to the consecration 
 of life by the performance of its manifold duties. . . . 
 The acceptance of God's Kingship . . . means a 
 perfect heart that fears the very thought of sin ; 
 the avoidance of sin from the love of God ; the ful- 
 filment of His commandments without expectation 
 of reward ; the avoidance of any impure thought or 
 any act of sin that may lead to sin. . . . The ethics 
 of the Pharisees is based upon the principle, " Be 
 holy, as the Lord your God is holy." ... It is a 
 slanderous misrepresentation of the Pharisees to 
 state that they " divorced morality and religion," 
 when everywhere virtue, probity, and benevolence 
 are declared by them to be the essence of the Law. 
 Nothing could have been more loathsome to the 
 genuine Pharisee than Hypocrisy. " Whatever good 
 a man does he should do it for the glory of God." ' ^ 
 Another eminent Jewish scholar, Professor Chwol- 
 son, who was a Christian as well as a Jew, writes as 
 follows : ' The kernel and quintessence of the teaching 
 of Christ consists, as is generally recognised, in the 
 spiritualisation of religion, in pointing to the fact that 
 its true nature lies in love to God and men, and not 
 in the punctilious observance of the ceremonial laws. 
 . . . This conception of the true nature of religion 
 
 1 s.v. Pharisees, ix. 663-665. 
 
 81 G 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 was not at all strange to Judaism in general, and to 
 the nobler and better of the Pharisees. I need only 
 remind theologians, who are acquainted with the Old 
 Testament, of the words of the prophets Samuel, 
 Isaiah, Micah, Jeremiah, and several of the Psalmists, 
 who proclaimed with one voice that love to God, the 
 practice of righteousness, care for the weak and poor, 
 &c., is the essence of religion, and that through such 
 actions one can obtain the favour of God, but not 
 through sacrifices and vows. The Pharisees walked 
 partly in the footsteps of the old prophets, strove 
 for the holiness of the whole people and against 
 the exclusive character of the priesthood, and per- 
 ceived that love to God and men was the essence 
 of religion, without however desiring to do away 
 with the ceremonial laws.' ^ 
 
 No less favourable account is given by Canon 
 Box, one of the few Gentile scholars who can speak 
 from a knowledge of the Talmudic sources of Judaism 
 at firsthand. He writes : ' The Pharisees were for 
 
 1 Das letzte Passamahl Ohristi, 1908, p. 89. ' Der Kem und die Quintessenz 
 der lehre Christi besteht, wie allgemein anerkannt wird, in der Vergeistigung 
 der Religion, in dem Hinweis darauf, dass das Wesen derselben in der Idebe 
 zu Gott und zu Mensohen und nicht in der peinlichen Ausiibung der Cere- 
 monialgesetze liege. . . . Diese AufFassung vom Wesen der Religion war dem 
 Judenthum iiberhaupt und den edleren imd besseren unter den Pharisaem 
 durchaus nicht fremd. Die Theologen, welche mit dem Alten Testament 
 bekannt sind, brauohe ioh nur auf die Worte der Propheten Samuel, Jesaia, 
 Micha, Jeremia und mehrerer Psalmisten hinzuweisen, welche einstimmig 
 predigten, dass liebe zu Gott, Gerechtigkeit iiben, sioh der Schwachen und 
 Armen annehmen u.s.w. das Wesen der Religion sei, und dass man duroh 
 solche Thaten das Wohlwollen Gottes sich erwerben korme, aber nicht durch 
 Opfer und Geliibde. Die Pharisaer gingen theilweise in den Fusstapfen der 
 alten Propheten, kampften fiir die Heiligkeit des ganzen Volkes und gegen 
 die Exolusivltat der Priesterschaft und sahen es auoh wohl ein, dass die Liebe 
 zu Gott und zu den Mensohen das Wesen der Religion sei, aber ohne dabei 
 die Ceremonialgesetze absohafien zu wollen.' See also pp. 187-189, with 
 the touching picture of Chwolson's own home in his childhood. 
 
 82 
 
II] CHRISTIAN PRAISE OF PHARISEES 
 
 a long period the party of progress within Judaism ; 
 they fought strenuously and passionately — ^if not 
 always wisely — ^for great causes, and won them. 
 They championed the cause of pure monotheism 
 against the Hellenizing movement ; they built \ip 
 religious individualism and a purely spiritual wor- 
 ship ; they deepened the belief in a future life ; they 
 carried on a powerful mission propaganda ; they 
 championed the cause of the laity against an exclusive 
 priesthood ; they made the Scriptures the possession 
 of the people, and in the weekly assemblages of 
 the Synagogue they preached to them the truths 
 and hopes of religion out of the sacred books (not 
 only out of the Pentateuch, but also out of the 
 Prophets and Hagiographa). . . . The Pharisees con- 
 sistently strove to bring life more and more under 
 the dominion of religious observance. But observance 
 — and ceremonial — ^was valued mainly because of 
 its educational worth. By carefully formed habits, 
 by the ceremonial of religious observance, religious 
 ideas and sanctions could be impressed upon the 
 people's mind and heart. But the outward was 
 subordinated to the inward.' ^ 
 
 We cannot wonder that Josephus should tell us 
 that ' the cities gave great attestation to the Phari- 
 sees on account of their entire virtuous conduct, both 
 in the actions of their lives and their discourses also.'^ 
 
 In view of these statements how can we explain 
 the severity of the language employed by the Messiah, 
 according to the presentation of Him in the Gospel 
 according to St. Matthew ? The question is of 
 
 » The Churchman, Sept. 1911, pp. 665, 670. Dr. Oesterley and he use 
 very nearly the same language in R.W.S. 1911, pp. 126 sq. 
 » Antt. xviii. i. 3, § 15. 
 
 83 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 the greatest importance ; perhaps the answer is to 
 be found in more than one direction.'^ 
 
 First, it has been suggested that the text is 
 corrupt. Dr. Chwolson, for example, is of opinion 
 that in some passages the original reading was only 
 the word ' Scribes,' and that later copyists added, 
 or substituted, ' Pharisees.' If this were so then 
 the Lord Jesus may have intended only to blame 
 those Scribes who were Sadducees, and not those 
 who belonged to the Pharisaic party.^ Dr. Biichler 
 again thinks that sometimes ' Priests ' was the 
 original word, not ' Pharisees.' ^ So also Dr. Kohler 
 writes : ' Owing to the hostile attitude taken to- 
 wards the Pharisaic schools by Pauline Christianity, 
 especially in the time of the emperor Hadrian, 
 " Pharisees " was inserted in the Gospels wherever 
 the high priests and Sadducees or Herodians were 
 originally mentioned as the persecutors of Jesus.' * 
 
 Even supposing, however, that it could be proved 
 that in a few passages the word ' Pharisees ' had 
 crept in instead of ' priests ' or ' scribes,' it is very 
 unlikely that there should have been such whole- 
 sale corruption as this theory requires. It alone is 
 quite insufficient. 
 
 Secondly, it is thought, especially by Chwolson 
 
 ' Mr. Herford in his painstaking work, Pharisaism, 1912, writing from 
 a Unitarian standpoint, says : ' I yield to no one in my reverence for Jesus ; 
 he is, to me, simply the greatest man who ever lived, in regard to his spiritual 
 nature ' (p. 114), but adds : ' If there was on the part of the Pharisees a 
 complete inability to comprehend the religious position of Jesus, there was 
 also on his part an inability to comprehend the religious position of the 
 Pharisees ' (p. 170). It is easier to cut the knot than to unravel it. 
 
 * Das letzte Passamahl, 1908, pp. 113 sq. 
 
 ° Die Priester und der Cultus, 1895, pp. 81-88. He refers in particular 
 to Matt. xii. 1,5; xv. 5 ; xxiii. 
 
 * Jewish Encyclopedia, s.v. Pharisee, ix. 665. 
 
 84 
 
ii] EXPLANATIONS OF CHRIST'S INVECTIVE 
 
 and Canon Box, that our Lord's invectives were not 
 aimed against the Pharisees as a class, but only 
 against comparatively few of them, who lived un- 
 worthily of their profession. There are black sheep 
 in every flock, and we know from the Jewish writings 
 themselves that it was so with the Pharisees. There 
 is no object in repeating the often quoted list of the 
 seven kinds of Pharisees mentioned in the' Talmud, 
 only one of which comes up to the ideal of a true 
 Pharisee, separate in heart and life from sin and 
 the world.'^ Nor is it necessary to do more than 
 allude to another passage, which speaks of ' painted ' 
 Pharisees.2 Here again, while it is quite possible 
 that in one or two verses the Lord Jesus had such 
 Pharisees solely in His mind, the general description 
 of the Pharisees in the Gospel is too far-reaching 
 to be satisfied by this theory. The suggestion of 
 the Gospel that the Pharisees as a whole were wrong, 
 and not only a small fraction of them, cannot be 
 so easily dismissed. 
 
 Thirdly, it is pointed out that, quite apart from 
 the question of the existence of hypocritical Pharisees, 
 as we generally use the word hypocrisy, there were two 
 distinct parties among the Pharisees.^ For it may 
 be that the opponents whom the Lord Jesus had in 
 mind were the followers of Shammai, and not those of 
 Hillel. This, it is said, will account for the fact that 
 some of the relations of the Lord Jesus with Pharisees 
 were quite friendly.* Did He not preach in the 
 
 ^ The list may be found with full references in Chwolson, op. cit. pp. 116" 
 118. Cf. 98, 120, and more briefly in Oesterley and Box, op. cit. p. 127' 
 and in Loewe, E.B.E., vii. p. 588. 
 
 ' See Chwolson, dp. cit. pp. 114 sq., 189. ' See above, p. 75. 
 
 * Cf. Oesterley and Box, Beligion and Worship of the Synagogue, 1911, 
 pp. 124 sq. ; Chwolson, op. cit. pp. 90, 95. Vide infra, pp. 88, note, 151, 209. 
 
 85 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 synagogues, where, it is asserted (though the asser- 
 tion may be doubted), the Pharisees were supreme? 
 And was He not asked to dine with a Pharisee, and 
 warned by Pharisees of danger from Herod? Be- 
 sides, did not many Pharisees become behevers in 
 Him, as is recorded in the Acts of the Apostles ? 
 These, however, it is suggested, were only followers 
 of Hillel, while it was the followers of Shammai who 
 had the real power in Jerusalem until long after the 
 death of the Lord Jesus. May then it not have been 
 the Shammaite section, and the Shammaite section 
 only, whom He attacked ? 
 
 There is, in fact, some corroborative evidence for 
 this. It appears that the regulation about washing 
 the hands before eating was a subject of dispute 
 between the Shammaites and the Hillelites during the 
 greater part of the first century of our era, and was 
 not finally settled until its close. It was the Sham- 
 maites who insisted upon it ; and few, if any, of the 
 Hillelites did so. When then in Matt. xv. 1-20 our 
 Lord defends His disciples for eating without having 
 observed this ceremonial washing, and blames the 
 Pharisees for insisting upon it. He must, it is said, 
 have had the Shammaites only, or at least pre- 
 eminently, in His mind. In view, therefore, both of 
 this and of the comparative powerlessness of the 
 Hillelites in the time of our Lord, it is suggested that 
 His invectives were aimed at the followers of the stern 
 and narrow Shammai, not at those of the peaceful 
 and tolerant Hillel.^ 
 
 ^ Box, Churchman, Sept. 1911, pp. 671 sq. Oesterley and Box, op. cit. 
 pp. 128-130. It is well to note one interesting result if this opinion should 
 be proved correct. It is this, that if a Christian writer thought it was worth 
 while to record the words of Jesus against the Shammaites, this must have 
 been because they were still a power in the land. But they lost their power 
 
 86 
 
II] WAS HE ATTACKING SHAMMAITES ? 
 
 Before, however, we accept this theory, certain 
 considerations must not be overlooked. The differ- 
 ences of the House of Shammai and the House of 
 Hillel consisted only in details, not in principles.^ We 
 find, for example, that the Shammaites insisted that a 
 maiden who was betrothed in her childhood by her 
 mother or brother should accept their decision, but 
 that the Hillelites permitted her to refuse, if she did 
 not like the man whom they had chosen for her. So, 
 again, the Shammaites allowed divorce only for a 
 serious moral fault; the Hillelites for almost any 
 cause, if the man disliked his wife. Save that the 
 House of Hillel was less dependent on the letter of 
 the Mosaic Law, and tried to discover more means 
 whereby its rigorousness should be softened, we can 
 find no fundamental difference in their tenets. Both 
 were Pharisees of the Pharisees. Speaking gene- 
 rally, what was true of the one party was true of the 
 other. 
 
 More evidence for what we may call the Sham- 
 maite theory has been thought to lie in their persecut- 
 ing spirit. It has been suggested, for example, that 
 the opposition in the Gospels to the Pharisees was due 
 to the bitterness that existed between them and the 
 early Christians.^ The latter had suffered at the 
 hands of the former. It is further supposed that if 
 the Christians were persecuted by Pharisees these 
 must have been the Shammaites, not Hillelites. For 
 
 after 63 A.D., as we have already seen. Therefore these portions of the 
 Gospel which attack the Shammaites must spring from a time anterior to 
 that. In other words, the more plainly the Gospel lays stress on feelings 
 and parties that passed away before 70 a.d., the more evident it becomes that 
 the substance of the Gospel is earher than that date, however much later 
 certain critics may place its composition as a whole. 
 
 » Weiss, Dor dor w' dorshaw, i. 177-187. * Cf. p. 84. 
 
 87 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 we find Hillelites up to the very end of the second 
 century treating Christians in a kindly fashion.^ 
 
 Yet this is to forget certain plain facts. We do 
 know that not very long after the Lord's crucifixion 
 a persecution arose, organised, it would seem, by the 
 High Priests — ^that is to say, the Sadducaic party, but 
 supported by one young Pharisee at least, whose zeal 
 as inquisitor took him as far as Damascus. No doubt, 
 it will be said, the man was a Shammaite ; a follower 
 of Hillel would not have acted thus. The Hillelites, 
 gentle souls, would never have persecuted Christians. 
 Unfortunately for the theory he was not. His 
 teacher was, in fact, the son, or possibly the grand- 
 son of Hillel himself. Saul of Tarsus, the pupil 
 of Gamaliel, cannot have belonged to the party 
 of the Shammaites, but must have been a 
 Hillelite.^ Yet, as we know from his OAvn statements 
 in the Epistles,' as well as from the more detailed 
 account in the Acts of the Apostles,* he persecuted the 
 Church to the uttermost. The fact is that when we 
 assume that the greater liberality of the Hillelite 
 school, in regulations affecting the daily life, passed 
 over into the realm of doctrine, and made it less 
 intolerant of divergence from the recognised faith of 
 Pharisaic Judaism, we are going farther than our 
 evidence warrants. In short, the theory that our 
 Lord's invectives against the Pharisees were limited 
 to the Shammaites, is, upon the whole, to be rejected. 
 
 ^ That this is true of even R. Jehudah ha-Kadosh himself (at least in one 
 instance) see Chwolson, op. cit. pp. 104, 105. 
 
 ' In this connexion it should be remembered that when St. Paul's training 
 \>j Gamaliel began he was probably old enough to make a deliberate choice 
 of his teacher. See Sir W. M. Ramsay's illuminating article on The Thought 
 of Paul in the Expositor for Dec. 1911, pp. 481-489. 
 
 ' 1 Cor. XV. 9 ; Gal. i. 13 ; Phil. iii. 6 ; 1 Tim. i. 13. 
 
 ♦ Acts viii. 3; ix. 1, 13, 21 ; xxii. 4, 19 ; xxvi. 10, 11. 
 
 88 
 
II] THE TRUE EXPLANATION 
 
 Even the best and purest part of the Pharisees, and 
 such a position we gladly accede to the Hillelites, 
 justified by its actions the language of the Lord 
 Jesus. 
 
 This leads us to what, in all probability, is the 
 true explanation of His indictment. It is that He 
 used the word ' hypocrite ' in a somewhat different 
 sense from that which we ordinarily attach to it.^ 
 Ours is true as far as it goes, but it does not go far 
 enough. We use it in the narrow sense of a person 
 who deliberately and consciously says, or does, a 
 thing with the intention of deceiving others, and 
 perhaps also himself. Now it is quite true that some- 
 times the Lord employs the word in precisely this way. 
 Take, for example, these verses in the Sermon on the 
 Mount : ' When therefore thou doest alms, sound 
 not a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the 
 synagogues and in the streets, that they may have 
 glory of men. Verily I say unto you, They have 
 received their reward. . . . And when ye pray, ye 
 shall not be as the hypocrites : for they love to stand 
 and pray in the synagogues and in the corners of the 
 streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I 
 say unto you, They have received their reward. . . . 
 Moreover when ye fast, be not, as the hypocrites, of a 
 sad countenance : for they disfigure their faces, that 
 they may be seen of men to fast. Verily I say unto 
 you. They have received their reward ' (vi. 2, 5, 16). 
 
 ^ ' A painted people, 
 
 Who paced around with steps exceeding slow, 
 
 Weeping, and in their look tired and overcome. 
 
 Cloaks had they on, with hoods, that fell low down 
 
 Before their eyes. . . , 
 
 Outward all gilded . . . dazzling to view, 
 
 Within all lead. ... weary mantle for eternity.' 
 
 Dahtb, Inferno, xsdii. 58-67. 
 
 89 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 Again, when the Pharisees try to place the Messiah in 
 a dilemma with regard to paying tribute to Caesar, 
 under pretence that it was against the Law of Moses, 
 ' Jesus perceived their wickedness, and said. Why 
 tempt ye me, ye hypocrites ? ' (xxii. 18). 
 
 On the other hand, He sometimes uses the word in 
 a wider sense. In vii. 5, to the man who volunteers 
 to remove the atom of dry twig from his brother's 
 eye, while all the time he himself has a whole plank of 
 wood in his own eye, Jesus says : ' Thou hypocrite, 
 cast out first the beam out of thine own eye ; and then 
 shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy 
 brother's eye.' So again in xv. 7-9, after blaming the 
 Pharisees for making the written word of God inopera- 
 tive because of their system of oral tradition, He adds : 
 ' Ye hypocrites, well did Isaiah prophesy of you, 
 saying, This people honoureth me with their lips ; 
 but their heart is far from me. But in vain do they 
 worship me, teaching as their doctrines the precepts 
 of men.' We may compare our Lord's words in 
 Luke xii. 56 : ' Ye hypocrites, ye know how to interpret 
 the face of the earth and the heaven ; but how is it 
 that ye know not how to interpret this time ? ' So 
 also Luke xiii. 15, when the ruler of the synagogue 
 objected to men coming on the sabbath day to be 
 healed : ' The Lord answered him, and said, Ye hypo- 
 crites, doth not each one of you on the sabbath loose 
 his ox or his ass from the stall, and lead him away to 
 watering ? ' Our Lord seems to use the word ' hypo- 
 crite ' in these cases when the life is inconsistent with 
 the profession made, but without any connotation of 
 wilful and conscious deceit. 
 
 In other words, the Lord Jesus is accusing the 
 Pharisees of what we should call shallowness in religion. 
 
 90 
 
ii] SHALLOWNESS IN RELIGION 
 
 They lacked the depth which is the mark of the true 
 behever in God.^ For the picture of the Pharisee in 
 the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican, recorded 
 by St. Luke, states the case accurately. The Pharisee 
 described there was a good man, if goodness is plumbed 
 by a short line.^ But the religion of the Publican 
 went fathoms deeper. From this point of view we 
 can understand that the religious pride of the Phari- 
 sees was as bad as the religious indifference of the 
 Sadducees, and that therefore John the Baptist was 
 right when he classed them together (Matt. iii. 7), 
 and cried out : ' Ye offspring of vipers, who warned 
 you to flee from the wrath to come ? ' For unless 
 they, even the leaders of the Hellenising and the 
 Judaising parties, came to God in true repentance, 
 there was no hope for them (vv. 9, 10). 
 
 In the same way the Messiah, addressing Himself 
 solely to the most religious portion of the community, 
 cries : ' Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites ! ' Your 
 religion, He means to say, is so shallow, in spite of all 
 your observances and all your conscientiousness, and 
 the effect of it is so unsatisfactory, so actually harmful 
 to the cause of true piety, that you are, in reality, 
 opposed to godliness, and may be compared to poison- 
 ous serpents. ' How shall ye,' unless ye repent, 
 ' escape the judgment of hell ? ' (xxiii. 33). 
 
 We remember St. Paul's verdict on the Jewish 
 nation, and especially on its leaders, of whom he 
 had had close personal experience : ' I bear them 
 witness,' he writes, ' that they have a zeal for God, 
 
 ^ It was the lack of moral earnestness in the High Priests and the Elders 
 that made the Lord refuse to answer their question about His authority 
 (xxi. 23-27). 
 
 ' The same may even be said of most of the prayers composed by Pharisees 
 which Mr. Herford has collected, op. cit., pp. 298-309. 
 
 91 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 but not according to knowledge. For being ignorant 
 of God's righteousness, and seeking to establish 
 their own, they did not subject themselves to the 
 righteousness of God ' (Rom. x. 2, 3). They had 
 zeal, but they lacked submission to God and His 
 way of salvation. They lacked, therefore, the one 
 condition by which salvation was obtained. Christ's 
 words are only so far stronger in that they show 
 the logical result, the inevitable outcome, of re- 
 fusal to yield the heart. ' He that is not with me 
 is against me ; and he that gathereth not with 
 me scattereth' (xii. 30).^ 
 
 May I also add that the verdict of St. Paul and 
 of the Messiah holds good to-day ? It is not that 
 Jewish scholars and teachers say one thing and 
 mean another, God forbid, for it never was so even 
 in St. Paul's or our Lord's time. It is not that they 
 then preached rightly, and wilfully transgressed ; 
 but that although they professed the knowledge 
 and love of God they did not humble themselves 
 before Him, so as to accept the one way of pardon 
 and reconciliation which He offers to sinful men. 
 So also with us. Unless we, whether Jews or Gentiles 
 (it makes no difference), have a deep sense of our 
 own sinfulness (I do not say only of our sins), our 
 religion is but shallow, and we are in the position 
 
 * A lack of humble faith has always tended to produce persecutors, either 
 so-called Christians who persecute Jews, or Jews who persecute Jewish 
 converts. Matthew the publican had probably experienced both social and 
 rehgious persecution (ix. 9-11). This experience of St. Matthew and his 
 fellow Jewish believers may account in part for the much more severe attitude 
 towards the Jewish leaders exhibited by the writer of the First Gospel than 
 by St. Luke. The Jewish Christian has always had much to bear from non- 
 Christian Jews. The pity is that he has not invariably shown a Christian 
 spirit himself. 
 
 92 
 
II] THE RIGHTEOUSNESS DEMANDED BY MESSIAH 
 
 which the Pharisees of old held in the sight of John 
 the Baptist, of St. Paul, and of the Messiah. The 
 presentation of the Messiah in the Gospel according 
 to St. Matthew is that He demands a righteous- 
 ness higher, a religion deeper, than ever Pharisee or 
 Sadducee, be he Gentile or be he Jew, can grasp, 
 at least until, like the erewhile persecutor, he has 
 a vision of Jesus, and submits himself to Him.^ 
 
 * One last suggestion may be made. It is that St. Matthew may also 
 have had Pharisaic Christians in his mind when he recorded the Lord's words 
 to Pharisaic Jews. He may have felt that although some Pharisees, when 
 they accepted Christ, left, like St. Paul, Judaism far behind them, there 
 were others of whom this could not be said. Hence he thought it to be his 
 duty to warn his Pharisaic fellow-beUevers of their danger. In other words, 
 he himself occupied much the same position as St. James, the chief aim of 
 whose Epistle was, as it seems, to caution his readers, Jewish Christians, 
 against shallowness in rehgion. Both St. James and St. Matthew might, no 
 doubt, personally be in favour of keeping the Jewish Law — ^that is not 
 the point immediately under consideration — but, in any case, they per- 
 ceived the danger in which ceremoniaUsts stood, and uttered the most 
 solemn admonitions against it. 
 
 93 
 
Lecture Three 
 
 THE MESSIAH— THE HEALER OF DISEASE 
 
* They brought unto him all 
 that were sickt holden with 
 divers diseases and tor- 
 ments, possessed with devils, 
 and epileptic, and palsied; 
 and he healed them.' — 
 Matt. iv. 24. 
 
Lecture Three 
 
 THE MESSIAH THE HEALER OF DISEASE 
 
 TWENTY years ago a learned Christian apolo- 
 gist could write : ' Men do not now believe 
 in Christ because of His miracles : they rather 
 believe in the miracles because they have first 
 believed in Christ.' ^ To-day we are reverting to 
 the earlier order of the process of belief — an order 
 which, after all, was that of more than nineteen 
 centuries of faith, and are admitting miracles once 
 more to an important place among the reasons why 
 we believe in Jesus as the Christ. The miracles 
 of Jesus, as we study them to-day, bring us a strong 
 and fresh conviction of the unique character of 
 Jesus the Messiah. 
 
 It will be convenient to consider in this Lecture, 
 first, the position of miracles in St. Matthew's pre- 
 sentation of the Messiah to the Jews of his own time; 
 and, secondly, the position of Christ's miracles in the 
 evidences of Christianity for ourselves, whether we 
 be Jews or Gentiles.^ 
 
 * A. B. Bruce, Apologetics, 1892, p. 376. Even Trench goes as far as to 
 say, ' It may be more truly said that we beheve the miracles for Christ's sake,' 
 but he recognises the other side also {Notes on the Miracles of Our Lord, 
 8th ed., 1866, end of the preliminary essay, p. 96). 
 
 ' I purposely give no definition of a miracle. The word in itself means 
 only a marvel, and to attempt to make a closer definition at this point would 
 be to prejudge the whole question under discussion. The Lecture will, I trust, 
 clearly show the result to which we are brought. 
 
 97 H 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 I. The position of Miracles in St. Matthew's pre- 
 sentation of the Messiah to the Jews of hiH own time. 
 
 It is probable that those who come to the Gospels 
 with the prepossessions of the modern man are, 
 at first sight, amazed at the prominence given in 
 them to miracles. Neither is this astonishment 
 removed by any further critical study of the docu- 
 ments themselves. Not very long ago, indeed, it 
 was supposed by many scholars that it was possible, 
 by a close examination of the text, to discover a 
 Christ who, no doubt, taught wondrously, and lived 
 a strangely holy life, but performed no mighty acts, 
 or at least no acts, the wonder of which might not 
 easily be explained away. To-day that is changed. 
 The Gospel according to St. Mark is acknowledged 
 to be the earliest of the four, and yet, early though 
 it is, it is full of miracles. Neither can the highest 
 lens of the critical microscope so distinguish the 
 wonderfxil works from the Personality as to remove 
 those and leave this uninjured. In fact, if we cut 
 the miracles out from the narrative, there remains 
 only a report quite unjointed and unintelligible. 
 ' We cannot contrive any theory by which we may 
 entirely eliminate the miraculous, and yet save 
 the historicity, in any intelligible sense, of those 
 wonderful narratives,' writes the present Archbishop 
 of Dublin.i ' If,' says Mr. T. H. Wright, ' excision 
 be made from the Evangelic records (1) of all that 
 directly narrates His unique action as a healer and 
 wonder-worker, (2) of all that presupposes the possi- 
 bility and actuality of such unique action, (3) of 
 all that testifies to His authority and power due 
 to a unique relation to God — ^the Gospels are left 
 
 ' Dr. J. H. Bernard in Hastings' D.B. iii. 3896. 
 98 
 
hi] miracles inseparable from the gospels 
 
 bald and bare and mutilated beyond description. 
 The very warp and woof of the fabric is destroyed,' ^ 
 
 The objection, however, may be raised that the 
 earliest Gospel, the Gospel according to St. Mark, 
 seems to have been written for Christians Avho were 
 of Gentile origin, whether they had come to the true 
 faith after passing through the stage of proselytism 
 to Judaism or not. As Gentiles by upbringing they 
 may well be thought of as more ignorant and super- 
 stitious than Jews, and therefore more ready to 
 accept tales of the miraculous. The Gospel of St. 
 Matthew, however, was certainly written for Jewish 
 Christians, and although we find that a much larger 
 portion of it than of St. Mark is taken up with dis- 
 courses and parables, yet the miraculous element 
 is no less striking. 
 
 In the Gospel for Jewish Christians, as in those 
 for Gentile Christians, the life and work of Jesus 
 the Messiah are so intimately bound up with miracles 
 that it is impossible to obtain a clear picture of 
 Him without them. In fact, all responsible scholars 
 of to-day will accept this statement. 
 
 In other words, after doing our best to discover 
 the true historical circumstances of the life of Jesus, 
 discriminating between what He did, and what He 
 did not, we are forced to believe that He did work 
 miracles. The Jews themselves, including those to 
 whom St. Matthew wrote, never denied this. 
 
 Now the Jews, be it remembered, were not so 
 ignorant of medicine as not to be able to distinguish 
 
 ^ In Hastings' D.C.G. ii. 189a. Cf. also Heitmiiller in Die Religion in 
 GeschichU und Oegenwart, 1911, iii. 372. ' Es gehort zur altesten, uns erreich- 
 bares UeberUeferung, dass Jesus sich in wunderbare Weise als Arzt betatigt 
 hat. An der Geschichtlichkeit dieser Kunde zu zweifeln, haben wir kein 
 Iteoht.' 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 between the ordinary and the extraordinary. It 
 is true that we do not possess Jewish writings of 
 the first half of the first century of our era, from 
 which we can acquire direct information as to the 
 state of medical knowledge among them at that 
 period. But it is not probable that they made 
 much progress in medicine or surgery during the 
 next four or five hundred years, when the Talmud 
 was in process of being compiled. We are, that is 
 to say, justified in arguing back from the Talmud 
 to the time of our Lord, and in believing that we 
 can thus obtain a fairly clear conception of the state 
 of medical knowledge then. As a layman reads 
 the lists showing the anatomical knowledge of the 
 Jews of the Talmud, whether they refer to the 
 bones or the muscles, or the larger organs, he is 
 amazed at their fullness. 
 
 Again, he reads that those Jews had learned 
 already what is, after all, only a comparatively 
 modern discovery for Western doctors, that ' the 
 symptoms of all diseases are merely outward mani- 
 festations of internal changes in the tissues.' Again, 
 he finds that in major operations the surgeon gave the 
 patient a kind of anaesthetic, and that operations 
 included not only bleeding and cupping, but also 
 amputations, trephining, the extirpation of the spleen, 
 and the insertion of false teeth, made of hard wood, 
 gold, or silver. 
 
 Besides these things they distinguished between 
 many forms of diseases of the eye ; they mentioned, or 
 discussed, diseases of the ear, rheumatism, forms of 
 heart-disease, chest complaints, gout, stone, fevers, 
 skin diseases, and many others. Again, their remedies 
 were of the greatest possible variety, by no means 
 
 100 
 
Ill] JEWISH KNOWLEDGE OF MEDICINE 
 
 confined to the ignorant methods of the superstitious. 
 It is probable that there was no very great difference 
 between the medical knowledge of the physicians and 
 surgeons of our Lord's time and that of four or five 
 hundred years ago.^ 
 
 It is therefore the more noticeable that while 
 they possessed a passable knowledge of medicine and 
 surgery, they recognised the limits of their own 
 science, and yet claimed to perform miracles. In 
 particular they asserted that by the use of magical 
 formulae they were able to cure diseases.^ This claim 
 is definitely referred to in Matt. xii. 27, and our Lord 
 is not careful to decide whether the claim was true or 
 false. He found that the learned men of His day 
 made the claim in the persons of their ' sons,' that is, 
 presumably their disciples, and He argued with them 
 ad hominem.^ 
 
 ^ See Krauss, Talmudische Arch&ohgie, 1910, i. pp. 252 sqq. ; Spivakin the 
 Jewish Encyclopedia, s.v. Medicine. Something also may be learned from 
 W. Ebstein, Die Medizin im N.T. und im Talmud, 1903, though, on the whole, 
 this is a very disappointing book. Edersheim, with reference to Matt. viii. 
 14, writes : ' A sudden access of violent ' ' burning fever,' ' such as is even now 
 common in that district, had laid Peter's mother-in-law prostrate. . . . The 
 Talmud gives this disease precisely the same name (Nm*DX KDB'N, Eshatha 
 Tsemirta), " burning fever," and prescribes for it a magical remedy, of which 
 the principal part is to tie a knife whoUy of iron by a braid of hair to a thorn- 
 bush, and to repeat on successive days Exod. iii. 2, 3, then ver. 4, and finally 
 ver. 5, after which the bush is to be out down while a certain magical for- 
 mula is pronounced' {Jesus the Messiah, 1887, i. pp. 485 sq., referring to T.B. 
 Sabh. 67a). See also Ebstein, op. cit. pp. 221 sq. For Assyrian-Babylonian 
 medicine, see R. Campbell Thompson in Hastings' E.R.E. iv. 744-746. See 
 also Budge, The Syriac Book of Medicines, 1913. 
 
 ' For examples see, besides the last note, Edersheim, Jesus the Messiah, 
 ii. 774-776. A convenient selection of Jewish miracles is contained in 
 F. Fie big's Bdbbinische Wundergeschichten des neutestamentlichen Zeitalters 
 (laetzmann's Kleine Texte), 1911 ; but the last three words of the title are to 
 be understood very liberally. 
 
 ' Compare also the statement by our Lord that men would oliim to have 
 wrought miracles in His name, although He would deny all ' knowledge ' 
 of those who wrought them [vii. 22, 23)'. 
 
 101 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 While, however, the Jews were quite able to 
 distinguish between cases of ordinary healing and 
 those of an exceptional kind, effected by means quite 
 insufficient in themselves ; and while they asserted 
 that they, or their disciples, brought about cures of 
 the latter kind as well as of the former ; and, further, 
 while they did not deny that our Lord wrought 
 extraordinary cures, they attributed these to the 
 wrong cause. They said, as we are told in xii. 24, 
 that it was only in union with Beelzebub, prince of 
 the demons, that He cast out the demons.^ They 
 refused, as our Lord pointed out to them, to see the 
 viciousness of their logic (as if Satan would ever cast 
 out Satan !), and they attributed a malevolent origin 
 to the work of Jesus (in spite of their claim for their 
 own adherents) ; and, lastly, they set their face against 
 recognising the good, and professed to believe that 
 health and salvation had their origin in evil. 
 
 An echo of the same monstrous statement of the 
 source of our Lord's miracles is found in the Talmud, 
 not, however, as it would appear, in the Mishna or the 
 Tosephta, or in the Palestinian Gemara, but only in 
 the Babylonian. For although we find in the Tosephta, 
 and the two Gemaras, the assertion that by writing 
 letters on his own body a certain Ben Stada brought 
 magic out of Egypt,^ it is not until the time of the 
 Babylonian Gemara that we find Ben Stada identified 
 with Ben Pantera, the name given to our Lord.^ 
 
 * So also ix. 34, according to many authorities. 
 
 '^ Tosephta, Sabh. xi. (xii.) 15 (p. 126); T; J. Sabb. xii. 4 {13d) ; Bab. 
 Sdbb. 1046. These and the passages in the two following notes may be 
 studied most conveniently in Strack, Jesus, die Hdretiker und die Christen, 
 1910. See in particular his notes on § 7. 
 
 " Bab. Sdbb. 1046 ; Sank. 67a. In Bab. Sank. 43a, Jesus of Nazareth is 
 said to have practised magic. See further Straok's notes on § 1. Also on 
 the name Pantera, § 3, note 3, and Box, Virgin Birth, p. 201, 
 
 102 
 
Ill] MIRACLES AMONG THE HEATHEN 
 
 We have therefore no direct confirmation from 
 Jewish writings prior to 400 or 500 a.d. of the Gospel 
 statement that the Jews attributed our Lord's miracles 
 to magie.^ 
 
 It is the less strange that the Jews should believe 
 in miracles when we remember that miracles were 
 taking place among the heathen. Even if the tradi- 
 tion of the cures wrought by magical incantations of 
 Ea and Marduk among the Assyrians and Baby- 
 lonians 2 had died out in Judaism (and in virtue of 
 the remnant that still remained in Babylonia this is 
 hardly probable), there were still in districts nearei 
 Palestine devotees of Esmun,^ while, if they looked a 
 little further abroad, they would see the temples of 
 Serapis and Isis * thronged with suppliants, entreat- 
 ing divine aid for their sickness. In particular they 
 would hear of the many cures effected by the worship 
 of ^sculapius.5 
 
 ' The earliest evidence outside the New Testament for this appears to be 
 Justin Martyr, Dial. § 69. So also Pionius, 260t a.d., and Origen (Strack, 
 op. cit. pp. 8* sq.). 
 
 ^ R. Campbell Thompson in E.R.E. iv. 742. See further Baudissin, 
 Adonis und Esmun, 1911, pp. 311-324. 
 
 ' On the probability that Esmun, who was specially worshipped at Sidon, 
 was a god of heahng, see Baudissin, op. cit. pp. 242-245. One text has been 
 discovered in which the sick man is bid ask Tammuz to drive out from him 
 the demon of sickness (p. 374). 
 
 * Lucius, Die Anfange des HeiligenlcuUs in der christlichen Kirche, 1904, 
 p. 254. 
 
 ' ' The revival which attended the cult of ^soulapius during the Imperial 
 age. As far back as 290 B.C. .ffisoulapius of Epidaurus had been summoned 
 to Rome on the advice of the Sibylline books. He kept his sanctuary on the 
 island in the Tiber, and close to it, just as at the numerous shrines of Ascle- 
 pius in Greece, there stood a sanatorium in winch sick persons waited for the 
 injunctions which the god imparted during sleep. . . . From Rome his cult 
 spread over all the West, fusing itself here and there with the cult of Serapis or 
 of some other deity, and accompanied by the inferior cult of Hygeia and Salus, 
 Telesphorus and Somnus. . . . People travelled to the famous sanatoria of the 
 god as they travel to-day to baths. He was appealed to in diseases of the body 
 
 103 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 It is indeed difficult for us at this distance to 
 discern with accuracy either the nature of the diseases 
 of which cures were effected at the heathen shrines, 
 or indeed to estimate with certainty the truth of the 
 affirmation in any particular case. But when we 
 bear in mind (1) the directness of the statements 
 made at, or near, the time ; (2) the evidence that the 
 healing powers exhibited at the temples were in many 
 places continued after the Christian religion had taken 
 these over ; (3) the very large amount of apparently 
 immediate and trustworthy evidence that this healing 
 power continued not only in the early centuries, but 
 also throughout the Middle Ages (as, for example, on 
 the death of Becket, or by the means of Catharine of 
 Siena) ; and (4), lastly, the fact that such miracles 
 occur down to our own day, as, for example, at the 
 exhibition of the Holy Coat at Treves in 1891, and in 
 churches and shrines in Greece and Eastern Europe 
 every year (to say nothing of Lourdes, or of the work 
 of Faith Healers in our own land) — we can hardly 
 deny that in the beginning of the first century of our 
 era, as in all other times, cures took place of diseases 
 which had been pronounced incurable by the best 
 physicians and surgeons of the day, and were per- 
 formed only after prayer, or something equivalent 
 to it. To such cures has been given in all ages the 
 generic name of miracles.^ 
 
 and of the soul, the costUest gifts were brought him as the 0€OCC COTH P 
 
 (" God the Saviour"), and people consecrated their Uves to him, as innumer- 
 able inscriptions and statues testify. In the case of other gods as well, healing 
 energy was now made a central feature. Zeus himself and Apollo (cp. e.^. 
 Tatian, Orat. viii.) appeared in a new hght. They, too, became "saviours." 
 No one could be a god any longer, unless he was also a saviour ' (Hamack, 
 Expansion of Christianity, 1904, i. 127-129). See also the Appendix to this 
 Lecture. 
 
 ' For examples see the Appendix to this Lecture. 
 
 J04 
 
Ill] DISEASE TO BE OVERCOME IN MESSIANIC TIMES 
 
 Postponing until the second part of this Lecture 
 the question of the differences between our Lord's 
 miracles and those of others, let us now consider how 
 far St. Matthew regarded His miracles as evidence 
 for His Messiahship. 
 
 In doing so it is, of course, necessary to be very 
 careful lest we introduce into the Evangelist's mind 
 thoughts that properly belong to our own, whether 
 by way of addition to his mode of regarding facts, 
 or (and perhaps this is the more likely) by omission 
 of what he really did believe. 
 
 In the first place, the Jews were accustomed to 
 look up to Jehovah as the Healer of the diseases of 
 His people.^ It would therefore be but natural that 
 the Jews should expect that when Messiah, His great 
 representative, should appear, men's diseases should 
 be healed.^ 
 
 The people did, in fact,expect to see such a sudden 
 improvement in health, such wonderful victory over 
 infirmity and disease, in Messianic times.* For life 
 and human vigour would then be at its highest, and 
 sickness must flee away.* If later Jewish thought 
 could tell of the healing of the blind and the lame 
 when the Law was first given at Sinai," how much 
 
 ^ For the fullest treatment of this subject see Baudissin, Adonis und 
 Esmun, 1911, pp. 385 sqq. 
 
 ' The fact that they were aooustomed to regard individual angels as the 
 special agents through whom meanwhile He exerted His healing power would 
 not mihtate against this. On the facts see Bousset, Die Religion des Judentums 
 im neutestamenUichen Zeitalter, 1906, p. 378. 
 
 ' Isa. xxsv. 5, 6. 
 
 * Compare the hsrperbohoal description of the development of the human 
 frame painted by R. Meir about 150 a.d. See IQausner, Messianische Vor- 
 stellungen, pp. 108 sq., 112 sqq. A summary of the hopes expressed in the 
 pseudepigraphic books may be found in Bousset, loc. cit. 
 
 ' Quoted from the Siphre by Rashi on T.B. Sdbb. 146a. So too the 
 Mekilta on Exod. xix. 11 (ed. Friedmann, p. 64 ; ed. Weiss, p. 72) : ' " In the 
 
 105 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 greater would be the expectation of healing power at 
 the coming of the Messiah ! It must, however, be 
 remembered that there appears to be no direct evi- 
 dence that these miracles were to be performed by the 
 immediate agency of the Messiah. It is one thing for 
 healing to be effected, as a result of the blessed change 
 consequent on the coming of Messiah, quite another 
 for cases of cures to be performed by Him Himself.^ 
 There is, however, some indirect evidence which ought 
 not to be forgotten. Josephus seems to attribute 
 such power of miraculous healing to a king whose 
 coming was promised, and could hardly be anyone 
 but Messiah.2 Further, it is difficult to understand 
 why the sight of the miracles performed by our Lord 
 should have made the multitude cry out that He was 
 the son of David, unless they expected this promised 
 monarch to perform miracles of healing.^ In spite, 
 therefore, of the apparent absence of direct evi- 
 dence, we can hardly be wrong in thinking that, in 
 at least some quarters of Judaism, the Messiah was 
 expected to heal the sick, to restore vigour to the 
 infirm. 
 
 Indeed, the assumption of such an expectation 
 underlies the words of our Lord to the messengers of 
 John the Baptist. He bids them report to John the 
 sights that they had seen, and the words which they 
 had heard, while they were actually with Jesus. He 
 tells them this, too, in such a way that their witness 
 
 eyes of all the people," teaching us that there was no bhnd among them,' 
 to which Rashi adds ' for they were all healed.' 
 
 ^ ' Der Messias wird im tannaitischen Schriftthum niemals als Wmider- 
 thater ex 'professo betrachtet ' (Klausner, Die Messianische Vorstellung, u.s.w., 
 p. 108). 
 
 ^ Anti. xvii. ii. 4 (§ 45). Compare Encyclopmdia Biblica, c. 4324. 
 
 = xii. 23 ; cf. ix. 27 ; xx. 30, 31. Cf. also John vii. 31; cf. Lect. VII, 
 pp. 266 sqq. 
 
 100 
 
Ill] SIGNS FOR JOHN THE BAPTIST 
 
 was to be linked on to the words inaugurating the 
 kingdom which the prophet had of old put into 
 the mouth of the servant of the Lord : ' Blind men 
 are recovering their sight, and lame men are 
 walking, lepers are being cleansed, and deaf men 
 are hearing, and dead men are being raised up, and 
 (last of all, as most decisive sign of all) poor 
 men are having the good news brought to them.' 
 Our Lord thought the evidence was sufficient to 
 show John that He really was the One who was to 
 come, the One into whose mouth the description of 
 the new kingdom had been placed. John was not 
 to be misled if Jesus did not correspond to the 
 common, but mistaken, expectation of a fighting 
 Messiah who should lead the nation to victory over 
 earthly foes, for He was in fact accomplishing the 
 predictive utterance of one of the greatest of the 
 prophets.^ 
 
 It is worthy of remark that, among the miracles 
 to which our Lord called the attention of the 
 messengers of John, the casting out of demons finds 
 no place. Perhaps there was no instance of it 
 during the time that they were with Him. However 
 that may be, it is certain that in the mind of the 
 Evangelist such cures were of great importance. 
 There is no occasion for us now to consider whether 
 demoniacal possession was and is a reality, or only a 
 false explanation of serious mental disease.^ It is 
 well established that in the first century a.d. men 
 
 ^ xi. 5, 6. In w. 20-24 our Lord again insists on the evidential value of 
 His miracles. 
 
 ^ Por several acute remarks against the presupposition that the existence 
 of hurtful supernatural powers is impossible, see CJiristus Futurus, 1907, 
 pp. 192-195. See also Sir W. M. Ramsay's reference to Nevius' Demoniac 
 Possession in the Expositor, Feb. 1912, p. 151. 
 
 107 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 generally, Jews ^ as well as the Gentiles,^ conceived 
 of the air as peopled with living creatures invisible 
 to man, many of whom were hurtful to him, who 
 by means of their intelligence could not only dispose 
 him to moral evil, but even take up a kind of physical 
 abode within him and injure his body.' This dread 
 of the unseen powers, this obsession of their awful 
 presence, under which man was powerless, was, 
 says the Evangelist, overcome by the Messiah, 
 and by those who believed on Him. St. Matthew 
 presents to us One, before Whom the demons tremble, 
 Whom they acknowledge as their judge, Whose 
 word they obey, even though it is to their own de- 
 struction. To every reader of St. Matthew's time, 
 whether Jew or Gentile, this good news would bring 
 the greatest possible hope, where before there had 
 been only despair. The believer is no longer at the 
 mercy of the demons ! One has come who had 
 proved Himself superior to them ! He has, more- 
 over, given to some of His followers power to cast 
 them out ! * We to-day, with our superior knowledge, 
 real or fancied, do not easily grasp the enormous 
 significance of this fact for those early believers.^ 
 
 Here perhaps it is convenient to recall certain 
 other points in St. Matthew's presentation of the 
 Messiah. For example. His healing of disease was 
 
 ^ H. Loewe affirms : ' Galilee was the centre of Palestinian Demonology, 
 and it will almost invariably be fomid that Oalilman teachers accepted, while 
 Judcean teachers rejected, the existence of spirits ' {Encyclopcedia of Religion, 
 and Ethics, iv. 613). Mesopotamian Rabbis, he adds, agreed with the 
 Galilean. 
 
 2 Of. Hamack, Expansion of Christianity, 1904, i. 160 sqq. 
 
 " Jubilees, x. 12, 13, and often. See Bousset, R.J.N. Z. ch. xvii, 
 
 * X. 1, 8. 
 
 ' And for the converts from the heathen of our own day. See the memoir 
 of Pastor Hsi ; and Warneck, The Living Forces of the Gospel, 1909; passim. 
 
 108 
 
in] THE COMPASSION OF MESSIAH 
 
 as much a part of His daily work as teaching and 
 preaching. The statement in iv. 23, 24, sets this 
 forth in but longer and more explicit terms than 
 elsewhere : ' And Jesus went about in all Galilee, 
 teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the 
 gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of dis- 
 ease and all manner of sickness among the people. 
 And the report of him went forth into all Syria : 
 and they brought unto him all that were sick, holden 
 with divers diseases and torments, possessed with 
 devils, and epileptic and palsied ; and he healed 
 them.' 1 
 
 Again, the motive that moves the Messiah is 
 compassion. His exceeding tender-heartedness, and 
 His accessibility to those who crave from Him 
 relief, form an important part of the Evangelist's 
 delineation : ' He came forth, and saw a great 
 multitude, and he had compassion on them, and 
 healed their sick ' (xiv. 14). ' Jesus called unto 
 him his disciples and said, I have compassion on 
 the multitude, because they continue with me now 
 three days and have nothing to eat : and I would 
 not send them away fasting, lest haply they faint 
 in the way ' (xv. 32).^ ' And Jesus, being moved 
 with compassion, touched their eyes : and straight- 
 way they received their sight, and followed him ' 
 (xx. 34). So also He actually stretched forth his 
 hand and touched a leper, disagreeable though it 
 must have been to do so. He shrank, indeed, from 
 nothing which could enable Him to bring health 
 to sick folk, even though it meant for Him that 
 
 1 Cf. vs.. 35 ; xii. 16 ; xiv. 34-36 ; xv. 29-31 ; xix. 1, 2, 
 ' Although the 4000 fed on this occasion were, in all probabiHty, mostly 
 heathen [v. 31). 
 
 109 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 in some sense He bare upon Himself their sicknesses : 
 ' that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by 
 Isaiah the prophet, saying, Himself took our in- 
 firmities, and bare our diseases ' (viii. 17).^ 
 
 Again, His miracles were not effective ex opere 
 operato, regardless of any personal relation between 
 Himself and the sick, or, at the least, between Him- 
 self and those who brought them. Where there 
 was unbelief (speaking of the community in general) 
 there He could work but few miracles (xiii. 58). 
 It was when He saw the faith of those that bore 
 the paralytic that He addressed Himself to him 
 (ix. 2). It was necessary to draw out the faith of 
 the Canaanite woman before He healed her daughter 
 (xv. 21-28). The faith might be mixed with super- 
 stition, as with the poor woman who thought that 
 virtue resided in the holy ' fringe ' on His garment, 
 but the issue of her blood was staunched (ix. 20-22). 
 The faith too in many of those healed, probably in 
 most, must have come very far short of spiritual 
 submission to our Lord, or the multitudes of those 
 who were healed would have formed a prominent 
 part of those who actually became His disciples. 
 But, so far as we can judge, this was the case with 
 very few of them. Some faith, however feeble 
 and mixed though it might be, was necessary. The 
 Messiah, as depicted for us in the First Gospel, 
 was no mere thaumaturge, performing His wonders 
 regardless of the moral condition of those upon 
 whom He worked them. 
 
 This leads to another consideration. The Messiah 
 was absolutely free from any measure of self-seeking. 
 Mere reputation as such He did not desire (viii. 4, 
 
 * See below, p. 125. 
 110 
 
Ill] NO SIGN FROM HEAVEN 
 
 ix. 81). Neither can we suppose that He who bade 
 His disciples perform their cures without payment 
 could for a moment have thought of receiving any 
 Himself (x. 8). 
 
 With this is closely allied His consistent refusal 
 to make an exhibition of His powers. No miracle 
 of His was performed with the single object of im- 
 pressing those who beheld it. On the contrary, 
 when He was told that a sign from heaven would 
 convince He vehemently blamed the applicants for 
 their worldliness and unbelief. They had turned 
 away from God as a bride from her husband ; they 
 were worse than the ungodly men of Nineveh, or 
 the heathen Queen of Sheba. They repented not 
 at the message they heard ; they sought not the 
 true wisdom from Him who was greater than Solomon 
 (xii. 38-42, xvi. 1-4). In saying this St. Matthew 
 no doubt intended his readers to learn that, whether 
 they saw strange wonders wrought in Christ's name 
 or not, they themselves had full cause to turn to 
 God in true repentance, and possessed, abund- 
 ance of spiritual wisdom in Christ upon which to 
 draw. 
 
 There is, it will be noticed, no trace of an en- 
 deavour on St. Matthew's part to argue from the 
 miracles that our Lord was divine, much less to 
 suggest that He worked them by His power as 
 God. The Evangelist does not seem even to regard 
 them as direct evidence of the reality of the new re- 
 velation brought to mankind through the Messiah.^ 
 
 1 Dr. Illingworth writes: the Jews of the first century 'had God's 
 wondrous works of old time recorded in their history ; and they expected 
 miracle to be the credential of a divine message ' {The Doctrine of the Trinity, 
 1907, p. 226), but this is not quite the same thing. See further below, 
 pp. 128-131; 
 
 111 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 He only considered that the miracles so far showed 
 that Jesus was the Messiah in that the working of 
 them was consistent with what the Messiah might 
 be expected to do. In fact, miracles appear to St. 
 Matthew to be the logical, and, so to speak, natural 
 outcome of His personality. True that St. Matthew 
 describes Him as unique by birth and therefore by 
 nature, but according to him He consistently refused 
 to exercise this divine nature in working miracles 
 either for Himself, or, as it seems, in a sphere, such 
 as the heavens, outside human influence. Yet, in 
 spite of this refusal to employ His inherent divinity 
 in such mighty works, the force of His personality 
 and character was such that miracles, as it were, 
 flowed forth from Him. Miracles in the case of the 
 Messiah were the product of perfect love unfettered 
 by the frailty, selfishness, and sin with which the 
 ordinary perison is hampered. The Messiah, according 
 to St. Matthew's presentation of Him, gladly spent 
 Himself that He might succour suffering humanity 
 to the utmost, and He found no hindrance in doing 
 so save in the failure of the sufferers to accept His 
 services. ' O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which killeth 
 the prophets, and stoneth them that are sent unto 
 her ! how often would I have gathered thy children 
 together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under 
 her wings, and ye would not ! ' But to those that will 
 He says : ' Come unto me, all ye that labour and are 
 heavy laden, and I will give you rest ' — sending 
 you forth refreshed, and vigorous for new work.^ 
 
 ' It is not impossible that a subordinate reason for the frequent mention 
 of miracles in the First Gospel is that St. Matthew desired to remind his 
 readers of the conditions under which they themselves might expect to be 
 either the recipients, or the agents, of them. 
 
 112 
 
in] THE VALUE OF MIRACLES TO US 
 
 II. To St. Matthew and his earhest readers no 
 question would arise as to the strictly supernatural 
 character of our Lord's miracles. Nature in those 
 days seemed to be so alive with divinity, so responsive 
 to the touch of God, so continually affected by Him, 
 that all extraordinary occurrences represented the 
 work of God.^ To us, however, who have been taught 
 to regard nature very differently — whether rightly 
 or wrongly I do not now inquire — ^the question of 
 the character and source of the power by which the 
 miracles were produced is of extreme importance. 
 Were they the immediate result of divine action, or 
 were they the result of human pow^ers, or is there a 
 third way ? 
 
 Upon our answers to these questions depends the 
 position in which we must place Christ's miracles 
 among the evidences to Him. 
 
 It will conduce to clearness in considering the 
 subject if (1) we classify our Lord's miracles ; (2) 
 we consider how far they can be explained as regards 
 the recipients of them ; (3) we inquire into the rela- 
 tion of our Lord Himself to them ; (4) and finally 
 endeavour to state clearly the position which His 
 miracles hold in the evidences to Him. 
 
 (1) The classification of our Lord's miracles. The 
 bulk of them, it is plain, were miracles of healing. 
 And, if we take the usual division accepted by medical 
 men, the diseases cured by our Lord were either 
 
 • Compare O. Weinreich, Antihe Heilungswunder, 1909, p. vii. : ' Uns 
 erscheinen Wunder und ein naoh unwandelbaren Gesetzen sich voUziehendea 
 Naturgeschehen als Gegensatze. Die Alten dagegen konnten jedes gottliche 
 Handeln als Wunder bezeichnen, auch wenn es in natiirlichen Bahnen verlief . 
 Alles was geschah, konnte als Wunder aufgefasst werden. Die Grenzlinie 
 zwischen Wunder und Nicht- Wunder ist in der Antike keine feste, die Ent- 
 g^heidung dariiber liegt im Menschen.' 
 
 J13 I 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 ' functional ' or ' organic' In the first class, the 
 ' functional ' diseases may, no doubt, be included 
 some of the cases of lameness, paralysis, and occa- 
 sionally even blindness and deafness (with its accom- 
 panying dumbness). Also under this head many 
 would place possession by unclean spirits. 
 
 It is, however, difficult to believe that among 
 multitudes who were healed by Christ functional dis- 
 eases formed either all, or even the majority of the 
 cases. Blindness and deafness are more commonly 
 organic than functional, so also are even lameness 
 and paralysis. Leprosy, in particular, is not func- 
 tional, and fever is the result of organic disease. 
 
 liastly, there is the raising of the dead, of which 
 only one specific instance is given by St. Matthew, 
 though he mentions it as (presumably) a frequent 
 occurrence (xi. 5 ; c/. x. 8). 
 
 Besides these miracles of healing there are a few 
 which were performed not on persons, but on inani- 
 mate nature, such as the feeding of the five thousand, 
 the stilling of the Avinds and waves, the walking on 
 the water, the withering of the fig-tree. Here also 
 we may place the finding of the stater in the fish's 
 mouth, and the commission about the ass and its 
 foal.i 
 
 (2) Can any explanation of Christ's miracles be 
 given ? The examples of healing functional disorders 
 occasion no great difficulty. Such cures in which, 
 as it appears, the nerves are influenced directly by the 
 
 ^ I expressly omit the rising of certain saints at the Crucifixion (xxvii. 
 51-53), which is depicted as the result of events independent of the voU- 
 tion of the Lord Himself. For the Transfiguration see Lecture XII. It, 
 like the Virgin Birth and the Resurrection, stands in a different category 
 from the miracles proper, and belongs entirely to the personal life of 
 our Lord. 
 
 114 
 
Ill] THE NEUROTIC THEORY 
 
 mind, are common in all ages. Dr. R. J. Ryle gives 
 an extreme case : ' A girl had suffered from an injury 
 to the foot causing temporary lameness. She took 
 to a crutch and said she was perfectly unable to use 
 her foot. She persisted in this belief after repeated 
 assurances that the foot ailed nothing. She was 
 advised to see Sir James Paget, and she promised to 
 put implicit confidence in his opinion and to act upon 
 it. She went to his house, explained her case, and 
 was informed by him that there was nothing the 
 matter with the foot. She thereupon threw down 
 her crutch, walked across the room, and left his house 
 without it.' ^ It is quite possible that some of our 
 Lord's cures were of a similar kind. The strength 
 of His personality was sufficient to summon up the 
 latent, and quite ordinary, will power, and lo ! the 
 man was healed. But to dismiss all our Lord's cures 
 as due to this cause and this method, is to go far 
 beyond the evidence. For, after all, such cases form 
 a very small part of illnesses either with us or in the 
 East, and we cannot suppose for a moment that it was 
 otherwise in our Lord's time, when sick persons were 
 brought to Him in multitudes and were restored by 
 Him to health.2 
 
 1 The Hihbert Journal, v. (1906-1907), pp. 583 sq. 
 
 " Dr. R. J. Ryfe writes : ' Whether we test the Neurotic Theory by the 
 general references to the exercise of powers of heahng, or by the accounts of 
 special cases of the exercise of these powers, the result is the same. We do 
 not find reason to beheve that the works of healing were instances of faith- 
 heaUng. The cases are too numerous, and they are not of the sort among 
 which we look for cures of the faith-heaUng kind ' {he. cit). He also says : 
 ' The persons who may be fairly supposed to have constituted the bulk of 
 the ' ' possessed ' ' are not, as a matter of fact, the sort of persons to be straight- 
 way healed by a word. . . . They are the subjects who lend themselves least 
 of all to the modem remedial measures of hypnotism and suggestion ' {op. cit. 
 p. 579). 
 
 I am allowed to make the following extract from an unpubHshed paper 
 
 X15 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 What, then, are we to say of the miracles in which 
 our Lord healed the second class of diseases, the 
 organic ? This, in the first place ; that although 
 the distinction into the classes of functional and 
 organic is very convenient in actual medical practice, 
 it does not pretend to be more than empiric, and to 
 rest upon observation made with somewhat coarse 
 and unsatisfactory instruments. A division which 
 calls catalepsy fimctional, and an ordinary boil 
 organic, has not much to recommend it from the point 
 of vieAv either of the man in the street, or of the 
 philosophic thinker. Both one and the other feel 
 convinced that the distinction between functional 
 and organic, convenient though it is at present, is 
 only superficial, and will prove on closer examination 
 to be non-existent.^ 
 
 on the Diseases of Palestine, written by Dr. E. W. G. Masterman, Head of 
 the London Jews' Society's Hospital in Jerusalem : ' The writer has seen, 
 during many years in Palestine, many thousand cases of disease among just 
 the same class of people, chiefly Jews, living under very similar social and 
 geographical conditions, and he has never seen "neurotic" or " hysterical" 
 disease produce morbid symptoms comparable with those described in the 
 Gospels. Indeed most of the cases reported in these narratives are just those 
 which are the despair of the modem medical man. As far as can be judged 
 from the particulars given, the larger proportion of the cases would be con- 
 sidered too hopeless for admission to any of our hospitals, where it is necessary 
 to select from a vast number of the sick those cases only which we have 
 a good hope of curing or of permanently benefiting. Such cases as the 
 imbeciles, the paralysed, epileptics, the deaf and the bhnd, would have to 
 be passed over. In many villages in Galilee the writer had been compelled 
 to leave on one side dozens of such unfortunates to deal with the more hopeful 
 cases of fevers, dysentery, and surgical affections.' 
 
 1 ' It is more difficult to beheve that while many diseases may be cured 
 by the right mental conditions there are others over which such mental con- 
 ditions have no influence, than to believe that all diseases come under the 
 same natural laws, however powerless we may yet be to apply these laws ' 
 {Christus Futurus, 1909, p. 222). ' Probably all functional diseases would 
 show some organic defect, were methods of examination adopted sufficiently 
 skilful and sufficiently minute' (Black's Medical Dictionary, 1906, s-v. 
 Functional JDisjaaes), 
 
 116 
 
Ill] INFLUENCE OF MIND ON BODY 
 
 Secondly, it appears that evidence is forthcoming 
 in ever-increasing quantity that the mind and the 
 body are so closely connected that it is impossible 
 to separate off any part or organ of the latter, and 
 to say that it cannot be affected by the former. 
 If a chance remark heard by a maiden will cause 
 the capillaries of her cheeks to be suffused with 
 blood ; if meditation on the sufferings of our Lord 
 can produce stigmata on the hands ; if a drop of 
 cold water on the arm of a clairvoyant subject can 
 by suggestion to her make a blister like that due to a 
 drop of burning sealing-wax ; if the edge of a match- 
 case pressed on the right arm, and suggested as 
 red-hot, can produce a blister and a permanent scar,^ 
 it is not unreasonable to think that in certain cir- 
 cumstances the mind may send blood with fresh 
 and unaccustomed vigour to any part of the body, 
 or, again, withhold it to some extent from a part 
 that already has too much, and thus vital changes 
 may be effected in the body through the action of 
 the mind.^ Something of this kind at least must 
 lie at the basis of the fact known by every doctor, 
 
 ^ See P. Dearmer, Body and Soul, 1909, pp. 27-35 ; Worcester, Religion 
 and Medicine, 1908, p. 95 ; D. H. Tuke, Illustrations of the Influence of the 
 Mind on the Body, 1884, i. 119-126 (stigmata); P. W. H. Myers, Human 
 Personality, 1903, i. 495-497 ; Krafft-Ebiag, Hypnotism (translated by C. G. 
 Chaddook, 1889), p. 28 sq. The case of an unheated pair of scissors producing 
 a bum, with a suppurating wound, described in the last volume (pp. 21, 29), 
 and elsewhere, rests on very indirect and unsatisfactory authority. 
 
 * 'The brain receives help from every other organ, but it also largely 
 controls the working of each. By its mental action alone it can hurry the 
 heart's beat or slow its pace ; it can make the skin shrivel or flush, it can 
 quicken or stop the digestion, it can stop or change the character of all the 
 secretions, it can arrest or improve the general nutrition of the body. Every 
 organ and every vital process is represented in the structure of the brain by 
 special " centres" and groups of cells that have a direct relation with such 
 organs and processes, and through which they are controlled ' (T. Clouston, 
 The Hygiene of Mind, pp. 7 sq., N.D., but ' first published in 1906 ' ). 
 
 117 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect 
 
 and invariably acted upon by him, that it is all- 
 important that the patient should be of good hope 
 if he is to recover from whatever illness he may 
 have. At present we know nothing of the way in 
 which mind touches matter, and very little of the 
 extent to which it can influence it, but every day 
 adds to the reasonableness of the belief that such 
 action is both continuous and all-pervading. It is 
 true that this influence in all probability is far greater 
 in the case of the unconscious than of the conscious 
 part of our mind, but this is hardly relevant to the 
 present inquiry. It appears that there have been 
 cases of extraordinary cures of confessedly organic 
 diseases, which, after resisting medical skill, and 
 deemed incurable by all known means, were never- 
 theless cured through the mind.^ There is then some 
 reason for thinking that even in those cases of organic 
 disease which were healed by our Lord the cure may 
 have been due to the action of the minds of the 
 sufferers upon various parts of their bodies.^ 
 
 ^ See the Appendix to this Lecture. It should be noted that no monstrous 
 cure is attributed to our Lord in the canonical Gospels. He never, for 
 example, restored the missing eyeballs to the sockets (as at Epidaurus, 
 fourth or third century B.C., No. 9 ; see Fiebig, Antike WundergescMchten, 
 1911, p. 5 ; M. Hamilton, Incubation, 1906, p. 20 ; at the church of St. 
 Fides, Conques, in the tenth century a.d. ; M. Hamilton, op. cit. pp. 169 sq.), 
 or restored a cancer-eaten leg of a hving man by giving him instead a sound 
 leg from a dead man (a miracle by St. Cosmas and St. Damian. See 
 M. Hamilton, op. cit. p. 124). 
 
 * It is indeed only right that in the present state of comparative ignorance 
 about the nature of cancer the medical profession should strongly resist the 
 raising of any false hope in the patient which is likely to lead him to postpone 
 an operation until it is too late. The knife is still the only known means of 
 extirpating cancer. Yet if cancer (as many think) is a disease of old age, it 
 would seem but reasonable that if through the action of the mind a fresh 
 supply of energy could be directed towards it cures would be effected. Per- 
 haps this is the real explanation of those cures of cancer which admittedly 
 do sometimes take place through causes as yet unknown. 
 
 The Emmanuel Movement again, which has done so much in America, 
 
 118 
 
Ill] RESTORATION OF THE DEAD 
 
 There is indeed one form of our Lord's miracles 
 of healing to which this will not apply, the restoration 
 of the dead to life. The only definite example in 
 the First Gospel is, as has been said, that of Jairus' 
 daughter, but reference is made to other examples 
 of which no details are given. In her case she had 
 not been dead more than an hour, as it would seem. 
 Yet even her restoration is inexplicable at present, 
 on the supposition that she was really dead, which 
 we can hardly doubt. May, however, the explana- 
 tion be that until dissolution has actually begun 
 restoration is still possible ? ^ 
 
 and is attempting something in our own land, is undoubtedly acting wisely 
 in limiting its operations to functional oases, and in undertaking these only 
 after the recorded diagnosis of skilled medical men. ' We beUeve that the 
 modern refinements of diagnosis should be exhausted in the study of all 
 doubtful cases before the treatment is begun, and thanks to our faculty of 
 consultation we leave no stone unturned in this respect, and we admit no 
 patient to the class until we are assured on good medical authority that he 
 or she is likely to be benefited by the treatment ' (E. Worcester and others, 
 Religion and Medicine, 1908, pp. 5 aq.). See also Worcester and McComb, 
 The Christian Religion as a Healing Power, 1910, pp. 17 sq., 51-53. It is in 
 the refusal to act independently of medical men that, on its practical side, 
 the Emmanuel Movement differs from Christian Science. 
 
 ^ It is not certain that dissolution had begun in the case of Jairus' 
 daughter, or even in that of the young man at Nain, who doubtless had died 
 the same day in which he was restored (Luke vii. 11-15), or even in the crucial 
 case of Lazarus, if we suppose that the prayer to which our Lord refers as 
 having been uttered by Him had been offered immediately after Lazarus' 
 death. Martha's hasty outcry against opening the tomb proves nothing at 
 all as to what had really happened, in spite of Mr. J. M. Thompson's curious 
 assertion (Miracles in the New Testament, 1911, p. 109). Sir W. M. Ramsay 
 writes : ' In the physical sense, how difficult it is to predicate death as final 
 and absolute. ... I know the circumstances of a case in which a man was 
 pronounced dead by some of the best physicians in Europe after typhoid 
 fever ; and yet was brought back to Hfe after many hours of effort by non- 
 medical belief and activity ' {Expositor, Feb. 1912, viii. 3, p. 149). Science, 
 it must be remembered, distinguishes two stages in death, first, the Systematic 
 or Somatic, in which all the f vmctions of the body have ceased ; and, secondly, 
 molecular death of the tissues, in which decomposition of parts begins. See 
 J. Dixon Mann, Forensic Medicine and Toxicology, 1908, p. 40. 
 
 119 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 The other class of miracles, the Nature miracles, 
 is much more extraordinary, and as yet entirely 
 beyond us. We are not aware of any force by 
 which we are, or are ever likely to be, able to bid 
 the winds and waves obey us, or to rise superior to 
 the ordinary power of gravitation and walk upon 
 the water. Hence it is not strange that some scholars 
 have endeavoured to explain all such miracles away 
 by saying that they are either inventions, due to 
 the crystallisation of sayings of our Lord into hard 
 facts, or else allegorical tales, never intended to be 
 taken literally.^ Yet they are as closely interwoven 
 into the warp and woof ^ of the narrative as those 
 miracles which are easier to understand. There 
 is therefore little doubt but that the Evangelist 
 and his earliest readers regarded them as incidents 
 which actually took place. Probably, it is wiser, 
 and more consistent with true criticism, for us to 
 regard them in the same way. The fact that we 
 are beginning to understand something of the method 
 by which the greater number of our Lord's miracles 
 were performed, suggests that the time may yet come 
 when we shall receive fuller light about those which 
 at present are altogether unintelligible to us.' 
 
 (3) After having endeavoured to classify the 
 
 1 G. Traub, Die Wunder im Neuen Testament, 1907, pp. 55-65 ; J. M. 
 Thompson, Miracles in the New Testament, 1911, p. 50. 
 
 ' See above, pp. 98 sq. 
 
 ' ' The effect, therefore, of scientific progress, as regards the Scriptural 
 miracles, is gradually to eliminate the hypothesis which refers them to un- 
 known natural causes ' (Mansel, Aids to Faith, p. 14, quoted by J. B. Mozley, 
 op. cit. p. 277). Mozley himself, however, can say : ' The greater miracles 
 . . . interpret the lesser ones,' but he seems to be thinking of the 
 Resurrection and Ascension, with regard to which his remark is doubtless 
 true (op. cit. p. 168). See also Dr. F. B. Jevons in the Interpreter, Oct. 1909, 
 p. 45. 
 
 120 
 
in] HOW WERE NON-BIBLICAL MIRACLES WROUGHT 
 
 miracles, and after considering the light thrown upon 
 them by history and science, in particular with regard 
 to the recipients, we turn to inquire into the relation 
 of our Lord Himself to them. 
 
 Now, in non-Biblical cures influence of one of 
 two kinds was always apparent. Either there was a 
 remarkable human personality active on behalf of 
 the sufferers, as, for example, ApoUonius of Tyana 
 among the heathen, or Catharine of Siena among 
 the Christians, or else, and in the great majority of 
 cases, the cures took place after prayer by the patients. 
 Such prayer, whether formal or informal matters not, 
 was offered either in places consecrated to the service 
 of deity (as in all forms of incubation, ancient and 
 modern), or at a time when there were special reasons 
 for the thoughts of the patients being fixed on divine 
 things, as, for example, immediately after the death 
 of St. Thomas of Canterbury.^ 
 
 By what power, then, was it that these non- 
 Biblical miracles were wrought ? 
 
 Did God hear the prayers of the Christians, and 
 even of the heathen, ignorant though these were 
 of Him, and, in answer, perform the miracles by 
 His almighty potency? Perhaps so, but if so it is 
 evident that we cannot affirm that the performance 
 of miracles is in itself a witness to the truth of the 
 revelation brought by Christ. If miracles are wrought 
 in the name indeed of heathen deities, but in reality by 
 the poAver of God, miracles wrought in the name of 
 Christ, or of the true God, are no longer in themselves 
 witnesses to the truth of Christ, or of God, in the 
 unique way often claimed for them. 
 
 ^ See the Appendix to this Lecture. 
 121 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 Again, granting that it be true that the heathen 
 and post-Biblical miracles were wrought ultimately 
 by God, yet God's usual method of activity is to em- 
 ploy what we call natural means and methods. Were 
 not some then employed in these cures ? If there were, 
 as surely is probable, what were they ? We can 
 hardly help acknowledging that the persons through 
 whom the miracles were wrought possessed special 
 powers, and were personalities of striking character, 
 and, on the other hand, that a patient who was of 
 specially receptive mind (not necessarily weak, often 
 indeed the very reverse, but receptive) received the 
 impress of such strong characters. If so, it appears 
 probable that God uses the human means of strong 
 personalitjT^ on the one hand, and, as we have already 
 seen, humble receptivity on the other, when He allows 
 miracles to be performed among either Christians or 
 heathen. 
 
 In this connexion it is important to notice that in 
 almost every case such extraordinary cures, heathen 
 or Christian, are associated with the highest side of 
 life. It is very rare that they are performed by mere 
 quacks. Even ApoUonius of Tyana, though his bio- 
 graphers have done their best to prejudice him in 
 the eyes of Christians, appears to have been a moral 
 and kindly personage relative to his spiritual know- 
 ledge. It is rarer still that the patients use means 
 that are not closely linked on to religion. 
 
 This suggests that it is through the highest 
 spiritual effort of which a person is capable, whether 
 he be the patient or the worker, that the blessing of 
 restoration to physical health is given. 
 
 We are now in a position to consider the specific 
 case of our Lord. 
 
 122 
 
Ill] HOW DID MESSIAH WORK MIRACLES 
 
 In the first place, as has been said already,^ 
 there is no evidence in this Gospel that He claimed 
 to perform His miracles by His own power as God. 
 Jesus the Son of God, the Second Person in the 
 Blessed Trinity, did not, as such, so far as we can 
 learn, work the miracles. To have done so, we may 
 say further, would have been a repudiation of the cir- 
 cumstances in which it pleased Him to carry out His 
 mission on earth, and of the plan and purpose of the 
 Incarnation as we understand it. This, no doubt, 
 is the popular notion of the rationale of Christ's 
 miracles, but it must be dismissed from our minds. 
 Jesus did not work the miracles because He was 
 God.2 
 
 Secondly, there is an aspect of the Lord Jesus, 
 which has become strangely unfashionable of recent 
 years, yet ought not to be relegated to the lumber- 
 room of worn-out doctrines ; that form which He 
 presents to us as the Ideal Man, or, to use a nearly 
 synonymous term, the Second Adam. If indeed the 
 application of the title of the Second Adam to Christ 
 appears strange to those evolutionists who are accus- 
 tomed to regard the first man before the ' fall ' as 
 little superior to a well-behaved ape,^ we may remind 
 them that the term implies likeness in two respects 
 
 1 p. 111. 
 
 ^ Even though Mr. R. A. KJiox can allow himself to write : ' Orthodox 
 theology explains all the miracles recorded of our Saviour under one single 
 hjrpothesis, that he was omnipotent God ' (Some Loose Stones, 1913, p. 49). 
 But Mr. Raox expressly disclaims being a theologian (p. vii). 
 
 ' Contrast the description in M. Luzzatto, Hebrew Glosses and Notes, 
 edited by GoUancz, 1911, pp. 11, 12 : 'In the very name of the first man 
 ADM there is a covert reference to three personages, 4dam, David, J/essiah. 
 This is borne out by the saying of the Sage that " Adam reached from earth 
 to heaven," for he knew all the treasures of the world: he was perfect in 
 knowledge, in stature, and outward beauty, intellectually and morally 
 perfect.' 
 
 123 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 omly, viz. immediate relation to God, and the forma- 
 tion of a new line of desce^t. It thus leaves room for 
 immeasurable superiority to the first Adam. Not only 
 so, but it submits to us the thought of that arche- 
 typal Man into which, and not only from which, men 
 are growing, and into which, from the very first con- 
 ception of God's plan for them, they Vv-ere intended 
 to grow. If this be true it is only reasonable that the 
 Second Adam should combine in Himself all those 
 powers which are ultimately to be developed in the 
 human race. Hence the fact that any, or all, of the 
 powers possessed by the Lord Jesus Christ may ulti- 
 mately be shown to belong to men generally does 
 not detract from the superiority of Him who combined 
 them all in His own person, and this centuries, or, 
 it may be, millennia, before individuals shall have 
 possessed more than fragments.^ 
 
 It is possible also that as it has been with the doc- 
 trines of Christianity, so will it be with the miracles. 
 Theologians used to find the evidence for Divine in- 
 spiration in the difference of New Testament sayings 
 and doctrines from those existing elsewhere. But in 
 vicAV of the fact that very many, if not all, of these 
 were known before Christ came, and even before the 
 revelation on Mount Sinai— as disjecta memhra, it is 
 true, but still there — ^theologians now perceive that 
 the Christian doctrines are divine for the very reason 
 that they were adumbrated beforehand. The doc- 
 trines of our Faith do correspond, that is to say, with 
 human yearnings and expressions. Comparative 
 religion, instead of being an enemy to Christianity, is 
 now becoming its firmest ally. 
 
 So with miracles. The purely human provenance 
 
 '^ Cf. Moberly, Atonement and Personality, 1911, pp. 95-97, 102. 
 
 12i 
 
Ill] MIRACLES AND SELF-SACRIFICE 
 
 of many tends to show that those performed by Jesus 
 Avere but the more perfect form of powers inherent in 
 humanity.'^ 
 
 Thirdly, the explanation suggested by the Evange- 
 list is that our Lord's miracles were the result of liis 
 self-sacrifice. 'They brought unto Him many pos- 
 sessed with devils : and he cast out the spirits with a 
 word, and healed all that were sick : that it might 
 be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, 
 saying, Himself took our infirmities, and bare our 
 diseases.' ^ St. Matthew means, as it would seem, that 
 Christ did not merely perform miracles by His human 
 powers, but that He took them upon His own 
 shoulders, receiving in Himself the sickness and dis- 
 ease that He removed. This suggests something far 
 deeper and more awful than anything experienced 
 by His followers.^ 
 
 1 Cf. Mansel, Aids to Faith, p. 14, quoted in Mozley, Owifirocies, Lecture VI, 
 note 3. Take the case of telepathy, the truth of which is vouched for by so 
 many trustworthy witnesses that we cannot but credit its existence. St. 
 Catherine of Siena appears to have possessed in a remarkable degree the 
 power of knowing what her spiritual sons and daughters were doing. See 
 examples in E. G. Gardner, Saint Catherine of Siena, 1907, pp. 54 sq., 87 sqq., 
 93, 114, 183. ' Telepathy is only wireless telegraphy between brain and 
 brain. The ever-vibrating molecules of the hving cortex send their imdula- 
 tions through ether Uke all other oscillating particles, and some brain that 
 synchronises in its period of vibrations receives the "message" ' (Joseph 
 McCabe, in Religion and the Modern World, 1909, p. 88). Perhaps so ; but 
 what must He have been who at His pleasure was able to cause His brain to 
 receive the ' message ' from any particular individual or set of individuals 7 
 Trench, however, is very severe upon this theory of our Lord's miracles in 
 his Preliminary Essay, v. 5 (1866, p. 73). 
 ^ viii. 16, 17. 
 
 ' See Lecture XI, pp. 390-392. For the thought 'of diseases as punish- 
 ments for sins see (besides Biblical passages) many Talmudic references in 
 Mr. H. Loewe's article on Disease and Medicine (Jewish) in Hastings' E.R.E. 
 iv. 756 sq. See also Biichler, Die galildische 'Am-ha-'Ares des zweiten Jahr- 
 hunderts, 1906, pp. 27, 30. The realisation of this by the paralytic would 
 make our Lord's words ia Matt. ix. 2 the more necessary, 
 
 125 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect 
 
 Fourthly, Christ's own explanation, not indeed of 
 the miracles wrought by Himself, but of those wrought 
 by disciples, is that they were dependent upon the 
 worker's faith. ' Then came the disciples to Jesus 
 apart, and said, Why could not we cast it out ? And 
 he saith unto them. Because of your little faith.' ^ 
 For this reason, it is to be presumed, some writers 
 have thought that our Lord worked miracles in pre- 
 cisely the same way as did the Apostles. ' Miracles,' 
 one has said, ' ascribed to the incarnate Christ are 
 to be regarded as wholly upon all fours in respect of 
 their nature with similar miracles ascribed to Apostles 
 and Saints ; they do not diminish from the truth of 
 our Lord's humanity ; they are to be interpreted as 
 Divine answers to His human prayers.' ^ 
 
 Excluding, then, the first of these four explana- 
 tions, viz. that our Lord performed miracles by His own 
 Divine power. He may have wrought them (a) by 
 the human powers belonging to His personality ; 
 (b) by bearing on Himself the sicknesses and diseases 
 which He cured ; (c) by His faith on God, who 
 worked the miracles at His request. It does not, 
 however, appear to be necessary to exclude any of 
 these three methods. All three may well have been 
 combined. 
 
 (a) For, first, the spiritual gifts bestowed on 
 one or other of Christ's followers, including the 
 healing of disease, are (as is plain from the list of 
 them given in St. Paul's Epistles ^) not gifts without 
 
 * xvii. 19, 20 ; v. 21, with its mention of prayer and fasting, has been added 
 in some authorities, from a corrupt text of Mark ix. 29. In any case fasting 
 is a form of prayer. 
 
 ^ A. E. J. Rawlinson, in the Interpreter, Oct. 1911, p. 34, 
 
 ' I Cor. xii. 4-11, 28-30. 
 
 126 
 
in] THE IDEAL WORKER OF MIRACLES 
 
 any relation to powers possessed by other persons. 
 On the contrary, they are only the intensification 
 of ' natural ' gifts. The gift of healing among 
 believers is therefore a ' natural ' power intensified 
 through the faith of its possessor, (b) Secondly, 
 its action has always depended upon sympathy 
 and self-sacrifice. The ideal worker of miracles, 
 if we may judge from the fragmentary examples 
 of early days down to our own time, must possess 
 boundless love and complete willingness to share the 
 misery of those whom he endeavours to relieve. 
 
 (c) Thirdly, he must have faith on God. Now, 
 we have already seen that the performance of miracles 
 is closely allied to spiritual knowledge and personal 
 piety. Hence the greater the miracles the more we 
 should expect to find piety in him who performs 
 them. But the greater the piety the more impossible 
 it is that the person should perform them without 
 reference to God. He cannot, just in proportion 
 to his piety, do the simplest thing without referring 
 it to God, much less do such actions as include utter 
 selfishness towards others, and the consequent re- 
 lease of them from their physical troubles. The 
 perfect, the Archetypal Man, therefore cannot possibly 
 act independently of God, but must, by virtue of 
 His very perfection, bring everything into relation to 
 Him, and live in continual touch with Him. Hence, 
 although we may ask the question whether Christ 
 performed His miracles by His human powers or 
 not, yet practically the question has no force, for 
 He would continually be living by faith on His 
 heavenly Father, and continually be drawing strength 
 from Him. Therefore we must suppose that God 
 was ever working these cures and other marvels 
 
 127 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 in Christ's life, in answer to His prayers and faith, 
 however great His human powers may have been. 
 Yet this is not to accept the theory that God worked 
 through Him as through His disciples. Far from 
 it. For Christ brought all His own human powers, 
 which immeasurably exceeded those possessed by 
 any of His follo\vers, to be used by His Father.^ 
 
 Human potentialities at their height, love for 
 others in the greatest possible intensity, and utter 
 abasement before, and confidence in. His Father 
 in heaven, must all be included in the one and only 
 method by which the Messiah performed His miracles.^ 
 
 (-1) Where, then, exactly must we place our Lord's 
 miracles among the evidences to the truth of our 
 religion ? We can no longer say that they are so 
 wonderful, so unique, that they are, for that reason, 
 direct credentials of His divine nature, or even direct 
 proofs that God was giving a new revelation through 
 Him. For, as we have seen, the occurrence of other 
 miracles, not differing essentially in character from 
 
 1 ' His greatest works during His earthly life are wrought by the help 
 of the Father through the energy of a humanity enabled to do all things in 
 fellowship with God ' (Westoott, Hebrews, 1889, p. 66). See also Bishop P. 
 Weston, The One Christ, 1914, pp. 270-272. 
 
 ' This suggests that in the last instance human nature, especially sinless 
 human nature such as that which our Lord took, may become not merely not 
 contradictory to God, but rather so permeated by the Divine as to do nothing 
 by its own. powers apart frojn God. All the man does God does, so intimately 
 is God present in his thoughts, words, actions. In him the immanence of 
 God is complete. Observe that this is not Pantheism. Voi the personality 
 of the man is distinct from God, probably never so distinct, and indeed unique, 
 as when it acts and reacts under the Divine influence. Compare the words 
 of Drs. Worcester and McComb : ' Man does not stand over against God in 
 self -enclosed independence ; rather is he so organically related to Him that 
 his whole being, psychical and physical, is saturated with Divine energy, 
 and apart from it must faint and fail. Prayer is the recognition of this 
 inviolable organic bond' (The Christian Religion as a Healing Power, IQJO, 
 p. 77). 
 
 128 
 
Ill] THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF THE MIRACLES 
 
 His, prevents this, as does also the increasing possi- 
 biUty, not to say probability, that in the future 
 every one of His miracles may be performed by 
 ordinary human means. Besides, evidential value 
 of this kind is never attributed to them in the First 
 Gospel. According to St. Matthew, the miracles 
 were evidence that Jesus was the One to come 
 (xi. 4, 5), and that since Jesus cast out demons the 
 kingdom of God had arrived (xii. 28). Miracles, 
 that is to say, are not adduced by the Evangelist 
 as evidence that God was giving a revelation, but as 
 witnesses to the Messiahship of Jesus of Nazareth, 
 and also, from their peculiar character of opposition 
 to evil spirits, to the fact that the promised change 
 in God's dealings with the world had begun. They 
 suggest that the Lord Jesus was the fulfilment of 
 prophecy, and the Deliverer from the Evil One. 
 They are therefore evidence to our Lord on the 
 predictive side, and on the moral.^ They do not 
 as such testify to His Divinity or even to the Divine 
 character of His teaching. 
 
 This estimate of the evidential value of our Lord's 
 miracles, it will be observed, is quite different from 
 the ' credential ' theory as ordinarily stated,^ but it is 
 
 * ' The ancient Jew saw in his own dispensation an imperfect stmotuie, 
 the head of which was still wanting — ^the Messiah : all pointed to Him ; its 
 ceremonial was typical ; and the whole system was an adumbration of a 
 great approaching Divine kingdom, and a great crowning Divine act. The 
 very heart of the nation was thus the seat of a great standing prophecy ; all 
 was anticix>ation and expectation ; prophets kept alive the sacred longing ; 
 miracles confirmed the prophetical office ; and in prospect was the miraculous 
 outbreak of Divine power in the great closing dispensation itself' (J. B.Mozley, 
 Miracles, 1872, pp. 169 sq.). 
 
 * Even Bishop D' Aroy in his very valuable Uttle book, Christianity and the 
 Supernatural, 1909, p. 20, writes : ' If, in order to bring the hfe of Christ into 
 line with what we now know of the working of such forces, we minimise the 
 miraculous element in the Gospel narrative, we are pulling down the mighty 
 
 129 K 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 none the less important. Miracles direct attention to 
 Jesus, not as the wonder-worker, but as the promised 
 Messiah and the conqueror of sin. They are not irre- 
 fragable proofs of His Messiahship, much less of His 
 Divinity, but they bid us consider the personality 
 of Him who wrought them. 
 
 So far, therefore, from our believing in miracles 
 ' because we have first believed in Christ,' we ' be- 
 lieve in Christ because of His miracles.' ^ 
 
 For we should expect, on the analogy of history, 
 that He, as a very holy person, would perform 
 miracles, and the performance of miracles by Him 
 strengthens our belief in Him. Had He not wrought 
 them, history would teach us to be doubtful of His 
 claims and His promises. We should have suspected 
 that there was something radically wrong with Him, 
 in spite of the excellence of His words, if He did not 
 release the physically afflicted and drive out the 
 agents of Satan (xii. 28 ; cj. Luke xiii. 16). Proofs, 
 in the strictest and almost mathematical sense, 
 miracles are not, when they are considered in them- 
 selves only ; but evidences to the character and work, 
 and thus the claims, of Jesus, they are.^ 
 
 They bring before us One, the motive of whose 
 life was to relieve men from their afflictions, bodily, 
 mental, and spiritual ; One who was unwearying in 
 
 works to the level of everyday experiences and depriving them of all evidential 
 value. What is essential to the function of miracles in the witness to the 
 Divine mission of the Christ is, not that they should be shown to be in every 
 instance an employment of supernatural powers, but that they should have 
 the stamp of superhuman authority.' This seems to make too sharp a 
 distinction between natural and supernatural. 
 
 * See above, p. 97- 
 
 ? J. B. Mozley is right in pointing out that the doctrine connected with 
 Christ's miracles ' did not leave mankind as it found them, but was a fresh 
 starting-point of moral practice' '{Miradis, p. 135). 
 
 130 
 
Ill] APPENDIX— NON-BIBLICAL MIRACLES 
 
 His efforts, or rather, though wearied, still continued 
 in them ; One who was able to do such mighty cures 
 because He did not shrink from taking upon Himself 
 the suffering from which He relieved men ; One who 
 was ever in living contact with His Father in heaven. 
 Hence they bid us not only listen to His teaching as 
 to the words of Him who by His power and His life 
 was unique in the history of the world, but also cast 
 ourselves upon Him, for salvation both of soul and 
 body, as on One who can be altogether trusted, whose 
 promises and invitations deserve on our part the 
 fullest acceptance. 
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 A FEW EXAMPLES OF NON-BIBLICAL MIRACLES 
 OF HEALING ^ 
 
 Inscriptions in the Temple of Apollo Maleatos and Asklepios 
 at Epidauros, about the Fourth Century B.C. 
 
 No. 3 — ' A man, whose fingers, with the exception of one, 
 were paralysed, came as a suppliant to the Temple. While 
 examining the temple tablets, he expressed incredulity re- 
 garding the cures and scoffed at the inscriptions. In his 
 sleep he saw the following vision. He thought he was playing 
 at dice near the Temple, and as he was going to cast the dice, 
 
 ^ In all oases, unless otherwise stated, these are taken from apparently 
 contemporary evidence. Full accounts of the majority may be found in 
 Miss M. Hamilton's admirable Incubation, or the Cure of Disease in Pagan 
 Temples and Christian Churches, 1906. The original of the older examples 
 ia given at length in P. Kebig, Antike Wundergeschichten (Lietzmann's Kleine 
 Texte), 1911, and also in various parts of 0. Weinrich's learned but incon- 
 veniently arranged Antike Heilungsvmnder, 1909. 
 
 Summaries of works of healing in the Christian Church down to the present 
 time may be found in Dr. P. Dearmer's suggestive book, Body and Sml, 1909, 
 pp. 231-286, 299-315, 339-395. 
 
 181 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 the god suddenly appeared, seized his hand and stretched out 
 his fingers. When the god stood aside from him, the patient 
 thought he could bend his hand and stretch out all his fingers 
 one by one. When he had stretched them all out, the god 
 asked him if he would still be incredulous as to the contents 
 of the inscriptions on the tablets. He answered that he would 
 not, and the god said to him : " Since formerly you did not 
 believe in the cures, though they were not incredible, for the 
 future your name will be ' The Unbeliever.' " When day 
 dawned, he left the sacred hall cured' (Hamilton, op. cit. 
 p. 18). 
 
 No. 5 — ' A dumb boy came as a suppliant to the Temple 
 to recover his voice. When he had performed the preliminary 
 sacrifices, and fulfilled the usual rites, the temple priest who 
 bore the sacrificial fire, turned to the boy's father and said : 
 " Do you promise to pay within a year the fees for the ciure, 
 if you obtain that for which you have come ? " Suddenly 
 the boy answered, " I do." His father was greatly astonished 
 at this, and told his son to speak again. The boy repeated 
 the words, and so was cured ' (Hamilton, loc. cit.). 
 
 Among other cases are blindness (Nos. 4, 11), stone (No. 8), 
 a spear-point in the cheek for six years (No. 12), for one year 
 causing blindness (No. 32), an arrow-point in the lung for a 
 year and a half (No. 30), tape-worm (No. 23). (Hamilton, 
 op. cit. pp. 18-25.) 
 
 Also at Epidauros, in the second half of the second century 
 A.D. A chronic invalid, and suffering from dyspepsia. In this 
 case the god told him to use various means, such as exercise, 
 attention to food, &c. (Hamilton, op. cit. pp. 40 sq.). 
 
 Inscriptions in the Temple of ^sculapitis on the 
 Tiber Island 
 
 Of about the time of Augustus. 
 
 ' To Asklepios, the great god, the saviour and benefactor, 
 saved by thy hands from a timiour of the spleen, of which 
 this is the silver model, as a mark of gratitude to the god : 
 Neochares Julianus, a freedman of the imperial household ' 
 (Hamilton, op. cit. p. 67 ; Weinreich, op. cit. p. 80). 
 
 132 
 
Ill] APPENDIX— ANCIENT MIRACLES 
 
 Of the second century a.d. 
 
 ' Lucius suffered from pleurisy, and had been despaired of 
 by all. The god made a revelation to him that he should go 
 and lift ashes from the triangular altar, and mix them with 
 wine, and lay them on his side. He was saved, and he offered 
 thanks publicly to the god, and the people rejoiced with him ' 
 (Hamilton, op. cit. p. 68 ; Weinreich, op. cit. p. 115). 
 
 Other cases are blindness, haemorrhage (apparently of the 
 lungs). 
 
 Aristides' Sacred Orations, probably written in 175 a.d, 
 (Hamilton, op. cit. pp. 44-62 ; P. Fiebig, op. cit. pp. 21-23). 
 
 He had a long illness, with complication of many illnesses, 
 earache, fever, asthma, toothache, rheumatism, lumbago, 
 convulsions. His cure was effected by various intimations 
 of Asklepios at his different shrines — baths in cold water, 
 riding, drugs of all kinds, &c. 
 
 Examples of Cures in Christian Churches 
 
 In the Church of Cosmas and Damian, at Constantinople 
 (date of writing uncertain, sixth, fifth, or fourth century a.d.). 
 A man with a fistula on his thigh. 
 
 ' Since miracles of this kind were performed every day, 
 constant crowds of sick people came to the church ' (Hamil- 
 ton, op. cit. p. 122). A woman's ulcerated breast was healed 
 through prayers of her husband to St. Cosmas and St. Damian, 
 though she and he were in Phrygia {ibid. p. 123). ' A man, 
 suffering from arthritis, promised Cosmas and Damian a 
 waxen offering, and recovered his health ' {ibid. p. 126). 
 
 In the Church of St. Therapon, at Byzantium, in the begin- 
 ning of the seventh century a.d. 
 
 A decarch of military rank, whose body was terribly dis- 
 torted, remained in the church several days, and then heard 
 an ' unseen voice ' telling him to have himself anointed with 
 olive oil ' by an official of my church.' Healed at once. 
 (Hamilton, op. cit. p. 132.) 
 
 Other cases are cancer, a withered hand. 
 
 St. Cjnnis and St. John, at Menuthes, near Canopus, in 
 Egypt. Seventy of their miracles are related by Sophronios, 
 
 133 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 patriarch of Jerusalem, who died c. 640 a.d. He describes 
 things done in his own time, some of them seen by him- 
 self. The cult of these two saints succeeded to tihe cult 
 of Isis. 
 
 The saints say, ' We are not masters of the healing art. . . . 
 Christ is dispenser and guardian ... we offer intercession 
 for all alike, and Christ decides whom we shall cure ' (Hamil- 
 ton, op. cit. p. 146). 
 
 Among their cures are a demoniac, blind men, broken 
 bones, cancer. 
 
 In the Church of St. Julian, at Arvernus, in the time of 
 Gregory of Tours, sixth century. (Hamilton, op. cit. p. 161.) 
 Woman cured of paralysis after eighteen years. 
 
 At the fountain by his tomb at Arvernus : blind men, 
 fever patients, demoniacs restored ; Gregory of Tours himself 
 cured of headache, his brother of fever. 
 
 In the Church of St. Martin of Tours, about the same 
 period. (Hamilton, op. cit. pp. 161 sqq.) Gout for a year, 
 blindness, paralysis of fingers. 
 
 At the tomb of St. Maximinus, near Treves, eighth century. 
 Charles Martel cured of fever (Hamilton, op. cit. p. 163) ; 
 erysipelas cured by oil taken from the lamp before the altar ; 
 demoniacs. 
 
 At the tomb of St. Fides, at Conques, in Rouergue (Hamil- 
 ton, op. cit. pp. 166 sq.), told by Bernard of Angers, c. 1012 
 A.D., as cures in his own time : dumbness, blindness, paralysis, 
 arm wounded and power lost but restored, wounds. 
 
 Dr. E. A. Abbott has made a long and careful study of 
 the miracles connected with St. Thomas a Becket. in his 
 St. Thomas of Canterbury, 1898, and comes to the conclusion 
 that it is impossible to resist the evidence that many really 
 did take place. St. Thomas was murdered on December 29, 
 1170. 
 
 William, a monk of Canterbury, who was present at the 
 martyrdom, ' began to compile the Book of Miracles seven- 
 teen months (May, 1172) after the martyrdom. . . . Most of 
 the important miracles towards the end of William's book 
 took place in 1174. . . . His book on Miracles must have 
 
 134 
 
in] APPENDIX— MEDIAEVAL MIRACLES 
 
 been published before 1189 (the year of Henry [the Second's] 
 death' (§ 17). 
 
 Benedict, another monk of Canterbury, ' probably wrote 
 the present narrative [of the martyrdom] in 1171, but revised 
 it when he prefixed it to his Book of Miracles, which was 
 probably completed, in its first form, before 1175 ' (§ 18). 
 The evidence, therefore, for such miracles as are included 
 in this ' first form ' stands almost, or quite, unequalled for 
 nearness in date to the events described. 
 
 In § 453 Dr. Abbott gives two lists of the first thirty cases 
 of miracles recorded severally by Benedict and William. 
 
 Among those most worth mentioning are the following : 
 
 (a) § 410. On the third day after Becket's death the wife 
 of a knight, who had weakness and blindness connected with 
 it, prayed to Becket ; within half an hour she had her sight 
 restored, and by the sixth day rose from her bed. 
 
 (6) § 454. On the fifth day after the martyrdom a woman 
 at Gloucester invoked St. Thomas' aid on behalf of her 
 daughter (aged about sixteen), whose head swelled every 
 month. She was cured, and the narrator, Benedict, saw 
 them both himself. 
 
 (c) § 456. A knight in Aeinesburna, in Berkshire, hears of 
 the saint's murder, prays him to deliver him from ' terrible 
 pain in the left arm,' which was badly swollen. He had been 
 in bed for three months. He slept, was refreshed, found 
 his pain gone, and the arm well. 
 
 {d) § 457. On January 4, a blind w^oman in Canterbury 
 had her sight restored by the application of a rag which had 
 been dipped in the martyr's blood. 
 
 Catharine of Siena (1347-1380) 
 
 (a) The restoration of Father Matthew from plague. 
 
 ' I asked if medical aid could not save him. " We shall 
 see," replied Dr. Senso, " but I have only a very faint hope ; 
 his blood is too much poisoned." . . . Catharine, however, 
 had heard of the illness of Father Matthew, whom she loved 
 sincerely, and she lost no time in repairing to him. The 
 moment she entered the room, she cried, with a cheerful 
 
 135 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 voice, " Get up, Father Matthew, get up ! This is not a 
 time to be lying idly in bed," Father Matthew roused 
 himself, sat up on his bed, and finally stood on his feet. 
 Catharine retired ; at the moment she was leaving the house, 
 I entered it, and ignorant of what had happened, and believing 
 my friend to be still at the point of death, my grief urged 
 me to say, " Will you allow a person so dear to us, and so 
 useful to others, to die ? " She appeared annoyed at my 
 words, and replied, " In what terms do you address me ? 
 Am I like God, to deliver a man from death ? " But I, 
 beside myself with sorrow, pleaded, " Speak in that way 
 to others if you will, but not to me ; for I know your secrets : 
 and I know that you obtain from God whatsoever you ask 
 in faith." Then Catharine bowed her head, and smiled just 
 a little; after a few moments she lifted up her head and 
 looked full in my face, her countenance radiant with joy, 
 and said : " Well, let us take courage ; he will not die this 
 time," and she passed on' (Josephine Butler, Catharine of 
 Siena, 1881, p. 97). 
 
 (6) * Gerard Buonconti one day brought to her a young 
 man of twenty years of age, whose system was shattered 
 by the long continuance of a quotidian fever from which 
 he was then suffering. He had consulted many physicians 
 in vain ; he was so weak as scarcely to be able to stand to 
 salute her. Filled with pity for him, and seeking an interview 
 alone with him, she laid her hand on his shoulder, and gently 
 whispered to him concerning the weight which she saw to be 
 pressing on his soul. He was a stranger to prayer, to true 
 faith, and to peace. She charged him at once to pour 
 forth his heart in confession of all his past sins and negligence. 
 He met her advice with truthfulness and simplicity, and 
 conferred for some time after with good Friar Thomas 
 della Fonte, to whom Catharine had commended him. He 
 began at once to feel his soul lightened and his body 
 strengthened. She then said to him, " Go, my son, in the 
 peace of Jesus Christ, who will hear thy prayer. This fever 
 will no more torment thee." Not many days after, he 
 returned in restored health, to render thanks to her and to 
 God ; his countenance was full of happiness and joy, and he 
 
 136 
 
in] APPENDIX— MEDIEVAL MIRACLES 
 
 walked with a firm, elastic step. Raymond saw him some 
 few years later on a journey through Pisa, and affirmed that 
 he had become so robust that he could not have known him, 
 had he not explained who he was. He continued to be a faith- 
 ful follower of Christ. Raymond says, moreover, "I was 
 witness of this work of healing, and can say, like St. John, 
 ' He who hath seen beareth witness "" (Josephine Butler, 
 op. cit. pp. 139 sq.). 
 
 (c) ' One of the women, who was very retiring and care- 
 worn in appearance, carried in her arms her sick baby, a 
 pitiful object, but her treasure. She besought the friends 
 of Catharine to ask her to take the infant in her arms and 
 cure it ; " for," she said, " she has power with God, and 
 can heal diseases : she can restore to me my baby which 
 is dying." The message was taken to Catharine, but she 
 declined to undertake this, or to appear ; for she dreaded 
 the publicity of the occasion. But the entreaties and sobs 
 of the poor mother, whose petitions were seconded by the 
 other women, were too much for her compassionate heart : 
 she came out of her chamber, and said, "Where is the little 
 one ? " The mother pressed forward, and Catharine, full 
 of pity, took the baby in her arms, and pressing it to her 
 breast, she prayed earnestly and with tears to Him who 
 said, " Suffer the little children to come unto me." From 
 that moment the child revived, and the whole city was 
 witness of its rapid return to health, and the joy of the poor 
 mother ' (Josephine Butler, op. cit. p. 191). 
 
 (d) ' In a few days Neri was quite well. But Stephen, 
 worn out by his fatigues in nursing the patients, and by 
 his anxiety about his beloved friend, was attacked by a 
 violent fever. "As every one loved him," says Raymond, 
 " we resorted to him to try and console him, and all nursed 
 him by turns." Stephen himself gave the following accouni 
 of it : " Catharine came, with her companions, to pay me a 
 visit, and asked me what I was suffering. I, quite delighted 
 at her sweet presence, answered gaily, ' They say I am ill ; 
 but I do not know what it is.' She placed her hand on 
 my forehead ; and shaking her head and smiling, she said, 
 ' Do you hear how this child answers me ? — They say that 
 
 137 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 I am ill, but I do not know of what ; — and he is in a violent 
 fever ! ' then she added, addressing me : ' But, Stephen, 
 I do not allow you to be ill ; you must get up and wait 
 upon the others as before.' She then conversed with us 
 about God, as usual, and as she was speaking I began to 
 feel quite well. I interrupted her to tell them so, and they 
 were all in astonishment, and very glad. I arose from my 
 bed the same day, and I have enjoyed perfect health since 
 that time " ' (Josephine Butler, op. cit. pp. 194 sq.). 
 
 ' When the Holy Coat was displayed at Treves in the 
 year 1891, the sight of the relic, seen with the eye of faith, 
 did, as an actual fact, according to the perfectly trustworthy 
 evidence of German physicians of unimpeachable reputation, 
 effect in eleven cases cures for which no other medical reasons 
 whatever could be offered, though in twenty- seven other 
 cases another explanation of the cure did not seem to the 
 physicians to be excluded. The eleven cases for which 
 no medical explanation could be offered included atrophy 
 of the optic nerve of many years' standing, lupus, paralysis 
 of the arm as a consequence of dislocation, complete loss of 
 the use of the arms and legs as a consequence of rheumatic 
 gout, St. Vitus' dance, a serious abdominal complaint, blind- 
 ness of one eye and paralysis of one arm as a consequence 
 of brain fever, chronic intestinal disorder, a cancerous tumour, 
 caries of the spine, and a chronic inflammation of the spinal 
 marrow.' 
 
 O. Holtzmann {The Life of Jesus, E.T. 1904, pp. 193 sq.), 
 referring to Korum, Wunder und gottliche Gnadenweise bei der 
 Ausstellung des heiligen Roches im Jahre 1891, Trier, 1894. 
 
 Examples of Cures at the Present Day 
 
 At Tenos, on the day of the Annunciation, March 25 
 (old style) (M. Hamilton, Incubation, pp. 191 sqq.). Usually 
 eight or nine miracles each year. Church records contain 
 many hundreds of examples : e.g. paralysis, especially blind- 
 ness (one case seen by Miss Hamilton, p. 199), insanity. 
 
 In Rhodes, at Kremastos (Hamilton, op. cit. pp. 209 sq.), 
 e.g. deaf and dumb. 
 
 138 
 
Ill] APPENDIX— MODERN MIRACLES 
 
 At the monastery of St. Luke, in Phocis (Hamilton, 
 op. cit. p. 213), lepers, blind. 
 
 Miss M. Hamilton, in her Greek Saints and Their Festivals, 
 1910, gives many examples of marvellous cures in Greece 
 in the last few years. 
 
 In 1907 a paralytic who was quite unable to move was 
 laid before the ikon. He said that in the night a dark woman 
 (the ikon had a black face) issued from the picture, and told 
 him thrice to move out of the way. At the third time he 
 tried, and found himself cured (p. 47). 
 
 In 1909 a girl who had been blind for two months had 
 her vision restored, and a man who was deaf and dumb 
 became able to hear and speak (p. 48). 
 
 Another case ' just before our visit ' was that of a lame 
 man who was restored to health by means of oil which had 
 been taken from the lamp hanging in front of the ikon (p. 50). 
 
 A vivid description of the excitement of the worshippers, 
 and the crowds of sick people, together with the cure of 
 some, at a church near Jahce, on the Vrba, in Bosnia, St. 
 John Baptist's Day, June 24, 1900, is recorded in Ebstein's 
 Die Medizin im N.T. und im Talmud, 1903, pp. 61 sq. 
 
 At the temple of Mar Sergius, near Urmi, in Eastern 
 Kurdistan, incubation is still practised with great success. 
 ' The fact is at all events past question, that a very fair 
 proportion of those who submit to the discipline come out 
 cured.' Sometimes incubation is performed there by proxy. 
 See W. A. Wigram, The Cradle of Mankind ; Life in Eastern 
 Kurdistan, 1914, p. 206. On Lourdes, see H. Thurston, E.B.E., 
 viii. 148-151. 
 
 To note 1, on page 117, may be added: S. Bernardino of Siena (oh. 
 1444) • notes the powerful action of the mind upon the body, and observes 
 that S. Francis' continual meditation on the Passion would be a predis- 
 posing cause of such an effect as the appearance of the Stigmata ' (Life, 
 by A. G. F. HoweU, 1913, p. 271, who also describes the miracles that took 
 place at Bernardino's death, pp. 208 sqq.). 
 
 139 
 
Lecture Four 
 
 THE MESSIAH AS TEACHEE — HIS ORIGINALITY 
 
' He taught them as one 
 having authority, and not 
 as their scribes.'— Matt. 
 vii. 29. 
 
Lecture Four 
 
 THE MESSIAH AS TEACHER — HIS ORIGINALITY 
 
 WE now turn to the study of the Messiah as 
 the Teacher, remembering, consistently with 
 our subject, that we have to study Him not 
 as the teacher of us Gentiles, but as He is presented 
 to us in relation to the Jews. In other words, the 
 primary question for us is not. What in reality was 
 Jesus Himself as Teacher, but What was He in the 
 eyes of the writer of this first Gospel, whom it is 
 convenient for us to call St. Matthew ? 
 
 I. "What was the preparation received by the 
 Messiah which qualified Him to be a Teacher ? 
 Formal and scholastic training He had none. We 
 must therefore put the question into other words, and 
 ask. What were the currents of thought at that time 
 likely to influence Him ? We do not ask. What were 
 the sources from which He derived His knowledge, for 
 no one seriously supposes that Jesus was an eclectic, 
 culling, from this side and from that, herbs for His 
 healing draughts, and flowers for the fair garlands of 
 His sweet discourse. With Him it was not a matter 
 of selecting and picking. But, living as He did in an 
 atmosphere of active thought, it was impossible but 
 that He should breathe it, and make it His own. 
 Currents of thought there were from different quarters, 
 mingling and commingling so close that we cannot 
 hope to distinguish them, either in themselves or in 
 their effect. But they were there, and it is useless 
 to expect to understand either the teaching of our 
 
 143 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 Lord, or His influence upon His people, unless we 
 recognise their presence. ' Even the Prophets and 
 Apostles would have preached to deaf ears if the 
 substance of what they proclaimed had not had links 
 of union with the circle of ideas already present to 
 their audience . . . even they were children of their 
 time, even in them could the new thoughts which 
 they were to announce only be engendered by the 
 support of those which already existed.' ^ This is 
 true universally. Jesus, the perfect Man, the Messiah, 
 was no exception, either for Himself or for those to 
 whom He came. 
 
 We cannot, however, be far wrong in eliminating 
 from our inquiry all currents directly emanating from 
 non-Jewish sources. It is true that the advocates of 
 Buddhism have brought forward not a few points in 
 common between the life and teaching of Buddha 
 and those of our Lord, such as the nature of His 
 birth and the events of His childhood, the murder 
 of the Innocents, the early visit of the Boy to the 
 Temple, the Baptism, the Temptation, the Sermon 
 on the Mount, the Miracles, the Transfiguration, the 
 Betrayal, and even the doctrine that evil is inherent 
 in the world. 
 
 But against all this must be set the uncertainty 
 of the date of those parts of Buddhist tradition which 
 bear most resemblance to the Gospels, and also the 
 fact that in some of the supposed parallel actions 
 and precepts the coincidence is not so striking as to 
 preclude accident. Lastly, the general tendencies 
 of the two religions, the one introspective and nega- 
 tive, the other positive and energetic, are completely 
 
 * Schiirer, Die Predigt Jeau Ohristi in ihrem VerMltnias zum alten Testamen 
 und zum Jvdenthum, 1882, pp. 3 sq. 
 
 144 
 
IV] NON-JEWISH INFLUENCE ON OUR LORD 
 
 different. While then it may be granted that 
 Buddhists had visited Alexandria before the time 
 of our Lord, there is no sufficient evidence that 
 their religion was known in Judaea, and no sign 
 that it influenced either the Messiah or those whom 
 He addressed.^ 
 
 The case is otherwise with Parseeism. When 
 we compare the Old Testament, in particular the 
 oldest portions of it, with the New, we cannot but 
 take account of the change in much that refers to 
 the unseen world, and matters of eschatology. The 
 doctrine of angels, for example, especially of evil 
 angels, perhaps even of the devil, marks a whole 
 realm of expansion in belief, and is probably due 
 to contact with Persia. The intercourse, however, 
 did not take place in our Lord's time, but three 
 or four centuries earlier, and to Him and His con- 
 temporaries the new doctrines had become a normal 
 part of Jewish theology. The religion of Persia as 
 such had no direct connexion with our Lord. 
 
 WTiat then of Greek thought ? Perhaps He 
 could speak Greek, but the ordinary people even 
 of Galilee do not appear to have known it well,^ 
 and in any case it can hardly have been His mother- 
 tongue, or He would not have fallen back on Aramaic 
 
 * The worthless platitudes of The Vnhwvm lAfe of Christ, by Nicolas 
 Notovitoh, 1895, may please those for whom they were invented. If Dr. 
 Timothy Riohard is right, in his beautiful translation of the Buddhist works. 
 The Awakening of Faith, and The Essence of the Lotus Scripture, contained 
 in his The New Testament of Higher Buddhism, 1910, the most striking 
 coincidences between Buddhism and Christianity are due to Ashvagosha, 
 who lived some fifty years after St. Paul, and incorporated much of his 
 teaching into the Mahayana form of Buddhism. On the subject generally 
 see also Karl von Hase, Neutestamentliche Parallelen zu iuddhistischen Qudlen, 
 1905. 
 
 » Sohfirer, GJ,V., 1907, ii. 63 ejq. 
 
 145 L 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 in time of stress and profound emotion. Besides, 
 Greek religion, as such, with its love of nature- 
 worship and its disregard of morality, can hardly 
 have presented much attraction to one brought up 
 in the pure and holy precepts of the God of the 
 Old Testament. Greek philosophy, on the other 
 hand, pure and undiluted, has certainly not left 
 much trace on the teaching of our Lord. Non- 
 Jewish thought, then, whether from India, or from 
 Persia, or from Greece, had, so far as we are aware, 
 no direct influence upon Him or on those to whom 
 He ministered. 
 
 While, however, Greek thought as such had little 
 or no effect upon our Lord, that form of it called 
 Hellenism had much. Yet here again we must 
 distinguish. There were two kinds of Hellenism — 
 one philosophic, the other practical. The former, 
 though it had made in Alexandria no little progress 
 before the birth of Christ, and was to attain its 
 zenith in the writings of Philo within a few years 
 after His death, demands close attention bv the 
 student of the Fourth Gospel; but may almost be 
 ignored by the student of the First. It is otherwise 
 with what we may call practical Hellenism. For 
 this may underlie not a little of the great Apocalyptic 
 writings, the extent of whose influence upon the 
 New Testament is becoming increasingly evident. 
 In any case the reader of St. Matthew must con- 
 tinually bear in mind the possibility that his Gospel 
 may owe much to parts of the Apocrypha and the 
 Pseudepigraphic Writings. So far, indeed, as they 
 are distinctively eschatological, the consideration of 
 them must be reserved for the tenth lecture. Here 
 it is enough to point out that one object of the 
 
 146 
 
iv] INFLUENCE OF THE O.T. UPON HIM 
 
 Apocalyptic authors was to produce a freer attitude 
 towards the Law than was presupposed by Pharisaism. 
 Hence they contribute comparatively little infor- 
 mation about technical matters of the Law, while 
 saying much on the practical side of religion in their 
 expectation of the swift vindication by God of His 
 people, and, as occasion served, on the manner of 
 life which alone is worthy of His servants. 
 
 It is, however, important for our purpose that 
 we should remember that while Apocalj'ptic books 
 are due both to Alexandrian and to Palestinian 
 thinkers, those of the latter most influenced our 
 Lord, doubtless because they adhered more closely 
 to the teaching of the Old Testament. 
 
 For with our Lord, as with every Jew, the Old 
 Testament was the court to which, in the last instance, 
 all appeal was made. It was the head from which 
 flowed the waters of spiritual life in unadulterated 
 purity and strength. With Him again, as with 
 every Jew of Palestine, the limits of the Old Testa^ 
 ment did not exceed those of the present Hebrew 
 Canon.^ He would hear the lesson from the Law, 
 and the lesson from the Prophets, read in the syna- 
 gogue sabbath by sabbath in Hebrew, together, 
 perhaps, with an explanation of them in the native 
 tongue, the Aramaic of the period.^ 
 
 Further, we may assume that our Lord's home 
 was saturated with religious belief and practice 
 derived directly from the Old Testament. But when 
 we try to be more precise in our knowledge of this, 
 
 1 Possibly they were not then quite so large, for there were doubts about 
 Eoclesiastes and the Song of Songs until the Council of Jamnia c. 90 a.d. 
 
 • It would seem, therefore, that He knew at least three languages — 
 Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. 
 
 147 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 and endeavour to state accurately the nature of the 
 influence brought to bear upon Him there, we are, 
 in reahty, more at a loss than is generally supposed. 
 Detailed pictures have been drawn of the home-life 
 of Jesus, upon the supposition that it was that of a 
 child trained in such ways as commended themselves 
 to Talmudic scholars. But everything points to the 
 probability that among pious Jews the doctrines of 
 the Apocalyptic literature found ready acceptance, 
 and did much to mould the mind of the rising gener- 
 ation. It is further probable that this was especially 
 the case in Galilee.^ 
 
 Yet, with this reservation, it can hardly be wrong 
 to assume that the Lord Jesus was well acquainted 
 in His home at Nazareth with the teaching of the 
 Pharisees, both in practice and theory, and, in par- 
 ticular, with its insistence on the Traditional Law. 
 
 Now we are in no little danger of despising this 
 element of the religious life of that time, and because 
 it had its weak side, and easily lent itself to abuse, 
 are apt to forget its value. 
 
 For then, as always, it fulfilled an indispensable 
 function by enabling Judaism, the observance of 
 the Law as a code, to maintain its existence as a 
 living religion. For it was prompted by a sincere 
 desire to determine how the will of God, as revealed in 
 the Pentateuch (to which all other parts of the Bible 
 were but explanatory), could be brought into touch 
 with later life.^ 
 
 We have already seen that with a code some 
 such system of interpretation is necessary, if it is 
 not to become a mere dead weight of unmeaning 
 observance. Once assume that a book, believed to 
 
 1 See Lecture X, p. 351. ? See Lectures II, pp. 62-64; V, p. 186. 
 
 148 
 
iv] INFLUENCE OF THE ORAL LAW 
 
 be infallible, contains minute and specific directions 
 for daily life, then, as a consequence, there arises 
 the necessity of rules, and of methods of interpreting 
 it, in order to bring it into touch with the practical 
 needs of each day. One must, as the Rabbis say, 
 ' Turn it about, and turn it about, for all is in it ' 
 {Pirqe Aboth, v. 32). So much painstaking endeavour 
 had been expended on the interpretation of the 
 written Law before our Lord's time, and so great 
 a body of oral explanation had in fact been formed, 
 embracing in its inquiry ritual, social, ethical, theo- 
 logical, and even spirittial matters, that it must 
 have had a considerable share in the preparation 
 of the Lord Jesus for His work as Teacher. 
 
 Yet when we endeavour to define more closely 
 the nature of the influence exerted upon Him by 
 the Oral Law we find ourselves in this difficulty, 
 that we are not able to state accurately the contents 
 of that Law at that time. 
 
 For indeed at no time have its contents been so 
 rounded off that it has been possible to say : These, 
 and these only, are the precepts of the Oral Law ; 
 much less can we affirm what they were at so com- 
 paratively early a stage in its history as 25 a.d. 
 when the School of Hillel was still disputing with 
 that of Shammai. Possibly, no doubt, zealous 
 Scribes had already begun to tabulate it,^ but even 
 this is far from certain, and it is more probable 
 that for the first beginnings of at least the written 
 form of the Oral Law we must wait until the very 
 end of the first, or even the earlier part of the second 
 century.2 Not until we come to the year 200, or 
 
 1 Jewish Encyclopedia, viii. 610. 
 
 ? Strack, Einleitung in den Talmud, 1908, p. 10, cf. p. 20. 
 
 149 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 thereabouts, are we on sure ground, when R. Jehudah, 
 the Prince of the Jewish community in Babylon, 
 framed the collection of traditional Law known as 
 the Mishna. We grant, however, that this claims 
 to be based on ancient precedent, and gives in many 
 cases the names of those earlier Rabbis who made 
 the decisions which it records, some of whom were 
 living in the first half of the second century, and a 
 few even in the first century itself, approximately, 
 that is to say, in the time of our Lord, 
 i On the other hand, both the Talmuds are later 
 than the Mishna, the earlier, that of Jerusalem or 
 Palestine, dating from about 400 a.d ; the later, 
 written in Babylon, from about 500 a.d.^ 
 
 The enumeration of these dates is sufficient to 
 show that when we try to determine the contents of 
 the Oral Law in the time of our Lord, we cannot feel 
 the same certainty about the results at which we 
 arrive as if our material were contemporary with 
 Him. It has ever been a temptation to students, 
 Jewish and Christian alike, to foist in upon us any 
 and every statement of the Mishna and even of the 
 Talmuds, as an illustration of the life and thought 
 of the Jews in the early part of the first century. 
 Nothing can be more absurd. At least some attempt 
 ought to be made first to trace out critically any such 
 tradition to the earliest source attributed to it, namely, 
 the person by whom it was first spoken, and even 
 then the criticism of the trustworthiness of such 
 sources is as yet in far too incipient a form to enable 
 us to place much trust in its conclusions. Still more 
 
 1 Strack, Einleitung in den Talmud, 1908, pp. 63, 68. On the pre-Tal- 
 mudic Midrashim, i.e. the Mekilta, the Siphra, and the Siphre, see Oesterley and 
 Box, The Religion and Worship of the Synagogue, 2nd edition, 1911, pp. 81 sqq. 
 
 150 
 
IV] CONCLUSIONS AS TO INFLUENCES UPON HIM 
 
 uncritical is it to quote sayings that are found only in 
 yet later Jewish books, as though they were represen- 
 tative of Jewish teaching in the time of Christ. The 
 burden of proof at least lies on those who do quote 
 these passages, not on those who fear to use them.^ 
 
 Lastly, we may not overlook the possibility that 
 certain sayings common both to the New Testament 
 and the Rabbis may have been taken over by the 
 latter from the former, especially if Chwolson is right 
 in affirming the existence of friendly intercourse 
 between Jews and Hebrew- Christians so late as the 
 time of R. Jehudah.^ It must be confessed, however, 
 that such borrowing of Jews from Christians, on 
 any large scale, is very improbable, in view of the 
 horror which most of the official teachers felt of 
 reading Jewish-Christian books, or of applying to 
 Jewish- Christians for advice.^ 
 
 The conclusions to be drawn from these con- 
 siderations are, first, that non- Jewish forms of thought 
 had only an indirect effect on Christ, by being already 
 incorporated into the intellectual activity of Pales- 
 tinian Judaism ; secondly, that the influence of the 
 teaching now^ preserved to us in the Apocryphal and 
 Pseudepigraphic books was, in all probability, in 
 exact ratio to the closeness of its relation to that 
 
 * Dr. Abelson in his illuminating book. The Immanence of Ood in Rabbinical 
 Literature, 1912, may be right in claiming that ' the mediseval Kabbalah is 
 really an integral portion of Talmudism. It is part of its flesh and blood ' 
 (p. 2) ; 'it is really the Uterature of Jewish mysticism from about the first 
 pre-Christian century until almost recent times ' (p. 3) ; but the critical study 
 of it has made Uttle advance since Zunz affirmed in 1832 that the Zohar was 
 composed about 1300 a.d., and partly compiled out of very late material 
 {OottesdiensUiche Vortrage, p. 405). See also H. J. Holtzmann, N.T. Theologie, 
 1911, i. p. 50. 
 
 » Das letzte Passamahl Christi, 1908, pp. 101-107. See Lect. V. p. 209. 
 
 ^ Vide infra, p. 162. 
 
 151 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 of the books of the Old Testament, which were 
 certainly to Him the chief sonrce of intellectual and 
 spiritual truth; thirdly, that He came under the 
 Pharisaic treatment of the Law, only so far as this 
 affected the daily life of those many pious Israel- 
 ites who were not professedly members of the 
 Pharisaic Society ; and lastly, that we must, as 
 careful students of evidence, be on our guard 
 against identifying Rabbinic teaching, as we know 
 it, with the instruction given in our Lord's day; 
 unless indeed the existence of some specific portion 
 at that time be shown to be probable by direct state- 
 ments in Rabbinic literature which are proved to be 
 trustworthy, or by testimony contained in other works 
 of a date not later than the first century of our era. 
 
 II. Having considered the currents of thought likely 
 to have influenced our Lord, we turn to consider Him 
 as Teacher. What does St. Matthew tell us of this ? 
 For he tells us much, more perhaps than we should 
 have expected. For we have been so accustomed to 
 regard the Lord Jesus as the Deliverer from sin, that 
 it requires on our part some little effort to understand 
 the reason why the FiVangelist sets Him before us 
 as the Teacher. Why did St. Matthew say so much 
 of this side of Christ's work ? However great 
 may have been his hope that his treatise would be 
 of help to future generations (and what author 
 is there in whose innermost heart such a hope has 
 no place ?), yet he must have written primarily for 
 the men of his own time. What, then, moved him 
 to record so much of our Lord's words ? This, no 
 doubt, that he desired to draw out the contrast 
 between Him and the other teachers of his nation. 
 
 152 
 
IV] THE SUPERIORITY OF MESSIAH AS A TEACHER 
 
 The war was over. The Sadducees had perished. 
 The Essenes had passed into oblivion. The Zealots 
 as such remained discredited for half a century. 
 But the teachers of Israel, the Scribes with their 
 attendant Pharisees, were remoulding religion, and 
 were courageously endeavouring to maintain the 
 faith of Judaism, and rivet the precepts of the Law 
 in the hearts of all Jews Avho had survived the horrors 
 of the siege and the blandishments of heathen 
 worship. We cannot praise too highly the conscien- 
 tious attempts of R. Jochanan ben Zakkai and his 
 fellow-leaders to maintain Judaism as they knew it, 
 and to develope the Oral Law in the new circum- 
 stances of a State destroyed and a Temple consumed 
 in the flames. They were earnest men, who acquired 
 by their consistency the respect of all, and by their 
 ability' ensured to Pharisaic Judaism a long life, down 
 to our own day. 
 
 They were great as teachers. But to the Evange- 
 list, living as he was in the same land as they, nay, 
 perhaps in the self-same district, for Jamnia, the new 
 centre of their learning, was nigh unto Lydda and 
 Joppa,^ they appeared but small in comparison with 
 Jesus. He was a teacher of a standing far higher 
 than theirs. Resembling them in much, He differed 
 from them in more. He was, St. Matthew felt, 
 immeasurably superior to them all. 
 
 St. Matthew, that is to say, desired to bring out 
 in his treatise the significance of the Messiah as 
 Teacher, and he did this, whether intentionally or not 
 I cannot say, by showing that both in manner and in 
 matter He was at once dependent and independent, 
 being indeed a great Teacher, original and supreme. 
 
 » Acts ix. 32-43. 
 153 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect 
 
 There was much in common between the manner 
 of the teaching of Christ and that of the official 
 leaders of the people. Listen to the following : 
 
 ' It is like to a king, who invited his servants to 
 a supper, but did not appoint the time. The wise 
 among them adorned themselves, and sat at the door 
 of the king's house. For they said : Can anything 
 be lacking in the house of the king {i.e. the supper 
 may be ready at any time) ? The foolish among them 
 went to their work. For they said : Can there ever 
 be a supper without preparation ? Suddenly the king 
 asked for his servants : the wise among them went 
 in before him, adorned as they were. But the foolish 
 went in, dirty as they were. Then the king rejoiced 
 over the wise, but was wroth with the foolish. He 
 said : These who have adorned themselves for the 
 supper may sit down and eat and drink ; these who 
 have not adorned themselves for the supper may 
 remain standing and look on ' (T.B., Sabb. 153a).i 
 We might almost be reading a parable in the New 
 Testament, might we ^ not ? In reality it is one 
 spoken by R. Jochanan ben Zakkai. Further it is 
 only a specimen (a good one, I grant) out of the many 
 hundreds or even thousands of parables contained in 
 Rabbinic writings. The fact that parables are there 
 so abundant, and are found in connexion with every 
 kind of subject, shows the extreme improbability of 
 the opinion, which some scholars would urge upon us, 
 that the Jewish teachers knew nothing of parables 
 
 ^ From Fiebig, Die Gleichnisreden Jesu im LicMe der rahhinischen 
 Qleichnisse, 1912, p. 18. Perhaps the fullest collection of Rabbinic parables 
 is that of Giuseppe Levi, translated into German by L. Seligmann, Pardbeln, 
 Legenden und Oedanlcen, 2nd edition, 1877, but it makes no attempt at 
 chronology or criticism. 
 
 154 
 
IV] THE EXTERNAL FORM OF HIS TEACHING 
 
 until the Lord Jesus had opened the way.^ On the 
 other hand, to see in our Lord's parables only imita- 
 tions of those already spoken by Jewish doctors ^ 
 and others is to overlook the crucial differences of the 
 one class from the majority of the other. For about 
 our Lord's parables there are a freshness and an 
 obviousness wanting to those of the Rabbis, with the 
 absence of triviality either in subject or in expres- 
 sion, and of the smack of book-learning which too 
 frequently mars their most solemn thoughts.^ 
 
 Passing from our Lord's parables to His teaching 
 generally, we need hardly mention His use of meta- 
 phor and hyperbole, so dear to all Jewish and Eastern 
 teachers, for though illustrations such as that of the 
 camel and the needle's eye often appear ridiculous to 
 the crass logic of our Western minds, they are quickly 
 grasped and greatly valued by the more subtle 
 imagination of the oriental.* 
 
 Whether indeed the prevalence of short pithy 
 sayings in the Gospel gives an accurate impression 
 of the real nature of our Lord's instruction may be 
 doubted, for it may be due to the fact that such 
 remarks were more easily retained in the memory 
 of those that heard them than the argument of which 
 they formed a part.^ 
 
 But at least they have a curious likeness in 
 form to much that we know of the methods of Jewish 
 teachers. Indeed, one treatise of the Mishna, the 
 far-famed Pirqe Aboth, ' The Ethics of the Fathers,' 
 
 1 Julicher, Die Gkichnisreden Jesu, 1910, i. 168 sg., in Piebig, ibid. pp. 124 sq, 
 » Drews, The Christ Myth, 1910, p. 253. 
 » Cf. Kebig, ibid. pp. 271, 276 sqq. 
 
 • Contrast the crude acceptance of Talmudio Haggadoth by English 
 writers as statements intended to be understood literally. 
 ' Compare Heinrici, Die Bergpredigt, i. 1900, pp. 16-18, 78. 
 
 155 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 contains little else. Two quotations will suffice : 
 ' Be not as slaves that minister to the lord with a 
 view to receive recompense ; but be as slaves that 
 minister to the lord without a view to receive recom- 
 pense ; and . let the fear of heaven be upon you ' 
 (Antigonus of Soko, in the first century b.c). ' The 
 day is short, and the task is great, and the workmen 
 are sluggish, and the reward is much, and the Master 
 of the house is urgent. It is not for thee to finish 
 the work, nor art thou free to desist therefrom ; 
 if thou hast learned much Torah, they give thee 
 much reward ; and faithful is the Master of thy 
 work, who will pay thee the reward of thy work, 
 and know that the recompense of the reward of the 
 righteous is for the time to come ' (R. Tarphon in 
 the end of the first century a.d.). Such utterances 
 are not unworthy to be compared with those of our 
 Lord for their pregnant terseness. 
 
 Yet the First Evangelist himself reports dis- 
 courses. Yes, but even these are hardly elaborate 
 arguments like those recorded in the Fourth Gospel, 
 and are made up of so many short sayings, not a 
 few of which recur in other connexions in the Synoptic 
 Writers, that it is not easy to say whether they were 
 ever spoken at one and the same time, or whether 
 the present arraijgement of them is not due to our 
 Lord's followers more than to Him Himself. It is 
 quite intelligible that for easy recollection in daily 
 life, and for the better instruction of others, it was 
 thought well to place great utterances of the Messiah 
 in more or less logical setting, which would demon- 
 strate in unmistakably clear language His teaching 
 on matters of supreme interest to those for whom 
 the Evangelist wrote. 
 
 156 
 
iv] THE MESSIAH'S USE OF THE O.T. 
 
 If this is whab took place, then the discourses 
 as they now stand represent summaries of our Lord's 
 teaching, based perhaps upon notes of speeches 
 actually delivered by Him, but enlarged by the 
 inclusion of cognate matter spoken at other 
 times. ^ 
 
 If this be so it is evident that although the re- 
 sponsibility for each separate saying rests upon our 
 Lord, the final arrangement and interdependence of 
 the utterances are due to the Evangelist. Occasions 
 may arise, and have been thought to arise, in which 
 this distinction is important. It will, however, be 
 remembered that the discourses as they stand are 
 the deliberate representation by St. Matthew of 
 what he conceived our Lord to mean. They are, 
 that is to say, part of that presentation of the Messiah 
 to the Jews which he desired to draw, and we to-day 
 are endeavouring to trace. 
 
 In no particular is that presentation of Him as 
 a Teacher more important than in His relation to 
 Holy Scripture. For a Jewish audience (and this, 
 through his Jewish-Christian readers, St. Matthew 
 ever held in mind) must have expected that the 
 Messiah would refer to Holy Scripture, and expound 
 its attitude to Himself and His work. How stands 
 our Lord's use of Scripture when it is compared 
 with that of the Jewish teachers ? Generally speak- 
 ing, we may say that His methods are theirs. Scholars 
 have not always perceived this. Christian theo- 
 logians ignorant of Judaism have been content with 
 saying that Christ cared for the spirit of a passage 
 and Jews for the letter, while Jewish controversialists 
 
 * Cf. Heinrioi, op. cit. pp. 38, 39 ; B. W. Bacon, Thz Sermon on the Mount, 
 1902, p. 23. 
 
 157 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 have been only too glad to seize on apparent 
 differences, and have accused our Lord and His dis- 
 ciples of either wilful, or, more often, unintentional, 
 perversion of the meaning of the original Hebrew. 
 Happily times are changing. Christians are beginning 
 to see that statements in Talmudic writings are not 
 always what they appear to be on the surface, and 
 Jews to appreciate the thoroughly Jewish methods 
 of Christ and the writers of the New Testament. 
 For Scripture is quoted with extraordinary freedom 
 in the religious literature of post-Biblical Judaism, 
 and every method of New Testament quotation 
 may be illustrated from it.^ 
 
 There was, then, much in common between the 
 form and methods of our Lord's manner of teaching 
 and those of the Rabbis. But in one point, and 
 that fundamental, there was a difference. The 
 affirmation of a Jewish teacher had no weight at 
 all in matters of legal rule (Halacha) unless he was 
 either fully accredited, or able to affirm that he had 
 derived his decision from an earlier and recognised 
 authority. Of the two qualifications the latter was 
 the chief. Hillel himself, to take the classic example, 
 in his debate with the Sanhedrin on the question 
 whether a passover lamb ought to be slain on the 
 Sabbath, he himself upholding the affirmative, could 
 not secure acquiescence in his opinion until he was 
 able to show that he had received such a tradition 
 from his predecessors, Shemaiah and Abtalion.^ 
 
 1 Cf. Lecture I. 
 
 » Gratz, Geschichte der Juden, 3rd edition, 1877, iii. pp. 227 sq., 673; 
 Weiss, Dor dor w'dorshaw, i. 1871, p. 158 ; Beer, Der Mischnatraktai Sabbat, 
 1908, p. 9: ' Was sich als brauchbares Gesetz fiir die Gegenwart anbietet, 
 muss sioh einer Art Ahnenprobe unterziehen ' {quoted in H. J. Holtzmann, 
 NS. Theohgie, 1911, i. 41). 
 
 158 
 
IV] HIS INDEPENDENCE AS A TEACHER 
 
 Similarly we read in T.B. Megilldh, 15a : ' He who 
 saith a thing in the name of him who said it earlier 
 brings redemption into the world.' So also in Aboth, 
 vi. 6, we find that Tor ah is acquired by forty- eight 
 things, among them : ' He that considers what he 
 has heard, and tells a thing in the name of him who 
 said it.' ^ These sayings, it is true, doubtless refer 
 primarily to Halacha, and not to Haggada, in which 
 the Jewish teachers were much more free.^ But 
 they illustrate the tone of mind in which official 
 Judaism regarded the past, the dependence which 
 each felt on those honoured names that had gone 
 before him. 
 
 With the Messiah, as St. Matthews suggests 
 (vii. 29), it was quite otherwise. Not His jurare 
 in verba magistri. There was something in Him 
 which struck out a line different from that which 
 was characteristic of the Jew, the Semite, the Oriental, 
 even the whole ancient world, and dared to state 
 facts, and pronounce judgements regardless of those 
 which had already been adduced.* 
 
 Closely connected with this independence in 
 method is our Lord's originality of treatment. There 
 is no sign of eclecticism in Jesus of Nazareth.* His 
 knowledge was not bookish ; the lore of the past, 
 recent or long gone by, whether already crystallised 
 into writing or not, did not, as such, appeal to Him. 
 
 1 Compare also R. T. Herford, Pharisaism, its Aim and its Method, 1912, 
 p. 135. 
 
 ' B. W. Baoon, The Sermon on the Mount, p. 30, writes : For Haggadah 
 ' no precedent or authority needed to be cited, no literary expedient of allegory, 
 fiction, or legend was excluded.' But the first clause rather overstates the 
 case if the Haggadah referred to a doctrine of importance. 
 
 » See H. J. Holtzmann, N.T. Thechgie, 1911, i. 296. 
 
 * On the Lord's Prayer, see below, pp. 162 sqq. 
 
 159 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 His learning was acquired from intercourse with men, 
 with Nature, and with God. So, again, there is no 
 sign that He endeavoured to frame any system of 
 truth for Himself, or to set the truth systematically 
 before others. In measure, indeed, this was charac- 
 teristic of Rabbinic teachers of His time. Great sys- 
 tematisers among the Jews belong to a later date. 
 The Saadiahs,^ the Maimonides, the Bechais, the Albos, 
 represent a phase of thought completely foreign 
 to the Palestinian Jews of the first century. Had 
 Jesus shown any inclination to formulate religion 
 into plan and order, head under head, and clause 
 by clause, He would have been a monstrosity, so 
 utterly out of touch with His people would He have 
 shown Himself to be. Neither was He a theologian 
 in the ordinary sense of the word. Rabbis around 
 Him disputed over separate points in practice and 
 (to some extent) in theology, but with Him every- 
 thing like painful endeavour to arrive at truth by 
 comparison and deduction is absent. 
 
 In His case it was religious intuition rather than 
 religious learning. Truth for Him was no result 
 of study, conscious and profound. He appears to 
 have assimilated perfectly each new thought which 
 taught Him more of God ; to have absorbed, if 
 we may put it so, the atoms of truth floating in 
 the atmosphere round Him, with each breath of 
 His spiritual life. Nay, more than that. As of 
 the nine circles in Dante's Vision, that one had 
 the clearest flame which was least distant from the 
 central point of light: 'Because, I take it,' writes 
 the poet, ' it sinketh deepest into the truth thereof ' ; 
 
 1 Of. Abelson, The Immanenoe ofOod in Bdbbinic Literature, 1912, p. 362 ; 
 Gaster, E.B.E. iv. 43&. 
 
 160 
 
IV] THE SECRET OF HIS TEACHING 
 
 and again : ' All have their delight in measure as 
 their sight sinketh more deep into the truth wherein 
 every intellect is stilled ' ; ^ so Messiah kept ever 
 near the great Centre of all truth, receiving from 
 It as He had necessity, thus maintaining within 
 Himself that supreme knowledge, and that per- 
 fect sympathy, which enabled Him to respond to 
 every call, to answer every doubt, to meet every 
 question brought before Him, raising all He touched 
 to a higher plane, because He brought it into the 
 eternal light. Hence His authority. The assevera- 
 tion ' But I say unto you ' sprang ultimately, not, 
 as too many have supposed, from His consciousness 
 as God, but from that inner relation which He, the 
 perfect Man, held uninterruptedly with the Divine. 
 
 Thus we come near that final secret of His teach- 
 ing, that entelechy of His doctrine. His character 
 and personality. For, as we are all well aware, the 
 best teacher to-day is not he who hands on to his 
 pupils with greatest accuracy the instruction which 
 was given to him, or even he who selects and imparts 
 to others only the highest portion of what he has 
 received ; but he whose personality is so strong to 
 vitalise every word he speaks that his pupils catch his 
 spirit,and one by one move forward to sound education. 
 This is the more true in proportion to the importance 
 of the subject taught, and to the closeness with which 
 it touches the character and the will. To understand 
 Messiah as Teacher is to understand His personality. 
 But who shall grasp the personality of Jesus ? ^ 
 
 It appears, then, that in our consideration of the 
 presentation to the Jews of Messiah as Teacher we 
 
 1 Paradiso, xxviii. 37-39, and 106-108 (Wicksteed's translation). 
 ' See Lecture IX. 
 
 161 M 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 can trace both the influence of current thought upon 
 Him and His independence towards it, for in spite 
 of all that He owed to others He was supremely 
 original. These two sides of His position may be 
 illustrated from almost every page of the First Gospel. 
 But we must limit ourselves to the Sermon on the 
 Mount, and at first to two short portions of it, the 
 Lord's Prayer, and His great Commandment of Love. 
 
 That the Lord's Prayer owes much to current 
 Jewish thought is acknowledged by almost all schol- 
 ars, ^ whether it is regarded as a whole or in detail. 
 
 We may grant at once that the structure of the 
 Prayer, as found in the liturgical services of the 
 Christian Church,^ is precisely that of the long set 
 of prayers known as the Eighteen Benedictions 
 {Shemoneh Esreh).^ The first three of these refer 
 directly to God and His holiness, the following twelve 
 
 1 Dr. E. BiachofE indeed (Jesus und die Rahhinen, 1905, pp. 73-82) has 
 attempted to show that our Lord in this as in other parts of the Sermon on 
 the Mount derived nothing from Jewish teachers, but his argument is quite 
 unconvincing. He bases his case entirely on the fact that most of the asserted 
 Jewish parallels are, as they stand, confessedly of later date than our Lord. 
 But he does little to explain the presence of such tones on the lips of Jewish 
 teachers if they were but lingering notes of the Lord's Gloria. 
 
 Mr. G. Friedlander, in his learned but somewhat narrow-minded work, 
 Tlie Jewish Sources of the Sermon on the Mount, 1911, goes to the opposite 
 extreme, and hears in the Prayer nothing but feeble echoes of the Jewish 
 oratorio. 
 
 " The addition of the Doxology to the form recorded in Matthew doubtless 
 represents primitive custom. Its omission in the New Testament may be 
 due either to the fact that the wording of it was not fixed when the Gospels 
 were written, or to the presupposition that some such words would be added 
 by the worshipper. Of. Dr. Thirtle's suggestive The Lord's Prayer, an 
 Interpretation, 1915, p. 163. 
 
 " The Palestinian and the Babylonian forms of the original are to be 
 found conveniently in Dalman's Die Worte Jesu, 1898 (German edition 
 only). The current but inaccurate form is given in Singer's Authorised Daily 
 Prayer Booh, pp. 44-53 ; see also Mr. Abraham's notes, pp. Iv-lxx, and 
 especially Dr. Hirsoh in the Jewish Encyclopedia, xi. 270-282. 
 
 162 
 
IV] THE LORD'S PRAYER 
 
 (now thirteen) are petitions, and the last three are 
 utterances of thanksgiving and praise. It is indeed 
 not proved that the Shemoneh Esreh were in existence 
 as early as the first quarter of the first century of our 
 era, but their date cannot be placed much later, and 
 their framework may fairly be taken to illustrate what 
 was in our Lord's time felt to be fitting and usual in 
 prayer to God. 
 
 If the structure of the Prayer is Jewish, so also 
 are the individual sentences. For, in the first place, 
 it has been shown ^ that nearly all of these are based 
 upon expressions found in the Old Testament, which 
 have been turned into prayer.^ In the second, the 
 parallel clauses in prayers scattered through many 
 Jewish books are so numerous that, unless we postulate 
 wholesale borrowing on the part of Jews, we are com- 
 pelled to come to the conclusion that not a single article 
 of the Prayer is original, in the sense of being previously 
 unknown, though we willingly grant that it is impos- 
 sible to prove in every case that sentences adduced as 
 parallels are earlier than the time of our Lord. 
 
 Was He then only a plagiarist, as certain .Jewish 
 writers would have us believe ? Have we all been 
 mistaken, these many centuries, in attributing to 
 
 1 See in particular Heinrici, Die Bergpredigt, ii. 1905, pp. 66 sq. Some 
 of his examples, however, are somewhat far fetched. These I have omitted. 
 
 ' Father, Mai. ii. 10 ; 1 Chron. xxix. 10 ; the hallowing of His name, 
 1 Chron. xvii. 24 ; Isa. xxix. 23 ; the coming of the kingdom, Obad. 21 ; 
 Dan. ii. 44 ; Zeoh. xiv. 9 ; the reahsation of God's will, Ps. oxxxv. 6 ; xl. 8 ; 
 daily bread, Prov. xxx. 8 ; forgiveness of sins, Isa. xxii. 14, xxxiii. 24, 
 Iv. 7 ; Ps. xxxii. 1 ; preservation from extreme temptation, and dehveranoe 
 from the Evil One, Ps. xxxiv. 19 (LXX) ; Ps. cxxiv. 7 ; Jer. xx. 13. 
 
 Mr. G. Friedlander, Jewish Sources, pp. 164 sq., endeavours to show that 
 the Lord's Prayer is ' merely an adaptation' of Ezek. xxxvi. 23-31, but he 
 will find few readers to agree with him. Yet cf. Box, Expositor, July, 1916, 
 p. 23. 
 
 163 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 Him not only brilliancy of expression, but also origin- 
 ality of thought ? Originality, to be sure, is a mis- 
 leading term. In its absolute sense it can be used only 
 of God, and even of Him not later than the first 
 moment of creation, if we may judge from our expe- 
 rience of His actions. For these are ever the result 
 of earlier materials, arranged no doubt in a fresh 
 way, but not ncAv in themselves. When, however, we 
 speak of originality we are not pedantic. We use the 
 word of a combination of materials ordered as never 
 before, to the best of our belief, and we determine 
 the amount of originality by the proportion of new- 
 ness in the arrangement, and the brilliancy of the 
 consequent effect. We do not deny originality to 
 Bach, Beethoven, Wagner, because they utilise chords 
 and phrases found in other scores ; nor do we hesitate 
 to place Leonardo da Vinci or Michael Angelo on 
 their pedestals of fame because every detail of their 
 work may be matched somewhere among the paintings 
 or the sculptures of their predecessors. Yet these 
 illustrious masters have produced nothing so incom- 
 parably superior in their own arts as is the Lord's 
 Prayer in religion. That in Christian forms of worship 
 nothing approaches it every one will allow ; and, if 
 brevity and comprehensiveness be taken into account, 
 the view of even the best of Jewish prayers enter- 
 ing into serious competition with it is a mere dream, 
 scattered by the light of acquaintance with them. 
 
 Besides, even the Eighteen Benedictions, for all 
 their length,^ and for all their beauty, contain no 
 
 1 Delitzsch's Hebrew translation of the Lord's Prayer, including the 
 Doxology, contains forty-four words ; the Eighteen Benedictions contain 
 some two hundred and eighty-five in the shortest Palestinian form (see 
 Dalman, op. cit. p. 299). 
 
 164 
 
IV] THE EIGHTEEN BENEDICTIONS INADEQUATE 
 
 prayer for daily food, expressive though this is of 
 the believer's peaceful trust in the providing care 
 of his heavenly Father.^ Nor do they connect the 
 forgiveness of our own sins by God with our forgive- 
 ness of the sins of others against us. On the other 
 hand, they include a prayer against Christians, origin- 
 ally Hebrew-Christians, no doubt, which, to meet the 
 squeamish good-nature of these degenerate times, is 
 toned down into the formula, ' and as for slanderers 
 let there be no hope, and let all wickedness perish 
 as in a moment.' The original Palestinian and the 
 early Babylonian forms were very different : ' As 
 for apostates, let there be no hope for them ; and the 
 religion of pride do Thou quickly root out ' ; to which 
 an addition was made at least as early as the second 
 century : ' And let the Christians and the heretics 
 perish as in a moment, let them be blotted out of the 
 Book of Life, and let them not be written among 
 the righteous.' The early and late forms of the 
 petition close alike with a note of triumph : ' Blessed 
 art Thou Who humblest the proud.' ^ The Chris- 
 tian, when he recites ' Our Father,' breathes a very 
 different spirit. 
 
 It matters little, however, what we call the faculty 
 which produced the Lord's Prayer, whether ability 
 to use existing material, or independence of thought, 
 or originality, or transcendent insight into the things 
 of God and the needs of man ; the fact remains that 
 in it, as in no other prayer, short enough for a child 
 to remember and so simple that a fool can grasp the 
 
 ' The ninth, indeed, is a prayer that God may bless the year and make it 
 fruitful, but this is far less direct and personal than ' Give us this day our 
 daily bread.' 
 
 " No. 12. See Dalman, op. cit. p. 300. Compare also Heinrici, op. cit. 
 ii. p. 67. 
 
 165 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 central thought of every clause, there are embodied 
 the great principles of all religion, social and 
 individual. 
 
 But there is more to be said than this. 
 
 There is no part of the whole Gospel which reveals 
 more plainly the aim of the Evangelist. The Lord's 
 Prayer portrays the attitude which, in St. Matthew's 
 opinion, the Christ desired His followers to hold 
 towards God and man. They were to show unwaver- 
 ing trust in their Father in heaven ; to have com- 
 plete consecration to Him, with a longing for His 
 glory, for the fulfilment of His purposes, for the mani- 
 festation of His rule ; to maintain a conscious, but 
 restful, dependence on Him for the needs of each day ; 
 to possess a poignant sorrow for sin, and expectation 
 of pardon, conditioned by their own return for wrong- 
 doing received ; to feel a heart-felt conviction of 
 weakness in view of moral evil and the tempter, with 
 the confidence that God woiild deliver them from 
 him. All this, and much more, is contained in 
 the compass of the few sentences which we call the 
 Lord's Prayer. And as they stand, in word and plan 
 and spirit, they form the very antithesis to Pharisaism, 
 the official Judaism of St. Matthew's time and our 
 own, with its dependence on human power, its con- 
 gratulation of personal success, its asstu'ance of 
 self -righteousness. For the sense of sin, and the con- 
 sciousness of personal weakness against temptation, 
 never take root in human hearts until men find them 
 met and satisfied in the Saviour and Deliverer, Jesus 
 the Christ.i 
 
 ^ It may be questioned whether they who reject doctrinal Christianity, 
 and yet glibly assert^ that they accept the Sermon on the Mount, always 
 remember that this includes the Lord's Prayer. For Christ would teach us 
 that the attitude of the soul in prayer is the test of true religion. 
 
 166 
 
IV] LOVE YOUR ENEMIES 
 
 In the Lord's Prayer, then, we see both the in- 
 debtedness of the Messiah to current thought and the 
 independence of His attitude towards it. So also is 
 it with the second portion that we have chosen out 
 of the Sermon on the Mount, the famous precept : 
 ' Ye have heard that it was said, Thou shalt love thy 
 neighbour, and hate thine enemy : but I say unto 
 you. Love your enemies ' (Matt. v. 43, 44). 
 
 A fierce battle has been waged round these words ; 
 on the part of Christians to prove that the Jews 
 knew nothing of the precept, ' Love your enemies ' ; 
 on the part of Jews to show that it contains nothing 
 new, for Jews have always taught it, and practised it 
 much better than Christians. 
 
 It may, however, be questioned whether either 
 party in the strife has taken the trouble to recognise 
 certain facts, and it may, therefore, be worth while 
 to attempt to state the more important of these.^ 
 
 The first is that at the time when Christ quoted 
 the precept : ' Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and 
 hate thine enemy,' it did truly represent the common 
 teaching and practice of men in general. No one 
 will deny this in the case of the non-Jewish nations ; ^ 
 and, unless their statements about the Jews are wholly 
 
 ^ Observe that when our Lord quotes the words, ' Thou shalt love thy 
 neighbour, and hate thine enemy,' He does not say by whom this sajnng was 
 uttered. He does not even add, as He does in w. 21 and 33, that it was said 
 ' to them of old time.' This is important, for, if we assume with many Jewish 
 writers, that He was speaking directly of the contents of the Law of Moses, 
 we are going further than the language warrants. It is more probable that 
 He had in His mind the popular teaching of His time, which, however, as we 
 fully grant, made the claim to have been handed down from of old. 
 
 ' Among them ' preparing for enemies things of enmity ' {iy^dpoLi ix^P°- 
 ■TToptrvvrnv, jEsoh. Agam. 1374) was both the normaLstate of a man and also 
 his duty ; as Euripides says : irpos crov /;icv, S ttoi, tow <^iXots etvat (j>iX.ov, 
 TO. T ixOpa ixiiTuv, ' Be it thine, my son, to be friendly to thy friends, and to 
 hate thine enemies ' (Here. Fur. 585, quoted by Wetstein). 
 
 167 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 untrustworthy, the impression produced by Jews 
 upon non-Jews was in accordance with it. Jews 
 did appear to Gentiles to be kind to members of their 
 own race, but to them only.^ Further, we all know 
 that in the early days of the Hebrew nation, when 
 public justice was weak, much was left to the action 
 of the individual, and he who was wronged satis- 
 fied justice by personal retaliation on his enemy, 
 his private enemy, though not one of the enemies 
 of his nation, nor necessarily an enemy of his God.^ 
 It is true that in the time of Christ public justice was 
 better administered than of old, but it was very 
 far from perfect, and there is no reason to think 
 that the common doctrine and practice of Jews 
 towards other Jews was greatly altered. ' Thou 
 shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy ' 
 did represent the popular teaching and practice of 
 the day. 
 
 The second fact is that in the atmosphere in which 
 the Lord Jesus was brought up there were currents 
 breathing the warm air of love towards all men. It 
 cannot be denied by fair-minded scholars that this 
 precept of ' Love your enemies ' is found essentially, 
 both as theory and as practice, in the Old Testament, 
 
 * As Tacitus says : ' With each other resolute trust, ever-ready pity : 
 but towards all others enmity and hatred' (' apud ipsos fides obstinata, miseri- 
 cordia in promptu, sed adversus omnes aUos hostile odium,' Hist. v. 5). Con- 
 sider also Ecclus. xii. 4. 
 
 ^ Something has already been said about the feeling on the part of Jews 
 that it is legitimate to hate others if they differ in rehgion, and thus show 
 themselves, in Jewish eyes, as opponents of God (see p. 165). This is also 
 borne out by T.B. Taanith, 76. ' Rabba bar Huna said : " In the case of any 
 man who is arrogant, it is permissible to call him ' wicked,' for it is said, 
 ' The wicked man hath hardened his face ' ' ' (Prov. xxi. 29). R. Nachman bar 
 Isaac said : " It is permissible to hate him, for it is said ' The hardness of his 
 face is changed"" (Ecoles. viii. 1) ; read not, ' is changed ' (K|E'*), but 'one 
 shall hate ' (XjV!) ; »-e. one shall hate the hardness of his face. 
 
 168 
 
IV] THE LORD TEACHES SUCH LOVE 
 
 as well as in other Jewish teaching earlier than the 
 time of Christ. Read Exod. xxiii. 4, 5 : 'If thou meet 
 thine enemy's ox, or his ass going astray, thou shalt 
 surely bring it back to him again. If thou see the ass 
 of him that hateth thee lying under his burden, and 
 wouldest forbear to help him, thou shalt help with 
 him.' Read Lev. xix. 17, 18 : ' Thou shalt not hate 
 thy brother in thine heart : thou shalt surely rebuke 
 thy neighbour, and not bear sin because of him. 
 Thou shalt not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge 
 against the children of thy people, but thou shalt 
 love thy neighbour as thyself : I am the Lord.' 
 True, that in this last passage the reference is ex- 
 clusively to fellow-Hebrews, ' the children of thy 
 people,' and therefore we may not find in it a 
 direction to treat all men kindly, in spite of their 
 enmity, and regardless of whatsoever nationality 
 they may possess, but for the moment we are not 
 considering this. The point is that the Jew is directed 
 by the Law to show love towards his personal enemy. 
 So again the words of Job tell us that anything like 
 joy at disaster to such an enemy is contrary to the 
 mind of God, for we find Him saying : ' If I rejoiced 
 at the destruction of him that hated me, or lifted 
 up myself when evil found him ' (Job xxxi. 29). 
 That this kind of instruction did not remain only a 
 matter of theory, but was carried out into practice 
 by the best men, is seen by the behaviour of David 
 to Saul twice over (1 Sam. xxiv. and xxvi.). A later 
 passage of Scripture teaches us the same duty, though 
 it appends two reasons which hardly belong to the 
 highest strata of ideal ethics : ' If thine enemy be 
 hungry, give him bread to eat ; and if he be thirsty, 
 give him water to drink : for thou shalt heap coals 
 
 169 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 of fire upon his head, and the Lord shall reward thee ' 
 (Prov. XXV. 21, 22). Yet at any rate this is better 
 than the very worldly-wise advice of Prov. xxiv. 17 ; 
 ' Rejoice not when thine enemy falleth, and let not 
 thine heart be glad when he is overthrown : lest the 
 Lord see it, and it displease him, and he turn away 
 his wrath from him.' ^ 
 
 Similar teaching may be found in post-Biblical 
 Jewish books which were written either before the 
 time of Christ, or approximately at the same time. 
 In Ecclus. xxviii. 2 we read : ' Forgive thy neighbour 
 the hurt that he hath done thee ; and then thy sins 
 shall be pardoned when thou pray est.' Still plainer 
 examples are to be seen in the Testaments of the 
 Twelve Patriarchs. Issachar vii. 6 : 'I loved the 
 Lord ; likewise also every man with all my heart.' 
 Zebulun viii. : ' Have, therefore, yourselves also, 
 my children, compassion towards every man with 
 mercy, that the Lord also may have mercy upon you. 
 , . . For in the degree in which a man hath com- 
 passion upon his neighbours, in the same degree hath 
 the Lord also upon him. . . . Do not set down in 
 account {i.e. as a ledger account), each one of you, 
 evil against his brother.' Dan v. 3 : ' Love the Lord 
 through all your life, and one another with a true 
 heart.' Gad vi. 1, 3 : ' And now, my children, I 
 exhort you, love ye each one his brother, and put 
 away hatred from your hearts, and love one another 
 in deed, and in word, and in the inclination of the 
 soul. . . Love ye one another, therefore, from the 
 
 1 It is, by the by, worthy of notice that in the best texts of Aboth iv. 19 
 (26), R. Samuel the Little, or the Younger, makes this passage his own.without 
 the addition of the last two clauses. It may be that by this time (about 125 
 A.D. ) higher motives were generally accepted. But this did not prevent him from 
 composing the curse on the heretics in the Eighteen Benedictions (see p. 165). 
 
 170 
 
IV] AND MANY JEWISH WRITINGS 
 
 heart ; and if a man speak against thee, cast forth 
 the poison of hate and speak peaceably to him, and 
 in thy soul hold not guile ; and if he confess and 
 repent, forgive him ' ; vii. 7 : ' Put away, therefore, 
 jealousy from your souls, and love one another with 
 uprightness of heart.' Joseph xvii. 2: 'Do ye also 
 love one another, and with long-suffering hide ye one 
 another's faults ' ; xviii, 2 : ' And if any one seeketh 
 to do evil unto you, do well unto him, and pray for him, 
 and ye shall be redeemed of the Lord from all evil.' 
 
 Still more striking is the saying in the Book of the 
 Secrets of Enoch, 1. 3. 4, which is thought to be not 
 later than 50 a.d. : ' Every wound, and every 
 affliction, and every evil word and attack, endure 
 for the sake of the Lord. And when you might 
 have vengeance do not repay, either your neighbour 
 or your enemy. For God will repay as your avenger 
 in the day of the great judgement. Let it not be 
 for you to take vengeance.' So again Philo writes 
 (on Exod. xxiii. 4 ; de Humanitate, § 15, Young's 
 translation iii. 439) : ' If you see the beast of one who 
 is thy enemy wandering about, leave the excitements 
 to quarrelling to more perverse dispositions, and lead 
 the animal back and restore him to his owner ; for 
 so you will not be benefiting him more than your- 
 self : since he will by this means save only an irra- 
 tional beast which is perhaps of no value, but you 
 will get the greatest and most valuable of all things 
 in nature, namely, excellence. And there will follow 
 of necessity, as sure as shadow follows a body, the 
 dissolution of your enmity.' We know very little of 
 Hillel, but the following sentence may, no doubt, 
 rightly be attributed to him : ' Be of the disciples of 
 Aaron ; loving peace, and pursuing peace ; loving man- 
 
 171 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 kind, and bringing them nigh to the Torah ' (Aboth i. 
 12 (13). So also his charge, good enough as far as it 
 goes, 'What is hateful to thyself do not to thy fellow : 
 this is the whole Torah, and the rest is commentary ' 
 (T.B. Sabb. 31a), following in the wake of Tobit iv. 15, 
 ' What thou thyself hatest, do to no man.' 
 
 Can, however, this be said of the Talmud and 
 later Jewish writings, which claim to have absorbed 
 the essence of pre-Christian Judaism ? Can such a 
 spirit of love be attributed to them ? On the whole, 
 yes. I am indeed well aware that passages are 
 often quoted from the Talmud, as well as from 
 Maimonides and other writers, to the effect that 
 Gentiles are to be treated unscrupulously, and the 
 commonest actions of ordinary humanity are not 
 to be shown them. But in some of the cases cited 
 the rules were due to fear of complicating matters 
 with the Gentile authorities, who were ever on the 
 look-out for opportunities of accusing the Jews of 
 proselytising, and in others they represented only 
 the opinions of individual teachers.^ 
 
 Something, no doubt, must also be attributed 
 to the arrogance of certain Rabbis, especially in 
 their relation to those co-religionists who expressed 
 opinions contrary to their own. No sensible man 
 to-day, it is true, whether Jew or Christian, will 
 claim that the Talmud is a miracle of kindliness, 
 but much less will he affirm that it is the concentra- 
 tion of brutality and ignorance. The prayer at the 
 Daily Morning Service has not been in vain : ' Oh 
 my God! guard my tongue from evil and my lips 
 
 * See also the catena on the subject in the Jewish Encyclopedia, s.v. 
 Gentile, v. pp. 617 sqq. On the Golden Rule see C. Taylor, Pirqe Aboth, 
 1897, p. 142. 
 
 172 
 
IV] BUT IT IS NOT POPULAR 
 
 from speaking guile ; and to such as curse me let 
 my soul be dumb, yea, let my soul be unto all as 
 the dust ' (Singer, p. 54). 
 
 It may then be fully granted that the saying, 
 ' Love your enemies,' or its equivalent, was both 
 known to Jews and practised by them before it 
 was spoken by the Lord Jesus, and that, in some 
 degree, it has always been a part of Jewish ethics 
 from the very first. 
 
 If so, how is it that our Lord can say in so many 
 words : ' Ye have heard that it was said. Thou shalt 
 love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy : but I 
 say unto you. Love your enemies ' ? Yet why 
 should He not ? For though love to enemies was 
 taught in the Law (and He does not say the contrary), 
 and though it was taught by individual Jewish 
 leaders before our Lord's time, or independently of 
 Him about the same time, there is no reason to 
 think that it was ever the popular theory or practice. 
 So far from this, it may be pointed out that the 
 precept ' Love your enemies ' is not the popular 
 theory or practice even now, either among Jews or 
 Christians. The religion of an ordinary man down 
 to this twentieth century has always permitted 
 hatred of a private enemy. 
 
 Popular religion has ever said, ' Love thy friend 
 and hate thine enemy.' There is still need for 
 Christ to add : ' But I say unto you, Love your 
 enemies.' ^ If, however, Christ were to come to us 
 
 ^ 'Der beriihmte ohristliohe Maler Aaselm Feuerbaoh mahnt, nach 
 folgendem Grundsatz zu handein : " Weim dich einer auf die rechte Backe 
 schlagt, so gibihm dafiJr zwei auf die linke " ' (Ein Vermdchtnis, 11-14 Auflage, 
 Berlin, 1911, p. 258, quoted by J. Soheftelowitz in the Monatschrift fur 
 Oeschichte und Wissenschaft des Jvdentums, 1912, p. 369). ' He is a fool,' 
 said Frederick the Great, ' and that nation is a fool, who, having the power 
 
 173 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 Christians and utter these words now there would 
 be this difference from His language to the Jews 
 of old. He would add : Remember what you have 
 heard from your earliest youth ; you have been 
 iDrought up as Christians, and the essence of 
 Christianity is the news of God's love to men, the 
 very worst of men. You as Christians, and because 
 you are Christians, must endeavour to imitate God. 
 More than this. You as Christians profess to have 
 accepted as your own the wonderful love which 
 God has shown you ; surely then you feel your 
 own hearts moved with love to others ? Afterwards 
 perh8|.ps He would quote statements of the New 
 Testament to the effect that love is in reality the 
 greatest of all principles (1 Cor. xiii.) ; that it sums 
 up the whole Law (Gal. v. 14) ; and that every one 
 that loveth is begotten of God, and knoweth God, 
 while he that loveth not, knoweth not God, for 
 God is love (1 John iv. 7, 8). 
 
 We grant, of course, that in Judaism, past and 
 present, love to others is a duty ; but in Christianity 
 it is the very central duty of all. We affirm that 
 while the golden thread of love as a moral obligation 
 is visible here and there in the Old Testament and 
 in Jewish books, it enters into the very web and 
 woof of Christ's teaching and of Christianity. The 
 prayer : ' Father, forgive them, for they know not 
 what they do,' ^ may not be part of the original 
 form of the Third Gospel, but at least it represents 
 
 to strike his enemy unawares, does not strike and strike his deadliest ' (J. A. 
 Cramb, Oermany and England, 1914, pp. 42 sq.). Mr. G. Friedlander, by the 
 by, rightly calls attention to the fact that the phrase, ' But I say unto you,' 
 is found at least once in Philo, Quod del. jtot. § 43, Cohn's edition, § 158 
 {Hellenism and Chrislianity, 1912, p. 122). 
 1 Luke xxiii. 34. 
 
 174 
 
IV] LOVE IS THE CENTRE OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 the feeling of the early Christian Church, a feehng 
 due to Christ's teaching. His whole existence here 
 on earth, and His endurance of the Cross, were, 
 according to the New Testament (and it is the Jesus 
 of the New Testament whom alone we know), the 
 outcome of love for us sinful men, Jews and Gentiles 
 alike. There is no such transcendent emphasis on 
 love in any other religion. Christianity alone is the 
 religion of love, based on love and carried out by 
 love. But it is not a religion which can be learned 
 by rote ; it is not a religion simply of the head. 
 Only so far as it becomes part and parcel of our very 
 life does it become real. Hence, unless an individual 
 Christian appropriates to himself the love of God in 
 Christ, he has not learned in truth what Christianity 
 means, and he may very easily come terribly short 
 in love to others, and treat them with shocking 
 cruelty. Still, in spite of all the failings of its followers, 
 Christianity has been, and still is, the one active 
 religion of love in the world, the one religion that 
 urges its professors to do all, and suffer all, from 
 love to God and man. Jews have never shown a 
 tithe of the activity of love to men which Christians 
 have shown. What is the cause ? Love is not the 
 centre of Judaism ; it is the centre of Christianity. 
 To quote a well-known commentary on the Epistle 
 to the Romans : ' In Christianity this principle, 
 which had been only partially understood and im- 
 perfectly taught, which was known only in isolated 
 examples, yet testified to a universal instinct, was 
 finally put forth as the paramount principle of 
 moral conduct, uniting our moral instincts with our 
 highest religious principles. A new virtue, or rather 
 one hitherto imperfectly understood, had become 
 
 175 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 recognised as the root of all virtues, and a new name 
 was demanded for what was practically a new idea.' ^ 
 Christ desired to enforce the law of love towards 
 all, whatever might be the relation in which any 
 of His followers stood to others, and whatever the 
 treatment they received. The popular religion was : 
 ' Thou shalt love thy neighbour and hate thine 
 enemy.' The Messiah added : ' But I say unto you. 
 Love your enemies.' ^ 
 
 Was He not then a great Teacher ? Was He not 
 superior by far to those many doctors who were 
 disputing and quibbling, straining out gnats and 
 swallowing camels — conscientious, if you like, but 
 ignorant of great principles, bound by the steel 
 bands of human traditions, stretch them as they 
 would ? They were preserving the accumulated 
 wisdom of generations of thinkers like themselves, 
 and endeavouring so to attract their contemporaries 
 as to unite them by rule and ritual to the religion 
 
 ^ Sanday-Headlam, Romans, 1896, p. 376. 
 
 * It will be apparent that our Lord's words are interpreted above as refer- 
 ring primarily to the current and popular conception that hatred of an enemy 
 is allowable, or even praiseworthy, whether he be national or personal. But 
 two other explanations may be mentioned. One, earnestly advocated by 
 the present learned Dean of Lichfield, Dr. Savage, is that our Lord was 
 defending the best Jewish teaching and practice of the time, as regards duty 
 to a foreign nation, and was opposing all hatred of Gentiles, especially of the 
 Roman conquerors {The Gospel of the Kingdom, 1910, pp. 126-134. Cf. 
 also Malwyn Hughes, The Ethics of Jewish Apocryphal Literature, 1909, p. 121). 
 But there is nothing to limit the reference of the words to this. The second 
 explanation is that our Lord was speaking against the bitterness of one Jewish 
 sect towards another, as, for example, of the Pharisees towards the Sadducees ; 
 or of factions among the Pharisees themselves, as, for example, of the followers 
 of Hillel towards those of Shammai, or again of both Pharisees and Sadducees 
 towards less orthodox sects, as for instance, the Essenes. But again this 
 interpretation limits the meaning of Christ's words. In reality. He desired 
 to enforce the law of love towards all, whatever might be the relation in which 
 any of His followers stood to others, and whatever the treatment they received. 
 
 176 
 
IV] THE MESSIAH IN TOUCH WITH GOD 
 
 of their fathers, that thus they might keep the 
 nation whole, and at last throw off the yoke of 
 the heathen. He was concerned rather with eternal 
 verities and fundamental facts, the love of God to 
 the sinner and the sinner's awful need, sure that if 
 the relation of individuals to their Father in heaven 
 were but put right all else would follow as noonday 
 the dawn, every social need being satisfied, every 
 national aspiration being more than met — for God 
 would care for His children. Parable and paradox, 
 hyperbole and gnome, quotations and adaptations 
 of Law and Prophets, prayers of Liturgy and visions 
 of Apocalypse, jewels from Palestine and treasures 
 from Egypt, alike served Him, and fulfilled His 
 purpose. 
 
 He taught, not as the Scribes, but with authority, 
 for they were in touch with dead men, He with 
 the living God. 
 
 177 N 
 
Lecture Five 
 
 THE MESSIAH AS TEACHER— THE PER- 
 MANENCE OF THE JEWISH LAW 
 
' Think not that I came 
 to destroy the law or the 
 prophets : I came not to 
 destroy, hut to fulfil. For 
 verily I say unto you, Till 
 heaven and earth pass away, 
 one jot or one tittle shall in 
 no wise pass away from the 
 law, till all things be accom- 
 plished. Whosoever there- 
 fore shall break one of these 
 least commandments, and 
 shall teach men so, shall be 
 called least in the kingdom 
 of heaven : but whosoever 
 shall do and teach them, he 
 shall be called great in the 
 kingdom of heaven.' — ^Matt. 
 V. 17-19. 
 
Lecture Five 
 
 THE MESSIAH AS TEACHER THE PER- 
 MANENCE OF THE JEWISH LAW 
 
 ' t I "MIINK not that I came to destroy the law or 
 I the prophets : I came not to destroy, but to 
 
 -^ fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven 
 and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle shall in 
 no wise pass away from the law, till all things be 
 accomplished. Whosoever therefore shall break one 
 of these least commandments, and shall teach men 
 so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven : 
 but whosoever shall do and teach them, he shall be 
 called great in the kingdom of heaven ' (v. 17-19). 
 
 Then the Messiah is no iconoclast ! This is 
 evident. St. Matthew tells us that to Jesus the 
 Messiah the Law was a precious possession which 
 was to endure ' until all things be accomplished,' 
 in other words, until the end of the world.^ 
 
 This is a statement which raises several questions, 
 of varying degrees of importance, but all worthy 
 of some consideration, such as : What is the Law of 
 which the Messiah here speaks ? What is the kind 
 
 ' 'The phrase "till heaven and earth pass away" does not define a 
 terminus ad quern, but means "for ever," in the sense that He has no pro- 
 nouncement to make as to a time when the Law shall be no longer valid. . . . 
 The second phrase "till all things be accomplished" is parallel to "till 
 heaven and earth pass away," and in meaning can only be synonymous with 
 it ' ( Votaw in Hastings, D.B. v. 24). The best text of the Talmud, the Munich 
 MS., quotes v. 17 in the form, 'Not to take from the Law of Moses am I 
 come, but to add to the Law of Moses am I come,' where for the word ' but ' 
 the common texts have 'nor' (Sabbath, 1166). Our Lord took the opposite 
 side to those who were den3ring the Divine origin and the binding character 
 of the Law. Cf. Bergmann, Judische Apologetik im neutestamentUchen Zeit- 
 alter, 1908, pp. 97 sq., 108 sq. 
 
 181 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 of permanence which He attributes to it ? Did 
 He intend to suggest any necessary distinction 
 between His Jewish and His Gentile followers in 
 their observance of it ? Are, on the other hand, 
 Jewish believers at liberty, if they like, to observe 
 it more literally than others ? What is the relation 
 in which the statement of the Messiah stands to 
 certain famous utterances by St. Paul ? What, 
 lastly, is the relation in which the teaching and 
 message of Messiah as a whole, the Christian ' Gospel,' 
 stands to the Law ? In other words, is it, or is it 
 not, a Second Law ? 
 
 It is to these questions that we must now direct 
 our attention. 
 
 I. The first question. What does the Messiah here 
 understand by the Law? admits of an easy answer. 
 The contrast implied in the phrase ' the Law or the 
 Prophets ' makes it clear. The Prophets can only 
 mean the collection of Former and Latter, contain- 
 ing the canonical books from Joshua to Kings, and 
 Isaiah to Ezekiel, with the Book of the Twelve, 
 or the Minor Prophets ; and the Law can therefore 
 be only the Five Books of Moses, the Pentateuch. 
 When therefore the Messiah is represented as saying 
 that ' one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass away 
 from the Law,' He plainly means that every part of 
 the Pentateuch, however small, and however appar- 
 ently unimportant, is to remain in perpetuity ; that 
 none of its commandments is to be broken.^ 
 
 ^ Chrysostom strangely supposes that the Law whose permanence is here 
 stated is not the Law of Moses, but the New Law of Christ. 'On yap ovx vTtp 
 tIov iraKaiZv vofioiv tovto ttpyjKev, dW VTrkp &v avrbs t/xeWe vo/juiOtTfiv, 
 a.Kov<rov riav e^s (Matt. Horn. xvi. 4, p. 207D ; Gaume, vii. 237). Vide 
 infra, p. 201 sq. 
 
 182 
 
v] WHAT KIND OF PERMANENCE 
 
 II. When we come to the second question, What 
 is the kind of permanence which the Messiah attributes 
 to the Law, i.e. to the Five Books of Moses ? we find our- 
 selves in some little difficulty. More than one answer 
 has been given, and at the best we can but weigh 
 probabilities in the balance, and humbly endeavour 
 to come to a right conclusion. What is the perma- 
 nence which the Messiah ascribed to the Law ? 
 
 Did He desire to maintain it in its literal force, 
 filling it up as an empty vessel ^ by observing every 
 detail of its commands, literally understood ? ' Cer- 
 tainly,' affirm the Orthodox Jews, ' that, and that 
 alone, can have been His intention, if He was really 
 a Jew. It is unthinkable that any real Jew would 
 deny the perpetuity of the Law of Moses in the literal 
 meaning of its ordinances.' ^ 
 
 Yet it seems incredible that Christendom, from 
 almost the very first, can have erred so utterly about 
 the subject-matter of our Lord's message as this 
 opinion implies. Can it be possible, in spite of the 
 
 ^ There is no suggestion of enlarging it. 
 
 ' The real expectation of Orthodox Jews is seen in such statements as 
 Wisd. xviii. 4, ' the incorruptible hght of the law ' ; Baruch. iv. 1, ' the law 
 that endureth for ever ' ; Talm. Jer., Megillah, i. 5 (7), 70d, ' the Prophets 
 and the Holy Writings will cease, but the five books of the Law will not cease.' 
 Yet certain sporadic utterances appear to assert that the Law will be for- 
 gotten (perhaps during the pains of the pre-Messianic times). So MekUta, 
 on Ex. xii. 26, ed. Friedmann, 13a top ; ed. Weiss, p. 16a. ' Knally the Law 
 will be forgotten' (nanBTI^ ni^DU miDn tllDC)- But there appears to be 
 no evidence of such sajnings before the latter part of the second century, after 
 the depression caused by the Hadrianic war : see Klausner, Die messianischen 
 Vorstellungen des judischen Volkes im Zeitalter der Tannaim, 1904, pp. 53-56. 
 On the other hand, the saying in Pesikta Babbathi, c. 15 (ed. Friedmann, 75a), 
 that 'the Law will again become new,' riB'll^n^ ITlTin minn (quoted by 
 Klausner, p. 53), certainly means that it will return to its pristine vigour and 
 force after being forgotten. A fourth-century teacher says in T.B. Niddah, 
 616, ' In the future the commandments will cease.' Compare also the late 
 Midrash Tehillim on Ps. cxlvi. 7. 
 
 183 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 general tenor of the narratives of our Lord's sayings 
 to the contrary, that He really ordered the literal 
 observance of the Law of Moses ? If He did, one can 
 never trust again the records of the teaching of any 
 person, sacred or profane. 
 
 The reply, no doubt, may be urged — ^it has often 
 been urged — ^that this did truly represent the inten- 
 tion of Jesus at the beginning, and that He altered 
 His teaching afterwards. At first He desired His 
 followers to observe the Law literally, and only the 
 failure of his early enthusiastic plans led Him to 
 permit, or even command, its non-observance.^ But 
 if this be the case how came it about that the Evange- 
 list recorded these earlier statements of Christ at all ? 
 He wrote long after Christ had changed His plan ; why 
 did he mention the earlier, and discarded, sayings ? 
 Surely he could not fail to perceive that they did not 
 fit in with the many sentences he relates, which, as we 
 shall see, are against such literal obedience as this 
 explanation demands. It is then quite improbable 
 that when our Lord taught the permanence of the 
 Law He meant to enforce its literal observance. 
 
 Did He then desire to reform the Law, caring only 
 for the greater and more important parts of it, and 
 content to let the rest fall into oblivion? In spite 
 of the obvious contradiction of such an interpretation 
 to the words themselves, which plainly insist upon the 
 
 ' So Mr. Gerald Friedlander, The Jewish Sources of the Sermon en the 
 Mount, 1911, p. 32. H. J. Holtzmann [N.T. Theohgie, 1911, i. pp. 204 sqq., 
 cf. 505 sqq.) thinks Jesus had two contradictory modes of teaching, one 
 enforcing literal, the other more spiritual, observance to the Law. Vide infra, 
 p. 200. Even Votaw thinks w. 18, 19 could not have been spoken by Jesus, 
 and are at best the result of an Apostolic misinterpretation of an original 
 nucleus, which taught the duty of preserving truths already received (Hastings' 
 D.B. v. 24 sq.). 
 
 184 
 
V] REFORMED JEWS AND THE LAW 
 
 observance of minute details, this answer has been 
 acceptable to not a few Jewish writers, who would 
 gladly see their own opinions of the value, and the 
 worthlessness, of different parts of the Jewish Law 
 confirmed by the greatest of the sons of Israel. The 
 Reform party in modern Judaism cares little for the 
 observance of the details, nor indeed, if the truth 
 must be told, even for the supremacy of the books of 
 Moses over the other parts of the Bible, Its interest 
 lies in what are deemed the greater principles, and 
 doctrines, and observances, though even in these it 
 is very far from holding any rigid or orthodox opinion. 
 Circumcision, for example, is valuable, but a Jew 
 is born a Jew, not made such by circumcision, which 
 is therefore not indispensable.^ The Sabbath ought 
 certainly to be kept, but modern conditions of com- 
 mercial life (so it is asserted) preclude its observance 
 with any very great strictness.^ The Feasts may be 
 treated in the same way. Monotheism no doubt is 
 all-important, naturally a kind of monotheism framed 
 with the express object of excluding Christian doctrine.^ 
 If we add the doctrine of the election of Israel to be a 
 pattern to the nations of all that is good and holy 
 (for stress is rightly laid on the fact that all privileges 
 imply duties),* and that of the potential resemblance 
 of all men to God, with never a trace of original sin,^ 
 we have stated the principal tenets of reformed 
 Jews, and we may well ask if it is possible that there 
 
 ^ Dr. E. G. Hirsoh, Jewish Encyclopedia, x. 351. 
 
 * Principles of Liberal Judaism adopted by sixty-seven Rabbis at Frank- 
 fort-on-Maine in September 1912 (see the Jewish World, Oct. 11, 1912). 
 
 ' Morris Joseph, Judaism as Creed and Life, 1903, pp. 72, 78 ; Principles, 
 ibid. Cf. Dr. E. G. Hirsch, op. cit. p. 350. 
 
 * Kohler, Orundriss, p. 20 ; Morris Joseph, op. cit. pp. 153 sqq., 166, 513. 
 ° Kohler, Orundriss, p. 21 ; Principles (as above). 
 
 185 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 can be anything in common between the aspirations 
 of such teachers and the emphatic statements of 
 Christ. The representation of Jesus as a pious young 
 Jew who desired to reform the Judaism of His time, 
 and unfortunately perished in the attempt, is singu- 
 larly inadequate, when it is confronted with His 
 actual words, and the tenor of His whole life. 
 
 It has, however, been supposed that when our Lord 
 inveighed against the observance of details in literal 
 form (xii. 1-8, and elsewhere) He had in mind only 
 the rules manufactured by the Scribes, the Oral Law 
 in fact, and that He was quite prepared to accept the 
 literal observance of the Written Law as such. But 
 this is an impossible position to defend. Given a 
 code, there must be explanations of it, as has already 
 been shown,^ and the nature and extent of its obser- 
 vance in literal fashion must be determined by quali- 
 fied lawyers trained for the purpose. The minutiae 
 of the Oral Law are for the most part only logical, 
 deductions from the crude ordinances of the written 
 code. If Christ taught the literal observance of the 
 latter. He must in consequence have taught also the 
 literal observance of those innumerable details which 
 make up the daily life of even a strictly pious Jew, 
 to-day. You cannot make a distinction, in practice, 
 between the written Law and the oral. 
 
 But the perpetuity the Messiah inculcated was 
 different. To Him as a Jew the Pentateuch was the 
 revelation of God, standing higher in His eyes than 
 the messages of the Prophets, if we may judge from 
 the attention He paid to it, and as the revelation of 
 God it was to be obeyed. How it was made known 
 
 ^ Lectures II, pp. 63 sq., and IV, pp. 148 sq. 
 186 
 
V] THE PERMANENCE OF TRUTHS 
 
 to men was of little importance, and He does not 
 touch on the subject. 
 
 Whether it was all given in one piece, as it were, 
 at Mount Sinai ; or revealed to Moses portion by 
 portion as occasion served ; or framed out of primitive 
 customs selected and sanctioned by the Spirit of God, 
 and woven into legislation; whencesoever the details 
 were derived, howsoever they were incorporated, 
 they became the living expression of the Divine will. 
 Yes, certainly, it may be replied, the expression of 
 the Divine will for those days, but not for later 
 ages. But I ask whether it may not be that 
 to the Messiah, the Anointed of God, the incarnate 
 Wisdom, and the living Word, whatever once bore 
 the stamp of the Divine will ever retains something 
 of its origin, never loses altogether its permanent 
 value ? Must it not always enjoy something corre- 
 sponding to ultimate truth ? If this be so, we can 
 understand that Christ's eye, piercing below the 
 surface, saw in the tiniest atoms of the Mosaic legis- 
 lation fragments of the feast prepared by God for the 
 lasting refreshment of His people, and, forbidding 
 the well-meant efforts of those who would cast them 
 away, enjoined respect and preservation of them for 
 ever. 
 
 Such perpetuity, then, of the Law of Moses which 
 the Messiah had in view was not, as it seems, that of 
 the punctilious observance of ritual and ceremonial 
 regulations, much less that of the retention of the 
 more important, and the surrender of the less impor- 
 tant, portions of them, but the maintenance of all 
 alike in their fundamental truths. Jesus did not 
 encourage, it will be noticed, merely spiritualisation of 
 the Law — ^that was not at all His intention — but the 
 
 187 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 practice of it in its real, as contrasted with its tempo- 
 rary, or even its apparent, meaning. He desired that 
 His followers should go back to the principles that 
 underlay each article of the code of Moses, that thus 
 it might be carried out in reality, and not so as to 
 satisfy its outer form alone.^ 
 
 Some examples of such treatment by our Lord in 
 the Sermon on the Mount will come before us in the 
 next Lecture. Here let me remind you of five pas- 
 sages from the Pentateuch that are quoted elsewhere in 
 this Gospel. The Lord applies the phrase ' at the 
 mouth of two witnesses, or at the mouth of three 
 witnesses, shall a matter be established' (Deut. xix. 
 16), not to the usage of the law-courts, but to the 
 prudent and kindly action of a believer in his dealing 
 with an offended brother (xviii. 16). Again, He 
 recognises the command in Deut. xxiv. 1-3 to give 
 a bill of divorce when necessary, but at the same time 
 points out that the permission must be considered 
 in connexion with another phrase, also in the Penta- 
 teuch, which is of very much wider significance, and 
 implies the permanent union of man and wife. For 
 whereas the former was only a concession to human 
 selfishness, which refused to yield to the claims of 
 God, the latter states once for all what was God's 
 ideal of marriage, what the reason for its institu- 
 tion. To keep the former without reference to the 
 latter was in reality to destroy its meaning. 
 
 Again, in xix. 18, 19, He enforces the sixth, 
 
 ^ '"Fulfilment" is the completion of what was before imperfect; it 
 is the realisation of what was shadowy ; it is the development of what was 
 rudimentary ; it is the union of what was isolated and disconnected ; it is 
 the perfect growth from the antecedent germ' (Kirkpatrick, The Divine 
 Library of the O.T., 1891, p. 134). 
 
 188 
 
v] PERMANENCE OF THE INNER MEANING 
 
 seventh, eighth, ninth, and also the fifth command- 
 ments, adding the comprehensive charge, from the 
 Pentateuch again (Lev. xix. 18), ' Thou shalt love 
 thy neighbour as thyself,' and in v. 21 assuredly 
 does not abolish them, but puts them on a firmer basis 
 than ever, when he bids the poor selfish young man, 
 who was so rich in this world's goods, part with 
 all he had, and give the proceeds in charity. For 
 whatever might be the case with others, that young 
 man could observe the Law only by giving up all 
 that belonged to him for the service of the poor. 
 The principle is much the same in xxii. 32, where 
 Jesus reminds the Sadducees of what looks at first 
 sight like a bald historical statement, and then 
 unfolds to them its inner meaning : if God can 
 speak of Himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac, 
 and Jacob, this implies that the relation in which 
 He stood to them holds good still. He to them and 
 they to Him. Death cannot part God and His 
 people ; they live with Him eternally. 
 
 These are a few passages outside the Sermon on 
 the Mount, and from other parts of the Gospel in 
 which the truth of the perpetual validity of every 
 word of the Law is taught by Christ, whether it refer 
 to things moral, or, as we say, only to ceremonial. 
 
 That the moral, the ethical, part of the Law 
 is of permanent validity needs no demonstration, 
 and required no enforcement by Christ. The per- 
 manence of the ceremonial Law, and of the narrative 
 of the historical facts enshrined in the Pentateuch 
 (for we cannot omit this from our survey) emphatically 
 did. But now (after Christ's words) to the Christian 
 as much as to a Talmudic Jew, every paragraph 
 and phrase of the Law was to bear the imprint of 
 
 189 
 
THE^HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 the heavenly ; and to him was to^belong the privilege 
 of learning its true intent, and of fulfilling it in his 
 life. Thus, and thus only, as the Master says in the 
 immediately succeeding , verse, shall his righteous- 
 ness exceed that of the Scribes and Pharisees. For 
 these, standing on a lower plane of Divine knowledge 
 than the Christian, are not able to learn the will of 
 God, or do it, as perfectly as he.^ 
 
 It must not be supposed that perpetuity of 
 this kind has been unknown to the Rabbis. The 
 frequent assertion by them that fasting takes the 
 place of sacrifices is an example.^ They have also 
 maintained, with perfect truth, that there is much 
 more in the Law than its 'prima facie meaning, and 
 they have, consistently with this supposition, en- 
 deavoured to bring out the principles upon which 
 many of the precepts are based, doing so, sometimes, 
 no doubt, in order that, by determining these prin- 
 ciples, they may be able to apply them to cases of 
 casuistry not directly mentioned in the Law itself. 
 This, however, was not the case with Philo, who 
 made a sincere endeavour to understand the deeper 
 intention of the Divine Lawgiver, although he was 
 hampered by his devotion to Greek forms of thought. 
 ' Like rain and light,' Dr. Schechter tells us, ' the 
 Torah was a gift from heaven of which the world 
 is hardly worthy, but which is indispensable to its 
 maintenance. The gift was a complete one, without 
 any reserve whatever. Nothing of the Torah, God 
 assures Israel, was kept back in heaven. All that 
 
 ^ Cf. Martensen, Christian Ethics : General, § 125 ; also the quotations 
 from B. Weiss and Tholuck given by Votaw in Hastings' D.B. v. 246. 
 
 ' So primarily orthodox Jews, but in spirit it is even more true of 
 reformed, who do not expect the restoration of saciifioe, 
 
 190 
 
v] ALL TRUTH IN THE LAW 
 
 follows is only a matter of interpretation. The 
 principle held by the Rabbis was that the words 
 of the Torah " are fruitful and multiply." Thus 
 the conviction could ripen that everything wise and 
 good, be it ethical or ceremonial in its character, 
 the effect of which would be to strengthen the cause 
 of religion, was at least potentially contained in 
 the Torah. Hence the famous adage, that every- 
 thing which the student will teach at any future 
 time was already communicated to Moses at Mount 
 Sinai, as also the injunction that any acceptable 
 truth, though discovered by an insignificant man 
 in Israel, should be considered of as high authority 
 as if it had emanated from a great sage or prophet, 
 or even from Moses himself. It requires but an 
 earnest religious mind to discover all truth there. 
 For the Torah came down from heaven with all the 
 necessary instruments : humility, righteousness, and 
 uprightness — and even her reward was in her. And 
 man has only to apply these tools to find in the 
 Torah peace, strength, life, light, bliss, happiness, 
 joy, and freedom.'^ Of course the Rabbis, so far 
 as they have been Orthodox, have always insisted 
 on the literal observance of the ceremonial laws where 
 it has been possible to keep them, but they often 
 allowed themselves strange liberties with the literal 
 meaning of a text, in order to bring it under their 
 rules. 
 
 III. Directly we begin to discuss the question 
 of the perpetuity of the Law a cognate inquiry 
 suggests itself to us. Whether such a perpetuity, 
 in whatever sense that perpetuity holds good, is of 
 
 * Some Aspects of Babhinic Theology, 1909, pp. 134 sq. 
 191 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 force for Gentile Christians as well as for Jewish. 
 To us who are members of the later, but incompar- 
 ably larger, division of the Church, it matters not 
 so much how believers from the stock of Israel are 
 to regard the Law, as how we Gentiles ought to 
 regard it. Is there, then, anything in our Lord's 
 words which can be of guidance to us ? Did He, 
 for example, make a distinction between Jewish 
 and Gentile believers ? Did He wish the inference 
 to be drawn that whereas the former were bound 
 to observe the Law, the latter were at liberty to 
 reject it ? The truth is that He was not likely to 
 make any distinction between the two classes of 
 His followers because He was not directly concerned 
 with Gentile believers at all. He virtually had none 
 in His lifetime. Nor, it must be added, was the 
 Evangelist. St. Matthew indeed knew of their 
 existence (see especially xii. 18, 21), but he took 
 little interest in their special conditions, or the 
 problems of their Christian life. We may therefore 
 conclude without any doubt that neither our Lord 
 nor His biographer referred to their relation to 
 the Pentateuch, If they kept the Law it was not 
 because Christ or St. Matthew definitely included 
 them in the command to do so. St. Matthew was 
 not writing for them.^ 
 
 Our Lord, then, is depicted here as thinking only 
 of Jewish believers, and St. Matthew therefore 
 must have desired to impress on these the fact that 
 the Law was to be a perpetual possession, in its true 
 and fundamental meaning. 
 
 1 It is therefore doubly absurd for Jewish controversiahsts to use these 
 verses as proof -texts in their argument that Gentile followers of Christ ought 
 to observe the Law Uterally. 
 
 192 
 
v] JEWISH-CHRISTIANS AND THE LAW 
 
 IV. This raises a rather curious point. If our 
 Lord, as portrayed by St. Matthew, did not insist 
 upon the literal observance of the Law of Moses 
 by any of His followers, is it, on the other hand, 
 permissible for Jewish- Christians to observe it thus 
 if they like ? Are they at liberty, if they so desire, 
 to carry out the ritual and ceremonial ordinances 
 of the Pentateuch, preserving of course their faith 
 in the Creeds of orthodox Christianity ? It is evi- 
 dent that this is a question which is of interest to 
 very few people to-day, and will therefore appear to 
 many readers to be only academic. In fact, however, 
 there are certain persons among both Jews and 
 Gentiles who take sides rather hotly in the discussion 
 of it. For some Jewish Christians of our time, who, 
 in their earlier years, were consistent members of 
 the ordinary Jewish community, believe the question 
 to be almost vital, and think that if they may but 
 observe the ritual of the Law, while enjoying the 
 spiritual treasures of the Gospel, they are far more 
 likely to win over their other brethren of the house 
 of Israel to the true faith, than if, like most Jewish 
 converts, they entirely neglect it. 
 
 A brief discussion of this question will be found 
 in the Appendix. Here it must suffice to say, in 
 the first place, that literal observance of the Law, 
 as has been shown above, is not in accordance with 
 the meaning intended by our Lord; and, in the 
 second place, that, notwithstanding the hopes of 
 those who favour it, it is an impossibility in the 
 present condition of things. If the Jews once more 
 possess a country of their own, with a temple for 
 ritual worship, and lands wherein legal enactments 
 may be carried out, the case may be different. 
 
 193 o 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect- 
 
 V. Christ then says that the Law is to endure 
 for ever. But if so how does His language tally 
 with that of St. Paul, who describes it as temporary, 
 and the strength of sin ? Although, strictly speaking, 
 it is no part of our present duty to discuss the teach- 
 ing of St. Paul, yet it would appear as though the sub- 
 ject were being shirked if it were not mentioned, and 
 perhaps a brief statement of how the case stands 
 may contribute to a clearer comprehension of our 
 Lord's meaning. 
 
 Briefly, we may say that there is no real opposition 
 between the two sets of utterances. St. Paul had in 
 mind the immediate effect of the Divine regulations 
 upon men ; Christ the contents of the Law as Divine. 
 St. Paul regarded the Law as law in the strict sense of 
 the word ; Christ had in view the whole manifesta- 
 tion of Divine truth which it contained. 
 
 The argument has been raised that St. Paul quite 
 misunderstood the meaning of the Hebrew word 
 Torah when he translated it as Law, and also mis- 
 represented the way in which it was regarded in his 
 time. Now Torah, like every word that has a long 
 history, lies under the disadvantage of having many 
 meanings. The question is whether St. Paul was right 
 or wrong in attributing to it a legal, not to say a 
 codic, force, at the time when he lived, and for the 
 people to whom he wrote. 
 
 Dr. Schechter, no doubt, tells us : ' The term 
 Law or Nomos is not a correct rendering of the Hebrew 
 word Torah. The legalistic element, which might 
 rightly be called the Law, represents only one side 
 of the Torah. To the Jew the word Torah means 
 a teaching or an instruction of any kind.' Again : 
 ' It is the Torah as the sum total of the contents of 
 
 194 
 
v] THE MEANING OP TORAH 
 
 revelation, without special regard to any particular 
 element in it, the Torah as a faith, that is so dear to 
 the Rabbi.' ^ Dr. Bacher too says : ' Torah denotes 
 in its widest meaning the totality of Jewish teach- 
 ing, whether as the basis of religious perception and 
 practice, or as the object of study.' ^ 
 
 So again Dr. Kohler : Torah ' signifies spiritual and 
 moral instruction or teaching quite as well and often 
 as Law ; religious tuition and enlightenment quite as 
 much as legal standard ; and, especially in post-biblical 
 times, comprised the whole of the subject-matter of Ju- 
 daism as the object of education and scientific study.'* 
 
 Far be it from us to criticise the dicta of such 
 specialists in Rabbinic literature. For saturated as 
 these scholars are with the deepest and most religious 
 thought to be found in Jewish learning, their state- 
 ments that this wide and comprehensive meaning of 
 the word Torah does in truth represent the best 
 Rabbinic usage, must be accepted once for all. Yet 
 not all Rabbinic teachers, much less all the ordinary 
 
 ' Some Aspects of Rdbhinic Theology, 1909, pp. 117, 127. 
 
 * ' m'lH bezeichnet in seinem weitesten Sinne die Gesamtheit der 
 judischen Lehre, sei es als Grundlage des religiosen Erkennens und Handelns, 
 sei es als Gegenstand des Studiums ' {Die exegetische Terminologie der judischen 
 Traditionsliteratur, 1905, i. 197). 
 
 ' ' Tora, das ebenso wohl und ebenso haufig geistigsittliohe Unterweisimg 
 Oder Lehre als Gesetz, ebenso sehr religiose Belehrung und Aufklarung als 
 Gesetzesnorm bedeutet und besonders in der naohbiblisohen Zeit den gesamten 
 judischen Lehrstoff als Gegenstand des Unterriohts und wissenschaftlicher 
 Forsohung umfasste' {Orundriss einer systematischen Theologie des Judentums 
 auf geschichtlicher Qrundlage, 1910, p. 267). See also Herford, Pharisaism, 
 pp. 58, 71, 74; C. G. Montefiore, Babhinic Judaism and the Epistles of St. 
 Paul in the J.Q.B., 1901, pp. 161 sqq.; Judaism and St. Paul, 1914; The 
 Synoptic Gospels, 1909, p. 499 : ' The Pauhne theory of the bondage of the 
 Law is unhistorical. Certain enactments may have pressed heavily upon 
 certain people, but the Pauline bogey of " THE Law" did not press heavily, 
 for it is a bogey, and bogeys are light and unreal.' See ako his Religious 
 Teaching of Jesus, 1910, pp. 23-58. 
 
 195 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 members of the nation, breathe that high spiritual 
 atmosphere which such an interpretation impUes. 
 ' The feature of Judaism which first attracts an out- 
 sider's attention,' confesses Dr, Israel Abrahams 
 (and his personal knowledge of the subject is hardly 
 surpassed by that of Dr. Schechter), ' is its " Nomism " 
 or " Legalism." Life was placed under the control of 
 Law. Not only morality, but religion also, was codi- 
 fied. " Nomism," it has been truly said, " has always 
 formed a fundamental trait of Judaism, one of whose 
 aims has ever been to mould life in all its varying re- 
 lations according to the Law, and to make obedience 
 to the Commandments a necessity and a custom " 
 (Lauterbach, Jewish Encyclopedia, ix. 326). . . . For 
 many centuries, certainly up to the French Revolu- 
 tion, Religion as Law was the dominant conception in 
 Judaism. . . . Conduct, social and individual, moral 
 and ritual, was regulated in the minutest details. 
 . . . Law seized upon the whole life, both in its in- 
 ward experiences and outward manifestations. . . . 
 The Word of God was to occupy the Jew's thoughts 
 constantly ; at his daily employment and during 
 his manifold activities ; when at home and when at 
 rest. And, as a correlative, the Law must direct 
 this complex life, the Code must authorise action or 
 forbid it, must turn the thoughts and emotions in 
 one direction, and divert them from another. . . . 
 This was realised in a Code. Or rather in a series 
 of Codes.' After enumerating some, Dr. Abrahams 
 adds : ' Finally, in the sixteenth century, Joseph 
 Caro (mystic and legalist) compiled the Table Prepared 
 {Shulchan Aruch), which, with masterly skill, collected 
 the whole of the traditional law, arranged it under 
 convenient heads in chapters and paragraphs, and 
 
 196 
 
v] TORAH AND NOMOS 
 
 carried down to our own day the Rabbinic conception 
 of life. Under this Code, with more or less relaxation, 
 the great bulk of Jews still live.' ^ 
 
 It is true that Dr. Abrahams himself proceeds to 
 qualify his language by showing that beneath this 
 legality there lay a deeper principle, lacking which 
 the term Torah would fail to be fully understood. 
 He is perfectly right. But his eloquent pages are 
 quite enough to show that those great scholars quoted 
 above pass over too lightly an aliquot part of the 
 contents of Torah when they minimise its legal 
 character, and in effect draw attention to its highest 
 and best connotation only, disregarding the lower. 
 
 If then ' Nomism,' as Dr. Abrahams terms it, 
 was always so important, and, we may say, so pre- 
 dominating, a part of the Torah, surely the translators 
 of the Septuagint can hardly be blamed (as they are 
 blamed by Dr. Schechter when he blames St. Paul ^) 
 for rendering Torah almost invariably by Nomos.^ 
 The latter word, indeed, does not appear to have 
 precisely the full legal force of the Latin Lex, but it at 
 least means direction and decision, which, it would 
 seem, is also the basic meaning of Torah.* For if 
 scholars are right ^ in their conjecture that the root 
 
 1 Judaism, 1907, pp. 13-18. 
 
 * And by Dr. Perles in E.B.E. vii. p. 856. 
 
 " The word Torah seems to occur about 212 times in the Plebrew Bible, 
 in 194 of which it is represented by nomas in the Septuagint. Even in Isa. 
 xhi. 4, quoted in Matt. xii. 21, it is probable that the original translation was 
 vojxos, which has been corrupted into ovofia. 
 
 * The root-meaning of lexm.a,y be ' bind,' ' oblige ' ; that of vo/aos ' assign ' 
 or ' apportion.' It is, by the by, not unimportant to remember that Torah 
 never stands for the principle of law in the abstract. From failure to bear 
 this in mind many an interpreter of the Jewish writers of the New Testament 
 has gone astray. Cf. Lukyn Williams on Qalatians, ii. 16. 
 
 ' See in particular Robertson Smith, O.T.J.C.^, pp. 299 sqq. ; Driver 
 in Hastings' D.B. iii. 64 sqq. 
 
 197 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 from which Tor ah is derived means ' cast ' or ' shoot,' 
 and the word itself primarily described the casting 
 of lots, or the shooting of arrows, whereby to deter- 
 mine the Will of God, the analogy of such rites in 
 primitive religion suggests that the performance of that 
 Will, when ascertained, became the immediate and 
 imperative duty of the consultant. In those early 
 days, which struck the key-note of the word for ever, 
 Torah was the direction of God to do this or that 
 action, or to do it not. 
 
 Nor can we have much hesitation in defining the 
 subject-matter of such a Torah at that time if the 
 study of Comparative Religion is to be our guide. 
 Not instruction in ethical truth, not direction in 
 moral practice, much less enlightenment in theological 
 or spiritual verities, but discharge of ritual, exactness 
 in ceremonial, now avoidance of tabu, and now con- 
 secration to a holy war — these, and such as they, will 
 have been the toroth imparted to those early wor- 
 shippers. A change would come, did come, as both 
 Bible and Science tell us, when both priest and people 
 thought on guidance in higher matters, when, to the 
 pious inquirer, or the worshipping multitudes, the 
 minister of the Divine Oracle proclaimed nobler truths, 
 announcing these in their turn as the direction of the 
 Almighty, the Torah of the living God. With this 
 the word lost none of its binding force ; it only 
 enlarged the circle of its contents. When, finally, 
 both kinds of toroth were united, ritual and ethical, 
 either in the memory or in the written word, the 
 collection retained the momentum of its origin, the 
 innate energy of its early existence, and men still 
 recognised in the Law of Moses the stringency of 
 legal obligation. The Torah, in its essence, its 
 
 198 
 
v] ST. PAUL'S LANGUAGE POPULAR 
 
 reality, is religion conceived as duty, towards man 
 and God. 
 
 Was not St. Paul right, then, when he regarded the 
 Torah as a Law, a Nomos, and the more right in that 
 he was not composing in any of his letters, no, not 
 even in the Epistle to the Romans, the most elaborate 
 of them all, a treatise for divines, men highly trained 
 in theological inquiry ? If those whom he addressed 
 had been the Dr. Schechters or Dr. Bachers of his day 
 he might well have taken other lines of argument, and, 
 leaving all thought of the legal side of Old Testament 
 truth, have compared, for instance, the revelation 
 given in a book with the fuller revelation manifested 
 in a Life. But he was writing to simple people, many 
 of them slaves, most of them poor, a few belonging, 
 as we should say, to the middle classes, and only 
 here or there one rich or noble. Great was St. Paul 
 as a scholar, no one denies it, but greater still was he 
 as a man of affairs, a level-headed man of business, 
 whose one aim and vocation were to spread the know- 
 ledge of God in the Lord Jesus Christ, and make the 
 Gospel understood by Christians. It was to the popu- 
 lace, to the man in the street — ^the Christian man in the 
 street, the Christian populace. Men entendu — that St. 
 Paul wrote. His phraseology and mode of thought 
 were theirs. To them, whatever Rabbinic theologians 
 might say, the Torah in practice was strictly a Law, 
 and he made no mistake when he treated it as such. 
 
 St. Paul then, if we may judge from the typical 
 phrases of his Epistles, regarded the Torah as Lex, 
 in the proper meaning of the word, a Law to be 
 obeyed, sanctioned by punishment if it were broken. 
 Of the Messiah this cannot be proved. For Jesus, 
 in the presentation of Him recorded in this Gospel, 
 
 199 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 nowhere defines the Torah, and, in fact, is not con- 
 cerned with its nature. In so far as it was a mani- 
 festation of the Will of God it was permanent, in 
 His eyes, with the kind of permanence portrayed 
 above, but more cannot be said. 
 
 While St. Paul took what may be called a low, 
 because a practical, view of the Torah (for he found 
 persons teaching his converts that it was binding 
 in the literal observance of all its details, and he 
 laboured therefore to show that even the sense 
 of duty which it called forth only led men to see 
 their sinfulness more clearly in proportion as their 
 consciences understood its claims ^), Jesus, the true 
 theologian, not of system or logic, but of heart-union 
 with God, hinted at the existence in it of profounder 
 depths and loftier peaks, which, when lit up by 
 the fresh rays of the new light, were to be recognised, 
 and to be attained, by His faithful followers. These 
 were to despise no part of the Law of Moses, but 
 were to observe in each its final and intrinsic 
 character. 
 
 The Law, generally and in particular, in its 
 substance and its details, was to stand for ever. 
 The followers of the Messiah were to make it their 
 own, and thus, both in perception and in accom- 
 plishment, were to surpass the highest measure 
 ever attained by the religious among the community, 
 the learned Scribes, and the earnest Pharisees.^ 
 
 ' Yet St. Paul sometimes indicates the permanence of the principles taught 
 in the Pentateuch, e.g. that circumcision was a seal and witness of faith 
 (Rom. iv. 11, 12), and a parable of the death to sin which every behever 
 must undergo (Col. ii. 11, 12). 
 
 ^ Vide supra, p. 190. v. 20 is omitted in Codex Bezae, but, as it seems, in 
 no other authority. Perhaps the omission was due to homoioteleuton with 
 V. IQ. It can hardly be an interpolation, as Mr. Gerald Friedlander blimtly 
 
 200 
 
v] THE GOSPEL NOT A NEW LAW 
 
 VI. This brings us to the consideration of the 
 fundamental difference that there is between the 
 Torah of Mo&es and the Evangel of the Apostles. 
 Men write, and speak, and think of the Gospel of 
 Jesus Christ as though it were a new Law, claim- 
 ing comparison with the old, and ousting this from 
 its position. Nothing can be more untrue, nothing 
 more subversive of the principles of Christianity. 
 
 No doubt if the word ' law ' be employed in- 
 accurately, with that wide and lax usage which de- 
 notes either mere sequence of events, or a principle 
 of action, or a standard of conduct in a particular 
 case, or even the revelation of the Divine character 
 and will in general terms, we can speak of the Law 
 of Christ. So indeed wrote St. Paul himself in 
 Gal. vi. 2 : ' Bear ye one another's burdens, and so 
 fulfil the law of Christ ' ; and in somewhat similar 
 language in Rom. iii. 27 : ' Where then is the glory- 
 ing ? It is excluded. By what manner of law ? 
 Of works ? Nay, but by a law of faith ' (R.V.). And 
 so also St. James commends to us ' the perfect law, 
 the law of liberty ' (i. 25, compare ii. 12). In the 
 same way we find the author of that early document, 
 the Epistle of Barnabas, saying : ' The new law of 
 our Lord Jesus Christ, which lays on us no yoke 
 of compulsion ' (ii. 6),^ where the second clause, 
 by the very fact of its addition, demonstrates the 
 inadequacy of the term ' law ' in the first to express 
 the writer's meaning properly. Many an instance 
 
 calls it [Sources, p. 35). But to see in it a cheap sneer at hypocrisy is due to 
 misunderstanding. H. J. Holtzmann, on the other hand, considers it ' eine 
 vollkommen zutreflEende Ueberschiift ' to w. 21-48 (N.T. Theologie, 1911, 
 i. 204), but he thinks it contradicts w. 18, 19. Vide supra, p. 184, note. 
 
 ^ This appears to be the meaning of the curious phrase : aviv ^ov 
 avdyKTj's wv. See further Hamack in loco. 
 
 201 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 might also be quoted from the Greek Fathers to 
 the same effect, notably from Chrysostom, who, in 
 one brilliantly oratorical passage, does not hesitate 
 to insist that Christ came to give us new laws,^ 
 extending to our very thoughts. 
 
 To speak of the Gospel as a Law rhetorically 
 and inexactly was in itself harmless. But when 
 once Christian people became accustomed to use 
 the phrase ' the Law of Christ,' there was a danger 
 of attributing to the Gospel the very qualities which 
 belonged to the Law actually in force around them, 
 the law of Rome, with its system of rules and 
 ordinances, sanctioned by punishment upon their 
 violation. 
 
 In the Greek-speaking world, to be sure, some 
 centuries elapsed before this danger took effect. 
 The Law of Christ was regarded by Eastern Christians 
 less as a system to be obeyed than as a revelation 
 to be learned. Christ was more of the Teacher than 
 the Lawgiver. But in the West it was otherwise. 
 
 The early training of a certain lawyer in North 
 Africa had far-reaching issues. For the brilliancy 
 of TertuUian's epigrams, the originality of his 
 definitions, centred round Law as he knew it, the 
 greatest of all powers in the Roman world, nay, 
 the ruling force in earth and heaven. To Irenseus, 
 his earlier contemporary, who wrote and thought 
 in Greek, the conception of the Gospel as redemption 
 was of supreme importance ; to TertuUian as Divine 
 Law.^ All religion, he felt, must have the character 
 of a fixed law, and presupposed definite regulations.' 
 
 ^ ievovs v6fi.ovi. Act. Horn. v. 4 (Gaume, ix, 54 sq.). Of. supra, p. 182. 
 ' Hamaok, History of Dogma, ii. 16. 
 » Ibid. ii. 103, note 1. 
 
 202 
 
v] BUT WAS TREATED AS SUCH 
 
 ' Through the agency of TertuUian,' Harnack writes,^ 
 ' by his earUer profession as a lawyer, all Christian 
 forms received a legal impress. He not only trans- 
 ferred the technical terms of the jurist into the 
 ecclesiastical language of the West, but he also con- 
 templated, from a legal standpoint, all relations of 
 the individual and the Church to the Deity.' 
 
 The seed thus sown by TertuUian fell on fruitful 
 soil, and the legal character of the Gospel of Christ 
 was more and more elaborated in the West. Even 
 Augustine's doctrine of Grace itself took a legal tone,^ 
 and finally Gregory the Great stamped all Roman 
 Christianity with the form of Law.^ In this way the 
 doctrine of human merit, obtained by the performance 
 of good actions (however closely in the minds of the 
 theologians this was connected with grace bestowed 
 through Sacraments), dominated the Christian re- 
 ligion, as it was now understood, and, save for the 
 change of name, and of the subject-matter of the 
 regulations, the new Gospel became the old Law 
 writ large. 
 
 After all, this was but natural. For Law comes 
 more easily to the human mind than Gospel. Until 
 a man knows his sinfulness, and the impossibility 
 of making atonement for himself or for others, he 
 catches at the vain hope of compounding for evil 
 by good, and of acquiring such righteousness as 
 shall balance, yes, more than balance, his sin. No 
 doubt the Church, like the Synagogue, bade the 
 sinner repent, and obtain from God the strength for 
 such a meritorious life, but in neither case was the 
 
 ^ Hamack, History of Dogma, v. 16 ; cf. 52. 
 
 '^ Ibid. V. 52. 
 
 ' Ibid. V. 263; cf. also pp. 265^note, 267, 271. 
 
 203 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 principle affected. If Judaism on such conditions 
 was a Law, so was Christianity. The pardon offered 
 freely in Christ was set aside ; the power to be found 
 only in Christ was forgotten. Christianity became 
 a system of duties, a counterpart and a rival to the 
 Law of Moses. 
 
 That, let it be stated once more, is a parody, nay, 
 a contradiction, of its true character. For Chris- 
 tianity is the Good News of the coming of Him who 
 was called Jesus, because He should save His people 
 from their sins (i. 21) ; who bade believers know 
 that their iniquities were pardoned, although they 
 had not acquired merit (ix. 2) ; whose attitude to 
 sinners was such that they could always be sure 
 of a welcome from Him ; whose miracles not only 
 brought health to the body, but also portrayed in 
 living action the way in which He freely healed the 
 soul. 
 
 This Gospel of St. Matthew describes Jesus, not 
 as the Lawgiver, no, not even in this Sermon on 
 the Mount, but as the One to Whom men came with 
 their difficulties and their trials, with their desires 
 and their longings, their humble inquiries and their 
 timid expectations, to find their hunger satisfied, and 
 the energy they lacked, fully supplied in Him. 
 
 Not a system, but a Person, is the subject of the 
 New Testament ; and therefore not directions, but 
 principles ; not a Law, but a Gospel. The Law 
 stands unrivalled as a direct statement of the will 
 of God, binding, and therefore condemning. Christ 
 came not to destroy it, or to place another Law in 
 its stead, but to bring about its accomplishment, 
 by revealing the character of God more completely, 
 announcing the Good News of His love in receiving 
 
 204 
 
V] THE LAW ESTABLISHED 
 
 sinful men, and of the ensuing power for a holy- 
 life. 
 
 The Gospel is no new Law, in the strictest sense 
 of the words Lex, Nomos, or Tor ah. They, properly 
 speaking, represent religion as duty to be performed. 
 But so far as the Law contains the revelation of 
 God, so far is it permanent, and its permanence is 
 but increased and confirmed by the fuller revelation 
 of God's mind and will, and of the grace given to us 
 by Him, in His Son Jesus the Messiah, who is ' the 
 effulgence of his glory, and the expression of his 
 being ' (Heb. i. 3). 
 
 ' Do we then make the Law of none effect through 
 faith ? God forbid : nay, we establish the Law ' 
 (Rom. iii. 31). 
 
 ' Think not that I came to destroy the Law or 
 the Prophets : I came not to destroy, but to fulfil.' 
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 A HEBEEW-CHKISTIAN CHURCH 
 
 By ' a Church ' I understand a branch of the Catholic 
 Church, in which the pure word of God is preached, and the 
 Sacraments are duly ministered. By ' Hebrew-Christian ' 
 I understand that the members of this Church are believers 
 from among the Jews, the term ' Hebrew ' being employed in 
 preference to ' Jewish,' as savouring more of nationality 
 than religion. The whole phrase, ' A Hebrew-Christian 
 Church,' denotes an organisation more or less distinct from 
 any other, the members of which are recognised as Christians 
 by all persons, whether Jews or Gentiles, and yet are also 
 recognised on all sides as Hebrews, i.e. of Hebrew race, or, 
 as we might say, as Jews except in religion, this twofold 
 recognition being continued to the children and descendants 
 of the actual converts. 
 
 205 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 To put the case slightly otherwise ; what is desired by- 
 many is something more than the popular acceptance of the 
 fact that certain Jews who retain Jewish customs are also 
 Christians, for this is so already. What is desired, if I under- 
 stand the matter aright, is, first, an official pronouncement by 
 the officers of the Church, in particular the officers of the 
 Church of England, that such persons are recognised as 
 Christians ; and secondly, the appointment of a Christian 
 officer, preferably a bishop, and of course of Jewish birth, 
 who shall himself practise such Jewish customs, and shall act 
 as shepherd and guide to such Hebrew-Christians. 
 
 Two things indeed must be sorrowfully confessed. First, 
 at present there is very little demand by Hebrew-Christians 
 for such an officer ; and secondly, Hebrew-Christians belong- 
 ing to the Episcopal Church are far outnumbered by others ; 
 in fact, Episcopalian Hebrew-Christians form but a small 
 minority of the whole of those Jews who have been brought 
 to acknowledge the Saviour. 
 
 Let me at once say that all of us must feel sympathy with 
 this proposal, for there can hardly be a person interested in 
 Missions to the Jews who has not felt strongly drawn towards 
 it. If, after thinking it over, we find ourselves compelled to 
 believe that any attempt to bring about a Hebrew-Christian 
 Church now is likely to end in failure and do more harm than 
 good, it is with sincere sorrow that we are compelled to say so. 
 
 I. Let us recall, so far as we can, the arguments adduced 
 in support of such a Church, together with statements of 
 what it implies.^ Afterwards we will consider the objections 
 to it. 
 
 1. The proposition offers, in particular, two advantages. 
 In the first place it hopes to remove one of the greatest hin- 
 drances to the acceptance of the Gospel by the Jews. For 
 to Jews Christianity is worse than only a change of religion. 
 
 ^ Cf. The Declaration by two Hebrew-Christians presented to the 
 International Jewish Missionary Conference at Stockholm in 1911. See 
 the Year -Book of the Evangelical Missions among the Jews, edited by Professor 
 Strack, 1913, pp. 15 sqq. 
 
 206 
 
v] APPENDIX— A HEBREW-CHRISTIAN CHURCH 
 
 To them it is treachery to the nation. Many a Jew would be 
 ready to change his religion (I speak in popular language) if 
 there were not added to it the forsaking of his nation. Chris- 
 tians do not sufficiently recognise the strength of the national 
 feeling that exists among the Jews. The more that Jews are 
 persecuted, the more they are knit together by the strongest 
 bands of national feeling, and the more despicable they find 
 it in any one to forsake them in their need. 
 
 The hope, therefore, is that if a Hebrew-Christian Church 
 were formed there would be something to which we Christians 
 could point and say : You see it is not necessary to give 
 up your Jewish (or rather, according to the nomenclature 
 preferred, your Hebrew) customs. We, at any rate, what- 
 ever the non- Christian Jews may say, have no desire that 
 you should break away from your nation. 
 
 There is also another advantage. Not only would the 
 non-Christian Jews find it easier to become Christians, but 
 also those who have already acknowledged the Lord Jesus 
 would be more likely to remain faithful to Him. For, disguise 
 the fact as we may, the proportion of those who fall away 
 is much too high. The strain on Hebrew- Christians, it is 
 asserted, would be minimised if a Hebrew-Christian Church 
 could be established. As things are now, they feel the strain 
 of separation from their own people. The Heimweh for 
 their nation is strong within them, and sometimes, alas, is 
 overpoweringly strong. 
 
 2. Let us, however, be quite clear as to what membership 
 of a Hebrew-Christian Church implies. 
 
 It means, first, the observance of Hebrew ceremonies 
 and customs. Such, for example, are Circumcision and the 
 Sabbath, both of which, it is urged, are very much older 
 than the time of giving the Law to Moses. Then there is the 
 keeping of the Dietary Laws, which may be defended partly 
 on the ground of health. Then the Jewish Festivals, and 
 perhaps some of the Fasts, will not be neglected. Passover 
 will be observed, as in remembrance of the deliverance of the 
 nation from Egypt ; Shebuoth, or the Feast of Weeks, will 
 be kept, in sign of the early part of the harvest, and the 
 giving of the Law ; Tabernacles, in remembrance of the 
 
 207 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 booths on the way out from Egypt, and the full ingathering 
 of fruit ; Chanuka, in joyful memory of the Feast of the 
 Dedication in the time of the Maccabees ; Purim, for the 
 escape through Esther. All these, and perhaps one or two 
 of the Fasts connected with the destruction of Jerusalem, 
 will be retained because of their historical interest, and their 
 importance to the nation as a whole. Further, with some 
 of them at least, Christian thoughts will be interwoven. For 
 example, Passover will remind the believer of the death of 
 the true Passover Lamb, and also of the Lord's Supper ; 
 Shebuoth, or Pentecost, of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit ; 
 even Chanuka of Christmas or perhaps Epiphany. It is how- 
 ever presupposed, unless I am mistaken, that the observ- 
 ance of all these ceremonies and customs is to be on purely 
 Biblical lines, and not in the form and degree sanctified by 
 traditional teaching. To this I will return presently. 
 
 Secondly, prayers will be available in Hebrew, and this 
 not as a direct translation from the English Prayer Book, 
 such as is common now, but in a form adapted from the 
 specifically Jewish prayer-books. Our own Book of Common 
 Prayer is a compilation from so many sources that we can 
 make no objection to this in principle. 
 
 Thirdly, Hebrew-Christians will be encouraged to use 
 the Hebrew language as much as possible. To this also no 
 objection can be raised. 
 
 Fourthly, Zionism, on lines independent (if necessary) af 
 the form accepted by those who are non-Christian Jews, will 
 be given an important place in the affections and interests of 
 Hebrew-Christians. 
 
 3. While it is proposed that Hebrew-Christians observe 
 these things, it is further claimed that such a body of Hebrew- 
 Christians will not be an entirely new experiment. For, it is 
 said, many believers in the first two centuries of our era 
 practised these customs. Did not the ideal Hebrew-Christian, 
 the Lord Jesus Himself, keep them ? Undoubtedly He did ; 
 nothing else was possible for Him. But did He not teach His 
 followers, in particular His followers from among the Jews, 
 to observe them also ? I own that this is a difficult question, 
 and confess that so learned and orthodox a scholar as Zahn 
 
 208 
 
v] APPENDIX— A HEBREW-CHRISTIAN CHURCH 
 
 argues that He did. See Zahn's comments on Matt. v. 17-20, 
 in particular pp. 221 sq. of the third edition of his 
 commentary. 
 
 Yet Homer sometimes nods, and I cannot think that we 
 ought to follow even a Zahn in his exposition here. The 
 true meaning of our Lord's words in Matt. v. 17-20 appears 
 to be that He is coming forward as a Teacher showing the 
 inner meaning of the Law, which is not necessarily at all the 
 same as its outward observance. Not a jot or a tittle of the 
 Law was to pass away, but, on the contrary, to receive a 
 meaning, and accomplish a purpose, far beyond anything 
 achieved by the minute righteousness of the Scribes and 
 Pharisees. No doubt our Lord would not have opposed, and 
 did not oppose, the external observance of the Law by Jewish- 
 Christians, but that He bade them so observe it, and made 
 arrangements for their doing so, seems to be quite contrary 
 to the spirit of His acts and words. 
 
 It may be granted also, indeed it cannot but be granted, 
 that nearly thirty years after the Crucifixion, the Christian 
 Jews of Palestine observed the Jewish customs (see Acts xxi. 
 20), and also that on occasion St. Paul did likewise ; witness 
 his circumcision of Timothy, and his sacrifices in Jerusalem 
 (Acts xxi. 21-26).^ 
 
 Further, it cannot be denied that during the second, 
 and even the third centuries there were certain Christians 
 of Jewish race, of different degrees of Christian orthodoxy, 
 who maintained Jewish customs. In particular it may be 
 noticed that if, as is possible in some cases, these were identical 
 with the Minim of the Talmud, they were, notwithstanding, 
 recognised by Jewish teachers as Jews in nationality, though 
 not in religion. Most striking of all the examples which 
 Chwolson, for instance, mentions, is the case of the Min 
 whom R. Jehudah himself, the editor of the Mishna, the 
 patriarch, the spiritual and political head of the Jewish 
 nation in the end of the second century, welcomed to his 
 table, permitting him to say the blessing after the meal. 
 
 '■ Only • on occasion.' Normally he appears to have hved like a Gentile. 
 For example, he did not keep the dietary laws, see Gal. ii. 11-14. 
 
 209 P 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 This blessing is in four parts, of which the second contains 
 thanks for the deUverance from Egypt, for the sign of the 
 covenant (circumcision), for the Law, and the ordinances. 
 The third contains a prayer for God's mercy on Jerusalem, 
 and for the rebuilding of the temple.^ 
 
 4. Lastly, upholders of the proposition to establish a 
 Hebrew-Christian Church point to the fact that a certain 
 number of Hebrew-Christians in the nineteenth and twentieth 
 centuries have observed Jewish ceremonies and customs, 
 and have remained faithful and devoted Christians. They 
 also tell us with no little gratification that the American 
 Episcopal Church has formally accepted the principle. 
 
 This last argument would carry more weight if it could 
 be shown that the American Episcopal Church made the 
 very slightest effort to rise to the immense possibilities of 
 evangelistic work that lie immediately before it in the crowded 
 Jewry of New York. The neglect of the Jews by American 
 Christians is extraordinary, and suggests serious reflections 
 as to whether they have thought deeply over the question 
 whether it is the duty of the Church to endeavour to win 
 the Jews to the Master whom they themselves adore and 
 love. 
 
 II. Let us now consider the objections to the proposition. 
 
 One very common objection, however, is due to a mis- 
 understanding. Many suppose that St. Paul's language in 
 his Epistle to the Galatians is contrary to the idea of a 
 Hebrew-Christian Church as now proposed. He refused 
 to circumcise Titus, and he strongly attacked those who 
 advocated circumcision. But it is forgotten that he was 
 not considering the case of Hebrew-Christians at all. Far 
 from it. He was attacking those who urged that Gentile 
 Christians should be circumcised, a wholly different thing. 
 It seems to be quite indefensible to adduce St. Paul as an 
 opponent of a Hebrew-Christian Church, at any rate in 
 his Epistle to the Galatians. 
 
 ^ See Lect. IV, p. 161 ; see also Straok, Jesus, die Haretiker und die 
 Christen, u.s.w., 1910, § 22 c. T.B. Chullin, 87a. 
 
 210 
 
V] APPENDIX— A HEBREW-CHRISTIAN CHURCH 
 
 The real objections to the proposal are of a different 
 kind. 
 
 1. First, the Jewish ceremonies and customs which it 
 is proposed that Hebrew-Christians should observe have 
 always been regarded by Jews as religious as well as national . 
 Mr. Philip Cohen indeed writes : ^ ' Circumcision can only be 
 regarded as an oath of allegiance or as a kind of registration 
 in the Hebrew state similar to what all nations impose on 
 the birth of a child, or to the oaths imposed on those admitted 
 into special office.' His second alternative seems, by-the- 
 by, not to march strictly with his first. But he produces 
 no sufficient evidence for his statement. No doubt a Jewish 
 child would not be reckoned, in either ancient or modern 
 times, a member of the Jewish nation if he were not cir- 
 cumcised, but there seems to be no evidence at all that the 
 rite was regarded as only secular. This would, in fact, be 
 contrary to all that we know of the nations of antiquity, 
 and the Semitic nations in particular, who did nothing apart 
 from religion. Circumcision seems always to have been 
 regarded as inauguration into the religious system of the 
 Jewish nation, as well as the record of nationality. So also 
 with the other customs, such as the Feasts and Fasts, that 
 have been mentioned ; there never was a time in which they 
 were only secular and national, and not religious. 
 
 2. Secondly, it is proposed to separate the Biblical 
 from the Rabbinic methods of observing these customs, 
 and to keep to the former while rejecting the latter. ' It 
 is not proposed to continue Rabbinical Judaism,' writes 
 Miss Dampier in Church and Synagogue, 1911, p. 37. I venture 
 to think that this is an impossible position, and for this 
 reason. We know next to nothing about the way in which 
 these ceremonies and customs were observed in strictly 
 Biblical times, and, in fact, almost nothing about the daily, 
 practical life of Judaism apart from Rabbinical Judaism. 
 Is it not probable that from the very beginnings of Israel's 
 history there was some definition of the Sabbath, when 
 (exactly) it began and ended, what (exactly) might be done, 
 
 ' The Hebrew Christian and His National Continuity/, 1910, p. 119. 
 
 211 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 and what might not be done, upon it ? How is it proposed 
 now to draw the line ? Again, take the Passover. Is the 
 leaven to be hunted out or not ? If it is, how will you 
 determine which Rabbinical rules you will accept, and 
 which reject ? So also with the Dietary Laws. We are 
 told that these will not be so minute. Why not ? On 
 what principle will you go ? Is it not, in fact, probable that 
 the laws and rules given in the Bible are in most cases merely 
 summaries of practices which had a long history behind 
 them, and therefore were determined by oral rules existing 
 already when the summaries were incorporated in the Law 
 of Moses ? It is very easy to say : We will keep the written 
 Law, but will reject the oral. But let us not deceive our- 
 selves, we are attempting an impossibility.'^ 
 
 3. Again, it is to be feared that such an observance of 
 Jewish customs will put too heavy a burden upon Hebrew- 
 Christians. One of two things will happen. If the Hebrew- 
 Christian does his best to observe the customs with due care 
 and consideration, there is a grave danger that he will, 
 little by little, be led back into Judaism. It hardly seems 
 right indeed to speak, as some of our friends do, especially 
 in Germany, of ' Ebionitism ' in Missions to the Jews, but 
 the term does put in a nutshell the danger that is to be 
 feared. On the other hand, if the man is careless about the 
 customs, the tendency will be for him gradually to give 
 them up. In this case we arrive at the present condition of 
 things. As has already been implied, these dangers are not 
 imaginary. They represent what actually took place among 
 the Jewish Christians of the first three centuries. Many 
 fell back into Judaism. Others became, gradually but 
 eventually, indistinguishable from Gentile Christians. The 
 history of the obscure and useless sects of Hebrew-Christians 
 in the first three centuries, so far as we know it, is not pleasant 
 reading. 
 
 ^ The history of the Karaites confirms rather than contradicts this. Their 
 customs and ceremonies are governed as much by an oral Law as those of 
 the Rabbanite Jews, and are often harsher and more difficult to keep. So 
 also with the Samaritans, and even the Sadducees. 
 
 212 
 
v] APPENDIX— A HEBREW-CHRISTIAN^CHURCH 
 
 It may be replied that the same results are not likely 
 to be found under present conditions. This remains to be 
 seen. It is asserted, I know not with how much truth, that 
 the majority of those Hebrew-Christians who have attempted 
 to retain their Jewish customs in the nineteenth and twentieth 
 centuries have found it impossible to remain faithful to 
 both sides, and at last have either become Jews, or become 
 merged among the Gentiles. The path between the two 
 precipices has been too narrow. 
 
 III. Yet, say our friends, there are Chinese Christians 
 and Japanese Christians, why not Jewish, or Hebrew, 
 Christians, recognised as such by all ? True ; and when 
 there is a Judaea, or a Hebrew State, as there is now a 
 China and a Japan, then there will be readily enough Jewish 
 or Hebrew Christians. When, that is to say, the Jews 
 are once more settled in Palestine as a race, when they have 
 what Mr. Philip Cohen calls ' a true centre of their own,' ^ 
 then the name will be so distinctly racial and national 
 that it will be attached to Jews who even become Chris- 
 tians. Then a Hebrew-Christian's chUd, though baptized, will 
 still be reckoned as a Jew.^ But until the race and nation 
 inhabit a home of their own the scheme is, I fear, Utopian, 
 and even harmful. Neither does it seem that anything 
 can now be done to prepare the way for it, save to encourage 
 the restoration of the People to the Land. 
 
 * The Hebrew Christian and His National Continuity, 1910, p. 37. 
 
 ^ Unless Dr. Gaster's narrow dicta are accepted : ' A Jew who changes 
 his faith is torn up by the roots. There is no longer any connection 
 between him and other Jews. He has practically died.' ' There cannot 
 be Christian and Jewish Jews ' [Zionism and the Jewish Future, edited 
 by H. Sacher, 1916, pp. 91, 94). 
 
 213 
 
Lecture Six 
 
 THE MESSIAH AS TEACHER THE ETHICAL 
 
 DEMANDS IN THE SERMON ON THE 
 MOUNT 
 
' Blessed are the poor in 
 spirit : for theirs is the 
 kingdom of heaven.'' — ^Matt. 
 V. 3. 
 
Lecture Six 
 
 THE MESSIAH AS TEACHER THE ETHICAL 
 
 DEMANDS IN THE SERMON ON THE 
 MOUNT 
 
 WE now come to the very heart of the Sermon, 
 the Ethical Demands made by the Messiah 
 upon His followers, and we must endeavour 
 to think of these demands, not as they seem to us, 
 but as they appeared to Jewish-Christians, and other 
 Jews, who lived in the last quarter of the first century. 
 The method to be pursued is this. After briefly 
 recalling the fact that much was already accepted 
 by Jews, whether Christian or non-Christian ; and 
 then mentioning a few of the requirements which 
 (as is asserted) seemed to them strange and even 
 impracticable, we shall coiisider at greater length 
 whether there is not some misapprehension both of 
 the nature of the demands themselves and of the 
 persons to whom they were addressed. In this 
 way we shall arrive at a better understanding of 
 the true character and aim of the Sermon on the 
 Mount, and the requirements of the Great Teacher. 
 
 I. First, then, much of these demands was already 
 well known to Jewish-Christians before they believed 
 in the Lord Jesus. They had been taught it, either 
 orally or in books. ^ 
 
 ' It is not easy to determine the trustworthiness of the different witnesses 
 to the ethical knowledge of Jews in the first century. On the one hand, we 
 are apt to forget that the Old Testament did not necessarily mean the same 
 to them as to us, and on the other the claims of modern Jewish writers to 
 represent an unchanging tradition is hardly consonant with facts. Their 
 
 217 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 Take, for example, our Lord's words about 
 purity in v. 27-30. The son of Sirach had said 
 already : ' Turn away thine eye from a comely 
 woman, and gaze not on another's beauty ' (Ecclus. ix. 
 8). And the sayings now found in the Testaments of 
 the Twelve Patriarchs can hardly have been unknown 
 to the Jewish reader : ' Pay no heed to the face of a 
 woman. . . . Pay no heed to the beauty of women, nor 
 set your mind upon their affairs ' (Test. Reuben iii. 10 ; 
 iv. 1) ; 'I command you, my children, not ... to 
 gaze upon the beauty of women' (Judah xvii. 1); ' The 
 single-minded man . . . looketh not on the beauty 
 of women, lest he pollute his mind with corruption ' 
 (Iss. iv. 4) ; 'I never committed fornication by 
 the uplifting of my eyes ' (Iss. vii. 2) ; ' Flee evil- 
 doing and cleave to goodness. For he that hath it 
 looketh not on a woman with a view to fornication ; 
 and he beholdeth no defilement ; for there resteth 
 upon him a holy spirit ' (Benj. viii. 1, 2, in A.). 
 We may compare the later words of the Talmud : 
 ' A man must not look on a beautiful woman, even 
 if she be single ' {Abodah Zarah, 20a).^ 
 
 Again, it is a serious matter for an Oriental to 
 be expected to keep his mouth clean from oaths. 
 For they form part of his ordinary conversation. 
 It is therefore no wonder if St. Matthew is careful 
 to record the fact that in this respect the Messiah 
 
 glasses are at least as tinted as ours, though with a different shade. Neither 
 can the statements of the Talmudim and the Midrashim be trusted for a period 
 so much earUer than their own. Even the Mishna, and the Tosephta, ascribed 
 to the end of the second century, must be used with caution. Probably after 
 the New Testament itself (which by the nature of the case is hardly available 
 for our present purpose) the most satisfactory material is that of the 
 Apocr3rphal and Pseudepigraphic books, which range from the second century 
 before, to the first century after, the beginning of our era. 
 * In Juh. XX. 4 the reference is to flagrant sin. 
 
 218 
 
VI] MUCH IN THE SERMON ALREADY KNOWN 
 
 made great claims upon His followers (v, 33-37 ; 
 xxiii. 16-22). Yet it must not be supposed that 
 teaching upon this subject was new to Jewish- 
 Christians. ' Accustom not thy mouth to an oath,' 
 writes the author of Ecclesiasticus (xxiii. 9-11), ' and 
 be not accustomed to the naming of the Holy One. 
 For as a servant that is continually scourged shall 
 not lack a bruise, so he also that sweareth and nameth 
 God continually shall not be cleansed from sin. 
 A man of many oaths shall be filled with iniquity, 
 and the scourge shall not depart from his house.' 
 Indeed, it was a Jewish commonplace to warn the 
 pious against so evil a practice. Philo treats of 
 it at some length. In his essay On the Ten Com- 
 mandments, § 17, he says : ' That being which is 
 the most beautiful, and the most beneficial to human 
 life, and suitable to rational nature, swears not 
 itself, because truth on every point is so innate 
 within him that his bare word is accounted an oath.' ^ 
 The godly man, that is to say, will not swear at 
 all. Let him avoid oaths altogether, if possible. 
 But in his treatise On the Special Laws, § 2, he is not 
 so strict : ' However, if a man must swear and is 
 so inclined, let him add, if he pleases, not indeed 
 the highest name of all, and the most important 
 cause of all things, but the earth, the sun, the stars, 
 the heaven, the universal world ; for these things 
 are all most worthy of being named, and are more 
 ancient than our own birth, and, moreover, they 
 never grow old, lasting for ever and ever, in accord- 
 ance with the will of their Creator.' ^ The quasi- 
 
 • Yonge's translation, iii. 155. 
 
 * Yonge, iii. 256. In Shebuoth iv. 13 (Talmud, 35a) there is a discussion 
 whether certain appellations (such as heaven, earth, &c.) contain a reference 
 
 219 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 permission to ordinary folk to live on a comparatively 
 low level is very characteristic of Jewish teachers, 
 and the concessions made by Philo approach very 
 closely to those pilloried by our Lord. 
 
 In the Secrets of Enoch (xlix. 1), on the contrary, 
 a higher standard is raised : ' For I swear to you, 
 my children, but I will not swear by a single oath, 
 neither by heaven, nor by earth, nor by any other 
 creature which God made. God said: There is no 
 swearing in me, nor injustice, but truth. If there is 
 no truth in men, let them swear by a word, yea, 
 yea, or nay, nay. But I swear to you, yea, yea.' 
 
 We may also compare the later phrases of the 
 Talmud : ' Let thy yes be true, and thy nay be 
 true.' ^ But this perhaps only inculcates truthful- 
 ness, and has no immediate reference to swearing. 
 In Shebuoth, 36a, even the repetition of the affirmative 
 or the negative is said to be an oath.^ 
 
 So with charity to the poor : ' Give to him that 
 asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of 
 thee turn not thou away ' (Matt. v. 42). The charge 
 is thoroughly Jewish, and would present little diffi- 
 culty to Jewish-Christians of St. Matthew's time. Re- 
 call Deut. XV. 7, 8 : 'If there be with thee a poor 
 man, one of thy brethren, within any of thy gates 
 in thy land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, 
 thou shalt not harden thine heart, nor shut thine 
 hand from thy poor brother : but thou shalt surely 
 
 to God or not. In the Shulchan Arukh, Yore Deah, § 237. 6, the negative is 
 affirmed. Hamburger, Beal-Encyclopddie, 1870, s.v. Eidesformel, has many 
 references to Jewish standard works bearing on the subject. See also J. 
 Lightfoot on Matt. v. 33-37. 
 
 ^ Baba Mezia, 4Sa. The passage is a play on the words in Lev. xix. 36. 
 
 ^ This is derived from the twofold 'not' in Gen. ix. 11. Chwolson, 
 Das letzte Passamahl, p. 94, has an interesting note showing the abhorrence 
 with which pious Jews still regard oaths, even true ones. 
 
 220 
 
vi] AND INCULCATED 
 
 open thine hand unto him, and shalt surely lend him 
 sufficient for his need in that which he wanteth.' 
 The whole passage to the end of the eleventh verse 
 breathes the same spirit of free-hearted charity. 
 Lev. XXV. 35, 36, is very similar : ' And if thy brother 
 be waxen poor, and his hand fail with thee ; then 
 thou shalt uphold him : as a stranger and a sojourner 
 shall he live with thee. Take thou no usury of him 
 or increase ; but fear thy God : that thy brother may 
 live with thee.' Ecclesiasticus iv. 4, 5, is even more 
 to the point : ' Reject not a suppliant in his affliction ; 
 and turn not away thy face from a poor man. Turn 
 not away thine eye from one that asketh of thee.' 
 
 Closer still is the command of Tobit to his son 
 (Tobit iv. 7) : ' Give alms of thy substance ; and 
 when thou givest alms, let not thine eye be envious : 
 turn not away thy face from any poor man, and the 
 face of God shall not be turned away from thee.' 
 The spirit, however, of true charity is that which is 
 put into the mouth of Zebulun in the Testaments 
 (Zeb. vii. 2-4) : 'Do you, my children, from that 
 which God bestoweth upon you, show compassion 
 and mercy without hesitation to all men, and give 
 to every man with a good heart. And if ye have not 
 the wherewithal to give to him that needeth, have 
 compassion for him in bowels of mercy. I know 
 that my hand found not the wherewithal to give 
 to him that needed, and I walked with him weeping 
 for seven furlongs, and my bowels yearned towards 
 him in compassion.' ^ 
 
 So with Christ's demands about riches, in vi. 
 19-34, where He bids His followers to lay up treasures, 
 
 ' On the need of personal kindness in bestowing alms see the quotations 
 in the Jewish Encyclopedia, iii. 669. 
 
 221 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 not upon earth but in heaven ; for no man can 
 serve two masters ; and not to take anxious thought 
 for the morrow, but to remember the birds and the 
 flowers, whose simpUcity of Hfe receives the perfection 
 of God's care. 
 
 ' I command you, my children, not to love money. 
 . . . Beware, my children, of the love of money. . . . 
 For he is a slave to two contrary passions, and cannot 
 obey God, because they have blinded his soul, and 
 he walketh in the day as in the night. My children, 
 the love of money leadeth to idolatry ' (Test. Judah 
 xvii. 1 ; xviii. 2, 6 ; xix, 1). ' Work righteousness, 
 my children, upon the earth, that ye may have it 
 as a treasure in heaven ' (Test. Levi xiii. 5). 
 
 Lastly, it may be noticed that although it was 
 permissible to pray in the street (vi. 5), and a man 
 who so prayed ought not to interrupt his prayer 
 for ' ass or driver or seller of pots,' ^ yet Hillel him- 
 self, at about the time of our Lord's birth, forbade 
 anything like ostentation in all that one does.^ 
 
 It will be evident from these few examples of 
 the way in which much of our Lord's demands was 
 already known to Jewish disciples, that He did not 
 come to give entirely new orders, but rather desired 
 to impress more firmly upon the minds of His hearers 
 all that was best in what they had already learned. 
 And this was a necessary part of St. Matthew's 
 presentation of the Messiah. For, in fact : ' It 
 was of the utmost importance for them . . . that 
 they should realise that the fundamental convic- 
 tions of the religion whence they had emerged were 
 not shaken. The new teaching of Jesus was really 
 
 1 Toaophta, Berakoih, iii. 20. ' Ihid. ii. 21. 
 
 222 
 
VI] ARE PARTS OF THE SERMON IMPRACTICABLE ? 
 
 continuous with the truths by which their forefathers 
 had hved, yet it so widened and deepened them that 
 the religion of a nation was not only capable of 
 becoming the faith of the world, but must inevitably 
 become such, as was happening before the eyes of 
 the readers of this Gospel. They would see that 
 the contemporary Jewish slander, which accused 
 Jesus of Nazareth and His followers of disloyalty to 
 the Old Testa/nent revelation, was false, and that 
 in Him was it« only true fulfilment.' ^ 
 
 II. Much, then, of the Sermon on the Mount 
 must have been well known to pious Jews before 
 ever our Lord delivered it, and to Jewish- Christians 
 after the Fall of Jerusalem before they were brought 
 into the Christian fold. But not a little must have 
 been new to them, and part must have been so 
 strange and contrary to their habits of thought 
 and life as to seem impracticable, and perhaps not 
 desirable even if it were carried out. So at least 
 portions of it strike some of our Jewish contem- 
 poraries who have considered the Sermon, with a 
 sincere desire to understand it. 
 
 Against our Lord's demands in respect of purity 
 of thought (v. 27-32) modern Jewish critics appear 
 to have nothing to say. But they strongly object 
 to His supposed commendation of celibacy, especially 
 in xix. 10-12, a passage which is closely connected 
 with words on the holiness of marriage, when He 
 is speaking against divorce. 
 
 It is not necessary, for the purpose of these 
 Lectures, to enter upon the thorny question of 
 whether our Lord did, or did not, forbid divorce 
 
 1 Dr. H. U. Weitbrecht, St. Matthew, pp. 132 sq. (Madras, 1912). 
 
 223 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 entirely.^ His standard was considerably higher than 
 that of His contemporaries. Let that sufl&ce. But 
 the outcome of His words was that His disciples 
 said unto Him : ' If the case of the man is so with 
 his wife, it is not good to marry,' to which He replied 
 that His saying was intended only for certain persons, 
 and that there were some who did not marry for the 
 kingdom of heaven's sake.^ 
 
 We are, however, told by our critics that ' the 
 Church had to deal all along with ordinary human 
 beings, and found it quite impossible to follow the 
 lines laid down by Jesus.' ^ ' He tried to abolish 
 divorce, but he failed. Human nature, being what it 
 is, requires divorce as a necessary and expedient 
 consequence of the sin of adultery.' * 
 
 So, again, Mr. Montefiore writes : ' It cannot be 
 alleged that the ascetic element is wholly wanting 
 in the teaching of Jesus. There is a tendency to 
 regard abstention as higher than temperate enjoy- 
 ment, just as it is considered higher to have no 
 money than to use money well. There is a tendency 
 to put celibacy above marriage ; there is a tendency 
 to suggest that the highest religious life necessitates 
 the abandonment of ordinary family ties. The result 
 of this tendency has been seen, in its full fruitage, 
 in the monastic institutions and life of the Roman 
 
 ^ If TTopveia (v. 32, six. 9) is taken in its strict meaning of antenuptial 
 sin, as is not improbable, the clause refers to Deut. xxiv. 1 with xxii. 14-21, 
 and, whether actually spoken by our Lord or not, forms no exception to his 
 prohibition of divorce as usually understood. 
 
 " Jews surely would be the last to find fault with this saying if they 
 remembered that Jeremiah was expressly forbidden to take a wife (Jer. 
 xvi. 1, 2). He is precisely one of those cases to which our Lord refers. 
 
 ' G. Friedlander, Sources, p. 55. 
 
 ' Ibid. p. 58. 
 
 224 
 
VI] OATHS 
 
 Catholic Church. No student of history, no observer 
 of facts, can deny the noble characters which this 
 tendency has produced. But, at the same time, 
 none can deny its dangers and its evils. Judaism has, 
 on the whole, been opposed to it. The phrase "■ to 
 live in religion," meaning to live outside the family, 
 is the antithesis to Jewish conceptions of religion 
 and morality. Thus this tendency of the teaching 
 of Jesus is off the Jewish line. . . . Married life is, 
 according to the main stream of Jewish teaching, 
 a higher thing than celibacy or self -mutilation.' ^ 
 
 With regard to oaths, two difficulties are felt 
 by Jewish students of our Lord's words. First, 
 Christian scholars have often supposed that Jewish 
 teachers permitted men to use different kinds of 
 oaths, with the express intention of feeling them- 
 selves bound to speak the truth only if they mentioned 
 the name of God. Now this is plainly a very serious 
 accusation against the truthfulness of the Jewish 
 nation in the time of Christ, and we cannot be sur- 
 prised that it is resented.^ That indeed there were 
 at that date casuistical distinctions to be seen in 
 forms of oaths can hardly be disputed, in view of 
 the examples adduced above, but the reason for 
 them appears to be, not that the use of lesser oaths 
 might be the means of deception of men, but that 
 they might not be the profanation of God. Reverence 
 for Him, not trickery of fellow-creatures, appears 
 to have been the motive for swearing by heaven 
 instead of by God.* Our Lord, however, sweeps 
 
 ^ C. G. Montefiore, The Synoptic Gospels, p. 507. 
 ' G. Friedlander, Sources, pp. 60-65. 
 
 ' That this might lead to wilful deception in cases is evident, but there 
 is no evidence that our Lord attacked it on this ground. 
 
 ?25 9 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 away all such sophistry, reminding His hearers 
 that heaven is God's throne and the earth His foot- 
 stool, and that to invoke either the one or the other, 
 or, in fact, to employ any of the lesser terms of ad- 
 juration, is the same thing as invoking Him who 
 is very King and Lord of all. He shows that Jewish 
 casuistry fails in its own purpose, besides being, 
 at the best, unworthy of true believers. 
 
 The second objection is that, in spite of the 
 prohibition by Christ of all oaths. He Himself did 
 not refrain from them, and allowed their force. 
 For He was accustomed to strengthen His own 
 utterances by the use of the solemn asseveration 
 ' Amen,' ^ and also submitted to being put upon 
 His oath at His trial (xxvi. 63, 64). 
 
 But surely an interpretation which thus makes 
 our Lord flagrantly contradict His own teaching 
 is itself faulty somewhere. It rests on the pre- 
 supposition that when our Lord forbade swearing 
 He was giving an absolute and legal command on 
 the subject. If this was not the case, as will be 
 seen later, much of the difficulty comes to an end.^ 
 
 To turn to the question of charity to the poor. 
 ' Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that 
 would borrow of thee turn thou not away ! ' (v. 42). 
 
 ^ R. Jose, in the name of R. Chanina, argues in Shebuoth, 36as, that it 
 contains an oath. 
 
 ^ Mr. Priedlander proposes to lay the burden of the inconsistency on the 
 EvangeUst, who, as he supposes, was influenced by the Essene objection to 
 oaths (pp. 62 sq.). But he forgets that the Essenes themselves did not 
 hesitate to take an oath when occasion demanded it (Josephus, War, II, 
 Tiii. 6, 7, §§ 135, 139-142). For their entrance into the order was only by 
 taking a very solemn oath indeed. Neither they, nor, therefore, according 
 to his theory, St. Matthew, objected to swearing per se, but only to its use 
 unnecessarily. That their prohibition extended, as it seems, to courts of law, 
 is not in reality a matter of principle, but of detail, 
 
 226 
 
VI] ALMSGIVING 
 
 What ! Are we to imitate the practice of the Russian 
 nobihty in the earlier half of last century, who, as 
 Tolstoy tells us in the reminiscences of his boyhood, 
 were accustomed to set a servant on the front of 
 the carriage in which they drove, whose duty it was 
 to scatter coins to poor persons whom they passed ? ^ 
 Is that to obey Christ's demands ? No doubt to do 
 so is better than miserliness, and may lead in time 
 to higher conceptions of what true almsgiving is, 
 but it is so strangely primitive a form of charity 
 that for Christ to have taught it would have shown 
 that He Himself had attained to a very low level 
 of ethical experience. Yet His words, taken by 
 themselves, have been understood to mean this ! 
 
 So with the demands He made upon His followers 
 with regard to Avealth. ' If thou wouldest be perfect,' 
 says Jesus, ' go, sell that thou hast ' (xix. 21). ' This 
 is impossible in everyday life,' we are told, and 
 'it has led to belief that wealth is accursed, whilst 
 poverty ensures blessedness.' ^ ' In the Gospel money 
 is considered to be tainted. This is the reason why 
 it is called "the mammon of unrighteousness " ' (Luke 
 xvi. 9).' ' Ye cannot serve God and mammon ' 
 (Matt. vi. 24). ' Jesus denies the right to possess 
 wealth. His command is " Lay not up treasure " ' 
 (Matt. vi. 19).* ' Shall we be wrong,' our critic asks, 
 ' in attributing the antipathy of Jesus to wealth to 
 the fact that he and his followers were in abject 
 poverty ? ' ^ 
 
 ^ Adolescence, chap. ii. ; English translation, 1894, pp. 159 sq. 
 
 ' G. Friedlander, Sources, p. 89. 
 
 8 Ihid. p. 170. * nid. p. 173. 
 
 ^ Ihid. p. 174. Observe that this is a wholly gratuitous assumption 
 They may have thought it right to become poor, but they were not eo at first 
 Yide infra, p. 236 note. 
 
 227 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 Similarly, it is said : ' Not only must the disciple 
 of Jesus avoid wealth, but he must not even have 
 a care for the material needs of ordinary daily life. 
 Not only should he be heedless as to what he will 
 eat, or wear, but he is not to attempt to obtain these 
 bare necessities of life. Jesus had only one concern 
 — the coming kingdom — "Seek ye first his kingdom 
 and his righteousness, and all these things shall be 
 added unto you " (Matt. vi. 33). This absolute faith 
 in iProvidence, unaccompanied by any effort on 
 man's part, is not Jewish doctrine.' ^ 
 
 Even Mr. Montefiore writes in much the same 
 strain : ' Jesus had a bias against the rich.' ^ ' It is 
 considered higher to have no money than to use 
 money well.' ^ ' That Jesus had a real antagonism 
 to wealth and earthly goods is pretty certain. He 
 regarded money as an evil in itself, a spiritual and 
 moral danger for him who owned it.' 'As Pfieiderer 
 points out,' Mr. Montefiore continues, ' he agreed 
 with most ancient thinkers in supposing riches to 
 be not a means for productive moral action, but a 
 mere source of pleasure and enjoyment. With many 
 other pious Jews of his age, he saw in the rich, as a 
 social class, the oppressors of the poor, the children 
 of " this world," the enemies of the divine Kingdom 
 {Urchristentum, i. p. 650). What M. Loisy says 
 seems entirely accurate: "The incompatibility be- 
 tween the service of God and the pursuit of riches 
 is absolute. It would be arbitrary to understand 
 the text in the sense that a man ought not to serve 
 God and Mammon at the same time, or that it is 
 permissible to seek or keep riches, on condition of not 
 
 1 G. Priedlander, Sources, pp. 187 sq. 
 
 • The Synoptic Gospels, p. 477. ^ Hid. p. 507. 
 
 228 
 
VI] WEALTH 
 
 being a slave to them. The possibility of such a 
 condition is just what it is desired to exclude. In 
 this sentence, as everywhere else, and especially 
 in the discourse which follows, Jesus puts himself 
 at the ideal point of view of evangelical perfection, 
 as it ought to be found in those who are waiting for 
 the coming of the Kingdom of Heaven and preparing 
 themselves for it. Such persons are not only spiritually 
 separated from riches, they ought also to be actually 
 separated from them. It is impossible for him whose 
 thoughts are occupied with earthly wealth to belong 
 entirely to God " {E.S. i. p. 614). 
 
 'J. Weiss rightly says,' adds Mr. Montefiore, 'that 
 Jesus must have thought that he saw in riches a sort 
 of demonic power, hostile to God, and the concen- 
 trated essence of the " world " as opposed to the 
 Kingdom. " No reformer of the moral life of the 
 world speaks here, but a prophet, who has finished 
 with this world to prepare the way for a higher and 
 different order." ' ^ 
 
 So also another writer, who represents the opinions 
 of many orthodox Jews, tells us that ' Jesus made 
 poverty a distinctly pronounced, if not decisive, 
 test of discipleship.' ^ 
 
 Was then the Messiah, according to the pre- 
 sentation of Him in this Gospel, only an enthusiastic 
 visionary, whose schemes for the reformation of 
 manners took no account of human nature, so unfitted 
 for human life, so grossly unpractical, have they 
 proved in effect to be ? Must we dismiss the higher 
 and more stringent portions of the Sermon on 
 the Mount, and other sayings in the Gospel that 
 
 ' The Synoptic Gospels, p. 641. 
 
 ' P. Goodman, The Synagogue and the Church, 1908, p. 274. 
 
 229 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 resemble it in tone and tension, to the limbo of the 
 vagaries of an eccentric, and the ravings of a mad- 
 man ? ^ Or are they, at best, fitted for a small, 
 very small, community, living an other-worldly life 
 in very primitive surroundings ? If we are shut 
 up to either of these alternatives it is evident that 
 the Christian world has been grievously mistaken 
 from the very first, and the sooner it shakes itself 
 free from the incubus of so dead a weight upon its 
 ethical progress, the better for both it and mankind 
 in general. 
 
 III. There are, however, certain considerations 
 to be borne in mind which may well modify such 
 impressions of the ' unpractical ' , nature of Christ's 
 demands. 
 
 In the first place, it is not unreasonable to think 
 that the Jewish- Christians of those early days were 
 in a better position to understand them than we are. 
 They were Orientals, to whom figures of speech 
 and hyperbole of statement were matters of course. 
 It would never have occurred to them to suppose 
 that if their right eye, or their right hand, was a 
 cause of sin they were intended to pluck it out, 
 or cut it off, literally (v. 29, 30).^ Even our grosser 
 Western minds do not imagine that our Lord's s 
 charge not to let our left hand know what our right 
 hand doeth when we give an alms can be carried 
 
 ^ A. Schweitzer reviews modem arguments adduced to show that Jesus 
 was the subject of mental delusions, and decides against them on purely 
 medical and psychical grounds {Expositor, Oct., Nov., Dec, 1913). 
 
 ' No Jew would have followed Origen in mutilating himself (xix. 12). 
 But Origen knew no Hebrew till some forty years later. It is strange that 
 they who insist on the necessity of poverty for behevers do not also insist on 
 their being blind (John ix. 41). 
 
 230 
 
VI] THE SERMON NOT A CODE 
 
 out verbally (vi. 3). Neither is it likely that those 
 early believers would have dreamed that the Master 
 meant them to give to every one who asked them, 
 regardless of their knowledge of the person in question. 
 
 Besides this primary advantage of the early 
 Jewish believers, which they share with Orientals 
 in general, they also had personal experience of 
 the pressure of the Law, certainly of the Mosaic 
 and Oral, possibly even of the moral, in a stronger 
 degree than most of us to-day. The burden, for 
 that in a real sense it was a burden has been shown 
 in the preceding Lecture, had rested so heavily 
 upon them that they were more prepared than we 
 are to grasp the truth of the liberty of the Gospel, 
 and therefore less likely to misunderstand the demands 
 of the Messiah, and to see in them so many fresh 
 clauses of a new and stricter code. Law, alas, came 
 into the Church, and largely spoiled the Gospel, 
 as we have seen, but it is probable that the Jewish- 
 Christians for whom St. Matthew wrote were better 
 able than we to disentangle the two, even although 
 some of them thought that it was desirable to observe 
 certain precepts and ceremonies to which they had 
 been accustomed from their youth up. This, how- 
 ever, was something very different from imagining 
 that the demands in the Sermon on the Mount 
 formed paragraphs and sections of a new code. 
 
 Secondly, it is of supreme importance for the 
 right understanding of the Sermon that we should 
 not detach single demands from their context, or 
 fail to consider them in relation to the Sermon as 
 a whole. 
 
 No doubt it is especially to the Sermon as a whole 
 that objections have been made. It omits so much, 
 
 231 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 we are told. There is, it is said, in all the New 
 Testament, ' no adequate place for the knightly 
 virtue of actively redressing wrong ' ^ — a strange 
 taunt, surely, when the chivalry of mediaeval 
 Christianity claimed to be prompted by Christ's 
 teaching, and, as far as it actually was free from 
 self-seeking, did undoubtedly draw its inspiration 
 from it. The demand : ' All things therefore what- 
 soever ye would that men should do unto you, even 
 so do ye also unto them ' (vii. 12), is, after all, not a 
 bad substitute for details of rules of redressing wrong, 
 even if it does not, as probably it does, lie at the 
 very foundation of all the improvement effected in 
 social life since it was first uttered.^ 
 
 But, it is urged, ' the nineteenth chapter of 
 Leviticus is a far more complete moral code than 
 the Sermon on the Mount, in spite of the important 
 Jewish teaching that makes up the greater part of 
 the contents of the Sermon.' ' There is no accounting 
 for taste, and every one must be allowed to have 
 his own opinion of the comparative moral worth 
 of a chapter which seems to place the rounding of 
 the corners of the head, and the marring of the 
 corners of the beard, on as high a pedestal as fearing 
 one's mother and father (the order is that of Lev. xix. 
 3). But even if the case were made out that Leviticus 
 contained a ' more complete moral code,' what of it ? 
 
 ' Paulsen, in Montefiore, The Synoptic Gospels, p. 518. 
 
 " Would the objectors have been satisfied if Christ had taught the 
 principles of Bushido, ' the Way of Fighting Knights,' viz. loyalty, polite- 
 ness, bravery, faithfulness, and simplicity, together with a sincere spirit ? 
 Are not these all contained in that one demand ? See the article on Ethics 
 and MoraUty (Japanese) in the Encyclopmdia ofBeligion and Ethics, v. 499 sq. 
 
 ' G. Friedlander, Sources, p. 85. See also Montefiore, The Synoptic 
 Gospels, p. 522. 
 
 232 
 
VI] JEWS INDICT THE SERMON 
 
 Is there any sign in the Sermon on the Mount that 
 it claimed to present a complete code, or even a 
 code at all ? We cannot but think that objections 
 brought against it on the score of omissions are due 
 to a complete misunderstanding of its nature. 
 
 A much more serious indictment is that the 
 demands of the Sermon are too high for the average 
 man. ' It is,' says a modern Jewish writer, ' the 
 distinction of the Mosaic rule of life that it requires 
 no impossible, superhuman effort, no seclusion or 
 morbid saintliness, to carry out our duty to God 
 and man, while it leaves at the same time a wide 
 field for our spiritual development, so that, like the 
 Jewish prophets, we may rise to the noblest con- 
 ceptions of our purpose in life.' ^ Or again : ' The 
 vision of Jesus was that of an apocalyptic dreamer, 
 his message was eschatologi<Jal, and therefore of 
 little practical value for everyday life.' ^ And once 
 more : ' It is contended by Jewish critics that the 
 defect in the ethical teaching of Jesus is that it is 
 strung so high that it has failed to produce solid 
 and practical results just where its admirers vaunt 
 that it differs from, and is superior to, the ethical 
 codes of the Pentateuch, the Prophets and the Rabbis. 
 • . . The bow is so bent that it snaps altogether. . . . 
 The injunction, " Love your enemies," is an in- 
 junction which has failed to produce a result. It 
 was conspicuously violated by Jesus himself, who, 
 if he had loved his enemies, would not have called 
 them vipers, or enthusiastically predicted their 
 arrival in hell ; ^ it has always been conspicuously 
 
 ' p. Goodman, The Synagogue and the Church, p. 277. 
 ' G. Friedlander, Sources, pp. 262 sq. 
 
 * I keep the phrase, shocking parody though it is of our Lord's solemn 
 utterances. 
 
 233 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 violated by his disciples. . . . What, then, are we to 
 say of a teaching which has so conspicuously failed 
 ill practical result ? " By your fruits shall ye 
 be judged, " said Jesus, and by its fruits his new 
 and superfine teaching stands condemned.' ^ ' It is 
 contrary,' writes another Jewish scholar, ' to sound 
 human nature to love a man who has made himself 
 hated by his infamous behaviour. Even Jesus and 
 his disciples who taught " Love your enemies " 
 did not act in agreement with their saying.' ^ The 
 Sermon is unpractical for the average man. Now 
 we may freely grant the truth of this indictment. 
 For the average man — ^the man, in fact, in whom 
 the love of the world predominates — will always 
 find the demands set forth by Christ too exacting 
 for him. He is certain either to pass them by, re- 
 gardless of them altogether, or vainly to endeavour 
 to tone them down to his own capabilities and desires. 
 But — and this merits particular attention — ^were 
 these demands ever intended for the average man ? 
 Are they not rather addressed to those who are 
 desirous of doing the will of God from the heart, 
 and meant for them as long as life shall last, and 
 up to, and including, every stage of progress that 
 they shall make ? Are they not intended for the 
 most advanced, the most spiritually perfect, of 
 Christ's followers, to the end of all time ? 
 
 * Montefiore, The Synoptic Gospels, pp. 523 sq. See also his OuUines of 
 Liberal Judaism, 1912, pp. 341-343. It should be observed that Mr. Monte- 
 fiore, speaking in his own person, says : ' How far is all this criticism just and 
 fair ? Some of it seems beside the mark.' See below, p. 243. 
 
 '^ Soheftelowitz, in Brann's Monatschrift, 1912, p. 367. For the last 
 sentence see also Montefiore, The Synoptic Gospels, p. 525. ' He rather 
 reviled the Scribes than prayed for them ; he returned their antagonism with 
 antagonism, and his denunciations show anything rather than love.' 
 
 234 
 
VI] THE SERMON ADDRESSED TO BELIEVERS ONLY 
 
 We are told, forsooth, that the Sermon ' sets 
 forth the indispensable characteristics of all who 
 would enter the Messianic kingdom.' ^ ' Indispens- 
 able ! ' Where is this in the Sermon ? And in 
 what meaning is it true ? If it be meant that no 
 one can become a member of the kingdom unless he 
 fulfils all the demands made upon him in the Sermon, 
 then indeed the so-called Gospel of Jesus of Nazareth 
 was no good news at all, but the harshest of harsh 
 laws and conditions. Then, indeed, the Church has 
 made a fatal error in her whole conception of the 
 life and work of Him whom she worships as her 
 Saviour from sin and Deliverer from the bondage 
 of the Law. 
 
 But if it be meant that the characteristics enjoined 
 in the Sermon will be found eventually to mark 
 every one of the perfected saints, whether he be 
 in heaven or on earth, we cannot quarrel with the 
 term ' indispensable.' For in this sense it is true, 
 true gloriously and eternally, and to the praise of 
 God.2 
 
 For when we consider the Sermon as a whole, 
 we see that it is addressed to true believers in God, 
 men who venture themselves wholly upon Him, and 
 to them alone. 
 
 Mindful of the Baptist's cry, ' Repent ye ; for 
 the kingdom of heaven is at hand,' and of his warning 
 
 ^ G. Friedlander, Sources, p. 91. 
 
 ' The Law of Moses is said to be practical, and easy to be kept by ordinary 
 people. Certainly, if it be taken at its surface value only ; but certainly 
 not, if its meaning be examined conscientiously, and its principles be under- 
 stood aright, with a true perception of the far-reaching nature of its claims. 
 It is one of the -vital differences between popular Judaism and true Christianity 
 that the former fails to appreciate the Law of Moses at its true worth, and 
 the latter magnifies it and makes it honourable. See further the writer's 
 Manual of Christian Evidences, §§ 173-179. 
 
 235 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 of the approach of One who would cleanse His 
 threshing-floor, gathering the wheat and burning 
 the chaff (iii. 2, II, 12) ; mindful also of the pro- 
 clamation by the new Teacher Himself : ' Repent 
 ye ; for the kingdom of heaven is at hand ' (iv. 17) ; 
 the multitudes gathered round Him on the moun- 
 tainside to hear the demands He made upon His 
 followers. What did they expect to hear ? What 
 did they desire ? Do this ? Do that ? Observe 
 these ceremonies? Keep those rules? Avoid this 
 and that sin ? Practise certain good actions ? They 
 did hear nothing of the kind, but ' Blessed are the 
 poor in spirit : for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.' ^ 
 What a contrast ! What glorious good news ! The 
 Gospel in its freedom, passing the understanding of 
 the clever and the learned, but welcomed by every 
 man, scholar or untrained, dull or brilliant, rich or 
 poor, Gentile or Jew, who was conscious of his need 
 and knew his poverty. Laden with the burden 
 of endless duties, an eloquent writer has said, the 
 multitude stood before Jesus, ready to take on them 
 His uttermost command, and they heard, instead of 
 ' Thou shalt,' a benediction, enfeoffing them with 
 the highest thing there is — on the one condition 
 that they knew their dependence upon God, and 
 hungered and thirsted after Him.^ 
 
 ^ Probably m. 4-9 are only an explanation and expansion of this funda- 
 mental thought. The necessity of becoming as little children (xviii. 3) is 
 the same truth expressed in other words. 
 
 ' See the very remarkable work by Dr. Johannes Miiller, Die Bergpredigt, 
 verdeutscht und vergegeniodrtigt, 3rd edition, 1911, p. 39. It is true that in 
 at. Luke's account of the Sermon the phrase ' in spirit ' is absent, but we are 
 considering St. Matthew's presentation of the Messiah, and, in any case, 
 whatever the original form may have been it is probable that St. Matthew 
 gives the original sense. If so, the gibe that ' as the Sermon was deUvered 
 
 236 
 
VI] HUMILITY 
 
 Now, it is quite true that Jews felt of old the 
 necessity of humility before God, and were well aware 
 of the grave danger of spiritual pride. In Ecclus. 
 iii. 17, we read : ' My son, go on with thy business 
 in meekness ; so shalt thou be beloved of an accept- 
 able man. The greater thou art, humble thyself 
 the more, and thou shalt find favour before the Lord. 
 For great is the potency of the Lord, and he is 
 glorified of them that are lowly.' It was no new 
 thing, therefore, for Christ to insist upon this. Nay, 
 did not Jewish teachers of the next century (and 
 they may well have been repeating the words of 
 His contemporaries) forbid Jews to stand on any- 
 thing raised, even a footstool, when they prayed to 
 God, that thus their thoughts might be kept humble ? i 
 The same fear of anything that might induce pride 
 directed the pious man not to take hasty steps or 
 walk upright : For ' Mar said, he who walks up- 
 right even four cubits is as though he pressed down 
 the feet of the Shekinah, for it is written : all the 
 
 only to the narrow circle of disciples, who were very poor people, the first 
 message is to encourage them ' (G. Friedlander, Sources, p. 18), loses its force. 
 Besides, it may be doubted whether the first disciples were such ' very poor 
 people ' {vide supra, p. 227, n. 5). 
 
 It should be noticed that if the first Benediction gives, as is probable, 
 the key-note of the Sermon, then to speak of the Sermon as standing in the 
 same relation to the New Testament that the Ten Commandments hold to 
 the Old Testament (Gore, The Sermon on the Mount, opening words) is mis- 
 leading. For our Lord's object in it is to bring men to a sense of their own 
 weakness and dependence upon God, and, while maintaining that attitude, 
 to aim at nothing less than likeness to Him. 
 
 On the other hand, Jews strangely pervert Christian teaching, when they 
 can write : ' The Church has placed salvation, not on what men do, but on 
 what they believe to have once happened ' (P. Goodman, The Synagogue 
 and the Church, p. 276). The Epistle of St. James ought to have saved 
 even the most cursory reader from so grave an error, 
 
 * Tosephta, Berakofh, iii. 17. 
 
 237 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 earth is full of His glory.' ^ Similarly, one should 
 always have a covering on one's head at prayer/ 
 and indeed at other times.^ 
 
 The same motive has suggested, in all probability, 
 the habit of bowing at certain of the Jewish forms of 
 Benediction,because to do so tends to increase the sense 
 of unworthiness in the presence of God.* For humility 
 was the chief of all graces. ' R. Joshua son of Levi 
 said : Humility is greater than them all, for it is said : 
 The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because He 
 hath anointed me to preach good tidings to the humble. 
 He does not say : To the pious, but to the humble. 
 You see that humility is greater than thgm all.' ^ 
 
 If, then, the importance of humility before God 
 was so frankly recognised by Jewish theologians, why 
 did Christ insist so much on it ? For a reason that 
 underlay much of His teaching. It was necessary 
 for Him sometimes to place accepted truths in a 
 different position and setting from that which they 
 already possessed, and sometimes to recall to the 
 religious sense of the bulk of the people what they 
 were in danger of forgetting. It is quite true that 
 there is much in the Old Testament about humility 
 of soul being the only right attitude for a sinful man, 
 and also that there is not a little in the teaching of 
 the Rabbis to the same effect. But he who knows 
 his own heart will be the first to admit that there is 
 no truth, which, in practice, is so easily overlooked 
 or shunned. It is probable that our Lord saw that 
 the teaching of the Old Testament with respect to 
 
 ' T.B. Berakoth, iSb. ' Mishna, Berakoth, v. 1 ; cf. ix. 3. 
 
 ^ See Jewish Encyclopedia, a.v. Bareheadedness, ii. 532. 
 * See Jastrow, Dictionary, s.v. nni!', p. 15466 ; Tosephta, Berakoth, i. 5. 
 The frequent bowings of Aqiba are mentioned in Tosephta, Berakoth, iii. 5. 
 ' Abodah Zarah, 20b. 
 
 238 
 
VI] ' POVERTY OF SPIRIT ' ESSENTIAL 
 
 humility of soul was not being carried out, and 
 therefore He insisted upon it, teaching that poverty 
 of spirit (another phrase for humility in its best and 
 strongest form) was the most necessary of all things 
 for His own followers. 
 
 In other words, He acted like many a Mission- 
 preacher in our Churches to-day, who brings no new 
 truths, and says nothing that has not been known, 
 or ought to have been known, long before. Yet 
 often the result of his coming is that the lives of many 
 are changed, and religion becomes quite a new thing 
 to them. So, as regards humility before God, Christ 
 taught nothing that had not been already laid down 
 by Lawgiver, Prophet, and Psalmist, and was to be 
 taught sometimes by Scribe and Rabbi, but He so 
 expounded it that the truth went home to many who 
 had not grasped its significance before, and it was to 
 them the very essence of the Good News which He 
 came on earth to bring. 
 
 Hence if passages are adduced from either the Old 
 Testament or later Jewish authorities to show that such 
 humility of spirit was already taught, namely, that 
 true religion consisted not in the doing of good actions 
 as such, but in self-abasement before God, we do not 
 deny it. What we do say is that at the time when 
 the Lord Jesus came, and indeed ever since, the Jewish 
 nation as a whole (we do not speak of individuals) has 
 not accepted this truth, but has proceeded on quite 
 other lines as means of salvation. We Christians 
 cannot boast ; we have fallen into the same error 
 ourselves. For centuries and centuries the Church, 
 like the Jewish nation, refused to humble itself be- 
 fore God, and, consciously or unconsciously, looked 
 for salvation as the effect of its own good deeds. 
 
 239 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 When therefore Mr. Montefiore allows that the 
 Sermon on the Mount ' contains nothing that is 
 essentially antagonistic to Judaism,' ^ we cordially 
 agree, if only we are permitted to interpret the word 
 ' Judaism ' in its highest meaning. But not other- 
 wise. For, by the necessity of the case, the Sermon is 
 ' essentially antagonistic ' to a great deal that passes 
 for Judaism, as it is to much that is called Christianity. 
 In fact, the whole of it, when rightly understood, is 
 specifically contrary to that conventional notion of 
 religion held by the ' average man,' whether he be a 
 baptized Christian or a circumcised Jew.^ 
 
 If this interpretation of the Sermon be right, that 
 it is addressed not to the average man, but to him 
 who is 'poor in spirit,' it is evident that the punc- 
 tilious performance of its detailed demands is but 
 unintelligent, and even hypocritical, when the pre- 
 supposed condition of humble dependence on God is 
 lacking. But if it be present, then the observance 
 of these demands is but the natural result of such a 
 spiritual state. 
 
 For, after all, they are the proper outgrowth of 
 love to God, which fulfils itself in many ways, and 
 knows no limit to its activity and expansion. Oppo- 
 nents, as we have seen, say that it is impossible for 
 us to love our enemies. It may rather be doubted 
 whether it is possible for a person who possesses any 
 true love to help loving them. If God loves His foes, 
 
 ^ The Synoptic Gospels, p. 555. On the next page he modifies this remark 
 by enumerating passages which he thinks objectionable, but he evidently 
 regards them as minor blemishes in ' a religious document of the highest 
 nobihty, significance, and power.' Mr. G. Priedlander is very vexed with 
 him {Sources, pp. 262-266). 
 
 " It need hardly be mentioned that such a sense of one's own dependence 
 on God stands in no kind of contradiction to true self-respect, 
 
 340 
 
VI] THE IDEAL LIFE 
 
 the Christian as such can do no less. If he fails to 
 love them, so far he is not moved by Divine love 
 at all.i 
 
 It is, however, surely needless to say that Christ 
 contemplates no blind performance of His demands — 
 demands in such a case made by an authority external, 
 and solely external, to him who would do them. 
 Don Quixote is not the ideal of humanity. Love 
 must take into full account the effect of its every 
 action, and if, in any given circumstances, an act of 
 love is likely to prove to be an act of ill, the would- 
 be doer of it cannot but pretermit its doing. 
 
 ' There is a real danger,' writes the Bampton 
 Lecturer of a few years ago, ' in all hasty and ill- 
 considered attempts to relieve distress ; the danger 
 that while we feed the hungry and clothe the naked 
 we may rob them of honesty and self-respect. But 
 that does not mean that we are to make no effort ; 
 it means more effort — ^the very hard and distasteful 
 effort to understand the evils on which our comfort 
 and prosperity are based.' ^ The fact is that Christ's 
 demands, whether they refer to almsgiving, or riches, 
 or marriage, or avoidance of oaths, all contemplate 
 our thoughts and actions under what has been called 
 
 1 Cf. Dr. Johannes Miiller, Die Bergpredigt, p. 171. 'Man kann in 
 Wahrheit nur lieben, wenn man lieben muss. Darum muss auoh die Ldebe 
 zu den Feinden eine impulsive Ausserung urspriinglichen Empfindens sein, 
 wenn sie eoht sein soil.' The whole passage deserves study. Mr. Montefiore 
 appears to be feeUng after this philosophical, and therefore Christian, truth 
 in his sympathetic remarks on pp. 343 sq. of his Outlines of Liberal Judaism. 
 Prof. James Denney writes : ' He is to find in love alone his impulse and his 
 guide, and he is to go all lengths with love ' (The Literal Interpretation of the 
 Sermon on the Mount, p. 40). 
 
 ' Dole not thy duties out to God, 
 But let thy hand be free.' — ^Fabee, Hymns. 
 
 ' Peile, The Reproach of the Cfospel, 1907, p. 110. It may be noted that 
 the bathos of the last clause is not apparent in its original context. 
 
 241 R 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 the ' subjugation to a unifying principle which controls 
 the life.' ^ When we are ruled by that, the supreme 
 principle of dependence on God and fellowship with 
 Him, all else in us falls into its proper place. So far, 
 and only so far, as we are receptive of Him, remain- 
 ing in His love and under His influence, are we able 
 to carry out the ideal life described in the Sermon.^ 
 It is then probable that our Lord had no intention 
 of bidding His followers observe the demands con- 
 tained in these three chapters of the Gospel according 
 to St. Matthew unless they complied with the first 
 and greatest of all — conscious self-abasement before 
 God, and dependence upon Him. For this raises a 
 man's whole tone, and, as a consequence, his one 
 desire is to do the complete will of God. Henceforth 
 he is not satisfied with the performance of duties, 
 even though they were ordered by Christ Himself. 
 He wants to carry out the whole will of God, so far as 
 he can understand it, and he expects to understand it 
 better the more he carries it out. To him directions 
 as such are comparatively unimportant. Words, 
 he knows well, are not commensurate with Divine 
 demands, and cannot adequately express them. The 
 circumstances of life are too many for verbal orders 
 to cover, even if they could be given time after time. 
 He is glad, no doubt, to have such verbal orders, so 
 far as they go, but he knows that to obey them always 
 and au pied de la lettre would sometimes be to disobey 
 their import. He is compelled, therefore, to interpret 
 
 1 A. E. F. Macgregor in Hastings, E.R.E. v. 408, s.v. Ethical Discipline. 
 
 ^ In contrast to the principle of the world that might is right, the founda- 
 tion of the social ethics of the kingdom of God is that greatness is 
 commensurate with service to others (Matt. xx. 26). Compare H. J. Holtz- 
 mann, N.T. Theologie, i. 232. After all, this is but another side of the Prayer 
 Book saying : Cui servire regnare est. 
 
 242 
 
vi] LITERALISM STULTIFIES 
 
 them in accordance with the surroundings of his 
 Ufe, and the character of the persons with whom 
 he is brought into contact.^ No doubt this is much 
 harder than to obey commands Hterally, however 
 difficult, for he has continually to keep in touch with 
 the Divine Source of life and wisdom, in order to 
 perceive the ' nexte thynge ' that he must do. But 
 this is inseparable from his new position. He has 
 entered on fellowship with God, and he has to apply 
 to the details of his life the superhuman knowledge 
 day by day imparted to him.^ 
 
 That the commands we find in the Sermon on the 
 Mount express the highest form of Divine and there- 
 fore Christian morality we do not doubt, but we 
 perceive also with increasing clearness that for us 
 to attempt to keep them literally, regardless of the 
 effect of doing so, would in many cases stultify our 
 lives. The Christian man will prepare for them ; he 
 will hold them ever before him as the ideal of what 
 a Christian life should be, but he will put them into 
 practice in their literal meaning only so far as com- 
 plete, not partial, opportunities are given to him.^ 
 
 But if the Sermon on the Mount is held as a whole 
 
 ^ Compare Martensen, Ethics, Individual, § 100. 
 
 ' In measure he has the experience of the Son, who ' can do nothing of 
 himself, but what he seeth the Father doing ; for what things soever he doeth, 
 these the Son also doeth in hke manner ' (John v. 19). Prof. James Dermey 
 writes : ' The mind of Jesus will be reached, not when we keep His words 
 as we observe the terms of an Act of Parhament, but when the consciousness 
 of God in our hearts is hke what it was in His ' [The Literal Interpretation of 
 the Sermon on the Mount, p. 50). 
 
 ' Mr. Monteflore says that the method of the bishop in Les MiseraUes, 
 who by his extraordinary kindness won the heart of the convict, would not 
 always succeed. ' One needs to be that bishop to try it with HkeUhood of 
 good results ' {The Synoptic Gospels, p. 517). Quite so ; not a single demand 
 in the Sermon, or several of its demands, but the whole of it, including 
 the first verse, is the condition of influence. 
 
 243 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 to be unpractical for the individual, it is accused of 
 being utterly subversive of society and the nation. 
 ' Tolstoi says that the doctrine of the Gospel would 
 do away with States and tribunals, property and 
 individual rights. The fact is that Jesus here, as 
 elsewhere, enunciates a principle that would destroy 
 the structure of society.' ^ ' This advice not to show 
 resistance,' writes M. Loisy, * may suit a small select 
 band in a world which is about to come to an end, 
 or men devoted to an extraordinary mission which 
 requires from them a renunciation of self as extra- 
 ordinary as their destiny, but not a society which has 
 to live and perpetuate its existence in order.' ^ So 
 again M. Loisy says : ' A country in which all honest 
 folk were to comply with these maxims, instead of 
 being like the kingdom of heaven, would be the para- 
 dise of robbers and villains.' ^ Even Dr. Sanday 
 writes : ' The ethical ideal of Christianity is the ideal 
 of a Church. It does not follow that it is also the 
 ideal of the State. If we are to say the truth, we must 
 admit that parts of it would become impracticable 
 if they were transferred from the individual standing 
 alone to governments or individuals representing 
 society.' * 
 
 Yet the same principle applies to this objection 
 as to the former : and this is what we should expect. 
 For it is a desperate expedient to assert that the 
 ethics of a community or nation are different in kind 
 from those of individuals, and therefore that what 
 Christ demands from the latter He does not contem- 
 plate being done by the former. 
 
 ' G. Friedlander, Sources, p. 66. 
 ' Montefiore, The Synoptic Gospels, p. 517. 
 
 » H. J. Holtzmann, N.T. Theologie, i. 230. « Hastings' D.B. ii. 6216. 
 
 2U 
 
VI] NO CHRISTIAN NATION KNOWN 
 
 No, it is not possible to find any trace of distinc- 
 tion on Christ's part between individual and social 
 ethics in their character, however wide the variation 
 may be in the scope and theatre of their activity. 
 Indeed for there to be any difference in the ethical 
 laws that finally determine the management of a 
 nation from those that govern an individual would 
 imply the ruin of the latter. The commonwealth 
 being but the aggregation of individuals, the ethics 
 of the constituent parts must surely determine those 
 of the whole. ' The essential unity of individual 
 and social mind ' ^ would appear to be an axiom, not 
 requiring proof, but itself the test of every proposition 
 on the subject, theoretical or practical. 
 
 The ethics, then, as such are the same. The only 
 question is whether the community or nation is far 
 enough advanced in spiritual life to have made the 
 opening Benediction of the Sermon a reality for 
 itself. If not, it cannot be expected to answer to the 
 further demands of Christ. 
 
 It has failed to rise to the opportunity presented 
 to it. For though we have all known Christian men, 
 or men whom, by some stretch of the exact use of 
 terms, it is . convenient to call so, we have never seen 
 a Christian nation, much less a Christian world. 
 And, once more, just as it is only in proportion as a 
 
 ^ Prof. J. B. Baillie in E.R.E. v. 411 on Ethical Idealism, ne goes on to 
 say that ' Institutions are embodiments of the social spirit, from which 
 individuals themselves derive their moral sustenance and support. . . . Institu- 
 tions are a more objective and permanent embodiment of the supreme 
 principle in man's life than the actions or the life of a given individual ; and 
 conversely we see more fully in institutions what the final end of man is. . . . 
 The operations of the individual mind in reahzing its own end, and the opera- 
 tions of the social mind in reahzing a common end, proceed on the same plan.' 
 See also Votaw in Hastings' D.B. v. 296 sq. 
 
 245 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH 
 
 nation is Christian that an individual believer can 
 fully carry out the demands of the Sermon, so only in 
 proportion as all the nations are Christian can any 
 one Christian nation do so. 
 
 The blame for the present state of things must 
 then not be laid on the Sermon, but on the reception 
 given to the fundamental basis on which its demands 
 rest, to the presupposition underlying them all. 
 Once let an individual be ' poor in spirit,' and main- 
 tain as his constant attitude the dependence on God, 
 which that phrase implies, so will he be drawn on 
 to observe the demands with increasing completeness. 
 And thus also will it be with the community, or 
 nation, of such blessed individuals. Let it, in its 
 turn, be truly dependent on God, and it will endeavour 
 to carry out the demands of Christ as far as the con- 
 dition of the other nations in the world permits.^ 
 
 But when each of these nations, one by one, be- 
 comes consciously dependent upon God, and ' the 
 kingdom of the world is become the kingdom of our 
 Lord and of his Christ,' then will the ideal of the 
 Sermon be accomplished, and all alike, whether in- 
 dividuals, or communities, or nations, or the world, 
 will vie in fulfilling the ethical demands made upon His 
 followers by the Great Teacher, Jesus the Messiah.^ 
 
 1 ' Ours till lately was a government of maxims, and perhaps is so 
 in a great measure still. The economists want to substitute a despotism of 
 systems. But who, until the coming of Christ's Kingdom, can hope to see 
 a government of principles ? ' — ^A. W. and J. C. Hare, Guesses at Truth, 1827 
 (edition of 1874, p. 236). 
 
 ' It is hardly necessary to point out that as the Sermon is PauUne in its 
 insistence on the sense of dependence on God and His grace, so also is it in 
 making works the final test of character (v. 13-16 ; vii. 16-27). We may 
 compare the Jewish sayings : ' By their works those who have wrought 
 them are known ' {Secrets of Enoch, xlii. 14) ; and ' Whosoever teaches noble 
 things and does them, shall be enthroned with kings ' {Test. Levi, xiii, 9). 
 
 246 
 
Lecture Seven 
 
 THE MESSIAH — THE SON OF DAVID 
 
' Hosanna to the son of 
 David.' — ^Matt. xxi. 9. 
 
Lecture Seven 
 
 THE MESSIAH — THE SON OF DAVID 
 
 DURING our study of the presentation of the 
 Messiah to the Jews in the Gospel according to 
 St. Matthew, we have considered Him in rela- 
 tion to the Sadducees and Pharisees, and as the 
 Healer of Disease, and lastly as the Teacher, particu- 
 larly as He is made known to us in that summary 
 of His doctrine known to us as the Sermon on the 
 Mount. We turn now to three phrases, each of far- 
 extending significance, and each an important part 
 of that picture which the writer of this Gospel desires 
 to portray. These are ' the Son of David,' ' the Son 
 of Man,' and ' the Son of God ' ; describing Messiah 
 as the ideal Ruler of the Jewish people, the ideal Man 
 in service and in power, and the ideal representative 
 of God Himself .1 
 
 They are well-known terms, so well known that it 
 is difficult for us to study them dispassionately, with- 
 out reading into them the connotations given by 
 nearly nineteen centuries of Christian thought, which 
 cannot have been present in full to the mind of the 
 Evangelist. Yet each had a history when St. Matthew 
 selected it for his description of the Christ, and our 
 task now is to try to understand that history, and 
 endeavour to give to each term its rightful mean- 
 ing, the sense intended by the writer. Each sums 
 up hopes long apparent to the Jewish mind, though 
 
 1 The three thoughts are found closely together in xii. 18, 23, 32, and 
 with the substitution of ' the Christ ' for ' the Son of David ' in xvi. 13, 16 ; 
 xxvi. 63, 64. 
 
 249 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 indefinite and vague, but now laid open in the First 
 Gospel in their true significance. 
 
 We must consider the phrases separately, doing our 
 best to keep the content of each as distinct as possible 
 from that of the other two. Not indeed that this is 
 easy. For the hopes contained in one tend to run over 
 into those of the others, and when, as here, all three 
 streams plainly and definitely converge on one and 
 the same Person, it is difficult to view them apart, 
 necessary though this is if we would understand their 
 combined strength. For, to change the figure, as it is 
 not possible to appreciate all the teaching of a com- 
 posite photograph unless we also hold before us the 
 original pictures of which it is made up, so if we are 
 to estimate at its right value the portrait of the 
 Messiah in this Gospel, we must pay the closest 
 attention to each separate delineation of Him, as the 
 nation's King, the perfect Man, the revelation of God. 
 
 Thus the subject of this seventh lecture is Messiah 
 the Son of David ; that of the eighth will be, Messiah 
 the Son of Man, that of the ninth, Messiah the Son 
 of God. Following these, and closely connected with 
 them, will come one on the Apocalyptists, in which we 
 shall consider the whole question of the relation of 
 the Messiah to the current eschatology of His time. 
 
 I. Our theme, then, is : Jesus the Son of David ; 
 the King, not of the world (or, if of the world, only 
 so indirectly), but of the nation of the Jews. For a 
 national king was expected, and on the phrase, the 
 Son of David, have been inscribed, as on a register, 
 many and many an expression of the nation's hope, 
 before it was incorporated into St. Matthew's 
 narrative. 
 
 250 
 
VII] ' THE SON OF DAVID '—IN THE O.T. 
 
 It is based upon the Old Testament, as, I should 
 suppose, are all other Jewish beliefs and hopes that 
 are of any importance. ' Thus shalt thou say unto 
 my servant David. . . . When thy days be fulfilled, 
 and thou shalt sleep with thy fathers, I will set up 
 thy seed after thee, which shall proceed out of thy 
 bowels, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall 
 build an house for my name, and I will establish the 
 throne of his kingdom for ever. . . . And thine 
 house and thy kingdom shall be made sure for ever 
 before thee : thy throne shall be established for ever.' i 
 Starting from this foundation-text the Jews appear to 
 have built up their expectation, that, come what might 
 to the nation, to its city and its polity, there would 
 always be a king, ready to appear in God's good 
 time, a king who should belong to the stock and 
 lineage of David. 
 
 So Jeremiah writes : ' They shall serve the Lord 
 their God, and David their king, whom I will raise 
 up unto them.' ^ So also Ezekiel : ' And I will set 
 up one shepherd over them, and he shall feed them, 
 even my servant David ; he shall feed them, and he 
 shall be their shepherd. And I the Lord will be their 
 God, and my servant David prince among them ; 
 I the Lord have spoken it.' ^ Similarly, he adds 
 later : ' And my servant David shall be king over 
 them ; . . . and David my servant shall be their 
 prince for ever.' * 
 
 Listen again to Isa. Iv. 3, 4 : 'I will make an 
 everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies 
 
 ' 2 Sam. vii. 8, 12, 13, 16. The Messianic reference of this passage is 
 assumed by Trypho, and used by him in argument against Justin {^Dialogue 
 with Trypho, § 68). On v. 14 cf. Lecture IX, p. 313. 
 
 " Jar. XXX, 9. ^ Ezek. xxxiv. 23 sq. ' Ibid, xxxvii. 24 sq. 
 
 251 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 of David. Behold, I have given him for a witness to 
 the peoples, a leader and commander to the peoples.' ^ 
 And we find in Ps. Ixxxix. 34-37 : ' My covenant 
 will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out 
 of my lips. Once have I sworn by my holiness ; I 
 will not lie unto David ; his seed shall endure for ever, 
 and his throne as the sun before me. It shall be estab- 
 lished for ever as the moon, and as the faithful witness 
 in the sky.' ^ The same thought of the certainty of 
 the permanence of the Davidic kingdom underlies 
 passages in Ecclesiasticus and 1 Maccabees : ' The 
 sovereignty was divided, and out of Ephraim ruled a 
 disobedient kingdom. But the Lord will never forsake 
 his mercy ; and he will not destroy any of his works, 
 nor blot out the prosperity of his elect ; but the seed 
 of him that loved him he will not take away ; and he 
 gave a remnant unto Jacob, and unto David a root 
 out of him.' ^ ' David for being merciful inherited 
 the throne of a kingdom for ever and ever.' * 
 
 The tone of the Pseudepigraphic Writings gene- 
 rally, which (as we shall see in the next Lecture) deal 
 with wider issues than the nation,^ is not favourable 
 to the mention of the national king. 
 
 Yet the seventeenth and eighteenth of the Psalms 
 of Solomon describe Him : ' Behold, O Lord, and 
 
 ^ Apparently ' the peoples ' are non- Jewish. 
 
 ' The signal by which the sight of the new moon was sometimes forwarded 
 to Jerusalem was based on the language of this verse : ' David, the King of 
 Israel, lives and abides for ever ' (Bosh haShanah, 25a). It may have been, 
 at the same time, a confession of faith in the coming of the Messiah. 
 
 ' Ecclus. xlvii. 21 sq. The immediate reference of the passage is, of course, 
 to the permanence of David's line through Rehoboam. Of. the eighth verse 
 of the Hebrew Hymn of Praise inserted after li. 12. See further Oesterley, 
 The Books of the Apocrypha, 1914, pp. 281 sqq. 
 
 * 1 Maco. ii. 67. 
 
 ' In this doubtless lies the secret of their preservation by non- Jewish hands, 
 
 252 
 
vii] IN THE PSALMS OF SOLOMON 
 
 raise up unto them their king, the son of David,^ 
 at the time in which thou seest, God, that he may 
 reign over Israel thy servant. And gird him with 
 strength that he may shatter unrighteous rulers, 
 and that he may purge Jerusalem from nations that 
 trample her down to destruction. . . . With a rod 
 of iron he shall break in pieces all their substance, 
 he shall destroy the godless nations with the word of 
 his mouth ; at his rebuke nations shall flee before 
 him, and he shall reprove sinners for the thoughts of 
 their heart. . . . And he shall have the heathen 
 nations to serve under his yoke ; and he shall glorify 
 the Lord in a place to be seen of (?) all the earth ; 
 and he shall purge Jerusalem, making it holy as 
 of old : so that nations shall come from the ends of 
 the earth to see his glory. . . . And he shall be a 
 righteous king, taught of God, over them, and there 
 shall be no unrighteousness in his days in their midst, 
 for all shall be holy and their king the anointed of the 
 Lord. . . . Blessed shall be they that shall be in those 
 days, in that they shall see the goodness of the Lord 
 which he shall perform for the generation that is 
 to come.' ^ 
 
 We may add the following from the Sibylline 
 Books : ' But when Rome shall rule over Egypt as 
 well, as she still hesitates to do, then the mightiest 
 kingdom of the immortal king over men shall appear. 
 And a holy prince shall come to wield the sceptre 
 over all the world unto all ages of hurrying time.' ^ 
 
 ^ The earliest example of this title of the Messiah (Dalman, Words, p. 317). 
 
 * The translation is from Charles' Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the 
 Old Testament, 1913. 
 
 ' iii. 46-50. These verses may belong to the beginning of the first 
 century B.C. 
 
 253 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 ' And then from the sunrise God shall send a king who 
 shall give every land relief from the bane of war : 
 some he shall slay and to others he shall consecrate 
 faithful vows. Nor shall he do all these things by 
 his own will, but in obedience to the good ordinances 
 of the mighty God. And again the people of the 
 mighty God shall be laden with excellent wealth, 
 with gold and silver and purple adornment.' ^ ' But 
 when he (Nero) reaches the zenith of power, and his 
 boldness knows no shame, he shall come fain even to 
 sack the city of the blessed. And then a king sent 
 from God against him shall destroy all the mighty 
 kings and the best of the men.' ^ 
 
 In the Syriac Apocalypse of Baruch, written in the 
 end of the first century of our era, we find the follow- 
 ing : ' The last leader of that time will be left alive, 
 when the multitude of his hosts will be put to the 
 sword, and he will be bound, and they will take him 
 up to Mount Zion, and My Messiah will convict him 
 of all his impieties, and will gather and set before him 
 all the works of his hosts. And afterwards he will 
 put him to death, and protect the rest of My people 
 which shall be found in the place which I have chosen. 
 And his principate will stand for ever, until the world 
 of corruption is at an end, and until the times afore- 
 said are fulfilled.' ^ 
 
 The Ezra-Apocalypse of about 100 a.d. has a very 
 vivid account of the Messiah, from which the follow- 
 ing may be quoted : ' And as for the lion whom thou 
 
 ' iii. 652-657. This passage may have been written in the second 
 century B.C. 
 
 " V. 106-110. This book may have been written in the beginning of the 
 second century a.d. See another quotation in Lecture X, p. 356. 
 
 ^ xl. 1-3. See also Lecture X, p. 357. 
 
 254 
 
VII] IN THE EZRA-APOCALYPSE 
 
 didst see roused from the wood and roaring, and 
 speaking to the eagle and reproving him for his un- 
 righteousness and all his deeds, as thou hast heard : 
 This is the Messiah whom the most High hath kept 
 unto the end of the days, who shall spring from the 
 seed of David, and shall come and speak unto them ; 
 he shall reprove them for their ungodliness, rebuke 
 them for their unrighteousness, reproach them to 
 their faces with their treacheries. For at the first 
 he shall set them alive for judgment ; and when he 
 hath rebuked them he shall destroy them.' ^ 
 
 The Messiah, however, is for this writer to be a 
 mere man, who shall pass away like other mortals : 
 ' For behold the days come, and it shall be when the 
 signs which I have foretold unto thee shall come to 
 pass, then shall the city that now is invisible appear, 
 and the land which is now concealed be seen ; and 
 whosoever is delivered from the predicted evils, the 
 same shall see my wonders. For my Son the Messiah 
 shall be revealed, together with those who are with 
 him, and shall rejoice the survivors four hundred 
 years. And it shall be, after these years, that my 
 Son the Messiah shall die, and all in whom there is 
 human breath. Then shall the world be turned into 
 the primaeval silence seven days, like as at the first 
 beginnings ; so that no man is left:' ^ 
 
 When we turn to the Talmudic and Rabbinic 
 writings, in our endeavour to ascertain what light 
 they throw on the pre-Christian history of the term, 
 we meet the same difficulty as before, that, strictly 
 speaking, they contribute no directly pre-Christian 
 evidence at all. For, as we are well aware, no Jewish 
 
 1 xii. 31-33. Cf. Lecture X, pp. 356 sq. 
 
 ' vii. 26-30. On the appellation ' my Son,' see Lecture IX. 
 
 255 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 uncanonical writing in Hebrew or Aramaic has sur- 
 vived from a date earlier than the first century of 
 our era, save indeed Ecclesiasticus, from which we 
 have already quoted, the lately discovered ' History 
 of Ahikar,' which is of little or no interest in this con- 
 nexion, and possibly the Fragments of a Zadoqite 
 Work, both the date and the interpretation of which 
 are quite uncertain. 
 
 Yet it is evident that if so well known a designa- 
 tion as ' the Son of David ' be found not only in 
 Christian books but also on the lips of teachers hon- 
 oured in the Talmud, it must have been accepted by 
 these earlier than the rise of Christianity. We are 
 justified, therefore, in employing this somewhat late 
 evidence to throw light upon the history of the 
 phrase before the time of St. Matthew, 
 
 The important fact is that ' the Son of David ' is 
 the one established, as well as the commonest, name 
 for the Messiah in Jewish literature,^ and although it 
 becomes more frequent in sayings by teachers later 
 than the time of Hadrian than by those who lived 
 earlier, it is sometimes employed by these from 
 Jochanan ben Zakkai (c. 100 a.d.) onwards. He said, 
 ' The Son of David comes not, save in a generation 
 which is all righteous, or all guilty.' ^ So again, 
 Gamaliel II (c. 110 a.d.) teaches, ' As for the generation 
 in which the Son of David cometh the lecture-room 
 will be given up to immorality, Galilee will be laid 
 
 ' See Klausner, Bie messianischen VorsleUungen u.s.w., p. 67. The one 
 exception is the strange idea that He should be of the stock of Levi, to which 
 the fautors of the Hasmonsean dynasty gave expression {Test. Reuben, § 6 ; 
 Levi, § 8 ; Dan, § 5). See also the Zadohite. Fragments, ix. 10 (B), 29 ; 
 XV. 4, and Eoolus. xlv. 23-25, (Hebr.). Cf. Oesterley, The Boohs of the 
 Apocrypha, 1914, p. 149, who thinks this was the doctrine of the Sadducees. 
 
 ' Tl.B. Sanhedrin, 98a. 
 
 256 
 
VII] IN THE EIGHTEEN BENEDICTIONS 
 
 waste,' and so on.^ Similarly, in Hosea iii. 5, where 
 the Hebrew reads : ' Afterward shall the children 
 of Israel return, and seek the Loed their God, and 
 David their king,' the Targum has : ' And they will 
 obey Messiah son of David their king.' 
 
 Sometimes the connexion with David is expressed 
 slightly differently, or even more directly, though the 
 thought is the same. Thus in the fifteenth prayer 
 of the Babylonian recension of the Eighteen Bene- 
 dictions we find : ' The Branch of David wilt thou 
 cause to branch forth soon, and his horn shall be 
 exalted in thy salvation.' The Jerusalem Talmud, 
 however, saying ' We pray for David ' {Ber. ii. 4. 
 p. 5a), combines this Benediction with the passage 
 from Hosea. It then continues : ' Our teachers say 
 with reference to this : If king Messiah is among the 
 living, his name is David, if he is among the dead, 
 his name is David.' ^ 
 
 But, in fact, the phrase ' the Son of David ' was 
 in the Jewish mind so synonymous with ' Messiah ' 
 that it is needless to attempt to quote passages from 
 Talmudic and Rabbinic writings descriptive of His 
 work under the former title. It is the more unneces- 
 sary as the Talmudic view is the same as that which 
 has been already given. To use the words of a learned 
 Jew : ' In the rabbinical apocalyptic literature the 
 conception of an earthly Messiah is the prevailing 
 
 ' Derek Ereta Zuta, c. 10. In T.B. Sanhedrin, 97a, the saying is attributed 
 to R. Jehuda ; see Bacher, Die Agada der Tannaiten, i. 97. 
 
 • The same remark is found in T.B. Sanhedrin, 986, where the clause 
 ' among the living ' is illustrated by the case of R. Jehudah the Saint, the 
 ooitlpiler of the Mishna, and ' among the dead ' by that of Daniel. There 
 is also the addition : ' R. Jehudah reports that Rab said, the Holy One 
 will raise up for them another David, as is said in Jer, zxx. 9.' 
 
 257 s 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 one, and from the end of the first century of the 
 common era it is also the one officially accepted by 
 Judaism. . . . His mission is, in all essential re- 
 spects, the same as in the apocalypses of the older 
 period : he is to free Israel from the power of the 
 heathen world, kill its ruler and destroy its hosts, 
 and set up his own kingdom of peace.' ^ 
 
 ' The Son of David,' then, sums up an important 
 side of the character and work of Messiah, as He 
 was depicted in Jewish thought of immediately pre- 
 Christian times ; namely, that He was to be of the 
 stock of David, and a conqueror like David, leading 
 His nation to victory, giving to the Gentiles peace 
 if they accepted His rule, restoring to Israel itself 
 the blessings of a just government, and material 
 prosperity.^ 
 
 That this was indeed the hope of Israel may be 
 seen further by the character of those who claimed to 
 be Messiahs. For declaring themselves agents of the 
 LoKD, they led the people to war against their earthly 
 oppressors. The only two who are little more than 
 names to us are Judas of Galilee and Barcochba, 
 separated indeed by about 120 years, but identical 
 in spirit. Both were zealous for Israel, and for the 
 deliverance of God's people from their enemies. Each 
 secured; either at once or ultimately, a large number 
 of adherents, the former among the untutored in- 
 habitants of Galilee, the latter among all classes, 
 
 1 Buttenwieser in the Jewish Encyclopedia, viii. 510 sq. The general 
 truth of this statement is unaffected by the later figment of a Messiah ben 
 Joseph, who was to be killed by the Gentile hosts, while Messiah ben David 
 fafter suffering, but not dying) was in turn to conquer these. The earliest 
 evidence for this legend is R. Dosa (c. 250 a.d.) in T.B. Sukhah, 52 a, 6. 
 
 ' It is not necessary to show that the books of the New Testament outside 
 the First Gospel fully confirm the prevalence of a hope of this kind. 
 
 258 
 
VII] JESUS THE KING 
 
 including even Aqiba, the typical Pharisee, the light 
 and joy of every pious Jew from that day to this.^ 
 An earthly king, using worldly means, successful in 
 war, restoring political independence and material 
 prosperity, and bringing about everything ideal in 
 government — ^this was what the Jews meant by their 
 title ' the Son of David,' and such a Messiah they 
 expected. Yet St. Matthew dares to claim that the 
 meek and gentle Jesus of Nazareth was the rightful 
 heir to this title, was in very truth the Son of David, 
 the hope of his people. A bold claim indeed ! 
 
 The obvious objection of the literalist is that Jesus 
 was never crowned with a golden crown, nor formally 
 installed with human pomp and ceremony ; and 
 never reigned in any tangible sense over country or 
 any city.^ Yet it is undeniable that if a king is one 
 whom persons obey, and is the more fully king in pro- 
 portion as they who obey him are greater in number 
 and yield completer service, then of men born of 
 women there never has been one to whom the title 
 ought more ungrudgingly to be given than to Jesus 
 of Nazareth. Besides, the orthodox Christian con- 
 tention, and also, as will appear, the view put forth by 
 the Evangelist, is that Jesus, the Son of David, has 
 not even yet entered into full enjoyment of His title, 
 but is now like an earthly king between the moment 
 of his accession and the day on which he is crowned 
 amid the shouts and applause of his people. The 
 coronation day of the Messiah is still to come. 
 
 * There is no reason to think that Judas of Galilee was connected with 
 the family of David, and Barcochba certainly was not. But both are examples 
 of the kind of Messiah that was typified to the popular mind by the term 
 ' the Son of David.' 
 
 ? See, for example, R. Isaac of Troki {1533-1594 a.d.) in his CMzzuk 
 
 h. i. §:3. 
 
 259 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 For this Gospel represents itself as history, and 
 professes to give us facts upon which we can rest our 
 theories. We all know; indeed, that there is in our own 
 day a temporary aberration of philosophical thought, 
 which would attempt to ignore facts, and to insist on 
 spiritual sensations alone, as being the sole evidence 
 of spiritual truths. Spiritual sensations are them- 
 selves facts which may not be relegated to the realm 
 of fancy as though they were non-existent. And 
 we dare not, God forbid, underrate the importance 
 of spiritual experience, or forget its supreme import- 
 ance in the rehgious Ufe. But it is not scientific to 
 separate such a fact of the spirit from other depart- 
 ments of human life, and say that it is so distinct that 
 it can receive nothing from them, when perhaps it 
 is dependent on them for its very existence. For 
 indeed we may gravely doubt whether ultimately the 
 human mind, as it is, can receive mental and spiritual 
 impressions, save from things altogether external to 
 it. That it must have affinity with them, affinity of 
 some kind, goes without saying. But facts, external 
 and hard facts, are, it may be, the stuff out of which, 
 in the last instance, all spiritual sensations grow. 
 God, the Father of Spirits, uses them, it may be said, 
 as the means whereby He will teach His people of 
 Himself, and give them insight into His nature and 
 character, His methods and His work. If so, we 
 cannot blame the Evangelist for setting forth facts 
 as the foundation of that belief in the Messiah which 
 he desires to build up. 
 
 II. ' The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, 
 the son of David.' ^ Although reference was made to 
 
 » Matt. i. 1. 
 260 
 
VII] THE DAVIDIC ORIGIN OF JESUS 
 
 these words in the first Lecture, it is necessary to 
 repeat here that in the very opening sentence of the 
 Gospel the writer desires to affirm the claim he is 
 making for Jesus. And he gives, as we have already 
 seen, a whole genealogy to prove his point, arranging 
 it too in such a way as to bring before the minds of 
 the more thoughtful of his earliest readers, Jewish 
 by birth though Christian in creed, the strange 
 vicissitudes of their nation. Generations had come 
 and gone, the visible glory of the Hebrew monarchy 
 had departed, but the line of David had not failed, 
 and the hoped-for scion of the Davidic stock had at 
 last appeared. 
 
 Purveyors of paradoxes, no doubt, would fain 
 persuade us that the Davidic origin of Jesus is not 
 a fact at all, nay, that far from being a descendant 
 of David, He had not a drop of Jewish blood in His 
 veins ; for, coming as He did from Galilee, He was, 
 without any question, of purely Gentile origin, an 
 Aryan, not a Semite. What are the reasons which 
 have suggested this extraordinary statement, con- 
 fessedly opposed to the opinion of our Lord's con- 
 temporaries, and to that of the whole of history, 
 Jewish and Gentile, until a few years since ? ^ 
 
 They appear to be these. Even in the times 
 of the Old Testament Galilee was but sparsely 
 occupied by members of the Plebrew race. Part 
 of it at least was ' Galilee of the Gentiles.' ^ Not 
 only so, but when the Assyrian monarchs had carried 
 off the inhabitants,^ it was not repeopled by Hebrew 
 blood for several centuries. Even in the time of 
 
 ^ See the arguments of Professor Paul Haupt of Baltimore quoted in the 
 Expository Times, Sept. 1909, pp. 530 sq. 
 
 » Isa. ix. 1. '2 Kings xv. 29. 
 
 261 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 Simon the Maccabee (who died in 135 B.C.) the Jews 
 in Gahlee must have been but few in number, for 
 they sent to him saying that they were in danger 
 of destruction by their neighbours, and though he 
 went and fought many battles with the Gentiles, 
 and the Gentiles were discomfited before him, he 
 did not dare to leave the Jewish inhabitants there, 
 ' but brought them into Judaea with great gladness.' ^ 
 Nor was it before the reign of Aristobulus I (105-104 
 B.C.) that Jewish rule was finally established, when 
 many of the Gentile inhabitants were compelled 
 to accept Judaism.^ From that time, however, the 
 Galileans were considered Jewish. But, as will be 
 observed, the very lateness of the date at which 
 it was possible for many Jewish families to settle 
 there makes it easier to credit the statement of 
 the Evangelist that Joseph was in all strictness a 
 Jew, and of the stock and lineage of David. No 
 long time had elapsed since his family could have 
 lived permanently in Galilee ; therefore the ancestral 
 home at Bethlehem was not forgotten.' If we have 
 any regard at all for the truthfulness of the state- 
 ments in the Gospel, it would appear to be impossible 
 that so deeply important a fact as the Jewish origin 
 of Jesus should be a delusion, dependent on a manu- 
 factured genealogy, and a more or less conscious ex- 
 ploitation of popular ignorance. The strictly Jewish 
 origin of Jesus of Nazareth appears to be beyond 
 all reasonable question. 
 
 It may then be taken for granted that Joseph, 
 
 » 1 Maoc. V. 14-23. 
 
 ' Galilee was at that time part of Itursea. Josephus, Antt. XIII, xi. 3 
 (§319). SeeSchiirer, C.J.F. ii. 7. 
 
 ' There are even reasons for supposing that Bethlehem was Joseph's 
 own home. See Canon Box, The Virgin Birth, pp. 56-60. 
 
 262 
 
VII] JESUS— JOSEPH'S LEGAL HEIR 
 
 the reputed father of Jesus of Nazareth, was in deed 
 and in truth a member of the Jewish race, and also 
 a Hneal heir of the founder of the one dynasty which 
 ever reigned over the Jews, David the son of Jesse. 
 
 But Joseph was only the reputed father of Jesus, 
 according to the express testimony of our Evangelist. 
 Was then Jesus Himself strictly of David's line ? 
 The question of the Virgin birth of our Lord has 
 been already discussed in the first Lecture. Here 
 we must consider it only in so far as it affects the 
 relationship of Jesus to David. Joseph, it may be 
 affirmed, was undoubtedly the descendant of David, 
 but if Jesus was not Joseph's son how is that fact 
 of any interest to us ? 
 
 Now, it is plain that the right to inheritance in 
 the dynasty was possessed by Joseph, and it would 
 appear from the genealogy that this was complete. 
 If so, the heirship of Jesus was also complete ; the 
 unusual character of His birth not affecting it at 
 all. For according to all law, Jewish and Gentile, 
 Jesus being born after, and probably many months 
 after, the marriage, was fully heir to Joseph. No 
 Jew in those days, or, I think, in ours, would seriously 
 deny it. Jesus, then, was in the direct line of in- 
 heritance to the throne of David. Whether He 
 was actually the eldest son of Joseph, by the by, 
 matters not. Primogeniture has not that position 
 in the East that it has in England. Bible history 
 may teach us that. Jesus then, born after the 
 marriage of Joseph and Mary, was heir to Joseph.^ 
 Yet, if that were all, we in this country, and in 
 
 * Although in Luke ii. 5 Mary is said to be ' betrothed,' this must not 
 be understood in the weak modem sense, for if they had not been married 
 Joseph and she could not have travelled together. See Lecture I, p. 20. 
 
 263 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 these days, might still find lurking in our minds an 
 uneasy suspicion that the right of Jesus to be called 
 the Son of David was not justified morally, however 
 much it might be legally. Ideal law is, no doubt, 
 ideal truth. But the English mind is often uneasy 
 about the practical effects of law, and rightly so. 
 St. Matthew was satisfied, as it appears, with having 
 shown the legal relation of Jesus to Joseph. We are 
 not. Is there anything more to be said ? 
 
 In other words, can it be shown that Mary, the 
 Mother of Jesus, was herself of the Davidic line ? 
 I do not ask : Was she in the direct line of legal succes- 
 sion ? For that, it may be presumed, she was not. 
 But was she, as well as Joseph, a lineal descendant 
 of David ? According to some there was direct 
 evidence in the New Testament, for although the 
 genealogy in the First Gospel was that of Joseph, 
 the one in the Third was Mary's.^ We can only 
 regret that so easy a method of proving Mary's re- 
 lationship to David cannot be maintained to-day, 
 and that we are compelled to hold, unless of course 
 fresh evidence should be discovered, that both the 
 genealogies are those of Joseph, St. Luke's giving 
 his natural descent, St. Matthew's his line of in- 
 heritance. Direct evidence, then, of the Davidic 
 origin of Mary there is none ; the matter was not 
 deemed important by the Evangelists. Yet the 
 balance of probability is that it is true. 
 
 For, in the first place, several passages in the 
 New Testament point to this behef. In Luke i. 32 
 the angel who addresses Mary at the Annunciation 
 tells her that God shall give unto her Son ' the throne 
 
 ^ Formally proposed first in 1490 a.d. ; but see Irenaeus III. xxi. 9 
 aaid xxii. 3. 
 
 264 
 
yii] MARY DESCENDED FROM DAVID 
 
 of his father David,' and in verse 69 Zaeharias 
 says that God ' hath raised up a horn of salvation 
 for us in the house of his servant David.' So too 
 in Acts ii. 30 St. Peter speaks of God swearing to 
 David that ' of the fruit of his loins he would set 
 one upon his throne,' and applies this promise to 
 Jesus. St. Paul's evidence is especially clear. He, as 
 a learned Jew, knew perfectly well that the Messiah 
 was to be of David's line, yet, though after his con- 
 version he mingled much with Christians who had 
 known the Lord Jesus in the flesh, he never shows 
 the least hesitation in attributing to Him Davidic 
 descent. He writes, for example, in Rom. i. 3 of 
 Jesus : ' who was born of the seed of David according 
 to the flesh.' The New Testament implies, though 
 it does not actually state, the Davidic origin of 
 Mary as well as of Joseph. 
 
 Secondly, while it is true that the New Testament 
 may admit of doubt as to the family of Mary, the 
 Christians of the next generation had no doubt at 
 all. They who had seen Apostles and other contem- 
 poraries and personal friends of the Lord accepted 
 the Davidic birth of Mary as a fact. See in particular 
 Ignatius (a.d. IIO), who says {To the Ephesians, xviii. 
 2), ' For our God Jesus the Christ was conceived 
 of Mary according to the appointment of God, of 
 the seed of David and of the Holy Ghost.' ^ 
 
 We may conclude, therefore, that it is probable 
 that, according to the evidence at our disposal, 
 Mary was descended from David, as well as Joseph. 
 
 Of the stress laid by the Evangelist on the fact 
 that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, mention has 
 
 ' See the writer's Manual of Christian Evidences, §§ 8-13, and the references 
 there. 
 
 265 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 already been made in the first Lecture. His birth 
 there, though St. Matthew does not say how Joseph 
 and Mary came to be in Bethlehem, was an important 
 part of the argument that Jesus was the Son of 
 David. For this Hope of the nation must fulfil the 
 ancient prophecy connecting the Messiah with Bethle- 
 hem, the fount and source of the family of David. 
 
 The Evangelist, however, does not only state 
 his own conviction that Jesus was the promised 
 Son of David ; he also reports to us occasions when 
 the title was given Him by others. And as we read 
 the examples that he adduces, we can see that the 
 title was known widely among the populace of 
 different parts of Palestine, in Galilee and in Jericho, 
 in the neighbourhood of Tyre and Sidon, and in 
 Jerusalem. We notice also this fact about it, that 
 sometimes the appellation was called forth by the 
 display of miraculous powers.^ 
 
 In particular we notice that in two out of the three 
 cases in which our Lord is addressed by the title 
 ' Son of David ' in appeal for restoration to health, 
 the words are uttered by blind men.^ This suggests 
 that the promises of the prophet in connexion with the 
 Messianic time ^ were interpreted very literally, and 
 that it was expected that when Messiah came He 
 would restore the blind to sight. If so, it was not 
 unnatural that when these poor blind folk were 
 convinced on other grounds that Jesus was that 
 Son of David for whom they were looking, they should 
 appeal to Him for His aid, and ask for restoration 
 
 1 On the question whether Messiah was expected to perform miracles, 
 see Lecture III, p. 105. 
 
 ' ix. 27 ; XX. 30, 31. The possibility that these two examples are 
 ' doublets ' must not be overlooked. 
 
 ' Isa. xxix. 18 ; xxxv. 5 ; cf. Ixi. 1, R.V. marg. 
 
 266 
 
VII] THE SON OF DAVID AND MIRACLES 
 
 at His hands — and they did not ask in vain.^ St. 
 Matthew wishes us to understand not only that people 
 addressed Jesus by the title of Son of David, when 
 they were expressing their faith that He could, if 
 He would, perform miracles on them, but that His 
 effective assent showed that He accepted the title 
 and proved it to be true. 
 
 The case of the poor Canaanite is not so plain. 
 She had, at least, no verbal assurance in the Old 
 Testament that in the times of Messiah demons were 
 to be cast out. Yet she pleaded with a faith trium- 
 phant over apparent rebuff that He, the Son of 
 David, should have pity upon her, for her daughter 
 was ' grievously vexed with a devil.' ^ 
 
 Akin to this is the question of all the multitudes 
 wh© saw Jesus heal one possessed, blind and dumb, 
 ' insomuch that the blind man spake and saw.' In 
 their amazement they said : ' Can this be the Son of 
 David ? ' * The fact is that whatever may be the 
 reality of possession by evil spirits, and it may be 
 questioned whether science is in a position to affirm 
 or deny this, the belief in them at that time was so 
 closely bound up with the experience of physical dis- 
 ease, that every one felt sure that when Messiah came 
 He would cast out both the one and the other of 
 these tyrants of humanity. If His coming delivered 
 men from illness, and left them still at the mercy 
 of the evil angels, the Messianic age, it was felt, would 
 be little more than a mockery, and the Messiah a 
 delusion. The Son of David, as the Messiah, would 
 certainly set men free from ills of every kind. It was 
 not unnatural, therefore, that the half-heathen woman 
 should appeal to the Son of David in her anxiety 
 
 1 See further Lecture III, pp. 106 sq. " xv. 22. ' xii. 22, 23. 
 
 267 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 about her daughter, or that the crowds who saw 
 an extraordinary miracle of dehverance performed 
 before their eyes should ask whether indeed this was 
 not perhaps the Messiah for whom they were longing, 
 the Son of David Himself. 
 
 At the triumphal entry the case is different. The 
 shout of the multitudes, in front of the Lord and 
 behind Him, is due not to some one display of mercy 
 and health-giving vitality, but to the cumulative 
 effect of all His work, teaching, and life for the past 
 three years amid the Galilean hills. The Prophet 
 Jesus, of Nazareth of Galilee, is now publicly acclaimed 
 as the Son of David : ' Salvation to the Son of David ! 
 Blessed is He that cometh in the name of Jehovah ! 
 Salvation in the highest ! ' ^ It would be difficult 
 to determine how far that enthusiastic crowd under- 
 stood either the life, or the teaching, or the work 
 of Him whom they thus welcomed. We may even 
 express the fear that they had not gone far beyond 
 the aims and intentions of those other Galileans at an 
 earlier stage in His ministry, who (as we are told in 
 the Fourth Gospel) were about to carry Him off by 
 force to make Him king ; ^ but, in any case, our 
 Evangelist's purpose was fulfilled, as he showed that 
 there was something about Jesus of Nazareth which 
 so attracted those who had seen most of Him that 
 they recognised in Him the Messiah, the promised 
 Son of David. 
 
 ^ xxi. 1-11 . ' Hosanna,' meaningless to us, can hardly have lost its force 
 to those whose native tongue was Hebrew or Aramaic. It is another form 
 of the word translated ' having salvation ' in Zech. ix. 9, the very prophecy 
 which our Lord was then strangely fulfilUng. Whether or not the Galileans 
 perceived this when they cried ' Hosanna ' is uncertain. But we may well 
 credit the EvangeHst with doing so. 
 
 ' John vi. 15. 
 
 268 
 
VII] THE SON OF DAVID AT JERUSALEM 
 
 Nor did the acclamation of the King cease with 
 the entry into the Holy City. Jesus went into the 
 Temple and drove out from God's house of prayer 
 those traders, with their money-bags and their birds, 
 who had presumed to think that the Temple was so 
 safe from all injury that they could treat it as they 
 liked, and then, once more, in that very Temple, 
 but a moment ago the scene of so much worldliness, 
 He healed the blind and the lame, who came up to Him ! 
 
 Can we wonder that again the cry arises, not 
 this time from rough Galileans, but from the simple- 
 hearted children standing by, ' Salvation to the Son 
 of David ' ; and that Jesus accepts the title, asking 
 the cavillers if they had never read the eighth Psalm : 
 ' Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou didst 
 stablish praise ? ' ^ As once before our Lord exulted 
 in the revelation of the truth to babes, though it was 
 hidden from the wise and understanding,^ so now He 
 acknowledges the justice of the application of this 
 title, ' the Son of David,' to Himself, and declares 
 that on the praises of the little ones lies the foundation 
 of witness to His work and character. Jesus, the 
 Evangelist would tell us. Himself accepted the title 
 of the Son of David, and recognised it in the Temple 
 as the salutation not of mere childish minds, but of 
 child-like hearts. 
 
 The fact that Jesus accepted the title both earlier 
 in His ministry, as we have seen, and also more 
 particularly in the Temple, is of some guidance to us 
 in our consideration of the next and final occasion on 
 
 • xxi. 12-16. The Hebrew of Ps. viii. 2 is ' strength,* not ' praise,' but 
 the thought seems to be that the strength and majesty of God are made 
 known among men through the utterances of children. Cf. Lecture II, p. 70^ 
 
 « jd. 25. 
 
 269 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 which the words are used in this Gospel. For it has 
 been supposed that when our Lord asked the 
 Pharisees : ' What think ye of the Messiah ? Whose 
 son is he ? ' He did so with the object of showing 
 them their error in answering that He was the Son of 
 David.i Jesus, it is said, desired to teach the Jews 
 that the title of the Son of David, which they gave 
 to the Messiah, was mistaken ; that it was too closely 
 identified with political and worldly success ; that, 
 in fact, the Jewish nation ought to be looking for 
 a Messiah of a very different type, consonant with 
 higher notions of Divine governance ; a Messiah who 
 ought not to be called by the title ' the Son of David.' ^ 
 
 But, frankly, if this supposition is true, why did 
 our Evangelist stultify himself by contradicting what 
 he had already said ? He himself shows in the very 
 opening words of his Gospel that he believed that 
 Jesus the Messiah was, in very truth, a descendant 
 of David. Was he in the least likely to say now 
 that Jesus Himself denied it ? 
 
 Yes, it is replied, that argument is sound. There 
 is no doubt that St. Matthew himself fully believed in 
 the Davidic origin of Jesus, and adduced this discus- 
 sion with the Pharisees to strengthen his case.^ But 
 he was wrong ; he misunderstood the object with 
 
 1 Matt. xxii. 41-45. So H. J. Holtzmann, N.T. Theohgie, i. 310-313 ; 
 cf. Wellhausen, Einleitung in die drei ersten Emngelien, p. 97 ; Dalman, Words 
 of. Jesus, pp. 286, 319. 
 
 ^ Those writers, it may be added, who do not believe that Jesus was 
 descended from David, or that He was even of Jewish stock, presumably 
 accept this theory the more gladly, as they are able to see in our Lord's words 
 the implication that it was not necessary for the Messiah to be of David's 
 family at aU. Jesus, they say, conscious as He was of His inabiUty to 
 satisfy the popular requirement that the Messiah should be a descendant of 
 David, declared it to be wrong. 
 
 » See H. J. Holtzmann, N.T. Theohgie, i. 311, 500. ' 
 
 270 
 
vii] JESUS DID CLAIM THE TITLE 
 
 which the argument was introduced. There indeed 
 I might leave it. For if we grant that the meaning 
 of the Evangelist is plain, that is all that is required 
 for the purpose of these lectures, which endeavour to 
 show St. Matthew's presentation of the Christ. But 
 surely we may in this case go further, and say that it 
 is extremely unlikely that the Evangelist's opinion is 
 mistaken. For unless we repudiate the whole texture 
 of his Gospel, we must allow that the claim to be the 
 Son of David was accepted by Jesus Himself, four 
 or five times over, and willingly and gladly. There is 
 no hint that He blamed those who addressed Him by 
 this title. But He did rebuke the authorities of the 
 Temple for professing indignation with the children for 
 using it of Him, and then He directly commended the 
 children for their utterance. He knew that He was the 
 Son of David,and accepted the term from old and young. 
 Yet it may be granted that there is this much 
 truth in the new explanation : that Jesus desired to 
 draw the mind of the people away from a merely 
 worldly view of the nature and work of the Son of 
 David. If so, the object of our Lord's questions was 
 not indeed, as used to be thought, to teach directly 
 the fact of His Divine Sonship, but to correct a false 
 impression of the meaning of the title. The Messiah, 
 He says, must hold a different relationship to David 
 from that low and carnal imitation which you 
 Pharisees attribute to Him, for He is to be seated at 
 the right hand of God, and David calls Him Lord. 
 ' If David then calleth Him Lord, how is He his son ? ' 
 Must there not then be something in Him which is 
 greater than the standard of David's reign, higher 
 than David's character, and perhaps even his nature ? 
 ' The Son of David ' was the most universal, and the 
 
 271 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 favourite, appellation of the longed-for Messiah, but, 
 hints Jesus, the Old Testament, nay, one of the very 
 Psalms attributed to David himself, suggests that He 
 is more. The title of the Son of David, however true 
 it is in itself, does not satisfy the Divine description 
 of the hoped-for Deliverer. That David called Him 
 Lord shows that the title ' the Son of David,' though 
 right and true, is not commensurate with the reality. 
 
 This appears to have been the Lord's reason for 
 His questions, and certainly St. Matthew's for re- 
 cording them. For it is evident that to the Evangelist 
 the phrase ' the Son of David ' seemed applicable 
 indeed to Jesus, but partial and inadequate. He 
 was, no doubt, the King, the National King, but 
 of a kind far above the popular notion of the Son 
 of David. He was no mere politician, no mere 
 conqueror, and no mere lawgiver, who, by force 
 or fascination, was able to secure obedience to His 
 commands. While the connotation of the phrase 
 was wrong, in so far as it credited the coming King 
 with worldly aims and methods, the Evangelist 
 showed that in reality He moved on a higher level, 
 and worked with better-tempered tools. 
 
 For the Christ of St. Matthew is different from 
 the Christ of Judaism in this respect ; that whereas 
 the latter appears suddenly, sent by God to accom- 
 plish the salvation of Israel, without any regard 
 paid to His previous life and character, these are 
 so interwoven in the First Gospel that the deliverance 
 wrought is the outcome of the previous preparation. 
 In Judaism the work of Messiah is an abrupt dis- 
 play of the power of God, acting through one, who, 
 worthy of all honour, no doubt, for what he does, 
 is only an instrument, showing in his life, apart 
 
 272 
 
VII] AN INCOMPLETE DESCRIPTION OF MESSIAH 
 
 from his success, no such attractiveness, or extra- 
 ordinary personality, as would lead men to risk 
 danger and death for his dear sake. There is 
 nothing lovable about the Jewish Messiah. He is 
 the Son of David, but, if free from David's faults, 
 as confessedly he is, he also lacks his winsomeness ; 
 not one mighty man, much less three, would venture 
 a life to draw him water from the well, if he were 
 to thirst for it ! ^ 
 
 ' The Son of David ' was in fact an incomplete 
 description of the Messiah. That it was His popular 
 title in Judaism at the time, and has been ever since, 
 does but show an ineffective grasp of the truth 
 foretold about Him, and an unworthy appreciation 
 of His work. It was the aim of St. Matthew to 
 prove that although Jesus was in very truth the 
 expected Son of David, He far exceeded the contents 
 of the title perceived by contemporary thought, 
 in His words and His deeds. His character and even 
 His nature ; that He satisfied not political and 
 social hopes alone, but also the fullest claims of 
 ethics and of religion ; that He held the highest place 
 as regards both Jews and Gentiles; that, lastly, He 
 was not only the instrument, but also the messenger, 
 of God, to A^Tiom He stood in a relation quite unique ; 
 in fact, that if we are to have a true and full conception 
 of the Messiah we must acclaim Him with the titles 
 of not the Son of David only, but the Son of man 
 also, and even the Son of God. 
 
 • 2 Sam. xziii. 15, 16. The lack of attractiveness in the Jewish Messiah 
 does not seem so grave a fault to Jews as it does to us. For with them the 
 person of the Messiah does not hold the same commanding position. They 
 think chiefly of the Messianic age, we more of Him who has loved us and 
 given Himself for us, that He may at last bring that Messianic age to passi 
 Compare Dalman, Words of Jesus, p. 316. 
 
 273 T 
 
Lecture Eight 
 
 THE MESSIAH— THE SON OF MAN 
 
* The Son of man hath not 
 where to lay his head.' — 
 Matt. viii. 20. 
 
 ' The Son of man is lord of 
 the sabbath.' — Matt. xii. 8. 
 
 ' Henceforth shall ye see the 
 Son of man sitting at the 
 right hand of pozver.' — 
 Matt. xxvi. 64. 
 
Lecture Eight 
 
 THE MESSIAH— THE SON OF MAN 
 
 I. "l^N the rich plain of Shinar, watered then, as 
 I in our own near future, by streams drawn 
 '^•from Tigris and Euphrates, the Prophet walked 
 in prayer by Chebar. And as he gazed on the sunset, 
 ever the glory of lea and marsh, the feathering 
 clouds, half-hiding, half-enhancing, the rays, framed 
 themselves before him into a holy vision of things 
 beyond the sky.^ From a dazzling centre came the 
 likeness of four living creatures, and this was their 
 appearance ; they had the likeness of a man. And 
 every one had four faces, and every one had four 
 wings. And they had the hands of a man. And 
 as for the likeness of their faces, they had the face 
 of a man, and of a lion, and of an ox, and of an eagle. 
 They were like burning coals of fire ; they ran and 
 returned as the appearance of a flash of lightning. 
 Beside them and beneath them, and in union with 
 them, were four wheels, a wheel within a wheel, 
 perfect in motion they turned not when they went. 
 Above was the likeness of a firmament, like the 
 colour of the crystal, and above the firmament the 
 likeness of a throne, as the appearance of a sapphire : 
 and upon the likeness of the throne was a likeness 
 
 1 The Illustrated London News of Feb. 8, 1908, contains a picture of a 
 sunset seen not long before by the river Chebar. During the afterglow. 
 Dr. A. Hume Griffith, a medical missionary in Mesopotamia, ' saw the sky 
 lit up with rays of various hues, projecting Hke the spokes of a wheel from the 
 setting sun. From either side of the sun wings seemed to issue. The period 
 of the year was the same as that referred to in Ezekiel.' 
 
 277 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 as the appearance of a man upon it above, as of 
 fire, with brightness round about Him hke as of 
 the rainbow.^ ' This was the appearance of the 
 Hkeness of the glory of the Lord. . . . And he 
 said unto me, Son of man.' ^ 
 
 ' Son of man ! ' Was Ezekiel thus addressed 
 only to make him feel the more intensely his difference 
 from that glorious vision, him, frail man compared 
 with the inhabitants of heaven, and the majesty of 
 God ? Or was there not this intention also, to 
 remind him that though he was an exile in a foreign 
 land, far from Zion's temple, and amidst idolatrous 
 heathen, he, as man, not as Israelite or Jew but 
 man, had something in common, not with the highest 
 beings of creation only, but even with Him who sat 
 on the throne, above the living creatures and the 
 living wheels. Him who had the appearance of a 
 man, the Charioteer of all ? Son of man ! For 
 man the Prophet was, and should have his share 
 of suffering and pain. Son of man ! For manhood 
 is in the seraphs and in God Himself ! The Prophet 
 should share their glory ! ' 
 
 1 Called specifically ' the God of Israel' in x. 20 ; c/. xi. 22. 
 
 ' Ezek. i. and ii. 1. 'Adam, the more generic term for man, is used in 
 every case, not 'ish, the more specific. 
 
 ' Kimchi is on the right track when he says on Ezek. ii. 1 : ' The in- 
 terpreters have explained the passage to mean that God called Ezekiel Son 
 of man to prevent him being lifted up with pride, and reckoning himself as 
 one of the angels because he had seen this great vision. But the right explana- 
 tion to my mind is : Because he saw the face of a man (or possibly 
 " of Adam") in the Chariot He told him that he was upright and good in 
 His eyes, and he was the son of a man (or " sf Adam"), and not the son of a 
 lion, or the son of an ox, or the son of an eagle.' It should be noted, however, 
 that it is extremely improbable that hen'odam in Ezek. ii. is to be translated 
 ' Son of Adam,' for it is impossible that 'adam can mean Adam in i. 26, and 
 ii. 1 follows too closely to permit a change of meaning. It must be ' Son of 
 man.' Dr. E. A. Abbott {The Son of Man, 1910) brings out more plainly 
 
 278 
 
viii] ' SON OF MAN ' IN DANIEL VII 
 
 The Vision of Daniel (Dan. vii.) was different. 
 He saw four great beasts come up from the sea, 
 diverse one from the other. The first was Hke a 
 lion, and had eagle's wings ; the second like a bear ; 
 the third like a leopard, having four heads ; the 
 fourth beast terrible and powerful, strong exceedingly, 
 and it had ten horns. Then, after these awful forms 
 of brute creation, he beheld thrones placed, and 
 one that was ancient of days did sit : his raiment 
 was white as snow, and the hair of his head like 
 pure wool ; his throne was fiery flames, and the 
 wheels thereof burning fire. The judgment was 
 set ; the books were opened ; the beasts were judged. 
 Then the writer adds : ' I saw in the night visions, 
 and, behold, there came with the clouds of heaven 
 one like unto a son of man, and he came even unto 
 the ancient of days, and they brought him near be- 
 fore him. And there was given him dominion, and 
 glory, and a kingdom, that all the peoples, nations, 
 and languages should serve him : his dominion is an 
 everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, 
 and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed.' 
 
 The interpretation given to the seer is that the 
 four beasts are four kings, or dynasties, and that, 
 after they are judged, ' the kingdom and the dominions 
 and the greatness of the kingdoms under the whole 
 heaven, shall be given to the people of the saints 
 of the Most High : his kingdom is an everlasting 
 kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey him.' 
 
 From this we see that though the heathen 
 
 than anyone else the importance of this passage in Ezekiel for the inter- 
 pretation of our Lord's use of the term. For earlier examples of this in- 
 terpretation see H. J. Holtzmann, N.T. Theologie, 1911, i. 324. D. Volter 
 finds also in Exekiel the basis of many of his sayings {Die Menschensphn- 
 Frage neu untersucU, 1916). 
 
 279 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 kingdoms of this world are as brute beasts, and 
 monstrous ones at that, the people of Israel, the saints 
 of the Most High, are like a son of man, a human 
 being, resembling in form, and therefore presumably 
 in character, Him that sat on the throne of fiery 
 flames with its wheels of burning fire, the ancient of 
 days Himself. Never was made higher claim for 
 the superiority of Israel over the heathen than this ; 
 and never was claim more justified. Wild beasts 
 may stand for the heathen ; Israel alone can be 
 depicted as a man. 
 
 Thus while in Ezekiel the words ' Son of man ' 
 hint at both sides of human nature, its weakness and 
 also its association with the highest of created beings, 
 and with God Himself ; in Daniel the phrase in the 
 first place is restricted to Israel, and in the second 
 suggests moral eminence and likeness to the Divine. 
 Common to both is the intrinsic greatness of human 
 nature because God shares it, but in Ezekiel the 
 thought of its weakness is also present, and in Daniel 
 its ethical outlook, with the limitation of this to 
 Israel.^ 
 
 There is another change in the Parables, or Simili- 
 tudes, of the Book of Enoch. All suggestion of weak- 
 ness is gone ; gone also is all restriction of the term 
 to Israel. ' And there I saw One who had a head of 
 days, and His head was white like wool, and with 
 
 ' Gressmann attempts to show that the idea of a Man pre-existing in 
 heaven was known earlier than Daniel, and was adapted by him {Der 
 Ursprung der Israelitisch-jiidischen Esdhatologie, 1905, pp. 336-349). See also 
 Box, J.T.8., April 1912, pp. 326 sq. ; Ezra-Apocalypse, 1912, pp. 282 sq. 
 Similarly Volz, who still maintains that in Daniel the ' Son of man ' does not 
 represent Israel but Messiah {Jiidische Esehatologie, 1903, § 2, 26 ; § 35, 16)'. 
 H. J. Holtzmann gives a good oonspeotus of the various interpretations of 
 the ' Son of man ' in Daniel in his N.T. Theologie, 1911, i. pp 88 sq. Vide infra, 
 p. 304 n. 
 
 280 
 
viii] THE TITLE IN I. ENOCH 
 
 Him was another being whose countenance had the 
 appearance of a man, and his face was full of gracious- 
 ness, like one of the holy angels. And I asked the 
 angel who went with me and showed me all the hidden 
 things, concerning the Son of Man, who he was, and 
 whence he was, (and) why he went with the Head of 
 Days ? And he answered and said unto me : This 
 is the Son of Man who hath righteousness, with whom 
 dwelleth righteousness, and who revealeth all the 
 treasures of that which is hidden, because the Lord 
 of Spirits hath chosen him, and whose lot hath the 
 pre-eminence before the Lord of Spirits in uprightness 
 for ever. And this Son of Man whom thou hast 
 seen shall . . . put down the kings from their 
 thrones and kingdoms because they do not extol and 
 praise Him, nor humbly acknowledge whence the 
 kingdom was bestowed upon them.' ^ Again, ' I 
 saw the fountain of righteousness . . . and all the 
 thirsty drank . . . and at that hour that Son of Man 
 was named in the presence of the Lord of Spirits, 
 and his name before the Head of Days. Yea, before 
 the sun and the signs were created, before the stars 
 of heaven were made. His name was named before 
 the Lord of Spirits. He shall be a staff to the righ- 
 teous whereon to stay themselves and not fall, and 
 He shall be the light of the Gentiles, and the hope 
 of those who are troubled of heart.' ^ 
 
 Once more : ' And thus the Lord commanded the 
 kings and the mighty and the exalted, and those who 
 dwell on the earth, and said : " Open your eyes and 
 lift up your horns if ye are able to recognise the Elect 
 One." And the Lord of Spirits seated him on the 
 throne of His glory, and the spirit of righteousness 
 
 ' § 46. ? § 48, 
 
 281 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 was poured out upon him, and the word of his mouth 
 slays all the sinners, and all the unrighteous are 
 destroyed from before his face. And there shall 
 stand up in that day all the kings and the mighty, 
 and the exalted and those who hold the earth, and 
 they shall see and recognize how he sits on the throne 
 of his glory, and righteousness is judged before him, 
 and no lying word is spoken before him. . . . And 
 they shall be downcast of countenance, and pain shall 
 seize them, when they see that Son of Man sitting on 
 the throne of his glory. And the kings and the mighty 
 and all who possess the earth shall bless and glorify 
 and extol him who rules over all, who was hidden. 
 For from the beginning the Son of Man was hidden, 
 and the Most High preserved him in the presence of 
 His might, and revealed him to the elect. . . . And 
 all the kings and the mighty and the exalted and 
 those who rule the earth shall fall down before him 
 on their faces, and worship and set their hope upon 
 that Son of Man, and petition him and supplicate 
 for mercy at his hands. Nevertheless that Lord of 
 Spirits will so press them that they shall hastily go 
 forth from His presence, and their faces shall be filled 
 with shame, and the darkness grow deeper on their 
 faces. . . . And the righteous and elect shall be 
 saved on that day, and they shall never thenceforward 
 see the face of the sinners and unrighteous. And the 
 Lord of Spirits will abide over them, and with that 
 Son of Man shall they eat and lie down and rise up 
 for ever and ever.' ^ 
 
 The Son of man, therefore, in the Book of Enoch 
 is no longer the Prophet, as in Ezekiel, nor the 
 ideal nation of the saints of God, as in Daniel, but a 
 
 ' §62. 
 282 
 
vni] IN THE EZRA-APOCALYPSE 
 
 Person, eternal, supreme, sitting on God's throne 
 the source of righteousness, and the Judge of all. 
 The description of him is no doubt closely connected 
 with that employed in Daniel, but he is called the 
 Elect One, and even the Anointed or the Messiah. ^ 
 He is plainly a Person, who judges the ungodly, 
 and with him the righteous live in blessed fellowship 
 for ever and ever. 
 
 Here perhaps we might stop in our endeavour 
 to trace the use of the term before the days of Christ. 
 For indeed I do not know that there is any other 
 instance of it besides those already quoted, apart 
 from isolated expressions in Scripture. But although 
 the phrase, ' the Son of man,' is not used by the 
 author of the Fourth (Second) Book of Ezra, yet 
 the thought is there. ' I dreamed a dream by night : 
 and I beheld, and lo ! there arose a violent wind 
 from the sea, and stirred all its waves. And I beheld, 
 and lo ! the wind caused to come up out of the 
 heart of the seas as it were the form of a man. And 
 I beheld, and lo ! this Man flew with the clouds of 
 heaven. And wherever he turned his countenance 
 to look everything seen by him trembled ; and 
 whithersoever the voice went out of his mouth, 
 all that heard his voice melted away, as the wax 
 melts when it feels the fire. And after this I be- 
 held, and lo ! there was gathered together from the 
 four winds of heaven an innumerable multitude of 
 men to make war against the Man that came up 
 out of the sea. . . . And lo ! when he saw the 
 assault of the multitude as they came he neither 
 lifted his hand, nor held spear nor any warlike 
 
 ^ § 48, 10. 
 283 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 weapon ; but I saw only how he sent out of his 
 mouth as it were a fiery stream, and out of his Ups a 
 flaming breath, and out of his tongue he shot forth 
 a storm of sparks. And these were all mingled 
 together — ^the fiery stream, the flaming breath, 
 and the . . . storm, and fell upon the assault of 
 the multitude which was prepared to fight, and 
 burned them all up, so that suddenly nothing more 
 was to be seen of the innumerable multitude save 
 only dust of ashes and smell of smoke. When I 
 saw this I was amazed. Afterwards I beheld the 
 same Man come down from the mountain, and 
 call unto him another multitude which was peace- 
 able.' ^ The interpretation given to the seer is : 
 ' Whereas thou didst see a Man coming up from 
 the heart of the sea ; this is he whom the Most 
 High is keeping many ages.' ^ 
 
 Although this Apocalypse was not written before 
 the very end of the first century of our era, yet the 
 description of the Man has so much in common 
 with that of the Son of man in Enoch that we cannot 
 help identifying the two, and at the same time 
 perceiving that, distinctly Jewish as the Fourth 
 Book of Ezra is, it is describing a Figure which owes 
 nothing to Christian doctrine,^ and thus deepens 
 in our minds the conviction previously acquired 
 that in the Jewish teaching of the time of our Lord 
 there was the expectation, at least in some circles, 
 of a Person who should come in the clouds of heaven, 
 to vindicate the ways of God, destroying the sinner 
 
 ^ xiii. 1-13. = sdii. 25. 
 
 ° Except perhaps negatively in the writer's avoidance of the term ' Son 
 of man.' There are also some Christian interpolations in the form of the book 
 as it has come down to us, but these are generally to be distinguished without 
 much doubt. 
 
 284 
 
viii] THE PROBLEM IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 
 
 and drawing the godly to Himself. He had no 
 connexion with earth, save to descend and to act as 
 Judge. He was called occasionally the ' Anointed ' 
 or Messiah, or the ' Elect One,' but pre-eminently 
 the ' Son of man,' or only ' man.' 
 
 II. Now when we turn to the New Testament 
 we are face to face with a strange fact. Our Lord 
 in the earlier part of His public ministry did not 
 proclaim Himself to be the Messiah, and, even after 
 the confession by St. Peter, prevented His followers 
 from using that title of Him. And yet He used the 
 term ' the Son of man ' freely of Himself in all stages 
 of His work.^ How is this ? Did He not stultify 
 His endeavour to keep His Messianic character secret 
 if He referred to Himself as ' the Son of man ' ? 
 
 One answer is that the books in which this title 
 was freely employed to designate the expected 
 Judge were the peculiar property of comparatively 
 few people, and were not known to the nation at 
 large. Certainly we may grant that they were not 
 beloved of the leaders of Judaism, who so disliked 
 them that they did their best to destroy them.^ 
 
 But, on the other side, we must remember that 
 an appeal was made to the Book of Enoch by a 
 member of our Lord's family, in a passage intended 
 for ordinary Jewish Christians,^ and that the presence 
 of certain other phrases in the New Testament, 
 peculiar to them and Enoch, suggests that this 
 book at least was known to a fairly wide circle.* 
 
 ' See below, pp. 290 sqq. 
 
 ' See Lecture X for both the preceding and the following paragraphs. 
 » Jude 14, 15. 
 
 ' Dr. Charles gives a full list of such phrases, more or less certain, in his 
 Enoch, 1912, pp. xov-oiii. 
 
 285 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 Besides, when our Lord throws off all hesitation, 
 for the time for concealment had gone, and tells 
 the High Priest openly of the future, the words 
 indeed which He uses may be taken from Daniel, 
 but their application is surely that of Enoch. ' Hence- 
 forth ye shall see the Son of man sitting at the right 
 hand of power, and coming on the clouds of heaven.' ^ 
 On the whole it is probable that the Book of Enoch 
 was known to far too many people, and appreciated 
 by them too much, for our Lord to have used the 
 appellation ' the Son of man ' on the ground that 
 no one would know that it signified the Messiah, 
 the One to come. 
 
 There is another, and a more satisfactory ex- 
 planation. More than one conception of the nature 
 and work of the Messiah prevailed among our Lord's 
 contemporaries, and although the term Anointed 
 or Messiah is used of the Son of man in the Book 
 of Enoch, and also, as it appears, of the Man in the 
 Fourth Book of Ezra,^ yet, for the most part, among 
 by far the great majority of the Jewish nation, the 
 Messiah was no being who was to come in the clouds 
 of heaven, belonging entirely to the sphere of the 
 heavenly and the divine, but, as we have already 
 seen in our consideration of the title ' the Son of 
 David,' a man, little, if anything, more than a mere 
 man, who, by his victorious leadership of his warlike 
 people, should secure for them deliverance from their 
 oppressors, and rule so justly as to attract all the 
 nations of the earth to the true worship of the One 
 God. Had Jesus proclaimed Himself the Messiah 
 thousands and thousands of enthusiastic Jews would 
 have flocked round His banner, to be led by Him 
 
 * Matt. xsvi. 64. ! vii. 29. 
 
 286 
 
vm] 'SON OF MAN' USED BY OUR LORD 
 
 to victory. But when He called Himself only the 
 Son of man, they could see no connexion between 
 Him, the meek and lowly Jesus, hungry at times, 
 and weary, and at times scorned and threatened, 
 with the Son of man who was to come in the clouds 
 of heaven. The title by its very glory was perfectly 
 safe for our Lord to use. No one could possibly 
 suppose, until He Himself made it clear, that He 
 was that Son of man of whom the seers spake. 
 
 It is, however, alleged that we must not lay upon 
 our Lord the responsibility of using the term, for 
 not He but the Evangelists employed it.^ If so, 
 what an extraordinary thing it is that they have 
 been so very careful to restrict the use of it to words 
 said to be uttered by Him, without ever placing it 
 in the mouth of those who addressed Him, or of 
 the narrators of His history. Only in the Acts 
 do we find St. Stephen employing it once, and in the 
 Revelation of St. John we have no title, but only 
 the description ' one like unto a son of man ' twice 
 used of the Lord in glory .^ Yet in each of the 
 Evangelists it is found on the lips of the Lord Jesus 
 again and again. If the early Christian Fathers 
 used it freely, the case would be different. But they 
 do not. They seem to have felt a delicacy in em- 
 ploying it of Jesus, for they loved to think of Him 
 not as the Son of man, but as the Son of God. Yet 
 though there is no evidence for the free use of the 
 term by the early Church, we are told that the 
 four Evangelists, for some inscrutable reason, palmed 
 it off upon us as customary upon our Lord's lips. 
 
 1 Wellhausen, Einleitung in die drei ersten Evangdien, 1911, p. 128. 
 
 * Acta vii. 56 ; Eev. i. 13 ; xiv. 14. In Acts the phraseology suggests 
 primarily the Book of Enoch {see below, pp. 300 sq., on Matt. xxvi. 64) ; in 
 the Revelation that of Daniel. 
 
 287 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 They had, so far as we can see, no temptation 
 to do so. It is easier to suppose that they attri- 
 buted the use of it to Him because He really did 
 employ it.^ 
 
 But at this point we come to the most difficult and 
 crucial question of all. What did the Lord Jesus mean 
 by this phrase ? ^ "We should know better if we were 
 sure of the actual words He used. The form in which 
 the term has come down to us is Greek, and it is 
 possible that our Lord, as an inhabitant of Galilee, 
 which was overrun with Greek-speaking people, 
 spoke Greek and Aramaic with equal fluency, and 
 that thus the Greek expression found in the Gospel, 
 6 vib<! Tov dvffpcoTTov, is what He said, syllable for 
 syllable. But in view of the fact that when He was 
 more than ordinarily moved He spoke in Aramaic, 
 it is likely that this latter was, as we say. His native 
 language, and that He thought more commonly in 
 it, even if He sometimes spoke in Greek. Nor can 
 we entirely neglect the bare possibility that He used 
 a Hebrew phrase, especially in the case of a technical 
 term such as ' the Son of man ' may be. 
 
 Now there is no reason to doubt that both in 
 
 ' It is quite another question whether there are not a few places in the 
 Gospels where the phrase has been put into our Lord's lips, although in fact 
 He did not actually use it on those specific occasions, but only some other 
 phrase with which it was, as we say, synonymous. The Evangelists added 
 it to make His real meaning plain. The possibility of this must not be 
 excluded, and must be considered later. It is sufficient to say now that 
 even if this hypothesis holds good in one or two places, it does not afiect the 
 general result of a more careful enquiry, which is that our Lord did use the 
 term ' the Son of man ' with reference to Himself from an early stage in His 
 ministry, and to the very end, and not only after St. Peter's confession 
 of Him. 
 
 ? The materials for a decision are very numerous, and may be found, in 
 particular, in Dalman, The Words of Jesus, 1902, pp. 234-267 ; Driver, 
 Hastings' D.B. iv. 579-589 j N. Schmidt, Encycl. Bib. coll. 4706-4740, 
 
 288 
 
VIII] THE MEANING IN ARAMAIC 
 
 Greek and in Hebrew the phrase means what we 
 usually attribute to it in English, the special individual 
 who stands out as the representative of mankind.^ 
 
 But when we turn to the Aramaic, the language 
 which in all probability our Lord employed, we find 
 ambiguity. For we have, in fact, no Aramaic of the 
 precise time, and of the approximate place, in which 
 our Lord conversed. Palestinian Aramaic of the 
 first century of our era does not exist, and we can 
 but guess at the precise expression spoken by our 
 Lord in Aramaic from such forms of the language 
 as were in use elsewhere, or at a later period. This 
 hampers us greatly, for when the most learned perhaps 
 of Christian Talmudists now alive, and perhaps the 
 most deeply read of all living students of Aramaic, 
 Dr. Dalman, tells us that in his opinion the phrase 
 on our Lord's lips must have definitely meant ' the 
 Son of man,' in the usual specific sense, we cannot 
 but regret that he is obliged to resort to analogy and 
 deduction, for lack of direct evidence. 
 
 For unquestionably, in such Aramaic as has come 
 down to us, and there is a good deal, but of other 
 locality or of other time, the phrase ^ means, not 
 ' the Son of man,' but ' the Man,' or possibly, but 
 improbably, only ' a man.' ^ 
 
 It must, however, be confessed that the last in- 
 terpretation, ' a man,' is hardly possible in our 
 Gospel, from the simple fact that in some of the places 
 
 * For it is hardly possible that the article can mean ' the man in question,' 
 following a well-known Hebrew idiom, in which case the idiomatic English 
 rendering would be ' a son of man,' i.e. ' a man.' 
 
 ' 'Der Mensch,' Wellhausen, Israelitische und Jildisehe GescMchie, 1894, 
 p. 312 ; Einleitung in die drei ersten Evangelien, 1911, pp. 123 sqq. ; Gress- 
 mann, Der Ursprung der Israelitisch-judischen Eschatologie, 1905, p. 334. 
 
 289 U 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 where the phrase is attributed to our Lord, to explain 
 it of a man, a human being generally, would appear 
 to deprive it of any point at all.^ The Greek plainly 
 distinguishes between ' A son of man,' in this sense, 
 and ' the Son of man,' and often the context also is 
 free from all ambiguity. 
 
 In such passages, therefore, it is clear that even 
 though the ordinary Aramaic phrase in itself might 
 be translated ' a man,' our Lord must have excluded 
 this meaning, either by some additional word, or by 
 some difference of intonation. On the other hand, 
 it would seem reasonable that when the context in 
 itself is ambiguous the Greek phrase, all that we 
 actually possess, should be interpreted by the meaning 
 it must have in passages which admit of no doubt. 
 
 If our Lord, then, did not mean ' a man,' did He 
 mean ' the Son of man ' or ' the Man ' ? It is not 
 easy to say. But if we judge by the direct evidence, 
 such as it is, and exclude deductions of more or less 
 doubtful validity, we are led to the conclusion that 
 the stress of our Lord's thought was not on the word 
 ' Son ' but on the word ' man.' Perhaps the transla- 
 tion ' the Man ' does not give in English all the 
 connotation of the Aramaic, but it is nearer the truth 
 than that of ' the Son of man,' which with us lays 
 too much weight on sonship and derivation. While 
 therefore it is convenient in this course of lectures 
 still to use the term ' the Son of man,' we must not 
 forget that the emphasis of it is to be found, not in 
 our Lord's relationship to humanity ('the Son of 
 man '), but in the actual manhood itself. It is ' the 
 Man,'' ' the Man ' far excellence which the phrase 
 connotes. 
 
 ' E.g. viii. 20. Vide supra, p. 291. 
 290 
 
viii] THE THREEFOLD USE BY OUR LORD 
 
 III. Now when we turn to the Gospel we find that 
 the passages in which the phrase occurs are of three 
 kinds.^ There is the Son of man suffering and dying, 
 the Son of man in His active relation to men and 
 human institutions, and lastly the Son of man coming 
 to judge. Let us take these groups in order. 
 
 The first time that the phrase is used is in viii. 20, 
 where the Lord tells the enthusiastic Scribe, who had 
 said that he would follow Him whithersoever He went : 
 ' The foxes have holes, and the birds of the heaven 
 have nests ; but the Son of man hath not where to 
 lay his head.' There is no question about its meaning 
 here. To say that an ordinary man hath not where 
 to lay his head would be folly. It refers to the Speaker, 
 and to Him alone. And He, though ' the Man,' yet, 
 because of His work as man, is worse off for a home 
 than the very beasts and birds ! He shares the 
 weakness and the suffering incidental to human life. 
 So in xi. 19 the same lower side of manhood is 
 expressed, when the Lord says, again indubitably of 
 Himself, ' The Son of man came eating and drinking, 
 and they say. Behold, a gluttonous man, and a wine- 
 bibber, a friend of publicans and sinners.' He is, in 
 other words, no ascetic, but mixes with men, and 
 behaves at table as do they ; and His reward is that 
 He is accused of self-indulgence in food and drink.^ 
 
 Other passages, however, describe His humiliation 
 more strongly. 
 
 The earliest indeed, xii. 40, has its own difficulties, 
 into which we need not here enter, but, as it stands, 
 
 1 The usual division into ' two great groups ' (Driver in Hastings' D.B. 
 iv. 580), i.e. my first and third groups, disguises the very important small 
 class which comes between. 
 
 2 On xxiv. 36 see Lecture IX, p. 322. 
 
 291 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 it speaks of the Son of man being three days and three 
 nights in the heart of the earth. This presupposes 
 His death ; which is frankly foretold in the next 
 passage, xvii. 9 : 'As they were coming down from 
 the mountain, Jesus commanded them, saying. Tell 
 the vision to no man, until the Son of man be risen 
 from the dead.' The same thought is expressed in 
 u. 12 : ' Elijah is come already, and they knew him 
 not, but did unto him whatsoever they listed. Even 
 so shall the Son of man also suffer of them.' Verse 22 
 is fuller, and the result of His death is added : ' The 
 Son of man shall be delivered up into the hands of 
 men ; and they shall kill him, and the third day 
 he shall be raised up.' xx. 18, 19, are fuller still : 
 ' Behold, we go up to Jerusalem ; and the Son of man 
 shall be delivered unto the chief priests and scribes ; 
 and they shall condemn him to death, and shall de- 
 liver him unto the Gentiles to mock, and to scourge, 
 and to crucify : and the third day he shall be raised 
 up.' Verse 28 of the same chapter gives the reason for 
 all this suffering : ' Even as the Son of man came not 
 to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his 
 life a ransom for many.' 
 
 Lastly, there are the repeated predictions in 
 chap, xxvi., in one of which the sufferings of the Son 
 of man are expressly connected with the statements 
 contained in the Old Testament Scriptures, imply- 
 ing that the disciples, and all other Jewish devout 
 students of the Word of God, ought not to be surprised 
 at the suffering and death of Him who was typically 
 the Man, the Son of man. Verse 2 : ' After two days 
 the passover cometh, and the Son of man is delivered 
 up to be crucified ' ; u. 24 : ' The Son of man goeth, 
 even as it is written of him : but woe unto that man 
 
 292 
 
viii] THE SMALL SECOND GROUP 
 
 through whom the Son of man is betrayed ' ; u. 45 : 
 ' Sleep on now, and take your rest : behold, the hour 
 is at hand, and the Son of man is betrayed into the 
 hands of sinners.' 
 
 Not one of all these passages, we may say, admits 
 of any doubt in the interpretation of its general 
 sense. Each must refer to the Speaker, and to Him 
 alone, and each depicts Him as undergoing suffering, 
 or shame, or death, even though in some places this is 
 represented as but the prelude to triumph, and in one 
 as the means of ministry to others, and of ransoming 
 them from some awful loss not further defined. The 
 weakness and the suffering, and even the death, inci- 
 dental to manhood, were, the Lord Jesus declared, to 
 be His own lot, as the Scriptures had said. And He 
 freely accepted all, that He might ransom men.^ 
 
 The second class of passages is small in number, 
 but very important. In them He is not the weak 
 and suffering man, but active, strangely powerful in 
 the spiritual sphere, and superior to legislation which 
 seemed able to trace its history to the very beginning 
 of time. 
 
 xiii. 37 : 'He that soweth the good seed is the 
 Son of man.' He spreads abroad the knowledge and 
 the source of life. The verse requires no comment. 
 
 ix. 6 is harder : ' But that ye may know that 
 the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins.' 
 Some have thought that our Lord's intention was 
 to inform the bystanders that even a man could 
 forgive sins, and have supposed therefore that the 
 term here, in the form in which our Lord spoke it, 
 did not contain any reference to Himself as the 
 typical Man. He bade them, it is said, think of 
 
 ' Cf. Lecture XI. 
 293 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 the powers that can be entrusted to any man, not 
 of their special gift in Himself.^ This is possible, 
 and we dare not exclude the thought that what our 
 Lord does may be done by any other man who is in 
 perfect sympathy with the mind and will of God. 
 
 But, in view of our Lord's usage of the phrase 
 elsewhere to designate Himself, it is probable that 
 He refers to Himself here as the Man who, in spite 
 of being on earth (in contrast to God in heaven), 
 yet receives power to forgive others. If Jesus 
 wished to say in one phrase that this power was 
 given to man as such, and yet in fact not to any 
 man but only to Himself, it is difficult to see how 
 He could otherwise express His meaning than by 
 using the term the Son of man. 
 
 xii. 8 : ' For the Son of man is lord of the sabbath.' 
 The disciples had been accused of profaning the 
 sabbath by plucking ears of corn, and eating them, 
 thus breaking one or more rules made by the Oral 
 Law to prevent the more vital ordinances of the 
 Pentateuch itself being carelessly infringed. The 
 Lord Jesus had defended His followers, first, by 
 an appeal to the case of David and his men, who 
 had not scrupled, in an extremity, to partake of 
 food which had been consecrated to the priests, 
 for human need comes before religious enactments ; 
 secondly, by invoking the regulations of the sabbath 
 as given by Moses, which prescribed certain work 
 to be done on it by the priests, when the welfare 
 of the Temple services demanded it ; thirdly, by 
 an appeal to the fact that there was then present 
 something greater and more important than the 
 
 ' So, apparently, Wellhausen in loco, and in his Einleitung in die drei 
 ersten Evangelim, 1911, p. 129, on the parallel passage, Mark ii. 10. 
 
 2M 
 
viii] MATT. XII. 32 
 
 Temple itself, namely, the personal relation of the 
 disciples to their Master, and the necessity of full 
 vigour of mind and body in the service of God. If 
 His opponents. He adds, had only understood the 
 meaning of God's statement contained in the Prophets, 
 that, not external regulations, but heartfelt practice 
 of tender love, was the all-important requisite, they 
 would not have condemned His guiltless followers. 
 ' For the Son of man is 'lord of the sabbath.' Christ, 
 in fact, was trying to teach the Pharisees two lessons : 
 first, that man as such was above merely external 
 rules ; and, secondly, that He, the Man par excellence, 
 was therefore all the more above them, and indeed 
 in a position to declare the way in which the Sabbath 
 should be observed. 
 
 xii. 32 is another difficult passage, where the 
 Lord Jesus is contrasting words spoken against the Son 
 of man with those against the Holy Spirit. ' Whoso- 
 ever shall speak a word against the Son of man, it 
 shall be forgiven him ; but whosoever shall speak 
 against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, 
 neither in this world, nor in that which is to come.' 
 One thing at least is plain here ; the phrase can 
 hardly refer to an ordinary man.^ What, then, 
 does it mean ? It has been explained as saying : 
 Whosoever does not believe in Messiah, the glorious 
 Being of the Book of Enoch, or even of the Book 
 
 ^ In the parallel passage in Mark iii. 28, which omits the title, ' the con- 
 trast is quite obvious, between the offences (slanderous though they may be) 
 of men against their fellows — ^which can and ought to be forgiven — and 
 deliberate refusal to appreciate the beneficent effects of the operation of the 
 divine Spirit upon their afflicted brethren through human instrumentality — 
 an attitude wholly to be condemned' (Winstanley, Jesus and the Future, 
 1913, p. 189). But Dr. Winstanley allows that in our passage itself ' the Son 
 of man ' was intended to refer to Jesus (p. 190). 
 
 295 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 of Daniel, will be forgiven. But it is hard to see 
 why this belief, or rather unbelief, should suddenly 
 be mentioned, when there is no trace of a reference 
 to it in the immediate context. Or perhaps Jesus 
 intended to say : Whosoever does not believe in Me 
 as the Messiah will be forgiven — a very improbable 
 solution in view of the fact that there is no sufficient 
 reason to think that He ever intended the Pharisees 
 to understand the term ' the Son of man ' to refer 
 to Himself as the Messiah. What, then, did He 
 intend by this sentence ? The words ' the Son of 
 man ' must refer to Himself, and He means this : 
 Personal abuse of Me, even though I am Man in a 
 sense higher than others can claim, will yet be for- 
 given, but rejection of the life-giving influence of 
 the Holy Spirit does not permit of forgiveness, for 
 necessarily, and in itself, it excludes that tone and 
 temper of the soul which is the essential preliminary 
 to such an exhibition of God's love.^ 
 
 The last passage of the second group is the question 
 which leads to the confession by St. Peter in xvi. 13 : 
 ' Who do men say that the Son of man is ? ' Here 
 too the reference is undeniably to the Lord Himself, 
 for when the reply has been given : ' Some say John 
 the Baptist; some Elijah; and others Jeremiah, or 
 one of the prophets ' ; He asks again : ' But as for 
 you, whom say ye that I am ? ' And Peter answered : 
 ' Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.' 
 This is even clearer in the form, perhaps the original 
 form, of the question as it is recorded in Mark viii. 27 : 
 ' Who do men say that I am ? ' In either case the 
 
 * The Apostles were very conscious of the work of the Holy Spirit in 
 preaching the Gospel. See 1 Pet. i. 12. He is sent from heaven, and speaks 
 within the heart and conscience. Cf. also Heb. xii. 25. 
 
 296 
 
VIII] ST. PETER'S CONFESSION 
 
 answer is : Not the Messiah, but only one of His 
 forerunners restored to Hfe. The phrase ' the Son of 
 man,' if it was actually spoken by the Lord, did not 
 suggest to the populace the Messiah at all, or even 
 the Figure contained in the Books of Enoch or of 
 Daniel, Jesus, as they knew, called Himself ' the 
 Son of man,' or, if you will, ' the Man,' but the term 
 suggested to the people at most a forerunner of 
 Messiah, not Messiah Himself. St. Peter, however, 
 speaking for all the Twelve, breaks through this 
 lower conception of the work and office of Jesus, 
 and acknowledges Him as the Messiah.^ 
 
 In this second division,- then^ we have seen that 
 the Son of man spreads the word, has power to 
 forgive sins, is above the sabbath, and that although 
 dishonour to Him is far less serious than the temper 
 which speaks evil of the work of the Holy Spirit, He 
 is, notwithstanding, the very Christ whom the nation 
 was expecting. Others saw in Him, and; alas, still 
 see in Him, a mere forerunner ; but they that 
 were taught of God acknowledged Him to be the 
 Christ. 
 
 We turn now to the third group of passages. As 
 with the predictions of His death, so with those of 
 His future glory ; both one and the other were 
 addressed to the Lord's disciples only. In whatever 
 other way Jesus might hint at the failure of His 
 earthly hopes in the final catastrophe of His rejection 
 by the nation. He reserved, according to St. Matthew's 
 presentation of His teaching, direct statements of 
 it for the ears of His disciples. So was it with His 
 expectation of more than ultimate success. He who 
 
 ^ See further Lecture IX, pp. 317 sq. 
 297 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 was to die was also to rise again. And further, He 
 who died and rose was at last to return in the clouds 
 of heaven with His angels, to execute judgriient on 
 all the nations of the earth. 
 
 The individual passages which describe His future 
 glory need not detain us long. In x. 23, when send- 
 ing forth the Twelve to preach. He tells them : ' Ye 
 shall not have gone through the cities of Israel, 
 till the Son of man be come.' The immediate 
 application is obscure, and the discussion of this 
 belongs to the tenth rather than to the present 
 Lecture, but two things are clear. 
 
 First, for all that the words say, Jesus and the 
 Son of man might be different persons. Secondly, 
 He assumes a knowledge on the part of His disciples 
 that a Being is to appear suddenly, the purpose of 
 whose coming is suggested. For the object of the 
 saying is plainly to give them an additional incite- 
 ment to zeal and earnestness in preaching the kingdom 
 of heaven — soon the Judge will come to test them 
 and those to whom they preach. 
 
 The next passage is more precise, xiii. 41 : 
 ' The Son of man ' (who in v. 37 had been described 
 as the Sower) ' shall send forth his angels, and they 
 shall gather out of his kingdom all things that cause 
 stumbling, and them that do iniquity. . . . Then shall 
 the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom 
 of their Father.' 
 
 So in xvi. 27, the context of which plainly shows 
 that He is referring to Himself, Jesus says that 
 ' the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father 
 with his angels ; and then shall he render unto every 
 man according to his deeds.' He further adds that 
 some of them standing there should not taste of 
 
 298 
 
viii] THE FUTURE GLORY 
 
 death, ' till they see the Son of man coming in his 
 kingdom.' But the full discussion of this prediction 
 too belongs to the tenth Lecture. 
 
 In xix. 28 Jesus promises the Twelve that ' in the 
 regeneration when the Son of man shall sit on the 
 throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve 
 thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.' Here He 
 is to judge Israel, with the Twelve as assessors. 
 
 In xxiv. 27 His coming is to be visible from all 
 parts of the earth, and His angels will come with 
 Him for vengeance on a spiritually dead world, as 
 vultures to devour the carcase. 
 
 In vv. 30, 31, the sign of Him predicted in Daniel 
 will appear, and the tribes, not merely of the Jews, 
 as Zechariah said (xii. 12), but of the whole earth, 
 shall mourn, ' and they shall see the Son of man 
 coming on the clouds of heaven with power and 
 great glory. And he shall send forth his angels with 
 a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather 
 together his elect from the four winds, from one end 
 of heaven to the other,' The coming of the Son of 
 man shall be not only for the judgment of the ungodly; 
 but also for the restoration of His own. 
 
 In vv. 37 and 44, on the contrary, only the 
 suddenness of His coming is mentioned. 
 
 The last occasion on which the Lord uses the term 
 in His speeches to His disciples is xxv. 31, where He 
 begins the parable of the Sheep and the Goats by 
 saying : ' But when the Son of man shall come in 
 his glory, and all the angels with him, then shall he 
 sit on the throne of his glory : and before him shall 
 be gathered all the nations.' He sits there as Judge, 
 and the final state of each man in the world is, 
 as it seems, determined by his attitude towards the 
 
 299 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 servants of the Lord, Higher claim for the position 
 of the Son of man, and for His identification with 
 Himself, the Lord Jesus could hardly have made. 
 
 Yet for solemnity, and decisive importance, it is 
 outweighed by the final example of its use in this 
 Gospel (xxvi. 64). The Lord Jesus was surrounded 
 by His enemies, on His trial before the Sanhedrin, and 
 to inquiries put to Him He had answered nothing. 
 Then the High Priest said to Him : ' I adjure thee 
 by the living God, that thou tell us whether thou 
 be the Christ, the Son of God. Jesus saith unto him. 
 Thou (not I) hast said : nevertheless (thou art right, 
 and) I say unto you. Henceforth ye shall see the Son 
 of man sitting at the right hand of power, and coming 
 on the clouds of heaven.' The time is gone by for 
 concealment of His true position ; there is no danger 
 now that the populace will rise and hail Him as 
 Messiah ; He acknowledges, therefore, the truth of 
 the question that He is the Christ ; and adds the 
 warning that judgment will come at last, implying? 
 that though He now stands to be judged by the 
 Sanhedrin, He will one day return in power on the 
 clouds of heaven to execute justice for this His con- 
 demnation. You say I am the Messiah, I accept the 
 statement ; I am also the Judge who will come from 
 heaven. But this final revelation of His office and 
 work to the representatives of the Jewish people was 
 treated as blasphemy, and the verdict went forth : 
 He is guilty of death. It seems as though, however 
 unwilling the people were to recognise any connexion 
 between the claim of Jesus to be the Son of man, 
 and their expectation of the Messiah, the High Priest 
 combined the two expressions at once, and saw in the 
 threat of judgment by the Son of man, the endorse- 
 
 300 
 
viii] THE SOURCE OF THE TITLE 
 
 ment and enhancement of His stupendous assertion 
 that He was Messiah. 
 
 Here, as it seems, for the first and last time in 
 our Lord's life on earth, the combination of the two 
 expressions was understood to be claimed by Jesus ; 
 He was, then, according to His own account, both 
 the Messiah, whom the Jews expected, and that 
 mysterious Son of man of whom they had heard in 
 teaching which pretended to be derived from the 
 Book of Daniel. If His claim to be the Messiah was re- 
 jected, how much more that of being the Son of man ! 
 
 IV. What are the impressions produced by this 
 short survey of all the passages in the First Gospel 
 where the phrase ' the Son of man ' occurs ? There 
 are two ; of which the first relates to the source from 
 which the Lord derived the words, the second to the 
 value He set upon them. 
 
 First, what is the source from which the phrase 
 is drawn ? The answer must satisfy all the three 
 ways in which, as we have seen, it is used ; namely, 
 the Son of man suffering and dying, the Son of man 
 in His active relation to men and human institutions, 
 and the Son of man coming in glory to judge. 
 
 It is too often assumed that the last is decisive, and 
 shows that our Lord borrowed the phrase, if not from 
 Daniel, at least from the current Apocalyptic thought 
 represented to us in the Similitudes of Enoch and the 
 Apocalypse of Ezra. Yet the description of the Son 
 of man in these writings contains but a very little of 
 the life-picture suggested by our Lord's words. Or, 
 perhaps more truly, it gives us the end, but not the 
 earlier portion of that life. It tells us of the Son of 
 man in glory, but never mentions Him as sufferer. 
 
 301 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 Whence then did this come ? No doubt, so scholars 
 would persuade us, the Lord Jesus added it from the 
 Isaianic presentation of the Servant of the Lord, 
 who suffered for man even to the death.^ But 
 although the Servant is depicted in Isaiah as human, 
 no stress is there laid upon his humanity as such, 
 and we may also well hesitate before attributing to 
 our Lord so solely mechanical a combination of the 
 servant with the Son of man in glory as this theory 
 requires. Besides, it entirely fails to account for the 
 second group of passages in the Gospel. 
 
 On the other hand, the beginning of the Book of 
 Ezekiel, the salient parts of which have been already 
 quoted, provides material for a nearly satisfactory 
 answer. For in Ezekiel stress is plainly laid on the 
 weakness of man, involving, as is seen in later parts 
 of the book, much personal suffering, both of body 
 and mind. But certainly also one great purpose of 
 Ezekiel's vision was that he should be upheld in his 
 weakness by the remembrance of the fact that the 
 very nature of man was to be found in angelic beings, 
 and even in God Himself. Man belonged not to 
 earth alone, but to heaven also ; glory was his pre- 
 rogative as well as weakness and suffering. And on 
 this it follows that a man, though weak and liable to 
 suffering, may yet be so much in touch with Divine 
 
 1 Dr. Charles, Enoch, 1912, pp. 306-309. The verbal evidence of 
 ' rejected,' ' set at nought,' in Mark viii. 31, ix. 12, compared with Isa. liii. 3, 
 which Bishop Gore adduces {The Title ' The Son of Man,' 1913, pp. 13 sq.), 
 is quite insufSoient, and in any case did not appeal to St. Matthew, who omits 
 it. The use of ' many ' in Mark x. 45, Matt. xx. 28, and Mark xiv. 24, 
 Matt. xxvi. 28, is more suggestive, and may point, in truth, to Isa. liii. 12. 
 For certainly the Servant is the most extreme example of human suffering 
 in the Old Testament, and it would be strange if our Lord never referred to its 
 prophecy as completed in Himself. But not with the bare mechanical 
 conjunction implied in Dr. Charles' theory. 
 
 S02 
 
viii] YET EZEKIEL'S LANGUAGE INSUFFICIENT 
 
 power, even while he is on earth, as to be able to be 
 a medium of communication between the higher and 
 lower forms of human existence, and convey to other 
 persons on earth spiritual privileges and experiences, 
 which they, from some lack in their religious life, are 
 not able to obtain themselves. Deeply taught, as 
 certainly the Lord Jesus was, in the experimental 
 contents of Holy Scripture, we cannot suppose that 
 this very elementary lesson of the Book of Ezekiel 
 can have escaped His notice. Ezekiel tells us of 
 the union of weakness with potentiality of strength 
 commensurate with the nature of God, and this 
 provides exactly that combination of qualities and 
 experience suggested in the Gospel. In spite of much 
 weakness, and suffering, and at last death itself, nay, 
 if the truth be told, not in spite of, but by means of 
 these, the Son of man rises above the ordinary limita- 
 tions of sinful men while here, and will, in the future, 
 enjoy authority unfettered, executing judgment on 
 opponent and on friend. He is the Son of man, nay, 
 Man — nay, Man yar excellence — ever in close relation 
 to the heavenly beings and the eternal Ruler of all ; 
 Man, therefore one with men, sharing their weakness 
 and their sorrows, and able by suffering, and indeed 
 only by suffering, to deliver them from death ; but 
 Man for whom glory is assured at last, when He shall 
 appear in judgment. 
 
 But here, I confess, the language of Ezekiel is 
 insufficient. While the life of the Son of man on 
 earth is drawn from Ezekiel, and its ultimate postu- 
 lates are also derived thence, the actual words in 
 which His future work is portrayed are due to those 
 forecasts of the future which had already been painted 
 by seers, who understood that if the Judge of all the 
 
 303 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 earth were to do right, He must be in complete sym- 
 pathy with men, and in judging exercise that part of 
 His being in which they shared. For ' the Son of 
 man ' is the Apocalyptic expression of the fact, that 
 the Charioteer of all has human qualities, and will 
 judge mankind by virtue of these.^ The source, 
 then, from which our Lord derived the phrase ' the 
 Son of man ' was not the Book of Enoch supplemented 
 by that of Isaiah, but the Book of Ezekiel supple- 
 mented in little more than phraseology by the Book 
 of Enoch and even by that of Daniel. 
 
 The second impression is that for some reason 
 or other ' the Son of man ' was our Lord's favourite 
 title for Himself. But why did He like it, and what 
 truth or truths did He desire to convey by His use 
 of it ? 2 
 
 What did He Himself mean by the phrase, ' the Son 
 of man ' ? One answer may be at once dismissed, 
 that He regarded it as summing up all humanity, 
 desiring to convey the notion that in Himself were 
 united all the aspirations, powers, affections, and 
 even spiritual experiences, that mankind can possess.* 
 
 ' This seems to be the real basis for the conception of the ' Ur-mensch ' ; 
 see p. 280, note. Compare also John v. 27. 
 
 ' It does not follow, we may remark, that these truths were necessarily 
 perceived by the immediate followers of Christ, for, with so high a superiority 
 as His over the minds and spiritual attainments of others, He might well 
 perceive truths in a phrase, which none else could see at the time, but which 
 He could teach those who after many years of development in Christian 
 thought should attain more nearly to His supreme knowledge. 
 
 ' So, it would seem, Bishop Westcott {St. John, c. i., Add. Note on The Son 
 of Man, §§ 10-13), and Wellhausen earher, but now given up by him. See 
 his Einhitung, p. 126. At first sight Dr. Sanday's phrase, ' I beUeve that 
 He meant Humanity as gathered up in Himself' (Christologies Ancient and 
 Modem, 1910, p. 124), imphes this, but he is referring only to Mark ii. 28 
 (Matt. xii. 8), and perhaps means no more than what has been said above on 
 p. 295. Cf. the reference to Irenseus in Moberly, ^ioraemeTOi aȣ? PersojjaKiy, 
 1911, p. 344. 
 
 304 
 
viii] THE TRUE MEANING OF THE TITLE 
 
 For this savours altogether too much of philosophical 
 finesse to be consistent with the thoughts of our Lord, 
 as He is depicted for us in this Gospel. Or, put it 
 another way, and the result is the same, without, I 
 think, any unworthy treatment of the Master, such a 
 conception of the Son of man is altogether unlike the 
 character of St. Matthew.^ The Evangelist would 
 be quite unlikely to perceive a philosophical content 
 in the phrase ' the Son of man.' And therefore 
 he also cannot have intended that his description 
 of the Lord Jesus should convey the impression that 
 Jesus saw, or desired others to see, such a content 
 Himself. The phrase no doubt, to the Evangelist, 
 and so to our Lord, meant something much more 
 simple. 
 
 It is this. I, the Lord Jesus would say, am Man, 
 in weakness, in suffering, even unto death. Yet all 
 the time I am in touch with that supreme nature of 
 Man which belongs to a sphere higher than earth. 
 I hold, in a way which sin has not injured, such rela- 
 tionship to the Divine that here on earth I can forgive, 
 and am superior to religious regulations which have 
 in fact but a local or temporary significance. This 
 Manhood, too, is one that will not cease when I have 
 passed through those last stages of suffering and 
 death, which I must endure if I am to accomplish 
 My work. For I shall arise, and I shall take it with 
 Me to the clouds of heaven. On these I shall one day 
 come to restore to earth the equity now hidden under 
 
 ' Whoever the writer of the First Gospel was (and, when all is said, there 
 is no absolutely decisive reason why he should not have been St. Matthew) 
 he was a plain painstaking man, showing no special grasp of dialectics or 
 philosophy, and original only in the choice and arrangement of his materials. 
 If we compare him with St. Paul, for example, the contrast is evident at once. 
 
 305 X 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 the selfishness and sins of men. I, Jesus of Nazareth, 
 as man, nay, as the Man, will accomplish this.^ 
 
 We are now in a position to understand why the 
 Lord Jesus used the third person instead of the first.^ 
 To have said 'I,' as He often could have done, when, 
 in fact. He did say ' the Son of man,' would have 
 excluded all presentation of the thought implied in 
 the latter. He wished to lay stress on His Manhood, 
 and this He could not have done if He had not men- 
 tioned it. And we can hardly doubt that in doing 
 this He did not wish only to say as much as ' I am 
 Man,' and therefore I have a right to say so, but I 
 am man, and in calling your attention to this I desire 
 you to notice also what a man can be and can do. 
 Man is weak, it is true, and comes to suffering and 
 death ; yes, it may be that these are necessary steps 
 in the fulfilment of his task of aiding others ; but 
 man also has affinity with the heavenly and even with 
 the Divine. Let him keep in touch with this higher 
 nature, and he shall be crowned with glory and 
 honour. 
 
 In modern language, then, one of the reasons 
 why our Lord used the phrase ' the Son of man ' 
 was that He desired to teach a deeper anthropology 
 than He found at that time, or even than He finds 
 to-day. Sometimes the glory of man has been 
 
 1 Gf. Driver, Hastings' D.B. iv. 587, § 21, end. St. Paul's term, ' the Second 
 Adam,' may perhaps go back to this teaching by our Lord. Cf. Lecture III, 
 pp. 123 «3. 
 
 ' It is hard to believe that Gressmann is right when he says of this: 
 ' Auffalhg und bis jetzt unerklart ist allerdings das Problem auf das Wbede 
 {Z.N.T. W., Jahrgang V. 1904, s. 359) aufmerksam macht, dass Jesus von sich 
 statt des Ich die dritte Person mit dem Titel gebraucht. Dieser ausserge- 
 wohnliche Spraohgebrauoh muss auf irgend welche uns unbekannt (religions- 
 gesohichthche) Vorbilder zuriickgehen ' {Ursprung, pp. 334 sq.). 
 
 306 
 
viii] ITS SIGNIFICANCE FOR OURSELVES 
 
 forgotten, sometimes the privilege of suffering. He 
 desired to make us think of the possibiHties of human 
 nature in self-sacrifice, and in its reward. 
 
 And therefore He teaches the wider and truer 
 meaning of the Messianic hope. 
 
 Until He came, most Jews thought that the 
 Messiah was to be of the stock of David, and to 
 resemble David, only with greater power than his, 
 with holier piety, and wider rule over the nations 
 round. But in ' the Son of man ' our Lord hints 
 that there is something higher than a merely national 
 leader, however great and good. Manhood is not 
 limited to the Jews ; the Son of man will judge all 
 nations. ' The Son of David ' is the Jewish Messiah ; 
 ' the Son of man ' belongs to the whole world — ' to 
 the Jew first, but also to the Greek.' A merely 
 national Messiah, then, is inadequate. Jesus the 
 true Messiah is Man and for man. And therefore 
 will He suffer, and therefore will He triumph, and 
 therefore will He judge. 
 
 Lastly, may we not venture to see a permanent 
 significance in the phrase ' the Son of man ' for our 
 own day and for ourselves ? 
 
 First, Christ would tell us that suffering due to 
 self-denial is the one means by which we can be of 
 benefit to others ; that men are crying out in pain, 
 and we can deliver them, if only we will imitate 
 Christ the Man — ' Who came ... to minister, and 
 to give His life a ransom for many.' 
 
 Secondly, that pessimism can find no place in the 
 heart of anyone who remembers that human nature 
 is no separate entity, cut off from all association 
 with higher forms of life, but is represented in heaven 
 and has kinship with God. Our good desires, then, 
 
 307 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH 
 
 our high aims, our subUme ideals, spring from that 
 identity of nature, of thought, and of will, which 
 we share with the Creator. 
 
 Lastly, that our knowledge of life, our insight 
 into human passions and human frailties, our blood- 
 bought experience of the manifold forms of men's 
 actions and motives — and who know these so well 
 as members of this Honourable Society ? — shall have 
 so abiding an influence upon us as to equip us for 
 the last great exercise of discernment on the stage 
 of human history, when the Son of man shall come 
 to judge, and all His Saints with Him, and as He 
 says, ' Ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging 
 the twelve tribes of Israel ' (xix. 28), or even, as 
 St. Paul says, judging angels : ' What mean these 
 strange figures, this speech in parable ? ' What else 
 but that in proportion as we resemble Him, who 
 as Man learned sympathy with human life, its sins, 
 temptations, victories, thus fitting Himself to judge 
 actions and weigh motives, and give praise and 
 blame aright, so we — ^followers of the Man, and 
 ourselves becoming men as in measure we resemble 
 Him — shall take our share in the judgment of the 
 world, assessors in that Supremest Court of all, 
 understanding and approving the judgments pro- 
 nounced by the Son of man ? 
 
 To suffer for men — and save them ; to appro- 
 priate the power of God — and live by Him ; to know 
 both God and man — and so judge Jews and Gentiles 
 justly — ^these are the abiding truths that Jesus 
 the Christ would teach us, both of Himself and of 
 His followers, by His claim to be the Son of man, 
 the Man. 
 
 308 
 
Lecture Nine 
 
 THE MESSIAH — ^THE SON OF GOD 
 
' No one knoweth the Son, 
 save the Father ; neither 
 doth any know the Father, 
 save the Son, and he to 
 whomsoever the Son willeth 
 to reveal him.'' — Matt, 
 xi. 27. 
 
Lecture Nine 
 
 THE MESSIAH — ^THE SON OF GOD 
 
 I. 'W'N the last two Lectures we have seen St. 
 
 I Matthew's portrayal of our Lord as the Son 
 
 ""^of David, fulfilling the national hopes and 
 aspirations, but raising them to a higher plane ; 
 and as the Son of man, the Man, suffering, yet akin 
 to God, and the Judge to come. 
 
 We turn now to that supreme title, which suggests 
 to us Christians the deepest truths of our faith, 
 the interpenetration of human and Divine, nay, the 
 Blessed Trinity itself, economic and essential. It is 
 but fitting that we should pause at the threshold 
 of so great a mystery, removing, so far as we may, 
 the defilement of earth, for we stand on holy ground. 
 
 I indeed, an orthodox Christian, speaking to 
 orthodox Christians, can say and feel this ; but our 
 duty to-day is to investigate the statements of the 
 Evangelist with as little prejudgment as possible, 
 endeavouring to understand his language, and to 
 weigh the meaning that he gives to the phrase ' the 
 Son of God,' as part of his presentation of the Messiah 
 to the Jews. 
 
 St. Matthew the monotheist, for monotheist he 
 surely was, tells us that the term ' the Son of God ' 
 was used of Jesus of Nazareth ; relates facts about 
 Him which emphasise and expand the expression ; 
 and reports sayings by Jesus Himself which illustrate 
 it, and were, perhaps, intended to illustrate it, from 
 the very first. What significance does the Evange- 
 list desire his readers to see in it ? What part does 
 
 311 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 the title of 'the Son of God' hold in his presentation 
 of the Christ ? 
 
 It is all-important for us to remember that it, 
 like the two other terms, had a long history behind 
 it, and this among Jewish people, who were not 
 likely to be, and, so far as we know, had not been, 
 influenced by the hero-worship of the Greeks, or the 
 emperor-worship of the Latins. St. Matthew the 
 Jew, writing to Jews, though they were Jews who 
 had found the Messiah, had abundance of material 
 in Jewish sources from which he could derive the 
 title of ' the Son of God.' 
 
 It is true that, strictly speaking, the phrase is 
 not to be found in the Old Testament.^ The plural 
 occurs fairly often ; sometimes in the sense of super- 
 natural beings generally,^ or, in almost identical 
 phraseology, of judges as endowed with certain 
 functions and powers of divinity.^ Further, Israel 
 is called by Jehovah ' my son ' in Ex. iv. 22 (J), 
 to which both Hosea alludes in xi. 1, and also the 
 author of the Book of Wisdom, when he writes ' upon 
 the destruction of the first-born they confessed the 
 people to be God's son ' (xviii. 13). In the plural, 
 too, the phrase, ' the sons ' or ' the children ' of God, 
 is used of Israelites generally (Isa. i. 2 ; Deut. xxxii. 19), 
 and more particularly of the more godly among 
 them (Deut. xiv. 1 ; Hosea i. 10 ; cf. Jub. i. 24 ; Psalms 
 of Solomon xvii. 30).* 
 
 * In Dan. iii. 25, ' a son of (the) gods ' is defined in v. 28 as God's angel. 
 " Gen. vi. 2 ; Job i. 6, ii. 1, xxxviii. 7 ; Ps. xxix. 1, Ixxxix. 6, R.V. 
 
 marg. 
 
 ^ Ps. Ixxxii. 6. 
 
 * Compare the remarkable passages : Ecolus. xxiii. 4 : '0 Lord, Father 
 and God of my life ' ; Wisd. ii. 16, 18 : 'He vaunteth that God is his 
 father. ... If the righteous man is God's son, he will uphold him.' 
 
 312 
 
IX] THE SON OF GOD 
 
 For our purpose, however, it is of extreme interest 
 to see that the thought of the sonship of the nation 
 passes over into that of the sonship of the king, and 
 so of the ideal King, the Messiah. Reference was 
 made in Lecture VII to the fundamental passage, 
 2 Sam. vii. 8-16, but no express mention was made 
 of u. 14 : 'I will be his father, and he shall be my 
 son,' where the sonship of David's descendant is 
 half moral and half official. The thought is taken 
 up in Ps. Ixxxix., as, for example, in vv. 27, 28 : ' I also 
 will make him my firstborn, the highest of the kings 
 of the earth. My mercy will I keep for him for 
 evermore, and my covenant shall stand fast with 
 him.' The reference to this ideal King is even 
 plainer in Ps. ii., to which, however, it will be con- 
 venient to refer rather later. 
 
 In the Apocryphal and Pseudepigraphic Writings 
 there is but little reference to Messiah as the Son 
 of God. His mission is ordered and directed by God ; 
 His work is for the glory of God ; and He is the repre- 
 sentative of God ; ^ but in only two books is He 
 called God's Son. In Enoch cv. 2 we read that the 
 Lord says : ' I and My Son will be united with them 
 (the children of earth) for ever in the paths of up- 
 rightness in their lives ; and ye shall have peace.' 
 So also in 2 (4) Esdras xiii. 32 : 'It shall be when these 
 things shall come to pass, and the signs shall happen 
 which I showed thee before, then shall my Son be 
 revealed whom thou didst see as a Man ascending.' 
 And in u. 52 : ' Just as one can neither seek out nor 
 know what is in the deep of the sea, even so can no 
 one upon earth see my Son [or those that are with 
 Him], but in the time of his day.' And lastly, xiv. 9 : 
 
 ^ See full references in Volz, Mdische Eschatohgie, 1903, § 35. 9. pp. 233 sq. 
 
 313 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 ' Thou shalt be taken up from among men, and hence- 
 forth thou shalt remain with my Son, and with such 
 as are Hke thee, until the times be ended.' 
 
 The thoroughly Jewish character of the title ' the 
 Son of God ' in its application to the Messiah may 
 be seen more clearly in the usage of Talmudic and 
 Rabbinic writings, which do not hesitate to refer the 
 second psalm to Him. ' Our Rabbis have taught us 
 in a Mishna,' says the Talmud in T.B. Sukkah, 52a, 
 ' with reference to Messiah who is about to be revealed 
 quickly, that the Holy One, blessed be He, saith to 
 him, Ask thee, for it is said, I will declare the decree. 
 Ask of Me and I will give thee nations for thine inherit- 
 ance.' ^ So also Maimonides, in his introduction to San- 
 hedrin, chap. x. : ' The prophets and saints have longed 
 for the days of the Messiah, and great has been their 
 desire towards him, for there will be with him the 
 gathering together of the righteous and the adminis- 
 tration of goodness, and wisdom, and royal righteous- 
 ness, with the abundance of his uprightness and the 
 spread of his wisdom, and his approach to God, as it is 
 said : The Lord said unto me, Thou art My son, to-day 
 have I begotten thee.' ^ So the Yalqut on Ps. ii. 7 (§ 621 ) : 
 ' R. Huna said in the name of R. Idi, In three parts 
 were the punishments divided : one for King Messiah, 
 and when his hour cometh, the Holy One, blessed be 
 He, saith : I must make a new covenant with him» 
 and so He saith : To-day have I begotten thee.' 
 Similarly, with reference to Ps. Ixxxix. 27, we find in 
 the Shmoth Rabba, § 19 (near the end), on Exod. xiii. 2 : 
 ' R. Nathan says. The Holy One, blessed be He, saith 
 
 1 The text is that of the Munich MS. 
 
 " Both Rashi and Kimohi report the Messianic interpretation of the Psahn, 
 though they do not accept it themselves. 
 
 314 
 
IX] APPLIED BY JEWS TO MESSIAH 
 
 to Moses, As I made Jacob firstborn, for it is said 
 (Exod.iv.22) "Israel is my son, my firstborn," so do I 
 make King Messiah firstborn, for it is said (Ps. Ixxxix. 
 27) " I also will make him (my) firstborn." ' 
 
 We can therefore easily believe that the sentence 
 attributed to the High Priest in Matt. xxvi. 63 : 
 ' I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us 
 whether thou be the Christ, the Son of God,' was fully 
 in accordance with what we know of Jewish belief 
 about the Messiah at that time. As Mr. Montefiore 
 writes on the parallel passage in St. Mark : ' It is 
 assumed by the high priest that the true Messiah 
 would be " the Son of God." Nor was Mark inaccurate 
 in making the high priest use such words. The later 
 metaphysical and more developed conception of " the 
 Son of God " had not yet arisen. The Messiah was 
 the Son of God ; in the Messianically interpreted 
 second and eighty-ninth Psalms he is actually so 
 called. In the age of Jesus the purely human char- 
 acter of the Messiah was not insisted on by Jewish 
 teachers as it became insisted on after the develop- 
 ment of Christianity. Room was given for wide 
 speculations and fancies as to his nature and pre- 
 existence ; he stood in a special relation to God, and 
 was in a pre-eminent sense his Son.' ^ In a word, the 
 Messiah could be called, and was called, the Son of God, 
 whatever the sense was in which the term was used. 
 
 It was said above that St. Matthew tells us that 
 the phrase was used of Jesus, relates facts which 
 emphasise and expand it, and reports sayings by our 
 Lord Himself which further illustrate it. To these 
 three groups of passages we must now address 
 ourselves. 
 
 ' The Synoptic Gospels, p. 351. 
 315 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 The High Priest was not the only person who 
 used the term ' the Son of God ' in connexion with 
 Jesus. The two possessed with devils in the country 
 of the Gadarenes ' cried out, saying, What have 
 we to do with thee, thou Son of God ? ' for they 
 dreaded Him as the judge come to torment them 
 before the time (viii. 29). They that were in the 
 boat— whether disciples or not does not appear — on 
 seeing that the wind sank when He and St. Peter 
 came on board, prostrated themselves before Him, 
 saying : ' Truly thou art God's son ' (xiv. 33). The 
 miracle suggested to them not divinity in His nature, 
 but likeness to God at least in power, and perhaps 
 also in character as means to that power, and there- 
 fore they bowed down before Him in acknowledg- 
 ment or even fear. 
 
 The same thought of power, and, more evidently 
 in this case, of character also, being inherent in the 
 term, appears to have been the motive that prompted 
 the threefold use of it as He hung upon the cross. 
 In the first two examples there is the further sugges- 
 tion that Jesus had employed it with reference to 
 Himself. ' Thou that destroyest the temple,' jeer 
 the passers-by, ' and buildest it in three days, save 
 thyself ' (that is, put forth the power thou hast claimed), 
 ' if thou art the Son of God ' (as thou hast asserted) 
 'come down from the cross.' The fellowship with 
 God which thou pretendest to possess ought surely 
 to yield thee as much power as this ! The priests, 
 with the scribes and elders, saw deeper into what the 
 claim involved, namely, not only fellowship with 
 God for power, but also assurance of the Divine 
 favour and assistance. ' He trusteth on God ; let 
 him deliver him now if he desireth him : for he 
 
 316 
 
IX] ST. PETER'S CONFESSION 
 
 said, I am the Son of God ' (xxvii. 39, 40, 43). But 
 the centurion and his fellows seem to have grasped 
 still more firmly the connexion of portent with 
 holiness, when, on seeing the signs at Jesus' death, 
 they feared exceedingly, saying, ' Truly this was 
 God's son ' {v. 54). They would have heard the 
 term applied to Him ; they would, probably, have 
 been aware that He had claimed it for Himself ; 
 and their consciences affirmed that the claim was 
 justified, for only because of One who was in touch 
 with God would these awful events have happened. 
 What, then, of St. Peter's confession in xvi. 16, 
 the terms of which so moved the Lord that, according 
 to St. Matthew's record. He answered him : ' Blessed 
 art thou, Simon Bar-Jonah : for flesh and blood 
 hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which 
 is in heaven ' ? "When Jesus asked : ' But who say 
 ye that I am ? ' wherein lay the excellence of the 
 reply : ' Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living 
 God ' ? First, that, unlike the populace, St. Peter 
 acknowledged Him to be the looked-for Messiah.^ 
 But secondly, that he said : ' The Son of the living 
 God.' For this can hardly be only epexegetic of 
 ' the Christ.' It is surely no mere synonym con- 
 taining nothing fresh. Rather is it probable that 
 in St. Peter's untutored mind there was some such 
 thought as this, that Jesus the Messiah stood in 
 quite unique relation to God, I do not say physical, 
 or, if you will, metaphysical, but at least as revealing 
 Him. And the word ' living,' related by St. Matthew, 
 and placed in this position and not only in a formula 
 of adjuration as by the High Priest {vide supra), 
 suggests a present interrelation between Jesus and 
 
 1 See Lecture VIII, pp. 296 sq. 
 317 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 His heavenly Father, who is the source of all activity 
 and life. Dr. Sanday, then, may well be right when 
 he says of this passage : ' " The Son " is emphatically 
 taken out of the common category of all others who 
 may be described as " sons." And, " the Son of 
 the living God " is as much as to say " the Son of 
 Jehovah Himself," the God of Revelation and 
 Redemption, and the expression of His Personal 
 Being.' ^ 
 
 We are on surer ground when we come to state- 
 ments by the Evangelist. In the first place, he 
 tells us that notwithstanding the human ancestry 
 of the Messiah (of the stock of Abraham and David), 
 He was of unique origin. We have indeed already 
 considered the Birth of our Lord in the first Lecture 
 of this series, as an answer to Jewish calumnies, 
 and as illustrated by Jewish prophecy. Here it 
 is enough to call attention to the greatness of the 
 origin claimed for Him by the Evangelist. He was 
 born of a pure Virgin, of the Holy Ghost.^ 
 
 Again, He received a unique summons to His 
 life-work, and a unique assurance of its value and 
 import. At the Baptism, ' Lo, the heavens were 
 opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God 
 descending as a dove, and coming upon him ; and 
 lo, a voice out of the heavens, saying. This is my 
 Son, the Beloved, in whom I am well pleased.' ^ 
 The words were repeated at the Transfiguration,* 
 
 * Hastings' D.B. iv. 574. Dalman's verdict, 'It appears that Jesus was 
 not called "the Son of God" by any contemporary' (Words, p. 275), seems 
 to be based on purely subjective grounds, and not on his great Aramaic and 
 Rabbinic learning. 
 
 * i. 18-25. See Domer, System of Christian Doctrine, § 105, E.T. 1882, 
 iii. 344-349. 
 
 » iii. 16, 17. Of. Lecture XI, pp. 381 sg. 
 
 * xvii. 5. 
 
 318 
 
IX] THE PREMISS OF MESSIAHSHIP 
 
 at the time, that is to say, when it began to be plain 
 that the hfe-work of the Messiah promised to Him 
 death. Thus, when His public work began, and 
 again when it was entering upon its final stage, 
 came the assurance : ' This is my Son, the Beloved, 
 in whom I am well pleased.' Community of nature 
 with God forms, as it seems, the premiss of His 
 Messiahship, and this in turn, or rather both together, 
 form the reason for the assurance of God's delight 
 in Him. ' The words [the Son of God],' writes a 
 living English theologian, ' come too often, and the 
 stress laid upon them is too great, for a critical 
 reader to be content with the equation which makes 
 " the Son of God " a simple synonym for " the 
 Messiah." ' ^ ' The phrase signifies,' writes one of 
 the most careful of German theologians, ' not an 
 official, but a personal relation ; it is not identical 
 with his position as Messiah, but forms the premiss 
 of it. Because Jesus is the only, or the only begotten, 
 Son of God, therefore God has selected him for this, 
 that he should establish the kingdom of God upon 
 earth by spirit and by judgment. Only the Son of 
 God without a peer is fitted for this superhuman 
 task.' 2 There, in this unique relationship to God, 
 a relationship of nature as well as of character, does 
 the Evangelist see the power that enabled Him to 
 carry out the functions of His Messiahship. Whatever 
 men may think of Jesus of Nazareth to-day, this 
 was the explanation of His life accepted and pro- 
 claimed by St. Matthew. He preaches no merely 
 human Jesus, but the Son of God, who came into 
 this world without the medium of a human father, 
 
 * Dr. A. J. Mason, in the Cambridge Theological Essays, 1905, p. 453. 
 
 * Zahn, Das Evangelium des Matthdus, 1910, p. 150. 
 
 319 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 and was acknowledged by God both at the Baptism 
 and at the Transfiguration as holding so unique 
 a relation to Him, that therefore He was fitted for 
 His Messianic office.^ 
 
 That St. Matthew meant his readers thus to 
 understand his own belief in the Divine nature of 
 our Lord will appear still more plainly when we 
 consider the language imputed to Him. It is indeed 
 true that Jesus never, so far as we can learn, applied 
 the phrase ' the Son of God ' directly to Himself, yet He 
 made it clear that He did not regard Himself merely as 
 a Son of God, but as the Son of God.^ He attributes to 
 Himself, that is to say, an entirely unique relation to 
 His Father, a relationship in which the degree (shall 
 we say ?) of sonship stands on so far higher a plane 
 than that of those who are elsewhere called sons of 
 God that no comparison is possible. Men may or 
 may not be sons of God ; He is Son of God as none 
 else is, ' the Son of God.' Certainly in one incident, 
 that of the half-shekel for the Temple tax. He places 
 Himself on St. Peter's level, when He says that 
 the sons of kings are free from taxation to their 
 royal parents, and bids the Apostle take the shekel 
 that is to be found and give it to the collectors 
 ' for me and thee.' * But this semi-proverbial saying 
 can hardly be misunderstood. His language is very 
 different in two of the parables, the Wicked Husband- 
 men, and the marriage of the King's Son.* In them 
 He claims to be above all the servants and messengers, 
 
 ^ In ii. 15 also the Evangelist appears to use the phrase in the same 
 high meaning. See further Lecture I, p. 30. In chap. iv. 3, 6, the meaning is 
 more doubtful, for perhaps the Evangelist intended the phrase used by the 
 devil to have solely an official sense. 
 
 ' Cf. Dalman, Wards, p. 280. 
 
 = xvii. 24-27. * xxi. 37, 38 ; xxii. 1-14. 
 
 320 
 
IX] OUR LORD'S CLAIM 
 
 prophets and teachers of every sort, and to be the 
 very Son of the Owner of the Vineyard, who for that 
 reason is the last person sent ; and, again, to be 
 the very heir to the throne of the Almighty King, 
 the Son for whom servants are bid summon, once, 
 yea twice, and even constrain, men of every con- 
 dition, place, and class to attend His wedding. The 
 point of either parable is lost if Jesus did not by 
 ' the Son ' intend in each case Himself. 
 
 We have already examined our Lord's reference 
 to Psalm cx.,^ so far as it bore upon the question of 
 His Davidic origin, and we saw that, notwithstand- 
 ing certain misinterpretations current to-day, there is 
 no reason to hesitate in finding in His words a claim 
 to be descended from David ; but we did not finish 
 our discussion so far as it affected His claim to be 
 Divine. ' If David, then, calleth him Lord, how is 
 he his son ? ' Must there not, I said, be something 
 in Him which is greater than the standard of David's 
 reign, higher than David's character, perhaps even his 
 nature ? In fact, if our Lord's answer to the Pharisees 
 was intended to make them think, rather than to 
 solve for them the problem of His origin. He could 
 hardly have proposed a better method than to set 
 their thoughts on lines which should lead eventually 
 to the result at which St. Matthew arrived, that there 
 was in Jesus the Messiah a something which could 
 only be explained in terms of God, not in those of man. 
 ' We see once again,' writes Zahn, ' that Jesus, like 
 His Evangelist, uses the name " the Son of God," 
 not as a synonym with " Christ," but as a designation 
 of a relationship with God, inherent in Him, and be- 
 longing to Him alone among all the sons of David 
 
 * xxii. 41-45. See Lecture VII, pp. 270-273. 
 
 321 y 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 and the children of men ; a personal quality with- 
 out which He would have been as little fitted for the 
 office of Messiah as Solomon or Hezekiah.' ^ 
 
 The peculiar difficulties of the next passage hardly 
 affect our present inquiry. Matt. xxiv. 36 : ' Of 
 that day and hour knoweth no one, not even the 
 angels of heaven, neither the Son, but the Father 
 only.' For the question so often discussed by the 
 orthodox, whether the Lord is speaking of Himself 
 in His human or in His divine aspect, is of no present 
 moment to us. Upon the face of it He knows Himself 
 to be so high above men and the very angels of heaven, 
 that He places Himself almost, I grant not quite, on 
 an equality with the Father. This passage, not- 
 withstanding those difficulties at which I have hinted, 
 is one of the most remarkable assertions of His supre- 
 macy in nature over all things created which are to be 
 found in this Gospel.^ 
 
 The baptismal formula, ' baptizing them into the 
 name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy 
 Ghost ' (xxviii. 19), is so near the high-water mark 
 of the ecclesiastical definition of the relation of the 
 Son to the Father (implying, as it appears to do, the 
 equality of One with the Other, and each with the 
 Holy Ghost), that we can hardly be surprised that 
 attempts have been made to excise it from the text. 
 Yet, in spite of the omission of the full phrase in some 
 passages of Eusebius, there is no reason to doubt that 
 
 ^ Matihaus, p. 647. Dalman writes : ' An unbiased reading of the 
 statement of Jesus cannot avoid the conclusion that the Messiah is in reality 
 the Son of One more exalted than David, that is, the Son of God' 
 {Words, p. 286). 
 
 " Dalman's opinion ( Words, p. 194), that ' the original was " not even the 
 angels know it," and that the ending "nor the Son, but the Father only" 
 should be regarded as an accretion,' does not appear to be due to his Aramaio 
 learning. 
 
 322 
 
IX] MATT. XI. 25-27 
 
 it was always part of our present Gospel. To put 
 it otherwise, the verse expressed the belief of the 
 Evangelist in the complete Divinity of Jesus, and 
 was therefore included in his presentation of Him as 
 the true Messiah.^ 
 
 But one passage ^ has been omitted from our 
 survey which confessedly belongs to that primitive 
 source known as ' Q,' and therefore, on the most 
 approved critical principles, to the utterances of Him 
 whom some are pleased to call ' the Historical Jesus.' 
 
 ' I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and 
 earth, that thou didst hide these things from the wise 
 and understanding, and didst reveal them unto babes : 
 yea. Father, for so it was well-pleasing in thy sight. 
 All things have been delivered unto me of my Father : 
 and no one knoweth the Son, save the Father ; neither 
 doth any know the Father, save the Son, and he to 
 whomsoever the Son willeth to reveal him.' 
 
 Observe the intimate standing which the Speaker 
 holds with God ! He addresses Him twice as Father, 
 with thankful acknowledgment confessing the justice 
 and the wisdom of His dealings with men. Then, in 
 
 1 For a full discussion of the passage see Bp. Chase, Journal of Theological 
 Studies, vi. July, 1905, pp. 481-521 ; viii. Jan. 1907, pp. 161-184 ; Knowling, 
 Messianic Interpretation, 1910, pp. 64-73, and especially pp. 81-84 for a dis- 
 cussion of Hamaok's unsatisfactory verdict ; Sparrow Simpson, The Resurrec- 
 tion and Modem Thought, 1911, pp. 268-284. It is indeed possible that our 
 Lord did not Himself deliver the charge word for word as recorded, and that 
 the formula in its present language may be the result of thought and con- 
 densation. But if, as is almost certain, it belongs to the original Gospel and 
 is not an interpolation, it must be so early that those critics who deny its 
 genuineness do not get much support for their theory that the doctrine of 
 the Holy Trinity was unknown to the Apostohc Church. Our Lord might, 
 or might not, have cared to formulate His teaching on the Godhead in the 
 language of this verse, and yet it may legitimately represent the substance 
 of His teaching. 
 
 2 xi. 25-27 ; Luke x. 21, 22. 
 
 829 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 contrast to the method of Jewish reception of doctrines 
 from human teachers, He solemnly affirms that to 
 Him had been entrusted all things necessary for His 
 work by His Father, whereon follows the amazing 
 passage that no one has thorough knowledge of 
 Himself, the Son, save the Father, and no one has such 
 knowledge of the Father save the Son, and he to whom 
 the Son deems it well to reveal Him. The knowledge 
 of Son and Father by each other is expressed in iden- 
 tical terms, implying equality of position, and, as it 
 seems, of nature.^ 
 
 Here, too, we cannot be surprised that the state- 
 ment has proved a stumbling-block to many of those 
 critics who are so firmly convinced that Jesus was a 
 mere man and nothing more, as to be able to persuade 
 themselves that Jesus Himself never uttered the words.^ 
 
 One thing seems to be clear, that it was not the 
 Evangelist alone who understood Him to have said 
 this, but also the writer of the earlier source from 
 which, according to modern criticism, the passage was 
 incorporated in our present Gospel. Further, if, as 
 some believe, the author of that source was the 
 Apostle Matthew himself, we could hardly have 
 better witness to the actual sayings of Jesus. For 
 
 ' Cf. Dalman, Words, p. 283. 
 
 ^ See Montefiore, Some Elements of the Religious Teaching of Jesus, 1910, 
 pp. 162-164 : ' That mournful Christian particularism which would deny 
 any true knowledge of God the Father except to those who also believe 
 in the Son.' Sanday (Hastings' D.B. iv. 573) points out the difficulty of 
 accounting for the rapid growth of theological terms within some twenty- 
 three to twenty-six years from our Lord's death, if it was not the natural 
 continuation of His own teaching. Cf. J. Weiss, Urehristentum, 1914, p. 28. 
 See also A. J. Mason in the Cambridge Theological Essai/s, 1905, pp. 455 
 sq. ; F. TiUmann, Das Selbstbetousstsein des Oottessohnes, 1911, pp. 77-81 ; 
 Knowling, Messianic Interpretation, 1910, pp. 62-64. Harnack's study of 
 the passage in The Sayings of Jesus, E.T. 1908, pp. 272-310, is important. 
 MoNeile {in loco) has a valuable summary of the various interprelationa, 
 
 824 
 
IX] ST. MATTHEW THE MONOTHEIST 
 
 the Apostle had lived continually with the Master for 
 three years. 
 
 This passage, then, appears to be the highest of 
 all those that contribute to the presentation of the 
 Divine nature of Jesus, the Messiah, in this Gospel. 
 He claims here that all things necessary for His 
 Messianic work have been given Him, because He 
 stands in the relation, the full and complete relation, 
 of Son to Father, the Sonship and the Fathership 
 being so perfect that each Person is able to know the 
 other in the same degree that He is known. We are 
 brought, as it would seem, to the inner shrine of 
 Christian doctrine, the very Being of the One Eternal 
 God, the essential Trinity. 
 
 To sum up what we have learnt of the teaching of 
 the Evangelist. To him the term ' the Son of God ' 
 meant unique earthly origin, ix. birth from a woman, 
 without the agency of a human father ; also a 
 unique summons to His life-work, and a unique 
 assurance of its acceptance and its value ; lastly, 
 full equality with the Father, whether this be ex- 
 pressed in an ecclesiastical formula or in an utter- 
 ance of filial love. Jesus the Son of God brings the 
 fullest revelation of God, and holds the closest fellow- 
 ship with Him. There is interrelation of knowledge 
 between them different from that of men. These 
 might know the Father, but only through the medium 
 of the Son. 
 
 In other words, the monotheism of St. Matthew 
 proved to be consistent with a belief in the equality 
 of Jesus of Nazareth with the Father. The question 
 for us is : Was this, when all is said, only monstrous 
 idolatry, or was it indeed the very truth of truths ? 
 There is no third possibility. 
 
 325 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 II. How could St. Matthew come to the conviction 
 that Jesus of Nazareth was equal to the living God, 
 Jehovah, and in some degree identical with Him ? 
 The belief is amazing, in whatever way we regard it. 
 St. Matthew, a strictly monotheistic Jew, to believe 
 that Jesus of Nazareth was divine, and yet to show no 
 sign of any consciousness that he was committing 
 blasphemy in this belief, or idolatry in worshipping 
 Him! 
 
 Now to answer the question by saying that similar 
 beliefs were current among the heathen of that time 
 (for persons like Alexander of Macedon and Augustus 
 of Rome had been admitted by Greeks and Romans 
 into their pantheon), and that St. Matthew and those 
 he represented were influenced by these superstitions, 
 is extremely unsatisfactory from a purely historical 
 point of view. St. Matthew and his friends Were not 
 heathen. They were Jews, and not even Hellenistic 
 Jews, though there is no evidence, so far as I am 
 aware, that even these ever thought of deifying 
 men. But he and the first Christians were Jews of 
 Palestine, monotheistic to the backbone, not in the 
 least likely to be affected by heathenism. 
 
 Yet they said Jesus was divine, and divine in 
 such a way that not only was He above angels, but 
 also was upon an equality with the Father. How 
 then came St. Matthew to this creed, and when ? 
 Of course we can but draw inferences ; there is no 
 clear statement in the form of a direct answer to 
 either question. And, further, in the First Gospel, 
 unlike the Fourth, no attempt is made to unfold 
 the history of the progress of belief in the mind of 
 the disciples as they beheld more and more of the 
 glory of Jesus. But this much seems fairly clear ; 
 
 326 
 
IX] JESUS' DIVINITY PERCEIVED GRADUALLY 
 
 that the Apostle did not arrive at his belief in our 
 Lord's divinity during the earthly life of our Lord. 
 He, with other disciples, wondered at Him, and that 
 increasingly, accepting ex animo (it would seem) 
 even St. Peter's acknowledgment of Jesus as the 
 Messiah, the Son of the living God. But St. Matthew 
 could not have meant more by this than St. Peter, 
 and the meaning of the latter seems to have come 
 far short of belief in the full Godhead of Jesus. 
 During the earthly life of Jesus of Nazareth, St. 
 Matthew received the impression of Him as a 
 unique personality, quite above and beyond any 
 other he had seen, but he never regarded Him as 
 God. 
 
 The Resurrection must have made a difference, 
 partly by the fact itself, partly by the words of the 
 risen Master. For now the Twelve, with the other 
 believers, knew that Jesus was on so high a pedestal 
 that all authority in heaven and earth was given 
 to Him, and that His presence with His people was 
 assured to them all the days until the completion 
 of this current age. The Resurrection must have 
 enormously increased the belief of the disciples in 
 the supernatural origin of Jesus. 
 
 Yet it is probable that the full meaning of the 
 words of the risen Lord, and of that earlier saying 
 in which He expressed in identical terms the mutual 
 knowledge of the Father and the Son, was not per- 
 ceived until after Pentecost, the promised baptism 
 in the Holy Ghost and fire (iii. 11). Or putting it 
 otherwise, with, as I trust, no suspicion of irreverence, 
 the doctrine of the full divinity of Jesus was the 
 result of holy thought and meditation guided by the 
 Spirit. Then, and only then, after, it may be, weeks 
 
 327 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 or months, or possibly a few years (though we have 
 no hint that the time was so long), the value and 
 the purpose of Jesus' life, words, death, and 
 resurrection were at last understood. To the be- 
 lievers of that day Jesus became known as divine 
 in the fullest sense. In spite of St. Matthew's strict 
 monotheism, which brooked no tampering with the 
 deification of men, the pressure of the events of 
 our Lord's life, together with His teaching, compelled 
 him to come to the amazing conclusion that Jesus 
 was not only the Son of David, and the Son of man, 
 but even the Son of God, in the highest meaning 
 of that supreme title ; and one of the reasons that 
 led him to write his Gospel was to strengthen the 
 faith of his readers in this truth. 
 
 Yet for us there is a more important question 
 than : Why did St. Matthew believe in our Lord's 
 divinity ? namely : Why do we ourselves believe in 
 it ? It is commonly asserted that it was easier for 
 him to believe it in those days of ignorant super- 
 stition than for us. I am not so sure. What little 
 we know of the psychology of the Jewish mind of 
 that date does not suggest that belief in the divinity 
 of Jesus was easy at all, and there are some con- 
 siderations which tend to make it easier for us to 
 believe it than for St. Matthew. 
 
 Why, then, do we believe that Jesus of Nazareth 
 was divine ? Not because St. Matthew said He 
 was. Nor because the other Apostles said so. Nor 
 because all the writers of the New Testament said 
 the same thing. Nor, again, because the Church 
 tells us so. We each started with this reason, no 
 doubt. When we were children we were bound 
 
 328 
 
IX] WHY WE ACCEPT HIS DIVINITY 
 
 to believe what we were told, if we were to arrive 
 at any creed or knowledge worth holding or knowing. 
 But for grown and intelligent men to believe so 
 stupendous an assertion as the divinity of Jesus 
 solely on the strength of another man's belief, or 
 on the belief of others, countless though these be 
 as the grains of sand along the shore, and united 
 though they are by a spiritual tie so close and living 
 that it is compared in Scripture to that of the various 
 members of a human being — number and size do 
 not count against one immortal mind — is to abdicate 
 the functions of discernment and decision implanted 
 in us by God. By all means let us give weight, 
 due and proper, to the authority of numbers and 
 of moral superiority ; but to accept a truth solely 
 because of what others say, without making any 
 effort to understand the principles that have guided 
 them to accept what they now offer us — ^this is to 
 despise the inheritance of sanity, the awful gifts 
 of will and choice. To accept blindly a quantum 
 of dogma at the bidding even of Holy Church is 
 what no man, above all, no Christian man, is called 
 upon to do. That is but a false humility which 
 urges us towards it.^ 
 
 Yet to credit facts related by others, not because 
 they are persons in authority, but because they are 
 historians — facts judged by such canons of history as 
 are applicable to their special subject, and to reason 
 therefrom — is a very different thing. This we may 
 and we must do. We find certain facts related in 
 the Gospels, and we not only are permitted, but are 
 
 ' This is the weakness running through Mr. Knox's witty Some. Loose, 
 Stones, 1913, e.g. pp. s, 33, 36, 191, 215 sq. 
 
 329 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 actually compelled, to reason out their meaning, 
 and to interpret them as best we can. 
 
 It is replied, however, that the facts recorded 
 by the New Testament writers are coloured. But I 
 suppose the question is, not whether they are coloured, 
 but whether they are coloured wrongly. For will 
 you ever find a narrative in which facts are not 
 coloured ? The members of this learned body know 
 much more about such matters than I do, but I 
 have always understood that facts are never stated 
 in absolute and naked truth, and that, at any rate, 
 you never find even two witnesses to an occurrence 
 agreeing in every detail of the facts they narrate. 
 Indeed, if there were such minute concord, there 
 might be a grave suspicion that their testimony 
 was concocted. 
 
 So far, however, as we can test St. Matthew, we 
 find, at the very lowest estimate of him, that his 
 statements of facts are truthful, and that his records 
 of words are sufficiently accurate to justify us in 
 basing a general argument upon them. 
 
 Yet it may be said that as St. Matthew believed 
 in the divinity of Jesus before he wrote his Gospel, 
 and indeed wrote it with that presupposition, his 
 statements are prejudiced and unworthy of credence. 
 His narrative confessedly represents Jesus, not as 
 He appeared to His companions during those three 
 years of visible intercourse, but as He seemed to 
 them to have been some thirty or forty years after 
 His death. But do thought and consideration neces- 
 sarily vitiate the presentment of history ? Lord 
 Haldane has taught us once again that the true 
 historian is no mere photographer, snapshotting 
 event after event, but an artist, catching the essential 
 
 330 
 
IX] THE IRREDUCIBLE MINIMUM 
 
 features of his subject and presenting it in a light 
 all the truer because it gathers into one picture not 
 one moment but many.^ The fact that the First 
 Gospel not only states the inystery of the life of 
 Jesus but also gives the key to its solution, a key 
 wrought out by much thought and toil, does not 
 necessarily lead to the conclusion that the mystery 
 and its facts are wrongly set forth. It may, and 
 personally I believe it does, only assist us in inter- 
 preting those facts in the right way. 
 
 Can we then, as thinking men, believe in the 
 divinity of Jesus ? I answer that the question is 
 rather : Can we help believing in it, if we accept 
 the Gospel narrative as substantially correct ? And, 
 further, I will say, treat the narrative as critically 
 as you may ; remove, if canons of historical criticism 
 demand it, saying after saying, and explain away 
 miracle after miracle, strictly in accordance with 
 scientific knowledge ; cast everything into the cru- 
 cible of the severest tests possible, without bias either 
 for or against the miraculous, or for or against Chris- 
 tian dogma, if such freedom from bias can be found, 
 and the residuum is that One still stands out before 
 us unique in history for the powers He displayed 
 over disease and nature ; for the holiness He ex- 
 hibited in every place and in all circumstances ; 
 for the continuous communion He enjoyed with His 
 Father in heaven ; for the love which prompted 
 Him to give at last His very life for others ; for 
 the triumph He gained after death — One who claimed 
 to be above angels, and even to be on an equality 
 with God ; One upon whom the earliest Christian 
 Church, the society of the first believing Jews, 
 
 ^ The Creighton Lecture, The Meaning of Truth in History, 1914, pp. 7 sqq. 
 
 331 
 
THE HEBREW CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 was built, and in Whom, as they afl&rmed, they 
 obtained pardon and peace and power, in a word, 
 eternal life. Who and what is He, this irreducible 
 minimum of the Gospel story ? 
 
 For observe, you explain nothing of all this, no, 
 neither the figure of Christ, nor the genesis of the 
 Christian Church, if you assert that Jesus was only 
 a good Jew, put to death either for His reforming 
 tendencies, or for the odium that He incurred with the 
 Roman authorities. This theory can be held only 
 after the Gospels have been stripped of all that made 
 them Gospels in the eyes of those who wrote them, 
 and of their first readers. 
 
 You also explain nothing when you say that Jesus 
 was a man of superior type to us others ; a man in 
 advance of His age, so far in advance, perhaps, that 
 millennia may pass away before other men are like 
 Him ; or even if you suggest that the difference 
 between Him and us was due to the fact that He 
 enjoyed more of the presence of God than we do. 
 For, say what we will, the difference between His 
 experience and ours, i.e. between Him and ourselves, 
 is so immense that no comparison is possible. 
 
 "V\Tiile, on the other hand, if you grant that the 
 man Jesus of Nazareth received the Divine Spirit so 
 fully that there was in Him no part or corner, as it 
 were, unfilled with the Godhead, then you are drawing 
 so near to the orthodox Christian position that you 
 may well question whether, after all, this does not 
 better represent the truth. 
 
 For this at least is clear, that we cannot hold any 
 opinion about Jesus which treats Him as a man 
 raised to a kind of honorary Godhead, without 
 impeaching the Christian Church of idolatry, of 
 
 382 
 
IX] SPIRIT AND MATTER 
 
 worshipping a deified man. Whatever opponents may- 
 say, nothing can be more abhorrent than this to us 
 Gentile Christians of to-day, or could have been to such 
 Jewish Christians as the author of the First Gospel. 
 
 It is not so. The Christian Church feels, and has 
 ever felt, that all the words and actions of Jesus are 
 indeed consistent with the nature of man in the ab- 
 stract, yet transcend the experience of all other men.^ 
 
 They suggest to us, therefore, the possibility that 
 they are connected with His own claim to equality 
 with God, and make us seriously consider whether 
 this be not the true explanation of the problem of 
 His life — ^that in very truth He was divine. As with 
 St. Matthew so also with us ; the pressure of the 
 life, words, death, and resurrection of Jesus bears 
 upon us so heavily that we cannot but believe Him 
 to be more than man, even the living God.^ 
 
 Yet when we speak of the living God taking 
 human flesh, the reply is made at once : Can Spirit 
 clothe itself with matter ? But surely this objection, 
 in at least this bald form, is now antiquated. Such 
 
 ^ Perhaps Domer brings this out best in his System ofGhristian Doctrine, 
 E.T. 1881, ii. 284-290. 
 
 ' Some recent scholars have even thought that Jesus actually acquired 
 Godhead. But 'faith views Jesus not merely as One who through grace 
 rose to a union with the Highest comparable to that achieved by saints, though 
 far more intimate, but as One whose development in Divine-human personality 
 took place within His own native sphere of transcendence. ... It was 
 because deity was His from before all time that He possessed the unspeakable 
 gift to lay on love's altar. On the other hand, the conception of an acquired 
 divinity stands on a lower ethical plane ; it has parted with the aspect of 
 sublimity ' (H. R. Mackintosh, The Doctrine of the Person of Jesus Christ, 
 pp. 423 sq., cf. p. 246). Joh. Weiss, Das Urchristentum, 1914, p. 85, writes : 
 ' Adoption ist hier gebrauoht im Gegensatz zu der natiirlichen Sohnschaft, die 
 von Geburt an vorhanden ist. Es liegt also hier der Gedanke vor, dass 
 Jesus nioht von Anfang an Messias oder, wie dafiir auch gesagt werden kann, 
 Sohn Oottes war, sondem dass er erst geworden ist in einem bestimmten, scharf 
 abgegrenzten Willensakt Gottes.' 
 
 383 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 force as it once had, even so lately as thirty, or even 
 twenty, years ago, is passed away to-day. For our 
 whole conception of the nature of matter has been 
 revolutionised. We now know that matter, as we 
 see and feel and perceive it, is no dead thing, but 
 instinct with energy, and motion, and a kind of life. 
 The potencies at work within one grain of sand, the 
 primitive elements which constitute it, are, I sup- 
 pose, beyond the calculation of even mathematical 
 formulae (save such as are devised to cover our ignor- 
 ance), for its powers are so stupendous, that it is a 
 very microcosm of the omnipotence of God. 
 
 But besides this comparatively simple way of 
 regarding matter, philosophers remind us that we 
 have no knowledge at all of matter existing apart 
 from Spirit ; that it is, so far as reason tells us, 
 the form, and perhaps only the form, in which Spirit 
 makes itself known. ' Matter is the name for what 
 moves in space. It is at present believed to consist 
 of atoms which have different chemical characteristics, 
 that may possibly be due to different mechanical 
 arrangements ; but here we pass into the region of 
 hypothesis, and beyond all this is hypothetical as to 
 what atoms ultimately are. At any rate, their ulti- 
 mate constitution is out of reach of our senses ; and 
 it remains that matter as we know it is an effect, a 
 phenomenon or appearance, a manifestation of some- 
 thing other than meets either hand or eye.' ^ 
 ' Matter, as being the language of Spirit, is also the 
 medium of its realisation.' ^ 
 
 In short, reason tells us to-day that all matter is 
 informed by Spirit, which Spirit must in the last 
 
 ' Illingworth, Divine Immanence, 1898, p. 8. 
 ' Jbid., op. cit. p. 11. 
 
 334 
 
IX] INCARNATION— IMPERFECT AND PERFECT 
 
 instance not only be personal (or else you and I, as 
 being persons, are higher than It), but, by Its complete 
 freedom from all external force, also be more truly 
 personal than ourselves .'^ Matter, then, what we call 
 Creation, is, according to pure reason, without any 
 reference to revelation, continually the scene and the 
 instrument of Spirit, the sphere of the immanence 
 of that great Personal Spirit, to whom, in religious 
 language, we give the name of God. 
 
 If so, is it mere juggling with words, or is it rather 
 the expression in human language of a truth for 
 which other phrases fail, to speak of the immanence 
 and revelation of God in Creation as a kind of incarna- 
 tion ? Such an ' incarnation ' is no doubt imperfect, 
 but it is a hint, if you will, and a promise, of what 
 God may do, if He chooses, in making Himself 
 known, not merely within what we term matter, but 
 in a Person, who shall, without any hindrance due to 
 error and failure, theologically called sin, make the 
 true character of God known to the world. Spirit 
 does continually clothe itself with matter. Is it so 
 very surprising that, if occasion arose, it should 
 reveal itself completely, in a Person living on earth, 
 and exhibiting the true nature and character of the 
 Divine Spirit, without let or hindrance — God manifest 
 in the world in the Person of Jesus Christ ? ^ 
 
 We then regard Jesus of Nazareth as Very and 
 Eternal God. But can it be that the Creator of 
 millions of worlds, each perhaps far exceeding in 
 size this puny earth of ours, selects it out of all for 
 
 » See p. 338, n. 3. Cf. W. Temple, Foundations, 1913, pp. 258 sq. 
 
 ^ Cf. W. Temple, ibid. pp. 245-248. Bishop Weston, The One Christ, 1914, 
 pp. 227-232 ; and Fairbaim, Philosophy of the Christian Religion, p. 479, 
 quoted in H. R. Mackintosh, The Doctrine of the Person of Jesus Christ, 
 pp. 433 sq. 
 
 335 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 the manifestation of Himself ? No doubt, when we 
 put the question so, it does seem improbable. But if 
 we leave terms of space, and consider it in those of 
 ethics, the case alters. As a man is greater than all 
 the stones of earth, than all the myriad insects, 
 fishes, birds, and beasts, taken singly or together, not 
 so much for his body or his brains, as for his power of 
 discerning between good and evil, and the possibility 
 of his moral growth ; so is he certainly greater than 
 all the blazing suns in the universe, all the worlds in 
 boundless space, and, so far as we know, may be 
 greater than all the inhabitants of these, if they are 
 inhabited at all.^ 
 
 And there is another, and still more vital con- 
 sideration. We are each so bowed down with sin 
 and guilt as to be unable to look up with unshamed 
 countenance into the face of God. And it is this 
 side of the Incarnation upon which the New Testa- 
 ment insists. For when we study the Gospel of St. 
 Matthew, it is evident that the Son of God is come 
 not only to exhibit God's holiness and love, but to do 
 
 ^ ' When we are complacently told in certain quarters that the Copemican 
 astronomy revolutionized man's view of his relation to the universe, we should 
 remember that to say the least, this is a considerable over-statement of the 
 case. In minds of a materialistic bias, it would have undoubtedly have this 
 effect ; but not in those who estimated man by the claims of his spiri- 
 tual nature, which is as unaffected by the size of his dwelling-place as by 
 the cubits of his stature ' (lUingworth, Divine Immanence, p. 21). 
 
 ' Can we believe that a tiny planet known to be but a speck in the stellar 
 immensities was chosen as the scene of the astounding miracle of incarnation ? 
 Why this special favour to one world out of mjriads ? Does not our cosmical 
 insignificance veto the notion as a preposterous incredibility ! But this, 
 as has been said, "is simply an attempt to terrorise the imagination" 
 (P. C.Simpson, Fact ofChrist,'p. 116). Its plausibiUty vanishes when we recall 
 the love of God and the greatness of the soul ' (Mackintosh, op. cit. p. 443). 
 ' We see the magnitude of matter, but cannot see the magnitude of mind ' 
 (Uhng worth, op. cit. p. 18). Cf. also Domer, A System of Christian Doctrine, 
 iii. p. 326. 
 
 336 
 
IX] TO SAVE SINNERS 
 
 so with the express object of freeing us men from sin. 
 Whatever may be said for the behef that the Incarna- 
 tion would have taken place even if sin had had no 
 power over us — and there is much to be said for it— the 
 Gospel of St. Matthew knows nothing of this. We 
 read instead, in the first chapter, that the Son of the 
 Blessed Virgin shall be called ' Jesus, for it is he that 
 shall save his people from their sins ' ; and in the 
 twentieth, that Jesus Himself says, He came ' to give 
 his life a ransom for many.' To us, sinful people, 
 saved by the Incarnation of the Son of God, and by 
 that alone. His coming is the everlasting subject of 
 our gratitude and praise. 
 
 ' Alas ! shall I present 
 My sinfulness 
 To Thee ? Thou wilt resent 
 
 The loathsomeness. 
 " Be not afraid, I'll take 
 Thy sins on Me, 
 And all My favour make 
 
 To shine on thee." 
 Lord, what Thou'lt have me, Thou must make me. 
 " As I have made thee now, I take thee." ' 
 
 Christopher Harvey, Synagogue, 1640, in 
 the Treasury of Sacred Song, Ixxi. 
 
 When therefore we see in Jesus the highest 
 example ever known of holiness and love, and, far 
 more than this, the highest conception we have ever 
 framed of them, or apparently ever can frame, it 
 does not seem unworthy of God to show Himself, 
 not only as Omnipotence in making and preserving 
 creation, but also as holiness and love, living a human 
 life, that by His life lived. His life given, and His 
 life triumphant over death, men might be delivered 
 
 337 z 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 from sin in its consequences, its powers, and at last its 
 presence. 
 
 For we must not forget that if there were a 
 perfect Incarnation of the hving God we could not 
 expect to see more in His human life than holiness 
 and love. Omnipotence in action would surely be 
 impossible for One who was to live as man ; Omni- 
 science exercised would frustrate any full develop- 
 ment save that of the body ; Omnipresence enjoyed 
 would be contrary to His very existence amid earthly 
 conditions. But love, with its accompanying holi- 
 ness — -for love without holiness ceases to be love — ^is 
 the greatest of all forces, and therefore perhaps is 
 Omnipotence ; the most penetrating of all forms of 
 knowledge, and so perhaps the basis of Omniscience ; 
 and overleaps all boundaries in time or space, 
 suggesting Omnipresence.^ 
 
 There does not appear, then, to be anything 
 shocking to our moral sense, or our intelligence, in the 
 thought of incarnate holiness and love, with their ex- 
 hibition of utter self-sacrifice for men's salvation.^ 
 
 At this point the question may be asked : ^Vherein 
 lies the personality of Jesus ? Was it, is it, human 
 or divine ? But, alas, the question, simple though 
 it looks, is itself obscure, because no satisfactory 
 definition of personality has ever yet been given,^ 
 
 ^ On our Lord's omoipotenoe, omniscience, and omnipresence see H. R. 
 Mackintosh, op. cit. pp. 477 sgg., 486. 
 
 ' ' Love in essence is desire and will to suffer for the sake of the beloved : 
 to enter his condition, to take his load, to renounce every privilege. Not to 
 send a sympathetic message simply, or appear by deputy, but to come in 
 person, obstacles and counter-reasons notwithstanding. Otherwise love is 
 not known as love. Even of God it is true that he who would save his life 
 must lose it' (ihid. p. 425). 
 
 " ' The conception of the Ego is very perplexing. It is difficult to describe 
 its content, and to discover a fundamental princij)le which will serve to 
 
 338 
 
IX] IMPERSONAL HUMANITY NON-EXISTENT 
 
 and, presumably in consequence of this, the full 
 answer to the question is so delicately poised that it is 
 apt to incline to error or even heresy. If we affirm 
 that our Lord's personality is human we say some- 
 thing very like Nestorianism or Adoptionism, and are 
 near to the denial of His true divinity ; if Divine, we 
 must beware lest unconsciously we fall into Euty- 
 chianism and into a denial of His manhood. The 
 old formula indeed of one Divine person in two natures, 
 the Divine and the human, may still be the best 
 within our reach,^ but verbally it assumes the existence 
 of human nature as an entity apart from personality, 
 a thing of which we have no experience whatever, and 
 to which perhaps we can attach no real meaning. 
 As Dr. Moberly writes : ' There is, and there can be, 
 no such thing as impersonal humanity. The phrase 
 involves a contradiction in terms. Human nature 
 which is not personal is not human nature. . . . 
 In so far as He is a Person now humanly incarnate, 
 the word human has become a true attribute, truly 
 predicable of His Personality.' ^ Similarly, Pro- 
 fessor Mackintosh says : ' It has no reality our minds 
 can apprehend to say that Jesus matured in mind, 
 in character, in self-consciousness, but that His per- 
 sonality or Ego remained throughout immutably 
 
 distinguish it satisfactorily from the non-Ego ' (Professor D. PhiJlips, in Enry- 
 clopcedia of Eeligion and Etliics, s.v. Ego, v. 227). Some see gradations of 
 personahty in brutes, men, and God, depending on the extent to which each 
 is superior to external circumstances, self-determinate and self-bestowing. 
 In this way, while it is still convenient to speak of human personality, in 
 strictness the term belongs to Him alone who is supreme and absolutely free, 
 God Himself. Cf. W. Temple, The Nature of Personality, 1911, especially 
 pp. 5, 17, 79-81. See also especially Sanday, Personality in Christ and in 
 Ourselves, 1911, pp. 8, 13-15, 20. 
 
 ^ ' The Son of God did not assume a man's person unto His own, but a 
 man's nature to His own person ' (Hooker, Ecclesiastical Polity, V, lii. 3). 
 
 ^ A'onement and Personality, 1911, pp. 93, sq. 
 
 339 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 behind a veil, as a substratum unaffected by the pheno- 
 mena of change. The word "person" has no content 
 when we remove moral character, religious conscious- 
 ness,and the mediatorial function which both subserve.'^ 
 We tread in fear and trembling, like travellers on a 
 narrow pass with an awful precipice on either hand. 
 Yet the solid rock beneath us is this, that none less 
 than God became man. Primarily, therefore, Jesus 
 is Divine. But in saying this we must acknowledge 
 that if God is everywhere, as He must be, then in 
 becoming man He submits Himself by self-limitation 
 to human conditions, and takes real, not imaginary 
 manhood, with human growth in complexity of 
 character, in devotion of will, in enlargement of 
 understanding, in even the perception of His own 
 unique nature and His relation to the Father, and 
 of His work of redemption and what it costs, thus 
 possessing (in this self-limitation of the Godhead) 
 only one consciousness, truly human, and (as a 
 conscious Person) even only one will. We cannot, 
 that is to say, postulate in Jesus two Personalities, 
 two Egos, but one, and that Divine, but so self- 
 restrained as to form a man. As Bishop Weston says : 
 ' He did not take a manhood, in the sense that He 
 associated with Himself one human person ; for that 
 would have been to redeem one at the cost of the race. 
 But in Mary's womb He took human flesh which, with 
 its own proper and complete soul. He constituted in 
 Himself so that He became truly man, living as the 
 subject or ego of real manhood. Thus His human 
 nature He united to Himself personally. It is man- 
 hood assumed by God the Son ; and may not be 
 thought of as if it were joined to His divine nature, 
 
 * Op. cit. pp. 495 sq. 
 340 
 
IX] THE LOGOS IN SELF-SACRIFICE 
 
 He Himself being as it were apart from both. It is 
 His own proper nature, constituted in His own divine 
 person as self-limited.' ^ 
 
 ' Looked at from above, as from the standpoint 
 of the Logos Himself, His consciousness as man must 
 surely bear the marks of self-sacrificing love, of 
 powerful self-restraint. It is the result of the self- 
 emptying of the Son ; of His determination to accept, 
 within certain relationships, the fashion of a man and 
 the form of a slave. He willed so to relate Himself 
 to the Father and to men that within these relation- 
 ships He could not know Himself as unlimited Son 
 of God.' 2 ' The popular teaching that assumes in 
 the Incarnate a full consciousness of divine glory 
 side by side with a consciousness of certain occasional 
 human limitations cannot be too strongly deprecated. 
 It requires three states of the Logos : the first in 
 which He is unlimited and unincarnate ; the second 
 in which He is incarnate, and unlimited except when 
 He wills to allow some merely human condition to 
 prevail over Him ; and the third in which He is 
 self-limited in that human condition. And the result 
 of such a conception of the Incarnate is to make His 
 manhood unique not only in the degree of its perfec- 
 tion, but also in kind. It makes it utterly unlike ours, 
 and also removes it from all part in the mediation of 
 His self -consciousness.' * ' As Eternal Logos He made 
 an Act of Will in virtue of which He entered upon and 
 now lives in manhood ; and as Incarnate, He accepts 
 at every moment, personally, through His divine 
 will, all the foreseen, inevitable consequences of His 
 act.' 4 
 
 1 The One Christ, 1914, pp. 150 sq. = Op. cit. p. 173. 
 
 ' Op. cit. pp. 174 sq. * Op. cit. p. 176. 
 
 341 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 For it was the Son, the Logos, who became man ; 
 this is self-evident, and the teaching of Scripture. 
 ' In the beginning,' writes St. John, ' was the Word, 
 and the Word was with God, and the Word was 
 God. . . . And the Word became flesh.' Jesus of 
 Nazareth, that is to say, represents not God per se, 
 transcendent above matter, but God as He comes 
 forth in self-impartation in space and time, but 
 still God.^ It was He, none less than He, who 
 became incarnate, lived once on earth, and lives 
 now in heaven, as Jesus of Nazareth, our ascended 
 Lord. We shall therefore not shrink from adopting 
 the language of our Creed, for, after all, it is the 
 truest exponent of the facts, in language suited 
 to human understanding, and we shall speak of 
 Jesus as the Son of the Father, with filiation more 
 complete, because complete, than any other sonship 
 that ever has been. He is therefore both the Son 
 of God and God the Son,^ the object of our praise 
 and worship, very and eternal God. 
 
 Bearing in mind, then, the daily manifestation 
 of Spirit through matter ; the incalculable value of 
 human souls, and the woefulness of their state through 
 sin ; and also the power of holy love in its self- 
 sacrifice, hindered, not helped, by other attributes 
 of God^ we begin to see a reason and a cause for 
 the unique character of Jesus of Nazareth, and dare 
 to accept His own verdict on Himself, and that of 
 His friends, that He was the Son of God ; and, 
 further, in the light of thought and contemplation, 
 
 ^ Compare Mackintosh, op. cit. p. 492. Further, may we not even say 
 God in His human side, with His human attributes, as in the vision vouchsafed 
 to Ezekiel (see Lecture VIII) ? 
 
 " Against Dr. Latimer Jackson, The Eschatology of Jesus, 1913, p. 329. 
 
 342 
 
IX] VERY GOD OF VERY GOD 
 
 wrought in us, as we humbly trust, by the Holy 
 Ghost, we learn to give to that title the fullest mean- 
 ing it can embrace, perfect Son of perfect Father, 
 very God of very God ; and, rising in our meditation 
 from the economic to the essential Trinity, we confess 
 with our great western Hymn of Praise : ' Patris 
 et Filii et Spiritus Sancti una est divinitas, sequalis 
 gloria, coseterna majestas.' 
 
 343 
 
Lecture Ten 
 
 THE MESSIAH AND THE APOCALYPTISTS 
 
' Therefore he ye also ready : 
 for in an hour that ye think 
 not the Son of man cometh.' 
 — ^Matt. xxiv. 44. 
 
Lecture Ten 
 
 THE MESSIAH AND THE APOCALYPTISTS 
 
 CATASTROPHE, development, catastrophe, ap- 
 pear to be the normal order of our earth. 
 First, as physicists tell us, was the disruption 
 of that molten mass now represented by the moon ; 
 then, down to our own time, have been long, slow, 
 sure change, development, and evolution, punctuated 
 with crises, convulsions, and upheavals of a minor 
 kind ; to be followed, as it seems, by one all-embracing 
 cataclysm, when, either by its own internal heat, 
 or by the impact of an external body, our earth will 
 experience a sudden conflagration, with, we may 
 presume, a complete reconstruction of its existing 
 material. 
 
 But the law of life is one. As with the planet, so 
 with us who live upon it. At our birth, catastrophe ; 
 in our life, uniformity ; at death, catastrophe again. 
 
 And with the spiritual life it is not otherwise. 
 There is conversion, when all things become new ; 
 then growth, mostly so slow and gradual that its 
 progress is hardly noted, yet marked at times by 
 sudden bounds and swift, unlooked-for expansion ; 
 lastly, that great catastrophic change when the body 
 is sloughed away, and the personality is face to 
 face with the Source of all light and life, receiving 
 the celestial outcome of its terrestrial form, and the 
 final result of its moral probation. 
 
 And so, we may presume, is it with the Church. 
 Catastrophe at its origin, slow development with 
 
 347 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 minor crises, and at last the catastrophic end, glorious 
 bevond words. 
 
 I. It was on this consummation that the thought 
 of the Apocalyptists fastened. This was the central 
 conception embodied in their terms and illustrations, 
 which to us are quaint, and sometimes barely edify- 
 ing, and in both substance and form were distasteful 
 to the recognised leaders of their race. For among 
 the many difficult questions affecting the relation- 
 ship of the Apocalyptists to other Jewish teachers, 
 two facts emerge — first, that their instruction was 
 not esoteric, but popular, and secondly, that it was 
 rejected by that Pharisaic section of Judaism which 
 alone survived the Fall of Jerusalem. 
 
 First, their teaching was not esoteric, but popular. 
 A reaction against the growing scholasticism of the 
 interpretation of the Law was bound to make its 
 appearance. Though, as we have already seen in 
 previous Lectures, the insistence on the minutiae 
 of the code of Moses, and the necessary oral tradition 
 which accompanied it from the very first, did not 
 reach its height until taught by those great men 
 who were in part the survivors, in part the successors, 
 of the Rabbinic doctors of New Testament times, 
 yet Shammai and Hillel, just before our Lord's birth, 
 were themselves the inheritors of some centuries 
 of casuistic teaching, which tended to mark off its 
 devotees more and more strictly from the common 
 and unlearned people. 
 
 Yet some thinkers perceived that the strength 
 of true religion lay in the fact that it was intended 
 for the many rather than for the few, and that they 
 who had little time for study and debate, or even 
 
 348 
 
xj THE APOCALYPTIC WRITERS 
 
 for the punctilious observance of innumerable rules 
 of deportment, ceremony, and religious ritual, could 
 and would appreciate the encouragement to be 
 found in fundamental truths, amid the increasing 
 burdens, political and social, now threatening their 
 daily life. And more than this. These Apocalyptists 
 taught that the spiritual world was very near, not 
 only future but present, though hidden from earthly 
 sight. Others might be taken up with political 
 expectations, and the hope of a Messiah belonging 
 to this world only, but for them the supernatural 
 was all-important, and the Messiah was from above, 
 and would come on the clouds of heaven.^ 
 
 Therefore they taught and wrote. They appealed 
 to the feelings rather than to the intellect ; they 
 bade their disciples (though of disciples in the nar- 
 rower and more technical sense they probably had 
 but few) lay stress on the glorious changes possible 
 in the near future for those who served their God, 
 rather than on any such slow improvement as might 
 appear desirable to more worldly men ; and^ above 
 all, they bore in mind, nay, perhaps they themselves 
 shared, the impatience which is natural to the un- 
 educated, rather than the disciplined hope of the 
 more thoughtful. For, whatever the reason may 
 be, the fact can hardly be denied that belief in the 
 near approach of the end has seldom been a mark 
 of the more philosophic thinkers of any creed. 
 
 Not that the Pharisees were philosophers. It is 
 
 ^ The Apocalyptic literature is a ' Loslosung der messianisohen Er- 
 wartungen von dem irdisch poMtischen Ideale und Steigenmg desselben in's 
 Uebernatiirliche ' (Baldensperger, Das spdtere Judenthum als Vorstufe des 
 Ghristenthums, 1900, p. 15). M. Friedlander thinks that early Apocalyptic 
 thought owed much to Hellenism, an opinion which is well stated by Oesterley, 
 The Books of the Apocrypha, 1914, pp. 90-112. Cf. supra, p. 7. 
 
 349 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 the last title that we can give them, and perhaps 
 the last which they would have cared to receive. 
 They rejected the Apocalyptic books for quite other 
 reasons. One book no doubt they accepted, because 
 both in use and in present form, perhaps even in 
 origin, it belonged to the heroic period of the nation's 
 deliverance from Syro-Greek heathenism, and to 
 the beginnings of Pharisaism. But with this notable 
 exception of the Book of Daniel, almost all the 
 writings of the Apocalyptists, such as the Book 
 of Enoch, the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, 
 the SibylUne Oracles, the Assumption of Moses, 
 the Second or Fourth Book of Ezra, the Apocalypse 
 of Baruch, and others, owe their preservation en- 
 tirely to Christian, and not to Jewish, copyists. 
 The reason is not far to seek. As Professor Burkitt 
 shows, from a saying attributed to R. Jochanan 
 ben Zakkai, ' It was this world that God revealed 
 to Abraham ; but the world to come he revealed 
 not to him,' ^ the Rabbinic leaders were more occupied 
 in insisting on the duties involved in serving God 
 in this life than in occupying themselves with the 
 mysteries of the world to come. Rightly or wrongly, 
 they tried to leave the future to God, and devoted 
 their attention to His claim upon them here, while 
 the Apocalyptists on the contrary turned away the 
 eyes of their followers from the details of the religious 
 
 ^ Jewish and Christian Apocalypses, 1914, p. 12, quoting from Bereshith 
 Rabba, § 44 (on Gen. xv. 18). Contrast ' The Most High hath not made one 
 world, but two,' 2 (4) Esdras vii. 50, quoted by Professor Burkitt, op. cit. 
 p. 32. I leave this as written, but it is questionable whether we are justified in 
 laying so much stress on R. Jochanan ben Zakkai's haggadic explanation of 
 one verse. R. Aqiba, it may be noticed, takes the opposite view. He came 
 much nearer to the Apocalyptists, in that he was looking for the Messianic 
 age, to which indeed the commentators on the Bereshith Rabba understand 
 ' the world to come ' to refer. 
 
 350 
 
xj THE ATTITUDE OF THE RABBIS 
 
 life on earth in order that they might entrance them 
 with the glories and blessedness of the hereafter. In 
 neither case was the complementary truth forgotten, 
 but the centre of gravity differed. In these cir- 
 cumstances we cannot be surprised that the Rabbis 
 thought the Apocalyptic books were dangerous to that 
 system of painful ceremonial life which they were en- 
 deavouring to impress upon the nation.^ 
 
 A more potent reason still lay in the attitude 
 of Christianity towards the Apocalyptic teaching. 
 For the events of the first century showed that the 
 two forms of belief had a great deal in common, 
 or rather, as perhaps we ought to put it, that Christians 
 incorporated a large part of the distinctive doctrines 
 of the Apocalyptists. And, without forestalling what 
 will appear more evident in the course of this Lecture, 
 we may say at once that it is impossible to under- 
 stand, humanly speaking, how Christianity could have 
 arisen, if it had not built upon the foundations laid 
 by the Apocalyptists. Not only had their hopes 
 and expectations, and even their ethical outlook, 
 already spread among the common people, of whom 
 we are told that they heard the Master gladly, but 
 there is even reason to suppose that the greatest 
 of their books, that of Enoch, had its origin in Upper 
 Galilee. But if Christianity had so close a connexion 
 with Apocalyptics it is readily explicable that the 
 Rabbinic teachers did their utmost to discourage 
 the study of the latter among their followers, and 
 we can hardly doubt that the Pseudepigraphic Books 
 were at least included among those against which 
 the Rabbis from time to time issued special warnings. 
 
 Passing over the less important topics of the 
 
 ^ See further Box, The Ezra-Apocahjpse, 1912, pp. Iviii sqq. 
 351 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 Apocalyptic teaching, as, for example, that of the 
 angels, good and bad, with the parts they played, 
 are playing, and will play, in the history of the 
 world, or, again, that of the nature of the other world, 
 whether it be for the blessed or the damned, it is 
 sufficient to call attention to its main subject, the 
 approaching catastrophic change, and the connexion 
 of this with the Messiah, by whatever name He was 
 called. 
 
 Let me quote a few passages. Here is one from 
 the Book of Enoch : 
 
 The Holy Great One will come forth from his dwelling, 
 
 And the eternal God will tread upon the earth, (even) on 
 Mount Sinai, 
 
 [And appear from his camp] 
 
 And appear in the strength of his might from the heaven 
 of heavens. 
 
 And all shall be smitten with fear. 
 
 And the watchers shall quake, 
 
 And great fear and trembling shall seize them unto the 
 ends of the earth. 
 
 And the high mountains shall be shaken, 
 
 And the high hills shall be made low, 
 
 And shall melt like wax before the flame. 
 
 And the earth shall be wholly rent in sunder. 
 
 And all that is upon the earth shall perish, 
 
 And there shall be a judgment upon all (men). . . . 
 
 And behold ! He cometh with ten thousands of his holy ones 
 
 To execute judgment upon all. 
 
 And to destroy all the ungodly : 
 
 And to convict all flesh 
 
 Of all the works of their ungodliness which they have un- 
 godly committed, 
 
 And of all the hard things- which ungodly sinners have spoken 
 against him.^ 
 
 1 Eth. Enoch i. 3-7, 9. 
 352 
 
x] ENOCH'S PROPHECY OF THE WEEKS 
 
 Or turn to Enoch's prophecy of the weeks. 
 He himself, he says, was born in the first week. In 
 the second is the Flood. In the third comes Abraham. 
 In the fourth the Law is made. In the fifth the 
 Temple is built. In the sixth is the Captivity. In 
 the seventh an apostate generation arises, but at 
 its close the actual writer of the book receives 
 instruction from God. In the eighth week sinners 
 shall be delivered into the hands of the righteous, 
 and these at its close shall acquire houses through 
 their righteousness, and a house shall be built for 
 the Great King in glory for evermore, and all mankind 
 shall look to the path of righteousness. 
 
 And after that, in the ninth week, the righteous judgement 
 
 shall be revealed to the whole world, 
 And all the works of the godless shall vanish from the earth, 
 And the world shall.be written down for destruction. 
 
 And after this, in the tenth week in the seventh part. 
 
 There shall be the eternal judgement, 
 
 In which he will execute vengeance amongst the angels. 
 
 And the first heaven shall depart and pass away, 
 And a new heaven shall appear. 
 
 And all the powers of the heavens shall give sevenfold 
 light. 
 
 And after that there will be many weeks without number 
 
 for ever. 
 And all shall be in goodness and righteousness. 
 And sin shall be no more mentioned for ever.^ 
 
 Once more : 
 Woe to you, ye rich, for ye have trusted in your riches, 
 And from your riches shall ye depart, 
 Because ye have not remembered the Most High in the 
 days of your riches. 
 
 1 Eth. Eaoch xoi. 14-17. 
 
 353 2 A 
 
TTIE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 Ye have committed blasphemy and unrighteousness. 
 And have become ready for the day of slaughter, 
 And the day of darkness and the day of the great judge 
 ment.^ 
 
 Or listen to this from the Sibylline Oracles : 
 
 Artemis' temple fixed at Ephesus . . . 
 
 By chasms and earthquakes shall come headlong down 
 
 Sometime into the dreadful sea, as storms 
 
 Overwhelm ships. And up-turned Ephesus 
 
 Shall wail aloud, lament beside her banks, 
 
 And for her temple search which is no more. 
 
 And then incensed shall God the imperishable, 
 Who dwells on high, hurl thunderbolts from heaven 
 Down on the head of him that is impure. 
 And in the place of winter there shall be 
 In that day summer. And to mortal men 
 Shall then be great woe ; for the Thunderer 
 Shall utterly destroy all shameless men 
 And with his thunders and lightning-flames 
 And blazing thunderbolts men of ill-will, 
 And thus shall he destroy the impious ones, 
 So that there shall remain upon the earth 
 Dead bodies more in number than the sand.^ 
 
 Or recall the following passage from the Fourth 
 Book of Ezra : 
 
 And the Most High shall be revealed upon the throne 
 of judgement ; (and then cometh the End) and compassion 
 shall pass away, (and pity be far off,) and long-suffering 
 withdrawn ; But judgement alone shall remain, truth 
 shall stand, and faithfulness triumph. And recompense 
 shall follow, and the reward be made manifest ; Deeds 
 of righteousness shall awake, and deeds of iniquity shall 
 not sleep. And then shall the pit of torment appear, and 
 over against it the place of refreshment ; The furnace of 
 
 1 Eth. Enoch xciv. 8, 9. ' v. 293-305. Terry's translation. 
 
 854 
 
X] THE EZRA-APOCALYPSE 
 
 Gehenna shall be made manifest, and over against it the 
 Paradise of delight. And then shall the Most High say to 
 the nations that have been raised (from the dead) : Look, 
 now, and consider whom ye have denied, whom ye have not 
 served, whose commandments ye have despised ! Look, 
 now, before (you) : here delight and refreshment, there 
 fire and torments ! Thus shall he speak unto them in 
 the Day of Judgement. For thus shall the Day of Judge- 
 ment be : (A day) whereon is neither sun, nor moon, nor 
 stars, neither clouds, nor thunder, nor lightning ; Neither 
 wind, nor rainstorm, nor cloud-rack ; neither darkness, nor 
 evening, nor morning ; neither summer, nor autumn, nor 
 winter ; neither heat, nor frost, nor cold ; neither hail, 
 nor rain, nor dew ; neither noon, nor night, nor dawn ; 
 neither shining, nor brightness, nor light, save only the 
 splendour of the brightness of the Most High, whereby 
 all shall be destined to see what has been determined (for 
 them). And its duration shall be as it were a week of years. 
 Such is my Judgement and its prescribed order ; to thee 
 only have I showed these things.^ 
 
 In these passages the Messiah is hardly mentioned, 
 if at all. But in the following He takes an important 
 part in the approaching change. 
 
 At that hour that Son of Man was named «» 
 In the presence of the Lord of Spirits, 
 And his name before the Head of Days. 
 
 Yea, before the sun and the signs were created. 
 
 Before the stars of the heaven were made, 
 
 His name was named before the Lord of Spirits. 
 
 He shall be a staff to the righteous whereon to stay them- 
 selves and not fall. 
 And he shall be the light of the Gentiles, 
 And the hope of those who are troubled of heart. 
 
 1 vii. 33-44. Box's translation. 
 355 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 All who dwell on earth shall fall down and worship before him, 
 And will praise and bless and celebrate with song the Lord 
 of Spirits. 
 
 For in his name they are saved, 
 
 And according to his good pleasure hath it been in regard 
 to their life.'^ 
 
 So also we find in the Sibylline Oracles : 
 
 For there came from the heavenly plains a man. 
 
 One blessed, with a sceptre in his hand, 
 
 Which God gave him, and he ruled all things well. 
 
 And unto all the good did he restore 
 
 The riches which the earlier men had seized. 
 
 And many cities with much fire he took 
 
 From their foundations, and he set on fire 
 
 The towns of mortals who before did evil, 
 
 And he did make that city, which God loved, 
 
 More radiant than stars and sun and moon. 
 
 And he set order, and a holy house 
 
 Incarnate made, pure, very fair, and formed 
 
 In many stades a great and boundless tower 
 
 Touching the clouds themselves and seen by all. 
 
 So that all holy and all righteous men 
 
 Might see the glory of the eternal God, 
 
 A sight that has been longed for, . . . 
 
 • • • • ■ • ■ 
 
 It is the last time of the saints when God 
 Accomplisheth these things, high Thunderer, 
 Founder of temple most magnificent.^ 
 
 In the Fourth Book of Ezra we read : 
 
 ' This is the Messiah whom the Most High hath kept 
 unto the end [of the days, who shall spring from the seed 
 of David, and shall come and speak] unto them ; He shall 
 reprove them for their ungodliness, rebuke them for their 
 
 ' Eth. Enoch xlviii. 2-7. 
 
 » V. 414-433. Terry's translation. Cf. also Lecture VII, pp. 253 sq. 
 
 356 
 
x] THE APOCALYPSE OF BARUCH 
 
 unrighteousness, reproach them to their faces with their 
 treacheries. For at the first He shall set them alive for 
 judgement ; and when he hath rebuked them he shall 
 destroy them. But my people who survive he shall deliver 
 with mercy, even those who have been saved throughout 
 my borders, and he shall make them joyful until the End 
 come, even the Day of Judgement, of which I have spoken 
 unto thee from the beginning.^ 
 
 The Syriac Apocalypse of Baruch is more precise : 
 
 After the signs have come, of which thou wast told 
 before, when the nations become turbulent, and the time 
 of My Messiah is come, he shall both summon all the nations, 
 and some of them he shall spare, and some of them he shall 
 slay. These things therefore shall come upon the nations 
 which are to be spared by him. Every nation, which knows 
 not Israel and has not trodden down the seed of Jacob, 
 shall indeed be spared. And this because some out of every 
 nation shall be subjected to thy people. But all those who 
 have ruled over you, or have known you, shall be given up 
 to the sword. 
 
 And it shall come to pass, when he has brought low every- 
 thing that is in the world. 
 And has sat down in peace for the age on the throne of 
 
 his kingdom. 
 That joy shall be revealed. 
 And rest shall appear. 
 And then healing shall descend in dew. 
 And disease shall withdraw. 
 And anxiety and anguish and lamentation pass from amongst 
 
 men. 
 And gladness proceed through the whole earth. 
 
 ■ >•■••• 
 
 And it shall come to pass in those days that the reapers 
 
 shall not grow weary, 
 Nor those that build be toilworn ; 
 
 1 xii. 32-34. 
 357 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 For the works shall of themselves speedily advance 
 Together with those who do them in much tranquillity. 
 
 This is the bright lightning which came after the last dark 
 waters,^ 
 
 These few extracts from the Apocalyptic writings 
 are sufficient to show the vividness of the hope that 
 animated their authors. It is true that they are of 
 different periods, Enoch and the Sibyllines belong- 
 ing to the first century B.C., and Ezra and Baruch 
 to the end of the first century a.d., but none of the 
 passages quoted appears to have been influenced by 
 Christian teaching, and thus they represent faithfully 
 the current expectation of a large section of the 
 Jewish people in the era when the doctrines of our 
 faith were being formed. Those among the Jews 
 who accepted the teaching of the Apocalyptic books 
 were looking forward eagerly to the speedy consum- 
 mation of the Divine promises, when the powers of 
 the wicked should cease and the kingdom of God 
 be manifested, in connexion with the coming of the 
 Messiah, the Son of Man, and the Lord of Spirits. 
 They believed that they were already in the last 
 times, and that at any moment the revelation of the 
 kingdom of heaven might be made. 
 
 II. ^'V^lat, then, was our Lord's attitude to this 
 fundamental hope of the Apocalyptists, the imme- 
 diate coming of the kingdom ? On His attitude to 
 them in general Mr. Streeter rightly tells us : ' Jewish 
 Apocalypse, albeit bizarre to modern eyes, was no 
 ignoble thing. The eternal optimism, which is of the 
 essence of true religion, expresses itself in different 
 
 ' §§ 72-74. 
 358 
 
X] OUR LORD'S ATTITUDE 
 
 forms in different epochs. To men appalled alike 
 by the corruption and by the irresistible might of 
 Roman civilisation, and inheriting the previous reli- 
 gious history of Israel and her prophets, it was an 
 heroic confidence in the Divine intention to regenerate 
 the world that found its most natural expression in 
 terms of the Messianic hope apocalyptically con- 
 ceived. On this side of triumphant and confident faith 
 our Lord placed Himself definitely and unreservedly.' ^ 
 
 Yet while this is true generally, it is not at all 
 easy to understand what was His attitude towards 
 the hope of the immediate coming of the kingdom. 
 Did He, or did He not, expect the kingdom to come 
 in its fullness almost immediately after He spoke His 
 various utterances on the subject ? Nearly twenty 
 centuries have rolled by since then. Did our Lord 
 presuppose so long a lapse of time, or did He not ? 
 
 We must examine His language before we can 
 pretend to give an answer. And at this point it is 
 necessary to recall the dominant theory of the sources 
 used by the writer of this Gospel. These are, first, the 
 source used both by him and St. Luke, generally 
 called Q. Secondly, our present St. Mark, or a 
 writing almost indistinguishable from it (Mk) ; 
 and, thirdly, the material contributed by the writer 
 himself (Mt). 
 
 Bearing these three sources in mind we may 
 proceed to collect the more important evidence in 
 answer to our question. The facts are simple enough, 
 though rather dry to enumerate ; the interpretation 
 of them is not. 
 
 In some passages our Lord implies that His 
 
 1 Studies in the Synoptic Problem ; Synoptic Criticism and Eschatologyy 
 1911, p. 434. 
 
 359 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 kingdom, the kingdom of God, has already appeared. 
 To the question of John's disciples, ' Art thou he that 
 Cometh ? ' He rephes : ' Go your way and tell John 
 the things which ye do hear and see.' And, almost 
 immediately after. He adds : ' From the days of 
 John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven 
 suffereth violence' (xi. 3, 4, 12, Q).^ Again, 'If 
 I by the Spirit of God cast out devils, then is the 
 kingdom of God come upon you ' (xii. 28, Q). The 
 same implication underlies the expression : ' There- 
 fore every scribe who hath been made a disciple 
 to the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is 
 a householder, which bringeth forth out of his trea- 
 sure things new and old ' (xiii. 52, Mt). Lastly, it 
 is evident in the closing words of the Gospel : ' All 
 authority hath been given unto me in heaven and on 
 earth. Go ye, therefore, and make disciples of all 
 the nations' (xxviii. 18, 19, Mt).^ 
 
 In a second class of sayings the Lord plainly 
 states that the kingdom is only near at hand. Among 
 the better-known passages are : ' But when they 
 persecute you in this city, flee into the next : for 
 verily I say unto you. Ye shall not have gone through 
 the cities of Israel, till the Son of man be come ' 
 (x. 23, Q). ' There be some of them that stand here, 
 which shall in no wise taste of death, till they see the 
 Son of man coming in his kingdom' (xvi. 28, Mk). 
 ' Ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, 
 Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord ' 
 (xxiii. 39, Q). ' This generation shall not pass away, 
 till all these things be accomplished ' (xxiv. 34, Mk). 
 
 ' Q or Mk or Mt following the references indicate the source, as stated 
 above. 
 
 2 We may add xvii. 11 (Mk) ; xxiii. 13 (Q). 
 
 360 
 
X] COMING OF THE KINGDOM NOT IMMEDIATE 
 
 ' I say unto you, I will not drink henceforth of this 
 fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new 
 with you in my Father's kingdom ' (xxvi. 29, Mk). 
 Observe in this class that although St. Matthew 
 records these passages faithfully, not one of them 
 belongs to the source which he alone used. They are 
 all from Q and Mark.^ 
 
 Besides these two classes, however, in which the 
 Lord either speaks of the kingdom as present or as 
 near at hand, there is a group of sayings in which 
 He implies with differing degrees of clearness that 
 a long series of years will pass away before the full 
 manifestation of the kingdom. ' Can the sons of 
 the bridechamber mourn, as long as the bridegroom 
 is with them ? but the days will come, when the 
 bridegroom shall be taken away from them, and then 
 will they fast' (ix. 15, Mk). 'While men slept, his 
 enemy came and sowed tares also among the wheat, 
 and went away. . . . Let both grow together until the 
 harvest : and in the time of the harvest I will say to 
 the reapers. Gather up first the tares, and bind them 
 in bundles to burn them : but gather the wheat 
 into my barn ' (xiii. 25, 30, see also 38-43, Mt). The 
 parables of the Mustard Seed (xiii. 31, 32, Mk), 
 and of the Leaven (xiii. 33, Q) also imply delay. 
 So too : ' Again I say unto you, that if two of you 
 shall agree on earth as touching anything that they 
 shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father 
 which is in heaven. For where two or three are 
 gathered together in my name, there am I in the 
 midst of them' (xviii. 19, 20, Mt). 'Therefore 
 say I unto you. The kingdom of God shall be taken 
 away from you, and shall be given to a nation bringing 
 
 » We may add iv. 17 (Mk), x. 7 (Q) ; compare also xxiv. 27, 39, 44, 50 (Q). 
 
 361 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 forth the fruits thereof (xxi. 43, Mt). 'This 
 gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the 
 whole world for a testimony unto all the nations ; 
 and then shall the end come ' (xxiv. 14, Mk). 
 ' But if that evil servant shall say in his heart, My 
 lord tarrieth ; and shall begin to beat his fellow- 
 servants, and shall eat and drink with the drunken ; 
 the lord of that servant shall come in a day when 
 he expecteth not, and in an hour when he knoweth 
 not ' (xxiv. 48-50, Q). We may add the closing 
 words of the Gospel : ' Lo, I am with you alway, 
 even unto the end of the world ' (xxviii. 20, Mt).^ 
 
 Those are the facts, presented, as I trust, fairly 
 and dispassionately. What are we to make of 
 them ? In the first place, this : that both Q and less 
 certainly St. Matthew's private source of informa- 
 tion (Mt) sometimes presuppose that the kingdom 
 has already come ; secondly, that Q and St. Mark 
 (Mk) look forward rather to its immediate approach ; 
 thirdly, that St. Matthew's own source (Mt), while 
 giving more Apocalyptic details about the Second 
 Coming than either Q or Mk (for he seems to have 
 been more in touch with Apocalyptic literature 
 than either of them),^ yet also brings out much 
 more plainly than they the fact that a long time 
 will elapse between the utterances of the Lord and 
 the fulfilment of them.^ 
 
 But here we cannot but ask : If Q and St. Mark 
 
 1 We may add xviii. 23 (Mt) ; xx. 1-16 (Mt) ; xxii. 1-14 {? Mt or Q) 
 xxiv. 3 (Mt). 
 
 ' Dr. Burkitt even sees ' a real literary connexion ' between Enoch Ixii. 
 and Matt, xxv., op. cit. pp. 23-25. 
 
 ' Canon Streeter strangely ignores this, while rightly insisting on the 
 greater wealth of catastrophic detail in Matthew (op. cit. p. 433). If the view 
 of St. Matthew's account of the teaching of the Lord as given above is right, 
 
 362 
 
x] WAS OUR LORD SOMETIMES MISTAKEN 
 
 give an accurate account of our Lord's sayings, 
 when they make Him foretell the close approach 
 of the kingdom, though it has not come in that 
 fullness described, in spite of nearly twenty centuries 
 having run their course, what can we say either of 
 them or of Him ? There is no reason to suppose 
 that their reports of the sayings are erroneous, 
 though, of course, they may be incomplete. Are we 
 to infer, then, that our Lord was mistaken ? Now 
 we must remember that we have no right to answer 
 this upon merely a priori grounds. Bishop Butler 
 has warned us too plainly against applying such a 
 method of reasoning to the way in which God deals 
 with us. We dare not then rule the possibility 
 of mistakes out of our Lord's life. For Him to 
 have made mistakes may be exceedingly improbable, 
 but we cannot say more. Humanum est errare may 
 be true even of humanity that is sinless. 
 
 Yet it is not easy to combine the passages of the 
 second class, namely, those which are to the effect 
 that the final coming of the kingdom was at hand, 
 with even ordinary intelligence. True, it is affirmed 
 by some writers that our Lord was so carried away 
 by the enthusiastic acceptance which He received 
 in Galilee that He supposed the nation as a whole 
 was about to acknowledge Him, and that therefore 
 His Father in heaven would grant the full revelation 
 of the kingdom at once.^ But human foresight 
 
 there is no room for the supposition that His ethical teaching was intended 
 to be merely temporary ('Interimsethik'), mitil His kingdom should come. 
 On its true character see Lectures IV-VI. On Matt. xxiv. see Additional 
 Note at the end of this Lecture. 
 
 ^ Dr. Charles writes : ' At the outset of His ministry he had, we can hardly 
 doubt, hoped to witness the consummation of this kingdom without passing 
 through the gates of death ' (Esohatology : A Critical History of the Doctrine 
 of a Future Life, 1913, p. 376). 
 
 363 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 of quite the conventional range was sufficient to 
 see that Israel as a nation was not likely to accept 
 Him. After all, it is unreasonable for us not to 
 credit Jesus with more understanding of the times 
 than that.^ It is improbable, therefore, that our 
 Lord expected that such prophecies of His were to 
 be fulfilled within the few months that lay between 
 the time of their utterance and the crucifixion. 
 
 For Him to have made a mistake of that kind 
 is well-nigh incredible to a dispassionate thinker, 
 whether he be orthodox or not. 
 
 Yet the possibility of a mistake of another kind 
 is not to be dismissed so easily. Our Lord may 
 have hoped that with the life-giving power which 
 was to be poured out after His death by the coming 
 of the Holy Ghost, the hour for the final release of 
 the world from its sins and sufferings, its failures 
 and its disappointments, would soon strike, and we 
 are hardly in a position to say that such an expec- 
 tation on His part was incompatible with His nature 
 and character. For, as He Himself tells us, the day 
 and hour were hidden from Him (Matt. xxiv. 36), 
 and He might not unreasonably expect that the 
 blessing of Whitsunday would prove irresistible. 
 On this supposition we must say that to Him, like 
 His predecessors in the prophetic office, the per- 
 
 ^ Albert Schweitzer's gruesome phantasy is to the effect that the prophecies 
 of the Second Advent were the vapourings of an enthusiast, assured at first 
 that He would come as the Son of man in glory, ere His disciples returned 
 from their missionary tour (Matt. x. 23) ; and, when this proved to be mis- 
 taken, got Himself put to death by the authorities in Jerusalem that He 
 might straightway return in the clouds of heaven, and bring earthly history 
 to a close. But in vain, for the wheel of the world rolls onward, and Jesus 
 is hanging on it, mangled and crushed [The Quest of the Historical Jesus, 
 1910, p. 369). 
 
 364 
 
x] ST. MATTHEW'S CARE 
 
 spective of age-long spiritual work was allowed 
 to be foreshortened.^ 
 
 We should, perhaps, be shut up to this inter- 
 pretation of our Lord's mind if we had only some 
 of the words recorded for us in St. Matthew which 
 have been taken from Q and Mark. But in view 
 of the further fact that many of His other sayings, 
 which are found chiefly in St. Matthew alone, imply 
 a long interval between the time when He uttered 
 them and the day of His return in glory, it is possible 
 that we misinterpret those former passages, and 
 read into them more than He Himself intended to 
 convey. The passages adduced chiefly by St. Matthew 
 alone indicate that Jesus was personally assured 
 that a long period would elapse before His return on 
 the clouds of heaven. Yet at the very time He 
 spoke thus He was also using strong, almost para- 
 doxical, language of the immediateness of that 
 return, in order apparently that He might deepen 
 in His hearers the sense of their responsibility, and 
 also lead them to see that events of infinitely less 
 crucial importance than the last day were never- 
 theless practical examples of His coming in an 
 inferior and partial sense. To His hearers, for 
 instance, death was one such crisis ; to the nation, 
 or even to the whole civilised world of the time, the 
 fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple 
 were others. He appears to have referred to these 
 events sometimes in terms that more strictly belonged 
 to His return, and thus not to have been careful 
 to distinguish between them and His final coming 
 in glory, in order that thus He might impress upon 
 
 ' Cf, von Dobsohiitz, The Eschatology of the Gospels, 1910, pp. 184-187. 
 
 365 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 His followers the assurance of His activity and the 
 certainty of His Advent. 
 
 In any case St. Matthew takes pains to correct 
 the false impression that might have been left by 
 his extracts from Q and Mark, when taken alone, 
 by insisting on the many occasions on which our 
 Lord taught the existence of a long lapse of time 
 between His two comings. 
 
 If, however, St. Matthew did this, why, it may 
 be asked, did not the author of Q and St. Mark ? 
 Here we find the inconvenience of not knowing the 
 chronological relation of these two. But if recent 
 critics are right in holding the priority of Q, and in 
 believing that it was composed within a very few 
 years after the crucifixion, it may well be the case 
 that its writer did not feel the difficulty of the lapse 
 of time, and was himself so full of the eager ex- 
 pectation of the Lord's return, that his mind turned 
 only, or almost only,^ to those sayings of our Lord 
 which lay stress upon it. This explanation in some 
 degree applies to St. Mark also. He wrote, as it would 
 seem, before the Fall of Jerusalem, and it was but 
 natural that that catastrophe, minor though it seems 
 to us, should almost entirely fill his vision. And in 
 fact it was near, very near, at hand. 
 
 But St. Matthew, compiling his edificatory life of 
 our Lord for the sadly tried Jewish-Christians after 
 the Roman war, when city and temple had perished, 
 and yet the Lord Jesus had not come and the kingdom 
 not been consummated, felt himself constrained to 
 bring out the true meaning of the Lord's teaching. 
 He desired to show that the religious expectations 
 of the Jews were not to be deceived, that the 
 
 ' For he did not quite forget other sayings, see p. 361. 
 366 
 
xj OUR LORD'S EXPECTATION OF SUFFERING 
 
 Apocalyptic Hope of the full establishment of the 
 kingdom of God was not fallacious.^ The kingdom 
 had in truth been founded by the Lord Jesus ; it 
 was now being maintained and developed by agencies 
 appointed by Him, and also by His own presence 
 with them, and at last (though not necessarily, nor 
 even probably, within a short time) it would be 
 manifested in its completion and its glory ; when 
 Jesus the Messiah, the Son of Man, as well as Son of 
 God, should return on the clouds of heaven, with His 
 angels and His saints. 
 
 The Lord Jesus, then, looked forward to the future 
 manifestation of the kingdom of heaven, when He 
 Himself would return in glory. 
 
 And this expectation was not a pis aller, devised 
 only in the latter part of His ministry, when He at last 
 foresaw that He would fail to win the nation over to 
 His cause, and that He would do well to invite death 
 at the hands of His enemies in order that so His 
 coming in power might be hastened. 
 
 For, as we have already seen in Lecture VIII, 
 His identification of Himself with the Son of Man 
 carried with it the expectation of suffering as well 
 as of present power and future glory. And, as we 
 shall see in the next Lecture, He was conscious even 
 from His baptism of His call to suffering and death. 
 He looked forward, therefore, even from the very first, 
 
 ^ 'The contents of the expectation of the future held by primitive 
 Christianity did not grow out of the Gospel, but passed over to it almost 
 entirely out of Judaism.' Briickner (R.0.0. ii. 612), who goes on to say that 
 the separate thoughts of Jewish Apocal3rptists acquire a different value, in as 
 far as they are connected with the person and work of Jesus as the Messiah. 
 ' Only one subject is never touched on in the Gospels, the judgment upon 
 the external foes of Israel' (ibid. ii. 614). See also Sanday's remarkable 
 article on the Apocalyptic Element in the Gospels in the Hibbert Journal 
 for October 1911, pp. 83-109. 
 
 367 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 to the fire of extremest pain as a necessary prelude to 
 His return in glory. 
 
 III. Lastly, it will not be out of place if we ask 
 ourselves in a few words what is the real nature of the 
 consummation predicted ? 
 
 We may say at once that the form of our Lord's 
 description of the end, whether it be symbolic or literal, 
 seems to be inconsistent with a merely gradual change.^ 
 Unless we deprive words of their plain meaning, the 
 end predicted by Him must be catastrophic. 
 
 But it is doubtful whether we can say much more. 
 For we are very ignorant of the relation in which 
 the various events connected in Scripture with that 
 climax stand to each other. The Messiah will come 
 visibly ; Scripture seems to say that plainly enough ; 
 but will that coming usher in the resurrection of the 
 saints and a reign of bliss, as our forefathers fondly 
 thought, to be followed after a thousand years by 
 the general resurrection and the Judgment ? Or 
 will the coming of Christ synchronise with that 
 resurrection and judgment, and the destruction of 
 the earth as we know it ? On these and kindred 
 questions Scripture speaks aloud, as with the blaring 
 of a trumpet summons, that the Lord will come, 
 but the notes are too deep for our untrained ears 
 to distinguish, and the words, so far as we catch them, 
 are so steeped in imagery and symbol that we cannot 
 arrange in any order the details of the events bound 
 up with that appearing. The instructed Christian 
 shrinks from the attempt, though the fact of the 
 Advent is certain. 
 
 The kingdom of God, our Evangelist would tell 
 
 ^ Matt. xxiv. 30 ; xxvi. 64. Cf. Acts i. 11 ; Rev. i. 7. 
 368 
 
x] MATTHEW XXIV. 
 
 us, came when Christ was born at Bethlehem and 
 was baptized in Jordan ; it came in fresh power in 
 His Resurrection and at Pentecost ; its principles 
 have since been spreading both within the Church 
 and without ; but we must wait for its final revelation 
 at our Lord's return. Then will be the fulfilment 
 of our cry for righteousness, of our desire for holiness, 
 and of our sense of justice, when the veil now hiding 
 the glory of Jesus Christ shall be rolled away, in the 
 day of the Lord. 
 
 Additional Note on Matt. xxiv. (see p. 363) 
 
 This chapter, like so many of our Lord's addresses in 
 the First Gospel, is composite, its basis being Mark xiii., 
 which was also the basis of Luke xxi. 5-34, but containing 
 other passages from Q. Such are verses 43-51 (Luke xii. 
 39-46) ; verses 26, 27 (Luke xvii. 23, 24), verse 28 (Luke xvii. 
 37), verses 37-41 (Luke xvii. 26, 27, 34-35). With the excep- 
 tion of verses 10-12, 30, there is nothing of importance 
 peculiar to Matthew. We thus see that although the chapter 
 is Matthean as it stands, its original sources are Mk and Q ; 
 i.e., that even in its present form it belongs to a period earlier 
 than the Fall of Jerusalem. This suggests either that the 
 First Gospel as a whole was written before 70 a.d., or, and 
 more probably, that this report of an address, dating as a 
 whole not later than 60 a.d., has been faithfully preserved. 
 May we not go further and say that it suggests also that 
 the actual teaching of our Lord (whether given originally 
 in one discourse or in more is of little importance) has been 
 reproduced for us essentially free from error ? The chapter 
 then represents faithfully prophecies spoken by our Lord 
 in which the Fall of Jerusalem ^ and His own Final Coming 
 were not distinguished. 
 
 Neither is it possible for us to distinguish these two subjects 
 
 ' Dr. Burkitt, however, does not think that Mark xiii. contains ' any 
 prophecy of the siege of Jerusalem by Titus ' {op. cit. p. 49). 
 
 369 2 B 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH 
 
 save and in so far as we take history for our guide. But 
 we cannot be far wrong in relegating those events foretold 
 which did not take place at the Fall of Jerusalem to the 
 Second Coming, though we cannot be quite sure that some 
 of them ought not to be understood symbolically rather 
 than literally. 
 
 370 
 
Lecture Eleven 
 
 THE MESSIAH AND THE CROSS 
 
' Jesus cried again with a 
 loud voice, and yielded up 
 his spirit.'' — ^Matt. xxvii. 
 50. 
 
Lecture Eleven 
 
 THE MESSIAH AND THE CROSS 
 
 T 
 
 "AHE narrative of the Passion of Christ, from 
 the arrest to the burial, takes up nearly a 
 twelfth of the whole Gospel according to St. 
 Matthew, or, if we reckon it, as we should do, from 
 the Last Supper, more than a ninth. 
 
 In the eyes of the Evangelist, therefore, the Passion 
 of the Lord loomed very large indeed. And not in 
 his eyes only, but also in those of the whole early 
 Church. For both St. Matthew's account and St. 
 Luke's are taken from St. Mark's, and there are very 
 few critics who do not grant that this part of the 
 Second Gospel was composed at least as early as 
 50 or 60 A.D. It is plain, therefore, that the death of 
 Christ had so great an importance for the primitive 
 Church that every detail of it, as compared with other 
 parts of His history, was cherished and handed down 
 for the edification of believers, and, we may suppose, 
 for the instruction of catechumens. 
 
 It is our part now to consider the significa- 
 tion attached to it by St. Matthew, and the reasons 
 that led him to give it so large a space in his presen- 
 tation of the Messiah to his Christian fellow-country- 
 men. 
 
 I. But before entering upon this the question 
 must be answered : On whom does St. Matthew lay 
 the responsibility for the death of Christ ? Who, 
 in his opinion, are the parties guilty of that most 
 signal of all examples of opposition to truth ? 
 
 373 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 He certainly blames the Romans in the person 
 of their representative, Pontius Pilate, Governor of 
 Judaea, but whether he lays sufficient blame upon 
 them is disputed. Dr. Emil Hirsch says : ' The facts 
 show that the crucifixion of Jesus was an act of the 
 Roman government. . . . Many of the Jews sus- 
 pected of Messianic ambitions had been nailed to 
 the cross by Rome. The Messiah, " king of the Jews," 
 was a rebel in the estimation of Rome, and rebels 
 were crucified (Suetonius, Vespas. 4 ; Claudius, xxv. ; 
 Josephus, Antt. xx. v. 1, viii. 6 ; Acts v. 36, 37). 
 The inscription on the cross of Jesus reveals the crime 
 for which, according to Roman law, Jesus expired. He 
 was a rebel. Tacitus {Annals, 54, 59) reports there- 
 fore without comment the fact that Jesus was crucified. 
 For Romans no amplification was necessary.' ^ 
 
 Other writers put their case more attractively. 
 Dr. Isaac Wise, who was a prominent leader of the 
 Reformed Jews in the United States thirty years ago 
 wrote as follows : ' On the eve of the supper, Jesus 
 announced to the apostles, not only his firm resolu- 
 tion to die for his disciples and friends, and to prevent 
 the calamity which an insurrection in his favour was 
 sure to bring on his people, but also that the end was 
 nigh, and that the traitor would do his work quickly.' 
 ' The plain fact is, that Jesus sacrificed himself to 
 save his friends.' 'Unable to carry out the original 
 plan — ^the restoration of the kingdom of heaven in 
 
 * Jewish Encyclopedia, iv. 374. Cf. M. Theodore Reinach: 'te recit 
 des !fivangiles sur le proofs de J6sus est d'une extreme confusion, qui tient 
 Bu d^sir politique des redaoteurs d'innocenter le plus possible le gouvemeur 
 romain et de charger le sanhddrin juif.' . . . 
 
 ' J^sus a iti frapp6 par une loi inexorable, barbare si Ton veut, mais 
 formelle, et pour un fait qu'il a tacitement avou6 ' {Bevue des Etudes juives, 
 XXXV., 1897, pp. 16, 17, 18). 
 
 374 
 
XI J X±lil4 UUiVlAJNS Ki^iS±'UJ^Sl±5L,l^i JbUK ±liS UHiAlltX 
 
 Israel — and seeing his followers and admirers rushing 
 heedlessly into a mad scheme of rebellion, he laid down 
 his life heroically for his friends and countrymen.' ^. 
 
 According to this theory the Romans ought to 
 bear the responsibility for the death of Jesus. If so, 
 St. Matthew extenuated their crime that he might 
 lay the blame for it upon the Jews. Yet he clearly 
 indicts the Romans in the person of the Governor. 
 For he informs us that Pilate's wife sent him a message 
 warning him against having anything to do with that 
 righteous man, and Pilate's own solemn protestation 
 of innocence by washing his hands before the multi- 
 tude can have had hardly any other object than 
 that of showing that his own conscience accused him. 
 St. Matthew certainly blames the Romans, and that 
 severely.^ 
 
 Does he also blame either or both of the two great 
 parties in the Jewish State, the Sadducees and the 
 Pharisees ? Here we must be careful. 
 
 Throughout the whole account of the Passion 
 until after the burial the words Sadducees and 
 Pharisees are not mentioned by St. Matthew. He 
 did not find the terms in St. Mark, the source he 
 followed very closely, and he did not add them. 
 But although he does not use those names he speaks 
 
 ^ The Martyrdom of Jesus of Nazareth, 1888, pp. 51, 126. 
 
 * M. Th. Reinaoh (op. cit.) complains that the Evangehst's description of 
 Pilate as weak, playing 'le role d'lm pacha debonnair,' is contrary to what we 
 know from other writers of his cruelty, regardless of all consequences. But the 
 New Testament suggests the contempt that the typical Roman felt for Jews, 
 and normal savagery is not inconsistent with occasional weakness, especially 
 when, as in this case, the personal influence of another is added. Dr. Isaac 
 Wise has an extraordinary theory that it is not even certain that Jesus was 
 crucified, ' He was given over to the Roman soldiers to be disposed of as fast 
 as possible. . . . Some said he was crucified ; others thought he was hung 
 to a tree ; and others again said he did not die at all' {op. cit. pp. 125 sq.). 
 But this is to play fast and loose with evidence. 
 
 375 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 again and again of ' the High Priests,' with or with- 
 out additions such as ' the elders,' ' the elders of the 
 people,' ' the scribes and elders,' ' the whole Sanhe- 
 drin,' ^ as consulting how they might seize Jesus 
 by craft and kill Him, avoiding if possible the days 
 when the city would be thronged and disturbance 
 be caused (xxvi. 3-5) ; as arranging for the betrayal 
 {vv. 14-16), and sending men to take Him {vv. 47-50) ; 
 as gathered in conclave, and straining every nerve 
 to secure false witness against Him {vv. 57-61) ; 
 and as condemning and ill-treating Him {vv. 66-68) ; 
 meeting again in the early morning in order to give 
 effect to their decision by handing Him over to 
 Pilate (xxvii. 1, 2) ; rejecting Judas' blood-money, 
 and afterwards using it for the purchase of a burial- 
 ground {vv. 3-10) ; accusing Him before Pilate 
 {vv. 12, 13) ; persuading the mob to ask for the 
 release of Barabbas and the death of Jesus {v. 20) ; 
 and, lastly, mocking at Him as He hangs on the 
 cross {vv. 41-43). 
 
 Besides, the first meeting was held in the central 
 court of the High Priest called Caiaphas (xxvi. 3), 
 who afterwards conducted the first trial of our Lord, 
 and did his utmost to secure His condemnation 
 (xxvi. 57-65). Now we have already seen (Lecture II) 
 that Caiaphas and his relations, the High Priests 
 of the New Testament, were Sadducees, so that 
 it is evident that St. Matthew blames at least 
 Sadducees for the murder of Jesus. Nor does any 
 one seriously deny this.^ 
 
 ^ xxvi. 59. 
 
 ^ Even Dr. Isaac Wise grants this, though he says : ' Caiaphas and his 
 conspirators did not act from the Jewish standpoint. They represented 
 Rome, her principles, interests, and barbarous caprices' (op. cit. p. 30). Mr. 
 Montefiore writes : ' The Gospel narratives are so far correct in that Jesus 
 
 376 
 
XI] AND THE SADDUCEES 
 
 We can understand the reasons for the bitterness 
 with which ungodly Sadducees regarded our Lord. 
 They feared the political issues of His appearance 
 with His Galilean followers. ^ They belonged to the 
 most worldly of all the movements in Judaisrri, and, 
 further, as the guardians of the Temple they may 
 well have been exasperated by His denunciation of 
 their profanation of the house of God (xxi. 12-16).^ 
 
 The Sadducees, it must be allowed, took a 
 leading part in the death of Jesus. But if so we 
 probably have the explanation of much of the dis- 
 agreement that is often pointed out between the 
 proceedings at the trial of Jesus and those enjoined 
 in the treatise of the 'Mishna (Sanhedrin), which 
 deals with the accusation and trial of criminals 
 according to the precepts of the Jewish law. Nothing 
 is more common than for Jews to assert that the 
 Gospel narratives of the trial of our Lord are fictitious 
 because they differ in so many particulars from the 
 directions laid down in the written Oral Law. The 
 trial, they say, can never have taken place as described 
 in the New Testament.^ 
 
 was really put to death by the Romans at the instance and instigation of the 
 Jewish authorities, and more especially of the ruhng priesthood ' {Synoptic 
 Gospels, p. 346). See also below, p. 380, note. 
 
 ^ Cf. Chwoison, Das letzte Passamahl Christi, 1908, pp. 86, 124. 
 
 " Dr. Kirsopp Lake thinks that ' finanoial interest rather than theological 
 hatred was the real cause of the accusation of the priests ' {The SiewardsMp 
 of the Faith, 1915, p. 39). 
 
 • Mr. Montefiore, Synoptic Gospels, pp. 346 sq., even objects : ' How 
 could the full court be got together so rapidly in the middle of the night ? 
 Jesus could hardly have arrived at the high priest's house much before mid- 
 night. . . . Did they at that hour of night send out messengers to summon 
 the " Scribes and chief priests ' ' together that a court might rapidly be consti- 
 tuted ? . . . We ask, how have the witnesses been obtained at this hour of 
 night ? ' But he forgets that Orientals are much less regular in their hours 
 of sleep than we, and that at the crowded festivals the greater part of the 
 
 377 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 When, however, such opponents argue against 
 the trustworthiness of the Gospel narratives because 
 they differ from the Oral Law, they do not make 
 allowance for three facts. First (as has been often 
 pointed out in these Lectures), it is uncritical to 
 assume that the Jewish law of later times was identical 
 with the practice in vogue about 30 a.d. Secondly, 
 it is not at all certain that the discussions of the 
 Schools held at a date when the Jewish State had 
 ceased, upon the legal procedure in cases of life 
 and death, were not purely academic, and never 
 literally carried out either then or at any other time 
 earlier or later. Thirdly, the code in the Mishna is 
 confessedly Pharisaic, and we have no right to sup- 
 pose that it was the same as that of the Sadducees.^ 
 
 St. Matthew, then, certainly lays much of the 
 responsibility for our Lord's death on the Sadducean 
 leaders of the nation. But does this mean that 
 he absolves the Pharisees from all participation 
 in the crime ? ^ The last chapter of the Gospel 
 shows that he is very far from doing that, for he 
 tells us that ' the High Priests and the Pharisees ' 
 reminded Pilate of Jesus' prophecy that He would 
 
 population of a town is awake all night. Among more serious difficulties 
 are the regulations in the Mishna that capital charges may not be tried at 
 night, or completed in one day if the verdict of guilty is brought in, in order 
 that leniency, not severity, should be the ruling principle. See in particular 
 Chwolson, op. cit. p. 119. On the difficulty that a claim to be the Messiah 
 was not considered blasphemy (xxvi. 65) see Lecture II, p. 68 note. 
 
 1 It will be remembered (Lecture II, p. 74) that the Pharisees had no power 
 until very near the Fall of Jerusalem. ' Zur Zeit Christi sassen wohl auoh 
 Pharisaer im Synhedrion, aber sie spielten damals in dieser Corporation nooh 
 eine untergeordnete Rolle. Die Vorsitzenden und die Hauptfuhrer des 
 Synhedrions waren damals die Sadducaer, imd diese gaben in alien wichtigen 
 Sachen den Ausschlag' (Chwolson, op. cit. p. 121). See also Biiohler, Das 
 Synhedrion in Jerusalem, 1902, e.g., pp. 99, 240. 
 
 * As Chwolson would urge upon us, op. cit. pp. 118-125. 
 
 378 
 
XI] AND THE PHARISEES 
 
 rise again, and they had a guard set over His tomb 
 (xxviii. 62-66),^ Besides, although for some reason 
 the Pharisees are not mentioned by name in the 
 two chapters of the Passion, their presence is imphed 
 almost as certainly as that of the Sadducees. After 
 their hostility to Jesus personally had been brought 
 out in earlier chapters (xii. 14 ; xxii. 15), and the 
 opposition of their teaching to true religion had been 
 shown by our Lord's invective (xxiii.), and as the 
 Evangelist tells us that they carried on their hostility 
 even after Christ's death, it is not probable that 
 he held them guiltless in the proceedings of the 
 Passion itself. 
 
 On the contrary, he almost certainly includes 
 them, though under other expressions, just as he 
 includes the Sadducees. Probably the reason why 
 he does not use the terms Sadducees and Pharisees 
 is the same in both cases. Those names referred 
 primarily to religion, and therefore lent themselves 
 readily to occasions when religious questions were 
 under consideration, but other terms were more 
 effective for the purpose of showing the part taken 
 by the official and public representatives of the 
 nation in compassing the Saviour's death. 
 
 We have seen that the titles ' the High Priest,' 
 ' the High Priests,' refer to Sadducees, and it is 
 probable that Pharisees are at least included in the 
 phrases, ' the elders,' ' the elders of the people,' 
 ' the scribes and elders,' ' the whole Sanhedrin.' The 
 use of these terms in addition to that of High Priests 
 suggests that the Evangelist desired to indicate 
 the leaders of the nation generally, to whichever 
 religious party the members severally belonged. 
 
 ' See Lecture XII, pp. 398 sqq. 
 379 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 The form of legal procedure actually adopted may 
 then well have been Sadducean, and yet the Pharisees 
 have been one with the Sadducees in desiring His 
 deaths, and in taking steps to secure it. 
 
 We may then conclude that St. Matthew de- 
 liberately intended his readers to understand that 
 both of the great religious parties in Judaism, in 
 their capacity as the nation's official leaders, con- 
 curred in their successful efforts to put Jesus the 
 Messiah to death.^ 
 
 The Evangelist, however, does not stop here. 
 He shows more plainly than either of the other 
 Synoptists that not only the leaders but the people 
 themselves were guilty. For he alone records the 
 incidents of Pilate washing his hands in the presence 
 of the multitude, and saying : ' I am innocent of 
 this blood : see ye to it.' And of the answer of 
 ' all the people ' — ' His blood be on us, and on our 
 children ' (xxvii. 24 sq., R.V. marg.). St. Matthew 
 does not indeed labour the point, but if we are right 
 in our supposition that his Gospel was written soon 
 after 70 a.d. every reader of the time would have 
 recalled the awful nemesis which the words had in- 
 voked in the butcheries of the city's siege and fall. 
 
 Thus the answer to the question : Upon whom 
 does the Evangelist lay the blame for our Lord's 
 death ? appears to be : that he presents the Crucifixion 
 as the result of the weakness and selfishness of Pilate, 
 the Roman Governor ; of the deliberate malice of 
 
 ^ To some extent this is admitted even by Mr. Montefiore : ' The pre- 
 cise proportion of responsibility which belongs to any section of the Jews 
 of Jerusalem for the death of Jesus must always remain doubtful and un- 
 certain. But the probability is that the Sadducean priesthood, perhaps 
 backed up by some of the leading Rabbis, were responsible, together with 
 the Romans, for his death ' [op. cit.'^'p. 382). 
 
 380 
 
xij AND ALL THE PEOPLE 
 
 the Jewish leaders, Sadducees aided by Pharisees, and 
 of the clamour of all the people — Gentiles not being 
 innocent of it, and Jews being guilty. 
 
 In saying this, however, it is far from our desire 
 to lay more blame on the Jewish than on other 
 nations. No Gentile people would have treated 
 Jesus any better. The judicial murder of Socrates is 
 an example to the contrary. The shame is that the 
 Jews, the most enlightened nation of the time, with 
 a knowledge of God, theoretical and practical, far 
 surpassing any other, acted as they did. They had 
 made much more progress in true religion, and yet 
 they crucified Jesus. The history of the Passion 
 suggests, not that the Jews were sinners above all 
 others, but that there was and is something radically 
 wrong with the whole human race, when its best 
 representatives act thus towards the embodiment 
 of truth and holiness and love. 
 
 II. We turn now to consider the value and the 
 effect of that death, in the light of the Evangelist's 
 narrative. 
 
 Now it is very remarkable that at the two turning- 
 points in our Lord's life, the Baptism and the Trans- 
 figuration, the commencement of His work and the 
 decisive hour when He left Galilee and went towards 
 Jerusalem, He should have heard addressed to Him 
 from heaven words identifying Him with the Servant 
 described in Isaiah xlii. to liii., the Beloved who was 
 called to endure suffering and death.^ God the 
 Father would encourage Him in the day of His 
 
 ^ iii. 17, E.V. marg. ; xTii. 5 : ' This is my Son ; my beloved in whom I 
 am well pleased,' where ' beloved ' {ayain/jTos) answers to ' my chosen ' in 
 Isa. xlii. 1, as it does in chap. xii. 18; cf. p. 389, and Lecture I, pp. 40 sq. 
 
 381 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 consecration and in that of the manifestation of His 
 glory, by reminding Him, first of His Divine Sonship, 
 and secondly of what was involved in perfect service. 
 He was not only the Son of God, but also the Servant ; 
 and the Servant must serve, however painful the form 
 which the service would take. 
 
 He was thus aware of the issue of His call, and of 
 the greatness of the cost. He accepted the summons, 
 and went steadily forward, conscious of His end.^ 
 
 Besides, there is other evidence than the divine 
 words at the Baptism that Jesus was aware that He 
 would have to die, long before the Transfiguration, 
 with the events that immediately succeeded it. He 
 knew His end during the earlier portion of His 
 ministry. Recall His allusion to the marriage cere- 
 mony, the joy and shouts of the wedding guests, and 
 then the sudden raid of a band of robbers, seizing the 
 bridegroom and carrying him off, with the consequent 
 mourning for his loss (ix. 15).^ Or remember the 
 simile of the cross, which each of Christ's followers 
 must bear if he is to be worthy of His Master, and our 
 Lord's insistence on the solemn fact that our earthly 
 life may be preserved at too high a price, and that to 
 lose it may be the best way of finding it (x. 38 sq.). 
 This saying He repeats in an enlarged form (xvi. 
 24-26), immediately after He had said plainly that 
 ' He must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things 
 
 ^ Observe that the identification of Himself as Messiah with the suffering 
 Servant is expressly regarded by the Evangelist as a revelation made to Him 
 from God, and not as the result of human teaching. This is in accordance 
 with the Biblical knowledge of our Lord's contemporaries, for, so far as we 
 are aware, no one had as yet seen the connexion between the Servant and the 
 Messiah. 
 
 " From Mark ii. 20 ; see also Luke v. 35. Of. 1 Mace. ix. 37-42, where 
 Jonathan and Simon fall on a great marriage party, ' and the marriage waa 
 turned into mourning, and the voice of their minstrels into lamentation.' 
 
 382 
 
XI] MESSIAH ACCEPTS THE CUP OF SUFFERING 
 
 of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be 
 killed ' (xvi. 21). References to His death made after 
 the Transfiguration are so frequent that they need 
 not be quoted.^ 
 
 St. Matthew, then, presented the Messiah to his 
 fellow Hebrew-Christians, and through them to the 
 Jews of the time, as One who was conscious, from the 
 very first, of His call to suffering, and was firm in 
 His resolve to go through His task in spite of all it 
 would involve. Yet he depicts Him also as thoroughly 
 human in shrinking from death, and indeed as fearing 
 it, for some unstated reason, more than most men. 
 ' Are ye able to drink the cup that I am about to 
 drink ? ' He asked the sons of Zebedee, and they 
 answered : ' We are able ' (xx. 22) ; but when the 
 cup came to Him Himself He was tempted to refuse 
 it, gaining strength to drink it only by wrestling in 
 extremest prayer to His Father against His natural 
 abhorrence of what that cup contained. ' My soul 
 is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death. . . . O my 
 Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass away from 
 me : nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt. 
 . . . O my Father, if this cannot pass away, except I 
 drink it, thy will be done ' (xxvi. 38, 39, 42). 
 
 What exactly that cup held the Evangelist does 
 not tell us. For he desires to bring out the absolute 
 victory of the spirit over the flesh, Messiah's complete 
 acquiescence in His Father's will. His perfect obedience 
 
 1 xvii. 12, 22 sq. ; xx. 17-19, 28 ; xxi. 38 ; xxvi. 12, 28. The Evangelist, 
 following Mark iii. 6, mentions the desire of the Pharisees to compass the 
 death of Jesus as early as xii. 14, but it is possible that both writers are 
 interpreting their action then by later events, and that St. Luke represents 
 what took place the more exactly when he says : ' They were filled with 
 madness ; and communed one with another what they might do to Jesus '■ 
 (Luke vi. 11). 
 
 383 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 as the Servant of God. Jesus knew that He could 
 refuse the cup if He would. He was aware that He 
 had only to pray, and twelve legions of angels would 
 rescue Him (xxvi. 53). But He was content ; He 
 would drink it to its very dregs. 
 
 So far, then, all is clear. According to the 
 Evangelist, the death of the Messiah was brought 
 about by the leaders of the Jewish nation, and agreed 
 to by the whole people, though actually carried 
 out by Romans ; it was regarded by the Messiah 
 as the probable, not to say certain, issue of His 
 ministry ; and it was undergone by Him willingly, 
 in so far that He could have avoided it if He had 
 not known that it was the will of His Father in 
 heaven that He should endure it. St. Matthew 
 depicts the Messiah as consecrating Himself to the 
 service of God, and obeying Him, even unto death. 
 
 But what does the Evangelist tell us of the reasons 
 for that death, not, of course, the reasons which 
 moved His enemies to compass it (these have already 
 been shown), but those ideal, philosophical, religious 
 causes, those which lie at the very heart of things, 
 those which resemble in character the reasons for 
 the creation and the preservation of the world, those 
 which have to do with the eternal relation of God 
 and man ? For after all, these are the realities of 
 realities ; all else is the foam on the wave, or, at 
 best the wave itself thrown up by the deep. What 
 does our writer tell us of the underlying causes for 
 Messiah's self-sacrifice ? 
 
 Now it is hardly likely that any clear, decisive, 
 logical, and comprehensive reason can be stated at 
 all, if, as seems to be the case, it is to be on a par 
 with that which brought about the creation and 
 
 884 
 
XI] WHY DID THE MESSIAH DIE 
 
 preservation of the world. The mysteries of God 
 are beyond us ; human terms fail, and must always 
 fail, to express His relation to man. We can hope, 
 at most, to receive hints, and to find terms used, 
 of which the meaning may well be clear in trans- 
 actions between one man and another, and very 
 dim indeed when they deal with man and God.^ 
 Perhaps, too, we are less justified in expecting to 
 see reasons recorded in a homiletical narrative of 
 the life of Messiah such as the First Gospel, than in 
 more directly hortatory and even theological writings 
 such as the Epistles. In any case we find in this 
 Gospel only three or four short statements, and must 
 endeavour to deduce from them alone the reasons 
 for the death of the Messiah which the Evangelist 
 desired us to grasp. 
 
 For although it is true that the mind of those 
 for whom he first wrote was no tabula rasa, ignorant 
 of instruction in the character and meaning of the 
 Gospel, and that therefore it would not be illegitimate 
 for us, but quite the reverse, to interpret his hints 
 by that teaching, yet this presupposes that we our- 
 selves know precisely what that teaching was. But 
 this is one of the chief of the subjects in dispute. 
 No doubt, we personally may be confident that it 
 is contained essentially in St. Paul's Epistles, all of 
 which had probably been written before the First 
 Gospel, yet many critics would not assent to this. 
 
 ^ ' The fact could not, as unintelligible to reason, be held or believed at 
 all. But the fact, though never wholly compassed by our intelligence, is 
 never iminteUigible. Reason can — and must — understand it. . . . The fact 
 itself is eternal and immutable. The fact itself is the very centre of the 
 Gospel message to a world of suffering and sin. But the understanding of 
 it must develop progressively ; for it must seem to vary, while it grows in 
 depth, with man's deepening capacity for inteUigence of God, and of himself * 
 (Moberly, Atmement and Peramality, 1911, p. 412). 
 
 S85 2 g 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 Hence we are compelled to exclude all external 
 help, and to limit our enquiry to this Gospel only, 
 gathering from it the doctrine of the value of the 
 Cross, which is presupposed by the writer. 
 
 The first hint, and it is very far-reaching, lies 
 in the forefront of his book, in the angel's charge to 
 Joseph : ' She shall bring forth a son ; and thou shalt 
 call his name Jesus ; for it is he that shall save his 
 people from their sins ' (i. 21). 
 
 That, then, was the object of Christ's coming, 
 which ended in His Death and Resurrection ; His 
 people were to be saved from their sins. The writer 
 sweeps away with one stroke all lesser objects of the 
 Messiah's advent. Whatever were the expectations 
 concerning Him current in some circles, that He 
 was to save Israel from earthly enemies, or that 
 He was to rescue them from the power of evil angels, 
 for the Evangelist and his fellow Hebrew-Chris- 
 tians He was ' to save His people from their sins.' 
 A tenderness of conscience is presupposed, not only, 
 it will be noticed, among the believers of the writer's 
 age, but also among some at least of those devout 
 souls who at the very beginning of the Christian 
 era were waiting for the Messiah. They at least, 
 whatever most of their contemporaries felt, were 
 looking for Him as the Saviour from sins, from their 
 own sins. This was to them, as to the Evangelist, 
 the pre-eminent reason for His appearance. But 
 the Evangelist knew, as they did not, the method 
 and means by which this salvation from sin was 
 accomplished, and he, having the end of Christ's 
 life on earth in view, as they had not, deliberately 
 chose to record the prediction that Jesus, and no 
 other, would be the one who should save His people 
 
 386 
 
XI] A RANSOM 
 
 from their sins. To the Evangehst who laid so 
 much stress upon the Passion, this, and nothing 
 less, was the final aim of His coming, and herein 
 lay the stress of his apologia for it. 
 
 The Messiah came to save His people from their 
 sins, and He was to accomplish this by death. For 
 His words reported in xx. 28, taken over from Mark 
 X. 45, make this clear. Jesus is trying to persuade His 
 disciples to a life of self-sacrifice for others, and He 
 continues : ' Even as the Son of man came not to be 
 ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life 
 a ransom for many.' His ministry, it will be ob- 
 served, refers to the character of His daily life, but 
 this was to culminate in His death, and His death 
 was to be ' a ransom for many.' 
 
 The use of the simile of a ransom to describe the 
 
 basis of a moral or spiritual transaction is very old. 
 
 In Exod. xxi. 30 payment of a sum of money ' ransoms ' 
 
 or ' redeems ' the life of the owner of an ox which has 
 
 gored someone to death. In Num. xxxv. 31, 32, such 
 
 a payment is expressly forbidden in the case of a 
 
 wilful murderer. In Exod. xxx. 11-16 half a shekel 
 
 is required from each Israelite to serve as ' a ransom 
 
 for his soul unto the Lord.' ^ The metaphor would 
 
 thus be intelligible at once in its broad meaning. 
 
 The death of Jesus was to be the means whereby 
 
 others were to be saved from death ; He in His death 
 
 was to resemble the money-substitute still paid in 
 
 the Temple ceremonies for lives actually due (xvii. 24). 
 
 The idea of substitution, of vicariousness, in the death 
 
 of the Messiah, is thus an important part of the 
 
 doctrine of the Cross, according to St. Matthew. 
 
 However strange the figure of speech may be to some, 
 
 * See also Job xxxiii. 24 ; xxxvi. 18 ; Ps. xlix. 7. 
 387 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 yet to the Evangelist and to Christ Himself it 
 expressed solid truth, a part at least (we dare 
 not say the whole) of the real facts ensuring peace 
 between the believer and God.^ 
 
 I say ' the believer ' — for underlying the whole of 
 this Gospel is the thought that apart from faith in 
 Christ there is no benefit received from His life or 
 death. Nothing was further from the Evangelist's 
 mind than a mechanical change on the part of God 
 towards man brought about by the mere advent and 
 death of Christ, without personal faith upon Him 
 exercised by the individual. Believers, and believers 
 only, are benefited by the coming of the Messiah. 
 Not indeed that we can read this into the word ' many,' 
 found in our passage in St. Matthew, as contrasted 
 with the ' all ' of St. Paul's Epistle (1 Tim. ii. 6), for 
 it is probable that ' many ' serves here as in Rom. v. 
 15, 19, to indicate the contrast with the One who died. 
 But it appears to be inherent in the validity and 
 general effect of Christ's coming. The limitation of 
 the word to believers does not lie in the word itself, 
 but in the nature of the case. 
 
 Another valuation of our Lord's death is contained 
 in His words at the Last Supper : ' This is my blood 
 of the covenant, which is shed for many unto remis- 
 sion of sins ' (xxvi. 28), also taken over from Mark 
 (xiv. 24), with the addition of ' unto remission of sins.' 
 Here the Messiah regards His death not under the 
 simile of a monetary or juridical transaction, but 
 under that of a covenant or testament. His words 
 recall, and probably were intended to recall, the 
 
 ^ The preposition in xx. 28 (dvTi) properly indicates correspondence, 
 and so vicariousness (ii. 22 ; v. 38 ; xvii. 27), but even if this meaning can- 
 not be pressed, in view of its occasional wider and freer use, the same idea 
 lies in ' ransom ' and its associations. 
 
 388 
 
XI] THE SERVANT OF THE LORD 
 
 covenant of blood made between the Jewish nation 
 and God, whether that be circumcision (Gen. xvii. 
 10, 11 ; c/. Zech. ix. 11), or the solemn consecration 
 of the nation recorded in Exod. xxiv. 5-8. With 
 whichever reference He used the phrase. His death 
 was to mark the entrance upon a new and consecrated 
 life for those who received its benefits, a mingling of 
 His life with theirs, a pledge of abiding union and 
 incorporation with Him.^ 
 
 His death, then, was no accident, nor was it un- 
 expected by Him ; much less was it the frustration 
 of His plans and hopes. It was a causa causans of 
 His advent, to win for His followers a new, a happier, 
 and a holier state with God. The death of the 
 Messiah, in this fuller message of our Evangelist, 
 was not only a ransom, but also the visible sign and 
 means of the entry of believers into a fresh life, as 
 members of a truly priestly nation, consecrated by 
 blood, Messiah's blood of the covenant. 
 
 Yet as the thoughts of ransom, consecration, and 
 incorporation are far from exhausting the interpreta- 
 tion of the death of Christ given to us in other books 
 of the New Testament, so even in St. Matthew we 
 may find a trace of something more. It is at least 
 noticeable that he connects Christ with Isaiah's 
 Servant of the Lord, not only in the words spoken 
 at the Baptism and the Transfiguration (as we have 
 seen), but also directly. In xii. 18-21 he quotes 
 Isa. xlii. 1-4 of Him, a passage which lays stress on 
 the absence of all self-consciousness and desire for 
 
 ^ In primitive times, and among savage races to-day, blood is drunk or 
 imparted as the seat of life, or rather as life and vigour itself, and so as the 
 pledge of fellowship and friendship. Wine became used as a representa- 
 tion of blood. See Trumbull, The Blood Covenant, 1887, passim, especially 
 pp. 201, 289. 
 
 389 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 self -advancement on the part of the Servant, on His 
 tenderness and thought for the crushed and the weak, 
 and yet ends with a glorious promise of His final 
 victory, and the recognition of Him by the world. 
 
 Another reference to the Messiah as the Servant 
 is more mysterious. In viii. 16, 17, after describing 
 the miracle of healing Peter's wife's mother, St. 
 Matthew adds : ' And when even was come, they 
 brought unto him many possessed with devils : and 
 he cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all 
 that were sick : that it might be fulfilled which was 
 written by Isaiah the prophet, saying. Himself took 
 our infirmities, and bare our diseases,' a quotation 
 of Isa. liii. 4 : ' Surely he hath borne our griefs (Heb. 
 ' sicknesses,' R.V. marg.), and carried our sorrows.' 
 
 What does the Evangelist mean ? Plainly not 
 that the Lord Jesus endured the actual illnesses from 
 which He cured others, for we never see in Him any 
 trace of ill-health. Yet the terms ' take,' ' bear,' 
 ' carry,' imply some kind of personal reception of 
 the burdens named. What kind ? Partly, no doubt, 
 the burden of the expenditure of that ' virtue,' that 
 nervous force, that vital energy, physical, mental, 
 and spiritual, to which He expressly refers at His 
 miracle of healing the woman with the issue of blood.^ 
 
 But this is hardly sufficient. The Evangelist 
 appears to suggest a heavier burden. Can it be that 
 he is thinking of our Lord as bearing upon Himself 
 not the outer forms of disease, which, after all, are 
 nothing more than the mere symptoms of ill, but their 
 final cause, the origin of them all, the innate evil of 
 sin ? It will be said that this is Pauline,^ and that 
 
 ^ Mark v. 30 and Luke viii. 46 ; cf. also Luke vi. 19. 
 ^ 1 Cor. xi. 30 ; cf. also Rom. v. 12. 
 890 
 
no hint of it seems to occur elsewhere in our Gospel, 
 but if, as may well have been the case, it was a 
 commonplace among the Hebrew-Christians for whom 
 St. Matthew wrote,^ he would be satisfied with refer- 
 ring, as he did, to the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah, 
 knowing that his fellow-believers would at once 
 grasp the intention of that reference, namely, to 
 identify Jesus as the bearer of sin with the Sufferer 
 there described, carrying it visibly, as we might almost 
 say, in His removal of illnesses, and in fact and reality 
 when He died upon the Cross. For there He took 
 upon Himself the sin that belonged to all men, that 
 so He might be able to annul the consequences of sin 
 in particular men. He could remove men's illnesses 
 because He was about to bear their sins.^ 
 
 We must then add to those conceptions of the 
 value of Christ's death which we have alreadv found 
 in the pages of our Gospel, namely, that it was to be a 
 ransom and an inauguration of a new life; this also, 
 that it was in some sense the bearing of sin, with the 
 possibility of the final removal of evil in all its forms 
 from those who come into personal contact with Him. 
 
 What St. Matthew would have understood that 
 bearing of sin to mean, if he had worked the phrase 
 out with any deep theological reasoning, we cannot 
 say, and perhaps need not attempt to guess. To him 
 as a Jew the figure of speech — ^for it cannot be more 
 than a figure when we are dealing with eternal 
 verities — ^suggested a victim such as the scapegoat, 
 upon which, in symbolical fashion, the people's sins 
 were laid,^ or the lamb which was slain at Passover.* 
 
 ^ Cf. James i. 15. 
 
 " Cf. P. D. Maurice in Moberly, Akmermnt and Personality, 1911, p. 385. 
 
 = Lev. xvi. 21 sq. " Of. Isa. liii. 7, 12. 
 
 S91 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lkct. 
 
 Jews, non-Christian Jews, might, and did, find the 
 Cross of the Messiah a stumbling-block, but to the 
 believer, the Christian, be he Jew or Gentile, it stood 
 for the supremest act of self-sacrifice, the voluntary 
 incurring of all that was involved in the presence of 
 sin. Perhaps it was this that forced from the dying 
 Christ the agonising cry : ' My God, my God, why 
 hast thou forsaken me,' for with sin borne (however 
 we may define the nature of the bearing) He could, 
 for the moment, have no communion with His 
 Father. Sin, unknown to Him before, must bring 
 separation. 
 
 And then He died ! Nay, not then. For although 
 the Evangelist does not hint at any alteration in 
 the experience of Jesus after that awful cry, he 
 leaves room for such a change as is implied in other 
 Gospels.^ For after stating the anguish of separation 
 {v. 46) he adds {v. 50) : ' And Jesus cried again with a 
 loud voice, and yielded up his spirit.' St. Matthew 
 perhaps did not wish to tell us of Jesus' peaceful 
 committal of Himself into His Father's hands ; 
 rather was he anxious to set before us the extremity 
 of the Messiah's suffering, and its pathos. 
 
 But at this point the writer hastens on to show 
 that though the Jews rejoiced at the consummation 
 of the murder, and though Jesus drank of the cup 
 of suffering to the very dregs, nature sympathised 
 with Him, the saints arose, and the centurion him- 
 self, typical of the Gentile world, acknowledged the 
 uprightness of Him whom he crucified.^ 
 
 Thus even in that crucifixion of the Messiah, 
 which to the Jewish mind of all ages has seemed to 
 be nothing else than a crowning defeat and an irre- 
 
 ^ Luke xjdii. 46 ; John xix. 30. = Of. Lecture IX, p. 317. 
 
 392 
 
XI] CRUCIFIED BUT NOT DEFEATED 
 
 mediable disaster, there are rays of hope and of 
 righteousness. For in spite of His crucifixion Jesus 
 was still honoured. 
 
 But the Evangelist himself had far surer grounds 
 of faith in Christ than this. For, as he will show in 
 the few remaining verses of his Gospel, the trust- 
 worthiness of the Saviour was vindicated by His 
 victory over death. His supremacy in creation. His 
 claim to world-wide allegiance, and His everlasting 
 presence with His people. 
 
 393 
 
Lecture Twelve 
 
 THE MESSIAH — THE VICTOR 
 
' Lo, I am with you alway, 
 even unto the end of the 
 world.'' — ^Matt. xxviii. 20. 
 
Lecture Twelve 
 
 THE MESSIAH — THE VICTOR 
 
 AT the close of the last Lecture we saw reason 
 to believe that even in the death of Jesus there 
 was encouragement, patent to one who recalled 
 it as a believer in Him, and had eyes to see and ears 
 to hear. But St. Matthew cannot end his Gospel 
 thus. He will tell of the Resurrection and the 
 Triumph.^ 
 
 He was writing, we must remember, to Jewish- 
 Christians, and it was not his business to tell all he 
 knew about the Lord's resurrection, but only such in- 
 cidents connected with it as were likely to strengthen 
 his readers against the attacks made on their faith 
 by the Jews, or to lay before them more of the mean- 
 ing of it as taught by the Lord Himself. Perhaps we 
 shall do well to consider, first, St. Matthew's reply 
 to Jewish opponents ; secondly, the true nature 
 of the Lord's resurrection; thirdly, the Lord's final 
 charge to His disciples. 
 
 I. St. Matthew's reply to Jewish opponents. 
 The grave, he tells us, was empty : Jesus, says the 
 angel, ' is not here ; for he is risen, even as he said. 
 Come, see the place where the Lord lay ' (xxviii. 6). 
 The Jews have never denied that the tomb was 
 
 ^ Perhaps the fullest discussion of the whole subject is Dr. Sparrow 
 Simpson's The Besurrection and Modem Thought, 1911. Dr. J. Orr's The 
 Besurrection of Jesus, 1908, is also excellent, but rather more popular. Dr. 
 Headlam's essay in his Miracles of the New Testament, 1914, pp. 244-268, 
 was pubUsbed after the following pages were written, 
 
 397 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 empty. They do deny that Jesus left it, save as a 
 corpse carried out by human hands. 
 
 As they vilified the Birth of our Lord ; ^ as they 
 attacked Him for His miracles ; ^ as they misquoted 
 His words about the Law, and misinterpreted His 
 attitude towards it ; * so they spread a lie about 
 His resurrection. Various forms of this are found in 
 Jewish books, but the innuendo is essentially the 
 same in all, that the body of Jesus was secretly 
 removed.* 
 
 According to one form of the story, the disciples 
 themselves were the violators of the tomb, in order 
 that they might appeal to it in support of their 
 assertion that Jesus had risen, and this is the tale 
 known to the Evangelist. But he says that the 
 facts of the case show its worthlessness. 
 
 For the Jewish authorities themselves had been 
 afraid lest such an attempt should be made, and 
 had obtained permission from the Roman Governor 
 to affix a cord stamped with their seals to the stone 
 door and the solid rock, and also to set a guard of 
 soldiers until the third day, that thus all possibility 
 of fraud might be excluded. The Evangelist tells 
 us further that when the tomb was found empty, 
 in spite of all these precautions, the chief priests 
 bribed the soldiers to say that while they slept the 
 disciples came and stole the body, adding that if 
 the Governor should happen to hear anything of the 
 
 ' See Lecture I. ^ See Lecture III. » See Lectures IV to VI. 
 
 * The Toledoth Jeshu, in some recensions, says that Judah the gardener 
 (= Judas Iscariot) stole the body out of the tomb to prevent the disciples 
 taking it away and sajdng He had risen. Judah buried it in his garden and 
 turned a stream over it to prevent his garden being trodden. Krauss, Das 
 Leben Jesu naeh judischen Quellen, 1902, pp. 46, 80, X21, 129. Cf. also 
 TertulUan, -De Spectac, § 30. 
 
 898 
 
XII] THE JEWISH CALUMNY REBUTTED 
 
 story, the soldiers need have no anxiety, for they 
 would make it right with him. 
 
 Now, we can all see the difficulties that lie on the 
 very surface of this statement, especially if we choose 
 to strain it and make it say more than it does say. 
 
 For example, if St. Matthew's statement is trucj 
 why, it is asked, does St. Mark make no mention 
 of the incident ? For although much has been 
 attributed to the missing conclusion of the Second 
 Gospel, in deductions drawn from very slight evidence, 
 there is no reason to suppose that this story ever 
 formed part of it. But we may fairly retort : What 
 reason is there to suppose that St. Mark would have 
 cared to record it ? He was not writing to Jewish- 
 Christians but to Gentile, who were not likely to 
 have heard the calumny. Besides, one cannot put 
 everything into a twenty-paged tract. 
 
 Again, the question is raised : How should the 
 Jewish leaders be ' quite well acquainted with the 
 belief that Jesus would rise from the dead, whereas 
 it is clear from the gospels generally that this belief 
 was not common ? Even if it be conceded that 
 Christ prophesied His resurrection, it is at least 
 plain that these prophecies were not understood by 
 the disciples until after the event. It is therefore 
 extremely unlikely that the Jews were so afraid 
 of an attempt by the disciples to secure a false ful- 
 filment, or that they understood Christ's prophecy 
 before the disciples themselves.' ^ 
 
 Yet this way of putting the case overlooks one 
 or two points in psychology. It was one thing for 
 the disciples, when their minds were full of the coming 
 
 ^ Kirsopp Lake, The Historical Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus 
 Christ, 1907, p. 179, 
 
 ?99 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 glory of the Messianic kingdom and of the triumph 
 of their King, to fail to attach any definite mean- 
 ing to His predictions of death and resurrection, or, 
 when they had seen Him die, to be unable at once 
 to grasp that the second part of His announcement 
 would be performed as literally as the first, and quite 
 another for sharp-witted and unscrupulous enemies 
 to remember the words, and to fear lest the disciples 
 should presume upon them and use them as they chose. 
 
 Further, we know from the Gospels elsewhere 
 that the idea that a person might rise from the dead, 
 particularly a godly person, and more particularly 
 perhaps one who had died a violent death,^ was not 
 unknown in Palestine.^ If so, it is possible that the 
 Jewish leaders may have feared the growth of such 
 a belief about Jesus, without having actually known 
 of His prediction. This would at least account 
 for their action, though we should have to explain 
 their words on the principle that St. Matthew put 
 his own interpretation on what they did.^ 
 
 Again, it is said that it is impossible that Roman 
 soldiers would have escaped punishment if the 
 grave was found empty, and would hardly have 
 received bribes for saying that they were asleep 
 when on military duty, a confession that would have 
 brought them death.* Quite so, but this only shows 
 that every early reader of the Gospel who lived when 
 Romans ruled would have at once understood that 
 the guards were not Roman. With a Jewish guard 
 
 ' Baldensperger, Urchristliche Apologie. Die alteste Auferstehungskon- 
 traverse, 1909, pp. 14 sq. ; J. Weiss, Das Urchristentwn, 1914, p. 62. 
 
 ' xiv. 2. See Mark vi. 14 ; Luke ix. 7. 
 
 ' That they knew of the phrase ' the third day ' ia evident from xxvi, 61 ; 
 xxvii. 40. 
 
 * Kirsopp Lake, op. cit. p. 178. 
 
 400 
 
xii] THE NATURE OF HIS RESURRECTION 
 
 responsible, strictly speaking, to the High Priests 
 alone, all diflficulty ceases. For it is quite intelligible 
 that it would still have been necessary to ask Pilate's 
 leave to set a guard over the grave of a criminal 
 put to death by his authority. 
 
 Although, then, we are not now able to test the 
 truth of St. Matthew's statement, we can say that 
 it contains nothing so improbable as to outweigh 
 his evidence.^ 
 
 His answer to His Jewish opponents is clear. 
 Both the Jews and the Christians of St. Matthew's 
 day agreed in this — that on the third day the tomb 
 was empty. His arguments show that the tale of 
 fraud was unfounded, and was disproved by the 
 very action which the Jewish authorities had taken. 
 Human hands had not carried the body of Jesus out 
 of the tomb.^ 
 
 II. What, then, was the true nature of our Lord's 
 resurrection ? In particular, is it right for us to- 
 day to speak of the resurrection of His body, and 
 if so what do we understand by this ? 
 
 Now, it is said by many ^ that to the Jews of 
 that time no other kind of resurrection than a bodily 
 resurrection seemed possible, and that therefore 
 
 ■^ There is no reason to suppose that there was not time to seal the stone 
 before the commencement of the Sabbath, or, on the other hand, that even 
 if the Sabbath had begun unscrupulous Sadducees would have hesitated to 
 break the Sabbath laws, should they have thought it necessary to do so 
 (against Kirsopp Lake, ibid.). 
 
 ' Dr. Kirsopp Lake seriously suggested that the women made a mistake 
 in their identification of the tomb in which our Lord was buried (op. cit. 
 p. 250). But in his latest book he says : ' We may concede the fact that 
 the tomb was empty ' {The Stewardship of Faith, 1915, p. 51). Canon Streeter 
 seems to think that the Romans removed the body, fearing a possible 
 disturbance (Foundations, p. 134). 
 
 * Baldensperger, op. cit. p. 11, note 3; Kirsopp Lake, Resurrection, 
 pp. 238, 241 sq., 277. 
 
 401 2 D 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 when the Apostles saw Jesus they thought His body 
 must necessarily have risen also, but that we, on 
 the contrary, are able to imagine a resurrection of 
 the Lord although His body was left to decay. 
 
 Jesus, it is alleged, passed unscathed in His 
 essential nature through that separation of body and 
 soul which we call death, and made His continued ex- 
 istence apart from His body known to His followers. 
 Some writers, indeed, are of opinion that His appear- 
 ance was only the projection of an image formed 
 within the mind. He produced only a subjective 
 impression of His personality.^ But others ^ feel 
 themselves obliged to grant that the impression was 
 objective, caused by a real external revelation of 
 Himself, living and moving outside the persons to 
 whom He appeared. 
 
 If so, however, we may frankly ask wherein lay 
 the speciality, the new and unique fact which ap- 
 pealed so strongly to the Apostles ? All Jews of the 
 time, except perhaps the Sadducees, believed that at 
 least the righteous survived after death, and for the 
 Apostles to be now convinced only to this extent that 
 Jesus had so survived would put them in very little 
 better position than they had been before. Even a 
 
 1 Baldensperger, op. cit. p. 12, note 4 ; J. Weiss, Das Urchristentum, 
 1914, p. 20. 
 
 ' Kirsopp Lake, Resurr., pp. 266 sq., 271, 275 ('not as the resurrection of a 
 material body, but as the manifestation of a surviving personaUty ' ), 277. ' I 
 certainly shall not complain of being misunderstood,' writes Cation Streeter, 
 'if . . . anyone . . . avers that I regard the question whether our Lord 
 was " more risen " (whatever that may mean) on Easter Sunday than on the 
 preceding day, as wholly unimportant. That is exactly what I do think ; 
 and I do not profess to know, or think it important to know, exactly what 
 became of the material particles of the Body which was laid in the tomb ' 
 {Guardian, May 6, 1915). Canon Streeter, in fact, would be quite satisfied 
 with the doctrine that our Lord's Body lay rotting in the tomb, though His 
 personaUty survived. 
 
 402 
 
xii] NOT MERE SURVIVAL 
 
 Saul knew that Samuel survived death, and that 
 the prophet took an interest in him, but he was not 
 much benefited by this knowledge. It is incredible 
 that the story of the resurrection of our Lord should 
 mean in reality no more than that.^ 
 
 For not only St. Peter and St. John, St. Matthew 
 and St. Mark, but the wholes body of primitive 
 Christians, nay, the universal Church from the third 
 day until now, imply that something took place which 
 was much more remarkable than the assurance, 
 however vivid and however convincing, that Jesus 
 had survived His death. The Society for Psychical 
 Research claims to have almost proved this much of 
 ordinary individuals.^ Was there nothing more in 
 
 ^ This theory is profoundly religious, but 'it reduces the appearances 
 of our Lord simply to certificates of the satisfactory condition of Jesus of 
 Nazareth in the other world ' (Sparrow Simpson, op. cit. p. 119). 
 
 ' See Kirsopp Lake (Resurr., p. 245), who is still more ready to acknowledge 
 the claim in his Steioardship of Faith, p. 140. Mr. F. W. H. Myers writes 
 in a well-known passage : ' I venture now on a bold saying ; for I predict 
 that, in consequence of the new evidence, all reasonable men, a century hence, 
 will believe the Resurrection of Christ, whereas, in default of the new evidence, 
 no reasonable men, a century hence, would have beUeved it. ... As a matter 
 of fact — or, if you prefer the phrase, in my own personal opinion — our research 
 has led us to results of a quite different type. They have not been negative 
 only, but largely positive. We have shown that amid much deception and 
 self-deception, fraud and illusion, veritable manifestations do reach us from 
 beyond the grave. The central claim of Christianity is thus confirmed, as 
 never before. If our own friends, men like ourselves, can sometimes return 
 to tell us of love and hope, a mightier Spirit may well have used the eternal 
 laws with a more commanding power ' (Human Personality, ii. p. 288). Sir 
 Ohver Lodge is reported as speaking even more strongly : ' I know that 
 certain friends of mine still exist, because I have talked to them. Com- 
 munication is possible. One must obey the laws, find out the conditions. 
 I do not say it is easy, but I say it is possible, and I have conversed with them 
 as I could converse with anyone in this audience now. Being scientific men 
 they have given proof that it is real, not impersonation, not something 
 emanating from myself. They havegiven definite proofs. Some of them are 
 being published, many are being withheld for a time, but will be pubhshed 
 later' (The Times, Nov. 23, 1914). 
 
 403 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 the case of Jesus ? Intrinsic probabilities require a 
 real resurrection of His body, not a mere survival of 
 His personality. i 
 
 Yet it is alleged that even St. Paul imphes the 
 contrary, and, although the teaching of St. Paul falls 
 outside the immediate subject of these Lectures, I 
 trust that I shall be pardoned if I refer to him very 
 briefly. For his words, as I believe, are misinter- 
 preted in two contrary directions. 
 
 On the one hand, it is asserted that St. Paul did 
 not accept the doctrine of the resurrection of the 
 Lord's body because he abstained from mentioning 
 the empty tomb, when he could have done so with 
 great effect if he had known of it.^ But the express 
 reference to it was not necessary to his argument. 
 It is at best only a negative proof, and St. Paul was 
 concerned with enumerating the appearances of the 
 Lord, that he might encourage his readers at Corinth 
 in their hope of the glorious change that was to be 
 theirs hereafter. 
 
 On the other hand, Dr. Kirsopp Lake thinks that 
 St. Paul did believe in the empty tomb, but insists 
 that he held that our Lord's body was at once changed 
 into spirit. He deduces this from St. Paul's state- 
 ment that ' flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom 
 of God ' (1 Cor. XV. 50).^ This is rather a subtle 
 
 ^ 1 Cor. XV. 3-8. See Baldensperger, op. cit. p. 17 : ' Er, unser alteste 
 Zeuge fur die Auferstehung, soheint von der Erzahlung iiber das ofEene Grab, 
 die erst die Evangelien bringen, nichts zu wissen.' Yet to the plain reader 
 the connexion in m. 3-5, ' Christ died . . . and was buried . . . and hath 
 been raised . . . and appeared,' suggests bodily death, burial, resurrection, 
 and appearance. See further Bishop Chase, The Gospels in the Light of 
 Historical Criticism, 1914, pp. xx sq. 
 
 ^ ' The whole of St. Paul's argument that " flesh and blood cannot inherit 
 the kingdom of heaven," and that " we shall be changed," would be meaning- 
 less if the special instance of Resurrection on which he based his reasoning had 
 
 404 
 
XII] ST. PAUL'S LANGUAGE 
 
 distinction from the orthodox doctrine, and appears 
 to be due to an unworthy fear of the grossness of 
 matter as we commonly understand it, and a failure 
 to appreciate the more philosophical view which is 
 current to-day. After all, surely the natural interpre- 
 tation of St. Paul's language is that flesh and blood 
 as we know them cannot inherit the kingdom of 
 heaven, and we shall all grant that this ' too solid 
 flesh ' of ours is unsuitable to be the perfect instrument 
 of the soul, even in that quasi-heavenly state which 
 Christ is depicted as enjoying between His resurrection 
 and His ascension. 
 
 Yet in reality there is a wide difference between 
 ' the transubstantiation of flesh and blood into 
 spirit' and the common opinion. Dr. Kirsopp 
 Lake's term ' spirit ' here implies something other 
 than matter ; we mean, on the contrary, that His 
 body remained matter, however glorified and trans- 
 muted. And St. Paul's sentence appears to be fully 
 satisfied if we say that the elements composing 
 Christ's body remained, but were glorified, and thus 
 fitted for use in a higher sphere than earth. In fact, 
 this is what the Apostle himself suggests in his suc- 
 ceeding verses : ' We shall not all sleep, but we shall 
 all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an 
 eye, at the last trump : for the trumpet shall sound, 
 and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we 
 shall be changed ' {vv. 51, 52). It is plain that 
 at the trumpet summons we shall not slip out of our 
 bodies, leaving them behind, and yet there is no 
 reason to suppose that our bodies will be changed 
 
 been in reality a Resurrection of flesh and blood ' (Earsopp Lake, Resurrec- 
 tion, p. 220). Also : ' St. Paul's doctrine of the transubstantiation of flesh 
 and blood into spirit implied a belief in an empty tomb ' (op. cit. p. 192). 
 
 405 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 into spirit, in Dr. Kirsopp Lake's sense of the word. 
 On the contrary, we must think of an immediate and 
 glorious transmutation of body as well as of soul for 
 those believers who are caught up in the air, when 
 the Lord returns (1 Thess. iv. 17). And if this be 
 true of the members can it not be true of the Head ? 
 Will not the lightning-like process which will take 
 place in ' us which are alive ' also have taken place 
 in the Lord Jesus ? Is it not probable, then, that 
 the material of His earthly body was permeated at 
 once with spiritual power and heavenly capacities, 
 though still His body, and not changed into ' spirit ' 
 in any such sense that it ceased to be ' material ' ? 
 
 For it is not as though the resurrection of our 
 Lord's body were an isolated fact, unconnected with 
 His earlier life. We can see in this Gospel events 
 preparatory for it, namely, the many examples of the 
 influence of (shall we say ?) His mind, or rather His 
 personality, over what we call matter.^ 
 
 In particular, the nature miracles are examples 
 of this, perhaps all of them, certainly the walking on 
 the water,^ and, in a different way, the Transfiguration. 
 
 The objectors, however, make short work with such 
 premonitions of His supreme victory. They say 
 that all these are fictitious stories, not facts at all, 
 but only reflections from the legend of the resur- 
 rection.^ His disciples beUeved that He rose again, 
 and therefore regarded it as but fitting that during 
 His earthly ministry He should have shown signs of 
 superiority to the ordinary laws of Nature. 
 
 ^ See Lecture III. 
 
 " xiv. 25 ; cf. v. 29 ; cf. further Llingworth, The Gospel Miracles, 1915, 
 pp. 135 sqq. 
 
 ' Baldensperger, op. cit. pp. 26 sqq. 
 
 406 
 
XII] THE ENNOBLEMENT OF MATTER 
 
 But is criticism such as this more than arbitrary ? 
 Is it not, in the last resort, due to a disbelief in 
 miracles ? We have seen reasons in the third Lecture 
 of this series to think that such unbelief is due to 
 failure to consider both the circumstances in which 
 our Lord's miracles were performed, and also the 
 witness of secular history in all ages. 
 
 For we found reason to suppose that in the case 
 of persons of remarkable holiness the so-called 
 miraculous is not contrary to human experience, and 
 that we are justified in regarding the miracles related 
 of our Lord as events that really took place. 
 
 Further,^ there is some reason for supposing that 
 to-day even Science herself is making it easier to 
 believe in the transformation and ennoblement of 
 matter to such a degree that it can, under certain 
 conditions, pass through solid objects such as stone 
 and wood. Science at least hints to us that with an 
 alteration in the rapidity of that internal motion 
 which is indispensable to every kind of matter, its 
 form visible, and, as we say, substantial, necessarily 
 varies also, and that density and hardness (for 
 example) may depend on the speed of the rotation of 
 the molecules in each object. If so, it would seem to 
 be not incredible that the physical Body of the Lord 
 may have been changed, transmuted, transfigured, 
 etherealised if you will, in its resurrection, without 
 ceasing to be matter. One dare not indeed speak 
 with any assurance on- such a subject as the nature of 
 the Lord's risen Body, but the fact that the tomb 
 was empty forces upon us the question : What 
 became of the matter of which that Body was com- 
 posed ? If any light at all is thrown upon this by 
 
 ^ I owe this paragraph to a suggestion made by a scientific friend. 
 
 407 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 the possibilities suggested by hints of Science we are 
 compelled to take these into account.^ 
 
 III. We must pass on to our Lord's interpretation 
 of His victory over death recorded in His final charge 
 to His disciples. 
 
 They join Him in Galilee, as He had foretold 
 (xxvi. 32). Why there ? Why not on the Mount of 
 Olives, where indeed, according to St. Luke, they saw 
 Him at the last ? It is difficult to say, but the reason 
 is assuredly not to be found in the supposition that 
 the disciples had fled to Galilee in unbelief and terror, 
 and that it was there, there alone, that He really 
 appeared to them, the appearances in Jerusalem being 
 fictitious.^ 
 
 But they meet Him there, the Eleven prostrating 
 themselves in worship directly they see Him, while 
 some of their companions doubted until He came 
 nearer. Then these were sure it was He, and they 
 too listened to His words in silence. And what words 
 they are ! There is nothing that answers to them 
 in the other Gospels, and nothing very like them in 
 this. Yet they form the climax to St. Matthew's 
 teaching, and focus his impressions of the Hebrew- 
 Christian Messiah, his presentation of the Messiah 
 to the Jews. We have already considered part of 
 them in an earlier Lecture, but we must refer briefly 
 to them now. 
 
 There are three chief thoughts in vv. 18-20, all 
 
 ^ Of. C. H. Robinson, Studies in the Resurrection of Christ, 1911, p. 72 ; 
 Orr, op. cit. p. 200 ; Sparrow Simpson, op. cit. pp. 412, 461 ; Domer, System 
 of Christian Doctrine, iv. 134 sq. ; R. 0. P. Taylor, The Athanasian Creed in 
 the Twentieth Century, 1911, pp. 139-144. 
 
 • Possibly the reasons for His choice of Galilee lay in His desire to free 
 the minds of His disciples from too great a dependence on the narrower 
 ideas current in the Jerusalem circle. 
 
 408 
 
xii] MATT. XXVIII. 18-20 
 
 satisfying the legitimate desires of Jews steeped in 
 national hope based on scriptural promises. First, 
 Messiah was to be supreme, and supremacy far beyond 
 Jewish expectation is accorded to Him : ' All power 
 is given to me in heaven and on earth.' ^ Jesus of 
 Nazareth, poor in parentage, though not in descent ; 
 unnoticed at birth by His own nation, though not 
 by sages from afar ; persecuted by the rich and 
 powerful, though followed by thousands of the poor ; 
 executed as a felon, but victorious over death itself ; 
 has now received the highest place of all in God's 
 vmiverse. Jews, therefore, may find their noblest 
 aspirations for a Messiah (Ps. ex. 1) satisfied in Him. 
 
 Secondly, this supremacy is of such a kind that 
 it embraces not Jews alone but Gentiles also. ' Go 
 ye therefore, and make disciples of all the nations.' 
 For although Hebrew-Christians were being taught 
 to worship Jesus, as the Messiah who fulfilled the 
 prophecies in general, and made the Law honourable, 
 yet it was necessary that they should also learn to 
 see in Him the one who was to accomplish the great 
 and glorious promises of the ingathering of the 
 Gentiles. The Hebrew-Christian Messiah was no 
 narrow nationalist, holding them at arm's length, 
 or admitting them to the full privileges of believers 
 in Himself only when they had passed through the 
 strait gate of Judaism. These last verses of St. 
 Matthew's Gospel, on the contrary, fling the doors 
 that lead into the palace of faith wide open for all 
 the Gentile nations to enter in. 
 
 Nay, more than that. Not only are the Gentiles 
 allowed to enter, but Jewish believers themselves 
 
 1 It is perhaps worthy of notice that the wording of w. 18, 19, suggests 
 that of Dan. vii. 14 (LXX, not Theodotion). 
 
 409 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 are bid be active in admitting them.^ And even 
 if we do seem to hear echoes of a great controversy, 
 and to distinguish the voice of St. Matthew taking 
 part in it, yet we learn also the thoughts of the 
 Master Himself, for we are taught His very words. 
 Make disciples of all the nations. He says, requiring 
 no ceremonial act for their admission save that of 
 baptism into the Threefold Name,^ but telling them 
 their duties in accordance with My command — pre- 
 sumably, as we should say, telling them the inner 
 meaning of the Law, with the spiritual duties that 
 I set forth. Thus the Gospel message of salvation 
 through Jesus is for the Gentile as well as for the 
 Jew. Baptism is the rite of entrance for both ; 
 and ethics in the highest sense are required of the 
 one as much as of the other. There is something 
 strangely original in the nobility of this outlook, the 
 limitation of the ritual, and the depth and width of 
 the moral claim. 
 
 Lastly, there is the final promise of the continual 
 presence of the Messiah with His people. For His 
 ancient name, taken from the prophets, and suggested 
 in the opening verses of the Gospel, ' Immanuel, 
 which is, being interpreted, God with us ' (i. 23), is 
 henceforth to take effect. He, very God as St. 
 Matthew has portrayed Him, will be with us, without 
 failure or intermission. Not one of His own shall 
 ever be solitary, for, as He says, ' Lo, I am with you 
 alway, even unto the end of the world.' 
 
 We have thus come to the close of our enquiry 
 
 ^ That these beUevers of the Jewish race were addressed is evident, because 
 v/hen our Lord spoke there were no others. 
 ^ See Lecture IX, p. 322 sq. 
 
 410 
 
XII] SUMMARY OF THE LECTURES 
 
 into the character of the Messiah, as He was depicted 
 by a Hebrew-Christian living in the end of the third 
 quarter of the first century of our era. What have 
 we learned from our study ? In the first place, the 
 thoroughly Jewish character of the document in 
 which the presentation of Him is enshrined. It is 
 Christian of course — but it is Jewish also, written for 
 Jewish-Christians, and based throughout on Jewish 
 modes of thought and of interpretation. 
 
 Secondly, when we endeavoured to understand 
 the position and tenets of the Jewish parties, we 
 saw that the Pharisees, accused of conscious deceit 
 by some, and eulogised by others for their con- 
 scientiousness, lacked the one all-important quality 
 of depth in spiritual religion. 
 
 Thirdly, when we consulted the miracles attributed 
 to the Messiah, and remembered the wonders wrought 
 by godly men in all ages, we perceived that although 
 they do not afford direct witness to His divinity, 
 they do supply evidence to the truth of the claim 
 He made to be the Messiah sent by God. 
 
 Then, in the fourth, fifth, and sixth Lectures we 
 touched on parts of the Evangelist's representation 
 of the Messiah as a teacher, and we saw that although 
 He used and assimilated what was best in the current 
 ideas of His nation, yet no other man spake with 
 so much originality of thought as He. The Lord's 
 Prayer and His Commandment of Love were our 
 illustrations. Further, we saw that He insisted 
 on the permanence of the Law in its true meaning, 
 and that He put forward ethical demands of so 
 high and final a character as to meet all the desires 
 and aspirations of those who are in touch with God, 
 and are growing up into Him. 
 
 411 
 
THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MESSIAH [lect. 
 
 The seventh, eighth, and ninth Lectures dealt 
 with three great phrases describing His personahty, 
 typical of the attitude of the Messiah to Jewish 
 expectations. He fulfilled the title of the Son of 
 David, but in a way far transcending the popular 
 hope. He was the Son of man, for He answered 
 to the twofold representation of manhood given 
 in Ezekiel — man in his weakness and suffering, yet 
 man akin to God, and therefore receptive of authority 
 on earth, and to be made supreme hereafter. Yet 
 He was also the Son of God. For the Evangelist, 
 notwithstanding his monotheism, portrays Jesus as 
 of superhuman origin, and even as divine in nature. 
 Further, we ourselves, as we saw, could draw no 
 other conclusion from the facts of His history. 
 
 Then came a Lecture, the tenth, on the relation 
 of the Messiah to those obscure Jewish writers whom 
 we call the Apocalyptists, for their hope of the early 
 manifestation of divine power and righteousness, of 
 God's judgment on a sinful world, and the establish- 
 ment of His kingdom. Christ, as we saw, proclaimed 
 the kingdom as at hand, yea, as already present, and 
 yet as only to come in the future in all its fullness. 
 
 And so, in the eleventh Lecture, we passed by 
 the Cross, and we gazed upon the sinless One hanging 
 there ; there by the will of the leaders of Judaism ; 
 there by the consent of the holy nation ; there by 
 the hands of Gentile tyrants ; there, unable to save 
 Himself, that thus He might save His people. 
 
 Last of all we have beheld Him, acknowledged 
 even in dying by Nature, man, and Old Testament 
 prophecy ; victorious over death, seen of many, 
 with the tomb empty not by human hands ; claiming 
 supreme authority, charging His own — Jews though 
 
 412 
 
XII] CONCLUSION 
 
 they were — to go not to Jews only, but to all the 
 nations of the world, and to admit these by baptism 
 into union with the Triune God ; and assuring His 
 followers that He would be near them throughout 
 all the days, whether dark or bright, till the com- 
 pletion, the consummation, of our age — ' continua 
 prsesentia, eaque prsesentissima.' ^ 
 
 The Christ of prophecy, the great Physician, the 
 famous Teacher of the principles of the Law, the 
 Davidic King, the perfect Man, Very God of Very 
 God, the Inaugurator of the Divine rule, the willing 
 Ransom, the Conqueror of the grave, who claims 
 the obedience of the nations and is ever present 
 with His people — such are the lineaments of the 
 portrait of the Hebrew -Christian Messiah. ' This 
 is my Beloved, and this is my Friend.' 
 
 ^ Bengel. 
 
 413 
 
Index I 
 
 NAMES AND SUBJECTS 
 
 Abelson, Dr. J., on the Kabbalah, 
 151 
 
 Abraham, son of, 15 sq. 
 
 Abrahams, I., on- the legaUsm of 
 Judaism, 196 sq. 
 
 Adam, The Second, 123 sq. ; per- 
 haps in our Lord's teaching, 306 
 
 ^sculapius, cures at his shrines, 
 103 sq., 132 sq. 
 
 'Almah, 21 sq. 
 
 Amen, said to contain an oath, 226 
 
 American Episcopal Church ac- 
 cepts the principle of a Hebrew- 
 Christian Church, 210 
 
 Angels as agents in healing, 105 
 
 Apocalyptists, The, the Messiah in 
 relation to, Lect. X, 347-870; 
 their teaching for the populace, 
 348 sq. ; why their books were 
 rejected by official Judaism, 
 350 sq. ; their teaching a basis 
 for Christianity, 351 ; their 
 chief subject, 352-355 ; their 
 doctrine of the Messiah, 355- 
 358 ; our Lord's attitude to 
 them, 358 sq. ; apocalyptic 
 teaching in Matt, threefold, 
 359-368 ; did our Lord teach 
 a long lapse of time before His 
 return? 359-368 
 
 Apollonius of Tyana, 121 sq. 
 
 Aramaic — Palestinian, of our 
 Lord's time, not come down to 
 us, 289 
 
 Asceticism, is it taught by our 
 Lord ? 224 sg. 
 
 Augustine, his doctrine of Grace 
 has a legal tone, 203 
 
 Authority — EKternal, insufficient 
 for faith, 328-330 
 
 Baillie, J. B., on the ethics of in- 
 stitutions and individuals, 245 
 
 Baldensperger, W., on the Apoca- 
 lyptic literature, 349 ; on our 
 Lord's resurrection, 400-402, 
 404 ; on the nature miracles, 
 406 
 
 Baptism of Messiah, its reason, 
 38 sg. ; the Voice, 40 sg. 
 
 ' Bearing ' sin, 390 sq. 
 
 Beer, G., on tradition, 158 
 
 Ben Pantera, 102 
 
 Ben Stada, 102 
 
 Bernard, Archbishop, on the 
 miraculous in the Gospels, 98 
 
 Bernardino of Siena, S., on the 
 stigmata, 139 
 
 Beth-lehem, 26-28 
 
 Betrothal and marriage, 20, 263 
 
 Bischoff, E., on the originality 
 of our Lord, 162 
 
 Blasphemy, 68 
 
 Blood as the seat of life, 389 
 
 Body influenced by mind, 117 sg., 
 139 
 
 Box, G. H., on Matt. i. 2-17, 
 16 ; on the Pharisees, 73, 82 sq., 
 86 
 
 Bruce, A. B., on miracles, 97 
 
 Briickner, on Jewish eschatology, 
 367 
 
 Biichler, A., on the priests, 57, 84 
 
 Buddhism, its relation to Chris- 
 tianity, 144 sq. 
 
 Bushido and Christian ethics, 
 232 
 
 Buttenwieser, M., on the Messiah 
 of Judaism, 257 sg. 
 
 Backer, W., on Tordh, 195 
 Bacon, B. W., on Haggadah, 159 
 
 Cancer, 118 ; miraculous cures 
 
 of, 133 sq. 
 Catharine of Siena, St., miracles 
 
 wrought by, 121, 135-138 
 
 415 
 
INDEX I 
 
 Celibacy, commanded to Jere- 
 miah, 224 
 
 Charity, Jewish teaching on, 
 220 sq., 226 sq. 
 
 Charles, Canon R. H., on our 
 Lord's mistaken expectation, 
 363 
 
 Christian Science, how it differs 
 from the Emmanuel Movement, 
 119 
 
 Christus Futurus, on evil powers, 
 107 ; on disease, 116 
 
 Church — Hebrew- Christian. See 
 Hebrew-Christian Church 
 
 Chwolson, D., on Sadducean 
 Scribes, 66 ; on the Pharisees, 81 
 sq., 84 sq. ; on the intercourse 
 of Jews with Jewish-Christians, 
 88, 151 ; on oaths, 220 ; on 
 the responsibility for the Cruci- 
 fixion, 377 sq. 
 
 Clouston, Sir T., on the brain, 117 
 
 Cohen, P., on a Hebrew-Christian 
 Church, 211, 213 
 
 Covenant of Christ's death, 
 388 sq. 
 
 Crucifixion, The, Lect. XI, 373- 
 393 
 
 Dalman, G. H., on ' the Son of 
 man ' in Aramaic, 289 ; on 
 ' the Son of God,' 318, 320, 322 
 Dampier, Miss, on a Hebrew- 
 Christian Church, 211 
 Dante, on hypocrites, 89 ; on near- 
 ness to the centre of light, 
 160 sq. 
 D'Arcy, Bishop, on miracles, 
 
 129 sq. 
 Dead restored to life, 119 
 Death, two stages in, 119 
 Death of Christ, the responsibility 
 for, 373-381 ; He expected it 
 from the first, 381-383 ; its 
 value and effect, 381-393 ; 'the 
 real reasons for it, 384-393 ; its 
 effect not mechanical, 388 ; a 
 ' covenant,' 388 sq. 
 Demons. See Evil spirits 
 Denney, J., on love to others, 241, 
 of. 243 
 
 Discourses of our Lord, how far in 
 their original form, 156 sq. 
 
 Diseases, ' functional ' and ' or- 
 ganic,' 113 sg., 114-118 ; punish- 
 ment for sin, 125. See Miracles. 
 
 Divorce, 223-225 
 
 Doxology, The, why omitted in 
 New Testament, 162 
 
 Edersiieim on Matt. viii. 14, 101 
 Eighteen Benedictions, The. See 
 
 Shemoneh Esreh 
 Elijah, his relation to Messiah, 
 
 35-37 
 Emmanuel Movement, The, 119 
 Enoch, Book of, probably known 
 
 to many in our Lord's time, 285 
 
 sq., cf. 351 
 Esmun, 103 
 Essenes, no real connexion with 
 
 the Baptist or our Lord, 51-53 ; 
 
 and oaths, 226 
 Ethical demands made by the 
 
 Messiah, Lect. VI, 217-246; 
 
 much well known to Jewish 
 
 teachers, 217-223 
 Ethics, essentially one, for indi- 
 viduals and society, 245 sq. 
 Evil spirits, dread of, to-day, 108 ; 
 
 and the Messiah, 267 sq. 
 
 Facts as the basis of spiritual 
 truths, 260 
 
 Faith-healing, 114-119 
 
 Feuerbach, A., on the treatment 
 of an enemy, 173 
 
 Frederick the Great on the treat- 
 ment of an enemy, 173 sq. 
 
 Friedlander, G., on the originality 
 of the Lord's Prayer, 162 sq. ; 
 on Matt. V. 20, 200 sq. ; on the 
 impossibility of our Lord's re- 
 quirements, 224 ; on our Lord's 
 teaching about wealth, 227 ; 
 on the Sermon on the Mount 
 in general, 235, 236 sq., 244 
 
 Friedlander, M., on the influence 
 of Greek-speaking Jews in Pales- 
 line, 7, cf. 319 
 16 
 
INDEX I 
 
 Galilee — why Messiah began His 
 work there, 46 sq. ; said to be 
 the centre of Palestinian De- 
 monology, 108 ; ,Gentile till c. 
 100 B.C., 2C2 ; why Christ there 
 after the Resurrection, 408 
 
 Gaster, Dr., no Christians can be 
 Jews, 213 
 
 Genealogy of Messiah, 14-20 
 
 Gentile Christians not considered 
 in relation to the Law, 191 sq. 
 
 Gentiles to share the Gospel, 409 
 
 Gfrorer on ' David,' 16 
 
 Goodman, P., on the Sermon on 
 the Mount, 229, 233, cf. 237 
 
 Gospel, The, not a new Law, 202- 
 205 
 
 Greek, why chosen for the lan- 
 guage of the First Gospel, 6 sq. 
 
 Greek thought, no direct influence 
 on our Lord, 145 sq. See Hel- 
 lenism 
 
 Gregory the Great regarded Chris- 
 tianity as Law, 203 
 
 Gressmann on ' the Son of man ' 
 in the third person, 306 
 
 Guard at our Lord's tomb, 
 Roman or Jewish ? 400 sq. 
 
 Haldane, Lord, on history, 330 sq. 
 Hamilton, M., on Incubation, 
 
 Lect. Ill, passim 
 Hamack, on the cult of iEscula- 
 
 pius, 103 sq. 
 Hart, J. H. A., on the Pharisees, 73 
 Hebrew-Christians, their need of 
 
 literature, 4 sq. 
 Hebrew-Christian Church, is it 
 
 possible to-day ? 193, 205-213 
 Heinriei on the Sermon on the 
 
 Mount, 155, 157 ; on the Lord's 
 
 Prayer, 163, 165 
 HeitmiiUer, W., on the historicity 
 
 of the miracles, 99 
 Hellenism influenced our Lord 
 
 through Apocalyptic thought, 
 
 146 sq. 
 Herford, R. T., on the Pharisees 
 
 and our Lord, 84, cf. 91 
 Herods, The, and the title of king, 
 
 26 
 
 Hillel, on tradition, 158 ; on love 
 to others, 171 sq. ; forbade 
 ostentation, 222 
 
 Hillelites, subordinate among 
 Pharisees tUl 70 a.d., 75 sq.; 
 sometimes treated Christians 
 kindly, 88, 151 ; sometimes per- 
 secuted them, as shown in the 
 case of St. Paul, 88 
 
 Holtzmann, H. J., on Matt. v. 20, 
 201 
 
 Humanity of our Lord not im- 
 personal, 339-341 
 
 Humility before God, taught by 
 Jews, 237 sq. ; the essence of 
 Christ's teaching, 238 sq. 
 
 Hypocrite, twofold use of the 
 word by our Lord, 89-91 
 
 Illingworth, J. R., on miracles, 
 
 111 ; on matter and spirit, 334 ; 
 
 on the Copemican astronomy, 
 
 336 
 Incarnation, in creation and in a 
 
 Person, 335 ; this puny earth, 
 
 335 sq. ; its object, 336 sq. ; 
 
 limitation of the activity of 
 
 Divine attributes, 338 
 Incubation, 103 sq., 131-133, 139 
 Innocents, massacre of the, 31 sq. 
 ' Interimsethik,' 363 
 
 Jehovah, the healer of disease, 
 105 
 
 Jehudah ha-Kadosh, kindly to 
 Jewish-Christians, 88, 151, 209 
 
 Jeremias, A., on Isa. vii., 22 sq. 
 
 Jesus, Davidic origin of, 18, 
 261-272 ; Jewish arguments 
 against His divinity, 43 sq. ; both 
 oral tradition and apocalyptic 
 thought in His home, 148-150 ; 
 to St. Matthew a teacher greater 
 than the Rabbis, 152 sq. ; as 
 teacher, methods different from 
 those of Rabbis, 158-162 ; the 
 secret of His teaching, 160 sq., 
 176 sq. ; suggestion that He was 
 of Gentile origin, 261 ; Divinity 
 of, growth of St. Matthew's 
 
 417 
 
 2 E 
 
INDEX I 
 
 conviction of this, 326-328 ; 
 why we believe it, 328-341 ; 
 the irreducible minimum in the 
 history of Him, 331 sq. ; an ac- 
 quired Godhead connotes idola- 
 try, 332 sq ; His Personality, 
 338-342 ; was He mistaken 
 about the date of His return? 
 359-368 ; His return, the true 
 nature of the consummation 
 predicted, 368 sq. See Incar- 
 nation, Messiah 
 
 Jewish books, caution in using, 
 217 sq. 
 
 Jewish slanders rebutted, 19, 397- 
 401 
 
 Jews, our present duty to, 8 ; the 
 Jewish people blamed for the 
 death of Christ, 380 sq. ; the 
 best representatives of the 
 human race, yet crucified Jesus, 
 381 
 
 Jochanan ben Zakkai, R., his 
 escape from Jerusalem, 3 ; his 
 importance for Judaism, 153 ; 
 a parable by him, 154 
 
 John the Baptist, 35-38 
 
 Joseph and Mary, 20, 263 sq. 
 
 Kabaites, have an oral Law, 212 
 
 King, the title as applied to 
 Herods, 26 
 
 Kingdom of heaven. The, Lect. X, 
 347-370 
 
 Kirkpatrick, A. F., on ' fulfil- 
 ment,' 188 
 
 Klausner, Jos., on the develop- 
 ment of Messianic beliefs, 12 sq. 
 
 Knox, R A., on miracles, 123 ; on 
 the authority of the Church, 329 
 
 Kohler, K., on the Pharisees, 80 
 sq., 84 ; on Torah, 195 
 
 Lake, Kirsopp, on our Lord's 
 
 resurrection, 399-405 
 Languages, known by our Lord, 
 
 147 
 Law, The, if written requires oral 
 
 interpretation, 63, 148, 186 ; 
 
 permanent, but in what way ? 
 
 Lect. V, 181-205 ; Jewish 
 teachers on its permanence or 
 otherwise, 183-186 ; its literal 
 observance not required by our 
 Lord, 183 sq. ; our Lord taught 
 the permanence of its truths 
 and principles in detail, 186- 
 190 ; permanence of its prin- 
 ciples taught by Jews, 190 sq. ; 
 are Gentile believers considered 
 in relation to it ? 191 sq. ; are 
 Jewish-Christians allowed to 
 observe it literally ? 193, 205- 
 213 ; the meaning of the word, 
 194-198 ; St. Paul's language, 
 194-200 ; its fundamental dif- 
 ference from the Gospel, 201 ; 
 the Gospel not a Law, 201-205 ; 
 is it easy to be kept ? 235 
 
 Law, The oral, not altogether re- 
 jected by Sadducees, 66; 
 necessary, 63, 148, 186; nature 
 of it in time of Christ uncertain, 
 149 sq. ; indistinguishable from 
 the written, in practice, 186, 
 211 sq. 
 
 Lectures, summary of these, 411- 
 413 
 
 Leszynsky, his theory of the 
 Sadducees, 58 
 
 Levi, Messiah to be of the stock 
 of, 256 
 
 Lex, its meaning, 197 
 
 Liberal Judaism, Principles of, 
 cited, 185 
 
 Lodge, Sir Oliver, on survival after 
 death, 403 
 
 Loewe, H., on Demonology, 108 
 
 Lord's Prayer, The, 162-166 ; the 
 test of true religion, 166 ; the 
 antithesis to Pharisaism, 166 
 
 Lourdes, cures at, 104, 139 
 
 Love to enemies, 167-176 ; com- 
 mended by Jewish teachers, 
 168-173 ; but never popular, 
 173 ; the centre of Christianity, 
 174-176 ; our Lord did not 
 refer to treatment of Romans, 
 176 ; nor to parties among the 
 Jews, or among the Pharisees, 
 176 
 
 Luzzatto, M., on ADaM, 123 
 
 418 
 
INDEX I 
 
 McCabe, J., on telepathy, 125 
 
 Mackintosh, H. R., on Jesus 
 becoming Son of God, 333 ; 
 on Divine love, 338 
 
 Magi, The, 28 sq. 
 
 Mann, J. Dixon, on death, 119 
 
 Mansel, on miracles, 120 
 
 Mary, of Davidic stock, 264 sq. 
 
 Mason, A. J., on ' the Son of God,' 
 319 
 
 Masterman, E. W. G., on diseases 
 in Palestine, 116 
 
 Matter, and spirit, 333-335 ; glori- 
 fied at our Lord's resurrection, 
 405-408 
 
 Matthew, St., date of his Gospel, 3 ; 
 used in these Lectures to = the 
 unknown author of the First 
 Gospel, 6 ; the object of his Gos- 
 pel, 7 ; devotional character of 
 his Gospel, 47 sq. ; possible evi- 
 dence for early date of its 
 substance, 86 sq. ; why he re- 
 gards the Jewish leaders more 
 harshly than St. Luke, 92 ; 
 his character, 305 ; as a histo- 
 rian, 330 sq. 
 
 Medicine, Jewish knowledge of, 
 99-101 
 
 Meir, R., on man in Messianic 
 times, 105 
 
 Messiah, representation current 
 25 A.D. difficult to learn, 11 sqq. ; 
 no reference to Him by a Pales- 
 tinian Rabbi as early as 25 a. d., 
 12 ; representation of, modified 
 by facts, 12 sg. ; His originality, 
 Lect. IV, 143-177 ; His pre- 
 paration as a teacher, 143-152 ; 
 a few said He was to be of the 
 stock of Levi, 256 ; the Jewish, 
 personally unattractive, 272 sq. 
 See Jesus, Son of David 
 
 Messiah ben Joseph, 258 
 
 Miracles, Lect. Ill, 97-139 ; their 
 place in evidence, 97, 107, 128- 
 130 ; cannot be cut out of the 
 Gospels, 98 sq. ; their place 
 in St. Matthew's presentation, 
 98-112 ; a subordinate reason 
 for St. Matthew's relation of 
 them, 112 ; attributed by Jews 
 
 to our Lord, but as produced 
 by Satan, 102 sq. ; expected 
 in Messianic times, 105 ; the 
 Messiah's methods, 108-110 ; 
 do not prove our Lord's divin- 
 ity, 111 sq., 123 ; our Lord's, 
 classified, 113 sg. ; how were they 
 wrought ? 113-128 ; explana- 
 tions of the classes of Christ's 
 miracles, 114-120 ; ' Nature ' 
 miracles, 120, 406 sq. ; not 
 wrought by our Lord as God, 
 
 123 ; human potentialities for, 
 
 124 sq., 126-128 ; non-Biblical, 
 asserted monstrous cures, 118 ; 
 wrought by what power ? 121 
 sq. ; heathen, 103 sq., 131-133 ; 
 in early centuries of Christian- 
 ity, 133 sq. ; of the Middle 
 Ages, 104 ; St. Thomas a 
 Becket, 134 sq. ; St. Catharine 
 of Siena, 135-138 ; modern, 104, 
 138 sq. 
 
 Moberly, R. C, on miracles, 124 ; 
 on impersonal humanity, 339 ; 
 on the Atonement, 385, 391 
 
 Monteflore, C. G., on the Law, 195 ; 
 on asceticism, 224 sq. ; on our 
 Lord's ' bias against the rich,' 
 228 sq. ; on the impossibility 
 of Jesus' demands, 233 sq. ; 
 praises the Sermon on the 
 Mount, 240 ; on the Messiah 
 as the Son of God, 315 ; on our 
 Lord's Crucifixion, 376-378, 
 380 
 
 Mozley, J. B., on miracles, 120 ; 
 on miracles and the Messiah, 
 129 sq. 
 
 MiiUer, Johannes, on the Good 
 News, 236 ; on love to others, 
 241 
 
 Myers, F. W. H., on survival after 
 death, 403 
 
 Nazabene, meaning of the appella- 
 tion, 33 
 Neurotic theory of miracles, 115 
 Nomas, is it an accurate rendering 
 of Torah ? 194-199 
 
 419 
 
 2e2 
 
INDEX I 
 
 Oaths, Jewish teaching concern- 
 ing, 218-220, 225 sq. 
 
 Oesterley, W. O. E., on the Sad- 
 ducees, 53, 57 ; on the Scribes, 
 64 ; on the Pharisees, 72 sq. 
 
 Oesterley and Box, on John the 
 Baptist's invective, 62 ; on 
 the Pharisees, 83, 85 bis, 86 
 
 Old Testament, Jesus uses Jewish 
 methods of quotation, 157 sq. 
 
 Oral Law, The. See Law, the oral 
 
 Originality, its meaning, 164 
 
 the death of Christ, 378-380. 
 
 See Hillelites, Shammaites 
 Prayer, ostentation in, 222 
 Purity, taught by Jews, 218. See 
 
 Divorce 
 
 Quotations in the Gospel, after 
 the Jewish methods, 24, 32, 
 33 sq., 157 sq. 
 
 Parables, Rabbinic, 154 
 
 Parseeism, no direct influence on 
 our Lord, 145 
 
 Paul, St., a Hillelite, yet a perse- 
 cutor, 88 ; his view of the Law, 
 194-200 ; not writing to theo- 
 logians, 199 sq. ; indicates a 
 permanence in the Law, 200, 
 205 ; his occasional observance 
 of Jewish customs, 209 ; and 
 our Lord's resurrection, 404-406 
 
 Peile, J. H. F., on relieving dis- 
 tress, 241 
 
 Permanence of the Law, 183-191 
 
 Personality, what is it ? 338 sq. 
 
 Pharisaic Christians perhaps 
 sometimes in St. Matthew's 
 mind, 93 
 
 Pharisees, 62-93 (esp. 72-93) ; con- 
 nected with the Assidseans (Chas- 
 idim) of Maccabsean times, 72 ; 
 meaning of word, 72 sq. ; history 
 of, 73-76 ; moulded nearly all 
 Judaism after 70 a.d., 74 ; had 
 no official power in the time of 
 our Lord, 74, 378 ; their division 
 into HUlelites and Shammaites, 
 74-76 ; our Lord's indictment 
 of them, 76-80 ; praise of them 
 by modern scholars, 80-83 ; 
 explanations of our Lord's 
 severity, 83-91 ; some had 
 friendly relations with our Lord, 
 85 sq. ; and some became 
 Christians, 86 ; prayers com- 
 posed by them, 91 ; St. Paul's 
 verdict on, 91 sq. ; blamed for 
 
 Ramsay, W. M., on restoration 
 
 from death, 119 
 Ransom, Christ's death a, 387 sq. 
 Rawlinson, A. E. J., on miracles, 
 
 126 
 Reformed Jews, doctrines of, 185 
 
 sq. 
 Reinach, Theodore, on our Lord's 
 
 Crucifixion, 374 sq. 
 Resurrection, especially of one 
 
 who died a violent death, 400 
 Resurrection of Christ, The, Lect. 
 
 XII, 397-413 ; Jewish attacks 
 
 and St. Matthew's reply, 397- 
 
 401 ; was it material ? 401-408 ; 
 
 wherein was it unique ? 402 sq. ; 
 
 St. Paul on, 404-406 
 Richard, Dr. Timothy, on 
 
 Buddhism, 145 
 Riches. See Wealth 
 Romans blamed for the death of 
 
 Christ, 374 sq. 
 Ryle, R. J., on the Neurotic 
 
 Theory of Miracles, 115 
 
 Sadducees, 53-62 ; the name 
 from Zadok the High Priest, 53 ; 
 but connoting opinions rather 
 than lineal descent, 54 sq. ; 
 opposed to any Messianic move- 
 ment, 55 ; the theology of, 56 
 sq. ; portrayed in the Assump- 
 tion of Moses, 57, and in the 
 Psalms of Solomon, 61 ; literature 
 attributed to them by some, 57 ; 
 Leszynsky's theory, 58 ; their 
 denial of the resurrection, 59 
 
 420 
 
INDEX I 
 
 sq. ; managed the temple till 
 c. 63 A.D., 74 ; perished officially, 
 70 A.D., 74 ; blamed for the 
 death of Christ, 375-378 
 
 Sanday, on the Sermon on the 
 Mount, 244 
 
 Sanday and Headlam on Love, 
 175 sq. 
 
 Savage, H. E., on our Lord's 
 doctrine of love, 176 
 
 Schechter, S., on the Torah, 190 
 sq., 194 sq. 
 
 Schiirer, on the preparation in 
 Jewish thought for Christ's 
 teaching, 144 
 
 Schweitzer, A., on mental delu- 
 sions, being ascribed to our 
 Lord, 230 ; his gruesome phan- 
 tasy, 364 
 
 Science and the Resurrection of 
 our Lord, 407 sq. 
 
 Scribes, 62-71 ; the professional 
 students of the Law, 62 ; his- 
 tory of, 64-67 ; some perhaps 
 reproved by Jeremiah, 64 ; in 
 New Testament times chiefly 
 laymen, 66 ; some perhaps 
 Sadducees, 66 ; the progres- 
 sive party, 67 ; some perhaps 
 Christians, 67 sq. ; the learned 
 part of the Sanhedrin, 69 sq. ; 
 generally Pharisees and leaders 
 of the Pharisaic party, 72 
 
 Sermon on the Mount, The, is it 
 impracticable ? 223-230 ; not a 
 Code, 231 ; its supposed omis- 
 sions, 231 sq. ; compared with 
 Lev. xix., 232 sq. ; attacked 
 by Jews, 232-4 ; for whom in- 
 tended ? 234-241 ; its precepts 
 not to be obeyed blindly, 241- 
 243 ; as regards society and 
 the nation, 244-246 
 
 Servant, the, 302, 390 sq. ; identi- 
 fication of Him with the Messiah 
 revealed to Jesus, 381 sq. 
 
 Shammaites, supreme among 
 Pharisees till 70 a.d., 75 ; 
 their violence c. 44 a.d., 75 ; 
 suggestion that these alone were 
 the Pharisees attacked by our 
 Lord, 86-89, cf. 176 ; differed 
 
 421 
 
 from Hillelites in details, not 
 principles, 87 
 
 Shemoneh Esreh (The Eighteen 
 Benedictions), its connexion 
 with the Lord's Prayer, 162- 
 165 ; its inferiority, 164 sq. 
 
 Society for Psychical Research, 
 its claims, 403 
 
 Son of David, The, Lect. VII, 249- 
 273 ; in Old Testament, 251 sq. ; 
 in Apocrypha, 252 ; in Pseud- 
 epigrapha, 252-255 ; the earliest 
 example of this title of Messiah, 
 253 ; in Talmudic and Rab- 
 binic literature, 255-258 ; the 
 typical Jewish idea of the 
 Messiah, 41, 258 sq. ; how appli- 
 cable to Jesus ? 259 sq. ; Jesus 
 such by birth, 260-266 ; Jesus 
 addressed as such, 266-269 ; did 
 our Lord reject the title ? 270- 
 272 ; Messiah in the Jewish con- 
 ception is unattractive, 272 sq. 
 
 Son of God, The, Lect. IX, 311- 
 343 ; exact phrase not in Old 
 Testament, 312 ; Israel as God's 
 sons, 312 ; Messiah as God's 
 son in Old Testament, 313 ; in 
 Apocalyptists, 313 sq. ; Ps. ii. 
 applied to Messiah, 314 ; Divine 
 sonship attributed to Jesus in 
 Matt., 315-325 ; growth of 
 Evangelist's conviction of di- 
 vinity of Jesus, 326-328 ; why 
 we believe in the divinity of 
 Jesus, 328-343 
 
 Son of man, The, Lect. VIII, 277- 
 308 ; its connotation in Ezeldel, 
 278, 280, cf. 302 sq. j in Dan. vii., 
 279 sq., cf. 303 sq. ; in the Book 
 of Enoch, 280-283 ; in 2 (4) Ezra, 
 283-285; in the New Testa- 
 ment, 285-301 ; why the title 
 was not recognised as=Messiah, 
 285-287 ; not falsely attributed 
 to our Lord by the Evangelists, 
 287 sq. ; its meaning in the Ara- 
 maic used by our Lord, 288-290 ; 
 three groups of passages, 291- 
 301 ; the source of the phrase, 
 301-304 ; in Ezekiel, 302 sq. ; in 
 Apocalyptic writers, 303 sq. ; 
 
INDEX I 
 
 why it was our Lord's favourite 
 title for Himself, 304 sq. ; why 
 our Lord used the third person, 
 306 ; its anthropological teach- 
 ing, 306 sq. ; its significance for 
 ourselves, 307 sq. 
 
 Sources of Matthew, generally not 
 important for these Lectures, 9 ; 
 in his apocalyptic passages, 
 359-368 
 
 Streeter, B. H., on our Lord's 
 temptation, 44 ; on Jewish 
 Apocalypse, 358 sq. ; on our 
 Lord's resurrection, 401 sq. 
 
 Tacitus, on the Jews, 168 
 
 Talmud, is it marked by love ? 172 
 
 Teaching of Christ had much in 
 common with that of the 
 Rabbis, 154-158 
 
 Telepathy, 125 
 
 Temptation of Messiah, its mean- 
 ing, 41-45 
 
 TertuUian regarded the Gospel as 
 Law, 202 sq. 
 
 Thomas a Becket, St., miracles 
 connected with, 121, 134 sq. 
 
 Thompson, J. M., on Lazarus, 119 ; 
 on the Nature-miracles, 120 
 
 Toledoth Jeshu, The, on the Birth 
 of our Lord, 19 ; on the Resur- 
 rection of our Lord, 398 
 
 Tomb, the empty, 401-408. See 
 The Resurrection of our Lord 
 
 Torah, the word discussed, 194- 
 198 ; never means Law in the 
 abstract, 197. See Law. 
 
 Transfiguration, The, 114, 406 
 
 Traub, G., on miracles, 120 
 
 Trench, Archbishop, on miracles, 
 97, 125 
 
 Treves, the Holy Coat of, 104, 138 
 
 Trial of Jesus, difficulties in the 
 narrative of, 377 sq. 
 
 Ur-mensch, The, 280, 304 
 
 ViEGiN-BiBTH, The, 20-26 ; its 
 value to St. Matthew, 24 sq. 
 
 Volter, D., on ' the Son of man ' 
 
 and Ezekiel, 279 
 Votaw on Matt. v. 18, 19; 181, 
 
 184 
 
 Warburton Lectures, trust-deed 
 quoted, 9 
 
 Wealth, Jewish view of, 221 sq,, 
 227-229 
 
 Weinreich, O., on miracles and 
 ancient thought, 113 
 
 Weiss, I. H., on the violence of the 
 Shammaites, 76 ; on the differ- 
 ences between the HiUelites and 
 the Shammaites, 87 
 
 Weiss, Joh., on the unlikeness of 
 Jesus to the Jewish idea of 
 Messiah, 41 ; on Jesus be- 
 coming Son of God, 333 
 
 Weitbrecht, H. U., on the loyalty 
 of our Lord to the Old Testa- 
 ment, 222 sq. 
 
 Westcott, Bishop B. F., on our 
 Lord's miracles 128 
 
 Weston, Bishop P., on the Per- 
 sonality of Christ, 840 sq. 
 
 Wine representing blood, 389 
 
 Winstanley, E. W., on Mark iii. 
 28; 295 
 
 Wise, Dr. Isaac, on our Lord's 
 Crucifixion, 374-376 
 
 Worcester, E., on the Emmanuel 
 Movement, 119 
 
 Worcester and McComb on the 
 relation of man to God, 128 
 
 Works, the final test of character, 
 246 
 
 Wright, T. H., on the miraculous 
 in the Gospels, 98 sq. 
 
 Zadok, its form in the LXX and 
 elsewhere, 53 
 
 Zadokite Fragments, The, pro- 
 venance and date uncertain, 53, 
 57 
 
 Zahn, Th., on Matt. i. 2-17, 16 ; 
 on history, 30 ; on ' the Son 
 of God,' 319, 321 sq. 
 
 422 
 
Index II 
 
 HOLY SCRIPTURE AND OTHER EARLY 
 LITERATURE 
 
 (a) Old Testament 
 
 Lev. xix. ; 232 
 
 Deut. xxiv. 1-3 ; 188 
 
 2 Sam. vii. 8, 12, 13, 16 ; 251 
 
 Ps. ii. 7 ; 314 
 
 ex. 1 ; 321 sq. 
 Isa.vii. 14; 21-24 
 
 xlii. 1 ; 40 sq., 381 
 
 liii. 4 ; 390 sq. 
 Jer. xxxi. (xxxviii.) 15 ; 31 sq, 
 Ezek. i. and ii. 1 ; 277 sq. 
 
 xxxvi. 23-31 ; 163 
 Dan. vii. ; 279 sq. 
 Hosea xi. 1 ; 30 
 Micahv. 2; 27 
 
 V. 3; 27 sq. 
 Zech. ix. 9 ; 268 
 
 (b) Apocrypha and Pseud- 
 epigrapha 
 
 2 (4) Esdras vi. 26; 35 
 
 vii. 26-30 ; 255 
 
 vii. 33-44; 354 sq. 
 
 xii. 31-33 ; 254 sq. 
 
 xii. 32-34 ; 356 sq. 
 
 xiii. 1-13 ; 288 sq. 
 
 xiii. 25; 284 
 Tobit iv. 15 ; 172 
 Ecclesiasticus xxxviii. 24, xxxix. 
 
 1, 2, 8, 9 ; 66 
 Psalms of Solomon xvii. xviii. ; 
 
 252 sq. 
 Enoch, Book of, i. 3-7, 9 ; 352 
 
 xlvi. ; 280 sq. 
 
 xlviii. ; 280 sq., 283 
 
 xlviii. 2-7; 355 sq. 
 
 Ixii. ; 281 sq. 
 
 xci. 14-17; 353 
 
 xciv. 8, 9 ; 353 sq. 
 Enoch, Secrets of, xlix. 1 ; 220 
 
 1. 3, 4 ; 171 
 
 Sibylline Oracles, iii. 46-50 ; 253 
 
 ili. 652-657 ; 254 
 
 V. 106-110 ; 254 
 
 V. 293-305 ; 354 
 
 V. 414-433 ; 356 
 Jubilees, Book of, x. 12, 13 ; 108 
 
 XX. 4 ; 218 
 Testaments of the Twelve Patri- 
 archs, 170 sq., 218, 221 sq. 
 Assumption of Moses, § vii., on 
 
 the Sadducees, 57 
 Baruch, Syriac Apocalypse of, 
 xl. 1-3 ; 254 
 
 Ixxii.-lxxiv. ; 357 sq. 
 
 (c) New Testament 
 
 Matt. i. 1 ; 14 sqq., 260 
 i. 2-17 ; 16-20 
 i. 18-25 ; 20-26 
 i. 21 ; 386 sq. 
 i. 23 ; 410 
 ii. 1-12 ; 26-30 
 ii. 13-15 ; 30 
 ii. 15 ; 320 
 ii. 16-18 ; 31 sq. 
 iii 19-23 ; 32-34 
 iii. 1-15 ; 34-38 
 iii. 7-12 ; 61 sq. 
 iii. 16, 17 ; 39-41, 318 sq., 381 sq. 
 iv. 1-11 ; 41-45 
 iv. 12-16 ; 46 sq. 
 V. 3 ; Lect. VI, 217-246 
 v. 17-19 ; Lect. V., 181-205 
 V. 20 ; 71, 200 sq. 
 V. 27-32 ; 218, 223-225 
 V. 32 ; 224 
 
 V. 33-37 ; 219, 225 sq. 
 V. 42 ; 220 sq., 226 sq. 
 V. 43, 44 ; 167-176 
 vi. 5 ; 222 
 
 vi. 19-34 ; 221 sq., 227-230 
 viii. 16, 17 ; 110, 125, 390 sq. 
 
 423 
 
INDEX II 
 
 Matt. viii. 20 ; 291 
 
 ix. 6 ; 293 sq. 
 
 X. 23 ; 298 
 
 xi. 25-27 ; 323-325 
 
 xii. 8 ; 294 sq. 
 
 xii. 14 ; 383 
 
 xii. 27 ; 101 
 
 xii. 32 ; 295 sq. 
 
 xii. 21 ; 197 
 
 xiii. 52 ; 67 sq. 
 
 XV. 1-20 ; 86 sq. 
 
 xvi. 1-4 ; 60 
 
 xvi. 5-12 ; 61 
 
 xvi. 13 ; 296 sq. 
 
 xvi. 16 ; 317 sq. 
 
 xvii. 5 ; 381 sq. 
 
 xviii. 16 ; 188 
 
 xix. 9 ; 224 
 
 xix. 10-12 ; 223-225 
 
 xix. 12 ; 230 
 
 xix. 21 ; 189, 227 
 
 xix. 28 ; 308 
 
 XX. 23-33 ; 59 sq. 
 
 XX. 28 ; 387 sq. 
 
 xxi. 1-11 ; 268 
 
 xxi. 12-16 ; 269 
 
 xxi. 15 ; 70 
 
 xxii. 32; 189 
 
 xxii. 41-45 ; 270-272, 321 sq. 
 
 xxiii. 16-22 ; 219, 225 sq. 
 
 xxiii. 34 ; 67 
 
 xxiv. ; 369 sq. 
 
 xxiv. 36 ; 322 
 
 xxvi. 28 ; 388 sq. 
 
 xxvi. 63 ; 315 
 
 xxvi. 64 ; 300 sq. 
 
 xxvii. 46 ; 392 
 
 xxvii. 51-53 ; 114 
 
 xxvii. '62-66 ; 400 sq. 
 
 xxviii. 11-15 ; 400 sq. 
 
 xxviii. 16, 17 ; 408 
 
 xxviii. 18-20 ; 408-410 
 
 xxviii. 19 ; 322 sq. 
 Luke ii. 5 ; 263 
 1 Cor. XV. 3-8 ; 404. xv. 50 ; 404 sq. 
 
 (d) Hellenistic and Patristic 
 lAterature 
 
 Philo, de Humanitate, § 15 ; 171 
 On the Ten Commandments, § 
 
 17; 219 
 On the Special Laws, § 2 ; 219 
 
 Josephus, War, Preface, §§ 1, 2 ; 6 
 II, viii. 6, 7, §§ 135, 139-142 ; 
 
 226 
 II, viii. 14, § 166 ; 58 
 Antt. X, xi. 7, §§ 277-281 ; 57 
 XIII, X. 6, § 297 ; 56 
 XVII. ii. 4 (§ 45) ; 106 
 Justin Martyr, Bialogue, § 67 ; 22 
 § 68 ; 251 
 § 69 ; 103 
 Chrysostom, Matt. Hom. xvi. 4 ; 
 182 
 Act. Hom. V. 4 ; 202 
 
 (e) Rabbinical lAterature 
 
 Mishna, Berakoth, v. 1 ; 238 
 
 Sabbath, i. 4 ; 75 
 
 Shebuoth, iv. 13 ; 219 
 
 Pirqe Aboth, i. 3 ; 156 
 i. 12 (13) ; 172 
 ii. 19 ; 156 
 iv. 19 ; 170 
 V. 32 ; 149 
 vi. 6 ; 159 
 Tosephta, Berakoth, i. 5 ; 238 
 
 ii. 21 ; 222 
 
 iii. 5 ; 238 
 
 iii. 17 ; 237 
 
 iii. 20 ; 222 
 
 Sabbath, xi. (xii.) 15 ; 102 
 T.B. Berakoth, 436 ; 238 
 T.B. Sabbath, 31a ; 172 
 
 67a ; 102 
 
 1046 ; 102 
 
 1166 ; 181 
 
 153a ; 154 
 T.B. Sukkah, 52a ; 314 
 
 52a, 6 ; 258 
 T.B. Bosh ha-Shandh, 7a, 19a ; 56 
 
 25a ; 252 
 T.B. Taanith, 76 ; 168 
 T.B. Megillah, 15a ; 159 
 T.B. Gittin, 56a, 6 ; 3 
 T.B. Ba6a Mezia, 49a ; 220 
 T.B. Sanhedrin, 43a ; 33, 102 
 
 67o ; 102 
 
 906 ; 60 
 
 98a ; 78 sq. 
 
 97a ; 257 
 
 98a ; 256 
 
 986 ; 257 
 
 424 
 
INDEX II 
 
 T.B. Shebuoth, 35a ; 219 
 
 36a ; 220, 226 
 T.B. Abodah Zarah, 20o ; 218 
 
 206 ; 238 
 T.B. Chullin, 87a ; 210 
 T.B. Niddah, 616 ; 183 
 T.J. Berakoth. ii. 4 {5a) ; 257 
 T.J. Peak, viii. 9 [8] (216) ; 44 
 T.J. Sabbath, i. 4 (3c) ; 76 
 5S^xii. 4 (13d) ; 102 
 T.J. Megillah, i. 5 (7), 70rf ; 183 
 Aboth d' R. Nathan, vi. ; 3 
 Megillath Taanith, iv. ; 58 
 Mekilta on Exod. xii. 26 ; 183 
 
 on Exod. xix. 11 ; 105 
 Siphre on Deut. xi. 30 ; 65 
 Bereshith Rdbba on Gen. xv. 18 ; 
 
 350 
 Shmoth Rabba on Exod. xiii. 2 ; 314 
 
 § 28, on Exod. xx. 1 ; 64 
 
 Midrash Tehillim on Ps. cxlvi. 7 ; 
 
 183 
 Echa (Lam.) Rdbba, i. 5 ; 3 
 Seder Olam, c. 3 ; 57 
 Pesikta Rabbathi, c. 15 ; 183 
 Yalqut Shimeoni on Ps. ii. 7 ; 314 
 Derek Erets Zuta, c. 10 ; 256 sq. 
 
 Berachya Ha Nakdan, Masref, 
 
 § 13 ; 59 
 MaimonideSj Introduction to San- 
 
 hedrin, x. ; 314 
 Rashi on T.B, 5'a66., 146a ; 105 
 Kimchi, D., on Isa. vii. 15 ; 22 
 
 on Ezek. ii. 1 ; 278 
 Shulchan Arukh, Yore Dea, 
 
 § 237. 6 ; 220 
 Isaac of Troki, R., Chizzuk 
 
 Emunah, i. § 3 ; 259 
 
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